Fostering classroom english to motivate the first year non major students in efl classes at a college in hanoi

ABSTRACT The present study aimed to investigate the influence levels of classroom English CE intensity over foreign language learning of non-English major freshmen at a teacher training

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

-



HOÀNG THANH THẢO

FOSTERING CLASSROOM ENGLISH TO MOTIVATE THE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS IN EFL CLASSES AT A COLLEGE IN HANOI

(Tạo động lực học tiếng cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ tại một trường cao đẳng ở Hà Nội thông qua tăng cường sử dụng tiếng Anh lớp học)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01

Hà Nội - 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

-



HOÀNG THANH THẢO

FOSTERING CLASSROOM ENGLISH TO MOTIVATE THE FIRST YEAR NON-MAJOR STUDENTS IN EFL CLASSES AT A COLLEGE IN HANOI

(Tạo động lực học tiếng cho sinh viên không chuyên ngữ tại một trường cao đẳng ở Hà Nội thông qua tăng cường sử dụng tiếng Anh lớp học)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01

Supervisor : Professor Nguyen Hoa

Hà Nội - 2020

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Nguyen Hoa for his helpful guidance, critical comments, valuable suggestions and contributions in the preparation and completion of this minor M.A thesis

I hereby formally express my debt of gratitude to the lecturers and staff at the Graduate Department for their valuable lectures and tireless academic support and encouragements, which laid the foundation of this thesis

Post-Furthermore, my thanks also go to the students who participated in my research Their willingness to support will be always remembered

Last, I wish to acknowledge the support and invaluable help of my family while the work was in progress They have been part of my interesting journey

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to investigate the influence levels of classroom English (CE) intensity over foreign language learning of non-English major freshmen at a teacher training college in Vietnam The topic germinated from my personal experiences and observation as an EFL teacher

I used a mixed methods design to achieve the research aims, involving the use of questionnaires, tests and semi-structured interviews

The main arguments were centered around several points: (a) non-English major freshmen were motivated in their English studies brought from intensifying classroom English; (b) the main factors influence on this motivation; (c) the motivation keeps most of the time

The study findings indicate that students’ motivation is enhanced as more CE is used The findings also offer some pedagogical recommendations for the teachers and make some suggestions for future research

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL English as foreign language

CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

CLT Communicative Language Teaching

RQ(s) research question(s)

LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1: Main language functions related to classroom management 24

Table 2: Process of CE application in lessons 26

Table 3: Frequent channels of English communications to the students 36

Table 4: Students’ self-assessment to the CE and its correlation with the communicative skills 39

Table 5: Students’ frequency of conversations in English with the teacher 42

Table 6: Comparison results of pre-test and post-test 46

Table 7: Student interviewees’ percentage of CE apprehension 50

CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

CONTENTS vi

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and significance of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Method and design of the study 3

6 Structure of the thesis 3

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Classroom English 5

2.1.1 Definitions of classroom English 5

2.1.2 Roles of classroom English 7

2.1.3 Second language acquisition theories 9

2.1.4 Different situations in the classroom 10

2.1.5 Major factors affecting classroom English application 10

2.2 Motivation 13

2.2.1 Definitions of motivation 13

2.2.2 The importance of motivation in English learning 13

2.2.3 Major motivation orientations 14

2.2.4 Devising motivational strategies 15

2.2.5 Relationship between learning motivation and CE 16

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 Methodological Approach 19

3.2 Context of the study 19

3.3 Participants 20

3.4 Research questions 20

3.5 Instruments 21

3.5.1 Survey questionnaires 21

3.5.2 Test of listening comprehension of classroom English 22

3.5.3 Interviews 23

3.6 Planning the Intervention 23

3.6.1 Planning 23

3.6.2 Action 25

3.6.3 Lesson Plan Illustration 27

3.6.4 Observing 30

3.7 Data collection procedures 30

3.8 Data analytic framework 31

3.9 Role of the researcher 32

3.10 Ethical consideration 32

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 35

4.1 Findings 35

4.1.1 Findings from the pre- questionnaire 35

4.1.2 Findings from the post-questionnaire 41

4.1.3 Results of the tests 46

4.1.4 Findings from the interviews 47

4.2 Discussion 50

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 55

5.1 Recap and conclusion 55

5.2 Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further studies 56

5.3 Limitations of the study 57

REFERENCES 59 APPENDICES I

Appendix 1: Pre-Questionnaire for Students Before CE Application I Appendix 2: Post - Questionnaire XIII Appendix 3: Pre-Test of Classroom English XVII Appendix 4: Post-Test of Classroom English XXII Appendix 5: Interview Questions XXVIII

