MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ NGUYEN TRAN BAO CHAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN PREPARING FOR THE ENGLISH TEST IN THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION EXAM MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University HUE, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ NGUYEN TRAN BAO CHAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN PREPARING FOR THE ENGLISH TEST IN THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION EXAM MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University SUPERVISOR: DR. NGUYEN HO HOANG THUY HUE, 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------- NGUYỄN TRẦN BẢO CHÂU NGHIÊN CỨU ÁP LỰC TÂM LÝ CỦA HỌC SINH KHI CHUẨN BỊ CHO BÀI THI TIẾNG ANH CỦA KÌ THI TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG QUỐC GIA LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. NGUYỄN HỒ HOÀNG THỦY HUE, 2020 ABSTRACT It is evident that a considerable number of test takers are experiencing test anxiety. The current study aims to investigate the main causes of anxiety among the students in preparing for the English test in the national high school graduation exam and their responses to their own anxiety.
Data were collected by means of questionnaires delivered to eighty-four 12th graders at a high school and then semi-structured interviews with ten among these eighty-four students. The causes of anxiety being investigated were relevant to three main themes, including learners‟ perceived threat of tests, learners‟ research and learning skills, and learners‟ test performance attributions. The data was analysed, synthesised and interpreted both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings identified possible causes of anxiety in preparing for the English test in the national high school graduation exam, among which the students‟ fear for the difficult contents of the test and pressure of time to prepare for the test, the students‟ difficulties in selecting the right materials and identifying the appropriate methods to study efficiently, and the students‟ reliance on only the textbook when preparing for the test were found to be prominent.
Students were also found to have both physical and psychological responses. The study also proposed a variety of methods to alleviate the anxiety in order for the students to perform better in the English test. i Acknowledgements I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to people who have advised and supported me, and made constructive criticism during the research. Firstly, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my respectful supervisor, who gave me a lot of professional advice on the thesis writing.
Without her generous professional support and encouragement, this thesis could not reach this present standard. Secondly, I would also like to acknowledge my gratefulness to the students at Hai Ba Trung upper-secondary school who carefully completed the questionnaires and sincerely provided me with valuable information for this research in the interview. Thirdly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Board of Director, the Library staff at Hue University College of Foreign Languages for their support during the time I carried out this study. Finally, I wish to express my deep thanks to my dear family and friends for their love, encouragement, immeasurable support, and concrete help for me to complete this research.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .II Table of contents. III List of tables. V List of abbreviations. Background of the study.
Aims of the study and research questions. Significance of the study. Structure of the study. The concept of anxiety.
Definition of anxiety. Types of anxiety. Foreign language anxiety. Definition of foreign language anxiety.
Sources of foreign language anxiety. Foreign language test anxiety. Definition of foreign language test anxiety. Causes of foreign language test anxiety.
The english test in the national graduation exam in Vietnam. An overview of the english curriculum in the general education program. A general description of the format of the english national high school graduation test. The english test matrix.
Review of related studies. Research on the global scale. Research in Vietnam. Rationale for selecting data collection instruments.
Description of data collection instruments. Procedures for data collection. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. The causes of students‟ test anxiety.
Causes related to learners‟ perceived threat of tests. Causes related to learners‟ research and learning skills. Causes related to learners‟ test performance attributions. Students‟ responses to their own anxiety.
Students‟ physical responses to their own anxiety. Students‟ psychological responses to their own anxiety. Summary of the key findings. Implications for teaching practice.
Implications for student learning. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies. 37 APPENDIX iv LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Causes related to learners‟ perceived threat of tests.2: Causes related to learners‟ research and learning skills .3: Causes related to learners‟ test performance attributions .4: Students‟ physical responses to their own anxiety .5: Students‟ psychological responses to their own anxiety.
32 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FLA : Foreign language anxiety TA : Test anxiety vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Background of the study Academic stress is a widespread problem across countries, cultures and ethnic groups (Wong, Wong, & Scott, 2006). Every student strives to achieve academic success in order to achieve esteem, family pride and social mobility (Gow, Bella, Kember, & Hau, 1996). This leads to extremely high academic expectations and exceptional pressure on students and teenagers in particular (e.
The students are unable to enjoy their academic life as a result of pressure and demands to perform well in the exam and it becomes joyless and burdensome for them. Stress can be regarded as any physical, chemical or emotional factor that causes body or mental unrest and can be a factor in causing disease. Trauma, illnesses, toxins, diseases, and wounds of any kind are physical and chemical causes of stress. There are many and varying psychological triggers of stress and tension.
