An Investigation Into Students’ Reticence In English Speaking Lessons- A Case Of Toan Thang High School.pdf

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES *** NGUYỄN THỊ LAN ANH AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ RETICENCE IN[.]

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

NGUYỄN THỊ LAN ANH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ RETICENCE IN

ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS-

A CASE OF TOAN THANG HIGH SCHOOL

(ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÍNH TRẦM LẶNG CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH - ĐIỂN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TOÀN THẮNG)

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.01.11

HANOI, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

NGUYỄN THỊ LAN ANH

AN INVESTIGATION INTO STUDENTS’ RETICENCE IN

ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS-

A CASE OF TOAN THANG HIGH SCHOOL

(ĐIỀU TRA VỀ TÍNH TRẦM LẶNG CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG CÁC GIỜ NÓI TIẾNG ANH - ĐIỂN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT TOÀN THẮNG)

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.01.11

HANOI, 2014

DECLARATION

I hereby state that I, Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh, being a candidate for the Degree

of Master of Arts, accept the requirement of the University relating to the retention and use of M.A Thesis deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for care, loan, or reproduction of the paper

Haiphong, July…….2014

Signature

Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor,

Dr Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà, for her valuable advice, constructive comments, patient support and encouragement in the completion of this M.A Thesis

I would like to send my sincere thanks to my informants in this study, whom

I selected as the target subjects of this research Without their enthusiastic contribution and cooperation, this research would certainly not have been completed

In the thesis, it is inevitable that the ideas of many other writers in this field are reflected and developed Their ideas have stimulated my thinking on doing this paper My debt to the authors listed in the references is equally great To all these scholars, I offer my sincere thanks

Finally, I am greatly thankful to my family and friends, who are forever a great source of support and encouragement

ABSTRACT

Realizing many 11th graders at Toan Thang high school being passive in English Speaking classes, this study aims to explore students‟ perception toward their reticence behaviour in real- world classes, factors contributing to it and students‟ expectation A total of 373 students enrolled in eight 11th grade classes, were first observed in eight English Speaking lessons, and then filled in two sets of open-ended questionnaire After that, six of them were interviewed using semi-structured format A mix- method analysis is conducted to explore the findings From the study, it is revealed that students have strong willingness to participate in English activities though they rarely do so in reality due to various learning misconceptions The result indicates that teachers need not only to use interesting, various and suitable activities to encourage students to learn the target language but also to explain and have more informal talks with students to teach them how to learn effectively

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aim of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Reticence behaviour in foreign language class 4

1.1.1 The concept of reticence 4

1.1.2 Interpretation of reticence 5

1.1.3 Consequences of reticence 6

1.2 Students‟ reticence behaviour in English speaking lessons 7

1.2.1 Students’ participation in verbal interaction 7

1.2.2 Potential obstacles to students’ verbal participation 8

1.2.3 Teachers’ roles towards students participation 9

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODS OF THE STUDY 11

2.1 Participants and setting of the study 11

2.1.1 Participants 11

2.1.2 Setting of the study 11

2.2 Data collection 13

2.3.1 Data collection instruments 13

2.3.2 Data collection procedure 16

2.3.3 Data analysis procedure 18

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 19

3.1 Findings 19

3.1.1 Students’ reticence behaviour in English Speaking classes 19

3.1.2 Factors affecting students’ behaviour 24

3.1.3 Students’ expectation 29

3.2 Discussions 30

3.2.1 To what extent do the students remain reticent in English speaking

classes, and what activities make them the most reticent? 31

3.2.2 What are students’ perception of their own learning behaviour and factors influencing such behaviour? 31

3.2.3 What are students’ perspectives on whether, and how, to move the classroom to a more interactive mode? 32

PART C: CONCLUSION 34

1 Conclusion 34

2 Pedagogical implications 36

3 Limitations of the study 37

4 Suggestions for further study 38

REFERENCES 39 APPENDIX 1: OBSERVATION TRANSCRIPT I Observation Transcript 1 I Observation Transcript 2 VIII APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE (English) -Part 1 XV APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE (English) -Part 2 XVIII APPENDIX 4: QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese) -Part 1 XXI APPENDIX 5: QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese) -Part 2 XXIV APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (English) XXVII APPENDIX 7: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (Vietnamese) XXIX APPENDIX 8: DETAILED ANALYSIS RESULT FOR GRAPH 1 XXXI APPENDIX 9: DETAILED ANALYSIS RESULT FOR GRAPH 2 XXXIV APPENDIX 10: DETAILED ANALYSIS RESULT FOR GRAPH 3 XXXV

