CHAPTER IV PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA
4. Relationship between the Teachers’ Motivational Techniques and Students’ Performance in English
The relationship between the teachers‟ motivational techniques and students‟ performance in English was assessed by t-test comparison of the mean scores for the frequency of use of the 48 motivational techniques against the means test scores of the 255 students in the four areas of Basic English. The result of this analysis is summarized in Table 13.
Table 13
T-test comparison of the mean scores for frequency of use of 48 motivational techniques vis-à-vis the mean scores in the four areas of the Basic English test, shown as p-values (i.e., p>0.05 is
not significantly different).
Motivational Technique Listening Reading Speaking Writing 1. Recognize students' efforts
(Cronbach alpha=0.31)
(46) Recognize students‟ effort and
achievement. 0.02309 0.14962 0.00008 0.00000
(42) Promote effort attributions. 0.00136 0.01904 0.00000 0.00000 (15) Make sure grades reflect
students‟ effort and hard work. 0.00426 0.04221 0.00001 0.00000 (8) Monitor students‟ progress and
celebrate their victory. 0.00000 0.00004 0.00000 0.00000 2. Promote learners‟ self-confidence
(Cronbach alpha=0.52)
(28) Encourage students to try
harder. 0.78545 0.31874 0.17968 0.00000
(34) Provide students with positive
feedback. 0.02382 0.15170 0.00009 0.00000
(36) Teach students learning
techniques. 0.01431 0.10227 0.00005 0.00000
(11) Design tasks that are within the
students‟ ability. 0.00056 0.00982 0.00000 0.00000 (33) Make clear to students that
communicating meaning effectively is more important than being
grammatically correct. 0.00004 0.00115 0.00000 0.00000 3. Proper teaching behavior
(Cronbach alpha=0.27)
Motivational Technique Listening Reading Speaking Writing (2) Show students you care about
them. 0.55772 0.85508 0.02528 0.00000
(17) Show your enthusiasm for
teaching. 0.17801 0.54994 0.00382 0.00000
(47) Be yourself in front of students. 0.01548 0.10617 0.00006 0.00000 (40) Share with students that you
value English as a meaningful
experience. 0.00038 0.00692 0.00000 0.00000
(23) Establish good rapport with
students. 0.00002 0.00060 0.00000 0.00000
4. Creating a pleasant classroom climate (Cronbach alpha=0.38)
(1) Bring in and encourage humor. 0.00485 0.04968 0.00001 0.00000 (21) Use a short and interesting
opening activity to start each class. 0.00126 0.01753 0.00000 0.00000 (41) Avoid social status comparison. 0.00088 0.01027 0.00000 0.00000 (30) Create a supportive classroom
climate that promotes risk-taking. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 5. Present tasks properly (Cronbach
alpha=0.38)
(6) Give clear instructions by
modeling. 0.00172 0.01962 0.00000 0.00000
(25) Give good reasons to students as to why a particular task is
meaningful. 0.00000 0.00002 0.00000 0.00000
6. Familiarize learners with L2- related values (Cronbach alpha=0.49)
(9) Remind students of the benefits
of mastering English. 0.02981 0.18132 0.00012 0.00000 (39) Increase the amount of English
you use in the class. 0.01397 0.10114 0.00004 0.00000 (38) Encourage students to use
English outside. 0.00086 0.01283 0.00000 0.00000 (4) Familiarize students with the
cultural background of second
language learners. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 (32) Introduce authentic cultural
materials in the classroom. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 (7) Invite senior students to share
their English learning experiences. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 (19) Invite English-speaking
foreigners to class. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 7. Increase learners‟ goal-
orientedness (Cronbach alpha=0.34)
(10) Encourage students to set
learning goals 0.00023 0.00478 0.00000 0.00000
Motivational Technique Listening Reading Speaking Writing (20) Help students develop realistic
beliefs about English learning. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 (26) Find out students‟ needs and
build them into curriculum. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 (31) Display the class goal in a wall
chart and review it regularly. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 8. Make the learning tasks
stimulating (Cronbach a=0.54) (27) Encourage students to create
products. 0.00027 0.00520 0.00000 0.00000
(12) Introduce various interesting
topics. 0.00001 0.00037 0.00000 0.00000
(45) Present various auditory and
visual teaching aids. 0.00001 0.00027 0.00000 0.00000 (18) Break the routine by varying
the presentation format. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 (13) Make tasks challenging. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 (43) Make tasks attractive by
