Sử dụng hoạt động khoảng trống thông tin để thúc đẩy động lực học và sự tham gia của sinh viên trong giờ học nói đối với sinh viên năm thứ hai ở trường Đại học

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------NGÔ THỊ KHÁNH NGỌC USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -NGÔ THỊ KHÁNH NGỌC

USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE

STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS FOR SECOND YEAR STUDENTS IN USSH, VNU

(Sử dụng hoạt động khoảng trống thông tin để thúc đẩy động lực học

và sự tham gia của sinh viên trong giờ học nói đối với sinh viên năm

thứ hai ở trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

HANOI, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -NGÔ THỊ KHÁNH NGỌC

USING INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE

STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND PARTICIPATION IN SPEAKING LESSONS FOR SECOND YEAR STUDENTS IN USSH, VNU

(Sử dụng hoạt động khoảng trống thông tin để thúc đẩy động lực học

và sự tham gia của sinh viên trong giờ học nói đối với sinh viên năm

thứ hai ở trường Đại học Khoa học Xã hội và Nhân văn)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Cao Thúy Hồng, M.A

HANOI, 2013

I Rationale for the study 1

II Aims and research questions 2

III Scope of the study 3

V Significance of the study 3

VI Organization of the study 4

1.2.2 Ellis (1999)‟s classification 6 1.2.3 Doff‟s classification 7 1.3 Benefits of information gap activities 10 1.3.1 Increase students‟ talking time in class 10 1.3.2 Promote students‟ motivation 10 1.3.3 Promote students‟ equal participation 11 1.3.4 Build students‟ confidence 11 1.3.5 Develop student‟s fluency and accuracy 11

3.3 Assess students‟ participation 17

II Literature review 17

2.2 Research approach 23

2.3 Participants 23

2.4 Data collection methods 25

2.5 Data collection procedure 27

2.6 Data analysis 29

3.1 Data collected from the pre-intervention stage 31

3.2 Data collected from the while-intervention stage 32

3.2.1 Students‟ motivation in speaking tasks in two groups 32

3.2.1.1 Data from the self-report questionaire 32

3.2.1.2 Data from the observation sheet 1 35 3.2.2 Students‟ participation in speaking tasks in two groups 38

3.2.2.1 Data collected from observation sheet 2 38

I Major findings of the study 41

III Suggestions for further studies 42

IV Contributions of the studies 42

LISTS OF TABLES, CHARTS AND ABBREVIATIONS List of tables:

Table 3.1.1 Motivation in two groups in pre-intervention stage

Table 3.1.2 Students‟ times on task in two groups in pre-intervention stage

Table 1 Motivation of students in speaking tasks in the control group

Table 2 Motivation of students in speaking tasks in the experimental group

Table 3 The data on the overall class motivation in the control group

Table 4 The data on the overall class motivation in the experimental group

Table 5 The data on the students‟ on-task/off-task behavior in the control group Table 6 The data on the students‟ on-task/off-task behavior in the experimental group

List of charts:

Chart 1 Students‟ motivation in the control group

Chart 2 Students‟ motivation in the experimental group

Chart 3 Students‟ motivation in two groups

Chart 4 Overall class motivation in the control group

Chart 5 Overall class motivation in the experimental group

Chart 6 The level of overall motivation in two groups

Chart 7 Students‟ times on-task/off-task behaviour in the control group

Chart 8 Students‟ times on-task/off-task behaviour in the experimental group

Chart 9 Students‟ times on-task in two groups

List of abbreviations:

IGA: Information gap activities

USSH: University of Social Sciences and Humanities

VNU: Vietnam National University

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale for the study

It is obvious that nowadays English is becoming an international language, which is used worldwide for the purpose of communication It is English that helps

us keep up with updated information about the surroundings and establish relations with foreign countries all over the world English is needed in various fields such as tourism, education, trade, science, economy and so on In Vietnam, English is taught as one of the compulsory subjects at senior secondary schools and universities

Among four main skills, speaking skill plays an important role in English teaching in the context of Vietnam Nunan (1991) emphasized that success in learning a language is measured based on the ability to carry out a conversation in the target language For many students, speaking is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language in general and in English in particular

However, many EFL students find this skill most difficult to obtain Most Vietnamese learners find it hard to use English to communicate in real life One of the reasons may be the lack of environment for communicating In most classes, students just come to class to listen to teacher‟s lecture without any real communication in English The teacher may use some available speaking tasks in textbook, but most of them can‟t create the real demand for communicating of students

During my process of teaching, I realized some problems Firstly, speaking is one of the weakest skills of Vietnamese students This is partly due to their poor grammar and pronunciation, their lack of vocabulary, and partly because of their low motivation in speaking lessons Secondly, students‟ unwillingness to speak in speaking lesson can be the result of their lack ideas or the uninteresting nature of the speaking

