động cơ của học sinh, thái độ của cha mẹ ảnh hưởng đến việc học tiếng anh của các em học sinh trường thpt

HuNG YeN department of education and training duong quang ham senior high school ****************** Initiative and experience STUDENT MOTIVATION, PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND INVOLVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S ENGLISH LEARNING AT DUONG QUANG HAM SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL Teacher : Ha Thi Th¬m Subject : English Academic year : 2012-2013 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that the study entitled “Students’ motivation and Parental Attitudes and Involvement in Children’s English Learning at Duong Quang Ham Senior High School” is the result of my work Signed: Dated: ii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I TABLE OF CONTENTS II STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP II TABLE OF CONTENTS III LIST OF TABLES V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS VI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY .3 1.3 SCOPE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .4 2.1 MOTIVATION IN L2 LEARNING 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 Types of Motivation .5 2.1.3 Role of motivation in L2 learning 2.1.4 Studies into integrative and instrumental motivations 2.2 PARENTS AS A FACTOR AFFECTING STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN LANGUAGE LEARNING .10 2.3 STUDIES INTO PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND INVOLVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE LEARNING 13 2.3.1 Parental attitudes in children’s language learning 13 2.3.2 Parental involvement in children’s language learning .16 2.4 SUMMARY 19 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 20 3.1 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS 20 3.1.1 Questionnaires 20 3.2 SUBJECTS 23 3.2.1 Student population .23 3.2.2 Parents 24 3 PROCEDURES .24 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS 25 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 27 4.1 STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN ENGLISH LEARNING 27 4.1.1 Students’ integrative motivation in English learning 27 4.1.2 Students’ instrumental motivation in English learning .30 4.1.3 Parental attitudes and involvement as perceived by students .33 4.2 PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND INVOLVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S ENGLISH LEARNING AS JUDGED BY PARENTS36 4.3 PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND INVOLVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S ENGLISH LEARNING PERCEIVED BY STUDENTS AND PARENTS 39 4.4 CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION AND PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND INVOLVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S ENGLISH LEARNING 40 4.5 SUMMARY 41 CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION .43 5.1 RECOMMENDATIONS 43 5.1.1 Parents 43 5.1.2 Teachers .44 iii 5.1.3 School 45 5.2 CONCLUSION AND FURTHER RESEARCH 47 REFERENCES 50 APPENDICES 54 APPENDIX A1: STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE .54 THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION! 57 APPENDIX A2: VIETNAMESE VERSION OF STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE 58 APPENDIX B1: PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE .63 THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION! 64 APPENDIX B 2: VIETNAMESE VERSION OF PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE 65 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ Integrative Motivation in English learning Table 2: Students’ Instrumental Motivation in English learning Table 3: Motivation by Vietnamese and Chinese students Table 4: Parental attitudes and involvement as perceived by students Table 5: Parental attitudes and involvement in children’s English learning Table 6: T-test value of mean scores of parental attitudes and involvement in children’s English learning perceived by students and by their parents Table 7: R-values of students’ motivation and parental attitudes and involvement v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A: agree D: disagree DQH: Duong Quang Ham EFL: English as a foreign language L2: second language M: mean Md: mode N: neutral n: number of respondents No: numerical order r: correlation coefficient SD: standard deviation SLA: second language acquisition StrA: strongly agree StrD: strongly disagree TL: target language vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This introductory chapter provides three parts: the reason for choosing the topic, the aims of the study, the scope and significance of the study 1.1 Reasons for choosing the topic The study of motivation in second language acquisition (SLA) has become an important research topic with the development of socio-educational model on second language (L2) motivation (Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Gardner, 1985; Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993; Tremblay & Gardner, 1995) According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), motivation to learn an L2 is grounded in positive attitudes toward the L2 community and in a desire to communicate with valued members of that community and become similar to them This desire is integrative orientation, which is a support for language learning, while an instrumental orientation is associated with the desire to learn L2 for pragmatic gains such as getting a better job or higher salary (Dornyei, 2001; Gardner & Lambert, 1972) L2 motivation is indeed a prerequisite condition for the success of L2 learners like food for the brain Successful language learning can only take place if the learner has goals and an inner drive to achieve these goals (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991) L2 motivation can be seen as a desire to study the foreign language to understand and use the language that learners are learning and to serve their purposes For example, motivation in learning English as a foreign language (EFL) involves a student’s desire to participate in the English learning process (Gardner, 1985) Without L2 motivation, learners would feel bored, and then they just learn to pass the exams or please their parents (Krashen, 1982) Gradually, they would be afraid of studying L2 Motivation plays a significant role in the process of learning a language Language teachers cannot effectively teach a language if they not understand the relationship between motivation and its effect on language acquisition as well as its affecting factors The core of motivation is what might be called passion, which relates to a person's intrinsic goals and desires Successful learners know their preferences, their strengths and weaknesses, and effectively utilize strengths and compensate for weaknesses Successful language learning is linked to the learner’s passion (Karaoglu, 2008) One of the factors affecting L2 motivation maintaining is parents Parents can be considered as the most important in increasing and maintaining student motivation in L2 learning According to Wlodkowski and Jaynes (1990), parents can greatly influence and maintain their child’s motivation for a lifetime Parental influences are an integral part of students’ motivation Indeed, the home environment and family support may be major factors influencing the school student (Walberg, Paschal, & Weinstein, 1985 as cited in Hein & Wimer, 2007) Fortunately, many modern parents nowadays are aware of the fact that failure or success of their children depends greatly on the parents themselves - “the first and long life teacher” (Hein & Wimer, 2007) In order to succeed in education in general and in teaching English in particular, teachers should understand the factors affecting student motivation Once teachers can understand the parental influence, they would probably find ways to cooperate with parents to motivate students more so that the students could be successful English learners Important as motivation and the role of parents in maintaining and enhancing motivation are, it is a sad fact that in rural areas in Vietnam like Hungyen, the motivation for English is low Unlike parents in big cities such as Hanoi and Hochiminh city, many of whom are so involved in their children’s English learning as shown in the number of children taking extra courses and scoring so high in English, parents in non-urban areas not seem to have given due attention to this subject Unfortunately, no effort so far has been spent on exploring this aspect of learning as well as the attitudes of the parents towards their children’s English learning Obviously, an investigation into this area will bring about the information needed to gain an insight into how students in those less advantageous areas are driven toward the most important language in today’s globalization context, how their parents feel toward the subject and how these two aspects are inter-related 1.2 Aims of the Study The study aimed at investigating the level of student motivation and their parent’ attitudes and involvement in their English learning at DQH Senior High School 1.3 Scope and Significance of the Study The study was conducted at DQH Senior High School in Vangiang district, Hung Yen province The study focused on examining student motivation in the language that they are learning: English and their parents’ attitudes and involvement in their English learning It is expected to provide deeper understanding of how students in less advantageous areas in Vietnam feel toward the language and what kind of motivation is stronger It is also intended to draw a picture, though far from comprehensive, on how parents in those districts are involved in their children language learning From all this implications on how to better motivate the students, how to maximize parents’ support, how to initiate and sustain parents’ engagement could be drawn The study certainly had practical value for teachers teaching English in DQH Senior High School in particular, and for any researchers who would like to improve language teaching as well as learning in general Knowing the factors affecting student motivation would assist the search for better teaching and learning process CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Motivation as a significant factor in language learning has attracted interest of various researchers and the literature is, therefore, very rich This chapter, however, limits itself to issues that are most pertinent to the research focus They are types of motivation, roles of motivation and parental attitudes and involvement in children’s language learning The review also covers studies into possible roles of parents in shaping the students’ motivation for the language 2.1 Motivation in L2 learning 2.1.1 Definition Research on motivation in L2 learning has been heavily influenced by the work of Canadian psychologist Gardner and MacIntyre (1993) According to Gardner (1985), a highly motivated individual will want to learn the language, enjoy learning it, and strive to learn it The Gardnerian theory of L2 learning motivation is based on the definition of motivation as “the extent to which the individual works or strives to learn the language because of a desire to so and the satisfaction experienced in this activity” (Gardner, 1985) In this definition, motivation is described as goal-directed Gardner (1985) proposes that in order to understand why learners are motivated, it is necessary to understand the learner’s ultimate goal or purpose for learning the language He refers to this as the learner’s orientation (Gardner, 1985) Besides, he identifies two distinct orientations for learning a language, which are integrative and instrumental orientations 42 CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 5.1 Recommendations 5.1.1 Parents As clearly discussed in the previous chapter, contrary to the high level of parent’s perceptions and involvements in the children’s English learning, the latter’s motivation was not satisfactory at all, especially integrative motivation While it is worth acknowledging that motivation does depend on many factors as reviewed in Chapter 2, the role of parents needs highlighting here and lessons drawn from this case must be learnt Many studies (Gardner, 1968; Wlodkowski & Jaynes, 1990, for example) have suggested that parents’ support for and interest in their children’s progress are clearly linked to children’s motivation In this study, surely these attitude factors are not sufficient Parents need to show support by specific factors that they more rarely as reported in the research To maneuver the language motivation to a new level, parents need to adopt an active role, which is exemplified by activities such as providing guidance, supervising homework, reinforcing their successes (Gardner, 1968) This, unfortunately, is only feasible with families in which parents are capable of communicating in English as in the case of many intellectual, middle-class families in urban areas like Ha noi and Hochiminh city As for parents of similar profile as those in this study passive form of support must be maximized They can this by creating a supportive affective family climate (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998) Specifically, parents could try harder in making exposure to English programs on TV and radio more accessible Instead of watching/listening to films, documentaries in Vietnamese together, perhaps parents should discuss and save TV time for their children viewing in English With help available from Vietnamese 43 Television and Radio Broadcasting they can easily decide which programs are suitable for their children In fact cartoons and children’s programs such as Humphrey Bear, Play School could give enormous chance for reviewing grammatical and vocabulary items learned at school as well as learning something new in both language and culture terms Also in passive role parents should learn more about the world, especially Englishspeaking ones and be prepared to share their stories with the children These activities will help to familiarize the children more with the culture in target, shorten the gap they may feel between their home culture and foreign one In brief, parents should be aware of the fact that they can assist their children even when they not know the language Bandura (1997) found that “parents who doubt their efficacy to help their children learn, turn over their children’s education entirely to teachers”, while parents who are confident in their ability to help usually “guide their children’s learning and participate actively in the life of the school” Knowing what they could to help, even in very passive role, will bringing them closer to the children and make their support more viable 5.1.2 Teachers Given the important role of motivation as reviewed in Chapter (Brown, 2000; Ely, 1986; Gardner, 1985; Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Nunan, 2000; Nunan & Lamb, 1996 to name just a few) the low levels of both integrative motivation and instrumental motivation with almost no or weak correlation with parental attitudes and involvement suggest that undertakings be made by the teachers In this part recommendations are specified in relation to the two motivation types in this research focus and in relation to the parents’ roles only 44 First of all, to enhance the student’s integrative motivation teachers show active motivational socializing behavior by, for example, modeling in terms of effort expenditure and orientations of interest in the language The love saved for the language compounded by patience and perseverance in exposing the learners to cultural elements of the TL will eventually succeed in generating a much higher level of interest Activities organized in class could be culture exploring ones such as reading about English speaking communities, poster sessions, poetry reading, song learning, games, mini talk-shows With respect to instrumental motivation, guest speaking sessions given by alumnae who are working in English-speaking environments or have been to countries where the language is spoken could help the course participants to understand how important English might be to their future jobs and study Videos showing English speaking Vietnamese at work in international offices, factories, etc could be inspirational too Another important task for teachers is to improve the attitudes of the parents and guide them toward to specific behaviors aimed at nurturing the interests for English Meetings with parents could be held where teachers can talk about how to maximize children’s motivation, what books/TV/radio programs they should be encouraged to watch, etc If regular meetings are not possible, communication through letters, handouts could be useful too though this may require more supervising 5.1.3 School Schools should be supportive to any attempts displayed by either teachers or parents to motivate the children to learn English Schools could have a program like the Enrichment Program, which has been introduced in rural schools in Malaysia (Hussin et al., 2000) and has being proved to be working well The Enrichment Program is believed to be interesting, useful for language learners and especially suitable for Vietnamese students 45 This language enrichment program should not be seen as separate from the school cirriculum Instead, it needs to complement and strengthen the development of language proficiency of students in schools Therefore, what occurs in the language classrooms must be extended beyond the walls of the classroom so that a link is created between what is learned in the classrooms with what occurs outside of the classrooms A healthy balance should be created between the immediate needs of examinations and the long-term needs of communicative competence Within the enrichment program, various activities and tasks which require active participation of the learners should be prepared Some examples of such activities are as follows A school library of English materials collected by teachers, parents and students where students can go there to read foreign language books, magazines, newspapers, short story books, references in English, etc A specific day of week or month or time and space devoted to the use of the language such as an English zone, spelling bee competition, story-telling corner, read-to-me corner, drama competition, poetry reading at the general assembly, for example in a flag saluting period An English speaking club where students can exchange their secrets or experience to learn English well, and then they can practice English in a natural and comfortable way These activities, if organized by schools, should be supported by parents, teachers and students Classroom or school environments should provide simple strategies to encourage the use of English such as murals, i.e., large paintings done on a wall, labels in and around the school, consistent exposure to English language competitions (choral speaking, scramble, ie., game in which words are built up on a board marked with 46 squares, using letters printed on blocks of wood and English notice board) All these need to be given acknowledgement and recognition in the form of rewards and encouragement (e.g., prizes, public mention, etc.) to motivate and sustain interest in the use of English (Hussin et al., 2000) In brief, teaching EFL to students in rural areas remains a great challenge because performance in exams is usually considered more important than for other purposes It requires not only courageous, well-determined, and committed teachers but also creative and innovative teaching techniques DQH teachers are supposed to find practical ways to motivate students to learn and appreciate English language, and at the same time, sustain students’ interest and motivation in English learning process 5.2 Conclusion and further research This study attempted to investigate DQH tenth-grade students’ English learning orientations, and parental attitudes and involvement in students’ EFL as well as the reasons behind students’ different motivation and the parental attitudes and involvement The findings indicate that DQH students were moderately motivated to learn English and owned stronger instrumental motivation than intgrative motivation Maybe due to limited contact with English native speakers or the TL, English language was not their immediate need This finding was different from Gardner’s (1985), but was similar to Gardner and Lambert’s (1972), Liu’s (2007), Man-Fat’s (2004) and Wong’s (2005) To have a brighter future (such as a better job) seemed to be a driving force for these students to learn English rather than to live like the British people To be true, the common instrumental orientations found among these students were: getting a good job in future, meeting the school requirement (a compulsory subject), being better educated It can be said that these students with high instrumental motivation were aware that English language learning can work as an instrument to bring them success 47 in life Besides, results reveal that parents are affirmative in their influence on promoting the children’s learning although their children’s perception was different from parents’ self-evaluation The thesis has ended with certain recommendations related to arousing and sustaining student motivation in English learning and improve closer relationship among parentsschool-teachers-students The study as a whole can be valued beneficial for some reasons as follows First, it has presented the precious information about student motivation that teachers, parents and school should know and understand From the findings, parents would have a closer view at their children’s expectation and they can support their children more to meet their desire Second, the study has showed DQH English language teachers understand students’ orientation when they learn English, so it had pedagogical value in English language classroom Teachers here have to be more careful when designing lesson plans to encourage students develop both students’ integrative motivation and instrumental motivation Third, DQH authority can hold an appropriate program to motivate students to learn English subject as well as other subjects Last, because DQH Senior High School is a rural school in Hung Yen province, the findings may have some relevance for tenth-graders in other EFL learning situations across the province There are two important limitations that should be considered First, this study’s samples only consisted of students from one school As such inferences drawn from the 48 results of this study are limited More samples from various schools are needed in future studies Replication of the study with language learners at similar tenth-graders with varying backgrounds in different learning context is necessary to understand how well the results may be generalized to other EFL students in the province Moreover, other research methods such as using interviews can be employed to supplement the survey so that the changes or differences in attitudes and motivations among students can be clearly explained Secondly, within the scope of this study other motivation-affecting factors such as teachers’ attitudes, learning environments were not included It is suggested that further research be directed to these areas It is hoped that the study will be of interest for not only the concerned language teachers, but for any parents and schools who are keen on promoting children’s motivation in studying English in Vietnam 49 REFERENCES Bandura, A (1997) Self-efficacy: The exercise of control New York: Freeman Benson, M J (1991) Attitudes and motivations towards English: A survey of Japanese freshmen RELC Journal, 22(1), 34-48 Brophy, J E (1987) Synthesis of research on strategies for motivating students to learn Educational Leadership, 45, 40-8 Brown, H D (2000) Principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.) Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall Brown, H D (2001) Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.) New York: Longman Clement, R., Dornyei, Z., & Noels, K.A (1994) Motivation, self-confidence and group cohesion in the foreign language classroom Language Learning, 44, 41748 Creswell, J W (2005) Educational research:Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc Crookes, G., & Schmidt, R W (1991) Motivation: Reopening the research agenda Language Learning, 41, 469-512 Dornyei, Z (1990) Conceptualizing motivation in foreign language learning Language Learning, 40, 46-78 Dornyei, Z (2001) Teaching and Researching Motivation London: Pearson Education Driessen, G., Vander Slik, F., & De Bot, K (2002) Home language and language proficiency: A large-scale longitudinal study in Dutch primary school Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23(3), 175-195 Eccles, J S., Wigfield, A., & Schiefele, A (1998) Motivation to succeed In W Damon and N Eisenber (Eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology: Social, Emotional, and personality development (5th ed.), (pp 1017 – 95) New York: John Wiley & Sons Ellis, R (1997) The study of second language acquisition Oxford University Press Oxford Ely, C M (1986) Language learning motivation: A descriptive causal Modern Language Journal 70, 28-35 analysis Falk, J (1978) Linguistics and language: A survey of basic concepts and implications (2nd ed.) John Wiley & Sons 50 Finegan, E (1999) Language: its structure and use (3rd ed.) Harcourt Brace Gardner, R C (1960) Motivation variables in second-language acquisition Doctoral dissertation McGill University Montreal Gardner, R C (1968) Attitudes and motivation: their role in second-language acquisition TESOL Quarterly, (3), 141-150 Gardner, R C (1982) Language attitudes and language learning In E Bouchard Ryan & H Giles (Eds.), Attitudes towards language variation (pp 132147) Edward Arnold Gardner, R C (1985) Social Psychology and Language Learning: the role of attitudes and motivation Edward Arnold London Gardner, R C., & Feenstra, H J (1968) Aptitude, attitude and motivation in second-language acquisition Research Bulletin, 10 Gardner, R C., & Lambert, W E (1959) Motivation variables in second acquisition Canadian Journal of Phychology, 13, 266-272 language Gardner, R C., & Lambert, W E (1972) Attitudes and motivation in language learning Rowley: Newbury House second Gardner, R C., & MacIntyre, P D (1991) An instrumental motivation in language study: Who says it isn’t effective? Studies in Second Language Acquisition 13, 57-72 Gardner, R C., & MacIntyre, P D (1993) On the measurement of effective variables in second language learning Language Learning 43, 94-157 Gillham, B (2000) Developing a questionnaire London and New York: Continuum Hein, L D., & Wimer, L S (2007) Improving homework completion and motivation of middle school students through behaviour modification, graphing, and parent communication Illinois: Saint Xavier University & Pearson Achievement Solutions, Inc Retrieved November 5, 2008, from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/000001 9b/80/36/2a/3a.pdfHudson, G (2000) Essential introductory linguistics Blackwell Publishers Hussin, et al., (2000) Sustaining an interest in learning English and increasing the motivation to learn English:An enrichment program University Kebangssan Malaysia Retrieved January 16, 2009, from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Hussin-Motivation/ Johnson, B., & Christensen, L ( 2000) Educational Research USA: Allyn & Bacon 51 Karaoglu, S (2008) Motivating language learners to succeed Essential teacher Krashen, S (1982) Principles and practice in second language acquisition Oxford: Pergamon Liu, M (2007) Chinese students’ motivation to learn English at the tertiary level Asian EFL Journal, 9(1), 126-146 Man-Fat, M W (2004) An exploration of the role of integrative motivation in the achievement of English language learners in Hong Kong Karen’s Linguistics Issues Retrieved September 5, 2008, from http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/motivationhk Madileng, M M (2007) English as a medium instruction: the relationship between motivation and English second language proficiency University of South Africa Retrieved September 1, 2008, from http://www.etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD_db/theses/available/etd-10012007113136/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf Mahlobo, E B (1999) Contextual and learner factors in the development of English second language proficiency.University of South Africa Retrieved January 16, 2009, from http://www.etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD_db/theses/available/edt_10012007_ 113136/unrestricted/dissertation.pdf Nachmias, C F., & Nachmias, D (1996) Research methods in the social London, New York: Oxford University Press sciences Nunan, D (2000) Second Language Teaching and Learning University of Hong Kong: Heinle & Heinle Publishers Nunan, D., & Lamb, C (1996) The self-directed teacher: Managing the learning process Cambridge University Press Oxford, R L., & Shearin, J (1994) Language learning motivation: Expanding the theoretical framework Modern Language Journal 78, 12-28 Scarcella, R C., & Oxford, R L (1992) The tapestry of language learning: the individual in the communicative classroom Boston: Heinle & Heinle Sung, H., & Padilla, M A (1998) Student motivation, parental attitudes, and involvement in the learning of Asian languages in elementary and secondary schools Modern Language Journal, 82(2), 205-216 Taylor, D M., Meynard, R., & Rheault, E (1977) Threat to ethenic identity and second-language learning In H Giles (Ed.), Language, ethnicity and intergroup relations (pp 99-118) Academic Press 52 Tremblay, P F., & Gardner, R C (1995) Expanding the motivation construct language learning The Modern Language Journal, 79, 505-518 in Ushioda, E (2000) Tandem language via e-mail: from motivation to autonomy Recall, 12 (2), 121-128 Webb, N M., & Palinscar, A S (1996) Group process in the classroom In D Berliner and R Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (3rd ed.), (pp 841- 873) New York: Macmillan Williams, M (1994) Motivation in foreign and second language learning: An interactive perspective Educational and Child Psychology, 11, 77-84 Williams, M., & Burden, R (1997) Psychology for language teachers Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Wlodkowski, R., & Jaynes, J H (1990) Eager to Learn: Helping Children Become Motivated and Love Learning San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers Wong, H M R (2005) Motivation and English attainment: a comparative study of Hong Kong students with different cultural backgrounds Asia Pacific Education Researcher, 17 (1), 45-60 Van Lier, L (1996) Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, and Authenticity Harlow: Longman Autonomy Verma, H M (2005) Learner’s attitudes and its impact on language learning India Uttar Pradesh: Invertis Institute of Engineering & Technology 53 APPENDICES APPENDIX A1: Student Questionnaire Student Number: …… Dear Students, This survey will provide me with information about your English learning motivation Please complete the following survey thoroughly and honestly Please not write your name on this survey All surveys will remain anonymous I am hoping you will assist me in this adventure by completing the student survey below Thank you for your assistance! Please put a cross ( X ) to one of the most appropriate descriptions to show your feelings about each statement Section A No Studying English can be Strongly Disagree Neutral important for me because Disagree English will allow me to meet and converse with foreigners Studying English can be important for me so that I can understand English music English will enable me to get to know various cultures and peoples I would like to go to an English speaking country to live I would like to live like the way that English people live 54 Agree Strongly Agree Other opinion(s): ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… Section B No Studying English can be Strongly important for me Disagree because English will make me a knowledgeable person I can broaden my outlook with English 11 I may need English later (for job, studies, traveling) 12 English will enable me to know more about English world 13 Learning English gives me a feeling of success 14 Strongly Agree Other people will respect me more if I have knowledge of English 10 Agree English will someday be useful in getting a good job Neutral I will need English for my future career Disagree English is a compulsory subject Other opinion(s): ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 55 Section C No Strongly Disagree 15 My parents feel that as we live in the countryside, I not need to study English well 16 My parents encourage me to study English well 17 My parents believe that I should spend more time learning English 18 My parents stress the importance English will have for me when I leave school 19 My parents think English is important 20 My parents help me with my English homework 21 My parents tell me to seek help from my teacher if I have problems with my English 22 My parents give me anything that I need to study English well 23 My parents encourage me to watch English television programs 24 My parents encourage me to listen to English radio programs 25 My parents feel proud of me if I study English well 26 Disagree Neutral Agree My parents force me to learn English 56 Strongly Agree ... subjects (16 items) The average score of five items The average score of nine items The average score of 14 items The average score of 16 items 32 4.1.3 Parental attitudes and involvement as perceived... important, parental involvement entails their assistance in high scholastic achievement, offering academic guidance and provision of resources on school related tasks and managing and emphasizing educational... four items were adapted from Gardner’s (1985) with some minor changes For example, “English”, the TL of this study replaced “French”, the TL, in Gardner’s (1985) study Items 10 to 12 are statements