Factors affecting motivation for 10th graders' engagement in English speaking classes A survey at SaPa high school, Lao Cai ảnh hưởng đến động lực tham gia và

Abstract With an investigation into the reality of teaching and learning English speaking at SPHS, and an examination of the factors affecting motivation for 10 Graders’ engagement in En

Abstract

With an investigation into the reality of teaching and learning English speaking at SPHS, and an examination of the factors affecting motivation for 10 Graders’ engagement in English speaking classes (ESC), this research is aimed at (1) investigating types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at SPHS, (2) finding out some factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC, (3) exploring teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and speaing activities in ESC, (4) surveying the activities and techniques applied by teachers and students’ preferences at this school and recommending some strategies for teachers and students to enhance grade 10 students of engagement in ESC The research data collection instruments are questionnaire, interview and classroom observation The result taken from the questionnaire, interview and observation reveals that the majority of students possess instrumental and extrinsic motivation, some of them integrately and intrinsically learn it, resultative motivation ranks the smallest number of participants It also indicates that the factors affecting motivation and demotivation come from students, teachers and classroom learning environment The activities and techniques teachers apply have the great influence on students’ engagement Basing on the findings of the research, the study suggested some recommendations for both teachers and students to improve the teaching and learning speaking in the school

Table of Contents

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS ix

PART 1: INTRODUCTION ix

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Methods of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Organization of the study 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1 An overview of speaking in L2 learning 4

1.1 Definition of speaking 4

1.2 Approaches to the teaching of speaking 4

The Grammar translation Method (GTM) 4

The Direct Method (DM) and Audiolingualism 5

Communicative Language Teaching 5

1.3 The roles of the teacher in different stages of teaching speaking 5

1.4 Motivation in speaking in classroom 6

1.4.1 Motivation 6

1.4.2 Motivation in the classroom setting 7

1.4.3 Factors affecting students unwilling to speak in classroom 8

1.4.4 Some conditions for effective motivation in speaking 8

1.4.5 Motivational macrostrategies 8

2 Concept of students’ engagement and factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement 9

2.1 Concept of students’ engagement 9

2.2 Factors affecting students’ engagement 10

2.2.1 Students’ learning styles 10

2.2.2 Students’ motivations 11

2.2.3 Teacher’s teaching techniques 11

2.2.4 Teachers’ personal qualities and characteristics 11

2.2.5 Effective classroom learning environment 13

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY 15

1 Research setting 15

1.1 An overview of the research site 15

1.2 Description of the teachers of English and students 15

1.3 The materials of teaching and learning 16

2 Participants 17

2.1 Population 17

2.2 Sampling 17

3.3 Detailed description of participants 17

3.4 Data collection instruments 17

3.4.1 Questionnaires 18

3.4.2 Interviews 18

3.4.3 Classroom observations 19

3.5 Data Collection Procedures 19

CHAPTER THREE 20

DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 20

1 Data analysis 20

1.1 Data analysis from Students’ Questionnaire 20

1.1.1 Students’ motivation in engaging in ESC 20

1.1.2 Factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC and students’ attitude towards activities and techniques applied by teachers 24

1.2 Data analysis from Teachers’ Questionnaire 27

2 Major findings and discussions 31

2.1 Research question 1 31

2.2 Research question 2 31

2.3 Research question 3 33

2.4 Research question 4 34

3 Recommendations for motivating students to engage better in ESC 34

3.1 Recommendations for teachers 34

3.1.1 Promoting students’ internal factors 35

3.1.2 Building effective classroom learning environment 36

3.1.3 Varying speaking activities 37

3.1.4 Managing speaking turns in class 37

3.1.5 Combining the textbook and relevant materials and recognize the potential value of available facilities of the school and the Internet 38

3.1.6 Being enthusiastic, tolerant, helpful, friendly, creative and active 38

3.2 Recommendations for the students 39

3.2.1 Cooperating with their teachers 39

3.2.2 Taking risks 39

PART 3: CONCLUSIONS 40

1 Conclusions 40

2 Limitations and suggestions for further study 41

REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 IV APPENDIX 3 XIII APPENDIX 4 XVII APPENDIX 5 XIX

List of Tables

Table 1 Types of motivation (see Appendix 1) 20

Table 2 Students’ learning styles (See Apendix 1) 24

Table 3 Factors making students reluctant to engage in ESC (see Appendix 1) 24

Table 4 Students’ difficulties in getting engaged in ESC (see Appendix 1) 25

Table 5 Factors encouraging students to engage in ESC (see Appendix 1) 25

Table 6 Factors help students get engaged better in ESC (see Appendix 1) 25

Table 7 Students’ expectations toward their teachers (see Appendix 1) 27

Table 8 The activities teachers give to their students to enhance students’ engagement in ESC and students’ attitudes toward activities teachers creating (see Appendix 1) 29 Table 9 The techniques teachers use to motivate students to engage in ESC (see Appendix 1) 29

Table 10 Teachers’ evaluation on speaking skill of English 10 textbook (see Appendix 1) 30

List of Figures

Figure 1 The perspective of students to the importance of speaking skill 21

Figure 2 Students’ desire to learn speaking English 21

Figure 3 Students’ interest in engaging in ESC 22

Figure 4 Students’ frequency in engaging in speaking English in English classes 22

Figure 5 Students’ reluctance degree in speaking lessons 23

Figure 6 Students’ perspective on the topics in English 10 textbook 23

Figure 7 Students’ perspective on the tasks in English 10 textbook 23

Figure 8 Students’ favourite activities in ESC 25

Figure 9 Students’ perspective on teachers’ activities in ESC 26

Figure 10 Teachers’ reaction to students’ speaking mistakes 26

Figure 11 Teachers' perspective on the importance of speaking to students 27

Figure 12 Teachers' perspective on the problems facing in teaching English speaking 28

Figure 13 Teachers using individual, pair work and group work in speaking lesson 28

List of Abbreviations and Conventions

CLT Communicative Language Teaching

GTM Grammar translation Method

ESC English speaking classes

OfSTED Office of Standards in Education

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

The ever-growing need for good communication skills in English has created a huge demand for English teaching around the world The result is that its status in education system and settings is an extraordinary one (Rossner and Bolitho, 1990, p.5) In correspondence to this trend, in Vietnam, the importance of English as a language of international communication has been acknowledged by the Government; English teaching and learning have been given more and more priority English is considered as a compulsory subject in the school curriculum in recognition that “it can contribute to students’ personal, linguistic, social, and cultural development” (Canh, 2004, p.167)

In the process of teaching and learning English, there are many factors affecting the success

of language learners such as aptitude, age, personality, motivation and so on, among which motivation plays an important role Researchers on motivation have pointed out that learners who are highly motivated can learn a foreign language better than those who are not and vice versa

After 7 year experience of teaching English at a high school, I have realized that motivation

is one of the key factors that determine students’ success or failure in language learning For teaching and learning speaking skill, the great impact of motivation is not an exception It is undeniable that if the students are motivated, their speaking will be completed more successful and their difficulties in speaking will no longer exist However, there still exists many difficulties facing teachers in teaching English speaking to students and motivating them to engage actively in ESC, especially students in Sa Pa (SP) come from a variety of socio-economic groups and they are multicultural as well as multi-level It can be observed that ethnic minority students are always very reserved which leads to many difficulties in communication On the other hand, the Kinh students in SP are quite active because of tourism development service They also have much better learning condition outside class than ethnic students I agree with Paul C Gorki (2005: 12) that multicultural education is challenging situation and our goal is to give all students the balance chance to achieve her or his fullest at school as well as in the classroom regardless of who they are How to achieve

this goal is a big question

This is the reason why I choose studying on factors affecting motivation for 10th graders’ engagement in ESC is the topic for my thesis

2 Aims and research questions of the study

The study aims at exploring the factors affecting motivation for 10th graders’ engagement in ESC at SPHS, Lao Cai (LC) The objectives of the research are as follows:

 To examine the types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at Sapa high school in engaging in English speaking classes

 To exploring the factors influencing the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes

 To examine teachers and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and speaking activities in ESC

 To determine effective techniques to enhance the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes

To achieve these aim and objectives, the study sets out to answer the following research questions:

(1) What are the types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at Sapa high school in engaging in English speaking classes?

(2) What are factors influencing the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes?

(3) What are teachers and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and speaking activities in ESC?

(4) What techniques could be applicable to enhance the students’ motivation in engaging in English speaking classes?

3 Methods of the study

The study employed survey research In my study, data were collected via questionnaires, interviews and classrooms observation in order to increase the credibility of the findings: (1) Giving questionnaires for both teachers and students; (2) Interviewing students; (3) Oserving classroom to get information about both teachers’ approach of teaching and students’ habit of learning in class as well as ascertain the prevalent problems forwarded by the students and teachers during the interview and questionnaire

4 Scope of the study

There exist a variety factors affecting motivation for 10th graders’ engagement in English speaking classes However, it is not my intention to cover all of them because of the time and length constraint of the study, I only focus on the factors come from learners, teachers and classroom learning environment In this study, students’ engagement happened only in speaking activities in ESC

5 Organization of the study

Apart from Introduction (Part 1) and Conclusions (Part 3), the research is divided into three chapters:

 Chapter One: Literature Review – provides a theoretical basis for the study

 Chapter Two: Methodology – includes an overview of the approach used in conducting the study It also provides a thorough description of the data collection procedures as well as the analytical procedures

 Chapter Three: Data analysis, discussion of major findings and recommendations – reports the findings of the study and discusses the prominent aspects In this chapter, answers to the four research questions are also given The answers are also the major findings which help the research find a practical basis for further recommendations

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter One: Literature Review

This chapter reviews the most basic knowledge of speaking in L2 learning, motivation, the aspects of students’ engagement and factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement

Bygate (1997) stated that speaking was a skill which deserved attention every bit as much as literacy skill It is often thought of as a “popular” form of expression that uses the unprestigious “colloquial” register Speaking is in many ways an undervalued skill Perhaps this is because we can almost all speak, and so take the skill too much for granted In his own view, Mackey (1965) shows that “oral expression involves not only the use of the right sounds in the right patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also a choice of words and inflections in the right sounds in the right order to convey the right meaning” (cited in Bygate, 1997:5)

1.2 Approaches to the teaching of speaking

The Grammar translation Method (GTM)

In grammar translation lessons, speaking consists largely of reading translations aloud or doing grammar exercises orally There are few opportunities for expressing original thoughts or personal needs and feeling in English (Bailey, 2005:16) In the GTM, students are taught to analyze grammar and to translate from one language to another The GTM, therefore, does not really prepare students to speak English, and it is not entirely appropriate for students who want to improve their speaking skills This method is not consistent with

Part 2: Development – Chapter One: Literature Review

the goals of increasing English learners’ fluency, oral production, or communicative

competence

The Direct Method (DM) and Audiolingualism

The DM emphasized speaking in that “new teaching points were introduced orally” rather in writing Also, lessons emphasized speaking and listening, which were practiced “in a carefully graded progression organized around question and answer exchanges between teachers and students” (cited in Bailey, 2005:17) The DM strongly influenced the development of the Audiolingual Method (AM) Nunan (2003) points out that in Audiolingualism, speaking is taught by having students repeat sentences and recite memorized dialogues from the textbook Repetition drills-a hallmark of the AM- are designed to familiarize students with the sounds and structural patterns of the language Lessons followed the sequence of presentation, practice, and production (cited in Bailey, 2005:17)

Communicative Language Teaching

The goal of language teaching in the light of CLT is to develop communicative competence

