SKKN Some methods for teaching and learning vocabulary to the grade 5 students

THANH HOA DEPARMENT OF EDUCATION & TRAINNING.
THO XUÂN DEPARMENT OF EDUCATION & TRAINNING.
EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE
SOME METHODS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING VOCABULARY TO THE GRADE 5 STUDENTS
 Person in charge : Lê Thị Thương
 Position : Teacher
 Organization : Trường Tiểu học Xuân Bái
 The Field of Experience Initiative : Foreign language.
THANH HOA YEAR 2019
STT
Contents 
Trang
 1
1.Introduction.
3
1.1.Research ratiomale 
3
1.2.Research purpose
3
1.3.Research object
3
1.4.Research method
3
	2.The content of experience initiative
3
 2
2.1.Rationale
3
2.2.Issues reality before applying Experience initiative
4
2.3.Solutions
5
Solution 1 : Choose new words to teach
5
Solution 2 : Factors to clarify when introducing new words 
6
Solution 3 : Rechniques to teach words
7
Solution 4 : Types of exercises should be applied when practicing vocabulary
8
Solution 5 : Apply language games in vocabulary teaching
9
2.4.Effection
12
3.Conclusion and recommendatios
15
 3
3.1.Conclusion
15
3.2. Recommendatios
15
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Research rationale.
We all know that, in the era of informatics and technology, English is widely spoken internationally and has become the second language of many countries. Thanks for English, people all over the world can connect and become more friendly to each other through facebook, zalo. English is the language with various vocabulary so learners and users often meet some difficulties in learning and using fluently English.
Vocabulary is one of the most important elements in learning English. If learners want to be good at English, in any skill: Listening, speaking, reading or writing also they need to have rich vocabulary. In general, however, they are so lazy in learning new words, so they often make mistakes in spelling, writing, pronunciation, use words incorrectly and not followed by the right situation
The problems above occur due to learners do not know how to learn vocabulary in right ways, or maybe they come from the English teaching method when teachers do not paying as much attention to teaching vocabulary as other skills because they think that learners can do it well by them selves, so they skipped it.
How do learners get vocabulary that they need and can use them in the most effective way and make a suitable habit for learning vocabulary ? By the experience in my teaching process and through research materials, I would like to propose some methods of teaching and learning vocabulary for elementary school students of grade 5 ... primary school, Tho Xuan Dist., Thanh Hoa province.
1.2.Reseach purpse.
The objectives of this Research are to find out and summarize some methods of teaching and learning vocabulary for grade 5 students at primary schools ... better.
1.3. Reseach object.
Research object is the methods for vocabulary teaching and learning to grade 5 students at primary school ... in Tho Xuan District.
1.4 Reseach method.
a.Theoretical research method.
b. Practical research method.
c.Appliep research method.
2.THE CONTENT OF EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE
2.1. Rationale.
For English learners, vocabulary is considered the most important means, it is the root of beginning to learn English. In any skill (listening - speaking - reading - writing), they needrich vocabulary.Especially it is important for them to know three factors when using the English words: form, meaning, and usage (use in context).
2.2 Issues reality before applying Experience initiative:
*Teacher Issues:
Almost teachers are enthusiastic for researching and providing suitable teaching methods. However, some teachers do not pay attention to finding new ways to teach vocabulary in every lesson. To make the lesson more interesting, the teachers have to make pictures of illustration to help their students remember the words easily and direct their attention to the topic or the focus of the lesson. Thus teachers can find the talented students who have good skills in learning English. On the contrary, teachers who do not prepare teaching materials enough, their students learn mechanically and passively; they are not interested in the lesson. Class time is still limited, taking time for students to memorize and deepen vocabulary is slow.
 Lack of facilities, visual equipment such as pictures, English teaching rooms....
*Student Issues: 
During school hours, students are excited because they are most interested in learning English. On the other hand, there are some students who have passive attitude when they are learning and not really positive in the class. Others are too shy, afraid to ask teachers for help. Many students think that English vocabulary is hard to remember and takes a lot of time because they have not remembered new words in their heart and they also do not write regularly or learn new lessons and forget the old ones because they have no communicative environment to practice. Not all parents know how to teach English vocabulary for their children at home and many parents do not care about their children's learning.
