A study on students’ attitudes towards doing english presentations at department of accounting at quang ninh university of industry

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ****** VŨ THỊ THANH HUYỀN A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

VŨ THỊ THANH HUYỀN

A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS DOING ENGLISH PRESENTATIONS AT DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING

AT QUANG NINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

(Nghiên cứu thái độ của sinh viên khoa Kế toán trường Đại học Công nghiệp Quảng Ninh với hoạt động thuyết trình tiếng Anh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi - 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

******

VŨ THỊ THANH HUYỀN

A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS DOING ENGLISH PRESENTATIONS AT DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING

AT QUANG NINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY

(Nghiên cứu thái độ của sinh viên khoa Kế toán trường Đại học Công nghiệp Quảng Ninh với hoạt động thuyết trình tiếng Anh)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi - 2016

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DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled: “A study on students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations at Department of Accounting at Quang Ninh University of Industry” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies - University of Languages and International Studies, VNU, Hanoi, and that this thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Hanoi, 2016

Vũ Thị Thanh Huyền Approved by

SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Date:………

My special thanks also go to all the lecturers and the staffs of the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies for their useful lessons and precious helps throughout my study

I am greatly appreciative of all my colleagues and students at Quang Ninh University of Industry for their contribution to the data collection and their constructive suggestions for this research

I also wish to acknowledge all the authors whose materials have been used in the study Thanks to them, I could accomplish my study

Last but not least, the whole-hearted thanks and debt gratitude are reserved for my dear family and friends who have supported and helped me to overcome the difficulties during my study

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ABSTRACT

Learners’ attitude is one of the most effective factors which has great influence on language acquisition and helps explain linguistic behavior Positive attitudes may bring benefits while negative attitudes may lead to decreased motivation and unsuccessful attainment of proficiency This study was conducted to explore the attitudes towards doing English presentations of the students at Department of Accounting at Quang Ninh University of Industry The survey aproach was employed Two research instruments, survey questionnaire and interview, were used to collect data from 96 first year accounting students at Quang Ninh University of Industry (QUI) Overall, the findings indicated that the participants kept negative attitudes towards doing English presentations Both internal and external factors accounted for their unfavorable attitudes From the findings obtained, some pedagogical implications were proposed to both teachers and students with the hope that they will make a contribution to the improvement of the teaching and learning of English presentation skills at QUI

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATION vii

LISTS OF TABLES viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Significance of the study 3

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Scope of the study 4

7 Design of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 Oral presentations 6

1.1.1 Definition of oral presentation 6

1.1.2 The advantages of student presentations 6

1.1.3 Characteristics of effective presentations 8

1.1.4 Oral presentation skills in the language classroom 8

1.1.5 Factors affecting students’ oral presentation 10

1.2 Individual factors affecting on students’ success in language learning 11

1.3 Attitudes 12

1.3.1 Definition of attitude 12

1.3.2 Language attitude 13

1.3.3 Roles of learners’ attitudes in language learning 14

1.3.4 Factors affecting learners’ attitudes towards language learning 14

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1.4 Review of previous studies related to students’ language attitudes 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 Setting of the study 18

2.1.1 A brief overview of QUI and English Division at QUI 18

2.1.2 The QUI students 18

2.1.3 A brief description of the English course and material 19

2.2 Participants of the study 20

2.3 Research instruments 20

2.3.1 Questionnaire 20

2.3.2 Interviews 21

2.4 Data collection procedure 22

2.5 Methods of data analysis 22

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 23

3.1 Data analysis of students’ questionnaires 23

3.1.1 General attitudes towards learning English 23

3.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards English presentations 24

3.1.3 Students’ feelings about doing English oral presentations 26

3.1.4 Students’ activities in periods having presentations 26

3.1.5 Reasons affecting students’ attitudes towards oral presentations in the classrooms 27

3.1.6 Summary from students’ questionnaire 32

3.2 Data analysis of students’ interview 33

3.3 Discussion 35

PART C: CONCLUSION 37

1 Recapitulation 37

2 Implications 37

2.1 For students 37

2.1.1 Improving knowledge of English 37

2.1.2 Preparing thoroughly for presentations 38

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2.2 For teachers 39

2.2.1 Providing students with linguistic knowledge 39

2.2.2 Equipping students with presentation skills 40

REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1: PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT CHO SINH VIÊN I APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS IV APPENDIX 3: CÂU HỎI PHỎNG VẤN CHO SINH VIÊN VII APPENDIX 4: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS VII APPENDIX 5: RESULTS FROM QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS VIII APPENDIX 6: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS XII APPENDIX 7: CHECKLISTS XV APPENDIX 8: A SAMPLE FINAL SPEECH EVALUATION FORM XVI