In CLT classroom, learners are encouraged to contribute as much as they gain, and learn in

an independent way CLT favours interaction among small numbers of learners with a purpose to maximize the time each learner learns and uses languages, shares information and negotiates meaning Through interaction learners’ experience can be modified, many kinds of learning strategies made aware and applied, and especially classrooms move away from teacher-centeredness to learner-centeredness, which is an essential element to raise learners’ motivation in language learning CLT features more interaction-based activities, such as role-plays and information gap tasks Pair work and group work are typical organizational features of interaction-based lessons in CLT

For all its advantages over the other methods, the author has decided to choose CLT for the teaching and the treatment of the study

1.3 The roles of the teacher in different stages of teaching speaking

Byrne, D (1986) listed three stages of teaching speaking: the presentation stage, the practice stage and the production one In each stage, the role of the teacher is different At the

presentation stage, the teacher is considered an informant role The teacher introduces something new to be learned and present it in such a way that the meaning of the new language is as clear and memorable as possible The students listen and try to understand At this point of the lesson, the teacher is at the centre of the stage Therefore, teacher’s time spending should be sensible so that the students get enough time to practise themselves At the practice stage, it is the students’ turn to do most of the talking while teacher’s main task

is to devise and provide the maximum amount of practice, which must the same time be both meaningful and memorable The teacher’s role, then, is completely different from that

at the presentation one The teacher is like the skillful conductor of an orchestra, giving each

of the performers a chance to participate and monitoring their performance to see that it is satisfactory At the final stage, the production one, the teacher takes on the role of manager and guide Students are given opportunities to use language freely Sometimes students can make mistakes at this stage, but mistakes are unimportant The more importance is that students have chance to use language as they wish, to try to express their own ideas Moreover, they become aware that they have learnt something useful to them personally, and are encouraged to go on learning However, students will probably seem to the teacher

to lurch backwards and forwards rather than make steady progress It will not be so easy for the teacher to measure students’ performance as it was at the practice stage, nor is there any easy recipe for success So, what is needed is flexibility, tolerance, patience on teacher’s part and, above all, an understanding of the learners’ difficulties

To sum up, the teacher through speaking lesson should work as a motivator Whatever teacher is doing in the classroom, his/her ability to motivate the students, to arouse their interest and involve them in what they are doing, will be crucial Therefore, some key factors of teacher’s role are teacher’s own performance- the mastery of teaching skills, which depend on teacher’s careful preparation; teacher’s selection, and presentation of topics and activities, and, of course, teacher’s own personality, which, in language teaching, must be flexible enough to allow the teacher to be both authoritative and friendly at the same time

Part 2: Development – Chapter One: Literature Review

consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to communicate Motivation refers

to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the good of learning the language plus favourable attitudes toward learning the language That is, motivation to learn a second language is seen as referring to the extent to which the individual work or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity

Gardner and Lambert (1985) introduces the major types of motivation: Instrumental motivation and Integrative motivation, Resultative motivation and Intrinsic motivation (1) Instrumental motivation: When learners need English as an instrumental to reach a particular goal such as passing oral test, getting a good job with high salary and so on In this case, motivation is the reflection of an external need; (2) Integrative motivation: When learners internally want to integrate themselves into the culture of the target language (3) Resultative motivation: is known as the cause of achievement It can also be the result of learning The fact shows that learners who experience success in learning may become more motivated to learn; (4) Intrinsic motivation: plays a significant role in most learners’ success

or failure For them, what happens in the classroom will be of great importance in determining their attitudes to language and in supplying motivation, intrinsic autonomy and self-actualization whereas extrinsically motivated learners anticipate a reward from outside and beyond the self such as money, prize

1.4.2 Motivation in the classroom setting

Lightbown and Spada (1999: 57-58) stated that if the teacher could make classrooms places where students enjoy coming because the content is interesting, goals was challenging yet manageable and clear, and where the atmosphere was supportive and non-threatening, teachers could make a positive contribution to students’ motivation to learn Two researchers replicated findings from studies by Graham Crookes and Richard Schmit (1991) and pointed out some pedagogical practices for teachers to motivate students in classroom setting: (1) Motivating students into the lesson: At the opening stages of lessons, remark teachers make about forthcoming activities can lead to higher levels of interest on the part of the students: (2) Varying the activities, tasks and materials: Lessons which always consist

of the same routines, patterns and format often lead to a decrease in attention and an increase in boredom Varying the activities, tasks, and materials can help to avoid this and increase students’ interest levels; (3) Using co-operative rather than competitive goals: Co- operative learning activities are those in which students must work together in order to

complete a task or solve problem These techniques will increase the self-confidence of students, including weaker ones

1.4.3 Factors affecting students unwilling to speak in classroom

Tsui (1996) found out five principal factors affecting the reluctance of the student to speak

up in class: students’ perceived low proficiency in English, students’ fear of mistakes and derision, teachers’ intolerance of silence, uneven allocation of turns, incomprehensible input (cited in Nunan, 1999:234)

1.4.4 Some conditions for effective motivation in speaking

Nunan (1999) pointed out some preconditions for effective motivation:

1 Supportive Environment: including orderly classroom, teacher is skilled in

classroom management; students are no anxious and feel comfortable taking risks,

feedback is positive

2 Appropriate level of difficulty: tasks are neither too easy nor too difficult; students

know what they have to do, criteria for success is clear

3 Meaningful learning: students know what and why they learn; activities are

meaningful; the relationship between activities and objective is clear; tasks are

sequenced so that new tasks build on and extend ones that come before; students are

given a reason to be in class

4 Strategies: motivational strategy is matched to instructional need; particular

strategies are not overused; teacher uses a range of strategies; there is a

learning-how-to-learn dimension to instruction

5 Content: students can relate content to own experience; topics are interesting

Part 2: Development – Chapter One: Literature Review

2 Concept of students’ engagement and factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement

2.1 Concept of students’ engagement

Students’ engagement can be identified in terms of three kinds of interaction Moore (1989) identified three types of interactions namely learner-instructor interaction, learner-learner interaction and learner-content interaction

As for the interaction between students to their teachers, this can take the form of teacher delivering information, encouraging the leaner, or providing feedback Students who are considered to maintain a good interaction with their teacher always take part in the class discussion as well as contact the teacher by coming to see him/her outside classroom, even sending emails They become involved in what is happening in the classroom by asking for more information or explanation, sharing a personal experience in relationship to the topics,

or volunteering to perform an activity Therefore, engagement is in more ways than just attending by coming to class on time and staying there entire period, and getting to know the teacher Students who are attentive (e.g., work on problems with the teacher during class, laugh at jokes, respond to their teacher’s questions) are showing their desire to be active learners

Bailey (2005) also shares his interesting view:

As teachers, we should not assume that students who don’t talk much in class are

not participating Some learners prefer to listen more than speak Others speak very

quietly- almost privately We should also remember that just because students are

quiet, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are not participating on some level How

can we as teachers tell when quiet students are participating in class? Sometimes

we can watch their eye movements and head nodding

(P.171) Next, the interaction between students themselves is established by the exchange of information and ideas that occurs among students about the course in the presence or absence of the instructor This type of interaction can take the form of group projects or group discussion The learner-learner interaction can foster learning through collaboration and knowledge sharing Then, the kind of interaction between students and material can be understood as students obtain information from the course materials

2.2 Factors affecting students’ engagement

To involve students in English speaking classes, it is necessary to understand the factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement These factors generally come from both learners, teachers and effective classroom learning environment The discussion of major factors will be mentioned in the following sections

2.2.1 Students’ learning styles

Style, as Brown (1994) defined, refers to either personality (e.g., self-esteem, extroversion, anxiety) or cognition (e.g., left/right brain orientation, ambiguity tolerance, field sensitivity) Enduring traits, tendencies and preferences that differentiate one person from another can be considered characteristics of style A successful language learner can manipulate effectively his learning style including some characteristics such as risk-taking, extroversion (personality trait), quite right-brain dominance, intuition, logic (cognitive traits) and the list may goes on That means, he is willing to live with uncertainty without getting flustered or understanding every word; he can make his own opportunities for practice in using the language inside and outside the classroom; he uses contextual cues to help him in comprehension It is apparent that this student is an active learner He further argues one learning style issue that influences learners’ speaking in class is the contrast between

reflectivity and impulsivity Reflective learners prefer to think about their answers or comments before speaking in class They are generally cautious, while impulsive learners

tend to be more impetuous and may take a gamble They may respond immediately, often before they’ve thought through their ideas completely

Unlike Brown’s definition of learning style, Willing (1985, cited in Nunan,1988:93)

classifies learner styles into four types: (1) Concrete learners: they preferred learning by

games, pictures, films and videos, talking in pairs and learning through the use of cassettes

(2) Analytical learners: these learners liked studying grammar, studying English books, finding their own mistakes, and learning through reading newspapers (3) Communicative learners: they liked to learn by observing and listening to native speakers, talking to friends

in English and learning English wherever possible (4) Authority-oriented learners: they

liked the teacher to explain everything, writing everything in their notebooks, having their own textbook, learning to read, studying grammar, learning English words by seeing them

Part 2: Development – Chapter One: Literature Review

2.2.2 Students’ motivations

In second language learning, motivation is considered a complex phenomenon that Lightbown and Spada (1999) defined in terms of two factors: learners’ communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language in a variety of social contexts or to accomplish professional ambitions, they will seize the communicative value and therefore will be motivated to acquire proficiency in it Similarly, if learners have positive attitudes towards the speakers of the language, they will have desire to communicate or contact them Teachers, therefore, should realize the source of a student’s motivation to meet particular needs as well as to “actively ‘push’ learners to realize their full potential and make maximum progress” (Ur, 1996:273)

2.2.3 Teacher’s teaching techniques

teachers who know a lot about teaching and learning and who work in

environments that allow them to know students well are the critical elements of

successful learning

(Darling-Hammond, 1997, p.8)

Teachers’ teaching techniques that usually correspond to an approach and a method can vary greatly from one teacher to another Consequently, different teachers’ techniques create different degree of students’ participation Traditional methods such as GTM, DM often lead teachers to the choice of using teacher-centered techniques which mostly focus on grammatical and phonological accuracy These techniques are, for instance, choral repetition, drilling substitution, content explanation and narrative presentation seem so mechanical and simple that they will result in learners’ passiveness and limit their participation in learning On the contrary, in the light of CLT, teachers’ techniques turn into learner-centered instead of teacher-centered The examples of these techniques can be named as role-play, problem solving, games, pair and group work, interview and discussion

It is apparent that when using these techniques, teachers can encourage more students to engage in the lesson because the main actors of these activities are learners

2.2.4 Teachers’ personal qualities and characteristics

Although “the perfect set of personal qualities and characteristics for an effective teacher

has not been found” (Barry, 1993:93), it would be accurate to say that in order to involve students in engaging in the lesson, teacher firstly should be one that students trust and respect The teacher’s prestige will make student feel “safe” in his lecture and thus they are willing to participate more Wright, Horn and Sanders (1997) carried out a study to examine the relative magnitude of teacher effects on students’ achievement in the US After analysing the achievement scores of more than 100,000 students, they conclude that “the most important factor affecting student achievement is the teacher” (p.63) The following characteristics of a teacher who students trust and respect are pointed out by Kevin Berry (1993):

Being natural: the teacher should present himself as real person To be more

concrete, he should express the feeling of a normal person such as happiness,

annoyance, etc, should laugh with students when humorous situation occur

Therefore, the relationship between the teacher and students will be closer, which

helps increase students’ engagement and their co-operation with teachers in the

process of teaching and learning

Being warm: The teacher considers students as his fellow people, respect their

personal characteristics, and is happy to have them around

Being pleasant: The teachers’ attitude toward students expresses his relaxation,

friendliness in the relationship with his students Besides, being pleasant also

means being enthusiastic toward the job of teaching

Being approachable: an approachable teacher is the one who makes students feel

good about being with him and the one students can come to see when they have

matters

Being tolerant: As students are very sensitive to the way teachers treat to the

others, the idea that teachers are fair and consistent with all students in the class is

highly appreciated To establish a closer relationship, it is vital that teachers be

cordial, acceptant, and tolerant of even those students who are considered “cold”

and “difficult to train”

It has been shown above that the first criteria to be a good teacher is being trusted and respected Indeed, a perfect teacher is not only the one that students can trust and respect but also owns certain qualities to become effective teacher In general, the 10 most important qualities of a good teacher who can encourage students to engage actively in lesson are: (1) encourage active learning, (2)be sincere, friendly and supportive, (3) create positive and friendly classroom atmosphere, (4) be enthusiastic about what he/she teaches, (5) have

“eyes in the back of her/his head”, (6) well planned and well organized She/he also gets students involved in this planning and organization, (7) treat students as individuals, (8)

Part 2: Development – Chapter One: Literature Review

manage the classroom, (9) enthuse students, (10) be fair, firm, flexible

It may be well worth noting that these characteristics and personal qualities of a teacher can help much in improving and reinforcing good relationship between students and the teacher The main point to note here is that such good interaction and relationship, if is maintained during the process of learning and teaching, not only increases student motivation and creates a positive environment for learning but also enhances students’ participation in learning and students’ active learning

2.2.5 Effective classroom learning environment

This section discusses the components of an effective classroom-learning environment As discussed in the previous part, teachers play a significant role in students’ academic achievement and are central to the creation of the classroom climate Burns (1990) says that:

In many areas of instruction, the teacher is the key person in the learning situation,

providing information, explaining concepts or skills, and giving examples Students

interact with the teacher and with each other, but it is the teacher who directs the

instruction, leads lessons, prompts responses, and paces the class (p28)

For Fraser (2001), the principles that can assist teachers to maximise an optimal climate for learning are the “effort, commitment, and critical scrutiny by teachers to ensure that classroom culture enhances and extends the learning of all students” (p.15) He further explains that:

Whether teachers are consciously aware of it or not, what they value and their

philosophy on learning permeates their classrooms and affects the experiences of

students A classroom climate that encourages deep-level learning, rigorous scrutiny

of ideas, respect for people and property, concentration and curiosity, perseverance

and passion, and burning desire ‘to know’, depends upon a certain culture This

culture is developed by teachers but with students, so that students are actively

involved in making decisions, taking responsibility, learning from errors and

realising accomplishments (p.15-16)

Another important factor connected to children’s time-on-task, is the teacher’s academic orientation Effective English teachers emphasise academic instruction, and see learning as the main class goal This means that they spend most of their time on curriculum-based learning activities, and create a task-orientated, but supportive environment They spend time on academic activities rather than on personal matters, group dynamics, socialising or free time (Brophy and Good, 1986; Griffin and Barnes, 1986; Lampert, 1988) Teachers

who give whole class instruction have also been found to spend more time monitoring children’s achievement There were also likely to be less student disruptions, thus increasing time-on-task (Pollard, Broadfoot, Croll, Osborn, and Abbott, 1994; Borich, 1996) A study undertaken by the Office Standards in Education (OfSTED) on The Teaching of Number in Three Local Education Authorities (1997) also concludes that in the best lesson there was usually a higher proportion of time spent teaching the class together, often at the start and sometimes at the end of the lesson, with individual and group work closely linked to the whole-class work

The advantage of co-operative group learning have been highlighted by Burns (1990) that:

Students’ learning is supported when they have opportunities to describe their own

ideas, hear others explain their thoughts, speculate, question, and explore various

approaches To provide for this, learning together in small groups gives students

more opportunities to interact with concepts than do class discussions Not only do

students have the chance to speak more often, but they may be more comfortable

taking the risks of trying out their thinking during problem-solving situations in the

setting of a small group (p.25)

Advocates of cooperative learning in small groups suggest that greater opportunities for discussion and explanation may develop children’s thinking skills, as well as helping to verbalise and structure their thoughts When students work in small groups, they can help each other with their learning When students have opportunities to discuss his or her confusions, self-help can occur Crabill (1990) explains that:

The best way to learn a subject is to teach it, and small-group learning allows

students to experience the other side of the learning process-teaching By his or her

own trial and error, by hearing peers making mistakes and recover, helps the

student begins to understand the process of learning (p.204)

By cooperative learning in small groups children can share their own ways of thinking and reflect on them and on the thinking and ideas of others This exchange may encourage students to engage in more higher-order-thinking Cooperative learning in small groups enhances conceptual understanding and higher achievement on problem solving tasks (Crabill, 1990; Verchaffel and De Corte, 1993; Townsend and Hicks, 1997) Besides, research has shown that students from ethically or cultural diverse back grounds learn more effectively in cooperative learning groups and that cooperative learning groups help to increase self-esteem for these learners (Sleeter, 1997)

Part 2: Development - Chapter Two: Methodology

Chapter Two: Methodology

This chapter includes a justification for the approach the author used in conducting the research It also provides a brief presentation of how the author collected the necessary data

as well as the analytical procedure to draw conclusions based on the collected information

1 Research setting

1.1 An overview of the research site

SP is one of the districts in a mountainous province of LC There are many differences between SP town and the villages SP town is rich and exciting because of tourism; on the other hand, the villages in SP where four minority ethnic groups Mong, Tay, Dao, Giay live

in are very poor Therefore, students’ learning condition in SP is much different from each other SPHS is located in the centre of SP town 60% of school students are minority ethnic students Despite the fact that LC province has achieved national standards in the universalization of junior secondary education (Report by Lao Cai PPC, 2007), in some remote areas, SP included, it is very hard to consult students to continue their study to high school level That is because of many reasons, such as: the poverty, traditional culture of early marriage, the limited awareness of the benefit of having higher education in the ethnics groups For that reason, annually, there are not enough students to enrol in high school level in SP So it is difficult for us to hold placement test for students which leads to multi-level students in the classes

1.2 Description of the teachers of English and students

In SPHS, there are 5 teachers of English aged from 26 to 45 Their experience in teaching English varies from 3 to 20 years Most of them graduated from Foreign Language Teachers’ Training Universities These teachers are qualified for the job SPHS has two teachers of English who are key teachers of LC province They both have rich teaching experience and subject matter knowledge They had been teaching English for more than ten years in high school Generally, all of the teachers of English in this school love teaching and have positive attitudes to supporting their students’ learning

Students in SPHS come from a variety of socio-economic groups Students come from SP

town have better learning condition outside classroom Many of them are able students and have had quite good results during their secondary education Some of them have a lot of chance to practise speaking English with native speakers so their speaking skill is quite good On the contrary, students coming from ethnic minority groups live very far from the centre of the town and their families’ income comes from farming which is considered one

of the lowest income groups in Vietnam They have their own traditional culture and languages and their mother languages are not Vietnamese They finished secondary education in local secondary schools in their villages which have poor learning condition so they have had not very good results in secondary school education Although the local government has priority policies to provide education for these groups and encourages students to go to school as offered ethnic students free accommodations in the school’s hostel and free food, those students need extra help from teachers after school time in order

to improve their quality of work

1.3 The materials of teaching and learning

The textbooks currently used to teach English are English 10, English 11 and English 12 published by Ministry of Education and Training I would like to focus on English 10 in my thesis The teaching content of English 10 textbook follows the theme-based approach and

is developed on six broad themes which are subdivided into 16 topics corresponding to 16 units and a “Test yourself” after every 3 units All units have the same structure, starting with the theme of the unit, followed by four lessons focused on language skills and ending with language focus Language skills are developed in parallel with the development of such language knowledge as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation

With strengths, the textbook is expected to contribute better quality of English learning in Vietnam high school In terms of curriculum development, the introduction of the new textbook can be new fresh air blowing into the teaching and learning situation at secondary schools in Vietnam However, to a large number of ethnic minority students, the new English textbook set as well as English 10 are very difficult Very often the amount of new vocabulary in one unit was too much for students In addition, many topics in the English textbooks were strange to their daily lives and background

Part 2: Development - Chapter Two: Methodology

2 Participants

2.1 Population

The target population for this study comprises 5 teachers of English and 80 students of tenth-grade at SPHS The brief description of the teachers of English and students has been mentioned in the earlier sections of this chapter

2.2 Sampling

The researcher used convenience sampling in this study The sampling plan proposed for the current study was a two-stage stratified cluster design (Jacobs et al., 2003) The first stage consisted of selecting high school, and the second stage consisted of a sample of teachers and students for questionnaires and interviews, a sample of classrooms and English speaking lessons from the tenth-grade classrooms for observation in the sample school After participant selections were made, appointments were made to arrange suitable times for questionnaire, interview and observation lessons Five teachers of English and all students in the two tenth-grade classrooms at SPHS agreed to take part in the study

3.3 Detailed description of participants

There are two groups of participants in this study The first group involves five teachers of English who are currently teaching English at SPHS They were observed and given the questionnaires by the researcher They are all female and are ranging from 26 to 45 years old Their teaching experience at high schools varies from 5 to 23 years The variety in the participants’ age, qualification, and teaching experience is expected to provide reliability and validity for the study The second group deals with eighty students who come from two classes (10A5 and 10A6) at SPHS 43.75% of the students are Kinh people who live in SP town, the others belong to ethnic minorities Mong, Tay, Dao, Giay (Mong: 20%, Tay: 18.75%, Dao: 15% and Giay: 2.5%) and they live in the villages of SP district The students’ living condition, their learning outside class conditions, their attitudes, motivation for foreign language learning are not the same

3.4 Data collection instruments

In order to get information, the main data collection instruments for this study were

questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations

3.4.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires for students

This questionnaire was designed with three main parts with 17 questions administered to 80 students Part I was about the students’ personal information which included students’ ethnic group, place of domicile and their average mark of English subject in the first term of Grade 10 Part II was designed to elicit the students’ opinions about their motivation in learning speaking English Part III would collect some information relating to factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC and students’ attitude towards activities and techniques applied by teachers

Questionnaires for teachers

The survey to the teachers with nine questions comprised two sections: Part I was the demographic information, which contained the teachers’ gender, age and the number of years they had been teaching English language in high school Part II was about teachers’ opinion on students’ motivation in engaging ESC, activities and techniques they had been using to motivate students, their comment about speaking skill in English 10 textbook and their own experiences of teaching speaking to help students get engaged actively in ESC

3.4.2 Interviews

In this study, the interviews were carried out in a following week after the questionnaires with 40 students, who were chosen randomly for the interview, 20 students from class 10A5 and 20 from 10A6 The aim of the researcher for interviews is to get better insights into the research questions and to discuss for further information about the items raised in the questionnaires The participants were invited to answer the questions with the researcher’s explanation of the questions and clarifying unclear answers, each interview lasted for about

10 minutes The informal talks were sometimes done between the researcher and students during breaks to have in-depth understanding about the teaching method teachers had just applied and students’ preferences The questions for interviews were conducted mainly in Vietnamese, only with English words, phrases, or sentences when the interviewees felt a need Basic interview questions were prepared (for details of the interview, see Appendix 4) With interviewees’ permission, the interviews were taken note All interview data were analyzed interpretatively

