A study on demotivating factors in english reading comprehension lessons of the 10th form students at my duc a high school, hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OFPOST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS I

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

POST – GRADUATE STUDIES *****************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE 10TH – FORM STUDENTS AT

MY DUC A HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI

( Nghiên Cứu Những Yếu Tố Gây Mất Hứng Thú Trong Các Giờ Học Đọc Hiểu Tiếng Anh Của Học Sinh Lớp 10 Trường

THPT Mỹ Đức A, Hà Nội )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE 10TH – FORM STUDENTS AT

MY DUC A HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI

( Nghiên Cứu Những Yếu Tố Gây Mất Hứng Thú Trong Các Giờ Học Đọc Hiểu Tiếng Anh Của Học Sinh Lớp 10 Trường

THPT Mỹ Đức A, Hà Nội )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10

Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC QUỲNH

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

POST – GRADUATE STUDIES *****************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE 10TH – FORM STUDENTS AT

MY DUC A HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI

( Nghiên Cứu Những Yếu Tố Gây Mất Hứng Thú Trong Các Giờ Học Đọc Hiểu Tiếng Anh Của Học Sinh Lớp 10 Trường

THPT Mỹ Đức A, Hà Nội )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG

A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE 10TH – FORM STUDENTS AT

MY DUC A HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI

( Nghiên Cứu Những Yếu Tố Gây Mất Hứng Thú Trong Các Giờ Học Đọc Hiểu Tiếng Anh Của Học Sinh Lớp 10 Trường

THPT Mỹ Đức A, Hà Nội )

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Major: English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10

Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC QUỲNH

1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension 4

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1: Students‟ attitudes towards the learning of reading English

Figure 3.2: Students‟ interest in English reading lessons

Figure 3.3: Students‟ participation in English reading comprehension lessons

Figure 3.4: Teachers‟ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading

comprehension skills at school

Figure 3.5 Teacher‟s perception of students‟ participation in activities in the reading lessons

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Students‟ purposes of learning English reading

Table 3.2: Table 3.2: Students‟ opinions on factors demotivating them in learning reading English

Table 3.3: Students‟ opinions on their teachers‟ teaching methods

Table 3.4: Students‟ opinions on teachers‟ employment of activities

Table 3.5: Students‟ expectations towards teachers of reading skills

Table 3.6: Teachers‟ perceptions of students‟ demotivation in reading skills

Table 3.7: Teachers‟ frequency of using activities in reading lessons

Table 3.8: Techniques and activities by the teacher, and the preference of the students for those activities

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Since English was chosen as an international language, learning English has longbeen important to students of almost all levels in Vietnam The remarkable shiftfrom traditional method to communicative language teaching approach emphasizesthe need for developing the communicative competence of the learners in fourlanguage skills namely speaking, reading, reading and writing Though a great deal

of effort has been made to achieve the goal, there are still a lot of shortcomings inteaching and learning English in general and reading comprehension in particular

To much extent, the reason is due to the fact that the students have to pass theirexams which mainly focus on extensive vocabulary and grammatical rules

In most of Vietnam high schools, English teaching and learning is taken place in anon-native environment, so reading English is not only an important means to gainknowledge but also a means by which further study takes place For many students,reading is so far the most important of the four language skills

It is commonly acknowledged that reading is one of the most complex skills Whenone reads, they are not able to control the message or the language used like theycan in speaking and writing Reading is also a skill that must be carried out underthe real time pressure if it is done fluently In addition, there is no chance forreaders to ask for additional information or clarification like they can in speaking or

listening Moreover, “the range of vocabulary encountered in reading is much greater than is typically used in speaking and listening settings” (Stanovich, 2000:

252-258) It is fairly clear that developing L2 reading abilities represents a seriouschallenge for both the learners and the teachers

Being aware of the importance of reading skill, all the teachers of My Duc A highschool have been trying their best to make their students motivated in learningEnglish reading lessons, but their efforts seem not to be effective yet The students

seem to be still demotivated in learning English in general, and in learning English reading comprehension in particular.

