Increasing grade 10 students’ motivation in learning english by using oral presentation an action research at doan thi diem private high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN HOÀNG HUYỀN ABSTRACT INCREASING GRADE 10 STUDENTS’ MOTIVATI

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN HOÀNG HUYỀN

ABSTRACT

INCREASING GRADE 10 STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN LEARNING ENGLISH BY USING ORAL PRESENTATION: AN ACTION RESEARCH

AT DOAN THI DIEM PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL

(Sử dụng hoạt động thuyết trình nhằm nâng cao động lực học tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10: Nghiên cứu hành động tại trường THPT Dân lập Đoàn Thị Điểm)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN HOÀNG HUYỀN

ABSTRACT

INCREASING GRADE 10 STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN LEARNING ENGLISH BY USING ORAL PRESENTATION: AN ACTION RESEARCH

AT DOAN THI DIEM PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOL

(Sử dụng hoạt động thuyết trình nhằm nâng cao động lực học tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 10: Nghiên cứu hành động tại trường THPT Dân lập Đoàn Thị Điểm)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, PhD

HANOI - 2011

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1.3 An overview of oral presentation activity in an FL class 12

1.3.2 Types of oral presentations 14 1.3.3 Oral presentations in EFL classroom settings 14 1.3.4 Advantages and disadvantages of oral presentation activity 16

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1.2 Current learning and teaching of English at DTD PHS 19

2.3.1 Description of the pre and post-treatment questionnaires 21

2.4.1 Rationale for the use of an action research 23

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Research question 1: The students’ motivational state 28

3.2 Research question 2: The students’ demotivating factors 30

3.3 Research question 3: Students’ evaluation of the oral presentation activity’s effectiveness

32

3.4 Research question 4: Students’ motivational state after the OPA 33 3.4.1 Attitudes toward learning English after the OPA 34 3.4.2 Linguistic self-confidence after involving in OPA 35 3.4.3 Classroom behaviors after involving in OPA 35

PART C: CONCLUSION

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 40

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: Components of foreign language learning motivation I APPENDIX 2: English & Vietnamese version of pre-treatment questionnaire II APPENDIX 3:Results from the pre-treatment questionnaire VIII APPENDIX 4: English & Vietnamese version of post-treatment questionnaire XI APPENDIX 5:Results from the post-treatment questionnaire XV APPENDIX 6: Questions and the results of the interviews XVIII APPENDIX 7: A lesson plan for the oral training program introduction XX

APPENDIX 9: A sample of student presentations after the program XXXI

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Interpretation of score results in terms of motivation level 27 Table 2: Overall descriptive statistics of the 8 items on ALE 28

Table 3: Overall descriptive statistics of the 7 items on the linguistic

Table 7: Descriptive statistics of the 5 items on students‟ linguistic self-confidence 35

Table 8: Descriptive statistics of the 8 items on the students‟ classroom behaviors 36

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as a Foreign Language

DTD PHS Doan Thi Diem Private High School

L2/ FL Second or Foreign Language

OPA Oral Presentation Activity

PART A: INTRODUCTION

7 Rationale of the study

It is an incontrovertible fact that the need of using English as an efficient means to

be successful in such an integrated world has been increasing among the youth when they start their real careers Although this has become a great motive that considerately enhances the situation of teaching and learning English language in Vietnam, students‟ attitudes and motivation to learn the subject are completely different from region to region, even classroom to classroom While many Vietnamese youngsters put a lot of their time and efforts in learning English, many others appear to be too indifferent to the necessity of mastering the language The issue might stem from various reasons but above all, it is supposed to be students‟ low motivation to learn this subject that causes the problem It is because among various influential factors, Gardner (2001) states that “motivation is a central element along with language attitude in determining success in learning another language in the classroom setting” (p.2) since he believes “many of these other variables are dependent on motivation for their effects to be realized” (Gardner, 2001: 2) Other researchers such as Ely (1986); Spolsky (1989), and Scarcella and Oxford (1992) shared the same view that motivation determines how much effort students make, how often students use second/foreign language learning strategies, how much students interact with native speakers, how much input they receive in the language being learned, how well they

do on curriculum-related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they preserve and maintain second/foreign language skills after language study is over

Among the high school students the author has worked with, some students seem naturally enthusiastic about learning, but many need or expect their teacher to inspire, challenge, and stimulate them There have been many times when the author finds herself

in a passive class, where students are unresponsive and avoid interaction with the teacher even when they have enough knowledge to enthusiastically participate in the lessons As a result, many of them have a lot of difficulties in communicating with native speakers of English even though they have learned English for five or six years or even ten years As a teacher of English, when experiencing the situation in her own classrooms, the author understands that "effective learning in the classroom depends on the teacher's ability to maintain the interest that brings students to the course" (Ericksen, 1978: 3)

On the other hand, the new sets of English textbook that have been applied at high schools in the whole country for a few years have brought about a new approach to teaching and learning the language in Vietnam The theme-based textbooks provide a wide range of practical topics and require students to practice all the four essential skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing However, as a matter of fact, it has been found out that merely following the syllabus with the textbook is not interesting enough to students

of the high-tech world today There, consequently appears a need to experiment something new and different from what the students are experiencing

Furthermore, presentation activities have recently been cast light on in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom as an innovative means of developing students‟ skills

in public speaking and hence promoting their motivation in English Presentation activity

is a great way to have students practice all language systems areas (vocabulary, grammar, discourse and phonology) and skills (speaking, reading, writing and listening) (Hayton, 2005) They also build confidence, and presenting is a skill that most people will need in the world of work The students who are good presenters are better communicators, since they are able to structure and express their ideas clearly

Therefore, after having considered some basic data from the preliminary investigation, the writer decided to choose oral presentation among many methods to motivate students to get more involved in learning English and then to improve their communication skills in English The decision was inspired from the required presentations that the author had conducted when she was a student at her university and the oral presentation activity that she had applied to some of her previous classes

8 Aims of the study

The study was an attempt to find a way of making the act of learning English more inspiring and interesting to a group of grade 10 students at Doan Thi Diem Private High School (DTD PHS) so that they can get involved better in classroom activities Among

many motivational strategies, the writer chose one activity, namely oral presentation that evokes more students‟ participation in the learning process Specifically, it addressed the following research questions:

1 What are the contemporary English language learning motivational states of the students of class 10A1 in DTD PHS?

2 What are the factors that negatively affect their motivation in learning English?

3 How useful is the oral presentation activity to the students’ learning English, as perceived by the students?

4 To what extent does the applied oral presentation activity affect those students’ classroom motivation in learning English in terms of the level of their classroom attention and task participation?

From the findings, the researcher would recommend some pedagogical implications

to applying oral presentation as a strategy for fostering students‟ motivation in learning English

9 Scope of the study

It is said that motivation may greatly affect the efficiency of teaching and learning

of a foreign language In this study, however, the writer does not have an ambition to take all the aspects of the concept into consideration Due to time constraints, the study as an action research, merely examined the English learning motivational state of 28 grade 10 students at DTD PHS before and after the oral presentation training program in their learning process during the second semester of the 2010 – 2011 school year The participants also include the teacher-researcher, who is in charge of teaching the class and plays the role of the researcher at the same time In order to achieve the aims of the study only employed two data collection instruments: survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview Moreover, instead of aiming at oral presentation activity in general, the study only referred to applying group oral presentation activity to reduce student anxiety when using English within a foreign language classroom context

10 Methods of the study

The research approach employed in this study is action research, whose procedures were guided by steps in the action research cycle by David Nunan (1992: 17), with the use

of two data collection instruments, namely student questionnaires and semi-structured interview The action that the study actually took was an oral presentation skill training

program designed for the duration of ten weeks Instead of seven steps of the action proposed by Nunan (1992), four were developed and implemented as follows:

Step 1: Problem identification: The researcher recognized the problem that in her class 10A1 at DTD PHS, during English lessons, the atmosphere was hardly ebullient and

it was easy to see passiveness in the students‟ classroom behaviors

Step 2: Preliminary investigation: Pre-treatment questionnaire was distributed to measure the students‟ English learning motivational state and ask for students‟ preference for classroom activities Then, the survey‟s data was analyzed to work out a remedy plan for improving the situation From the result, it was supposed that the students‟ low level of motivation was resulted from impractical and uninteresting classroom language activities

It was then supposed that applying some new kind of classroom activity like oral presentation could stimulus their better engagement and motivation

Step 3: Intervention: The researcher applied the oral presentation training program

in her class, following Dörnyei (2001b) framework of motivational strategies

Step 4: Evaluation: After the project, post-treatment questionnaire was conducted

to evaluate the impact of the applied activity on students‟ English learning motivation Besides, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather more in-depth data for the survey The analysis of the data brought about findings on the use of oral presentation activity as a motivational strategy in this particular context

11 Significance of the study

First and foremost, the level of class 10A1 students‟ active engagement in English lessons at DTD PHS will hopefully be improved The students can have more participation

in the learning process by making some oral presentations of the topics they are interested

in By this way, the researcher hopes that the students‟ motivation in learning English can

be raised and nurtured Second, the study offers an example of how learner motivation can

be fostered in an EFL context It is expected that the study will contribute an insightful picture of the practice of motivating students to learn English in general

12 Design of the study

This study is composed of three following parts:

Part A: Introduction presents the background, aims, research questions, the

significance, the scope, and the design of the study

Part B: Development is organized around three chapters as follows Chapter 1-

Literature review, conceptualizes the framework of the study through the discussion of

issues and ideas on definitions of motivation, types of motivation and oral presentation

activity Chapter 2 – Research Methodology, presents the context, the methodology used

in this study including the subject, data collection instruments, data collection procedure

and analysis Chapter 3 – Results and Discussions consists of a comprehensive analysis of

the data and a discussion on the findings of this study

Part C: Conclusion, offers a summary of the findings, recommendations,

limitations, and directions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter offers a review of the literature related to motivation in learning English and oral presentation activity In each section, the definition or explanation of the key terms is presented together with the studies worldwide

1.1 An overview of motivation

Most teachers feel that motivation is a key factor in successful language learning, but what is motivation? According to many researchers, there are so many definitions of what motivation is and what is not (William and Burden, 1997;Lambert, 1963; Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Gardner, 1985a; Dörnyei, 1998; Krause, et al, 2003; etc) In the field of second and foreign language acquisition, the concept of motivation came from social psychology Therefore, the first purpose of this literature review is to find the motivation definition and discover the types of motivation in this paper

by both teachers and researchers as one of the key factors that influence the rate and success of second/foreign language (L2/ FL) learning

Another pioneer in this field, Gardner (1985a), defines L2 motivation as “the extent

to which an individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity” (p.10) According to this definition, motivation consists of three components: (1) effort expanded to achieve a goal, (2) a desire

to learn the language, and (3) satisfaction with the task of learning the language (Gardner, 1985:13)

Besides, in his education-oriented theory, Keller (1983) defined motivation as “the choices people make as to what experiences or goals they will approach or avoid and the degree of effort they will exert in that respect” (p.389) In relation to this concept, Keller (1983) also asserted four motivational conditions that teachers should know in order to motivate students to learn They are (1) Interest (Attention) that refers to whether learner‟s curiosity is aroused, (2) Relevance refers to whether the highly desired goal is perceived to

be related to the instruction of the teacher, (3) Expectancy (Confidence) refers to whether the learner perceives the likelihood of success, and (4) Satisfaction (Outcome) refers to whether extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation meet the learners‟ anticipations (Keller, 1998: 395)

Another recent influential researcher of motivation, Zoltan Dörnyei, also gives a comprehensive definition of motivation Motivation, from his process-oriented point of view, is “a process whereby a certain amount of instigation force arises, initiates action, and persists as long as no other force comes into play to weaken it and thereby terminate action or until the planned outcome has been reached” (Dörnyei, 1998: 118)

For this study, 'motivation' is defined in the terms put forward by Crookes and Schmidt (1991: 498-502): interest in and enthusiasm for the materials used in class; persistence with the learning task, as indicated by levels of attention or action for an extended duration; and levels of concentration and enjoyment

In brief, each approach to motivation reflects a different perspective from which second or foreign language learning motivation is conceptualized There are differences in the way different researchers define motivation because they study motivation from the perspectives of different languages in different contexts, with different subjects and different learning conditions However, from whatever angle the researchers look at the concept of motivation in L2/FL learning, most of them have identified three crucial components of motivation: (1) the conscious decision directed to the goal of learning a language, (2) the effort expanded to achieve that goal, and (3) the sustenance of that goal/effort

1.1.2 Classifications of motivation

Gardner (1985; Gardner & Lambert, 1972) proposes that motivation is influenced

by two orientations to language learning An integrative orientation is typical of someone who identifies with and values the target language and community, and who approaches

language study with the intention of entering that community Such an individual is thought to have an internal, more enduring motivation for language study However, Gardner (1985a) claims, “an integrative motive is not the only predictor” (p.83) of achievement in L2 but simply those who are integratively motivated will be more successful in language learning than those who are not so motivated (Gardner, 1985a) Instrumentally motivated learners, on the other hand, are more likely to see language learning as enabling them to do other useful things, but as having no special significance in itself Such learners will be motivated if they see language learning as having beneficial career prospects or something that will enable them to use transactional language with speakers of the foreign language

Gardner and his colleagues found that integrative motivation, which refers to “a sincere and personal interest in the people and culture represented by the other language group” (Lambert, 1974: 98), was a more powerful predictor of linguistic achievement as it was consistently correlated with L2 linguistic achievement Meanwhile, one area where instrumental motivation can prove to be successful is in the situation where the learner is provided with no opportunity to use the target language and therefore, no chance to interact with members of the target group These integrative and instrumental orientations are very famous in the field of motivation; however, Ely (1986) argues that it is not always easy to distinguish between integrative and instrumental motivation Personally, the researcher agrees with Ely that it is not always easy to tell one from the other For example, there are students who do not like to study, but they have to, because they have pressure from their parents, peers, teachers, and so forth This is also a type of motivation which cannot belong

to either of the two motivational orientations

Furthermore, students‟ learning goals also proved to break up into different motivation clusters, the definition of which varies depending upon the socio-cultural setting in which the data are gathered (Clėment et al., 1994; Oxford & Shearin, 1994) Thus, new motivation clusters have been identified such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, orientations for travel and becoming intellectual which are considered specific types of orientations for learning the target language (Clėment et al., 1994; Clėment & Pelletier, 2001; Oxford & Shearin, 1994) Indeed, Deci and Ryan‟s (1985) theory of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and self-determination is one of the most influential theories

in mainstream motivational psychology (Dörnyei, 2001a: 58) Extrinsic motivation, like

instrumental orientation, refers to the desire to learn a second/foreign language because of some pressure or reward from the social environment (such as career advancement or a course credit), internalized reasons for learning an L2 (such as guilt or shame), and/or personal decisions to do so and its value for the chosen goals (Noels et al., 2001) Intrinsically motivated students, like integratively motivated ones, learn an L2 because of the inherent pleasure in doing so; they are expected to maintain their effort and engagement

in the L2 learning process, even when no external rewards are provided (Oxford & Shearin, 1994; Noels et al., 2001)

