A mixed method study on students’ speaking anxiety: A survey on 11th students at Thanh Oai A high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGESAND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUTAE STUDIES BÙI THỊ MAI A MIXED METHOD STUDY ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY : A SURVEY ON 11TH FORM STUDENTS AT THANH OAI A HIGH SCHOOL ( NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT VỀ MỨC ĐỘ LO SỢ KHI HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH BẰNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP NGHIÊN CỨU HỖN HỢP TRÊN HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT THANH OAI A) M.A Minor Program Thesis Field Code : Engplish Teaching Methodology : 60140111 Hanoi, 2016 IETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ MAI A MIXED METHOD STUDY ON STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ANXIETY : A SURVEY ON 11TH FORM STUDENTS AT THANH OAI A HIGH SCHOOL ( NGHIÊN CỨU KHẢO SÁT VỀ MỨC ĐỘ LO SỢ KHI HỌC NÓI TIẾNG ANH BẰNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP NGHIÊN CỨU HỖN HỢP TRÊN HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT THANH OAI A) M.A Minor Program Thesis Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60140111 Supervisor : Assoc Prof.Dr Lê Văn Canh Hanoi, 2016 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT I declare that this thesis: “A mixed method study on students’ speaking anxiety: A survey on 11th form students at Thanh Oai A high school ” is my own work and effort and has not been submitted anywhere for any award Moreover, the contributions of my colleagues and students are involved Other sources of information have been used and acknowledged Hanoi, November 2016 Bui Thi Mai i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to show my sincere appreciation to the following people who supported me to complete this study I wish to express my warmest gratitude to my respectful supervisor, Assoc.Pro Dr Lê Văn Canh , who instructed me how to this research and provided me with a lot of professional advice on the thesis writing I am really grateful to his generosity, kindness, and encouragement Without his support, I could have never been able to finish this study I also would like to express my greatfulness to the participants of this studythe 11th form students and the teachers at Thanh Oai A high school for their wholehearted participation I feel a deep gratitude to my family My thankfulness goes to my parents who have patiently supported me to complete the research, and to my husband and my children who have stood by me as a big supporter ii ABSTRACT Many studies in second language acquisition have examined language anxiety, but few have explored its sources, especially in speaking skill Therefore, this study was designed to investigate potential sources of speaking anxiety viewed from and manifested in 11th form students at Thanh Oai A high school Through the use of questionnaire and narrative frames as research instruments and some sources of language anxiety as theoretical guideline for data collection and analysis, major findings were drawn First, the speaking anxiety tendency of the students surveyed was obvious Second, some sources leading to students’ speaking anxiety were found They include these factors as learners’ communication apprehension, test anxiety and fear of negative evaluation Based on the learner’s and teachers’ recommendations in questionnaire and narrative frames, the research proposes some coping strategies to ameliorate negative effects of this kind of anxiety It is hoped that this research will help Vietnamese learners and teachers have a better understanding of the nature of foreign language acquisition anxiety in general and speaking anxiety in particular to improve the teaching and learning of English iii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The results of the questionnaire about anxiety of speaking experienced by the 11th form students in Thanh Oai A high school Table 2: Level of communication anxiety experienced by the 11th form students in Thanh Oai A high school Table 3: Level of fear of negative evaluation experienced by by the 11th form students in Thanh Oai A high school Table 4: Students’ feelings about speaking English in the classroom (N= 36) iv LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: The results of the questionnaire about anxiety of speaking experienced by the 11th form students in Thanh Oai A high school Chart 2: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 3: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 4: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 5: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 6: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 7: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 8: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 9: the results for students’ responses about the item Chart 10: the results for students’ responses about the item v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION……………………………………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….… ii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………… …… iii LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………….…… … iv LIST OF CHARTS…………………………………………………………….……….v PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 2.Aims and objectives of the study Research questions 4.Scope of the study 5.Methods of the study 6.Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Overview of speaking 1.1.1 Definition speaking 1.1.2 The role of speaking in language teaching and learning 1.1.3 Principles of teaching speaking 1.2 Foreign language learning anxiety 1.2.1 Definition of foreign language learning anxiety 1.2.2 Components of foreign language learning anxiety 1.2.2.1 Communication apprehension 1.2.2.2 Test anxiety 1.2.2.3 Fear of negative evaluation 1.3 Speaking anxiety research 10 1.4 Sources of foreign language anxiety and speaking anxiety 12 CHAPTER 2- METHODOLOGY 17 vi 2.1 Overview of current teaching and learning speaking at Thanh Oai A high school 17 2.2The informants 18 2.3 The instruments 18 2.4 Procedures 19 2.5 Techniques of data analysis 19 2.6 Data analysis and findings 20 2.6.1 Level of speaking anxiety experienced by 11th form students at Thanh Oai A high school 20 2.6.1.1 Communication anxiety: 21 2.6.1.2 Fear of negative evaluation: 26 2.6.2 Narrative data 30 CHAPTER 3: SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS 33 3.1 Solutions related to the contents of the lessons 33 3.2 Solutions related to learners’ communication apprehension 33 3.3 Solutions related to learners’ fear of negative feedback 35 PART C: CONCLUSION 37 Concluding remarks 37 Limitations of the study 39 Suggestions for further study 39 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I APPENDIX A I APPENDIX B II vii PART A- INTRODUCTION Rationale: English has become a useful and indispensable means for Vietnam’s integration of our country into the world community Learning English becomes a great necessity for Vietnamese people Especially, learning speaking gains a great stature as the need of communication is paid much more attention But getting students to respond in classes is a problem that most ESL teachers face The problem of that is particularly acute with non major English students, who are generally considered to be more reserved and reticent than the majored ones The nervousness and anxiety frequently seem to become particularly aggravated when students are required to speak in front of their teacher and their classmates MacIntyre and Gardner (1991), for example, assert that "anxiety poses several potential problems for the students of a foreign language because it can interfere with the acquisition, retention, and production of the new language" (p 86) As a teacher of English at Thanh Oai A high school, from my own observation and experience, I myself have noticed that my students often experience foreign language anxiety especially in speaking skill They are afraid of speaking in front of the class, even when the teacher asks them to practice English in pairs or in groups; many of them keep silent or have discussion in Vietnamese While the students are more confident with written tests, they always feel reluctant when being asked to speak English and try to give answers as short as possible Some students even refuse to give any answers when assigned Some of them admit that they cannot find words to say and they always feel nervous and anxious when speaking English with teachers In an attempt to reduce my students’ speaking anxiety so they can feel more comfortable learning to speak English, I decided to conduct a study on the topic: “A mixed method study on students’ speaking anxiety: A survey on 11 th form students at Thanh Oai A high school” Aims and objectives of the study: Chart :the results for students’ responses about the item Have a look at the item number in the table above, the majority of the students (88 out of 120 students accounting for 73.3%) responded that they themselves felt that their ability of speaking English was not better than other classmates And the minority of the students ( out of 120 accounting for 5.9%) reported that they show their agreement of feeling that they could speak English better than their classmates and only 25% out of 120 students responded that they agreed with the statements the students themselves felt that they could speak English better than other classmates Item 8: Whenever I finish teaching English, I hope the mistakes will be corrected by the teacher The eighth questionnaire item was “Whenever I finish teaching English, I hope the mistakes will be corrected by the teacher” 28 Chart 9: the results for students’ responses about the item It can be seen that from the data in item 8, only out of 120 students accounting for 6.7% feel that they didn’t agree for the statement whenever they finish speaking, they hope the teacher will not correct the mistakes for them The majority of the students ( 97 out of 120 accounting for 80.8 %) show the agreement of hoping that mistakes will be corrected by the teachers and only 15 out of 120 students which accounting for 12.5% partly agree that whenever they finish speaking English, they hope the teacher will correct the mistakes for them Item 9: I really feel comfortable every time I express the ideas which are different from those of my classmates in speaking lessons The ninth questionnaire item was “Whenever I finish teaching English, I hope the mistakes will be corrected by the teacher.” 