Experience en teaching vocabulary for the students of grade 6 at dong hai secondary school

A. INTRODUCTION
1. The reason for choosing the topic
The thesis Teaching vocabulary to young learners deals with the need of a
teacher to know his or her learners and to understand their needs and problems.
Other issue mentioned in the thesis is the question of motivation and icluding
fun and games into the teaching process. The last issue the thesis deals with is
the usage of different methods and approaches for teaching young learners.
“Why? What is it good for ? Is it good for them at all? Do they really need it? Is
it not only a useless worry? Why do we have to make them learn something
more than what they really need and have to? How much hope shall we place in
it?”
These are the most frequent questions I have been thinking about. I have
discussed them with many pupils, teachers and parents. Reactions and opininons
were, of course, different. I have been teaching English for many years at a
secondary school. I have to admit that at the beginning I doubted about any
acquisition for young learners and many arguments seemed cogent to me.
During the time I began to realize chances and occasions that English language
can offer to children and I started to be a big fan of teaching English to young
learners.
I ran against a lot of troubles that I would like to share in my final thesis
and also I would like to share some ideas for teaching vocabulary to young
learners. At the begining during the discussions with my colleagues we found
out that some kind of conception was needed, next we pointed out that there
were missing good textbooks or materials, also didactic aids and methodology
books. Frequent complain of many teachers is that it is extremely difficult to
teach children that seem to lack the basic talent for learning languages.
Therefore I would like to refer to the possibilities which teaching a foreign
language to young learners brings.
The aim of this work is to show several ways that can be used for teaching
vocabulary to young learners. I would like to show why and how teaching
vocabulary to young learners can be more efficient.

I divided my thesis into the theoretical and the practical part – the
practical part follows the theoretical part. In the theoretical part I will introduce
the aim of this thesis, then I will try to describe who is a young learner. In the
next chapter I will focus on what is vocabulary and how it is learned and also the
ways how vocabulary can be presented..
In the second part of my thesis I would like to present my system of work
and also different methods I use while teaching. I will enclose some materials
and games that I use in 6 my lesssons. In conclusion I will briefly summarize my
thesis. After that follows the list of sources - books (used literature) which I used
for my thesis and the appendices where I included some materials and exercises
with the keys.
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After exploring and accumulating the experiences from colleagues, I have
some experiences in teaching reading comprehension and achieved quite
effective results. The students are more interested in learning English and more
confident in doing their reading exercises. This improves that my methods are
right. With the passion and the love for teaching English, I have studied and
developed the research: "Experience in teaching vocabulay for the students of
grade 6 at Dong Hai secondary school. "
2. The purpose of the research.
- The research applies the methods of teaching vocabulary to involve
students in learning English well.
- Creating the language circumstance to communicate in English and
promote students to actively participate in communicative activities; offering
some solutions and methods for teaching vocabulary.
- Exchanging and sharing some experiences in teaching vocabulay for
secondary students.
3. The object and subject of the study.

- The object of the study: Students of grade 6 at Dong Hai Secondary
school, Thanh Hoa City.
- The subject of the study: Experience in teaching vocabulay for the
students of grade 6 at Dong Hai secondary.
4. Research methods.
- Method of observation: The implemention of self-explortion theme study,
conduccted attend classes of colleagues.
- Experimental Methods: Teachers conducted experiments teach each specific
purpose required some form applicable lessons.
- Exchange Methos, discussion: After the hours of colleagues, colleagues who
take time to implement the project, co-workers and the people who implement
the project, conduct exchanges and discussions to draw from that experience for
lesson.
- Investigation Method: Teachers ask question to check understanding the
content assessment of student lessons.
This is the result table in September in the school year 2015-2016 before
applying the method.
Class

Total

6A

40
100%
38
100%

6B

Excellent
(A)
3
7,5 %
2
5,3%

Good
(B)
8
20%
5
13,2%

Fair
(C)
14
35%
14
36,8%

Poor
(D)
10
25%
10
26,3%

Fail
(F)

5
12,5%
7
18,4%

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B. CONTENT
1 . Theoretical basis of the initiative experience.
1.1. Young learner - who is a young learner?
A young learner – who is he or she? This term covers a wide age range,
this can be anybody from the age of three to the age of eighteen. There is a big
difference between what a –three-year-old child can do and what a child of
fifteen can do. We should consider their development too. Some children
develop faster, others need more time. Teaching young learners requires the
knowledge of knowing all the development differences. Understanding these
differences can help me as a teacher to develop methods and a system of work
that I will use in the process of teaching. Of course, it is not possible to say that
every child of six will know this and that. But it is possible to pick out some
chracteristics which I as a teacher should know and should be aware of.
It is generally known that the Czech system officially allows children to
start learning a foreign language in the 6th grade. In the Czech Republic children
have started learning a foreign language in the 6th grade so far. However,
according to the new school curricula, which is starting to be adopted from
September 2006, the children will start a year earlier and in some schools the
foreign language will be introduced from the 1st grade. In the 7th grade they
will have to start learning a second foreign language. In my opinion, the sooner
they start, the better for them. Their brain and memory is ready for learning and
most of them can learn quite well. There have been many disputes and

