Luận văn thạc sĩ an investigation into teachers and students attitudes toward the use of mother tongue in english language classrooms at hongai high school

Output file VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES    TRẦN NGỌC THƯỜNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ A[.]

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  TRẦN NGỌC THƯỜNG AN INVESTIGATION INTO TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD THE USE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS AT HON GAI HIGH SCHOOL ( Điều tra thái độ giáo viên học sinh việc sử dụng tiếng mẹ đẻ lớp học tiếng Anh trường THPT Hòn Gai) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 HANOI - 2010 z vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration i Acknowledgement ii List of table iii List of abbreviations iv Abstract v Table of contents vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 2 Scope of the study Aims of the study Method of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: Literature review I.1 An overview on the history of the mother tongue used in EFL classroom I.2 Arguments against and for L1 use I.2.1 Arguments against L1 use I.2.1.1 The L1 Acquisition Argument I.2.1.2 The language Compartmetalization Argument I.2.1.3 Provision of the Maximum Target Language Argument I.2.2 Arguments Favouring L1 Use I.2.2.1 The Pedagogical Role I.2.2.2 The Psychological Role 10 I.2.2.3 The Socio- cultural Role 10 I.3 Uses of mother tongue in L2 acquisition 11 I.4 Theoretical and Research Evidence Favoring and Disfavoring L1 Use 13 I.5 Amount of L1 and the Learners’ Level 13 z vii Chapter II The study 16 II.1 Participants 16 II Data Collection Instruments 16 II.2.1 The student questionnaire 16 II.2.2 Classroom observations 16 II.2.3 Interviews 17 II.3 Procedures for data collection 17 II.4 Results 17 II.4.1 Student questionnaire 17 II.4.2 Classroom observations 23 II.4.3 Interviews 25 II.5 Discussion 27 PART C: Conclusion and Recommendation 31 Conclusions 31 Recommendations 32 Limitations 34 Suggestions for further research 34 Reference 35 Appendix I Appendix III Appendix IV z iii LIST OF TABLES Table Students’ preference for L1 use in the classroom Table Students’ self- report on Teacher’ L1 use Table Students’ self – report on the purpose of Teacher’s L1 use Table Students’ hypothetical opinions of Teachers’ reactions to their use of L1 in the classroom Table The frequency of teachers’ use of L1 in various lessons z iv LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS L1: First language L2: Second language EFL: English as a foreign language GMT: Grammar Translation Method z PART A: INTRODUCTION This part presents the rationale, scope, aims, method, design and research questions Rationale The role of mother tongue or L1 in L2 classrooms is a controversial issue in L2 education Different researchers, teachers and students hold different attitudes towards this issue Advocates of a monolingual approach suggest that the target language should be the sole medium of communication In other words, L1 should be prohibited in the classroom for optimal use of the target language As Atkinson (1993) has pointed out “every second spent using L1 is a second not spent using English” (p.12) The mother tongue has been treated as a taboo subject, source of guilt and a hint of teachers‟ weakness to teach properly (Prodromou, 2001), a waste of time (Januleviciene and Kavakiauskiene, 2002) This position has been influential and often assumed to be the hallmarks of good language teaching (Atkinson, 1995) In contrast, scholars such as Schweers (1999), Kramsch (1993), Atkinson (1987) argue that classroom use of the learners‟ native language has certain advantages in some ways L1 can have productive pedagogical, affective and sociocultural roles Atkinson (1987) claims that “the potential of mother tongue, as a classroom resource is so great that its role should merit considerable attention and discussion in any attempt to develop a „post- communicative approach‟ to TEFL for adolescents and adults”(p.241) Therefore, the use of students native language should not be banned From my personal experience both as a student and teacher of English as a foreign language, I believe that the appropriate use of the students‟ native language is of some benefits to students‟ learning This belief motivates me to carry out this study, which aims to examine how the L1 is used in the English language classroom Hopefully, the current study‟s findings will partially help more people especially foreign language teachers acknowledge the role of L1 in the EFL classroom as well as know how to balance L1 and L2 use in the EFL classroom appropriately Scope of the study The study limits itself to the use of students‟ native language as well as the teachers z and students‟ attitudes towards the use of L1 in the English language classroom The study is conducted at Hon Gai Upper Secondary School in Quang Ninh Aims of the study The study aims to investigate the use of students‟ mother tongue- Vietnamese- in the English classroom at Hon Gai Upper Secondary School More specifically, the study tries to seek answers to the following basic questions: What is the attitude of teachers and students towards using Vietnamese in the English classroom? How often teachers and students use Vietnamese in EFL classroom? What teachers and students use Vietnamese in EFL classroom for ? Methods of the study Both qualitative and quantitative research methods are used, including classroom observations, interviews, and questionnaire  Classroom observations Six conveniently- selected classes (of about 45 minutes in length) taught by three different teachers were observed to find out how frequently and on what occasions Vietnamese is used  Interviews Post- observation interviews were conducted in order to gain insights into the teachers‟ rationale of using L1 in the classroom The interviews were transcribed fully and analyzed qualitatively according to emerging themes  Questionnaire A questionnaire (see Appendix 1) was administered to 190 students to find out their attitudes towards using Vietnamese in the English classroom The questionnaire items were developed with reference to the literature on the benefits and limitations of using students‟ L1 in an L2 classroom Design of the study The thesis consists of three parts: Part A is the introduction, which presents the rationale, the scope, the aims, the methods and the design of the study Part B consists of two chapters z Chapter I, the literature review, starts with a brief review of the literature on the role of mother tongue in EFL classrooms This includes major arguments against and for the use of L1, and the pedagogic purposes for which student‟s native language could be employed in the L2 classroom Finally, an insight into the theoretical and research evidence favoring and disfavoring the use of L1 are presented Chapter II, the study, presents the participants, the data collection instruments, the results and the discussion of the findings Part C is the conclusion of the study In this part, some recommendations on the use of mother tongue in EFL classroom, the limitation of the study and some suggestions on further research are presented The appendixes are the last part of the study following the reference z PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews briefly the literature on the role of mother tongue in EFL classrooms Major arguments against and for the use of L1 and the pedagogic purposes for which students‟ native language could be employed in the L2 classrooms are discussed in order to create a theoretical framework for the current study I.1 An overview on the history of the mother tongue used in EFL classroom Looking at the history of mother tongue (L1) used in the L2 classroom, it can be easily seen that the use of L1 keeps changing periodically and regularly Several hundred years ago, bilingual teaching was favoured, with students learning through translation Howatt (1984) tells us that the ideas of using L1 in the L2 classroom was a respected view during the era of The Grammar Translation Method-“GTM” GTM had dominated late 19th and early 20th century teaching, and saw language learning as a means towards intellectual development rather than as being for utilitarian, communicative purpose- the method in which nearly all phrases of the lesson employ the use of students‟ L1 and translation technique The use of L1 to study L2 was almost universal and readily accepted, partly because language teaching placed an emphasis on the written word above the spoken words However, right after the First World War, L1 use was seriously objected due to GTM resulting in the lack of everyday realistic spoken language content Moreover, the mass migration of people to other countries particular from Europe to America slowly reversed this trend toward a monolingual approach “It was important for educators then to refocus their lesson from students with a common L1 to students with mixed L1” (Hawks, 2001, p47) No longer could teacher rely on using L1 to help them The solution to such linguistically- mixed classes was using the L2 as the medium of teaching and the language teaching placed an emphasis on the spoken language A sudden and immediate removal of L1 from the classroom happened at the time of the Direct Method of the early 20 th century This approach aimed at oral competence and believed languages were best learnt in a way that emulated the “natural” language learning of the child Therefore, there was no place for translation in the classroom, i.e with no z analysis of translation The Direct Method would soon be discredited when it failed in the public education system (Brown, 1994, p44), but it would have a lasting influence on ESL/ EFL classrooms The move away from L1 use was later reinforced by Audiolingualism (1940s1960s) which saw language as a matter of habit formation L1 was seen as a collection of already established linguistic habits which would “interfere” with the establishment of the new set of linguistic habits that constituted the target language, and was thus to be avoided at all costs This theoretical opposition to the use of L1 was compounded by the development of the TEFL “industry”- there are now many situations in which the teacher simply doesn‟t speak or even understand the students‟ language, simply because the teacher is an English native speaker who does not speak the students‟ native language In the last thirty years or so, there have continued to be some methodologies which avoid the use the L1, with Total Physical Response being one of these methodologies But others, like Suggestopaedia and Counselling Language Learning have included it as an integral part of classroom pedagogy Recently though support for an English only policy has been declining, and some researchers and teachers have begun to advocate more bilingual approach to teaching , which would incorporate the students‟ L1 as a learning tool Others have even gone far as saying the use of L1 in the classroom is necessary (Schweers, 1999, p6) Additionally,, new empirical findings of bilingual research have recently supported the use of L1 in the classroom with a central argument that the side-effect of L1 may be unwanted, resulting from the attitude of disaffected teacher (Butzcam,2003) In short, the pendulum of L1 use swings with the methodological change For example, during the heydays of the communicative approach, L1 use tended to be discouraged (Cole,1998; Cook,1999; 2001a, 2001b; Prodromou, 2001) The avoidance of learners‟ L1 was also reflected in most of the L2 teaching material during this period (Atkinson,1987, 1995; Buckmaster, 2002; G Cook, 2001 b; Hawks, 2001) I.2 Arguments against and for L1 use I.2.1 Arguments against L1 use There is a variety of arguments against using the students‟ mother tongue (L1) in the ESL or EFL classroom Cook,V (2001b) presents three main arguments for avoiding using L1 in the target language classroom z ... balance L1 and L2 use in the EFL classroom appropriately Scope of the study The study limits itself to the use of students? ?? native language as well as the teachers z and students? ?? attitudes towards... the use of L1 in the English language classroom The study is conducted at Hon Gai Upper Secondary School in Quang Ninh Aims of the study The study aims to investigate the use of students? ?? mother. .. that switching and negotiation between languages are a part and parcel of everyday z language use for the majority of the world population These scholars have agreed that since the mother tongue