29 Chart 10 :the results for students’ responses about the item Look at the item we can see that 48 out of 120 students accounting for 40% really enjoyed every time they expressed their ideas which are different from those of the classmates in speaking lessons and only 25 out of 120 students accounting for 20.8% felt excited when they gave the different ideas from those of the classmates in the speaking lessons and 47 out of 120 students which accounts 39.2% partly agreed they really felt enjoyable when they expressed different ideas from those of their classmates during the speaking lessons 2.6.2 Narrative data In order to obtain more in-depth data, 36 students, who had responded to the questionnaire, were invited to complete a narrative frame The narrative frame was designed in the form of sentence frame which students were asked to complete It focused on the information about the students’ feelings about speaking English in the classroom, the reasons why they felt that way, the influence of that feeling on their participation in classroom speaking activities The results of the analysis of their responses are shown in Table below Feelings No of mentioned Anxious 19 Stressful 02 Lack of self-confidence 04 Nervous 01 30 Comfortable 04 Mixed feelings 06 Table 4: Students’ feelings about speaking English in the classroom (N= 36) Below are some examples from the students’ narratives In the English-speaking lessons, I feel somehow anxious and nervous I feel anxious because I don’t know whether or not I speak fluently and grammatically I feel anxious of being nominated to speak when I am not well prepared (Linh) I feel confident speaking English in front of my classmates if I am wellprepared and vice versa (Huyen) I have mixed feelings, both interested and anxious in the speaking lessons Sometimes, I feel anxious in the speaking lessons (Lam) For the reasons for their anxiety, the majority of the students told that they were not self-confident enough, and that their grammatical and lexical knowledge were limited They also added that their poor pronunciation made them nervous or anxious in speaking English Particularly one student wrote, I didn’t know how to get the meaning across logically Also, I didn’t know how to put words together to make complete sentences What’s more, I didn’t feel confident enough to speak in front of the class (Hang) Another student wrote, I don’t feel confident for fear of poor pronunciation and boring accent Inability makes myself understood in English and limited vocabulary are two major barriers to me (Giang) Unlike most of other students, Trang wrote that she was excited every time the teacher gave her the chance to speak English 31 I felt quite comfortable when I was given the chance to speak English, to express my personal opinion, my thought to my teacher and my classmates In the speaking lessons, I concentrate hard, listen to ideas expressed by my friends and I voice my own opinion (Trang) In summary, this chapter is essential part dealing with the participants, the data collection instruments, procedures, data analysis and findings The sources of speaking anxiety experienced by students fall into these main categories They are the contents of the lessons, communication apprehension and fear of negative feedback Based on these results, some suggestions of how to reduce speaking anxiety will be recommended in the next chapter 32 CHAPTER 3: SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS The findings of this study raise several possible suggestions and solutions for foreign language teaching and learning in order to reduce the negative effects of anxiety on the students so as to better facilitate students with their English learning Accordingly, below are possible solutions to cope with the above-mentioned causes of speaking anxiety and they are classified into these categories as follows: 3.1 Solutions related to the contents of the lessons The findings indicate that anxiety is detrimental to performance on difficult speaking topics It follows that there is a great need for low-anxiety topics that increase student confidence and prospects for success Great care needs to be taken when designing activities to create more opportunities for students to experience, at least, small success in the target language If the students are attracted by the topics, they will make greater efforts The points should be taken into account regarding the choice of speaking topics (1)Topics should be relevant to the students’ level, as their inability in communicating English which made them nervous stemmed from their lack of vocabulary knowledge Thus, so many unknown words will make students and anxious about speaking Speaking topics of simulated real-life situation are usually of great interest to the students (2) Students need to try to enrich their vocabulary for effective English speaking It is, consequently, essential for teachers to encourage and active their students’ vocabulary acquisition (3) Teachers should be flexible in using the textbook For long speaking lessons, teachers can adapt the topics in the textbook to make them more suitable, interesting and easier for the students Sometimes, it is advisable to let them choose the topics they like to talk about 3.2 Solutions related to learners’ communication apprehension The findings showed that communication apprehension caused anxiety It is important that language instructors not only recognize that anxiety is a major cause 33 of students’ lack of success in foreign language communication but also assist them to overcome their feelings of unease and discomfort Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations can be made: First and foremost, teachers should identify individuals with signs of stress and anxiety and should apply appropriate strategies to help them counteract these feelings Second, teachers should encourage anxious students to share their feelings with others It is helpful because they may know that they are not suffering those feelings alone Even professionals such as artists or experienced speakers may feel some sort of anxiety when they have to speak in public Thus, having a slight feeling of anxiety is normal as it is experienced by many of us Students may bear in their mind that nobody is aware of their fright except if there are outward signs of nervousness However, nervousness can be controlled Students must focus on getting their message across the audience and not be