SKKN Động cơ của học sinh, thái độ của cha mẹ ảnh hưởng đến việc học tiếng Anh của các em học sinh trường THPT

Obviously, an investigation into this area will bring about theinformation needed to gain an insight into how students in those less advantageous areasare driven toward the most importan

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

ĐỀ TÀI:

"ĐỘNG CƠ CỦA HỌC SINH, THÁI ĐỘ CỦA CHA MẸ ẢNH HƯỞNG ĐẾN VIỆC HỌC TIẾNG ANH CỦA CÁC EM HỌC SINH

TRƯỜNG THPT"

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This introductory chapter provides three parts: the reason for choosing the topic, the aims

of the study, the scope and significance of the study

1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic

The study of motivation in second language acquisition (SLA) has become an importantresearch topic with the development of socio-educational model on second language (L2)motivation (Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Gardner, 1985; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993;Tremblay & Gardner, 1995) According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), motivation tolearn an L2 is grounded in positive attitudes toward the L2 community and in a desire tocommunicate with valued members of that community and become similar to them Thisdesire is integrative orientation, which is a support for language learning, while aninstrumental orientation is associated with the desire to learn L2 for pragmatic gains such

as getting a better job or higher salary (Dornyei, 2001; Gardner & Lambert, 1972)

L2 motivation is indeed a prerequisite condition for the success of L2 learners like foodfor the brain Successful language learning can only take place if the learner has goalsand an inner drive to achieve these goals (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991) L2 motivation can

be seen as a desire to study the foreign language to understand and use the language thatlearners are learning and to serve their purposes For example, motivation in learningEnglish as a foreign language (EFL) involves a student’s desire to participate in theEnglish learning process (Gardner, 1985) Without L2 motivation, learners would feelbored, and then they just learn to pass the exams or please their parents (Krashen, 1982).Gradually, they would be afraid of studying L2

Motivation plays a significant role in the process of learning a language Language

between motivation and its effect on language acquisition as well as its affecting factors.The core of motivation is what might be called passion, which relates to a person'sintrinsic goals and desires Successful learners know their preferences, their strengths andweaknesses, and effectively utilize strengths and compensate for weaknesses Successfullanguage learning is linked to the learner’s passion (Karaoglu, 2008).

One of the factors affecting L2 motivation maintaining is parents Parents can beconsidered as the most important in increasing and maintaining student motivation in L2learning According to Wlodkowski and Jaynes (1990), parents can greatly influence andmaintain their child’s motivation for a lifetime Parental influences are an integral part ofstudents’ motivation Indeed, the home environment and family support may be majorfactors influencing the school student (Walberg, Paschal, & Weinstein, 1985 as cited inHein & Wimer, 2007) Fortunately, many modern parents nowadays are aware of the factthat failure or success of their children depends greatly on the parents themselves - “thefirst and long life teacher” (Hein & Wimer, 2007) In order to succeed in education ingeneral and in teaching English in particular, teachers should understand the factorsaffecting student motivation Once teachers can understand the parental influence, theywould probably find ways to cooperate with parents to motivate students more so that thestudents could be successful English learners

Important as motivation and the role of parents in maintaining and enhancing motivationare, it is a sad fact that in rural areas in Vietnam like Hungyen, the motivation for English

is low Unlike parents in big cities such as Hanoi and Hochiminh city, many of whom are

so involved in their children’s English learning as shown in the number of children takingextra courses and scoring so high in English, parents in non-urban areas do not seem tohave given due attention to this subject Unfortunately, no effort so far has been spent on

exploring this aspect of learning as well as the attitudes of the parents towards theirchildren’s English learning Obviously, an investigation into this area will bring about theinformation needed to gain an insight into how students in those less advantageous areasare driven toward the most important language in today’s globalization context, how theirparents feel toward the subject and how these two aspects are inter-related.

