Three ways to motivate the students at Banking Academy - Bacninh branch in English speaking activities = Ba cách tạo hứng thú cho sinh viên Học viện Ngân hàng -

Being aware of the importance of English speaking, motivation and motivational strategies in English speaking, and bearing in mind the context of teaching and learning speaking at Bankin

THREE WAYS TO MOTIVATE THE STUDENTS

AT BANKING ACADEMY-BACNINH BRANCH IN ENGLISH

SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

BA CÁCH TẠO HỨNG THÚ CHO SINH VIÊN HỌC VIỆN NGÂN HÀNG-PHÂN VIỆN BẮC NINH TRONG CÁC HOẠT

ĐỘNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

THREE WAYS TO MOTIVATE THE STUDENTS

AT BANKING ACADEMY-BACNINH BRANCH IN ENGLISH

SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

BA CÁCH TẠO HỨNG THÚ CHO SINH VIÊN HỌC VIỆN NGÂN HÀNG-PHÂN VIỆN BẮC NINH TRONG CÁC

HOẠT ĐỘNG NÓI TIẾNG ANH

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF CHARTS vi

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Background to the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Significance of the study 3

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Research method 3

7 Outline of the thesis 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Speaking 5

1.1.1 Definitions of speaking 5

1.1.2 The importance of speaking 5

1.1.3 Accuracy or fluency in the teaching of speaking 5

1.1.4 Phases to teach speaking 6

1.1.5 Common speaking activities 7

1.1.6 Problems with speaking activities 9

1.2 Motivation 10

1.2.1 Definitions of motivation 10

1.2.2 Types of motivation in foreign language learning 11

1.2.3 The importance of motivation in foreign language learning and teaching 12

1.3 Strategies for motivating students in speaking activities 13

1.4 Previous studies 17

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 An action research 19

2 2 Research questions 19

2.3 Description of the subjects 19

2 4 The action research procedure 20

2 5 Description of Data Collection Instruments 22

2.5.1 Questionnaires 22

2.5.2 Observations 23

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 24

3.1 Data collected from preliminary investigation stage 24

3.1.1 Data collected from questionnaire 1 24

3.1.2 Data collected from observation sheets 26

3.2 Intervention 28

3.2.1 The aims of the intervention 28

3.2.2 The intervention procedure 29

3.3 Data collected from the intervention stage 31

3.3.1 Data collected from Observation sheets 31

3.3.2 Data collected from Questionnaire 2 33

3.4 Evaluation 36

3.4.1 Comparisons 36

3.4.2 Summary 38

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 41

1 Review of the study 41

2 Pedagogical implications 41

3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 43

REFERENCES 44 APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: Questionnaire 1 I APPENDIX 2: Questionnaire 2 II APPENDIX 3: Observation sheet 1 – Overall class motivation III APPENDIX 4: Observation sheet 2 – Students’ on-task behavior IV APPENDIX 5: Action plan implementation VI APPENDIX 6: A sample of intervention plan VII APPENDIX 7: Data on overall class motivation XI APPENDIX 8: Data on the students’ on-task/off-task behavior XII

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 1: Students’ reasons for learning English speaking 24

Chart 2: Students’ attitude towards learning English speaking 25

Chart 3: Students' frequency of unwillingness to speak English in class 25

Chart 4: Factors leading to the students' low motivation in English speaking activities 26

Chart 5: Overall class motivation phase 1 27

Chart 6: Students' times on-task/off-task behavior phase 1 28

Chart 7: Overall class motivation phase 2 31

Chart 8: Students’ times on-task/ off-task behavior phase 2 32

Chart 9: Students’ opinions about the teachers’ helping them set their own achievable goals 33

Chart 10: Students’ opinions about the teachers’ use of various speaking activities 34

Chart 11: Students’ opinions about the teachers’ use of rewards for success 35

Chart 12: Students’ attitude towards the teaching in the intervention stage 35

Chart 13: Overall class motivation before and after the intervention 37

Chart 14: Students’ times on-task/off-task before and after the intervention 37

part one: Introduction

1 Background to the study

Theoretical perspective

Together with the trend of globalization, English is used more and more widely in international settings Therefore, the ability to communicate in English is very important Speaking plays an essential role because without it, communication cannot take place directly between people However, speaking is generally considered the most difficult to learn among the four skills in English language learning

In order to teach the students English speaking so that they become more interested in and maintain their interest in speaking learning, when it is not seen as important for their immediate needs other than to pass the oral exams, teachers have to find creative ways to teach and increase students’ motivation to learn

Being concerned with what a teacher can do to enhance student motivation in English speaking activities, a number of interesting and applicable ideas has been found Among them are useful strategies from Bligh (1971), Sass (1989), Ames and Ames (1991), Harris (1991), Dornyei (2001), Oxford and Shearin (1994): capitalize on students’ existing needs, help students set achievable goals for themselves, give clear explanation, create a comfortable atmosphere, vary teaching activities and methods, make learning visual, increase students’ self- confidence, promote cooperative learning, make students active participants in speaking activities, respond to students’ work and reward success

Teachers should know how to use these strategies so as to increase students’ motivation in English speaking activities Therefore, this action research attempts to explore the problems of the students in speaking activities and to find out the most useful strategies in the researcher’s own teaching context

