VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ HƢƠNG DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN SPEAKING LESSONS OF THE NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS YẾU TỒ GÂY MẤT HỨNG THÚ TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TẠI TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƢ PHẠM HÀ NỘI 2 VÀ HƢỚNG KHẮC PHỤC M. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi, 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ HƢƠNG DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN SPEAKING LESSONS OF THE NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY 2 AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS YẾU TỒ GÂY MẤT HỨNG THÚ TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN TẠI TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SƢ PHẠM HÀ NỘI 2 VÀ HƢỚNG KHẮC PHỤC M. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Assoc. Kiều Thị Thu Hƣơng Hanoi, 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com AUTHORSHIP DECLARATION I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and it contains no material previously been submitted and accepted for any degree in any university or other publishing purposes.
The thesis is my own work and based on my own research. Hanoi, December 2017 Signature Đỗ Thị Hƣơng i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Associate Professor Kieu Thi Thu Huong for her excellent supervision and careful guidance in the completion of this thesis. She has provided me with valuable experience and comments, which I always highly appreciate. My sincere thanks also go to my colleagues for their support, and students at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 for their cooperation in completing my survey questionnaire as well as attending the interview needed for this thesis paper.
Last but not least, my gratitude is extended to all members of my family for their love and continuant encouragement during the time I carried out this study. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This minor thesis aims at investigating some demotivating factors that non- English major students at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 have encountered in speaking lessons. The study involved 150 non-English major students from different faculties except for the ones whose major is English. For more accurate results, the researcher has also invited three English teachers to attend an interview.
Through the use of quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) methods as research instruments and the implementation of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software, the study has collected valuable data and drawn reliable conclusions. There are six main demotivating factors facing non-English major students at HPU2 in their speaking classes namely: students’ negative attitude toward language learning and speaking, teacher- related factors, facility-related factors, teaching materials, unfavorable classroom climate, and insufficient opportunities for speaking practice. Several pedagogical strategies of these findings have been offered to assist instructors in helping learners be aware of and successfully cope with these demotivating factors. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CONTENTS AUTHORSHIP DECLARATION.
iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. Rationale of the study. Significance of the study. Aims and objectives of the study.
Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study.4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Notions of speaking and teaching speaking skills.
Theories of teaching speaking skills. Characteristics of a successful speaking activity. Problems with teaching speaking. Motivation and demotivation.
Factors affecting students’ demotivation in learning speaking skills .8 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Factors related to learning attitudes. Factors related to teacher’s competence and performances. Factors related to facilities.
Factors related to teaching materials. Factors related to classroom climate. Factors related to speaking practice opportunities. Context of the study.
An overview of the research site. Description of the participants. Quantitative research approach. Qualitative research approach.
Quantitative data analysis. Qualitative data analysis .16 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Demotivating factors in speaking lessons of non-English majors at HPU2. Semi-structured interviews with students.
Semi-structured interviews with teachers .28 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Students’ negative attitude toward language learning and speaking. Teacher-related factors. Facility-related factors.
Unfavorable classroom climate. Insufficient opportunities for speaking practice. Summary of the study. Students’ positive attitudes toward speaking.
Various teaching methods. Sufficient teaching facilities. Good teaching materials. Warm classroom climate.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study. IX vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3.Demographic Information: Gender .2:Demographic Information: Years of studying English .17 Figure 1: Factors related to negative attitudes toward language learning and speaking .18 Figure 2: Factors related to teachers’ competence and performances .19 Figure 3: Factors related to facilities .20 Figure 4: Factors related to teaching materials .21 Figure 5: Factors related to classroom climate .21 Figure 6: Factors related to speaking practice opportunities .22 Figure 7: Possible solutions .24 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study The use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication.
As stated by John, Helen, and Paul (2015), five per cent of the world’s population speak English as their first language; but about one billion people (one in every seven people in the world) learn and use English as the second language. In a fully Integrated Age, a working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine, finance, entertainment, computing and education, etc. As a result, the ability to communicate in the world most popular second language has become the key to everyone’s success in their career. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons.
