VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
***
NGUYỄN THỊ ÁNH DƯƠNG

FACTORS AFFECTING MOTIVATION FOR 10
TH
GRADERS’
ENGAGEMENT IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES: A SURVEY AT SAPA
HIGH SCHOOL, LAO CAI

(Các yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến động lực tham gia vào các hoạt động nói tiếng Anh trong
giờ học nói của học sinh lớp 10 Trường T.H.P.T Sapa, Lào Cai) MA. MINOR THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii
ABSTRACT iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
LIST OF TABLES vii
LIST OF FIGURES viii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS ix
PART 1: INTRODUCTION ix
1. Rationale for the study 1
2. Aims of the study 2
3. Methods of the study 2
4. Scope of the study 3
5. Organization of the study 3
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1. An overview of speaking in L2 learning 4
1.1. Definition of speaking 4
1.2. Approaches to the teaching of speaking 4
The Grammar translation Method (GTM) 4
The Direct Method (DM) and Audiolingualism 5
Communicative Language Teaching 5
1.3. The roles of the teacher in different stages of teaching speaking 5
1.4. Motivation in speaking in classroom 6
1.4.1. Motivation 6
1.4.2. Motivation in the classroom setting 7
1.4.3. Factors affecting students unwilling to speak in classroom 8
1.4.4. Some conditions for effective motivation in speaking 8
1.4.5. Motivational macrostrategies 8
2. Concept of students’ engagement and factors affecting motivation for students’
engagement 9
2.1. Concept of students’ engagement 9

attitude towards activities and techniques applied by teachers 24
1.2. Data analysis from Teachers’ Questionnaire 27
2. Major findings and discussions 31
2.1. Research question 1 31
2.2. Research question 2 31
2.3. Research question 3 33
2.4. Research question 4 34
3. Recommendations for motivating students to engage better in ESC 34
3.1. Recommendations for teachers 34
3.1.1. Promoting students’ internal factors 35
3.1.2. Building effective classroom learning environment 36
3.1.3. Varying speaking activities 37
3.1.4. Managing speaking turns in class 37
3.1.5. Combining the textbook and relevant materials and recognize the potential
value of available facilities of the school and the Internet 38
3.1.6. Being enthusiastic, tolerant, helpful, friendly, creative and active 38
Table of Contents

vi
3.2. Recommendations for the students 39
3.2.1. Cooperating with their teachers 39
3.2.2. Taking risks 39
PART 3: CONCLUSIONS 40
1. Conclusions 40
2. Limitations and suggestions for further study 41
REFERENCES 42
APPENDIX 1 I
APPENDIX 2 IV
APPENDIX 3 XIII
APPENDIX 4 XVII

English speaking classes
To achieve these aim and objectives, the study sets out to answer the following research
questions:
(1). What are the types of motivation possessed by grade 10 students at Sapa high
school in engaging in English speaking classes?
(2). What are factors influencing the students’ motivation in engaging in English
speaking classes?
(3). What are teachers and students’ attitudes towards speaking skill and speaking
activities in ESC? 2
2
(4). What techniques could be applicable to enhance the students’ motivation in
engaging in English speaking classes?
3. Methods of the study
The study employed survey research. In my study, data were collected via questionnaires,
interviews and classrooms observation in order to increase the credibility of the findings: (1)
Giving questionnaires for both teachers and students; (2) Interviewing students; (3)
Oserving classroom to get information about both teachers’ approach of teaching and
students’ habit of learning in class as well as ascertain the prevalent problems forwarded by
the students and teachers during the interview and questionnaire.
4. Scope of the study
There exist a variety factors affecting motivation for 10th graders’ engagement in English
speaking classes. However, it is not my intention to cover all of them because of the time
and length constraint of the study, I only focus on the factors come from learners, teachers
and classroom learning environment. In this study, students’ engagement happened only in
speaking activities in ESC.