English speaking teaching and learning at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch

Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch is a vocational school which trains students in Banking and Accounting operations Its English language teaching and learning program is implemented in the first term of the students’ first year The students are taught general

English with New Headway Elementary (Liz & John Soars, 2000) in the time span of 120

forty-five minute class periods With 12 parallel classes, teaching is basically synchronized

across classes; that is, all the teachers are required to teach the same textbook and go through the same materials at more or less the same pace Each class is composed of students at mixed abilities

During five years of teaching at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch, the researcher often found many of my students were low motivated in class There were always students absent from class, and even for those who came to class, some of them did not participate

in the activities, some of them pretended to participate in but in fact they chatted with others in Vietnamese, some just listened to others speaking but say nothing, some of them even dozed off, etc Later, after the investigation, the researcher realized that many of them were low motivated as they did not have achievable goals for themselves, the activities in the class were monotonous, the teacher did not create a comfortable atmosphere for them

to speak and they were afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by their classmates Being aware of the importance of English speaking, motivation and motivational strategies

in English speaking, and bearing in mind the context of teaching and learning speaking at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch, the researcher conducted this action research on the use of three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success with the aims at motivating the students in English speaking activities

2 Aims of the study

This research was an attempt to motivate the students at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch in English speaking activities by using three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success In order to achieve this aim, the specific objectives of the study are:

- Finding out the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities in order to have proper intervention to motivate them

- Examining whether the teacher’s intervention consisting of the three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success could motivate the students in English speaking activities or not

3 Research questions

With the above objectives, the research questions are:

1 What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?

2 Can the teacher’s intervention consisting of the three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success motivate the students in English speaking activities? If yes, to what extent?

4 Significance of the study

It is hoped that the study will identify the main causes of the students' low motivation in speaking activities at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch In addition, by doing this action research, the researcher can evaluate the use of the three changes - helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success - in her classes And this would provide the teachers with guidance and assistance to boost students' motivation in learning to speak English Students will find it more useful and interesting in their learning and spend more time on this specific skill The study will give us convincing information about the great value of the combination of the three changes in increasing learners' motivation

5 Scope of the study

The research was conducted on the students at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch Due to the limitation of time, the researcher only focused on the use of the three changes in class K43B in the first term, in which the researcher taught as a teacher, as K43B can be the representative of all the classes at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch

6 Research method

The method employed in this study is an action research, with the use of two instruments: observations and questionnaires All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis

Action research has proved to be the best choice for this study as the study was aimed at motivating the students to take part in speaking activities within a certain context The combination of different instruments used in this research would help to gain reliable data and help the researcher have a close investigation into the problems that the students were having

7 Outline of the thesis

The study consists of three parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion

The first part, “Introduction”, presents background to the study, aims of the study,

research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study, research method, and outline of the thesis

The second part, “Development” comprises 3 chapters:

Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents relevant theoretical basis for the study, relating to speaking learning and teaching in language classroom, motivation, motivational strategies in speaking class and presents previous studies relating to the field

Chapter 2, METHODOLOGY, provides the readers with the definitions of the action research, the data collection instruments Detailed information about the research procedure and the participants of the study is also presented

Chapter 3, DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS, analyzes the data collected from the preliminary investigation stage to form the hypothesis of the study An intervention plan is worked out and implemented The data from the intervention stage are collected and analyzed to make an evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention

The last part, “Conclusion”, reviews the study, gives out pedagogical implications,

presents the limitations of the study and gives suggestions for further study in the same field

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking

1.1.1 Definitions of speaking

Speaking, as Bygate (1987) defines, involves not only the use of the right sounds in the patterns of rhythm and intonation, but also the choice of words and inflections in the right order to convey the right meaning

Speaking, a productive skill, is known to have two main types of conversation namely dialogue and monologue, which are rather different In monologue, you give uninterrupted oral presentation while in dialogue you interact with one or more other speakers for transactional and international purposes

It is noticeable from the two productive language skills that speaking is different from writing in both processing conditions and reciprocity conditions “First, spoken language is affected by the time limitations, and the associated problems of planning, memory, and production under pressure Second, it is reciprocal activity, which has a crucial effect on the kinds of decisions to be made.” (Bygate, 1987: 11-12)

1.1.2 The importance of speaking

In social contexts, social roles are likely to be taken by those who learn and know how to speak, but not by those who do not have this skill In language learning, speaking plays an utmost important role among the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) since it helps to identify who knows or does not know a language Pattison (1992) confirms that when people mention knowing or learning a language, they actually mean that they are able to speak the language

It cannot be denied that speaking deserves as much attention as or even more attention than written skill In order to carry out many of the most basic transactions, it is necessary for learners to speak with confidence

1.1.3 Accuracy or fluency in the teaching of speaking

Accuracy in language teaching involves the correct use of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation In controlled and guided activities, accuracy is usually the focus and the teacher makes it clear from feedback that accuracy is important Ongoing correction is

often appropriate during accuracy activities In freer activities the teacher’s hopes are the students’ correct use of the language and ability to communicate as well

Fluency can be considered to be the ability to keep the talk going when speaking spontaneously When speaking fluently students should be able to get the message across with whatever resources and abilities they have, regardless of grammatical and other mistakes Normally, students should not be corrected during fluency activities In feedback afterwards, on the other hand, favorable comment on strategies is needed to increase their fluency

