Luận văn students’ attitude toward english as a compulsory subject at an upper secondary school in quang ninh province

From a survey of 180 al a high schoot students across age ranges and grades, the finding includes the significance of students’ drive to study English and their opinions about teachers o

STUDENTS! ATTITUDE TOWARD ENGLISIT

ASA COMPULSORY SUBJECT

AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

TIN QUANG NINIT PROVINCE

(Thái độ của học sinh đối với Tiếng Anh như một môn

học bắt bude tại một trường TIIPT tại Quảng Ninh)

ĐẠI HỌC QUOC GIA IIA NOI

TRUONG DALHOC NGOAI NGC

KHOA SAU DAI HOC

ĐINH THỊ HÃI HẢ

STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARD ENGLISH

AS A COMPULSORY SUBJECT

AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

(Thái độ của học sinh dỗi với Tiếng Anh như một môn

học bắt buộc tại một trường THPT tại Quảng Ninh)

STATEMENT OF AUTIIORSIHP

The thesis entitled “Siudents” altitude towards English as a compulsory subject al an

‘upper secondary school” has been submitted for the Master of Arts

I, the undersigned, hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis I have fully acknowledged and referenced the ideas ønd work of others, whether published

assiduity His recommendations also helped to shape the form and contents of the

final version, 1 am equally indebted to them for the exceptional friendliness, Kindness, and patience that he demonstrated during my study at ULIS-VNU and my research

My sincere thanks also go to the Dean - Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuân as well as the stafF members at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and

Tutemmational Studies (1LTS), Vietnam National Universily (VNU), who are always

so kind and supportive during my study time

In addition, I would like to express my thankfulness to all the participating teachers

al an upper secondary schoot who helped me in my preliminary research, especially

the teachers who accompanied me during a long time of my data collection time

The results I have achieved today partially belong to them

‘Last bul not least, T woukl like to thank my fcllows for their dedicalion and support, and my family members for their motivation for me to overcome all the difficulties and to become a better me now

Thanking you all

Dinh Thi Hai Ha

September, 2018

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the influence of students’ attitude and English subject studying outcome through a case study at a high school ‘The study hopes to identify and provide few recommendations on approaches to improve English teaching oulcome al high school level in general From a survey of 180 al a high schoot students across age ranges and grades, the finding includes the significance of students’ drive to study English and their opinions about teachers on English

learning oulcomes Furthermore, from data overview, it is suggested thai school

facilities also matter ‘Therefore, the study recommends school to provide students with information about the implications of English, improve facilities to embrace

the age of Internel, and enhance studenls’ opinion about teachers

1.3 Research method, con HH HH HH

1.4 Scope of the study

LS, Significance of the i0Ầy 12012000,

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1.1 Attitudes

2.2 English as a compulsory subiect im other coumtries and Vietam

2.3 Studenis’ alliturkes to Frghish as a compulsory in other courdries

4.2 Qualrative resulis and cÏlsŒUSS1OTS cà sieu TỶ

4.2.1 Results of the interviews

4.2.2 Discussions of the inlerview

iii

4.2.3, ŠUNNPNAKV, tàn H000 38

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS ccieereeeeeeeeaeoeo.4

iv

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Reliability value regarding the language Aspects 20

Table 4.1 Descriplive Statistics of Students’ Auitudes towards Bagih 1anguage25

Table 4.2 Deseriplivo statisties of Đchavioral aspeeL of Language Attitude 25

Table 4 3 Descriptive Statistics of Cognitive Aspect of Language Attitude 27

Table 4.4 Descriptive Statistics of Emotional Aspect of Language Auiilude .29

Table 4.5 Descriptive Statistics of Atiludes lowards English as a compulsory

vi

CIIAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Ta foreign language leaming context, there are various factors that infhacuce {he learning process such as motivation, attitudes, anxiely, learning, achievements,

aptitudes, imiclligence, age, personalities, cle (Shams, M., 2008) The matter of

leamer’s attitude is acknowledged as one of the most important factors that impact

on learning a language (Fakeye, D., 2010)

