iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality…………… ………………………………………………………i
Acknowledgements …… …………………………………………………………………ii
Abstract…………………………………… …………………………………………… iii
Table of content ……………………………………………………………………………iv
List of abbreviations ……………………………………………………………………… v

PART A – INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Research hypotheses and questions 3
5. Method of the study 3
6. Organization of the study 3
PART B – DEVELOPMENT 54
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1 Teaching and Learning Vocabulary 5
1.1 What is Vocabulary? 5
1.1.1 Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary 5
1.1.2 Active and passive vocabulary 6
1.2 The importance of vocabulary in second language learning 6
1.3 What is involved in knowing a word 7
1.3.1 Form 7
1.3.2 Meaning 7
1.3.3 Grammar 8
1.3.4 Collocation 8
2. Factors affecting the retention of vocabulary. 8
2.1 Memory and storage system 8
2.1.1 The Keyword Method 10

4.2.1.Questionnaires for students 22
4.2.1.1.The pre-treatment questionnaire 23
4.2.1.2.The post-treatment questionnaire 23
4.2.2.Questionnaires for teachers 23
5. Procedure of data collection 23
5.1. Schedules 24
5.2. Treatment 24

vi
5.3. Data collecting and processing procedures 25
CHAPTER 3 - DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 26
3.1 Results of the T – Test 26
3.2 The result of pre-test scores of the two groups 26
3.3. The result of post-test scores of the two groups 28
3.4 Summary of the test scores of the two groups in the pretest and posttest 32
3.5 Survey results 33
3.5.1. The pre-treatment questionnaire for students 33
3.5.2. The Post-treatment Questionnaire for students 34
3.5.2. Questionnaire for teachers 34
PART C. CONCLUSION 38
1. Findings and conclusion 38
2. Pedagogical Implications 40
3. Limitations of the study 41
4. Suggestions for further studies 41
REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………… 42
APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………………… I

vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS



viii
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 .The quality of control group by mean
Figure 2.The quality of experimental group by mean
Chart 1. The comparison of pre – test scores of experimental and control groups
Table 1. Taxonomy of Vocabulary Learning Strategies (Adopted from Schmitt 1997:207)
Table 2. Comparison of pre – test scores
Table 3. Frequency of Pre test of Experimental Group and Control Group
Table 4. The results of the post-test
Table 5. Summary of standard deviation
Table 6. Paired Samples Correlations
Table7. The results from running Wilcoxon’s test
Table 8. The results of post test
Table 9. Descriptive Statistics of the two groups
Table 10. The response to pre-treatment questionnaire for students.
Table 11. The response to post-treatment questionnaire for students
Table 12. Scores on the questionnaire
Table 13. The Cronbach's alpha of the post-treatment questionnaire for students

1

PART A – INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Vocabulary is central to language and is of great significance to language students. Words
are “the building blocks of a language since they label objects, actions, ideas without which
people cannot convey the intended meaning”(Lotfi Ghazal). Given its importance to learning,
vocabulary has been a prominent concern of many theorists and researchers in the field.
Accordingly, numerous types of approaches, techniques, exercises and practice have been

th

grade students to retain words better. These students are non-English major ones and have
three classes of English a week. There exists a fact that they cannot retrieve the words which
they have learnt in previous lessons for communication when needed. In other words, they
soon forget words they have just acquired. The main aim of this study therefore is to
investigate the impact of repetition and recycling on vocabulary learning and retention, or to
put it differently, the extent to which short tailored activities helps to retain vocabulary for the
students at Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh High school and provide some pedagogical implications.
3. Scope of the study
There are enormous activities as tools of enhancing vocabulary retention available on the
internet that you can approach with a mouse click. Most of them are easy to be applied and
tested. In the current study, I set the limit of investigating possibly – applied activities that can
be carried out at beginning or in the middle of 45-minute periods in such large-sized classes at
Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh High school, vung Tau. The activities were related to first three units
(which equal to 18 lessons) of the course book English 11 introduced by Educational Press
only because with the timeframe of 6 weeks it is supposed to be infeasible to conduct a
research study on a larger scale which can produce very convincing results.
4. Research hypotheses and questions
In order to achieve the above purposes, the study was designed to test the following
hypotheses:
 Null hypothesis: The students who take part in the experiment get the same
result measured in the post-test and have the same improvement in their vocabulary retention
as those who do not.
 Alternative hypothesis: Students who frequently deal with repetitive and
recycling activities will perform better overall in the post test and have some improvement in
their skills in comparison with those who do not have extra vocabulary-oriented activities.
3

So as to draw the conclusion on the hypothesis, the study is to get the answers to the

meaningful activities which are initiated by different researchers. Chapter two deals with the
methodology of this research in terms of the setting of the study, sampling participants,
instruments and procedure of data collection. Chapter three devotes to the account of the study
in terms of data analysis and findings interpreted from the results of the T-test and
questionnaires.
4

