Promoting learner autonomy for non english majors through project work in a vietnamese university = tăng cường tính tự chủ cho sinh viên không chuyên tiếng anh

Promoting learner autonomy for non english majors through project work in a vietnamese university = tăng cường tính tự chủ cho sinh viên không chuyên tiếng anh

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

In higher education in Vietnam, English is introduced nationally in two categories: as a discipline and as a subject In the first category, students study English as a major to get a BA, and MA or a doctoral degree in English These students are trained to be teachers, translators, interpreters, or researchers either in English linguistics or in English language teaching methodology In the second category, university students study English as a means of communication and a requirement for graduation And these students are termed non-English majors As a compulsory tertiary subject, the curriculum framework for this language is from 10 to 15 credits in undergraduate programs This policy is applied across the tertiary level (Hoang Van Van, 2011)

Along with the booming of economic development, teaching and learning English as a foreign language (EFL) at tertiary level in Vietnam receives great attention (Lam Thi Lan Huong and Albright, 2019) During the last few decades, The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has made considerable efforts to improve the quality of English language education at the tertiary level The launch of National Foreign Language Project 2008-2020 (the project 2020) is among those attempts The project was officially introduced in 2008 in Prime Minister‟s Decision No 1400/QĐ-TTg “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, Period 2008 to 2020” (Prime Minister, 2008) The general goal of this project is that by the year 2020 most Vietnamese youth whoever graduate from vocational schools, colleges and universities gain the capacity to use

2 a foreign language independently (MOET, 2008) This enables them to be more confident in communication, further their chance to study and work in an integrated and multi-cultural environment with variety of languages This goal also makes English as an advantage for Vietnamese people, serving the cause of industrialization and modernization for the country The project has recently been extended to the year of 2025 (Prime Minister, 2017)

However, there have been challenges that Vietnamese EFL students face on the journeys to become successful language learners The challenges include (1) the teaching and learning culture, (2) poor teaching methodology, and (3) students‟ low motivation

As of the challenge of the teaching and learning culture, Vietnam is considered among countries which have been strongly affected by Asian education tradition where teachers are seen as the authoritative transmitters of knowledge (Le Van Canh, 2011) and students as passive, rote learners (Le Van Canh, 1999; Humphrey & Wyatt, 2013; Nguyen Thanh Nga, 2014; Nguyen Tuong Hung, 2002; Pham Hoa Hiep, 1999; Thomson, 2009; and Truong Thi Thanh Canh, 2017) who prefer listening and compliance (Tran Thi Tuyet, 2013) This education culture is considered a real challenge for students (Tran Thi Tuyet, 2013; Truong Cong Bang, 2016)

Another challenge is poor teaching methodology Scholars state that poor teaching methodology limits students‟ opportunities to practice English communication skills and exploitation of the learning resources (Hoang Van Van, 2008; Trinh Thi Thu Hien & Mai Thi Loan, 2019) In class, students are highly dependent on the lecturing and English lessons tend to emphasize the development of language knowledge, but do not address professional or common skills such as teamwork, oral and written communication in English, project management, problem solving methods, initiative-taking, lifelong learning (Phan Le Hai Ngan, 2017; Tran Thi Tuyet, 2013) In addition, students‟ learning environment is limited within the classroom context English, much like any other academic subject, tends to be taught and used only inside the classroom Therefore, such teaching and learning

3 practice is not appreciated as being effective, especially to non-English major students, who as passive learners are unfamiliar with what these pedagogies ask them to do and are reluctant to express their ideas or raise questions (Nguyen Thuong, 2017; Trinh Thi Thu Hien & Mai Thi Loan, 2019) As a result, the quality of the teaching in EFL classrooms is low, and students lack practical skills and strategies in learning (Nguyen Ha, 2009; Phan Thi Thanh Thao, 2015)

Among the challenges, low level of motivation in learning is also recognized It is found out that non-English major students do not attach much importance to English although it is a compulsory subject (Trinh Thi Thu Hien & Mai Thi Loan,

2019) They learn English passively and uninterestedly in order to complete the course as part of their programs They devote a little time and effort to English learning Besides, they have limited opportunities to use learning sources available and conduct the learning activities without joy These contribute to EFL students‟ lack of motivation (Dunsmore, 2019; Nguyen Thi Le Nguyen, 2015; Powell, 2016; Trinh Thi Thu Hien & Mai Thi Loan, 2019; and Truong Cong Bang, 2016)

It can be noticed that the English language education at university level in Vietnam has offered great opportunities for both teachers and learners It also challenges all the stakeholders (policy makers, educators, and learners) in the context to continuously strive to find solutions to foster the quality of the teaching and learning practice In this stream, developing the capacity for greater learner autonomy is believed to be one of the main targets of the educational reform (National Assembly for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 2005) And it is hoped that if Vietnamese university students are educated to be autonomous in learning, they will become an active workforce that is able to embark on lifelong learning and adapt to new developments and changes in the work (Le Xuan Quynh, 2013).

Rationale of the Study

The rationale for this study is based on two different grounds The first ground is the researcher‟s experience of teaching his own students who are found to lack learner autonomy in their learning The second ground is the researcher‟s awareness

4 of the benefits of learner autonomy in learning to the students, and project work as a potential tool to foster learner autonomy

As for the first ground, casting light on the teaching context, the researcher found that the students seem to have some problems with autonomy in their learning: they do not make the most of the learning resources available; their use of learning skills appear indigent; their level of motivation and attitude in learning is low; they seem unaware of the learning process; and they do not interact and collaborate much in learning This can be found in three first entries of the teacher‟s diary, in which the researcher in the role as a teacher in class, experienced the problematic learning practice among the students in the class The situation motivates the researcher to take action and find a solution to solve the problem

In terms of the second ground, the researcher has found that learner autonomy has become an educational goal worldwide and has gained a lot of attention from both researchers and practitioners In Vietnam, learner autonomy is currently a buzz word in the nationwide effort to improve the quality of the English language teaching in general and of tertiary education in particular Also, it is widely recognized that learner autonomy is believed to be beneficial for learners in their learning Autonomous learners possess valued qualities such as critical thinking, independent working, collaboration, responsibility, high motivation, self- assessment, control over the leaning process and content, setting learning goals, and decision-making, active participation in classroom activities, and therefore, they learn more effectively (Benson, 2001; Benson, 2013; Candy, 1991; Dam, 1995; Dickinson, 1995; Kalabzova, 2015; Naiman, Froanhlich, Stern, and Toedesco, 1978; and Natri, 2007) These qualities are also desired by the management board of the university, where this research is conducted, in innovating the training system and teaching methodology to produce workforce that can meet the needs of the modern society Working as an English teacher teaching English for students in a university, the researcher is aware of the importance and benefits of learner autonomy in the teaching practice; and bears the responsibility to participate in that

5 innovation process by applying new teaching methods to help the students to become more autonomous possessing the mentioned qualities

Besides, project work is claimed to have features that can be potential to promote learner autonomy (Alan and Stoller, 2005; Fried-Booth, 2002; Haines, 1989; Sheppard and Stoller, 1995; and Stoller, 2002) These features include working individually and cooperatively with others to complete set tasks, employing diverse skills for planning, management, and evaluations, and at different stages of projects, searching out the real world, and making the most of the available resources to conduct projects Similarly, Benson (2001) proposes that project work can serve as a tool in the existing syllabus to develop learner autonomy for students The scholar specifies that during project work students determine the content, methods of inquiry, and outcomes of the real-world research in collaboration with each other and with their teachers Learners exercise control over the content of projects and the forms of input and output.

Aims, Objectives, and Research Questions

The ultimate aim of the study is to explore how the implementation of projects enhances the students‟ autonomy in four aspects: technical, psychological, political- critical, and socio-cultural More specifically, the study has four objectives which are:

(1) to clarify how the project work promotes the technical aspect of the students‟ autonomy featuring the students‟ access to learning resources and their use of learning skills/strategies; (2) to find out how the project work enhances the psychological aspect of the students‟ autonomy featuring the attitudes towards learning English and motivation in learning the subject; (3) to investigate how the project work stimulates the political-critical aspect of the students‟ autonomy featuring their choices of the learning contents and the choices of learning methods; and (4) to examine how the project work promotes the socio-cultural aspect of the students‟ autonomy featuring their interaction and collaboration in the learning process

To achieve the aim and the objectives, this study attempts to answer the following overarching research question and sub-research questions:

The overarching research question is:

How does the project work promote learner autonomy for the non-English majors in the university?

1 Technically, how do the projects enhance the students‟ access to learning resources and their use of learning skills/strategies?

2 Psychologically, how do the projects promote the students‟ attitudes towards learning English and motivation in learning English?

3 Political-critically, how do the projects stimulate the students‟ choices of learning contents and choices of learning methods?

4 Socio-culturally, how does the project work foster the students‟ interaction and collaboration?

Scope of the Study

This action research was grounded in the wish of improving English language teaching and learning for teachers and students in higher education Starting with the argument that autonomy plays an essential role in English language education due to its benefits to learners, the study employed project work as an intervention to enhance autonomy for thirty-four non-English majors in a university in the north of Vietnam

In this study, learner autonomy is conceptualized as a multi-layered construct containing four aspects: the technical, the psychological, the political-critical, and the socio-cultural Eight core components recognized and focused in the four aspects include (1) access to learning resources and (2) use of learning skills (technical), (3) attitude and (4) motivation (psychological), (5) learners‟ choices of learning contents and (6) choices of learning methods (political-critical), and (7) collaboration and (8) interaction (socio-cultural)

To promote autonomy for learners in their learning, project work was integrated into the existing syllabus of an English course for the first-year students Throughout the study, project work was theorized as an integrated mode of teaching

7 and learning into the ongoing syllabus in which teachers and learners collaborate with each other in building projects, realizing project activities, presenting project final outcomes, and evaluating projects The working model of project work with four phases: preparation, realization, presentation, and evaluation, served as the main framework aiming to promote the components of learners‟ autonomy mentioned above Totally, eight semi-structured projects were applied in the learning process in which four projects themed „describing places‟, three projects themed „practical English‟, and one project themed „describing people‟

The study used the action research model by Kemmis and McTaggart (1988) with one cycle of four main phases: plan, act, observe and reflect In order to collect the data for the study, two questionnaires (Pre-Project Work Questionnaire and Post- Project Work Questionnaire), teacher's diary, and interviews were used And the data was analyzed based on the content analysis in four steps: (1) defining the units of analysis (e.g., words, sentences) and categories to be used for analysis; (2) reviewing the texts in order to code them and place them into categories; and then

(3) counting and logging the occurrences of words, codes and categories; (4) an interpretation of the results

The enhancement of the learners‟ autonomy in the eight components were pointed out and discussed by comparing the results of Pre-Project Work Questionnaire and Post-Project Work Questionnaire in triangulation with the data collected from the interviews and teacher‟s diary.

Significance of the Study

Although learner autonomy has been recently gaining momentum as an educational goal and various research has sought for solutions to foster learner autonomy, there is little research on how project work promotes learner autonomy for EFL students in the learning process This research examined the enhancement of four aspects of learner autonomy through project work for the non-English majors in Vietnamese university in the north of Vietnam This study revealed how the projects integrated into the existing syllabus enhanced the aspects of learner autonomy among the

8 students The findings of this study contribute to studies of learner autonomy promotion for tertiary English learners in EFL contexts by depicting the development of the aspects of learner autonomy through the application of project work into the learning process From the theoretical perspective, the study results prove that the enhancement of learner autonomy was evident among the non-English majors through the project work From the practical perspective, to enhance learner autonomy for the students in the research institution, project work was proved to be an effective pedagogical intervention tool Thus, the current research adds empirical evidence of using projects to stimulate learner autonomy for EFL university students in Vietnam.

Thesis Structure

The thesis consists of 5 chapters Chapter 1 – Introduction - presents the rationale, scope, limitations, aims, objectives, significance of the study Chapter 2 - Literature Review - provides a thorough review about learner autonomy, promotion of learner autonomy, and project work as a pedagogical intervention to enhance learner autonomy Chapter 3 – Research Methodology - presents the research questions, the research approach – action research, the pitfalls of action research, and the rationale of using action research design for the study, the working model of action research, the research context, the research participants, ethical considerations, the data collection tools, the administration of the data collection tools, research plan, identification of the problem, and the implementation of projects Chapter 4 - Findings and Discussions - details the results of the study focusing on the extent to which learner autonomy is developed, and discussions and interpretation of the results with reference to the literature Chapter 5 – Conclusion - is the final chapter of the thesis The chapter presents an overview of the presentations in the thesis and the overall findings on the enhancement in four aspects (technical, psychological, political-critical, and socio-cultural) of the learners‟ autonomy The chapter also demonstrates the contributions of the study and provides implications and recommendations for further research

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This chapter attempts to provide a systematic review of the literature on learner autonomy, project work, and previous studies using project work for promotion of learner autonomy Regarding learner autonomy, the discussions focus on the role of learner autonomy in language education, definitions, and frameworks of learner autonomy, four aspects of learner autonomy, the conceptual framework of learner autonomy employed in this study, and ways of promoting learner autonomy As for project work, there are presentations of definitions, features and benefits, types, stages, the working model, and the rationale to use project work as means to promote learner autonomy The final part of this chapter is for reviewing previous studies found in the literature in which project work is employed to enhance learner autonomy.

Learner Autonomy

Learner autonomy is indisputably a multi-layered concept that is possible to see from different perspectives This resulted in countless attempts to theorize it The definitions proposed by Benson (1997), Benson (2001), Benson and Voller (1997), Dam (1995), Holec (1981), Litllewood (1999), Little (1991), Oxford (2003), and Scharle and Szabo (2000) gain more attention in the literature And it is found that there are two ways the scholars employ to conceptualize learner autonomy Some scholars hypothesize autonomy in definitions including Benson (2001), Dam

(1995), Holec (1981), Little (1991), and Scharle and Szabo (2000) The others describe learner autonomy in frameworks including Benson (1997), Benson and Voller (1997), Littlewood (1999), and Oxford (2003) The discussions below first focus on the definitions, and then on the frameworks

The first, the most quoted and the most influential in language education is definitely the Holec‟s (1981) definition Holec defines learner autonomy as „the

10 ability to take charge of one‟s own learning‟ (Holec, 1981, p.3) It dates back to Holec‟s (1981) report for the Council of Europe‟s Modern Language Project This definition interprets autonomy as a capacity that can be developed, and a list of characteristics were also named, including „determining the objectives, defining the contents and the progressions, selecting methods and techniques to be used, monitoring the procedure of acquisition properly speaking (rhythm, time, place, etc.), and evaluating what has been acquired‟ (Holec, 1981, p.3) It can be noticed that when Holec defined learner autonomy he did it with adult studying foreign language in self-access centers in mind Therefore, it focuses on the technical or methodological aspects of learning that enable students to succeed in such settings

In other words, learner autonomy proposed by Holec (1981) tends to refer to the cognition and metacognition learners possess to be autonomous

Inspired by the work of Holec (1981), Little (1991) picks up on and expands the notion of autonomy as a capacity of the learner The scholar defines autonomy as:

“a capacity – for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action It presupposes, but also entails, that the learner will develop a particular kind of psychological relation in the process and content of the learning The capacity for autonomy will be displayed both in the way the learner learns and in the way he or she transfers what has been learned to wide contexts.”

