những yếu tố liên quan đến giáo viên làm giảm động lực thực hành nói tiếng anh của sinh viên tại một trường đại học ở việt namfinal version

The quantitative findings revealed four factors relating to teachers includingtheir traditional teaching methods, controlling communicative styles, the absence ofvalid testing and assess

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

HANOI – 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Dr Ngô Thu Hương

Ngô Thu Hương

HANOI – 2018

I have now made it to the last stage of my MA journey During this interestingbut at the same time challenging journey, I have been given continuous support of anumber of people whom I would like to acknowledge here

First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr NgôThu Hương The insightful academic comments she gave me, her enthusiasm for

my research, and more importantly, her patience were greatly appreciated

Second, I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to the staff andstudents of the university where my research was conducted The study would not

be complete without their consent of participation

My special thanks also go to the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University

of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi National University Without theknowledge I have learned from the intellectuals and the support of the staff in theFaculty, I could not have finished my MA journey

And last but not least, my heartfelt thanks are towards my beloved family,especially to my Mom and Dad, my mother-in-law, my younger brother, and myhusband for loving me, trusting me, supporting me unconditionally and accepting

me as I am Very importantly, my gratitude goes out to my little son and mydaughter-to-be, who give me motivation and strength to become a better me

The present research investigated teacher-related demotives in EFL speakingclasses at a university in Vietnam This mixed method study aimed at addressingfour main objectives Specifically, quantitative method was used to examine thefactors relating to teachers that demotivate students to learn English speaking skillsfrom (1) students’ and (2) teachers’ perspectives; and (3) identify the similaritiesand differences in the two groups’ perceptions of such demotivators Qualitativemethod (i.e semi-structured interview) was employed to further inform thequantitative results and to address the final research objective which was to (4) seekways to assist students to overcome demotivation when learning English speakingskills

The quantitative findings revealed four factors relating to teachers includingtheir traditional teaching methods, controlling communicative styles, the absence ofvalid testing and assessment; and insufficient English speaking competence aspossible demotivators in EFL learners’ learning of speaking skills Significantly,meaningful statistical differences were computed in the teachers and students’perceptions of teaching methods and teachers’ communicative styles Specifically,the students highly blamed their demotivation in speaking classes for teachers’controlling communicative styles, while the teachers ranked this demotivator thethird They instead believed that inappropriate pedagogy had the most destructiveinfluence on EFL learners’ motivation to learn speaking skills

The qualitative findings generally supported the quantitative ones andunveiled several recommendations for teachers to assist EFL students to overcomedemotivation to learn speaking skills, i.e making speaking lessons morecommunicative and interactive; choosing speaking topics of students’ interests;providing constructive, informative feedbacks; being friendly, approachable and fair

to students

Table of contents

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of figures vi

List of tables vi

List of abbreviations vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Statement of the problem 1

2 Aims and objectives 2

3 Research questions 3

4 Significance of the study 3

5 Scope of the study 4

6 Organization 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 The concept of second/foreign language speaking skills 6

1.1.1 Knowledge areas of L2 speaking skills 6

1.1.2 L2 speaking skills and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 8

1.1.3 Factors affecting the learning of English speaking skills .10

1.2 Demotivation and demotives in second/ foreign language learning 12

1.2.1 Definition of demotivation in second/ foreign language learning 12

1.2.2 Demotives in second/foreign language learning 14

1.2.3 Demotivation in English speaking skills 18

1.2.4 Teacher-related demotives 20

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 25

2.1 Research design 25

2.2 The setting of the study 27

2.2.1 Research site 27

2.2.2 Participant selection 27

2.3 Data collection instruments 29

2.3.1 Questionnaire 29

2.3.2 Semi-structured interview 31

2.4 Data collection procedures 33

2.4.1 Questionnaire 33

2.4.2 Semi-structure interview 35

2.5 Data analysis 37

2.5.1 Quantitative analysis 37

2.5.2 Qualitative analysis 37

2.6 Ethical considerations 38

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 40

3.1 Findings 40

3.1.1 Research question 1 40

3.1.2 Research question 2 44

3.1.3 Research question 3 47

3.1.4 Research question 4 52

3.2 Discussions 55

PART C: CONCLUSION 60

1 Summary of the key findings 60

2 Limitations of the current research 61

3 Suggestions for further studies 61

REFERENCES 63 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX A I APPENDIX B IX APPENDIX C XIII

List of figures

Figure 1.1: Classification of demotives in English learning

Figure 3.1: Mean score of four subtypes of teacher-related demotives reported

by students and teachers

Figure 3.2: Frequencies of students’ self-perceived English speaking skills

List of tables

Table 2.1 Outline of the Current Program of Research

Table 2.2: Classification of the items in the questionnaire

Table 2.3: Key interview questions description

Table 3.1: Students’ Mean Levels, 95 % Confidence Interval of the Means,Standard Deviation

Table 3.2: Teachers’ Mean Levels, 95 % Confidence Interval of the Means,Standard Deviation

Table 3.3: Mean scores of demotivator subtypes between students andteachers, t-test and significant levels

Table 3.4: Mean level of students’ self-perceived English speaking proficiencyTable 3.5: Correlations between teacher-related demotive subtypes and self-perceived English speaking proficiency

List of abbreviations

EFL English as a Foreign Language

ESL English as a Second Language

L2 Second language

MOET Ministry of Education and Training

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

PART A: INTRODUCTION

This introductory part aims to state the research problem and rationale for thestudy It then outlines the objectives of this thesis, along with the researchquestions This is followed by the reason why the research is significant The scope

of this research is then discussed The last section specifies the organization of thepaper

1 Statement of the problem

The English language, widely known as the global language, has becomepopular in Vietnam for some decades (Van, 2010) The language is considered byVietnamese authorities as the most important foreign language at all nationaleducation levels, particularly in higher education as a result of globalization It hasbeen highlighted in the legal documents entitled ‘Teaching and learning foreignlanguage in the national education system in the period of 2008–2020’ lately issued

by the Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese Ministry of Education andTraining (MoET) that Vietnamese higher education should prepare a well-equippedlabor force to work in a global economy (MoET, 2008) In other words, studentsneed to acquire an English level proficient enough to communicate effectively in aninternational working environment Different from the expectation, research hasindicated that a number of higher education learners, especially non- English majorstudents, demonstrate poor levels of English proficiency (see Van, 2008; Do, 2012),which has concerned the researcher, also a lecturer teaching English in Vietnamesehigher education According to Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), the success or failure

in second language acquisition (SLA) is determined by a range of factors includingaptitude, intelligent and motivation As motivation is acknowledged as one of thedetermining factors in mastering a second or foreign (L2) language, the fact thatVietnamese students are at rather low English proficiency, especially speakingskills, may be contributed by the fact that Vietnamese students have low motivation

to learn the language (Huong, 2015) While a large body of research has confirmedthat motivation has the great potential to enhance learners’ levels of second

language proficiency (Dörnyei, 1998b; Gardner, 2010), few studies were conducted

to examine how the “dark side” of motivation (Dornyei & Ushioda, 2011) –demotivation, impacts L2 learning The significance of studies on demotivation lies

in the detrimental influences of the phenomenon on the learning outcomes (Falout

& Falout, 2005) According to Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011), language-learningfailure is a salient phenomenon and the study of its causes is often directly related todemotivation Despite the fact that demotivating factors largely impact the learningoutcomes, and are said to directly lead to learning failure, it is likely to be entirely

or at least, partly neglected in language learning and teaching studies (Soureshjani

& Riahipour, 2012) Moreover, among a scant body of research on demotivation sofar, most of the studies generally investigated the phenomenon in L2 learning andteaching, instead of focusing on any particular aspects such as the learning andteaching of vocabulary, pronunciation, or four language skills Furthermore, whilethe existing literature found a wide range of factors demotivating L2 learners, forinstance previous learning experiences, attitude towards the language, learningenvironment, curriculum, and the teachers, few attempts were made to dig into anindividual source of demotivation As such, the current thesis aimed to addressthese research gaps and extended the research line to Vietnamese context where the

study of demotivation is still scarce by investigating teacher-related demotives in EFL speaking classes at a Vietnamese university

2 Aims and objectives

The overarching aim of the present study was to understand the demotivatingfactors relating to teachers in English speaking classes at a university in Vietnam.Accordingly, the thesis attempted to achieve four objectives The first objective was

to examine students’ perceptions of what might demotivate them in their Englishspeaking classes (as aforementioned, this study examined teacher-related demotivesonly) The second objective was to understand how the teachers answered the samequestion from their own perspective The third objective was to investigate thesimilarities and/ or differences in perceptions of teachers-related demotives between

the teachers and the students The fourth and final objective was to outline ways toassist students to overcome their demotivation or in other words to motivate them tostudy English speaking skills

4 Significance of the study

The current program of research, which explored the perceptions of forcesoriginating from teachers that demotivate EFL learners to learn English speakingskills in Vietnam, is significant at both practical and theoretical levels At a practicallevel, this study identified the demotivating factors (in this study only those relating

to teachers are researched) that demotivates students in their English speakingclasses The current research’s findings may assist teachers to understand students’perceptions of detrimental factors, particularly those relate to teachers that affectthem in their English learning This information may enable teachers to reflect ontheir current teaching practices and improve their future practices The researchfindings also provide a number of insights to the university managerial boards andforeign language policy makers Based on this research, they may suggest thechanges in the professional development programs for the teachers or some changes

in the foreign language policies, which aims to benefit students’ English learning

At a theoretical level, the present study complements existing literature of L2demotivation as it addressed the gaps in this area In particular, this research hasprovided an insight into demotives deriving from teachers that negatively influencehigher education students’ English speaking skills; explained why teachers havesuch paramount impacts on their demotivation in a Vietnamese collectivist culture;and proposed ways for teachers to assist students to deal with demotivation.

Moreover, since little research has used mixed methods to explore L2demotivation, this work has made a contribution to the methodology by providingthe rationales of collecting both quantitative and qualitative data and demonstrating

a clear procedure of analyzing, converging two data sets in single research Thisresearch has indicated that collecting both quantitative and qualitative data enabledthe researcher to bring out the best of both paradigms to investigate layers ofstudents’ motivation (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011)

5 Scope of the study

The present thesis aimed at gaining insights into demotivating forces in thelearning of speaking skills Due to its minor scope, teacher-related demovies wereselected as the subject of this study Particularly, the research investigated whatEFL learners and teachers at a Vietnamese university thought about differentdemotivators originating from teachers Besides, meaningful comparisons weremade to identify similarities and differences between the perceptions on the subject

of the two groups of participants Furthermore, the thesis sought to outline ways thatteachers could consider to assist students to overcome their demotivation to studyEnglish speaking skills

discussed, which assisted the researcher to form five researchquestions The significance of the study is also highlighted in thisfirst part The introductory part ends with the structure of theresearch program

Part B: Development consists of four chapters Chapter 1provides literature review on two centerpieces of the thesis, i.e.the concept of speaking skills and demotivation in second/foreignlanguage (L2) learning Chapter 2 describes the research designand methodology of the research Chapter 3 presents, analyzes,and discusses the findings obtained from the interviews and thequestionnaires Also, some implications are made based on thefindings

The study ends with part C: Conclusion, which provides thesummary, conclusion and recommendations for further research.Limitations of the present research program are also discussed

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the key concepts, i.e speaking skills and demotivation insecond/foreign language learning, that inform the current study In the first section,the key points about L2 speaking skills, including knowledge areas of L2 speakingskills, the implementation of communicative language teaching (CLT) in teachingthe skills, and factors that potentially influence the learning of English speakingskills are outlined The second section of this chapter discusses four issuesregarding to demotivation, namely definition of the phenomenon, demotivatingfactors, demotivation in English speaking skills, and teacher-related demotives

1.1 The concept of second/foreign language speaking skills

1.1.1 Knowledge areas of L2 speaking skills

Along the history of second/foreign language teaching and learning, L2speaking has always been considered as the most essential skill to be mastered(Richards, 2008; Nazara, 2011) At present, the need for proficiency in Englishspeaking has been dramatically increasing due to the strengthening position ofEnglish as a language for international communication (Nazara, 2011) According

to Richards (2008), the mastery of speaking skill in English is a priority for manyL2 learners The tendency to prioritize speaking is also reflected in the fact thatspeaking competence is regularly considered a measure of one's mastery of English.Although L2 learners often regard L2 speaking as the most important skill toacquire, a number of them claim it the most complex and challenging to acquire(Bailey, 2003) “While speaking is totally natural, speaking in a language other thanour own is anything but simple.” (Bailey, 2003, p.48) Despite being defined asbrief as the productive aural/oral skill that consists of producing systematic verbalutterances to convey meaning, speaking is a multifaceted construct (Nazara, 2011)

Specifically, L2 speaking is more than to form grammatically correct sentences and

to utter them A well-known example of such a grammatically correct, howeversemantically ill-formed sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" wascomposed by Chomsky (1957) As such, L2 speaking involves more thanmechanics The three areas of knowledge that composes speaking ability can bestated as follows:

- First, the mechanical elements of language (pronunciation, grammar, andvocabulary), which allows speakers to use the right words in the correct sequenceand appropriate pronunciation

- Second, the speaking functions (transaction and interaction), which enablesthe speaker to know when the clarity of the message is needed (as in carrying outthe transaction or in exchanging of information) and when a deep understanding isnot necessary (as in the development of relations)

- Third, the pragmatics and sociocultural norms (such as turn-taking, rate ofspeech, length of pauses between speakers, relative roles of participants) whichenable an individual to realize the conversational situation, whom he is talking to,and what the purpose of speaking is, etc

(Nazara, 2011)While L2 speaking is the mostly sought skill for an individual to be regardedcompetent in a L2 language (Richards, 2008), the skill seems to be underestimated

or even ignored in a number of higher education institutions in Vietnam, especially

in non-English major programs (Hong, 2006) This can be explained by the fact that

in such programs, English is just a smaller part of a wider degree in other specialistareas such as economics, and engineering (Huong, 2015) The subject, therefore,counts for a few credits of the whole curriculums In the research site of this study,English weighs only 20 out of 177-181 credits of each major In addition, it iscommon among non-English major programs that written tests which mostly focus

on grammar elements, reading and writing skills are used as testing and assessmenttools at mid-term and final term level In other words, speaking skills are rarely

tested, or only count for a minor proportion of the subject scores As a result, manystudents and even teachers are ‘examination-oriented’ They spend less time on oralskills than what are likely to be included in the exams Even when instructorsoccasionally teach speaking skills, the focus of the lessons are sentence structures orpronunciation of individual words However, to be an effective speaker in anotherlanguage rather than one’s own is never an easy task as speaking is more than toform grammatically correct sentences It rather covers broad areas of mechanics,functions, pragmatics, and social interaction Therefore, any L2 teachingmethodology used in the classroom should seek ways to improve the competency oflearners in these areas

1.1.2 L2 speaking skills and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Due to the belief that that language proficiency equals to communicationability, the teaching and learning trend started to slide towards communicativeproficiency As a result, the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has gainedconsiderable popularity CLT is a method of L2 language teaching of which maininspiration is communicative competence The notion of communicativecompetence is defined as “the aspect of our competence that enables us to conveyand interpret messages and negotiate meanings interpersonally within specificcontexts” (Brown, 2007, p 219) Richards (2005) contended that such a notionencompasses a wide range of abilities including four areas:

- Linguistic/grammar competence: the knowledge of grammar rules, lexis,syntax, phonetics and vocabulary of the target language and the ability to use them

- Sociolinguistic/pragmatic competence: the knowledge of how to expressmessages in accordance with the relationship between the speaker, the listener, thetopic, and the setting

- Discourse competence: the ability to understand the context and to knowhow to link utterances of language to make coherent whole and meaningful texts

- Strategic competence: the ability to manage difficulties that may arise incommunication.

CLT, underlining the importance of focusing on the functional andcommunicative aspects of language rather than the grammar and vocabularybuilding (Richards & Rodgers, 2014), is one the most favorable methods in teachingspeaking skills That is because speaking is a productive skill used as acommunication tool through oral form (Bailey, 2003) It places the first rank incommunication compared with the other skills Moreover, it is advocated thatlanguage learning purposes are firstly focused on the ability to communicate inspeaking The existence of communicative competence in teaching speaking is,therefore, the goal that must be achieved

In short, CLT emphasizes the communication of meaning rather than thepractice of grammatical forms in isolation It assists learners to develop necessaryknowledge and skills for appropriate interpretation and use of a language indifferent communicative settings In practice, some of the characteristics of CLTinclude learner centeredness, focus on both meaning and linguistic forms in context,use of collaborative activities, promotion of authentic materials and of relevant andmeaningful classroom activities, and new roles for teachers as facilitators andnegotiators of meaning (Richards & Rodgers, 2001)

