The level of students‟ desire to learn English is measured with question 1 and 2 of part II:
1. If English weren’t a compasory subject taught at MAL, you would …
Do other English courses somewhere
Learn English on your own everyday
Make no
attempt to learn it
64.7% 17.6% 17.7%
2. After the English course at MAL, you will…
Study English in other places and try to use English as much as possible
Continue to improve English at home
No attempt to learn and use English any more
57.2% 17.2% 25.6%
Table 8: Student’s desire to learn English
Desire is one of the elements of motivation indicating the level of one‟s commitment in attaining a goal. The results in the table show that the majority of students have a strong desire to learn English. 82.3% of them want to learn English if it were not taught at the school and 74.4% students want to improve English after the course by doing extra English courses or studying at home. These results also reveal students‟ intention to make effort to obtain the goal.
Question 3 measures students‟ attitude toward English learning.
Chart 4: Students’ attitude toward English learning
According to the chart, a large percentage of students (57.2%) like learning English and surprisingly, only 6.2% of the subjects have no interest in English learning. The rest of 36.6% hold neither positive nor negative attitude toward English learning. It can be inferred that most students at MAL are interested in English and have positive attitude toward English.
57,2 36,6
6,2
Yes, very much Not very much Not at all
When the students were asked that “After the course, you have to achieve B1 level before graduation, do you like learning English?” the result of interview is the same as the result of questionnaire. Some of them shared that:
“I have to spend more time in learning English in order to pass the exam; at first I do not like it, but I find it interesting when I see movie and listen to music in English, and gradually, English attracts me.” (Student 9)
“I liked English when I was small but I did not have time and opportunity to learn it. Now I have the clearer goal, it is a challenge to me, but I enjoy it so much”
(Student 14)
Question 4 measures students‟ attitude toward the need of English learning.
Chart 5: Students’ attitude toward the need of English learning
As we can see on the Chart 4, most of the students participating in the survey agree that learning English is extremely necessary (80.3%) while 17.2% of them do not think it is too essential. In addition to these, only a small number of the students deny the necessity of learning English well.
80,3 17,2
2,5
Yes, very much Not very much Not at all
Someone answered that “If I do not learn English, I cannot pass the final examination to get B1 level. Thus, I cannot graduate in time.” (Student 8) or “I want to study higher, and B1 level is one of the conditions, so I try to learn English well now”. (Student 5)
3.3. Summary of the study
Firstly, the result about learning goals show that most of the second-year students at MAL do not set too high goals for learning each English skill. In general, their goal is to achieve the intermediate level which is required for B1 level of CERF. In particular, the ability to talk about jobs and career plans is the main learning goal of speaking learning (37.2%); writing short messages and notes on familiar topics related to everyday life and writing on a wide variety of familiar topics using connected sentences are two main goals of the second –year students at MAL when they learn writing (with the percentage of 40.9% and 30.5%); more than half of the students (50.3%) set the goal for listening to understand the main idea in messages and presentations on a variety of topics related to everyday life and personal interests and studies; lastly, surprisingly 50.3% of the students have a fairly low goal to reading which is sometimes understanding the main idea of what they have read.
In addition, the result of the study reveals that the second-year students at MAL have a higher degree of extrinsic motivation than intrinsic motivation in learning English. While more than 30% of students appeared to have intrinsic motivation in learning English, about 70% seem to be extrinsically motivated. Those statistics also show that a significant number of students possess a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in learning. The student‟s major reason for
learning English is for the compulsory subject at school (89.1%), looking the future job (89.2%), followed by the necessary of English in Vietnam‟s society (82.5%) and communicating with foreigners (61.7%). In contrast, 40.3% of students learn English because they think English is very interesting
In short, it can be seen that goal setting really motivates the second-year students at MAL. With goal orientation, they like to learn English more and more, furthermore, most of them can realize learning English is extremely necessary (80.3%).
PART C: CONCLUSION 1. Summary of the study
In conclusion, learning English has been a demand in Vietnamese students in general and students at MAL in particular nowadays. Improving the quality of English teaching and learning depends on a number of factors in which providing students a motivational learning environment is very important. Therefore, an investigating student‟s learning goals and motivation to learn the target language (English) is necessary to have suitable strategies for improvement.
Firstly, the study has reviewed basic theories of learning goals including the definition,
After that, an investigation with questionnaires for students and teachers is carried out to have a deeper understanding about non-majored students‟ learning goals and motivation to learn English at MAL. The questionnaire for students is aimed at finding out students‟ learning goals and motivation to learn English and discovering the relationship between them. The interview was also carried out to find out deeper understandings at MAL.
