Students’ attitude toward English as a compulsory subject at an upper secondary school in Quang Ninh province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ĐINH THỊ HẢI HÀ STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARD ENGLISH AS A COMPULSORY

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

ĐINH THỊ HẢI HÀ

STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARD ENGLISH

AS A COMPULSORY SUBJECT

AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

IN QUANG NINH PROVINCE (Thái độ của học sinh đối với Tiếng Anh như một môn học bắt buộc tại một trường THPT tại Quảng Ninh)

MASTER’S THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 8140231,01

HÀ NỘI – 2018

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SAU ĐẠI HỌC

ĐINH THỊ HẢI HÀ

STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARD ENGLISH

AS A COMPULSORY SUBJECT

AT AN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

IN QUANG NINH PROVINCE (Thái độ của học sinh đối với Tiếng Anh như một môn học bắt buộc tại một trường THPT tại Quảng Ninh)

MASTER’S THESIS

Major: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 8140231,01 Supervisor: Assoc.Prof Lê Văn Canh

HÀ NỘI –2018

Signed

Dinh Thi Hai Ha

Date / /

My sincere thanks also go to the Dean - Dr Huỳnh Anh Tuấn as well as the staff members at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU), who are always

so kind and supportive during my study time

In addition, I would like to express my thankfulness to all the participating teachers

at an upper secondary school who helped me in my preliminary research, especially the teachers who accompanied me during a long time of my data collection time The results I have achieved today partially belong to them

Last but not least, I would like to thank my fellows for their dedication and support, and my family members for their motivation for me to overcome all the difficulties and to become a better me now

Thanking you all

Dinh Thi Hai Ha

September, 2018

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the influence of students’ attitude and English subject studying outcome through a case study at a high school The study hopes to identify and provide few recommendations on approaches to improve English teaching outcome at high school level in general From a survey of 180 at a high school students across age ranges and grades, the finding includes the significance of students’ drive to study English and their opinions about teachers on English learning outcomes Furthermore, from data overview, it is suggested that school facilities also matter Therefore, the study recommends school to provide students with information about the implications of English, improve facilities to embrace the age of Internet, and enhance students’ opinion about teachers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABBREVIATIONS v

LIST OF TABLES vi

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Research question 2

1.3 Research method 2

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the study 3

1.6 Structure of the thesis 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Definition 5

2.1.1 Attitudes 5

2.2 English as a compulsory subject in other countries and Vietnam 13

2.3 Students’ attitudes to English as a compulsory in other countries 17

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Context of the study 18

3.2 Instruments 19

3.2.1 Questionnaires 19

3.3 Data collection 21

3.4 Data analysis 23

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 24

4.1 Quantitative results and discussions 24

4.2 Qualitative results and discussions 32

4.2.1 Results of the interviews 32

4.2.2 Discussions of the interview 33

4.2.3 Summary 33

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS 34 REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES I

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Reliability value regarding the language Aspects 20 Table 4.1 Descriptive Statistics of Students’ Attitudes towards English Language25 Table 4.2 Descriptive statistics of Behavioral aspect of Language Attitude 25 Table 4 3 Descriptive Statistics of Cognitive Aspect of Language Attitude 27 Table 4.4 Descriptive Statistics of Emotional Aspect of Language Attitude 29 Table 4.5 Descriptive Statistics of Attitudes towards English as a compulsory subject 30

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

In foreign language learning context, there are various factors that influence the learning process such as motivation, attitudes, anxiety, learning achievements, aptitudes, intelligence, age, personalities, etc (Shams, M., 2008) The matter of learner’s attitude is acknowledged as one of the most important factors that impact

on learning a language (Fakeye, D., 2010)

Attitudes toward learning are believed to influence behaviors such as selecting and reading books, speaking in a foreign language etc Especially in Education, if the students have positive attitude towards any subject, they can achieve many things in that specific area There is an interaction between language learning and the environmental components in which the students were grown up Both negative and positive attitudes have a strong impact on the success of language learning Attitude is determined by the individual’s beliefs about outcomes or attributes of performing the behavior (behavioral beliefs), weighted by evaluations of those outcomes or attributes Thus, a person who holds strong beliefs that positively valued outcomes will result from performing the behavior will have a positive attitude toward the behavior Conversely, a person who holds strong beliefs that negatively valued outcomes will result from the behavior will have a negative attitude

