UNIDAD ACADÉMICA DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES
CARRERA DE CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN MENCIÓN
INGLÉS
LEARNING STRATEGIES TO TEACH VOCABULARY BEFORE STARTING
A CLASS TOPIC AIMED TO THE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
MERCHÁN MEDINA VALERIA PAMELA
MACHALA
2016
UNIDAD ACADÉMICA DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES
CARRERA DE CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN MENCIÓN
INGLÉS
LEARNING STRATEGIES TO TEACH VOCABULARY BEFORE
STARTING A CLASS TOPIC AIMED TO THE HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENTS
MERCHÁN MEDINA VALERIA PAMELA
MACHALA
2016
URKUND
Urkund Analysis Result
Analysed Document:
Submitted:
Submitted By:
Significance:
MERCHAN MEDINA VALERIA PAMELA.pdf (D21116080)
2016-07-19 04:32:00
[email protected]
9%
Sources included in the report:
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1060180.pdf
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED530075.pdf
http://www.iojpe.org/ojs/index.php/IOJPE/article/view/109/161
http://revistas.udistrital.edu.co/ojs/index.php/calj/article/view/2945/0
https://www.coursehero.com/file/p15cb02b/T-E-C-H-N-O-L-O-G-I-C-A-L-I-N-N-O-V-A-T-I-O-N-S-Inthe-beginning-of-the-20th/
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1077911.pdf
Instances where selected sources appear:
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DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to God for getting an achievement in my life
To my parents for having the confidence in me and for supporting me until the last moment of
my career.
A brothers and nephews for being my breath and support to get ahead, and my friends to be
when most needed
ABSTRACT
The vocabulary is a very important aspect to learn a new language. For that reason, it is
important to apply strategies and activities suitable to achieve a good retention.
Teaching vocabulary through the implementation of these activities aims to make students keep
active their knowledge, besides these develop and promote a better and effective learning. Also
through them allow the student can strengthen and retain new vocabulary.
The use of strategies for teaching vocabulary helps the student find it easier to learn new words.
This work is based on the teacher to implement strategies that positively influence in teaching
vocabulary in high school students before starting a class topic.
In this way the learner may have a previous idea about the subject that will treat later and thus
associate it with the relevant information. These strategies and activities strengthen and expand
the student's vocabulary, creating good communication and fluency in English language.
Key words: vocabulary, strategies, learning, avtivities
RESUMEN
El vocabulario es un aspecto muy esencial en el aprendizaje de un nuevo idioma, por tal razón
es que se debe usar estrategias y actividades llamativas para lograr una buena retención del
mismo.
La enseñanza de vocabulario a través de la aplicación de estas actividades tiene como fin lograr
que los estudiantes mantengan activos sus conocimientos.
El uso de estrategias para la enseñanza de vocabulario ayuda a que al estudiante se le resulte
más fácil aprender nuevas palabras. El presente trabajo se basa en que el docente pueda
implementar estrategias que influyan de manera positiva en la enseñanza de vocabulario en los
alumnos de secundaria antes de empezar un tema de clase.
De esta manera el aprendiz podrá tener una idea previa acerca del tema del que se va a tratar
más adelante y así asociarlo con la respectiva información. Estas estrategias y actividades
permiten fortalecer y ampliar el vocabulario del estudiante, lo que genera una buena
comunicación y fluidez del idioma inglés.
Palabras claves: vocabulario, estrategias, aprendizaje, actividades
CONTENT
INTRODUCCIÓN ................................................................................................................................. 3
DEVELOPMENT.................................................................................................................................. 4
What is Vocabulary? ......................................................................................................................... 4
Importance of teaching Vocabulary ................................................................................................ 4
Vocabulary acquisition through multimedia environment .............................................................. 5
Vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) ............................................................................................ 5
Didactic resources to teach vocabulary .......................................................................................... 6
Activities to develop vocabulary...................................................................................................... 8
CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 11
REFERENCIAS .................................................................................................................................. 12
INTRODUCCIÓN
English is the most spoken language in the majority of countries, which give important to it.
