VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE AN INVESTIGATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY ON CLASSROOM INVOLVEMENT OF NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By TRAN VIET ANH Supervised by TRAN THE PHI, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, JUNE 2023 AN INVESTIGATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANXIETY ON CLASSROOM INVOLVEMENT OF NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN VIETNAM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Tran The Phi, for his insightful comments and thorough instruction during the accomplishment of this thesis. Without his continuous support, valuable guidance and unceasing encouragement, this thesis of mine would have never been completed.
I would love to extend my sincere thanks to Dr. Le Hoang Dung for allowing me to collect data for my study at the Center for Foreign Languages. I am also grateful to the teachers and students there for their cooperation and support during my data collection procedure. Moreover, I owe the completion of my thesis to Dr.
Pham Thi Bich Ngoc for helping me find relevant literature. My heartfelt appreciation also goes to Dr. Tran Anh Tien, Dr. Nguyen Thanh Tung, and Mr.
Nguyen Xuan Truong for supporting me with statistical computation and analysis. Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family for trusting me, accompanying me during the toughest time, and encouraging me to keep going when I wanted to give up. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of this thesis entitled ‘An investigation into foreign language anxiety on classroom involvement of non-English major students at a university in Vietnam’. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution.
Ho Chi Minh City, June, 2023 Tran Viet Anh ii RETENTION OF USE I hereby state that I, Tran Viet Anh, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City relating to the retention and use of master’s thesis 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 the purpose 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, June, 2023 Tran Viet Anh iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY.
ii RETENTION OF USE. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii LIST OF TABLES.
ix LIST OF FIGURES. xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. Background to the study. Aims of the study.
Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Organization of thesis chapters. 7 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definitions of anxiety. Approaches to anxiety study in language learning. Foreign language anxiety. Definition of foreign language anxiety.
Components of foreign language anxiety. Fear of negative evaluation. Measure of foreign language anxiety. Definition of classroom involvement.
Components of classroom involvement. Measure of classroom involvement. The effects of foreign language anxiety on classroom involvement. The conceptual framework.
Context of the study. Sample and sampling procedures. Semi-structured interview. Validity and reliability of research instruments.
Data collection procedure. Data analysis scheme. Semi-structured interview. 48 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Assessment of the reliability of the questionnaire. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Pearson correlation analysis. Multiple linear regression.
Communication apprehension on classroom involvement. Fear of negative evaluation on classroom involvement. Summary of findings. For teachers of non-English major students.
For non-English major students. For teacher trainers. Limitations of the study. Recommendations for further study.
108 Appendix A: Summary of the participants’ demographic information. 108 Appendix B: Reliability statistics of the preliminary pilot questionnaire. 111 Appendix C: Reliability statistics of the revised pilot questionnaire. 118 Appendix F: Interview protocol for students (English version).
121 Appendix G: Interview protocol for students (Vietnamese version). 122 Appendix H: Interview protocol for teachers (English version). 123 Appendix I: Interview protocol for teachers (Vietnamese version). 124 Appendix J: Research consent form (English version).
125 Appendix K: Research consent form (Vietnamese version). 126 Appendix L: Exploratory Factor Analysis statistics. 127 Appendix M: Pearson correlation analysis statistics. 130 Appendix N: Interview transcript.
131 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ANOVA: Analysis of variance β: Beta CFA: Confirmatory Factor Analysis CFL: Center for Foreign Languages EFA: Exploratory Factor Analysis EFL: English as a foreign language FLA: foreign language anxiety FLCAS: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale H: hypothesis KMO: Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin NFLP: National Foreign Languages Project S: student SES: Student Engagement Scale Sig.: significance level SPSS: Statistical Product and Services Solutions T: teacher USSH, VNUHCM: University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City VIF: Variance Inflation Factor viii LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Construct of foreign language anxiety across some studies. Construct of student involvement/engagement across some studies. Distribution of items in the questionnaire.
Distribution of questions in the interviews. Descriptive statistics on the observed variables. Reliability statistics of the questionnaire in the main study. KMO and Bartlett’s test for independent variables.
KMO and Bartlett’s test for dependent variable. Explanatory level of the regression model. Results of ANOVA for multiple linear regression. Results of multiple linear regression.
Conclusion of hypotheses. 64 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. The conceptual framework. The official model of the effects of foreign language anxiety’s factors on classroom involvement.
Scatterplot of independent variables and dependent variable. Histogram and P-P plot of independent variables and dependent variable. 62 x ABSTRACT Foreign language anxiety and classroom involvement have been proved to significantly affect students’ achievements in foreign language learning. It has been observed that foreign language anxiety seems to prevent active classroom involvement of Vietnamese non-English major students.
