The use of plashcards in teaching vocabulary for young learner at doan hung informatics and foreign language school a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in TESOL

THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY
...............................................

VO KIM TRAN

THE USE OF FLASHCARDS IN TEACHING VOCABULARY FOR YOUNG
LEARNERS AT DOAN HUNG INFORMATICS & FOREIGN LANGUAGE SCHOOL

Major: TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES
Major code: TESOL 739

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL
Supervisor: Dr. NGUYEN DINH THU

Ho Chi Minh City, 2016


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify that this thesis entitled “The Use of Flashcards in Teaching Vocabulary for Young
Learners at Doan Hung Informatics & Foreign Language School” is my own work.

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material
published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified
for or been awarded another degree or diploma.
No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the
thesis.

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other
tertiary situation.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2016

Vo Kim Tran

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my deep thanks to the contribution of those who supported and
encouraged me during the time I wrote this thesis. I cannot finish this research without their
help.
First and foremost, I would like to send my great gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Nguyen Dinh Thu, Dean of Foreign Language Department of HCMC University of
Technology and Education, for all of his support during the time I have done this thesis. His
enthusiastic instruction and useful advice helped me acquire much more knowledge to
accomplish the thesis. His sincere encouragement also motivated me to overcome difficulties
and finish this paper.
I am also extremely thankful to Mr. Ha Dang Van, the manager of Doan Hung
Informatics Foreign Language School who created the best condition for me to conduct the
sample teaching as well as to collect the data. His encouragement also raised me up during
the thesis writing process.
I also thank all of the teacher participants for their open-hearted sharings and the
student participants for their enthusiastic participation in all of the activities.
Last but not least, I would like to send my gratitude to my family who gave me
spiritual encouragement to finish this thesis.

Vo Kim Tran

ii

ABSTRACT
Young children mainly learn vocabulary in their English learning. Therefore, teachers
often invest lots of time to find out useful teaching techniques and teaching aids which can
help them be successful in teaching young learners vocabulary. This study aims to investigate
the effectiveness of using flashcards to teach young learners vocabulary. This paper examines
whether flashcards can give young children motivation in learning new words and whether
they can enhance their vocabulary retention. The research also investigates the teachers’
perception of using flashcards to teach young learners vocabulary. 34 young learners who are
learning English at Doan Hung Informatics & Foreign Language School participated in this
study during 3 weeks. Both qualitative data, including classroom video recordings, teaching
journals, and teachers interviewing, and quantitative data, including pre-test and post-test
scores were analysed to answer the two research questions. The findings of this research
showed that most of the participants in the experimental group were highly motivated to learn
the new words. Besides, the participants in this group also improved their vocabulary
retention. Finally, the teacher interviewees expressed their positive attitudes towards using
flashcards to teach young learners vocabulary. Some suggestions for further research in using
flashcards for teaching young learners vocabulary are also suggested.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS

pages
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .......................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATION ................................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1
1.1. Background of the research ........................................................................................... 1
1.2. Statement of the problem .............................................................................................. 4
1.3. Aims of the research...................................................................................................... 7
1.4. Research questions ....................................................................................................... 7
1.5. The significance of the research .................................................................................... 7
1.6. Limitations of the research ............................................................................................ 8
1.7. Overview of the research ............................................................................................. 9
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 10
2.1. Young learners .............................................................................................................. 10
2.2. Vocabulary in English teaching and learning .............................................................. 12
2.3. Young learners’ learning characteristics ..................................................................... 15
2.3.1. Intellectual ........................................................................................................... 16
2.3.2. Vocabulary retention ............................................................................................ 16
2.3.3. Span of attention .................................................................................................... 17
2.3.4. Sensory input ........................................................................................................ 18
2.3.5. Motivation ............................................................................................................ 19
2.4. Flashcards .................................................................................................................... 21
2.4.1. Flashcards in language teaching and learning ..................................................... 21
2.4.2. Roles of teachers in using flashcards in classrooms ............................................. 25

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2.5. Study on flashcards ....................................................................................................... 25
CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 27
3.1. Pedagogical context ..................................................................................................... 27
3.1.1. Settings ................................................................................................................. 27
3.1.2. Participants ........................................................................................................... 28

