A study of how to motivate second-year English majors at the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education = Nghiên cứu cách tạo động lực cho sinh

LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1 Pre-Questionnaire: Student's interest in listening skill Chart 2 Pre-Questionnaire: the relevance of the lesson content to students interest Chart 3 Pre-Questio

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declarations

Acknowledgement

Abstract

List of abbriviations

List of charts

Table of contents

Part 1: Introduction 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Research hypotheis 2

3 Aims of the study 2

4 Significance of the study 2

4.1 Theoretical significance 2

4.2 Practical significance 3

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Methods of the study 3

7 Design of the study 4

Part 2: Development 5

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background 5

1.1 Overview of motivation in language learning 5

1.1.1 Definition of motivation 5

1.1.2 Classification of motivation in language learning 6

1.1.3 The importance of motivation in language learning 9

1.1.4 Common factors affecting learners’ motivation in language learning 9

1.1.4.1 Learners’ factors 10

1.1.4.2 Parents’ factors 11

1.1.4.3 Teachers’ factors 12

1.1.4.4 Learning materials 13

1.1.4.5 Learners’ success in language learning 13

1.1.5 Characteristics of motivated learners 13

1.1.6 General strategies to motivate students in language teaching 14

1.1.7 Maintaining and protecting the students’ motivation 18

1.1.8 Motivational macro-strategies 23

1.2 Teaching listening 26

1.2.1 What makes L2 listening more challenging than L1 listening 27

1.2.2 The importance of listening instruction 29

1.2.3 Component skills for listening 30

1.2.4 Listening ability assessment scales 31

1.2.5 How to motivate students in listening classes 33

Chapter 2: Methodology 35

2.1 The setting of the study 35

2.1.1 The students 35

2.1.2 The researcher 36

2.1.3 The syllabus and learning materials 36

2.2 Research hypothesis 36

2.3 The methods employed in the study 37

2.3.1 Three changes made to the listening course 37

2.3.2 The methods employed 38

2.4 The data collection procedures 41

Chapter 3: Data analysis, Findings, and Discussions 42

3.1 Data analysis 42

3.1.1 Results from classroom observation and analysis 42

3.1.2 Results from the students’ writing journals 43

3.1.3 Results from the survey questionnaires 44

3.1.3.1 Results from pre-treatment questionnaire 44

3.1.3.2 Results from post-treatment questionnaire 52

3.1.4 Results from the informal interviews with students 59

3.2 Findings and discussions 60

3.2.1 Findings 60

3.2.2 Discussions 62

Part 3: Conclusion 63

1 Recapitulation 63

2 Limitations 64

3 Suggestions for further research 64

References 66 Appendix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a foreign language

ESL English as a second language

FOE Faculty of English

HNUE Hanoi National University of Education

L2 Second language

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1 Pre-Questionnaire: Student's interest in listening skill

Chart 2 Pre-Questionnaire: the relevance of the lesson content to students interest

Chart 3 Pre-Questionnaire: students' efforts in learning and practicing listening skill

Chart 4 Pre-Questionnaire: students' time spent learning English

Chart 5 Pre-Questionnaire: students' time spent learning and practicing listening skill

Chart 6 Pre-Questionnaire: students' desire to learn listening skill

Chart 7 Pre-Questionnaire: students' attitude to listening courses

Chart 8 Pre-Questionnaire: students' aptitude to learn listening skill

Chart 9 Pre-Questionnaire: students' self-evaluation on ability to master listening skill

Chart 10 Post-Questionnaire: Student's interest in listening skill

Chart 11 Post-Questionnaire: the relevance of the lesson content to students interest

Chart 12 Post-Questionnaire: students' efforts in learning and practicing listening skill

Chart 13 Post-Questionnaire: students' time spent learning English

Chart 14 Post-Questionnaire: students' time spent learning and practicing listening skill

Chart 15 Post-Questionnaire: students' desire to learn listening skill

Chart 16 Post-Questionnaire: students' attitude to listening courses

Chart 17 Post-Questionnaire: students' aptitude to learn listening skill

Chart 18 Post-Questionnaire: students' self-evaluation on ability to master listening skill

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In the field of teaching and learning foreign languages in general and the English language in particular, motivation has always been playing an essential role to achieve success and improvement In many cases, students are still unsuccessful just because they lack motivation to learn That is why many researchers and educationalists have been sharing the same idea that the best method of teaching is to improve their motivation in the learning process

Being an English teacher at a university for nearly three years, the author has always tried best to facilitate the students‟ study of English Through teaching experiences and everyday observation, the author notices that when studying English at university, the author‟s students normally encounter many difficulties in listening skill Moreover, their lack of motivation in learning and practicing this skill has been recognized All of these have inspired the author to make an attempt to carry out this research in order to find out the way to motivate the students in their listening classes

Another reason for conducting this research study is the appropriateness of its type, which is action research, in the present situation of the author Being a teacher teaching English at a university, the author has to fulfill the tasks of teaching and doing research at the same time Clearly, carrying out action research to find out the answers to the problems emerging in classrooms can help the author successfully accomplish these challenging tasks

Furthermore, an earlier research study was conducted in Beijing and achieved many encouraging results However, the context of Chinese students is clearly different from that of Vietnamese students Besides, the research done in Beijing did have some limitations in the data collection process These did give an account for the author‟s wish of carrying out this research study to gain more reliable findings in the context of these Vietnamese students

2 Research hypothesis

This study was designed to verify the following hypothesis:

The way applied by the research author in listening classes can enhance the FOE, HNUE second-year English majors‟ motivation in studying the skill of listening

3 Aims of the study

The ultimate purpose of the research is to investigate the effectiveness of several changes made during the listening course in terms of boosting the motivation of second-year English majors at FOE, HNUE in acquiring listening skill It specifically aims at:

 Looking at the students‟ motivation and the present situation of teaching and training the listening skill to second-year English majors at FOE, HNUE

 Investigating changes in the students‟ motivation during and after the application of some changes made in the listening course

 Examining the students‟ attitudes towards the changes made during the course

 Giving some recommendations for improving the students‟ motivation in learning the skill of listening and other macro skills

4 Significance of the study

4.1 Theoretical significance

Through this study, theories of motivation are revisited Main definitions together with leading concepts and notions about motivation are represented with details Moreover, common strategies to improve and sustain students‟ motivation in classroom are also reintroduced Besides, the study also reconfirms the importance of motivation in education and in language learning

4.2 Practical significance

The study is expected to facilitate better understanding of motivation in foreign language learning in general and in EFL in particular Practically and pedagogically, the findings of the study are strongly believed to help English teachers see more clearly the essential roles of motivation in the teaching of English and to supply them with some basic ideas of how to find suitable ways of motivating their students in learning English, especially listening skill In addition, the author expects that this research study can provide other teachers and those who may be concerned with ideas and fundamental grounds to conduct further research studies in the field of boosting students‟ motivation in EFL

5 Scope of the study

An infinite variety of ways can be used to motivate students in learning English However, due to the limit of time and capacity, the researcher only focuses on exploiting the effectiveness of three changes made during the listening course at FOE, HNUE in enhancing the second-year English majors‟ motivation in learning and practicing this challenging skill What was changed during the course is the way

to start it, the way in which each lesson is conducted and managed, and the way to assess the students

6 Methods of the study

This study was designed in the form of an action research According to Gina (2001), action research is the type of research we carry out with our students in order to try out an idea or innovation, or to test a hypothesis about the students‟ learning and see what would happen Besides, Michael (1998) also points out that action research involves the collection and the analysis of data related to certain aspects of our professional practice In this study, the researcher applied a number of different methods, based on both qualitative and quantitative approaches: classroom observations, students‟ writing journal, interviews, and questionnaires First and foremost, a pre-treatment questionnaire was employed to reveal some information about the students‟ motivation and the work of teaching and learning the skill of listening they had been receiving so far Bearing in mind the hypothesis that some

changes made to the course can improve students‟ motivation, the researcher carried out these modifications on the students during the semester In order to investigate the motivational effectiveness of these changes, classroom observation, students‟ journal, and informal interviews together with a post-treatment questionnaire were used to get necessary data In the final stage the data collected were analyzed to verify the hypothesis

7 Design of the study

The study report is divided into three main parts

Part one is the Introduction featuring the rationale for the study as well as the

objectives, the significance and the methods employed in the research In addition, it also briefly introduces the scope of the study together with the overall design of the research report

Part two is the Development consisting of three chapters:

o Chapter 1, Theoretical background, covers main issues and concepts related

to motivation and teaching listening skill Different strategies to boost and maintain motivation in language learning and teaching are also included in this chapter

o Chapter 2, Methodology, is devoted to describing elaborately the research

methodology which comprises the information of the research subjects, settings, and data collection instruments and procedures

o Chapter 3, Data analysis, Findings, and Discussions, presents the results

from the detailed analysis of collected data and provides several discussions related to them

Part three is the Conclusion that recapitulates the main contents of the study report

Some limitations and suggestions for further research are also presented in this part

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical Background

1.1 Overview of motivation in language learning

1.1.1 Definition of motivation

In almost all fields of learning and teaching, especially language education, motivation has always been considered an essential factor contributing to success Without motivation, any efforts would be almost impossible Therefore, a thorough understanding of this concept is needed

Motivation has been defined in a number of ways by a variety of researchers and scholars According to Williams and Burden (1997:20), motivation is a “state of cognitive arouse” which provokes a “decision to act”; as a result of which, there is

“sustained intellectual and/or physical effort” so that a person can achieve some

“previously set goal” Sharing the same point of view, Harmer (2001: 51) states that

“at its most basic level, motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something” Another linguist, Dornyei, (2001: 7) claims that “ motivation explains why people decide to do something, how hard they are going to pursue it and how long they are going to sustain their activities.” Additionally, Woolfolk (2001:336) defines motivation as “an internal state that arouses, directs, and maintains behavior” More elaborately, Gardner (1985) remarks “motivation involves four aspects: a goal, effortful behavior, a desire

to attain the goal, and favorable attitudes towards the activity in question.” Briefly, motivation is a concept that involves attitudes and states influencing the degree of effort that one makes to achieve certain goals It is not only arousing but also sustaining one‟s interest and boosting the investment of time and energy into reaching one‟s goals In second language learning, motivation is a complicated phenomenon which can be defined in terms of two aspects: learners‟ communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community If the learners are

in need of using the second language in a wide range of social situations or fulfilling their professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of the

second language; and will therefore, be motivated to acquire the proficiency in it Likewise, if the learners have favorable attitudes towards the users of the second language, they will certainly desire more contact with them

1.1.2 Classification of motivation language learning

When employed in education and language learning, the following different types of motivation can be differentiated:

 Integrative motivation: the desire to identify with and to integrate into the target language culture

 Instrumental motivation: the wish to learn the language for purposes of study

or career motivation

 Intrinsic motivation: the urge to engage in the learning activity for its own sake It has been termed “cognitive drive”, which is very typical of young learners and tends to deteriorate with age

 Extrinsic motivation: motivation that is derived from external incentives

 Global motivation: the overall orientation of the learners towards the learning

of the foreign language

 Situational motivation: it has to do with the context of learning (classroom, learning environment)

 Task motivation: the motivation that the learners get when they are performing particular tasks in learning performance

 Resultative motivation: according to Ellis (1990), “it is likely that the relationship between motivation and achievement is an interactive one A high level of motivation does stimulate learning, but perceived success in achieving L2 goals can help maintain existing motivation and create new types” When learners succeed in learning, they may be more or sometimes less motivated to learn

Among these types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have played an essential part in classroom learning; therefore, a distinction between them is of necessity

 Intrinsic motivation

o Intrinsic motivation refers to “motivation to engage in an activity for its own sake” (Woldkowski, 1991) He means that the activity itself is our own benefit, so we do not need any other kinds of rewards or punishment He also states that intrinsic motivation “is the natural tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as we pursue personal interests and exercise capabilities” The factors of support of intrinsic motivation include: competence (the feeling that you know how to do things), autonomy (being able to perform an activity by yourself without external help), and relatedness (connection with your social environment like helping others) Although intrinsic motivation has typically been seen as a unidimensional construct, Vallerand and his colleagues (as quoted in Dornyei 2001) have recently posited the existence of three subtypes of intrinsic motivation:

 To learn: engaging in an activity for the pleasure and satisfaction of understanding something new, satisfying one‟s curiosity, and exploring the world

 Towards achievement: engaging in an activity for the satisfaction of surpassing oneself, coping with challenges, and accomplishing or creating something

 To experience stimulation: engaging in an activity to experience pleasant sensations

 Extrinsic motivation

o Harmer (2001: 51) remarks that extrinsic motivation “is caused by any number of outside factors such as the need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward or the possibility of future travel” In addition, Dornyei (2001) states that according to self-determination theory, a variety of regulations exist and can be placed on a continuum between self-determined (intrinsic) and controlled (extrinsic) forms of motivation, depending on how much the regulation has been transferred from outside to inside the individual Four types of extrinsic motivation are elaborated:

 External regulation refers to the least self-determined form of extrinsic motivation, coming entirely from external sources such as rewards or threats (e.g the teacher‟s praise or parental confrontation)

 Introjected regulation involves externally imposed rules that the students accept as norms to be followed in order not to feel guilty (e.g rules against playing truant from class)

 Identified regulation occurs when the person engages in an activity because he/ she highly values and identifies with the behavior, and sees its usefulness (e.g learning a language which is necessary to pursue one‟s hobbies or interests)

 Integrated regulation is the most developmentally advanced form of extrinsic motivation, involving choiceful behavior that

is fully assimilated with the individual‟s other values, needs, and identity (e.g learning English because its proficiency is an educated cosmopolitan culture one has adopted)

Most scholars agree that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact with each other and both play an important role in language learning and teaching As a result, learners can be either motivated by internal or external factors depending on the circumstances and conditions under which the learning activity is being performed

1.1.3 The importance of motivation in language learning

Learner motivation has become more and more commonly recognized as one of the major defining factors for success in learning in general, whether one is an adult learner taking distant training courses, or an undergraduate student pushing one‟s way through the battery of required courses needed to graduate A variety of research studies have revealed that motivation is so closely related to achievement in language learning As Littlewood puts it (1984:53), “in second language learning as well as in other fields of human learning, motivation is the crucial force which determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he preserves” Besides, Hedge (2000: 23) affirms, “motivation is of crucial importance in the classroom, whether learners arrive with it or they acquire it through classroom experiences” Also about this issue, Oxford and Shearin (1996: 121-2) claims that “motivation is important because it directly influences how often students use L2 learning strategies, how much students interact with native speakers, how much input they receive in the language being learned (the target language), how well they do on curriculum-related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they preserve and maintain L2 skills after language study is over Therefore, motivation is crucial for L2 learning, and it is essential to understand what our students‟ motivations are"

1.1.4 Common factors affecting learners’ motivation in language learning

There are a variety of factors influencing learners‟ motivation such as learners themselves, parents, community, the learning context, the teacher, the subject matters, etc However, the author of this research pays much of the attention to some most common and influential factors, namely, learners‟ factors, teachers‟ factors, learning materials and learners‟ success in second language learning

1.1.4.1 Learners’ factors

Among these factors, the first and most influential factor is their background knowledge Background knowledge refers to the existing information on a specific topic in each language lesson Therefore, if students lack this type of knowledge, it is really challenging for them to get involved in learning activities They are likely to

be unable to comprehend new knowledge, and more seriously, they may lose their interests in learning lessons Realizing the importance of this factor, the teacher needs to provide students with suitable background information for the lesson and helps them use it effectively

Besides language items such as vocabulary and grammatical structures may have impact on students‟ feelings This causes them difficulties in getting meaning as well

as practicing language skills

The students‟ aptitude is also an important factor that influences their motivation If one finds that he is able to do something well, he will surely feel self-confident and likes it much

Another factor is the learners‟ language learning strategies These can affect their mood to make them participate actively or passively in learning activities Learning strategies are really helpful to students as they assist them to improve their learning proficiency and efficiency as well as their academic achievements Moreover, appropriate strategies do help students process the lesson actively and connect what they are learning with what they have already known However, learners must be flexible in employing learning strategies; otherwise, their learning expectations cannot fulfilled In addition, it is true that more highly motivated learners use a greater range of proper strategies than less motivated learners It is advisable that the teacher teach the learners appropriate strategies and assist them in practicing using these in their learning

1.1.4.2 Parents’ factors

Gardner (1985) considered parental influence on L2 motivation a major component

in his psychological theory because parents were seen „to act as the major intermediary between the cultural milieu and the student” In addition, he has identified two main dimensions of the role that parents play in their children‟s learning process:

An active role, which involves encouragement, support and monitoring

A passive role, which involves indirect modeling and communicating attitudes related to L2 learning and the L2 community

He presents empirical evidence for both types of influence and concludes that although the two are in harmony, when they are not, the passive role becomes more effective This implies that even educationally appropriate support practices (e.g encouraging children to prepare their homework) can be overruled by latent negative language attitudes harbored by the parents In order to test Gardner‟s dual influence hypothesis, Colleta et al (1983) conducted an empirical survey to examine

