AN EXPLORATION ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS COMMUNICATIVE AND NON COMMUNICATIVE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGVINH UNIVERSITY ---NGO THI HANH AN EXPLORATION ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS COMMUNICATIVE AND NON- COMMUNICATIVE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES Major: Teaching

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGÔ THỊ HẠNH

AN EXPLORATION ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS COMMUNICATIVE AND NON- COMMUNICATIVE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghệ An , 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

-NGO THI HANH

AN EXPLORATION ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS COMMUNICATIVE AND NON-

COMMUNICATIVE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

to be my own work, but steered me in the right the direction whenever he thought Ineeded it.

Besides my advisor, I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee: Assoc Prof.,

Dr Ngo Đinh Phuong, Dr Nguyen Quang Hai, Dr Nguyen Thi Quyet and Dr Tran ThiNgoc Yen, for their encouragement, insightful comments, and hard questions

I would also like to thank my fellow teachers for giving me encouragement as thesecond reader of this thesis, and I am gratefully indebted to his/her for his/her veryvaluable comments on this thesis And a very special gratitude goes out to all 75 grade

12 students at Nong cong Continuing Central of Education who agreed to participate inthe survey by signing the letter of consent

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents and to my husbandand our two children for providing me with unfailing support and continuousencouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researchingand writing this thesis This accomplishment would not have been possible withoutthem Thank you

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby acknowledge that this study is my own work The data and findingsdiscussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been publishedelsewhere

TABLE OF CONTENT

Page ACKNOWLEDEGMENT ……… i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP… ……… ….ii

TABLE OF CONTENT ………iii

LIST OF TABLES……… v

ABSTRACT ……… vi

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION …… ………1

1.1.Rationale of the study ……….1

1.2.Aims and objectives of the study……… 1

1.3 Research Question……… ….2

1.4 Organization of the study……….2

CHAPTER II.LITERATURE REVIEW ……… 3

2.1 Context of study 3

2.2 Attitude 5

2.3 Why study learners’ attitudes? 5

2.3.1.Communicative language teaching 7

2.3.2.Some major features of Communicative Language Teaching 8

2.3.3.Communicative activities 12

2.3.4.Advantages of CLT 12

2.3.5.Disadvantages of CLT……… ………13

2.4 Studies on students’ attitudes towards communicative and non-communicative activities……… 15

CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Survey ……… ……….20

3.2 The questionnaire ……… ………21

3.3 The content validity ……… ………22

3.4 The reliability ……… ……….23

3.5 Data analysis .23

3.6.Procedure……… ……… 24

3.6.1 Timeline……… ………24

3.6.2 Participants……… ………26

CHAPTER IV: THE RESULTS 27

4.1 Students' attitudes towards learning English 27

4.2 Students' attitudes towards the communicative and non-communicative activities in their learning English ……… ………… 31

4.3 Students’ attitudes towards error correction ……… ………… 37

4.4 Students’ attitudes towards teacher’ language use in the classroom ……… 41

4.5 The views of seventy-five high school students regarding the communicative

and non-communicative activities in the EFL classroom…… 44

CHAPTER V:CONCLUSION……… ……….57

5.1 Conclusion……… …… ……57

5.2 Suggestions for future studies ……… …… ………… 58

References……… …… 59

Appendix A……… ……….66

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 4.1 Students’ attitudes towards forms-focused (non-communicative)

ABSTRACT

The present study explores the views of seventy-five high school students regardingthe communicative and non-communicative activities in the EFL classroom Data werecollected by means of a questionnaire The results suggest that Vietnamese EFLteachers need to find ways of understand their students in an attempt to make changesthat will take students’ previous educational habits into consideration It is obvious,from the study, that students in non-English speaking countries make better use ofcommunicative language teaching (CLT) if communicative activities and non-communicative activities are combined in English classrooms In other words, aligningthe communicative approach with traditional teaching structures is beneficial for EFLstudents Findings also suggest that oral activities which require student to make aspeech in front of students were seen as most anxiety provoking to the learners,whereas group-oriented activities increased the possibility of producing less anxiety

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Since the 1970s, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has become a dominantapproach to language teaching The central characteristics of CLT is that “almosteverything that is done is done with communicative intent” (Larsen-Freeman cited inRao 2002, p 81) The problem is how to make efficient use of the limited class time todevelop students’ communicative competence (Singh & Li, 2005)

Widdowson (1978) claimed that an over emphasis on grammar would prevent learnersfrom developing their communicative competence Snow (1996) indicated that studentslearn effectively about language when they take part actively in the communicationwith language rather than on passively accepting what the teacher says

1.1 Rationale of the study

According to the review of literature, numerous studies have been carried out on theissue of the communicative and non- communicative activities preferred by the learnersand their anxiety level related to each activity However, in Vietnam, investigations onthe learners' attitudes to the communicative and non- communicative activities arelimited, especially in the context of high schools that are situated in the rural areas,where exposure to the target language and opportunities to use the language are almostnon-existent Therefore, this study aimed to fill the gap mentioned above

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The purpose of this study is to explore the attitudes of Vietnamese high school students

in order to better understand the appropriateness and effectiveness of communicativeand non-communicative activities in their EFL classes

1.3 Research Question

This survey research is conducted to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the students’ attitudes towards the role of English in their future life?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards forms-focused and meaning-focused activities in the EFL classroom?

