Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS a study on demotivating factors in reading lessons of the 10th form students at high school for gifted students, hanoi national university of education

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  ĐINH THỊ HÀ TRANG A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN READING

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



ĐINH THỊ HÀ TRANG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN READING LESSONS OF THE 10th FORM STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS, HANOI NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

(Nghiên cứu về những yếu tố gây mất hứng thú trong giờ đọc hiểu

của học sinh lớp 10 tại trường THPT Chuyên

– Đại Học Sư Phạm Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi - 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



ĐINH THỊ HÀ TRANG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN READING LESSONS OF THE 10th FORM STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS, HANOI NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

(Nghiên cứu về những yếu tố gây mất hứng thú trong giờ đọc hiểu

của học sinh lớp 10 tại trường THPT Chuyên

– Đại Học Sư Phạm Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn

Hanoi - 2015

DECLARATION

I certificate that the minor thesis entitled “A study on demotivating factors in reading

lessons of 10 th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University

of Education” is the result of my own work and has not been submitted in any form for

another degree or diploma at any university or other institutions

Đinh Thị Hà Trang

Hanoi, 2015

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge my truthful gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Huynh Anh Tuan, from Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Thanks to his thorough reading, critical comments, invaluable guidance and precious corrections, I was able

to find the right way to complete this study

I also would like to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education, who have been willing to complete my survey questionnaire and have given me invaluable suggestions to the research

I appreciate the assistance and cooperation of the students in classes 10 Math 1, 10 Physics and 10 Chemistry at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education

My special words of thanks are sent to my family, especially my husband who has given me encouragement and support throughout my research work

Hanoi, 2015

ABSTRACT

Reading has long been considered as a fundamental skill by many second language learners Reading itself, however, causes students a lot of difficulties to acquire This study was conducted to investigate demotivating factors in English reading lessons of the 10th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education To meet the objectives of the study, two different groups of participants are taken into investigation, 109 students of three classes including 10 Math1, 10 Physics and 10 Chemistry and 6 teachers of English This study was carried out in the form of survey research The main instruments employed for data collection were questionnaires and interviews Specifically, two sets of questionnaires were designed, one for the students and the other for six teachers Furthermore, to get the validity of the collected data from questionnaires, interviews were conducted among 10 randomly selected students who have already done the survey questionnaires The data were then analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively The results show that the out- of- date content of reading texts in the current textbook “Tieng Anh 10” was the most dominant demotivating factors In addition, teachers‟ boring teaching methods, students‟ inadequate vocabulary knowledge and boring classroom activities should be taken into account Based on the findings, feasible solutions are provided to mitigate students‟ demotivation in reading lessons Hopefully, this study is of great help to better teaching and learning reading comprehension at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1.2 Demotivating factors in foreign language learning 7

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

3.1 Students‟ responses to the questionnaire and the interview‟s

questions

22

PART C: CONCLUSION

REFERENCES APPENDIX

Table 3.4: Students‟ expectations towards teachers of reading skills Table 3.5: Teachers‟ perceptions of factors that demotivate students in reading lessons

Table 3.6: The frequency of activities used by teachers in reading lessons

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

These days, English has been widely chosen by almost all Vietnamese students as their foreign language This enormous proportion, however, reflects a considerable demand for English rather than the quality of language learning and teaching process itself While some students make a lot of effort to learn English as hard as possible, others mentally withdraw or look for strategies to pass the required exams with minimum effort In fact, learning English has become an increasingly necessity for many people and there is a tremendous increase in the demand for the level of proficiency in learning English Learning reading skills is one of the biggest

obstacles for Vietnamese students Reading was traditionally regarded as a passive

process in which the readers simply decode the written symbols without bringing their own knowledge to interact with the text (Clarke & Silberstein, 1977) Reading

was also viewed to involve reading words in a linear fashion and internalizing their

meaning one at a time According to Stanovich (2000: 252 - 258), “The range of

vocabulary encountered in reading is much greater than is typically used in speaking and listening settings” Reading seems to be a source of frustration Some

students complain that they feel rather bored when they learn reading skills The reading process requires a certain amount of time and involves a lot of individual work, which is not in some way related to the communicative language ability

Unlike speaking or listening, there is little chance for students to ask for additional explanation or clarification Reading lessons are considered to cause the tiredness, even making students lose their interest in learning other skills or demotivating students in absorbing the knowledge However, reading is fundamental in developing the mind and it is of great importance to improve other language skills

Consequently, a large number of studies (Dornyei, 1990, 2001a, 2001b;

Gorham and Christophel, 1992; Oxford, 1998; Falout and Maruyama, 2004;

Tsuchiya, 2006; Arai, 2004; Kikuchi and Sakai, 2009) have been carried out in the field of motivation and demotivation, especially both Vietnamese and foreigners have made numerous researches on demotivating factors in reading comprehension

These studies have revealed several findings about factors to demotivate Vietnamese students in learning reading skills and methods to overcome these demotivating factors However, there have not been a large number of studies going into reality to check those findings from the perception of students

Despite the great effort from teachers and learners, there are still weaknesses

in the current teaching and learning reading English skills at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education Specifically, students‟

demotivation can constitute a barrier for an enjoyable teaching and learning

All these facts, henceforth, have offered the researcher a chance to conduct

“A study on demotivating factors in reading lessons of 10 th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education” The purpose

of this research is to find out demotivating factors to better the current situation of teaching and learning English reading skills at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education These factors involve the current textbook

“Tieng Anh 10”, the learning environment, the learning conditions, classroom

activities, teaching methods, teacher‟s behavior and competence

2 Aim of the study

The ultimate aim of this study is to increase 10th form students‟ motivation in reading comprehension In order to achieve the above aim, the following objective

is to investigate factors that demotivate the 10th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they are engaged in reading lessons Based on the findings, some feasible solutions are given to eliminate factors that demotivate students in reading lessons

3 Research questions

This study focuses on answering the following research question:

 What are factors that demotivate the 10th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they are engaged in reading lessons?

