NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES POST-GRADUATE STUDY PROGRAM ENHANCING LEARNING MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO EFL STUDENTS IN VINH LONG TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF TESOL SUPERVISOR: LÊ THỊ THANH THU, Ed. STUDENT: TRƯƠNG CÔNG TUẤN HO CHI MINH CITY DECEMBER, 2005 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: ENHANCING LEARNING MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO EFL STUDENTS IN VINH LONG TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGE In term of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programmes issued by the Higher Degree Committee Ho Chi Minh City, December 15th, 2005 TRƯƠNG CÔNG TUẤN RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, TRƯƠNG CÔNG TUẤN, 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 established by the Library for the care, loan, or reproduction of theses. Ho Chi Minh City, December 15th, 2005 TRƯƠNG CÔNG TUẤN ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr.
LÊ THỊ THANH THU, for her whole-hearted guidance, productive and elaborate comments as well as her moral support in the preparation and completion of this thesis. I am sincerely grateful to all lecturers at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, especially to those at the Department of Post-graduate Studies and the Department of English Linguistics and Literature for their interesting and very useful lectures they have given us. I would like to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to all of my colleagues at Vinh Long Teacher Training College, especially to the English teaching staff. I am also grateful to my students in the school who have helped me a lot in collecting the data for my research.
Finally, my very sincere thanks are sent to my wife, my children, and my brother, without whose patient support and encouragement I would not complete this thesis. ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate whether the EFL (English as a foreign language) students in Vinh Long Teacher Training College are motivated in learning English, their attitudes toward this process and what the key factors that affect their learning are. The results showed that overall the students in the school were to a quite large extent motivated in learning English though they were in a bit higher intrinsic than extrinsic motivation. They all have built for themselves proper motives in learning English and most of them had positive attitudes toward this process.
The results also showed that most of the students in the school were profoundly affected by their teachers, the teaching methods used in the school and their teachers’ recognition on the students’ progress. Besides, the school facilities, teachers’ personality and textbooks also had a certain influence on the students’ learning. The effect of genders was quite significant. In intrinsic motivation and attitudes toward learning English, female students gave higher indices than their male peers did, whereas male students seemed to be more extrinsically motivated than female ones.
In study areas, as the results of the study showed, the students of natural sciences distributed poorer indexes than the students of social sciences in all cases: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and in attitudes toward learning English. The ages of the students had also distinct influence on learning motivation. The study revealed that there was a downward trend of intrinsic motivation and an upward trend of extrinsic motivation in older- aged students. The older the students get, the less intrinsically but more extrinsically motivated they are.
Older-aged students also possessed less positive attitudes toward learning English than the younger-aged students. In this study some recommendations were also given in order to improve the students’ learning motivation and their attitudes toward leaning English. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION …………………………………. Background for the study………………………………………………… 2 1.
Vinh Long Teacher Training College ……. Overview of the study………………………………………….………… 10 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ……………………………. Definition of motivation ……………………. Main kinds of motivation………………………………….
Definition of intrinsic motivation …………………. Factors affecting intrinsic motivation ………………. Success and failure …………………. Definition of extrinsic motivation ……………….
Integrative motivation vs. Relations between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation …. Attitudes toward learning English ………………………………………. Motives for learning English ………………………………….
Tolerance of ambiguity ……………………………………………. Summary ………………………………………………………………… 34 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY …………………………………… 36 3. Data collection procedure ………………………………………………. 39 CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ……………………… 41 4.
Data analysis method ……………………………………………………. Students’ intrinsic orientation to learning English ………………. Difference between respondents of two genders …………. Difference between respondents of two study areas …….
Difference between respondents of three age groups …. Students’ extrinsic orientation to learning English …………. Difference between respondents of two genders. Difference between respondents of two study areas ……….
Difference between respondents of three age groups ………. Students’ attitudes toward learning English ……………. 68 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION …… 76 5. Suggestions for further study ………………………………………….
88 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES 1. Current professional state of English teaching staff at Vinh Long Teacher Training College ……………………………………………………. Diagram of types of extrinsic motivation in language learning ……. The demographic profile of the respondents ……………………….
Students’ intrinsic motivation ………………………………………. Intrinsically motivational difference between sexes ………………… 47 4. Difference between respondents of two study areas ………………… 48 4. Difference between age groups in students’ intrinsic motivation …… 49 4.
Students’ extrinsic motivation ………………………………………. Difference between sexes in extrinsic motivation …………………… 54 4. Difference between study areas in extrinsic motivation ……………. Difference between age groups in extrinsic motivation …………….
