VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
NGUYỄN THỊ HƯƠNG
FACTORS DEMOTIVATING STUDENTS TO
PARTICIPATE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING
LESSONS AT VIET-HUNG INDUSTRIAL
UNIVERSITY

(Những nhân tố làm sinh viên giảm hứng thú tham gia vào các giờ
học nói Tiếng Anh tại Trường Đại học Công nghiệp Việt – Hung)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field of study: English Language Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Hanoi – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES


LIST OF CHARTS v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

PART ONE – INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationales 1
2. Objectives of the study 2
3. Scope of the study 2
4. Methods 3
5. Design of the study 3
PART TWO – DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1. Theoretical background of speaking skill 5
1.1.1. Characteristics of speaking skill 5
1.1.2. The roles of speaking in ELT 7
1.2. Theoretical background of demotivation 7
1.2.1. Conception of demotivation 7
1.2.2. The concept of demotivation as identified in previous studies 8
1.2.2.1. Demotivating factors identified by Dörnyei 8
1.2.2.2. Demotivating factors identified by Oxford 11
CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY 13
2.1. Research questions 13
2.2. Data collection and analysis 13
viii

2.2.1. Data collection 13
2.2.2. Data analysis 13
2.3. Subjects 13
2.4. Instruments 14
2.5. The research context 15

study.
1. Rationales
It cannot be denied that English has become more and more important in
every part of the world. As a result, the need of having good ability of English also
increases. People want to communicate in English fluently, so they spend money
and time attempting to learn it. In Vietnam, English language’s role has gotten
bigger and become a compulsory subject at every level of education (school, college
and university).
Realizing the necessity of English in the development of the society in
general and of each individual in particular, every learner wants to be competent in
English and uses it to communicate with foreigners. That’s why most schools now
focus on developing students’ ability of speaking English. Indeed, different skills
(Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing) have certain roles in English language
learning, but the final aim of learners is to use spoken language to communicate
with other people. Communication is a basic and necessary demand for everyone
and people have to learn how to speak. Moreover, speaking is considered having
more important place than other skills. Mastering speaking skill can reinforce
learners to gain better achievement in other skills such as Listening, Reading, and
Writing.
Because of vital position of speaking, learners of English should have
motivation and positive attitude to learning English speaking. But contrary to
popular belief, in the process of teaching and learning to speak English, students
have to deal with a number of difficulties including the factors demotivating
students to speak.
2

In Viet-Hung University, speaking skill is also a focus. However, a lot of
them confide that they are not willing to take part in speaking lessons. Obviously,
there may exist certain factors that deter students from participating in speaking
classes.

year students of Banking and Financing Faculty as participants. In addition, the
University offers both English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific
Purposes (ESP) courses, but the characteristics of English in two courses are
different and the demotivating factors may not be similar. As a result, this research
only focuses on the factors appearing in EGP. She hopes that other aspects of
speaking would be conducted on other groups of students by other researchers.
4. Methods
To reach the aims of the study, quantitative and qualitative methods have
been used. Firstly, quantitative approach is used to classify features, count them,
and construct statistical models. In this research, the quantitative data are gained
form the two sets of questionnaires, one for teachers and the other for students of
Viet-Hung Industrial University. The second method of analyzing the data is
qualitative method. According to Miles and Huberman (1994), qualitative approach
is the one in which the researcher study things in their natural settings, attempting to
make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to
them. Data for qualitative analysis is in the form of words, pictures or objects and
instruments are often participant observation and in-depth interviews. In this
research, in order to obtain qualitative information conducts some short interviews
with six teachers of English of the University for further information to support the
thesis.
5. Design of the study
This minor thesis consists of three parts:
 The first part presents the factors such as the rationale, objectives,
scope, methods and design of the study.
4

 The second part is the body of the study, in which a theoretical
background, research methodology and results and discussions were
presented.
 The final part gives the summary of the study, the limitations of the

motivation, demotivation and some information related to speaking skill and
speaking lessons.
1.1. Theoretical background of speaking skill
In language teaching and learning, we often talk about the four language
skills (Listening, Writing, Reading, and Speaking) in terms of their direction and
modality. Speaking is regarded as the way of measuring the language competence
of a language user. Thus, the ability of speaking fluently is more important than
being good at reading, or writing. As a result, the main aim of every system of
education is to develop speaking skill among learners. In this part, the author will
present what speaking skill is, the nature of language skills, characteristics of
speaking skill, and some theoretical information about speaking lessons.
1.1.1. Characteristics of speaking skill
Speaking has the characteristics which are as follows:
To begin with, its form and meaning depend on the context in which it
occurs. The context consists of the participants and their experiences, the
physical environment, and the purposes for speaking. In other words, spoken
language is context bound. The interlocutors share the immediate within which
the dialogue takes place; hence much information is implicit and assumed
(McCathy, 1998).
The second characteristic is that speaking relies on the speakers’
understanding of common conventional expressions for communicating specific
meanings, particularly on the language environment apart from such aspects as
grammar, pronunciation, or vocabulary.
That speech has its own skills, structures, and conventions is the third
characteristic. It means that skills, structures and conventions of speech are
different from the written language. In his book, Bygate (1987) said that “The
6

words are being spoken as they are being decided and as they are being
understood.” The fact that the words are spoken and decided at the same time

to be competent in speaking skills, teachers should be good at how to conduct the
speaking activities, what task to use in the class.
1.1.2. The roles of speaking in ELT
Speaking is a productive skill which is more complicated than it seems at
first and involves more than just pronouncing words. In fact, the ability to operate in
a second language can be measured by the ability to speak that language. Thus, as
mentioned before, of our skills, speaking is considered the most important for the
following reasons:
Firstly, the final aim of learning a language is to use it to communicate with
the others. Communication is regarded as the basic demand of human. Thus, to talk
with other people, we should learn how to speak. Learners need this skill to be
competent so that they can establish and maintain relationship, negotiate and
influence other people as well.
Another reason is that, on the one hand, in order for every language learner
to speak a foreign language, it’s necessary for them to know certain amount of
grammar and vocabulary which help build the form of the ideas. In fact, on the
other hand, a lot of language learners are quite competent in grammar and have
good knowledge of vocabulary, but they do not know how to produce good
utterances or speech. In this case, speaking skill plays its role.
In short, to master English speaking skill successfully needs the attempts of
both teacher and student themselves. While it is considered to be the final aim of
English teaching and learning process, it should be put among three other skills and
the aspects of language (grammar and vocabulary).
1.2. Theoretical background of demotivation
1.2.1. Conception of demotivation
In foreign language learning, motivation has been considered an intricate
construct which encourages learners to act to achieve one or some certain goals.
Although the competence in using L2 is the final target of the learning process, the
8



the interviewees could use as much free speech as possible. The data collected from
the recorded interviews were analyzed, following a theme-based processing
procedure. Based on this procedure, nine demotivating factors were identified as
follows:
1. The teacher (personality, commitment, competence, teaching method);
2. Inadequate school facilities (group is too big or not the right level, frequent
change of teachers);
3. Reduced self-confidence (experience of failure or lack of success);
4. Negative attitude towards the L2;
5. Compulsory nature of L2 study;
6. Interference of another foreign language being studied;
7. Negative attitude towards L2 community;
8. Attitudes of group members;
9. Course-book
Among the nine categories of demotivation, teacher was the most frequent
source which included teacher’s personality, commitment to teaching, his or her
competence in language and teaching methods. In the study, it is reported that the
teacher shouted in every lesson. In addition, the teacher was not enthusiastic
enough because he or she didn’t go to class when it rained. More importantly, the
teacher built up in learners the negative attitude to learning which was that learning
in just one or two lessons a week was not enough and that they did not need to try
hard. Moreover, the teacher paid more attention on the students he or she liked.
The second source was the inadequate school facilities which indicated that
in that the class was too big and the students were not of the same level. Some were
the beginners; the others knew some German already. In addition, learners were
demotivated by the changing of teachers frequently and each of them tried out new
methods, which made them tired.
Reduced self-confidence was the third source of demotivation. Learners were
confident at the beginning, but this reduced because they were not satisfied with the

11

Among nine categories of source of demotivation, teacher was the most
frequent one (accounting for 40%). Specially, 15% of the corresponding
occurrences were the learner’s reduced self-confidence which was considered
related to teacher’s control in class. Other two categories, inadequate school
facilities and negative attitude towards the L2, were also significant (with the
proportion of more than 10%).
1.2.2.2. Demotivating factors identified by Oxford
Rebecca Oxford (1998, as cited in Dörnyei, 2001) carried out a study on the
essays of approximately 250 American students, both in secondary and universities.
The participants were asked to write about their experiences in learning over a
period of five years. During the time of the investigation, some prompts were given
in order to ease the task such as “Describe a situation in which you experienced
conflict with a teacher” and “Talk about a classroom in which you felt
uncomfortable”. After the data were analyzed, four themes were presented.
The first one was the teacher’s personal relationship with the students. This
theme showed that teachers lacked of caring and general belligerence. Moreover,
they are also hypercritic, patronizing and favoring students.
The teacher’s attitude towards the course or the material was the second
theme, in which the teachers were criticized for not giving enough enthusiasm,
sloppy management and close-mindedness.
Style conflicts between teachers and students were the third theme which
includes multiple style conflicts, conflicts about the amount of structure or detail
and conflicts about the degree of closure or seriousness of the class.
Another theme was the nature of the classroom activities. In this theme, the
classroom activities were said to be irrelevant, overloaded and repetitive.
Although the study consisted of a large number of participants, which helped
her have reliable data, the scope was narrow because it only discusses one
demotivating factor that is the teacher. Thus, based on the results of this study,
13

