MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING NGUYEN THI NAM PHUONG HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN THI NAM PHUONG * MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICE OF THE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS TO LEARN ENGLISH IN SOME SPECIALIZED MATH CLASSES AT QUOC HOC HIGH SCHOOL MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING * HUE – 2014 HUE, 2014 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN THI NAM PHUONG AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICE OF THE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS TO LEARN ENGLISH IN SOME SPECIALIZED MATH CLASSES AT QUOC HOC HIGH SCHOOL MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.11 SUPERVISOR: TON NU NHU HUONG, D. HUE, 2014 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------- NGUYỄN THỊ NAM PHƯƠNG NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ VIỆC THỰC HÀNH CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG LỚP HỌC NHẰM THÚC ĐẨY HỌC SINH HỌC TIẾNG ANH Ở MỘT SỐ LỚP CHUYÊN TOÁN TRƯỜNG QUỐC HỌC LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC TS. TÔN NỮ NHƯ HƯƠNG HUẾ, 2014 ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere.
Author Nguyen Thi Nam Phuong iii ABSTRACT One of the requirements for teaching and learning a foreign language is the development of the four skills, which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. In Vietnamese context, however, especially in high schools, those skills are not developed enough due to a set of factors such as the number of students in a class, the lack of knowledge in learning and the poor teaching facilities, etc, which results in students‟ lacking motivation in learning English. As a consequence, students get various difficulties in learning this subject, especially when the teachers use the classroom activities in their teaching process. Therefore, this study is conducted in an attempt to investigate the teachers‟ perceptions and practice of the classroom activities to motivate students to learn English in some specialized Math classes at Quoc Hoc High School.
Questionnaires and interviews were used as the main methods for data collection. Moreover, class observations were also carried out in this study. The research findings showed that: (i) the teachers had positive perceptions of using activities to motivate students in learning English; (ii) explored many various and diversified activities used in classroom, some difficulties faced by teachers and students in teaching-learning process and (iii) found the reasons why there were mismatches between teachers‟ perceptions and teaching practice to give some solutions to reduce or eliminate the difficulties and mismatches between their perceptions and practice of classroom activities to motivate students to become good English learners. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many individuals.
I wish to acknowledge and express my appreciation of these people for their invaluable contributions. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Ton Nu Nhu Huong for her guidance, critical comments, great encouragement and valuable materials while I was working on this study. I am particularly indebted to her for generously offering me her understanding, support and advice when I most needed them and her care for and interest in my work, as well as helping me grow as a researcher along the way.
Secondly, the research for this paper was supported by the Post-graduate Department - Hue University College of Foreign Languages with encouragements and permissions. My heartfelt thanks also send to the EFL teachers and students in three specialized Math classes at Quoc hoc High School who provided me with valuable data for the study so that I could finish my M.A thesis in the best way. Without their patience and willing participation in doing my research questionnaires, interviews and class observations, the study could not be accomplished. Last but not least, I could hardly find words to express my sincere thanks to my beloved family, my special friends who are always by my side for encouraging and supporting me, and the most importantly, giving me more inspiration during the time I undertook the study.
v LIST OF THE TABLES Table 2.1: Two Goal Orientations, Approach and Avoidance Forms .1: Students‟ feeling when teachers use the classroom activities in teaching English .2: Real difficulties in learning English .3: Teachers‟ difficulties when using activities for teaching English .4: Some difficulties that students met when their teachers used activities to teach English in the class .5: The most difficult activities to apply to teaching and learning English .6: Some reasons why there exist mismatches between teachers‟ perceptions and practice of activities to motivate students to learn English .7: Ways to reduce or eliminate the difficulties and mismatches between teachers‟ perceptions and practice of activities to motivate students to learn English.8: Students‟ attitude to the teachers‟ activities .41 vi LIST OF THE FIGURES Figure 4.1: Evaluation of using classroom activities for teaching English to motivate students in learning process in some specialized Math classes at Quoc Hoc High School.2: Teachers‟ perceptions of activities to motivate students to learn English .3: Some activities to motivate students to learn English Language .28 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT : Communicative Language Teaching EFL : English as a Foreign Language viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Page SUB COVER PAGE. i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .v LIST OF THE TABLES. vi LIST OF THE FIGURES. vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. Background of the research. Aims of the research.
Scope of the research. Organization of the research .4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Definition of key terms. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and the role of CLT. Types of classroom activities in English teaching.