1.1.4 Phases to teach speaking

Byrne (1988) distinguishes three following phases to develop learners’ oral ability: the presentation phase, the practice phase and the production phase

In presentation phase, teachers are the center of learning and teaching activities They

work as an information provider What students usually do in this phase is to observe and listen to the teacher, i.e they passively receive information Normally, they are only asked

to practice (role-play) and dramatize a dialogue or to talk about what they have to learn from a prose based on the previous answers at the end of this phase

Unlike the presentation phase, at practice phase learners have to do most of talking as they

are provided maximum amount of practice in the form of controlled and guided activities

to improve vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well as fluency of speaking The learners, at this phase, answer the teacher’s guided questions, discuss with their partners to find new ideas related to the topic At the end of the practice phase, Ur (1996) suggested what the teacher should do is to enhance the learners’ fluency of speaking First, attention must be fully paid by the learners Second, the target language must be clearly heard or repeated Third, learners understand the meaning of new materials and finally, short-term memory of the material must be created for later use in the lesson

At the last phase of learning speaking, production phase, learners are given chances to

speak English freely Being in a real situation, learners use English by themselves, not nearly depend on the teacher’s help Free activities are also in the form of individual work, pair work and group work However, pair work and group work are of great importance and effectiveness as all learners can have chance to participate in talks, and they seem more confident and more motivated Moreover, this can save a great deal of time

In the process of teaching speaking, improvement of the speaking ability will be gained if these three phases are followed orderly However, they might not be applied as expected because of time limitation, types of learners and materials in use, etc

1.1.5 Common speaking activities

A variety of activities can be used to develop speaking skills Below are some of the common ones

Role-plays are simple to plan and easy to play and, along with games and other communicative activities, are recommended to be used in the English speaking classes

* Information Gap Activity (IGA)

IGA is one of the easiest and most interesting forms of communicative activity in the speaking class In order to get the most proficiency, the teacher can divide the class into pairs or groups In each pair or each group, one acts as the asker, the other the answerer, let them discuss for a few minutes and they change the role

IGA may take three forms: (1) One student has some information and the other has to find

it by asking questions; (2) One student has some information and tells it to the other student; (3) Both students have different information and they tell each other

Underhill (1987) asserts that variety of techniques can be used in IGA Firstly, they may be peer or group interview Two students set out questions and answers to get certain things about each other Secondly, they may be peer or group description and recreation information which one describes a picture or a design to another student who has constructed the model from the description alone without seeing the original Thirdly, they

can be game like (Harmer, 1998) such as describing and drawing, describing and guessing, finding the differences and completing a story, etc

* Problem-solving

According to Byrne (1988), problem-solving has been used to group together a wide range

of activities that require students to find “solutions” to problems of different kinds

Many of these problems involve processes that we commonly use in real life as follows:

- We frequently hypothesize links between two things (events, actions, people, etc.)

- We detect differences (real or imaginary)

- We grade things according to criteria (subjective or objective)

Clearly, problem-solving is believed to be necessary and suited to students of all levels As students are put in some situations that are similar to the real life, they actively join in the activities because of the feeling that they are doing with their language, taking the risks of experimenting what they have learnt Moreover, the lessons can become more practical and attractive to them

* Other Picture Card Activities

The use of picture cards involves the use of pair and group work Bellows are some useful activities

1 Kim’s Game: The students in groups look at the items on a table for about thirty

second Next, the items are recovered with a cloth and the groups have to describe and locate the items Then the group leaders report to the class what the group had discussed

2 What is my line: The students in groups have to ask questions of another member within a limited time span and discover his/her occupation

3 Twenty questions: One student is asked to write the name of an object or select a

picture of an object and place it face downwards The others have to question this student and try to guess what the item is

4 Patter matching: Prepare two copies of an identical picture One picture is pasted on a

card; the other is cut up into small pieces One student describes the picture card while the other tries to follow and ask more questions for clarification arrange the pieces according

to the instructions

5 Describe and Draw: Student A describes what he sees on his card while student B

draws on a piece of paper by following the instructions given In this activity, student B also has to ask questions while student gives description

6 Spot the differences: Here again two sets of identical pictures are used and students in

pairs are told to spot a minimum number of differences

7 Completing a Map/ Giving Directions: Two or more sets of maps are used Some

details are given on each of the maps, but on each student’s map certain places would be deleted and the names of these places would be listed at the bottom The task is to ask each other where the places are located to complete the map

8 The Lost Twin: Each student has a small card on which are printed some of his or her

favorites, e.g food, drink, hobby, actor, etc There will be two copies of each card and the students have to go round the class to find out who has an identical card (the other twin)

To sum up, the above activities are useful for developing speaking skills among students They can create out-of-expectation result in the speaking class

1.1.6 Problems with speaking activities

Ur (1996) claims that a successful speaking activity should achieve a maximal student talking time, even participation among the students, student strong motivation to speak and comprehensibility of the students’ language

She also points out the following common problems in a speaking class:

- Students are inhibited about trying to say things in the classroom

- Students cannot think of anything to say

- Some students talk much while others speak very little or not at all

- Students tend to use their mother tongue instead of the foreign language

(Ur, 1996: 121) Thus, for a successful speaking lesson, the teacher, among other things, should be aware of these problems to have appropriate and effective solutions to motivate the students to express themselves