Due to these above reasons, there is a requirement of some interactive techniques to improve students‟ speaking skills and motivate them in learning Information-gap activities may be a good solution According to Doff (1988), IGA are activities where learners are missing some information and they need to complete a task and talk to each other to find it Information-gap activities give students reasons to speak If the activities are well- designed to reflect the real-life situations, they can not only motivate students to speak but also prepare students for real communication outside the classroom

All of the above-mentioned reasons have urged the researcher to conduct the

research with the title “Using Information Gap Activities to promote students’

motivation and participation in speaking lessons for second-year students at USSH, VNU” Hopefully, this research will make a minor contribution to the

implementation of Information Gap Activities in improving speaking skills for students at USSH

II Aims and research questions

2.1 Aims

The study is specially targeted at finding out the effect of IGA on the students‟

motivation and participation in speaking lesson

2.2 Research question

Regarding the goals of the study, the following research questions are put forward:

1 Can IGA help increase students‟ motivation in the speaking lessons?If yes, to what extent?

2 Can IGA help increase students‟ participation in the speaking lessons? If yes, to what extent?

III Scope of the study

IGA has benefited students in many aspects such as enhance students‟ speaking skill, promote students‟ motivation, increase students‟ talking time, build students‟ confidence, etc Due to the limited time, this study only focuses on the effect of IGA on students‟ motivation and participation in the speaking class Besides, the subject of this study is 60 students from two English classes in

University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH)

IV Method

In order to achieve these aims, this quasi-experimental research employed both survey questionaires and classroom observation in order to collect data Participantswere divided into two groups: the control group and experimental group.In the experimental group, teacher used information gap activities in speaking lesson.The control group was taught in the traditional way with the use of speaking tasks in textbook The researcher observed two groups and delivered questionaires

to collect data Then a comparison was made between two groups to find out the

answer to the questions

V Significance of the study

The study was carried out with the hope to provide teachers of English at USSH with a deeper understanding about benefits of using IGA in teaching speaking skill In addition, it is hoped that the study will be of great use in helping teachers find an effective way to increase their students‟ participation as well

as motivate them to use English in speaking lessons

VI Organization of the study

The thesis covers three main parts as follows:

Part A is the Introductionprovides readers with overall information about the

research including the rationale for the study, aims and research questions, significance, method, scope as well as the organization of the study

Part B is the Development which comprises three chapters:

Chapter I: Theoretical background and literature review deals with three

major concepts, namely information gap activities, students‟ motivation and participation in speaking activities with a hope to provide theoretical background for the following chapters.Besides, a review of related studies is also presented

Chapter II: Methodologypresents the methodsused to find out the necessary

data for the study, including the background information of the context where the study is conducted, the subjects, the instruments used to collect data, and the procedures of data collection Besides, a detailed description of data analysis is presented

Chapter III: Results and Discussion presents the findings of the study basing

on the data analysis and synthesis Furthermore, some pedagogical implications are provided

Part C is the Conclusion which summarizes the major findings of the paper,

indicates limitations of the research and offers suggestions for further studies

The References and Appendices include a list of references that the researcher used for research, samples of questionaires, observation sheet and model lesson plans

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

AND LITERATURE REVIEW

& Reeser (1997, p.72) also said that: “In information gap activity, one person has certain information that must be shared with others in order to solve a problem, gather information or make decisions.”

These definitions all reflect the nature of information gap activities In IGA, there is always an information gap among participants, which causes a need to communicate This characteristic of IGA is similar to the nature of a conversation in real life In fact, the need to communicate is created when one of the participants want to find out something they don‟t know Therefore, IGA can be considered as a bridge to bring features of real life communication into classroom context

1.2 Types of Information gap activities

Different researchers have offered different ways to classify Information gap activities

1.2.1 Littlewood (1981)’s classification

Littlewood (1981) assumed that information gap activities are functional communicative activities He divided IGA into two main types:

Sharing information with restricted cooperation

According to Littlewood, this type of communicative activites produces the simplest patterns of interaction The situation is always that one learner (or group) focuses information which another learner (or group) must discover And the knower is not allowed to cooperate fully; he provides information only in respond to appropriate cues There are usually questions of specified kind (e.g Yes/ No questions)

Sharing information with unrestricted cooperation

These activities are based on visual information That is, information gap is maintained by the physical fact that the participants can not see each other‟s picture Across this physical gap, the learners‟ communicative relationship may be allowed

to become fully cooperative

1.2.2 Ellis (1999)’s classification

Ellis (1999) divided information gap activities into two main types: One-way and two- way task In one-way information gap tasks, one learner has all of the

information, the other simply has to listen and record the information they receive

