A STUDY ON TECHNIQUES FOR LEARNING AND IMPROVING ENGLISH LEXICAL RESOURCES FOR THIRD YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT HAI PHONG PRIVATE UNIVERSITY. Tên để tài: A study of techniques for learning and improving English lexical resource for third-year English majors at Hai Phong Private Universiry. This thesis studies techniques for learning and improving English lexical resource for third-year English majors at Hai Phong Private University.
OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
- Rational of the study
- Aims of the study
- Research participants
- Research questions
- Scope of the study
- Research methodology
- Organization of the study
Despite the obvious importance of vocabulary, there certainly still remain some difficulties in learning English vocabulary, especially at Hai Phong Private University (HPU). There is a fact that the third-year English major at HPU has a limited number of economic English vocabulary. . Second, the study examines the actual situations and problems students face when learning English vocabulary. What are the difficulties in learning English vocabulary among the third-year English majors at HPU?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Vocabulary (Lexical resource)
- The definition of vocabulary
- The importance of vocabulary (lexical resource)
According to Hatch and Brown (1995) challenged that vocabulary as a list of target language words for a particular language or a list of words that can be the individual speaker. It can be said that vocabulary is a word or a list with meaning and known by speakers and used to communicate between those speakers and used by a group or individual. In conclusion, what the above definitions of vocabulary have in common is the fact that vocabulary knowledge requires not only knowledge of the meanings of words, but requires the use of words in the appropriate context and in a natural way and also involves the relationships between new words . earned and already earned.
Nevertheless, Nation (2001) also stated that readers need to know at least 97% of the vocabulary in a text to understand it adequately. Without knowing the key vocabulary in the text, the learner may have serious problems understanding the message. Only when we have a large vocabulary can we make progress in developing the four basic English skills.
So that vocabulary knowledge is often considered a critical tool for second language teachers because a limited vocabulary in a second language hinders successful communication. Therefore, vocabulary is very important to convey the idea, express desire and feelings and to communicate with others. Vocabulary is one of the components which supports the speakers in the communication when people want to communicate with other people using a language.
This means that vocabulary is an essential component in determining how successfully a student is able to communicate.
Difficulties in learning vocabulary
- Difficulties in learning English lexical resource among the third-year
- Factors affecting student’s difficulties in learning English vocabulary
First, students faced difficulties in pronouncing the words due to the differences between spoken and written English. The incorrect pronunciation is often caused by the lack of a good similarity between English and the learner's native language. This is similar to what Varasarin (2007) described that the students in this situation would like to speak English fluently, but most of them think that it is too challenging for them to master English.
Second, the students experienced difficulties in choosing the appropriate meaning of the words, for example, sometimes they often overlap the meaning of the words, such as the use of do and does. In this case, the students are looking for the word in his mind and do not know the exact collocation. The example is affixation; affixation is one of the ways in which new words are formed from old ones including prefix and suffix.
It is difficult for the students to know the meaning of the words because by adding prefix and suffix in a word, the change in word class can be caused. The students faced the difficulty when they wanted to use the words 84 based on the context. The latter, the students are also still confused when they find words or expressions that are idiomatic.
According to the answers obtained from the questionnaire, if the participants or students could not distinguish the meaning of the words in the whole expression, he/she was not able to tell the meaning of all the expressions.
Techniques to acquire lexical resource
A basic principle of the method is that words should not be learned one by one, but in blocks of 5-7 words. You can also use relevant images on the other side of the card to help you learn the vocabulary, or a verb on one side and its conjugation on the other. Despite the fact that flashcards can easily be entered into our computers today, it is very beneficial to create your own cards.
With creativity and thought on the part of the student, flash cards can really be used to provide greater context. We will place a tick in the matrix when a vocabulary word matches a particular topic feature. The definition was made by Plessinger” resembles perceptual experience, but occurs in the absence of appropriate stimuli for the relevant perception.
In addition, the picture-word combination engages many parts of the brain and thus provides greater cognitive power. A mind map is a graphic tool that contains a central keyword or image and secondary ideas that arise from the central idea as branches (Casco, 2009) using mind maps “the key idea crystallizes the object of attention, while the branches represent the connections made with the central idea , which form a connected nodal structure” (Casco, 2009). Thanks to the use of graphics, colors and images, it draws the attention of students to the topic.
