THREE WAYS TO MOTIVATE THE STUDENTS AT BANKING ACADEMYBACNINH BRANCH IN ENGLISH SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

1 part one: Introduction 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 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 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 Research questions With the above objectives, the research questions are: What are the causes of the students’ low motivation in English speaking activities? 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? 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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-play Role-play is an activity that the class is usually divided into pairs or groups These pairs or groups are given situations and roles to act out and explore This acting is done for the sake of the language and imaginative activity, not for exhibition The various groups, therefore, are activated simultaneously Dangerfield (1987) suggests nine basic steps in role-play activities as follow: Language input, Setting of context, Allocation of roles, Statement of aim, Familiarization will roles, Demonstration, Role-play and achievement of aim, Report back and Follow up 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 10 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 31 In order to create a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom to stimulate the students in speaking as well as to help the students build up their confidence, the researcher used rewards for success immediately after activities She prepared some small rewards which were not materially valuable, such as some pens, pencils, notebooks, pictures, English discs, English books, etc When introducing an activity to the students and asked them to participate in, she also introduced the rewards she intended to give to the pair or the group who were the most successful in the activity The most successful pair or group could be determined by the teacher, by a “group of referees”, or by the whole class, depending on some criteria: their attitude in participating the activity and their performance, etc she thought it might be worthwhile to try this way as it could create light competition among pairs or groups of students, which is good for learning This might also make the classroom atmosphere more relaxed and enhance the students’ self-confidence (For more details, see Appendix and 6) 3.3 Data collected from the intervention stage The six speaking lessons of Units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 were observed with Observation sheet and to assess the overall classroom motivation and the students’ participation when the three strategies were applied The students’ opinions about the three changes were collected through Questionnaire 3.3.1 Data collected from Observation sheets * Data collected from Observation sheet Observation sheet looks at overall class motivation The data can be seen in Chart and Appendix 32 The mean score of overall class motivation over the six units was 31 The scores were 27 in Lesson 7, 28 in Lesson 8, 30 in Lesson 9, 32 in Lesson 10, 33 in Lesson 11 and up to 36 in Lesson 12 These scores were higher than the standard score (24) and increased gradually Remarkably, the score in Lesson 12 nearly reached the possible maximum 40 This indicates that the class was highly motivated as a whole This result revealed that the students were highly involved in the lessons; they were much enjoying the lessons and found the activities interesting The result also shows that the students paid extended attention to the speaking activities and the level of their concentration on the task was high The most important is the teacher’s organization of the speaking activities was appropriate for them From the data collected above, it can be concluded that the students were much more involved and motivated after the teacher implemented the three changes * Data collected from Observation sheet Observation sheet focuses on the student on-task and off-task individually The data can be seen in Chart and Appendix This chart summarizes the data collected from Observation sheet As can be seen, the students were much more engaged in the learning tasks, the students’ on-task behavior was 33 on increase, which is shown by the fact that the students were on task 60.4% of time in Lesson 7; 63.3% in Lesson 8; 68.2% in Lesson 9; 70.6% in Lesson 10; 79.7% in Lesson 11 and up to 86.5% in Lesson 12 The data collected show that the implementing of the three changes were really effective when the students participate more in the lessons, they were working harder and more actively 3.3.2 Data collected from Questionnaire In order to confirm the observation sheet result, the researcher asked the students to fill in Questionnaire Item was designed to collect he students’ opinions about the teacher’s helping them set achievable goals; Item 2: to collect the students’ opinions about the teacher’s use of various speaking activities; Item 3: to collect the students’ opinions about the teacher’s use of rewards in speaking activities; and Item 4: to collect the students’ attitude towards the teaching in the last six speaking lessons in general The data from the first item were illustrated in Chart A made their study more purposeful D was useless B made them more confident E other ideas: C made them bored The chart presents clearly that most of the students found the teacher’s helping in setting their own achievable goals were useful since it made them more purposeful (30 students) and more confident (25 students) Only a small amount of them had negative opinion about it 34 The data from item were illustrated in Chart 10 It can be seen from the chart that 31 students reported that the teacher’s use of various speaking activities made them interested and 22 students announced that the use of various activities created a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom These are significant figures However, it should be considered when there were still students who thought the use of various activities made them feel complicated (12 students) and difficult to follow (16 students) A made them interested D