In Vietnam, CLT has gained its popularity since its first implementation in the1990s (Ngoc & Iwashita, 2012) Viet (2008) even addressed CLT as an event ofpedagogical imperialism, by which he meant it is an approach of priority Manyuniversities in Vietnam are attempting to employ CLT into syllabus design,examination and teaching (Ngoc and Iwashita, 2012) However, the effectiveness ofCLT in English language teaching (ELT) in Vietnam is still questioned Ngoc andIwashita (2012) argued that after a long period of learning English, mostVietnamese learners still cannot use it effectively as a means of communication.Among many practical factors militating against successful implementation of CLT

in Vietnam is the EFL context Living in EFL context, Vietnamese learners lack real

exposure to the target language They have few opportunities to take part inmeaningful communication interaction, hence, have little motivation tocommunicate in English outside the classroom Another constraint on the practice

of CLT in Vietnam is grammar-based examinations Despite the new set oftextbooks from grade 6 to 12 approved by MOET, and the course books chosen byuniversities all promote CLT, few adjustments have been done regarding the nature

of examinations at either the national or the institutional level (Ngoc and Iwashita,2012) In most non-English major programs, exams are designed to test onlylinguistic competence rather than communicative competence

To conclude, though the wide spread on CLT in ELT is reasonable, thepractice of this approach in Vietnam should not be simply adopted, but ratheradapted to suit the EFL context Furthermore, changes in examinations should also

be considered to reduce negative washback of high-stakes exams

1.1.3 Factors affecting the learning of English speaking skills

Second/foreign language learning in general, and English learning inparticular, involves various factors that would affect the process of learning eitherpositively or negatively Realizing these factors and their relationship with learners’achievement might help identifying what problems the achievement faces, so thatsolutions could be found and improvements could be developed (Andreou, et al.,2005) As such, many attempts have been made to investigate the affecting factors

in L2 learning so far Sawir (2005) tried to examine the effect of prior learningexperience on the language learning of international students in Australia The datagathered from interviews suggested that the learning difficulties were grounded instudents' prior learning experiences which focused on grammar and reading skills inteacher-centred classrooms, not conversational skills and in beliefs about languagelearning instilled during schooling Andreou et al (2005) augured that L2proficientlevel and gender emerged as the most affecting factors in L2 learning Montero, R

L (2014) explored different social conditions that influence the effective L2

learning of students at a university in Costa Rica Through this study, factors such

as motivation, cultural background and economic status was proven to be crucial inthe language learning process A recent thesis on external and internal variablesaffecting L2 learning was conducted by Guzmán-Rodríguez in 2017 The studyhighlighted some factors such as motivation, attitude, personality, learningstrategies, social factors and the role of parents

Along with the spread of globalization which stimulates the vital part ofEnglish as an international language in communication, factors that influence thelearning of English speaking skills has also gained more concerns Hamad (2013)carried out an investigation to explore factors that negatively affect Englishlanguage speaking skills in Saudi colleges for girls Questionnaires (n = 150students) and interviews (n = 10 teachers) were exploited as data collectioninstruments The findings from both quantitative and qualitative data showed thatthe instructors, students, curriculums and textbooks, teaching methods, and teachingand learning environment were reported to affect the learning of speaking skills Inthe context of China, Liu (2015) conducted a qualitative study (N=147 students)aiming at exploring factors that were likely to affect engineering students’ Englishlistening and speaking ability The author concluded that the participants’ listeningand speaking skills could be influenced by both internal (i.e learning attitude,learning motivation, learning method and strategy, and autonomous learningsituation) and external factors (i.e social environment, English teachers, teachingresources, teaching materials, and curriculum settings) Moreover, the findings ofthe research said that there was no significant influence of gender and parentalfactors on students’ listening and speaking ability, which is inconsistent to previousstudies (see Andreou et al., 2005 & Montero, 2014) Among studies on factorsaffecting students’ speaking competence in Vietnamese context was a mixedmethod research carried out by Tuan and Mai (2015) The participants of theinvestigation were 203 students and 10 teachers at a high school in the South of thecountry The results collected from questionnaire and classroom observation

revealed that students’ speaking performance was impacted by topical knowledge,listening ability, motivation, teachers’ feedback during speaking activities, and timefor preparation

Though it is hard to address all the factors that have influence on the learning

of language, it has been indicated from a number of studies that psychological andsociological factors occupy a major role in L2 learning To discuss the socialpsychological aspects of second language learning, Gardner (1977) suggested thestudy of four areas that influence second language learning: social factors,individual differences, factors affecting attitudes and motivation, and costs andbenefits of second language learning Among those areas, attitudes and motivationwere strongly highlighted due to their paramount influence on L2 learning,especially oral skills While a large body of research has confirmed that motivationhas the great potential to enhance learners’ levels of L2 proficiency (Dörnyei,1998b; Gardner, 2010), the detrimental effects of its negative counterpart, i.e.demotivation, still seems to be underresearched (Dornyei & Ushioda, 2011) Thispresent study, hence, tried to provide an insight into one of the demotivating forceswhich is related to teachers In the following section, several aspects ofdemotivation, specifically definition of the phenomenon in L2 learning; variouscategories of demotivating factors; demotivation in English speaking skills; andmost importantly, teacher-related demotives, are, hence, discussed as groundings forthis thesis

1.2 Demotivation and demotives in second/ foreign language learning

1.2.1 Definition of demotivation in second/ foreign language learning

Demotivation is widely regarded by a number of authors as the antithesis ofmotivation (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011; Falout & Maruyama, 2004; Kikuchi, 2015).Therefore, it is said that in order to understand the concept of demotivationthoroughly, it is reasonable to have a brief view of its positive counterpart, i.e

motivation The past few decades have witnessed many efforts to define L2motivation One of the conceptualizations proposed lately by Dörnyei and Ushioda(2011) said that motivation is what drives people to make certain decisions, toparticipate, consume and pursue any actions or behaviors In other words,motivation is responsible for determining human behaviors However, howmotivation to learn a second language can be defined is far less clear (Huong,2015) Narrowing down from the said general concept, Walker (2011) construedmotivation in ESL/EFL contexts as “the direction and magnitude of human behaviortowards learning a second or foreign language” (p.3) Focusing on the area oflanguage learning, Oxford and Shearin (1994) claimed that motivation decides theextent of active, personal involvement in L2 learning

