VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - NGUYỄN THỊ ÁNH DƯƠNG FACTORS AFFECTING MOTIVATION FOR 10TH GRADERS’ ENGAGEMENT IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES: A SURVEY AT SAPA HIGH SCHOOL, LAO CAI (Các yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến động lực tham gia vào hoạt động nói tiếng Anh học nói học sinh lớp 10 Trường T.H.P.T Sapa, Lào Cai) MA MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Ha Noi, 2011 Abstract iii Abstract With an investigation into the reality of teaching and learning English speaking at SPHS, and an examination of the factors affecting motivation for 10 Graders’ engagement in English speaking classes (ESC), this research is aimed at (1) investigating types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at SPHS, (2) finding out some factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC, (3) exploring teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and speaing activities in ESC, (4) surveying the activities and techniques applied by teachers and students’ preferences at this school and recommending some strategies for teachers and students to enhance grade 10 students of engagement in ESC The research data collection instruments are questionnaire, interview and classroom observation The result taken from the questionnaire, interview and observation reveals that the majority of students possess instrumental and extrinsic motivation, some of them integrately and intrinsically learn it, resultative motivation ranks the smallest number of participants It also indicates that the factors affecting motivation and demotivation come from students, teachers and classroom learning environment The activities and techniques teachers apply have the great influence on students’ engagement Basing on the findings of the research, the study suggested some recommendations for both teachers and students to improve the teaching and learning speaking in the school Table of Contents iv Table of Contents CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS ix PART 1: INTRODUCTION ix Rationale for the study Aims of the study Methods of the study Scope of the study Organization of the study PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW An overview of speaking in L2 learning 1.1 Definition of speaking 1.2 Approaches to the teaching of speaking The Grammar translation Method (GTM) The Direct Method (DM) and Audiolingualism Communicative Language Teaching 1.3 The roles of the teacher in different stages of teaching speaking 1.4 Motivation in speaking in classroom 1.4.1 Motivation 1.4.2 Motivation in the classroom setting 1.4.3 Factors affecting students unwilling to speak in classroom 1.4.4 Some conditions for effective motivation in speaking 1.4.5 Motivational macrostrategies Concept of students’ engagement and factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement 2.1 Concept of students’ engagement 2.2 Factors affecting students’ engagement 10 2.2.1 Students’ learning styles 10 2.2.2 Students’ motivations 11 2.2.3 Teacher’s teaching techniques 11 Table of Contents v 2.2.4 Teachers’ personal qualities and characteristics 11 2.2.5 Effective classroom learning environment 13 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY 15 Research setting 15 1.1 An overview of the research site 15 1.2 Description of the teachers of English and students 15 1.3 The materials of teaching and learning 16 Participants 17 2.1 Population 17 2.2 Sampling 17 3.3 Detailed description of participants 17 3.4 Data collection instruments 17 3.4.1 Questionnaires 18 3.4.2 Interviews 18 3.4.3 Classroom observations 19 3.5 Data Collection Procedures 19 CHAPTER THREE 20 DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 20 Data analysis 20 1.1 Data analysis from Students’ Questionnaire 20 1.1.1 Students’ motivation in engaging in ESC 20 1.1.2 Factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC and students’ attitude towards activities and techniques applied by teachers 24 1.2 Data analysis from Teachers’ Questionnaire 27 Major findings and discussions 31 2.1 Research question 31 2.2 Research question 31 2.3 Research question 33 2.4 Research question 34 Recommendations for motivating students to engage better in ESC 34 3.1 Recommendations for teachers 34 3.1.1 Promoting students’ internal factors 35 3.1.2 Building effective classroom learning environment 36 3.1.3 Varying speaking activities 37 3.1.4 Managing speaking turns in class 37 3.1.5 Combining the textbook and relevant materials and recognize the potential value of available facilities of the school and the Internet 38 3.1.6 Being enthusiastic, tolerant, helpful, friendly, creative and active 38 Table of Contents vi 3.2 Recommendations for the students 39 3.2.1 Cooperating with their teachers 39 3.2.2 Taking risks 39 PART 3: CONCLUSIONS 40 Conclusions 40 Limitations and suggestions for further study 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX I APPENDIX IV APPENDIX XIII APPENDIX XVII APPENDIX .XIX INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study The ever-growing need for good communication skills in English has created a huge demand for English teaching around the world In Vietnam, the importance of English as a language of international communication has been acknowledged by the Government and it is considered as a compulsory subject in the school curriculum Motivation plays an important role in the success of language learners in learning a foreign language in general and learning foregn language skills in particular Learning speaking skill is not an exception The teachers at SPHS meet many difficulties in motivating students get involve better in ESC because students in Sa Pa (SP) come from a variety of socio-economic groups and they are multicultural as well as multi-level Moreover, there are many factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC This is the reason why I choose studying on factors affecting motivation for 10th graders’ engagement in ESC is the topic for my thesis Aims and research questions of the study The study aims at exploring the factors affecting motivation for 10th graders’ engagement in ESC at SPHS, Lao Cai (LC) The objectives of the research are as follows:  To examine the types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at Sapa high school in engaging