In two-way information gap tasks, both learners have information and they must

share with the other to complete the task

1.2.3 Doff’s classification

According to Doff (1988), there are three main kinds of information gap

activities: guessing games, information gap exercises for pair work, and activities in

which students exchange personal information

In the real process of language teaching, Doff‟s way to classify IGA seems to

be quite specific and useful for language teachers Each type of IGA is described quite clear and easy to understand Teachers can choose one suitable IGA type to appy in teaching students in class

a.Guessing games

a1.Guess the picture

The teacher has a set of flashcards with simple pictures (e.g clothes, food, places, actions) He or she chooses one card, but does not show it to the class The students must guess by asking questions, e.g.:

T: Guess how I went to X

Ss: Did you go by car? Did you go by bus? Did you walk?

a2.Guess the sentence

The teacher writes a sentence on a piece of paper or card He or she does not show the sentence, but writes the basic structure on the board, e.g.:

I went (somewhere) to (do something)

Students must guess the exact sentence by asking questions, e.g:

Did you go to the park? Did you go to school? Did you play football?

a3 Mime

The teacher calls a student to the front and secretly gives her a sentence written on a piece of paper, which describes a simple activity, e.g go fishing The student mimes this activity The other students try to guess the situation

e.g You are mending a puncture You are mending a plug

a4 Guess famous people

One student pretends to be a famous person (alive or dead) who is known to the others The rest of the class try to ask yes-no questions to find out who the person is For example:

Are you still alive or dead?Are you English? Are you a singer?

a5 “What’s my line?”

One student chooses a job, and mimes a typical activity that it involves The other try to guess the job by asking questions either about the activity or the job, e.g:

“Were you mending something?”, “Were you digging?” or “Do you work outside?”

a6 What and where:

The teacher sends two students out of the room The other students hide an object The two students come back and guess what the object is and where it is hidden, by asking questions, e.g “ Is it made of wood?”, “Is it a pencil?”, “Is it high

or low?” or “ Is it on this side of the room?”

b Information gap exercises

According to Doff, information gap exercises are usually designed for pair work They can be done in various ways:

- One student has some information, and the others have to find out by asking questions

- One student has information and tells it to the other student

- Both students have different information, and they tell each other

Then, Doff describes some models of those information-gap exercises:

A Completing the grid: Students sit in pairs In each pair, one student has an empty

grid and the other has the text, which is not shown to each other Students with empty grid completes the grid by asking questions e.g What‟s he going to do tomorrow afternoon?

B Detecting differences: Two students in each pair are given two versions of a

picturewhich are identical except for some differences Without looking at each other‟s pictures, they have to try to find all the differences by describing pictureor asking to compare

C Shopping list: Students sit in pairs In each pair,Students X is a customer and has

a shopping list.Student Y is a shop assistant with a list of items in the shop and their prices They don‟t look at each other‟s list They will try to buy and sell things The author stated the advantages and problems of using these activities in class On the one hand, students will be provided with intensive and interesting language practice while being involved in these activities On the other hand, the teachers will find hard to organise these activities in a large class It‟s difficult for them to prevent students from looking at each other‟s information

c Exchanging personal information activities

According to Doff (1988), these activities are one of the easiest and most interesting forms of communicative classroom activity in which students exchange information about their own lives, hobbies and experiences, etc Students will feel more natural and comfortable to talk about the fact in their life and share with their friends Thus, there is a natural “information gap” For example, students work in pairs and ask their partner about his or her daily routine such as When do you get up?/ When do you have breakfast?/ What do you have for breakfast? / When do you

go to school?/ How do you go to school? etc

In summary, three types of IGA recommended by Doff (1988) are simple and effective communicative activities Teachers can exploit these activities in speaking lessons to motivate students and get them in real communication

1.3 Benefits of information gap activities

1.3.1 Increase students’ talking time in class

These types of activities are extremely effective in the L2 classroom Neu & Reeeser (1997) stated that IGA gives every student the opportunity to speak in the target language for an extended period of time and students naturally produce more speech than they would otherwise

Doughty and Pica (1986, p25) also shared the same idea that “learners tend to produce longer sentences and negotiate meaning more often in interactive tasks than they do in teacher-fronted instruction, where the teacher stands at the front of the room and leads the discussion.”

