A survey of factors that demotivate first year non major students in learning english at university of labor and social affairs 001

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-GRADUATEDEPARTMENT --- NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY A SURVEY OF FACTORS THAT DEMOTIVATE FIRST YEAR NON-MA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-GRADUATE

DEPARTMENT -

NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY

A SURVEY OF FACTORS THAT DEMOTIVATE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS IN LEARNING ENGLISH AT UNIVERSITY OF LABOR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS

(KHẢO SÁT CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY GIẢM HỨNG THÚ HỌC TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC

LAO ĐỘNG – XÃ HỘI)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 6014.0111

Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Đức Hoạt

Hanoi, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST-GRADUATE

DEPARTMENT -

NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY

A SURVEY OF FACTORS THAT DEMOTIVATE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS IN LEARNING ENGLISH AT UNIVERSITY OF LABOR AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS

(KHẢO SÁT CÁC YẾU TỐ GÂY GIẢM HỨNG THÚ HỌC TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN NĂM NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC

LAO ĐỘNG – XÃ HỘI)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 6014.0111

Hanoi, 2013

I, hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A Survey of Factors that DemotivateFirst-Year Non-Major Students in Learning English at University of Labor andSocial Affairs” is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master ofArts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam NationalUniversity, Hanoi, and that this thesis has not, wholly or partially, been submittedfor any degree at any other universities or institutions

Author’s signature

Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility

to complete this thesis

First of all, I wish to send my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Dr NguyenDuc Hoat, for his valuable guidance, helpful suggestions and critical feedbackthroughout my research

Also, I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to the staff members in theFaculty of Post-graduate Studies for their useful lessons from which I havebenefited a lot for the accomplishment of this study

I am greatly indebted to my students and my colleagues at University ofLabor and Social Affairs for their participation and assistance without which thisstudy could not have been successful

Last but not least, I would like to express my special thanks to my lovingparents, my love, my dear sister and my close friends who offered me their love,care, support and encouragement so that I could accomplish my study

This study aims to investigate the factors that demotivate the first – year major students in learning English at the University of Labor and Social Affairs(ULSA) In this study, 140 first-year non-major students from different faculties ofULSA were chosen as the subjects A questionnaire and an interview were used asthe data collection instruments The findings of the study showed that the factorsdemotivating students in learning English derive from 3 sources: students, learningconditions and teachers In details, among the factors, students’ lack of basicknowledge and lack of confidence were the most demotivating then followed by theclass atmosphere, inadequate facilities, big size class and the teacher’s lack ofcommitment Based on the findings of the study, some discussion and implicationswere made along with recommended suggestions for further research.At last, it ishoped that the results of this study could be of much benefit for developing teachingand learning English at University of Labor and Social Affairs

non-TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research Questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Methods 2

6 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Motivation 4

1.1.1 Definition of motivation 4

1.1.2 The importance of motivation in foreign or second language learning 5

1.2 Demotivation 7

1.2.1 Definition of demotivation 7

1.2.2 Factors that demotivate students in learning 9

1.2.2.1 Teacher-related factors 10

1.2.2.2 Learner-related factors 12

1.2.2.3 Learning conditions 14

1.3 Previous studies in the world and in Vietnam 15

1.4 Demotivation and English learning at ULSA 18

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Participants and setting of the study 21

2.1.1 Participants 21

2.1.2 Setting of the study 22

2.2 Data collection 23

2.2.1 Data collection instruments 23

2.2.2 Data collection procedures 25

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 26

3.1 Findings 26

3.1.1 Factors that demotivating students to learn English at ULSA 26

3.1.1.1 Student-related factors 26

3.1.1.2 Teacher-related factors 30

3.1.1.3 Learning conditions 32

3.1.2 The comparison among factors demotivating students in learning English 34

3.2 Discussions 34

PART C CONCLUSION 40

1 Conclusions 40

2 Pedagogical implications 40

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research 41

REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ULSA: University of Labor and Social Affairs

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: Students’ opinions on student-related factors

Table 3.2: Students’ opinions on teacher-related factors

Table 3.3: Students’ opinions on factors related to learning conditionsTable 3.4: Comparison among factors

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1: Students’ opinions on Student-related factors

Figure 3.2: Students’ opinions on teacher-related factors

Figure 3.3: Students’ opinions on factors related to learning conditionsFigure 3.4: Comparison among 3 groups of factors

Figure 3.5: Comparison among factors

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English has been more and more important in Vietnam in recent decades.The number of people using it and the purposes they use it for are increasing.English is now widely known as the main language of intercommunication,international commerce and business, science and technology ect besides the nativelanguage used Thus, people with good English competence are needed in anyfields, consequently, these people may have more opportunities to developthemselves such as have a good job, earn more money, widen knowledge and have abetter life As a result, there has been a positive trend of teaching and learningEnglish across Vietnam Both children and adults learn English with differentpurposes Children learn it as compulsory subject at schools and their parents wantthat Students learn English to pass the exams, to study aboard or to find a good job

in the future Adults learn English in order to communicate with foreigner, dobusiness or just to relax with English music, films and newspapers and books Ingeneral, despite deriving from different purposes, everyone wants to turn English tobecome their own instrument in their lives

As an English teacher, students’ proficiency and interests in learning Englishare things that get lots of the teacher’s care and time Truly, we, teachers, reallywant to have an effective and interesting lesson each day And it is clear thatstudents also hope and like to learn in those lessons like that However, teachersoften say that they can easily recognize students who do things not relevant to thelesson or do not pay attention to the lessons, some even say that because they do notlike English As an English teacher, I am always thinking about this and really want

to find the solutions for eliminating factors that demotivate students’ motivation inlearning English because the researchers on motivation and demotivation havepointed out that “the strongest influence on motivation was not the presence ofmotivators in the classroom, but the absence of demotivators” (Christophel

&Gorham, 1995) At the beginning of the semester, the absence of context

demotivators and the absence of teacher behavior demotivators positively affectmotivation This is true for both children and adults.

This is the reason why I choose studying on factors demotivating students inlearning English is the topic for my minor thesis This study will examine maintypes of demotivating factors that students meet It also investigates the waysstudents want their teachers do to help them overcome demotivation and it suggestsactivities and techniques that help both teachers and students increase motivation inlearning English The researcher hopes that this study will figure out a concretepicture of demotivation in learning English of first-year non- major students atUniversity of Labor and Social Affairs (ULSA) and it will be of help for teacherswho want to increase students’ motivation in English learning

2 Aims of the study

This survey is conducted in order to investigate demotivating factors to thefirst year non-major students’ English learning at ULSA The researcher wouldexpect to reveal the main factors that demotivate students in learning based on theresult of research, this study will propose some solutions that can help studentsovercome demotivation as well as enhance motivation in learning English

3 Research Questions

In order to reach the research aims, the researcher attempted to answer thefollowing questions:

1 What factors demotivate students in learning English?

2 What factors most frequently demotivate them in learning English?

4 Scope of the study

There are various factors affecting students’ learning English However, as the title

of the study, the present research only focuses on exploring the demotivating factors

at ULSA The reasons why the 1st year students chosen as the subjects of the studywill be further discussed in the following chapter

5 Methods

This study which is both quantitative and qualitative consists of twoinstruments to collect the data Firstly, the survey questionnaire was conducted

with 140 students from 4 classes of four faculties at ULSA, 35 students in each classwould be choose according to their even numbers in the name list Secondly, semi-structured interview with 20 students, who have done the questionnaire, werecarried out.

6 Organization of the study

This survey-designed study consists of three parts

Part A deals with the introduction This chapter provides the rationale, aims,

research questions, scope, methods, and design of the study

Part B presents the development, which includes three chapters.

Chapter 1 deals with theoretical background and academic viewpoints on

definition of motivation, the role of motivation, definition of demotivation, andfactors that demotivate students in learning and demotivation in learning English,some previous studies related and the case of ULSA

Chapter 2 describes methodology This chapter is composed of description

of methodology of the study, participants and setting of the study, data collectioninstruments, data collection procedure, and data analysis procedure

Chapter 3 presents data analysis and discussion This chapter analyses,

discusses the results achieved from the study and offers some implications of the study

Part C is the conclusion that presents the author’s reflection and the

outcomes of the study as well as indicates some limitations of the study and finallygives some suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this part, the author would like to give short review of motivation, theimportance of motivation in language learning, demotivation, demotivating factors,previous studies and demotivation and ULSA

1.1 Motivation

Among various factors that affect teaching and learning a foreign languageprocess of the learners, motivation plays an important role in learning processwhich is thought to be a crucial reason for different achievement As Scheideckerand Freeman (1999:116, quoted in Dornyei (2001)) strongly stated that “Motivation

is, without question, the most complex and challenging issue today” Therefore,motivation has widely been studied and researched by teachers and researchers as adeterminant factor to success or failure in second/ foreign language learning

do something, which is first determined by their beliefs about the value of what they

do and then how to face with challenge together with the support they get fromaround, i.e people or environmental working – is motivation “[Motivation] is anabstract, hypothetical concept that we use to explain why people think and behave

as they do” (Dornyei, 2001) However, this opinion is not fulfilled because in somecases, there is no motivation Later, his definition was clearer when he suggestedthree dimensions responsible for motivation: “the choice of particular action”, “theeffort expended on it” and “the persistence with it”

One popular definition for motivation proposed by Gardner in his study ofsocial psychology and second language learning (1985), which regards motivation

as “the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the languageplus favorable attitude toward learning the language” In his view, motivation is thecombination of effort, desire and favorable attitude that belong to the interiordimension of learners It is detectable that he neglected other aspects of motivationsuch as learners’ stimulation linked to parents, schools, finance, peers, and contentsfor instance

Dornyei and Otto (1988) concluded that motivation is a “dynamicallychanging cumulative arousal in a person that initiate, directs, coordinates, amplifies,terminates, and evaluates the cognitive and motor processes whereby initial wishesand desires are selected, prioritized, operationalised and (successfully orunsuccessfully) acted out” In their view, motivation is a complex phenomenon ofarousal which can change when a person works out and is an influential factorthroughout an action or a process

In short, motivation seems to be considered a highly complex issue which iseasier to describe than to define Different researchers have different ways ofdefining motivation since they study motivation in different contexts: differentlanguages, with different subjects and different teaching -learning conditions In thisstudy, the researcher understand motivation under three important factors ofmotivation found by prior researchers: (1) the determination to the goal of learning alanguage, (2) the effort to achieve that goal, (3) the maintenance of that goal oreffort and one thing should be remember about motivation is that it is not stable allthe time, motivation can change or be changed, increase or decrease over periods

1.1.2 The importance of motivation in foreign or second language learning

Many researchers have shown that motivation plays an important role indetermining the result of foreign/ second language learning process According toBrown (2007), “motivation is one of the most important factors that will influencestudents’ English achievement or performance It has a close relationship withstudents’ success or failure in English teaching in college Therefore teacher must

pay more attention to this aspect” Motivated students are likely to learn more andlearn more quickly than students who are less motivated They also participatewillingly, actively and pay more attention to a certain learning task or activity andgain more success and high marks.

Gardner (1985) stated that positive attitude and motivation are related tosuccess in learning a second/ foreign language A highly motivated individual willwant to learn the language, enjoy learning the language, and strive to learn thelanguage

According to Naiman et al (1978), the most successful students displaycertain typical characteristics which are clearly associated with motivation asfollow Students really want to solve the tasks and challenges, and they areconfident in their success They think that success in learning is important to displaytheir own self-imagine They have a need to attain and overcome difficulties and getthe goals that they set out to do before These students go for demanding challengesand top grades, high proficiency They are aware of the goals of learning and directthem to get them They consistently spend high level of effort in learning and arenot encouraged by setback or apparent lack of progress They are not disturbed orfrustrated by situations involving a temporary lack of understanding or confusion.They are patient to be confident that understanding will come later

All researchers agreed that motivation is a determinant to learning success.Motivation helps to form good habits of learning (pay more attention,), right behavior(aware of the goals, want to attain language, go for demanding challenges) and allsuccessful students show motivation as evidence contributing to their success

Moreover, motivation not only has positive effects on motivated students butalso influence others’ motivation It can be spread among students Motivatedstudents can be sources to engage or stimulate others to learn when they interact orwork in groups during tasks or activities because in the light of psychology peopletend to be affected unconsciously

In short, it is clearly that motivation is the essence of language learningbecause it affects directly to students’ behaviors, habits, and it determines thesuccess or failure in foreign language learning.

1.2 Demotivation

1.2.1 Definition of demotivation

Demotivation is a relatively new issue in the field of second/foreign languagelearning Christophel and Gorham (1995) believed that “the strongest influence onmotivation was not the presence of motivativators in the classroom, but the absence ofdemotivators” It has been regarded as “another side of motivation”(e.g Dornyei &Ushioda, 2011; Falout & Maruyama, 2004; Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009) or in other words,the negative of motivation which “has a negative impact on students, preventing themfrom gaining expected learning outcomes” (Trang & Baldauf, 2007)

According to Oxford Advance dictionary, “demotivate” means “to makesomebody feel that it is not worth making an effort” Because there is somethingthat raises meaninglessness or worthlessness in their mind when doing anything,they do not want to pursue the task as well as try to perform it without any effort

According to Zhang (2007), demotivation can be defined as “the force thatdecrease students’ energy to learn and/or the absence of the force that stimulatesstudents to learn”

According to Dorneyi (2001), demotivation refers to “external forces thatreduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoingaction” However, not all the researchers agreed with this definition Sakai andKikuchi (2009) stated that “Dorneyi limited the original definition of demotivation

to only external factors” and they also pointed out that in fact, Dorneyi (2001)himself considered self-confident reduction and negative attitude as demotivatingfactors in learning process Then they felt the need to expand Dorneyi’s definition

of demotivation, concluding both external and internal factors which reduce ordiminish motivation during the process of learning The loss of interest canoriginate from many sources of demotivation, such as a teacher who cannot control

the class or a boring text book can be a demotive for learners or learners feeldemotivated because of experiences of failure.

Moreover, as mentioned above, motivation consists of 2 types: intrinsic andextrinsic, for example, someone learns English intrinsically because he/she finds asense of pleasure when doing a task whereas extrinsically motivated learners learnEnglish due to the rewards, high marks or job promotion These two types can beindependent or relevant to each other in contributing to learners’ motivation Forexample, extrinsic motivation can change into intrinsic when rewards of learningEnglish enhance learners’ confidence and love to the language

From the sources of motivation, researchers agree that motivation can beaffected internally (inside the learners) or externally (outside the learners) Thus, theother side of motivation, demotivation, also refers to both internal and externalforces which decrease interest and motivation in language learning process.Demotivation is different from the total loss of learner’s motivation According toDorneyi (2001), amotivation refers to lack of motivation resulting from realizingthat there is no point Amotivation was introduced by Deci and Ryan (1985) as aconstituent of their self-determination theory and they (1985, as explained byDornyei 2001a: 144) define it as “the relative absence of motivation that is notcaused by a lack of initial interest but rather by the individual’s experiencingfeelings of incompetence and helplessness when faced with the activity”

In fact, the positive influences that come from motivational basis can still bethere and positive motives may still be active in a learners’ learning process togetherwith negative influences However, through time, demotivation can develop intoamotivation (Dornyei, 2001), that is, gradually demotivating experiences can lead tothe total loss of motivation, i.e amotivation Dornyei and Ushioda (2011) have

argured that “Some demotives can lead to general amotivation regarding the

particular activity (e.g a series of horrendous classroom experiences can reduce the learner’s self-efficacy)”

In this study, demotivation is understood as a process of reducing ordiminishing learners’ interest and motivation which concerns both external andinternal factors.

1.2.2 Factors that demotivate students in learning

Because of its strong impacts in learning, researchers have tried toinvestigate factors that demotivate students to learn The studies discussed in thefollowing illustrate that demotivation is a matter of concern worldwilde

According to Chambers (1993), the underlying causes of studentdemotivation perceived were quite different by the teachers and the students Whileteachers perceived them to be related to psychological, attitudinal, social, historicaland geographical reasons The students perceived the causes of demotivation werevarious, i.e, teacher’ behaviours, class size, ect However, Chambers did not try todetermine what demotivating factors were or to look at them critically, he just listedthe students’ points of view

Oxford (1998) conducted a qualitative study on demotivation, which focused

on a teacher’s influence on both motivation and demotivation The finding from herstudy revealed four broads sources of demotivation:

1 The teacher’s personal relationship with students

2 The teacher’s attitude towards the course and materials

3 Style conflicts between teachers and students

4 The nature of classroom activities

In his study, the prompts specifically referred to the teacher’s responsibility

as a source of demotivation, participants in the study might not provide otherpotential sources

According Dornyei’s study (originally in 1998 but based on 2001), there are

9 categories of factors that demotivate students in foreign language learning asfollows:

2 Inadequate school facilities

3 Reduction of self-confidence due to the experience of failure or success

4 Negative attitude toward the foreign language study

5 Compulsory nature of the foreign language study

6 Interference of another foreign language that pupils are studying

7 Negative attitude toward the community of the foreign language spoken

8 Attitude of group members

Among 9 factors, the teacher factor ranks first Teachers’ personality,commitment to teaching, attention paid to the student, competence, teaching method,style and rapport with students can have a direct impact on students demotivation.Students also blame teachers’ indirect negative influence such as rigid classroommanagement for their lack of confidence Therefore, it is important to analyze theteacher factors on order to ascertain possible solution to demotivation

Based on the theoretical basis mentioned above, factors demotivatingstudents in foreign language learning can be classified into 3 large groups: teacher-related factors, learner-related factors, teaching and learning conditions

to learn with a teacher because of the personality of the teacher is good andinteresting But on the contrary there are also some students who feel discouraged,demotivated, lazy, indifferent, sleepy and noisy because the teacher’s personality isnot good and not interesting Thus, teacher’s negative attitudes have a strong impact

on students’ motivation Teacher’s love and caring seem to be the most importantcharacteristics for a teacher to exhibit Hunsaker (1988) claimed that “the main

value of humor in the classroom lies in its use to stimulate, illustrate, motivate andease tensions” In Weaver and Cotrell’s study (1987), one student said “it’s not somuch sense of humor; they need to show students that they are human” Weaver andCotrell (1987) established 10 steps for teachers to become more comfortable andhumorous in the classroom:

1 Smile/ Be lighthearted

2 Be spontaneous/ natural (Relax control a little/ break the routineoccasionally; Be willing to laugh at yourself/ don’t take yourself so seriously)

3 Foster an informal climate/ be conversational and loose

4 Begin class with a thought for the day, a poem, a short anecdote, or a humorous example

5 Use stories and experiences that emerge from the subject matter Use personal experiences

6 Relate things to the everyday life of students

7 Plan lectures/ presentations in short segments with humor injected Plan a commercial break Use a slide or overhead

8 Encourage a give-and-take climate between yourself and students Play offtheir comments Learn their names

9 Ask students to supply you with some of their jokes, stories, or anecdotes Share these

10 Tell a joke or two Do outrageous things Admit you are no good at it Appear human

• Teacher’s commitment to the students’ progress

Besides, teachers’ commitment strongly affects to students’ motivation as manyresearchers have believed that the teacher’s commitment is the significant predictor ofstudent effectiveness This is based on arguments claiming that student achievement isintertwined with teacher’s commitment to their works, their school and their students(Firestone and Rosenblum, 1988) According to Dorneyi (2001), teachers should showcommitment towards their students’ learning and progress, at the same time they

should care for what their students have learnt and succeeded For example, teachersshould offer concrete assistance; offer to meet students individually to explainthings; or allow students to call at home when they have a problem.

Many researchers have agreed that the most demotivating factor is teacher’sincompetence, which can be defined as a cluster of behavior that reflect teachers’indifference to the students and/or the course such as confusing and/or boringlectures, unfair testing and information overload A few studies by Fergusson (1991)and Thomas (1989) also concluded that teacher’s qualification, i.e knowledge,education and experience account for a large share of the variance in students’achievement than any single factor Medley (1982) stated that teacher’s competencysuch as behavior, skills and knowledge related to school performance Effectiveteachers are those with high competency in knowledge and skills In addition,teaching a language that means introduce the culture of that language If the teacherlacks knowledge of speaking countries, his or her lessons are less interesting tostudents

Teaching methods consisting of the teacher’s techniques and activities are ofgreat impact on learners’ motivation Without good techniques and interestingactivities, learners may be left in confusion and boredom while dealing withlearning tasks Therefore, teacher should invest more effort and thoughts in thematerials, the ways, and the time to use techniques and activities carefully for aspecific stage of teaching and assessing the learning performance Arikal et al(2008) claimed that effective teachers should have a student-centered classroom,should be creative and should teach outside the syllabus

1.2.2.2 Learner-related factors

There are various factors demotivating students in second or foreignlanguage learning, however these following factors are inferred to be the mostdeterminant

• Learner’s lack of basic knowledge of English

Among the factors, the first and most important factor is their basic knowledge.Background knowledge refers to the existing information on a specific topic in eachlanguage lesson Therefore, if students lack background knowledge, it is difficult forthem to get involved in learning activities They will be unable to comprehend newmaterials and more importantly, they will lose their interest in learning lessons.Realizing the influence of this factor, the teacher needs to provide the amount ofbackground information available and to see that they are able to use them

Besides, language items such as vocabulary and grammatical structures can

be considered to have an impact on the students’ feelings This causes difficulties ingetting meaning as well as practicing language skills

Learner’s prior knowledge is known to be an important prerequisite forindividual knowledge construction and learning outcome Theoretical approachesstress the importance of learner’s background knowledge when acquiring newlearning material (Weinert and Helmke, 1998) It can be implied that if the studentlacks of background knowledge, he can easily get demotivated because he must feelmore difficult in learning

Through the learner’s personality varies from person to person, it is a keyfactor that can motivate or demotivate the learner in learning foreign or secondlanguage learning Many researchers on demotivation of learners’ personalities havebeen investigated In addition, there is a close connection between a person’spersonality type and their learning style If they find their own style is not suitable

to the context of learning, they will be demotivated

Learner’s motivation can strongly decrease depending on how muchconfidence learner’s lack As a result, when a learner lacks confidence toward thelanguage they are learning and the environment they are in, they can easily get

anxiety which not only demotivate them but also is related to proficiency as

suggested by Clemen, Dorneyi and Noel (1994)

Most learners have strong believes about how languages are learnt, show theirinstruction should be delivered According to Lightbrown (1999), “These believes areusually based on previous learning experiences and assumption (right or wrong) that aparticular type of instruction is the best way for them to learn” Chamber’s study (1993)showed that lack of belief in learners’ capability, laziness and unwilling to learn are themain characteristics of the demotivated students in Britain

Other factors related to learning environment is a pleasant and supportiveatmosphere in the classroom as Lightbown and Spada (1999) claimed thatsupportive and non-threatening atmosphere makes a contribution to learner’smotivation In other words, negative, stressed, unsafe and boring atmospheretremendously demotivate students in learning For example, one student often feltconfused and unconfident because she felt that other groups laughed at her poorEnglish skills (Dorneyi’s study, 2001).

It is the fact that not every course book is interesting and attractive tostudents When students do not like the course book, they describe it “the worstcourse book in the world” and “incredible bad” (Dorneyi, 2001) It is strange thatstudents feel motivated with the course book they hate

1.3 Previous studies in the world and in Vietnam

Dorneyi’s study (originally in 1998 but based on 2001) was qualitative TheSubjects consist of 50 pupils in various secondary schools in Budapest, Hungary whowere studying either German or English as a foreign language and they had beenconsidered as being particularly demotivated by their teachers or peers He collectedthe data by using structured interviews from 10 to 30 minutes The subjects were asked

to answer a list of questions but they were allowed to speak freely

From the data, nine categories of demotivating factors were the teacher, confident reduction, inadequate school facilities, negative attitude toward L2, thecompulsory nature of the L2 learning, interference of another foreign language,negative attitude toward the L2 community, attitude of group member and course book

self-The teacher-related factors accounted more than half of all demotivatingfactors Two factors with significant proportions (more than 10%) were inadequateschool facilities and negative attitude toward the L2 The strength of Dorneyi’sstudy laid in his focused approach to study demotivation In detail, he focusedstudents who were identified as demotivated one, which offered details and

comprehensive insights into the sources of demotivation However, the source ofdemotivating factors might be wider if the study consists of students who are notspecifically demotivated because in fact, every leaner has some experience of beingdemotivated at some time and different levels during the process of L2 learning.

Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) investigated 6 factors from reviewing previousstudies of demotivation in learning, concluding teachers, characteristics of classes,experiences of failure, class environment, class materials, and lack of interest Theyadministrated a 35-item questionaired to 656 Japanese high school students andidentified the following sources of demotivation: 1) Learning contents andmaterials, 2) Teachers’ competence and teaching style, 3) Inadequate schoolfacilities, 4) Lack of intrinsic motivation, and 5) Test scores In contrast to bothprevious studies, teacher-related factors were not the most demotivating factors, thatlearning contents and materials and test scores are the prominent demotivatingfactors for various students

• Kikuchi’s study

Kikuchi (2011) conducted a research among 1334 Japanese senior highschool students at 7 high schools The questionnaire was used as the datainstrument The demotivation was found from these sources: students’ difficultexperience or loss of interest in leanring In addition, influence from teachers alsocauses demotivation and material focusing on difficult reading passage and/orvocabulary causes the strongest sense of demotivation Kikuchi’s study also reviews

on demotivation and demotivators of previous study in detail The questionnaires heused depend on analysis of other study and chose the most effective points such asfrom Dornyei, Oxford and Gardner His study is one part of the background for thisstudy However, only questionnaire was used If there were interviews withstudents, the deeper information could be collected from students

 Trang & Baldauf’s study

In case of Vietnamese students, Trang & Baldauf (2007) conducted aresearch on demotivation from 100 university students in learning English Thestudents were asked to write an essay of factors that demotivate them on learning aforeign language Trang & Baldauf (2007) found out that: Students founddemotivation to be an unavoidable phenomenon in English learning in Vietnam andthey offered a framework of demotivation Students mentioned demotivationcoming from internal attributions such as attitude toward English, experiences offailure or lack of success, or self-esteem Students also mentioned the sources ofdemotivation as external attributions such as from teachers (behavior, competence,methods etc.), from learning environment (classroom atmosphere, opportunities touse English, learning conditions, text books ect.) And other demotivating factorssuch as obligation (compulsory nature of English, parents’ interference) or negativechanges (teacher replacements, learning environmental changes).

Trang and Baldauf’s (2007) study revealed that demotivation existing in EFLlearning in Vietnam is serious phenomenon The findings of their study seem to besimilar to the previous study when it stated that the biggest source of demotivation

is relevant to the teachers Among the four categories related to teachers, teachingmethods were considered to be the largest source of students’ demotivation Second,teachers’ inappropriate behavior in classroom was also a major demotivating factorbecause it hurt students’ feeling and left them with negative attitude toward English.Among the internal factors, students’ experiences of failure or lack of success arethe highest Another important finding in their study was that many students feltdemotivated because their background knowledge of English was not adequate Thestudy also mentioned that university syllabus usually set progressive standards forstudents which they were asked to meet Therefore, students who failed in previousclasses find themselves lack of knowledge and were incapable of dealing withcurrent lessons, and felt demotivated This study is very helpful to the researcher’sunderstanding because it was conducted with Vietnamese students and revealedvarious demotivating factors that students were influenced However, I think if they

used questionnaires, the results would be more specific because students might notaware of all factors that demotivate them.

•Xuyen’s study

Xuyen (2010), conducted a research to find out demotivating factors to thesecond –year students in learning English in faculty of Banking and Finance atHanoi University of Business and Technology In the study, two surveyquestionnaires were delivered to 269 students and 8 teachers Besides, the semi-structured interview was conducted with 20 students to identify their perception ofdemotivators in English class The study shows that of all demotivators were found,subject-related factors were the most frequent, followed by learning-environment-related factors and teacher-related factors, and student-related factors came last Theresearcher found this research was very scientific and believable in the way shecollected data All the survey questions were delivered by email, thus, it gaveflexible time for students to think and answer the questions It also opened theresearcher’s perception of demotivating factors that the researcher’s student mighthave because there is the similarity between the contexts of Xuyen’s study and theresearcher’s, all are related to social and economic subjects

In short, each study reflects different points in investigating demotivatingfactors just because the researchers used different ways to collect data in differentcontexts In addition, the subjects and the learning conditions are not the same.However, from these studies above, it can be concluded that, demotivation variesfrom many sources, such as teachers, students, learning conditions etc

1.4 Demotivation and English learning at ULSA

Demotivation can be at any context and level of language teaching andlearning, with nearly 4 years of teaching English at ULSA, the researcher haverecognized the exit and effect of this phenomenon In lots of talks in breaks ormeetings, the first year students often receive a lot of attention, especially at thebeginning of the school year because they are new students Many teachers haveoften claimed that students have not paid attention to the lessons and have activelynot taken part in the activities They also said that although students at least had

learnt English at high school, they seem to be beginners in learning English atuniversity In addition, many teachers have claimed students’ inconfidence whenanswering teachers’ questions The teachers also claimed about the big class size,form 65 to 80, it is hard for the teachers to conduct a lesson and keep the classdiscipline About students, through many times attending other classes and myclass, many students have shown their uninterest and inactiveness in learning Theyjust keep silent until their teacher calls or only take part in some activities or dotheir private things As mentioned before, decreasing in motivation has strongimpact on the quality of teaching and learning There open a big gap that need tofulfill – what are the causes of these phenomenon and how to sort out theseproblems? From the interesting theories and the factual context of teaching andlearning English at ULSA, the researcher finds the need to conduct a study ondemotivating factors to the first-year non-major students in learning English.

