Improving 11th grade students’ motivation in english speaking lessons at vietnam – poland high school by using communicative activities

ĐINH THÙY LINHIMPROVING 11TH GRADE STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS AT VIETNAM – POLAND HIGH SCHOOL BY USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES Cải thiện động cơ học trong giờ nói

ĐINH THÙY LINH

IMPROVING 11TH GRADE STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS AT VIETNAM – POLAND HIGH SCHOOL BY USING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES

(Cải thiện động cơ học trong giờ nói Tiếng Anh của học sinh lớp 11 Trường THPT Việt Nam – Ba Lan thông qua việc sử dụng các hoạt

động giao tiếp)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyCode: 60.14.10

HANOI - 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

ABSTRACT iv

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS v

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Statement of the problem and rationale of the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Significance of the study 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Method of the study 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 Theoretical background of motivation 5

1.1 What is meant by motivation? 5

1.2 Types of motivation in foreign language learning 6

1.3 The importance of motivation in foreign language learning 6

1.4 Factors affecting motivation in foreign language learning 7

1.5 Techniques for improving students’ motivation in speaking lessons 9

2 Overview of speaking 11

2.1 Conceptions of speaking 11

2.2 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity 12

2.3 Stages in a speaking lesson 13

3 Motivation and English speaking learning 14

4 Communicative activities 15

5 Previous studies in motivation in foreign language learning and speaking skill 17

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 20

1 Research methodology 20

1.1 Action Research 20

1.2 Key elements of an action research 20

2 Subjects of the study 22

3 Data collection instruments 23

4 Data collection procedures 24

5 Brief description of the three lessons 24

CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 26

1 Level of students’ motivation 26

2 Causes of students’ lack of motivation in English speaking lessons 28

3 Action Research procedure 30

3.1 Action Plan 30

3.2 Implementation 31

3.3 Discussion of the lessons’ effectiveness 32

3.4 Reporting results 37

PART III: CONCLUSION 38

1 Major findings 38

2 Implications 39

3 Limitations of the study 39

4 Suggestions for further researches 39

5 Recommendations and suggestions 40

REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: Questionnaires I Appendix 2: Class observations XIII Appendix 3: Lesson plans XVII

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Table

Table 2: Students’ comment on teachers’ communicative activities 35

Chart

Chart 3: Affecting factors of students’ interest in speaking class 29

Chart 5: Students’ feeling when participating speaking activities 33Chart 6: Students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities 34Chart 7: Class observation results before and after intervention 36

1 Statement of the problem and rationale of the study

In the era of global integration, when the ability to use English as means ofcommunication has become so important, a really big concern of scholars, researchers,educators and learners all over the world is how to improve the quality of English teachingand learning In this context, Vietnam – Poland high school (Viet Ba high school) isputting the focus on enhancing the effectiveness of speaking lessons The reason is manystudents have voiced their worries about the slow improvements in their speaking ability.Although they really like English, speaking skill is one of their most difficult ones to learn.They face with so many obstacles (lack of motivation, vocabulary, activeness, enjoyment,etc.,) when making presentation or expressing their ideas Therefore, “What should they do

to speak English accurately and fluently?” is the question that all students would like toanswer

Besides, most of teachers have been frustrated at their failure in helping the studentscommunicate better in English As a teacher of Vietnam – Poland high school, from myobservation and my own teaching experience, the researcher realizes that during speakinglesson classroom interaction is restricted Only some students get involve in the activitiesconducted by the teacher while others keep silence or do other things Thus, one of thechallenges to the teacher is to find out the answer to the question “Why don’t manystudents of English get involved actively in speaking lesson?”

There is a saying: “You can bring a horse to water, but you can not make himdrink” refers to the reality that the effectiveness of a lesson depends at least as much as onthe learners as on the teachers This is confirmed by the statement: “In language teaching,teachers can provide all the necessary circumstances and input, but learning can onlyhappens if learners are willing to contribute” (Scharle, A and Szabo, A, 2000: 7) Hence,motivation is considered to be one of the key factors to success on the way of mastering

the foreign language Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with the mostremarkable abilities cannot accomplish long – term goals, and there are no appropriatecurriculum and good teaching to ensure student achievements.

All these conditions, henceforth, offered the researcher a chance to conduct a study

on “Improving 11 th grade students’ motivation in English speaking lessons at Vietnam – Poland high school by using communicative activities”.

This study was an attempt to investigate the 11th grade students’ motivation levels

in speaking lesson at Vietnam- Poland high school to find out the causes of students’ lowmotivation and passiveness when speaking English In addition, through discovering thereasons why existing students’ laziness in speaking period, this paper also aimed at seekingbetter orientation for students at Vietnam- Poland high school to learn speaking skill moreeffectively We do hope that this study will help the teachers of speaking in some ways tofind appropriate methods to motivate students more and more in oral periods

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This research was aimed to increase 11th grade students’ motivation in Englishspeaking lessons at Vietnam – Poland high school by using communicative activities To

be more specific, the research was carried out to find out 11th grade students’ level ofmotivation at Vietnam – Poland high school in the English speaking lessons The factorsde-motivating 11th grade students in English speaking activities were also taken intoinvestigation Then the study was expected to work out motivational techniques to increasestudents’ motivation level and test the effectiveness of the communicative activities in theform of an action research In brief, these objectives could be summarized into threeresearch questions as follow:

1 How motivated are the 11 th grade students in speaking lessons at Vietnam – Poland high school?

2 What are major causes leading to these students’ lack of motivation in learning speaking?

3 How effective are communicative activities in motivating students to learn the speaking skill?

3 Significance of the study

Once having been completed, the research would serve as one of the initial studies

on students’ motivation at Viet – Ba high school in speaking skill It is expected to haveseveral contributions to not only research but also teaching and learning in speakingEnglish as a foreign language Firstly, the research gives 11th grade students’ level ofmotivation in English speaking lesson at Vietnam – Poland high school As a result, thestudy enables students to raise students’ awareness in improving their speaking skill.Secondly, it also proves the students’ difficulties and teachers’ drawbacks in teachingspoken periods In other words, the research pointed out students’ de - motivating factors inspeaking class Then the research provides teachers with some techniques for raising thestudents’ motivation level in speaking lesson

4 Scope of the study

First, as could be seen from the title of the study, this paper placed strong emphasis

on the 11th grade students’ motivation at Vietnam – Poland high school and the techniques

to improve students’ motivation in speaking class

In addition, it is noteworthy that students’ motivation is easily affected by thecontent of lesson, textbooks, materials, teachers and teaching method In this study, theresearcher focused on teaching method influence on motivation

Finally, speaking skill is another matter of the researcher’s concern but not reading,writing and listening

5 Method of the study

As mentioned above, this research adopts an action research in an attempt to

improve the current situation of teaching speaking in the teacher – researcher’s own class

In so doing, the method including questionnaires and class observation sheets wereemployed during the process of data collection

6 Design of the study

Part I: Introduction provides a general introduction, introducing the background

for the research topic and its aims, significance, research questions and the design of thethesis

Part II: Development is the main part of the thesis It consists of three chapters

namely Literature Review, Methodology and Results and discussion.

