The obstacles of english majored students at huflit when learning two languages at the same time graduation paper, major pedagogy english

HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES – INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY GRADUATION PAPER THE OBSTACLES OF ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT HUFLIT WHEN LEARNING TWO LANGUAGES AT THE SAME TIME Submitted by: Lam Khanh Hong Student ID: 15DH710544 Major: Pedagogy English Supervisor: Mr Nguyen Thuong Tri, M.A Ho Chi Minh City – 2019 Acknowledgement I would like to thank the all volunteers from the Language Department in the survey who have supported my work in this way and helped me get results of better quality I am also grateful to the participation of two lecturers with their valuable sharing Nevertheless, I am also grateful to the Mr Nguyen Thuong Tri, M.A, my supervisor for sharing his detailed instruction and his dissertation woes Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and my friends for supporting me spiritually throughout writing this paper in particular and my life in general Abstract To satisfy social requirements, Ho Chi Minh City University of Foreign Language – Technology Information (HUFLIT) has obliged the students, especially undergraduates at Foreign Languages Department to choose and learn another language besides their major language However, English-majored students at HUFLIT have found it difficult to continue acquiring two languages at the same time The aim of my research was to determine the obstacles that English-majored students at HUFLIT had to overcome by using the questionnaire powered by Google Form Furthermore, there are two lecturers sharing their judgment on students’ performance in class The research findings have shown not only many expected results related to phonics, the lack of students’ dependence on learning but also appropriate learning strategies Keywords: multilingual, bilingual, obstacles, phonics, acquiring TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………….8 Definition of term ………………………………………………… Review on previous studies ……………………………………… Gap for present study …………………………………………… 14 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ……………………………………… 16 Method approaches ……………………………………………… 16 Participants and setting ……………………………………… 16 Procedures ……………………………………………………… 17 Data analysis ………………………………………………………17 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS …………………………………………… 19 Overview ……………………………………………………… 19 Data collected through questionnaire …………………………… 20 Data collected through interviews ……………………………… 31 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSTION ……………………………………… …32 The original hypothesis and objective …………………………….32 Findings, reflections and explanations ……………………………32 Limitations ……………………………………………………… 32 Recommendations…………………………………………………32 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ………………………………………… 33 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………… 34 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION As an observer, I have found that language is becoming an essential factor which facilitates our careers and job promotions To illustrate, the salary level of people who are able to communicate fluently in at least two languages is obviously higher than that of the ones who just speak one language In today's world, Vietnam is moving towards global integration and expanding global markets as well as economic relations English is regarded as the international language which is used all over the world Somehow, many head hunters and employers in Vietnam prefer recruiting people who not only specialize in their fields but are also able to speak English fluently Furthermore, according to Satander Trade Hub's appraisal in 2019, Vietnam is "one of the most attractive countries in terms of FDI in Asia" and have drawn foreign investment mostly from Japan, South Korea and Singapore Therefore, there are many foreign corporations from those countries which have placed their branches in Vietnam This situation not only accommodates the Vietnamese with career opportunities but also issues many challenges As a result, the Vietnamese employees have to compete against their compatriots and other foreigners in order to achieve superior positions Thus, the ability to communicate in those languages such as Japanese, Korean and Chinese as well becomes the huge advantage to be outstanding HUFLIT – a private university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - determines its mission as the satisfaction of social requirements about well-trained human resources HUFLIT are trying to exploit the potentialities of their students by requiring them, exceptionally undergraduates in the Foreign Languages Department to acquire an optional language while studying their majored one - English Unfortunately, there is a large number of students finds it difficult to learn two languages at the same time They have got bad results or even failed in the optional language subject Some of the students are being at a standstill to solve their major language and the optional one as well It is clear that the language-acquiring process is tough and complicated; therefore, many Foreign Languages (FL) learners experienced how difficult it is There are many researchers having conducted several surveys surrounding multilingual ability such as its beneficial impacts on intellectual improvement by Kluger in the article "How the Brain Benefits From Being Bilingual" (2013) and Vince in “The Amazing Benefits of Being Bilingual” which was published in BBC newspaper (2016) Gandara & Acevedo’s findings (2016) proved that the importance of