PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Nowadays, in the era of the globalization and international exchange, English has become
a ‘lingua franca’ which according to Jeremy Harmer (2001:1), can be defined as a
language widely adopted for communication between two speakers whose native
languages are different from each other’s and where one or both speakers are using it as a
‘second’ language. It has been used almost all over the world in many different areas such
as diplomacy, science, technology, business, culture, tourism, etc. There is no doubt that
English is one of the most important means of communication and access to information.
In this context, the teaching and learning of English is more and more necessary.
In Vietnam, in recent years, English as a foreign language has gained considerable
attention. It has become a compulsory subject in the syllabus of many schools, colleges
and universities. It has been taught and learnt throughout the country, both urban areas and
rural (or remote) ones. Even in the countryside, children now start learning English when
they are in grade 3 or 4. However, the fact is that the teaching and learning of English has
not been effective yet, especially that in rural areas. There are still many people who
cannot use English well after finishing English courses.
As a teacher of English at a rural upper secondary school, the researcher is concerned
about her students’ English learning. She has been teaching 4 classes of grade 11.
Although her students have learnt English since they were in grade 6 under the new
syllabus and new methods based on the communicative approach, their English is still not
very good. Of course, they can hardly use English to communicate. Also their marks in
tests and examinations are rather low. Additionally, many of the students seem not to be
interested in learning English. According to them, English is difficult and not very
necessary for their future, because after school most of them will be farmers or workers
only. In other words, they do not have much motivation for learning it. The practical goal
for most of the students is just to pass tests and examinations to graduate from the upper
secondary school. Moreover, the grade 11 students are the ones who are going to leave
school in over one year, so it is rather difficult to change their goal and motivation. The
question is what teachers should do to help their students learn English better in this
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to students’ motivation in English learning. Besides, the recommendations for using
examination-taking strategy training to enhance students’ motivation, which are based on
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the theoretical background and the current situation of learning English at Yen Thanh 2
upper secondary school, hopefully can help the teachers motivate their students to learn
English.
5. Scope of the study
Although there are many different ways to motivate students to learn English, all these
issues cannot be fully covered in this paper. Due to the limited time and the length of a
minor thesis, the researcher only focuses on exploiting examination-taking strategy
training as a way of motivating grade 11 students at Yen Thanh 2 upper secondary school.
Besides, the target that the study investigates and serves is just 115 students from 3 classes
of grade 11 at this school.
6. Methods of the study
This study was intended to conduct as a piece of action research. According to Gina
Wisker (2001), action research is research that we carry out with our students in order to
try out an idea or innovation, test a hypothesis about their learning and see ‘what would
happen if ’. Michael J. Wallace (1998) also points out that action research involves the
collection and analysis of data related to some aspects of our professional practice. With
this action research, the researcher used some different methods based on both quantitative
and qualitative approaches: survey questionnaires for students, consisting of one pre-
treatment questionnaire and one post-treatment questionnaire; follow-up interviews;
classroom observations.
The steps of the study are as follows:
(1). Spend one month collecting baseline data through classroom observations. These were
carried out by the researchers herself and some of her colleagues. Besides, get the students
to answer the pre-questionnaire to find out the reality of student motivation and their
knowledge of examination-taking strategies.
(2). Form the hypothesis that examination-taking strategy training can help to motivate
grade 11 students to learn English.