1.2 Motivation

1.2.1 Definitions of motivation

There have been so far many researches on the theory of motivation Each author has his/her own way of explaining what motivation is since they look at motivation from different angles However, motivation is generally defined as an abstract concept used to describe the willingness of a person to expand effort to reach a particular goal For language learners, mastery of a language may be a goal For others, communicative competence or even basic communication skills could be a goal In linguistics, sociolinguistics and second language acquisition, a number of language learner motivation models have been postulated

Ausubel (1998) identified six needs constructing motivation: (1) the need for exploration, (2) the need for manipulation, (3) the need for activity, (4) the need for stimulation, (5) the need for knowledge, (6) the need for ego enhancement

According to Lightbrown and Spada (1999), motivation in second language learning is a complex phenomenon which can be defined in terms of two factors: learners' communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community The authors explain that if learners need to speak the second language in a wide range of social situations or fulfill professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of L2 and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it Likewise, if learners have favorable attitudes towards the speakers of the language, they will desire more contact with them

Malone (1981) defines motivation in terms of the challenge of the activities or tasks conducted by the teachers According to him, challenge depends on activities that meet the needs of students’ different levels The tasks or activities which are too easy or too difficult will decrease students’ motivation On the contrary, if students find the activities challenging enough, they will be interested more, which leads to effective learning

Gardner and Lambert (1972) suggested that motivation to learn a second language was grounded in positive attitudes toward the L2 community and in a desire to communicate with and become similar to valued members of that community

Crookes and Schmidt (1991) define motivation in terms of students' interest in and enthusiasm for the materials and activities used in class, their persistence with the learning

task as indicated by levels of concentration and enjoyment Learning is only effective if students enjoy activities and work hard

Among what have been mentioned, Crookes and Schmidt’s definition is chosen to use in this thesis because of two reasons First, it is directly related to the process of teaching and learning language which emphasizes the important roles of students Theoretically, when students are interested in the activities and are persistent with the learning tasks, they will get better results in learning Second, it is similar to what would be studied in the research project that the researcher wants to examine the students’ interest, satisfaction and concentration on the varied activities in class, so the working definition in the thesis is:

motivation is interest in and enthusiasm for the activities used in classrooms, attention or levels of concentration, the effort and persistence with the learning tasks as well as the challenge of the activities conducted by the teachers This definition will guide the

researcher to design a questionnaire survey to get the information about the students’ learning motivation in the research

1.2.2 Types of motivation in foreign language learning

According to theorists, there are some distinctions of types of motivation in foreign

language learning: integrative and instrumental motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic

motivation; global, situational and task motivation

As can be found in literature, major studies in the past tended to divide motivation into two broad categories: instrumental and integrative Their division is mainly based on the students' purposes According to Gardner and Lambert (1972), “Instrumental motivation refers to the learners' desire to learn a language for utilitarian purposes (such as employment or travel or exam purposes) in the context of language learning” On the other hand, “integrative motivation refers to the desire to learn a language to integrate successfully into the target language community”

Wajnryb (1992) makes this clearer by stressing the importance of instrumental practical goals and communication with the people of the culture who speak it He claims that instrumental motivation refers to the desire to learn a language because it will be useful for certain practical goals such as getting a job, reading foreign newspapers or texts, passing

an exam or obtaining a promotion On the other hand, integrative motivation refers to wanting to learn a language for reasons of understanding, relating to or communicating with the people whose language we speak

Ellis (1994) and Gardner and Lambert (1972) agree that it is essential to distinguish instrumental and integrative motivation because, once the teachers are well aware of their students' motivation, they can find useful ways to create and sustain the learning motivation in their students

Some other researchers divide motivation into two main kinds: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation The division is closely related to the students' psychology or emotion According to Lepper (1988: 289-309), Ur (1996: 278-280) students who are intrinsically motivated undertake an activity “for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, the learning it permits, or the feelings of accomplishment it evokes” On the other hand, extrinsically motivated students perform “in order to obtain some reward or avoid some punishment external to the activity itself, such as grades or teacher's approval”

Another division proposed by Brown (1994) suggests three kinds of motivation: global, situational and task motivation According to him, global motivation is the overall orientation of the learner towards the learning of the foreign language while situational motivation has to do with the context of learning (classroom, total environment) On the contrary, task motivation has to do with the way the learner approaches the specific task in hand

Having mentioned different types of motivation in language learning, the researcher wants

to clarify different purposes that students need to achieve, so in real teaching contexts, language teachers at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch should apply different strategies

to help the students learn effectively and work better after graduation, not that to help them pass the exam

1.2.3 The importance of motivation in foreign language learning

While there has been a great deal of research on the role of motivation in second language learning, the overall findings reveal that positive attitude and motivation are closely related

to success in second language learning (Gardner, 1985) Motivation is also considered as

“a key consideration in determining the preparedness of learners to communicate” (Gardner, 1985: 10)

Oxford & Shearin (1994) state: “Many researchers considered motivation as one of the main elements that determine success in a second or foreign language It determines the extent of active, personal involvement in L2 learning”

