A study on contextual influences on students attitudes toward english language learning at viet hung industrial college

Vietnam national university, HaNoi college of foreign languages Department of Postgraduate KHUONG THI THU HAI A study on CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING AT VIET - HUNG Industrial college (Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng hoàn cảnh đến thái độ sinh viên việc học tiếng Anh trường cao đẳng công nghiệp Việt - Hung) MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH METHODOLOGY CODE: 601410 Hanoi,2009 i Table of content Table of content Acknowledgement Abstract List of abbreviations i iii iv v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1.Rationale of the study 1.2 Purpose of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Method of study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Organization of the thesis CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 What is attitude? 2.2 Definition of Motivation 2.3 Distinction between Attitude and Motivation 2.4 Role of Attitudes in Foreign Language Learning 2.5 Role of Motivation in Foreign Language Learning 2.6 Models of motivation CHAPTER III THE STUDY 3.1 The context 3.2 The participants 3.3 Methods of Data Collection 3.4 The Questionnaire 3.5 Presentation of two surveys: 3.6 Finding Analysis 3.6.1 Attitudes toward Learning Situation 3.6.2 Integrativeness CHAPTER IV CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 4.1 Conclusions 4.2 Recommendations 4.3 Limitations of the study REFERENCES 3 3 4 5 10 11 13 18 18 20 21 21 22 25 25 28 32 32 32 33 34 ii APPENDIX APPENDIX APPENDIX v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AMTB Attitude/ Motivation Test Battery EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language ESP English for Special Purposes FLL Foreign Language Learning L2 Second Language 2LL Second Language Learning TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language TL Target Language VIC Viet Hung Industrial College CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Attitudes and motivation are two important learner factors in second or foreign language learning Although English has been taught to vocational students as a compulsory subject, there has yet been a study on the students‟ attitudes to, and motivation for learning English This study is an initial attempt in this regard This chapter presents the rationale, scope, research questions, research methods and design of the study 1.1 Rational Nowadays, English is considered as an international language, which is spoken by millions of people all over the world English has a dominant position in science, technology, medicine, and computers; in research, books, periodicals, and software; in transnational business, trade, shipping, and aviation; in diplomacy and international organizations; in mass media entertainment, news agencies and journalism; in youth culture and sport; in education systems, as the most widely learnt foreign language…It is obvious that mastering English helps the country not only have more contacts with more nations in the world but also enrich its people‟s knowledge Language learning is a complex activity for many reasons Firstly, it is closely related with linguistics Most activities in the realm of language learning concern with the learner receiving linguistic input of some form and use the acquired input for the sake of communication in the form of linguistic output Linguistics provides the answer to the question of what people learn; either it is grammar, vocabulary or the language skills Secondly, language learning is social, as it occurs in a certain social context This context often imposes conditions for both learning behaviors and language use In this way language learning correlates with sociology Finally, language learning is individual Personal characteristics such as experience, gender and age, attitude and aptitude, motivation, belief, self-confidence and anxiety are very influential in language learning Insights in this field of learning are psychology In his socioeducational model, Gardner‟s (1985a,2000), has made a distinction between two classes of attitudes, integrativeness and attitudes toward the learning situation The model proposes that integrativeness and attitudes toward the learning situation are two correlated variables that support the individual‟s motivation to learn a second language, but that motivation is responsible for achievement in the second language learning In other words, integrativeness and attitudes toward the learning situation are related to achievement in the second language learning, but that effect is indirect, acting through motivation There are a variety of factors affecting learner‟s motivation and attitudes Among these factors are their learning purposes, instructional content and teaching methods Good learning environment tends to render in the learner proper motivation so that learning becomes a self-directed process However, many learners come into class without welldefined set of motivation and attitudes They are not clear about how and why languages should be learnt for personal pursuits Moreover, motivation can be treated as a dependant variable in a research Operating on motivation is supposed to improve achievement and chances of success In Vietnam in general and at Viet Hung Industrial College (VIC) in particular, English has an overwhelming position as a foreign language It has been a compulsory subject in curricular In many schools such as