VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THỊ HUẾ ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS’ RELUCTANCE TO PARTICIPATE IN SPEAKING ACTIVITIES AT NAMDINH COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (Sự dự tham gia hoạt động học nói sinh viên chuyên Anh trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Nam Định) M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111 HANOI-2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** PHẠM THỊ HUẾ ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS’ RELUCTANCE TO PARTICIPATE IN SPEAKING ACTIVITIES AT NAMDINH COLLEGE OF EDUCATION (Sự dự tham gia hoạt động học nói sinh viên chuyên Anh trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Nam Định) M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111 Supervisor: Nguyễn Đức Hoạt, Ph.D HANOI-2014 DECLARATION I, Pham Thi Hue, hereby certify that my M.A thesis entitled “English Majored Students’ Reluctance to Participate in Speaking Activities at Nam Dinh College of Education” is the result of my own research in the fulfillment of the requirement for Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies – University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi I commit that this thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree Hanoi, 2014 Signature Phạm Thị Huế i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Nguyen Duc Hoat, PhD, for his invaluable inspiration, assistance, guidance and encouragement during the time I have tried to complete this thesis He has been willing to give help and advice whenever I expect I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to all lecturers and the staff of Department of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi for their interesting and helpful lectures and suggestions for the topic of my study I am in debt of many authors’ works and ideas, which enhance me to complete my study with sharp evidences My appreciation and gratitude are also extended for the teachers and students at English Department, Nam Dinh College of Education, who participated in doing the survey and responding to my interviews Last but not least, I wish to express special thanks to my husband and my beloveds for their everlasting, care and encouragement ii ABSTRACT Though importance of speaking in English learning has been acknowledged by researchers all over the world, many students at Nam Dinh College of Education were found to be reluctant to participate in speaking activities This study was carried out to investigate the potential sources leading to this problem and propose some suggestions to encourage students’ participation in speaking lessons The participants involved in this research were 35 second year English majored students at Nam Dinh College of Education and four teachers of English agreed to join the study to support the researcher better her research The instruments, including a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with students and teachers, were employed to achieve the purposes of the study The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively It was induced in the research that most second year English majors were unwilling to participate in speaking activities, which resulted from factors related to learners, teachers, speaking topics and peers Based on the findings, some suggestions were made with the hope that students will be more encouraged to take part in speaking activities iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Students’ perception on the importance of learning speaking skills Figure 3.2: Students’ interest in speaking English in class Figure 3.3: Students’ frequency of speaking English in class Figure 3.4: Students’ frequency of volunteering to speak in class LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Factors associated with learners’ low level of English proficiency Table 3.2: Factors associated with fear of making mistakes and being laughed at Table 3.3: Factors associated with learners’ personality Table 3.4: Factors associated with teachers’ personality Table 3.5: Factors associated with teachers’ teaching methods Table 3.6: Factors associated with speaking topics Table 3.7: Factors associated with peers Table 3.8: Students’ preference of speaking activities Table 3.9: Students’ perception on necessity of the ways to encourage language learners to participate in speaking activities iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the study Research questions Methods of the study Significance of the study Scope of this study Structure of the Thesis PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Speaking skills in second/ foreign language learning 1.1.1 Definition of speaking 1.1.2 Nature of speaking 1.1.3 Factors contributing to a successful speaking activity 1.2 Attitudes in language learning 1.3 The concept of reluctance and students’ reluctance in EFL classrooms 1.4 Reluctance and willingness / unwillingness to communicate 1.5 Factors making learners reluctant to participate in EFL classrooms 1.5.1 Learners’ factors 1.5.2 Teachers’ factors 10 1.5 Factors associated with speaking topics 11 1.5.4 Factors associated with peers 11 1.5.5 Factors associated with culture 11 1.6 Review of previous studies related to learners’ reluctance in EFL classrooms 12 v CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 14 2.1 Research questions 14 2.2 Research Setting 14 2.2.1 Introduction to English Department, Nam Dinh College of Education 14 2.2.2 Syllabus and Materials for