MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY EFL TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ READINESS FOR PROMOTING LEARNER AUTONOMY AT KENT INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE Submitted to the Faculty of English Language in partial fulfillment of the Master s degree in English Language Course code: 60220201 By NGUYEN TUONG VY Supervised by DUONG MY THAM, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, MAY 2020 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS MASTER’S THESIS REPORT. ii CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY .iv RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS. vii LIST OF TABLES.
xii LIST OF FIGURES. xiii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS. Background to the study. Statement of the problem.
Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Definition of key terms.
The organization of the thesis. Definition of learner autonomy. The importance of learner autonomy in English language learning and teaching. Proactive versus Reactive Autonomy.
Readiness for learner autonomy. Students’ readiness in fostering learner autonomy. Teachers’ readiness in fostering learner autonomy. Promoting learner autonomy in contexts.
Readiness for learner autonomy. Sample and sampling procedures. Data collection and analysis procedures. Validity and Reliability of the research instrument.
42 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS. Students’ readiness for promoting learner autonomy. Teachers’ readiness for promoting learner autonomy. Students’ readiness of promoting learner autonomy.
Teachers’ readiness of promoting learner autonomy. 61 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION. Summary of the main findings of the thesis. Recommendations for further research.
73 APPENDIX A – TEACHERS’ QUESTIONNAIRE. 73 APPENDIX B - BẢNG HỎI GIÁO VIÊN. 76 APPENDIX C – STUDENTS’ QUESTIONNAIRE. 79 APPENDIX D - BẢNG HỎI CHO SINH VIÊN.
82 x APPENDIX E – TEACHER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS. 84 APPENDIX F - CÂU HỎI PHỎNG VẤN CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VỀ QUYỀN TỰ CHỦ. 85 APPENDIX I – VIPER PLAGIARISM REPORT. 86 DATA COLLECTION ENDORSEMENT FORM xi LIST OF TABLES Page Table 3.1: Participants’ personal information 28 Table 3.2: The adaption of the students’ questionnaire 32 Table 3.3: The adaptation of the teachers’ questionnaire 33 Table 3.
Data analysis procedures in relation to research questions and instrument 36 Table 3.5: The reliability of the students’ questionnaire 39 Table 3.6: The reliability of the teachers’ questionnaire 39 Table 4.1: Students’ readiness for learner autonomy 42 Table 4.2: Students’ readiness towards learner autonomy in terms of their self-awareness 44 Table 4.3: Students’ readiness towards learner autonomy in terms of their self-efficacy 45 Table 4.4: Students’ readiness towards learner autonomy in terms of their motivation 46 Table 4.5: Teachers’ readiness for learner autonomy 47 Table 4.6: Teachers’ readiness towards learner autonomy in terms of their attitudes 49 Table 4.7: Teachers’ readiness towards learner autonomy in terms of their knowledge 52 Table 4.8: Teachers’ readiness towards learner autonomy in terms of their encouragement and inspiration 55 xii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework 25 Figure 3.1 Data collection 36 xiii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS EFL English as a Foreign Language ELL English language learning ELT English language teaching ICT Information and Communication Technology KIC Kent International College LA Learner Autonomy M Mean SD Standard Deviation SPSS Statistic Package for Social Science T1 Teacher 1 T2 Teacher 2 T3 Teacher 3 T4 Teacher 4 T5 Teacher 5 xiv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Background to the study In today's world, English as an international language is used in almost every aspect of life. It is the best way to access job markets, travel around the world, and interact with foreigners. Therefore, learning English is necessary for students' success and self-study is fast becoming a key aspect of learning a language.
Together with the development of modern social, Vietnam education system has been changed with new teaching methods and approaches, especially in English language teaching (ELT). The explosive development of information technology with a variety of tools such as Facebook, Zalo, Instagram, Youtube, Google, Twitter, etc. provides students with great opportunities to develop personal growth and achievement. It also gives them independence in their learning.
Besides, the Vietnamese Government has made a lot of efforts in promoting ELT, for example, issuing policies relating to ELT and spending a larger proportion of its budget (Le Van Canh, 2007; Nguyen Ngan, 2012). In a global communication with an easy access to the Internet which offer information and authentic materials in English, inevitably, it provides students with chances for their learning. In Vietnam, there have been a lot of teaching methods and approaches employed in the education system so far e., The Direct Method, Grammar-Translation Method, Audio-lingual Method, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), The Natural Approach, Task- based Language Learning. Nevertheless, the effect of the methods depends much on the learners, the contexts, and the purposes.
Associating with the changing landscape of ELT, the concept of learner autonomy becomes an important consideration. Holec (1981) claims that learner autonomy is an “ability to take charge of one's own learning”. In other words, students are responsible for their own learning process (Holec, 1981). Lengkanawati (2014) holds the view that learner autonomy is essential to achieve effective learning.
