VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

LÊ THỊ MAI DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE 9
TH
FORM
STUDENTS IN LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY AT
CHU VĂN AN SECONDARY SCHOOL, THANH HÓA

Những khó khăn trong việc học từ vựng Tiếng Anh
của học sinh lớp 9, trƣờng trung học cơ sở Chu Văn An, Thanh Hóa M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled
“DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THE 9
TH
FORM STUDENTS IN
LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY AT CHU VĂN AN SECONDARY
SCHOOL, THANH HOÁ” is the result of my own research for the Degree of
Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam
National University – Ha Noi and this thesis has not been submitted for any degree
at any other university or tertiary institution. Signature Le Thi Mai iii
ABSTRACT
No doubt that vocabulary is a significant factor in language acquisition since
words play an important role in expressing our feeling, emotions, and ideas to
others during the act of communication. However, learning vocabulary is really a
big challenge for students in learning a foreign language. The aims of this study are
to find out difficulties in learning English vocabulary of the 9
th
form students at Chu
Văn An secondary school and suggest possible solutions to help them overcome
those difficulties. To achieve these aims, a survey research was conducted to 130
students of Chu Văn An secondary school by means of questionnaire, an informal
interview with 3 English teachers of the school and classroom observation were also
used as tools to clarify the information from the students. The findings from data
analysis show that the difficulties were caused by both internal factors and external
factors. The internal factors are such factors coming from the students themselves
as, their lack of motivation and effective ways to learn vocabulary and also their
natural characteristics of young age. The external factors are English learning
environment, vocabulary learning task and lack of time for studying English. These
factors affected and caused difficulties for students in learning vocabulary process.
The study gives some solutions to deal with these factors including encouraging
students’self- study, providing students with learning vocabulary strategies and
improving various techniques in teaching vocabulary.


Chart 6: Teachers’ ways to present new words
Chart 7: Students’ evaluation towards teachers’ teaching method
Tables:
Table 1: Students’ time for learning new words
Table 2: Students’ ways of learning new words
Table 3: Students’ most interested way of vocabylary practice
Table 4: Students’ expectation towards teachers’ activities in vocabylary lessons
Table 5: Students’ expectation to ways of learning new words
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
DECLARATION …………………………………….… i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………… ii
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………… iii
ABBREVIATIONS ………………………… ………………………… iv
LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES …………………………………… v
TABLE OF CONTENT vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION ………………….………….………… 1
1. Rationale for the study ……………………………………….……… 1
2. Aims of the study …………………………………………………… 2

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ……………… 17
CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS ………………… 26
3.Findings ……………………………………………………………… 26
3.1. Internal factors …………… 26
3.1.1. Lack of motivation ………………………………………… 26
3.1.2. Ineffective ways of learning vocabulary ……………… 27
3.1.3. Age………………………………… 27
3.2. External factors …………………… 28
3.2.1. The English learning environment…………………………… 28
3.2.2. Vocabulary learning task ………………………… 30
3.2.3. Lack of time ………………………………………………… 30
3.3. Others ……………………………………… 30
3.3.1. Lack of teaching aids and reference materials 30
3.3.2. Intralexical factors …………………………… 30
4. Suggestions ……………………………………………………… 30
4.1. Encouraging students’ self-study ……………………………… 30
4.2. Providing students with different vocabulary learning strategies 32
4.3. Improving various techniques in teaching vocabulary…………. 36

viii
PART C. CONCLUSION …………………………………………… 40
1. Recapitulation of the study……………………………………………. 40
2. Conclusions………………………………………………… 40
3. Limitations of the study ………………………………………………. 41
4. Suggestions for further research ……………………………………… 41
REFERENCES ……………………………………………………… 42
APPENDICES I

