MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY CHAU THI NGOC THUY ------------ MA THESIS THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CHAU THI NGOC THUY AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHERS’ USE OF MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES IN EFL CLASSROOMS HUE - 2019 AT SOME LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THUA THIEN HUE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of requirement for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ CHAU THI NGOC THUY AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE TEACHERS’ USE OF MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES IN EFL CLASSROOMS AT SOME LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THUA THIEN HUE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVIOR: DR. BAO KHAM HUE, 2019 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ HUẾ ------------ CHÂU THỊ NGỌC THỦY ĐIỀU TRA VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC TẠO ĐỘNG LỰC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG LỚP HỌC TIẾNG ANH TẠI MỘT SỐ TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC CƠ SỞ Ở THỪA THIÊN HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS. BẢO KHÂM HUE, 2019 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Chau Thi Ngoc Thuy Date: 01/12/2019 i ABSTRACT The current study concentrates on the teachers‟ use of motivational strategies at some lower secondary schools in Thua Thien Hue Province. The study serves three main purposes: first, it investigates teachers‟ perceptions, how teachers identify and implement motivational strategies in their classroom; second, it explores the factors influencing the teachers‟ choice of motivational strategies; finally, it aims to seek the application of motivational strategies and the way to improve the use of them in the teaching and learning process. The study was carried out in twenty-two lower secondary schools involving fifty English teachers. It followed a combination of mixed (qualitative and quantitative) methods research approach.
For the quantitative phase of the study, Likert-scale questionnaire measuring teachers‟ perception and ranking of teaching strategies encouraged by „Ten commandments for motivating language learners‟ of Dörnyei & Csizer (1998) and the qualitative phase, teacher interviews and classroom observations instruments were employed. The results indicate that the fifty English teachers considered the strategies „Create a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the classroom‟, Make the language classes interesting‟, „Develop a good relationship with the learners‟, „Increase the learners‟ linguistic self-confidence‟ as the most important motivational strategies. Fifty teachers claimed that „students‟ level‟, „students‟ preference‟ and „students‟ age‟ were the factors affecting their selection of motivational strategies the most. The findings of the study provide new insight into English teachers‟ perceptions of motivational strategies use as well as how these strategies have been implemented in EFL classroom.
The study offers information for future research on English language motivation and teaching strategies. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Bao Kham, my supervisor, for his enthusiasm and sagacious guidance from the very beginning to the end of the research. I wish to especially thank all teachers of University of Foreign Languages, Hue University for their useful teaching and helpful assistance in my graduate courses there.
The research will not be properly conducted without the help of the teachers of English at twenty-two Lower Secondary Schools in Nam Dong Province and A Luoi Province. I will never forget their kindness, enthusiasm and cooperation in completing the questionnaires, taking part in the interviews and giving me permission to observe their teaching of English in classroom. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my parents and my friends for their love, support and encouragement all the time. Although a lot of time and efforts were devoted to this research paper, mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable.
All suggestions for correcting the shortcomings are highly appreciated. Hue, 2019 Chau Thi Ngoc Thuy iii TABLES OF CONTENTS Statement of authorship. iii Tables of contents. iv List of tables.
vii List of figures. viii List of abbreviations. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .2 Background and context of the study .3 Objective and purposes of the study .5 Rationales for the focus in the study .6 Significance and scope of the study .7 Structure of the study. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .2 Concepts of motivational strategies .1 Definition of motivational strategies .2 Classifications of motivational strategies .3 Motivational strategies and teacher‟s role.4 Previous studies related to the topic .1 Historical overview of second language/ foreign language motivational research .2 Previous research on second language/ foreign language motivation and its role in the language classroom.
17 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .1 Methodological framework of the study .6 Data collection procedure .7 Data analysis techniques .1 Quantitative data analysis .2 Qualitative data analysis. 24 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .2 Teachers‟ perceptions of using motivational strategies in EFL classroom .1 Necessity of encouraging students to participate in teaching and learning process .2 Importance of using strategies to motivate students in EFL classroom .3 The motivational strategies teachers use in EFL classroom .1 Teachers‟ self-reported use of strategies .2 The teachers‟ frequency of using motivational strategies .3 The efficiency of EFL teachers‟ motivational strategies from teachers‟ perspectives .4 Reasons for teachers‟ preference for using motivational strategies .5 Benefits of using motivational strategies in teaching English to learners .4 Factors affecting teachers‟ choice of motivational strategies in EFL classroom .1 Teachers‟ awareness of the factors affecting their choice of motivational strategies .2 Factors affecting teachers‟ selection of motivational strategies .3 The frequency of factors influencing teachers‟ selection of motivational strategies .5 Suggestions to help the selection and use of motivational strategies in teaching English .1 Suggestions for selecting motivational strategies .2 Suggestions for improving the use of motivational strategies. 46 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION .1 Summary of the findings .2 Implications and recommendations.3 Limitations of the study .4 Suggestions for further research. 59 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: The demographic data of the participants .2: Background information of interview participants.
