VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ HỒNG LOAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACTS OF ADAPTED SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN THE ENGLISH 11 TEXTBOOK ON STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION. A STUDY AT BINH LUC B HIGH SCHOOL (Nghiªn cøu ¶nh h-ëng cña c¸c ho¹t ®éng nãi ®-îc ®iÒu chØnh trong s¸ch gi¸o khoa TiÕng Anh líp 11 tíi ®éng lùc häc tËp cña häc sinh. Mét nghiªn cøu t¹i tr-êng THPT B B×nh Lôc) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHẠM THỊ HỒNG LOAN AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACTS OF ADAPTED SPEAKING ACTIVITIES IN THE ENGLISH 11 TEXTBOOK ON STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION.
A STUDY AT BINH LUC B HIGH SCHOOL (Nghiªn cøu ¶nh h-ëng cña c¸c ho¹t ®éng nãi ®-îc ®iÒu chØnh trong s¸ch gi¸o khoa TiÕng Anh líp 11 tíi ®éng lùc häc tËp cña häc sinh. Mét nghiªn cøu t¹i tr-êng THPT B B×nh Lôc) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Prof. NguyÔn Hßa HANOI - 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************* DECLARATION I, Ph¹m ThÞ Hång Loan, hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, and I have provided fully documented references to the work of others.
In addition, this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in other formal courses in any other university. I also accept all the requirements of ULIS relating to the retention and use of M.A Graduation Thesis deposited in the library. Hanoi, March, 2016 Signature Ph¹m ThÞ Hång Loan i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Nguyen Hoa, for the support, guidance and valuable critical feedback. His help, stimulating suggestion and encouragement helped me a lot right from the beginning to the end of this study.
I would like acknowledge my thanks to the students at Binh Luc B High School in Ha Nam who helped me a lot and showed great willingness to take part in my survey. My special thanks also go to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates for valuable comments and criticism, their interest and encouragement. Last but not least, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my parents and friends for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study investigates the impacts of adapted speaking activities in the English 11 Textbook on students’ motivation at Binh Luc B High School in Ha Nam province.
An action research project was carried out for this study. It began when the students‟ low motivation in speaking lessons was perceived during the first three weeks of the case study by the researcher, students and other colleagues. In this initial stage, data collection showed that the unsuitability of the speaking activities in English 11 for the students is the main reason causing the students‟ low motivation. Therefore, the hypothesis of the study formed was that the adapted speaking activities could help increase the students’ motivation in speaking lessons.
Then, original speaking activities in English 11 were adapted and implemented in the speaking lessons. The adapting of the original speaking activities was based on the principles and techniques for adaptation. The participants included 40 grade 11 students from class 11A2 at Binh Luc B High School in the school year 2015-2016. The action research lasted for 14 weeks in which the original activities and the adapted speaking activities were used in the different periods.
The data were collected from the main instruments including survey questionnaires, observations and textbook analysis. The results show that despite some shortcomings, all the adapted speaking activities helped increase the students‟ motivation in speaking lessons and the action plan was successful after comparing the post and initial data. Based on the findings of the study, some recommendations and limitations were made along with suggestions for further study. It is hoped that the findings and suggestions in the research will help teachers use English 11 textbook more effectively in order to improve students‟ motivation in speaking lessons.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I: INTRODUCTION. Rationale for the study. Research aims of the study. Research questions of the study.
Significance of the study. Research scope of the study. Research methods of the study. Design of the study.
4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. Theoretical background of motivation in language learning. Definition of motivation. Types of motivation.
Factors affecting motivation. Role of motivation in language learning. Motivating students in classroom activities. Theoretical background of speaking skill.
Speaking as a skill in language learning. The speaking needs of students. Communicative Language Teaching. Principles for teaching speaking.
Features of speaking activities. Ways of organizing activities: Pair and Group work. 11 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Theoretical background of material adaption.
Definition of material adaption. Reasons for material adaption. Principles for material adaption. Techniques for material adaption.
The case of the study. Context of the study. The teacher/researcher. The non-participant observer.
Speaking materials_English Textbook. Research method of the study. An overview of action research. Action research models.
Procedure for this study. Data collection instruments. Rationale of the use of questionnaire survey. Description of survey questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1).
Description of survey questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2). Rationale of the use of classroom observation. Description of the observation sheets (Appendixes 3, 4). 27 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
The rationale of the use of textbook analysis. Description of textbook analysis. 28 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Results of initial data .1 The result of overall class motivation (observation sheet 1).