bilingualism has a substantial impact on economic expansion However, there is a shortage of studies clarifying the obstacles of two-language-acquirement, especially which students have to overcome As a senior in the Department of foreign languages, it is necessary for me to conduct a survey to examine the attitude of English-majored students towards the optional language subject in HUFLIT The purpose of this paper is to investigate the difficulties of HUFLIT students when learning two languages at once This topic is supposed to be a premise to figure out the solutions to this struggle, not only for students to pass this subject; but also for the Department to improve the teaching quality in HUFLIT CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Definition of terms Bilingual According to Baker (2001), bilingualism is identified as the capability of using more than one language Besides, Bloomfield (1933) claimed that bilingualism is the ability to be fluent in two languages like the native whereas Haugen (1953) and Weinreich (1953) reckoned a person who is able to speak two languages even inarticulately can be considered a bilingual As a result, it is difficult to categorize individual who is and who is not bilingual In 2006, Baker continued to define the term "bilingual" " Bilinguals use their two languages with different people, in different contexts for different purposes Levels of proficiency in a language may depend on which contexts (e.g street and home) and how often that language is used." (Baker, 2006) Many researchers also shared the view with Baker (2006), especially Garcia (2011) when he described bilingualism as "not one plus one" progress Similarly, Myers-Scotton named this type of bilinguals "dominant bilingual" So far, we can accept that English-majored students at HUFLIT as bilinguals Bilingualism education Bilingualism acquisition has been also a noticeable topic which drew a lot of attention from many researchers for a long time Houwer (1996) demonstrated the term "simultaneous bilingualism” which happened when both languages are learnt the same time On the contrary, the progress of one language acquisition then another is defined as "sequential bilingualism" (Flynn et al., 2005) In Vietnam, freshman students generally have learnt English for a long time since English is the compulsory subject of secondary and high school's syllabus Besides, English-majored students are required to acquire English and optional language simultaneously As a result, both kinds of bilingualism will be considered in this research paper Review on previous studies The challenges of simultaneous and sequential bilingual acquisition A 2016 article (Elbes) stated that multilingualism has been totally a desire of most experts to approach the knowledge source in a foreign language, especially in science and medicine fields since hundreds of years ago This thirst can be effortlessly understandable in virtue of the benefits provided by bilingualism in particular In order to achieve this goal, all learners are required to spend much time and serious effort There are several hurdles that learners have to overcome in order to use a new language fluently Many linguistic experts have identified those issues in many aspects of language: • Pronunciation • Lexis • Grammar • Alphabet Pronunciation First, pronunciation is reputed to be "an indispensable component of second-or-foreign-language" and it can be a prerequisite that a native can understand the nonnative's expression (Leather, 1983) Each language has its own pronunciation system In 1980, Culter pointed out that the most common pronunciation error was "Lexical Stress Errors" In his article, Culter gave the number of evidence provided by Fromkin's paper in 1973 and 1976 Furthermore, he also conducted many corpora of this error and showed some possible hypotheses explaining this phenomenon Ababneh (2018) conducted research on English pronunciation errors made by Arabic students who speak English as a foreign language Unsurprisingly, stress problem was one of the remarkable pronunciation mistakes when most of the students who both majored and non-majored in English "missed the stress on the right syllabus" in some selected words (Ababneh, 2018) Furthermore, a study was done Caramazza et al (1973) to examine bilingual French-English speakers' pronunciation They were required to pronounce six common stop-vowel syllables The findings indicate the poor control of phonetic perception Besides, Ellis and Beaton (1993) provided examples of the varied "articulatory features" by comparing five Chinese words which have the same pronunciation but different tone then lead to distinctive meaning It can be related to Vietnamese accent that many foreigners have found it difficult to learn and remember Inversely, Vietnamese are found to add diacritics when speaking foreign language as a habit Vocabulary According to Meara (1980), most foreign language learners consider vocabulary the most challenging obstacle when learning a language; thus, they have just acquired the basic lexis after a long time Most of Foreign Language learners have once experienced forgetting vocabularies which have just been learned Groot & Keijzer (2000) from the University of Amsterdam demonstrated that learners are confused by complete discrepancies among the meanings of a word as well as the variety of wordtypes in different languages However, in 1913, Ronjat published a book instructing how to raise a kid bilingual, which took his son as a model of the bilingual acquisition of French and German Fortunately, Louis, Ronjat's son, performed the remarkable ability in both languages Besides, a study was conducted by Kaushankaya et al (2009) to investigate how bilingualism influences the acquisition of vocabulary in novels compared to monolingualism It is found that bilingualism facilitates word-learning progress when bilingual volunteers performed better than people who speak only one language Besides, there are many studies which put the advantages of bilingualism into doubt According to Leopold (1949), her daughter who was exposed in English and German simultaneously showed the confusion of utilising appropriate vocabulary between those languages Otheguy et al (2010) continued to strengthen this phenomenon by stating that Spanish-English speakers usually use the Spanish word "edificio" for the buildings or school Similarly, Arsenian (1945); Darcy (1953) and Macnamara (1966) pinpointed symptom of lexical decline on bilingual children 10 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION The original hypothesis and objective The aim of this paper is to investigate the obstacles that English-majored students are struggling with when learning two languages simultaneously I assumed that throughout the research, both undergraduates and the Department would have comprehensive causes which result in the failure in the optional language subjects of English-majored students so that we can find out the proper solutions for this phenomenon Findings, reflection and explanations Firstly, the result reveals that most students still have not considered thoroughly before deciding their optional language when most participants decided their second language impulsively or according to friends' and family's recommendation Therefore, we can infer that English-majored students are not likely having enough determined motivation Furthermore, only out of 46 volunteers claimed that they had chosen the optional language based on the Department's guideline (chart 5) In addition, 47,8% of undergraduates expected comprehensive guideline It can be clearly seen that the orientation meeting of the Department did not work effectively in the term of instruction for the freshmen when choosing the appropriate language to learn During the courses, English-majored students had not spent enough the amount of time to acquire the optional language, which was confirmed by two interviewees Both lecturers noticed that many students underestimated the optional language subjects because of several reasons As a result, they ended up being stuck Furthermore, in the coded data, the majority of students did not the homework or prepare for those subjects (chart 6) It can be seen that they lack Introjected regulation which "involves externally imposed rules that the students accept as norms that pressure him or her to behave" (Dörnyei, 1994) Therefore, their motivation in the progress of the optional language acquisition is not persuasive enough Then, according to the tenth pie-chart, there are many students struggling with the differences between their main language and the optional one Grammar was regarded as one of the biggest barriers for HUFLIT juniors to 32 use a language properly when more than half of the participants claimed that they struggled with it (chart 8) Obviously, all languages have diverse grammar structures and collocation system as well The order of sentence elements such as subjects, objects, and verbs can be varied from this language to that one even they have the same alphabet, for example; English and French; which was pinpointed by French lecturer at HUFLIT The difference in both function and construction of grammar structure can cause inconsistencies in English-majored students who have not had already a stable foundation of any specific language foundation Besides, there is a majority of students that were not confident about their basic skills such as speaking, listening, reading and writing Besides, 30,4% of volunteers blamed the demanding load of knowledge for failing the optional language subjects However, most participants evaluated the difficulty of the optional language course at HUFLIT medium or above medium (chart 9) Furthermore, only 17,4% of volunteers expected the Department to reduce the load of knowledge at each course It can be seen there is a conflict among students Thence, the optional language syllabus and examinations are not likely reasons for this failure Next, 23,9% of English-majored students thought that they did not have enough time to be exposed to the optional language This cause should be considered carefully when nearly 77% of participants agreed that time investment is the possible solution for this phenomenon Fortunately, some negative measures; for instance, considering switching major, are not selected by many undergraduates Finally, there are few undergraduates claimed that the teaching style of HUFLIT lecturers did not work on them (chart 10) Besides, most students have chosen self-study as their learning strategy (chart 7) However, according to Benson (2007), "learners not develop the ability to selfdirect their learning simply by being placed in a situation where they have no other option" (p.22) As I mentioned in paragraph 2, English-majored students seem to lack motivation in the progress of the language acquisition which includes self-determination (Dörnyei, 1994) In addition, Zimmerman et al claimed that self-regulatory is one of the decisive factors of success in school (2001) In the nutshell, the inappropriate learning style 33 of English-majored undergraduates can be considered one of the obstacles of the optional language acquisition Limitations Finding out the obstacles of learning two languages at the same time can advantage not only undergraduates but also the English Department English-majored students can recognize their shortcomings in order to improve their result and impress employers with multilingual ability Besides, the Department also supports the students' studying appropriately However, there are several obvious limitations in my research First of all, the results are not convincing enough since there are a limited number of English-majored students responding to the questionnaire Secondly, although both two lecturers participating in the interviews have agreed that English-majored undergraduates should improve their attitude toward the optional language subjects; no one mentioned the possible measures which help interesting students in those subjects As a result, the objectives of my study cannot be fully accomplished One more limitation of the study is that the questionnaire itself only checks the study habits and attitude of the English-majored participants but curricular activities which students can take advantage of in order to practice languages are rarely mentioned Recommendations I find that my limitations can make way for further studies I hereby suggest some topics for researchers who are interested in this field: - Kinds of curricular activities which promote bilingual/multilingual ability The Inspiration in the progress of second language teaching 34 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION Language has been a key factor for not only the career path of Vietnamese youngster but also the economic expansion Acknowledging its importance, I conduct this research with an aim to figure out the hurdles which students when learning two languages at the same time and possible solutions which help students acquire the optional language better Similarly to what we predicted, English-majored undergraduates struggle with distinguishing the differences between the major language and the optional language and end up mixing up them It is also verified that the influence of the orientation of the English department which aims to help freshmen choose the suitable language as the optional one besides English is not obvious I hereby call for the further study of this field as I find it necessary to improve the quality of education and training for the English-majored students WORD COUNTS: 5765 35 Abaneh, I (Jan 2018) ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION ERRORS MADE BY SAUDI STUDENTS European Scientific Institute, ESI Anastasi, A., & Cordova, F A (1953) Some effects of bilingualism upon the intelligence test performance of Puerto Rican children in New York City Journal of Educational Psychology, 44(1), 1-19 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0061639 Arsenian, S (1945) Bilingualism in the post-war world Psychological Bulletin, 42(2), 65-86 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0061716 Baker, C (2006) Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Baker, C (2001) Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (3rd ed.) Clevendon: Multilingual Matters LTD Bloomfield, L (1933) Language Motilal Banarsidass Publishe Dewaele, J.-M., Housen, A., Li, W., & Baetens, B H (2003) Bilingualism: Beyond basic principles Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Beson, P (2007) Autonomy in language teaching and learning Language Teaching 0, 21-40 Caramazza, A., Yeni-Komshian, G H., Zurif, E B., & Carbone, E (1973) The acquisition of a new phonological contrast: The case of stop consonants in French-English bilinguals Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 54(2), 421-428.http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.1913594 Cohen, Andrew (2011) Strategies in learning and using a second language (2nd ed.).Longman Culter, A (1980) Errors of stress and intonation In Fromkin 1980 Retrieved 2019,May 04 from https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/15694/6090.pdf 36 Chamot, A.U., Keatly, C., Barnhardt, S., El-Dinary, P.B., Nagano, K., & Newman, C (1996) Learning strategies in elementary language immersion programs Final report submitted to Center for International Education, U S Department of Education Available from ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Creswell, J W (2003) Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches (2nd ed.) Thousand oaks: Sage Publications Dörnyei, Z (1994) Motivation and Motivating in the Foreign Language Classroom Vol 78, No pp 273-284 Dopke, S (2000) Generation of and retraction from cross -linguistically motivated structures in bilingual first language acquisition Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 3, 209-226 Elbes, Y (2016, August 03) Why multilingual communication is important.ELBES multilingual communication Retrieved 2018, May 04 from http://multilingualism.org/multilingualism/the-importance-ofmultilingualism Ellis, N & Beaton A (1993, December) Psycholinguistic Determinants of Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning (pp 559-617) University College of Swansea Retrieved 2018, May 04 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.14671770.1993.tb00627.x Flynn, S., Foley C., Vinnitskaya, I (2005) New Paradigm for the Study of Simultaneous v Sequential Bilingualism Cascadilla Press Gardner, R C., & Lambert, W E (1972) Attitudes and Motivation in Second Language Learning Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers Garcia, O Beardsmore, H B (2009) Bilingual Education in the 21st Centur y: A Global Perspective Malden, MA ; Oxford : Wiley-Blackwell Pub 37 Garton, A and Pratt, C (1998) Reflecting on Language IN: Learning to be Literate: The Development of Spoken and Written Language Oxford : Blackwell 0631193170 Grandara, P & Acevelo, S (2016, June) Realizing The Economic Advantages Of A Multilingual Workforce Retrieved 2018, May 04 from https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/languageminority-students/realizing-the-economic-advantages-of-a-multilingualworkforce/gandar-acevedo-economic-advantages-bilingual-2016.pdf Greg, L.( May 2007) Lowhorn Qualitative and Quantitative Research: How to Choose the Best Design Regent University Groot, A M B & Keijzer, R (2000, February) What Is Hard to Learn Is Easy to Forget: The Roles of Word Concreteness, Cognate Status, and Word Frequency in Language Vocabulary Learning and Forgetting (pp 156) University of Amsterdam Genesee, F (1984) Beyond bilingualism: Social psychological studies of French Immersion Programs in Canada Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 16(4), 338 -352 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0080864 Haugen, E (1953) The Norwegian language in America: A study in bilingual behavior Vol 1: The bilingual community; Vol II The American dialects of Norwegian Bloomington: Indiana University Press Houwer, A D (1996) The Handbook of Child Language Blackwell Reference Online.Kaushanskaya, M., & Marian, V (2009) The bilingual advantage in novel word earning Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16(4), 70 5-710 Khasinah, S (2014) FACTORS INFLUENCING SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Englisia VOL1 No.2 256 - 269 Kluger, J (2013, July 18) How the Brain Benefits From Being Bilinguals TIME Retrieved 2019, May 04 from http://science.time.com/2013/07/18/how-the-brain-benefits-from-beingbilingual 38 Macnamara, J., Krauthammer, M., & Bolgar, M (1968) Language switching in bilinguals as a function of stimulus and response uncertainty Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78(2, Pt.1), 208-215.http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0026390 Meara, P (1980, July) Vocabulary Acquisition: A Neglected Aspect of Language Learning(pp 221-246) Cambridge University Press, 221-246 Retrieved 2018, May 04 from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/languageteaching/article/vocabulary-acquisition-a-neglected-aspect-of-languagelearning/31D5E8179924B39F148F300DE6AFC9F1 Meisel, J M (1989) Second Language Acquisition in Early Childhood Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2018: 0.396 Myers-Scotton, C (2008) Multiple Voices: An Introduction to Bilingualism Australia: Blackwell Publishing O'Malley, J; Chamot, A (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition Cambridge University Press Oxford, Rebecca L (1990) Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know New York: Newbury House Otheguy, R., Sterm, N (2010) On so-called Spanglish Volume: 15 issue: 1, page(s): 85-100 Oriyama, K (2001) Japanese as a Translanguage: A Developing Minority Language in Japanese-English Bilingual Children in Australia Leather, J ( 1983, July) Second-language pronunciation learning and Teaching(pp 189-192) Cambride University Press Retrieved 2018 May 04 from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/languageteaching/article/secondlanguage-pronunciation-learning-andteaching/189175D2EA3FC0655B2DF24CF71CB265 39 Leopold, W (1949) Speech development of a bilingual child (Volume 4) Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press Pham, C (2016, March 4) What is challenges that Vietnamese learning Japanese might get VNExpress Retrieve 2018, May from https://vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/giao-duc/nguoi-viet-hoc-tieng-nhat-gapnhung-thach-thuc-nao-3363979.html Santander Trade Hub (April 2019) Viet Nam: Foreign Investment Retrieved 2019, May 04 from https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/establishoverseas/vietnam/investing Ronjat, J (1913) Le développement du langage observé chez un enfant bilingue Paris: Librairie Ancienne H Champion Rubin, Joan (1975) "What the good language learner can teach us" TESOL Quarterly (1): 41–51 doi:10.2307/3586011 JSTOR 3586011 The TEFL Academy (2017, August 8) Word Order In Different Languages Retrieved 2018, May 04 from The TEFL Academy Website https://www.theteflacademy.com/blog/2017/08/word-order-in-differentlanguages/ Thomas J W & Rohwer Jr (Jun 2011) Academic Studying: The Role of Learning Strategies Pages 19-41 Vince, G (2016, August 12) The Amazing Benefits of Being Bilingual BBC Retrieved 2018, May 04 from http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160811-the-amazing-benefits-ofbeing-bilingual Volterra, V., Taeschner, T (1978) The acquisition and development of language by bilingual children Journal of Child Language, 5, pp 311 -326 Reprinted (2007) in In L Wei (ed) The bilingual reader, 301 - 320 New York: Routledge Von-Gleich, U., Wolck, W (1994) Changes in language use and attitudes of Quechua-Spanish Bilingual in Peru Newark, DE: University of Delaware 40 Wagner, A (2011, December 22) 'Is Chinese hard to learn?' Oxford Dictionaries Blog Retrieved 2018, May from https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/12/22/how-difficult-is-it-tolearn-chinese/ Weinreich, U (1953) Languages in Contact The Hague: Mouton Zimmerman, B J & Schunk D H (2001) Theories of self -regulated learning and academic achievement: An overview and analysis In B J 41 APPENDIX A Questionaire: The obstacles of English-majored students when studying the optional language at HUFLIT I am Lam Khanh Hong, an English-majored senior As you all know, we have to complete credits of an optional language as a compulsory subject besides English However, there are many undergraduates in our Department find it difficult to acquire and repeat this subject at the end This questionnaire aims to examine your attitude toward the obstacles you have found when learning the optional language Please kindly fill out this form I am much grateful for your help You are student  Freshman  Sophomore  Junior  Senior What is your optional language?  Japanese  Korean  French  Chinese Why did you choose that language?  Hobby  Social demand  Family or friend's recommendation  Guideline from the department How much time you spend for that subject per week? =< hours/week - hours/ week >= hours/ week How you learn that subject?  Self-study  Study with private tutor  Study with friends 42  Study in the language center Which aspect you find difficult when learning the optional language?  Alphabet  Grammar  Pronunciation  Basic skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) Rate the level of difficulty of the optional language subject at HUFLIT Very easy Very hard What is the reason that you find this subject difficult to acquire?  Limited study time  Inappropriate teaching styles of lecturers  Big differences between the secondary language (English) and the third language  Demanding knowledge load What can you to improve this situation?  Register less subject in each semeter  Spend more time on this subject  Choose the language which is suitable for your ability  Consider switching major 10 What you expect from the department in order to improve this situation?  Reduce the number of credits of this subject  Reduce knowledge load  Offer comprehensive guideline when the students decide their own third language  Consider the third language as an optional subject 11 As the English-majored student, you think it is necessary for you to learn another language besides English?  YES Because _  NO Because 43 APPENDIX B Interview A: Today is Friday 24th May This interview is for my research paper, and I am so grateful for you being here Please introduce yourself a little bit B: I'm a teacher at HUFLIT, and I've worked here for more than 30 years as a lecture on a course of French When I was an undergraduate, I majored in French and English was my optional language A: So you had experienced several obstacles when learning two languages at the same time, hadn't you? B: Not actually You know, I had learnt French before acquiring English Both languages are kindred so that I found it easier to learn English after mastering French A: How about vice versus? B: I think it can be challenging for English-majored students to study French because of its complexity There are many grammar structures that you have to learn by heart But you can take advantage of the Vietnamese accent because French pronunciation is kinda the same as our mother tongue A: In your opinion, what aspects English-majored students find it difficult when learning English and French at the same time B: Grammar structure, of course! I have to say that French grammar is extremely hard I also noticed that some students have confused the pronunciation and intonation of French and English A: Can you give some advice that English-majored students should so to improve that situation? B: They should devote more time to this subject Most students underestimate the optional language subjects in general To French, they should practice the listening skill and grammar exercises A: So you think that the Department should something to help students? 44 B: Yes, I noticed that many students have misunderstood that French is exactly the same as English and been disillusioned afterwards So the Department should give them appropriate orientation A: So that is a suggestion from you Thank you very much for coming here today to help me with my graduation paper I really appreciate your opinion Interview A: Today is Thursday 30th May This interview is for my research paper, and I am so grateful for you being here Can you introduce yourself? B: I'm a teacher at the Faculty of Oriental Studies I'm also teaching Japanese as the optional language for English-majored students A: Have you ever experienced another language besides Japanese when you were a student? B: Yes, I studied English and French A: So did you find any difficulties when learning two languages at the same time? B: Not at all I still paid more attention to the main language; so that I set lower goals on English I did not expect myself to speak fluently but read and translate well A: In your opinion, what aspects English-majored students find it difficult when learning English and Japanese at the same time? B: The alphabet, of course Japanese alphabet is much different from both English and Vietnamese alphabet Secondly, the pronunciation is one of the obstacles English and Japanese intonation are not the same so that students are likely to be confused between two languages They have not had a stable foundation in both languages, you know They're still learning! So they could be confused easily Thirdly, I have to mention their awareness They don't pay enough attention to this subject As a result, the result is not good enough A: So you have any advice for students to pass this subject? 45 B: There are some students choosing this language to learn because they like it I appreciate that They have the motivation, they have goals; so that they learn so well Anyway, I have advice for students who don't like the language they are learning They should set a goal If they want to pass this subject, they should pay some effort and prepare for the next lesson All I need from them is their effort I know that there are some students excel in the main language - English However, because of the bad result in the optional language subjects, their GPA is worse A: So that is a suggestion from you Thank you very much for coming here today to help me with my graduation paper I really appreciate your opinion 46