Even encountering a word during reading many times, as in "close reading" (Krashen, 1981), may not be enough to allow the word to be used in subsequent production.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Participants and the samples
Instruments
- The survey questionnaire
- Interview
After completing the questionnaire survey, related interviews are conducted with randomly selected third-year English major students. The interview consists of questions related to the student's answer to the questionnaire, such as "Have you ever made a vocabulary learning plan (lexical resource)?", "What techniques do you use when learning vocabulary (lexical resource)?" This section explains all the processes involved in obtaining information to find solutions to sentence problems.
The results of questionnaire and data analysis
- The reasons to learn English lexical resource
- Difficulties in learning English vocabulary of third -year English
- Students’ real situations of learning English vocabulary at HPU
- Suggested techniques to improve English vocabulary
The different grammatical form of the word, known as inflections, was one of the causes of the student's difficulty in learning lexical resources. The graph surprisingly shows that the majority of students (67%) always have to face difficulties in learning English vocabulary. In fact, as can be seen from the observation, the students who confirm that the lexical resource is easy to learn are the best students and students in cities have the conditions to learn English in English centers or international schools.
Finally, students should often try to use more different materials to learn English lexical resource, such as listening to English music or watching movies on Star Movies or HBO channel or any movie channels on the Internet, day by day; participation in conversations with classmates, teachers, natives or foreigners; apart from just reading textbooks or lectures... It is useful for them to browse the internet about marriages related to their hobbies like cooking, handcrafting. This part shows the problems and difficulties students face in learning English lexical resource. It can be concluded that the factors affecting the interest in learning English lexical refer to the methods, rules, rules, approaches, steps and actions used by students to improve the effectiveness of learning English lexical resource to improve.
It is evident from the table that most of the respondents (53%) completely agree with the meaning of English dictionary resource. In addition, the number of students agree that English lexical resource is important (35.5%) and (11.5%) think that learning English lexis is very important. Can other reasons still make students feel that English vocabulary is important for them.
This matter is clarified by the following table which shows the reasons why English is lexically important. This section aims to search current techniques to learn English vocabulary as lexical resource for third-year English major students at Hai Phong Private University. Reading online and reading original vocabulary is often used by them to practice English lexical resource.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
- Summary of the study
- Limitations of the study
- Suggestions for the further study
- Recommendations
In addition, the study only focuses on the problems for third-year English department students only to help them improve their learning skill of English lexical resources. Vocabulary is so important to language and naturally learning vocabulary becomes an essential and important part of language learning. Therefore, it is first necessary for college English teachers to develop students' awareness of the use of vocabulary learning techniques, encourage them to plan vocabulary learning, and help them develop techniques for evaluating and checking their learning outcomes, thereby encouraging students to become independent English learners.
On the other hand, just as Oxford (1990) argued that students should be taught how to continue to improve their vocabulary on their own through reaching. Students learn the techniques for learning vocabulary. Here, English teachers are advised to use common and effective teaching techniques to help students learn vocabulary. For these reasons, it is of top priority to become familiar with vocabulary learning techniques and make them useful for actual vocabulary learning activities both inside and outside the classroom. Overall, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating some common problems faced by third-year English major students at Hai Phong Private University in learning English vocabulary, and to highlight the importance of vocabulary and lexical learning techniques emphasize resources. learning foreign languages.
Ngoài ra, Ruddell (1986) cho rằng động lực và mong muốn học từ mới là yếu tố góp phần vào việc học từ vựng hiệu quả. Chiến lược học từ vựng được học sinh THPT chuyên Hùng Vương sử dụng Chiến lược học từ vựng được học sinh tiếng Anh tại Đại học Qui Nhon áp dụng Chiến lược học từ vựng được học sinh tiếng Anh tại Đại học Qui Nhon Giáo viên tiếng Anh tại Đại học Quy Nhon sử dụng.
This questionnaire was designed for my graduation paper, namely: "Studies on techniques to learn and improve English lexical resource for the third year English major students at Hai Phong Private University".