discussions over this. I think these debates will be run over and over because
nobody is able to say the exact time for beginning to learn foreign languages.
From my personal experience, I achieved quite good results with kindergarten
children so I do not see any problems for older learners. I think if very young
learners are able to achieve good results, I think the older ones can do it too.
I would like to point out some characteristics about this age group:
- They are happy when they can play.
- They love to share their experiences, they love when people pay
attention to them and their talking.
- They are able to talk about what they are doing.
- They use imagination a lot.
- They can think, argue, discuss and they are able to interact with both
children and adults. They are able to concentrate for certain time.
- They understand situations and through situations – they use several
senses.
- They are able to use language skills not even realizing them.
- They do not realize what is fact and what is fiction sometimes.
- They want to learn and are happy when they learn something, then they
have to share it with somebody and they are proud that they learnt something,
they can show off a little bit.
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- Often they “teach” each other.
- They love to be praised for what they have done and learnt, this is very
important fact to keep their motivation.
- Very often they pretend they understand everything and they know
everything.
1.2. Vocabulary
1.2.1. What is vocabulary?

“Vocabulary can be defined, roughly, as the words we teach in the foreign
language. However, a new item of vocabulary may be more than just a single
word: for example, post office, and mother-in-law, which are made up of two or
three words but express a single idea. A useful convention is to cover all such
cases by talking about vocabulary „items“ rather than „words“. (Ur, 2003, p 60)
All languages consist of words. Languages emerge first as words, both
historically, and in terms of the way each of us learned our first and any
subsequent languages. Moreover, vocabulary is still widening. Even in our
native language we are continually learning new words and meanings of old
words. For example, Czech word pošta. This used to mean just the post office or
simple letters but nowadays it also means emails. Some words can be entirely
new to us. We come across completely new words that are made up according to
new technologies and according to the needs of real life. For example, a verb to
google is used frequently a lot. Learners of a second language experience
something similar. Thornbury states that they can be confronted by words that
are totally unfamiliar, or being used in ways that for them are novel and possibly
obscure. To find the right word to fit the meaning can be very frustrating,
especially if the store of words is limited.
To summarize this, the learner while learning the vocabulary of a second
language can come across several challenges:
- “Making the correct connections, when understanding the second
language, between the form and meaning of words
- When producing language, using the correct form of a word for the
meaning intended ( i.e. nose not noise).
To meet these challenges the learner needs to:
- Acquire a critical mass of words for use in both understanding and
producing the language
- Remember words over time, be able to recall them readily 14
- Develop strategies for coping with gaps in word knowledge, including
coping with unknown words, or unfamiliar uses of known words

- Have to take responsibility themselves for vocabulary expansion”
(Thornbury, 2002, p 31).
1.2.2. How are words learned?
“Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing
nothing nothing can be conveyed.”
David Wilkins, linguist
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To know a word is one thing but we have to pause on the fact how this
knowledge is acquired. Thinking about little children who learn to speak, then
they always start with words used for labelling, so that the concept, for example,
of a cat has a name cat. But of course not every animal is a cat. The child needs
to learn how far to extend the concept of a cat. “In other words, acquiring a
vocabulary requires not only labelling but also categorising skills.” (Thornbury,
2002, p 18) The child has to realise that these common words like cat can be
replaced by superordinate terms like animals. And to this category also belongs
other animals, not just cats. Thornbury states that the children have to develop
some kind of network building – constructing some complex idea. Than during
this process they will realise there also exist words like synonyms, homonyms
etc.
There are many different methods and approaches how to teach a foreign
language, including vocabulary. I will mention just some of them that can be
used for teaching young learners.
- To help the learners understand it is important to visualize the item and
get the pupils to repeat or use the item actively. One good way of doing this is to
let them see or perhaps touch the vocabulary item, for instance a house. We need
to let them repeat it in different ways and they should be given a chance to listen
to the teacher talking about it.
- A little bit of shocking method is the direct method or the direct

