TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1. 1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

We are living in the global world in which English language has rapidly become an international language. English is regarded as the medium of communication in many different fields such as: diplomacy, science, technology, education, economics, politics, aviations, international sport, etc. With the spread of globalization and the rapid expansion of information and technologies, there has been a tremendous explosion in the demand for English worldwide. It is seen as a means to bridge the gap and promote mutual understanding and cooperation among countries all over the world. English makes the user easier to interact with the world both in the education, work and the main factors as a way to improve the knowledge and technology. In learning English, besides the four basic language skills such as: listening, reading, speaking and writing, there are also  aspects that play important roles to support the language skill, consist of vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar. The three of basic aspects need to be taught.

 Vocabulary is the essential and significant part in learning language. If the foreigners learn a new language without mastering vocabulary of the language, they will find it difficult to understand that language. Vocabulary is, therefore, one of English components of sub skill that must be taught to the learners because of its primary role for all languages.

Carter (2014) states that vocabulary is knowledge about words and word meanings. Vocabulary is the basic competence that must be reached by students in order to get other competences such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. The students need to have adequate vocabulary so as to communicate fluently. It is not easy for them to master the other competences without mastering and understanding the vocabulary better. In learning foreign languages in general, in learning English in particular, students should know about vocabulary, due to throughing knowing the words, they will make great efforts how to use it to express their opinions, convey their thoughts and feelings and communicate. In fact, the vocabulary can not be seperated from other aspects of language. 

According to Amri (2013), the concept curriculum 2013 is scientific approach which means students learn more independently in the learning process. Hence, if students have lack of vocabulary, they will be difficult in learning and understanding the material which is supplied by curriculum. It is very necessary to consider because learning vocabulary will assist students to understand the material. Teachers as facilitators will have vital role  in learning process. In addition, they fullfill students’ achievements in their lesson plans. They always try their best to think how to improve students’ vocabulary. Nowadays, teachers only focus on material in syllabus. In syllabus, there is no teaching vocabulary seperately. It merly focuses on 4 basic skills such as: speaking, reading, listening and writing. As a result, students have a lack of vocabulary will be difficult are often ordered to write the vocabulary on the white board in doing the exercises and some of them cope with the problems where there are many words that have multiple meaning. Students are asked to rewrite the vocabulary on the white board by the teachers, pay attention on what teacher’ s explanation and memorize the vocabulary that they have written at home. 

Harmer (1991) pointed out the problem on improving vocabulary that researcher can mention and carry out. Many students have some difficulties in enhancing vocabulary because the teachers’ techniques are not interesting and make students feel bored or disappointed. These require the teachers to have to find out  and implement the suitable creative method and media that enhance students’ motivation in learning vocabulary. They are indeed using media in teaching, but ignore to support vocabulary learning with those. In this case the teaching of the four skills should be taught together with vocabulary for language learners to avoid many troubles in learning English language. 

Nation (1994) stated several strong reasons for which the vocabulary components of language courses should be prepared carefully. First, the different of vocabulary gives a very different feedback for study. Second, most language teaching courses make vocabulary learning more difficult than it should be. Third, vocabulary learning opportinities and the quality of vocabulary learning can be greatly improved through the careful design of both vocabulary and other skii activities. Therefore, the author wants to see how the influence of Duolingo if teacher implemented it  in classroom teaching to the 10th student at a high school. Duolingo is one of the popular applications in learning English that was downloaded by more than 300 million users in the world. The company missions are to make education free, accessible to all users and fun learning. Duolingo designed to feel like a game in learning process and scientifically proven to be effective in learning language. Duolingo is an application which is designed to help students learn language easily and fun. It willl be aimed to see whether it will assist them to improve vocabulary or not. It is expected to blow positive and exciting atmosphere in the classroom. It also can be an effective alternative way to keep the students’ vocabulary. 

Although the teachers of English tried their best to provide students with opportunities to develop the knowledge of vocabulary, how to teach and learn vocabulary effectively is still a challenging question to both teachers and students to many high schools in Vietnam.   

Because of the above reasons, my teaching experience is titled: “Using the web Duolingo as a tool to teach vocabulary effectively for the 10th graders at a high school”.

1.2. THE AIMS OF THE STUDY 

The study was conducted  in order to improve students’ vocabulary through Duolingo at a high school and to make them interesting, exciting and active in learning and practicing their English, especially vocabulary by using Duolingo and also to see whether it will be helpful and enjoyable or not for them in practicing their English.

1.3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study only covers vocabulary mastering. However, focus is mainly put on the use of the web Duolingo as a tool in teaching vocabulary for the 10th graders at a high school.

1.4. METHODS OF THE STUDY

The study was done to offer some useful solutions in using the web Duolingo as the valuable tool, especially in  classroom to 10th graders. A survey is also delivered to students after the time of treatment. Quasi- experimental method was utilized to collect data. The data collected was from general test, a pre-test and post test design, a questionnaire, conducted. The participants of this research come from two classes including 84 10th students. They were chosen randomly from 2 classes at a  high school. Most of them have already learnt English for at least four or five years. all of the participants have the same educational and language background and they all have already obtained basic knowledge of English including basic structures and common vocabulary. Class 10C2 is considered as treatment group and class 10C3 is control group. They were asked to join a general test, a pre-test and post-test. Their results were collected for the data of the study.