THAI NGUYNE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES –––––––––––––––––––––––––––– NGUYEN VIET ANH APPLYING LANGUAGE LOG ASSIGNMENTS TO IMPROVE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' AUTONOMY ON ONLINE ENGLISH LEARNING AT HA LONG FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER MASTER'S THESIS OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATION THAI NGUYEN - 2022 THAI NGUYNE UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES –––––––––––––––––––––––– NGUYEN VIET ANH APPLYING LANGUAGE LOG ASSIGNMENTS TO IMPROVE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' AUTONOMY ON ONLINE ENGLISH LEARNING AT HA LONG FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER (Áp dụng bài tập nhật ký ngôn ngữ để cải thiện khả năng học tự chủ trong học tiếng Anh trực tuyến của học sinh cấp 3 ở trung tâm Hạ Long English language teaching methodology Code: 8.11 MASTER'S THESIS OF SCIENCE IN EDUCATION Supervisor: : Ph.D NGUYEN THI THANH HONG THAI NGUYEN - 2022 THE CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I hereby declare that this thesis is based on my own original work except for quotations and citation that have been duly acknowledged. I also declare that it has not been previously submitted for any other courses/degrees at Thai Nguyen University or other institutions. Thai Nguyen, 20 May 2022 Nguyen Viet Anh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deep thanks to people who have assisted me when I carried out the research. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisor, PhD.
Nguyen Thi Thanh Hong, for her encouragement and guidance throughout the research. I also wish to thank all my teachers at the Thai Nguyen University for supporting me with a lot of knowledge and giving me the best environment to fulfill my thesis. I would like to acknowledge and express my appreciation to the students at Ha Long foreign language center who have helped me to collect the data. Finally, I am deeply indebted for all the support and encouragement that my family has so lovingly offered me.
Nguyen Viet Anh ii ABSTRACT The study aims at identifying the effectiveness of using intalk log assignment in enhancing students‟ autonomy in online learning at Ha Long foreign language center as well as students‟ attitude toward language log assignment. A study using the steps of an action research was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of using language log assignments The subject of the study was 40 high school students at an English center in Ha Long. Questionnaires were used as one of the key data collecting tools in this study and two sets of questionnaires were delivered for students. After being collected, data from the questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS 18.0 by descriptive data.
The research proved that language log assignment enhanced high school students‟ autonomy in online English learning in Ha Long foreign language center. Furthermore, the results pointed out that students had a positive attitude toward language log assignment in online English learning on Ha Long foreign language center. Key words: High school, Ha Long, learning autonomy, log assignments, online learning. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS THE CANDIDATE‟S STATEMENT.
iii LIST OF TABLES .v LIST OF FIGURES. vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Aim and Objectives. Scope of the study.
Definition of Terms. Signification of the study. Organization of the study .5 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW. The definitions of learner autonomy .2 Autonomy in language learning.
The roles of Learner Autonomy in English Language learning. The definitions of autonomous learning. Autonomous out-of-class language learning .6 Leaner Autonomy Models. Pedagogical perspectives of learner autonomy.
Role of Technology in Autonomous Language Learning. The role of welog assignments in enhancing EFL students‟ English language learning. Log assignment as an autonomous learning and assessment tool. The definitions of Log assignment.
Log assignment as an autonomous learning and assessment tool. Student‟s attitude in language learning:. Definition of attitude:. Importance of attitude in language learning: .20 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY.
Subjects and locale of the study. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedure. Data analytical method .27 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Data collected before action plan. Description of the action plan. Data collected after the intervention. Data collected in questionnaire 2 .64 APPENDICES vi LIST OF TABLES Table 4.
Descriptive statistics of students‟ autonomy before action plan. Level of students‟ autonomy before action plan. Descriptive statistics of students‟ autonomy after action plan. Level of students‟ autonomy after action plan.
Paired Samples Test. Students‟ Perceptions of Blog Assignments in Relation to Learner Autonomy. Using blogs gave me more freedom and control of my own learning. I often developed a plan and found the best way for me to complete blog tasks.
I was able to monitor my own progress by revisiting my own blog and made changes based on the instructor‟s feedback. Blogging allowed me to actively engage in the process of reflection on my writing about cross-cultural observations. By regularly writing reflective blogs, I was able to understand, generate and analyze cross-cultural issues. Reading others‟ postings helped me gain diverse cultural perspectives and reflect further about my own beliefs.
Social networking via blogs was an effective way to share knowledge and exchange ideas with others. I found peer comments interesting and informative. I gained intercultural knowledge and communication skills through working with my peers and native speakers. I found blog assignments stimulating and meaningful.
I felt comfortable sharing my ideas and interacting with my peers and native speaker partners via blogging. Using blogs was a motivational tool for me to learn about the English culture and people. 54 v LIST OF FIGURE Figure 3. Ferrance‟s AR cycle.
