demotivating factors in listening lessons of 10 grade students at no.1 lao cai high school = những yếu tố gây mất hứng thú trong các giờ học nghe của học sinh khối 10 tại trường thpt số 1 thành phố lào cai

2






Vietnam national university, Hanoi
University of languages and international studies
Department of post graduate studies




HOÀNG THỊ HỒNG NHUNG





Demotivating factors in listening lessons
of 10 grade students
at No.1 lao cai High School


NHỮNG YẾU TỐ GÂY MẤT HỨNG THÚ TRONG CÁC GIỜ
HỌC NGHE CỦA HỌC SINH KHỐI 10 TẠI TRƯỜNG
THPT SỐ 1 THÀNH PHỐ LÀO CAI

A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Supervisor: Nguyen Quynh Trang, MA.

Code: 601410





Hanoi, 2012


6
LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS

No.
Table/diagram
Content of table/diagram
Page
1
Table 1
Descriptive statistics for students’ questionnaire
responses (N=110)

24
2
Table 2

Teacher’s techniques to motivate their students at
listening stages
28
3
Table 3
Reasons for overcoming demotivation in
listening.

31
4
Diagram 1
Research methodology.
20

7
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Candidate’s statement i
Acknowledgment ii
Abstract iii
List of tables and diagrams iv
Table of contents v
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Rationale 1
1.2 Aims of the study 1
1.3 Research questions 2
1.4 Research methodology 2
1.5 Scope of the study 2
1.6 Contribution of the study 3
1.7 Organization of the study 3

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1.1 Overview of listening 5
1.1.1 Definition of listening 7
1.1.2 Listening process 7
1.1.3 Listening in second language learning 7
1.1.4 Teaching listening 8
1.2 Overview of motivation 9
1.2.1 Definition of motivation 9
1.2.2 Types of motivation 10
1.2.3 Characteristics of motivated students 11
1.3 Overview of demotivation 12
1.3.1 Definition of demotivation 12

1.3.2 Previous studies of demotivation 12
1.3.3 Characteristics of demotivation students 16
1.4 Possible demotivating factors in listening 16


8
1.4.1 Students- related factors 16
1.4.2 Learning conditions 18
CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY 19
2.1 Research questions 19
2.2 Participants of the study 19
2.3 Method of the study 20
2.4 Instruments 21
2.4.1 Questionnaire for students 21
2.4.2 Questionnaire for teachers 21
2.4.3 Interview for teachers 21
2.5 Data collection and data analysis 21
2.5.1 Data collection 21
2.5.2 Data analysis 22
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 23
3.1 Demotivating factors in listening 23
3.2 Teachers’ teaching strategies 27
3.3 Overcoming demotivation in listening 30
PART THREE: CONCLUSION 33
3.1 Conclusions 34
3.2 Implications 35
REFERENCES 36
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3

Appendix 4








9
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale

Despite being aware the importance of English to career prospects, a large number of
students seem to lose their interests in learning this international language. English
has taken an important role in not only Vietnam but also countries around the world.
In Vietnam, it cannot be deniable that one’s English proficiency has become his
passport to a better job in all aspects of modern life. In fact, Vietnamese students
have learnt English through compulsory programs at school for many years. Despite
teachers’ efforts and the shift from the traditional teaching methods to
communicative language teaching, English is still considered as a compulsory
subject that needs to be mastered and tested rather than a tool for communication. As
a result, most of learners find themselves unable to use English for day-to-day
communication after having passed the English national examination as a
requirement for the General Education Diploma.

Although “listening is fundamental to speaking skill” in second language acquisition
(Nunan, 1997), students’ low proficiency in listening is deniable. At No.1 Lao Cai
High School, students are bored in listening lessons. Most of the learners have
passive attitudes in listening lessons because of underlying reasons that need to be

investigated. A large number of researches have been conducted on language
learning demotivation in general, but few studies have addressed possible
demotivating factors in listening skill particularly. It is necessary for teachers to be
aware of the possible demotivating factors that cause students lose their motivation
in listening lessons.