Meanwhile, this topic has still remained understudied in the EFL context, especially in Vietnam. Therefore, the current study seeks to investigate foreign language anxiety on classroom involvement of non-English major students at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City. Specifically, it aims to identify foreign language anxiety’s factors that affect classroom involvement and the extent of these effects. The explanatory sequential mixed methods design was employed to fulfill the research aims.
The data were collected through questionnaires distributed to a simple random sample of 305 non-English majors, and semi-structured interviews with eleven non-English majors and seven English teachers. A multiple linear regression was conducted with SPSS Statistics version 26 for the analysis of the quantitative data while the qualitative data were analyzed based on thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that all five factors of foreign language anxiety negatively affect classroom involvement. It was also discovered that the extent of these effects is arranged in this descending order: oral communication anxiety factor has the most effect on classroom involvement, followed by stage fright, receiver anxiety, fear of peer negative evaluation, and fear of teacher negative evaluation.
Several recommendations for researchers, teachers, students, and teacher trainers were made in light of these findings. Key words: foreign language anxiety, classroom involvement, Vietnamese non-English major students xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This introductory chapter provides the background to the study of students’ foreign language anxiety and classroom involvement, in which the statement of problem and the research gap are indicated. The chapter also sets out the research aims and the associated research questions that the thesis seeks to address. Following this, the significance that the current study has for the field of English language teaching and learning, and the scope of the study are briefly stated.
This chapter ends with an outline of the organization of this thesis along with a short description of each chapter. Background to the study English has become widely recognized as a universal language for worldwide communication due to the increasing degree of globalization. It is regarded as a key which enables students to access better education and employment possibilities (Rao, 2019). Aware of the importance of this language, the Vietnamese government launched The National Foreign Languages Project 2020 (NFLP 2020) with the aim of comprehensively renovating the national education system’s approach to foreign language teaching and learning (primarily English) (Prime Minister, 2008).
The project focused on improving the English proficiency of Vietnamese youth in order to meet the needs of the modern society. English has also become a mandatory subject which is taught from grade 3 to grade 12 since the academic year of 2022- 2023 (Ministry of Education and Training, 2018). It can be said that the Vietnamese government has tried to provide opportunities for students to get exposed to English as soon as possible. However, these efforts did not obtain expected results; the English level of many Vietnamese students has been still far from satisfactory.
A number of university students in particular still struggle to communicate in English after graduation in spite of spending years studying this language in formal 1 education (Nguyen, Bui, & Nguyen, 2020). It thus can be understandable that the NFLP 2020 could not fulfill its goals and the project completion schedule was extended up to 2025 (Prime Minister, 2017). This raises a query concerning what factors affect the English performance of Vietnamese students. According to Krashen (1985), one of the most significant factors that may hinder students from learning is affective ones.
In his theory, he proposed an affective filter, a language learner’s mechanism, which can block access to language acquisition under specific circumstances such as when learners are experiencing anxiety. Meanwhile, Walker (1997) supposed that language studying is believed to be the most anxiety-provoking learning task for many students. The level of this emotional state is more serious when the students are learning a foreign language. In fact, it is common to find students who excel in other disciplines and struggle in a foreign language class.
The topic of foreign language anxiety has been of interest to many researchers since the 1970s (e., Scovel, 1978; Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; Young, 1992; Na, 2007; Tran, Moni, and Baldauf, 2013; Le & Tran, 2020). Foreign language anxiety refers to “a distinct complex construct of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and behaviours related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of language learning process” (Horwitz et al. It is agreed to be a multidimensional construct including components of communication apprehension, test anxiety, and fear of negative evaluation (Horwitz et al., 1986; Zulkifli, 2007; Lee, 2011; Tran, 2019). Along with the concern about foreign language anxiety, there has been a large body of studies on its effects on foreign language learning.
Gardner, Tremblay, and Masgoret (1997) ranked foreign language anxiety to be the highest factor among various affective variables which adversely influences language performance. This is supported by recent studies that reported a negative relationship between foreign language anxiety and language achievement (e., Mesri, 2012; Al-Shboul, Ahmad, Nordin, & Rahman, 2013; Lian & Budin, 2014; Gopang, Bughio, & Pathan, 2015; Zhang, 2019). 2 Similar to foreign language anxiety, students’ classroom involvement has attracted great interest from researchers in higher education. This concept originated from the student involvement theory proposed by Astin (1975) and first aimed to explore factors in the college environment having a significant influence on students’ commitment to staying in college.
Student involvement or student engagement for some researchers is “the quality and quantity of students’ psychological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural reactions to the learning process, as well as to in-class/out-of-class academic and social activities, to achieve successful learning outcomes” (Gunuc & Kuzu, 2015, p.