Rationale Language globalization has become an irreversibly evident fact on a large scale. It is essential for social development and integration trend. Therefore, language has become a powerful and effective means of communication than ever. English is the most widely spoken language in the world.
It is a national language of a number of countries such as the United States, large parts of Canada, the British Isles, Australia and New Zealand. For many years, it was the official language in countries that were once colonies of Britain including India, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and so on. For many reasons in history, English has become an international language. With its position, English has been a compulsory subject in the school in many nations worldwide including Vietnam where it has been taught for third – graders to students at university and college.
Moreover, the trend of global integration and cultural exchanges between countries has increased remarkably the demand for foreign languages in general and English in particular. Therefore, it can be stated that teaching and learning English is obviously essential in the education and training system in our country. The tremendous impact of English with respect to its importance to the community development has urged our state to devise policies to encourage learning English effectively. In that case, both students and teachers must be aware and responsible for enhancing the level of English.
An urgent task posed is how to improve the quality of teaching and how to promote the students‘ motivation toward English. This issue has been concerned much for years by teachers, researchers and also English teaching book writers. I have been myself a teacher of English for six years, which is not full for an experienced one. As a young dedicated teacher with limited experience, I always try my best to find out the appropriate methods to teach lessons effectively.
The innovation in English teaching method has been promoting actively in the teaching and learning. It is not teacher – centered but learner- centered. The purpose of teaching is to develop English communication skills of students including reading, 1 speaking, listening and writing. In the development of modern technology today, the more popular the media are, the more abundant the sources of learning materials are.
As a result, students have a number of opportunities to access and apply them to better English ability by themselves. A successful teacher can be asserted to be clever at evoking the passion of learning for their students. For this reason, their students can be aware of self-learning and self-practicing to improve their language skills. Among language skills, listening is very important.
Listening is the ability of identify and understand what speakers are saying. This involves understanding and grasping the meaning what is being said. Therefore, students with good listening comprehension skills can participate more effectively in class. They can listen and understand what teachers are saying.
Then they can talk to teacher about what is concerned. In the days of mass communication, it is fundamental importance that students are taught to be able to listen effectively and critically. A good language listener is the first element to be a good language speaker. However, it‘s also difficult for students who are always under pressure in listening class.
A variety of reasons have been given. Listening content is not only impractical but also unsuitable for the students‘ level. Besides, the following tasks are stereotyped in some kinds of familiar forms such as gap-filling, true or false, comprehension questions and so on. Furthermore, the word accumulation capability of students is so restricted that they almost run out of vocabulary for effective listening.
Sometimes, teachers take charge of lessons due to their obligations without any interest or inspiration, which leads to the poor quality of the lesson. Therefore, in the perception of teachers and students, listening class does not make any sense out of obligation. So far as, they forget how important the listening skill is in communication. This reasons challenge me to be a successful teacher.
I make up my mind to do this research to find out ways to solve those problems above. The title of the research is: ―An investigation into EFL learning motivation in listening of grade-ten-students at Huong Hoa high school, Quang Tri province.‖ 2 Since 2007, I have been an English teacher of Huong Hoa upper secondary school. In the early days, I myself was really shocked at students‘ attitudes toward English as well as their language capability. In terms of geography, Huong Hoa upper secondary school is located in Huong Hoa, a mountainous district bordering Laos with a number of ethnic groups in Quang Tri province.
What I want to clarify is that English was not favorite and practical there at that time. Actually, students as well as people there concerned much about Laotian in order to serve their commercial purposes in the special economic zone. Students were said not to pay attention to English. Time passed and everything changed a lot.
Students raised more awareness of English when the government‘s policy was issued to promote English quality at school. Furthermore, the global integration has attracted more foreigners for both tourism and trade. In communication, listening and speaking skills have become essential but seemed to be the most difficult. If listening skill is considered as a receptive skill, speaking will be a productive skill.
Let care about the receptive skill first. And learning motivation as fuel of the car is for encouraging students to get their interest and have a good result in studying. In this research, I aim at the tenth graders who are absolutely new at the upper secondary school. It is supposed that if teachers cannot motivate them, there will be few of motivated students at all (in this school).
They are considered as the first steps in the ladder of knowledge to be laid foundation of teaching. In addition, teaching method at high school is different from lower secondary school in some ways. In fact, the knowledge in a lesson is more abundant at high school. Besides, students‘ language acquisition requirement is higher.
