VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------------------------------------ DƢƠNG HỒNG ANH PERCEPTION OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT USSH, VNU ABOUT THEIR WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE IN ENGLISH IN SPEAKING ACTIVITIES Nhận thức của sinh viên năm nhất trƣờng Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân Văn – Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội về sự sẵn sang sử dụng tiếng Anh trong các hoạt động nói M. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 HANOI – 2012 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------------------------------------ DƢƠNG HỒNG ANH PERCEPTION OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS AT USSH, VNU ABOUT THEIR WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE IN ENGLISH IN SPEAKING ACTIVITIES Nhận thức của sinh viên năm nhất trƣờng Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân Văn – Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội về sự sẵn sang sử dụng tiếng Anh trong các hoạt động nói M. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Tô Thi Thu ̣ Hƣơng HANOI - 2012 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION.
iii LIST OF TABLES. iv LIST OF FIGURES. v TABLE OF CONTENT. vi CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION.
Statement of the problem and the rationale for the research. Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. An overview of the rest of the paper.
3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of key terms. Willingness to communicate. Willingness to communicate in foreign language acquisition.
Roles of willingness to communicate in foreign language acquisition. Factors influencing willingness to communicate. Speaking in foreign language acquisition. 13 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Importance of speaking activities in foreign language acquisition. Categories of speaking activities in foreign language acquisition. Studies related internal factors that influence WTC. Studies of personality.
Studies of learner orientation and motivation. Studies related external factors that influence WTC. Studies of culture. Studies of learning condition.
Participants and setting. Data collection instruments. Data collection procedure. Data analysis methods.
Data analysis procedure. 32 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER 4: DATA FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. The student’s willingness to communicate in group discussion. Factors influencing the student’s willingness to communicate in group discussion.
Past learning environment. In-group peer influence. Format and content of the discussion .1 Attitude to target language learning. Knowledge and communicative proficiency.
Learner adaptation capacity. In-group peer influence. Format and content of discussion. 55 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Attitude to target language learning. Language and knowledge proficiency. Summary of findings. Limitations of the research.
Suggestions for further studies. VII vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table1. The student‟s willingness to communicate in speaking activities. 35 Table 2: The student‟s willingness to communicate in speaking activities.
39 Table 3: Level of students‟ willingness to communicate in group discussion in speaking class. 60 Table 4: Degrees of influence of the factors. 62 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Segment of MacIntyre's (1994) willingness to communicate model. 7 Figure 2: MacIntyre‟s (1994) casual sequence for predicting WTC using personality-based variables, adapted in Matsuoka & Evans (2005, p.
8 Figure 3: MacIntyre and Charos‟ (1996) model of L2 Willingness to communicate, adapted in Matsuoka & Evans (2005, p. 9 Figure 4: Heuristic model of variables influencing WTC from Macintyre et al. 547; adapted in Reiko Matsuoka & David Richard Evans 2005, p. 9 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Statement of the problem and the rationale for the research English has become the lingua franca, a language that is systematically used for communication between groups of people not sharing a mother tongue, in many parts of the world. For this reason, teaching and learning English play an important role in our contemporary society. In the past, the purpose of learning English is to master grammar rules and structures of the language. However, the aim of learning English has shifted with the rapidity of globalization “from mastery of the structure to the ability to use the language for communicative purposes”.
Therefore, the communicative approach in teaching English does gain importance in producing “communicativeable” students. Even though the aim of learning English is clarified as using the language for communicative purposes, it is not unusual to find learners‟ reluctance to “enter L2 communication situations even if they possess a high level of communication competence” (Dörnyei, 2005). At the English Department, University of Languages and International Studies, the unwillingness, especially among the first year students, who have just entered a new environment with new teachers and new peers, is the most noticeable. Therefore, the matters of whether learners are willing to communicate in English in designed speaking activities and what factors influence their eagerness are necessarily taken into consideration.
However, among the speaking activities in class, the researcher takes a special interest in group discussion, which involves the participation of students in the 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com negotiation of meaning. From four years of experience and observation as students at the English Department, HULIS, VNU, the researcher reckons that willingness to communicate in English among first year students, which can be influenced positively or negatively by various factors, obliviously affects their success in achieving communicative competence in the next school years. In addition, during two years working as an English teacher at USSH, the researcher witnesses a considerable reservation of students to speak English in English lessons, which is more serious with first year students. More importantly, students‟ unwillingness to use the target language have been concerning the researcher and triggered an ambition to find out the demotivators in the students‟ unwillingness.
