Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS three ways to motivate the students at banking academy bacninh branch in english speaking activities

Background to the study

Together with the trend of globalization, English is used more and more widely in international settings Therefore, the ability to communicate in English is very important

Speaking plays an essential role because without it, communication cannot take place directly between people However, speaking is generally considered the most difficult to learn among the four skills in English language learning

In order to teach the students English speaking so that they become more interested in and maintain their interest in speaking learning, when it is not seen as important for their immediate needs other than to pass the oral exams, teachers have to find creative ways to teach and increase students’ motivation to learn

Being concerned with what a teacher can do to enhance student motivation in English speaking activities, a number of interesting and applicable ideas has been found Among them are useful strategies from Bligh (1971), Sass (1989), Ames and Ames (1991), Harris

(1991), Dornyei (2001), Oxford and Shearin (1994): capitalize on students’ existing needs, help students set achievable goals for themselves, give clear explanation, create a comfortable atmosphere, vary teaching activities and methods, make learning visual, increase students’ self- confidence, promote cooperative learning, make students active participants in speaking activities, respond to students’ work and reward success

Teachers should know how to use these strategies so as to increase students’ motivation in English speaking activities Therefore, this action research attempts to explore the problems of the students in speaking activities and to find out the most useful strategies in the researcher’s own teaching context

English speaking teaching and learning at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch

Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch is a vocational school which trains students in Banking and Accounting operations Its English language teaching and learning program is implemented in the first term of the students’ first year The students are taught general English with New Headway Elementary (Liz & John Soars, 2000) in the time span of 120 forty-five minute class periods With 12 parallel classes, teaching is basically synchronized across classes; that is, all the teachers are required to teach the same textbook and go through the same materials at more or less the same pace Each class is composed of students at mixed abilities

During five years of teaching at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch, the researcher often found many of my students were low motivated in class There were always students absent from class, and even for those who came to class, some of them did not participate in the activities, some of them pretended to participate in but in fact they chatted with others in Vietnamese, some just listened to others speaking but say nothing, some of them even dozed off, etc Later, after the investigation, the researcher realized that many of them were low motivated as they did not have achievable goals for themselves, the activities in the class were monotonous, the teacher did not create a comfortable atmosphere for them to speak and they were afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by their classmates

Being aware of the importance of English speaking, motivation and motivational strategies in English speaking, and bearing in mind the context of teaching and learning speaking at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch, the researcher conducted this action research on the use of three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success with the aims at motivating the students in English speaking activities.

Aims of the study

This research was an attempt to motivate the students at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch in English speaking activities by using three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success In order to achieve this aim, the specific objectives of the study are:

- Finding out the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities in order to have proper intervention to motivate them

- Examining whether the teacher’s intervention consisting of the three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success could motivate the students in English speaking activities or not.

Research questions

With the above objectives, the research questions are:

1 What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?

2 Can the teacher’s intervention consisting of the three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success motivate the students in English speaking activities? If yes, to what extent?

Significance of the study

It is hoped that the study will identify the main causes of the students' low motivation in speaking activities at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch In addition, by doing this action research, the researcher can evaluate the use of the three changes - helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success - in her classes

And this would provide the teachers with guidance and assistance to boost students' motivation in learning to speak English Students will find it more useful and interesting in their learning and spend more time on this specific skill The study will give us convincing information about the great value of the combination of the three changes in increasing learners' motivation.

Scope of the study

The research was conducted on the students at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch Due to the limitation of time, the researcher only focused on the use of the three changes in class K43B in the first term, in which the researcher taught as a teacher, as K43B can be the representative of all the classes at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch.

Research method

The method employed in this study is an action research, with the use of two instruments: observations and questionnaires All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis

Action research has proved to be the best choice for this study as the study was aimed at motivating the students to take part in speaking activities within a certain context The combination of different instruments used in this research would help to gain reliable data and help the researcher have a close investigation into the problems that the students were having.

Outline of the thesis

The study consists of three parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion

The first part, “Introduction”, presents background to the study, aims of the study, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study, research method, and outline of the thesis

The second part, “Development” comprises 3 chapters:

Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents relevant theoretical basis for the study, relating to speaking learning and teaching in language classroom, motivation, motivational strategies in speaking class and presents previous studies relating to the field

Chapter 2, METHODOLOGY, provides the readers with the definitions of the action research, the data collection instruments Detailed information about the research procedure and the participants of the study is also presented

Chapter 3, DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS, analyzes the data collected from the preliminary investigation stage to form the hypothesis of the study An intervention plan is worked out and implemented The data from the intervention stage are collected and analyzed to make an evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention

The last part, “Conclusion”, reviews the study, gives out pedagogical implications, presents the limitations of the study and gives suggestions for further study in the same field

LITERATURE REVIEW

Speaking

Speaking, as Bygate (1987) defines, involves not only the use of the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning

Speaking, a productive skill, is known to have two main types of conversation namely dialogue and monologue, which are rather different In monologue, you give uninterrupted oral presentation while in dialogue you interact with one or more other speakers for transactional and international purposes

It is noticeable from the two productive language skills that speaking is different from writing in both processing conditions and reciprocity conditions “First, spoken language is affected by the time limitations, and the associated problems of planning, memory, and production under pressure Second, it is reciprocal activity, which has a crucial effect on the kinds of decisions to be made.” (Bygate, 1987: 11-12)

In social contexts, social roles are likely to be taken by those who learn and know how to speak, but not by those who do not have this skill In language learning, speaking plays an utmost important role among the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) since it helps to identify who knows or does not know a language Pattison (1992) confirms that when people mention knowing or learning a language, they actually mean that they are able to speak the language

It cannot be denied that speaking deserves as much attention as or even more attention than written skill In order to carry out many of the most basic transactions, it is necessary for learners to speak with confidence

1.1.3 Accuracy or fluency in the teaching of speaking

Accuracy in language teaching involves the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation In controlled and guided activities, accuracy is usually the focus and the teacher makes it clear from feedback that accuracy is important Ongoing correction is often appropriate during accuracy activities In freer activities the teacher’s hopes are the students’ correct use of the language and ability to communicate as well

Fluency can be considered to be the ability to keep the talk going when speaking spontaneously When speaking fluently students should be able to get the message across with whatever resources and abilities they have, regardless of grammatical and other mistakes Normally, students should not be corrected during fluency activities In feedback afterwards, on the other hand, favorable comment on strategies is needed to increase their fluency

Byrne (1988) distinguishes three following phases to develop learners’ oral ability: the presentation phase, the practice phase and the production phase

