Using games to motivate stu students in speaking english m a 60 14 10

iv ABSTRACT This thesis was conducted to investigate “To what extent, can games help motivate STU students in speaking English?” This research question is divided into two sub-questions

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

USING GAMES TO MOTIVATE STU STUDENTS

IN SPEAKING ENGLISH

by

TON THI THIET, BA

A Thesis in Master of Arts Major: TESOL

Submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts

Supervisor: LE THI THANH THU, Ed.D

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2011

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis entitled “USING GAMES TO MOTIVATE STU STUDENTS IN SPEAKING ENGLISH” in terms of the statement of Requirements for Thesis in Master’s programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee

Ho Chi Minh City, 27st April, 2011

Ton Thi Thiet

ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that, Ton Thi Thiet, being candidate for the degree of Master

of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited

in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan, and reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, 27st April, 2011

Ton Thi Thiet

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Dr

Le Thi Thanh Thu, for her devoted guidance over the long period of writing this thesis She has given me invaluable comments, criticism and the best advice on how to improve this thesis Without her help, I could not have completed it

Second, I would like to show my grateful to all my lecturers for their invaluable instruction during the master course at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University in Ho Chi Minh City

Third, I also thanks to all my colleagues and students at SaiGon Technology University, HoChiMinh City who have given me valuable assistance in carrying out this thesis

Fourth, my great thanks are offered to Mr Tran Quoc Tuan for his sharing precious experience in doing this research

Finally, I send my special thanks to my husband and my friends who have constantly given me favour, sympathy and encouragement They all have made a great contribution to the completion of my thesis

iv

ABSTRACT

This thesis was conducted to investigate “To what extent, can games help motivate STU students in speaking English?” This research question is divided into two sub-questions: (1) How can games help promote students’ motivation? and (2) How can games help improve learners’ academic achievement through the impact of motivational behaviors?

In this study, the author applied convenient sampling technique The subjects of the study were 70 students who were studying the fundamental English in the second semester of the academic year 2009-2010 at Saigon Technology University The experiment group was instructed with game as additional activities in the practice stage and the control group was instructed

by using the non-game activities (the normal way) To obtain the answers for the research questions, three data collection instruments were utilized They were the questionnaires, observations and tests

The findings showed that students in the experiment group had positive emotions towards learning speaking through games Game was found to greatly help the students study and practice speaking more meaningfully and joyfully because it could promotes students’ creativity;

built up students’ confidence; satisfied students’ feeling of accomplishment

when learning speaking with games Besides, learning with games, students showed more effort in learning speaking Experiment students used English

to communicate 84.3% of time in the speaking classes Game indicated its useful as it did draw students attention to the speaking task A vast majority

of students in the experiment group (90.6%) showed their willing to participate in the task Up to 44.9% of them raised their hands to answer the questions required by the task and 40% of them gave the correct answers After the subjects were taught through two different teaching methods, it was

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found that the students studied speaking through games developed speaking better than those studying speaking through non-game activities The majority of experiment students (74.3%) got strong scores while only 34.3% control students did The weak students in experiment group were considerably much lower: 5.7% in comparison with 34.3% of the control group Besides, the experiment group’s average score rose sharply from 5.37

to 7.26

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Statement of authorship i

Retention and use of the thesis ii

Acknowledgements iii

Abstract iv

Tables of content vi

List of tables x

List of charts xi

Abbreviations xii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the study 1

1.2 Background of the study 2

1.2.1 Teachers’ profile 2

1.2.2 Students’ profile 3

1.2.3 The textbook 3

1.2.4 The current English teaching and learning speaking in STU 4

1.3 Statement of purpose 5

1.4 Research question 5

1.5 Delimitations and limitations of the study 6

1.6 Significance of the study 6

1.7 Thesis outline 7

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Theories relate to spoken language 8

2.1.1 Purposes for speaking 8

2.1.2 Classroom interaction 10

2.2 Motivation 12

2.2 1 Definition of motivation 12

2.2.2 Kinds of motivation 14

2.2.3 The effects of intrinsic motivation on language learning 17

2.2.4 The factors that promote intrinsic motivation 19

2.2.4.1 Challenge 19

2.2.4.2 Curiosity 20

2.2.4.3 Control 20

2.2.4.4 Fantasy 21

2.2.4.5 Competition 22

2.2.4.6 Cooperation 22

2.2.4.7 Recognition 22

2.3 Games 23

2.3.1 Definition 23

2.3.2 Benefits of games in English speaking classes 24

2.3.3 Types of language games 25

2.3.3.1 Communicative games 25

2.3.3.2 Types of communicative games 26

2.3.4 Games generating students’ motivation 28

2.4 Related researches on teaching speaking with games 31

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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Objective 35

3.2 Population and target population 35

3.3 Research methodology 36

3.3.1 The experiment 36

3.4 Data collection instruments 38

3.4.1 Questionnaire 38

3.4.1.1 Questionnaire administration 39

3.4.2 Observation 39

3.4.3 Oral achievement tests 40

CHAPTER IV: DATA RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 4.1 Data analysis methodology 43

