CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the researcher will provide the background as well as the rationale of the research in detail followed by the objectives, the research questions, the scope and the organization of the study. 1.1. Background In the context of teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), students’ participation in learning activities is very important to successful language learning. EFL teachers can base on the amount and quality of students’ contribution to classroom work in order to evaluate whether they have carried out a good lesson to elicit sufficient responses from students (Goh, 2013). Fassinger (1995) notes that not only teachers but learners can also share the benefits of their participation. According to Cohen (1991, p.699), students’ personal participation or engagement is considered as a means that brings “students actively into the educational process’’ and supports in “enhancing our teaching and bringing life to the classroom”. Furthermore, when students actively engage with what they are studying, they tend to learn better (Daggett, 1997; Weaver & Qi, 2005), enjoy their study more (Junn, 1994) and make an improvement in their communication skills as well as group interactions (Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005). In spite of the benefits of students’ participation in class and the fact that a lot of students are aware of the importance of taking part in class activities, many teachers still experience a great deal of students’ quietness and passiveness in the classroom. Karp and Yoels (1976) find that in any given classroom, only a handful of students commonly participate in classroom tasks, which is known as the phenomenon called “consolidation of responsibility”. According to the research carried out by Howard and Henney (1998), about 90% of interactions in classroom were made by a few students and around one-third were regular participants while a half of the students were observed not to participate at all. It is supposed that the students’ passiveness is one of the common classroom problems facing most of the EFL teachers. The problem of EFL students’ passiveness in classroom has been found in recent studies, especially in Asian English learning environment (Tsui, 1996; Jackson, 2003; Chen, 2003; Zou, 2004; Thompson, 2009). Many students from Confucian heritage culture countries in Asia have often been observed to be quiet in language classrooms, unwilling to speak up and often tend to wait until they are called upon by their teachers instead of volunteering to share their ideas (Tran Thi Tuyet, 2013). The students who were found to be passive learners chose not to use the target language most of the time and rarely actively took part in classroom discussions (Liu, 2005). Such a behavior reflects students’ passive role and their unwillingness to contribute to the classroom work. For EFL teachers, the passiveness of students is a kind of uncomfortable feeling because it negatively reflects on their instructional practice. Furthermore, the act of being passive in class has always been regarded as the main cause of frustration for both teachers and students (Flowerdew & Miller, 1995). Many EFL teachers have felt the frustration after trying their best to activate their students but receive very little or no response (Le Phuong Nga, 2002). It is also clear that EFL classroom will become a frustrating and boring place if most of the students are passive. The passiveness of students not only causes a sense of failure for EFL teachers but also makes them difficult with gaining the goal of communicative language teaching. In particular, the frustration caused by students’ passiveness can be seen more clearly in speaking lessons in which the activities are designed for students’ discussion. Even though everyone seems to realize the significance of participation and teachers always want to boost the activeness in classroom, many students seem to be unwilling to participate in activities due to many different aspects. As a result, to encourage students to fully contribute in the classroom discourse, it is important for EFL teachers to discover causes of their students’ passiveness in class so that they can employ some practical techniques and strategies in order to make their students more active in English speaking lessons.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LE THI THANH HUYEN AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH STUDENTS’ PASSIVENESS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS AT SOME HIGH SCHOOLS IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2016 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LE THI THANH HUYEN AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH STUDENTS’ PASSIVENESS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING LESSONS AT SOME HIGH SCHOOLS IN QUANG TRI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.14.01.11 SUPERVISOR: HOANG TINH BAO, Ph.D HUE, 2016 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ LÊ THỊ THANH HUYỀN NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH ĐỂ GIẢI QUYẾT TÌNH TRẠNG THỤ ĐỘNG CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ HỌC NÓI TẠI MỘT SỐ TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG Ở QUẢNG TRỊ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.14.01.