Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS factors demotivating students to participate in english speaking lessons at viet hung industrial university m a thesis linguistic

Rationales

It cannot be denied that English has become more and more important in every part of the world As a result, the need of having good ability of English also increases People want to communicate in English fluently, so they spend money and time attempting to learn it In Vietnam, English language’s role has gotten bigger and become a compulsory subject at every level of education (school, college and university)

Realizing the necessity of English in the development of the society in general and of each individual in particular, every learner wants to be competent in English and uses it to communicate with foreigners That’s why most schools now focus on developing students’ ability of speaking English Indeed, different skills (Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing) have certain roles in English language learning, but the final aim of learners is to use spoken language to communicate with other people Communication is a basic and necessary demand for everyone and people have to learn how to speak Moreover, speaking is considered having more important place than other skills Mastering speaking skill can reinforce learners to gain better achievement in other skills such as Listening, Reading, and Writing

Because of vital position of speaking, learners of English should have motivation and positive attitude to learning English speaking But contrary to popular belief, in the process of teaching and learning to speak English, students have to deal with a number of difficulties including the factors demotivating students to speak

In Viet-Hung University, speaking skill is also a focus However, a lot of them confide that they are not willing to take part in speaking lessons Obviously, there may exist certain factors that deter students from participating in speaking classes

In an attempt to find out the causes of the situation, the author had decided to attend some English speaking sessions She discovered that the students, most of the time, just like to listen and kept silent when being required to say something Even when the teachers tried to organize activities to stir up the atmosphere, no big changes ever happened Thus, it is a real challenge for them to get students to be involved teaching The idea of working out the factors that demotivate students to learn speaking skills has urged the author to embark on the study entitled

“Factors demotivating students to participate in English speaking lessons at Viet – Hung Industrial University” This study is valuable not only for teachers of

English but also for the learners who learn English Being aware of the factors that make learners less interested in speaking English, teachers can work out the way to encourage learners to enjoy learning The author hopes that with the results of this study, Viet-Hung University students will find English speaking lessons exciting and are willing to take part in.

Objectives of the study

The study is conducted to achieve three main objectives:

+ to investigate Viet-Hung University students’ attitudes to learning English speaking skills

+ to explore the factors that demotivate students of Viet-Hung University to get involved in the English speaking lessons

+ to recommend some solutions to remove these demotivating factors from English speaking sessions.

Scope of the study

Speaking skill is a large topic that consists of many aspects However, in this study, the author only focuses on the factors that make students of Viet-Hung

University uninterested in participating in English speaking lessons In addition, Viet-Hung Industrial University is a big university, so this minor thesis cannot get all students involved Instead, the author decides to randomly choose the second- year students of Banking and Financing Faculty as participants In addition, the University offers both English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses, but the characteristics of English in two courses are different and the demotivating factors may not be similar As a result, this research only focuses on the factors appearing in EGP She hopes that other aspects of speaking would be conducted on other groups of students by other researchers.

Methods

To reach the aims of the study, quantitative and qualitative methods have been used Firstly, quantitative approach is used to classify features, count them, and construct statistical models In this research, the quantitative data are gained form the two sets of questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students of Viet-Hung Industrial University The second method of analyzing the data is qualitative method According to Miles and Huberman (1994), qualitative approach is the one in which the researcher study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them Data for qualitative analysis is in the form of words, pictures or objects and instruments are often participant observation and in-depth interviews In this research, in order to obtain qualitative information conducts some short interviews with six teachers of English of the University for further information to support the thesis

This minor thesis consists of three parts:

 The first part presents the factors such as the rationale, objectives, scope, methods and design of the study

 The second part is the body of the study, in which a theoretical background, research methodology and results and discussions were presented

 The final part gives the summary of the study, the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further research related to English speaking skill and demotivation

PART TWO - DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW

In this part, the author would like to give short theoretical background of motivation, demotivation and some information related to speaking skill and speaking lessons

1.1 Theoretical background of speaking skill

In language teaching and learning, we often talk about the four language skills (Listening, Writing, Reading, and Speaking) in terms of their direction and modality Speaking is regarded as the way of measuring the language competence of a language user Thus, the ability of speaking fluently is more important than being good at reading, or writing As a result, the main aim of every system of education is to develop speaking skill among learners In this part, the author will present what speaking skill is, the nature of language skills, characteristics of speaking skill, and some theoretical information about speaking lessons

Speaking has the characteristics which are as follows:

To begin with, its form and meaning depend on the context in which it occurs The context consists of the participants and their experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking In other words, spoken language is context bound The interlocutors share the immediate within which the dialogue takes place; hence much information is implicit and assumed (McCathy, 1998)

The second characteristic is that speaking relies on the speakers’ understanding of common conventional expressions for communicating specific meanings, particularly on the language environment apart from such aspects as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary

That speech has its own skills, structures, and conventions is the third characteristic It means that skills, structures and conventions of speech are different from the written language In his book, Bygate (1987) said that “The words are being spoken as they are being decided and as they are being understood.” The fact that the words are spoken and decided at the same time has big effect on the speaker’s ability to plan and organize the message and to control the language being used Indeed, the length and complexity of spoken sentences cannot be the same as the ones in written ones because the speakers do not have as much time to plan and prepare as the writers Moreover, speakers often make more mistakes in their utterances than the writers in terms of both the message and the words We may forget what we intend to say and repeat what we have already mentioned The words are also being spoken as they are being understood When the sentences are uttered, they go immediately They cannot be reread like in writing, which can lead to misunderstanding when the listeners miss some part of what the speakers have said because of the noise, or a moment’s distraction

The last characteristic is that speaking is considered an undervalued skill in many ways (Bygate 1987) The reason is that almost all people can speak and try to speak He also states that speaking should get as much attention as literacy skills Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out the basic transactions Moreover, in most speaking, the person to whom we are speaking is in front of us and be able to put us right if we make mistakes He is the speaker’s listener who generally shows agreement and understanding, or incomprehension Thus, speakers need to have patience and imagination, too He has to take notice of the way the listeners feel and behave by giving them chance to speak At the same time they can play the role of the listeners and the speaker

By this way a listener can help the speaker be more improved and competent because a listener can give learners models to utilize when acting a speaker In addition, being a hearer first helps the learner appreciate the difficulties inherent in the task It is clear that giving a speaker experience in a hearer’s role is more helpful than simple practice in tasks in which a speaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task requires

In short, speaking is the key to communication In order to help the learners to be competent in speaking skills, teachers should be good at how to conduct the speaking activities, what task to use in the class

1.1.2 The roles of speaking in ELT

Speaking is a productive skill which is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words In fact, the ability to operate in a second language can be measured by the ability to speak that language Thus, as mentioned before, of our skills, speaking is considered the most important for the following reasons:

Firstly, the final aim of learning a language is to use it to communicate with the others Communication is regarded as the basic demand of human Thus, to talk with other people, we should learn how to speak Learners need this skill to be competent so that they can establish and maintain relationship, negotiate and influence other people as well

Another reason is that, on the one hand, in order for every language learner to speak a foreign language, it’s necessary for them to know certain amount of grammar and vocabulary which help build the form of the ideas In fact, on the other hand, a lot of language learners are quite competent in grammar and have good knowledge of vocabulary, but they do not know how to produce good utterances or speech In this case, speaking skill plays its role

