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

LÊ THỊ MINH

DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH VOCABULARY
FACED BY THE 10
TH
FORM STUDENTS AT ĐÔNG SƠN I
UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

(Những khó khăn trong việc học từ vựng Tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10 tại
trường THPT Đông Sơn I) M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

HANOI – 2013
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

LÊ THỊ MINH

v

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES
Charts:
Chart 1: Students’ level of English vocabulary
Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning in English acquisition
Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards learning new words
Chart 4: Students’ difficulties in learning new words
Chart 5: Students’ evaluation of their ways of learning new words
Chart 6: Students’ attitudes towards teacher’s role in their English vocabulary
acquisition
Chart 7: Teachers’ ways to present new words
Chart 8: Effective ways of new words presentation to students
Chart 9: 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’ expectation to ways of learning new words
Table 4: Students’ preference towards teachers’ activities in vocabulary lesson
Table 5: Students’ expectation towards teachers’ activities in vocabulary lesson

6. Organization of the study ……………………………………………
3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT …………………………………………
5
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………
5
1.1. Introduction…………………………………………………….…
5
1.2. An overview of vocabulary….………………………………………
5
1.2.1. Definitions of vocabulary ………………… ………………
5
1.2.2. The notion of word ……………………………………………
5
1.2.3. Vocabulary item ………………………………………………
6
1.2.4. Roles of vocabulary in foreign language learning ……………
6
1.3. Vocabulary learning .………………………………………………
7
1.3.1. Aspects of knowing a word …………………………………
7
1.3.2. Explicit and implicit vocabulary learning …………………….
9
1.3.3. Difficulties in vocabulary learning ……………….……
10
1.4. Summary……………………………………………………………
12
CHAPTER II: THE STUDY …………………………………………….
13

2.4.5. Students’ preference, attitudes and expectation towards English
vocabulary teaching method ……………………

23
2.5. Summary …………………………………………………………….
26
CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS …………………
27
3.1. Introduction …………………………………………………………
27
3.2. Students’ difficulties in learning English vocabulary ……………
27
3.2.1. Difficulties related to students themselves ……………………
27
3.2.1.1. Ineffective ways of learning vocabulary ………………
27
3.2.1.2. Lack of motivation …………………………………
27
3.2.2. Difficulties related to vocabulary itself ……………………
28
3.2.3. Difficulties related to teachers …………………………………
30
3.2.3.1. Teachers’ attitude to students …………………………
30
3.2.3.2. Teacher’s teaching method ………………………………
30
3.2.4. Others ………………………………………
31
3.2.4.1. The poor application of teaching aids and reference
materials

42
REFERENCES ………………………………………………………
43
APPENDICES ………………………………………………………………….I
APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
APPENDIX 2: SURVEY INTERVIEW
1

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale for the study
As far as we know, English is a common language in international
communication. In Vietnam, with the reformation of the economy and society, as
well as the implementation of the open - door policy, English has been used more
and more widely. English also becomes a compulsory subject in education
curriculum.
It is known that, in learning a foreign language in general, and English in
particular, the knowledge and mastery of vocabulary play an extremely important
role. McCarthy (1990) states that “No matter how well the student learns grammar,
no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words to express
a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in any
meaningful way.” By having rich vocabulary, students can improve their listening,
speaking, reading and writing abilities; not only in the way they comprehend but
also in the way they produce language.
In reality, in Viet Nam, vocabulary lessons are not paid enough attention in

3. Research questions
This research was carried out to find out the answers to the following
research questions:
- What are the difficulties in learning English vocabulary faced by the 10
th
form
students at DSUSS?
- What are the suggestions that help the students learn English vocabulary better?
4. Scope of the study
The study was designed to find out the difficulties in learning English
vocabulary faced by the 10
th
form students at DSUSS . In the context of teaching
and learning English at DSUSS, English vocabulary mentioned here mean the new
words in the English textbook Tieng Anh 10 that students are taught or learn by
themselves. The target population is the 10
th
form students. They have experienced
from 4 to 7 years of learning English, but their English knowledge is not very good.
The findings of the study would be much beneficial to both teachers who are
considering whether to improve their students’ vocabulary and students who wants
to overcome the difficulties and boredom in learning vocabulary.
3

5. Methods of the study
In order to achieve the purpose of the study, both qualitative and quantitative
methods were used. A survey questionnaire and an informal interview were
implemented with 120 10
th
form students who were chosen randomly. The

