Motivation in learning listening comprehension by first-year English major students = Động cơ học nghe hiểu của sinh viên chuyên Anh năm thứ nhất.PDF

Rationale for the study Motivation, believed as one of the most important factors determining the rate and success of second language L2 attainment, provides the primary impetus to init

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Methods of the study 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 2

6 Organization of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

1.1 Motivation 3

1.1.1 Definition of motivation 3

1.1.2 Gardner’s motivation theory 4

1.1.3 Types of motivation 7

1.1.3.1 Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation 7

1.1.3.2 Resultative motivation 8

1.1.3.3 Instrumental vs integrative motivation 8

1.1.4 The role of motivation in L2 learning 10

1.2 Theoretical basis of listening comprehension 10

1.2.1 Definition of listening 10

1.2.2 Significance of listening 11

1.2.3 Different views on listening comprehension 12

1.2.4 Listening process 13

1.3 The role of motivation in learning listening comprehension 14

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 16

2.1 Research questions 16

2.2 Informants 16

2.3 Data collection instrument 16

2.4 Data collection procedures 18

2.5 Data analysis and discussion 18

2.5.1 Integrative motivation 20

2.5.2 Instrumental motivation 22

2.5.3 Integrative versus instrumental motivation 23

PART C: CONCLUSION 24

3.1 Major findings 24

3.2 Conclusion 24

3.3 Implications 25

3.4 Suggestions for further study 25

REFERENCES 26 APPENDICES I Appendix 1 I Appendix 2 V

LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS

1 List of tables

Table 1 Constructs and Scales of the AMTB from Gardener 7 Table 2.Descriptive statistics for integrative and instrumental motivation questionnaire 19 Table 3 Descriptive statistics for integrative motivation 20 Table 4 Descriptive statistics for instrumental motivation 22

2 List of figures

Figure 1 Gardner’s Socio-Educational Model of Motivation 6 Figure 2 Integrative and instrumental motivation 23

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

Motivation, believed as one of the most important factors determining the rate and success of second language (L2) attainment, provides the primary impetus to initiate learning the L2 and later the driving force to sustain the long and often tedious learning process (Dornyei, 2001, cited in Ha 2009, p163) Research shows that motivation is crucial for L2 learning (Dornyei, 1994) According to Oxford and Shearin (1994, cited in Ha 2009, pp.163-164), motivation directly influences how much effort students make, how often students use L2 learning strategies, how much students interact with native speakers, how much input they receive in the language being learned, how well they do on curriculum related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they preserve and maintain L2 skills after language study is over (Ely 1986, Oxford & Shearin 1994) Particularly, toward learning listening comprehension, which is assuming a more and more important place in foreign language teaching and learning process, and is probably one of the most difficult tasks of language learners, motivation is one important

element directly influencing their achievement “Motivation is the crucial force which

determines whether the listener embarks on a task at all The primary motive for learning a language is that it provides a means of communication” (Littlewood, 1984:53) Brown

(2000:143, 160) asserts, “It is easy in SLL to claim that a listener will be successful with

the proper motivation.”

Having recognized the importance of motivation on learning listening

comprehension, this study focuses on Motivation in learning listening comprehension by first-year English major students This study will examine the students‟ goals of learning

listening comprehension, in other words, their tendency towards the integrative and instrumental motivation in learning listening comprehension

2 Aims of the study

The study is to describe and examine the students‟ integrative and instrumental motivation towards English language learning In other words, the study aims to determine their tendency toward the two types of motivation

3 Methods of the study

In this study, quantitative method was used The data were collected via questionnaire The modified questionnaire was based on Vaezi (2008)‟s 25-item survey questionnaire which was adapted from Gardner (1985)‟s AMTB and Clement et al.‟s (1994)

4 Scope of the study

The study describes and examines the students‟ integrative and instrumental motivation towards English language learning, in particular listening comprehension

5 Significance of the study

First, the information about the students‟ integrative and instrumental motivation towards listening comprehension learning, in other words, the information about their goals of learning listening comprehension is useful for those who teach English, especially listening comprehension to non-English major students in general and for those who teach English to students majoring in English at HUI in particular As a result, the study also gives some suggestions and recommendations for all teachers when teaching listening comprehension

