An investigation into the effects of semantic mapping on vocabulary memorizing for the first year english non major students at namdinh teachers traning college submitted

M IN IS T R Y O F E D U C A T IO N A N D T R A IN IN G
H A N O I U N IV E R S IT Y

T R A N TH I T H U H IE N

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTS OF
SEMANTIC MAPPING ON VOCABULARY
MEMORIZING FOR THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH
NON-MAJOR STUDENTS AT NAMDINH
TEACHER’S TRANING COLLEGE

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT
OF REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE
OF MASTER IN TESOL

SUPERVISOR: MA. PHAM HONG THUY

TRUNG TAM
THÖNG TIN THlf VStN
is.
H anoi
M ay, 2 0 0 7
f t

m


ACKNOW LEDGEM ENT...................................................................................................i
A B STR A C T .........................................................................................................................ii
LIST OF A BBR EV IA TIO N S..........................................................................................iv

LIST OF FIGURES AND TA BLES................................................................................v
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION................................................................................... 1
1.1 .Background to the study...............................................................................................1
1.1.1. The College............................................................................................................ I
1.1.2. The Teachers.......................................................................................................... 1
1.1.3. The students............................................................................................................1
1.1.4. The Program ...........................................................................................................2
1.1.5 The statement o f the problem............................................................................... 4
1.2. The aims o f the study.................................................................................................. 6
1.2.1. The aims o f the study............................................................................................6
1.2.2. The research questions..........................................................................................6
1.3. The scopes of the study............................................................................................... 7
1.4. The organization o f the study..................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................ 9
2.1. Vocabulary acquisition................................................................................................9
2.1.1. What is vocabulary?.............................................................................................9
2.1.2. The importance o f vocabulary........................................................................... 10
2.1.3. Types o f vocabulary.............................................................................................11
2.1.4. Incidental and intentional vocabulary learning................................................11
2.2. Vocabulary teaching.................................................................................................. 12
2.2.1. Traditional vocabulary teaching techniques.................................................... 13
2.2.2. Current trends in teaching vocabulary.............................................................. 14
2.3. Memorizing word meanings........... :..................... .................................................. 18
2.3.1. Short-term and long-term memory....................................................................18
2.3.2. Major factors affecting word memorization.................................................... 18
2.4. Semantic mapping for vocabulary learning........................................................... 20
2.5. The previous related studies.....................................................................................23
2.6. Summary..................................................................................................................... 26
CHAPTER III: THE METHODOLOGY......................................................................28
3.1. The research design...................................................................................................28

3.2. The research questions..............................................................................................29
3.3. Description of variables............................................................................................29
3.3.1. Independent variables.........................................................................................29
3.3.2. Dependent variable............................................................................................. 30
3.4. The subjects................................................................................................................31
3.5. Data collection........................................................................................................... 32
3.5.1. Data collection instruments............................................................................... 32
3.5.1.1. T ests............................................................................................................... 32
3.5.1.1.1. Justications for tests............................................................................. 32
3.5.1.1.2. Descriptions of tests.............................................................................. 33
3.5.1.2. Questionnaire................................................................................................35

A


3.5.1.2.1. Justifications for the questionnaire...................................................... 35
3.5.1.2.2. Descriptions of the questionnaire.........................................................35
3.5.2. Data collection procedure..................................................................................36
3.6. Data analysis techniques........................................................................................... 37
3.6.1. Descriptive analysis......................................................................................... 38
3.6.2. T-test.................................................................................................................. 38
3.6.3. Thematic analysis for questionnaire results................................................. 39
3.7. Summary....................................................................................................................39
CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND D ISCUSSION.........................................41
4.1. Descriptive analysis................................................................................................... 41
4.1.1. Descriptive analysis for vocabulary tests......................................................... 41
4.1.1.1. Results from pretests.....................................................................................41
4.1.1.2. Results from the posttest..............................................................................44
4.1.1.3. Results from progress tests..........................................................................48
4.1.2. Results from the experimental questionnaire.................................................. 50

