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

LISTS OF TABLESTable 1: Summary of students’ attitudes towards learning English...23Table 2: Summary of students’ awareness about the importance of English presentations...24 Table 3: Su

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

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

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

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

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

Hanoi, 2016

Vũ Thị Thanh HuyềnApproved by

SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

Date:………

My special thanks also go to all the lecturers and the staffs of the Faculty ofPost-Graduate Studies for their useful lessons and precious helps throughout mystudy.

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

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

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

Learners’ attitude is one of the most effective factors which has great influence

on language acquisition and helps explain linguistic behavior Positive attitudes maybring benefits while negative attitudes may lead to decreased motivation andunsuccessful attainment of proficiency This study was conducted to explore theattitudes towards doing English presentations of the students at Department ofAccounting at Quang Ninh University of Industry The survey aproach wasemployed Two research instruments, survey questionnaire and interview, were used

to collect data from 96 first year accounting students at Quang Ninh University ofIndustry (QUI) Overall, the findings indicated that the participants kept negativeattitudes towards doing English presentations Both internal and external factorsaccounted for their unfavorable attitudes From the findings obtained, somepedagogical implications were proposed to both teachers and students with the hopethat they will make a contribution to the improvement of the teaching and learning

of English presentation skills at QUI

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

1.4 Review of previous studies related to students’ language attitudes

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Setting of the study

2.1.1 A brief overview of QUI and English Division at QUI

2.1.2 The QUI students

2.1.3 A brief description of the English course and material

2.2 Participants of the study

2.3 Research instruments

2.3.1 Questionnaire

2.3.2 Interviews

2.4 Data collection procedure

2.5 Methods of data analysis

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Data analysis of students’ questionnaires

3.1.1 General attitudes towards learning English

3.1.2 Students’ attitudes towards English presentations

3.1.3 Students’ feelings about doing English oral presentations

3.1.4 Students’ activities in periods having presentations

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

3.1.6 Summary from students’ questionnaire

3.2 Data analysis of students’ interview

3.3 Discussion

PART C: CONCLUSION

1 Recapitulation

2 Implications

2.1 For students

2.1.1 Improving knowledge of English

2.1.2 Preparing thoroughly for presentations

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

LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1: Summary of students’ attitudes towards learning English 23Table 2: Summary of students’ awareness about the importance of English

presentations 24

Table 3: Summary of students’ feelings about doing English oral presentations 26

Table 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

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

Attitudes have been frequently reported as one of the most essential factorsaffecting students’ achievements in EFL classrooms Language attitude has greatinfluence not only on language learning and acquisition but also on learners’ choiceand 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 Vietnameseeducational system, since the shift from the teacher-centered to the learner-centeredapproach in recent years, the role of learners has been put on more emphasis inevery 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 isone of the keys to the success of our English teaching process

The Vietnamese Prime Minister’s Decision 1400/QĐ-TTg, promulgated onSeptember 30th, 2008, on the approval of the Project entitled “ Teaching andLearning Foreign Languages in the National Education system, Period 2008-2020”has emphasized the teaching and learning a foreign language, particularly Englishwith the goal that “by the year 2020 most Vietnamese youth whoever graduate fromvocational schools, colleges and universities gain the capacity to use a foreignlanguage independently This will enable them to be more confident incommunication, further their chance to study and work in an integrated and multi-cultural environment with variety of languages” Thus, the ability to communicate isthe most important goal that communicative language teaching aims to reach.Having students give oral presentations in front of class is one typical example oflearner-centered, communicative activities that has been widely included inteachers’ plans to satisfy the demand of English teaching in this stage There is aconsiderable amount of research which confirms that presentation skills areessential 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