„community and parental influence‟ with regard to Anglophone students enrolled in a French immersion programme in bilingual Ottawa Their results by and large confirmed Gardner‟s theory, and they also found that active parental influence had a considerable impact on the students‟ linguistic self-confidence, thus identifying a further L2 specific mediating variable between parental influence and student motivation (the first being the children‟s language attitudes shaped after their parents) In recent study, Gardner et al (quoted in Dornyei 2001) provide further confirmation that parental encouragement is associated with the development of attitudes towards the learning situation and with the language learning efforts of the students

of achievement and feel more confident Learners tend to perform at the level that is consistent with the teacher‟s belief and expectations

Besides, the teacher‟s teaching techniques and activities are of great impact on learners‟ motivation Without proper techniques and activities in the learning process, learners could be left in confusion and boredom while dealing with the subject matter That is why the teacher should invest more time and efforts in designing and processing teaching materials as well as in finding out appropriate techniques and activities that can best facilitate learners in their learning

Last but not least, the teacher also needs to be clearly aware of learners‟ needs, their motivation and their purposes of their learning A good teacher should be the one who is capable of pulling the student and the lesson closely together

1.1.4.4 Learning materials

One of the most important factors that influence the learner‟s motivation is learning materials Interesting, relevant, and carefully-designed materials will surely more motivate students in learning the subject matter For example, students will easily lose their interest in dealing with reading text containing too many new words, complex structures and ambiguous ideas And if the content of the reading is nothing relevant to the topic at hand of the lesson, students are definitely uninterested in working with it

In addition, the lack of diversification in tasks used also makes students reluctant to fully engage with the learning activity

1.1.4.5 Learners’ success in language learning

It has been realized that motivation for learning in general and language learning in particular could be much enhanced through success According to Ur (1996: 278),

“learners who have succeeded in past tasks will be more willing to engage with the next one, more confident in their chances of succeeding and more likely to preserve their efforts” Another linguist, Jeremy Harmer (2001: 52) also affirms that, “nothing succeeds like success”, so if the teacher can help students achieve short-term goals, it will be very good for creating, maintaining, and improving their motivation in learning

1.1.5 Characteristics of motivated learners

A motivated learner here means the one who participates willingly and actively in the learning activities in the class According to Naiman et al (1978), the most successful students are not necessarily those from whom a language comes easily; in contrast, they are simply the students showing certain typical characteristics associated clearly with motivation as follows:

 Positive task orientation: the learner is ready to deal with tasks and

challenges, and has confidence in his/her success

 Ego-involvement: the learner has a need to achieve, to overcome difficulties,

and to succeed in what he/she sets out to do

 High aspirations: the learner goes for demanding challenges and high

proficiency

 Goal orientation: the learner is very aware of the goals of learning and directs

his/her efforts towards achieving them

 Perseverance: the learner consistently invests a high level of efforts in

learning, and is not discouraged by setbacks or apparently the lack of progress

 Tolerance of ambiguity: the learner is not frustrated by a temporary lack of

understanding; he/she should think it will come clear later

1.1.6 General strategies to motivate students in language teaching

It is undeniable that when the learner is motivated, he/she surely studies far better That is why the teacher is supposed to undertake strategies to enhance the motivation

of the learner What comes next is some common motivation boosting strategies suggested by different researchers:

Capitalize on students‟ existing needs

According to Forsyth & McMillan (1991), students learn best when incentives for learning in a classroom satisfy their own motives for enrolling in the course Some of the needs which students may bring to the classroom are the need to learn something

in order to complete a particular task or activity, the need to seek for new experience, the need to perfect skills, the need to overcome challenges, the need to become competent, the need to succeed and do well, the need to feel involved and to interact with other people Satisfying such needs itself is rewarding, and such rewards sustain learning much more effectively than merely finishing the grades Design assignments, in-class activities, and discussion questions to address these types of students‟ needs

Make students active participants in the learning process

Students can learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating, and solving And passivity dampens students‟ motivation and curiosity Therefore, the teacher needs to pose a set of questions He/she ought never to tell students directly the knowledge when questions can be used for self-discovery In general, the teacher needs to encourage students, to suggest approaches to a problem, or to guess the result of an experiment Small group work is strongly recommended

Ask students to analyze what makes their class more or less “motivating”

Sass (1989) asks his students to recall 2 recent class periods, one in which is highly motivated and the other in which the motivation was rather low Each student makes

a list of factors of the two class periods that influenced his/her level of motivation In over twenty courses, Sass reports, the same eight characteristics emerge as major contributors to students‟ motivation as follows:

 Instructor‟s enthusiasm

 Relevance of the materials

 Organization of the course

 Appropriate difficulty level of the materials

 Active involvement of students

 Variety

 Rapport between the teacher and students

 Use of appropriate, concrete, and understandable examples

Incorporate instructional behaviors that motivate students

The teacher ought to hold high but realistic expectations for his/her students Research so far has shown that the teacher‟s expectations have a powerful impact on students‟ performances If you act as though you expected your students to be

motivated, hardworking, and interested in the course, they are more likely to be so Set realistic expectations for students when you ask them to make assignments, give presentations, conduct discussions, and grade examinations The term „realistic‟ in this context means that your standards are high enough to motivate students to do their best work but not so high that students will inevitably frustrated in trying to satisfy those expectations To develop the drive to achieve, students need to be provided with early opportunities for success

Help students set achievable goals for themselves

Failure to attain unrealistic goals can disappoint and frustrate students The teacher should encourage his/her students to focus on their continuing improvement, not just

on their grades in certain tests or examinations Also the teacher must help students self-evaluate their progress by encouraging them to critique their own performances,

to analyze their strengths, and to work on their weaknesses For example, the teacher might consider asking his/her students to summit their self-evaluation forms of one

or two assignments

Tell students what they need to do to gain success in your course

The teacher should never let his/her students struggle to figure out what is expected from them He/she must reassure the requirements for students to succeed in the course The teacher ought to say something to the effect that “if you can handle the examples on these problems sheets, you can pass the exam People who may have trouble with these examples can freely ask me for extra support” Or instead of saying such things as “you‟re way behind,” just tell them, “here is one way you could

go about learning the material, how can I help you?”

Strengthen students‟ self-motivation

The teacher should try to avoid using messages that reinforce his/her power as an instructor or those emphasize extrinsic rewards For example, instead of employing such expressions as “I require”, “you must”, “you should”, the teacher should use “I think you will find…”, or “I‟ll be interested in your reaction” Also try to avoid creating intense competitions among students Competitions sometimes produce

anxiety, which definitely interferes with the learning process Besides, reduce students‟ tendency to compare themselves with the others From Bligh (1971), students are more favorable to the teaching methods when they work co-operatively

in groups rather than competitive individuals Last but not least, refrain from public criticism of students‟ performances and from comments and activities that make students be against each other

Avoid creating intense competition among students

Competition produces anxiety, which can interfere with learning Reduce students' tendencies to compare themselves to one another Bligh (1971) reports that students are more attentive, display better comprehension, produce more work, and are more favourable to the teaching method when they work cooperatively in groups rather than compete as individuals Refrain from public criticisms of students' performance and from comments or activities that pit students against each other

Work from students' strengths and interests

Find out why students are enrolled in your course, how they feel about the subject matter, and what their expectations are Then try to devise examples, case studies, or assignments that relate the course content to students' interests and experiences For instance, a chemistry professor might devote some lecture time to examining the contributions of chemistry to resolving environmental problems Explain how the content and objectives of your course will help students achieve their educational, professional, or personal goals

Be enthusiastic about the subject being taught

The instructor‟s enthusiasm is a crucial factor in students‟ motivation If the teacher

is bored or apathetic, the learner will much likely be so Typically, an instructor‟s enthusiasm comes from confidence, excitement about the content and genuine pleasure in the job of teaching If you find yourself uninterested in the materials, think back to what has attracted you to the field and bring those aspects of the subject matter to the life of your students Or you may try to challenge yourself to devise the most exciting way to present the materials no matter how dull the materials

themselves may seem to you In addition, try your best to increase the difficulty of the materials as the learning process progresses Give students opportunities to succeed at the beginning of the semester Once students feel they can succeed, you can gradually increase the difficulty level If assignments and exams cover a broad range of questions including both the easy and difficult questions, every student will have chances to experience success as well as challenges

Vary the teaching methods

Variety in teaching methodology will reawake students‟ involvement in the course and motivation The teacher should break the routines by incorporating a variety of brainstorming, discussions, demonstrations, case studies, audio-visual presentations, guest speakers, or group work, etc The students‟ feedback should be given as soon

as possible Return tests and papers promptly and reward success publicly and immediately Besides, the teacher really ought to give students indications of how well they have done and how to improve their performances Rewards can be as simple as a saying that “your response is good” together with the explanation why you say so

1.1.7 Maintaining and protecting the students’ motivation

Dornyei (2001) states that unless motivation is actively maintained and protected during the actional phase of the motivational process – that is when action has commenced and well on the way – the natural tendency to lose sight of the goal, to get tired or bored of the activity and to give way to attractive dissatisfaction or competing action tendencies will result in the initial motivation gradually petering out Therefore, an effective motivational repertoire should include motivation maintenance strategies that can help prevent this from happening He suggests five areas that appear to be particularly relevant for classroom application:

 Setting „proximal sub-goals‟

 Improving the quality of the learning experience

 Increasing the learners‟ self-confidence

 Creating learner autonomy

 Promoting self-motivating learner strategies

Setting „proximal sub-goals‟

Individual goal setting is one of the most effective methods to enable students to experience a sense of control over their learning and perceive themselves as mastering material while incorporating their own interests It is particularly relevant

to language learning because the ultimate purpose of this prolonged process – to communicate with L2 speakers – is several years away and is, in fact, for many learners only moderately realistic (i.e what if the learner does not really want to communicate with L2 learners?) Therefore, setting proximal sub-goals has a powerful motivating function by providing advanced organizers as well as immediate incentive and feedback Pintrich and Schunk (quoted in Dornyei 2001) offer four main principles based on the theory that can be applied in the classroom setting:

 Goals should be clear and specific, referring to concrete outcomes

 Goals should be challenging and difficult, but not outside the range of students‟ capacities

 Both proximal and distal goals should be set For example, teachers can design a learning agreement, or a „contract‟, with each student that specifies a series of sub-goals that lead to larger goals

 Teachers should provide feedback that increases students‟ self-efficacy for obtaining the goal Such feedback can involve informational input or extrinsic rewards that are contingent on actual academic performance

Improving the quality of the learning experience

Most researchers and practitioners would agree that the higher the quality of the learning experience, the more learner engagement and persistence we can expect The real question is what we mean by the „quality of learning experience‟ Schumann (1998) argues that environmental stimuli are appraised along a number of different

dimensions; he distinguishes five major environmental facets: novelty, pleasantness, goal/ need significance, coping potential, and self and social image Indeed, learners continuously assess the intrinsic enjoyment they experience and the personal and goal-specific relevance the various tasks offer; they check how well they are doing, how much they are approaching their overall goal, and how their personal and social image is affected by the actions they are expected to take as part of task completion Out of the many issues related to the promotion of the quality of the learning experience, Dornyei (2001) highlights two basic issues that must be addressed by any motivationally conscious teaching practice:

 Increasing the intrinsic enjoyment of participating in learning tasks

o This is probably the best-known motivational dimension of classroom teaching, and many practitioners would simply equate the adjective

