A study on perceptions and frequency of use of vocabulary learning strategies among english – major students at Banking Academy

BANKING ACADEMY

THE FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

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GRADUATION THESIS

TOPIC:

A STUDY ON PERCEPTIONS AND FREQUENCY OF USE OF

VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES AMONG ENGLISH – MAJOR

STUDENTS AT BANKING ACADEMY

Student : LE PHUONG THAO

Class : K20ATCC

Course : 2017 – 2021

Student ID. : 20A7510159

Instructor : MS. NGUYEN THI THU TRANG (M.A)

Hanoi, May 2021

i

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby state that this thesis is entirely an intellectual product of

my own, which was done with immense effort and devotion. It has not been submitted,

in whole or in part, in any previous application for a degree. Wherever contributions

of others are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference

to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussions.

I have read the University’s current research ethics guidelines and acknowledged my

obligations and the rights of the participants.

Hanoi, 22

th May, 2021

Signature

Le Phuong Thao

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang

(MA) for everything that she made to contribute to the completion of my dissertation.

During the process of research conduction, she has always been available to provide

helpful comments and support for my thesis. Had it not been for her enthusiasm in

support of me, I would never have finished this thesis. She has also been an excellent

mentor for developing my logical thinking, critical thinking and writing skill.

I also wish to show my gratitude to all teachers at the Faculty of Foreign Languages

at Banking Academy, especially Ms. Nguyen Mai Phuong, Ms. Do Thu Hang, Ms.

Tran Thanh Giang for helping me to collect responses of students in person.

Above all, I wish to express my appreciation from the bottom of my heart to my

family who are always by my side to give me motivational support and

encouragement. There were a lot of times I did bear the thought of giving up halfway.

However, because of my family still being there, I was motivated to keep moving

forward and reach where I am today.

Save the best for last, I would like to thank myself for daring to embark on this

challenging journey, being persistent and resilient and always striving for excellence.

Due to time limitations and a restricted capacity of the author, this thesis might

contain certain defects. Therefore, I would be really open-minded and grateful for

any constructive comments to enhance its quality.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION........................................................................................................i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................ iii

LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................v

LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................vi

ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................... viii

CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION...........................................................................1

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study .......................................1

1.1.1 Statement of the problem ...........................................................................1

1.1.2. Rationale for the study ..............................................................................2

1.2. Aims and objectives.........................................................................................3

1.3. Significance of the study..................................................................................3

1.4. Scope of the study ............................................................................................4

1.5. Research Structure ...........................................................................................4

CHAPTER II – LITERATURE REVIEW.............................................................6

2.1. Vocabulary .......................................................................................................6

2.1.1. Vocabulary and lexis.................................................................................6

2.1.2. The importance of vocabulary and lexical competence:...........................7

2.1.3. Classification of Vocabulary...................................................................10

2.2. Vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs)..........................................................10

2.2.1. Definition of vocabulary learning strategy .............................................11

2.2.2. Importance of vocabulary learning strategy............................................11

2.2.3. Classification of vocabulary learning strategies .....................................12

2.3. Previous research on Vocabulary Learning Strategies ..................................18

2.4. Research questions.........................................................................................23

CHAPTER III – METHODOLOGY ....................................................................24

3.1. Locale of the study .........................................................................................24

3.2. Research design..............................................................................................25

3.3. Participants.....................................................................................................26

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3.4. Research instrument:......................................................................................26

3.5. Data collection procedure: .............................................................................29

3.6. Data analysis procedure: ................................................................................30

CHAPTER IV – FINDING PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION.................32

4.1. Finding presentation.......................................................................................32

4.1.1 Reliability of the Measurement................................................................32

4.1.2. Findings on participants’ perceptions on VLSs application ...................36

4.1.3. Findings on the correlation between the year of study and amount of

time spent on learning English vocabulary and the vocabulary retention rate. 39

4.1.4. Findings on frequency of VLSs use........................................................41

4.2 Discussion .......................................................................................................55

4.2.1. Discussion on students’ perception on VLSs application.......................55

4.2.2. Discussion on relationship between the year of studying and time spent

on English vocabulary learning and the vocabulary retention rate...................55

4.2.3. Discussion on frequent use of VLSs among English-major students.....56

CHAPTER V – SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, IMPLICATIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................................................62

5.1. Summary of findings......................................................................................62

5.2. Implications....................................................................................................63

5.2.1. Implications for discovery strategies.......................................................65

5.2.2. Implications for learning/acquiring strategies ........................................68

5.2.3. Implications for revision strategies.........................................................71

5.2.4. Implications for expansion strategies......................................................72

5.3. Recommendations..........................................................................................73

CHAPTER VI – CONCLUSION...........................................................................75

REFERENCES........................................................................................................76

APPENDIX ..............................................................................................................85

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The concept of knowing a word by Nation (2001, p. 27) 10