made it difficult for them to follow B created a pleasant atmosphere E other ideas: C made them feel complicated The data from item were illustrated in Chart 11 The results illustrated in the chart show that the majority of the students in the study had positive comment on the use of rewards They indicated that the teacher’s use of rewards encouraged them to make more effort in learning in speaking lessons (29 responses), created a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom (26 responses) and made them more confident to speak English (22 responses) Only students complained that the use of rewards created intense competition among them, which is not very good for learning 35 A made them more confident D created intense competition among them B encouraged them to make more effort E other ideas: C created a relaxed atmosphere The data from item were illustrated in Chart 12 Item In general, I like the teaching in the last six speaking lessons A Strongly disagree B Disagree C Not sure D Agree E Strongly agree 36 As mentioned above, Item was given out to have the students’ attitude towards the teaching in the six speaking lessons of units 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the intervention stage) in general The results showed that 84.5% of the students (27 students) liked the ways of teaching in these lessons (manifested in “Agree” and “Strongly agree” responses) while only 9.3% did not like (manifested in “Strongly disagree” and “Disagree” responses) The rest, 6.2% were not sure whether they liked the teacher’s ways of teaching or not In brief, from the data collected from Questionnaire 2, it can be concluded that the students highly appreciated each of the teacher’s three changes in teaching speaking in lessons 7, 8, 9,10,11,12 (helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success) and liked the way the teacher combined the three changes into teaching 3.4 Evaluation The researcher made an evaluation of the action research based on the data of two stages – before and after the intervention This was aimed at measuring how students’ motivation changed when the intervention was implemented 3.4.1 Comparisons * Comparison of the overall class motivation in two phases Chart 13 presents the information of the overall classroom motivation for the students from Observation sheet As can be seen from the chart, the mean score for all classroom 37 motivation at the preliminary investigation stage is 19, at the intervention stage is 31 while the standard score is 24 (3 is the average mark  items = 24) The data collected show that the scores of overall class motivation increased considerably Comparing with the data collected in the first phase (preliminary investigation stage), there was a big difference in the students’ motivation in the second phase (intervention stage) The preliminary results show that the students’ motivation was low, but there was a remarkable increase in their motivation during the experimental period It indicated that three changes in speaking lessons in the researcher’s were effective in the researcher’s class * Comparison of the percentage of the students’ on-task behavior in two phases Chart 14 summarizes information about the students’ on-task behavior in two phases from Observation Sheet The results indicate that at preliminary investigation stage the students were on task 44.4% of the time and at the post stage they were on task 71.5% of the time This shows that before the implementation of the three changes, the students were not much engaged in the speaking activities but after the implementation of the three changes, the students were on task more often For example, in Lessons 4, and 6, the percentage of the students on task was correspondingly 43.5%, 45.8% and 34.1% while it was 60.4% in Lesson 7; 63.3% in Lessons 8; 68.2% in Lesson 9; 70.6% in Lesson 10; 38 79.7% in Lesson 11 and up to 86.5% in Lesson 12 Therefore, it can be concluded that the three changes were effectively used in English speaking lessons in the researcher’s class * Questionnaire and Questionnaire Based on the analysis of the collected data from Questionnaire 1, the researcher realized that the students’ motivation was low because their learning goal was not to communicate in English, the speaking activities were monotonous and boring, they were unconfident and the classroom atmosphere was not really pleasant With the data collected from Questionnaire 2, it can be said that the combination of the three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success made the students more interested in speaking activities, more purposeful, more self-confident, more concentrative and more eager to participate in the activities It also created an exciting atmosphere for them to speak as they really want to be winners and be able to get the rewards According to the data collected, the students highly appreciated each of the teacher’s three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success in teaching speaking in lesson 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, and really liked the way the teacher combined the three changes into teaching Thus, the combination of the three changes in English speaking lessons in the researcher’s class can be affirmed to be effective 3.4.2 Summary With the aim of studying how the three changes: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success are used to motivate students in English speaking activities, the researcher described and discussed all the stages of the action research The preliminary investigation stage was aimed at establishing the baseline of students' motivation as well as identifying the main reasons for students' low motivation Questionnaire and Observation were used to collect the data for this purpose After analyzing the data collected from the preliminary investigation stage, the causes of the problem were identified as their learning goal was not to communicate in English, the speaking activities were monotonous and boring, they were unconfident and the classroom atmosphere was not pleasant Thus, the hypothesis of the study was formed: the students' motivation levels could be improved if an intervention