Part 2: Development - Chapter Two: Methodology

3.4.3 Classroom observations

Classroom observations are the main tools to collect more information about the level of students’ participation in lessons, and the activities occurring in the classes

First and foremost, an observation sheet was used to probe students and teacher’ behaviors

in speaking classes The sheet which is adapted from Hopskin’s (1985) and Peacock’s (1997) contains columns and lines with the number of students and teachers who were observed while working in ESC The observation sheet was filled as soon as the teachers started the lessons and lasted till they were finished, i.e all actions, words or behaviors of teachers would be watched and recorded carefully In this study, the purpose of having classroom observation was to ascertain the prevalent views given by the teachers and students during the questionnaires and interviews (for observational protocol, see Appendix 5)

3.5 Data Collection Procedures

The questionnaires were delivered to students and teachers at the middle of the second term

to gather information of students’ motivation in engaging in ESC, students’ attitude towards speaking activities in English 10 textbook, students’ attitude towards techniques and activities applied by teachers and their preferences as well as gathering information about teachers’ attitudes towards students’ motivation in participating in ESC and the effects of the activities and techniques that they had applied

The informal interviews took place in a face to face situation with the students during the second term of the school year 2010-2011, and the interviews were taken note or tape- recorded The interviews helped the researcher to get the necessary information on the factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC

The observations were conducted in 10 English lessons at 10 graders of two selected teachers at the second term of the school year The observations strengthened the information gathered in the questionnaires and in the interviews

Chapter Three Data analysis, discussion of major findings and recommendations

This chapter deals with the data results of the questionnaires, interviews and the information obtained through observation process Also, a discussion of major findings is presented which functions as practical groundings for further recommendations to be drawn out In this chapter, answers to the four research questions as well as recommendations will be given

1 Data analysis

1.1 Data analysis from Students’ Questionnaire

The questionnaire for the students was designed with three main parts consisting of 22 questions The researcher used the data collected in Part I to describe the participants in the previous chapter In this part, the reseacher only analyse 18 questions in part II and part III

1.1.1 Students’ motivation in engaging in ESC

1.1.1.1 Types of motivation

Question 1 was designed to seek types of motivation for students

Table 1 Types of motivation (see Appendix 1)

Table 1 reveals that the future job is the main reason of students’ studying English with the

highest percentage (51,3%) of the students want to learn English 13,8% students think that

English is one of the compulsory subjects for learning at school and their final examination

At the same time, many students study English for their interest and entertainment, about

11,3% of participants answer that they are interested in English, especially English people and culture The same number of respondents also reveals that they like English because it helps them sing and listen to English songs The others want to learn English because they

will take English as a main subject in the university entrance exam and want to learn

English to study abroad in the future (6,3% and 5% respectively) The lowest percentage of the students (1,3%) affirm that they are learning English because of high marks

In short, types of motivation possess by Grade 10 students are quite varied The highest percentages are the students who possess instrumental orientation with the reasons 5,6,7

The lower percentages are the respondents with extrinsic motivation with reason 2 The next ones who choose reason 3 are some possess integrative and intrinsic motivation Among these figures, some students identify as having a combination of both intrinsic and instrumental orientation

1.1.1.2 Students’ opinions on learning speaking English

Question 2 How is speaking skill important to you?

Figure 1 The perspective of students to the importance of speaking skill

As can be seen from the chart, the highest percentage of the respondents (40%) consider speaking skill very important to them, 36,25% of the respondents mention speaking important, 21,25% state it is normal Only 1,25% do not highly evaluate the importance of the speaking skill when they say that speaking skill is little important The same ones think speaking skill was not important at all

Question 3 To what extent do you desire to learn speaking English?

Figure 2 Students’ desire to learn speaking English

Students state that they have high desire in learning English 57,5% of the respondents affirm they want to learn English speaking well while none of them do not do that 42,5%

do not concern much to Engish speaking, they rate their desire as normal

Question 4 How much do you feel interested in engaging in ESC?

Figure 3 Students’ interest in engaging in ESC

Figure 3 reveals that students are interested in participating in English speaking classroom activities in general 22,5% affirm their interest is very high, 30% are interested in participating in ESC 28 out of 80 students (35%) answer that their interest is normal Only 12,5% of the students have low interest and none of them are not interested at all

Question 5 How often do you speak English in English class time?

Figure 4 Students’ frequency in engaging in speaking English in English classes

Figure 4 represents that only 3,75% of the respondents always engage in ESC, 20% of them often do that, 17,5% participate rarely and 1,25% never participate except from the teacher’s requests Also, 57,5% of them say that they like engaging in ESC but sometimes they are prevented by some reasons as their shyness or unselfconfidence In general, the time to participate in English activities in speaking lessons is unequal among students

1.1.1.3 Students’ reluctance to engage in ESC

Question 6 How much do you feel reluctant to be engaged in ESC?

Figure 5 Students’ reluctance degree in speaking lessons

Figure 5 shows that the number of surveyed learners usually and often feel reluctant to be engaged in ESC accounts for 31,25% 45% of the participants are sometimes reluctant to speak Only 10% of the surveyed are rarey reluctant to get involved in speaking lessons, and 13,75% of the total do not feel reluctant at all

1.1.1.4 Students’ evaluation towards English 10 Textbook

Question 7 What do you think about the topics in English 10 textbook?

Figure 6 Students’ perspective on the topics in English 10 textbook

As shown in Figure 6, 8,75% of the survey students state that topics in English 10 Textbook are very interesting, and 45% of respondents say topics are interesting, 33,75% consider topics to be acceptable whereas 11,25% say that the topics are boring and only 1 student (1,25%) considers they are very boring

Question 8 What do you think about speaking tasks in English 10 textbook?

