VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE --------- NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN SPEAKING ENGLISH: A CASE STUDY AT UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY A minor thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By DUONG THI HIEN Supervised by LE THI THANH, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, AUGUST 2022 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby declare that this thesis entitled “Non-English major students’ anxiety in speaking English: A case study at University of Information Technology, Vietnam National University - Ho Chi Minh City” is my own work. This paper has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any institutions. All the work from other authors, which has been used as references in this study, was cited with acknowledgement.
Ho Chi Minh City, August 2022 DUONG THI HIEN i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Duong Thi Hien, being the candidate for the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis Deposited in the Library. In terms of conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of the theses. Ho Chi Minh City, August 2022 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude towards my supervisor, Dr. Le Thi Thanh, for her great support and advice during the time I conducted this study.
Thanks to her valuable academic guidance and constructive feedback, I have overcome the difficulties to finalize my Master’s thesis. Secondly, I am indebted to all the lecturers in the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature for their precious assistance, scholarly knowledge and enthusiasm which have kindled my interest in teaching and research. Thirdly, I would like to send my appreciation to all the participants who provided me rich and detailed data, including my colleague - Ms. Tran Ngoc and 40 non- English major students from her classes at UIT.
Without their participation, this study could not achieve its aims. I also want to say a big thank-you to my close friends for always being by my side to support me during the Corona pandemic. Without their huge encouragement, this thesis would have been far from complete. Most importantly, I heartily thank my parents, my older sister and brothers for their support in every single moment of my life.
Without their unconditional love and trust, I would not have become who I am today. I am proud and fortunate to be part of their family. iii ABSTRACT Over the past decades, language speaking anxiety has never failed to attract researchers’ attention from all over the world. Especially, one of the notable matters is how to bolster students’ willingness to communicate in English without being impeded by apprehension.
This study aims at exploring potential triggers of English speaking anxiety among non-English major students at University of Information Technology, Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City and the strategies which might be used by them to overcome such problems. The qualitative case study employed two main instruments which are sixteen in-class observations and semi-structured interviews with 10 out of 40 students from two General English classes at University of Information Technology. The data collection began with a series of observations in class to realize the students’ manifestations of anxiety during speaking sessions. Then semi-structured interviews with 10 highly anxious students were administered one after another to detect the causes of speaking anxiety as well as the students’ coping strategies.
The findings of the study disclosed eight factors provoking non-English major students’ speaking anxiety at University of Information Technology. They were classified into two groups including intrinsic factors (lack of communicative competence, lack of self-confidence, low self-esteem, low motivation) and the extrinsic factors (peers, teachers, previous teaching curriculum, limited exposure to English). The main coping strategies reported by the students were learning additional vocabulary and undertaking more speaking practice. Based on the findings, pedagogical implications were drawn to help the researcher recognize the sources of this psychological phenomenon and propose several efficient solutions for teachers, administrators and tertiary students to enhance the teaching and learning of English in this context.
Further research considering factors which are not scrutinized in the current study may contribute to a fuller understanding of speaking anxiety. Key words: students’ anxiety, speaking English, factors of anxiety, speaking anxiety iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS.v LIST OF TABLES.
ix LIST OF FIGURES. x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. Background to the study.
Aims of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Organization of the thesis .6 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.
Overview of speaking. Definition of speaking. The importance of speaking in EFL classrooms. Characteristics of a successful speaking activity.
Definition of anxiety. Anxiety and fear. Types of anxiety. Foreign language anxiety.
Definitions of FLA. Debilitating and facilitating effects of FLA. Components of FLA. Manifestations of FLA.
Anxiety and speaking English. The effects of anxiety on speaking. Potential causes of foreign language speaking anxiety. Lack of communicative competence.
Lack of self-confidence. Low self-esteem. The previous teaching curriculum. Limited exposure to English.
Students' strategies to reduce speaking anxiety. English courses at UIT. Semi-structured interviews. Data collection procedure.
Data analysis procedure. Reliability and validity. 42 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Lack of communicative competence.
Lack of self-confidence. Low self-esteem. Fear of friends' attitude. Fear of negative feedback from others.
The previous teaching curriculum. Limited exposure to English. Solutions to overcome English speaking anxiety. Summary of main findings.
Overview of the study. Limitations of the study. Recommendations for further study. 79 APPENDIX A Consent Form Interview - Student participants .79 APPENDIX B Interview questions.