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LIST OF ABBREVIATION

VNU : Vietnam National University, Hanoi EFL : English as a Foreign Language ESL : English as a Second Language QUI : Quang Ninh University of Industry CLT : Communicative Language Teaching ESP : English for Specific Purposes

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LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1: Summary of students’ attitudes towards learning English 23Table 2: Summary of students’ awareness about the importance of English presentations 24Table 3: Summary of students’ feelings about doing English oral presentations 26Table 4: Summary of students’ activities in presentation periods 26Table 5: Summary of internal factors affecting students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations 28Table 6: Summary of external factors affecting students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations 30

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

Attitudes have been frequently reported as one of the most essential factors affecting students’ achievements in EFL classrooms Language attitude has great influence not only on language learning and acquisition but also on learners’ choice and use of language A positive attitude toward learning the English language is one

of the leading predictors of success in gaining fluency Besides, in the Vietnamese educational system, since the shift from the teacher-centered to the learner-centered approach in recent years, the role of learners has been put on more emphasis in every aspect of education, such as teaching methods, material development, learners’ proficiency assessment, etc At every level of teaching English, the student

is at the center Therefore, it can be said that understanding of learner’s attitudes is one of the keys to the success of our English teaching process

The Vietnamese Prime Minister’s Decision 1400/QĐ-TTg, promulgated on September 30th, 2008, on the approval of the Project entitled “ Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education system, Period 2008-2020” has emphasized the teaching and learning a foreign language, particularly English with the goal 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” Thus, the ability to communicate is the most important goal that communicative language teaching aims to reach Having students give oral presentations in front of class is one typical example of learner-centered, communicative activities that has been widely included in teachers’ plans to satisfy the demand of English teaching in this stage There is a considerable amount of research which confirms that presentation skills are essential skills not only because of their popularity in most working places but also

a lot of benefits they bring to learners, namely, bridging the gap between language

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study and language use, using the four language skills in a naturally integrated way, helping students to collect, inquire, organize and construct information, enhancing team work, and helping students become active and autonomous learners (Nguyen, 2009)

At Quang Ninh University of Industry (QUI), English is a compulsory subject Within the credit-based system, especially in large classes, oral presentations receive much attention from the management as well as the English teaching staff However, in reality, the ability to do English presentations of the students in general, accounting students in particular, was still far from satisfaction

With the experience of four-year teaching EFL at QUI, I can see that my students showed different attitudes towards doing English presentations Some showed their favorable attitudes and wanted to improve their presenting abilities while others felt uncomfortable and under pressure Therefore, I would like to do a research on this issue to clarify this problem

For all that have been mentioned, I have decided to choose the topic “A study on students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations at Department of Accounting at Quang Ninh University of Industry” for my minor thesis Hopefully,

my efforts in doing this research can contribute effectively to the teaching and learning of presentation skills at QUI

2 Aims of the study

This study is conducted to explore the accounting students’ attitudes towards delivering presentations in English Therefore, the aims of the research are:

 to discover the students’ attitudes at Department of Accounting at QUI towards doing English presentations

 to find out the reasons why they had those attitudes

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4 Significance of the study

The study is conducted with the expectation that its results will be useful for both students and teachers of the English division at QUI Most importantly, it is hoped to bring the detailed and full view on their students’ attitudes towards and expectations for their English presentations as well as the reason why they had those attitudes Based on the findings, some suggestions are given in order to help students develop interest and promote positive attitudes towards doing English presentations This will be effective for them to accomplish English language proficiency

5 Methods of the study

To fulfill the above aims, the survey approach was selected It is worth noting that survey methods have been strongly supported to study wide variety of issues that impinge on language learning, including the changing demographic contexts, the institutional settings in which L2 professionals function, the policies that affect learning and teaching, program administration, teacher preparation, attitudes of teachers and professors toward language varieties, classroom practice, target language norms, and students language use and growth (Johnson 1991:105)

The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect and analyze data However, a questionnaire was developed as a primary research instrument Besides, interviews for students were used to obtain data to supplement and cross-validate the students’ responses to the questionnaire

The study was carried out in the following steps:

First, a questionnaire was designed and delivered to students to investigate their attitudes towards doing English presentations and reasons for such attitudes

Second, interviews with some students were designed to get supplementary information and make the data collected more reliable

Then, the data was collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to obtain realistic results

To end with, pedagogical implications for enhancing students’ positive attitudes in giving English presentations will be proposed based on the results found from all data collection instruments

