VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
NGUYỄN THANH NHÃ DEVELOPING ENGLISH VOCABULARY ON SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY FOR GRADE 10 SCIENCE GIFTED STUDENTS
THROUGH SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

(PHÁT TRIỂN VỐN TỪ VỰNG VỀ KHOA HỌC VÀ CÔNG NGHỆ
CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 CHUYÊN TỰ NHIÊN
THÔNG QUA ĐỌC BỔ TRỢ)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410 HANOI, 2011

HANOI, 2011

-iv-
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
Declaration …………………………………………………………………
i
Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………
ii
Abstract ……………………………………………………………………
iii
Table of Contents …………………………………………………………
iv
List of Tables ……………………………………………………………….
vii Part One: Introduction …………………………………………………….
1

1. Statement of the Problems and Rationale of the Study ………………
1
2. Aims and Objectives of the Study ……………………………………
3
3. Research Questions ……………………………………………………
3
4. Scope of the Study ……………………………………………………
4

13

-v-
1.3.1 The Grammar-Translation Method …………………….….……
13
1.3.2 The Direct Method …………………………………… ….……
14
1.3.3 The CLT ………………………………………………………….
14
1.4 Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension …………………………
15
1.4.1 Reading Comprehension …………………………………………
15
1.4.2 Intensive and Extensive Reading ………………………………
16
1.4.3 The Relationship between Vocabulary and Reading
Comprehension …………………………………………………
17
1.5 Supplementary Materials for Reading ………………………………
18
1.5.1 Definition of Supplementary Materials ………………………
18
1.5.2 Selecting Appropriate Supplementary Materials ………………
19
1.6 Supplementary Reading in the Study ………………………………
20

Chapter 2: The Study ……………………………………………… …….
21


35

-vi-
Part Three: Conclusion ……………………………………………………
38
1. Implications …………………………………………………………….
38
2. Limitations of the Study ………………………………………………
39
3. Suggestions for Further Studies ………………………………………
40
4. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………
40
References ………………………………………………………………
42
Appendices …………………………………………………………………
I
Appendix 1: Survey Questionnaire ……………………………………….
I
Appendix 2: Pretest ……………………………………………………….
IV
Appendix 3: Posttest ………………………………………………………
VIII
Appendix 4: Sample of Supplementary Reading Text ……………………
XIII
Appendix 5: Pretest and Posttest Scores ………………………………….
XVI

31
Table 5. Students’ perception of the need to develop their English
vocabulary on science and technology …………………………….

32
Table 6. Students’ willingness to do supplementary readings …………
32
Table 7. Comparison of pretest results between two groups before
intervention ………………………………………………………

33
Table 8. Comparison of pretest and posttest results in experimental
group ……………………………………………………………….

34
Table 9. Comparison of pretest and posttest results in control group ……….
35
Table 10. Comparison of results after intervention between control and
experimental groups ………………………………………………

35 -1-
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

This part of the paper will be dedicated to introducing the rationale for the study, the aims
and objectives of the study as well as the research questions. It will also present the scope
of the study, method of the study and the design of the whole study.



Internal reasons

- Almost all students at Hanoi-Amsterdam high school have equipped themselves with
good basic practical general English knowledge. Many of them started learning English
from the primary school or even earlier. In order to be able to enroll to this school, they
had to gain high marks at the entrance examinations including their majoring subjects,
Maths, Vietnamese and English. That is why for them, the “Tiếng Anh 10” is rather
simple. Beside the textbook and workbook, students are regularly given supplementary and
intensive exercises compiled by their classroom teachers.

- However, from my observations, the vocabulary, especially the vocabulary on science
and technology had been undervalued in comparison with grammar in the previous years
of their basic high school. Many students have difficulties in expressing their own ideas
because of the vocabulary deficiency. Most students are unfamiliar to the vocabulary on
science and technology, as well as English scientific literature.