Overall, IGA creates a chance for students to express their ideas in specific situation Students tend to talk more to exchange their ideas with their partner to complete the task

1.3.2 Promote students’ motivation

IGA creates an information gap between participants, so it gives students a reason for communicating Harmer (1983:90) asserted that “information gap is an ingredient in most real-life communication.” Thus, IGA creates a real purpose for the communication to take place Students will be involved more in these activities because they have a real reason for completing the task, not just to practise the new structure or vocabulary

Moreover, information gap activities are often designed in form of games Thus, it can stir and maintain students‟ interest and motivation more because they like the game The challenge is one of the essential of every game, which can create competition among learners and maintain eagerness in the learning process

Besides, Raptou (2001) also stated that IGA give students a chance to practice what they‟ve learned Students have opportunities to put the theory into real daily conversation Thus, they will understand the lesson more and be attracted to the task

1.3.3 Promote students’ equal participation

Moreover, IGA also offer equal opportunities of learning for mixed ability classes In IGA, students often work in pair or group and each participant has a definite role For example, in the speaking task “Shopping list” suggested by Doff (1988), students A is a customer, student B is a shop assistant They have to ask questions to buy and sell things Therefore, the speaking task is not dominated by a minority of talkative participants All students have a chance to speak, and contribute fairly evenly to the discussion

1.3.4 Build students’ confidence

Since most IGA are designed for pair work or group work, students often face each other during time performing these activities Neu & Reeser (1997) make a comment that speaking with peers is less intimidating than presenting in front of the entire class and being evaluated

Hess (2001) also stated that IGA creates a secure, nonthreatening atmosphere Students can express their ideas freely using their own language without worrying too much about making mistakes, thus they feel more comfortable and confident in participating in speaking task in class

Raptou (2001) also shared the same idea that IGA results in a more comfortable environment because communication is one-on-one, rather than individual to class

Overall, students feel more comfortable and less anxious in comleting IGA in class They do not have to worry about speaking in front a class and being assessed

by the teacher

1.3.5 Develop student’s fluency and accuracy

Raptou (2001) asserted that IGA help students to apply the focused grammatical structures in order to exchange information and negotiate meaning Thus, students involved in the speaking task will keep asking and answering questions Through this kind of practice, their fluency and accuracy can be improved gradually

Neu & Reeser (1997) also stated that in IGA, students are forced to negotiate meaning because they must make what they are saying comprehensible to others in order to accomplish the task So, the students keep talking to maintain the exchange

of information They try to avoid the pause in the middle of the conversation In this way, students‟ fluency can also be improved

Part 2: Motivation

2.1 Definition

Motivation is an abstract concept that is difficult to define However, it is used widely in situations involving learning a second language According to Dornyei (2002), motivation is related to one of the most basic aspects of the human mind and play a very important role in determining success or failure in learning

process There are many authors offering different definitions of motivation

Brown (1987, p114) defines motivation as “an inner drive, impulse, emotion,

or desire that moves one to a particular action.” In other word, motivation is some inner drive that encourages us to achieve certain goals

Dörnyei (2002, p 7) gives another definition of motivation as “why people decide to do something, how long they are willing to sustain the activity, and how hard they are going to pursue it.”

Ellis (1998) indicated that motivation involves the attitudes and affective states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to learn a second language

Overall, motivation is a process that creates one‟s desire toward doing something In second language learning, motivation is the driving force that involved learners in the language acquisition process

2.2 Types of motivation

Ellis(1998)divides motivation into four types: instrumental, integrative, resultative and intrinsic

Integrative motivation: some learners may choose to learn a particular L2

because they are interested in the people and culture represented by the language group

target-Instrumental motivation: learners may make efforts to learn a L2 for some

functional reason – to pass an examination, to get a better job, or to get a place at university

Resultative motivation: Motivation is the result of learning That is, learners

who experience success in learning may become more, or in some context, less

motivated to learn

Intrinsic motivation: Motivation involves the arousal and maintenance of

curiosity and can ebb and flow as a result of such factors as learners‟ particular

interests and the extent to which they feel personally involved in learning activities

Motivation is clearly a highly complex phenomenon These four types of motivation should be seen as complementary rather than as distinct and oppositional Learners can be both intergatively and instrumentally motivated at one and the same time

2.3 Assessstudents’ motivation

Motivation is an abstract concept that is difficult to define and assess Many linguists have suggested different ways to assess motivation in second language acquisition In the scope of this small-scale research, the author would like to assess the students‟ motivation related to the use of information gap activities in speaking class Thus, this paper focuses on intrinsic motivation, which is concerned with the

internal incentive to do things for one‟s satisfaction (Deci & Ryan, 1985) The scale used for reference was the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory

The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) was originally developed by R Ryan, Mims, and Koestner (1983) It is a multidimensional measurement device intended to assess participants subjective experience related to a target activity in laboratory experiments It has been used in several experiments related to intrinsic motivation and self-regulation (e.g., Ryan, 1982; Ryan, Mims & Koestner, 1983) The instrument assesses participants interest/enjoyment, perceived competence, effort, value/usefulness, felt pressure and tension, and perceived choice while performing a given activity, thus yielding six subscale scores The interest/enjoyment subscale is considered the self-report measure of intrinsic motivation The perceived choice and perceived competence concepts are designed

to reflect the self-report and behavioral measures of intrinsic motivation, and pressure/tension is theorized to be a negative predictor of intrinsic motivation Effort is a separate variable that is relevant to some motivation questions, so is used its relevant The value/usefulness subscale is used in internalization studies (e.g., Deci et al, 1994), the idea being that people internalize and become self-regulating with respect to activities that they experience as useful or valuable for themselves Finally, the relatedness subscale is used in studies having to do with interpersonal interactions, friendship formation, and so on

Many linguists have used IMI and found it effective McAuley, Duncan, and Tammen (1989) did a study to examine the validity of the IMI and found strong support for its validity Tsigilis and Theodosiou (2003) also found a Greek version

of the scale to be reliable

2.4 Behaviour of a highly-motivated student

To investigate the motivation of students in the classroom, it is necessary to find out about the behaviour of a motivated student in class When making

inferences about student motivation, teachers rely on observations of behavior and performance Brophy (1987) proposed six main indicators of a motivated student

1 Attendance and discipline At the most basic level, students who are motivated attend class, pay attention, and are not disruptive

2 Participation and completion of work Students who are motivated begin assignments with little prompting, follow directions, participate in classroom discussions, and complete tasks on time

3 Task persistence and acceptance of errors How long a student stays with a task, especially a difficult one, is an important indicator of motivation Highly motivated students persist and try different solutions before seeking help when they have difficulty with a task

4 Quality of task involvement Students can either invest effort in learning or find shortcuts to get the task done without expending a great deal of effort.The amount and quality of effort students expend on learning tasks is an important indicator of motivation Highly motivated students are willing to invest effort and to use the skills they have acquired

5 Independent learning Students who are willing to learn more than is required are reluctant to stop working on a task, even when it is time to move on to something new They also may bring in materials from home, complete work that is not required, or ask questions to learn more about a topic

6 Interest and liking Highly motivated students enjoy learning, show enthusiasm, and take pride in their work

Based on these points, the researcher can observe the student‟s behaviour in class and find out their level of motivation in the speaking task

Part 3 Participation

3.1 Definition

Many linguistics have tried to define classroom participation According to Dancer & Kamvounias (2005), participation can be seen as an active engagement process which can be sorted into five categories: preparation, contribution to discussion, group skills, communication skills, and attendance Besides, Green(2008) also defined student‟s participation as the act of being involved in the class, including an active intervention and showing interest to classroom‟s activity Wade (1994) considered the „„ideal class discussion‟‟ as one in which almost all students participate and are interested, learning, and listening to others‟ comments and suggestions It seems that researchers and instructors would like to mention these mainly quantitative and overt aspects of participation Though the quality of student participation is also important, it is much more subjective and quite challenging in measurement

“students‟ participation” to refer to students‟ oral interaction

3.3 Assess students’ participation

Research has focused on verbal and non-verbal aspects of students‟ participation in classroom discussions The participation in IGA can be also assessed in the similar way.Besides, when investigating oral participation, researchers have just paid attention to observable aspects, i.e the number of turns or the amount of talking time (Martine, 2003) Due to time constraints, this study merely examined students‟ oral participation, measured by the level of involvement

in the speaking task The observation sheet two was employed to find out the level

of students‟ on task in the class

II LITERATURE REVIEW Studies related to the effect of IGA in speaking teaching

There have been a number of previous studies on the practice of using information gap activities to enhance speaking skills Nevertheseless, not many researchers have investigated the effect of information gap activities in actual teaching class

Defrioka (2009) did a research on "Improving Students‟ Interaction In Speaking class Through Information Gap Activities" The study aimed to test to what extent applying information gap activities could improve students‟ interaction in speaking class Classroom action research procedures (plan, act, observe and reflection) were used to study the process and participant outcomes The participants of this research were the third year students of Building Department of SMKN 1 Padang, consisted of (22) students The study was conducted in two cycles with four meetings for each The information gap activities were applied at each meeting with different topic of the lesson The results of the research indicated that the use of IGS can promote students‟ interaction in speaking class The students had more opportunities to speak during the English lesson Besides, the classroom action research itself helped students and

teacher reflect on their successes and failure of the teaching and learning process Then, the researcher suggested that all language teachers should employ information gap activities in their teaching process to promote student learning When adopting this type of activity, language teachers should provide their students with a variety of enjoyable tasks