4.1.2.1. Results for students’ attitudes towards the technique............................ 50
4.1.2.2 Results for the effectiveness o f the technique............................................51
4.1.2.3 Results for the use o f the technique.............................................................53
4.2. Major findings............................................................................................................ 56
4.3. Discussion................................................................................................................... 57
4.4. The limitations o f the study......................................................................................59
4.5. Summary..................................................................................................................... 60
CHAPTER V: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION...............................61
5.1. Implications and recommendations........................................................................ 61
5.1.1. The implications which arise from the present study.....................................61
5.1.1.1. The role o f teacher in vocabulary learning process................................. 61
5.1.1.2. The role o f discussion in semantic mapping application........................62
5.1.2. Recommendations for future research..............................................................63
5.2. Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 64
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................66
APPENDIXES................................................................................................................... 71
APPENDIX 1: T ests.....................................................................................................71
APPENDIX 2: Test Results........................................................................................ 80
APPENDIX 3: Questionnaire......................................................................................83
APPENDIX 4: Results from The Questionnaire..................................................... 88
APPENDIX 5: Lesson P lans....................................................................................... 91


ACKNOW LEDGEMENT
I wish to express m y gratitude to my supervisor, M A. Pham H ong Thuy,
for her encouragem ent, guidance, and advice throughout the research.
W ithout her w ell-designed plan, and m eticulous review o f the draft, this
research w ould have been im possible.
1 w ould also like to acknow ledge and express m y appreciation to thank
MA. N guyen T hai Ha, V ice Dean o f Post G raduate D epartm ent, for

offering m e the chance to undertake this problem and for providing me
sustained guidance and advice.
I am also indebted to Dr. Tran H ong H anh for her statistical assistance
and advice.
I also w ish to th an k my colleagues, my friends, my students, and my
fam ily for th eir understanding and support.


ABSTRACT
At Namdinh Teachers’ Training College (NTTC), English non-major students
have studied English as a compulsory subject. When learning English, they
laced with many difficulties not only in specific language skills but also in
vocabulary acquisition. Because of their learning habits and their learning
strategies, they failed to memorize words for long time and to recall words
when necessary. Many efforts were made to help the students learn words
better but the results did not satisfy both the teacher and the students. Based on
literature review, it is found that semantic mapping has had good effects on
vocabulary learning; especially it improves the retention and retrieval o f word
meanings (Schmitt, 2000; Grains & Redman, 1986; Sokmen, 1997; Decarrico,
2001; Nation, 2001). That is the reason why the researcher wanted to conduct
the present study.
This study set out to investigate the effects o f semantic mapping on word
meaning retention and retrieval o f the first-year English non-major students at
NTTC. The focus o f this study is to find whether students could remember and
recall the words they learnt better with the help o f semantic mapping than other
traditional techniques which were represented in this study as the wordlist
technique.
The experiment was commended in 15 weeks in two classes (Computer
Science and Mathematics) as the two classes had almost the same background.
The two classes were randomly assigned as experimental group and control

group. For the experimental group, semantic mapping was used to teach
vocabulary whereas for control group, the teaching was through wordlists.
Participants took English vocabulary proficiency tests at the beginning and at
the end o f the study, called pretest and posttest respectively. During the
experiment, participants were delivered progress tests on vocabulary. For
experimental group, a questionnaire was completed at the end o f the study to


find out experimental students’ attitudes towards the semantic mapping
technique.
The data for this study was obtained through two instruments: English
vocabulary tests and a questionnaire on semantic mapping for experimental
group. The subjects were 80 first-year English non-major students from two
classes namely Computer Science and Mathematics in NTTC. The data were
collected through vocabulary tests and a questionnaire. Then, these data were
analyzed using descriptive analysis, T-test and thematic analysis with the
assistance o f SPSS version 13.0.
The findings o f the study showed that the experimental students outperformed
the control students in terms o f vocabulary retention and retrieve and that the
experimental students have positive responses to semantic mapping technique.
The findings o f the study also indicated that semantic mapping can be used for
future vocabulary learning. Some implications also rose from the present study
such as the teacher’s role and the role o f discussions in vocabulary learning.