Appendix 6: Materials for lesson plan illustration XXIX

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Since the introduction of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in the late 1970s, the use of target language in EFL classrooms (English as a Foreign Language) has arisen as an essential trend to provide optimal learning opportunities for foreign language learners Among the pros for the teaching, the most utility is frequently the society’s increasing demand for good English communication In addition, linguistic research has presented a range of advantages related to the CLT approach, especially the two characteristics of “authentic” and “practical” However, traditional methods for a long time, especially the grammar translation method die-hard, seem to be a barrier to the second language (L2) use - prone classes in Vietnam The thought of how to change the old mind and in what way has reminded the author of classroom English In many parts of the world, studies on L2 use in general and CE in particular in EFL classes have received a great deal of attention from researchers Salaberri (1995) and Gardner (2000) asserted that teachers should strive to incorporate the L2 right from the beginning of a course However, the statement competed with numerous others Nunan (1989) contended that in an EFL environment a teacher faces a challenging task in obtaining

"authentic" materials The question is whether authentic materials, once removed from their natural environment, remain authentic

In Vietnam, such researches were scant or mainly focused on studying the relationship between teachers’ target language proficiency and the ways to use it in the classroom to engage learners in the learning process (Nguyen, 2007; Pham, 2007; Ngo, 2009; Pham, 2014; Le, 2017) To my best knowledge, the issue of using

CE to motivate students has been under-researched For that reason, I am convinced that there exists a need for an exploration into this field

In the specific context of the researched college in Hanoi, the improvement

of non- English major students’ target language proficiency and motivation receives

much attention of administrators as well as teachers This study, which is titled

“Fostering classroom English to motivate the first year non-major students in EFL classes at a college in Hanoi”, is expected to find out the impact of using CE on improving students’ motivation

2 Aims and significance of the study

My foremost interest is to study how teachers can make use of classroom English as a tool to benefit non-major students’ foreign language acquisition as well

as motivate their learning process

The present study, practically, aims to:

- examine the influence levels of CE intensity over foreign language learning of non-English major freshmen

- explore the main factors influence on this motivation

- investigate students’ attitudes towards the CE frequency in English lessons

At the theoretical level, the study complements existing literature of classroom English and learning motivation as it addressed the gaps in this area The study would be a reference source for English language teachers to adjust not only the target language proficiency but also their classroom management proficiency in order for an improvement of teaching capacity

b What are their attitudes towards the increased use of CE in English lessons?

4 Scope of the study

The application of classroom English involves both students and English language teachers However, due to the limited time and difficulty in timetable arrangement, the study only focused on the non-English major freshmen of a K39 Primary class in the college

5 Method and design of the study

This study is an action research project, based on the theoretical framework of Gerald Susman (1983) on Action Research and carried out by the writer herself as a practitioner in EFL teaching and concurrent with the teaching and learning process

It adopted a mixed method approach Both quantitative and qualitative data are collected in order to get a full view of the influence of CE intensity on students’ learning motivation

For the quantitative data, the author used the two questionnaires – one at the beginning to get a general view over the research subjects and another at the end to measure the results gained after the intervention process To support the phase, the two tests were also conducted in the same way

In order to dig deeper into the answers to the RQs, the qualitative phrase was conducted A total of 11 face-to-face individual interviews with the participants were employed in order to improve the validity of research results as well as identify possible solutions that teachers can do to make the method more effective

6 Structure of the thesis

The study consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter covers the rationale for the study, aims, significance, research questions, scope, methods, and structure of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review

This chapter synthesizes the theoretical framework of the studies related

to classroom English, foreign language learning motivation and previous studies

of the theme

Chapter 3: Methodology Research

This chapter presents the context, the methodology used in this study

including the participants, data gathering instruments, data gathering procedures and

data analysis procedures

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion

This chapter consists of the action plan and procedures, a comprehensive analysis of the data from questionnaires, tests and interviews and discussion on the findings

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This chapter gives the conclusion from the results of the findings, implications, limitation of the study and some suggestions for further study

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, I will present and discuss aspects of theories of CE and motivation underpinning the study For both these sections, I follow a motif of firstly reviewing the general theories and secondly selecting and discussing the theories of those relevant to this research The chapter’s overview scaffolds the presentation of the research questions of the study

2.1 Classroom English

2.1.1 Definitions of classroom English

As a result of the fact that English is naturally a language, the prime term needed to be clarified in the study is classroom language Bern Voss (1984) defined classroom language as real communicative acts between teacher and pupil, pupil and teacher, or amongst the pupils themselves, within the classroom setting He specified classroom business, “e.g to set up groups for group work, to distribute material, to organize activities, to tell a pupil off, to focus attention onto a particular teaching point, to ask for further clarification or for a repetition, to bid for the floor,

to express joy or regret over something that has just happened in the classroom etc.” (Voss, 1984, p.3)

Heath (1978) also found that a special feature of classroom language “is the connected units that make up the “discourse” or flow of speech in interaction between teacher and students.” Teacher or student comments cannot be analyzed

in isolation; they must be examined within the context of their occurrence with other stretches of speech Heath further contends that classroom language can be described in terms of the special provinces of control to which many of the

“'directives,” or requests for action, refer: i.e., time and space usage, and respect for others”

Hughes (1981) indicated that the classroom procedures derived from a particular method almost invariably have to be verbalized In other words, instructions have to be given, groups formed, time limits set, questions asked,

answers confirmed, discipline maintained, and so on According to Hughes, the role

of this linguistic interaction is perhaps one of the least understood aspects of teaching, but it is clearly crucial to the success of the teaching/learning event