Sari (2008) did an action research on "Improving Students' speaking Mastery Using Information Gap at the Second Year of SMP N3Kebakramat Karangany” The study aimed to find out whether using IGA can improve students‟ speaking mastery and descibe the students‟ response on the information gap in speaking class The participants are 40 second-year students in the SMP N3 Kebakkramat Karanganyar school The researcher taught IGA in the speaking class The data was collected from students‟ answers on oral test in the form of pre test and post test The result of the study indicated that by implementing IGA in teaching speaking, students seemed to be more active and cooperative in speaking lesson The students‟ motivation to speak, to practice speaking, and students‟ achievement of speaking were improved The mean of the pre test was (68.7), the post test was (71.6), and the improvement result of the implementation was (2.9) Most of the students said that they loved this technique Thus, the study proved that information gap method can make the students more confident, easy to understand, to cooperate with others, and to practice speaking They can improve their vocabulary, pronunciation and express their idea or opinion The researcher suggested that the teacher should find the effective way to teach speaking skill in class

In Vietnam, there are many studies on the real situation of using information gap activities to improve speaking skills for the students A study on “Using IGA to enhance speaking skills for the first year students in ED-ULIS-VNU.” by Nguyen Thi Thu Trang in 2009 is one of the examples The result from the study showed that IGA have been exploited widely and gained some certain achievements at

ULIS, VNU However, there still remains some problems facing teacher and students As for teacher, there are some difficulties in adapting activities, organising the crowded classes or involving students To students, the lack of confidence, the discomfort when working in groups or pairs, and the poor language practice are their major differences Then, some suggestions were made to improve the method

of implementing IGA

In conclusion, with regard to the literature review,using IGA in teaching speaking is quite familiar with teachers in many countries in the world and also in Vietnam Many studies were conducted in this issue to clarify the benefit and problems in using this type of activities However, in Vietnam, not many studies investigated the specific effect of IGA in promoting students‟ motivation and participation in speaking class Thus, it could be said that the conduct of the present study meets the practicality of the issue The research was described in detail in the following sections

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the methodology of the study will be presented It covers the context of the study, research approach, the participant selection methods, the data collection instruments, the procedure of data collection and the data analysis method

2.1 The context of the Study

2.1.1 The teaching and learning conditions

University of Social Sciences and Humanities, member of Vietnam National University-Hanoi, was established in December 1993, founded base on the former Faculties of Social Sciences of Hanoi General Universityon December 10, 1993 As its name suggests, the training program mostly covers the social studies such as literature, history, psychology, phisiology, etc Besides, English is regarded as an important subject because it serves a means of international communication and it is helpful to the students in their future jobs

At USSH, good conditions for English teaching and learning have been usually provided English is taught in a small class from 25 to 35 students This creates the conditions for students to involve in the lesson and interact with friends and teacher Besides, projectors,cassette and CD players are available so that teachers and students can perform their teaching and learning However, the students rarely have opportunities to communicate with foreigners, particularly English native speakers.Only students in special majors such as international studies

or journalism have a chance to learn with foreign teachers in their major studies

2.1.2 The syllabus

The final goal of academic English teaching program at USSH is that the students are able to communicate with foreigners both in spoken and written English at intermediate level and pass the IELTS tests with the score of 4.0 – 4.5 at

the end of the third-semester English course To those students, English is not their major but a compulsory subject in the course

The students have two English lessons each week Each lesson lasts for approximately three period (each period of 50 minutes) Students are assessed with three tests, two progress tests and a final one The progress test one aims to test students‟ language skills including listening, reading and writing In the second test, students have to perform their speaking ability The result of the two mid-term tests accounts for 30% of the total score and 10% is the mark for participation The final test, including three skills – listening, writing and reading, is in charge of the rest 60% The English academic course lasts for three semesters (about one and a half years) After that, students can learn their majors in English

2.1.3 The description of the material used

The course book is New English File by Clive Oxenden and Christina Koenig By using this textbook, the teacher can help to improve students‟ communicative competence Each lesson is about a certain topic Students can learn vocabulary, pronunication and grammatical structures related to each topic Besides, learners can also develop their four skills including reading, writing, listening and speaking When students reach the intermediate level, they are expected to talk with the foreigners in daily conversation and can use their English skills in basic situations

Latham-2.1.4 The learners

The students of USSH are often aged from 18 to 22 There are about 25 – 35 students in each English class Due to the majors related to social studies, in most classes, there are about 80 percent of students are female Male students only accounts for a small number – about 5 or 6 students in a class

Generally speaking, their English proficiency level is low and of mixed ability Many of them come from remote religions of rural areas where they did not have many chances to learn English at high schools Moreover, when they take the

entrance exam to this university, they have to take the test in literature, history and geography, therefore, they only pay attention to these subjects to pass the exam Thus, students do not learn English carefully at highschool Most of them lack the basic knowledge of English and have to start learning English as a beginner.Thus, the students often feel shy or afraid of making mistakes because of their poor English and the lack of social knowledge as well Consequently, in English classrooms, the students usually keep silent and unwilling to take part in class activities That is the reason why for majority of students, using English to communicate is a tough challenge

