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

NGUYỄN THỊ MAI LIÊN A STUDY ON THE ROLE OF USING VIETNAMESE IN TEACHING
ENGLISH VOCABULARY TO THE 10
TH
FORM ETHNIC MINORITY
STUDENTS AT VUNG CAO VIET BAC HIGH SCHOOL

Nghiên cứu về vai trò của việc sử dụng tiếng Việt trong dạy từ vựng
tiếng Anh cho học sinh dân tộc thiểu số lớp 10 tại trường
PT Vùng Cao Việt Bắc
M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

i
DECLARATION

I, Nguyễn Thị Mai Liên, certify that the work presented in this study " A
study on the role of using Vietnamese in teaching English vocabulary to the 10
th

form ethnic minority students at Vung Cao Viet Bac High School" is the result of
my own research and the material has not been submitted either in whole or in part
for any degree to any other university or institution.

Hanoi, August, 2014
Student‟s signature Nguyễn Thị Mai Liên

In my capacity as supervisor of the candidate's thesis, I certify that the above
statements are true to the best of my knowledge.
Supervisor Duong Duc Minh, Ph.D.
ii


The use of the first language in foreign language teaching and learning has
long been a controversial issue. However, as a common phenomenon in English
language learning, the influence of the first language can not be ignored especially
with low proficiency learners. This paper aims at providing the evidence to the role
of using the first language (Vietnamese) in vocabulary teaching and learning
process. For these purposes, nearly 200 students of four classes of grade 10
th
and 6
teachers of English Department at Vung Cao Viet Bac high school were participants
of the research. Three research tools were used to gather the data: questionnaire,
interview and observation. The findings of the research were totally true to the
research hypotheses. First, Vietnamese is still widely used to teach and learn
vocabulary by teachers and students of Vung Cao Viet Bac high school. Frequent
using of Vietnamese for words‟ explanation, habit of using bilingual dictionary to
look up new words and doing translation exercises to practice new words are the
evidences for the findings. Most of participants found using Vietnamese effective to
their teaching and learning vocabulary, therefore they often apply it to improve
vocabulary acquisition.

iv


Table 1 19
Table 2 20
Table 3 21
Table 4 23
Table 5 27
Table 6 28

FIGURE 1 22
FIGURE 2 24
FIGURE 3 25
FIGURE 4 25
FIGURE 5 26

vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the Study 1
2. The Aims of the Study 2
3. Research Questions 2
4. The Scope of the Study 2
5. The Methods of the Study 2
6. Design of the Study 3
7. The Summary 3

3.2 Discussion 33
3.3 Pedagogical Implications 34
3.4 Chapter Summary 34
PART C: CONCLUSIONS 35
1. Conclusions 35
2. Limitations of the Study 35
3. Suggestions for Further Study 36
REFERENCES 37
APPENDICES I

1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the Study
Vocabulary forms the biggest part of the meaning of any language, and it is the
biggest problem for most learners, as described by Mc Carthy (“Interview”, 2001:2,
cited in Fan, 2003:222). Mc Carthy firmly believes that language is lexis-driven, and
therefore, vocabulary learning is the real key to second language learning. He claims that
learners will be more successful if they can develop their own techniques and disciplines
for vocabulary learning. Therefore, an effective approach to vocabulary is always one of
the great concerns of every language teacher.
A recent study by Ramachandran and Rahim (2004) investigated the
effectiveness of using the L1 translation in recalling the meaning and retention of the
words with elementary level ESL. Their results indicated that the translation method
through using the first language was more effective than the non-translation method in
enhancing ESL learners‟ vocabulary learning ability, and it could improve elementary
ESL learner‟s ability to recall the meaning of the word learnt. Auer Bach (1993) claims
that the use of the learner‟s L1 in the L2 classroom will have a positive effect on
learners‟ second language learning, especially in the area of vocabulary. Personally, the
researcher is interested in the findings of many researchers including Nation (2001) and
Kroll and Curley (1988) that new second language words are stored more effectively in

4. The Scope of the Study
The study limits itself to the role of using Vietnamese in teaching English
Vocabulary. The effectiveness of this technique would be explored from the
perception of the students and teachers. The study was carried out only with tenth
form students and the teachers who are in charge of English teaching to those
students at Vung cao Viet Bac High school in Thai Nguyen
5. The Methods of the Study
Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used in this study,
including Questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews.
Questionnaires
Both open-ended and close-ended questions were administered to 200
students and 6 English teachers to find out their perceived effectiveness of
Vietnamese use on vocabulary teaching and learning.
Classroom Observations
Five periods (of about 45 minutes in length) taught by different teachers
were observed to find out how was Vietnamese used to teach vocabulary in the
class.