This creates the need to learn for both personal and business use. Learning a foreign language
requires not only develop the four communication skills, but also proper handling of
vocabulary, because this is the main element of any communication
The importance of vocabulary resides in memory but in the amount of words that are known
and used (Bava Harji, Balakrishnan, Kaur Bhar, & Letchumanan, 2015), which is why the
vocabulary is a key point for learning a foreign language since this can transmit ideas and
express thoughts.
In some cases teachers do not make a proper introduction of new vocabulary at the moment of
teaching the classes, which hinders the development of the topics, this project is to determine
how it influences the vocabulary to start a class topic aimed at high school students.
This remains the importance of this project since English learning required by teachers to
introduce unknown vocabulary into their classes by students through strategies and activities to
help students assimilate the information as in a class it is necessary for the student to receive
prior knowledge so that their production be effective is reflected in the performance of activities
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DEVELOPMENT
What is Vocabulary?
According Hossein Fazeli (2012) “Vocabulary can be as a key factor for success, central to a
language, and paramount to a language learner”; because the vocabulary is the set of words
with coherence and cohesion that people use to communicate in everyday situations.
The vocabulary is acquired from an early age, when the child begins the process of relationship
between words and images, the same that are developed through the study. However, in some
cases, students find it difficult to learn a new language due to misuse of vocabulary strategies,
generating who cannot understand a situation or a complete text, it is necessary to have an
extensive vocabulary for an effective communication.
Therefore it is necessary that the teacher analyzes first the environment into classroom and the
students’ behavior, so in this way, the teacher will employ a new strategy to adapt to the
situation, due to they are forced to renew their lesson plans for effective and modern activities.
Importance of teaching Vocabulary
The importance of teaching vocabulary lies in the role it has in a foreign language teaching,
because through this you can express ideas and everything related to communication, though
the vocabulary needs other elements to transmit its meaning as grammar, intonation, stress, tone
of voice, rhythm, pauses, silences and hesitations that allow you to fulfill its role in language
learning.
For vocabulary teaching is necessary that teachers consider the following important features:
 Pronunciation and spelling
 Grammar
 Colocations
 Meaning
 Word formation
The standards for good vocabulary learning are related with:
 Correct pronunciation and spelling;
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 Correct use of grammatical form;
 Appropriate use of vocabulary in a given context and
 The ability to retrieve vocabulary that has been taught.
One of the advantages of teaching new vocabulary is the contribution given to learning, since
this helps the development of the 4 skills without leaving aside the grammar, which makes
improve communication. (Aziz Faraj, 2015).
Problem. By introducing new vocabulary in a class, a problem occurs that directly affects
student's learning, as in the case of the memory given in largely by ineffective learning
techniques that teachers have employed.
 Memorizing vocabulary short term; Memorizing words for a specified time is a big
problem for vocabulary teaching, most students to pass their exams memorize the
meaning of words, but when they apply them in a sentence, they cannot due to that only
have learned for a short time, which makes the student cannot produce it and worse are
still unable to communicate with others. (Özen, 2012).
Vocabulary acquisition through multimedia environment
Vocabulary acquisition through the media helps to the student can work on their own and
availability because it contains a wide variety of resources such as text, images, videos, voice
recognition and animations, which develop a learning more productive. (Moreno Mosquera,
2011).
Vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs)
Vocabulary learning strategies are divided in two categories: direct and indirect strategies
Direct strategies include:
 cognitive strategies: summarizing or reasoning deductively
 memory strategies: facilitate the store of knowledge and retrieving new information
 compensation strategies: guessing intelligently while reading
These strategies are applied directly to learn new linguistic items.
Indirect strategies include:
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 Social strategies: learn new words through interaction with others
 Metacognitive strategies of self-planning, self-monitoring, self-evaluating: help
learners control their own cognition
 Affective strategies: regulate their motivations, attitudes, and emotions
These strategies indirectly contribute to learners’ vocabulary learning. (Teng, 2015)
Also Vocabulary learning strategies are considerate for storing new vocabulary, these are
divided into two main groups:
 Discovery strategies: discover learning of Words
 Consolidation strategies: reinforce a word. Also there are five sub-categories:
o Determination strategies: individual learning strategies
o Social strategies: learn new words through interaction
o Memory strategies : link new words with their existing knowledge
o Cognitive strategies: do not engage learners in mental processing
o Metacognitive strategies: they are strategies related to processes involved in
monitoring, decision-making
The implementation of these strategies has factors that influence such as competence,
motivation and culture that help improve vocabulary learning (Asgari, 2011).
Didactic resources to teach vocabulary
A class not only requires strategies and methods that help to the students in their learning
process, but also tools that have become the main support of the teacher to teach in class the
activities carried out, these are the didactic resources, which have the function to capture the
attention, interest and motivation of students regarding the subject given. Among these
resources, the most widely used to teach vocabulary are:
Digital Flashcards
It is an application where you can create flashcards with the purpose of that students can
generate and personalize various activities of study and materials learning. In study stack you
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can find vocabulary learning activities based on games, which may be practiced online such as
Crossword and Hangman (Hung, 2015).
Besides, there are some activities about flashcards that the teacher can apply to his students for
example “acting animals”
Teachers use flashcards when they want to teach a new subject for example:
to teach animals in English the teacher makes flash card with a different animal and with their
own names, then the teacher chooses a learner who should come in front of the class and choose
a flashcard with any animal, then he/she has to act it in front of the whole class, and finally rest
of the room to guess which animal he/she is acting or describing.
QR Codes
The Quick response (QR) is a type of symbol that can be read by a scanner, The use of these
codes in education brings many benefits, such as low cost, easy use, portability and instant
accessibility (Deniz Arikan & Orhan Ozen, 2013).
As an example of QR codes being used in education, Ogen suggested “connecting to an audio
file that provides the pronunciation of the object in a foreign language or to a link that that
shows the meaning of the word in a foreign language by placing a QR code on the object.”
This study is aimed to develop a learning environment conducive for participants to learn
English vocabulary using QR codes and to receive feedback from them.
Slips of Paper
For this activity, selecting the vocabulary you want to check and write each word or expression
on individual slips of paper. When you are ready to begin, pick one of the words and call out a
definition, synonym, antonym, etc. The first student has to guess the word and get the slip of
paper. The winner is the student who has the most slips at the end of the activity. You might
also want to write a point value on the back of the slip of paper, of 'one', 'two' or 'three' based
on the difficulty of the word or expression (Cabal, 2015).
In some cases many students find difficult to learn English synonyms and antonyms for this
reason, teachers should look for an activity that motivate students to learn. For example
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 the class is divided into two groups
 each group will have slips of papers, which containing antonyms and synonyms of a
word
 students must match them
Example:
Word: cute
Antonyms: ugly
Synonyms: beautiful
Activities to develop vocabulary
For retention of vocabulary is necessary for students keep active their knowledge for a long
time, so it is important to participate in fun activities like speaking task, to Describing exercise
or guessing task, vocabulary games, role-plays, narrative writing to achieve greater productivity
using words in different contexts.
 Narrative writing: this activity help to the students pay special attention to vocabulary
use when they write, even it permit to remember a set of target words.
 Role-play: it helps to the students simulate authentic situations where they can retain
and produce what has been learned.
 Games: It facilitates the student to remember and use words learned more quickly and
easily.
 Speaking task: it enables to describe objects and promotes the discussion and interaction
between students.
The implementation of these activities have as aim that students can store the new learning so
they can use when writing a story, start a discussion, or even act in a role-play. (Sadeghi &
Sharifi, 2013).
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Vocabulary Plus
Vocabulary plus is a comprehensive activity that helps students to develop vocabulary due to
the use of interactive read-aloud activities and graphic organizers and other visuals to illustrate
relationship among target vocabulary, also this permits to reinforce of their knowledge and
retention of vocabulary and concepts (Frumkin, 2010).
Quick Bingo
 Write on the board 15 o 20 words you want to review, in a “scatter”.
 Tell the students to copy down in their notebooks any four of these items.
 Call out the translation, or definition, of each word in turn, in random order.
 Any student who has this word crosses it off.
 The first student to across off all four words calls out Bingo and is the first winner.
 Continue until all the items have been crossed off.
 The students who across off the last word, i.e. the last to finish, are the second winners.
Listing from memory
Make sure the board is clean and that students have their books closed, and only a clean sheet
of (rough) paper before them.
