An investigation into students demotivationin learning english speaking at tinh gia 1 high school problems and

In an attempt to investigate this topic, the researcher has decided to conduct a study on “An investigation into students’ demotivation in learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 high sc

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Success or failure in language learning seems largely dependent on the learners’ motivation to learn the target language In particular, motivation seems very important in the development of speaking skills

I have been an English teacher at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School since I graduated university First, I see that students here have high motivation in learning English speaking but it is down gradually, even they have demotivation in recent years So what are the reasons when the need to know and master English has become more and more increasing, especially since Vietnam adopted an open-door policy, teaching and learning English have been paid much attention to? It has been part of the general education and becomes

a compulsory subject at high schools in most towns and cities throughout the country As English is largely used in international settings, the ability to communicate in real-life situations is very important Therefore, speaking plays an essential role because without it, communication cannot take place directly between people

In traditional teaching, students were required to acquire English grammar Nowadays they are required to acquire various skills and language items including English grammar, English vocabulary and English pronunciation In the light of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), students are required not only to have good knowledge of vocabulary and eligible grammar, but also the four language skills Accurate and fluent speaking is a must in English learning for students Therefore, learning English speaking is of great importance to students, even for their exams In addition, this will help them to have a good job in their future and enable them to communicate with foreigners successfully if they have a chance and the need

In an attempt to investigate this topic, the researcher has decided to conduct a study on “An investigation into students’ demotivation in learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 high school, Thanh Hóa: Problems and solutions” As one of the first attempts to explore the demotivation in the

context of learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School, this paper seeks to explore the current techniques utilized by teachers and learners in fostering demotivation in speaking learning and students’ perceptions about those techniques The paper begins by reviewing the current literature on demotivation, speaking learning and related studies This is a case study conducted with 90 per 950 students who undertook the triangulated data collection method of interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations The analysis of the collected data demonstrated students’ learning realities in the demotivation within learning of speaking The findings analyzed suggest a way to eliminate the demotivating factors in English speaking lessons in order to better students’ English learning

2 Aims of the study

The study is carried out to meet the following aims:

- To identify the demotivators in English speaking learning and teaching

- To suggest some feasible solutions to eliminate the demotivating factors in English speaking lessons in order to better students’ English learning

3 Research questions

Base on the above-mention things, a hypothesis is given out: It’s the students’ attitude towards English speaking that is the demotivating factors In order to prove that hypothesis, the following research questions were asked in the study:

1 What are the students’ difficulties in learning English speaking?

2 What can assist students to have motivation again?

4 Significance of the study

The study will be the first investigation of demotivators in English speaking teaching and learning

at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School Practically, this provides my colleagues with experience in demotivating to make students learn English speaking more effectively In addition, it also makes the study environment more active Furthermore, it is recommended that not just English lessons but even other subjects might

be developed this way

5 Scope of the study

In the previous studies, demotivation in learning English is mentioned in general and they aimed at several levels of learners In this, I only investigate students’ demotivation in learning English speaking The survey questionnaires are only used for students, questions for interview are used for students and teachers Truthfully, this topic cannot be wholly discussed within the framework of this paper; therefore, the subjects chosen for this study are students and teachers at Tĩnh Gia 1 High school Thus, it cannot be said that the results of this study are general to other language elements and Vietnamese high school students

6 Methods of the study

From the research questions, survey methodology is used Survey methodology studies

the sampling of individual units from a population and the associated survey data collection techniques, such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to surveys [36] It is also clearly indicated that the research is mostly qualitative because the aim of it is to investigate the percentage of each demotivated factors among students’ learning English speaking In order to fulfill, the methods have been used to survey, such as: questionnaires for students,

semi-structured interview, and observation The following steps are involved:

Collecting data by survey questionnaires for students

Conducting an interview with teachers and students who are randomly chosen for further information of the study

Observing classes

All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis These data are hoped to confirm and support the results obtained from other sources

7 Design of the study

This thesis is divided into three parts

Part A, INTRODUCTION, gives the rationale of the study, some information about the current learning and teaching English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 and high schools in Vietnam, aims of the study, the

research questions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study, and the method of the study Besides, the previous studies are also presented in this chapter

Part B, includes three chapters:

Chapter 1, THEORETICAL BACKGROUND, presents various concepts most relevant to the research topic such definition of demotivation, speaking, teachers and students demotivation in second language teaching and learning