In presentation phase, teachers are the center of learning and teaching activities They work as an information provider What students usually do in this phase is to observe and listen to the teacher, i.e they passively receive information Normally, they are only asked to practice (role-play) and dramatize a dialogue or to talk about what they have to learn from a prose based on the previous answers at the end of this phase

Unlike the presentation phase, at practice phase learners have to do most of talking as they are provided maximum amount of practice in the form of controlled and guided activities to improve vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well as fluency of speaking The learners, at this phase, answer the teacher’s guided questions, discuss with their partners to find new ideas related to the topic At the end of the practice phase, Ur (1996) suggested what the teacher should do is to enhance the learners’ fluency of speaking First, attention must be fully paid by the learners Second, the target language must be clearly heard or repeated Third, learners understand the meaning of new materials and finally, short-term memory of the material must be created for later use in the lesson

At the last phase of learning speaking, production phase, learners are given chances to speak English freely Being in a real situation, learners use English by themselves, not nearly depend on the teacher’s help Free activities are also in the form of individual work, pair work and group work However, pair work and group work are of great importance and effectiveness as all learners can have chance to participate in talks, and they seem more confident and more motivated Moreover, this can save a great deal of time

In the process of teaching speaking, improvement of the speaking ability will be gained if these three phases are followed orderly However, they might not be applied as expected because of time limitation, types of learners and materials in use, etc

A variety of activities can be used to develop speaking skills Below are some of the common ones

Role-play is an activity that the class is usually divided into pairs or groups These pairs or groups are given situations and roles to act out and explore This acting is done for the sake of the language and imaginative activity, not for exhibition The various groups, therefore, are activated simultaneously Dangerfield (1987) suggests nine basic steps in role-play activities as follow: Language input, Setting of context, Allocation of roles, Statement of aim, Familiarization will roles, Demonstration, Role-play and achievement of aim, Report back and Follow up

Role-plays are simple to plan and easy to play and, along with games and other communicative activities, are recommended to be used in the English speaking classes

IGA is one of the easiest and most interesting forms of communicative activity in the speaking class In order to get the most proficiency, the teacher can divide the class into pairs or groups In each pair or each group, one acts as the asker, the other the answerer, let them discuss for a few minutes and they change the role

IGA may take three forms: (1) One student has some information and the other has to find it by asking questions; (2) One student has some information and tells it to the other student; (3) Both students have different information and they tell each other

Underhill (1987) asserts that variety of techniques can be used in IGA Firstly, they may be peer or group interview Two students set out questions and answers to get certain things about each other Secondly, they may be peer or group description and recreation information which one describes a picture or a design to another student who has constructed the model from the description alone without seeing the original Thirdly, they can be game like (Harmer, 1998) such as describing and drawing, describing and guessing, finding the differences and completing a story, etc

According to Byrne (1988), problem-solving has been used to group together a wide range of activities that require students to find “solutions” to problems of different kinds

Many of these problems involve processes that we commonly use in real life as follows:

- We frequently hypothesize links between two things (events, actions, people, etc.)

- We detect differences (real or imaginary)

- We grade things according to criteria (subjective or objective)

Motivation

There have been so far many researches on the theory of motivation Each author has his/her own way of explaining what motivation is since they look at motivation from different angles However, motivation is generally defined as an abstract concept used to describe the willingness of a person to expand effort to reach a particular goal For language learners, mastery of a language may be a goal For others, communicative competence or even basic communication skills could be a goal In linguistics, sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, a number of language learner motivation models have been postulated

Ausubel (1998) identified six needs constructing motivation: (1) the need for exploration,

(2) the need for manipulation, (3) the need for activity, (4) the need for stimulation, (5) the need for knowledge, (6) the need for ego enhancement

According to Lightbrown and Spada (1999), motivation in second language learning is a complex phenomenon which can be defined in terms of two factors: learners' communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community The authors explain that if learners need to speak the second language in a wide range of social situations or fulfill professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of L2 and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it Likewise, if learners have favorable attitudes towards the speakers of the language, they will desire more contact with them

Malone (1981) defines motivation in terms of the challenge of the activities or tasks conducted by the teachers According to him, challenge depends on activities that meet the needs of students’ different levels The tasks or activities which are too easy or too difficult will decrease students’ motivation On the contrary, if students find the activities challenging enough, they will be interested more, which leads to effective learning

Gardner and Lambert (1972) suggested that motivation to learn a second language was grounded in positive attitudes toward the L2 community and in a desire to communicate with and become similar to valued members of that community

Crookes and Schmidt (1991) define motivation in terms of students' interest in and enthusiasm for the materials and activities used in class, their persistence with the learning task as indicated by levels of concentration and enjoyment Learning is only effective if students enjoy activities and work hard

Among what have been mentioned, Crookes and Schmidt’s definition is chosen to use in this thesis because of two reasons First, it is directly related to the process of teaching and learning language which emphasizes the important roles of students Theoretically, when students are interested in the activities and are persistent with the learning tasks, they will get better results in learning Second, it is similar to what would be studied in the research project that the researcher wants to examine the students’ interest, satisfaction and concentration on the varied activities in class, so the working definition in the thesis is: motivation is interest in and enthusiasm for the activities used in classrooms, attention or levels of concentration, the effort and persistence with the learning tasks as well as the challenge of the activities conducted by the teachers This definition will guide the researcher to design a questionnaire survey to get the information about the students’ learning motivation in the research

1.2.2 Types of motivation in foreign language learning

According to theorists, there are some distinctions of types of motivation in foreign language learning: integrative and instrumental motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; global, situational and task motivation

As can be found in literature, major studies in the past tended to divide motivation into two broad categories: instrumental and integrative Their division is mainly based on the students' purposes According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), “Instrumental motivation refers to the learners' desire to learn a language for utilitarian purposes (such as employment or travel or exam purposes) in the context of language learning” On the other hand, “integrative motivation refers to the desire to learn a language to integrate successfully into the target language community”

Wajnryb (1992) makes this clearer by stressing the importance of instrumental practical goals and communication with the people of the culture who speak it He claims that instrumental motivation refers to the desire to learn a language because it will be useful for certain practical goals such as getting a job, reading foreign newspapers or texts, passing an exam or obtaining a promotion On the other hand, integrative motivation refers to wanting to learn a language for reasons of understanding, relating to or communicating with the people whose language we speak

Ellis (1994) and Gardner and Lambert (1972) agree that it is essential to distinguish instrumental and integrative motivation because, once the teachers are well aware of their students' motivation, they can find useful ways to create and sustain the learning motivation in their students

Some other researchers divide motivation into two main kinds: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation The division is closely related to the students' psychology or emotion

According to Lepper (1988: 289-309), Ur (1996: 278-280) students who are intrinsically motivated undertake an activity “for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, the learning it permits, or the feelings of accomplishment it evokes” On the other hand, extrinsically motivated students perform “in order to obtain some reward or avoid some punishment external to the activity itself, such as grades or teacher's approval”

Another division proposed by Brown (1994) suggests three kinds of motivation: global, situational and task motivation According to him, global motivation is the overall orientation of the learner towards the learning of the foreign language while situational motivation has to do with the context of learning (classroom, total environment) On the contrary, task motivation has to do with the way the learner approaches the specific task in hand

Having mentioned different types of motivation in language learning, the researcher wants to clarify different purposes that students need to achieve, so in real teaching contexts, language teachers at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch should apply different strategies to help the students learn effectively and work better after graduation, not that to help them pass the exam

1.2.3 The importance of motivation in foreign language learning

While there has been a great deal of research on the role of motivation in second language learning, the overall findings reveal that positive attitude and motivation are closely related to success in second language learning (Gardner, 1985) Motivation is also considered as

“a key consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to communicate”

Oxford & Shearin (1994) state: “Many researchers considered motivation as one of the main elements that determine success in a second or foreign language It determines the extent of active, personal involvement in L2 learning”

Caroll (1962) pointed out: "the more motivation a learner has, the more time he or she will spend learning an aspect of a second language"

Labonde (1982), based on the findings made by Garner and Lambert (1972), concluded that motivation and attitudes are important factors which help determine the level of proficiency achieved by different learners and the effects of motivation appear to be separated from the effects of aptitude, the most successful learners will be those who have both talent and a high level of motivation for learning

Dornyei (2001) believes that motivation needs to be generated, maintained actively, protected and retrospectively evaluated

Strategies for motivating students in speaking activities

To answer the questions of how to motivate learners in English speaking activities, the researcher have found interesting and applicable ideas in literature The followings are some useful motivational strategies adapted from Bligh (1971), Sass (1989), Ames and Ames (1991), Harris (1991) and Dornyei (2001), Jones and Jones (1995), Oxford and Shearin (1994), etc

* Capitalize on students’ existing needs

Students learn to speak best when incentives for learning speaking in class satisfy their own motives for enrolling in the course Some of the needs students may bring to the classroom are the need to learn speaking in order to complete a particular task or activity, the need to seek new experiences, the need to perfect speaking skill, the need to overcome challenges, the need to be competent, the need to succeed and do well, the need to feel involved and to interact with other people Satisfying such needs is rewarding in itself, and such rewards sustain learning more effectively than do grades Thus, the teacher should design in-class activities to address these kinds of needs

* Help students set achievable goals for themselves

Individual goal setting is one of the most effective methods to enable students to experience a sense of control over their own learning and perceive themselves as mastering material while incorporating their own interest (Jones and Jones, 1995) It is particularly relevant to language learning because the ultimate purpose of this prolonged process – to communicate with foreign speakers - is several years away and is, in fact, for many learners only moderately realistic; therefore, setting achievable goals has a powerful motivating function Oxford and Shearin (1994:19) noted “goal setting can have exceptional importance in stimulating foreign language learning motivation, and it is therefore shocking that so little time and energy are spent in the foreign language classroom on goal setting”

In agreement with the claim of Locke and Latham’s (1990) on goal setting, Pintric and Schunk (1996) offer four main principles of goal setting based on the theory that can be applied in the classroom setting

- Goals should be clear and specific

- Goals should be challenging and difficult, but not outside the range of students’ capabilities

- Both proximal and distal goals should be set

- Teachers should provide feedback that increases students’ self-efficacy for obtaining the goal

Some recent research shows that many students do poorly on assignments or in participation because they do not understand what to do or why they should do it Teachers should spend more time explaining why we teach what we do, and why the topic or approach or activity is important and interesting and worthwhile In the process, some of the teacher’s enthusiasm will be transmitted to the students, who will be more likely to become interested Similarly, teachers should spend more time explaining exactly what is expected on activities Students who are uncertain about what to do will seldom perform well

In order to get learners more involved in class, especially in a foreign language speaking activities, a favorable classroom atmosphere is considered indispensable As Dornyei

(2001) argues, students often feel embarrassed in language classes because teachers force them to speak well in front of the other classmates with their limited vocabulary To help change this situation and facilitate activities, teachers need to help students understand that mistakes are all right Therefore, he argues that teachers should correct errors in indirect way instead For instance, if a student says "I go to the cinema yesterday" instead of pointing out the mistake, a teacher can say the correct sentence, "you went to the cinema yesterday", in a non-threatening way

Domyei (2001) goes on argues that in a safe and supportive classroom students feel comfortable taking risk because they know that they will not be embarrassed or criticized if they make a mistake

* Vary teaching activities and methods

Variety reawakens students’ involvement in the activities and their motivation Break your routines by incorporating a variety of speaking activities and methods in your classes such as role plays, debates, brainstorming, discussion, demonstrations, audiovisual presentations, pair work or group work, etc to increase your students’ motivation

Even before young people were reared in a video environment, it was recognized that memory is often connected to visual images In the middle ages people who memorized the Bible would sometimes walk around inside a cathedral and mentally attach certain passages to object inside, so that remembering the image of a column or statue would provide the needed stimulus to remember the next hundred lines of text Similarly, we can provide better learning by using images such as drawings, diagrams, pictures and charts in speaking activities It can be seen from researches these images can increase students’ level of motivation

Learners can perform well when they feel self-confident enough However, the question is how to maintain and increase the students’ confidence and self-esteem in a context - the language classroom - which is inherently face-threatening for the learner (Dornyei, 2001)

He also suggested that language teachers should increase the learners' self-confidence by promoting their self-conceptions of language competence, by providing regular experience of success and emphasizing what learners can do rather than can not do, giving them the feeling of making a useful contribution and creating classroom situations where they can demonstrate positive features and come forward to offer help (Dornyei 2001: 130)

Cooperative learning improves communication, lower students' anxiety, raises their self- esteem, and improves classroom climate Learning English through cooperative group work allows students to learn from one another, and the teacher in a supportive environment They become more proficient in language as a result of group work because they have more comprehensible input peer interactions, have better listening skill as a result of responding to what has been said, have longer conversational turns than in whole- class teaching situation, and focus on meaning rather than on accuracy (Kessler, 1992)

* Make students active participants in speaking activities

One of the major keys to motivation is the active involvement of students in their own learning, especially in speaking activities It is better to get students involved in speaking activities, worked in pairs or groups, discussing with others, helping to decide what to do and the best way to do it, helping the teacher, or in some other way getting physically involved in the activities Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating and solving Passivity dampens student motivation and curiosity

Teachers should give students proper feedback on students’ speaking as quickly as possible Give students some indication of how well they have done and how to improve

For example, he can say a student’s presentation or a pair’s performance was good, with an indication of why it was good: “Lan’s presentation is very good Her ideas about pollution really synthesized the ideas we had been discussing.”

Teachers can help students who do not yet have powerful intrinsic motivation to learn by extrinsic motivation in the form of rewards Rather than criticizing unwanted behavior or answers, rewards can correct behavior and answers Everyone likes the feeling of accomplishment and recognition; rewards for good work produce those good feelings

Previous studies

So far, many researchers in the world namely, Gardner (1985), Crookes and Schmidt

(1991), Dornyei (2001) and so on, have investigated what motivation is, what effects motivation in foreign language learning and how language teachers should employ techniques of motivation to improve their class performance These leading figures have brought about great insight into how to motivate learners for better achievement and their findings have generated more research into different aspects of language teaching e.g how to arouse students' interest in their struggle to master the four skills

Relating to effective techniques to motivate learners, Peacock (1997) carried out the research “The effect of authentic materials on the motivation of EFL learners” The subjects of his study were 31 South Korean beginners The study used on-task and overall class motivation observation sheets and interview questions The research findings confirmed the positive effect of the authentic material on the motivation of EFL learners

Xiaoying Wang (2007) conducted an action research project in a listening course for the second-year English majors in one university in China Based on the data obtained from classroom observations, students’ journals, interviews with students, and students' response to an open-ended questionnaire at the end of the term, she claimed that the students developed a fairly high degree of motivation towards practicing listening due to the teacher’s three-part plan, one of which was helping the students set specific goals for themselves However, the results were not very convincing because the data collection instruments were only qualitative

In Vietnam, Ha Thi Lan (2003) conducted an action research on the effect of communicative activities of pair work and group work on students’ motivation in speaking

The subjects of the study were 30 students at Thaibinh School In order to collect data, the researcher used a combination of two instruments: questionnaire and classroom observation The findings revealed that the students were passive in speaking because of the lack of communicative activities in class

Another study was carried out by Hoang Thi Ngan (2006) with the purposes of finding out how to motivate students to speak at Gia Loc Senior Secondary School The subjects of the study were 186 students in Grade 11 and 8 teachers teaching English in the school The data collection instruments used in this study were questionnaire and interview The findings of the questionnaire and interview showed that most of the students had great interest in various teaching techniques and communicative activities used by their teachers

Their preferable teaching techniques were those which gave them friendly, enjoyable and cooperative atmosphere, in which they were given much more opportunities to speak the language

Two generalizations can be made about the above-mentioned studies Firstly, they all examine the effects of motivation on teaching and learning Secondly, they all used similar data collection instruments – questionnaire and observation For these reasons, the researcher will adapt questionnaire and observation to collect information for her study

In this chapter, the researcher has discussed the definitions of speaking, the importance of speaking, accuracy or fluency in the teaching of speaking, phases to teach speaking, common speaking activities and problems with speaking activities Theories of motivation, types of motivation in foreign language learning and the importance of motivation in foreign language learning were also mentioned In addition, strategies for motivating students in speaking activities were also focused on All of the knowledge is concerned with how to make teaching and learning of speaking skills more effective Finally, previous studies in motivation and motivation in English speaking were considered so that the researcher can adapt their instruments in her study to have reliable data.

METHODOLOGY 2.1 An action research

Description of the subjects

The study was conducted with the participation of 32 students in class K43B at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch (where I taught) and 2 teachers acting as observers

The 32 student participants were doing their first term of the first year at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch They were almost at the same age of 18 12 of them are boys and 20 are girls They have different levels of proficiency in English They come from different areas: 8 from big cities such as Hanoi, Haiphong; 10 from rural areas and 14 from mountainous provinces such as Caobang, Backan, Dienbien, etc Among them, 17 have learnt English for 3 years (from grade 10 to grade 12), 15 have learnt English for 7 years (from grade 6 to grade 12)

The observers have been teachers of English at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch for over five years and they have completed M.A courses in TESOL

There are several ways in which the steps of action research have been analyzed Kemmis

& Mc Taggart (1988) suggests that action research has four steps which progress as a spiraling and evolving process: planning, action, observation and reflection Susman

(1983) distinguishes five phases to be conducted within each research cycle: (1) Diagnosing: identifying or defining a problem, (2) Action planning: considering alternative courses of action, (3) Taking action: selecting a course of action, (4) Evaluating: studying the consequences of an action, and (5) Specifying learning: identifying general findings

Burn (1999) considered the action research process as a sequence of cycles which consists of eleven phases: exploring, identifying, planning, collecting data, analyzing/reflecting, hypothesizing, intervening, observing, reporting, writing and presenting

In this study, Nunan’s action research model (1992) was applied as it is easy to carry out in the teachers' own classroom in limited time and the steps are clear cut to follow This model includes six small steps: initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation, and dissemination

This action research was implemented during 12 weeks starting from week 1 of the course

The subjects of the study were 32 elementary students from the class K43B at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch who participated from the beginning to the end of the study

Based on the selected model, the following steps were done one after the other The description of the six step procedure is presented as follows:

* Step 1: Initiation (week 1 to week 3)

Observing the first three speaking lessons, the researcher realized that the students’ learning motivation and their participation in speaking activities were low Therefore, she decided to identify factors affecting the students’ learning motivation in speaking lessons and the first research question formed was: "What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?"

* Step 2: Preliminary investigation (From week 4 to week 6)

Data about the learners which may be factors affecting students’ motivation in English speaking activities were collected in week 4 in order to confirm the problem stated in step

1 and find out the causes of low motivation (using questionnaire 1, see Appendix 1)

To establish the baseline of students’ motivation, the three speaking lessons of unit 4, 5, 6 were conducted in an usual way, without any treatment and were observed using Observation sheet 1 (Appendix 3), Observation sheet 2 (Appendix 4) right after every lesson to measure students’ interest, enthusiasm, persistence with learning tasks

The analysis and discussion of the initial data led to the following hypothesis:

The combination of three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success would increase the students’ motivation in speaking activities

* Step 4: Intervention (from week 7 to week 12)

Based on the analysis of the data collected from questionnaire, observation and on the literature review relating to motivational strategies in speaking activities (as discussed in Chapter 1), an action plan consisting of three parts: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success was developed

- Lesson plan writing and preparation for plan implementation: Basing on the main reasons found, the researcher read literature to get more knowledge and suggested solutions Then speaking lesson plans for Units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 were designed In these speaking lessons, the three strategies - helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success - were used to motivate the students to speak

- Plan implementation: In the six speaking lessons of units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, the newly designed lesson plans were applied with the same group of students During the 6 weeks of the intervention, the speaking lessons were handled in a different way, using the three above-mentioned changes The lessons were observed using Observation sheet 1

(Appendix 3), Observation sheet 2 (Appendix 4) right after every lesson to measure students’ interest, enthusiasm, persistence with learning tasks After the plan implementation finished, Questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2) was conducted to gather information about the students’ attitude towards and assessment of the changes in teaching

In this step, the second research question formed was how the three changes in teaching: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success improved students’ motivation in speaking lessons

When information had been collected, the data from the two observation sheets of the last six lessons were then analyzed and compared with the data of two observation sheets of the first three lessons in order to evaluate the suggested solutions in the action plan The comparison was then used as evidence to show how useful the changes used by the teacher were

Questionnaire 2 was also analyzed to gather information about the students’ attitude towards and assessment of the changes in teaching Through the students’ responses, the researcher could evaluate the effectiveness of the changes more exactly

The action research procedure and its results were reorganized and presented in form of a thesis, which was shared with the researchers’ colleagues and some other teachers, especially younger ones

2 5 Description of Data Collection Instruments

In order to collect the data, the researcher used a combination of two instruments:

Questionnaire and Observation to guarantee the objectiveness of the data

Questionnaires are used when we want to tap into the opinions and ideas of our learners and we do this by asking questions The answers are usually recorded in some ways so that they become available for subsequent reflection and analysis (Wallace, 2001) In this study, two questionnaires were designed because they provided the researcher with responses which could be easily quantified and analyzed

Questionnaire 1 contains 4 questions designed to gather information about the students’ reasons for learning English speaking, their attitudes towards learning English speaking, their frequency of unwillingness to speak English in class and the factors leading to their low motivation in English speaking

Questionnaire 2 contains 4 questions designed to gather information about the students’ attitude towards and assessment of the changes in teaching speaking after the six weeks of action plan implementation

To make sure that the students understood the questions, the researcher spent about 30 minutes guiding them to answer and explaining difficult terms when she delivered the questionnaires to the students

DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS

Data collected from preliminary investigation stage

In order to find out the causes of students’ low motivation in English speaking activities, the researcher firstly investigated their reasons for learning English speaking through Question 1 Only 2 students stated that they were interested in English speaking skill, 8 students wanted to be able to communicate in English, 15 students believed that English speaking is necessary for their future job while 30 students claimed that they learned English speaking because it is compulsory at school One of them gave out another reason that s/he wanted to go abroad after graduating In short, it is assumed that the students learned English speaking mainly because it was a compulsory part in school syllabus

Chart 1: Students' reasons for learning English speaking

A English speaking is necessary for their future job

B English speaking is compulsory at their school

C They are interested in English speaking skill

D They want to be able to communicate in English

Through Question 2, the students’ attitude towards learning English speaking was revealed The results show that more than half of the students (56.3%, 18 students) were not fully aware of the importance of English speaking 12.5% (4 students) did not mind if English speaking is important to them or not 15.7% (5 students) thought that English speaking is not important at all and 28.1% (9 students) responded that English speaking is little important Only 43.7% (14 students) found English speaking rather important (37.5%,

12 students) or very important (6.2%, 2 students) to them It can be seen that the students can not have high level of motivation in English speaking activities when they are not fully aware of the importance of English speaking

Chart 2: Students' attitude towards learning English speaking

Very important Rather important Little important Not important at all Don’t mind

As a result of the students’ inadequate awareness of the importance of English speaking, more than two third of them (26 students, corresponding to 81.3%) felt unwilling to speak English in class Among these students, 14 students (43.8%) always felt unwilling, 9 students (28.1%) usually felt unwilling, and 3 students (9.4%) sometimes felt unwilling

Only 4 students (12.5%) said that they spoke whenever they were told to do and 2 (6.2%) answered that they always seek for chances to speak in class These figures prove that the frequency of the students’ unwillingness in speaking was high (The results can be found in the responses to Question 3)

Chart 3: Students' frequency of unwillingness to speak English in class

D Speak whenever they are told to

E Always seek for chances to speak in class

In an attempt to find out factors leading to the students' low motivation, the researcher gave out the question “What factor(s) make(s) you unwilling to speak English in class?”

(Question 4) A large number of students (26 students) expressed that one of the factors was that learning goal is not to communicate in English Clearly, their motivation in English speaking activities could not be high if they did not learn English to communicate

Another factor raised by 24 students was monotonous speaking activities In addition, there were two other causes: being afraid of making mistakes then being laughed at by other classmates, and unpleasant atmosphere in the classroom Both of the two causes received the same responses of 19 students Other factors listed in Question 4 were not remarkably referred to Only 5 students referred to being of afraid of making mistakes and being criticized by the teacher, 2 referred to being not interested in English speaking and none of the students referred to the teacher’s being unenthusiastic in English speaking classes or poor physical conditions None of them gave out any other factors

Chart 4: Factors leading to the students' low motivation in English speaking activities

The main factors leading to the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities can be diminished if the teacher helps them set specific, achievable goal for themselves, provides them with a lot of interesting speaking activities and use rewards to create an exciting atmosphere and increase their self-confident to speak

In summary, the findings in Questionnaire 1 revealed many useful facts related to the students’ motivation Firstly, most of the students learned English speaking mainly because it is a compulsory part in school syllabus Second, more than half of the students were not fully aware of the importance of English speaking to themselves As the result, the frequency of the students’ unwillingness in English speaking was high The main causes were: learning goal is not to communicate in English; the speaking activities used in the classroom were monotonous; the students were afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by other classmates; and the classroom atmosphere was not really relaxed

These findings were really important because it would help the researcher form the hypothesis and decide on the intervention later

3.1.2 Data collected from observation sheets 3.1.2.1 Data collected from Observation sheet 1

Observation sheet 1 in the first phase was used to measure overall class motivation in the speaking lessons 4, 5, 6 There were 8 items to be circled on a scale from 1 to 5 The highest daily score obtained was 40 (8  5 = 40) 3 is average number for each items, so the standard score was 24 (8  3 = 24) The data can be seen in Chart 5 and Appendix 7

Chart 5: Overall class motivation phase 1

The result from the chart shows that the class was not motivated as a whole There was an increase in overall class motivation in Lesson 5 (20) then it was on decrease in Lesson 6

(19) All the scores of the three lessons are under the standard score (24) Remarkably, the score of Lesson 4 is only 18