approach. The mother tongue is never used, there are no translations. Only target
language is used in the calssrooms and only complete sentences are used.
Culture is considered an important aspect.
- Suggestopedia is a very successful method in helping learners to
memorize words. This method stimulates the learner´s brain by music while
learning but nowadays teachers seem to be leaving this method.
- What really works especially for young learners is the Total Physical
Response method - TPR. Very many children are nowadays very hyper and
physically active 16 and to concentrate for a long time can be very difficult for
them. Using this method, games, changing topics and using a variety of
activities is very appreeciated by them. This method is used a lot by teachers.
- Communicative Language Approach (Teaching) – CLT – stresses the
meaning of a language in context. Communicative competence is highly
developed here and learners are encouraged to communicate.
1.2.3. Which words and what should be taught?
The significant point in teaching vocabulary is the selection of words we
as teachers want to teach. It is quite easy to teach concrete words at lower level
and then become more abstract. Thus, we need to consider the frequency too.
There is a choice for us, we can decide which words to teach on the basis of
frequency, how often the words are used by the speaker of the language.
Especially with young learners words that they are familiar with and they can
stick to them should be taught. Very often words are taught according to themes
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and topics. Nowadays all the course books are organised into themes and they
provide vocabulary according to it. If there is a theme “Animals”, then we can
expect words like naming animals, also where they live, what they eat etc.
Words that have quite specific meaning should be avoided with young learners.
Ur states the learners need to be taught the form of the word, then

grammar, collocations, meaning and word formation.
In the form pronunciation and spelling should be mentioned. “The learner
has to know what a word sounds like (its pronunciation) and what it looks like
(its spelling).” (Ur, 1996, p 60) The grammar of a new item also needs to be
taught. Again, depending what level the learners are they should be taught to
follow some grammatical rules. For example when teaching nouns, we would
like to present their plural forms, also regular and irregular ( girl-girls, mousemice). When teaching verbs, maybe we would like to present their past forms,
especially if the verb is irregular (forget-forgot).
Word formation – using prefixes and suffixes, using hyphenated words
etc. is too difficult for young learners.
To summarize this, firstly I think that knowing the word and
understanding its meaning go hand in hand. Secondly, it is easier to remember
concrete words like a chair or a dog than abstract words. Young learners often
put words together with what they can see, hear or with whar they can touch.
But as said above they also need to know other aspects of the words they learn.
In my opinion, it is important to teach them all these aspects. Of course, we will
not teach them, for example the irregular plural form right away, but they need
to know it. I think that if we keep repeating the plural form “mice”, after some
time most of them will not say “mouses”.
2. Actual situation before applying initiative experience
Our school is a secondary school in Thanh Hoa City. It is a small school
with around 420 students, ranging from 11 to 15 years old. There are three
classes in most year levels, meaning that collaboration among teachers is
extremely important to ensure consistency in learning programs.
For many years, teaching vocabulary was viewed as a mastery of these
skills. Vocabulary followed what the study called mentioning, practicing, and
assessing procedure where teachers mentioned a specific skill that students were
to apply, had students practice the skill by completing workbook pages, then
assessed them to find out if they could use the skill correctly. Instruction did
little to help students learn how or when to use the skills, nor was is ever

established that this particular set of skills enabled comprehension.
A significant base of research, developed over many years, is available to
inform educators about effective approaches to teaching children to read.
However, research on applying the methods of teaching vocabulary for primary
students is in its infancy. This reflects the fact that many teachers in Vietnam are
faced with the challenge of teaching children to listen and speak in English
when the students have a heritage language that is not English and they are not
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yet proficient in English. Making this a more critical issue, several researches
suggest that teachers are not receiving adequate professional development in
effective strategies to teach vocabulay for students. In order to make best use of
the information presented in this research, many teachers might want to consider
the following set of questions together in preparation for making decisions about
teaching vocabulary for secondary students.
Analysis of my school’s performance in teaching and learning vocabulay
in recent years showed that students normaly forget vocabulary after learning
them. It was a situation that was of concern and motivated a thorough
examination of the school’s approach to the teaching of vocabulary.
After several years of teaching English, I found that most of the students
do not like learning vocabulary. They often forget vocabulay after the lesson.
Therefore, I have classified the students and immediately applied the methods
and experiences which I accumulated over the years to improve the teaching
and learning quality.
3. Solutions and implementations used to solve the problem
According to the present situation in English classes at my school.
Learning vocabulay is so difficult for all grades from 6 to 9. To improve this
situation, I would like to present some techniques for teaching vocabulay and
elicit the strategies of teaching vocabulay for primary students which I have

researched and applied quite successfully at my school.
3.1. Vocabulary presentation
“By presentation we mean those pre-planned lesson stages in which
learners are taught pre-selected vocabulary items.” (Thornbury, 2002, p 75)
Firstly, we should consider how many words should be presented during
the lesson. This is closely connected with several factors:
- The level of the pupils – beginners, intermediate etc.
- Their familiarity with the words – have they come across these words or
are they completely new?
- Words difficulty – are the words abstract, are they easily pronounced,
can we find similar words in the learner´s native language etc.?
- Can the words be easily demonstrated ?
- Shall we use realia or anything that the pupils can become familiar with?
- Can pictures be used to elicit vocabulary?
After the teacher chooses what items to teach, he or she should follow
certain guidelines. In my opinion, this includes teaching the vocabulary "in
spoken form first" to prevent students from pronouncing the words in the form
they are written, placing the new items in context, and revising them.
A number of techniques can be adopted to present new vocabulary items.
Some techniques are more popular and more often used than others. Also it is up
to the teacher which techniques he or she decides to use but always the
effectiveness of teaching should be considered. I think every teacher tends to use
and prefers some technique that he or she finds interesting. And of course there
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are techniques that we as teachers try to avoid. There are techniques that are
particularly appropriate for certain types of words – for example actions can be
explained through pantomime. Another factor that is worth considering is the
age of the learners. Younger ones react quite well when we show them concrete