in English speaking classes  To exploring the factors influencing the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes  To examine teachers and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and speaking activities in ESC  To determine effective techniques to enhance the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes To achieve these aim and objectives, the study sets out to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at Sapa high school in engaging in English speaking classes? (2) What are factors influencing the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes? (3) What are teachers and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and speaking activities in ESC? (4) What techniques could be applicable to enhance the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes? Methods of the study The study employed survey research In my study, data were collected via questionnaires, interviews and classrooms observation in order to increase the credibility of the findings: (1) Giving questionnaires for both teachers and students; (2) Interviewing students; (3) Oserving classroom to get information about both teachers’ approach of teaching and students’ habit of learning in class as well as ascertain the prevalent problems forwarded by the students and teachers during the interview and questionnaire Scope of the study There exist a variety factors affecting motivation for 10th graders’ engagement in English speaking classes However, it is not my intention to cover all of them because of the time and length constraint of the study, I only focus on the factors come from learners, teachers and classroom learning environment In this study, students’ engagement happened only in speaking activities in ESC METHODOLOGY Research setting 1.1 An overview of the research site SP is one of the districts in a mountainous province of LC There are many differences between SP town and the villages SP town is rich and exciting because of tourism; on the other hand, the villages in SP where four minority ethnic groups Mong, Tay, Dao, Giay live in are very poor Therefore, students’ learning condition in SP is much different from each other SPHS is located in the centre of SP town 60% of school students are minority ethnic students Despite the fact that LC province has achieved national standards in the universalization of junior secondary education (Report by Lao Cai PPC, 2007), in some remote areas, SP included, it is very hard to consult students to continue their study to high school level That is because of many reasons, such as: the poverty, traditional culture of early marriage, the limited awareness of the benefit of having higher education in the ethnics groups For that reason, annually, there are not enough students to enrol in high school level in SP So it is difficult for us to hold placement test for students which leads to multi-level students in the classes 1.2 Description of the teachers of English and students In SPHS, there are teachers of English aged from 26 to 45 Their experience in teaching English varies from to 20 years Most of them graduated from Foreign Language Teachers’ Training Universities These teachers are qualified for the job SPHS has two teachers of English who are key teachers of LC province They both have rich teaching experience and subject matter knowledge They had been teaching English for more than ten years in high school Generally, all of the teachers of English in this school love teaching and have positive attitudes to supporting their students’ learning Students in SPHS come from a variety of socio-economic groups Students come from SP town have better learning condition outside classroom Many of them are able students and have had quite good results during their secondary education Some of them have a lot of chance to practise speaking English with native speakers so their speaking skill is quite good On the contrary, students coming from ethnic minority groups live very far from the centre of the town and their families’ income comes from farming which is considered one of the lowest income groups in Vietnam They have their own traditional culture and languages and their mother languages are not Vietnamese They finished secondary education in local secondary schools in their villages which have poor learning condition so they have had not very good results in secondary school education Although the local government has priority policies to provide education for these groups and encourages students to go to school as offered ethnic students free accommodations in the school’s hostel and free food, those students need extra help from teachers after school time in order to improve their quality of work 1.3 The materials of teaching and learning The textbooks currently used to teach English are English 10, English 11 and English 12 published by Ministry of Education and Training I would like to focus on English 10 in my thesis The teaching content of English 10 textbook follows the theme-based approach and is developed on six broad themes which are subdivided into 16 topics corresponding to 16 units and a “Test yourself” after every units All units have the same structure, starting with the theme of the unit, followed by four lessons focused on language skills and ending with language focus Language skills are developed in parallel with the development of such language knowledge as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation With strengths, the textbook is expected to contribute better quality of English learning in Vietnam high school In terms of curriculum development, the introduction of the new textbook can be new fresh air blowing into the teaching and learning situation at secondary schools in Vietnam However, to a large number of ethnic minority students, the new English textbook set as well as English 10 are very difficult Very often the amount of new vocabulary in one unit was too much for students In addition, many topics in the English textbooks were strange to their daily lives and background Participants 2.1 Population The target population for this study comprises teachers of English and 80 students of tenth-grade at SPHS The brief description of the teachers of English and students has been mentioned in the earlier sections of this chapter 2.2 Sampling