Motivational strategies in social english classes for second year mainstream students at faculty of english language teacher

However, none of them has touched upon the motivational strategies employed by teachers as perceived by second year students and the researcher’s observation.. All of the aforementioned

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY (FELTE - HULIS – VNU)

Supervisor: Lê Diễm Phúc (M.Ed.) Student: Dương Thị Lê Dung Course: QH2012.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI - 2016

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

CHIẾN LƯỢC TẠO ĐỘNG LỰC HỌC TRONG GIỜ HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH XÃ HỘI CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM HAI KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH, ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI

NGỮ, ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Lê Diễm Phúc (Th.s) Sinh viên: Dương Thị Lê Dung

Khoá: QH2012.F1.E1

HÀ NỘI - 2016

ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Duong Thi Le Dung, QH2012.E1.F1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date: May 6th, 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, on the completion of the study, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms Le Diem Phuc for her precious guidance, immeasurable help, and support and beyond, from whom I have received valuable suggestions and critical comments

Secondly, I would like to send my sincere appreciation to Ms Tran Hoai Phuong, my former supervisor, for her constant guidance, encouragement, support and initial suggestions for my research topic, without all of which I could not complete this paper

Thirdly, I am so obliged to the participants, 120 second year students for assisting me in collecting the data I would like to express my sincere thanks to five teachers from English Division 2 namely Ms Le Phuong Anh, Ms Luong Huong Thao, Ms Do Thi Minh Ngoc, Ms Nguyen Thu Hoai and Ms Nguyen Tran Ha Linh, who gave me allowance to conduct observation and videotape their lessons Fourthly, it is an honor for me to acknowledge the facilitation and support from the Department while I managed to finish the paper

Last but not least, I owe the warmest thanks to my family and to all my beloveds, who are always with me and give me unconditional encouragement so that the paper can come into being

Duong Thi Le Dung

ABSTRACT

In Vietnam, students’ English communication skills are generally weak due to the fact that the traditional method of teaching and learning English focuses on knowledge of language rather than skills Consequently, students in Vietnam are neither active nor enthusiastic in activities that emphasize communication between participants Therefore, English teachers need to adapt some changes in their approaches or strategies in teaching, one of which is motivational strategies In the context of Faculty of English Teacher Education (FELTE), Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies (HULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU), motivational strategies have been applied in Social English classes for students Therefore, whether teachers efficiently and successfully employ the motivational strategies is taken into consideration and urges the researcher to conduct this study

For the past few years, the teacher’s use of motivational strategies has received increasing attention when a number of studies have been conducted to explore the application of such strategies and their effectiveness In the context of FELTE, HULIS, VNU, several researchers have made an effort to investigate certain methods used by teacher to pursue motivational strategies in English teaching However, none of them has touched upon the motivational strategies employed by teachers as perceived by second year students and the researcher’s observation All

of the aforementioned reasons urged the researcher to conduct this research paper aiming at investigating the frequency and effectiveness of the motivational strategies employed by teachers in Social English class of second year students as perceived by students themselves

The paper is a mixed research that adopted both quantitative and qualitative methods to bring together the strengths of both forms of research to compare and validate results The results of the survey conducted among 120 HULIS sophomores and the observation of five Social English classes revealed that students preferred

mostly 3 motivational strategies, which were Personalization (Creating

opportunities for students to express personal meanings including experiences,

feelings, opinions), Team competition (Using activities which raise competition among groups) and Promoting cooperation (Setting up a cooperative learning

activity or encouraging students to help one another, offering suggestion on how best to do this.) The results signified that the current motivational strategies applied received positive reaction from the students and there was a good trend of applying motivational strategies in ULIS Lastly, the research contributed to the volume of research on motivational strategies as well as serves as a reference material for those who are interested in the same research topics

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale of the study 1 1.2 Aims of the study and research questions 2

2.1.2 The importance of motivation in L2 learning and teaching 5 2.1.3 Approach of L2 motivation research 5

2.1.3.2 The cognitive-situated approach in 1990s 7

2.1.3.3 The process-oriented approach to L2 motivational research 13 2.1.4 A framework of motivational strategies 14

3.2 Data collection methods and procedures 26

Appendix 1: Classroom observation checklist 62

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure 1 Gardner’s 1985 conceptualization of the integrative