4.2 Data presentation and analysis 44

4.2.1 Results of questionnaire 44

4.2.1.1 Question 1 44

4.2.1.2 Question 2 46

4.2.1.3 Question 3 46

4.2.1.4 Question 4 47

4.2.1.5 Question 5 47

4.2.1.6 Students’ expectation about the frequency of using games 48

4.2.1.7 Students’ suggestions about using games in teaching and learning speaking 49

4.2.1.7.1 Effects of games 49

4.2.1.7.2 Problems 51

4.2.1.8 Conclusion 52

4.2.2 Results of observations in the speaking class 53

4.2.3 Results of students’ speaking test 55

4.2.3.1 The pre-test 55

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4.2.3.2 The post- test 57

4.3 Findings 61

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Summary of the Study 65

5.3 Suggestions for teaching and learning English speaking with games 67

5.3.1 For teacher 67

5.4 Recommendations 69

BIBLIOGRAPHY 70

APPENDICES 76

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1: CG applied in the experiment 37

Table 3.2: The checklist for the observation 40

Table 3.3: The assessment criteria 42

Table 4.1: Students enjoyment when learning speaking with games 44

Table 4.2: STU students’ creativity in learning speaking with games 46

Table 4.3: STU students’ confidence in learning speaking with games 46

Table 4.4: STU students’ accomplishment in learning speaking with games 47

Table 4.5: STU students’ satisfaction in learning speaking with games 47

Table 4.6: Students’ effort and attention in their learning 54

Table 4.7: Students’ result in the pre-test 56

Table 4.8: Students’ results in the post- test 58

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LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1: Comparison of STU students’ feeling when learning speaking

with games 45

Chart 4.2: Students’ expectation in games applying frequency 48

Chart 4.3: Students’ effort and attention of the two classes during the seven observations 55

Chart 4.4: Post-test results of MT01 and MT02 59

Chart 4.5: The comparison of the pre-test and post-test average scores between the two groups 60

STU SaiGon Technology University

OUP Oxford University Press

CUP Cambridge University Press

TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problem

Speaking skill is the most important aspect of learning a foreign language It is obvious that communicative ability is the goal of foreign language learning No one can say that he/she has mastered a certain language but cannot communicate that language (Phan, 2006) “Of all the four skills, speaking seems intuitively the most important: people who know the language are referred to as ‘speakers’ of that language, as if speaking included all other kinds of knowing; and many if not most foreign language learners are primarily interested in learning to speak” (Ur, 1996:120) However, reality shows that Vietnamese students hardly communicate effectively in English although they have spent years of learning English and most of them can do their written test rather well; except for those who study English as a major or those who have extra English classes at foreign language centers

Like a majority of English learners, most first-year non-English majored students at Saigon Technology University (STU) found it hard to speak English naturally, accurately and fluently Because of the limited vocabulary, poor grammar and poor pronunciation, they do not feel confident to speak English That is to say they do not feel like speaking English As a result, their speaking skill is said to be somewhat weak As the teacher of English at STU, I have experienced difficulty in teaching English speaking where learners can not express their ideas because they are afraid

of making mistakes In order to help students overcome their difficulties and develop much interest in speaking English the researcher really longs to find

out the suitable techniques for teaching English speaking This study is carried out, therefore, with the purpose of finding a way to motivate STU students to speak English better

As mentioned above, language learners who lack confidence in their ability to participate successfully in oral interaction often listen in silence One of the useful ways to motivate such learners to begin to participate might be the application of communicative games (CG) Games are considered as one of the most preferable and welcome activity by the learners Games are believed to bring amusement They provide the students with meaningful language practice (Carrier, 1985) and they bring extra benefits (Ur & Wright, 1999)

1.2 Background of the study

1.2.1 Teachers’ profile

STU has a staff of 16 teachers of English including myself, aging from twenty- seven to fifty All of the staff had formal training in language teaching at the University of Pedagogy or University of Social sciences and Humanities Most of them received Masters Degrees of TESOL They are young and enthusiastic and they are willing to make use of the new approaches in language teaching and learning However, they are all Vietnamese, they confess a lack of knowledge of English culture and customs as well as real exposure to English speaking communities Besides, most of them are teaching in a lot of schools with very heavy teaching load (from forty to seventy five periods per week) This reality more or less affects teachers’ health and teaching devotion and they, therefore, have little time to update their knowledge as well as to prepare the lesson

1.2.2 Students’ profile

STU is one of the universities which provide technical and professional education Students are divided into three levels of integrated education including vocational education, college education and university education There are seven faculties including Management and Business Administration, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Civil Engineering, Information Technology, Food Technology and Design All students must study fundamental English in their first two years Most of STU students think that English is not an important subject For them, those related to their profession is the priority Their only aim for English subject is to pass the final exams That is the reason why they are usually absent from English classes

