SKKN An investigation into students’ demotivation in learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 high school, Thanh Hóa Problems and solutions PART A INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Success or failu[.]
PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Success or failure in language learning seems largely dependent on the learners’ motivation to learn the target language In particular, motivation seems very important in the development of speaking skills I have been an English teacher at Tĩnh Gia High School since I graduated university First, I see that students here have high motivation in learning English speaking but it is down gradually, even they have demotivation in recent years So what are the reasons when the need to know and master English has become more and more increasing, especially since Vietnam adopted an open-door policy, teaching and learning English have been paid much attention to? It has been part of the general education and becomes a compulsory subject at high schools in most towns and cities throughout the country As English is largely used in international settings, the ability to communicate in real-life situations is very important Therefore, speaking plays an essential role because without it, communication cannot take place directly between people In traditional teaching, students were required to acquire English grammar Nowadays they are required to acquire various skills and language items including English grammar, English vocabulary and English pronunciation In the light of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), students are required not only to have good knowledge of vocabulary and eligible grammar, but also the four language skills Accurate and fluent speaking is a must in English learning for students Therefore, learning English speaking is of great importance to students, even for their exams In addition, this will help them to have a good job in their future and enable them to communicate with foreigners successfully if they have a chance and the need In an attempt to investigate this topic, the researcher has decided to conduct a study on “An investigation into students’ demotivation in learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia high school, Thanh Hóa: Problems and solutions” As one of the first attempts to explore the demotivation in the context of learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia High School, this paper seeks to explore the current techniques utilized by teachers and learners in fostering demotivation in speaking learning and students’ perceptions about those techniques The paper begins by reviewing the current literature on demotivation, speaking learning and related studies This is a case study conducted with 90 per 950 students who undertook the triangulated data collection method of interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations The analysis of the collected data demonstrated students’ learning realities in the demotivation within learning of speaking The findings analyzed suggest a way to eliminate the demotivating factors in English speaking lessons in order to better students’ English learning Aims of the study The study is carried out to meet the following aims: - To identify the demotivators in English speaking learning and teaching - To suggest some feasible solutions to eliminate the demotivating factors in English speaking lessons in order to better students’ English learning Research questions SangKienKinhNghiem.net Base on the above-mention things, a hypothesis is given out: It’s the students’ attitude towards English speaking that is the demotivating factors In order to prove that hypothesis, the following research questions were asked in the study: What are the students’ difficulties in learning English speaking? What can assist students to have motivation again? Significance of the study The study will be the first investigation of demotivators in English speaking teaching and learning at Tĩnh Gia High School Practically, this provides my colleagues with experience in demotivating to make students learn English speaking more effectively In addition, it also makes the study environment more active Furthermore, it is recommended that not just English lessons but even other subjects might be developed this way Scope of the study In the previous studies, demotivation in learning English is mentioned in general and they aimed at several levels of learners In this, I only investigate students’ demotivation in learning English speaking The survey questionnaires are only used for students, questions for interview are used for students and teachers Truthfully, this topic cannot be wholly discussed within the framework of this paper; therefore, the subjects chosen for this study are students and teachers at Tĩnh Gia High school Thus, it cannot be said that the results of this study are general to other language elements and Vietnamese high school students Methods of the study From the research questions, survey methodology is used Survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and the associated survey data collection techniques, such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to surveys [36] It is also clearly indicated that the research is mostly qualitative because the aim of it is to investigate the percentage of each demotivated factors among students’ learning English speaking In order to fulfill, the methods have been used to survey, such as: questionnaires for students, semistructured interview, and observation The following steps are involved: Collecting data by survey questionnaires for students Conducting an interview with teachers and students who are randomly chosen for further information of the study Observing classes All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis These data are hoped to confirm and support the results obtained from other sources Design of the study This thesis is divided into three parts Part A, INTRODUCTION, gives the rationale of the study, some information about the current learning and teaching English speaking at Tĩnh Gia and high schools in Vietnam, aims of the study, the SangKienKinhNghiem.net research questions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study, and the method of the study Besides, the previous studies are also presented in this chapter Part B, includes three chapters: Chapter 1, THEORETICAL BACKGROUND, presents various concepts most relevant to the research topic such definition of demotivation, speaking, teachers and students demotivation in second language teaching and learning Chapter 2, THE STUDY, provides the methodology underlying the research which includes the general information about study subjects, the current state of teaching and learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia High School This chapter also focuses on the methods of data collection Chapter 3, RESULTS AND DICUSSION, gives a detailed presentation of data and a detailed description of data analysis Some explanations and interpretations of the findings of the study are also presented Part C, IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION, emphasizes the implication of the study in which certain techniques for improving teaching and learning English speaking to teachers and students at Tĩnh Gia High School Furthermore, this chapter also points out the limitations of the study and provides some suggestions for further studies PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Definition of speaking Speaking can be seen as the key to human communication It is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching There are many definitions of speaking Speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety contexts” (Chaney, [12, pg.13]) Another definition is proposed by Nunan [48] which states that speaking is the ability in using oral language to explore ideas, intentions, thoughts and feelings to other people as a way to make the message clearly delivered and well understood by the hearer The communication purpose can be broken when both participant not have intention to make their contribution to the conversation In short, speaking can be seen as the way people interact and share information By mastering speaking skills, students can improve the communicative competence which helps them much in the process of language acquisition 1.2 The role of the speaking skill in teaching and learning foreign language Language is what we use to “move ideas” from one person to another The most common way to this is by speaking Every culture in the world uses speech In any language, the written form always develops after the spoken form, not the other way round Definitely, speaking is a means to convey man’s ideas through language Many scientists have found that speaking is one of the features which distinguish us from most, if not all, animals When we learn our first language we always learn to speak it first We the same when we learn a second or foreign language SangKienKinhNghiem.net It goes without saying that speaking is of great importance in language learning because “it is not the oral production of written language, but involves learners in the mastery of a wide range of subskills which, added together, constitute an overall competence in the spoken language” (McDonough and Shaw, [42, pg.151]) With the recent growth of English as an international language of communication, there is, clearly, a need for many learners to interact in a multiplicity of situations through the language In many contexts, speaking is often seen as the skill upon which a person is judged “at face value” To put it in another way, people may often form judgments about our language competence from our speaking rather than from any of our other language skills 1.3 Definition of motivation and demotivation in foreign language and L2 1.3.1 Definition of motivation In ideal classroom, students pay attention, ask questions and want to learn They assignments without complaint and study without being coaxed and cajoled This means that they have motivation in learning The term “motivation” is used constantly in everyday and professional context but defining motivation precisely is a demanding task due to its complex and multination As motivation plays such a crucial role in demanding process of L2 learning, there is a long history of motivation in language learning Motivation research was first inspired and spearheaded by social psychologist Robert Gardner in Canada According to Gardner [24], motivation is and acts of stimulating the interest of somebody to something He drew out a formulary of motivation: “Motivation = effort + desire to achieve goal + attitudes” In term of Second/ Foreign language learning, Gardner [24, pg.10-11] defined motivation as: the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language When the desire to achieve the goal and favorable attitudes towards the goal are linked with the effort or the drive, we have a motivated organism Dornyei [19] divided motivation development into three main periods: the socio-psychological period, the cognitive - situated period, and the process-oriented period 1.3.2 Definition of demotivation Motivation plays a very important role in L2; many teachers are looking for the best ways to motivate students Past motivation research has mainly concentrated on the positive motivational influences as seen in the previous chapter “A motive has been seen as a kind of inducement whose force ranges on a continuum from zero to strong In addition to positive influences there are, however, negative effects that de-energise action” (Dornyei, [18]) The darker side of motivation, demotivation, has been found to play a crucial role in the learning process but yet it has been neglected as a research topic until recently Christophel and Gorham [14] found that the strongest influence on motivation was not the presence of motivators in the classroom, but the absence of demotivators At the beginning of the semester, the absence of context demotivators and teacher behavior demotivators positively affected motivation So what is demotivation? In light of Dornyei’s considerations, “demotivation” concerns “specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention” and describes demotivation as various negative influences cancelling out existing motivation He introduces “demotives” as being negative SangKienKinhNghiem.net counterparts of “motives on going action” (ibid: 143) A demotivated learner is someone who “motivated but has lost his or her interest for some reasons” In terms of demotive, it decreases learners’ demotivation to the study of language while motive increases it Dornyei [18] also points out that demotivation does not mean that a learner has lost his or her motivation completely On the contrary, the positive influences that originally made up the motivational basis of behavior can still be there For instance, a learner may still be highly motivated to learn English; it is an important world language, even if his or her teacher were incompetent or malevolent 1.4 Demotivation in learning speaking 1.4.1 The features of spoken language To be able to find out students’ demotivation to help students develop their ability in spoken production in English, it is necessary to think about some typical features of the spoken language in general It is essential to have that insight in order to be able to find an appropriate methodology for teaching it Therefore participants of such conversation spell out more and repeat what they have already said because the clear understanding depends particularly on clear production 1.4.2 Demotivation in learning speaking It is clear that demotivation and speaking are among the most important issues in the process of language learning Therefore, considering them and conducting researches like the present one about the relationship between them could help language teachers and students to be more efficient in process of language learning and teaching To put it more clearly, by taking into account these factors, language teachers can become aware of factors which may hinder their speaking activities From that may encourage language learners to speak Demotivation has detrimental impact on students’ foreign language learning outcomes Consequently, studying the demotivating factors of language learning is a crucial responsibility of language teachers, researchers and anyone who is somehow related to language learning and teaching process 1.5 Factors demotivate students’ participation in speaking learning Students’ participation usually means students speaking activities in class, for example, answer and ask questions, make comments and join in discussion It is also shown through interactions between students and students, between teachers - students when working together Students’ participation can be affected by various factors coming from students, teachers, and classroom In the following section, some of the factors will be discussed 1.4.1 Students’ factors 1.4.1.1 Students’ learning styles Every student has a learning style; therefore, there is no particular teaching or learning method that can suit the needs of all learners If the teachers not take care of or neglect the differences among students, for example, teachers only pay attention to good students meanwhile the rest students not get SangKienKinhNghiem.net benefit from their teachers This makes them feel uncomfortable This is one reason for the fact that when an activity is in progress, not all students participate in actively 1.4.1.2 Students’ attitude and motivation Clearly, motivation plays an important role in the success of language learning in general but we may wonder how much or to what extent motivation accounts for students’ participation in oral activities We may not give the correct answer but we can see that if learners perceive a goal and if that goal is really attractive, they will be strongly motivated to whatever necessary to reach that goal Therefore, the more motivated students are, the more actively they will participate in oral activities 1.4.1.3 Students’ second language level It is undoubted that students’ levels in a class are not alike There are two levels of language: the basic interpersonal communicative skills and the cognitive academic language proficiency The basic interpersonal communicative skills concept represents the language of natural, informal conversation Basic interpersonal communicative skills are used by students when talking about everyday things in concrete situations, that is, situations in which the context provides cues that make understanding not totally dependent on verbal interaction Thus, students’ participation can be affected by their own language level We, therefore, should choose the topics as well as techniques which are suitable for their level This will surely encourage their participation in all speaking activities 1.4.1.4 Personality According to many language teachers, the personality of their students considers a major factor contributing to the success or failure in language learning Lightbown and Spada [40] list a number of personality characteristics such as: extroversion, inhibition, self-esteem empathy, dominance, talkativeness and responsiveness Hedge [32] defined that extrovert learners are more willing to participate, more willing to experiment and take risks Although their language was not good enough, they were not afraid to make mistakes and try to communicate And for introvert learners, they feel more comfortable when they work individually (Harmer, [31]) 1.4.1.5 Students’ anxiety Sufficient evidence shows that anxiety is an important factor in learning second language in general and in students’ participation in speaking activities in particular It seems to be a factor that distributes in differing degrees in different learners 1.4.1.6 Gender differences The relationship between gender differences and language learning has been mentioned in some research Other researcher found some results when he carried out the research on the relationship between sex and language such as men talked more and took more frequent turns at talk, interrupted more often, withheld responses to women’s topics and withheld self-disclosure Contrast to men, women tended to be more often than men to use speech strategies which supported other speakers’ contributions, initiating topics and providing feedback and information for others to participate SangKienKinhNghiem.net Clearly, all these above studies make us believe that sex differences may have a great effect on students’ participation Understanding the different learning styles and strengths and weakness of male and female can help teachers better understand and work with students with disabilities and gifts and talents In conclusion, those are the main factors coming from students’ side that may hinder students’ participation in classroom activities The degrees of effect of the above factors may be different for each student The first factor is students’ learning styles The second factor is students’ motivation and attitude The third factor is students’ language level including knowledge of English proficiency and knowledge of other fields The fourth one is students’ personality One more factor is students’ anxiety The language anxiety of students may affect their participation because foreign language speaking anxiety in the English classroom may stem from fear of making mistakes and the consequent fear of negative evaluation, and students’ perception of low ability in relation to their peers The last one is the gender difference 1.4.2 Teachers’ factors 1.4.2.1 Teachers’ teaching methods Stern [62] lists out some main teaching methods as follows: Grammar-translation or traditional method, audio - lingual method, direct method reading method, audiovisual method… 1.4.2.2 Teachers’ knowledge What a teacher knows is one of the most important influences on what is done in classrooms and ultimately on what students learn Thus, being a teacher, we should have: General pedagogical knowledge: Teacher should understand how to moderate discussions, design group work, organize materials for student use, utilize texts and media, etc Linguistic knowledge: Teachers need a basic working knowledge such as knowledge of the nature and functions of language, knowledge about the systems and structure of English such as: phonetics, syntax, semantics, discourses, etc Specialist knowledge: English teaching in Vietnam can be divided into two types: Teaching General English and English for Special Purposes (ESP) ESP teachers teach special content due to the demands of the fields involved like business, tourism, technology, informatics, accounting, etc In order to teach ESP, besides general knowledge, teachers must have the knowledge of the subject he (or she) teaches Clearly, teachers need to understand the subject matter deeply and flexibly to teach all students They need to see how ideas connect across fields and to every life This kind of understanding provides a foundation for pedagogical content knowledge that enables teachers to make ideas accessible to others 1.4.2.3 Teachers’ characteristics Besides the knowledge and teaching methods, teachers’ characteristics may have a great influence on students’ participation Barry [3] shows some characteristics a teacher should have that help increase students’ involvement in classroom activities in general: SangKienKinhNghiem.net Being natural, being warm, being tolerant, being pleasant, being approachable: Moreover, the teachers should be sensitive to individual and group needs and feelings He should be fair to his profession and assess students on their performance instead of personal rapports and likings Therefore, besides the command of teachers’ knowledge and teaching methods, teachers should have these above characteristics The teachers’ characteristics may create a comfortable and an interesting learning environment for students 1.4.2.4 Teachers’ roles in speaking activities Teacher role refers to the different functions a teacher can have in a class The role usually implies the relationship between the teacher and learner, particularly in terms of the autonomy learners have over their learning According to Harmer [31], a teacher can have the following roles: The teacher as a controller, an assessor, an organizer The main aims of the teacher when organizing an activity is to tell the students what they are going to talk about, give clear instructions about what exactly their task is, get the activity going, and then organize feedback when it is over - Teaching and learning conditions - Physical conditions - Classroom climate CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 1.2 Context 1.2.1 Theoretical context Despite realizing English speaking is very important, Vietnamese students still cannot acquire it The main reason is that the traditional teaching laid the emphasis on grammar has led to this problem In the teaching situations, the students usually keep quiet in speaking lessons; they mind speaking In reallife situations, students find it hard to communicate with English speaking people; it is hard for them to response spontaneously and naturally Unfortunately, this is happening at almost high schools in Vietnam, except for foreign language specializing schools In this part, the role of textbook and curriculum is also presented because they have had certain effect on teaching and learning English Besides, the analysis of textbook and curriculum is of the great importance since they are hypothesized as one of the factors demotivates students in learning in many previous studies The teaching contents are organized according to themes in order to provide contexts for language skills, language elements and socio-cultural knowledge to be taught and developed in an integrated manner These themes are all drawn from the contexts of students’ daily life such as home and school, health, recreation, community and the world The themes are recycled from grade to grade in a cumulative and spiral manner, which means they are repeated at higher grade with increasing levels of difficulty to suit students’ intellectual and cognitive maturity levels The total number of class hours for English education is also clearly specified In high school, the time allocation is 315 for standard textbooks Each class hour is 45 minutes in length We can see that the SangKienKinhNghiem.net number of periods for each skill is 16 for each grade per year, which is rather low for developing such difficult skills on the ground that students rarely use English outside classroom for communication Tiếng Anh 10 is the official textbook for 10th grade students, includes topics: daily life, school talks, people’s background, special education, technology, excursion, the mass media, story of my village, undersea world, conservation, national parks, music, films and cinema, the world cup, cities, historical places Tiếng Anh 11 includes topics: friendship, experiences, a party, volunteer work, literacy, competitions, world population, celebration, the post office, nature in danger, sources of energy, the Asian games, hobbies, recreation, space conquest, and the wonders of the world Tiếng Anh 12 includes topics: home life, cultural diversity, ways of socializing, school education system, higher education, future job, water sports, sea game, international organizations, women in society, the association of Southeast Asian nations An ideal systematic textbook evaluation would be a longitudinal one, which includes pre-use evaluation, whilst-use evaluation and post-use evaluation But textbooks are subject to adaptation when they are actually used in the class-room, despite the great effort that textbook writers make to meet the needs of the intended users Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12 is accompanied with cassette tapes and students’ workbook The textbook is evaluated with clear structure, an adequate number of review units and covering all four language skills adequately and allowing for an integration of skills at the pre and post stages However, there are several units in these book are not suitable: too long (textbook 11: U12, reading), too short (textbook 11: U4, writing), too difficult (textbook 12:U8, listening), too confused… Teachers usually have to adapt, it may be: omission, addition, reduction, extension, rewriting/modification, replacement, re-ordering, branching… 1.2.2 Practical context Most of students here were born in working and farming family with medium living standard so the teaching of English in this school has encountered with many difficulties Although most students are aware of the importance of English, the majority of the students not pay much attention to English, especially, speaking skill And if some students are said to be good at English, it means they are good at English grammar Most of them find it hard to express themselves orally And, the teachers have to face a lot of difficulties in teaching speaking because students seem to be passive in all speaking activities In the English lessons, teachers have to speak Vietnamese most of the time because they are afraid that their students not understand what they are speaking When the new textbooks were applied, almost students complain about difficulties they get in learning English skills in general and in speaking in particular And we ourselves realize that our students really have bad speaking Certainly, there are many reasons for this If those difficulties are not found out and no solutions can be given, the speaking classes cannot be successful and students will be fed up with learning English if they find it worthless to study the subject 2.2 Methods to the study 2.2.1 Participants SangKienKinhNghiem.net The participants of this research consist of two groups: High school teachers and students In this study, no names of teachers or students were identified The first group is 90 the 10th, 11th, 12th graders chosen randomly from classes 10A2, 11A4, 12A6 at Tĩnh Gia High School Their average age from 16, range from 15 to 17 The participants include 43 male students and 47 female students, 60 percent of them come from farming families which don’t have much money to support for their learning and to equip modern medias such as cassette, CD, the Internet for their children English learning Especially, their proficiency, competence and motivation are very low 2.2.2 Data collection instruments The data collection methods applied in this study was aimed at collecting qualitative data The questionnaires for students were delivered to the 90 students from Tĩnh Gia High School respectively The researcher mainly used the close- ended questions in the questionnaires 2.2.2.1 Questionnaires for students The researcher decided to use questionnaires for the research The questionnaires were conducted in Vietnamese because the students might not understand all information in English, which may affect the result of the study 2.2.2.2 Semi-structured interview Besides questionnaire, this is a method of collecting necessary and reliable information The researcher interviewed teachers and 10 students to get their ideas about the research issues beyond the questionnaires so a follow-up one-on-one interview with one group of subjects was conducted The students were asked to answer 10 questions about following aspects honestly: (1) The students’ demotivators in learning English (from question to question 8) (2) Activities increase students’ participation in speaking lessons (question 9, 10) 2.2.2.3 Class observation This is a method to ensure the reliability of the questionnaire The researcher observed speaking periods It was designed a checklist for what researcher wanted to observe (see Appendix 4) The checklist for observation included kinds of speaking activities teacher uses, students’ time of participation in speaking activities in class, the number and difficult level of vocabulary in each speaking lesson, teacher’s behavior and her methods, the environment when the teacher uses modern teaching aids in class 2.2.3 Data collection procedures The questionnaires were handed out to 90 learners at Tĩnh Gia High School to collect information The responses to each question were calculated and converted into percentage for analysis and discussion (Appendix 1) The interview was carried out in Vietnamese in the form of and informal conservation between the researcher and ten students chosen at random in the student list of classes They were students number 8th, 24th, 30th, and 40th in class 10A2; students number 3th, 16th, 27th in class 12A4; students number 5th, 21st, and 38th in class 11A6 The students were asked to go to another room for the interview The 25 minute - interview was structured with a list of 10 opened - end questions (Appendix SangKienKinhNghiem.net 2) It also was carried out between the researcher and five teachers with a list of opened - end questions (Appendix 3) The researcher observed speaking lessons lasting 225 minutes During the lessons, the researcher focused on the students’ and teachers’ activities and interactions between the students and the teachers or among the students and noted down the information on the observation sheet (Appendix 4) Summary The second chapter has presented the context of the study The subjects of the study, the data collection methods, the data collection procedures have also been discussed in this chapter In the next chapter, the result and discussion will be presented CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Data analysis The research was mainly based on qualitative approach The data was converted into statistical numbers and percentages The results were presented by means of numbers and tables or charts 3.1.1 Factors that demotivate students’ participation in speaking activities 3.1.1.1 Students’ attitudes on learning speaking English Câu hỏi 1: Người ta nói kỹ nói khơng quan trọng, bạn có đồng ý không? (It’s said that speaking skill is not important, you agree?) Chart 3.1: The importance of speaking skill in English classes The questionnaire’s results showed that most students admitted the importance of speaking skill Surprisingly enough, most of the students gave speaking skill much importance in learning English 68% of the students disagreed with the idea that speaking was not important Only 19% of the students were not sure These results also proved that the students at Tĩnh Gia High School were well aware of the necessity and the particular role of speaking skill among the four language skills Câu hỏi 2: Bạn có thích nói Tiếng Anh lớp khơng? (Are you interested in speaking English in class?) Chart 3.2: Students’ interest in speaking English in class SangKienKinhNghiem.net Students’ interest at Tĩnh Gia High School in speaking English was low That was the reason for their poor participation in speaking activities which could be realized from the answers to the question (Appendix 1) Câu hỏi 3: Bạn có phản ứng với thái độ không hợp tác thành viên nhóm tiết nói Tiếng Anh? (What you reflect with negative attitude of group members toward learning English speaking?) Chart 3.3: Attitudes of group members in the class The Chart 3.2 showed that students in Tĩnh Gia High School were not very interested in speaking English 31% students said they feel normal while 21% were not interested in it at all Not surprisingly, the above table also indicated that students’ attitude with group members who didn’t want to take part in speaking English Approximately a half (44%) for ignore while 26% encourage them to change; only 11% for feel angry and 19% had no ideas There are few of the participants who spend time speaking English while some try for practicing speaking English In short, we can come to conclusion that most of the students found learning English important or necessary However, the minority of the respondents was interested in it and the majority had low effort in learning English Therefore, little intrinsic motivation may become a demotivating factor 3.1.1.2 The frequency of practicing English speaking Câu hỏi 4: Bạn có thường xuyên tham gia thảo luận tiết học Tiếng Anh không? (How often you take part in English discussions in class?) Chart 3.4: The frequency of practicing English speaking The above chart reflects the frequency of speaking English in class As we can see, only 1% of the students very often took part in English discussions in class 48% sometimes, 35% seldom and 16% never respectively spoke English in class By observing five speaking periods, the researcher realized that students’ time of participation in speaking activities in class was not much Only few students could speak English, teachers have to speak SangKienKinhNghiem.net instead of students Sometimes there were two or three students raising their hands to volunteer to speak In class 12C6 almost students even chatted with their friends or studied math in English speaking period This resulted in their low level of participation in speaking activities (Sentence 2, in the checklist for class observation) 3.1.1.3 Psychological factors Câu hỏi 5: Bạn cảm thấy tiết học nói Tiếng Anh? (How you feel in English speaking lesson?) Chart 3.5: Psychological factors The above table showed that 63% of them felt stressful and anxious when they had to speak English in front of the class Only 2% felt confident According to the interview with the students who felt shy and unconfident, most of them answered that they were afraid of making mistakes and losing face before other students This resulted in their low level of participation in speaking activities 3.1.2.4 The classroom climate demotivating factors Câu hỏi 6: Theo bạn, điều làm cho bạn học nói Tiếng Anh kém? (In your opinion, what makes you bad at learning speaking English?) Options Questions (Q for learner): In your opinion, what A B C D 47% 19% 2% 32% makes you bad at learning speaking English? Question A Lack of real life situations B Lack of using modern technology C Things such as classroom size, chairs, tables, board, light… D Classmates’ behaviors Table 3.1: The classroom climate demotivating factors As seen in Table 3.1, nearly a half, 42 students (47%) mentioned that they were lack of real life situations Many students stated that since they started learning English, they have never used it to communicate in real life situations, even outside their classroom It was lack of practice SangKienKinhNghiem.net that students hardly forgot the lesson just after they have learnt 19% of the students said that modern technology was not usually used, which also had great influence on their English speaking 3.1.2.5 Physical condition factors Câu hỏi 7: Điều kiện sở vật chất kích cỡ phịng học, bàn ghế, bảng, ánh sáng…ở trường bạn có làm bạn thuận tiện việc học nói Tiếng Anh khơng? (Do you think physical condition such as classroom size, chairs, tables, board, light… in your school make you convenient for speaking English lessons?) Options A B C 39% 31% 23% Questions (Q for learner): Do the physical condition D 7% such as classroom size, chairs, tables, board, light… in your school make you Question convenient for speaking English lessons? A No, I don’t think so B Yes, a little C Other ideas D Yes, I think so Table 3.2: Physical condition factors Many students blamed the physical condition such as classroom size, chairs, tables, board, light… in their school for their demotivation The “No, I don’t think so” in the questionnaire revealed that students didn’t feel comfortable with physical condition in speaking English lessons in their school They wanted to learn in the room with high qualified sound, wanted to see interesting video clips or films in English or having English subtitle to widen their vocabularies and improve their pronunciation and listening skills Only 7% of them felt comfortable with physical condition in their school 3.1.2.6 Course book factors: Câu hỏi 8: Bạn có ý kiến nội dung sách giáo khoa? (What’s your idea about the content of course-book?) Options Questions (Q for learner): What’s your idea about the A B C D 34% 28% 29% 9% content of course-book? A Too difficult and not suitable with Question students B So many vocabularies in each unit C Some units in the book are too long D Interesting and suitable Table 3.3: Course book factors According to researcher’ observation, students got demotivated due to the overloaded vocabularies they had to learn in each lessons Many students were tired of learning so many new words There were SangKienKinhNghiem.net more than 30 words after each lesson and most of them are very difficult (Sentence in the checklist for class observation) Furthermore, all students in the interview agreed that the topics in the textbook were not real, not necessary for their daily life The activities, the design in the textbook were also boring 3.1.2.7 The topic demotivating factors Câu hỏi 9: Bạn cảm thấy chủ đề tiết học nói? (How you feel about the topics of speaking activities in your class?) Options Questions (Q for learner): How you feel about the A B C D 43% 38% 17% 2% speaking topics in your class? Question A Difficult B Boring C Various D Interesting Table 3.4: The topic demotivating factors When answering this question, surprisingly about 73 students (81%) of the respondents stated that topics of speaking in class were boring and difficult for them Only 19% claimed that the topics were various and interesting Another factor should be taken into consideration is teacher demotivating factors 3.1.2.8 The teacher demotivating factors Câu hỏi 10: Bạn nghĩ thầy (cơ) dạy Tiếng Anh bạn? (What you think about your teacher?) The situation can be seen in the figure below: Options A B C D 29% 19% 10% 42% Questions (Q for learner): What you think about your English teacher? Question 10 A Very strict B I don’t like her/ his method C Our teacher is so easy doing D It’s a good teacher Table 3.5: The teacher demotivating factors The table showed that nearly a half, 42% students accepted that their teachers were good It means that most of the teachers in Tĩnh Gia High School were good Besides, students felt demotivated because of teachers’ personality and were not satisfied with teachers’ competence, 29% felt that their teacher so strict Whereas 10% students in the questionnaire complained that their teacher was so easy doing They said in the interview that their teacher was grading and assessment She had no corrective feedback, gave more care for only some students She was not serious in the lessons and too tolerant with SangKienKinhNghiem.net their mistakes She gave them so high marks and was not strict in the tests As the result, they sometimes were lazy and didn’t have any pressure to learn 3.1.2.9 The test and evaluation demotivating factors Câu hỏi 11: Ý kiến bạn kiểm tra? (What you think about the tests?) Options A B C D 30% 12% 39% 19% Questions (Q for learner): What’s your idea about the tests? A No communicative lessons in the tests Question 11 B Don’t like the form of the tests C They are boring, intense and something outside in the tests D They are good and suitable Table 3.6: The test and evaluation demotivating factors The result of the survey records one more demotivating factor related to test and evaluation The table above showed that 35 students, account for 39% of asked students didn’t like the form of the test because they were boring, intense and there were something outside in the tests Up to 30% students got demotivated with the tests because there were not communicative lessons they learn Only 19% students said the tests were good and suitable In the interview, some students were frustrated when referred to the test: “When I a test I think I have done well But when I get the exam paper I discover that my results are contrary to my expectations I have got low mark despite learning very hard, so I not want to study English anymore.” 