CM: Control M athematics
HCS: Experimental Computer Science
EFL: English as a foreign language
ESL: English as a second language
FL: Foreign language

Cj E: General English
GET: General English training
LI:

First language

L2:

Second language

NTTC: Namdinh Teachers’Training College


fable 4.1 : Descriptive Statistics o f pretest.
fable 4.2: Independent Sample T-test for pretest.
l able 4.3: Descriptive Statistics of gender difference for pretest.
Fable 4.4: Descriptive Statistics o f posttest.
Table 4.5: Independent Sample T-test for posttest.
Table 4.6: Descriptive Statistics of gender difference for posttest.
Table 4.7: Paired Sample T-test results.
Table 4.8. Descriptive Statistics o f progress tests
Feature 2.1. Semantic feature analysis for means o f transport.
Feature 2.2. Semantic mapping for human life cycle.
Feature 2.3. Semantic mapping for items in bedroom.
Feature 2.4. Semantic mapping for word “unfaithfulness”.
Feature 2.5. Semantic mapping for word “sumo”.
Feature 4.1 : Pretest scores.
Feature 4.2: Posttest scores.
Feature 4.3: Pretest and posttest scores.
Feature 4.4: Progress test scores.

Feature 4.5: Responses to the attitudes towards the semantic mapping.
Feature 4.6: Responses to the effectiveness o f the semantic mapping.
Feature 4.7: Responses to the uses o f semantic mapping.


C H A P T E R I: IN T R O D U C T IO N
1.1. Background to the study.

/. /. /. The College
Namdinh Teachers' Training College (NTTC) is known as a good educational
unit under the Ministry o f Education and Training. Since it was established in
1978. the College has trained thousands o f students to be teachers for
secondary schools in the province.

1.1.2. The Teachers.
The English Department at NTTC has total ten teachers. Among them, four
teach General English (GE) for English non-major students and the rest teach
English major students. All o f the teachers had formal tertiary training at the
long-established institutions of language in Vietnam such as Hanoi University,
College o f Foreign Languages under Vietnam National University. Most of
them are qualified teachers with good teaching experience o f more than four
years and abilities to select and adapt teaching materials. One of them has MA
in TESOL and one has MA degree in Education Management. They are
enthusiastic with teaching, creative in applying new materials in their teaching
and willing to help students learn better.

1.1.3. The students.
375 first-year English non-major students found the population for the study.
They enroll in the College to become teachers at secondary schools. They come
from different districts in the province. Their age ranges from 18 to 22. There

may be no big problem among students in terms o f age and this is one of
advantages for teachers to choose the appropriate teaching method. First-year
English non-major students are divided into classes according to their
professionals namely Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics, Biology. Art,
English, Literature, and Geography. The average number o f students in each
class is 40 to 45. This means that the class size is too big for a language class


and that teachers may have some difficulties in controlling students' activities
and in managing the class.
With regards to linguistic level, it is assumed that students have learnt a foreign
language at their high schools. The results obtained from students’ school
reports show that some students studied French, some studied Russian and
most o f them studied three-year English program. It implies that the entrance
level o f students is different and most of them are at low proficiency in terms
of English. However, according to the article issued by the Ministry o f
Education and Training, students must start their foreign language study at the
pre-intermediate level as they are assumed that they had their elementary
linguistic proficiency after leaving high schools. In addition, at the NTTC,
students have to study English as a compulsory subject. That means some
students start the language course at the pre-intermediate, some at elementary
and others from nothing in terms o f English knowledge. All these things
possibly bring teachers a lot o f difficulties in teaching a multi-level class.
Students’ attitudes towards learning English are different, too. Most of them
found English difficult and they try to learn English for exams at the end o f
each term. Most o f students think English is unnecessary for their future jobs as
most o f them become teachers o f science subjects at secondary schools in
districts of the province where they have little chance to use English in their
jobs and to access to English documents.
In sum, first-year English non-major students at NTTC must start their English

study at pre-intermediate level although most o f them are at elementary
linguistic proficiency. Their main aim to learn English is to pass the exams. It
seems to be challenges for teachers to help students learn English well and to
motivate them in learning English.