3.2. Instruments ................................................................................................................... 28
3.3. Procedures .................................................................................................................... 29
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND RESULTS ........................................................................... 38
4.1. Response to research question 1 .................................................................................. 38
4.2. Response to research question 2 ................................................................................... 44
4.3. Response to research question 3 ................................................................................... 49
4.3.1. The first interviewee’s response ........................................................................... 49
4.3.2. The second interviewee’s response ...................................................................... 51
4.3.3. The third interviewee’s response .......................................................................... 52
CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION THE FINDINGS ..................................................................... 54
5.1. Flashcards gave the young learners motivation ............................................................ 54
5.2. Flashcards enhance the young learners’ vocabulary retention ..................................... 55
5.3. The interviewed teachers’ agreement with using flashcards to teach young learners
vocabulary. ............................................................................................................................... 56
CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .......... 58
6.1.

Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 59

6.2.

Pedagogical implications .......................................................................................... 60

6.3.

Recommendations .................................................................................................... 61

REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 63
APPENDICES........................................................................................................................... 69

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Independent Samples Test of the pre-test scores of the control group and the
experimental group.
Table 2. Independent Samples Test of the post-test scores of the control group and the
experimental group.
Table 3. Paired Samples Test of the pre-test and post-test scores of the control group.
Table 4. Paired Samples Test of the pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATION

DH:

Doan Hung Informatics Foreign Language School

EFL :

English Foreign Language

FC:

Flashcard

VR:

Vocabulary retention

CG:

Control group

EG:

Experimental group

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter mentions the general background of the research. It also
talks about the importance of vocabulary in language teaching and learning. In
addition, the chapter also raises the problem in teaching vocabulary to young
learners at Doan Hung Informatics & Foreign Language school. Then it gives
some issues such as aims of the research, the research questions, the significance
of the research.
1.1.

Background of the research

It is the fact that vocabulary itself shows its important position in English
language teaching and learning. Shen (2003) said that “vocabulary has got its
central and essential status in discussion about learning a language”. There are
many highlighted studies on teaching vocabulary. Nation (2001) pointed out the
goals of vocabulary in language learning, the use of vocabulary in specific
learning skills as well as the strategies for teaching and learning vocabulary.

Thornbury (2002) introduced the forms of words, how words are learnt and
words of classroom and test sources. Brand (2004) also integrated word learning
in his literacy workshop in grades 3-6. Lauffer (1997) argued that vocabulary
learning is at the heart of any language learning and language use (as cited in
Carter & Nunan, 2001). Harmer (1991) also confirmed: “ If language structures
make up the skeletons of the language, then it is vocabulary that provides the
vital organs and the flesh”. In other words, vocabulary plays a vital role on
mastering other language learning patterns. Richard & Renandya (2002) called
vocabulary a key to language proficiency. Indeed, vocabulary supports learners
to develop their four skills: speaking, listening, writing and reading. For
instance, without vocabulary, learners do not understand the meanings of words,

1


so they cannot make up good communication, which seems to be the main target
of language learning. Vocabulary also helps learners themselves find confident
to deal with comprehension reading texts as well.
Research declared that vocabulary knowledge is essential for English
(L2) development of all ages of learners. Whether learners are adults or young
children, they need to broaden their own vocabulary. Especially, young children
who are at the beginning level of learning English, vocabulary is much more
important because it plays a role in laying the foundation for their future
language development. In other words, teaching young learners is similiar to
building a house. To build a beautiful and high quality house, the background
must be stable and firm while to become a good English learners in the future,
vocabulary should be good enough.
It is clear that teachers and young learners have dealt with a large number
of vocabularies in their long-term process of English language teaching and
learning. Young children are familiar with learning new words because they

have got in touch with lots of new vocabularies during English courses. It is
clear to see that in most English textbooks of children, vocabulary is introduced
first, and then there are some other tasks for further practicing such as sentence
samples, conversations. Dekeyser (2007) said that learning vocabulary is not just
about its meaning but the other collocations, association, the related grammatical
rules,etc (as cited in Ur, 2012). In addition to this, children learn vocabulary
better than grammar as they may see grammar rules are difficult to remember
(Demircioglu, 2010). Although young learners are used to learning simple
words, it is such a difficult task for teachers to teach them vocabulary with the
purpose of giving them interest and engagement in lessons, and improving their
retention of what they have just learned.

