Luận văn an investigation of demotivators in english listening lessons of the 10th form non english majors at cao bang upper secondary school for the gifted

Students’ motivation in learning listening English Students’ demotivation in class Students’ opinions on kinds of tasks in listening lessons Students’ expectations towards teachers of li

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, ITANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

roles

TIOANG NGOC LINII

AN INVESTIGATION OF DEMOTIVATORS IN ENGLISH

LISTENING LESSONS OF THE 10TH FORM NON- ENGLISH MAJORS AT CAO BANG UPPER SECONDARY

SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED

(Nghiên cứu các yếu tế gây nên sự mat hứng thú trong các giờ học nghe

tiếng Anh của học sinh một số lớp 10 không chuyên Anh tại trường

'THPT Chuyên Cao Bằng)

M.A MINOR TIIESIS

Ficld: Knglish Teaching Mcthodology

Code: 60 14 10

Hanơi — 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

I2

THOÀNG NGỌC LINI

AN INVESTIGATION OF DEMOTIVATORS IN ENGLISH

LISTENING LESSONS OF THE 10TH FORM NON- ENGLISH MAJORS AT CAO BANG UPPER SECONDARY

SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED

(Nghiên cứu các yếu tô gây nên sự mất hứng thú trong các giờ học nghe

tiếng Anh của học sinh một số lớn 10 không chuyên Anh tại trường

THPT Chuyên Cao Bằng)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Ficld: English Tcaching Methodology

4 Significance of the study

5 Scope of the study

6 Method of the study

1 Design of the sludy

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical background of demotivation

1.1.1 What is demotivation?

1.1.2 Factors demotivating foreign language learning

1.2 Theoretical background of listening comprehension

1.2.1 Definitions of listening

1.2.2 Significance of listening

1.2.3 The process of listening comprehension

1.2.4 Potential problems in Icarning listening comprehension

2.1.2 The teachers and the students

2.1.3 The English Lextbook 10

2.2 Subjects of the study

2.3 Data collection instruments

Summary

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

3.1 Data analysis of students’ responses

3.2 Data analysis of toachors” responses

3.3 Findings and discussion

3.4 Recommendations

Summary

PART C: CONCLUSION:

1 Summary of the study

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study

Students’ motivation in learning listening English

Students’ demotivation in class Students’ opinions on kinds of tasks in listening lessons Students’ expectations towards teachers of listening skills Students’ expectations towards leaning environment of listcning skills Teachers’ perceptions of students’ demotivation in listening skills

Teachers’ employment of teaching aids Aclivilies adopled by teachers in listening lessons

vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L2 Second language

CBUSSG Cao Bang Upper Secondary School for the Gifted

ABSTRACT Listening has fong been considered a boring and difficult skill by many second language (1.2) leamers This study was carried oul in an alfempl to investigate the

demotivators in listening lessons of the 10" non- English majors at Cao Bang Upper

Secondary Schoot for the Gifted (CBL'SSG) Specifically, the study has been conducted

in the form of survey research with the informants of 102 stadents in the 10" form of nen-

English Section and 6 teachers of English at CBUSSG The main instruments employed for the data collection were survey questionnaires and structured interviews Kour factors

inciuding teachers’ behaviors and teaching methods, students’ characteristics and leaming

cuvironment were cxtracted through the analysis of data collected The rescarch also reveals that the teachers’ behaviors and teaching methods were the most dominant

demotivating factors for many students al CBUSSG It is interesting to find that textbook

and curriculum were not a very strong sourec of demotivation Bascd on the findings,

recommendations which are of significance to both teachers and students are provided to solve the problerns Al Jast, it is hoped that the results of this study could be of tmuch

banetit for developing teaching and leaming listening English at CBUSSG

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale af the study

With Vietnam’s entry into the WTO and opening its markets to the outside world, the demand for Linglish speaking proficiency among people especially students is on the rise than ever before In fat, large mumnbers of slutenis arc being required to learn it through compulsory programs in schools and universities Therefore, the teaching and Jearning of English at all levels especially at high schools has been given a lot of special attcntion in recent years Sinec the introduction of the new English textbook 10 which emphasizes the need for the development of students” communicative competence through the four skills including speaking, listening, reading and writing, there has been shift from the traditional teaching methods to communicative language (ca

ing Howaver, most English language classrooms continue to be places to memorize textbooks rather than practise communication and English is still to be treated as a school subject that needs to

