Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the piloted textbook english 10: the case of Nghia Hung upper secondary school, Nam Dinh city

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES HOÀNG THỊ CÚC TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE PILOTED TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 10: THE CASE OF NGHIA HUNG UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL, NAM DINH CITY THÁI ĐỘ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 10 THÍ ĐIỂM: NGHIÊN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG NGHĨA HƯNG A TỈNH NAM ĐỊNH M.A Minor Programme Thesis FIELD: Theory and Methodology of Teaching English CODE: 60140111 HÀ NỘI - 2017 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES HOÀNG THỊ CÚC TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE PILOTED TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 10: THE CASE OF NGHIA HUNG UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL, NAM DINH CITY THÁI ĐỘ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH ĐỐI VỚI SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 10 THÍ ĐIỂM: NGHIÊN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG NGHĨA HƯNG A TỈNH NAM ĐỊNH M.A Minor Programme Thesis FIELD: Theory and Methodology of Teaching English CODE: 60140111 SUPERVIOR: Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, PhD HÀ NỘI - 2017 i CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I certify that the minor thesis entitled: “Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the piloted textbook English 10: The case of Nghia Hung Upper Secondary School, Nam Dinh City.” is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts is the result of my own work, except where otherwise acknowledge and that this minor thesis or any part of the same had not been submitted for a higher degree to any other universities or institutions Date:…….…………………………… Signature: …………………………… ii ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS During the process of writing this thesis, I have been fortunate to receive supports and assistance from a variety of people First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, who allows me to draw fully on her wisdom and experience in implementing this study Her guidance, encouragement and invaluable detailed critical feedback have been most generous I would like to convey my thanks to all my teachers of the Post graduate course 22 whose fundamental knowledge about language teaching and learning is of great importance to the achievement of my academic study My heartfelt gratitude is also to the English teachers and students of Nghia Hung Upper Secondary School for their tremendous supports in the collections of data and information for my study Finally, I wish to express my acknowledgments to other individuals who have indirectly contributed to the completion of this thesis To all these people I only hope that the achievement of my thesis will be favorable enough to satisfy their expectation iii ABSTRACT The textbook is an useful tool for teaching and learning second language and one of the most important components of any educational environment that lead to success or failure of the teaching and learning language This is especially true a Nghia Hung A Upper Secondary School where English teachers and students use the piloted textbook English 10 in the course Also, the role of the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes affects teaching and learning second language According to Karahan (2007), “positive language attitudes let learner has positive orientation towards learning English” (p.84) Gardner, Masgoret, Tennant & Mihic (2004) claim that attitudes influence language learning As such, attitudes play a crucial role in language learning because they would influence students‟ and teachers‟ failure or success in their teaching and learning Gardner and Lambert (1972) in their studies give evidence that positive attitudes toward language enhance proficiency It is also believed that positive attitudes alleviate language learning whereas negative attitudes act as s psychological barrier against it This study is therefore conducted with the hope to investigate the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards the piloted textbook English 10 The study was conducted with teachers and 80 students at 10T1 and 10T2-Nghia Hung A Upper Secondary School The data was collected through interviews, observations and questionnaires to find out the attitudes of teachers and students towards the piloted textbook The findings reveal that most of teachers and students have positive attitudes towards the topic and contents, the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, the physical appearance and the social cultural contexts of the piloted textbook, they have however negative attitudes towards the language contents The findings also show that the teachers‟ and students‟ positive attitudes, knowledge and background are necessary components affecting to the teaching and learning the piloted textbook English 10 iv LIST OF ABREVIATIONS MOET: Ministry of Education Training L2: Second Language EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language v LIST OF TABLES Tables: Table 1: The attitudes of students towards the topic and the content of the piloted textbook English 10 25 Table 2: The attitudes of students towards the vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation of the textbook 26 Table 3: The attitudes of students toward language contents of the textbook 27 Table 4: The attitudes of students towards the physical appearance 28 of the textbook 28 Table 5: The attitudes of students towards social and cultural contexts of the textbook 29 Table 6: The attitudes of students’ towards teaching methods 29 Charts: Chart 1: The students’ preferences toward the piloted textbook English 10 30 Chart 2: The beliefs of the students about the students’ proficiency toward the textbook 30 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the study Methodology 6.1 Data collection 6.2 Data analysis Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW Attitudes in teaching and learning foreign language 1.1 Definition of attitude 1.2 Components of attitude 1.2.1 Behavioral Aspect of Attitude 10 1.2.2 Cognitive Aspect of Attitude 10 1.2.3 Emotional Aspect of Attitude 11 1.3 The roles of attitudes in language learning 11 The textbook in teaching and learning language 12 2.1 Definition of the textbook 12 2.2 The roles of a textbook 13 2.3 The roles of a textbook in language learning 14 vii Related Studies 15 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18 Practical situation of teaching and learning the piloted English 10 in Nghia Hung Upper Secondary School 18 1.1 Description of the English course and its objectives at Nghia Hung Upper Secondary School 18 1.2 Description of the students at Upper Secondary School 19 1.3 Description of the teachers at Nghia Hung Upper Secondary School 20 Overview of the textbooks 20 The Study 21 3.1 Participants 21 3.2 The Data Collection Methods 21 3.2.1 The questionnaire 21 3.2.2 The interview 22 3.2.3 The observation 22 3.3 Data collection and data analysis procedures 23 3.3.1 Data collection procedures 23 3.3.2 Data analysis procedures 24 Conclusion 24 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS 25 Data analysis 25 1.1 Data analysis of questionnaire 25 1.2 Data analysis of the interview 31 1.2.1 Teachers’ response 31 1.2.2 Students’ response 34 1.3 Data analysis of classroom observation 35 Findings 37 Discussion 41 PART III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 43 Implications 43 Limitations of the study 43 viii Suggestions for further researches 44 Conclusion 44 REFERENCES 45 APPENDICES I APPENDIX I APPREDIX V APPREDIX V 38 positive attitudes towards the piloted textbook English 10 In terms of the topic and content, teachers felt satisfied with the topic and contents of the textbook, which motivated the teachers to exploit the lesson easily In relation to the language contents (reading, speaking, writing and listening), the teacher has difficulty in designing and adapting the lesson simply and clearly for students Especially, with speaking and listening skills, there was lack of time for the students to practice as well as overload of the knowledge in each lesson; meanwhile, there is lack of supplemental materials Of all the rest categories, teachers also proved that they have positive attitudes towards the physical appearance, social and cultural contexts Also, they thought that with the challenging lesson, they should adapt how to be simple, clear and interesting for students as well as they may change the teaching methodology suitably and effectively In summary, the attitudes of the teachers toward the piloted textbook were shown by three factors: the feelings, the beliefs and the behaviors In this study, the teacher proved that they preferred the piloted textbook as well as considered it as a valuable source for teaching language In fact, in the class, they tended to use the piloted textbook only for the students From the questionnaire of eight teachers, it is revealed that the teachers have the same perspective towards the roles of textbooks in teaching as proposed by Cunningsworth (1995) and Tomlinson (1998) Most of the teachers agree that textbook provides a variety of learning resources both for written and spoken material, provides activities for learners to practice the language, provides the source for learners in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and provides idea in arranging the lesson plan, provides guidance in giving homework to their students and helps them to standardize the instruction From the observation and the interview, it is revealed that both of the teachers use more than one textbook as their reference in presenting the materials to the students The consideration of choosing the textbooks and other additional materials is the availability of the sources for learners in learning grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc In this case, it is coherent to Richard‟s statement 39 (2001) saying that textbooks can provide support for teachers whose first language is not English and who may not be able to generate accurate language input on their own The findings of the research show that the two teacher in this study performed different types of adaptation and modification in using the textbook Based on the observation, it is revealed that teacher A was more reliance in using the textbook than teacher B She rarely skipped the materials in the textbooks and tended to move from one section to another orderly and asked the students to answer questions in the book in turn On the other side, teacher B used the textbooks to give her idea in developing the learning sequence for the students and to give her overview about the materials that will be covered in a whole program However, in the interview, teacher B admitted that she still needs to some adaptation by re- ordering the materials for the students According to Kitao (1997), he states that the more experienced the teachers, the less they bounded to the use of the textbooks On the contrary, the findings of research show that the lack and length of experiences not always define the teacher‟s reliance on the textbooks From the fact, it can be concluded that the adaptation of how to use the textbook by the teacher is not only determined by the teacher‟s experience, but also by their background and knowledge ii) What are the attitudes of the students toward the learning of the piloted English 10? Based on the results of data collection and analysis in the previous section, most of the students‟ attitudes towards the piloted textbook were positive In terms of the evaluation toward the textbook, the results indicated that the majority of the students was positive attitudes, which stimulated the students‟ amenity toward the textbook Regarding to the response about the section of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, many students showed the positive attitudes with the item There are the high agreement of the physical appearance of the textbook and the social and 40 cultural contexts, which indicated the students‟ attitudes towards the textbook However, in terms of the integrated skills, about half of students have negative attitudes, especially in speaking, listening and writing skill In general, based on the results of the research, the findings of the attitude questionnaire, significant difference was found in terms of the general perceptions of the textbook The negative attitudes of students were found out in the communicative skills, in other words, students did not satisfy with the speaking, listening and writing section In summary, the attitudes of the students toward the piloted textbook were indicated by the feelings, beliefs and behaviors In terms of the feelings, most of the students felt satisfied with the piloted textbook English including the topic and contents and the physical appearance as well as they believed that the textbook is a valuable source for them to learn Regarding the beliefs, the students think that the piloted textbook was logical, systematic and integrated, suitable for the students‟ abilities Moreover, they also believed that this textbook helps them make progress in learning language In short, the results from the study led to the following conclusions: i) The teachers have a positive attitude toward the piloted textbook English 10 ii) The findings revealed that learners have a positive attitude towards the piloted textbook English 10 From the questionnaire, the students have the same attitudes towards the roles of the textbook in learning language Most of the students agree that the textbook provides the framework of learning, provides a various resource for learning, provides the learners with a reference source on grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation From the interview and observation, the results indicate that the students had a reliance towards the piloted textbook English The findings in the study show that the students‟ capacity of language, backgrounds and knowledge are vital components for the learners to achieve the success in learning language 41 Discussion Due to the limited population of the piloted textbook, the researcher only investigated two classes with two teachers, the results gained from the instruments: observation, interview and questionnaire cannot generalize to the whole students at school During the classroom observation, the researcher recognized that the students have difficulty in using English and they not understand the lesson when the teacher speaks English more At the time, they use Vietnamese instead Also, the teachers sometimes have difficulty in using English at all the periods, when they present the meaning of the words, most of them explain the meaning of the words in Vietnamese, which prevented the students from developing the language With the speaking skill, the students have lack of communicative practical environment; therefore, they have difficulty in communicating second language Besides, the students found listening skill difficult to follow, they did not have a lot of documents for listening and did not have enough time to practicing this skill The obvious reason through interviewing the teachers and students, their objectives are focusing on the vocabulary and grammar more than practicing the communicative language Almost students were able to get good marks on the grammar, structures, vocabulary and reading skill but they neglected the speaking, listening and writing To exploit the piloted textbook effectively, the teachers and students need to have positive attitude towards using that textbook Apart from the role of a facilitator, teachers should also act as communicator and change the teaching methods which are appropriate for the students‟ abilities Furthermore, for students, as well as studying the integrated skills in the classroom, they should create a chance to communicate with others in English together with practicing the listening skill Summary In summary, this chapter has focused much on the main parts of the study It has concerned about the context of the study that has a great influence on the 42 teaching and learning English Methodology including information about the subject, the instruments, data collection and data analysis has been discussed in particular The chapter also pointed out major findings and discussion 43 PART III CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter will be followed by some implications for the attitudes of teachers and students towards the piloted textbook English 10 The chapter will also discuss limitations of the study and suggestions for further research Implications This section will provide some pedagogical implications from the findings of the study Based on the findings about the positive attitudes of teachers and students towards the piloted textbook English 10, the researcher implies promoting teachers‟ and students‟ positive attitudes in exploiting the new textbook and limiting the drawbacks of the piloted textbook through adapting