iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Candidate’s statement i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of abbreviations vi List of tables vii Part one: INTRODUCTION Rationale The aim of the study Scope and Significance of the study Methods of the study Organization of the study Part two: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review 1.1 Concepts of Beliefs 1.1.1 The origin of Beliefs 1.1.2 Beliefs in Language Learning Study 1.1.3 Beliefs about Language Learning 1.2 Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) by Horwitz 1.3 Speaking Skill Assessment Criteria 11 1.4 Review of Previous Studies 12 Chapter 2: The Study 2.1 Research Questions 14 2.2 Subjects 14 v 2.3 Data Collection Instruments 14 2.3.1 Questionnaire 14 2.3.2 Observation and Note Taking 16 2.4 Data Collection Procedure 16 2.4.1 Questionnaire 16 2.4.2 Observation 16 2.4.3 Records of Learning Results 17 2.5 Data Analysis and Discussions 17 2.5.1 The Students’ Beliefs in Speaking Skill 17 2.5.2 The Effect of the Students’ Beliefs on their Speaking Performance 23 Part three: CONCLUSION Conclusion 29 Limitations and Implications 30 Recommendation for further studies 31 References Appendix A 33 Appendix B 38 Appendix C 40 Appendix D 42 Appendix E 44 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LL: Language Learning L & C: Learning and Communication HUI: Ho Chi Minh University of Industry vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Inventory Questionnaire Table 2: Descriptive Statistics of Theme A Table 3: Descriptive Statistics of Theme B Table 4: Descriptive Statistics of Theme C Table 5: Descriptive Statistics of Theme D Table 6: Descriptive Statistics of Theme E Table 7: Descriptive Statistics of Beliefs by Students’ Grades Table 8: The Learning Records of Excellent and Average Students Table 9: Comparison of Learning Records and Presentation Assessments PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale Vietnamese students have studied English at the early classes since English is chosen as a compulsory subject at schools by the Minister of Education after a consequence of the „open door‟ policy Moreover, English is seen as a means of access to scientific, technological development and to the world knowledge, as the language for international communication, and as an instrument for receiving grants and aid For young people, English is an effective tool for further study as well as a way to better job opportunities Unfortunately, teaching and learning English is still a matter of much concern due to inappropriate teaching method to develop all skills of students The fact is that graduate students even English-major students and non-English major students can not communicate verbally in English because of shyness, inadequate vocabulary, or simply lacking the necessary knowledge There are many reasons for this; for example, during lectures, Vietnamese rather than English is mostly spoken by both teachers and students Besides, students at colleges and universities are mainly just taught by traditional approach grammar translation method which only concentrates on the ability of using grammar rules precisely Listening and speaking skills are ignored As the results, lots of students rush to English Language Centers to improve their speaking skill Also, many students of mine have come up to me and ask for help in their speaking skill This main motivation has urged me to conduct the research Another motivation which the study is carried on results from interest of teaching speaking By doing this study, I can understand my students‟ beliefs in speaking skill so that I can have proper methods to orientate them in learning English speaking skill effectively All of above factors and reasons have inspired me to the research on “the influence of students‟ beliefs on their speaking performance.” The aim of the study The purpose of this study is to see how students‟ beliefs affect their speaking skill by using the BALLI (Horwitz, 1988) survey instruments Identification of these beliefs is to examine whether students‟ speaking beliefs could be linked to their speaking performance Moreover, the study recommends some implications for teaching English speaking skill Scope and Significance of the study This paper concentrates on finding beliefs of students in language learning, especially in learning English speaking Hence, it examines how students‟ beliefs affected their speaking performance Furthermore, the research may be potential in equipping for modifying speaking activities in the course book in a more flexible and creative way By doing survey of students‟ beliefs, the study might give teachers a profound insight into how to help students studying English speaking skill effectively Methods of the study: The present study was designed to use both quantitative and qualitative research methods for the analysis According to Patton (2002), each method has different advantages and disadvantages A quantitative research method can obtain broad, generalizable findings while a qualitative research method can yield in-depth, detailed information Two major complementary sources of data were used in the current study The distributions of a questionnaire of Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) (Horwitz, 1988) provided quantitative data The presentations of the students about given topic were used to elicit the qualitative data After collecting the distributions, the questionnaire data will be analyzed in order of five themes of BALLI (Horwitz, 1988) so as to find out the beliefs of the students in achieving a good speaking skill The influence of students‟ beliefs on speaking performance was examined via students‟ academic marks and their presentations Organization of the study The study is organized as follows: Part one: Introduction presents the rationale, the aim, the scope and significance, the method and organization of the study Part two: consists of three chapters Chapter “Literature review” deals with basic theoretical backgrounds related to the study It starts with the concepts of beliefs in language learning It also presents related model research of Horwitz (1987, 1988, and 1990) and speaking skill assessment criteria Finally, it states previous studies of beliefs about language learning Chapter “The study” section 2.1 to 2.4 present the research questions, the information of subjects, data collection instruments and procedure Section 2.5 deals with data analysis and discussions of the students‟ beliefs and its relationship with students‟ speaking performance Part three: “Conclusion” summarizing all the issues in the research contains major findings, limitations, implications and recommendation for further research PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter provides the theoretical background related to the study The first part of the chapter evidences the existence of beliefs in language learning from origin of beliefs to beliefs in language study; particularly beliefs about language learning The second part gives an overview of Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory Model (Horwitz, 1984, 1985, and 1988) which instrument was used to identify students‟ beliefs in many previous studies Either was it also used in this study The third part presents speaking skill assessment criteria in which the criteria