An investigation into non english major students’ motivation in english language learning at phuong dong university, hanoi

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLESChart 1: Students‟ attitude on English learning at PDU Chart 2: Students‟ attitude on English Table 1: Students‟ desire to learn English Table 2: Students‟ reaso

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

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ PHƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY, HANOI

(Nghiên cứu đông ̣ lưc ̣ học tiếng Anh của các sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại Trường Đại Học Dân Lập

Phương Đông, Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FieldCode

: English Teaching Methodology: 6014.0111

HANOI, 2013

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

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ PHƯƠNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING AT PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY, HANOI

(Nghiên cứu đông ̣ lưc ̣ học tiếng Anh của các sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại Trường Đại Học Dân Lập

Phương Đông, Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology

Supervisor : Dr Mai Thị Loan

HANOI, 2013

I certify that this thesis is entirely my own work Documented references have beenfully provided I have not been submitted this thesis for assessment in any otherformal course of study

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, D.r Mai Thi loan forher support, encouragement and valuable guidance through out the process ofconducting this study

My special thank is for D.r Le Van Canh and all my other lecturers for their usefuland valuable lectures that I got at the MA course at the University of Languages andinternational studies, VNU I am indebted to them for basic knowledge on teachingmethodology and research methodology

This study would not have been completed without the participation of non-majoredstudents and teachers of English at Phuong Dong University I am grateful for theirsharing time on English learning with me

Finally, I would like to thank all authors and linguists who have provided me with atreasure of knowledge about motivation, so that I can have basic theoreticalbackground for the study

Without all their help, this thesis would not be completed as expected

Hanoi, 2013

Bui Thi Phuong

Motivation has been a concern of so many linguists and scholars for its essentialrole in language learning Discovering learners‟ motivation will help teachers andeducationalists have best methods to help their learners succeed

The study was conducted with the participation of 300 non-majored students at thesame psychological age group (18-22) from different faculties and 10 teachers atPhuong Dong University It is an investigation of non-majored students‟ motivation

at Phuong Dong University with the aim of finding best methods to improve theirmotivation in English learning In order to gain this aim, the study has found outstudents‟ desire for learning English, the reasons they are learning English, theirdifficulties and their favourite activities and teaching methods in the classroom aswell as teachers‟ suggestions for useful methods The result showed that non majors

at PDU possess different kinds of motivations with a majority of students learningEnglish for their future career Not many of them are satisfied with teachingfacilities and teaching methods at school They prefer motivational activities such asgames, songs, pictures and some of communicative activities such as listening andspeaking They also want to practice exercises in the final exams for high marks and

a good degree after graduation Useful methods applied by teachers are alsoinvestigated for the basis of the most appropriate implications on teaching andlearning English at PDU

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

Chart 1: Students‟ attitude on English learning at PDU

Chart 2: Students‟ attitude on English

Table 1: Students‟ desire to learn English

Table 2: Students‟ reasons for learning English

Table 3: Factors of learning environment and facilities

Table 4: Factors of teachers and teaching methods

Table 5: Factors of learners‟ problems

Table 6: Students‟ favourite activities and tasks

Chart 3: Teachers‟ roles

Chart 4: English skills focused

Chart 5: Motivational teaching methods

L2: Second language

PDU: Phuong Dong University

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF TABLES iv

ABBREVIATIONS v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Method of the study 2

6 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Motivation in language learning 4

1.2 Classification of motivation 6

1.3 Factors affecting students’ motivation 8

1.4 Strategies to motivate students in the classroom 11

1.5 Summary of the chapter 13

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 14

2.1 The context of the study 14

2.2 Subjects 15

2.3 Instruments 16

2.4 Data collection and analysis procedure 17

2.5 Summary of the chapter 17

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION. 18

3.1 Data analysis of questionnaire for students 18

3.1.1 Students’ motivation 18

3.1.2 Factors affecting students’ motivation 22

3.1.2.1 Learning environment and facilities 22

3.1.2.2 Teachers and teaching methods 24

3.1.2.3 Learner’s problems 26

3.1.3 Students’ favourite activities and tasks 27

3.2 Data analysis of questionnaire for teachers 30

3.3 Summary of the chapter 33

CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS 34

4.1 Teachers’ roles, responsibility and awareness 34

4.1.1 Teachers’ roles 34

4.1.2 Teachers’ enthusiasm and responsibility 35

4.1.3 Teachers’ awareness of students’ interest and expectations in the class 35

4.2 Motivational teaching methods 35

4.2.1 Warm-up activities and visual aids 35

4.2.2 Variety of activities 36

4.2.3 The revision book 37

4.2.4 Focus on listening and speaking skills 37

4.2.5 Further activities and worksheets 38

4.2.6 Clear instruction and explanation about the goals of each activity and lesson 38

4.2.7 Winning cards 39

4.3 Some other proposals to improve students’ motivation in English learning at PDU 39

4.3.1 Teaching facilities 39

4.3.2 Teacher education programs 40

4.3.3 English contests, outdoor activities and English club 40

4.4 Summary of the chapter 40

PART C: CONCLUSION 41

1 Summary of the study 41

2 Recommendations for further researches 42

REFERENCES 44 APPENDICES I

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English, as an international language, is widely used in most fields in most countries

in the world nowadays Among them, Vietnam has been aware of the importance ofEnglish to improve economic development and enhance international relationships

It is undeniable that English is the bridge to introduce Vietnamese culture andpeople to others in the world In the first place, Vietnamese people started learningEnglish as a requirement of their job and nowadays they learn for differentpurposes Some learn English for their future jobs; some learn English for theirdesire to discover knowledge and some may want to learn English for their interest.For university students, English is a compulsory subject as well as job requirementafter graduation However, as my experience at PDU, not all my students likeEnglish and not many of them satisfy with English lessons in the classroom It isobvious that the effectiveness of teaching and learning English in schools should betaken into account

It is said that teaching is one of the easiest jobs in the world but teaching well is one

of the most difficult It is no doubt that everyone can tell others what he or sheknows but not so many can become good teachers because teaching in general andteaching language in particular always requires a large effort from the teacher Infact, teachers always have to face with a number of problems in the class One ofthe difficulties most English teachers have experienced when teaching is students‟passivity to learn the language in the class The answers to some questions such ashow to counter with students‟ lack of effort, desire and motivation in learningEnglish, how to get don‟t want to learn learners involved in classroom activitiesneed to be based on students‟ expectations in language classes Moreover, anunderstanding about their motivation to learn and factors negatively affecting theirmotivation will be the key to this problem

Motivation is not a new term in the language-teaching field and many studies byscholars, linguistics and educationalists have proved that motivation is an important

aspect of successful learning Therefore, they attempt to find out the most usefulways to motivate students in the class However, effectiveness and application ofthese methods always vary in different contexts In fact, up to now, there has notbeen any research on non-majors‟ motivation at Phuong Dong University, one ofthe oldest private universities in Ha Noi in which, as my experience, students‟motivation in learning English is quite different from other schools.

For all the reasons above, this study is hoped to reveal student‟s motivation as well

as factors influencing their motivation in the class so that pedagogical implicationscan be drawn to help students more interested in learning English

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at investigating non-English major students‟ motivation in Englishlearning at PDU and proposing professional implications on how to support teachers

in motivating non- English learners to learn English

3 Research questions

To achieve above aims the study will answer following questions

1) What kinds of motivation do non-English major students at PDU possess?

2) What factors negatively affect non-English major students’ motivation in

English learning at PDU?

3) What are their favourite activities and tasks in the English class?

4) What implications can support teachers to improve students’ motivation to learn English?

The study is an investigation of motivation in English learning of first year andsecond year non- English major students at PDU only and then some usefulimplications for teachers to make students more motivated in the English class will

be suggested

5 Method of the study

To achieve the aim of the study, the study is carried out by following steps:

- First, a survey questionnaire for students was conducted to investigate students‟motivation in English learning, factors affecting motivation and expectations in theEnglish class at PDU.

- Second, a survey questionnaire for teachers was delivered to investigateteachers‟ opinions about some motivational tools as well as useful methods they areapplying to motivate their students in the classroom

- Then data were collected, sorted and analyzed quantitatively to explore majors‟ motivation

non Last, some pedagogical implications for improving students‟ motivation in learning English were suggested at the end of the study

6 Organization of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts:

PART A- Introduction: provides general introduction of the study with the

rational, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the method and theorganization of the study

PART B- Development: is divided into four chapters:

Chapter 1 discusses theoretic backgrounds that are relevant to the study such as

different views on motivation in language learning, the importance of motivation inlanguage learning, kinds of motivation, factors affecting learners‟ motivation andstrategies enhancing motivation in foreign and second language learning

Chapter 2 presents the context of the study, data collection instruments and

procedure of data collection

Chapter 3 describes the process of collecting data and the detail analysis of the

collected data from which some findings, explanation and interpretation of thefindings of the study are presented

Chapter 4 discusses some pedagogical implications on how to motivate

non-majored students in learning English at PDU

PART C: Conclusion: summarizes what have been done in the study and presents

some possible suggestions for the further researches The references and appendicesare also included in this final part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, a review of some of the aspects of the concept of motivation such asdefinition, classifications, roles and factors affecting learners‟ motivation will beprovided Several motivating tools for language learning suggested by varioustheorists and practitioners will be also briefly presented and discussed

1.1 Motivation in language learning

Motivation is something internal to human beings It drives human beings to act It

is also related to satisfaction of needs and desire of human beings to perform orachieve a goal „To motivate‟ means “to make somebody want to do something,especially something that involves hard work and effort” (Oxford AdvanceLearners‟ Dictionary)

In language learning, motivation refers to learners‟ desire and effort to achieve thegoals of getting good results in tests or being more successful in future career It isundeniable that motivation is particularly important in education in general and inthe classroom in particular because of its strong impact on students‟ learning As acritical component of learning, motivation is essential in getting students to engage

in academic activities It is also important to determine how much students willlearn from the activities they perform or the information to which they will beexposed to

Researchers have different views on the term of motivation in language teachingand learning Many of these motivation theories are based on goal achievementwhere people are motivated by the prospect of success

Harmer (1983: 3) has a broad view of motivation: motivation is some kind ofinternal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action He alsomentions another important term of motivation: goal He explains that if weperceive a goal and if that goal is sufficiently attractive, we will be stronglymotivated to do whatever is necessary to reach that goal

Beside Harmer, other researchers also attempt to explain what motivation is Thus,motivation to learn a foreign language can be describe as a complex of construct,involving effort and desire, as well as favorable attitude toward learning thelanguage in hand (Gardner, 1985) It is a tool to explain why people decide to dosomething, how hard they are going to pursue it, and how long they are willing tosustain the activity (Dörnye, 2001) It is also a complex phenomenon and includesmany components such as the individual‟s drive, need for achievement and success,curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on (Littlewood,1998:53).

Regarding to motivation in the teaching-learning process, it is stated that studentswill work longer, harder and with more vigor and intensity when they are motivated.Bernaus (1995, 11-20) after investigating the role of motivation in foreign languagelearning has founded that „motivation accounts for 48.5% of students‟ Englishproficiency‟ and concluded that motivation is the main factor affecting students‟foreign language acquisition, followed by socio-cultural factor He also emphasizedthat the motivational factors are more important than other factors in favouringstudents‟ English achievement

Littlewood (1998:53) also states that in second language learning, motivation is thecrucial force which determines whether a learner embarks on a task at all, howmuch energy he devote to it, and how long he perseveres

Another role of motivation is to promote the choice of strategies to becomesuccessful in academic activities The use of specific learning strategies andtechniques while studying a second language leads to success According to Oxford(1994), “more motivated students tend to use more strategies than less motivatedstudents, hence, they tend to be more successful”

In general, motivation can be understood as a desire to achieve a goal, combinedwith the energy to work towards that goal In the classroom, this theory is confirmed

by the fact that the students pursue the goal to gain some kinds of rewards such aspraise, grades, scholarships, certificates, diplomas, good job and so

on However, learners‟ motivation can change overtime and have effect on theirlanguage.

in that community As pointed by Harmer (1983: 3), the strong form of integrative motivation wishes to integrate himself into the target culture and a weak form of such motivation would be the students‟ desire to know as much as possible about the culture of the target language community

On the other hand, the instrumental motivation concerns practical values in learningthe second language such as passing exams, financial rewards, furthering a career orgaining promotion (Harmer: 1983; Gardner and Lambert: 1959) It is adetermination to acquire another language to achieve such goals as a good job orsocial recognition (Gardner and Lambert, 1959)

In fact, it is difficult to attribute learning language success to certain integrative orinstrumental because integrative and instrumental motivations are mutuallyinclusive Most situations in learning language involve a mixture of each type ofmotivation (Dörnyei, 1998) The importance of integrative and instrumentalmotivation depends on situations or contexts, whether learning language functionsmore as a foreign language or as a second language (Gardner and Lambert, 1959)Another popular view on types of motivation divided motivation into extrinsic andintrinsic motivation

According to Harmer (1983: 3) extrinsic motivation is related to the concept of

goal He explains that students who decide to go and study a language to obtain

some goal that they wish to reach Extrinsic motivation is based on externaloutcomes such as rewards and punishment This motivation could bring a negativeimpact to the students, because with extrinsic motivation, students do not learn withtheir strong intention or will but they study it because they are pushed by the interest

in the rewards or the punishment

Intrinsic motivation refers to the motivation to engage in an activity because thatactivity is enjoyable and satisfying to do He states that „intrinsic motivation plays

by far the larger part in most students‟ success or failure as language learner‟.Because this type of motivation is from within the students, they are alwayswillingly and voluntarily try to learn what they think it is worth or important forthem When students have intrinsic motivation, they have the internal desire to learnwithout the need for external outcomes

Kathleen Bailey (1986, quoted in Brown, 2000: 165-166) illustrated the relationshipbetween the intrinsic-extrinsic construct and integrative-instrumental orientationwith the diagram:

L2 learner wishes to Someone else wishes the L2integrate with the L2 learner to know the L2 for

immigration) parents send kids to

Japanese-language school)L2 learner wishes to achieve External power wants L2 learner

U.S for language training)

It is obvious that different kinds of motivation are closely related to each other.They do not exclude each other According to Gilakjani, Lai-Mei Leong andSabouri (2012), „it is hard to consider motivation as something that is either simplyinternal or external to the learner‟ because „intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is

relevant to integrative and instrumental motivation in relation to L2 languagelearning‟ They explain: learners who study hard to learn L2 may be intrinsically orextrinsically motivated or many have a mixture of both intrinsic and extrinsicreasons prompting them As extrinsic motivation may turn out to be integrativemotivation if someone else wishes the L2 learner to know the L2 for integrativereasons; extrinsic motivation could turn out to be instrumental motivation if anexternal power wants the L2 learner to learn the L2 language In addition, intrinsicmotivation can turn out to be integrative motivation and intrinsic motivation canalso turn out to be instrumental motivation if the L2 learner wishes to achieve goalsutilizing L2 The learners with similar instrumental motivation might show astriking difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation Similarly, the learnerswith the same integrative motivation can show vast differences of intrinsic andextrinsic motivation.

1.3 Factors affecting students’ motivation

Some researchers have presented and analyzed factors affecting motivation Mostthese views agree that most common factors include teacher‟s factors, learners‟factors and physical factors Among these theories, I support Harmer and Dornyei‟sview on factors influencing negatively and positively on extrinsic and intrinsicmotivation

According to Harmer (1983), the factor affecting extrinsic motivation most is

students‟ attitude toward the language This attitude may be influenced by those around him who have positive or negative attitude to the culture or the target

language community or by his previous experiences as a student He also states factors that can affect intrinsic motivation as follows:

Physical condition: physical conditions have a great effect on learning and can alter

a student‟s motivation either positively or negatively For example if student have

to study in the bad lighting classroom, overcrowded with too many students, have tolook at the small board, or in the unpleasant smell classroom, they can lose theirmotivation or their motivation in learning will be lowered

Method of teaching: the ways that students are taught must have some effects on

their motivation Whenever the learners feel bored with the teacher‟s method, theirmotivation would likely be lost or gradually decreased, whereas, if they areinterested in the teaching method, they will find it motivating

The teacher: Teachers are considered as the most powerful variable of motivation

and demotivation, and can become a major part in demotivating the learners DenisGirard (1970, cited in Harmer, 1983:5-6) suggested some qualities a teacher shouldhave to help in providing intrinsic motivation:

- The teacher has to make his classes interesting

- The teacher must be fair, treat his students equally and as far as possible

understand and act on the worries and aspirations of his pupils

- The teacher must offer a good model as the target language user

- The teacher must be a good technician…

Success: Success plays a vital part in the motivation drive of a student It refers to

the appropriate level of challenge designed by the teachers If the difficulty of workand activity is too high or too low, it can lead students to a demotivated situation inlearning As Harmer (1983:6) pointed out, to give high challenge activities mayhave a negative effect on motivation Students can also equally be demotivated bytoo low level of challenge