Caroll (1962) pointed out: "the more motivation a learner has, the more time he or she will spend learning an aspect of a second language"

Labonde (1982), based on the findings made by Garner and Lambert (1972), concluded that motivation and attitudes are important factors which help determine the level of proficiency achieved by different learners and the effects of motivation appear to be separated from the effects of aptitude, the most successful learners will be those who have both talent and a high level of motivation for learning

Dornyei (2001) believes that motivation needs to be generated, maintained actively, protected and retrospectively evaluated

Another role of motivation in foreign language learning is to promote the choice of strategies among students learning a second or foreign language Research has shown that the use of specific learning strategies and techniques while studying a second or foreign language leads to success Oxford (1994) emphasizes "more motivated students tend to use more strategies than less motivated students, hence, they tend to be more successful"

In short, motivation is a vital factor determining success or failure in second language learning It helps L2 learners find and maintain interest in learning a second language and

is worthy of attention of language teachers

1.3 Strategies for motivating students in speaking activities

To answer the questions of how to motivate learners in English speaking activities, the researcher have found interesting and applicable ideas in literature The followings are some useful motivational strategies adapted from Bligh (1971), Sass (1989), Ames and Ames (1991), Harris (1991) and Dornyei (2001), Jones and Jones (1995), Oxford and Shearin (1994), etc

* Capitalize on students’ existing needs

Students learn to speak best when incentives for learning speaking in class satisfy their own motives for enrolling in the course Some of the needs students may bring to the classroom are the need to learn speaking in order to complete a particular task or activity, the need to seek new experiences, the need to perfect speaking skill, the need to overcome challenges, the need to be competent, the need to succeed and do well, the need to feel involved and to interact with other people Satisfying such needs is rewarding in itself, and

such rewards sustain learning more effectively than do grades Thus, the teacher should

design in-class activities to address these kinds of needs

* Help students set achievable goals for themselves

Individual goal setting is one of the most effective methods to enable students to experience a sense of control over their own learning and perceive themselves as mastering material while incorporating their own interest (Jones and Jones, 1995) It is particularly relevant to language learning because the ultimate purpose of this prolonged process – to communicate with foreign speakers - is several years away and is, in fact, for many learners only moderately realistic; therefore, setting achievable goals has a powerful motivating function Oxford and Shearin (1994:19) noted “goal setting can have exceptional importance in stimulating foreign language learning motivation, and it is therefore shocking that so little time and energy are spent in the foreign language classroom on goal setting”

In agreement with the claim of Locke and Latham’s (1990) on goal setting, Pintric and Schunk (1996) offer four main principles of goal setting based on the theory that can be applied in the classroom setting

- Goals should be clear and specific

- Goals should be challenging and difficult, but not outside the range of students’ capabilities

- Both proximal and distal goals should be set

- Teachers should provide feedback that increases students’ self-efficacy for obtaining the

goal

* Give clear explanation

Some recent research shows that many students do poorly on assignments or in participation because they do not understand what to do or why they should do it Teachers should spend more time explaining why we teach what we do, and why the topic or approach or activity is important and interesting and worthwhile In the process, some of the teacher’s enthusiasm will be transmitted to the students, who will be more likely to become interested Similarly, teachers should spend more time explaining exactly what is

expected on activities Students who are uncertain about what to do will seldom perform well

* Create a comfortable atmosphere

In order to get learners more involved in class, especially in a foreign language speaking activities, a favorable classroom atmosphere is considered indispensable As Dornyei (2001) argues, students often feel embarrassed in language classes because teachers force them to speak well in front of the other classmates with their limited vocabulary To help change this situation and facilitate activities, teachers need to help students understand that mistakes are all right Therefore, he argues that teachers should correct errors in indirect way instead For instance, if a student says "I go to the cinema yesterday" instead of pointing out the mistake, a teacher can say the correct sentence, "you went to the cinema yesterday", in a non-threatening way

Domyei (2001) goes on argues that in a safe and supportive classroom students feel comfortable taking risk because they know that they will not be embarrassed or criticized if they make a mistake

* Vary teaching activities and methods

Variety reawakens students’ involvement in the activities and their motivation Break your routines by incorporating a variety of speaking activities and methods in your classes such

as role plays, debates, brainstorming, discussion, demonstrations, audiovisual presentations, pair work or group work, etc to increase your students’ motivation

* Make learning visual

Even before young people were reared in a video environment, it was recognized that memory is often connected to visual images In the middle ages people who memorized the Bible would sometimes walk around inside a cathedral and mentally attach certain passages to object inside, so that remembering the image of a column or statue would provide the needed stimulus to remember the next hundred lines of text Similarly, we can provide better learning by using images such as drawings, diagrams, pictures and charts in speaking activities It can be seen from researches these images can increase students’ level

of motivation

* Increase students’ self- confidence

Learners can perform well when they feel self-confident enough However, the question is how to maintain and increase the students’ confidence and self-esteem in a context - the language classroom - which is inherently face-threatening for the learner (Dornyei, 2001)

He also suggested that language teachers should increase the learners' self-confidence by promoting their self-conceptions of language competence, by providing regular experience

of success and emphasizing what learners can do rather than can not do, giving them the feeling of making a useful contribution and creating classroom situations where they can demonstrate positive features and come forward to offer help (Dornyei 2001: 130)

* Promoting cooperative learning

Cooperative learning improves communication, lower students' anxiety, raises their self- esteem, and improves classroom climate Learning English through cooperative group work allows students to learn from one another, and the teacher in a supportive environment They become more proficient in language as a result of group work because they have more comprehensible input peer interactions, have better listening skill as a result of responding to what has been said, have longer conversational turns than in whole-class teaching situation, and focus on meaning rather than on accuracy (Kessler, 1992)

* Make students active participants in speaking activities

One of the major keys to motivation is the active involvement of students in their own learning, especially in speaking activities It is better to get students involved in speaking activities, worked in pairs or groups, discussing with others, helping to decide what to do and the best way to do it, helping the teacher, or in some other way getting physically involved in the activities Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating and solving Passivity dampens student motivation and curiosity

* Respond to students’ work

Teachers should give students proper feedback on students’ speaking as quickly as possible Give students some indication of how well they have done and how to improve For example, he can say a student’s presentation or a pair’s performance was good, with an indication of why it was good: “Lan’s presentation is very good Her ideas about pollution really synthesized the ideas we had been discussing.”

* Reward success

Teachers can help students who do not yet have powerful intrinsic motivation to learn by extrinsic motivation in the form of rewards Rather than criticizing unwanted behavior or answers, rewards can correct behavior and answers Everyone likes the feeling of accomplishment and recognition; rewards for good work produce those good feelings Remember that adults and children alike continue or repeat behavior that is rewarded The rewards can be small and configured to the level of the students The reward is best if it helps to reinforce long-term goals set by students Thus a book on English is more valued

by students who are learning English than something edible The important point is that extrinsic motivators can, over a brief period of time, produce intrinsic motivation Teachers should bear in mind that in order to achieve the best effect, they should reward success publicly and immediately

In short, in this section, various motivational strategies have been mentioned It can be seen that if they are used appropriately by teachers, they can bring about great effect on increasing students’ motivation

1.4 Previous studies

So far, many researchers in the world namely, Gardner (1985), Crookes and Schmidt (1991), Dornyei (2001) and so on, have investigated what motivation is, what effects motivation in foreign language learning and how language teachers should employ techniques of motivation to improve their class performance These leading figures have brought about great insight into how to motivate learners for better achievement and their findings have generated more research into different aspects of language teaching e.g how

to arouse students' interest in their struggle to master the four skills

Relating to effective techniques to motivate learners, Peacock (1997) carried out the research “The effect of authentic materials on the motivation of EFL learners” The subjects of his study were 31 South Korean beginners The study used on-task and overall class motivation observation sheets and interview questions The research findings confirmed the positive effect of the authentic material on the motivation of EFL learners

Xiaoying Wang (2007) conducted an action research project in a listening course for the second-year English majors in one university in China Based on the data obtained from classroom observations, students’ journals, interviews with students, and students' response

to an open-ended questionnaire at the end of the term, she claimed that the students developed a fairly high degree of motivation towards practicing listening due to the

teacher’s three-part plan, one of which was helping the students set specific goals for themselves However, the results were not very convincing because the data collection instruments were only qualitative

In Vietnam, Ha Thi Lan (2003) conducted an action research on the effect of communicative activities of pair work and group work on students’ motivation in speaking The subjects of the study were 30 students at Thaibinh School In order to collect data, the researcher used a combination of two instruments: questionnaire and classroom observation The findings revealed that the students were passive in speaking because of the lack of communicative activities in class

Another study was carried out by Hoang Thi Ngan (2006) with the purposes of finding out how to motivate students to speak at Gia Loc Senior Secondary School The subjects of the study were 186 students in Grade 11 and 8 teachers teaching English in the school The data collection instruments used in this study were questionnaire and interview The findings of the questionnaire and interview showed that most of the students had great interest in various teaching techniques and communicative activities used by their teachers Their preferable teaching techniques were those which gave them friendly, enjoyable and cooperative atmosphere, in which they were given much more opportunities to speak the language

Two generalizations can be made about the above-mentioned studies Firstly, they all examine the effects of motivation on teaching and learning Secondly, they all used similar data collection instruments – questionnaire and observation For these reasons, the researcher will adapt questionnaire and observation to collect information for her study

In this chapter, the researcher has discussed the definitions of speaking, the importance of speaking, accuracy or fluency in the teaching of speaking, phases to teach speaking, common speaking activities and problems with speaking activities Theories of motivation, types of motivation in foreign language learning and the importance of motivation in foreign language learning were also mentioned In addition, strategies for motivating students in speaking activities were also focused on All of the knowledge is concerned with how to make teaching and learning of speaking skills more effective Finally, previous studies in motivation and motivation in English speaking were considered so that the researcher can adapt their instruments in her study to have reliable data

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 An action research

There are many definitions of action research that have been proposed over the last forty years Cohen & Manion (1994: 186) define action research as "a small scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such an intervention" It was stated by Nunan (1992) that action research is "problem focused", mainly concerned with a single case in a specific situation, and tries to find solutions to the problem in focus It not only encourages teachers to compare methods and ideas with critical eye and to adopt these ideas into their teaching environment but also engages them

in their teaching in a deeper way The aim of action research is to identify “problematic” situation or issues that participants consider worth investigating and to undertake practical interventions in order to bring about informed changes in practice Action Research is now becoming increasingly popular in language education

Action research was used as the research method for this study for some reasons Firstly, the researcher can combine two duties at the same time - teaching and researching, because there are positive effects on both our knowledge and our practice Secondly, it is beneficial

to both teachers and learners since it is concerned with improving the immediate learning environment (Wallace, 2001) Thirdly, it is a fancy way of studying what is happening and decide how to make it a better place, and it is manageable

2 2 Research questions

This action research aims at answering the following questions:

1 What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?

2 Can the teacher’s intervention (combining the three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success) motivate the students in English speaking activities? If yes, to what extent?