1.2.3 The textbook

The textbooks for fundamental English at STU are (1) Let’s talk 1 &

2 (second edition) written by Johns (2008); (2) Starter TOEIC (third edition ) written by Tayler and Malarcher (2006), and (3) Developing skill for TOEIC

test (third edition) written by Edmunds and Tayler (2007) The textbook Starter TOEIC focuses on reading, listening and writing skills, while Let’s Talk for speaking skill In this study, the researcher centered in speaking skill

of the first year students, so Let’s talk 1 was used for the experiment The

textbook contains 16 units Units 8 and 16 were omitted so the students studied 14 units in the first two semesters (15 weeks per semester) Each unit includes three main sections and is taught in two weeks (6 periods) Each unit is based around a theme and two skills (speaking, listening) are focused The first section is “Vocabulary” This section of the textbook is nearly the same for all units There is usually a list of words/expressions and the

pictures matching with the words/expressions The second section is usually

“Speaking-based task” The learners are required to work alone, in pairs or groups to ask and answer the questions or discuss about the situations given Unfortunately, these tasks are somewhat boring because they are not relevant

to the students’ interests The next section, “Listening practice” mainly focuses on listening comprehension However, this session was omitted out

of the syllabus The final exams in STU were centered in reading, listening and writing, and the implicit purpose of teaching English of most teachers in STU, therefore, was to help students master these skills so that they could pass their exams successfully Consequently, speaking skill was almost ignored

1.2.4 The current English teaching and learning speaking in STU

As mentioned above, to help students acquire the high marks in their test, most teachers of English at STU spend very little time on speaking practice section supplied in the textbook Instead, they spend more time on providing their students with different kinds of grammar exercises and vocabularies; asking students to practice the listening texts given in the textbook At first, the teacher explains new vocabularies relating to the theme of the lesson, then, he/she reads and translates the text After that, the teacher asks the students to read paragraphs of the text separately Following the reading text is often a grammar point which is considered the most significant element The speaking skill is taught base on the exercises provided in the textbook The speaking free practice section (usually role-play, or discussion) is usually omitted or sometimes the teachers ask their students to practice speaking but students use the time to do something else because the task is boring and irrelevant to the students’ interest Besides, the passive learning method together with the tension of the classroom

atmosphere have influenced deeply on students’ way of learning Most of them think that speaking skill is something beyond their ability Consequently, most of students can not communicate in English

1.3 Statement of purpose

The purposes of this study are to investigate the aspects that communicative games can motivate students in learning speaking in universities, especially in STU, on the foundation of the current course book

“Let’s Talk” is taken as the main textbook in studying how to teach speaking English with games to first-year non-majored students at STU In this study, the role of games is looked into to see how students’ attitudes and behaviors and their speaking ability are affected with English communicative games

1.4 Research question

In order to achieve the goal of the investigating the aspects that make games a powerful teaching tool in motivating students during the time of English speaking learning, the following research question will lead the study : “To what extent, can games help motivate STU students in speaking English?”

This research question is divided into two sub-questions:

(1) How can games help promote students’ motivation?

(2) How can games help improve students’ academic achievement through the impact of motivational behaviors?

1.5 Delimitations and limitations of the study

First, because the constraints on resources as well as the researcher’s capability, the study was carried out on the foundation of the textbook “Let’s talk 1” in only two classes MT01 (the control group) and MT02 (the

experiment group) of the academic year 2009-2010, who majored in Design

at STU in Ho Chi Minh city, where the researcher was teaching Therefore, the other kinds of textbooks and other levels were not considered Since the research was narrowed in the scope of STU, a private university in HCM, the outcomes should be only applied in the places where had the same circumstance

Second, only communicative games were applied in the practice stage of teaching speaking, so the other kinds of games as well as the other stages of teaching speaking were not included

1.6 Significance of the study

First, as mentioned above, students’ motivation is strongly related to achievement in language learning Therefore, identifying the factors that promote students’ interest in learning a foreign language as well as assist teachers in reducing students’ apathy is really necessary

Second, although many studies have been carried out in the role of games in motivation and students’ attitudes upon second language speaking learning, not many similar researches have been done in Vietnamese university context It is therefore necessary for this research to be done to fill this existing gap

Finally, this thesis, above all, is the effort to overcome the researcher’s difficulties in teaching speaking for many years The study is

also to share the experience and effective approach of teaching English speaking with her colleagues who always want to bring the joy of learning to their students

1.7 Thesis outline

The thesis consists of five chapters Chapter 1 (Introduction) introduces the rationale of the thesis, the significant of the study, the research question, the purpose and the delimitation of the study and the general background of the study Chapter 2 (Literature review) will provide a review and analysis of literature relevant to the study topic The relevant research and documents are summarized and evaluated to give a clear overview of how the study topic was referred to This chapter will also justify the use of literature as the basis for the research