6 Organization of the study

The study consists of five chapters

Part A – Introduction This chapter discusses the rationale, aims, scope, methods,

significance and design of the study

Part B – Development consists of two chapters:

Chapter 1 - Literature Review- this chapter is intended to give some theoretical

background related to motivation and listening comprehension

Chapter 2 - The study – In this chapter, the collection instruments, data collection and

data analysis and discussion are presented

Part C – Conclusion – this chapter presents the major findings, conclusion, implications,

and suggestions for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Motivation

1.1.1 Definition of motivation

“Motivation” is a term frequently used in both education and research fields Different interpretations of the definition of motivation depend on various psychological perspectives of human behavior However, Dornyei (1998:117) comments, “Although

„motivation‟ is a term frequently used in both educational and research contexts, it is rather surprising how little agreement there is in the literature with regard to the exact meaning of the concept”

Williams and Burden (1997: 120) see motivation as “a state of cognitive and emotional arousal, a state which leads to a conscious decision to act and gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort”

Relating motivation to learning a second language (L2), in his word, Ellis stated that „motivation involves the attitudes and effective states that influence the degree of effort that learners make to learn an L2‟ (Ellis, 1997: 75) Brown (2000: 160) indicated that

„motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something‟

Motivation, according to Dornyei (1998), was the “process whereby a certain amount

of instigation force arises, initiates action, and persists” as long as there is no other forces weakening it until the planned goals were reached In other words, motivation can be seen

as a force that made a person to initiate action, and to keep on until the goals were achieved He conceptualized language learning motivation as including three components: motivational intensity, desire to learn the language and an attitude towards the act of learning the language

Furthermore, in Deci and Ryan‟s (1985) self-determination theory, motivation was related to all aspects of “activation” and “intention”, including energy, direction, persistence and equifinality

According to Naiman et al (1978) (cited in Harmer, 1999: 42), "the most successful learners are not necessarily those to whom a language comes very easily; they are those who display typical characteristics, most of them clearly associated with motivation" Below is the list:

- Positive task orientation: the learner has confidence in his or her success

- Ego involvement: the learner finds it important to succeed in learning

- Need for achievement: to overcome difficulties and succeed in what he or she sets out to do

- High aspirations: the learner goes for demanding challenges and high proficiency

- Goal orientation: the learner is very aware of the goals of learning

- Perseverance: the learner is not discouraged by setbacks or apparent lack of progress

- Tolerance of ambiguity: the learner is not frustrated by a temporary lack of understanding; he or she thinks it will come later

Literature shows that different researchers have different ways of defining motivation However, they all share the same point of view that motivation combines effort and desire plus favorable attitudes and occurs as a result of a combination of internal and external influences This study follows the definition of motivation proposed by Gardner

(1985) According to Gardner (1985:50), motivation includes four aspects: goal, effortful

behavior to reach the goal, desire to attain the goal, positive attitudes towards the goal

However, a goal is not necessary a measurable component of motivation, but a stimulus that gave rise to motivation

1.1.2 Gardner’s motivation theory

Gardner was one of the pioneering researchers in second language acquisition (SLA)

to focus on motivation (Root, 1999:2) In 1959, Gardner and Lambert approached motivation that has influenced various studies in L2 motivation They distinguished between integrative motivation and instrumental motivation Integrative motivation refers

to positive attitudes toward the target group and a willingness to integrate into the target community, whereas instrumental motivation refers to practical reasons for learning a language, such as to gain social recognition or to get a job (Hashimoto, 2002:30) In other words, an integratively motivated learner is someone who shows his/her positive attitudes toward culture and people of the target language On the other hand, those who learn a language with practical purposes such as for getting high marks in exams, travelling or earning higher salaries are considered to have instrumental motivation

In addition, Gardner (1985) defined motivation by specifying four aspects of motivation:

 a goal

 effortful behavior to reach the goal

 a desire to attain the goal,

 positive attitudes toward the goal (Gardner, 1985, p 50, cited in Root, 1999, p.2)