Attitude is considered as an essential factor influencing language performance and received considerable attention from both first and second language researchers There are many reasons why students’ attitude toward language learning is important Weinburgh (1998) believes that attitudes toward learning influence behaviors such as selecting and reading books, speaking in a foreign language Generally, it is believed that learners’ attitudes dictate whether or not they will be able to absorb the details of language In other words, achievement

in a target language relies not only on intellectual capacity but also on the learner’s

attitudes toward language learning This means that learning language should be approached primarily as a social and psychological phenomenon rather than as a purely academic one

As Brown (1994:168) defines “attitudes, like all aspects of the development

of cognition and affect in human beings, develop early in childhood and are the result of parents’ and peers’ attitudes, contact with people who are different in any number of ways, and interacting affective factors in the human experience”, the benefits of this for students have aroused my interest and encouraged me to carry

out the thesis “Students’ attitudes’ towards English as a compulsory subject at an

upper secondary school”

As a teacher of English at secondary school for over 10 years, I have noticed that learners of English in general and students at secondary schools in particular do not show positive attitudes towards English as well as English learning This leads

to demotivation and poor language achievement Most of them learn English just as

to complete the curriculum It is assumed that if teachers understand their feelings and emotion or their attitudes towards English and English learning they can design appropriate activities to motivate their students in order to achieve better language proficiency That is the main reason for me to carry out this study

1.2 Research question

In this study, the main objective is to conduct a literature review on the relationship between students’ attitudes and English subject studying outcome at the high school The main questions are:

(1) What are the attitudes of Vietnamese high school students towards English

learning?

(2) What are the attitudes of Vietnamese high school students towards English as a

compulsory subject at schools?

1.3 Research method

The method used in this study is quantitative Thus, an adapted questionnaire was employed as a measuring instrument The participants were required to answer

all the items of the questionnaire honestly, giving their own perceptions about their attitudes toward learning English language in terms of the emotional, cognitive as well as their gender

1.4 Scope of the study

The participants in this study consist of 180 high school students, 94 persons (52.2%) male and 86 persons (47.8%) female, randomly chosen from the secondary schools in Quang Ninh province There were 58 students (32.2%) in the grade 10, 68 students (37.8%) in the grade 11, and the grade 12 students were 54 (30%) The students from different grades, different genders were selected to represent varieties of attitudes towards learning English in terms of genders and time of studying English

For the qualitative research, 12 students from the participants are selected for interviews; for each grade, two boys and two girls are selected

1.5 Significance of the study

The findings of this study will be of great interest to a number of researchers focusing on demographic variables of Second Language (L2) learners, English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners, and English education policies and practices By providing insights into attitudes of high schools EFL learners toward the English language, English education policies, and their purposes for learning English, this study contributes to an understanding of English learning and teaching and adds to the growing body of studies on the spread of English Furthermore, this study aims

to offer insights for language attitude research and studies in EFL context

In addition, if English language teachers know and recognize their students’ feelings, needs, behaviors, they are able to fit appropriate activities with their needs and would encourage them to positive attitudes toward English learning Furthermore, curriculum designers would review the content and the design of the curriculum to meet the needs and the interests of the students, especially students at high schools in Vietnam

1.6 Structure of the thesis

Chapter I INTRODUCTION

Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter III: METHODOLOGY

Chapter IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Chapter V: CONCLUSION

In this part, the researcher will summarize the findings of the thesis After that, the limitation of the research as well as the suggestion for further research will

also be included

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter is devoted for reviewing related literature about attitudes, attitudes towards English language learning and English is a compulsory subject at schools

2.1 Definition

2.1.1 Attitudes

2.1.1.1 Attitudes and learning

Attitudes towards language learning have been defined differently by differentscholars The Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching (2002: 297) defines language attitudes as follows:

“The attitudes which speakers of different languages or language varieties have towards each other’s languages or to their own language Expressions of positive or negative feelings towards a language may reflect impressions of linguistic difficulty or simplicity, ease or difficulty of learning, degree of importance, elegance, social status, etc Attitudes towards a language may also show what people feel about the speakers of that language Language attitudes may have an effect on second language or foreign language learning The measurement of language attitudes provides information which

is useful in language teaching and language learning.”