1.1. Overview of motivation in language learning
1.1.1. Definitions of motivation
Motivation is accepted for most fields of learning to be essential to success. Without
motivation we will almost certainly fail to make the necessary effort. Therefore, it makes
sense to try and develop our understanding of it.
Motivation is defined in different ways by different researchers. According to Marion
Williams and Richard Burden (1997:120), motivation is a ‘state of cognitive arouse’ which
provokes a ‘decision to act’ as a result of which there is ‘sustained intellectual and/or
physical effort’ so that the person can achieve some ‘previously set goal’. Sharing the same
view, Jeremy Harmer (2001:51) states that ‘at its most basic level, motivation is some kind
of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something.
Additionally, Woolfolk (2001:366) defines motivation as ‘an internal state that arouses,
directs and maintains behavior’.
Briefly, motivation is something involving the attitudes and affective states that influence
the degree of effort that one makes to achieve some certain goal. It is not only arousing
interest but also sustaining interest and investing time and energy into putting the effort to
achieve those goals.
1.1.2. Importance of motivation in language learning
Learner motivation has become more commonly recognized as perhaps the major
determining factor for successful learning in general, whether one is an adult learner taking
distance education courses, or an upper secondary school student pushing one’s way
through the battery of required courses needed to graduate. It has been found in various
studies that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning. As
William T. Littlewood puts it (1984:53), ‘in second language learning as well as in every
other field of human learning, motivation is the crucial force which determines whether a
learner embarks on a task at all, how much energy he devotes to it, and how long he
perseveres’. Besides, Tricia Hedge (2000:23) affirms: ‘motivation is of crucial importance
in the classroom, whether learners arrive with it or whether they acquire it through
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classroom experiences’. About this issue, Oxford and Shearin (1996:121-122) also argue:

in employing strategies; otherwise, their expectations to the learning are not met. In
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addition, it is true that more highly motivated learners use a significantly greater range of
appropriate strategies than less ones. It is advisable for teachers to teach learners strategies
in lessons and let them practice frequently.
1.1.3.2. Teacher’ factors
Teachers are considered to have very important responsibilities in making sure the learners
remain happy and interested in learning.
The first factor is the teacher’s attitudes and behaviors towards students. The way the
teacher feels, thinks and behaves while teaching can have a profound effect on learners’
motivation and learning atmosphere. When the teacher has personal and interpersonal
variables such as good mood, warmth, respect, empathy, understanding, sensitivity,
enthusiasm and good sense of humor, the learning atmosphere is likely to be relaxing,
enjoyable, and conducive to language learning. It is suggested that when learners see an
instructor who is excited about his/ her subject or who simply loves teaching, inevitably
they are affected by this energy and will engage themselves actively in the learning
process. Moreover, when teachers have expectations in their students’ ability, the learners
are likely to reach high level of achievement and feel more confident. Learners tend to
perform at a level that is consistent with the teacher’s belief and expectations.
Besides, the teacher’s techniques and activities are of great impact on learners’ motivation.
Without good techniques and interesting activities, learners may be left in confusion and
boredom while dealing with learning tasks. Therefore, teacher should invest more effort
and thoughts in the materials, the ways, and the time to use techniques and activities
carefully for a specific stage of teaching and assessing the learning performance.
Lastly, the teacher should be aware of learners’ learning needs, consisting of their
motivation for learning and the purposes that language learning has in their lives. A good
teacher should be the person who can find ways to pull the students and the lesson
together.
1.1.3.3. Learning materials
One of the most important factors which influence the learners’ motivation is learning

However, the three groups that compose direct strategies do this processing differently and
for different purposes. For example, memory strategies, such as grouping or using imagery,
have a highly specific function, which is to help students store and retrieve new
information. Cognitive strategies, on the other hand, such as summarizing or reasoning
deductively, enable learners to understand and produce new language by many different
means. Finally, compensation strategies like guessing or using synonyms, allow learners to
use the language despite their often-large gaps in knowledge. The second group of
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strategies discussed by Oxford is indirect strategies. These are called “indirect” because
they support and manage language learning without directly involving the target language.
They are divided into metacognitive, affective, and social strategies. Metacognitive
strategies, like centering your learning and evaluating and monitoring, are “actions which
go beyond purely cognitive devices, and which provide a way for learners to coordinate
their own learning process” (1990:136). Affective strategies, however, such as lowering
your anxiety, encouraging yourself, and taking your emotional temperature, deal with
emotion, attitudes, motivations, and values. Finally, the third indirect strategy group
defined by Oxford involves social strategies, like asking questions, cooperating peers and
proficient users of the target language, and empathizing with others.
It is accepted that providing learners with learning strategies is very important. Language
learning strategies are good indicators of how learners approach tasks or problems
encountered during the process of language learning. Developing skills in these areas, such
as metacognitive, cognitive, social and affective can help the language learner build up
learner independence and autonomy whereby he can take control of his own learning.
1.2.1.2. Strategy training as a motivating factor
Since learning strategies in general and language learning strategies in particular are very
important, it makes sense to help learners know and use them well. In other words,
providing learners with learning strategies are necessary. Research indicates that language
learners at all levels use strategies, but that some or most learners are not fully aware of the
strategies they use or the strategies that might be most beneficial to employ. When learners
become aware of the range of strategies from which they can choose during language