In short, the classroom language can be understood as the routine language that is used on a regular basis in classroom

Relating to the field, another term to consider is “teacher talk” This phrase is generally used in the field of pedagogy to refer to the form of language used by teachers with their younger and less-skilled learners (Chaudron, 1988) Several characteristics of teacher talk include providing context through restricting the topics to the "here and now," modifying and simplifying the language to meet the level of the students and others such as explaining, questioning, and commanding This description includes the length and frequency of silence, repetitions and restatements, shortening the utterances, and the speed and clarity of speech

Based on these mentioned – above definitions, classroom English should be offered as a modification of classroom language and teacher talk that has been imported to a L2 classroom (where students are learning a second or foreign language)

According to B Gardner and F Gardner (2000), CE is a term that refers to the ways teachers of English use the target language in the EFL classroom to establish routines, give instructions and evaluate performance

Dickey and Sang (1999) suggested the following definition: “classroom English is the English used in the classroom, in context, in a planned and appropriate level of language, together with extra-linguistic clues, for any purpose other than the teaching of that language.”

Basically, the CE use by teachers of language means that they are using the target language In other words, the CE use is merely a subfield of the L2 use, however, in the narrower scope: the classroom

It is undeniable that Vietnamese non-English major students are constrained

by the social urge of communicative English improvement on one side and their low

language competence as well as different external causes on the other As such, there exists a need to conduct empirical research on these learners’ attitudes to communicative English learning and which factors are able to sort out the gap Therefore, this study will provide an insight into making use of the CE as a starter

to help freshmen be closer to the L2-prone learning environment

2.1.2 Roles of classroom English

The focus in EFL contexts had been on grammar translation for a long time until the modern communicative approaches claiming good communication skills stepped in The new approach results in significant changes in EFL classes, typically more L2 use or much more speaking and listening skills Nevertheless, it almost immediately runs into a series of barricades, namely teacher’s language proficiency, level of students, cultural differences which all bring in reluctance in EFL oral communication classes

In fact, a number of students who have been learning English for a long time still have difficulty understanding CE however simple it is

Rising amongst the ideas to deal with the situation, classroom English is favored for several concepts of which the most important perhaps is that students want to learn "authentic English" (or "real-life English")

Nunan (1989, p.54) suggests "[a] rule-of-thumb definition for 'authentic' here

is any material which has not been specifically produced for the purpose of language teaching." Under Nunan's definition, in an EFL environment a teacher faces a challenging task in obtaining "authentic" materials

Widdowson (1979), quoted by Adams (1995), defined that “authenticity is realized by appropriate response and the language teacher is responsible for designing a methodology which will establish the conditions whereby this authenticity can be realized.” In short, authenticity is generated within the classroom itself and the language in such case produced not for the purpose of language teaching, but for authentic communication

The classroom situation is a genuine social environment which allows ‘the meaningful situation use of the language’ and its communicative potential is closer

to real interaction than is often assumed (Hughes, 1981, p.6) Furthermore, Gardner (2000) also express classroom language has the advantage of being a highly authentic use of language: there is a real communicative need for it

Admittedly, by managing the class deliberately and flexibly in the L2, the teacher is taking an important step towards removing the barriers between controlled, often meaningless, practice and more genuine interactional language use

In other words, classroom English makes use of the spontaneous and unconscious acquisition processes that take place when learners are placed in an immersion context rather than in a teaching or learning context Classroom language helps promote acquisition in a variety of ways - the language is highly contextualized with many extra-linguistic clues to help comprehension and it appeals to the young learners' previous experience (Salaberri, 1995, p.3)

The present study, thus, will focus on exploring the expedient points as mentioned in the above theories Not to minimize the contributions of a bilingual classroom but when the teacher is not speaking in English, they are not modeling English

The advantages of using classroom English may be basically stated as follows:

• maintain a good “English-speaking atmosphere”, which makes the English lesson very different from any other lessons in the school day and helps the learners focus on learning and using the language

• keep the learners thinking in English

• create active learning where the used words and phrases are linked to actions, objects, ideas and people in a strong and positive way

• improve learners’ confidence when the language gradually becomes absorbed unconsciously by the students and also increase teachers’ own confidence

(B Gardner & F Gardner, 2000)

2.1.3 Second language acquisition theories

As Sallaberi pointed out the key role of classroom English in promoting second language acquisition, it is necessary to recognize the distinction of the two options “acquisition” and “learning” Krashen (1985) asserts that language acquisition is a subconscious process where language acquirers are not aware of the fact that they are acquiring language, but are only aware of the fact that they are using the language for communication Unlike language learning which refers to conscious knowledge of a second language, the acquisition interrelates “a feel for correctness” According to Krashen’s comprehensible input hypothesis, we acquire

by “going for meaning” first, and as a result, we acquire structure

We acquire only when we understand language that contains structure that is

“a little beyond” where we are now How can we understand language that contains structures that we have not yet acquired? The answer to the paradox is that we use more than our linguistic competence to help us understand We also use context, our knowledge of the world, our extra-linguistic information to help us understand language directed at us