1.2 Aims of the Study

The study aimed at investigating the level of student motivation and their parent’attitudes and involvement in their English learning at DQH Senior High School

1.3 Scope and Significance of the Study

The study was conducted at DQH Senior High School in Vangiang district, Hung Yenprovince

The study focused on examining student motivation in the language that they arelearning: English and their parents’ attitudes and involvement in their English learning It

is expected to provide deeper understanding of how students in less advantageous areas

in Vietnam feel toward the language and what kind of motivation is stronger It is alsointended to draw a picture, though far from comprehensive, on how parents in thosedistricts are involved in their children language learning From all this implications onhow to better motivate the students, how to maximize parents’ support, how to initiateand sustain parents’ engagement could be drawn

The study certainly had practical value for teachers teaching English in DQH Senior HighSchool in particular, and for any researchers who would like to improve languageteaching as well as learning in general Knowing the factors affecting student motivationwould assist the search for better teaching and learning process

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Motivation as a significant factor in language learning has attracted interest of variousresearchers and the literature is, therefore, very rich This chapter, however, limits itself

to issues that are most pertinent to the research focus They are types of motivation, roles

of motivation and parental attitudes and involvement in children’s language learning Thereview also covers studies into possible roles of parents in shaping the students’motivation for the language

2.1 Motivation in L2 learning

2.1.1 Definition

Research on motivation in L2 learning has been heavily influenced by the work ofCanadian psychologist Gardner and MacIntyre (1993) According to Gardner (1985), ahighly motivated individual will want to learn the language, enjoy learning it, and strive

to learn it The Gardnerian theory of L2 learning motivation is based on the definition ofmotivation as “the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the languagebecause of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity” (Gardner,1985)

In this definition, motivation is described as goal-directed Gardner (1985) proposes that

in order to understand why learners are motivated, it is necessary to understand thelearner’s ultimate goal or purpose for learning the language He refers to this as thelearner’s orientation (Gardner, 1985) Besides, he identifies two distinct orientations forlearning a language, which are integrative and instrumental orientations

In addition, integrative motivation is a key component in assisting the learner to developsome level of proficiency in the language When someone becomes a resident in a newcommunity that uses the TL in social interactions, it becomes a necessity to operatesocially in the community and become one of its members It is also theorized thatintegrative motivation underlies successful acquisition of a native like pronunciation(Finegan, 1999) It is thought that students who are most successful in learning a TL arethose who like the people that speak the language, admire the culture and have a desire tobecome familiar with or even integrate into the society in which the language is used(Falk, 1978).

In EFL setting such as Vietnam, especially in small, quiet towns, where there are veryfew English speakers and the exposure to English cultures is very low, it is important toconsider the actual meaning of the term "integrative." As Benson (1991) suggests, a moreappropriate approach to the concept of integrative motivation in the EFL context would

be the idea that it represents the desire of the individual to become bilingual, while at the

same time becoming bicultural This occurs through the addition of another language andculture to the learner's own cultural identity As Vietnam is predominantly a monoculturesociety, opportunities to use the TL in daily verbal exchanges are relatively restricted,especially in the countryside where foreigners rarely appear Hence, there is limitedpotential for integrating into the TL community It could be anticipated that theintegrative motivation under investigation would not be very strong.

2.1.2.2 Instrumental Motivation

Instrumental motivation or Instrumental orientation underlies the goal to gain some social

or economic reward through L2 achievement, thus referring to a more functional reasonfor language learning (Gardner, 1985) Instrumental motivation is a more utilitarianorientation It refers to learner’s desires to learn the language in order to accomplish somenon-interpersonal purpose such as to pass an exam, to get a scholarship, to advance acareer, to meet the requirements for school or university graduation, to apply for a job, toachieve higher social status, and so forth (Clement et al., 1994; Dornyei, 1990; Hudson,2000; Verma, 2005) This is generally characterized by the desire to obtain somethingpractical or concrete from the language study

In brief, it is clear that the latter refers to the need to acquire a language as a means forattaining goals such as career advancement or successful further study The former,however, refers to the desire to learn a language in order to become closer to the cultureand society of the TL group To gain a clear and deep understanding about motivationroles, types, the following studies are supposed to be useful

2.1.3 Role of motivation in L2 learning

The study of motivation in SLA has become an important research topic with thedevelopment of the socio-educational model on L2 motivation (Gardner & Lambert,

1972; Gardner, 1985; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993; Tremblay & Gardner, 1995).According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), motivation to learn an L2 is grounded inpositive attitudes towards the L2 community and a desire to communicate with valuedmembers of that community and become similar to them The latter desire is integrativemotivation, which is a better support for language learning, while instrumentalmotivation is associated with a desire to learn L2 for pragmatic gains such as getting abetter job or a higher salary (Clement, Dornyei, & Noels, 1994; Dornyei, 2001; Gardner

& Lambert, 1972).; Hudson, 2000; Verma, 2005)