Accordingly, teaching English speaking skills is one of the most important tasks assigned to educators and learning speaking skills efficiently is becoming so demanding to students today. However, as written examinations are much more commonly found and oral examinations are rarely required to non-English majors, we have long been focusing on grammar in teaching pupils at schools. Learners are gradually hesitant to and anxious about speaking English even when they are not so bad at the written one. As a result, the goal of improving students’ proficiency in using English communicatively has not been fully achieved at lower levels, which puts up great barrier against effective teaching and learning spoken English language at universities and colleges.
In this complicated situation, the question of how to make it easier and possible for HPU2 non-English majors to master the vital skills of speaking is what my teaching now concerns. Identifying what are the major causes stands in need of accomplishing this task. This study, therefore, tries to figure out what are demotivating factors in speaking lessons of the non-English majors at HPU 2 and possible solutions. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Significance of the study The study is conducted under the circumstance that non-English major students at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 has been experiencing difficulties in learning English speaking skills. However, no previous study has been done to figure out what the causes and solutions are. Hence, It is of the vital importance that this study is done. Aims and objectives of the study This study aims at finding out demotivating factors in speaking lessons of the non-English major students at Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 (HPU2) and providing some possible solutions.
Following are the objectives of the study: To find out what demotivate non-English majors in learning English speaking skills at HPU2 To suggest necessary changes that should be made to avoid demotivation of the students in English speaking classes. Research questions There are some questions risen in this research: . What are the demotivations facing non-English majors in learning English speaking skills at HPU2. What changes should be made to seek to avoid demotivation of the students in English speaking classes.
Scope of the study This study only focuses on speaking skills in concerning factors that demotivate students’ participation in English speaking lessons, which involves 150 HPU2 non-English majors in their first academic year of 2016-2017. Methods of the study In this study, the combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods is employed. The former one is used with a survey questionnaire distributed to 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The latter one is used with a semi-structured interview with teachers and students.
Design of the study There are three parts included in this paper, namely, the introduction, the study and the conclusion. Part A is the the introduction presents the ratinale, aims and objectives, significance, research questions, scope and design of the study. Part B is the study which consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 is the literature review which is an evaluative brief report of information found in the literature related to demotivations in teaching speaking skills. Chapter 2 provides data collection and data analysis is the part in which description of the samples and physical setting is shown.
More importantly, it also demonstrates data analysis and the statistical results. Chapter 3 is the findings which addresses itself to demotivating factors facing non-Enlish major students at HPU2 in learing speaking skills and satisfactory answers to the questions risen in conducting this study. Part C is the conclusion which gives the gist of the study’s important issues and mentions some limitations as well as suggestions for further study. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B THE STUDY CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW Literature review 1.
Notions of speaking and teaching speaking skills 1. Speaking skills Speaking is described as an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information. Its form and meaning are dependent on the context in which it occurs, the participants, and the purposes of speaking (Burns & Joyce, 1997). According to Ladouse (in Nunan, 1991:23), speaking is the capability to express oneself in a particular context, or the activity to describe acts, or situations in precise words or the ability to give discourse on a sequence of ideas without hesitation.
According to Baker and Watsrup (2003), speaking skills is the use of language to serve communicational purposes. Chaney (1998) defines speaking skills as the process of building and communicating meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, under a variety of circumstances. In the whole, speaking is commonly to express our thoughts and feelings orally. Speaking skills can be seen as meaning-conveying techniques both verbally and non-verbally, which makes a contribution to successful communication.
39) states that the mastery of speaking skill is “the single most important aspect of learning a second language or foreign language, and success is measured in terms of ability to carry out a conversation in the language. Theories of teaching speaking skills Hughes makes an interesting methodological point that when discussing teaching speaking skills, it is necessary that one bare in mind the difference between teaching the spoken form of a language and teaching a language through speaking. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com She also stresses the fact that unfortunately, when compared to writing, the spoken form is under-researched and that this may be one of the causes of the hesitation of using the target language orally in a language learning class. Meanwhile, teachers are likely to show the preference for using stable written forms and genres in their lessons (Hughes 2011).
There are four things that students need to do when they learn a foreign language: be exposed to it, understand its meaning, understand its form (how it is constructed) and practice it (Harmer, 1998).