While a plethora of studies have strived to investigate the concept ofmotivation in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) from a multitude ofperspectives, there is still a scant body of research studying the paramount notion ofdemotivation in both foreign and second language learning contexts In spite of thefact that the first research on demotivation was publicized round 2 decades ago, theconcept has not been fully adopted yet in the field of L2 research and still few cleardefinitions of demotivation have been proposed In the field of language learning,Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011) defined demotivation as “specific external forces thatreduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoingaction” (p.139)

In the light of this definition, they argued that demotivation differs fromamotivation, a related concept introduced by Deci and Ryan in 1985 In Dörnyeiand Ushioda’s (2011) conceptualization, demotivation is related to specific externalforces that cause a reduction in motivation On the other hand, amotivation refers to

a lack of motivation caused by the realization that there is no point in studying aforeign language; or a student’s belief that studying a foreign language is beyondhis/her capacity (Kikuchi, 2015) Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011) also added thatcomplete loss of motivation would lead to amotivation

The problem of Dörnyei and Ushioda’s (2011) definition, however, is that ithas not been empirically determined whether or not demotivation completelydeprived from external forces (Kikuchi, 2015) A number of researchers (Arai,2004; Falout & Maruyama, 2004) included in their studies of demotivation bothexternal factors such as teachers, curriculums, and class materials; and factors thatare internal to leaners, such as a lack of self-confidence and negative attitudes Inaddition, despite their definition of demotivation as being caused by externalfactors, even Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011) listed two internal factors, i.e reducedself-confidence and negative attitudes towards the foreign language, as sources ofdemotivation Therefore, Kikuchi (2015) expanded Dörnyei and Ushioda’s (2011)conceptualization and defined demotivation as “specific internal and external forcesthat reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or anongoing action” (p.3).

With regard to the aforementioned literature review, a working definition,which is strongly influenced by the one stated by Kikuchi (2015), for the currentresearch is proposed below

Demotivation in language learning refers to forces that weaken students’existing motivation, hence, negatively impact their acquisition and achievement.These demotivating factors which are also entitled demotivators or demotives canoriginate either internally or externally from learners

1.2.2 Demotives in second/foreign language learning

As demotivation was described as something that “concerns various negativeinfluences that cancel out existing motivation” (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011), manyresearchers conducted a variety of studies on factors that cause a drop in motivation

in L2 learning In this present thesis, such negative forces are addressed asdemotives, demotivating factors, or demotivators Dörnyei and Ushioda (2011)clarified the notion of demotives by comparing it with the negative counterparts ofmotives While “a motive increases an action tendency whereas a demotivedecreases it” (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011, p 138) In accordance with the working

definition of demotivation adapted in this study, demotives in language learning areeither intrinsic or extrinsic factors that lead to a decline in students’ motivation tolearn the language Significant studies on demotives in L2 learning are discussed inthis section.

Dörnyei (1998a) conducted a qualitative study, aiming to find out the variety

of demotivating factors The subjects were 50 secondary school pupils in variousschools in Budapest who were studying either English or German as a foreignlanguage and had been identified as being particularly demotivated by their teachers

or peers The data collected from structured interviews revealed nine majordemotivating factors as follows:

- The teacher: personality, commitment, competence, teaching method

- Inadequate school facilities: group is too big or not the right level; frequentchange of teachers

- Reduced self-confidence: experience of failure or lack of success

- Negative attitude towards the L2

- Compulsory nature of L2 study

- Interference of another foreign language being studied

- Negative attitude towards L2 community

- Attitudes of group members

- Course book

In spite of the fact that the author blamed demotivation on external causes, onethird of the demotive types in the category (i.e reduced self-confidence, negativeattitude towards the L2 and towards the L2 community) is internally originated Thestrength of Dörnyei’s (1998a) study lies in its focused approach on the subject.More clearly, the researcher’s investigation targeted directly on demotivation bygathering descriptive and detailed information from demotivated learners, whichoffered interesting insights into the sources of demotivation However, the strengthstated above might be the weakness of the research (Muhonen, 2004) Althoughfocusing on demotivated students seems to be logical, it is rather subjective to

regard a learner demotivated without apparently prompted symptoms Furthermore,

a learner is not necessarily demotivated to “experience a temporary drop inmotivation because demotivating factors are external forces that reducemotivational basis of an ongoing action” (Muhonen, 2004, p.32) In other words,any learners have the possibility of having been demotivated, hence, excluding agroup of learners could lead to the incomplete list of demotives

Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) provided a review of a number of locally publishedstudies of demotivators in the Japanese EFL context and identified six commondemotivating factors, namely teachers, characteristics of classes, experience offailure, class environment, class materials and lack of interest The description ofeach type of demotives based on Sakai and Kikuchi’s (2009) summary is followed:

- Teachers: teacher attitudes, lack of teaching competence or languageproficiency, personality and teaching styles

- Characteristics of classes: course content and pace, focus on difficult grammar

or vocabulary, monotonous and boring lessons, and focus on universityentrance exams and memorization of language

- Experience of failure: disappointment due to test scores, lack of socialacceptance by teachers and classmates, and the feeling of unable to memorizevocabulary and idioms

- Class environment: attitudes of classmates, the compulsory nature of Englishstudy, friends’ attitudes, inactive classes, inappropriate level of difficulty andinadequate use of school facilities

