Attitudes of ULIS first year international business english students towards the application of case studies in english 2a business

ABSTRACT With a scrutiny into the process of conducting case studies by first-year students in the International Business English program, FELTE, ULIS, the research aims at: 1 reporting

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

FAST TRACK DIVISION

ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Nguyen Ngoc Thu Trang, class 12E1 , 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 purpo ses of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Hanoi, 5th May 2016

Nguyen Ngoc Thu Trang

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I wish to send my most sincere gratitude to Ms Nguyen Thi Thanh Van, M.A., my mentor for this research paper With many years of teaching experience in English for Business Purposes, she has given me such an invaluable guidance and advice throughout the whole process of completing the thesis Her enthusiasm, sympathy and willingness to listen to my concerns are also a precious support to help me go through difficult and demotivating moments

I also want to pay tribute to all the research participants - three teachers and

50 first-year and second-year students in the International Business English program, FELTE, ULIS Despite being busy with their own teaching and learning schedules, they have been always willing to spare time sharing with me their personal viewpoints in the survey and interview

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for always standing by and giving me spiritual encouragement for the last five months

ABSTRACT

With a scrutiny into the process of conducting case studies by first-year students in the International Business English program, FELTE, ULIS, the research aims at: (1) reporting students' perceptions of the effectiveness of case studies in enhancing pivotal skills for business careers, (2) determining the demotivating factors that students may encounter when doing case studies and (3) offering recommendations to overcome demotivation and make the best use

of case studies in Business English lessons To achieve the above objectives, the

research uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods with

questionnaire and semi-structured interview as main data collection instruments

The result reveals that as perceived by students, case studies enormously contribute to their development in various essential skills for their future careers such as business communication skills, problem-solving skill and decision-making skill In addition, students face numerous sources of demotivation in doing case studies Their demotivation originates from diverse factors: students themselves, learning materials, teachers and learning environment, which

suggests reconsideration and comprehensive changes for improvement

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Literature Review

1.1 Definitions and features of Business English 5 1.2 Characteristics of a successful Business English learner 6 1.2 Methods of teaching Business English 6

2 Theoretical backgrounds of task-based language teaching (TB LT) 8

2.1 Definitions of tasks in TBLT 8

3.2 Case studies in teaching Business English 11

3.3.1 Case studies in developing business communication 12 skills

3.3.2 Case studies in developing problem-solving skill 14 and decision-making skill

4 Case studies exploitation in International Business English

program, ULIS

15

4.1 Description of cases in Market Leader - Intermediate 15

5 Data analysis methods and procedure 26

Chapter 3 Data analysis, discussion of major findings and recommendations

3.3 Recommendations to the course designer(s) 50

APPENDIXES

Appendix 2: Case study evaluation sheet (Group performance) III Appendix 3: Case study evaluation sheet (Individual performance) V Appendix 4: Survey questionnaire for students VI Appendix 5: Interview questions for teachers XIV

Appendix 6: Interview questions for students XVI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

FELTE: Faculty of English Language Teacher Education ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies VNU: Vietnam National University

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

EBP: English for Business Purposes

CLIL: Content and language integrated learning

CBI: Content-based instruction

TBLT: Task-based language teaching

%: percent

SD: Standard deviation

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Variants of the work with case studies 15

Table 2 Ratings on the effectiveness of case studies in particular skills 30

Table 3 The frequency of demotivators in case-study lessons 38

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3 Case studies implementation procedure 17

Figure 4 Students' evaluation on the effectiveness of case-study activities 29

Figure 5 Students' degree of agreement with the given statements 33

Figure 6 Students' feelings about case-study lessons 36

Figure 8 Students' suggestions to overcome demotivation in case -study

lessons

41

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 The statement of the problem and the rationale for the study

Following the global economic integration and affiliation, business students indisputably have to equip themselves with various essential skills, namely critical thinking, problem solving, cooperating and decision making to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of the business world As pointed out by Jain (2009), learners should be provided with "a broader educational environment" which reflects the nature of real-life international business Being aware of that, contemporary educators have applied task-based activities to support teaching and learning processes, with the case-study method being a typical example

