VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT ------------------------------- HỒ THỊ ÁNH FACTORS INFLUENCING FIRST-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT ACADEMY OF POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT- SOME POSSIBLE TECHNIQUES TO OVERCOME THE PROBLEMS (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY NÊN SỰ LO LẮNG TRONG GIỜ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT Ở HỌC VIỆN CHÍNH SÁCH VÀ PHÁT TRIỂN: MỘT SỐ THỦ THUẬT KHẮC PHỤC) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 6014.0111 Hanoi, 2013 z VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-GRADUATE DEPARTMENT ------------------------------- HỒ THỊ ÁNH FACTORS INFLUENCING FIRST-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN SPEAKING CLASSES AT ACADEMY OF POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT- SOME POSSIBLE TECHNIQUES TO OVERCOME THE PROBLEMS (NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY NÊN SỰ LO LẮNG TRONG GIỜ HỌC KỸ NĂNG NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT Ở HỌC VIỆN CHÍNH SÁCH VÀ PHÁT TRIỂN: MỘT SỐ THỦ THUẬT KHẮC PHỤC) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Methodology Code: 6014.0111 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh, Ph.D Hanoi, 2013 z DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is entirely my own work. I have provided fully documented references to the work of others. The material in this thesis has not been submitted for assessment in any other formal course of study. Hanoi, September 2013 Signature Hồ Thị Ánh i z ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to show my sincere appreciation to many people who supported me to complete this present study.
Firstly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my respectful supervisor, Ph. Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Quỳnh, who provided me with a lot of professional advice on the thesis writing. I am really grateful to her kind consideration, tender guidance, critical feedback and insightful suggestions. Without her care, I could not have been able to finish this study.
Secondly, I am also grateful to all the lecturers of the Post-Graduate Department of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University Hanoi for their valuable teaching and assistance during my course. Thirdly, I would also like to acknowledge my gratefulness to the participants of this study: the first – year students at Academy of Policy and Development. Without their willingness to complete the questionnaires and participate in the interviews, this study could not have been conducted. Finally, I wish to express my deep thanks to my dear family, especially my older sister for their love, encouragement, immeasurable support and concrete help for me to complete this research.
ii z ABSTRACT Feeling anxiety, apprehension are common phenomena experienced by foreign language learners, especially in learning to speak a foreign language. These negative feelings are blamed to exert detrimental effect on communication in the target language. This current research, therefore, was conducted with the aim to investigate main factors of speaking anxiety phenomenon in the first year students at Academy of Policy and Development (APD). The study involved 50 students from 5 first-year classes at APD.
Through the use of quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) methods as research instruments and six sources of language anxiety as theoretical guideline for data collection and analysis, major findings were drawn. First, the speaking anxiety tendency of the students surveyed was obvious. Second, some factors believed to contribute to students‟ anxiety were also identified, among which the personal and interpersonal anxieties seemed to be most highly regarded by the students. Several pedagogical strategies of these findings were offered to assist instructors in helping learners acknowledge, cope with, and reduce anxiety, as well as to encourage them to make the learning context less stressful to their students.
iii z TABLE OF CONTENT INTRODUCTION. AIMS OF THE STUDY. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. METHODS OF THE STUDY.
DESIGN OF THE STUDY. 3 CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF ANXIETY. Definition of anxiety.
Types of anxiety. Foreign language anxiety. Effect of anxiety on Foreign Language Learning. Sources of foreign language anxiety.
Anxiety management strategies:. Definition of speaking. Roles of speaking in language teaching and learning. 14 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY.
Data collection procedure. 18 CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS .