Luận văn thạc sĩ Phương pháp giảng dạy tiếng Anh: Students’ misbehaviours and Vietnamese EFL teachers’ responses: An exploratory study of high schools in Hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYEN THI THANH TAM STUDENTS’ MISBEHAVIOURS AND VIETNAMESE EFL TEACHE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIUNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN THI THANH TAM

STUDENTS’ MISBEHAVIOURS AND VIETNAMESE EFL TEACHERS’ RESPONSES:

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF HIGH SCHOOLS IN HANOI

M.A MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 8140231.01

HANOI - 2024

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYEN THI THANH TAM

STUDENTS’ MISBEHAVIOURS AND VIETNAMESE

EFL TEACHERS’ RESPONSES: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF HIGH SCHOOLS IN HANOI

M.A MAJOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 8140231.01Supervisor: Dr Tran Thanh Nhan

HANOI - 2024

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby declare that this thesis was carried out by myself under the guidance andsupervision of Dr Tran Thanh Nhan; and that the work contained and the findings in itare true by author and have not violated research ethics

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in this thesis All

references and verbatim extracts have been quoted, and all sources of information,including graphs and data sets, have been acknowledged and explicitly cited

I will take full responsibility for any plagiarism and/ or other fraud detected in my thesis.University of Languages and International studies is unrelated to any copyright

infringement caused on my work (if any).

Hanoi, 2024

Nguyen Thi Thanh Tam

Approved by

SUPERVISOR(Signature and full name)

Dr Tran Thanh Nhan

Date:

First and foremost, I would like to express our deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs.Tran Thanh Nhan for her vital guidance and feedback Her sharing expertise andencouragement were invaluable to me throughout the research process

Besides, I want to give thanks to the teachers of several high schools in Hanoi for their

cooperation Their passionate participation in the interviews and questionnaires played acrucial part in my research

Last but not least, I hope to send my appreciation to constructive comments and feedback

from the fellow members of class QH2021.D2 and to the endless emotional support from

my beloved families This accomplishment would not have been possible without them

li

Management of students’ misbehaviour has long been an indispensable part of classroom

management This presents distinct challenges for EFL teachers who make attempts touse the target language as the medium of instruction and involve students in a range ofcommunicative activities in order to realize lesson objectives As a consequence, theresearcher made the decision to investigate into this group within Vietnamese high school

setting by means of a survey, whose items were both adapted from previous literature andgenerated from a cognitive interview Only after the processes of piloting, measuring thereliability of each construct and reviewing items carefully were the questionnaire handedout to 114 participants The quantitative data demonstrates that in general, teachers did

not encounter inappropriate behaviours frequently, with misconducts related lesson

preparation and engagement more likely to occur than those indicating low attendance,disturbance, dishonesty and disrespect while items unique to EFL classes did not recordhigh figures In response to misbehaviour, outside class intervention is most common,followed by non-verbal responses, in contrast to the rarity of punishment In other studieswhose particpants either teach foreign languages or other subjects, teachers also showed

preference for subtle forms of coping with misbehaviours Considering the impact of

experience, the negative correlations proved that the more experienced teachers are, theless frequently they have to deal with inappropriate behaviours Based on the finding,suggestions on pragmatic approaches to prevent misbehaviour and handle it in a time-

saving, non-disruptive and emphatic way were provided.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION o- <5 <5 <5 ni 0000040890 1

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study - <<++<++<sx++ 1

IV ng 6

1.3 Significance of the Study - - c1 1119119111 TH HH HH HH 61.4 Scope of the SfUỈy 5L TH HH HH HH th 7

1.5 OTEAT1ZAfIOTA Gv nh 7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REV HE cọ HH 0008008008 90 8

2.1 The concept of classroom ManageMent -ĩ- + s11 2E net 8

2.1.1 Definition of classroom manaØ€Im€IIE - - - s5 c2 E9 VESkESekeskereekee 8

2.1.2 Classroom management in foreign language Classes - «+5 «<< <++ 10

2.2 The concept of misbehaviour 1 5/7øồŒ 11

2.2.1 Definition of misbelaVIOUT - - c1 9v TH ng ng ngự 112.2.2 Classification Of mIsbelaVIOUL «+ + 1 vn ng ng nưàp 122.2.3 Causes Of mIsbelhaV1OUT - 6s x2 91193 9119301911 9v HH TH ng nhờ 172.3 The concept Of rESDOIS€S - G1 3119111111191 9 11H HH HH HH 19

2.3.1 Definition of f€SDOTISGS - G G n1 HH ke 192.3.2 Types Of T€SDOTS€S Gv 20

2.4 Review of previous ÏI€TAfUIC «1x t1 ngàng ng rệt 21

2.4.1 Past research on common misbehaviour - - s6 5xx £*£sesseeeerseeee 21

2.4.2 Past research on common teachers’ reSDOTIS€S :cesseesseseeeceeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 25

2.4.3 Summary and gap of the literature oo cece eceeeeeeeeeeeeeseeseeaeeaeeaeeeens 27CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOG YY 5-5-5 H 000003896888880680680 056 29

3.1 Setting of the SUy - - cv SH TH HH HH ghi 293.2 Research (€SIØT - - G1119 HT HH Tp 303.3 Participants and sampling methOd - ¿6 +22 1+ E**xE*EE+EEE+EeEEskksreerkerke 303.4 Data collection 1nSETUTT€TIL - 25 51019911931 1 20 nh ni nh nh ng ngư 31

3.4.1 Justification for the use Of QU€SfIOTI4ITG <5 <5 + + E*sEEEseksrekrskre 313.4.2 Questionnaire develOpMent - 5 5 E2 E1 1930 E9 910190 9 nh ng re 313.4.3 Questionnaire €SCTIDEIOTI ĩ- 5 (3 9011231 91 9319 119v nh ng nh Hư 36

3.5 Procedures of data €OlÏ@CfIOI 2211111111111 1111111855555 1 111 khen re 373.6 Procedures of data anaÏyS1S - ĩ- s1 HH nh ng HH gà 383.7 Ethical COnSIC€TAfIOTNS - - << 1119311311 11 191191 HH HH TH HH 38

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS o SG s1 1e ssesse 39

4.1 Findings of the Study Q5 HH HH TH HH TH Ti HH nh 39

4.1.1 Student misbehaviour cc esceccesesseeeseeseceseeececeeseeseeesecseeeseceeeseeeeeeeneeeaeeaes 394.1.2 Teacher r€SDOTIS€S - + 1S E1 HH HH, 414.1.3 The correlation between student misbehaviour, teacher responses and years of

EXPCTICNCE ees eeeeeeeecssecescecssecsseeescecssecsseessaecssecsseeeseecesecsseeseecssecsseesseecsaecsseesseessneones 43