consisting of three parts: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success were implemented The intervention was then carried out The data about the intervention 39 was collected through observation and questionnaire An evaluation was made by comparing contrasting the data of the two stages: the preliminary stage and the intervention stage The evaluation reveals that students' motivation significantly increased Through the findings from both sides: positive factors and challenges, it is hoped that the three ways of teaching: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success can be exploited to motivate students to speak successfully and effectively * Positive factors From the results of the research, it is effective to use the three ways of teaching: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success to motivate students to speak There are some reasons for this affirmation as follows: First, these ways of teaching when combined together make the students more willing to speak English in class and actively participate in speaking activities When the teacher helps them set their achievable goals, they are more purposeful in learning and make more effort in doing tasks Beside, a large number of the students like to join in speaking activities when the speaking activities are sufficiently various Different kinds of activities create the students’ interest to participate in They also create an exciting atmosphere in the classroom The activities are enjoyable and fun so they can help student banish boredom and bring them pleasure to speak English They also lower students’ anxiety and shyness and make them become more confident speaker In addition, using rewards encourages the students to be more active and more eager and make more effort in doing tasks since the students want to be winners and want to be rewarded Secondly, when making a small comparison between the data collected from two stages: the initial stage and post stage, it is clear that the number of students who are willing to join the speaking lessons applied the combination of the three changes increase considerably It has proved that the speaking lessons are surely more interesting and enjoyable with the use of the changes In this case, the changes play a role as an inspirer to appeal students to speak In brief, the findings reveal that the three changes can be combined to enhance students' motivation in speaking lessons The positive factors achieved after carrying out the study reassure that the combination of the three changes can raise students' motivation in speaking activities 40 * Challenges Although the intervention has gained many achievements, the implementation of the three strategies creates some difficulties itself First, the researcher had to spend too much time to prepare for each lesson She had to decide how to help the students in setting their goals Moreover, she had to decide what activities to use, how to organize the activities effectively, how much time should be spent on each activity She also had to prepare a lot of materials for students in advance in order to make the lesson more effective In addition, she had to bear in mind what kinds of rewards should be appropriate and how to avoid the students’ intense competition when using rewards to encourage the students to speak Second, the length of the activities is another difficult for the teachers Some of the activities are too long (about 20 minutes) and some are too short (about minutes) The students feel either disappointed with too short activities or bored with too long activities Therefore, the teacher had to find suitable activities and make them appropriate for the students and class time Moreover, some types of the activities are really new to the students The teacher had to find ways to give clear instructions and guide them to work effectively The teaching and learning process can not work successfully if the teacher only sticks to what s/he had planned before during the implementation stage of the syllabus, some unexpected things might occur so the teacher should be flexible One more obstacle of using language games in class is that all classes are too big in size (about 30-40 students) It's very hard for the teacher to administer speaking activities and involve all the students in it Besides, too much noise is often made as a result of students' excitement and enthusiasm while they are participating in communicative activities This greatly affects other nearby classes which are going on at the same time 41 PART THREE: CONCLUSION Review of the study The action research was carried out in the time frame of nine weeks It started when the issue of low motivation in speaking lessons was perceived within the first three weeks The preliminary investigation stage was generated to confirm the problem and explore the causes in the next three weeks, using one questionnaire and two observation sheets as data collection instruments Based on this, it was hypothesized that the teacher could significantly improve the students' motivation levels by implementing the intervention consisting of the three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success A plan was then formulated and implemented with the purpose of attacking the problems to increase students' motivation The data were collected again and this source of information, together with the data collected in the preliminary stage was compared to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention The evaluation showed that the intervention was successful in generating students' motivation And in the scope of this research, the use of the three changes help the students more purposeful in learning speaking, more interested, more concentrate on the lessons, leading to positive attitude as well as high motivation in speaking lessons Moreover, the changes can create joyful learning atmosphere, which provides the students with more opportunities to obtain knowledge with pleasure and help the students like speaking lessons more The changes also help increase the students’ selfconfidence in English speaking Pedagogical implications The three strategies: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success