Research questions
The researcher investigates the issue through three research questions 3.1 What are COFER students‘ attitudes toward learning English?
3.2 What are the students‘ levels of motivation in learning English?
3.3 Is the students‘ motivation positively correlated with their learning achievement?
Scope of the study
The study is carried out with the participation of students at COFER who started learning English at the college The study does not investigate teachers‘ perception of students‘ motivation and attitudes as well as methods to influence on the two constructs of the study.
Methods
First, the study uses quantitative method with survey techniques to investigate students‘ motivation in learning English The questionnaire is adapted from previous studies (Ahmet, 2008; Liu, 2007; Gardner, 1985; Clement et al 1994) Then, the writer bases on the findings from questionnaires and the final results of the subject English 1 and figure out the correlation of the students‘ motivation and their learning achievement.
Design of the study
The research report will be organized in three parts as follows:
Part A – INTRODUCTION – includes rationale, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, methods, and design of the study
Part B – DEVELOPMENT – consists of three chapters:
Chapter 1 entitled LITERATURE REVIEW introduces theoretical background of the study with the clarification of the constructs via relevant theories
This chapter also reviews previous studies related to this research
Chapter 2 named METHODOLOGY gives the information of participants, setting of the study, and data collection and analysis tasks
Chapter 3 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION – interprets the statistics from data collected and figure out the hindering of the data to answer the research questions
Part C – CONCLUSION – summarizes the findings, states limitations of the study and makes pedagogical recommendations to improve the situation after the study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Motivation
No researchers deny the role of motivation in language, but they do not agree on the exact definition of motivation (Oxford & Shearin, 1994 12) Researchers still do not agree on its components and the different roles that these components play— individual differences, situational differences, social and cultural factors, and cognition (Renchler, 1992 15; Belmechri & Hummel, 1998)
At its beginnings the concept was examined and understood within a behavioural framework in which behaviorists tried to understand ‗what moved a resting organism into a state of activity‘, with heavy reliance on concepts such as instinct, drive, need, energisation, and homeostasis (Weiner, 1990) It was considered too complex to investigate directly, and many experimental researches conducted on animals were applied to humans It was clearly realized that the understanding of the concept was not relevant to the education context
Behavioral mechanical approaches to motivation became weak when the cognitive revolution started in the sixties In the period, Piaget laid down the cognitive developmental theory in which motivation is perceived as ‗a built-in unconscious striving towards more complex and differentiated development of the individual‘s mental structures‘ (Oxford & Shearin, 1994 23) With the advance of the cognitive approaches the field became more relevant to educational psychologists and the cognitive shift led to concentration on the individual‘s role in his or her own behaviour (Weiner, 1990) In other words, there has been a shift toward focusing on why students choose to engage in academic tasks instead of focusing on what they do and the time they spend doing so as has been the case with the behaviourist approach (Rueda & Dembo, 1995) Concepts such as goal and level of aspiration, as well be discussed below, replaced the unconscious concepts of drive, instinct and the like
Individual differences were more highlighted with the introduction of psychological concepts like anxiety, achievement needs and focus of control More cognitive concepts were developed during the seventies and eighties like self-efficacy, learning helplessness and causal attributions
The most influential model of LLM in the early sixties through the eighties of the previous century was Socioeducational Model (Gardner, 1985) It was developed by Gardner and following studies were carried out by him and associates Gardner defined motivation as a ‗combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favourable attitudes towards learning the language‘
(Gardner, 1985 10) In his model, Gardner talked about two kinds of motivation, the integrative and the instrumental, with much emphasis on the former The integrative motivation refers to learners‘ desire to at least communicate or at most integrate (or even assimilate) with the members of the target language The instrumental motivation refers to more functional reasons for learning the language such as getting a better job, a higher salary or passing an examination (Gardner, 1985)