without understanding the material very well or at all. Another test-wiseness strategy
consists of taking shortcuts to arrive at answers (e.g. not reading the text as instructed but
simply looking immediately for the answers to the given reading comprehension
questions).
In Mc Donough’s words (1995:105), these strategies are called test-wise, i.e. “having some
ingenuity, knowledge, or strategy to outwit the tester and find the right answer from the
clues in the test format rather than from actual knowledge of the language or skill in
language use.
In short, examination-taking strategies or test-taking strategies are the strategies the test-
taker uses to take the test, including language use strategies and test-wiseness ones.
Language use strategies are considered close to the learner’ competence while test-
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wiseness ones are sometimes not. Despite this fact, in many cases test-wiseness can help
test-takers a lot. As Cohen (1998:218) puts it, the strategy of studying the questions
carefully before reading the text may be crucial for the particular respondents, especially
the ones who do not have good retentive memory when they read in that language. In the
other words, in some cases, test-wiseness strategies can well supplement language use
strategies.
1.2.2.2. Examination-taking strategy training as a motivating factor
There is no doubt that test-taking strategies are very important, especially for the students,
for whom tests are a fact of life. Thus, it is very essential for teachers to provide students
with test-taking strategy training. Knowing and using test-taking strategies well will help
them to become more confident and lower anxiety. Besides, well-equipped test-taking
strategy students surely get high marks in tests, that is, succeed in their learning. Moreover,
one of students’ certain goals is passing tests and examinations. Test-taking strategy
training, therefore, is their interest and meets their needs. As mentioned in the parts above,
all of these things such as confidence, success, interest, etc. will motivate them to actively
engage in learning process. Briefly, test-taking strategy training is really a motivating
factor for students’ learning.
1.2.3. Principles to provide students with examination-taking strategy training

brainstorming, and materials for reference and home study
• Affective issues such as anxiety, motivation, beliefs, and interests-all of which
influence strategy choice-should be directly addressed by language learning
strategy training.
• Strategy training should not be solely tied to the class at hand; it should provide
strategies that are transferable to future language tasks beyond a given class.
• Strategy training should be somewhat individualized, as different students
prefer or need certain strategies for particular tasks.
• Strategy training should provide students with a mechanism to evaluate their
own progress and to evaluate the success of the training and the value of the
strategies in multiple tasks.
As a type of language learning strategies, test-taking strategies can be trained on the above
basis. In addition, in Matter’s view (1986:1), “Ideally, test preparation activities should not
be additional activities imposed upon teachers. Rather, they should be incorporated into the
regular, ongoing instructional activities whenever possible”.
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To sum up, the teacher should take these issues in consideration before providing students
with test-taking strategy training.
The chapter has presented issues and aspects concerning the topic of the study. It has
discussed the concepts and ideas relating to motivation in general and in second language
learning in particular. What’s more, common factors affecting students’ motivation in
language learning have reviewed. Besides, given the purpose of the study, the author
mainly focuses on the discussion of strategy training, especially taking strategy training as
a motivating factor. The following chapter will display the methodology of the research
under the light of the above discussed theories.