Pioneered by Harvard Business School (McFarlane, 2015), the case method has been ubiquitously exploited in formal classrooms for its authenticity, practicality and motivating impacts At the University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS), Vietnam, case studies are also adopted in the double-major program for International Business English students As this is a relatively new program, the contributions of case studies to the academic development of these students have been inconclusive

There has been only one study on the implementation of case studies conducted at VNU so far but the main focus was on learning business speaking However, it would be a great mistake if the benefits of this teaching method in developing other crucial skills such as business communication skills, problem-solving or decision-making skills were ignored, considering their critical importance for those learners who are going to enter the job market In addition,

with hardly experience in doing case studies before, first-year students are likely

to take part in these cases with both excitement and adversities

The researcher believes that only when students' opinions about the positive and negative impacts of case studies, as well as their difficulties during the process of conducting this project are determined and analyzed will this teaching method be exploited to the fullest That is a motivation for the researcher to do a

study with the title: "Attitudes of ULIS first-year International Business

English students towards the application of case studies in English 2A - Business"

2 Research aims

The research deeply investigates students' attitudes to the utilization of the case-study method in Business English language teaching, with the aim of providing a critical insight into how this project contributes to learners' development in different skills This goal can be obtained by the three following objectives: (1) reporting students' perceptions of the effectiveness of case studies

in enhancing pivotal skills for business careers, (2) determining the demotivating factors that students may encounter when doing case studies and (3) offering recommendations to overcome the demotivation and make the best use of case

studies in Business English lessons

 What suggestions can be made to assist students to overcome demotivation?

4 Scope of the research

The study is confined to Case studies project carried out by students during the second semester of the first year in the International Business English

Program, ULIS, VNU The population of this research is manageable with fifty

students from three groups in the International Business English program

5 Significance of the research

First, the research contributes to the academic resources discussing the based approach to teaching General English as well as English for Specific Purposes

task-Second, it may help EFL teachers in Vietnam gain more awareness of the efficiency as well as constraints of the case method, and therefore apply it more appropriately and flexibly to maximize its potentials

Last but not least, the suggestions are expected to be a practical and useful reference for teachers and students to overcome demotivation during the case study implementation

6 Organization of the research

The study comprises three main parts, which are Introduction (Part A), Development (Part B) and Conclusion (Part C)

The first part, Introduction, offers a general description of the research In this chapter, the motive for conducting the study, the objectives, research questions, the purview and contribution of this research are discussed

The most important part, Development, consists of three chapters Chapter 1 Literature Review specifically provides a brief overview of Business English, task-based language teaching, the case method, the case-study project in English 2A - Business course and demotivation in language learning Chapter 2 presents Methodology, in which the type of research, the participants, data collection and data analysis procedure are specified Chapter 3 shows Data analysis, discussion

of major findings and recommendations

Finally, the conclusion recapitulates the prime findings and recommendations before showing the research's limitations and suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the most basic knowledge of Business English, based language teaching and the case-study method, as well as presents how case studies are being applied in the International Business English program Afterwards, some conducted research into demotivation in language learning is reviewed as a foundation for the paper to find out current demotivators that students are encountering

task-1 Theoretical backgrounds of Business English

1.1 Definitions and features of Business English

In their study named Report on Business English: A review of Research and

Published teaching materials, Dudley-Evans and John (1996) refer to Business

English as an "umbrella term" which can be utilised interchangeably with English for Business Purposes (EBP) As defined by the two scholars, Business English "deals largely with adult learners either working or preparing to work in

a business context" and possibly "include[s] academic Business English required

by students following, for example, an MBA course or a course in Finance, Accounting or Banking." (Dudley-Evans & John, 1996) Meanwhile, Pickett (1989) regards Business English as a "technical language defined by the activity, occupation, subject and situation"; or in other words, it is considered a "work language" (Pickett, 1989)

The distinction between Business English and General English lies in the content and the skills In terms of content, EBP learners are exposed to topics

involving the business world and the working environment, for example "global business cultures or a day at the office instead of family and friends" In respect

of skills, business communication skills such as "delivering presentations rather than speaking in general" are taken into account (Mehta, 2008)

1.2 Characteristics of a successful Business English learner

According to Waters and Waters (1992), a successful Business English learner has the following exemplary attributes:

"- have a high degree of self-awareness;

- are good at critical questioning;

- tend to have an 'adult' approach to relations with their teachers;

- think clearly and logically;

- are self-confident;

- impose their own framework on study data;

- have a positive attitude to their studies;

- are willing and able to teach themselves;

- are intelligent, etc." (Waters & Waters, 1992)

Among those, the first quality, self-awareness, pertains to the ability to correlate and contrast experiences, and determine motives for actions (Jordan, 1997) Meanwhile, the eighth quality refers to learner autonomy, or "self-instruction" as defined by Dickinson (1987), describing students' capability to work "without the direct control of a teacher"

1.3 Methods of teaching Business English

Concurrent with the fast-paced growth of ESP, over the past decades, there have been a variety of teaching methods applied, namely Content and language integrated learning, Content-based instruction and Task-based learning

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) describes an approach when

"a foreign language is used as a tool in the learning of a non-language subject in which both language and subject have a joint role" (Marsh, 2002, p.58) Specifically in the case of EBP, business knowledge is taught and studied through the medium of the English language Holmes (2005) points out an original aspect of CLIL, arguing that "it places both language and the non-language content on a continuum without implying preference and dominance of one over the other" This means language and content are fused and receive equal importance with the aim of developing proficiency in both Another noteworthy feature of this method is its "flexibility", being formed on the basis

of the CLIL 4Cs framework introduced by Coyle (2006), where content, communication, cognition and culture are incorporated

In Content-based instruction (CBI), content topics are normally employed as the framework for instruction rather than grammatical rules or lexical sources (Short, 1993, p.629) Advocates of this approach explain that second language acquisition takes place when learners "receive comprehensible input" ( 1985), and communicative competence is enhanced when learners are given chances to

"produce comprehensible and coherent output" (Swain, 1993)

Task-based language teaching (TBLT), with case studies being the most popular means, is going to be discussed in the next part

The content knowledge is an essential element in all the three teaching approaches Chamot and O'Malley (1994) accentuate the benefits of incorporating content into English classrooms by indicating four reasons First, learners are able to acquire expertise in other fields Second, it is a valuable opportunity for them to discuss the obtained knowledge and hone necessary language functions and skills at the same time Third, students' motivation is boosted when they are exposed to both content and language instead of language

only The final advantage involves offering meaningful contexts to give instructions on learning strategies

2 Theoretical backgrounds of Task-based language teaching (TBLT)

2.1 Definitions of tasks in TBLT

Before defining tasks, Nunan (2004) mentions the discrepancy between two concepts: target tasks and pedagogical tasks The former appertains to "uses of language" in the real world, whereas the latter refers to the ones that transpire in classrooms Within the the scope of this study, focus is only on pedagogical tasks which are designed to serve educational purposes

Prabhu (1987) interprets a task as an undertaking "which required learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some processes of thought and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process" (p.2) Meanwhile, to Willis (1996), a task is an activity "where the target language is used by the learner for a communicative purpose in order to achieve an outcome" (p.23)

Nunan's definition (2004) recapitulates the above ones, claiming that "a pedagogical task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in
the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning and in which the intention is to convey meaning rather

to manipulate form." (p.4)

Although those scholars have distinctive conceptions of tasks, all of them share the same viewpoint that tasks are "goal-oriented" and "meaning-centred" activities (Rodríguez-Bonces, 2010) To put it simply, tasks put emphasis on the importance of achieving an outcome and prioritize meaning rather than

grammatical forms

2.2 Stages of a TBLT lesson

Willis (1996) summarizes the stages of a TBLT lesson in the below figure

Figure 1: Stages of a TBLT lesson (Willis, 1996)

The Pre-task stage aims at preparing students and arousing their interest in the task and the topic Teacher's role in scaffolding students' learning is of great importance in this phase Common forms of scaffolding include (a) introducing additional background information and (b) equipping students with key vocabulary (Willis, 1996)

The Task cycle stage comprises three smaller sections: task, planning and reporting First, "task" is time for discussion in pairs or groups when students are

spurred to communicate in the target language Scaffolding from teachers in terms of language and content knowledge is integral However, as this step focuses on meaning, excessive stress on accuracy might hamper students' natural language acquisition (Ellis, 2006) Second, during "planning", students prepare for their report, either verbally or in written form Teacher's assistance in language accuracy is recommended, but "should be kept to a minimum" to boost learner autonomy In "report" phase, students share their final products with the whole class The reporting methods are diverse, ranging from presentation, advertisement, an interview or a short role-play (Willis, 1996)