Without motivation, success will be hard to achieve (Ushioda, 2000) Motivationprovides the primary impetus to begin learning a second/foreign language and to sustainthe long and difficult learning process (Brown, 2000; Ely, 1986; Gardner, 1985; Gardner

& Lambert, 1972; Nunan, 2000; Nunan & Lamb, 1996; Oxford & Shearin, 1994;Scarcella & Oxford, 1992; Williams & Burden, 1997) The role of orientation can helparouse motivation and direct it towards a set of goals, with either a strong interpersonalquality (integrative motivation) or a strong practical quality (instrumental motivation)(Dornyei, 2001) Studies in the psychology of learning affirm that without motivationlittle can be learned (Williams & Burden, 1997) Additionally, numerous research studies

on L2 motivation reveal that, in general, motivation enhances SLA; learners ranking high

on integrative motivation work harder and learn faster than those who are low onintegrative motivation (Clement et al., 1994; Gardner, 1985; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1991;Tremblay & Gardner, 1995; Liu, 2007, etc.) Therefore, integrative and instrumentalorientations or intrinsic and extrinsic motivations contribute to the learning of an L2.Nevertheless, as to which one is more important varies from context to context Likewise,students in different contexts may be motivated to learn an L2 by different orientations

This is why the issue is still worth further exploration in situations with different groups

of learners

It is worth noting that L2 motivation is recognized as one of the prerequisites forsuccessful language learning Motivation is “a very important, if not the most importantfactor in language learning” (Van Lier, 1996) without which even “gifted” individualscannot accomplish long-term goals, whatever the curriculum and whoever the teacher.Instrumental motivation as a contributing factor to learners’ effort and success in SLA:

“the greater the value that individuals attach to the accomplishment of or involvement inthe activity, the more highly motivated they will be to engage in it initially, and later toput sustained effort into succeeding in the activity” (Verma, 2005; Williams & Burden,1997)

2.1.4 Studies into integrative and instrumental motivations

It has been shown that both integrative and instrumental motivations are important Astudent might learn an L2 well with an integrative motivation or with instrumentalmotivation, or indeed with both, for one does not rule out the other or with othermotivation Both integrative and instrumental motivations may lead to success, but lack

of either would cause problems (Gardner, 1985)

Firstly, integrative motivation has been found to sustain long-term success when learning

an L2 (Ellis, 1997; Taylor, Meynard & Rheault, 1977) In some of the early researchconducted by Gardner and Lambert (1972), integrative motivation is viewed as being ofmore importance in a formal learning environment than instrumental motivation (Ellis,1997) In later studies, integrative motivation has continued to be emphasized, althoughnow the importance of instrumental motivations is also stressed However, it isnoteworthy that instrumental motivation has only been acknowledged as a significant

factor in some research, whereas integrative motivation is continually linked to successfulSLA It has been found that generally students select instrumental reasons morefrequently than integrative reasons for the study of languages (Gardner & Lambert, 1972;Liu, 2007; Ushioda, 2000; Wong, 2005) They are also good language learners.Nevertheless, it should be repeated that those who do support an integrative approach tolanguage study are usually more highly motivated and overall more successful inlanguage learning

Gardner and Lambert (1972) conducted an important study in the Philippines Theresearchers switched from the study of French to the study of English, which is the mostprestigious language in the Philippines The subjects in this study were high schoolstudents who had approximately six years of formal training in English Additionally,English has been the means of instruction since the third grade In the study, Gardner andLambert (1972) concluded that those students who were instrumentally motivated andreceived support in their homes succeeded in English language development more thanthose students who were not instrumentally oriented Nevertheless, those students whoidentified with the foreign language culture and language seemed to be in a position ofadvantage in the language acquisition process Finally, and most important, Gardner andLambert (1972) concluded that in the foreign language setting, teachers andadministrators should try to help students develop integrative motivation toward theforeign language and its culture In L2 setting, it is of fundamental importance to helpstudents develop both instrumental and instrumental motivations

Man-Fat’s (2004) study focused on the relationship between integrative motivation andL2 achievement among Chinese L2 learners in Hong Kong The respondents of the studyincluded 41 students at St Francis Xavier's College (SFXC) SFXC is a boys' school in

Hong Kong with Chinese secondary students aged from 12 to 18 The data collectioninstruments used in the study were a questionnaire adapted from Gardner'sAttitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMI) (Gardner, 1985) and a semi-structured interview.The findings revealed that instrumental goals, especially future career development andmeeting more varied people with career-related purposes are more important thanintegrative goals such as appreciating British arts and literature In addition to highinstrumental motivation, the findings of the study showed that integrative was alsoimportant to the respondents