3 Which type of error correction: teacher correction, peer-correction or correction would the students prefer?

self-4 Which language would they prefer the teacher to use in teaching: Vietnamese or English?

1.4 Organization of the study

In order to answer the questions, I first contextualize this study with relevant literature

in Chapter 2 Chapter 3 specifies about the study, the questionnaire, the content validityand the reliability of this survey Furthermore, the chapter outlines the analysismethods used In chapter 4, I detail the findings for each research question and discussthem with the data in each table Finally, Chapter 5 offers the conclusion andsuggestion for future studies

2.1 Context of study

English is formally taught as a foreign language to Vietnamese students from grade 6(although this is changing and the starting age is lowered to grade 3) The studentshave 4 hours of formal instruction in English every week The curriculum in highschools is a top-down curriculum; the Ministry of Education and Training dictates allthe decisions regarding the textbook selection and the exams While the textbookwriters claim that the textbook is based on the communicative, task-based approach, acareful examination reveals that it is grammar-based and examination-oriented Theculture of teaching in Vietnam is basically a teacher-centered one Students, especiallythose are from rural areas have little or no exposure to English outside the classroom.While access to English-speaking television programs is quite easy, most of thestudents are too busy taking private lessons for their university entrance exams tobenefit those programs for improving their English Therefore, the motivation towardslearning English is low to a great number of students who do not find it necessary to beable to use English

Many studies (Le, 2007; Pham, 2007; Sullivan, 1996) have reported the challenges ofusing the CLT in Vietnamese settings Among the factors that hinder the use of CLT in

Vietnam are the top-down curriculum, and grammar-based examinations, students’motivation, large class sizes and teachers’ low proficiency.

2.2 Attitude

According to Baker (1992, p 10), attitude is a hypothetical construct utilized toexpound the orientation and persistence of human behavior Attitude can be used topredict behavior but it is hidden and potential and cannot be measured directly.Therefore, attitude is a relatively constant system of evaluative processes toward anobject based on what individuals have learned in previous settings Even thoughattitudes are relatively constant in individuals, attitudes have been learned Since theyare learned, they may be changed by further learning Baker (1988) discusses the maincharacteristics of attitudes:

1 Attitudes are cognitive (i.e are capable of being thought about) and affective(i.e have feelings and emotions attached to them)

2 Attitudes are dimensional rather than bipolar – they vary in degree offavourability/ unfavourability

3 Attitudes predispose a person to act in a certain way, but the relationshipbetween attitudes and actions is not a strong one

4 Attitudes are learnt, not inherited or genetically endowed

5 Attitudes tend to persist but they can be modified by experience

Ellis (1994, p 198) states:

Learners manifest different attitudes toward (1) the target language, (2) language speakers, (3) the target-language culture, (4) the social value oflearning the L2, (50 particular uses of the target language, and (6) themselves

target-as members of their own culture These attitudes are likely to reflect theparticular social settings in which learners find themselves Learner attitudeshave an impact on the level of L2 proficiency achieved by individual learnersand are themselves influenced by this success Thus, learners with positiveattitudes, who experience success, will have these attitudes reinforced.Similarly, learners’ negative attitudes may be strengthened by lack of success.

We will also find cases of learners who begin with positive attitudes but who,for one reason or another, experience inadequate learning opportunities, fail toprogress as they expected, and consequently, become more negative in theiroutlook

In this thesis, both Baker’s and Ellis’ attitudinal theories are adopted to explorethe attitudes of the students towards language learning activities

2.3 Why study learners’ attitudes?

Insights gained from nearly two decades of research in second and foreign language(L2) development in natural as well as formal settings have made us aware thatlanguage learning is primarily a learner-and learning-oriented activity (Brown, 2001;Nunan, 1988a; Wright, 1990) Consequently, in recent years there have been moreemphases on the role of the learner in the language learning process Learners’ attitudes

to, and beliefs about, language learning are one of the more recently discussed learnervariables in the field

In curricula based on a learner-centered approach, learners have greater roles inteaching/learning processes, and this can result in the promotion of their interests andpreferences toward language learning (Makarova, 1997) Moreover, Rifkin (2000)asserts that learners’ attitudes (including their preferences) towards the learning processare “of critical importance to the success or failure of any student’s efforts to master a

foreign language” (p 394) According to Nunan (1988a, p 177), “no curriculum canclaim to be truly learner-centered unless the learner’s subjective needs and perceptionsrelating to the processes of learning are taken into account.” Unfortunately, asAllwright (1984) says, “very many teachers seem to find it difficult to accept theirlearners as people with a positive contribution to make to the instructional process” (p.167) Based on Bada and Okan (2000), many teachers acknowledge the need tounderstand learners’ preferences, but they may not actually consult learners inconducting language activities Teachers may believe that learners are not capable ofexpressing what they want or need to learn and how they want to learn Howeverresearchers like Block (1994, 1996) claim that learners do have an awareness of whatgoes on in classes and that teachers should therefore make an attempt to align their taskorientation to that of learners