- In results, when students want to extract useful information related to their field in
English, or have chance to attend the international examinations, camps or workshops on
science and technology, the students often face with the lexical gaps and this significantly
affects their progress and active participation.

- In fact, many students have realized the vital role of English vocabulary on science and
technology for their future study as well as carrier. They devote a great deal of time to
building up this kind of vocabulary.

In the process of trying different vocabulary teaching strategies and techniques, I found
that reading is a suitable way for students to enhance their vocabulary on science and
technology. The advantage of learning and developing vocabulary through reading is that
students can understand word meaning in the concrete context. The idea of testing the

research questions are needed to be found.

1. What are the students’ perceptions of the need to develop their English vocabulary on
science and technology?

-4-
2. To what extent are the students willing to take part in the supplementary readings?
3. Is there a relationship between supplementary reading and the development of English
vocabulary on science and technology?

4. Scope of the Study

Given the time constrain, the study was conducted on the grade 10 students in two classes
gifted in science only. Taking into account that the participants are only beginners of
science and technology aspects, the vocabulary given through reading passages is mainly
English for General Science.

5. Method of the Study

To find out the answers to the above research questions, a quasi-experiment design has
been adopted.

- The pre-experiment questionnaire was applied as an instrument to investigate what
students think of the need to develop their English vocabulary on science and technology
and how they are willing to take up the additional readings.
- The pretest and posttest were conducted with 60 students divided into two randomly
selected groups to measure the differences in students‟ vocabulary acquisition.

6. Design of the Study



-6-
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the literature relating to this study composing vocabulary and its
aspects to study; vocabulary acquisition approaches and teaching methods. It also discusses
reading and its relationship to vocabulary development, as well as supplementary material
selection.

1.1. Vocabulary

1.1.1. The Notions of Vocabulary

Linguists define vocabulary differently based on different criteria. The most general one
is from “Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics”.
Vocabulary is defined as “a set of LEXEMES, including single words, compound words


In terms of the use of words, Doff A. (1988:19) divides vocabulary into active and passive
vocabulary. He calls active vocabulary the words which students will need to understand
and also use themselves while passive vocabulary are words which we want students to
understand (eg. when reading a text), but which they will not need to use themselves. In
teaching active vocabulary, it is usually worth spending time giving examples and asking
questions, so that students can really see how the word is used. Meanwhile, the passive
vocabulary is often presented quickly or left for students to guess from the context.
Students should understand far more words than they can produce so we should not try to
treat all new words as active vocabulary.
Sharing the same point of view, Gairns R. & Stuart R. (1986:64) refers to Receptive and
Productive Vocabulary Knowledge. They suggest „receptive‟ vocabulary (or passive
vocabulary) to mean “language items which can only be recognized and comprehended in
the context of reading and listening materials” and „productive‟ vocabulary (or active
vocabulary) to be “language items which the leaner can recall and use appropriately in
speech and writing”.
However, it is very often that the transition from a student‟s receptive vocabulary item to
productive one occurs after repeatedly hearing or reading the item over a period of time or
by continual practice. Reading is considered one of the common ways to impulse this
transition process.

-8-
1.1.3 What Need to Be Taught in Vocabulary

According to Ur, P. (1996), when vocabulary is introduced to learners, pronunciation and
spelling, word form, grammar, collocation, aspects of meaning, word formation need to be
taught.
Nation, I. S. P. (1990:13) explains in a chart what knowing a word means. He indicates
that what means “knowing” a word depends on whether the word is learnt for receptive
skills or for productive skills.

after the word?
What words or types
of words must we use
with this word? Function
Frequency
How common is the
word?
How often should the
word be used?
Appropriateness
Where would we
expect to meet this
word?
Where can this word
be used? Meaning
Concepts
What does the word
mean?
What word should be
used to express this
meaning?
Associations
What other words
does this word make

1.1.4 Criteria for Selecting the Vocabulary to Teach

The vocabulary should be selected in a suitable teaching setting. That is, every
situation is different and so core items in one context may be useless in another.
Teaching can effectively deal with only a small amount of information about
vocabulary items at a time. Thus, teachers should take into consideration the
following factors.