It can be seen that the definition emphasizes the central role of psychology in the development of this capacity According to Benson (2005), this is regarded as a contribution to the theoretical discussions of learner autonomy because Holec‟s

(1981) definition describes „what autonomous learners are able to do‟, whereas Little‟s definition „explain how they are able to do it‟ (p 23)

Adding the psychological element of „willingness‟ into the configuration of autonomy, Dam (1995) proposes that autonomy entails both „a capacity and willingness to act independently and in cooperation with others, as a socially responsible person‟ (p 102) Obviously, the scholar also emphasizes the social

11 element in this definition in which the learner is viewed as an active participant in the social process of learning However, different from Holec‟s and Little‟s definition, teachers‟ roles and responsibilities are equally highlighted For most learners, the process of promoting learner autonomy in school settings can be „a long, difficult and often painful‟ process of change, which „demands constant effort on the part of the teacher and learners, not only as individuals but in collaboration with one another; for it is in the interactive process of collaboration that growth- points occur‟ (ibid, p 6)

Stressing the important presence of both aspects: political-critical and technical, Scharle and Szabo (2000) describe learner autonomy as “freedom and ability to manage one‟s own affairs, which entails the right to make decisions‟ (p.4) By using the word “freedom”, the authors accentuate learners‟ right in learning which refers to choices of learning contents and learning methods At the same time, they emphasize learners‟ metacognitive skills (ability) to manage their learning

Accentuating the role of political-critical aspect in learner autonomy, Benson (2001) states that both Holec‟s and Little‟s definitions “ underplay a third vital aspect in autonomous learning: that the content of learning should be freely determined by the learners” (p.49) Benson (2001) broadly defines autonomy as “the capacity to take control over one‟s own learning” (p.2) It is not a method of learning; rather it is the political-critical attribute of the learner‟s approach to the learning process Also, he elucidates that control over learning may take different forms at different levels of the learning process He states that autonomy is accepted as a multidimensional capacity that is displayed in different forms for different individuals, and for the same individual this capacity may differ depending on the context

Frameworks are also found to be used to define learner autonomy Benson (1997) describes learner autonomy in a framework of three perspectives which are the technical, the psychological and the political-critical The technical perspective is confined to „the act of learning a language outside the classroom and without the intervention of a teacher‟ (Benson, 1997, p.19) This aspect emphasizes learning-to-

12 learn in order to promote independent life-long learning Skills or strategies are vital for unsupervised learning: specific kinds of activity or process such as the metacognitive, cognitive, social and other strategies identified by Oxford (1990) In the psychological version, autonomy is defined as a capacity, „a construct of attitudes and abilities which allows learners to take more responsibility for their own learning‟ (Benson, 1997, p.19) Therefore, the psychological perspective involves investigating mental and emotional characteristics of learners and relating them to the development of autonomy The political version refers to the learners‟ control over the process and content of learning (ibid.) This perspective also focuses on students‟ becoming aware of the context of learning, such as the purpose and the implications of learning a particular language, and the potential for personal and social change provided by learning another language

Another framework proposed by Benson and Voller (1997) details the specifications of learner autonomy in five identifications According to the two researchers, the term „autonomy‟ refers to (1) for situations in which learners study entirely on their own; (2) for a set of skills which can be learned and applied in self- directed learning; (3) for an inborn capacity which is suppressed by institutional education; (4) for the exercise of learners' responsibility for their own learning; and

(5) for the right of learners to determine the direction of their own learning In this definition, three aspects are recognized: the technical (situations in which learners study on their own, a set of skills which can be learned and applied in self-directed learning), the psychological (an inborn capacity which is suppressed by institutional education, responsibility) and the political-critical (the right to determine the learning)

In a similar way of using frameworks to describe the concept, later, Littlewood

(1999) conceptualizes learner autonomy in a framework of proactive and reactive autonomy The former refers to an experience of autonomy in which the learner sets the direction of learning, regulates the activity, and self-evaluates his/her progress independently of the teacher The focus is on volitation, choice and action that

13 affirm one‟s individuality and separateness from the group In contrast, the latter – reactive autonomy refers to a form of autonomy in which the learner regulates their own learning once direction has been set by the teacher Once this direction is articulated, learners are able to autonomously organize their resources to achieve the goals they choose from among those suggested by the teacher With regard to teachers‟ beliefs and views toward learners‟ autonomy, he therefore proposes two versions, the strong and the weak pedagogies The strong version of pedagogy for autonomy refers to the kind of practice that creates space for student-directed learning, whereas in the weak version of pedagogy for autonomy, the teacher, or the institute, determines the curriculum and the syllabus leaving very little room for students to express their needs It can be noticed that the proactive autonomy is similar to Holec‟s definition, emphasizing the technical aspect of autonomy The latter, reactive autonomy refers to the political-critical aspect mentioning the learner choices in learning

Attempting at a systematic framework of learner autonomy, Oxford (2003) strongly disagrees with the theoretical framework of learner autonomy proposed by Benson

Project Work

Although project-based learning has become traced in the academic environment in the recent years, its origin can be trailed back to the early 1900s (Aimeur, 2011; Du & Han, 2016; Legutke & Thomas, 1991; and Lipova, 2008) In 1916, John Dewey (1859-1952), an American philosopher of education, wrote an essay "Democracy and Education", in which he emphasized the importance of experience and problem-solving He stresses that the school has to represent present life - life as real and vital to the child that which he carries on in his home, in the neighborhood or on the playground Moreover, Dewey encourages 'learning by doing' and believes that the classroom should be a reflection of society and that learners should be active agents in their learning process rather than receptacles to be filled with information by their teachers

Later, Dewey's ideas were developed by William Heard Kilpatrick (1871-1965) in his essay "The Project Method" in 1918 These two authors' contribution is seen as the beginning of the modern use of project work Muniady (2000) and Beckett

(2006), sharing the same argument, state that project-based learning in Kilpatrick's work concentrates on learners' needs to have a fruitful activity In other words, learners in project-based learning have the opportunities to create knowledge by providing their projects based on their interests and individual differences They make connections between their new knowledge and their existing knowledge and are able to use them to a similar setting They learn in a significant context while generating the end product (Wrigley, 1998)

Since the 1980s, interest in project-based learning and its integration into second and foreign language education has been blossoming around the world During this time, the research circles witness a growth of studies from project-based learning advocates such as Alan and Stoller (2005), Fried-Booth (1986), Haines (1989), Papandreou (1994), Sheppard and Stoller (1995), Stoller (1997), and Stoller (2002) According to Beckett (2002), there is a variety of terms used interchangeably with project work such as project method, project approach, project-oriented approach, and project-based learning These terms are commonly used in general education and language education literature The term "project" used in EFL context was first proposed by Fried-Booth (1986, p.8) He points out that language tasks arise naturally from the project itself, developing cumulatively in response to a basic objective, namely, the project

Haines (1989) argues that in the context of language learning, projects are multi- skill activities focusing on topics or themes rather than on specific language targets The author continues that the learners concentrate on reaching the targets with opportunities to recycle known language and skills in a relatively natural context Meanwhile, Fried-Booth (1986) states that that most organized language learning takes place in the classroom and there is often a gap between the language the students are taught and the language they in fact require The researcher concludes that project work can help to bridge the gap

There are many other definitions of project work proposed by various authors Beckett (2002) defines project work as a long-term (several weeks) activity that

40 involves a variety of individual or cooperative tasks such as developing a research plan and questions and implementing the plan through empirical or document research that includes collecting, analyzing, and reporting data orally and/or in writing

Emphasizing the importance of project work in language learning, Stoller (2002, p.109) discusses that “project-based learning should be viewed as a versatile vehicle for fully integrated language and content learning, making it a viable option for language educators working in a variety of instructional settings including general English, English for academic purposes (EAP), English for specific purposes (ESP), and English for occupational/vocational/professional purposes, in addition to pre- service and in-service teacher training.”

Legutke and Thomas (1991, p.160) describe project work as "a theme and task- centered mode of teaching and learning which results from a joint process of negotiation between all participants The authors continue by stating that project work allows for a wide scope of self-determined action for both the individual and the small group of learners within a general framework of a plan which defines goals and procedures Project learning realizes a dynamic balance between a process and a product orientation Finally, it is said to be experiential and holistic because it bridges dualism between body and mind, theory and practice

In a similar vein, Hedge (2000) defines that projects are extended tasks which usually integrate language skills by means of numbers of activities These activities combine in working towards an agreed goal and may include the following: planning; gathering information through reading, listening, interviewing, and observing; group discussion of the information, problem solving; oral and written reporting; and display Meanwhile, Fried-Booth (2002) explains that project work is student-centered and driven by the need to create an end-product, which brings opportunities for students to develop their confidence and independence and to work together in a real-world environment by collaborating on a task which they have defined for themselves, and which has not been externally imposed

To serve the research purpose of this study, project work is conceptualized as an

41 integrated mode of teaching and learning into the ongoing syllabus in which teachers and learners collaborate with each other in building projects, realizing project activities, presenting project final outcomes, and evaluating projects

2.3.2 Features and Benefits of Project Work

Many proponents of project work such as Alan and Stoller (2005), Fried-Booth

(2002), Haines (1989), Sheppard and Stoller (1995), and Stoller (2002) who took different approaches agree on six features of project work as summarized by Stoller

(2002) First, project work prioritizes the content rather than the language Thus, it can be considered as a mirror of the real world, which includes topics of interest to students Second, students will do the main tasks in a project, and teachers will give guidance and support where necessary Third, during the process, students can work individually or cooperatively in small groups, or as a whole class to share resources, ideas, and expertise to complete the project Fourth, students integrate diverse skills through conducting tasks Fifth, project work is usually designed with end products as the outcome, for example, an oral presentation, a poster session, a bulletin-board display, a report, or a stage performance Project work not only develops students‟ language accuracy through the process stage, but also language fluency through the product stage Finally, project work is potentially motivating, stimulating, empowering, and challenging It usually results in building student confidence, self- esteem, and autonomy as well as improving students‟ language skills, content learning, and cognitive abilities

Focusing on the activities in projects, Hutchinson (1991), a great promoter of project work, emphasizes four characteristics of project work: (1) hard work: - Each project is a result of a lot of hard work The authors of the projects have to carry out various activities and put all the parts together to form a coherent presentation; (2) creative - Projects are creative in two aspects: contents and language The teacher shall see each project as unique piece of communication; (3) personal: - The aspect of creativity makes the project very personal The students invest a lot of

42 themselves into their work; and (4) adaptable: - Project work can be used with all ages at every level of language The choice of activities is not limited, and each topic can be adapted for the specific purposes of a particular group of learners According to Simpson (2011), educators who studied and applied project-based learning share a consensus on a range of features They include: (a) complex explorations over a period of time; (b) a student-centered learning activity whereby students plan, complete and present the task; (c) challenging questions, problems, or topics of student interest which become the center of the project and the learning process; (d) the de-emphasis of teacher-directed activities; (e) frequent feedback from peers and facilitators, and an opportunity to share resources, ideas and expertise through the whole process in the classroom; (f) hands-on activities and the use of authentic resources and technologies; (g) a collaborative learning environment rather than a competitive one; (h) the use of a variety of skills such as social skills and management skills; (i) the use of effort in connecting ideas and acquiring new skills during different stages of projects; (j) the productions of meaningful artifacts that can be shared with peers, teachers, and experts in a public presentation; and (k) assessment in both the process of working from the first stage to the last stage and the finished project

Capturing the uniqueness of project-based learning, Thomas (2000) suggests five features to answer the question 'what must a project have to be considered an instance of project-based learning?' The criteria are as follows: centrality, driving question, constructive investigations, autonomy, and realism As for centrality, projects can be the central teaching strategy; learners encounter and learn the main concepts of a discipline through the projects In terms of driving question, projects focus on questions or problems that drive learners to encounter and learn the central concepts and principles of a discipline When attempting to pursue the questions, activities, products and performances occupy learners' time Regarding constructive investigations, projects involve learners in a constructive investigation An investigation is a goal-directed process that involves inquiry, knowledge building,

43 and resolution The central activities of the project should involve the transformation and construction of knowledge (new understandings and new skills) on the part of the learner With autonomy, projects are student driven They include learners‟ choices and responsibility rather than traditional instruction where teachers decide the learning contents and methods Concerning realism, projects are realistic Projects embody some characteristics that give them the feature of authenticity to the learners These characteristics may be reflected in the topic, the tasks, the roles played by the learners, or the final product

2.3.2.2 Benefits of Project Work in Language Learning

Previous Studies Using Project Work to Promote Learner Autonomy

In order to inform the epistemological and ontological aspects of the study, in this section the previous studies using project work to promote learner autonomy in English language learning were reviewed It is found that project work is employed for learner autonomy development in different contexts which can be for future teacher university students (Villa and Armstrong, 2004), or ESP university students

(Ramires, 2014), or school students (Pichailuck & Luksaneeyanawin, 2017), or university English-majored students (Chong, 2003; and Nguyen Van Loi, 2017) And it can be easily noticed that there have been studies in various contexts employing project work to enhance learner autonomy for English language learners Nonetheless, there has not been much exploration of the development of autonomy for English language students in higher education in the Vietnamese context

With a purpose to find support for the view that project work is an effective approach to developing future teachers‟ autonomy, twenty-three students who had participated in project work were interviewed and the responses were analyzed using Benson‟s contribution 1997, 2001 on autonomous learning, and Legutke and Thomas (1991) six stages of project work as a framework The study was conducted in in an undergraduate foreign language teaching program at a public university in Columbia through three semesters In the study, three perspectives of learner autonomy were examined, which were the technical, the psychological, and the political The technical emphasizes learning to learn in order to promote independent life-long learning The psychological stresses the inner transformation of the individual regarding attitudes, behaviors, and personality in order to take charge of their own learning The political stresses the learners‟ control of process and content of learning The results of the study showed that project work enhanced learner autonomy in language learning and that all the features of learner autonomy are evidenced in the authors‟ and participants‟ experience with project work The authors came to a conclusion that project work can be worthwhile to adopt it as a pedagogical strategy to develop language learner autonomy

In the context of teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Ramires‟ (2014) conducted research on developing learner autonomy through project work for 16 students at a Columbian regional and public university with a class The students majored in environmental engineering and were at level A1 The students decided to create a magazine according to the preferences about environmental issues as a final product for their project The study was conducted over an academic semester

59 taking into account eight stages in project work proposed by Sheppard and Stoller

(1995) The instruments for data collection were field notes, semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, students‟ artifacts, and video recordings The results of this study showed that learner autonomy could be developed by means of project work The students displayed self-regulation The students also demonstrated their commitment to fulfill the goal

In the EFL context of Thailand, Pichailuck & Luksaneeyanawin (2017) did action research in which they used project-based learning to enhance learner autonomy for ten school sixth graders The study focused on four categories of learner autonomy:

