2
Vietnam national university, Hanoi
University of languages and international studies
Department of post graduate studies

HOÀNG THỊ HỒNG NHUNG Demotivating factors in listening lessons
of 10 grade students
at No.1 lao cai High School NHỮNG YẾU TỐ GÂY MẤT HỨNG THÚ TRONG CÁC GIỜ
HỌC NGHE CỦA HỌC SINH KHỐI 10 TẠI TRƯỜNG
THPT SỐ 1 THÀNH PHỐ LÀO CAI


Teacher’s techniques to motivate their students at
listening stages
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3
Table 3
Reasons for overcoming demotivation in
listening.

31
4
Diagram 1
Research methodology.
20
1.3.2 Previous studies of demotivation 12
1.3.3 Characteristics of demotivation students 16
1.4 Possible demotivating factors in listening 16 8
1.4.1 Students- related factors 16
1.4.2 Learning conditions 18
CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY 19
2.1 Research questions 19
2.2 Participants of the study 19
2.3 Method of the study 20
2.4 Instruments 21
2.4.1 Questionnaire for students 21
2.4.2 Questionnaire for teachers 21
2.4.3 Interview for teachers 21
2.5 Data collection and data analysis 21
2.5.1 Data collection 21
2.5.2 Data analysis 22
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 23
3.1 Demotivating factors in listening 23
3.2 Teachers’ teaching strategies 27
3.3 Overcoming demotivation in listening 30
PART THREE: CONCLUSION 33
3.1 Conclusions 34
3.2 Implications 35
REFERENCES 36
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3

investigated. A large number of researches have been conducted on language
learning demotivation in general, but few studies have addressed possible
demotivating factors in listening skill particularly. It is necessary for teachers to be
aware of the possible demotivating factors that cause students lose their motivation
in listening lessons.

Hopefully, the major findings of the study will provide the teachers with students’
possible demotivating factors in listening lessons as well as factors that might assist
their students to overcome demotivation. With those factors in mind, they might 10
have more appropriate teaching method to help their students make process in
listening.
1.2 Aims of the study
The study aims at investigating possible demotivating factors in listening lessons of
the 10th grade students at No.1 Lao Cai High School. The main purposes of the
study are summarized as follows:
1. To investigate main demotivating factors that reduce students’ interests in
listening lessons.
2. To explore techniques used by teachers of English to motivate their students in
listening lessons.
3. To investigate factors that assist students to overcome their demotivation in
listening lessons.
1. 3 Reasearch questions
This study aims to answer the following questions:
1. What are the dominant demotivating factors affecting students’ listening
lessons?
2. What are techniques used by teachers to motivate their students in listening
lesson?

students in listening lessons so that they might have more appropriate teaching
method. To students, the findings suggested some factors that might help them to
recover their interests in listening.
1. 7. Organization of the study
This study consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Part 1: Introduction
This part presents the Rationale, Aim of the study, Scope of the study, Research
questions, Method of study, and The content of the study.

Part 2: Development
This part consists of three main chapters. 12
Chapter 1: Literature review
This part presents theoretical background of motivation and demotivation,
reviewing studies of demotivation in second language acquisition, and brief view
on concepts of listening and demotivating factors in listening.
Chapter 2: Methodology
Research questions, participants, method of the study, instruments, data collection
and data analysis are discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 3: Research findings and discussion
This chapter presents major research findings and discussion in details.

Part 3: Conclusion
This part presents conclusions and implications.

speaker and responding; and creating meaning through involvement, imagination
and empathy.

1.1.2 Listening processes
According to Richard (1990), there are two distinct processes in listening: top-down
and bottom-up, and listeners need to use both of them in their listening
comprehension. Listeners apply “top-down” processes when they use prior
knowledge to understand the meaning of a message. Prior knowledge can be
knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the text-type, the culture or other
information stored in long-term memory. Listeners use content words and
contextual clues to form hypotheses in an exploratory fashion. On the other hand,
listeners apply “bottom-up” processes when they use linguistic knowledge to
understand the meaning of a message. They build meaning from lower level sounds
to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the
final message. Listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up 14
processing, but an interactive, interpretive process where listeners use both prior
knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages. The degree to
which listeners use the one process or the other will depend on their knowledge of
the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose for listening. For example,
listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing, whereas listening for
specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involves primarily bottom-up
processing to comprehend all the desired details.
Byrnes (1984) emphasizes that context takes an important role in listening process.
Research from cognitive psychology has shown that listening comprehension is
more than extracting meaning from incoming speech. It is a process of matching
speech with what listeners already know about the topic. Therefore, when listeners
know the context of a text or an utterance, the process is facilitated considerably

important role in audio-lingual methods. Students listen, repeat and develop a better
pronunciation for speaking. Beginning in the early 70's, Krashen emphasizes the
role of listening as a tool for understanding and a key factor in facilitating language
learning. Then, Feyten (1991) concludes that listening has emerged as an important
component in the process of second language acquisition.

Vandergrift (2002) states that listeners need to use metacognitive, cognitive and
socio-affective strategies to facilitate comprehension and to make their learning
more effective. Metacognitive strategies are important because they “oversee,
regulate or direct the language learning process”. Cognitive strategies manipulate
the material to be learned or apply a specific technique to a listening task. Socio-
affective strategies describe the techniques listeners use to collaborate with others,
to verify understanding or to lower anxiety. Research shows that skilled listeners
use more metacognitive strategies than their less-skilled counterparts (O'Malley &
Chamot, 1990, Vandergrift, 1997a). When listeners know how to analyze the
requirements of a listening task, activate the appropriate listening processes
required, make appropriate predictions, monitor their comprehension and evaluate 16
the success of their approach, it means that they are using metacognitive knowledge
for successful listening comprehension.

1.1.4 Teaching listening skill
Mendelsohn (1998) emphasizes that in teaching listening, teachers need to help
students become self-regulated learners. He claims that listening should be changed
from product to process, and the role of teacher is to teach his/her learner “how” to
listen, not to test their listening proficiency during listening lessons.

Vandergrift (1999) composed a pedagogical sequence in which teachers and

listening task. The teacher can encourage self-evaluation and reflection by asking
students to assess the effectiveness of strategies used. Group or class discussions on
the approach taken by different students can also stimulate reflection and
worthwhile evaluation. Students are encouraged to share individual routes leading
to success, for instance, how someone guessed the meaning of a certain word or
how someone modified a particular strategy.
In order to help students consciously focus on planning, monitoring and evaluation
before and after the completion of listening tasks, teachers can develop performance
checklists. These instruments help students prepare for a listening task and evaluate
their own performance.

1.2 Overview of motivation
1.2.1 Definition of motivation
Researchers have different ideas in defining what “motivation” is, but all of them
agree that motivation is a very important factor that encourages students to enjoy
their studying and to become successful learners.

Gardner (1985) referred motivation as “the extent to which the individual works or
strives to lean the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction 18
experienced in this activity (p.10). Ames & Ames (1989) defines motivation as the
impetus to create and sustain intentions and goal seeking acts. Oxford and Shearin
(1994) states that motivation is a desire to achieve a goal combined with the energy
to work toward that goal.

According to Dornyei (2001), motivation is one of the most important factors that
influences the rate and success of second language learning. He states, “Motivation
provides the primary impetus to initiate learning the L2 and later the driving force

two kinds of motivation.

1.2.3 Characteristics of motivated students
Naiman et al (1978) stated that the most successful learners are those who display
certain typical characteristics, most of them associated with motivation:
 Positive task orientation
 Ego involvement
 Need for achievement
 High aspirations
 Goal orientation
 Perseverance
 Tolerance of ambiguity

1.3 Overview of demotivation
1.3.1 Definition of demotivation

While motivation in learning second language is the target for great deal of research
during the past decades, demotivation seems to be a new issue of this field that has
recently inspired researchers.

According to Dornyei (2001a.), demotivation is defined as “specific external forces
that reduce or diminish the motiavational basis of a behavioral intention or an 20
ongoing action” (p.143). As a leading author in this field, he has a great
contribution to the basic understanding of motivation as well as demotivation.
However, there is a limit to the demotivating factors in Dorney’s original definition,
which concerns only on external factors that may cause Japanese students lose their
motivation. The later authors expend both internal and external ones in their studies.

Dornyei (2001a) states the nine demotivating factors indentified in an unpublished
study (Dornyei, 1998, as cited in Dornyei, 2001a). In that study, 50 secondary
school students in Budapest, Hungary were participants. They studied either English
or German as a foreign language. Dornyei found that 40% of the total occurrences
relate to teachers. By using 10-30 minute interview with demotiavated learners, nine
demotivating factors are identified in order of their frequency as below:
1. teachers’ personalities, commitment, competence, teaching methods
2. inadequate school facilities (very big group, not the right level, or frequency
change of teachers)
3. reduce self-confidence due to their experience of failure or lack of success
4. negative attitudes towards the L2
5. compulsory nature of L2 study
6. interferences from another language
7. negative feelings about the L2 community
8. attitude towards group members
9. attitude towards course book
(Possible reasons for student demotivation according to Dornyei (2001, p. 152-
153)

While most of researchers used questionnaire to collect data, some authors asked
students to recall their learning experience by writing an essay. Oxford (1993) asked
participants to look back their study process over five years. The results showed
four main demotivating factors: the teacher’s personal relationship with the
students, the teachers’ attitude towards the course or the material, style conflicts
between teachers and students and the nature of classroom activities.
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Ushioda (1998) asked twenty Irish learners of French to identify what they found to

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teachers were the most frequently cited as a source of demotivation for both junior
and senior high school students. Based on the analysis, she concluded that
inappropriate teachers’ behaviors might directly have influences on students’
demotivation. Although it may be difficult to generalize her findings to other junior
or high school students, Hasegawa's study is of significance because she asked
junior and senior high school students directly about factors that demotivated them.

Arai (2004) asked 33 university students to answer whether they had had
demotivating experiences in foreign language classrooms and to describe the
experiences and their immediate reactions to those experiences. Most of the
participants were majoring in English and were considered to be highly proficient in
English. She collected 105 comments and categorized the reports into the following
four areas: (a) teachers' behavior or personality, (b) classes being boring or
monotonous, (c) class atmospheres, and (d) others. The first category concerning
teachers was considered as the most salient factor which account for 46.7%.

Kojima (2005) used two surveys to investigate demotivating factor in learning
foreign language of 2198 high school students. In his study, participants responded
to two consecutive surveys. In the first survey, the participants completed open-
ended questions. Based on the results of the first survey and previous studies, a
closed-response questionnaire was constructed and used so that a structural
equation model of English language demotivation could be tested. The five
constructs that made up the model were the language level problem, the learner
level problem, the learning situation level problem, the students' listening problem,
and the problem concerning the amount of homework. The results indicated that the
learner level problem influenced demotivation the most, followed by the language
level problem, and finally the learning situation level problem. It is worth noting
that he found students' listening ability and the amount of homework to be

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1.4.1 Students – related factors
Willis (1981) states that students might become demotivated because of learning
difficulties. Learning difficulties mainly comesfrom three sources: the message to
be listened to, the speaker, the listener.
In terms of the message, many learners find it more difficult to listen to a taped
message than to read the same message on a piece of paper, since the listening
passage comes into the ear in the twinkling of an eye, whereas reading material can
be read as long as the reader likes. In addition, the listening materials may deal with
almost any area of life. It might include street gossip, proverbs, new products, and
situations unfamiliar to the student. On the other hand, linguistic features such as
liaison elision are common phenomena that make it difficult for students to
distinguish or recognize individual words in the stream of speech. They are used to
seeing words written as discrete entities in their textbooks.
Ur (1984:7) states: “in ordinary conversation or even in much extempore speech-
making or lecturing we actually say a good deal more than would appear to be
necessary in order to convey our message. Redundant utterances may take the form
of repetitions, false starts, re-phrasings, self-corrections, elaborations, tautologies,
and apparently meaningless additions such as I mean or you know.” This
redundancy is a natural feature of speech and may be either a help or a hindrance,
depending on the students’ level. It may make it more difficult for beginners to
understand what the speaker is saying; on the other hand, it may give advanced
students more time to “tune in” to the speaker’s voice and speech style. Learners
tend to be used to their teacher’s accent or to the standard variety of British or
American English. They find it hard to understand speakers with other accents.
According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), lack of sociocultural, factual, and
contextual knowledge of the target language can present an obstacle to
comprehension because language is used to express its culture. Listeners- students

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CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

2. 1 Research questions

The study aims at answering the three following questions:
1. What are dominant demotivating factors affecting students in listening
lessons?
2. What are techniques used by teachers to motivate their students in listening
lesson?
3. What are the factors that assist students to overcome demotivation in
listening?

2.2 Participants of the study

Four teachers of English and 110 students participated in this study. The students
attend 10
th
grade at No.1 Lao Cai high school. They are students in three classes
that were chosen randomly from eight classes. Originally, questionnaires were
delivered to 125 students but only 110 questionnaires were collected. Although
there are totally ten classes in grade 10, two classes study Chinese as a second
language. For those who study English, they have learnt English for 4 years and a
half as a compulsory subject. They have three periods of English per week. Each
period lasts 45 minutes. In general, most of the students have same age (16-17 years
old), background knowledge and equality in gender (60 male and 65 female). The

Final
version
125
students
Interviews
Survey
questionnaire
Results
Results
Results 29

2.4. Instruments

The instrumentation of the research was two survey questionnaires for students and
teachers staff. In addition, a semi structure interview with the teachers was carried
out to get deeper understanding of relevant information.
2.4.1 Questionnaire for students
The purpose of this questionnaire is to identify main demotivating factors which
affect 10 grade students’ listening at No.1 Lao Cai High School and possible factors
that help students to overcome demotivation. The questionnaire contains three main
parts. The first part aimed to discover students’ perceptions of their own listening
proficiency and motivation in listening lessons. In the second part, the researcher
generated 35 possible demotivating items depending on the results of relevant
studies on demotivating in second language learning in general and on her
experiences as an English language teacher. In the third part, students were asked
about some possible reasons that help them recover their interests in listening
lessons to investigate factors that assist them to overcome demotivation in listening.