NGHIÊN cứu về VIỆC sử DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP tự ĐÁNH GIÁ TRONG lớp học NHẰM TĂNG ĐỘNG lực học TIẾN ANH ở TRƯỜNG đại học CÔNG NGHIỆP hà nội

Hoμng Thị Hương Giang A study on using self – assessment in the classroom to increase learning motivation in Learning English at Hanoi University of Industry Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụ

Hoμng Thị Hương Giang

A study on using self – assessment in the

classroom to increase learning

motivation in Learning English at Hanoi

University of Industry

(Nghiên cứu về việc sử dụng phương pháp tự

đánh giá trong lớp học nhằm tăng động lực học tiếng Anh ở trường Đại Học Công

nghiệp Hà Nội)

Minor programme thesis

Field: Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi – 2008

Hoμng ThÞ H−¬ng Giang

A study on using self –assessment in the

classroom to increase learning

motivation in Learning English at Hanoi

Minor programme thesis

Field: Language Teaching Methodology

Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Vuong, M.A

Hanoi- 2008

DECLARATION

I, Hoang Thi Huong Giang , hereby declare that the work contained in this thesis, other than that specifically attributed to another source, is the result of my own research It is recognised that, should this declaration be found to be false, disciplinary action could be taken and penalties imposed in accordance with University policy and rules

Signature

Hoang Thi Huong Giang

ABSTRACT

Motivation is considered to be one of the most important elements in language learning Understand the role of motivation and the related theoryof self- assessment method has the potential to inform classroom teaching in important ways If self- assessment method can indeed increase learners’motivation, then teaching and using self- assessment skills to learners may have direct implications for English classroom

The primary goal of this study is to investigate learners’ motivation in learning English before and after using continuous self – assessment questionnaire Then it refers to ideas of other teachers of English at HAUI about self- assessment method Lastly, this study seeks to discover some typical techniques related to self- assessment method in order

to increase learners’motivation in learning English.The results of the study and some recommendation will bring in practical benefits to teaching and learning English Teachers and learners will realize the useful role of self-assessment method and use some self- assessment techniques effectively

Table of content

DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

1.2 Types of motivation in second language learning 7

1.3 The importance of motivation in L2 learning 9

2 Theoretical backgrounds of self - assessment method 9

2.2 Why use self - assessment in second language learning? 10

2.3 Self-assessment techniques in L2 learning 11

2.3.7 Self assessment questionnaire 14

1 Summary of the topic and need for the study 27

3 Limitations and implications for future research 30

CHAPTER I: Introduction

1 Rationale

English has proved to play the important role as an international language and has ahuge impact on the lives of people in many countries Understanding the importance ofmastering this language, in Viet Nam, our government has given a lot of suitable policies ineducation in order to encourage universities and schools to achieve the best quality ofteaching and learning

Hanoi University of Industry (HAUI) has tried to become an open educationalinstitution, to cater for learners and interested parties, train labor at various levels and meetthe demand of socio-economic development It is continuously improving the teachingmethodology with the learner focus approach; applying strictly information technology inmanaging, teaching and learning; experimenting the credit model in education for athroughout application of this module; expanding the training cooperation with universities,schools, technical and economic institutions inside the country and overseas; encouragin gcreativity and learning

Hanoi University of Industry also focuses much on teaching English beside othermajors Students at HAUI have to learn English as a compulsory subject and have lots ofchances to take part in many activities in English

Teachers at HAUI usually organize professional meetings, contests of good teaching,English speaking clubs and many activities in order to improve the quality of teaching andlearning English here However, they have a great deal of difficulties with the syllabus,curriculum, materials, and learners ‘motivation, etc…Especially the question: “How toincrease learners’ motivation?” is a big question that comes form many teachers This is ofgreat concern to teachers of English here

Being a teacher of English at HAUI, I often try to find out suitable methods ofteaching to different levels of students Accidentally, I read some articles related to usingself – assessment method in language teaching, and I find it interesting and useful In myteaching, I sometimes use this method in simple ways in some classes and it often givespositive results(for example: Self-marking; Portfolios; Pre- and post-course writing;

Learner contracts; Student progress card; Learner diary; Self assessment questionnaire;

Videotape; teacher-student interviews, etc…)

Because of the scope of the study, I choose Self assessment questionnaire as the maintechnique which follows through the study because I find it a useful one And I often applythis technique in my teaching most of the time

For the above reasons, I carry out this study to investigate deeply the effects of assessment method, especially Self assessment questionnaire (weekly self-evaluations) toEnglish learning and with the hope of sharing this method to all teachers of English

self-2 Aim of the study:

The primary goal of this study is to investigate learners’ motivation in learning

English before and after using continuous self – assessment questionnaire Then it refers to

ideas of other teachers of English at HAUI about self- assessment method Lastly, thisstudy seeks to discover some typical techniques related to self- assessment method in order

to increase learners’motivation in learning English

3 Research questions:

The study was intended to answer the following questions:

+ Is the self – assessment method used in English classroom at Hanoi University of

Industry?

+ Does the self – assessment method increase HAUI students’ motivation in the classroom?

4 Significance of the study

Motivation is considered to be one of the most important elements in languagelearning Without appropriate motivation, it is unlikely that learners will succeed with thelanguage Understanding the role of motivation and the related theory of self- assessmentmethod has the potential to perform classroom teaching in important ways

If self- assessment method can indeed increase learners’ motivation, then teachingand using self- assessment skills to learners may have direct implications for Englishclassroom The results of the study and some recommendations will bring about practicalbenefits to teaching and learning English Teachers and learners will realize the useful role

of self-assessment method and use some self- assessment techniques effectively

5 Scope of the study

Firstly, the study is conducted to find out whether or not self- assessment method increaseslearners’ motivation in learning English

Secondly, the study is carried out with the hope of testing how to use some self- assessmenttechniques effectively in English class

Other approaches of how to increase learners’ motivation are beyond this study

6 Method of the study

The purpose of this study was to find out if the incorporation of self- assessment exercises

in English classroom directly helps increase learners’ motivation In order to accomplishthis goal, my thesis is the combination of different methods in education research

Knowledge and experience that I have gained from learning and teaching with a lot ofmaterials, articles, books, websites, etc…helped me much in writing the thesis, especiallythe literature review

Given the desire to assess a cause- effect relationship between the variables in researchquestions, an experimental research design was used In order to achieve the abovementioned aims and objectives to make the study more practical, data were collected byquestionnaire and analysis

The primary data analysis is of quantitative method with scale question in the questionnairedesigned for students’ motivation analysis

In a more detail, this study is to prove for the following two main hypothesises:

Null hypothesis: There is no statistically significant difference between posttest ratings of

motivation among students who receive a weekly classroom self- assessment componentfor one semester and those who do not, after controlling for the effect of pretest motivationratings in both groups

Alternative hypothesis: Students who receive a weekly classroom self- assessment

component for one semester will report higher posttest ratings of motivation compared withthose who do not, after controlling for the effect of pretest motivation ratings in bothgroups

7 Design of the study

The thesis consists of fours chapters as follows:

Chapter I: provides a general introduction, the background for the study, its aim,

significance, scope, research questions, method and the design of the thesis

Chapter II: provides the literature review of the thesis and consists of two main parts:

theoretical backgrounds of motivation, theoretical backgrounds of self - assessmentmethod

Chapter III: is the study which focuses on: research questions; null and alternative

hypotheses; research design; participants and settings; procedures; instruments (Motivationquestionnaire; Self- assessment questionnaire); data analysis; summary of methodology;results

Chapter IV: presents the summary of the study and discussion is given to point out

implication for teaching

CHAPTER II: Literature review

1 Theoretical backgrounds of motivation

1.1 What is motivation?

According to Dörnyei, Z (2001), perhaps the following item about motivationthat many researchers admit is that motivation concerns the direction and magnitude ofhuman behavior, that is:

+ the choice of a particular action

+ the persistence with it

+ the effort expended on it

In other words, motivation is responsible for

+ why people decide to do something

+ how long they are willing to sustain the activity

+ how hard they are going to pursue it

When learning a foreign language, motivation is defined as the learner'sorientation with regard to the goal of learning a second language Motivation is considered

to be one of the most important elements in language learning Without motivation, it isunlikely that learners will succeed in their language learning According to Cunningsworth(1992), a student who is not well taught but is motivated will have better results in learning

a foreign language than a student who is well taught but is not motivated Cunningsworth(1992, p 59) also states that “motivation determines the student’s level of attention duringclass, and the assiduity which he does his homework and revises what he has been taughtduring the day”

It is commonly thought that if motivation is present, students become active as well

as involved in the learning process; if absent, the learner will be passive, disinterested, andnot involved in the learning process and therefore will not learn Thus, foreign languageteachers have to be aware of the necessity of looking for techniques and interactiv eactivities in order to enhance their classes and also to motivate their students to learn aforeign language

Ames (1992) gave out three different types of goals in the area of achievementmotivation The first is the mastery or the learning goals which focus on obtaining

competence or mastering a new set of knowledge or skills to achieve success; the secondtype of goals are called performance goals, which are related to doing better than others ordoing well without a lot of effort in order to avoid failure, and the last ones are called socialgoals which focus on relationships among people.