Chapter 1: Literature Review mentions to critically examine the theoretical

background for the thesis with the focus on the main points: different psychological views

on motivation in language learning; Types of motivation in foreign language learning; Theimportance of motivation in foreign language learning; Factors affecting motivation inforeign language learning; Techniques for improving students’ motivation in speakinglessons; Motivation and English speaking learning; Previous studies of motivation inforeign language learning and speaking skill and communicative activities

Chapter 2: Methodology presents the methodology performed in the study,

including the background information of the subjects of the study; the instruments used tocollect data, and the procedures of data collection Along with this, the teaching andlearning English at Vietnam – Poland high school is described Also, the study – its settingand methodology are displayed in this chapter

Chapter 3: Results and discussion presents analyses and discusses the findings

that the researcher found out from the data collected according to the three researchquestions The chapter also reflects a detailed description of data analysis which is shownbased on the survey questionaires and class observation Some explanations, interpretationsand discussion of the findings of the study are explored in this In addition, action researchprocedure was presented in the chapter

Part III: Conclusion is the conclusion of the study, summarizing the findings;

providing some implications, the limitation of the research, recommendations how tomotivate students in English speaking lessons Some suggestions for further research arealso discussed in this chapter

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the theories related to motivation in speaking lessons It alsoreviews current researches on motivations in foreign language in general and in speakingskill in particular that have been conducted so far All of these serve as a basis for aninvestigation into students’ motivation in English speaking lessons and solutions for theirtroubles

1 Theoretical background of motivation

1.1 What is meant by motivation?

Motivation in Gardner’s point of view (1985) is a key factor in determining thepreparation of learners to communicate Motivation refers to the combination of effort anddesire to achieve the goal, the connection of learning the language and favorable attitudestoward learning foreign language That is, motivation to learn a foreign language isconsidered in the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the languagebecause of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity

Rod Ellis defines motivation as referring to "the efforts which learners put intolearning an L2 as a result of their need or desire to learn" (1994:715) He proved thatlearners’ performance resulted from their own need or desire when studying the language

The challenge of the activities or tasks conducted by the teachers is emphasized inMalone’s (1981) definition of motivation He viewed that challenge depends on activitiesmust be suitable for students’ levels The tasks or activities which are too easy or toodifficult will decrease students’ motivation In contrast, if students are provided with theactivities challenging enough, they will be interested more, which leads to effectivelearning

Crookes and Schmidt (1991) based on learners' interest in and enjoyment with thematerials and activities used in class, their active participation or constancy with thelearning task as indicated by levels of concentration and interest Learning process can onlymakes sense if students enjoy activities and work hard

While the term motivation is often assumed to be a rather abstract concept, it could

be basically defined as “the extent to which you make choices about goals to pursue andthe effort you will devote to that pursuit” (Brown, 2001:72).

It could be inferred from the definitions above that motivation is the effort,

enjoyment, enthusiasm and constancy that learners devote to the learning tasks as well as the challenging activities conducted by the teachers to reach the setting – goals in foreign language learning Thus, when attempting to enhance learners’ motivation in learning a

foreign language, different aspects or stages of motivation and factors affecting it should beconcerned

1.2 Types of motivation in foreign language learning

There are so many kinds of motivation in foreign language learning studied by theresearchers but this research only mention to the main ones

In the literature on motivation, the concept has been classified in different ways.The most well-known classification of motivation has been made in cognitive terms as

whether it is internal or external to the learner In this respect, intrinsic motivation is to do

with “behaviour performed for its own sake in order to experience pleasure and

satisfaction” (Dörnyei, 2001, p.27) while extrinsic motivation is about “performing a

behaviour as a means to an end, that is, to receive some extrinsic reward or to avoidpunishment” (Dörnyei, 2001, p.27) A learner can be seen as intrinsically motivated when

he or she is boosted from within: Intrinsically motivated learner dynamically engagethemselves in learning out of curiosity, interest or enjoyment or so as to reach their ownintellectual and personal goals To the learner who can be regarded as extrinsicallymotivated when he or she keens on learning “purely for the sake of attaining a reward orfor avoiding some punishment” (Dev, 1997) In other words, intrinsically motivated peopleaccomplish a task for an internal interest whereas extrinsically motivated people perform

an activity because of an interest external to the activity

1.3 The importance of motivation in foreign language learning

Success or failure in language learning largely depends on the learners’ motivation

to learn the target language Up to now, many researchers have studied the role ofmotivation in the learning process and most of the findings share the view that positiveattitude has close relationship with motivation in mastering foreign language Gardner(1985) emphasized that on motivation constructed the primary factor to influence students

on English learning He believed that motivation for language learning cannot only include

goal orientation but the combination of effort, desire to achieve the goal of learning thelanguage and the favourable attitudes toward learning the language.

Motivation for learning a second or foreign language is defined as the learner’sorientation with regard to the goal of learning a second language (Crookes & Schmidt,1991)

Finegan (1999: 568) sees the vital role of integrative motivation in L2 learning

“Integrative motivation typically underlines successful acquisition of a wide range

of register and a native – like pronunciation”

Nunan (1991) shared his point of view in supposing one of the most decisive factors

of learners’ preparation in communication is motivation relating to the connection of effort,wish to get achievement, supportive behaviours towards learning the language In otherwords, motivation is considered to be the limit, scale that learners try their best to learn thelanguage resulted from their dreams and happiness in this process

Promotion in choosing strategies to learn a second or foreign language amonglearners is another role of motivation As Oxford (1994) proves “more motivated studentstend to use more strategies than less motivated students, hence, they tend to be moresuccessful” It can be understood that if learners know how to apply learning strategies andtechniques effectively when learning a second or a foreign language, they will be moresuccessful

Motivation not only plays an important role in learning but it helps the teaching aswell, Lite (2002) confirms “Motivation is the black-bone of any classroom When thestudents are motivated, the teacher can perform his/ her job the best”

In conclusion, the researcher would like to stress that people are moved to takeaction by a need to achieve or to be successful Hence, motivation is the key factor leadinglearners to achievements or failures It stimulates and enables students to keep their interestand excitement in the L2 learning class, which promotes teachers to make excellentperformance in their teaching periods

