VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐÀO THỊ NGÂN AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES REGARDING USING L1 IN TEACHING ENGLISH AT YEN DUNG 1 HIGH SCHOOL, BAC GIANG Nghiên cứu về tín niệm và việc sử dụng tiếng mẹ đẻ của giáo viên trong giảng dạy Tiếng Anh tại Trường THPT Yên Dũng 1, Bắc Giang M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HÀ NỘI – 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐÀO THỊ NGÂN AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ BELIEFS AND PRACTICES REGARDING USING L1 IN TEACHING ENGLISH AT YEN DUNG 1 HIGH SCHOOL, BAC GIANG Nghiên cứu về tín niệm và việc sử dụng tiếng mẹ đẻ của giáo viên trong giảng dạy Tiếng Anh tại Trường THPT Yên Dũng 1, Bắc Giang M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc. Lê Văn Canh HÀ NỘI – 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP I, Dao Thi Ngan, hereby declare that this project is conducted by myself for the purpose of qualifying for the Master‟s Degree in English language teaching methodology.
All others‟ works used in this study have been properly cited. The study reported here has never been published elsewhere or for any other purposes. ĐÀO THỊ NGÂN HÀ NỘI – 2015 i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank the teachers and administrative staff of the Post-Graduate Study Faculty at the University of Languages and International Studies for providing me with the opportunity to develop my knowledge of teaching English methodology and better understand my own strengths and weaknesses. My special thanks go to my supervisor for valuable advise and friendly support throughout the course and the thesis.
Lastly, a sincere thank-you to my family for their patience, kindness and encouragement. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT Opinions concerning the use of the L1 in L2 learning have differed markedly over the years. For much of the past century, it has generally been asserted by theorists and methodologists that the L1 has a largely negative influence on L2 learning and that its use should therefore be kept to an absolute minimum in L2 teaching. However, in recent years this position has been called into question, leading to the beginnings of a reassessment of previous views and assumptions.
The thesis reports on an exploratory study which was conducted to explore the beliefs and classroom practices regarding the use of Vietnamese by a group of seven teachers working in a high school in Vietnam. Drawing on the data obtained from interviews and classroom observations, the findings show that teachers held strong beliefs about the use of Vietnamese. They believed that the use of Vietnamese helped their students whose English was limited to understand grammar and vocabulary better. They also believed that an appropriate proportion of L1 use was 50% of the class time.
Observational data revealed that there were similarities between their stated beliefs and practices despite few differences. The study concludes that L1 has a role in L2 learning and it is unrealistic to ban L1 in L2 classroom and that more attention should be given to the training of teachers in classroom language use as part of teacher professional programmes. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Participant Profiles Table 2.
Frequency of L1 use per lesson iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP……………………………………………. iii LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………… iv TABLE OF CONTENT……………………………………………………… v PART A. Rationale of the study………………………………………………. Aims and objectives of the study…………………………….
Scope of the study……………………………………………. Significance of the study……………………………………………. Structure of the thesis………………………………………………. THE DEVELOPMENT 6 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 6 1.
Definition of teacher beliefs…………………………………. Empirical studies on L2 teacher beliefs……………………. The use of the L1……………………………………………………. Empirical studies on teacher L1 use………………………………… 15 1.
Functions of L1 in the L2 classrooms………………………………. Amount of teachers‟ L1 use in different contexts…………. Studies on teachers‟ beliefs about the L1 use………………………. Summary of the chapter……………………………………………… 23 CHAPTER II.
The context of the study……………………………………………. 24 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research methods and procedures…………………………………… 25 2. Teachers‟ use of Vietnamese in their actual teaching……………….
Summary of the chapter………………………………………………. Summary of major findings…………………………………………… 40 2. Implications for teacher development………………………………… 41 4. THE INTERVIEW GUIDE ………………………….
A SAMPLE THE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT …………. A SAMPLE OF OBSERVATION DATA.………………… IX vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Rationale of the study In describing the state of English language teaching (ELT) in developing countries, Weddell offers the following sypnosis: New English curriculum documents and teaching materials proliferate in state education systems worldwide. English has become a compulsory subject for ever more years of basic schooling.
High stakes English tests are increasingly important gate-keepers for entry to higher levels of education. Although there has been massive human and financial investment in such initiatives, outcomes to date have often been disappointing. Reports suggest that there are relatively few state school classrooms anywhere in which most learners are developing a useable knowledge of English. (Weddell, 2011: 3) What Weddell describes above is also true to Vietnam, where a new initiative – the Foreign Language 2020 Project - has been under way as an attempt to improve the students‟ ability to use English for communication.