The students at USSH are quite hardworking and quiet, many of them have personalities related to their majors‟ features – social studies They learn quite hard but they do not actively take part in the lesson They would rather sit at their desk and listen to the teachers than stand up and interact with friends or teachers They study English with specific and practical motivation Most of them study English just to pass all English exams and graduate from university Only a mall number of students in some majors as international studies or journalism learn English to have better opportunities for their future career Thus, it is necessary for teacher to be creative in implement some activities to promote their intrinsic motivation and participation in learning English

2.1.5 The teachers

There are about 30 teachers from the English department of ULIS, VNU Most

of them are female (28female teachers), only 3 of them are male Their age is from

23 to 50 Most of them have acquired an M.A degree or they are following a graduate course There are some teachers attending a training course in English speaking countries

post-In USSH, a large number of English teachers are still very young, some teachers have just only graduated from university, and they do not have much experience in teaching.However, the young teachers always get support and

direction from the experienced ones During the teaching process, they gradually accumulate experience and improve their method of teaching

2.2 Research approach

The quasi-experimental method was used to find out whether using information gap activities can enhance the second year students‟ motivation and participation in speaking lessons at USSH According to Creswell, J (2007), an experimental study is a type of evaluation that seeks to determine whether a program or intervention had the intended causal effect on program participants Thus, the experimental method was employed in this paper However,

in the context of the study, it is difficult for the researcher to artificially create groups for the experiment Besides, randomly assign students to the two groups may disrupt classroom learning Therefore, the researcher chose to use the quasi-experimental research with the use of the intact groups at university

This study aimed to test the hypotheses: when information gap activities were used, levels of on-task behaviour, observed motivation, and self-reported motivation would increase (or decrease) significantly Data was collected over

a four-week duration.The textbook used was New English File - intermediate Students were divided into two groups: the control group and the experimental group The content of the lessons in two groups was similar; the difference is the type of speaking task The researcher asked an enthusiastic and experienced teacher

to cooperate in this study This teacher taught in both control group and experimental group She implemented the tasks in the textbook in the control group and the information-gap activities collected and adapted from other sources in the experimental group

2.3 Participants

Second-year students in University of Social Sciences and Humanities were chosen as the participants of the research There are two main reasons why this

research focuses on these second-year students Firstly, they are studying English non-major program and are at the level of B1 - intermediate After a process learning at university, they have acquired a certain amount of vocabulary and structure They can express their idea in English using some basic structures It‟s time to focus on improving the accuracy and fluency in their speaking skill Secondly, the second-year students are quite enthusiastic They are on the way of forming their English skills and partly use English in some situations Hence, they get interested in participating in these activities in class and cooperate effectively in this study

In consideration of the limited time allowed for this small-scaled research paper, 60 second-year students from 2 classes FLF 1107 16 and FLF 1107 22 in USSH were involved in the data collection process The two classes were chosen to

be the control group and the experimental group The experimental group and the control group were taught by another teacher at USSH The experimental group was taught with the use of information-gap activities and the control group was taught in the traditional way with the use of speaking task in the text-book

2.3.1 The teachers

Another teacher in USSH participated in this study This teacher have had 4 years of experience teaching English at University of Social Studies and Humanities She acquired an M.A degree in English teaching

2.3.2 The students

There are 30 students in each group They are students of various majors such

as psychology, literature, sociology, etc and their level of English proficiency is intermediate In each class, the number of students from each major is rather identical

Literature Sociology History Journalism Physiology Psychology The control

Table 1: Distribution of majors in each group

The background information including years of studying English and speaking score of B1 unit exam are roughly identical between two groups The experimental group has a little lower score then the control group

students

Years of studying English

0-3 4-7 >7

The experimental group 30 5 18 7

Table 2: Background of the students

Group

Speaking score

<6 6.0 – 7.9 >8.0

Table 3: Speaking score in B1 unit exam

Thus, it can be ensured that there is no significant differences between two groups

2.4 Data collection methods

The teacher taught IGA in one class, and used tasks in textbook in another class For a collection of sufficient reliable and valid data for the study, a combination of class observation and self-report questionnaires for students was employed as the data collection method

a Questionnaires

The main attraction of questionnaires is their unprecedented efficiency in terms of researcher time, researcher effort, and financial resources (Hoang & Nguyen, 2006) After delivering the questionnaire, the researcher has to wait for only less than an hour to gather data from a potentially large number of respondents Besides, questionnaires are quite easy to analyze by using some modern computer softwares Thus, the researcher does not have to put too much effort in analyzing them as compared to complicated data in interview Additionally, the process of collecting and analyzing data in questionnaires does not require a lot of financial resources to conduct In consideration of the above points, questionnaires are quite relevant and appropriate within the time-constraint allowed for this small-scaled research paper