-10-
Criteria
Order of
importance
Definition
Frequency
1
Average number of occurrences of a word in a
language
Range
2
A measure of the different types of texts in which a
word occurs
Language needs
3
The words that are regarded as „require‟ by the learner
in order to communicate
Availability and
familiarity


-11-
“If the teacher tries to teach all the new words thoroughly, there will be no time to
do anything in the lesson”.
It is compelled for teachers to choose to teach about 2,500 high frequency words (which
comprise 90% of all conversation) and develop strategies for helping students to
understand and remember other 40,000-60,000 low frequency words (use of dictionaries,
helping students deduce words in contexts, etc.)

1.2.2 Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition and Intentional Vocabulary Learning

In L2 lexical teaching and learning, there are two main approaches to vocabulary
acquisition: incidental learning and intentional learning.

Incidental learning is defined as the type of learning that is byproduct of doing or learning
something else. In terms of vocabulary learning, incidental learning always means the
approach of learning vocabulary through texts, working on tasks or doing other activities
that are not directly related to vocabulary. Vocabulary forms, collocations, parts of speech
are mainly the results of incidental learning.

Intentional learning is defined as being designed, planned for, or intended by teachers or
students. The intentional learning always focuses on vocabulary itself, and combines with
all kinds of conscious vocabulary learning strategies and means of memorizing words. The
sense of a word, meaning symbolizing and innuendo between words need intentional
learning (Nation, 1990).

Undoubtedly, vocabulary can be learnt intentionally with the learners‟ intention and desire.
Enormous numbers of vocabulary teaching and learning strategies and techniques are
presented and practiced by teachers and learners all over the world. Many others are being
discussed and experimented with the goal to improve the vocabulary learning process.

corresponding semantic or conceptual representation.
Ellis, N. (1997) claims that both implicit and explicit learning mechanisms are involved in
incidental vocabulary acquisition: while the acquisition of a word‟s form, collocation and
grammatical class information is said to involve implicit processes, acquiring a word‟s
semantic properties and mapping word form to meaning are the result from explicit
learning process.

-13-
In incidental learning, the teacher‟s focus is on general understanding of a text or on the
meaning of a word, ignoring or paying less attention to the form of a word. However,
recognizing the word meaning in the context is only one aspect of word knowledge.
Knowing a word also involves many other aspects, such as grammatical patterns and
collocation. It also includes how to use it in suitable situations and using the word to stand
for the meaning it represents and being able to think of suitable situations for the word
(Nation, 1990). In order to deepen the knowledge of these words, students sometimes need
the guidance from the teacher. Without the teacher‟s help, despite the great effort students
spend on the learning, it is not likely for students to acquire the knowledge, nor do they
have large amount of time to read extensively to learn it subconsciously.

1.3. Methodology in Vocabulary Teaching

According to Mackey, W.F. (1971),
“the method used has often been said to be the cause of success or failure in
language learning”.
In recent years, foreign language teaching has undergone many dramatic changes. In order
to understand the scope of the subject, language teachers should have a clear perspective
on the development of language teaching approaches as well as their inter-relationship
among developed ones. Based on the concrete teaching situation, teachers should make
decision what an appropriate approach or method is to apply. Following is a brief
presentation of some major foreign language teaching methods and their application in the

activities. By this method, concrete vocabulary is taught by demonstration while the
meanings of abstract words are made clear by association of ideas.

1.3.3. The CLT

The communicative approach which teaches students how to use the language is
considered to be at least as important as learning the language itself. In this approach,
vocabulary is learnt through for “real-life” communication in classroom, through
interaction in the target language and through enhancement of the learner‟s own
experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning and through an
attempt to link classroom language learning with language activation outside the
classroom.

