MINISTRY OF JUSTICE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY LE NGUYEN KHANH LY 442940 HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY GRADUATION THESIS Hanoi-2023 MINISTRY OF JUSTICE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY LE NGUYEN KHANH LY 442940 STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS AUTONOMOUS LEARNING IN LEGAL ENGLISH CLASSES AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY Major: Legal English SUPERVISOR Nhac Thanh Huong, M. Hanoi-2023 DECLARATIONS I here by state that I, Le Nguyen Khanh Ly (442940), from class 4429 of Hanoi Law University, being a candidate of the degree of Bachelor ofArts accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Bacherlor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan, or reproduction of the paper. Supervisor Student Nhac Thanh Huong Le Nguyen Khanh Ly May , 2023 il ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To fulfill the graduation thesis, I am indebted to many people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms. Nhac Thanh Huong, M., Hanoi Law University for her invaluable guidance and continuous support of my thesis, for her endless patience, enthusiasm, immense knowledge and understanding. She has always been dedicated, inspired and instructed me throughout the course of my graduation thesis. This endeavor would not have been possible without the support from all staff and lecturers in the Faculty of Legal Foreign Languages at Hanoi Law University, where it has been my honor to be educatedfor the past four years.
Last but not least, my sincere thanks also go to my family and my classmates in class 4429, as well as other peers in the Faculty ofLegal Foreign Languages during the implementation of the study. Without their valuable assistance, this graduation thesis could not have been thoroughly fulfilled. ill ABSTRACTS Autonomous learning has been regarded as a vital value that is expected to be present in any English language student due to its positive effects on their learning. In Vietnam, the notion of this learning mode has attracted much attention from researchers to conduct studies on this topic; however, not much evidence has been provided on students’ attitudes towards autonomous learning in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) context in Vietnam, especially at the time when there has been a shift towards the learner-centered approach.
In order to contribute to bridging such gap, the present study concentrates on examining students’ attitudes towards autonomous learning 1n the domain of legal English classes — a type of ESP in the legal field, at a higher education institution. It also unveils students’ degree of engagement in autonomous activities both inside and outside legal English classes. The study employed a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods with the participation of 96 legal English seniors. In specifics, the survey questionnaire was designed and distributed virtually through Google Forms and a supplementary semi-structured interview was also conducted with eight students out of 96 participants.
The data was then analyzed via Microsoft Office Excel and IBM SPSS. Through comprehensive data analysis and result discussion, the statistics disclose that, in general, most of the survey respondents were on neutral rank for readiness to be autonomous in legal English classes, yet in certain aspects, their perceived level of engagement in autonomous learning activities inside and outside the classroom was just average. In light of these results, such findings set practical implications for both legal English majors and lecturers in the process of language teaching and learning. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS (0/0000.
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‹‹ ‹ ««s« 47 REFERENCES crscsssscsversssesnessesnevensevsnennsssnscnsevsesvescusssnasvosenanisssassncsssevseessseveane i APPENDICESS.0 000000000090 ix Appendix I: SUrVey (QH€SÍÏOHH(ÏT. co 0909999 999999999999999999996 ix Appendix LT: IntervidW Question cáccgienniciniinieoiiiiniEoiEiiAiSESEE55558695558656 xvi vil LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS HLU: Hanoi Law University FLFL: Faculty of Legal Foreign Languages ESP: English for Specific Purposes EFL: English as a Foreign Language vill LIST OF FIGURES/TABLES List offigures: Figure 1. The respondents' general viewpoints on the necessity of autonomous learning in learning legal English Figure 2. The respondents’ viewpoints of their ability to learn legal English autonomously List of tables: Table 1.
The participants’ beliefs on general readiness for autonomous learning in legal English classes Table 2. The respondents’ beliefs about the role of the teacher in legal English classes. The respondents’ beliefs about the role offeedback in legal English classes Table 4. The respondents’ beliefs about their confidence in learning ability in legal English classes Table 5.
The respondents’ beliefs about learner independence in legal English classes Table 6. The respondents’ viewpoints on autonomous activities in legal English learning 1X INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study Classroom-based, teacher-directed language learning has been dominant in language teaching and learning for decades; however, the notion of independent, autonomous learners is also not novel to language teachers. Apart from traditional educational methods, classrooms are no longer viewed as the sole learning environment where teachers take much class time with the assumed aim to provide students with the knowledge they are supposed to acquire (Ahmed & Hasan, 2020).