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6 Scope of the study

The study focuses on attitudes towards oral presentations in English in the classroom context of 96 first-year non-English major accounting students at QUI Because of limited time, the study was not carried out on a large scale However, I

do hope that the findings and recommendations of the study will be of some help to both teachers and students of English in the process of teaching and learning oral presentation skills so that students will have better oral presentation skills

7 Design of the study

The study is organized into three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Part A - Introduction - presents the rationale, aims, research questions, significance, methods, scope and design of the study

Part B - Development - consists of three chapters:

Chapter I - Literature Review - provides the theoretical background for the field of the study It focuses on two main points: attitudes and presentations To begin with, issues related to oral presentations such as definitions, advantages, characteristics, etc., are explored Next, learners’ factors influencing on students’

success in language learning as well as doing presentation skills are taken into

consideration Then, it is concerned with some major issues regarding attitudes, language attitude, the roles of attitudes and factors affecting attitudes in language learning Finally, previous studies related to the topic are summarized

Chapter II - Methodology - presents the overall picture of how the research was carried out The first part describes the context where the study was conducted The second one mentions the selection of research instruments Then, the overview

of data collection procedures and method of data analysis is given

Chapter III - Data analysis and discussion - provides analysis of the data collected through the research procedure described in chapter II The analysis of the data is presented in two parts: the first part is the results from the questionnaire for students and the second one is from the students’ interviews

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Part C - Conclusion - summarizes the main points presented in the study, makes some recommendations to effectively promote the students’ attitudes in doing English presentations, points out some limitations of the study and makes some suggestions for further study

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Oral presentations

1.1.1 Definition of oral presentation

Oral presentation is an extension of oral communication skill There are many ways to propose its definition According to Josef (1998), presentation means

“a short talk by one person to a group of people introducing and describing a particular subject” Barker (2000: 113) maintains that oral presentation is like a formal conversation Brian (2002: 5) also asserts, “A presentation is a transmission

of a message” In the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2010: 1190), a

presentation is defined as “an act of showing something or of giving something to somebody” Peter and Graham (2006: 4) agree with the idea stating that “By presentation we mean a talk or speech given by a presenter (sometimes more than one) to an audience of two or more people” Generally, it can be said that oral presentation or public speaking is a form of communication which is intended to convey certain ideas, messages and information in a clear, structured way

The term presentation in the above definitions is shown in general understanding, but in my study, presentations done in English lessons by accounting students are focused According to Comfort (1995), presentation in this case is considered as a popular kind of activity where a student (students) give(s) a presentation on a topic of their own choice or given by the teacher Such talks are not designed for informal spontaneous conversation but they are subject matter oriented; because they are prepared, they are more “writing like”

1.1.2 The advantages of student presentations

Effective oral presentation skill is essential in education, social and professional life If properly guided and organized, oral presentations provide a learning experience and teach lifelong skills that will be beneficial to ESL/EFL students in all school subjects, and later in their careers (Meloni &Thompson, 1980) Doing presentation is really a very good learning experience as students need

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more practice in English before they graduate Chivers and Shoolbred (2007: 2) claim, “There are many reasons why students are asked to give presentations and these will be influenced by your academic course and situational and organizational factors”

Oral presentation is a way of developing the students’ ability to practice King (2002: 402) affirms many advantages of student presentations It’s oral presentation that can help bridge the gap between language study and language use

In oral presentations, students use all the four skills in natural integrated way Besides, presentations help them to collect, inquire, organize, and construct information Thanks to doing presentations, team work will be enhanced and students will learn both actively and autonomously King (2002: 402) also concludes that, “ Having students give oral presentation in a front of their class in one of the learner-centered activities that has been widely include in teachers’ lesson plans to improve students’ oral proficiency”

To be more specific, Chivers and Shoolbred (2007: 8) provide advantages gained from student presentations as below:

 Student-centred participation in their learning

 Developing new knowledge and different perspectives on a topic

 Practice in a known environment/situation

 Increasing confidence to speak and present in front of an audience

 Improving marks earned for a module assessment

 Developing a wide range of communication and presentation skills

 Preparation for skills needed in the workplace

 An exchange of roles and perspectives from audience to presenter

In short, making an effective oral presentation has great contribution to students’ ability to communicate with others As a result, their learning English will become easier and more effective According to Emden and Becker (2004: 1),

“developing the abilities to speak to an audience is one of the greatest benefits you’ll ever get from your time in further or higher education.” Then oral

