Vocabulary is an important language element that links four language skills of listening,
speaking, reading and writing together and makes communication flow smoothly. Reality
shows that many students have fairly good knowledge of grammar but are hardly able to
express themselves properly because of their vocabulary deficiency. Vocabulary learning,
therefore, becomes central to language acquisition, and interest in its role in second language
learning has grown rapidly in recent years. Specialists now emphasize the need of systematic
and principled approach to vocabulary by both the teacher and the learner (Decarrico, 2001;
Nation, 1990). One of the concerns in vocabulary is how to help students increase their
retention of learned vocabulary items.
Many Vietnamese students experience considerable difficulty retaining English words that
they have learnt in their previous lessons. Long lists of words noted down from reading texts,
listening passages, vocabulary or grammar sections in the course books are of limited help to
them if they do not know how to learn, remember and use these words. That most words
which have been learnt are forgotten soon and then become dead is one of the reasons for
students’ difficulty in communication, both in the oral and written forms.
To ensure a good communicative task performance, the ground work is to ascertain a good
lead-up and preparation for learners’ intake of vocabulary. So far there has been little
empirical evidence about the effectiveness of meaningful practicein vocabulary retention, so
whether meaningful practice increases students’ retention of vocabulary during the teaching
and learning process is the question that the author tries to answer.
Retention is defined as “an ability to recall or recognize what has been learnt or experienced;
memory” (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1992:773).
Although I have not found any definition of vocabulary retention in the literature, I, for the
purpose of this study, can define it as the “storage of vocabulary in the memory, which
becomes available for use when needed”. So retention of vocabulary is the ability to recall
words that have been learnt or encountered for online communication .