MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
LÊ THỊ TUYẾT HẠNH
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES AND VOCABULARY LEARNING
STRATEGIES OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THESIS IN THEORY
AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
HUE, 2018
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
LÊ THỊ TUYẾT HẠNH
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES AND VOCABULARY LEARNING
STRATEGIES OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THESIS IN THEORY
AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING
CODE: 62.14.01.11
SUPERVISOR:
Assoc. Prof. Dr LÊ PHẠM HOÀI HƯƠNG
HUE, 2018
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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify my authorship of the PhD thesis submitted today entitled:
“THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
AND VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES OF EFL UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS”
for the degree of Doctor of Education, is the result of my own research,
except where otherwise acknowledged, and that this thesis has not been submitted
for a higher degree at any other institution. To the best of my knowledge, the thesis
contains no material previously published or written by other people except where
the reference is made in the thesis itself.
Hue, ………..…, 2018
Author’s signature
Lê Thị Tuyết Hạnh
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ABSTRACT
This study was an attempt to explore EFL university students’ use of
vocabulary learning strategies to discover, memorize and practise new words, and
then find out the relationship between students’ Multiple Intelligences (MI) scores
and their vocabulary learning strategy (VLS) use. To this end, 213 EFL university
students were invited to take part in the study. The quantitative phase utilized
Schmitt’s (1997) VLS questionnaire and McKenzie’s (1999) Multiple Intelligences
survey as the two main research tools. Besides, the qualitative phase collected data
from 35 diarists and 65 interviewees out of the total number of all the participants.
The findings from questionnaires, interviews, and students’ diaries revealed
that using a bilingual dictionary was reported to be the most frequently used
strategy to find out the new word knowledge, followed by analyzing parts of
speech, guessing from textual context and asking classmates for meaning. For
memorizing new words, participants reported a high frequency in using sound-
related strategies, and then put new words in contexts, including conversation,
paragraphs or stories. In addition, vocabulary notebooks and word lists were also
preferred by university students. For evaluating new words, both quantitative and
qualitative findings showed a medium use of these strategies. The results indicated a
receptive practice of new words by doing word tests by students. The study also
found that textbooks and media were two main resources on which students relied
to expand vocabulary size.
The second aim of the study was to find out the correlation between students’
MI scores and their vocabulary learning strategy use. Before analyzing the
correlation, it was found that Intrapersonal intelligence was the most dominant type
among participants, while Mathematical Intelligence was the least used one.
Pearson correlation was performed to see the potential relation between two
variables. The findings showed that different intelligences correlated with different
types of VLS use frequency. The highest significant correlation was found between
Musical intelligence and Determination (DET) strategies and the lowest correlation
between Spatial Intelligence and DET strategies. Surprisingly, Interpersonal and
Verbal-linguistic intelligences had no relationship with any types of VLS. Positive
relationships were found between Musical Intelligence and DET, memory (MEM)
strategies; Spatial intelligence and DET strategies. Negative relationships were found
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between Naturalist intelligence and Cognitive (COG) strategies; Mathematical
intelligence and Social (SOC) #2 and COG strategies; Existentialist intelligence and
COG strategies; Kinesthetic intelligence and SOC#1 strategies; Intrapersonal
intelligence SOC#1, SOC#2 and COG strategies. Moreover, it was found that
different MI groups have different favorite VLS.
On the basis of the findings, pedagogical implications were recommended
for vocabulary teaching and learning in EFL classrooms.