way they comprehend but also in the way they produce language. In order to become
independent users of English, students should acquire an adequate number of words and
should know how to use them accurately. However, vocabulary acquisition is really
challenging to every student, especially students at secondary schools.
In the context of Chu Văn An secondary school (CVASS), English is a
compulsory subject to the students. Vocabulary lessons are not paid enough
attention in order to help students learn new words more effectively. As a result,
most of them have formed a habit of only learning new words found in their text
books or through teachers’ sources. They normally learn vocabulary by such
methods as listing new words on a notebook and learning them by heart, writing
new words repeatedly down on papers, reading new words out loud several times,
and so forth. These above seem not to be very effective and interesting ways for
vocabulary acquisition. Moreover, students only think of vocabulary learning as
knowing the primary meaning of new words, they ignore all other functions of the

2
words. Many of them may also recognize a word in a written or spoken form and
think that they already "know the word", but they may not be able to use that word
properly in different contexts or pronounce it correctly. Many students, after
learning English for many years, can only read and understand short and simple
texts and hardly communicate in English.
As a teacher of English, I have dealt with many questions relating to
vocabulary learning which are raised by my students or among my colleagues. For
example, “why is it very difficult to remember new words?” or “what are the
effective ways of learning vocabulary?”, etc. Therefore, I conducted a study to find
out the causes of their difficulties. Then, the factors that most affect their learning of
English vocabulary can be identified. The solutions to these problems will be
suggested to improve the learning and teaching of vocabulary at Chu Văn An
secondary school.
2. Aims of the study

In order to achieve the purpose of the study, both qualitative and quantitative
methods are used. That is all comments, conclusions, suggestions given in the thesis
are based on the analysis of data from a survey questionnaire responded by 130 9
th

form students, an informal interview answered by three English teachers of the
school and author’s classroom- observation.
6. Organization of the study
The thesis is organized into three main parts:
Part A - Introduction.
In this part the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the
method, and the organization of the study are presented.
Part B - Development
This part is divided into four chapters.
Chapter 1: Literature Review
This chapter presents the theoretical background for the study. It focuses on
some concepts in the second language vocabulary learning and some factors
affecting second language vocabulary learning. It also provides a brief review of
previous study of similar topic.
Chapter 2: Methodology
This chapter presents a detailed description of the research methodology.
Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion.
This chapter describes the analysis of data and discussion
Chapter 4: Findings and solutions
In this part, some main findings in the study and some teaching and learning
implications are presented.
Part C - Conclusion
This part summarizes the study, states the concluding remarks, the limitation
of the research and offers suggestions for further research.


of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any meaningful way.”
Wilkin (1972:11) emphasizes this in his saying, “without grammar, very little can
be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”. A leading
linguistic researcher Paul Nation notes:“Vocabulary is not an end in itself. A rich vocabulary
makes the skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing easier to perform”.

5
This is true in learning a foreign language. If a learner has a wide range of
vocabulary, he can help himself understood and understand others easily. However,
if his vocabulary is limited he will surely have difficulty in doing so and in English
learning. Therefore, nobody can learn a language without learning vocabulary, and
nobody can be a good language user without a reasonably rich vocabulary. These all
show that the success of a student in becoming proficient in any language depends
in part on the extent and richness of his/ her vocabulary, so vocabulary teaching
should be part of the syllabus, and vocabulary should be taught on a well-planned
and regular basis.
1.2. Vocabulary learning
1.2.1. Knowing a word
According to Nation (1990:30-33) and Taylor (1990:1-4) , knowing a word
involves not only knowing its spelling, morphology, pronunciation, meaning, or the
equivalent of the word in the learner’s mother tongue but also its collocations,
register, polysemy, and even its homonym.
Miller and Gildea (1987) points out that “knowing a word does not simply
mean being able to recognize what it looks and sounds like or being able to give the
word’s dictionary definition. Knowing a word by sight and sound and knowing its
dictionary definition are not the same as knowing how to use the word correctly and
understanding it when it is heard or seen in various contexts
According to Cook (2001:61), “a word is more than its meaning”, knowing a
word may involve four aspects: form of the word, grammatical properties, lexical
properties, and general meaning and specific meaning.

