VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN HẢI YẾN DIFFICULTIES FACED BY SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS IN LEARNING THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS (Những khó khăn học sinh lớp 6 gặp phải trong quá trình học chương trình sách Tiếng Anh mới) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi, 12/ 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download1 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN HẢI YẾN DIFFICULTIES FACED BY SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS IN LEARNING THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS (Những khó khăn học sinh lớp 6 gặp phải trong quá trình học chương trình sách Tiếng Anh mới) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231. Vo Dai Quang Hanoi, 12/ 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download2 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii LIST OF TABLES. vi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study. Aims of the study.
Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Design of the thesis. 6 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Review of previous research. Review of theoretical background. Definition of learning difficulties or obstacles. Factors Affecting the Learning of a Second Language.
11 Attitude and Motivation. 18 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY. Data collection instruments. Data analysis techniques.
24 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download3 : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection procedure. Data analysis procedure. 26 CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.
Attitude of Ss toward EL in general. Frequency of Use of EL. Purposes for learning EL. Students’ perception of Study skills.
Students’ perception on individual EL language macro skills. Self-evaluation of students towards the new version of English text- book for 6th grade. Factors from teacher. Conclusion on research objectives.
What are the problems encountered by 6th grade students in learning English as a second language?. What are the possible solutions to the problems identified…51 5. Suggestions for future research. 58 APPENDIX: Survey questionnaire.
I LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download4 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION In this chapter, rationale is presented first which clarifies the importance and urgent of the study based on Vietnamese context. The chapter then goes on to introduce the aims and research questions followed by brief discussion of the significance and scope of the study. At the end of the chapter, the design of the study is given. Rationale for the study During the integrating context of Vietnam nowadays, English has become a priority in the educational system.
This can be obviously recognised through many efforts in improving and continually reforming the official English text- book version. The newest changes have been applied for Secondary schooling system. Although these efforts and endeavour are undeniable, the results ap- pears not to be very positive. Learning capacity of students, particularly sixth grade students who have just graduated from Primary school, is influenced directly.
In other words, they themselves have faced a large number of diffi- culties in studying the new version of EL textbook. The reasons may come from either subjectiveness or objectiveness. Whatever they are, however, the situation can not be underestimated .„It is really diffi- cult to obtain an accurate picture of the number of people who are defined as having learning difficulties‟ (Mittler, 1995:137). That is also the core reason inspiring and driving the researcher decide to conduct this study in a very pos- itive ideal that this urgent attention can be partly dealt and changed somehow.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download5 : add luanvanchat@agmail. Aims of the study The primary aim of the study lies in its attempt to enhance educational quality for sixth grade students in learning the new version of English textbook via identifying obstacles which hinder the language acquisition. Only an experi- mental study could confirm that. This kind of information can be useful, not only for the teaching of English in the classroom but also to the Ministry of Education, especially to language planners and writers in their decision-mak- ing.
Research questions The following questions are raised for research: 1. What are the problems encountered by 6th grade students in learning English as a second language? 2. What are the possible solutions to the problems identified? 1. Significance of the study The findings of this study will redound to the benefits of society considering that EL plays an important role in education today.
The greater demand for graduates with EL justifies the need for more effective and changing teaching approaches. Thus, schools that apply the recommended approach derived from results of this duty will be able to train Ss better. Administrators will be guided on what should be emphasised by teachers in the school curriculum to improve Ss‟ performance in EL. Moreover, the study will help the researcher uncover critical areas in the educational process that many researchers were not able to explore.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download6 : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope of the study The centre attention of the thesis is to make every effort to point out the diffi- culties of sixth grade students when they learn the new version of English textbook. The project will have been completed by January, 2018. 190 student samples were selected from four different classes.
Their school is situated in Ha Noi, the capital of Vietnam, and run by the government. The chosen samples combined both male and female. They were all asked to do a designed survey to help clarify the research. Then, five students from each class were chosen randomly to take part in an interview.
Because the number of English teachers in this secondary schools was small, all five grade-6 teachers were invited to participate in the study.4% re- sponded by completing it. Permission for their participation was first obtained from the Principal, but, teachers participated at their own discretion. Those who agreed to participate, were asked to take the interview only without the questionnaire because of their lack of time and ego. There are a great number of fields which have been observed but we will mention the most significant here: The first are of course the difficulties in general, then some details from the four language skills, the others are pupil observations including their characteristics such as Motivation, Preparedness, Individuality, Personality, Background, Environment or other relevant lan- guage circumstances etc.