Of the two kinds of motivation, the integrative one was the core of Gardner‘s model (Figure 1) The role of attitudes towards the learned language, its speakers and the learning situation are all considered parts of the integrative motivation In fact, the integrative aspect of the model appears in three different components: integrative orientation, integrativeness, and integrative motivation According to Gardner (2001 language; whereas, motivation refers to the driving force which involves expending effort, expressing desire and feeling enjoyment Besides, other understandings of the concept of orientation have been suggested For example, according to the understanding of Belmsihri & Hammel (1998), and others in the field, orientations are long-range goals, which, along with attitudes, sustain student‘s motivation
Figure 1: A simple representation of the socioeducational model Adopted from Gardner (2001 12) The dotted square represents the borders of the integrative motivation
The self-determination theory is one of the most influential theories in motivational psychology (Dornyei, 2003) According to the theory developed by Deci and his associates, ‗to be self-determining means to experience a sense of choice in initiating and regulating one's own actions‘ (Deci et al 1991 330) This is referred to as autonomy The theory distinguishes between two kinds of motivations: intrinsic and extrinsic The first refers to an individual‘s motivation to perform a particular activity because of internal rewards such as joy, pleasure and satisfaction of curiosity
Meanwhile, in extrinsic motivation the individual expects an extrinsic reward such as good grades or praise from others With the notion of autonomy and intrinsic motivation, the self-determination theory offers a very interesting look at motivation by setting a different agenda for language teachers The theory laid its focus on how people can create the conditions within which others can motivate themselves more than on how people (e.g teachers in the classroom) can motivate others
Noels (2001), referring to Vallerand (as cited in Noels, 2001) and later works by Vallerand and colleagues, classify the two types of motivations, within education, into different categories The intrinsic motivation (IM) could be one of three kinds: IM- Knowledge (the pleasure of knowing new things), IM- Accomplishment (the pleasure of accomplishing goals), and IM-Stimulation (the pleasure sensed when doing the task) The extrinsic motivation has also been classified along a continuum of three categories: external regulation, introjected regulation, and identified regulation (Deci &
Ryan, 2000 236) External regulation refers to actions that individuals pursue and that are determined by sources that are external to the individual, such as tangible benefits and costs If learning the language is made for such an external incentive and this incentive is removed, the activity of learning will halt The second, less external regulation, is introjected regulation, which refers to activities performed due to some ashamed if he does not know it Finally, individuals who possess identified regulation are driven by personally relevant reasons, such as that the activity is important for achieving a valued goal Individuals who learn an L2 because they think it is important for their educational development, for example, all fall within this category Another concept that is fundamental to the self-determination theory is the concept of amotivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000 237) Amotivation, or learned helplessness, is the situation in which people lack the intention to behave They see no relation between the efforts they make and the outcomes they get This happens when they lack self efficacy or a sense of control on the desired outcome In this case, the learner has no goal and thus possesses neither intrinsic nor extrinsic motivation to perform the activity (Noels,
Correlation between LLM and learning achievement
This research is based on Gardner‘s model (1985); therefore, the review of the correlation focuses on the correlation of motivation types categorized by Gardner and learning achievement
As mentioned in the review of Gardner‘s socioeductional model, Gardner introduced his motivation theory with the integrative motivation and instrumental motivation Of the two, integrative motivation is highly correlated with achievement, so it has usually been held as superior (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991) This is not necessarily Gardner‘s position since he states the social context might make an instrumental orientation better in some situations and an integrative orientation better in others (Williams, 1997) Au (cited in Crookes, & Schmidt, 1991 473) notes that the theories related to integrative motivation, most of which imply its superiority, can be summarized as five hypotheses:
1 The integrative motive hypothesis: an integrative motive will be positively associated with SL achievement
2 The cultural belief hypothesis: cultural beliefs influence the development of the integrative motive and the degree to which integrativeness and achievement are related
3 The active learner hypothesis: integratively motivated learners are successful because they are active learners
4 The causality hypothesis: integrative motivation is a cause; SL achievement, the effect
