VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRẦN THỊ NGỌC MAI TEACHER-RELATED DEMOTIVES IN EFL SPEAKING CLASSES AT A VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY (Những yếu tố liên quan đến giáo viên làm giảm động lực thực hành nói Tiếng Anh của sinh viên tại một trường đại học ở Việt Nam) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 HANOI – 2018 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 TRẦN THỊ NGỌC MAI TEACHER-RELATED DEMOTIVES IN EFL SPEAKING CLASSES AT A VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY (Những yếu tố liên quan đến giáo viên làm giảm động lực thực hành nói Tiếng Anh của sinh viên tại một trường đại học ở Việt Nam) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231. Ngô Thu Hương Ngô Thu Hương HANOI – 2018 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Declaration I hereby certify the thesis entitled “Teacher-related demotives in EFL speaking classes at a Vietnamese university” as my own work in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Hanoi, August, 2018 Trần Thị Ngọc Mai i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Acknowledgements I have now made it to the last stage of my MA journey. During this interesting but at the same time challenging journey, I have been given continuous support of a number of people whom I would like to acknowledge here. First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Ngô Thu Hương. The insightful academic comments she gave me, her enthusiasm for my research, and more importantly, her patience were greatly appreciated.
Second, I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to the staff and students of the university where my research was conducted. The study would not be complete without their consent of participation. My special thanks also go to the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi National University. Without the knowledge I have learned from the intellectuals and the support of the staff in the Faculty, I could not have finished my MA journey.
And last but not least, my heartfelt thanks are towards my beloved family, especially to my Mom and Dad, my mother-in-law, my younger brother, and my husband for loving me, trusting me, supporting me unconditionally and accepting me as I am. Very importantly, my gratitude goes out to my little son and my daughter- to-be, who give me motivation and strength to become a better me. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Abstract The present research investigated teacher-related demotives in EFL speaking classes at a university in Vietnam. This mixed method study aimed at addressing four main objectives.
Specifically, quantitative method was used to examine the factors relating to teachers that demotivate students to learn English speaking skills from (1) students’ and (2) teachers’ perspectives; and (3) identify the similarities and differences in the two groups’ perceptions of such demotivators. semi-structured interview) was employed to further inform the quantitative results and to address the final research objective which was to (4) seek ways to assist students to overcome demotivation when learning English speaking skills. The quantitative findings revealed four factors relating to teachers including their traditional teaching methods, controlling communicative styles, the absence of valid testing and assessment; and insufficient English speaking competence as possible demotivators in EFL learners’ learning of speaking skills. Significantly, meaningful statistical differences were computed in the teachers and students’ perceptions of teaching methods and teachers’ communicative styles.
Specifically, the students highly blamed their demotivation in speaking classes for teachers’ controlling communicative styles, while the teachers ranked this demotivator the third. They instead believed that inappropriate pedagogy had the most destructive influence on EFL learners’ motivation to learn speaking skills. The qualitative findings generally supported the quantitative ones and unveiled several recommendations for teachers to assist EFL students to overcome demotivation to learn speaking skills, i. making speaking lessons more communicative and interactive; choosing speaking topics of students’ interests; providing constructive, informative feedbacks; being friendly, approachable and fair to students.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Table of contents Declaration .iii Table of contents. iv List of figures. vi List of tables. vi List of abbreviations.
vii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Statement of the problem. Aims and objectives. Significance of the study.
Scope of the study. 6 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. The concept of second/foreign language speaking skills. Knowledge areas of L2 speaking skills.
L2 speaking skills and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). Factors affecting the learning of English speaking skills. Demotivation and demotives in second/ foreign language learning. Definition of demotivation in second/ foreign language learning.
Demotives in second/foreign language learning. Demotivation in English speaking skills. Teacher-related demotives. 20 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.
The setting of the study. 27 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection instruments. Semi-structured interview.
Data collection procedures. Semi-structure interview. 38 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Summary of the key findings.
Limitations of the current research. Suggestions for further studies. XIII v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of figures Figure 1.1: Classification of demotives in English learning Figure 3.1: Mean score of four subtypes of teacher-related demotives reported by students and teachers Figure 3.2: Frequencies of students’ self-perceived English speaking skills List of tables Table 2. Outline of the Current Program of Research Table 2.2: Classification of the items in the questionnaire Table 2.3: Key interview questions description Table 3.1: Students’ Mean Levels, 95 % Confidence Interval of the Means, Standard Deviation Table 3.2: Teachers’ Mean Levels, 95 % Confidence Interval of the Means, Standard Deviation Table 3.3: Mean scores of demotivator subtypes between students and teachers, t-test and significant levels Table 3.4: Mean level of students’ self-perceived English speaking proficiency Table 3.5: Correlations between teacher-related demotive subtypes and self- perceived English speaking proficiency vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of abbreviations EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language L2 Second language MOET Ministry of Education and Training SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION This introductory part aims to state the research problem and rationale for the study.