‘be mastorcd and tosted rather than a tool for communication, The current (caching and Jearning English at CBUSSG has shown that in spite of the great efforts exerted to teach English, weakness in listening and speaking skills is a matter of great concems because lenchers tond fo cdncale stadenls in a marmer which is dircelzd lo meet the requirements of the exams which mainly focus on cxtensive vocabulary and grammatical rules Because the General Secondary Exam is not directed toward the speaking and listening skills, non- English major students find themselves uninlerssted in learning the skills which will nal bs examined, As a result of my experience in the teaching field, I found out that most students have passive attitudes toward leamung listening English due to the previous experiences that listening skill is hard lo leam and they [ail to take listenig input Thal is the reason why many of them get bored and become demotiwated when listening classes start, For these reasons, it is necessary to have a study on factors causing demotivation in listening

Jessons for stdents in general and for non- L'ngtish majors at CBUSSG in particular

In Tilcrature so far, thera have boon so few studies on demotivation because it is considered a relatively new issue in the field of L2 However, most of the researchers have come to an agreement to a list of common demotivating factors facing students in leaming English gencrally and Icaming listening particularly, These factors involve Icaming environment, teachers’ teaching methods and personality

“

2 Aims of the study

The main purpose of the study is

- to investigate the demotivators in listening lessons of the 10 form non- English majors af CBUSSG

+ to give some suggestions to eliminate dernotivation factors in listening lessons in order to improve students’ listening skills

(2) What can teachers do to motivate students in their listening lessons?

4 Significance of the study

This study points out factors causing demotivations in listening lessons of the 10 form non- English majors at CBUSSG More importantly, it can be used as additional

evidence for demotivation factors that Viemamese Upper Secondary Schoal students have

"

when listening in English The findings and recomendations of this study will be of great use to the improvement of the teaching and leaming of listening of Upper Secondary School students in general and of the 10* form non- English majors at CBUSSG in particular The study may guide teachers to help their sludents eliminate demotivators in

listening tessons and better their listening skills The resulls of the sluly may also be helpful for the students themselves and those who are interested in this field,

5 Scope of the study

This study mainly focuses on the demotivation factors thal the 10% form non

English majors at CBUSSG have in their listening lessons, The study of demotivators in other skills would be beyond of the scope It involves the participants of 6 teachers of English and 102 students in the 10” form of non- English Scction at CBUSSG To go ahead, the thesis also offers some appropriate suggestions to better the current context

6G Method of the study

In order to avhicve ils aims, the rescarch is emried out by boll quantilative and qualitative methods: Firstly, the data were collected with the use of the survey

questionnaire which was conducted with informants of 6 teachers of English and 102

students in the 10" form of non- English Section at CBUSSG ‘Then, interviews were

employed with studenls randomly selected from non- English Section for farther information

7 Design of the study

The study is organized as fallows

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

significance of study, method and design of the study

Part B, DEVELOPMENT, consists of the following chapters

Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents the theoretical background related to

demofivation including the definition of demiotivalion, factors demotivating foreign Janguage learning in addition, this chapter also covers the followings: the definitions of

listening, the significance of listening, the listening comprchcnsion process and potential

problems in learning listening comprehension

Chapter 2, MEFUODOLOGY, provides general information abont the current

situation of teaching and learning listening at CBUSSG as well as study subjects and data

collection instruments

Chapter 3, ANALYSIS OF DATA, gives a detailed analysis of data collected

Besides, the chapter also presents some explanations and interpretations of the findings of

The study

Part C, CONCLUSION, summmarizes the major findings and points out the

Jimitations of the study Furthermore, some suggestions for further studies are also given in

this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CTIIAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

‘This chapter presents theoretical background of demotivation, nature of listening comprehension and discussion of issues and aspects concerning the Lopic of the study

1.1 Theoretical background of demotivation

success in developing a 12, it is crucial for L2 leaming (Dornyei,l994,

Oxford Shenrin,1 996) because it directly influcniess how much offort students make, how often students use L2 leaming strategies, how nrach students interact with native speakers,

ow much input they receive in the language being leamed, how well they do on curicukum related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they preserve and maintain L2 skills after language study is over In recent decades, there have been studies carried out on motivation, however, motivation research alone camot explained all the Caucets of tnotivation, it is necessary to investigate other variables, one of which is demotivation (Hamada & Kito, 2007), Demotivation as a concept is relatively new in the field of L2 motivation and therefore not many

definitions can be found for it

In light of Doryci’s considorations, “demotivalion” concems “specific external

forces that reduce or diniinish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an

ongoing action” Furthermore, a demotivated learner is defined as someone who is originaicly motivaicd and lost his/her terest or motivation in leaning because of negative

extemal factors, According to him, there are two sources of demotivators: external and

internal, external factors include pracing and assignment, leaming facilities ste and internal

factors include reduced confidence (Dornyci, 20012) and ucgative attitude toward the

foreign language In his study, Domyei identifies the three negative factors that carmot be considered as instances of demotivation Birstly, powerful distractions, such as watching

TV instead of doing one’s homework, are nol demotives because they do nol carry a

negative value in the same way as demotives Secondly, the gradual loss of interest in a

Jong-lasting, ongoing activity cannot be seen as a demotive because it does not result

from a particular incident, ‘Thirdly, sudden recognitions of the costs of an activity, for cxampte, realizing that how demanding il is lo allond an evening course while working during the day, cannot be regarded as demotives because these types of recognitions do not have any specific external trigger but result from internal processes of deliberation

Iso makes the distinction between ‘demotivationand ‘amotivalion’ For

Domyei

him, ‘amotivation’ refers to a lack of motivation brought about by the realisation that

“there is no paint ” ot ‘it’s beyond my ken ” ‘Tus, “amotivation’ is inextricably related to

influence ceases to exist, other positive motives may again surface (e.g if it tums out that

someone who dissuaded the individual from doing something was not telling the truth Researchers have taken an interest in demotivation, as it is considered to be a frequent phenomenon related to the tcachors interaction with the students In L2 studics, in particular, the interest in demotivation has been aroused by a different reason ‘The L2 domain is most often characterised by learning failure, in the sense that merely everyone hhas failed in the study of at least one forsign language So, language leaming failure is directly related fo demotivation

1.1.2, Factors demotivating foreign language learning

‘Therefore, much more information is needed on the nature of the phenomenon

Gorham and Christophe! (1992) tried to determine what factors were perecived

as demotives by college students taking introductory communication classes, Demotivaters were collected from students’ responses to the open-ended question: “ What things decrcass your motivation lo try hard to do your best in thal class?” the rescarch findings revealed three main categoties of demotives, Le., context demotives (factors likely to be regarded as antecedent to the teacher’s influence), structure/format demotives (factors over

which the teacher is likely to have some degree of influence, if not complete control), the

leacher behaviour (factors likely to be perceived as under { hers điecl control Teacher-telated factors, which consist of class structure or format-related demotives and the demotives resulting from teacher behavior, accounted for 79% of all responses In a

ived sources of demotivalion could be

follow-up study to ascertain whether the per

replicated, Christophal and Gorham (1995), using the same question to detect demotives with another group of college students studying communication, obtained findings that

To examine the degree to which teachers’ perceptions of what affects student miotivation were similar to those found in student reports, Gorham and Millette (1997) conducted a further study based on Gotham’s previous ressarch in which teacher participants were asked, with reference a spceific class, to respond to the open-ended

question, “What do you perceive decreases students’ motivation to try to do their best in

this class and to achieve your instructional goals?” The Tesults indicated thal teachers and

students agreed on a set of central factors that ae relevant to demotivation teachers were

more likely to attribute student demotivation to performance-telated factors such as the students’ lack of success on graded work, the studenis? lack of prerequisite skills oF imowledge and the students” heavy workload In contrast, students allributed more of their demotivation to teacher behavior, in particular poor presentational skills, lack of enthusiasm and organization of course material

In vontrast to ths findings of the Gorham and Millatte’s study (1997), Chambers (1993) investigated demotivation in language learning in four schools in the UK, The study was conducted on the school students and their teachers, Students placed most blame

on teachers and Icaming materials, While the teachers claimed that the students’ inotivation caused by psychological, social and attitudinal reasons

Keblawi (2005) conducted a study to explore the factors afifecting negatively

learning English in Palestine high schools, The data reveated thai English loachers wore referred to dixectly or indizectly-as demotivators- by almost half of the respondents Interestingly, the study revealed that about half of the respondents referred to aspects of

English (grammar vocabulary) as main demotivators Furthermore, depending on the

resulis of a study cond condary students in Budapest who were identified as

demotivated, Dornyei (2001) categorized nine demotivating factors including: the teacher -

personality, commitment, competence, teaching method; inadequate school facilities - group is loo big or nol the right level; frequent change of teachers, reduced self-confidence

- experience of failure or lack of success; negative allitude towards the L2, compulsory nature of L2 study, coursebook