All the matters stated above and all the conditions have offered the researcher an opportunity to conduct a study on “Perception of first-year students at University of Social Sciences and Humanity (USSH), Vietnam National University (VNU) about their willingness to communicate in English in speaking activities”. It is a serious investigation into the viewpoint of first- year students about their own situation with the focus on their willingness to communicate in L2 in speaking class. Henceforth, based on the findings of the research, effective ways to promote their eagerness to use English in class are hopefully proposed. Aims and objectives of the study First of all, the case study is conducted for the purpose of discovering levels of willingness to communicate in English in classroom activities as evaluated by participants who are first year students at University of Social Sciences & Humanities (USSH), VNU.
Subsequently, factors that affect their eagerness to 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com communicate in English from their point of view are detected. Those findings are bases to help the researcher make a detailed exploration of methods to promote the students‟ willingness to communicate in English possible. In brief, the current study was expected to shed some light on the answers to the following questions: 1) To what extent are first year students at USSH willing to communicate in English in speaking activities? 2) According to the students, what factors influence their willingness to communicate in English in speaking activities? 3. Scope of the study Firstly, the study is going to be conducted to investigate three cases with an express purpose of taking an insight into those cases to get specific contextual data.
Three cases are examined to assure the continuation of the research in case any of the selected cases is disrupted. The chosen samples of the study are first-year students because the first year is an important period for them to be in a new study environment with new peers and teachers, especially with many changes in teaching and learning approaches. The significant changes are easily found in speaking activities because they are likely to be rarely conducted in Vietnamese high schools. Moreover, within the scope of this research, all the participants are deliberately chosen from mainstream classes, who underwent the same competence assessment and had the same curriculum.
Also, it is noteworthy that the study is going to explore the issue from the self-assessment of participants about their readiness and eagerness in speaking activities. An overview of the rest of the paper 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The rest of the paper comprise of five chapters as follows: Chapter 2 – Literature review – presents the background of the study, including definitions of key terms and discussions of related studies. Chapter 3 – Methodology – describes the participants and instruments of the study, and the procedure employed to carry out the research. Chapter 4 – Data analysis and discussion – presents, analyzes and discusses the findings that the researcher found out from the data collected according to the three research questions.
Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summarizes the main findings discussed in the paper and recommendations to solve the found problems, the limitations of the research, and some suggestions for further studies. This chapter is followed by the Reference and Appendices. 6 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Definition of key terms 1.
Willingness to communicate According to McCroskey and Baker (1987), Willingness to communicate (WTC) can be considered as the probability of students‟ engaging in communication when they are free to do so. McCroskey (1997) redefined WTC as “an individual‟s predisposition to initiate communication with others”. Willingness to communicate in foreign language acquisition 1. Definition To begin with, Wikipedia defines willingness to communicate (WTC) as follows: “Willingness to communicate (WTC) refers to the idea that language students (language learners) who are willing to communicate in the second language (L2) actually look for chances to communicate; and furthermore, these learners actually do communicate in the L2.
Therefore, "the ultimate goal of the learning process should be to engender in language education students" WTC of language learners can be understood as their willingness to seek chances to talk in that language. This definition describes the active role of language learners in their learning process. 7 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com WTC is also defined as “a readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons using an L2” (MacIntyre et all, 1998, cited in Kyesuk Song). In comparison with the first one, this definition does not show the activeness of students in looking for chances to communicate in L2.
However, the researcher prefers this one to the others as it actually describes the position of readiness to speak in L2 at a specific time and with a particular person. In the researched context in USSH, willingness to communicate is the position of readiness to speak English at a specific time and with a particular person. Roles of willingness to communicate in foreign language acquisition Schmidt (1992; cited in Song, 2008) claims that: “The greater degree of willingness to communicate creates more opportunities to interact in English. Learners will therefore have more opportunity to practice their speaking skills, which in turn will enhance their oral fluency.
Practice helps improve speaking rate, thus increasing learner confidence to engage in further interaction. The more opportunity for meaningful practice, the more opportunity learners have to transfer important language rules into their conversations” As students are more engaged in speaking in class, they are more likely to improve their speaking fluency and speaking speed and this will entail more self-confidence in communicating in the target language. In short, it can be said that WTC helps put theory into practice, therefore, helps boost students‟ language acquisition. Factors influencing willingness to communicate 8 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The factors influencing WTC seems to have attracted great interest among linguists and psychologists.