2.3 Description of the subjects

The study was conducted with the participation of 32 students in class K43B at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch (where I taught) and 2 teachers acting as observers

The 32 student participants were doing their first term of the first year at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch They were almost at the same age of 18 12 of them are boys

and 20 are girls They have different levels of proficiency in English They come from different areas: 8 from big cities such as Hanoi, Haiphong; 10 from rural areas and 14 from mountainous provinces such as Caobang, Backan, Dienbien, etc Among them, 17 have learnt English for 3 years (from grade 10 to grade 12), 15 have learnt English for 7 years (from grade 6 to grade 12)

The observers have been teachers of English at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch for over five years and they have completed M.A courses in TESOL

2 4 The action research procedure

There are several ways in which the steps of action research have been analyzed Kemmis

& Mc Taggart (1988) suggests that action research has four steps which progress as a spiraling and evolving process: planning, action, observation and reflection Susman (1983) distinguishes five phases to be conducted within each research cycle: (1) Diagnosing: identifying or defining a problem, (2) Action planning: considering alternative courses of action, (3) Taking action: selecting a course of action, (4) Evaluating: studying the consequences of an action, and (5) Specifying learning: identifying general findings Burn (1999) considered the action research process as a sequence of cycles which consists

of eleven phases: exploring, identifying, planning, collecting data, analyzing/reflecting, hypothesizing, intervening, observing, reporting, writing and presenting

In this study, Nunan’s action research model (1992) was applied as it is easy to carry out in the teachers' own classroom in limited time and the steps are clear cut to follow This model includes six small steps: initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation, and dissemination

This action research was implemented during 12 weeks starting from week 1 of the course The subjects of the study were 32 elementary students from the class K43B at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch who participated from the beginning to the end of the study Based on the selected model, the following steps were done one after the other The description of the six step procedure is presented as follows:

* Step 1: Initiation (week 1 to week 3)

Observing the first three speaking lessons, the researcher realized that the students’ learning motivation and their participation in speaking activities were low Therefore, she decided to identify factors affecting the students’ learning motivation in speaking lessons

and the first research question formed was: "What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities?"

* Step 2: Preliminary investigation (From week 4 to week 6)

Data about the learners which may be factors affecting students’ motivation in English speaking activities were collected in week 4 in order to confirm the problem stated in step

1 and find out the causes of low motivation (using questionnaire 1, see Appendix 1)

To establish the baseline of students’ motivation, the three speaking lessons of unit 4, 5, 6 were conducted in an usual way, without any treatment and were observed using Observation sheet 1 (Appendix 3), Observation sheet 2 (Appendix 4) right after every lesson to measure students’ interest, enthusiasm, persistence with learning tasks

* Step 3: Hypothesis

The analysis and discussion of the initial data led to the following hypothesis:

The combination of three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success would increase the students’ motivation in speaking activities

* Step 4: Intervention (from week 7 to week 12)

Based on the analysis of the data collected from questionnaire, observation and on the literature review relating to motivational strategies in speaking activities (as discussed in Chapter 1), an action plan consisting of three parts: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success was developed

- Lesson plan writing and preparation for plan implementation: Basing on the main

reasons found, the researcher read literature to get more knowledge and suggested solutions Then speaking lesson plans for Units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 were designed In these speaking lessons, the three strategies - helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success - were used to motivate the students to speak

- Plan implementation: In the six speaking lessons of units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, the

newly designed lesson plans were applied with the same group of students During the 6 weeks of the intervention, the speaking lessons were handled in a different way, using the three above-mentioned changes The lessons were observed using Observation sheet 1

(Appendix 3), Observation sheet 2 (Appendix 4) right after every lesson to measure students’ interest, enthusiasm, persistence with learning tasks After the plan implementation finished, Questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2) was conducted to gather information about the students’ attitude towards and assessment of the changes in teaching

In this step, the second research question formed was how the three changes in teaching: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success improved students’ motivation in speaking lessons

* Step 5: Evaluation

When information had been collected, the data from the two observation sheets of the last six lessons were then analyzed and compared with the data of two observation sheets of the first three lessons in order to evaluate the suggested solutions in the action plan The comparison was then used as evidence to show how useful the changes used by the teacher were

Questionnaire 2 was also analyzed to gather information about the students’ attitude towards and assessment of the changes in teaching Through the students’ responses, the researcher could evaluate the effectiveness of the changes more exactly

* Step 6: Dissemination

The action research procedure and its results were reorganized and presented in form of a thesis, which was shared with the researchers’ colleagues and some other teachers, especially younger ones

2 5 Description of Data Collection Instruments

In order to collect the data, the researcher used a combination of two instruments: Questionnaire and Observation to guarantee the objectiveness of the data

2.5.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires are used when we want to tap into the opinions and ideas of our learners and we do this by asking questions The answers are usually recorded in some ways so that they become available for subsequent reflection and analysis (Wallace, 2001) In this study, two questionnaires were designed because they provided the researcher with responses which could be easily quantified and analyzed

Questionnaire 1 contains 4 questions designed to gather information about the students’

reasons for learning English speaking, their attitudes towards learning English speaking, their frequency of unwillingness to speak English in class and the factors leading to their low motivation in English speaking

Questionnaire 2 contains 4 questions designed to gather information about the students’

attitude towards and assessment of the changes in teaching speaking after the six weeks of action plan implementation

To make sure that the students understood the questions, the researcher spent about 30 minutes guiding them to answer and explaining difficult terms when she delivered the questionnaires to the students

2.5.2 Observations

Observation sheet 1 (Adapted from Peacock (1997)) was to explore the overall level of

class motivation including the following components: learners’ interest, concentration, enjoyment, enthusiasm, persistence with the learning task Each item in this sheet was scored on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high) The maximum possible mark by Observation sheet

1 was 40

Observation sheets 2 (Adapted from Peacock (1997)) focused on the on-task behavior of

students There are twelve columns and 32 rows (corresponding to 32 students in class K43B) Two observers placed themselves in an unobtrusive position in the classroom and started observing when students had been working for two minutes The students were observed one by one, consecutively, clockwise around the class Each of them was observed in five seconds The assessment was "1" if the observed student was on-task and

"0" if the observed student was off-task Then the observers passed on the next students They continued until all students had been observed and assessed 12 times

The class was observed 9 times during 9 weeks (3 times at the preliminary stage and 6 times at the intervention stage) These 9 observed units were organized as follows: in the first three lessons, speaking were taught in conventional ways; the last six lessons were

carried out with the combination of the three changes: helping students set achievable

goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success Information about each

unit was collected separately

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Data collected from preliminary investigation stage

3.1.1 Data collected from questionnaire 1

In order to find out the causes of students’ low motivation in English speaking activities, the researcher firstly investigated their reasons for learning English speaking through Question 1 Only 2 students stated that they were interested in English speaking skill, 8 students wanted to be able to communicate in English, 15 students believed that English speaking is necessary for their future job while 30 students claimed that they learned English speaking because it is compulsory at school One of them gave out another reason that s/he wanted to go abroad after graduating In short, it is assumed that the students learned English speaking mainly because it was a compulsory part in school syllabus

Chart 1: Students' reasons for learning English speaking

A English speaking is necessary for their future job

B English speaking is compulsory at their school

C They are interested in English speaking skill

D They want to be able to communicate in English

E Others:

Through Question 2, the students’ attitude towards learning English speaking was revealed The results show that more than half of the students (56.3%, 18 students) were not fully aware of the importance of English speaking 12.5% (4 students) did not mind if English speaking is important to them or not 15.7% (5 students) thought that English speaking is not important at all and 28.1% (9 students) responded that English speaking is little important Only 43.7% (14 students) found English speaking rather important (37.5%,

12 students) or very important (6.2%, 2 students) to them It can be seen that the students can not have high level of motivation in English speaking activities when they are not fully aware of the importance of English speaking

Chart 2: Students' attitude towards learning English speaking

Chart 3: Students' frequency of unwillingness to speak English in class

D Speak whenever they are told to

E Always seek for chances to speak in class

In an attempt to find out factors leading to the students' low motivation, the researcher gave out the question “What factor(s) make(s) you unwilling to speak English in class?” (Question 4) A large number of students (26 students) expressed that one of the factors was that learning goal is not to communicate in English Clearly, their motivation in English speaking activities could not be high if they did not learn English to communicate Another factor raised by 24 students was monotonous speaking activities In addition, there were two other causes: being afraid of making mistakes then being laughed at by other classmates, and unpleasant atmosphere in the classroom Both of the two causes received

the same responses of 19 students Other factors listed in Question 4 were not remarkably referred to Only 5 students referred to being of afraid of making mistakes and being criticized by the teacher, 2 referred to being not interested in English speaking and none of the students referred to the teacher’s being unenthusiastic in English speaking classes or poor physical conditions None of them gave out any other factors

0 0

4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32

Chart 4: Factors leading to the students' low motivation in English

speaking activities

The main factors leading to the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities can

be diminished if the teacher helps them set specific, achievable goal for themselves, provides them with a lot of interesting speaking activities and use rewards to create an exciting atmosphere and increase their self-confident to speak

In summary, the findings in Questionnaire 1 revealed many useful facts related to the students’ motivation Firstly, most of the students learned English speaking mainly because

it is a compulsory part in school syllabus Second, more than half of the students were not fully aware of the importance of English speaking to themselves As the result, the frequency of the students’ unwillingness in English speaking was high The main causes were: learning goal is not to communicate in English; the speaking activities used in the classroom were monotonous; the students were afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by other classmates; and the classroom atmosphere was not really relaxed These findings were really important because it would help the researcher form the hypothesis and decide on the intervention later

3.1.2 Data collected from observation sheets

3.1.2.1 Data collected from Observation sheet 1