Data then were collected and analyzed both statistically and interpretively.
The result about learning goals show that most of the second-year students at MAL do not set too high goals for learning each English skill. Generally speaking, their goal is to achieve the intermediate level which is required for B1 level of CERF.
More detailed, they regard talking about jobs and career plans as the main learning goal of speaking learning; writing short messages and notes on familiar topics related to everyday life and writing on a wide variety of familiar topics using connected sentences are two main goals of the second –year students at MAL when
they learn writing; they also set the goal for listening is to understand the main idea in messages and presentations on a variety of topics related to everyday life and personal interests and studies; half of the students only hope to be able to sometimes understand the main idea of what they have read.
The second-year students in MAL were more extrinsically motivated than intrinsically motivated to learn English. Therefore, the major reason why most of these students learned English was to get a good job in the future. A necessity for communicating with foreigners together with the awareness of the role of English in Vietnam‟s society and the compulsory nature of English subject at university were also main motives urging the students to learn. On the other hand, a necessity for achievement in examinations was not claimed as a major reason. Nor did the interesting learning activities or the challenging nature of English. The findings of this study also showed that although those students possessed extrinsic motivation, they still wanted to study English even when it was not required, and they usually wanted to study English more.
Lastly, it can be seen that goal setting really motivates the second-year students at MAL. With goal orientation, they like to learn English more and more, furthermore, most of them can realize learning English is extremely necessary.
2. Limitations
Generally speaking, this study succeeded in what it set out to do, or at least, reasonably well in setting ground for subsequent studies, considering that relationship between learning goals and motivation is a rather new area of research in Vietnam. Perhaps, the most valuable contribution of this study for the research on EFL motivation and learning goals was the extensive amount of information gained
on motivation types, the students‟ learning goals and the relationship between them.
The choice of subjects of this study was also successful because, as expected, the second-year students were well aware of the reasons why they learned English and how the learning goals motivate them that them. Moreover, the mixed method design combining both qualitative and quantitative research turned out to be a productive way to explore the types of motivation and the learning goal and the relationship between two aspects
However, despite the utmost effort of the researcher, still presents some limitations. Since this study focused on motivation and learning goals which are complex phenomenon and it is difficult to classify motivation into different types.
That is why the classification of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in this study may be not as clear as expected. So are the relationship between learning goals and motivation. In addition, due to the researcher‟s limited knowledge and skills of Information Technology, it wasted much time to collect and analyze such a large amount of data. Therefore, it would be better and less time-consuming if the researcher used online survey questionnaire software. Due to these limitations, shortcomings are inevitable in this paper; thus, to make this study better, all comments are welcome and appreciated.
4. Future Direction
The following directions should be taken into consideration in the future research:
(1) The MAL students‟ motivation in learning English and factors affecting their motivation should be investigated.
(2) The relationship between level of motivation and achievement may also be a topic for further research.
(3) The study does not find out the factors that de-motivated students to learn English with revealing the solutions to this problem. Thus, this can also be a topic of investigation in the future.
REFERENCES
1. Brown H. D. (2000), Principles of language learning and teaching. (4th ed.), New York: Addison Wesley Longman, p106-166.
2. Canh, L. V (2004). Curricular innovation behind closed classroom doors: A Vietnamese case study. Prospect, 24(2), 20-33.
3. Crookes, G., and Schmidt, R. (1991). Motivation: Reopening the research agenda. Language Learning, 41(4), 469 - 512.
4. Deci, L. and Ryan, M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and Self – determinantion in human behavior. New York: Plenum.
5. Dửrnyei Z. (2005), Motivation in second language learning. Language teaching/ volume 55/issue 04/ December 2005, 613-659.
6. Dửrnyei, Z. (1994). Motivation and motivating in the foreign language classroom.
7. Dornyei, Z. (2001), Motivational strategies in the language classroom, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England .
8. Dweck, C. S. & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A Social-Cognitive Approach to Motivation and Personality. Psychological Review/volume 95/ No. 2/October 1988, 256-273.
9. Dweck, C. S. (1986). Goals and inference rules: Sources of causal judgments. Manuscript submitted for publication.
10. Dweck, C. S. (1989). Motivation in A. Lesgold and R. Glaser (Ed.), Foundations for a Psychology of Education (pp. 87-136). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum..
11. Dworkin, J., Abkarian, G. G., & Johns, D. F. (1988). Apraxia of speech: The
effectiveness of a treatment regimen. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 53, 280-294.