81 APPENDIX C Interview transcript sample .82 APPENDIX D Thematic network. 92 APPENDIX E Observation Scheme .93 APPENDIX F Textbook: Business Partner A2+ .103 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 3. The unit contents in Business Partner A2+. The schedules for classroom observations.
The summary of the research procedures. 40 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. Intrinsic factors of non-English major students’ speaking anxiety. Extrinsic factors of non-English major students’ speaking anxiety .48 x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS UIT, VNU-HCMC: University of Information Technology, Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language L1: First language/mother tongue L2: Second language/foreign language/target language FLA: Foreign Language Anxiety FLCAS: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter presents a brief exposition of the study, which consists of (1) background to the study, (2) personal motivation, (3) aims of the study, (4) research questions, (5) significance of the study, (6) scope of the study, and (7) outline of the thesis.
Background to the study Under the impact of globalization and integration, it is irrefutable to see that English is well on its way to becoming the dominant global language of communication. As a matter of fact, English has become the official working language of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Kirkpatrick, 2012, p. Therefore, learning English is of great significance to promote one’s skills and abilities in this competitive world. Specifically, university graduates in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 area are advisable to achieve a good communicative English competence for better employment opportunities and career development in life.
Among the four language skills, speaking is broadly considered as the most challenging but crucial skill in L2 language acquisition (Ur, 1999; Nguyen & Tran, 2015). Thus, English speaking skills should be developed in order to improve communication achievement (Boonkit, 2010). For many students who are non- major in English and their ability in English is low, they often face many problems when speaking English. Although many students have acquired a variety of grammatical rules and lexical items, they may not apply them well in making a speech or making conversations with their peers in English fluently and smoothly (Larsen-Freeman, 2000).
This problem is triggered by various affective factors, especially anxiety (Brown, 2007). Noticeably, studies on foreign language speaking anxiety has been flourishing in recent decades (Liu, 2005). Accordingly, when students are designated to speak or posed questions by the teacher in class, they feel more apprehensive (Liu, 2006). As Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) articulated in their study, both teachers and 1 students are aware and generally feel strongly that anxiety is a major hurdle to be overcome in learning to communicate in another language.
They also mentioned communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation as the triggers for foreign language anxiety. To explore more reasons for reticent language learners in the foreign language speaking classrooms, advocates have implemented a plethora of studies worldwide such as Woodrow (2006) in Australia, Tóth (2010) in Hungary, Zhiping and Paramasivam (2013) in Malaysia, Rajitha and Alamelu (2020) in India, to name but a few. Due to the suffering of anxiety, students are often hesitant to speak English publicly, resulting in poor language performance in class. In Vietnam, where English has become the most widely-used foreign language, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in 2008 also indicated that the goal of learning this language should be communication, fostering a competitive economy with a skilled workforce.
However, tertiary students in EFL classrooms, especially non-English majors, are supposed to experience anxiety in learning (Tran, Baldauf, & Moni, 2013). Students who have higher levels of anxiety tend to gain lower academic proficiency in speaking (Le & Tran, 2020). Moreover, Tran et al. (2013) has discovered both positive and negative aspects of Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) among university students.
Those who favored FLA in learning English perceived it as a motivator to learn; the debilitating effects of FLA, on the other hand, inhibited students from excelling in the target language. A student’s linguistic achievement in L2 is determined by the levels of FLA he or she reaches in the classroom (Szyszka, 2017). At UIT, English has been included as one of the compulsory subjects in the teaching curriculum. The English courses here especially focus on teaching English for non-English major students with all four skills, mainly on communication activities.
Normally, in some other universities, non-English students are predominantly taught reading and writing skills; whereas listening and speaking skills are often neglected. However, students at UIT are taught and tested strictly based on “The Common European Framework of Reference for 2 Languages” (CEFR) and the minimum level required is B1 (equivalent to pre- intermediate level) on graduation. As a result, students of UIT are required to learn and practise the speaking skill as it is part of the final test. Despite that, from the researcher’s experience and observation, a great number of students in this environment are still struggling with anxiety when conveying their ideas orally, leaving them a big gap in conquering speaking skills.
Although myriad studies to date related to language anxiety has been undertaken abroad, few in Vietnam have probed into its sources in speaking skill (Bui, 2016) and the number of participants is quite limited. Therefore, the findings could not be applied for most Vietnamese language classes (Tran et all.