were demonstrated to be effective in speaking lessons But in order to gain the most from the use of these strategies, some comments should be considered: Helping students set their achievable goals Teacher should help students set their achievable goals not only at the beginning of a course but also during speaking lessons In order to this well, s/he should provide students with explicit knowledge about speaking, its definition, its importance, accuracy or 42 fluency in speaking, problems with speaking activities and strategies to improve speaking skill, then guide them how to determine their goals for the course, for each lesson, even for each activity If students are helped to set specific, short-term, achievable goals for speaking, they will be more confident, hence, more motivated to speak and the effect will be greater Varying speaking activities Speaking activities should be sufficiently various in class to be profitable for the teaching process If the teacher uses only some monotonous activities, students are uninterested in and bored But if the teacher uses too many different activities, students will find difficult to catch up with Besides, teacher should choose suitable activities for students S/he can make some changes in order to make the activities more or less complex, to be suitable for students’ ability Pictures, cards, or images should be frequently used in speaking activities to attract learners Therefore, good preparations are important If students prepare pictures or cards, they need to be checked by teachers In addition, not all pictures or images are always available in the textbook; the work will become hard and time-consuming So, obtaining the appropriate images, pictures on the Internet are suggested Time allocation for each speaking activity should be planned appropriately for different stages in each speaking lesson Simultaneously, the students' activities should be carefully controlled If they last too long, students will feel bored, tired and distracted from their attention If they not last long enough, they will not give any sense of satisfaction Each activity should not take much time (more than 15 minutes) With large classes, games for pairs and small groups are very good because all the students can have chances to practice the language Speaking activities should be provided with clear instructions and rules Teacher should not make the instructions and rules too complicated or strict because learners will feel tense However, certain rules should still be made to control the noise from overexcited students Using rewards for success The teacher is recommended to use small rewards which are not materially valuable Rewards should be related to English language, English people or England country to increase the students’ integrative motivation in learning, for example, small story books in 43 English, photos of famous English people, photos of famous landscapes in England, etc If teacher cannot give out material rewards, s/he can flexibly reward success by grades Rewards should be introduced at the beginning of the activities and should be given immediately after activities finished Teacher should be always fair in deciding who can get the rewards should avoid intense competition among students, which is not good for learning However, this is an action research in the researcher's own class and the above recommendations are not entirely comprehensive Any contribution to this study with a view to fostering discussion and in the long run, bringing greater benefits to the students at Banking Academy-Bacninh Branch, would be highly appreciated Limitations and suggestions for further research Even though this study has provided some evidence of the effectiveness of the three strategies used in speaking lesson: helping students set achievable goals, varying speaking activities and using rewards for success, it still has some limitations: First, the limitation of sample (with 32 participants only) make the study less reliable Therefore, other researches can be conducted with bigger sample with the same background to minimize this shortcoming Second, observation sheets and questionnaires which were used to investigate the learners' motivation were rather subjective Other data collection tools such as: video recorder, interview should be exploited in further research Third, within the scope of the study, the researcher has no chance to deal with other factors that affect students' motivation in a speaking lesson such as students' personal attributes (aptitude, previous language learning experience), students' attitudes (sentiment towards the target language), students' belief about themselves (anxiety, expectations about one's ability to succeed), etc Also, within the scope of the study, it cannot cover all the uses of the three strategies in four language skills and language elements Therefore, further study can focus on the use of the three strategies to motivate students in reading classes, writing classes, listening classes and motivate students in learning vocabulary and grammar 44 REFERENCES Ames, R and Ames, C (1991) Motivation and Effective Teaching Educational Values and Cognitive Instruction: 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Teaching of Psychology, 16(2), 86-88 28 Soars, John & Liz (2000) New Headway – Elementary Oxford: Oxford University Press 29 Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 30 Wallace, M J (2001) Action Research for Language Teachers United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press 31 Wang, Xiaoying (2007) Three Ways to Motivate Chinese Students in EFL Listening Classes Asian EFL Journal Vol.17, January 2007 ... thesis The second part, “Development” comprises chapters: Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents relevant theoretical basis for the study, relating to speaking learning and teaching in language classroom,... 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... different levels of proficiency in English They come from different areas: from big cities such as Hanoi, Haiphong; 10 from rural areas and 14 from mountainous provinces such as Caobang, Backan, Dienbien,