1.1.4. The Program.
For students who study a pure science such as Mathematics, Physics, Computer
Science or Biology, English is compulsory subject which is taught in the first


two years. General English Training program (GET) for English non-major
students is targeted at providing students with basic knowledge on vocabulary
and grammar structures at intermediate level, and communicative skills through
four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing). It consists of 10
credits equivalent to 150 contact periods. 150 periods are further divided into
four terms (term I to term IV). Every week, students have one class o f English
which lasts for two forty-five minute periods.
The textbook used for this study is Lifelines Pre-Intermediate which was the
second book in Lifelines series written by Hutchinson. The book is the fourskill integrated one with various interesting topics. All the four language skills
are developed systematically in the book. In order to help students practice
language skills better, massive topic-based vocabulary is provided. As
vocabulary learning is the focus of the present study, the description of
vocabulary section in the textbook is taken into consideration. Vocabulary in
the book is presented by topics. It is systematically recycled within the unit.
Students practice words by doing vocabulary tasks such as matching, grouping,
filling in the gaps, picture labeling. The vocabulary section is placed next to

either o f the reading, listening and speaking section. It draws its focus from
these sections and aims to practice some o f the vocabulary that students will
need when working on them. The vocabulary section also provides the students

opportunity to “practice some useful expressions for dealing with vocabulary;
to revise some basic vocabulary areas; to think about how to record
vocabulary” (Hutchinson & Ward, 1997). Although the vocabulary section was
well-designed, first-year English non-major students still have difficulties in
learning vocabulary. That is why the researcher wants to conduct the study on
this field. When the researcher commenced the study, participants have just
finished the first book “Lifelines Elementary” in term I. In term II, the students
work on the first seven units in “Lifelines Pre-intermediate” in 15 weeks as
mentioned above. The rest units o f the textbook will be covered in the next
term. Although the textbook has a lot o f good features on not only in grammar,


the language skills development but also vocabulary, first-year English non­
major students at NTTC still have difficulties in working with words especially
in remembering and recalling the word meaning. These problems will be
discussed in the next section.

/. 1.5 The statement o f the problem.
Vietnam's "open door” policy toward the West poses an increasing interest in
learning

English

as

English

is

considered

an

effective

means

of

communication. It is used in most aspects of life such as education, trade and
commerce, tourism and entertainment. Vietnamese people learn English for
different purposes such as for their jobs, their studies, and their entertainment
so on. They try to acquire knowledge and skills o f the new language to
communicate well. In order to communicate well in a foreign language (FL),
learners should acquire an adequate number o f words and should know how to
use them

effectively. That is why Davies, P (2000) stated that “in

communication, vocabulary is often more important than grammar” .
The importance o f vocabulary in English as a second language (ESL) or
English as a foreign language (EFL) learning process has been widely
recognized and well-established. Much o f the research indicates that enlarging
language vocabulary has been one o f the objectives o f many EFL learners. This
is true for English non-major students at NTTC. When learning English, they
try to improve their vocabulary knowledge. However, they have to cope with
many difficulties in learning vocabulary, especially in memorizing and
recalling the word meanings. Low vocabulary proficiency makes an obstacle
for them to acquire language knowledge and to participate in activities in class.
It is really frustrating for them when they discover they can not communicate

effectively because they do not know enough words they need. They easily
forget the words they learnt or fail to use words communicatively. They can not
get words they learnt into long-term memory and recall them when necessary.
Although they spend most of their time learning vocabulary, the results are
disappointing.


One o f reasons for the students’ low vocabulary retention and retrieval can be
addressed as their learning habits. Their learning habits such as writing down
words on note-books. learning words by heart, heavily depending on word list
in textbook, passively waiting for teacher’s explanations for new words seem to
be ineffective and make them bored with learning vocabulary. In order to
remember new items, the students often use rote memorization techniques. As
they reported, they used to write down the words in notebook for several times,
to speak aloud words and to make sentences with words. They admitted that
they failed to recall most o f the words they had learnt before as there were no
clues. It can be seen that students’ bad memory is due to lack o f appropriate
vocabulary memorizing strategies. They are not provided different vocabulary
learning techniques and are not encouraged to use them. They also have no
chance to work with words in a deeper process. This is pity because working
with words can be enjoyable and satisfying for learners.
The questions posed for teachers o f English at NTTC are how to help their
students memorize vocabulary effectively and how to motivate the students in
vocabulary lessons. Teachers can encourage their students to systematically
and effectively record vocabulary that they taught in class. They also provide
their students with strategies to transfer this record into their long-term
memories so that each item is added to the repertoire o f words and phrases that
they can understand and, when necessary, use.
Research on vocabulary memorization (Cohen,

1981; Thompson,

1987;

Hulstijin, 1997; Levin, 1993) is focus on the effectiveness o f mnemonic
strategies that facilitate vocabulary learning. The researchers paid more
attention to mnemonic techniques, especially the key-word method and often
compare these techniques with rote learning ones. They shared the views that
mnemonic

techniques

help

students

remember

words

better

in

their

experimental conditions. However, they also admitted that these devices
mainly aim for the retention of paired-associates whereas the vocabulary o f an
L2 is far more than a collection o f L1-L2 word pairs and the retention of a

word is the beginning rather than the end o f the long process o f vocabulary
acquisition. These techniques also emphasize on one-to-one relationship
between form and meaning. And the most importance is that not all the words
are equally suitable for mnemonic mediation such as abstract words (Ellis,
1997).
In another development, many efforts have been made to improve students' bad
memory such as using games, or reading passages which were proved to help
students in a certain context. However, they also have their weak points. Let
take games as an example. Although game could help motivate students and
assist the retrieval o f word meanings, they are time-consuming. In addition,
games can be useful for young learners but not much for the adult ones.
As there is no perfect treatment for all contexts, teachers o f English should base
on their certain situation to make changes. Using semantic mapping to teach
vocabulary is one o f these efforts, which the researcher would like to try using
in this study to help her first-year English non-major students remember and
recall words they learnt.
1.2. The aims of the study.

1.2.1. The aims o f the study.
The purpose o f the study is to investigate the effect o f semantic mapping on
word retention and retrieval o f first year English non-major students at
Namdinh Teachers’ Training College.

1.2.2. The research questions.
The study is conducted based on the hypothesis that semantic mapping helps
students remember and recall word meaning better. To achieve the aim, the
study seeks information to answer the following questions:
1. Does semantic mapping help first-year English non-major students
memorize word meanings better?

2. Does semantic mapping assist the students recall word meanings
effectively?
3. What are experimental students' attitudes towards semantic mapping
technique?
1.3. The scopes of the study.
In this study, I would like to study one o f the vocabulary teaching techniques
recommended and examine its effectiveness in my own teaching situation with
the hope that the findings o f the study will be o f certain use for vocabulary
teaching and learning in my institution. The study focuses on only the aspect of
remembering and recalling word meanings rather than vocabulary acquisition
as a whole.
1.4. The organization of the study.
Chapter I presents the background for the present study including the settings
and the program. It also presents an account o f the necessity and importance o f
doing the present study. It poses the aims and research questions. It ends with
the organization o f the whole thesis and the scope o f the current study.
Chapter II reviews the established findings concerning vocabulary learning in
order to provide a strong frame-work and reference system for the study.
Information on semantic mapping technique is provided and analyzed to
indicate the possible effects of the treatment used in the study.
Chapter III identifies the subjects, the settings o f the study. It gives description
o f variables, data collection instruments, procedure and techniques for data
analysis. It also evaluates the data collection instruments used: tests and
questionnaires.
Chapter IV reports the results o f the study using statistical analysis to assess the
validity o f the research hypothesis which was concretized in research
questions. It provides major findings with discussion

Chapter V addresses the possible limits o f the study such as the limited time for
implementing the treatment, the small number o f subjects. Based on the major
findings and limits o f the study, it gives implications raised from the present
study, indications for future research in this field, recommendations for further
study and applications of the findings to other contexts.
Finally, a bibliography and appendices, including a glossary, the tables, the
data collection instruments, the lesson plans are attached to the thesis.


C H A P T E R II: L IT E R A T U R E REV IEW
In this chapter, relevant literature will be reviewed, underlying the necessity
and importance o f the present study. First, some basic information about
vocabulary and vocabulary teaching and learning will be provided to found the
fundamental background for the study. Then, relevant studies will be reviewed.
The findings from those previous studies which seem most important and
useful to the present study will be discussed in creating hypotheses about
possible outcomes, based on the research questions.
2.1. Vocabulary acquisition.