4 Significance of the study

This study highlights factors that demotivate 10th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they are engaged in reading lessons The results of the findings can be of great use for the teachers of the classes surveyed in the way that they can adapt their teaching methods as well as activities so that their students can be more motivated in learning English Therefore, the recommendations of this study will be vital to improve the teaching and learning of reading at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education in particular and of high school students in general

5 Scope of the study

This study was conducted to find out factors that demotivate 10th form students non - majoring in reading lessons and suggest some recommendations in order to develop students‟ motivation for learning English reading skills at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education

6 Method of the study

In order to achieve its aim, a survey research design is employed in the study

The research is carried out on the basis of survey questionnaires and interviews

Firstly, the data were collected with the use of the survey questionnaires which were conducted with 6 teachers of English and 109 students in the 10th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education Then, interviews were employed with ten students randomly selected for further information

7 Design of the study

The study is organized as follows:

Part A - INTRODUCTION - presents the rationale, the aims, and the research

questions, the significance of study, the scope of the study, the method of the study and the design of the study

Part B - DEVELOPMENT - consists of the following chapters

 Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents the theoretical background related to demotivation including the conceptions of demotivation,

demotivating factors in foreign language learning In addition, this chapter also covers the followings: the definitions of reading, the definitions of reading comprehension, the significance of reading comprehension and potential problems in reading comprehension

 Chapter 2, METHODOLOGY, provides general information about the current situation of learning reading at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education as well as study subjects, data collection instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis method

 Chapter 3, ANALYSIS OF DATA, gives a detailed analysis of data collected Besides, the chapter also presents some explanations and interpretations of the findings of the study

Part C - CONCLUSION - summarizes the major findings and points out the

limitations of the study Furthermore, some suggestions for further studies are also given in this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, there are two main sections Firstly, the conceptions of demotivation and demotivating factors in foreign language learning are reviewed

Secondly, the definitions of reading and reading comprehension, the significance of reading comprehension as well as potential problems in reading comprehension are presented

1 1 Demotivation 1.1 1 Conceptions of demotivation

Generally, to pursue certain goals, students need a force that can motivate them in learning Dornyei and Otto (1998) defined motivation as the dynamically changing cumulative arousal that initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies, terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes where by initial wishes and desires are selected, prioritized, operationalized and successfully or unsuccessfully acted out Furthermore, a large number of research results show that motivation play a crucial role in learners‟ acquisition of second language and foreign language (Dornyei, 1990, 2001a, 2001b) Research has shown that motivation is crucial for L2 learning (Dornyei, 1994) since it has great impact on the intensity of their learning effort, their frequency of L2 strategies application and

of their interaction with native speakers Besides, it can also affect the achievement test results related to the curriculum and their commitment to L2 skills after their study is over It could be described as a driving force that energizes human behavior and directs their behavior

Demotivation should not be viewed as the opposite of motivation but a certain aspect of motivation According to Christophel and Gorham (1995), demotivation is conceptually different from the phenomenon of no motivation

There are some positive factors which may motivate students‟ learning, but there are also elements causing them to demotivate at some point which are called demotivating influences There are also some influences with a negative effect,

which are called demotivating influences They reduce students‟ motivation during

learning Dornyei (2001a) made every effort to provide a definition for

demotivation It concerns “various negative influences that cancel out existing

motivation” (p.142) or “specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action” (p.143)

Therefore, demotivation could be regarded as the dark side of motivation

Demotivation, as also defined by Dornyei (2001b), is a decrease or drop in level of motivation Dornyei points out that demotivation does not mean that a learner has lost his or her motivation completely In contrast, the positive influences that originally made up the motivational basis of behavior can still be there However,

demotivation is not solely external, and many researchers (e.g., Arai, 2004)

included internal factors such as lack of self- confidence and negative attitude within learners themselves to complement external sources In spite of his definition, even Dornyei (2001) himself listed reduced self- confidence and a negative attitude toward the foreign language as sources of demotivation Kikuchi and Sakai (2009) disagree with Dornyei‟s definition of demotivation by referring to numerous studies where researchers have also included internal forces (a learner‟s lack of self- confidence and negative attitudes of the learners) in addition to external forces that Dornyei mentions Therefore, demotivation is a phenomenon in which motivation declines due to one or several causes, which every learner experiences

Demotivation, however, is different from amotivation Demotivation is

understood as the circumstance in which motivation decreased, which means motivation must exist before Amotivation is described as the void of motivation and is highlighted with passivity Deci and Ryan (1985) introduced the concept of

amotivation, which referred to the relative absence of motivation that is not caused

by a lack of initial interest but rather by the individual‟s experiencing feelings of incompetence and helplessness when face with the activity Vallerand and Ratelle