However, a goal was not a measurable component of motivation but was a stimulus giving rise to motivation Actually, he focused on classifying reasons for second language study, which he then identified as orientations (1985, p 54) There were two orientations in his research, integrative and instrumental orientation He also made a clear distinction

between orientation and motivation Motivation “refers to a complex of three

characteristics which may or may not be related to any particular orientation These characteristics are attitudes toward learning the language, desire to learn the language, and motivational intensity” (Gardner, 1985, p 54, cited in Root, 1999, p.2) Meanwhile, orientation was a class of reasons suggesting why a person might study a language For example, an integrative orientation was a class of reasons suggesting why a person might undertake language study, including a desire to integrate with a target language community (Root, 1999, p.2) The main difference between orientation and motivation is that a student might demonstrate a particular orientation, but not highly motivated to achieve that goal (Gardner and Tremblay, 1994)

In 1985, Gardner established a model of motivation in second language learning, i.e

the socio-educational model His model concentrated on the integrative motive The

integrative motive included integrative orientation, plus the motivation, which included desire, motivational intensity, and a number of other attitudes involving the target language community (Root, 1999:2) Motivation was the central concept of the socio-educational model; however, integrativeness and attitudes were other factors which affected individual differences and are said to contribute to the leaner‟ level of motivation And integrativeness, attitudes, together with motivation are said to form integrative motivation The relationship between integrativeness, attitudes and motivation was explained as followed

Figure 1 Gardner’s Socio-Educational Model of Motivation

(Adapted from Dörnyei, Z (1994) Modern Language Journal, 78, p 517, cited in Root, 1999, p.3)

The Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) was developed by Gardner (1985) in order to evaluate various individual difference variables based on the socio-educational

model The AMTB includes over 130 items belonging to five categories: integrativeness,

attitude towards the language situation, motivation, integrativeness, attitude towards the language situation, motivation, instrumental orientation, and anxiety toward the L2 (Gardner, 2001, p 7, cited in Hashimoto, 2002, p.31)

Three of these categories, i.e integrativeness, attitudes toward the learning situation and motivation, have been mentioned above and included in Gardner‟s socio-educational model Instrumental orientation refers to an interest in learning the language for pragmatic reasons that do not involve identification with the other language community The other is language anxiety, which involves anxiety reactions when called upon to use the second language (Gardner, 2001, p 8, cited in Hashimoto, 2002, p.31) The following table presents the list of the constructs assessed in the AMTB from Gardner (2001, pp 8-9, cited in Hashimoto, 2002, p.21)

Table 1 Constructs and Scales of the AMTB from Gardner

(2001, pp 8-9, cited in Hashimoto, 2002)

Construct 1: Integrativeness

Subtest 1: Integrative orientation (4 items)

Subtest 2: Interest in foreign languages (10 items)

Subtest 3: Attitudes toward the target language group (10 items)

Construct 2: Attitudes toward the Learning Situation

Subtest 4: Evaluation of the language instructor (10 items)

Subtest 5: Evaluation of the language course (10items)

Construct 3: Motivation

Subtest 6: Motivation intensity (10 items)

Subtest 7: Desire to learn the language (10 items)

Subtest 8: Attitudes toward learning the language (10 items)

Construct 4: Instrumental Orientation

Subtest 9: Instrumental orientation (4 items)

Construct 5: Language Anxiety

Subtest 10: Language class anxiety (10 items)

Subtest 11: Language use anxiety (10 items)

However, the study aimed to examine the students‟ tendency toward the two kinds of motivation in learning listening comprehension; therefore, it only focused on integrative and instrumental motivation aspects of the AMTB

1.1.3 Types of motivation

Although students may be equally motivated, the source of their motivation may be different and of course, their success in learning will be different The source of motivation, thus, turns to be a key point here

1.1.3.1 Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation

According to the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), there were two types of motivation there are two general types of motivation, one based on intrinsic interest in the activity per se and the other based on rewards extrinsic to the activity itself (Deci & Ryan, 1985, cited in Lucas, 2010, p.6) In other words, intrinsic motivation refers

to motivation to engage in activity because it is enjoyable and satisfying to do (Deci and Ryan, 1985, cited in Lucas, 2010, p.6) In general, intrinsically motivated learners are those

who have personal interests in doing something and in helping to set their goals They take part in activities because doing the activities itself is a reward, but not because accomplishing the activities brings a reward

