A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN READING LESSONS OF THE 10th FORM STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS, HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  ĐINH THỊ HÀ TRANG A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN READING LESS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



ĐINH THỊ HÀ TRANG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN READING LESSONS OF THE 10th FORM STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS, HANOI NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION (Nghiên cứu về những yếu tố gây mất hứng thú trong giờ đọc hiểu

của học sinh lớp 10 tại trường THPT Chuyên

– Đại Học Sư Phạm Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi - 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



ĐINH THỊ HÀ TRANG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN READING LESSONS OF THE 10th FORM STUDENTS AT HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED STUDENTS, HANOI NATIONAL

UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION (Nghiên cứu về những yếu tố gây mất hứng thú trong giờ đọc hiểu

của học sinh lớp 10 tại trường THPT Chuyên

– Đại Học Sư Phạm Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn

Hanoi - 2015

DECLARATION

I certificate that the minor thesis entitled “A study on demotivating factors in reading

lessons of 10 th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University

of Education” is the result of my own work and has not been submitted in any form for

another degree or diploma at any university or other institutions.

Đinh Thị Hà Trang

Hanoi, 2015

I would like to acknowledge my truthful gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Huynh AnhTuan, from Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies, University of Languages andInternational Studies, Vietnam National University Thanks to his thorough reading,critical comments, invaluable guidance and precious corrections, I was able to findthe right way to complete this study

I also would like to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues at High School forGifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education, who have been willing tocomplete my survey questionnaire and have given me invaluable suggestions to theresearch

I appreciate the assistance and cooperation of the students in classes 10 Math 1, 10Physics and 10 Chemistry at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi NationalUniversity of Education

My special words of thanks are sent to my family, especially my husband who hasgiven me encouragement and support throughout my research work

Hanoi, 2015

Reading has long been considered as a fundamental skill by many secondlanguage learners Reading itself, however, causes students a lot of difficulties toacquire This study was conducted to investigate demotivating factors in Englishreading lessons of the 10th form students at High School for Gifted Students, HanoiNational University of Education To meet the objectives of the study, two differentgroups of participants are taken into investigation, 109 students of three classesincluding 10 Math1, 10 Physics and 10 Chemistry and 6 teachers of English Thisstudy was carried out in the form of survey research The main instrumentsemployed for data collection were questionnaires and interviews Specifically, twosets of questionnaires were designed, one for the students and the other for sixteachers Furthermore, to get the validity of the collected data from questionnaires,interviews were conducted among 10 randomly selected students who have alreadydone the survey questionnaires The data were then analyzed both quantitatively andqualitatively The results show that the out- of- date content of reading texts in thecurrent textbook “Tieng Anh 10” was the most dominant demotivating factors Inaddition, teachers’ boring teaching methods, students’ inadequate vocabularyknowledge and boring classroom activities should be taken into account Based onthe findings, feasible solutions are provided to mitigate students’ demotivation inreading lessons Hopefully, this study is of great help to better teaching and learningreading comprehension at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi NationalUniversity of Education

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1.2 Demotivating factors in foreign language learning 7

1.2 Theoretical background of reading and reading comprehension 11

1.2.3 The significance of reading comprehension 131.2.4 Demotivating factors in reading comprehension 14

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

3.1 Students’ responses to the questionnaire and the interview’s

questions

22

3.4 Implications 39

PART C: CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 3.1: Students’ attitudes towards the learning of reading English

Chart 3.2: Students’ interest in English reading lessons

Chart 3.3: Students’ opinions on teachers’ classroom activities

Chart 3.4: Teachers’ attitudes towards the importance of teaching reading skills

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Information on the number of students surveyed

Table 3.1: Students’ purposes of learning reading comprehension

Table 3.2: Students’ opinions on factors that demotivate students in reading lessonsTable 3.3: Students’ opinions on teachers’ employment of activities

Table 3.4: Students’ expectations towards teachers of reading skills

Table 3.5: Teachers’ perceptions of factors that demotivate students in reading lessons

Table 3.6: The frequency of activities used by teachers in reading lessons

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

These days, English has been widely chosen by almost all Vietnamesestudents as their foreign language This enormous proportion, however, reflects aconsiderable demand for English rather than the quality of language learning andteaching process itself While some students make a lot of effort to learn English ashard as possible, others mentally withdraw or look for strategies to pass the requiredexams with minimum effort In fact, learning English has become an increasinglynecessity for many people and there is a tremendous increase in the demand for thelevel of proficiency in learning English

Learning reading skills is one of the biggest obstacles for Vietnamese

students Reading was traditionally regarded as a passive process in which the readers simply decode the written symbols without bringing their own knowledge to interact with the text (Clarke & Silberstein, 1977; Ruddell, 1976) Reading was also

viewed to involve reading words in a linear fashion and internalizing their meaningone at a time Reading seems to be a source of frustration Some students complainthat they feel rather bored when they learn reading skills The reading processrequires a certain amount of time and involves a lot of individual work, which is not

in some way related to the communicative language ability Unlike speaking orlistening, there is little chance for students to ask for additional explanation orclarification Reading lessons are considered to cause the tiredness, even makingstudents lose their interest in learning other skills or demotivating students inabsorbing the knowledge However, reading is fundamental in developing the mindand it is of great importance to improve other language skills

Consequently, a large number of studies (Dornyei, 1990, 2001a, 2001b;Gardner, Lalonde, Moorcroft, & Evers, 1985; Oxford & Shearin,1994; Scarcella &Oxford, 1992; Warden & Lin, 2000, Gorham and Christophel, 1992; RebeccaOxford, 1998; Arai , 2004; Falout and Maruyama, 2004; Tsuchiya, 2006; Sakai andKikuchi, 2009) have been carried out in the field of motivation and demotivation,especially both Vietnamese and foreigners have made numerous researches on

demotivating factors in reading comprehension These studies have revealed severalfindings about factors to demotivate Vietnamese students in learning reading skillsand methods to overcome these demotivating factors However, there have not been

a large number of studies going into reality to check those findings from theperception of students