Language focus stage involves analysis of language features and practice This step is when focus on form is catered for

3 Theoretical backgrounds of case studies

3.1 Definitions of case studies

Pioneered by Harvard Business School in the 1920s (Spackman & Camacho,

educational institutions all over the world To the majority of students who

specialize in business or economics, the term case studies is not something

unfamiliar

Lawrence (2010) describes case studies as “the vehicle by which a chunk of reality is brought into the classroom to be worked over by the class and the instructor." Also drawing attention to its authenticity, the Harriet W Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown University observes that case studies are the tasks in which the acquired theories can be applied in "real life" circumstances In those "realistic, complex and contextually rich situations", participants in the case negotiate in order to solve a problem or a dilemma

As defined by Harvard Business Publishing for Educators (2014), "case method teaching immerses students into realistic business situations Cases provide the reality of managerial decision making - which includes incomplete information, time constraints, and conflicting goals - as students learn how to analyze business situations The case method packs more experience into each hour of learning than any other instructional approach."

The given tasks in case studies are relevant to the real world language needs

of learners and require them to exchange information with peers They aim at a specific outcome: students are able to make an appropriate dec ision when dealing with a particular problem, using the acquired target language and the content knowledge of their major (Rodgers, 2006) This teaching method helps

"bridge the gap between theory and practice and between the academy and the workplace" (Barkley, Cross, & Major, 2004, p.182) and prepare learners for the obstacles they might encounter in their working environment (Pam, Jean, & Tracey, 2002)

Overall, there exist appreciably various conceptions of case studies by different scholars However, it is noticeable that all of them put emphasis on the authentic and practical features of this task-based activity To be specific, case studies provide participants with valuable opportunities to practise using the target language in meaningful scenarios that they are likely to face in their future careers The definition by Harvard Business Publishing for Educators, which is more comprehensive and more relevant to the scope of this research, is employed as the research's theoretical basis

3.2 Case studies in teaching Business English

As pointed out by Willis (1996), case study is among the task types successfully utilised in Business English classrooms Applying the task-based

approach, it allows learners to be naturally exposed to the language input in meaningful business situations and use the target language to negotiate and argue for their viewpoints

In business case studies, background information, or in other words, a short profile about a corporation is given before participants are assigned a real -life problem to solve Besides, additional relevant information is also provided as an assistance for the problem solving process, regularly charts, graphs or tables Particularly, learners are spurred to "deduct, analyze, interpret and suggest various hypothetical solutions" (Jendrych, n.d.)

According to Strelchonok and Ludviga (2013), the main stages of a case study are as follows: (1) case study introduction, (2) defining the problem, (3) problem solving, (4) presenting the solution(s), (5) evaluating the solution(s), (6) follow-up (optional) and (7) feedback

3.3 The benefits of case studies

3.3.1 Case studies in developing business communication skills

a, The communication process

In Mary Ellen Guffey's book named Essentials of business communication

(2012), communication is defined as "the transmission of information and meaning from one individual or group to another" (p.7) Five steps of the communication process: idea formation, message encoding, message transmission, message decoding and feedback are illustrated in figure 1 as below:

Figure 2: The communication process (Guffey, 2012, p.10)

This definition puts emphasis on the conveyed meaning, which is considered the main purpose of communication Therefore, only when the receiver grasps the sender's idea is the communication process successful (Guffey, 2012, p.7)

b, Business communication skills

As stated by Guffey (2012), in general, communication skills consist of reading, listening, nonverbal, speaking and writing skills The crucial role of writing skills in business environments is specially stressed since electronic emails are undeniably the chief means of communication in the present-day workplace

Guffey (2012) highlights the significance of communication skills in business

by a metaphorical image: a ticket Good communication skills can be a "ticket to work", and in contrast, bad communication skills can be a "ticket out the door"

(p.2) Indeed, results of a survey carried out by the Society for Information Management indicate that written and oral communication skills are among the top five skills which employers look for in a job recruitment (Marsan, 2007) Meanwhile, another survey points out that professionals normally attribute