2.1.1. What is vocabulary?
There are different definitions o f vocabulary. Each linguist gives his own
definition o f vocabulary depending on the criteria that he considers the most
important in terms o f linguistics, semantics, lexicology etc. In her book “A
course in language teaching”, Penny Ur (1991: 60) defined vocabulary roughly
as '‘the words we teach in the foreign language” . However, she also accepted
that “a new item o f vocabulary may be a single word or may be more than a
single word, a compound o f two or three words such as post office, mother-inlaw,; and multi-word idioms such as call it a day, like father like son". Pyles
and Angelo (1970) said “it is true that vocabulary is the focus o f language with
its sound and meaning, which interlock to allow us to communicate with one

another”. Ta Tien Hung & Nguyen Van Do (1994: 23) focused on word
meanings when they defined words as “small pieces o f language which carry
bits o f meaning” . They stated that “knowing many words does not guarantee a
person will be able to speak a language, but not knowing enough words can
prevent a person from effectively speaking or understanding a language” . In
my opinion, it is logical to say that the vocabulary o f a language is all its
words, compounds and idioms used to convey and receive information in oral
and written communication.


2.1.2. The importance o f vocabulary.
Vocabulary plays an important role in learning a foreign language. It is an
element that links the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and
writing. Krashen (1989: 439) pointed out that “a large vocabulary is. o f course,
essential for mastery o f a language’' as "without vocabulary nothing can be
conveyed" (Wilkins, 1972: 111). McGinnis and Smith (1982: 236) also
believed that "without words a students can seldom understand what is being
communicated to him nor can he express his thoughts to others". In this
respect, Pittelman and Heimlich (1991) also added that vocabulary knowledge
is important in understanding both spoken and written language. They stated:
It is not surprising that vocabulary knowledge, or knowledge o f word
meanings, is critical to reading comprehension. In order for children to
understand what they are reading, they must know the meanings of
words they encounter...Children with limited vocabulary knowledge...
will experience difficulty comprehending both oral and written text.
(p.37)
Rubin & Thompson (1994) shared the same view to the significant role of
vocabulary in communication. They stated that “one can not speak, understand,
read or write a foreign language without knowing a lot o f words. Vocabulary
learning is at the heart o f mastering a foreign language” (p.79)

The interrelation between vocabulary and reading comprehension has been
proven. Many pieces o f works show that vocabulary knowledge helps improve
learners’ reading comprehension and reading passages help enlarge learners’
vocabulary stock. To support the crucial roles o f vocabulary in reading
comprehension, Crow (1986) claims that for adult L2 readers, the biggest
difficulty in reading is not the concept o f the text, but the words representing
these concepts. Laufer (1997) argues that although vocabulary is not the
equivalent o f reading comprehension, “no text comprehension is... without
understanding the text’s vocabulary” (quoted in Hyde, 2002).
Together with the acquisition o f four language skills, L2 learners try their best
to master a large stock o f L2 vocabulary and their vocabulary knowledge has


been improved intentionally and incidentally. However, the question is which
words are most necessary for learners to know and how to remember these
words. Learners seem to have more problems with low-frequency words than
high-frequency ones. This matter will be further discussed in the following
section: types o f vocabulary.

2.1.3. Types o f vocabulary.
Researchers (Nation, 2001; Hyde, 2002; Ellis, 1998) have categorized groups
o f English vocabulary by frequency of overall occurrence to determine which
words are most necessary for learners to know. Two common divisions are
high-frequency words and low-frequency words. High-frequency words
include function words and content words, and make up the majority of the
running words in the text. They cover a very large proportion o f running words
in spoken and written texts and occur in all kinds o f uses o f the language. Low frequency words make up 7 to 15 percent o f running text. They range from
several thousand words that fall just outside the list o f high-frequency words, to
proper name, non-topic-related technical words, formal, dialectal, archaic and
foreign words. They are these words which are most likely unknown by

learners and therefore must applicable to glossing. Low-frequency words are
words that occur infrequently and cover only a small proportion o f any text.
These words pose challenge to L2 or FL learners in memorizing and retrieving
their meanings.