evokes which may not be indicated in a dictionary definition. Appropriateness is
more subtle aspect of meaning which indicates whether a particular item is appropriate one
to use in a certain context or not. Associations or meaning relationships show how the
meaning of one item relates to the meaning of the others.
Word - formation: Words can change their shape and their grammatical value.
Learners need to know affixing rules and derivation principles in word formation
and how to use words to fit different grammatical contexts. For example, if learners
know the meaning of affixes dis-, in- and -able, this will help them guess the
meaning of words such as , disappointed , ineffective, fashionable. 7
1.2.1.3. Use of a word
The most important for students to learn a new word is to know how to use it
appropriately and effectively in different oral written contexts or else it may become
a dead or forgetable word. In order to use a word well, they need to know how to
collocate it with other words correctly. Therefore, they should put words into
collocation. For example, when learning words like “to remember” and “to miss”,
the student may note that both words mean “to memorize” but can be distinguished
by the words they collocate with , we often say I miss my family but we cannot say
I miss to post the letter.
1.2.2. Approaches to vocabulary learning
1.2.2.1. Explicit vocabulary learning
A traditional and common method in teaching vocabulary is explicit
vocabulary learning. Nation (1990) puts it that it helps to fill the gap of vocabulary
size between native speakers and a second or foreign language learner within a short
of time. Nation (1990) demonstrates that explicit attention is given to direct
vocabulary learning. That means learners are specially instructed to pay attention
directly to activities in which vocabulary acquisition occurs immediately. For
example, dictionary use, vocabulary lists and their translations, direct vocabulary

language vocabulary learning in the same way as its operates in relation to other
aspects of second language learning, ie.” (1995:20 - my italics-).
* Motivation: Motivation is one of the important aspects of second language
acquisition. Motivation is a kind of desire for learning. It is very difficult to teach a
second language in a learning environment if the learner does not have a desire to
learn a language. Reece & Walker (1997) express that motivation is a key in the
second language learning process. They stress that a less able student who highly
motivated can achieve greater success than the more intelligent student who is not
well motivated. Therefore, the stronger learning motivation is, the more passion
learners have for learning, the more lasting the learning activity will be, the more
difficulties can be overcome.
* Vocabulary learning strategies: It is know that mastery of vocabulary is a
gradual process and needs an effort invested by the learners. In vocabulary learning,
vocabulary learning strategies are considered important and have received much
attention in the area of second language learning. Gu and Johnson (1996) point out
that learners who employ selective attending strategies may know which words are
important and necessary for them to learn so that they are able to comprehend the
passage. Learners who employ self-initiation strategies may use a variety of means

9
to understand the meaning of vocabulary items. If learners are equipped with a
range of vocabulary learning strategies, they may be able to deal with the new or
unfamiliar vocabulary items without difficulty as vocabulary learning strategies
help simplify the new vocabulary learning process for them.
1.3.2. External Factors
External factors are factors outside students that fluence them in learning
English vocabulary. Those are:
* Time: Felix (1977, as cited in Leontiev & James, 1981, p. 150) stated that, “Time
is the key word in determining what level students can achieve.” If there is limited
time, students will tend to lack in theoretical material. Felix (1977, as cited in