Although intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are typically considered dimensional constructs, Vallerand (1997) has divided intrinsic motivation into three sub-types and extrinsic motivation into four sub-types Intrinsic motivation is subdivided into intrinsic motivation to know, intrinsic motivation toward achievements, and intrinsic motivation to experience stimulation (Dörnyei, 2001a: 28) Meanwhile, extrinsic motivation is divided into four subtypes, namely external regulation, introjected regulation, identified regulation, and integrated regulation

uni-Of the two motivation types, extrinsic motivation has traditionally been viewed as something that can undermine intrinsic motivation (Dörnyei, 2001a) Some studies have confirmed that students will lose their natural intrinsic motivation in an activity if they have to do it to meet some extrinsic requirement However, as Deci and Ryan (1985) argued, external rewards can be combined with or can even lead to intrinsic motivation if they can enhance the feeling of competence

In conclusion, either integrative and instrumental orientations or intrinsic and extrinsic motivations contribute to the learning of an L2/ FL Nevertheless, as to which one

is more important varies from context to context Likewise, students in different contexts may be motivated to learn an L2/ FL by different orientations This is why the issue is still worth further exploration in situations with different groups of learners

1.1.3 A model of components of foreign language learning motivation

In one attempt to make sense of the different components involved in L2/FL motivation, Dörnyei (1994) proposes a three-level categorization In his model, the language level encompasses various orientations and motives related to aspects of the second language, such as the culture and the community, and the usefulness of the language These will influence the goals learner set and the choices they make Dörnyei‟s

learner‟s level involves individual characteristics that the learners bring to the learning task Key features of this level are in need for achievement and self-confidence Finally, the situation level includes components related to the course, the teacher and the group dynamics (See appendix 1)

Studying this model, William and Burden (1997: 118) affirm that this formulation

is helpful as it highlight a point that motivation is a multifaceted construct which will be affected by situational factors

1.1.4 Classroom behaviors and foreign language learning motivation

Because of the broad spectrum of the various components of motivation, the starting point in any research in this area is the clarification of how foreign language motivation will be specifically targeted Although this may sound obvious, according to Dörnyei (2001a: 186), “the failure to consider this issue explicitly has resulted in a great deal of disappointing results and frustration in past research”

In organizational behavior and management classes, it is believed that one of the best ways to evaluate performance on the job is to develop a set of behavioral indicators of good performance specific for a given job (Dörnyei, 2001a) Behavioral indicators can be evaluated much more objectively than, say, characteristics or traits (e.g., positive outlook, enthusiasm, commitment) Furthermore, they can be assessed at frequent intervals, unlike final output which can only be assessed irregularly

Moreover, it is because motivation – by definition- is related to action and therefore motivational relevance can only be specified in the light of the target behavioral domain It

is also believed that the motivated learners will demonstrate more efforts and persistence in their task behavior Therefore, “if we want to draw more meaningful inferences about the impact of various motives, it is more appropriate to use some sorts of behavioral measure

as the criterion/ dependent variables” (Dörnyei, 2001a:197) As a result, this research selected to target students‟ classroom behaviors as important indicators for their level of engagement, and therefore, of English learning motivation In terms of observable behaviors, two categories will immediately suggest themselves: on-task behaviors and off-task behaviors According to Hopkins (1993: 105), among off-task behaviors are: “1 Talking not related to task assigned; 2 Daydreaming; 3 Working at other tasks; 4 Physically bothering other students” and so on Meanwhile, Morgan (2008) tried to identify on-task behaviors, such as: “listening to instructions; doing what the teacher

instructed; making eye contact with the task or teacher when either is required; seeking help in the proper manner (e.g., raising hand); being in the proper geographical location (e.g., in seat when seat work is required)” (p.85)

Consequently, to provide appropriate data, this study investigated levels of students‟ motivation by asking the students about their classroom behaviors Classroom attention and task participation including on-task and off-task behaviors in their English classroom were observable indicators that were selected to be criteria for the questionnaire design process

1.1.5 Factors demotivating foreign language learning

There have been some studies on the factors affecting students‟ motivation in learning a foreign language so far Among those are two L2 motivation frameworks that refer to some factors such as language level, learner level, learning situation level (Dörnyei, 2001a) and internal and external factors (Williams and Burnden, 1997)

Regarding Dörnyei‟s model, the Language Level addresses the social side of L2 motivation, subsuming Gardner's Integrative and Instrumental concepts The Learner Level

represents individual characteristics of the learner, and concerns internal desire for

achievement and issues related to self confidence The Learning Situation Level is associated with classroom specific motivational factors: Course-specific, Teacher-specific, and Group-specific motivational components Although researchers have had some

different views in this issue, they all have come to an agreement with a list of common factors affecting students‟ motivation These factors can be divided into three groups: teacher‟s factors, students‟ factors and learning condition factors

However, a feature shared in most FL classrooms where the language in question is

a required subject, is the problem of demotivation The following behaviors described by Chambers (1993: 13) will be familiar to many foreign language teachers, including the author of this study: “poor concentration; lack of belief in own capabilities; no effort made

to learn; “What‟s the use?” syndrome; negative or nil respond to praise‟ lethargy; lack of cooperation; disruptive; distracted; distracts other students; produces little or no home work; fail to bring material lessons; claims to have lost materials”

In fact, the weakness of English language learners in general has been attributed to various factors such as teaching methodology, lack of the target language environment, and the learners‟ demotivation Therefore, it is important for the teachers at least to be aware of

the possible factors that may be able to develop strategies to help solve the problems that arise relating to students‟ motivation and desire to learn English as an FL

Much research has been conducted on language learning motivation but less on the demotivation factors in learning an L2 and a few studies address them Dörnyei & Otto (1998) do not perceive motivation or demotivation as a static phenomenon On the contrary, they are considered as dynamic, increasing and declining, affecting language achievement and being affected by the surrounding learning context The demotivated learner is defined by Dornyei as the one who is originally motivated and lost his/ her motivation because of negative external factors Some studies have shown relatedness between demotivation and the learning context such as classroom environment, teaching methods and curricula (Gardner, 1985a; Skehan, 1991; Sivan, 1986)

Chambers (1993) (in Dörnyei, 2001a) investigated demotivation in language learning in four schools in the UK The study was conducted on the school students and their teachers The results showed that students placed most blame on the teachers and learning materials Meanwhile, the teachers claimed that the students‟ motivation caused

by psychological, social and attitudinal reasons

Keblawi (2005) conducted a study to explore the factors affecting negatively learning English in Palestine high schools The data revealed that English teachers were referred to directly or indirectly as demotivators by almost half of the respondents Interestingly, the study revealed that about half of the respondents referred to aspects of English (grammar, vocabulary) as main demotivators Furthermore, depending on the results of a study conducted on secondary students in Budapest who were identified as demotivated, Dörnyei (2001a) categorized nine demotivating factors in order of most common to least: a) the teacher – personality, commitment, competence, teaching method; b) Inadequate school facilities – group is too big or not the right level; frequent change of teachers; c) Reduced self-confidence – experience of failure or lack of success; d) Negative attitude towards the L2; e) compulsory nature of L2 study; f) Interference of another foreign language being studied; g) negative attitude towards L2 community; h) attitude of groups members; i) Course book