An important aspect of the achievement motivation theory is that learners can bemotivated to either avoid failure or achieve success (Ames, 1992) In other words, whenlearners want to avoid failure they try to select either easy tasks in order to achieve success

or difficult tasks in order to have a good excuse for why failure occurr However, whenlearners want to achieve success they try to select moderately difficult tasks, which willprovide an interesting challenge for them to keep the high expectations for success

What is motivation in EFL learning? Motivation may be defined as “a state ofcognitive and emotional arousal, which leads to a conscious decision to act, and whichgives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort in order to attain apreviously set goal or goals” (Williams & Burden, 1997 p 120) In other words, a persongets interested in some way and this interest may be started by different causes, maybeinternal ones, coming from inside the learner such as an interest in the activity or a wish to

be successful Other causes may be external, for example the influence of another person oreven an event However, whatever the cause, the person’s interest is activated, leading thisperson to make a conscious decision to act in certain ways in order to achieve a goal orgoals related to the activity undertaken Once the activity has started the person has topersist in achieving the goals and all this is influenced by the context and situation, and will

be personal to the individual

Specifically in EFL learning, motivation is “a complex phenomenon which can bedefined in terms of two factors: learners’ communicative needs, and their attitudes towardsthe second language community” (Lightbown & Spada, 1993 p 40) It means that ifstudents need to speak the foreign language in a variety of social situations or maybe to get

a better job they will notice the importance of the foreign language and consequently will

be motivated to learn it Likewise, if students have positive attitudes towards the speakers

of the language, they will probably want to have more contact with them

Ur (1996), who is concerned with English language teaching, also sees motivation as

a very important phenomenon As she considers motivation difficult to give a definition,she prefers to think about motivation in terms of ‘motivated’ learners, that is, learners who

are willing to involve themselves in learning activities to progress Ur (1996) states thatteaching and learning can become much easier and more pleasant when there is learnersmotivation.

Who And What Motivates Foreign Language Students? It is important to say thatstudents’ motivation in foreign language learning is the result not only of their internalenvironment but also of many other factors involved in the external milieu in which theyare studying that language, and the teacher is one of the most important of such factors.The characteristics foreign language teachers should possess could be summed up asfollows: they should be competent, observant, tactful and communicative; in addition,however, they should stimulate interest, have a capacity for self-evaluation and be willing

to develop their skills Above all they must feel a genuine interest for their students, beextremely sensitive to the students in order to motivate them (Calvin,1991)

1.2 Types of motivation in second language learning

This kind of motivation is called integrative motivation This is a key feature ifsomeone is a citizen in a new community which has the target language in its socialinteractions, in helping learner to improve their levels of proficiency in the language theyare learning It becomes essential to operate socially in the community and become one ofits members

Integrative motivation was identified by the fact that students are attracted by theculture of the community speaking that L2 and they want to integrate themselves into such

a culture or become a part of that society It is associated with components such as “interest

in foreign languages”, “desire to learn the target language”, “attitudes toward learning thetarget language”, “attitudes toward the learning situation”, “desire to interact with the targetlanguage”, and “attitudes toward the target language community” (Gardner, 1982, Dörnyei,

1990 p 46)

1.2.2 Instrumental Motivation

Instrumental Motivation is known as the desire to obtain something practical orconcrete from the study of a second language In this circumstance, the aim of languageacquisition is more practical, for example: meeting the demand of school or universitygraduation, applying for a job, asking for higher pay, researching technical material, workrelated to translation or gaining higher social status Instrumental motivation is normallydistinctive of second language acquisition, in which little or no social integration of thelearner into a community using the target language takes place

Instrumental motivation is marked by the fact that the learner studies the L2 with autilitarian purpose in mind, such as a better job or a higher salary Thus, no matter whattype of motivation students have, foreign language teachers have to keep in mind that thestrength of motivation depends on the state of a student’s needs and goals

Integrative and instrumental motivation are both necessary components for thesuccess of language learning , but integrative motivation has been found to maintain long -term success when learning a second language (Ellis 1997; Crookes et al 1991) In someresearches conducted by Gardner and Lambert integrative motivation was seen as being ofmore importance in a formal learning environment than instrumental motivation (Ellis1997) In other studies, integrative motivation has continued to be pointed up, althoughnow the importance of instrumental motivation is also emphasized