including novel and fantasy
element. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
9. Promote learner autonomy (Cronbach a=0.51)
(48) Allow students to assess
themselves. 0.00008 0.00210 0.00000 0.00000
(37) Adopt the role of a „facilitator‟. 0.00001 0.00025 0.00000 0.00000 (24) Encourage peer teaching and
group presentation. 0.00000 0.00003 0.00000 0.00000 (14) Teach self-motivating
strategies 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
(29) Give students choices in deciding how and when they will be
assessed. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
(22) Involve students in designing and Implementing the English
course. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
10. Promote group cohesiveness and group norms (Cronbach alpha=0.19)
(3) Allow students to get to know
each other. 0.00287 0.03335 0.00000 0.00000
(44) Encourage students to share
personal experiences. 0.00003 0.00121 0.00000 0.00000 (5) Explain the importance of the
classroom instruction. 0.00000 0.00004 0.00000 0.00000 (35) Ask students to work toward
the same goal. 0.00000 0.00003 0.00000 0.00000 (16) Let students suggest class
rules. 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
It can be observed that in general, for the different test areas in Basic English, the p-values are below 0.05, indicating the mean frequency of use of motivational techniques are significantly different from the mean test scores of the students. This is exemplified by a p-value of below 0.05 in all 48 motivational techniques in the Writing test, followed by one motivational technique that is (28) Encouraging students to try harder with p-value greater than 0.05 in the Speaking test; three motivational techniques such as (2) Show students you care about them;
(17) Showing your enthusiasm for teaching; and (28) Encouraging students to try harder with p-value greater than 0.05 in the Listening test;
and nine motivational techniques which include (2) Showing students you care about them, (9) Reminding students of the benefits of mastering English, (17) Showing your enthusiasm for teaching,(28) Encouraging students to try harder, (34) Providing students with positive feedback, (36) Teaching students learning techniques), (39) Increasing the amount of English you use in the class), (46) Recognizing students‟ effort and achievement, and (47) Being yourself in front of students with p-value greater than 0.05 in the Reading test.
This indicates that the mean scores of the frequency of use of motivational techniques are generally not related to the means scores of the students in Basic English test except for 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 of the Basic English test.
It is of interest to note that among the four test areas, it was Reading that had the most number of motivational techniques with not significant differences composed of 9 items, followed by Listening with 3 items and lastly by Speaking with 1 item. Furthermore, there were overlaps in the items that did not manifest significant differences like items (2) Showing students you care about them; (17) Showing your enthusiasm for teaching; and (28) Encouraging students to try harder.
Surprisingly, these three motivational techniques are the same top three most frequently used motivational techniques by the teacher respondents.
This indicates that these three motivational techniques, in spite of the frequency of their use, are unable to impact on the students‟ scores in the test areas of Listening and Reading, and one motivational technique the item on (2) Showing students you care about them in Speaking.
This would mean further that students do not have the mastery of the learning contents of the course as the lessons are foreign to them being non-native speaker of the language and for having a different culture. Though motivational techniques are geared toward enhancing students learning, student performance in these areas are not affected nor improved by these techniques as other factor that of non- mastery of competency might be one among the reasons of non- improvement of scores.
This conforms to the ideas of Scott and Windsor (2000) that language performance can be characterized by a general measure of productivity, fluency, lexical diversity, and grammatical complexity and accuracy and that performance may be flawed because of memory, limitations, distractions, shifts of attention, and interests as well as errors of other psychological factors
Looking at the macro-strategies where these motivational techniques belong, they fall under four macro-strategies, namely: 1.