For all of those reasons, it would be necessary to have a study on factors causing demotivation in reading lessons for students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi

2 Aims of the study

The main purposes of the study are:

- To investigate the demotivating factors in reading lessons of the 10th form

students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi

- To give some suggestions to minize the demotivating factors in reading lessons

in order to improve the students‟ reading skills

4 Significance of the study

This study points out factors causing demotivation in reading lessons of the 10thform students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi Besides, it can be used as an evidencefor demotivating factors when learning English reading that Vietnamese Secondary-School students encountered The findings and recommendations of this study will beuseful to improve the teaching and learning of reading of Upper Secondary Schoolstudents in general and of the 10th form students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi inparticular

5 Scope of the study

This study mainly focuses on the demotivating factors that the 10th formstudents at My Duc A High School have in their reading lessons It does not cover thescope of demotivating factors in other skills It involves the participants of 10 teachers

of English and 105 students in the 10th form at My Duc A High School

6 Methods of the study

The study uses two main methods to achieve its aims Firstly, two types of surveyquestionnaires were conducted with 10 teachers of English and 105 students from threeclasses at My Duc A High School In addition to the questionnaires, informalinterviews with the 10 randomly selected students, who have done the surveyquestionnaires, were also employed

7 Organization of the thesis paper

The thesis paper is organized as follows:

Part A, Introduction, provides rationale for the study, states what the study is aimed

at and what specific tasks it resolves, specifies the scope of the study, and sketches thegeneral structure of the study

Part B, Development, consists of the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Literature Review, presents the theoretical background related to

reading and reading comprehension, motivation and the important of motivation insecond language learning Besides, it reviews the concept of demotivation and previousstudies on demotivation

Chapter 2, Methodology, provides information about the study This includes

the setting of the study, the participants and the research instruments used for the study

Chapter 3, Data Analysis, gives a detailed analysis of data Besides, the chapter

also presents some discussion and interpretations of the findings of the study, and thengives suggestions for the teachers and the students at

Part C, Conclusion, summarizes the major findings and points out implications for the

improvement, its limitations and suggestions for future research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review

1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension

1.1.1 Reading

“Reading” has been defined by a lot of linguists, psychologists, educators and secondlanguage researchers so far Each definition proposes a different the notion of theterm in different points of view Goodman (1971, p.135) considered reading as “apsycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as

he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In hisopinion, when reading, the readers not only learn how to read the text, to master

grammatical structure but also understand the content expressed in the text.

Sharing the same point with Goodman (1990, p.2) stated that “reading is a processwhereby one looks at and understands what has been written” According William, inreading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding.Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depending on the context inwhich it appears

Reading is considered to be a process of mechanic by Harmer (1989:153):

“eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message” The mechanical process of reading consists of two actions which are

monitored by the eyes and brain Thus, it is the reader that decides how fast the textruns

Smith (1985:102) shared a similar opinion with Harmer: “reading is understanding the author’s thought” In other words, the readers “read the author’s mind not the

author’s words”.

Harper and July (1982:4) considered reading as a process which involves theidentification and recognition of printed and written symbols through one‟s pastexperiences or relevant concepts

To sum up, it is obvious that attempts to define reading have been various However,the definitions all focus on the interaction between readers and authors This can beconsidered the nature of reading

1.1.2 Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is ability to get information from the text as efficiently

as possible It has long been considered to play an important role in teaching andlearning reading There are three elements involving in the reading process: the textbeing read, the background knowledge of the reader and the contextual aspects relevantfor interpreting the text

Grellet (1981:3) stated “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible”.

Concerning what reading comprehension is, Swan (1975:1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is

obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such as

summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc After reading,

readers can master the grammatical structures, words pronunciation, understanding thecontext of the texts and use it in real life as effective as possible

Though expressing the nature of reading comprehension in different ways, most of the

scholars seem to agree that “reading without comprehension is meaningless” (Karlin

concepts by different authors Keller (1984) assumed that "interest" is one of the main

apparatus of motivation in foreign and second language learning Meanwhile Gardner(1985) considered the importance of efforts and desires to obtain the learning goal

“Motivation in the present context refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language” (p 10).

