Some methods for teaching vocabulary in pre-Reading helping class 11c2 at nhu xuan ii high school be motivated in the reading lessons

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL
THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE 
THE THESIS:
SOME METHODS FOR TEACHING VOCABULARY IN PRE-READING HELPING CLASS 11C2 AT NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL BE MOTIVATED IN THE READING LESSONS.
Author: Pham Thi Lien
Occupation: Teacher
Field ( Subject): English
THANH HOA, 2019
THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL
THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE 
THE THESIS:
SOME METHODS FOR TEACHING VOCABULARY IN PRE-READING HELPING CLASS 11C2 AT NHU XUAN II HIGH SCHOOL BE MOTIVATED IN THE READING LESSONS.
Author: Pham Thi Lien
Occupation: Teacher
Field ( Subject): English
THANH HOA, 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1
I.1. Reasons for choosing the thesis
1
I.2. Objectives
2
I.3. Participants
2
I.4. Methods of the study
2
PART II: CONTENTS OF THE THESIS
3
II.1. Rationale which affects to the thesis
3
II.1.1. Students' language level
3
II.1.2. Teacher's teaching method
3
II.1.3. Time limitations
3
II.1.4. Material limitations
3
II.1.5. The reading program for the grade 11th at Nhu Xuan II high school
4
II.2. Reality before implementing the thesis
5
II.3. Some methods for teaching vocabulary in pre-reading effectively helping students be motivated in the reading lessons
5
II.3.1. Preparation
5
II.3.2. Choose words to teach
6
II.3.3. Teaching vocabulary combined with pronunciation
6
II.3.4. Choose the best way to teach and show the meaning of new words
7
II.3.4.1. Using real objects 
7
II.3.4.2. Using situations
7
II.3.4.3. Using pictures
7
II.3.4.4. Using spoken laguage
8
II.3.4.5. Using body laguage
8
II.3.4.6. Using prefixes, suffixes, root words
9
II.3.4.7. Translating
9
II.3.5. Create appropriate activities to check vocabulary
9
II.3.5.1. Gap-filling
9
II.3.5.2. Matching
9
II.3.5.3. Multiple - choice question
10
II.3.5.4. Rub out and remember
10
II.3.5.5. Slap the board
10
II.3.5.6. What and where
10
II.3.5.7. Jumbled words
11
II.3.5.8. Noughts and Crosses
11
II.3.5.9. Bingo! 
11
II.4. Results after applying the research with the teaching activities, my colleagues and my school
12
PART III: CONCLUSION, SUGGESTIONS.
19
III.1. Conclusion
19
III.2. Suggestions
19
PART I: INTRODUCTION
I.1. Reasons for choosing the thesis.
	As you know, English is an international language which is used by a lot of countries all over the world. It also becomes main language in communicating among different people in different countries in the world. 
	With the trend of integrating, Vietnam has been promoting their abilities in all aspects. Therefore, in education, Vietnam really pays attention to teaching and learning English all schools in Vietnamese educational system. English is also becomes a chore subject in national educational system. From those, we see the importance of teaching and learning English in the development and integration of our country.
	English is a device for communicating and integrating with many countries in our region and in the world, a device for approaching modern technology and science and exchanging economics, politics and culture between our country and others in the region and in the world.
	In Vietnam, nowadays students begin to learn English at primary school. In high school, they continue the learning program from primary school to secondary school. They learn English with four skills such as writing, listening, speaking and reading along with language focus to continue improving their skills and knowledge. Furthermore, they also prepare the best knowledge for their most important examination of graduating or use the knowledge for higher education.
	As an English teacher I know the importance of English with my students, so I always try to find out the best methods in teaching English for them. In our school system, English is both different and characteristic subject. It makes students curious and passionate. However, it also creates a lot of difficulties and misunderstandings. As a result, students sometimes feel discouraged. In this situation, teacher has a very important role to transfer the passion and the enjoyment to their students.