CHAPTER 2 - METHODOLOGY
2.1. Research questions
The minor thesis aims at answering the following questions:
1. What is students’ attitude toward learning to speak English in class?
2. What factors demotivate students at Viet-Hung Industrial University to
participate in English speaking lessons?
3. What should be done to help the students overcome these problems and desire to
be parts of the English speaking lessons?
3.2. Data collection and analysis
3.2.1. Data collection
In order to obtain the data, the author carried out two sets of questionnaires,
one for 14 teachers and the other for 150 students. To get additional information and
illustrations she invited 6 out of 14 teachers to attend semi-structured interviews.
To begin with, the author translated the students’ questionnaires into
Vietnamese to assure that every question was fully understood and answered. Then
with the teachers’ permission, the questionnaires for both students and teachers
were delivered. For the interviews, the author had to make appointments with the
six randomly chosen teachers according to their schedules. During the interviews,
their responses were written down.
2.2.2. Data analysis
The information collected from the three sources was first read carefully and
then analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The data from the
questionnaires were displayed in the tables and charts and the information from the
interviews and class attending was presented in notes and quotations.
2.3. Subjects
In order to get the reliable data, the author decides to choose the probability

To begin with, both questionnaires have eight questions.
The questionnaire for students is in Vietnamese so that all respondents can
understand and give reliable responses. It consists of the following main points:
- Students’ opinions to learning to speak English
15

- Students’ reasons for learning to speak English
- Whether students are motivated or demotivated to speak English in class
- Factors that discourage students to participate in English speaking lessons
- To what extend do these factors affect students to participate into English
speaking lessons
- What should be done to reduce demotivation
Another questionnaire is designed to get the information from teachers of
English of the university. It is in English, but the information is quite similar to the
one in the student’s because the author would like to have the responses from two
groups of subjects to the same problems. The questionnaire covers the aspects as
follows:
- Teachers’ opinion on the role of speaking skill in English language learning
- Factors that discourage their students to participate in their English
speaking lessons
- What solutions they recommend to help reduce these factors
Second, the researcher decides to interview some teachers of English of the
University to get more necessary information as well as reinforce the data obtained
from the questionnaires. The interviews cover the following points:
- Students’ attitude to English speaking
- Factors that discourage their students to participate into their English
speaking lessons
- What solutions they recommend to help reduce these factors
2.5. The research context
In this part of the study the author would like to introduce some prominent

how long they use the book, depending on the topics they have.
Since English in Vietnam is a foreign language learned mainly in
classrooms, the role of a teacher becomes highly significant as the main source and
facilitator of knowledge and skills. In Viet-Hung Industrial University there are 14
full-time teachers of English and 4 teachers who work part-time. In this research,
17

the author only subjects to the full-time teachers who spend more time with
students.
As mentioned before, Viet-Hung Industrial University students come from
different parts of the country, but mostly from the Northern provinces of Vietnam.
All of them had learnt English before, but with different length of time. Moreover,
at primary and secondary levels, books are designed to cover all aspects of language
and skills, but teachers tend to put more emphasis on grammar and vocabulary than
communication. Consequently, after graduating from schools, most of them did not
feel confident in communicating with others. Teachers of English at the University
may suffer in the way that whenever they ask students to speak in class, their
students just kept silent, or even worse they felt frightened to speak out their
thoughts and ideas.
B. To communicate with foreigners.
C. To fulfill the requirements of the University.
D. To get good job in the future.
E. To be admired and respected by friends and teachers.
19

65.30%
13%
53%
46%
5%
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
E
D
C
B
A

Chart 2: Students‟ reasons for learning to speak English
Some students can have more than one reason of learning to speak English,
so in this question the responders can choose more than one option. As being shown
in the chart, students’ learning to speak English to get good marks and to meet the
requirements of the University are the most important reasons, making up 65.3%

B
C
D
1. Teacher
a. We are often
interrupted by the
teacher when presenting
if we makes mistakes,
even the minor ones.
0%
10%
0.6%
0%
10.6%
b. Teacher does not
allow students to ask
questions after each
presentation.
4.6%
6.6%
0%
0%
11.3%
c. Teacher is usually at
his/her seat, so it is not
convenient for us to ask
for help from him/her.
12.7%
40%
10%

0%
3%
g. Teacher is so yielding
that he or she can not
maintain discipline in
class.
1.3%
3.3%
1.3%
0.6%
6%
h. Teacher is not
friendly, so teacher and
students’ relationship is
not good.
7.3%
0.6%
0%
0%
8%
i. Teacher does not care
whether we work or not
because he/she is often
busy to do his/her own
work.
2.6%
13.3%
3.3%
0.6%
20%