„motivating‟ with „interesting‟ Accordingly, a great number of recommendations have been made in literature as to how to promote this intrinsic quality dimension, ranging from making the tasks varied and challenging to including novel elements and relating the content

of the task to the learners‟ natural interests

 Enhancing the learners‟ social image

o Maintaining face is a central concern for most school children and students: for them school/ university is the most important social arena and their peers are their main reference group Therefore, they will feel ill at ease doing tasks (no matter how conductive those are to learning) that put them in a situation where they are made to look small in front of their contemporaries Thus, providing opportunities for everybody to play protagonist‟s role in one way or another (e.eg

by creating situations in which students can demonstrate their particular strengths) is an effective method of making a person feel good about the course and the role he/ she plays in it Similarly, the learners‟ social image can be enhanced by avoiding criticisms and

corrections that can be considered humiliating, and by „working on‟ the group as a whole to establish norms of tolerance and acceptance

Increasing the learners‟ self-confidence

Self-efficacy is generally seen as a key factor in determining the amount of effort invested and the persistence displayed Also, the significance of linguistic self-confidence has long been recognized in language learning The important question is, then, how to maintain and increase the students‟ elf-confidence and self-esteem in a context – the language classroom – which is inherently face-threatening to the learners In spite of these unfavorable odds, there are several ways of successfully increasing the students‟ self-confidence, as illustrated by the following five approaches (Dornyei 2001):

 Teachers can foster the belief in the students that competence is a changeable and controllable aspect of development and they can help to dispel misconceptions and unrealistic fears

 Favorable self-conceptions of L2 competence can be promoted by providing regular experiences of success and emphasizing what learners can rather than cannot do

 Everybody is more interested in proceedings if they feel that they have an important part to play, and therefore, even hard-to-reach learners can be motivated by giving them the feeling of making useful contribution and creating classroom situations where they can demonstrate positive features and come forward to offer help

 Sometimes a small personal word of encouragement is sufficient

 Finally, teachers can reduce classroom anxiety by making the learning context less stressful and by providing learners with strategies to cope with anxiety-provoking situations

Creating learner autonomy

Most contemporary language-teaching methodologists would agree that taking an active, independent attitude to learning – that is, becoming an autonomous learner –

is beneficial to learning This assumption is partly rooted in the principles of humanistic psychology, namely that „the only kind of learning which significantly affects behavior is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning‟ (Roger, 1961 as quoted in Dornyei, 2001), and partly in educational psychology, which has emphasized the importance of learning strategies and self-regulation How can we foster learner autonomy? Key issues include allowing students real choices, sharing responsibility with the students for organizing their learning process and giving them positions of genuine authority and encouraging student contribution, peer teaching, and project work Benson (2000) distinguishes five different types of practice associated with the development of learner autonomy:

 Resource-based approaches: emphasizing independent interaction with learning materials

 Technology-based approaches: emphasizing independent interaction with educational technologies

 Learner-based approaches: emphasizing the direct production of behavioral and psychological changes in the learner, e.g strategy training

 Classroom-based approaches: emphasizing changes in the relationship between learners and teachers in the classroom and learner control over the planning and evaluation of learning

 Curriculum-based approaches: extending the idea of control over the planning and evaluation of learning to the curriculum as a whole

Promoting self-motivating learner strategies

Most of the discussions so far have concentrated on the teacher‟s responsibility and role in stimulating the students‟ motivation It has been observed, however, that even under adverse conditions and without any teacher assistance, some learners are more

successful in keeping up their goal commitment than some others How do they do it? They motivate themselves With this recognition, recent research in educational psychology has turned increasingly to the learners to explore what they can do to save the action when the initial motivation is petering out An important role of the teacher is to raise the students‟ awareness of relevant strategies and to remind them

at appropriate times of the usefulness of these Ushioda (1997) (as quoted in Dornyei 2001) states that:

Self-motivation is a question of thinking effectively and meaningfully about learning experience and learning goals It is a question of applying positive thought patterns and belief structures so as to optimize and sustain one‟s involvement in learning In other words, a capacity of self-motivation may be defined as a capacity for effective motivational thinking…this capacity entails taking personal control of the affective conditions and experiences that shape one‟s subjective involvement in learning It entails minimizing the damage when these experiences are negative, and maximizing the subjective rewards when these experiences are positive, and so fostering optimum motivational conditions for continued engagement in language learning

1.1.8 Motivational macro-strategies

Motivation concerns human behavior in general, and with human behavior being as complex as it is, the number of possible motivational techniques is rather extensive There is very little a teacher can do with a list of suggestions that takes up many printed pages For this reason, in addition to a comprehensive coverage of motivational techniques, there is a need for a smaller set of „core‟ strategies to which teachers can pay special attention when trying to implement a motivation-conscious teaching approach This core set can then be extended when the techniques have become sufficiently internalized and automated In the following, three compilations

of motivational macro-strategies will be presented:

The „ten commandments for motivating language learners‟ (Dornyei & Csizer, 1998)

 Set a personal example with your own behavior

 Create a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the classroom

 Present the tasks properly

 Develop a good relationship with the learners

 Increase the learners‟ linguistic self-confidence

 Make the language classes interesting

 Promote learner autonomy

 Personalize the learning process

 Increase the learners‟ goal-orientedness

 Familiarize learners with the target language culture

A set of group-building strategies (Dornyei & Malderez, 1999)

 Spend some time consciously on group processes

 Use ice-breakers at the beginning of a new course to set members at ease, to get them memorize each other‟s names, and to learn about each other; and warmers at the beginning of each class to allow members to readjust to the particular group they are now with

 Promote peer relations by enhancing classroom interaction (using activities such as pair-work, small group work, role-play, „mixer‟ classroom organization which not only allows, but also encourages people to come into contact and interact with one another, as well as helping to prevent the emergence of rigid seating patterns) and by personalizing the language tasks (choosing, when possible, activities with a genuine potential for interpersonal awareness-raising to allow members to get to know each other)

 Promote group cohesiveness by including small group „fun‟ competitions in the classes, by encouraging (and also organizing) extra-curricular activities and by promoting the creation of a group legend (establishing group rituals, bringing up and building up on past group events, creating a semi-official group history, encouraging learners to prepare group objects and symbols such as flags, coats of arms, creating appropriate group mottoes/ logos, etc.)