Attitudes are defined as an “acquired internal state that influences the choice of personal action” (Gagné & Driscoll, 1988) For instant, a person’s attitude toward the environment influences whether or not they choose to recycle A student’s attitude toward information will influence the resources he or she chooses to use Students must understand why it is important to select reliable, authoritative resources (Morgan, 2009)

Attitude is a mental process which is heavily influenced upon the response that the individual shows while performing a task It is how learners react when they are asked to perform the task It is expressed in two ways, the positive manner when they are interested in performing the given task and negative manner, when they are

forced or not interested in performing the task This is again influenced by the learner’s culture and background

Attitudes cannot be observed directly but have to be inferred from observed consistency in behavior Thus a person holding a favorable attitude toward an object [for example a language] would be expected to perform favorable behaviors and not unfavorable ones towards the object Therefore, the attitude towards a language “is

a construct that explains linguistic behavior in particular” (Mamun, Rahman, Rahman, & Hossain, 2012: 200) since it can be positive or negative and it influences our behavior and the way we perform different activities using the target language

2.1.1.2 Attitudes and language learning

It is obvious that understanding learners’ attitudes towards what they are obligated to study will help teachers, educators develop appropriate guides and changes in the programs to make them better achieved the target language

 Psychological perspectives of attitudes

Psychologically, Eagly and Chaiken, (1993:1) define attitude as “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour”, it is important to state that for this study operationally, it is defined as the students’ perceptions, understandings, beliefs or experiences of learning English as a second language Attitude is a mental process which is heavily influenced upon the response that the individual show while performing a task In common terms, it is how learners react when they are asked to perform the task It is expressed in two ways, the positive manner when they are interested in performing the given task and negative manner, when they are forced

or not interested in performing the task This is again influenced by the learner’s culture and background

 Cognitive perspectives of attitudes

From cognitive perspectives, Brown (2000) points out, attitudes are cognitive and affective; that is, they are related to thoughts as well as to feelings and

emotions Attitudes govern how one approaches learning, which in the case of language requires exposure to a different culture and also to the difficult task of mastering a second language Attitudes begin developing early and are influenced

by many things, including parents, peers, and interactions with people who have social and cultural differences Therefore, attitudes “form a part of one’s perception

of self, of others, and of the culture in which one is living” (Brown, 2000: 180) It is well known that negative attitudes towards the foreign language and group, which often comes from stereotypes and superficial contact with the target culture, can impede the learning of that language Conversely, positive attitudes towards the foreign language and group increase language learning success Brown (2000) describes several studies about the effects of attitude on language learning and concludes that “positive attitudes towards the self, the native language group, and the target language group enhanced proficiency” When students with positive attitudes experience success, the attitudes are reinforced, whereas students with negative attitudes may fail to progress and become even more negative in their language learning attitudes Because attitudes can be modified by experience, effective language teaching strategies can encourage students to be more positive towards the language they are learning

 Emotional perspective of attitudes

Feng and Chen (2009) stated that, “learning process is an emotional process It

is affected by different emotional factors The teacher and his students engage in various emotional activities in it and varied fruits of emotions are yield.” Attitude can help the learners to express whether they like or dislike the objects or surrounding situations It is agreed that the inner feelings and emotions of foreign language learners influence their perspectives and their attitudes towards the target language (Choy & Troudi, 2006)

2.1.1.3 Attitudes and language achievement

Many studies on language attitudes have revealed that there is a strong relationship between attitude and achievement (Hough & Piper, 1982; Simpson & Oliver, 1990; Visser, 2008) Researchers such as Fakeye (2010), Reid (2003), and Visser (2008) claim that attitude is a vital factor that influence language performance