suggested by Hughes (1996) were utilized in this study Finally, the last part of the chapter reviews previous studies of beliefs about language learning 1.1 Concepts of Beliefs 1.1.1 The origin of Beliefs Early psychological studies into learner perceptions and beliefs about learning "opened a whole new Aladdin's cave of personal beliefs, myths, understandings, and superstitions as they were revealed by the persons' thoughts and feelings about their learning" (Thomas & Harri-Augustein, 1983, p 338) They concluded that beliefs about learner capacity and personal models of their own processes were more central to understanding the individuals' learning performances than universally accepted theories of learning; these personal "myths" explained more about individual differences in learning than such psychometric measures as intelligence or aptitude (Thomas & Harri-Augustein, 1983) In cognitive psychology, learner beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning, or epistemological beliefs, have been investigated with the idea that they are part of the underlying mechanisms of metacognition (Flavell, 1987; Ryan, 1984), form the building blocks of epistemology (Goldman, 1986), and are a driving force in intellectual performance Psychologists have begun to acknowledge the pervasive influence of personal and social epistemologies on academic learning, thinking, reasoning, and problem solving (Schommer, 1993), persistence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988), and interpretation of information (Ryan, 1984; Schommer, 1990) From this perspective, beliefs about language learning are viewed as a component of metacognitive knowledge (Flavell, 1987), which include all that individuals understand about themselves as learners and thinkers, including their goals and needs Flavell (1979, 1981) emphasizes the study of meta-cognitive knowledge in second language learning and focuses on the person He calls this "person knowledge." Person knowledge is knowledge learners have acquired about how cognitive and affective factors such as learner aptitude, personality, and motivation may influence learning In addition, it includes specific knowledge about how the above factors apply in their experience 1.1.2 Beliefs in language learning study In a number of studies, the definition of beliefs is provided Elaine Horwitz (1985), one of the pioneer researchers of the studies on beliefs about language learning, refers to “beliefs” using the terms such as preconceptions (1985), preconceived ideas (1987), and preconceived notions (1988) without giving specific descriptions about the construct In the important statement used to introduce her instrument, the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI), which has become one of the most widely used instruments in studies on beliefs about language learning, she used the word opinions to refer to beliefs, the construct that the inventory is aimed for Nevertheless, researchers not seem to have reached the same consensus about the meaning of beliefs Because of its complexity, it may be difficult to generate a fixed set of meaning or to be defined precisely Pajares (1992) stated that, “defining beliefs is at best a game of player‟s choice” (p 309) Further, he provided that an extensive list of words like the one below can be found in the literature as a reference of beliefs “attitude, values, judgments, axioms, opinions, ideology, perceptions, conceptions, conceptual systems, preconceptions, dispositions, implicit theories, explicit theories, personal theories, internal mental processes, action strategies, rules of practice, practical principles, perspectives, repertories of understanding, and social strategy (Pajares, 1992, p.309) Followings are some definitions of beliefs used in previous studies Cabaroglu and Roberts (2000), drawing from Harvey (1986), defined beliefs as “a set of conceptual representations which signify to its holder a reality or given state of affairs of sufficient validity, truth or trustworthiness to warrant reliance upon it as a guide to personal thought and action” (p 388) Peacock‟s (2001) operational definition of beliefs, adopted from Richardson (1996), is “psychologically held understandings, premises, or propositions about the world that are felt to be true” (p 178) Huang (1997) viewed beliefs about language learning as “preconceptions language learners have about the task of learning the target language” (p 29) Kunt (1997) and Wang (1996) used the terms “opinions” and “ideas” or “views” to refer to “beliefs.” The definitions of beliefs used in these studies project some level of subjective, judgmental value, as suggested by Pajares (1992) While Michaela Borg (2001) states that belief is related to knowledge and behavior and affirms that “a belief is a mental sate which has as its content a proposition that is accepted as true by the individual holding it, although the individual may recognize that alternative beliefs may be held by others.” But “one of the key differences between belief and knowledge is that knowledge must actually be true in some external sense.” In relation to behaviour “most definitions of belief propose that beliefs dispose or guide people‟s thinking and action.” Personally, beliefs are preconceptions which people have and believe in to study or work better To learn a language, students also have their own beliefs which are formed differently Some beliefs are influenced by students‟ previous (positive or negative) experiences as language learners (Gaoyin & Alvermann, 1995), while other beliefs are shaped by students‟ cultural background (Alexander & Dochy, 1995), family/home background (Dias, 2001), and individual differences such as personality (Langston & Sykes, 1997; Abraham & Vann, 1987; Furnham, Johnson & Rawles, 2002) Regardless of their origin, attitudes to learning and the perceptions and beliefs which determine them may have a profound influence on learning behavior (Cotterall, 1995), and may directly influence or even determine a learner‟s attitude and motivation when learning the language in (Riley 1996) 1.1.3 Beliefs about language learning Some researchers viewed beliefs about language learning as a part of metacognitive knowledge; however, Wenden (1998) claimed that in second and foreign language literature, these two terms are used interchangeably to refer to the same construct The term, beliefs about language learning, were not clearly defined by researchers in previous studies It seems either that the researchers assumed that the term can be understood intuitively or that the construct is too complex to be operationalized In most studies, the term, beliefs about language learning, is used as a known construct without providing further explanation ... collect the students‟ beliefs with description of the questionnaire and the students‟ presentations The last part of the chapter deals with the findings of the students‟ beliefs and the influence of. .. of their beliefs on their speaking performance 2.1 Research Questions: This study was set up to answer the following questions: What are the students‟ beliefs in speaking English? How their beliefs. .. orientate them in learning English speaking skill effectively All of above factors and reasons have inspired me to the research on ? ?the influence of students‟ beliefs on their speaking performance. ” The