Importance of VLS instruction

Research on general learning strategies revealed that learners employed various learning strategies in different situations and the applicability of learning strategies is influenced by different factors (Oxford, 1986)10, which means a strategy may be useful in one context but not in another. Successful learners are aware of a wide range of strategies and use them appropriately to fulfill the learning tasks (Anderson, 2005)24. For this reason, guidance and instruction from teachers are necessary for learners to explore the possible strategies most beneficial to them (Ölmez, 2014)25. Anderson (2005)24 asserted that instruction primarily aims to “raise learners’ awareness of strategies and then allow each to select appropriate strategies to accomplish their learning goals” and the most effective strategy instruction is integrated into regular classroom instruction (p. 763). Learners need strategies to take full control of their vocabulary learning processes and accordingly, VLS instruction enables them to do this effectively and independently. Merely introducing the strategies to the learners, however, is not enough (Nation, 2013)8; instead, the instruction should be incorporated into vocabulary teaching with a specific amount of time. That being said, teachers receive little guidance on this aspect (Nation, 2013)8.

Webb and Nation (2017, in Webb, 2019)26 propose three principles for teaching VLS. First, teachers should raise students’ awareness of the benefits of VLS so that they are more likely to use those strategies frequently. Second, teachers need to train students to use VLS effectively rather than just introduce them to the students. Third, there should be a large amount of time spent on training and assessing the students’ ability to use VLS effectively. Teachers are responsible for providing instruction so that students can use VLS automatically in the vocabulary learning process and gain independence in their own learning (Ölmez, 2014)25. When selecting the VLS, teachers should take the learners and the learning context into consideration, including the learners’ proficiency level, their cooperation to learn, their motivation and purposes to learn the target language, and the nature of the target language (Schmitt, 2007)27.

Previous studies on teachers’ perceptions and practices of VLS instruction

One notable study exploring teachers’ perceptions of VLS is by Lai (2005)28. In this study, Lai (2005)28 examined Taiwanese EFL senior high school teachers’ awareness and beliefs of VLS and looked into the correlations between their beliefs and teaching practices. Findings from the study indicated that the teachers were aware of the various VLS but applied some inappropriately due to the lack of knowledge from relevant research. They also implemented more frequently the strategies they considered most useful. Nevertheless, there were some strategies considered useful but not introduced frequently in the classroom owing to contextual and learner factors.

In another study, Ölmez (2014)25 conducted a mixed-methods study to compare Turkish high school students’ and teachers’ perceptions of VLS and teachers’ practices of strategy instruction. It was revealed that the teachers attached great importance to the use of VLS for vocabulary development and the instruction of VLS for students’ independent learning and teachers’ self-development. Despite claiming to introduce various VLS to their students, the teachers encountered several obstacles such as class sizes, curriculum design, and time limitations. They also acknowledged that their instruction of VLS helped guide the students to discover the strategies that suit their interests and that the degree of students’ applications varied among students. Similar to Lai (2005)28, there was a positive correlation between the teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the strategies and their instructional practices. However, there was a mismatch between the teachers’ instruction of VLS and the students’ application.

Pookcharoen (2016)29 conducted a study with twenty-four university teachers to explore their beliefs about the usefulness of VLS and their instructional practice, using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The results showed that there was a mismatch between the teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices, due to several factors including students’ English proficiency level and motivation, teachers’ vocabulary knowledge and instructional approaches, and time constraints, similar to those of Lai (2005)28.

Within Vietnamese contexts, Vu and Peters (2021)30 recognize that there have been few systematic investigations into the practices of vocabulary teaching and teachers generally do not train students to use VLS effectively. Nguyen, Le, and Ngo (2021)15 acknowledge scant attention to the area of strategy instruction but highlight the importance of teachers’ strategy instruction mentioned in the sections of pedagogical implications and suggestions in some studies. Some of those include raising students’ awareness of VLS and their usefulness (Duong, 2022; Phan et al., 2020)31, 32, allowing opportunities to practice and assess students’ use of strategies (Phan et al., 2020; Tran, 2020)32, 33, and motivating students to use VLS independently and autonomously outside the classroom (Duong, 2022; Tran, 2020; Phan et al., 2020; Vu & Peters, 2021)31, 32, 33, 30.