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presentation is one of the important parts of teaching a foreign language, especially

in the university environment

1.1.3 Characteristics of effective presentations

A presentation is effective when the speaker(s) make(s) all the people involved achieve their research objective Moreover, effective oral presentation must make the audiences get interesting and useful information and they will enjoy their times while listening to the speakers Sometimes, students may remember more of the content of their peers’ presentations than the content delivered by the lecturers They may also remember the content of their own presentations more than the content of lectures they have attended

Chivers and Shoolbred (2007: 20-21) claim that in order to prepare and delivery an effective presentation, these characteristics are very important:

 Careful planning and preparation

 Good time management

 Relevant and interesting content

 Good communication skills

 Appropriate use of technologies

 Clear supporting documentation

 A suitable audience participation

In other words, making a presentation in English can be difficult and demanding because it has content, structure and needs preparation Thus, in oral presentation, it is necessary for students to know how to prepare and structure their presentation carefully In addition, they need to know how to deliver it because this will make its content much more effective

1.1.4 Oral presentation skills in the language classroom

As a matter of facts, presentation skills are extremely useful in the language classrooms After completing a project, a presentation is a channel for students to share with others what they have learned It is also a chance to challenge and expand on their understanding of the topic by having others ask questions

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Presentations can also form a natural part of task-based learning By focusing

on a particular language point or skill, the presentation is a very practical way to revise and extend lesson, pair and group work The audience can also be given a task, for example, a set of questions to answer on the presentation, which is a way

of getting students to listen to each other (Pham, 2011) In the class rooms, oral presentations can also be carried out as class activity Students work in a small group to discuss a topic After the discussion, each representative from each group will present his/ her group’s ideas or each member will take turn to be responsible for each part of the presentation

Vo (1994, cited in Nguyen, 2009) gives suggestions for teachers when assigning oral presentations, in which the procedure of oral presentation should come as below:

1 At the beginning, let students know that all of them will have chances to speak in front of the class

2 Put up a large calendar so that students can choose the date they prefer

3 After the break of every class session, have one student come forward and speak about his/ her topic

4 The teacher sits in the audience during the speech

5 Time limit for each student should be about five minutes

6 Let other members of the class raise their questions and comment until the speaker has finished (if the presenter has difficulty in answering the audience questions, the teacher and other students can help)

7 After each speech, give the speaker some feedback (it is highly recommended that compliments should come before criticism in order not to discourage the speaker)

In brief, teaching oral presentations skills is not an easy task for teachers as they are required to play a lot of different roles at the same time They must have structured plan and appropriate method of teaching and giving feedback in order to make oral presentations can be beneficial and enjoyable activities for learners

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1.1.5 Factors affecting students’ oral presentation

Oral presentation is not an essay task According to Barker (2000: 113)

“Speaking to groups is notoriously stressful activity” In her study, Nguyen (2009)

investigated and concluded that students’ oral presentation can be affected by these

following reasons:

+/ Students’ language proficiency

Ur (1996) defines language proficiency in terms of accuracy and fluency; if a learner has mastered a language successfully, that means that he or she can understand and produce it both accurately (correctly) and fluently (receiving and conveying messages with ease)

Regarding to speaking skill in general and presentation skills in particular, accuracy and fluency are the two most concerning aspects Accuracy involves the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation whereas fluency means the ability to use the language with ease

In reality, the emphasis on accuracy and fluency has changed a lot Once, language teaching and learning was almost entirely about accuracy Today, it can be thought that the mastery of communication is the main objective, in other words, grammar is the support system for communication, not an end in itself However, self-conscious learners often strike a careful balance between accuracy and fluency

+/ Students’ personality

The presenter plays the most important role in making the success of his oral presentation According to many researchers, feelings of anxiety, apprehension and nervousness are commonly expressed by foreign language learners in learning to speak a foreign language, particularly when they have to make an oral presentation

in that language (Nguyen, 2009) Chivers and Shoolbred (2007: 31) say, “Many students feel highly nervous about undertaking class presentation”

King (2002: 406) considers speech anxiety as one of the major problem that lead to learners' oral presentation failures This anxiety comes in part from a lack of confidence in the general linguistic knowledge, the embarrassment of exposing the

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language imperfections in front of others Besides, learners’ personality traits such

as shyness, quietness, and reticence are considered as frequently precipitate communication apprehension It is obvious that such feelings in the learners may prevent them from achieving the desired goal

+/ Teachers’ roles

Working with students on oral presentations is a challenging job for teachers According to King (2002: 407), “a teacher moves from the traditional role of teacher as an authority expert to the new role of facilitator of learning” The teacher

is the guide, organizer, consultant, resource person, and supporter He also emphasizes that the teacher's role in oral presentations not only involves preparing detailed guidelines, organizing groups, helping students to select topics, guiding their research and helping them learn the use of various visual aids, but also holding

of Question & Answer sessions, providing feedback on the sequencing of ideas, and evaluating their performance (King, 2002: 407-408)