It then outlines the objectives of this thesis, along with the research questions. This is followed by the reason why the research is significant. The scope of this research is then discussed. The last section specifies the organization of the paper.
Statement of the problem The English language, widely known as the global language, has become popular in Vietnam for some decades (Van, 2010). The language is considered by Vietnamese authorities as the most important foreign language at all national education levels, particularly in higher education as a result of globalization. It has been highlighted in the legal documents entitled ‘Teaching and learning foreign language in the national education system in the period of 2008–2020’ lately issued by the Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) that Vietnamese higher education should prepare a well-equipped labor force to work in a global economy (MoET, 2008). In other words, students need to acquire an English level proficient enough to communicate effectively in an international working environment.
Different from the expectation, research has indicated that a number of higher education learners, especially non- English major students, demonstrate poor levels of English proficiency (see Van, 2008; Do, 2012), which has concerned the researcher, also a lecturer teaching English in Vietnamese higher education. According to Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), the success or failure in second language acquisition (SLA) is determined by a range of factors including aptitude, intelligent and motivation. As motivation is acknowledged as one of the determining factors in mastering a second or foreign (L2) language, the fact that Vietnamese students are at rather low English proficiency, especially speaking skills, may be contributed by the fact that Vietnamese students have low motivation to learn the language (Huong, 2015). While a large body of research has confirmed that motivation has the great potential to enhance learners’ levels of second language proficiency (Dörnyei, 1998b; Gardner, 2010), few studies were conducted to examine how the “dark side” of 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com motivation (Dornyei & Ushioda, 2011) – demotivation, impacts L2 learning.
The significance of studies on demotivation lies in the detrimental influences of the phenomenon on the learning outcomes (Falout & Falout, 2005). According to Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), language-learning failure is a salient phenomenon and the study of its causes is often directly related to demotivation. Despite the fact that demotivating factors largely impact the learning outcomes, and are said to directly lead to learning failure, it is likely to be entirely or at least, partly neglected in language learning and teaching studies (Soureshjani & Riahipour, 2012). Moreover, among a scant body of research on demotivation so far, most of the studies generally investigated the phenomenon in L2 learning and teaching, instead of focusing on any particular aspects such as the learning and teaching of vocabulary, pronunciation, or four language skills.
Furthermore, while the existing literature found a wide range of factors demotivating L2 learners, for instance previous learning experiences, attitude towards the language, learning environment, curriculum, and the teachers, few attempts were made to dig into an individual source of demotivation. As such, the current thesis aimed to address these research gaps and extended the research line to Vietnamese context where the study of demotivation is still scarce by investigating teacher-related demotives in EFL speaking classes at a Vietnamese university. Aims and objectives The overarching aim of the present study was to understand the demotivating factors relating to teachers in English speaking classes at a university in Vietnam. Accordingly, the thesis attempted to achieve four objectives.
The first objective was to examine students’ perceptions of what might demotivate them in their English speaking classes (as aforementioned, this study examined teacher-related demotives only). The second objective was to understand how the teachers answered the same question from their own perspective. The third objective was to investigate the similarities and/ or differences in perceptions of teachers-related demotives between the teachers and the students. The fourth and final objective was to outline ways to 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com assist students to overcome their demotivation or in other words to motivate them to study English speaking skills.
Research questions To achieve the goals mentioned above, the research sought to answer the following questions: 1- What are the teacher-related demotives in English speaking classes reported by EFL students? 2- What are the teacher-related demotives in English speaking classes reported by EFL teachers? 3- What are the similarities and/or differences between students’ and teachers’ perceptions of teacher-related demotives in English speaking classes? 4- What can teachers do to help students overcome demotivation when learning English speaking skills? 4. Significance of the study The current program of research, which explored the perceptions of forces originating from teachers that demotivate EFL learners to learn English speaking skills in Vietnam, is significant at both practical and theoretical levels. At a practical level, this study identified the demotivating factors (in this study only those relating to teachers are researched) that demotivates students in their English speaking classes. The current research’s findings may assist teachers to understand students’ perceptions of detrimental factors, particularly those relate to teachers that affect them in their English learning.
This information may enable teachers to reflect on their current teaching practices and improve their future practices.