illustrations, the older ones can manage pretty well abstract explanations or even
definitions.
The presentation of new vocabulary can be classified for example
according to verbal and visual techniques. Among visual techniques we can find
pictures - flashcards, photographs and magazine pictures, wall charts, posters,
blackboard drawings, word pictures, several realia 20 that teachers can hold up
or point to. Mime, action and gestures can be used especially for explaining
actions and times. Learners can label pictures or objects or perform an action.
Verbal techniques consist of using illustrative situations, descriptions, synonyms
and antonyms, collocations, scales, and using various forms of definition: for
example, definition by demonstration (visual definition), definition by
abstraction, contextual definitions, and definition by translation. Explanation can
become extremely difficult especially with beginner levels.
Another way that can be used is translation. This technique is not used
much recently, even though it is quick and easy but can be very discouraging for
learners. They cannot interact with the words. Words can be organised into sets,
subclasses and subcategories often aided by visual presentation. Translation is
one of the traditional ways of explaining the meaning of words. It could be done
by the teacher or with using a dictionary. It has its advantages but also
disadvantages. Using this technique, learners can learn how to use dictionaries.
Most of the young learners have never used a dictionary before so it is a need to
teach them to use dicitonaries first. They have to be told there are two parts –
English-Czech and CzechEnglish. Then they have to be told about the
alphabetical order and about other things they can find there. In my opinion it is
good to use both picture dictionaries and classical dictionaries where they find
the meaning with young learners. Teachers can prepare quite interesting lesson
where the learners learn how to use dictionaries.
3.2. Be realistic
Nowadays, teachers can come across many language teaching ideas and
techinques. There are many of them in circulation that it is quite easy to get

carried away. We draw pictures, cut paper into small pieces, draw flashcards,
make crosswords etc. and we do it even at midnight. We want to be flexible,
creative, sensible, we want to praise the children as much as possible but on the
other hand we want to be realistic and, very honestly, our expectations are
sometimes very high. And we hope it will be worthwile. But sometimes
something goes wrong. Language classrooms are noisy, there are at least fifteen
pupils – usually even more. The classes with high number of students put
exceptional demands on teacher`s preparation for the lesson and there is
obviously a requirement of larger classrooms too. Quite often the children are
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not “angels”. We encourage them to interact, be active, creative, independent.
This of course leads to the fact the children will become silly and they will
really enjoy it. There are teachers who would never do such activities again. And
their lessons then turn to be boring. “We need to be realistic in our expectations
of ourselves and the learners. ... It does not mean, for example, we should reject
the idea of pairwork because our clasess are big, or not very able, or poorly
motivated. On the contrary, being realistic should mean taking realities into
account in such a way that good things can still happen.” (Halliwell, 1992, p 19)
After every lesson we should ask ourselves whether the lesson was productive or
unproductive and we should go back to our objectives and aims. We should
evaluate the lesson ourselves. Or if we have an observer in the lesson, we should
discuss it with him/her.
3.2.1. Choosing activities
It is up to the teacher mostly to choose the right activity. This is not easy
and teachers should spend really quality time to think about this. It needs to be
considered well. Some language activities can stir a class. Thinking about the
positive way of the word “stir”, it means these activities will wake up the class,
warm them up. Of course, there are activities that have the opposite effect. They

may seem to settle the pupils. Before the lesson is planned, there should be
considered what kind of activities should be choosen knowing the effect of
them. Activities that can stir the class are, for example, oral work, games,
competitions. Another aspect we should think about are activities which engage
children´s minds and which keep them physically occupied.
We should not forget context developing activities. “If we are to help the
learners acquire independent second language lexicons, we need to highlight the
importance of the context in which the language naturally occurs. Once the idea
of context playing a decisive role in the choice of language is firmly established,
we can begin to introduce varieties of the language used in different contexts.
Many coursebooks provide learners with plenty of opportunities to develop their
own context for the language presented, for example activities like “odd one out,
filling-in exercises, dialogues” etc”.
Another factor that teachers should bear in their minds is to keep the
lessons simple. We often try to make our lessons varied. This is good but can
lead to misunderstanding. The lesson can be varied by doing lots of activities on
different topics. But this can mean we may produce a lesson which is a disaster,
too many activities and changing the activities all the time can destroy the lesson
well. The children´s minds have to jump from one topic to another with not
much time to let things sink in effectively. We should realise some important
things.
- “We will not help the children to develop their capacity to concentrate if
we jump inconsequentially from one topic to the next.