5 The two-process hypothesis: aptitude and integrative motivation are independent factors in second language learning
‗Gardner‘s theories have influenced virtually all SL-related research in this area‘ (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991 471), but have also been criticized, especially in regard to the integrative motive hypothesis and the causality hypothesis Interpretation of the empirical data from research to validate these theories is controversial, since various studies have produced different results Clearly, other factors impinge Some factors, such as age, can be controlled for, but others, such as cultural values, cannot Gardner‘s chief critic, Oller, suggests that the relationship between affective factors and language learning may be an ‗unstable non-linear function of high variability‘ (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991 48)
In his 1988 defense of the theory, Gardner indicated that across a large number of studies, there have been significant correlations between integrative attitudes and language proficiency, and in his own later study (Gardner, 2001), he found a strong correlation with the learning of vocabulary items Integrative motivation has been also correlated with persistence; Ramage (1991) conducted a study to find what relationship exists between various motivations and the likelihood of a student to continue in a program She found that an interest in the foreign culture and in learning the language, but not for instrumental reasons, thoroughly distinguished those students
The strong correlation between integrative motivation and achievement implies causality, but, as in all correlations, making such an assumption is speculative Integrativeness and achievement might both be products of another, not yet identified cause Savignon and Strong (cited in Crookes & Schmidt, 1991 474), have even proposed that the causality might work in reverse as well Rather than a positive attitude towards the target language leading to proficiency, proficiency and success in the second language might cause a positive attitude, while failure produces a negative attitude (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991)
Gardner has recently attempted to expand upon the original theory to include other factors His socio-educational model is ―operationally defined in terms of a composite of variables including measures of integrativeness, attitudes towards the learning situation, and motivation‖ (Gardner et al., 1992 198) but most scholars still associate his name with the original dichotomy Others, such as Clộment, Dửrnyei, and Noels (1994), have concluded that integrative and instrumental orientations are entwined rather than separate, and that to attempt to pose them as antithetical is fruitless Whatever the case, there is still a widespread agreement that integrativeness is one of a number of factors closely tied to achievement and proficiency (Benson, 1991; Clément et al., 1994; Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Gardner et al., 1992; Ramage, 1991; Skehan, 1991; Spolsky, 1988) Even in a context where foreign language learning is largely an academic matter, student motivation remains socially grounded.‖ (Clément et al., 1994 421).
Previous studies about LLM and the correlation between LLM and learning
Researches in this section supported the correlation between motivation and success of language learner in second language acquisition (SLA) Krashen (2002) hypothesizes the ‗affective filter‘ that consists of various psychological factors, such as anxiety, motivation, and self-confidence, which can strongly enhance or inhibit second language acquisition An input rich environment is required where the learners can be relaxed, motivated and self confident in acquiring the second language successfully
Krashen (2002) contends that learners with high motivation, self-confidence, a good self-image, and a low level of anxiety are well equipped for success in second language acquisition The correlation is slight in some studies and strong in others
Masgoret and Gardner (2003) carried out a research to estimate the magnitude of the contributions that motivation and attitudes make in the second language
Integrativeness and attitudes toward the learning situation were two correlated variables that supported the individual's motivation to learn a second language, but that motivation was responsible for achievement in the second language This conceptualization implied that integrativeness and attitudes toward the learning situation were related to achievement in the second language, but that their effect was indirect, acting through motivation
Liu (2007) investigated Chinese university students‘ attitudes towards and motivation to learn English and the correlations of the said variables with the students‘
English proficiency He modified the 44-item survey adapted from the Gardner‘s study in the role of attitudes in 1985 and Clėment‘s study in motivation, self-confidence, and group cohesion in the foreign language in 1994 202 third-year non-English majors in six classes of Xia‘men University in China participated in Liu‘s investigation The study revealed three findings First, the students had positive attitudes and high motivation in learning English Second, the students were more instrumentally than integratively motivated to learn English Finally, the students‘ attitudes and motivation were positively correlated with their English proficiency