Stages and methods of data collection. The motivational strategies teachers use in their EFL classroom. The use of EFL teachers‟ motivational strategies. Level of efficiency of teachers‟ motivational strategies.
Reasons for teachers‟ preference for using motivational strategies. Benefits of motivational strategies to students. Factors influencing teachers‟ selection of motivational strategies. 41 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.
Motivational teaching model (Dörnyei, 2001a). Necessity of encouraging students to participate in teaching and learning process. Importance of using strategies to motivate students in EFL classroom. The EFL teachers‟ attitude toward the importance of motivational strategies.
Teachers‟ frequency of using motivational strategies. Teachers‟ awareness of students‟ participation in classroom activities. Teachers‟ awareness of the factors affecting the choice of motivational strategies. Frequency of factors affecting teachers‟ choice of motivational strategies.
43 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL : English as a Foreign Language FL : Foreign Language SL/2L : Second Language MMR : Mixed Methods Research ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Overview In the teaching of a foreign language, the learner, the teacher and the instructional materials are the most recognizable ingredients. However, there are other significant factors which sometimes invisible in the background. These include the following: educational policies, teaching methodologies, course administration, extramural language exposure, the objectives of learners, and the availability of learning centers and libraries (Al-Mahrooqi & Asante, 2010; Schacter, 1999). Nevertheless, there is a key factor which is considered so important by the researchers and practitioners that all the other factors might be ineffectual without it.
This ingredient is motivation – “the dynamically changing cumulative arousal in a person that initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritized, operationalized and (successfully or unsuccessfully) acted out” (Dörnyei and Ottó, 1998). Students‟ lack of motivation is a major concern for language teachers in many contexts worldwide. Hence foreign language motivation researching is a major challenge to help teachers find ways of eliciting, enhancing, and sustaining students‟ motivation. With motivation being one of the significant elements that determine success in foreign language learning, strategies for motivating language learners should be seen as an important aspect of foreign language motivation (Cheng & Dörnyei, 2007).
Motivational strategies are techniques that promote the individual‟s goal-related behaviour and encourage learners or students to participate in the teaching and learning process. Teachers use the motivational strategies with the aims to enhance student motivation and increase student success by showing them ways of exploiting classroom-specific sources of motivation. Dörnyei (2001) defines motivational strategies as “the motivational influences that ate consciously exerted to achieve some systematic and enduring positive effect”. Thus, a teacher needs to use the motivational strategies in the foreign language classroom to help learners adopt more positive attitudes towards language learning and raise their achievement.2 Background and context of the study Because of the increasing need of English in the globalized world, the issue of English language teaching in Vietnamese context has become national importance.
Although students study English as a compulsory subject for 1 twelve years, amount of students perform poorly in English is remarkable. Van (2008) stated that in some situations, learning English is not relevant to learners‟ purposes. Students cannot understand a lecture in English. They cannot communicate in English (in daily or professional situation).
They cannot read their professional or common sense reading materials texts. They cannot write in English. In order to achieve success in English, improving students‟ performance in English motivation is essential. Without sufficient motivation, even highly competence individuals may be unable to complete long-term goals (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015).
Motivation is essential to language learning achievement and attainment (Moskovsky & Alrabai, 2009). It is more important than good teaching, abilities or curriculum in learning a language and maintaining it (Dörnyei & Csizer, 1998). Teachers who engage the learners and pursue them in long journey of their language learning play the most important role in enhancing learners‟ motivation using motivational teaching strategies. Motivating learners is a long - term development (Dörnyei, 2001a).
To motivate learners, teachers use variety of motivational strategies. Motivated teachers are enthusiastic, resourceful, creative and strict. Motivated learners, on the other hand, are more enthusiastic, goal-oriented, committed, persistent, and confident in their learning (Hapsari, 2013). They work hard to achieve their goal and never give up.
Teachers‟ use of effective motivational teaching strategies in English classrooms can improve students‟ performance in English. A number of EFL researchers and practitioners has investigated the motivational strategies in the field of teaching and learning foreign languages. Most of them derived from western educational contexts. However, Vietnamese educational context is different in many aspects from western educational context.
So, there are not appropriate for all educational context being culturally dependent. According to Cheng and Dörnyei (2007), depending on the culture-specific variables of other educational contexts such as teachers‟ teaching techniques, learners‟ goal as well as the contextual realities of different learning environments may render some of those techniques highly effective, while others are less useful. Thus, it might be challenging Vietnamese teachers to use the huge number of strategies as well as selecting the key motivational strategies that facilitate their language teaching in English classrooms. Therefore, it is necessary to map a list of key motivational strategies for Vietnamese secondary English teachers to use them appropriately in the socio-cultural and educational setting of Vietnam.