PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Success or failure in language learning seems largely dependent on the learners’ motivation to learn
the target language. In particular, motivation seems very important in the development of speaking skills.
I have been an English teacher at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School since I graduated university. First, I see that
students here have high motivation in learning English speaking but it is down gradually, even they have
demotivation in recent years. So what are the reasons when the need to know and master English has
become more and more increasing, especially since Vietnam adopted an open-door policy, teaching and
learning English have been paid much attention to? It has been part of the general education and becomes
a compulsory subject at high schools in most towns and cities throughout the country. As English is
largely used in international settings, the ability to communicate in real-life situations is very important.
Therefore, speaking plays an essential role because without it, communication cannot take place directly
between people.
In traditional teaching, students were required to acquire English grammar. Nowadays they are
required to acquire various skills and language items including English grammar, English vocabulary and
English pronunciation. In the light of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), students are required
not only to have good knowledge of vocabulary and eligible grammar, but also the four language skills.
Accurate and fluent speaking is a must in English learning for students. Therefore, learning English
speaking is of great importance to students, even for their exams. In addition, this will help them to have a
good job in their future and enable them to communicate with foreigners successfully if they have a
chance and the need.
In an attempt to investigate this topic, the researcher has decided to conduct a study on “An
investigation into students’ demotivation in learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 high school,
Thanh Hóa: Problems and solutions”. As one of the first attempts to explore the demotivation in the
context of learning English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School, this paper seeks to explore the current
techniques utilized by teachers and learners in fostering demotivation in speaking learning and students’
perceptions about those techniques. The paper begins by reviewing the current literature on demotivation,
speaking learning and related studies. This is a case study conducted with 90 per 950 students who
undertook the triangulated data collection method of interviews, questionnaires and classroom
observations. The analysis of the collected data demonstrated students’ learning realities in the
demotivation within learning of speaking. The findings analyzed suggest a way to eliminate the

the sampling of individual units from a population and the associated survey data collection techniques,
such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to
surveys [36]. It is also clearly indicated that the research is mostly qualitative because the aim of it is to
investigate the percentage of each demotivated factors among students’ learning English speaking. In
order to fulfill, the methods have been used to survey, such as: questionnaires for students, semistructured interview, and observation. The following steps are involved:
 Collecting data by survey questionnaires for students
 Conducting an interview with teachers and students who are randomly chosen for further
information of the study
 Observing classes
All comments, remarks, recommendations and conclusion are based on the data analysis. These data
are hoped to confirm and support the results obtained from other sources.
7. Design of the study
This thesis is divided into three parts.
Part A, INTRODUCTION, gives the rationale of the study, some information about the current
learning and teaching English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 and high schools in Vietnam, aims of the study, the


research questions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study, and the method of the study.
Besides, the previous studies are also presented in this chapter.
Part B, includes three chapters:
Chapter 1, THEORETICAL BACKGROUND, presents various concepts most relevant to the
research topic such definition of demotivation, speaking, teachers and students demotivation in second
language teaching and learning.
Chapter 2, THE STUDY, provides the methodology underlying the research which includes the
general information about study subjects, the current state of teaching and learning English speaking at
Tĩnh Gia 1 High School. This chapter also focuses on the methods of data collection.
Chapter 3, RESULTS AND DICUSSION, gives a detailed presentation of data and a detailed
description of data analysis. Some explanations and interpretations of the findings of the study are also
presented.
Part C, IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION, emphasizes the implication of the study in which