Table 2: Sample of the study 26

Table 3: Other strategies applied by the participants 54

Table 4.1: Summary statistics of the Cronbach’s Alpha calculated………………..33

Table 4. 2: The corrected item - total correlation of section 3.1…………………..34

Table 4.3: The corrected item - total correlation of section 3.2 35

Table 4.4: The corrected item - total correlation of section 3.3 35

Table 4.5: The corrected item - total correlation of section 3.4 36

Table 4.6: Survey participants’ response on perceptions on VLSs. 37

Table 4.7: Test of Homogeneity of Variances 39

Table 4.8: ANOVA statistics table 40

Table 4.9: Test of Homogeneity of Variances 40

Table 4.10: ANOVA statistics table 41

Table 4.11: Overall use of VLSs by step of respondents 42

Table 4.12: Students’ responses to strategies they apply in Discovery Category 42

Table 4.13: Students’ responses to strategies they apply in learning category 46

Table 4.14: Students’ responses to strategies they apply in revising category 48

Table 4.15: Students’ responses to strategies they apply in expanding category 51

Table 5.1: Suggested vocabulary note-taking……………………………………...70

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Difference between vocabulary and lexis by Van (2013) 7

Figure 2: Classification of VLSs devised by Schmitt (1997) 14

Figure 4.1: The applied scale of measurement……………………………………..37

Figure 4.2: Summary of students’ responses from Table 4.6 (in percentage)……..38

Figure 4.3: Summary of students’ responses from Table 4.12 (in percentage)……43

Figure 4.4: The use of dictionary by genre of the participant……………………...44

Figure 4.5: Elements of words that are looked up in a dictionary………………...45

Figure 4.6: Summary of students’ responses from Table 4.13 (in percentage)…...47

Figure 4.7: Summary of students’ responses from Table 4.14 (in percentage)……50

Figure 4.8: Summary of students’ responses from Table 4.15 (in percentage)…...53

Figure 4.9: Proportion of strategy category given more emphasis………………...54

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ABSTRACT

This study is conducted to investigate the perceptions of English-major students at

Banking Academy of Vietnam on Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLSs) and their

frequency of VLSs use as well. In order to achieve the research goal, the researcher

decided to work on three research questions including (1) How students in the Faculty

of Foreign Languages perceive vocabulary learning strategies; (2) Whether there are

correlations between the year of study and the amount of time spent on learning

vocabulary and the retention rate of newly-learned words among English-major

students; (3) Which vocabulary learning strategies students in the Faculty of Foreign

Languages apply and the corresponding frequency of use. The researcher designs a

questionnaire consisting of three sections and distributes online and physically to 251

students of all academic years in the Faculty of Foreign Language at Banking

Academy. The collected data are encoded and descriptively analyzed by the SPSS

software version 20. It is shown in the study that the respondents have ever known or

even been instructed to use VLSs and believe in the benefits of applying VLSs.

Overall, the research also reveals that surveyed English-major students apply VLSs

at a medium level, of which only the discovery group was adopted in a high level of

frequency. Besides, no statistically significant difference is recognized between the

academic year and the amount of time spent on vocabulary acquisition by the

surveyed students and their vocabulary retention rate after one-week interval.

Key words: Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLSs), perceptions on VLSs, vocabulary,

teaching vocabulary, learning vocabulary, English as a foreign language (EFL).

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations Interpretation

VLSs Vocabulary Learning Strategies

SD Standard deviation

M Mean

EFL English as a Foreign Language

TFL Turkish as a foreign language

ESP English for Specific Purpose

LLSs Language Learning Strategies

TOEIC Test of English for International Communication

IELTS International English Language Testing System

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language

1

CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

1.1.1 Statement of the problem

In the age of globalization, intercultural communication has been increasingly

focused and developed. Among several major foreign languages that are widely

accepted all over the world, it is a fact that English Language is regarded as the most

common one. In the education program of Asian countries including Vietnam,

English teaching has been also attached great importance and become the mandatory

foreign language in schools’ curriculum. As a result, English Language becomes a

primary major and is formally trained in most universities and colleges in Vietnam.

Accordingly, English Language major tends to appeal to a vast array of Vietnamese

high school students rather than other foreign languages in Vietnam. According to

official statistics in 2017 of Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, the major

of English Language ranked the fourth as 24,251 candidates registered as the first

major for the university admission. It also accounted for the highest proportion of

candidates applying for the foreign languages and culture majors (57%) (Van, 2017).

When it comes to learning a language, there are four basic language skills including

listening, reading, speaking and writing in foreign language education and training

(Bağçeci & Yaşar, 2007; Barın, 1997, as cited in Darancık, 2018). For successful and

effective education and training in foreign language courses, these four basic

language skills need to be developed and reinforced in accordance with the level and

needs of the learners (Darancık, 2018). However, “in order to improve these four

skills, vocabulary is an essential building block of language and as such it makes

sense to be able to measure learners’ knowledge of it” (Schmitt, Schmitt & Clapham,

2001, p.55). Therefore, vocabulary has a crucial role to play in learning and teaching

of a foreign language as it enables learners to get access to all forms of verbal and

written communication of the word (Moeller, Ketsman & Masmaliyeva, 2009). For

example, in reading and listening skills, first and foremost, students need to identify