VIC , teachers have been facing problems of large size, prescribed textbooks, limited time for formal instruction and low proficiency students Many students learn English just as to pass the exams, and a lot of teachers‟ attempts to try out communicative activities fail at large classes The matter of heterogeneity also considerably limits the chance of success of communicative tasks Therefore, few students can use English to communicate in common real-life situations, and they tend to „forget‟ English upon leaving school Attaining the ability to produce linguistic outcomes and maintaining interest in continuous learning seem to be a difficult task for many students To sum up, there are many factors leading to successful foreign language learning In the extent of this study, the researcher wants to find out “contextual influences on students’ attitudes toward English language learning at Viet Hung Industrial College” The study was conducted with the hope that, the empirical evidence on students‟ preferences towards English language learning will help language teachers find the best possible solution to improve their teaching performance in term of effectiveness 1.2 Purpose of the study With the above-presented rationale, the study aims at: • Investigating students‟ attitudes toward the learning situation at Viet Hung Industrial College (VIC) It includes evaluation of the course and evaluation of the teacher • Investigating integrativeness of the students at VIC It means to find out students‟ attitudes toward the target language group, interest in foreign languages and integrativeness orientation • Proposing some recommendations and suggestions for language teachers to teach English more effectively 1.3 Scope of the study As it has been stated above, the study aims at investigating how contexts influences on students‟ attitudes toward English language learning at VIC in order to come up with some methodological recommendations It is, therefore, explorative by nature Because of time limitation, the study only focuses on group of students of mechanical engineering as the participants 1.4 Research questions: The study was intended to answer the following questions: What are students‟ attitudes towards learning situation at VIC? What are integrative motivation of students at VIC? What are the methodologies of teaching to motivate students to learn English successfully? 1.5 Methods of study The study has been conducted in the form of survey research with its technique of questionnaire with informants of three classes of 176 students third-year non major of English at VIC 1.6 Significance of the study The significance role of context in teaching and learning English can hardly denied The study is designed to find attitudes of students toward learning English beyond context at VIC Some suggestions will be given for language teachers to make teaching procedure more convenient and effective 1.7 Organization of the thesis The thesis is divided into four chapters:  Chapter I: Introduction  Chapter II: Literature review  Chapter III: The study  Chapter IV: Recommendation and conclusion The first chapter provides all information about the rationale, purpose, scope, method and significance of the study The second chapter presents the theoretical background: the theories and concepts related to attitudes and integrativeness in learning English Chapter is devoted to a detail description of data analysis and a discussion on the findings of the study And the last chapter, chapter 4, present summary of the findings and draws out some pedagogical suggestions in relation to the question of how to motivate students to learn English more effectively CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW Motivation and attitudes are the key factors to gain language learning achievement Positive attitudes and motivation are related to succeed in second language learning This chapter will find out the literature of attitudes and motivation as well as their relevance 2.1 What is attitude? The term „attitude‟ is commonly used in everyday conversation – this shows not only that it is, as Baker comments, „part of the terminology system of many individuals‟ (1992: 9), but also shows that attitude plays an important role in various (if not all) aspects of our lives, including our level of success in first and second language learning Attitude can be defined as a set of beliefs developed in a due course of time in a given sociocultural setting Although it necessarily so not determine behaviour but can have some impact on it It is studied that positive attitude facilitates learning If the learner is reluctant to learn or he/she does not have a positive attitude, he/she does not produce any result Language learning is effected by the attitude and motivation Motivated, demotivated and motivated students have different perceptions of their class, teacher and curriculum Their perceptions are responsible to for their attitudes An individual‟s perception of the class, perception of the teacher, peer group, syllabus and his/her awareness for future needs effect hi/her attitude to language learning Learning a language is closely related to the attitudes towards the languages (Starks & Paltridge 1996: 218) In the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1992:199) „language attitudes‟ are defined as follows: The attitude which speakers of different languages or language varieties have towards each others‟ languages or to their own language Expressions of positive or negative feelings towards