perception of the biological students about the advantages and disadvantages of studying english with the native and non native english speaking teachers

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY - PHẠM CỬ THIỆN PERCEPTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL STUDENTS ABOUT THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF STUDYING ENGLISH WITH THE NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING TEACHERS MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Ho Chi Minh City, 2019 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I herewith formally declare that I myself have written the submitted Master thesis “Perception of the biological students about the advantages and disadvantages of studying English with the native and non-native English-speaking teachers” I did not use any outside support except for the literature and other sources mentioned at the end of this paper This thesis has not published at any Universities or Institutions Ho Chi Minh City, 2019 ………………………… Phạm Cử Thiện i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am greatly indebted to Dr Huynh Cong Minh Hung, my supervisor, for the overall support to my Master program and thesis writing I would like to express my profound gratitude to all lecturers and staff at Ho Chi Minh City Open University, especially the ones at Graduate Department and Foreign Languages Department for the guiding and assistant to my learning I am so thankful to all teachers and staff at Edith Cowan University, Australia for the courses and teaching model during the study tour in Perth Sincere thanks to Ms Pham Thi Hong Anh, Ms Ho Thi Bao Uyen and Ms Huynh Thi Ngoc Huyen for the support to my study tour and make it more successful I would like to extend my wholehearted thanks to all my friends, especially Mr Cao Ba Hoang, Mr Phan Ngoc Huy and Mr Ly Nhut Thien for the encouragement during my studying period Last but not least, I would like to say thank you very much to all my students in Faculty of Biology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Education for joining the research This thesis is dedicated to my parents, sisters and brother It is also a gift for my wife and my son ii ABSTRACT A study on 126 students from Department of Biology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Education on the advantages and disadvantages of learning English with native and nonnative English-speaking teachers was carried out in January, 2018 Data on their perceptions towards the reasons why they liked studying with native and non-native English-speaking teachers were gained from questionnaires Thirty students in this research were also randomly selected for interview to get their suggestions for the better ways of teaching and learning English The result from questionnaire (N=126) and interview (N=30) showed that biological students preferred learning pronunciation, listening, speaking and reading in General English with native English-speaking teachers However, most of them indicated preference to study grammar, writing in General English and English for Biology with non-native English-speaking teachers The findings will help Deans take into consideration the importance of teachers in teaching English Keywords: student’s perception, biological student, English for Biology, teacher of English iii TABLE OF CONTENT Page Statement of authorship i Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of Contents iv Lists of figures v List of Tables vi Abbreviations vii INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Key terms for the study 1.5 Structure of the English courses 1.6 Organization of the thesis 1.7 Chapter summary LITERATURE 2.1 English for Special Purposes……………………… 2.2 Differences between native and non-native English-speaking teachers 2.3 Previous related studies……………………………… 14 2.4 English language teaching 28 2.5 Research gap 30 2.6 Chapter summary…………………… …………… 31 METHODOLOGY 32 3.1 Research design 32 3.2 Reliability and validity 34 3.3 Definitions of terms 36 3.4 Data analysis 36 3.4 Chapter summary…………………………………… 36 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSSION 37 4.1 Information of participants in the research 37 4.2 Research question 40 4.3 Research question 55 4.4 Research results from the interview 62 4.5 Chapter summary…………………………………… 73 CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION 76 REFERENCES 80 iv LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1 Three concentric circles…………………………… Figure 4.1 Percentage of English skills and aspects that students already practiced with native English speakers ………………………………………………………… 39 Figure 4.2 Percentage of students in each batch already studied English with native English-speaking teachers (%) (N=80)…………………………………………… 40 v LIST OF TABLES Page Table 2.1 Students’ perceptions of native English-speaking teachers and nonnative English-speaking teachers in terms of their strengths………………….20 Table 2.2 Students’ perceptions of native English-speaking teachers and nonnative English-speaking teachers in terms of their weaknesses……………… 21 Table 3.1 Reliability statistics…………………………………………… 35 Table 4.1 Total students in each batch in Faculty of Biology……………… 37 Table 4.2 Percentage of students in participated in the research………… 38 Table 4.3 Percentage of students liked studying General English………… 41 Table 4.4 Biological students’ perception of studying pronunciation……… 42 Table 4.5 Biological students’ perceptions of studying grammar…………… 44 Table 4.6 Biological students’ perception of studying listening…… ……… 45 Table 4.7 Biological students’ perception of studying speaking.…………… 47 Table 4.8 Biological students’ perception of studying reading.…………… 48 Table 4.9 Biological students’ perception of studying writing.……………… 50 Table 4.10 Percentage of students liked learning English for Biology …… 56 Table 4.11 Students’ perceptions of studying English for Biology ……… 58 Table 4.12 Percentage of students liked learning English with English teachers (N=30)……………………………………………………………………… 63 Table 4.13 Students’ perception of studying English with English teachers (N=30)……………………………………………………………………… 64 Table 4.14 Suggestions for better ways of teaching general English……… 66 Table 4.15 Suggestions for better ways of learning general English……… 69 Table 4.16 Suggestions for teaching English for Biology.………………… 70 Table 4.17 Suggestions for learning English for Biology.