Speaking 15 2.3 The participants 15 2.4 Data collection instruments 15 2.4.1 Students survey questionnaire 16 2.4.2 Interviews 17 2.5 Data collection procedures 17 2.6 Techniques of data analysis 18 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 19 3.1 Students’ attitudes towards learning speaking skills 19 3.1.1 Students’ perception on the importance of learning speaking skills 19 3.1.2 Students’ interest in speaking English in class 19 3.1.3 Students’ frequency of speaking English in class 20 3.1.4 Students’ frequency of volunteering to speak in class 21 3.2 Factors making second-year English majored students reluctant to participate in speaking activities 22 3.2.1 Factors associated with learners 22 3.2.2 Factors associated with teachers 26 3.2.3 Factors associated with speaking topics 29 3.2.4 Factors associated with peers 31 3.3 Students’ expectation to encourage learners to participate in speaking lessons 32 3.3.1 Students’ preference of activities in speaking lessons 32 3.3.2 Students’ perception of necessity of the ways to encourage language learners to participate in speaking activities 34 PART C: CONCLUSION 37 Conclusions 37 vi Recommendations for teachers to encourage students to participate in speaking classes 37 2.1 Reduce the level of task difficulty 37 2.2 Build a supportive learning environment 38 2.3 Vary speaking activities 39 2.4 Promote positive attitudes among students 39 Limitations of the study 40 Suggestions for further studies 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS I APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS V APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS VI APPENDIX 4: SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW FOR STUDENTS RESULTS VIII APPENDIX 5: TRANSCRIPTS OF INTERVIEW FOR TEACHERS X vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Student’s participation in classroom activities has been the centre of various TEFL research It is said that participation is essential for language acquisition as the more learners speak out, the better their spoken language is Commenting on the relationship between participation and students’ academic achievement, Liu (2005) finds that students who participate actively are likely to have better achievement than those not Learners’ oral participation can help them fill in the gap between what they want to say and whether they are able to say it However, engaging in English classroom activities is considered to be one of the most problematic areas Many students in Vietnamese colleges or universities are reported to be passive and unwilling to participate in those activities The students of English Department at Nam Dinh College of Education are no exceptions They are found not to respond to teachers’ questions in speaking classes unless they are called on It is very common to see that only a few students are confident to answer questions The attempt to create a student-centered learning atmosphere in English by teachers is usually unsuccessful In fact, the outcome of oral English speaking is not satisfactory Therefore, it is valuable to think about the causes of their reluctance to participate in speaking activities and at the same time the ways to minimize the harmful effects, so that the teaching and learning can be more effective for those reluctant learners This is my motivation in conducting the research on the topic: “English Majored Students’ Reluctance to Participate in Speaking Activities at Nam Dinh College of Education” Aims of the study The main aim of the research is to find out the reasons why the second year English major students at Nam Dinh College of Education are reluctant to participate in speaking activities The second most important aim of this study is to find out what students expect to encourage them to participate actively in speaking lessons 35 Sacasci M (2013) Why are some students reluctant to use L2 in EFL speaking classes? An action research at tertiary level Procedia-Social and Behavioural Sciences, 2682-2686 36 Smith, D G (1977) College classroom interactions and critical thinking Journal of Educational Psychology, 69, 180-190 (ES) 37 Tanveer M (2007) Investigation of the factors that cause language anxiety for ESL/EFL learners in learning speaking skills and the influence it casts on communication in the target language, Unpublished M.Ed thesis University of Glasgow, 10-53 [Online] Available: https://www.academia.edu/4051629/Investigation_of_the_Factors_that_Caus e_Language_Anxiety_for_ESL_EFL_Learners_in_Learning_Speaking_Skill s_OK_FOR_AB_RESEARCH 38 Tarta, S (2005) Why keep silent? The classroom participation experiences of non-native English speaking students Language and Intercultural Communication, 5, 284-293 39 Thoan, Luong Thi (2009) A study on improving English Speaking skills to 10th-form minority students at Gia Phu High School in the New Set of English Textbook, M.A thesis Hanoi Vietnam, Hanoi National University 40 Tsiplakides, I and Keramida, A (2010) Promoting positive attitudes in ESL/EFL classes The Internet TESL Journal, XVI(1) [Online] Available: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Tsiplakides-PositiveAttitudes.html 41 Ur, P (1996) A course in Language Teaching, Practice and Theory CUP 42 Wade, R (1994) Teacher education students’ views on class discussion: Implications for fostering critical reflection Teaching and Teacher Education, 10, 231-243 44 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS Dear all students, This survey questionnaire is designed