2.1.4. Incidental and intentional vocabulary learning.
Vocabulary acquisition or learning occurs intentionally or incidentally.
Intentional learning is a type o f learning that teachers or students design, plan
for or intend to learn vocabulary whereas incidental learning is a product of
doing or learning something else (Hatch & Brown, 1995). Hulstijin (1996)
defined incidental vocabulary acquisition as “learning in the absence of
intention to learn” . This does not mean that the learners do not notice the target
words but the learners’ attention is focused on “understanding the passage as a


whole” and memory for the new word comes as a natural result o f this process.
In other words, a conscious effort to learn the target words is still necessary in
the incidental learning process.
In a comprehensive review of research on incidental vocabulary learning in
mostly LI contexts, Krashen (cited in Gu. Y, 2002) concluded that incidental
vocabulary

learning achieves better results than

intentional vocabulary

learning. Although incidental vocabulary learning seems to be better than
intentional vocabulary learning, there is, in fact, already evidence in recent
studies o f L2 learners that a combined approach is superior to incidental
vocabulary learning alone. Nation (2001) and Smith (2000) shared similar view'

to the combination o f incidental and intentional learning as a vocabulary
learning strategy. Gu, Y (2002) cited Parry’s opinions about the combination o f
the two ways. He said that Parry went a step further and demonstrated how
exactly a combination o f incidental and intentional learning o f vocabulary
during reading (1) could be possible and (2) helped the overall development of
both L2 vocabulary and academic success in L2.
2.2. Vocabulary teaching.
With hundreds o f thousands o f words in the English language, learners will not
need to produce every word they learn, some they will just need to recognize.
Therefore, selecting what to teach based on frequency and usefulness to the
needs of particular learners is essential. Once the teacher has chosen what to
teach, the next important steps are to consider what learners need to know
about the items, and how the teacher can present the items for them.
There are lots o f ways of getting across the meaning o f a lexical item such as
illustration, mine, definition, guessing or associating. The teacher tries to make
use o f the techniques to help his students learn vocabulary better. Based on his
teaching and learning contexts, the teacher decides which techniques to use,
and how to present the words effectively. Together with the development of


vocabulary in L2. the techniques for learning vocabulary are also developed,
improved or added.
In this study, the researcher categorized them into two groups: traditional and
current one. Traditional teaching techniques refer to which used to be applied
in teaching L2. With regards to current trends in teaching vocabulary, the
researcher emphasized on movements in teaching vocabulary which have
recently been preferred and encouraged to use by teachers o f English.

2.2.1. Traditional vocabulary teaching techniques.
Traditionally, vocabulary has not been a particular subject for students to learn,

but has been taught within lessons o f speaking, listening, reading or writing.
During the lesson, students use their own vocabulary or are introduced to new
words provided by the teacher and classmates which they apply to classroom
activities. For many learners o f English, whenever they think o f vocabulary,
they think o f learning a list o f new words with meanings in their native
language without any real context practice. A number o f learners may share the
same experience o f looking up words in a bilingual dictionary to find their
meanings or definitions when they encounter new words. They may even write
down lines o f new words without any idea o f the real use o f them in context.
Take translation technique as an example. Learners tend to find the equivalent
words in their own language through dictionary or by asking their teacher for
the meanings of the new words. Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to find
the equivalent one for a L2 word as not every word has direct translation. In
addition, when learners recall word meanings, they often think of the LI
meaning first rather than the L2 words. This makes learners heavily depend on
the dictionary or/ and the teacher. Working this way, after a short period of
time, many learners may find out that learning vocabulary in lists or through
translation does not satisfy themselves, and they think the cause for it is just
their bad memory.