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CHAPTER 2. THE STUDY
2.1. The setting of the study
2.1.1. The syllabus and assessment

and willing to adjust to new thinking and apply better ways to improve their teaching
quality. Especially, all of them took part in the in-service training workshop of curricular
innovation organized by Nghe An Department of Education and Training.
2.1.3. The students
Most of the students at Yen Thanh 2 are from farmer families so their lives are rather poor.
They do not have enough good conditions to learn, especially to learn English. Apart from
learning, they have to help their families with housework and farming. The current grade
12 students have been learning English for 3 years but their English is very bad. The ease
of old examination rules has made them lazy since they began learning English in grade 10
and now in their opinion they really “have no head for English”. The current 10 and 11
students seem more worried when these rules are stricter and stricter but their learning has
not been improved yet. Although they have been learning English under the new syllabus
with new textbooks for nearly six years (from Grade 6), English is still something difficult
and strange to them. To learn English well, the environment for learning is very important.
However, they hardly have opportunities to use English outside the English classes.
Moreover, their parents, the actual farmers, who hardly know anything about English, do
not encourage them to learn it. As a result, most of the students do not know what they
learn English for, except for the reason of passing the final examination. They do not know
its importance in the modern life as well as in their future. They become bored with
learning it. In each class, there are only a few students really learning English and being
interested in learning it. The rest almost forget all the things they have learnt. Once the
learners have no motivation for learning, the learning quality is very difficult to be
improved.
2.2. Research hypothesis
As presented above, this study was designed with the aim of testing the following
hypothesis: “Examination – taking strategy training can help to motivate grade 11 students
to learn English at Yen Thanh 2 upper secondary school”
2.3. Participants
There are two samples of participants in this study: participants for the survey
questionnaires and participants for the follow-up interviews.

more freedom to express their own ideas. All the questions were written in Vietnamese to
assure that respondents did not have any language problems in understanding the
questionnaire items.
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In this study, two questionnaires were designed to gather the needed dada: one delivered
before and one delivered after the treatment.
2.4.1.1. Pre- questionnaire
The pre-questionnaire included 15 questions arranged into 3 parts. Part I aimed at eliciting
information about the respondents’ background containing their name, the class they were
learning, the place they are living, and their average mark in English in the first term. Part
II was intended to obtain information about the students’ goals and motivation. Motivation
were measured with the measures such as interest in learning English, motivation intensity
including effort in learning, desire to learn and attitude towards English lessons, and self-
efficacy including student’s perception of his/her aptitude to learn and ability to succeed in
the future. Part III would gather information about the students’ perceived knowledge and
application of examination-taking strategies as well as their perception of the teachers’
examination-taking strategy training.
2.4.1.2. Post- questionnaire
The post-questionnaire was composed of 12 questions and also arranged into 3 parts. Part I
was designed to be the same as part I of the pre-questionnaire to gather respondents’
biodata. Part II consisted of the same questions as the ones 3-10 in Part II of the pre-
treatment questionnaire with the aim of finding out students motivation changes.(For the
results, see Appendix 3). Part III aimed at obtaining information about the students’ attitude
towards the given examination-taking strategy training and their preferences of training
activities.
2.4.2. Interviews
Despite the above mentioned advantages, questionnaire also has some unavoidable
disadvantages. Its reliability and data quality may be low. Sometimes, it is impossible to
check seriousness or honesty of the answers (Bill Gillham, 2000:8). This is especially true
of studies of motivation, which is an abstract, attitudinal concept. Therefore, it is advisable

week to get qualitative data explaining for the changes.
2.6. Inserting the examination-taking strategy training into lessons to motivate
students
Studies on motivation have suggested many ways to facilitate learning and teaching.
However, in this study, the researcher only exploited examination-taking strategy training
as a technique to motivate students to learn English. It was used in English lessons
whenever possible. These were the things the researcher tried to do for one month and half
a month:
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• Providing the students with the general awareness of examination-taking strategies
at the beginning of the month when the new technique was applied.
• Carrying out the steps of training students examination-taking strategies as
follows:
- Asking students about the strategies they often exploited to deal with tasks
- Explicitly introducing them to the new strategies which were more effective and
guiding them how to apply it into the tasks as examples
- Helping them practice as much as possible
- Giving them opportunities to transfer these strategies into new tasks and gain some
certain achievements
• Using numerous activities to train students examination-taking strategies:
- Training through past papers or sample tests
- Training through explanations and handouts
- Training through the tasks in the textbook
- Training through language games
- Training through the lessons of correcting the tests
- Using discussions
- Using brainstorming
- Assigning homework
- Organizing short tests
- Practicing in pairs, groups and individually