(1) awareness and readiness, (2) willingness and motivation, (3) cognitive and metacognitive abilities, and (4) social dimensions and interdependence Within 13 weeks of a semester, the participants completed 3 projects (1) Aesop‟s Fables Role Play, (2) The Survey Project, and (3) The Cooking Project The researchers used field notes, interviews, focused group conversations, diaries, observations, and assignment analysis as data collection tools The findings reveal that the learners were willing and motivated in learning, but cognitive and metacognitive abilities are the most lacking

At the tertiary English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) contexts, two different studies were found to be conducted with university students majoring in English: one in Korea by Chong (2003) and the other in Vietnam by Nguyen Van Loi (2017) Chong (2003) used computer – assisted – language – learning (CALL) projects to promote autonomy for thirty-two sophomore students majoring in English as a foreign language at a Korean university The projects lasted for four months with 5 stages each The study focused on three component of learner autonomy which were learner choice, supporting environment, and self-assessment The purpose of the study was to measure the effects of the projects on those elements of learner autonomy To collect data for the study, a survey and interviews were employed The results showed that learners enjoyed a large range of choices and took responsibility for most aspects of learning Besides, learners worked in a more

60 supportive atmosphere, and they were involved in assessment in the CALL projects The scholar also concluded that the CALL projects prove to be a promising approach for autonomous learning

In the context of Vietnam tertiary level, Nguyen Van Loi (2017) conducted research to understand the impact of project work in teaching English language skills on learner autonomy of students in an English Language Teacher Education program in a university in the south of Vietnam Fifty English majors participated in the study And the study lasted for two semesters The study emphasizes five components of learner autonomy: (1) self-confidence, (2) self-regulated learning behaviors, (3) self-determination and decisions about learning, (4) attitude towards self- responsibility, and (5) attitude towards social interaction Two instruments used to assess students‟ autonomy were self-assessment questionnaire and two group interviews The results demonstrated that students gained a higher degree of learner autonomy after participating in project work However, the gain was largely due to increased self-decisions on learning The other aspects of learner autonomy such as self-regulated learning actions, self-responsibility, and attitudes to social interaction remained unchanged

Table 2.6 summarizes five categories in the studies including the configurations of learner autonomy, project work models, data collection tools, participants and contexts, and results

Table 2.6 Previous studies using projects to promote learner autonomy Studies

(1) learner choice; (2) supporting environment, and

(1) Learners enjoyed a large range of choices; (2) Learners worked in a more supportive atmosphere; (3) Learners were involved in assessment

Benson's (1997) three perspectives: (1) the technical;

Six-stage model by Legutke and Thomas

(1) Autonomy developed; (2) All features of autonomy were evident

The competence of self- determination, responsibility, and critical awareness

16 English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students in Columbia

(1) Most learners were aware of self-monitoring and self- evaluation strategies; (2) Decision making encourages students to anticipate the consequences of their choices

(3) cognitive and metacognitive abilities; (4) social dimensions and interdependence not described

Questionnaires Interviews Field notes Diary

10 EFL sixth graders in Thailand

(1) Learners were willing and motivated in learning (2) Cognitive and metacognitive abilities are the most lacking

(1) self-confidence; (2) self- regulated learning behaviors;

(3) self-determination and decisions; (4) attitude towards self-responsibility; (5) attitude towards social interaction not described

(1) Self-decisions on learning increased; (2) Self-regulated learning actions, self- responsibility, and attitudes to social interaction remained unchanged

Two significant differences are also found in the studies The first difference was the configuration of learner autonomy It is noticed that the studies just focused on separate elements of learner autonomy such as awareness and readiness, willingness and motivation, cognitive and metacognitive abilities, attitude towards self- responsibility, and attitude towards social interaction, learner choice, supporting environment, and self-assessment The second difference was with the research participants and research context The studies mentioned were not conducted with non-English majors in the context of Vietnamese tertiary level Among the studies above, three were conducted in foreign contexts The fourth study was carried out with English majors And it can be noticed from the review above that research has shown the promotion of learner autonomy in different aspects demonstrated by language learners in various educational settings Nevertheless, little has been done in the Vietnamese tertiary EFL context For this reason, it would be necessary and interesting to conduct more research which investigates approaches to foster learner autonomy in the Vietnamese learning environment.

Conclusion

This chapter has provided a systematic review of the literature on learner autonomy and project work It started with the definitions of learner autonomy proposed by various authors and discussed four aspects of learner autonomy: technical, psychological, political-critical, and socio-cultural Along with stressing the role of learner autonomy in language learning and teaching, the chapter also introduced theoretical framework on which the conceptualization of learner autonomy was developed The second important presentation of this chapter was devoted to presenting project work and its rationale for application to promote learner autonomy The discussions on project work demonstrated its features, benefits in language education, and the working model to be used throughout the study Previous studies using projects to enhance learner autonomy in the contexts of teaching English as a foreign language were examined in this chapter The methodological stance will be presented in the next chapter

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Introduction

This chapter aims to establish methodological foundations for this study It begins by an introduction of the research questions, followed by discussions about action research design, research context, research participants, the ethical considerations, data collection methods and administration, research plan and data analysis The rest of the chapter is devoted to identifying learner‟s autonomy and describing four stages of the application of project work as an intervention into the learning process.

Research Questions

This study aims to investigate how project work application into the learning process enhances learner autonomy for the students Four aspects identified in the configuration of learner autonomy include (1) the technical aspect featuring the students‟ access to learning resources and their use of learning skills/strategies, (2) the psychological aspect featuring the students‟ attitudes towards learning the subject and their motivation in the learning process, (3) the political-critical aspect featuring the students‟ choices of the learning contents and choices of the learning methods; and (4) the socio-cultural aspect featuring the students‟ interaction and collaboration in the learning activities

To achieve the aim, this study attempts to answer the overarching research question:

“How does the project work promote learner autonomy for the non-English majors in the university?” This main research question is divided into four sub-questions which are:

1 Technically, how do the projects enhance students‟ access to learning resources and their use of learning skills/strategies?

2 Psychologically, how do the projects promote the students‟ attitudes towards learning English and motivation in learning English?

3 Political-critically, how do the projects stimulate the students‟ choices of learning contents and choices of learning methods?

4 Socio-culturally, how does the project work foster the students‟ interaction and collaboration?

Research Approach: Action Research

To serve the purposes and answer the research questions above, an action research design is believed to be appropriate for this study Hence, in the next sections, the discussions go on by presenting the definitions of action research, the advantage and caveats of action research, rationale for using action research, and the working action research model

In the literature, it is found that action research is defined in different ways It can be described as a form of enquiry, an investigation approach, or a systematic inquiry Approaching action research as a form of enquiry, Carr and Kemmis (1986, p.162) propose:

“Action research is simply a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of these practices, and the situations in which the practices are carried out.” (Carr and Kemmis, 1986, p.162)

This definition is recognized as the most quoted one for its comprehensiveness in applicability in different contexts However, in a closer connection with education contexts, Burns‟ (2014) definition of action research also gains lots of attention According to Burns (2014), action research is an approach to investigating issues in our own social and professional contexts and for most teachers this means their classroom or school In language teaching, it is typically conducted by teachers with the aims to gain deeper understandings of practices within the classroom and enhancing the conditions for teaching and learning that already exist Meanwhile, Mills (2003) views action research as any systematic inquiry conducted by teachers- researchers to gather information about the ways that their particular school operates, how they teach, and how well their students learn The information is gathered with the goals of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting

66 positive changes in the school environment and on the educational practices in general, and improving student outcomes Bassey (1998, p.93) describes “action research as enquiry that is carried out in order to understand, to evaluate and then to change, in order to improve educational practice” Hopkins (2002) upholds that the combination of action and research renders that action a form of disciplined inquiry in which a personal attempt is made to understand, improve and reform practice McNiff (2002) maintains that action research combines diagnosis, action and reflection, focusing on practical issues that have been identified by participants and which are somehow both problematic yet capable of being changed Cohen and Manion (1994) also clarify that action research is a small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention

It can be seen that much of the literature on action research emphasizes the practical nature of this type of research It deals with the practice of people within their settings Its main purpose is to improve practice Besides, the definitions presented above highlight some unique features of action research through several noticeable key words: investigation of issues, intervention, better understanding, improvement of practice, change, reform, problem-solving, step-by-step process, modification and reflection According to Koshy (2005), these key words demonstrate the reasons for the popularity of action research as a mode of study for practitioners Commenting on the practical, problem-solving nature of action research, Bell

(1999) believes this approach is attractive to practitioner-researchers She also shares the fact that action research is directed towards greater understanding and improvement of practice over a period of time Koshy (2005) presents the features of action research: (1) it involves researching your own practice; (2) it is participatory; (3) it constructs theory from practice; (4) it is context-based; (5) it can be useful in real problem-solving; (6) it deals with individuals or groups to improve practice; (7) it is about improvement; (8) it involves analysis, reflection, and evaluation; and it facilitates changes through enquiry

It is found that various characteristics are identified in action research (Creswell,

2012; Kember, 2000; Griffee (2012), which will help researchers better design their own study or read, evaluate, and use an action research study published in the literature According to Creswell (2012), there are five characteristics commonly discussed including (1) a practical focus, (2) the teacher-researcher's own practices;

(3) collaboration; a dynamic process; (4) a plan of action; and (5) sharing research

However, Kember (2000) points out seven major characteristics of action research:

(1) social practice; (2) aimed towards improvement; (3) cyclical; (4) systematic enquiry; (5) reflective; (6) participative; and (7) determined by the practitioners

Meanwhile, Griffee (2012), when describing action research design, gives six characteristics: (1) action research is carried out by insiders; (2) it uses any form of data (qualitative or quantitative); (3) it is for the purpose of teacher behavioral and attitudinal change; (4) it has no expectation of generalizability; (5) it seeks to improve classroom practice; and (6) it aims at the development of teacher theory

3.3.2 Potential Pitfalls of Action Research

It is widely recognized that action researchers often face three potential pitfalls which are generalizability and legitimacy (rigor and validity), and personal bias

(Brumfit & Mitchell, 1989; Koshy, 2005; and Norton, 2009) In this study, the mentioned potential pitfalls were taken into consideration, and measures to avoid them were also applied

First, in this study, the concern over the generalizability of the findings was taken into consideration and was solved in the two following ways First, the study was based on the argument by Wallace (1998, p.18) that “the generalizability of the findings to other contexts will not in most cases of primary importance The important thing is that the processes involved are helpful to the practicing teacher's reflection, irrespective of whether they can be verified by someone else” Second, there is a fact that all of the students at the institution are non-English majors, and in the context of the Vietnamese tertiary education, non-English majors also account for a large part This leads to a possibility that dissemination of the findings could

68 be applicable to those who are interested and to other practitioners in similar circumstances, either locally or at a distance

The second potential pitfall is legitimacy which involves rigor and validity However, in response to this Koshy (2005) defends that it is possible to be rigorous in both gathering and analyzing data within action research In this study, to secure rigor and validity, three different data collection instruments were employed, developed, prepared and administered carefully, and the data collected from these tools were analyzed and triangulated with each other

The third concern is about the personal bias To avoid this, in this study, a detailed framework of project work implementation phases was developed in which the roles and the activities of the teacher and the students were described in detail

3.3.3 Rationale for Using Action Research

While discussing the rationale for the teacher as researcher, Nunan (1989) argues that teachers can and should be involved in research of their own professional practices in their own classrooms, and that this implies extending the concepts of both professional practice and professional development In a similar vein, Burns

(1999) suggests that action research has a number of personal and professional benefits for language teachers pointing out that action research is grounded in the social context of the classroom and the teaching institution and focuses directly on issues and concerns which are significant in daily teaching practice Carr and Kemmis (1986) encourage teachers to adopt a research orientation to their own classroom, and to engage in research projects because it is one way to bridge the gap between theory, which is aimed at discovering 'truth', and practice, which is aimed at bringing about change

Scholars encourage teachers to employ action research in the classroom because action research possesses many advantages Nunan (1989) presents nine advantages of teacher-initiated research First, action research begins with and builds on the knowledge that teacher has already accumulated through research Second, it focuses on the immediate interests and concerns of classroom teachers Third, it

Research Context, the English Courses, and Research Participants

The university, where the study was conducted, is a provincial university located in the north of Vietnam It used to be a teacher-training college offering three-year training programs It was upgraded to full university status in accordance with the decision 407/QĐ-TTg issued on April 09, 2007 (Prime Minister, 2007) The research university is province-funded with missions to train workforce for the sake of the social and economic development needs of the province, the surrounding areas, and the whole country Currently the university has 19 centers, divisions and departments, in which there are 7 training departments: (1) Department of Foreign Language and Information Technology, (2) Department of Natural Sciences, (3) Department of Social Sciences and Tourism, (4) Department of Economics and Engineering, (5) Department of Kindergarten and Primary Teacher Education, (6) Department of Agriculture and Forestry, and (7) Department of In-service Training The English teaching staff is within the English language subdivision under the management of Department of Foreign Languages and Information Technology The staff consists of fifteen English teachers who all has complete the master degree of either English language or English language teaching methodology from Hanoi University and University of Languages and International Studies

Acknowledging the needs and the demands of the society to provide high quality workforce with 21 century skills such as analytic reasoning, problem-solving, critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration, adaptability and self- direction, in 2015 the university started the innovation process by applying the credit-based training system as the first steps to renovate the training system At the same time the management board issued resolutions on innovating teaching methodology All the teaching staff were called to change the teaching methods so

74 as to suit the new training mode where the student-centered learning is prioritized The differences between the academic year system and the credit-based system lie in 6 following points (Le Thi Thanh Truc, 2010, p.134) as presented in Table 3.2:

(1) measurement unit, (2) total workload/program, (3) contact hours, (4) curriculum,

Table 3.2 Academic year system and credit-based system Features Academic Year System Credit-Based System

1 Measurement unit Academic unit Credit

3 Contact hours 15 periods / academic unit

4 Curriculum Core subjects only Core subject + electives

5 Syllabus Fixed, general Fixed, detailed, delivered to students on the first session or before

6 Completion time Fixed Earlier or later than the academic year system

It is noted that the total workload/program shown in the table is the minimum average since the number vary slightly according to the status of the institution (a college or a university) It is also acknowledged that the differences between the two systems lie in higher education philosophy, learner autonomy, flexibility, curriculum, teaching methodology, learning strategies, assessment, recruitment, and management (Le Van Hao, 2011) In terms of learner autonomy, Le Van Hao

(2011) specifies that in the credit-based learning system, students can make a learning plan that suits their ability, interests, and learning pace within the timeframe allotted for each subject Students can also choose the favorite subjects to study He stresses that the student-centeredness is the outstanding feature of this new training mode, which will develop high quality workforce with the adaptability,

75 life-long learning, and autonomy meeting the demands of globalization in inter- training and using the workforce

After three years of the application of the credit-based training systems, the university held a conference in 2018 entitled “Improving the credit-based training in Hoa Lu University The purpose of the conferences is to reflect on the achievements and the difficulties of the application over a period of three year 2015-2018 There are two major challenges identified The first challenge is related to the teaching staff‟s inappropriate teaching methodology According to Nguyen Thi Thinh and Tran Thi Tan (2018), many teachers in the institution still employ the traditional teaching approaches in which students just listen to the lecturing and take notes, and there is little space for discussions, pair-work, or group work The second challenge comes from the students‟ lack of autonomous learning Phan Thi Hong Duyen and Pham Van Cuong (2018) point out that most students do not possess learning skills and are passive in learning

English is a compulsory subject for students of all majors at the university As presented in Table 3.3 below, there are four consecutive courses: General English 1 (GE1), General English 2 (GE2), and General English 3 (GE3) and English for Specific Purposes GE1 consists of 3 credits and is offered for first year students in the first semester GE1 is usually taught in 15 official weeks (3 periods per week) GE2 also has 3 credits for second semester GE3 has 4 credits and for the first semester of the second year GE3 is taught in after two first general English courses

As required by the Division of Training, teachers must follow the teaching and learning contents specified for each week It means the teaching and learning activities are scheduled on the weekly basis As for GE1 and GE2, there are three in-class periods per week; with GE3, there are 4 periods each week Usually, 3 in- class periods per week for GE1, GE2, and ESP are conducted in one session weekly And for GE3, 4 in-class periods are scheduled in 2 different sessions weekly, 2 periods each

Table 3.3 Description of English courses

Courses Textbooks Credits Periods / week Individual Preparation Hours (Self- study time) Consultation Periods Periods for Assessment Length

ESP (The textbooks are in accordance with the majors.)