	When teaching English at high school, specially teaching the 11th grade at Nhu Xuan II high school, I see that most of my student like learning English. They also try their best to learn it in all skills and language focus but they seem indifferent to reading skill. However, nowadays reading skill is step by step becoming an important part in their study. As you know, this skill has been becoming a very important part in the examination for English students for many years. Reading skill also plays a key role of enriching English vocabulary for learners. But students often have difficulty in understanding a common reading because of some new vocabularies. When teaching my students, I see that they often stop to look up a dictionary when encountering new words. This takes a lot of time to complete a reading. Reading texts often contain many new words. They often find there are too many new words in reading texts because they forget or miss a word of those so they often feel confused before a comprehension exercise. That’s why the teacher’s guide is very necessary. Meanwhile, the current teaching method is to make students find their own way of learning, teacher is only a guide to show them how to read rather than prepare all for them.From these elements, I see that I have to update and change my method in teaching reading skill so that I can make students really like this skill more than ever before. So as to help students improve their reading skill, teaching vocabulary effectively is very important for them to overcome difficulties in vocabulary.
	With my own thought and my own experience in teaching English at Nhu Xuan II high school for many years, I strongly try to give my own bright experience: Some methods for teaching vocabulary effectively helping the 11th grade students improve their reading skill.
	With the thesis I hope that I will contribute my little experience to help my students like and improve their reading skill in the next courses.
I.2. Objectives.
	When teaching reading skill to the students in the grade 11C2 at Nhu Xuan II high school. I found out that vocabulary stage is very important in teaching reading skill and it also effects students' reading result, so I decided to carry out this thesis. Firstly, I want to find out some other methods in teaching vocabulary effectively. From changing this stage helps students improve their reading performance result in reading skill. Secondly, I want to create my own experiences which are useful and necessary for my teaching. The experiences will be used in the next courses and bring out the good results in my job. Furthermore, I also want to contribute my own experiences in teaching English at Nhu Xuan II high school. Hopefully that the results of this study would be shared with any colleagues who had the same problem or anyone who is interested in this study. Last but not least, Based on the results of this action research, some changes and new methods could be applied in some lessons I hope that my students will love reading skill more than ever before and work effectively in the reading lessons.
I.3. Participants.
The subjects chosen for the research include 38 students in the class 11C2 at Nhu Xuan II High School with the survey questionnaires. The research was carried out during the first term of the academic year 2017 – 2018 at Nhu Xuan II High School.
I.4. Methods of the study.
	The study bases on teacher's main activities: teaching time in the class
	The data is collected by sets of questionnaires. some were set before using the methods and others were set after using the methods.
	Other sources of data come from reading tasks from the textbooks. The analysis of the data hopefully will bring about reliable findings useful for the teaching of reading to students at Nhu Xuan II High School.
PART II: CONTENTS OF THE THESIS
II.1. Rationale which affects to the thesis.
	From my teaching I know clearly that students' result in receiving vocabulary in pre-reading can be affected by some major factors which originate from students, teachers, and other external factors.
II.1.1. Students' language level.
	It can be easily seen that Nhu Xuan high school is situated at the countryside in Bai Tranh commune, Nhu Xuan district. Most of the people here have medium living condition, so most students learn English with very simple ways. They only learn English from their teacher at school. These students have medium level, few also have low level. Others, but not large a mount of students with good living condition from their parents, find out some extra ways for learning English such as learning outside the school, using cassette, computer and cell phone to learn online. This group of the students has good knowledge. It means that students' language level is different. Therefore, teacher may have some difficulties in choosing a suitable teaching method, language and activity which are used in a class.
II.1.2. Teacher's teaching method.
	In pre-reading stage, teacher's teaching method focus on the ways which teacher designs appropriate activities to motivate students to have comprehension reading effectively. So the more easy and memorable way a teacher can apply vocabulary to his students, the more interested students feel. When students feel comfortable and interesting, they can do the reading tasks well.
II.1.3.Time limitations.