12. Eccles, J. & Wigfield, M. A (2002). Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors. In Achievement and Achievement Motivation, ed. JT Spence, pp.
75–146. San Francisco: Freeman
13. Eccles, J. S., Barber, B. L., Stone, M., & Hunt, J. (2003). Extracurricular activities and adolescent development. Journal of Social Issues, 59, 865– 889.
14. Eccles, J., Adler, T. F., Futterman, R., Goff, S. B., Kaczala, C. M., Meece, J., and Midgley, C. (1983). Expectancies, values and academic behaviors. In Spence, J. T. (ed.), Achievement and Achievement Motives, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.
15. Elliott, E. S., & Dweck, C. S. (1988). Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 5–12.
16. Farr, R. H., & Patterson, C. J. (1993). Transracial adoption among lesbian, gay, and heterosexual couples: Who completes transracial adoptions and with what results? Adoption Quarterly, 12, 187–204
17. Ford, D. (1992), Research Methods in Language Learning, Cambridge: CUP#
18. Gardner, R. C. (1985). Social psychology and second language learning: The role of attitudes and motivation. London: Edward Arnold.
19. Harmer J. (1991), The practice of English language teaching, Longman handbook for language teachers, Longmaninc., New York
20. Kaplan, A., & Maehr, M. L. (2007). The contributions and prospects of goal orientation theory. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 141-184.
21. Lightbown, P. M. and Spada, N. (1999). How languages are learned. Oxford:
OUP
22. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705-717.
23. Malone, T. W. (1981). Toward a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction. Cognitive Science, 5(4), 333-369.
Modern Language Journal, p78, 273-284 (http://www.zoltandornyei.co.uk/) 24. Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1996). Measurement error in psychological
research: Lessons from 26 research scenarios. Psychological Methods, 1, 199- 223.
25. Standage, M., & Ryan, R. M. (2012). Self-determination theory and exercise motivation: Facilitating self-regulatory processes to support and maintain health and well-being. In G. C. Roberts & D. C. Treasure (Eds.), Advances in motivation in sport and exercise (pp. 233-270). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
This survey is supported for the research“A study on the learning goals and motivation of the second-year students in learning English at Military Academy of Logistics”. Your answers for following questions would be very valuable and useful for this paper, so we would be very grategul if you could comptete this survey questionairs. All the informationn provided is for the purpose of the study only.
Thank you very much for your help!
PART I: LEARNING GOALS AND MOTIVATION IN LEARNING ENGLISH 1. Learning goals
Choose the best answer:
1.1. What is the mark you got at the examination at the beginning of the course?
(Total mark: 100)
A. 0 – 44 B. 45 – 69 C. >70
1.2. What are your goals toward learning Speaking skill after completing the course?
a. I can introduce myself to someone.
b. I can ask and talk about friends, classmates, and teachers.
c. I can talk about my favorite music, movies, and sports.
d. I can talk about jobs and career plans.
e. Others.
1.3. What are your goals toward learning Writing skill after completing the course?
a. I can write lists and memorized phrases on familiar topics.
b. I can write short messages and notes on familiar topics related to everyday life.
c. I can write on a wide variety of familiar topics using connected sentences.
d. I can write on topics related to school, work, and community in a generally organized way.
e. Others
1.4. What are your goals toward learning Listening skill after completing the course?
a. I can recognize some familiar words and phrases when I hear them spoken.
b. I can often understand words, phrases, and simple sentences related to everyday life.
c. I can understand the main idea in messages and presentations on a variety of topics related to everyday life and personal interests and studies.
d. I can usually understand a few details of what I overhear in conversations.
e. Others
1.5. What are your goals toward learning Reading skill after completing the course?
a. I can understand some learned or memorized words and phrases when I read b. I can sometimes understand the main idea of what I have read.
c. I can understand the main idea of texts related to everyday life and personal interests or studies
d. I can easily understand the main idea in messages and presentations on a variety of topics related to everyday life.
e. Others 2. Motivation
In the following sections, you will find statements about your motivation in learning English. Please read the statements and answer in term of how well the statement describes you by circling the number 1,2,3,4, or 5
No Statements Strongly disagree
(1)
Disagree (2)
Undecided (3)
Agree (4)
Strongly agree
(5)
1. I learn English because it is a
compulsory subject at MAL.
