Attitudes of Vietnamese college students towards English acquisition

The findings would serve as basis for the administrators to reassess their aims of becoming an English-speaking country. The quantitative method was employed in this study, basing on 46 items in the questionnaire which are divided into three aspects, namely the awareness of English with the liability score 0.935, the current English educational policies (0.932), and the purposes for learning English (0.920).

ISSN: 1859-2171 e-ISSN: 2615-9562 TNU Journal of Science and Technology 225(03): 41 - 47 ATTITUDES OF VIETNAMESE COLLEGE STUDENTS TOWARDS ENGLISH ACQUISITION Vu Van Tuan Hanoi Law University ABSTRACT The term “World Englishes” has become very common in mass media nowadays In fact, mastering English empowers people to enter the world without much difficulty However, Vietnamese government has launched many projects with a hope of turning English in our country into a second language one This study investigates the attitudes of Vietnamese college students towards English acquisition The findings would serve as basis for the administrators to reassess their aims of becoming an English-speaking country The quantitative method was employed in this study, basing on 46 items in the questionnaire which are divided into three aspects, namely the awareness of English with the liability score 0.935, the current English educational policies (0.932), and the purposes for learning English (0.920) The data was collected in four universities in different settings with 305 students answering the Google forms to get the confidential and quick results The findings found that students had very high attitudes towards the awareness of English and purposes, but very low attitudes towards the current English educational policies It is necessary for the policy makers to come up with more renovated and revolutionary policies in learning and teaching English at the tertiary level Keywords: Attitudes; World Englishes; awareness; global English; English acquisition Received: 12/9/2019; Revised: 24/9/2019; Published: 30/9/2019 THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN ĐẠI HỌC ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC HỌC TIẾNG ANH Vũ Văn Tuấn Trường Đại học Luật Hà Nội TĨM TẮT Ngày thuật ngữ “Tiếng Anh tồn cầu” ngày trở nên phổ biến phương tiện công cộng Trên thực tế, thành thục tiếng Anh giúp cho người tham gia vào giới công việc dễ dàng Tuy vậy, phủ Việt Nam đưa nhiều dự án với hi vọng biến tiếng Anh đất nước trở thành quốc gia nói tiếng Anh ngơn ngữ thứ hai Nghiên cứu điều tra thái độ sinh viên đại học việc học tiếng Anh Kết nghiên cứu tảng để nhà quản lý đánh giá lại mục đích tham vọng biến đất nước trở thành quốc gia nói tiếng Anh Phương pháp định lượng sử dụng nghiên cứu dựa 46 câu hỏi vấn phân chia thành khía cạnh điều tra khả nhận thức tiếng Anh, câu hỏi có thang độ tin cậy 0,935, sách giáo dục tiếng Anh tại, thang độ tin cậy 0,932 mục đích học tiếng Anh với thang độ tin cậy 0.920 Dữ liệu thu thập trường đại học nơi khác với 305 sinh viên hợp lệ trả lời biểu mẫu Google nhằm đạt kết nhanh bảo mật Kết cho thấy sinh viên có thái độ cao hiểu biết tiếng Anh, mục đích học tiếng Anh, có thái độ thấp sách giảng dạy tiếng Anh Rất cần thiết cho nhà hoạch định kế hoạch đưa cải tổ có tính chất cách mạng việc dạy học tiếng Anh cấp độ đại học Từ khoá: Thái độ; tiếng Anh giới; nhận thức; tiếng Anh toàn cầu; học tiếng Anh Ngày nhận bài: 12/9/2019; Ngày hoàn thiện: 24/9/2019; Ngày đăng: 30/9/2019 Email: vuvantuanphd@gmail.com DOI: https://doi.org/10.34238/tnu-jst.2020.03.2042 http://jst.tnu.edu.vn; Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 41 Vu Van Tuan TNU Journal of Science and Technology Introduction Industry 4.0 has actively promoted the international integration quickly The tool contributing to this development is used common languages As one of the most influential languages, English has been considered as a worldwide lingual franca through globalization Remarkably, Kachru [1] comes up with the notion about the Concentric Circle Model which differentiates English usage into three circles i.e inner, outer, and expanding circles, which serve as a fundamental framework to discuss the popularity of English coverage After reviewing the historical and global development of English, Crytal [2] confirms in his study that English becomes more influenced by non-native speakers, similar to the finding by Widdowson [3] which asserts English belongs not only to its native speakers but also to non-native speakers, too The widespread use of English has greatly affected language policy-making and practices concerning English education For the past three decades, English in Vietnam has gradually become a dominant foreign language in the curricula of educational policies In fact, many reformed, educational policies have been issued to enhance English competence of Vietnamese users Particularly, the following decisions and circulars have been in effect such as Decision No.1400/QĐTTg on the approval of the project “Teaching and learning English in the National education system from 2008-2020”, Decision No.711/QĐ-TTg on education and training development period 2011-2020; Circular No.01/2014/TT-BGDĐT issued in relation to Vietnamese level foreign language competence framework; Decision No.2080/QĐ-TTg on the approval of revising and supplementing the project on teaching and learning English language in the National education system period 2017-2025 Among these documents, the main objectives concentrate on the foreign language competence of human resources to serve the cause of industrialization and modernization 42 225(03): 41 - 47 Until now, much investment and effort to meet the targets of the National foreign language project have been implemented to turn English into a second language in Vietnam The outcomes, however, have not been persuasive For the past time, many studies have been conducted on the innovation of English language teaching and learning [4] In fact, some studies have been conducted on the attitudes of language learners worldwide (e.g [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]) The overall findings have shown that learners have positive attitudes towards learning English; whereas, they cannot know how to turn their motivation into the effects of learning English This study was done basing on the three factors that might affect Vietnamese college students, namely their awareness of the diversity of English, their assessment of the current education policy, and their purposes of learning English Participants were recruited from students in four universities with both public and private universities in Hanoi and Bac Ninh city, using the quantitative approach to get the quick and correct data The findings of this study would highlight the motivation that students should change to be fluent in learning English Method 2.1 Participants Using Google forms to collect data via mailshot is a convenient and efficient tool in research nowadays Student unions of four universities, namely University of Languages & International Studies (ULIS); Hanoi University of Business & Technology (HUBT); Hanoi Law University (HLU); and University of Kinh Bac (UKB) were selected as respondents for this study After one month requested via social media, the data were collected and the screen process took place 824 participants answered the questionnaire, however, 519 answer sheets were rejected as the participants hadn’t correctly filled them out although the instructions had been clearly explained The final sample consisted of 185 http://jst.tnu.edu.vn; Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn Vu Van Tuan TNU Journal of Science and Technology male and 120 female participants, equivalent to 60.7% and 39.3%, respectively 94 students from ULIS which accounts for 30.8%, 63 from HLU, equivalent 20.7%, 89 or 29.2% from HUBT, and 59 or 19.3% respondents from UKB 121 freshmen (39.7%), 104 sophomores (34.1%), 61 juniors (19.7%), and 20 seniors (6.6%) took part in the survey In terms of number of years they studied English, the respondents spent many years studying English, namely 157 participants (51.5%) who reported that they studied English over 10 years, 85 or 27.9% students for 6-9 years 31 respondents (10.2%) revealed that they learnt English for 3-5 years 32 respondents (10.5%) acquired English for less that years When asked about whether they have learnt with native speakers of English, 248 participants (81.3%) said that they had not learnt with native speakers while 57 participants (18.7%) had a chance to study with native speakers When asking about their parents, 224 or 73.4% of participants’ parents don’t know English, whereas 81 parents (26.6%) can use English For living in English-speaking countries, only students (2.3%) have spent time in an Englishspeaking country, whereas 298 participants (97.7%) haven’t been abroad In general, the respondents have a long time studying English but they have little chance to use English in real lives This might affect negatively their attitudes in learning English, which would be confirmed later in this study 2.2 Measures The survey questionnaire consisted of demographic items in the first part such as sex, school year, the number of years learning English, students’ past teachers, … These items would be the background for the consideration of influencing their attitudes towards learning English The second part survey including 46 items dealt with attitudes towards English acquisition The first category consisted of 18 items relating to the awareness of English The second one, 18 items, concerned about the current English http://jst.tnu.edu.vn; Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 225(03): 41 - 47 education policy The third one, 10 items, dealt with the purposes for learning English In order to know the respondents’ attitudes, limits of description were used to make qualitative judgements as follows; 1.0-1.79 equivalent to “very low”, 1.8-2.59 “low”, 2.63.39 “moderate”, 3.4-4.19 “high”, and 4.2-5.0 “very high” t-test used to determine whether the difference between sex and