 Formulate group norms explicitly, and have them discussed and accepted by the learners; specify also the violation of any agreed „rule‟

 Formulate explicit group goals by having the students negotiate their individual goals, and draw attention from time to time to how particular activities help to attain them

 Be prepared for the in evitable conflicts and low points in group life

 Take the students‟ learning very seriously; never forget that the commitment you demonstrate towards the L2 and the group, the interest you show in the students‟ achievement, and the effort you yourself make will significantly shape the students‟ attitudes to their group and to L2 learning

 Actively encourage student autonomy by handing over as much as you can of the various leadership roles and functions to the group

 Prepare group members for the closing of the group by giving members some continuity and helping them to prepare for their new phase of learning after the course

A list of suggestions for motivating language learners (Williams and Burden, 1997)

 Recognize the complexity of motivation

 Be aware of both initiating and sustaining motivation

 Discuss with learners why they are carrying out activities

 Involve learners in making decision related to learning the language

 Involve learners in setting language-learning goals

 Recognize people as individuals

 Build up individuals‟ beliefs in themselves

 Develop internal beliefs

 Help to move towards a mastery-oriented style

 Enhance intrinsic motivation

 Build up a supportive learning environment

 Give feedback that is informational

1.2 Teaching listening

Listening is the language modality that is used most frequently It has been estimated that adults spend almost half their communication time listening, and students may receive as much as 90% of their in-school information through listening to instructors and to one another Often, however, language learners do not recognize the level of effort that goes into developing listening ability

Far from passively receiving and recording aural input, listeners actively involve themselves in the interpretation of what they hear, bringing their own background knowledge and linguistic knowledge to bear on the information contained in the aural text Not all listening is the same; casual greetings, for example, require a different sort of listening capability than do academic lectures Language learning requires intentional listening that employs strategies for identifying sounds and making meaning from them

Listening involves a sender (a person, radio, or television), a message, and a receiver (the listener) Listeners often must process messages as they come, even if they are still processing what they have just heard, without backtracking or looking ahead In addition, listeners must cope with the sender's choice of vocabulary, structure, and rate of delivery The complexity of the listening process is magnified in second language contexts, where the receiver also has incomplete control of the language Given the importance of listening in language learning and teaching, it is essential for language teachers to help their students become effective listeners In the communicative approach to language teaching, this means modeling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations: those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the classroom

1.2.1 What makes L2 listening more challenging than L1 listening

Following Rost (1990), among a variety of factors causing difficulties for people in L2 listening, motive, transfer, input, and neurological development are the most important factors

Motive

The primary difficulty is developmental We all learned our first language in order to express and comprehend new ideas and relationships For example we learned to understand the word „house‟ about the same time that we learned to understand the basic concept of a house We had the same learning correspondences for more complex concepts, such as „happy‟ and „sad‟ Once we have learned the basic objects and concepts in the world and have associated them with words, we have lost one of the principal motives to learn language – self-expression Whether in a child or an adult, L2 acquisition always takes place at a more advanced level of cognitive and social development, and therefore for many learners, is less closely linked to cognitive and social motives to use language

Transfer

Another difficulty is the psychological problem of transfer – the process of using knowledge from one concept to learn another concept When we learn a second language, we tend to filter the concepts of the language through those we already know in our first language The second language can thus never truly be learned fresh, as an independent system, since it must be filtered through what we already know about how language works As a result, second language learning, for both children and adults, generally seems more laborious since it requires compound processing Particularly in listening, when some concept in the second language is fuzzy or unfamiliar, we tend to use transfer strategies, such as translation, to understand the new language These strategies may help us understand temporarily, but can weaken the acquisition of the L2 concept In addition to psychological transfer, social transfer may make L2 listening more difficult There are clear differences in social situations that take place in different cultures, such as beginning meals, offering congratulations at weddings, ordering a drink in a pub, or teasing a classmate Learning to listen in any situation in which the second language is used requires us as learners to make judgments about which aspects of our native cultures can be transferred to the new situation For example, a French student learning English may wonder if an English speaker‟s saying „Let‟s eat‟ is equivalent to „Bon appetite‟ in French, since that is what is customarily said before eating in France In addition, social transfer problems include having different communicative styles, different ways of introducing new topics, different priorities for politeness, or different ways of using power relationships between speakers

Input

Another difficulty in L2 listening development is access to useful input When we were children, access to our first language was, in most cases, virtually continuous Every day we received caretaker language that catered directly for our own learning capabilities and interests This language allowed us ongoing opportunities to develop our listening ability Second language learners, especially adults, seldom experience this same access to rich, understandable input As a result, they are deprived of a necessary condition for full language acquisition – access to understandable and engaging language

Neurological development

Still another difficulty may be biological After the age of twelve or so, certain processes are completed in the brain‟s development and this often prevents learners from processing new linguistic sounds fully Lenneberg (1967) and other psychologists have proposed the existence of a critical period for language acquisition which terminates around puberty when specific neuropsychological connections in the brain are complete Whether there is a specific critical age or more simply what Oyama (1982) calls a „sensitive period‟, many adults do have considerable difficulty learning to listen in a second language Adults may have superior grammatical and lexical knowledge that is available to them during reading and writing, but may be unable to use this knowledge during speech processing

1.2.2 The importance of listening instruction

Most current language teachers have become more sophisticated and more knowledgeable about the role of listening in language learning It is now widely accepted that listening plays a vital role in L2 instruction for several reasons as follows (Rost 1990):

 Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner Without understandable input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin

 Spoken language provides a means of interaction for the learner Since learners must interact to achieve understanding, access to speakers of the language is essential Moreover, learner‟s failure to understand the language they hear is an impetus, not an obstacle, to interaction and learning

 Authentic spoken language presents a challenge for the learner to attempt to understand language as it is actually used by native speakers

 Listening exercises provide teachers with a means for drawing learners‟ attention to new forms (vocabulary, grammar, interaction patterns) in the language