In short, to master English speaking skill successfully needs the attempts of both teacher and student themselves While it is considered to be the final aim of English teaching and learning process, it should be put among three other skills and the aspects of language (grammar and vocabulary)

1.2 Theoretical background of demotivation 1.2.1 Conception of demotivation

In foreign language learning, motivation has been considered an intricate construct which encourages learners to act to achieve one or some certain goals

Although the competence in using L2 is the final target of the learning process, the nature of motivation is not simple at all The terms motivation is quite familiar and has been studied by many researchers When discussing about motivation, people often think of the term “demotivation” to which not much attention has been paid up to now There are, however, researchers who are interested in the term Dửrnyei (2001:143) defined demotivation as “concerns specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action”

So to him demotivation could be understood as the negative counterpart of motivation Deci and Ryan (1985) use a similar term “amotivation”, which means

“the relative absence of motivation that is not caused by a lack of initial interest but rather by the individual’s experiencing feelings of incompetence and helplessness when faced with the activity.” Both of these terms means lack of motivation, but a- motivation is related to general outcomes expectations which, to some extent, are unrealistic for some reason whereas de-motivation concerns specific external causes

Dửrnyei points out that de-motivation does not mean that all the positive influences that originally made up the motivational basis of a behavior have been got rid of It only means that a strong negative factor restrains the present motivation with some other positive motives still remain ready to be activated

1.2.2 The concept of demotivation as identified in previous studies

LITERATURE REVIEW

Theoretical background of speaking skill

In language teaching and learning, we often talk about the four language skills (Listening, Writing, Reading, and Speaking) in terms of their direction and modality Speaking is regarded as the way of measuring the language competence of a language user Thus, the ability of speaking fluently is more important than being good at reading, or writing As a result, the main aim of every system of education is to develop speaking skill among learners In this part, the author will present what speaking skill is, the nature of language skills, characteristics of speaking skill, and some theoretical information about speaking lessons

Speaking has the characteristics which are as follows:

To begin with, its form and meaning depend on the context in which it occurs The context consists of the participants and their experiences, the physical environment, and the purposes for speaking In other words, spoken language is context bound The interlocutors share the immediate within which the dialogue takes place; hence much information is implicit and assumed (McCathy, 1998)

The second characteristic is that speaking relies on the speakers’ understanding of common conventional expressions for communicating specific meanings, particularly on the language environment apart from such aspects as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary

That speech has its own skills, structures, and conventions is the third characteristic It means that skills, structures and conventions of speech are different from the written language In his book, Bygate (1987) said that “The words are being spoken as they are being decided and as they are being understood.” The fact that the words are spoken and decided at the same time has big effect on the speaker’s ability to plan and organize the message and to control the language being used Indeed, the length and complexity of spoken sentences cannot be the same as the ones in written ones because the speakers do not have as much time to plan and prepare as the writers Moreover, speakers often make more mistakes in their utterances than the writers in terms of both the message and the words We may forget what we intend to say and repeat what we have already mentioned The words are also being spoken as they are being understood When the sentences are uttered, they go immediately They cannot be reread like in writing, which can lead to misunderstanding when the listeners miss some part of what the speakers have said because of the noise, or a moment’s distraction

The last characteristic is that speaking is considered an undervalued skill in many ways (Bygate 1987) The reason is that almost all people can speak and try to speak He also states that speaking should get as much attention as literacy skills Learners often need to be able to speak with confidence in order to carry out the basic transactions Moreover, in most speaking, the person to whom we are speaking is in front of us and be able to put us right if we make mistakes He is the speaker’s listener who generally shows agreement and understanding, or incomprehension Thus, speakers need to have patience and imagination, too He has to take notice of the way the listeners feel and behave by giving them chance to speak At the same time they can play the role of the listeners and the speaker

By this way a listener can help the speaker be more improved and competent because a listener can give learners models to utilize when acting a speaker In addition, being a hearer first helps the learner appreciate the difficulties inherent in the task It is clear that giving a speaker experience in a hearer’s role is more helpful than simple practice in tasks in which a speaker is having real difficulties in appreciating what a particular task requires

In short, speaking is the key to communication In order to help the learners to be competent in speaking skills, teachers should be good at how to conduct the speaking activities, what task to use in the class

1.1.2 The roles of speaking in ELT

Speaking is a productive skill which is more complicated than it seems at first and involves more than just pronouncing words In fact, the ability to operate in a second language can be measured by the ability to speak that language Thus, as mentioned before, of our skills, speaking is considered the most important for the following reasons:

Firstly, the final aim of learning a language is to use it to communicate with the others Communication is regarded as the basic demand of human Thus, to talk with other people, we should learn how to speak Learners need this skill to be competent so that they can establish and maintain relationship, negotiate and influence other people as well

Another reason is that, on the one hand, in order for every language learner to speak a foreign language, it’s necessary for them to know certain amount of grammar and vocabulary which help build the form of the ideas In fact, on the other hand, a lot of language learners are quite competent in grammar and have good knowledge of vocabulary, but they do not know how to produce good utterances or speech In this case, speaking skill plays its role

In short, to master English speaking skill successfully needs the attempts of both teacher and student themselves While it is considered to be the final aim of English teaching and learning process, it should be put among three other skills and the aspects of language (grammar and vocabulary).

Theoretical background of demotivation

In foreign language learning, motivation has been considered an intricate construct which encourages learners to act to achieve one or some certain goals

Although the competence in using L2 is the final target of the learning process, the nature of motivation is not simple at all The terms motivation is quite familiar and has been studied by many researchers When discussing about motivation, people often think of the term “demotivation” to which not much attention has been paid up to now There are, however, researchers who are interested in the term Dửrnyei (2001:143) defined demotivation as “concerns specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action”

So to him demotivation could be understood as the negative counterpart of motivation Deci and Ryan (1985) use a similar term “amotivation”, which means

“the relative absence of motivation that is not caused by a lack of initial interest but rather by the individual’s experiencing feelings of incompetence and helplessness when faced with the activity.” Both of these terms means lack of motivation, but a- motivation is related to general outcomes expectations which, to some extent, are unrealistic for some reason whereas de-motivation concerns specific external causes

Dửrnyei points out that de-motivation does not mean that all the positive influences that originally made up the motivational basis of a behavior have been got rid of It only means that a strong negative factor restrains the present motivation with some other positive motives still remain ready to be activated

1.2.2 The concept of demotivation as identified in previous studies

Up to now, there have been studies of linguists about demotivating factors to students’ learning English In this study, however, the author just introduces two of them, by Dửrnyei and Oxford

1.2.2.1 Demotivating factors identified by Dửrnyei

Unlike other studies about demotivation, Dửrnyei’s focused on learners who had been identified as being particularly demotivated by their teachers and friends

To collect the data, Dửrnyei (1998b, as cited in Dửrnyei, 2001) conducted structured long interviews (10-13 minutes) with 50 pupils of various secondary schools who study either German or English as foreign language These were one-to-one interviews and the interviewers were to ask at any time during the interviews and the interviewees could use as much free speech as possible The data collected from the recorded interviews were analyzed, following a theme-based processing procedure Based on this procedure, nine demotivating factors were identified as follows:

1 The teacher (personality, commitment, competence, teaching method);

2 Inadequate school facilities (group is too big or not the right level, frequent change of teachers);

3 Reduced self-confidence (experience of failure or lack of success);

6 Interference of another foreign language being studied;

9 Course-book Among the nine categories of demotivation, teacher was the most frequent source which included teacher’s personality, commitment to teaching, his or her competence in language and teaching methods In the study, it is reported that the teacher shouted in every lesson In addition, the teacher was not enthusiastic enough because he or she didn’t go to class when it rained More importantly, the teacher built up in learners the negative attitude to learning which was that learning in just one or two lessons a week was not enough and that they did not need to try hard Moreover, the teacher paid more attention on the students he or she liked

The second source was the inadequate school facilities which indicated that in that the class was too big and the students were not of the same level Some were the beginners; the others knew some German already In addition, learners were demotivated by the changing of teachers frequently and each of them tried out new methods, which made them tired

Reduced self-confidence was the third source of demotivation Learners were confident at the beginning, but this reduced because they were not satisfied with the grades they got One learner reported that he/she frequently received marks C or D, and just some As Moreover, his/her self-confidence was reduced due to the teacher’s behaviour as he/she was often “picked on” by the teacher

The fourth source of demotivation was that learners did not have positive attitude towards the L2, which was illustrated by the extract of one learner “At the beginning I studied quite hard but I realized that I did not like the whole structure of the German language, the grammar…” He/She felt that this language was incomprehensive because of its sound and structure

Compulsory nature of L2 study was at the fifth place It means that learners had to choose a language to study even when they preferred the others In the extract, one learner confided that he/she was asked to learn German because it was popular and used by many people

The sixth source was the interference of another foreign language being learned This caused demotivation in two ways Firstly, English and German are similar and there were mixing up between two languages The evident was that “I keep saying German words instead of English” Secondly, German was not as popular as English and it was learned when students could speak English already

Thus, learners felt like using English to communicate more than the other

The negative attitude towards L2 community came seventh This source was illustrated by the fact that American culture with some of its symbols like McDonalds and films seemed unattractive to the learners

Attitudes of group members was the eighth source of demotivation It was demonstrated by one learner that he/she felt embarrassed when speaking English and that he/she felt like being laughed by other group members Students often had the feeling of embarrassing in English classes as their English level of competence was low

The last source of demotivation was the bad coursebook The book used was thought to be the worse one in comparison with some materials the students knew

Among nine categories of source of demotivation, teacher was the most frequent one (accounting for 40%) Specially, 15% of the corresponding occurrences were the learner’s reduced self-confidence which was considered related to teacher’s control in class Other two categories, inadequate school facilities and negative attitude towards the L2, were also significant (with the proportion of more than 10%)

1.2.2.2 Demotivating factors identified by Oxford

Rebecca Oxford (1998, as cited in Dửrnyei, 2001) carried out a study on the essays of approximately 250 American students, both in secondary and universities

The participants were asked to write about their experiences in learning over a period of five years During the time of the investigation, some prompts were given in order to ease the task such as “Describe a situation in which you experienced conflict with a teacher” and “Talk about a classroom in which you felt uncomfortable” After the data were analyzed, four themes were presented

METHODOLOGY

Research questions

The minor thesis aims at answering the following questions:

1 What is students’ attitude toward learning to speak English in class?

2 What factors demotivate students at Viet-Hung Industrial University to participate in English speaking lessons?

3 What should be done to help the students overcome these problems and desire to be parts of the English speaking lessons?

3.2 Data collection and analysis 3.2.1 Data collection

In order to obtain the data, the author carried out two sets of questionnaires, one for 14 teachers and the other for 150 students To get additional information and illustrations she invited 6 out of 14 teachers to attend semi-structured interviews

To begin with, the author translated the students’ questionnaires into Vietnamese to assure that every question was fully understood and answered Then with the teachers’ permission, the questionnaires for both students and teachers were delivered For the interviews, the author had to make appointments with the six randomly chosen teachers according to their schedules During the interviews, their responses were written down

The information collected from the three sources was first read carefully and then analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively The data from the questionnaires were displayed in the tables and charts and the information from the interviews and class attending was presented in notes and quotations

In order to get the reliable data, the author decides to choose the probability method of sampling It means that all the participants, both teachers and students are randomly selected In random sampling, each member of the population under study has an equal chance of being taken into research and the probability of a member of the population being selected has no affection on the selection of other members of population (Cohen, 2007) The number of participants of the study consists of 150 students of Banking and Financing who are at the second year (K35) and 14 full- time teachers who teach English at Viet-Hung University The author randomly selects the second-year students of the Faculty of Banking and Financing from a list of 8 faculties because English is said to be paid lots of attention in this faculty

Moreover, they are on the way with the second term of English All the 150 students of K35 are chosen to participate in the study, 132 of whom are female and only 18 students are male They are from different areas throughout Vietnam, but most of them are at the age of 19 or 20, so they belong to the same psychological age group

They like speaking English, but this desire has been lost gradually

The second group of participants consists of 14 full-time Vietnamese teachers of English at Viet-Hung Industrial University Among these 14 teachers, 12 of them are female and the other 2 are males Only one of them is over 40 and the other 13 teachers are at the age of ranging from 30 to 40 12 of these teachers are from the North of Vietnam and two from a central province Although most of the chosen teachers are all quite young, 1 of them has Doctor Degree, 8 have MA Degree of English and the other 5 have got University Bachelor’s of English Only

4 of them have been teaching English for more than 15 years, 3 of them from 10 to

14 years, and 7 of them from 5 to 10 years Although some of these teachers do not have a long time of teaching, all of them are believed to have new method of teaching English effectively, especially speaking skill

The data in the research are obtained from two questionnaires, one for students and the other is for teachers, the interviews for teachers

To begin with, both questionnaires have eight questions

The questionnaire for students is in Vietnamese so that all respondents can understand and give reliable responses It consists of the following main points:

- Students’ opinions to learning to speak English

- Students’ reasons for learning to speak English

- Whether students are motivated or demotivated to speak English in class

- Factors that discourage students to participate in English speaking lessons

- To what extend do these factors affect students to participate into English speaking lessons

- What should be done to reduce demotivation Another questionnaire is designed to get the information from teachers of English of the university It is in English, but the information is quite similar to the one in the student’s because the author would like to have the responses from two groups of subjects to the same problems The questionnaire covers the aspects as follows:

- Teachers’ opinion on the role of speaking skill in English language learning

- Factors that discourage their students to participate in their English speaking lessons

- What solutions they recommend to help reduce these factors Second, the researcher decides to interview some teachers of English of the University to get more necessary information as well as reinforce the data obtained from the questionnaires The interviews cover the following points:

- Students’ attitude to English speaking

- Factors that discourage their students to participate into their English speaking lessons

- What solutions they recommend to help reduce these factors

In this part of the study the author would like to introduce some prominent information about English courses at Viet-Hung Industrial University, its students and teachers

To begin with, Viet-Hung is a big university which consists of various levels of training and majors It was founded in 1977 as a Vocational High School Then in 2005 it was upgraded to Viet-Hung college of Industry, and became Viet-Hung

