VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT LAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS AND SUPPORT ON THEIR CHILDREN’S LEARNING – ENGLISH MOTIVATION (Một nghiên cứu điều tra về tác động của sự mong đợi và hỗ trợ của cha mẹ đến động lực học Tiếng Anh của trẻ) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT LAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS AND SUPPORT ON THEIR CHILDREN’S LEARNING – ENGLISH MOTIVATION (Một nghiên cứu điều tra về tác động của sự mong đợi và hỗ trợ của cha mẹ đến động lực học Tiếng Anh của trẻ) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby declare that my thesis “AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS AND SUPPORT ON THEIR CHILDREN‟S LEARNING – ENGLISH MOTIVATION” submitted for the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University has been composed by myself, apart from the help recognized.
This paper has also not been submitted for any other degree or processional qualification except as specified. Hanoi, 2017 Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Lan i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to send my thanks to many individuals for their invaluable help during the conduct of the research. Without their help, the completion of this research project would not have been possible. First and foremost, I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to my supervisor, Prof.
Hoang Van Van for his remarkable supervision, enthusiastic guidance, invaluable support and critical feedback throughout the research. Besides my advisor, I wouldlike to thank all the Board and teachers from Doan Thi Diem – Ecopark private secondary school for their assistance in providing information and distributing questionnaires and interviews to parents and students at grade 8. Next, I wish to send my big thanks to the students at grade 8A and 8B and their parents for their cooperation and the valuable information they provided in my research questionnaire and interviews. Furthermore, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to my family and friends, especially my mother, for standing by me and for giving me their unconditional love, care, good assistance and patience.
Finally, my sincere thanks also go to graders and readers for their valuable evaluation and feedback on this thesis. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of expectations and support given by the parents on learning English motivation of grade 8 private school students. The purpose of this study was (a) to explore parental expectation and support to children‟s English learning, (b) to demonstrate the correlation between parental expectation and support and their children‟s English learning motivation. Survey questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection.
Further interviews to both parents and children were also conducted to find out the reasons for the results obtained from the questionnaire. The data regarding parental expectation and support, their influence on learning motivation was collected from a sample of 90 parents and their 90 students in 8th grade from Doan Thi Diem- Ecopark school in Hung Yen, Vietnam. After the analysis of data, it was concluded that most of parents are well aware of their role for their children‟s English learning. However, a noticeable thing is that parents do not directly join in their children‟s learning activities although their attitude is of responsible type.
Above all, the findings of the study revealed that parents‟ contribution to their children‟s education has a both positive and negative effect on learning motivation. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CONTENTS Declaration. iv Table of contents. vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
Aims & Research Questions .1 Aims of the study. Scope and significance .1 Scope of the study .2 Significance of the Study .Organization of the study. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Defining parental expectations.
Defining parental support. Defining children‟s learning-English motivation .1 Definitions of motivation .2 Types of motivation.3 The Importance of motivation in second language learning. Parental expectations and support and children‟s learning motivation. Method of the study.
Context of the study. Data collection instrument. 17 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection and analysis procedures.
20 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Short-term expectations .2 Long-term expectations .1 Learning processing investment .1 Material support from parents .2 Time support from parents .2 Learning processing management .1 The parental frequency of keeping in touch with school, English center and tutor .2 Rewards and punishments. The correlation between parental expectations and support and their children‟s learning-English motivation. 39 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS. X v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Table 1: Short-term expectations from parents.
22 Table 2: Long-term expectations from parents. 24 Chart 1: parental support by investing in extra learning. 26 Table 4: parental support by investing in learning equipment. 28 Table 5: Time support from parents.
31 Table 6: The parental frequency of keeping in touch with school, English center and tutor. 34 Table 7: Rewards and punishments from parents. 37 Table 8: The correlation between parental expectations and support and their children‟s learning-English motivation. 40 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale Education is essential for the development of society. The more educated the people of a society are, the more civilized and well disciplined the society might be. Mainly, family has responsibility to socialize children for making them productive members of society. The more the parents involve in the process of imparting education to their children, the more the children might excel in their academic career and to become the productive and responsible members of society.