The researcher used convenience sampling in this study The sampling plan proposed for the current study was a two-stage stratified cluster design (Jacobs et al., 2003) The first stage consisted of selecting high school, and the second stage consisted of a sample of teachers and students for questionnaires and interviews, a sample of classrooms and English speaking lessons from the tenth-grade classrooms for observation in the sample school After participant selections were made, appointments were made to arrange suitable times for questionnaire, interview and observation lessons Five teachers of English and all students in the two tenth-grade classrooms at SPHS agreed to take part in the study 3.3 Detailed description of participants There are two groups of participants in this study The first group involves five teachers of English who are currently teaching English at SPHS They were observed and given the questionnaires by the researcher They are all female and are ranging from 26 to 45 years old Their teaching experience at high schools varies from to 23 years The variety in the participants’ age, qualification, and teaching experience is expected to provide reliability and validity for the study The second group deals with eighty students who come from two classes (10A5 and 10A6) at SPHS 43.75% of the students are Kinh people who live in SP town, the others belong to ethnic minorities Mong, Tay, Dao, Giay (Mong: 20%, Tay: 18.75%, Dao: 15% and Giay: 2.5%) and they live in the villages of SP district The students’ living condition, their learning outside class conditions, their attitudes, motivation for foreign language learning are not the same 3.4 Data collection instruments In order to get information, the main data collection instruments for this study were questionnaires for students and teachers, interview students and classroom observations 3.5 Data Collection Procedures The questionnaires were delivered to students and teachers at the middle of the second term to gather information of students’ motivation in engaging in ESC, students’ attitude towards speaking activities in English 10 textbook, students’ attitude towards techniques and activities applied by teachers and their preferences as well as gathering information about teachers’ attitudes towards students’ motivation in participating in ESC and the effects of the activities and techniques that they had applied The informal interviews took place in a face to face situation with the students during the second term of the school year 2010-2011, and the interviews were taken note or taperecorded The interviews helped the researcher to get the necessary information on the factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC The observations were conducted in 10 English lessons at 10 graders of two selected teachers at the second term of the school year The observations strengthened the information gathered in the questionnaires and in the interviews DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter deals with the data results of the questionnaires, interviews and the information obtained through observation process Also, a discussion of major findings is presented which functions as practical groundings for further recommendations to be drawn out In this chapter, answers to the four research questions as well as recommendations will be given Data analysis 1.1 Data analysis from Students’ Questionnaire The questionnaire for the students was designed with three main parts consisting of 22 questions The researcher used the data collected in Part I to describe the participants in the previous chapter In this part, the reseacher only analyse 18 questions in part II and part III 1.2 Data analysis from Teachers’ Questionnaire The questionnaires for teachers consisting of questions were delivered to teachers Major findings and discussions 2.1 Research question What are the types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at Sapa High School in engaging in English speaking classes? It was undeniable that over half of the subjects were instrumentally motivated when they learnt subject matter The subjects with integrate and intrinsic orientation occupied nearly one third of students Besides, the smaller number of them extrinsically learnt it Added to that, some were found to possess a mixed type of motivation by the mixture of intrinsic, instrumental and integrate orientationin learning speaking Instrumentally motivation, thus, was the most important in learning speaking English of Grade 10 students at SPHS, LC In short, students’ motivations play an important role in deciding the level of their engagement in class activities Students with high level of interest and need will actively participate in class activities On the other hand, the students think they “have to” learn English because of compulsory curriculum imply a very low motivation among them resulting in passive and reluctant engagement in class activities This would appear to suggest that as the students’ motivation is low, the job of motivating students in learning English burdens the teachers, and requires teachers’ appropriate teaching techniques for mixed-level classes 2.2 Research question What are factors influencing the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes? The findings shows that some factors that affected students’ motivation in engaging in ESC were learners’ factors, teachers’ factors, and effective classroom-learning environment Firstly, some factors coming from learners such as learners’ proficiency in English, their interest, need, personalities and learning style in learning speaking were found out In the speaking lesson, the students with lower proficiency might feel intimidated by the more advanced ones These students, thus, were often afraid of making mistakes and losing face in front of their teacher and classmates As a result, they often felt reluctant to speak out in class Also from the findings, students’ interest and need played an important role in students’ speaking motivation Students with high interest always put the aims for learning and always tried their best to achieve them These students also have high motivation to learn English in general and to engage more in ESC in particular The next was students’ personalities The reluctant speakers were students who always