2


Firstly, it is hard for teachers to ask children to sit down and learn words
seriously because children love action. A child will be bored with staying at the
same place to learn words. The reason for explaining is that children have a short
span of concentration in the classroom; only after a short time of the lesson,
about fifteen or twenty minutes, they tend to talk in private with friends, draw
pictures, even eat or sleep in class. Additionally, according to Cameroon (2001),
the more active the students are, the easier they may lose their learning attention.
Moreover, the students are easy to get bored. They will show their boredom if
teachers give them so many words and force them to learn. Therefore, it is
essential for teachers to give young children interests in learning new
vocabulary. It is said that an effective language learning environment is in a free
anxiety atmosphere where young learners can show their passion to come to
class. If people do something with passion, they will get success because they
have good encouragement to do.
Secondly, helping young learners remember new vocabulary is not a less

tougher responsibility for teachers because children have a limited ability to
remember words due to their young age. In addition, they are easy to remember
words but easy to forget if they do not have enough practice. Besides, teachers
can not give them much vocabulary homework as they have to learn many other
subjects, which make them not have enough time to review the old lesson at
home. The best way to help is that young learners can absorb the language
naturally. In other words, they are learning through activities and playing games.
The role of teachers is to design a lesson which is a combination of good
teaching strategies to facilitate young learners’ vocabulary learning, according to
Nation (2003).

3


Research pointed out strategies to teach young learners vocabulary
effectively. Scott & Ytreberg (1990) showed five elements to get success in
teaching young learners vocabulary, namely (1) words are not enough; (2) play
with the language; (3) variety in the classroom; (4) routines;

and (5)

cooperation. In other words, children cannot sit at one place and learn the
language as adults from starting the lesson until the end. They tend to learn by
the way of playing and practicing words through activities. The role of the
teacher is to choose appropriate activities, basing on the age of the students and
the classroom environment, students’ habits in the class to get better cooperation
from the students. It can be sure that suitable techniques in teaching vocabulary
play vital roles to help teacher fulfill the purpose of motivating and giving
students retention on the vocabulary they had learned. Cameroon (2001),
however, noted another difficulty in noisy classroom that teachers may cope

with. Therefore, teacher should design funny tasks but must keep the learning
potential as well as keep the class being under control.
Combination of studying with relaxing is not such an easy duty. The
younger the learners are, the more interesting activities in class are needed
because young children love learning through playing but the activities must be
well selected to be directly connected with the content of lesson and serve to get
the lesson’s target. Research in the fields found out the effectiveness of teaching
materials on teaching young learners vocabulary. It is very necessary to use a
variety of techniques to get better teaching results. In specific, flashcards are
considered as one of the most effective teaching aids which support teachers in
teaching young learners vocabulary effectively in term of using flashcards to
design tasks, using flashcards to attract young children’ attention.
1.2.

Statement of the problem

4


In Vietnamese teaching context, English has proved its popularity as there
is a tendency that more and more people who have needs of learning English.
Not only adults working in companies or students studying at universities,
colleges, high schools have the need of learning English, but also most parents
take their children at the age of primary to foreign language school to prepare
them a better English background for future. In addition to this, the age to start
learning English is lower and lower. English is not only taught at primary
schools but also be widely taught even in the nursery schools.
It is believed that children only learn simple vocabulary in their language
learning process. As a result, teaching English to them is easier than adult
learners. Ur (2012), however, pointed out that each individual students have

different levels of linguistic knowledge and different ability in English. They
may acquire English at different speeds and in various ways. Besides, according
to her, adult learners who have a higher level of language proficiency can know
the words that they need to focus on but young children cannot. Ur (2012)
emphasized the role of elicitation to teach young learners vocabulary.
In fact, it is difficult to be a teacher in young learners’ classrooms as the
way they approach knowledge is different from adult learners. Some teachers
have to admit that their vocabulary teaching to young children sometimes is not
interesting enough to motivate them. In addition, teachers will get more
difficulty if there are lessons in a traditional way with teacher, students and
textbook. Classrooms for young learners need to be different with teaching
materials, activities, etc. which support to motivate as well as improve their
retention.
Indeed, teaching materials have showed their good effects on English
teaching to young learners. Specifically, being considered as one of the most