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- There are ways of varying the oral work so that it is making different
demands on the children and therefore feels different even when the topic
remains the same.” (Halliwell, 1992, p 27)

3.2.2. The role of fun and games in the lessons
“By ´fun and games´ I mean all those activities that we loosely think of as
involving play and enjoyment. Singing, clapping hands, chanting rhymes,
solving puzzles, drawing, colouring, model-making, games.”
It is evident that young learners learn through play much easier and they
enjoy it more. This is quite a natural way for them to learn. They play and love
to play. In playing together we can see elements of interaction and during
interacting the learners develop language skills. Learning can be absorbed really
well. Quite often the learners do not realize they are learning. Fun and games
should have an important role in the children´s education. The language learnt
by heart can often be a part of the activities. For example, commands for the
games can be remembered quite easily. Many games can be looked at as drill
exercises but they have an added fun and competition element. For example, a
game that works like this is well-known game “Simon says”.
What is a game? “A game is played when one or moreplayers compete or
co-operate for playoffs according to a set of rules.” (Jones, 1986) (Jones in
Teaching English to Children) “A true game is one that frees the spirit. It allows
of no cares but those fictitious ones engendered by the game itself...” (Opie, I.
And J., 1969) (Opie, I and J. in Teaching English to Chidren) Games are
activities with rules and goals. Khan states that the achievement of these goals
signals the end of the game. Children are very often concerned with controlling
whether everybody follows the rules and whether they are not broken. Piaget
(1967) (Piaget in Teaching English to Children) saw chidlren´s games as, ´the
most admirable social institutions´. (Khan, 1995, p 143)
It is obvious that the games need to be motivating. “ For young learners,
motivation deriving from the factors outside the classroom, such as parental and
social attitudes, is likely to be weaker than that created by events in the
classroom itself. Children need to be involved and even excited in order to learn
effectively.” (Khan,1995) Games may focus on oral or written part of the
language, they offer a vast selection of activities.

Language can also be picked as a result of an enjoyable activity. “Telling
stories to students can result in natural language acquisition on their part.”
(Rixon, 1995, p 37) Teachers can tell stories the learners are familiar with in
their own language. Then the learners are able to follow it better. Again, the
stories need to be picked carefully, the level of the learners need to be
considered and the teacher has to investigate time into preparation. Teachers can
come up 25 with a simple version of the story. Appreciated story can be The
Story of the Big Enormous Turnip.
Several activities can allow and involve more creative use of the
language. New sentences and activities can be produced by the children
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themselves. Songs are most grateful way for this. The learners can make up new
verses, then they can be extended. Example - a song “This is the way, I ...” or “If
you are happy and you know it...”.
As said above games and fun are important parts of the lesson. A play is in the
essential nature of the child. There are many possibilities for adapting games we
can find. The teachers should not forget the values of games and fun activities in
the lessons. All this can be applied to teaching vocabulary too. Teachers can
“play” with vocabulary while teaching it. It is very appreciated by the learners.
3.3. Practical part
In my final thesis I have decided to focus on teaching English vocabulary
to young learners - age group 7-11. I would like to enclose several lesson plans
and also reflect on some observations from the theoretical part. I tried out all the
activities described here during my teacher´s career.
It is evident that some learners have been learning the English language
for several years, some have just started. Most of the classes use the course book
Cambridge English for Schools by A. Littlejohn and D. Hicks. The younger ones
do not use any course books, we work with handouts that they get from me and

place them into a folder. These handouts are given to them so that their parents
know what we learned in the lesson and can practice during the week. The
activities have been piloted in at least 10 classes, most of them consisted of 10 15 pupils at the age of 5 – 11. Most of the pupils only started with learning
English in the 4 th grade, some started in the kindergarten.
All the activities reflect the level of the learners, their age and their
abilities. I always have to consider that in each class there are more children and
some with learning disabilities. I try to use English in the classes as much as
possible and I want their reactions in English too, of course if possible. I have to
admit that it is a lot of fun to teach these children, they do not have almost any
troubles with motivation and as I have said in the theoretical part, they still want
to learn.
3.3.1. Lesson plan 1
Topic = My school
* Aims:
- to get to know the learners´ school, the learners know them well so I
suppose they will be very active and will want to share.
- the learners get to know my school.
- to revise some basic terminology and find out what the learners know.
- after the lesson the learners will know at least 5 new words.
* Aids:
- pictures and photos, a school poster, pieces of paper, a story book,
colour pencils, handouts
* Assumptions:
- learners know each other and their school
- they are ready to share and are ready to play
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1. Talking about schools:
Today we are going to talk about school things. Where is your school ? Is