Liu (2007) conducted a research study on Chinese students’ motivation to learn English

at the Tertiary Level The purpose of the study was to investigate Chinese students’attitudes towards and motivation to learn English and the correlations of the saidvariables with the students’ English proficiency The subjects included 202 third-yearnon-English majors (51 females and 151 males) in six classes in a southern university inChina The instrument used in the study consisted of a motivation questionnaire, an open-ended question and an English proficiency test A modified 44-item questionnaireadapted from Gardner’s (1985) and Clement et al.’s (1994) studies The findings revealedthat the students had positive attitudes towards learning English and were highlymotivated to study it, and that they were more instrumentally than integrativelymotivated Their attitudes and motivation were positively correlated with their Englishproficiency This means the more positive attitudes students have, the more motivatedthey are and as a result, the higher score they get in English proficiency

2.2 Parents as a factor affecting students’ motivation in language learning

Parents play a crucial role in enhancing children’s motivation to learn an L2 Outside theschool environment, Wlodkowski and Jaynes (1990) present four major influences on an

individual’s motivation to learn, which are family, school, the child as an individual, andculture As Williams (1994) has explained, many factors affect students' commitment tostudy such as their home background, physical tiredness, events in their personal life,health, previous educational experience, personality and the onset of adolescence Withinthe limited scope of this study, the impact of parental factor, specifically parents’attitudes and involvement on students’ L2 motivation will be reviewed.

Parental attitudes and involvement are very important in enhancing motivation tochildren’s language learning Gardner (1985) finally suggests that although the students’perception of their parents’ support is not directly related to their performance in class,their willingness to learn and their motivation are substantially enhanced by suitableencouragement from their parents In fact, parental attitudes and involvement tend toyield highly effective results in language learning Gardner (1968) thinks it is meaningful

to distinguish two roles of the parent which relevant to his child’s success in a language program, i.e., active role and passive role Gardner (1968) explains the former isthe role whereby the parent actively and consciously encourages the student to learn thelanguage In this active role, the parent monitors the child’s language-learningperformance, and to the extent that he plays this role to promote success That is, theparent watches over the child and makes sure he does his homework, encourages him to

second-do and in general reinforces his successes Gardner (1968) also believes it is safe toassume differences in the extent to which parents vary in this encouragement functionwould have some influence on the child’s performance in any learning situation On thecontrary, the passive role is more subtle, and Gardner (1968) thinks it is more important,primarily because the parent would probably be unaware of it By the subtle role, Gardner(1968) means the attitudes of the parent toward the community whose language the child

is learning He believes these attitudes are important because they influence the child’sattitudes and motivation

To contrast these roles, Gardner (1968) explains that if an English speaking parent mightactively encourage a child to learn French, he may stress the importance of doing well inthat course, and might see that the child does his homework, and so forth In this case, hemight be perceived as actually helping the child This is the active role However, thissame parent might hold positive or negative attitudes toward the target community Tothe extent that he holds negative attitudes toward the target community, he may beundermining his active role by transferring to the child negative attitude towards thetarget community whose language the child is learning (Gardner, 1968)

Therefore, like teachers, it is believed that parents can have remarkable impact onstudents’ motivation to learn at school and at home as well Webb and Palinscar (1996)emphasizes the critical role of parents like teachers that can influence students’motivation and engagement in class Parents are considered to play a more critical role intheir child’ SLA (Gardner, 1960; Gardner & Lambert, 1972) Specifically, support fromhome is very important for students’ motivation to learn a second language If parentsvalue both the native language and English, communicate with their children inwhichever language is most comfortable, and show support for and interest in theirchildren’s progress, the children will definitely be more motivated to learn the L2(Wlodkowski & Jaynes, 1990)

Concerning family, Wlodkowski and Jaynes (1990) assert that parents appear to be theprimary influence on child’s motivation to learn Family has an impact on motivation atevery stage of development, lasting through secondary school and beyond Healthy,effective families possess positive attitudes and behaviors toward their children that help

them to succeed in school and life (Wlodkowski & Jaynes, 1990) With parents being achild’s first and most important teacher, it seems obvious that family will have asignificant influence on the development of a child’s motivation to learn Garrett (1995)(as cited in Wlodkowski & Jaynes, 1990) asserts in a speech at the OklahomaAdministrator’s Conference “the smallest school in America is the family”, whichillustrates the significant role that family has in education and motivation of students.