(2002) expanded that amotivated people experience a lack of competence or control over their external environments, which was caused by a feeling of helplessness between behaviors and outcomes They go through the motions with no sense of intending to do what they are doing until they quit the activity Amotivation is also

viewed as a state in which individuals cannot perceive a relationship between their behavior and that behavior‟s subsequent outcome In recent days, a further concept has been introduced by researchers in the field of second language motivation,

namely, remotivation which refers to taking steps to bring back second language

learners‟ lost or reduced motivation

In this study, the researcher adopted Kukichi and Sakai‟s (2009) opinion

They claimed that the definition of demotivation “specific external forces that

reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing

action” (Dornyei, 2001) needed to be expanded to cover both internal and

external demotivating factors which reduce or diminish the motivation to study

English

1.1.2 Demotivating factors in foreign language learning

There have been several studies on demotivating factors mainly in the field

of instructional communication, for example, in lectures of communication at North American universities (Gorham & Christophel, 1992; Christophel & Gorham, 1995;

Gorham & Millette, 1997) and demotivators in university lectures in China, Germany, Japan and the United States In the field of language teaching, Dornyei was one of the pioneers to study demotivation of learners of English In recent years, this issue has attracted many more researchers, especially those from Japanese context (Arai, 2004; Falout and Maruyama, 2004; Kikuchi and Sakai, 2009) and Vietnam (Trang & Richard Baldauf, 2007) The ultimate goal of identifying demotivating factors is to more easily determine the learners‟ motivation and the way to boost their incentives of learning That is also the reason why there have been a lot of studies revolving around this topic

A demotivation study was initiated in the United States with Gorham and Christophel (1992) attempting to identify what factors causing demotivation among college students taking introductory communication classes In comparing learner attributions of demotivation and motivation, they found that the absence of demotivators in the classroom such as unenthusiastic teaching, dissatisfaction with grading, and boring subject had a more positive influence on motivation that the

presence of motivators such as an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher The researchers gave a conclusion that teachers could promote learner motivation simply by preventing demotivation Demotivators were collected from students‟

responses to the open- ended question: “What things decrease your motivation to try

hard to do your best in that class?” The research findings revealed three main

categories of demotives: 1) Context demotives (factors likely to be regarded as

antecedent to the teacher‟s influence), 2) Structure/format demotives (factors over which the teacher is likely to have some degree of influence, if not complete control), 3) Teacher behaviors (factors likely to be perceived as under the teacher‟s direct control) Teacher-related factors, which consist of class structure or format-related demotives and the demotives resulting from teacher behavior, accounted for 79% of all responses In a follow-up study to ascertain whether the perceived sources of demotivation could be replicated

A study on learning experiences among 250 high school and university

American students was conducted by Oxford (1998) determined four types of

demotivating factors: 1) The teacher‟s personal relationship with the students,

including hypercriticism, belligerence, a lack of caring, and favouritism; 2) The teacher‟s attitude towards the course or the material, including lack of enthusiasm, sloppy management and close-mindedness; 3) Style conflicts between teachers and students, including multiple style conflicts, conflicts about the amount of structure

or detail, and conflicts about the degree of closure or „seriousness‟ of the class; 4) The nature of the classroom activities, including overload, repetitiveness, and irrelevance

Meanwhile, Dornyei (1998) with his structured 10-30 minute interviews carried out among 50 secondary school students in Budapest, Hungary discovered

that it was students‟ teachers or peers that demotivated them He identified nine

demotivating factors: 1) Teachers‟ personalities, commitment, competence and

teaching methods, 2) Inadequate school facilities (very big group, not the right level, or frequent change of teachers), 3) Reduced self- confidence due to their experience of failure or lack of success, 4) Negative attitude towards the second

language, 5) Compulsory nature of second language study, 6) Interference of another foreign language being studied, 7) Negative attitude towards second language community, 8) Attitude of group members, and 9) Course book used in class It was reported that demotivating factors of the teacher and reduced self- confidence account for more than half of all demotivating factors

Arai (2004) conducted a study among 33 university students of high English proficiency to determine whether they had had demotivating experiences in foreign language classrooms and to depict the experiences and their instant reactions to those experiences Arai collected 105 comments and categorized them into the

following four areas: 1) Teachers, 2) Classes, 3) Class atmosphere, and 4) Others

She found that the number of reports about the first category, Teachers, accounted for 46.7% of total reports, followed by Classes (36.2%) The third category, Class atmosphere, was the least reported (13.3%)

In another study by Falout and Maruyama (2004), the relationship between demotivation and students‟ level of language proficiency was examined The researchers employed the 49- item questionnaire developed based on Dornyei‟s nine demotivating factors among 164 freshmen university students from two science

departments Accordingly, six categories of demotivating factors were identified:

1) Teachers, 2) Courses, 3) Attitude towards English speaking community, 4) Attitude towards English itself, 5) Self- confidence, and 6) Attitude of group members It was found that for the low- proficiency learners, self- confidence, attitudes towards the second language, courses, teachers, and attitudes of group members were the most demotivating factors For the high- proficiency learners, self- confidence was the most important demotivating factors In fact, low proficient students tented to correlate demotivation to their affective states, while the high proficient students were more suitable to attribute their demotivation to external factors and indicate more control over their affective states and learning conditions