In addition, Padwick (2010, as cited in Abidin, et al, 2012) states that apart the intellectual perspective, the nature of language learning depends on the learners‟ motivation and attitude to learn the target language For example, Mamun, et al (2012) conducted a study to investigate attitudes of 79 undergraduate students of Life Science School of Khulna University towards English language By employing

a questionnaire to collect the data, they found that the respondents were positive towards English language and this could be attributed to the fact that respondents were instrumentally motivated towards English Similarly, Gömleksiz (2010) investigated learners‟ attitudes towards language learning in association with gender, grade level, and department variables He employed a questionnaire to collect data from 1275 students studying at Frat University, Turkey The results showed that there were significant differences between the attitudes in terms of gender, grade level, and department variables Specifically, he found that female students had more positive attitudes in interest, usefulness and teacher subscales; sophomores‟ attitudes were more positive than freshmen in terms of interest, self-confidence, usefulness, and teacher subscales; students‟ attitudes vary from one department to another

In 2011, Ghazvini and Khajehpour carried out an investigation on Iranian students’ attitudes and motivations towards learning English There were 123 male and female students from two high schools participating in answering a questionnaire The results showed that female students were more positively motivated and male students were more instrumentally motivated to learning English

2.1.1.4 Attitudes and motivation

According to Gardner (1985: 10) attitudes are a component of motivation, which “refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language.” Deci and Ryan (1985) identify motivation as intrinsic or extrinsic Students are intrinsically motivated when they are interested in learning tasks and outcomes for their own sake, and that results in internal feelings of self-determination and competence On the other hand, students are extrinsically motivated if they carry out some actions to achieve some instrumental end, such as earning a reward or avoiding a punishment Whatever motivates students, it seems clear that a positive attitude towards the target language and group is important

Gardner and Lambert (1972) identify two related types of motivation, which are called instrumental and integrative Students with instrumental motivation acquire a language for such reasons as to get a better job, to read technical material,

or to study in the country where the language is spoken Integrative motivation is held by students who want to join with “the culture of the second language group and become involved in social interchange in that group” (Brown, 2000: 162)

Motivation is regarded “as a key component of a model of language learning” (Spolsky,2000: 158) Because of its importance to language learning, there is growing interest in the creation of a motivation model that can help develop methodological applications to improve the teaching and learning of a second language In a recent contribution, Dörnyei and Csizér (2002) examine the effect of socioculturalchanges in Hungary in the 1990s on students’ attitudes and motivation towards language learning by collecting data from a population of 8,593 thirteen- and fourteen-year-old students

In another contribution, Spolsky (2000: 164) presents several second language learnercase histories that illustrate the “complex motivational and identity patterns” among different individuals Because language knowledge is so dynamic and contextualized, Spolsky is distrustful of using questionnaires as the sole method

to collect data on motivation, and he stresses how important it is to supplement them with observation, interviews, and focused conversations to obtain “hard sociolinguistic data and personal statements of second language learners” (Spolsky, 2000: 157)

As with the research that finds a correlation between positive attitudes and successfullanguage learning, studies like Yashima (2002) find that motivated students have greater selfconfidence in their second language, resulting in a greater willingness to communicate; Noels et al (2000) also find a strong correlation between instrumental motivation and self determination Theory, which deals with students’ need for competence, satisfactory social connections, and autonomy Although there is contrasting evidence as to whether instrumental or integrative orientation is better, both types have been shown to lead to successful language learning (Brown, 2000; Ellis, 1994) What is clear, according to Brown (2000: 181),

is “that second language learners benefit from positive attitudes and that negative attitudes may lead to decreased motivation and, in all likelihood, because of decreased input and interaction, to unsuccessful attainment of proficiency.”