Chapter 3 (Methodology) will present the methodology of the study involving sampling methods, data collecting from questionnaire, observations and tests Chapter 4 (Data presentation and analysis), will present and analyze the data collected from questionnaire, observations and tests Explaining and comments will be included The last chapter (Conclusion) will give summary of the study’s findings and suggests the applications as well as the further research into using games in teaching English speaking

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theories relate to spoken language

2.1.1 Purposes for speaking

According to Nunan (1999) the ability to function in another language, is generally characterized in term of being able to speak that language Byrne (1986) states that oral communication is a two way process between a speaker and a listener (or listeners) and involves the productive skill of speaking and receptive skill of understanding (or listening with understanding) Speaking a language is especially difficult for foreign learners because “effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interaction” (Richard & Renadya, 2002:204) According to them, diversity in interaction involves not only verbal communication, but also paralinguistic elements of speech such as pitch, stress and intonation In addition, non-linguistic elements such as gestures and body language, facial expression, and so on accompany speech or convey messages directly without any accompanying speech In addition, “there is tremendous variation cross-culturally and cross-linguistically in the specific interpretations of gesture and body language” (Brown, 1994:241)

Mentioning speaking as a productive skill, Byrne (1976) states that the main goal of speaking is oral fluency By this, he means that to teach speaking English effectively, teachers not only need to help students gain the knowledge of necessary vocabulary, accurate grammar and exact

pronunciation but also provide comfortable opportunities for students to use English, to speak English confidently, naturally and fluently

In classroom, in order to promote real communication between students, there must be an information gap between them or between them and their teacher Without such a gap, the classroom activities and exercises will be mechanical and artificial (Richard & all, 1993) Long (1981) found that two-way information gap tasks prompt significantly more linguistic/conversational adjustments than one-way tasks In two-way tasks, all participants have a piece of information known only to them which must

be contributed to the small group discussion for the task to be completed successfully In one-way tasks, one student has all the relevant information and must convey this to the other students (Duff, 1986)

Mentioning about purposes for speaking, Bygate (1987) wrote, in natural communication, attention is not usually focused on the language used, but on the messages it conveys These massages are only partially predictable, for the topic may change suddenly The language is also partially predictable (Davies, 2000) If the language were totally predictable, then communication would be unnecessary If it were totally unpredictable, effective communication would probably be impossible (Bygate, 1987)

To sum, “the purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task Participants must manage uncertainty about what the other person will say Authentic communication involves an information gap between the participants” (Harmer, 1991:48) In addition, to achieve the purpose, participants need constantly to negotiate meaning and to manage the interaction in term of who say what, to whom, when, about what (Bygate, 1987) The next part mentioned more about classroom interaction

2.1.2 Classroom interaction

Richards and all (1993:52) defined classroom interaction as “the patterns of verbal and non – verbal communication and the types of social relationships which occur within classrooms.” According to Counihan (1998), classroom interaction happens when the students direct the dialogue

at one another and not at or through the teacher Students comment immediately on what the other student has just said The students disagree with or challenge another student statement Students do not have to be invited (by the teacher) to speak The students speak when there is a short silence indicating the end of someone else’s turn Students interrupt one another, diplomatically, to insert an opinion or question

According to Sinclair and Coulthard (1975), the most common type

of classroom interaction is that known as IRF – initiate- response-feedback: the teacher initiates an exchange, usually in a form of a question, one of the students answers, the teacher gives feedback (assessment, correction, comment), initiates the next question and so on However, the initiative does not always have to be in the hands of the teacher; and the interaction may be between students or between a student and the material

According to Bygate (1987), conversations can be analyzed in term

of routines There are two types of routines: information routines (transactional language), and interaction routines Information routines contain frequently recurring types of information structures These can be subdivided into routines that are basically expository in nature (for example, telling a story, describing something, giving a set of instructions, making a comparison) and those that are evaluative (giving an explanation, making a justification, predicting, coming to a decision) Interaction

routines can be subdivided into service encounters (for example, a job interview) or social (a dinner party, a coffee break at work, etc.)

Classroom interaction is really useful for English learners Interaction provides an encouraging environment where students have the opportunity to communicate not only with their teacher but also with their peers Besides, it can help students improve their listening comprehension and learn how to express various language functions such as asking questions, making requests, explaining a problem, or making predictions, etc Furthermore, when teachers observe their students’ interaction, they can find out their students’ strong points and weak points in view of communicative competence as well as their real need for language leaning This information is really important for teachers to make the lessons better

To facilitate student-student interaction, according to Bailey and Celce-Murcia (1979) the teacher should attend to the four aspects: (1) social climate; (2) variety in learning activities; (3) opportunity for student participation and (4) feedback and correction

Firstly, social climate is mentioned first because it is the most basic and fundamental of the areas If the students are not at ease and do not feel good about their language class, there will be no communication It is the teacher’s responsibility to establish the proper atmosphere so that students can relate to the teacher and to each other in a positive and constructive way To do this, the teacher should (1) be fair; (2) make the class relaxed and enjoyable Being fair involves distributing turns equally among students and not showing any favoritism or bias Teachers have to involve all the shy students and do not let aggressive students dominate the class Making the class relaxed and enjoyable involves smiling and laughing when appropriate humor occurs spontaneously

Secondly, if the teacher can use some variety in each lesson to make the class more enjoyable and less routine, this will motivate the students to learn Variety can be introduced at many different levels The most common way is to move as quickly as possible from manipulative drills to communicative activities; these communicative activities in turn can include a variety of tasks (problem solving, role-playing, etc.)