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

At Quang Ninh University of Industry (QUI), English is a compulsorysubject Within the credit-based system, especially in large classes, oralpresentations receive much attention from the management as well as the Englishteaching staff However, in reality, the ability to do English presentations of thestudents 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 mystudents showed different attitudes towards doing English presentations Someshowed their favorable attitudes and wanted to improve their presenting abilitieswhile others felt uncomfortable and under pressure Therefore, I would like to do aresearch 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 ofAccounting at Quang Ninh University of Industry” for my minor thesis Hopefully,

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

2 Aims of the study

This study is conducted to explore the accounting students’ attitudes towardsdelivering 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

4 Significance of the study

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

5 Methods of the study

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

The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect andanalyze data However, a questionnaire was developed as a primary researchinstrument Besides, interviews for students were used to obtain data to supplementand 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 investigatetheir attitudes towards doing English presentations and reasons for such attitudes

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

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

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

6 Scope of the study

The study focuses on attitudes towards oral presentations in English in theclassroom 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 toboth teachers and students of English in the process of teaching and learning oralpresentation 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 andConclusion

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 thefield of the study It focuses on two main points: attitudes and presentations Tobegin 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 intoconsideration Then, it is concerned with some major issues regarding attitudes,language attitude, the roles of attitudes and factors affecting attitudes in languagelearning Finally, previous studies related to the topic are summarized

Chapter II - Methodology - presents the overall picture of how the researchwas 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 datacollected through the research procedure described in chapter II The analysis of thedata is presented in two parts: the first part is the results from the questionnaire forstudents and the second one is from the students’ interviews

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

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 aremany 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 aparticular subject” Barker (2000: 113) maintains that oral presentation is like aformal 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 tosomebody” Peter and Graham (2006: 4) agree with the idea stating that “Bypresentation we mean a talk or speech given by a presenter (sometimes more thanone) to an audience of two or more people” Generally, it can be said that oralpresentation or public speaking is a form of communication which is intended toconvey certain ideas, messages and information in a clear, structured way

The term presentation in the above definitions is shown in generalunderstanding, but in my study, presentations done in English lessons by accountingstudents are focused According to Comfort (1995), presentation in this case isconsidered as a popular kind of activity where a student (students) give(s) apresentation on a topic of their own choice or given by the teacher Such talks arenot designed for informal spontaneous conversation but they are subject matteroriented; 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 andprofessional life If properly guided and organized, oral presentations provide alearning experience and teach lifelong skills that will be beneficial to ESL/EFLstudents in all school subjects, and later in their careers (Meloni &Thompson,1980) Doing presentation is really a very good learning experience as students need

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

Oral presentation is a way of developing the students’ ability to practice.King (2002: 402) affirms many advantages of student presentations It’s oralpresentation 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 constructinformation Thanks to doing presentations, team work will be enhanced andstudents will learn both actively and autonomously King (2002: 402) alsoconcludes that, “ Having students give oral presentation in a front of their class inone of the learner-centered activities that has been widely include in teachers’ lessonplans to improve students’ oral proficiency”

To be more specific, Chivers and Shoolbred (2007: 8) provide advantagesgained 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 tostudents’ ability to communicate with others As a result, their learning English willbecome easier and more effective According to Emden and Becker (2004: 1),

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

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 peopleinvolved achieve their research objective Moreover, effective oral presentationmust make the audiences get interesting and useful information and they will enjoytheir times while listening to the speakers Sometimes, students may remembermore of the content of their peers’ presentations than the content delivered by thelecturers They may also remember the content of their own presentations more thanthe content of lectures they have attended

Chivers and Shoolbred (2007: 20-21) claim that in order to prepare anddelivery 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 anddemanding because it has content, structure and needs preparation Thus, in oralpresentation, it is necessary for students to know how to prepare and structure theirpresentation carefully In addition, they need to know how to deliver it because thiswill 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 languageclassrooms After completing a project, a presentation is a channel for students toshare with others what they have learned It is also a chance to challenge andexpand on their understanding of the topic by having others ask questions

Presentations can also form a natural part of task-based learning By focusing on aparticular language point or skill, the presentation is a very practical way to reviseand extend lesson, pair and group work The audience can also be given a task, forexample, a set of questions to answer on the presentation, which is a way of gettingstudents to listen to each other (Pham, 2011) In the class rooms, oral presentationscan also be carried out as class activity Students work in a small group to discuss atopic After the discussion, each representative from each group will present his/ hergroup’s ideas or each member will take turn to be responsible for each part of thepresentation.

Vo (1994, cited in Nguyen, 2009) gives suggestions for teachers whenassigning oral presentations, in which the procedure of oral presentation shouldcome 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 untilthe speaker has finished (if the presenter has difficulty in answering the audiencequestions, the teacher and other students can help)

7 After each speech, give the speaker some feedback (it is highlyrecommended that compliments should come before criticism in order not todiscourage the speaker)

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

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 thesefollowing reasons:

+/ Students’ language proficiency

Ur (1996) defines language proficiency in terms of accuracy and fluency; if alearner has mastered a language successfully, that means that he or she canunderstand and produce it both accurately (correctly) and fluently (receiving andconveying 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 thecorrect use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation whereas fluency means theability 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 bethought 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 oralpresentation According to many researchers, feelings of anxiety, apprehension andnervousness are commonly expressed by foreign language learners in learning tospeak a foreign language, particularly when they have to make an oral presentation

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

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

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

as shyness, quietness, and reticence are considered as frequently precipitatecommunication apprehension It is obvious that such feelings in the learners mayprevent 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 ofteacher as an authority expert to the new role of facilitator of learning” The teacher

is the guide, organizer, consultant, resource person, and supporter He alsoemphasizes that the teacher's role in oral presentations not only involves preparingdetailed guidelines, organizing groups, helping students to select topics, guidingtheir 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, andevaluating 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 thesame circumstance, some gain much higher proficiency in their English skills whileothers do not make any progress In recent years, some of the researchers haveestablished the significant role of factors affecting in second language learning Ellis(1985) explained for this issue: “The general factors that influence second languagelearning 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, positiveattitude towards the language, low language anxiety and suppose to have a goodamount of TL exposures” Lightbown and Spada (2013: 75) claim that “many of usbelieve that individual differences that are inherent in learner can predict success orfailure in language learning” They believe that learners possess characteristics such

as personality, intelligence, aptitudes, ages, attitudes and motivation which candetermine more or less successful language learning

Among the diverse and composite individual differences and learnervariables in learning a second language, the role of students’ attitudes have recentlybeen spent considerable attention by many scholars They approved that the learnersbenefit from the positive attitudes, and negative attitudes may lead to decreasedstandard of proficiency in the language Positive attitudes are related to learners’success in language learning The measurement of language attitudes providesinformation which is useful in language teaching and language planning Thismotivates me to design a study on investigating students’ attitudes towards Englishpresentations.

1.3 Attitudes

1.3.1 Definition of attitude

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

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

This idea is shared by Wikipedia, in which attitudes are judgments and theydevelop 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 Moreinterestingly, this source reveals that most attitudes result from either directexperience or observational learning from the environment

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, contactwith people who are different in any number of ways and interacting affective factors inthe human experience” Here it seems that attitude is formed through a long processand it is affected by many factors in the daily lives of each person

I myself find the following concept of attitude clear and convincing: Anattitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like ordislike 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 andresponse 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 orlanguage varieties have towards each others’ languages or to their own language.Expressions of positive or negative feelings towards a language may reflectimpressions of linguistic difficulty or simplicity, ease or difficulty of learning,degree of importance, elegance, social status, etc Attitudes towards a language mayalso show what people feel about the speakers of that language Having the sameidea, Holmes (1992, cited in Pham, 2013), believes that attitudes in the context oflanguage learning are defined as the way people look at the language, the class andthe people, and the culture of language Especially, language attitude isdistinguished from general attitudes by the fact that language attitudes are preciselyabout language (Pham, 2014) In other words, language attitude refers to attitudepeople hold towards language