the lesson simply and clearly which is suitable for the students‟ abilities In addition to using the piloted textbook effectively, the students should be self-studied and should not put into the passive recipient to explore the knowledge Moreover, the teacher should hold many activities after school so that the students have opportunities in communicating in second language Or, teachers should ask students to work in group and practice the integrated skills as much as possible Limitations of the study Although the study is carefully and clearly designed and based on the reliable data, it has the following limitations: First, because of the time limit and that the textbook was being piloted, this research was conducted only on a small size of population who were attending the piloted textbook English 10 Therefore, to generalize the results for larger groups, the study should have involved more participants Second, in terms of methodology, the study is limited to a general reflection of the attitudes of teachers and students towards the piloted textbook English 10 The classroom observation provides empirical information of what attitudes of teachers and students toward teaching and learning the piloted textbook are in the classroom However, the observations were not frequent and the lesson which the 44 researcher observed in the classroom could be different from the lesson which the teacher teaches as a rule Third, the case of the study is a state high school, but the small population used the piloted textbook, therefore it may not representative of the general group Suggestions for further researches On the basis of the findings and limitations of the study, the following suggestions are made for the further researches Firstly, further research should have a deeper insight into the investigation of the implementation of teachers and students towards the piloted textbook English 10 Moreover, studies on teachers‟ and students‟ difficulties in teaching and learning the piloted textbook English 10 would be worth considering Besides, further study could be exploited about the ways the teacher adapt the lesson in the piloted textbook English 10 Conclusion The findings of the study indicate that both of the teachers and most of the students agree that textbook gives many benefits for both the students and teachers However, the respondents not see the textbooks functioned as a syllabus in teaching and learning process The findings of the study also reveal that the two teachers and most of the students feel satisfied with the physical appearance, the topic and content, the social and cultural context and the language contents; however, they not approve the listening and speaking skills in the piloted textbook The findings of the study also show that both of teachers use different approach in doing adaptation to the textbooks It can be determined that their background, knowledge and attitude define the teacher‟s reliance on the textbook The results of the study are expected to give significant contribution in giving useful information especially for the teachers and students to use the piloted textbook English 10 In addition to that, it is hoped that more in depth studies will follow which may contribute to a better understanding of this concept 45 REFERENCES Ajzan, I (1988) Attitudes, personality and behaviour Chicago: Dorsey Press Baker, C (1992) Attitudes and language Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Benson, M J (1991) Attitudes and motivation towards English: a survey of Japanese freshmen RELC Journal, 22(1), 34-48 Brown H Douglas (1994) Principles of language learning and teaching Prentice Hall Inc Englewood Cliffs New Jersey 07632 Brown, H Douglas (2001) Teaching by principles: An interactive approach To language pedagogy Second Edition, San Francisco Public University Calderhead, J (1996) Teachers, beliefs, and knowledge In D C Berliner & R C Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp 709-725) New York: Simon & Schuster Cook, V (1996) Second language and language teaching, London: Edward Arnold Cunningsworth, A (1995) Choosing your Coursebook ( Great Britain: Heinemann) Dodeen, H.A., Ibrahim, A A., Emad, M, (2003) Attitude of pre service teachers towards persons with disability: Prediction for the success of inclusion College Student Journal, Vol 37.,(4), p.515 Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I (1975) Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Gardner, R C (1985) Social psychology and second language learning The role of attitudes and motivation London: Edward Arnold Gardner, R & Lambert, W (1972) Attitudes and motivation in second language learning Rowley, MA: Newbury House Haddad, R.(2002) Teachers' attitudes toward teaching English in the first four grades in Jordan Unpublished Master Thesis, Yarmouk University, Jordan 46 Hoang et al (2014) Tieng Anh10, Teacher’s Book Hanoi: Education Publishing House Hinchman, K A ( 2002) How teachers use the textbook: Lessons from three secondary school classrooms English Language Teaching Journal 48 (2), p 304315 Richards, J C (2001) Curriculum development in language teaching Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge Tomlinson, B (1998) Materials Development in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Tomlinson B.(2001) Materials development In R Carter, & D Nunan (Ed.), The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages I APPENDICES APPENDIX SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS This survey is designed to collect information for the study on “Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the piloted textbook English 10: The case of Nghia Hung Upper Secondary School, Nam Dinh City.” Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated You can be certain that this is for research purpose only and that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Before answering the questions, please fill in some information: * Your gender: Male/ Female Your age: * Do you like learning English? The following questionnaire is intended for a research on students‟ attitudes towards the piloted textbook English 10 Please read the questions carefully and tick the statements that best fit your opinions according to the 4- degree scale MEANING OF LETTERS SA = Strongly agree A = Agree D = Disagree SD = Strongly disagree II CATEGORIES Statements SA A D SD The topic and content of the piloted textbook English 10 are appealing for the students The topic and content allow students to I TOPIC AND CONTENTS think critically The subject matters has logical, organized manner The Topic and content meet the students' needs The vocabulary and structures are understandable and appropriate for students The materials for teaching grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation are graded in an appropriate manner II VOCABULARY, GRAMMAR AND PRONUNCIATION The exercises and activities for practicing the grammatical points are sufficient The vocabulary of the book is applicable for students The book includes adequate materials for pronunciation Language contents are helpful in achieving four skills The texts in reading skill are authentic III LANGUAGE Three stages: pre- reading, while-reading, CONTENTS post- reading are useful to train effective reader Speaking activities are sufficient to practice and encourage students to be III CATEGORIES Statements sufficient communicative and meaningful practice The language functions are presented in meaningful contexts The listening passages help students develop their listening comprehension skills The textbook has appropriate listening tasks with well-defined goals Tasks have achievable goals and takes into consideration learner's capabilities The textbook leads students from single controlled writing activities to guided writing activities 10 Activities encourage the use of a process approach to writing The artwork (pictures, illustrations, graphs, tables etc) in the textbook is helpful to IV PHYSICAL APPEARANCE students to understand the lesson The physical appearance is interesting, informative and attractive The content suits the learners' current knowledge and culture The text offer opportunities for students to V SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS demonstrate understanding of similarities and differences between their own culture and the culture of speakers of their foreign language The students can learn about the inner lives of the characters used in the book SA A D SD IV CATEGORIES Statements SA A D SD The methods used are student- centered The methods used allow students to talk VI TEACHNG more than teachers METHODS The methods in the textbook is helpful for doing group work, pair work and etc and helpful in achieving language competency Part II: Please read the questions carefully and tick the statements that best fit your opinions Do you agree that the textbook is a valuable and reliable source? A agree B Strongly agree C disagree D strongly disagree How you feel with the piloted textbook? A like B like very much C dislike D dislike very much Do you believe that textbook help you develop your ability? A reliable B strongly reliable C unreliable Thank you for your co-operation D strongly unreliable V APPREDIX INTERVIEW FOR TEACHERS How long have you been teaching English? How you feel with teaching the piloted textbook English 10? What you think the topics and contents of the piloted textbook English 10? Do you change the teaching method towards the piloted textbook English 10? What part of each unit in the piloted textbook English 10 you feel satisfy? Do you think that the social and cultural contexts are relevant to the students‟ abilities? Do you think the piloted textbook English 10 is suitable for the students‟ abilities? Do you think the content of the piloted textbook will create the motivation for self-studied students? Are the subject matters of the piloted textbook presented in a logical, organized manner? Is it relevant to students‟ culture, students‟ interests and target culture? Do the integrated skills (reading, speaking, writing and listening) encourage the motivation for students? 10 What you think about the vocabulary and structures included in the piloted textbook? 11 What you think about the exercises and activities include the piloted textbook? Are they relevant to students‟ level? 12 Does the piloted textbook English 10 have supplementary materials to help teachers? 13 What your students have difficulty in using the piloted textbook English 10? Do they encounter problems in English classes? 14 How you feel the physical appearance of the piloted textbook English 10? APPREDIX VI INTERVIEW FOR STUDENTS Do you like the piloted textbook English? How you feel when learning the piloted textbook English 10? What and how you prepare before and after each lesson? What parts of the piloted textbook English 10 you feel satisfied? What you have difficulty in using the piloted textbook English 10? Do you like the structures of the piloted textbook English 10? Are the topics relevant for your ability, your interests? Do you believe this piloted textbook helps you improve this language? What you think about the exercises in the piloted textbook English 10? Can the exercises help you improve the skills? 10 What you when you encounter the problems in learning the piloted textbook English 10? 11 Do you think that the piloted textbook English is a reliable and valuable source for you in learning language?