Tsuchiya (2006) was able to list nine areas of demotivation after the study

among 129 freshmen: 1) Teachers, 2) Classes, 3) Compulsory nature of English study, 4) Negative attitude toward the English- speaking community, 5) Negative

attitude toward English itself, 6) Lack of self- confidence, 7) Negative group attitude, 8) Lack of a positive English speaking model, 9) Ways of learning The results showed that significant differences were found between the two groups in all nine factors of demotivation The low- proficiency group rated higher than the high- proficiency group on every factor

In 2007, a case study with 100 Vietnamese students was conducted by Trang and Baldauf on their foreign language learning experiences The results of the study

revealed that there are two groups of demotives: 1) Internal attributions, 2)

External attributions The internal attributions includes students‟ attitudes towards English, their experiences of failure or lack of success and the incidents related to their self- esteem, meanwhile the external attributions contain teacher-related factors, the learning environment and other external factors The researchers have given a specific and comparatively full description of the issue in Vietnamese condition

Kikuchi and Sakai (2009) in their study 656 Japanese high school students, determined demotivating factors via a set of questionnaire including 35 questions

Through a principal axis factor analysis, five demotivating factors were

extracted: 1) Learning contents and materials, 2) Teacher‟s competence and

teaching styles, 3) Inadequate school facilities, 4) Lack of intrinsic motivation, 5)

Test scores The results showed that the learning contents and materials and test

scores were demotivating factors for many Japanese high school students,

especially for less motivated learners Contrary to what previous research

suggested, teachers‟ competence and teaching styles factor was not a very strong cause of demotivation compared to learning contents and materials or test scores

for both more and less motivated groups The study also showed that both more and

less motivated learners did not perceive inadequate school facilities as

demotivating

To cut a long story short, numerous studies have been carried out on the issue of demotivation However, the findings are applied in specific teaching and learning contexts Two groups of demotivating factors including internal

attributions and external attributions, which were extracted in the study by Trang and Baldauf Jr (2007), give the researcher a lot of guidance in examining the common negative factors affecting high school students‟ English learning in reading comprehension at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education

1.2 Reading and reading comprehension 1.2.1 Definitions of reading

Reading was traditionally regarded as a passive process that involves reading words in a linear fashion and internalizing their meaning one at a time However, Goodman (1971:153) sees reading as “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as graphic display” After the emergence of the psycholinguistic model of reading, Goodman, (1976) and Smith (1971) argue that reading is actually an active process, in which readers create meaning from the printed words or receive and interpret a message from printed materials In other words, reading is a process of how information is processed from the text into meanings, starting with the information from the text, and ending with what the reader gains The following definitions from experts can provide a deeper understanding of reading

Goodman (1976) described that “reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game, in which the reader actively interacts with the text to construct meaning”

Grabe (1991:377) defined that “reading can be seen as an active process of comprehending where students need to be taught strategies to read more efficiently for example, guess from context, define expectations, make inferences about the text, skim ahead to fill in the text”

Smith (1985:102) proposed that “reading means understanding the author‟s thought” The readers “read the author‟s mind not the author‟s words”

Harmer (1989:153) considered reading as a process of mechanic by “eyes

receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message” In the mechanical process of reading, there are two actions which are

monitored by the eyes and brain Therefore, it is the reader that decides how fast the text runs

Alyouef (2005:144) claimed that “reading can be seen as an interactive process between a reader and a text which leads to automaticity or reading fluency”

To sum up, all the authors share the same idea that reading means comprehending written language and it involves a large number of skills

1.2.2 Definitions of reading comprehension

Comprehension is generally considered to be the ultimate goal of reading

Reading comprehension is not a simple matter of recognizing individual words, or even of understanding each individual word as the eyes pass over it Reading comprehension requires efficient knowledge of the world and an efficient knowledge of the language In other words, reading requires a rich background and some ability to comprehend the texts Good readers have to do other jobs in order to comprehend a text They should connect a new text with past experiences - background knowledge, interpret, evaluate, synthesize, and consider alternative interpretations Many definitions of reading comprehension were obtained from various sources

Swan (1975:1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that

he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding”

Grellet (1981:3) defined reading comprehensions as “understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible”

Kirby J R (2006) showed that reading comprehension is the application of a skill that evolved for other purposes (listening or oral comprehension) to a new form of input (text) Unlike oral comprehension, reading comprehension is not something for which the brains have evolved Whereas oral comprehension seems

to develop naturally with minimal deliberate intervention, reading comprehension is more challenging and requires deliberate instruction Humans have been doing oral comprehension for 100,000 years or more Reading comprehension has only been practiced for 5,000 years

Kirby J R (2006) also indicated that there are three different types or levels

of comprehension Any type of comprehension a reader employs will depend on ability, purpose and instruction

 Passive comprehension: What we do when we are following a text but not analyzing or assessing it deeply

 Comprehension for learning: What we do when we try to remember the details and/ or deeper meanings of a text

 Self- regulated comprehension: What we do when we are using the text to achieve our own goals

1.2.3 The significance of reading comprehension

There is no denying that reading plays an integral part in students‟ academic success Reading is a bridge to enlarge knowledge and improves the technological achievements

Hung, Tzeng, Tsai and Lee (2001) pointed out that “reading is an important skill to help people learn from human knowledge and experience Through reading, knowledge has greatly contributed to the growth of mankind Reading is the fastest and simplest way to raise people‟s education level Reading is like opening the door

of understanding to human‟s past, where it can serve as looking glass for our present Reading also stimulates the development of brain cells, reinforces language skills, enhances organizational abilities, improves one‟s temperament and poise, and provides strength to endure frustration Reading is the best way of enabling humans

to absorb new experience and replace old views”