Aliitudes toward leaning are beleved to wfluence behaviors such as

selecting and reading books, speaking in a foreign language etc Kspecially in Ldueation, if the students have positive attitude towards any subject, they can achicve many things in that specific arca There is an interaction between language learning and the environmental components in which the students were grown up Both negative and positive attitudes have a strong impact on the success of language learning Attitude is determined by the individual’s beliefs about outcomes or attributes of performing the behavior (behavioral beliefs), weighted by evaluations of those outcomes or attributes Thus, a person who holds strong beliefs {hat positively valued outcomes will result from performing the behavior will have a positive attitude toward the behavior Conversely, a person who holds strong beliefs that negatively valued oulcomes will resull from the behavior will have a negative

attitude

Attitude is considered as an essential factor influencing language

performances and received cousiderable allention from both first: and second

language researchers There are many reasons why students’ attitude toward language learning is important Weinburgh (1998) believes that attitudes toward

learning influence behaviors such as selucting and toading books, speaking in a

foreign language Generally, it is believed that learners’ attitudes dictate whether or not they will he able to absorb the details of language In other words, achievement

ina target language relies not only on intellectual capacity but also on the learner's.

attitudes toward language learning This means that learning language should be approached primarily as a social and psychological phenomenon rather than as a

purely academic one

As Brown (1994:168) defines “attitudes, like all aspects of the development

of cognition and affect in human beings, develop early in childhood and are the

yosult of parents’ and pours’ altitudes, contact wilh people who are different in any

number of ways, and interacting affective factors in the human experience”, the benefits of this for students have aroused my interest and encouraged me to carry

oul the thesis “Studenis’ attitudes’ towards English as a compulsory subject ai an

upper secondary school”

Asa teacher of English at secondary school for over 10 years, I have noticed

that learners of Frglish im general and sludents al secondary schools in particular do

not show positive attitudes towards English as well as English learning This leads

to demotivation and poor language achievement Most of them learn English just as

jo complete the curriculum Tt is assumed that if teachers understand their fechings

and emotion or their attitudes towards Knglish and English learning they can design

appropnate activities fo motivale their students in order 1o achieve betler language proficiency That 1s the main reason for me to camry out this study,

1.2 Research question

Tn this sludy, the main objective is to conduct a literature review on the

xelationship between students’ attitudes and English subject studying outcome at the high school, The main questions are

(1) What are the atutudes of Vietnamese high school siudenis towards English

learning?

(2) What are the attitudes of Viemamese high school students towards English as a

compulsory subject ai schools?

1.3 Research method

The method used in this study is quantitative Thus, an adapted questionnaire

was employed as a measuring instrument The participants were required lo answer

all the items of the questionnaire honestly, giving their own perceptions about their altitudes toward learning Unglish language in terms of the emotional, cognifive as well as their gonder,

1.4 Scope of the study

The participants in this study consist of 180 high school students, 94 persons

(52.2%) male and 86 persons (47.8%) female, randomly chosen from the

For the qualitative research, 12 students from the participants are selected for interviews; for each grade, two boys and two girls are selected

1.5 Significance of the study

The findings of this study will be of great interest te a number of rescarchors focusing on demographic variables of Second Language (L2) learners, English as Foreign Language (EFL) leamers, and English education policies and practices By

providing insights mto attitudes of high schocls E¥L leamers toward the English

language, English education policies, and their purposes for learning English, this

study contributes to an understanding of English leaming and teaching and adds ta

the growing body of studies on the spread of English Furthermore, this study aims

to offer insights for language attitude research and studies in EFL context

Tn addition, if Fnglish language teachers know and recognize their students?

foclings, needs, behaviors, they arc able to fit appropriate activities with the needs and would encourage them to positive attitudes toward English learning

Furthermore, curriculum designers would review the conlent and the desigu of the

curriculum to meet the needs and the interests of the students, especially students at

high schools in Vietnam

1.6 Structure of the thesis

CHIAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Thịy chapler is đevoled for rev

wing related lileralure about altitudes,

altitudes towards Hnglish language learning and English is a compulsory subject at schools

2.1 Definition

2.4.1 Attitudes

2.1.1.1 Attitudes and learning

Attitudes towards language learning have been defined differently by differentscholars The Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics and Language

Teaching (2002; 297) defines language altitudes as follows

“the attitudes which speakers of different languages or language varieties have

towards cach ofher’s languages oF to their own language Expressions of positive or negative feelings towards a Janguage may reflect impressions of linguistic difficulty or simplicity, ease or difficulty of learning, degree of importance, elegance, social status, cle Altitudes towards a language may atso show what people feel aboul the spzakers of that language Language attitudes may have an effect on second language or foreign

language fearing The measurement of language attitudes provides information which

js useful in language teaching and language learning.”