Humphreys and Spratt (2008) investigated Hong Kong tertiary students‘ motivation towards learning English, Putonghua and an elected language The results
English and the chosen language were more related to integrative motivation One important finding was that the students were aware of the instrumental value of English, but the motive to learn English was not instrumental The researchers emphasized on integrative motivation as the key for teachers in Hong Kong to address their students in learning English
Hsu (2009) made a survey of business English learning motivation and effort on proficiency among junior college students and found that ―the attitude, motivation and effort in combination account for 19.5% of the variance of proficiency.‖ He concluded that the most effective method to obtain higher proficiency in business English learning is to increase students‘ motivation
Wright and McGrory (2005) carried out a research on the motivational factor causing the participants to enroll in an Irish class They found that their participants were integratively motivated, and their instrumental motivation for finding jobs was not higher than their integrative motivation They liked the sound of the language in their daily lives Peng‘s (2007) study on the relationship between willingness to communicate in second language and integrative motivation showed that integrative motivation was responsible for only a small proportion of variation in willingness to communicate
Phan and Le (2009) conducted an investigation into English learning motivation of upper secondary school students in Quang Nam province, Vietnam This study investigated English learning goals and motivation and some factors influencing the motivation of upper secondary students in Quang Nam A modified 8-item survey adapted from Gardener‘s AMTB and a 15 -possible demotivating factor survey were administered to 100 upper secondary EFL students in four upper secondary schools in Quang Nam The study revealed that the students had positive attitudes toward learning English and were highly motivated to study it, and that they were more instrumentally than integratively motivated Moreover, the students‘ motivation was more demotivated by some subject-related factors rather than by teacher-related ones
According to Gardner (2001), attitude to learned language is included to integrative motivation Thus, some researchers exploited the relationship between attitudes toward learning foreign language and learning achievement Investigating the connection between attitudes and language learning in Hong Kong, Lai (1996) withdrew a significant result when, ―The more they like English, the higher scores they get, or vice versa; the more attentive they are in English classes, the higher marks they get or the other way round.‖ Approving with Lai, Aydın and Zengin‘s research results (as cited in Aydin, 2009) demonstrated that learners‘ beliefs, attitudes, expectations and affective states exerted influence on the foreign language learning process
Lamb (2007) carried out a twenty-month study on changes in students‘ motivation and learning activity He found that initially the students had positive attitudes toward learning the language but the attitudes gradually ruined over the period of his study
In conclusion, the correlation between motivation and learning achievement exists through the studies above Some studies found it weak while some supported it
Metioned researchers also suggested ways to enhance students‘ motivation or their learning achievement
METHODOLOGY
Participants
The writer conducted his survey on 85 freshmen majored in Accounting of COFER The students were in two classes KT17A and KT17B handled by his colleague At the time of research, the two classes were taking the course English 1
The course book is Profile 1 for pre-intermediate level by Jon Nauton and Mark Tulip published by Oxford University Press (2009) The course English 1 of three credits was the first English subject for the students at the college Before the subject, all the students had to take an entrance English test of pre-intermediate level The test was in written form and focused on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, reading comprehension and writing All of them passed the test with the results over five.
Setting of the study
College of Foreign Economic Relations specializing in business majors has four campuses including two in Phu Nhuan District, one in District 5, and the last in District
9, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The research was carried in the campus in District 5
The participants are all at college level The students learned English 1 in forty-five periods at school Each week they learned one four-hour section After finishing the course, the students continue their English learning with the subject English 2 at the second semester and two more subjects English for Business Communication 1 and 2 as the criteria for their graduation.
Data collection
The motivation survey used in this study was adopted from 38 items in Ahmet‘s survey (2008) Ahmet replicated partly Liu‘s questionnaire (2007) which derived from adaptation of Gardner (1985) and Clement et al.‘s questionnaires (1994)
The Motivation Survey (MS hereafter) made use of a five-point Likert-scale (from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) and assigned values from 1 to 5 to each alternative respectively The main aim in using MS was to identify participants‘ motivational orientation and level The items were placed in a table as the original ones of Ahmet (1985) with the general options for all items, ―SD‖ (strongly Disagree), ―D‖
(Disagree), ―N‖ (Neither Disagree nor Agree), ―A‖ (Agree), ―SA‖ (Strongly Agree) (see Appendix A)
The MS consisted of two parts The first part was ―Attitudes towards Learning English‖ and it included the first eight items (Item one to item eight) The second part was ―the English – learning Motivation Scale‖ with the last thirty-six items Of these thirty-six items, items 9 to 23 were about integrative motivation, and items 24 to 38 were about instrumental motivation
At the last section of the course English 1, the researcher spent a period on getting students‘ data from questionnaires First, he explained some about his research and showed his need of cooperation with the students and the benefits they could get from the research Then, he delivered questionnaires and directed the students to fill in them
He was available for the students‘ questions related to the questionnaires The
The writer classified items of two major parts in the questionnaire into smaller categories including positive attitudes (questions 1-3), negative positive (questions 4-
8), integrative motivation (questions 9-23), and instrumental motivation (questions 24-
The writer calculated the average scores of the five categories in the questionnaire and used the scores to determine whether students have positive or negative attitudes, how high is their overall motivation, and whether integrative motivation is higher than instrumental motivation
The writer used the Likert-Scale, so the average scores ranged from 1 to 5 When the scores were higher than 3, the writer considered them positive values for the categories And vice versa, when the scores were lower than 3, the write named them negative values
The writer analyzed the results of motivation level and motivation types in two ways In the first way, the writer calculated the mean of values from questionnaires for each motivation type (general motivation, two specific types – integrative and instrumental) With this result, the writer measured the tendency of the whole class
Both types of motivation existed in one student, but one of the two was superior Thus, in the second way, the writer based on the students‘ superiority of a specific motivation type to group them and calculated the percentage of each group compared with the number of the whole sample
For further analysis of integrative motivation and instrumental motivation, the writer grouped identical items in the questionnaire and classified them into specific factors or purposes Specifically, for integrative motivation, questions 9-16 were about people of English communities, questions 17-18 about community activities, and questions 19-23 about culture and language For instrumental motivation, questions 24-
25 were about job, questions 26-27 about social assumption, questions 28-31 about knowledge widening, questions 32-35 about enjoyable feelings, question 36 about entertainment, and questions 37-38 about communication tool
To analyze the correlation between the students‘ motivation and their learning achievement, the writer chose the results of the final test of the subject English as the reference to their learning achievement The test consisted of three minor parts including speaking, listening, and writing The students were tested about grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing skills in the writing part The mark of writing part was double before adding to the marks of the two others The sum then divided by four to be the final result After having the final result of the test, the writer set the mark scale
He considered the marks seven and higher than seven were high In addition, he also cared the marks under five which was considered the failed result Next, for each student, he compared the final result and their motivation level to find the correlation
The findings would be in groups of instrumental motivation and integrative motivation.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
COFER students‘ attitudes toward learning English
The students‘ attitudes toward learning English were analyzed with the data in the following table
Attitude type Mean Positive Attitude 3.6 Negative Attitude 1.99
Table 1: The students’ attitudes toward learning English
As seen in the table, the students‘ positive attitude value is higher than 3 This proved that the general attitude toward learning English is positive In other words, the students liked learning English but at little level However, the value did not reach to 4 or 5 as expected The participants did not overcome all affecting factors to consider English their real favorite subject It can be inferred that the students still had some problems in learning English which prevented them from liking English Meanwhile, the negative attitude value is nearly 2, under 3 This fact meant the students did not have negative attitude toward learning English Through questions 4 to 8 in the questionnaire, the students showed that they did not hate English itself and their autonomy after school was present.
