Rationale
Speaking is "the most important aspect of learning a second language" (Nunan, 1989)
It plays a vital role because it is the first step to identify who know or does not know a language Pattison (1992) confirms that when people speak of knowing or learning a language, they actually mean that they are able to speak the language It is clear that by mastering the speaking skills, people can carry out the conversation with other people, give the ideas and exchange the information Recognizing its importance, Vietnamese learners try their utmost to master speaking skills with the hope to improve their language competence However, not all students have succeeded in it Many fail because learning a language is considered a complex process, which is often affected by many factors such as attitude, age, intelligence, learning environment, etc Among them, motivation is believed to have great impact on success or failure of a language learner As a result, motivation has become a key issue in language learning in general and in speaking in particular and has become the subject of many studies for a long time
As the matter of facts, students' motivation in speaking -one of the vital aspects of leaning a foreign language- has been the biggest challenge for Vietnamese students A large number of students after a long time learning speaking English have not been able to speak it skillfully Many researches have been carried out in attempt to find out the reasons, the techniques to enhance students' motivation as well as factors affecting it in speaking class Among many studies, the researcher realizes that although teachers now no longer play a dominant role in class, their guidance, and supports have always been of beneficial help to students Especially teachers' feedback provision in response to students' performance is significantly important Considered "an integral part of the lesson" (Nguyen et al., 2003), the teacher's feedback is always in need or according to Fanselow (1987) "to teach is to give feedback" In the current context of teaching and learning English, the teacher's feedback is really necessary, which helps students find the right ways to improve their language competence
At HuBT, English is taught as a compulsory subject for all students of all faculties For freshmen who have not been familiar with the ways of studying at university, attending two or three English classes a week make many students regard English as a burden Even though they realize that English, especially the speaking skill, is very important and necessary now and in the future, most of them are afraid of speaking or have no habits of speaking in the class Hence, all the teachers of English are master at finding speaking activities with an attempt to motivate students in speaking but few have exploited the importance of their feedback to encourage students more involved in speaking English at least in class The teachers who have tried smoother ways to give the feedback claimed that these students seem to be more active when receiving the teacher's comments
Recently in Vietnam although teacher's feedback has been the subject of many studies, most of them have tackled about the matter of feedback in writing lessons Studies on feedback in speaking lessons are quite small in number At the Department of English- Hanoi University of Business and Technology, there have been no attempts in investigating this issue Therefore, it is greatly important to research the matter intensively in the context of teaching and learning speaking skill at this university
The reasons above have urged the writer herself, who is the teacher of English at Department of English at HuBT, to explore this matter in an effort to find out how the teacher's feedback affects the freshmen's motivation and how the teacher should comment on their speaking to encourage them to speak English Hopefully, the researcher would make contribution to complete the insightful understanding about teacher's feedback, enhancing teaching and learning English, which can lay a foundation for subsequent research.
Aims of study
The study is to investigate the influence of the teacher's feedback on Freshmen's motivation in speaking lessons.
Research question
In order to achieve above-mentioned aim, the following research question is raised in the study:
- What are the freshmen's motivations in learning English?
- What types of teacher's feedback are currently used in speaking lessons?
- How does the teacher's feedback affect the freshmen's motivation in speaking lessons?
Scope of the study
Feedback and motivation are such broad topics that cannot be wholly discussed within the framework of this paper Thus, this minor thesis attempts to investigate one specific and commonly practiced aspect: the effects of teacher's feedback on students' motivation in speaking lessons
The subjects of the study include 286 freshmen at Department of Accountancy at HuBT who are not English major but are learning speaking skills adopting the Communicative language teaching approach Therefore, it cannot be said that the results of this study are general to all Vietnamese non-English majors.
Method of the study
This study employs a both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to get a more detailed and comprehensive picture about what is investigated
A survey questionnaire done on 286 freshmen in the Faculty of Accountancy to collect their opinions on the feedback they received, how types of teacher feedback effect their motivation in speaking, and to gather their recommendations for improving teacher feedback to help them perform successfully
An interview conducted with the participation of 20 freshmen selected from survey population to explore further issues being investigated.
Design of the study
This study is composed of three following parts:
Part A: Introduction presents the background, aims, research questions, the significance, the scope, and the design of the study
Part B: Development is organized around three chapters as follows
Chapter 1- Literature review, conceptualizes the framework of the study through the discussion of issues and ideas on theories of motivation, types of motivation and feedback
Chapter 2 - Methodology, presents the context, the methodology used in this study including the subject, the data collection instruments, data collection procedure, and data analysis
Chapter 3 – Findings and Discussions consists of a comprehensive analysis of the data and a discussion on the findings of this study
Part C: Conclusion, offers a summary of the findings, recommendations, limitations, and
LITERATURE REVIEW
Speaking skill
There are many definitions for the term "speaking" According to Bygate (1987), speaking, in many ways, is an undervalued skill The reason given is that most of us can speak, so we take the skill too much for granted As a result, if teachers consider speaking as facial, superficial, they will largely focus on the teaching of oral language itself- not in the relationship with other skills
Bygate (1987) mentions "speaking is a skill which deserves attention every bit as much as literary skills, in both first and second language." To achieve something in the life such as social solidarity, social ranking, or professional advance, and things like that, our learners often need to be able to speak Therefore much more attention should be paid to the teaching of speaking
It now clear that both fluency and accuracy are important goals to pursue in teaching speaking skills
Recognizably, accuracy is one of the most important criteria to measure students' linguistic ability and to shelter language user from communication breakdown According to Richards (1992), accuracy concerns "the ability to produce grammatically correct sentence." It means that accuracy means grammatical accuracy only However, in Brown
(1994), the term "accuracy" covers more than that Accuracy is achieved to some extent by allowing students to focus on the elements of phonology, grammar, and discourse in their spoken output To support this idea, Thornbury (2000) sets the clear scale for assessment of accuracy First, in grammar, students use correct words order, tenses, tenses agreement, do not leave out articles, prepositions, or difficult tenses In addition to grammar, to acquire the accuracy in speaking, students have a range of vocabulary that corresponds to the syllabus year lists and use words that the teacher has taught
Fluency is also used as a criterion to measure one's speaking competence Brown
(1994) mentions fluency may in many communicative language courses be an initial goal in language teaching Speaking fluently means being able to communicate one's ideas without having to stop and think too much about what one is saying Richard (1992) defines fluency "the features which give speech the qualities of being natural and normal."
More specifically, Thornbury (1992) points out the criteria to assess the fluency ability
Firstly, about the speed of speaking, students speak smoothly, at a natural speech and do not hesitate long and it is easy to follow what they are saying Secondly, about the length, students can put the ideas together to form a message or an argument They can make not only the simplest of sentence patterns but also complex one to complete the task Finally, students must be independent in expressing their ideas in a number of ways, keeping talking and asking questions and keeping the conversation going
1.1.3 Students' difficulties in English speaking lessons
As mentioned in the previous part, speaking come naturally to human However, in fact it is not as simple as it seems Ur (1996) brings out four potential issues that students have to face in the English class Firstly, because of being worried about making mistakes, criticism, losing face, or shyness, students are often inhibited in speaking in the English class Secondly, because of limited language, students cannot express their opinions As a result, they keep silent during the lessons Thirdly, since students are of different levels, better students often dominate the time of speaking while worse ones are silent Finally, because English is taught as the foreign language, students prefer the mother tongue to English They find it easy and convenient to communicate with others and feel "exposed" in their language It is a challenging job for the teachers if they have a less disciplined or motivated class
To share Ur's ideas, Davies (2000) describes some challenges in the English class
First, many students do no like speaking in front of group of people just because of worrying about producing utterances with many errors or oddities in them Second, students' strong regional accents make them disadvantageous to pronounce words correctly and be understood Finally, some students cannot follow the speaking lessons because speaking takes place in "real" time, and speakers do not usually have to construct their utterances carefully They have to do many things all together: understand what the other person is saying, say what they want to when they get the chance to speak, be prepared for unexpected changes of topic
Thus, for an effective speaking lesson, the teacher should be aware of these problems to have appropriate strategies to motivate the students According to Davies (2000), the teacher should try to create a relaxed atmosphere in their class, creating many speaking activities in pairs or in groups so that most students are not frightened of speaking in front of class Besides, the teacher should balance the activities in class to motivate worse students and to give them chances of speaking It is clear that the most important purpose is how to enhance students' motivation in the lessons Because of its vital role in speaking lesson, the next part will deal with motivation.
Motivation
Since motivation is not only a vital but also a highly complex factor determining more or less successful language learning, many researchers have tried to study motivation in foreign and second language learning in order to bring out better insights into it
Brown (1994) offers definition of motivation drawn from a number of different sources:
"motivation is the extent to which you make choices about (a) goals pursue and (b) the effort you will devote to that pursuit." There are varying ways to interpret this definition, however, the writer focuses on the theories of motivation in term of two opposing "camps"
In the first camp, the author stresses the importance of rewards and reinforcement as goals that motivate human beings to pursue On the other hand, in the second camp, the author emphasizes unobservable phenomena as keys factors to motivate people To support this idea, Zoltan Dornyei (2001) considers motivation as a determining factor to explain why people decide to do something, how hard they are going to pursue it and how long they are willing to sustain the activities
Motivation is not only an intensive desire for learning and acquiring knowledge of English, but also an inner cause that push students forward in English learning with enthusiasm and willingness According to Yuan Kong (2009), motivation is something like the engine and steering wheel of an automobile that can move students from boredom to interest It is an inner power to drive and preserves students in English learning Garder (1985b) indicates that motivation involves four factors including a goal, effortful behavior, a desire to attain the goal and favorable attitudes towards the activity in question Students who have strong learning motivation take a correct and positive attitude towards study and make great efforts to master English with clear goal and desire and consequently gain better grade than those who are not motivated and thus, those students usually regard English learning as a heavy and boring burden
1.2.2 Kinds of motivation in the second language classroom
What kinds of motivation do students have? Are they always the same? Brown (2007) clarifies two kinds of motivation namely intrinsic and extrinsic Intrinsic motivation refers to students who learn for their own desires demands On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is used to talk about ones who learn because of outside factors like prizes or complements from others
To support Brown's idea, in one hand Edward Deci (1975) defines "intrinsically motivated activities are ones for which there is no apparent reward except the activity itself" Students seem to engage in the activities for their own sake and not because they lead to an extrinsic reward On the other hand, he mentions that extrinsic motivation is fueled by the anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self Typical extrinsic rewards are money, prizes, grades, and even certain types of positive feedback
Deci and Ryan‟s (1985) theory of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and self-determination is one of the most influential theories in mainstream motivational psychology (Dornyei,
2001, p.58) The theory distinguishes between two main kinds of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic Intrinsic motivation deals with individual‟s motivation to perform a particular activity for its own sake in order to experience pleasure and satisfaction, such as the joy of doing a particular activity or satisfying one‟s curiosity Extrinsically motivated individual, on the other hand, perform a specific activity to achieve some instrumental end such as earning a reward (e.g good grades) or avoiding punishment (Dornyei, 2001)
Jeremy (1991) views two types of motivation namely extrinsic and intrinsic motivation from a different perspective Firstly, he considers extrinsic motivation as factors which affect students outside the classroom It means that some students study a language because they have an idea of something that they wish to achieve He also suggests two main types of the extrinsic motivation as integrative and instrumental motivation In the strong form of integrative motivation, students need to be attracted by the culture of the target language community, and they wish to integrate themselves into that culture A weaker form of integrative motivation would be the desire to know as much as possible about the culture of the target language community For the instrumental motivation, students believe that mastery of the target language will be instrumental in getting them a better job, position or status The language is an instrument in their attainment of such a goal Secondly, he relates intrinsic motivation to what takes place inside the classroom
He says that intrinsic motivation plays a vital part in most students' success or failure as language learners For them what happens in the classroom will be of vital importance in determining their attitude to the language, and in supplying motivation, which we have suggested is a vital component in successful language
A question raised here is that which form of motivation more powerful is Many researchers agree that to be successful in language learning students need intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic one Maslow (1970) claims that intrinsic motivation is clearly superior to extrinsic Motivation is dependent on the satisfaction of fundamental physical necessities It is also true in learning a language Students study hard to satisfy their own desire such as achieving some goals in language learning Jerome Bruner (1996b), praising the "autonomy of self-reward", claimed that one of the most effective ways to help both children and adults think and learn is to free them from the control of rewards and punishments As a result, in language teaching, the teacher should help the students to increase their intrinsic motivation Dorneyei and Csizerv (1998), for example, in a survey of Hungarian teachers of English, proposed taxonomy of factors by which teachers could motivate their learners They cited factors such as developing relationship with learners, building learners' self-confidence and autonomy, personalizing the learning process, and increasing learners' goal-orientation These all fall into the intrinsic side of motivation
There are many aspects which influence the students ' motivation in learning Among them feedback plays an important part The following part will discuss the teacher's feedback and how it effects students' motivation in speaking lessons.
Feedback
In the context of teaching and learning language, there have been various studies to look at the roles of feedback Most of them share the idea that the purpose of providing feedback is to tell the students about their progress and show them their errors to guide them to areas for improving their English competence According to Ur(1996), feedback is
"information that is given to the learners about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this performance." To support this idea, Ellis
(1985) defines the feedback as "response to efforts by the learners to communicate
Feedback can involve such functions as corrections, acknowledgement, requests for clarification, and backchannel cues such as "Mmm"" Written in Ferris (1999), feedback is viewed as "any response a teacher may give his or her students."
Traditionally, Ypsilandis (2002) considers the feedback as the "reaction, a response that is usually triggered and received by the learners and provided by teacher" and as an
"assistance mechanism, a key factor for successful learning, offering support to the learning process."
Accordingly, from the views of different researchers, there are two matters First, the question of quality feedback comes into considerable concerns Second, there is the distinction between feedback and criticism Robert (2003) proposes "feedback should only ever be used as a basis for improvement It should not be mistaken for negative criticism and vice verse." It is clear that to help student improve their learning, the teacher's feedback should based on the facts given without personal opinion
In short, feedback should be used for more than correction, also be a motivating factor
Feedback provision can be among peers or between teachers and students; however, in this study, the research just focus on the notion of teaching-learning between the teacher and students
1.3.2 Types of the teacher's feedback in speaking lessons
From the studies, the writer could find the various ways of classifying the teacher's feedback
Gattullo (2000) and Harmer (2001) decide feedback into corrective, evaluative and strategic Corrective feedback focuses on helping learners notice and correct errors This type of feedback explains why responses are correct or wrong In learning speaking, corrective feedback will primarily concern with accuracy Evaluative feedback aims to provide a judgment on the students' performance Gattullo (2000) suggests that evaluate feedback is dominant in second and foreign language classroom In giving evaluative feedback, teachers use words and phrases to indicate the extent to which students' performance is good or not Finally, strategic feedback usually aims to offer students advice on what to do to improve their performance In other word, the teachers try to suggest ways of helping students to overcome their mistakes
Hattie and Timperley (2007) distinguish four levels of feedback: feedback about the task, about the processing of the task, about self-regulation, and about the self as a person
Firstly, feedback about the task includes information about errors, about the depth or quality of the work, about a need for more information, or about neatness or format
Secondly, Feedback about process gives students information about how they approached the task, information about the relationship between what they did and the quality of their performance, and information about possible alternative strategies that would also be useful Thirdly, self-regulation is the process students use to monitor and control their own learning Self-regulation can lead to students seeking, accepting, and acting on feedback information—or not Finally, feedback about the person is generally not a good idea because it is not formative The feedback about the person can contribute to students' belief that intelligence is fixed This implies that achievement is something beyond the students' control The belief that intelligence is fixed removes the connection between student effort and achievement (Dweck, 2007)
Schachter "(1991) considers corrective feedback, negative feedback and positive feedback three terms used in the field of language teaching, language acquisition and cognitive psychology Corrective feedback is used to correct the students' mistake Positive feedback shows learners that the teacher is interested in what they say and at the same time encourage them Though, negative feedback expresses the teacher's displeasure, frustration or involves some kinds of punishment towards the students' bad performance
According to Bichener et al (2005), the feedback can be explicit or implicit The explicit feedback includes grammatical explanation or overt error correction The implicit feedback refers to the situation when teachers point out an error without correct form provision containing confirmation checks, repetition, recasts, classification request, silence and even facial expression that express confusion
Personally, among many ways of categorizing teacher feedback in speaking, the researcher is interested in the classification of the feedback into three types as corrective, evaluative and strategic by Gattullo (2000) and Harmer (2001) because it is considered the most appropriate for the situation of this study Through questionnaire and interview, this study aims to find out how these types of teacher feedback influence the students‟ motivation in speaking
Thus, the use of appropriate types of feedback can be viewed as a significant in enhancing students learning The following part will mention how the teacher's feedback affects the students motivation in the speaking lessons
1.3.3 Effects of the teacher's feedback on students' motivation in speaking lessons
Within L2/foreign language learning research, there is a tendency to conceive the teacher‟s feedback as positive effects in speaking lessons Specifically, Nugrahenny‟s study (2007) aims to explore students' attitudes towards teacher feedback A total of 100 students participated in filling in the questionnaires and 21 of them were interviewed using a semi-structured format In addition, there were 20 teachers who completed the questionnaires and 10 of them were interviewed using the same semi-structured format
The finding shows that generally teachers and students have a marked preference for teacher feedback Interestingly, student preferences for teacher feedback also stemmed from their awareness that teachers control grades
In correspondence with Nurgrahenny's result (2007), most of the students participating in Salle (2011) and Chan (2008) recent studies show their preference to the teacher‟s feedback Both Salle (2011) and Chan (2008) share the idea that their students are motivated when being given feedback by the teacher not by peer In addition, students in Terese‟s study (2005) reflect that they are satisfied because their teachers always remember to give feedback during the lessons especially corrective and positive ones
Furthermore, they express the satisfaction when receiving positive feedback and their expectation that even when it is not positive one, it should be delivered in positive way
Since teachers play a crucial role in teaching and learning process, their behaviors have great influence on students‟ motivation According to Dornyei (2001), almost everything a teacher does in the classroom has a motivational influence on students, which makes teacher behavior a powerful „motivational tool‟ To be more detailed, Stipek (1996) mentions the effect of feedback on the students' motivation In his study, a reward, a positive and extremely evaluative type of feedback has had a great impact on intrinsic motivation Based on the studies reviewed, he summarizes that the effect of rewards is not straightforward Rewards undermine intrinsic interest to the degree that they are perceived to be controlling, and the controlling functions can be conveyed in variable and stable ways It means that when the information value of rewards is salient- when rewards are interpreted as conveying positive information about competence- they can actually increase intrinsic motivation
Schunk (1983) conducts an experiment to examine the effects of ability and effort attributional feedback on children The result shows that children who receive ability feedback only had the highest self-efficacy and perform best Actually, this study was particularly focused on one type of positive and evaluative feedback: encouragement It demonstrates the value of attribution theory in understanding the effect of this type of feedback on motivation However, the study is so focused; it does not examine the effects of other types of feedback, and how the effects of this type of feedback differ from the effects of other types
Hattie and Kimberly (2007) assert in their revision that "the teachers' feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning achievement" Frienmuth (1998) states that the teacher's feedback helps to "improve learners' accuracy and acquisition." To the researcher, the indispensable role of teachers' feedback can be shown in the fact that teacher's feedback reflects to students what and how they perform, showing them their strong points to strengthen as well as the weak points to improve Noticeably, when students have mistakes untreated, the defective language might serve as an input model and acquired by other students in the class In short, students without the teachers' feedback, run a high risk of losing their way Added to this, Moss (2002) proposes that teachers' feedback can speed up the process of language learning by providing information about rules and the limits of language use, which would otherwise take students a long time to deduce their own
METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the context and the subject of the study, the data collection instruments, the data collection procedure, and the data analysis procedure will be presented
This study is conducted at Hanoi University of Business and Technology (HUBT), a private university in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi, Vietnam HUBT is rather famous for providing good training in two main fields: business and technology Business involves several different majors such as Banking and Finance, Accounting, Business Administration and Commerce Of all, Accounting is the most chosen majors of HUBT
Every year there are approximately 1,000 new students enrolling in Faculty of Accountancy; this faculty hence receives a lot of attention of the university
At HUBT, English is considered an extremely important subject to all students regardless the majors they are learning; the students hence have to study English during three and a half years at HUBT and to complete 72 credits of English (equivalent to 1080 periods) before taking the Graduation examination by the end of the fourth year In addition, HUBT always looks for new ways to improve the quality of teaching and learning English Hence, in the school year 2010-2011, HUBT plans to pilot a new English course called DynEd with the freshmen (K15) DynEd is an English-learning software that allows students to learn English online so that they can practice English more at home, and teachers can easily manage their study records via the Internet With this program, hopefully, by the end of the first year, students can obtain 1.2- 1.5 in the placement test, which is equivalent to 550-650 TOEIC or A2-B1 in the Common European Framework
Specifically, students should be able to:
understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment)
communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters
describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need
understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly
deal with most situations likely to arise whilst traveling in an area where the language is spoken
produce simple connected text on topics that are familiar or of personal interest
describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans
Learning English has still some difficulties in general and in speaking in particular
For freshmen, English is taught three lessons per week Each lesson is divided into 2 parts: working with computers in the lab and learning 3 kills namely reading, speaking, writing in the normal classroom To be more detailed, in the lab, the direct interaction between students-students and teacher-students is limited because most of the time students spend time practicing with computers: listen and answer the questions shown in the video, and then shadow and record their own voice to compare with the native speakers As a result, students hardly receive the teacher's feedback except for listening to the instruction and the knowledge of vocabulary and grammar In classroom, the most common activities in speaking lessons are individual and pairs work with the same frame activities for all weeks during the semester Therefore, they feel demotivated because they have to follow the same steps, to perform the same activities and to do the same tasks given in the handouts
What is more, to prepare for students to learn English well, about 20 multi-media classrooms are settled In each of these classrooms, there are computers, projectors, and screens In addition, high quality equipment (e.g CD-players, tape players, and reference books) is also available Each week, students will have one video lesson that focuses on practicing listening skills and pronunciation Moreover, on average, there are about 30 students in each English class, which is a good size for a language class
The assessment is based on two examinations per each semester namely End-of- semester exam and Computer-based Multiple-choice Test At the End-of-semester exam, students‟ four English skills, Speaking-Listening-Writing-Reading are assessed After that, students will take Computer-based Multiple-choice test consisting of 120 multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes All multiple-choice questions are based on what students have learnt in the course books
English teachers at HUBT graduated from different universities in Vietnam Moreover, most of them are very young, enthusiastic, and dynamic Nevertheless, some of the teachers were not trained to be teachers For those teachers classroom management is difficult, especially when some pedagogical situations happen
Initially all 300 first- year students (equivalent with 30 classes) who are studying the first year in Faculty of Accountancy at HUBT were invited to participate in this study All of those students were born in 1990 or 1991 They come from different parts of Vietnam (from rural/mountainous areas to big cities) That explains why they have experienced different methods of instructions and achieved different levels of English proficiency
These students have studied English for at least eight years, and are going to finish the first year of studying business English at HUBT at the time of the study (4 weeks before the end of the school year); thus, they are supposed to be familiar with the teaching and learning methods at HUBT However, all of them use Vietnamese in their daily conversations, and they rarely have chances to use English as a means of communication, except for some time in the classroom with teachers and classmates
300 freshmen at Faculty of Accountancy participating in the study are assumed by the researcher as more motivated to learn English and more proficient than those of other disciplines such as Architecture or Electricity because of present academic and future career requirements Therefore, this sample does not necessary present the whole population of the university Because of the scope of the study, the researcher tries to sketch one small aspect of teaching and learning speaking English of the freshmen at this department: effects of the teacher's feedback on their motivation
This study employs both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to get a more detailed and comprehensive picture about what is investigated
In this study, qualitative data is gained from semi-structured interviews and quantitative data is achieved from self-report questionnaire Self-report questionnaire is used in this study since motivation, as Dornyei (2001) states, is “an abstract term that refers to various internal processes and states It is therefore not subject to direct observation but must be inferred from some indirect indicator, such as the individual‟s self-report accounts” In order to ensure that the participants can understand correctly the content of the questionnaire and the interview, both of them are conducted in Vietnamese
The questionnaire consists of three parts The table 2 displays the structure of the questionnaire
Part I: Motivational Questionnaire The Motivational Questionnaire (Question 1) includes two compositions: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation Intrinsic motivation consist of 5 items (statements 2,4,6,8,10) and extrinsic motivation includes 5 items (statements 1,3,5,7,9) The Intrinsic-Extrinsic Motivational Questionnaire designed by Schmidt et al (1996) (see Appendix 4) is used as the base for the researcher to develop this questionnaire since Schmidt et al (1996) study focuses on intrinsic-extrinsic motivation of EFL adult learners in Egypt, which seems to be similar to the participants and context of this study However, it is too long to apply all the 20 items of Schmidt et al
(1996); hence, the writer only chose 10 items which most obviously indicate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors and also are most appropriate with Vietnamese students
Part II: Feedback questionnaire This part includes three questions (from question 2 to question 4) Question 2 (10 statements) is about the frequency of using three kinds of the teacher's feedback namely corrective feedback (statement 1,3,5,7), evaluative feedback (statement 6,8,9,10 ),and strategic feedback (statement 2,4 ) Questions 3 focuses on the effectiveness of three kinds of feedback mentioned above Specifically, the effectiveness of corrective feedback is mentioned in 4 statements (1,3,5,7), the effectiveness of evaluative includes 4 items (statement 6,8,9,10), and the effectiveness of strategic consists 2 items (statement 2,4 ) Question 4 is designed to find out the students' reaction to teacher's feedback on their speaking
Table 1: Structure of the students' questionnaire
Frequency of Corrective feedback Q2 (S1,S3,S5,S7) Frequency of Evaluative feedback Q2 (S6,S8,S9,S10) Frequency of Strategic feedback Q2 (S2,S4)
Freshmen's reaction to teacher's feedback on their speaking
The semi-structured interviews with 20 students who participated in doing the questionnaire are aimed to obtain more detailed and comprehensive information about freshmen's motivation in learning English and the effects of teacher's feedback on their motivation in speaking lessons
The questionnaire was first piloted to a small sample of 30 students to check its validity and reality The piloted questionnaire then was re-edited, and administered to 300 students four weeks before the end of school- year (2010-2011) Fortunately, 286 out of 300 questionnaires were returned
After the researcher analyzed the questionnaires, 20 student infromants were chosen to be interviewed, 10 of them were identified as extrinsically motivated learners and the other were intrinsically motivated These interviews were also conducted directly All the content of the interviews were typed into Words for analyzing
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this chapter, the students’ motivation in learning English in terms of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, as well the teacher's feedback affecting the students’ motivation in speaking English classes, which are reflected through the data of the conducted questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews, will be in focus This comprehensive analysis leads to a better understanding of the type of motivation and the kinds of feedbacks that affect the students' motivation to speak English, in turn, will lay a firm foundation for a discussion and further recommendations in the following part of the study
3.1 Findings 3.1.1 Freshmen's motivation in learning English
The questionnaire items were divided into two different categories, namely Intrinsic Motivation and Extrinsic Motivation The function DCOUNT was used to count the frequency of each answer choice, namely 1-Strongly Disagree (SD), 2-Disagree (D), 3- Undecided (U), 4-Agree (A), and 5-Strongly Agree (SA) of all the respondents to each item (1,2,3,4,etc.) in each category of the questionnaire The functions SUM and AVERAGE were applied to calculate the total number and the average number of participants choosing the choice SD, D, SD and D, U, A, SA, and A and SA Then the total number of SD and D and the total number of A and SA were compared
Table 2: Freshmen's motivations in learning English
1 I learn English because it is a compulsory subject at HUBT
3 I learn English in order to get a better job in the future
5 The main reason I am taking this class is that my parents/my teachers want me to improve my English
7 I need to learn English only to pass the exams at 10.5 16.8 3.5 65.7 3.5
9 I think everyone in Vietnam should be able to speak English
2 I really like learning English English lessons are very interesting
4 I enjoy learning English, because I know that learning English is important for me
6 Learning English is a hobby for me 34.2 34.6 0 21 9.9
8 I enjoy using English outside class whenever I have chances
10 I would take English class even if it were not required by HUBT
Clearly, the table 2 shows that freshmen at Faculty of Accountancy have a higher degree of extrinsic motivation than intrinsic motivation in learning English While 45.3% of students appeared to have intrinsic orientation in learning English, 71.7% seem to be extrinsically motivated Those statistics also show that a significant number of students possess a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in learning To be more detailed, the student‟s major reason for learning English is for the future jobs (100%), followed by the necessity of English in Vietnam‟s society (84.3%) In contrast, only 50% of students learn English because they think English is very interesting The following part will discuss more specifically these two types of students' motivation in speaking lessons
Generally, the results of the questionnaire and the interview show that the freshmen in Department of Accountancy possess strong extrinsic motivation in learning English The major reason that urges them to study English is for the good job in the future In addition, it can be concluded that the important role of English in the world nowadays is also a crucial factor motivating those students to learn English
To be more detailed, on average, 71.7 % students agreed and strongly agreed with the items measuring extrinsic motivation Of which, 100% participants agreed and totally agreed that they learned English in order to get a good job in the future 84.3% of them stated that everybody in Vietnam should be able to speak English 72.7% of students shared that they learned English because it is a compulsory subject at HUBT Learning English to pass the exams is also a statement chosen by many participants accounting for 69.2 % However, there are only 31.8% of participants agreeing and strongly agreeing that the only reason for learning English is because of their parents or teachers