for my research into “English Major Students’ Reluctance to Participate in Speaking Activities at Nam Dinh College of Education” Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the information provided by you is of great use and solely for the study purpose Thank you very much for your cooperation! Personal information Your name:……………………………………Age:……………… Your years of learning English? Please circle the answer that is the most true to you I Students’ attitudes towards learning speaking skills: How is speaking skill important to you? A very important B quite important C important D little important E not important at all How much you feel interested in speaking English in class? A very interested B quite interested C interested D little interested E not interested at all How often you speak English in class? A very often B often C sometimes D rarely E never How often you volunteer to speak in speaking classes? A very often B often C sometimes D rarely E never II Factors making students reluctant to participate in speaking activities The following is a list of some of the factors commonly thought to make language learners reluctant to participate in oral activities In your experience – as a second language learner, which factors seem to be the most appropriate to your situation? I Please circle the number 1,2,3,4 or Scale division: Never or almost never true to me Seldom true to me Sometimes true to me Often true to me Always or almost true to me I’m unwilling to participate in speaking activities as… My English pronunciation is not good I cannot find ideas to answer my teacher’s 5 I am scared that I would make noticeable errors 10 I am afraid of being seen as foolish if I make 5 13 My introverted personality made me shy and questions I cannot find appropriate words and structures to express my ideas I have no confidence in my spoken English mistakes 11 My classmates would laugh at me if my answer is wrong 12 I am shy anxious in speaking English in class 14 My teacher is impatient 15 I fear my teacher’s strictness 16 I am afraid of my teacher’s harsh comments 5 and negative gestures 17 My teacher corrects me in a very unhelpful way II 18 My teacher is ready to correct every mistake I 5 22 The topic of discussion is unfamiliar or 5 made 19 My teacher’s instruction is sometimes not clear 20 Classroom activities are not interesting 21 The topic of discussion is not of interest difficult 23 I don’t have background knowledge of the topic 24 My partner is not ready to discuss with me 25 My partner and I rarely talk to each other outside the class III Your expectation to encourage you to participate in speaking lessons Here are some activities commonly used in speaking lessons How much you like them? Please circle 1, 2, 3, 4, or Scale division: Strongly dislike Dislike Neither like nor dislike Like Strongly like Activities 26 Story telling 27 Oral presentation 28 Describing pictures III 29 Reporting news 30 Poetry, songs 31 Information gap 32 Joke-telling 33 Problem-solving The following is a list of some ways to encourage language learners to participate in speaking activities How necessary you think these ways are? Please circle 1, 2, 3, 4, or Scale division: Not necessary at all Slightly necessary Moderately necessary Very necessary Extremely necessary Your teacher should… 34 Let you choose topics to discuss in advance 35 Give examples on words, structures and ideas in 36 Let you choose your partner 37 Select interesting and appropriate topics to your 38 Be enthusiastic, friendly, and helpful 39 Conduct some interesting games and activities 40 Create pleasant class atmosphere 41 Not correct my mistakes all the times pre-speaking stage level THANK YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION! IV APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS How often you feel reluctant to participate in speaking activities? What factors related to you make you unwilling to participate in speaking activities? Why does lack of background knowledge affect your willingness? In the questionnaire you agreed that your introverted personality made you unwilling to speak Can you explain? What teacher-related factors make you reluctant to speak? How did the speaking topics affect your willingness? Why kinds of topics you want to talk about? Why you prefer your teachers to be friendly and enthusiastic? Who you want to discuss with? Why you like information gap activities? 10 How picture description and problem solving interest you? 11 Why don’t you like oral presentations? V APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS This is a semi-structured interview The followings are areas that the teachers were asked for I Teachers’ perception of students’ reluctance Question 1: How are you students willing to participate in speaking activities? II Factors related to learners cause students’ reluctance Learners’ low English proficiency Question 1: How does your learners’ proficiency affect their willingness to speak? Fear of making mistakes and being laughed at Question 1: When a student gave wrong answers, how did others react? Learners’ personality Question 1: How does your students’ personality affect their willingness to take part in classroom activities? III Factors related to teachers cause students’ reluctance Teachers’ personality Question 1: Have you ever got angry with students who kept silent at class? Teachers’ teaching methods Question 1: What kinds of errors you often correct? How you deal with them? Question 2: When you correct your students’ mistakes, during or after an activity? Question 3: What you often say when your students make mistakes or don’t give right answers? Question 4: What class activities you often organize at class? Do you often use communicative games in speaking lessons? VI IV Factors related to speaking topics cause students’ reluctance Question 1: On what bases you choose a topic for speaking lessons, from textbooks or your own choice? Question 2: How are speaking topics appropriate to your students’ levels? And how are they familiar to them? V Factors related to peers cause students’ reluctance Question 1: How willing are the learners when being asked to work in pairs/groups with others? VII APPENDIX 4: SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW FOR STUDENTS RESULTS The followings are the summary of the data analysis of the interview for students How reluctant the students are The interview matches the results of the survey in that all 10 students in the interview said that they did not often raise hands or answer teachers’ questions They just spoke unless they were asked to Factors related to learners cause students’ reluctance The interview helped the researcher to understand more about the causes of reluctance related to learners For these students, their English level was really a big problem to them Poor pronunciation, many grammar mistakes, and lack of words were considered as the problems that made them unwilling to express their ideas Also, this perception appeared in their mind so often that they were always worried of making mistakes whenever they talked One more reason mentioned by a student is that she always considered everything to be perfect, so she only started to speak when she’s sure about it Concerning about their personality, they admitted they were so shy that they blushed with their heart beating fast when talking in front of the crowd Factors related to teachers cause students’ reluctance The students in the interview revealed that their teachers rarely smiled at class A teacher even got angry with ones who did not raise hands or actively participate at class This proved that their teachers were impatient and rather strict to the students Furthermore, like the results that the questionnaire showed, most of the teachers tended to correct all kinds of errors while they were talking Besides, the students explained deeply about kinds of activities often used in the class were discussion They did not like to be asked repeatedly to work in pairs or groups and discuss topics as there were no reasons to so VIII Factors related to speaking topics cause students’ reluctance The results of the interview were the same as those of the survey questionnaire as these students said that sometimes the topics were not interesting or difficult to them such as politics or economics Factors related to peers cause students’ reluctance Five of the interviewees in the interview said that sometimes they afraid of working with ones who they did not often talk to as they would just them negatively Another one mentioned the reason is that the other girls from urban had different points of view Students’ expectation to encourage you to participate in speaking lessons The results match those of the questionnaire in that all interviewees expressed their preference for funny activities like joke- or story-telling Besides, it brought about more understanding of the reasons for their opinions on those activities These students also helped the researcher understand more about the reasons for their preferred solutions IX APPENDIX 5: TRANSCRIPTS OF INTERVIEW FOR TEACHERS I Teachers’ perception of students’ reluctance Question 1: How are your students willing to participate in speaking activities? Teacher 1: Some students don’t actively participate in speaking activities They rarely volunteer to answer my questions Teacher 2: Oh, in speaking lessons? Speaking lessons are not as interesting as other ones Most of my students don’t take part in speaking activities attentively Only some good students well, but the number of good students is very few… only keep quiet all the time, or speak until I asked them to so Teacher 3: Only some good students work hard and the others not respond to my questions unless being asked Teacher 4: Most of the students don’t join in speaking activities actively Although they participate in the speaking tasks, they need a lot of time to think before they can talk a sentence or express their ideas in English and even they don’t talk anything except “sorry, I don’t know” However, there are five or six students with good English They enjoy speaking in English and in class they often seek for chances to talk II Factors related to learners cause students’ reluctance Learners’ low English proficiency Question 1: How does your learners’ proficiency affect their willingness to speak? Teacher 1: Only good students volunteered to speak or active to join in speaking activities Others tended to keep silent or did not join immediately Teacher 2: The better the students are, the more often they talk X Teacher 3: Of course, students with low English proficiency not raise hands or volunteered to answer my questions Teacher 4: If students have no ideas or lack words or structures to express, they can’t talk Fear of making mistakes and being laughed at Question 1: When a student gave wrong answers, how did others react? Teacher 1: Some students laughed This makes them lose face Teacher 2: When a student gave wrong answer, some others laughed, and the