BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES GRADUATION THESIS A SURVEY ON THE ATTITUDES OF ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS TOWARDS DEBATING SKILLS MODULE AT BANKING ACADEMY OF VIETNAM Student : Pham Truc Quynh Class : K20ATCC Academic year : 2017 – 2021 Student ID : 20A7510153 Advisor : Assoc. Pham Thi Hoang Anh Hanoi, May 2021 17014125810891000000 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this graduation thesis named “A survey on the attitudes of English-majored students towards Debating Skills module at Banking Academy of Vietnam” is my own original work and that it has not previously been submitted to any institution for evaluation purposes. Furthermore, I have acknowledged and cited all sources used in the reference section. Hanoi, May 19th 2020 Author Phạm Trúc Quỳnh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I want to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor, Associate Professor Pham Thi Hoang Anh, for being so patient and supportive throughout my journey of writing this thesis.
Without her vision and consistent support, this accomplishment could not have been possible. Secondly, I want to thank all of my friends and teachers in the Faculty of Languages in Banking Academy of Vietnam for giving me the best four years of my student life. Especially, I want to send my heartfelt gratitude to my group of friends – F5 along with Chung Thanh, Thanh Ha, Hoang Quan for always taking care of me like their little sister and calming me down whenever I had a panic attack. I would also like to acknowledge the help and understanding of my lovely colleagues in Techcombank, where I serve my internship.
It has truly been a wonderful time working with the team that has always facilitated me to finish this graduation thesis successfully. Furthermore, I would also wish to thank the lecturers Ms Nguyen Thi Dieu Hang, Ms Tran Thi Thu Thuy and Ms Le Thi Minh Que for their encouragement and precious advice. Their willingness to impart their knowledge has given me the foundation and overall insights of this research. Finally, from the bottom of my heart, my appreciation goes out to my family, my aunt and my best friends, Ha My and Abe, for always being by my side and giving me the love I do not deserve.
ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BAV Banking Academy of Vietnam UN United Nation VNU Vietnam National University HPU Hai Phong University CTU Continuing Training University EFL English as a Foreign Language iii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Responsibilities of speakers in British Parliamentary debate format….2: Responsibilities of speakers in Karl – Popper debate format.1: Fundamental anthropological information of participants ……………….1: Student’s attitudes towards the necessary of Debating Skills course….2: Students’ attitudes towards the helpfulness of lecturers of Debating Skills module …………………………………………………………………………….3: Students’ degrees of unwillingness to debate in English in Debating Skills class……………………………………………………………………………….4: Students’ expectations about debating skills for future careers……….32 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Students’ general attitude towards the Debating Skills lessons at Faculty of Foreign Languages .2: Students’ comprehension during Debating Skills lessons .3: Students’ behaviors in Debating Skills lessons .4: Students’ interests in activities in Debating Skills class .5: Student’s frequency of debating skills practice .6: Students’ expectation about the benefits of debating skills learning .7: Students’ general attitudes towards the debating skills .8: The reasons why students registered for Debating Skills module .9: Factors influencing the BAV’s English- majored students’ attitudes towards Debating Skills lessons .34 v TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY. ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. iii LIST OF TABLES .iv LIST OF FIGURES. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .2 Background of the study .3 Objectives of the study .5 Significance of the study .6 Scope and limitations of the study .7 Definition of terms .4 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE .2 Theoretical and Conceptual framework .1 Overview of attitudes.
Definition of attitudes. The roles of attitudes towards learning. The roles of attitudes towards learning a language .2 Overview of debate. Definition of debate.
Formats of debate. The Basic of Debating Abilities. Approaches of teaching debating skills. Benefits of debate.17 CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 Locale of the study .3 Data gathering procedure .4 Population and Sample description .7 Reliability and validity .21 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 The BAV’s English- majored students’ attitudes towards Debating Skills module.2 The factors influencing the BAV’s English- majored students’ attitudes towards Debating Skills module.35 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION .1 Summary of findings.
vii ABSTRACT Debating Skills is one of the five optional courses in Faculty of Foreign Languages in Banking Academy of Vietnam. This study is conducted for the purpose of investigating the English–majored students’ attitudes towards Debating Skills module. Because the study is a survey, questionnaire is explained as the instrument of the study. The target population included all English-majored students who have finished that course.
After one week of gathering the responses, there were 81 valid answers including both male and female students from there different academic years. The findings from this instrument revealed that the majority of students showed positive attitudes towards the debating skills, the Debating Skills module, along with the teachers and the lessons of the course. In addition, the data also demonstrated the students’ lack of concentration during the lessons, as well as the practice outside the classroom. Besides, based on such findings, the researcher offered suggestions for both lectures and students to enhance the teaching and learning quality of the Debating Skills module.
Keywords: attitudes, Debating Skills module, English–majored students viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction In modern society, freedom of speech is becoming more and more critical, so too is the need for self-expression and the desire to be heard. And thus, debating has become a preferred tool for people to express their ideas clearly and effectively in academia, professional, or even daily lives. Healthy debates bring solutions to common disagreements one might encounter throughout one’s life. And for that reason, I believe debating skills are very soon to be invaluable skills for students and workers alike.