Cray and Currie (1996) suggest that the important point is that teachers do not have toact on behalf of their learners but with their learners Attention needs to be given tostudents’ ways of learning and their preferences and unless teachers are aware of thosepreferences they cannot consider them in their teaching activities and classroom

practices However, it should be noted that the terms likes or Preferences, following

Spratt (1999), has been used in its simplest form Thus, when students prefer anactivity, it means that they either enjoy it or find it useful

In considering students’ attitudes towards instructional activities, sociocultural norms

of different societies may play an important role In some society with a top-downcurriculum, social roles of teachers and students are so rigidly drawn that expectingstudents to participate in decision-making in the classroom may not be viewed asrealistic even appropriate The traditional styles and habits of the students mayinfluence their perceived self-confidence and their opinions of the classroom activities

As Cortazzi and Jin (1999) assert, the culture of learning that students bring to the

classroom becomes an invisible yardstick for judgment about how to learn Theyillustrate through examples that mismatches in cultures of learning can affectparticipants’ interpretation of instructional activities and sometimes lead tomisunderstanding.

2.3.1 Communicative language teaching

The communicative approach is based on the idea that learning language successfullycomes through having to communicate real meaning When learners are involved inreal communication, their natural strategies for language acquisition will be used, andthis will allow them to learn to use the language Communicative Language Teaching(CLT) has its roots in England, which is a primarily English as a Second Language(ESL) environment Richards and Rodgers (1986), on the other hand, claim that theorigins of communicative language teaching are to be found in the changes ofsituational language teaching approaches, which influenced the British languageteaching tradition till the late 1960s Meanwhile, Savignon (1991) asserts that theemergence of CLT can be traced to concurrent developments on both sides of theAtlantic, i.e in Europe and the United States

Educators and linguistics such as Candlin (1981) and Widdowson (1978) saw the need

to focus in language teaching on communicative proficiency rather than on meremastery of structures They felt that students were not learning enough realistic, wholelanguage in those methods, i.e., Situational Language Teaching, Audio-lingual orGrammar Translation method (Richards and Rodgers 1986; Savignon 1987, 1991;Galloway 1993) Students did not know how to communicate in the cultures of thelanguage studies According to Galloway (1993: 1):

The communicative approach could be said to be the product of educators andlinguists who had grown dissatisfied with the audiolingual and grammar-

translation methods of foreign language instruction They felt that studentswere not learning enough realistic, whole language They did not know how tocommunicate using appropriate social language, gestures, or expressions; inbrief, they were at a loss to communicate in the culture of language studied.

2.3.2 Some major features of Communicative Language Teaching

The communicative approach to language teaching is, relatively, a newly adaptedapproach in the area of foreign / second language teaching Communicative LanguageTeaching is a “hybrid approach to language teaching, essentially ‘progressive’ ratherthan ‘traditional’…” (Wright,2000) CLT can be seen to derive from a multidisciplinaryperspective that includes, at least, linguistics, psychology, philosophy, sociology andeducational research (Savignon, 1991) It is generally accepted that proponents of CLTsee it as an approach, not a method (Richards and Rodgers 1986; Savignon 1991;Brown 1994) For Brown, for instance, “Communicative Language Teaching is aunified but broadly – based theoretical position about the nature of language andlanguage learning and teaching” (1994: 244-245)

Although we have different versions and various ways in which CLT is interpreted andapplied, educators in the area, Littlewood (1981); Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983);Brumfit (1984); Widdowson (1978, 1979); Johnson and Morrow (1981); Richards andRodgers (1986); Larsen-Freeman (1986); Celce-Murcia (1991) and Johnson (1982) putsome of the major characteristics of CLT as follows:

(a) It is felt that students need knowledge of the linguistic form, meaning andfunctions However, CLT gives primary importance to the use or function of thelanguage and secondary importance to its structure or form (Larsen-Freeman 1986;Johnson 1982) This does not mean that knowledge of grammar is not essential foreffective communication, rather systematic treatment of both functions and forms is

vital Stressing on this, Littlewood says “one of the most characteristic features ofcommunicative language teaching is that it pays systematic attention to functional aswell as structural aspects of language” (1981: 1) “CLT suggests that grammaticalstructure might better be subsumed under various functional categories… we payconsiderably less attention to the overt presentation and discussion of grammaticalrules than we traditionally did” (Brown 1994: 245) Emphasis is also given to meaning(messages they are creating or task them are completing) rather than form (correctness

of language and language structure) For Finocchiaro and Brumfit “meaning isparamount” (1983:91) since it helps the learners to manage the message they engagewith the interlocutors

(b) "Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlyingcommunicative techniques” (Brown1994:245) However, at times fluency may have totake on more importance than accuracy because "fluency and acceptable language isthe primary goal" (Finocchiaro and Brumfit1983:93) and accuracy is judged not in theabstract butin contexts Fluency is emphasized over accuracy in order to keep learnersmeaningfully engaged in language use It is important, however, that fluency shouldnever be encouraged at the expense of clear, unambiguous, direct communication Andmuch more spontaneity is present in communicative classrooms (Brown, 1994)

