HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

CODE: 15

FACULTY OF ENGLISH

GRADUATION THESIS
B.A DEGREE IN ENGLISH STUDY
TOWARDS IMPROVING VOCABULARY FOR THE FIRSTYEAR STUDENTS AT THE FACULTY OF ENGLISH,
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

Supervisor
Student
Date of birth
Course

: Le Thi Vy, M.A
: Do Thu Huong
: 28.02.1994
: K19A03 (2012-2016)

Hanoi – 2016


Graduation Paper
DECLARATION
Title: Towards improving vocabulary for the first year students at the
Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University
I certify that no part of the above report has been copied or reproduced by me
from any other’s work without acknowledgement and that the report is
originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

survey.
Finally yet importantly, I am indebted to my family especially my mother
who have had no knowledge of English but their helps, supports and
encouragements to my English study are uncountable. If there had not been
great help from the above people, the study could not have been fulfilled. For
which I am truly grateful.
Hanoi, 15 April, 2016

Do Thu Huong

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)


Graduation Paper
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
LIST OF TABLES
PART A: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1
1. Rationale .................................................................................................... 1
2. Aims and purposes of the study .................................................................. 2
3. Scope of the study ...................................................................................... 3
4. Research questions ..................................................................................... 3
5. Methods of the study .................................................................................. 3
6. Design of the study..................................................................................... 3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................ 5
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................... 5
1. An overview of vocabulary ...................................................................... 5

3. Making it personal................................................................................... 32
4. Using Stick notes or Flash cards ............................................................. 33
5. Making friends with the dictionary ......................................................... 35
6. Taking advantages of mass media ........................................................... 36
7. Studying and Reviewing regularly .......................................................... 39
PART C: CONCLUSION .......................................................................... 42

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)


Graduation Paper

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
HOU

: Hanoi Open University

FOE

: Faculty of English

Etc

: Et cetera

Et al

: Et alia

Q

business, education, health, science especially foreign trade and so on…
To be specific, in Vietnam – a developing country with the open door-policy,
it is now a great demand to learn English for the process of assimilating and
promoting into regional and international economy. Therefore, English is also
considered the most important foreign language in Vietnam and taught as a
compulsory subject at almost every school. Moreover, English is taught at all
levels of education from kindergartens, elementary schools, junior and senior
high schools to colleges and universities.
Everyone has to experience new words first if they want to learn a language.
The more words you know, the more knowledge you will be able to
understand. Thus, vocabulary is a useful key and plays an important role in
learning English. However, it is not easy work because English is very varied
and complex. All of the learners in general and the first-year students at the
FOE, HOU in particular always have to face up with many difficulties when
they start learning English as a second language, namely vocabulary, grammar
and pronunciation in which vocabulary is the hardest issue. In fact, a word
may have more than one meaning and more than one part of speech; therefore,
students cannot avoid forgetting vocabulary in the process of studying English.

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

1


For example, the word “increase” may be a noun and a verb also. Besides,
some words with different spelling and meaning have the same pronunciation
such as “sun” and “son”.
In this graduation paper, the author would like to carry out a study on how
first-year students at the FOE, HOU are learning English vocabulary in order
to find out their current situation of studying vocabulary and then to suggest

3.

Scope of the study

The study limits itself to the investigation of the difficulties in learning English
vocabulary of the first-year students at the FOE, HOU and the solutions are
also provided to help them learn English vocabulary more easily and
effectively.
4.

Research questions

-

What are the vocabulary and its importance?

-

What is the real situation of learning English vocabulary for the first-

year students at the FOE, HOU?
-

What are the main difficulties experienced by the first-year students at

the FOE, HOU in the process of learning English vocabulary?
-

What are some recommendations for the first-year students to improve


background of English vocabulary such as definitions and classification based
on some different aspects, etc.

Chapter II is The Study. It is the main part of the study, which represents the
current situation of the first year students at FOE, HOU in learning English
vocabulary as well as the findings and analysis based on data collected from
the survey questionnaires.

Chapter III presents some suggestions for improving the first - year students’
vocabulary at the FOE, HOU. In this chapter, some effective ways to improve
English vocabulary of the first year students to help them study better are
illustrated.