afraid to make mistakes Mistakes are the natural way of learning so that we are less likely to keep making them In order to enhance the students’ speaking, it is important for teachers to help students form a habit of using English Teachers should set good examples for the students, which means they have to use English as much as possible during the lessons but the English used should be easy for them to understand It is also important to encourage the students to use English not only when learning speaking skills but also other skills as well In addition, teachers should let the students have more chance to practice listening to get acquainted to native speakers’ voice Having a habit of speaking English in class, students will practice more often in classroom speaking activities The most important thing is, in order to increase the level of efficiency in the English language we need to practice Practice will make perfect Practice speaking with friends or family members who know English, or even text messaging them in 34 English which will also help to increase the level of proficiency in English thus indirectly, it will reduce the level of second language anxiety For active participants in the classroom discussion, it should be ensured that students are provided friendly, informal and learning –supportive environments This can be done by teachers’ friendly, helpful and co-operative behaviors, making students feel comfortable when speaking in the class In addition, teachers should make the effort to create a sense of cooperation among the students This will help them to speak more confidently and with less anxiety in the class Teachers should show the low proficient students that they always care for them, give them more time for preparation, respect their extra- preparation and practice and accept such a variety of their answers This will encourage them to speak with more confidently Establishing close and good relationship with the learners, especially with the reluctant, is one of the best ways to create low anxiety to encourage them to communicate In stead of standing in front of the learners, waiting for answers, teachers should walk around the classroom and assist the learners when necessary during the lessons In addition, teachers should pay attention to the matter of grouping students for group work and pair work activities so that everyone gets a chance to speak More importantly, the activities should be varied to change the atmosphere of classroom, create authentic situations for students to practice speaking with confidence and to prevent boredom Finally, there should be some specific teacher training courses on language anxiety in order to make teachers aware of this complex issue and, hence, alleviate it 3.3 Solutions related to learners’ fear of negative feedback To encourage students to feel successful in using English, teachers should avoid setting up activities that enhance the chances for them to fail They should also make sure whether the students are ready for the given activity and have sufficient ideas and lexis to complete the task successfully 35 As students appear to be acutely sensitive to fear of making mistakes teachers should encourage students to have the confidence to make mistakes in order to acquire communication skills Teachers should not interrupt students in mid-flow to point out grammar, lexical or pronunciation errors All the errors of the students should be treated tactfully The teacher should correct serious mistakes or just stop if the students’ answers are unclear Another better way to correct students’ errors is to write common errors and correct them at the end of the activities This helps promote safe atmosphere for students and enables them to assist each other in correcting errors Moreover, it is not necessary for teachers to correction all the time Selfcorrection or peer- correction is an effective alternating technique Teachers can help students recognize and correct their own mistakes by giving a regulated signal between teachers and students In other words, the teachers’ selection of error correction techniques should be based upon instructional philosophy and on reducing defensive reactions in students In addition, teachers should give students immediate praise, compliment, encouragement than criticism Teachers themselves should act more like a facilitator helping students to learn, and be less like a controller This can make students more comfortable when speaking in class They should spend more time and effort helping these students minimize their speaking inhibitions, and help establish more confidence For instance, they might talk with students when meeting them outside the classroom This would create a trust between teachers and students which can lead to enhanced rapport and confidence to speak the target language in class If the students are confident in themselves, they will be on their way to speaking successfully, with better fluency and accuracy 36 PART C: CONCLUSION Concerning students’ difficulties, which are viewed as the main causes of speaking anxiety when learning a foreign language, this study was carried out to investigate factors that can make students nervous in speaking classes This part of the thesis starts with the summary of the findings This is followed by some possible solutions to cope with causes of speaking anxiety In the end of the chapter, the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further study will be presented Summary of the findings To reduce speaking anxiety, researchers and educators need to identify and alleviate factors that contribute to language anxiety The first main purpose of the study was