For every credit of each course, there are three consultation periods More specifically, with GE1, GE2, and ESP, there are 9 periods of consultation for 3 credits in a semester (in 3 different weeks) It means that the courses will last for 18 weeks It is also noted that these consultation periods can be scheduled flexibly depending on the agreement and arrangement of the teacher and the students The teacher and the students are also allowed to decide and agree together on the learning contents in these consultation periods The purpose is to support students with their learning problems In these periods, the teacher and the students can organize the teaching and learning activities that suit their needs

The textbooks for general English courses are the series of New English Files

(Oxford University Press, 2005) with three levels elementary, pre-intermediate, and intermediate And the selection of the textbooks for ESP courses depends on the majors There are ESP courses of Business English (for students majoring in business), English for Chemistry, English for Tourism and Hospitality, and English for Maths

This research is conducted with a GE2 class using New English File of pre- intermediate level textbook (Appendix I) The book consists of 9 units Each unit is structured with seven parts: A, B, C, D, Practical English, Writing, and Revise & Check In each part of A, B, C, and D, three contents: Grammar, Vocabulary, and Pronunciation are the main focuses along with a theme or topic The contents of the seven parts are distributed on the weekly basis

In terms of learners‟ choices in learning (political-critical perspective of learner autonomy), it can be seen that the existing syllabus of General English 2 (described in 3.2.2) does not provide opportunities for the students to exercise their freedom in choosing methods, contents, and materials for their learning

The participants of this action research are 34 students in a GE2 class at the university They are first year students majoring in Kindergarten Teacher Education and Primary Teacher Education Among them, there are 27 female and 7 male students, and 9 majored in Kindergarten Teacher Education, 25 – in Primary Teacher Education They all have passed GE1 in the previous terms The students‟ age ranges from 18 to 22 They come from different areas in the province and the areas that surround the university

To ensure confidentiality, the identity of the students was coded, and each student was given a pseudonym for this purpose.

Ethical Considerations

Being aware of ethical concerns about the students‟ confidentiality, volunteerism, and hallo effect in this study, before the start of this study, the informed consent was sent to the students (Appendix A) The consent was written in Vietnamese to

78 guarantee that all the students gain full understanding of the contents The participants were invited to read this consent carefully The participants voluntarily participated in the research activities They were informed that the results obtained from the data would be utilized in this PhD thesis They were also ensured that the questionnaires would not impact their grades in any sense and would not be used for any other purposes.

Data Collection Methods and Administration

To serve the purpose of collecting both quantitative and qualitative data in this study, different data collection methods were employed These are two questionnaires (Pre-project work Questionnaire and Post Project Work Questionnaire), interviews, and teacher‟s diary

Questionnaires as data-gathering instruments are popular research tools in many fields including communication, education, psychology, and sociology In the field of applied linguistics, questionnaires are used not only for primary research, but also to supplement other kinds of research interests (Griffee, 2012) Table 3.4 below presents the description of the used questionnaires

Table 3.4 General description of the used questionnaires

Questionnaires Total number of questions

12 8 1 3 To explore the students' autonomy before projects

12 8 1 3 To explore the students' autonomy after projects

To collect data for this study, questionnaires are used as the main data gathering method As presented in the Table 3.4 above, two questionnaires were employed: Pre-Project Work Questionnaire (Appendix B) and Post-Project Work

Questionnaire (Appendix I) Both of the questionnaires focus on collecting data for the learner autonomy of the participants in two different phases: before and after the implementation of the project work Pre-Project Work Questionnaire was administered in Week 4 before the application of projects Post-Project Work Questionnaire was sent to the students in Week 12 after their presentation of project products in class There are total of twelve question items in each questionnaire In terms of question types, the questionnaires employ: eight open-ended items (Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12), one close-ended item (Question 5), and three scale items (Questions 6, 7, 8)

Table 3.5 below presents the question items which stress four aspects of learners‟ autonomy As presented in the table, questions 1, 2, 3, and 4 are for the technical aspect, in which questions 1,2, and 3 are about access to the learning resources, and question 4 is about employment of learning strategies Questions 5, 6, 7, and 8 are for the psychological aspect, in which question 5 is about attitude and questions 6,

7, 8 are about motivation Questions 9 (choices of learning contents) and 10 (choices of learning methods) are for the political-critical aspect And questions 11 (interaction) and 12 (collaboration) are for the socio-cultural aspect

Table 3.5 Focused aspects of the question items

Aspects of learner autonomy Question Items

- Access to the learning resources

All the two questionnaires employed in the study were constructed using Google Forms, a free application available online provided by Google in the package G Suite It allows anyone with a Google account to access and create different types of documents The questionnaires can be sent in the forms of a link to email addresses When the participants click on the link, he or she can see the questions The answers are recorded in an Excel spread sheet in Google Drive of the questionnaire creator‟s account; therefore, they are completely anonymous and untraceable The creator can access the answers on the spread sheets and analyze them through Excel or use the automatic graphs made by Google To make sure that the respondents can understand fully the questions and give meaningful answers, all the questionnaires are written in Vietnamese

Interviewing is considered as a popular and widely used means of collecting qualitative data (Burns, 1999) Nunan (1992, p.231) defines an interview as "the elicitation of data by one person from another through person-to-person encounters" Similarly, Cohen, Manion, and Morrison (2000, p.257) remind us that an interview is a "social, interpersonal encounter, not merely a data collection exercise" Meanwhile, Wellington (2000, p.71) states that interviews are designed

"to probe an interviewee's thoughts, values, prejudices, perceptions, views, feelings, and perspectives"

In this study, semi-structured interviews were used as an additional tool to collect data mainly for the psychological aspect of learner autonomy featuring attitude and motivation towards learning English Group interviews were employed as they could “trigger additional, and more productive, responses” (Burns, 1999, p.119) 8 semi-structured interviews with 8 groups of students were conducted after they presented the final project products in the numeral order of the groups from 1 to 8 The interviews were carried out in Week 13 within two last periods of the process syllabus in the lounge room of the university library on the third floor of the learning building, which is right above the students‟ regular classroom This setting-

81 up aimed to create convenience for interviewing the students The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese and were audio-recorded with a JVJ recording device Five prepared guide questions were used in the interviews (Appendix K), which included: (1) Project work has ended, what do you want to share right now?; (2) Could you tell me a memory when working on the project?; (3) Among the tasks you did in the project, which one do you find most interesting?; (4) What do you still regret?; (5) When working on the project, how do you feel about learning English? Questions 1, 2, and 3 were created to collect additional data for motivation in the psychological aspect Question 4 is to gain data for demotivational factors And Question 5 serves to gather data for attitude

Teacher‟s diary is believed to be effective tool to collect additional qualitative data Griffee (2012) describes a teacher diary, a journal or a log as a document written primarily by a teacher This document is based on observations made during class Burns (2010) states that keeping a journal, diary or log is common in action research In general, diaries or journals are an alternative to field notes, and are unlikely to be used by themselves They are usually combined with other methods such as observations and interviews They are useful though as a way of capturing significant reflections and events in an ongoing way Similarly, Wallace (1998, p.59) holds that the value of keeping a diary "would come in reflective analysis on why the timeline took the particular changes, and that this can be also used as an observation technique He stresses that diaries are private documents, and there are no rules about how to keep a diary Therefore, diary writers can confide to it whatever thoughts or feelings occur to them And entries can vary from one day to the next and can be either long or short They can be written immediately after a teaching event, when the details are fresh in their mind, or at the end of the day, when there may be more free time

During this whole research, a teacher‟s diary was kept Its entries were written down on the weekly basis in English Totally, there were twenty-nine entries written

82 throughout the research The first writing was made in Week 1 and the last entry was in Week 13 after the interviews were conducted The diary reflected regularly dated accounts of teaching/learning activities and events, including personal feelings, reactions, and explanations which were related directly to the implementation of project work in the process syllabus.

Research Plan and Data Analysis

This research follows the action research design proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart (1988), which involves four main phases: plan, act, observe, and reflect

As illustrated in the Appendix C, the research plan matches the schedule of the GE2 syllabus with 18 weeks of in-class teaching and learning (including 9 periods of consultation)

The first phase PLAN lasted for 6 weeks (1-6) The main research activities in this phase were the problem identification and preparing an action plan or an intervention The researcher sent the informed consent to the students The students were encouraged to read the document and were free to make decisions to participate in the research project The researcher used different data collection tools (teacher's diary, a survey in the fourth week, and an informal talk with the English teacher who was in charge of the research class) to explore problems regarding learner autonomy After making sure that the students faced difficulties in exercising their autonomy, the researcher decided to use project work as a pedagogical intervention to promote learner autonomy for the students The research took preparation steps for implementing projects The 10 steps by Stoller

(2002) were put in 4 main phases (Preparation, Realization, Presentation, and Evaluation) serving the research purposes At the same time, the learning contents and topics in the syllabus scheduled from week 1 to week 7 were studied and selected as themes for the projects After that, the teacher, playing the role of a guide and supporter, prepared a list of themes to suggest to the students at the start of implementing the projects so that the students have different options And before

83 the in-class lesson of the Week 7, the students were encouraged to read an announcement about the intention of doing projects in the next time along with 2 attachment files: one is about what project work is and the steps to conduct a project, and the other is the suggested topics for a project The students were asked to read at home carefully for reference Also, they were encouraged to think of feasible projects that were not yet listed by the teacher as well as interested them The second phase is ACT This phase marked the start of implementing the intervention It started at the Week 7 The projects were introduced in the class The students grouped themselves into groups Each group was given a project registration sheet in which they need to write down and specify information the title of the project, details of the group members, the plan with activities, schedule and responsibilities assigned for each member After that the students and the teacher started building the projects following ten steps: Step 1: Students and instructor agree on a theme for the project Step 2: Students and instructor determine the final outcomes of the project Step 3: Students and instructor structure the project Step 5: Students gather information Step 6: Instructor prepares students to compile and analyze data Step 7: Students compile and analyze information Step 8: Instructor prepares students for the language demands of the final activity Step 9: Students present the final product And step 10: Students evaluate the project

The OBSERVE phase involves the process of collecting data for the research In this study, the data gathering started right after the groups registered their projects to the teacher Based on the registration sheets, the researcher could get information on how the students plan their projects 2 weeks after the kick-off of the projects in week 9, the students were sent the project progress reflection questionnaire This was to check whether the students were on the right track of doing their project, and to see whether the students could monitor their learning activities What is more, in order to enrich the data and make sure that there was sufficient evidence for the study, the teacher kept a diary in which important notes related to the activities the students did during the implementation of the projects in the class time and out of

84 class time When the students finish their projects, they were asked to answer the project evaluation questionnaire, and then participate in the interviews

The REFLECT phase is the time for the researcher to look back at what had been done and what had happened In this phase, the findings will be presented and analyzed The effects of the intervention will be reflected on, evaluated, and described This phase is conducted after the students complete the projects The reflection helps the research determine whether to carry out the next cycle of the research or not

Among the obtained data, the data from the questionnaires and the interviews were taken in Vietnamese, therefore, it needs processing before analysis, which involves transcription and translation

With the responses from the questionnaires, they were stored in the Excel spreadsheets (Table 3.6) The responses were arranged in chronological order of the participants‟ answering And the translation into English of the responses was placed adjacent to the Vietnamese versions

Table 3.6 Extract of the spreadsheet of responses

Q1 Ngoài thời gian học tập chính thức trên lớp hàng tuần, em thường học tiếng Anh ở đâu?

Q1 Apart from the weekly study time in class, where do you usually learn English?

1 Em làm bài tập ở nhà I do my homework at home

2 Em chỉ học ở nhà I just study at home

3 Ngoài học trên lớp em tự học ở nhà ạ

Apart from learning in class,

I study at home by myself

The interviews were audio-recorded with the consent of the students In order to create a relaxing atmosphere and able the students talk freely; the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese The recordings were transcribed using Microsoft Word

The translation of the collected responses from the questionnaires and the transcribed interviews was done by me – the researcher and with the consultation and support of two colleagues in my departments First, I translated the collected data from Vietnamese into English Then, I revised my translations to ensure that the original meaning was accurately and correctly conveyed Finally, I consulted with the colleagues to achieve the most appropriate translation

As discussed in the sub-section 3.6 and presented in Table 3.7, to collect data for this study, three tools were employed: (1) questionnaires, (2) interviews, and (3) teacher‟s diary The collected data was divided into two types qualitative and quantitative, and covered four areas of learner autonomy: technical, psychological, political-critical, and socio-cultural

For technical autonomy, the data was collected from four question items Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 in the questionnaires The data for psychological autonomy was collected from four question items Q5, Q6, Q7, and Q8 in the questionnaires, interviews, and the diary The data for political-critical autonomy was gathered from two open-ended questions Q9 and Q10 in the questionnaires And for the socio-cultural autonomy, the data was collected from two tools: two question items Q11 and Q12 in the questionnaires and the teacher‟s diary

In terms of types of data, qualitative data was collected from eight question items in the questionnaires (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q9, Q10, Q11, Q12), interviews and teacher‟s diary; quantitative data was gathered from one close-ended question (Q5) and three scale questions (Q6, Q7, Q8)

Types of Data Aspect of LA Data Analysis

Qualitative Quantitative Technical Psychological Political-critical Socio-cultural SPSS descriptive analysis Google Forms response analysis Content analysis

To analyze the collected data for this study, three approaches were employed: (1) SPSS descriptive analysis, (2) Google Forms automatic response analysis, and (3) content analysis

For the quantitative data collected from three scale question items (Q6, Q7, and Q8), SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software version 20 was used for descriptive analysis The responses in the Excel file were uploaded into the analysis system and the results of the mean score of the responses were produced These mean scores of Pre-project Work Questionnaire and Post-Project Work Questionnaire were used to compare and analyzed to see the enhancement of

Google Forms automatic response analysis was also used to analyze the collected data from the question item Q5 to shed light on the attitude change in learning English between the two periods: before and after the application of project work After the responses were all collected, Google Forms automatically produced basic charts, bars, or columns to support analysis of quantitative data For close-ended question 5 in this study, Pie charts were used to compare and analyze the percentage of the responses

For qualitative data collected from questionnaire items (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, Q9, Q10, Q11, Q12), interviews, and teacher‟s diary, content analysis was employed

Content analysis in a broader sense refers to the process of summarizing and interpreting written data, whereas, in a narrower context, it is a strict and systematic set of procedures for rigorous analysis, examination and verification of the contents of written data (Cohen, et al., 2007) Similarly, Burns (1999) accentuates that content analysis can be conducted with any written material, from documents to interview transcriptions, and can applied to examine large amounts of text to uncover incidences of words, phrases or key themes According to Mayring (2004), content analysis focuses on the meanings in the context of the data, and in systematic order of the use of codes and categories Many researchers see content analysis is an alternative to numerical analysis of qualitative data in which numerical data is extracted from word-based data (Cohen et al, 2007)

Content analysis is often conducted in a systematic process of different steps Cohen et al (2007) uses four “C” to describe the process: coding, categorizing, comparing and concluding Coding refers to reducing or simplifying the data by labeling particular pieces of information such as words, phrases, sentences, etc with codes Categorizing refers to developing meaningful categories into which codes as the units of analysis can be grouped Comparing means making connections between categories And concluding stands for drawing theoretical consideration in the basis of the text and the results of the analysis (Cohen, et al., 2007)

Identifying Problems

Functioning as the starting point of research process, this sub-section will look at the teaching context and identify the problems emerged from it Learner autonomy is put in direct connection with the found problems The investigation looks at four perspectives of learner autonomy: technological, psychological, political-critical, and socio-cultural The data resource was examined to diagnose the problems with students‟ autonomy was from the results of the Pre-project work questionnaire Pre-Project Work Questionnaire (Appendix B) with 12 items was conducted in the fourth week Before the delivery of the questionnaire, the informed consent was sent to the students The questionnaire aimed to explore the level of learner autonomy in four perspectives of learner autonomy: technical, psychological, political-critical and socio-cultural The results of the survey are presented below

3.8.1.1 Students‟ access to learning resources

In terms of the technical perspective of learner autonomy, from the data collected from the questions 1,2,3,4 of the survey it was found that students‟ access to learning resources was limited and undiversified More specifically, the learning activities mostly take place at home, the additional learning materials were found to be restricted, and the learning tools were mainly identified to be smartphones

Table 3.10 below shows how the students exploited their learning environment which includes studying just in-class, study at home, and studying in the library Majority of the students indicate that they just study at home, and few students go to the university library to study English out of the in-class time

Table 3.10 Students‟ access to learning resources before project work

Sub-categories Data Codes Occurrences

In terms of using additional learning materials, Table 3.10 presents that the students rarely use extra resources to enrich their learning materials It is witnessed in the responses that none of the students do use additional materials; four students listen to online songs or watch online movies; and two use library books

With regard to employment of learning tools, data was collected from the question three “What learning tools do you often use for your learning?” Table 3.10 indicates that smartphones, computers or laptop are among the most common tools employed by the students to support their learning Twenty-nine responses confirm the use of smartphones in learning and seventeen acknowledge the use of computer or laptops

3.8.1.2 Use of Learning Skills/Strategies before Project Work

As for skills and strategies in learning English presented in Table 3.11 that follows, there are three sub-categories: cognitive, metacognitive, and social/affective

Table 3.11 Use of learning skills/strategies before project work

Sub-categories of learning skills / strategies

Reading out new words for many times to memorize 1b11 9

Rewriting new words to memorize 1b12 16 metacognitive

Reviewing the learning contents before going to class 1b21 3

Completing the homework right after in-class lessons 1b22 2 social/affective Seeking teacher‟s help with difficulties 1b31 1

It can be seen that cognitive skills are the most prominent; metacognitive skills rank second; and social/affective skills stands at the bottom of the table Twenty-five students said that they often tried to use repetition (read for many times or rewrite the new words) in order to memorize the new vocabulary items Five students used the strategies of reviewing the learning contents before going to class or completing the homework shortly after lessons in class Just one student stated that he/she asked the teacher for further explanation with difficult exercises in class

3.8.2.1 Students‟ Attitude towards Learning English

Psychologically, question items 5, 6, 7, 8 in the questionnaire convey students‟ motivation and attitude toward learning English Question 5 collects data for students‟ attitude Questions 6, 7, and 8 for motivation The results generally reveal that the most students seem to possess not very positive attitudes towards learning English, and that the students are neither motivated nor unmotivated in learning English The results from Figure 3.2, which is automatically created by Google Forms show that most students exhibit neutral attitude towards learning English 61.8% of the respondents (21 students) state that learning English is as normal as learning other subjects; 20.6% (7 students) share that learning English is not very interesting; and 17.6% (6 students) respond that learning English is interesting

Figure 3.2 Students ' attitude towards learning English before project work 3.8.2.2 Students‟ Motivation in Learning English

As for motivation in learning English, three five-Linkert scaled question items 6, 7, and 8 (scaled from 1 - Totally Disagree to 5 - Totally Agree) serve as a tool to collect data The gathered data was analyzed using SPSS descriptive statistics And to have deeper analysis, the study also employed the column bar chart created by Google Forms analysis system for each question

The descriptive statistics from SPSS analysis presented in Table 3.12 shows that the students appear to be not much motivated in learning English The mean scores of all three question items stand almost below the average level of three The students seem that they do not wish to achieve goals in learning English (mean = 2.71), and they do not make efforts in learning English, either (mean = 2.71) Their satisfaction in learning is not high (mean = 3.09)

Table 3.12 Descriptive statistics of motivation before project work

Question Items N Minimum Maximum Mean Std

Q6 I desire to achieve goals in learning English

Q7 I make lots of effort in learning English

Q8 I am satisfied with learning English now

Really boring Not very interesting

As normal as other subjects

Q5 What do you think about learning English?

More specifically, the column chart (Figure 3.3) for question item 6‟s response shows that students‟ desire to learn English stays at a low level 52.9% of the students do not have a neutral willingness in learning English And a little more of a third of the class (38.2%) do not seem to wish to learn English well

Figure 3.3 Students' desire to achieve goals in learning English before project work

With question item 7, the level of students‟ efforts is examined Figure 3.4 below shows that the presentation of students‟ efforts looks quite similar to the students‟ desire in learning English It seems that majority of the students do not really make efforts in learning the subject 61.8% of the responses stay at the scale level three And 35.3% of the responses almost disagree that they make efforts in English learning

Figure 3.4 Students' efforts in learning English before project work

In terms of the students‟ satisfaction in learning English, the responses gathered for the question item 8 shows in Figure 3.5 below that just few students (20.6%) are quite satisfied with their learning, and majority of the students (67.6%) are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their learning, and 11.9% are very dissatisfied

Figure 3.5 Students' satisfaction in learning English before project work 3.8.3 Students’ Political-critical Autonomy

The third aspect of students‟ autonomy examined was the political-critical In the questionnaire, questions items 9 and 10 asked the participants about the choices of the learning methods and the choices of the learning contents in their existing English learning practice

3.8.3.1 Students‟ Choices of Learning Contents

Regarding the choices of learning contents, the responses were put into two sub- categories: quantity and quality Table 3.13 shows the results

Table 3.13 Students‟ choices of the learning contents before project work

Subcategories Data Codes Occurrences quantity of choices of learning contents not many choices 3a11 19 many learning contents 3a12 2 sufficient to learn 3a13 8 quality of choices learning contents difficult 3a21 10 fixed 3a22 9 not interesting 3a23 17

As presented in Table 3.13, many students stated that there were not many learning contents for them to choose The data coded as 3a11 – “not many” emerged 19 times – the most frequent among the emerging data At the same time, the students also responded that the choices of the learning contents were “not interesting” with

17 occurrences Besides, the learning contents were “difficult” and “fixed”

3.8.3.2 Students‟ Choices of Learning Methods

As for the students‟ choices of the learning methods, the collected data seems to match the stream of students‟ responses on the learning contents Table 3.14 shows that in terms of quantity, 17 students mentioned that there were “not many choices” for the learning methods And regarding quality of the choices, they made negative comments using “traditional”, “not new”, “monotonous”, or “not effective”

Table 3.14 Students' choices of the learning methods before project work

Sub-categories Data Codes Occurrences quantity of choices of learning methods not many choices 3b11 17 quality of learning methods

Following teacher's instructions in class

3b21 7 traditional 3b22 9 not new 3b23 10 monotonous 3b24 7 not effective 3b25 3

Interaction and collaboration are two categories in the socio-cultural aspect of learner autonomy which were covered with two question items (11 and 12) in the questionnaire

Implementation of Project Work

This chapter describes the implementation of projects which serves as “act” phase of the working action research model In the previous section, the learner autonomy status of the students is determined And in this section project work is chosen as an intervention to improve the students‟ autonomy More specifically, the application of project work is described in four phases: preparation, realization, presentation, and evaluation

Preparation is the first main phase of the project work which involves forming groups and sketching the project activities And this phase is based on three first steps in the Stoller‟s (2002) project work model: students and instructor‟s agreement on a topic for the projects; determination of the outcome of the projects; and project structuring The implementation of this phase took place in class within the

3.9.1.1 Arrangement for Project Work in the GE2 Schedule

Before implementing of projects with the GE2 students, the teacher faced a problem of how to integrate projects in the existing syllabus Therefore, the teacher needed to find room for project work so that it would not affect the syllabus as a whole

As mentioned above, General English 2 (GE2) is among the 4 compulsory courses which is timetabled for the second semester of the first-year training GE2 lasts for

18 weeks with 45 periods officially scheduled plus 9 consultation periods There are three periods per week And these scheduled periods are proceeded in one session every Wednesday morning The consultation periods featured the flexibility in

101 terms of both how to be conducted and what to be taught and learned This characteristic allowed teacher the feasibility to put project work into the weeks of consultation periods

Table 3.17 illustrates the detailed distribution of the 9 consultation periods designated for project works activities More specifically, the arrangement is done first with week 6 In week 6, one period is for the teacher introducing the project work to the students in class In week 7, two periods in class are for more activities for students including grouping, agreeing on the topics, determining the outcomes for the projects and structuring the project details such as tasks, task assignment, and timetable for the tasks In week 8, the teacher spends one period in class to support students who have difficulty in gathering data for their projects

Similarly, in week 10, the teacher spends one more period in class to assist students who possibly have difficulty in carrying out project tasks In week 12, both the teacher and the students spend two periods in class for the students‟ presentation of their projects‟ final products And in week 13, the students participate in the interviews conducted by the teacher

Table 3.17 Arrangement for project work in the GE 2 schedule

Time Distribution for Project Work

Week 8 14/03/2018 2 1 - Supporting students in gathering data for projects

Week 10 28/03/2018 2 1 - Supporting students in doing project tasks

Before the implementation of projects started in class in the week 7, the researcher had done some preparatory works The learning contents in the syllabus from week

1 to week 7 were studied to make a list of topics/themes Based on the topics, then the teacher suggested possible projects and outcomes to the students

The syllabus from week 1 to 7 shows that there are four main topics: (1) describing people (in unit 1); (2) describing an event (in unit 2 and 3); (3) describing places (unit 4), and (4) practical English For the first topic - 'Describing people', the suggested projects can be: a famous person, a group of close friends, your family, and your class For the second topic - 'Describing an event', the teacher suggested presenting or wring about the last birthday, an interesting lesson, a class celebration, or a university event For the third topic - 'Describing places', the students can choose some projects such as your university, a local tourist attraction, an interesting place, and place where you live For the last topic - 'practical English', the students can build and perform a conversation in different situations: at an airport, at a hotel, or at a restaurant All of the suggested projects (Appendix E) were presented in a table and sent to the students in the week 5 The students were asked to read it and study it carefully They were also encouraged to add projects that they thought of themselves and projects that really interested them

It was also important to note that after the announcement had been sent to the students in the week 6, 3 students (T.T.T - Project 4; N.T.KH - Project 2; and P.T.T.H - Project 5) contacted the teacher via Facebook messenger and discussed about the topics that interested them T.T.T asked the teacher whether she could make a video describing a bakery and the ways to make a cake N.T.K.H stated that she was interested in the topic about practical English, and she wondered if she and her friends could do the dubbing for a short cartoon P.T.T.H expressed her wish to talk about the friendship of her group of close friends She questioned whether she could make a video talking about that I agreed with the suggestions from the students and replied "yes" to all these three students and adding that their suggestions were quite interesting and suitable for doing project work

At the same time with the possible projects, the teacher prepared a sheet of instruction (Appendix E) which explains about project work and the steps to do a project This instruction was written in Vietnamese and was sent to the students along with the suggested projects in an announcement about doing projects in class (Appendix D)

There were four important points in the announcement First, the teacher mentioned the 3 attached files Second, the students were encouraged to read these documents carefully to get prepared well for the implementation of projects Third, the students were encouraged to contact the teacher if they had any questions for further information Lastly, the teacher reviewed what to do in the next week (week 7) in the class More specifically, the second and the third period of the lesson would be for grouping and structuring the projects; and at the end of the session the students would complete the registration for their projects by submitting the project registration sheets to the teacher

The registration sheets offer students opportunities to work together in specifying the title of their projects, the outcomes, writing down the group members, and drafting the main activities in doing the project, distributing tasks (who does what), setting a working schedule and deadlines for the activities

This is the first time the students participate in the learning projects Therefore, the teacher hoped that the preparatory works would help the students gain good understanding of the project activities and do their best in their projects

Act is the second phase of the action research In the next sections from 4.5 to 4.8, the researcher describes the process where he applies the intervention tool chosen in the previous phase to improve his teaching practice More specifically, project work was taken as a pedagogical measure to be integrated in the teaching and learning process The application started in class in week 7 of the process syllabus and finished in week 12 when the students presented their final products and evaluated the work done The ten-step model of project work was put in four different phases: phase 1 – preparation; phase 2 – realization; phase 3 – presentation; and phase 4 – evaluation

Before the integration of the three first steps 1,2, and 3 in class, the students started the formation of groups In this activity, students worked together and formed their own groups There were 31 students present in class, and three students (P.T.M.T, T.T.L.A, and V.T.T.H) were absent The group establishment was based on the students‟ freedom of choice They were encouraged to voluntarily to form their teams The activity fostered the process of applying the steps in practice with the students

Conclusion

This chapter has presented a methodological foundation for this research study After introducing the research questions, the chapter introduced the action research design and the rationale for using it in this study The working action research model was described in four different stages The chapter also introduced the employment of three data collection tools and the data analysis The rest of the chapter focused on the implementation of projects which was carried out in four phases: preparation, realization, presentation, and evaluation Before describing the implementation, the chapter presented the identification of the students‟ learner autonomy status The next chapter will prioritize the demonstration of the findings and the discussions along.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

Introduction

In Chapter 3, the description focuses on the implementation of projects into the process syllabus from the first phase of preparation to the last phase of evaluation This chapter reports on and reflects upon the results of the implementation of projects The discussion is based on the presentation of data from Post Project Work Questionnaire At the same time, the data collected from the interview and the diary is also presented and analyzed in triangulation with the questionnaire data And a comparison of the analyzed results with the results of Pre-Project Work Questionnaire is made to serve the purpose of shedding light on the enhancement learning autonomy and answering to four research questions There are four sections presented in this chapter in accordance with the research questions on the technical, psychological, political-critical and socio-cultural aspects of autonomy.