Concerning the interview results, it is not surprising that all the interviewees claimed that they learned English for various practical goals such as getting a good job, improving the career future, or pursuing higher education overseas Take the following answers to the question “Why do you study English?” as examples
"English is good You had better spend at least 20% of your time to learn English Do not just focus on technique! If you want to find a good job, you'd better have a good basic in English " (S5)
“I have to learn English so that I can have a good job in the future ” (S7)
Nine out of twenty students joining the interview mentioned the importance of English as an international language Whereas, most of the students interviewing stated that learning English enables them to use the Internet easily as well as to integrate with English speaking people
"English is an international language Because it is the first language in the world, it helps us to deal with people when we travel to different countries." (S14)
"I think it is a must and a useful tool to communicate with friends all over the world " (S6)
"When Viet Nam has been a member of WTO, we should use English smoothly, so that we can be able to get modern knowledge to develop our economic Also, it is the shortest way for Vietnamese people to find a way developing Vietnamese economic with others!" (S9)
“I use the Internet very often, and English helps me to make use of Internet more easily I wish that I can read e-books, watch movies and listen to music in English on the Internet” (S10)
The table 2 also illustrates the frequency and the distribution of the items measuring intrinsic motivation to learn English of first-year students in Faculty of Accountancy
These reveal that students participating in this study have rather strong intrinsic orientation in learning English at HUBT 79.4% of participants revealed that the reason they enjoyed learning English was that they know it was very important for them 50% of students participating in this study claimed that they liked learning English and English lessons were very interesting 44.8% of students thought that they would take English classes even if it were not required by HUBT However, many of them (68.8%) revealed that they did not think English as their hobby Surprisingly, although many of students stated that they like learning English, 39.2% of them shared the view that they used English outside classrooms when they had chances
The results of the semi-structured interviews with participants help to understand more about students‟ intrinsic orientation in learning English at HUBT
Four out of twenty students interviewed stated that they learned English partly because they considered English an interesting language Take the following answers of some interviewers as examples
"At first I studied English just because it's one of my university subjects After that
I've found that I've studied English just to satisfy myself, I like it." (S14)
“English language is really great Maybe it is quite strange but I like listening to the sounds of English It is so melodic.”(S15)
" I like English, yes, I like it very much I really enjoy movies in English; I really enjoy reading novels in English." (S16)
"I love it! I love it due to my hobby and for my living But my spoken English is poor and I have been feared by it all the time." (S17)
It is quite surprising to find out after the interview that even those who claimed to be interested in learning English, were not willing to use English outside classrooms when they had chances It is revealed that the main reason is lack of self-confidence as S4 shared,
“I always know that I must practice English whenever I have chances in order to master English However, I do not feel self-confident enough to communicate with a foreigner I said to myself that “I must try!” but I didn’t do as I said.”
"I'm afraid of making mistakes whenever I speak to a stranger I feel very confused and I forgot everything that I learnt before."
3.1.2 Types of teacher's feedback and its effectiveness in speaking lessons
Question 2 in the questionnaire gives 10 statements about activities that the first-year students in the Faculty of Accountancy can experience during their speaking lessons
Based on the classification of Gattullo (2000) and Harmer (2001), the writer grouped the feedback into three large groups, namely corrective feedback, evaluative feedback and strategic feedback as in the following table:
Table 3: Kinds of the teacher's feedback in speaking lessons
1 Your teacher directly elicits the correct form from you and prompts you to self-correct
3 Your teacher repeats the ill-form part of your utterance by changing intonation to draw your attention
5 Your teacher directly corrects your mistakes
7 Your teacher clarifies your utterance by asking some questions such as "what do you mean by …? " or " Do you mean …?"
6 Your teacher complements on your good performance
8 Your teacher says that you are wrong
9 Your teacher criticizes you when you make the mistakes.
10 Your teacher gives comments to justify the grade that she/he gives to your speaking
2 Your teacher gives you advice to develop your strong points in your performance
4 Your teacher suggests ways of helping you to overcome your mistakes
During the speaking lessons for freshmen, the teacher uses three types of feedback in term of corrective feedback, evaluative feedback and strategic feedback to in an attempt to encourage their students' motivation However, these kinds of feedback are used with a different rate of frequency and with different degree of effectiveness towards students' motivation in speaking learning
3.1.2.1 Use of teacher feedback in speaking lessons