The data collected from the observation sheets shown in Chart 2 helped the researcher discover that the students did not fully participate in the activities in the speaking lessons and as a result, they were not motivated in the activities

3.1.2.2 Data collected from Observation sheet 2

Observation sheet 2 was used to quantify the students’ on-task and off-task behavior In each lesson, each student was scanned 12 times, and there were 32 students in the class; therefore, the highest number of students’ times on-task was 12  32 = 384 (equal 100%)

Using this calculation method, the results of the observation sheet 2 in the first phase were presented in Chart 6 and Appendix 8

This chart summarizes the data collected from Observation sheet 2 The results indicate that a small number of the students were engaged in the activities of the speaking lessons; the amount of times the students were on-task was rather low In Lesson 4, the students were on-task only 43.5% of the time while the students' off-task accounted for 56.5% In lesson 5, it seemed that there was a small change in the students’ behaviors: they were more involved in the activities The students’ average percentage of time on task was 45.8% In lesson 6, the time the students on-task decrease to 43.8% and the percentage of the students’ off-task was 56.2%

Chart 6: Students' times on-task/off-task behavior phase 1

Students' times on-task Student times off-task

The result from the observation sheet indicates the fact that the students were not much involved in the speaking activities They did not participate steadily in the activities In other words, the students had low motivation in speaking activities

Intervention

3.2.1 The aims of the intervention

The intervention was planned with the aim to test the hypothesis mentioned above, then to come to an answer to the question: Can the use of the three strategies help to increase the students’ motivation in English speaking activities?

Based on the analysis of the collected data from the preliminary investigation, bearing the motivational strategies and the researcher’s own teaching context in mind, the researcher developed a plan of intervention at the second phase The intervention lasted 6 weeks when students finished speaking lessons 4, 5, 6 in New Headway Elementary Textbook The intervention consisted of three parts: helping the students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities, and rewarding the students’ success

Helping the students set achievable goals

Before introducing this first change into her teaching speaking, the researcher usually started teaching from the textbook immediately after introducing herself and getting to know her students for about fifteen minutes for the first period After learning the importance of giving students a clear purpose and goal, she decided to help her students to find out their own needs, expectations and see the value of speaking activities

Therefore, at the beginning of the intervention, she spent time to provide her students with explicit knowledge about speaking She told them that “Oral expression involves not only the use of the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning” (Bygate, cited in

Mackey, 1965) She showed that speaking plays an utmost important role among the four language skills so it deserves their time and effort to make improvement She also told them about accuracy and fluency in speaking and emphasized that they did not need to be always both accurate and fluent in speaking at their level because speaking is a very difficult skill for many of them She encouraged them to try their best to speak as much as possible, sometimes regardless of accuracy in vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation In addition, she introduced phases of speaking teaching: the presentation phase, the practice phase and the production phase and what they should do in each phase She also reminded them of some common problems with speaking activities so that they could avoid in their learning

After the students had general knowledge about speaking, she guided them to find out their needs and expectations in speaking activities, their strengths and weaknesses, and then set their own achievable goals for themselves She told her students that easy-attained goals could demotivate them but unrealistic goals could also disappoint and frustrate them; thus, they should set proper goals For example, some good students should have the goals of being both accurate and fluent in speaking, as they would not find it difficult to reach their goal; others who were not good might set more simple goals such as being able to speak with mistakes in using vocabulary, structures or pronunciation, etc The students should set their certain goals for a certain activity and might change their goals according to their continued improvement In order to help the students, the researcher spent time in each lesson, even in each activity to guide them to set their achievable goals

Before the researcher introduced this second change into her teaching, her teaching generally followed some simple activities in the textbook (ask and answer in pair or group, role-play, information-gap) It seemed that the teaching objective was to finish the activities in the textbook Since the activities in the textbook are repeated again and again, the students feel bored and some did not participate in

To make speaking time relaxed and motivated for her students, she provided them with a variety of activities beside role-play and information-gap: problem-solving activities, picture card activities such as Kim’s game, What is my line, Twenty questions, Patter matching, Describe and Draw, Spot the differences, Completing a Map/ Giving Directions, The Lost Twin, etc These activities were copied or extracted from different language teaching books, or taken from other resources then edited to be appropriate for her students To ensure that the students could perform well in each activity, she gave them clear instructions, especially for difficult or new ones Her way of handling the activities was like this: She presented some information (grammar, vocabulary, etc) related to the speaking activities, gave the students instructions, modeled and asked the students to participate in while going around to help them, then assigned one or two pairs or groups to speak in front of the whole class After listening to them, she asked some other students to give feedback and then give her own feedback on the students’ performance

In order to create a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom to stimulate the students in speaking as well as to help the students build up their confidence, the researcher used rewards for success immediately after activities She prepared some small rewards which were not materially valuable, such as some pens, pencils, notebooks, pictures, English discs, English books, etc When introducing an activity to the students and asked them to participate in, she also introduced the rewards she intended to give to the pair or the group who were the most successful in the activity The most successful pair or group could be determined by the teacher, by a “group of referees”, or by the whole class, depending on some criteria: their attitude in participating the activity and their performance, etc she thought it might be worthwhile to try this way as it could create light competition among pairs or groups of students, which is good for learning This might also make the classroom atmosphere more relaxed and enhance the students’ self-confidence

(For more details, see Appendix 5 and 6).

Data collected from the intervention stage

The six speaking lessons of Units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 were observed with Observation sheet 1 and 2 to assess the overall classroom motivation and the students’ participation when the three strategies were applied The students’ opinions about the three changes were collected through Questionnaire 2

3.3.1 Data collected from Observation sheets

* Data collected from Observation sheet 1

Observation sheet 1 looks at overall class motivation The data can be seen in Chart 7 and Appendix 7

Standard Lesson 7 Lesson 8 Lesson 9 Lesson 10 Lesson 11 Lesson 12

The mean score of overall class motivation over the six units was 31 The scores were 27 in Lesson 7, 28 in Lesson 8, 30 in Lesson 9, 32 in Lesson 10, 33 in Lesson 11 and up to 36 in Lesson 12 These scores were higher than the standard score (24) and increased gradually Remarkably, the score in Lesson 12 nearly reached the possible maximum 40

This indicates that the class was highly motivated as a whole

This result revealed that the students were highly involved in the lessons; they were much enjoying the lessons and found the activities interesting The result also shows that the students paid extended attention to the speaking activities and the level of their concentration on the task was high The most important is the teacher’s organization of the speaking activities was appropriate for them

From the data collected above, it can be concluded that the students were much more involved and motivated after the teacher implemented the three changes

Observation sheet 2 focuses on the student on-task and off-task individually The data can be seen in Chart 8 and Appendix 8

Lesson 7 Lesson 8 Lesson 9 Lesson 10 Lesson 11 Lesson 12

This chart summarizes the data collected from Observation sheet 2 As can be seen, the students were much more engaged in the learning tasks, the students’ on-task behavior was on increase, which is shown by the fact that the students were on task 60.4% of time in Lesson 7; 63.3% in Lesson 8; 68.2% in Lesson 9; 70.6% in Lesson 10; 79.7% in Lesson 11 and up to 86.5% in Lesson 12

The data collected show that the implementing of the three changes were really effective when the students participate more in the lessons, they were working harder and more actively

In order to confirm the observation sheet result, the researcher asked the students to fill in Questionnaire 2 Item 1 was designed to collect he students’ opinions about the teacher’s helping them set achievable goals; Item 2: to collect the students’ opinions about the teacher’s use of various speaking activities; Item 3: to collect the students’ opinions about the teacher’s use of rewards in speaking activities; and Item 4: to collect the students’ attitude towards the teaching in the last six speaking lessons in general

The data from the first item were illustrated in Chart 9

Chart 9: Students' opinions about the teacher's helping them set their own achievable goals

A made their study more purposeful

The chart presents clearly that most of the students found the teacher’s helping in setting their own achievable goals were useful since it made them more purposeful (30 students) and more confident (25 students) Only a small amount of them had negative opinion about it

The data from item 2 were illustrated in Chart 10 It can be seen from the chart that 31 students reported that the teacher’s use of various speaking activities made them interested and 22 students announced that the use of various activities created a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom These are significant figures However, it should be considered when there were still students who thought the use of various activities made them feel complicated (12 students) and difficult to follow (16 students)

Chart 10: Students' opinions about the teacher's use of various speaking activities

D made it difficult for them to follow

The data from item 3 were illustrated in Chart 11 The results illustrated in the chart show that the majority of the students in the study had positive comment on the use of rewards

They indicated that the teacher’s use of rewards encouraged them to make more effort in learning in speaking lessons (29 responses), created a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom

(26 responses) and made them more confident to speak English (22 responses) Only 7 students complained that the use of rewards created intense competition among them, which is not very good for learning

Chart 11: Students' opinions about the teacher's use of rewards for success

B encouraged them to make more effort

D created intense competition among them

The data from item 4 were illustrated in Chart 12

Chart 12: Students' attitude towards the teaching in the intervention stage

Not sure Agree Strongly agree

Item 4 In general, I like the teaching in the last six speaking lessons

A Strongly disagree B Disagree C Not sure D Agree E Strongly agree

As mentioned above, Item 4 was given out to have the students’ attitude towards the teaching in the six speaking lessons of units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the intervention stage) in general The results showed that 84.5% of the students (27 students) liked the ways of teaching in these lessons (manifested in “Agree” and “Strongly agree” responses) while only 9.3% did not like (manifested in “Strongly disagree” and “Disagree” responses) The rest, 6.2% were not sure whether they liked the teacher’s ways of teaching or not

In brief, from the data collected from Questionnaire 2, it can be concluded that the students highly appreciated each of the teacher’s three changes in teaching speaking in lessons 7, 8, 9,10,11,12 (helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success) and liked the way the teacher combined the three changes into teaching.

Evaluation

The researcher made an evaluation of the action research based on the data of two stages – before and after the intervention This was aimed at measuring how students’ motivation changed when the intervention was implemented

* Comparison of the overall class motivation in two phases

Chart 13: Overall class motivation before and after the intervention

Chart 13 presents the information of the overall classroom motivation for the students from Observation sheet 1 As can be seen from the chart, the mean score for all classroom motivation at the preliminary investigation stage is 19, at the intervention stage is 31 while the standard score is 24 (3 is the average mark  8 items = 24) The data collected show that the scores of overall class motivation increased considerably Comparing with the data collected in the first phase (preliminary investigation stage), there was a big difference in the students’ motivation in the second phase (intervention stage) The preliminary results show that the students’ motivation was low, but there was a remarkable increase in their motivation during the experimental period It indicated that three changes in speaking lessons in the researcher’s were effective in the researcher’s class

* Comparison of the percentage of the students’ on-task behavior in two phases

Chart 14: Students' times on-task/off-task behavior before and after the intervention

Chart 14 summarizes information about the students’ on-task behavior in two phases from Observation Sheet 2 The results indicate that at preliminary investigation stage the students were on task 44.4% of the time and at the post stage they were on task 71.5% of the time This shows that before the implementation of the three changes, the students were not much engaged in the speaking activities but after the implementation of the three changes, the students were on task more often For example, in Lessons 4, 5 and 6, the percentage of the students on task was correspondingly 43.5%, 45.8% and 34.1% while it was 60.4% in Lesson 7; 63.3% in Lessons 8; 68.2% in Lesson 9; 70.6% in Lesson 10;

79.7% in Lesson 11 and up to 86.5% in Lesson 12 Therefore, it can be concluded that the three changes were effectively used in English speaking lessons in the researcher’s class

Based on the analysis of the collected data from Questionnaire 1, the researcher realized that the students’ motivation was low because their learning goal was not to communicate in English, the speaking activities were monotonous and boring, they were unconfident and the classroom atmosphere was not really pleasant

With the data collected from Questionnaire 2, it can be said that the combination of the three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success made the students more interested in speaking activities, more purposeful, more self-confident, more concentrative and more eager to participate in the activities It also created an exciting atmosphere for them to speak as they really want to be winners and be able to get the rewards According to the data collected, the students highly appreciated each of the teacher’s three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success in teaching speaking in lesson 7,

8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, and really liked the way the teacher combined the three changes into teaching Thus, the combination of the three changes in English speaking lessons in the researcher’s class can be affirmed to be effective

With the aim of studying how the three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success are used to motivate students in English speaking activities, the researcher described and discussed all the stages of the action research The preliminary investigation stage was aimed at establishing the baseline of students' motivation as well as identifying the main reasons for students' low motivation

Questionnaire and Observation were used to collect the data for this purpose After analyzing the data collected from the preliminary investigation stage, the causes of the problem were identified as their learning goal was not to communicate in English, the speaking activities were monotonous and boring, they were unconfident and the classroom atmosphere was not pleasant Thus, the hypothesis of the study was formed: the students' motivation levels could be improved if an intervention consisting of three parts: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success were implemented The intervention was then carried out The data about the intervention was collected through observation and questionnaire An evaluation was made by comparing contrasting the data of the two stages: the preliminary stage and the intervention stage The evaluation reveals that students' motivation significantly increased Through the findings from both sides: positive factors and challenges, it is hoped that the three ways of teaching: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success can be exploited to motivate students to speak successfully and effectively

From the results of the research, it is effective to use the three ways of teaching: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success to motivate students to speak There are some reasons for this affirmation as follows:

First, these ways of teaching when combined together make the students more willing to speak English in class and actively participate in speaking activities When the teacher helps them set their achievable goals, they are more purposeful in learning and make more effort in doing tasks Beside, a large number of the students like to join in speaking activities when the speaking activities are sufficiently various Different kinds of activities create the students’ interest to participate in They also create an exciting atmosphere in the classroom The activities are enjoyable and fun so they can help student banish boredom and bring them pleasure to speak English They also lower students’ anxiety and shyness and make them become more confident speaker In addition, using rewards encourages the students to be more active and more eager and make more effort in doing tasks since the students want to be winners and want to be rewarded

Secondly, when making a small comparison between the data collected from two stages: the initial stage and post stage, it is clear that the number of students who are willing to join the speaking lessons applied the combination of the three changes increase considerably It has proved that the speaking lessons are surely more interesting and enjoyable with the use of the changes In this case, the changes play a role as an inspirer to appeal students to speak

In brief, the findings reveal that the three changes can be combined to enhance students' motivation in speaking lessons The positive factors achieved after carrying out the study reassure that the combination of the three changes can raise students' motivation in speaking activities

Although the intervention has gained many achievements, the implementation of the three strategies creates some difficulties itself

First, the researcher had to spend too much time to prepare for each lesson She had to decide how to help the students in setting their goals Moreover, she had to decide what activities to use, how to organize the activities effectively, how much time should be spent on each activity She also had to prepare a lot of materials for students in advance in order to make the lesson more effective In addition, she had to bear in mind what kinds of rewards should be appropriate and how to avoid the students’ intense competition when using rewards to encourage the students to speak

Second, the length of the activities is another difficult for the teachers Some of the activities are too long (about 20 minutes) and some are too short (about 5 minutes) The students feel either disappointed with too short activities or bored with too long activities

Therefore, the teacher had to find suitable activities and make them appropriate for the students and class time

Moreover, some types of the activities are really new to the students The teacher had to find ways to give clear instructions and guide them to work effectively

The teaching and learning process can not work successfully if the teacher only sticks to what s/he had planned before during the implementation stage of the syllabus, some unexpected things might occur so the teacher should be flexible

Review of the study

The action research was carried out in the time frame of nine weeks It started when the issue of low motivation in speaking lessons was perceived within the first three weeks The preliminary investigation stage was generated to confirm the problem and explore the causes in the next three weeks, using one questionnaire and two observation sheets as data collection instruments

Based on this, it was hypothesized that the teacher could significantly improve the students' motivation levels by implementing the intervention consisting of the three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success

A plan was then formulated and implemented with the purpose of attacking the problems to increase students' motivation The data were collected again and this source of information, together with the data collected in the preliminary stage was compared to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention The evaluation showed that the intervention was successful in generating students' motivation And in the scope of this research, the use of the three changes help the students more purposeful in learning speaking, more interested, more concentrate on the lessons, leading to positive attitude as well as high motivation in speaking lessons Moreover, the changes can create joyful learning atmosphere, which provides the students with more opportunities to obtain knowledge with pleasure and help the students like speaking lessons more The changes also help increase the students’ self-confidence in English speaking.

Pedagogical implications

The three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success were demonstrated to be effective in speaking lessons But in order to gain the most from the use of these strategies, some comments should be considered:

Helping students set their achievable goals

Teacher should help students set their achievable goals not only at the beginning of a course but also during speaking lessons In order to do this well, s/he should provide students with explicit knowledge about speaking, its definition, its importance, accuracy or fluency in speaking, problems with speaking activities and strategies to improve speaking skill, then guide them how to determine their goals for the course, for each lesson, even for each activity If students are helped to set specific, short-term, achievable goals for speaking, they will be more confident, hence, more motivated to speak and the effect will be greater

Speaking activities should be sufficiently various in class to be profitable for the teaching process If the teacher uses only some monotonous activities, students are uninterested in and bored But if the teacher uses too many different activities, students will find difficult to catch up with Besides, teacher should choose suitable activities for students S/he can make some changes in order to make the activities more or less complex, to be suitable for students’ ability

Pictures, cards, or images should be frequently used in speaking activities to attract learners Therefore, good preparations are important If students prepare pictures or cards, they need to be checked by teachers In addition, not all pictures or images are always available in the textbook; the work will become hard and time-consuming So, obtaining the appropriate images, pictures on the Internet are suggested

Time allocation for each speaking activity should be planned appropriately for different stages in each speaking lesson Simultaneously, the students' activities should be carefully controlled If they last too long, students will feel bored, tired and distracted from their attention If they do not last long enough, they will not give any sense of satisfaction Each activity should not take much time (more than 15 minutes) With large classes, games for pairs and small groups are very good because all the students can have chances to practice the language

Speaking activities should be provided with clear instructions and rules Teacher should not make the instructions and rules too complicated or strict because learners will feel tense However, certain rules should still be made to control the noise from overexcited students

The teacher is recommended to use small rewards which are not materially valuable

Rewards should be related to English language, English people or England country to increase the students’ integrative motivation in learning, for example, small story books in English, photos of famous English people, photos of famous landscapes in England, etc If teacher cannot give out material rewards, s/he can flexibly reward success by grades

Rewards should be introduced at the beginning of the activities and should be given immediately after activities finished Teacher should be always fair in deciding who can get the rewards should avoid intense competition among students, which is not good for learning

However, this is an action research in the researcher's own class and the above recommendations are not entirely comprehensive Any contribution to this study with a view to fostering discussion and in the long run, bringing greater benefits to the students at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch, would be highly appreciated.

Students’ reasons for learning English speaking

A English speaking is necessary for their future job

B English speaking is compulsory at their school

C They are interested in English speaking skill

D They want to be able to communicate in English

Through Question 2, the students’ attitude towards learning English speaking was revealed The results show that more than half of the students (56.3%, 18 students) were not fully aware of the importance of English speaking 12.5% (4 students) did not mind if English speaking is important to them or not 15.7% (5 students) thought that English speaking is not important at all and 28.1% (9 students) responded that English speaking is little important Only 43.7% (14 students) found English speaking rather important (37.5%,

12 students) or very important (6.2%, 2 students) to them It can be seen that the students can not have high level of motivation in English speaking activities when they are not fully aware of the importance of English speaking.

Students’ attitude towards learning English speaking