Despite the great effort from teachers and learners, there are still weaknesses

in the current teaching and learning reading English skills at High School for GiftedStudents, Hanoi National University of Education Specifically, students’demotivation can constitute a barrier for an enjoyable teaching and learning

All these facts, henceforth, have offered the researcher a chance to conduct

“A study on demotivating factors in reading lessons of 10 th form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education” The purpose

of this research is to find out demotivating factors to better the current situation ofteaching and learning English reading skills at High School for Gifted Students,Hanoi National University of Education These factors involve the current textbook

“Tieng Anh 10”, the learning environment, the learning conditions, classroomactivities, teaching methods, teacher’s behavior and competence

2 Aims of the study

The ultimate aim of this study is to increase 10th form students’ motivation inreading comprehension In order to achieve the above aim, the following objective

is to investigate factors that demotivate the 10th form students at High School forGifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they are engaged inreading lessons Based on the findings, some feasible solutions are given toeliminate factors that demotivate students in reading lessons

3 Research questions

This study focuses on answering the following research question:

 What are factors that demotivate the 10th form students at High Schoolfor Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education whenthey are engaged in reading lessons?

4 Significance of the study

This study highlights factors that demotivate 10th form students at HighSchool for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they areengaged in reading lessons The results of the findings can be of great use for theteachers of the classes surveyed in the way that they can adapt their teachingmethods as well as activities so that their students can be more motivated inlearning English Therefore, the recommendations of this study will be vital toimprove the teaching and learning of reading at High School for Gifted Students,Hanoi National University of Education in particular and of high school students ingeneral

5 Scope of the study

This study was conducted to find out demotivating factors in readingcomprehension and suggest some recommendations in order to develop students’motivation for learning English reading skills at High School for Gifted Students,Hanoi National University of Education

6 Method of the study

In order to achieve its aim, a survey research design is employed in the study.The research is carried out on the basis of survey questionnaires and interviews.Firstly, the data were collected with the use of the survey questionnaires which wereconducted with 6 teachers of English and 109 students in the 10th form students atHigh School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education Then,interviews were employed with ten students randomly selected for furtherinformation

7 Design of the study

The study is organized as follows:

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

questions, the significance of study, the scope of the study, the method of the studyand the design of the study

Part B: DEVELOPMENT, consists of the following chapters

 Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents the theoretical backgroundrelated to demotivation including the conceptions of demotivation,

demotivating factors in foreign language learning In addition, this chapteralso covers the followings: the definitions of reading, the definitions ofreading comprehension, the significance of reading comprehension andpotential problems in reading comprehension

 Chapter 2, METHODOLOGY, provides general information about thecurrent situation of learning reading at High School for Gifted Students,Hanoi National University of Education as well as study subjects, datacollection instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis method

 Chapter 3, ANALYSIS OF DATA, gives a detailed analysis of datacollected Besides, the chapter also presents some explanations andinterpretations of the findings of the study

Part C: CONCLUSION, summarizes the major findings and points out the

limitations of the study Furthermore, some suggestions for further studies are alsogiven in this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 1 Theoretical background of demotivation

1.1 1 Conceptions of demotivation

Generally, to pursue certain goals, students need a force that can motivatethem in learning Dornyei and Otto (1998) defined motivation as the dynamicallychanging cumulative arousal that initiates, directs, coordinates, amplifies,terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes where by initial wishesand desires are selected, prioritized, operationalized and successfully orunsuccessfully acted out Furthermore, a large number of research results show thatmotivation play a crucial role in learners’ acquisition of second language andforeign language (see, e.g., Dornyei, 1990, 2001a, 2001b; Gardner, Lalonde,Moorcroft, & Evers, 1985; Oxford & Shearin,1994; Scarcella & Oxford, 1992;Warden & Lin, 2000) Research has shown that motivation is crucial for L2learning (Dornyei,1994; Oxford & Shearin,1996) since it has great impact on theintensity of their learning effort, their frequency of L2 strategies application and oftheir interaction with native speakers Besides, it can also affect the achievementtest results related to the curriculum and their commitment to L2 skills after theirstudy is over It could be described as a driving force that energizes humanbehavior and directs their behavior

Demotivation should not be viewed as the opposite of motivation but acertain aspect of motivation According to Christophel and Gorham (1995),demotivation is conceptually different from the phenomenon of no motivation.There are some positive factors which may motivate students’ learning, but thereare also elements causing them to demotivate at some point which are calleddemotivating influences There are also some influences with a negative effect,

which are called demotivating influences They reduce students’ motivation during

learning Dornyei (2001a) made every effort to provide a definition for

demotivation It concerns “various negative influences that cancel out existing motivation” (p.142) or “specific external forces that reduce or diminish the

motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action” (p.143).

Therefore, demotivation could be regarded as the dark side of motivation.Demotivation, as also defined by Dornyei (2001b), is a decrease or drop in level ofmotivation Dornyei points out that demotivation does not mean that a learner haslost his or her motivation completely In contrast, the positive influences thatoriginally made up the motivational basis of behavior can still be there However,

demotivation is not solely external, and many researchers (e.g., Arai, 2004; Falout

& Maruyama, 2004) included internal factors such as lack of self- confidence andnegative attitude within learners themselves to complement external sources Inspite of his definition, even Dornyei (2001) himself listed reduced self- confidenceand a negative attitude toward the foreign language as sources of demotivation.Sakai & Kuichi (2009) disagree with Dornyei’s definition of demotivation byreferring to numerous studies where researchers have also included internal forces(a learner’s lack of self- confidence and negative attitudes of the learners) inaddition to external forces that Dornyei mentions Therefore, demotivation is aphenomenon in which motivation declines due to one or several causes, whichevery learner experiences