Generally, most studies conducted in the field of motivation and demotivation as its flip side found out that the personality of the teacher, teaching methods, learning context in addition to the learners‟ attitude towards the language could play a vital role in the

students‟ motivation or demotivation toward learning languages As a part of this research, the factors negatively affecting students‟ motivation, whose criterion were based on the above-mentioned studies, would be investigated through a multiple choice item in the pre- treatment questionnaire

1.2 Dornyei’s framework for motivational strategies

Motivational strategies refer to (a) instructional interventions applied by the teacher

to elicit and stimulate student motivation and (b) self-regulating strategies that are used purposefully by individual students to manage the level of their own motivation; the motivational strategies discussed in this article belong to type (a) The central question in designing a framework of motivational strategies is to decide how to organize them into separate phases The most systematic attempt to date to produce such taxonomy was made

by Dörnyei (2001b), who proposed a parsimonious system of four main dimensions: The key units of the taxonomy are as follows:

 Creating basic motivational conditions by establishing a good teacher student rapport,

creating a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere, and generating a cohesive learner group with appropriate group norms

 Generating initial motivation, that is, “whetting the students‟ appetite” by using

strategies designed to (a) increase the learners‟ expectancy of success and (b) develop positive attitudes toward the language course and language learning in general

 Maintaining and protecting motivation by promoting situation-specific task motivation

(e.g., through the use of stimulating, enjoyable, and relevant tasks), providing learners with experiences of success, allowing them to maintain a positive social image even during the often face-threatening task of having to communicate with a severely limited language code, and promoting learner autonomy

 Encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation by promoting adaptive attributions,

providing effective and encouraging feedback, increasing learner satisfaction, and offering grades in a motivational manner

This motivational strategies framework served as background to develop the application of oral presentation activity in this study so as to motivate student to learn English

1.3 An overview of oral presentation activity in a foreign language class

In general, motivation is the "neglected heart" of our understanding of how to design instruction (Keller, 1983, quoted in Dörnyei, 2001b: 116) Many teachers believe

that by sticking to the language materials and trying to discipline their refractory students, they will manage to create a classroom environment that will be conducive to learning Nevertheless, these teachers seem to lose sight of the fact that, unless they accept their students' personalities and work on those minute details that constitute their social and psychological make-up, they will fail to motivate them Learning a foreign language is different to learning other subjects Therefore, language teaching should take account of a variety of factors that are likely to promote, or even militate against, success Language is part of one's identity and is used to convey this identity to others As a result, foreign language learning has a significant impact on the social being of the learner, since it involves the adoption of new social and cultural behaviours and ways of thinking Among many classroom activities, oral presentation is likely to be the one that is able to compensate for such shortage in teacher‟s instruction in order to reinforce each learner‟s well-rounded language skill

1.3.1 Definitions of oral presentation

Oral presentation skills are important in nearly every career Scientists and engineers present at conferences, to students, to their peers, etc Administrators and managers may give talks to committees about their work, or to groups of people in training As for students, presentation skills can lead to new opportunities in employment and in education

Generally, presentation is defined in the 7th edition of Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (2005:1190) as “an act of showing something or of giving something to somebody” or “a meeting at which something, especially a new product or idea, or piece of work is shown to a group of people” Therefore, oral presentations or speeches are not limited to the stage, or for large audiences, but are also the means by which one can communicate daily in a workplace, teach in the classroom, give opinions and express oneself in a situation that requires explanations in clear and precise speech

However, the concept has far narrower sense, which this research would like to refer to By presentation, this study means: “a short talk by one person to a group of people introducing and describing a particular subject” (Essberger, 1998) In some few studies on oral presentation, this kind of activity is associated with expressing some ideas According

to Jing (2009: iii), “Oral presentation is an important skill to convey one‟s ideas in communication.” Kaul (2005: 41) also asserts, “Presentations are ideas, concepts or issues

that are talked about or shared with a group of people or an audience”

Generally, a presentation is a formal talk to one or more people that "presents" ideas or information in a clear, structured way Oral presentation is a means to show knowledge, give a lecture, be tested in a classroom, and build confidence to speak to an

audience A presentation consists of four basic elements: the presenter, the audience, the message and the tools

1.3.2 Types of oral presentations

There are many ways of classifying types of presentation Some people may define them basing on the purposes (Iftimie & Chang, 2008) Some may define them basing on the manners of delivery However, the most common types of presentation are suggested

by Whatley (2001) as follows:

Firstly, he mentions informative presentation Informative presentation brings the

audience up to date on projects or events, telling how things are going, or provides information about products and procedures, rules and regulations, and operations, etc This

is the type that the researcher applied in the intervention step of this current study

The second type of presentation is instructional The purpose in an instructional

presentation is to give specific directions or orders In an instructional presentation, the listeners should come away with new knowledge or a new skill

Another presentation is arousing The purpose in an arousing presentation is to

make people think about a certain problem or situation This presentation arouses the audience's emotions and intellect so that they will be receptive to presenter‟s point of view

Persuasive is the next type of presentation The purpose in a persuasive

presentation is to convince listeners to accept proposal A convincing persuasive presentation offers a solution to a controversy, dispute, or problem

Finally, it is a decision-making presentation The purpose in a decision-making

presentation is to move audience to take the presenter‟s suggested action A making presentation presents ideas, suggestions, and arguments strongly enough to persuade an audience to carry out presenter‟s requests A decision-making presentation must tell the audience what to do and how to do it

decision-In short, there are many types of presentation but each type requires a specific organization technique to assure it is understood and remembered by the audience

1.3.3 Oral Presentations in EFL classroom settings

It is well known that giving oral presentations in English is not a simple matter of learning language and following instructions; rather, it is a skill requiring complex sociolinguistic as well as cognitive understandings, especially for learners of English as a Foreign Language

Teaching oral presentation skills is usually based on conventionally accepted criteria First, students must obviously have command of their content material (field knowledge), and be able to organize their ideas in an appropriately logical sequence (text structure) They also need an adequate level of grammatical competence, and the ability to deliver their talk in a presentation style appropriate for English (paying attention to eye contact, voice quality, body language and so on)

Presentation skills are extremely useful both in and outside the classroom 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 And in the world of work, a confident presenter is able to inform and persuade colleagues effectively 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 book, pair and group work The audience can also be set a task, for example, making a set of questions to answer on the presentation, or filling in a peer evaluation sheet, which is a way of getting students to listen to each other (Hayton, 2005)

However, it is obvious that some students may dislike the activity, especially when they have to prepare for their presentations This is caused by consumption of time, problems with using a PowerPoint software, and deprivation of leisure In contrast, after the presentations, haft of students have positive feelings of success, and the two thirds of relief, satisfaction and pleasure Moreover, good practice in teaching presentations includes three key points; dealing with anxiety and fear of speaking, guiding learners in preparation and performance stages, and delivering feedback after performance