The last part is the conclusion. This part summarizes the whole study
mentioned in the previous parts. It is followed by the questionnaires and the
references used during the study.

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

4


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter mentions the theoretical background of English vocabulary such
as definitions, classification based on some aspects (meaning, function,
morphemes). In addition, the author also addresses some issues what need to
be studied when coming across a new item like its grammar, form, formation,
collocation and meaning. Beside, the author analyzes the importance of

learning foreign language was to use words for old things. However, in fact, it
is more complicated than that.

According to Wood (1981), vocabulary or lexicon refers to information stored
in memory concerning the pronunciation and meanings of words. Vocabulary
is also defined basing on phonological criterion. It is said that words are listed
in dictionaries that they are separated in writing by spaces and that they may
be separated in speech by pause (Nation, 1994).

Besides, Nguyen Bang and Nguyen Ba Hoc (2002) consider their following
definition of vocabulary as “logical”. According to them, when the term
“vocabulary” of a language is mentioned, it should be mentioned as consisting
of all the words, compounds and idioms used to transmit information on both
“oral and written communication”.

In general, vocabulary is the total number of all the words that a language
possesses, including a single word, two or three word items expressing a single
idea and multi-word idioms whose meaning cannot be deduced from the
analysis of the component words. Vocabulary can be defined as the words we
teach in the foreign language and a useful convention is to cover all such cases
by talking about vocabulary “items” rather than “words”. It can be seen that a
“vocabulary” item can be more than one word. Therefore, it is necessary not to
make confusion between vocabulary item and word.

1.2.

Classification of vocabulary

1.2.1. The meaning


together to make up the meaning of a word. The teacher; therefore, bears in
mind these characteristic of words when they teach vocabulary. It means that

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

7


the teachers should teach learners the use of functional words within the
framework of a sentences pattern” (Wood, 1981).

1.2.2. The function

In sentence, a word has many different functions. “English words can be
classified basing on functions as different parts of speech such as noun, verb,
adjective, adverb and preposition” (Gaims & Redman, 1986). Each part of
speech has to follow particular grammar rules so that when learning English
words we have to be aware of the importance of the parts of speech of that
word in sentence.

For example:

- Noun: a table, a cat, a girl
- Verb: to see, to catch, to walk
- Adjective: tall, huge, tiny

Apart from the meaning, pronunciation and spelling of new words, learners
need to know how these words function in sentence. A word can have many
functions in the sentence. For example, with the word ‘foreigner’, some
learners may make sentence like this: “He is a foreigner teacher”. In that case,

“Compound word is one that has at least two roots, with or without derivation
morphemes” (Bauer, 2002). For instance: post office, car park, greeting card,
etc.

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

9


English has many compound words. Some of these are written as one word.
Other compounds are hyphenated, for example: kind-hearted, house-keeper
and so on. Still other like family car, shoes store, is written as two words.

Bauer (2002) also states that compounds can function in a sentence as separate
lexical units due to their integrity, semantic unity, etc. Compounds are easily
confused with free words. However, basing on the phonological criterion, we
can distinguish between compounds and free word groups. Most compounds
have a heavy stress on the first element, for example: ‘greenhouse’,
‘whitewash’. Free word groups have stresses on both elements and the second
element, for instance: ‘interesting’ film, ‘high’ building, etc.

Thus, when learning compounds words, the students should find clear
examples with accurate stress to understand deeply.

1.3.

The importance of vocabulary

Of many components of one language, vocabulary has been commonly
accepted to be the most important language one. Commenting on the role of

Normally, the students also can get information from reading books. If books
are in Vietnamese certainly there are not any problems. However, these books
are written in English and denoted in English style. If they do not have a good
dictionary, it will take them lots of time to understand. The students have to
understand what they have learned to use vocabulary in each situation
effectively. Frequently reading comprehensions, and thus retention, is faulty
because of a learner’s less than adequate vocabulary. Moreover, it is easy to
have misunderstanding in the process of exchanging information. Only when
having a great number of vocabulary, the students can make a progress in
developing the above four skills. In communication, it is a decisive factor to
make them talk with others actively and understand each other quickly. With a

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

11


poor vocabulary, the free flow of ideas and pen is blocked and dribbled out;
with a good vocabulary, it will be helped to flow and be unimpeded.
2.