Ryan and Deci (1985) believe that intrinsic motivation is founded upon innate needs for competence and self-determination (cited in Lucas, 2010, p.6), however, it is not the only type of motivation (Deci and Ryan, 1985) Another type of motivation mentioned

in self-determination theory is extrinsic motivation It refers to the performance of an activity in order to attain some separable outcome, and thus, contrasts with intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing an activity for the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself (Lucas, 2010, p.6) Accordingly, extrinsic motivated learners do the activity to achieve some instrumental goals, such as praise, awards, prizes, evaluation and fear for punishment An extrinsically motivated student does the activity in order to obtain some reward or avoid some punishment external to the activity itself, and this kind of motivation refers to learning situations where the reason for doing a task is something other than an interest in the task itself

In short, intrinsic motivation produces more potential benefits than extrinsic motivation Intrinsically motivated students tend to try harder and think more deeply than extrinsically motivated ones

1.1.3.2 Resultative motivation

In some cases, motivation is the result of learning Ellis (1997:76) claims,

"Motivation is the result of learning Learners who experience success in learning may become more, or in some contexts, less motivated to learn" Hermann (1980) stated, „it is success that contributes to motivation rather than vice- versa‟ (cited in Ellis, 1997)

Ellis (1997, cited in Lan 2008, p.8) also concluded that „the relationship between motivation and achievement is an interactive one A high level of motivation does stimulate learning, but perceived success in achieving L2 goals can help to maintain existing motivation and even create new types Conversely, a vicious circle of low motivation = low achievement= low motivation can develop‟

1.1.3.3 Instrumental vs integrative motivation

Gardner and Lambert (1972) first made the most famous distinction between two

types of motivation: integrative and instrumental

Integrative motivation is the desire to learn a language to integrate successfully

into the target language community According to Garner and Lambert (1972, cited in Ellis,

1997:509), motivation is strongly influenced by integrative orientation to language learning In their words, "an integrative orientation involves an interest in learning an L2 because of a sincere and personal interest in the people and culture represented by the other group" In addition, “the integratively motivated student”, wrote Masgoret and Gardner (2003), “is one who is motivated to learn the second language, has openness to identification with the other language community and has favourable attitude toward the language situation.”

Instrumental motivation, on the contrary, is something which concerns the practical

value and advantages of learning a new language‟ (Lambert 1974: 98, cited in Ellis, 1997), and which is characterized by „the wish to learn the language for purposes of study or career promotion‟ (Ur, 1996: 276, cited in Lan, 2008) and the desire to obtain something practical or concrete from the study of a second language (Hudson, 2000) In other words, instrumental motivation is the learner‟s desire to learn a language for utilitarian purposes (such as employment/travel/exam purposes) in the context of language learning

Integrative versus instrumental motivation: while both kinds of motivation are

essential elements of success in learning a second language, it is integrative motivation which has been found to sustain long-term success when learning a second language Ellis (1997) In some of the early research by Gardner and Lambert (cited in Ellis, 1997), integrative motivation was viewed more importance in a formal learning environment than instrumental motivation Integrative motivation was regarded as superior to instrumental motivation for predicting the success of second language learning (Gass, 2001, cited in Vaezi, 2008: 54) The reason is that if students respect the target culture, they may read literature or practice the language and thereby be able to improve their language skills (Cook, 2001, cited in Vaezi, 2008:54) However, from another perspective, instrumental motivation is meaningful for the learner who has had limited access to the L2 culture, or foreign language settings (Oxford, 1996, cited in Vaezi, 2008:55) Dornyei (1996, cited in Vaezi, 2008:55) opposed Gardner by claiming that instrumental motivation is more important than the integrative motivation It is important to note that instrumental motivation has only been acknowledged as a significant factor in some research, whereas integrative motivation is continually linked to successful second language acquisition

To sum up, there are many kinds of motivation However, the study only focused on integrative motivation (or integrativeness) and instrumental motivation (instrumentality)