Technical Aspect

The technical aspect of learner autonomy has two categories to be examined in this study: (1) access to learning resources and (2) use of learning strategies There are three sub-categories in the first category: exploitation of learning environment; use of additional materials; and employment of learning tools / aids As for the second category, there are also three subcategories: cognitive, metacognitive, and social/affective The presentation of the results and discussions along in this section aims to answer the first sub-research question: „Technically, how do the projects enhance students‟ access to learning resources and students‟ use of learning skills/strategies?‟

The findings generally propose that greater autonomy in the technical aspect seems to be attributed to the implementation of projects The learners appeared to manifest positive changes in their access to learning recourses and use of learning strategies during projects

Three subcategories presented in this section include (1) exploitation of learning environment; (2) use of additional materials; and (3) employment of learning tools / aids And the findings revealed that the students appeared to exploit their learning environment more during project work The students‟ learning space seemed to have gone beyond the „home study‟ and have reached further to „library‟, „online‟ and „places where they carried out the project activities.‟ At the same time, a wider range of learning materials among the students were also identified The students used more online resources, library books, and dictionaries Besides, more learning tools were employed to serve the learning purposes And smartphones and laptops were two common instruments along with Google Translate application

Table 4.1 Students' access to learning resources during project work

Sub-categories Data Codes Occurrences

Learning Environment home study 1a11 31 library study 1a12 10 online study 1a13 8 in places where project activities took place

Materials online resources 1a21 22 library books 1a22 4

The data collected from Post-Project Work Questionnaire for the first subcategory

„exploitation of learning environment‟ is presented in Table 4.1 above Question 1

„Where did the learning activities in your project take place?‟ in the questionnaire helps to collect the data

The table shows three most occurred codes: home study, library study, in places where project activities took place It can be seen that during their project work students seem to be quite active in making the most of the learning environment

122 around them There are 31 occurrences for „study at home‟, 12 for „places where project activities took place‟, 10 for „study in the library‟, and 8 for „online‟

In the students‟ responses, it can be easily found that the students‟ learning activities took place almost everywhere that could be convenient to them In the response 01 below, the student not just studied at home but also online through the technological applications for instant communication such as Zalo or Facebook messenger

“I looked up information about Bai Dinh Temple online, discussed with friends directly in class or also on Zalo or FB messenger And of course, I also did my homework and studied the assigned part of the last presentation at home.” (Response 01)

The student in Response 07 took advantage of in-class time for face-to-face interaction in order to discuss and deal with the problems the group met At the same time, she did her own learning assignments online

“I mainly studied and practiced at home Besides that, in the classroom, we met and discussed weekly, and if there was a problem, we asked each other Talking face to face was also convenient I also went online to search for videos with my friends and after I found them, I watched them.” (Response 07)

The response 25 seemed to involve shooting and creating a video clip The respondent also took advantage of the living space as a learning aid tool to film their project clip The places she mentioned were the living dormitory room, the dorm lobby, or a bench within the campus

“I studied the script at home and shot videos with my friends in the dormitory room, or on the dorm lobby, or outside on the bench along the campus.” (Response 25)

The learning space for students seemed to go beyond the traditional places such as dormitory rooms or home or the university library The response 15 below mentioned two venues “the pottery village” and “the printing shop” in which the student conducted the project activities: taking pictures for the projects and printing the project‟s final outcome product with the teammates

“Two places where I usually study include: the motel room and the library I also sat down to study on the bench under the trees in the university campus In addition, as part of my assigned responsibilities I went to take pictures of Gia Thanh pottery village which was near my place of birth, and I went to find a printing shop with my friends.” (Response 15)

Similar situation can be found in the response 31 in which the student also referred to the venue for the project activities The respondent stated that the shop was the place for the group to establish the scenes before filming

“I studied at home and went to G's clothing shop to set up the scenes And we shot the video there together.” (Response 31)

It can be seen that during projects the students‟ learning environment seemed to include new venues where the students can conduct the learning activities for their projects

In comparison with the data collected before project work presented in Table 3.10 (section 3.7.1), it can be noticed that during project work there were more places in students‟ learning and the occurrences were higher Table 4.2 below shows the differences The students‟ learning environment became larger They seemed to learn harder with more occurrences for „home study” And at the same time, their learning activities took place not only at home but also online, in the library, and in places where they conducted the projects

With the second sub-category „use of additional materials‟, Table 4.2 shows that use of online materials is the most prominent among the collected data with 22 occurrences “Use of English dictionary” ranks second with 10 occurrences And use of library books appears with the least occurrences (4)

Table 4.2 Contrasting the occurrences of data for the students' exploitation of the learning environment before and during project work Data

During Projects (Table 4.1) home study 29 31 library study 5 10 online study 0 8 in places where project activities took place 0 12

Based on the responses to the question “What sources of materials did you use when working on the project?”, it can be proved that the students seemed to prefer to use online resources for their learning purposes This interpretation can be understandable in the following responses:

“I had to go online to search for articles about Bai Dinh Temple, then filtered out what I needed I also looked up many new words.” (Response 02)

In the response 02 above, the student searched the reading materials about a popular local pagoda While the respondents 07 and 19 below found the needed materials on YouTube

“I used the YouTube videos that my group selected.” (Response 07)

“I referred to vocabulary about cakes and how to describe cakes online and videos on YouTube.” (Response 19)

Psychological Aspect

The second sub-research question in this study focuses on the second aspect of learner autonomy – the psychological aspect which covers attitude and motivation The question is “Psychologically, how do the projects promote students‟ attitude towards learning English and motivation in learning English?” Therefore, attitudes and motivation are two main sub-categories in the data analysis process To answer this sub research question, the data was collected from Post-Project Work

Questionnaire (5 Linkert-scaled question items 5, 6, 7, and 8) Besides, to validate the results, the data from the interview and the teacher‟s diary was also gathered and analyzed This triangulation helped to shed more light on the enhancement of learner autonomy in terms of the psychological aspect The results showed that with the implementation of projects, the students seemed to display highly positive attitudes towards learning English, and they appeared to be motivated to learn and engaged in the learning activities with the satisfaction and inherent pleasure of the projects with strong desire to achieve the commonly shared goals with others

The discussion in 2.2.2 about attitude in relation to learn autonomy in the literature demonstrates that attitude is described as “an evaluative reaction to some referent” (Gardner, 1985), and that the reaction can be positive or negative (Wenden, 1991) and favorable or unfavorable (Kudo, 1999) Question item 5 in Post-Project Work Questionnaire aimed to gather data for students‟ attitude towards learning English during their projects The question is “When working on the project, how do you feel about learning English? And there are five choices for the students “Really boring”, “Not very interesting”, “as normal as other subjects”, “Interesting, and

“Very interesting” Figure 7 below shows the results

Figure 4.1 Students' attitudes towards learning English during project work

The figure was gained from the automatically analyzed and created chart by Google Form It can be seen that among 34 responses 55.9% was “Very interesting”, and 44.1% was “Interesting” It can be interpreted that majority of the students had highly positive attitude towards learning English

This is significantly different from the results of students‟ attitude before project work Table 4.9 below presents the changes in the students‟ attitudes towards learning English before and during projects Before projects were implemented, only 17.6% of the students claimed that learning English is interesting And the remaining percentage was “As normal as other subjects” Meanwhile, during projects almost all the students exhibited highly positive attitudes towards learning English

Table 4.9 Contrasting the responses for attitude towards learning English before and during project work

As normal as other subjects 61.8% (21 respondents) 0

The noticeable contrast of the results between two periods (before and during project work) indicated that there was an attitude development among the students in learning English from a neutral attitude to a highly positive attitude due to the application of projects

Table 4.10 Students' attitudes towards learning English during project work

Easy 2a12 5 joyful 2a13 9 interesting 2a14 17 not stressful 2a15 8

The data collected from the interview also shared the similar results Table 4.10 showed the data on students‟ evaluative reactions towards learning English collected from the Interview The table shows seven key words or phrases that occurred most often in the data And it can be noticed that the students used words indicating their positive or favorable attitude towards learning English And almost no unfavorable words or phrase were found The words or phrases found include

“comfortable” with 7 occurrences, “easy” – 5 occurrences, “joyful” – 9 occurrences,

“interesting” – 17 occurrences (the most frequent), “not stressful” – 8 occurrences,

“like” – 7 occurrences, and “effective” – 14 occurrences

In order to have more detailed findings, the presentation of several extracted responses from the interview shows a deeper interpretation of students‟ attitude When asked “When working on the project, how do you feel about learning English?”, the students responded:

“I feel that when working on the project, learning English is very smooth and easy Not stressful and comfortable For example, I find learning new words easy to memorize.” (Response 01)

As extracted above, the respondent 01 seemed to be happy when describing her feeling in doing projects She found that the learning was running smoothly and easily without any problems The student also took a specific example of learning new works She felt that learning new words was easy

“I felt that when I was working on a project, I felt that I could overcome the stress, so I learned it effectively Normally, I could never speak a good English sentence, but now I can use a whole paragraph I feel it very interesting.” (Response 06)

To some extent it can be noticed that the respondent 06 had the same feelings as the respondent 01 did She confessed in her answer that doing projects helped her to forget about stress in learning And this led to the effectiveness in learning Due to doing projects, she could speak English sentences which she could never do before She seemed to be proud about such achievements

“I found it interesting, and I loved English again I liked learning English when I was in secondary school But at high school my studying was sluggish, I was not passionate about learning English After this time, I felt like learning English again.” (Response 13)

The respondent 13‟s sharing seemed to be like a confession She found that doing projects was so interesting that it had brought her love for English back to life again She told her own history of learning English from secondary school to the present She used to love learning English Although she did not mention the reason, she lost the passion for learning English It can be seen that doing projects helped to trigger the potential within the student to love English

I used to be a lazy student But when working on a project, I also felt that learning English was comfortable, I became more hardworking I completed all the tasks in the project It was a success I found that learning English was more interesting (Response 08)

Similar to the previously presented responses, the response 08 shared that learning English through project work became more interesting The project changed the student‟s attitude It is also noticeable that participating in the project turned the lazy student into a more hardworking student

Political-critical Aspect

The third aspect of learner autonomy investigated in this study is the political- critical In the conceptual framework, this perspective of autonomy is configured with choices of learning contents and choices of learning methods And the third sub-research question serves the purpose of collecting data for this aspect The question is “Political-critically, how do the projects stimulate students‟ choices of learning contents and choices of learning methods?” In this section, the results from the collected data are presented and discussed in two subcategories of learning contents and learning methods The data was gathered from the responses of the question items 9 and 10 in the Post-Project Work Questionnaire Question 9 is for choices of learning contents and question 10 is for choices of methods The results indicated that with the implementation of projects, the students enjoyed a larger range of choices of learning contents and learning methods

Question 9 in the Post-Project Questionnaire aims to collect data for the students‟ views on the choices of learning contents when they did their projects The

145 responses help to determine how the implementation of project work enhanced students‟ choices of learning contents Table 4.13 on the next page shows the findings for the analyzed data collected from question 9 “What do you think about the options for learning contents while working on a project?” The responses collected were sub-categorized into quantity and quality of choices of learning contents

It can be seen from the table that lots of respondents confirmed the variety of options for learning contents during projects The data “many learning contents” coded 3a12 were found to occur 22 times in the data And in terms of the quality of choices for learning contents, there were more ranges of data which include

“suitable”, “diverse”, “interesting”, and “fresh” The most frequent code is

“interesting” with 18 occurrences, and the least often is “fresh” with 5 occurrences

Table 4.13 Students' choices of learning contents during project work

Sub-categories Data Codes Occurrences

Quantity of choices of learning contents many learning contents 3a12 22

Quality of choices of learning contents

The extract of responses 9, 10, and 24 below can give a more evidence of various choices for learning contents

“I myself find that studying through the project had more learning contents and learning was more interesting with different topics.” (Respondent 09)

“I feel that when doing a project, there were more learning contents and that they were more suitable for us, not rigid, and we chose them ourselves.” (Response 10)

“In my opinion, the projects brought a lot of new and optional learning contents, so everyone liked it.” (Response 24)

The respondents above obviously stated that there were more learning contents during the implementation of projects In addition, the students seemed to believe

146 that the learning contents were more interesting, more suitable for them It also seemed that the freedom of choices of the contented made the students happy (Response 24)

Table 4.14 below compares the results presented in Table 3.13 and in Table 4.13 It can be noticed that there are significant differences The two columns of occurrences of before and during projects are like two contrary presentations In terms of the quantity of choices, before project work, lots of the students claimed that there were not many choices of contents in their learning, and the students seemed to see the choices of learning contents available in a negative way

At the same time, the students shared that the learning contents did not interest them In contrast, the post-project work findings showed in Table 4.13 indicated that the students acknowledged the variety of choices for learning contents and good qualities of those choices

Table 4.14 Contrasting the occurrences of the students' choices of learning contents before and during project work Data

During Projects (Table 4.13) not many 10 0 many learning contents 9 23 difficult 10 0 fixed 9 0 not interesting 17 0 suitable 16 17 diverse 0 31 interesting 0 30 fresh 0 24

The changes in the students‟ choices of the learning contents can be seen in the first phase of doing projects when the students were given choices of the topics, the outcomes, and the suggested projects Appendix F presents the choices for these categories For the topics, there were four choices: describing people, describing an

147 event, describing a place, and practical English And, for each topic, there are also several possible projects recommended for the students For example, for the topic of describing people, the students can consider projects about a famous person, a group of close friends, family, or class For the outcomes of projects, the students can choose any from the lists including videos, oral presentations, brochures, posters, talk shows, game shows, or plays It can be seen that the variety of choices available for the students brought about the diversity of projects As a result, there were 8 different projects

Obviously, in its nature, projects supply more choices of the learning contents and learning activities for learners And this is in accordance with what Hutchinson

(1991) describes about project work stating that the choices of learning contents and activities in projects are not limited and provides learners with adaptation and creativity The findings also prove Thomas‟s (2000) argument that projects embrace learners‟ choices rather than traditional instruction where only teachers decide the learning contents and methods

„Choices of learning methods‟ is the second category of the political-critical aspect Question 10 in Post-Project Work Questionnaire serves the purpose of collecting data The question is “What do you think about the options for learning methods while working on a project?” The responses for the question were analyzed and presented in Table 4.15 below