Nevertheless it is significant to notice that instrumental motivation has only beenadmitted as a significant element in some studies but integrative motivation is linked tosuccessful second language acquisition It has been proved that commonly students chooseinstrumental reasons more frequently than integrative reasons for their study of language.Those who follow an integrative approach to study language are always more highlymotivated and more successful in language learning

Brown (2000) points out that integrative and instrumental motivation are both notincompatible Learners don’t often select one kind of motivation when learning a secondlanguage In his opinion, it is the combination of the two types of motivation

Motivation is an important component in L2 acquisition That is why it is important

to classify both the type and mixture of motivation that helps in the successful acquisition

of a second language Moreover, it is essential to look at motivation as one variable in a

complex model of interrelated individual and situational factors which are unique to eachlanguage learner.

1.3 The importance of motivation in L2 learning:

Motivation in language learning is so important that other concerns about teachingmethodology become faint in comparison Motivation is important to view as the essence

of language teaching because of the reality of language learning - is somehow related to alearner’s passion Passion means a person’s central goals in life, the things the learner caresabout most Teachers can help learners to bring their passion into the classroom in manyways For example, teachers can introduce interesting activities to the classroom - Englishsongs, movies, hot news, riddles, jokes, games, and so on - in order to enhance learners’interests Teachers can then use these form to build a class culture If we introduce, or if weallow the learners themselves to bring in, samples of current songs, clippings of famouspeople, or photos or video clips, we invite greater engagement in the classroom Anotherway of helping learners find their passion is by organizing class activities around the theme

of self-expression There are a number of approaches here: personalized tasks, ideajournals, speaking circles, interactive questionnaires

2 Theoretical backgrounds of self - assessment method.

2.1 Definitions of self – assessment

Self-assessment method appeared in 1980 with the publication of a Council of Europetext on the topic (Oskarsson 1980) Since then, many programmes all over the world havetried to use self-assessment method in the learning The usefulness of self-assessment forlearning purposes seems to be widely proved

Self-assessment can be defined as information about the learners provided by thelearner themselves, about their abilities, the progress they think they are making and whatthey think they can or cannot do yet with what they have learned in a course Oneoutcome of accurate self-assessment is that it leads learners to a more comfortableapproach to a specific material and more confidence while performing a task related to it

In essence, the greater one’s self-assessment ability to perform a task, the more likely it

is that the learner will develop a feeling of mastery over the task

When defining self-assessment, Harris and McCann (1994) describe the

concept as “useful information about students’ expectations and needs, their problemsand worries, they feel about their own learning process, their reactions to the materialsand methods being used, what they think about the course in general” (p 36) Oscarson(1997) explains that the field of self-assessment of language proficiency is concernedwith knowing how, under what circumstances and with what effects learners and users

of a second language (SL) or a foreign language (FL) judge their own ability in thelanguage Ability here refers to both achievement and proficiency Self-assessment,according to Oscarson (1997) comes from the realization that effective learning is bestachieved if the student is actively engaged in all phases of the learning process Self-assessment promotes learning autonomy and it positively affects motivation andoutcomes of learning mainly when self-assessment becomes part of day-to-dayteaching and when learners who do it for monitoring progress and improvement, not for agrade or placement

Self-assessment is useful because it has been considered that rather thangiving a comprehensive diagnostic test to have a glimpse of possible problem areas forthe students, it is much faster to ask students directly what problems they feel theyhave (Harris & McCann, 1994) At the same time, it has been found that self-assessmentprovides students with a useful tool to make decisions about particular material thatmight be useful for them outside the classroom, and also to become more aware oftheir learning style Moreover, Dodd (1995) suggests that self-assessment is the bestway to promote understanding and learning; supporting the belief that students who feelownership for the class or task and believe they can make a difference, become moreengaged in their own learning process

2.2 Why use self - assessment in second language learning?

From http://forum.state.gov/vols/vol40/no1/p16.htm (Using Self-Assessment for

Evaluation - Richard Watson Todd (Thailand), several reasons for using self-assessment

have been suggested including:

 Self-assessment is a prerequisite for a self-directed learner If a goal of learning is forlearners to be self-sufficient and independent in language use, then training and experience

in self-assessment are needed

 Self-assessment can raise learners’ awareness of language, effective ways of learning,and their own performance and needs.