Figure 5 Dornyei’s 2001 components of motivational teaching

practice in the L2 classroom

Table 4 Frequency of motivational strategies employed in Social

English class, perceived by second year mainstream

student at FELTE, ULIS, VNU

34

Figure 6 Frequency of motivational strategies employed by

teachers in Social English classes for ULIS second year

students

36

Table 5 Paired Samples T-Test result – Sig (2-tailed) of the

frequency of utilized motivational strategies

38

Table 6 Legend keys of frequency and effectiveness along with

the definition of 25 motivational strategies

perceived by students Table 9 The frequency of Team competition used, as perceived

by students

43

Table 10 Effectiveness of motivational strategies employed in

Social English class, perceived by second year mainstream student at FELTE, ULIS, VNU

45 – 46

Table 11 Paired Samples T-Test result – Sig (2-tailed) of

effectiveness of utilized motivational strategies

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

HULIS: Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies VNU: Vietnam National University

L2: Second language

SLA: Second Language Acquisition

MOLT: Motivational Orientation of Language Teaching

ELT: English Language Teaching

SD: Standard Deviation

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

This initial chapter states the research problem and the rationale of the study, together with the aims, the scope and the significance of the study Moreover, it is in this chapter that the research questions are identified to serve as the guideline for whole study Finally, the organization will be concluded at the end of this part to orientate the reader throughout the paper

1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale of the study

Throughout the world, English is the dominant language to communicate in this globalization era As a result, effort has been made to help language learners acquire English effectively and successfully in the language classroom with the shift from Grammar-translation approach to Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) to put more emphasis on communicative use of a language (Richards & Rodgers, 2014) CLT requires students to be more creative and active in the lesson, making the language classroom become more learner-centered (Nunan, 1991; as cited in Brown, 1994)

In Vietnam, students’ English communication skills are generally weak due to the fact that the traditional method of teaching and learning English focuses on knowledge of language rather than skills Consequently, students in Vietnam are neither active nor enthusiastic in activities that emphasize communication between participants Therefore, English teachers need to adapt some changes in their approaches or strategies in teaching, one of which is motivational strategies In the context of Faculty of English Teacher Education (FELTE), Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies (HULIS), Vietnam National University (VNU), motivational strategies have been applied in Social English classes for students Therefore, whether teachers efficiently and successfully employ the motivational strategies is taken into consideration and urges the researcher to conduct this study

Although the importance of learning motivation in language classroom has been acknowledged worldwide, conducted studies on this topic in the context of Vietnam and particularly in FELTE, ULIS still need paying more attention More specifically, Nguyen (2009), Nguyen (2011), Nguyen (2012) and Nguyen (2013) investigated certain method of teacher’s use of motivational strategies in English teaching However, none of the researchers above has touched upon the effectiveness of motivational strategies as perceived by second year students and the researcher’s observation Aiming to bridge the gap and gaining a more comprehensive view of the issue, the researcher conducted this study in the context

of FELTE, ULIS, VNU with ULIS sophomores as the participants The study is

entitled: “Motivational strategies in Social English classes for ULIS second year mainstream students at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University (FELTE - HULIS - VNU)”

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions

The research is conducted with the aims to investigate motivational strategies that are being employed by teachers in Social English classrooms This goal can be realized by these two objectives: (1) exploring the motivational strategies employed that urge students to learn English in Social English class, (2) reporting the frequency of the utilized motivational strategies and (3) reporting the effectiveness

of these strategies

The study seeks to answer two following research questions:

1 What are motivational strategies employed by teachers in Social English class for ULIS second year students and how frequent are they used?