Of the family, parental influences are an integral part of students’ motivation One of themost effective areas of increased student motivation lies not in the schools at all, but inthe homes of the students Parental involvement here continues to be the most influentialfactor in student achievement and motivation Students whose parents are closelyinvolved in their school lives and who monitor their progress fare best in high school.From the research findings, Brophy (1987) finds significant proof that parents and familyare the leading models and motivators for secondary education students Moreimportantly, children’s home environment can shape the initial constellation of learningattitudes When parents nurture their children to learn by encouraging them to exploreand ask questions, they will develop a sense of competence and self-efficacy andautonomy, which help enhancing their motivation to learn Additionally, Brophy (1987)advocates, motivation to learn is stimulated most directly through modeling,communication of expectations, and direct instruction or socialization by significantothers, especially parents and teachers Additionally, scholars like Wlodkowski andJaynes (1990), Gottfried et al (as cited in Dornyei, 2001) believe that parents, apart frompeers, also play a major role in affecting students’ motivation to learn as parents’support is the main reference point reinforcing students’ goals during their process oflearning

In conclusion, parents should be assumed that they are concerned and competent people;they are making their best efforts for the good of their children; they have to contend withpressure and responsibilities; and they need support in their efforts toward problemsolving (Wlodkowski & Jaynes, 1990).

2.3 Studies into parental attitudes and involvement in children’s language learning 2.3.1 Parental attitudes in children’s language learning

Motivation in L2 learning has been a research topic of great interest to researchers andeducators for years There have been various research projects done in this aspect (e.g.Gardner & Lambert, 1959; Gardner, 1960; Gardner & Feenstra, 1968; Gardner &Lambert, 1972, etc.) Moreover, several research studies conducted in recent years(Madileng, 2007; Liu, 2007; Sung & Padilla, 1998; Wong, 2005) demonstrate how muchmotivation influences student in L2 learning and some emphasize the role of parents instudent’s SLA

In their first studies, Gardner and Lambert (1959), and Gardner (1960) investigatedEnglish-speaking high school students who were taking French lesson in Montreal interms of language-learning aptitude, verbal intelligence, attitude toward the Frenchcommunity and intensity of motivation to study French Moreover, Gardner (1960) foundthat those students with integrative motivation to study French, had parents who also had

an integrative motivation toward the French community In this respect, Gardner (1960)concluded that the students’ integrative motivation depended on the family’s attitudes.Related to the topic of the previous study, Gardner and Feenstra (1968) investigatedparental influence on students of French in Ontario Basing on the result of their research,Gardner and Feenstra (1968) confirmed the result of Gardner’s previous studies Thoseparents, who were concluded to hold more positive attitudes toward the French language

and community, encouraged their children to learn French more than those parents whodid not have positive attitudes toward the French language and community.

After the series of studies described above, Gardner and Lambert (1972) decided toextend their research to a non-Canadian setting to test the generalizability of their ideasabout motivation, attitudes, and the language learning process For this purpose, theyconducted a series of studies in Louisiana, Maine, because it presented an active Frenchsubculture The third state, Connecticut, was chosen as a reference for foreign languagelearning, and as an example of a more “typical American region”

In Louisiana and Maine, Gardner and Lambert (1972) investigated the attitudes andmotivation of American high school students toward the French language and people.The findings showed that parents in Louisiana seemed to encourage their children tolearn French for instrumental reasons However, unlike the Louisiana setting, whereparental attitudes played an important role in motivating students, in Maine, motivationapparently seemed to stem from a positive view of the French teacher and sensitivity forthe feeling of others Furthermore, an instrumental orientation originated in those homeswhere parents shared many French friends

Sung and Padilla (1998) conducted a research on student motivation, parental attitudes,and involvement in the learning of Asian languages in elementary and secondary schools.The respondents consisted of 591 students, where elementary occupied 140 students fromtwo different schools and 450 for secondary students from six different schools inCalifornia The aims of the study were to examine the student motivation toward thelearning of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean in public school in California Information wascollected by means of a questionnaire, one for parents and one for students The findingsrevealed that elementary students were more motivated overall toward Asian language

study than were older students Besides, younger students perceived their parents as moreinvolved in their language study than did high school students The findings furthershowed that elementary school parents had positive attitudes toward L2 and were moremotivated in the child’s language learning than were parents of high school students It isimportant to note that the students in this study made no distinction between instrumentaland integrative motives for learning a foreign language Students here had the right tochoose the language they liked to learn