2.1.1.5 Studies on students’ attitudes to English language learning in the context of English as a school subject

A study conducted by Liu (2007) which involved Chinese university students’ attitudes and motivation towards English language learning showed that the third year undergraduates showed a lot of positive attitude towards English language learning and this resulted in high scores in their proficiency test The conclusion that can be gathered from this study is that if the respondents show positive attitude, the results will be excellent

There are many other studies on learners’ motivation and attitude towards English language learning and one of it was by Vijchulata and Lee (1985) involving University Putra Malaysia (UPM) students, which used a questionnaire to gather data for the study on how motivated students are to learn English and their attitude towards English language learning At the end of this study, it was found that the

students were both integrative and instrumentally oriented towards English language learning

Sarjit (1993) conducted another study on consultants in an organization in Malaysia The methodology used in this study was different where Sarjit used not only questionnaire, but also interview and field observations The number of samples for this study was 26 consultants, four directors and one instructor Upon completing the data collection process, it was found that the respondents were mainly instrumentally motivated and followed by personal motivation Personal motivation is something that comes within the individual in order to achieve their goals In order for an individual to achieve the goals, they will work hard to make sure they succeed

Benson (1991) carried out a study in Japan on freshmen to measure their level of motivation towards English language learning A survey was conducted among 300 freshmen and the results of this survey showed that the importance of integrative motivation and personal goal is important among Japanese college students: “integrative and personal reasons for learning English were preferred over instrumental ones” (Benson, 1991:34)

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), a similar study was carried out by Buschenhofen (1998) where he conducted this study to measure the attitude towards English language learning among final year university students The data was collected via a questionnaire and it was discovered that both the group of respondents were very positive towards English language learning and they also showed some significant attitudinal difference to certain English language context These differences were concluded by Buschenhofen (1998) as the changing social, educational and linguistic conditions by looking at the difference in age of the two groups

Several researches have shown that one’s proficiency in a second language is difficult to be seen if the purpose and attitude is not set by the individual who is learning the language Wang (2006) mentioned that learning a language is a very complex process and involves internal and external reasons Learners will show a

positive attitude if they want to learn the language and negative attitude if they do not want to learn the language However, positive attitude always strengthens the motivation There are also situations where one shows a neutral feeling towards second language learning when they have no choice but to learn the language in order to complete their school’s requirement Pan, Zang and Wu (2010) explain that

if the learner wants to learn a language, it will have to show a positive attitude

Spolsky (1969), added to the same factor which involves positive and negative attitude towards second language learning According to Spolsky, the students will show positive attitudes if they want to learn the language and the advantage will always be with the one who shows this positive attitude rather than the one who shows negative attitude

In another study conducted in four secondary schools in Sarawak by Nancy (2003) on students’ readiness to learn Mathematics in English it was found that the students were very interested and motivated to learn the subject in English and positive attitude was shown They also felt that learning Mathematics in English was a challenging task, but they still enjoyed learning it In this study it was seen that the students who are not proficient in English were the ones lacked confidence and were feeling uncomfortable The attitude of students is strongly influenced by the performance in English Holmes (1992) feels that when the students have positive feelings towards the language that they want to learn, they will show positive motivation and they will succeed in learning the language However, there are also many studies on negative attitude towards second language learning Gardner and Lambert (1972) explained that students who show a negative attitude towards second language learning are students who are the one that do not wish to learn or speak the language These groups of students are normally unfriendly and ethnocentric

Littlewood (1984) assumed that students will lack confidence and feel uncomfortable if they do not put their effort to learn the language He further added that one day they will lose interest and will have trouble learning the language This

was also proven in the study conducted by Parilah M Shah (2002) who carried out

a research on individual’s experience in learning a second language It was a case study where the attitude, motivation and individual characteristics were examined

In this study, it showed that even if the individual is low performing, they still make the effort to learn the language as they are aware of the importance of English as a second language and for instrumental reasons, standard and status and to achieve all these, they will put a lot of effort to improve their proficiency

2.2 English as a compulsory subject in other countries and Vietnam

Students at all levels of Vietnam are required to study English starting from grade 3 at primary level throughout the curriculum until university and further study English has been the requirement for graduation of all levels of study English can be said as of great important for all school children However, there are not many studies on the attitudes of the students towards the English when it becomes a compulsory subject at schools in Vietnam