Sharing the same opinion, Ellis (1997) attached importance to the role ofattitudes and effective states, which affect learner‟s efforts in learning a secondlanguage

However, Littlewood (1998) found that motivation is complexly combined by

different components including “the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on” (p 53)

Besides, McKay and Tom (1999) emphasizes it is the need to communicate withothers in a new language that provide strong motivation for most learners (p.2)

Meanwhile, Gardner and Lambert (1972) propose that the broad concept of the

“integrative motive” includes three main components: attitude, integrativeness and motivation.

In addition, there are some other researchers attempting to make close the gapbetween theories of motivation in educational psychology and in the L2 field Theresearchers of this period added some new elements to the concept of L2 motivation.

Dornyei (1994) classifies three levels: language level, learner level and learning situational level and each level posses different elements Few years later, Marion

Williams and Bob Burden (1997) offered a detailed framework of L2 motivation with

the Internal and External motivational impact Nine internal factors are analyzed by

them: intrinsic interest of activity, perceived value of activity, sense of agency,mastery, self-concept, attitudes, affective states such as confidence, anxiety and fear,developmental age and gender Human factors supposed to be included in the internalfactors such as parents, teachers, peers, feedback, rewards or punishments, the learningenvironment and the boarder context (Adapted from Dornyei, 2001)

In this study, the researcher adopted Littlewood‟s (1998) definition: Motivation is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual’s drive and need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience that make up her motivation In other words, motivation is both intrinsically and extrinsically- originated.”

In brief, there have been a number of concepts and definition of motivation, all ofwhich embody different implications for L2 teaching and learning One important oneamong those implications is the proper consideration of motivation in L2 teaching andlearning Being motivated, L2 learners will therefore make more effort in learning

1.2.2 The importance of motivation in reading second language

It is commonly acknowledged that reading motivation plays a vital role in secondlanguage reading process Reading motivation is a kind of desire to read and it has amajor role in students‟ success because most academic knowledge is gained through

reading To become effective readers throughout their school years, students must readearly and often.

Motivation for reading is important to develop their reading skills and make strongefforts to get over their shortcomings Students only become skilled at reading whenthey read a lot, and motivation is crucial for them to realize this change

Being aware that “it is an important part of a reading teacher’s job to motivate learners” (Girard, D 1977: 120), teachers should raise their students‟ interest and

curiosity in the text, encourage their expectation and activate them in reading activities

1.3 Demotivation

1.3.1 Concept of Demotivation

Traditionally, motivation has been considered as a many-sided constructconsisting of various positive influences However, there is another aspect ofmotivation left without being properly attended, it is demotivation

Dornyei (2001: 143) defines demotivation as “specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention of an ongoing action” In

other words, Dornyei regarded motivation and demotivation as two contrary forces inthe learning process of learners According to him, there are two sources ofdemotivating factors: external and internal External factors include grading andassignment, learning facilities etc and internal factors include reduced confidence andnegative attitude toward the foreign language In his study, Dornyei (2001: 143) alsoidentifies the three negative factors that cannot be considered as instances ofdemotivation: powerful distractions, continuing loss of interest in a long-lasting,ongoing activity, and the sudden recognitions of the costs of an activity

Dornyei (2001) also insisted that demotivation does not mean that a learner has

lost his or her motivation entirely In contrast, the positive influences that originallymade up the motivational basis of behavior can still be there For example, a learnercan still be motivated to learn English (because it is an important world language; forinstance), even if the teachers were lacking ability.

In addition, there is distinction between demotivation and amotivation proposed

by Dornyei (2001) The term amotivation is first used by Deci and Ryan (1985) It

means “the relative absence of motivation that is not caused by a lack of initial interest but rather by the individual’s experiencing feelings of incompetence and helplessness when faced with the activity” (cited in Dornyei 2001) According to Doryei,

„amotivation‟ is associated with motivation lack which can be realized in the same

meaning with „there is no point…‟ or „it’s beyond my ken…”.

