MINISTRY OF EDUCAnON AND TRAINING VIETNAM NAnONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES A D HUMANITIES NGUYEN THl HoAr MINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO ROLES AND TASKS OF TEACHERS AND LEARNERS IN GENERAL ENGLISH CLASSES AT HOCHIMINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY M. THESIS IN TESOL SUBMITED IN PARTIAL FULFILME T OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOT THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF TESOL Supervisor: NGUYEN nEN HUNG, PH. HOCHIMINH CITY - 2004 -lll"'I~/I-;-1 , ._ J CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: AN INVESTIGATION INTO ROLES AND TASKS OF TEACHERS AND LEARNERS IN GENERAL ENGLISH CLASSES AT HOCHIMINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSTY in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master's Programmes issued by the Higher Degree Committee. HoChiMinh City, November 2004 NGUYEN THJ HoAI MINH RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, NGUYEN THl HoAI MINH, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master's Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions establish by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses. HoChiMinh City November 2004 NGUYEN THJ HoAI MINH II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I, the author of the this thesis, would like to express my deepest gratitude to: Dr. NguySn Tie'n Hung, my thesis supervisor, Chair of the Department of English Linguistics of the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature, HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Le Thi Thanh, Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of HCMC Open University.
Le Van Khue, M., Director of the English Centre of the Open University of HCMC. all the staff members of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of HCMC Open University. all my colleagues and students of General English at HCMC Open University. and my family, especially my husband.
for their invaluable suggestions, encouragement and assistance. 111 and institutional encouragement for improving methodology. This suggested that teaching and learning GE at HOU was taking a backward step in comparison with our new understanding about language acquisition. In order to explain for their favored teaching styles, GE teachers pointed out quite a lot of objective constrains that prevented them from making innovation in teaching and had good reasons to keep their teaching practice from changing.
Their rationales ranged from learning environment to the students' level as well as their reluctance to apply new methods. From students' perspective, although they did not feel very interested in their current GE learning at university, they found it obligatory to come to class as English was a compulsory subject. Furthermore, they believed traditional tasks were necessary to pass examination, so they were perfectly content to be fed with knowledge rather than to work independently. In an attempt to contribute a systematic look about roles and tasks to general institutional process of improving teaching and learning, the author of this thesis wished to offer a depiction of the problems teachers, students, and the institution had to face.
More importantly, recommendations were suggested based on this perception. Moreover, during the time this study was done, especially in the framework of the conversations with the participants, the writer expected that the issue did foster them a more profound understanding on the importance of new roles for teachers and learners. v ABSTRACT This thesis is entitled "An investigation into roles and tasks between teachers and learners in General English classes at Ho Chi Minh City Open University." The thesis aimed to describe the reality of teaching and learning GE which led to a critical look at the effectiveness of typical roles and tasks that teachers and students perform in GE class at HOD. From one side of the issue, a focus of the study was the search for the understanding of various factors affecting teachers' rationales for the roles they adopted in the classroom.
From the other side, students' attitudes and motivation toward their English learning at university were learned to clarify the appropriateness and effectiveness of the curriculum in general and the roles and tasks of teachers and learners in particular. In the light of this understanding, the writer looked to the necessity of roles shifting of teachers and students at GE level and the effectiveness of tasks given by teachers in the classroom. The study was carried out as following: (1) a series of class observations at HOD in order to figure out the most popular roles and tasks in GE classes at HOU; (2) a questionnaire asking students about their perception and attitudes to the learning style in GE classes; and (3) interviews with teachers who are in charge of the chosen observed classes in order to search for their explanation for what they prefer to carry out in the classroom. What has been learnt from the analysis of data reveals that almost all teachers still stuck to their traditional teaching-centered model with 57.7% of class time spending on teacher's talk (transmitting knowledge and providing answers) and 22.7% on tasks focusing on grammar in spite of a very communicative textbook IV and institutional encouragement for improving methodology.
This suggested that teaching and learning GE at HOU was taking a backward step in comparison with our new understanding about language acquisition. In order to explain for their favored teaching styles, GE teachers pointed out quite a lot of objective constrains that prevented them from making innovation in teaching and had good reasons to keep their teaching practice from changing. Their rationales ranged from learning environment to the students' level as well as their reluctance to apply new methods. From students' perspective, although they did not feel very interested in their current GE learning at university, they found it obligatory to come to class as English was a compulsory subject.
