Vocabulary Teaching In India with the Help of Learning Strategies

Vocabulary Teaching In India with the Help of Learning Strategies This paper will explore ‘vocabulary teaching in India with the help of learning strategies’. This topic is chosen since vocabulary teaching in secondary schools in India is teacher oriented while vocabulary learning usually takes place outside the classroom. Moreover, since vocabulary is learn outside the classroom learners would have better success if they use learning strategies to help them improve their learning and making their learning more students oriented. Furthermore, this essay will also highlight the rationale as to why this topic has been selected. The hypothesis is mentioned and the aims and objectives of the research work can be found. In order to make the essay more comprehensive a questionnaire has been formulated with an explanation to give better insight to the whole project.
This research proposal will only have a brief outline of the main dissertation. Hence, due to time constrain this essay will not deal in depth with any of the following sub-topic that have been mention above. There are many drawbacks of this research essay and some of these drawbacks will be mention in the conclusion.
Give reason for the topic: This topic has been selected since there is little research being done in vocabulary teaching using learning strategies techniques. Moreover, this research would focus on a descriptive survey of teachers’ awareness and beliefs of vocabulary learning strategies and their repercussion in the classroom. The main interest for this topic is from personal experience since vocabulary has not been taught explicitly with the operation of vocabulary learning strategies. Moreover, I could hardly recall any training concerning vocabulary learning strategy instruction in pre-service or in-service teacher education programs, which might be the result of learning strategies being a relatively contemporary issue. Consequently, I was personally motivated to investigate teachers’ knowledge on this issue, with particular reference to EFL teachers in senior high schools in India.
Rationale/ Hypothesis:
The main rationale for this research topic stem from both reading and experience. Therefore, some questions have been formulated to get a better understanding of the direction and findings of the topic area.
The main hypothesis for this research proposal has been the lack of teaching techniques and strategies when it comes to vocabulary lesson in high schools in India.
Aims and Objectives: 1. In what aspects are Indian English teachers in senior high schools aware of vocabulary learning strategies based on personal learning experience?
2. What vocabulary learning strategies are popular with Indian English teachers in senior high schools in terms of personal choices (as students themselves) on the one hand, and pedagogically (as teachers) on the other?
3. Do Indian English teachers in senior high schools teach vocabulary-learning strategies they consider useful to their students? Why or why not?
These questions will enhance the research and with the learning of the lexical forms helps students to develop knowledge of the target language. According to Nation (2001) he propounded that vocabulary can be of two types, receptive and productive which cover all aspects of what it involves in knowing a word. Form, meaning, and use are the three main parts at the most general level.

Methodology:

In second language research, the use of questionnaires is one of the most often employed tools to collect data and information. The high popularity and main attraction of the use of questionnaires are probably due to the argument that “by administering a questionnaire to a group of people, one can collect a huge amount of information in less than an hour, and the personal investment required will be a fraction of what would have been needed for, say, interviewing the same number of people” (Dörnyei 2003, p.9).
In addition, if constructed properly, the data collected from questionnaires may be processed efficiently and relatively straightforwardly, especially with the help of modern computers and sophisticated word processing software.
Moreover, interviews will also be use for this research since the interviewer can explain questions that the respondent has not understood and can ask for further elaboration of replies. Hence, using these two methods will allow the researcher to remain objective and it will remove all doubts that the participants have during the questionnaire session. Further, it will provide validity and consistency in the views of the participants. The questionnaire will eliminate any bias thought that might have influence during the interview session.

Write a questionnaire with explanation:
The questionnaire has been design in order to get a better understanding of the different strategies use in the classroom by English language teachers for helping learners to learn vocabulary more effectively.
The main objective for the questionnaire was for collecting data. The items included in the questionnaire were based upon relevant literature review found in different articles, journals and books, mainly the taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies compiled by Schmitt (1997), as well as consideration for the English learning and teaching context in senior high schools in India. This questionnaire has been divided into four sections. The first section (Q.1 to Q.6) is an open-ended section. The main reason for having the open-ended section at the beginning was that the researcher did not want the participants to ensure that they report their experiences or ideas based on their personal reflections without being affected or guided by those vocabulary learning strategies described later in the close ended.
However, in my questionnaire, what I would like to obtain was some genuine accounts from those respondents of their personal learning preferences as well as their ordinary practices of vocabulary teaching. These questions seemed not to involve much creative writing. Lastly, some entries (e.g. Q2; Q5; Q6) in this section were not typical open-ended questions. They were more like variations of filter questions accompanied with blanks to give explanation, which meant that not every respondent needed to go through each question and might reduce the negative consequences of open-ended questions set beforehand. Thus, it seemed to me that the content of these questions lent themselves to an initial position in the questionnaire rather than in the end.
In the following part, I elaborated on the relation between the items in the questionnaire and my research questions.
Part A: Question 1
This question provided answers straightforwardly to the first research question: In what aspects are Hindi English teachers in senior high schools aware of vocabulary learning strategies based on personal learning experience?
Part A: Question 2-3
Generally speaking, in Indian senior high school teaching context, there is not a course particularly devoted to vocabulary teaching in the overall English curriculum. Therefore, teachers incline to teach vocabulary mainly by means of the resources provided in the textbook. An investigation of teachers’ implementation of some common features used in the textbook helped to reflect what they normally did in the practices of vocabulary teaching.
In the twenty six close-ended questions learning strategies has been incorporated so that it will highlight some of the key aspects of strategies. Memory learning strategies have been used in questions one to five and mnemonics have been added in questions six, seven and eight. The first group of choices were “Not at all useful,” “Slightly useful,” “Moderately useful,” “Useful,” “Quite Useful,” and “Very Useful.” These categories were assigned values of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively. This scale reflected respondents’ attitude/beliefs on these vocabulary learning strategies. High scores indicated more agreement with the usefulness of the strategy. The second group of choices were “Never or almost never,” “Rarely or seldom,” “Sometimes,” “Often,” “Usually,” and “Always or almost always.” Similarly, these categories were assigned numerical values to reflect respondents’ instructional practices, with the highest score representing the highest frequency of the strategy being included or introduced.
Part C :
This section will allow teachers to clear doubts that they have been unable to attend to sort out in section A and B. This will give the researcher with reasons as to why the teachers were unable to do so.
Part D:
The personal information was given at the end of the questionnaire since this will ensure that the participants will have understood what learning strategies are once they have answered the questions in section B.

Conclusion:
This essay have not dealt with the diversity present in Indian schools since it want an overview survey of just the vocabulary learning strategies in India. It also left the different variety of school boards that is present in India. This is done since students from all the various school boards do get admission into universities. Hence, this research proposal is of large scale dealing with a very small aspect of language learning. Therefore, making it highly specific and narrow, which will be helpful for future understanding of vocabulary teaching in India.

Reference:

BAUER, L. AND NATION, I. S. P., 1993. Word families. International Journal of Lexicography, 6, 253-279.

BORG, M., 2001. Teachers’ beliefs. ELT Journal, 55(2), 186-188.

BORG, S., 1997. Unifying concepts in the study of teachers’ cognitive structures. Unpublished manuscript.