(c) Language teaching techniques are designed to engage learners in thepragmatic, authentic, functional use of language for meaningful purposes Classroomsshould provide opportunities for rehearsal of real-life situations and provideopportunity for real communication Emphasis on creative role plays, simulations,dramas, games, projects, etc., is the major activities which can help the learner providespontaneity and improvisation, not just repetition and drills Another characteristic ofthe classroom process is the use of authentic materials because it is felt desirable togive students the opportunity to develop the strategies for understanding language as it

is actually used by native speakers In the classroom, everything is done with acommunicative intent Information gap, choice and feedback are thought to be trulycommunicative activities (Johnson and Morrow 1981)

(d) Grammar can still be taught, but less systematically, in traditional waysalongside more innovative approaches Savignon (2002:7) says " for the development

of communicative ability research findings overwhelmingly support the integration ofform-focused exercises with meaning - focused experience" Grammar is important;and learners seem to focus best on grammar when it relates to their communicativeneeds and experiences Disregard of grammar will virtually guarantee breakdown incommunication (Savignon 1991, 2001; Thompson 1996) These writers also say thereare some misconceptions about CLT that makes difficult for many teachers to seeclearly what is happening and to identify the useful innovations that CLT has brought.One of the persistent misconceptions is that CLT means not teaching grammar although

“the exclusion of explicit attention to grammar was never necessary part of CLT"(Thompson 1996:10) In CLT involvement in communicative event is seen as central tolanguage development and this involvement necessarily requires attention to form(structure)

(e) Communicative approach is not limited to oral skills Reading and writingskills need to be developed to promote pupils' confidence in all four skills areas.Students work on all four skills from the beginning, i.e a given activity might involvereading, speaking, listening and perhaps also writing (Celce-Murcia1991) The idea ofemphasising the oral skills creates uncertainty among teachers They misconceivedCLT as if it were devoted to teaching only speaking But, "CLT is not exclusivelyconcerned with face to face oral communication" (Savignon 2002:7) The principles ofCLT apply equally to reading and writing activities that engage readers and writers inthe interpretation, expression, and negotiation of meaning In other words, it is

important to recognize that it is not only the speaker (or writer) who is communicating.Instead, communication through language happens in both the written and spokenmedium and involves at least two people Thompson (1996) further states that, thoughthere is a complaint that CLT ignores written language, a glance at recent mainstreamtext books shows that reading and writing materials have been given attention too.Students regularly work in groups or pairs to transfer (and if necessary to negotiate)meaning in situations where one person has information that others lack (Celce -Murcia 1991) More emphasis should be given to active modes of learning such as pair

or group work in problem-solving tasks in order to maximize the time allotted to eachstudent for learning to negotiate meaning Many people assume group/pair work isapplicable in all contexts However, classroom group and/or pair work should not beconsidered an essential feature used all the time, and may well be inappropriate insome contexts Thompson (1996) and Savignon (2002) claim that group and/or pairwork are flexible and useful techniques than that suggests and they are active modes oflearning which can help the learners to negotiate meaning and engage in problem-solving activities The use of pair/group work is a physical signal of some degree ofcontrol and choice passing to the learners; but that needs to be complemented by realchoice (learners need to be given some degree of control over their learning).Therefore, the use of pair/group work needs to be complemented by real choice for thefollowing reasons: (1) they can provide the learners with a relatively safe opportunity

to try out ideas before launching them in public; (2) they can lead to more developedideas and therefore greater confidence and more effective communication; (3) they canalso provide knowledge and skills which may complement those of their partnerswhich in turn lead to greater success in undertaking tasks (Thompson 1996) Errors areseen as a natural outcome of the development of the communication skills and aretherefore tolerated Learners trying their best to use the language creatively andspontaneously are bound to make errors Constant correction is unnecessary and even

counterproductive Correction noted by the teacher should be discreet Let the studentstalk and express themselves and the form of the language becomes secondary If errors

of form are tolerated and are seen as a natural outcome of the development ofcommunication skills, students can have limited linguistic knowledge and still besuccessful communicators (Larsen-Freeman 1986)

2.3.3 Communicative activities

Communicative activities include any activities that have real purposes: to findinformation, to talk about self, to learn about culture, to exchange information, etc.Learners’ preferences are one side of the coin The other side of the coin is teachers’awareness of those preferences, which plays a considerable role in influencing theirdecision-making processes and classroom behaviors (Spratt, 1999) Some studiesindicate that there are considerable discrepancies of opinions between learners andtheir teachers or syllabus experts A divergence of opinions between these two groupshas been noted in relation to what they prefer, what learners need, and the nature oflanguage and language learning (Kern, 1995; Kumaravadivelu, 1991; Nunan, 1988a,1988b) Block (1994, p 473) found that “teachers and learners operate according toquite different systems for describing and attributing purpose to tasks.” According toKumaravadivelu (1991) both teachers and learners bring with them their ownperceptions of what constitutes language teaching and learning In other words,learners and teachers interpret classroom activities from their own perspectives, whichmay not always match

2.3.3 Advantages of CLT

The implementation of CLT has brought a lot of advantages for Teaching English as aforeign/second language Unlike audio lingual and grammar-translation methods,Communicative teaching emphasis on “task-oriented, student-centered” language

teaching practice and it provides students with comprehensive use of English language,for communication of opportunities (Richards, 2006) Other scholars also suggestedsome of the major advantages of CLT as follows:

(a) It motivates students to improve their ability of using English by themselvessince it emphasizes on fluency in the target language Meaning that, it providesstudents with assignments that allow them to improve their own ideas about what theyare going to talk and how they are going to express This enables the learners to bemore confident when interacting with other people and they also enjoy talking more(Brown, 2001)

A prominent example of the divergence of opinion between learners’ preferences andteachers’ perception of those predispositions is the study performed by Spratt (1999)involving EFL learners in Hong Kong The results of this study showed that “teacherswere able to gauge their learners’ preferences with accuracy for 54% of activities” (p.141), which is a considerable degree of discrepancy In another study by Barkhuizen(1998), ESL teachers in South Africa frequently became surprised when they found outtheir students’ thoughts, feelings and indications

(b) CLT focuses on and aims at communicative competence Thus, enabling thelearners to use the language in a communicative situation to satisfy their needs in real-life communication is a priority in CLT In other words, it brings the real life situation

of the native English in to classroom activities such as role-play and simulation(Harmer, 2007)

is not enough emphasis on the correction of pronunciation and grammar error It isbecause too much focus on meaning at the expense of form It is believed that withCLT there is a danger of focusing too much on oral skills and less emphasis is given toreading and writing skills.

(b) The CLT approach focuses on fluency but not accuracy in grammar andpronunciation Communicative language teaching is assumed to lead to the production

of “fluent but inaccurate" learners What is predicted to happen here is the danger ofgiving priority to fluency over accuracy in CLT classes

(c) The CLT approach is great for intermediate student and advanced students, but forbeginners some controlled practice is needed Students with low levels of proficiency inthe target language may find it difficult to participate in oral communicative activitiesand, if the exams used by any institution are grammar based, communicative fluencymay not be appropriate

(d) The monitoring ability of the teacher must be very good Despite teachers’ bestefforts, classroom activities are not actually real-life and it can be difficult to reproducetruly authentic language use and to facilitate genuine interaction Moreover, a majorprinciple underlying this approach is its emphasis on learners' needs and interests Thisimplies that much more effort is expected that every teacher should modify the syllabus

to correspond with the needs of the learners

(e) CLT is sometimes difficult to be implemented in an EFL classroom due to the lack

of sources and equipments like authentic materials and native speaker teachers as well

as large size of the classes In addition, suitable classrooms are not available that canallow for group work activities and for teaching aids and materials (Burnaby and Sun,1989)

2.4 Studies on students’ attitudes towards communicative and

non-communicative activities

Many researchers and educators pay more attention to the field of investigatinglearners’ views on learner-centered classroom activities For instance, Green (1993)showed that the communicative activities were rated more enjoyable than the non-communicative ones, except for the activities of interviewing English speakers outside

of the class Garrett and Shortall (2002) also stated that there were different preferencesfor classroom activities among learner groups of different proficiency First, Beginnerssaw the teacher-fronted grammar activities as better for leaning than the student-centered grammar activities because they focused mainly on the teacher’s modeling,feedback, and the opportunities for repetition and drilling Second, both the beginnersand intermediates viewed the student-centered fluency activities as more fun andrelaxing than the teacher-fronted fluency works because they were full of creativity,freedom, and classroom companionship Moreover, Feng’s (2000) study showed thatthe effective listeners revealed higher interest in high-level activities, likepresentations, word games, film follow-up discussions, and ABC news, than did lesseffective listeners In addition, both effective and less effective learners had greatinterest in film watching, watching skits on video and singing Furthermore, empiricalevidences showed that learners generally had weak preferences for individual work;instead they preferred to take part in activities in groups Regarding students’perceptions, we can note that not all learners have unified feelings towards CLT Forinstance, Hung (1997) found that the students expressed more negative feelingstowards their English learning experiences, which were based on the Chinesetraditional approach, because they thought that it focused more on reading and writing,resulting in their incompetence in communication Hung (1997) also stated thatChinese college students liked the Chinese traditional approach because they felt safe

in this kind of class In the traditional English class, the most commonly used activity

is a repetition in chorus, so individual students may hide themselves when they makemistakes or lag behind the class Particularly, they thought that traditional classroomactivities such as drills and teacher’s explanation of grammar rules were effective infacilitating their English learning because they needed to take grammar-based tests.Similarly, Rao (2002) found that most of the students favour a combination ofcommunicative and non-communicative activities in their English classroom.Nevertheless, there exists a conflict between what communicative activities demandand what the EFL situation in China allows In another study, Savignon and Wang(2003) show that there is certain mismatch between learner needs and preferences andtheir reported experiences of classroom instruction.