23 vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 provides a brief description of the frame of the study. In this chapter, the reasons for doing the thesis and the main research objectives were stated. The scope and an overview of the remained parts of the study are also included.1 Rationale Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the traditional functioning of colleges and universities across the globe has been disrupted in step with the UN (2020, p.6 billion learners in over 190 countries and everyone continents are adversely laid low with the pandemic”. Many educational institutes have turned to online teaching to take care of the continuity of learning, forcing teachers to transition to online delivery of classes in an exceedingly short period of your time.
As a result, there has been a serious change in learning from face-to-face to the unique growth of e-learning, during which instruction is finished remotely via online or digital platforms. Learning design, in additional to specific delivery technology, is critical for successful online education. Learning design is the framework that supports learning experiences. It refers to deliberate choices about what, when, where and the way to show.
Decisions must to made about the content, structure, timing, pedagogical strategies, sequence of learning activities, and therefore the type and frequency of assessment within the course, still because the nature of technology accustomed support learning. Many educational institutions in industrialized nations were already providing remote education and online courses with a high success rate before the epidemic (Anderson, 2011). Such educational institutions have spent a big amount of your time and energy planning and developing their instructional design with high quality learning materials, relevant media, and course delivery technologies to attain the goal of online teaching and learning. Nevertheless, impoverished nations like Vietnam didn't have the luxurious of rummaging such a severe process of making and producing the emergency remote teaching online course (Hodges et al.
Due to COVID-19, it had been 1 launched in an exceedingly short period of your time. However, there are certain downsides to take care of, like the shortage of planned, required, bonding, face-to- face classroom activities (Serdyukova & Serdyukov, 2013), which can impair their capacity to find out autonomously. On the negative side, students have limited communication with their instructor, few opportunities to collaborate with their peers, are restricted from engaging in face-to-face interactions with other participants in their learning community, and are unable to produce critical instantaneous feedback, which is well feasible during a classroom-situated environment. Furthermore, the dearth of face-to-face contacts within the classroom discourages the formation of non-public ties, which limits the sense of belonging to a community and trust among peers.
This incident may have a detrimental impact on learning outcomes since learning could be a group action that necessitates involvement in a very group and speak to with group members (Wenden, 1997). during this case, Class Live Pro, SKYPE, Zoom, Whatapps group, telegram, Google Meeting, and other telecommunication technologies could also be beneficial. However, they are not providing a considerable amount of genuine and true connection. Learner autonomy, additionally to good learning design, may be a key feature for successful distance learning or online teaching.
Learners are believed to own gained a degree of autonomy for self-learning and self-motivation for online learning in an idealistic sense. In reality, many students might not have established sufficient autonomy for self-regulated learning. Asian students, for instance, are frequently considered passive and hesitant to publicly dispute instructors' authority (Pierson, 1996, as cited in Chang & Geary, 2015). Lo (2010) discovered that Asian EFL students were less acquainted with the concept of independent learning and contributed little to the method of information creation.
Similarly, within the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Vietnam, Rukthong (2008) and Meesong and Jaroongkhongdach (2016) discovered that, while Vietnamese EFL learners were dependent on independent learning, they weren't ready for it. Their excessive dependence on instructors' teaching, poor English proficiency, and 2 insufficient learning methods to require charge of their learning were a number of the explanations limiting their participation in autonomous learning. As a result, within these uncertain times when face-to-face contact seems improbable in the near future, instructors are forced to channelize a system that gives sufficient scaffolding and formative assistance to students with varying degrees of autonomy for successful online learning. Learners, on the opposite hand, are struggling to traverse the lesson's material and remain motivated to "apply, assess, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and reflect on what they learn" (Anderson, 2011, p.
A log assignment, also observed as a learning log, could be a pedagogical tool which provides learners an area to stay a record of their learning process together with their reflection on learning activities, instructional methods, and learning experiences. Students and teachers predominantly use a learning log as a learning and assessment tool. The log allows students to precise, examine, and explore their learning experiences and provides teachers the power to assess the progress of the scholars and provides them feedback (Rickards, 2002). Furthermore, Lee (1997) asserted that a log includes a dual purpose for college students.
Firstly, it acts as a private record of learners‟ preparation and energy to be told, their reflection on their interpretation, and their extension and reformulation of data. Secondly, it served because the source and place of their self-evaluation as they used the log to judge their own strategies and energy to find out. Thus, a learning log has been beneficial in creating an environment where learners can freely record, evaluate, and examine their work and learning. Moreover, few studies are done to research learner‟s autonomy in online English learning in Vietnamese EFL learning context.
The shortage of literature over the difficulty inspires the researcher to hold out this study within the context of English learning at an English center in Ha Long city. This study takes responsibility for looking at how the employment of learning and accessing tools like language-in- talk log assignment can aid Vietnamese students‟ autonomous learning of English conversation during COVID19. Aim and Objectives By doing action research, this study aims at identifying the effectiveness of using intalk log assignment in enhancing students‟ autonomy in online learning at Ha Long foreign language center as well as students‟ attitude toward language log assignment.