It seems that classroom English is suitable to the L2 acquisition’s first stage, called Preproduction, for which “teachers might use visual aids, body language and constant repetition in order to help the students understand” (Krashen, 2003)

In the same vein, Long (1983) showed that modified interaction is the necessary mechanism for making language comprehensible Modified interaction does not always involve linguistic simplification It may also include elaboration, slower speech rate, gesture or the provision of additional contextual cues According to Long, almost beginner-level learners acquiring a L2 from native-speaker have modified their talk in some way Others researchers (Salaberri, 1995; Gardner, 2000) posed that teachers should incorporate the L2 needed for instruction-giving right from the beginning of the course

Besides, that teachers use classroom English and repeat it time by time is the so-called usage-based learning Cognitive psychologists showed less agreement to

the kind of declarative knowledge that characterizes skill learning and traditional structure-based approaches to L2 acquisition Ellis (2000) explains the emphasis is

on the frequency with which learners encounter specific linguistic features in the input and the frequency with which language features occur together

2.1.4 Different situations in the classroom

In order for the deeper understanding of CE, the following table built by Hughes (1981) shows the various language functions related to classroom management

2.1.5 Major factors affecting classroom English application

2.1.5.1 Teachers’ target language proficiency

Despite the controversial training programs to raise teachers’ target language proficiency or the constant conflicts in which language should be used in the L2 classes, language proficiency has been recognized as an important aspect of teacher expertise, an essential factor affecting student learning (e.g Andrews, 2007; Chen

& Wang, 2004; Butler, 2004; Richards, 2015)

Le and Renandya (2017) analyzes that “the challenge in researching

teachers’ target language proficiency lies in how the construct of language proficiency is defined.” He quotes Richards, Conway, Roskvist, and Harvey (2013)

“define teachers’ language proficiency as one component of teachers’ subject knowledge in addition to knowledge of second language acquisition theory, pedagogical knowledge, curricular and syllabus knowledge and cultural knowledge.”

Richards (2015, p.113) further specifies teachers’ target language proficiency into competences in:

• providing good language models

• maintaining use of English in the classroom

• giving explanations and instructions in English

• providing examples of words and grammatical structures

• giving accurate explanations of meanings of English words and grammatical items

• using and adapting authentic English-language resources in teaching

• monitoring one’s own speech and writing for accuracy

• giving correct feedback on learner language use

• providing input at an appropriate level of difficulty

• engaging in improvisational teaching

Recognizing “it is not clear what minimal level of language proficiency teachers need to acquire in order to teach effectively”, Le (2017) essentially found out that while teachers’ general proficiency significantly affects the way they use language in the classroom to promote learning, their classroom proficiency is at least as important as their general proficiency

Within the framework of this study, I want to focus on how effectively the teacher’s use of classroom language stimulates students’ learning Therefore, the aspect of teacher target language proficiency will not be dug more deeply Moreover, a pre-survey on the input facts of the participants conducted at the beginning of the course is expected to evidently show that the teacher L2 proficiency plays less key role in the research

2.1.5.2 Learners’ L2 competence

L2 learners’ unequal levels of competence as well as the inconsistency of their performance in target language is not new to teachers These variables are considered to affect language learning and teaching remarkably

In regard to competence, Chomsky (1965) claimed that it included the constitutive components of grammatical competence, discourse competence and sociolinguistic competence The first involves computational aspect of language, the rules or formulations or constraints that allow us to pair sound with meaning, the rules that form syntactic constructions or phonological or semantic patterns of varied sorts The second deals with the knowledge of the structure of text, both oral and written It is the ability to use (produce and recognize) coherent and cohesive text, oral or written Meanwhile, sociolinguistic competence has to do with the ability to produce, recognize socially appropriate language in context (Jacquelyn, 1990)

Many researches shows that second language learners vary in their levels of competence with many failing to reach target - language competence William (1984) found out the link of both social and cognitive factors to the varied competence, which provides some ideas on why learners differ in the rate of second language learning

Gardner’s socio-educational model (1985) also names the social factor among the four interrelated aspects of L2 learning He expresses that the social and cultural milieu determines beliefs about language usage and culture The others are individual learner differences (this relates to motivation and language aptitude), the setting (formal and, or informal learning context) and learning outcomes

Specially, Myles (2004) specifies the following social factors which can affect learner’s level of communicative competence in second language:

(i) negative attitude towards the target language;

(ii) continued lack of progress in L2;

(iii) wide social and psychological distance between the learners and target culture; and (iv) lack of integrative and instrumental motivation for learning

2.2 Motivation

2.2.1 Definitions of motivation

Because motivation is difficult to observe (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991), the definition of motivation often becomes confusing because researchers do not provide a uniform definition of motivation (Dörnyei, 2001) In general, motivation is defined as the will and skills to learn (Paris & Oka, 1986), goal-directed behavior (Heckhausen, 1991), or learners’ purposeful endeavors toward a goal (Snow & Farr, 1983)