Ask students to write down as many as they can remember of the items learnt for the first time
earlier in this lesson, or in the previous lesson.
After two or three minutes, write up on the board and say all the items you expected them to
remember and allow students to check their lists; add the ones they forgot and correct spelling.
Invite them to ask you if there are any items on the board whose meaning they do not remember,
and remind them. (Thornbury, 2012)
Brainstorming
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This activity consists in that students let flow their imagination because the realization of this
requires the emergence of ideas about a determinate topic, and thus achieved the acquisition of
new words.
Teachers use this activity when they want to start a new topic, which permits to the student
expresses what is learner understanding about that.
A good and simple example is when the teacher wants to teach a new topic as a “the relatives”,
so the teacher puts a picture in front to the class, then all of students have to think an specific
word, finally each students has to write on the brainstorm.
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CONCLUSION
The use of these strategies to teach new vocabulary before showing a class topic is necessary
because it motivates to the student to learn more effective and funny way, this manner benefits
the learner in some aspects like:
 Increased interest to class
 Use of new vocabulary relating in different aspects
 Fluency in speech
 Active the student participation
 Increases self-confidence
Teachers must use these strategies, didactic resources and activities into the classroom in order
to achieve that retention of vocabulary, thus it will be effective in students and they will get a
better result in the acquisition and application of the new knowledge. On the other hand, it helps
learner to improve their learning of words, which generate a good command in English
language.
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REFERENCIAS
Asgari, A. (2011). The Type of Vocabulary Learning Strategies Used by ESL Students in University
Putra Malaysia. Canadian Center of Science and Education, 4(2), 84-90.
doi:doi:10.5539/elt.v4n2p84
Aziz Faraj, A. K. (2015). Effective Strategies for Turning Receptive Vocabulary into. Journal of
Education and Practice, 6(27), 10-20. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1077387.pdf
Bava Harji, M., Balakrishnan, K., Kaur Bhar, S., & Letchumanan, K. (2015). Vocabulary Levels and Size
of Malaysian Undergraduates. Canadian Center of Science and Education, 8(9), 119-130.
doi:doi:10.5539/elt.v8n9p119
Cabal, C. (2015, Diciembre 02). British Council. Retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/voicesmagazine/nine-ways-revise-english-vocabulary-using-slips-paper
Deniz Arikan, Y., & Orhan Ozen, S. (2013). A Learning Environment for English Vocabulary Using Quick
Response Codes*. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 541-551. doi:DOI
10.12738/estp.2015.2.2139
Frumkin, R. (2010). Vocabulary Plus: Comprehensive Vocabulary Instruction for English Learners. THE
LANGUAGE AND LITERACY SPECTRUM, 20, 53-68. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1059514.pdf
Hossein Fazeli, S. (2012). The Exploring Nature of Vocabulary Acquisition and Common Main Gaps in
the Current Studies of Vocabulary Acquisition. Strength for Today and Bright Hope for
Tomorrow, 12, 175-189. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED530075.pdf
Hung, H.-T. (2015). Intentional Vocabulary Learning Using Digital Flashcards. Canadian Center of
Science and Education, 8(10), 107-112. doi:doi:10.5539/elt.v8n10p107
Moreno Mosquera, f. (2011). Multimedia as an Autonomous Learning Tool of English Vocabulary by
Children. P E D A G O G I C A L I N N O V A T I O N S, 13(1), 84-94. Retrieved from
http://revistas.udistrital.edu.co/ojs/index.php/calj/article/view/2945/4305
Özen, B. (2012). TEACHING VOCABULARY THROUGH POETRY IN AN EFL CLASSROOM. International
Online Journal of Primary Education, 1, 58-72. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED534091.pdf
Sadeghi, K., & Sharifi, F. (2013). The Effect of Post-Teaching Activity Type on Vocabulary Learning of
Elementary EFL Learners. Canadian Center of Science and Education, 6(11), 65-76.
doi:doi:10.5539/elt.v6n11p65
Teng, F. (2015). Assessing the Relationship between vocabulary learning strategies use and
vocabulary knowledge. ERIC, 49, 27. Retrieved from
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1077911.pdf
Thornbury, S. (2012). Vocabulay Activities. cambridge university press.
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