1.3.2 Previous studies on de-motivation

Motivation for foreign language learning researches has evolved considerablyfor many years These researches focus on from describing what constitute studentmotivation to a detailed list of suggestions that help teachers initiate, and enhancestudent motivation

Despite the fact that demotivation is important subject to concern in learning English

in general, and second language and foreign language learning in particular, just a fewstudies focused on student demotivation Even in most of the studies addressingdemotivation, it is likely to mention low motivation, not examining demotivation as aseparate phenomenon Some among the early studies such as Gorham and Christophel(1992), Chambers (1993), Rebecca Oxford (1998), Dornyei (1998), Hamada and Kito(2008) and Tran and Baldauf (2007) which examined the issue of demotivation, weredone in the field of instructional communication

Gorham and Christophel (1992) tried to find out what factors were perceived asdemotivators by college students who took introductory communication classes From

students‟ responses to the open-ended question: “What things decrease your motivation to try hard to do your best in that class?” demotivators were pointed out Their research findings pointed out three major categories of demotivating factors, i.e.,

context demotivating factors (factors likely to be regarded as antecedent to theteacher‟s influence), structure/format demotivating factors (factors over which theteacher is likely to have some degree of influence, if not complete control), the teacherbehavior (factors likely to be perceived as under the teacher‟s direct control 79% of allresponses is about teacher-related factors consisting of class structure, or format-relateddemotivating factors and the demotivating factors resulted from teacher behavior In afollow-up study to find out whether the perceived demotivation sources could be thesame, Christophel and Gorham (1995) used the same question to spot demotivatingfactors with another group of college students studying communication The findings

of the research were consistent with those from the first study Nonetheless, no attemptwas made in both studies to examine the cases of the students having already beendemotivated before they enter the class

In his study, Chambers (1993) also examined the matter by using questionnaires

to gather perspectives of both student and teacher, providing the only evidence, that is,his research is the only study that is fully concerned about demotivation in L2 learning

so far The findings are contrary to those in the study of Gorham (1997) Theunderlying causes of student demotivation perceived were quite differently by theteachers and their students Teachers perceived them to be related to psychological,attitudinal, social, historical and geographical reasons The students‟ perceived cause

of demotivation were various, i.e., teacher‟ behaviors, class size, etc Nevertheless,Chambers did not try to determine what demotivating factors were or to look at them

critically Instead, he just listed the students‟ points of view Therefore, just a fewconclusions about the impact of demotivating factors were drawn on the languagelearning experience.

Thus, while there have been studies addressing the issues related todemotivating factors, no attempt has been made either to set a framework to help toenhance understanding about the phenomenon, or to consider it in the relation with theissues of curriculum and teaching

Besides, Oxford (1998) analyzed the content of essays written by approximately

250 American students (in high schools and universities) about their experiences intheir learning over a period of five years During this time, a variety of prompts wereused, such as “describe a situation in which you experienced conflict with a teacher‟sand “talk about a classroom in which you felt uncomfortable” In the content analysis

of the data, four broad themes emerged:

 The personal relationship between the teacher and the students, including a lack

of care, general belligerence, hypercriticism, and patronage/favoritism

 The attitude of the teacher towards the course or the materials, including lack of enthusiasm, sloppy management and close-mindedness

 Teachers‟ style conflicts with the students, including multiple style conflicts,conflicts about the amount of structure or detail and conflicts about the degree of closure or

“seriousness” of the class

 The nature of classroom activities, including irrelevance, overload and

repetitiveness

However, as Oxford‟s prompts specifically referred to the teacher‟sresponsibility as a source of demotivation, participants in the study might not providethe other potential sources.

Dornyei (1998) in his study started a qualitative analysis by conductingstructured long interviews in 10 to 30 minutes of 50 students studying English as aforeign language at high school However, they were not of cross-sectional students butwere those who had been considered as being particularly demotivated by the teachers

or peers Nine types of demotivating factors were identified in the findings:

(1) the teachers were demotivating factors in terms of personality,

commitment, competence, and teaching method;

(2) school facilities were inadequate (group is too big or not the right level; frequent change of teachers);

(3) students‟ self-confidence were reduced (experience of failure of lack of success);

(4) The students have negative attitudes towards the L2;

(5) The nature of l2 learning is compulsory;

(6) There was interference another foreign language being studied;

(7) The students had negative attitudes towards L2 community;

(8) Group members show demotivated attitude; and

(9) Course book used in the language class were not motivating their

learning

In this study, the compulsory nature of L2 studies and the interference of a L3were first discovered The negative effect of the compulsory nature of L2 learning isobviously related to the lack of learner autonomy and lack of self-determination.Among nine factors, the teacher factor ranks first The teacher‟s personalitycommitment to teaching, attention paid to the students, competence, teaching method,style and rapport with students can have a direct impact on students demotivation.Students also blame teacher‟s indirect negative influence such as rigid classroommanagement for their lack of confidence Those results were consistent with earlierstudies Therefore, it is of important to analyze the teacher factors in order to ascertainpossible solutions to demotivation.

Tran and Baldauf (2007) made a review on typical previous studies and thenconducted a case study project with Vietnamese students In that study, they usedstimulated recall essays of 100 students of their foreign language learning experiences.The students were asked to write their essays in Vietnamese within a week outsideclass time The results pointed out 48 demotivating factors, which were grouped into

14 categories, and classified into two groups: internal attributions and externalattributions The internal attribution included student‟s attitudes towards English, theirexperiences of failure, and the incidents related to their self-esteem The externalattributions consisted of teacher-related factors, the learning environment and otherexternal factors

Nguyen (2010) also made a study on the demotivators in speaking lessons of the 10thform students at Nam Sach high school, Haiduong Province In the study, a surveyquestionnaire was delivered to 126 students of 10th grade at Nam Sach high school.Besides, a structured interview was conducted with 10 students who were randomlychosen There is also a designed survey questionnaire for 8 teachers in the school toidentify their perception of the demotivators in speaking classes The findings of the

study show five demotivation factors: (1) teachers‟ competence and teaching style; (2)learning environment and facilities; (3) assessment of speaking skill; (4) self-confidence and (5) little intrinsic motivation In contrast with what previous researchessuggested, textbook and curriculum were found not to be a strong source ofdemotivation.

Though a lot of studies have been made on the issue of demotivation, their variousfindings are just applied for their own teaching contexts, or in teaching other subjectsnot English reading comprehension Thus, there is still a need for a case study ondemotivating factors in English reading comprehension lessons of 10th grade students

at My Duc A high school to improve the current situation

Summary

In brief, this chapter has presented the issues and aspects concerning the topic ofthe study First, it concerns the definition of reading and reading comprehension Thencomes an overview on “motivation” in which the concept of motivation, theimportance of motivation in reading second language is discussed Besides, the concept

of demotivation and a brief review of the previous studies on demotivation are alsopresented

The following chapters will present the methodology of study, and data analysisunder the light of the above-discussed theories

Each class in the school has from 32 to 37 students This class size is rather favorablefor students to study English comparing with that in other schools in the province Likeother high schools in the country, My Duc A High school applies English as among thecompulsory subjects to be taught.

Regarding the learning facilities for learning English at the school, there is only onelaboratory, which is used for many purposes Thus, it is not good enough for thestudents to learn the language lessons there often Besides, the teachers and the studentssometimes get troubles when using the laboratory

2.1.2 Participants

The teachers of English in My Duc A high school graduated from variouscolleges and universities including College of Foreign Languages of VietnamNational University, Hanoi University of Education; Thai Nguyen University, etc.Most of them have been teaching English for more than 3 years

Though most of the teachers did have chance to attend a number of trainingprograms inside and outside the province on teaching methodology, they still

commonly use the traditional method of teaching, especially the method of translation.

grammar-The subjects of the study also include 105 students coming from three differentclasses at My Duc A High School All of them were born in 1996, and they are 47male, and 58 female Most of them have already learned English for at least four years

at High School but many of them are at the low level of English proficiency

Most of the students consider English as an important subject to learn, but just a few

of them are interested in learning it Thus, many of the students do not spend time andmake efforts learning English

2.1.3 The English textbook 10

On the whole, the current English textbook in use at high school is oriented tocommunicative language teaching, and task-based approach

The English textbook 10 is designed into 16 different units The reading section ineach unit accounts for 20 % Most of the reading passages are over 200 words inlength There is diversity in the themes of the reading passages: Personal information,Education, Community, Health, Recreation, The world around us Those themes arerepresented through five sections: Reading, Speaking, Reading, Writing, andLanguage Focus respectively

The tasks in the reading sections are designed into different types: answer thequestions, multiple choice, guessing words, giving Vietnamese equivalent, gap filling,true or false, matching words and definitions or meaning, summarizing, anddiscussing, etc

In each unit, three kinds of tasks are designed Each task has its own aim

- Task 1 helps the students to understand words or phrases in the passage;

- Task 2 helps the students to comprehend the content of the passage; and

- Task 3 helps the students to have an overall understanding of the passage

Tasks 1 and 2 are often complicated and require more time to work on Thesetasks themselves cause a lot of difficulties for students.