METHODOLOGY

town have better learning condition outside classroom. Many of them are able students and
have had quite good results during their secondary education. Some of them have a lot of
chance to practise speaking English with native speakers so their speaking skill is quite
good. On the contrary, students coming from ethnic minority groups live very far from the
centre of the town and their families’ income comes from farming which is considered one
of the lowest income groups in Vietnam. They have their own traditional culture and
languages and their mother languages are not Vietnamese. They finished secondary
education in local secondary schools in their villages which have poor learning condition so
they have had not very good results in secondary school education. Although the local
government has priority policies to provide education for these groups and encourages
students to go to school as offered ethnic students free accommodations in the school’s
hostel and free food, those students need extra help from teachers after school time in order
to improve their quality of work.
1.3. The materials of teaching and learning
The textbooks currently used to teach English are English 10, English 11 and English 12
published by Ministry of Education and Training. I would like to focus on English 10 in my
thesis. The teaching content of English 10 textbook follows the theme-based approach and
is developed on six broad themes which are subdivided into 16 topics corresponding to 16
units and a “Test yourself” after every 3 units. All units have the same structure, starting 4
4
with the theme of the unit, followed by four lessons focused on language skills and ending
with language focus. Language skills are developed in parallel with the development of such
language knowledge as grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation.
With strengths, the textbook is expected to contribute better quality of English learning in
Vietnam high school. In terms of curriculum development, the introduction of the new
textbook can be new fresh air blowing into the teaching and learning situation at secondary
schools in Vietnam. However, to a large number of ethnic minority students, the new

18.75%, Dao: 15% and Giay: 2.5%) and they live in the villages of SP district. The
students’ living condition, their learning outside class conditions, their attitudes, motivation
for foreign language learning are not the same.
3.4. Data collection instruments
In order to get information, the main data collection instruments for this study were
questionnaires for students and teachers, interview students and classroom observations.
3.5. Data Collection Procedures
The questionnaires were delivered to students and teachers at the middle of the second term
to gather information of students’ motivation in engaging in ESC, students’ attitude towards
speaking activities in English 10 textbook, students’ attitude towards techniques and
activities applied by teachers and their preferences as well as gathering information about
teachers’ attitudes towards students’ motivation in participating in ESC and the effects of
the activities and techniques that they had applied.
The informal interviews took place in a face to face situation with the students during the
second term of the school year 2010-2011, and the interviews were taken note or tape-
recorded. The interviews helped the researcher to get the necessary information on the
factors affecting motivation for students’ engagement in ESC.
The observations were conducted in 10 English lessons at 10 graders of two selected
teachers at the second term of the school year. The observations strengthened the
information gathered in the questionnaires and in the interviews.

DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION OF MAJOR FINDINGS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
This chapter deals with the data results of the questionnaires, interviews and the information
obtained through observation process. Also, a discussion of major findings is presented
which functions as practical groundings for further recommendations to be drawn out. In
this chapter, answers to the four research questions as well as recommendations will be
given. 7
7
The findings shows that some factors that affected students’ motivation in engaging in ESC
were learners’ factors, teachers’ factors, and effective classroom-learning environment.
Firstly, some factors coming from learners such as learners’ proficiency in English, their
interest, need, personalities and learning style in learning speaking were found out. In the
speaking lesson, the students with lower proficiency might feel intimidated by the more
advanced ones. These students, thus, were often afraid of making mistakes and losing face
in front of their teacher and classmates. As a result, they often felt reluctant to speak out in
class. Also from the findings, students’ interest and need played an important role in
students’ speaking motivation. Students with high interest always put the aims for learning
and always tried their best to achieve them. These students also have high motivation to
learn English in general and to engage more in ESC in particular. The next was students’
personalities. The reluctant speakers were students who always felt ashamed, hesitant and
not self-confident enough in front of the classmates and teachers. The final factor from
learners was learning style. The findings from researcher’s observation pointed out that the
speaking class with more reflective learners seemed be quieter and more boring than the one
with more impulsive ones. In addition, the analytical and authority-oriented learners have
many difficulties in active participation in ESC. They prefer listening to the teacher than
expressing themselves. Moreover, the assessment system, which focuses more on accuracy
than fluency, always reminds them of studying grammar items and vocabulary to pass the
examinations. This learning style in fact prevents students from being familiar with active
participation in class activities as well as opportunities to speak English in classroom.
The second factor referred to teachers, which consisted of teacher’s behaviors and their
relationship with students, their teaching methods. The findings pointed out the first and
foremost important factors from teachers were teachers’ teaching method and the learner-
centered teaching methods is the good one. Teachers, with learner-centered teaching method
would know how to keep students’ speaking, how to motivate students brainstorming and