1.2 Individual factors affecting on students’ success in language learning

The mastery of language varies greatly from learner to learner Obviously, each student is an independent individual with certain characteristics Under the same circumstance, some gain much higher proficiency in their English skills while others do not make any progress In recent years, some of the researchers have

established the significant role of factors affecting in second language learning

Ellis (1985) explained for this issue: “The general factors that influence second language learning are: age, aptitude and intelligence, cognitive style, attitudes,

motivation and personality” Narayanan et al (2008: 485-512) states that if the

learner wants to foster linguistics skills effectively he/she needs to be highly motivated, positive attitude towards the language, low language anxiety and suppose to have a good amount of TL exposures” Lightbown and Spada (2013: 75) claim that “many of us believe that individual differences that are inherent in learner can predict success or failure in language learning” They believe that learners possess characteristics such as personality, intelligence, aptitudes, ages, attitudes and motivation which can determine more or less successful language learning

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Among the diverse and composite individual differences and learner

variables in learning a second language, the role of students’ attitudes have recently been spent considerable attention by many scholars They approved that the learners benefit from the positive attitudes, and negative attitudes may lead to decreased standard of proficiency in the language Positive attitudes are related to learners’ success in language learning The measurement of language attitudes provides information which is useful in language teaching and language planning This motivates me to design a study on investigating students’ attitudes towards English presentations

1.3 Attitudes

1.3.1 Definition of attitude

There have been many definitions of attitude proposed to describe its essence Gardner (1985) maintains that “attitude is an evaluative reaction to some referent or attitude object, inferred on the basis of the individual’s beliefs or opinions about the referent” It can be understood that people’s beliefs or perceptions can lead their attitude favorably or unfavorably to an object

In more details, Gardner (1985) states that attitudes have cognitive, affective and conative components The cognitive component refers to the individual's belief structure, the affective to emotional reactions, and the conative to the tendency to behave toward the attitude object

This idea is shared by Wikipedia, in which attitudes are judgments and they develop on the ABC model: Affect, Behavior and Cognition It further explains that

the affective response is an emotional response that expresses an individual’s degree

of preference for an entity The behavioral intention is a verbal indication or typical behavioral tendency of an individual The cognitive response is a cognitive

evaluation of the entity that constitutes an individual's beliefs about the object More interestingly, this source reveals that most attitudes result from either direct experience or observational learning from the environment

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Looking from a different angle, Brown (2000: 180) also suggests that

“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 peer’s attitudes, contact with people who are different in any number of ways and interacting affective factors in the human experience” Here it seems that attitude is formed through a long process and it is affected by many factors in the daily lives of each person

I myself find the following concept of attitude clear and convincing: An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event - this is often referred to as the attitude object (Wikipedia - online dictionary)

In short, attitude can be understood as a mental state that plays a crucial role

in behaviors of human beings Attitude has a considerable influence on the feelings, thinking and beliefs of an individual towards everything around Every reaction and response toward certain things of people depends greatly on attitudes

1.3.2 Language attitude

Learning a language has a close relation to the attitudes towards the

languages In the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (2010: 314), language

attitudes are defined as the attitude which speakers of different languages or language varieties have towards each others’ 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 Having the same idea, Holmes (1992, cited in Pham, 2013), believes that attitudes in the context of language learning are defined as the way people look at the language, the class and the people, and the culture of language Especially, language attitude is distinguished from general attitudes by the fact that language attitudes are precisely about language (Pham, 2014) In other words, language attitude refers to attitude people hold towards language

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This study concentrates on exploring students’ attitudes towards only one respect of learning language - doing English presentations

1.3.3 Roles of learners’ attitudes in language learning

Many researchers have proved that there is a reciprocal relationship between learners’ attitudes and their language learning Lightbrown and Spada (1999) state that attitude is fundamental to the success or failure that we experience in learning Depending on the learners’ attitudes, language learning can be a source of enrichment or a source of resentment Agreeing with the role of attitudes, Brown (2000: 181) believes that language learners benefit from positive attitudes while negative attitudes may lead to decreased motivation and unsuccessful attainment of proficiency He continues that “positive attitudes towards the self, the native language group, and the target language group enhanced proficiency” Sahin (2005: 41) holds a view that there is a significant correlation between students’ attitudes and their achievement in English lessons, which suggests that attitudes towards target language may be taken as a predictor of achievement In his study, Karahan (2007: 84) finds out positive language attitudes let learners have positive orientation towards learning English He asserts when students hold the positive attitudes, they become more active in their learning process, so their positive attitudes can help them access to the target language easier