Part C is the conclusion which discusses the major findings and limitations of the research,
then suggests teaching implications and proposes some suggestions for further research.

uses. receptive vocabulary is words we understand when others use them (in listening and
reading ) and expressive vocabulary refers to words we use themselves (to speak and write).
Vocabulary can also be classified as oral or written. Thus each of us has four types of
vocabulary: receptive-oral, receptive-written, expressive-oral, and expressive-written. The
four vocabulary items overlap but are not the same, and the relationships between them
change over time.
6

The acknowledgement of two categories of expressive and receptive vocabulary is
extremely helpful in language teaching. It is common when a receptive vocabulary item
gradually becomes a part of a learner‟s everyday English. This usually happens when the
learner reads or hears the item repeatedly. This process is gradual and can be speeded up and
improved immensely if the item is well presented, practiced and revised in the course book. If
any stage is missing in the book, the teachers should clarify the meaning and form and
encourage controlled and free practice themselves (Gairns [1990]: 65).
1.1.2 Active and passive vocabulary
Several researchers and ELT authors, with different ways of addressing, substitute the
terms expressive and receptive vocabulary with others: active and passive vocabulary. Despite
the fact that the secondary literature the researcher has studied varies in interpretations of these
four terms. One of the earliest descriptions of active and passive vocabulary was that of
Morgan and Oberdeck who said that
An individual's active vocabulary includes words of such familiarity as would allow an
understanding of them as would permit their use in speech and writing; his passive vocabulary
includes those of only such familiarity as would allow an understanding of them as they occurred in
reading material or hearing in a lecture (1930: 213).
Their description of active and passive vocabulary persuades us that they are freely
interchangeable with expressive and receptive.
1.2 The importance of vocabulary in second language learning
In order to progress in foreign language learning, students need to be able to understand
what they are encountered with verbal communication, that is they need to acquire a certain

on students‟ need and their language background knowledge. The teacher has to balance the
amount of time spent on meaning-focused input and meaning-focused output so that he/she
can both guide his/her students to get the meaning of the words correctly and get them
involved in a process of semantic processing that facilitates learning and retention.
1.3.3 Grammar
Learning grammar of vocabulary is learning the rules that enable students to build up
different forms of a word or even different words from that word (e.g. sleep, slept, sleeping;
employ, employed, employment, unemployment, employer, employable…). Grammatical
patterns of a word helps students to recognize whether it suits the language situation or not,
8

and use it correctly. When students are given a task that requires them to use the correct tense
of a verb, they have to utilize their knowledge of grammar to fulfil the task. Correct grammar
of words helps to function better their pragmatic use and convey message clearer in
communication.
1.3.4 Collocation
Collocation is defined as “the way in which some words often go together and form a
common expression”, for example: sense of humor, nuclear family, learn by heart…. are
examples of collocated pairs of words. Some words are often found together because they
make up a compound noun, for example sleeping bag or motor cyclist. … The idea of what it
is to „know‟ a word is also enriched with the collocational component. According to Lewis
(1993) „being able to use a word involves mastering its collocational range and restrictions on
that range‟. Thus, using all the opportunities to teach chunks rather than isolated words is
normally advisable. And teaching should aim at increasing students‟ collocational
competence, both inside and outside the classroom.
2. Factors affecting the retention of vocabulary.
2.1 Memory and storage system
Learning vocabulary is one of the first steps of learning a second language, yet a learner
never finishes vocabulary acquisition. This process is tightly related to human memory system
which plays the role of a storage. According to Anderson (2000), human memory system

any pictures. Even abstract words can be associated with some mental image.
- Mnemonics – tricks to help retrieve items or rules that are stored in memory. The best kinds
of mnemonics are visuals and keyword techniques.
- Motivation - strong motivation itself does not ensure that words will be remembered. Even
unmotivated students remember words if they have to face appropriate tasks.
- Attention - it is not possible to improve vocabulary without a certain degree of conscious
attention.
2.1.1 The Keyword Method
One useful method to build and retain vocabulary in a second language is the keyword
method. The keyword method of vocabulary learning involved forming a linkage between a
to-be-learnt vocabulary word and a familiar English word that sounds like part of the to-be-
10

learnt item ( the key word). Then the teacher forms an interactive image between the key word
and the definition referents. In previous research, the keyword method has been found to
facilitate students‟ recall of definitions, given vocabulary items. Although these strategies tend
to take longer to implement and may take longer in recollection, they create new or unusual
connections that can increase retention.
2.1.2 The Visual Aids on Vocabulary Learning
Gairns and Redman (1986) claimed that the most general visual aids that were displayed
in the language classrooms included flashcards, photographs, blackboard drawings, wall
charts, and realia and that other forms of visual aids such as mimes and gestures were often
used to supplement other ways of conveying meanings. Goodman (1987) proposed that for the
most part, visuals were more easily understood by students of all ages in that a picture seemed
worth a thousand words and avoided lengthy and difficult word definitions.
2.1.3 The Semantic Mapping on Vocabulary Learning
According to Johnson and Pearson (1984), “semantic mapping is one technique of
teaching word meanings which makes extensive use of classroom discussion in connection
with a visual display.” In semantic mapping, a teacher chooses a key word and other target
words from materials student will read. The key word is listed on the board and students are