3
Interviews
Teacher interviews were conducted to obtain a better understanding of the
teachers‟ perceptions towards the effectiveness of using Vietnamese in teaching
English vocabulary. The interviews were transcribed fully and analyzed
qualitatively.
6. Design of the Study
The author chose survey research to do this study because of many reasons.
First of all, the author could gather a great number of opinions from participants. As
the aim of this study was to investigate the application of using Vietnamese in
teaching English vocabulary, the researcher needed a big number of participants to
get the most reliable result. The author could save a lot of time by getting the answers

1.1 Vocabulary
1.1.1 What is Vocabulary?
Vocabulary is a matter which many linguists and language teachers have been
concerned for a long time. Vocabulary is defined differently by different scholars.
Below some definitions of vocabulary that are relevant to the present study are
introduced.
In The American Heritage Dictionary, “vocabulary” is defined as:
1. All words of a language.
2. The sum of words used by, understood by, or at the command of a particular
person or a group.
3. A list of words and often phrases, usually arranged alphabetically and defined
or translated; a lexicon or glossary.
It‟s apparent that above definition show the relationship between vocabulary
and words. In other words vocabulary is defined as words. However, it seems
important to see clear definitions, a concise explanation as sited as follow:
"Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in the foreign
language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than a single word:
for example, post office, and mother-in- law, which are made up of two or three
words but express a single idea. A useful conversation is to cover all such cases
by talking about vocabulary “items” rather than “word” which is made up of
two or three words but express a single idea.’‟ (Ur, 1996:60)
5
According to Ur, vocabulary should be recognized as words we teach in a foreign
language. Ur argues a vocabulary item can be either a single word or a multi-word
phrase.
In conclusion, there are many different definitions about vocabulary, but the
idea that vocabulary is the total number of words existing in a language, including
single words as well as multi-word items of which meaning cannot be deduced from
the analysis of the component words but only understood in the sentences; or in
contexts, is more favorable.

because of this communication in foreign language is constrained considerably to
those with limited vocabulary.
Thus, the importance of vocabulary in language learning cannot be denied.
Vocabulary learning is obviously an essential part of language learning. Learning
words can considered to be the most important aspect of second language acquisition
(Knight, 1994). Candlin (1988) stated that “The study of vocabulary is at the heart of
language teaching in terms of organization of syllabuses, the evaluation of learner
performances, and the provision of learning resources.”
1.1.3 Approaches to Vocabulary Teaching
There are many different methods, approaches, techniques as well as strategies
to vocabulary teaching. In the early decades of the 20
th
century, vocabulary teaching
became the focus of interest of many applied linguistic researchers and language
teachers. In order to fully understand this development it is certainly worth giving a
brief discussion of some major approaches in teaching vocabulary. It can be easily
seen that several hundred years ago, bilingual teaching was favoured, with students
learning through translation. Howatt (1984) tells us that the idea of using L1 in the
L2 classroom was a respected view during the era of The Grammar Translation
Method. The Grammar Translation Method had dominated late 19
th
and early 20
th

century teaching. The aim of The Grammar Translation Method was to provide the
students with a detailed literary vocabulary which is learned through long lists of
translated items and a bilingual dictionary and practiced through translation
excercises with little opportunity to try out pronunciation (Rivers, 1981: 28-30).
The second major foreign language teaching approach is the Direct Method.
The Direct Method stressed the ability to use rather than analyze a language as the

learners the most frequent words in a language and technical vocabulary that learners
will need in order to succeed in their education field.
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On the other hand, incidental vocabulary learning can occur when learners
focused on comprehending meaning rather than focusing on learning new vocabulary
(Gass and Selinker, 2001). Incidental learning can occur from reading or from having
conversations with others who speak the language. Words that not explicitly taught
can be learned incidentally from exposure. It is necessary to increase the amount of
exposure in order to enhance the incidental vocabulary learning because the lack of
exposure is one of the problems facing the incidental approach (Schmitt, 2000). A
learner can start learning vocabulary incidentally from conversation from the
beginning, but when it comes to reading, a certain amount of explicit instruction is
necessary.
Written language usually uses more low frequency vocabulary than spoken
language; thus, teaching these infrequent words explicitly for second language
learners is necessary especially for learners at elementary levels. Thus, explicit
teaching is necessary for low proficiency learners until they reach a vocabulary size
threshold that allows them to learn words incidentally from reading (Schmitt, 2000).
Sokmen (1997) states that “the pendulum has swung from direct teaching of
vocabulary (the grammar translation method) to incidental (the communicative
approach) and now, (laudably, back to the middle: implicit and explicit learning” (as
cited in Schmitt (2000: 120). These studies suggest that both explicit and incidental
learning are necessary, and they should complement each other.
In conclusion, both incidental and explicit learning are necessary and they
should be used together to bring the highest effectiveness.
1.2 L1 and Translation in Second Vocabulary Language Teaching
1.2.1 Translation Method in Language Teaching
Grammar Translation Method was the predominant teaching methodology
from the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was developed based on a procedure
for teaching Latin and evolved out of the need to standardize foreign language

target language into the mother tongue.
 Little or no attention is given to pronunciation.
1.2.2 The Roles of First Language in the Second Language
Many researchers have found out that the learners‟ first language has great
influence on the learning and the use of second languages. Second language learners
use their L1 in learning the target language in many ways. Many Vietnamese students
10
have ever said “What is the Vietnamese word for ?”, if they do not get the answer,
immediately they will look up the bilingual dictionaries to find unknown vocabulary.
Even though when this does not happen, an immediate association with a mother –
tongue word is likely to be set as soon as possible. There are complaints about the
influence of the first language on second language vocabulary learning because it
takes time for students and teachers to think in the first language before they have the
right word in second language. However it even takes more time to explain a word
without translating because the teacher has to spend several minutes to find other
simple words or materials to make students understand. According to Schmitt
(Schmitt, 1997) many second language learners believe that translating helps them in
learning second language skills such as reading, writing, vocabulay.
Atkinson (1987) not only acknowledges the positive role of the mother tongue in
the classroom, but also identifies the following uses of it: eliciting language,
checking comprehension, giving instructions, enhancing co-operation among
learners, promoting discussions of classroom methodology, improving presentation
and reinforcement of language, checking for sense testing, and development of useful
learning strategies. The following are several reasons why the first languages should
be used as a tool in the language classroom:
 It is more natural to use the first language with others who have the same first
language.
 It is easier and more communicatively effective to use the first language.
 Using the second language can be a source of embarrassment particularly for shy
learners and those who feel they are not very proficient in the second language.

once they understand their first language they can apply it into their second language
learning. Sometimes it may not help, and it even causes difficulties for learners
because of the two language differences.
1.2.3 The Use of Translation to Facilitate Vocabulary Teaching
As it was discussed in the previous section, learners‟ first language has a great
impact in the learning of the second language. Thus, we come to the question: should
translation be used in teaching and testing second language vocabulary? There may
be a belief that first language translation should not be used in the teaching of
vocabulary. However, translation is one of number of ways of conveying meaning
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and it is not better or worse than other ways, such as the use of pictures, real objects,
definitions, the second language synonyms and so on. Actually, the use of learners‟
first language to test or convey vocabulary is quite sufficient. (Nation, 2001).
One of the greatest advantages of using learners‟ first language in vocabulary
teaching is that it provides an easier way to explain the meaning of second language
vocabulary. The use of the learners‟ first language meaning is like using a simple
synonym, while a second language definition usually involves a definition that
includes a relative clause or reduced relative clause, and reading such sentences
require greater grammatical skills.
The use of first language translation provides a useful mean of testing
vocabulary, both receptively and productively, and in recall and recognition of
meaning. The difficulties that caused by no exact corresponding between meanings in
both languages are less than the difficulties that caused by the lack of connection
between the second language definitions and the meaning they are trying to convey.
As a result, using learners‟ first language translation to establish the initial form -
meaning of the new second language words‟ form with the corresponding the first
language words which already exist in the memory is very useful (Barcroft, 2002).
Moreover, new second language words are stored more effectively in the brain when
they are linked to their first language equivalents (Kroll and Curely, 1988 , as cited in
Barcroft, 2002). Thus, using first language translation is a good method to teach

had been learnt in the translation group. Learning happened in the task group but not
as much as in the translation one. Doing translation the learners had time to focus on
every single word. Added to that, when looking up words in bilingual dictionaries,
learners paid attention to the meaning and the form of the words then considered
semantic relation of each word with its surrounding words.
According to Ellis and Beaton (1993:604) knowing a lexical item involves
knowing various components such as its spelling, phonological representation, word
class, syntactic features and delivered meaning. Current trends in language education
mostly consider no role of the mother tongue in language learning but many
researches including study of Majid suggest that translation method is effective in
improving learners‟ ability to recall meanings of words which are unknown to them.
Pal Heltai (1988) did a research on conditions in which oral translation can be an
exercise to build vocabulary and he came to a conclusion that translation is best used as a
supplementary exercise to practice and build vocabulary at advanced level under some
14
conditions. In countries where English is a foreign language, opportunities for naturalistic
acquisition are few, students have less chances to practice real English, therefore some
activities like translation can be beneficial for learners to reach motivation to learn new
words. He also stated that translation might, indirectly, through contributing to the learning
of vocabulary; help improve learners‟ communicative fluency.
Another study is by Ramachandran and Abdul Rahim (2004) to investigate
the effectiveness of the translation method in teaching vocabulary to elementary level
English as second language (ESL) learners. The authors sought answers to the
following questions: Do Malaysian elementary level ESL learners who learn words
through translation method recall the meaning of the words learnt more effectively
and is the translation method effective for lasting word meaning recall?. The results
of the study show two characteristics of the translation method that may have
contributed to the outperformance in word meaning recall by the participants
receiving it. First, given that participants‟ second language lexical knowledge is
limited, instruction in their first language may have made their learning of second

schools or at public places. You are sure to imagine all sorts of difficulties those
ethnic students have to overcome when they learn English. Most of the participants
are at the age of 16 and all these students are ethnic minorities, they belong to
different ethnic minorities namely: Tày, Thái, Mường, Dao, Hmong, Nùng, Sán Dìu,
La Hủ, La Chí, Cao Lan, Hoa, Pu Péo, Giáy. They have been learning English for
four years in junior schools but their knowledge of English vocabulary is at a low
level.
In terms of 6 volunteer teachers participating in the study, three of them were
quite young with no more than 5 year teaching experience; two of them had less than
10 year experience. There was only 1 teacher who had been teaching for 14 years in
this school. They were English teachers of those 4 classes I chose. They were helpful
to assist the author to deliver students the questionnaire and get their answers
2.2 Data Collection
2.2.1. Data Collection Instruments
2.2.1.1. Survey Questionnaires
The instruments used in this study consisted of two questionnaires: one for
teachers and one for students. According to Gillham (2000), using questionnaires has
some advantages such as low cost in time and money; easy to get information from a
lot of people, respondents can complete the questionnaire when it suits them, analysis of
16
answers to closed questions is straightforward; less pressure for an immediate response,
respondents‟ anonymity; lack of interviewer bias, standardization of questions (but true
of structured interviews); can provide suggestive data for testing an hypothesis. The
questionnaires were designed in both close and open-ended questions.
There are 6 different questions in questionnaire that the author delivered to six
teachers and about 200 students in their break time. The questionnaire for students
was in Vietnamese so they could clearly understand each question and respond to
them without any language barrier. All the questions designed were to seek answers
for the following research questions:
1. How is Vietnamese used in vocabulary teaching and learning at Vung Cao