5


common teaching aids in English teaching and learning, flashcards have been
used in many primary schools. However, flashcards are only applied in sample
teaching lessons only because of different reasons. Firstly, teachers do not have a
useful, available source of flashcards to use whenever they need. Secondly,
preparing flashcards takes teachers a great deal of time and money. Moreover,
when teachers have got available flashcards, they also need to spend much more
time on thinking about what activities are suitable for the lessons. However,
there is a pressure on learning results of students. It is noticed that at most of
primary schools, each class has over 40 students in common so teachers need to
spend time on checking students learning. Therefore, teachers do not have
enough time to arrange the teaching activities using flashcards.

At Doan Hung Informatics & Foreign Language School, a school mainly
teaches English for students at primary school level, it is also in the same
situation that there are not many teachers who use flashcards in their lessons
even though flashcards have showed its effectiveness in research of English
language teaching and learning. Even some of the teachers who are teaching
young children’ classes at the school sometimes use flashcards. It is not difficult
to realize young children’ tiredness in classrooms through the camera system of
the school. They are sometimes lazy to volunteer to answer teachers’ questions.
They seem to be not motivated well if teachers give lessons in a way with their
textbook. In detail, teachers just show meanings of new words to students, then
ask them to repeat, give them time to remember the words, and ask them to learn
by heart at home, etc. After that, students can be checked by asking to write the
words in the next class.
Therefore, it is time to think about how to give young learners motivation
in their vocabulary learning, how to offer them chance to improve their

6


vocabulary retention. Flashcard has showed their effectiveness on language
teaching and learning so it is a question that whether flashcards are suitable for
applying to teach young children vocabulary at Doan Hung.
1.3.

Aims of the research

This research is conducted to investigate that whether the flashcards give
any effectiveness on the young learners’ vocabulary learning at Doan Hung.
Specifically, the study aims to:
(1) find out whether flashcards can motivate young learners in learning

vocabulary at Doan Hung.
(2) identify any good effects of using visual images to get young
learners’ vocabulary retention at Doan Hung.
(3) determine the conceptions of teachers at Doan Hung about realizable
application of flashcards to teach vocabulary for young learners at Doan Hung.
1.4.

Research questions

Together with the above purposes, this paper tries to answer the following
questions:
Question 1. Can flashcards motivate young learners at DH in their
vocabulary learning?
Question 2. Are flashcards efficient in enhancing vocabulary retention of
young learners at Doan Hung?
Question 3. What do teachers of Doan Hung think about the realizable
use of flashcards to teach vocabulary at the school?
1.5.

The significance of the research

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This research is conducted with the aims to investigate the effectiveness
of flashcards on young learners’ vocabulary learning in terms of giving them
motivation and vocabulary retention, which are often considered as two main
language targets of each child. The result of this research can encourage teachers
at Doan Hung to apply flashcards to teach vocabulary for not only young
children but also the other ages of learners so that teachers can enhance their

teaching results. Once teacher realize the use of flashcards in classrooms is not
much complex like it has been thought, teachers can use them more often.
Besides, the study introduces teachers at Doan Hung multi activities which can
be easy and time-saving to design. As a result, they can be familiar to use
flashcards in teaching more than as usual. Additionally, once the young children
are learning in a happy and comfortable mood, they may get knowledge easier,
which contributes to upgrade their vocabulary retention.
1.6.