Even for native speakers, the delivery of an oral presentation can be a source of extreme anxiety As King (2002) notes, particularly in the Japanese/Asian EFL context, oral presentations are usually a face-threatening activity Therefore it is the teacher‟s responsibility to properly organize and guide the activity of oral presentations so that learners might be equipped with life-long skills that will be beneficial in a variety of contexts The following suggestions, which are taken from Ronald L Partin‟s study (2009: 223), might be adapted to improve students‟ presentation

 To reduce anxiety of talking in front of the group, begin with safe topics the students know well Themes such as “My dream vacation” or “My favorite leisure activity” tap a student‟s experiences

 Letting two or more students do a presentation together provokes less anxiety for the presenters

 Have students read magazine articles together related to an assigned subject area The student should take notes summarizing the key points of the articles and prepare a four to five-minute talk on what they have got

 In most instances, individual parts should be limited for less than 10 minutes Few students possess the skills and enthusiasm to hold their listeners‟ attention longer Generally, the presentation assignment has two major purposes: first, it provides a framework for students to apply the literacy skills they are learning in an environment that encourages interaction with others Second, it provides opportunities for students to create and share their personal interpretations of text with an audience In our classrooms, we refer to the application of students‟ English literacy skills as a "presentation" to improve their active engagement and motivation in learning the English subject

1.3.4 Advantages and disadvantages of oral presentation activity

Advantages and disadvantages of applying oral presentation activity in classroom can be found in different pieces of research (see Ali Said Al-Issa, 2010; Josef Essberger, 1998; Marmienė, 2006) Particularly, oral presentation activity brings about a number of benefits to language learning students as can befound in Marmienė (2006):

 Increased motivation - learners become personally involved in the presentation

 All four skills, i.e speaking, listening, reading and writing are integrated:

Speaking: presenting information, describing graphs, pictures in slides,

responding to feedback; Listening: critical listening for details, asking for

clarification; Reading: skimming and scanning for information, reading for detail; Writing: reformulating texts, making and taking notes, writing reviews

 Autonomous learning is promoted as learners become more responsible for their own learning

 There are learning outcomes – learners have an end product

 Tasks are authentic and therefore the language input is more authentic

 Interpersonal relations are developed through working as a group

 Content and methodology can be decided between the learners and the teacher and within the group, so the task is more learner-centered

 A break from routine and the chance to do something different

 A context is established which balances the need for fluency and accuracy

 The learners‟ awareness of non-verbal communication is raised and their use of natural language is improved

However, every coin has two sides Marmienė (2006) outlines some disadvantages of presentations The first difficulty is “the choice of the material” Nowadays, there are many sources where information can be taken However, not all

of them are accurate and authentic Therefore, one of the most important skills to develop is that of effective searching Second, students often overuse PowerPoint or visual aids They use too many pictures and illustrations or show too many words on the screen As a result, all they have to do is just to read everything on the screen It makes the audience annoyed and they bored with their presentation In the third place, making presentation is time-consuming both at home and in class Last but far from the least, one disadvantage of applying presentation in classroom is that the effect of

it maybe not as expected because the presenter has nothing to say or the audience does not listen to the presenter

All in all, applying oral presentation in EFL context has many advantages as well as disadvantages Since the improvement of oral presentation requires both skills and practice, it is suggested that both teachers and students should raise the awareness of importance of developing the skill, learn the presentation skills, increase the opportunities for practice, and teachers should implement oral presentation effectively in ESL classrooms

1.3.5 Stages of training oral presentation skill

There are different stages in making a good presentation with different skills required, and the teacher is supposed to carefully facilitate his/ her students with the skills The following procedures, which were found in Marmienė (2006), were actually what the researcher put into practice in her oral presentation training program:

Preparation stage: Students get an idea of what presentations are and what they

should be aiming to produce Careful and thorough preparation is the key to a successful presentation (Seely 2000: 65) The learners are asked to begin their research by brainstorming everything they know about the topic, to make notes, draw mind maps, use whatever technique they find best for developing lots of information After explaining the

idea behind the presentation learners are asked to propose a scheme of work: what they want to include in the presentation, who will be responsible for a particular issue, an idea

of the time it will take to produce each part of the project, any material or resources they

might need The teacher would then sit down with each group for ten minutes to discuss

their proposals At this point the evaluation and assessment procedures would also be explained

The stage of material collection and arrangements is the point at which students search the web for information, select it, generate ideas, discuss them in groups, and make short personal notes and appropriate slides Once they have made their notes, they begin to sort them into must, should, and could refer back to the objective to help at this stage Learners are asked to contact the teacher via e-mail, negotiate the choice of the material and prepare Power Point variant for making a presentation in front of the audience Introducing and reviewing structures such as imperatives, conditionals and passive voice, conversion of written language into spoken is needed at this stage

Rehearsal stage: Once students have prepared presentations, they must rehearse

them They need to structure the activity in advance, to prepare an outline of it and practise the whole presentation at home They can also be asked to practise by first giving a three minute presentation

Delivery stage: The students present information to the audience and they need to

use not only their speaking skills but their communicative skills as well

Follow-up stage: The students ask questions and share information about the

problems they had during the performance, and discuss the problems they might have had and what needs to be improved Later students produce short written reviews of the presentations In that way, oral presentations can be successfully transformed into written assignments

The stage of evaluation and assessment Self- and peer- evaluation of the performance has a great impact on the learning process and it can be a part of the assessment of the entire presentation This enables students to note what they have learned about the presentations, i.e to revise the topic they have heard and to review lexis As with any piece of work a presentation needs to be acknowledged and evaluated It is not enough

to just say „that is great‟ after all the work learners have put in

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter is devoted to presenting the methodology of the current research, including the research design, the participants, the data collection instruments and procedure, and data analysis

2 1 The background of the study

2.1.1 The school context

The study was carried out at Doan Thi Diem Private High School (DTD PHS) where English is a compulsory and very high-appreciated subject, during the second semester of the school year 2010 – 2011 This school, together with Doan Thi Diem Primary and Secondary schools, located in My Dinh area in Tu Liem district of Hanoi, constitutes Doan Thi Diem private school system The schools are well-known for its modern facilities and friendly educational environments Among the three, DTD PHS is the youngest one that was established in 2008 Consequently, its scale, including 15 classes

of three grades 10, 11 and 12, is far smaller than those of its two partners‟ However, the school also invests much in its students‟ learning process in general and particularly in English language learning Each and every classroom is equipped with a big well-equipped with a computer, a big TV set connected to the computer, two air-conditioners and other necessary furniture of a modern one There are also four computer rooms and different laboratories for students to do experiments The facilities enable students here to access the most modern learning and teaching methods

2.1.2 Current learning and teaching of English at DTD PHS

Regarding English language teaching, this private educational system pays much attention to the language ability of its students The three schools spend a great deal of school time in the subject and even organize cooperated educational programs to prepare for the English competence of the students who want to study abroad Therefore, the high school, as well as the other two, is known as an innovative educational institution in teaching English Normally at DTD PHS, students in each class have seven periods learning English instead of only three with the English textbooks every week as proposed

by the Ministry‟s curriculum One of the seven periods is taught by foreign teachers, focusing on the students‟ speaking and listening skills Three among the rest six periods covered by Vietnamese teachers are spent on the English textbooks and the others help students to revise and improve their vocabulary, grammar, language skills and preparation

for tests Therefore, applying a new approach as oral presentation to the English learning and teaching here is absolutely feasible in terms of time and facilities