Demotivation, however, is different from amotivation Demotivation is

understood as the circumstance in which motivation decreased, which meansmotivation must exist before Amotivation is described as the void of motivationand is highlighted with passivity Deci and Ryan (1985) introduced the concept of

amotivation, which referred to the relative absence of motivation that is not caused

by a lack of initial interest but rather by the individual’s experiencing feelings of incompetence and helplessness when face with the activity Vallerand and Ratelle

(2002) expanded that amotivated people experience a lack of competence or controlover their external environments, which was caused by a feeling of helplessnessbetween behaviors and outcomes They “go through the motions with no sense ofintending to do what they are doing” until they quit the activity (Ryan and Deci,

2002, p.17) Legault et al (2006) defined amotivation as “a state in whichindividuals cannot perceive a relationship between their behavior and that

behavior’s subsequent outcome” (p.568) In recent days, a further concept has beenintroduced by researchers in the field of second language motivation, namely,

remotivation (see Chapter 17, Falout et al., 2009), which refers to taking steps to

bring back second language learners’ lost or reduced motivation

In this study, the researcher adopted Sakai & Kukichi’s (2009) opinion

They claimed that the definition of demotivation “specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing

action” (Dornyei, 2001) needed to be expanded to cover both internal and

external demotivating factors which reduce or diminish the motivation to study

English

1.1.2 Demotivating factors in foreign language learning

There have been several studies on demotivating factors mainly in the field

of instructional communication, for example, in lectures of communication atNorth American universities (Gorham & Christophel, 1992; Christophel & Gorham,1995; Gorham & Millette, 1997) and demotivators in university lectures in China,Germany, Japan and the United States (Zhang, 2007) In the field of languageteaching, Chambers, Rudnai, Ushioda and Dornyei were the pioneers to studydemotivation of learners of English In recent years, this issue has attracted manymore researchers, especially those from Japanese context (Ikeno, 2002; Arai, 2004;Falout & Maruyama, 2004; Hasegawa, 2004; Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009; Falout er al,2009) and Vietnam (Tran & Richard Baldauf, 2007) The ultimate goal ofidentifying demotivating factors is to more easily determine the learners’ motivationand the way to boost their incentives of learning That is also the reason why therehave been a lot of studies revolving around this topic

A demotivation study was initiated in the United States with Gorham andChristophel (1992) attempting to identify what factors causing demotivation amongcollege students taking introductory communication classes In comparing learnerattributions of demotivation and motivation, they found that the absence ofdemotivators in the classroom such as unenthusiastic teaching, dissatisfaction withgrading, and boring subject had a more positive influence on motivation that the

presence of motivators such as an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher Theresearchers gave a conclusion that teachers could promote learner motivationsimply by preventing demotivation Demotivators were collected from students’responses to the open- ended question: “What things decrease your motivation to try

hard to do your best in that class?” The research findings revealed three main

categories of demotives: 1) Context demotives (factors likely to be regarded as

antecedent to the teacher’s influence), 2) Structure/format demotives (factors overwhich the teacher is likely to have some degree of influence, if not completecontrol), 3) Teacher behaviors (factors likely to be perceived as under the teacher’sdirect control) Teacher-related factors, which consist of class structure or format-related demotives and the demotives resulting from teacher behavior, accounted for79% of all responses In a follow-up study to ascertain whether the perceivedsources of demotivation could be replicated

A study on learning experiences among 250 high school and university

American students was conducted by Oxford (1998) determined four types of

demotivating factors as below: 1) The teacher’s personal relationship with the

students, including hypercriticism, belligerence, a lack of caring, and favouritism;2) The teacher’s attitude towards the course or the material, including lack ofenthusiasm, sloppy management and close-mindedness; 3) Style conflicts betweenteachers and students, including multiple style conflicts, conflicts about the amount

of structure or detail, and conflicts about the degree of closure or ‘seriousness’ ofthe class; 4) The nature of the classroom activities, including overload,repetitiveness, and irrelevance

Meanwhile, Dornyei (1998) with his structured 10-30 minute interviewscarried out among 50 secondary school students in Budapest, Hungary discovered

that it was students’ teachers or peers that demotivated them He identified nine

demotivating factors: 1) Teachers’ personalities, commitment, competence and

teaching methods, 2) Inadequate school facilities (very big group, not the rightlevel, or frequent change of teachers), 3) Reduced self- confidence due to theirexperience of failure or lack of success, 4) Negative attitude towards the second

language, 5) Compulsory nature of second language study, 6) Interference ofanother foreign language being studied, 7) Negative attitude towards secondlanguage community, 8) Attitude of group members, and 9) Course book used inclass It was reported that demotivating factors of the teacher and reduced self-confidence account for more than half of all demotivating factors

Arai (2004) conducted a study among 33 university students of high Englishproficiency to determine whether they had had demotivating experiences in foreignlanguage classrooms and to depict the experiences and their instant reactions tothose experiences Arai collected 105 comments and categorized them into the

following four areas: 1) Teachers, 2) Classes, 3) Class atmosphere, and 4) Others.

She found that the number of reports about the first category, Teachers, accountedfor 46.7% of total reports, followed by Classes (36.2%) The third category, Classatmosphere, was the least reported (13.3%)

In another study by Falout and Maruyama (2004), the relationship betweendemotivation and students’ level of language proficiency was examined Theresearchers employed the 49- item questionnaire developed based on Dornyei’s ninedemotivating factors among 164 freshmen university students from two science

departments Accordingly, six categories of demotivating factors were identified: 1)

Teachers, 2) Courses, 3) Attitude towards English speaking community, 4) Attitudetowards English itself, 5) Self- confidence, and 6) Attitude of group members Itwas found that for the low- proficiency learners, self- confidence, attitudes towardsthe second language, courses, teachers, and attitudes of group members were themost demotivating factors For the high- proficiency learners, self- confidence wasthe most important demotivating factors In fact, low proficient students tented tocorrelate demotivation to their affective states, while the high proficient studentswere more suitable to attribute their demotivation to external factors and indicatemore control over their affective states and learning conditions