This study concentrates on exploring students’ attitudes towards only onerespect 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 betweenlearners’ attitudes and their language learning Lightbrown and Spada (1999) statethat attitude is fundamental to the success or failure that we experience in learning.Depending on the learners’ attitudes, language learning can be a source ofenrichment or a source of resentment Agreeing with the role of attitudes, Brown(2000: 181) believes that language learners benefit from positive attitudes whilenegative attitudes may lead to decreased motivation and unsuccessful attainment ofproficiency He continues that “positive attitudes towards the self, the nativelanguage 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 towardstarget language may be taken as a predictor of achievement In his study, Karahan(2007: 84) finds out positive language attitudes let learners have positive orientationtowards learning English He asserts when students hold the positive attitudes, theybecome more active in their learning process, so their positive attitudes can helpthem access to the target language easier

It is clear that learners’ language attitudes are decisive factors in successfullanguage acquisition I am of the same opinion that students having positiveattitudes may speed up their language learning and see themselves achieving higherresult In this study, students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations areexplored 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 manylanguage researchers They share the opinions that attitudes are clearly influenced

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

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 differentialsuccess include age, aptitude, motivation, cognitive style, the use of learningstrategies, and personality However, the concept of individual differences is ratherloose, containing certain core variables and many optional ones When addressingindividual differences, one needs to select personality, ability/aptitude, andmotivation 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 twoexternal 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 Thepedagogic factor shapes how teachers, learners and the learning situation interactwith each other to trigger positive or negative attitudes in the learner (Malcolm,2006: 39) Focusing on this issue, Pham (2014) inferred that students’ attitudes areaffected directly from factors associated with teachers (teachers’ behaviors andteachers’ practices) and learning environment (learning conditions and materials) Inother words, external factors associated with teachers and learning environmentplay a vital role in influencing students’ attitudes

In the case of this study, internal factors related to students’ personal traitsand external factors related to teachers and learning environment are considered asdeterminant 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 generaland learning English in particular have widely aroused the interest of teachers andresearchers all over the world Since the beginning of this century, there areincreasingly more researches done on different aspects of this field

Choy and Troudi (2006) investigated the changes in students’ attitudestowards learning English in a Malaysian college and found that there weredifferences in students’ attitudes towards learning English in secondary school andcollege This study suggested that the school social environment and the familybackground influence students’ attitudes towards learning English.

Karahan (2007) conducted a study to examine the relationship betweenlanguage attitudes and its use in Turkey using a questionnaire adapted from previousstudies on language attitudes as the only method The findings indicated that thesubjects recognized the importance of the English language but had only mildlypositive 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’snativity did not influence students’ positive orientation toward the language

In Iran, after studying the relationship between medical students’ attitudetowards English language learning and their English language proficiency, Bagheriand Andi (2015) affirmed that there was a small positive correlation betweenstudents' 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 learningEnglish and concluded that the participants showed negative attitudes towardslearning English Studies reviewed show that although the dominant attitudetowards English is positive, a range of different types of attitudes has also beenreported 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

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 ofthe research showed that students had negative attitudes towards learning Englishlistening 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 doingEnglish 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.

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 thecoal companies, factories from within and outside Quang Ninh province.Nowadays, its field is extended to many other majors such as BusinessAdministration, ICT, Mechanics, etc Like many other universities in Vietnam, QUIconsiders 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 and70% of them have acquired MA degree at University of Languages andInternational Studies, VNU Teachers of English at QUI have applied variousteaching 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 largeclasses, oral presentations receive much attention from the management as well asthe English teaching staff In reality, though the teachers always maintain theirenthusiasm in their teaching, they still admit that the ability to do Englishpresentations 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 fromQuang Ninh province They are admitted into QUI either based on the results of theNational High School Exam as prescribed by the Ministry of Education andTraining or their academic performances in high school Normally, the students donot have to take an English language proficiency test to be admitted into QUI Allare non-English major students The general situation is that the majority of them donot pay much attention to study English They learn English just to pass the exams.Besides, students learn English in almost isolated environments from English nativespeakers, so they hardly get any chance to communicate with foreigners both insideand outside classrooms Consequently, the students are unable to speak the