Altitudes are defined as an “acquired internal stale that rưluences the choice of

personal action” (Gagné & Driscoll, 1988) For instant, a person’s attitude toward

the environment influences whether or not they choose to recycle, A student’s attitude toward information will influence the resources he or she chooses to use Students ust understand why it is important to select reliable, authoritative

resources (Morgan, 2009)

Alfitude is a mental process which is heavily influenced upon the response thal

the individual shows while performing a task, [t is bow learners react when they are asked ta perform the task It is expressed in two ways, the positive manner when they are intrested in performing the given task and negative manner, when Icy are

forced or not interested in performing the task This is again influcnced by the leamer’s culture and background

Altitudes carmot be observed directly but have to be inferred from observed consistency in behavior Thus a person holding a favorable attitude toward an object [for example a language] would be expected to perform favorable behaviors and not unfavorable ones lowards the object Therefore, the altitude lowards a language “is

a construct that explains linguistic behavior in particular” (Mamun, Rahman, Rahman, & Hossain, 2012:

2.1.1.2 Aititudes and language learning

1 is obvious [hal understanding learners’ altitudes towards whal they are

obligated to study will help teachers, educators develop appropriate guides and

changes in the programs to make them better achieved the target language

« Psychological perspectives of attitudes

Psychologically, Eagly and Chaiken, (1993:1) define attitude as “a

psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some

degree of favour or disfavour”, it is important to state that for this study operalionally, itis defined as the students’ perceptions, underslandings, behets or

experiences of learning Unglish as a second language Attitude is a mental process which is heavily influenced upon the response that the individual show while

performing a task Tn common terms, it is how learners react when [hey are asked to

perform the task It is expressed in two ways, the positive manner when they are

interested in performing the given task and negative manner, when they are forced

or not interested im performing the task This is again in{Tuenced by the lear

rs culture and background

« Cognitive perspectives of attitudes

Trom cognitive perspectives, Brown (2000) points out, attitudes are

cognilive and affective, thal is, they are relaled to thoughts as well as to feelings and

emotions Attitudes govern how one approaches lcaming, which in the case of language requires exposure to a different culture and also to the difficult task of mastering a second language Altitudes begin developing carly and are influcncad

by many things, including parents, peers, and interactions with people who have social and cultural differences Therefore, attitudes “form a part of one’s perception

of self, of others, and of the culture in which one is hymg” (Brown, 2000: 180) This

well known that negative attitudes towards the foreign language and group, which often comes from stereotypes and superficial contact with the target culture, can

impede the learning of thal language Conversely, posilive athtudes towards the

foreign language and group increase language learning success Brown (2000) describes several studies about the effects of attitude on language learning and ormoludes thal “positive attitudes towards the sell, the native language group, anv the target language group enhanced proficiency” When students with positive attitudes experience success, the attitudes are reinforced, whereas students with

negative atliludes may fail 1o progress and become even more negative in their language learning attitudes Because attitudes can be modified by experience,

effective language teaching stralegies can encourage sludenis to be more posilive towards the language they are learning,

« Umotional perspective of attitudes

Feng, and Chen (2009) stated that, “learning process is an emotional process It

is allected by different emotional faciors The teacher and his studenls engage in various emotional activities in it and varied fruits of emotions are yield.” Attitude can help the learners to express whether they like ar dislike the objects or surrounding situations Tl is agreed that the irmer feckngs and emotions al foreign language leamers influence their perspectives and their attitudes towards the target language (Choy & Troudi, 2006)

3.1.1.3 AHiludes and languase achievement

Many studies on language attitudes have revealed that there is a strong relationship belween altitude and achievement (Hough & Piper, 1982; Simpson &

Oliver, 1990; Visser, 2008) Researchers such as Fakeye (2010), Reid (2003), and

Visser (2008) claim that attitude is a vital factor that influence language performance

