The Effect of explicit vocabulary teaching on ESP students' vocabulary acquisition - a quasi-experimental research in Vung Tau Vocational Tourism College

Abstract

Vocabulary plays an important role in learning a foreign language, especially in learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Many vocabulary teaching methods, both implicit and explicit, have been proved to be effective in improving students’ vocabulary acquisition. However, which of the methods is better for students who have limited vocabulary knowledge and mainly deal with mostly nouns and verbs related to Tourism Industry in their ESP course is an open question.This study examines the effect of Explicit Vocabulary Teaching on ESP Students’ Vocabulary Acquisition by comparing the effect of Implicit Vocabulary Teaching and Explicit vocabulary teaching on the increase of college students’ English vocabulary knowledge. A quasi-experimental design was used to assess the effect of Explicit Vocabulary Teaching. Two second-year classes of Cookery at VTVC were selected as the subjects of the study and were given a pre-test, which was intended to check if there was a significant difference between the two classes’ vocabulary knowledge. After 6 weeks of the application of Implicit Vocabulary Teaching versus Explicit Vocabulary Teaching methods, a post-test was administered to examine whether there was a difference in the students’ vocabulary knowledge before and after the treatment.The results of the study show that Explicit Vocabulary Teaching is more effective than the Implicit Vocabulary Teaching in increasing the students’ English vocabulary knowledge