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES AND GRAPHS

TABLE 1 Data collection procedure in brief Page 18 GRAPH 1 Students‟ self evaluation- The frequency of

attending English Speaking Activities

XXXI

GRAPH 3 Students‟ evaluation of main factors affecting

their reticence

Page 26

TABLE 3 Students‟ self evaluation- The frequency of

attending English Speaking Activities (with Correlation coefficient formula)

XXXII

TABLE 4 Students‟ self evaluation- The frequency of

attending English Speaking Activities (with Spearman- Brown correction formula)

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Because of the increasing status of English as a world language, people in Viet Nam in general and in my hometown of Tien Lang in particular are becoming more and more aware of the importance of the spoken English This awareness was reflected not only during many daily informal talks but also officially in the national English language curriculum (MOET, 2006) which required high school students to

be able to conduct conversations in English on familiar daily life topics Despite this expectation, many high school students have been observed to be either quiet, uncooperative or to speak English with a trembling voice, make numerous unnecessary pauses, or have shaking hands or legs, etc during the lesson

This study was motivated by my concern about the apparent reluctance of Toan Thang high school students to participate in English- speaking class interactions The decision to look into students‟ reticence at Toan Thang high school was first inspired by my teaching and living experience with the students in this school for more than three years Such contact not only allows a valuable rapport with members of this case but also encourages my interest in further understanding students‟ perception and expectation Initial observations at the selected location reveals that spontaneous discourse was rare in many English speaking classes and many oral interactions not only did not include any students‟ individual thoughts or elaborated responses but also fostered a great deal of dependence on the teacher As a result, both teachers and students have become frustrated and often complained about the quality of the learning outcome This makes it urgent to examine this phenomenon to better understand the learning situation at Toan Thang high school and ultimately enhance the learning and teaching of oral English here The second reason is my realization that students themselves and students in different context (both educational context and

background) exhibit different behaviour and worldviews, which would contribute diverse perspectives, experiences and insights into the topic of reticence The above

reasons actually drive the researcher to a study thesis, namely “An investigation into students’ reticence in English speaking lessons - A case of Toan Thang high school”

2 Aim of the study

The current study aims at:

 Exploring the nature of students‟ reticence in English speaking lessons at Toan Thang high school and some common situations for reticence to flourish,

 Investigating students‟ viewpoints of their own learning behaviour and potential obstacles to their verbal participation in the classroom,

 Finding out students‟ aspiration on whether, and how, to move the classroom

to a more interactive mode

4 Scope of the study

Within the framework of a minor M.A thesis, the researcher only focuses on the real situation of reticence happening among 11th graders in their English speaking lessons at Toan Thang high school, as well as their various angles and desires towards this issue

5 Methods

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the study adopts the methodological approach of a survey study using mixed methods for data collection The tools for data gathering include class observation, semi-structured interview and questionnaire

6 Design of the study

There are three main parts in the thesis:

Part A: Introduction, which presents the rationale, aims, scope and research questions

Part B: Development of the research which includes:

Chapter 1: Literature Review, which reviews theoretical foreground from the

previous studies on students‟ reticence behaviour in general and in English speaking

classes in particular

Chapter 2: Research Methods of the Study, which composes of 3 parts: the

fitness of case study to the research purpose, participants‟ description and setting of the study (the case), and data collection

Chapter 3: Findings and discussion, which is the discussion of the findings

through an analysis of the data collected through means of researching: observations, semi-structured interviews and questionnaire

Part C: Conclusion, in which major findings of the study will be briefly

summarized as well as the acknowledgement of the limitations of the study will be elaborated

Besides, the classroom transcripts, interview transcripts, questionnaires and tables

of data analysis results are included in the Appendices

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Reticence behaviour in foreign language class

The terminology of reticence in academic writing was first introduced in

1965 with Phillips‟ article introducing to the field of speech communication and the notion that some people had difficulty communicating across a range of situations After his groundbreaking contribution, reticence caught the attention of many researchers and linguists under different cognate constructs such as reticence (Keaten & Kelly, 2000), communication incompetence, communication apprehension (McCroskey, 1970) and unwillingness to communicate (Burgoon, 1976) Their studies, no matter how different they were, agreed with Keaten and Kelly on an affirmation that reticence was a communication problem with cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions and was due to the belief that one was better off remaining silent than risking appearing foolish (Keaten & Kelly, 2000)