The aim of the questionaire is to answer the first research question (whether IGA promote students‟ motivation or not) It is composed of five main parts: interest/ enjoyment, perceived competence, effort/important, pressure/tension, value/ usefulness.It was designed basing on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory which was developed by R Ryan, Mims, and Koestner (1983)to assess the overall level of intrinsic motivation experienced by an individual engaged in an achievement oriented task Students are required to response to statements based on

a 5-points Likert scale, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree

b Classroom observation

Observation which is “a tool for collecting information without direct questioning on the part of the researcher” (Vajendra and Malick, 1999, p.129) is one

of two instruments used to get the data for the research work

Observation sheet 1 (Adapted from Nunan (1989)) was used to assess overall class motivationgenerated bythe information gap activities in use, as manifested by levelsof learner interest, enthusiasm,persistencewith the learningtask,concentration,

andenjoymentduringclass.Each item was scored on a scale of one (low) tofive (high) The maximum possible mark by Observation sheet 1 was 40

Observation sheet 2 (Adapted from Hopkins (1985)) was used to assess students on-task behaviour of students From this data, the researcher can make inferences about students‟ participation in class There are twelve columns and 30 rows (corresponding to 30 students in each class) The researcher placed herself in

an unobtrusive position in the classroom and started observing when students had been working for two minutes The students were observed one by one, consecutively, clockwise around the class Each of them was observed in five seconds The assessment was "1" if the observed student was on-task and "0" if the observed student was off-task Then the observers passed on the next students They continued until all students had been observed and assessed 12 times

2.5 Data collection procedure

The data for the research results came from the information collected through three main phases, namely pre-intervention, while-intervention and post-intervention The use of the instruments in the data collection process was primarily illustrated in the following timeline

two groups were similar The differences are the speaking task In the control group , the teacher used the activities in textbook, while in the experimental group, the teacher used information gap activities The IGA were taken from the teacher‟s book or other sources Next,the questionnaires and the observation sheetswere designed Furthermore, pilot questionnaires were conducted with three voluntary students from class FLF 1107 22 to collect feedback about how the instrument works In addition, an experienced teacher were invited to make comments on the questionnaire items and observation sheet Based on this information, the researcher could make alterations and formulate the final version of questionnaire and observation sheet

Then, the researcher observed two normal speaking lessons in two groups with the use of speaking tasks in the textbook The researcher used the observation sheet

1 and 2 to find out the level of motivation and participation in two groups The aim

of this stage is to maintain that there was no significant difference between the level

of motivation and participation in two groups

2.5.2 While-intervention

Students took part in a four week experimental teaching, in which they had eight speaking lessons delivered by the cooperative teacher The teacher taught in the experimental group with the use of IGA and in the control group in the traditional way without the use of IGA In this stage, two observation sheets were employed to gather data for the study During every lesson, the researcher observed and noted down the students‟ motivation and participation in speaking activities

2.5.3 Post-intervention

After the process of experimental teaching, the self-report questionnaires were delivered to students of two groups to collect information about overall student‟s motivation in class Before delivering the questionnaires, the researchers gave a clear explanation of the research and some key terms to avoid the misunderstand

that may occur Questions were exchanged frequently between the students and the researcher to ensure the comprehension of the question and the accuracy of the collected data From this data, the researcher couldfind out if there were any differences in students‟ motivation in two groups after the treatment

2.6 Data analysis

Initially, the collected data was classified according to two research questions That is, all of the data gathered from the questionnaires and class observation were categorized into two groups: motivation of students and their participation in class

To be specific, the self-report questionaire and the first observation sheet were to answer the first question, whereas the second observation helped to solve the second one

Self-report questionaires

Quantitative data analysis was the key method to analyse the information from survey questionaire The data obtainedfrom the questionaires were analysed and synthesized into numerical forms The number of students‟ responses for each

statement in different levels (from strongly agree to strongly disagree) in two

groups were counted Then, the mean scores were counted for each statement in each group The researcher compared the mean scores of the controlled group and the experimental group to see if there was any differences between the level of motivation in the experimental group and in the control group

scores of the two groups and find out the differences inlevel of motivation in two groups

Observation sheet 2

The data from the observation sheet 2 was analysed to make inferences about students‟ participation in class The times of students on-task and off-task were transfered into the percentage Then, the researcher made comparison between the percentage of times on task of students in two groups