Next, social climate and variety indirectly encourage communication in that they set the stage and provide motivation The most direct way to facilitate communication is to provide ample opportunity for students participation, which has as its correlates (a) little or no teacher domination and (b) minimal teacher talking time The teacher should have students work in pairs or groups whenever useful This permits the teacher

to be a resource rather than a dominate figure

Finally, when a teacher allows for active student participation, his/her responsibility is to provide useful feedback and correction to students Peer and self correction are more effective than teacher correction Thus, a good teacher will enlist assistance from the class or (ideally) guide students in correcting their own mistakes rather than merely providing the correct form It is also important to give positive as well as negative feedback, and to handle public correction in such a way that no one in the class feels ridiculed because the teacher or a classmate has made a correction

2.2 Motivation

2.2.1 Definition of motivation

Most teachers consider motivation essential for successful language learning However, motivation is difficult to define

In psychology, “motivation is broadly concerned with the contemporary determinants of choice (direction), persistence and vigor of goal-directed behavior” (Beck, 1978:24) “Motivation is an internal state or condition described as a need, desired or want that serves to activate, energizes and directs goal – oriented behaviors” (Kleinginna, 1981:98) According to Harmer (1991), to be motivated means to be moved to do something The derivation of the word tells us that motivation refers to getting someone moving Motivation refers to things that direct or energize human behavior Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action If we perceive a goal, that is something we wish to achieve and if that goal is sufficiently attractive, we will strongly motivated to do whatever is necessary to reach that goal

In education, motivation is defined as the impetus to create and sustain intentions and goal-seeking acts (Ames & Ames, 1989) It is important because it determines the extent of the learner's active involvement and attitude toward learning (Ngeow, Karen Yeok-Hwa, 1998) Many researchers consider motivation as one of the main elements that determine success in developing a second or foreign language; it determines the extent of active, personal involvement in L2 learning (Oxford & Shearin, 1994)

Gardner, (1985: 10) stated that “motivation is a key consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to communicate Motivation refers

to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language That is, motivation to learn a second language is seen as referring to the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity.”

To sum up, whatever various definitions of motivation they offered, all the definitions are alike in one important way: it is the internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action A person who feels no impetus or inspiration to act is thus characterized as unmotivated whereas someone who is energized or activated toward an end is considered motivated (Ryan & Deci, 2000)

In second language learning, it could be claimed that a learner will

be successful with the proper motivation This claim is of course not erroneous for countless studies and experiments in human learning have show that motivation is a key of learning (Crookes & Schmidt 1991:56)

Another distinction has been made by Brown (1987) is that between

“global”, “situational” and “task” motivation: the first is the overall orientation of the learner toward the learning of the foreign language; the second has to do with the context of learning (classroom, total environment); and the third is the way the learner approaches the specific task in hand

The most common distinction is that between “intrinsic” motivation (the urge to engage in learning activity for its own sake) and “extrinsic” (motivation that is derived from external intensives) Intrinsic motivation is

associated with what has been termed “cognitive drive” – the urge to learn for its own sake (Ur, 1996:276) Both of these have important part in classroom motivation But their effects on students may differ

Decci (1975:23) defined intrinsic motivation as “intrinsically motivated activities are ones for which there is no apparent reward except the activity itself People seem to engage into the activity for their own sake and not because they lead to an extrinsic reward…Intrinsically motivated behaviors are aim at bringing about certain internal rewarding

consequences, namely, feeling of competence and self-determination”

Extrinsically motivated behaviors, on the other hand, are carried out

in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self Typical extrinsic rewards are money, prizes, grades, and even certain type of positive feedback Behaviors initiated solely to avoid punishment are also extrinsically motivated (Brown, 2000)

In this thesis, the writer only deal with intrinsic motivation because

it is much better to use intrinsic than extrinsic reinforcement and punishment Many researches have showed that intrinsic motivation should

be the goal of teaching and extrinsic motivation should not be always to motivate students (Covington, 1998; Decci, 2000, Crookes & Schmidt, 1991) The reason is that, first, extrinsic motivation has been considered as something that undermined intrinsic motivation Many researches have showed that students will lose their natural intrinsic interest in an activity if they have to do it to meet some extrinsic requirement Brown (1990: 388) points out that traditional school settings with their teacher domination, grades and tests as well as “a host of institutional constraints that glorified content, product, correctness, competitiveness” tend to cultivate extrinsic motivation and “fail to bring the learner into a collaborative process of

competence building” Students may work for rewards but not the purpose

of learning On the other hand, to those who already have intrinsic motivation, the presence of rewards may detract from their intrinsic drive (Decci, 1971)

