VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN THI HA MY
M.A. MINOR THESIS Problems faced by the first-year students at Thanh Hoa College of
Culture and Arts in developing vocabulary for speaking in different
subject areas

(Những vấn đề sinh viên năm thứ nhất Trường Cao đẳng Văn hóa Nghệ
thuật Thanh Hóa gặp phải trong việc phát triển từ vựng để nói về các chủ
điểm khác nhau)
Field: Methodology
Code: 601410

Supervisor: Nguyen Bang, M.A. Hanoi, 2011 iii
Abstract The importance of vocabulary is undeniable in language learning. Therefore,
understanding the difficulties faced by students in learning vocabulary is apparently
necessary to gain effective learning. This minor thesis was carried out with an attempt to
investigate the difficulties and obstacles that the first year students at Thanh Hoa College
of Culture and Arts (THCCA) have faced when learning English vocabulary.
It first described the issues which prompted the study. It then reviewed the
literature relevant to the topic of research which served as a theoretical framework for the
study. The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews. From that the
findings emphasized the problems influencing on the learners’ vocabulary development. In
addition, based on the findings, some solutions were suggested to improve the quality of
learning English vocabulary in speaking sections at THCCA.
v
List of tables

Table 1: Criteria for selection
Table 2: Students’ purposes of learning English
Table 3: Students’ opinions about learning vocabulary for developing speaking skills
Table 4: Teachers’ effectiveness method of teaching vocabulary
Table 5: Students’ difficulties in learning vocabulary in speaking skills
Table 6: Students’ opinions about the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary in speaking
lessons

List of Charts
Chart 1: Students' habit in speaking English

1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Research questions 2
4. Scope of the study 3
5. Method of the study 3
6. Design of the study 3

Part B: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. Speaking skills 5
1.1.1. Concept of speaking 5
1.1.2. Characteristics of speaking 6
1.1.3. The role of speaking in language teaching and learning 7
1.2. Vocabulary and its role in language teaching and learning 8
1.2.1. Definition of vocabulary 8
1.2.2. Classification of vocabulary. 9
1.2.3. The role of vocabulary in language teaching and learning 11
1.2.4. Criteria for selection to teach vocabulary 12
1.3. Methodology in vocabulary teaching 13
1.3.1. The Grammar-translation Method 13
1.3.2. The Direct Method 13
1.3.3. The Audio-lingual Method 14
1.3.4. The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 15 vii
1.4. The role of vocabulary in speaking skills 15
1.5. Summary 16

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY 17
viii
III. Conclusion 36
1. Conclusion 36
2. Limitation of the study 36
3. Suggestions for further studies. 37

REFERENCE 38
Appendix 1: Survey questionnaire i
Appendix 2: Interview iv
2 PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In Vietnam, the teaching and learning of English have recently gained significance firstly
because it is an international language; secondly it is also seen as a means to promote
mutual understanding and cooperation between Vietnam and other countries, especially
since Vietnam has became an official member of WTO. It has an increasing number of
people desiring to know English with the hope of keeping up with the latest modern
technology in the world. English has now been taught at all universities and colleges, and it
is considered as a compulsory subject at secondary school.
Being a teacher of THCCA, the researcher found that one of the main reasons why students
are not positive in English is that they do not have adequate vocabulary. Therefore, the
author to carry out a research on “Problems faced by the first-year students at Thanh Hoa
College of Culture and Arts in developing vocabulary for speaking in different subject

confirms that when people know or learn a language, they mean being able to speak the
language. The nature of speaking has been discussed by many scholars.
According to Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983), spoken language consists of short,
fragmentary utterances in a range of pronunciation. They also point out that in speaking the
loosely- organized syntax, and non- specific words and phrases are used.
1.1.2. Characteristics of speaking
In Bygate’s opinion, there are two kinds of routines.
Information routines may be described to involve two sub-routines: expository and
evaluation.
Interaction routines are routines based not so much on sequences of kinds of terms
occurring in typical kinds of interactions.
1.1.3. The role of speaking in language teaching and learning
In language teaching and learning, speaking has an important part to play. It is a medium
through which much language is learnt, and which is particularly useful for learning. 4
About the role of speaking, Bygate (1987: vii) points out that “It is the vehicle of social
solidarity, of social ranking, of professional advancement and of business”.
1.2. Vocabulary and its role in language teaching and learning
1.2.1. Definition of vocabulary
Ur, P (1996:75) defines vocabulary as the words we teach in the foreign language. The
author also emphasizes that a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word; for
example, post office and sister-in-law, which are made up of two or three words but
express a single idea. There are also multi-word idioms such as call it a day, where the
meaning of the phrase cannot be deduced from an analysis of the component words.
Therefore, a useful convention is to cover all such cases by talking about vocabulary
“items” rather than “words”
1.2.2. Classification of vocabulary
There have been different ways to classify vocabulary according to different criteria.