Jn addition, Padwick (2010, as cited in Abidin, et al, 2012) states that apart

the intellectual perspective, the nature of language leaming depends on the learners" motivation and attitude to leam the target language For example, Mamun, et al (2012) conducted a study to investigate attitudes of 79 undergraduate students of Life Science School of Khulna University towards inglish language By employing

a questionnaire to collect the data, they found that the respondemts were positive towards English language and this could be attributed to the fact that respondents were instrumentally motivated towards English Similarly, Gémleksiz (2010)

investigated leamers" attitudes towards language learning in association with

gender, grade level, and department variables He employed a questiommire lo collect data from 1275 students studying at rat University, Turkey ‘Ihe results

showed that there were significant differences between the attitudes in terms of gender, grade level, and department variables Specifically, he found thal female

students had more positive attitudes im interest, usefulness and teacher subscales, sophomores" attitudes were more positive than freshmen in terms of interest, self- confidence, usefulness, and teacher subscales, students” attitudes vary from one

departinent to another

Jn 2011, Ghazvini and Khajehpour carried out an investigation on Lranian

students’ attitudes and motivations towards leaming English There were 123 male and female students from two high schools participaling in answering a questionaire ‘The results showed that female students were more positively motivated and male students were more instrumentally motivated to leaming

Fglish

2.1.1.4, Attitudes and motivation

According to Gardner (1985: 10) attitudes are a component of motivation,

which “refers to the combination of effort plus desi

lo achieve the goat of learning

plus favorable attitudes towards Jeaming the language.” Deci and Ryan (1985) identify motivation as intrinsic or extrinsic Students are intrinsically motivated

whan they are interested int earning lasks and ouleomes for their own sake, and that

results in infernal feelings of self-determimation and competence On the other hand, students are extrinsically motivated if they carry aut some actions to achieve some

instrumental end, such as eaming a reward or avoiding a punishment, Whalever

motivates students, it seems clear that a positive attitude towards the target language and group is important

Gardner and Lambert (1972) identify bwo related types of motivation, which are called instrumental and integrative Students with instrumental motivation

acquire a language for such reasons as to get a better job, to read technical material,

or to study in the country where the language is spoken Talegralive motivation i

held by studems who want to join with “the culture of the second language group

and become involved in social intercharige in thal group” (Brown, 2000: 162)

Motivation is regarded “as a key component of a model of language

leaming” (Spolsky,2000: 158) Because of its importance to language leaming,

there is growing inlercst im the creation of a motivation model that can help develop

snethodological applications to improve the teaching and leaming of a second language In a recent contribution, Démyei and Csizér (2002) examine the effect of

socioculturalchanges in Hungary in the 1990s on students’ attitudes and motivation

towards language learning by collecting data from a population of 8,593 thirteen- and fourteen-year-old students

Tn another conlribuGon, Spolsky (2000: 164) presents several second

language leamercase histories that illustrate the “complex motivational and identity pattems” among different individuals Because language knowledge is so dynamic and contextualized, Spolsky is distrustful of using questiormaires as the sole method

to collect data on motivation, and he stresses how important it is to supplement

them with observation, interviews, and focused conversations to obtam “hard

soviolinguislic data and personal slalements of second language leamas” (Spolsky,

oriontalion is beller, both Iypos have been shown to lead to successful language leaming (Brown, 2000; Ellis, 1994) What is clear, according to Brown (2000 181),

is “that second language learners benefit from positive attitudes and that negative

altitudes may lead to deervased motivation ancl, in all likelihood, beeause ol”

decreased input and interaction, to unsuccessful attainment of proficiency.”

3.1.1.5 Studies on students’ attitudes to English language learning m the context of English as a school subject

A study conducted by Liu (2007) which involved Chinese university

students’ alliludes and motivalion lowards English language learning showed that

the third year undergraduates showed a lot of positive attitude towards Hnglish language learning and this resulted in high scores in their proficiency test The

conclusion that can be gathered from this study is that if the respondents show

positive attitude, the results will be excellent

There are many other studies on learners’ motivation and attitude towards

Fglish language learning and one of it was by Vijchulata and Tee (1985) involving

University Putra Malaysia (UPM) students, which used a questionnaire to gather data for the study an how motivated students are to learn English and their attitude towards English language leaning At the ond of this study, il was found thal the

10

students were both integrative and instrumentally oriented towards English language learning