Dornyei (1994: 279-280) also studied the possible factors of demotivation amongEnglish language learners focused on the role of effective factors at three levels oflanguage, learner and learning situation His study showed that the learners‟demotivation concerned with the learner levels and learning situation levels One ofthe learners‟ problems is lack of self-confidence, caused mostly by negative pastexperiences and some of learning situation level problems are being placed into aninappropriate group; lack of free choice, lack of skilled teachers and lack ofconstancy in language learning in a relaxing and pleasant atmosphere

Moreover, Dornyei (2001, cited in Ghadirzadeh, Hashtroudi, Shokri, 2012)presented nine demotivating factors based on his studies about the possible factors

of demotivation:

- Teachers‟ personalities, commitments, competence, teaching methods

- Inadequate school facilities (large class sizes, unsuitable level of classes or frequent change of teachers)

- Reduced self-confidence due to their experience of failure or lack of success

- Negative attitude toward the foreign language studied

- Compulsory nature of the foreign language study

- Interference of another foreign language that pupils are studying

- Negative attitude toward the community of the foreign language spoken

- Attitudes of group members

- Course books used in class

Related to the relationship between demotivation factors and the strength ofmotivation, Ghadirzadeh, Hashtroudi, Shokri (2012) when studying demotivatingfactors for English language learning among university students, attempted toanswer the question: “Is there any significant difference between the two groups ofmore and less motivated students for English language learning?” The results ofmultivariate analysis of variance showed statistically significant differencesbetween the two groups for two factors (lack of perceived individual competenceand lack of intrinsic motivation) while there were no statistically significantdifferences for the other three demotivating factors (inappropriate characteristics ofteachers‟ teaching methods and course contents, inadequate university facilities andfocus on difficult grammar)

Among all these factors, teachers and teaching methods are considered the mostimportant ones that affect students‟ motivation negatively or positively because inthe class, the teacher always has to play different roles such as a leader, a supporter

an encourager etc The way the teacher encourages students definitely affectsstudents‟ motivation the most

1.4 Strategies to motivate students in the classroom

The question of how to motivate students to learn always calls the concern frommany teachers and researchers According to Dornyei.Z and H-F Cheng (2007),motivation is one of the key factors that determine success in L2 learning, strategies

in motivating language learners should be seen as an important aspect of thetheoretical analysis of L2 motivation Generally, they agree that extrinsic andintrinsic motivation should be combined, but teachers should target at the intrinsicmotivation as the main long-term motivation to students‟ learning

Dörnyei (1998b) offered a set of Ten Commandments for motivating learners Allthese these ten items focus on what the teacher can and should do to stimulateintrinsic motivation:

1) Set a personal example with your own behavior

2) Create a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere in the classroom

3) Present the task properly

4) Develop a good relationship with the learners

5) Increase the learner‟s linguistic self-confidence

6) Make the language classes interesting

7) Promote learner autonomy

8) Personalize the learning process

9) Increase the learners‟ goal-orientedness

10) Familiarize learners with the target language culture

Dörnyei (2001, cited in Gardner.R and Bernaus.M, 2008) then grouped these

strategies into four categories:

- Creating basic motivational conditions by adopting appropriate teacherbehaviours, having a good relationship with students, maintaining a pleasant andsupportive atmosphere in the classroom

- Enhancing learners' language-related values and attitudes, increasing their expectancy of success, increasing their goal-orientedness

- Improving the quality of learning experience, increasing students‟

self-confidence, creating learner autonomy…

- Encouraging positive self-evaluation by promoting attributions to effort ratherthan to ability, providing motivational feedback and increasing learner

- Teaching approaches: Brown then suggests some teaching approaches that areconsidered intrinsic motivation such as learner-centered, cooperative and content-basedteaching Instead of providing learners with all the necessary things to learn, the teachergives them opportunities to make choices in activities, topics and discussions, etc

- Test: he also mentions the importance of test with some special intentions fromteachers with the potential of intrinsic motivation The tests should involve students‟input and are face-valid in the eyes of students

Oxford and Shearin (1996: 139) also offer practical suggestions for teachers tomotivate students According to him, teachers can motivate students by identifyingwhy they are studying the new language and help them shape their own belief aboutsuccess and failure in second language learning They also need to make the L2classroom a welcoming, positive place where psychological needs are met andwhere language anxiety is kept to a minimum Besides, teachers can urge students todevelop their own intrinsic rewards through positive self-talk, guided self-

12

evaluation, and mastery of specific goals, rather than comparison with otherstudents.