My own standpoint of reticence is strongly influenced by Keaten & Kelly‟s affirmation, which has been narrowed down to a specific situation- English Speaking classroom Reticence, in this paper, refers to behaviour of reticents who have a tendency to avoid communication, that is, to engage in chronic silence out of fear of foolishness They remain silence as a patterned response to the threat of negative evaluation The feeling of uneasiness, worry, nervousness and apprehension experienced by non-native speakers when learning or using a second

or foreign language has now changed learners into reticents since they possess a set

of faulty beliefs about communication and foreign language learning process

1.1.2 Interpretation of reticence

Since the beginning of reticence research, theories have been made relating

to what involved in reticence behaviour, and who often reveal themselves as reticents

First of all, reticence can indicate shyness characteristic It includes attitudes and feeling such as a lack of confidence particularly in new or unfamiliar social settings, excessive preoccupation with self in the presence of others, inadequate social skills, and disruptive anxiety and self-derogation in social situation (Cheek & Watson, 1989)

Second, reticence may imply too much inner speech overlapping one another, which is conductive to depression, morbidity and anxiety (Tomlinson, 2001)

Third, reticence can communicate acceptance of the other person, but without any doubt or any critical argument, which reveal passivity, lack of creativity, shortage of knowledge, justification and inventive skills

More often, reticence brings to light the fact that such people have no interest

on the situation they are involved It can also be a token of not understanding, which might be resulted from being involved in conversation or lessons with complicated, difficult or above- level topics

In addition, most people experience occasional feelings of shyness as a transitory reaction when encountering certain difficult social situation (Russel, Cutrona & Jones, 1986; Zimbardo, 1977) Likewise, some individuals are fearful and nervous of any unprepared situation that may cause unexpected results They can‟t risk themselves for any uncertain challenge (Ely, 1986; Liu & Jackson, 2008)

Again, the above correlations between environmental factors and communication reticence were detected and proved by many linguists‟ studies The results indicated that reticence is significantly influenced by antecedent environmental factors, thus lending support to etiological explanations based on learning theory and perception theory

1.1.3 Consequences of reticence

In many cases, the reticence behaviour is not simply resulted from one or several reasons in some certain situations, but more often, a final manifestation of serial complicated reactions during interactions such as tension, inhibition, awkwardness, painful self-consciousness, physical distress, and worry about being evaluated negatively It comes along with somatic anxiety symptoms such as upset stomach, pounding heart, sweating, trembling or blushing, which can lead to stressfulness and depression If reticence is not treated carefully, it can have serious repercussion for the reticents‟ heath themselves

Reticence in a specific situation of foreign language classes resulted in a series of failure As involvement and participation are essential for language acquisition, the more utterances the learners offer, the better their spoken language

is and vice versa This phenomenon is known as „Matthew Effect‟, that is "rich get richer, poor get poorer" (Chau, 1996) Students, who are actively involved, reported higher satisfaction and higher persistence rates (Tsui, 1996)

Furthermore, the act of being silent, reluctant to participate or speak using the target language has always been considered as the main source of frustration, and failure for not only students but also instructors (Flowerdew & Miller, 1995; Jackson, 2002), which is essentially important when the conceptualization of the Communicative Language Teaching approach is implemented This negative behaviour or passive attitude disrupts not only instructional plan, it also makes it hard for instructors to facilitate active learning among students As a conspicuous consequence, it restricts students from progress, and intended course learning outcomes might not be achieved Moreover, most of the time, instructors have to struggle in exploring ways to break the uncomfortable silence in interaction in order

to minimize the feeling of discombobulating

In short, students‟ reticence, withdrawal, or fear of interacting not only deprives them of sharing what they know, but also deprives the teacher and

classmates of benefiting from it Thus students‟ reticence has a vital influence in teaching and learning process and there is a need for an individual, teacher and classmate to reduce or eliminate such phenomena

1.2 Students’ reticence behaviour in English speaking lessons

In spite of the growing expectation for verbal classroom participation in second and foreign language learning situations, reticence research has captured the attention of language theorists and educators in recent decades From his observation and experience of teaching the EFL speaking skills for more than 15 years, Hilde (2009) has noticed that most of the students who enroll in the English Department of Qassim University have revealed reticence in speaking activities Non English major students in Saudi Arabia, similar to learners in foreign language contexts (Jackson, 2002; Howritz et al, 1986), have been observed to be either quiet

or to speak English with a trembling voice, make numerous unnecessary stops, or having shaking hands or legs, etc during English lessons or oral English tests The same problem has also been observed in other Asian countries Dick and Robinson (1995, p 5) reported that Malaysian students “preferred not to say anything during lecture discussion sessions” and “if an instructor asked a question, the class would become deadly silent” Korean students “speak only when invited by their instructors” and Japanese students are “nervous about asking questions in class” because they are unsure if a question was appropriate and they would choose “to ask questions after class, only with teachers” (Chen, 2003, p 267- 268)