Michell (1982) believes that motivation is not action itself, but “a psychological process that cause arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal-related” It, thus, cannot be directly observed, but can be inferred from learners’ classroom behaviors and choices they made to complete the goal (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002)

In the second language learning field, motivation relates motivational factors

to linguistic aptitudes (Gardner & Lambert, 1972) Gardner explains L2 motivation

in terms of three psychological concepts: the learner’s attitude towards the target language, the desire to learn the language and the intensity of the engagement

2.2.2 The importance of motivation in English learning

In the process of L2 motivation research, scholars (Gardner, 1985; Gardner

& Clement, 1990; Dörnyei, 2003) have recognized the importance of motivation for successful second language learning Dörnyei expressed that by restating that learning an L2 is different in many ways from learning other school subjects Besides discrete elements of the communication code (e.g grammatical rules and lexical items) that can be taught explicitly, an L2 is also socially and culturally bound As a result, language learning is like a deeply social event that requires the incorporation of a wide range of elements of the L2 culture (cf Gardner, 1979; Williams, 1994)

L2 motivation, thus, is an essential, if not sufficient, condition for learning process In the other words, ordinary learners of English need to be put in a practical learning environment where this language can be used in accordance with its social

and cultural functions rather than academic aspects If not, the school subject is just similar to Math or Physics

2.2.3 Major motivation orientations

There have so far existed the two basic theoretical approaches of motivation Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1972) identified two classes of orientations: integrative and instrumental motivation According to the researchers, the former refers to a desire to learn the L2 in order to have a contact with members from the L2 community while the latter contrastingly refers to language learning for immediate

or practical goals such as job advancement or course credit

However, some early studies found that the desire for personal growth and cultural enrichment through contact with L2 speakers is not fundamental to the motivational process, but has relevance only in specific sociocultural contexts (Noels, Pelletier, Clement & Vallerand, 1990) Dörnyei (1990, p 69) also posed the hypothesis concerning the role of the social context in language learning as stating that “foreign language learners often have not had enough contact with the target language community to form attitudes about them”

Because of the weakness of the first approach, Deci and Ryan (1985, 1995),

in their self-determination theory later, named two general types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic In terms of extrinsic motivation, Deci and Ryan stated “are those actions carried out to achieve some instrumental end, such as earning a reward

or avoiding punishment.”

In contrast to extrinsically motivated behaviors, intrinsic motivation (IM) was defined as “innate needs for competence and self-determination that meant are engaged in an activity because it is enjoyable and satisfying to do.” For the latter, the two researchers theorized that one has to go through an internalization process

to take external values in and incorporate these into one’s internal structure, to more successfully cope with the environment and achieve a higher level of autonomy/choice When people are free to choose to perform an activity, they will seek interesting situations where they can rise to the challenges that the activity

presents By striving to meet these challenges, they develop a sense of competence

in their abilities (Deci & Ryan, 1985, p 130)

Vallerand et al (1992, 1993) was the first to apply successfully determination theory in educational contexts Based on the tenets proposed by the predecessors, Vallerand and his colleagues extended the research on perceptions of intrinsic motivation, and conducted practical studies with students to test the existence and relationships among self-determined motivational types with other related factors in students’ learning processes Accordingly, they categorized intrinsic motivation into three subtypes: knowledge or IM-to know, accomplishment

self-or IM-to accomplish things, and stimulation self-or IM-to experience stimulation

+) IM-to know emphasizes the satisfaction and pleasure attained from doing

an activity to explore new ideas and enrich knowledge

+) IM-to accomplish refers to the good feelings associated with mastering or achieving a goal, or creating something new

+) IM-to experience stimulation refers to good feelings, such as fun or enjoyment, simply brought by performing an activity

Reeve (1996), however, emphasized that self-determined motivations, internalized or intrinsic, can only be nurtured in environments with appropriate amounts of social support of autonomy, competence, and relatedness from important others Furthermore, intrinsic motivation has been positively and significantly correlated with the quality of teachers’ instruction and transparency of requirements (Gottfried, 1985, 1990)

2.2.4 Devising motivational strategies

For many language instructors, they are more interested in how they can motivate their students than what motivation is Lightbown and Spada (2006) noticed to the role of pedagogy interactions with motivation in L2 classrooms Teachers can make a positive contribution to students’ motivation to learn if classrooms are places that students enjoy coming to because the content is interesting and relevant

Dörnyei (2001a) also developed a process-oriented model of motivation that covers a wide range of areas from “making the teaching materials relevant to the learners’ through “setting specific learner goals” to “increasing learner satisfaction”

(Zoltán Dörnyei, 2003, p 24)

2.2.5 Relationship between learning motivation and CE

Gardner (2000, p.8) implied the relationship between the classroom English use and the intrinsic motivations possibly arising among students He detailed that

when the teacher gives “an instruction or ask a question in English and the learners

do or say something in reply, they quickly realize that they can understand something in English This gives them a feeling of success and will help improve their confidence… Feelings of success and confidence will help learners overcome the difficulties in learning a foreign language.”