In my teaching - grade 5 - experiences in school year (2016 – 2017). I often check the student’s vocabulary in the following ways:
* Teacher guides students play some games to memorize vocabulary.
- Network
Ask students to work individually to find words related to the given topic.
For example:
 Months of a year 
January
	April
 March 
 February 
 March
*Matching
For example:
A
B
Surf the
Go to 
Clean the
do
house
karate
Internet
cinemar
 Call a student go to the board and match the words in column A with phrase word in column B to make the meaningful words.
 Jumbler words.
 For example:
I give some words that are disordered letters, then ask students to rearrange them into meaningful words. Then ask some students read their words in front of the class.
dctor = doctor
urnes = nurse 
arrmfe = farmer 
pstmoan = postman
But after these tests, the quality of the result is not high, only approximately.
Survey results before and after applying with 32 students of Grade 5A:
Rank
Beffore applying
Excelent
9 students = 28,1 %
Completed
19 students = 59,4 %
Uncompleted
4 students = 12,5 %
 2.3. Solutions.	
 In an English lesson, most lessons have a section "Vocabulary Introduction". In order to achieve high results, students must know how to pronounce and how to use the words. In that way, teachers need to select skills that are appropriate for each word so that students are easy to understand, remember and use. Through the teaching and researching process, I would like to offer some methods of teaching and learning common English vocabulary that I think students are interested in learning and being able to make high efficiency.
 Solution 1 : Choose new words to teach
Normally, new words appear in a lesson. But not all new words are taught equally. To choose suitable new words to teach, each teacher must consider the following issues:
a. Active and passive vocabulary.
- Active words are words that students understand, recognize and use in written and communication.
- Passive words are words that students only understand and recognize when listening and reading.	
How to teach and introduce these two types of words are different. *Active words are related to all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, need to take many times to introduce and practice more, especially the way how to use. With passive words, can only stop at the recognition level, no need to practice. Therefore teachers need to know and decide which words are active and which words are passive.
Example: 
 - Unit 8 – What are you reading ? B4,5,6,7 (English grade 5) teachers must determine:
- Active vocabulary:
go -> went
sit -> sat
talk -> talked
buy -> bought
 take -> took
-Passive vocabulary: 
sunny, hot, souvenir shop, great
 b. Have students already known thosenew words ?
 In order not to waste time, teacher must always ensure that the words he teaches are words need to teach –the new words for students who do not know.
Solution 2 : Factors to clarify when introducing new words
When introducing vocabulary, it is necessary to specify 3 basic elements of language: form, semantics (meaning), usage (use in context).
When introducing new words if the words are only written and defined as in the dictionary, they do not guarantee students how to use them in communication in English, especially with active words. Students need to know how to pronounce not only single words but also to recognize and use those words in a series of words and especially know the meaning and usage in particular contexts. So the factors that need to be clarified when introducing new words are expressed through:
2.1.	Spelling 
2.2.	Pronunciation 
2.3.	Lexical meaning
2.4.	Grammatical form
2.5.	Use in context
Solution 3 : Techniques to teach words
a. Drawing pictures
Teachers can guide students to draw simple pictures, so that they can remember new words longer. Hereby, students will be very easy to learn and easy to remember the new words they have just learned.
For example: 
 b a bike ; Ž a car ; ¹ a clock ; & a book
 b. Use visual aids (realia)
Teachers can use objects in class or bring to class, pictures, diagrams or draw directly on the board.
Example : apply for – 
Unit 11 –lesson 1 (1, 2, 3) 
 - A sore throat : (action)
 - A stomachache : (situation)
- Ride a bike : ( picture)
Unit 15 - lesson 1( 1, 2, 3)
Pilot : (situation)
 Write : (action)
 Architect : ( picture)
c. Use situation
Teachers can use real-world situations in class or outside the classroom to indicate the meaning of the word. 
Unit 19 : Which place would you like ? lesson 2( 1,2,3)
For example: When recommending the word "teacher", the teacher can point to himself and say: I am a teacher.
d. Give example
After some new words are learned in class, teachers can guide students to practice simple sentences with those words at home. Then students will give them to teachers to check, and from that teachers know what difficulties studentshave in using new words to take prompt guidance. With this method, students can use the new words in the right way and teach them how to use English grammar better.
