INTRODUCTION

1. Vocabulary learning is one of the most fundamental and basic challenges in the task of learning an additional language. For heritage learners, vocabulary poses subtle challenges that are easily misinterpreted or misjudged. In this research I examined how heritage students enrolled in a 2nd year Vietnamese class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa negotiated their vocabulary learning needs. In addition, I asked them to explain why they thought certain vocabulary was difficult to learn. I accomplished this through interviews of students and the Vietnamese language instructor, professor Tran*, as well as used a survey of all of the heritage learners in the 2nd year class over the last 6 years (n= 69). Through this research I hope to help language learners and language teachers better understand what techniques and methods heritage students utilize to acquire their new vocabulary, in general, and for Vietnamese vocabulary, specifically. *Personal names have all been changed. INTRODUCTION DEFINITIONS & LITERATURE This research is a qualitative project using traditional ethnographic tools: surveys, interviews, observations, and institutionally produced documents. I justify the use of ethnographic tools because at the start of this project I cast my “research net” as wide as possibly in the hopes of finding something interesting in the Vietnamese classes. I “inductively built” the questions, issues, and ideas from the data gathered. This research began, without the desire to “test concepts, hypotheses, and theories” (Merriam, 1998, p. 45), but to develop a nuanced and deep understanding about a specific aspect of Vietnamese heritage language learners who are studying Vietnamese at university level. Surveys The perspectives of all the students were gathered through the researcher’s survey that were administered in the second semester of the second year class (April/May of the 202-level class). Students typically took 10 to 20 minutes to fill out the survey depending on the amount of detail they chose to write in the open-ended questions. The survey was created by the researcher with 2 years of piloting and adjusting this research tool. Interviews Students volunteered to participate in the interview through the researcher’s survey tool (it is the last question on the survey). I contacted the students through the contact information that they provide. I conducted the interviews and recorded them with a digital recorder and then transcribed the interviews. The interviews were then analyzed to discover recurring ideas, which were then used in future interviews. As a result, interviews throughout this research were evolving and necessarily different from one another. Observations Through out the academic school year, I sat in on the Vietnamese 201 and 202 classes taking notes about the class on themes and topics that include: the different teaching activities used in the class and how the students have reacted to these activities, the overall engagement of the students with the lessons, as well as, the students’ preparation prior to the lessons. These observations were used to triangulate responses on the survey and through the interviews. Documents In some aspects, triangulation of the above data was done through the examination of institutionally generated documents created for the language department and filled out by the students once per semester through an online survey called “e-café.” This online survey was designed to evaluate the language instructor and the language class materials with predictable questions based on the likes and dislikes of the students for the instructor and the course. This data was used when it was in agreement with, and especially when it was in disagreement with, the other data sources. METHODS The results from the open-ended questions best answer the two research questions. First, in answering how do you study new vocabulary? The majority, or 21 students, responded with repeated writing, the next most popular technique was “read” by 10 students. Using flash cards or index cards and the rather generic response of “memorize” each had 8 students, while 7 students mentioned doing something orally (such as read out loud, or say it over and over). Some of the less common but still noteworthy responses were: ask my dad, make a “fake” test, finding an English equivalent, and make a spread sheet, which each had 2 or 3 respondents. In the same open-ended questions section, students were asked what makes new vocabulary difficult? The majority, or 22 students, responded with a variation of if I haven’t heard it before. Nearly as many, 17 students, felt that the tone marks or accents made the vocabulary the most difficult. 6 students mentioned the inability pronounce new words as a challenge to learning.5 students felt that when a vocabulary word was not thought to be useful, students had a hard time learning it. Finally, 2 students said that if a word had too many synonyms they were hard to learn. In her interview, *Tri felt that writing was the most challenging because she said “I know how to say a word but I don’t know how to write or spell the word correctly.” She also felt that writing seemed to be more formal, meaning it uses words for which she is less familiar. Interestingly, Tri prioritized the importance of reading. She said “reading is more important because I came to the [Vietnamese] class knowing how to speak, but didn’t know how to read or write.” However, reading for her was more important because she felt that she would use reading outside of class more than she would use writing. In Duc’s interview he mentioned the language instructor as a reference “*Tran even helps me learn the southern equivalent for every word in the vocab lists. And just like I said earlier, the first time I went to {teacher’s name] class in 101 I was very hesitant to believe everything said was true because I wanted to hold on to everything I learned from my parents and my past experience, but at the same time I kind of let it slide and started absorbing what [teacher’s name] teaches in the northern language, because it's nice to have [teacher’s name] as a reference because [teacher’s name] understands both the north and