it big or small ? How many students are there in your school ? What is there in
front of your school ? .. Ok, now I will talk about our school. (On the black
board there is a school poster all the time, so that I can point to it anytime. While
talking, I use pictures of my school and point to subjects and school things
which they are. For example,“ This is school bag”. I repeat the word “school
bag”. And so on.)
2. Working with their pictures:
(The learners were supposed to bring to the class pictures of their school
things. I have to count on the fact, they forgot, so I distribute either my pictures.)
Now, it is your time to show me what is what. Is this your calculator ? Is this
your compass? Is this your rubber ? After some time we will play a game. Now,
we are going to play a game and the winner gets a reward! I will say a sentence,
for example:” Show me your calculator!” And you have to show me your
alculator´s picture. After each sentence I make the learners say whose picture
they are showing me. So I ask. What is this? Your... calculator, compass, rubber
etc.
* Evaluation:
This lesson is designed for students of grade 6. In this lesson I decided to
use one of the visual methods that I talked about in the theoretical part. Learners
have a chance to hear and see. In this lesson I decided to use the TPR method
too, the children can come to black board and point to the right person on the
poster. I let them jump while showing me their family members, they put their
hands above their heads etc. This lesson can be varied in many ways, again
according to the age and level of the learners and also depending on the fact how
long the lesson is – 45 minutes. But as I have said in the theoretical part, too
much variety can spoil the lesson so this is very important factor that should be
considered.
What needs to be said here is that during this activity the children are able to
learn a phrase “This is my calculator/compass etc.” Because this phrase is
repeated in the lesson many times, the children are able to remember it without

any explanation and real “learning”. It is very natural for them to learn this
phrase.
3.3.2. Lesson plan 2
Topic = My home
* Aims:
- to get to know the learners´ favourite rooms, to get to know how they
feel about their home.
- the learners get to know the names of the rooms.
- to revise some basic terminology and find out what the learners know.
- after the lesson the learners will know at least 7 new words including the
word homes.
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* Aids:
- pictures, a room poster, pieces of paper, colour pencils, picture of homes
/ rooms.
- learners probably already know the rooms.
- they are ready to play
- room dictation should be easy and fun for them
1. Talking about rooms:
I will say several words and you tell me what I am speaking about. We
will do it as a game called “silent post”. The very first person who knows will
tell me and then we will send it to others and the last person says that outloud.
Ok, listen up! Bedroom, toilet, hall, attic... Well done! Now you know we will
talk about rooms today. How many rooms are there in your house? Which room
do you like best ? Where is your bedroom? What are there in your room?...I will
tell you a story about a room at the Crazy House Hotel ... (While we are talking,
I put the poster on the board. Every time I call out some rooms. I point out to the
right room on the poster.)

2. Working with “things in the rooms”:
Let´s look at the picture now, discribe the room and call names of
furniture. But to each furniture you will write down the name. You need to be
careful about the spelling!... Now when you have finished, I will pick up
different furniture and you can shout out the name of them. Let´s start now...
(After each shout I repeat the furniture after them so that they have a chance to
hear the pronunciation well.) Well done, now we will write a “wardrobe”.
3. Finishing up the topic:
(After the learners finished their drawings, they swap the drawings with
their partners and we check it together. Usually they do really well and are
happy they were succesfull with their “dictation”.) Well, now exchange your
drawings with your partner and let´s check it... Well done, children! Now you
know the English names for rooms. Since we still have time left, I have a special
reward for you. We will play a game. You can see this classroom is full of
rooms. I will shout out a name of the rooms and you must run to slap the picture.
Let´s start... After some minutes the learners get back to their seats and we
repeat all the words once more.
* Evaluation:
This lesson is designed for 6th or 7th grade learners. I have to count on the fact
most of the learners already know the words from previous classes. Therefore
this lesson cannot be boring so that even these children would be able to be
active.Again, in this lesson I used one of the visual methods and also TPR. The
learners can hear, see and touch and later they can run in the classrooms. I think
using TPR is very productive and learners can learn and remember it better. I
have to be careful because the learners try to write down the names of the
colours. After they have finished that, I usually check the spelling in their
exercise books. This topic is quite easy and children have a lot of fun with this.
13

This lesson can be varied in many ways again, as I have mentioned in lesson
plan 1.
3.3.3. Lesson plan 3
Topic = My neighborhood
* Aims:
- to get to know the places in the neighborhood.
- to revise some basic terminology and find out what the learners know .
- after the lesson the learners will know at least 5 new words .
* Aids:
- pictures, an place poster, handouts, a tape recorder
* Assumptions:
- learners like famous places.
- learners will probably know some English names of famous places.
- they are ready to share and lsiten
1. Talking about places, brainstorming:
Well, children, I will start up the lesson in a little bit different way than
usually. I will write something on the blackboard and you have to find out a
hidden word in it. You cannot talk, the winner gets a price! If you think you
know, just put your hand above your head.
H O U S
E
B A
W
B
D O O
B
P O S T
F O O