 For example:
 Unit 18: What will the weather be like tomorrow ? lesson 1 ( 1,2,3)
 -Teacher give following words: 
 Cold, snowy, hot, sunny, warm, stormy, cool, cloudy.
 Unit 18: What will the weather be like tomorrow ? lesson 2 ( 1,2,3) Teacher give following words: 
 Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter 
 - Students can give some examples such as:
 - I like spring.
- It’s very hot in summer.
 - What is the weather like in autumn ?
 - My father doesn’t like winter.
e. Use body language
Teachers can use their body language to introduce new words and ask students to guess the meaning of them. By this way, students can remember new words easily and longer.
For example: When introducing new word hot, teachers can hold a notebook as a fan and fans constantly and say that "I’m very hot, I’m very hot."
f. Translate into mother tongue
For some difficult new words, teachers can translate them into their mother tongue.
For example:
- It takes about : mât khoảng bao nhiêu  
- Place : địa danh
- Fly back : bay về 
- Return : quay trở lại
Solution 4: Types of exercises should be applied when practicing vocabulary
a. Give antonyms 
Teachersor studentscan give a word or group of words and ask the other students to give the antonym to these words.
By this method, students can remind the new words they have learned, and they can remember those new words one more.
For example :
turn right >< turn left 
 short >< long 
 hot >< cold 
b. Give synonyms 
Teacher can ask students to remind the new words they have learned by giving synonyms to those words.
For example:
to play football = to play soccer 
to learn = to study 
a bike = a bicycle
c. Learn by logic starting from the last letter of the previous word
This method helps students remember the new words they have learned before. It will help students systemize the vocabulary they have learned, and students can remember more new words.
For example:
nice - eye - egg - girl - learn - notebook - key - yellow 
d. Learning by topic (Theme)
This method not only can help students systemize the new words they have learned, but consolidate and remember them better.
For example
Food
Drink
pork
orange juice
fish
water 
vegetable
milk 
meat
soda 
rice
lemon juice 
e. Give infinitive words
Teacher or students give aninfinitive word then teacher asks students to develop the word into new meaningful words. This method can help students develop thinking skills and develop infinitive words. After that, students will get a more basic vocabulary.
For example:
Teach - Teacher 
Drive - Driver
Work - Worker 
f. Practice new words as daily routines
Teachers should guide students to take a little bit of time about 20-30 minutes to learn new words every day rather than spend more time studying all day but not effective. By this way, students can review some certain words many times, thereby will help them remember longer.
i. Write new words (each student must have a notebook to write new words)
 	With the above learning methods, it is only applicable for students with a sense of self-study, and for some students who are nothard working at home, teachers will be difficult to control. So this method requires students to write new words of each lesson from 5-10 lines and memorize them, then give notebooks to teachers to check and score. By this way, teachers can control students 'learning at home throughfixing new word errors, although it takes teachers lot of time, but the results are very positive.
Solution 5 : Apply language games in vocabulary teaching
Applying a number of language games by integrating into the lessons not only creates a comfortable, exciting, engaging to students, but also makes the lesson more lively and effective, and get a natural relationship in communication between teachers and students.
In the lessons, I regularly apply the following games to introduce vocabulary and check their vocabulary learning.
a. Bingo.
For example: 
Apply for – Unit 11: What’s the weather with you? Lesson 1 ( 1,2,3)
-Teacher write some single or phrase words on the board related to health:
- a headache
- sore throat
- a cough
- a toothache
- fever
- matter.
- Students write 4 words on their notebooks
- Teacher read the words on the board in different orders.
- Students listen to the teacher reading and tick the words they hear from the teacher.
- If any student tick 4 words completely, saying “Bingo”
- Teacher will ask her or him to read 4 those words.
b. Guessing from context
For example:
- Ask students to observe the picture and listen to the teacher reading.
- Read the sentences under each picture: “My name’s Mai. I’m from Vietnam ; My name’s Alan. I’m from Singapore; My name’s Linda. I’m from England ; My name’s Peter. I’m from the America ”
-Ask students to guess the meaning of the word “from” in each sentence and translate it into Vietnamese to see if the meaning of the word is logical with the sentences.
c. Jumbler words.
For example: 
Apply for – Unit 10: What will the weather be like? Lesson 2 : 1,2,3 page 54
- Teacher writes 4 disordered words about the seasonson the board
1.	singpr	 = Spring ; 2.	umsrem 	= summer
3.	nmtauu 	= autumn; 4.	terniw 	= winter
- Ask students rearrange the order of those words
- Ask 2 – 3 of them to give their answers
d. Networks
For example:
 Apply for – Unit 13: What do you do in your free time? Lesson 2: 1,2,3 Page 2
	Go skating 
Activities
 Go swimming go camping go fishing
- Ask students to work individually to find information about the given topic and compare the results with his/her pair.
- Ask 2- 3 students to give answers before class.
e. Rub out and remember
This method is often used after teaching new words to check if students remember the words. This method can apply for all lessons.
Example: 
Apply for - Unit 18: What will be the weather be like tomorrow ? Lesson 2: 1,2,3 - page 54
- After introducing the new words of the seasons (Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn) and the weather (hot, cold, warm, cool), teachers erase the words taught in a disordered way.
- Teachers point to Vietnamese words and ask students to read the words in English, and repeat this action until erase all the words on the board. The result is students have memorized the new words.
f. "Simon says"
Example:
 Apply - Unit 4: Did you go to the party? Lesson 2: 1, 2, 3 - page 20
- Teachers read some action verbs (had nice food and drink, play hide – and- seek, chatted with friends, watched cartoons). Students follow the teacher's orders if teachers start with the phrase: "Simon says"
- For example, if the teacher says: "Simon says: sing a song" students will have to sing. But if teachers just say "sing a song" students will do not have to follow that order.
- Teachers can organize games in group. If the group has the least students make mistakes, they will be the winner.
i. Slaps the board
For example	: 
Apply for – Unit 15: What would you like to be in the future? 
Lesson 1: 1,2,3 – page 30
-Write the words of occupation on the board: 
 Pilot.
 Doctor. 
 architect. 
 Writer.
-Ask 2 groups of student go on the board (about 4 students for each group) 
-Ask them stand far from to the board in the same distance. 
-Teachers read out loud those words.
-When teachers read out loud a word, each pair of students in the 2 groups run up to the board and put on that word.
-The first student who puts his/her hand on the word, he/she will get 1 point.
-Which group scores more points, they will be the winner.
j. What and where
- This method is often used after teaching new words to check students to remember the word or not. It can apply for all lessons.
For example: 
Apply to - Unit 7: What are you reading? Lesson 2: (1,2,3): page 54)
- After introducing some words (hard-working, kind, clever, gentle???)
- Draw circles on the board.
- Ask students to read the words in the circle once again.
- Teachers erase the words in the circle one by one.Before erasing, the students have to read the words again. After erasing, teachers point to the empty circle and ask students to read again.
- Teachers repeat this activity until students remember all the new words.
- Finally, teachers ask students write these words in the correct circles.
The language game using methods above are very easy to apply and interesting for students.
The lessons that I applied these methods are just some of the illustrations, which can be applied to many other lessons not only in 5 but in all grades.
2.4. Effection.
Before applying these methods, the results and effectiveness of learning English vocabulary of students are still limited, even there have many students do not remember much new words, or remember incorrectly, unclearly, even write very slowly and too badly. Through teaching and guiding students to learn and practice vocabulary according to the above methods for elementary school students in Grade 5  combining with teaching directly in the classroom, and guiding students in other classes, the results are quite satisfactory.
Survey results before and after applying with 32 students of Grade 5A:
Rank
Bffore applying
After applying
Excelent
9 students = 28,1 %
17 students = 53,1 %
Completed
19 students = 59,4 %
15 students = 46,9 %
Uncompleted
4 students = 12,5 %
0 students = 0 %
UNIT 2: I ALWAYS GET UP EARLY. HOW ABOUT YOU ?
Lesson 1: Part 1-2-3
I. Objectives:
Knowledge: 
- By the end of the lesson Ps will be able to :
	Ask and answer questions about someone’s daily routine, using What do you do ...? 
	I always/usually/often/sometimes...	
	Pronounce two-syllable words w