Hopefully, the major findings of the study will provide the teachers with students’
possible demotivating factors in listening lessons as well as factors that might assist
their students to overcome demotivation. With those factors in mind, they might


10
have more appropriate teaching method to help their students make process in
listening.
1.2 Aims of the study
The study aims at investigating possible demotivating factors in listening lessons of
the 10th grade students at No.1 Lao Cai High School. The main purposes of the
study are summarized as follows:
1. To investigate main demotivating factors that reduce students’ interests in
listening lessons.
2. To explore techniques used by teachers of English to motivate their students in
listening lessons.
3. To investigate factors that assist students to overcome their demotivation in
listening lessons.
1. 3 Reasearch questions
This study aims to answer the following questions:
1. What are the dominant demotivating factors affecting students’ listening
lessons?
2. What are techniques used by teachers to motivate their students in listening
lesson?

3. What are factors that assist students to overcome their demotivation in
listening lessons?
1.4 Research methodology
This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. For quantitative method,
two questionnaires were delivered to four teachers and 110 students. A semi
structure interview for teacher was also conducted to collect data qualitatively.
1.5 The scope of the study
This study focused only on demotivation in listening lessons of student in grade 10
at No.1 Lao Cai High School. In details, the study was carried out to investigate
students’ main demotivating factors in listening lessons, to discover techniques used


11
by teachers to motivated students in listening lessons and to discover main factors
that assist students to overcome their demotivation in listening.
1. 6. Contribution of the study
This is one of the first studies discovering demotivating factors in a particular skill-
listening. There have been a large number of studies on students’ demotivation
generally in learning English as a second language such as Christophel & Gorham,
1992; Gorham and Millette, 1997; Kearney, Plax, Hays, & Ivey ,1991; Zang’s 2007;
Ikeno, 2002; Arai, 2004; Falout & Maruyama, 2004; Hasegawa, 2004; Kikuchi, in
press; Tsuchiya, 2004a, 2004b, 2006a, 2006b; Kojima, 2005.

However, few studies focus on demotivating factors that prevent learners from
enjoying studying English in a particular skill, especially in listening skill. The
study’s contribution can be summarized as follows:
Theoretically, this study will shed a light on research area that few researchers
have addressed: demotivation in listening.
Practically, findings of this study will provide teachers of English at No.1 Lao Cai
High School with deep understanding of demotivating factors encountered by their

students in listening lessons so that they might have more appropriate teaching
method. To students, the findings suggested some factors that might help them to
recover their interests in listening.
1. 7. Organization of the study
This study consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

Part 1: Introduction
This part presents the Rationale, Aim of the study, Scope of the study, Research
questions, Method of study, and The content of the study.

Part 2: Development
This part consists of three main chapters.


12
Chapter 1: Literature review
This part presents theoretical background of motivation and demotivation,
reviewing studies of demotivation in second language acquisition, and brief view
on concepts of listening and demotivating factors in listening.
Chapter 2: Methodology
Research questions, participants, method of the study, instruments, data collection
and data analysis are discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 3: Research findings and discussion
This chapter presents major research findings and discussion in details.

Part 3: Conclusion
This part presents conclusions and implications.

13

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Overview of listening.
1.1.1 Definition of listening.
Scholars claim that listening is a complex and active process. Wipf (1984) states
that listening is an invisible mental process in which listeners must discriminate
between sounds, understand vocabulary and grammatical structures, interpret stress
and intention, retain and interpret this within the immediate as well as the larger
socio-cultural context of the utterance .
According to Rost (2002), listening is a process of receiving what the speaker
actually says; constructing and representing meaning; negotiating meaning with the

speaker and responding; and creating meaning through involvement, imagination
and empathy.

1.1.2 Listening processes
According to Richard (1990), there are two distinct processes in listening: top-down
and bottom-up, and listeners need to use both of them in their listening
comprehension. Listeners apply “top-down” processes when they use prior
knowledge to understand the meaning of a message. Prior knowledge can be
knowledge of the topic, the listening context, the text-type, the culture or other
information stored in long-term memory. Listeners use content words and
contextual clues to form hypotheses in an exploratory fashion. On the other hand,
listeners apply “bottom-up” processes when they use linguistic knowledge to
understand the meaning of a message. They build meaning from lower level sounds
to words to grammatical relationships to lexical meanings in order to arrive at the
final message. Listening comprehension is not either top-down or bottom-up