In Vietnam, many students, after over ten years of schooling toward intellectual maturity, have not demonstrated their basic communicative skills; rather, there is an identifiable reticence, a reluctance to speak out in class and an apparent unwillingness of students to express themselves which, to outsiders, may

be construed as a lack of motivation or shyness (Bao, 2013) In the classroom,

Vietnamese students‟ culture of learning can be described as one in which students depend heavily on the pedagogical tendency of many teachers to transmit knowledge about the subject content (Bui, 2004)

This makes it urgent to examine this phenomenon to better understand the causes of the students‟ reluctance to participate in the English language classroom and ultimately enhance the learning and teaching of oral English there

Originated from Burns and Joyce‟s identification (Burns & Joyce, 1997), there are three sets of factors that might cause the reticence in classroom activities involving speaking: cultural factors, linguistic factors and psychological/affective factors The cultural factor here is understood as cultural attributes of Asian societies which are often cited as the main causes for such alleged behaviour of reticence and passivity It was then widened by Cheng (2003) who used the two terms “result of Confucian culture and tradition” and “previous learning experience” as well as Bao (2013) with a more general name of “external forces” Linguistic- related factor is secondly mentioned as causing reticence Manifestations of communication apprehension in the EFL have been reported by Lucas (1984, as cited in Aida, 1994) and Foss & Reitzel (1988, as cited in Aida, 1994), giving support to the idea that “people experience anxiety and reluctance in communicating with other people or in expressing themselves in a foreign language

in which they do not have a full competence” (Aida, 1994) Moreover, reticence relates to self-esteem & self-acceptance and whoever possesses an introvert and shy personality often reveals reticence in class, especially foreign language classes

According to Hui (2011), a student‟s reticence in class not only reveals that he/ she is unwilling to talk in certain circumstances; it could also indicate any of the following symptoms:

(1) the student‟s apathy toward the topic at hand or to the learning process itself; (2) the student who is not comprehending is overwhelmed, or is bored;

(3) the student is isolated from the learning community;

(4) the student has not learned the value or strategies of engagement or he/ she does not appreciate or believe in that value

Additionally, reticence can be the result of high tension beween the new approach and learners‟ traditional perception (Jarvis, 1986; Little & Sanders, 1990)

To sum up, there are a variety of factors that lead students to being reticence These factors, however, may not operate in isolation and as Van Worde (2003, p.5) affirms, but are likely to be intertwined

Teacher is considered to be the key factors that influence students‟ behaviour

in class Such conclusion is supported by a study of 100 Vietnamese university students More than 90% of the respondents had studied English for at least eight years before completing the survey that focused on causes of demotivation in learning English, which may lead to reticence behaviour: “The largest source of demotives was related to teachers”, “within the four demotive categories related to teachers, teaching methods provided the largest source of demotives” (Tran & Baldauf, 2007) Reticence can be influenced directly by the teaching methods, questioning methods, error correction, English proficiency and characteristics of the teacher or indirectly by teacher‟s belief, the classroom habits that he/ she formed to the students and what he/ she often teaches the students besides the English knowledge

First of all, the fact that teachers themselves have poor English language competence leads to students‟ boredom, tiredness, doubt and finally students‟ reticence Le (2002) reported that despite the strong promotion of CLT, the lack of appropriate in- service professional development meant that “teachers are generally incapable of teaching English communicatively in their real- world classroom Instead, they spend most of their lesson time explaining abstract grammar rules and guiding their students in choral readings.”

Secondly, it is teacher‟s misconception about students‟ ability that causes students‟ consciousness of being underestimated or neglected, which finally leads to reticence behaviour A survey by Tomlinson & Bao (2004) demonstrated that many teachers do not wish to change their methods, with more than half the respondents not wishing to participate in intervention for change, and some refusing to believe that the learners were willing to participate and refusing to believe in the potential

of learners to express themselves fluently in English

On the other hand, in preparing their students for such exams, teachers fail to implement communicative approaches in their classrooms and use teaching methods relevant to the students‟ goals of passing the exams (Kim, 2006) Moreover, some teachers seem to overuse their authority, which is considered a main source of inhibiting students‟ verbal performance Many teachers remain too conservative to accept different ways of viewing the same issue (Bao, 2004)