Rebcoos Oxford (1998) carried out, a content analysis of written by 250

American students (in high schools and universities) about their leaning experiences over

a period of five years In this analysis, four demotivating factors were extracted, they are:

The teacher's personal relationship with the swdents, including hypereriticism,

belligerence, a lack of caring, and favounitism; the wecher‘s attitude towards the course or the material, including lack of enthusiasm, sloppy management and close-mindedness;

style canflicts between teachers and sudents, including multiple stvle conflicts, conflicts

about the amount of structure or detail, and conflicts about the degree of closure or

‘seriousness’ of the class, the nature of the classroom activities, including overload, yepeliliveness, and irrelevance

Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) explored Japanese high school students’ demotivation

by collecting data fiom 656 students through a 35-item questionnaire The

questionnaire were designed to measure six constructs derived from previous studies:

ioachers, characloristis of classes, experiences of failue, class cnvironmont, class

suaterials, and lack of interest Five demotivational factors found were /earning

cantents and materials, teacher's competence and teaching styles, inadequate school facilities, lack of tmtrinsic motivation, aud test scores Comrary lo most of the

previous studies presented so far, factors related to teacher were not found to have very

strong demotivating influence compared to leaming contents and materials or test scores which were found to be the two most domizant demolives among participants, Tn addition, lack of intrinsic motivation was found to be as salient as a teacher's competence and teaching styles which suggests that internal forces have to also be taken into accounl when discussing demotivation Inadequals school facilities were

sot found as demotivating although it was mentioned by some participants

Ushioda (1998) asked the participants to identify what they found to be

demotivating in their L2-related teaming experience ler findings were not unlike the

Reviewing above - disc

conducted a case study project with Vietnamese students by using stimedated recall essays from 100 students of their foreign language learning experiences ‘the results of the study revealed that there

external attributions, The internal atttibutions includes students’ attitudes towards English,

‘their experiences of failure or lack of success and the incidents related to their self- esteem,

2 wo groups of demotives: incluting intornal attributions and

ancanwhiks the oxternal altributions contain tcachcraclated factors, the leaming enviroument and other extemal factors The researchers have given a specific and comparatively full description of the issue in Vietnamese condition

Generally, most studies conducted in the field of motivation and demotivation found out that the personality of the teacher, teaching methods, leaming context in addition to the leamer's attitudes toward L2 could play a vital role in the students’ 1rolivation or demativation Loward leaning

1.2 Theoretical backgrouni of listening comprebension

1.2.1 Definitions of listening comprehension

There are many different approaches to the definilion of listening comprehension

agree thal all Histening comprcher

linguistics and non-Linguistics knowledge Linguistic knowledge includes phonology, lexis,

semantics and discourse structure as well as the ability to interact with the input in real lime (Buck, 2001-3) Meanwile nom linguistic is concerned with contextual knowledge

Like Buck, Rost (2002:59) believes thal lislening comprehension is a process

whereby language is linked to previous stored notions and associations in real life, In other

words, it is the understanding of what the language is referring to, based on one’s past experience or knowledge

From the viewpoint of Shohamy and Inbar (1991:26), listening comprehension

entails an ability to receive and interprete mput simultaneously because a listener cannot

replay what he or she has heard A compelenl listener is therefore dependent on instant comprehension as well as an ability to remember information, Unlike written text, utterances are dependent on the context and are usually unedited, In accordance with the

Listening is described by Bejar, Douglas, Fantioson, Nissan and Turner (2000-2) as

“the process of receiving an acoustic signal which is then structures”, According to them,

‘the reception of the signal occurs in real-time but the structuring is dependent on cognitive processes which involve linguistic, situational and background knowledge which have to

‘be synthesized in order to achicve meaning

Brinley (1998:181) also defines listening as a multi-faceted and interactive process

isteners usa verbal and non-verbal cues Lo interprete messages,

+

The significance of listening comprehension

Listening plays a very important role in student’s academic success Research shows thal Iaguage learning depends on listening because il provides the aural impul that sorves as (he basis for language acquisition and snables learners ta interact in spoken

communication

It is undeniable that “listening is the fizst language mode that children acquire it provides the foundation for all aspeuts oC language and cognitive devclopment, and it plays

a life-long role in the process of communicating” (Guo, N, & Wills, R., 2006:3) A study

‘by Wilt (1950), ford that people listen 45 % of the time they spend communicating, 30 %

of communication tine was spent speaking, 16 % rcading, and 9 % writing, That finding confirmed what Rankin discovered in 1928, that people spent 70 % of their waking time communicating and that three-fourths of this time was spent listening and speaking