It is clear that learners’ language attitudes are decisive factors in successful language acquisition I am of the same opinion that students having positive attitudes may speed up their language learning and see themselves achieving higher result In this study, students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations are explored Its results are expected to suggest some strategies that encourage students’ positive attitudes and limit their negative ones

1.3.4 Factors affecting learners’ attitudes towards language learning

Language attitude has recently received remarkable attention from many language researchers They share the opinions that attitudes are clearly influenced

by many factors in the students’ upbringing (Gardner, 1985: 43)

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According to social psychologists, “attitudes are individually driven” (Kumaravadivelu, 2006: 38) Different individuals develop different shades of

attitudes In the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (2010: 287), individual

learner factors that have been frequently identified as possible causes for differential success include age, aptitude, motivation, cognitive style, the use of learning strategies, and personality However, the concept of individual differences is rather loose, containing certain core variables and many optional ones When addressing individual differences, one needs to select personality, ability/aptitude, and motivation to start with as these are invariably seen as principal learner variables (Dörnyei, 2005: 7) It seems clear that the internal factors associated with students’ personal traits are the principal factors affecting students’ attitudes

In addition to the individual’s personal dispositions, there are at least two external forces that appear to shape the learner’s language-learning attitude: environmental and pedagogic The environmental factor includes social, cultural, political and economic imperatives that shape the L2 educational milieu The pedagogic factor shapes how teachers, learners and the learning situation interact with each other to trigger positive or negative attitudes in the learner (Malcolm, 2006: 39) Focusing on this issue, Pham (2014) inferred that students’ attitudes are affected directly from factors associated with teachers (teachers’ behaviors and teachers’ practices) and learning environment (learning conditions and materials)

In other words, external factors associated with teachers and learning environment play a vital role in influencing students’ attitudes

In the case of this study, internal factors related to students’ personal traits and external factors related to teachers and learning environment are considered as determinant factors directly influencing students’ attitudes

1.4 Review of previous studies related to students’ language attitudes

The issues of students’ attitudes towards learning foreign language in general and learning English in particular have widely aroused the interest of teachers and researchers all over the world Since the beginning of this century, there are increasingly more researches done on different aspects of this field

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Choy and Troudi (2006) investigated the changes in students’ attitudes towards learning English in a Malaysian college and found that there were differences in students’ attitudes towards learning English in secondary school and college This study suggested that the school social environment and the family background influence students’ attitudes towards learning English

Karahan (2007) conducted a study to examine the relationship between language attitudes and its use in Turkey using a questionnaire adapted from previous studies on language attitudes as the only method The findings indicated that the subjects recognized the importance of the English language but had only mildly positive attitudes towards learning the language

Noursi (2013) carried out a study entitled Attitudes toward Learning English:

The case of the UAE Technology High School to investigate whether the students’

attitudes is affected by the teacher’s nativity The findings revealed that teacher’s nativity did not influence students’ positive orientation toward the language

In Iran, after studying the relationship between medical students’ attitude towards English language learning and their English language proficiency, Bagheri and Andi (2015) affirmed that there was a small positive correlation between students' language attitudes and their English language proficiency

While the findings of many researchers, such as Tamimi (2009), Tanni

(2015), identified students’ attitudes toward the English language, Zainol et al

(2012) investigated Libyan secondary school students’ attitudes towards learning English and concluded that the participants showed negative attitudes towards learning English Studies reviewed show that although the dominant attitude towards English is positive, a range of different types of attitudes has also been reported in a good number of studies

At Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, a large number

of M.A theses have been done on students’ attitudes towards various aspects in

English learning and teaching For example: Students’ attitudes towards English

grammar learning: The case of Do Son Continuing Education Centre, Hai

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Phong city (Khuc, 2010); Students’ attitudes towards learning to speak English at

Ly Thai To High School, Bac Ninh (Ba, 2012); A study on students’ attitudes towards learning to speak English and their classroom speaking practices at

Northern Water Resource College (Pham, 2013) A recent study titled An

investigation into the first-year students’ attitudes towards learning English listening at faculty of Electrical Engineering Technology, Hanoi University of Industry was conducted by Pham (2014) The data for the analysis was collected

from two sources: students’ questionnaire and teachers’ interviews The results of the research showed that students had negative attitudes towards learning English listening Also, some suggestions were recommended in order to increase students’ positive attitudes to their learning