Students are required to work harder at home and be more active at class. In other words, if teacher can inspire tenth-graders, English will not be a matter of concerns for three years at the high school. Research objectives Hence, the paper set out to achieve the following goals: to provide some motivation methods to promote learning quality in listening 3 to draw out recommendations and implications to better listening skill of tenth-graders at Huong Hoa high school to support additional materials for English teachers and learners in studying listening class of textbook 10 1. Research questions The process of my research is to move from practice of teaching in my school to theory and back to practice in a cycle of development of deep understanding of the research questions: 1.
What kinds of motivation are essential and practical for bettering listening skill? 2. What should be done to promote tenth-graders‘ motivation in listening skill at Huong Hoa upper secondary school in Quang Tri? 1. Significance of the study The study is supposed to be a reference that the teachers and students can apply to promote motivated listening class and improve students‘ listening comprehension skills. From that point, in grade 10, it can be an additional material for practicing listening skill.
Furthermore, it can raise awareness of the importance of listening skill so students can find themselves inspired and motivated to self- practice for their English learning. Scope and methodology 1. Scope of the study The study was carried out at Huong Hoa high school with 10 teachers and 100 tenth graders coming from 10 classes. The choice of students is at random in each class.
It targets students at the grade 10 of Huong Hoa high school during the school year 2012-2013. Their listening ability is expected to be at intermediate levels. Research method 4 Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are used in this paper. Quantitative methods are done in class observation and survey.
Qualitative method is conducted in form of interview. Chapter 3 will discuss the methodology for this study in more detail. Structure of the research: The research paper is divided into five following chapters: Chapter One: Introduction of my own research rationale, research context, research objectives, research questions, research scope, research method, significance of the study and organization of the study. Chapter Two: Review of the theoretical background of the research and issues relevant to the topic of the research.
Chapter Three deals with the methodology that I have employed in this research work. This chapter will present research methodology including research participants, data collection instruments, data collection and data analysis procedure. Chapter Four presents and analyzes the data. In this chapter, the data will be explored in results of tables and diagrams.
It also presents of the results of the study including the exploration of the actual learning listening comprehension of the students, the needs analysis and designing of some supplementary listening material for students, and outlines some pedagogical implications and recommendations. Chapter Five contains summary of the key findings, conclusions, the limitations and suggestions of the study. Besides, recommendations for practice and suggestions for further research will be concerned in this chapter. 5 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW 2.
Introduction It is obvious that English plays an essential role in our modern society and globalization era. Its functions are considered as a bridge for all aspects of human life such as communication, science, technology, education, society and culture. Although English teaching and learning has been increasingly emphasized, careful real English classroom observations lead to some limitations and shortcoming. There are some factors that cause those deficiencies such as age and gender, learning styles, motivation, attitude, personality, language attitude, learning strategies, multiple intelligences and so on.
One of the vital factors is motivation which is thought as a primarily aspect influencing the success or failure of acquiring second language in general and English in particular. As an English teacher who is seen as an important role in students‘ second language acquisition, we are responsible for helping students acquire second language. Without doubt, that the shift from the focus on the method to learner- centeredness leads to a turning point in changing the status of the learner and the teacher who has the responsibility to transmit knowledge in the teaching and learning language. Teachers are no longer dominant in the class; a teacher has to be a facilitator, a tutor, an instructor and so on.
In order to take that crucial role in classroom, teachers have to understand how to teach students effectively by following students‘ learning styles. Teachers also have to be aware of motivation and how to motivate students in an adequate way. Theoretical basis of motivation: 2. Definitions of motivation There is a saying that: ―The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book‖.
Teaching can be considered as a process in which both students and teachers must be active performers if they want to make their efforts successful. In this case, students are active participants but not only passive listeners. Students can raise awareness of studying when they are motivated. Motivation can energize students 6 and provide direction.
In other words, motivation can be identified as the learner‘s orientation with regard to the goal of learning a second language. Prior to exploring how motivation affects teaching and learning English, we must know the term motivation. Motivation can be thought as a motive force or an impulse which generates the action. This understanding is restricted.
This term needs to be defined in a deep sense. Motivation is the key to all activities. In learning, without motivation, students lack activeness and self-consciousness. It is perhaps the biggest obstacle to students and teachers to achieve in learning and teaching.