2.1.3 Identification of the problem

In the 2010-2011 school year, I was appointed to teach English in class 10A1 in DTD PHS During the first semester, the students showed a lack of interest in interacting with the teacher in class The atmosphere of the class was quite dull because of the students‟ passiveness This was especially true when the teacher sought interaction in a teacher-class dialog, such as asking questions to the class as a whole, expecting at least one student to respond In fact, only the minority of the students show great interests in

responding teacher‟s questions Many others fail to engage in their classroom activities in

English lessons even when they can perform really well if they try Some are too shy, some show little interest in paying attention to what the teacher says and doing exercises but talk freely about some private issues in Vietnamese Frequently, there was homework undone and low level of student engagement in the lessons, even in games I tried to apply some classroom disciplines to make them more active However, it seemed to be not very effective as expected Then, I decided to investigate the situation by having an open talk with the whole class The talk turned out to be a lively discussion in which my students expressed their feelings about learning English Most of them shared the view that learning English with merely the textbook was humdrum and lack of challenges Some students even have the keys of most of the exercises in the textbook “English 10” because they got the books from some older students Regarding revision lessons, the students complained about too many grammatical rules and written exercises that took most of their time off of practicing communicative skills In order to improve the situation, further investigation in the situation was needed and then resulted in a remedy plan Considering that the class wants more challenging tasks as well as more speaking and listening practice, the first thought that came to my mind then was let them prepare some oral presentations on their own That idea was then further clarified into two tasks First, I needed to equip the students with understanding of oral presentation‟s role in language learning and its benefits

to their social lives in the future Second, I wanted to teach them some oral presentation strategies that might help them to deliver a talk effectively on their own To fulfill these tasks, I decided to carry out an oral presentation training program as an action research with my students

2.2 Participants

The participants of the action research included 28 students from class 10A1 at DTD PHS and I myself as the teacher-researcher

Among five grade 10 classes in 2010-2011 school year, class 10A1 was constituted

by 28 students, 16 males and 14 females who had the highest scores in the high school entrance examination which only focused on Mathematics and Vietnamese Literature The students do not have similar backgrounds, some of them come from Hanoi, some just moved to this city before this school year Besides, about half of those students learned at either DTD primary or secondary schools or both and they had been exposed to natural English for years The others coming from other secondary schools or even other provinces, where English was not as highly appreciated as in DTD private educational system, were not used to using English to communicate despite their sound ability in doing English grammatical exercises Therefore, they are at different levels of English proficiency, ranging from elementary to intermediate, although they all have learnt English for five or six years At the time of the study, they were in the first term of the school year 2010- 2011

Regarding the researcher, I have been working at DTD PHS for two years This school year, I was not only the teacher of English in class 10A1 but also their form teacher

In this action research, I was the practitioner and the researcher at the same time I was responsible for the design and implementation of the oral presentation training program, and later collecting and analyzing the data

2.3 Instruments of data collection

In his study, Dörnyei (2001a) suggested that combination quantitative and qualitative methods have a lot of potential for L2 motivation research He claimed that “a combination of qualitative and quantitative design might bring out the best of both approaches while neutralizing the shortcomings and biases inherent in each paradigm” (p.242) Therefore, in this paper, the mixed method research design was adapted with the use of two survey questionnaires and semi-structured interview

2.3.1 Description of the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires

Two sets of questionnaires were piloted with ten students selected randomly from other classes to check for the wording Then, changes were made in the questionnaires until there were satisfactory versions

The first questionnaire (see Appendix 2 for the English and Vietnamese versions of the questionnaire), namely “English lessons and me”, was designed to target at the 28 students‟ contemporary motivational state The final version of the questionnaire included

24 items rated on a 5-point scale, anchored at 1 (definitely not true) and 5 (totally true)

Most items were adapted from an existing scale by Guilloteaux (2007: 249) and some were newly written to assess the students‟ students‟ attitude toward learning English (8

questions), their linguistic self-confidence (seven questions), and their classroom behaviors

during English lessons (seven questions) The last two items are multiple choice questions which ask for students‟ perception of demotivating factors affecting their learning English and their preference among different classroom activities that can be applied as motivational strategies It was conducted at the beginning phase of the action research for statistic data of the preliminary investigation

The post-treatment questionnaire, titled: “Oral presentation and me” (Appendix 4), focused on two aspects: the students‟ perceptions of oral presentation‟s benefits (13

questions, adapted from Arjpru: 2007) and their motivational state after taking part in this

activity (16 questions adapted from Guilloteaux: 2007)

Both of the questionnaires were translated into Vietnamese to avoid any possible misunderstanding from the respondents before being conducted

After reversing the scores of negatively worded items in both sets of questions, multi-item scale scores (using the mean) were calculated in terms of mean scores and compared with each other in corresponding parts

2.3.2 Semi-structured interview

In this study, interviews were carried out in the week after the implementation of the post- treatment questionnaire with three participants who had observable changes in their attitude and behaviors in learning English The aim of the researcher for the interviews is to get better insights into the research questions and to discuss for further information about the items raised in the questionnaires The interviewees were asked four questions (Appendix 6), which were prepared in advance about the students‟ perception of the oral presentation activity and their motivational state after involving in the activity Like the questionnaires, interviews were carried out in Vietnamese for avoiding any unexpected misunderstanding between the interviewer and interviewee With the researcher‟s explanation of the questions and clarifying unclear answers, each interview lasted about 10 - 15 minutes

2.4 Implementation of the action research

The research was carried out to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the contemporary English language learning motivational states of students of class 10A1 in DTD PHS?

2 What are the factors that negatively affect their motivation in learning English?

3 How useful is the oral presentation activity to the students’ learning English, as perceived by the students?

4 To what extent does the applied oral presentation activity affect those students’ classroom motivation in learning English in terms of the level of their classroom attention and task participation?

In order to answer these research questions, an oral presentation training program was conducted in an action research because of several reasons

2.4.1 Rationale for the use of an action research

First, this research was initiated in order to solve the problem of students‟ passiveness in learning English a class context Meanwhile, Carr and Kemmis (1983) states that “action research is a form of self-reflective inquiry that can be utilized by teachers in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practice, their understanding of these practices and the situations in which these practices are carried out” Therefore, the problem-focused nature of action-research really suits that purpose

Second, this study was not intended to make a generalization but to offer an insightful picture of the teacher - researcher‟s own teaching practice with a class of 28 students Therefore, action research was chosen because “it is very focused on individual

or small-group professional practice and is not so concerned with making general statements” (Wallace, 1998: 18) In other words, the characteristic of being context-specific is suitable for the current study As Cohen and Manion (1985) point out, action research is first and foremost situational, being concerned with the identification and solution of problems in a specific context

Last but not least, action research was the most suitable research methodology for the current study because it could be carried out concurrently with the teacher-researcher‟s teaching The researcher herself is a teacher, so the research must not interfere with or disrupt her teaching job

2.4.2 The action procedures

The action was conducted during ten weeks of the second semester of school year 2010-2011 Every week, the researcher spent two revision periods on the training program Then, adapting steps in Nunan‟s action research cycle (1992: 17), the action was developed

in five steps: 1 Problem identification; 2 Preliminary investigation; 3 Intervention; 4