Figure 7 Students’ perspective on the tasks in English 10 textbook

As shown in the above figure, the majority of the students say that the tasks in English 10 Textbook are too dificult and difficult (7,5% and 60% respectively), 32,5% consider they are normal while none of the students think that they are easy or too easy Although the tasks in English 10 Textbook are considered interesting, they are difficult compare to students’ level

1.1.2 Factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC and students’ attitude towards activities and techniques applied by teachers

1.1.2.1 Students’ learning styles

Question 9 Which of the following learning styles do you possess?

Table 2 Students’ learning styles (See Apendix 1)

The data in Table 2 shows clearly that the learning styles vary from students to students The total number (12,5%) of communicative learners, who can learn well from discussion and group activities, is the smallest in comparison with other types of learners Meanwhile, majority of students (51,25%) are authority-oriented learners

1.1.2.2.Factors making student reluctant to engage in ESC ( Question 10)

Table 3 Factors making students reluctant to engage in ESC (see Appendix 1)

As can be viewed from the table, 62,5% of the students say that their low proficiency in English make them reluctant to engage in English speaking activities 16,25% are not accustomed to speaking English in front of other people and 10% fear of mistakes Another factors which relate to teachers included teacher’s uneven allocation of turns (7,5%) and teacher’s boring teaching method (13,75%) So from the result we can see that students are afraid of their limitation which decreases their degree to participate the activities in speaking lessons Next, it can be said that teacher’s factors are not the most important but the decisive ones that maintain students’ speaking process

Question 11 What are your difficulties in getting engaged in ESC?

Table 4 Students’ difficulties in getting engaged in ESC (see Appendix 1)

Apparently 37,5% of the students can not find words and structures to express their opinion when speaking, 25% are unable to find ideas, 31,25% think the difficulties come from their poor pronunciation, 3,75% are under the negative influence of mother-tongued inference Only 10% of them say teacher’s unenthusiasm affect them negatively

1.1.2.3 Factors encouraging students to engage in ESC (Question 12)

Table 5 Factors encouraging students to engage in ESC (see Appendix 1)

Interestingly, the highest percentage of the surveyed students (31,25%) choose teachers’ good characteristics as the most important factor 25% think the various speaking activities used by teachers in the speaking lessons are the second important ones 22,5% participants choose teachers’ teaching method, 21,25% of the students choose pleasant class atmosphere while interesting topics based on the textbook rank only 13,75% and high oral marks students may get in speaking lessons (1,25%) It is, therefore, understandable that the factors relating to teachers and supportive classroom atmosphere have good influence on students’ engagement in ESC

Question 13 Which of the following activities do you like most in a speaking lesson?

Figure 8 Students’ favourite activities in ESC

Question 14 Which of the following factors can help you get engaged better in ESC?

Table 6 Factors help students get engaged better in ESC (see Appendix 1)

It is interesting to see that careful preparation (35%) and actively work in pair and group (28,75%) are the two factors that help students’ involvement effectively in speaking lessons, whereas 23,75% of the respondents think that being confident when expressing the ideas and 22,5% of the total suppose that trying to speak English fluently help them better engage

in speaking classes

1.1.2.4 Students’ perspective on teachers’ activities and techniques in ESC

Question 16 How much do you feel like activities provided by your teachers?

Figure 9 Students’ perspective on teachers’ activities in ESC

A litle Not like at all

As clearly stated from Figure 9 (Question 16), many students have positive perspective on teachers’ activities in ESC 13,75% surveyed students say that they like teachers’ activities very much, 37,5% consider these activities interesting, 46,2% show their normal attitude while only a few students (2,5%) think that the activities teachers give a little interesting and noone does not like at all

Question 17 What do your teachers often do when you make mistakes in speaking?

Figure 10 Teachers’ reaction to students’ speaking mistakes

Not correct mistakes and encourage students to continue speaking until finish Just listen to students

The figure presents the way teachers respond to students speaking mistakes Most of the teachers (65%) wait until students finish their presentation then correct mistakes, 8,75% do not correct mistakes and encourage students to continue speaking until they finish Only 25% interrupt students and correct mistakes and almost none of the teachers (1,25%) just

listen to students

Question 18 Which of the followings do you think your teachers should do to motivate you

to take part in speaking activities?

Table 7 Students’ expectations toward their teachers (see Appendix 1)

The table shows the percentage of students choosing what teachers should do to enhance students’ engagement in ESC The same number of students state that teachers should be enthusiastic, friendly, helpful and they should create interesting activities in the speaking lessons (52,5% for each) 35% of the total expect teachers to create pleasant class atmosphere Having clear instructions ranks the third at 32,5% and 21,25% surveyed students enjoy teachers’ encouraging them with marks and rewards However, the others want teachers to accept a variety of their answers (10%) and not to interrupt them when they make mistakes (8,75% )

1.2 Data analysis from Teachers’ Questionnaire

The questionnaires for teachers consisting of 9 questions were delivered to 5 teachers The data collected was analysed as follows

Question 1 What do you think of the importance of speaking to your students

Figure 11 Teachers' perspective on the importance of speaking to students

Question 2 Which stages of the speaking lesson do you find that it is necessary to motivate your students?

In consideration to the relation between three stages (pre, while, post-speaking) in speaking lessons with student’s participation, most of the teachers (80%) believe that it’s necessary to motivate students contributing themselves to classroom activities in all the stages by applying many motivational techniques, creating many activities and games because they understand the important of motivation in all of three stages However, 20% of the teachers who say that they only motivate students in pre-speaking stage shows the fact that some teachers are not fully aware of the importance of gradual steps to motivate their students

Question 3 What problems are you facing in teaching English speaking?

Figure 12 Teachers' perspective on the problems facing in teaching English speaking

Multi-l evel classes

Students' reluctance

Limited time Poor

Question 4 How often do you use the following activities in speaking lesson?

Figure 13 Teachers using individual, pair work and group work in speaking lesson

As shown in the above figure, teachers use all of three activities (individual, pair work and