Sometimes a moderate degree of pressure and stress can be helpful. For example, when performing a task or assignment, feeling slightly anxious often helps us to do a good job, focus better, and work energetically. But if students encounter intense stress before and during testing, it will have implications for mental health and somatic symptoms (Lee & Larson, 2000; Verma & Gupta, 1990). Because of high exam stress, students spent less time socializing and engaging in passive and active leisure that can further magnify the impact of exam stress (Lee & Larson, 2000).
In reality, getting stressed a bit about the exam means that students really care about the result they are going to get. They are being forced to work hard to get a good ranking. Nevertheless, when the anxiety caused by the stressful test exceeded severe or subclinical levels, it interfered with the ability of students to perform at their best. Stress and anxiety felt before and during the tests are often due to fear of failure and can have a significant negative impact on the student‟s self-esteem.
Anxiety screening has been reported to produce adverse cognitive effects, including memory problems and information retrieval. The English test in the national high school graduation exam has become more and more critical in the past few years in Vietnam. With English being a compulsory subject in the curriculum, it is expected that high school students would receive high marks in the English test in the high school graduation exam and would be admitted to a university subsequently. Nevertheless, a large number 1 of Vietnamese students have been performing worst in English in the exam, that is, they obtained below-average scores in English, 78.
Accordingly, it is advised that students should be able to identify the causes of their own anxiety, and equipped with learning skills as well as strategies to alleviate test anxiety in order to achieve better academic outcomes (Ansi-Danso, Amissah, & Effrim, 2015). Aims of the study and research questions Given that high school students are struggling to deal with the English test in the national high school graduation exam, the current study aims to investigate the causes of EFL students‟ anxiety in preparing for the English test and their responses to their own anxiety. It endeavours to address the following questions: 1. What are the causes of anxiety among the students in preparing for the English test in the national high school graduation exam? 2.
How do the students respond to their own anxiety? 1. Significance of the study First, the study aims to find out causes of anxiety among the 12 th-grade students in preparing for English test in the national high school graduation exam at an upper-secondary school in Hue and suggests some possible solutions to anxiety which can help student recognize their difficulties, cope with and reduce anxiety as well as find out some solutions to solve their problems during the time they prepare for the test. Second, the study is useful for the teachers to understand their students‟ obstacles. Then they might select some appropriate teaching methods to help their students take the actual English examination with lower anxiety.
Structure of the study The research consists of five chapters, namely Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Findings and Discussion, and Conclusion. - Chapter 1 introduces the background, the aims of the study and the research questions, the significance of the study and the structure of the study. - Chapter 2 presents the review of the literature relevant to the research, particularly focusing on the related studies to the field to identify the research gaps. - Chapter 3 provides the research methodology including information about research participants, data collection and data analysis.
- Chapter 4 displays the findings and discussion of the study. - Chapter 5 presents the summary of key research findings, implications for teaching practice and students‟ learning, the limitations of the study and the suggestions for further research. 2 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Introduction This chapter aims to introduce the concept of anxiety (2.2); foreign language anxiety (2.3); foreign language test anxiety (2.4); the English test in the national graduation exam in Vietnam (2.5), and review of related studies (2.
The concept of anxiety 2. Definition of anxiety At the beginning of the twentieth century, Freud (1920) claimed that anxiety resembled or terrified. Scovel (1978) indicated that anxiety is linked to feelings of uncomfort, anger, self-doubt, fear, or worry. Horwitz et al.
(1986) described anxiety as a subjective experience of stress, anticipation, nervousness and anxiety associated with an autonomous nervous system excitement. In fact, anxiety is the state of the individual when he / she experiences “discomfort, anger, self-doubt, distress, or depression” similar to any other specific anxiety (Scovel, 1978, p. But as Piniel (2006) states, anxiety as encountered by the person while studying a foreign language is a new field of study, which has now acquired a separate category. Language learning anxiety is described by MacIntyre (1989) as “the worry and negative emotional reaction produced when learning or using a second language.” Wei (2007) has drawn attention to how language learning contexts particularly affect anxiety arousal.
ESL anxiety research is itself challenging because of numerous factors such as competition, specific difficulties in language processing and development, personal and interpersonal anxieties and beliefs, and also because second language learning can challenge the learner‟s self-concept; therefore, it is not possible to study second language learning anxiety in isolation.