3.2.2 Activities increase students’ participation in speaking lessons First of all is organizing activities, teachers tend to use less some other type of interaction in which students are active and the teacher is mainly receptive When being asked, many teachers confessed that they felt safe with common types of interaction such as pair work, group work or individual work However, they may have some troubles with the situations in which students make too much noise when they are all speaking at once or they cannot hear all students are saying so that they can correct them Sometimes, their students may revert back to using their first language when they are put together Or some pairs finish before other and they have nothing to To solve these problems, some suggestions can be given to make the interaction more effective First, the noise in classroom during the activities is unavoidable but at least this means that they are producing language Moreover, when students tend to use mother tongue in classroom, teachers need to reinforce the importance of using English and check that students are doing so when they monitor In the case of some pairs finish their task, teachers should plan an extra activity that will keep these students occupied until the other have finished SangKienKinhNghiem.net With the help of teaching aids students can develop thinking skill such as forming an opinion, finding similarities or differences and using metaphors Teaching aids are also flexible and easily adaptable to different levels and teaching aims and they help creative expression, personalization and originality in speaking Teachers, therefore, need to make full use of available aids as well as be aware of the importance of the use of teaching aids in their speaking lessons In short, some activities to increase students’ participation Tĩnh Gia School in speaking lessons should be organizing activities, shaping the learning environment, students assess themselves their own participation in the lesson, using modern teaching aids 3.2.3 Recommendations for increasing students’ participation in speaking activities 3.2.3.1 Varying speaking activities 3.2.3.2 Helping students to improve their knowledge of grammar and enrich their vocabulary 3.2.3.3 Managing speaking turns suitably 3.2.3.4 Building a cooperative atmosphere in class 3.2.3.5 Helping students to be confident 3.2.3.6 Being enthusiastic, friendly, helpful and tolerant 3.2.3.7 Creating interesting and appropriate topics 3.2.3.8 Forming a habit of speaking English in the class Summary This chapter has analyzed the data and information collected from questionnaires, class observation and interviews The results reflects the reality of learning and teaching speaking skills for the 10th, 11th, 12th graders at Tĩnh Gia High School as well as the students’ demotivation in learning English speaking Obviously, some problems are still raised in speaking lessons The issues have been discussed and some solutions have been recommended Pedagogical implications as well as conclusion will be presented in the last part PART C: IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION Conclusion The researcher investigate the factors that demotivate students’ participation in speaking lessons with the main aims at finding out the factors affecting the participation of students at Tĩnh Gia High School, Thanh Hóa in speaking activities Based on the instrumentations as survey questionnaire, interviews and classroom observation, significant findings has been presented with a view to increasing students’ participation at the high school In conclusion, students’ participation plays an important role in speaking activities If we want to have a successful speaking lesson, we should pay more attention to the factors that demotivate students’ participation and try to improve our teaching methods, our characteristics as well as our roles The researcher hopes that this study will make an especial significant contribution to better the current teaching and learning to speak English at high schools today Limitations of the study SangKienKinhNghiem.net Although the research has offered some helpful finding, it has also shown some unavoidable mistakes due to the researcher’s limitation of experience and knowledge Firstly, the study aims to investigate the current situation of students’ demotivation in learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia High School, Thanh Hóa but the participants of the survey were limited So the results may not reflect fully the whole situation of learning and teaching speaking skill Secondly, the questionnaires may not cover all demotivating factors which lead to less reliable results Then the results of research only collected and analyzed from questionnaires, interview, class observation and it is absent of discussion which might be incomplete Finally, due to time constraint and some other objective factor made it impossible for the researcher to carry out the investigation into the relationship with other skills, which restrict more precise of the research Suggestions for further research Due to the limitation of the research, it can encourage more research on demotivators in learning English, or learning other foreign languages The next further studies should have an insight look into other aspects of demotivation such as impact of demotivation, how demotivators are different in term of the levels of impact… They should also study specific techniques to overcome the negative effect of those factors Researcher’s signature Nguyễn Thị Hà SangKienKinhNghiem.net ... observation and interviews The results reflects the reality of learning and teaching speaking skills for the 10 th, 11 th, 12 th graders at Tĩnh Gia High School as well as the students’ demotivation in. .. Demotivation in learning speaking It is clear that demotivation and speaking are among the most important issues in the process of language learning Therefore, considering them and conducting researches... related to language learning and teaching process 1. 5 Factors demotivate students’ participation in speaking learning Students’ participation usually means students speaking activities in class,