In short, reading comprehension is a critical foundation skill for later academic learning, employment skills and life satisfaction According to Beatrice S.Mikuleckly and Linda Jeffries (1996):

 Reading helps you learn to think in English

 Reading can enlarge your English vocabulary

 Reading can help you improve your writing

 Reading may be a good way to practice your English if you live in a non- English speaking country

 Reading can help you prepare for studying in English- speaking country

 Reading is a good way to find out about new ideas, facts and experiences

1.2.4 Potential problems in reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is commonly known to be complex and multifaceted It is no surprise that several students encounter reading comprehension difficulties To illustrate this, students have difficulty in understanding word meanings, understanding important ideas, making inferences with the mentioned information; even they do not understand what they have read at all As a result, they frequently avoid reading and feel frustrated with reading tasks

in school According to Nation et al (2004), poor comprehenders often have weaknesses in some aspects of language skills with deficits at both lower (e.g., vocabulary knowledge) and higher levels (e.g., inference generation, understanding figurative language) There is no doubt that motivation plays a critical role in students‟ foreign language learning outcomes, especially in reading comprehension

According to Saville - Troike (2006: 85- 86), individual motivation is a factor that

is used to explain why some second language learners are more successful than others However there are demotivating factors which negatively influence the learner‟s attitudes and behaviors and lead to undesired learning outcomes The

findings of the study “Impact of demotivating factors on the reading

comprehension achievement of Iranian EFL learners” by Ghaedrahmat & Entezari

& Abedi (2014) reveal that demotivation negatively affects students‟ performance

in reading comprehension test The less the amount of demotivation is, the higher the reading scores In particular, negative teachers‟ traits and behaviors, improper methods of teaching English in class, lack of focusing on oral skills, teaching mere grammar at high schools, limitation of English to textbooks, improper evaluation system and lack of using technology in English classes were the most contextual demotivating factors

In short, there is a remarkable correlation between demotivating factors and learner‟s reading comprehension achievement To increase student‟s motivation and boost learner‟s learning outcomes, it is of great significance to explore factors that demotivate students in reading comprehension

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To answer the research question “What are factors that demotivate the 10 th

form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they are engaged in reading lessons?”, a survey research design

was employed in this study This chapter discusses the setting of the study, subjects, data collection instruments, data collection procedures and the data analysis method

2.1 Research Setting

The study was conducted at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education, which is one of three national gifted high schools in Hanoi This high school was founded in 1966 and its initial aim was to nurture Vietnamese students who excelled at Mathematics Several majors were gradually added, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Informatics, Literature It was not until 2009 that English and two other non-majored classes (A1 and A2) were founded The students were carefully selected from several parts in Vietnam and there is always competitive learning environment, which creates real opportunities for students to develop their full ability

Each classroom has recently been equipped with modern teaching and learning facilities such as a projector, a computer and a television The learning environment, therefore, seems to be very enjoyable and favorable

2.2 Subjects

The participants are grouped into two categories in this study

The first group is 109 tenth form students from three classes of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry at High School for Gifted Students

Table 2 1: Information on the Number of Students Surveyed

It is the researcher‟s intention to investigate all the students in the three classes Nevertheless, because the time of questionnaire distribution is the school

year end, there were not enough students attending classes, the real number of students taking part in the survey did not live up to the initial expectation, only 109 students out of 121 students in total They have been learning English for at least 4 years The teachers claim that all the participants were provided with reading strategies when they were at secondary school All of the participants, however, come from different parts of our country Different educational settings may apply specific standards of teaching, which result in the difference in levels of knowledge

In other words, it causes the imbalance between the scope of vocabulary and the learners‟ levels As a result, the proficiency level of English among students is not the same Students with higher proficiency level of English do not show their interest in absorbing the knowledge that is not new and challenging In contrast, ones with lower proficiency level of English are fed up with following English lessons which cause a lot of difficulties These students even catch up with nothing

in lessons It is generally believed that this imbalance itself leads to students‟ low

motivation in learning English, especially in English reading comprehension The

scores of reading skills are very different among students While some students who have poor learning outcomes got the average reading score ranging from 4 to 5

points, others got 8 to 9 points

Six teachers ranging from the age of 25 to 32 are the second group All of them are the teachers of the above students They have at least 2 years of teaching English All of them graduated with distinction degree from the English Department

of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University

2.3 Research Types

This study employs the survey research Exploring the demotivation of 10thform students in learning reading skills is the ultimate goal of this study The research goal is mainly achieved by means of quantitative data, using survey research The qualitative data (interviews) was obtained after the quantitative data collection to deepen understanding and interpretation of the results

2.4 Data Collection Instruments

The data was collected by means of questionnaires and interviews at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education

2.4.1 Questionnaires

The main instruments are questionnaires administered in order to gather both students‟ and teachers‟ perspectives

One kind of survey questionnaire is for 10th form non - English major

students It was adapted from Trang and Baldauf Jr (2007), Demotivation:

Understanding Resistance to English Language Learning - The Case of Vietnamese Students In order to avoid the unnecessary misunderstanding from the respondents,

all parts of the questionnaire for students including both close-ended and ended questions were translated into Vietnamese for students In addition, paraphrasing the terminologies into more familiar ones can help preclude the participants‟ unexpected confusion about technical terms The questionnaires for the students consist of seven questions

open- Question 1, 2 and 3: focus on students‟ motivation in learning reading skills