Human factors affecting students’ learning English ………………… 58 4. Environment factors affecting students’ learning English …………. Influence of textbooks on students’ learning English ………………. Influence of different classroom motivational methods …………….
Influence of teacher factors on students’ learning English ………. Students’ attitudes toward learning English (positively worded questions) ………………………………………. Students’ attitudes toward learning English (negatively worded questions) ……………………………………… 69 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The notion of motivation has been being used widely so far in almost every field of life just because of its important role. Here is what Brown admitted about motivation: Motivation is probably the most often used catch-all term for explaining the success or failure of virtually any complex task.
It is easily to figure that success in a task is due simply to the fact that someone is “motivated”. It is easy in second language learning to claim that a learner will be successful with the proper motivation. (Brown, 1990: 112) The vividly important role of motivation in our lives cannot be denied. In the field of second language acquisition as well, for a long time researchers have come to the conclusion that one of the most important variables that significantly affect the process and outcome of language learning is the motivation to learn (Finegan, 1994; Harmer, 1991; Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Brown, 1990).
Dörnyei (1997: 261) has stated, “Second language (L2) motivation provides the primary impetus to initiate the learning behavior and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process; that is, all the other factors involved in L2 acquisition presuppose motivation to some extent and, indeed, motivation is usually mentioned in explaining any L2 learning success or failure.” However, the biggest concern that intrigues many teachers is whether students are well-motivated and willing to learn what they teach; and among various learning motivational factors, which ones most affect the process and outcome of second language learning, and how to enhance them. In many years of teaching English to my students in Vinh Long Teacher Training College I often wonder why some students are so successful at learning while others are not, though they are in the same conditions of classroom facilities, with the same curriculum framework, under the same teaching methodology (in fact, they have only one teacher). There is certainly something, besides the innate talents the students have, that affects their process of learning a second language. Following Brown’s (1990) and Dörnyei’s (1997) ideas, I consider that it is motivation that may affect my students’ learning.
In this study I try to investigate whether there was an actual lack of motivation in my students’ English learning, or whether the thing that some of my students did have poorer results in second language learning than their peers can be attributed to another factor. To address these problems I aim to investigate in this research the learners’ motives for learning English, their attitudes to the target language learning, and try to locate the most affective motivational factors in the effort to enhance them in their English learning. Background for the study Among the factors that may have influence on our students’ motivation there are the background of our school - the condition of school facilities that has a considerable impact on student performance and teacher effectiveness, the teaching staff, the background of the students, the teaching curriculum and materials we use here. In this session of the chapter I would like to present some information related to the matters above for an understanding the issues discussed in this research.
Vinh Long Teacher Training College Located not far from Vinh Long center in an area of three hectares on the side of the National Road 1A, Vinh Long Teacher Training College has attracted lots of students’ interest because here, after school, they have many opportunities to get relaxed, enjoy different kinds of entertainment, go shopping, or do what they like. Students often feel comfortable in this school (and, of cause, they may have good performance in their study as long as they have good attitudes to their learning). However, the city utilitarian way of life in our contemporary society day by day pulls a lot of the students away from school toward social and recreational pursuits which may partly spoil the students’ interest in their learning. There are 33 classrooms, 2 language laboratories, a library, 2 large halls, and 6 other rooms for specific purposes in the school.
Because all students in our school in this academic school year study English not as their major subject, the classrooms here are not typical; without any pictures, posters, maps,. and what that concerns with English people, culture, habits, or customs. Each classroom is about 7.5 meters long and 6 meters wide. It is quite small for laying 24 tables and 48 chairs.
Although the classroom is well-lighted, the classroom temperature is really hot which disturbs our students a lot. We have here in the school two language laboratories, but the chance for our students to attend here is not much: there are only two labs for thirty-six classes. In each of the labs there are only thirty cabins, whereas in each class there are at least forty students. So what we usually do with normal classes is forcing them to learn “their English” in their own classrooms except periods for listening skills, and with large classes (where there are up to eighty or more students coming from 2 or 3 normal classes) in large halls where the teacher tries to speak loudly while the students try to listen because of the immense atmosphere.
In the school we also have some cassette players. Formerly we could sometimes use them, but now we cannot because the leaders of the school think that the noise may disturb the nearby classes. As I mentioned above, the classrooms here are quite small with stable layout of tables and chairs (in 4 lines and 6 rows), for which the application of modern methodology is almost impossible. We cannot play language games – the useful tool for creating learning motivation.