According to Bulletin (1952), listening is the fundamental language skill, This the medium through which people gain a large portion of their education, their information, their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and

their appreciation In this day of mass communication, much of it oral, it is of vital

importance thal students are tanghl to Hslen effectively and critically,

According to second language acquisition theory, language input is the most essential condition of language acquisition, As an input skill, listening plays a crucial role

in sludenis’ language development, Krashen (1985) argues thal people acquire language by understanding the linguistic information they hear Thus language acquisition is achieved mainly through receiving understandable input and listening atility is the critical component in achieving understandable language input Given the importance of listening

in language learning and teaching, it is essential for language teachers to help students become effective listeners In the communicative approach to language teaching, this inicans modcling lisloning siratogics and providing listening practice in authentic sitnations precisely those that leamers are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the classroom

1.2.3 The process of listening comprehension

Listening comprehension is a complex psychological proccss of listeners’ understanding language by sense of hearing, It is an interactive process of language knowledge and psychological activities Tlowever, this pracess is not simply decoding the message, it also involves the combining of the decoding of the message process with

its reconstruction as meaning (Ma Lihua, 2002)

According lo Underwood, there are three distinctive stages in the listening process

Al the first slago, the sounds go into a sonsory store called the “ochoie memory”, and are organized into meaningful units according to the knowledge of the language the listener

‘has, ‘The second stage is the processing of the information by the short — term memory This is a bricl stage al which words or groups of words are checked and compare with the information already held in the long-term memory and the meaning is extracted from them

‘When the meaning has been grasped, the actual words are generally forgotten Once the listener has constructed a meaning from the uttcrance, he or shc might transftr the information to the long-term memory for later use It can be seen that here Underwood relates the aural process in terms of time and memory ‘I'he background knowledge of listeners is also mentioned in the Histenirys process

In addition, the conception of bottom- up and top- down processes in comprehension are also mentioned by such authars as Lynch (1988), Rubin (1994) and

Rost (2002) According to them, listeners use top- down processes when they use context

and prior knowlzdge to build a conegplual framework for comprchcusion, Prior-knowledge

includes topic of the listening material, context of the listening, material, culture oŸ the

listening material, text type of the listening material Whereas bottom- up processes are

used when they construcl meaning by accretion from phoneme-level to discourse level features In the past, people used to prefer top- down to bottom up processes because they thought that the using of top- down processes would help English leamers listen more cflcctively Nowadays, both pro are conally appreciated and shoud be applic

properly in a specific context and for certain purpose of listening, [t is important for both teachers and students to recognize the existence of these two types of processing listening input as they both caniribule to the development of listening skilts

1.2.4, Potential problems in Warning listening comprehension

It cannot be denied that, listening is regarded as the most difficult among the four skills for many second language leamers The problems they may have in teaming listening are various

From the points of view of Underwood (1989), there are seven problems which Jearners often sncounter in learning listening First, listeners cannal control the spesd al which speakers speak Another problem is that listeners cannot always have words repeated, Next, the listeners have a limited vocabulary, the speakers may use words that the listener doesn’t know Fourth, listeners may fail to recognize the signals indlicatinys that the spoaker is moving from onc point to another, giving an example or repealing a point Fitth, listeners may lack contextual knowledge because sharing mutual knowledge and

common contexts makes commmunication easier Sixth, it can be difficult for listeners to

concentrate in a, Corcign language, concentration is casier when the students find the lope

of listening, interesting, Finally, students may have established learning habbits such as a wish to understand every word

Meanwhile, Yagang (1984) attibutes the difficultics of listening comprehension to four sources: the messages, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting, Higgi (1995) studies Omani students’ problems in listening comprehension and finds the factors which hinder or facililating listening are spooch rate, vocabulary and pronunciation Rubin (1994) identified five factors that affect listening comprehension such as text characteristics,

characteristics Besides, he also identifies some problems which listeners often face including the sp

concentration of the listeners.