Another recent research project carried out by Madileng (2007) with an empiricalinvestigation in the relationship between motivation and English second languageproficiency when English was viewed as a medium of instruction The respondents of thestudy were 52 first year students at the Ekurhuleni West College of the ALberton campusregistered for Business Studies A questionnaire and a language proficiency test wereused for the data collection The results of the study proved that parental support weregenerally low and never went above 25.6% and that the students who got the leastparental support were low performers

In brief, parental attitudes towards their child’s language learning play a vital and crucialrole in the development of SLA More specifically, when children are receiving frequentencouragement from their parents, they would be more motivated to learn the language;

as a result, they would put more effort to learn it To some extent, they would even bewilling to study it In other words, parents’ attitudes can shape their children’ motivation

to learn the language and parental involvement holds a more significant part inmaintaining their children’s motivation The latter issue is reviewed in the followingsection

2.3.2 Parental involvement in children’s language learning

Although little research has been done to examine students’ motivation to learn Englishversus their parental involvement, several studies provide clues to this critical component

of L2 learning

In the 1990s, researchers (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Mahlobo, 1999) studied the effects

of variables like the contribution of parents in their children’s SLA and proficiency andthe influence of other variables like the school and classroom environment Thecurriculum of the home is characterized by family values that manifest from parent-childinteraction Such values set a foundation of individual responsibility, hard work,perseverance and the importance of education and educational achievement Theliterature review highlights parents’ socio-economic status, parents’ level of education,and appropriate family context and culture as influential on learner motivation

2.3.2.1 Parents’ socio-economic status

Some research indicates that there is a significant relationship between parents’ economic status and their children’s level of intelligence (Milner, 1986 as cited inMahlobo, 1999)

socio-Families with low socio-economic status lack items such as books, magazines, radios,television, TV games, computers and computer games that can serve to stimulate childrenintellectually and provide exposure to English This can affect the learners’ ESLproficiency and academic performance since such learners tend to be characterized by alack motivation, poor academic achievement, poor language skills, inductive rather thandeductive reasoning, as well as inability to use high order cognitive strategies likeanalysis and evaluation (Du Toit, 1993 as sited in Mahlobo, 1999)

In the light of previous research, Wong (2005) conducted a research on “StudentMotivation and English Attainment” in Hong Kong The research study aimed atinvestigating the motivation patterns of the two groups of Hong Kong students withdifferent cultural backgrounds and at examining the relationship between their motivation

to learn English and English attainment The respondents included 50 students The toolsfor gathering information were a questionnaire and an English Attainment Test Thefindings revealed that peer is the most influential factor affecting students’ motivation tolearn while parents play the least significant role and that parental guidance was notsufficient during students’ process of learning English Wong (2005) further explainedmost parents in this study were working class, their educational level might not besufficient to solve their children’s English problems and sometimes the family incomecould barely support the expenses of the whole family making it difficult for the parents

to care for their children’s studying as well as English learning Therefore, parents’education and financial status were the foremost problems, which indirectly devastatedstudents’ learning motivation

2.3.2.2 Parents’ educational background

The parents’ level of education also determines their levels of aspirations for theirchildren, parental involvement in the education of their children and the family valuesystems With this respect, children of highly educated parents benefit more fromeducation as their parents are able to assist more in their learning Such children canmake more progress than those who are not fully supported by their parents due to pooreducational backgrounds (Driessen, Vander Slik, & De Bot, 2002)

What is more important, parental involvement entails their assistance in high scholasticachievement, offering academic guidance and provision of resources on school related

tasks and managing and emphasizing educational activities of their children rather thanpleasurable things like TV programs, choice of books and magazines (Ferhmann et al.,

1987 as cited in Mahlobo, 1999) This means that expression of affection and interest inthe child’s academic and personal growth, effective value systems, family practices,parental beliefs and attitudes toward education can contribute to promote motivation andpositive self-concept In contrast, when parents cannot speak or understand English, thelearners’ acquisition of English is not supported and reinforced after school hours Suchparents may also feel ill-equipped to assist with homework (Madileng, 2007)

