Investigating the relationship between motivation and english language perfomance

Among the factors affecting students’ learning, motivation is one of significant reason for students performance. Everybody needs to have motivation and some reasons for every action. When learning second language, learners need to have high motivation and they should offer every opportunity to get their goal. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between motivation and English language performance among English as a foreign language of learners at Tra Vinh Medical College. We considered two aspects which are integrative and instrumental motivation in this paper. Additionally, the study aims to recognize the factors influencing the learners’ motivation and how motivation affects learners’ performance. There were 120 learners who will be surveyed by a questionnaire, they participated into this survey to reflect their orientation in learning English and they also want to recognize which affects negatively their English learning motivation. In addition, their English language performance also will be collected to investigate the relationship between the motivation and the performance of learners. Based on the findings, the researcher will give some recommendations to both teachers and learners in Tra Vinh Medical College. At last, the researcher also hopes that this study could bring much benefit for developing teaching and learning English in this school.

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

-HUYNH THI HONG XUAN

INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTIVATION AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE AMONG EFL LEARNERS AT TRA VINH MEDICAL COLLEGE

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghe An, 2018

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

-HUYNH THI HONG XUAN

INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTIVATION AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE PERFORMANCE AMONG EFL LEARNERS

AT TRA VINH MEDICAL COLLEGE

MASTER’S THESIS IN EDUCATION

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Code: 8.14.01.11

SUPERVISOR:

Assoc Prof Ph.D Ngo Dinh Phuong

Nghe An, 2018

I would like to express my deepest and sincere gratitude to my supervisor Assoc Prof Dr Ngo Dinh Phuong who gave me encouragement, support, friendship and patience through my whole research He has also provided me numerous valuable comments, ideas, information as well as suggestions whenever I have had some problems in my research

In addition, I would also thank all my colleagues, friends and students who help

me to participate in my research, answering my questionnaires and giving advice

in order to I can finish this research Thank you so much for their participants and involvements

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family members for their warm encouragements as well as their understanding They have given me strong supports and wise counsel that I value immeasurably This thesis has been completed by having all of their efforts and contributions

Among the factors affecting students’ learning, motivation is one of significant reason for students' performance Everybody needs to have motivation and some reasons for every action When learning second language, learners need to have high motivation and they should offer every opportunity to get their goal

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between motivation and English language performance among English as a foreign language of learners at Tra Vinh Medical College We considered two aspects which are integrative and instrumental motivation in this paper Additionally, the study aims to recognize the factors influencing the learners’ motivation and how motivation affects learners’ performance

There were 120 learners who will be surveyed by a questionnaire, they participated into this survey to reflect their orientation in learning English and they also want to recognize which affects negatively their English learning motivation In addition, their English language performance also will be collected to investigate the relationship between the motivation and the performance of learners

Based on the findings, the researcher will give some recommendations to both teachers and learners in Tra Vinh Medical College At last, the researcher also hopes that this study could bring much benefit for developing teaching and learning English in this school

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LISTS OF TABLES AND CHART

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 2

1.3 Objectives of the study 2

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 The scope of the study 3

1.6 Data collection 3

1.7 The organization of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Theoretical background of motivation 5

2.1.1 Conceptions of motivation 5

2.1.2 Types of motivation in foreign language learning 9

2.1.2.1 Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation 9

2.1.2.2 Integrative and instrumental motivation 11

2.2 The role of motivation in Second Language Acquisition 15

2.3 Factors that affect learners’ motivation 18

2.3.1 Internal factors 18

2.3.1.1 Goals setting 18

2.3.1.2 Expectancy 19

2.3.2 External factors 19

2.3.2.1 Teachers’ factors 19

2.3.2.2 Feedback 20

2.3.2.3 Classroom environment 21

2.4 Factors demotivating foreign language learning 21

2.5 Teaching English at Tra Vinh Medical College 24

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Introduction 27

3.2 Participants 27

3.3 Data collection 27

3.3.1 Data collection instrument 27

3.3.2 Procedures 28

3.3.3 Data analysis procedures 29

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 30

4.1 Demographic information 30

4.2 Learners’ motivation in learning English 37

4.3 The relationship between motivation and English language performance 39

4.4 The demotivating factors 42

4.5 Discussion 44

4.5.1 Instrumental and integrative motivation 44

4.5.2 Factors that affect learners’ motivation 46

4.5.3 Factors demotivating foreign language learning 47

4.5.3.1 Subject demotivating factors 47

4.5.3.2 Teachers as demotivators 50

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 54

5.1 Conclusion of the study 54

5.2 Implications and recommendations of the study 55 5.2.1 Implications of the study 55 5.2.2 Recommendation of the study 57

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURE

1 Lists of table

Table 1 Percentage of participants’ gender 30

Table 2 Percentage of participants’ majors 31

Table 3 Percentage of participants’ birthplace 31

Table 4 Percentage of participants’ religion 31

Table 5 Relationship between gender, major, birthplace and religion with integrative motivation 32

Table 6 Relationship between gender, major, birthplace and religion with instrumental motivation 32

Table 7 Relationship between gender, age, birthplace and religion with learners’ performance 33

Table 8 Participants’ interested in studying English 34

Table 9 Age, Time for studying English and Average score of participants 34

Table 10 Participants’ score 35

Table 11 Participants’ English performance 35

Table 12 Relationship between interest and time for studying English of learners with learners’ performance 35

Table 13: Factors affecting participants’ motivation 36

Table 14: Mean of instrumental motivation 38

Table 15: Mean of integrative motivation 39

Table 16: Correlation coefficients between instrumental/ integrative motivation and learners’ performance 40

Table 17: Multiple regressions model 41

Table 18: The frequency distribution and percentages of demotivating factors facing learners when studying English 43

2 Figure

Figure 1: The total frequencies of teachers and subject aspects as demotivators .44

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APPENDIX Survey Questionnaire

Section 1: Demographic information

Read the following questions and answer them by writing your answer in the space:

1 You are a non-English major student, what major are you studying?

………

2 What is your gender?

Male Female

3 What is your age?

………

4 Where were you born?

………

5 What is your religion?

………

6 Do you like studying English?

Yes Don’t know No

7 How many hours do you spend learning English every day?

………

8 What is your average point for English subject?

………

9 How do you think your English performance is?

Very poor Poor Average Good Very good