THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES NGUYEN LINH CHI FACTORS INFLUENCING 10th GRADE STUDENTS’ WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE IN ENGLISH CLASSROOM AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCE MASTER THESIS THAI NGUYEN, SEPTEMBER 2023 ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƯ PHẠM –––––––––––––––– NGUYỄN LINH CHI NHỮNG YẾU TỐ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN SỰ TỰ GIÁC GIAO TIẾP BẰNG TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG Ở BẮC NINH Ngành: LL & PP dạy học bộ môn Tiếng Anh Mã số: 8140111 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ Cán bộ hướng dẫn: TS. Nguyễn Quỳnh Trang THÁI NGUYÊN - 2023 DECLARATION BY AUTHOR I hereby declare that this graduation project is based on my own original work except for quotations and citation that have been duly acknowledged. I also declare that it has not been previously submitted for any other courses/degrees at Thai Nguyen University or other institutions. Thai Nguyen, September 2023 Student Nguyen Linh Chi i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completion of my thesis, I have received generous advice and a great deal of support from several people.
First of all, I would like to express my appreciation and deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Quynh Trang who provided me with valuable advice from my first few days in the course and through the duration of my thesis to completion. I also wish to thank all my teachers at the Thai Nguyen University for supporting me with a lot of knowledge and giving me the best environment to fulfill my thesis. I really wish to express my thanks to teachers and students from Yen Phong 2 High school for their kind cooperation, their participation in giving valuable information, which considerably contributed to the completion of my work. Finally, I owe my deep thanks to my dear family for their endless love, material and spiritual support throughout this research who always stand for me with their consideration and encouragement.
ii ABSTRACT The study intended to analyze the degree of influence of the elements on students' willingness to speak in English classroom and recommended some practical application to improve learners' communication abilities. To meet the purpose, the study adopted Quantitative research and Qualitative research and research design with the participants of 150 students from three classes 10A3, 10A4 and 10A13 at Bac Ninh High School. A questionnaire and interviews were the two main sources to collect data for the analysis. The research revealed: 1.
Willingness to communicate (WTC) of students was impacted by Subjective elements such as: Personality, Motivation, Confidence, Anxiety, Prepation, Mood; and Objective factors such as: Activity, Relationship with communicators, Classroom atmosphere, Topic. The most affects on students' WTC, which were Confidence, Personality, Relationships with communicators, and Classroom atmosphere. The least influential factors included Topic and Mood. The results also enabled the educational administration to grasp and understand the current condition and the key elements affecting students' voluntary communication in class, from which they came up with matching remedies to improve their efficacy in teaching and learning outcomes.
Furthermore, these research outcomes were imparted for other investigations as helpful reference to incorporated in their own articles. iii TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION BY AUTHOR. iii TABLE OF CONTENT .v LIST OF TABLES. vi LIST OF FIGURES.
vii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION. Background of the study. Aims and objectives of the study. The scope of the study.
The significance of the study. Structure of this study .6 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Willingness to communicate. Factors affecting willingness to communicate (WTC).
The current state in vietnam research. Ways of teaching and learning WTC. Identification and gaps .21 Chapter 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Locale of the study.
Research question restage. Respondents and sampling procedure. Data collecting procedure .31 Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Realities of WTC among 10th grade students.
Factors affecting the WTC of 10th grade students. Relationship with the object of communication. Answering research questions. First research question.
Second research question .58 v Chapter 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Some suggested solutions. Encourage active engagement from students in classcommunication and help them develop their self-confidence. Building a cordial and secure communication environment, minimizing students' apprehension when participating .67 APPENDIX vi ABBREVIATIONS ANX Anxiety AT Attitude CA Class atmosphere CAG Correction and grading EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis EFL English as a Foreign Language ELLE English Language Learning Experience ELT English Language Teaching EM Embarrassment HOT higher-order thinking IRF “I” stands for a start move, “R” response from the students, “F” feedback from the teacher KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure L1 Native language L2 Second language LSC Linguistic Self-Confidence M Mood MOTV Motivation PE Personality PR Preparedness PSS Perceived speaking skills QR code Quick response code RWI Relationship with the interlocutor SC Self-confidence SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Ss Social influence STU Students T Topic TT Task type WTC Willingness to communicate WTCE Willingness to Communicate in English v LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Participation rate in surveys .2: The Cronbach Alpha index .3: KMO and Bartlett's Test .4: Total Variance Explained .5: Code table of factors affecting students' WTC .1: WTC Descriptive Statistics .4: SC Descriptive Statistics .5: PSS Descriptive Statistics.6: PR Descriptive Statistics .8: EM Descriptive Statistics .10: RWI Descriptive Statistics .11: TT Descriptive Statistics .12: CA Descriptive Statistics .14: WTC and RWI Correlations .15: WTC and RWI ANOVAa .16: WTC and CA Correlations .17: WTC and CA ANOVAa .18: WTC, TT Correlations and ANOVAa .19: WTC and TT ANOVAa .20: WTC and PSS, PR Correlations .21: WTC and SC, PE, EM Correlations .22: WTC and PSS, PE, SC, PR, EM ANOVAa .23: WTC and CAG Correlations .24: WTC and CAG ANOVAa .25: WTC and T, M Correlations .26: WTC and T, M ANOVAa .56 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: MacIntyre’s model of WTC (1994) .2: MacIntyre and Charos’s model of L2 WTC (1994) .3: MacIntyre et al.’s model of WTC (1998) .4: MacIntyre et al.’s model of WTC (2001) .5: Zawar’s model of WTC (2016) .6: Ahmad et al.’s model of WTC (2020) .7: Alimorad and Farahmand ’s model of WTC (2021) .1: Factors influencing WTC model 1.2: Factors influencing WTC model 2.
3: Results of voting for the most influential factor .58 vii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION The aim of this chapter is to explain the necessities of the matter concerned, which is constructed to provide the context of the research by giving rationale, aims, research questions, the significance of the study, scope of the study, and the organization of the study. Background of the study Learning any language needs mastery of two aspects. The first is linguistic knowledge, such as phonetics, grammar, and syntax and the second one is communication skills, which are the ability to use foreign languages to interact with others smoothly. McCroskey and Baer in 1985 described “willingness to communicate (WTC)” as "the inclination to actively interact with people under particular situations" (as cited in MacIntyre & Charos, 1996, p.
MacIntyre et al. (1998) converted “willingness to communicate (WTC)” into the second language. Then, Willingness to communicate (WTC) is defined as “a learner’s readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons using a second language (L2)” (p. In recent years, teachers have been paying increasingly greater attention to the "student- centered" tendency in the period of innovative thinking and instructional techniques.
Promoting students' willingness to communicate is crucial for improving their English communication abilities. Students' communication expression and communication process are directly affected by their willingness to communicate. English continues to be the language of preference in Vietnam, despite a number of foreign languages starting to become increasingly popular recently. English is a subject that lasts from elementary to high school.
Even in undergraduate degrees, it is often a mandatory foreign language or a second language for most subjects (Doan et al. Particularly, according to the orientation of the Ministry of Education in the project "Teaching and learning foreign languages in the national education system in the period of 2017–2025", the main goal is to "improve the ability to use foreign languages to meet the needs of demand for study and work" (Decision No. This demonstrates that the matter of enhancing students' English communication abilities is the one that has been considered so far. As mentioned, the ultimate and most crucial aim of learning English is communication.
Fostering and enhancing students' English communication capacity is an essential responsibility of the English subject in particular and the foreign language education program at all levels in general. In which, the main objective is to provide students additional chances to speak in English. But in the course of training, the researcher discovered that most students' capacity to speak in English is still inadequate. Students pay little attention to spoken language because of the long- standing effect of the structure and format of the written test.
The majority of students are still highly apathetic and too lazy to engage in communication activities in class. The researcher said: "Why do students have such limited self-communication?" What things impact it, and how? These are serious concerns that need to be explored and explained. Therefore, via this research, the researcher wishes to explore and explain what elements impact students' initiative to communicate in English. In order to assist students to develop their communication initiative, there is a need to enhance their English communication competence as well.
Bac Ninh is a province with the smallest area in Vietnam, near the Red River Delta. As a land with a rich cultural tradition, it is also notable for the tradition of the land of cultural science. During recent years, Yen Phong district, along with the growth of industrial zones, has progressively grown from a purely rural countryside to a diverse area of industry. Accompanying economic development, spiritual-educational values have always been a strong point of Bac Ninh.
According to statistics, in the National Graduation exam in 2022, Bac Ninh province has 6 courses with average scores in the top 10 highest provinces nationwide, among which English has an average score of 5. Regarding the high school level, Yen Phong district has two high schools; one private high school and a continuing education center. The district educates and supports around 6,000 pupils annually, significantly advancing the nation's talent development. 2 According to my personal experience as a researcher who was born and raised in Yen Phong, had a local education, and is also an English teacher at a local high school, a large number of students are difficult to describe their daily activities in English fluently, and based on what students have demonstrated in their oral performance classes and their results in their speaking tests.
Their abilities of mastering communication skills are normally highly complained by the teachers not just about pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar accuracy but their willingness to communicative as well. To deal with this challenge, language teachers need to find out factors that affecting students’ willingness to communicate in English then find out the suitable approaches to encourage them to speak in English classroom with an highly emphasis on communicative purposes in real world settings, rather than completely focus on grammatical accuracy as in traditional teaching. Aims and objectives of the study The current study contributes an extensive view to the growing concern about which factors influence students’ communication willingness in English. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to examine the degree of influence of those factors on students’ willingness to communicate in English classroom and propose some practical implementation to improve learners’ communication skills.
The two major purposes of this study are stated as follows: 1. Aims This study aims - To find out the factors that affecting students’ communication willingness in English. - To improve 10th grade students' communication willingness in English classroom.