Learning style is the individual‟s habitual and preferred way “in which individual
characteristically acquires, retains, and retrieves information” (Felder & Henriques, 1995:21)
and is influential in a learner‟s process of language acquisition. According to Felder
(1995:22), learning styles are categorized into different dimensions depending on the students‟
preferential perception (sensing, intuitive, verbal and visual), their information process (active,
reflective) or understanding of materials (sequential, global, inductive, and reductive).
3.2 Teaching method
Regarding vocabulary retention, over the past two decades, research has revealed a great
deal about the kind of vocabulary teaching that is most effective for helping students retain
what they have learnt (e.g., Baumann, Kame„enui et al., 2003; Beck & McKeown, 1991;
Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000; Nagy & Scott, 2000). There are a variety of principles that
teachers should take into account when working with vocabulary, but the key principle of
effective vocabulary teaching is to provide multiple exposures to a word's meaning. According
to Stahl (2005), students probably have to see a word more than once to place it firmly in their
long-term memories. "This does not mean mere repetition or drill of the word," but seeing the
12

word in different and multiple contexts. In other words, it is important that vocabulary
instruction provide students with opportunities to encounter words repeatedly and in more than
one context.
4. Repetition and Recycling in Language learning
The results of teaching and learning process are affected by not only the teacher‟s
teaching method, the students‟ learning styles and strategies but also by many other factors
beyond language education such as personality, intelligence, aptitude, attitude, motivation,
age… of the particular group of students (Lightbown & Spada, 1999:49). In terms of
vocabulary, students need multiple encounters with words (Hulstijn, 1992; Folse, 1999); thus,
the most important point in teaching and learning vocabulary is the number of times the
learner has to retrieve the word - a factor which the teacher can influence through classroom
activities. Vocabulary items must not only be known, they must be known so well that they
can be fluently accessed. Repetition thus adds to the quality of knowledge and also to the

vocabulary recycling activities drawn from a number of sources: resource books, websites,
training courses, my colleagues and some of which are of my own invention.
4.1. The spacing of repetition
Spaced repetition is a robust method memorizing large amounts of material than more
fashionable accelerated learning techniques. It is better to distribute practice. In many cases
two spaced presentations are about twice as effective as two massed presentations, and the
difference between them increases as the frequency of repetition increases (Melton, 1970).
This effect was apparent in of the earliest of experimental studies of learning and memory
performed by Ebbinghaus (1885) who concluded that “with any considerable number of
repetitions a suitable distribution of them over a space of time is decidedly more advantageous
than the massing of them at a single time”.
4.2. Testing and the Retrieval Practice Effect
Successful recall of a vocabulary item can have two independent benefits for future
learning and retention: (1) The first is quite straightforward - knowledge of recall ability can
be used to guide future learning, i.e. to treat recalled and unrecalled items differently,
concentrating attention on the latter upon representation of material. (2) The second benefit is
perhaps more paradoxical. Periodic retrieval can have a very large effect on enhancing and
stabilizing long-term retention since encoding operations usually assumed to take place during
14

item presentation can occur equally well following item recall (Thompson, Wenger &
Bartling, 1978).
5. A review of similar studies
From a literature review, it seems to be that a lot of research on vocabulary teaching and
learning has been made and their major findings support the value of gaining new vocabulary.
(Aitchison, J -1987; Gairns, R & Redman, S. 1986; Nation-1994, 2001, 2005; Lynch - 2001 ;
Lewis – 1993, 1997…). O‟Mally and Chamot (1990) divide language-learning strategies into
three major types: metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective. Oxford (1990) has attempted
the most comprehensive classification systems and divided them into six major strategy
categories, including memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social


CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY
This chapter deals with the methodology of this research in terms of the setting of the
study, sampling participants, instruments and procedure of data collection. Questionnaires and
T-test were employed and clearly presented in the chapter as the primary instruments of the
study. Relevant activities, additionally, were mentioned and discussed thoroughtly as
principles of designing activities.
1. The setting of study
1.1 Context of Study
Long Hai – Phuoc Tinh high school is a state-run school located in Long Hai town in Ba
Ria – Vung Tau. The school has a modest educational staff of 71 people who provide
education to 1425 students. The EFL group consists of 9 teachers. Most of them graduated
from pedagogical faculties in Vietnamese Universities namely Vinh University, Da Nang
16