Table 4.15 Students' choices of learning methods during project work

Sub-categories Data Codes Occurrences quantity of choices of learning methods many 3b12 29 quality of choices of learning methods fresh 3b26 9 interesting 3b27 7 effective 3b28 17

It can be seen in Table 4.15 that the responses are placed in two subcategories – quantity and quality of choices learning methods As for the quality of choices of

148 learning methods, the respondents answered that there were many choices of learning methods during the implementation of the project work The occurrence number of the data coded “many” was recorded with 29 – the most noticeable in the data This finding could be traced in the following extracts of responses:

“I think projects helped to provide us various learning methods and many approaches to knowledge which was effective and flexible.” (Response 08)

“I find that when working on the project, we had many options for learning methods It could be independent learning and groupwork which was really fun and meaningful.” (Response 18)

Both of the extracts above share the point that when working on projects, the students had many options for the learning methods The respondent 08 stated in general that projects provided opportunities for different learning methods Meanwhile, the respondent 15 pointed out two specific methods: independent leaning and group-work Besides that, the students also acknowledged the good qualities of the learning methods in doing projects which included effectiveness, flexibility, fun and meaningfulness

In terms of quality of choices of learning methods, Table 4.15 presents three most often occurred descriptions (words or phrases) by the respondents These are

“fresh” with 9 occurrences, “interesting” with 7 occurrences, and “effective” with

17 occurrences Similar to the students‟ views on quality of learning contents during projects, it can be noticed that the students also found positive qualities of choices in learning methods when the students carried out their projects More evidence of this interpretation can be found in the extracts of response 15, 20, and 31 below

“In my opinion, there were many interesting learning methods that gave us joy.” (Response 15)

“I think the learning methods when working on the project were various that exploited out learning effectiveness.” (Response 20)

“I think the learning methods in doing projects were more interesting and fresher than those of traditional learning.” (Response 31)

It can be noticed that respondent 15 mentioned the point that the variety of choices of learning methods brought joy to the students And Respondent 20 stressed the effectiveness in learning due to the various options of learning approaches Meanwhile, Respondent 31 compared the learning methods during project work with those in traditional learning and stated the interest and the freshness of doing projects Table 4.16 summarizes the results shown in Table 3.14 with those in Table 4.15

Table 4.16 Contrasting the occurrences of data for the students' choices of learning methods before and during project work Data

During Projects (Table 4.15) not many 17 0 many 0 20 following teacher‟s instructions 7 0 traditional 9 0 not new 10 0 monotonous 7 0 not effective 3 0 fresh 0 9 interesting 0 7 effective 0 17

Significant differences are found in Table 4.16 According to the findings in Table 3.14, before projects the students found that there were not many choices of learning methods for them to school and the existing choices were described by the students as “not new”, or “traditional”, or “monotonous” In contrast, with the application of projects, the students identified the diversity of the choices of learning methods They stated that there were more choices of learning methods Based on the presentation of the findings along with the interpretation, it can be concluded that the integration of projects into the process syllabus brought about more choices for students in both the learning contents and the learning methods At the same times, the students seemed to believe that the choices make the learning enjoyable

The findings from the political-critical aspect of autonomy supports arguments in the literature that when given choices learners become more independent (Cotterall, 1995), more responsible (Assor et al., 2002), and more engaged (Ramires, 2014; and Parker, et al., 2017) in learning The results also echo Chong‟s (2003) and Villa & Armstrong‟s

(2004) findings Chong (2003) concluded that CALL projects provided learners more choices in learning, and Villa & Armstrong (2004) stated that the students became more responsible when they made various decisions jointly

Socio-cultural Aspect

In this section, the presentation and interpretation of the results serves to answer the fourth sub-research question of the study The question is: Socio-culturally, how does the project work foster students‟ interaction and collaboration? To get the answer to the question, question items 11 and 12 in Post-Project Work Questionnaire were designed to collect data

The results showed that doing projects appeared to stimulate the students‟ interaction and collaboration in their learning activities The stimulation seemed to be evident in all of the subcategories In terms of interaction, the students interacted with people in higher frequency and in a larger environment As for collaboration, the collaboration was observed in more learning activities

In the social-cultural aspect of learner autonomy, the conceptual framework determines two categories: interaction and communication In order to measure the

151 enhancement of the interaction, Question 9 in Post-Project Work is aimed at collecting the data The question is: While working on the project, how did you interact with people (teachers/friends)? The results are presented in Table 4.17 below

Table 4.17 Students' interaction during project work

With whom? with teacher 4a21 17 with group members 4a22 34

For what? to ask for help in doing tasks 4a41 22

As presented in the table, the coded data for the students‟ interaction is put into four sub-categories: frequency (how often?), type (with whom?), place (where?), and purpose (for what?) There are six codes in those subcategories First, many respondents stated they “often” interacted with people while doing their projects The code “often” was counted 26 times of occurrences And the interaction was always conducted with the group members (34 occurrences), and with the teacher as well (17 occurrences) The interaction is acknowledged by the students to take place online (34 occurrences) and in class (32 occurrences) And lastly, in terms of the reason of interacting, lots of students responded that they interacted with people in order to seek for assistance in solving their problems (22 occurrences) More evidence of the frequent interaction can be found in the following responses

“I often communicated with group members through Zalo And in class, I often asked the teacher for help for the unknown and the uncertain, especially in translating materials.” (Response 08)

In the response, the student stated that she communicated frequently with the members of the group And she used Zalo – a popular mobile application for her communication It can also be noticed that she often contacted the teacher for support in doing project tasks

“I often kept in touch with my friends and discussed work in the project And when we have English lesson in class, we asked the teacher for assistance.” (Response

Similar to the respondent 08, respondent 14 used internet as a method for her contact with other team members while they were not present in class As stated in the response, this student seemed to make the most of the in-class time to seek for the teacher‟s direct assistance

“Every week, my group asked each other about the project progress Whenever we did not come to class, we contacted each other in the Facebook Messenger group.” (Response 21)

“We often made videos to each other to exchange ideas and support each other.” (Response 30)

It can be easily noticed in the responses that the students used internet for constant communication with the group members And the communication was done weekly Beside Zalo, Facebook Messenger was another mobile application that the students preferred to use for their distant group-work

Table 4.18 Contrasting the occurrences of data for the students' interaction before and during project work Data

During Projects (Table 4.17) often 0 26 sometimes 12 0 rare 14 0 none 8 0 with teacher 8 17 with classmates 9 0 with group members 0 34 in class 16 32 online 0 34 to ask for help in doing tasks 3 22

Table 4.18 below compares the results of the students‟ interaction in learning in Table 3.15 and Table 4.17 above The comparison reflects noticeable differences In terms of frequency presented in Table 3.15, before project work the students‟ interaction in learning was not frequent The interaction was mostly “sometimes” and “rare” Meanwhile, during project work the students‟ interaction seemed to increase The majority of the students stated that they “often” interact with people in learning Besides, the interaction among the students and between the students with the teacher also rose during projects The numbers of occurrences with the data codes 4a21 and 4a22 in Table 4.17 are higher than those in Table 3.15 As for the space for interaction, before projects, the interaction took place just within class learning environment (see Table 3.15) During projects, the interaction among the students seemed to happen in a larger space (see Table 4.17) And internet is the most frequent environment for the students to interact with each other beside in- class learning space At the same time, the purposeful interaction (to ask for help in doing tasks) during projects also indicate higher rise (22 occurrences) in comparison with the before project period (2 occurrences)

Table 4.19 Summary of interactions from the teacher's diary

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 in-class x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x X out-of-class x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

The data from the diary also revealed an increase in interaction during the projects Table 4.19 below summarizes the interactions in the learning process during projects from Appendix P The table presents that the numbers of interactions before projects were less than that of during-project period The interactions in the

154 first week were mostly conventional teacher-student question and answer in class, and there were almost no out-of-class interactions between the students and the teacher The period from week 7 to 11 witnessed a significant increase in both forms of interactions and frequency of interactions For the forms of interactions, it was noted that in student-teacher contacts for support or consultation out-of-class rose sharply during the phase of doing projects The discussions in class also built up which could be student-student discussions or teacher-student consultations The findings also pointed out that the students were active in contacting their teacher on their problems they encountered while they were conducting the project activities It was noted that the students contacted the teacher in various times: at noon or in the afternoon or in the evening or even at midnight

It can be drawn from the presentation and interpretation that the implementation of projects into the existing syllabus seemed to increase the students‟ interaction The increase can be found in the frequency, the quantity of interaction with people, the space, and the purpose The students appeared that they interacted more with their friends and their teacher in a larger space in a more purposeful intention

Along with interaction, collaboration is the second category in the socio-cultural aspect that is conceptualized in the theoretical framework of learning autonomy To measure the enhancement of the students‟ collaboration in learning English through the integration of project work, question item 12 in Post-Project Work Questionnaire was designed to collect the data The question is: While doing projects, how did you collaborate with people? The result is presented in Table 4.20 on the next page

As presented in the table, the data is placed in two main sub-categories: the activities the students collaborated in, and the people they collaborated with Three codes in the first sub-categories are “building projects” with 34 occurrences,

“presentation” with 34 occurrences, and “doing project tasks” with 28 occurrences

It can be seen that the number of occurrences for these three codes are really high It

155 means that the students all collaborated mostly with each other in the first phase and the last phase of project work which are “building projects” and “presentation” And

“doing project tasks” is related to phase two of project work – realizing project tasks The number of occurrences for this code is also rather high – 28 This appeared that the students collaborated a lot during their projects

Table 4.20 Students' collaboration during project work

Sub-categories Data Codes Occurrences

Collaboration in what activities? building projects 4b12 34 presentation 4b13 34 doing project tasks 4b14 28

Collaboration with whom? with teammates 4b23 34 with teacher 4b24 13

In the second sub-category, there are the two codes “collaboration with teammates” with 34 occurrences and “collaboration with teacher” with 13 occurrences The results indicate that the students predominantly collaborated with their friends rather than with their teacher

Table 4.21 Contrasting the occurrences of data of collaboration before and during project work Data

During Projects (Table 4.20) doing in-class tasks 26 0 doing in-class pair-work 12 0 building projects 0 34 presentation 12 34 doing project tasks 14 28 with desk-mates 10 0 with teammates 8 34 with teacher 0 13

Conclusion

This chapter has presented important findings about the enhancement of the students‟ autonomy in learning through the integration of projects The findings have been presented four aspects of learner autonomy in accordance with answering four major research questions

Concerning the first aspect of learner autonomy – the technical, the findings showed that after the projects were applied into the learning process, the students accessed the learning resources more than they did before the projects The students employed more learning skills/strategies to achieve the learning targets Besides the common learning activities such as repetition or reviewing the learning contents before going to class, the students used a more diverse range of skills which included time-management, teamwork, problem-solving, decisions-making, or overcoming difficulty As for the psychological aspect of learner autonomy, the results of the questionnaires demonstrated that there was a significant change among the students in terms of their attitude and motivation towards learning English The students found that there was lots of fun in their learning, and they felt stimulated in performing their learning tasks during projects Regarding the

160 political-critical aspect of learner autonomy, the findings showed that most students found more choices of the learning contents and learning methods when doing projects And, for the socio-cultural aspect, it was revealed that the integration of projects brought the students opportunities to interact and collaborate with their teacher and their friends more in doing the shared learning tasks The findings demonstrated that the students became more active in contacting their teammates and their teacher, and more frequent collaboration in learning was also evident

It can be seen that the implementation of the project work proves to be effective in improving the situation where the students were found to lack autonomy in learning This result can be considered as success for the first cycle of the action research The researcher has found the answer for the research questions And the research result itself suggests a logical stopping point Therefore, the cycle of the search can be concluded

CONCLUSION

Recapitulation of the Study

The study reported in this thesis investigated the enhancement of learner autonomy through the implementation of the project work throughout one semester with a class of 34 first year non-English majors at a university in the north of Vietnam The study was motivated by commonly shared arguments in the literature that learner autonomy is beneficial to learners in their learning Autonomous learners are believed to possess good qualities such as engagement, positive attitude, high motivation, independence, self-regulation, collaboration and interaction These qualities are targeted in the curriculum of the university At the same time, it was found in the literature that project work is believed to develop learner autonomy Besides that, there seemed to be little literature on using project work to promote the aspects of learner autonomy No research has been recognized in the literature deploying project work as an intervention to promote the components of autonomy in four aspects for non-English majors in the tertiary Vietnamese context Hence, the study was expected to be an empirical research in the area

In this study, learner autonomy is conceptualized as a multiple-faced concept consisting of four aspects: technical, psychological, political-critical, and socio- cultural The technical aspect is manifested through the learners‟ access to learning resources and use of learning skills/strategies The psychological aspect is investigated through their attitudes towards and motivation in learning English The political-critical aspect is concerned with their choices of learning contents and

162 learning methods The socio-cultural aspect deals with their interaction and collaboration in their learning process This configuration serves as the theoretical framework of learner autonomy employed in this study

Project work is synchronically theorized as an integrated mode of teaching and learning into the existing syllabus with four phases: preparation, realization, presentation, and evaluation In the preparation phase, it involves the teacher‟s preparing topics/themes from the existing syllabus, introducing the project work to be integrated in the learning, suggesting the project final outcomes It is also related to the students‟ grouping, and teacher-student collaborative activities in agreeing on themes for projects, determining the project final outcomes, detailing the activities, considering responsibilities, agreeing on the deadlines for projects, and agreeing on the timing for gathering, compiling information, and presenting the final products

In the realization phase, the students search and gather information; the teacher assists the students in arranging and categorizing the gathered information and materials; the students compile, analyze, organize information, and discuss the value of the gathered data, keeping some and discarding others; and the teacher helps the students to revise and edit the products In the presentation phase, the teacher prepares the language demands for students in preparing the final products; and the students present the final products the students present their final In the evaluation phase, the students evaluate their project work by answering the Post Project Work Questionnaire It is the students‟ participation in those four phases of the project work that have scaffolded the enhancement of the four components of their learner autonomy

As an English teacher, I have been always concerned with how to stimulate the effectiveness of learning and teaching within and out of my classroom I conducted this study with an ultimate aim to examine how project work enhances the learners‟ autonomy Therefore, the overarching research question involves how the project work promotes learner autonomy for the non-English majors in the university This main research question is divided into four sub-research questions, each dealing

163 with how project work interacts with one aspect of their learning autonomy concerning (1) the enhancement of their access to learning resources and use of learning skills/strategies (technical aspect); (2) the promotion of their attitude towards learning English and their motivation in learning English (psychological aspect); (3) the stimulation of their choices of learning contents and learning methods (political-critical aspect); (4) the fostering of their interaction and collaboration (socio-cultural aspect)

To answer the above established research questions, a four phases action research model by Kemmis and McTaggart (1988) was selected as the research approach for the study The four phases included plan, act, observe, and reflect The plan phase involves the identification of learner autonomy status among the students before the application of projects The second phase – act, features the implantation of projects into the syllabus as the intervention The observe phase consists of administration of the data collection tools and collection of the data The reflect phase includes analysis of the collected data, presenting the results, and discussions of the results The whole process takes place in one cycle Ideally, an action research design should encompass at least two cycles, with cycle two resolving the drawbacks of cycle one However, there are two constraints which have undesirably prevented the research from administering cycle two, namely the alignment with the existing syllabus at the university and the overload of the data collected and analyzed if conducted in two cycles Having acknowledged the shortcomings of one cycle design, various measures have been taken to maximize the operation of the four phases and to optimize the enhancement of the learners‟ autonomy through their engagement in every single activity of the planning, acting, observing and reflecting phase

Questionnaires, interviews, and the teacher‟s diary were employed as the data collection tools Two questionnaires were administered at two different periods of the projects: the Pre-Project Work Questionnaire delivered to the students before the implementation and the Post-Project Work Questionnaire conducted right after the implementation of the projects The contrasting and comparing of the two

164 questionnaires‟ results helped to reflect on the changes and development of the components of learner autonomy The interviews with the students were conducted after they presented the final products of their projects The diary was kept from the beginning of the semester to the end of the project work The data collected from the interviews and the diary were used as triangulation resources against the questionnaire data The analysis of the collected data was based on the four steps content analysis which are: (1) defining the units of analysis (e.g., words, sentences) and categories to be used for analysis; (2) reviewing the texts in order to code them and place them into categories; and then (3) counting and logging the occurrences of words, codes and categories; (4) an interpretation of the results

The implementation of the project work in four phases resulted in thirty-four students carrying out eight projects with different topics and outcomes There were six projects for making video clips, one project for creating a brochure, and one project for oral presentation The projects were in three topics: describing places, describing people, and practical English.