a language may reflect impressions of linguistic difficulty or simplicity, ease or difficulty of learning, degree of importance, elegance, social status, etc Attitudes towards a language may also show what people feel about the speakers of that language Gardner (1985: 10) sees attitudes as components of motivation in language learning According to him, „motivation refers to the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language‟ He believes the motivation to learn a foreign language is determined by basic predispositions and personality characteristics such as the learner‟s attitudes towards foreign people in general, and the target group and language in particular, motives for learning, and generalized attitudes (Gardner 1985) Wenden (1991) sees attitudes as including three components: First, attitudes tend to have a cognitive component This could involve beliefs or perceptions about the objects or situations related to the attitude Second, attitudes have an evaluative component This means that the objects or situations related to the attitude may generate like or dislike Third, attitudes have a behavioral component, i.e certain attitudes tend to prompt learners to adopt particular learning behaviours Bernat and Gvozdenko (2005) discuss the current issues, pedagogical implications and new directions in beliefs about language learning including social, cultural, contextual, cognitive, affective, and personal factors among which attitudes have an important place Similarly, Csizér and Dörnyei (2005) conclude attitude as an important factor in language learning in their study on the internal structure of language learning motivation and its relationship with language choice and learning effort, which was put forward previously as the Process Model of L2 Motivation (Dörnyei and Ottó 1999) Moreover, Dưrnyei (2000) proposes a process-oriented approach to the understanding of student motivation which broke down the motivational process Social psychologists like Krech, Crutchfield & Ballachey (1962) define attitudes as „enduring systems of positive or negative evaluations, emotional feelings, and pro or action techniques with respect to social objects‟ (p 29) Rokeach (1979) also takes endurance to be characteristic, defining attitude to be „a relatively enduring organization of beliefs around an object or situation predisposing one to respond in some preferential manner‟ (p 105) Ajzen (1988), focusing more on attitudes as explaining human behaviour, holds that „an attitude is a disposition to respond favorably or unfavorably to an object, person, institution, or event‟ (p 4) Likewise, Baker (1992) describes attitude as „a hypothetical construct used to explain the direction and persistence of human behaviour‟ (p.10) 23 learn English 15 methodology is really suitable learning habit 16 encouragement my encourage learn English The with It‟s teacher me 17 teacher understands difficulties learning English 19 course attracts English My It‟s the book me to 24 Table 3: Integrativeness Opinions presented different languages I want to meet and communicate foreigners different countries language important curricula 4.If good, I will have a lot of chances to find jobs is wonderful If English, appreciated society 8.After graduation, I will English because I am not subject I find that people in countries and friendly 10 English countries intelligent hardworking 11 I really want to learn English 13 I believe I can be good at English 18 Learning English is important because I want Learning is pa my Learning I am I w stop interested English are if I 25 English, I can out literature of speaking countries 20 participate English practice culture 3.6 Finding Analysis 3.6.1 Attitudes toward Learning Situation As presented above, Table shows students‟ attitude towards major areas related to their English course namely: the students‟ attitude to the course,book which‟s further analyzed in terms of time allowance and level of difficulty, and students‟ attitude towards their teachers‟ methodology and their teachers‟ personality as well The following numbers are extracted from Table 2, which refer to students‟ attitude to the English course available to them in college 26 Opinions presented I college should have longer program 12 The English lessons difficult 19 It‟s the English course attracts me to learn English think book As can be seen from the table, the general trend shows that the English course is a difficult subject with 68.8% agreement, which need longer class hours (with 77.9% agreement) Nearly half of students asked agree that the course book they are using are attractive to them (52.8% agreement) and the other half either has no opinion or hold the opposite opinion The following numbers are also extracted from Table 2, which show students‟ attitude towards their English teachers‟ methodology and their teachers‟ personality Opinions presented 14 teachers‟ wonderful teaching methods encourages learn English 15 methodology really suitable with my learning habit 16 encouragement from that to learn English It‟s me It‟s my encourage 27 17 My teacher understands difficulties learning English Items number 14,15,16,17 show students‟ attitude towards their English teachers‟ methodologies Item number 15 shows that 1/3 (one third) of students (22.5% +5.7% ) agree that teachers‟ methodology is suitable with their students‟ study, while another 1/3 holds the neutral opinion and the last 1/3 has negative opinions towards teacher‟s teaching methods Item number 15 asks if student are really pleased with their teachers‟ teaching method, nearly 50% of students have no opinions and among the other 50%, about 25% agree and 25% disagree with the statement “It‟s the teachers‟ wonderful teaching methods that encourages me to learn English.” From the above finding presentation and analysis of table 2, several remarks have been withdrawn as follows:  About the English course: The English course‟s a difficult subject for students (68% agreement) and students should have more time to learn English (77.9% agreement) Moreover, the course book attracted only 52.8% students The fact that the other half of students were not attracted to the course book suggests that the course needs to be adjusted both in number of class hours and the content as well  About the English teachers: The comments about the English teachers can be divided into subgroups: about teachers‟ methodology and teachers‟ personality About teachers‟ personalities in item 16, a majority of students appreciated their teachers‟ encouragements (70.3% agreement) while the percentage of student feeling not happy with their teachers encouragement‟s was at 9% only About the teachers‟ teaching methods, many contradicting facts have been shown in items 14,15,17 To answer the question whether teacher always understands students‟ learning difficulties, nearly half of students (43.8%) gave no definite answer Similarly, 28 approximately 50% did not answer the question whether their teachers‟ methodology really encouraged them to learn English or not This suggests that at least 50% students were indifferent to the teachers‟ methodology, and among the second half of students, about 15% to 20% students were really pleased with their teacher‟s methodology, and the last 30%-35% were not happy with their teachers‟ methods The same opinion can be shown with the item 15 With the question whether teachers‟ methods suits students learning habits, about 1/3 had no opinion, less than 1/3 were pleased and more than 1/3 (42.6%) were not happy with teachers‟ methods In conclusion, table shows students‟ attitude towards their course book and their English teachers Most students agreed that the English course book was not really attractive to them Although personally most students respect their teachers‟ personal encouragement in class, their answers suggest that the teachers‟ methods prove to be inappropriate to students‟ learning 3.6.2 Integrativeness Integrative motivation is measured with components of attitude toward the target language group, interest in English and integrative orientation As discussed in the literature review integrative motivation is considered a part of intrinsic motivation Table shows student motivation in learning English, which can be classified into subgroups namely: motivation from the foreign peoples and culture, motivation from the language itself and finally motivation from the better prospect when students‟ level of English has been improved Questionnaire items 2,9,10 were designed to measure the informants‟ Attitudes toward Target Language Group The following numbers are extracted from Table 3, which show the students‟ motivation from the foreign people and foreign countries Opinions presented Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Total 29 I want to meet and communicate foreigners different countries I find that people in countries and friendly 10 English countries intelligent hardworking English are These numbers showed that students have vague image of foreign people and foreign country with majority of learners (76.1% and 84%) holding neutral ideas about foreigners‟ personality However, nearly half of students said that they wanted to meet and communicate with foreigners (44%) The explanation for this can be taken from the fact that most of students (2/3) participating this survey come from rural area, the place where interest and foreign television channels haven‟t been popular during the past ten years Almost they have no chance to meet and contact with foreigners So they have no idea about these opinions Interest in learning English was measured with questions 1, 5, 8,11,13,20 Results are as follow: Opinions presented different languages Learning English is wonderful will English not subject 11 I want stop interested I really 30 learn English 13 I believe I can be good at English 20 I always participate English practice As can be seen from the table, even though all questions are related to the foreign languages in general or English in particular, students responses showed the differences or even contradictions To begin with, item number showed students‟ attitude towards different foreign languages 40.9% students don‟t want to learn different foreign languages and more than one quarter of students held neutral opinion Only 1/3 (29.5%+2.8%=32.4%) showed their interest in different foreign languages However, when the focus‟s on the subject of English only, students‟ answers seemed to change remarkably Nearly two thirds (48.9 + 19.9 = 68.8%) showed their interest in English and only 14.8 (~1/8) say that English is not their favored subject This maybe explained with the fact that students think about the necessity of English in the future but show little interest in foreign languages in general The same number of students showed their interest in English and the belief in their English learning Items 5, 13, 20 show that around 40% students believe English is their favourite subject and these students can be good at English Percentage for positive attitude is from 