Availability and
familiarity
4
The word the learner is mostly in contact with
and somehow ' know'
Coverage
5
the capacity of a word to take the place of other
words
Regularity
6
How is the use of a word 'spread' over the
language
Learnability
7
Are some words easier to learn than other
Table 1: Criteria for selection
(from the website:
1.3. Methodology in vocabulary teaching
1.3.1. The Grammar- translation Method
In this method, the teachers' role is to explain grammatical rules, and the list of vocabulary
and its meaning in Vietnamese to help students to do the written exercise in grammatical
analysis, not the exercises in the context of text. This method can be classified as mental
discipline and is easy to apply and simple to test and to control.
1.3.2. The Direct Method
This method requires no translation between first and second language, little or no
analysis of grammatical rules. Besides, it lays an emphasis on correct pronunciation and
grammar.
1.3.3. The Audio-lingual Method
There are two of the main activities of the Audio-lingual Method that are dialogue

percentage in the form of tables.
Chapter III: Data analysis and Discussion
3.1. Data analysis and discussion from the findings
3.1.1. The reality of learning vocabulary and speaking skills at THCCA
 Students’ attitudes towards learning English

Question 1: What are your purposes of learning English?
From the results, it could be seen that most students were not willing to acquire English.
They learnt it for academic purpose. Therefore, the teachers should promote students’
awareness of learning English not only for study, but also for their future.
 Students’ attitudes towards speaking skills
Question 2: What language(s) do you often use in English lessons?
From the results, the habit of using the mother-tongue during English lessons has been a
big obstacle for students in using vocabulary for speaking skills development. It prevented
them from using it to communicate outside the classroom.
 Students’ attitudes towards the importance of vocabulary in speaking skills 7
Question 3: What do you think of the importance of vocabulary in speaking skills?
From the results, the students have highly evaluated the necessity of vocabulary for
developing speaking skills. Therefore, the teachers should create more teaching vocabulary
activities and provide opportunities for students to practice speaking appropriately.
 Students’ opinions about learning vocabulary for developing speaking skills
From the results, one could see some reasons which leading to the poor English
communicative competence of the students. Therefore, teachers needed to provide the
students with opportunities to use vocabulary in the relevant topics and give students as
much extra materials to read as possible, for example magazines, short stories and poetry
with interesting topics that were appropriate to the level of the students.
 Students’ opinions about vocabulary in speaking topics in the course book

 The students’ opinions about the effectiveness and the solutions to improve
learning vocabulary in speaking lessons
The result of this question reflected that most students expected their teachers to set up
speaking habits in the classroom, and encourage them to be confident when they speak
English, teachers regularly gave vocabulary related to speaking topics and created a
relaxed atmosphere in classroom.
3.2. Summary
This chapter has presented the data analysis to find out the answers to the research
questions.

Chapter IV: Findings and suggested solutions FOR
better learning English vocabulary
4.1. Findings
1. The students’ low English proficiency was one of the major factors that prevented them
from using English for communication.
2. Some difficulties the first year students had faced with in vocabulary learning were
found: being confused the meaning of words, students often misunderstood between
meaning of words from dictionary and those from context. Secondly, students had faced
with the problems of words order in sentences and utterances Thirdly, one of the biggest
problems with vocabulary learning is that what has ‘learned’ today is often forgotten
tomorrow. The main reason was due to the lack of concentration on their teachers’
presentation of vocabulary.
4.2. Suggested solutions 9
Here are some suggestions to the first year students of THCCA in learning vocabulary.
1. The students should set up speaking habits. It means that they should use English during
the English lessons.
2. Students should pay more attention to the content of the topics and the teachers’

to develop learning English vocabulary for speaking skills more completely, some
solutions were suggested.
Part C. Conclusion
This study has achieved its second objective of measuring improvements in students’
vocabularies and matching them to suitable targets. Students finishing the program have
acquired sufficient knowledge of lexical items to comprehend different types of texts.
However, there was a limited degree of success in the first objective which was to look for
evidence of improvements in the students’ usage of vocabulary learning strategies that
occurs as the course progresses. But the research clearly helped to define key areas for
further actions.
1. Summary of the study
With the hope of finding the way to develop learning vocabulary for speaking skills to the
first year students at THCCA, this study has been carried out. This study aimed at finding
some common problems faced by students at THCCA in learning vocabulary for speaking
skills and then offers some suggestions to overcome those problems.
2. Limitations of the study
Despite of the unavoidable limitations, the researcher believes that this study will be
beneficial in developing vocabulary for speaking skills of the first year students at THCCA
3. Suggestions for further studies
There are some suggestions for further researches:
- A study on the problems in teaching vocabulary to the second year students in
Faculty of Tourism at Thanh Hoa College of Culture and Arts.
- A study on techniques and activities in teaching vocabulary to the second year
students which help them improve their Reading and Writing skills.
The author hopes that the further studies will overcome all the existing limitations of this
study and help to improve the quality of the teaching and learning English at THCCA
particular and at other colleges or universities in Thanh Hoa in general.