It has been assumed that academic achievement of students may not only depend on the quality of schools and the teachers, rather the extent of parental involvement has vital role to play in academic achievement of their kids. The focus of this study is to examine a relationship (if any) between the extent of parental involvement in academic activities of their children and the level of their children‟s academic achievement. The transition from middle school to secondary school may be an overwhelming and stressful experience for young adolescents. Developmentally, students are entering a period in their lives when their physical, cognitive, psychological, and social characteristics are beginning to evolve.
Secondary school students experience both a contextual change and a personal change during this transition. It may often be a confusing time for students, their families, and the other adults in their lives who seek to support their healthy development and learning. The secondary school learning environment may be more complex than elementary school and academic achievement expectations increase. Children are more likely to have higher academic achievement levels and improved behavior when families are involved in their education (Bryan, 2005).
Learning begins at home through interaction with one‟s family. Parental involvement in a child‟s education along with environmental and economic factors may affect child development in areas such as cognition, language, and social skills. Numerous studies in this area have demonstrated the importance of family interaction and involvement in the years prior to entering 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research findings have also shown that a continued effort of parental involvement throughout the child‟s education can improve academic achievement (Driessen, Fan, 2001; Hong & Ho, 2005).
Academic failure has been linked with risk behaviors and negative outcomes such as; substance abuse, delinquency, and emotional and behavioral problems (Annunziata, Houge, Faw, & Liddle, 2006). There is little research available on the relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement of secondary school students. The majority of the research in this area has been conducted solely with elementary school students (Baily, Silvern, Brabham, & Ross, 2004). This study may provides an indepth look at one aspect of parental involvement, involvement in academic activities of their children, and academic achievement of secondary school students.
The non-stop development of the present society requires each family unit to involve in their children learning more than ever. Nonetheless, it is the busy life and financial burden that make parents always worried about how to ensure their families‟ living standards. As a result, they do have less time to keep continual contact with school and teachers to follow or manage their children‟s learning. This time limitation is also the reason why mothers and fathers cannot directly instruct or remind their kids during their learning process.
It is something of a paradox that parents often put high expectations into their children‟s education while they do not spend much time on guiding their children to learn. One of the popular alternatives which parents apply to compensate for this trend is financial support and investment and then completely entrust schools, learning centers or even for tutors to care their kids‟ learning without knowing whether or not their support is effective enough. Parental involvement in children‟s learning has been linked with academic achievement. Despite the fact that family is not the only factor affecting to students‟ learning environment, it plays one of the most decisive roles in children‟s learning process.
Although there is a lot of research to investigate the relationship between parental involvement and their children‟s learning motivation, as reviewed above, 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com little research has been done in the area of parental involvement and secondary school students in Vietnam. This research project sought to identify the different levels of parental expectations and support to their children‟s learning and how parental involvement affects learning motivation of secondary school students. Aims & Research Questions 2.1 Aims of the study This study was conducted to investigate the following issues: (1) the types of expectations parents have regarding their children‟s English learning, (2) the ways parents support their children to motivate them for their better academic achievements, (3) the impact of parental involvement (expectations and support) on their children learning motivation.2 Research questions Studying motivations and expectations in language learning from social- psychological perspectives is a well-established research theme in western ELT (e.g Gardner, 1985; Brophy, 1999; Dornyei, 2003, 2005). Researchers look for intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of learners of English as a second language, to understand their needs and reasons for studying the target language.
Expectations come from teachers, children themselves, peers, relatives, friends and their parents. High expectation may lead to higher achievement (Rubie-Davies et al. There are very few published research papers in Vietnam on the motivation and expectations of secondary school English learners and their parents. This leads to the three major research questions of this research project: 1.
What types of expectations do parents have regarding their children’s English learning? 2. How do parents support their children to motivate them for their better English learning? 3. What is the correlation between parental expectations and support and their children’s learning-English motivation? 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Scope and significance 3.1 Scope of the study Due to the time limitation, this study just focuses on a limited sample of 90 parents and their 90 children who are studying at a private secondary school in Hanoi.2 Significance of the Study The study hopes to: (1) bring awareness in the community about the role of parental involvement to their children‟s motivation towards English learning, (2) increase the interest of the students through parents‟ involvement in their English learning, (3)strengthen the relationship between school and parents for better academic performance of the students.