"effective job placement, performance, career advancement, and organizational success" to great communication skills (Kinsman, 2004)

c, Case studies in developing business communication skills

Each case study tends to focus on specific business communication skills Therefore, the fact that students are pre-taught relevant language functions and then have chances to apply them when doing case studies can make a great contribution to the development of their business communication skills For example, when conducting negotiations is a matter of concern, students will be equipped with the language of "putting forward a proposal, agreeing and disagreeing, imposing conditions, making concessions, asking for clarification, concluding a deal, etc." When a case study is concerned with taking part in meetings, the language of "interrupting, hedging, expressing opinions, checking understanding, referring back, reaching agreements, finding a compromise, inviting people to speak, etc" will be taken into account Moreover, in the stage

of presenting the solution(s), learners' presentation skills, namely "introducing the talk, highlighting, summarizing, inviting questions, etc" will be enhanced week by week (Strelchonok & Ludviga, 2013)

3.3.2 Case studies in developing problem-solving skill and making skill

The role of case studies in strengthening problem-solving and making skills is highlighted right in the definition and description given by Velenchik (n.d.) from Wellesley College: "Cases can involve situations in which

decision-decisions must be made or problems solved" Besides, Dr Steffen Kersten (2014) from Dresden University of Techonology emphasizes this with a table describing "variants of the work with case studies"

Table 1: Variants of the work with case studies (Kersten, 2014)

4 Case studies exploitation in International Business English program, ULIS

4.1 Description of cases in Market Leader - Intermediate

For freshmen of International Business English program at ULIS, the book

Market Leader - Intermedidate by David Cotton, David Falvey and Simon Kent

(2010) is selected as the core teaching material The case study at the end of every unit, which is directly related to the business themes or topics of that unit, requires learners to simulate the situation and decide a solution to the problem arisen

All case studies start with a section called "Background" This part provides learners with basic information of a company including its name, location, services, individuals involved in the situation and issues that the company is facing Next, relevant information about the case is integrated in various forms such as a reading text, a listening file (a conversation, an interview, an expert's speech), a short report, the company's meeting agenda and tables/ charts with

data related to the issues For example, in Case study 1 (Market Leader -

Intermediate, page 12 - 13) under the theme "Brands", Hudson Corporation, a

luxury luggage manufacturer, is confronting with stiff competition from other brands when entering the European market Following the Background part, three different sources of pertinent information are presented: (1) a table summarizing findings from the market research, which aims at examining consumers' perceptions of the company's brand in the USA; (2) a conversation among four of Hudson's American managers, discussing problems they could encounter in Europe; and (3) a reading text about six marking strategies for Europe

In the Task section, learners are assigned to work in groups and find out solutions to the issues based on the given information At the end of each case, there is a follow-up writing of one business genre (email, action minutes, summary, report, letter), which is closely connected with the preceding task Turning back to the example in Case study 1 about Hudson Corporation, students are required to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each marketing strategy in the reading before reaching agreements on two best options to increase sales in European markets Afterwards, students write an email to the head of European Marketing Associates to report on their chosen strategies and arrange a meeting between two sides

Tasks in case studies are designed to facilitate students' independent learning, pair work or group work Reading and listening for input create opportunities for students to practise reading comprehension, summarizing skills, listening comprehension and note-taking skills Group discussion for solutions helps improve critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skill, while presentation skills and writing skill are also sharpened in the last two activities

4.2 Case studies implementation procedure

The case studies start from week 2 of the term and are weekly implemented

as follows

Figure 3: Case studies implementation procedure

In the first session, the situation is introduced in the form of reading texts and/ or listening Under the guidance of teachers, students summarize the main

WEEK 2

 Session 1: Case studies (1) introduction and implementation

 Session 2: Oral Presentation preparation

 Follow-up writing  Self-check + peer review  Revise

WEEK 3

 Session 1: Case studies (2) introduction and implementation

 Session 2: Oral Presentation preparation

 Follow-up writing  Self-check + peer review  Revise

WEEK 4:

 Oral Presentation (1) + (2)

 Writing entry (1) + (2) submission

content of the case, such as information about the company, arisen problems, and assessment criteria for solutions A summary table can be designed by teachers in advance so that students can fill in the table using their own words After that, students work in groups of four or five to analyse the circumstances, discuss problems and solutions To dig deeper into the case, teachers can raise guided questions for students to examine the problems from different aspects It

is noted that students are supposed to submit a group report (see Appendix 1 for the template) to teachers after each case, presenting their analysis and preparation