14
processing, but an interactive, interpretive process where listeners use both prior
knowledge and linguistic knowledge in understanding messages. The degree to
which listeners use the one process or the other will depend on their knowledge of
the language, familiarity with the topic or the purpose for listening. For example,
listening for gist involves primarily top-down processing, whereas listening for
specific information, as in a weather broadcast, involves primarily bottom-up
processing to comprehend all the desired details.
Byrnes (1984) emphasizes that context takes an important role in listening process.
Research from cognitive psychology has shown that listening comprehension is
more than extracting meaning from incoming speech. It is a process of matching
speech with what listeners already know about the topic. Therefore, when listeners
know the context of a text or an utterance, the process is facilitated considerably

because listeners can activate prior knowledge and make the appropriate inferences
essential to comprehending the message. Therefore, teachers need to help students
organize their thoughts, to activate appropriate background knowledge for
understanding and to make predictions, to prepare for listening. This significantly
reduces the burden of comprehension for the listener.

In listening process, Richards (1990) states the learners need to be aware of the
purpose of the task. He differentiates between an interactional and a transactional
purpose for communication. Knowing the communicative purpose of a text or
utterance will help the listener determine what to listen for and, therefore, which
processes to activate. Listeners listen selectively according to the purpose of the
task. This determines the type of listening required and the way in which listeners
will approach a task. Interactional use of language is socially oriented, existing
largely to satisfy the social needs of the participants such as small talk and casual
conversations. Therefore, interactional listening is highly contextualized and two-
way, involving interaction with a speaker. A transactional use of language, on the


15
other hand, is more message-oriented and is used primarily to communicate
information, for example, news broadcasts and lectures. In contrast with
interactional listening, transactional listening requires accurate comprehension of a
message with no opportunity for clarification with a speaker. Knowing the context
and knowing the purpose for listening also greatly reduces the burden of
comprehension since listeners know that they need to listen for something very
specific, instead of trying to understand every word.

1.1.3 Listening in second language learning
According to Oxford (1993), the importance of listening in language learning has
only been recognized recently. Vandergriff (1999) also states that listening plays an

important role in audio-lingual methods. Students listen, repeat and develop a better
pronunciation for speaking. Beginning in the early 70's, Krashen emphasizes the
role of listening as a tool for understanding and a key factor in facilitating language
learning. Then, Feyten (1991) concludes that listening has emerged as an important
component in the process of second language acquisition.

Vandergrift (2002) states that listeners need to use metacognitive, cognitive and
socio-affective strategies to facilitate comprehension and to make their learning
more effective. Metacognitive strategies are important because they “oversee,
regulate or direct the language learning process”. Cognitive strategies manipulate
the material to be learned or apply a specific technique to a listening task. Socio-
affective strategies describe the techniques listeners use to collaborate with others,
to verify understanding or to lower anxiety. Research shows that skilled listeners
use more metacognitive strategies than their less-skilled counterparts (O'Malley &
Chamot, 1990, Vandergrift, 1997a). When listeners know how to analyze the
requirements of a listening task, activate the appropriate listening processes
required, make appropriate predictions, monitor their comprehension and evaluate


16
the success of their approach, it means that they are using metacognitive knowledge
for successful listening comprehension.

1.1.4 Teaching listening skill
Mendelsohn (1998) emphasizes that in teaching listening, teachers need to help
students become self-regulated learners. He claims that listening should be changed
from product to process, and the role of teacher is to teach his/her learner “how” to
listen, not to test their listening proficiency during listening lessons.

Vandergrift (1999) composed a pedagogical sequence in which teachers and

students’ responsibility were indentified clearly in listening lessons. This
consequence can develop teachers’ awareness of the process of listening and help
students acquire the metacognitive knowledge to success in listening
comprehension. The consequence consists of three main periods: planning for the
successful completion of a listening task, monitoring comprehension during a
listening task and valuating the approach and outcomes of a listening task.

For the period of planning for the successful completion of a listening task, pre-
listening activities takes a very important role. These activities help students make
decisions about what to listen for and, subsequently, to focus attention on meaning
while listening. During this critical phase of the listening process, teachers prepare
students for what they will hear and what they are expected to do. First, students
need to bring to consciousness their knowledge of the topic, their knowledge of how
information is organized in different texts and any relevant cultural information.
Second, a purpose for listening must be established so that students know the
specific information they need to listen for and/or the degree of detail required.
Using all the available information, students can make predictions to anticipate
what they might hear.


17
During the listening process, students monitor their comprehension and make
decisions about strategy use. Students need to evaluate continually what they are
comprehending and check the consistency with their predictions, and the internal
consistency, for example, the ongoing interpretation of the oral text or interaction.
Teacher intervention during this phase is virtually impossible because of the
ephemeral nature of listening. Periodic practice in decision-making skills and
strategy use can sharpen inferencing skills and help students to monitor more
effectively.
In addition, students need to evaluate the results of decisions made during a

listening task. The teacher can encourage self-evaluation and reflection by asking
students to assess the effectiveness of strategies used. Group or class discussions on
the approach taken by different students can also stimulate reflection and
worthwhile evaluation. Students are encouraged to share individual routes leading
to success, for instance, how someone guessed the meaning of a certain word or
how someone modified a particular strategy.
In order to help students consciously focus on planning, monitoring and evaluation
before and after the completion of listening tasks, teachers can develop performance
checklists. These instruments help students prepare for a listening task and evaluate
their own performance.

1.2 Overview of motivation
1.2.1 Definition of motivation
Researchers have different ideas in defining what “motivation” is, but all of them
agree that motivation is a very important factor that encourages students to enjoy
their studying and to become successful learners.

Gardner (1985) referred motivation as “the extent to which the individual works or
strives to lean the language because of a desire to do so and the satisfaction


18
experienced in this activity (p.10). Ames & Ames (1989) defines motivation as the
impetus to create and sustain intentions and goal seeking acts. Oxford and Shearin
(1994) states that motivation is a desire to achieve a goal combined with the energy
to work toward that goal.

According to Dornyei (2001), motivation is one of the most important factors that
influences the rate and success of second language learning. He states, “Motivation
provides the primary impetus to initiate learning the L2 and later the driving force

to sustain the long and often tedious learning process”. He claims that without
sufficient motivation, even individuals with remarkable abilities couldn’t
accomplish long-term goals. However, high motivation can make learners get
considerable achievement in spite of their language aptitude and learning condition.

Gardner and Lambert (1972) also emphasize that motivational factors can override
the aptitude effects. They provide a convincing example is that where social setting
demands a certain language as national language, many people seem to master the
L2, regardless of their aptitude differences.

1.2.2 Types of motivation
Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1972) are the first authors who tried to explore the
nature of motivation to language study. Gardner classifies motivation into two
types: instrumental motivation and integrative motivation.
 Instrumental motivation: the desire to learn a language because it would fulfill
certain utilitarian goals, such as getting a job, passing an examination, etc
 Integrative motivation: the desire to learn a language to communicate with people
from another culture that speak that language; the desire is also there to identify
closely with the target language group.



19
According to Hayamizu (1993), the distinction between “integrative” and
“instrumental” motivation is the desire of learners in their studying process. The
first is to identify with and integrate into the target-language culture. In contrary, the
second one is the wish to learn the language for the purpose of study or career
promotion. Gardner and Lambert (1972) found that if learners’ motivation belongs
to instrumental, their success in a foreign/second language may be higher. However,
Burstall et al., (1974) concluded that there is no distinction in practice between the

two kinds of motivation.

1.2.3 Characteristics of motivated students
Naiman et al (1978) stated that the most successful learners are those who display
certain typical characteristics, most of them associated with motivation:
 Positive task orientation
 Ego involvement
 Need for achievement
 High aspirations
 Goal orientation
 Perseverance
 Tolerance of ambiguity

1.3 Overview of demotivation
1.3.1 Definition of demotivation

While motivation in learning second language is the target for great deal of research
during the past decades, demotivation seems to be a new issue of this field that has
recently inspired researchers.

According to Dornyei (2001a.), demotivation is defined as “specific external forces
that reduce or diminish the motiavational basis of a behavioral intention or an


20
ongoing action” (p.143). As a leading author in this field, he has a great
contribution to the basic understanding of motivation as well as demotivation.
However, there is a limit to the demotivating factors in Dorney’s original definition,
which concerns only on external factors that may cause Japanese students lose their
motivation. The later authors expend both internal and external ones in their studies.