language They are often doing better at writing and grammar exercises but theyhave little communicative ability and lack necessary skills and techniques to besuccessful in communication Furthermore, from my classroom observation,discussion with other teachers and my own experiences, I found that most studentsoften feel shy in the public and they are embarrassed when being asked to work inpeers, 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 thatamong 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 Thisstage is allocated into two terms; each term lasts for 60 periods Like many otherEnglish 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 dealingwith 12 common topics in life: Friends; Lifestyles; Mysteries; Places; Hopes andAmbitions; Favourites; Fame; Do’s and Don’ts; Travelling; Inventions; Dreams;Jobs Each unit is organized into seven parts: Language Focus, Vocabulary andEveryday English, apart from four basic English skills: Reading, Listening,Speaking, and Writing Sometimes, speaking parts of the unit are integrated intoothers The course-book occasionally provides some activities for students to speakand work in groups or pairs to practice the grammar in Language Focus The totaltime duration for students to practice their speaking skills is around 2 periods perunit After the first stage, students are expected to improve their communicativecompetences and enhance other skills to have good background knowledge in thesecond stage The aim of this stage is to focus on English for Specific Purposeswhich lasts for one term with 30 periods This stage provides students with

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

2.2 Participants of the study

In order to achieve the aims of the study, about 100 freshmen of Accountingmajor 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 havespent more than 7 years studying English After graduating from high schools, thesestudents have general knowledge of grammar and an active vocabulary which theycan use mostly in written forms However, their presenting abilities are limited.Hence, when they become the first year students of non-English major in theuniversity, 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 andthe teachers The reason for choosing students of Accounting major at QUI is thatthese students have better English background knowledge in comparison with otherstudents here Some choose English in the combination of admission subjects

In this study, the questionnaire adopting a five-point Likert scale wasprepared based on findings of many researchers, such as Emden & Becker (2004);

Reinhart (2002); Narayanan et al (2008); Al-Nouh et al (2015) Especially, it was adapted and developed from Attitude Questionnaire of Narayanan et al (2008) and 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 determinantreasons affecting students’ attitudes towards doing English presentations The 12first 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 andlearning environment

All items were written in both English and Vietnamese to ensure thatstudents can fully understand the questions and respond explicitly, without havingdifficulties in expressing their ideas

2.3.2 Interviews

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

I choose the structured interview, in which the “agenda is totally predeterminedorder” (Nunan, 1992) in order to achieve consistence Since the purpose of thefollow-up interview here was to have more in-depth information, two groups ofstudents, each consists of five students, were selected from the questionnairerespondents 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 questionsabout 1) the importance of presentations skills, 2) their feelings about doingpresentations, and 3) the factors promoting their positive attitudes For convenience

of analyzing data, those questions were asked one-by-one to all students interviewedand they answered in turn The interviews were recorded under the students’permission for the purpose of the study The students were allowed to speak inVietnamese so that the researcher can elicit more information from the subjects Theinterviews’ 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 usingMicrosoft Exel for statistics and converted into percentages For convenience ofpresentation and observation, the evaluation of each item was analyzed andpresented following the order: the number of students and the percentage thatnumber accounts for out of the total of 96 students participating in the survey Thequalitative analysis was conducted with interview data

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the comprehensive analysis of the data collectedthrough the research procedure described in chapter 2 The analysis of the data ispresented in two parts: the first part is the results of the questionnaire for studentsand 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

and stories in English

foreign people

*(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, only14.6% learnt English because English is their interest while 32.3% of them dislikedlearning it and 53.1% held a neutral attitude towards learning English