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC TS HOÀNG TỊNH BẢO HUE, 2016 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself Signed:………………………… Le Thi Thanh Huyen Date: ………………………… ABSTRACT This research aims to investigate EFL teachers’ strategies to deal with students’ passiveness in speaking lessons at some high schools in Quang Tri Province The research’s subjects are the EFL teachers and the students from Vinh Linh, Gio Linh, Nguyen Hue and Bui Duc Tai High School To fulfill the purpose of the study, the relevant theories of the previous researchers on teaching strategy, speaking skill and students’ passiveness were chosen and cited appropriately for the content of the research Both quantitative and qualitative metthods were used for the researrch The data were collected from questionnaires and interviews Questionnaire were delivered to 160 students and 32 teachers Additionally, five teachers were invited to participate in the interviews The findings of the research demonstrated that there were a lot of strategies employed by the teachers to deal with students’ passiveness but the frequency of using them varied among teachers In addition, there are still some difficulties in carrying out their strategies effectively because of some problems such as students’ shyness, lack of confidence or anxiety.Based on these findings , implications for teachers and students were also presented to increase students’ participation in speaking lessons as well as enhance the efficiency of English teaching and learning Acknowledgements This study would not be done without the encouragement and assistance of many people Therefore, I wish to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to their support during the time of doing this research First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Hoang Tinh Bao for his professional guidance and support His guidance helped me in all the time of studying and writing this thesis I sincerely thank the teachers and students at Vinh Linh, Gio Linh, Nguyen Hue, Bui Duc Tai High School who participated in this project My special thanks would also go to my family and friends for all their understanding, faith, and involvement during the time I was conducting this project TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF TABLES Table 4.3: Reasons for students ‘passiveness in speaking lessons 40 Table 4.4: Students’ suggestions3 LIST OF FIGURES 41 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the researcher will provide the background as well as the rationale of the research in detail followed by the objectives, the research questions, the scope and the organization of the study 1.1 Background In the context of teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), students’ participation in learning activities is very important to successful language learning EFL teachers can base on the amount and quality of students’ contribution to classroom work in order to evaluate whether they have carried out a good lesson to elicit sufficient responses from students (Goh, 2013) Fassinger (1995) notes that not only teachers but learners can also share the benefits of their participation According to Cohen (1991, p.699), students’ personal participation or engagement is considered as a means that brings “students actively into the educational process’’ and supports in “enhancing our teaching and bringing life to the classroom” Furthermore, when students actively engage with what they are studying, they tend to learn better (Daggett, 1997; Weaver & Qi, 2005), enjoy their study more (Junn, 1994) and make an improvement in their communication skills as well as group interactions (Dancer & Kamvounias, 2005) In spite of the benefits of students’ participation in class and the fact that a lot of students are aware of the importance of taking part in class activities, many teachers still experience a great deal of students’ quietness and passiveness in the classroom Karp and Yoels (1976) find that in any given classroom, only a handful of students commonly participate in classroom tasks, which is known as the phenomenon called “consolidation of responsibility” According to the research carried out by Howard and Henney (1998), about 90% of interactions in classroom were made by a few students and around one-third were regular participants while a half of the students were observed not to participate at all It is supposed that the students’ passiveness is one of the common classroom problems facing most of the EFL teachers The problem of EFL students’ passiveness in classroom has been found in recent studies, especially in Asian English learning environment (Tsui, 1996; Jackson, 2003; Chen, 2003; Zou, 2004; Thompson, 2009) Many students from Confucian heritage culture countries in Asia have often been observed to be quiet in language classrooms, unwilling to speak up and often tend to wait until they are called upon by their teachers instead of volunteering to share their ideas (Tran Thi Tuyet, 2013) The students who were found to be passive learners chose not to use the target language most of the time and rarely actively took part in classroom discussions (Liu, 2005) Such a behavior reflects students’ passive role and their unwillingness to contribute to the classroom work For EFL teachers, the passiveness of students is a kind of uncomfortable feeling because it negatively reflects on their instructional practice Furthermore, the act of being passive in class has always been regarded as the main cause of frustration for both teachers and students (Flowerdew & Miller, 1995) Many EFL teachers have felt the frustration after trying their best to activate their students but receive very little or no response (Le Phuong Nga, 2002) It is also clear that EFL classroom will become a frustrating and boring place if most of the students are passive The passiveness of students not only causes a sense of failure for EFL teachers but also makes them difficult with gaining the goal of communicative language teaching In particular, the frustration caused by students’ passiveness can be seen more clearly in speaking lessons in which the activities are designed for students’ discussion Even though everyone seems to realize the significance of participation and teachers always want to boost the activeness in classroom, many students seem to be unwilling to participate in activities due to many different aspects As a result, to encourage students to fully contribute in the classroom discourse, it is important for EFL teachers to discover causes of their students’ passiveness in class so that they can employ some 10 ... BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ LÊ THỊ THANH HUYỀN NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH ĐỂ GIẢI QUYẾT TÌNH TRẠNG THỤ ĐỘNG CỦA HỌC SINH TRONG GIỜ... SINH TRONG GIỜ HỌC NĨI TẠI MỘT SỐ TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THƠNG Ở QUẢNG TRỊ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.14.01.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC TS HOÀNG TỊNH...MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES LE THI THANH HUYEN AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH STUDENTS’ PASSIVENESS IN ENGLISH