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapicr deals with the context of the study, s

s and methods of the study

as well as the analysis of data collected

2.1 The setting of the study

2.1.1 The school

The study was conducted at CBUSSG which is located in the center of Cao Bang town, 2 mountainous province of Vietnam It is also the only specialized school in Cao Rang province The school was originally founded in 1974 with ony onc class spociali<ing

in Maths, After many years of establishment and development, today, it has been widened

with 18 classes specializing in different subjects such as Maths, Physics, Chemistry,

Biology, Literature ønd English The main duly of the school is lo train and faster talents for the country in general and the province in particular Therefore, the teachers and students are carefully selected trom schools in the province and there is always competitive Jearning environment, which creates real opportunities for students to develop their full ability

“The school has 18 classes with a number of students ranging from 30 to 36 for each,

‘This class size seems favorable for students to study Fnglish comparing with that in other schools in the province However, the school is equipped with only one language Jaboratary, which is not good enough because teachers and students sometimes get troubles when using il So students oflen practise listening io Dnglish at their classroom with a

cassclfe player

2.1.2 The teachers and the students

‘As in every high school, Linglish is taught here as a compulsory subject by 7 icachets aged fram 26 to 48, Twa of them graduated from the English Department of College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi four others were from Thai Ngnyen University of Education and one is taking MA course Most of them are so young and have at least 5 ycars of teaching cxpericnees, some of thom have had opportunities to attend the national or provincial textbook introduction workshops or training programmes to get the ideas about the textbook and new teaching methodology However, they do nol have chances to contact with native spcakers or spocialisis who can give them precious help and advice

Conceming students, currently, there are approximately 618 students whose age ranges from fflecn to cighlcon Most students in natural scientific classes arc males

Many of them come fiom districts of Cao Bang province and belong to different ethnic

sminority groups of Tay, Nung, Dao One advantage of students studying at this school is

that they are brought up by scholarships from national and provincial budgets To be eligible for the school, students have to take hard entrance exams and have at least 4 years

of experiencing in English at lower secondary schools However, their English competence is very low ILoan be duc to the lack of native loarning environment Students rarely have chance to communicate with English speaking people in both classroom and outside classroom, Consequently, their abilities to speak and listen in English cannot be iinpraved and motivated as much as they tive in the targel language leamning enviroranent Although they are aware of the importance and necessity of leatning English, few students have real interest in learring English In other words, the majority of the students

do not pay much attention to English, they are reluctant to speak English at school or even in real- life communication Instead, they only give special attention to their specialized subjects and consider English a pre- requisite

2.1.3 The English fexthook 141

‘The new textbook English 10 is thame-based designed with 16 units, equivalent to

16 topics divided into 6 themes which are updated and relevant to many aspects of the daily life including: Persowal information, Feucation, Cormumily, Mealth, Recreation, The world around us Those themes arc roprescnled through five scclions: Roading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus respectively Each section is designed

to be taught in forty-five period ‘These sections are theme- based closely related to each ofher Lo improve students’ communicahve skills Afler every threo mil, there is a TEST YOURSELF, which provides students with more exercises to test how they are good at English According to the syllabus, students have three periods a week for their English classes, Accordingly, time allocated for listening skills is one petiod (45 minutes Long) every two weeks, As a result, students have few chances to have further practice with other listening material prepared by their teachers

In the English textbook 10, different Histening skills are utilived depending on what to listen for such as listening for general understanding, listening for specific or detailed information, predicting guessing and interpreting In addition, the listening tasks

are various and flexible based on linguistic difficulty level, topies and students” interest

However, it is noticeable thal all of listening skills develope simullancausty as the Jeamers become more proficient at listening Therefore, it is important to provide learners with practice in all skills at all levels and design suitable activities to help them develop that listening skill

2.2, Subjects of the study

‘The study was carried out with 108 participants categorized into two groups:

The first group arc 102 tonth form students from cla

‘Another group includes 6 teachers ranging from the age of 26 to 48 They have at Jeast 5 years of teaching English Two of them graduated from the English Department of

‘Victnam National University, Hanoi College of Forcign Languages, the rest were from

“Thai Nguyên University of Rducation

2.3, Data collection Instruments

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to give qualified background data for investigating non- English majors’ demotivation to feam listening English, in this study the qualiiative dala (interviews) was conducted afer the quantitative data collection to depen understanding and interpretation of the resulis

In order to get detailed data, the study used a variety of research instruments,

namely questionaires and interviews

The twa survey questionnaires, one for non- English majors and the other for the

teachers, were adapted from Trang Tran., Balduf Jr (2007), Demotivation: Understanding

Resistance to English Language Learning — The Case of Viemnamese Students The first

qwcstionnairc, consisting oŸ 13 questions was delivered to 102 tenth form students from

classes of Chemistry, Physics, Biology at CBUSSG with an aim te elicit students’ opinions

about factors demotivating them in their listening lessons, explore their attitudes towards listening lessons as well as their interest and desitc All the queslions were written in

Vietnamese to make sure that the students properly understood and express their ideas

fully Whereas the second questionaire including 6 questions was conducted in English and