attitudes 2.3 Procedure The researcher-made survey questionnaire was presented to five experts on educational assessment and accreditation for content validation The questionnaire was then finetuned with a group of 70 students who participated in a pilot study to validate the strengths and weaknesses of the instrument To ensure the liability of the questionnaire items, 46 questions were mixed up and encoded to get the best results After the data mining had been completed, Cronbach Alpha was applied for the second part of the survey to check whether these items were liable for the actual implementation The results showed that the participants’ attitudes toward the awareness of English got 0.935 and no index of Corrected Item-Total Correlation was below 0.3 The same figures were with the current English education policy and the purposes for learning English, namely 0.932 and 0.920, respectively These results proved that these items were very reliable for carrying out the survey Then, the five experts were again consulted for the finalization of the questionnaire before the researcher personally administered it basing on mailshot thanks to the administrative aides in targeted universities All collected data were organized, summarized, analyzed, interpreted, and treated confidentially IBM SPSS software was used for the treatment of the collected data Results and discussion When analyzing the participants’ attitudes toward the awareness of English as presented in the Table below, they all recognized the role of English nowsadays The weighted 43 Vu Van Tuan TNU Journal of Science and Technology mean is 4.38, and the means of 18 items are also above 4, which denotes that the participants show their agreements in this survey Overall, the standard deviation also stands at a very low figure 0.63, which denotes that not much difference is seen among the participants in terms of the awareness of English Interestingly, the participants thought that like “Singaporean English” and “Indian English,” Vietnam should have its own variety of English: “Vietnamese English.” was gained the highest mean, that is 4.55 From this figure, it can be inferred that students want to become global citizens They want to integrate their work with people in different countries using English They, however, wish to have English intervened with Vietnamese circumstances in order to create their own essence – Vietnamese English This tendency takes time to achieve its 225(03): 41 - 47 satisfaction such as the Philippines or India Remarkably, the respondents acknowledged that British English and American English are not the major varieties of English in the world, which earned the lowest mean in this aspect (4.21) We might negate the idea that students don’t recognize the importance of acquiring English because they want to have their own Vietnamese English and they also know that more varieties of English have developed these days This notion can be supported with the phrase “World Englishes” which the participants gave a high score of 4.43 on the list In short, the attitudes towards the awareness of English in the students are well recognized, which does not require much effort of the school administrators in persuading their learners to motivate themselves in learning English [7] Table The attitudes toward the awareness of English Std Deviation 4.33 0.642 4.44 0.583 4.35 0.648 Mean English is an international language English is the language used most widely in the world Knowing English is important in understanding people from other countries Knowing English is important in understanding the cultures of English-speaking countries, like the USA or the UK If I have a chance, I would like to travel to English-speaking countries, like the USA or the UK I prefer learning English to other foreign languages British English and American English are the major varieties of English in the world The English spoken by Indian people is not authentic English Many varieties of English exist in the world The non-native English speakers can also speak Standard English (Here, Standard 10 English refers to English spoken in the English-speaking countries, like the USA or the UK) 11 I want to learn American English rather than Singapore English 12 As long as people understand me, it is not important which variety of English I speak 13 I have heard of the phrase “World Englishes.” 14 I have heard of the phrase “Vietnamese English.” Like “Singaporean English” and “Indian English,” Vietnam should have its own 15 variety of English: “Vietnamese English.” 