- Class materials: unsuitable or uninteresting materials

- Lack of interest: learners’ own sense that the English used at school is notpractical and is unnecessary Learners’ low regard for English speakingpeople

Base of these six areas, Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) developed a 35-itemquestionnaire to investigate factors that reduce learners’ motivation to learn English(N = 656 Japanese senior high school students) Analysis of the descriptive statistics

revealed five significant factors: (1) Learning Contents and Materials; (2) Teachers’Competence and Teaching Styles; (3) Inadequate School Facilities; (4) Lack ofIntrinsic Motivation; (5) Test Scores

While the research on demotivation in Vietnam was scarce, Trang and Baldauf(2007) conducted a case study to investigate possible forces triggering a reduction

in learners’ motivation to learn English among Vietnamese EFL learners Theresearchers carried out a content analysis of stimulated recall essays from 100university students who were asked to reflect on their foreign language learningexperiences The findings addressed a wide range of demotives which falls into twomajor domains, i.e intrinsic and extrinsic attributes The description of variousitems in each type of demotivators is demonstrated in the Figure 1.1 as below

Figure 1.1 Classification of demotives in English learning (Trang & Baldauf, 2007)

The category of demotives above is systematic and consistent to theconceptualization of demotivation as “specific internal and external forces thatreduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoingaction” (Kikuchi, 2015, p.3) adopted in this study Furthermore, Trang and

Class atmosphere

Opportunities

to use English

Learning conditions

Class time

Textbook

Teacher-related demotivating factors

Teachers' behaviors

Teachers' competence

Teaching methods

Grading and assessment

Other external factors

Obligation

Negative changes

Baldauf’s (2007) study was conducted in Vietnam, which is parallel with thecontext of this minor thesis, their classification of demotives is, therefore, chosen asthe theoretical framework of the current research.

1.2.3 Demotivation in English speaking skills

While the research interest in demotivation has emerged for about twodecades, most studies generally concern the effects of demotivation or demotivators

in L2 learning, instead of digging into individual aspects of L2 learning, particularlyspeaking skills (Soureshjani & Riahipour, 2012; Afrough, et al., 2014) Speaking isconsidered a crucial skill that language learners should master, yet, it represents anactual challenge for them (Bailey, 2003) According to Ur (1990), students may facenumerous obstructions in achieving oral proficiency which may reduce theirmotivation to raise voice in language speaking classes Despite the detrimentalimpacts that demotivation has on students’ speaking skills, few investigations wereimplemented on this affair

In the context of Iran, Soureshjani and Riahipour (2012) conducted a mixedmethod research on factors negatively affecting students’ learning of the speakingskills The sample of the research was 120 students taking an intermediate Englishcourse and 70 teachers of English in a language institute in Shahrekord, Iran Thestudy sought to find out and compare teacher and learner participants’ views of thedemotivating factors on the learners’ speaking skills In order to achieve such goal,interviews were carried out with 15 teachers and 10 learners, and two variants ofquestionnaires were administrated to 70 teachers and 120 students The finding ofthe study indicated that the students’ oral competence was strongly affected by thephenomenon of demotivation A series of demotivating factors including teachers,peers, and materials were detected Significantly, both teacher and studentparticipants addressed teachers as one of the most serious force of demotivation tothe students’ learning of speaking skills

Utilizing similar data collecting methods, Afrough, Rahimi, and Zarafshan’swork based in Iran in 2014 attempted to detect the most demotivating factors

affecting the speaking skill as perceived by high school students and teachers.Twelve students and twelve teachers took part in semi-structured interviews fromwhich some demotivating factors were identified The demotives arisen from theinterviews together with the factors in the literature were included in the 25-itemquestionnaire which was answered by 300 high school students and 80 high schoolteachers The factors emerged from the investigation comprised negative attitudetoward learning L2, teachers’ inadequate competence and performance, lack oftechnological facilities in classroom, lack of adequate teaching materials,unfavorable classroom environment, and insufficient opportunities for speakingpractice While Soureshjani and Riahipour (2012) aimed to explore the similaritiesand differences between students’ and teachers’ perceptions towards demotives toEnglish speaking skill, Afrough, Rahimi, and Zarafshan (2014) merely ranked thefactors in terms of frequency without comparing and contrasting the responses fromthe two groups of participants However, the discouraging sources addressed in thelater study are much more specific than those in the former one.

Another recent effort in investigating demotives in L2 speaking skills wasmade by Zahia in 2015 The research was carried out in a university in Algeria Twoversions of questionnaire were administrated to 50 students and 9 teachers in order

to examine their attitudes toward the different factors demotivating learners to speakand hinder their oral proficiency According to the data gathered, both groups ofrespondents believed that the awareness of the demotivating factors might enablestudents to remotivate They also agreed on the fact that insufficient time to practicespeaking; teachers’ competence; lack of modern teaching materials; lesson content;reduced self-confidence; lack of relaxed classroom environment; and assessmentwere the most demotivating factors among the students In addition to the factorsmentioned above, the students supposed teachers’ feedback as a demotive, while theteachers considered teachers’ teaching methods, personality, and peers’ influencethe most demotivating ones

In short, despite the detrimental impacts that demotivation has on students’speaking skills, this remain an under-research area Still few investigations wereimplemented to explore the influence of demotivation and identify the demotives onEFL learners’ oral proficiency Furthermore, while the influence of demotivation onspeaking skills was probed in different contexts such as Iran and Algeria, none hasbeen found in Vietnam so far In addition, the existing works on demotivation onEFL students’ oral skills, merely addressed different demotives generally with littlecomparisons and explanations In order to fill in these research gaps, this researchaims at providing a closer view on teacher-related demotives in speaking classes inthe particular context of Vietnam, with comparisons between learners and teachers’perspectives