Moreover, such trends also declare the fact that although working collaboratively has its own benefits in terms of empowering learners and stimulating them to exchange ideas, learners’ working on their own remains a fundamental source of learning. This is because they are engaged in the learning tasks on their own, 1. It plays a crucial role in language education because in any educational context, learners are autonomous when they establish their own learning goals, as well as have responsibility for planning, managing, and evaluating specific learning activities and the learning process overall. Autonomous learning has now become concomitant to language learning in general and language for specific purposes in particular.
Especially, in recent years, the number of ESP learners has grown sharply. Therefore, in this study, the researcher would like to focus on autonomous learning based on ESP learners’ views. In the past, the traditional educational methods which mainly focused on the lecturing were applied; therefore, to some extent, it could not stimulate students’ autonomy. In most classrooms, lecturers are the knowledge providers and students are not allowed to confront the teacher directly.
Specifically, the contexts of language learning in Asian cultures in general and Vietnamese culture, in particular, are known to be teacher-authoritative that encourage obedience to and reliance on the teacher (Hsieh & Hsieh 2019). However, along with the radical changes in the teaching and learning methods, students’ autonomous learning ability has recently been considered the top priority in most higher educational institutions, especially in the ESP contexts. At Hanoi Law University, the new teaching method of reducing the time of lecturing and increasing the time of seminars has been introduced to develop learners’ autonomy, aiming at enhancing proficiency in the teaching and learning process. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to investigate students’ attitudes towards autonomous learning in this institution.
Since the focus of the practice and theory of language teaching has shifted to the student-centered approach, the ability of learners to take an active role in their learning has gained attention in foreign language education (Hsieh & Hsieh 2019). In the field of English education, learning legal English has been considered to be uniquely different and difficult from other types of ESP (Nhac, 2022). On the other hand, in practice, the current ongoing globalization trend and competitive labor market emphasize even more the need for ESP that students should employ both English skills and specialized knowledge to adapt to various job requirements. Under these conditions, exhorting students to be autonomous in ESP learning is of particular importance, as stated by Raya and Sercu (2008) that, “what people need in order to be able to maintain their ground in a rapidly changing world are skills that allow them to independently address new questions and new situations, integrate already acquired and new information, developing new” (p.
Furthermore, Belcher (2017) assures that learner-centeredness has been the priority of ESP since the earliest days. In reality, ESP, as a teaching and learning approach, is getting more and more researchers’ interest worldwide including in Vietnam. However, it is worth mentioning that despite numerous studies on exploring learners’ attitudes towards autonomous learning worldwide (Scheb-Buenner, 2019; Selama, 2018), few studies on this issue have been done in higher education in Vietnam, especially within the context of legal English classes at Hanoi Law University. As the matter of fact, this research paper is an attempt to clarify legal English students’ attitudes towards autonomous learning as well as to provide profound insights about autonomous learning activities in the views of those ESP learners who are actually the insiders of the autonomous learning developing process.
Aims of the study The present study aims to: (1) Identify students’ attitudes towards autonomous learning in the context of legal English classes at Hanoi Law University; (2) Explore the activities legal English students engage in both inside and outside the legal English classrooms. Research questions To reach the ultimate aims, this research paper purports to answer the two following research questions: (1) What attitudes do legal English students hold towards autonomous learning within legal English classes? (2) What activities do these students engage in inside and outside legal English classes? 4. Scope of the study The main purpose of this study is to explore legal English majors’ attitudes towards autonomous learning, as well as the activities they engage in both inside and outside legal English classes. Therefore, the participants chosen are 96 random students from K44 of the Faculty of Legal Foreign Languages (FLFL) of Hanoi Law University whereas the teachers’ views on autonomous learning in legal English classes is beyond the scope of this research.
Significance of the study Autonomous learning has been one of the most discussed issues in language learning for the last three decades (Khotimah et al. However, several scholars have conducted studies to prove positive attitudes of students towards this learning mode in general, the number of studies that has merely been implemented within the ESP context, especially in legal English classes have been relatively limited. By identifying students’ attitudes towards autonomous learning in both inside and outside legal English classes, this research aligns with the current Vietnamese educational objectives, which aim to develop the positiveness, self-awareness, activeness, creativity, and self- study ability of learners (Hoang, 2017). Therefore, the results of this study are expected to fill the existing gap and help legal English-majored students enhance their autonomous learning ability as well as contribute to the knowledge and theory on examining ESP students’ attitudes towards autonomous learning in the Vietnamese context of ESP education at tertiary level, thus helping in improving the current situation of ESP teaching and learning in Vietnam.
Organization of the study The study includes three central parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion.