VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ----- ----- VŨ THỊ THỮ FACTORS DEMOTIVATING ELECTRONICS-MAJOR STUDENTS TO LEARN ESP AT SAO DO UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY NÊN SỰ MẤT HỨNG THÚ ĐỐI VỚI SINH VIÊN NGÀNH ĐIỆN TỬ TRONG GIỜ HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SAO ĐỎ M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. 10 Hanoi – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ----- ----- VŨ THỊ THỮ FACTORS DEMOTIVATING ELECTRONICS-MAJOR STUDENTS TO LEARN ESP AT SAO DO UNIVERSITY NGHIÊN CỨU CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY NÊN SỰ MẤT HỨNG THÚ ĐỐI VỚI SINH VIÊN NGÀNH ĐIỆN TỬ TRONG GIỜ HỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH Ở TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SAO ĐỎ M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.
Tô Thị Thu Hương Hanoi – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT Declaration. iii Table of content. iv List of abbreviations .vii List of tables. viii PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Aims of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Method of the study.
Organization of the study. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Conceptions of motivation. Classification of motivation in language teaching – learning.
Conceptions of demotivation. Student demotivating factors in foreign language teaching – learning. Student-related factors. Teacher-related factors.
Teaching and learning conditions. Related issues of ESP. Definitions of ESP. 11 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Classification of ESP. Overview of study on demotivation. 17 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .0 Research questions and design. Setting of the study.
Questionnaire for students. Interview for students. Interview for teachers. 25 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.
Data analysis of students’ survey questionnaire and interview for students. Personal information of the students taking part in the survey. Student-related demotivating factors. Teacher-related demotivating factors.
Teaching and learning conditions. The course book. Solutions to help students overcome their demotivation. Data analysis of the interview for teachers.
Discussions of findings on factors that demotivate students to study ESP at SDU. Student-related factors. 36 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Teacher-related factors.
The course book. The teachers’ perception of the demotivators in ESP classes. Limitations of the study. Directions for further research.
XVII vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESP: English for Specific Purposes EOP: English for Occupational Purposes GE: General English L2: Second Language SDU: Sao Do University TEFL: Teaching English as a Foreign Language vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Students’ profiles (Total number of students: 89) 26 Table 2: Student-related demotivating factors 27 Table 3: Teacher-related demotivating factors 29 Table 4: Teaching and learning conditions 30 Table 5: The course book 31 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Motivation is one of the crucial learner factors affecting foreign language teaching - learning and therefore has been abundantly explored in the field of English as a Foreign Language teaching and learning. Many researchers have also examined motivation and its negative side, demotivation in teaching and learning general English in universities. However, few researchers have directed their attention to demotivation students tend to carry in the course of learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP) although English continues to dominate as the lingua franca of business, technology, medicine, media, education and research.
As a result, the demand of ESP is growing rapidly in many countries including Vietnam which has become a member of WTO and has witnessed unprecedented growth in communications with other countries. In response to the great demand of English in academic, vocational and professional contexts, more and more universities in Vietnam are offering ESP courses to meet the global trend as well as to meet students’ future career needs. Sao Do University is not an exception. All students at Sao Do University must pass examinations in ESP to graduate, but many are failing to study it successfully.
Based on my experience of teaching ESP, English for Electronics, for 3 years, I have found that many Electronics-major students do not seem ever to have developed any interest in learning ESP or if they have, they seem to have lost that interest for some reasons, that is, they have become demotivated in ESP classes. In both cases, their achievement in ESP classes has been negatively affected. For this reason, I decided to study factors demotivating the Electronics-major students in ESP classes at Sao Do University, so that effective solutions can be found to help my students get better results in learning ESP. Aims of the study The study was carried out with an aim to help my students get better results in learning ESP.
It, therefore, was designed to meet the following objectives: 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - to identify factors that demotivate Electronics-major students in ESP classes at Sao Do University. - to give suggestions and recommendations to ESP teachers/students at Sao Do University, on the basis of the findings, for even better ESP teaching - learning. Research questions In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the following research questions were asked in the study: Question 1: What are the factors that demotivate Electronics-major students in ESP classes at Sao Do University? Question 2: What should be done to minimize these factors and help students overcome their demotivation? 4. Significance of the study The study is the first investigation of demotivators in learning English for Electronics at Sao Do University.
The proposed study provides students, of English for Electronics in particular, at Sao Do University with solutions to overcome their demotivation in ESP classes. In addition, the proposed study will help ESP teachers at Sao Do University to have a deeper understanding of their students in ESP classes. Thus, they will be able to make suitable changes and adjustments in their teaching English for Electronics to motivate their students for even better results. The proposed study will benefit and help future researchers specializing in ESP and motivation with meaningful insights from the findings.
Scope of the study The study is limited in scope of finding out factors that demotivate the Electronics-major students in ESP classes at Sao Do University. The subjects chosen for this study were 89 Electronic-major students at Sao Do University who have just finished ESP. Thus, it cannot be said that the results of this study are generalized to the demotivation of other non-English-major students in ESP classes at Sao Do University as well as in other universities in Vietnam. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Method of the study The study used mixed methods for data collection and analysis. Survey questionnaire for students and semi-structured interviews were used. The questionnaire for students and semi- structured interviews were used to get students’ opinions on their demotivation factors in learning ESP. Semi-structured interviews for teachers were also used to find out their ideas about factors demotivating their students in ESP classes.
Organization of the study The study consists of three parts. Part A, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, aim of the study, significance of the study, scoG55 pe of the study, method of the study and organization of the study. Part B, DEVELOPMENT, includes three main chapters: Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents theoretical background on motivation, and demotivation in language learning. The main issues related to ESP are also presented in this chapter.
Chapter 2, RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, presents the methodology used in the study. Chapter 3, RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS, gives a detailed presentation of data and detailed description of data analysis. The implications of the study are also given in this chapter. Part C, CONCLUSION, is a review of the study.
Furthermore, this part also points out the limitations of the study and provides some directions for further studies. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Conceptions of motivation It is strongly believed that motivation plays a critical role in academic learning in general and in specific it is true of the “sustained process of mastering an L2” (Dornyei, 2005, p. Motivation, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is “…the reason why somebody does something or behaves in a particular way”.
Dornyei (2001:613) defined motivation as “a general ways of referring to the antecedents i. the causes and the origins”. He also stated that “motivation explains why people decide to do something, how hard they are going to pursue it and how long they are willing to sustain the activities” (2001:7). Motivation related to learning English, could be then defined as the purpose for doing things that will lead to learning a foreign language.
According to Gardner (1985), to be motivated, the learner needs to have something to look forward to, a purpose related to goal or objective. This objective would be learning a foreign language. There must be something that the learner wishes to accomplish or gain, being the target language the vehicle to attain it. The learner’s reasons for another language could vary from achieving a sense of success, fulfill other’s expectations or being able to buy a new car through getting a better job due to command of the target language.
From the above, it can be deduced that motivation is the way learners set up goals and spend effort to pursue them. Classification of motivation in language teaching – learning In terms of motivation types, different researchers give out different reasons why people learn a language, therefore, there different kinds of motivation for language learning. However, motivation is often classified as intrinsic or extrinsic. The first kind is when something external and independent of the activity is what 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com provides a sense fulfillment; the second one is when the activity per se is what gives a sense of accomplishment.
Deci and Ryan (1985) consider these two types of motivation, although they do not consider them as opposites, but as part of a continuum which goes from motivation to external compliance to Self-commitment. They also proposed that intrinsic motivation emerged from three psychological needs: need for competence (being able to do things), need for autonomy (making his/her own choices) and need for relatedness (connecting with others). There are other ways to classify motivation; Gardner (1985) proposed that it is necessary to understand the learner’s goal for learning a language in order to understand what motivates them. He proposes two orientations for learning a language: integrative and instrumental.
The first one refers to having an interest not only in the language, but also in the community who speaks the language, a desire to assimilate the culture as well as the language. It involves being open and respectful to other groups, lifestyles, ideas, etc., and the possibility of identification with another culture (Dornyei, 2003). Instrumental motivation, on the other hand, refers to the desire of learning the language to use it as a toll to obtain non interpersonal purposes such as passing an exam, obtaining a job, etc. Conceptions of demotivation According to Dornyei (2001a), demotivation is defined as “specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action” (p.
Thus demotivation could be regarded as the negative counterpart of motivation. However, researchers do not all agree that demotivation is solely external. Many researchers included not only external factors but also internal factors such as lack of self-confidence and negative attitude within learners themselves. Despite his definition of demotivation, even Dornyei listed reduced self-confidence and negative attitude toward the foreign language as sources of demotivation (Dornyei, 2001a).