The second are the instruments of the research which are used in order to approach the expected results such as: Interviews both with teachers and pupils, Questionnaires again with the same individu- als, the gathering and the processing of the information through different Charts, Data collection, then the Literature Review which was very useful in LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download7 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com order to compare the different survey experiences by many previous re- searchers etc. Design of the thesis The overall thesis is mainly divided into five chapters: Chapter I: Introduction. This chapter provides rationale, aims of the study, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study and thesis structural organisation. Chapter II: Literature review.
This chapter presents the review of previous re- searches and review of theoretical background. Chapter III: Methodology. This chapter presents the statement of research de- sign, data collection instruments, data analysis techniques and research proce- dure. Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion.
This chapter offers findings and discus- sion along the line of the research objectives set forth. This chapter offers conclusions on the research objec- tives. Chapter summary The author desired to find out the difficulties of students in English language learning via the new version of English textbook by way of interviews and observation, by which the learners was able to express their own opinions. The collected data are authentic and valid as it provided the genuine experi- ence of the learners.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download8 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, a review of the literature on second language learning is giv- en. First, the review introduces previous researches from which there is a need to look in order to have a comprehensive and complete understanding of the issue. The review then goes on to explain what it means to know difficul- ties in acquiring a second language followed by an introduction of factors af- fecting the learning of a second language. Review of previous research Obstacle or difficulty means a concept with objective and subjective validity.
It is defined as a task that requires effort or labor to solve. In the light of such observation, the quest to identify significant and potential difficulties leading to failure in the acquisition or learning of a second (SL) or foreign language (FL) has been part of research in second language acquisition (SLA) for quite some times. Ellis (1986:27) refers to Second Language Acquisition Difficulties as a non- uniformed as well as an unpredictable phenomenon. This view immediately signifies the complexity and diversity of acquiring or learning a second lan- guage.
The complexity of SLA as a process leads Beebe (1988) to suggest that a multiple interdisciplinary approach can be used to view SLA in order to achieve a full understanding. Beebe (1988) suggests further that obstacles in second language acquisition be looked at from: a classroom research-based perspective which concentrates not only on the ways in which second language instruction affects the pro- cesses, rate and ultimate level of second language attainment but also the in- teractions and activities that are going on in the classroom; and a bilingual LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download9 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com education which generally focuses on the role of first language (L1) on the acquisition of the second language (L2). Another way of looking at SLA is reflected again by Ellis's view (1986:4), "Second language acquisition difficulties is a product of many factors pertain- ing to the learner on the one hand and the learning situation on the other". What is offered by this view is not an entirely different description of SLA from the one mentioned above, but rather an alternative way of organising the same aspects of SLA and explaining them in terms of their specific relevance to factors related to the learners and the situation where learning takes place.
Considering many difficulties which can potentially contribute to the acquisi- tion of learning a second language, limited space would make it impossible to discuss all of them here. The rest of this literature review, therefore, will focus on discussing factors which have direct relevance and bearings on this study. Pienemann and Johnston (1987:124) came up with a distinction between 'ex- ternal' and 'internal' factors. Under the title of 'external factors' are variables ranging from L1, social environment, and biological factors such as age.
'In- ternal factors', on the other hand, are described as aspects of the learner's cog- nitive and linguistic capacities and the mental structures which determine these capacities. This general typology of factors was incorporated into their multi-dimensional framework used in investigating factors relevant to the ac- quisition of a second language. Although different theoretical frameworks may put different emphases on these factors and their influences on SLA, Olshtain, Shohamy, Kemp, and Chatow (1990:23-44) argue that it has been identified in literature that they have potential to affect the success or failure in SLA, and they generally exist in the following categories: (a) the learner context or the learning conditions, LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download10: add luanvanchat@agmail.com including the educational treatment (formal/informal learning situations) and the amount of exposure to the target language (TL) in its natural setting (Beebe, 1985); (b) the social context: attitudes and motivation deriving from the political, cultural and socio-linguistic milieu (Gardner, 1980:255-270); (c) the learner's characteristics: cognitive variables encompassing language apti- tude, academic knowledge of one's first language (Ll and IQ level, as well as other individual features (Cummins, 1979a:222-250, 1979b:179-205, 1980:25-29, 1981).