38.6% (item 5), 40% (item 20), 46.4% (item 13) In general students surveyed don‟t show real interest in their English learning with approximately 40% and about 30% stand in neutral position For Integrative Orientation, students were asked to rate the importance of English in education curricula, jobs, society, gaining knowledge of culture and literature of English speaking countries through the items 3,4,6,18 with the below result 79% students (in which 59.7% strongly agree) agreed that learning foreign language is an important part in curriculum, but only 27.9% said that English is important to learn about the culture and literature of speaking countries while as many as 42.6% of the students in the sample did not think they needed any knowledge about the target-language culture and literature 31 Nevertheless, more than one third of students are pleased that good English would bring them good jobs and appreciation in society And about 20%-35% are neutral This means that purposes of learning English of students are different not only for good jobs (43.8% agreement) and appreciation in society (35.7% agreement) but also may be for another purpose Opinions presented 3.Learning foreign the important part in curricula If my English is good, I will have a lot of find jobs If I am good at English, appreciated society 18 English is important for me because if I know English, I can find out culture and literature of English speaking countries chances I 32 CHAPTER IV CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 4.1 Conclusions The survey has been carried out to show students attitude towards their English learning course available in their college The number of students in this survey is 176 students; all are in Mechanical Engineering Technology department Among these students, 151 are male students which accounts for 86%, 134 are from rural area (which makes up 76.1%) The first conclusion is that students‟ negative attitude to the English course seems to be attributed to the course duration and teachers‟ inadequate understanding of their learning difficulties Approximately 50% participants suggest that a long English course‟s needed and the same number of students believe that the teacher don‟t really understand students‟ difficulties in learning, therefore about 50% student have no opinions about teachers‟ methods However, students really appreciate their teachers‟ personality with the percentage of 70.3% (~2/3) appreciating teachers‟ personal support The second conclusion is about students‟ attitude towards English and other foreign languages In general only 40% are interested in learning English because these students like English language itself or English people, culture Other 30% shows no interest and the rest 30% are strongly dislike the subject 4.2 Recommendations From the above conclusion, several recommendations can be suggested as follows: Firstly, a longer English course can be applied This will help students master better English and can have more time to improve language skills Secondly, more techniques can be applied in language teaching during class hours The strategies which teachers can use for teaching include extrinsically motivating tools such as: rewarding success, holding high but realistic expectations for students, helping students set achievable goals; and intrinsically motivating tools such as: caring to students 33 needs, making students active participants in learning, strengthening self-motivation, responding to their good work It seems that many students not have a clear goal and effort in learning English, and to deal with this issue, teachers should help students to set their own achievable goals and plan to achieve them at the beginning of the term It is important for the teacher to attend to students‟ needs, encouraging them in any achievement they have made, and making them believe they can succeed in learning as long as they try their best Where possible, break class into groups according to students‟ ability level In this way teacher can assign suitable tasks to each group, creating more language opportunities in such group and producing a secure, anxiety-reducing climate for learning Finally but not least important, students should have more chances to contact with foreigners through means of films, novels or Internet to raise their inner interest in English language and English people culture as well 4.3 Limitations of the study There are two major limitations of this study Firstly the study used the questionnaire as the sole instrument of data collection The participants‟ responses to the questionnaire may not reflect truly what they really think Also, although the data obtained from the questionnaire give an account of the students‟ attitudes to and motivation for learning English in the context of a vocational college, they fail to explain the why and the how of the attitudes and motivation Future studies therefore need to collect more qualitative data through in-depth interviews with the students Secondly, the sample size (N=176) is not large enough to represent all the student population of the college, let alone the students from other vocational colleges In addition, the sampling was conveniently decided, rather than being randomised 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Second Language 2LL Second Language Learning TEFL Teaching English as a Foreign Language TL Target Language VIC Viet Hung Industrial College CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Attitudes and motivation are two