The use of flashcards as a strategy for teaching vocabulary

Nature of Research: Descriptive

Researcher’s name:Sergio Roberto Witzil Chávez

Student’s registration number:07-08887

Supervisor:Gilberto Campos

Abstract • The flashcards are seeing as a tool for many teachers but also as strategy for teaching. In this research

will be discussed about the strategies that a teacher commonly used in their class when they are teaching

vocabulary. The research has a descriptive approach because the main objective is to look the frequency

that a strategy is used for the teacher when he/she uses flashcards for teaching vocabulary to preschool

students so there will be analyzed some previous researches and beliefs or statements of some

authors ,specialized in teaching vocabulary, about the flashcards.

This research will be based in analyzed 10 teachers from three different private preschools

in Chetumal with a similar educational approach. The teachers have to answer a

questionnaire, which will help to select the 10, and a class of them, where they use

flashcards to teach vocabulary will be observed in order to get enough data with the aid of a

structured checklist. This data will be analyzed with the software SPSS in order to look the

frequency that a strategy is used, so these statistics will help to choose the strategies use

for teaching vocabulary using flashcards.

Objective

• The main objective of this research is looking for the learning strategies that we can apply when we used flashcards as a strategy for teaching vocabulary to children. So this research is based on the identification of the strategies that are used when we teach vocabulary with flashcards.

Research questions

• RQ1 Are there specific strategies for using flashcards?

• RQ2 what strategies for teaching work well with kids when they teach vocabulary?

• RQ3 what strategies are more used for teachers when they work with flashcards?

• This questions implies the doubts that this research

tries to clarify in order to use the best strategies when a

teacher tries to teach vocabulary with flashcards.

Relevance of the study

• At the ending of this research, the results can help teachers to choose the

strategies that they can use with kids when they will teach vocabulary with

flashcards so the result will help them as recommendations for the future

teachers that will start working with kids as students of a second language.

Teachers can see that a teaching material can become a good teaching

strategy such are the flashcards, a practical tool for teaching kids and any

student, regardless the age.

Literature review

1 how children learn a new language

Beliefs How they

learn vocabulary

How vocabulary is taught

Literature review

2 Learning strategies

Definition Direct strategies

Indirect strategies

Literature review

3 What are the flashcards?

Definition Why use

flashcards with kids?

Using flashcards with kids

Literature Review

4 Studies related with flashcards

Flashcards VS checklists

Flashcard games as a teaching aid to contrast the use

between the simple past and the present

perfect

Method

• This research is based on a descriptive approach where the objective is looking for

the strategies that teachers used to teach vocabulary to kids using flashcards.

•  

• This chapter describes the participants who will be selected to help in the collection of

data, the considerations that will be taken into account to allow them to participate in

this research, the instruments or ways of looking for this data how they were used

and their purpose of use them, and finally the procedure of collecting and analyzing

all the data obtained from these participants.

Participants • The participants in this research will be 10 teachers selected from 3 private

preschools in Chetumal. These schools will be selected because of the method they used in their class; in this case they have to use the cooperative language learning which teaches kids in a collaborative environment.

•  • The 10 teachers must have completed a questionnaire where they confirm

their general data. They have to be graduated of a bachelor in English Language ,and also need to have at least 6 months of experience with kids in order to participate in this research. On the other way, the gender of the teacher will not be taken into account so the number of female teachers and male teachers does not matter.

• Bernadette –Centro Escolar Escocia-Cumbres

Intruments

• Questionnaires

• In this research the questionnaire will be used in order to identify the strategies that a teacher uses when he/she is teaching vocabulary with flashcards

• This questionnaire will be divided in three sections: the first one will be focused in the frequency and the use of the strategies that teachers apply when they use flashcards, the second one will be about how effective the flashcards are for teaching vocabulary, and the last one will be about personal information of the teacher.

Intruments

• Structured class observation • The objective of using this instrument is to prove that teachers really

have or use the strategies that they affirmed they have in the previous questionnaire and also to check what strategies work better with their students so in short this instrument is for seeing the effectiveness of the strategies applied with flashcards.

• This observation will be made in a structured check list where will asses if a teacher use an specific strategy for the activity with the flashcards, the frequency of these strategies and how the reaction of student is with those strategies used during the exercise, I mean, if the strategies really work well for teaching vocabulary.

Procedure

Identify the preschools

Contact with the schools

Contact with the teachers

Apply the questionnaire

Select the teachers

ask them to organize a specific activity where they use flashcards

do the class observation: using

checklist

Join the information

Prepare the data for being analyzed

Data analysis

Put the data in the software SPSS Get the statistics

Find out the frequencies of a strategy is used

Selection of the strategies that are

more used for a teacher when he use flashcards.