16 When I speak English, I want to sound like a native speaker 17 When I speak English, I want to be identified clearly as Vietnamese 18 I am not confident in speaking English because of my Vietnamese accent Weighted mean 44 4.31 0.667 4.39 0.551 4.4 4.21 4.35 4.46 0.637 0.681 0.627 0.567 4.39 0.591 4.49 4.37 4.43 4.31 0.551 0.662 0.631 0.769 4.55 0.549 4.33 4.38 4.34 4.38 0.596 0.643 0.694 http://jst.tnu.edu.vn; Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn Vu Van Tuan TNU Journal of Science and Technology When investigating the participants’ attitudes towards the current English education policy shown in the table below, the findings revealed that they felt very low or disappointed with the current policy in learning English, which represents by a very modest figure 1.70 in the weighted mean In recent years many reformed policies have been launched such as the Decision No.1400/QĐ-TTg; Decision No.711/QĐTTg; Cirlular No.01/2014/TT-BGDĐT; or Decision No.2080/QĐ-TTg The core in these decisions or circular focuses on the role of teaching foreign languages, but the interviewees still supposed that they were not satisfied with the English teaching methods in their school This piece of information confirms that it is the teachers who take 225(03): 41 - 47 charge of the success in learning English of the students It’s time for teachers to review and adapt their methods in teaching different levels in one class In fact, the respondents know that it is necessary to use English as one subject in the National Graduation Examination in Vietnam Besides, the respondents also thought that they preferred learning British English to American English Concerning the comparison between language skills and literacy skill in college English education, the respondents didn’t care much about this question This implies that students want to develop four skills – speaking, listening, reading, and writing – simultaneously The finding on the list shows the mean of 1.89 In short, students show no interest in the current English policy Table The attitudes toward the current English education policy Std Deviation 1.50 0.50 Mean I am satisfied with the English teaching methods used in our school English should not be a compulsory subject in the National Graduation Examination in Vietnam American English is the best model for Vietnamese learners of English 1.55 0.50 1.56 0.50 British English is the best model for Vietnamese learners of English Vietnamese college students should use English in either spoken or written communications among each other I would not take English if it were not a compulsory subject in school 1.60 0.52 1.61 0.52 1.65 0.53 English education should start from kindergarten schools in Vietnam 1.66 0.51 College English classes should be conducted in both English and Vietnamese 1.69 0.58 All Vietnamese students should learn English 1.70 0.55 10 I prefer native speakers rather than non-native speakers as my English teachers B1 or C1 (CEFR) should not be a requirement for non-major and major students 11 respectively, obtaining the university degree in Vietnam 12 If English were not taught at school, I would study it on my own 1.72 0.57 1.74 0.58 1.76 0.62 13 I am satisfied with the college English education curriculum in Vietnam Besides English classes, other college classes, such as Math, should be also 14 conducted in English 15 I am satisfied with the English education policy in Vietnam 1.76 0.58 1.81 0.53 1.81 0.49 16 I am satisfied with the English learning textbooks and other materials used in our school 1.81 0.56 17 College English classes should be entirely conducted in English 1.86 Speaking language skills are more important than literacy skills in colle ge 18 1.89 English education Weighted mean 1.70 0.55 http://jst.tnu.edu.vn; Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 0.62 45 Vu Van Tuan TNU Journal of Science and Technology 225(03): 41 - 47 Table Your attitudes toward the purposes for learning English Std Deviation 4.14 0.69 4.22 0.69 4.26 0.63 Mean In Vietnam, knowing English is more useful than knowing any other foreign language An important purpose for my English learning is to get a decent job I learn English in order to obtain better education and job opportunities abroad An important purpose for my English learning is to obtain high scores in English examinations, such as B1, C1 equivalence My parents believe that learning English is important Learning English is important for me, because English is a very useful tool in contemporary society I learn English to catch up with economic and technological developments in the world I learn English so that I can go abroad to experience English-speaking cultures Before entering university, an important purpose for my English learning was to obtain high scores in the National College Entrance Examination 10 An important purpose for my English learning is to obtain a university degree Weighted mean In terms of their attitudes towards the purposes for learning English, they showed very high attitudes with a mean 4.33, which is agreeable with their awareness of English Foremost, the important purpose for their English learning is to obtain a university degree, this statement has the highest place at 4.48 This finding shows that students know clearly what they have to complete in their course whereas they also want to improve their English competency This is also reflected by the current English policy when they want to have better policies for them to learn English at schools In comparison with their purpose for learning English to get a decent job, students