Limitations of the research

Everything has its own limitations and so does this study. First, the
participants of this research are limited in Doan Hung environment so the result
of the study will be difficult to be valuable in other schools. Second, the
participant teachers for the teacher interview are limited in the number of three
teachers ,who are having experiences in teaching young childrens at Doan Hung.
It might be better if all of the teachers were interviewed. Moreover, due to the
lack of professional equipments, the video recordings, which are used for
analysing the young learners motivation during both the experimental teaching
and the normal teaching do not have good quality with the existence of some
outside noise. In addition, as the researcher herself recorded the videos, so the
recorder sometimes stopped working in a short time but she did not recognize.

8


1.7.

Overview of the research

The study consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 gives information as the
general background of the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of
the study, and the research questions. Additionally, it also mentions the
significant of the study and the limitation during the time it was conducted.
Chapter 2 of the study says about the theoretical concepts which connect to
young learners’ vocabulary learning. Chapter 3 presents the reseach
methodology which describes the pedagogical context of the research including
the settings and the participants, the design of research, the data collection
instruments and the methods of data analysis, and the procedure of the study.
Chapter 4 of the research shows the findings of the research after analysing the
data. Chapter 5 discusses the results of the research to respond to the research
questions. Lastly, chapter 6 gives the conclusions and implications of the
research as well as the recommendations for further research.

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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Chapter 2 of the study says about the theoretical concepts which connect
to young learners’ vocabulary learning including theory of young learners, their
vocabulary acquisition, as well as their learning characteristics in terms of
intellect, span of retention, sensory input , and their motivation. Additionally, the
chapter also mentions theory of flashcards in language teaching and learning.
2.1.

Young learners

According to Scrivener (2011), learners have different personal reasons to
join in English classes. For instance, communicative courses will be the best
suitable for the learner who wants to improve his English speaking ability but he

cannot be in writing classes which will help him enhance his writing skill.
Harmer (2007b) put it that students have various reasons to learn English. Some
of them take an English course due to the requirement of the curriculum at their
schools.

Others

learn

English

for

specific

purposes,

especially

for

communication. There is also another group of students who learn English
because they think it is useful for their future. Harmer (2007b) mentioned that
linguists have divided English learners into groups such as young children,
adolescences, young adults or adults.
At different ages, learners may have very different language learning
characteristics. Additionally, Harmer (2007a) emphasized that at different ages,
learners have different needs in language learning. Adult learners usually have a
clearer and greater target of learning languages, for instance, the ability of
making good communication, improvement in reading comprehension or writing

skill. In contrast, young learners have a different aim, just being able to learn
simple authentic words. Therefore, it is beneficial for teachers to enhance the

10


teaching effect if they can define the learners’ individual learning aims clearly.
Harmer (2007a) also stated that determining the age of learners is so crucial for
teachers to decide what and how to teach them.
It’s the most difficult to teach young children languages although it
doesn’t require teacher much knowledge but experience (Harmer, 2007a). Since,
teachers should find out clearly their young learners’ needs, especially their
learning language characteristics, what they want in their classroom, what can
attract their attention, etc. Understanding clearly young learners will help
teachers define appropriate teaching approaches for enhancing the teaching and
learning effects (Moon, 2006).
A very essential question is raised that who can be regarded as young
learners. Meriam dictionary (2013) has a definition about “young”: “in an early
stage of life, growth, or development, not yet old and “learner” is a person who
is finding out about a subject or how to do something (Oxford Dictionary, 2011).
The two above definitions can come up with a new definition: young learners are
the learners at the initial stage of learning a language. Harmer (2007a) gave the
definition of young children as “ those up to the ages of nine or ten” while in
Thornbury’s view (2006) “ young learners” tells about children at pre-primary
school and primary school age or even sometimes including adolescents. He
went on expressing that in some countries, young learners learn English to
prepare for their secondary school but there is a trend that young learners are
taught English sooner and sooner, even at pre- primary school. Scrivener (2011)
also showed that in many countries, young learners are students at low ages;
otherwise, in some locations, young learners can be students even at

kindergarten classes. In fact, nowadays, the age to start learning English is lower
and lower due to the belief that “the younger you start, the more chance you

11


have of making the learning successful”, according to Scrivener (2011).
Actually, according to him, the sooner a child is taken to a language class, the
more chances he will be successful in that language learning. Early starting to
learn a language will help children acquire the new language better because they
have more years to experience and develop the language at school. The linguist
also gave a very specific example that children who are immigrants to English
speaking countries can use English as their mother tongue. They are called
bilingual children. Although many researches in evaluation of the effectiveness
of teaching young learners English at the early age of life, some researchers gave
the concern of the disadvantages of this phenomena (Thornbury, 2006).
2.2.