Industrial University in 2010 Although the University offers credit-based training courses, students do not register for subject they would like to learn Instead, they follow the arrangement given by the University Students at Faculty of Banking and Financing learn English for the first two years and, like students of other faculties, the number of credit they have to attend is 10, 7 of which are for English for General Purposes (EGP) and the other 3 for English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Each week they have two lessons of English, each of which lasts for 3 periods

Speaking accounts for 2 out of 6 periods in total In these lessons, the focus skill is speaking Students are taught both speaking contents from the core book and supplementary Like many other universities, Viet-Hung Industrial University is orientating at developing English communicating skills among students Then after four semesters, students are expected to be capable of communicating naturally with other people in English With this amount of time, however, being fluent in speaking English seems so difficult for students and this is also a challenging task for teachers of English of the University

In terms of the course-book, as mentioned before, like many other universities in Vietnam, Viet-Hung Industrial University offers both EGP and ESP courses The textbook for EGP course is New English File (Pre-Intermediate), in which speaking is distributed in every section of each unit Besides, an additional book, Let’s Talk 2 is also used to develop students’ speaking skill Although this is not the main course book, oral tasks which are relevant to the topics in the book New English File are introduced to students for further discussions The number of the periods for the topics in this book is not fixed Instead, teacher decides when and how long they use the book, depending on the topics they have

Since English in Vietnam is a foreign language learned mainly in classrooms, the role of a teacher becomes highly significant as the main source and facilitator of knowledge and skills In Viet-Hung Industrial University there are 14 full-time teachers of English and 4 teachers who work part-time In this research, the author only subjects to the full-time teachers who spend more time with students

As mentioned before, Viet-Hung Industrial University students come from different parts of the country, but mostly from the Northern provinces of Vietnam

All of them had learnt English before, but with different length of time Moreover, at primary and secondary levels, books are designed to cover all aspects of language and skills, but teachers tend to put more emphasis on grammar and vocabulary than communication Consequently, after graduating from schools, most of them did not feel confident in communicating with others Teachers of English at the University may suffer in the way that whenever they ask students to speak in class, their students just kept silent, or even worse they felt frightened to speak out their thoughts and ideas.

Subjects

In order to get the reliable data, the author decides to choose the probability method of sampling It means that all the participants, both teachers and students are randomly selected In random sampling, each member of the population under study has an equal chance of being taken into research and the probability of a member of the population being selected has no affection on the selection of other members of population (Cohen, 2007) The number of participants of the study consists of 150 students of Banking and Financing who are at the second year (K35) and 14 full- time teachers who teach English at Viet-Hung University The author randomly selects the second-year students of the Faculty of Banking and Financing from a list of 8 faculties because English is said to be paid lots of attention in this faculty

Moreover, they are on the way with the second term of English All the 150 students of K35 are chosen to participate in the study, 132 of whom are female and only 18 students are male They are from different areas throughout Vietnam, but most of them are at the age of 19 or 20, so they belong to the same psychological age group

They like speaking English, but this desire has been lost gradually

The second group of participants consists of 14 full-time Vietnamese teachers of English at Viet-Hung Industrial University Among these 14 teachers, 12 of them are female and the other 2 are males Only one of them is over 40 and the other 13 teachers are at the age of ranging from 30 to 40 12 of these teachers are from the North of Vietnam and two from a central province Although most of the chosen teachers are all quite young, 1 of them has Doctor Degree, 8 have MA Degree of English and the other 5 have got University Bachelor’s of English Only

4 of them have been teaching English for more than 15 years, 3 of them from 10 to

14 years, and 7 of them from 5 to 10 years Although some of these teachers do not have a long time of teaching, all of them are believed to have new method of teaching English effectively, especially speaking skill.

Instruments

The data in the research are obtained from two questionnaires, one for students and the other is for teachers, the interviews for teachers

To begin with, both questionnaires have eight questions

The questionnaire for students is in Vietnamese so that all respondents can understand and give reliable responses It consists of the following main points:

- Students’ opinions to learning to speak English

- Students’ reasons for learning to speak English

- Whether students are motivated or demotivated to speak English in class

- Factors that discourage students to participate in English speaking lessons

- To what extend do these factors affect students to participate into English speaking lessons

- What should be done to reduce demotivation Another questionnaire is designed to get the information from teachers of English of the university It is in English, but the information is quite similar to the one in the student’s because the author would like to have the responses from two groups of subjects to the same problems The questionnaire covers the aspects as follows:

- Teachers’ opinion on the role of speaking skill in English language learning

- Factors that discourage their students to participate in their English speaking lessons

- What solutions they recommend to help reduce these factors Second, the researcher decides to interview some teachers of English of the University to get more necessary information as well as reinforce the data obtained from the questionnaires The interviews cover the following points:

- Students’ attitude to English speaking

- Factors that discourage their students to participate into their English speaking lessons

- What solutions they recommend to help reduce these factors

The research context

In this part of the study the author would like to introduce some prominent information about English courses at Viet-Hung Industrial University, its students and teachers

To begin with, Viet-Hung is a big university which consists of various levels of training and majors It was founded in 1977 as a Vocational High School Then in 2005 it was upgraded to Viet-Hung college of Industry, and became Viet-Hung

Industrial University in 2010 Although the University offers credit-based training courses, students do not register for subject they would like to learn Instead, they follow the arrangement given by the University Students at Faculty of Banking and Financing learn English for the first two years and, like students of other faculties, the number of credit they have to attend is 10, 7 of which are for English for General Purposes (EGP) and the other 3 for English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

Each week they have two lessons of English, each of which lasts for 3 periods

Speaking accounts for 2 out of 6 periods in total In these lessons, the focus skill is speaking Students are taught both speaking contents from the core book and supplementary Like many other universities, Viet-Hung Industrial University is orientating at developing English communicating skills among students Then after four semesters, students are expected to be capable of communicating naturally with other people in English With this amount of time, however, being fluent in speaking English seems so difficult for students and this is also a challenging task for teachers of English of the University

In terms of the course-book, as mentioned before, like many other universities in Vietnam, Viet-Hung Industrial University offers both EGP and ESP courses The textbook for EGP course is New English File (Pre-Intermediate), in which speaking is distributed in every section of each unit Besides, an additional book, Let’s Talk 2 is also used to develop students’ speaking skill Although this is not the main course book, oral tasks which are relevant to the topics in the book New English File are introduced to students for further discussions The number of the periods for the topics in this book is not fixed Instead, teacher decides when and how long they use the book, depending on the topics they have

Since English in Vietnam is a foreign language learned mainly in classrooms, the role of a teacher becomes highly significant as the main source and facilitator of knowledge and skills In Viet-Hung Industrial University there are 14 full-time teachers of English and 4 teachers who work part-time In this research, the author only subjects to the full-time teachers who spend more time with students

As mentioned before, Viet-Hung Industrial University students come from different parts of the country, but mostly from the Northern provinces of Vietnam

All of them had learnt English before, but with different length of time Moreover, at primary and secondary levels, books are designed to cover all aspects of language and skills, but teachers tend to put more emphasis on grammar and vocabulary than communication Consequently, after graduating from schools, most of them did not feel confident in communicating with others Teachers of English at the University may suffer in the way that whenever they ask students to speak in class, their students just kept silent, or even worse they felt frightened to speak out their thoughts and ideas.

DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

Data analysis of students’ response

 Students’ attitude to the importance of learning to speak English:

Chart 1: Students‟ attitude to the importance of learning to speak English

As can be seen from the chart, most students think that learning to speak English is important, accounting for 71.3%, while 28.7% of the students do not regard speaking an important part in their process of learning English It is evident that the majority of students is aware of the importance of speaking skill and would like to be good at it However, they have different reasons for learning to speak English

 Students’ reasons for learning to speak English:

Why is this skill important to you?

C To fulfill the requirements of the University

D To get good job in the future

E To be admired and respected by friends and teachers

Chart 2: Students‟ reasons for learning to speak English

Some students can have more than one reason of learning to speak English, so in this question the responders can choose more than one option As being shown in the chart, students’ learning to speak English to get good marks and to meet the requirements of the University are the most important reasons, making up 65.3% and 53%, respectively 46% students think that they should learn to speak English so as to have a satisfactory career in the future, and only 5% of them decide to learn to speak the language to get admiration and respect from friends and teachers It is clear that there is some extrinsic motivation among these students

 Students’ attitude to the participation in English speaking lessons

Chart 3: Students‟ attitude to the participation in English speaking lessons

The above chart clearly indicates that the majority of investigated students are not interested participating in the English speaking lessons This number accounts for 81.3% Meanwhile, 18.7% of these students believe that they feel like working in the lessons There must be factors that demotivate them to work in class and they are all discussed in the next question

 Students’ opinions on factors demotivating them to participate in English speaking lessons

Once again, in this question participants can choose more than one answer, which means that their desire of participating into English speaking lessons may be affected by more than one factor The details are shown in the following table, which helps readers identify the demotivators and how much they affect students’ willingness to be parts of the speaking lessons

1 Teacher a We are often interrupted by the teacher when presenting if we makes mistakes, even the minor ones

0% 10% 0.6% 0% 10.6% b Teacher does not allow students to ask questions after each presentation

4.6% 6.6% 0% 0% 11.3% c Teacher is usually at his/her seat, so it is not convenient for us to ask for help from him/her

12.7% 40% 10% 2% 65% d Teacher does not often give clear enough explanation and instruction before each task, so we frequently do not know what to do

0.6% 41.3% 13.3% 7.3% 66% e Teacher sometimes speaks very fast, so we can not understand him/her much

3.3% 26.7% 30% 10.7% 70.6% f Teacher’s language competence is not good enough

0% 0.6% 2.7% 0% 3% g Teacher is so yielding that he or she can not maintain discipline in class

1.3% 3.3% 1.3% 0.6% 6% h Teacher is not friendly, so teacher and students’ relationship is not good

7.3% 0.6% 0% 0% 8% i Teacher does not care whether we work or not because he/she is often busy to do his/her own work

2.6% 13.3% 3.3% 0.6% 20% j Teacher often criticizes us when we say something wrong

Classroom a The class is not equipped with necessary facilities such as computers and projector

4% 6.6% 14.7% 1.3% 26.6% b The class is so large, so teacher can not pay equal attention to all students

3 Students’ self- confidence a We often feel embarrassed when speaking because my pronunciation is not good and maybe my classmates do not understand me

4.7% 11.3% 41.3% 13.3% 70.6% b We seldom get good grades for speaking test 0.6% 6.6% 8.7% 0.6% 16.6%

4 Students’ language competence a When we listen to my classmates’ presentation, we don’t understand because our listening is not very good

8% 15.3% 40% 3.3% 68% b Our ability of speaking English is not good

5 Students’ attitudes a English is not my favorite L2 language 0% 4% 13.3% 0% 17.3% towards English b English is not very important for my future career, so it is unworthy wasting so much time on learning it

6 Teaching and learning materials a The oral tasks, all of which are taken from the course book, are often so difficult and are not suitable with our ability

1.3% 7.3% 0.6% 0.6% 10% b Most of the speaking topics are not of our interest

4% 31.3% 20% 4.7% 60% c The speaking tasks do not help us much for our future job

Table 1: Students‟ opinions on factors demotivating them to participate in

Unlike the previous studies about demotivators, in this research, not only teacher but the other factors also have great influence on students’ performance in English speaking lessons Firstly, teacher has considerable influence on students’ willingness in class In terms of teacher’s language competence, we can see that teachers’ fast speed of speaking dramatically demotivates students, accounting for 70.6% Especially, nearly half of them agree that they are affected much 26.7% think that this factor does not affect them much 10.7% and 3.3% respond that this factor has great and little influence on their desire of participating in class Although teacher’s voice is a big source of students’ demotivation to speak English, only 3% of the students think that his/her general language competence is not good enough to help them with difficult grammatical items and vocabulary Regarding to the teacher’s method of teaching speaking, teacher’s unclear and inadequate explanation for the tasks and the inconvenience in asking for help from teacher should be taken into consideration They make up 66% and 65%, respectively But most of them are for the point of view that the two factors do not affect them much

In addition, the statistics reveal the demotivation originating from different aspects of teacher’s personality, but not seriously

Secondly, discussing about classroom, there are two points that should be taken notice of They are classroom facilities and class size Nevertheless, they are not considered to be big sources The evidence is that only 30% of the students complain that the big class makes them reluctant and 26.6% are convinced that they are affected by the inadequate facilities in the classroom More interestingly, not many of them are seriously influenced

Students’ self-confidence is the third source of demotivation Students often have the feeling of embarrassing in English classes as their English level of competence was low 70.6% of the participants support this point of view, of which 41.3% are affected much The other percentages, 4.7%, 11.3% and 13.3%, are for the other three degrees, little, not much and very much, respectively Although students’ poor language competence is acknowledged as an important factor of demotivation, not many students are concerned about their unsatisfactory marks for speaking tests Only 16.6% think this factor makes them unwilling to take part in the lessons However, most of them believe they are affected much It is clear that their demotivation is closely related to their purposes of learning English speaking which is previously mentioned, meaning that they learn speaking mainly to get good mark and to fulfill the University’s requirements

Fourthly, as stated before, this research finds out that the thing that has the biggest influence on students’ demotivation is students’ language competence In details, the biggest factor is students’ poor ability of speaking, making up 71.3%

They agree that they cannot express what they really want to say in English

Besides, 68% of the participants respond that their difficulty in listening to the speakers discourages them to act in speaking class The noticeable point in this part is that most of the students choosing these factors lead the belief that they influence them much Obviously, students’ background knowledge plays an important part in motivating students to speak English

The next source of demotivation the author would like to analyze is students’ attitudes towards English This field does not need to take much discussion because all the respondents are aware of the necessary of good knowledge of English in their future career However, 17.3% acknowledge that they would like to learn other foreign languages rather than English and 13.3% of 150 students report to experience great effect of this factor

The last source of demotivation that emerges in the research is teaching and learning materials While only 10% find the oral tasks difficult for them, and 20% complain that the tasks are not helpful for their future job, 60% criticized the topics for not being of their interests Nevertheless, the majority of them admit that these demotivators do not affect them much