COFER students‘ motivation in learning English
The students‘ motivation in learning English was analyzed with the data in the table below
Motivation Type Mean General Motivation 3.73 Integrative Motivation 3.66 Instrumental Motivation 3.83
Table 2: The students’ motivation in learning English
It can be seen in Table 2 that the students‘ motivation was fairly high in general
It was higher than the average value 3 The item with the lowest value in this part gained 3.25 and the highest item was 4.08, so the gap 0.83 was relatively big This was the reason why the researcher analyzed the figure of general motivation in smaller categories According to the table above, integrative motivation valued at 3.66 was slightly lower than instrumental one valued at 3.83 It can be said that the surveyed students themselves learned English with both instrumental motivation and integrative motivation The statistics also stated that the number of students with integrative motivation was less than one with instrumental motivation These facts inferred that the students found little interest in English language and communities of English as well as low desire to join in the communities Their purpose of learning English is for their needs such as needs of their future jobs, communication, entertainment, knowledge, or even needs of satisfied feelings However, the statistics in Table 2 only show the tendency in motivation of the whole group of participants The Table 3 below will clarifies student groups who preferred one of the two motivation types and the group with low motivation
Table 3: Student groups arranged by motivation types
Table 3 showed three groups of students arranged by motivation types including integrative group, instrumental one, and low motivation one The dominant group was the instrumental with 62 students out of 85 participants, accounting for 73 percent The second rank was the group of integratively-motivated students 12 students out of the whole 85 learned English with the purpose to assimilate with the native community of their L2 Finally, there were still low-motivated students in the surveyed classes
Besides 74 students of two groups integrative and instrumental, 11 students made a part of 13 percent of the two classes These students studied English because they were required or they felt depressed due to their failure in the past
Motivation type Number of students Percentage
Figure 2: The students’ integrative motivation components
Figure 1 showed three components of integrative motivation As can be seen from the figure, the desire to understand people of English-speaking countries was the lowest The students thought this type of desire was right for them but they found little interest in satisfying the need Besides, they may get access to English culture and language in academic ways, and lack practice these terms; therefore, they perceive culture and language as the essential parts to learn instead of desirable and enjoyable things when they study English As a result, culture and language did not got the highest value in integration motivation It seemed that communicative activities to join the society were more attractive for the students Thus, they built integrative motivation the most effectively among the three factors
Figure 3: The students’ instrumental motivation components
The statistics in Figure 2 clarified the students‘ six purposes of learning English
The result divided six purposes into two groups The preferred group with higher values consisted of job, knowledge and entertainment and the less preferred group with lower values included social assumption, enjoyable feelings and communication tool
In the first group, learning English for entertainment dominated with the average score 4.35 The students stimulated themselves to learn for their future job and their widened knowledge In the later group, learning English for communication and enjoyable feelings reached the same score 3.78 It revealed that motivation for communication was not higher than motivation for entertainment and future job Also, the feelings of success in learning English did not become the main motivator for the students to give their efforts to their English studies Learning to satisfy the social assumption which
3.78 3.78 highly appreciates competent users of English worked for the research participants‘ motivation but the effect was still limited at the score 3.73.
Correlation between the students‘ motivation and their learning achievement
3.3.1 The correlation in comparisons of motivated students and low-motivated students
Table 4: The comparison of the learning achievement of motivated students and low-motivated students
Table 4 indicated the number of students getting high and low marks of the final test and its percentage from two groups, motivated and low-motivated According to the table, the percentage of the marks seven and higher than seven of the motivated students was fairly high, 55 percent whereas no one in the group low-motivated achieved high marks This supported the positive correlation between motivation and learning achievement of Gardner‘s study (Masgoret and Gardner, 2003) However, the number of motivated students who got lower scores and even failed the course should be questioned Therefore, motivation was not the unique factor influencing the achievement
Motivation type No of marks
3.3.2 The correlation in comparisons of instrumentally-motivated students and integratively-motivated ones
Table 5: The comparison of the learning achievement of instrumentally-motivated students and integratively-motivated students
Statistics in Table 5 showed the number of students achieving high marks and failing the final test and its percentage from two groups, integrative and instrumental It could be seen from the table that integratively-motivated students, despite the smaller number, gained impressive fact that 8 out of 12 got high marks 67 percent of the students who were mainly integratively-motivated were rewarded for their learning efforts Instrumental motivation in this case also worked but less effectively than the other Having a thorough look at the number of motivated students who failed the test, the researcher did not base on the percentage of the table to comment The percentage of the group integrative was higher but the number was only 2 whereas 4 students out of the group instrumental failed The analysis above revealed that integrative motivation had stronger correlation with the learning achievement than instrumental motivation.