Pair work and group work .2 Types of Motivation .3 The differences between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. Attitude and aptitude in relation to motivation. Vietnamese teachers of English at specialized schools. Vietnamese high school students of English in general and students in some specialized Math classes at Quoc Hoc High School in particular .2 Data Collection Methods .2 Instruments for data collection .23 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
The results of the survey .1 The necessity of using classroom activities to motivate students to learn English at some specialized Math classes at Quoc Hoc High School. The teachers‟ perceptions of classroom activities to motivate students to learn English. The classroom activities employed by the EFL teachers to motivate students to learn English in these specialized Math classes in this school. Some activities motivating students to learn English language.
The reality of teaching and learning English at some specialized Math classes at Quoc Hoc High School. Students‟ feeling when teachers use activities in teaching English. The real difficulties in learning English. Teachers‟ difficulties when using activities for teaching English.
Students‟ difficulties when their teachers use activities to teach English in classroom. Activities causing difficulties in applying to teaching and learning English. Some mismatches between teachers‟ perceptions and practice of classroom activities to motivate students to learn English. Solutions to partly reduce or eliminate the difficulties and mismatches between teachers‟ perceptions and practice of activities to motivate students to learn English .42 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.
Implications and suggestions. Recommendations for the future research .53 xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the background, the aim, the scope, the research questions and the organization of the research will be presented. Background of the research Nowadays, with the wide spread of globalization and international integration, English plays an extremely important role in the modern life. It has become a popular and international language around the world.
In Vietnamese schools, English is officially taught as a foreign language. Like other subjects, learning English asks the students to have the desire, effort and motivation to learn it. When students have learning motivation, they will find it easy to acquire the lesson, remember it better and overcome the difficulties that they must face during the learning process (Dornyei, 1994). According to Hoang et al.
(2006), the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages at specialized schools in Vietnam is still very low, which is far from meeting the demand of socio-economic development of the country at the moment. The evidence of this low quality at general level is the students‟ poor vocabulary and grammar, incorrect pronunciation, sub-standard listening and speaking skills. When teaching English as a foreign language, the teachers usually think of how to encourage slow students to study harder and how to create an attractive learning environment to help students have motivation in learning. Therefore, motivation is one of the most significant factors in teaching and learning languages.
Understanding the students‟ goals and motivation for learning English will help the teachers have new suitable teaching methods to improve the students‟ proficiency. Brown (2007)‟s studies have demonstrated that measures of proficiency in learning a language are related to students‟ motivation. In order to motivate students to learn English better, various classroom activities have been carried out in teaching process. In fact, these activities play a significant role in the new teaching environment, especially focusing on Communicative Language 1 Teaching (CLT).
It emphasizes developing the students communicative competence through using most of the classroom activities that engages students in communication. It is a bridge between motivation and activities to promote students to participate in the meaningful interactions actively. Therefore, teachers should apply more typical classroom activities to motivate students in English learning. Realizing the important role of motivation in learning English and teachers‟ perceptions of what classroom activities might affect the students‟ motivation during the learning process and the shortage of studies about motivation urged the researcher to carry out this study at Quoc Hoc High School, one of the most famous high schools in Thua Thien Hue Province.
Besides, teachers‟ perceptions also play a crucial role in educational perspectives. Educators have underlined a position which teachers‟ perceptions hold in education and agreed that teachers‟ perceptions influence teachers‟ practice, judgment and decision making (Barcelos, 2000; Yu, 2004). Additionally, teachers are a key factor and mostly engage in teaching and learning process. Thus, it is believed that investigating teachers‟ perceptions will uncover salient shortcomings occurring in educational settings which will be valuable contribution to teachers‟ educational development.
For that reason, in this study, the researcher would like to carry out “An investigation into EFL teachers’ perceptions and practice of the classroom activities to motivate students to learn English in some specialized Math classes at Quoc Hoc High School”. The teachers‟ perceptions of using these activities in classroom will be collected and analyzed to find the difficulties and the appropriate solutions to help both teachers and students overcome them in their learning process as well as teaching implications. The researcher hopes this study will make a small contribution to teaching and learning a foreign language by providing the EFL teachers with classroom activities used in different teaching contexts to motivate students to learn English better. Aims of the research First of all, this research aims to investigate teachers‟ perceptions and practice of the classroom activities to motivate students in learning English and to emphasize the important role of classroom activities in teaching and learning English.
Secondly, this research was carried out to find what activities are employed by the EFL teachers, what difficulties are faced by both teachers and students when teachers apply these activities in their class.