2 How effective are the employed motivational strategies in motivating ULIS second-year students in Social English classes?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study involves 120 second-year undergraduates at FELTE, ULIS, VNU as the participants Besides, the research only focuses on Social English classes; one of

English, Academic English and English 4C The reason for this is owing to the fact that Social English classes are easier, compared to the other two courses; thus, the students gradually lose their interest in this subject To avoid subjectiveness in the results, the researcher decided to investigate this matter from the perception of the second year students since they are directly affected by the employed motivational strategies

1.4 Significance of the study

Once having completed, this research contributes to the volume of research on motivational strategies as well as serves as a reference material for those who are interested in the same research topics Moreover, English teachers can use the study results as a source of reference and be aware of some effective strategies that can be used to improve students’ participation in learning process

1.5 Organization of the study

The rest of the paper includes the following chapters:

Chapter 2: Literature review – Provides the background of the study, including

definition of the key concept, description of the context of teaching L2 to second year students at FELTE – ULIS and review of related studies

Chapter 3: Methodology – Describes the selection of the subject, the instruments

of the study as well as the procedure employed to carry out the research

Chapter 4: Data analysis and discussion – Presents, analyzes and discusses the

findings from the data collected

Chapter 5: Conclusion - Summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the

limitations of the research, pedagogical recommendations concerning the research topic as well as some suggestions for further studies Following this chapter are the References and Appendices

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This second chapter provides a brief review of the literature related to this study and lays the solid foundation for the development of subsequent parts of the paper

To start with, the definition of key concepts, different approaches of L2 motivation research and the motivational strategies framework will be elicited as the guideline

of the whole research After that, a brief review of the related studies in the world and in Vietnam will reveal the research gap and objectives of this research paper

2.1.1 Definitions of motivation

Although the term “motivation” is frequently used in educational research, no consensus has been reached among researchers on the exact definition of motivation (Oxford & Shearin, 1994) Analogously, Steel and Konig (2006) put forth the reason as for the complexity of “intricate and realistic situation” that motivation and motivational subsets occur since one theory can only deal with only one motivational subset In spite

of the inconsistency of the term definitions, most researchers seem to agree that motivation is “the choice of a particular action, the persistence with it and the effort expended on it” (Dornyei, 2000, p 520) In a broader sense, it is understood as the reasons, desire and willingness for acting in a certain way

In psychology, Green (1995; as cited in Zhang, 2008) stated that motivation is

“the initiation, intensity and persistence of behavior” Similarly, according to Cherry (2015), a psychology expert, motivation is defined as the desire to accomplish a goal requiring the ability to persist through obstacles and endurance to keep going in spite of difficulties

In educational field, the most influential motivation theory in second language acquisition is proposed by Gardner (1985) with the definition of motivation as the combination of learner’s effort and desire to achieve the goal in language teaching This viewpoint was widely shared by other experts such as Crookes and Schmidt, Dornyei and other experts From the definitions proposed by experts in different fields,

In conclusion, motivation in this thesis, basing on the mentioned definitions above, is defined as demands or reasons that push students to learn, involving their endeavor, desire and orientation in achieving learning goals

2.1.2 The importance of motivation in second language learning and

teaching

The initial research about motivation in second language learning belonging to Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1972, as cited in Noels, 2000) triggered the interest in investigating the nature and the role of motivation in second language learning Since then the importance of motivation has been emphasized and become a surge

in this area (Ellis, 2000), Dornyei (1994) pointed out that motivation played a crucial role in education because it generated the primary impetus to endure the

“long and tedious learning process” and supported his view by citing a myriad of studies from Oxford and Shearin (1994), Clement (1980) and other well-known researchers in this field Additionally, Richard and Schmidt (2002, p 343) elucidated motivation as the principal cause of success and failure in second language learning, which is why teachers of foreign language have always tried to apply new approaches or strategies in their teaching Without sufficient motivation, even individual with remarkable abilities could not fulfill a long-term goals while those with high motivation could make up for considerable deficiency in language aptitude and learning conditions In short, in order to boost the efficiency of students’ learning, motivation and motivational strategies researches and studies are needed in education in general and in second language teaching in particular

2.1.3 Approach of L2 motivation research

Since many researchers have proposed a number of alternative models of motivation in educational field, this part will synthesize some studies reviewing such approaches including the socio-educational approach, the cognitive-situated approach

in the 1990s and the process-oriented approach proposed by Dornyei in 2001

2.1.3.1 The Socio-educational approach

In 1959, Gardner and Lambert asserted that motivation was strongly associated with learners’ achievement of second language learning He believed that second language acquisition took place in many different contexts and most importantly, the nature of the context itself In 1985, by emphasizing the socio-cultural dimension of L2 impetus namely integrative orientation, interest in foreign languages and attitudes towards L2 community, Gardner’s approach (1985, as cited

in Dornyei, 2003, p 11) offered “a macro perspective that allowed researchers to characterize and compare the motivational pattern of whole learning communities”