However, there has been no study on the students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations up to now Some theses concerning presentations have just

specifically aimed at exploring other aspects For example: Factors affecting oral

presentations of the second-year English major students at Hanoi University of Industry (Nguyen, 2009); An investigation on the difficulties in making business English oral presentation of the first year non-major English students

at Faculty of Accounting at Dai Nam University and some solutions (Nguyen,

2010); Assessment criteria for an effective EFL presentation of English majors at

Hanam Teachers Training College Problems and solutions (Pham, 2011); etc

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Setting of the study

2.1.1 A brief overview of QUI and English Division at QUI

QUI has a history of nearly 60 years in training the labor force mainly for the coal companies, factories from within and outside Quang Ninh province Nowadays, its field is extended to many other majors such as Business Administration, ICT, Mechanics, etc Like many other universities in Vietnam, QUI considers English as a compulsory subject

English Division of QUI consists of 10 teachers whose ages range from 28 to

45 All of the teachers are graduated from the University of Foreign Languages and 70% of them have acquired MA degree at University of Languages and International Studies, VNU Teachers of English at QUI have applied various teaching methods according to the skills and the level of students they are in charge

of At present, within the credit-based system, especially in the condition of large classes, oral presentations receive much attention from the management as well as the English teaching staff In reality, though the teachers always maintain their enthusiasm in their teaching, they still admit that the ability to do English presentations of their students was still far from satisfaction

2.1.2 The QUI students

The students at QUI come from different parts of Vietnam, but mostly from Quang Ninh province They are admitted into QUI either based on the results of the National High School Exam as prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training or their academic performances in high school Normally, the students do not have to take an English language proficiency test to be admitted into QUI All are non-English major students The general situation is that the majority of them do

not pay much attention to study English They learn English just to pass the exams

Besides, students learn English in almost isolated environments from English native speakers, so they hardly get any chance to communicate with foreigners both inside and outside classrooms Consequently, the students are unable to speak the

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language They are often doing better at writing and grammar exercises but they have little communicative ability and lack necessary skills and techniques to be successful in communication Furthermore, from my classroom observation, discussion with other teachers and my own experiences, I found that most students often feel shy in the public and they are embarrassed when being asked to work in peers, groups in speaking lessons Their verbal production, whether oral or written,

is limited to occasional, isolated words or groups of words Many of them claim that among four skills, speaking is regarded to be the hardest for them

2.1.3 A brief description of the English course and material

Currently, there are two stages for the English courses at QUI The first stage

is General English which provides general knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, phonology and develops language skills with the focus on speaking skills This stage is allocated into two terms; each term lasts for 60 periods Like many other English Departments at non-English major universities in Vietnam, the English

Division at QUI also chooses the student’s book New Headway Pre-intermediate

(Third edition) by John and Liz Soars published by Oxford University Press in 2010

to teach students of General English There are 12 units in this course-book dealing with 12 common topics in life: Friends; Lifestyles; Mysteries; Places; Hopes and Ambitions; Favourites; Fame; Do’s and Don’ts; Travelling; Inventions; Dreams; Jobs Each unit is organized into seven parts: Language Focus, Vocabulary and Everyday English, apart from four basic English skills: Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing Sometimes, speaking parts of the unit are integrated into others The course-book occasionally provides some activities for students to speak and work in groups or pairs to practice the grammar in Language Focus The total time duration for students to practice their speaking skills is around 2 periods per unit After the first stage, students are expected to improve their communicative competences and enhance other skills to have good background knowledge in the second stage The aim of this stage is to focus on English for Specific Purposes which lasts for one term with 30 periods This stage provides students with

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specialized knowledge directly related to their jobs Depending on discipline areas, the materials for ESP are selected and designed to use by QUI teachers These materials mainly focus on in enhancing students’ specilized vocabulary, reading and translation

2.2 Participants of the study

In order to achieve the aims of the study, about 100 freshmen of Accounting major in general English classes (DH.K8) were selected to participate in the study These students are 18 years old and have been studying the second term at QUI Few students had high results in the 1st English final term tests All of them have spent more than 7 years studying English After graduating from high schools, these students have general knowledge of grammar and an active vocabulary which they can use mostly in written forms However, their presenting abilities are limited Hence, when they become the first year students of non-English major in the university, they have to deal with many difficulties in doing English presentations Especially, a problem of the large numbers of students is that they have a tendency

to become passive in English class and depend largely on the given course book and the teachers The reason for choosing students of Accounting major at QUI is that these students have better English background knowledge in comparison with other students here Some choose English in the combination of admission subjects

Means and Standard Deviations for EFL college students’ perceptions of the

difficulties in oral presentation of according to personal traits of Al-Nouh et al