Vocabulary study

2.1.

Meaning

According to Ur (2012), the first thing to realize about vocabulary items is that
they frequently have more than one meaning, so when the students learn a new
word, they should decipher its meaning in the context in which it is used.

transcribing of the sounds of the language into alphabetic letter: however,
completely phonetic spellings are often the exception, due to drifts in
pronunciations over time and irregular spellings adopted common usage.
b. Pronunciation
Pronunciation plays an important part in making listeners understand what we
are speaking about. Therefore, it is extremely important in the process of
learning English vocabulary. However, it is not easy to pronounce an English
vocabulary to learn from dictionary, from daily conversations among different
people, from news on internet, radio, television… The students should pay
attention to the stress and intonation. However, if they make too many
mistakes in pronouncing English vocabulary, it may makes listeners confused
and lead to a wrong information transmission.
2.3.

Collocation

“Collocation refers to the way words tend to co-occur with other words or
expressions” (Ur, 2012), for example: commit a crime, meet the demand, etc.
These combinations just sound ‘right’ to native English speakers, who use
them all the time. On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

13


just sound ‘wrong’. In English, some words have the same meaning but they
are different in collocation, for example: to do and to make. Thus, it is very
important to learn this. When using the word to do, to make, the learners may
note that both words mean to perform but they can distinguished by the word

stem). Prefixes rarely form new parts of speech. They are divided into negative
prefixes, prefixes of time and space, prefixes of reversal and repetition, for
example: unhappy, repeat, supermarket. On the other hand, suffixes modify
the lexical meaning of stem and transfer words to different parts of speech.
Suffixes include four groups:

• Noun suffixes: teacher, kindness, partnership, etc.
• Adjective suffixes: cloudy, careful, homeless, etc.
• Verb suffixes: strengthen, shorten, signify, etc.
• Adverb suffixes: carefully, hardly, nicely, etc.
Compound is defined as stems consisting of more than one root. For example:
beside, black market, waste paper basket. According to word class and
syntactic relationship between the roots, we can classify compound into:

• Compound noun: any root + noun. For example : text-book, air chair
• Compound verb: any root + verb. For example : dry-clean, house-keep
• Compound adjective: any root (except verb) + adjective. For example :
south-west, earth-bound
• Compound adverb: adverb + adverb. For example : through-out
Conversion is the formation of a new word in a different part of speech
without adding any element. Conversion is also called “functional change” or
“zero derivation”. For example, lecture – to lecture, hand – to hand.
Conversation most often involves a change from one word class to another.
The major kinds of conversation are noun – verb (bottle – to bottle), verb –

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

15



items expressing a single idea and multi-word idioms whose meaning cannot
be deduced from the analysis of the component words. Furthermore, the author

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

16


also gives students the classification of vocabulary based on several aspects
such as the meaning (notional words, functional words), the function (noun,
verb, adjective, adverb, preposition) and the concept of morphemes (simple
words, derived words, compound words). This part is very helpful for the firstyear students because it will help them build a background of knowledge about
the vocabulary. Besides, the vocabulary’s importance is also represented to aid
students have well awareness of vocabulary studying. What is more, some
issues which need to be studied in vocabulary learning are analyzed as well. In
English vocabulary learning process, students are forced to learn the meaning
of word and the way how to pronounce it in right way as well as the spelling of
word. In addition, students need to study about word collocations in order to
use them in right situations. Partly, its grammar and formation are also
important to students to get better result in vocabulary learning. To sum up, the
first-year students should spend much time reading vocabulary’s theories to
understand deeply about “word” and doing test regularly in order to enrich
their vocabulary which is very useful in the future.

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

17


CHAPTER II: THE STUDY


In order to serve the purpose of the study, the author has designed survey
questionnaires for students. There are 9 questions for 100 first-year students at
FOE, HOU. Questions 1, 2, 3, 4 relate to students’ opinion and their attitude to
English vocabulary learning; question 5 to find out students’ difficulties in

Do Thu Huong – K19A03 – (2012 – 2016)

18