Pedagogical implication
The findings from the study help the researcher to have a clearer view of COFER students‘ motivation although this study is only one case for accounting students The researcher finds out implications from the facts and figures of the study and better
Motivation type No of marks
Instrumental 34/62 55% 4/62 6% understanding of the problem pushes him to think more about possible solutions for future improvement
First, the students‘ attitude towards English is positive, their motivation in general is high, but these cannot totally assure their high learning achievement Both teachers and students should be aware of other affecting factors They may be related to teachers, students and learning environment Teachers should understand their students‘ needs, hold activities which activate or suit their students‘ motivation type
With teachers‘ assistance and guide in learning English, students can forget their anxiety due to their failure in the past and make more efforts to achieve their goals
Second, the study contributes evidence to the focus on integrative motivation
Integrative motivation exerts better effects on learning achievement than instrumental motivation In fact, the students in the study do not set clear goals in their future job and some lay their focus on the passing result of the course Therefore, their instrumental motivation is not stable and cannot reinforce them continuously to gain better achievement Students with integrative motivation show their passion in learning English although some of them cannot reach their wish Hence, teachers should direct their students‘ motivation from instrumental one to integrative one It is not an easy and quick process It needs efforts through English subjects throughout students‘ time at the college
After the study, the researcher withdrew valuable conclusions as follows:
First, COFER students had positive attitude toward learning English although the positive attitude was not expressed clearly by the students
Second, the students‘ general motivation was fairly high The students‘ instrumental motivation was higher than their integrative motivation Besides, there were still a small part of low-motivated students
Third, the correlation between the students‘ motivation and their learning achievement was positive In other words, the students with high motivation could achieve high learning results However, the correlation was not strong The evidence for this was that some of the students with high motivation failed the test
Fourth, the correlation between integrative motivation and learning achievement in this case was more sustainable than the correlation between instrumental motivation and learning achievement.
Limitations of the study
With all the efforts of the researcher, the study still has some limitations First, the length of the course is short, so the result may be instant Second, it is hard to control all the factors that influence on the students‘ motivation
In order to achieve better findings about student‘s motivation, the writer suggests studying more about the factors which affects his students‘ motivation and determining the key factors to consider first and find equivalent solutions This study will require the data from both teachers and students.
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APPENDIX A English-Learning Motivation Scale
The purpose of this research is to identify my students‘ attitudes and motivation in learning English
Tran Tuan Cuong College of Foreign Economic Relations
DIRECTIONS: Please answer the following items by circling the number of the alternative which is most suitable for you I would like you to be as accurate as possible since the success of this investigation depends upon it
1 Studying English is an enjoyable experience 1 2 3 4 5
3 I plan to learn as much English as possible 1 2 3 4 5
5 I would rather spend my time on subjects other than English 1 2 3 4 5
6 Learning English is a waste of time 1 2 3 4 5
7 I think that learning English is dull 1 2 3 4 5
8 When I leave school, I will give up the study of English entirely because I am not interested in it 1 2 3 4 5
9 Studying English can be important for me because I would like to meet foreigners with whom I can speak English 1 2 3 4 5
10 The British people are open-minded and modern people 1 2 3 4 5
11 The Americans are sociable and hospitable 1 2 3 4 5
12 The more I learn about the British, the more I like them 1 2 3 4 5
13 I would like to know more about American people 1 2 3 4 5
14 The British are kind and friendly 1 2 3 4 5
15 The Americans are kind and cheerful 1 2 3 4 5
17 Studying English can be important for me because I will be able to participate more freely in the activities of English groups
18 Studying English is important to me so that I can keep in touch with foreign friends and acquaintances 1 2 3 4 5
19 Studying English can be important for me because it will enable me to better understand and appreciate English art and literature
20 It is important for me to know English in order to know the life of the English-speaking nations 1 2 3 4 5
21 Studying English is important to me so that I can understand English pop music 1 2 3 4 5
22 Studying English is important to me because it will enable me to get to know various cultures and people 1 2 3 4 5
23 Studying English can be important for me because it will make me a more knowledgeable person 1 2 3 4 5
24 Studying English is important to me because without it one cannot be successful in any field 1 2 3 4 5
25 Studying English can be important for me because I may need it later (e.g., for job, studies) 1 2 3 4 5
26 Studying English can be important for me because other people will respect me more if I have knowledge of a foreign language
27 Studying English is important to me because an educated person is expected to be able to speak English 1 2 3 4 5
28 Studying English can be important for me because I will be able to search for information and materials in English on the Internet
29 Studying English can be important for me because I will 1 2 3 4 5