VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN ENGLISH
READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE 10
TH
–
FORM STUDENTS AT MY DUC A HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI

(Nghiên Cứu Những Yếu Tố Gây Mất Hứng Thú Trong Các Giờ
Học Đọc Hiểu Tiếng Anh Của Học Sinh Lớp 10
Trường THPT Mỹ Đức A, Hà Nội.) M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Major: English Teaching Methodology

Học Đọc Hiểu Tiếng Anh Của Học Sinh Lớp 10
Trường THPT Mỹ Đức A, Hà Nội.) M.A. Minor Programme Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60 14 10
Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC QUỲNH
HANOI, 2012
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN ENGLISH
READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE 10
NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG A STUDY ON DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN ENGLISH
READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE 10
TH
–
FORM STUDENTS AT MY DUC A HIGH SCHOOL, HANOI

(Nghiên Cứu Những Yếu Tố Gây Mất Hứng Thú Trong Các Giờ
Học Đọc Hiểu Tiếng Anh Của Học Sinh Lớp 10
Trường THPT Mỹ Đức A, Hà Nội.) M.A. Minor Programme Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60 14 10
Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC QUỲNH
HANOI, 2012
iv

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
4
Chapter 1: Literature Review
4
1.1. Definitions of reading and reading comprehension
4
1.1.1. Reading
4
1.1.2. Reading Comprehension
5
1.2. Motivation
6
1.2.1. Concept of motivation
6
1.2.2. The importance of motivation in reading second
language
7
1.3. Demotivation
8
1.3.1. Concept of demotivation
8
1.3.2. Previous studies on de-motivation
9
v

CHAPTER 2: Methodology
15
2.1 Setting
15
2.1.1. The school


vi

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1: Students‟ attitudes towards the learning of reading English
Figure 3.2: Students‟ interest in English reading lessons
Figure 3.3: Students‟ participation in English reading comprehension lessons
Figure 3.4: Teachers‟ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading
comprehension skills at school
Figure 3.5 Teacher‟s perception of students‟ participation in activities in the reading
lessons.
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Students‟ purposes of learning English reading
Table 3.2: Table 3.2: Students‟ opinions on factors demotivating them in learning
reading English
Table 3.3: Students‟ opinions on their teachers‟ teaching methods
Table 3.4: Students‟ opinions on teachers‟ employment of activities
Table 3.5: Students‟ expectations towards teachers of reading skills
Table 3.6: Teachers‟ perceptions of students‟ demotivation in reading skills
Table 3.7: Teachers‟ frequency of using activities in reading lessons
Table 3.8: Techniques and activities by the teacher, and the preference of the students
for those activities
1


reading comprehension in particular.
For all of those reasons, it would be necessary to have a study on factors causing
demotivation in reading lessons for students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi.
2. Aims of the study
The main purposes of the study are:
- To investigate the demotivating factors in reading lessons of the 10
th
form
students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi.
- To give some suggestions to minize the demotivating factors in reading lessons
in order to improve the students‟ reading skills.
3. Research questions
To achieve the aims mentioned above, the following research questions were
proposed:
(1) What are demotivating factors in reading lessons of the 10
th
form students at My
Duc A High School, Hanoi?
(2) What should be done to minimize the demotivating factors of the students in
their reading lessons?
4. Significance of the study
This study points out factors causing demotivation in reading lessons of the 10th
form students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi. Besides, it can be used as an evidence
for demotivating factors when learning English reading that Vietnamese Secondary-
School students encountered. The findings and recommendations of this study will be
useful to improve the teaching and learning of reading of Upper Secondary School
students in general and of the 10
th
form students at My Duc A High School, Hanoi in
particular.

also presents some discussion and interpretations of the findings of the study, and then
gives suggestions for the teachers and the students at.
Part C, Conclusion, summarizes the major findings and points out implications for the
improvement, its limitations and suggestions for future research.
4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Literature Review

1.1. Definitions of reading and reading comprehension
1.1.1. Reading
“Reading” has been defined by a lot of linguists, psychologists, educators and second
language researchers so far. Each definition proposes a different the notion of the
term in different points of view. Goodman (1971, p.135) considered reading as “a
psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as
he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”. In his
opinion, when reading, the readers not only learn how to read the text, to master
grammatical structure but also understand the content expressed in the text.
Sharing the same point with Goodman (1990, p.2) stated that “reading is a process
whereby one looks at and understands what has been written”. According William,
in reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding.
Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depending on the context in
which it appears
Reading is considered to be a process of mechanic by Harmer (1989:153):
“eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the
message”. The mechanical process of reading consists of two actions which are
monitored by the eyes and brain. Thus, it is the reader that decides how fast the text
runs.
Smith (1985:102) shared a similar opinion with Harmer: “reading is understanding
the author’s thought”. In other words, the readers “read the author’s mind not the