N

E
I
G
H
B
O
R
H
O
O
D

U M B E R
G H T
A T
U S
O K
A N D
A R D
F F I C E

In these words you can find 1 word, the topic of today´s lesson... Well
done! The word is NEIGHBORHOOD! And the winner is ……..? We are going
to talk about places in your neighborhood today. What places do you know? Is
there a cathedral in your neighborhood ? Have you ever been there ? … (During
this talking I write down on the blackboard all the places the learners name and
distribute pictures of places among the children. I get ready the tape recorder.)
2. Project:
Now, imagine you are going to the place of your neighborhood soon and
you want to give him/her a tour. So you need to know some places and also

something about them. So now, make groups of 4 and each group has to prepare
14


a poster. You can either draw or call its name , you can write about them – where
it is, what it has, how the people/ the streets/ the weather...is/are.... If you need
help, you can either ask me or, because you can work with dictionaries, you can
use them. (Usually the learners want to be creative and work on their own, they
do not need my help. Also usually this activity takes longer time, so I let them
work in the next lesson too.
* Evaluation:
This lesson is designed for 6th or 7th grade. Right at the beginning of the
lesson the learners have a chance to brainstorm. Again, everybody is included,
each child can talk and I pay attetnion to this. If somebody remains quiet, I ask
questions – Lan, where do you live ? What are there in your neighborhood ?,
Nam, Is there a park near your house ?etc. Through brainstorming, the learners
usually remember at least 1 new word. Then they have to guess the hidden word,
which is not as easy for them. Of course, if nobody is able to guess this word, I
help them. Then I let them be creative and let them work on the project. I do not
tell them which places they have to choose or what exactly needs to be written
there or how exactly it has to be done. I usually have examples with me in the
lesson, so I can show them so that they get ideas.
This lesson can be varied in many ways and can be done with younger learners
too. Probably the hidden word would be too difficult for them, so the teacher
would have to come up with a different activity. The topic is also very grateful
and from my personal experience the children always have a lot of fun with it.
3.3.4. Lesson plan 4
Topic = Tet holiday
* Aims:
- to understand the text about our Tet holiday.

- to find out the odd words - to revise some basic terminology.
- after the lesson the learners will know 5 new words .
* Aids:
- reading texts, flashcards,...
- learners already know some things and activities for Tet.
- the learners usually are not as willing to talk so I have to ask right and
direct questions
1. Talking about Tet holiday:
Good morning, children! ( I am happy because Tet is coming soon.
We should make our house look beautiful at Tet so we should clean and
decorate it.We should also buy flowers and plants. Tet is a time for family
gathering.) Are you looking forward to Tet holiday? Do you want to get lucky
money at Tet? What clothes do you often wear at Tet?....
2. Reading:
Now, we will read the passages about their New Year in different
countries. and then we will talk about it. You will have to answer some questions
too. I will write the questions on the blackboard. I distribute the passages and I
15


read first. The children just listen. After that, each child reads a line. We talk
about the text and after that they answer the questions all by themselves.
* Evaluation:
This activity is designed for 6th grade. In the theoretical part I talk about
CLT as a way of teaching vocabulary to young learners. This lesson makes use
of it. This lesson is done completely in English and the communicative
competence is highly encouraged and used here. I have to admit this is not easy
but I as a teacher have to adjust my vocabulary and talking to the learners´ level.
I have to be really well prepared for this lesson.
The lesson does not have to seem interesting to the learners at first but

later they start to like it. Working with a text is important for them, looking for
information is another way to learn the language. At the end they memorize the
poem by heart and I have to confess that 99% of the class always remember the
poem. Usually next lesson I go on in this topic, I work with the learned
vocabulary and I build on it.
4. The effectiveness of the initiative experience
After applying successfully the methods and procedures to teach
vocabulary, the students’ improvement in pronunciation can be seen clearly. The
result in the first semester of the school year 2015-2016 shows the increase in
the percentage of students who can remember vocabulary and use them
correctly. The significance of the methods of teaching vocabulary can be seen
when examining the percentage of students with a reading age above their
chronological age since the program’s implementation. The number of students
assigned to be improve their skills. Comparing with the result survey at the
beginning, I find that the recent result is better than the old one. The following
chart will show the result:
Class

Total

6A

40
100%
38
100%

6B

Excellent

(A)
8
20%
7
18,3%

Good
(B)
16
40%
14
37%

Fair
(C)
16
40%
17
44,7%

Poor
(D)
0
0%
0
0%

Fail
(F)
0

0%
0
0%

In conclusion, the changing of the students’ learning vocabulary has
been a resounding success. The consistency and clarity it has afforded in
teaching vocabulary for secondary students has been worth the time and effort.
My students are capable and ready for explicit teaching of vocabulary and are
highly motivated by their success in learning English.
C. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Conclusion