In many contexts, speaking is often seen as the skill upon which a person is judged “at face value”. To put
it in another way, people may often form judgments about our language competence from our speaking
rather than from any of our other language skills.
1.3. Definition of motivation and demotivation in foreign language and L2
1.3.1. Definition of motivation
In ideal classroom, students pay attention, ask questions and want to learn. They do assignments
without complaint and study without being coaxed and cajoled. This means that they have motivation in
learning. The term “motivation” is used constantly in everyday and professional context but defining
motivation precisely is a demanding task due to its complex and multination. As motivation plays such a
crucial role in demanding process of L2 learning, there is a long history of motivation in language
learning. Motivation research was first inspired and spearheaded by social psychologist Robert Gardner in
Canada. According to Gardner [24], motivation is and acts of stimulating the interest of somebody to do
something. He drew out a formulary of motivation: “Motivation = effort + desire to achieve goal +
attitudes”. In term of Second/ Foreign language learning, Gardner [24, pg.10-11] defined motivation as:
the combination of effort plus desire to achieve the goal of learning the language plus favorable attitudes
towards learning the language. When the desire to achieve the goal and favorable attitudes towards the
goal are linked with the effort or the drive, we have a motivated organism.
Dornyei [19] divided motivation development into three main periods: the socio-psychological
period, the cognitive - situated period, and the process-oriented period.
1.3.2. Definition of demotivation
Motivation plays a very important role in L2; many teachers are looking for the best ways to
motivate students. Past motivation research has mainly concentrated on the positive motivational
influences as seen in the previous chapter. “A motive has been seen as a kind of inducement whose force
ranges on a continuum from zero to strong. In addition to positive influences there are, however, negative
effects that de-energise action” (Dornyei, [18]). The darker side of motivation, demotivation, has been
found to play a crucial role in the learning process but yet it has been neglected as a research topic until
recently. Christophel and Gorham [14] found that the strongest influence on motivation was not the
presence of motivators in the classroom, but the absence of demotivators. At the beginning of the
semester, the absence of context demotivators and teacher behavior demotivators positively affected
motivation. So what is demotivation?

process.
1.5. Factors demotivate students’ participation in speaking learning
Students’ participation usually means students speaking activities in class, for example, answer and
ask questions, make comments and join in discussion. It is also shown through interactions between
students and students, between teachers - students when working together. Students’ participation can be
affected by various factors coming from students, teachers, and classroom. In the following section, some
of the factors will be discussed.
1.4.1. Students’ factors
1.4.1.1. Students’ learning styles
Every student has a learning style; therefore, there is no particular teaching or learning method that
can suit the needs of all learners. If the teachers do not take care of or neglect the differences among
students, for example, teachers only pay attention to good students meanwhile the rest students do not get


benefit from their teachers. This makes them feel uncomfortable. This is one reason for the fact that when
an activity is in progress, not all students participate in actively.
1.4.1.2. Students’ attitude and motivation
Clearly, motivation plays an important role in the success of language learning in general but we
may wonder how much or to what extent motivation accounts for students’ participation in oral activities.
We may not give the correct answer but we can see that if learners perceive a goal and if that goal is really
attractive, they will be strongly motivated to do whatever necessary to reach that goal. Therefore, the
more motivated students are, the more actively they will participate in oral activities.
1.4.1.3. Students’ second language level
It is undoubted that students’ levels in a class are not alike. There are two levels of language: the
basic interpersonal communicative skills and the cognitive academic language proficiency. The basic
interpersonal communicative skills concept represents the language of natural, informal conversation.
Basic interpersonal communicative skills are used by students when talking about everyday things in
concrete situations, that is, situations in which the context provides cues that make understanding not
totally dependent on verbal interaction
Thus, students’ participation can be affected by their own language level. We, therefore, should

The third factor is students’ language level including knowledge of English proficiency and knowledge of
other fields. The fourth one is students’ personality. One more factor is students’ anxiety. The language
anxiety of students may affect their participation because foreign language speaking anxiety in the
English classroom may stem from fear of making mistakes and the consequent fear of negative
evaluation, and students’ perception of low ability in relation to their peers. The last one is the gender
difference.
1.4.2. Teachers’ factors
1.4.2.1. Teachers’ teaching methods
Stern [62] lists out some main teaching methods as follows:
Grammar-translation or traditional method, audio - lingual method, direct method
reading method, audiovisual method…
1.4.2.2. Teachers’ knowledge
What a teacher knows is one of the most important influences on what is done in classrooms and
ultimately on what students learn. Thus, being a teacher, we should have:
General pedagogical knowledge: Teacher should understand how to moderate discussions, design
group work, organize materials for student use, utilize texts and media, etc.
Linguistic knowledge: Teachers need a basic working knowledge such as knowledge of the nature
and functions of language, knowledge about the systems and structure of English such as: phonetics,
syntax, semantics, discourses, etc.
Specialist knowledge: English teaching in Vietnam can be divided into two types: Teaching
General English and English for Special Purposes (ESP). ESP teachers teach special content due to the
demands of the fields involved like business, tourism, technology, informatics, accounting, etc. In order to
teach ESP, besides general knowledge, teachers must have the knowledge of the subject he (or she)
teaches.
Clearly, teachers need to understand the subject matter deeply and flexibly to teach all students.
They need to see how ideas connect across fields and to every life. This kind of understanding provides a
foundation for pedagogical content knowledge that enables teachers to make ideas accessible to others.
1.4.2.3. Teachers’ characteristics
Besides the knowledge and teaching methods, teachers’ characteristics may have a great influence
on students’ participation. Barry [3] shows some characteristics a teacher should have that help increase

previous studies.
The teaching contents are organized according to themes in order to provide contexts for language
skills, language elements and socio-cultural knowledge to be taught and developed in an integrated
manner. These themes are all drawn from the contexts of students’ daily life such as home and school,
health, recreation, community and the world. The themes are recycled from grade to grade in a
cumulative and spiral manner, which means they are repeated at higher grade with increasing levels of
difficulty to suit students’ intellectual and cognitive maturity levels.
The total number of class hours for English education is also clearly specified. In high school, the
time allocation is 315 for standard textbooks. Each class hour is 45 minutes in length. We can see that the


number of periods for each skill is 16 for each grade per year, which is rather low for developing such 4
difficult skills on the ground that students rarely use English outside classroom for communication.
Tiếng Anh 10 is the official textbook for 10th grade students, includes topics: daily life, school
talks, people’s background, special education, technology, excursion, the mass media, story of my village,
undersea world, conservation, national parks, music, films and cinema, the world cup, cities, historical
places.
Tiếng Anh 11 includes topics: friendship, experiences, a party, volunteer work, literacy,
competitions, world population, celebration, the post office, nature in danger, sources of energy, the Asian
games, hobbies, recreation, space conquest, and the wonders of the world.
Tiếng Anh 12 includes topics: home life, cultural diversity, ways of socializing, school education
system, higher education, future job, water sports, sea game, international organizations, women in
society, the association of Southeast Asian nations.
An ideal systematic textbook evaluation would be a longitudinal one, which includes pre-use
evaluation, whilst-use evaluation and post-use evaluation. But textbooks are subject to adaptation when
they are actually used in the class-room, despite the great effort that textbook writers make to meet the
needs of the intended users. Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12 is accompanied with cassette tapes and students’
workbook. The textbook is evaluated with clear structure, an adequate number of review units and
covering all four language skills adequately and allowing for an integration of skills at the pre and post
stages. However, there are several units in these book are not suitable: too long (textbook 11: U12,

pay much attention to English, especially, speaking skill. And if some students are said to be good at
English, it means they are good at English grammar. Most of them find it hard to express themselves
orally. And, the teachers have to face a lot of difficulties in teaching speaking because students seem to
be passive in all speaking activities. In the English lessons, teachers have to speak Vietnamese most of the
time because they are afraid that their students do not understand what they are speaking. When the new
textbooks were applied, almost students complain about difficulties they get in learning English skills in
general and in speaking in particular. And we ourselves realize that our students really have bad speaking.
Certainly, there are many reasons for this. If those difficulties are not found out and no solutions can
be given, the speaking classes cannot be successful and students will be fed up with learning English if
they find it worthless to study the subject.
2.2. Methods to the study
2.2.1. Participants


The participants of this research consist of two groups: High school teachers and students. In this
study, no names of teachers or students were identified.
The first group is 90 the 10th, 11th, 12th graders chosen randomly from 3 classes 10A2, 11A4,
12A6 at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School. Their average age from 16, range from 15 to 17. The participants
include 43 male students and 47 female students, 60 percent of them come from farming families which
don’t have much money to support for their learning and to equip modern medias such as cassette, CD,
the Internet for their children English learning. Especially, their proficiency, competence and motivation
are very low.
2.2.2. Data collection instruments
The data collection methods applied in this study was aimed at collecting qualitative data. The
questionnaires for students were delivered to the 90 students from Tĩnh Gia 1 High School respectively.
The researcher mainly used the close- ended questions in the questionnaires.
2.2.2.1. Questionnaires for students
The researcher decided to use questionnaires for the research. The questionnaires were conducted in
Vietnamese because the students might not understand all information in English, which may affect the
result of the study.

collection methods, the data collection procedures have also been discussed in this chapter. In the next
chapter, the result and discussion will be presented.
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Data analysis
The research was mainly based on qualitative approach. The data was converted into statistical
numbers and percentages. The results were presented by means of numbers and tables or charts.
3.1.1. Factors that demotivate students’ participation in speaking activities
3.1.1.1. Students’ attitudes on learning speaking English
Câu hỏi 1: Người ta nói rằng kỹ năng nói không quan trọng, bạn có đồng ý như vậy không? (It’s said that
speaking skill is not important, do you agree?)

Chart 3.1: The importance of speaking skill in English classes
The questionnaire’s results showed that most students admitted the importance of speaking skill.
Surprisingly enough, most of the students gave speaking skill much importance in learning English. 68%
of the students disagreed with the idea that speaking was not important. Only 19% of the students were
not sure. These results also proved that the students at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School were well aware of the
necessity and the particular role of speaking skill among the four language skills.
Câu hỏi 2: Bạn có thích nói Tiếng Anh trong lớp không? (Are you interested in speaking English in
class?)

Chart 3.2: Students’ interest in speaking English in class


Students’ interest at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School in speaking English was low. That was the reason for
their poor participation in speaking activities which could be realized from the answers to the question 2
(Appendix 1).
Câu hỏi 3: Bạn có phản ứng gì với thái độ không hợp tác của các thành viên trong nhóm trong tiết
nói Tiếng Anh? (What do you reflect with negative attitude of group members toward learning English
speaking?)


Chart 3.5: Psychological factors
The above table showed that 63% of them felt stressful and anxious when they had to speak English
in front of the class. Only 2% felt confident.
According to the interview with the students who felt shy and unconfident, most of them answered
that they were afraid of making mistakes and losing face before other students. This resulted in their low
level of participation in speaking activities.
3.1.2.4. The classroom climate demotivating factors
Câu hỏi 6: Theo bạn, điều gì làm cho bạn học nói Tiếng Anh kém? (In your opinion, what makes
you bad at learning speaking English?)
Options
Questions
(Q for learner): In your opinion, what

A

B

C

D

47%

19%

2%

32%

makes you bad at learning speaking

C

39%

31%

23%

D
7%

such as classroom size, chairs, tables,
board, light…. in your school make you
Question 7

convenient for speaking English lessons?
A. No, I don’t think so
B. Yes, a little
C. Other ideas
D. Yes, I think so
Table 3.2: Physical condition factors

Many students blamed the physical condition such as classroom size, chairs, tables, board, light….
in their school for their demotivation. The “No, I don’t think so” in the questionnaire revealed that
students didn’t feel comfortable with physical condition in speaking English lessons in their school. They
wanted to learn in the room with high qualified sound, wanted to see interesting video clips or films in
English or having English subtitle to widen their vocabularies and improve their pronunciation and
listening skills. Only 7% of them felt comfortable with physical condition in their school.
3.1.2.6. Course book factors: Câu hỏi 8: Bạn có ý kiến gì về nội dung sách giáo khoa? (What’s your idea
about the content of course-book?)

they had to learn in each lessons. Many students were tired of learning so many new words. There were
more than 30 words after each lesson and most of them are very difficult. (Sentence 3 in the checklist for
class observation)


Furthermore, all students in the interview agreed that the topics in the textbook were not real, not
necessary for their daily life. The activities, the design in the textbook were also boring.
3.1.2.7. The topic demotivating factors
Câu hỏi 9: Bạn cảm thấy thế nào về các chủ đề ở các tiết học nói? (How do you feel about the
topics of speaking activities in your class?)
Options
Questions
(Q for learner): How do you feel about the

A

B

C

D

43%

38%

17%

2%



10%

42%

your English teacher?
Question 10

A. Very strict
B. I don’t like her/ his method
C. Our teacher is so easy doing
D. It’s a good teacher
Table 3.5: The teacher demotivating factors

The table showed that nearly a half, 42% students accepted that their teachers were good. It means
that most of the teachers in Tĩnh Gia 1 High School were good. Besides, students felt demotivated
because of teachers’ personality and were not satisfied with teachers’ competence, 29% felt that their
teacher so strict. Whereas 10% students in the questionnaire complained that their teacher was so easy
doing. They said in the interview that their teacher was grading and assessment. She had no corrective
feedback, gave more care for only some students. She was not serious in the lessons and too tolerant with
their mistakes. She gave them so high marks and was not strict in the tests. As the result, they sometimes
were lazy and didn’t have any pressure to learn.
3.1.2.9. The test and evaluation demotivating factors
Câu hỏi 11: Ý kiến của bạn về các bài kiểm tra? (What do you think about the tests?)


Options

A


said the tests were good and suitable.
In the interview, some students were frustrated when referred to the test:
“When I do a test I think I have done well. But when I get the exam paper I discover that my results
are contrary to my expectations. I have got low mark despite learning very hard, so I do not want to study
English anymore.”
3.2.2. Activities increase students’ participation in speaking lessons
First of all is organizing activities, teachers tend to use less some other type of interaction in which
students are active and the teacher is mainly receptive. When being asked, many teachers confessed that
they felt safe with common types of interaction such as pair work, group work or individual work.
However, they may have some troubles with the situations in which students make too much noise when
they are all speaking at once or they cannot hear all students are saying so that they can correct them.
Sometimes, their students may revert back to using their first language when they are put together. Or
some pairs finish before other and they have nothing to do.
To solve these problems, some suggestions can be given to make the interaction more effective.
First, the noise in classroom during the activities is unavoidable but at least this means that they are
producing language. Moreover, when students tend to use mother tongue in classroom, teachers need to
reinforce the importance of using English and check that students are doing so when they monitor. In the
case of some pairs finish their task, teachers should plan an extra activity that will keep these students
occupied until the other have finished.
With the help of teaching aids students can develop thinking skill such as forming an opinion,
finding similarities or differences and using metaphors. Teaching aids are also flexible and easily
adaptable to different levels and teaching aims and they help creative expression, personalization and
originality in speaking. Teachers, therefore, need to make full use of available aids as well as be aware of
the importance of the use of teaching aids in their speaking lessons.


In short, some activities to increase students’ participation Tĩnh Gia 1 School in speaking lessons
should be organizing activities, shaping the learning environment, students assess themselves their own
participation in the lesson, using modern teaching aids.
3.2.3. Recommendations for increasing students’ participation in speaking activities

Firstly, the study aims to investigate the current situation of students’ demotivation in learning
English speaking at Tĩnh Gia 1 High School, Thanh Hóa but the participants of the survey were limited.
So the results may not reflect fully the whole situation of learning and teaching speaking skill.


Secondly, the questionnaires may not cover all demotivating factors which lead to less reliable
results.
Then the results of research only collected and analyzed from questionnaires, interview, class
observation and it is absent of discussion which might be incomplete.
Finally, due to time constraint and some other objective factor made it impossible for the researcher
to carry out the investigation into the relationship with other skills, which restrict more precise of the
research.
3. Suggestions for further research
Due to the limitation of the research, it can encourage more research on demotivators in learning
English, or learning other foreign languages. The next further studies should have an insight look into
other aspects of demotivation such as impact of demotivation, how demotivators are different in term of
the levels of impact… They should also study specific techniques to overcome the negative effect of those
factors.

Researcher’s signature

Nguyễn Thị Hà