felt ashamed, hesitant and not self-confident enough in front of the classmates and teachers The final factor from learners was learning style The findings from researcher’s observation pointed out that the speaking class with more reflective learners seemed be quieter and more boring than the one with more impulsive ones In addition, the analytical and authority-oriented learners have many difficulties in active participation in ESC They prefer listening to the teacher than expressing themselves Moreover, the assessment system, which focuses more on accuracy than fluency, always reminds them of studying grammar items and vocabulary to pass the examinations This learning style in fact prevents students from being familiar with active participation in class activities as well as opportunities to speak English in classroom The second factor referred to teachers, which consisted of teacher’s behaviors and their relationship with students, their teaching methods The findings pointed out the first and foremost important factors from teachers were teachers’ teaching method and the learnercentered teaching methods is the good one Teachers, with learner-centered teaching method would know how to keep students’ speaking, how to motivate students brainstorming and how to give each student chances to participate in speaking tasks in order to make the lesson more exciting Speaking activities and techniques in each lesson, therefore, can always be varied by teachers They got students to work in pairs, groups or individually in all lessons In different tasks they used different activities and techniques such as question and answer exchanges, discussion, interview They also combined the textbook with relevant materials, gave suggested questions and feedback regularly to the students, created the co- operative working Visual aid and games were appropriately used to stimulate students and reduce students’ stress in speaking Besides, teacher’s behavior and the relationship between teacher and students were very important All students wanted that their teacher were friendly, enthusiastic, tolerant and helpful The way teachers behaved, thus, had a great impact on students’ motivation Thirdly, effective classroom learning environment also takes an important place in creasing motivation The majority of the students enjoyed the co-operative and pleasant atmosphere in class A pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere would create students’ motivation and encourage their participation in speaking On the contrary, a tense classroom climate would increase students’ anxiety, shyness and unselfconfidence As discussed in the previous parts, teachers play a significant role in students’ academic achievement and are central to the creation of the classroom climate Thus, the factors that influence students’ motivation in speaking include both internal and external ones The internal factors are derived from students themselves and the external ones are come from teachers as well as classroom atmosphere 2.3 Research question What are teachers and students’ attitude towards speaking skill and speaking activities in ESC? The findings denoted that the majority of the teachers and students think that the speaking skill in general is important and useful to students Many of the students have high desire in learning English and they are interested in participate in ESC However, nearly half of the students have normal or low desire and they are reluctant in participating in classroom activities because of many reasons With regard to the activities provided by teachers in ESC, about half of the students have positive perfective but many of them state that those activities are little interesting and not suitable for them Most of the students enjoy working in groups In term of the speaking activities designed in English 10 textbook, about two third of the students and teachers found out the topics for speaking were acceptable, some felt interested in these topics and only the small number estimated the topics were bad When were asked about the order of the lessons, all of the teachers remarked it was quite logical Next, some of the surveyed teachers complaint that the speaking tasks were at times monotonous and many students say they were too difficult or difficult The illustration was good In general, the speaking activities in English 10 textbook have been suitable for students and teachers so far except something should be changed in the tasks so that they should be more suitable for the majority of students’ level 2.4 Research question What techniques could be applicable to enhance the students’ motivation in engaging in ESC? There are some techniques teachers could apply to enhance the students’ motivation in engaging in ESC based on the results of data analysis Firstly, most of the teachers found that it is necessary to motivate students in all three stages of the lesson (Pre-, while- and post-speaking) Secondly, teachers should design and select class activities to meet students’ preference such as using structure-based activities, asking students to make up sentences orally, asking students to role play, to topic-based discussing, completing dialogue practice, using visual aids and games Thirdly, the findings showed that all of the teachers choose creating the co-operative atmosphere and encouraging students to speak by suggested questions This co-operation would happen between teachers and students and among students by pair and small group work technique and the way teachers involve students in the class activities Giving suggested questions to students can help students get more involved in the lessons and increase their speaking with unpopular topics The next group of motivational techniques fall on giving feedback regularly by marking and giving comments on students’ speaking and creating the competitive atmosphere Moreover, the teachers found the way to create good relationship with their students to help them engage more in ESC, giving students opportunities to express their own ideas about given topics Many teachers choose being close to students and tried to be tolerant, enthusiastic and helpful to students For them, letting students have a close relation with teachers will motivate them to engage in English speaking lessons better Some of the teachers