Recognizing students' efforts (Cronbach alpha=0.31) that is (46) Recognizing students‟ effort and achievement; 2. Promoting learners‟
self-confidence (Cronbach alpha=0.52) that is (28) Encouraging students to try harder; (34) Providing students with positive feedback;
(36) Teaching students learning techniques; 3. Proper teaching behavior (Cronbach alpha=0.27) which include (2) Showing students you care about them; (17) Showing your enthusiasm for teaching; (47) Being yourself in front of students); and 6. Familiarizing learners with L2- related values (Cronbach alpha=0.49) (i.e., (9) Remind students of the benefits of mastering English; and (39) Increasing the amount of English you use in the class. Only macro-strategy no. 2 had a Cronbach alpha of
>0.50, ascertaining the reliability of this result in contrast to the other macro-strategies.
5. Proposed training module on motivational techniques Rationale
In formulating pertinent training module on motivational techniques for this particular population of Vietnamese teachers and students, some criteria must be considered such as incorporating motivational techniques that have significant relationship to the Basic English test scores of the students since the goal of the motivational technique is to improve the skills and competence of the students; and prioritizing macro-strategies with statistical reliability based on internal consistency that is Cronbach alpha >0.5. A summary of this consideration is presented in Table 14.
Table 14
List of motivational techniques, their macro-strategy grouping, Cronbach alpha values, significant relationship on three areas of
Basic English (i.e., p>0.05) and rank.
Motivational Technique Reading Listening Speaking Rank Promote learners‟ self-confidence
(Cronbach alpha=0.52) 1
(28) Encourage students to try harder. 0.31874 0.78545 0.17968 (34) Provide students with positive
feedback. 0.15170 0.02382 0.00009
(36) Teach students learning
techniques. 0.10227 0.01431 0.00005
Proper teaching behavior (Cronbach
alpha=0.27) 2
(2) Show students you care about
them. 0.85508 0.55772 0.02528
(17) Show your enthusiasm for
teaching. 0.54994 0.17801 0.00382
(47) Be yourself in front of students. 0.10617 0.01548 0.00006 Familiarize learners with L2-related
values (Cronbach alpha=0.49) 3
(9) Remind students of the benefits of
mastering English. 0.18132 0.02981 0.00012
(39) Increase the amount of English
you use in the class. 0.10114 0.01397 0.00004 4 Recognize students' efforts (Cronbach
Motivational Technique Reading Listening Speaking Rank alpha=0.31)
(46) Recognize students‟ effort and
achievement. 0.14962 0.02309 0.00008 5
Optional Motivational techniques Make the learning tasks stimulating (Cronbach a=0.54)
Promote learner autonomy (Cronbach a=0.51)
Creating a pleasant classroom climate (Cronbach alpha=0.38)
Present tasks properly (Cronbach alpha=0.38)
Increase learners‟ goal-orientedness (Cronbach alpha=0.34)
Promote group cohesiveness and group norms (Cronbach alpha=0.19)
In the design of a training module, the areas to be focused are Reading, Listening and Speaking. It is composed of 9 parts namely; the title, introduction or overview, time, objectives, course outline, learning activities and strategies, learning outcomes, evaluation and feedback, and resource materials. There will be series of activities or strategies for Reading, Listening and Speaking. The course outline will cover topics that will be discussed to give more information and enhance teaching techniques of English language teachers. Topics for reading include: the reading process, factors that affect reading, recent trends in teaching reading, teaching basic comprehension skills, teaching reading methodologies, and new directions in reading instruction. For listening, topics about aural comprehension instruction, principles and practice, models for listening and language instruction, developing listening comprehension activities, and principles for listening comprehension in the classroom.