 Self-assessment increases motivation and goal orientation in learning

 Some aspects of language learning, such as effort and learner beliefs, can only beassessed through self-assessment

 Self-assessment can reduce the teacher’s workload

The first four reasons clearly suggest that self-assessment can be integrated intocourses for learning purposes Less clear, however, is whether these reasons imply thatself-assessment should be used as part of the input in generating a learner’s score for acourse This depends on the objectives of the course For final evaluations of learners’performance on a course to be valid, the evaluations should match the course objectives Ifthe objectives include: increased motivation, positive attitudes towards English, andgreater independence and awareness, for example, then self-assessment should be seriouslyconsidered as a potential part of the overall evaluation for a course Most teachers,however, strongly resist such a move, arguing that self-assessment is subjective, unreliable,open to cheating, and more reflective of the learner’s self-image than actual performanceand ability Such an attitude is at least partially due to the nature and characteristics ofexisting self-assessment instruments

2.3 Self-assessment techniques in L2 learning.

2.3.1 Self-marking

Self-marking involves learners in giving themselves a score for a piece of work.Where the task is objective, such as a multiple-choice exercise, an answer key can beprovided, and learners can mark their own work easily This reduces the teacher’s markingload This self-assessment task serves a useful learning purpose by highlighting areas inwhich learners need to do further work, but the marks from the self-assessment are hardlyreliable enough to persuade most teachers to include them as part of the final score for acourse

To increase reliability, self-assessment on open-ended tasks needs to be clearlyguided by detailed scoring criteria The easiest way to generate such criteria is to breakdown the task into smaller components For example, for a letter-writing task, the finished

product could be self-marked for how well it follows the standard letter-writingconventions, such as introducing the purpose of the letter in the first paragraph, assigningeach topic to a separate paragraph, and so on The close guidance of scoring criteria such asthese is likely to increase the reliability of the learner’s self -assessment, making it morepalatable for inclusion in the final score for a course.

2.3.2 Portfolios

The most obvious and widely-used learning instrument that could be used as input forself-assessment is the portfolio A portfolio is “a purposeful collection of students’ workthat demonstrates to students and others their efforts, progress, and achievements in givenareas” (Genesee and Upshur 1996:99) Since the portfolio is evidence to learners of theirown efforts, progress, and achievements, it is suitable for self-assessment To use aportfolio as self-assessment for evaluation purposes, questions to guide the self-assessmentmust be provided Sample questions could include the following:

 To what extent did you achieve your goals in learning during this course?

 To what extent did you improve your reading? List some of the problems you facedwhile reading and how you solved those problems

 To what extent has your knowledge of vocabulary improved? List the new words youhave learnt from your portfolio

 To what extent has your confidence in using English improved?

By referring to their portfolios in answering these questions, learners have concreteevidence of their performance and are not forced to rely on their intuition and possible biasabout their performance or ability

2.3.3 Pre- and post-course writing

Learners can be asked to write two essays about their attitudes towards learningEnglish, one at the start and another at the end of the course Comparing the two, learnersare able to see the extent of their development through the course With guiding questions,learners’ perceptions of their own development based on the pre- and post-course writingcan provide self-assessment that can be used for evaluation purposes The two pieces of

writing can also be self-marked for certain language points Whereas self-markinginstruments applied to a given task provide a snapshot of the learner’s performance at agiven moment in a course, a comparison of self-marking on pre- and post course writingcan give a clear indication of the learner’s development and improvement throughout thecourse.

2.3.4 Learner contracts

At the start of a course, learners identify two or three goals they want to achieve inthe course, tasks and materials that can be used to reach these goals, and ways of measuringthe extent to which the goals have been reached For example, a learner may decide toincrease his or her speed in reading The learner can then identify some texts withcomprehension questions to be used as practice and set a target level of achievement, such

as an increase in reading speed of 50 words per minute while retaining a minimum of 70%for comprehension questions answered correctly A learner contract, then, provides anorganized series of tasks throughout a course and makes attaining specific goals an integralpart of the learning process The choice of goals in learner contracts can be left to thelearner or can be controlled by the teacher to match the objectives of the course In thelatter case, self-assessment in learner contracts can be used as a valid part of the overallevaluation of learners in the course

2.3.5 Student progress card

Oscarsson (1984) describes student progress cards as simple self-assessment toolswhich have been used in a variety of educational settings around the world Quite simply,student progress cards define series of short-term functional goals and group these together

in graded blocks at various levels of difficulty Both students and teachers can participate

in this activity The student can tick off (in the learner column) each language skill oractivity that he/she is sure of performing successfully The teacher can later tick off (in theteacher column) the activity once the learner has mastered it