In the second session, time is spent preparing for the group oral presentation Group members can prepare the script, rehearse for the presentation and finalise the group report After preparation time, each student is supposed to fulfill a follow-up writing task of particular business genres such as emails, action minutes, summary, reports or letters under time pressure Peer review is then done in class under teachers' supervision before students revise their entries at home and submit to their teachers

On the performance day (week 4, 7, 11, 14), groups will take turns to act out the assigned situation and present their solutions to the whole class in approximately 15 minutes, then answer questions from the audience in around five minutes Students' performance will be assessed on both group and individual basis following the criteria on evaluation sheets (Appendix 2 and 3)

4.3 Related study

There has been one relevant research on the exploitation of case studies conducted at ULIS, VNU so far Different from this study when the researcher wants to explore the effectiveness of case studies in different aspects, Pham's study (2015) only focuses on the development of business speaking Her

findings reconfirm the positive impacts of case studies on "students' English proficiency, real business knowledge provision and business communication", with students' improvement in pronunciation, intonation and body language Besides, during the process of conducting case studies, the habit of using common words and even Vietnamese is the most serious obstacle that students encounter

5 Theoretical backgrounds of demotivation

5.1 Definitions of demotivation

In their book named Teaching and researching motivation, Dörnyei and Ushioda (2010) explain two concepts: amotivation and demotivation While the

former refers to the awareness that the activity is useless to do or the realization

of incompetency to fulfill it, the latter "concerns various negative influences that cancel our existing motivation" In comparison, demotivation is less connected with the internal factors and derives more from external causes (p.138) Meanwhile, as defined by Soureshjani and Riahipour (2012), demotivation can

be seen as "the lack of adequate motivation to do a specific goal", and a demotivated person is the one "who lacks deliberate effort, willingness and

investment for achieving a specific purpose" The term demotive is also

mentioned as a factor which reduces an "action tendency" (p.327)

Dörnyei (2009) introduced the L2 motivational self system, which comprises three elements: the ideal L2 self, the ought-to self and L2 learning experience Concerned with a person's ideal self-image, the first component represents his or her hopes and desires once acquiring the language competence By contrast, the ought-to self refers to an individual's "obligations, responsibilities and expectations" to avert dire consequences L2 learning experience, which involves motivational factors in particular contexts, exerts an influence on both

learners' ideal self and ought-to self Based on this system, it can be claimed that demotivation transpires when students "do not have a clear ideal L2 self and cannot relate it to their current L2 learning" (Dörnyei, 2009)

5.2 Demotivation in language learning

The adverse effect of demotivation on the language teaching and learning processes at all educational levels is widely recognized Over the past two decades, there have been a large number of studies in this field on a global scale

In Gorham and Christophel's research (1992), in response to the open question

"What things decrease your motivation to try hard to do your best in that class?", the results could be classified into three major categories: context demotives which are free from teacher's control; structure/ format demotives which are to some extent affected by teacher; and teacher's behaviors The shortcoming of this study lies on the fact that attention was not paid to the cases which students were probably already demotivated before attending the tertiary education While the aforementioned research focused on learners' perceptions, the same subject matter was examined from teachers' perspectives in Gorham and Millette's (1997) study Although they shared opinions on some fundamental factors, clear differences between students' and teachers' ideas were identified The findings revealed that teachers had a tendency to ascribe demotivation to

"performance-related" factors, namely learners' unsuccessful scores, deficiency

of prerequisite knowledge and skills or heavy workload On the contrary, teachers' behaviours including poor presentation skills, lack of ardour, and inappropriate teaching materials are the factors that students were apt to associate their demotivation with Another dissimilarity was also found among groups of different language proficiency levels in Falout and Maruyama's (2004) research It was reported that more advanced learners were more likely to

demotivation tended to originate from internal factors, especially

"disappointment in their performance"