Traditional instruction in dictionary use focuses on having students look up
words and use information from the definitions they find to write sentences.
T his kind o f instruction appears to produce only a superficial understanding
and rapid forgetting of words (McKeown, 1993). Young students often have
difficulty in interpreting the information in definitions which has been rewritten
to make them more user-friendly. He showed an example that after examining
the errors made by students who wrote sentences based on dictionary
definitions o f new words; the examiners concluded that this activity is
"pedagogically useless”. Young learners have difficulties choosing the

appropriate meanings from a dictionary entry for unknown words. The
simplified definitions found in school dictionaries and glossaries are often
failed to adequately describe the word meaning.
Other traditional techniques such as illustration, mine also have their own
limits. Illustration, for instance, is only useful for concrete words whereas
mining lends itself particularly well to action verbs (Gainer & Redman, 1986).
In sum, traditional ways of presenting a new word require a lot of teacher’s
activities. The teacher controls the whole activities and heavily affects students’
vocabulary learning. The teacher is the centre o f the class, the students are only
listeners. They listen to the teacher all the time, hoping for the explanation on
word meaning from their teachers, receiving information without using their
own minds. In order to save the time or finish the teaching task on schedule,
the teacher also gives students only a little time for performing the vocabulary
tasks, and then gives the answers, without encouraging them to think why. This
kind o f teaching turned students into bookworms and made them tired. The
students seem passive to receive the word meanings. Therefore, they have
difficulties in remembering and recalling the words.

2.2.2. Current trends in teaching vocabulary.
Since memorizing the vocabulary plays a significant role in learning a foreign
language, teachers as well as researchers experience different techniques to get


students to more involve in greater depth o f processing which would result in
better vocabulary learning. The current trends in teaching vocabulary focus on
helping students memorizing words that they have learnt and attached the
words to their relations with other words or in different contexts.
According to Harmer (2001), what a word means is often defined by its
relationship to other words. It means that when studying a word, learners
should not study it in isolation; they should study its relationship to other

words. Deccarico (2001) shared the view with Harmer in this field. She
suggested that new words should not be presented in isolation and should not
be learnt by simple rote memorization. It is important that new vocabulary
items be presented in context rich enough to provide clues to meaning and that
students be given multiple exposure to items they should learn.
Let take semantic elaboration as an example. Semantic elaboration consists o f a
series o f techniques as semantic feature analysis, ordering, pictorial schemata
and semantic mapping (Ellis, 1995; Sôkmen, 1997). Semantic mapping and
semantic feature analysis draw learners’ prior knowledge and use discussion to
elicit information about word meanings. Semantic feature analysis is similar to
semantic mapping, with the exception that it uses a grid rather than a map as
graphic display. Following examples will illustrate the two techniques.
Means
of
transport
Bicycle
Car
boat
plane
uni-cycle
Motor­
bike

one
wheeled

two
wheeled

four

wheeled

foot
powered

motor
powered

on
land

-

+

-

+

+

-

-

+

-

-

-

?

-

-

-

-

?
+
+
+

+

-

-

+

-

+

-

-

-

-

+

+

-

-

+
+

in the
water

in the
air

-

-

-

-

+

-

-

+

-

-

-

-

("+ " fo r positive examples; “- ’’fo r negative examples; “?" fo r items which
may be true in certain circumstance)

Feature 2.1. Semantic feature analysis for “means o f transport” (Neisel, 2000)


Feature 2.2. Semantic mapping fo r “human life cycle” (Grains & Redman, 1986)
Semantic elaboration focuses on word meaning association attached to words.
Words appear to be organized into semantically related sets in mind and thus
the associations attached to a word will affect the way that it is stored in the
brain. Furthermore, knowing a range o f associations for a word helps

understand its full meaning and helps recall the word form or its meaning in
appropriate contexts (Nation, 2001).
Although current vocabulary teaching techniques have some advantages over
the traditional one, they also have their disadvantages. Semantic elaboration
posed the danger o f presenting closely related new words at the same time. If a
different response is required for each item in a group o f closely related items,
the differences between the items will interfere with each other, thus making
the learning task more difficult. As Nation (1990:190) stated “the network of
associations between words in a native speaker’s brain may be set as a goal for
L2 learners, but this does not mean that directly teaching these associations is
the best way to achieve this goal”. Though guessing words from context is
“still seen as an important part o f vocabulary-building, especially among
advanced learners, but it requires a great deal o f prior training in basic
vocabulary, word recognition, metacognition and subject matter” (Huckin &
Coady, 1999).
The current-used techniques in teaching vocabulary require efforts of both
teachers and their students in fulfilling vocabulary activities. The role of the