With its already-listed strong points, including the authenticity, the real interaction and uncomplicated speech, CE may be a good catalytic agent that teachers combine in their lessons for motivational teaching It has already been shown (Section 2.1.1) that the CE use is a subfield of the L2 use in the narrow scope

of classroom It, therefore, ensures to provide learners with a L2 related learning environment that is not too difficult to follow The application of CE in lessons can bring opportunities for students to join in real conversations instead of the monotonous model of question and answer As an effect, their initial success in communication in English, even though little, will contribute to create intrinsic motivations which stimulate their learning as well as expectancy of bigger success

Moreover, the ways teachers make use of CE methodically as suggested by linguists (Hugges, 1981; Gardner, 2000) can create a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere and make the teaching materials relevant for the learners Also, teachers’ manner and encouragement while applying CE can well change learners’ personal thinking about their English learning and ability, contributing to raise motivational responses among them

For all these reasons, this study will draw on CE and L2 acquisition theories

to investigate its possible applicability in Vietnamese non-English majors’ learning motivations Specifically, I carry out a small-scale action research intervention among non-English major freshmen in order to see the different motivations that are possibly arisen from fostering the CE in lessons

Chapter summary

In sum, this chapter states the theoretical background of the overview of CE Especially, Krashen’s (1985) theory of language acquisition, including her comprehensible input hypothesis, is found out to be closely interrelate to the features of CE In addition, the theories of motivation are covered with the definition of motivation, types of motivation and its role in L2 learning The relevant aspects to the research subject - CE are particularly put in discussion I also present the goal the current study aims to frame the theories within Vietnamese cultural values

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to clarify the methodology applied to conduct the research The important information about the course in which the study was carried out, the participants, data collection and data analysis instruments are thus presented

3.1 Methodological Approach

The study was organized as an action research on a class of primary major at

Ha Tay teacher training college As defined by Kember (2000), action research is a process in which a specific problem is identified and an experimental “intervention” designed and tested with a view to gaining insight into the problem and ultimately solving it I hope that exploiting “the cycle of plan, act, observe and reflect” (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988) enhances the authenticity of the research’s purpose The research design for this study was adapted from the design by Susman (1983)

in which distinguishes five phases to be conducted within each research cycle as following:

(Susman, 1983, p 12)

3.2 Context of the study

For the non-English major students of the researched college, they had two basic English courses with 15 weeks each The main textbook used is New Headway Pre-Intermediate (John and Liz Soar, 3th edition, 2007) In total of 12 units of the book, the first five ones is for the first semester (equally two periods a week) and the remaining for the second semester (equally three periods a week) The students were

required to reach at A2 of the Vietnamese six-level framework of reference for foreign languages The level of Vietnamese A2 is described as high-primary and equivalent to A2 the frame of European reference (CEFR) Examinations for the non-English students are designed in multiple-choice and writing forms

At the time of conducting the research, the students had just finished the first semester Based on experiences in teaching the school’s non-English major students

in general as well as the past period’s observation in particular, I recognized that the students had few opportunities to get access to communicative English Current lessons are mainly focusing on teaching or training grammar and vocabulary The limited duration at class does not allow teachers to spend more time on practicing the skills of listening and speaking which are then instructed to be self-study at home instead In addition to the fact that English is not their specialty, the students’ progress in English skills is still unsatisfactory As a result, they are learning English passively and lacking motivation to learn English communicatively

3.3 Participants

This study was conducted from December 2018 to June 2019 in a randomly- selected class of primary major at a college in Hanoi Thirty-five participants with only three male students, aged from 20-26, had studied English as a school subject for

12 years in average

After a semester studying at this college, their grammar and vocabulary had been improved gradually However, their communicative competence in L2 kept unprogressive Most of them laughed off or showed their bewildered state when hearing the teacher speaking in English even though the used speech was short and simply

In this study, I also took an “intervening” posture I am qualified at B2 of the CEFR and has seven - year experience in English language teaching

3.4 Research questions

In order to investigate whether motivation brought by performing CE over non-English major freshmen’s L2 learning exists and their attitudes towards the CE frequency in English lessons, this study addresses the following research questions:

a How does fostering classroom English motivate non-English major students?

b What are their attitudes towards the increased use of CE in English lessons?

Because the participants were non-English major freshmen, all the questionnaires, interviews and tests were conducted in Vietnamese in order to ensure the collected data was exact

3.5.1 Survey questionnaires

According to Dörnyei (2003), questionnaires is straightforward to process and analyze the data and appropriate for providing a general understanding of the subject matter The method, hence, would be very useful for me to get a general overview of the study situation before starting my intervention

There were two questionnaires for students conducted before and after the intervention process

• The pre-survey questionnaire used a mixed design format of three parts

The first part consisted of 9 questions and aimed at exploring:

1 students’ purpose and interests in learning English

2 students’ competence for communicative English

3 students’ attitude to the classroom English use

The 11 items in the second part is a five-point Likert type scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree with the aim of measuring students’ attitude and awareness to the more use of classroom English The scale allows the researcher to see either positive or negative response to a statement as well as make sure of an

equidistant presentation The last part was in order for measuring students’ perceived communicative competence adapted from the CEFR

self-The pre- questionnaires mainly got general information about the participants’ background of English competence as well as their understanding, opinion around two key notions – importance of communicative English and attitude to CE use Built on those, appropriate adjustment may be made to plan a suitable intervention for non-English major freshmen