Nunun (1989) claimed that learners favored non-communicative activities more thancommunicative ones, while others revealed the contrary results Likewise, Barkhuisen(1998) reported his learners’ resistance to participating in communicative activities andtheir preferences for more traditional classroom practice More positive resultsaddressing communicative activities could be found in the studies by Spratt (1999) andSavignon and Wang (2003) The students in their studies generally ratedcommunicative activities higher than learners in other studies of the kind and thatteachers in the studies underestimated the learners’ preferences for the communicativeactivities (p.143) More recently, Chung and Huang (2009) and Wang, Reu-Jan (2008)

in their studies indicated that most participants hold positive attitudes towards a morecommunicative-based language teaching, which reflects the correct direction that theMinistry of higher education is moving towards in its recent curricular change There isneed to slightly shift the focus of English teaching in the classroom to achieve students’long-term goal, which is to develop their English communicative competence

Many studies were conducted regarding the students’ attitudes towards instructionalactivities (Franklin, 1990; Macaro, 1997; Dickson, 1996; Swain & Lapkin, 2000)

Breen (cited in Block, 1996) showed that students were able to identify specifictechniques adopted by the teacher that they preferred and believed that it helped themwith understanding the new language Hawkey (2006) presented language educationreform project, carried out in Italy, where he found differences between learners’ andteachers’ perceptions on activities in foreign language classes The study furtherexplored the target language teachers and learners both agreed on teaching methodsthat varied from communicative approach to language teaching having differences inthem over grammar and pair work activities in the classroom Nunan (1989) describestwo Australian studies that show learners favor traditional learning activities over morecommunicative activity types He argued about the ‘hidden agenda’ that is taken forgranted by learners to enhance their target language for their professional needs Hefurther explained that learners liked teachers’ corrective feedback for their eitherindividual or pair work activities Peacock’s (1998) study evidenced that students’attitudes were detrimental to language learning Comparing 64% of learners with 7% ofteachers, his study indicated that learning a foreign language in the class meantlearning grammar and its rules with a wide range of class activities initiated by theteachers in order to enhance the students’ motivation and practice actively.

It should be noted that curriculum developers, syllabus designers, and teachers shouldbecome aware of their students’ preferences Once they come to know them, they can,

“if necessary,” take into consideration those preferences and plan and implementalternative behaviors and activities in their classes (Barkhuizen, 1998) Even iflearners’ desires and those of teachers’ are in contrast with each other (e.g., teachersemphasize communicative activities and learners tend toward traditional activities),they can shift to a negotiated syllabus procedure and come to reasonable agreements(Jordan, 1997)

In considering learners’ views towards instructional activities, socio-cultural norms ofdifferent societies may also play an important role In some societies with a top-downcurriculum, social roles of teachers and learners are so rigidly drawn that expectinglearners to participate in decision-making in the classroom may not be viewed asappropriate The traditional learning styles and habits of the learners may influencelearners’ perceived self-confidence and their knowledge base to make informed choices

in relation to instructional activities In these contexts promoting learners’ participation

in the educational process needs to be done with care and sensitivity As Cortazzi andJin (1999) assert, the culture of learning that students and teachers bring to classroombecomes an invisible yardstick for judgments about how to teach or learn, aboutwhether and how to ask questions, and about the role of the textbooks in thecurriculum They illustrate through examples that mismatches in cultures of learningcan affect participants’ interpretation of one another and sometimes lead tomisunderstandings Using multi-method qualitative research procedures, Rao (2002)explored thirty Chinese university students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities using quantitative and qualitative data Participants reportedfavoring come communicative activities such as student-student and student-teacherinteraction, personal responses to exercises and other non-communicative activitiessuch as audio-lingual drills, dictionary exercises and teachers’ explicit explanation ofgrammatical rules The study discovered that Chinese students’ perceived difficultieswith Communicative Language Teaching had their source in the differences betweenthe underlying educational theories of China and those of Western countries Based onthe results, Rao suggests that, to update English teaching methods, EFL countries likeChina need to modernize, not westernize, English teaching

This study was conducted in order to broaden the scope of studies done in the area ofstudents’ and instructors’ perceptions of instructional activities, and to include learners

of a different profile and in a different socio-cultural context from previous studies

The context of English language teaching in Iran, with its anti-Western sentiments afterthe Islamic revolution, the limited amount of exposure to English language and relativelack of native English speaking tourists and visitors in the country, is different from theEFL teaching contexts reported in other studies ( e.g., Bada & Okan, 2000; Nunan,1989; Rao, 2002; Spratt, 1999) Therefore, it will be insightful to see if similar findingswill be reached This study will give information regarding this particular group oflearners’ perceptions of different activity types and different areas of language learning,

as well as a profile of students’ subjective needs Moreover, the findings will clarify theareas of mismatch between learners’ and their teaches’ perception of different languagelearning activities

In Vietnam, Khoi and Iwashita (2012) reported their study which compared learners’and teachers’ attitudes towards CLT in terms of four factors: grammar instruction, errorcorrection, group and pair work, and teachers’ roles A questionnaire was administered

to 37 teachers and 88 university pre-intermediate to intermediate learners of English inVitenam The results showed that both groups held favourable attitudes towards CLT,but teachers had more positive attitudes than their students

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Survey

Survey research has been used widely by second and foreign language researchers tostudy a wide variety of issues that are related to language learning According to Brown(2001), survey research is aimed at gathering data on the characteristics and views ofinformants about the nature of language or language learning through the use of oralinterviews or written questionnaires The purpose of this study is to gain informationabout students’ attitudes towards communicative and non-communicative activities inthe English classroom Therefore, it fits Brown’s definition of survey research

Survey research, according to Brown (2001: 1) has the following characteristics:

that survey research can draw on both qualitative and statisticaltechniques

One of the most common methods of data collection in second language research is touse questionnaire (Dörnyei, 2003) In survey research, questionnaires are one of themost powerful instruments to data collection As Dornyei (2003, p 3) has put it,