south.” He added about his challenges for learning vocabulary “That's one of the reasons why every time I learn new words or vocabulary I crumble down because I can't sound things out.” Dialectal differences seem to play a very powerful role in Duc’s understanding and view of the Vietnamese language. RESULTS CONCLUSIONS I have attempted to show that heritage learners in 2nd year Vietnamese class have unique vocabulary learning needs. Their heavy exposure to the Vietnamese language as they are growing up influences their pronunciation and vocabulary knowledge. These students tend to struggle because the dialect they know is different from the dialect used in the Vietnamese language class. Based on interviews and survey of the heritage students I hope to have shed some light on the needs and thoughts of these students. Because the survey used open-ended questions the heritage language learners were able to explain what they did to learn their new Vietnamese vocabulary without influence from the researcher. The majority of these learners use techniques that Sanaoui (1995) described as structured. Meaning they used self-created opportunities in and out of the classroom and were independently motivated to create their own study options with less reliance on the course to offer these opportunities. It would be beneficial to build upon these techniques and encourage or promote them through the curriculum. REFERENCES Bahr, G. S., & Dansereau, D. F. (2001). Bilingual knowledge maps (BiK-Maps) in second-language vocabulary learning. The Journal of Experimental Education, 70(1), 5–24. Godwin-Jones, R. (2010). Emerging technologies from memory palaces to spacing algorithms: Approaches to second-language vocabulary learning. Language Learning & Technology, 14(2), 4–11. Horst, M., Cobb, T., & Nicolae, I. (2005). Expanding academic vocabulary with an interactive on-line database. Language Learning & Technology, 9(2), 90–110. Jones, L. (2006). Effects of collaboration and multimedia annotations on vocabulary learning and listening comprehension. CALICO Journal, 24(1), 33–58. Kondo-Brown, K. (2005). Differences in Language Skills: Heritage Language Learner Subgroups and Foreign Language Learners, The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 563-581. Loucky, J. (2007). Maximizing vocabulary development by systematically using a depth of lexical processing taxonomy, CALL resources, and effective strategies. CALICO Journal, 23(2), 363–399. Nation, P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sanaoui, R. (1995). Adult Learners' Approaches to Learning Vocabulary in Second Languages. The Modern Language Journal, 79(1), 15-28. Merriam, S.B. (1998). Qualitative research and case study applications in Education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Valdés, G. (2000). Introduction. Spanish for Native Speakers, Volume I. AATSP Professional Development Series Handbook for teachers K-16. New York: Harcourt College. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Lordes Ortega (Department of Second Language Studies at UHM) for feedback on the original pilot of this research. Dr. Stephen O’Harrow, Kimthu Ton, and the 2nd year Vietnamese language students for their patience and understanding as I gathered my dissertation data. A special thanks to the NHLRC and UCLA for financial support and Dr. Olga Kagan for the encouragement to do this presentation. Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated. I can be reached at LPotter@hawaii.edu or at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa, at (808) 956-2688. Heritage Language Learners The term heritage learner can be narrowly defined as “a student who is raised in a home where non-English language is spoken, who speaks or merely understands the heritage language, and who is to some degree bilingual in English and the heritage language” (Valdés, 2000, p. 1). Heritage learners are those students who have some linguistic ability with the language. Furthermore, it has been clearly shown, in a Japanese language context, that not all heritage language student’s knowledge are the same. Kondo-Brown (2005) showed that students that had only grandparents who spoke the target language had essentially the same language abilities as a non-heritage learner. In contrast, students who had at least one parent that spoke the target language with the student had significantly different abilities than the other language learners. It is these learners, the ones with significantly different abilities than other language learners, who are the subjects of this research. Learning Vocabulary A learner's approach to vocabulary learning or study is defined as a learner's study habits for learning new words or phrases. Studies have demonstrated that peer work or collaboration can have benefits for vocabulary building (Horst, Cobb, & Nicolae, 2005; Jones, 2006). While other research has demonstrated that student effort trying to figure out a vocabulary word correlates with how well they tend to retain it (Loucky, 2006). Sanaoui(1995) had learners self-report their vocabulary learning process they were “using dictionaries, memorizing lists of words, making up word charts, practicing words, learning words in context, repeating words, using mental imagery, and reviewing previously learned words” (p. 16). Godwin-Jones (2010) correctly stated that as learners advance they tend to learn from less formal sources, such as “reading or listening, deciphering unknown expressions through their contextual use, root meaning, structure, or similarity to known items, or by simply looking them up in a reference work” (p. 4). The keyword method uses graphics as an aid. It has a two-step process: first finding an L1 (first language) word which sounds similar to the pronunciation of the L2 (second language) item to be learned, then associating an image or story, then associating an image or story with both the meaning of the word and the keyword used to approximate its pronunciation. There has been considerable research on the keyword technique (Nation, 2001). Bahr and Dousereau (2001), discuss concept mapping in language learning. Leon Potter University of Hawaii at Manoa, College of Education Vietnamese HLL and Vocabulary Learning