For speaking, the following are the topics covered: teaching oral skills, teaching pronunciation, language-focused learning: deliberate teaching and, developing fluency. For learning activities or strategies, reading activities include depicting current view of reading for academic purposes, short text analysis, and post reading task design. In listening, syllabus writing, listening exercises preparation, passage or poem presentation. In speaking, activities such as situation analysis, and textbook evaluation will be the focused. After the activities learning outcomes will be determined based on the submitted outputs of the participants or the trainees and pointing out the different motivational techniques used and how this can further be improved. After the activities evaluation will be done by providing evaluation form to the participants for their comments and suggestions regarding the training.
TRAINING MODULE FOR TEACHERS OF
BASIC ENGLISH COURSE IN
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
TRAINING MODULE FOR TEACHERS OF BASIC ENGLISH COURSE IN HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
Overview:
Teachers are of vital importance in the teaching learning process.
Their classroom behavior in terms of instruction has a direct influence on student‟s academic learning achievement and behavior. Teacher‟s character traits such as values, beliefs, knowledge, thinking, communication skills, performance skills and personality are factors toward effective learning of students. Teachers need to make use of varied techniques or strategies to motivate students to learn for them to have good academic performance.
But as revealed in the study regarding the use of motivational techniques of Teachers of Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) in teaching Basic English Course, it appears in general their students in this course have low performance in all test areas in listening, speaking and reading. In addition, though it was found out that three motivational techniques were utilized by teachers in their teaching, it failed to impact on student‟s scores in the areas of listening, and reading. Hence, this training module which is the output of the study is conceptualized to help English Language teachers to improve their techniques along the identified areas where students have low performance.
Objectives:
1. To try out other motivational techniques or strategies in teaching Basic English Course particularly in the areas of listening, speaking, and reading.
2. To improve English Language teachers‟ techniques or strategies in teaching Basic English course particularly in the areas of listening, speaking, and reading.
Timeframe: Three Sessions
Day 1,2 – Focused Discussion: Speaking Day 3,4– Focused Discussion: Listening Day 5,6 – Focused Discussion: Reading
PROGRAMME OF ACTIVITIES SECTION 1 : TEACHING SPEAKING
DAY 1:
Objectives:
At the end of the day, participants will be able to:
Know some views of speaking/oral skills and pronunciation,
Comprehend some ways, techniques and strategies to teach speaking/oral skills and pronunciation,
Implement an analysis on a specific situation in teaching speaking,
Prepare a syllabus for teaching speaking in a specific situation.
Training Outline: (TOPICS to be presented by Guest Lecturer) 8: 00 – 10: 30 Teaching Oral Skills
10: 30 –12: 30 Teaching Pronunciation 12: 30 – 1: 30 BREAK
8: 00 – 10: 30 Teaching Oral Skills Suggested questions:
1) What is speaking? What are its forms and components?
2) How have speaking/oral skills been taught?
3) What are the current views on teaching speaking?
a) What is the purpose of teaching speaking/oral skills?
b) What are the principles for teaching speaking/oral skills?
b) What are the characteristics of a successful speaking activities?
How to organize speaking activities? What are the typical types of speaking activities?
Suggested ideas:
1. Speaking and its featutures Definition
McDonough and Shaw (1993)1: “As a skill which enables us to produce utterances, when genuinely communicating, speaking is desire and purpose driven, in other words we genuinely want to communicate something to achieve a particular end”
Brown (1994)2: Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information”
Savignon (1991)3: Language generated by the learners is considered productive.
Burns & Joyce (1997)4: Speaking requires that learners not only know how to produce specific points of language such as grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary ("linguistic competence"), but also that they understand when, why, and in what ways to produce language
("sociolinguistic competence"). It has its own skills, structures, and conventions different from written language.
Forms of speaking:
Blazz (1999)5: Speaking usually takes one of the following forms:
Conversation/discussion
Circumlocation (discription)
Memorized speech
Oral reports
Interview
Components:
Pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, accuracy, and fluency are commonly thought as the principle components of speaking.