Young children vocabulary acquisition

Researches into vocabulary learning have particularly discussed the
vocabulary acquisition. Carter (2001) investigated the natural process of how a
word can be learned, which would help teachers to have flexible methods to
teach vocabulary. He pointed out the vocabulary learning acquisition, explicitly
and implicitly. Explicit or direct process means that teachers present vocabulary
to students by means of translation new words into their mother tongue, by
teaching techniques and materials which help to express the meanings of words.
Implicit or indirect process means that students learn new words through
context. In other words, students read a text, then, find out what new
vocabularies that they do not understand meanings and then students will guess

the meanings of new words basing on the reading context or asking the
assistance of explanation by the teacher or dictionary. Students may learn the
new words through some tasks of the reading text, too. Then, they can apply
these new words afterwards.

12


Hunt and his colleague, Beglar mentioned the three approaches of
vocabulary learning in terms of explicit instruction, incidental learning, and
independent strategy development (as cited in Richards & Renandya, 2002,
p.256). The two researchers called it a “ systematic framework” for developing
learners’ vocabulary. They appreciated the three approaches and recommended
the combination of them in vocabulary instruction to get a better result.
In detail, explicit instruction is the process that teachers will determine
the vocabulary targets for learners depending upon their own language
proficiency. For instance, high school students will have aim to know much
more numbers of vocabulary than primary students. These vocabularies will be
presented directly to learners by using technique as translation.
Incidental learning is the process of learning vocabulary through another
activity of language learning, for example, a student reads to a short text and he
does not know some new words, which make him not understand the text; then
he checks the meanings of these words in dictionary or with his teacher to
understand more what he has just read. It means that he has already learned
some new vocabularies through the extensive reading activity and he may use
these words later. Not only can the extensive reading help learners exposure
vocabulary but also the extensive listening. Indeed, Elley (1989) identified in his
research that both extensive reading and listening contribute to learners’
vocabulary acquisition.The two linguists, Hunt & Beglar called it is a “by
product” of learning the other language patterns and skills. However, Nation

(1990) argued that second language learners may have got difficulties in
incidental acquisition due to their limited English vocabulary proficiency and he
suggested combining vocabulary instruction in the four skills listening, speaking,
reading and writing (as cited in Richards & Renandya, 2002).

13


Although extensive reading benefit learners in vocabulary learning, it is
considered as a difficult strategy, according to Hunt & Beglar. They pointed out
that it is more effective to apply this strategy to learners who have high
vocabulary prociency rather than the low ones. A more simple strategy using
context to learn new words is called indendent strategy development. In this
strategy, the procedure for guessing words’ meanings from context will begin
with deciding which words are important throughout the text, and then
identifying them from five-step procedure of Nation & Coady model (as cited in
Richards & Renandya, 2002).
Ur (2012) showed the difference between children’ and adults’
vocabulary learning acquisition. She acknowledged that adults learn vocabulary
effectively through explicit process, in contrast, children learn best through
implicit process. Children tend to be fond of “ imitating, memorizing, acquiring
intuititively” through repeated actions and production in enjoyable or interesting
activities. Ur (2012), however, pointed out that this learning process takes a long
time to be effective so adult learners do not like that process. She said that “ the
older a student gets, the more explicit learning process he or she will use”.
Adult learners have real needs of understanding reading comprehension, being
more fluent in speaking or enhancing the other language skills and proficiency
through vocabulary. In contrast, children have no clear purpose of learning
vocabulary, they just simply learn to know a range of words to speak them out.
This is the reason why adult learners usually choose explicit learning process

while young children learn vocabulary the implicit process. Harmer (2007a)
shared the ideas that young learners have an implicit learning process. In other
words, “young learners learn indirectly rather than directly”. They learn through