As far as many a educationalist are concerned, the ratio of using intrinsically andextrinsically motivated ways in teaching depends on many other factors such asteachers‟ teaching style, the students‟ age and characteristics, the stages of thelesson and so on The right of choosing the appropriate methods and strategies are inhand of the teacher Many factors involved in the success of applying motivatingresources, but some notes like young learner‟s preference and needs should be takeninto account

1.5 Summary of the chapter

The chapter has reviewed some knowledge related to motivation theory in languageteaching and learning It has provided the basic understanding about the generalviews of motivation, kinds of motivation, factors affecting motivation as well asstrategies to motivate students in the classroom Based on this knowledge, aninvestigation of non-majored students‟ motivation at PDU will be introduced in thenext chapter

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

This chapter will present the context of the study and research methodologyincluding subjects, instruments and data collection and analysis procedure

2.1 The context of the study

Founded in 1994, Phuong Dong University is one of the oldest private universities

in Ha Noi At the present, there are over 9000 students placed in 6 different fieldsincluding Foreign Languages, Economics and Management, Electrical Engineering,Information Technology, Architecture and Environment Technology The maincampus in Trung Kinh Street is training about 6000 students of four departments:Foreign Languages, Economics and Management, Information Technology andEnvironment Technology The school has a library on the seventh floors servingreference materials for students and but non-majors have no chance to learn Englishwith projectors There are also four computer rooms serving information technologycourses and examination

At Phuong Dong University, non-English major students have to learn English as acompulsory subject They are required to complete four general English terms in thefirst year and second year and an ESP term in the third year Each English class hasfrom 20 two 35 students At the end of each term, students are always examined onfour skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing Most first yearstudents‟ level of English proficiency ranges from beginning to pre- intermediatelevel When they were at high school, they got used to translation grammar teachingmethod in which the teachers focused on the rules of grammar structures andstudents practiced the drills to remember those structures Therefore, at university,most students have difficulties in listening and speaking skills

Among 21 teachers of English currently teaching non-majors at the main campus inTrung Kinh street, 15 of them got the MA degrees They are all female ranking from

24 to 45 and have at least two years teaching non-majors at PDU

The textbooks used in general English courses are New Headway series (the thirdedition) by Liz and John Soars Two first terms deal with the Elementary book and

the two later terms learn the pre-intermediate book Because of the finalexamination format, students are always required to practice and complete alllanguage skills during the course including listening, speaking, writing, readingcomprehension and language forms Besides, practicing and working in pairs andgroups are of the most popular activities in the class to prepare for the final speakingtest.

2.2 Subjects

The study was first conducted with the participation of 325 first and second yearstudents randomly chosen from different departments representing 3000 first yearand second year students of PDU Among them, there are 75 students fromInformation Technology, 100 students from Environment Technology and 150students from Economics and Management Department The majority of studentsare aged from 18 to 22 They come from different backgrounds and environments,varied from the cities to mountainous areas Some students are living in the centralHanoi Most of them have been learning English for at least 7 years but enrolled thecourse with low and medium level of English proficiency

These groups of students are chosen for the study for the two following reasons: First, only first year, second year and third year students are required to learn

General English at PDU A study on first year and second year students who have just completed the first and second term of English is ideal to understand their reasons for learning English and plan strategies for improving their motivation in later terms

Secondly, a study on students sharing the same type of drives and condition oflearning but differing in learning majors and styles can help define the differentlevels and kinds of motivation more sufficiently The number of students from thefaculty of economics and management are bigger than those of any other faculty atPDU and assumed to learn English better than others and seem to be more interested

in English Most of them have higher level of language proficiency than those fromother departments because English is one of their main subjects at the

university entrance exams They also want to develop their abilities in using English

as their future career requirements By contrast, the other part of students from otherdepartments tend to regard English as less important than the other subjects, so most

of them just learn English in order to pass the exams

The other group of ten teachers at PDU ranges from 24 to 45 years old Amongthem, two teachers have been teaching English at PDU for two years and eightteachers have had from five to ten year experience teaching at PDU Seven of themhave got MA degrees but all of them have had few opportunities to discuss newteaching techniques at the PDU