To sum up, students’ willingness of taking part in English speaking lessons is reported to be influenced by a variety of sources However, the recognized demotivating factors vary among different students and of various levels

In accordance with the demotivating factors, some probable solutions to them are suggested in the following table:

 Students’ recommendations on what teachers should do to encourage them to participate in English speaking lessons

What do you expect your teacher to do to reduce your demotivation? Results a Give clear explanation and instruction to the task 53.3% b Go round and offer help 23.3% c Control the speed of their speech 62% d Give students both praise and criticisms 41.3% e Use modern technology such as computer, projector 20.7% f Organize more pair-work and group-work 16.7% g Choose topics and tasks more relevant to student’s ability and of students’ interest 68% h Be stricter to lazy students 6.7% i Organize games and activities to get students to learn speaking through playing 61.3% j Encourage students to listen to English songs and watch films to get more input to speak 76.6% k Ask students to read more to improve their background knowledge 54.6%

Table 2: Students‟ recommendations on what teachers should do to encourage them to participate in English speaking lessons

The statistics show that a large number of students (76.6%) expect their teachers to give them opportunities to listen to music and watch films to develop their speaking and listening skills It’s clear that these activities can relax students and raise their awareness of the culture as well as how to communicate naturally in English 68% of them hope that their tasks are suitable with their level of proficiency and their interest 62% of 150 students think that teachers should slow down their speech

Data analysis of teachers’ responses

 Teacher’s perception of the importance of learning to speak English to students:

Do you think English speaking is important to students? 100% 0%

Table 3: Teacher‟s perception of the importance of learning to speak English to students

Looking at the table, we can see all 14 teachers think that learning to speak English is important for their students It is clear that teachers of the University are aware of the importance of English speaking skill to their students

 Teacher’s perception of students’ purposes of learning to speak English

2 Why is this skill important to your students?

C To fulfill the requirements of the University

D To get good job in the future

E To be admired and respected by friends and teachers

Chart 4: Teacher‟s perception of students‟ purposes of learning to speak English

The chart illustrates teachers’ views about students’ reasons for learning to speak English In details, the minority of the teachers think that their students learn speaking to communicate with foreigners, to get admiration and respect from teachers and friends and meet the requirements of the University (accounting for 0.06%, 1.4% and 2.1%, respectively) However, 50% of them respond that students would like to be competent in English to apply for a good job when they graduate

Specially, 9 out of 14 teachers (equivalent to 64.3%) are convinced that their students learn to speak in order to obtain good mark for speaking tests Once again, to some extent, there are similarities in the responses from teachers and students, which means that the teachers find some extrinsic motivation among their students

 Teachers’ perception of students’ attitude to speaking English in class

Chart 5: Teachers‟ perception of students‟ attitude to speaking English in class

The data in the chart shows the difference in teachers’ view about whether students find learning English speaking exciting or not The evidence is that 70% of the teachers believe that their students are not aroused to speak, whereas 30% report that students like entering into speaking lessons It is clear that at this point, teachers’ responses are not much different from the students’ In fact, some teachers do not believe that speaking lessons can appeal to their students The following quote can provide more convincing evidence for this point:

“They are lazy boys and girls who do not even think of making a single sentence to say I once asked them to say something about their hometowns, a lot of them said that they would like to speak in Vietnamese.”

“To be honest, I fail to push them to speak English when they do not like to

In fact, many of them can produce correct and meaningful sentences, but they like writing rather than speaking.”

When referring to students’ awareness of speaking skill, some expresse that:

“I am of the opinion that students are aware of the importance of speaking in their process of learning English and in their future career Thus, they themselves hope to be good at speaking and are willing to learn it

Nonetheless, their eagerness seems to be bothered by some factors.”

However, some teachers of the University argue that their students are fond of speaking English Some confirm that:

“I am sure that most of my students like speaking English At the beginning of the course, I often asked them to introduce themselves and the common question for a lot of them is „Do you like speaking English?‟ most answers were „Yes.‟ Besides, I can understand them more through some times of chatting with them at break- time.”

 Teachers’ perception of students’ demotivation to participate in English speaking lessons:

1 The teacher a Teacher often interrupts students when they make mistakes, which makes them unconfident

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% b Teacher does not allow the listeners to ask questions after each presentation

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% c Teacher does not go around working with students frequently, so it is not convenient for them to ask for help when they have difficulties

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% d Teacher does not often give clear enough explanation and instruction before each task, so students frequently do not know what to do

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% e Teacher speaks fast, so students have difficulty understanding

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% f Teacher’s language competence is not good enough to give clear explanation for some difficult questions from students

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% g Teacher is so yielding that he/she can not maintain discipline in class

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% h Teacher and students’ relationship is not good

0% 0% 0% 0% 0% i Teacher is not enthusiastic enough 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% j Teacher criticizes students when they say anything wrong

2 Classroom a The class is not equipped with necessary facilities such as computers and projector

7.1% 7.1% 0% 0% 14.3% b The class is so 14.3% 14.3% 7.1% 0% 35.7% large, so teacher can not pay equal attention to all students

3 Students’ self- confidence a Students often feel embarrassed when making mistakes

7.1% 7.1% 35.7% 21.4% 71.4% b Students seldom get good grades for speaking test

4 Students’ language competence a When students listen to their classmates’ presentation, they don’t understand because of their bad listening ability

0% 14.3% 21.4% 7.1% 42.9% b Students’ ability of speaking English is not good

5 Students’ attitudes towards English a English is not their favorite L2

7.1% 0% 0% 0% 7.1% b English is not very important for students’ future career, so it is unworthy wasting so much time on learning it

6 Teaching and learning materials a The oral tasks are often so difficult and are not suitable with students’ ability

0% 14.3% 14.3% 0% 21.4% b Most of the speaking topics are not of students’ interest

0% 7.1% 14.3% 0% 28.6% c The speaking tasks do not help students much for their future job

Table 4: Teachers‟ perception of students‟ demotivation to participate in English speaking lessons

The above tables show teachers’ opinions to students’ demotivation To begin with, concerning sources originating from students, teachers have the same idea as the students that students’ poor knowledge of English as a demotivator is at the first place (85.7%) The second place is of students’ embarrassment which constitutes 71.3%, which shows that teachers understand that students are afraid of losing face if they make any mistakes According to some interviewed teachers, a lot of students do not discuss with friends or teacher because they are nervous of being made fun on their mistakes in vocabulary choice an awful voice

“It is normal to find students not so comfortable I find out that the common reason for this is the shyness They are worry about the grammar and vocabulary I often tell them not to worry about grammar, tenses and words order, but it seems hard for them to overcome the problem.”

Classroom and teaching and learning materials are regarded as two other sources of demotivation, but the percentage of teachers choosing them is not high

In terms of classroom, just 14.3% of the teachers complain that the lack of modern equipment in the classroom reduces students’ willingness, and 35.7% blame the large size of the English class for making students dislike working in class But all of them agree that problems related to classroom do not seriously affect them

Discussing about this aspect, one teacher says:

“I myself see that my students often have the feeling of out of control when they are put in a class of 50 students In such class, it is difficult for teachers to contact with the students sitting at the back and for students to get the individual attention.”