like making the speaking tasks easier and more interesting for students to engage Recommendations for motivating students to engage better in ESC 3.1 Recommendations for teachers Motivating students to engage better in English speaking classes is the great concern of all the teachers in SPHS, LC Following the researcher introduces some ways with the hope 10 that they will help teachers to stimulate students to participate more in ESC - Promoting students’ internal factors - Building effective classroom learning environment - Varying speaking activities - Managing speaking turns in class - Combining the textbook and relevant materials and recognizing the potential value of available facilities of the school and the Internet - Being enthusiastic, tolerant, helpful, friendly, creative and active 3.2 Recommendations for the students To be succesful in language learning and to become more active participant in English speaking classes, students should cooperate with their teacher and take risks PART 3: CONCLUSIONS Conclusions It is undeniable that motivation plays a crucial role in learning English in general and in learning speaking English in particular Thus, this study sets out to investigate the factors affecting students’ motivation in participating in ESC It also focuses and evaluates motivational techniques used by teachers at SPHS, LC, students’ needs and demands It, then, suggests pedagogical implications to improve students’ motivation in speaking The findings shows that grade 10 students at SPHS are varied in the types of motivation Besides, their motivation in speaking is affected much by the factors coming from students themselves, teachers and classroom learning environment To find out factors that increase and decrease students’ motivation, the teachers at SPHS have attempted to apply motivational techniques and activities in teaching speaking as a treatment Based on the data collection and analysis, the researcher have had a concrete picture of motivation, factors affecting motivation for 10 graders’ engagement in ESC at SPHS, LC as well as students’ preferences and demand to teachers After putting in many considerable efforts, the researcher has fully answered these four research questions From the fact and figures taken from the research, the problems preventing students from engaging in ESC have been 10 11 uncovered They include the negative attitudes towards participating classroom activities, teachers and speaking tasks; the students’ characteristics as unconfidence, shyness; the students’ learning styles Besides, the positive factors carefully analyzed The most appropriate ways to enhance students’ engagement in the lessons are built up basing on the causes of those problems as well as the good effects that should be improved The researcher, then, has offered some recommendations for motivating students to get involved better in classroom activities These recommendations are based on theoretical background of speaking, motivation and students’engagement, the researcher’s knowledge, experience and observation in teaching speaking The researcher believes that these recommendations will be of help for high school English teachers in general and for English teachers at SPHS in particular In short, it is hoped that this study will make a special significant contribution to the better current situation in teaching and learning speaking English of grade 10 students and to the ongoing of renovation for teaching English at SPHS Limitations and suggestions for further study The research has attained some remarkable results It has investigated the reality of teaching and learning speaking English at SPHS, LC Though this research is planned to take initial step towards finding out factors affecting motivation for 10 graders’ engagement in ESC, it is beneficial to any other research related to ESC at high school in general and enhancing students’ participating in ESC in particular However, limitations are unavoidable Firstly, the major limitation of the current study is the small number size of the sample The findings of this study relate to five teachers of English and only eighty grade 10 students, due to the time constraint and small-scale of the study The findings from this small sample in the current study cannot be assumed to be the representative of all the students (including grade 11 and 12 students) in the school Secondly, due to the limit of time and knowledge, the study can not cover some of the factors come from learners effecting motivation for 10 Graders’ engagement in ESC such as psychological factors, socio-cultural factors and linguistic factors These, in turn, will be reasons for those who are interested in the given area to research further Finally, the researcher’s recommendations for enhancing students’ engagement in ESC would be more convincing if the researcher could carry out the survey research longer, may be full school year The data for this study was collected during the second semester of 11 12 school year 2010-2011 As all classes teach from the same textbooks this meant that the observations were limited to the same English speaking topics There were many activities that happened simultaneously in classrooms The task of the researcher was to capture as many activities as possible The author hopes that during the time of future teaching and learning, those techniques can be further analyzed and evaluated Hopefully, this study will contribute positively to the colleagues at SPHS and 10 Graders in their teaching and learning English speaking lessons at English 10 Textbook Moreover, from the findings and limitations of the study, further study would be conducted in helping to motivate students’ engagements in ESC 12 ...Abstract iii Abstract With an investigation into the reality of teaching and learning English speaking at SPHS, and an examination of the factors affecting motivation for 10 Graders engagement. .. of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at Sapa high school in engaging in English speaking classes? (2) What are factors influencing the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking. .. some of them integrately and intrinsically learn it, resultative motivation ranks the smallest number of participants It also indicates that the factors affecting motivation and demotivation come