………………… 72 vi ABBREVIATIONS NET: native English-speaking teacher NNET: non-native English-speaking teacher ESP: English for Special Purposes vii CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study English is an international language and it has been widely used as an important means of communication all over the world (Xue & Zuo, 2013; Tosuncuoglu, 2017) It becomes an important skill that the employers wanted their staff to have at work (Foley, 2011) and the employers requires the competence in English for the employees increasingly (Graddol, 2000) Therefore, learners at different ages all over the world have been studying English for their work, for immigration to an English-speaking country, for travelling purposes or for entertainment (Harmer, 2010) Students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education also have to learn English because of different reasons, but the common one is that it is one of their subjects in the training program Beside the learning program, the syllabus, and all the means for learning English such as books, video clips, figures, photos, etc, teachers play an important role when teaching a foreign language like English When learners study English, they understand that teachers have individual differences and their work is very important (Harmer, 2010) Luk & Lin (2007) says that the term “non-native speaker” is often defined differently to the “native speaker” of a language, but it is not easy to give definition correctly The native English-speaking teachers have made a contribution to English teaching in the world (Albakrawi, 2014), but the quantity of non-native English-speaking teachers has been growing up and there are more non-native English-speaking teachers than native Englishspeaking teachers (Canagarajah, 1999; Ma, 2012; Ur, 2012; Richardson, 2016) Nine out of ten teachers in the world are non-native (Richardson, 2016) English has been taught as a compulsory foreign language subject at all levels of education and mainly conducted by Vietnamese English teachers In some schools and universities, it is taught by native English speakers or foreign English-speaking teachers but with limited hours Different teachers are succeeded in different ways and each group has their own strengths and weaknesses (Medgyes, 1994; Harmer, 2010; Tosuncuoglu, 2017), the things native English-speaking teachers can but non-native English-speaking teachers cannot and vice versus, or some things that both kinds of teacher can or cannot (Matsuda & Matsuda, 2001) The question for the students in Faculty of Biology in Ho Chi Minh City University of Education is that between native and non-native English teachers, which one students prefer learning skills and aspects including listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar and pronunciation with Whom learners like when they want to learn English? No research has been done before to answer these questions Theory problem The research on the opinion about choosing native or non-native English-speaking teachers when learning a foreign language was done by many authors including Medgyes (1994), Árva & Medgyes (2000), Madrid & Canado (2004), Clouet (2006), Luk et al (2007), Ulate (2011), Ma (2012), Thien (2019), and so on The above research was done to examine the teachers’ opinion and experiences, students’ preferences, also school and college administrators’ idea However, there has not been any research on the students majoring in biology Practical problem Faculty of Biology organize English seminar for its students once a year to share experiences and difficulties of learning English The results show that very few of them can use English to present or discuss Many reasons were given but the two main ones were that they did not have the English environment to practice, and there are not any native English- 72 having subtitle in English (26.7%) The other suggestions were listening to English song, study hard and so on with lower percentage (Table 4.17) Table 4.17 Suggestions for good ways of learning English for Biology (N=30) Good ways of learning English for Biology N Percentage (%) Practice more often 25 83.3 Learner autonomy 13 43.3 Practice with foreigners in English 13 43.3 Practice everyday 26.7 Watching film with subtitle in English 26.7 Listening to English song 23.3 Need to study hard 20.0 Join English speaking club 6.7 Reading English book 6.7 Group work 6.7 Biological students considered practice was the most important one when studying English for Biology Out of ten suggestions, three of them were practice They said that students should practice more often (83.3%), practice with foreigners in English (43.3%) and practice every day (26.7%) These agree with what Ur (2012) said that learners should actually practice talking as much time as possible when they study English This speaking practice should be firstly done in the classroom because it is easy to implement as there is a teacher in the class to show students how to do, also 73 this activity provides rehearsal opportunity to practice real-life speaking (Harmer, 2010) and then continued outside the class Watching film with subtitle in English was also advised to by students (26.7%) Desfitranita (2017) stated that some students were good at English thanks to daily practices and watching movies in English was mentioned as the best tool for language input Another suggestion with high percentage by students was learner autonomy (43.3%), it means that learners need to take more responsible for their own learning (Harmer, 2010) and posse both willingness and ability to act independently (William, 1997) to facilitate the learner to become more efficient and effective (Najeeb, 2013) 4.5 Chapter summary All of 126 students (62.1%) who had a chance studying (N=80) and having conversation (N=46) with native English speakers joined the research For general English (N=126), most of biological students preferred studying pronunciation (88.1%), listening (64.2%), speaking (59.5%) and reading (57.9%) with native English-speaking teachers, whereas 63.5% of biological students wanted to study grammar with non-native Englishspeaking teachers Students gave different ideas when learning writing skill, in which 43.7% students liked studying with non-native English-speaking teachers, 34.9% preferred native English-speaking teachers and 21.4% students wanted to learn writing with both kinds of teachers For the calculation of scores, although students gave high points for studying pronunciation with native English-speaking teachers about the accuracy of pronunciation and the easy of practice, there was no significant different between native and non-native English-speaking teachers (P>0.05) In writing, the way of writing accurately was the main reason students liked studying writing with native English-speaking teachers and it was 74 significantly higher than non-native English-speaking teachers (P