Regarding to teaching and learning materials, 21.4% and 28.6% admit that the difficult tasks and undesired speaking topics, respectively, give negative influence on students Only two out of fourteen (equivalent to 14.2%) suppose that speaking tasks and topics are beneficial for students’ job

Last, just several teachers (7.1%) consider students’ attitudes towards English a demotivating factor and all of them agree that teacher is not a source of demotivation and when being asked about whether teachers may demotivate students or not, one confirms:

“I am totally convinced that the teachers of English at Viet-Hung Industrial University are at least competent enough to teach students All of us graduated from big universities and many of us have good experience of teaching English Therefore, I am sure that there are no problems in relation with teachers‟ method and knowledge In addition, we always have good relationship with our students and there have never been any complaint from students about our personality.”

 Teachers’ suggestions on how to reduce students’ demotivation

One point that the questionnaires for teachers differ from the one for students is that the last question is an open one which asks for the teachers’ recommendation to reduce students’ demotivation to actively engage in speaking lessons The followings are some of the suggestions they propose to reduce students’ demotivation in their speaking lessons

Findings and recommendations

The aims of this study is to discover the demotivating factors that cause students’ inhibition and unwillingness to work in English speaking lessons at Viet- Hung Industrial University and suggest some solutions to reduce these demotivators The study aims at answering three research questions:

Research question 1: What is students‟ attitude toward learning to speak English in class?

The study discovers that the teachers and students have similar point of view in terms of students’ attitudes to learning to speak English They suppose that most of the students are aware of the importance of speaking skills in English language study They also have similar view about the reasons for learning this skill Further, almost all students report to be demotivated in English speaking lessons, whereas just over half of the teachers believe lead the belief that their students are demotivated to take part in them

Research question 2: What factors demotivate students at Viet-Hung Industrial University to participate in English speaking lessons?

Unlike the results presented in the previous studies, in this research the majority of both teachers and students have the same view that students’ language competence is found to be the main reason for demotivation, especially students’ poor ability of speaking

In addition, according to the data obtained from student questionnaire, teacher is a significant source of demotivation Among the categories related to teacher, teacher’s voice is reported to be the biggest factor As teacher in the classroom plays many roles, his/her voice has great impact on the learners’ like or dislike for learning In this case, teachers speak so fast and this cause students’ difficulties understanding what they are to do Besides, students are also seriously demotivated from teacher’s teaching method, but teacher’s competence in English is not regarded as a big demotivator Nearly all of them agree that their teachers are good at English and that they are competent enough to teach them The data obtained from teachers’ responses, however, are totally contrary to students’ ones, which means that all teachers do not approve of the fact that teacher is a source of students’ demotivation

Another source of demotivation related to students is their self-confidence to speak A lot of teachers and students approve that students hesitate to speak because they are afraid of being made fun of by friends and teachers when they say something ridiculous

The next source of demotivation that should be seriously considered is teaching and learning materials Students have different responses from the teachers’ at the point of undesired speaking topics, which is illustrated by the fact that a bigger percentage of students indicate that they are demotivated by the topics they do not like

There are another two sources of demotivation which are related to classroom and students’ attitudes towards English, but neither the teachers nor the students regarde them as the big ones

Research question 3: What should be done to help the students overcome these problems and desire to be parts of the English speaking lessons?

As to solutions, there are some similarities in the responses from teachers and students, but there appear some considerable differences

Firstly, in terms of similarities, it goes without saying that both groups of participants recommend teacher select the topics students like and adapt them to be relevant to students’ ability Moreover, they assume that a strict teacher may not effectively make students work better Another similar point of view between them is choosing and adapting oral topics to interest students

Taking the differences into consideration, it is somewhat surprising to see that nearly all students are interested in participating in entertainment activities such as games, music and films, but no teacher sees them as way to encourage students

The solution which is proposed by the largest group of teachers is establishing friendly relationship with students to raise their confidence in speaking English

From what have been found in the research, some recommendations are suggested in order that students are more willing to get involved in English speaking lessons

Firstly, one of the most important issues is teachers’ teaching method If the students find teachers’ teaching style interesting, they will be more engaged in the lesson The statistics in the research demonstrate that there is a big gap in the responses of teachers and students about teachers’ teaching method Although all the teachers argue that they have applied suitable techniques to teaching speaking, a large number of students hope there should be changes For instance, in spite of the fact that teachers think they explain the tasks clearly enough, students prefer that they need more explanation This problem may be the result of the fact that teachers have not got much understanding of students’ ability Hence, teachers’ teaching ways should be varied, from lesson by lesson, class by class, situation by situation in order to fit the distinctive features of lessons and different abilities of students, and especially to avoid students’ boredom

Secondly, apart from teaching method, teachers of English should adopt certain characteristics that may help students be more engaged Teacher’s enthusiasm can encourage students to learn In the research, a lot of students report that their teacher does not usually go around and participate in discussion As a result, it is hard for them to ask for help from teacher Furthermore, teacher’s involvement in students’ activities, to some extent, can develop intrinsic motivation among extrinsically motivated students Thus, teacher should work as an enthusiastic participant Students enjoy having teacher with them, and for the teacher, participating is often instantly enjoyable (Harmer, 2001) This somehow reduces students’ demotivation In addition, it is advisable that teacher does some observation when students work so as to give feedback and help them improve in the next activities He/She should also follow the students’ work closely in order to judge the success of the different materials and activities that he/she takes into lessons so that he/she can make changes in the future

Although most students of Viet-Hung Industrial University are of the agreement that their teacher’s English competence is good, they have problem with teacher’s voice That is teacher speaks so fast that a lot of students are usually incapable of understanding and fulfilling the requirements Thus, the third recommendation the author would like to raise is that teacher should not speak so fast in order to make sure that what he/she is addressing can be gotten

The next important recommendation is that teacher needs to raise students’ self-confidence which is generally regarded to be important in learning process

Self-confidence is highly correlated with anxiety which makes language learners nervous and afraid and their oral performance may not be up to expectation (Park

& Lee) When students have high self-confidence in learning a language, they are probably good at it Thus, it is suggested that teacher should try to remove a significant amount of nervousness and build confidence in students so that they communicate more in class

Perhaps the most important point that determines how successfully students will learn is the way instructions are delivered As revealed by the above statistics, a large number of students feel reluctant to work because they do not fully understand the requirements of the tasks Hence, the next recommendation is that teacher needs to clarify that their students know how to do some certain types of task and activity When telling students what to do, it is necessary for him/her to make sure that instructions are kept as simple and logical as possible Besides, some models should be given for more understanding

Another recommendation the author would like to raise is selecting the tasks and topics which are suitable to students’ levels In fact, learners are more motivated to study when the learning process enables them to enjoy success in completing tasks The learning tasks should be suitably challenging or easy enough for students to complete without too much frustration and at the same time they can experience success

Summary of the study

The study seeks to investigate the factors that cause demotivation among the students at Viet-Hung Industrial University in participating English speaking lessons

So as to achieve them, first of all, a short literature review of speaking skill and demotivation is provided as the theoretical background of the study The next chapter presents the research question, the subjects, the instruments, the data collection and analysis and the research context The last chapter deals with the data analysis and some recommendations

It is perceived by both teachers and students that speaking English plays an important part for student and they learn to speak English for various purposes, but the most important one is to get good marks Being aware of the roles of learning to speak English, but there are some factors that discourage them to actively participate in English speaking lessons Six sources of demotivation found in the research are students’ English proficiency, students’ self-confidence, teacher (teacher’s teaching method, personality and competence), teaching and learning materials, students’ attitudes to English and classroom Among them, students’ ability of speaking English is demonstrated as the most powerful demotivating one

The second biggest demotivator is teacher, but it is interesting that teacher’s perception of teacher as a demotivator is different from students’ one

The study introduces some measures to help students become more willing and active to join in English speaking lessons The one which is posed by the most students is integrating speaking with music, films and games Most teachers, however, recommend strategies to raise students’ self-confidence in class.