Saxjit (1993) conducled another study ou consultants in an organization in

Malaysia ‘The methodology used in this stady was different where Sarjit used not only questionnaire, but also interview and field observations The number of

samples for this study was 26 consullanls, four directors and one instructor Upon

completing the data collection process, it was found that the respondents were mainly instrumentally motivated and follawed by personal motivation Personal

tnotivalion is something that, comes within the individual m order ta achieve their

goals in order for an individual to achieve the goals, they will work hard to make sure they succeed

Benson (1991) carried oul a study in Japan on freshmen fo measure their

level of motivation towards Unglish language leaming A survey was conducted

among 300 freshmen and the results of this survey showed that the importance of

integrative aotivation and personal goal is imporlant among Japanese college

students: “imegrative and personal reasons for learning English were preferred over

instrumenlal snes” (Benson, 1991-34)

In Papua Now Guinea (PNG), a similar study was caricd out by Buschenhofen

(1998) where he conducted this study to measure the attitude towards English language

learning among final year universily students The dala was collected via a

questionnaire and it was discovered that both the group of respondents were very positive towards English language learning and they also showed some significant

attitudinal difference to certain English language context These differences were

concluded by Buschenhofen (1998) as the changing sccial, educational and linguistic conditions by looking at the difference in ape of the two proups

Several researches have shown that one’s proficiency in a second language is

difficult to be seen if the purpose and attitude is not set by the individual who is learning the language Wang (2006) mentioned that leaming a language is a very complex process and involves internal and external reasons, Tamers will show a

II

positive attitude if they want to learn the language and negative attitude if they do not want to learn the language Llowever, positive attitude always strengthens the

motivalion There arc also situations where onc shows a neutral (ecling towards

second language learning when they have no choice but to leam the language in order to complete their school’s requirement Pan, Zang and Wu (2010) explain that

if the learner wanls (o lear a language, it will have to show a positive altitude

Spolsky (1969), added to the same factor which involves positive and negative attitude towards second language learning According to Spolsky, the

students will show posilive alliludss if they want {o learn the language and the

advantage will always be with the one who shows this positive attitude rather than the one who shows negative attitude

Tn another study conducled in [our sccoudary schools in Sarawak by Nancy

(2003) on students’ readiness to learn Mathematics in English it was found that the

students were very interested and motivated to leam the subject in English and

positive allilude was shown They also fell that learning Mathematics in English

was a challenging task, but they still enjoyed learning it, In this study it was seen

that the students who are ol proficier in English were the ones tacked confidence and were fecling uncomfortable The attitude of students is strongly influenced by

the performance in Linglish Ilolmes (1992) feels that when the students have

positive feclings towards the language thai hey want to learn, they will show

positive motivation and they will succeed in leaming the language However, there are also many studies on negative attitude towards second language learning

Gardner and Lambert (1972) explained that students who show a negative attitude

towards second language learning are students who are the one that do not wish to lear or speak the language These groups of students are normally unfriendly and

elmocentric

Littlewood (1984) assumed that students will lack confidence and feel uncomfortable if they do not put their effort ta learn the language He further added that one day (hey will lese interest and will have trouble Icaming the Tangnage This

12

was also proven in the study conducted by Parilah M Shah (2002) who carried out

a research on individual's experience in learning a second language It was a case study where the allilude, motivation and individual characteristics were examined

In this study, it showed that even if the individual is low performing, they still make the effort to leam the language as they are aware of the importance of English as a second language and for instrumental reasons, standard and status and to achieve all these, they will put a lot of effort to improve their proficiency

2.2 English as a compulsory subject in other countries and Victnam

Students at all levels of Vietnam are required to study English starting from grade 3 at primary level throughout the curriculum until muversity and further study English has been the requirement for graduation of all levels of study English can be said as of great important for all school children However, there arc not many studies on the attitudes of the students towards the Lnglish when it becomes a compulsary subject at schools in Vietnam

In foreign language learning context, there are various factors that influence the learning process such as motivation, attitudes, anxiety, leaning achievements, aptitudes, intelligence, age, personalities, etc Shams, M (2008) The matter of Iearner’s attitude is acknowledged as one of Hue most imporlant factors that impact

on leaming a language(Fakeye, D., 2010)