In conclusion, this chapter has reviewed some of the most popular theories

on motivation, effects of motivation, demotivation, and factors that demotivatestudents in learning foreign/ second language After considering some previouspieces of research on these matters, the researchers realized that the more importantrole motivation is believed to play in EFL learning, the more common and seriousproblem demotivation is in many EFL learning environment in Vietnam in generaland in the researcher’s university, ULSA in particular However, demotivation hasnot been paid more attention from Vietnamese teachers and researchers From thefactual contexts that the researcher works in and finds the matter interesting andnecessary, this study aims to measure the factors that demotivate first- year non-major students at ULSA in learning English Among the factors identified byprevious researchers and depending on the context of teaching and learning English

at ULSA, the researcher wants to put emphasis on the following factors: (1) theteacher-related factors (2) the student-related factors; and (3) learning conditions

Most of them started learning English before attending the university Thelength of time they spent on English ranged from 0 to 12 years Among 140students, 53.6% (75 students) had spent from 7-8 years studying this language;20.7% (29 students) had learnt English for 3-4 years while 8.5% (12 students) hadlearnt English for 9-10 years while 9.3% (13 students) have had 5-6 years to learnEnglish and .0.5 % (7students ) have been learning English for 11-12 years.Especially, 2.9% (4 students) have never learnt English before None of them hadlearnt English aboard.

To pass the entrance exams to be students at ULSA, among them, 42students had English as one of the main subjects

When this research was carried out in May 2013, the participants were intheir second term of the first school year Up to the time of the study, they had been

studying English at ULSA for the first term and 7 weeks (6 periods per week), 87periods in total and took one end-of-term examinations of English The secondsemester was chosen to the time for this survey because at that time, students werefamiliar with the students’ life as well as gained some experiences of Englishlearning and did exams at university.

To some extent, some students especially who come from Hanoi and some citiesare good at English knowledge and skills The others are evaluated as in the low level

in English Consequently, there are only a small number of students who actually havepositive motivation in learning; the rest have strong pressure to pass exams

2.1.2 Setting of the study

This study was conducted at ULSA, a university in Hanoi, where English hasbeen teaching as a compulsory subject like many other universities in Vietnams.The book used for the first year students at ULSA is Lifeline – Elementary by TomHutchinson, published by Oxford University Press The course book at it consists of

14 units with 14 different topics relating to our life such as entertainment, survivors,travel, fashion, health, experiences and so on Each unit is divided into 5 sections:grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing, listening and speaking, andpronunciation Especially, the book supports students with some supplementarysuch as grammar reference, functional language, tape script, work book and key

At University of Labor and Social Affairs, 9 teachers take charge of teachingBasic English Among them, 4 have MA Degree and the rest hold a bachelordegree in English Language Teaching Five of them have more than 5 yearsteaching experience

To become students at ULSA, they have to pass the entrance exam indifferent groups such as A, A1, C or D At the university, there are approximately

65 -80 students with different levels of English were put to study in the same classand same textbook It is easy to see that the number of students in a class at ULSA

is very large; from experiences of more than 3 years of teaching, it is still a bigbarrier to my teaching

Although most students attended every lesson, many of them showed theiruninterest in learning English in class Therefore they did not want to learn Manycommented that they came to classes because teachers marked their attendance and ifthey were off more than 20% of the total lessons, they could not attend the final exam.

Therefore, this survey was conducted to investigate factors demotivatingstudents in English learning and to suggest some resolutions

2.2 Data collection

2.2.1 Data collection instruments

To fit the purpose of the study, the instruments used to collect data are the questionnaire and informal interview for students.

• Questionnaire

Questionnaire was used to collect the data because according to Nunan(1992), it is relatively popular means of collecting data of its advantages Moreover,questionnaires are considered an effective way of collecting data quickly in term ofaffective dimension of teaching and learning as beliefs, attitudes, motivation andreferences (Richard and Lockhart, 1994) Questionnaire for this research iscomposed of 2 parts The first part aims to collect information of respondentsincluding gender, age, and length of English learning The next part was used toelicit students’ opinion about demotivating factors in their learning Here, a Likertscale is used in the closed questions in order that the responses could readily bequantified and analyzed The participants are required to rate each item on a 4-pointscale by circling the response (1, 2, 3, or 4) which coded for different levels ofagreement or other categories The survey questions for the questionnaires wereadapted from Kikuchi’s study (2011) (See Appendix) Because in his study, Kikuchimentioned various previous studies to analyze and test out theories and point outwhich factors have strong effects on demotivation persuasively All the factors forhis survey and questionnaires were taken under consideration and deep analysis In

this study, the questionnaires (part 2) were adapted from Kikuchi (2011), Learners

Perceptions of Demotivators in Japanese High School English Classroom.