1.4 Factors affecting motivation in foreign language learning

1.4.1 The learners

According to Lightbown and Spada (1999), learners’ motivation can be influenced

by the following factors The first one is intelligence, it related to students’ performance on certain kinds of tests The second one is aptitude which involves the ability to identify and

memorize new sounds, to understand the function of particular words in sentences, to

figure out grammatical rules from language samples The third one is personality which

covers a number of personally characteristics such as extroversion, inhibition, self-esteem,

empathy, dominance, talkativeness and responsiveness Learners' preferences are another

thing that affects learners’ motivation when describing the learning style It can be seen

that learners have their own preferences in acquiring new knowledge What learners

believe in the way to learn the language can have influence on learners’ motivation Age of acquisition is also influencing motivational element Children are believed to be better than

adults in acquiring a foreign language and in speaking the new language

1.4.2 The teachers

With motivation being as important as a factor in learning success as argued above,teacher skills in motivating learners should be seen as central to teaching effectiveness.Teacher’s role in shaping pupils’ motivation is just as complex as that of the parents This

is because teachers also act as key figures or authorities, who affect the motivationalquality of the learning process by providing mentoring, guidance, nurturance, support andlimit setting

1.4.3 The teaching and learning conditions

 Physical conditions: Physical conditions in the classroom, including the classroom

size, chairs, desks, tables, lights, boards and even bulletin boards, affect pupils' motivation eitherpositively or negatively In addition, the L2 teachers should notice that the classroom is not only

a psychological but also physical environment Posters, flowers, funny objects can have a stronginfluence on the classroom atmosphere

 Classroom atmosphere: Language learning is considered one of the most face–

threatening school subjects Language anxiety has been found to be a powerful factor thathinders L2 learning achievement (Maclntyre, Young, 1999) Thus, it is the teacher’s task to

create a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere A number of various components

contribute to make up the ideal classroom climate such as the teacher’s rapport with the students,the students’ relationship with each other and the norm of tolerance; which helps students feelsafe and comfortable taking risks It is very important to make students understood that mistakesare a

natural part of learning, and to ensure that they will not be criticized if they make mistakes.

In short, learners’ roles, teachers’ duty and teaching – learning conditions haveinfluence on students’ motivation in learning foreign language in general and inspeaking skill in particular

1.5 Techniques for improving students’ motivation in speaking lessons

How to improve students’ motivation in English speaking activities is a questionneed to be answered by researchers and teachers in teaching spoken language There aresome motivational strategies that researchers (Robert Harris, 1991 and Zoltan Dornyei,2001) recommend for classroom teachers

 Help students set their own proximal sub-goals”: Individual goal setting is one of

the most effective methods to enable students to experience a sense of control over their ownlearning and perceive themselves as mastering material while incorporating their own interest(Jones and Jones, 1995) It is particular relevant to language learning because the final aim ofthis process – to communicate with foreign speakers – is several years away, therefore, settingproximal sub-goals has a powerful motivating function by providing advance organizer as well

as immediate incentive and feedback As Oxford and Shearin (1994:19) supposed, goal setting isvery important because it can stimulate foreign language learning motivation, so it’s necessary tospend time and energy in the foreign language classroom on goal – setting

 Increase the learner’s self – confidence: Self – efficacy is generally seen as a key

factor in determining the amount of effort exerted and the persistence displayed In other words,learners are able to make excellent performance when they feel really self – confident Theimportant question, then, is how to maintain and increase the students’ self – confidence and self– esteem in the language classroom, which is inherently face – threatening for the learner(Dornyei, 2001: 130) Dornyei also emphasized that language teachers can foster students thebelief that enables them to avoid worrying about language competence Favourable self –conception of foreign language competence can be promoted by providing regular experiences

of success and emphasizing what students can do more than can not do

 Promote self – motivating learner strategies: Most of the discussion so far has

concentrated on the teacher’s responsibility and role in stimulating studentmotivation It has been observed, however, that even under adverse conditions andwithout any teacher assistance, some learners are more successful in keeping uptheir goal commitment than some others Therefore, an important role of teachers is

to raise their students’ awareness of relevant strategies and to remind them atappropriate times of the usefulness of these

 Make the curriculum relevant for the learners: Students have high motivation in

foreign language learning only when their materials are useful and practical Therefore, the duty

of the curriculum designers is to find out their students’ goals and the topic they want to learnand build these into their curriculum as much as possible to make their curriculum desirable andvaluable On the significance of

“relevance” in foreign language teaching Chamber believed “If the teacher is tomotivate pupils to learn, then relevance can be the red thread permeating activities

If pupils fail to see the relationship between the activities and the world in whichthey live, then the point of the activity is likely to be lost on them If pupils do notsee the relevance of a subject, the teacher has from the outset a major challenge”(Chamber, 1999: 37)

 Use visual aids in learning: When teachers come to class with the preparation of

visual aids for his/ her lectures, most of students will feel motivated enough to participate in thelesson It was said that memory is often connected to visual images Therefore, we can providebetter learning by attaching images to the ideas we want to convey Using drawings, diagrams,pictures, charts, graphs, bullet lists, even three – dimensional objects help students anchor theideas to the image and certainly make the learners more motivated

 Vary teaching methods: Teachers should not use the same strategies all the time

because reawakening students’ involvement in the course and their motivation is the mainpurpose of teacher Teachers should apply a variety of teaching activities and methods in yourcourse such as role plays, debates, brainstorming, discussion, demonstrations, audiovisualpresentations, pair work or group work, etc to increase your students’ motivation

 Have students take part in the lesson: The active involvement of students in their

own learning is considered to be one of the key factors of high motivation Standing

in front of them and lecturing to them is thus a relatively poor method of teaching.

It is better to get students involved in activities, group problem solving exercises,helping to decide what to do and the best way to do it, working with each other, or

in some other ways getting physically involved in the lesson A lesson about nature,for example, would be more effectively walking outdoors than looking at pictures

By choosing several students to help the teacher (take role, grade objective exams,research bibliographies or biographies of important persons, etc.,) students’ self –esteem is boosted and as a result, their motivation increased Use every opportunity

to have students help you Assign them home work that involve helping the teachersuch as finding learning materials from newspapers, drawing pictures, or preparingreal objects for the next lesson

In summary, in this section, some theoretical background knowledge of motivation

in TEFL is reviewed, and various motivational strategies as well as great deal contribution

of motivation in language learning have been well – documented in the literature There is

no doubt that if they are used appropriately by teachers, they can bring about great effect

on increasing students’ motivation

2 Overview of speaking

2.1 Conceptions of speaking

Speaking plays an important role among the four language skills (reading, listening,writing and speaking) since it helps to identify who knows or does not know a language.Pattison (1992) points out that when people mention knowing or learning a language, theymean being able to speak the language

There are a variety of definitions for the term “speaking” However, in this study,the researcher chose the one given by Bygate In a social context, social roles are likely to

be taken by those who learn and know how to speak, but not by those who do not have thisskill There is no doubt that speaking deserves as much attention as or even more attentionthan written skill In order to carry out many of the most basic transactions, it is necessaryfor learners to speak with confidence Therefore, Bygate (1987) is reasonable when heargues that "speaking is a skill which deserves attention every bit as much as literacy skills,

in both first and second language" Our learners often need to be able to speak withconfidence in order to carry out many of their most basic transactions It is the skill by

which they are most frequently judged, and through which they may make or lose friends.