He developed the theory of “Socio-educational Model” emphasizing learner variables including intelligence, language aptitude, language learning strategies, language attitudes, motivation and language anxiety (Dornyei, 2001)

Figure 1: Gardner’s (1985) conceptualization of the integrative motive

It can be seen from the Figure 1 that various components in the model were measured basing on different attitudinal and motivational scales Integrativeness was seen as the interest and identification of the second language community with their culture and belief and measured by attitudes towards the target language group, interest in foreign language in general and integrative orientation (set of reasons for which an individual studies the language) Similarly, motivation was considered the driving force including expending effort, expressing desire and feeling enjoyment and assessed by motivation intensity (the amount of effort devoted in learning the language), attitudes toward learning the target language and the desire to learn the target language Lastly, attitudes toward the learning situation referred to the individual’s reaction to the learning environment, the teacher, the course and the materials Gardner (1985) concluded that the integrativeness and attitudes towards learning motivation had a great contribution in developing motivation in second language learning However, the model received plenty of criticism from various researchers mostly against the concept of “integrativeness” since it has been understood in different and sometimes contradictory by various researchers (Dornyei, 2003) The reason is that integrative motivation has been defined in a way that almost every reason one can think of for studying the language

of the target community can fall within its range (Clement & Kruidenier, 1983; cited in Keblawi, 2009) For instance, the orientation for travel was seen as integrative by some but considered instrumental by others Even Gardner himself in

2001 concluded that the “term is used frequently in literature, though close inspection will reveal that it has slightly different meanings to different individuals” (Gardner, 2001, p 1) After all, it is undeniable that the Gardner and Lambert’s theory and models generated empirical investigations in Canada and inspired other researchers in this area (Ushioda & Dornyei, 2012)

2.1.3.2 The cognitive-situated approach in the 1990s

Dornyei (1994) indicated that the emphasis of Gardner’s model was primarily placed on attitudes and other social psychological aspects of Second language

learning Therefore, other essential elements of motivation such as self-confidence

or classroom environment have been “over looked or played down” (Dornyei, 2001) Moreover, this period witnessed the changes in the focus to cognitive motivation theory and situated analysis of motivation in specific learner settings (Ushioda & Dornyei, 2012) In the following part, two most influential cognitive approaches will be briefly presented: self-determination theory and goal orientation theory

2.1.3.2.1 Self-determination theory

According to Dornyei (2003), Deci and Ryan’s (1985, 2002) self-determination theory is the one of the most influential theories in motivational psychology The term “self-determination” was defined as “the act of experiencing a sense of choice

in initiating and regulating one’s own action”, which is also referring to autonomy The theory distinguished between two terms directly related to educational field: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation The former refers to the behavior that is driven by internal reward stemming from the innate psychological needs of competence and self-determination (Ryan & Deci, 2000) It should be noted that the learners with intrinsic motivation are motivated to do the task for the sake of the task itself (Oldham & Cummings, 1996) While the intrinsic motivation refers to personal reward, extrinsic motivation occurs when people are motivated to do the task in order to earn an external reward or avoid punishment (Dornyei, 1994) Sharing the same line, Deci and Ryan (2000) claimed that extrinsic motivation is the action results from the need to “a separable outcome” According to the self-determination theory, the quality of motivation depended on the needs that all individual tends to satisfy in their action: the need for competence referring to the desire to confidently and effectively interact with other people in the community, the need for relatedness pertaining the feeling of belonging, care, respect and connection with others and the need for autonomy implying the willing participation in an activity without any pressure (Deci & Ryan, 2002; as cited in Guilloteaux, 2007) In short, the self-

determination theory put forth the two sources of motivation which have a direct relation to the motivation educating process

