VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES


VŨ THU TRANG

USING DIALOGUES TO TEACH VOCABULARY FOR THE
SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
SỬ DỤNG ĐOẠN HỘI THOẠI ĐỂ DẠY TỪ VỰNG CHO SINH VIÊN
KHÔNG CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ HAI CỦA TRƯỜNG
ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60. 14. 10 Hanoi – 2013

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES


VŨ THU TRANG

USING DIALOGUES TO TEACH VOCABULARY FOR THE
SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT

2. Aims of the study
2
3. Research question
2
4. Research methodology
2
5. Scope of the study
3
6. Significance of the study
3
7. Design of the study
3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
4
1. Teaching vocabulary in context
4
1.1. Definition of context
4
1.2. Context and vocabulary teaching & learning
5
1.3. Guessing and inferencing strategy
6
1.4. Contextual clues
8
1.5. Advantages and disadvantages of context in vocabulary teaching and
learning.
11
2. Dialogues as a context for teaching vocabulary

17
2.4.2. Practice Stage
21
2.4.3. Production Stage
24
CHAPTER II: ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNING CONTEXT
AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
26
2.1. Students and their background
26
2.2. Teachers and teaching methods
27
2.3. Material and facilities
27
2.4. Remarks on dialogues in the course book
28
CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
29
3.1. Rationale for the use of an action research
29
3.2. Action research procedure
30
3.3. Background of the study
32
3.3.1. Participants
32
3.3.2. Data collection instruments
33
3.3.2.1. Test
33

APPENDIX 3
XI
APPENDIX 4
XII
APPENDIX 5
XIV

1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. RATIONALE
Hammer (1991) states “If language structure makes up the skeleton of language,
then it is vocabulary that provides the vital organs and flesh”. It is clearly seen from
this statement that vocabulary is central to language and is of great significance in
language learning. In the past, the importance of vocabulary teaching and learning was
generally neglected for a long time, yet in recent years, the nature of vocabulary and its
role in learning and teaching has been an increasingly interesting topic of discussion for
researches, teachers, curriculum designers, theorists and others involved in second
language learning. Accordingly, numerous research studies related to this topic have been
carried out. It comes to a conclusion based on the research findings that “Through
research the scholars are finding that lexical problems frequently interfere with

4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
To obtain the aims mentioned above, an action research is chosen for the study. In
this action research, pre-test and post-test are designed and used as data collection
instruments. The pre-test was exploited to gain the overview about student‟s vocabulary
level before the study. The post-test was administered to the students after four weeks in
which dialogues were applied to help students learn vocabulary to measure the impact or
effectiveness of this technique on students‟ vocabulary acquisition. Collected scores were
then processed and analyzed by T-test Paired Sample. In addition, a group interview was
conducts to get more in-depth data. 3

5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
It is impossible to cover every aspect of language theory and practice in this study.
Therefore, the study focuses on using dialogues to teach vocabulary for the second-year
non-English major students in Hanoi University of Industry.

6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The results of this action research will help the author to improve her approaches
to vocabulary teaching. Those results can also be helpful to other teachers in the
university or in other universities which have the same problems (vocabulary teaching &
learning) with the university where this research was conducted.
7. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The research includes three main parts: Part A, Part B and Part C.
Part A: Introduction presents the rationale, the aims of the study, the research
question, the method of the study, the scope of the study, the significance of the study
and the design of the study.
Part B: Development consists of four chapters:
 Chapter 1: literature review

well as in understanding the actual meaning of words. Consequently, if learners cannot
contextualize new words, the words are of little value and if meaning is not
contextualized, it will be not easy for learners to memorize in addition to use new words
5

appropriately. As a result, using context to teach vocabulary is considered as one of
effective vocabulary teaching technique.
1.2. Context and vocabulary teaching & learning
Learning vocabulary is an important factor in fluent second language (L2) speech.
Researchers have tried to find effective ways of teaching L2 vocabulary to L2 learners.
Different methods like glosses, mnemonic devices, and morphological and syntactic
analyses are some examples of the attempts of second language teaching researchers
to find practical ways of teaching L2 vocabulary (Min, 2008). From among all the
proposed methods, contextualization has received special attention. Webb (2007) points
to the fact that different aspects of a word like its semantic relationships, syntagmatic and
paradigmatic associations, and even its collocational behavior can be learned through
context.
It is believed that context can have a positive effect on vocabulary acquisition of
L2 learners. Researchers like Engelbert and Theuerkauf (1999) refer to the positive effect
of context on vocabulary learning reported in the literature. Corrigan (2007) too claims
that seeing vocabulary items in the context provides learners with information
about the characteristic features of that word and the linguistic context in which that
specific word occurs. Gardner (2007) argues that many words in English have multiple
meanings which are context-dependent. When one tries to teach those words isolated
from context, they lose their meanings and become vague.
In the work namely “The book of Learning and Forgetting”, Frank Smith asserts
“Teaching one word at a time out of context is the worst way of teaching vocabulary,
with rapid forgetting almost guaranteed.” In his opinion, people assimilate new words
from context the first time they read them, “provided that gist of the material being read
is both interesting and comprehensible. Within five more encounters, the word and its


Guessing unknown words from context is an important vocabulary strategy which
is studied and encouraged most widely so language learners must know how to guess
unknown words successfully. Guessing meaning of unknown words from context mostly
refers to inferring the meaning of a word from surrounding words in a written text. In this
study, these terms are used interchangeably.
As said by McCarthy (1990:125), “inferring involves creating a schema for the
unknown word(s), based on world knowledge and previous experience, both of the world
and texts. In other words, inferring means drawing conclusion as to word meaning by
following certain rational steps in the face of the evidence available.”
For example, consider the word “give” in different contexts (Anderson & Nagy,
1991):
 John gave Mary a kiss.
 John gave Frank five dollars.
 The doctor gave the children an injection.
 The orchestra gave a stunning performance.
All of these involve some kind of transmitting with a giver and a recipient and
something tangible or intangible. But the act giving is radically different in these cases.
Each meaning of the verb “give” can be grasped through guessing strategy.
It is vital to understand when teaching learners to make contextual guesswork that
they will not be able to guess successfully until they know about 95-98% of the other
words in the text. Therefore, it is wise not to start teaching this strategy too early in the
learning process, because the learners will not know enough other words to guess
successfully. Teacher can help students to discover unknown-word meaning with specific
techniques and practice in contextual guesswork. Teacher can make use of the following
general strategies for guessing meaning from context:
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1. Attempt to infer the meaning of the unknown word from the general
context preceding the word

The first type is definition or explanation clues. The author uses definition to
suggest the word meaning in the text. The meaning follows the word immediately or
signal words such as “is, means, called, and refers to, because” or appears between
commas, parentheses, or dashes. For instance: Marsha is insatiable; she can eat all day
and never feel full. Here, the second part of the sentence (“she can eat all day and never
feel full”) is used to explain the first part of the sentence (“Marsha is insatiable”). We
can conclude, then, that “insatiable” means “incapable of being full” or “incapable of
being satisfied.”
For the second type, a word's or phrase's meaning is explained immediately
following its use with the use of a synonym or restated in easier language. For example:
"Lou was sent to the haberdashery to find a new suit. He needed to wear one for his
uncle‟s wedding.” Because the sentence says that Lou would find a suit at the
haberdashery, then it must be a place where clothes for men are sold.
Contrast or Antonym Clues is the third type. Sometimes an unfamiliar word may
be used in contrast to a familiar word or group of words. You can infer the meaning of
the unfamiliar word by giving it the opposite meaning of the familiar word. In this type,
you can find signal words for contrasts: but, on the other hand, in contrast to, however,
although, unlike. For example: Unlike Robin, who is full of life, Rachel is lackluster .The
opposite of “full of life” is “empty of life.” The word “lackluster” is used to contrast
Robin and Rachel. We can conclude, then, that the word “lackluster” means “lacking
liveliness.”
In the fourth type, the author tries to using examples or illustrations show what a
word means. The author may give one example or many. “Such as,” “including,”
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“consists of,” “for example,” or colons, commas, semicolons, and dashes can also signal
clues for this type. For instance: In college, you can choose courses from a broad range of
academic disciplines, such as history, economics, mathematics, and psychology. Besides
the primary meaning of the word “discipline”, in this sentence this word also has a
secondary meaning. The word is followed by several examples: history, economics,

which become highly beneficial as learning progresses because they instill an attitude of
self-reliance that is the distinctive feature of proficiency. Secondly, systematically
meeting new vocabulary items in context emphasizes the fact that the words are actually
used in discourse for purposes of communication. Lastly, all the factors mentioned above
can be said to contribute to a learner‟s L2 autonomy and to facilitate the transfer of
knowledge that accompanies it. Moreover, they underline the fact that the mental
presentation of a word‟s meaning improves together with successive encounters in
different contexts. Thus, it may be subjected to modification because new and finer
semantic distinctions are added.
However, this strategy also has following disadvantages. In the first place, the
strategy is complex and often difficult to carry out successfully, because, the learners
need to know about 95% of the words in the text, (Liu, & Nation, 1985, Nation,
1990, cited in Hunt & Beglar, 1998). This puts lower proficiency students with less
vocabulary at a distinct disadvantage. Next, since a word may have several meanings, the
use of context clues will prove effective only when a general meaning of a word is
adequate. When the surrounding words are not familiar, when the definite meaning is
required, or when the word in question is a key word, using context clues might not be a
good idea. Finally, incorrect inferences lead to a real misinterpretation, which has a bad
influence on students‟ vocabulary acquisition. If students remember wrong meaning at
12

scratch, they will have a serious problem using it later and they need more time to refresh
their mind & digest new word meaning.
As a result, for the teacher who teaches vocabulary using this approach, it is
important to consider the difficulty level of the text , the students‟ vocabulary level as
well as the students‟ own background knowledge.
2. Dialogues as a context for teaching vocabulary
2.1. Dialogue Definition
The term, dialogue is derived from the Greek, dialogos, in which dia means
through and logos means words.

