An investigation into efl students anxiety in preparing for the engligh test in the national high school graduation exam

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY NGUYEN TRAN BAO CHAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN PREPARING FOR THE ENGLISH TEST IN THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION EXAM MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University HUE, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY NGUYEN TRAN BAO CHAU AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL STUDENTS’ ANXIETY IN PREPARING FOR THE ENGLISH TEST IN THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION EXAM MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University SUPERVISOR: DR NGUYEN HO HOANG THUY HUE, 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ NGUYỄN TRẦN BẢO CHÂU NGHIÊN CỨU ÁP LỰC TÂM LÝ CỦA HỌC SINH KHI CHUẨN BỊ CHO BÀI THI TIẾNG ANH CỦA KÌ THI TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THƠNG QUỐC GIA LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS NGUYỄN HỒ HOÀNG THỦY HUE, 2020 ABSTRACT It is evident that a considerable number of test takers are experiencing test anxiety The current study aims to investigate the main causes of anxiety among the students in preparing for the English test in the national high school graduation exam and their responses to their own anxiety Data were collected by means of questionnaires delivered to eighty-four 12th graders at a high school and then semi-structured interviews with ten among these eighty-four students The causes of anxiety being investigated were relevant to three main themes, including learners‟ perceived threat of tests, learners‟ research and learning skills, and learners‟ test performance attributions The data was analysed, synthesised and interpreted both quantitatively and qualitatively The findings identified possible causes of anxiety in preparing for the English test in the national high school graduation exam, among which the students‟ fear for the difficult contents of the test and pressure of time to prepare for the test, the students‟ difficulties in selecting the right materials and identifying the appropriate methods to study efficiently, and the students‟ reliance on only the textbook when preparing for the test were found to be prominent Students were also found to have both physical and psychological responses The study also proposed a variety of methods to alleviate the anxiety in order for the students to perform better in the English test i Acknowledgements I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to people who have advised and supported me, and made constructive criticism during the research Firstly, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my respectful supervisor, who gave me a lot of professional advice on the thesis writing Without her generous professional support and encouragement, this thesis could not reach this present standard Secondly, I would also like to acknowledge my gratefulness to the students at Hai Ba Trung upper-secondary school who carefully completed the questionnaires and sincerely provided me with valuable information for this research in the interview Thirdly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Board of Director, the Library staff at Hue University College of Foreign Languages for their support during the time I carried out this study Finally, I wish to express my deep thanks to my dear family and friends for their love, encouragement, immeasurable support, and concrete help for me to complete this research ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract I Acknowledgements II Table of contents III List of tables V List of abbreviations VI CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study 1.2 Aims of the study and research questions 1.3 Significance of the study 1.4 Structure of the study CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The concept of anxiety 2.2.1 Definition of anxiety 2.2.2 Types of anxiety 2.3 Foreign language anxiety 2.3.1 Definition of foreign language anxiety 2.3.2 Sources of foreign language anxiety 2.4 Foreign language test anxiety 12 2.4.1 Definition of foreign language test anxiety 12 2.4.2 Causes of foreign language test anxiety 12 2.5 The english test in the national graduation exam in Vietnam 14 2.5.1 An overview of the english curriculum in the general education program 14 2.5.2 A general description of the format of the english national high school graduation test 15 2.5.3 The english test matrix 15 2.6 Review of related studies 15 2.6.1 Research on the global scale 16 2.6.2 Research in Vietnam 17 2.6.3 Research gaps 17 2.7 Summary 18 iii CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 19 3.1 Introduction 19 3.2 Participants 19 3.3 Data collection 19 3.3.1 Rationale for selecting data collection instruments 19 3.3.2 Description of data collection instruments 20 3.3.3 Procedures for data collection 21 3.4 Data analysis 21 3.5 Summary 22 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 23 4.1 Introduction 23 4.2 The causes of students‟ test anxiety 23 4.2.1 Causes related to learners‟ perceived threat of tests 23 4.2.2 Causes related to learners‟ research and learning skills 26 4.2.3 Causes related to learners‟ test performance attributions 28 4.3 Students‟ responses to their own anxiety 30 4.3.1 Students‟ physical responses to their own anxiety 30 4.3.2 Students‟ psychological responses to their own anxiety 32 4.4 Summary 33 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 34 5.1 Summary of the key findings 34 5.2 Implications for teaching practice 35 5.3 Implications for student learning 35 5.4 Limitations of the study 35 5.5 Suggestions for further studies 36 REFERENCES 37 APPENDIX iv LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Causes related to learners‟ perceived threat of tests 23 Table 4.2: Causes related to learners‟ research and learning skills 26 Table 4.3: Causes related to learners‟ test performance attributions 28 Table 4.4: Students‟ physical responses to their own anxiety 30 Table 4.5: Students‟ psychological responses to their own anxiety 32 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FLA : Foreign language anxiety TA : Test anxiety vi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study Academic stress is a widespread problem across countries, cultures and ethnic groups (Wong, Wong, & Scott, 2006) Every student strives to achieve academic success in order to achieve esteem, family pride and social mobility (Gow, Bella, Kember, & Hau, 1996) This leads to extremely high academic expectations and exceptional pressure on students and teenagers in particular (e.g Bossy, 2000; Ho, 1996) The students are unable to enjoy their academic life as a result of pressure and demands to perform well in the exam and it becomes joyless and burdensome for them Stress can be regarded as any physical, chemical or emotional factor that causes body or mental unrest and can be a factor in causing disease Trauma, illnesses, toxins, diseases, and wounds of any kind are physical and chemical causes of stress There are many and varying psychological triggers of stress and tension Sometimes a moderate degree of pressure and stress can be helpful For example, when performing a task or assignment, feeling slightly anxious often helps us to a good job, focus better, and work energetically But if students encounter intense stress before and during testing, it will have implications for mental health and somatic symptoms (Lee & Larson, 2000; Verma & Gupta, 1990) Because of high exam stress, students spent less time socializing and engaging in passive and active leisure that can further magnify the impact of exam stress (Lee & Larson, 2000) In reality, getting stressed a bit about the exam means that students really care about the result they are going to get They are being forced to work hard to get a good ranking Nevertheless, when the anxiety caused by the stressful test exceeded severe or subclinical levels, it interfered with the ability of students to perform at their best Stress and anxiety felt before and during the tests are often due to fear of failure and can have a significant negative impact on the student‟s self-esteem Anxiety screening has been reported to produce adverse cognitive effects, including memory problems and information retrieval The English test in the national high school graduation exam has become more and more critical in the past few years in Vietnam With English being a compulsory subject in the curriculum, it is expected that high school students would receive high marks in the English test in the high school graduation exam and would be admitted to a university subsequently Nevertheless, a large number APPENDIX THE CAUSES OF STUDENTS’ ANXIETY This scale is employed to explore students’ anxiety in preparing for the English test in the national high shcool graduation exam Please read 22 items below and tick your opinion about the items We appreciate your enthusiastic and serious participation that ensures the study’s reliability, objectivity and honesty No Causes Strongly disagree Disagree Agree partly Agree Strongly agree I feel anxious when doing the pronunciation part relevant to sounds (e.g.: how to pronounce “s” sound or vowels) 12 49 17 (14.3%) (58.3%) (20.2%) (6.0%) (1.2%) 37 22 13 (10.7%) (44.0%) (0%) (2.4%) 18 I feel anxious when doing the pronunciation part relevant to stressed patterns I feel anxious when I sample tests with difficult collocations, idioms and phrases I feel anxious when I answer the questions testing my understanding of expressions (3.6 %) (26.2%) (15.5%) 18 42 (21.4%) (50.0%) 10 47 (21.4 %) (11.9%) (60.0%) (3.6%) 22 (26.2%) (7.1%) serving communication purposes 10 I feel anxious when I reading comprehension containing advanced vocabulary I feel anxious when I reading comprehension containing inference questions I feel anxious when doing the mock test before the real test I feel anxious when there are only English hours at school per week I feel anxious when I am not able to concentrate much on the English test I feel anxious when I not have much time left to prepare for the English test (0%) (2.4%) (0%) (4.8%) (0%) (2.4%) (0%) (5.9 %) (0%) (8.3%) (0%) (1.2%) 10 54 (11.9%) (64.3%) 11 48 (13.1%) (57.1%) 16 58 (19.0%) (69.1%) 13 44 (15.5%) (52.4%) 26 33 (31.0%) (39.3%) 13 41 (15.5%) (48.8%) 18 (21.4%) 21 (25.0%) (9.5%) 22 (26.2%) 18 (21.4%) 29 (34.5%) NGUYÊN NHÂN GÂY RA LO LẮNG CHO HỌC SINH Thang điểm sử dụng để thăm dò lo lắng học sinh chuẩn bị cho thi tiếng anh kỳ thi Tốt nghiệp trung học phổ thơngquốc gia Vui lịng đọc 22 mục đánh dấu ý kiến bạn mục Chúng đánh giá cao tham gia nhiệt tình nghiêm túc bạn để đảm bảo độ tin cậy, khách quan trung thực nghiên cứu Số Nguyên nhân Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng làm phần phát âm (ví dụ : phát âm s nguyên âm) Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng làm phần phát âm liên quan đến âm nhấn Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng tơi làm thi thử có cụm từ thành ngữ khó Tơi cảm thấy lo lắng trả lời câu hỏi nhằm kiểm tra hiểu biết cách diễn đạt phục vụ mục đích giao tiếp Tơi cảm thấy lo lắng làm đọc hiểu có từ vựng nâng cao Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng làm đọc hiểu có câu hỏi suy luận Hồn tồn khơng đồng ý Không đồng ý Đồng ý phần Đồng ý Hồn tồn đồng ý Tơi cảm thấy lo lắng làm đọc hiểu có câu hỏi suy luận Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng làm thi thử trước kì thi thật Tơi cảm thấy lo lắng trường có tiết tiếng Anh tuần Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng tập trung cho kiểm tra tiếng Anh 10 Tơi cảm thấy lo lắng tơi cịn q thời gian để chuẩn bị cho kiểm tra tiếng Anh 11 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng sưu tầm thêm đề thi mẫu để chuẩn bị cho thi tiếng Anh 12 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng chọn lọc tập tiếng Anh phù hợp mạng 13 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng gặp khó khăn việc sưu tầm sách tiếng Anh để có thêm phần luyện từ vựng cấu trúc 14 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng học không hiệu cho kiểm tra tiếng Anh 15 Tơi cảm thấy lo lắng không ôn tập tất phần kỹ cần thiết cho kiểm tra 16 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng học thuộc lòng từ vựng cấu trúc tiếng Anh cách sử dụng chúng thi 17 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng không dành đủ thời gian để luyện đọc hiểu trước kiểm tra 18 T18ôi cảm thấy lo lắng không dành đủ thời gian để làm thêm tập liên quan đến kiểm tra 19 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng nhận tập trung học sách giáo khoa nội dung kiểm tra nhiều 20 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng nhận học giáo viên không bao gồm tất từ vựng cấu trúc kiểm tra 21 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng khơng kiểm sốt nội dung kiến thức, kỹ trước thi thật 22 Tôi cảm thấy lo lắng phân chia thời gian cho phần thi cách hợp lý APPENDIX STUDENTS’ PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL RESPONSES This scale is employed to explore students‟ anxiety in preparing for the national English test in the national high school graduation exam and the responses to anxiety Please read 15 items below and tick your opinion about the items, you can choose more than one by ticking (X) beside the items We appreciate your enthusiastic and serious participation that ensures the study‟s reliability, objectivity and honesty Physical responses Lump in throat Change in breathing Stomach troubles _ Feeling cold, shivering _ Feeling warm, pleasant _ Feeling hot, cheecks burning _ Heart beating faster _ Muscles tensing, trembling _ Muscles relaxing, restful 10 Perspiring 11 Other symptoms Psychological responses 12 _ Mind went blank 13 _ Had many unwanted thoughts 14 _ Could not concentrate 15 _ Other emotional reaction (What were they? _) PHẢN ỨNG THỂ CHẤT VÀ TÂM LÝ ĐỐI VỚI SỰ LO LẮNG Thang điểm sử dụng để thăm dò lo lắng học sinh chuẩn bị cho thi tiếng anh kỳ thi Tốt nghiệp trung học phổ thông quốc gia phản ứng với lo lắng Vui lòng đọc 15 mục đánh dấu ý kiến bạn mục, bạn chọn nhiều cách đánh tích (X) vào bên cạnh câu trả lời bên Chúng đánh giá cao tham gia nhiệt tình nghiêm túc bạn để đảm bảo độ tin cậy, khách quan trung thực nghiên cứu Phản ứng thể chất Bị nghẹn cổ họng Thay đổi nhịp thở Những rắc rối dày _ Cảm thấy lạnh, rùng _ Cảm giác ấm áp, dễ chịu _ Cảm thấy nóng, má bỏng rát _ Tim đập nhanh _ Cơ bắp căng cứng, run rẩy _ Cơ bắp thư giãn, thoải mái 10 Mệt mỏi 11 Các triệu chứng khác Phản ứng tâm lý 12 _ Tâm trí trống rỗng 13 _ Có nhiều suy nghĩ không mong muốn 14 _ Không thể tập trung 15 _ Ý kiến khác (Nó là: …………………………………………………………) APPENDIX STUDENT INTERVIEW Before the English exam, you experience tension and anxiety? When you worry, what symptoms you normally have (heart palpitations, empty mind, trembling limbs, and so on)? When you feel nervous frequently? - Before the English test, there is not enough time to study -Too little time you spent working on the test samples -There are so many difficult sentences, idioms, long reading texts of comprehension and difficult sentences of inference in the test - It is difficult to find an accurate guide Another …………………………………………………………………… idea: How would you react if you have trouble choosing your answer? (Ask teachers, classmates; skip the question; find documents for information ) What kind of test you worry most about? When dealing with this kind of problem, how you respond to anxiety? PHỎNG VẤN HỌC SINH Trước thi Tiếng Anh kì thi trung học phổ thơng quốc gia bạn có cảm thấy căng thẳng lo lắng? Khi lo lắng bạn thường có biểu gì? (tim đập nhanh, đầu óc trống rỗng, chân tay run rẩy, ….) Khi bạn thường cảm thấy lo lắng? - Không đủ thời gian để ôn tập trước kỳ thi Tiếng Anh - Dành thời gian cho việc làm mẫu đề thi - Đề thi có nhiều cụm từ, thành ngữ khó, đọc hiểu dài có câu suy luận khó - Khơng tìm tài liệu tham khảo phù hợp Vấn đề khác ……………………………………… Mỗi gặp khó khăn việc lựa chọn phương án trả lời đề ôn tập kiểm tra phản ứng nào? (hỏi thầy cơ, bạn bè, bỏ câu đó, tìm tài liệu kiến thức … ) Trong dạng câu hỏi đề thi mẫu, bạn cảm thấy lo lắng làm dạng nào? Bạn phản ứng gặp lo lắng làm dạng đề đó?