In addition to creating the right conditions for language development, listening can also provide enjoyment and stimulate cultural interests, participation in the target cultures (via movies, radio, TV, songs, plays), appreciation of the beauty of the language (figures of speech, sayings, colloquial expressions) and fulfillment of social needs (development of relationships, confidence, and gathering information for everyday survival needs)

1.2.3 Component skills for listening

In second language instruction for children or adults, the consistent and systematic use of listening practice constitutes a viable holistic approach to language teaching Successful listening involves an integration of a set of component skills In this sense, listening is a co-ordination of the component skills, not the individual skills themselves This integration of these skills constitutes a person‟s listening ability The list of component skills for listening is shown as follows:

 Discriminating between sounds

 Recognizing words

 Identifying stressed words and grouping of words

 Identifying functions (such as apologizing) in conversation

 Connecting linguistic cues to paralinguistic cues (intonation and stress) and to non-linguistic cues (gestures and relevant objects in the situation) in order to construct meaning

 Using background knowledge (what we already know about the content and the form) and context (what has already been said) to predict and then to confirm meaning

 Recalling important words, topics, and ideas

 Giving appropriate feedback to speaker

 Reformulating what the speaker has said

1.2.4 Listening ability assessment scales

Several assessment scales have been developed to show the range and the relative degree of listening ability The following scale (Rost 19990) outlines how listening can develop in terms of comprehension, commonly used strategies and interaction appropriacy

Competent listener

 Range of comprehension: able to understand all styles of speech that are intelligible to native listeners in the target community; able to understand abstract concepts

 Strategies for understanding: able to seek clarification smoothly when speech

is unintelligible; able to note areas where own knowledge is lacking to achieve an acceptable level of understanding and to note where speaker is vague or inconsistent

 Appropriate interaction: able to understand and display appropriate listener responses in a wide range of social and specialized contexts in the target culture setting

 Applications: able to attempt and perform acceptably any task requiring comprehension of oral language

Listener of modest ability

 Range of comprehension: able to understand most styles of speech that are intelligible to native listeners in the target community; able to understand some abstract concepts expressed orally, but often requires repetition or re-explanation

 Strategies for understanding: attempts to seek clarification when speech is unintelligible, although attempts are not always successful or appropriate; able to note areas where own knowledge is lacking to achieve an acceptable

level of understanding and to note where speaker is vague or inconsistent, but occasionally is confused about the source of difficulty in understanding

 Appropriacy of interaction: displays listener responses in a wide range of social and specialized contexts in the target culture setting, but often not appropriately

 Application: able to understand enough of the input to infer the gist for the communicative event and to participate adequately in many situations and in many tasks

Listener of limited ability

 Range of comprehension: able to understand limited styles of speech that are intelligible to native listeners in the target community; not able to understand unfamiliar abstract concepts expressed in the target language without considerable non-linguistic support; usually requires repetition or re-explanation or multiple clarification exchanges

 Strategies for understanding: most often not successful or appropriate in attempts to seek clarification when speech is unintelligible; usually not able

to note areas where own knowledge is lacking to achieve an acceptable level

of understanding and to note where speaker is vague or inconsistent; often expresses confusion about the source of difficulty in understanding

 Applications: usually not able to understand enough of the input to infer the gist of the communicative event

 Appropriate interaction: cannot sustain understanding in an interaction; displays limited range of listener responses

1.2.5 How to motivate students in listening classes

Rost (1990) suggests teachers a list of things that should be done to help students develop their listening ability as follows:

 Talk to your class in English Talk to everyone – not just the better English speakers Make English a vital language for communication Personalize the classroom: get to know the learners through talking to them about topics of mutual interests Make English the language of your classroom Give opportunities in class for learners to exchange ideas with each other in English Point out to them how they are becoming confident and effective users of English

 Help the learners develop an awareness of how often they listen, their different purposes of listening, the different ways they listen and the strategies they use Get them to keep a notebook or journal in class to write down what they are learning about how they learn Read these journals and give your own supportive comments

 Provide support and encouragement Many learners lack confidence in listening Teachers need to help them approach listening positively – with a view to being entertained and informed … and with the intention of succeeding at it

 Introduce a range of listening inputs Introduce your class to other speakers of English – personally or through use of video and audio tapes Expose them to different kinds of people and situations Encourage them to listen to understand things that are important to them

 Encourage the learners to become independent, to seek out listening opportunities on their own outside of the classroom Help them to identify ways of using English language media (TV and radio broadcasts, video tapes) Set up a self-access listening and learning center with a range of interesting tape materials and prepared exercises Help the learners to develop their own self-study listening programmes, goals and means of evaluation

 Before each class, design listening activities that will engage the learners Set challenging, yet realistic, goals for each activity Think about which listening skills you are trying to develop Use pre-listening activities to warm the

learners up and to help them anticipate what they are going to listening to Give them clear feedback on how well they do Keep a record of their performance so that they can sense their own improvement

Above all, the language teacher has to focus on principles of good teaching to involve learners in the educational process and develop a sensitivity to the personal and social issues that surround the learners‟ language development

As a matter of fact, the students at FOE, HNUE fall into two categories The first one includes those who have passed the National University Entrance Exam and met the requirement of the university The second one is composed of those who are nominated and sent to study at the university by their provinces In other words, the university trains these students according to the demand of the province The students in the second category have to take one year of studying in advance and pass

an institutional exam by the university before being admitted as official students of the faculty Additionally, unlike those in the first category, these students have to pay tuition fee during the four years of training The participants of this study were students in the second group, nominated students Basically, the level of students in the second category is lower than that of students in the first category Consequently, their academic results are normally lower That is why motivating them in studying plays a vital role in increasing their academic achievements

Although there exists a difference in the level of the students in two categories, the curriculums used for them in FOE are much similar The participants of this study have to study all subjects required as the normal students, including the four macro skills