1.2.1. Concept of motivation
In learning second language, motivation is considered to be an important factor
determining the success of the learners. Thus, there have been a number of motivation
concepts by different authors. Keller (1984) assumed that "interest" is one of the main
apparatus of motivation in foreign and second language learning. Meanwhile Gardner
(1985) considered the importance of efforts and desires to obtain the learning goal
“Motivation in the present context refers to the combination of effort plus desire to
achieve the goal of learning plus favorable attitudes towards learning the language”
(p. 10).
Sharing the same opinion, Ellis (1997) attached importance to the role of
attitudes and effective states, which affect learner‟s efforts in learning a second
language.
However, Littlewood (1998) found that motivation is complexly combined by
different components including “the individual’s drive, need for achievement and
success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on” (p. 53)
Besides, McKay and Tom (1999) emphasizes it is the need to communicate with
others in a new language that provide strong motivation for most learners (p.2)
Meanwhile, Gardner and Lambert (1972) propose that the broad concept of the
“integrative motive” includes three main components: attitude, integrativeness and
motivation.
7

In addition, there are some other researchers attempting to make close the gap
between theories of motivation in educational psychology and in the L2 field. The
researchers of this period added some new elements to the concept of L2 motivation.
Dornyei (1994) classifies three levels: language level, learner level and learning
situational level and each level posses different elements. Few years later, Marion
Williams and Bob Burden (1997) offered a detailed framework of L2 motivation with
the Internal and External motivational impact. Nine internal factors are analyzed by
them: intrinsic interest of activity, perceived value of activity, sense of agency,

consisting of various positive influences. However, there is another aspect of
motivation left without being properly attended, it is demotivation.
Dornyei (2001: 143) defines demotivation as “specific external forces that reduce or
diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention of an ongoing action”. In
other words, Dornyei regarded motivation and demotivation as two contrary forces in
the learning process of learners. According to him, there are two sources of
demotivating factors: external and internal. External factors include grading and
assignment, learning facilities etc and internal factors include reduced confidence and
negative attitude toward the foreign language. In his study, Dornyei (2001: 143) also
identifies the three negative factors that cannot be considered as instances of
demotivation: powerful distractions, continuing loss of interest in a long-lasting,
ongoing activity, and the sudden recognitions of the costs of an activity.
Dornyei (2001) also insisted that demotivation does not mean that a learner has
9

lost his or her motivation entirely. In contrast, the positive influences that originally
made up the motivational basis of behavior can still be there. For example, a learner
can still be motivated to learn English (because it is an important world language; for
instance), even if the teachers were lacking ability.
In addition, there is distinction between demotivation and amotivation proposed
by Dornyei (2001). The term amotivation is first used by Deci and Ryan (1985). It
means “the relative absence of motivation that is not caused by a lack of initial interest
but rather by the individual’s experiencing feelings of incompetence and helplessness
when faced with the activity” (cited in Dornyei 2001). According to Doryei,
„amotivation‟ is associated with motivation lack which can be realized in the same
meaning with „there is no point…‟ or „it’s beyond my ken…”.
1.3.2. Previous studies on de-motivation
Motivation for foreign language learning researches has evolved considerably
for many years. These researches focus on from describing what constitute student
motivation to a detailed list of suggestions that help teachers initiate, and enhance

his research is the only study that is fully concerned about demotivation in L2 learning
so far. The findings are contrary to those in the study of Gorham (1997). The
underlying causes of student demotivation perceived were quite differently by the
teachers and their students. Teachers perceived them to be related to psychological,
attitudinal, social, historical and geographical reasons. The students‟ perceived cause of
demotivation were various, i.e., teacher‟ behaviors, class size, etc. Nevertheless,
Chambers did not try to determine what demotivating factors were or to look at them
11

critically. Instead, he just listed the students‟ points of view. Therefore, just a few
conclusions about the impact of demotivating factors were drawn on the language
learning experience.
Thus, while there have been studies addressing the issues related to
demotivating factors, no attempt has been made either to set a framework to help to
enhance understanding about the phenomenon, or to consider it in the relation with the
issues of curriculum and teaching.
Besides, Oxford (1998) analyzed the content of essays written by approximately
250 American students (in high schools and universities) about their experiences in
their learning over a period of five years. During this time, a variety of prompts were
used, such as “describe a situation in which you experienced conflict with a teacher‟s
and “talk about a classroom in which you felt uncomfortable”. In the content analysis
of the data, four broad themes emerged:
 The personal relationship between the teacher and the students, including a lack
of care, general belligerence, hypercriticism, and patronage/favoritism.
 The attitude of the teacher towards the course or the materials, including lack of
enthusiasm, sloppy management and close-mindedness.
 Teachers‟ style conflicts with the students, including multiple style conflicts,
conflicts about the amount of structure or detail and conflicts about the degree
of closure or “seriousness” of the class.
 The nature of classroom activities, including irrelevance, overload and