Altitudes loward learning are believed (o influence behaviors such as selecting and reading books, speaking in a foreign language ete Especially in Education, if the students have positive attitude towards any subject, they can achieve many things in thal specific area There is an interaction between langusge learning and the environmental components in which the students were grown up Both negative and positive attitudes have a strong impact on the success of language learning Attitude is deturmined by the individual’s beliofs about outcomes or alfribules of performing the behavior (behavioral beliefs), weighted by evaluations of those outcomes or attributes Thus, a person who holds strong beliefs that positively valued outcomes will result from performing the belavior will have a positive attitude toward the bebavier

13,

Conversely, a person who holds strong belicts that negatively valued outcomes will result from the behavior will have a negative attitude

Tt addresses English m fundamental ways, such as “for the extent of its

diffusion geographically; for the enormous cultural diversity of speakers who use it; and for the infinitely varied domains in which it is found and purpose it serves” (Dewey, 2007: 333) Matsuda (2000) argues thal “English as an mrerraomal

language is not one variety of English but is an umbrella term for different types

of English which are used for the purpose of international communication" (p 25)

Fram this pomt of view, the notion of English as an international language nuplies

that most students study Linglish not to interact with native Lnglish speakers, but to access information in English and to interact with other non-native English

speakers In other words, this term relers lo the global use of Fnglist for

communication and sharing of information among people of two or more languages,

regardless they are native speakers or not

Throughout the years, Fnglish has been used as a second language in many

countries around the world and widely recognised as the international language of

‘business, science, lechnology, and enterlaimment, Under this premise, many slucies

have stressed the importance of English in curent times (Fandrych, 2009, Mcnon &

Patel, 2012, Morris & Maxey, 2014) and have given the status of lingua franca (Harmer, 2003) since many people use English as a means of communication

between speakers of other languages For that reason, many countries have implemented educational policies to include English as a second or foreign

language as part of their national curricula Vietnam has not been the exception

‘The national curriculum includes English as the compulsory foreign language to be

taught at school from 3" grade (primary education) to 12" grade (upper secondary

education) with an average of three Lo six o]

es per week The Fnglish programme

is part of the Vietnamese national programme which was implemented by the Ministry of Education in 2008 This program has a variety of initiatives for both jeachers and studerls, meanwhile, icachers have access to conlinumg education

14

courses to cuhance their teaching practices, students have extra-curricular activitics

In addition to implementing the program across the country, the Ministry of

Fducation has also called for review of the programs of study, and bas presented a

proposal to introduce Hnglish m the early stages This last initiative reinforces the issue that English has a prominent status worldwide

One of the goals of the National project ontilled “Teaching and Learning

Foreign Language in national education system, period 2008-2020” is that" dy

the year 2020 most Viemamese youth whoever graduate from vocational schools,

colleges and universities gain the capacity to use a foreign language independently

This will enable them to be more confident in commumication, further their chance

to study and work in an integrated and multi-cultural environment with variety of

languages " (Devision 1400 approved by the Prime Minister)

The decision has put great pressures on both students and teachers, even

educational policy makers The initial act is on the teachers language proficiency

ic, teachers of Fnghish must allan the language level of Cl (CEFR) The Fuglish

language requirement for teachers of other subjects varies from B1 to B2 according

to tiles Students’ English proficiency is expected to reach to A2 or BT depernchng

on different levels of studies, After 10 years under the operation of the decision, the

ambition of the government seems to gain little success There are many

explanations for the unsuccossfulness of the project, namely, icachors" qualification,

teaching materials, school settings and so on, However, one of the key features for successful language leamers lies in leamers themselves That means they need to

know why they are studying and what they are studying for To put it in a simpler

way, students need to have good attitudes and motivation towards what they are studying so that they can achieve their goals

However, the extended ime from 3 years of studying Enghsh to 10 years has

put the system under pressures Iiirstly, there is a disproportionate demand-supply With a population of over 85 million, of whom a sizeable proportion have a strong desire lo learn Rnglish, the demand for Fnglish lmyguage teaching far outstrips the

l5

supply of native speaker and competent non-native speaker teachers Secondly,

textbook writing and teacher retraining are the two important aspects to implement its cumneulum As motioned, textbook writing has been completed, bul to do

massive and long term retraining of teachers in English competence would demand manpower and logistic resources beyond the capacity of the system at present