2.3.6 Learner diary

Learner diaries and dialog journals have been proposed as one way of systematizingself-assessment for students (Oscarsson 1984; Dickinson 1987) Learners should beencouraged to write about what they learned, their perceived level of mastery over thecourse content, and what they plan to do with their acquired skills

2.3.7 Self assessment questionnaire

A popular technique in the area of self-assessment has been the use of rating scales,check lists and questionnaires These three techniques have been used as a means wherelearners could rate their perceived general language proficiency or ability level A lot ofdevelopmental work has been done in this area through the use of “ability statements” such

as “I can read and understand newspaper articles intended for native spea kers of thelanguage.” (Coombe 1992; Oscarsson 1984)

2.3.8 Videotape

Video can be exploited in a number of ways to encourage self-assessment in theclassroom For example, students can be videotaped or they can videotape each other andthen assess their language skills An obvious advantage to the use of video in self -assessment is that students can assess not only their communicative or language skills buttheir paralinguistic (i.e body language) skills as well

2.3.9 Teacher-student interviews:

Interview students to determine what they believe they do well or areas in which theyneed to improve Teacher-student interviews are productive means of assessing individualachievement and needs During these discussions, teachers can discover students'perceptions of their own processes and products of learning When teachers ask questionsthat promote student reflection upon what they understand and how they work and learn,the rich data collected can support instructional decisions Interview questions can bedeveloped to meet the needs of specific students and to fit the curriculum

Chapter III: The study

The purpose of this study was to find out if the incorporation of self assessmentexercises in English classroom directly helps enhance students’ motivation In order toaccomplish this goal, an experimental study was conducted This chapter provides anoverview of the research questions, a description of the variables, research design as well

as participants and settings of the study

2 Null and directional hypotheses

*Null hypothesis: There is no statistically significant difference between motivation

ratings among students who receive a weekly classroom self- assessment questionnaire for one semester and those who do not.

* Alternative hypothesis: Students who receive a weekly classroom self- assessment

questionnaire for one semester will report higher ratings of motivation compared to those who do not.

3 Research design:

3.1 Research question 1:

In order to answer research question 1: “Is the self -assessment instrument used in

English classroom at Hanoi University of Industry?” the interview technique was used

with 35 teachers of English at Hanoi University of Industry According to them, thismethod seems to be rarely used at HAUI Some teachers said that they never used thismethod or this is the first time they know about it Some have used this method beforeand their most frequently techniques are portfolios and self marking Some have beeninspired to investigate whether students are able to make a meaningful contribution to theirown evaluation self assessment They think that self assessment can be used for a variety ofpurposes, including appropriate placement, feedback to the learner, program evaluation,assessment of attitudes and, determination of course grade, and so forth

And this approach not only promotes autonomy in student learning but also helps theteachers measure the students’ progress in the course But because self assessment isperformed through complex processes, there still remains much disagreement in thediscussion regarding the effective use of self assessment That is why teachers at HanoiUniversity of Industry are very careful when using this method although they consider it as

an interesting method

3.2 Research question 2:

Ratings of motivation among students studying English at HAUI are measured by amotivation questionnaire The self assessment questionnaire, which was incorporated intothe treatment group on a weekly basis, included questions related to what the student havestudied the previous week, how well they think they have performed in those areas, howimportant those areas were to learning English as well as what they think are their mainstrong and weak points in the course The participants of this study were divided into thosewho are in the control group (i.e not receiving a self assessment component) or those in theexperimental group (i.e., receiving a self assessment component)

In this study, data were collected using a measurable instrument (motivation scale),the analysis of data was quantitative An experimental, pretest/posttest control groupdesign was used in this study First, the classrooms asked to participate in the studyincluded 180 second year students studying at HAUI They were mainly collegestudents at HAUI

4 Participants and settings

The participants are: 30 students (Faculty of Electronics); 30 students (Faculty ofInformation technology); 30 students (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering); 30 students(Faculty of Automobile Technology); 30 students (Faculty of Electrical Engineering);

30 students (Faculty of Chemical Technology)

These are second year college students, non- majors of English and at intermediate level

pre-The teacher randomly selected classrooms to receive a self-assessment component(i.e., the treatment group) and the remaining participating classrooms did not receivethe self- assessment component (i.e., the control group) Next, a pretest (motivationmeasure) was administered to both groups Then, one group of student received a self-