In foreign language learning context, there are various factors that influence the learning process such as motivation, attitudes, anxiety, learning achievements, aptitudes, intelligence, age, personalities, etc Shams, M (2008) The matter of learner’s attitude is acknowledged as one of the most important factors that impact

on learning a language(Fakeye, D., 2010)

Attitudes toward learning are believed to influence behaviors such as selecting and reading books, speaking in a foreign language etc Especially in Education, if the students have positive attitude towards any subject, they can achieve many things in that specific area There is an interaction between language learning and the environmental components in which the students were grown up Both negative and positive attitudes have a strong impact on the success of language learning Attitude is determined by the individual’s beliefs about outcomes or attributes of performing the behavior (behavioral beliefs), weighted by evaluations of those outcomes or attributes Thus, a person who holds strong beliefs that positively valued outcomes will result from performing the behavior will have a positive attitude toward the behavior

Conversely, a person who holds strong beliefs that negatively valued outcomes will result from the behavior will have a negative attitude

It addresses English in fundamental ways, such as “for the extent of its diffusion geographically; for the enormous cultural diversity of speakers who use it; and for the infinitely varied domains in which it is found and purpose it serves” (Dewey, 2007: 333) Matsuda (2000) argues that "English as an international language is not one variety of English … but is an umbrella term for different types

of English which are used for the purpose of international communication" (p 25) From this point of view, the notion of English as an international language implies that most students study English not to interact with native English speakers, but to access information in English and to interact with other non-native English speakers In other words, this term refers to the global use of English for communication and sharing of information among people of two or more languages, regardless they are native speakers or not

Throughout the years, English has been used as a second language in many countries around the world and widely recognised as the international language of business, science, technology, and entertainment Under this premise, many studies have stressed the importance of English in current times (Fandrych, 2009; Menon & Patel, 2012; Morris & Maxey, 2014) and have given the status of lingua franca (Harmer, 2003) since many people use English as a means of communication between speakers of other languages For that reason, many countries have implemented educational policies to include English as a second or foreign language as part of their national curricula Vietnam has not been the exception The national curriculum includes English as the compulsory foreign language to be taught at school from 3rd grade (primary education) to 12th grade (upper secondary education) with an average of three to six classes per week The English programme

is part of the Vietnamese national programme which was implemented by the Ministry of Education in 2008 This program has a variety of initiatives for both teachers and students; meanwhile, teachers have access to continuing education

courses to enhance their teaching practices, students have extra-curricular activities

In addition to implementing the program across the country, the Ministry of Education has also called for review of the programs of study, and has presented a proposal to introduce English in the early stages This last initiative reinforces the issue that English has a prominent status worldwide

One of the goals of the National project entitled “Teaching and Learning

Foreign Language in national education system, period 2008-2020” is that "…by

the year 2020 most Vietnamese youth whoever graduate from vocational schools, colleges and universities gain the capacity to use a foreign language independently This will enable them to be more confident in communication, further their chance

to study and work in an integrated and multi-cultural environment with variety of languages…" (Decision 1400 approved by the Prime Minister)

The decision has put great pressures on both students and teachers, even educational policy makers The initial act is on the teachers' language proficiency i.e., teachers of English must attain the language level of C1 (CEFR) The English language requirement for teachers of other subjects varies from B1 to B2 according

to titles Students' English proficiency is expected to reach to A2 or B1 depending

on different levels of studies After 10 years under the operation of the decision, the ambition of the government seems to gain little success There are many explanations for the unsuccessfulness of the project, namely, teachers’ qualification, teaching materials, school settings and so on However, one of the key features for successful language learners lies in learners themselves That means they need to know why they are studying and what they are studying for To put it in a simpler way, students need to have good attitudes and motivation towards what they are studying so that they can achieve their goals