Tsuchiya (2006) was able to list nine areas of demotivation after the study

among 129 freshmen: 1) Teachers, 2) Classes, 3) Compulsory nature of Englishstudy, 4) Negative attitude toward the English- speaking community, 5) Negative

attitude toward English itself, 6) Lack of self- confidence, 7) Negative groupattitude, 8) Lack of a positive English speaking model, 9) Ways of learning Theresults showed that significant differences were found between the two groups in allnine factors of demotivation The low- proficiency group rated higher than the high-proficiency group on every factor

In 2007, a case study with 100 Vietnamese students was conducted by Tranand Baldauf on their foreign language learning experiences The results of the study

revealed that there are two groups of demotives: 1) Internal attributions, 2)

External attributions The internal attributions includes students’ attitudes towardsEnglish, their experiences of failure or lack of success and the incidents related totheir self- esteem, meanwhile the external attributions contain teacher-relatedfactors, the learning environment and other external factors The researchers havegiven a specific and comparatively full description of the issue in Vietnamesecondition

Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) in their study 656 Japanese high school students,determined demotivating factors via a set of questionnaire including 35 questions

Through a principal axis factor analysis, five demotivating factors were extracted:

1) Learning contents and materials, 2) Teacher’s competence and teaching styles, 3)Inadequate school facilities, 4) Lack of intrinsic motivation, 5) Test scores The

results showed that the learning contents and materials and test scores were

demotivating factors for many Japanese high school students, especially for less

motivated learners Contrary to what previous research suggested, teachers’ competence and teaching styles factor was not a very strong cause of demotivation compared to learning contents and materials or test scores for both more and less

motivated groups The study also showed that both more and less motivated learners

did not perceive inadequate school facilities as demotivating

In another study by Falout et al (2009), 900 Japanese university learners ofEnglish were surveyed to determine the demotivating factors to investigate thedemotivating factors in learning EFL as well as the relationship between pastdemotivating experiences and present proficiencies Demotivating factors were

grouped into three categories: 1) External conditions of the learning environment

2) Internal conditions of the learner 3) Reactive behaviors to demotivatingexperiences Internal and reactive factors were shown to correlate with long- termEFL learning outcomes Findings indicated that beginning, less- proficient learnersamong non- English majors were least likely to control their affective states to copewith demotivating experiences

To cut a long story short, numerous studies have been carried out on theissue of demotivation However, the findings are applied in specific teaching andlearning contexts Two groups of demotivating factors including internalattributions and external attributions, which were extracted in the study by Tran andBaldauf Jr (2007), give the researcher a lot of guidance in examining the commonnegative factors affecting high school students’ English learning in readingcomprehension at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University ofEducation

1.2 Theoretical background of reading and reading comprehension

1.2.1 Definitions of reading

Reading was traditionally regarded as a passive process that involves readingwords in a linear fashion and internalizing their meaning one at a time However,Goodman (1971:153) sees reading as “a psycholinguistic process by which thereader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has beenencoded by a writer as graphic display” After the emergence of thepsycholinguistic model of reading, Goodman, (1976) and Smith (1971; 1973) arguethat reading is actually an active process, in which readers create meaning from theprinted words or receive and interpret a message from printed materials In otherwords, reading is a process of how information is processed from the text intomeanings, starting with the information from the text, and ending with what thereader gains The following definitions from experts can provide a deeperunderstanding of reading

Goodman (1976) described that “reading is a psycholinguistic guessinggame, in which the reader actively interacts with the text to construct meaning”

Grabe (1991:377) defined that “reading can be seen as an active process ofcomprehending where students need to be taught strategies to read more efficientlyfor example, guess from context, define expectations, make inferences about thetext, skim ahead to fill in the text”

Smith (1985:102) proposed that “reading means understanding the author’sthought” In other words, the readers “read the author’s mind not the author’swords”

Harmer (1994:190) shared a similar opinion with Smith that “reading is anexercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive the message and thebrain then has to work out the significance of these messages”

Alyouef (2005:144) claimed that “reading can be seen as an interactiveprocess between a reader and a text which leads to automaticity or reading fluency”

1.2.2 Definitions of reading comprehension

Comprehension is generally considered to be the ultimate goal of reading.Reading comprehension is not a simple matter of recognizing individual words, oreven of understanding each individual word as the eyes pass over it Readingcomprehension requires efficient knowledge of the world and an efficientknowledge of the language In other words, reading requires a rich background andsome ability to comprehend the texts Good readers have to do other jobs in order tocomprehend a text They should connect a new text with past experiences -background knowledge, interpret, evaluate, synthesize, and consider alternativeinterpretations (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995)

Many definitions of reading comprehension were obtained from various sources

Swan (1975:1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that

he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of atext with the minimum of understanding”

Grellet (1981:3) defined reading comprehensions as “understanding a writtentext means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible”

Gillet and Temple (1998:2) said that comprehension is the understandingnew information in light of what we have already known

Ngadiso (1998:1) indicated that reading comprehension is the process ofusing syntactic, semantic, and rhetorical information found in the printed texts toreconstruct in the reader’s mind, using the knowledge of the world he or shepossesses

John R Kirby (2006) showed that reading comprehension is the application

of a skill that evolved for other purposes (listening or oral comprehension) to a newform of input (text) Unlike oral comprehension, reading comprehension is notsomething for which the brains have evolved Whereas oral comprehension seems

to develop naturally with minimal deliberate intervention, reading comprehension ismore challenging and requires deliberate instruction Humans have been doing oralcomprehension for 100,000 years or more (Donald, 1991) Reading comprehensionhas only been practiced for 5,000 years (Olson, 1994)

John R Kirby (2006) also indicated that there are three different types orlevels of comprehension Any type of comprehension a reader employs will depend

on ability, purpose and instruction

 Passive comprehension: What we do when we are following a text but notanalyzing or assessing it deeply

 Comprehension for learning: What we do when we try to remember thedetails and/ or deeper meanings of a text

 Self- regulated comprehension: What we do when we are using the text toachieve our own goals

1.2.3 The significance of reading comprehension

There is no denying that reading plays an integral part in students’ academicsuccess Reading is a bridge to enlarge knowledge and improves the technologicalachievements

Ramelan (1990:i) showed that “reading is a very important part in our life.Through reading, we can explore the world, countries that have never been visitedbefore and the minds and ideas of great people in the past, all of which will enrichour experience and knowledge to broaden our horizon”

Hung & Tzeng, (2001) pointed out that “reading is an important skill to helppeople learn from human knowledge and experience Through reading, knowledgehas greatly contributed to the growth of mankind Reading is the fastest andsimplest way to raise people’s education level Reading is like opening the door ofunderstanding to human’s past, where it can serve as looking glass for our present.Reading also stimulates the development of brain cells, reinforces language skills,enhances organizational abilities, improves one’s temperament and poise, andprovides strength to endure frustration Reading is the best way of enabling humans

to absorb new experience and replace old views”

In short, reading comprehension is a critical foundation skill for lateracademic learning, employment skills and life satisfaction According to BeatriceS.Mikuleckly and Linda Jeffries (1996):

 Reading helps you learn to think in English

 Reading can enlarge your English vocabulary

 Reading can help you improve your writing

 Reading may be a good way to practice your English if you live in anon- English speaking country

 Reading can help you prepare for studying in English- speakingcountry

 Reading is a good way to find out about new ideas, facts andexperiences

1.2.4 Potential problems in reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is commonly known to be complex andmultifaceted It is no surprise that several students encounter readingcomprehension difficulties To illustrate this, students have difficulty inunderstanding word meanings, understanding important ideas, making inferenceswith the mentioned information; even they do not understand what they have read atall As a result, they frequently avoid reading and feel frustrated with reading tasks

in school According to Nation et al (2004), poor comprehenders often haveweaknesses in some aspects of language skills with deficits at both lower (e.g.,

vocabulary knowledge) and higher levels (e.g., inference generation, understandingfigurative language) There is no doubt that motivation plays a critical role instudents’ foreign language learning outcomes, especially in reading comprehension.According to Saville - Troike (2006: 85- 86), individual motivation is a factor that isused to explain why some second language learners are more successful than others.However there are demotivating factors which negatively influence the learner’sattitudes and behaviors and lead to undesired learning outcomes The findings of the

study “Impact of demotivating factors on the reading comprehension achievement

of Iranian EFL learners” by Ghaedrahmat & Entezari & Abedi (2014) reveal that

demotivation negatively affects students’ performance in reading comprehensiontest The less the amount of demotivation is, the higher the reading scores Inparticular, negative teachers’ traits and behaviors, improper methods of teachingEnglish in class, lack of focusing on oral skills, teaching mere grammar at highschools, limitation of English to textbooks, improper evaluation system and lack ofusing technology in English classes were the most contextual demotivating factors

In short, there is a remarkable correlation between demotivating factors andlearner’s reading comprehension achievement To increase student’s motivation andboost learner’s learning outcomes, it is of great significance to explore factors thatdemotivate students in reading comprehension

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To answer the research question “What are factors that demotivate the 10 th

form students at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they are engaged in reading lessons?”, a survey research design

was employed in this study This chapter discusses the setting of the study, subjects,data collection instruments, data collection procedures and the data analysismethod

2.1 Research Setting

The study was conducted at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi NationalUniversity of Education, which is one of three national gifted high schools in Hanoi.This high school was founded in 1966 and its initial aim was to nurture Vietnamesestudents who excelled at Mathematics Several majors were gradually added,including Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Informatics, Literature It was not until 2009that English and two other non-majored classes (A1 and A2) were founded Thestudents were carefully selected from several parts in Vietnam and there is alwayscompetitive learning environment, which creates real opportunities for students todevelop their full ability

Each classroom has recently been equipped with modern teaching andlearning facilities such as a projector, a computer and a television The learningenvironment, therefore, seems to be very enjoyable and favorable

2.2 Subjects

The participants are grouped into two categories in this study

The first group is 109 tenth form students from three classes of Mathematics,Physics and Chemistry at High School for Gifted Students

Table 2 1: Information on the Number of Students Surveyed

They have been learning English for at least 4 years The teachers claim that allthe participants were provided with reading strategies when they were at secondaryschool All of the participants, however, come from different parts of our country

Different educational settings may apply specific standards of teaching, which result

in the difference in levels of knowledge In other words, it causes the imbalancebetween the scope of vocabulary and the learners’ levels As a result, theproficiency level of English among students is not the same Students with higherproficiency level of English do not show their interest in absorbing the knowledgethat is not new and challenging In contrast, ones with lower proficiency level ofEnglish are fed up with following English lessons which cause a lot of difficulties.These students even catch up with nothing in lessons It is generally believed that

this imbalance itself leads to students’ low motivation in learning English,

especially in English reading comprehension The scores of reading skills are verydifferent among students While some students who have poor learning outcomesgot the average reading score ranging from 4 to 5 points, others got 8 to 9 points

Six teachers ranging from the age of 25 to 32 are the second group All ofthem are the teachers of the above students They have at least 2 years of teachingEnglish All of them graduated with distinction degree from the English Department

of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University

2.3 Research Types

This study employs the survey research Exploring the demotivation of 10th

form students in learning reading skills is the ultimate goal of this study The researchgoal is mainly achieved by means of quantitative data, using survey research Thequalitative data (interviews) was obtained after the quantitative data collection todeepen understanding and interpretation of the results

2.4 Data Collection Instruments

The data was collected by means of questionnaires and interviews at HighSchool for Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education

2.4.1 Questionnaires

The main instruments are questionnaires administered in order to gather bothstudents’ and teachers’ perspectives

One kind of survey questionnaire is for 10th form non - English major

students It was adapted from Tran and Baldauf Jr (2007), Demotivation:

Understanding Resistance to English Language Learning – The Case of Vietnamese Students In order to avoid the unnecessary misunderstanding from the respondents,

all parts of the questionnaire for students including both close-ended and ended questions were translated into Vietnamese for students In addition,paraphrasing the terminologies into more familiar ones can help preclude theparticipants’ unexpected confusion about technical terms The questionnaires for thestudents consist of seven questions

open- Question 1, 2 and 3: focus on students’ motivation in learning reading skills

 Question 4: find out students’ opinions on factors demotivating them in

learning reading comprehension

 Question 5: figure out students’ opinions on their teachers’ classroom

 Question 1: request the matter relating to teachers’ thoughts of the role of

teaching reading skills

 Question 2: look into the teachers’ opinion on factors that demotivate students

in learning reading comprehension

 Question 3: relate to the frequency of using classroom activities in reading

lessons

2.4.2 Interviews

Supplying more details from the interviewees, the interview is the mostsuitable cooperative assistant to minimize the abstractness of the answers in thesurvey questionnaires and get a more comprehensive view of the matter Based on

the survey questionnaires, the structured interviews with a list of five open- endedquestions were established.

Using Vietnamese language will help the interviewees feel morecomfortable and confident to answer the interviewer’s questions All of theinterviews will be recorded under the permission of the interviewees The interviewswere conducted in a following week after processing the questionnaire for students.Ten students were chosen randomly who took part in the survey questionnaires Toobtain deep understanding, all the questions in the interviews were conducted inVietnamese

2.5 Data Collection Procedures

2.5.1 Questionnaires

Before the researcher delivered the copies of questionnaire to the participants,the questionnaire had been piloted among a group of students in class 10 Literaturewith the common aim of finding out any difficulty in understanding Thequestionnaire was then modified if necessary With the permission of the Head Master

at High School for Gifted students, the questionnaire was distributed to gifted students

in the last days of May All the participants were informed in Vietnamese about thepurposes of the questionnaire and how to answer all the questions in order to ensurethat students fully understand what to do After understanding the purposes of thequestionnaire, they were eager to answer the questionnaire in a serious manner Thestudents were asked to complete the questionnaire within 30 minutes Thequestionnaire was collected by the researcher herself

Then, the survey questionnaires for teachers were delivered to six teachers ofEnglish at High School for Gifted students, Hanoi National University of Education.All of the teachers had one week to complete it

2.5.2 Interviews

To get better insights into the research questions and to discuss furtherinformation about the items raised in the questionnaire, the researcher conductedstructured interviews among ten surveyed students, who were randomly selected.The one- on- one interviews were carried out by the researcher It is commonly

known that the interviewees share more information when being asked the questions

in person In fact, the one- on- one interviews encouraged the researcher a lot to askfollow- up questions

The researcher took notes during each real conversation The answers fromstudent interviews were recorded with the permission of the interviewees Theanswers were transcribed for the analysis purpose and then translated into English

To get the reliability of the translation, the following steps were taken:

 Two qualified teachers at this school were asked to check whether theinterviews’ English translation were accurate or not

 A meeting with ten interviewees was held and they were asked individuallywhether the English translation followed their ideas exactly or not

2.6 Data Analysis Method

The researcher first read through the survey questionnaires and theinterviews To avoid inconsistency or possible biases, the data was generated andanalyzed by the researcher alone, and then displayed in forms of charts and tables.The information from the interviews was known as reflective notes and quotation.Given that the data were valid, it could be stated that there were no possibleinfluences of the researchers during collection, interpretation, evaluation of the data(Seliger & Shohamy, 1986)

The research was carried out by both quantitative and qualitative methods.The quantitative method employed the close - ended or multiple choice questions tosurvey the percentage of factors that demotivate 10th form student at High Schoolfor Gifted Students, Hanoi National University of Education when they wereengaged in reading lessons The ultimate goal is to figure out major factors thataffect students’ learning reading comprehension The researcher took advantage ofthe software Microsoft Excel to calculate the percentages of demotivating factors.This software was in fact cheap, convenient and effective Microsoft Excel was ofgreat use for this study

Besides, the qualitative method was based on interviews and open- endedquestions The researcher recorded, transcribed and translated the interviews Thestudents’ responses were hypothesized The researcher then analyzed key words,phrases or main ideas to give some references in order to explore demotivatingfactors in reading lessons To illustrate this, in the students’ responses to the second

question in the interview “What do you think about reading lessons in class?”, several negative adjectives including boring, tedious, monotonous, uncomfortable, unexciting, unentertaining and uninspiring were mentioned These adjectives clearly indicate that students were not interested in learning reading comprehension.

In short, the methodology of the study has been displayed as the guidelinesfor the researcher to follow during the implementation of the study in this chapter

In the next chapter, the analysis of the data and the findings will be identified indetail

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter deals with the analysis of the data collected A careful analysis

is clearly presented to find out factors that demotivate students in learning ReadingEnglish at High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi University of Education

3.1 Students’ responses to the questionnaires and the interview’s questions

This analysis reports students’ opinions regarding three major issues:

student’s opinions on the learning of reading English, students’ opinions on factorsthat demotivate them in learning reading English and students’ expectations towardsteachers of reading skills

(1) Students’ opinions on the learning of reading English

The first question in the questionnaire deals with the students’ attitudestowards the learning of reading English This can be clearly illustrated in thefollowing chart 3.1:

0 20 40 60

Very

Quite Important Not Important

Not Important

at all

Chart 3.1: Students’ attitudes towards the learning of reading English

The data collected shows that almost all of the students highly appreciatedthe importance of reading skill Out of the sample of 109 students, 59 indicated thatthey considered the learning of English reading comprehension very important 36students thought that the learning of reading English was important 12 respondentsbelieved that the learning of reading comprehension was quite important It wasevident that many students had awareness of learning reading skills It is worthnoting that all of the participants in the interview confirmed the importance of

reading skills 10 students had the same opinion that reading was very important or

necessary Student 1 in the interview shared that “From my point of view, reading

is the most important skill because it enables me to use my mind To illustrate this, the inferring questions require my logical thinking” 4 out of 10 respondents

claimed that reading could provide them with lots of information, especially new

words and grammatical structures Student 4 claimed that “Reading provides me with several new words and improves my vocabulary knowledge” Student 7 added that “The research achievements of the humankind were written in books To acquire this knowledge, reading is necessary” In addition, student 2 said that

“Reading is a kind of entertainment” A minority of students in the questionnaire,

however, did not value the importance of learning reading skills Only one studentthought that it is not important to learn reading English and another viewed it as notimportant at all

The students’ interest in English reading lessons was shown in the followingquestion Although the importance of reading skills was highly appreciated, only asmall proportion of students in the sample showed their keenness on learningreading comprehension

Very interested, 1.8 Not interested at

Chart 3.2: Students’ interest in English reading lessons

The data reveals that 48.2% of the respondents were not interested in Englishreading comprehension; even 6.5% were not interested at all The loss of interest iseasily seen through key words in the students’ responses to the second question in

the interview There are lots of negative adjectives including boring, tedious, monotonous, uncomfortable, unexciting, unentertaining and uninspiring Phrases such as lack of enthusiasm, little interaction between teachers and students were also strong evidence Student 10 highlighted that “Reading has not yet been interested by students” Student 6 said that “The reading section was really uninspiring to learn” Student 4 claimed that “I feel uncomfortable in reading lessons I prefer listening and speaking lessons” Furthermore, student 3 admitted that “Almost all of the students study reading English in class only because they want to pass exams and satisfy their parents” Student 2 shared that “Students often

do reading exercises just because of their responsibility for completing these exercises rather than their interest” Meanwhile, only 1.8% of the subjects were

very interested in learning reading

Concerning the purpose of learning reading English, it is clear to find out in thethird question There are different purposes among students The fact would be clarified inthe following table:

a To get high marks in exams 37.5%

b To read other materials in English 16.5%

c To acquire more knowledge 22.9%

d To satisfy teachers and parents 7%

Table 3.1: Students’ purposes of learning reading comprehension

Getting high marks in exams is the highest percentage accounting for

37.5% In the interview, student 5 supported that “In Vietnam, reading and writing are usually tested If we learn reading well, we will achieve high scores in exams” Student 9 said that “Reading is the main part in all the tests; therefore; I learn reading to get high marks at school” Ranked next is the percentage of the

participants (22.9%) who regarded acquiring more knowledge as their purpose In

the interview, key words such as information and knowledge were repeated many

times Student 8 highlighted that “English is an international language; therefore,

we get insight into lots of things to know more about the world” Student 3 added that “Reading is regarded to bring us the largest amount of knowledge through books, newspapers and the internet” Especially, three respondents including

student 2, student 4 and student 6 had the same idea that through reading, they couldacquire more vocabulary and grammar structures 16.5% of the subjects would like

to read other materials in English 7% of the participants have the purpose ofmaking teachers and parents satisfied Additionally, various ideas were given for

other purposes In the responses to the questionnaire, one student wrote “I learn reading so as to watch English films or videos and read English books which haven’t been translated into Vietnamese”.

All the data collected gave the researcher reasonable confidence to concludethat although many participants found it important to learn reading English and theyhad lots of different purposes to learn reading skill, few students showed interest inEnglish reading comprehension Therefore, demotivating factors should be takeninto consideration

(2) Students’ opinions on factors that demotivate them in learning reading English

1 I do not understand reading lessons because I

do not have enough vocabulary knowledge

2 I do not understand reading lessons because I

do not have enough grammatical knowledge

3 I do not understand reading lessons because I

do not have enough social knowledge

4 I cannot do reading exercises 12.8% 27.5% 59.6%

5 The content of reading texts is out- of- date 73.4% 23.9% 2.8%

6 Reading tasks are not suitable to my level 18.3% 26.6% 55%

7 Reading texts consist of many new words 37.6% 11% 51.4%

8 Grammatical structures in reading texts are

complicated

9 The time allowed in reading lessons in class

is not enough for me

10 The use of modern teaching and learning 38.5% 29.4% 32.1%

facilities (projector, video, TV… ) is rare

11 My teacher demonstrates favoritism to other

students

13 My teacher is not enthusiastic 14.7% 27.5% 57.8%

16 I do not like my teacher’s teaching

methods

17 Classroom activities are not interesting 53.2% 35.8% 11%

Table 3.2: Students’ opinions on factors that demotivate students in reading lessons

The statistics provided in Table 3.2 reveals that 10th form studentsencountered certain problems which cause demotivation in learning readingEnglish The content of reading texts in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” rankedhighest in attributions of demotivation A great number of the respondents (73.4%)reached an agreement that the content of reading texts was out-of- date Half of theparticipants in the interview admitted that the content of the English textbook 10itself was a major demotivating factor in reading lessons Many negative phrases

were mentioned such as “nothing new, old, out - of- date, not interesting, impractical, general, unfamiliar, unrealistic, uninspiring and uncreative” The

following quotes give much insight into how the content of reading texts had

considerably negative effects on students Student 5 said that “There was nothing new, special and challenging in the articles of the English textbook 10 They are almost the same” Student 6 stated that “The articles in the text book usually concern general topics, give little information or even unrealistic information” Student 10 frankly shared that “The main reason which causes demotivation is the content of reading texts For example, a reading paragraph with the topic “A day

in the life” just describes the daily routine of a farmer In contrast, reading paragraphs in IELTs tests often relate to social problems which are more realistic and useful” It is generally believed that students would like to obtain more information which was closely related to their real life Student 7 added that “The topics of reading texts are not interesting They are not updated with our

generation at all” Student 8 highlighted that “The English textbook 10 was published in 2006; therefore; topics are not new anymore They cannot raise students’ interest They are not as updated as foreign ones” To the best of my

knowledge, updated information will certainly bring students new challenges andrequire them more logical thinking

Another demotivating trigger, which ranks second (60.6%), lies in theteachers’ teaching methods, which were considered as the most frequent cause ofstudents’ demotivation There is no denying that teachers’ teaching methods play avery important role in increasing students’ motivation and involvement in readinglessons However, 60.6% of the study population claimed that the teaching methodsdecreased or even destroyed their interest in learning English Many students in theinterview admitted having suffered from negative aspects of teaching methods.They complained about teachers’ boring ways of conveying knowledge.Additionally, teachers only gave lessons limited to the textbook Some phrases refer

to the teachers’ teaching methods such as “inflexible, old, nothing innovative, uninspiring and uncreative” Student 2 explicitly shared “Teachers are not flexible Teachers stick to the English textbook The interaction between teachers and students is very limited” Student 7 added more information to the fact “Teachers haven’t inspired us yet” Interviewees listed lots of necessary things which teachers didn’t help them in reading lessons Student 4 said that “Teachers didn’t supply us with extra information in real life” Student 3 claimed that “Teachers didn’t provide us with necessary reading strategies” Student 5 mentioned that “Students should be under pressure Teachers didn’t make us aware of the importance of English”

Furthermore, students’ demotivation rooted from their own inadequatevocabulary knowledge 58.7% of the respondents admitted that they did notunderstand reading lessons because they did not have enough vocabulary Theyfound themselves with gaps in vocabulary, which caused lots of difficulties indealing with current lessons They were also not confident enough to follow theteacher’s activities, or even raised some questions to clarify their misunderstanding

about the texts Some adjectives were listed such as “nervous, uncomfortable and afraid” Student 4 shared that “Normally my teacher asks me to translate the text into Vietnamese in reading lessons, but I am really afraid to translate it because my vocabulary knowledge is not enough”

It is common knowledge that teachers’ teaching methods are best exposedthrough classroom activities Not surprisingly, that classroom activities were notinteresting was identified as a main source of demotivation accounting for 53.2%.Many participants complained that boring activities resulted in the loss of interest inlanguage learning Those definitely had a negative impact on students andprevented them from gaining expected learning outcomes The next question is toget students’ opinions on classroom activities This can be clearly seen in thefollowing table:

8

14 9

43

6 29

Chart 3.3: Students’ opinions on teachers’ classroom activities

From the above analysis, 43 out of the 109 sample students claimed thatclassroom activities were monotonous Students became demotivated because allreading lessons were always the same Meanwhile, there were only 8 students

believing that the activities were various Student 10 said that “Almost all of the teachers teach in the same way such as writing new words, translating the text and then answering questions There is nothing new” Student 8 highlighted that “The teacher usually reads first Students repeat after the teacher, and then each of the students read the text The last thing is that students answer reading questions” Student 6 shared that “Teachers usually provide students with new words Students

read the text and then learn by heart Students then answer the questions”.

Additionally, while 29 respondents thought that they were demotivating learners, 6students found teachers’ activities motivating learners 14 participants were tensewhen they got engaged in classroom activities and only 9 students had interest intheir teachers’ activities Therefore, reconsidering classroom activities is of greatsignificance to minimize students’ demotivation

To get better understanding of the teachers’ teaching methods, the students’opinions on their teachers’ employment of activities in English reading lessons aretaken into consideration

like

like at all

1 Give short discussions before

4 Set clear tasks before reading 20.2% 23.9% 39.4% 13.8% 2.8%

5 Combine the textbook and relevant

materials

6 Ask me to translate reading texts 11.9% 9.2% 11.9% 35.8% 31.2%

7 Ask me to do tasks in a limited

time

23.9% 39.4% 17.4% 12.8% 6.4%

9 Ask me to write a summary of the

reading text after reading

26.6% 22.9% 41.3% 8.3% 0.9%

10 Ask me to talk about the topic

after reading

27.5% 16.5% 45.9% 4.6% 5.5%

Table 3.3: Students’ opinions on teachers’ employment of activities

The statistics in the table shows that students expressed a high degree ofinterest in some kinds of interaction activities such as predicting questions and shortdiscussions Some of the participants, however, admitted that the interaction

between teachers and students was limited Student 6 said that “In reading lessons, there is no interaction between students and teachers Teachers ask questions and then students answer them” Student 8 shared that “Teachers did not give a discussion about reading topics” and “The information mainly comes from the teacher and then students answer the question” According to Falout et al (2008),

some learners’ interest is caught with intrinsically enjoyable activities in anenvironment with meaningful interaction Whereas interaction activities should betaken into account, a large proportion of students in the sample (35.8% & 31.2%)had mainly negative attitudes towards translating reading texts It is worth notingthat teachers should pay more attention to which activities are preferred by students

Furthermore, it is important to note that the combination between thetextbook and relevant materials was also highly appreciated 45% and 27.5% of thestudents were very interested and interested respectively in combining the textbookand relevant materials It is understandable because several students complain aboutthe content of reading texts In addition, 57.8% of the students believed that theycould gain interest in games or other extra- curricular activities in reading lessons.There was strong evidence to conclude that the employment of activities did notreally match students However dedicated the teacher is, teaching and learning maynot be effective if teaching methods do not suit students’ learning styles

In short, four major demotivating factors were found out Besides, there areother demotivating factors in reading lessons, which are mentioned in the students’responses to the questionnaire and interview Some of the students carefully wrote

“I have not still found an effective learning method for myself to develop my reading skill” Another noted that “From my point of view, reading is a compulsory subject It is not as important as my major subject” In the interview, student 2 added that “The class is crowded, which makes me lose my concentration” Student

3 claimed that “Most of my classmates learn English reading comprehension for exams They are not aware of the importance of reading English” It is, therefore, reasonable to suggest that there were a great number of demotivating experiences

suffered by students