14


what is around them.Teachers are believed to base on the goals of studying and
the age of learners to choose appropriate vocabulary teaching approach.
Ur (2012) wrote some common factors in teaching vocabulary. She
mentioned what aspects of vocabulary that students need to learn. She showed
that meanings, forms, pronunciation share the same importance. Infact, it is
nonsense that a student knows how to pronounce a word exactly but he does not
know what its meaning is. Hence, she cannot practically use that word. On the
other hand, a person gets the meaning of a word, but she is not able to pronounce
it correctly, so how the others can understand what word she is mentioning,
unless it is written down. Thus, the three aspects of words share the same vital
roles. Adult learners are used to focusing on forms of a word first, then on its
pronunciation and finally on its meanings, while young learners are in contrast.
They often pay their first attention to the meanings of the new word; finally its
form and pronunciation. Additionally, adults learners usually learn more other
aspects of a word like its roots, its prefixes, suffixes, or other parts of speech. It
is a simple task for young children because they just approach only a word, but
not its other aspects. It would be useful for teachers to depend on their learners’
aims of language learning to decide the ways as well as what aspects of words
they should instruct to their students during the teaching process.
2.3.

Young learners’ learning characteristics

Thornbury (2006) provided the three special characteristics of young
learners which can distinguish them from adult learners, in terms of cognitive,
affective and social dimensions. The first characteristic links to children’
limitation of their real life knowledge, developing memory, inability to conduct
abstract concepts, or difficulty in short span of attention. The second

15


characteristic includes the need of encouragement and support while the rest
character is their lack of social skills and dependency on their teacher.
Brown (1994) suggested five categories of young children which may
offer teachers some good approaches to teach them better. Teachers should note
the following five items: intellectual development, attention span, sensory input,
affective factors, and authentic, meaningful language. In general, the five above
factors will directly affect young learners’ learning language.
2.3.1. Intellectual
Young learners are believed to acquire to a language faster and learn
better than any other groups of learners. The critical period hypothesis (CPH)
agreed the idea but they also added that the young children can acquire
knowledge “quickly” and “naturally” just at a certain age and this capability may
lose gradually (cited in Ur, 2012). However, she pointed out that CPH research
was conducted in first language school but in second language learning or
foreign language learning, that idea may not be true anymore as there were
proofs that the older learners sometimes had better language acquisition than the
younger ones, which depends on the concrete learning context and learners’
abilities as well (Harmer, 2007a). Moreover, adult learners may get a better word
retention than young ones thanks to their intellect. It does not prove that young
learners are lack of intelligence but just because of their age limitation. They can
be excellent language students but just being compared to children at the same

age but never adult learners. A question is raised that why some children seem to
be more intelligent in language learning than the others.
2.3.2. Vocabulary retention

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Nation (2001) identified three general processes involving in vocabulary
learning, including noticing, retrieval, and generative use. He also explored the
two concepts, receptive and productive ability. Productive ability is more
essential than receptive ability because when you understand a new word, but
you do not really know how to use and apply it well, it is such a nonsense. Alemi
(2010) realized that one of the most difficult aspects of learning a foreign
language, particularly in an EFL context, is the retention of vocabulary, which is,
especially, more difficult with young learners as they remember new words
easily but forget so fast. Sharing the same idea, Sasan and her colleague (n.d)
pointed out the importance of vocabulary retention, too. Learners have studied
more and more new words, so they may have problem with remembering them .
Moreover, younger learners often do not care much about the purposes of their
language learning because they are “ effortless learners” (Brown, 1994). They do
not define their own learning language aims. In fact, there is a proof that a large
number of young learners cannot review their English lessons before
examinations without helping or reminding from their parents. Consequently,
this may contribute to reduce their own vocabulary retention. Therefore, teachers
should have responsibility and need some effective techniques to help them
remember and recall the new words they have learned in an efficient way. Nunan
(1991) also put in the idea that for long term memory teachers should arrange
and set up further practice with connection to the vocabulary that students have
just been taught. If students have more chances to practice the new words, they
will remember better than only speaking and listening to them.

2.3.3. Span of attention

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