1 2 3 4 5
2. I really like learning English. English lessons are very interesting.
1 2 3 4 5
3. I learn English in order to get a better job in the future.
1 2 3 4 5
4. When class ends, I usually wish we could continue.
1 2 3 4 5
5. I need to learn English only to pass the exams at MAL.
1 2 3 4 5
6. My English class is a challenge that I enjoy.
1 2 3 4 5
7. I learn English to communicate with foreigners.
1 2 3 4 5
8. I enjoy using English outside class
whenever I have chances.
1 2 3 4 5
9. I think everybody in Vietnam should be able to speak English.
1 2 3 4 5
10. I would take English class even if it were not required by MAL.
1 2 3 4 5
PART II: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEARNING GOALS AND MOTIVATION.
1. If English weren’t a compulsory subject taught at MAL, you would…
a. Do other English courses somewhere b. Learn English on your own everyday c. Make no attempt to learn it
2. After the English course at PDU, you will…
a. Study English in other places and try to use English as much as possible.
b. Continue to improve English at home.
c. No attempt to learn and use English any more.
3. With the goal to get CEFR at level B1 after completing the course, do you like English?
a. Yes, very much b. Not very much c. Not at all
4. With the above goal, do you think it is necessary for us to learn English better?
d. Yes, very much e. Not very much f. Not at all
PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA NGHIÊN CỨU
Đây là phiếu điều tra nhằm phục vụ cho đề tài nghiên cứu “Nghiên cứu về mục đích và động lực học Tiếng Anh của học viên năm hai trường Học viện Hậu cần.”.
Những câu trả lời mà các em cung cấp rất quan trọng đối với đề tài này. Dữ liệu điều tra này sẽ chỉ phục vụ cho mục đích nghiên cứu. Vì vậy, mong các em trả lời theo đúng suy nghĩ của mình.
Cảm ơn sự hợp tác của các em.
PHẦN I: MỤC TIÊU VÀ ĐỘNG LỰC HỌC TIẾNG ANH 1. Mục tiêu học Tiếng Anh
1.1. Điểm thi khảo sát chất lượng đầu năm Hai của bạn là bao nhiêu? (Tổng điểm: 100)
A. 0 – 44 B. 45 – 69 C. >70
1.2. Mục tiêu của em về kỹ năng nói sau khi hoàn thành việc học Tiếng Anh là gì?
A. Tôi có thể giới thiệu về bản thân với người khác.
B. Tôi có thể hỏi và nói về bạn bè, bạn cùng lớp hay giáo viên của tôi.
C. Tôi có thể nói về âm nhạc, thể thao, phim ảnh
D. Tôi có thể nói về nghề nghiệp hay những dự định trong tương lai E. Khác
1.3. Mục tiêu của em về kỹ năng viết sau khi hoàn thành việc học Tiếng Anh là gì?
A. Tôi có thể viết những cụm từ với những chủ đề quen thuộc
B. Tôi có thể viết một đoạn văn ngắn về cuộc sống hang ngày của mình C. Tôi có thể viết đoạn văn những chủ đề rộng hơn có sự kết nối hơn
D. Tôi có thể viết những bài văn với chủ đề trường học, công việc hay cộng đồng.
E. Khác
1.4. Mục tiêu của em về kỹ năng Nghe sau khi hoàn thành việc học Tiếng Anh là gì?
A. Tôi có thể nhận ra những từ , cụm từ đơn giản khi người khác nói
B. Tôi có thể thường hiểu được những từ, cụm từ hay cau đơn giản lien quan đến cuộc sống hang ngày của tôi
C. Tôi có thể hiểu ý chính/ thông điệp của một bài thuyết trình/ bài nói D.Tôi có thể nghe chi tiết những điều người khác nói trong hội thoại E. Khác
1.5. Mục tiêu của em về kỹ năng Đọc sau khi hoàn thành việc học Tiếng Anh là gì?
A. Tôi có thể hiểu được một vài từ đơn giản khi khi tôi đọc B. Tôi có thể đôi khi hiểu ý chính khi tôi đọc những bài đơn giản
C. Tôi có thể hiểu ý chính của những bài đọc có chủ đề liên qua đến cuộc sống hang ngày, nghiên cứu, hay sở thích.
D.Tôi có thể dễ dàng hiểu nội dung chính của bất kỳ bài đọc nào.
E. Khác.
2. Đ ng l c học Tiếng Anh
. Dưới đây là một số câu nhận định về động lực học Tiếng Anh. Bạn hãy đọc kỹ và khoanh tròn vào lựa chọn 1,2,3,4 hoặc 5 mà bạn thấy phù hợp nhất với mình.