to identify the factors that viewed as making the students nervous and anxious in speaking classes A total of 120 EFL learners, who were from the three eleventh form classes at Thanh Oai A high school, Ha Noi took part in the study at the end of the second term in the academic year 2015-2016 The questionnaire about speaking anxiety was administered to the subjects The principal statistical analyses were based on the participants' responses on the questionnaire which mainly aimed at investigating factors or causes that may increase the students’ anxiety The major findings of the current study are summarized and discussed below Firstly, the students’ anxiety in speaking classes is very clear The students are interested in learning speaking skills, and they are also aware of the importance of speaking skills in foreign language acquisition process However, according to an overwhelming number of the students, speaking English in class made them nervous and anxious The results of anxiety among the students may be attributed to several reasons such as the contents of the lessons; communication apprehension; and negative evaluation from their teachers and peers The first category that caused speaking anxiety is associated with the content of the lessons in the textbook The participants reported that their lack of vocabulary 37 related to some long and difficult speaking themes make students nervous and embarrassed while speaking English The second category that caused speaking anxiety is associated with communication apprehension The reasons for their apprehension were as follows: (i) Most of the students used to work hard at written English while neglecting speaking and listening practices at lower secondary school so they were not accustomed to speaking English (ii) That the respondents had too little exposure to the target language outside their classes was another reason made them reluctant to speak English (iii) Learners’ personality had great impact on their participant in speaking classes as well The study revealed that introverted personality (often or always) made them shy and anxious about speaking English (iv) In addition, the students’ low confidence in their ability and lack of English proficiency also impeded the student’s speaking ability Some students had a fear of being less competent They compared themselves to the better students in the class and the comparison led them to feel a greater amount of anxiety (v) It cannot be denied that the way teachers behaved and their teaching techniques also influenced students’ speaking Whether learners are anxious about and reluctant to speaking or not depends partially on teachers’ behaviors in classrooms Thus teachers should find appropriate ways to alleviate students’ communication apprehension The fear of negative evaluation or fear of losing face in front of others is the fourth category causing speaking anxiety that was investigated in the study The students reported that they did not want to be negatively evaluated by their teachers and their classmates They did not want to create a stupid image for themselves Therefore, they remained silent or did not participate in the classroom activities As for them, their teachers’ manner toward the errors they made and their peers’ evaluation on their speaking were sources of speaking anxiety they experienced in speaking classes 38 Based on the findings of the present study, it is safe to conclude that students in the study seem to face great pressure while speaking in the target language The main causes of this highly anxiety among the students may be attributed to several reasons such as the content of the lessons; communication apprehension; and fear of negative evaluation These negative feelings make learners get discouraged, lose faith in their abilities, slow down their normal thinking speed and distract their concentration, escape from participating in classroom activities, and even give up the effort to learn a language well thus resulting in dull atmosphere and poor foreign language performance Limitations of the study The study has some obvious limitations Firstly, the participants were not randomized Instead, they were selected conveniently in the sense that they were studying at the school where the survey was conducted This means that they not represent the whole student population in the school, and therefore, the findings cannot be generalized Secondly, the research is a survey using the questionnaires and the narrative frames While these instruments could help to gain information from a relatively large number of respondents, they failed to provide in-depth information Respondents may not respond as accurately as they thought The lack of observational data fails the study to reflect how students’ participation in the English-speaking lessons was affected by their affective factors In the future, classroom observation is strongly recommended to overcome this limitation Despite of the unavoidable limitations, the researcher believes that this study is beneficial to the teaching of speaking skills to the students at Thanh Oai A high school Suggestions for further study This study has only focused on the learners’ anxiety in speaking English at Thanh Oai A high school; it has no chance to deal with other three skills in language teaching: Listening, Reading and Writing Moreover, the study has only 39 mentioned a very small aspect of the issues related to the teaching and learning speaking skills There are some suggestions for further researches: - A study on learners’ anxiety in Listening/ Reading or Writing lessons at Thanh Oai A high school 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