It is the vehicle of social solidarity, of social ranking, of professional advancement and ofbusiness It is also a medium through which much language is learnt, and is particularlyconducive for learning Therefore, it is useful for learners to possess a good speaking skill

in foreign language

In brief, Bygate’s definition seems to be the most suitable for the researcher’s viewpoint on speaking

2.2 Characteristics of a successful speaking activity

Classroom activities that develop learners’ ability to express themselves throughspeech are important components of a language course However, it is difficult to designand administer such activities In order to be successful in organizing speaking activities it

is essential to identify the characteristics of a good speaking activity

Ur (1996: 120) suggests four characteristics which help to define an effectivespeaking activity:

1 Learners talk a lot As much as possible of the period of time alloted to the activity

is in fact occupied by learner talk This may seem obvious, but often most time is taken up withteacher talk or pauses

2 Participation is even Classroom discussion is not dominated by a minority of

talkative participants: all get a chance to speak, and contributions are fairly evenly distributed

3 Motivation is high Learners are eager to speak because they are interested in the

topic and have something new to say about it, or because they want to contribute to achieving atask objective

4 Language is of an acceptable level Learners express themselves in utterances that

are relevant, easily comprehensible to each other, and of an acceptable level of

language accuracy

In Friederike Klippel’s point of view, an effective speaking lesson is characterized

by the following features The first one is message oriented communication whichindicates the moments in foreign language when target language is used as a vehicle ofcommunication The second one is learner – centered activities in which students’ feelings,purposes and ideas are the focus The third is active learning, cooperation and empathywhich emphasize the students’ active participation in the speaking process

Both Ur and Klippel share some points in common From their ideas, we can seethat the most prominent features of a successful speaking activity are the maximization oflearners’ speaking time and equal chance for everybody to speak Motivation is one of thecrucial factors that is able to make the speaking lesson meaningful Teachers should bearthese features in mind when designing speaking tasks for their students.

2.3 Stages in a speaking lesson

So far many linguists have identified stages in teaching spoken language Byrne(1976: 22) in “Teaching Oral English” divides the process of teaching spoken languageinto four stages They are the presentation stage, the practice stage and the productionstage Harmer (1983: 50) in “The practice of English Language Teaching” mentions threestages during this process: introducing new language, practice and communicativeactivities Matthews et.al (1985:17) in “At the Chalkface” argues that the process ofteaching spoken language include three stages They are the presentation stage, the practicestage and the production stage

From these authors’ ideas, it is seen that teaching spoken language should bedivided into three stages They are: the presentation stage, the practice stage and theproduction stage Each stage has its own purpose and relevant activities An overview onthese stages is introduced below:

 The presentation stage aims to give students the opportunity to realize the

usefulness and relevance of a new language item In this stage, students have to concentrate notonly on the meaning but also on the pronunciation, stress, intonation and spelling of the newlanguage item Besides, grammar is paid attention to Students are passively receivers, they areonly asked to practice (role – play) and dramatize a dialogue or to talk about what they have tolearn from a prose based on the previous answers at the end of this phase The teacher’s role inthis stage is to introduce to students the new knowledge, such as new words, new grammaticalstructures In other words, he plays the role of an informant

 The purpose of the practice stage is to give students “the opportunity to use the

newly presented language in a controlled framework so as to allow them to memorize its formand assimilate its meaning more fully” (Matthews et.al 1991: 8) In addition, it aims at makingstudents more confident in using new language In the controlled practice, the teacher acts as aconductor who conducts what the

learners should do and which kind of language they are expected to produce In theguided practice, the teacher is only the one who suggests situations, and sometimescorrects the learners’ mistakes The learners here are freer to work, discuss withtheir partners and to produce utterances prompted by visual or written cues At theend of the phase, Ur (1996) supposed what the teacher reaches is to better students’fluency.

 The production stage aims to provide the opportunity for learners to use new

language in freer, more creative ways Its purpose is also to help learners integrate newly – learntlanguage with previous – learnt one in unpredictable situations In this stage, the teacher is nolonger an instructor Instead, he acts as the monitor, advisor, mistake – hearer, and consultantwho gives advice is necessary Generally, the teacher does not interfere much in the productionstage Students seem to be more confident and motivated to take part in freer activities byworking individually, in pairs or in groups

In the speaking lesson, learners’ speaking ability can be improved if teachers followthree stages orderly However, teachers should consider the time limitation, the levels oflearners, the students’ motivation and material in use when they design the speakingactivities

3 Motivation and English speaking learning

Many students suppose being able to speak a language means knowing the languageand then they view learning the language as learning how to speak the language, or asNunan (1991) wrote, "success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out aconversation in the (target) language." Therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or

do not get any opportunity to speak in the language classroom they may soon get motivated and lose interest in learning On the other hand, if the right activities are taught

de-in the right way, speakde-ing de-in class can be a lot of fun, raisde-ing general learner motivationand making the English language classroom a fun and dynamic place

Motivation, in the view of Ur (1996: 120), is one of affecting factors to make surethe speaking lesson effective or not Learners have high motivation when they are eager tospeak because they are interested in the topic and have something new to say about it, orbecause they want to contribute to achieving a task objective

General speaking, motivation can be seen as one of keys that decides learners’success or failure in speaking process.

4 Communicative activities

Communicative activities include any activities that encourage and require a learner

to speak with and listen to other learners, as well as with people in the program andcommunity Communicative activities have real purpose: to find out information, to breakdown barriers, talk about self and learn about culture

A variety of communicative activities can be used to develop speaking skills.Below are some of the common ones

Role-play

Role-play is an activity that the class is usually divided into pairs or groups Thesepairs or groups are given situations and roles to act out and explore This acting is done forthe sake of the language and imaginative activity, not for exhibition The various groups,therefore, are activated simultaneously Role-plays are simple to plan and easy to play and,along with games and other communicative activities, are recommended to be used in theEnglish speaking classes

Information Gap Activity (IGA)

IGA is one of the easiest and most interesting forms of communicative activity inthe speaking class In order to get the most proficiency, the teacher can divide the classinto pairs or groups In each pair or each group, one acts as the asker, the other theanswerer, let them discuss for a few minutes and they change the role

IGA may take three forms: (1) One student has some information and the other has

to find it by asking questions; (2) One student has some information and tells it to the otherstudent; (3) Both students have different information and they tell each other

Discussions

After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons Thestudents may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find solutions intheir discussion groups Before the discussion, it is essential that the purpose of thediscussion activity is set by the teacher In this way, the discussion points are relevant tothis purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting with each other aboutirrelevant things

On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time Depending on thecontext, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate ideasquickly and freely The good characteristic of brainstorming is that the students are notcriticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new ideas

Storytelling

Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebodybeforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates Story tellingfosters creative thinking It also helps students express ideas in the format of beginning,development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story has to have Studentsalso can tell riddles or jokes

Interviews

Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people It is a goodidea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of questionsthey can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own interviewquestions Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to practice theirspeaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them becoming socialized.After interviews, each student can present his or her study to the class Moreover, studentscan interview each other and "introduce" his or her partner to the class

Story Completion

This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity Students sit in a circle.For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he or she stopsnarrating Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the previous onestopped Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences Students can add newcharacters, events, descriptions and so on

attention to the lesson with lower stress.

Communicative activities allow students to practice using all of the language theyknow in situations that resemble real settings In these activities, students must worktogether to develop a plan, resolve a problem, or complete a task

In general, through well-prepared communicative output activities, we canencourage students to experiment and innovate with the language, and create a supportiveatmosphere that allows them to make mistakes without fear of embarrassment This willcontribute to their self-confidence as speakers and to their motivation to learn more

5 Previous studies in motivation in foreign language learning and speaking skill

The impact of motivation in foreign language learning has been recognizedsignificantly by many educational researchers

Gardner (1985), Dornyei (2001), Brown (1994) etc., have generated the concept ofmotivation, its effects in foreign language learning and applicable strategies for improvinglearners’ motivation in class In the light of their researches, teachers are able to answer thequestion how to motivate learners for success and their findings encourage or supporteducational researchers to do more research in different aspects of language teaching

Everybody needs to have motivation and a reason for the action Second andforeign language learners should be offered the opportunity to be motivated and fulfill theirlearning orientations Thus, Sulaiman Hasan H Qashoa (2006) carried out a research

“Motivation among learners of English in the secondary Schools in the Eastern Coast of the 99UAE” One hundred students participated in completing a questionnaire reflecting

their orientations for learning English and what affects negatively their English learningmotivation The data revealed that the UAE students have a higher degree ofinstrumentality than integrativeness The finding also shows that difficulties with Englishsuch as vocabulary, structures and spelling were de-motivating factors

Peacock (1997) conducted a study in the area of motivational techniques “The

effect of authentic materials on the motivation of EFL learners” Two beginner–level EFL

classes participated including 31 South Korean students, and both used authentic andartificial materials alternately Most of students stated that they needed English for futurework or study requirements The research used on – task behaviour, overall class

motivation observation sheets and interview questions The finding in this study was thatlearners reported authentic materials to be significantly less interesting than artificialmaterials This confirmed the positive effect of the authentic material on the motivation ofEFL learners Moreover, the result also indicated that at least for the learners whoparticipated, interest in the materials in use is quite separate as a component of motivationfrom levels of attention or action and persistence with the learning task.

Relating to students’ motivation to study English, Wen – chi Vivian Wu and Pin –hsiang Natalie Wu (2008) Chien – kuo Technology University, Taiwan did research on

“Creating an Authentic EFL Learning Environment to enhance student motivation to study English ”.They use quantitative methodology, explored the perceptions of students at a

Taiwanese technical university concerning its EFL learning environment in three aspects:the physical environment, instructional arrangements and social interaction The study alsoexamined the relationship between the learning context and student motivation The datarevealed that the EFL environment in the three aspects was considered by students to be anobstacle to their learning, and that student motivation positively correlated with thelearning environment

In terms of action research on students’ motivation in speaking, He Lina in China

carried out “How can I help my students’ motivation in speaking?” He Lina is in charge of

28 students - English majors but she found them only able to read and memorize a lotinstead of speaking much So her question arouse as to how to improve their motivation in

speaking She applied three techniques to improve her students’ motivation: offering equal

and enough chance for students to speak, varying speaking activities and encouraging them to “show off” Based on three methods mentioned above, she has achieved her goal

of motivating speaking in some of her students and in the class Firstly, her studentsparticipated actively almost in class They formed an active learning atmosphere Secondly,those who had never volunteered made progress and began to participate in speaking class

In her study, she didn’t use any study instrument to collect the data, her study seems to beless believable She got findings and summary only through her own observation ofstudents’ performance

In Vietnam, Phan Van Hoa and Le Viet Ha (2009) studied upper secondary schoolstudents’ English learning motivation in Quangnam province They used a modified 8 –item survey adapted from Gardener and a 15 – possible de-motivating factor survey are

administered to 100 upper secondary EFL students in four upper secondary schools inQuangnam The researchers use a questionnaire of two parts and interview as the datacollection The study revealed that the students have positive attitudes towards learningEnglish and are highly motivated to study it, and that they are more instrumentallymotivated Moreover, the students’ motivation is more de-motivated by some subject –related factors rather than by teacher – related ones.

Another study conducted by Hoang Duc Doan (2009) to investigate motivation inlearning English speaking of the second year tourism major students at tourism and foreignlanguage department at Sao Do College of Industry The study employed questionnaire,interview and class observation as main data instruments The subjects were 67 studentsselected at random to take part in the research and 6 teachers who have taught there at leastone year The findings from the study revealed teaching speaking skills have made greateffort to motivate students in English speaking classes Furthermore, aptitude and lack ofvocabulary of the students are main de-motivating factors

Overall, there have been number of studies in motivation in foreign languagelearning and English speaking lesson However, there has been little research intomotivation of students in English speaking lessons at high school This is the gap that thecurrent thesis study tries to bridge By doing research through questionnaires and classobservations, this study hopes to add further evidence to the small but growing body ofresearch on this topic

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

In the previous chapter, the literature related to the topic has been reviewed as atheoretical basis for the study In this chapter, the practical aspect of the study is describedthoroughly with the participants, instruments, the data collection and data analysisprocedures, which justify for the validity and reliability of the study

1 Research methodology

1.1 Action Research

A form of research which is becoming increasingly significant in languageeducation is action research This research has been defined in a number of different ways.Action research is the process of systematic collection and analysis of data in order tomake changes and improvement or solve problems (Michael J Wallace, 1998, p.1 andColes & Quirke, 2001, p.14) Cohen and Manion (1985) affirmed that action research isfirst and foremost situational, being concerned with the identification and solution ofproblems in a specific context They emphasized that the aim of action research is toimprove the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research isbeing carried out When other people read about their work, notice it, or make use of it,that is simply icing on the cake Action researchers undertake a study because they want toknow whether they can do in a better way

Action research can help a researcher fill the gap from theory to practice (MacNiff,Lomax & Whithead, 1996, p.13 and Zuber – Skerritt, 1992, p.16) Therefore, in this study,action research was used to help the researcher improve her professional knowledge andskill, teaching and researching Moreover, doing action research helped her to become asystematic and critical thinker and to reflect on expected and unexpected situations thathappened in and outside the class In addition, this method is beneficial for learners as Dr.Moira Laidlaw defined “Action research is a program of self-directed learning about one’sown teaching It is a way of improving actions and reactions in the classroom and outside,for the benefit of the learners.”

1.2 Key elements of an action research

Action research should be used not only by the researcher but also by students Themore students were familiar with action research, the more they could further develop into

autonomous learners Warrican (2006, p.2) argued that the core goal of action research was

to create sustainable learning capacities and give participants the option of increasingcontrol over their own situation

Nunan (1992, p.19), Nunan (1993, pp.41 - 42) and Bailey, Curtis & Nunam (2001,p.137) described the process of action research as a series of steps

Step 7: Follow-up

(Revise for next cycle)

Step 1: Problem identification

Step 6: Dissemination Step 2: Preliminary investigation

Step 4: Intervention

Figure 1: Steps in the action research cycle

Step 1: Problem identification The researcher identified the problems that had

occurred in the classroom from previous experience

Step 2: Preliminary Investigation The researcher further investigated students’

feelings towards their problems and consulted other classes about their problems

Step 3: Hypothesis The researcher formed the hypothesis that most students had

low motivation in speaking skill because they had developed negative attitudes towardsspeaking skill learning in previous classes and teacher’s normal teaching method

Step 4: Intervention After observing the class and forming the hypothesis, the

researcher planned the lessons and identified techniques which may solve the problemdefined by the hypothesis

Step 5: Evaluation In this step, the researcher’s observer colleagues and her

worked through the stages of: act, observe, reflect and revise to evaluate the outcomes interms of activities, materials, classroom atmosphere and teacher’s role

Step 6: Dissemination Reporting the results was the focus of this step.

Step 7: Follow – up The researcher investigates the alternative methods of

motivating students

Although there are seven steps in an action research cycle, because of the limited

time of study, the researcher conducted her research within 6 steps: Problem Identification,

Preliminary Investigation, Hypothesis, Intervention, Evaluation and Dissemination.

Step 1: Problem identification

Step 2: Preliminary investigation

Step 3: Hypothesis

Step 4: Intervention

Step 5: Evaluation

Step 6: Dissemination

Figure 2: Steps in the action research cycle in the current research

2 Subjects of the study

The study was conducted with the participants of 45 students in class 11A1 at Viet

Ba high school (where the researcher has been teaching) and 2 teachers acting as observers.The 45 students were doing their second semester of 11th grade at Viet Ba high school.They were at the same age of 17, 22 of them are boys and 23 are girls They have differentproficiency in English They live in different areas like Linh Dam, Van Dien, Thanh Tri,Ngoc Hoi; most of them are living in Hoang Mai district They don’t have muchopportunity to communicate with foreigners All of them have learnt English for 8

years (from grade 6 to grade 12) The observers have been teachers of English at Viet Ba high school for 10 years.

3 Data collection instruments

This research adopts an action research Questionnaires and class observationsheets were employed during the process of data collection Specifically, questionnaireswere distributed to 45 students in one class 11th grade at Vietnam – Poland high school

 Questionnaire 1: It was designed with two main parts and 15 questions The first

part aimed at investigating the students’ level of motivation The second one is for gathering thestudents’ de - motivating factors in speaking lessons

 Questionnaire 2: It contained 8 questions in 4 parts in order to find out students’

attitude towards speaking skill and their assessments of teaching method after 6 weeks ofimplementation, the effectiveness of communicative activities in increasing their motivation,students’ desire of techniques to boost them to learn

speaking skill

To make sure that the students understood the questions, the researcher spent about

30 minutes guiding them to answer and explaining difficult terms when she delivered thequestionnaires to the students

Class observation is another method to collect data for the study It was a non –participation observation in which the researcher watched, followed and recorded activities

as they were performed in the real classroom settings The observation was carried out inthe second semester of the school year 2009 – 2010, the class performance was observed inclass 11A1

This process is done with one class in speaking lesson Basing on the students’activeness, students’ behaviour and teacher’s methods, class observation is implementedwithin one class in 11th grade during three periods of speaking The researcher’s twocolleagues who have been teaching there for 10 years observed the students and teachingmethod

 Observation sheet 1: In order to check the overall level of class motivation

including learners’ interest, concentration, enjoyment, enthusiasm and persistence with thelearning task The researcher used the observation sheet which was adapted from MatthewPeacock (1997) Each item in this sheet was scored on a

scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high).

 Observation sheet 2: It was adapted from Matthew Peacock (1997) On – task

behaviour of students is the focus of the observation sheet There are twelve columns and 45rows (corresponding to 45 students in class 11A1) Two observers placed themselves in anunobtrusive position in the classroom and started observing when students had been working fortwo minutes The students were observed one by one, consecutively, clockwise around the class.Each of them was observed in five seconds The assessment was “1” if the observed student was

on –task and “0” if the observed student was off – task Then the observers passed on the nextstudents They continued until all students had been observed and assessed 12 times

4 Data collection procedures

At the beginning, the collected data was classified according to the questions in thequestionnaires The most important information from the questionnaires was presented inthe discussion of the data

Three observations of the author’s colleagues at three periods of speaking in theresearcher’s class to investigate how the students’ motivation and what the causes are Thepurpose of the class observation was to access teacher’s preparation, presentations, method,teacher and students’ interaction in the classroom The class was observed 6 times during 6weeks (3 times at the preliminary stage and 3 times at the intervention stage)

Unit 9: The Post Office and Unit 10: Nature in Danger in Tieng Anh 11 textbook were

taught as usual; three 3 experimental lessons were taught with the use of communicativeactivities

5 Brief description of the three lessons

During the three lessons, the communicative activities were applied for students of11A1 in order to raise their motivation in speaking periods because the focus was on thestudents’ interest

Prior to the three lessons, the researcher explained to the students that they were notyet active in learning speaking and this would negatively affect their learning outcomes.She also put the stress that effective spoken lesson depended on students’ motivation and

contribution Her lesson composes of five stages: homework checking, pre – speaking,while – speaking, post – speaking and homework.

The first stage was there to make sure that my students were responsible enough for

the lesson by doing the exercises given and preparing for the new lesson (vocabulary,background knowledge, etc.)

Pre – speaking stage was used to stimulate the students’ interests in the speaking

activities Besides, the pre – activities also served as preparation stage for the studentsbefore entering speaking activities as teacher provided useful language such as vocabulary,structures, etc

In while - speaking stage, students participated in the speaking tasks

(Individually, in pairs or in groups), the researcher would act as the facilitator (wentaround, took notes, provided help if necessary, encouraged too shy students) In case ofgroup work, there was always a leader in each group, who coordinated the group activityand assigned one member to work as a secretary to take notes for the report of group work

to the teacher (if required) later To some extent, group leader could perform his/her groupwork or appointed other group members

Post speaking stage (or production) happened when the representatives of some (or

all if the time was available) groups reported to teacher how the activity went in theirgroups or made performance to me and the class Then, the researcher would give mycomments on her students’ performance or give mark Because the activity aimed athelping the students become more motivated I also praised dynamic students, encouragedpassive group members so that they would join in the lessons more actively next time.Besides, as the experimental lessons were speaking lessons, fluency and accuracy werealso mentioned as part of my feedback, with the emphasis on fluency

As for homework, all the students had to write about the topic they had learnt in

class because I intended to improve students’ writing skill Moreover, students had toprepare to talk at home about their assessments, feelings and remarks about the activitiesthey had done in the classroom Their hand writings and their views were checked andgiven mark in the next lesson

CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, all the collected data will be analyzed and discussed to answer theresearch questions The main results came from the answers of two survey questionnairescollected and from two class observation sheets carried out by two teachers

1 Level of students’ motivation

Research question 1: How motivated are the 11 th grade students in speaking lessons at Vietnam – Poland high school?

Survey questionnaire 1 and class observations were used to investigate the level ofstudents’ motivation in English speaking class The following charts indicates the results ofquestions 1,2,4 in the survey questionnaire 1

The above chart reveals that students did not highly appreciate the speaking skill.Only 2.22% students agreed that the speaking skill is extremely important and 5 out of 45(11.11%) students thought that speaking was very important 9 students (20%) accepted theimportance of speaking skill in English The highest percentage of the students 66.67%belonged to not important option Clearly, the reason for this was that students did not pay

attention to learning English speaking skill.

It is apparent from the chart 1 that 62.22% of the respondents had no interest in

learning speaking lessons, 22.22% felt interested, 13.33% like speaking very much and

only one student (2.22%) realize that the speaking skill was extremely interesting It can be

understood that they donot like speaking skill much

As can be seen from the chart 1, 22 (48.89%) and 13 (28.89%) of 45 students were

asked to answer perceived that they often and sometimes felt reluctant to speak English in

class There were 3 students being ready to speak in class when they felt interested enough

This is mainly because they weren't interested in speaking lessons, so they were lazy to

take part in the lessons

Regarding the frequency of speaking with classmates, 4.44% of students refused to

use English frequently in class They never spoke English with their class mates in English

lessons 60% of learners revealed that they rarely used English in class meanwhile 24.44%

of students agreed that they sometimes had discussion with their friends in class in spoken

lessons Most of students (68.89%) claimed that they answered only easy questions 10

(22.22%) of 45 students know the answer but they were too shy to join in the lessons The

lowest percentage of the students (8.89%) was found never say anything in the oral period

and no one volunteered to share their ideas

According to the table below, 32 out of 45 subjects (71.11%) accepted that they

speak English when teacher asked them and 11 out of 45 students (24.44%) used English

when talking with their classmates The percentage of learners’ communication in English

when they thought it was useful and they found speaking activities interesting were the

same (2.22%)

Table 1: Students’ time of speaking

Together with questionnaire 1, class observations were also used to evaluatestudents’ motivation The class observation was conducted with the two teachers who

joined in the study They observed the class atmosphere in Unit 9: The Post Office and

Unit 10: Nature in Danger by using Class Observation sheet 1- Overall class motivation

and Class Observation sheet 2 – Students’ on-task behaviour (Appendix 2) The observerswere non-participants in the speaking lessons Teacher used all the tasks in the textbook.She did not change anything or design extra activities (communicative activities) Thecomments showed that the teacher prepared the lesson very carefully The lessons wentsmoothly and logically because the teacher was keen on the subject she taught However,most of students were passive and seemed uninterested in the speaking activities It wasproved by number 1 and 2 in the Class Observation sheet 1 In other words, they did notpay non – stop attention as the observers used number 1, 2 and 3 Some students could notunderstand the requirement of the tasks in the textbook (the observer circled number 1)even though teacher had explained Whenever the students were asked to speak, theybecame quiet or did some other things instead of getting involved in the activities

In Class Observation sheet 2 – Students’ on-task behaviour, 55.74% and 63.52% ofstudents were on-task in class It meant that nearly a half of students took part in speakingactivities in class and students didn’t find speaking lessons interesting

In short, we can come to conclusion that the students’ level of motivation inspeaking class is very low Most of the respondents did not value the importance ofspeaking skill In other words, they found it uninteresting The majority felt reluctant tospeak English in class Students were passive in class, they speak English only when beasked by the teachers but not participate freely Thus, the question raised here is whatteachers should do to improve students’ motivation

2 Causes of students’ lack of motivation in English speaking lessons

Research question 2: What are major causes leading to these students’ lack of motivation in learning speaking?

The answer to this question was found out in survey questions 9, 10, 11 The

following charts revealed the factors de-motivating students’ speaking learning

A lot of students (71.74%) were reluctant to speak because they were notaccustomed to speaking in class It means they were lazy in class, so when asked toexchange ideas in English they were afraid of talking Boring teaching techniquesaccounted for 23.91% Being afraid of losing face and learning goal is not to communicatewere the same percentage (2.17 %).

Most of students’ low motivation in speaking lessons caused by their lack ofvocabulary (93.33%) Students had to cope up with obstacles namely being unable to findideas and not self - confident enough (44.44% and 48.89% respectively) Not enough timefor preparation was also a disadvantage with 17.78% of students Others (unable to reordertheir ideas in English, dislike speaking, etc.,) were given by 4 students only

As being asked about the affecting factors of students’ motivation, more than a half

of students (55.56%) claimed that the available games and activities had the greatest effect

on students’ motivation in speaking class The second and the third one was the attitude ofteacher and the classroom atmosphere (17.78 % and 15.56%) The lowest percentage ofstudents belonged to the level of difficulty of tasks (11.11%).