because it was their most important goal. The future job was also one of students’ concerns
when leaving school. Some of respondents (37%) were learning English because they
7%
30%
63%
mountainous village
town
plain village
20
hoped to get good jobs in the future (c). Besides, 15% were learning English to
communicate (b) whereas 11% wanted to enter universities with their English knowledge
(d). Clearly, these students appeared to be aware of the role of English in the modern life.
Especially, 18% of the respondents answered that they liked English, the people and
culture of native English countries (a). Among ‘other purposes’ (g), 5 respondents said
they were learning English because they like English songs. When interviewed, one
respondent said she liked to listen to and sing English songs very much. These types of
instrumental and integrative motivation are very good and should be encouraged.
Especially, 3% of the respondents affirmed that they were learning English because their
average mark in English is higher than in the others (f). In general, when students has
extrinsic motivation, they could feel unwilling and forced to learn. In contrast, with
intrinsic motivation, students are usually eager and happy to learn.
Chart 2. Students’ goals for learning English
Question 2. How necessary is English for your future?
As can be seen from the chart, 37 % of the respondents thought English was necessary to
their future; meanwhile other 18% had no ideas about this. Noticeably, there were 45 %
underestimating the necessity of English to their future job. The data showed that while
some students knew well about the role of English in the modern life, some others didn’t.
In the follow-up interview, one student said: “Really I don’t know what I am learning
English for. I know I will not be able to enter universities or colleges. After leaving school,
I will still work as a farmer”. It is this poor perception of the role of English that decreased

at all 6%
Not necessary
30%
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Question 5. How do you rate your effort in learning English?
Chart 4. Student effort in learning English
The data from the chart shows 61% of the students rated their effort as very low or low.
17% were neutral in their answer, which means they didn’t really try hard. Only 22%
affirmed their level of effort was high and very high. Observations in class also pointed out
that students’ participation in task completion and willingness to communicate was low.
Question 6. How much time do you spend on doing home study on average?
Choices Respondents Percentage
No time 13 11
about 1-2 hours/week 70 61
about 2-3 hours/week 15 13
More than 3 hours/week 17 15
Table 1. Students’ amount of time spent on doing home study
Time spent on learning English outside the classroom also shows how much effort one
committed to master it. Only 15% said they spent more than 3 hours learning English at
home. 61% spent about 1-2 hours a week on home study in English; meanwhile 13% said
they did self-study at home for about 2-3 hours a week. It is worrying when 11% admitted
they did not study English at home. Given the weekly 3 periods of formal 45-minute
lessons in class, it is expected that students should spend at least the same amount of time
studying at home or else. It can be seen in terms of effort, student motivation to learn
English was relatively low. Direct ratings to student effort (Question 5) revealed the same
result. It is also revealed from the analysis that interest in English (25%) is correspondent
with the effort (22%) one pays to learn it.
Very high
5%
Very low

may not implicit high interest (25%) and low interest may be the results other than desire.
In a small talk, one student expressed that he wanted to learn English only because his
English was too bad, but not because he liked it.
Question 8. How do you rate your attitude towards the English course?
Choices Respondents Percentage
Very favorable 9 8
Favorable 36 31
I don’t know 22 19
Unfavorable 43 38
Unfavorable at all 5 4
Table 3. Student attitude towards the English course
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As can be seen from the table, 39% held a positive attitude towards the English course, a
lower percentage than the desire figure. The rest 61% was either neutral or showing
unfavorable attitude. It can be inferred from class observations and small talks that
unfavorable attitude resulted from poor knowledge, task difficulty and poor achievement.
 Student self-efficacy
Question 9. How do you rate your aptitude to learn English?
Choices
Respondent
s Percentage
Very low 17 15
Low 64 56
I don't know 29 25
High 5 4
Very high 0 0
Table 4. Student aptitude to learn English
Generally, students had a low evaluation of their own aptitude to learn English. Only a
very small number (4%) believed they had high enough ability to learn the language,
among them nobody thought their level of aptitude was very high. On the other hand, 71%