commitment to teaching, attention paid to the students, competence, teaching method,
style and rapport with students can have a direct impact on students demotivation.
Students also blame teacher‟s indirect negative influence such as rigid classroom
management for their lack of confidence. Those results were consistent with earlier
studies. Therefore, it is of important to analyze the teacher factors in order to ascertain
possible solutions to demotivation.
Tran and Baldauf (2007) made a review on typical previous studies and then
conducted a case study project with Vietnamese students. In that study, they used
stimulated recall essays of 100 students of their foreign language learning experiences.
The students were asked to write their essays in Vietnamese within a week outside
class time. The results pointed out 48 demotivating factors, which were grouped into
14 categories, and classified into two groups: internal attributions and external
attributions. The internal attribution included student‟s attitudes towards English, their
experiences of failure, and the incidents related to their self-esteem. The external
attributions consisted of teacher-related factors, the learning environment and other
external factors.
Nguyen (2010) also made a study on the demotivators in speaking lessons of the 10
th

form students at Nam Sach high school, Haiduong Province. In the study, a survey
questionnaire was delivered to 126 students of 10
th
grade at Nam Sach high school.
Besides, a structured interview was conducted with 10 students who were randomly
chosen. There is also a designed survey questionnaire for 8 teachers in the school to
identify their perception of the demotivators in speaking classes. The findings of the
14

study show five demotivation factors: (1) teachers‟ competence and teaching style; (2)
learning environment and facilities; (3) assessment of speaking skill; (4) self-

2.1.1. The school
The study was conducted at My Duc A High School which is located in a suburb
district of Hanoi. The school was originally founded as a specialized school in 1974,
after more than ten years; yet, there was no class specializing in English. At first, the
school had more than 10 classes each year. After many years of establishment and
development, it has been widened with 40 classes but it is no longer the specialized
school.
Each class in the school has from 32 to 37 students. This class size is rather favorable
for students to study English comparing with that in other schools in the province. Like
other high schools in the country, My Duc A High school applies English as among the
compulsory subjects to be taught.
Regarding the learning facilities for learning English at the school, there is only one
laboratory, which is used for many purposes. Thus, it is not good enough for the
students to learn the language lessons there often. Besides, the teachers and the students
sometimes get troubles when using the laboratory.
2.1.2. Participants
The teachers of English in My Duc A high school graduated from various
colleges and universities including College of Foreign Languages of Vietnam
National University, Hanoi University of Education; Thai Nguyen University, etc.
Most of them have been teaching English for more than 3 years.
Though most of the teachers did have chance to attend a number of training
programs inside and outside the province on teaching methodology, they still
16

commonly use the traditional method of teaching, especially the method of grammar-
translation.
The subjects of the study also include 105 students coming from three different
classes at My Duc A High School. All of them were born in 1996, and they are 47
male, and 58 female. Most of them have already learned English for at least four years
at High School but many of them are at the low level of English proficiency.

- Questions 1, 2, 3, and 4 (part I) request the matter concerning Students‟ motivation
in learning Reading English
- Questions 5, 6, 7, and 8 (Part II) aim at finding out students‟ opinions on factors
demotivating them in learning reading English
- Question 9 (Part III) aim at finding out students‟ expectations towards teachers of
reading skills
The teacher questionnaires included five questions and were sent to ten teachers of
English at My Duc A high school.
Besides, with an aim to obtain more in-depth understanding, the researcher also
randomly chose 10 students who have taken part in the survey questionnaires for
interviewing. In order to assure the validity of the information, all the questions in the
interviews were conducted in Vietnamese.
2.2.2. Data collection procedures
The copies of the questionnaire were delivered to 105 students from 3 different classes
and 10 teachers of English in My Duc A High School during their English classes.
The researcher herself delivered the copies to participants. Before the participants
answered the questions, all of them had been informed in Vietnamese about the
purposes of the questionnaire and how to answer all the questions so that they were
clear about what and how they would to do. When the students were writing their
18

answers, the researcher was there with them to give any explanation if necessary.
About 30 minutes later, the questionnaires were collected by the researcher herself.
The answers from student interviews were recorded, transcribed for the analysis
purpose, and then translated into English.
2.3. Data analysis procedures
The data obtained through the questionnaire, the interview was first read through for a
sense of overall data. After that, they were analyzed both descriptively and
interpretatively. The information from the questionnaires was displayed in the form of
tables and figures, while the information from the interviews was used as reflective