Chapter 2, THE STUDY, provides the methodology underlying the research which includes the general information about study subjects, the current state of teaching and learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School This chapter also focuses on the methods of data collection

Chapter 3, RESULTS AND DICUSSION, gives a detailed presentation of data and a detailed description of data analysis Some explanations and interpretations of the findings of the study are also presented

Part C, IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION, emphasizes the implication of the study in which certain techniques for improving teaching and learning English speaking to teachers and students at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School Furthermore, this chapter also points out the limitations of the study and provides some suggestions for further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Definition of speaking

Speaking can be seen as the key to human communication It is a crucial part of second language

learning and teaching There are many definitions of speaking Speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety contexts” (Chaney, [12,

pg.13]) Another definition is proposed by Nunan [48] which states that speaking is the ability in using oral language to explore ideas, intentions, thoughts and feelings to other people as a way to make the message clearly delivered and well understood by the hearer

The communication purpose can be broken when both participant do not have intention to make their contribution to the conversation

In short, speaking can be seen as the way people interact and share information By mastering speaking skills, students can improve the communicative competence which helps them much in the process of language acquisition

1.2 The role of the speaking skill in teaching and learning foreign language

Language is what we use to “move ideas” from one person to another The most common way to do this is by speaking Every culture in the world uses speech In any language, the written form always develops after the spoken form, not the other way round Definitely, speaking is a means to convey man’s ideas through language Many scientists have found that speaking is one of the features which distinguish

us from most, if not all, animals When we learn our first language we always learn to speak it first We

do the same when we learn a second or foreign language

It goes without saying that speaking is of great importance in language learning because “it

is not the oral production of written language, but involves learners in the mastery of a wide range of sub-skills which, added together, constitute an overall competence in the spoken language” (McDonough and Shaw, [42, pg.151]) With the recent growth of English as an international language of communication, there is, clearly, a need for many learners to interact in a multiplicity of situations through the language

In many contexts, speaking is often seen as the skill upon which a person is judged “at face value” To put

it in another way, people may often form judgments about our language competence from our speaking rather than from any of our other language skills

1.3 Definition of motivation and demotivation in foreign language and L2

1.3.1 Definition of motivation

In ideal classroom, students pay attention, ask questions and want to learn They do assignments without complaint and study without being coaxed and cajoled This means that they have motivation in learning The term “motivation” is used constantly in everyday and professional context but defining motivation precisely is a demanding task due to its complex and multination As motivation plays such a crucial role in demanding process of L2 learning, there is a long history of motivation in language learning Motivation research was first inspired and spearheaded by social psychologist Robert Gardner in Canada According to Gardner [24], motivation is and acts of stimulating the interest of somebody to do

something He drew out a formulary of motivation: “Motivation = effort + desire to achieve goal + attitudes” In term of Second/ Foreign language learning, Gardner [24, pg.10-11] defined motivation as:

the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language When the desire to achieve the goal and favorable attitudes towards the goal are linked with the effort or the drive, we have a motivated organism

Dornyei [19] divided motivation development into three main periods: the socio-psychological period, the cognitive - situated period, and the process-oriented period

1.3.2 Definition of demotivation

Motivation plays a very important role in L2; many teachers are looking for the best ways to motivate students Past motivation research has mainly concentrated on the positive motivational influences as seen in the previous chapter “A motive has been seen as a kind of inducement whose force ranges on a continuum from zero to strong In addition to positive influences there are, however, negative effects that de-energise action” (Dornyei, [18]) The darker side of motivation, demotivation, has been found to play a crucial role in the learning process but yet it has been neglected as a research topic until recently Christophel and Gorham [14] found that the strongest influence on motivation was not the presence of motivators in the classroom, but the absence of demotivators At the beginning of the semester, the absence of context demotivators and teacher behavior demotivators positively affected motivation So what is demotivation?

In light of Dornyei’s considerations, “demotivation” concerns “specific external forces that reduce

or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention” and describes demotivation as various

negative influences cancelling out existing motivation He introduces “demotives” as being negative

counterparts of “motives on going action” (ibid: 143) A demotivated learner is someone who “motivated but has lost his or her interest for some reasons” In terms of demotive, it decreases learners’

demotivation to the study of language while motive increases it

Dornyei [18] also points out that demotivation does not mean that a learner has lost his or her motivation completely On the contrary, the positive influences that originally made up the motivational basis of behavior can still be there For instance, a learner may still be highly motivated to learn English;

it is an important world language, even if his or her teacher were incompetent or malevolent

1.4 Demotivation in learning speaking

1.4.1 The features of spoken language

To be able to find out students’ demotivation to help students develop their ability in spoken production in English, it is necessary to think about some typical features of the spoken language in general It is essential to have that insight in order to be able to find an appropriate methodology for teaching it

Therefore participants of such conversation spell out more and repeat what they have already said because the clear understanding depends particularly on clear production

1.4.2 Demotivation in learning speaking

It is clear that demotivation and speaking are among the most important issues in the process of language learning Therefore, considering them and conducting researches like the present one about the relationship between them could help language teachers and students to be more efficient in process of language learning and teaching To put it more clearly, by taking into account these factors, language teachers can become aware of factors which may hinder their speaking activities From that may encourage language learners to speak

Demotivation has detrimental impact on students’ foreign language learning outcomes Consequently, studying the demotivating factors of language learning is a crucial responsibility of language teachers, researchers and anyone who is somehow related to language learning and teaching process

1.5 Factors demotivate students’ participation in speaking learning

Students’ participation usually means students speaking activities in class, for example, answer and ask questions, make comments and join in discussion It is also shown through interactions between students and students, between teachers - students when working together Students’ participation can be affected by various factors coming from students, teachers, and classroom In the following section, some

of the factors will be discussed

1.4.1 Students’ factors

1.4.1.1 Students’ learning styles

Every student has a learning style; therefore, there is no particular teaching or learning method that can suit the needs of all learners If the teachers do not take care of or neglect the differences among students, for example, teachers only pay attention to good students meanwhile the rest students do not get

benefit from their teachers This makes them feel uncomfortable This is one reason for the fact that when

an activity is in progress, not all students participate in actively

1.4.1.2 Students’ attitude and motivation

Clearly, motivation plays an important role in the success of language learning in general but we may wonder how much or to what extent motivation accounts for students’ participation in oral activities

We may not give the correct answer but we can see that if learners perceive a goal and if that goal is really attractive, they will be strongly motivated to do whatever necessary to reach that goal Therefore, the more motivated students are, the more actively they will participate in oral activities

1.4.1.3 Students’ second language level

It is undoubted that students’ levels in a class are not alike There are two levels of language: the basic interpersonal communicative skills and the cognitive academic language proficiency The basic interpersonal communicative skills concept represents the language of natural, informal conversation Basic interpersonal communicative skills are used by students when talking about everyday things in concrete situations, that is, situations in which the context provides cues that make understanding not totally dependent on verbal interaction

Thus, students’ participation can be affected by their own language level We, therefore, should choose the topics as well as techniques which are suitable for their level This will surely encourage their participation in all speaking activities

1.4.1.4 Personality

According to many language teachers, the personality of their students considers a major factor contributing to the success or failure in language learning Lightbown and Spada [40] list a number of personality characteristics such as: extroversion, inhibition, self-esteem empathy, dominance, talkativeness and responsiveness Hedge [32] defined that extrovert learners are more willing to participate, more willing to experiment and take risks Although their language was not good enough, they were not afraid to make mistakes and try to communicate And for introvert learners, they feel more comfortable when they work individually (Harmer, [31])

1.4.1.5 Students’ anxiety

Sufficient evidence shows that anxiety is an important factor in learning second language in general and in students’ participation in speaking activities in particular It seems to be a factor that distributes in differing degrees in different learners

1.4.1.6 Gender differences

The relationship between gender differences and language learning has been mentioned in some research Other researcher found some results when he carried out the research on the relationship between sex and language such as men talked more and took more frequent turns at talk, interrupted more often, withheld responses to women’s topics and withheld self-disclosure Contrast to men, women tended to be more often than men to use speech strategies which supported other speakers’ contributions, initiating topics and providing feedback and information for others to participate

Clearly, all these above studies make us believe that sex differences may have a great effect on students’ participation Understanding the different learning styles and strengths and weakness of male and female can help teachers better understand and work with students with disabilities and gifts and talents

In conclusion, those are the main factors coming from students’ side that may hinder students’ participation in classroom activities The degrees of effect of the above factors may be different for each

student The first factor is students’ learning styles The second factor is students’ motivation and attitude.