Evaluation Especially, the step 4: Intervention, following Dornyei and Otto‟s (1998)

framework of motivational strategies, was conducted in three phases

Step 1 Week 0: The researcher recognized the problem that in her class 10A1 at

DTD PHS, during English lessons, the atmosphere was hardly ebullient and it was easy to see passiveness in the students‟ classroom behaviors

Step 2

Week 1:

Pre-treatment questionnaire was distributed to measure the students‟ English learning motivational state and ask for students‟ preference for classroom activities Then, the survey‟s data was analyzed to work out a remedy plan for improving the situation The teacher and her students also had some informal talks about different things including difficulties in learning English, during which they freely shared their experiences in order to create friendly

atmosphere

It was supposed that the students‟ low level of motivation was resulted from impractical and uninteresting classroom language activities It was then supposed that applying some new kind of classroom activity like oral

presentation could stimulus their better engagement and motivation

Step 3

The researcher applied the oral presentation training program in her class, following Dornyei and Otto‟s (1998) framework of motivational strategies

Phase one: Creating basic motivational condition

Week 2: Initially, the students were explicitly introduced to the oral

presentation training program so that they were well aware of what they were expected to do during the second semester of the school-year This included description of the purpose, the guidelines and the procedures of the program (See appendix 8 for the handouts) It was also made clear to the students that their participation in the project was compulsory, and their products would be marked for 20 percent of their total mark in the second semester

To make them less worried, they were allowed to conduct their presentations

in groups Therefore, seven groups were formed basing on the student‟s preference for their partners Every member of each group was encouraged to make their own part in the group‟s presentation

The group was then asked to choose their own tentative topics that they were going to present It was advised that each group should choose the topic of interest to themselves and their classmates in order to attract their target audience‟s attention They were allowed to have more discussion at home and inform the teacher about their ultimate decision of what to be presented in the next class contact

Week 3: Details in expected skills were expressed in this week The

students would be trained how to search for information from Google, process the information, organize their ideas logically, choose visual aids and make an effective powerpoint presentations They would also be equipped with presenting language (see the lesson plan in Appendix 7 and Handout 3) to make their presentations sound more professional Besides, the students were also shown some video clips on bad presentations to figure out a clearer image of a good presentation

At this time, the class was also instructed to make peer-evaluation for their friends‟ presentations in a structured checklist (see Handout 6 in Appendix 8) Teacher‟s evaluation sheet was sent to each group to help them have clear understanding about the teacher‟s expectation of their presentation

Then, each group registered their presentation topics with the teacher Topics that the students chose were various and rather wide However, after the teacher instructed them to narrow down, they had proper ones to present within their ability and time allowed

Phase two: Generating initial motivation

Week 4-5: Students prepared their speech in two weeks from the

assigning date Their process of preparation would be closely supervised by the teacher via email and during class contact so that they would be helped to

handle every problem encountered Thus, during this period, they were required

to send the teacher their outlines; scripts and powerpoint slides in turn by email for the teacher‟s correction, advice and approval Moreover, they were also

reminded about using the guidelines and asking for teacher‟s help when necessary The activity‟s goal of student ability to express their ideas or opinion was emphasized again Appropriate compliments were used to stimulus more and more efforts from the students

Phase three: Maintaining and protecting motivation

Week 6-7: Four periods were spared for the delivery of seven groups‟

first presentations in these two weeks This stage was considered a chance for the students to experience success During each performance, the audience was asked to complete the peer-evaluation checklist while the teacher made assessments by filling in the evaluation sheet for group (Handout 5 in Appendix 8) After the delivery, each presentation would receive both oral and written feedbacks with proper appreciation from the teacher and friends to help the presenters gain more confidence for the next performance Then, each group was required to write a short report on their perceptions of what they had experienced in the presentation activity

Phase four: Encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation

Week 8: The teacher let the students shared their own experiences in

preparing and delivering their presentations in front of the class She later summarized the strong and weak points of the activity and announced students‟ grades All of the students‟ contributions to the activity were appreciated and motivationally graded Especially, those who had made great efforts in making their presentations would be praised and regarded as shining examples of

having overcome their anxiety of making mistakes

Step 4

Week 9 - 10: After the program, the post-treatment questionnaire was

distributed to evaluate the impact of the applied activity on students‟ English learning motivation Besides, three semi-structured interviews were conducted

to gather more in-depth data for the survey The analysis of the data brought about findings on the use of oral presentation activity as a motivational strategy

in this particular context

2.5 Data collection procedures

As already mentioned, this action research was divided into five steps and carried out during the second term of school year 2010 -2011 Data was collected in step 2 and step 5 among the five of the action research to handle the four research questions

Firstly, the preliminary investigation by the pre-treatment questionnaire into students‟ current English learning motivational state and their opinions about the possible activities to be applied focused on answering research question 1 and 2 Meanwhile, in step

5, the evaluation of the intervention by post-treatment questionnaire and three interviews which measured students‟ level of motivation before and after the training program was conducted to respond to research question 3-4 Then, all the data from the post questionnaire and the interviews were gathered and analyzed

2.6 Data analysis procedures

In this study, the data were calculated by means of Microsoft Excel application The interpretation of the data was based mainly on the computationn of the percentage, the frequency and the mean

The results of the surveys were computed in terms of mean, standard deviation (SD), to examine the students‟ levels of motivation to learn English Items 2-3, 14-16; 22;

24 of the first questionnaire; items 1-3; 12-14; 20-21; 26; 28 of the second which expressed negative attitudes or behaviors towards learning English had values assigned to their alternatives reversed Namely, to these items, the response „definitely not true‟ got a value

of 5 instead of 1, the response „absolutely true‟ got a value of 1 instead of 5, and so on After reversing the negative items, the data from the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires showed dimensions of the students‟ actual attitudes to presentation activity; their level of motivation before and after the project To assess the motivational level, mean score of each item was interpreted based on the motivational level (M level) outlined

in Table 1 The higher mean score of each item indicates higher motivational level while the lower score signifies lower motivational level

Table 1: Interpretation of score results in terms of motivation level (Best, 1981)

Scale Mean Range Motivational levels Score range

1 Definitely not true Lowest 1.00 – 1.49

To answer the research questions more thoroughly, the data from interviews were added to work out the students‟ perception of oral presentation and their changes in English learning classroom motivated behaviors

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents an analysis of and discussion on the data collected from the pre-treatment and post-treatment questionnaires and the interviews by dealing with research questions in turns

As an instrument to measure students‟ level of current motivation, the pre-treatment questionnaire consists of three sections assessing different components of student motivation The implementation of the pre-questionnaire aimed at answering two research questions:

RQ 1: What are the contemporary English language learning motivational states of the students of class 10A1 in DTD PHS?

RQ 2: What are the factors that negatively affect their motivation in learning English?