learning English and they are interested in participate in ESC. However, nearly half of the
students have normal or low desire and they are reluctant in participating in classroom
activities because of many reasons. With regard to the activities provided by teachers in
ESC, about half of the students have positive perfective but many of them state that those
activities are little interesting and not suitable for them. Most of the students enjoy working
in groups. In term of the speaking activities designed in English 10 textbook, about two
third of the students and teachers found out the topics for speaking were acceptable, some
felt interested in these topics and only the small number estimated the topics were bad.
When were asked about the order of the lessons, all of the teachers remarked it was quite
logical. Next, some of the surveyed teachers complaint that the speaking tasks were at times
monotonous and many students say they were too difficult or difficult. The illustration was 9
9
good. In general, the speaking activities in English 10 textbook have been suitable for
students and teachers so far except something should be changed in the tasks so that they
should be more suitable for the majority of students’ level.
2.4. Research question 4
What techniques could be applicable to enhance the students’ motivation in engaging in
ESC?
There are some techniques teachers could apply to enhance the students’ motivation in
engaging in ESC based on the results of data analysis. Firstly, most of the teachers found
that it is necessary to motivate students in all three stages of the lesson (Pre-, while- and
post-speaking). Secondly, teachers should design and select class activities to meet students’
preference such as using structure-based activities, asking students to make up sentences
orally, asking students to do role play, to do topic-based discussing, completing dialogue
practice, using visual aids and games. Thirdly, the findings showed that all of the teachers
choose creating the co-operative atmosphere and encouraging students to speak by
suggested questions. This co-operation would happen between teachers and students and

speaking classes, students should cooperate with their teacher and take risks.

PART 3: CONCLUSIONS
1. Conclusions
It is undeniable that motivation plays a crucial role in learning English in general and in
learning speaking English in particular. Thus, this study sets out to investigate the factors
affecting students’ motivation in participating in ESC. It also focuses and evaluates
motivational techniques used by teachers at SPHS, LC, students’ needs and demands. It,
then, suggests pedagogical implications to improve students’ motivation in speaking.
The findings shows that grade 10 students at SPHS are varied in the types of motivation.
Besides, their motivation in speaking is affected much by the factors coming from students
themselves, teachers and classroom learning environment. To find out factors that increase
and decrease students’ motivation, the teachers at SPHS have attempted to apply
motivational techniques and activities in teaching speaking as a treatment. Based on the data
collection and analysis, the researcher have had a concrete picture of motivation, factors
affecting motivation for 10 graders’ engagement in ESC at SPHS, LC as well as students’
preferences and demand to teachers. After putting in many considerable efforts, the
researcher has fully answered these four research questions. From the fact and figures taken
from the research, the problems preventing students from engaging in ESC have been 11
11
uncovered. They include the negative attitudes towards participating classroom activities,
teachers and speaking tasks; the students’ characteristics as unconfidence, shyness; the
students’ learning styles. Besides, the positive factors carefully analyzed. The most
appropriate ways to enhance students’ engagement in the lessons are built up basing on the
causes of those problems as well as the good effects that should be improved. The
researcher, then, has offered some recommendations for motivating students to get involved
better in classroom activities. These recommendations are based on theoretical background

observations were limited to the same English speaking topics. There were many activities
that happened simultaneously in classrooms. The task of the researcher was to capture as
many activities as possible. The author hopes that during the time of future teaching and
learning, those techniques can be further analyzed and evaluated.
Hopefully, this study will contribute positively to the colleagues at SPHS and 10 Graders in
their teaching and learning English speaking lessons at English 10 Textbook. Moreover,
from the findings and limitations of the study, further study would be conducted in helping
to motivate students’ engagements in ESC.