The third factor is students’ language level including knowledge of English proficiency and knowledge of other fields The fourth one is students’ personality One more factor is students’ anxiety The language anxiety of students may affect their participation because foreign language speaking anxiety in the English classroom may stem from fear of making mistakes and the consequent fear of negative evaluation, and students’ perception of low ability in relation to their peers The last one is the gender difference

1.4.2 Teachers’ factors

1.4.2.1 Teachers’ teaching methods

Stern [62] lists out some main teaching methods as follows:

Grammar-translation or traditional method, audio - lingual method, direct method

reading method, audiovisual method…

1.4.2.2 Teachers’ knowledge

What a teacher knows is one of the most important influences on what is done in classrooms and ultimately on what students learn Thus, being a teacher, we should have:

General pedagogical knowledge: Teacher should understand how to moderate discussions, design

group work, organize materials for student use, utilize texts and media, etc

Linguistic knowledge: Teachers need a basic working knowledge such as knowledge of the nature

and functions of language, knowledge about the systems and structure of English such as: phonetics, syntax, semantics, discourses, etc

Specialist knowledge: English teaching in Vietnam can be divided into two types: Teaching

General English and English for Special Purposes (ESP) ESP teachers teach special content due to the demands of the fields involved like business, tourism, technology, informatics, accounting, etc In order

to teach ESP, besides general knowledge, teachers must have the knowledge of the subject he (or she) teaches

Clearly, teachers need to understand the subject matter deeply and flexibly to teach all students They need to see how ideas connect across fields and to every life This kind of understanding provides a foundation for pedagogical content knowledge that enables teachers to make ideas accessible to others

1.4.2.3 Teachers’ characteristics

Besides the knowledge and teaching methods, teachers’ characteristics may have a great influence

on students’ participation Barry [3] shows some characteristics a teacher should have that help increase students’ involvement in classroom activities in general:

Being natural, being warm, being tolerant, being pleasant, being approachable:

Moreover, the teachers should be sensitive to individual and group needs and feelings He should be fair to his profession and assess students on their performance instead of personal rapports and likings Therefore, besides the command of teachers’ knowledge and teaching methods, teachers should have these above characteristics The teachers’ characteristics may create a comfortable and an interesting learning environment for students

1.4.2.4 Teachers’ roles in speaking activities

Teacher role refers to the different functions a teacher can have in a class The role usually implies the relationship between the teacher and learner, particularly in terms of the autonomy learners have over

their learning According to Harmer [31], a teacher can have the following roles: The teacher as a controller, an assessor, an organizer The main aims of the teacher when organizing an activity is to tell

the students what they are going to talk about, give clear instructions about what exactly their task is, get the activity going, and then organize feedback when it is over

- Teaching and learning conditions

- Physical conditions

- Classroom climate

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 1.2 Context

1.2.1 Theoretical context

Despite realizing English speaking is very important, Vietnamese students still cannot acquire it The main reason is that the traditional teaching laid the emphasis on grammar has led to this problem In the teaching situations, the students usually keep quiet in speaking lessons; they mind speaking In real-life situations, students find it hard to communicate with English speaking people; it is hard for them to response spontaneously and naturally Unfortunately, this is happening at almost high schools in Vietnam, except for foreign language specializing schools

In this part, the role of textbook and curriculum is also presented because they have had certain effect on teaching and learning English Besides, the analysis of textbook and curriculum is of the great importance since they are hypothesized as one of the factors demotivates students in learning in many previous studies

The teaching contents are organized according to themes in order to provide contexts for language skills, language elements and socio-cultural knowledge to be taught and developed in an integrated manner These themes are all drawn from the contexts of students’ daily life such as home and school, health, recreation, community and the world The themes are recycled from grade to grade in a cumulative and spiral manner, which means they are repeated at higher grade with increasing levels of difficulty to suit students’ intellectual and cognitive maturity levels

The total number of class hours for English education is also clearly specified In high school, the time allocation is 315 for standard textbooks Each class hour is 45 minutes in length We can see that the

number of periods for each skill is 16 for each grade per year, which is rather low for developing such 4 difficult skills on the ground that students rarely use English outside classroom for communication

Tiếng Anh 10 is the official textbook for 10th grade students, includes topics: daily life, school talks, people’s background, special education, technology, excursion, the mass media, story of my village, undersea world, conservation, national parks, music, films and cinema, the world cup, cities, historical places