2.1.3.2.2 Goal orientation theory

Dornyei (2001, p 27) states that the goal orientation theory was developed in a classroom context to elucidate children’s learning and performance and might be the most strenuous motivation theory within the classroom (Pintrick & Shunk, 1996; as cited in Keblawi, 2009, p 38) since there is an agreement among the researchers about the definition of goal orientation (Elloit & Thrash, 2001; as cited

in Guilloteaux, 2007, p 43) Guilloteaux (2007, p 43) defined goal orientation as the “constructs that were specifically developed to explain achievement motivation” Moreover, it is currently assumed that goal is internal, cognitive representation of the desire from an individual which guide one’s behavior in a particular direction (Elliot & Thrash, 2001, p 144) In line with Elliot and Thrash, Dornyei (2003) emphasized that the individual performance is closely related to his

or her accepted goals in the classroom context Above all, the goal orientation distinguished between two types of goals: performance goal and mastery goal, in which the former refers to the “aim to look smart” while the later implies the “aim

to become smarter” (Dweck, 1985, p 291; as cited in William & Burden, 1997, p 131) At the end, the mastery goal, or the learning goal is more adaptive than the other one (Guilloteaux, 2007)

Based on the two mentioned theories, the approach by Gardner and the results of Clement, in Dornyei and Noels’ classroom study, Dornyei (1994) conceptualized the framework of second language acquisition consisted of three components: Language Level, Learner Level and the Learning Situation Level as presented in the table below

Components of Foreign Language Learning Motivation

LANGUAGE LEVEL Integrative Motivational Subsystem

Instrumental Motivational Subsystem

Affiliative Drive Authority Type Direct Socialization of Motivation

- Modeling

- Task Presentation

- Feedback

Goal-oridentedness Norm & Reward System Group Cohesion

Classroom Goal Structure

Figure 2: Dornyei’s 1994 framework of L2 Motivation

The language level concentrates on numerous aspects of second language such

as the culture, the community, the potential usefulness of proficiency in it This level is in line with the Gardner’s way of classifying motivation as integrative and instrumental motivation subsystem Secondly, the learner level includes the need for achievement and self-confidence involving personality traits and second language attribution about past experiences and self-efficacy (people’s judgment of their capabilities to carry out certain specific tasks) The third level of second language motivation construct is the learning situation level made up of course-specific

motivational components, teacher-specific motivational components and specific motivational components

group-After the work of Dornyei in 1994, Williams and Burden made an attempt to summarize and listed out the components of second language motivation Unlike Dornyei, William and Burden classified motivational components into two main groups which were internal factors and external factors This framework, as perceived by Dornyei in 1998, is a highly detailed one but still remains the same demerit as Dornyei’s previous framework in 1994 that is the lack of relationship between the listed items and is hard to apply to empirical testing Therefore, in

2001, he introduced a process-oriented approach, which will be discussed later in this part

Intrinsic interest of activity

- Arousal of curiosity

- Optimal degree of challenge

Perceived value of activity

- Personal relevance

- Anticipated value of outcomes

- Intrinsic value attributed to the

- Feeling and competence

- Awareness of developing skills and

mastery in a chosen area

- Mediated learning experiences

- The nature and amount of feedback

- Rewards

- The nature and amount of appropriate praise

- Punishments, sanctions The learning environment

- Comfort

- Time of day, week, year

- Size of class and school

- Class and school ethos The boarder context

- Wider family network

- Realistic awareness of personal

- Strengths and weaknesses in skills

required

- Personal definitions and judgements

of success and failure

- Self-worth concern learned

helplessness

Attitudes language learning in general

- To the target language

- To the target language community

- Societal expectations and attitudes

Figure 3: Williams and Burden’s 1997 framework of L2 motivation

2.1.3.3 The process-oriented approach to L2 motivational research

As mentioned above, this approach is the most updated one that could be applied

in empirical research about motivation in second language learning It was proposed

by Dornyei (2001) According to Dornyei (2003), since the day it was published, the process-oriented approach has received attention from various researchers because it took into account the time element of motivation Moreover, the process-oriented approach has created the a research perspective in line with the general approaches in second language acquisition (SLA) which is to focus on the way various motivational attributes affects leaners’ various learning behavior, in other word, the actual learning process during a course (Dornyei, 2003, p.23) The process, therefore, contains three distinct phases that are Preactional stage, actional

stage and postactional stage

Preactional Stage Actional Stage Postactional Stage

Main motivational influences:

- Various goal properties

(e.g goal relevance,

specificity and proximity)

- Values associatied with

the learning process itself,

as well as with its

consequences

- Attitued towards the L2

and its speakers

- Expectancy of success and

perceived coping potential

- Learner beliefs and

strategies

- Environmental support

and hinderance

EXECUTIVE MOTIVATION Motivational functions:

- Generating and carrying out subtasks

- Ongoing appraisal (of one’s achievement)

- Action control regulation)

(Self-Main motivational influences:

- Quality of the learning experience (pleasantness, need significance, coping potential, self and social image)

- Influence of the learner group

- Knowledge and use of self-regualtory strategies (e.g goal setting, learning and self-motivating strategies)

MOTIVATIONAL RETROSPECTION Motivational functions:

- Forming causal atributions

- Elaborating standards and strategies

- Dismissing intention & further planning

Main motivational influences:

- Attributional factors (e.g attributional styles and biases)

- Self-concept beliefs (e.g self-confidence and self- worth)

- Received feedback, praise, grades

Figure 4: Dornyei’s 2001 Process Model of Learning Motivation in L2

classroom

It can be clearly seen from Figure 4 that pre-actional stage starts with choice motivation, which will leads to learners’ selection of goal and task Following-up is the actional stage which is in charge of maintaining and protecting the generated

motivation in the first stage from other distracting influences including off-task thoughts, irrelevant comments from others or physical conditions Last but not least, the post-actional stage refers to the learners’ retrospective evaluation to form their motivated activities in the future (Dornyei, 2003)

As Dornyei (2003) mentioned, this approach has opened a new research perspective that is concentrating on how motivational variables affect learner’s different learning behaviors rather than general learning outcomes of the learners

As a result, learners themselves can benefit from self-motivating strategies and the motivational strategies employed by teachers to make progress in their language learning

In conclusion, over the years, the field of motivation in language learning has evolved through different approaches Starting with Gardner and Lambert’s motivation theory using socio-educational approach aroused criticism on different ways of understanding the term and its lack of educational features in the approach After that, the cognitive-situated approach took the place Although the framework

of motivation in this period touched upon various educational components of motivation, the relationship between components were not clear and hard to apply

to empirical testing Finally, the process-oriented approach allowed researchers in motivational field and SLA field view the matter in the same perspective and attempted to “delineate the temporal structure of L2 motivation” in which divided into three phases as presented above (Ushioda & Dornyei, 2012)

2.1.4 A framework of motivational strategies

Dornyei (2001) defined motivational strategies as techniques that promoted the individual’s goal-related behavior and classified motivational strategies into two types: (a) self-motivating strategies – the strategies used by students to self-promote their learning and (b) motivational strategies – the strategies employed by teachers

in classroom context This research paper focused on the second group of

Based on the process-oriented approach, Dornyei (2001) provided a comprehensive framework of a motivational teaching practice consisting four main components Each dimension includes a number of strategies that add up to 100 motivational techniques in total The four dimensions are presented in Figure 4:

Figure 5: Dornyei’s 2001 components of motivational teaching practice in the L2 classroom

Dornyei’s motivational framework of 100 suggested strategies served as the background for designing the classroom observation checklist and the questionnaires of this research However, considering the practicality of using all

100 strategies into the research instrument, the researcher decided to adapt the framework from the Motivation Orientation of Language Teaching, a cooperative study of Dornyei and Guiloteaux (2008) This framework was developed from Spada and Frohlich (1995) Communication orientation of language teaching scheme and Dornyei’s 2001 suggested motivational strategies using in L2 classroom The framework consists of 25 observational variables measuring the teacher’s motivational practice and grouped as followed:

 Generating, maintaining and protecting situation-specific task motivation

o Teacher Discourse: Social chat, Signposting, Stating the

communicative purpose or utility of the activity, Establish relevance, Promoting integrative values, Promoting instrumental values, Arousing curiosity or attention, Scaffolding, Promoting cooperation, Promoting autonomy and Referential questions

o Participation Organization: Group work and Pair work

o Activity Design: Tangible rewards, Personalization, Element of

interest, creativity, fantasy, Intellectual challenge, Tangible task product, Individual competition, Team competition

 Encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation: Neutral feedback,

Process feedback, Elicitation of self or peer correction, Effective praise, and Class applause

The definition of those task motivational strategies were presented in the below list: Motivational

Social chat Having an informal (often humorous) chat in English with

students on the matter of unrelated to the lesson

Signposting

Stating the lesson objectives explicitly or giving retrospective summaries of progress already made toward realizing the objectives

