VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE LEARNER AUTONOMY PROMOTING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNING: PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS AT HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By TRUONG DIEP THANH AN Supervised by DANG TAN TIN, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, JUNE 2019 The thesis title Learner Autonomy Promoting Strategies in English teaching and learning: Perceptions of Teachers and Students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Science on the cover page, approved in the Decision No. 11 issued by the President of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities on January 2nd, has been converted into Learner Autonomy Supporting Strategies: Non-English Majored Students’ Desirability and Lecturers’ Practices at the University of Science - VNU-HCMC in the defence session for the following reasons. Firstly, the phrases promoting practices and supporting strategies are alike in terms of their semantic meaning.
Both of them refer to the strategies to fostering learner autonomy, but the latter is more closely connected to theoretical arguments by Reeve, Bolt, & Cai (1999), Reeve (2006), Reeve & Jang (2006). Secondly, the research is conducted in a scientific university where English is taught in an attempt to supply learners with general knowledge of the language; accordingly, the old term in English teaching and learning does not differ from non-English majored students, neither of which conveys differences, but the latter sounds more familiar across research papers. Thirdly, being a quite broad term, perceptions is replaced with desirability for the purpose of the research aims being best addressed rightaway from the research title. Moreover, the researcher is particularly interested in learners’ desire for being supported with autonomous learning in comparison with lecturers’ implementations of LA enhancement in real-life classrooms; the research, therefore, targets to seek for teachers’ practices rather than their perceptions or desirability.
Finally, due to the fact that the permission for the modified title had not been asked for prior to the defence session, the new title was not yet approved in a new Decision. In a nutshell, for the above rationales, it is contented that the new research title and its included key terms are valid for use throughout the paper. VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE LEARNER AUTONOMY SUPPORTING STRATEGIES: NON-ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS’ DESIRABILITY AND LECTURERS’ PRACTICES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE - VNU-HCMC A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By TRUONG DIEP THANH AN Supervised by DANG TAN TIN, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, JUNE 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Dang Tan Tin, from whom I have received tremendous guidance, especially his expert knowledge in the field of learner autonomy. Before working with him, autonomy meant little to me, and I had even thought that this concept is not likely to be applicable to students in the Vietnamese context. It was his autonomy style of supervision that did put me into trouble at the early stage but thanks to that, I have gradually developed to be more autonomous myself in my professional development. It is my best fortunate and honour to have had him as my supervisor.
This study would not have been possible without the great support from the University, of which I have always been a member of the teaching staff, and from my beloved colleagues who are not only my enthusiastic participants but also passionate and devoted language teachers who have been seeking for the best methods in the teaching career. Many thanks to all my friends for their encouragements on my way to the completion of the thesis and for their friendship which made my time at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities full of joys and unforgettable moments. Last but not least, I own my Mom’s love for her always being my best friend along this long journey. She has been beside me through all ups and downs that we both create or cause for each other.
She is the most determined woman I have ever met, and it is my best luck to be her daughter, though she and I have had to suffer each others’ temper-losing at times. We have been sharing our life for each other, so the Master’s Degree is no exception. Again, had it not for my supervisor, colleagues, family and friends, I would have given up this long journey to the thesis. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education insitution.
To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signature: Truong Diep Thanh An Date: ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. i LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. v LIST OF TABLES.vi LIST OF FIGURES.ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.1 Background to the study.2 Statement of the problem.3 Purpose of the study.5 Scope of the study.6 Organization of the thesis.
12 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.1 Definitions of key terms.1 Organizational autonomy support.2 Procedural autonomy support.3 Cognitive autonomy support.4 Meta-cognitive autonomy support.5 In-class target language use autonomy support.6 Out-of-class TL use autonomy support.4 Factors affecting learner autonomy promotion.3 Teacher-related issues.2 Context of the study.1 The researcher’s position in the study.2 English teaching and learning at HCMUS.3 Students at HCMUS.4 Lecturers of English at HCMUS.6 Data collection procedure.7 Data analysis procedure. 63 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.1 The mismatches between non-English majored students’ desirability and teachers’ practice of autonomy supporting strategies.2 Factors causing the mismatches between non-English majored students’ desirability and teachers’ practice of autonomy supporting strategies. 124 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L1 First language/mother tongue L2 Second language/foreign language/target language LA Learner autonomy TL Target language EFL English as a foreign language VNU-HCMC Vietnam National University - Hochiminh City HCMUS University of Science - Vietnam National University - Hochiminh City v LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Organizational autonomy support 124 Table 2.2 Procedural autonomy support 125 Table 2.3 Cognitive autonomy support 126 Table 2.4 Meta-cognitive autonomy support 127 Table 2.5 In-class TL use autonomy support 128 Table 2.6 Out-of-class TL autonomy use support 129 Table 3. of invited students and real respondents 50 Table 3.2 Extracted items from student and teacher questionnaires 56 Table 3.