In brief, the influence of the teacher‟s traditional role over students‟ attitudes toward classroom participation is indicated in four main tendencies One view highlights teachers‟ unchallenged expertise and self- complacency as a cause of poor teaching performance which leads to poor participation Teachers‟ positive qualities are a stimulus to active collaboration and enthusiastic participation A second view implies that teacher frequently helds misconception about students‟ potential, which is a possible reason for students‟ reticence in class A third view suggests that teachers‟ strong emphasis on the written test and high score prevent students from actively involved in the Speaking lesson Last but not least, teachers‟ overused authority is considered to be one factor that induces fear and silence among learners

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODS OF THE STUDY

This chapter is to present research methodology I choose to achieve the aims and objectives of the study It gives out thorough explanations of reasons for choosing the research instruments, and clarifies specific way of getting information through those instruments

2.1 Participants and setting of the study

The voices to be heard in the study are those of 373 students, age between 17 and 18, from one intermediate level class (receiving four periods of English per week) and seven preliminary level classes (receiving three periods of English per week) Such levels were named by the school administration based on students‟ average score after each semester The choice of 11th graders, which covered between two and three years of learning experiences at this school, allowed the students not only to discuss their present English classes but to reflect on the history

of studying in previous classes Among 373 students being investigated, 193 students are male and 180 are female Most of them come from poor or middle-income families in the rural area Due to the lack of information and technology, students have little chance to access English in different ways Almost all the 11thgraders being investigated (96, 5%) have never met foreigners before and half of them have no intention of continuing to use English after class or after graduation Only 21 per 373 students (5, 6%) plans to choose subjects in group D to enter university and college (Lương Trường Xuân, 2014)

The analysis was carried out as a case study of Toan Thang high school This

is a state- run school located in Tien Lang district, which is about 30 kilometer from

Hai Phong city center The inhabitants here live mainly on farming, deep-sea fishing, and a wide range of traditional handicrafts There isn‟t any English club or center operating at the moment in this area

At this school, students attend 5 obligatory periods in the morning and three optional extra- classes in the afternoon Eleventh graders follow the curriculum promulgated by the Ministry of Education and Training, with a weekly English class time of 135 minutes, split into three lessons of 45 minutes each Only students from class 11B8, the intermediate level class, get another lesson every week, namely „elective lesson‟ However, they all study the Basic English textbooks, which is theme-based and skill-based

With regard to facility and technology, the overview reveals a bad image of inadequate facilities, resources and learning environments as well as backward technology There is a lack of conductive equipments such as flexible seatings and even consistent power supply The boards, which are all chalk boards rather than whiteboard, bulletin, flannel or felt boards, are in poor condition The library that provides a limited amount of audio visual teaching aids like projectors, radios, or pictures does not have many kinds of English books to borrow Furthermore, the inconvenience of bringing all those stuff to class and installing a projector or a laptop prevents teachers from daily use in their real-world classes

Although in grade 11, there is one selective class which is reported to have higher average score than others, the English proficiency among students in the same class is unequal Large class sizes of mixed-level students (between 44 and 48 students), which confuses teachers, is also a disadvantage in every English Speaking lessons Additionally, in order to maintain high disciplinary standard, Toan Thang high school has implemented many strict rules and harsh punishments against undisciplined individuals and classes Students are required to wear uniforms and badges, take notes carefully and keep quiet during the lessons no matter what they are studying Everyday, they are watched by a group of teachers and students from the school disciplinary team

As far as the testing system is concerned, none of the examinations at this school seek to measure communicative competence This is the result of large- scale non- communicative testing that continues to be the norm of Vietnam educational testing system Despite the aim of students achieving communicative skills, the Ministry has institutionalised multiple-choice tests as the only testing method for standardised high- stake tests In these tests, pupils are tested in terms of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary and reading comprehension Speaking and listening are not tested

2.2 Data collection

For the purpose of this study, a triangulation of three different methods was used for data collection These included classroom observation, questionnaire and semi-structured interviews

- Classroom Observation:

According to Hopkins (cited in Mr Donough, J & Mr Donough, S., 1997, p.101), observation is a pivotal activity with a crucial role to play in classroom research In this study, observation is a helpful tool for the researcher in three main dimensions: –to investigate whether reticence is the manner found in some specific aspects and individuals or a frequent display among students in different classroom circumstances; – to investigate the implementation of teaching methodology in reality, which may contribute to students‟ reticence development; – to know the way of cooperations and interactions between students and students, and between teacher and students, through the task process To fulfill those aims, the researcher focused on observing the whole class events at the level of activity and analyzing the communicative features of verbal exchanges between students and teachers within each activity The communicative features observed include the use of the