MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TONG THI THUY TRANG A STUDY ON EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES OF ACTIVE LEARNING-PROMOTED STRATEGIES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE CLASSES MA THESIS IN EDUCATION HUE, 2012 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TONG THI THUY TRANG A STUDY ON EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES OF ACTIVE LEARNING-PROMOTED STRATEGIES IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE CLASSES FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: Ph.D PHAM THI HONG NHUNG HUE, 2012 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------- TỐNG THỊ THÙY TRANG NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN NGÀNH TIẾNG ANH VỀ CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG GIẢNG DẠY THÚC ĐẨY VIỆC HỌC TÍCH CỰC VÀ VIỆC VẬN DỤNG NHỮNG HOẠT ĐỘNG NÀY TRONG CÁC LỚP VĂN HỌC VÀ VĂN HOÁ CHUYÊN NGÀNH: LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ : 60.10 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ GIÁO VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN: T.S PHẠM THỊ HỒNG NHUNG HUẾ, 2012 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 Tong Thi Thuy Trang ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This research project would not have been possible without the support of many people. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Pham Thi Hong Nhung, for her whole-hearted guidance, patience, and academic support at every stage of the development of this study. Without her encouragement, insightful comments and detailed guidance this thesis would not have been materialized. Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank to Prof. Truong Vien who inspired me to conduct this research from the initial topic theme “active learning”.
I would like to send my grateful words to Dr. Truong Bach Le, Dr. Pham Hoa Hiep, and Dr. Ton Nu Nhu Huong for their advice and support in the early days of originating my research.
In particular, I am grateful to all the teachers of British and American literature and culture and students of HUCFL for willingly helping me with the classroom observations, the questionnaires and the interviews during the important stage of data collection. Finally, I wish to express my love and gratitude to my beloved family, my teachers and my friends for their understanding, endless love and support throughout the duration of my study. Hue, August, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .5 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. Reasons for the research.
Objectives of the research. Significance of the research. Overview of the thesis.13 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of key concepts.
Active learning and student-centered approach. Active learning-promoted strategies. Active learning framework. Nature of the learning process.
The significance of teachers’ and students’ perceptions of language learning. The significance of students’ perceptions of language learning. The significance of teachers’ perceptions of language teaching. Role of active learning.
Role of active learning in higher education. The advantages of active learning. Features of active learning- promoted strategies. Major active language learning-promoted strategies.
Factors influencing the implementation of active learning-promoted strategies. Heavy course contents. Time for preparation. Lack of materials and resources supporting ALPS.
Teachers and students’ perceptions or experiences. Relevant studies on language learning-promoted strategies. Previous studies on ALPS. Relevant studies on active learning promoted strategies in Vietnamese teaching context.
Instruments of data collection. Teachers’ teaching profile (background). Procedure of data collection. Teacher and student interviews .51 2 CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Data obtained through questionnaires. Teachers’ perceptions of ALPS. Teachers’ general perceptions of traditional teaching. Teachers’ perceptions of ALPS.
Students’ perceptions of ALPS .3 The ALPS employed in literature and culture classes. The ALPS employed in literature and culture classes from teachers’ questionnaire. The ALPS employed in literature and culture classes from students’ questionnaire. Students’ responses to ALPS implemented in literature and culture classes.
Activities recommended to be applied in literature and culture classes by students. Factors influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS. Factors greatly influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS. Other factors influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS.
Data obtained from interviews and classroom observations. Teachers’ perceptions of ALPS. Teachers’ perceptions of the practicability of ALPS. Teachers’ perceptions on advantages of ALPS.
Students’ perceptions of ALPS. ALPS employed in literature and culture classes. ALPS employed in literature classes. ALPS employed in culture classes.
Factors influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS. Summary of major findings. Teachers’ and students’ perceptions of ALPS. Practices of ALPS in literature and culture classes.
Students’ responses to ALPS implemented in literature and culture classes. Factors influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS. Implications for teachers. Implications for students.
Implications for administrators at college. Contributions of the study. Suggestions for further research .98 APPENDICES 4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a Foreign Language TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages ELT: English Language Teaching ALPS: Active learning- promoted strategies SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences HUCFL: Hue University College of Foreign Languages 5 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3. Teachers’ teaching profile Table 4.
Mean scores of teachers’ perceptions on traditional lecture method Table 4. Teachers’ perception on teaching and learning Table 4. Students’ attitudes and expectations towards teaching and learning Table 4. Frequency of ALPS employment in literature and culture class Table 4.
Comparison of teachers’ and students’ responses of ALPS employment Table 4. Reasons for the teachers’ current implementation of ALPS Table 4. Reasons for not applying several ALPS Table 4. Reasons for students’ satisfaction with ALPS current employed in class Table 4.