 Question 4: find out students‟ opinions on factors demotivating them in learning reading comprehension

 Question 5: figure out students‟ opinions on their teachers‟ classroom activities

 Question 6: deal with students‟ opinions on teachers‟ employment of activities

 Question 7: look into students‟ expectations towards teachers‟ teaching methods

The other survey questionnaire is for six teachers It was designed in simple English to get the validity for the research Six teachers had a week to complete all the questions There are three questions in this survey questionnaire

 Question 1: request the matter relating to teachers‟ thoughts of the role of teaching reading skills

 Question 2: look into the teachers‟ opinion on factors that demotivate students

in learning reading comprehension

 Question 3: relate to the frequency of using classroom activities in reading lessons

2.4.2 Interviews

Supplying more details from the interviewees, the interview is the most suitable cooperative assistant to minimize the abstractness of the answers in the survey questionnaires and get a more comprehensive view of the matter Based on the survey questionnaires, the structured interviews with a list of five open- ended questions were established

Using Vietnamese language will help the interviewees feel more comfortable and confident to answer the interviewer‟s questions All of the interviews will be recorded under the permission of the interviewees The interviews were conducted in a following week after processing the questionnaire for students

Ten students were chosen randomly who took part in the survey questionnaires To obtain deep understanding, all the questions in the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese

2.5 Data Collection Procedures 2.5.1 Questionnaires

Before the researcher delivered the copies of questionnaire to the participants, the questionnaire had been piloted among a group of students in class 10 Literature with the common aim of finding out any difficulty in understanding The questionnaire was then modified if necessary With the permission of the Head Master

at High School for Gifted students, the questionnaire was distributed to gifted students

in the last days of May All the participants were informed in Vietnamese about the purposes of the questionnaire and how to answer all the questions in order to ensure that students fully understand what to do After understanding the purposes of the questionnaire, they were eager to answer the questionnaire in a serious manner The students were asked to complete the questionnaire within 30 minutes The questionnaire was collected by the researcher herself

Then, the survey questionnaires for teachers were delivered to six teachers of English at High School for Gifted students, Hanoi National University of Education

All of the teachers had one week to complete it

2.5.2 Interviews

To get better insights into the research questions and to discuss further information about the items raised in the questionnaire, the researcher conducted structured interviews among ten surveyed students, who were randomly selected

The one- on- one interviews were carried out by the researcher It is commonly known that the interviewees share more information when being asked the questions in person In fact, the one- on- one interviews encouraged the researcher a lot to ask follow- up questions

The researcher took notes during each real conversation The answers from student interviews were recorded with the permission of the interviewees The answers were transcribed for the analysis purpose and then translated into English

To get the reliability of the translation, the following steps were taken:

 Two qualified teachers at this school were asked to check whether the interviews‟ English translation were accurate or not

 A meeting with ten interviewees was held and they were asked individually whether the English translation followed their ideas exactly or not

2.6 Data Analysis Method

The researcher first read through the survey questionnaires and the interviews To avoid inconsistency or possible biases, the data was generated and analyzed by the researcher alone, and then displayed in forms of charts and tables

The information from the interviews was known as reflective notes and quotation

The research was carried out by both quantitative and qualitative methods

The quantitative method employed the close - ended or multiple choice questions to survey the percentage of factors that demotivate 10th form student at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they were engaged in reading lessons The ultimate goal is to figure out major factors that affect students‟ learning reading comprehension The researcher took advantage of

the software Microsoft Excel to calculate the percentages of demotivating factors

This software was in fact cheap, convenient and effective Microsoft Excel was of great use for this study

Besides, the qualitative method was based on interviews and open- ended questions The researcher recorded, transcribed and translated the interviews The students‟ responses were hypothesized The researcher then analyzed key words, phrases or main ideas to give some references in order to explore demotivating factors in reading lessons To illustrate this, in the students‟ responses to the second

question in the interview “What do you think about reading lessons in class?”, several negative adjectives including boring, tedious, monotonous, uncomfortable,

unexciting, unentertaining and uninspiring were mentioned These adjectives

clearly indicate that students were not interested in learning reading comprehension

In short, the methodology of the study has been displayed as the guidelines for the researcher to follow during the implementation of the study in this chapter

In the next chapter, the analysis of the data and the findings will be identified in detail

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter deals with the analysis of the data collected A careful analysis

is clearly presented to find out factors that demotivate students in learning Reading English at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi University of Education

3.1 Students’ responses to the questionnaires and the interview’s questions

This analysis reports students‟ opinions regarding three major issues:

student‟s opinions on the learning of reading English, students‟ opinions on factors that demotivate them in learning reading English and students‟ expectations towards teachers of reading skills

(1) Students’ opinions on the learning of reading English

The first question in the questionnaire deals with the students‟ attitudes towards the learning of reading English This can be clearly illustrated in the following chart 3.1:

0 20 40 60

Very Important Important

Quite Important Not Important

Not Important

at all

Chart 3.1: Students’ attitudes towards the learning of reading English

The data collected shows that almost all of the students highly appreciated the importance of reading skills Out of the sample of 109 students, 59 indicated that they considered the learning of English reading comprehension very important