23

accepted that English was good for their future A relatively great proportion ofstudents (75%) responded that they learnt English because it is an important means

of communication This demand is connected with the position of English as aninternational language Some of them learnt English for the purpose ofentertainment (20.8%) These results suggest that students’ motivation for learningEnglish arises to a large extend, not only from the requirements of their universitybut also for demands of contemporary Vietnam in general It may be concluded thatalthough students held a negative attitude towards learning English, they did havemotivation to study the English

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

24

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 presentationskill as a waste of time Items 7 to 12 explained the reasons why mastering Englishpresentation skill was important to students Of all participants, 82.3% agreed thatthe 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 importanceoriginates from the reason that oral presentation may widen their knowledge of notonly the topic given but also the English language Besides, 71.9% consideredpresentation skill as a means to improve communication skills and oral proficiency

However, not all students had good awareness of English oral presentation’simportance Indeed, 15.6% of the participants agreed and 6.2% strongly agreed withitem 7 It means they feel that doing English presentations is unimportant at all It isnot surprising to receive the responses from the participants in this item because acommon problem among students at QUI is that students might work in miningareas with no foreigners around them to use English presentations This alsoexplains why only a small number of participants (26%) accepted that presentationskill 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 muchattention to oral presentation skills

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

3.1.3 Students’ feelings about doing English oral presentations

Table 3: Summary of students’ feelings about doing English oral presentations

(Source: Category B)

II Which of the following

most impresses your feeling

about the oral presentations

in your English lessons?

presentation skills (as shown in Table 2), students’ feelings about English

presentations sound very dull 85.5% of the students asked said that English

presentations is boring 95.8% of the students considered doing presentations is stressful According to the findings in Table 3, very few of them indicated that doingpresentations in English lessons is interesting or relaxing Especially, only 4.2% of students feel it is effective and no one had other ideas The numbers are quite clear

to reflect students’ negative attitude towards doing English presentations currently

3.1.4 Students’ activities in periods having presentations

Table 4: Summary of students’ activities in presentation periods

(Source: Category B)

III What do you often do in

periods having presentations?

Table 4 showed the students’ activities in presenting periods Astonishingly,although students did not show much enjoyment in presentation skills, more than ahalf of the respondents, which accounts for 55.2%, listened to the presentersattentively in presenting periods However, the percentage of students joiningeagerly in presenting activities in class is very low with 8.3% There were still manystudents (44.8%) not taking part in or paying attention to presenting activities butdoing other things Some (9.4%) even admitted that they skipped class onpresentation days It was understandable due to the fact that many students do not

like the idea of oral presentations They showed the disappointing low level of their

interest in presentation skills In addition, in the English presenting class, 44.8% ofthem preferred discussing the topic given in Vietnamese It means that they mightknow the topic given but found difficult to express it in English Others added thatthey felt very anxious and never presented anything if not being forced to do by theteachers or members in their presenting groups This is another result that showsstudents’ negative attitudes towards doing English presentations

In brief, almost all of the students did not show their interest in doingpresentations in English even though they were aware of its important role Thus, itseems to be hard for students to improve their presenting skills when they were notinterested in and they themselves did not want to involve in presenting activities

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

The aims of this section were to explore the determinant reasons causingthose above students’ attitudes Both the internal factors, pertaining to studentsthemselves and external factors, comprising of teachers’ factors and learningenvironment’s factors which were suggested to affect students’ attitudes were alltaken into consideration

3.1.5.1 The influence of internal factors on students’ attitudes

Table 5: Summary of internal factors affecting students’ attitudes towards

doing English presentations

(Source: Category C)

C How do you agree that

these following reasons may

26 I have poor pronunciation

27 I find hard to have right

31 I feel nervous even if

prepared well beforehand