Category C consisting of 20 items is designed to explore the determinant reasons affecting students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations The 12 first items are designed to explore internal factors related to students’ personal traits The 8 left items are designed to explore external factors related to teachers and learning environment

All items were written in both English and Vietnamese to ensure that students can fully understand the questions and respond explicitly, without having difficulties in expressing their ideas

2.3.2 Interviews

Besides the questionnaire, this study used interviews to obtain data to supplement and cross-validate the students’ responses to the questionnaire This study was aimed at finding out the students’ attitudes towards doing presentations and the reason for their attitudes It is not of naturalistic inquiry by nature, therefore,

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I choose the structured interview, in which the “agenda is totally predetermined order” (Nunan, 1992) in order to achieve consistence Since the purpose of the follow-up interview here was to have more in-depth information, two groups of students, each consists of five students, were selected from the questionnaire respondents Students in the 1st group are the most achievable students while those

in the 2nd group are the least achievable ones

To delve deeply into the issue, the interviewees were asked three questions about 1) the importance of presentations skills, 2) their feelings about doing presentations, and 3) the factors promoting their positive attitudes For convenience

of analyzing data, those questions were asked one-by-one to all students interviewed and they answered in turn The interviews were recorded under the students’ permission for the purpose of the study The students were allowed to speak in Vietnamese so that the researcher can elicit more information from the subjects The interviews’ data was qualitatively analyzed after gathering

2.4 Data collection procedure

The procedures of data collection were as follows:

1 Stating the aims and delivering hard copies of the questionnaire to the

students

2 Gathering back the questionnaire after ensuring that all items in the questionnaire were fully evaluated

3 Conducting interviews with the selected students

4 Sorting and analyzing the data collected

2.5 Methods of data analysis

Data collected from the questionnaires was quantitatively calculated using Microsoft Exel for statistics and converted into percentages For convenience of presentation and observation, the evaluation of each item was analyzed and presented following the order: the number of students and the percentage that number accounts for out of the total of 96 students participating in the survey The qualitative analysis was conducted with interview data

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CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the comprehensive analysis of the data collected through the research procedure described in chapter 2 The analysis of the data is presented in two parts: the first part is the results of the questionnaire for students and the second one is from the students’ interviews

3.1 Data analysis of students’ questionnaires

3.1.1 General attitudes towards learning English

Table 1: Summary of students’ attitudes towards learning English

4 I can enjoy music, films

and stories in English 14≈14.6% 18≈18.8% 44≈45.8% 17≈17.7% 3≈3.1%

5 I can communicate with

foreign people 0≈0% 0≈0% 24≈25% 53≈55.2% 19≈19.8%

* (1= strongly disagree; 2= disagree; 3= neutral; 4= agree; 5= strongly agree)

As can be seen from Table 1, most of the participants have a negative attitude towards learning English The result shows that, of all 96 participants, only 14.6% learnt English because English is their interest while 32.3% of them disliked learning it and 53.1% held a neutral attitude towards learning English

Remarkably, 92.7% students learnt English was to pass the final exam (50% strongly agree, 42.7% agree) and 82.3% (49% strongly agreed and 33.3% agreed)

3.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards English presentations

Table 2: Summary of students’ awareness about the importance of English

knowledge of both the

topic and English

10 Helping prepare for

skills needed in the

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Although only 14.6% of students asked are interested in learning English, a

large number of them realized the importance of English presentation skill Table 2

showed that a fairly high percentage of participants (68.8% including 27.1% strongly disagreed and 41.7% disagreed) did not consider English oral presentation skill as a waste of time Items 7 to 12 explained the reasons why mastering English presentation skill was important to students Of all participants, 82.3% agreed that the importance comes from the fact that presentation skill helps enhance confidence

to speak in front of a group of people, 85.4% shared the view that the importance originates from the reason that oral presentation may widen their knowledge of not only the topic given but also the English language Besides, 71.9% considered presentation skill as a means to improve communication skills and oral proficiency

However, not all students had good awareness of English oral presentation’s importance Indeed, 15.6% of the participants agreed and 6.2% strongly agreed with item 7 It means they feel that doing English presentations is unimportant at all It is not surprising to receive the responses from the participants in this item because a common problem among students at QUI is that students might work in mining areas with no foreigners around them to use English presentations This also explains why only a small number of participants (26%) accepted that presentation skill can help prepare for skills needed in the future workplace Besides, as students

at QUI only have to do written tests in English, they do not need to pay much

attention to oral presentation skills

In sum, statistical analysis from students’ responses in Table 2 indicated that the students had clear perceptions of presentations More percentage of them recognized the significance as well as the advantages of English presentation skills