1.1.4 The role of motivation in L2 learning

Though there are still other various controversies around L2 motivation and many different theories about this phenomenon, all the researchers have come to a very important conclusion that motivation has a crucial influence on a learner‟s success or failure of L2 acquisition The followings are evidences from some studies conducted by well-known researchers

Reece and Walker (1997) express that motivation is a key factor in the second language learning process They stressed that a less able student who is highly motivated can achieve greater success than the more intelligent student who is not well motivation Among the things that do clearly affected mastery of a second language is the kind of motivation that a learner has (Finegan, 1994:466)

Students who are in some way “motivated” do significantly better than their peers despite using methods which experts consider unsatisfactory and being in unfavorable conditions (Harmer, 1991:3)

It is undeniable that motivation is very crucial in schools because of its powerful influence on learning In other words, motivation is a key of learning (Crookes and Schmidt, 1991:56)

Nunan (1991, p.131) regards motivation as a key factor which determines “the amount of effort a learner is ready to put into language learning.”

Dornyei (2001) states that a learner with enough motivation is likely to gain an acceptable knowledge of an L2 despite his language aptitude or other cognitive characteristics Even the brightest student without enough motivation is unlikely to persist long enough to achieve any really useful language

1.2 Theoretical basis of listening comprehension

1.2.1 Definition of listening

According to Howatt and Dakin (1974), listening is the ability to identify and understand what others are saying This process involves understanding a speaker's accent

or pronunciation, the speaker‟s grammar and vocabulary, and comprehension of meaning

An able listener is capable of doing these four things simultaneously

Ronald and Roskelly (1985) define listening as an active process requiring the same skills of prediction, hypothesizing, checking, revising, and generalizing that writing and reading demand; and these authors present specific exercises to make students active listeners who are aware of the "inner voice" one hears when writing

Besides, according to Rost (1991), listening comprises some component skills such

as discriminating between sounds, recognizing words, identifying grammatical groupings

of words, identifying expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning, connecting linguistic cues to non-linguistic and paralinguistic cues, using background knowledge to predict and later to confirm meaning and recalling important words and ideas Saha and Talukdar (2008), two lecturers at Noakhali Science & Technology University, Sonapur, Noakhali, Bangladesh explained that listening is a skill in a sense that it's a related but distinct process than hearing which involves merely perceiving sound in a passive way while listening occupies an active and immediate analysis of the streams of sounds What 'listening' really means is 'listening and understanding what we hear at the same time' So, two concurrent actions are demanded to take place in this process The next part will discuss the importance of listening in language learning

1.2.2 Significance of listening

Language learning depends on listening since it provides the aural input that serves

as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken communication Listening is the first language mode that children acquire In fact, it provides the foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and it plays

a life-long role in the processes of communication Students spend most of each school day listening and much of what they learn is acquired by means of listening A study by Wilt (1950), found that people listen 45% of the time they spend communicating Wilt found that 30% of communication time was spent speaking, 16% reading, and 9% writing

Listening is the language skill which usually develops faster than speaking and which affects the development of reading and writing abilities in learning a new language (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992; Vandergrift, 1997) It is also the most frequently used skill in the classroom and in daily life (Yang, 1996) Vandergrift (1997) claimed that listening internalized not only the rules of language but also facilitated the emergence of other language skills Rost (1994) also pinpointed the importance of listening in the language classroom as the supplier of supplied the input for students More concisely, without comprehensible input at the right level, learning cannot take place Therefore, listening is a fundamental and vital skill in the acquisition of languages (Nunan, 2002)

1.2.3 Different views on listening comprehension

What is the relationship between listening and listening comprehension?

“comprehension is often considered to be the first-order goal of listening, the highest priority of the listener, and sometimes the sole purpose of listening” (Rost, 2002, p 59)

Especially for L2 learners who are acquiring a new language, the term „listening comprehension‟ typically refers to all aspects of listening since comprehension through listening is considered to be a foundation for enabling learners to process the new language, and since L2 listening research has focused exclusively on the comprehensive aspect of academic listening (Long & Macian, 1994)

Listening comprehension can be defined as the ability to understand language used

by native speakers This definition is proposed by Mendelssohn: “The ability to understand the spoken language of native speakers.” (1984, p.64)

Listening as comprehension is the traditional way of thinking about the nature of listening (Richards, 2006:2) Even, listening and listening comprehension are often considered synonymous According to Richards (2006), this view of listening is based on the assumption that the main function of listening in second language learning is to facilitate understanding of spoken discourse However, Hasan (2000) distinguishes between listening as a process of just listening to the message without interpreting and responding to the text, and listening comprehension as a process that includes the meaningful interactive activity to understand the text

According to Vandergrift (1999:169), listening comprehension is anything but a passive activity It is a complex, active process in which the listener must discriminate between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress and intonation, retain what was gathered in all of the above, and interpret it within the immediate as well as the larger socio-cultural context of the utterance

Stressing on the role of listeners, Rubin (1995:7) see listening as an “active process

in which listeners select and interpret information which comes from auditory and visual cues in order to define what is going on and what the speakers are trying to express” Brown (1994) defines listening comprehension as not only the process of sending and receiving sounds, but also as the interactive and conscious process to send and transmit the message to the brain which will influence in the process of communication

students are dependent on echoic memory, which is very fleeting; 2) listeners must

immediately begin processing, identifying the groupings detected according to the content

of our central information system; 3) listeners recycle the material they organized through immediate memory, thus building up an auditory memory which helps to retain the segments listeners are processing‟

Anderson (1983) divided the listening comprehension process into three stages: the

perceptual, parsing, and utilization

Researchers (e.g., Carroll, 1972; Anderson 1983; Chaudron & Richards, 1986; O‟Malley, Chamot, & Kupper, 1989; Lund 1991; Tsui & Fullilove, 1998) have accepted the notion that listening comprehension may be technically similar to reading comprehension and have explained the processes of listening comprehension with the principles derived from reading comprehension research These studies have argued that

listening comprehension, like reading comprehension, involves two stages: (1)

apprehending linguistic information (text-based; low level) and (2) relating that information to a wider communicative context (knowledge-based; high level) These

studies have also introduced two processing models for comprehension: (1) bottom-up and

(2) top-down The terms top-down and bottom-up have been used to describe different

aspects of listening or the ways of processing the text while listening

a Bottom-up process in listening

Hedge (2000:230-231) states that the knowledge we have of bottom-up strategies come from the work of three groups of researchers: psycholinguists interested in speech perception (for example Bever 1970; Clark and Clark 1977, Conrad 1985; Marslen-Wilson and Tyler 1980); the words of communications researchers (for example Cherry 1957), and

of those who interested in memory (for example, Neisser 1982) According to these researchers, in bottom-up listening process, learners use their linguistic knowledge and ability to process acoustic signals to make sense of the sounds that speech presents to them, i.e they use information in the speech itself to try to understand the meaning They segment speech into identifiable sounds and impose a structure on these in terms of words, phrases, sentences, and intonation patterns Specifically, they segment the stream of speech into constituent sounds, link these together to form words, and chain the words together to form clauses and sentences and so on (Nunan, 1995: 17)

Nunan (1997) called the process the bottom-up processing model The bottom-up processing model assumes that listening is a process of decoding the sounds that one hears

in a linear fashion, from the smallest meaningful units (phonemes) to complete texts In

their introduction to listening, Anderson and Lynch (1988) call this the "listener as

tape-recorder" view of listening because it assumes that the listener takes in and stores

messages sequentially, in much the same way as a tape-recorder, one sound, word, phrase, and utterance at a time

b Top-down process in listening

Hedge (2000:232) presents that top-down processing relates to knowledge that

listeners bring to a text, called prior knowledge or „inside the head’ information, as

opposed to the information that is available within the text itself In other words, top-down processing is evoked from “a bank of prior knowledge and global expectations” (Morley,

1991, p.87, cited in Brown, 2001, p.260) and other background informatics (schemata) that the listener brings to the text (Brown, 2001:260)