2.2 Data collection

2.2.1 Data collection instruments

The data were collected by means of questionnaires and interviews at My Duc A high school Among these instruments, questionnaires are the main ones A separate set of questionnaires were designed for students, and another one for the teachers The

questionnaires for the students consisted of three main parts:

- Questions 1, 2, 3, and 4 (part I) request the matter concerning Students‟ motivation

in learning Reading English

- Questions 5, 6, 7, and 8 (Part II) aim at finding out students‟ opinions on factors demotivating them in learning reading English

- Question 9 (Part III) aim at finding out students‟ expectations towards teachers of

2.2.2 Data collection procedures

The copies of the questionnaire were delivered to 105 students from 3 different classesand 10 teachers of English in My Duc A High School during their English classes.The researcher herself delivered the copies to participants Before the participantsanswered the questions, all of them had been informed in Vietnamese about thepurposes of the questionnaire and how to answer all the questions so that they wereclear about what and how they would to do When the students were writing their

answers, the researcher was there with them to give any explanation if necessary.About 30 minutes later, the questionnaires were collected by the researcher herself.The answers from student interviews were recorded, transcribed for the analysispurpose, and then translated into English.

2.3 Data analysis procedures

The data obtained through the questionnaire, the interview was first read through for asense of overall data After that, they were analyzed both descriptively andinterpretatively The information from the questionnaires was displayed in the form oftables and figures, while the information from the interviews was used as reflectivenotes and quotation

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

3.1 Data analysis of students’ responses

(1) Students’ motivation in learning Reading English

Four questions in the questionnaires are to explore the students‟ motivation in

learning Reading English The first question is to find out the attitude of the students

towards learning of reading English

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

at all

Figure 3.1: Students’ attitudes towards the learning of reading English

As can be seen from figure 3.1, a majority of the students consider the importance of

learning English reading comprehension in different ways The reasons the students

gave for their perception of the importance of reading were various, but they seemed to

see the association of reading to other language skills or to the acquisition of other

formal elements of the language A student in the survey said “Reading is very

important; we cannot do any other things without understanding via reading”.

Another said “Reading texts provide us with many new words Thanks to this, we will

develop our listening skills and writing skills”

Just a small portion of the survey students do not value the importance of reading, theyrank it under other skills in learning English such as writing, listening, speaking, orgrammar, etc.

Though almost all students see the importance of English reading comprehension,not many of them show interest in reading lessons; the data collected from the secondquestion of the survey illustrates this point

not interested at

all0%

very interested13%

interested17%

not very interested

13%

Figure 3.2 Students’ interest in English reading lessons

The next question aims at finding the purpose of learning reading English of the

students It is interesting to find that the students learn reading English for

different purposes

OPTIONS Percentage

a To improve your knowledge of English 13.2

d To read news and books in English 11.4

Table 3.1 Students’ purposes of learning English reading

The collected data of Question 3 shows that the students‟ purposes of learningEnglish reading were various Different ideas were provided for these purposes 37.8%

of the students in the study said they learn English for the purpose of passing the

exams, and getting high marks in the test (33.0 %) “Good reading comprehension skills help me study English better and achieve high scores in the testst Especially thanks to good reading learning, I have chance to take part in the Competition for gifted students”

Ranked the next is the percentage of the students who considered improving knowledge

of English as his/her reading purposes (13.2%); 11.4% of them have purpose of readingnews and books in English; the percentage of the students who read for pleasure is9.5% Finally, only 0.9 % of the students said that they liked reading texts for otherpurposes as to please their parents, to get good job in the future, etc

It is clear that the students‟ purposes of reading in English were different.Many students thought that reading could help them much in reinforcing languageskills and improving background knowledge

To better understand how the students are interested in English reading comprehension,the forth question of the study is given to the subjects, and the result is as follows:

A Participate actively in all activities

C Not participate in any classroom activity

E Get too bored to concentrate

Figure 3.3: Students’ participation in English reading comprehension lessons

The figure shows that just less than a half of the students (48 %) participate in all class

activities, the other students do not show their interest in all class activities Moreover,

up to 20.5 % of them get too bored to concentrate on the English reading lessons Thus,

the demotivating factors in their English reading lessons should be found out The next

part of the survey questions is to achieve this goal, and the data collected are presented

in the following table

(2) Students’ opinions on factors demotivating them in learning reading English

the reading text

boring and difficult

3 The reading text is long and 50.5 9.5 37difficult

not suitable to students‟ level

lesson is not enough for me.

learning facilities such as projector,

video, TV and Internet

(unpleasant, lack of care,

enthusiasm, favoritism) and

inexperienced, fail to pronounce)

reading to English because I do not

have basic background knowledge

of English

9 I do not like the teacher‟s 55.5 22 22.5teaching method (uncreative,

knowledge, difficult to understand,

too fast teaching rate)

10 Classroom activities are boring 48 22.5 29.5and overloaded

Table 3.2: Students’ opinions on factors demotivating them in learning reading

English

As can be seen from the table, 53.5 % the students said that teacher personality is thefactor causing demotivation in English reading comprehension lessons of the students.Similarly, 55.5 % of them think the source of their demotivation is due to theirteachers‟ teaching methods When being asked about the demotivating factors, some of

the students said “Normally I like the subject better if I like the teacher of that subject.

I think my teacher of English should adjust the method of teaching I often fall asleep

in the reading lessons”

“For me, there are a few factors causing demotivation, but the most influential factor

is teacher I feel that the teacher just pays attention to the a few students she likes”

Meanwhile, 50.5 % of the students reached an agreement that they are demotivated by

long and difficult reading text “I often read with interest, only simple and interesting texts can motivate me to read it from the beginning to the end and participate in the reading lessons” Besides, a high percentage of the students perceive the demotivation

by the textbook: the reading tasks and the new words in the reading text However, the data collected of the study show that most of the topics in the reading texts in the English textbook 10 interesting and most of the students do not think it is among the demotivating factors in their reading lessons

In addition, students‟ background knowledge were found to be a strong source ofdemotivation, 49.6% of the students agree that they are not confident when readingEnglish because they do not have basic background knowledge of English As a result,

they are not confident and become demotivated One of the students shared “sometimes

I cannot understand what the text means even my teacher did translate into Vietnamese” While some others share their lack of confidence "I feel embarrassed and demotivated when I usually find myself unable to follow or understand the texts Sometimes I can translate, but I am not confident that my understanding about the text

“We only have chance to study with modern technologies such as projector, video or computer in teaching festivals I think if we have more chance to use such

kinds more often, we will be more motivated in learning reading rather than with chalk

or textbook only”.

Last but not least, the activities organized by the teacher during the reading lessons areconsidered to be a big demotivator for the students A big percentage of the students(48%) agreed that it is boring and overloaded to participate in the classroom activities

In short, students‟ motivation in learning reading was affected by main factors such asstudents‟ background knowledge, the teachers, the students, reading materials, and thelack of modern learning facilities Among them, teacher and teaching methods were thefactor of profound and far-reaching effect The next to be dealt with is the teachingmethod of the teachers

As commonly known, how a teacher designs and organizes classroom activities reflectshis or her teaching method The next question of the survey is designed to get students‟opinion about their teacher‟s teaching method From the data collected, it is surprisingthat a big portion of the students agree that their teacher‟s teaching method is boring,and demotivating their learning English reading lessons The following table illustratesthis point

Table 3.3: Students’ opinions on their teachers’ teaching methods When

being asked about the teaching method their teacher of English reading

comprehension, one of them said “I am not motivated with the teaching method of the

teacher, she just asks us to translate to reading text and do the tasks” Another shared

“the teacher only use the same teaching method in every reading lessons, I feel it is too boring”.

To understand better the teaching methods of the teacher, the next questions of the

survey aims at finding out the students‟ opinions on their teachers‟ employment

of activities during the English reading lessons

and new structures in the reading