Tiếng Anh 11 includes topics: friendship, experiences, a party, volunteer work, literacy, competitions, world population, celebration, the post office, nature in danger, sources of energy, the Asian games, hobbies, recreation, space conquest, and the wonders of the world

Tiếng Anh 12 includes topics: home life, cultural diversity, ways of socializing, school education system, higher education, future job, water sports, sea game, international organizations, women in society, the association of Southeast Asian nations

An ideal systematic textbook evaluation would be a longitudinal one, which includes pre-use evaluation, whilst-use evaluation and post-use evaluation But textbooks are subject to adaptation when they are actually used in the class-room, despite the great effort that textbook writers make to meet the needs of the intended users Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12 is accompanied with cassette tapes and students’ workbook The textbook is evaluated with clear structure, an adequate number of review units and covering all four language skills adequately and allowing for an integration of skills at the pre and post stages However, there are several units in these book are not suitable: too long (textbook 11: U12, reading), too short (textbook 11: U4, writing), too difficult (textbook 12:U8, listening), too confused… Teachers usually have to adapt, it may be: omission, addition, reduction, extension, rewriting/modification, replacement, re-ordering, branching…

1.2.2 Practical context

Most of students here were born in working and farming family with medium living standard so the teaching of English in this school has encountered with many difficulties

Although most students are aware of the importance of English, the majority of the students do not pay much attention to English, especially, speaking skill And if some students are said to be good at English, it means they are good at English grammar Most of them find it hard to express themselves orally And, the teachers have to face a lot of difficulties in teaching speaking because students seem to

be passive in all speaking activities In the English lessons, teachers have to speak Vietnamese most of the time because they are afraid that their students do not understand what they are speaking When the new textbooks were applied, almost students complain about difficulties they get in learning English skills in general and in speaking in particular And we ourselves realize that our students really have bad speaking Certainly, there are many reasons for this If those difficulties are not found out and no solutions can be given, the speaking classes cannot be successful and students will be fed up with learning English

if they find it worthless to study the subject

2.2 Methods to the study

2.2.1 Participants

The participants of this research consist of two groups: High school teachers and students In this study, no names of teachers or students were identified

The first group is 90 the 10th, 11th, 12th graders chosen randomly from 3 classes 10A2, 11A4, 12A6 at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School Their average age from 16, range from 15 to 17 The participants include 43 male students and 47 female students, 60 percent of them come from farming families which don’t have much money to support for their learning and to equip modern medias such as cassette, CD, the Internet for their children English learning Especially, their proficiency, competence and motivation are very low

2.2.2 Data collection instruments

The data collection methods applied in this study was aimed at collecting qualitative data The questionnaires for students were delivered to the 90 students from Tĩnh Gia 1 High School respectively The researcher mainly used the close- ended questions in the questionnaires

2.2.2.1 Questionnaires for students

The researcher decided to use questionnaires for the research The questionnaires were conducted in Vietnamese because the students might not understand all information in English, which may affect the result of the study

2.2.2.2 Semi-structured interview

Besides questionnaire, this is a method of collecting necessary and reliable information The researcher interviewed 5 teachers and 10 students to get their ideas about the research issues beyond the questionnaires so a follow-up one-on-one interview with one group of subjects was conducted The students were asked to answer 10 questions about following aspects honestly:

(1) The students’ demotivators in learning English (from question 1 to question 8)

(2) Activities increase students’ participation in speaking lessons (question 9, 10)

2.2.2.3 Class observation

This is a method to ensure the reliability of the questionnaire The researcher observed 5 speaking periods It was designed a checklist for what researcher wanted to observe (see Appendix 4) The checklist for observation included kinds of speaking activities teacher uses, students’ time of participation

in speaking activities in class, the number and difficult level of vocabulary in each speaking lesson, teacher’s behavior and her methods, the environment when the teacher uses modern teaching aids in class

2.2.3 Data collection procedures

The questionnaires were handed out to 90 learners at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School to collect information The responses to each question were calculated and converted into percentage for analysis and discussion (Appendix 1)

The interview was carried out in Vietnamese in the form of and informal conservation between the researcher and ten students chosen at random in the student list of 3 classes They were 4 students number 8th, 24th, 30th, and 40th in class 10A2; 3 students number 3th, 16th, 27th in class 12A4; 3 students number 5th, 21st, and 38th in class 11A6 The students were asked to go to another room for the interview The 25 minute - interview was structured with a list of 10 opened - end questions (Appendix