The Enhancement of Autonomy and Students‟ Difficulties

5.2.1 The Enhancement of Learner Autonomy through Project Work

The overall results for the main research question showed that the enhancement of learner autonomy is evident in all four aspects: technical, psychological, political- critical, and socio-cultural In terms of the technical aspect, the students accessed more learning resources than they did before projects, and they employed more learning skills/strategies In the psychological aspect, during project work, the students had a much more positive attitude toward learning English, and the students were highly motivated As for the political-critical aspect, the students had more choices of both learning contents and learning methods And with the socio- cultural aspect, the students interacted more often with their friends and their teacher not just in but also out of the classroom, and they collaborated in more learning activities The findings in this study seemed to support the arguments by many scholars that project work develops autonomy for learners in their learning

Thomas (2000), Stoller (2002) and Allan & Stoller (2005) share the point that project work results in building up learner autonomy The findings in this study also make contributions to the previous studies (Chong, 2003; Villa and Armstrong, 2004; Ramires, 2014; Pichailuck & Luksaneeyanawin, 2017; and Nguyen Van Loi,

2017) that the implementation of projects into the learning process enhanced the students‟ autonomy

Obviously, the presentation of the findings and the discussions above showed that the implementation of projects brought the students “a new learning environment” (Reinders & White, 2011, p.1) This new learning space was filled with more learning opportunities They had more choices for what they were going to learn, and they were able to decide themselves how to carry out their learning activities It could be seen that this new learning situation exercised the students‟ freedom in learning which used to be rare in the traditional education practice This argument was supported by Littlejohn

(1985), and in accordance with Benson‟s (2012) suggestion on creating learning situations for learners to take some control of their learning

It was also found that the new learning environment in doing projects featured the impact of technology Throughout the application of the project work, all forms of technology in its current availability (websites, mobile apps, online resources, social networks, smartphones, computers) were identified to be present in the students‟ learning activities Technology also provided opportunities for interaction, and support for learning outside formal contexts This was proved by the students‟ use of popular mobile applications such as Facebook messenger, Zalo, or Google E- mails in interacting and communicating with the teacher and the group members The interpretation seemed to be supported by Reinders & White (2011) that technology offers increased affordances for autonomous learning At the same time, the findings related to the prominence of mobile technologies were consistent with the assumption by Stockwell & Reinders (2019) that learners would be motivated to use their mobile devices to carry out the app-based learning activities It was found that the majority of the video making projects the students employed the

166 applications in their smartphones Although the focus of this study was not on the connection of technology and motivation, it was recognized that technology positively affected the aspects of the students‟ learning and the development of learner autonomy

The study demonstrates that the application of projects into the learning process yielded tangle results, and that the project work is worth being used not only to promote the aspects of learner autonomy but also to change and transform the students into the new learners exhibiting good qualities Along the noticeable the positive changes in motivation and interaction in learning, it was found that there was increased strategy use and enhanced psychology This study supports Wenden

(1991) and White (2008) who strongly believe in the interconnectedness of learning strategies and learner autonomy that when learners master learning strategies, their aspects of autonomy will be enhanced The findings in the students show that the students demonstrated lots of learning strategies ranging from cognitive strategies to metacognitive strategies and socio/affective strategies

5.2.2 Students’ Difficulties in Project Work

The ultimate purpose of this study is to shed light on the development of learner autonomy among the students employing project work in four frame-worked aspects The study‟s results are also believed to be significant for English teacher in their professional practice Therefore, it is thought to be meaningful for to share extra findings about the students‟ difficulties during the study which are found beyond the students‟ enhancement of autonomy Hopefully, this sharing may be practical for teachers and practitioners

The findings emerged from the qualitative data of the post-project work semi- structured interview reveal that challenges faced by the students are identified when during the stages of projects Four difficulties found are: (1) lack of confidence (Project 1); (2) processing collected materials (Project 3): (3) choosing learning materials (Project 7); and (4) pronunciation (Projects 1 and 8)

As for the case of Project 1, the students were interested in making an oral presentation to introduce about the tourist attraction in the area Two weeks before the real presentation in class, they faced a psychological problem The project team members felt that they lacked confidence and were insecure make a presentation in front of the whole class and they could make mistakes during the presentation Group member D.T.H said that:

“At home, the first time I practiced presenting my part, my heart started beating faster I felt quite anxious I contacted T to share my problem She said she suffered the same feeling We were afraid of making pronunciation mistakes and forgetting the presentation content.” (D.T H‟s response)

With the students of Project 3, they intended to introduce about 5 local craft villages in the province in the suggested format for the brochure of about 10 A5 pages and 5 pictures The team members started the project right after the first phase of the project work As the result of the material gathering and building, they collected 10 different pictures and prepared 14 A4 pages wording contents in essay format for the final brochure The team found that the gathered and prepared materials could not fit and match the set brochure format They could not arrange such overloaded volume of materials into the set format of the brochure Obviously, the students encountered a technical difficulty The team worked together and chose to keep the primarily format of the brochure which is in A5 size They thought they should shorten the prepared contents and choose a different picture illustration format which should be in more picture illustration instead of essay format And the new version of the brochure should be about 5 villages in around 10-15 A5 single pages and 10 pictures T.T.L, a group leader reported:

We collected lots of materials, about 14 A4 pages At first, we wanted to keep all because the members had made lots of efforts for the gathering and arranging But we found that was too much for a little brochure And sample brochures that we had looked at before were in less words and more pictures Brochures must be easy to read and eye catching So, we decided to make some changes to the format (T.T L‟s response)

Two students of project 7 were interested in a project themed practical English to practice speaking English more They planned to do the dubbing for the fairy tale video titled "Fake Wig" in English However, after a week, they reported to the teacher that they couldn't keep going with the dubbing They thought that the chosen project was not suitable for them The video was too long (17 minutes), and the characters in the video spoke too fast And their English competences could not meet such level As a result, they could not conduct the dubbing for the fairy tale B.T.G, the project leader, said:

When I turned on the fairy tale and tried to speak and follow the speed of the characters in the fairy tale The characters speak to fast that we fail to keep up with them We made several other attempts, but we couldn‟t Meanwhile the video is 17 minutes That‟s too long We decided to stop, and to start a new one (B.T.G‟s response)

Contributions of the Study

The contributions of the study were made to three knowledge areas: theory, methodology, and pedagogy

On the theoretical ground, this study has attempted to conceptualize learner autonomy to sever the purpose of the study Four aspects of learner autonomy have been identified which consist of the technical (featuring access to learning resources and use of learning skills/strategies), the psychological (featuring attitudes towards learning English and motivation in learning English), the political-critical (featuring choices of learning contents and choices of learning methods), and the socio- cultural (featuring interaction and collaboration)

This conception of learner autonomy reinforces Benson (1997) ideas of learner autonomy with three aspects (technical, psychological, and political-critical), and supports the strong argument of Oxford (2003) on the essential presence of socio- cultural perspective in the configuration of learner autonomy The conceptualization served as the theoretical framework in this study to measure the students‟ autonomy And the framework is useful for practitioners and researchers in understanding learner autonomy, as Benson (2007) recommended, for research that is aimed at investigating learner autonomy, it is necessary to know what it is to foster

The methodological contributions from the current study are to respond to both Benson‟s (2007) call for more practitioner research on learner autonomy and Le Thi Cam Nguyen‟s (2012) suggestion on rigorously measuring learner autonomy First, responding to Benson‟s (2007) call for more practitioner research on learner autonomy, this study employed the action research approach which was based on the four phases model of action research proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart

(1988) This practitioner research design is believed to be appropriate to this study in answering the research question “How does the project work promote learner autonomy for the non-English majors in the university?” The study was conducted successfully with thirty-four non-English majors in a Vietnamese university And the results of the study on the enhancement of the students‟ autonomy in learning English was presented and discussed in section 5.2

Second, responding to Le Thi Cam Nguyen‟s (2012) suggestion on principles of rigorously measuring learner autonomy, this study looked at learner autonomy from a variety of points of views employing both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data The study used three different data collection tools (questionnaires, interviews, and teacher‟s diary) within the action research approach The two questionnaires (Pre-Project Work Questionnaire and Post-Project Work Questionnaire) with 12 open-ended and scaled items were used as the main data gathering method, and the interviews and the diary were employed to provide

171 additional data The three sources of data were triangulated and analyzed mainly based on the content analysis

With the employment of the action research approach and various data collection methods in this study, it was evident that learner autonomy can be quantified and measured

The study also revealed that project work can be employed as a pedagogical intervention to enhance autonomy for the students And in fact, the students perceived the project work positively when the projects were integrated in the learning process Following a commonly found agreement that project work has the potentials to enhance learner autonomy, a model of four phase project work was established and applied successfully in this study Eight different projects were built based on the collaboration of teacher and the students The implementation of projects brought positive results to the students: they became more autonomous; they were more motivated in learning; they employed more learning skills to achieve the learning goals set together with other project members; they felt happy in working with others in the shared learning activities This proves the possibility of projects in improving the learners‟ learning aspects.

Limitations of the Study

Much attempt has been made to deliver the best possible thesis, but it is admitted that this study can by no means avoid some limitations First, the study could not depict overall enhancement of the learners‟ autonomy as the data were analyzed in four domains: technical, psychological, political-critical, and socio-cultural Second, the study could not measure the interweavement or interrelationships of the four aspects Therefore, the study could not show which aspect is more prominent than the others in the configuration of learner autonomy Third, as an action research conducted in a provincial university in Vietnam with one class of thirty-four students, this study is of value to the teacher and the students, but it is limited in its generalizability to other contexts, within and outside Vietnam

Suggestions for Further Research

Learner autonomy is identified as a multi-faced concept There are still many missing components in the conceptual framework of learner autonomy in this study: awareness, willingness, confidence, control, responsibility, engagement, etc There should be more research on how project work promotes these ignored autonomy components

This study focused on investigating the enhancement of eight components of learner autonomy through the implementation of projects which were access to learning resources, use of learning skills/strategies, attitudes towards learning English, motivation in learning English, choices of learning contents, choices of learning methods, interaction and collaboration However, the interrelationship of the components was not examined closely How the components connect to each other and how they affect each other in the process of applying projects should also be investigated

The subjects of this study were non-English majors A different research project would be applied to participants from other backgrounds would be interesting Such focus would help further identify the effectiveness of the project work in developing learner autonomy.

Implications and Recommendations

The study employed the project work as an intervention tool to promote learner autonomy, hence, the implications and recommendations are presented in two main areas: researching learning autonomy and implementing project work

Learner autonomy is recognized as a multiple-perspective concept Therefore, in terms of researching learner autonomy, first, it is suggested that defining autonomy and pinning it down into smaller components is necessary This helps to establish a theoretical framework throughout the study And by doing so the assessment of learner autonomy can be easier Second, using multiple data sets and employing different data collection tools in a study is essential This is because students‟ autonomous learning behaviors can be shaped and demonstrated in different

173 learning situations and environments Therefore, the mixed methods design and the employment of data collection and analysis in this study should be a useful reference for other studies

The results in this study prove that projects can make students be more motivated in learning, have a better attitude towards the learning, use more skills to do the learning tasks, and take advantage of the learning resources, and interact more and collaborate in more learning activities Therefore, project work can possibly be a fruitful approach in not just learning English as a foreign language but also in other subjects And application of project word can be feasible not just in the context of the research institution of this study but also in other EFL contexts

The enhancement of learner autonomy identified above among the students gave more evidence for the effectiveness of project work implementation in this study Based on this, there are some implications for applying projects into the learning process First, the purpose of using projects should be taken into consideration before the implementation In this study, projects were employed to stimulate learner autonomy However, with different purposes in other studies, the focus in projects can be changed Next, it is recommended to choose an appropriate model of projects to serve the established purpose Finally, the application of projects in this study stressed the teacher‟s supporting roles during the whole process Hence, it is suggested that teachers should specify clearly the all the activities and the responsibilities of both teacher and students in those activities By doing so, teachers can give better assistance to their students

The extra presentation on the difficulties the students encounter in the previous section also put forwards concerns for teachers in implementing project work in their teaching practice Teachers should be plan for possible obstacles the students can face and get ready to support them overcome those difficulties

During project work, it is noticed that the majority of the students uses online resources, mobile phones, and mobile applications for video recording or for looking for meanings of new words This implies the indispensable role of

174 technology in the students‟ learning Therefore, for application of more compilated projects which involve using more advanced technology, there are three recommendations First, teachers should seek experienced peers for better support Second, there should be training of technological skills for students And last, but best, teachers should familiarize themselves with technological tools in various contexts in which learners can be expected to use

5.7 Personal Reflections and Concluding Remarks

I conducted this study as a novice researcher possessing limited knowledge in doing research I was not having enough research skills for this research project I did not clearly understand the importance of reading, thinking critically, analyzing and theorizing, and writing I sometimes felt it was like a journey full of challenges I faced the anxiety, uncertainty, and discouragement However, I have received great encouragement and support from my supervisors in developing my research skills and in overcoming psychological problems I became more engaged in the research process And it was stimulating that I was given guidance and advice The supervisors motivated me in ways of critical friends of expertise It is undeniable that this research journey provided me with valuable experience of autonomy while learning about autonomous learning

Furthermore, I was so happy to accompany my students as their teacher and researcher This was a great time for me and my students to experience teaching, learning, and doing research together This action researcher has obviously developed into a richer investigation of both students‟ enhancement of learner autonomy and my own exploration as a teacher-researcher And I believe research is not perceived as the high-end knowledge about knowledge but more grounded in everyday teaching and learning practice

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