-15-
This approach of teaching makes students more confident when communicating with one
another. Being motivating, they also become more active in class. That is the reason why
CLT is considered a good teaching approach by a lot of researchers and teachers.

1.4. Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension

1.4.1. Reading Comprehension

A range of definitions of reading comprehension has been developed by researchers.
Goodman, K.S. (1971:135) terms reading as
“a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language user, reconstruct, as
best as he can, a message which has been decoded by a writer as a graphic
display”.
According to Grellet, F. (1981:3), “reading comprehension or understanding a written text
means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”. In this sense,
reading comprehension simply means reading and understanding. It should be noted that

and/or practice the rules of the English language. Beginners and low intermediate groups
tend to read intensively. Most textbook reading has, until recently, been intensive.
Through intensive reading, vocabulary can be taught carefully. However, the vocabulary of
a language in general and English vocabulary in particular is always innumerable. Laufer,
B. (1989) states that reading fluency requires that a reader knows 95% or more of the
words encountered in a text for minimal comprehension; and these words need to be
recognized automatically with minimal conscious effort. That sort of vocabulary
knowledge requires knowledge of 12,000-20,000 different words (Laufer, 1989; Nation,
1990). There is, undeniably, a need of another type to develop students‟ vocabulary than
intensive reading.

The aim of extensive reading is to get on the story, to read for gist, and to read much more
quickly (Dawson C., 1984). In L2 reading context, it is now recognized that the best way to
develop such a large vocabulary is to read extensively. Many researchers agree that
students have opportunities to develop such a large automatically recognized vocabulary
from consistent, extensive reading.
The kinds of intensive practice are not always sufficient in themselves to ensure the
development of successful readers. Intensive reading can activate the transfer of reading
skills and strategies from the mother tongue to L2; teach specific skills like the efficient

-17-
use of the dictionary if it is needed, and increase the students‟ general understanding of
language and their ability to understand socio-cultural meaning. But of equal importance is
the kind of practice that comes from extensive reading, lots of practice in reading different
types of material. Only then are students given the opportunity to operate strategies like
prediction or guessing word meaning and to develop their ability to follow lines of
argument. In the context of teaching English vocabulary for high schools‟ students in
Vietnam, intensive reading practice in class needs to be complemented by extensive
reading in or out of class.
In this study, a kind of extensive readings was applied, but with the guide from teacher

undoubtedly. Especially, vocabulary has a close relationship with reading skills which in
turn have an interconnection with reading comprehension. This relationship seems logical
because of the fact that students get meaning from what they read, they also need both
many words in their vocabulary repertoire and ability to use various strategies to establish
the meanings of new words when they encounter them. It is the case that most of the weak
students who don‟t have enough vocabulary or effective word-meaning strategies often
struggle to achieve comprehension in reading. Also, as they don‟t have sufficient word
knowledge to understand what they read, they often avoid reading. As a result, the students
who don‟t read much don‟t have the opportunity to see and learn many new words in
various contexts, but the students who read more can become better readers and gain more
words. Their reading comprehension skills, in consequences, are gradually improved.

1.5. Supplementary Materials for Reading

1.5.1. Definition of Supplementary Materials

“Supplementary materials” is one of the basic terms in a glossary proposed by Tomlinson,
B. (1998) in Materials Development in Language Teaching. In his opinion, supplementary
materials are defined as
“…materials designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course.
They are usually related to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening
or speaking rather that to the learning of language items” (Tomlinson, 1998:xiii)
Actually, most language-teaching course books probably need supplementing to some
extent, if only in order to tailor them to the needs of a particular class or to offer richer
options. According to Ur, P. (1991), there are “packages” of supplementary materials such
as computers, simplified readers, overhead projectors, posters, pictures or games. Each

-19-
type, obviously, has certain contribution in language teaching and its own good points as
well as drawbacks.