factors causing difficuties for learners in learning vocabulary had been analyzed.
A study done by Wei (2007) found that Chinese college students with
positive attitudes towards vocabulary learning more frequently than those with
negative attitudes and he discovered that what students believed did not yield their
actual vocabulary learning. While Gu and Johnson (1996) showed that Chinese
university students devalued rote memorization strategies and they employed more
meaning-oriented strategies than rote strategies. This means that these researchers
found that learners’vocabulary learning related to what they believed. Fu’s (2003)
study revealed that inherrent interest motivation positively correlated with students’
vocabulary learning.
Besides motivation, language learning environment is considered as a factor
that affects learners’vocabulary learning. Nakamura (2000) conducted a mixed
method study by using questionnaires, observation and oral interviews to
understand the effects of learner variables and an external variable-learning
environment for Japanese learners of English use strategies when learning second
language vocabulary. The subjects of this study were Japanese high school English
learners in Japan and in England. The finding of the study revealed that, the external
variable of learning environment was the most significant factor affecting all
aspects of vocabulary learning. With regard to this factor, Kameli et al (2012)
discovered that the role of teachers, peers and classroom environment affected
Malaysian English as a second language students’vocabulary learning.
A research conducted by Musdalifah, a student of Teacher Training and
Education Faculty Sebelas Maret University in 2006, also showed that the process
of learning vocabulary at the fifth grade was conducted appropriately. However,
there were many weaknesses which came from the students who had simple

11
strategies, limited sources and lack of readiness in their vocabulary learning.
Meanwhile, another weakness came from the English teacher who employed simple
techniques and limited media in the process of vocabulary teaching. In the study,

12
some suggestions such as motivating students to learn, adapting the textbook,
practising vocabulary and improving learning and teaching conditions.
According to the literature review above, few studies have been conducted
to examine Vietnamese lower secondary students’ vocabulary learning difficulties.
More importantly, no studies has been undertaken to particularly investiage Chu
Văn An students’ vocabulary learning difficulties. Therefore, the present study
aimed to explore Chu Văn An students’ vocabulary learning difficulties and give
some suitable solutions to help them overcome those problems.

commonly spend very little time learning English as they have to spend much of the
time learning other subjects. Especially they spend most of their time learning the
subjects that they are good at and selected in the group of ten students to take the
exams for good students. Therefore, the majority of them learn English because it is
a compulsory school subject and they learn it just to pass the tests in the class.

14
2.1.3. The teaching materials and facilities
The book Tieng Anh 9 by the Ministry of Education and Training has been
used as the only the textbook to teach the student at Chu Văn An secondary school.
It consists of 10 units. Each unit is divided into 5 lessons. Every unit provides
students with opportunities to learn and develop their knowledge in categories of
grammar, vocabulary, communication skills, and pronunciation through practicing
activities of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Especially, the number of
vocabulary in each unit is rather large. Thus, the students usually feel very difficult
in learning and mastering it.
Teaching facilities also play an important part in teaching English and may
affect the learning process positively or negatively. At our school, there is no
English laboratory. There is one computer room but used for teaching informatics,
not for English. There is also one library with few English books or magazines. The
only facilities for learning and teaching English are some cassette-players in poor
condition. It is obviously that the teaching facilities are poorly equipped. This
certainly has considerable negative effects on teaching and learning English at Chu
Văn An secondary school.
2.2. Subjects of the study
In order to achieve the aims of the thesis and answer the research questions
given above, the subjects of the study include 130 9
th
form students at Chu Văn An
secondary school. These participants are from 3 different classes. 78 of them are

The questionnaires for the students were designed with both close-ended and
open-ended questions. It consists of two sections:
Section 1 was designed to collect background information about the participants
Section 2 was aimed to gather the information about the reality of the participants’
English vocabulary learning: their attitude towards learning English vocabulary,
how they learn, how they are taught, and the difficulties they face when learning
English vocabulary.
The questionnaires were then delivered to the students while they were in
their classrooms. They were asked to answer the questions sincerely. Before each
question, they were given clear instruction. Therefore, they could understand and
give their appropriate answers. ( See appendix 1)
Interview: Interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a
participant’s experiences. The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around
the topic. Interviews may be useful as follow-up to certain respondents to
questionnaires, to futher investigate their responses. Hence, to get more information
about the research, interview was organized to find out teachers’attidude and their
methods in teaching English vocabulary as well as to achieve some suggestions to