APPENDIX Ơ o- SG HH ii 0 000 0.06980009009004 XI

APPENDIX 44 - 0-5 HỌC HH 0008050 XVII

TABLE OE FIGURES

Figure I Ecological Model of the Classroom (adapted from Conway, 2012) 18Table I Antecedents to Student Misbehavior (Johnson et al., 2019, p 9) 19Table 2 Past research on common misbelhaVIOUT- - - s5 + **s£ssssesserserses 24Table 3 Participants of the SUTV€Y - ch HH HH Hệp 31Table 4 Participants of the cognitive IMtervieW eeccecceeseeeeceeeseceeeeececeeeceaeeeeeeesaeeeas 33Table 5 Participants of the pilot SUrVey 00 ee eee cee eseeceseeseeeeeeceeceeesecaesaeeaeeaeeaseaesaees 35Table 6 Reliability analysis of the COTSẨTUCẨS - 5 1v ng ng 36Table 7 Description of the qu€SfIOT'ITIATTC 5 3 1 E231 91 91 E1 9v vn ng ng 37Table 8 Frequency of student misbehaviour «+ 3x E99 re 39Table 9 Frequency of student misbehaviour and years of teaching - ‹ 40Table 10 Frequency of teacher T€SDOTS€S - 5 ng ng kh 41Table 11 Frequency of teacher responses according to their experlence - 42Table 12 Correlation between student misbehaviour and years of experience 43Table 13 Correlation between teacher responses and years of experience 45

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The initial chapter provides an overview of the research, which consists of six mainpoints (1) statement of the problem and rationale for the study, (2) aims and objectives,

(3) method of the study, (4) significance of the study, (5) scope of the study and (6)

organization of the study.

1.1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

The concept of education can be understood in various ways, but in broad terms, it serves

as a mechanism of knowledge enrichment and indicates a period which witnesses

changes in learners’ behavioural patterns (Mansor et al., 2017) Although education is notmerely confined to schools, they are specialized environments which are designated foreducational purposes as well as social establishments accommodating students from

varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds (Mansor et al., 2017) Because of its significance,attending schools is perceived as a central and formative stage of children’s life(Chevalier & Buckles, 2013) Schools contribute to the development of the society by

creating competent individuals who not only acquire necessary understanding and skillsbut also a sense of responsibility, accountability and particularly discipline to conform tobehavioral norms (Chevalier & Buckles, 2013)

In fact, not all students are involved in the classroom in a positive way The learning

climate is negatively affected by rulebreaking, disruptive “actions and interactions”(Johnson et al., 2017, p 5), which can be referred to as “misbehaviour” (Kearney&

Bensaheb, 2006; Plax & Kearney, 1999) These are not limited to students with specialneeds but are common even among normal students (Conway, 2005) Misbehaviour hasbecome an inexorable facet of the relationship between instructors and students in an

academic setting, “a feature of nearly every classroom” (Beaman et al., 2007, p 46),

despite teachers’ attempts to establish a conducive environment, implement equitablepractices, and communicate in a co-operative manner (Johnson et al., 2017) Therefore,students’ behavioural issues are increasingly a subject of shared concern (Beaman et al.,

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2007) due to the fact that ‘behaviour is one of the dominant discourses of schooling’

(Ball et al., 2012, p 98) Therefore, researchers have the duty to provide in-depthunderstanding of the matter to inform the public and educational professionals (Beamanet al., 2007)

Conoley and Goldstein (2014), Kulinna et al (2006) and Mensah (2021) all shared theview that various types of misbehavior manifest within the classroom, with a significantnumber occurring on a daily basis and increasing frequency (Long, 2000) Theseproblematic behaviours can be placed in a continuum according to different degrees of

intensity (mild, moderate, intensive), with minor actions like talking, not paying attention

and severe ones such as fighting and bullying It is important to note that even minor

conducts can cause trouble, given their persistence Mensah (2021), Conoley andGoldstein (2014), Wiseman and Hunt (2008), therefore, found out how problematic they

were to the teachers Some of the instructors in Levin and Nolan’s study (2007) spent asubstantial percentage of their classroom time, ranging from 30 to 80 percent, tacklingstudents’ misconducts In a survey carried out by American Federation of Teachers

(AFT), 17 percent of teachers responded that they wasted four or more hours of teachingper week on dealing with misbehaving students, while 19 percent of them had to spare

two to three hours Not only does students’ misbehaviour reduce valuable time for

teaching and learning but they also slow down academic progress (Wagner et al., 2005;Wiseman & Hunt, 2008), undermines the quality of education (Mensah, 2021) and makecertain students fall behind Problematic students are subjected to isolation as their peersare more likely to avoid or reject them, preventing them from participating in teamworkand group discussions while teachers may also treat them differently from their friends,providing less assistance while consistently paying attention to their misbeaviours(Beaman & Wheldall, 1997; Little & Hudson, 1998) If the misbehaviour continues for along time, it may develop into violence and other antisocial traits (Angus et al., 2009;

Lewis et al., 2005) As for teachers, students’ misconducts jeopardize safety, and

overwhelm teachers (Wiseman & Hunt, 2008) and lead to greater work-related stress,

lower levels of well-being (Klassen & Chiu, 2010) and even early job quitting (Ingersoll,2001).

In Vietnam, tackling misbehaviour also presents a particular concern for teachers (Gao &Benson, 2012) due to its increasing prevalence, especially that of school violence,according to the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in 2010 (Tran, 2016) Thenumber of misbehaving cases, ranging from dishonesty, disrespect to physical attackswas estimated to rise to 16.000 in 2010 (Tran, 2016) In response to the trend, MOET isdrafting a circular stipulating the charter of junior high schools, high schools and high

schools with many levels of education, which clearly stipulates seven acts that students

cannot do, including:1 Insulting the dignity, honor, physical abuse of teachers, officials, school employees,other people and other students

2 Cheating in studies, tests, exams, and admission.3 Buying, selling and using alcohol, beer, cigarettes, narcotics and other stimulants.4 Using mobile phones or other devices while studying in class is not for learning and isnot allowed by the teacher

5 Fighting, disrupting order and security in schools and public places

6 Using or exchanging products with content that incites violence and depravity; Do notuse toys or play games that are harmful to your own healthy development

7 Activities that violate the law.Besides, to enhance discipline in the classroom, MOET has introduced several programs

such as that of "Strengthening education of revolutionary ideals, ethics, lifestyle andarousing the desire to contribute to young people, teenagers and children in the period

2021-2030”, "Educating revolutionary ideals, ethics, and cultural lifestyle for young

people, teenagers, and children in cyberspace in the period 2022-2030" as well as

encouraging schools to follow the Directive of the Prime Minister on strengthening theimplementation of school culture.

While students’ misbehaviour exists in all classes, language teachers in general and

English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in particular face some distinct difficulties.