36 students thought that the learning of reading English was important 12 respondents believed that the learning of reading comprehension was quite important It was evident that many students had awareness of learning reading skills It is worth noting that all of the participants in the interview confirmed the

importance of reading skills 10 students had the same opinion that reading was

very important or necessary Student 1 in the interview shared that “From my point

of view, reading is the most important skill because it enables me to use my mind

To illustrate this, the inferring questions require my logical thinking” 4 out of 10

respondents claimed that reading could provide them with lots of information,

especially new words and grammatical structures Student 4 claimed that “Reading

provides me with several new words and improves my vocabulary knowledge”

Student 7 added that “The research achievements of the humankind were written in

books To acquire this knowledge, reading is necessary” In addition, student 2 said

that “Reading is a kind of entertainment” A minority of students in the

questionnaire, however, did not value the importance of learning reading skills

Only one student thought that it is not important to learn reading English and another viewed it as not important at all

The students‟ interest in English reading lessons was shown in the following question Although the importance of reading skills was highly appreciated, only a small proportion of students in the sample showed their keenness on learning reading comprehension

Very interested, 1.8 Not interested at

Chart 3.2: Students’ interest in English reading lessons

The data reveals that 48.2% of the respondents were not interested in English reading comprehension; even 6.5% were not interested at all The loss of interest is easily seen through key words in the students‟ responses to the second question in

the interview There are lots of negative adjectives including boring, tedious,

monotonous, uncomfortable, unexciting, unentertaining and uninspiring Phrases

such as lack of enthusiasm, little interaction between teachers and students were also strong evidence Student 10 highlighted that “Reading has not yet been

interested by students” Student 6 said that “The reading section was really uninspiring to learn” Student 4 claimed that “I feel uncomfortable in reading lessons I prefer listening and speaking lessons” Furthermore, student 3 admitted

that “Almost all of the students study reading English in class only because they

want to pass exams and satisfy their parents” Student 2 shared that “Students often

do reading exercises just because of their responsibility for completing these exercises rather than their interest” Meanwhile, only 1.8% of the subjects were

very interested in learning reading

Concerning the purpose of learning reading English, it is clear to find out

in the third question There are different purposes among students The fact would

be clarified in the following table:

a To get high marks in exams 37.5%

b To read other materials in English 16.5%

c To acquire more knowledge 22.9%

d To satisfy teachers and parents 7%

Table 3.1: Students’ purposes of learning reading comprehension

Getting high marks in exams is the highest percentage accounting for

37.5% In the interview, student 5 supported that “In Vietnam, reading and writing

are usually tested If we learn reading well, we will achieve high scores in exams”

Student 9 said that “Reading is the main part in all the tests; therefore; I learn

reading to get high marks at school” Ranked next is the percentage of the

participants (22.9%) who regarded acquiring more knowledge as their purpose In

the interview, key words such as information and knowledge were repeated many times Student 8 highlighted that “English is an international language; therefore,

we get insight into lots of things to know more about the world” Student 3 added

that “Reading is regarded to bring us the largest amount of knowledge through

books, newspapers and the internet” Especially, three respondents including

student 2, student 4 and student 6 had the same idea that through reading, they could acquire more vocabulary and grammar structures 16.5% of the subjects would like to read other materials in English 7% of the participants have the purpose of making teachers and parents satisfied Additionally, various ideas were

given for other purposes In the responses to the questionnaire, one student wrote “I

learn reading so as to watch English films or videos and read English books which haven‟t been translated into Vietnamese”

All the data collected gave the researcher reasonable confidence to conclude that although many participants found it important to learn reading English and they had lots of different purposes to learn reading skill, few students showed interest in English reading comprehension Therefore, demotivating factors should be taken into consideration

(2) Students’ opinions on factors that demotivate them in learning reading English

1 I do not understand reading lessons because I

do not have enough vocabulary knowledge

58.7% 17.4% 23.9%

2 I do not understand reading lessons because I

do not have enough grammatical knowledge

3 I do not understand reading lessons because I

do not have enough social knowledge

5 The content of reading texts is out- of- date 73.4% 23.9% 2.8%

6 Reading tasks are not suitable to my level 18.3% 26.6% 55%

7 Reading texts consist of many new words 37.6% 11% 51.4%

8 Grammatical structures in reading texts are complicated

9 The time allowed in reading lessons in class

is not enough for me

16 I do not like my teacher‟s teaching methods

60.6% 20.2% 19.3%

17 Classroom activities are not interesting 53.2% 35.8% 11%

Table 3.2: Students’ opinions on factors that demotivate students in reading lessons

The statistics provided in Table 3.2 reveals that 10th form students encountered certain problems which cause demotivation in learning reading English The content of reading texts in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” ranked highest in attributions of demotivation A great number of the respondents (73.4%) reached an agreement that the content of reading texts was out-of- date Half of the participants in the interview admitted that the content of the English textbook 10 itself was a major demotivating factor in reading lessons Many negative phrases

were mentioned such as “nothing new, old, out - of- date, not interesting,

impractical, general, unfamiliar, unrealistic, uninspiring and uncreative” The

following quotes give much insight into how the content of reading texts had

considerably negative effects on students Student 5 said that “There was nothing

new, special and challenging in the articles of the English textbook 10 They are almost the same” Student 6 stated that “The articles in the text book usually

concern general topics, give little information or even unrealistic information”

