Difficulties in Learning Vocabulary of English-Majored Freshmen at Tay Do University

Abstract

English vocabulary was the most important foundation for learning and developing the language. Therefore, more and more people were interested and wanted to improve their vocabulary. However, learning English vocabulary was never easy because students always faced many difficulties. On that account, the study entitled "Difficulties in Learning Vocabulary of English-Majored Freshmen at Tay Do University" was conducted. This study aims to find out the difficulties in learning vocabulary encountered by freshmen. As a part of the study, 59 students from the course of English 17 were selected as participants. The questionnaire and the interview were employed as two primary research instruments to analyze mass data. The findings of the study demonstrated that English majored freshmen encountered certain problems in vocabulary learning such as limited memory, spelling errors and pronunciation problems, lack of knowledge of word usage, lack of practices, lack of vocabulary learning strategies and students' attitude toward vocabulary learning. Practical implications and potential recommendations for further research in similar areas are then suggested.