Promoting

instrumental values

Highlighting the role that L2 plays in the world and how knowing the L2 can be potential usefulness for the students themselves

students complete an activity successfully (e.g

brainstorming ideas, reminding previously learned knowledge) to help students complete activities successfully

Promoting

cooperation

Setting up a cooperative learning activity or encouraging students to help one another, offering suggestion on how best to do this

Promoting

autonomy

Offering students a choice of activities, involving them in making decision regarding the timing of an activity, having them use the internet or do research

Referential

questions

Asking the class question to which the teacher does not already know the answer, including questions about the students’ lives

Group work

The students are mingling, working in fluid pairs, or working in groups (Simultaneously or presenting to the whole class)

Pair work The students are working in fixed pairs (simultaneously or

presenting to the whole class)

Tangible rewards Offering students tangible rewards (e.g presents, marks,

candies, etc.) for successful taking part in an activity

Personalization Creating opportunities for students to express personal

meanings (e.g experiences, feelings, opinions) Element of interest,

creativity, fantasy

Providing activities connecting with students’ interests, values, creativity and fantasy

Intellectual

challenge

Providing activities presenting intellectual challenge (e.g involve a memory challenge, puzzle solving or finding hidden information, ect.)

Effective praise Offering praise for effort or achievement that is sincere,

specific and appropriate with students’ achievement

Class applause Celebrating a student’s or group success or effort by

applauding

Table 1: Observational Variables measuring the teacher’s

motivational practice

2.2 Related studies

2.3.1 An overview of related studies worldwide

According to Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008), the shift to investigate the knowledge about how motivation affected learners has been recently occurred as in the past the researchers often focused solely on studying the definition of motivation Therefore, more and more researchers decided to conceptualize motivational strategies to conclude the pedagogical implications of motivation research Gardner and Tremblay (1994, as cited in Guilloteaux & Dornyei, 2008) argued that but for the empirical evidence, the value of such recommended motivational strategies remained yet not confirmed

Dornyei and Czizér (1998) were the pioneer attempting to solve this prolem by conducting a research named “Ten commandents for motivating language learners: results of an empirical study” From the obtained data, the researchers compiled a set of ten most essential motivational macro-strategies Although this framework offered empirical evidences as well as practical applications for the teachers, its drawback was lying on its relying on the teachers’ self-report

Similar attempts were made by Madrid (2002) with Spanish students, Xavier (2005) with Brazillian teachers and students and Cheng and Dornyei (2007) with teachers and students in Taiwan Madrid (2002) concluded from his study that extrinsic motivation could bring positive impacts on student’s participation and performance to some exent The finding was rather new at that time since it was opposite to some claims made by some previous researchers With a study in 2005, Xavier further the work by Dornyei and Czizer (1998) when he not only confirmed the direct connection between motivational teaching practice with sutdent’s motivated behavior but also pointed out the reason for the discrepancy in frequency and effectiveness of such motivational strategies Cheng and Dornyei was in agreement with Xavier in this point in the research in Taiwan Although these researches did make some contribution to the scholarship of motivational strategies, the results were claimed to get higher reliablitity if it could get the results from students rather than the teachers’ sefl-reports only

This short-coming urged Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) to conduct a large scale study in South Korean among 40 ESOL classrooms, 27 language teachers and more than 1300 learners from various levels of institutional context Attempting to gain a better result, the researchers developed a new classroom observation scheme called the Motivational Orientation of Language Teaching (MOLT), a combination of Dornyei’s framework of motivational teaching strategies and Spada and Frohlich’s (1995) Classroom Overvation Scheme (COLT) The results proposed that comparing to self-regulated motivation, motivational teaching strategies have a stronger association with student’s in-class motivated behaviors

From the above review of the motivational strategies research in the world, it can

be concluded that even though the frequency and effectiveness of motivational pratice might vary depending on the cultural aspects, there was a direct link between teacher’s motivational strategies and learners’ motivated behaviors in the classroom context Moreover, a much more comprehensive method was introduced including an observation scheme, teacher and student’s questionnaire and a suplementary post-lesson teacher evaluation scale in Guilloteaux and Dornyei’s (2008) research