5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Introduction
This chapter provides a brief review of the theoretical knowledge relevant to
the study including An overview of vocabulary; Vocabulary learning; What can
cause difficulties in vocabulary learning.
1.2. An overview of vocabulary
1.2.1. Definitions of vocabulary
Different linguistics defined vocabulary in different ways. Penny Ur
(1996:60) defined vocabulary as “the words we teach in the foreign language.
However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word: a compound
of two or three words or multi-word idioms”. Richards and Platt (1992: 400) also
noted that vocabulary is “a set of lexemes, including words, compound words and

vocabulary”.
Michael West (1930: 514) stressed that “the primary thing in learning a
language is the acquisition of a vocabulary, and practice in using it”.
McCarthy stated that “the biggest component of any language course is
vocabulary” (McCarthy, 1990: viii). “No matter how well the student learns
grammar, no matter how successfully the sounds of L2 are mastered, without words
to express a wide range of meanings, communication in an L2 just cannot happen in
any meaningful way.”
A leading linguist 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”. When learners’ working memory is not loaded with hesitation
about the correct spelling, pronunciation and contextual use of the words, they can
concentrate fully on higher level aspects of language such as using precise sentence
7

structures and appropriate expressions for the type of conversation that is going on.
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.
To sum up, vocabulary is considered an important aspect of learning a
foreign language. Second language vocabulary acquisition has become an
increasingly interesting topic of discussion for researchers, teachers, curriculum
designers, theorists, and others involved in second language learning and teaching.
1.3. Vocabulary learning
1.3.1. Aspects of knowing a word
There have been many definitions as to what it is exactly to know a word.
According to Cook (2001:61), “a word is more than its meaning”, knowing a
word may involve four aspects: form of the word (for instance spelling and
pronunciation), grammatical properties (for example, grammatical category of a

certain context. In many cases a word has more than one meaning only. Then it is
the context and collocations that give essential clues to recognize which meaning is
intended. Therefore, this is another piece of information of a new item, which may
worth paying attention to. For example, we say throw a ball but toss a coin, we
cannot say dense hair instead of thick hair.
- Word meanings include denotation, connotation, appropriateness and meaning
relationship.
+ The denotation refers to things or concepts. This is often the sort of
definition given in dictionaries such as whale denotes a very large mammal that
lives in the sea or rose denotes a kind of flowers with red color and symbolizes for
love.
9

+ The connotation is association, or positive and negative feelings the word
evokes which may not be indicated in a dictionary definition. Connotation includes
stylistic, affective, evaluation, intensifying value, pragmatic communicative values,
the word acquires by virtue of where, when, how and by whom, for what purpose
and in what context it is or it may be used.
+ Appropriateness is more subtle aspect of meaning which indicates whether a
particular item is appropriate one to use in a certain context or not. Thus, it is useful
for a learner to know whether a certain word is very common, or relatively rare or
taboo in polite conversation, or tends to be used in writing but not in speech, or is
more suitable for a formal than informal discourse or belongs to a certain dialect.
+ Associations or meaning relationships show how the meaning of one item
relates to the meaning of the others. These are various relationships and here are
some of the main ones like synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, co- hyponyms or co-
ordinates, super ordinates, and translation.
- Word - formation: Words can change their shape and their grammatical value.
Vocabulary items whether one- word or multi- word, can often be broken down into
their components "bits". Learners need to know affixing rules and derivation

contain some items that are just outside the learners' present level of achievement.
These items, however, should be understandable from the context in which they
occur. This includes both language and non-language contexts. Thirdly, the learners
should not feel worried or threatened by their contact with the foreign language.
1.3.3. Difficulties in vocabulary learning
Vocabulary can never be mastered fully, the expansion and elaboration of it
extends across a lifetime since words represent complex and often multiple
meanings (Kamil & Hiebert 2005:2). For example, the Collins Cobuild English
Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2001) contains over 110 000 words, phrases
and definitions. Moreover, individuals have different sets of vocabulary and they
11

use them for different purposes. For example, oral and printed languages often use
different vocabulary and a failure in distinguishing the proper vocabulary for the
occasion can lead to misunderstandings (Kamil & Hiebert 2005:3).
There are several features which have an effect on vocabulary learning and
can make learning a word difficult. Carter and McCarthy (1988:13) point out that
learning vocabulary effectively is closely bound up with a teacher’s
understanding and learner’s perception of the difficulties of words and therefore
the role of the teacher must be taken into account also in vocabulary
learning. Carter and McCarthy (1988:13) continue that the difficulty of a word
may result from several reasons and due to the vast number of possible reasons and
the complexity of the learning process these reasons have been hard to classify
appropriately.
Nation (1990:33-50) mentions three different factors which have influence
on making a word difficult to learn. The first is the learner’s previous experience of
English and their mother tongue since one’s first language affects the second
language vocabulary acquisition and usually borrowing and interference between
first and second language vocabulary occurs. For example, learning the function
and meaning of a word can be difficult since words rarely correspond exactly to a

occurs (Nation 1990:49).
Laufer (1997:154) has also studied the intralexical factors affecting
vocabulary learning and she mentions several factors which can make learning a
word difficult. For example, phonological factors, length, semantic features,
abstractness and multiple meaning may have an impact on how easily the word can
be learned.
1.4. Summary
In this chapter, some information about history of research on vocabulary
learning has been introduced such as definition of vocabulary, aspects of knowing a
word, explicit and implicit vocabulary learning, difficulties in vocabulary learning.
This will serve as a base for the study to get its aim: finding out some difficulties in
learning English vocabulary faced by the 10
th
form students at Dong Son I upper
secondary school.
13

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY
2.1. Introduction
This chapter is devoted to the presentation and discussion of the study, which
refers to the situation of teaching and learning English, especially, English
vocabulary at DSUSS, research methodology, data analysis and discussion. In the
first part, information about the teachers and their teaching methods at DSUSS the
students there, and the available resources for teaching and learning in DSUSS is
presented. In the second part the research questions, the participants and the data
collection are discussed. The final part, which is the most important one, refers to
the analysis and discussion of the data collected from survey questionnaire and

class. There are 28 classes, among which the 10
th
form students take up 8 classes.
Most of the students come from the countryside, so they have less or no exposure to
authentic English. In addition, most of them do not have the habit of learning
English independently and tend to depend on the textbooks and the teachers for
knowledge. The majority of them learn English because it is a compulsory school
subject and they learn it just to pass the national examinations. They do not have an
obvious communicative need in the target language. Most of the students say that
they can hardly express their ideas in speaking and writing lessons and it is difficult
for them to get the gist of information from the conversation or texts in listening and
reading lessons. All they need is the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary of the
target language enough to pass the national grammar - based examinations.
2.2.3. The available resources
All the classrooms are well-equipped with furniture, light, board. There are 2
computer rooms equipped with LCD projectors, computers and speakers and board.
So it is possible for teachers to take the advantages of information technology into
language teaching. However, the English teachers at DSUSS rarely exploit these
resources because they have difficulties in designing lessons using power-point
15

program. There is also a library in DSUSS but with few English books or
magazines.
2.3. Research methodology
2.3.1. Restating the research questions
The aims of the study, as stated in part A, are to find out:
- What are the difficulties in learning English vocabulary faced by the 10
th
form
students at DSUSS ?

- The first section helps to collect background information about the
participants
- The second section helps to collect the information about the reality of the
participants’ learning English vocabulary: their attitude towards learning
English vocabulary, how they learn, how they are taught, and the difficulties
they face when learning English vocabulary.
The sample of the questionnaire is presented in appendix 1.
 Informal interview:
Besides survey questionnaire, informal interview was also used to collect more
data about the participants. Basing on the participants’ answers to the survey
questionnaire, the writer interviewed the participants to clarify their thought and
attitude, so the data for the study would be more sufficient and valid.
The sample of the informal interview is presented in appendix 2.
2.3.3.2. Data collection procedure
Firstly, a pilot survey was conducted with 10 participants to help the writer
get a clearer idea about the data for the study. Then the writer edited the questions
in the questionnaire with the supervisor’s help. After that the questionnaires were
delivered to 120 10
th
form students. The survey questionnaire required 10 minutes
to complete and was administered in the students’ English class. Before doing the
17

questionnaire, students were told that their participation was voluntary and their
responses would remain confidential; they were also asked to give their opinions as
honestly as possible, which was crucial to the success of this study. After the
respondents were given the questionnaire, they were encouraged to read it
thoroughly and answer frankly and truly.
Four days after the survey the writer conducted an informal interview with 30
participants basing on the data collected from questionnaire.

medium or undermedium level. This can be one of the problems in students’
vocabulary learning process.
2.4.2. Students’ attitudes towards learning English vocabulary (Q2, Q3, Q4)
57%
43%
0%
Very important
Important
Not important

Chart 2: Students’ attitudes towards vocabulary learning in English acquisition
As shown in chart 2, all of these students are well aware of the importance of
vocabulary learning in their English acquisition. 57% of the students considered
vocabulary learning a very important element in English acquisition. The rest, that
was 43% of them thought vocabulary was important. It is their good attitudes
towards the importance of vocabulary learning that motivates them in their learning
process.
7%
10%
83%
Very difficult
Difficult
Not difficult

Chart 3: Students’ attitudes towards learning new words
Considering chart 3, we can see that most of the students found learning
vocabulary difficult. 10% of them found it very difficult, 83 % found it difficult