of questions made for lecturers 59 Table 4.1a Reliability analysis (ORG) 64 Table 4.1b Cronbach’s Alpha if items deleted (ORG) 64-65 Table 4.1c ORG autonomy supporting strategies (T-tests) 161-162 Table 4.2a Reliability analysis (PRO) 67 Table 4.2b Cronbach’s Alpha if items deleted (PRO) 67 Table 4.2c ` PRO autonomy supporting strategies (T-tests) 163-164 Table 4.3a Reliability analysis (COG) 68 Table 4.3b Cronbach’s Alpha if items deleted (COG) 69 Table 4.3c COG autonomy supporting strategies (T-tests) 165-166 Table 4.4a Reliability analysis (META-COG) 71 Table 4.4b Cronbach’s Alpha if items deleted (META-COG) 71 Table 4.4c META autonomy supporting strategies (T-tests) 167-169 Table 4.5a Reliability analysis (IN-CLASS TL) 73 Table 4.5b Cronbach’s Alpha if items deleted (INCLASS TL) 73 vi Table 4.5c In-class TL use supporting strategies (T-tests) 169-170 Table 4.6a Reliability analysis (OUT-CLASS TL) 74 Table 4.6b Cronbach’s Alpha if items deleted (OUT-CLASS TL) 75 Table 4.6c Out-of-class TL use supporting strategies (T-tests) 171-172 Table 4.7 Number of items before and after reliability analysis 77 and Cronbach’s Alpha Table 4.8 Statistical mean differences in brief 78 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 Sequential explanatory design type (a) 44 Figure 3.2 Diagram of the sequential mixed-methods design employed in the study 45 Figure 4.1 Organizational autonomy supporting strategy item means 66 Figure 4.2 Procedural autonomy supporting strategy item means 68 Figure 4.3 Cognitive autonomy supporting strategy item means 70 Figure 4.4 Meta-cognitive autonomy supporting strategy item means 72 Figure 4.5 In-class TL use autonomy supporting strategy item means 74 Figure 4.6 Out-of-class TL use autonomy supporting strategy item means 76 viii ABSTRACT Due to its being a meaningful and developmental construct, learner autonomy has been pushing stakeholders into the search for different practices to nurture it. LA promotion does not only take place in the methods or strategies but also involves the instructors and the learners who use them. Furthermore, learners’ desirability for autonomy supporting strategies employed by teachers arouses curiosity. Whether what teachers do in and out of the classroom to promote LA matches with what students want? What factors cause such mismatches? The current study seeks to find the answers for the mismatches between non-English majored students’ desirability and English lecturers’ practice of 54 learner autonomy supporting strategies and the causes for those mismatches.
In order to do so, this study employs a sequential mixed-methods design: surveys for 37 lecturers and 204 students for quantitiative data garthering, followed by semi-structured interviews to obtained qualitative data from three lecturers at a university in Ho chi minh City. Significant mean differences between the two participant groups are found in 35 autonomy supporting strategies in two cases; one is the strategies being highly desirable by students but less frequently employed by teachers; the other is the strategies being less desired by students but more often enacted by teachers. The follow-up interviews unveil six causes for the mismatches, including institutional policies, cultural issues, teachers’ beliefs of students’ choice-making ability, their assumptions of students’ preferences, their personal teaching styles/principles, and their personal relationships. The paper provides more insights into the EFL learner’s voices of being supported in autonomous learning and how language teachers promote learner autonomy as well.
ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.1 Democratic classroom in language education Teaching and learning should be fair in terms of sharing responsibility between the teacher and learners. Learner autonomy can promisingly put an end to conventional teaching practices of laying all the responsibility of classroom-related matters onto the teacher’s shoulder. Autonomy calls for the equality which empowers learners with the control over their learning about the pace, sequence, mode, and the content of instruction (Cotterall, 1995). The term “democratic classrooms” (Dang, V., 2006; 2008) refers to a learning environment where learners can be freely involved in making decisions on various learning-related issues.
Students should be given the feeling of being treated “as the centre of learning” that enables them to have “decision making, critical thinking, reflection, and the recognition of multiple viewpoints” (Dang, V. Only when a democratic environment is established could learner empowerment play its role. This requires meaningful actions, first beginning with teacher’s allowing and encouraging learners to contribute their part to the selection of the syllabus, learning contents and learning materials (Dang, T. In a “democractic classroom”, learner autonomy is performed in a role-transferring process.
As for the learner’s role, Nunan (1997, as cited in Dang, T., 2012) uses the term “transcendence” as the highest level of learner autonomy at which the learner goes beyond the classroom border and makes connections between the learning content and the world, here they become teachers and researchers. However, turning into a teacher or a researcher appears to be an ambitious goal that could hardly be achieved straight away. At a much simpler step, learners can become a choice-maker who make their own decisions about organizing learning environment, learning forms and so on. Simultaneously, teachers take up the new role of a Page 1 of 184 choice-provider.
More importantly, both teachers and learners become negotiators who negotiate issues around learning and teaching (Nunan, 2012). Support from teachers is evidently valuable to the promotion of autonomous learning. Autonomy is not a synonym for self-instruction. Self-instruction requires learners to learn alone without the presence of a teacher while autonomous learning can be practised by an individual under the guidance of a teacher (Little, 1994).