“Because the essence of scientific research is trying to find answers to questions in a

systematic manner, it is no wonder that the questionnaire has become one of the mostpopular research instruments applied in the social sciences” Dornyei (2003: 9) lists thefollowing advantages of the questionnaire in educational research:

By administering a questionnaire to a group of people, one can collect a hugeamount of information in less than an hour, and the personal investment required will

be a fraction of what would have been needed for, say, interviewing the same number

of people Furthermore, if the questionnaire is well constructed, processing the data canalso be fast and relatively straightforward, especially by using some modern computersoftware

In short, three major advantages of questionnaire are (i) researcher time, (ii)researcher effort, and (c) financial resources These cost-benefit considerations are veryimportant, particularly for all those who are doing research in addition to having a full-time job (Gillham, 2000)

The questionnaire used in survey research falls into one of the following categories:behaviors, opinions, feelings, knowledge, and sensory; or problems, priorities, abilities,attitudes, and solutions (Brown, 2001: 9) The questionnaire used in this study falls intothe categories of opinions and attitudes

3.2 The questionnaire

The questionnaire used in this study was a learner self-report five-point Likert-scalequestionnaire on communicative and non- communicative activities in class It iscomposed of 32 items (see Appendix A) Each item is a statement describing aparticular learning activity For example, “English teaching should focus oncommunication, with grammar explained when necessary”, or “English teachingshould focus on learning and memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules.”

The students were invited to respond affectively to a series of items representingactivities associated with the following issues: (i) their attitudes towards learningEnglish (question 32); (ii) their attitudes towards forms-focused activities (questions2,8, 9,15,18, 24, 25, 29, 31); (iii) their attitudes towards and meaning-focused activities

(questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 21,22, 23, 26, 27, 30,); (iv) their attitudes towards errorcorrection (questions 11, 12, 13; 14, 16, 17) and (v) their attitudes towards the teacher’slanguage use in the classroom (10, 19, 20, 28) The activities on the list were selectedafter considering the following aspects:

(1).The literature on Communicative approach in the language classroom,course teaching schemes, interviews with a range of teachers on what activities theycommonly used, and the researcher's experience of working with English majorlearners and colleagues in the English Department and the learners’ views towardscommunicative activities and more ‘traditional’ activities

(2) Current practice at the institution in general and of the target respondents inparticular The consideration of the context helped to choose activities that wereactually being applied in these language classrooms rather than a list of generalactivities which can be labeled ‘communicative’ or ‘non-communicative’ activitieselsewhere The researcher then developed the pilot questionnaire Since the studentswere studying in the English department, English was chosen as the language of thequestionnaire These activities were categorized into fourteen areas including accuracyand fluency, reading, writing, speaking, listening, feedback, grammar, participationmodes and others

All the questionnaire items are bilingually written, i.e in both English and Vietnamese

to facilitate the respondents’ understanding

3.3 The content validity

To assure the content validity of the questionnaire, all the items in this questionnairewere first reviewed by the supervisor, who is believed to be knowledgeable andreputable in the field After the supervisor members approved the English version of

the questionnaire, the questionnaire was pilot tested by administering it to 45 grade 12students in one class

3.4 The reliability

To determine the reliability of the instrument, the survey questionnaire was pilot tested

by administering it to 15 grade 10 students in the same school Cornbach Alpha wasused to compute the reliability for the students’ questionnaire which consists of twosections Section one deals with communicative and non-communicative activities Itsreliability was 0.841 Section two deals with difficulties in implementingCommunicative Approach in class Its reliability was 0.828 The reliability coefficientindicated that the data collected were highly reliable Overall result of the pilot studyshowed that students had different views towards communicative and non-communicative activities

3.5 Data analysis

Data analysis does not consist a simple description of the data collected butrather it is aprocess by which the researcher interprets the data The completed questionnaire wasfirst subjected to descriptive statistics utilizing frequency and percentage Thedescriptive statistics is followed by discussion of the results In the process of dataanalysis, the researcher adopted analytic induction By reading through the completedquestionnaire, the researcher discovered the students’ perceptions of communicativeand non-communicative activities and identified the recurrent themes and salientcomments in regard to the constraints that Saudi students had encountered in usingcommunicative activities On the questionnaire, scores of 4 or 5 indicated students’approval of activities whereas scores of 1 or 2 indicated disapproval The zero score (0)indicated that the response was missing

Statistical analyses were conducted using the SPSS 16.0.To check the normality,descriptive statistics for the items, including frequency, mean, standard deviation werecalculated.

3.6 Procedures

3.6.1.Timeline

The study followed the steps of a survey that have been recommended in the literature.These include:

a Planning a survey project

b Designing a survey instrument

c Gathering and compiling survey data

d Analyzing survey data statistically

e Analyzing survey data qualitatively

f Reporting survey research

Table 0: The timeline of the study

(about 6 months, 24 weeks, from 1st of December 2016 to 30th June, 2017)

survey

project

b.Designing

a survey

a.Planning a survey project

b.Designing a survey instrument

holiday)

c.Gathering and compiling survey data

d.Analyzing survey data statistically

e Analyzing survey data qualitatively

f Reporting survey research

3.6.2.Participants.