Thirdly, despite the importance of English in the new cortlext of integration arid

globalization, English language teaching in Vietnam, due to its low quality, has not met the demand for competent English-speaking people The main reasons are that

(i) most of the English Leachers, particularly those who are teaching al primary aru

lower secondary levels are disqualified, (ii) most teachers, except some who are teaching at tertiary level, have not had a chance to study in an English-speaking

country, and thal (iii) many of them de not normally communicate m English and

cannot sustain teaching that mainly depends on communicative interactions

Fourthly, although the rhetoric of the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and

Training stresses the development of practical commumicalion skills, this is rarcly

reflected at the classroom level, where the emphasis is on the development of

reading comprehension, vocabulary and structural patlerns [for the purposes of passing the end-of-schoel and university entrance examinations inte colleges or

universities New teacher trainmng programmes pre-service and in-service alike have

‘been designed and delivered with a fous on lraining communicalive teachers in a

bid to address the faults of teaching methodology Unfortunately, not much improvement in terms of teaching methods has been noticed in English classes

During the training courses, Vietnamese teachers show great interest in new

amethodologies, but after they return from those courses, they continue teaching in

the old methods Fifthly, there is a mismatch between testing and teaching in

Bnglish language leaching in Vielnam While leachizys follows the communicative

approach, testing seems to focus on measuring students’ lexico grammatical

Imowledge Last but not least, there have been quite few studies on the leamers'

altitudes lowards the learning of English as a compulsory subjecl

16

2.3 SUulents' atifudes to English as a compulsory in other countries

Today, people come across with English language in every part of their life,

quaking il a necessity (o learn Cumicufums of many developing or developed

countries who feel learning a foreign language is important include foreign language courses One or more foreign languages take part in the curriculum of amany schools in many countries and foreign language courses are compulsory [rom primary school to university It is impossible to say that the results of the effort and

time spent to teach English is enough because students cannot leam English

sufficienlly even if they take forvign language courses from primary school to university Hence, the affective domain of the students makes it important for students to take part in the leaming process The students need to have a positive attitude to take part in the leaning process

in Sweden, with a language spoken by a rather limited group of people, it seems natural that young people would like to widen their perspectives and expose themselves to input from outside their country borders Over the past few decades the proficiency in English among Swedish pupils has increased noticeably due to

young people's increasing access and exposure to English input Young people have

gol ihe impression (hal the English language constitutes an important, part im their daily life and in the context in which they find themselves What’s more, young

people seem well aware of the (act thal the English language is the key to a future

with nfernational elements to it It is not difficult to imagine that to many young people in Sweden today proficiency in the English language is something valuable, and they are therefore likely lo be motivated to learn Fryglish (allhough this is ol

necessarily reflected in their motivation in the English classroom).

CHIAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This part of the study focuses on thơ seleoted roscarch đegigm, charactorislios

of the participants, tool to collect data, the reliability, validity and administration of the data collection process In addition, the method of analysis is also mentioned 3.1 Context of the study

‘The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes of an accessible

population toward English learning and English as a compulsory subject at schools

Questionnaires wore used lo collect quantitative dala lo cxamine (heir altitudes

Along with exploring and describing the attitudes, part of the study is relational

Corelational research involves studying relationships among variables within a

single group (Frankel & Wallen, 1990.15) The relational component identified correlations among selected characteristics and attitudes of respondents

In addition, interviews with selected participants provided qualitative data

for further understanding of thew attitudes lwo different instruments were employed in this study because interpretations which are built upon triangulation are certain ta be stronger than those which rest on the more constricted framework

of a single method (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) ‘'herefore, this study employed a -

concurrent mixed methods design|| in which the quantitative and qualitative data are collected at the same time and then integrates the information in the interpretation

of the overall results (Creswell, 2009: 14) Mixed methods design, similar to mixed model research (Yeddlie & ‘lashakkori, 2003) and multimethod design (Morse, 2003), employing the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, has

gamed popularily in the social and human sciences rescarch in the past twenly

years The mixed methods design is more than simply collecting and analyzing both Kinds of data; it also involves the use of both approaches in tandem so that the

overall slrength of a study ts greater (han cither quanlilalive or qualitative rescarch

(Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007)

Furthermore, in mixed methods design, the researcher may embed one

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smaller form of data within another larger data collection in order to analyze dilTerent types of questions (Creawell, 2009: 15) This point about a mixed methods

design is of crucial value in this study, given the fact that quantitative data with a

sufficient sample may present general pictures about attitudes of learners: while qualitative data from interviews with a small number of participants may provide an in-depth understanding of their altitudes Specifically, the study adopted the

concurrent embedded strategy of mixed methods design over other types of mixed

methods design Creswell (2009:214) explains that “a concurrent embedded approach has a primary method that guides the project and a secondary database that provides a supporting role in the procedure” In this study, the secondary mcthod of qualitative approach is embedded within the predominant method of quantitative

3.2 Instruments

3.2.1 Questionnaires

‘the measuring instrument was an attitude questionnaire which focused on

the altitudes towards learning English The items were parily adapted from the

attitude questionnaire test employed in a study by Boonrangsri et al (2004) Other

items were taken from Attitude and Motivation ‘lest Battery (AM''3) designed by

Gardner (1985) Furthermore, there were some items based on the researchers’

experiences in teaching English On the whole, there were 45 items coneerring

language alitiudes in terms of behavioral, cognilive, and emolional perspectives of

attitude Overall, 30 items were positive and 15 items were negative ‘The items were put in a 5-point Likert scale from Level 1: Strongly Disagree to Level 5:

Strongly Agree

The second questionnaire which was adapled from Yang Yu (2010) to measure attitudes of high school students towards English as a compulsory subject

at school The questionnaire consists of 15 items relate to English language policies

in Vietnam ‘the items were put in a 5-point Likert scale from Level 1: Strongly

Disagree lo Level 5: Strongly Agree

Reliability of the questionnaires

A pilot study was conducted to measure tho roliability level of the questionnaire items ‘lo do so, 30 students were randomly selected from the target population These students did nol take part in the aclual siudy They were required

to present their personal information based on the Likert scale of the questionnaire items By using The Statistical Package for the Social Science Program (SESS) version 17.0, an analysis of ilem reliability was determined through the reliability coefficient test ‘he acceptable value of Cronbach Alpha was 0.878 which shows acceptable consistency of reliability This shows that the questionnaire items were completely appropriate for research goals Table 1 indicates the reliabilily of the questionnaire items in terms of the three aspects of attitude separately ‘he value of Combach’s Alpha regarding the behavioral aspect is 0.731, the cognitive aspect oblained 0.772, and the Cronbach's Alpha value of the emotional aspect is 0.677

Table 3.1 Reliability value regarding the language Aspects

Validity of the questionnaires

To investigate the validity of the questionnaire items, the questionnaire was

given 1o two speciahsis, a psychologist and an expert in TEFL, chosen from the

teaching staff of ULIS Their comments were taken into consideration and they advocated that the items of the questionnaire are valid and reliable to investigate the

the participants may not claborate as much because of the restricted form of

questionnaire ‘These weaknesses are overcome with another data collection method:

[nee-lo-laoe interviews The interviews were exploralory in nalure, in order Lo provide in-depth understanding about Vietnamese attitudes towards Hnelish language learning and English as a compulsory subject to provide qualitative data for irimgulation wilh ihe quantilalive survey dala Sinee the purpose for the

interview was to obtain additional data to complement, refine, and contextualize the

results from the survey data, the interview questions were developed in accordance

wilh the themes in the questionnaire

3.3 Data collection

Researcher in the field used many instruments to collect data for the survey roscarch ic observations, case studies, test results, previous surveys: however, questionnaires and interviews is more commonly used It is because both of these instruments provide a means of obtaining data by asking people rather than by observing them behave

While the questionnaire consists of a set of questions that the respondent

answers on paper by himself, the interview consists of an interviewer asking the questions and revording the responses Guyslic (1983: 60-61) has compared the

advantages and disadvantages of these two instruments as follows:

More formal, less personal’

May seem cold to community

skimp on time or fail to rate usually higher than

Liducational or experience

level Jess of an effort

because interviewer

Educational’ Educational level may affect

Experience level | interpretation of questions

Literacy Literacy required Literacy not required

Language May be limited to English or a_| Interpreter may be trained

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