Structure of the demotivation questionnaire

Part 1: Gender, hometown, the length of learning English

Part 2: Demotivating factors

The questionnaire for students consists of 26 questions (see Appendix) For

every question, informants are asked to tick their view

Twenty-six questions of the surveys for students are grouped into 3 parts as

follows:

A Students’ opinions on demotivating factors relating to themselves

A1 Lack of basic knowledge ( Question 10)

-A2 Lack of confidence (Questions 7, 9)

- A3 Student’ personality (Questions 6, 8)

- A4 Student’s belief (Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

B Students’ opinions on demotivating factors relating to teachers

- B1 Teacher’s personality (Questions 11, 12)

- B2 Teacher’s commitment (Questions 19)

- B3 Teacher’s incompetence (Questions 17, 18)

- B4 The teaching methods (Questions 13, 14, 15, 16)

C Students’ opinions on demotivating factors relating to tlearning conditions

• Interviews

Questionnaires were used as the main instrument in this study However,using of questionnaires also has some disadvantages, such as the answers may besimple and superficial, the respondents are unreliable and motivated, and may facewith literacy problems, the researchers may have little or no opportunity to correctthe respondents’ mistakes and hallo effect (which concerns the human tendency toover generalize) (Dornyei, 2005) Therefore, after conducting the questionnaires,the interviews were carried out with 20 students to get better insights into theresearch questions and to discuss for further information about the items raised inthe questionnaires The participants were invited to answer the questions with theresearcher’s explanation of the questions and clarifying unclear answers, eachinterview lasted about 15 to 20 minutes The informal talks were sometimes donebetween the researcher and students at English lesson breaks.

The purpose of interview is to investigate:

- Students’ ideas about English language and English learning

- Factors demotivate them to learn English (teacher-related factors, related factors, learning condition)

student-The answer from interviews with students were named S1 –S20 All the answers then were mentioned in the following part

All the interviews were carried out in Vietnamese in the form of an informalconversation between the researcher and the students The data collected frominterview were recorded and then translated into English words for the purposes ofthe study

2.2.2 Data collection procedures

The data collection procedures were conducted one week before the ending

of the second semester in May 2013

Before giving questionnaires, the researcher explained the purpose of thestudy and instructed students to finish all questions depending on their case in 20 or

25 minutes They were also informed that all their information was kept in secretand for researching purpose only so that they could willingly answer all theirquestions Fortunately 160 questionnaires were collected

After that, deep-information about demotivating factors was gained byinterviews After the research analyzed the questionnaires, 20 students were chosen

to participate in the interview

All collected data were firstly read through to obtain a sense of the overalldata and the interview transcriptions were jotted down Then, the findings werewritten in forms of reflective notes and summaries of field notes for the researchereasy to follow before the information was displayed in forms of tables and figures

All collected data were analyzed by researcher alone to avoid inconsistency

or possible biases

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this part, demotivating factors to students’ learning which are reflectedthrough the data of questionnaires and interviews with the first-year non-majorstudents will be focus

3.1 Findings

To answer the two research questions, the questionnaire was used The datawill be counted and put in the tables and figures as follows

3.1.1 Factors that demotivating students to learn English at ULSA

This part aims to answer the question:

(1) What factors demotivate students in learning English?

3.1.1.1 Student-related factors

The first source of demotivation, students, will be analyzed according to thetable of data In the table, only the % of participants agreeing and strongly agreeingare mentioned for the purposes of finding out the demotivation factors

and strongly agreeing

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Group Items Questions % of participants agreeing

and strongly agreeing

Table 3.1: Students’ opinions on student-related factors ( A =Group of Student –

related factors, A1-A4 = Factors; Q1–Q10: Questions from 1-10 about

student-related factors)

Figure 3.1: Students’ opinion on Student-related factors

(A1= Lack of basic knowledge, A2= Student’s personality, A3=Lack

of confidence, A4 =Student’s belief)

As can be seen from the table 3.1 and figure 3.1, a large number of studentsagreed that they lacked of basic knowledge (75.7%) and confidence (75,4% ) in

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is very important (85%) and English at university is not impractical The researcherfound the most common and significant answers in the interview as follow:

“Today English is very important because it is an international language People use it in all fields and aspects of life If any wants to find a good job after graduating, he should have to learn English well” (S1)

“English is useful I want to learn English to read books and newspapers in English and to communicate with foreigners” (S5)

However, among 20 interviewers, more than two third of them said that,English is important because it is their subject and they have to learn to pass the

exams as one said “If you don’t learn English, you can never pass the exams to

leave this university” (S10)

It seems that many students lack intrinsic motivation to learn English atULSA, they just learn because of exams or as a condition to leave the university

In addition, many of them reported that English is a difficult language forthem to learn (75%) and half of them (50%) admitted that they lost interest inlearning English at the university due to the reasons above Besides, studentsthought they are able to learn English (55%) and their personality is not the strongreason to demotivated them in learning

In the interview, students revealed many parts of English difficult such asgrammar, pronunciation or skills As one student claimed in the interview that:

For me, English pronunciation and stress is the most difficult, I cannot imitate the way my teacher makes model the sound like Vietnamese rather English and I never remember where the word tress is (S3)

Some others found difficulties in listening and speaking skills:

“I find listening is the most difficult skill I can understand my teacher in

class but I cannot understand what is said in the tape.” (S4, S7, S11)

“Although I have learnt English for nearly 10 years, I often feel nervous and confused when speaking English and I can express my ideas clearly as well as speak fluently and naturally” (S8)

And one said: