VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
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NGUYỄN THỊ BƯỞI
DEMOTIVATING FACTORS IN LISTENING LESSONS
OF THE SECOND YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS
AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
(Nghiên cứu về các yếu tố gây mất hứng thú trong các bài học nghe
của sinh viên không chuyên năm thứ hai trường đại học Công Nghiệp Hà Nội )

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field:

English Language Teaching Methodology

Code:

60140111

HA NOI – 2015


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

Hanoi, October 2nd, 2015

Nguyen Thi Buoi

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Nguyen Thi
Thu Ha for her inspiring me to do this research. If it had not been for her invaluable
guidance, insightful comments and kind support, my thesis would not have been
accomplished.

My special thanks also go to all the professors and lecturers of the Faculty of
Postgraduate Studies at the University of Languages and International Studies –
Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their valuable lectures, which have laid the
foundation for this thesis.

I am indebted to my friends and my colleagues for their suggestions and
encouragement to fulfill the study. Finally, I owe the completion of this study to my
family, especially my husband who gave me encouragement throughout the study.

Hanoi, October 2015

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ABSTRACT
This study is an attempt to investigate factors demotivating the second year non
English major students in listening lessons at Hanoi university of Industry. The main

lessons because of some underlying reasons that need to be investigated.
A large amount of research on second language learning has mainly concentrated
on motivating factors with the aim of developing a positive attitude toward English
language learning. On the contrary, demotivation is considered to be a relatively new
term in this field. There have been so few studies conducted on demotivating factors in
learning second language in general, and in listening in particular. That is one of the
reasons why we carry out more research on this problem.

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All the aforementioned reasons have encouraged me to carry out a study entitled
“Demotivating factors in listening lessons of the second year non- English major
students at Hanoi University of Industry”. I do this study with the hope that it will be a
useful reference for teachers and learners at HAUI to find a better way to teach and
learn listening skills.
2. Aims and Objectives of the Study
The study aims at exploring factors of demotivation in listening lessons of the
second year non- English major at Hanoi University of Industry.
The paper is intended to aim at the following objectives:
(+) To investigate main demotivating factors that reduce students’ interest in listening
lessons.
(+)To suggest some solutions to eliminate these factors in order to help students
recover their interest in listening lesson.
3. Research questions
This study aims to answer the following question:
What are the dominant demotivating factors affecting students’ listening lessons from
students’ perception and from teachers’ perception?
4. Scope of the study
The study only focuses on the demotivation that the second year non-English

study. The second part is the main content including 3 chapters. Chapter one is the
literature review which deals with the concepts of listening, listening comprehension,
demotivation and reviewing studies of demotivation in second language acquisition as
well as demotivating factors. Chapter two is about the methodology of the study which
presents research questions, participants, methods of the study, instruments, data
collection. Chapter three is about the data analysis, discussion and major findings. The
last part is conclusion which presents the summary of the study, limitations and the
suggestions for further study.

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Although the LC part is assessed to be appropriate and useful for skill development
objective, it is not completely suitable for Vietnamese learners as it is written for
English learners all over the world. Thus, to minimize its disadvantages, the LC in the
material should be adapted to be more appropriate to our students’ levels and needs.
3. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study
Due to various constraints and scope of the study, the present research displays
certain limitations. First, this study investigated the demotivating factors for the second
year non-English major students at HaUI. However, with the limited number of
participants, the results of the study may not reliably reflect the teaching context.
Second, if time was available an interview with student subjects would be conducted to
add more validity to the research. Third, due to the small scope and limited time, the
research only focused on listening skill. Therefore, the coming research can focus on
the other skills in particular or foreign language learning in general. Furthermore, other
researcher can focus on more learners at different levels and more teachers to
participate in the studies to have more reliable findings and perceptions of the issue.

REFERENCES
Byrnars, H. (1984). The Role of Listening Comprehension: A Theoretical Base.

Oxford, R. (1993). Research Update on L2 Listening. System 21: 205-11
Rost, M. (2002).Teaching and Researching Listening. London, UK: Longman.

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Trang.T&Baldaulf.R (2007).Understanding resistance to English language learning
– the case of Vietnamese student. Paper presented at the Journal of Asia TEFL,
79-

105.

Willis, J. (1984). Teaching English through English, London: Longman.
Zhang, Q. (2007). Teacher misbehaviors as learning demotivators in college
classrooms: A cross-cultural investigation in China, Germany, Japan, and the
United States. Communication Education 56, 209-227.

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