1.2.4 Teacher-related demotives

As teacher-related demotives is the key concept of this paper, this section,first, tries to provide a comprehensible definition of the notion Then, a number ofempirical studies that have partially tapped the issue are discussed The section endswith the descriptions of four main groups of teacher-related demotives that areselected as the theoretical framework of this research

Among a number of demovies, the existing literature highlighted related factors as one of main demotivators Dornyei and Ushioda (2011, p 28)asserted that “everything teachers say or do and how they communicate and behave

teacher-in the classroom may potentially teacher-influence student motivation teacher-in different ways”.Accordingly, demotivators, especially those relating to teachers, are deemed to bedetrimental to students’ motivation and their learning of English However, littleexisting research has investigated teacher-owned demotivators as the primarysubject It is, therefore, quite hard to seek for a working definition of the notion.Teacher-related demotives, however, can be defined literally as negative factorsdepriving from teachers that diminish students’ motivation and their learning ofEnglish

Demotivators depriving from teachers have been briefly addressed and proved

in a range of scholars (i.e Gorham & Christophel, 1992; Christophel & Gorham,1995; Oxford, 1998; Dörnyei, 1998a; and Trang & Baldauf, 2007) A study ondemotivation by Gorham and Christophel (1992), using both qualitative andquantitative techniques, revealed that nearly two thirds of the reported sources ofdemotivation in these investigations were teacher-owned, by which it meant thereduction of motivation was attributed to what the teacher had done or had beenresponsible for The researchers also posed a rank of the frequency of thedemotivating factors mentioned by the participants Among them, four out of thefive most demotivating forces were teacher-owned as listed below

- Dissatisfaction with grading and assignments

- The teacher being boring, bored, unorganized and unprepared

- The inferior organization of the teaching material

- The teacher being unapproachable, self-centered, biased, condescending andinsulting

In 1995, the authors operated a follow up study to ascertain whether thereplication of the demotives occurred in a different group of participants, and theyobtained the compatible findings

Among little research focusing on teachers’ influences on demotivation was aqualitative study conducted by Oxford in 1998 Two hundred and fifty EFL studentswere asked to write an essay about their experiences over a period of five yearsbasing on such prompts as “Describe a situation in which you experienced a conflictwith a teacher” and “Talk about a classroom in which you felt uncomfortable” Inthe content analysis of the data, four broad themes emerged (details as below) wereboth directly and indirectly originated from teachers

- The teacher’s personal relationship with the students, including a lack ofcaring, general belligerence, hypercriticism and patronage/favoritism

- The teacher’s attitude towards the course or the material, including lack ofenthusiasm, sloppy management and close-mindedness

- Style conflicts between teachers and students, including multiple styleconflicts, conflicts about the amount of structure or detail and conflicts aboutthe degree of closure or ‘seriousness’ of the class.

- The nature of the classroom activities, including irrelevance, overload andrepetitiveness

Dörnyei (1998a) conducted one-to-one interviews with fifty EFL learners whohas been regarded as demotivated by their teachers or peers The demotivatingaspects about the teacher were related to his or her personality, commitment toteaching and attention paid to students Teachers’ competence, teaching methods,style and rapport with students were also considered demotivating forces (Dörnyei,1998a) In addition, reduced self-confidence which was partly due to someclassroom events within the teacher’s control was the second frequent source ofdemotivation in the study In other words, reduced self-confidence indirectly related

to teacher Accordingly, the largest proportion of demotivation either directly orindirectly concerned the teacher, which is consistent with the results reported inother papers

The detrimental impact of teacher-related demotivators was not only proved inforeign contexts as previously mentioned, but also in Vietnamese context which issimilar to the setting of the current research In the case study of Vietnam, Trangand Baldauf (2007) operated a content analysis of stimulated recall essays on EFLlearning experiences of 100 university students The research findings showed thatteacher-owned factors were the most frequent causes of demotivation (counted for38%) Four types of teacher-related demotives were revealed with the highestfrequency of teaching method (26%), followed by teacher behavior (7%), teachercompetence (4%), and grading and assessment (1%)

To sum up, a number of previous studies (Gorham & Christophel, 1992;Christophel & Gorham, 1995; Oxford, 1998; Dörnyei, 1998a; and Trang & Baldauf,2007) emphasized that teachers could generate potent demotivation to ESL/EFLlearners Among several demotives in language learning that are teacher-owned, for

example teachers’ personality, teachers’ attitudes towards the course or thematerials, style conflicts between teachers and students, and teachers’ beingunapproachable, self-centered, and biased, four aspects, namely teaching methods;testing and assessment; teachers’ communicative styles; and teacher’s Englishcompetence emerged as major teacher-related demotives These influential domainswere, therefore, targeted in this minor thesis and are discussed below.

Teaching method comprises how teachers manage their teaching; and

organize their classes Dornyei’s study (1998 cited in Dornyei & Ushioda, 2011)shows that the methods used by the teacher may have a positive of negative effect

on the students’ willingness to learn In such teaching methods as audio-lingual andgrammar-translation, teachers often hold the controlling role in the class, while inlately methods, their role changes into assisting In other words, teachers’ role indifferent methods is distinct; therefore, their influence also varies According toRichards and Rodgers (1986), teachers’ roles in methods are associated to thesubsequent issues:

- The types of functions teachers are expected to fulfil: director; counsellor; ormodel; etc

- The degree of control teachers have over how learning process takes place

- The degree to which the teacher is responsible for determining the content ofwhat is taught

- The interactional patterns that develop between teachers and learners

Testing and assessment which is under teachers’ control, also has

understandable influences on learner’s motivation A number of students tend to begrade driven How students are assessed and the grades they get are seen asinfluential factors in demotivation If students get bad marks, this will reduce theirself-confidence, which may lead to demotivation eventually