In this study, the planning stage involved the selection of the participants, which

limited to the academic year 2016/2017, the preparation of letter of consent and thedistribution of the letter of consent to the selected groups of students All studentsagreed to participate in the survey by signing the letter of consent

CHAPTER IV

THE RESULTS

4.1 Students’ attitudes towards learning English

Because the focus of the study is not on the students’ attitudes towards learningEnglish, there is only one question (question 32) in the questionnaire asking thestudents’ attitudes towards the role of English in their future career Out of 75respondents, 55, or nearly two-thirds of them (73.3%; M=4; SD=1.11) agreed on theimportance of having a good ability of using English to their future However, 17.3%

of the students reported that they did now know whether English was important to theirfuture or not

Table 4.1 Students’ attitudes towards forms-focused (non-communicative) activities

Stronglydisagree

46

7

13 17

3

7

11 14

7

31 I learn best when

the teacher is very

strict and controls the

36

0

16 21

3

According to the data presented in Table 4.1 towards forms-focused

(non-communicative) activities (N=75), more than half the student participants preferred

forms-focused (non-communicative) activities To be more specific, as many as 68% of

them emphasized the memory of grammatical rules and vocabulary Accordingly, morethan half of them (52%) expected teachers to provide explicit explanation ofgrammatical rules and translation Similarly, 54% of them preferred a deductiveapproach to grammar, i.e the teacher explaining a grammatical rule then illustratingthe rule through examples However, nearly half of them (46.7%) did not seem to beconcerned so much about grammatical accuracy as they reported that they did not agree

with the statement “I don't like to say anything in English until I can say it correctly”.

Regarding grammar exercises, only more than one-third of them (37.4%) stated thatthey liked this activity while as many as 42.7% did not expressed their attitude towardsthis More than half of the (58.6%) preferred teacher-controlled activities stating thatthey liked learning English by imitating the teacher and they wanted the teacher tocontrolled classroom activities Their preference to forms-focused activities was furthersupported by a high percentage ((61.4%) preferring written tests that tested what theyhad been taught As far as pronunciation is concerned, as many as 70.7% of the studentparticipants wanted to have correct pronunciation

Table 4.2 : Descriptive statistics (Mean and SD) of students’ attitudes towards communicative activities (N=75; Max=5; Min=1)

Deviatio

n (SD)2.English teaching should focus on learning and

memorizing vocabulary and grammar rules

8 I like my teacher to spend a lot of time on

teaching grammar rules and translations

9 I like the teacher to explain a grammatical rule

that is printed in the textbook in English, and

then give you examples in English as well

15 I don't like to say anything in English until I

can say it correctly

18 I like to do a written exercise in which I am

asked to fill in the correct forms of verbs in

25 I like to learn English through imitation/

repetition under the guidance of the teacher

29 I like to have a written test on what I have

learned

31 I learn best when the teacher is very strict and

controls the lesson

Table 4.2 summarizes the student participants’ attitudes towards non-communicativeactivities in terms of Mean (M) and Standard Deviation (SD) The highest mean(M=3.97; SD=1.47) goes to correct pronunciation Second to this is memorization ofgrammatical rules and vocabulary (M= 3.62; SD=.85), and the positive attitudestowards teachers’ teaching grammar explicitly (M=3.57; SD= 1.12) Teacher-controlledactivities such as explaining rules, translating and controlling were also preferred bymore than half of the students (M=3.45) The lowest mean goes to the students’positive attitudes towards errors: they seemed to be willing to take risks in practicingthe language (M=2.77; SD= 1.22)

To sum up, although the student participants wanted to learn the pnonunciationcarefully before talking English because they liked to speak English with correctpronunciation ( M= 3.97), they liked to communicate in English when they disaprovedwith the statement “I don't like to say anything in English until I can say it correctly.”(M= 2.77)

4.2 Students’ attitudes towards communicative and non-communicative

activities in their learning English

Table 4.3 Students’ attitudes towards meaning-focused activities (N=75)

Stronglydisagree

20

0

20

26

7

3.I like to watch some English

language films or videos and

discuss them in groups under

the teacher's guidance

44

0

19 25.3

4 I like the teacher to divide us

into pairs, in which I have to

ask my partner questions, and

answer the questions my partner

42

7

20 26.7

5.I like to participate in large

group activities in class so that

we have more opportunities to

42

7

20 26.7

6 I like the teacher to divide us

into small groups in which I and

my classmates talk about things

we like and things we dislike

3

19

25

3

28

37

3

14 18.7

7 I like to practice

conversations individually with

the teacher in the class

7

21

28

0

31

41

3

12 16.0

21 I like to listen to classmates

giving oral presentations in

English

3

16

21

3

19

25

3

13 17.3

22 I like my teacher to

organize us to discuss questions

after we finish listening to a

37

3

10 13.3

23 I like my English teacher to

let us listen more and speak

more in class

3

16

21

3

25

33

3

18 24.0

26 In English class, I like my

teacher to ask students

text-based and thought-provoking

questions to keep the lesson

42

7

15 20.0

27.In English class, I like my

teacher to ask students

thought-provoking questions about the

lesson content in order that

students have chances to

practice their spoken English

36

0

13 17.3

30 I like to have English oral

tests

7

23

30

7

27