Factors influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS Table 4. An extract of the checklist on classroom condition Figure 4. Teachers’ perceptions on benefits of ALPS Figure 4. Teachers’ perceptions on difficulties of ALPS employment Figure 4.3 Percentage of students’ perceptions of benefits of ALPS Figure 4.4 Students’ perceptions of the importance of active learning Figure 4.5 Frequency of ALPS often implemented in literature and culture classes Figure 4.6 ALPS employment in literature and culture classes Figure 4.
Students’ responses to ALPS implemented in class Figure 4.8a Factors greatly influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS Figure 4.8b Mean scores of factors greatly influencing teachers’ implementation of ALPS 6 ABSTRACT Through the investigation with 10 teachers and 120 students of Hue University College of Foreign Languages (HUCFL) including the questionnaires, classroom observations and semi-structured interviews, this study aimed to assess EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions of active learning-promoted strategies (ALPS), to explore ALPS adopted frequently by teachers, as well as to consider the factors influencing the practices of ALPS in literature and culture classes. The findings revealed that most teachers and students had positive attitudes toward ALPS and its application, such as when “question and answer”, “group work”, “discussion”, “quizzes” and “films” were applied frequently in literature and culture classes. The results also indicated that the current limited employment of ALPS in these classes was mainly influenced by local barriers such as large class size, students’ negative attitudes toward learning and heavy course content. Some implications and suggestions for further research were provided in the conclusion to encourage teachers to apply more ALPS in their classes.
Background If the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, are considered as the fundamental skills belonging to linguistic competence that a language learner needs to master, literature and culture make the learner come closer to the target language and enhance his/her sociolinguistic/pragmatics competence. Therefore, knowledge of literature and culture is extremely necessary for any language learner to obtain real proficiency and approach the goal of integrating into the target community. Accordingly, teaching and learning literature and culture in EFL classes are as crucial as building the walls and completing the decoration for the frame of a building since “literature trains every learner to develop love for reading and most important, develop reading and writing skills” (Ebunoluwa et al, 2011, p. 261) and “culture acts as the flesh and language as the skeleton of a society” (Mohammad, M.
However, in EFL classes in the Vietnamese teaching context, teaching and learning literature and culture have not really attracted the full attention of both teachers and students in terms of teaching and learning methodology. In fact, many teachers of literature and culture who were taught with “black board and white chalk” seemed to focus too much on the traditional teaching methods. This is where teachers lecture, talk or present overcrowded slides and students passively listen to such packed- information and try to take notes carefully every word their teachers said. At the same time, students make all possible efforts to memorize what their teachers have said and learn everything by heart before the final exams.
This is because as Pham (2011) explained, “students believe that they must memorize all the information that was presented in class if they want to pass the exams” (p. However, what is going on at an amazing speed outside the classroom in this age of information technology requires much more than this of teachers and students. 8 More specifically, they need to be able to adapt their teaching and learning styles/ skills to be as active and flexible as possible. In addition, the literature points out that the lecture teaching approach unconsciously makes students become passive and dependent learners who lack responsibility for their own learning (Hansen & Stephens, 2000; Machemer & Crawford, 2007) ( as cited in Covill, 2011) and prevents them from deep and lasting learning (Eison, 2010).
Meanwhile, a lot of research indicates that students only learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process through differentiate active teaching activities or strategies, which hardly happens in the traditional lecture- style class (Bonwell & Sutherland, 1996). Hence, it is high time for EFL teachers and students who prefer the traditional approach to look back at their current teaching and learning methods and find more appropriate ways to promote active teaching and learning by combining different strategies rather than relying on the traditional approach. This can be done by fostering students’ active learning through paying more attention to them and their learning process rather than only covering the content of the lesson and by encouraging students to actively interact with the materials as well as their peers (Morrison, 2004). More precisely, teachers should take advantage of all the positive aspects of lectures and “reduce or erase” the negative ones.
This can be done by using some simple active learning techniques to make lectures more interactive such as diversifying the ways of delivering lectures, using visual stimulation or “varying what students do in a lecture” as recommended by Exley (2010). If EFL Vietnamese teachers of literature and culture can ensure a balance between imparting the content of the lessons and promoting students’ active learning, the real quality of teaching and learning such subjects will be improved considerably. This also partly enables teachers and students to keep up with the innovations and new trends of world education because, like Eison’s conclusion (2010),“employing active learning instructional strategies” means “ to maximize student learning in the college or university classroom”(p. Reasons for the research In EFL classes in Vietnam, apart from the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing, English major students also have to learn a number of content courses such as linguistics, culture, literature and so forth.
This often includes a large amount of information in the form of long reading texts.