2.3 Instruments

In order to obtain data and information for the study, two sets of questionnaires fornon-majored students and teachers are used Using questionnaires is one of the mostpopular instruments to investigate opinions and one of the best choices to collectdata from a large group of subjects at the same time

Questionnaire for the students was delivered to students for the purpose of finding

their motivation, factors having impact on their motivation as well as theirexpectations in the English class Question items are all written in Vietnamese andare divided into four main parts:

- The first part provides some general information about students in terms of name, gender, age, learning major, province and years of leaning English

- The second part of the survey aims at investigating students‟ motivation inlearning English at PDU Categories include students‟ attitude towards English learning

in the classroom (question 1), students‟ desire to learn English (questions 2-5) and kinds

of motivation that non majors at PDU possess (question 6)

- The third part of the questionnaire includes 24 items investigating factors thatmay negatively affect students‟ motivation in learning English at PDU Factors assumedconsist of textbook and curriculum (items 1-3), facilities (items 4-5), classroomenvironment (items 6-9), teachers (items 10- 13), teaching methods (items 14-21) andlearners‟ problems (items 22-24) It is also aimed at finding

out students‟ attitude toward the learning environment, teachers and teachingmethods at PDU as well as how much they are affecting their motivation inEnglish learning.

- 12 items of the fourth part of the questionnaire investigate students‟ attitudetoward some most popular activities and tasks in the classroom at PDU with the aim todiscover students‟ preferred learning activities and expectations in the classroom so thatstrategies for improving their motivation can be suggested

Questionnaires for the teachers: the questionnaire for the teachers is aimed at

finding out their opinions and suggestions for improving students‟ motivation tolearn English at PDU The survey conists of 5 questions: question 1 asks for theroles of the teacher in the class; Question 2 finds out the most prefered skillsfocused in the class; Question 3 and 4 investigate useful methods that teachers areapplying to motivate students in English learning; Question 5 asks for teachers‟proposals to improve students‟ motivation

2.4 Data collection and analysis procedure

The data are collected and analyzed by following steps:

- Questionnaires were first delivered to the students and teachers after the Englishlessons at the end of the first English term (with first year students) and second Englishterm (with second year students) at PDU

- After collecting information, data were consolidated and categorized

- The results then were analyzed and presented in forms of tables, charts and

figures

Data analysis and findings will be presented and discussed in the next chapter

2.5 Summary of the chapter

By means of questionnaires for teachers and students, the researcher hoped toconduct a qualitative and quantitative result of the research The generalization ofthe conducted data was expected to provide relatively exact information about realteaching situation at PDU The teachers and students chosen randomly would makethe research more objective There may exist unavoidable limitations during theresearch but it is hoped that the reliable basis for the data analysis and findings will

be provided

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, an analysis on questionnaires for students and teachers will bereported Then, explanations and interpretations of the findings in the study will

Question 1 aims at finding out the students‟ attitude toward English lessons andEnglish learning at PDU

Chart 1: Students’ attitude on English learning at PDU

The chart reveals that over a third of the students have positive attitudes towardEnglish learning at the school and approximately two third of them show little or nointerest in English lessons in the classroom These numbers show the low students‟satisfaction with the English course at school and raise the question of why so manystudents do not like learning English and how much teaching environment andteaching methods are affecting their desire to learn English

Question 2 measures students‟ desire toward English learning

Chart 2: Students’ attitude on English

According to the chart, a large percentage of students (61.2%) like learning Englishand surprisingly, only 5.6% of the subjects have no interest in English learning Therest of 33.2% hold neither positive nor negative attitude toward English learning Itcan be inferred that most students at PDU are interested in English and havepositive attitude toward English

The level of students‟ desire to learn English is measured with question 3, 4, 5:

Table 1: Students’ desire to learn English

Desire is one of the elements of motivation indicating the level of one‟scommitment in attaining a goal The results in the table show that the majority ofstudents have a strong desire to learn English Although only 9% of them usuallyattend the English club at the school, 84.8% of them want to learn English if it werenot taught at the school and 88.9 % students want to improve English after thecourse by doing extra English courses or studying at home These results also revealstudents‟ intention to make effort to obtain the goal.

Besides findings about favorable attitude, desire and effort to attain the goal, adiscovery of students‟ reasons for learning English will help teachers understandmore about students as well as their goals of learning English

Question 6: Why do you want to learn English? Because ?

d It makes me become a more confident, knowledgeable 154 47.4and skillful person

According to the results in the table, students at PDU are studying English fordifferent reasons In general, they learn English due to some main kinds ofmotivation such as integrative motivation and instrumental motivation It can befounded that the majority of the students at PDU possess instrumental reasons tolearn English with 73.8% of the students agree that English is useful for their job inthe future and 44.9 % of the students want to get high grades at all subjects and agood degree after graduation Besides, a considerable percentage of students studyEnglish as a compulsory subject This proves that around nearly one third arenegatively instrumentally motivated.

Beside instrumental reasons for learning English, a large percentage of studentsintegratively wants to learn English to become a more confident, knowledgeableand skillful person (47.4%) or to communicate and make friends with foreignpeople (53.9%) As English is an international language, it is desirable that moststudents set the goal of being able to communicate with English speakers or at leastunderstand their English songs, books or TV programmes However, only 19.1%want to understand English speaking countries, their culture and values because infact, non-majors are provided few opportunities to communicate with Englishspeaking people

The results also reveal that non-majors possess both extrinsic and intrinsicmotivation Intrinsically-motivated students think that English is an interestingsubject and they learn English to fulfill their other interests such as listening tointernational music, watching films and reading English books while a largernumber of students possessing extrinsic motivation are learning English fordifferent goals

It can be seen that many of non-majors possess more than one type of motivation.For example, some students claimed that they learn English because it is acompulsory subject but they also think that English makes them more confident,knowledgeable and skillful The combination of different reasons to learn Englishshows the real situations at PDU and a higher rate possessing instrumental

motivation than integrative motivation reflects students‟ perception about the role

of English in the school in particular and in the society in general It is obvious that

English is extremely necessary for their future career This result is identical to

Winke Paula M.‟s research (2005) in which she discovered learners‟ motivation

based on the responses to the question “why are you learning Arabic” The result

showed that “students often have a mixed bag of responses” and a student can

possess all integrative, instrumental, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

3.1.2 Factors affecting student’s motivation

After finding out kinds of motivation that students possess, a discovery of factors

which may negatively influence students‟ intrinsic motivation is necessary to have

a adequate evaluation as well as plans for the innovation Three main factors

investigated in the research are found as follows:

3.1.2.1 Learning environment and facilities

disagree

The course book is too difficult 9.8% 25.2% 51.7% 8.3% 4.9%The course book is too easy and 13.8% 9.2% 32.3% 23% 21.5%topics in the book are boring and out

The classroom is too quiet and boring 16.9% 49.8% 25.2% 4.3% 3.7%

Students in the class are not friendly 5.8% 18.2% 39.7% 25.5% 10.8%and helpful.

Table 3: Factors of Learning environment and facilities

According to Hammer (1983: 5), a physical condition is one of the factors having a

great impact on learning and can alter a student‟s motivation either positively or

negatively In this research, in order to find out how the learning environment and

facilities affect student‟s motivation, some certain points measured include

textbook, teaching curriculum, teaching and learning facilities, and library and

classroom environment The results in the above table show that only 13.2% of

students think that the course book is too difficult and a large number of them

(44.5%) agree or strongly agree that the course books used in the course are too

easy and topics in the book are boring and out of date However, over a half of

students (69.6 %) claims that curriculum is overloaded because there is too much

homework Apparently, students always want to have a challenging textbook but

little homework An easy book certainly cannot encourage students to discover and

actively participate in, whereas, when having to do too much homework, students

will feel stressed and demotivated However, these results do not mean that

textbooks used in the schools are inappropriate In fact, before attending the English

course at the university, almost all students have at least 7 years learning English

but only a few of them can speak English fluently Therefore, exercises and

language focus parts in the course book may be a bit easy but the strong points of

the book are to help students improve their listening and speaking skills effectively

Another factor affecting students‟ motivation is teaching and learning facilities

63.7% students claim that the school does not have enough teaching facilities such

as cassette, CD, projectors…and only 11.1% of the students are satisfied with the

teaching facilities of the school 71.4% of the students also agree that there are too

few reference books and English materials in the library