Apart from the universal problems such as inattentiveness, lack of homework, they oftenneed to deal with the ones unique to language learning, including constant inaudibleanswers and reluctance to communicate in the target language (Wadden & McGovern,1991) Compared to other subjects, English requires a more interactive class to achievethe main aim of enhancing students’ communication competence, which means moreclassroom management strategies need to be implemented Besides, the trend towardsstudent autonomy and student-centred approach in modern foreign language classescomplicates the task of managing the class (Keser & Yavuz, 2018) Another importantreason is a group of students may find it very challenging to acquire a new language,particularly in early stages (Keser & Yavuz, 2018) Learning disabilities prevent themfrom concentrating in the class and make them more prone to negative behaviours

(Debreli & Ishanova, 2019; Keser & Yavuz, 2018) Houghton et al (1988) concluded

that compared to teachers of craft design technology and remedial course, languageteachers met more difficulties managing the class

In such an environment, teachers’ reactions to the misbehaviour can profoundlydetermine whether they persist or escalate in intensity There has been an array ofrecommended strategies to handle misbehaviour in a more effective and supportivemanner These discipline strategies not only create a stimulating environment for childrento make progress but also enhance the bond between teachers and students (Psunder,

2005) As a consequence, over the course of four decades, since Kounin (1970) publishedthe first seminal book on classroom management, educators and researchers from manyfields, including sociology, psychiatry, psychology and education have examinedextensively into the matter (Beaman et al, 2010; Ding et al 2008; Esturgó-Deu & Sala-Roca, 2010; Evertson & Weinstein, 2006; Osher et al 2010), with considerable insights

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having been obtained (Burns, 2002; Kyriacou & Ortega, 2010) The psychological field,for example, made contributions with its robust theories of "social learning" and“cognition” and related empirical literature that greatly assists instructors in minimizingmisbehaviour Longitudinal, retrospective and comparative studies conducted in countries

such as United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and several Western Europeannations have also provided a wealth of understanding regarding how to mitigatemisbehaviour (Loeber & Farrington, 2001) Furthermore, an array of reports and policydocuments have been published by authorities in various nations (e.g McConnell, 2001;

Steer, 2005), together with pragmatic guidelines for implementing effective copingstrategies (e.g Rogers, 2000)

Nonetheless, the number of related research in Vietnamese context is limited, with hardly

any digging deep into EFL classes while Gao and Benson (2012), Tran and Moskovsky(2022) indicated that misbehaviour was prevalent in Vietnamese EFL classes Besides,although researchers have explored the influence of age, gender, ethnicity, training,

educational background, and setting on teachers’ classroom management practices

(Martin, 1997; Martin & Shoho, 2000; Martin & Yin, 1997), few consistent findings have

been derived To address these inconsistencies, in this study, the researcher investigatedthe issue of classroom management by examining the independent and interactive

influences of teachers’ years of experience It is necessary to examine whether the

general belief that more experienced teachers have an advantage over their counterparts

regarding dealing with classroom events is justified or not Even reseachers claim that thenumber of teaching years is a determing factor due to its impact on teaching methods,self-confidence and general beliefs about teaching and learning process and classroommanagement (Berger et al., 2018; Martin & Shoho, 2000; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy,2007) Detailing the impact of years of teaching experience on classroom managementpractices is particularly relevant in the context of this study as educators must know if

and in what ways experience gained through years of teaching impacts a teacher'sabilities to effectively manage classroom dynamics (Ritter & Hancock, 2007) Insights

into how teaching years are linked to student misbehavior can be helpful in teachertraining programs, informing novice teachers of teacher evolution over the course oftime, possible challenges and allowing them to set explicit and realistic careerdevelopment goals based on the experiences of their seniors (Wolff et al., 2015) All ofthese factors urged the researcher to conduct the study.

1.2 Aims and objectivesThe overarching aim of this study was to investigate classroom misbehavior from theperspective of EFL teachers in high school settings in Vietnam To be specific, in thisexploratory quantitative study, the researcher wanted to gain insights into theirperceptions of frequently occurring misbehaviour among the students and their responses.Besides, an effort was made to discover any possible associations between teachingexperience and students’ misconducts and teachers’ responses, testing the general beliefthat experienced teachers encounter fewer difficulties dealing with misbehavior In otherwords, the following research questions were to be answered:

1 What are the common high school students’ misbehaviour in Vietnamese EFL

classes?

2 What are the common teacher responses to high school students’ misbehaviour in

Vietnamese EFL classes?3 Is there a statistically significant relation between the frequency of high school

students’ misbehaviour and the teacher’s years of experience in Vietnamese EFL

classes?4 Is there a statistically significant relation between the frequency of high school

teachers’ responses and their years of experience in Vietnamese EFL classes?

1.3 Significance of the studyWith this study, the researchers wished to gain insights into existing difficulties EFL

teachers face when managing students’ behaviours in the high school setting Once

completed, the results would be one of the useful sources for interested readers wishing tounderstand more about the issue In addition, the findings may contribute to the changes inteacher education progammes, along with the pedagogical, disciplinary and counsellingapproaches of those working in the field Hopefully, the research may serve as a source ofreference data for subsequent studies into the field and in testing the validity of otherrelated findings

1.4 Scope of the study

In this study, the researcher focused on delineating the classroom behaviour managementproblems EFL teachers face within the high school context from their own perspective Interms of participants, the study consisted of 115 EFL teachers, whose experience rangedconsiderably from 0 to more than 15 years

1.5 Organization

The following chapters are included correspondingly in this research paper.Chapter 2: Literature review - provides the key term’s definition and the review ofrelated studies

Chapter 3: Methodology - describes the application of a specific process to collect data

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion - presents and discusses the findingsChapter 5: Conclusion - summarizes the findings, implications and limitations of thestudy and recommendations for further studies

Following these chapters are References and Appendices

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a theoretical foundation of the study, in which the definitions ofkey terms and sub-related issues together with review of studies related to problems in

language learning are presented.

2.1 The concept of classroom management

2.1.1 Definition of classroom managementWithin academic discourse, classroom management is often referred to as a wide range of

techniques utilized by instructors to maintain the classroom order, students’ discipline,

concentration and involvement during the lesson or “the actions teachers take to create anenvironment that supports and facilitates both academic and social emotional learning”(Everstone & Weinstein, 2006, p 461) This conceptualization is simplified and tounderstand classroom management thoroughly, the underlying principles underpinningthe practice should be taken into account Doyle (1986) asserted that classroom

management is not limited to managing students’ behaviours; rather, it is also associated

with the planning, organization and monitoring of learners, the learning procedures andthe academic environment so as to ensure a productive learning environment Crookes(2003) took a similar view by characterizing a well-managed classroom as an orderly one

where “whatever superficial manifestations of disorder that may occur either do notprevent instruction and learning, or actually support them” (p 144) As can be seen, in

order to create an environment conducive to learning, dealing with misbehaviour andestablishing classroom order is of utmost importance (Emmer & Stough, 2001)

Having a closer look at classroom management, Sowell (2013) categorized classroommanagement into “behavioural management” and “instructional management” (p 1).Instructional management involves lesson planning, pedagogical skills and other factorsthat affect teachers’ delivery of knowledge to students (Sowell, 2013) Behavioural

management is linked to the way students behave and interact with others (ibid.) In a

relatively similar vein, Tiwari and Panwar (2014) posited that there are three main

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dimensions of classroom management, which are “content management” (themanagement of lesson content, materials), “conduct management” (the handling of

misconducts) and “covenant management” (the management of interpersonalrelationships in the class) (p 518) Marzano (2003) analyzed the concept in more detail,

viewing it as the combination of four areas, namely “establishing and reinforcing rules

and procedures, carrying out disciplinary actions, maintaining effective teacher and

student relationships, and maintaining an appropriate mental set for management” (p 88)