• The post-survey questionnaires consisted of 12 questions and focused on

examining:

1 Students’ attitude to English lessons

2 Students’ self-confidence in communicative English

3 Students’ support of fostering classroom English

The post- questionnaire, delivered to the students nearly at the end of the intervention process, aimed at investigating whether or not there are positive changes in their attitude to English lessons and communicative English thanks to classroom English The analyzed data was expected to provide useful information for answering the research questions

Taking into account that the questionnaire was written in English and after presuming that the misunderstanding of the items could pose to serious problems to obtain reliable and valid result, the questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese Moreover, in order to see how these questionnaires worked in the process of data collection, the study needed to pilot the questionnaire I, hence, asked the supervisor

to check carefully before delivering to the participants

3.5.2 Test of listening comprehension of classroom English

The test, adapted from Hughes (1981), mainly played a role of a stepping stone to make up the students’ mind and assisted me to choose suitable CE items which would be used in my lesson plans I would read aloud the items with my expressive accent at reasonable pace The participants marked into the ones they understood, not the ones they heard but did not understood Before starting the test,

I explained very carefully the ways in which they did the tasks, so no students

misunderstood Based on the results, I then filtered the suitable items to use during the intervention

3.5.3 Interviews

Interviews were chosen as a follow-up step after questionnaires to collect depth information on the participants’ opinion of the effectiveness of classroom English which could be missed from questionnaires The qualitative data was then transcribed, translated into English and analyzed so that I could make clear whether

in-or not the effective use of classroom English could really refresh the L2 learning environment and motivate learners Additionally, the one-to-one talks assisted me to consider the confidence of the on-paper answers, from those assessing what my intervention achieved

The 11 interviewees included the students with the differences of proficiency, awareness, attitude and those who had several choices in the questionnaire different from the others

The following section will discuss detailed procedures for collecting data from questionnaires, tests and interviews

3.6 Planning the Intervention

3.6.1 Planning

I kept following Hughes’ groupings of various language functions related to classroom management (1981, p 9-11) to arrange my lesson plans during the process Nevertheless, the arrangement which was based on the pre-test result and the pre questionnaire was logically simplified in order to suit the research’s purpose, the course curriculum and the students’ ability Accordingly, I abridged the items to focus on useful languages as Table 1: Main language functions related to classroom management as below:

Table 1: Main language functions related to classroom management

Who is your partner?

Do it by yourself

Work in pairs, please Open your book at page 5

The teacher can control the pupils’

behavior by means of commands, requests and suggestions

Keep silent

Stop talking and listen Stand up, please What about you, Hoai? A2 Sequencing The teacher can check what stage

the students have reached, whose turn it is and so on

Whose turn is it?

Next one, please Who hasn’t got a book? The teacher can introduce the class

to a new activity and new stage of the lesson

Our lesson today is…… Let me introduce the next

The teacher can set time-limits related to various activities

Five minutes to do this Your time is up

The teacher can check that all students are equally capable of starting the next stage of the lesson

Can you see the picture clearly?

Are you ready?

A3 Supervision The teacher can direct students’

attention to the lesson content

Stop talking Listen to her, please Hoai, what is Thu saying?

related to specific communicative tasks

What do you think about this?

What can you see in the picture?

Where is the man?

B2 Replying to

questions

The teacher can give verbal confirmation of students’ replies and/or guide them to the correct reply

Yes, that’s right

Almost Try it again What about his wife?

The teacher can give encouraging feedback both in controlled drill-type exercises and free

Very good

It’s better

Could you explain what

conversation you mean?

C EXPLANATION

C1 Metalanguage

The teacher can produce and also get the students to produce a translation, a summary, a definition, a correct spelling, a correct pronunciation and grammatical corrections

Can you spell the name?

What’s the word “it” here?

C2 Reference The teacher can give appropriate

background factual information related to people, places and events

The couple is in a restaurant, and they are

…………

The teacher can give a verbal commentary to accompany pictures, slides and clips

This is a picture of a famous floating market in Vietnam

That’s interesting!

Don’t worry

That is really very kind of you

D2 Social Ritual The teacher can use everyday

phrases related to recurrent social situations, e.g greeting,

apologizing, thanking, congratulating and others

Good morning

Bless you

Have a nice weekend Thanks for your help

* See Appendix 3 for more items

The second semester’s English program consists of the last seven units in New Headway Pre-intermediate (John and Liz Soar, 3th edition) For each unit, the author previewed the content, gathered possible classroom English as well as imagined the situations to present at class The presentation, of course, was flexible and could be adjusted to suit the classroom contexts then She also decided not to use classroom English while teaching grammar, difficult structures, abstract words

or giving complex instructions

3.6.2 Action

The action was obeyed the following principles:

Firstly, I applied classroom English according to the ascending level This meant that I would use English right at the beginning of the first lesson, but with

simple and short words like “Good morning!” and “Sit down, please” I also chose

to teach the classroom language at the time when I used it first because the new language, in such case, was appropriate – it was in context

Moreover, the amount of new classroom English in each lesson was considered not to be beyond the students’ acquisition and the teacher also paid attention to the logical order to present them For example, the phrase “write on the board” would come after “go to the board”

Secondly, the usage of classroom English was aimed to take full advantage

of frequent situations at class in order for bolding the memory line between the last times and the current one Thus, I kept repeating the used items constantly

Thirdly, I obeyed the principle not to translate the classroom English I used Instead, I followed the steps and ways as indicated in Table 2: Process of CE application in lessons below:

Table 2: Process of CE application in lessons

1 Context The teacher exploits the

contexts at class to start classroom English

- Start every lesson with a greeting

in English, “Good morning” or

“Good afternoon”, and teach the

learners to return the greeting

- To call student Ngan to answer any questions, the teacher says

“Ngan” and ask “Ngan, where are

you?” with a gesture of looking for

2 Body language Many instructions can

be made clear by the use of body language

When student Ngan finishes her

answer, the teacher says “Ngan, sit

down, please” while putting her

hand in front of her and move them down a few inches to show that she wants the student to sit

3 TPR Classroom English is The teacher says “Take out your

(Total

Physical

Response)

demonstrated by doing that action at the same time

book” in parallel with taking her

own book out of her bag

4 Development When the learners are ready and familiar with the method of

classroom English, the teacher will use the expression without making the body language or demonstrating

For the individuals who have problems, the teacher will have

to return to the first step

The teacher will observe when they are confident about the expression and will also see how soon it becomes part of their store of language

3.6.3 Lesson Plan Illustration

Because of the above-mentioned features of CE, including the repetitive and contextual, the application stretched through all the 15-week semester’s units (45 teaching periods) For the simple items, the teacher kept following the planned steps In terms of the more complicated ones, I selected and had specific lesson plans for each

Beneath are the lesson episodes that were cited as the samples for CE

presentation in lessons The materials come from Reading and Speaking – Jobs for

the boys ……and girls (page 66-67), Unit 8: Do’s and Don’ts of New Headway

Pre-intermediate (the 3rd edition) (See Appendix 6)

Episode I

In this episode, the teacher was organizing a game as warm-up activity at the beginning of the lesson I wrote the words of jobs in exercise 1 page 66 on board, then divided the class into two teams I had prepared an adequate number of cards with the gender symbols of male (♂) and female (♀) for the game Each team’s members would stick the suitable cards next to the words which were traditionally done by men/women

The description below illustrates my CE use The students were expected to firstly understand the teacher’s suggestions and moreover be able to respond to the

CE The game rules, however, were explained in Vietnamese

Materials Useful CE Teacher’s

performance

Students’ possible responses

- T asked and pointed at

a word on the board (e.g teacher)

- Ss say “giáo viên”

- Ok, so, all these words are about……

- T says with a move of her hand covering over all the words on the board and then stopped

to wait

- Ss continue T’s sentence with “jobs”

- Ok, let’s start

- You first

- The next one

- T pointed at the student for first turn

- The ss takes a card and runs to the board

- Come on - T makes a gesture of

Episode II

In this episode, the teacher was giving instructions to lead the students to the reading parts The description below illustrates my CE use The objective was to help the students remember of job vocabulary and say short sentences through the picture observation activity

Materials Useful CE Teacher’s

performance

Students’ possible responses

- The two pictures

- Ss open page 67

- Look! We have two pictures

- T uses her forefinger to point at each picture and say

“one, two”

- Ss look at the pictures

- Look at the first picture, please

- T points to the first picture

- Ss look at the first picture

- Now, the second picture

- T points to the second picture

- Ss look at the second picture

- What do you see? - T looks the picture

with a gesture of seeking something

- *a girl/a woman (for the 1st picture)

- a man/a boy/ a child (for the 2ndpicture)

- ohhh, a woman/a man What is she/he doing?

- T speaks with intonation

- *plumber/fix/ fixing

- play/ playing/he is playing with a child/nanny

- Ah, this woman is a plumber, this man is a nanny

- T says with a surprise in her voice

- Ss are expected to find out something strange and unusual here

* Note: Students can give different answers, maybe a whole sentence, a phrase or a word The teacher, however, must receive all of them with a pleasant attitude Then,

I will naturally say the correct answer

For a number of the students who were ashamed or did not understand what the teacher said, I only used simple phrases in combination with hand movements or TPR illustrations For the others who were more confident the teacher fostered making conversations I also used English much more when giving the instructions with the individuals

A number of students showed quite good presentation then For instance, when the teacher said “Look at the picture page 56” they responded nearly right away “a man….er… he is playing with boy”, or when the lesson finished many of them could said “good bye teacher” – completely active

3.7 Data collection procedures

As I taught three classes of primary major in the second semester of school year 2018-2019, I conducted the pilot version for each data gathering instrument before starting the official one After the pilot, I modified some of the questions so that they would be more intelligible

The first questionnaire was given to the participants at the second week of