who want to obtain high scores in the National College Entrance Examination gave a higher score of 4.44 mean Probably, the majority of the respondents is in the first and second year so this figure might affect the results of the finding On the whole, the participants showed very high attitudes toward the purposes for learning English Using the compare means One way Anova differentiates between male and female in recognizing if they have differences in the attitudes The results reveal that there is no difference between them as the Sig 0.229, 0.634, and 0.679 for the attitudes towards 46 4.3 0.68 4.34 0.72 4.35 0.66 4.36 4.37 0.65 0.67 4.44 0.62 4.48 4.33 0.61 awareness of English, the current English educational policy, and the purposes for learning English, respectively are higher than 0.005 The correlation coefficients between students in different universities with the attitudes towards the awareness of English, the current English education policy, and the purposes for learning English The result shows that the correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, it means the participants in different universities had different attitudes in this study Conclusion This study investigates the attitudes of the students in four different universities in either public or private schools, and also in different cities, too The findings show that although the respondents have very high attitudes towards the awareness of English and purposes for learning English, they have very low attitudes towards the current English educational policy This finding might have a say to the educational policy makers to review and improve the efficiency in launching the state-of-the-art educational policies The result also reveals that both male and female students share similar attitudes in this study However, the different locations have affected the respondents’ attitudes This also results from the students’ access to the http://jst.tnu.edu.vn; Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn Vu Van Tuan TNU Journal of Science and Technology social activities and the different level of cognition In short, the current English educational policy needs to be revolutionized and reform thoroughly to motivate all students to meet the demands of the students REFERENCES [1] B B Kachru, “Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: the English language in the outer circle, In R Quirk and H Widdowson (Eds.)”, English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures, Cambridge University Press, pp 11-30, 1985 [2] D Crystal, English as a Global Language, 2nd Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003 [3] H Widdowson, The Ownership of English, TESOL Quarterly, vol 28, no 2, pp 377-389 [Online] Available: https://doi.org/10.2307/3587438, 1994 [4] V C Le, Teaching English as an international language: A perspective from the expanding circle International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching and Research, vol 1, no 2, pp 189-200, 2012 [5] N G Mehmet, “An evaluation of students’ attitudes toward English language learning in terms of several variables”, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol 9, pp 913-918, http://jst.tnu.edu.vn; Email: jst@tnu.edu.vn 225(03): 41 - 47 2010 [Online] Available: https://doi.org/10.1016 /j.sbspro.2010.12.258 [6] A N Omar, “Attitude towards Learning English: The case of the UAE Technological High School”, Educational Research, vol , no 1, pp 21-30 [Online] Available: http://www interesjournals.org/ER, 2013 [7] A A Amal, “Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions towards Learning English”, Arab World English Journal, vol 4, no 2, pp 106121, 2013 [Online] Available: https://awej.org/ imagesallIssues/Volume4/Volume4Number2Jun e2013/8.pdf [8] A Shameem, “Attitudes towards English Language Learning among EFL Learners at UMSKAL”, Journal of Education and Practice, vol 6, no 18, pp 6-16, 2015 [Online] Available: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079681.pdf [9] S K I Salem, “Attitudes of Public and Private Schools’ Students towards Learning EFL”, International Journal of Education, vol 9, no 2, pp 70-83, 2017 [Online] Available: https://doi.org/10.5296/ije.v9i2.78797 [10] V V Viet, “Undergraduate Students’ Attitude Towards Learning English: A case Study at Nong Lam University”, VNU Journal of Science: Education Research, vol 33, no 4, pp 1-7, 2017 [Online] Available: https://doi.org/10.25073/25881159/vnuer.4119 47 ... model for Vietnamese learners of English 1.55 0.50 1.56 0.50 British English is the best model for Vietnamese learners of English Vietnamese college students should use English in either spoken or... terms of the awareness of English Interestingly, the participants thought that like “Singaporean English and “Indian English, ” Vietnam should have its own variety of English: Vietnamese English. ”... effects of learning English This study was done basing on the three factors that might affect Vietnamese college students, namely their awareness of the diversity of English, their assessment of the