However, the extended time from 3 years of studying English to 10 years has put the system under pressures Firstly, there is a disproportionate demand-supply With a population of over 85 million, of whom a sizeable proportion have a strong desire to learn English, the demand for English language teaching far outstrips the

supply of native speaker and competent non-native speaker teachers Secondly, textbook writing and teacher retraining are the two important aspects to implement its curriculum As motioned, textbook writing has been completed, but to do massive and long term retraining of teachers in English competence would demand manpower and logistic resources beyond the capacity of the system at present Thirdly, despite the importance of English in the new context of integration and globalization, English language teaching in Vietnam, due to its low quality, has not met the demand for competent English-speaking people The main reasons are that (i) most of the English teachers, particularly those who are teaching at primary and lower secondary levels are disqualified, (ii) most teachers, except some who are teaching at tertiary level, have not had a chance to study in an English-speaking country, and that (iii) many of them do not normally communicate in English and cannot sustain teaching that mainly depends on communicative interactions Fourthly, although the rhetoric of the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training stresses the development of practical communication skills, this is rarely reflected at the classroom level, where the emphasis is on the development of reading comprehension, vocabulary and structural patterns for the purposes of passing the end-of-school and university entrance examinations into colleges or universities New teacher training programmes pre-service and in-service alike have been designed and delivered with a focus on training communicative teachers in a bid to address the faults of teaching methodology Unfortunately, not much improvement in terms of teaching methods has been noticed in English classes During the training courses, Vietnamese teachers show great interest in new methodologies, but after they return from those courses, they continue teaching in the old methods Fifthly, there is a mismatch between testing and teaching in English language teaching in Vietnam While teaching follows the communicative approach, testing seems to focus on measuring students’ lexico grammatical knowledge Last but not least, there have been quite few studies on the learners' attitudes towards the learning of English as a compulsory subject

2.3 Students’ attitudes to English as a compulsory in other countries

Today, people come across with English language in every part of their life, making it a necessity to learn Curriculums of many developing or developed countries who feel learning a foreign language is important include foreign language courses One or more foreign languages take part in the curriculum of many schools in many countries and foreign language courses are compulsory from primary school to university It is impossible to say that the results of the effort and time spent to teach English is enough because students cannot learn English sufficiently even if they take foreign language courses from primary school to university Hence, the affective domain of the students makes it important for students to take part in the learning process The students need to have a positive

attitude to take part in the learning process

In Sweden, with a language spoken by a rather limited group of people, it seems natural that young people would like to widen their perspectives and expose themselves to input from outside their country borders Over the past few decades the proficiency in English among Swedish pupils has increased noticeably due to young people’s increasing access and exposure to English input Young people have got the impression that the English language constitutes an important part in their daily life and in the context in which they find themselves What’s more, young people seem well aware of the fact that the English language is the key to a future with international elements to it It is not difficult to imagine that to many young people in Sweden today proficiency in the English language is something valuable, and they are therefore likely to be motivated to learn English (although this is not necessarily reflected in their motivation in the English classroom)

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This part of the study focuses on the selected research design, characteristics

of the participants, tool to collect data, the reliability, validity and administration of the data collection process In addition, the method of analysis is also mentioned

3.1 Context of the study

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitudes of an accessible population toward English learning and English as a compulsory subject at schools Questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data to examine their attitudes Along with exploring and describing the attitudes, part of the study is relational Correlational research involves studying relationships among variables within a single group (Frankel & Wallen, 1990:15) The relational component identified correlations among selected characteristics and attitudes of respondents

In addition, interviews with selected participants provided qualitative data for further understanding of their attitudes Two different instruments were employed in this study because interpretations which are built upon triangulation are certain to be stronger than those which rest on the more constricted framework

of a single method (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) Therefore, this study employed a - concurrent mixed methods design‖ in which the quantitative and qualitative data are collected at the same time and then integrates the information in the interpretation

of the overall results (Creswell, 2009: 14) Mixed methods design, similar to mixed model research (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2003) and multimethod design (Morse, 2003), employing the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, has gained popularity in the social and human sciences research in the past twenty years The mixed methods design is more than simply collecting and analyzing both kinds of data; it also involves the use of both approaches in tandem so that the overall strength of a study is greater than either quantitative or qualitative research (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007)