In this study, as the focus is misbehaviour, classroom management is understood asresponses to misbehaviour that disrupts the teaching and/ or learning process from

instructional and/ or behavioural perspective

Several models of classroom management have developed over the past few decades.Glickman and Tamashiro (1980) conceptualized one of the most popular frameworks to

explain teacher beliefs toward classroom management It consists of three approaches,

that is, interventionist, non-interventionist, and interactionalist Interventionists refers to

the teachers who believe that students learn appropriate behaviors primarily when theirbehaviors are reinforced by teacher-generated rewards and punishments and exercise ahigh degree of control over classroom activities Non-interventionist teachers, on theother hand, believe that students have an inner drive that needs to find its expression inthe real world and allow students to exert significant influence in the classroom andteachers should be less involved in adjusting student behaviors As for the interactionalistteachers, students learn appropriate behaviors as a result of encountering the outsideworld of people and objects Therefore, they believe that students and teachers should

share responsibility for classroom management

Thus, beliefs regarding the nature of appropriate and inappropriate student behaviors and

how to manage classrooms vary significantly among teachers For instance, it has been

found that urban teachers were significantly more of an interventionist than rural teachersin people management (Martin & Yin, 1999) and experienced teachers were significantly

more interventionist than novice teachers in relation to people and behavior management,but not instructional management (Martin & Shoho, 2000).

2.1.2 Classroom management in foreign language classesAmong the current literature dedicated to classroom management in general education,there is hardly any focusing on managing students’ behaviours in foreign languageclasses (Macias, 2018) According to Crookes and Schmidt, it seems that “the literaturehas taken the issue of classroom discipline or behaviors of resistance in language classes

for granted” (as cited in Rahimi & Hosseini, 2012, p 310) Another reason is thatresearchers regarded classroom management in all subject areas as identical, thereby notidentifying the need to look into the unique characteristics of each subject domain

In actual fact, although managing the classroom is an intrinsic aspect of pedagogy, the

foreign language classroom possesses distinctive features Among all these characteristics

listed by Borg (2006), three of them are most likely to influence classroom management

First of all, only foreign language teachers need to employ a medium language which

students have not mastered as a means of instruction Secondly, in other subjects,interactive activities are encouraged but do not play an indispensable role as in languageteaching The methodology of language teaching demonstrates diversity, and all methodshave the aim of boosting learner engagement to the full and creating contexts for learnersto communicate

Within the domain of classroom management, studies concerning English learning havedealt with various enquiries such as how a specific English language teaching (ELT)methodology (Carless, 2002) or ELT textbook affected classroom management, how EFLteachers perceived classroom management (Rahimi & Asadollahia, 2012) and what

strategies they used to motivate learners (Sugita & Takeuchi, 2014)

In an EFL classroom, a teacher exerts the control over many factors, such as classroomphysical environment, students mood and behavior, the amount of communication

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between teacher and students which in turn will affect not only students’ motivation for

English language learning but also their environment and behavior So if we want tomanage the EFL classroom effectively, we need to be able to handle a range of variables.Examples of those variables include; how the classroom space is organized, whether

students are involved in pair/group work or they are working on their own and,organization of the class time, and choosing and employing appropriate styles

2.2 The concept of misbehaviour

2.2.1 Definition of misbehaviourWithin academic discourse, a variety of terminologies have been employed to indicatethe vexing behaviors demonstrated by students such as misconducts and “problembehaviours” (e.g Ho, 2004; Kwon et al., 2017; Nizielski et al., 2012), “behaviourproblems” (e.g Houghton et al., 1988; Toohey, 1998; Yunus et al., 2011, Wheldall &

Merrett, 1988) or “disruptive behaviours” (Khasinah, 2017; Kumar & Shoup, 2018;

Zerin, 2009) This study made use of the term “student misbehaviour” as it seems to bethe most used one in literature related to language learning (Kyriacou, 1997; Croom &Moore, 2003; Little, 2005) Nonetheless, student misbehaviour is still a “contested term”(Kyriacou & Martin, 2010, p 415) and there have been no consensus on a singledefinition (Mohammadi, 2012) Classroom misbehavior has been defined in severalways, and the most common feature of these definitions is the emphasis on its negativeimpact on the teaching and learning process To be specific, it indicates any behavior thatposes a threat to classroom order (Finn et al., 2008; Houghton et al., 1988; Little, 2005;

Thompson, 2009), disrupts the environment conducive to learning (Kyriacou, 1997),weakens instructors’ ability to “establish and maintain effective learning experience”(Kyriacou, 1997, p 121) and ensure the “smooth running” of the lesson (Kyriacou &

Martin, 2010, p 415) Therefore, the teaching and learning progress is hampered (Croom& Moore, 2003; Little, 2005; Thompson, 2009; Turnuklu & Galton, 2001)

Apart from this, some studies referred to classroom misbehavior as behaviours that

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require teachers’ actions Based on interviewed teachers’ perceptions, Sun and Sheck

(2012a, 2012b) concluded that classroom misbehavior can be understood as violations ofnorms which compel teachers to intervene Houghton et al (1988) provided a moredetailed description In their study, the teacher participants perceived classroom

misbehavior as “activity which (a) annoys, upsets or distresses teachers, (b) is disruptive

of good order in the classroom and causes trouble, and (c) leads teachers to comment

continually” (p 299) However, in actual fact, for some misbehaviour, teachers decide

not to take action and ignore them (Debreli & Ishanova, 2019; Yuan & Che, 2012).Therefore, this characteristic is not included in this study

Furthermore, Stewart et al (1998) and Sun & Sheck (2012) viewed student misbehaviour

as violations of discipline at school, such as stealing, fighting, using drugs or vandalizing.Nevertheless, misbehaviour does not necessarily mean the breach of explicit rules but inmany cases, inappropriate and disturbing actions in the academic setting Therefore,

defining misbehaviour as merely the breaking of established rules is not comprehensive

In this study, the definitions by Merrett and Wheldall (1984), which was cited by various

researchers (e.g Ding et al., 2008) were adopted Accordingly, misbehaviourencompasses a range of activities in the classroom that interfere with at least one of thefollowing processes, namely (a) the teaching process of teachers, (b) the learning processof misbehaving students, and (c) the learning process of other students

2.2.2 Classification of misbehaviour

In light of the extensive range of misconducts exhibited by students, scholars in previousliterature have utilized various frameworks of categorization to gain a deeperunderstanding of the occurrence of these behaviors within educational settings (Dalgic &Bayhan, 2014; Crawshaw, 2015)

The most recent framework was developed by Johnson et al (2017) They divided thecases of misbehavior into two distinct types, namely actions and interactions (Johnson et

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al., 2017) The similarity between them is that they both cause disruption to the learningenvironment, impact beyond the misbehaving students and require the recognition of awitness, either fellow students or teachers so as to label the behavior as misbehavior

(Johnson et al., 2017) The main difference lies in the number of parties involved

Actions such as students’ lack of homework and unpermitted use of technology indicate

behaviors exhibited by a single individual; thus, there is no need for a second party tocarry out the action (Johnson et al., 2017) In contrast, interactions necessitate thepresence of at least another actor, such as a recipient, an interlocutor or a target (Johnsonet al., 2017) It is important to note that his or her involvement may be willing (as ininstances of talking privately in class, meaning direct interaction with another classmate)or unwilling (as in the case of showing disrespect towards teachers, leading to theinvolvement of teachers) (Johnson et al., 2017) Compared to actions, the impacts ofinteractions on the teaching and learning process, seems to be more widespread andprofound (Johnson et al., 2017) Nonetheless, for some misbehaviour such as cheating, itis hard to identify whether they are actions or interactions

Looking specifically into language classes, Richards and Renandya (2002) approached

misbehaviour from a quite different perspective from the above-mentioned researchers.They categorized misbehaviour into three types, namely "back-row distractor", referring

to distracting students who consistently sit at the back of the class, the “nonparticipant”

who is not active in class activities and the "over exuberant student" who is good atsubjects but tends to dominate and monopolize all classroom activities

Instead of focusing on types of students, Kyriacou (1997) and Meyers (2003) classifiedmisbehaviour according to how clear they are demonstrated To be specific, Kyriacou(1997) placed misbehaviour on a spectrum, from basic non-compliance, such as lackingattention, to more overt and disturbing actions, such as hurling objects across the room.Echoing this view, Meyers (2003) identified two types of misbehaviour, which is overtone, encompassing easy to see actions such as eating and drinking, using cellphones,talking in class and covert one including arriving late, appearing bored and discouraged,

13

falling asleep.

Compared to above-mentioned methods of categorizing, a more common one is based onthe severity level of misbehaviour Experts in Kulinna et al (2003) reached the mutualagreement that there are three levels of misbehaviour, namely mild, moderate and severewith details as below Students in Kulinna et al (2003) are those taking physicaleducation lessons, so some misbehaviour such as “doesn’t line up right”, “poor

sportsmanship” are unique to this subject Some mild misconducts are not being able tosit still, not following directions, not being attentive, giggling while moderate onesinclude talking out of turn, arguing, joking with classmates, telling lies and using foul

language (Kulinna et al., 2003) Bullying, attacking others, sexually harassing others,

being involved in gangs and using drugs can be counted as severe misbehaviour (Kulinnaet al., 2003) In a similar vein, Croom and Moore (2003) contended that misbehaviors can

be positioned along a spectrum depending on instructors’ perceived level of seriousness

(i) "Not a problem" means that the misbehavior has not been observed or is not

considered concerning

(1) "Minor" shows that the behavior can be easily handled, leading to minimal

disruption to the teaching process

(iii) "Moderate" indicates that the misbehavior requires a moderate level of effort to

tackle and the teaching process may be moderately disrupted

(iv) "Major" signifies that the misbehavior presents a real challenge and the teaching

process may be significantly disrupted

(v) "Critical" suggests that the misconduct is unmanageable and instruction comes to a

standstill

(Croom & Moore, 2003)

14

Three years later, Evertson et al (2006) also relied on the seriousness of misbehaviour tobreak them into four types.

(i) The first category is “no issue” as the misbehaviour, for instance, momentary

distractions and brief episodes of daydreaming do not last for a long time and haveno noticeable impact on teaching and learning

(1) The second dimension is “minor issue” related to behaviours that go against the

classroom rules and teachers’ instructions However, if such behaviours do notoccur on a frequent basis, they are unlikely to interfere with learning Examplesinclude leaving the class, passing notes, eating and drinking

(iii) The third group represents an important issue yet limited in scope and impact For

example, a student sometimes fails to complete a task, disregard movement rules

regarding within the classroom, or show physical violence towards other students.

(iv) The last type contains escalating or prevalent matters, many of which may

originally be minor issues One example is that a large number of students have ahabit of making irrelevant comments or wandering around the classroom, whichresults in classroom disorder

(Evertson et al., 2006)

This method of classification, though used in a number of studies, is not applied to thisresearch due to the fact that perceptions of the severity of misbehaviour vary from personto person, from subject to subject, from culture to culture (Stephens et al., 2005)

Last but not least, the most common way of classification, which was also applied to thisstudy, reflects the general characteristics of these behaviours In Kulinna et al (2003), afactor analysis led to the emergence of six factors, or six subgroups, including

“aggressive”, “low engagement or irresponsibility”, “fails to follow directions”, “illegal

or harmful”, “distracts or disturbs others” and “poor self-management” (Kulinna et al.,

15

2003, p 36) Lestari (2008) provided a more concise list with “gross motor misbehavior’,

characterized by actions such as leaving one's seat, standing up, tapping feet, clappinghands, and drumming on the desk, “verbalization misbehaviors” involving shouting,singing, laughing, and conversing with other classmates, “orienting misbehaviors”,

exemplified by students writing notes to their peers during class hours and “aggressionmisbehaviors”, encompassing deliberately provoking or physically harming others withinthe classroom environment Cruickshank et al (2009) also included “aggression” in theirstudy, while adding “immoral acts” like cheating, lying, and stealing, “defiance of

authority”, “disruptive behaviors” including speaking loudly, calling out, and throwing

objects and “off-task behaviors” such as daydreaming and doing frivolous things.Koutrouba (2013) and Stephens et al (2005) took a similar approach to Kulinna et al

(2003) by performing a factor analysis on survey items They all then came up with sixfactors, including ‘‘aggression towards other pupils’, ‘‘delinquent behavior’,

“oppositional deviance’’, “‘passive deviance’’, ‘‘anti-social behaviour’’ and ““off-taskbehaviour’’ (Koutrouba, 2013, p 209; Stephens et al., 2005, p 209) Crawshaw (2015)broke misbehaviour into four types Type 1 consists of “unsolicited verbal expressions”

such as speaking out of turn, chatting or joking too much (Crawshaw, 2015, p 296) Type

2 encompasses “passive off-task behaviors”, such as lacking attentiveness, daydreaming,

playing with personal belongings, exhibiting low motivation (Crawshaw, 2015, p 296)

Type 3 misbehaviors are characterized by explicit demonstrations of “general charactertraits”, specifically idleness and laziness (Crawshaw, 2015, p 296) It is worth noting that

Type 2 misbehaviors are primarily concerned with students' approaches to classroom

activities, whereas Type 3 misbehaviors may manifest in any setting, including the homeenvironment Additionally, the study identified a miscellaneous category known as"Other," whose misbehaviors that do not align with the aforementioned types In this

category, there are behaviors like ‘‘hindering others’? and ‘‘rowdy misbehaviour’

(Crawshaw, 2015, p 296)

It can be concluded that aggressive, off-task, non-attentive, disruptive and verbalization

16

behaviours are commonly found in previous frameworks Based on these common patternsand the results of the cognitive interview, this study classified misbehaviour into six types,which are lack of preparation, low attendance, low engagement, disruption, dishonesty anddisrespect The interviewed teachers led the researcher to include the three new types calledlack of preparation, low attendance and dishonesty as many of them reported misconductsrelated to these types The other three categories, namely low engagement, disruption andlack of respect are largely similar to those in other studies with only differences in thewording.

2.2.3 Causes of misbehaviour

Although teachers in both Asian (e.g Ding et al., 2010; Zakaria et al., 2013) and Western

(e.g Mavropoulou & Padeliadu, 2002) contexts mostly attributed misbehaviour to

students themselves, it is important to have a comprehensive view of the factors With a

view to figuring out the reasons underlying misbehaviour, Sullivan and Johnson (2014)

came up with the “ecological model of the classroom” (p 46), based on the original work

of Conway (2012) In this model, the learning environment, which is a combination of

teaching, learning and behaviour can be described as an “ecosystem” Its four elements,

namely the physical setting, student characteristics, teacher variables and curriculum and

resources are interrelated, constantly interacting with each other As a consequence,

behaviours of students should not be considered as a single concept, instead, othercomponents of the classroom should be taken into account at the same time Sullivan andJohnson (2014) reached the conclusion that apart from students themselves, outsidefactors, such as the family, socioeconomic conditions, culture, religion and politics can

have an impact on the ecology of the classroom and shape students’ behaviours

17

Physical Setting

Tez acher¢ ) * pag ` p Student

ì Factors Factors and

Teac tc"

\ urric F2

and Resources

33 66instruction, home, “sociability”, “non-academic responsibilities” (Johnson et al., 2019, p.8) In this study, these internal and external factors will be elaborated, based on the

comprehensive framework of Johnson et al (2019)

Personal skill Lack of maturity

deficiencies Lack of discipline

Lack of management related to a health issueDrug and alcohol abuse

Belief antecedents Faulty expectations Entitlement

Expectation of lenienceHolding the expectation of being entertainedby instructor

Misunderstanding of classroom or collegiate

expectationsTable I Antecedents to Student Misbehavior (Johnson et al., 2019, p 9)

2.3 The concept of responses

2.3.1 Definition of responsesBefore Kounin published the ground-breaking research on student misbehaviour in 1970,

students themselves were predominantly attributed to their disciplinary problems atschool, and the implementation of an authoritarian approach with emphasis on strictcompliance was believed to be an effective strategy (Jessup, 1995) Over the course oftime, educators and researchers have obtained a more thorough view, and the

understanding of students’ problematic behaviours has shifted towards classroom

management, which has resulted in a larger number of studies and increasing attention tothe responses applied by instructors in the academic setting (Jessup, 1995)

In general terms, the dictionaries defined responses as a reaction to something that hasoccurred or been said (Cambridge University Press, n.d; Oxford University Press, n.d;Pearson Longman, n.d) Therefore, responses are reactive and remedial in nature,

consisting of automatic and immediate efforts to improve a situation (Clunies-Ross et al.,

2008; Eraut, 2002; Heikonen et al., 2017; Little & Hudson, 1998; Safran & Oswald,

2003) Within the limit of the study, responses are regarded as teachers’ reactions to

students’ misbehaviour that have happened in the classroom

19

2.3.2 Types of responsesResearchers have put forward different ways of responding to misbehaviour Khasinah

(2017) identified five types of responses First, extinction: teachers ignore minor

distraction such as attention-seeking misbehavior since the behavior will disappear whenit is withheld Second, mild desists: it can be a kind of nonverbal intervention strategiessuch as establishing eye contact, facial expression, body language, gesture, andreinforcement It can also be verbal intervention such as slowing down the voice,pronouncing things more distinctly, and pausing briefly Third, reprimands (verbally)help teachers remind students of what they have done and show them that teacher do nottolerate the misbehavior Fourth, time-out: it is a soft punishment such as excludingstudents from class activities, asking students to put their heads on the table, or sendingthem to time-out room Fifth, giving severe punishment is the last choice in interveningmisbehavior Though the use of radical verbal and corporal punishment is sometimeseffective, teachers should be very careful since this strategy can be against the schoolpolicy and also state laws

In this study, the course of action proposed by Ophardt and Thiel (2013) is the mainsource of reference In the initial step of dealing with disruptive behaviours, minimalintervention, namely disregarding the undesirable behaviours is implemented If themisconduct continues to exist, teachers can choose further minimal interventions,including making use of non-verbal cues (Ophardt & Thiel, 2013) Subsequently, moredirect responses, in the form of verbal ones, are worth taken into consideration (Emmer etal 2003; Ophardt & Thiel, 2013) For example, teachers will remind students of how theyare expected to behave (Ophardt & Thiel, 2013) In the final stage, teachers can consider

making changes to the instructional activities (ibid, 2013)

In light of the work by Ophardt and Thiel (2013), coupled with results of the cognitive

interview, the researcher made some modifications Ignoring and non-verbal cues werecombined into one category while punishment and after-class intervention were added.Therefore, the final main categories include non-verbal responses, verbal responses,

20

changes to the lesson plan, punishment and after-class responses.

2.4 Review of previous literature

2.4.1 Past research on common misbehaviour

A close look at previous literature shows that studies investigating into teachers’

perceptions of students’ misbehaviour have been existent in the field of educationalpsychology for a long time (Langfeldt, 1992) Their two main aims are digging into thefrequency and seriousness of misconducts In order to gain a comprehensive view, detailsregarding the methodology, countries, respondents and findings were extracted, with dataof the most cited research being put in the table below In general, the majority of studiesemployed close-ended questionnaires, with items most often adapted from Wheldall andhis co-researchers, such as Houghton and Merrett (e.g 1993, 2012, 2013) Anothernotable point is that secondary students are the most common subjects of these studies

The general pattern emerging from these studies is that regardless of nations and schoollevels, minor misbehaviour are the most frequently occurring ones They include talking

out of turn, paying inadequate attention, chatting, being lazy and hindering others

Among these misbehaviour, talking out of turn was reported in a large number of studies

as the most prevalent one As confirmed by Beaman et al (2007), talking out of turn is“the consistent first choice of teachers in terms of what causes most disruption in the

classroom Irrespective of geographic location or level of schooling, talking out of turn isclearly the behaviour at the core of classroom disorder’ (p 55)

Apart from the shared findings, there are some disparities that need to be discussed.

Exceptionally, Ding et al (2008) indicated that daydreaming replaced talking out of turnto become the most frequent misbehaviour in both middle schools and high schools,which can be attributed to three reasons The first possibility is that Chinese students

tended to be shyer than students in the West, so they are afraid of “losing face” when

talking out of turn (Ding et al., 2008) The second reason is in China, classrooms are

21

often large, resulting in higher likelihood of students losing focus and thus, daydreaming.Thirdly, Chinese teachers put considerable emphasis on involving students in the lesson;consequently, they exhibit a greater sense of tolerance towards talking out of turn tocreate an active and dynamic learning atmosphere These arguments highlight the needfor taking into account cultural differences regarding classroom behaviours Anotherremarkable point is that compared to students in Australia, e.g Little (2005), Stephensonet al (2000), Greece, e.g Koutrouba (2013) and the UK, e.g Munn et al (2013), Chinese

students were less inclined to hinder and disturb others Culture still helps account forthis Asian students are exposed to the highly structured learning environment thatprevent them from bothering surrounding people (Ding et al., 2018) Last but not least,

although the types of misbehaviour in elementary and secondary schools are basically thesame, it seems that the older the students are, the more concerned teachers are about theiridleness and non-attentiveness (Beaman et al., 2007; Little, 2005), partly because of thehigher academic demands (Ding et al., 2018)

No Study Method Countries Participants Most frequent

misbehaviour

1 Stephenson Closed Australia 130 primary 1 Distractibility or

et al (2000) questionnaire school teachers _ attention span a

problem/does not

listen

2 Disrupts theactivities of others,

etc.

2 Tũrnikli & Semi- Turkey and 20 primary English:

Galton structured England school teachers I Being noisy

(2001) in-depth 2 Moving around the

22

interview class

and 3 Using materials

systematic inappropriately classroom Turkish:

observation 1 Making noise

2 Moving around theclass

2 Interrupting otherstudents

Ho & Closed Hong Kong 187 secondary 1 Talking out of turn

Leung questionnaire school teachers 2 Lack of attention

(2002) 3 Forgetfulness

4 Idleness/slowness5 Verbal abuse

Little Closed Australia 148 secondary 1 Talking out of turn (2005) questionnaire school teachers 2 Hindering others

3 Laziness4 Disobedience

5 Unnecessary noise

Ding etal Closed China 244 elementary High school:

(2008) questionnaire to high school 1 Daydreaming

personal belongings

6 Sunetal Semi- Hong 12 secondary 1 Being involved in

(2012) structured Kong school teachers _ disruptive

interview conversations

7 Koutrouba Close-ended Greece 869 secondary 1 Lazy

(2013) questionnaire school teachers 2 Speak without

permission

3 Are not attentive

to the lesson

4 Bother or hindertheir peers during thelesson

5 Arrive late in theclassroom

8 Munnetal Close-ended UK 550 secondary 1 Talking out of turn

(2013) questionnaire school teachers 2 Eating/chewing in

class3 Makingunnecessary noise

4 Hindering other

pupils5 Work avoidanceTable 2 Past research on common misbehaviour

Looking specifically into EFL classrooms, it is apparent that disturbance is the topconcern of many teachers Wahyuni (2016), by using an open-ended questionnaire withtwelve English teachers in Indonesia, found out that teachers had to deal with disturbingstudents most often, followed by lazy, noisy, bullying and forgetful students (Wahyuni,

24

2016) Similarly, in the interview of Cabaroglu and Altinel (2010), teachers teaching 7thgrade English in Turkey referred to hindering the flow of the lesson as most frequentmisbehaviour They also had to handle talking out of turn, not complying with classroomrules and eating in class (Cabaroglu & Altinel, 2010) Thilagaratnam and Yamat (2021)conducted an interview in which English teachers from private Chinese schools talked

about how problematic disruptive students were to the teaching and learning process.Chinese EFL teachers in Sun and Sheck (2012) provided a more detailed list, reportingtalking out of turn as the most common misconduct, followed by lack of attention andlaziness Keser and Yavuz (2018) held a similar view, indicating that for pre-serviceteachers in Turkey, the most pressing issue was noisy classes, consisting of many

talkative students Evans (2012) added some disciplinary matters that are unique to

foreign language classrooms Working with five in-service EFL teachers during onesemester, Evans pointed out that students showed negative attitude towards the subject orreluctance to communicate in the target language

2.4.2 Past research on common teachers’ responsesA review of past research suggests that primary and secondary teachers are the more

common subjects of misbehaviour research than their high school counterparts The twomost employed methods are questionnaires and interviews Regarding questionnaires,

Clunies-Ross et al (2008) investigated 97 primary teachers in Melbourne, Australiathrough the Competency and Behaviour Management Survey (CBM), originallydeveloped by Herrera and Little (2005) There are 12 items describing the specificmethod of managing misbehaviour, divided into proactive (e.g making changes to thepresent teaching style, spending time on assisting the child) and reactive ones (e.g

utilizing corporal punishment, removing the child from the class) The Likert scale

ranged from “extremely likely” to “extremely unlikely’ The results showed thatproactive strategies were preferred with the highest mean ratings belonging to “listeningactively and negotiating commitments” and “instructing the child in coping skills” while

“using corporal punishment” received the lowest rating (Clunies-Ross et al., 2008, p

25

700) Another notable point is that teachers’ responses to academic misbehaviour tended

to be more positive than to social misbehaviour (Clunies-Ross et al., 2008) In a similarvein, Chitiyo et al (2014) created the Problem Behaviour Survey, finding out that 62primary and secondary teachers in Zimbabwe reported using “punishment”,

“counselling”, “contacting the students’ parents”, “referral to disciplinary committee”and “keeping the students busy” the most (Chitiyo et al., 2014, p 1096) In the Asian

setting, the survey by Ding et al (2010) on 244 Chinese teachers revealed gradedifferences While primary teachers most often praised students to handle problembehaviours, secondary teachers chose to talk with them after class (Ding et al., 2010)

Some other studies paid attention to preservice teachers in Malaysia (Zakaria et al.,2013), Turkey (Atici, 2007), Australia and Canada (Reupert & Woodcock, 2011), allshowing that this group of teachers tended to rely most on warnings

Unlike these above-mentioned studies, Amoah et al (2015) made use of a structured interview with 12 junior high school teachers in Ghana They reached theconclusion that when encountering misbehaviour, teachers wanted to engage and

semi-motivate students, for example through “verbal appreciation”, rather than punishing them

(Amoah et al., 2015, p 10)

A further examination of EFL research on classroom management showed variations in

teachers’ preferred responses Cabaroglu’s interview with Turkish student teachers in

2012 showed that ignoring was the most employed measure, followed by verbal and

non-verbal warnings Indonesian teachers in Habib et al.’s interview favoured non-verbal

warnings, eye contact, personal counselling and physical punishment (2018) Alsoinvestigating Indonesian teachers, Wahyuni (2016) obtained quite the same findings withteachers selecting non-verbal and verbal cues the most Regarding the differencesbetween types of schools, Vosough and Nafissi (2018) found out that compared to privateteachers, public teachers showed more preference for stricter disciplinary strategies suchas giving warnings of consequences of misbehaving From the perspective of students,Rahimi and Hosseini (2012) carried out a survey on Iranian students who reported

26

rewarding and recognition to be the most frequently used strategy while punishment wasthe least common one among EFL teachers there.

In Vietnam, Tran (2015) focused on 498 high school students and implemented a surveyon their teachers’ their classroom management techniques which involve four types,namely punishment, recognition and rewards, hinting, discussion and aggression Thefrequency of each item is judged based on a Likert scale from | to 5 “Never, Hardly ever,Some of the time, Most of the time, Nearly all the time” (Tran, 2015, p 180) Regardingthe results, the mean ratings for recognition and rewards, hinting, and discussion werehigher than punishment and aggression, with recognition being the most preferable

strategy In 2016, Tran continued to collect responses from 397 high school teachers in a

province, using the same tool as he did in 2005 Noticeably, the results bear strikingresemblance (Tran, 2016)

2.4.3 Summary and gap of the literatureThe previous research provides a rich source of reference for prospective studies in thefield The general finding is that it is the minor misbehavior such as talking out of turnand disrupting others that occurred most frequently, and teachers often chose verbalintervention to deal with misbehavours while avoiding punishing students This aligned

with Wheldall and Merrett’s statement that ‘None of the key troublesome behaviours are

serious crimes but they are time wasting, irritating, stressful and, ultimately, exhausting

for teachers’ (1988, p 24) Baeman et al (2007) who had reviewed related researchreferred to talking out of turn as ‘the consistent first choice of teachers in terms of what

causes most disruption in the classroom Irrespective of geographic location or level ofschooling, talking out of turn is clearly the behaviour at the core of classroom disorder’(p 55)

However, these previous findings are not applicable to the current situations becauseperceptions of teachers undergo changes over the course of time, given the fact thatteenager behaviour has transformed dramatically with the prevalence of the Internet (Sun

27

& Sheck, 2012) Advanced communication platforms allowed new norms and trends to

spread quickly among young people Besides, student’ misbehaviour is localized and

cultural-specific Few published studies focused on Vietnamese setting where the Englishclassroom possesses some distinct features Besides, the misbehaviours encountered byEFL teachers and strategies used by them to cope with student misbehaviour as opposedto the findings from mainstream education, remains a significant gap in the literature Inspite of the fact that many of the issues that teachers perceive as student misbehaviour ingeneral education and the strategies they use to cope with them may be the same inforeign language classrooms, it is also very plausible that foreign language classroomissues are distinctive and has not been fully explored With this in mind, the present paper

focuses on foreign language classrooms and aims to explore these differences Therefore,

there exists a need to conduct further research to gain more understanding of the topic inVietnamese EFL classes

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter provides detailed information about the methodological issues including thedescriptions and justifications of research setting, research design, participants, data

collection instruments, data collection and analysis procedures for the research questions

3.1 Setting of the studyThe study was conducted in Hanoi where the researcher has hands-on working

experience This capital city has a diverse system of high schools in order to cater for the

huge and varied demands of the residents English is deemed an important subject thatstudents need to master not only to graduate but also to gain future job opportunities andfit into the globalized world At least three periods (45 minutes per period) are allocatedto this subject each week

Some features of high schools in the city are directly related to classroom management inEFL classes At this school level, each class is often taught by different teachers ofdifferent subjects; each teacher sets their own rules and has their own expectations of

students’ behaviours Therefore, students have to make adaptations in each and every

lesson Due to high demand, the schools usually have a large class size, ranging fromabout 30 students to 45 students While public schools are characterized by tightadherence to the national curriculum and strict school regulations, private schools allowmore flexibility in terms of teaching contents, methods and a more relaxed teaching andlearning atmosphere Given these distinct characteristics, misbehaviour during EFLlessons in these types of schools may have variations

In order to qualify as English high school teachers, the minimal requirements include

bachelors’ degree in ELT pedagogy and proficiency level of 5 on the 6-level Foreign

Language Proficiency Framework designated for Vietnam The new teachers often

undergo training in the form of classroom observations and trial teaching sessions to getfamiliarized with the school culture as well as the academic environment

29

3.2 Research designTo answer the research question, the quantitative approach was utilized in the study Tobe specific, by adopting survey method including using questionnaires, the researchers

can achieve high levels of reliability when collecting mass data (Balsley, 1970) and

“eliminate or minimize subjectivity of judgment” (Kealey & Protheroe, 1996, p 141).The use of statistical data for the research descriptions and analysis also enabled theresearchers to save considerable time and resources

3.3 Participants and sampling method

The target population is EFL teachers who are currently working in high schools inHanoi Data processing suggests that their average year of working experience of 12years The number of participants in the survey is 114, with the 15+ cohort making up thelargest proportion The percentage of those teaching for 0-5 years accounted for 14.7%while the figure for 5-10 years stood at 24.5% Moving on to more experienced groups,there was 26.6% of teachers who reported to work in the field for 10-15 years, while 15+years of experience made up 34.2% The majority of them were female (85%) Thispartly reflects the ratio of male and female teachers in Vietnamese high schools.According to the latest statistics published by the Ministry of Education and Training, inthe academic year 2019-2020, female teachers were comprised of almost 65% of thetotal

Information Category Number Percentage

>15 38 34.2%

Table 3 Participants of the surveyIn order to select the participants, multi mixed sampling was employed In the first stage,convenience sampling, which is a time-saving and cost-effective method, allowed theresearcher to obtain high participation rate However, realizing that the number of

surveyed teachers were still low, potentially affecting the representativeness of the study,the researcher decided to make use of snowball sampling with the aim of finding moreparticipants who were difficult for the researcher to approach

3.4 Data collection instrument

3.4.1 Justification for the use of questionnaire

In order to collect primary data for the study, questionnaire was utilized since it enablesthe researchers to effectively collect teachers’ beliefs and opinions (Griffee, 2012),which, in this context, are their perceptions on the students’ misbehaviour and their

responses Questionnaire is also regarded as “a very useful survey tool that allows largepopulations to be assessed with relative ease” (Jones et al., 2013, p.1) Cooper and

Schindler (2014) confirmed that this method is inexpensive, time-efficient and ensure theanonymity of the participants Because of the convenience and availability of theparticipants, the researcher combined in-person and online modes of administration in

order to ensure a high response rate

3.4.2 Questionnaire developmentAlthough there exists widely used questionnaires developed by Houghton et al (1988),Johnson et al (2017), Wheldall and Merrett (1988), it is hardly reasonable to employ thealready available instruments due to cultural differences (Van de Vijver & Poortinga,

2005 According to Leung and Ho (2001), ‘simply importing an existing surveyinstrument runs the risk of missing out on important information of local concern’ (p

233) As a consequence, with the aim of ensuring the validity of the questionnaire, its

31

development underwent two preparation steps, namely a cognitive interview (Berends,2006) and subsequently a pilot study.

There were two phases of developing questionnaires in this study During Phase 1,Vietnamese high school teachers were interviewed to aid in developing categories for

student problem behaviour and items for the questionnaire During Phase 2, a finalversion of the teacher questionnaire was completed before being distributed to a large

sample of teachers

3.4.2.1 Cognitive interviewLeung and Ho (2001) stated that in order for the findings to be applicable, the

behavioural items should be relevant to the local situation and the cultural norms As aresult, in an attempt to design a reliable survey, the researcher carried out cognitiveinterviews with Vietnamese teachers to gather a pool of items to be included in thequestionnaire before classifying them into appropriate categories As suggested byBerends (2006)

“Cognitive interviews allow researchers to explore the reasons why respondents

answer as they do, identifying whether the specific survey items are measuring thecritical constructs in the theoretical framework, pointing out what important items may be

missing, or signaling which items may be misleading indicators for the target construct.”

(p 633)The participants of this cognitive interview included 15 high school teachers working infour types of high schools in Hanoi, having diverse working experience Intervieweedemographics were as follows:

Information Category Number Percentage

Gender Male 4 26.7%

Female 11 73.3%

Teaching years <5 6 40%

32