VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES *** - NGUYỄN THỊ LAN ANH AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ RETICENCE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONSA CASE OF TOAN THANG HIGH SCHOOL (ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÍNH TRẦM LẶNG CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH - ĐIỂN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TOÀN THẮNG) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11 Supervisor: Dr ĐỖ THỊ THANH HÀ HANOI, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES *** - NGUYỄN THỊ LAN ANH AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ RETICENCE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONSA CASE OF TOAN THANG HIGH SCHOOL (ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÍNH TRẦM LẶNG CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH - ĐIỂN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TOÀN THẮNG) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.01.11 Supervisor: Dr ĐỖ THỊ THANH HÀ HANOI, 2014 DECLARATION I hereby state that I, Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh, being a candidate for the Degree of Master of Arts, accept the requirement of the University relating to the retention and use of M.A Thesis deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for care, loan, or reproduction of the paper Haiphong, July…….2014 Signature Nguyễn Thi ̣Lan Anh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà, for her valuable advice, constructive comments, patient support and encouragement in the completion of this M.A Thesis I would like to send my sincere thanks to my informants in this study, whom I selected as the target subjects of this research Without their enthusiastic contribution and cooperation, this research would certainly not have been completed In the thesis, it is inevitable that the ideas of many other writers in this field are reflected and developed Their ideas have stimulated my thinking on doing this paper My debt to the authors listed in the references is equally great To all these scholars, I offer my sincere thanks Finally, I am greatly thankful to my family and friends, who are forever a great source of support and encouragement ii ABSTRACT Realizing many 11th graders at Toan Thang high school being passive in English Speaking classes, this study aims to explore students‟ perception toward their reticence behaviour in real- world classes, factors contributing to it and students‟ expectation A total of 373 students enrolled in eight 11th grade classes, were first observed in eight English Speaking lessons, and then filled in two sets of open-ended questionnaire After that, six of them were interviewed using semistructured format A mix- method analysis is conducted to explore the findings From the study, it is revealed that students have strong willingness to participate in English activities though they rarely so in reality due to various learning misconceptions The result indicates that teachers need not only to use interesting, various and suitable activities to encourage students to learn the target language but also to explain and have more informal talks with students to teach them how to learn effectively iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aim of the study Research questions Scope of the study Methods Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT .4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Reticence behaviour in foreign language class 1.1.1 The concept of reticence 1.1.2 Interpretation of reticence 1.1.3 Consequences of reticence 1.2 Students‟ reticence behaviour in English speaking lessons 1.2.1 Students’ participation in verbal interaction 1.2.2 Potential obstacles to students’ verbal participation 1.2.3 Teachers’ roles towards students participation CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODS OF THE STUDY .11 2.1 Participants and setting of the study 11 2.1.1 Participants .11 2.1.2 Setting of the study 11 2.2 Data collection 13 2.3.1 Data collection instruments .13 2.3.2 Data collection procedure 16 2.3.3 Data analysis procedure 18 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 19 3.1 Findings .19 3.1.1 Students’ reticence behaviour in English Speaking classes 19 3.1.2 Factors affecting students’ behaviour .24 3.1.3 Students’ expectation 29 3.2 Discussions 30 iv 3.2.1 To what extent the students remain reticent in English speaking classes, and what activities make them the most reticent? .31 3.2.2 What are students’ perception of their own learning behaviour and factors influencing such behaviour? 31 3.2.3 What are students’ perspectives on whether, and how, to move the classroom to a more interactive mode? 32 PART C: CONCLUSION 34 Conclusion 34 Pedagogical implications 36 Limitations of the study 37 Suggestions for further study 38 REFERENCES 39 APPENDIX 1: OBSERVATION TRANSCRIPT I Observation Transcript I Observation Transcript VIII APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE (English) -Part XV APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE (English) -Part XVIII APPENDIX 4: QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese) -Part XXI APPENDIX 5: QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese) -Part .XXIV APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (English) XXVII APPENDIX 7: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (Vietnamese) XXIX APPENDIX 8: DETAILED ANALYSIS RESULT FOR GRAPH .XXXI APPENDIX 9: DETAILED ANALYSIS RESULT FOR GRAPH XXXIV APPENDIX 10: DETAILED ANALYSIS RESULT FOR GRAPH XXXV v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communicative Language Teaching EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching Ss Students T Teacher vi LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS TABLE Data collection procedure in brief Page 18 GRAPH Students‟ self evaluation- The frequency of Page 22 attending English Speaking Activities GRAPH Students‟ real participation in class TABLE Students‟ self evaluation- The frequency of Page 24 XXXI attending English Speaking Activities (with Mean, Mode, Median, Standard Deviation, pvalue and Standard Deviation formula in excel) GRAPH Students‟ evaluation of main factors affecting Page 26 their reticence TABLE Students‟ self evaluation- The frequency of XXXII attending English Speaking Activities (with Correlation coefficient formula) TABLE Students‟ self evaluation- The frequency of XXXII attending English Speaking Activities (with Spearman- Brown correction formula) TABLE Students‟ real participation in class (with p- XXXIV value formula) TABLE Students‟ evaluation of main factors affecting their reticence vii XXXV PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Because of the increasing status of English as a world language, people in Viet Nam in general and in my hometown of Tien Lang in particular are becoming more and more aware of the importance of the spoken English This awareness was reflected not only during many daily informal talks but also officially in the national English language curriculum (MOET, 2006) which required high school students to be able to conduct conversations in English on familiar daily life topics Despite this expectation, many high school students have been observed to be either quiet, uncooperative or to speak English with a trembling voice, make numerous unnecessary pauses, or have shaking hands or legs, etc during the lesson This study was motivated by my concern about the apparent reluctance of Toan Thang high school students to participate in English- speaking class interactions The decision to look into students‟ reticence at Toan Thang high school was first inspired by my teaching and living experience with the students in this school for more than three years Such contact not only allows a valuable rapport with members of this case but also encourages my interest in further understanding students‟ perception and expectation Initial observations at the selected location reveals that spontaneous discourse was rare in many English speaking classes and many oral interactions not only did not include any students‟ individual thoughts or elaborated responses but also fostered a great deal of dependence on the teacher As a result, both teachers and students have become frustrated and often complained about the quality of the learning outcome This makes it urgent to examine this phenomenon to better understand the learning situation at Toan Thang high school and ultimately enhance the learning and teaching of oral English here The second reason is my realization that students themselves and students in different context (both educational context and ... IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONSA CASE OF TOAN THANG HIGH SCHOOL (ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÍNH TRẦM LẶNG C? ?A HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH - ĐIỂN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TOÀN THẮNG) M .A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS... thanks Finally, I am greatly thankful to my family and friends, who are forever a great source of support and encouragement ii ABSTRACT Realizing many 11th graders at Toan Thang high school being...VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES *** - NGUYỄN THỊ LAN ANH AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ RETICENCE IN ENGLISH