2.3.2 An overview of related studies in FELTE, ULIS, VNU

In terms of current situation Vietnam, few researches were carried out on the topic

of motivation and motivational strategies To be more specific, in VNU, one of the top ranking foreign language teacher training institutions in Vietnam, potential teacher’s awareness of encouraging students has been raised In this part, the researcher would only review the researches based on Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008)’s Motivational Orientation of Language Teaching (MOLT) observation scheme since that was the focus of this study Nguyen (2009) was the first researcher followed MOLT to conduct a study on motivational strategies employed by teacher during speaking lessons for mainstream freshmen at FELTE-ULIS-VNU Followed Nguyen (2009) was Nguyen (2011) with teachers at English

FELTE-ULIS-different groups of teachers basing on their experience In 2012, Nguyen made an attempt to investigate motivational strategies employed by a native teacher with the first year fast-track students as the participants Likewise, the most recent effort on investigating the use of these techniques was made by Nguyen (2013) She chose both teachers and students as the participants and looked at both of their perspective Among the four researches conducted in the context of FELTE-ULIS-VNU, only Nguyen’s (2013) research touched upon the integrated skills classroom, which was now the main focus of the Social English course The other three solely concentrated on speaking skills only

In the attempt of making further investigation about the motivational strategies demonstrated by teachers in the integrated skills lessons at English Division 2 at FELTE-ULIS-VNU, the researcher decided to carry out this study

Summary

The theoretical background of the whole paper along with the careful elaboration on the key concepts and the framework on which the data collection methods are based has been presented in this chapter Moreover, the review of related studies briefly illustrated reveals the research gaps that this study and help fill in

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

The literature on the research topic is briefly reviewed in the previous chapter

as the theoretical basis of the whole study On a more practical side, this chapter demonstrates the methodology employed to answer the two research questions The selection of subjects, data collection methods and procedure and data analysis methods and procedure are described in details

3.1 Selection of subjects

3.1.1 Research setting

The research was conducted at FELTE – HULIS – VNU This faculty applies a variety of educational methods, especially communicative approach, to teach and train students Therefore, it might be the best choice to carry out this research of learning motivation

Currently, the English 2 Division, which is in charge of teaching English language skills to roughly 500 second year mainstream undergraduate students in three majors: English Language Teacher Education, Translation and Interpreting, and International Economics To be more specific, there are eight classes the students of which major in English Language Teacher Education, nine classes of Translation and Interpreting and three classes of International Economics Besides International Economics classes, the two first years of their study program will offer them the same courses with the same materials to achieve C1 level of The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) as stated in the curriculum document and the English language course objectives for English major students Therefore, three International Economics classes were excluded from this research

3.1.2 Research participants

The aim of the study is to investigate the motivational strategies being employed by teachers in Social English classrooms for second year mainstream

students Therefore, second-year students were selected as the targeted population

of the research The reason for the researcher’s focus on sophomores is two-fold

In the first place, according to the researcher’s experience and observation, one of the problems that commonly found in EFL context is that learners are reluctant to speak in classroom, with no exception of ULIS second-year students Moreover, back in high school in Vietnam, the students are mostly test-oriented, thus they do not have many chances to practice English communicative skills in class Consequently, the students seem to be inactive in those communicative activities, so they need help from teachers to gain more confidence in the lessons In addition, the amount of knowledge that second year students have to acquire is quite large, therefore, they need stimulation to learn to reach the targeted level of English competence

3.1.3 Sampling

In order to avoid bias and objectivity, the researcher decided to use simple random sampling method The researcher assigned a number to every class of the population, using a table of random numbers, and then randomly selected the number that corresponds with the classes Three classes of English Language Teacher Education and three classes of Translation and Interpreting were chosen to collect the data Each class had from 20 to 25 students, so six classes added up to

120 students, approximately one third of second year students population As suggested by Gay, Mills and Airasian (1996), 10% of the population is minimum to

be representative of the concern population Therefore, 120 students, which were approximately 30% of the population would ensure a certain degree of representative sampling of the subjects in this research

At first, the researcher observed five social English classes with five different teachers, each class one lesson The reason for the researcher to choose five Social English classes was that English for Social Purposes 2, as stated in the course guide, concentrated on communicative use of English with the integrated skills lessons, which is also the focus of this study Moreover, due to the limited