In summary, there have been a few studies conducted on the teachers’ perceptions and practices of VLS instruction. However, in the context of Vietnam, studies on VLS have mostly focused on students’ use of VLS and there has been very little research about teachers’ perceptions and practices of VLS instruction, although several implications related to teachers’ roles and strategy instruction have been put forward in the literature. Furthermore, as most of the existing studies collect self-reported data through questionnaires or interviews, there exists a need to carry out classroom observations in order to enhance the reliability and validity of the data. For those reasons, the current study is conducted using interviews and classroom observations to investigate teachers’ perceptions and practices of VLS instruction in the Vietnamese context.

Classroom observation

The use of observation can provide more valid or authentic data (Cohen et al., 2018)37. Cohen et al. (2018)37 suggests that the researcher stays with the participants for a substantial period of time to address reactivity, the effects of changing behaviors of observees due to the researchers’ presence. Therefore, non-participant observations (see Appendix A for the guiding questions) were carried out in three weeks. The observation sheets were completed during the observations to minimize the problem of selective memory.

Semi-structured interviews

Besides observations, interviews were considered a powerful tool to collect qualitative data, explore issues in depth and understand why people hold the ideas for what they do (Cohen et al., 2018)37. Hence, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews, where the questions are open-ended with prompts and probes (Cohen et al., 2018)37. There were three questions in the interview to explore their perceptions about VLS instruction and some prompts and probes for participants to elaborate on their answers (Appendix B).

Data collection procedure

First, classroom observations were conducted by one of the researchers to explore what and how VLS were instructed in the classroom. He observed one specific class of each teacher three times. Consequently, twelve observation fieldnotes were collected after three weeks. Afterwards, the teachers were individually invited to attend online interviews on Zoom platform. All interview sessions were recorded to assist the subsequent data analysis.

Data analysis procedure

Firstly, all interview recordings were transcribed using Cockatoo. To make it easier to keep track of the documents, the interview transcripts and observation fieldnotes of each participant were given a code, presented in Table 2.

Thematic analysis was employed to analyze and create themes from the observation fieldnotes and interview transcripts. The study identified two main themes with some supporting themes and subthemes, all of which are presented in the following thematic network (Figure 2).

Teachers’ practices of VLS instruction

The data from the observation sessions revealed that the teachers did not explicitly instruct VLS, but rather used them to teach vocabulary. Table 3 presents how often each VLS was used by the teachers.

As clearly shown in Table 3, the most commonly used VLS were synonyms/ antonyms and contextualization. All the teachers were observed to use synonyms and antonyms to convey the meaning of words. For example, T1 explained that the word “procrastination” was the synonym of the phrase “put off” (O1.1). Similarly, T2 used synonyms such as “nice” or “helpful” to explain the adjective “kind” (O2.2). Besides, they frequently employed contextualization to create contexts for the new words, often through example sentences, and elicited responses from the students. One teacher, T2 in particular, taught the adjective “patient” by giving the students the sentence “My girlfriend is really patient, as she can wait for a long time without becoming angry.” (O2.2). From this, the teacher asked the students to figure out the meaning of the word.

The next strategies were using realia and definition. All of the teachers tended to use visual aids, specifically pictures, to convey the meaning of new words. For instance, to explain the noun “countdown”, T1 simply showed the students a photo of a New Year’s Eve party and elicited responses from the students (O1.1). Additionally, albeit not as frequently as the other strategies, definitions were used to teach complex words or phrasal verbs. For instance, T1 provided the definitions of words and phrases such as “punctual” and “cut down on” (O1.1; O1.2). Other teachers, like T2, explained the phrase “go on an expedition” by giving the students the meaning of the noun “expedition”.

Finally, there were other strategies that were employed by certain teachers including translation, word part analysis, and association with prior knowledge. T3, for example, translated the word “optimistic” into Vietnamese (O3.1). Regarding word part analysis, T2 would explain the word “unfriendly” by analyzing the prefix “un-”, meaning “not” or “against” (O3.1). For associating with prior knowledge, only T4 was reported to employ this strategy during one session (O4.1).

Teachers’ perceptions of VLS instruction

The study discovered two thoughts on the need to explicitly teach VLS. On the one hand, T1 and T4 highlighted the importance of VLS for lifelong learning since they empower students to learn outside of the classroom without the teachers’ assistance. Hence, VLS instruction cannot be ignored in an English class.