To sum up, de-motivating students’ speaking learning are many factors in which themain factors are not accustomed to speaking, lack of vocabulary, boring teachingtechniques (no communicative activities), being unable to find ideas and not self –confident enough, not enough time for preparation It can be understood that teacher shouldimprove her teaching method to increase students’ motivation and help students get overobstacles If teacher uses interesting and exciting teaching techniques more often, studentswill enthusiastically participate in the lessons then enrich their vocabulary, ideas and bemore self-confident in speaking class

3 Action Research procedure

 Step 1: Problem identification (the first semester)

Observing the first semester, the researcher realized that her students didn’t seeminterested or motivated in speaking lessons Therefore, she decided to identify the levels ofstudents’ motivation and factors affecting student’s learning motivation in speaking lessons

and the first and the second research questions formed were: “How motivated are the 11 th grade students in speaking lessons at Vietnam – Poland high school? What are major causes leading to these students’ lack of motivation in learning speaking?”

 Step 2: Preliminary Investigation (week 1,2)

The levels of students’ motivation and affecting factors of students’ motivation inEnglish speaking skill were collected in week 3 order to confirm the problem stated in step

1 and find out the main causes of students’ lack of motivation (the researcher usesquestionnaire 1, Appendix 1)

In two speaking lessons of Unit 9: The Post Office, Unit 10: Nature in Danger were

taught in an usual way, without any treatment and were observed by using Observationsheet 1 and Observation sheet 2 (Appendix 2), after lessons to measure students’ interest,enthusiasm, enjoyment and excitement with learning tasks or speaking activities In otherwords, the researcher can assess students’ motivation exactly

The analysis and discussion of the initial data above proved that most of studentshad low motivation in speaking skill and boring teaching techniques was one of the maincauses of students’ lack of interest As a result, the researcher had to think of solution forthe problems Then, the results led to the following hypothesis:

Communicative activities (Discussions, Role Play, Information Gap, Storytelling, Interviews, Brainstorming etc.,) would effectively improve students’ motivation in

English speaking lessons.

3.2 Implementation

 Step 4: Intervention (week 4, 5,6)

As for many techniques for improving students’ motivation in speaking skill, theresearcher only wants to focus on “make the curriculum relevant for the learners, use visualaids in learning, vary teaching methods, have students take part in the lesson” whendesigning activities to improve students’ motivation

Basing on the data analysis from the questionnaire, observation and on the literaturereview relating to motivation and speaking activities (as discussed in Chapter 2), lessonplans were designed including communicative activities to motivate students in speakinglessons

Plan implementation: The researcher designed the speaking lesson plans of three

units: Unit 11: Sources of Energy; Unit12: The Asian Games and Unit13: Hobbies.

(Appendix 3).In these speaking lessons, communicative activities were used to motivatethe students to speak The newly designed lesson plans were applied with the same group

of students During the 3 weeks of the intervention, the speaking lessons were handled in adifferent way, using communicative activities The lessons were observed using

Observation sheet 1 and Observation sheet 2 (Appendix 2) right after every lesson tomeasure students’ interest, enthusiasm, persistence with learning tasks After the planimplementation finished, another questionnaire 2 (Appendix 1) was conducted to gather

information about students’ attitude towards speaking skill and their assessments ofteaching method the effectiveness of communicative activities in improving theirmotivation, students’ desire of techniques to boost them to learn speaking skill.

In this step, the third research question formed was: “How effective are

communicative activities in motivating students to learn the speaking skill?”

3.3 Discussion of the lessons’ effectiveness

As information had been collected, the researcher carried out analyzing the datafrom the two observation sheets of the last three lessons and compared with the data of twoobservation sheets of the first two lessons in order to evaluate the suggested solutions inthe action plan The comparison was then used as evidence to show how useful the changesused by the teacher were

Questionnaire 2 was also analyzed to gather information about students’ attitudetowards speaking skill and their assessments of teaching method after 6 weeks ofimplementation, the effectiveness of communicative activities in improving theirmotivation, students’ desire of techniques to boost them to learn speaking skill Throughstudents’ responses, the researcher could evaluate the effectiveness of the changes moreexactly

3.3.1 Presentation and discussion of survey questionnaire 2 data

Research question 3: How effective are communicative activities in motivating students to learn the speaking skill?

As can be seen from the chart 4, students’ level of motivation increased after the

intervention The chart indicated that 66.67% of students approved they found speakingskill extremely interested The second percentage (26.67%) of students’ opinion belonged

to the option very interested The third percentage (6.67%) was of the choice interested.None of students had the option uninterested

As teacher designed extra activities such as game, role – play, interview, discussionetc., more than a half of students (59.09%) felt extremely excited to participate incommunicative activities The number of students felt very excited ranked the second with27.27% Also, 11.36% of students are excited in speaking English lessons and only onestudent (2.27%) felt uninterested To sum up, students became more active, interested andexcited to get involve in English speaking class

After enjoying speaking lessons with communicative activities, 31.11% of studentperceived it was easy while 40% of students admitted that they found it easy when they feltinterested enough 11.11% of students approved that speaking skill was still difficult if theydid not have idea or lack vocabulary 8.89% of students coped with difficulty whenlearning speaking skill As for students’ self - confidence, 75.56 % of students felt self –confident to share their point of views in class There’s existing 24.44% of students areafraid of saying English in speaking class

It is apparent from chart 4 and chart 5 that students’ level in speaking skill has beenimproved since teacher applied communicative activities in teaching Most of the activitieswere more interesting than these in the textbook Therefore, the learners took part in thespeaking lessons more eagerly than before

In the area of students’ attitude towards and assessment of the changes in teaching

speaking, recent speaking lessons were rated very good by 57.78% of students, good by31.11% and all right by 8.89% Thus, the number of students who were satisfied with therecent speaking lessons is 97.78% The teacher’s techniques saw the number of studentswho had extremely interesting opinion of 55%, very interesting option of 38% andinteresting choice of 7% Obviously, 100% students thought teacher’s techniques hadbecome more and more meaningful.

As for the evaluation of the effectiveness of communicative activities in improvingstudents’ motivation, an interesting fact can be seen from the chart 6 is that 11 out of 45students (24.44%) had the level of effectiveness 3 – fair; 14 out of 45 (31.11%) studentsappreciated the usefulness of communicative activities at level 4 - good and 16 (35.56%)students chose level 5 - excellent In short, 91.11% of students agreed that communicativeactivities effectively improve students’ motivation in speaking lessons Only 8.89% ofstudents did not think communicative activities make sense in increasing students’motivation

Although there are a variety of communicative activities, the researcher appliedseven main ones in teaching namely games, role-play, brainstorming, story-telling,information gap, discussion and interview

Table 2: Students’ comment on teachers’ communicative activities

Communicative Number of students

As shown in the data of survey questionnaire 2, we can see that students’motivation had been increased after six weeks of implementation resulted fromcommunicative activities application in teaching speaking