Teachers’ communicative styles, also defined as teachers’ behaviour and

personality, is also claimed as potential influences to students either positively ornegatively Behaviours including angriness and discrimination are often responsible

for demotivating students That teachers get angry and shout at any learnersunderstandably appears as a detrimental impact on student motivation (Soureshjani

& Riahipour, 2012) The discrimination among learners is also influential Forinstance, the fact that teachers give preferences to excellent students can lead weaklearners to consider themselves of no importance and eventually lose the desire tolearn or to speak (Soureshjani & Riahipour, 2012) Moreover, it is also worth toconsider teachers’ personality when investigating learners’ demotivation Asdefined by Mullins (2005), personality consists of stable characteristics whichexplain why a person behaves in a particular way Accordingly, teachers’personality traits are reflected not only in their classroom performance, especially intheir selection of instructional activities, materials, strategies, and classroommanagement techniques, but also their interaction with students (Henson &Chambers, 2002)

Teachers’ competence play an obvious role in lowering students’

motivation (Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009) According to European Commission (2013),the concept of competence, in teaching, encompasses the following features:

- it involves tacit and explicit knowledge, cognitive and practical skills as well as dispositions (motivation, beliefs, value orientations and emotions);

- it enables teachers to meet complex demands, by mobilizing psycho-social resources in context, deploying them in a coherent way;

- it empowers the teacher to act professionally and appropriately in a situation;

- it helps ensure teachers' undertaking of tasks effectively (achieving the desired outcome) and efficiently (optimizing resources and efforts);

- it can be demonstrated to a certain level of achievement along a continuum

(European Commission, 2013, p.10)

As teacher’s competence is a complex combination of knowledge, skills,understanding, values, attitudes and desire, this thesis, within its minor scope, only

concerned teachers’ English speaking competence, which is directly linked to thetopic under research.

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter considers methodological issues of the paper In the first section,the rationale for why mixed method research was chosen for this study wassketched Afterwards, issues relating to participant selection, instruments,procedures of data collection and data analyses are presented respectively The lastsections of the chapter concern ethical issues and limitations of the entire research

2.1 Research design

Mixed methods paradigm, where qualitative and quantitative approachescomplement one another, is gaining increasing prominence and utility in severalresearch fields including applied linguistics and language teaching and learning(Riazi & Candlin, 2014) This spreading trend is understandably explained by twomajor reasons First, mixed methods research enables researchers to triangulate twodifferent data sets (quantitative and qualitative data) to answer the same researchquestions, thus to ensure the validity of the inferences (Huong, 2015) Second, itassists researchers to obtain a complete picture of the phenomenon under study byanswering research questions that cannot be addressed by only one (qualitative orquantitative) approach Due to these advantages, a mixed methods study is

reasonably conducted to consider teacher-related demotives in speaking classes at

a university in Vietnam.

The present research program comprises a pilot phase and two main phases.The pilot phase was conducted in order to refine the data collection instruments,namely questionnaire and semi-structure interview questions As the participants ofthe study were Vietnamese non-English major students, whose English proficiency

is low, the questionnaire was translated into the language they were native to Thetranslated questionnaire was piloted with a small group of students so as to get theirfeedback on accuracy, clarity and cultural appropriateness of all items Besides, theinterview procedure was also piloted with two students and one teacher participant.After the tools were cultivated through the pilot step, they were exploited in thequantitative and qualitative phase In the first main phase (quantitative phase),

questionnaires were administered to both students (n=135), and teachers (n= 26).This phase sought to answer three research questions (RQ1 – RQ3) The secondmain phase employed semi-structure interview to collect qualitative data from 6students and 3 teachers This phase aimed to provide more explanation for RQ1 –RQ3 and deal with RQ4 which proposed ways for teachers to assist students toovercome demotivation in speaking classes The original qualitative data were inVietnamese, which were then translated to English for analysis The outline of thismix-method research is tabulated as following:

- To pilot the translated questionnaire in order

to examine the validity

of the instrument and to ensure the equivalence

- Translated questionnaire was administered to students

- To address the teacher-originating demotives reported by non-English major students and teachers.

- To compare and contrast the demotivating incidents

as perceived by students and teachers.

Refined questionnaires were administered to students and teachers.

- To triangulate the data collected from

questionnaires

- To delve into the teacher-related demotives that are regarded as the most demotivating

- To scrutinize suggestions for assisting students to conquer teacher-related

- Interviews were conducted in the language of participants’ preference (mostly

in Vietnamese)

- Guided questions were asked.

2.2 The setting of the study

2.2.1 Research site

In the current research program, a multidisciplinary institution of highereducation where the researcher has worked for two years was selected as theresearch site The university which is based in Hanoi, has approximately 24,000students who major in thirteen different disciplines such as information technology,economics, accountancy, electrical and electronic engineering, textile and fashiondesigning In other words, the population of this study were non-English majorstudents

The university was selected as the research site of this work due to two mainreasons First, according to Marshall and Rossman (2014), being familiar with anarea brings considerable advantages for researchers in gaining access to the researchsite Hence, having worked in this institution for two years, the researcher had ease

of access for data collection Secondly, as the current research program investigatesthe phenomenon of demotivation which is more popular among non-English major,this institution of higher education was ideal

2.2.2 Participant selection

Participants of pilot study

As recommended by Beauford, Nagashima, and Wu (2011), the translatedsurvey instruments need to be piloted within three to ten people who are as close tothe future participants as possible Six students with similar characteristics, thus,were invited to take part in the pilot study They have certain qualities akin to thetarget population in that they are Vietnamese, fell within the same age range (agedfrom 18-20), and were non-English major learners After completion of thequestionnaires, two of these participants also took part in the interviews, whichattempted to model the procedure in order to refine the questions

Student participants

Multistage cluster sampling was employed in this research In the first stage,second-year student cluster was selected This participant pool was targeted because