Furthermore, in mixed methods design, the researcher may embed one

smaller form of data within another larger data collection in order to analyze different types of questions (Creswell, 2009: 15) This point about a mixed methods design is of crucial value in this study, given the fact that quantitative data with a sufficient sample may present general pictures about attitudes of learners; while qualitative data from interviews with a small number of participants may provide an in-depth understanding of their attitudes Specifically, the study adopted the concurrent embedded strategy of mixed methods design over other types of mixed methods design Creswell (2009:214) explains that “a concurrent embedded approach has a primary method that guides the project and a secondary database that provides a supporting role in the procedure” In this study, the secondary method of qualitative approach is embedded within the predominant method of quantitative

3.2 Instruments

3.2.1 Questionnaires

The measuring instrument was an attitude questionnaire which focused on the attitudes towards learning English The items were partly adapted from the attitude questionnaire test employed in a study by Boonrangsri et al (2004) Other items were taken from Attitude and Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) designed by Gardner (1985) Furthermore, there were some items based on the researchers’ experiences in teaching English On the whole, there were 45 items concerning language attitudes in terms of: behavioral, cognitive, and emotional perspectives of attitude Overall, 30 items were positive and 15 items were negative The items were put in a 5-point Likert scale from Level 1: Strongly Disagree to Level 5: Strongly Agree

The second questionnaire which was adapted from Yang Yu (2010) to measure attitudes of high school students towards English as a compulsory subject

at school The questionnaire consists of 15 items relate to English language policies

in Vietnam The items were put in a 5-point Likert scale from Level 1: Strongly Disagree to Level 5: Strongly Agree

Reliability of the questionnaires

A pilot study was conducted to measure the reliability level of the questionnaire items To do so, 30 students were randomly selected from the target population These students did not take part in the actual study They were required

to present their personal information based on the Likert scale of the questionnaire items By using The Statistical Package for the Social Science Program (SPSS) version 17.0, an analysis of item reliability was determined through the reliability coefficient test The acceptable value of Cronbach Alpha was 0.878 which shows acceptable consistency of reliability This shows that the questionnaire items were completely appropriate for research goals Table 1 indicates the reliability of the questionnaire items in terms of the three aspects of attitude separately The value of Cornbach’s Alpha regarding the behavioral aspect is 0.731, the cognitive aspect obtained 0.772, and the Cronbach’s Alpha value of the emotional aspect is 0.677

Table 3.1 Reliability value regarding the language Aspects

Perspectives of attitudes No of items Cronbach’s Alpha value

Validity of the questionnaires

To investigate the validity of the questionnaire items, the questionnaire was given to two specialists, a psychologist and an expert in TEFL, chosen from the teaching staff of ULIS Their comments were taken into consideration and they advocated that the items of the questionnaire are valid and reliable to investigate the research objectives

Semi-structured interviews

Even though the questionnaire was well established with validity and reliability, the instruments may not address all the research questions accurately unexpected issues that arise from the diverse English learning experience of the students Also,

the participants may not elaborate as much because of the restricted form of questionnaire These weaknesses are overcome with another data collection method: face-to-face interviews The interviews were exploratory in nature, in order to provide in-depth understanding about Vietnamese attitudes towards English language learning and English as a compulsory subject to provide qualitative data for triangulation with the quantitative survey data Since the purpose for the interview was to obtain additional data to complement, refine, and contextualize the results from the survey data, the interview questions were developed in accordance with the themes in the questionnaire

3.3 Data collection

Researcher in the field used many instruments to collect data for the survey research i.e observations, case studies, test results, previous surveys; however, questionnaires and interviews is more commonly used It is because both of these instruments provide a means of obtaining data by asking people rather than by observing them behave

While the questionnaire consists of a set of questions that the respondent answers on paper by himself, the interview consists of an interviewer asking the questions and recording the responses Guyette (1983: 60-61) has compared the advantages and disadvantages of these two instruments as follows:

Formality

More formal, less personal/

May seem cold to community persons or respondent may be suspicious

More personal, friendly/ Greater response likely in community efforts

Time

Time to complete questionnaire minimal/ Respondent may skimp on time or fail to respond to some questions

Interview is time consuming/ Completion rate usually higher than questionnaire

Language May be limited to English or a Interpreter may be trained