Based on the belief that motivation "changes over time", the "time factor" was taken into consideration in some other research on demotivation (Jung, 2011) Taking Oxford's study in 1998 as an example, which offered participants time to reflect back on their learning experiences By writing an essay, students gave answers to a question, for instance "Describe a situation in which you experienced conflict with a teacher" The results indicated four demotivational factors: teacher-student relationships, teacher-student's "style conflicts, teacher's attitudes towards the course or the materials, and the nature of in-class activities" As can be seen from the questions given to partcipants, the research emphasizes the critical importance of teachers' role; consequently, other possible factors might have been ignored In Tran and Baldauf's (2007) research, the similar method of reflection was implemented when participants were asked to write essays recalling their language learning experiences After the content analysis, 14 demotivational factors were found and categorized into two major groups: internal and external aspects The former is comprised of learners' attitudes towards English, experiences of failure and self-respect related incidents, whereas teacher-related factors, learning environments and other external factors were included in the latter

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

1 Research design

According to Converse (1984) and Le (n.d.), survey research is the process of information gathering through individuals’ responses to questions with a view to determining the general trends of issues, populations or programs This type of research design has several advantages that are worth noticing The first benefit involves its versatile characteristic, which means survey is applicable in promoting researchers’ insights into any educational issue Secondly, it is time-saving and cost-effective while it is still possible to collect data from a large number of people Thirdly, survey enables researchers to generalize the findings from a representative sample to the whole population (Check & Schutt, 2012) Based on those aforementioned reasons, the researcher herself decides to choose survey as the research design

at Vietnamese high schools Therefore, exposure to this teaching method is deemed to have both opportunities and challenges

Unfortunately, the number of freshmen this school year (31 in total) is much fewer than the researcher's expectation 19 second-year students, thereby, are invited to participate in the study These 19 students are randomly selected, not depending on their final scores in English 2A When doing the survey, these individuals are asked to reflect on their experience with case study lessons last year and answer questions based on their learning experience as a first-year

student The researcher also brings the book Market Leader - Intermediate and

the course guide to help remind them of how case study lessons took place in the first year

3 Data collection instruments

3.1 Questionnaire

In comparison with other quantitative methods, questionnaires are considered

a preferable instrument for this research because it can save time, effort and financial resources (Pham & Luong, 2009) Face-to-face questionnaires are chosen as the data collection instrument because people are more likely to answer questions and the researcher can ask more complex questions as well as explain them if necessary (The advantages and disadvantages of different types

of questionnaire, 2014) The questionnaire will be used to answer all of the research questions because it can quickly provide statistics about students’ opinions towards the application of case studies

As regards the structure, though not being explicitly separated in paper, the questionnaire for students can be divided into two main parts based on their aims

Part one investigates the effectivessness of case studies and includes four questions: one multiple-choice and three rating close-ended questions The first one identifies case study activities that students have experienced in their

International Business English classes In the next three questions, students' evaluation of case studies' usefulness on particular skills are examined through a

likert scale, ranging from 'Not effective at all' to 'Very effective', from 'Not useful

at all' to 'Very useful' or from 'Strongly disagree' to 'Strongly agree'

Part two contains four multiple-choice questions (question 5 to 8) in which students have a chance to indicate the motivators or demotivators that they have encountered when doing case studies, as well as give suggestions to overcome their demotivated feelings It should be noted that the data collected from question 6 is not going to be analysed in the next chapter as motivating factors are not the subject matter of this research The reason why question 6 is included

is to ensure the objectivity of the questionnaire and to make it less negative Therefore, question 7 and 8 are the main focus of this part

3.2 Interview

In addition to the questionnaire, the researcher will also conduct face-to-face, semi-structured interviews with three teachers and five students Firstly, according to Kvale (1996), qualitative interview is “attempts to understand the world from the subjects’ point of view”, hence helps researchers get more details and in-depth information than other data collection methods (Carolyn & Palena, 2006) Furthermore, the environment in which information is collected is comfortable and relaxing for both interviewers and interviewees Secondly, a semi-structured interview includes questions which are partly prepared in advance and the rest are spontaneous, allowing questions to be developed during the interview This kind of interview helps researchers deeply explore participants’ further explanation for their answers

Regarding these merits, semi-structured interview is a suitable choice to provide more specific and insightful reports on the research questions As

students' viewpoints only reflect the research matter on one side, interviewing three teachers of those three groups is considered one special kind of class observation and will help verify the data collected from the students' questionnaire Moreover, besides students, the three teachers are the only ones who attend one and every single case study lesson; their experience and reflection is a valuable source to help provide noteworthy recommendations for their students' demotivating problems