rest kept silent Teacher 3: In most of classes, whenever a student said something wrong, some would laugh at them Of course, this will somehow make them feel embarrassed Teacher 4: A small number of students gave a short laugh, which make them feel losing face Learners’ personality Question 1: How does your students’ personality affect their willingness to take part in classroom activities? Teacher 1: Most of extroverted students are the first to volunteer to speak Teacher 2: Students who are shy never raise hands When being called, they not stand up immediately Teacher 3: Introverted students tend to keep silent in their groups and just talk when the teacher comes near and asks them to so Teacher 4: Shy students are not the first ones to speak They often wait until being called III Factors related to teachers cause students’ reluctance Teachers’ personality Question 1: Have you ever got angry with students who kept silent at class? Teacher 1: Sometimes, especially when most of the class kept silent XI Teacher 2: Seldom I calmly called on them, and encourage them to speak Teacher 3: Of course as silence causes the tense atmosphere and my lessons wouldn’t go on as expected Once I got so angry with the students that I had to stop the lesson for a period and had a talk with them Teacher 4: Sometimes, because I can’t keep calm when no one could give me answers Teachers’ teaching methods Question 1: What kinds of errors you often correct? How you deal with them? Teacher 1: I often corrected errors about pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary Teacher 2: It depends on the aims of activities If it focused on fluency, I just corrected errors about ideas If it on accuracy, I intended to correct pronunciation errors Teacher 3: I think it’s better to correct any errors my students make so that they would not repeat such errors next time Teacher 4: Many simple errors will not be omitted if they are not corrected So, it’s better to let them know Question 2: When you correct your students’ mistakes, during or after an activity? Teacher 1: Sometimes I waited for them to finish speaking and then corrected errors Teacher 2: I mainly focused on students’ ideas Therefore, I just corrected some common errors after they finish Teacher 3: It’s better to correct during an activity so as all students would be aware of the errors Teacher 4: Sometimes I forgot, so I often corrected the errors immediately Question 3: What you often say when your students make mistakes or don’t give right answers? XII Teacher 1: I say “You are wrong”, “I don’t think so” “I don’t agree with you.” Teacher 2: “Very good But I don’t really agree with you.” Teacher 3: “Nonsense things”, “It’s not the right thing.” Teacher 4: “I partly agree with you However, the answer is…” Question 4: What class activities you often organize at class? Do you often use communicative games in speaking lessons? Teacher 1: Following textbooks, I often get students in pairs or groups and asked them to discuss a topic I don’t often use games, only use when there are observers in my class Teacher 2: Sometimes discussion or role plays I sometimes use games but not often Teacher 3: I mainly ask students to have a discussion about topics There are at least topics for students to deal with; therefore, I don’t have time to organize games Teacher 4: I often asked my students to discuss in pairs or groups about a topic Games are not designed in the textbooks, so I don’t use them IV Factors related to speaking topics cause students’ reluctance Question 1: On what bases you choose a topic for speaking lessons, from textbooks or your own choice? Teacher 1: I mainly follow the textbook as it’s designed for English major students at my department Teacher 2: It depends Sometimes I follow the topics and the tasks in the textbook But if they are not interesting Sometimes, I made necessary changes to make the topics more familiar to the students And if the task is difficult, I remove it and replace with a new one Teacher 3: I only follow the topics and the tasks in the textbook, I don’t create the new ones Teacher 4: I only follow the topics and tasks of the speaking lessons in the textbook XIII Question 2: How are speaking topics appropriate to your students’ levels? And how are they familiar to them? Teacher 1: Admittedly, many topics are not suitable to the students as they are too academic Teacher 2: Some topics are difficult and unfamiliar to the learners such as changes in working life, or money makes the world around, etc Teacher 3: Speaking topics are about the issues that some students not have background knowledge such as culture shock Teacher 4: I have to say that many topics for discussion are not appropriate to my students’ level as they require a good knowledge as well as wide range of vocabulary V Factors related to peers cause students’ reluctance Question 1: How willing are the learners when being asked to work in pairs/groups with others? Teacher 1: Students seem to work in the same group And when being asked to join another group, they appeared to be unwilling Teachers 2: In general, most of the learners were ready to talk with others However, as I see only some were not eager, and they just kept silent Teacher 3: In fact, there was a distance between the students in the urban and ones in the rural areas So, when I asked them to discuss with different partners, they did not really want to show their opinions Teacher 4: Only a small number of the learners preferred to work with their close friends XIV