Furthermore, they believed traditional tasks were necessary to pass examination, so they were perfectly content to be fed with knowledge rather than to work independently. In an attempt to contribute a systematic look about roles and tasks to general institutional process of improving teaching and learning, the author of this thesis wished to offer a depiction of the problems teachers, students, and the institution had to face. More importantly, recommendations were suggested based on this perception. Moreover, during the time this study was done, especially in the framework of the conversations with the participants, the writer expected that the issue did foster them a more profound understanding on the importance of new roles for teachers and learners.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Scope of the study 1 1.2 Aim of the study 1 1.3 Rationale for the study 2 1.4 General background of the sudy 4 1.5 Overview of the study 5 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 7 2.1 Teaching and learning as social activities 7 2.1 The nature of roles 7 2.2 Teacher and learner roles 8 2.1 Job-related side of teacher and learner roles 8 2.3 Beliefs and attitudes 12 2. modern roles and tasks 15 2.1 When roles dictate tasks 16 2.2 When tasks dictate roles 19 2.3 Roles and tasks in English classes at Vietnamese universities 23 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGy 29 3.3 Data collection procedure 30 VI 3.3 Interviews with teachers 34 3.5 Limitation 35 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 37 4.1 Results from class observation 37 4.1 Division of class time 38 4.2 Types of tasks for students 41 4.2 Resuls from questionnaire 47 4.1 Students' motivation for English learning 47 4.2 Students' attitude toward English learning activities 50 4.3 Students' expectation for roles 55 4.4 Students' opnions ofGE program at HOU 57 4.3 Results from interviews 59 4.2 The institutional system 64 4.3 The teacher 66 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDAnONS 69 APPENDICES Appendix I 77 Appendix 2 79 BIBLIOGRAPHY 81 VII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. CLT Communicative Language Teaching 2. ESP English for Specific Purposes 3.GE General English 4.HOU Ho Chi Minh City Open University Vlll LIST OF TABLES Table 4.5 55 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.2 61 IX CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Scope of the study This research aims at investigating roles and tasks of teachers and learners and the factors that affect teachers' rationale for what they choose to carry out in the classroom.
The study takes place at HOD with its finding based on the writer's observational time in GE classes, the focus of which is observing teacher and learner roles through the types of tasks teachers assign to students. Then, the most crucial part of the study is conversations with teachers in charge of those classes to seek for their explanations. It is further enriched by the data from a questionnaire for students of GE at this university.2 Aim of the study There is one question that guides this study: What are factors that affect teachers' decisions on roles and tasks between them and their students in GE classes at HOD? and two subquestions are also addressed: (1) What is the dominating roles and tasks that are ususally used in GE classes at HOD? (2) What are students' attitudes and motivation toward the learning in classroom? The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the typical roles and tasks that teachers of English perform in GE classes at HOD. More importantly, the study also seeks the explanation of teachers to why they prefer to adopt a particular role and make use of a specific task for their class.
This enables the writer to figure out the various factors that affect teachers' rationale for the roles they play and the roles they want their students to play in order to facilitate the process of learning. In this research, the role is generally defined as "the ways in which instructors and students view their job in the classroom", and the tasks as all the assignments given to students to create activities during the lessons (Lee & Vanpatten, 1995). The study, furthermore, examines students' attitude and perception toward their English learning style at the university in order to find out how far teachers' rationale is appropriate to students' expectation.3 Rationale for the study "We often encourage, or should, our students to become "active learners," taking responsibility for what, how, and why they learn English. But do we apply the same standard to ourselves as teachers? That is, are we "active learners" of the craft and profession of teaching? Are we seeking opportunities to grow and develop in our classrooms?" (Baurain, 2003:2) Teachers are to enable the most important purpose of the classroom: to provide and create conditions for learning to take place (Thomas, 1997).
Given the importance of teaching quality for improving student achievement, this study puts a focus on the roles of teachers and learners of GE at HOD through the types of tasks used in the classroom. General English is of great importance since it forms a foundation, which could be either good or bad habits of learning a foreign language, for students to go further in their academic study. Additionally, the real learning happens after class, and thus the students must know how to learn on their own 2 (Nunan, 1998). These are good reasons for teachers to be better teachers - more sensitive to the demands of their learners and better equipped to manage the learning process.
In return, learners can become better learners - to be more efficient at their tasks and also better able to participate in learning activities. The total classroom process, with appropriate roles and tasks, can become better suited to the promotion of learning. Teaching and learning during class time include a range of different roles that the teacher adopts and a range of corresponding roles that the student performs (Wajnryb, 1992). Is it an unchangeable belief that being the authority figure is the best role for the teacher in Asian teaching and learning context?