For the confidentiality of personal information, interviewees are coded as teacher T1, teacher T2, teacher T3, student A, student B, student C, student D and student E

4 Data collection procedure

 Step 1: Designing the questionnaires

The researcher studies the theoretical background for the research thoroughly to gain insights into what kind of information she would like to gather from the questionnaire In order for the participants to clearly understand the questionnaires and give more reliable answers, wording, content and question options are carefully taken into account

 Step 2: Piloting the questionnaires

After finishing the first draft of the questionnaire, the researcher pilots the questionnaire with two students This step provides the researcher with the foundation to re-examine the questionnaire and make some necessary adjustments

 Step 3: Delivering and collecting the questionnaire

Once the final version is made, questionnaires are delivered to 31 first-year and

19 second-year students of International Business English program, ULIS, VNU Further explanation on the questions is also provided when necessary

 Step 4: Designing the interview

With the data collected, the researcher designs a set of interview questions to (1) gain more comprehensive and precise information on the students’ attitudes towards the utilization of case studies, and (2) dig deeper into demotivators when doing case studies and solutions to overcome demotivation suggested by both students and teachers

 Step 5: Conducting the interviews

The interview is recorded or video-taped for analyzing later During the interviewing process, Vietnamese can be used in case the interviewees encounter difficulties in understanding the questions and expressing their opinions

 Step 6: Transcribing interview recordings

In this phase, the researcher transcribes the video recordings of the interview to prepare for the data analysis stage Only important points are reported

* Notebook and recorder are utilized to support data collection process

5 Data analysis methods and procedure

Content and statistical analysis is utilized in the following procedure:

For data from questionnaires:

Step 1: After receiving the results of the questionnaires, the data will be interpreted into percentage and visually illustrated by charts, graphs and tables for better understanding

Step 2: Mean and standard deviation are calculated for interpretation Students with unique answers will be chosen for face-to-face, semi-structured interviews Mean is the sum of all the elements of a set divided by the number of elements

in the set Standard deviation finds out how much the values of the data set differ from the mean

Step 3: The findings will be categorised into three sections: corresponding with three research questions

For data from interviews:

Step 1: Data from the interviews will be put into the form of summary and quotation to support the statistics from the questionnaires and to withdraw implication and explanation

Step 2: The findings will be categorised into three sections: corresponding with three research questions and educational recommendations will be drawn from all the findings

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION OF MAJOR

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter analyzes the data gathered from the questionnaires and the structured interview to disclose responses to the research questions and offer some suggestions to overcome current problems

semi-1 Data analysis

When being asked about which case-study activities they took part in International Business English program, ULIS, VNU (question 1), 96% of students shared the same answer, agreeing that all mentioned activities, except for debate, were exploited in their English 2A classes during the second semester

at university The other 4% (2 students) who ticked the option "debate" must have confused this with another subject as they belong to the same group with other participants

From this point forward, data analysis is going to be divided into three parts, corresponding with the three research questions

1.1 The effectiveness of case studies

In response to question 2 in the questionnaire, participants were required to assess the effectiveness of some given case-studies activities on a scale from 1 to

5, in which 1 symbolizes not effective at all, 2 - a little effective, 3 - quite

effective, 4 - effective and 5 - very effective From all the data collected, mean

and standard deviation are calculated and illustrated in the bar chart below

Figure 4: Students' evaluation on the effectiveness of case-study activities

As can be seen from the above chart, among the activities that respondents

partcipated in case-study lessons, writing business genres was considered the

most effective one with the highest mean score µ = 4.08 / 5 Specifically, 58% of

students rated this activity "effective" while more than a quarter ticked "very

effective" option It is also conspicuous that writing business genres gets the

lowest standard deviation (SD) value, which means there was the least difference

among participants' viewpoints on the degree of its usefulness Problem solving

and presentation come second and third, receiving relatively equal mean scores

of 3.86 and 3.84 In students' judgement, the least effective activity was debate µ

= 2.96 / 5 and nearly half of them marked it as "quite effective" Explaining why

they assessed debate less useful than the other mentioned activities, two