	Normally, in pre-reading stage it takes from 10 to 13 minutes to conduct the activities. However, in some large classes with a number of students whose English knowledge is limited, it often takes more time to conduct these activities
II.1.4. Material limitations.
	In teaching lesson, facilities for displaying pictures and chart also play an important part to help have a successful lesson. As we know English is a subject using and updating a lot of pictures about many aspects in daily life. The use of visual display to show these pictures in teaching and learning is an effective way, that makes students exciting and wants to discover the subject more. However, most schools of Vietnam don't have the best condition for students to learn foreign language. Most classroom don't have computer screen or visual display unit. Those surely affect students' learning result. 
II.1.5. The reading program for the grade 11th at Nhu Xuan II high school. 
	Basing on the new textbooks designed by the Ministry of Education and Training. English is taught with four skills and language focus which focuses on grammar and pronunciation. The reading program at Nhu Xuan II high school is the same as this book with the aim of improving students' abilities in reading. On English 11 textbook, we have 16 units with 16 topics for student's reading. Different topics from 16 units provide students with a large number of new words which they need eliciting in pre-reading stage to prepare for the next stages: while-reading and post-reading.
 From the factors mentioned above, the question: “How to teach vocabulary in pre-reading stage effectively?” is important and neccesary to every teacher. From my old methods in teaching vocabulary with bad results, I tried to find out some new methods for teaching vocabulary to help my students improve their comprehension reading in particular and their reading skill in general after studying some references materials such as: “Top ten” principles for teaching reading. Ray Williams; Nuttall, C. 1982. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign language. London: Heinemann; Allen V. Techniques in Teaching Vocabulary. Oxford University Press, 1983.
II.2. Reality before implementing the thesis.
	I began teaching class 11C2 with 38 students when they were at grade 10. At that time I taught reading skill based on the design of the textbook with three stages pre, while and post stage sometimes four stages consisting warm-up. I didn't change anything in the textbook. In pre-reading stage, after getting students to have a through look on the reading text, I started to teach my students some new words in the reading text by writing them on the board and explain their meanings in a simple and quick way: translating.Next I helped my students to pronounce the words and I continued the lesson with the tasks already designed in the textbook. From my teaching, I saw my students reading bad. They didn't like this skill because when they read the text and did the tasks required, they appalled with the number of new words they met in the text. Whenever they met a new word that they didn’t know, they stopped to look it up in the dictionary. This took them much time and as a result, they didn’t have enough time to complete the tasks in while – reading and post – reading. This also made them feel bored and afraid of reading skill.
I thought of this much and I also asked my colleagues for how they taught this skill. They gave me the same steps as I did. I decided to implement a survey asking my students some questions in order to know exactly the cause of this problem and to find out the solution as well as the better methods in teaching reading.In my survey, 38 students in class 11C2 were asked to give their answer to the questions from the teacher then handed in their papers to the teacher. After the survey, teacher statisticed students' answers to find out the cause. There were the results of the survey.
Question 1: "What make(s) you not satisfied with and interested in a reading lesson?"
a. It takes me time to look up new words which I don’t know.
	b. I don't do the tasks well.
	c. I don't feel being motivated enough.
	d. You choose all.
Choice
a
b
c
d
Nnumber
0
0
0
38
Percent(%)
0%
0%
0%
100%
As can be seen from the table,most students thought they were lack of many things in the reading lesson . From the information collected, I was aware of the importance and the influence of pre - reading stage in students’ reading.
Question 2: "What factors do you want your teacher change in a reading lesson?"
	a. Teacher should create pre-reading stage effectively and attractively.
	b. Teacher should speak louder.
	c. Teacher should create the tasks in while-reading and post-reading more easier.
	d. Teacher should change his/her mood and teacher's lifestyle.
Choice
a
b
c
d
Number
28
2
5
3
Percent(%)
73,68 %
5,26 %
13,16 %
7,9 %
	The results in the table shows that most of the students thought that teacher should change pre-reading stage by creating it effectively and attractively with the highest rate accounted to 73,68%. The number of students who thought that teacher should speak louder and teacher should change his/her mood and teacher's lifestyle accounted low rate with 5,26 % and 7,9 %. Others accounted a small rate with 13,16%.
	From these causes and students' ideas. I think I should change my method in teaching reading skill, specially in teaching pre-reading stage.
II.3. Some methods for teaching vocabulary in pre-reading effectively to help students be motivated in the reading lessons.
With the results from the convey I conducted with my students, I see that teaching vocabulary effectively in pre-reading plays a very important role in helping students have a successful reading lesson. And I tried my best to find out some methods which I really think that will be useful to teachers. When applying the research, teachers should remember some notes as follows to get the best results.
II.3.1. Preparation.
Before starting a new lesson, the teacher must have good preparation. He/she should prepare a list of new words appearing in the reading that are neccesary to teach students in order for them to do well in the reading. And he/ she should make the teaching learning vocabulary process clear and easy for students to remember. With good performmance of teaching vocabulary, students will be motivated for the tasks in the next part: while-reading and post-readingthat leads to a good and successful lesson for both students and the teacher. However, teaching vocabulary is not just conveying the meaning to the students and asking them to learn those words by heart. If the teachers believe that the words are worth explaining and learning , then it is important that they should do this efficiently. Teachers should use different techniques and activities in teaching English vocabulary to motivate their students, enrich their vocabulary and enable them to speak English properly as well as do the comprehension reading well.
II.3.2. Choose words to teach.
Normally, a reading textalways appears some new words, but it is not neccesary to teach all of them and teach them in the same ways. The teacher should choose words which need teaching. Choosing words to teach, the teacher has to consider whether they are active or passive words.
- Active words are words which students know and use in communicating or writing.
	- Passive words are words which students only know and understand when they read a text.
The ways to teach two forms of words are not the same. Active words relate to 4 basic skills: Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing. The teacher, therefore, needs to spend more time presenting and practising, specially the ways to use words. To passive ones, however, students can only know and students don’t need to spend much time using them. So the teacher should choose and decide which words are taught as active or passive ones. To save much time, the teacher always endures what he/she will teaches – words students haven’t known. 
To avoid teaching words which are unnecessary, the teacher should check students’understanding by asking some questions or asking students to give examples with the new words. And the teacher can ignore if the words are difficult and strange and they are not related to the passage. Teachers also should encourage students to guess the meaning of new words if the words are important and easy in the passage.Teacher should mark the words he/she can ask students to guess. However, the teacher has to show students ways to guess the meaning of new words by reading words near new words carefully and check affixes. This not only helps students to know more about the new words and their part of speech such as nouns, verb, adjectives, adverbsby themselves but also encorages them to have good habit in reading in stead of stopping reading to look up the dictionary.
II.3.3. Teaching vocabulary combined with pronunciation.
When students can pronounce new words well, they will write the words correctly as well as help them in speaking and listening skills. So, a part from having a good teaching method to intruduce new words to students, the teacher also need to teach students the best ways to read the words exactly.
II.3.4. Choose the best way to teach and show the meaning of new words.
There are some basic ways to introduce and explain the meaning of new words. But the teacher should not teach allnew words in the same way. There will be a suitable way for teaching each word in the lesson if the teacher tries his/her best to think of it and have good preparation for it. By using right and useful techniques in teaching vocabulary, it can help create both a successful and effective pre-reading and the whole lesson. Follows are some popular techniques that teachers can use to teach vocabulary effectively in pre-reading of a reading lesson:
II.3.4. 1. Using real objects.
It is a great way to use real objects to teach new words, which help students understand and interest in learning vocabulary.By this way, students can remember vocabulary for a long time and feel more attracted to study it.With words used by this way to introduce, teacher has to prepare before that.
Eg1:	In Unit 2: Personal experiences – Part A: Reading
	When teaching new words appear