Debating is nothing new; in fact, debating has had a long history across the globe and can be traced back to Ancient Greece's philosophical and political debates of the Athenian democracy. From 1976 onwards, there have been debates between presidential candidates for the general election as part of the presidential campaign; these debates are generally well-received by the public. In other parts of the world, various debating competition at all levels are held annually, most notably is the World Universities Debating Championship, the world’s largest debating tournament; first held in 1980, it is also considered to be one of the most significant student events, not just debating, in the world. Vietnam is in a period of “Golden Population Structure,” with over half of the working or training age population.
Soft skill training, more explicitly debating skills, for the abundant workforce to help create highly skilled workers with proficient critical thinking abilities is essential for developing Vietnam’s working and educational environment. However, debating is still a relatively new notion and subsequently unpopular in Vietnam, whose people frequently mistake it as “arguing.2 Background of the study Research, reasoning, and even public speaking skills are just a few of the many advantages to becoming a good debater. Debating can prepare students for any 1 challenge life may throw at them, from planning an argument – even if you disagree with it – to carefully choosing your words. Debating is not the same as having a full- fledged fight.
Instead of simply attacking your opponent, students must prepare a compelling, concise argument to gain support and backing. Nowadays, Vietnamese tertiary education institutions are allocating more of their attention to the students’ debating skills. The Banking Academy is of no exception. In the past, it hosted Speak up Competition (2020), sponsored by UN Women; this is a large-scale and highly professional debating competition.
Moreover, many competitions belonging to various fields worldwide have mandatory rounds of debate to give the competitors a chance to express and defend their personal beliefs and convictions. The Foreign Language Faculty, taking note of the growing prevalence of debating and the essentiality for Vietnamese students to possess such skills, especially foreign language majored ones as their language skill can also be improved, had implemented a “Debating Skills” course onto the program, albeit as an optional course. The course is designed to help students improve their presentation, argumentation, critical thinking, teamwork, and information searching/analyzing skills and broaden their knowledge of the world and grow their self-confidence. Debating Skills module is one of five optional modules that students must choose three from: Report Writing, Simultaneous Interpretation, Business Correspondence, Research Methodology, and Debating Skills.
Until now, there has been, surprisingly, not much research about the attitudes of Vietnamese students towards debating skills. With that in mind, the researcher also realizes the necessity of these skills and the benefits that they bring to BAV students, and more specifically, English-majored students. Therefore, I decided to carry out the research “A survey on the attitudes of English-majored students towards Debating Skills Module at Banking Academy of Vietnam” 1.3 Objectives of the study This thesis aims at: 2 - Investigating the attitudes of English-majored students at BAV towards Debating Skill module. - Identifying factors influencing English-majored students at BAV towards Debating Skills module.4 Research questions The study is carried with the intention of answering the following questions: - What are the English-majored students’ attitudes towards Debating Skills module at BAV? - What are the factors influencing the English-majored students’ attitudes towards Debating Skills module at BAV? 1.5 Significance of the study Students This thesis helps students have basic knowledge about debating skills and aid them to realize whether the knowledge and skills would be valuable to them in the academic performance or future careers and encourage them to appreciate and sharpen the skills.
Besides, through this study, the researcher expects to offer diverse material to help prospective students and researchers to deepen their ideas on the given topic. Lectures The study offers lecturers of Debating skills class with the findings involved in their students’ attitudes towards learning English debating skills. The study will provide the lecturers their students’ expectations of learning to debate in English. Moreover, this thesis delivers suggestions to help teachers enhance their students’ English debating ability.
Banking academy This study helps BAV understand the English-majored students’ attitudes towards debating skills, helping the school make changes in accordance with needs of English- majored students.6 Scope and limitations of the study 3 Scope of the study: The research concentrates on researching the BAV’s English- majored students who have finished the “Debating skills” course which is taught in English. Limitations of the study: Although the study was meticulously carried out and the findings are sufficient to answer the two research questions, there are some limitations to the study. To begin with, the scope of the study only focuses on the 81 students who completed the Debating skills course; thus, the study cannot make broad generalizations about the attitudes of all students who has finished the course in the Faculty of Foreign Languages toward learning English. The time constraint and the researcher's experience are the reasons for this.
Second, the study only investigates students' attitudes towards Debating Skills module at Faculty of Foreign Language. There are numerous other aspects relating to the topic of debating skills.7 Definition of terms Academic performance: the assessment of a student's ability in a variety of academic subjects. Teachers and education officials typically assess achievement through classroom performance, graduation rates, and standardized test results. Rebuttal: the act of refuting speech by presenting a contrary contention or argument Motion: a statement given to you prior to a debate that you must defend or refute depending on your team's position.
Refutation: The effort to demonstrate the opponent's case's error or inadequacy is known as refutation. 4 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.