3.1 Research question 1: The students’ motivational state

In order to answer the research question 1, data from the three first sections of the pre-treatment questionnaire (from question 1 to 22) were analyzed

3.1.1 Attitudes toward learning English (ALE)

The overall mean score and other descriptive statistics of the first section, which was interested in what the students‟ opinions were about learning English subject, are

shown in table 2:

Overall mean SD Median Mode Range M level

Table 2: Overall descriptive statistics of the 8 items on ALE (N = 28)

As can be seen from the table, with the mean score of 2.43, it is obvious that the students‟ motivation were quite low Especially, 9 out of 28 students gave scale 1, which

expressed definite disagreement on the reversed item 3 (Learning English at school is not a burden for me) Figure 1 illustrates the result of this item What is more, the lowest mean

score, of only 1.64, was found in item 7, asking if tasks in the English textbook were interesting enough The variable scales of this item only ranged from 1 to 3, with the highest frequency of the lowest score: 1 (see Appendix 3 for detailed statistics), indicates that the tasks designed in the textbook were not enjoyed by the students Concerning students‟ effort in learning the subject, only 4 students, equal to only 14%, affirmed that they put a lot of effort in doing English exercises

Among eight questions, only questions 4 and 5 with the mean scores of slightly above 2.50 show the students‟ moderate motivation in learning English because of their teacher or its usefulness in the future In short, with the overall mean score of 2.43, it can

be concluded that most of the students had quite low motivation in what they were doing in English subject at that time.

3.1.3 The linguistic self-confidence

Table 3 displays the overall descriptive statistics of the items on student linguistic self-confidence In terms of the students‟ current perception of their success in learning English, it can be referred from the overall mean score of 3.2 that they did have certain belief

in their ability to be successful in the subject

Table 3: Overall descriptive statistics of the 7 items on the linguistic self-confidence (N = 28)

Particularly, at item 12, most of the students expressed their high confidence in understanding the lessons and the teacher‟s requirements (mean = 3.75 – high motivation) Also, they showed their strong desire for new and more challenging activities during the lessons in responding to item 13 (mean = 3.79) This confirmed the opinion the teacher got from the students in their informal talk before this preliminary investigation, which urged the teacher to find an appropriate activity catering for the students‟ need Besides, it is also important to notice that most of the students were not afraid of being laughed at by their classmates (item 15), which is a gateway for a new speaking-related activity for them

3.1.4 C lassroom behaviors

Investigating the students‟ behaviors during English lessons, which is one indicator

of their learning motivation, this section‟s results, which are shown in table 4, revealed that

those students were low motivated by the current classroom activities because of their overall mean score, namely 2.23

Table 4: Overall descriptive statistics of the 7 items on c lassroom behaviors (N = 28)

With the lowest mean scores (1.82 and 2.07) in comparison with the others, the results of items 17 and 20 express the low level of the students‟ attention during their lessons (see appendix 3 for details) What is more, very few students were active in the lessons by trying to make English more interesting in their mind because only 4 out of 28 gave mark 4-5 to item 18 and only one student often volunteered (item 19) to do required tasks in front of the class Figure 2 illustrates the result of item 19:

The only item that indicates student moderate motivation is question 22, which shows that they were rather patient to deal with challenging tasks

To sum up, the questionnaire respondents had rather low motivation in learning English as a subject The low level was most clearly expressed by student classroom behaviors

3.2 Research question 2: Demotivating factors to the students’ learning English

Responding to question 23 of the pre-treatment questionnaire (See appendix 2), the students were asked to choose three among 13 demotivating factors The results revealed that learning situation factors were the most negatively influential ones to those students‟ English learning motivation

As the figure 3 shows, it can be implied from the number of 27.38% students choosing option “j” that there is a lack of practical and enjoyable classroom activities for the students to practice using English With 21.43% responding to the factor of textbook, they meant merely using it during class time was boring

Figure 3: Demotivating factors (N=84)

Both of the results also indicate that the students longed for the teacher‟s change in organizing classroom activities so that they can have more chance to practice their

listening and speaking skills in natural ways and authentic contexts

In contrast to the above-mentioned learning situation factors, the teacher related factors seem to be reported as very low demotivating ones in this context with the percentage of 1.19% to 3.57% Meanwhile, several learner related factors such as: the worry of making mistakes or disruptive classmates caused a quite level of discouragement

to the students to learn English

As the last question in the pre-treatment, item 24 asked for the students‟ suggestions for some classroom activities that may be applied to improve the situation Before responding to this item, all the students were briefly explained what each suggested activity was and how they would be organized in our classroom Figure 4 presents the

percentage of students selecting their preferred activities:

Among the suggested activities in the questionnaire, it can be seen from figure 4 that most of the students preferred oral presentation as the new activity with the highest number of students choosing it: 11, equally to 39.29% in comparison with 3-5 of other activities Because of this result, oral presentation was selected as a motivating activity to encourage the students to participate more actively in their learning process

3.3 Research question 3: Students’ evaluation of the oral presentation activity (OPA)’s usefulness

Addressing research question 3, the results of the first section in the post-treatment questionnaire revealed that overall, the students had highly appreciated the effectiveness

of OPA This is proved by the overall high mean score of 3.95 and almost of the variables

is from 2 to 5 or even from 3 to 5 Low standard deviations of less than 1 also indicate that the respondent group is rather homogeneous in the subject (See table 5 and appendix 5)

Table 5: Overall descriptive statistics of the 13 items on students‟ evaluation of OPA

Concerning the usefulness of the applied activity to the students‟ learning English,

it is obvious that the students appreciated the effectiveness of the oral presentation in their practising the language skills Particularly, 11 and 12 out of 28 students expressed their absolute agreement on items 7, 8, about OPA‟s providing them more chances to practice English and learn some social rules of the language use by giving mark 5 Furthermore, item 9, concerning student self-confidence in using English, received the range of scale from 3 to 5, together with the mean score of 4.18, which corresponds to a high level of motivation Figure 5 displays the result of this question:

From the figure, it can be inferred that the self-confidence in using English for communication was increased in almost all the students, namely 20, after the OPA

More importantly, a lot of students agreed that the activity has good effects on their perception of English subject as 16 of them gave mark 4-5 to item 4 and 9, doing the same thing to item 10 (see appendix 5 for details) OPA‟s usefulness in helping the students improve their reading, listening and speaking skills or vocabulary and expressions was also affirmed by the majority of those respondents of the questionnaire

Supporting the results of the above-mentioned part of the questionnaire, responses

to question 1 about the students‟ evaluation of the OPA‟s usefulness in the interview also reveal interesting opinions All the three interviewees indicated the usefulness of OPA in various aspects, ranging from those related to learning English such as: gaining more vocabulary and expressions, organizing ideas more logically, effectively practising speaking as well as reading and writing skills; to more general ones like: teamwork spirit and powerpoint skills (See appendix 6 for details)

With reference to the language skills, respondent C stated that: “I enjoyed taking part in the activity because it helps us to learn different skills better and open up our mind

to different aspects of life that relate to the contents of our presentations You know, when

we were preparing for a 10 to 15-minute talk, we had to find a lot of information and documents from the Internet or magazines so that we can understand quite thoroughly about the issue At that time, our reading and writing skills were practiced and we know more information of the subject matter Then, when we tried to deliver our presentation in English, we naturally practised our speaking skill including pronunciation and intonation” Meanwhile, respondent B showed satisfaction of being trained more general skills: “I‟m really fascinated by OPA because it taught me how to think logically or how to organize a speech logically after collecting and reading a lot of related document OPA also enabled

us to have some fun and solidarity with other members of our group as we were preparing for the talk and together contributing to it We also shared our knowledge to make each person‟s part more perfect.”

In short, the effects of the OPA as perceived by the students are satisfied and appreciated through responses from both of the post-treatment questionnaire and interviews

3.4 Research question 4: Students’ motivational state after the OPA

In order to gauge the students‟ motivational state after they participated in the activity, the study based on the criteria used in the pre-treatment questionnaire to design the