CHAPTER V SUMMARY, FINDINGS, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATION
2. Motivational Techniques Employed in Teaching the Basic English Course
The motivational techniques employed by respondents in teaching Basic English course are group according to 10 macro- strategies. Out of 48 motivational techniques 47 got 50 percent agree responses with one technique having 43 percent of responses only, and it is in the item letting student suggest class rules which belong to the (10) macro strategy promoting group cohesiveness and group norms and ranked 7, while the motivational technique that most respondents agree is under the macro-
strategy recognizing students effort which ranked 1 and that is making sure grades reflect students‟ effort and hard work with a score of 102 or 97 percent.
The ranking of the macro-strategies were based on the average values of the constituent motivational techniques and these include (1) recognizing student efforts, (2) promoting learners‟ self-confidence, (3) proper teaching behavior, (4) creating a pleasant classroom climate, (5) presenting tasks properly, (6) familiarizing with the learners with L2- related values, (7) increasing learners‟ goal –orientedness, (8) making the learning tasks stimulating, (9) promoting learner autonomy (10) promoting group cohesiveness and group norms. The implication is that even if the scores of the individual motivational technique is high, it does not automatically place it in the next rank as high score can be compensated by the low score of another motivated technique.
As to the rate of frequency which the respondents employ the 48 motivational techniques, all these motivational techniques mean scores are below 5.0 which means that respondents do not always employ motivational techniques in teaching. The highest mean score was 4.4 close to scale value of 4.0 with verbal interpretation of often obtained by motivational technique (25) encouraging students to try harder. The three constituents motivational techniques used consistently by Vietnamese teachers in compared to other strategies are (2) promoting learners‟ self - confidence with Cronbach alpha =0.25; (8) making the learning task
stimulating with Cronbach alpha =0.54; and (9) promoting learner autonomy with Cronbach alpha = 0.51.
As regard to the degree of importance of the motivational technique (10) encouraging students to set learning goals topped the list with 4.6 mean score and has the verbal interpretation Very Important. This is found under the macro-strategy (4) increasing learners‟ goal – orientedness and ranked 4 and this is followed by the constituent macro- strategy (3) promoting learners self-confidence which is ranked 1.
The ranking of the macro strategies according to the degree of importance include: promoting learners‟ self-confidence ranked 1; proper teaching behavior and presenting tasks properly ranked 2.5 respectively;
recognizing students efforts, creating a pleasant classroom
climate, and increasing learners‟ goal orientedness, all ranked 4;
familiarizing learner with L2 –related values ranked 5; making the learning tasks simulating and group cohesiveness and group norms both ranked 6.5; and promoting learner autonomy which is ranked 7 which show an indication of disparity in the perception of importance of motivational techniques and the frequency of use of the respondents which means perception differs from practice. As for Cronbach alpha values, six out of ten macro-strategies have a>0.5 which means that the perception of Vietnamese respondents as regard to the importance of these motivational techniques were consistent on the six macro-strategies.
3. Levels of Test Performance of Students in Basic English
Results of the level of test performance of 225 student respondents of Hanoi University of Industry in Basic English Course indicate of a generally low performance of students in all test areas in Basic English with mean percentage below 70 percent, with 43.5 percent mean percentage score for listening, 42.3 percent for reading, 45.9 percent for speaking, and 68.8 percent for writing which is the highest among the four areas.
There is also this wide variability in student performance as reflected in the standard deviations of the percentage mean scores of 17.6 to 21.8 which means that student respondents being evaluated have poor performance in listening skills in compared to the other skills; have developed writing skills which are not significantly different from reading skills but significantly different from their speaking skills as expected since the focus of the Basic English Language teaching for secondary and early tertiary students are on grammar, reading, and writing and their students‟ difficulty in speaking and listening are due to culture and influences of the native language where the sense of sound and pronunciation are different.
4. Relationship between the Teachers’ Motivational Techniques and Students’ Performance in English
As regard to the relationship between teachers‟ motivational techniques and students‟ performance in English, in general, for the
different test areas in Basic English, the p-values are below .05 which indicates that the mean frequency of use of motivational techniques are significantly different from the mean test scores of the students. This indicates that the mean scores of the frequency of use of the 48 motivational techniques are generally not related to the mean scores of the students in Basic English test except for the nine motivational techniques. This also indicates that the frequency of use of the 48 motivational techniques is generally not predictive of the students‟
performance in the different areas in Basic English Test.
Among the four test areas, it was reading that had the most number of motivational techniques, followed by listening then speaking.
Furthermore, there were overlaps in the items that manifested not significant differences. The three most frequently used motivational techniques (2) showing students you care about them, (17) showing enthusiasm for teaching, (28) encouraging students to try harder are the same top three motivational techniques used by teacher respondents which indicates that in spite of their use, they are unable to impact on the scores of students‟ tests in listening, and reading.