The result of survey questionnaire 1. Students‟ opinions about speaking lessons and activities in English 11 1. Students‟ preferences for speaking activities. The result of document analysis.
Planning action steps. Results of data collection in the action stage. The results of overall class motivation (observation sheet 2). The results of survey questionnaire 2 (Students’ self-reported motivation)46 4.
Action research evaluation. Overall class motivation before and after the action plan. Summary of major findings and discussion. 48 PART III: CONCLUSION.
Limitations and suggestions for further study. 54 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATION TERMS AR Action research BAs Bachelor of Arts BLBHS Binh Luc B High School EFL English as a foreign language ESL English as a Second Language GCSE General Certificate of Secondary Education L2 Second language ULIS University of Languages and International Studies vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS Table 1. Overall class motivation (Observation sheet 1) Table 2. Speaking activity analysis in English textbook 11 Table 3.
Overall class motivation (Observation sheet 2) Table 4. Students‟ self-reported motivation (Survey questionnaire 2) Graph 1: Percentage of lessons‟ overall class motivation viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Like at other high schools in Vietnam, at BLBHS English is one of the most important subjects and is a compulsory subject. Students learn three periods of English every week and the textbooks are the series of the brand new English textbooks which are developed from a theme-based syllabus by a group of authors: Hoang Van Van, Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, Do Tuan Minh, Nguyen Thu Phuong and Nguyen Quoc Tuan.
As well as the English10 and 12, the English textbook 11 in the series follows two current approaches: the learner-centered and communicative language teaching. All the activities in this book, especially in the speaking lessons are designed to help students improve their grammatical structures and especially communicative competence. However, the issue concerned is how to motivate the students in speaking lessons when using this textbook to improve their speaking ability as its authors‟ expectation. Theoretically, motivation is interest in and enthusiasm; persistence with the learning task, as indicated by levels of attention or action for an extended duration; and levels of concentration and enjoyment (Crookes and Schmidt, 1991).
If the definition of above-mentioned motivation is used, there will be a sign of successful speaking lesson where all students are willing to take chance to initiate conversations. Moreover, according to Ur (1996), a successful speaking activity should acquire the following characteristics: learners talk a lot, participation is even, motivation is high, and language is of an acceptable level. However, this is not the case in BLBHS, no matter how hard the teachers have tried. In reality, at BLBHS, after applying this textbook, it is not difficult to realize that the effectiveness of speaking lessons seems not to be much improved as expected despite the good teaching conditions and teacher‟s attempts.
The problem that the researcher as well as most other teachers of English faced in the first weeks of the school year 2015-2016 was how to sustain students‟ genuine interest in speaking lessons. As observed in the researcher‟s class, the speaking lessons seemed to be boring, the students were quiet, each student had only little talking time, and while some students tried to speak, others spoke very little or even not at all during speaking lessons. Besides, many students appeared not 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com to be eager to participated and uninterested in speaking activities. In other words, the students are not motivated in the speaking lessons.
To get further information about the students‟ low motivation in speaking lessons at BLBHS, at the beginning lessons of the school year 2015-2016, the researcher had talked with somegrade-11 students about their speaking lessons. Most of them felt very tired of the activities in speaking sections of English 11. They said that the activities were inappropriate for their level of language, some prompts or models were difficult and impractical to their daily life. They also said that the speaking activities did not provide the students with enough necessary vocabulary, ideas and grammar structures to practice speaking.
Whereas some students said that they lacked confidence to speak in front of class. As a result, students are not motivated to participate in speaking lessons. Moreover, the previous studies have shown that teaching materials are one of the main factors affecting students‟ level of motivation. Indeed, with observing the speaking lessons, surveying students‟ ideas and analyzing the speaking sections, the unsuitability of the original speaking activities in English 11 did not motivate students to participate in speaking lessons.
Therefore, the research question formed was: To what extent can the adapted speaking activities help increase the students’ motivation in the speaking lessons? As a teacher, I would like to make a contribution to the English teaching in Vietnam. For the reasons above, this study was conducted, which focused on the students‟ motivation in speaking activities at BLBHS. Research aims of the study The main aim of this study is to improve students‟ motivation in speaking lessons at BLBHS by adapting speaking activities in speaking sections of the English 11. Furthermore, this study aims to help the students learn speaking skill in particular and learn English in general much more motivated.
Research questions of the study In order to improve students‟ motivation in speaking lessons at BLBHS, the research question is raised: “To what extent can the adapted speaking activities help increase the students’ motivation in the speaking lessons?” 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.