Second, when compared with intrinsic motivation; extrinsic motivation is considered as a pale and impoverished form of motivation when intrinsic motivation encourages the habit of long-life learning (Ryan

& Decci, 2000)

Another reason is that, according to Covington (1998), intrinsic motivation engaged students are more likely than extrinsically driven students to employ deep-level, sophisticated study strategies in their work When being confronted with complex intellectual tasks, intrinsically motivated students tend to employ strategies that demand more effort and that enable them to process information more deeply, extrinsically oriented students are inclined to put forth the minimal amount of effort necessary to get the maximum reward then they gravitate toward tasks that are low in degree of difficulty (Lumsden, 1994) Extrinsically oriented students are often passive and not try hard and give up easily in the face of challenges (Skinner, 1991)

To sum up, intrinsic motivation fosters perceptions of challenge, encourages task involvement, generates excitement, and supports self-determination (Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996) According to Brunner (1966), intrinsic motivation can be perceived and measured through intrinsically motivational behaviors

2.2.3 The effects of intrinsic motivation on language learning

In general, according to Berlyne (1971a), intrinsically motivated behaviors are ones that aimed at establishing certain internal conditions Motivational behavior is characterized as positive emotions, effort and attention (Tremblay and Garner, 1995)

In education, to Lepper (1998), a student who is intrinsically motivated has the feelings of accomplishment, enjoyment, creativity, self-confidence and satisfaction The emotion of interest plays an important directive role in intrinsically motivated behavior in that students naturally approach activities that interest them This helps student lower anxiety when learning and encourages them to take part during on-going action (Deci, 2000)

Effort and attention are other characteristics of motivational behaviors Motivation increases the amount of effort and energy that learners expend in activities directly related to their needs and goals (Csikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 1989) It determines whether they pursue a task enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, on the one hand, or apathetically and lackadaisically, on the other Furthermore, motivated learners are more likely to continue a task until they’ve completed it, even if they are occasionally interrupted or frustrated in the process In general, then, motivation increases learners’ time on task, an important factor affecting their learning and achievement (Larson, 2000) Motivation affects cognitive processes Motivation affects what and how learners mentally process information (Voss & Schauble, 1992) For one thing, motivated learners are more likely to pay attention, attention is critical for getting information into working memory Motivated learners also try to understand and elaborate on

material to learn it meaningfully rather than simply “go through the motions”

of learning in a superficial, rote manner

The manifestations of effort and attention are message-oriented communication and learner-centeredness (Crookes, 1991) To Dev (1997), students those who have effort and attention tend to prefer tasks that are challenging and they tend to employ strategies that demand more effort and that enable them to process information more deeply They also have the tendency of using more logical information-gathering and decision-making strategies when confronted with complex intellectual tasks Black and Butzkamm (1979) also adds, students with highly intrinsic motivation often willing to take risk to use the target language as mean of communication

Motivation often leads to improved performance Because of the other effects just listed goal-directed behavior, effort & attention and positive emotions, the impact of consequences motivation often leads to improved performance in the domain in question For instance, learners who are most motivated to learn and excel in classroom activities tend to be the highest achievers (Gottfried, 1990)

Intrinsic motivation plays a vital part in most students’ success as language (Decci, 2000) “When intrinsically motivated, students tend to employ strategies that demand more effort and that enable them to process information more deeply” (Lumsden, 1994) To achieve the outcome they desire, students engage themselves in learning actively and attentively (Bandura, 1986) When students were confronted with complex intellectual tasks, those with an intrinsic orientation used more logical information – gathering and decision – making strategies than did students who were extrinsically oriented (Condry & Chamber, 1978)

In addition, students’ intrinsic motivation is found to be positively correlated to students performance (high scores) intrinsic motivation can usually attribute to a desired outcome Students with high motivation performed better than those who have low motivation (Pajares, 2002) The above findings show that manifestations of intrinsic motivation are high scores that can be measured by achievement test scores, and the intrinsically motivated behaviors – positive emotions and effort & attention that can be used questionnaires and observation for measurement

2.2.4 The factors that promote intrinsic motivation

Malone and Lepper (1987) propose seven factors – challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy (individual factors), competition, cooperation and recognition (interpersonal factors) that help promote intrinsic motivation

2.2.4.1 Challenge

One of the most powerful individual factors influencing intrinsic motivation is challenge People pursue tasks that are challenging Students are challenged when they direct their activities toward personally meaningful goals in such a way that attainment of the goals is uncertain - when neither success nor failure is guaranteed The belief that they are making acceptable progress toward a goal, along with the expected satisfaction of goal attainment, enhances self-efficacy and sustains motivation As students work toward these goals, they are motivated to the extent that they receive feedback and feel that their eventual success will enhance their self-esteem