2.3.2.3 Parental expectations from learners

Parents’ expectation of scholastic success, a better career, as well as high professionalstatus attainment, are important and easily transmitted through a development of a familycontext and culture which values education in so far as it leads to self-improvement andhigh self-esteem (Schnider & Lee, 1990 as cited in Mahlobo, 1999) They point out thatsuch a context can be created through, amongst others, verbal encouragement of children

to excel in EFL tasks, helping them with English homework and practical projects,monitoring when possible and support from an EFL perspective Parents should alsoprovide reading materials such as books, newspapers and magazines with topics ofinterest to their children

Parental expectations in learning EFL can also be a from of hope that can help childrenstrive to become better English learners as well as more motivated to learn , thus it isnatural for parents to have expectations about their children Therefore, it is necessarythat parents should let children know what their expectations are (Gardner, 1968) Oncechildren know their parents’ hope, they would want to please their parents and try theirbest to work hard to realize that hope Consider an example, rural Vietnamese parents can

hope that one day their children with good knowledge of English will work in a foreigncompany in order to be well-paid and support for the whole family

In conclusion, a variety of studies show that a home conductive to learning and a familycontext which include the parents’ level of education, positive educational aspirations andeffective involvement in their children’s improvement in ESL proficiency, can result inhigh general scholastic performance(Gardner, 1968; Gardner & Lambert, 1972;Madileng, 2007; Wong, 2005) This is a clear indication that education and ESLachievement is not the responsibility of the school alone For education to succeed,parents should also play a prominent role in the education of their children

2.4 Summary

All this suggests that an investigation into parents’ role in promoting children’smotivation needs to consider both aspects and their manifestations In this chapter, thegeneral information about motivation in L2 learning was explored First, the definition ofmotivation, types and roles of motivation were reviewed through previous studies.Second, role of parents in generating children’s motivation in language learning was alsoreviewed through numerous research projects All these were helpful because theyprovide the background knowledge of the present research study

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter consists of four main sections Section 3.1 provides details on the datacollection instruments Section 3.2 describes the subjects participating in the study Theprocedures and the setting are presented in the next two sections respectively and the lastone is the data analysis

3.1 Data Collection Instruments

To have the answers to the research questions, information was elicited from parent andstudent questionnaires

3.1.1 Questionnaires

A questionnaire is usually considered the most appropriate research instrument forgathering information concerning the attitudes of the respondents There are three reasonsfor this (Gillham, 2000) First, a questionnaire is confidential and the respondents canremain anonymous Second, a questionnaire is easy to administer, enabling the researcher

to survey a large number of respondents Third, in many cases the respondents cancomplete the questionnaire when it suits them These advantages have encouraged the use

of questionnaires in this research, which made use of a relatively large number ofparticipants

3.1.1.1 Student questionnaire (Appendix A1)

The main objective of the student questionnaire was to measure student motivation inEnglish learning and to determine the types of motivation they had In an attempt totriangulate the data on parental attitudes and involvement in their child’s Englishlearning one section of the student questionnaire is devoted to eliciting learners’perceptions of their parents’ role There are three sections in the student questionnaire

Section A has five statements (from 1 to 5) attempted at gauging students’ integrativemotivation Students are required to state reasons for their studying English in anintegrative way All five items were adapted from Clement et al., (1994) (as cited inDornyei, 2001) Some of these items were once administered by Sung and Padilla (1998)and Liu (2007) with the same purpose to measure students’ integrative motivation

Section B consists of nine statements (from 6 to 14), which focus on the students’ InstO,instrumental reasons for learning English These include better job opportunities,traveling as well as motives like being respected The first four items were adapted from

Gardner’s (1985) with some minor changes For example, “English”, the TL of this study replaced “French”, the TL, in Gardner’s (1985) study Items 10 to 12 are statements

adapted from Clement et al’s (1994) (as cited in Dornyei, 2001) and item 13 from

Dornyei’s (1990) (as cited in Dornyei, 2001) Item 14 (English is a compulsory subject at

school) was added to the list as this was believed to be one popular reason for

Vietnamese students to learn English

Section C with 12 statements (from 15 to 26) elicits the students’ perceptions about thesupport they get from their parents Some statements were adapted from Gardner’s(1985), Sung and Padilla’s (1998) and Madileng’s (2007) studies, which are all aimed atexploring parents’ support from students’ perceptions Again, changes have been made tomake the items more suitable for the purpose of the study and the research context Forexample, to elicit the students’ opinion of how their parents are involved in their

language learning, the subject of each statement is “my parents” instead of “I” In addition, as mentioned in section B, “English”, which refers to the language that students are learning at school, replaced “French” in Gardner’s (1985) study The original item of Gardner’s (1985) “My parents feel that because we live in Canada, I should learn