Student 10 frankly shared that “The main reason which causes demotivation is the

content of reading texts For example, a reading paragraph with the topic “A day in the life” just describes the daily routine of a farmer In contrast, reading paragraphs in IELTs tests often relate to social problems which are more realistic and useful” It is generally believed that students would like to obtain more

information which was closely related to their real life Student 7 added that “The

topics of reading texts are not interesting They are not updated with our generation

at all” Student 8 highlighted that “The English textbook 10 was published in 2006; therefore; topics are not new anymore They cannot raise students‟ interest

They are not as updated as foreign ones” To the best of my knowledge, updated

information will certainly bring students new challenges and require them more logical thinking

Another demotivating trigger, which ranks second (60.6%), lies in the teachers‟ teaching methods, which were considered as the most frequent cause of students‟ demotivation There is no denying that teachers‟ teaching methods play a very important role in increasing students‟ motivation and involvement in reading lessons However, 60.6% of the study population claimed that the teaching methods decreased or even destroyed their interest in learning English Many students in the interview admitted having suffered from negative aspects of teaching methods

They complained about teachers‟ boring ways of conveying knowledge

Additionally, teachers only gave lessons limited to the textbook Some phrases refer

to the teachers‟ teaching methods such as “inflexible, old, nothing innovative,

uninspiring and uncreative” Student 2 explicitly shared “Teachers are not flexible

Teachers stick to the English textbook The interaction between teachers and students is very limited” Student 7 added more information to the fact “Teachers haven‟t inspired us yet” Interviewees listed lots of necessary things which teachers

didn‟t help them in reading lessons Student 4 said that “Teachers didn‟t supply us

with extra information in real life” Student 3 claimed that “Teachers didn‟t provide us with necessary reading strategies” Student 5 mentioned that “Students

should be under pressure Teachers didn‟t make us aware of the importance of English”

Furthermore, students‟ demotivation rooted from their own inadequate vocabulary knowledge 58.7% of the respondents admitted that they did not understand reading lessons because they did not have enough vocabulary They found themselves with gaps in vocabulary, which caused lots of difficulties in dealing with current lessons They were also not confident enough to follow the teacher‟s activities, or even raised some questions to clarify their misunderstanding

about the texts Some adjectives were listed such as “nervous, uncomfortable and

afraid” Student 4 shared that “Normally my teacher asks me to translate the text into Vietnamese in reading lessons, but I am really afraid to translate it because my vocabulary knowledge is not enough”

It is common knowledge that teachers‟ teaching methods are best exposed through classroom activities Not surprisingly, that classroom activities were not interesting was identified as a main source of demotivation accounting for 53.2%

Many participants complained that boring activities resulted in the loss of interest in language learning Those definitely had a negative impact on students and prevented them from gaining expected learning outcomes The next question is to get students‟ opinions on classroom activities This can be clearly seen in the

following table:

8

14 9

43

6 29

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Number of students

Various Tense Interesting Monotonous Motivating students Demotivating students

Chart 3.3: Students’ opinions on teachers’ classroom activities

From the above analysis, 43 out of the 109 sample students claimed that classroom activities were monotonous Students became demotivated because all reading lessons were always the same Meanwhile, there were only 8 students

believing that the activities were various Student 10 said that “Almost all of the

teachers teach in the same way such as writing new words, translating the text and then answering questions There is nothing new” Student 8 highlighted that “The teacher usually reads first Students repeat after the teacher, and then each of the students read the text The last thing is that students answer reading questions”

Student 6 shared that “Teachers usually provide students with new words Students

read the text and then learn by heart Students then answer the questions”

Additionally, while 29 respondents thought that they were demotivating learners, 6 students found teachers‟ activities motivating learners 14 participants were tense when they got engaged in classroom activities and only 9 students had interest in their teachers‟ activities Therefore, reconsidering classroom activities is of great significance to minimize students‟ demotivation

To get better understanding of the teachers‟ teaching methods, the students‟

opinions on their teachers‟ employment of activities in English reading lessons are taken into consideration

like

Like Ok Dislike Not

like at all

1 Give short discussions before reading

4 Set clear tasks before reading 20.2% 23.9% 39.4% 13.8% 2.8%

5 Combine the textbook and relevant 45% 27.5% 18.3% 7.3% 1.8%

materials

6 Ask me to translate reading texts 11.9% 9.2% 11.9% 35.8% 31.2%

7 Ask me to do tasks in a limited time

Table 3.3: Students’ opinions on teachers’ employment of activities

The statistics in the table shows that students expressed a high degree of interest in some kinds of interaction activities such as predicting questions and short discussions Some of the participants, however, admitted that the interaction

between teachers and students was limited Student 6 said that “In reading lessons,

there is no interaction between students and teachers Teachers ask questions and then students answer them” Student 8 shared that “Teachers did not give a discussion about reading topics” and “The information mainly comes from the teacher and then students answer the question” According to Falout et al (2008),

some learners‟ interest is caught with intrinsically enjoyable activities in an environment with meaningful interaction Whereas interaction activities should be taken into account, a large proportion of students in the sample (35.8% & 31.2%) had mainly negative attitudes towards translating reading texts It is worth noting that teachers should pay more attention to which activities are preferred by students

Furthermore, it is important to note that the combination between the textbook and relevant materials was also highly appreciated 45% and 27.5% of the students were very interested and interested respectively in combining the textbook and relevant materials It is understandable because several students complain about the content of reading texts In addition, 57.8% of the students believed that they could gain interest in games or other extra- curricular activities in reading lessons

There was strong evidence to conclude that the employment of activities did not