16


In my final thesis, as the title prompts, I deal with the subject of teaching
vocabulary to young learners. When teaching young learners, the teacher has to
be strong at the knowledge but also needs to connect with the children. They
need to feel the teacher likes them and wants to teach them something new. As
said in the theoretical part, the results are seen easily and the learners at this age
are very grateful when someone invest time in them. The teacher has to know
his or her pupils. It is important to understand their needs, their expectations
with which each child comes to the lessons, also ways how to motivate them and
last but not least their learning style. All this the teacher is learning while
working with the learners. The teachers get to know their families, their hobbies
and interests and just basic information about the learners. Also, especially
nowadays, we as teachers have to consider the learning disabilities too. There
are more and more chidlren with these problems and we as teachers need to help
them to enjoy the lessons and help them to learn too. The teacher needs to
understand their differences, their cultural and family background etc.

The focus of this thesis is the personality of young learners and teaching
vocabulary to them. Testing and assessment will be the theme of my next future
research.
This research investigated the methods of teaching vocabulary for
secondary students, lesson delivery and sequence of content and learning
expectations used by teachers of English at Dong Hai Secondary School. This
research brings broader understanding of strategies for teaching vocabulary to
students whose first language is not English. The rationale for the study stems
from the need to gain greater international perspective of the teaching of English
learners. Results reflect analysis of classroom observation field notes of 78
students of grade 6.
2. Recommendations
Through teaching, research, I have some proposes as follows:
2.1. For the teacher
- Teachers need to have the investment, analysts expore each lesson to
find out the good, the new teaching methods to help students understand the task
of activities from the outset.
- Teachers must always create language environment during school hours
and must use English as the main language for communication.
- Teachers should encourage students to always know to use their
knowledge to use in communication.
- Teachers need to choose, use and flexible combination of methods and
techniques of teaching hours in the process. In addition to textbook exercises,
teachers should introduce appropriate exercises, which features highly practical
communication.
2.2. For students
- Students should see the next lesson.Regularly listening to tapes to learn
to pronouce, strictly speaking English intonation.
17

- Develope their language styles.
- Practice on each sample question to then manipulate homework
workbooks, enhance, write sentences or a paragraph.
2.3. For upper management
- To enhance the capacity of teachers in teaching English, the leaders
should organize the training courses for the English teachers regularly. Through
the training courses, teachers have the opportunity to exchange and learn their
experiences.
- To have the discipline rooms to avoid making noise for the other class,
as well as not affected by noise from outside.
- To introduce the document relateing to teachers refer, learn and apply.
3. Acknowledgments
I am grateful the experts of Thanh Hoa City Education and Training
Office, my colleagues at Dong Hai Secondary School, for providing helpful
comments for the research.
I also would like to encourage Vietnamese teachers to have more
confidence and experience in teaching reading comprehension even though we
are not native speakers of English.
In this topic, I just made some initiative experiences. I would appreciate
suggestions of colleagues to the subject so that it becomes more complete.
Headmaster’s signature

Thanh Hoa, March 26th, 2016
I swear this thesis is written by me without
copying content from others.
Written by

Tran Thi Anh Dao

REFERENCES

18


1. Vietnamese Educational Publisher - Tieng Anh 6 (2013). Ministry of
Education and Training.
2. English Teacher’s book 6
3. Methods of teaching English in Secondary school
4. BRUMFIT, Christopher; MOON, Jayne; TONGUE, Ray: Teaching English to
Children. From Practice to Principle. Longman Group Essex, 1995. 309 s.
ISBN- 0-17-556889-8.
5. DOFF, Adrian. Teach English: A training course for teachers. Cambridge
University Press, 1988. 345 s. ISBN 0- 18-34232-9.
6. HALLIWELL, Susan: Teaching English in the Primary Classrooms. UK:
Longman Group Essex, 1992. 169 s. ISBN-0-582-07109-7.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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CONTENT
A: INTRODUCTION
1.The reason for choosing the topic
2. The purpose of the research.
3. The object and subject of the study.
4. Research methods.
B. CONTENT
1 . Theoretical basis of the initiative experience.

2. Actual situation before applying initiative experience
3. Solutions and implementations used to solve the problem
3.1.Vocabulary presentation
3.2. Be realistic
3.2.1.Choosing activities
3.2.2.The role of fun and games in the lessons
3.3. Practical part
3.3.3. Lesson plan 1
3.3.3. Lesson plan 2
3.3.3. Lesson plan 3
3.3.3. Lesson plan 4
4. The effectiveness of the initiative experience
C. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Conclusion
2. Recommendations
2.1. For the teacher
2.2. For students
2.3. For upper management
3. Acknowledgments

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