French” was changed to the statement “My parents feel that because we live in the countryside, I do not need to learn English” Other items were added considering the

characteristics of DQH students For example, “My parents give me anything that I need

to study English well”

Finally, it is worth noting that the student questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese toensure better comprehension

3.1.1.2 Parent questionnaire (Appendix B1)

The purpose of this questionnaire was to specify the attitudes and involvement of parents

in their children’s English learning The questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese toobecause virtually all the parents were observed to be unable to use English The parentquestionnaire includes 12 questions, which were identical to those in Section C of thestudent questionnaire

Question 1 elicits information about parents’ feeling about their children’s need to learnEnglish

Questions 2, 8 and 9 seek information about parents’ encouragement in their children’slearning English, e.g ask them to watch English television programs and/or listen toEnglish radio programs

Question 3 is to ask the parents if they believe English should spend more time studyingEnglish

Questions 4 and 5 are to record parents’ beliefs in the importance of English in generaland after graduation in particular

Questions 6, 7, 11 are designed to collect information about how parents help theirchildren do English homework, whether they tell them to get help from the teacher if

they have problems with learning English and support everything for them to studyEnglish well.

Questions 10 and 12 are to discover the information about whether parents feel proudwhen their children study English well and to ask if they force their children to learnEnglish

Responses to items on both the student and parent questionnaires were recorded on point Likert scales ranging from “strongly agree” (5) to strongly disagree” (1) This five-point rating scale was administered in the present study because they are very popularwith educational researchers and have been shown to work quite well (Johnson &Christensen, 2000)

five-3.2 Subjects

3.2.1 Student population

The 10th graders were selected to be the research group for this study as their subjectpreferences were believed not to be affected by the pressure from the Graduation andUniversity Admission exams as the 11 and 12 graders There are 28 classes with 1,257students at DQH High School, in which grade 10 comprise 10 classes, each of which hasapproximately 49 students The total population of 10th-grade students is 496, 249 ofwhom are girls The age ranges from 16 to 17 and all students have learned English for atleast four years and finished the set of textbooks used for junior secondary school i.e.,English 6, 7, 8 and 9 It was necessary to select a sample because the population of 496students is too large for this study given the time constraints

3.2.1.1 Student sample

99 tenth graders (50 females and 49 males) were randomly selected (one in every five) tomake a sample that is expected to represent the population of Grade 10 students at DQHHigh School Johnson and Christensen (2000) argue that a random selection wouldproduce a sample that might be representative of the total population as each individual in

a given population has an equal chance of being selected This, in many cases, is done byassigning a number or code to each person and then generating a sequence (Gillham,2000) In this study, the class attendance lists were used and one student was chosen from

a sequence of five students of the same gender

3.2.2 Parents

There were 99 parents participating in the study, corresponding to 99 students Parentsparticipating in this survey research were the ones whose children were studying at DQHSenior High School and took part in this survey It should be repeated that virtually allthe parents have never learned EFL

3 3 Procedures

The study was carried out as follows

First, all the students selected as the subjects and their parents were coded using numbers

to secure confidentiality All these numbers were then recorded onto the questionnaires.Then copies of the student questionnaire were distributed Any queries were taken care ofand the subjects were asked to return the handouts when they had finished

In the next stage, the copies of parent questionnaire were then given to the students whowould hand it on to their parents The parents were asked to complete the questionnaire in

a week’s time and students submitted their parents’ questionnaires to the teacherresearcher at school.

Finally, the data collected was analyzed to generate the answer to the research questions.All information gathered was kept completely confidential and used for the researchpurpose only

Stage 2

In order to measure the central tendency that students and their parents have, the results

of the survey were computed in terms of mean (M), standard deviation (SD), mode (Md),and range to examine the students’ level of motivation to learn English and their parents’attitudes and involvement (Vogt, 1999 as cited in Creswell, 2005) The mean gives anaverage for all of the scores SD is a sort of average of the distance of all the numbersfrom the mean (Brown, 2001) In other words, SD is a measure of how widely values aredispersed from the average value (the mean) Because the values of SD show thedispersion of the answers, the higher the value of SD is, the bigger the dispersion is and