(I4).

On the other hand, T2 and T3 assumed that VLS should be briefly introduced as a strategy to broaden vocabulary size, but not as a compulsory part of teaching in class. It is argued that VLS catered to certain learning styles and priorities (T2), so it was better for students to explore VLS by themselves (T2, T3). Hence, it can be concluded that the teachers showed less consensus on the need for VLS instruction.

Students’ language abilities and cognitive levels were reported to be the most popular criteria used by the teachers when evaluating the suitability of their currently used VLS. Also, the study obtained other useful techniques from T1 and T2. T1 tended to check the appropriateness of VLS through He would also gather feedback from his students through informal and formal assessments, observations and even in open communication. T2 suggested relying on the teacher’s experience and the students’ performances.

In a nutshell, the necessity of explicit instruction on VLS is acknowledged with a slight discrepancy among the teachers in the extent to which VLS should be instructed in class. They also mentioned some ways to evaluate the appropriateness of the VLS they are currently using for their classes.

Teachers’ practices of VLS instruction

The teachers were found to use a wide range of VLS with diverse combinations in their vocabulary teaching practice, like those in Ölmez (2014)25. Such integrations can be explained by several factors pointed out in previous studies (Lai, 2005; Pookcharoen, 2016; Schmitt, 2007)28, 29, 27 such as time constraints, targeted vocabulary, lesson objectives, learners’ proficiency, and teachers’ instructional approaches. Also, the use of various VLS is believed to raise the learners’ awareness of the available VLS so that they can choose which VLS fit them the best (Anderson, 2005; Nation, 2013; Ölmez, 2014)25. It could be inferred that the majority of those strategies were employed by the teachers to illustrate the forms and meanings of vocabulary like its word parts, referents, and associations, the receptive aspect of vocabulary knowledge as in Nation’s (2013) framework. There was an absence of focus on deeper levels such as collocations and registers. Even contextualization was utilized to elicit the meaning of new words, not to help the students understand the use of those words in that particular context. As a consequence, despite the variety of strategies used, the students may understand the meaning but lack the productive knowledge of vocabulary as they do not know how to use it.

Also notable is a mismatch between how the teachers perceived the importance of VLS instruction and what they really did in class. The teachers were found not to provide explicit instruction about VLS, instead, they made use of the strategies as a means to teach new vocabulary, or offered a quick introduction to the students, which seems to have no impact on the learners’ autonomous use of VLS in their self-study (Nation, 2013; Webb, 2019). It could be explained by the fact that the teachers may not be fully aware of how to teach VLS effectively, as Nation (2013) acknowledges that there is little research providing guidance for teachers.

Teachers’ perceptions of VLS instruction

While all of the teachers appreciate the benefits of VLS, they held different thoughts on the necessity of VLS instruction. One group highlighted that it was vital to provide students with clear guidance on VLS. However, the others advocated a quick introduction to VLS, arguing that students should be allowed to decide on suitable VLS by themselves instead of involving in a detailed instruction of all strategies. This could be explained that there exist several factors that can hinder the explicit teaching of VLS, such as students’ learning styles, motivation, objectives, and learning contexts outside the classroom, as suggested by Schmitt (2007)27. Nonetheless, Nation (2013)8, Anderson (2005)24, and Ölmez (2014)25 do not support such a claim. They emphasize that learners need comprehensive training from teachers to be clearly aware of the available learning strategies to ensure the effective use of VLS. T1, considered to be the most knowledgeable and experienced one, also agreed that VLS should be systematically taught to students and the effectiveness of VLS instruction must be assessed by certain techniques.

Besides concerning the alignment between the used VLS and students’ proficiency level, the teachers are recommended to use different techniques to thoroughly evaluate the appropriateness of VLS instruction. Some techniques that were advised in the study include the use of formal and informal assessments to test students' use of VLS, students’ oral or written feedback, and classroom observations. However, among the four teachers, only T1 attempted to use those techniques in his class. Thus, it can be inferred that the teachers have not given enough consideration to the assessment of students’ capacity to use VLS, which is deemed highly important in VLS instruction (Nation, 2013; Webb, 2019)8, 26.