One of the methodological issues that have been raised is the need to improve teachers‟ classroom language. The students‟ first language (L1) has been one of the controversial issues in the field of second language (L2) teaching. In the past many scholars , researchers and methodologists in the field of second language acquisition proposed that students learned their second language much in the same way that they learned their first, and that L2 was best learned through massive amounts of exposure to the language with limited time spent using L1 (Tang, 2002). However, in recent years, focus has been shifting towards inclusion of L1 in the language classroom.
Research has shown that the occasional use of L1 by both students and teachers increases 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com both comprehension and learning of L2 (Cook, 2001; Tang, 2002; Wells, 1999). As a result, several teaching methods and trends supporting the use of L1 as a helpful teaching and learning tool have emerged and many researchers and authors stress the value of using L1 and the positive role this plays in EFL teaching (Aurbach 1993; Tang 2002). Thus, many researchers and teachers have started to re-evaluate the role of L1 in the EFL classroom and think of ways to best incorporate it into EFL teaching. In the literature, a body of empirical studies has been documented explaining the reasons for teachers‟ and students‟ use of the L1.
The results of these studies have been positive. First, because they revealed teachers found the L1 practical (Macaro, 2001) and, second, a consensus among academics has developed that the L1 has a role in the classroom, as long as it is not overused and promotes effective language learning (e. Cook, 2001; Hall & Cook, 2012; Turnball, 2012). Despite this large positive development, empirical investigations into teachers‟ L1 use arguably remain limited (Thompson, 2006).
Most studies focus on the L1 of the major global languages spoken by learners such as Madarin, Spanish, French, and Japanese. There have been fewer published studies investigating teachers‟ use of Vietnamese in teaching English in Vietnamese contexts while in the classroom, from my personal observation, teachers did use Vietnamese quite frequently. Vietnamese teachers of English language, especially those who teach in high schools, have been very little affected by the changes both in theory and practice in the field. There are teachers entirely depending on the use of L1 or totally refusing it.
There are still teachers following the structural approach, and reform minded teachers do not appear to be rapidly replacing them. This motivates me to conduct this study. The study, stemming from the experiences above, attempts to investigate the beliefs and practices regarding the 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com use of L1 in the teaching of English of a group of high school teachers working in a particular high school in a mountainous area of Bac Giang province. It first reviews the literature then gives the methodology and describes the subjects and then concludes by commenting on the findings and giving further recommendations for teacher education regarding classroom language.
Aims and objectives of the study The overall aim of the study is to explore how high school teachers of English use Vietnamese (L1) in teaching English (L2) to their students as well as the underlying beliefs of their use of L1 in the classroom. The above aim is specified into the following objectives: 1. to uncover the high school teachers‟ beliefs about the use of Vietnamese in teaching English to their students. to explore their actual use of Vietnamese in their classroom teaching.
Research questions In an attempt to achieve the above-stated aim and objectives, the study is designed to seek answers to the following questions: 1. What are the high school teachers‟ beliefs about the use of Vietnamese in teaching English? 2. To what extent are their beliefs similar to, and/or different from, their actual teaching practices? 4. Research methods As the purpose of the study is to explore teachers‟ beliefs and their actual practices in the classroom regarding the use of Vietnamese in teaching English as a school subject to their students within the context of one particular high school in Bac Giang province, the study is exploratory in nature.
Thus, two major methods 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com that were used to gather the data for the study are face-to-face interviews and classroom observations. The data obtained were analysed with qualitative methods. Scope of the study The study limits itself to the exploration of the beliefs and practices of using Vietnamese in teaching English by a group of EFL teachers working in one high school. It is not intended to find out the factors that shape teachers‟ beliefs.
Nor is it intended to investigate students‟ attitudes towards teachers‟ use of Vietnamese in English lessons. Since, the participants are from just one school, there is no intention to generalize the findings. Significance of the study Insights into teachers‟ beliefs and practices regarding the use of Vietnamese in teaching English first of all are helpful to my personal professional development. By this I mean, through the exploration of the issue, I will challenge my own beliefs and practice in using classroom language so that I can have a new way of looking at classroom language.
Second, the findings may provide useful information for teacher educators about how to help in-service teachers to use classroom language to support students‟ learning better. Structure of the thesis The thesis is composed of three parts following the required format of the university. Part A is the Introduction where the rationale, the aims and the scope of the study are presented. Part B – the Development – consists of two chapters.
Chapter I reviews the literature relevant to the topic of teachers‟ beliefs and practices in using L1 to teach L2. In Chapter II, the most important chapter, the whole study including the context of the study, the participants, the research instruments and the findings as well as the discussion of the findings are presented. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part C – the Conclusion – summarizes the major findings of the study. Then drawing on these findings, I will suggest the way teachers‟ classroom language can be improved and the feasibility of the „teach-English-through-English‟ policy in the context of Vietnamese high schools.
5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.