In order to study English language well, learners have 1 to be aware of their responsibility for what they want to achieve. That is, they must do a lot of self-efforts to improve and enhance their learning (Holec, 1981). Moreover, teachers play an important role in the creation and maintenance of learner autonomy. According to Dickinson (1995) and Little (2007), teachers should keep their roles in fostering learner autonomy by creating a learning environment with different study activities.
In connection with the importance of teachers, the following quote “you can bring the horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink” (Scharle and Szabö, 2000) also explains why autonomy is the most concern. Teachers can orient others to do something, but they have to do it by themselves. It is true for learning. Teachers play a key role in guiding students to participate in planning, determining, maintaining, and evaluating their learning.
However, students have to be the one who study by themselves. Thus, they can succeed in their attempt in studying English. Every year, there are more than one hundred Non-English major students at Kent International College (KIC) graduate. Most of them will study abroad, and learner autonomy is an indispensable part of their journey.
It is likely that they need to own certain knowledge about autonomous learning in order that they can possibly use the target language. Currently, teachers at KIC have applied variety of methods and approaches. Each method or approach has both strengths and weaknesses. Specifically, when teaching grammar, they might use Grammar-translation method so that students can understand and use the grammatical point accurately.
Moreover, they also make use of Communicative Language Teaching activities to make sure that students can apply it in real-life situations. Most KIC students' reason for studying English is to be able to go abroad to study and live. Due to the needs, teachers need to not only teach them grammar, vocabulary, etc. but also create more opportunities for them to practice their skills.
Task-based language teaching has been one of the methods that KIC teachers apply in their teaching. This is a good tool for them to engage students in speaking contexts. It helps enhance learners’ speaking skills and makes them feel more confident upon communicating with foreigners. All 2 in all, depending on the purpose of the unit lesson, the characteristics of students and their needs, KIC teachers have to be flexible in choosing the applicable methods or approaches.
Although these methods are pretty good but in order to get perfect learning outcomes, learners' self- study is still the main factors. In other words, besides the teacher' s instruction, student individual is the key factor in deciding students' success in learning. Thus, it is necessary to research on learner autonomy topic. In conclusion, learner autonomy has a pivotal role in English language learning.
Many researchers argue the significance of autonomy and appreciate its role in teaching English. Statement of the problem In fact, students in non-English speaking countries, including Vietnam, find it difficult to start their self-regulated learning. In Vietnam, English is a compulsory subject in most universities or colleges. Vietnamese students learn English as a foreign language from the beginning of their learning process.
It admitted that the self-study ability of Vietnamese EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners is far from expectation. According to the author's observation, although they have spent at least seven years studying English at high school before they enter universities, most of them find it difficult and confusing to create opportunities for practicing English on their own. They not only hesitate when they take the initiative in preparing for self-learning but also even feel hard to accept the responsibility for learning. Furthermore, it is not easy for a language student to become an autonomous learner (Yuzulia & Yusuf.
It is not as simple as deciding what and how they want to learn but expressing through the ability to identify learning objectives, choose the materials, select the methods and techniques to study, observe the process of learning, and evaluate learning outcomes. Some students cannot conduct self-learning activities confidently while others cannot even know how to learn proactively outside the classroom. Consequently, it is almost certainly the most difficult ability and this competence needs plenty of time to master. 3 Students at Kent International College (KIC) have to learn all of the subjects in English and are asked to produce informative presentations in the classroom.
These activities require the ability to research, arrange, and express knowledge outside the classroom and often prepare for the next lesson to get a high score. However, a major problem with teaching and learning English at KIC is that most students cope with many difficulties in acquiring further knowledge without teachers. In fact, according to personal observation, not all KIC's students can understand themselves and develop their awareness about the concept of learner autonomy. Many of them have difficulties in realizing and creating their own learning process.
Some of them display a certain reticence when they are required to show their understanding outside the lesson in class. Some show their anxiety when taking their own duty for learning. They do not know how to search information in a meaningful and effective way. Moreover, they have limited time and ability to practice and choose resources for their own learning.
Although teachers told them some materials they could read, some websites they could use for practicing their English, only some of them could get the benefit from teachers’ advice. The students still lack the ability to get involved in their own learning although they can listen to teachers' lectures and get the knowledge well. As a result, they cannot be active in learning. Taken together, these problems may contribute to the difficulties in promoting learner autonomy.
There were a lot of researchers reviewing different aspects of learner autonomy, but they mainly focused on teachers' and students' beliefs and their classroom practice. However, to some extent, gaps will always exist because of language learning depends on situations. Different contexts will provide different results. They can be influenced by different factors in a bigger or smaller degree.
Moreover, there is no research conducted at Kent International College on this topic. Accordingly, this thesis is to explore EFL students' and teachers ' readiness for promoting learner autonomy at KIC. Aims and objectives of the study The main purpose of this research study was to explore the readiness for promoting learner autonomy of teachers and students at Kent International College in order to support and give some implications for teachers and students to increase students’ self-learning ability. The objectives of this study were as follows: • To find out students’ readiness for promoting learner autonomy at KIC.
• To determine teachers’ readiness for promoting learner autonomy at KIC.