Limitations of the study

Although the author has tried her best in her research, but because of some subjective and objective conditions, there are some unavoidable mistakes that can be found She hopes to receive the suggestions and the comments from readers to improve the paper

Since demotivation is still a relatively new area of L2 research there are plenty of issues that need further investigation Besides this narrow thesis, many other aspects about demotivation and English speaking haven’t been deeply discussed It’s expected that, from the information provided in this study, other researches would be conducted on students’ demotivation

Firstly, other researchers can achieve studies with the same content and issue on other skills, namely, reading, writing and listening

Further investigations should also be conducted on whether their age is a source of demotivation In addition, it is suggested to examine whether this demotivating factor change over the years or it remains the same

Another suggestion is that researchers can investigate the factors demotivating students to participate in ESP English speaking lessons

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The purpose of designing this survey is to find out the factors that make students of Viet – Hung University de-motivated to speak English Your completion of this questionnaire is highly appreciated Please be sure that the data collected are used in the research paper only and that you are not identified Thank you for your help

Question 1 Please circle your choice

Is learning to speak English important to you?

Question 2 Please circle your choice (You can choose more than one answer)

If yes Why is this skill important to you?

C To fulfill the requirements of the University

D To get good job in the future

E To be admired and respected by friends and teachers

Question 3 Please circle your choice

Do you like learning to speak English?

Question 4 Please circle your choice

Which of the following factors demotivate you in English speaking lessons?

1.Teacher a We are often interrupted by the teacher when presenting if we makes mistakes, even the minor ones b Teacher does not allow the listeners to ask questions after each presentation c Teacher is usually at his/her seat, so it is not convenient for us to ask for help from him/her d Teacher does not often give clear enough explanation and instruction before each task, so we frequently do not know what to do e Teacher sometimes speaks very fast, so we can not understand him/her much f Teacher’s language competence is not good enough g Teacher is so yielding that he or she can not maintain discipline in class h Teacher is not friendly, so teacher and students’ relationship is not good i Teacher does not care whether we work or not because he/she is often busy to do his/her own work j Teacher often criticizes us when we say something wrong

2 Classroom a The class is not equipped with necessary facilities such as computers and projector b The class is so large, so teacher can not pay equal attention to all students

3 Students‟ self-confidence a We often feel embarrassed when speaking because my pronunciation is not good and maybe my classmates do not understand me b We seldom get good grades for speaking test

4 Students‟ language competence a When we listen to my classmates’ presentation, we don’t understand because our listening is not very good b Our ability of speaking English is not good

5 Students‟ attitudes towards English a English is not my favorite L2 language b English is not very important for my future career, so it is unworthy wasting so much time on learning it

6 Teaching and learning materials a The oral tasks, all of which are taken from the course book, are often so difficult and are not suitable with our ability b Most of the speaking topics are not of our interest c The speaking tasks do not help us much for our future job

Question 5: Please tick in the column you choose

To what degree do these factors demotivate you in speaking English in class?

1 The teacher a We are often interrupted by the teacher when presenting if we makes mistakes, even the minor ones b Teacher does not allow the listeners to ask questions after each presentation c Teacher is usually at his/her seat, so it is not convenient for us to ask for help from him/her d Teacher does not often give clear enough explanation and instruction before each task, so we frequently do not know what to do e Teacher sometimes speaks very fast, so we can not understand him/her much f Teacher’s language competence is not good enough, so sometimes he/she can not help students with difficult grammatical items or new vocabulary g Teacher is so yielding that he/she can not maintain discipline in class h Teacher is not friendly, so teacher and students’ relationship is not good i Teacher does not care whether we work or not because he/she is often busy to do his/her own work j Teacher often criticizes us when we say something wrong

2 Classroom a The class is not equipped with necessary facilities such as computers and projector b The class is so large, so teacher can not pay equal attention to all students

3 Students’ self- confidence a We often feel embarrassed when speaking because my pronunciation is not good and maybe my classmates do not understand me b We seldom get good grades for speaking test

4 Students’ language competence a When we listen to my classmates’ presentation, we don’t understand because our listening is not very good b Our ability of speaking English is not good because we didn’t practice much at High School

5 Students’ attitudes towards a English is not my favorite L2 language I would like to learn other languages (such as Japanese, Chinese…)

English b English is not very important for my future career, so it is unworthy wasting so much time on learning it

6 Teaching and learning materials a The oral tasks, all of which are taken from the course book, are often so difficult and are not suitable with our ability b Most of the speaking topics are not of our interest c The speaking tasks do not help us much for our future job

Question 6: Please circle your choice

What do you expect your teacher to do to reduce your demotivation? a Give clearexplanation and instructions to tasks b Go around and offer help c Control the speed of their speech d Give students both praise and criticisms e Use modern technology such as computer, projector f Organize more pair-work and group-work g Choose topics and tasks more relevant to student’s ability and of students’ interest h Be stricter to lazy students i Organize games and activities to get students to learn speaking through playing j Encourage students to listen to English songs and watch films to get more input to speak k Ask students to read more to improve their background knowledge

Appendix 2 Survey questionnaire in Vietnamese

Mục đích của phiếu điều tra này là nhằm tìm hiểu những nhân tố khiến sinh viên Trường Đại học công nghiệp Việt-Hung mất đi hứng thú tham gia vào các buổi học nói Tiếng Anh Trước tiên, tôi xin cảm ơn tất cả các bạn đã đồng ý tham gia làm phiếu điều tra này Tôi xin đảm bảo rằng mọi thông tin cá nhân của các bạn sẽ được giữ kín

Phần thông tin cá nhân:

- Số năm học Tiếng Anh: ………

Câu hỏi 1: Khoanh tròn câu trả lời:

Bạn có nghĩ rằng nói Tiếng Anh quan trọng với mình không?

Câu hỏi 2: Khoanh tròn câu trả lời:

Nếu có, tại sao kỹ năng này lại quan trọng với bạn?

B Để giao tiếp với người nước ngoài

C Để hoàn thành yêu cầu của nhà trường đặt ra

D Để tìm được một công việc tốt trong tương lai

E Để được thầy cô và bạn bè ngưỡng mộ

Câu hỏi 3: Khoanh tròn câu trả lời:

Bạn có thích học nói Tiếng Anh không?

Câu hỏi 4: Khoanh tròn câu trả lời:

Nếu không, trong những nhân tố sau nhân tố nào làm bạn giảm đi hứng thú nói Tiếng Anh ở lớp?