The following four factors influence the contribution of challenge to motivation First, goals can be either supplied by the teacher or developed

by the learners themselves Goals can be short-term or long-term While

short-term goals may be more immediately compelling, long-range goals are often more important An ideal motivational system involves short-term goals that lead to long-term goals The most important characteristic of goals is that they must be personally meaningful Second, level of certainty

is an important factor in determining the degree to which a challenge will actually motivate a learner Third, performance feedback reminds learners

of their status with regard to the challenge posed by the goals And last, self-esteem is related to motivation because learners consider themselves to

be good or competent to the extent that they succeed at challenges that they consider to be important

2.2.4.2 Curiosity

A second factor influencing individual motivation is curiosity Curiosity is stimulated when something in the physical environment attracts our attention or when there is an optimal level of discrepancy between present knowledge or skills and what these could be if the learner engaged

in some activity The concept of optimal discrepancy suggests that curiosity

is strongest when new information does not match what we currently know but is not so different as to appear to be completely strange, irrelevant, or impossible to attain Learners are motivated most strongly by curiosity when learning tasks present them with knowledge or problems at an optimal level of discrepancy

2.2.4.3 Control

A third factor influencing individual motivation is control, which refers to the basic human tendency to seek to control one's environment According to Kohn (1993), elements that influence the contribution of control to intrinsic motivation are cause-and-effect relationships, powerful

effects and free choice Learners perceive themselves to be in control when: (1) they see clear cause-and-effect relationship between their own actions and obtaining desired benefits This means that a good way to enable learners to feel in control (even if they are studying something because they have to,) is to let them see the cause-and-effect relationship between something they really care about (and would freely choose) and the topic they are studying in class; (2) they perceive the outcome of what they are studying to be truly worthwhile rather than something trivial and (3) they perceive themselves as doing something because they want to instead of because they are being forced to do it against their will, they will fell in control of their learning

2.2.4.4 Fantasy

A fourth factor influencing individual motivation is fantasy, which plays a role when learners use mental images of situations that are not actually present to stimulate their behavior By engaging in activities related to learning, learners may use their imaginations to meet challenges, satisfy curiosity, exercise control, or experience interpersonal motivations without directly participating in the imagined activities themselves In fantasy, the two most important elements are emotional elements and cognitive elements Emotional elements can make learners more willing to engage in an activity by making it fun or exciting to participate The social activities of fun in the classroom, which foster various positive emotional responses, can enhance pleasure, free emotional blocks, stimulate mental activity, promote intrinsic motivation Then can make learners more willing

to engage in an activity by enabling learners to imagine themselves actually using the specified skills in real life Both elements are of great importance

to draw learners into a learning activity

2.2.4.5 Competition

A fifth factor influencing individual motivation is competition

Human being does not act in isolation; their behaviors are often strongly influenced by their associations with other people Competition motivates behavior because people can enhance their own-self esteem and they feel satisfaction when they are able to make comparisons of their own performance favorably to that of others However, competition is a double-edge sword Competition plays a role in education: many students thrive on favorable comparisons to other students Students benefit tremendously from the motivation and recognition that accompany the competition However, students may think wrongly that winning is the end in stead of the means Then, they only pay attention to win instead of learning Moreover, when people are forced to compete, they who have to suffer from constant failure may feel helpless Therefore, it is important to be selective in the use of competition The best way to use competition is to combine competitive environments with cooperative environments in other

to derive the benefits of both

2.2.4.6 Cooperation

The sixth factor influencing intrinsic motivation is cooperation Learners derive satisfaction from working towards group goals The cooperation does not have to be based on formal cooperative learning All that is required is that the person derives satisfaction from contributing to the success of others

2.2.4.7 Recognition

The last factor is recognition Most people enjoy having their efforts and accomplishments recognized and appreciated by others In order to

obtain recognition, the activity of the learner must be visible to others There are three ways to achieve visibility: (1) the process of performing an activity may be visible, (2) the product of the activity may be visible, or (3) some other result of the activity may be visible

To sum up, when students engage in behaviors without coercion, it

is usually because they were motivated by one or more of the preceding factors challenge, curiosity, control, fantasy (individual factors), competition, cooperation and recognition (interpersonal factors) (Malone and Lepper, 1987) The mutual influences and impact of those factors can start, sustain, intensify or discourage students’ motivation

2.3 Games

2.3.1 Definition

There are many definitions of the term “game” According to Hadfield (1990), a game is an activity with rules, a goal and an element of fun Beginning with the definition of a “language activity” as any activity used to consolidate taught or acquired language, Greenall (1984) says, the term “game” is used whenever there is an element of competition between individual students or teams in a language activity Byrne (1976) also writes a definition of game, which is similar to Hadfield and Greenal, but

he adds that games are enjoyed wherever being played In brief, a game may be defined as a competitive language activity with certain rules and factors of fun