University, Lac Hong University, Da Lat University and Hanoi University of Foreign
Language.
The typical setting of instruction is three 45-minute –long periods of English a week.
There are not many of reference books available in the school library. Three out of 30
classrooms are equipped with computers and 32-inch LCDs. There are also two portable
speakers that can be directly connected to MP3 players or cell phones serving as teaching
facilities.
Due to the limited time in a correspondence to a wide range of words to teach and
students‟ low English proficiency, EFL teachers at Long Hai _ Phuoc Tinh high school often teach
vocabulary in the traditional teacher-centered method. The teachers normally dominate class to explain
words by words. They often employ three following steps in teaching vocabulary. First, teachers have
students read the passage (in reading, speaking, listening or writing sections). After that, new words are
raised and elicited through some games, word maps, or simple presentations. Then students try to get
Vietnamese equivalents of the words and read them aloud once or twice. To help students practice the
vocabulary, the teachers have them do some kinds of exercises such as: gap filling, word matching,

and have studied English as a Foreign Language for five years or more. It is impossible for us
to assume that they are at the same level of English but they have definitely all experienced
the set of English course books of Lower – Secondary (i.e. English 6, English 7, English 8 and
English 9) and also English 10 as the first step to Upper – Secondary. Results of the pre-test
showed that their English vocabulary competence differed little (see appendix 3 and 4). All in
all, these two groups had a lot of common features in terms of number, gender, English level
as well as motivation to learn. Moreover, these students‟ characteristics were typical of the
11
th
grade non-major students at Long Hai- Phuoc Tinh high school.
Most of the participants live in three territories of Long Hai, Phuoc Hung and Phuoc Tinh,
which are famous for tourism and fishing industry. That, in turn, becomes a condition which
is worth being taken into account when working with this study. The students in the regions
can earn money easily by cutting fish heads and fins in the local firms. They appear to be
interested in it. After school, many of them have to rush to these firms to take the night shift
and, of course they do not have much time to review or do their homework.
2.2 Sampling
18

The quality of a piece of research stands or falls not only by the appropriateness of
methodology and instrumentation but also by the suitability of the sampling strategy that has
been adopted. Sample size is determined to some extent by the style of the research.
According to Borg and Gall (1979), experimental methodology requires a sample size of no
fewer than fifteen cases. Basing on the level of accuracy and the level of probability in the
study, the sample size of 56 out of 84 can be referred as acceptable.
“The safest way to ensure that it is representative is to use a random selection procedure.”
(Will G Hopkins, 2008)). Acknowledging this, in the study the researcher adopted the
systematic sampling as a strategy to select subjects from a population list in a systematic.
Specifically, with the required number of 56 out of the population of 84, the simple statistic
should be use: f=N÷ S

learnt words and present new ones.
3.3 What are relevant activities?
What are relevant activities to increase students‟ retention of vocabulary during the
teaching and learning process is the question that the author tries to answer. Regarding the
context of the study, the participants come from a school located in the countryside; they have
few real chances to practice speaking English; additionally, they often feel too shy to speak the
target language. As a result, their speaking capacity is low and poor. For all these reason, the
researcher tent to pay more attention to repetitive and recycling focused activities, because
according to many researchers, repetition and recycling are superior strategies for learning to
produce words. Activities that involve brief reading, repetition, making sentences, listing
words and so on are supposed to be relevant to provide background for practicing certain
chunks or for recycling vocabulary, thus aid language processing and ultimately vocabulary
retention.
On the approach to repetitive and recycling-focused activities, researcher was
impressively attracted by a variety of classroom activities which may help a lot if applied.
However, the majority of these activities are suitable to small size class. Meanwhile both
control and experimental groups are in the intact classes of around 40 originally, which is far
beyond the ideal class size of 10-20 students. (Adopted from America National Council of
Teachers of English Guidelines). Therefore, when designing some extra activities served as
tools to help students keep in touch with vocabulary they have learnt, the researcher took into
account all the conditions of the participants and based on the Taxonomy of Vocabulary
Learning Strategies which is adopted from Schmitt 1997:207.

20

Table 1: Taxonomy of Vocabulary Learning Strategies (Adopted from Schmitt 1997:207)Cognitive strategies to
repeat and use mechanical
means to
study vocabulary - COG

Verbal repetition
Written repetition
Flash cards
Word lists
Take notes in class
Use the vocabulary section in
your textbook

Use semantic maps
User scales for gradable adjectives
Peg Method
Loci Method
Group words together to study
them
Group words together spatially on a
page

Use new words in sentences

Group words together within a
storyline

Study the spelling of a word

Saw new word aloud when studying it

Saw new word aloud when studying it

Image word form

Configuration

Use Keyword Method

Affixes and roots (remembering)

Parts of speech (remembering)