example: many useful expressions in telephoning presented in the following dialogue
(New Headway Pre-intermediate, Unit 10, page 85)
14

2.3. Features of dialogue
A dialogue is a spoken form of language therefore it has all the features of spoken
language.
2.3.1. Linguistic features
2.3.1.1. Phonetic features
In general, this feature includes stress and intonation. In English, two factors are
very important because they express the feeling, emotion and attitude of speakers.
Different places of stress or different intonation may cause different meaning of the same
expressions.
For example:
 A: Have you seen Ann?
 B: Yes. (Falling intonation indicates „I have answered your question and do not
intend to add anything else‟)
Or:
 A: E.g. Have you seen Ann lately?
 B: Yes… (Rising intonation indicates „I want to continue the conversation, I am
curious‟)
2.3.1.2. Lexical features
In dialogue, it is common that we use a great deal of contraction instead of long
form. For example, “isn‟t”, “don‟t” “can‟t” and so on. Furthermore, in some informal
situation, utterances are shortened by the ellipsis of some parts in utterances but the
listeners still understand the message of the dialogue. What‟s more, there are many
15

hesitating markers such as “oh”, “uhm”… in the spoken language, especially in
dialogues. These elements make the dialogue more natural.

2.3.1.5. Psychological features
There are many factors which affect the success of a dialogue such as age,
occupation, culture, speakers‟ and learners‟ background knowledge and especially
psychological factor. Psychological features refer to the interest of the participant to
his/her partner and to the topic of the conversation. This factor has a great influence in
the success of speaking activity.
2.3.2. Methodological features
A lot of educators and researchers state that using context in general and dialogue
in particular to teach vocabulary is considered as one of effective vocabulary teaching
technique. In dialogue, words, phrases, useful expressions are presented in a meaningful
context, which helps students much in learning how to use them correctly and creates a
firm link between language and situation. Moreover, teaching and learning through
dialogue not only helps teachers to attract students‟ attention easier but also gives
students lots of opportunities for practice and speaking which are more preferable than
doing grammatical exercises or reading and writing tasks.
2.4. Stages of teaching dialogues
2.4.1. Presentation Stage
Purposes
The presentation stage aims to give students the opportunities to explore the model
dialogue. So as to reach this aim, students should understand new words, expression,
grammatical items as well as pronunciation, stress and intonation.
Teacher‟s role
In this stage, the teacher works as a guide and an informant. With the first role, the
teacher guides students to access to the dialogue by setting the scene for the dialogue,
eliciting from the students‟ knowledge, experience of the language used in the scene.
17

Thanks to such help, students can discover the dialogue themselves. With the second role,
the teacher is the person who introduces new knowledge to students such as new words,
new expressions, new grammatical structures or pronunciation.

and then ask them “what is this?”. Thanks to the picture, students can easily
answer the question.
Besides, the teacher can use simple blackboard drawings to convey word meaning
like this:

To run To stand
To sum up, if pictures and drawings are well exploited, they will convey the
meaning of words vividly and clearly an as well as attract students‟ attention. 19

Body language (Gestures, mime, actions, facial expressions).
They are supplements to convey word meaning. This way is enjoyable and
colourful so the new words will be kept in students‟ long-term memory. This technique is
especially effective for teaching verbs and adjectives showing moods.
For example: to teach the phrases “sit down” and “stand up” (unit 11, page 92), the
teacher can do these actions in front of the class. The meaning of two phrases will be
introduced easily. Or some words expressing emotion like “sad” or “happy” can be taught
by facial expression.
However, when using these techniques, the teacher should notice that action, mine,
gestures performed by him/her must be clear and reasonable so as to avoid
misunderstanding of the meaning of words.
2. Verbal techniques
Contextual guesswork
Contextual guesswork can be used effectively while new vocabulary especially
abstract words are presented through dialogues because each dialogue is a context itself.
In order to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words, students had better see those words in
the relationship with words around; therefore this technique is considered rather difficult.
For example:

intermediate, unit 9, page 73): Tôi rửa bát tối hôm qua rồi. Hôm nay đến lượt bạn.