Top-down listening infers meaning from contextual clues and from making links between the spoken message and various types of prior knowledge that listeners hold inside their head Contextual clues to meaning come from knowledge of the particular situation, i.e the speaker or speakers, the setting, the topic, and the purpose of the spoken text and from knowledge of what has been said earlier Prior knowledge has been termed schematic knowledge (de Beaugrande & Dressler 1981; Carrell & Eisterhold 1983) This consists of the mental frameworks we hold in our memories for various topics

1.3 The role of motivation in learning listening comprehension

There has been a correlated relationship between motivation and second language acquisition in general and in listening comprehension in particular

Brown (2000:143, 160) asserts that “It is easy in SLL to claim that a listener will be successful with the proper motivation.”

Motivation is the crucial force which determines whether the listener embarks on a task at all The primary motive for learning a language is that it provides a means of communication (Littlewood, 1984:53)

After conducting an ethnographic study on affective factors on listening performance of thirty freshen English majors in Xinjiang Agricultural University, Chen Ling (2008) found that subjective factors and objective factors influence listening performance, and lack of motivation is among subjective factors (i.e anxiety, lack of motivation, fear, frustration, orientation of achievement and pressure) that is negatively related to listening performance of students particularly 37% of learners lacking their motivation while listening

Yau Tsai (1993) also conducted a study of listening comprehension instruction for Chinese Junior-College students in Taiwan in order to discover why Chinese students‟ listening ability is commonly low on standardized ESL/EFL tests or official international

occasions He realized the students were prevented from achieving listening competence due to lack of cultural learning, their attitudes and motivation towards listening, i.e motivation or some language attitudes correlated significantly to listening achievement, habits and the environment

Murjani (2010) did an action research at the second year of SMK Harapan Kartasura

on increasing student listening comprehension by using storytelling A preliminary observation in the second year of SMK Harapan Kartasura showed that mastery of English listening test was also low It happened because many problems often appear during the teaching and learning process They have less motivation to listen what the teacher says They think that listening makes them bored In other word, the students have less motivation and interests in listening, they do not like English listening lesson, and they are bored with the teaching material

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

There are two parts in this chapter The first part will analyze the situation of the study with the description of research methods, the setting of the study, the subjects, listening materials applied by the informants and instruments used to collect the data The second part is the analysis of data that were collected from the questionnaire

2.3 Data collection instrument

In order to collect data of the students‟ integrative and instrumental motivation towards learning listening comprehension, the study used a modified 25-item survey questionnaire by Vaezi (2008), which was adapted from Gardner (1985)‟s AMTB and Clement et al.‟s (1994) Following is the sample questionnaire by Vaezi (2008) (Please see Appendix 1)

Statements 1 2 3 4 5

1 Studying English can be important to me because it

will allow me to be more at ease with other people

who speak English

2 Studying English, especially listening comprehension

can be important for me because it will allow me to

meet and converse with more and varied people

Accordingly, the questionnaire about integrative and instrumental motivation of the original 7-point Likert Scale format of Gardner (1985)‟s Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) and Clement et al (1994) was adapted to a 5-point scale, ranging from „Strongly disagree‟ to „Strongly agree‟ These were coded as Strongly disagree = 1, Disagree = 2, Neutral = 3, Agree = 4, Strongly agree = 5 The study investigated the students‟ integrative and instrumental motivation towards learning listening comprehension as followed:

Integrative motivation: there are 12 items (items 1-12, see Appendix) that would show

integrative motivation toward learning listening comprehension

Items 1-4 examine the students‟ integrative orientation

Items 9, 10, 11, 12 ask for the students‟ attitudes toward the target language group

Items 5, 6, 7, 8 ask for the students‟ attitudes toward the target language

Instrumental motivation: this scale includes 13 items (items 13-25) and the informants

are asked to measure their utilitarian purposes for learning listening comprehension Items 13-25 are to assess the students‟ other practical goals for learning listening compression

Below is the questionnaire sample (please see Appendix 2 for the complete questionnaire)

1 Studying English, especially listening

comprehension can be important to me because

it will allow me to be more at ease with other

people who speak English

2 Studying English, especially listening

comprehension can be important for me because

it will allow me to meet and converse with more

and varied people