Lewis and Bedson (1999) distinguish a language game from other communicative activities by saying that games are fun whether played in English or the learners’ mother tongue In most cases, game serve as the

way to reinforce the material represented in the lesson in the way that encourage students in a very effective manner

2.3.2 Benefits of games in English speaking classes

Language games are believed to have benefits First, they provide the students with meaningful language practice (Carrier, 1985); According

to Carrier (1980), games are very useful in teaching a foreign language as they provide students with opportunities to use their language skills in less formal situations He points out that games can add variety to learning situations, maintain motivation, give practice without students being aware

of this, encourage the participation of the students, reduce teacher- student distance and increase the communication among the students Having a nearly similar opinion to the advantages of games, Greenall (1984) writes that language games can help teachers give "lively and motivating" lessons and create the opportunity for spontaneous and authentic language practice

Second, games are believed to bring amusement and form an enjoyable, informal and relaxed atmosphere of learning as when the learners pay attention to playing a language game, they hardly see any difference between learning and playing (Lee, 1979); they constitute a bridge between the classroom and the real world (Hadfield, 1984)

Third, Greenall (1984) identifies that language games can create a meaningful context where the learners feel “psychologically secure” and confident to use language They encourage students to interact and communicate Through her research, Pham (2004) says that games and songs provide learners with many chances to practice speaking English in real situations After carrying out the experiments and observation, another researcher, Nguyen (2005) concludes that young learners will be more

motivated and speak English more naturally and fluently if teachers use suitable kinds of game in teaching

2.3.3 Types of language games

First, games can be classified in term of organization and participation, i.e between competitive games and cooperative ones Another distinction among games is that between linguistic games and communicative games (CG) Hadfield (1999) Linguistic games focus on accuracy, such as supplying the correct antonym On the other hand, CGs focus on successful exchange of information and ideas, such as two people identifying the differences between their two pictures which are similar to one another but not exactly alike Correct language usage, though still important, is secondary to achieving the communicative goal

Stating the positive aspect of communicative games, Bygates (1987) added, CG are one of the types of material for oral interaction skill in the classroom CGs are not necessarily lengthy or complex There is something

to be communicated to others or to be found from others and the learners want to keep the game going because they are interested in it (Lee, 1979)

From the findings above, in this study, the writer suggests applied CGs because they are the most suitable for practicing oral interaction skills

in an English class (Bygate, 1987)

2.3.3.1 Communicative games

“Communication games are based on the principle of the information gap Students are put into a situation in which they have to use all or any of the language they possess to complete a game-like task” (Harmer, 1991:126) CG can create communication between players by

spoken or written language (Richards & all, 1993:153) They are oriented activities that engage students in creative language use CGs have

task-a purpose beyond the production of correct speech, serve task-as excellent communicative activities (Saricoban & Metin 2000) On the surface, the aim of CG is for students to use the language; however, during game play learners also use the target language to persuade and negotiate their way to desired results This process involves the productive and receptive skills simultaneously (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, 1986)

According to Carrier (1985:86), CGs are designed to give student an opportunity to use language in more realistic situations They have no specific language aim in the sense of teaching a particular structure or providing vocabulary practice Instead, they are designed to develop general communication skills: the students are given a non-linguistic task to complete, and their success will depend on their ability to communicate instructions, directions, descriptions and so on The emphasis is on students working together to achieve something through the use of language

2.3.3.2 Types of communicative games

There are many types of CGs CGs are classified on the foundation

of the techniques used in the games (Hadfield, 1987 and Jones, 1995) The most common CG are information gap games, guessing games, searching games, matching games, role-play game, simulation games and problem-solving games

In information gap games, one or more people have information that other people need to complete a task For instance, one person might have a drawing and their partner needs to create a similar drawing by listening to the information given by the person with the drawing Information gap

games can involve a one-way information gap, such as the drawing game just described

Guessing games are a variation on information gap games One of the best known examples of a guessing game is 20 Questions, in which one person thinks of a famous person, place, or thing The other participants can ask 20 Yes/No questions to find clues in order to guess who or what the person is thinking of or a two-way information gap, in which each person has unique information, such as in a Spot-the-Difference task, where each person has a slightly different picture, and the task is to identify the differences

Searching games are yet another variant on two-way information gap games, with everyone giving and seeking information In these games everyone in the class has one piece of information Player must obtain all or

a larger amount of the information available to fill in a questionnaire or to solve a problem Each student is thus simultaneously a giver and a collector

of information

Matching games involve a transfer of information, participants need

to find a match for a word, picture, or card For example, students place 30 word cards, composed of 15 pairs, face down in random order Each person turns over two cards at a time, with the goal of turning over a matching pair, by using their memory

In role-play games, players are given the name and some characteristics of a fictive character However, these are not role-plays in the true sense, as the role-play element is always subordinate to the game for the purposes of the language use The role-cards in these games do not require the imaginative projection into character that is necessary in the role-play