Flout and Maruyama (2004) states that demotivation has a negative influence on
students, preventing them from gaining expected learning outcomes. In other words,
demotivation causes learners lose their motivation in studying, which leads to
unsuccessful mastery of English language proficiency. Demotivation can be
classified into two main categories: external factors and internal factors. The former
relates to factors that come from “outside” such as teachers, learning conditions,
learning materials, grading and assessment, etc. The later results from students
themselves including their attitudes toward English, their self-esteem, their
experience of failure or lack of success, etc.

1.3.2 Previous studies of demotivation

In the United States, demotivation has been investigate mainly in the field of
instructional communication (Christophel & Gorham, 1992; Gorham and Millette,
1997; Kearney, Plax, Hays, & Ivey,1991; Zang, 2007). Most of the studies showed
that teachers are the main reason that may prevent student from enjoying their
learning.

Gorham and Christophel (1992) tried to determined demotivating factors at a
college students by taking introductory classes. They concluded that teacher-related
factors account for seventy-nine percent of all the responses. Gorham and Millette
(1997) conducted a further study based on Gorham’s previous research. The
conclusion once again confirmed that teachers- related factors such as teachers’


21
inappropriate behaviors, poor presentation skills, and lack of enthusiasm are
dominant demotivating factors that prevent their students from studying effectively.

Dornyei (2001a) states the nine demotivating factors indentified in an unpublished
study (Dornyei, 1998, as cited in Dornyei, 2001a). In that study, 50 secondary
school students in Budapest, Hungary were participants. They studied either English
or German as a foreign language. Dornyei found that 40% of the total occurrences
relate to teachers. By using 10-30 minute interview with demotiavated learners, nine
demotivating factors are identified in order of their frequency as below:
1. teachers’ personalities, commitment, competence, teaching methods
2. inadequate school facilities (very big group, not the right level, or frequency
change of teachers)
3. reduce self-confidence due to their experience of failure or lack of success
4. negative attitudes towards the L2
5. compulsory nature of L2 study
6. interferences from another language
7. negative feelings about the L2 community
8. attitude towards group members
9. attitude towards course book
(Possible reasons for student demotivation according to Dornyei (2001, p. 152-
153)

While most of researchers used questionnaire to collect data, some authors asked
students to recall their learning experience by writing an essay. Oxford (1993) asked
participants to look back their study process over five years. The results showed
four main demotivating factors: the teacher’s personal relationship with the
students, the teachers’ attitude towards the course or the material, style conflicts
between teachers and students and the nature of classroom activities.



22
Ushioda (1998) asked twenty Irish learners of French to identify what they found to

be demotivating in their second language studying. She found that their responses
targeted negative aspects of the institutionalized learning framework, rather than
personal factors. Although the study had great distribution to the background of
demotivation in second language learning, it is difficult to generalize the results of
the research because of participants’ representative.

Japanese researchers have recently investigated learners’ demotivating factors in
studying English as a foreign language (Ikeno, 2002; Arai, 2004; Falout &
Maruyama, 2004; Hasegawa, 2004; Kikuchi, in press; Tsuchiya, 2004a, 2004b,
2006a, 2006b; Kojima,2005)

Ikeno (2002) asked 65 Japanese university students to write about their experiences
of motivation and demotivation. He proposed 22 categories for motivating factors
and 13 categories for the demotivating factors. Some of demotivating factors were
listed such as lack of a sense of control over what one us learning, distrust in the
ability of teachers, doubts about the characteristics of teachers, a sense of classes
being solely exam-oriented, feeling of inferiority about one’s English ability, and
peers’ negative toward English learning. The study could be more persuade if the
author had took a larger size of sample. In addition, some categories of
demotivation such as learning difficulties, learning failure in the past did not be
concluded in the questionnaire.

Hasegawa (2004) studied Japanese English language learners’ experiences with
English learning and demotivation with 125 junior high school students and 98
senior high school students. Hasegawa asked the students whether they like to study
English, their overall grade, what they like or dislike about their English classes,
whether they have lost interest in studying and a description of the situation when
they lost interest in studying English. She pointed out that the experiences related to

23
teachers were the most frequently cited as a source of demotivation for both junior
and senior high school students. Based on the analysis, she concluded that
inappropriate teachers’ behaviors might directly have influences on students’
demotivation. Although it may be difficult to generalize her findings to other junior
or high school students, Hasegawa's study is of significance because she asked
junior and senior high school students directly about factors that demotivated them.

Arai (2004) asked 33 university students to answer whether they had had
demotivating experiences in foreign language classrooms and to describe the
experiences and their immediate reactions to those experiences. Most of the
participants were majoring in English and were considered to be highly proficient in
English. She collected 105 comments and categorized the reports into the following
four areas: (a) teachers' behavior or personality, (b) classes being boring or
monotonous, (c) class atmospheres, and (d) others. The first category concerning
teachers was considered as the most salient factor which account for 46.7%.

Kojima (2005) used two surveys to investigate demotivating factor in learning
foreign language of 2198 high school students. In his study, participants responded
to two consecutive surveys. In the first survey, the participants completed open-
ended questions. Based on the results of the first survey and previous studies, a
closed-response questionnaire was constructed and used so that a structural
equation model of English language demotivation could be tested. The five
constructs that made up the model were the language level problem, the learner
level problem, the learning situation level problem, the students' listening problem,
and the problem concerning the amount of homework. The results indicated that the
learner level problem influenced demotivation the most, followed by the language
level problem, and finally the learning situation level problem. It is worth noting
that he found students' listening ability and the amount of homework to be

24
demotivating factors for senior high school students, which were not reported in the
studies with university students.

Kikuchi and Sakai (2007) investigated possible demotivating factors in high school
English classes using a similar approach to Kojima (2005). Based on the findings of
an earlier qualitative study, they developed a 35-item questionnaire to gather
quantitative data regarding possible demotivating factors for Japanese high school
students. One hundred twelve participants attending three private universities in
eastern Japan were asked to complete the questionnaire on the Internet. Using a
principal axis factor analysis with a direct oblimin rotation, five factors were
extracted: Course Books, Inadequate School Facilities, Test Scores, Non-Com-
municative Methods, and Teachers' Competence and Teaching Styles.

1.3.3 Characteristics of demotivated students
Chambers (1993) describes demotivated students- who lose their interests in
learning as:
 poor concentration
 lack of belief in own capabilities
 no effort made to learn
 negative or nil response to praise
 lack of cooperation
 disruptive
 distracted
 distracts other pupils;
 produces little or no homework
 fails to bring materials to lessons
 claims to have lost materials
1.4. Possible demotivating factors in listening.

25
1.4.1 Students – related factors
Willis (1981) states that students might become demotivated because of learning
difficulties. Learning difficulties mainly comesfrom three sources: the message to
be listened to, the speaker, the listener.
In terms of the message, many learners find it more difficult to listen to a taped
message than to read the same message on a piece of paper, since the listening
passage comes into the ear in the twinkling of an eye, whereas reading material can
be read as long as the reader likes. In addition, the listening materials may deal with
almost any area of life. It might include street gossip, proverbs, new products, and
situations unfamiliar to the student. On the other hand, linguistic features such as
liaison elision are common phenomena that make it difficult for students to
distinguish or recognize individual words in the stream of speech. They are used to
seeing words written as discrete entities in their textbooks.
Ur (1984:7) states: “in ordinary conversation or even in much extempore speech-
making or lecturing we actually say a good deal more than would appear to be
necessary in order to convey our message. Redundant utterances may take the form
of repetitions, false starts, re-phrasings, self-corrections, elaborations, tautologies,
and apparently meaningless additions such as I mean or you know.” This
redundancy is a natural feature of speech and may be either a help or a hindrance,
depending on the students’ level. It may make it more difficult for beginners to
understand what the speaker is saying; on the other hand, it may give advanced
students more time to “tune in” to the speaker’s voice and speech style. Learners
tend to be used to their teacher’s accent or to the standard variety of British or
American English. They find it hard to understand speakers with other accents.
According to Anderson and Lynch (1988), lack of sociocultural, factual, and
contextual knowledge of the target language can present an obstacle to
comprehension because language is used to express its culture. Listeners- students

26
are not familiar enough with clichés and collocations in English to predict a missing
word or phrase. In addition, learners usually devote more time to reading than to
listening, and so lack exposure to different kinds of listening materials. Even our
college students majoring in English have no more than four hours’ regular training
per week.
1.4.2 Learning conditions
According to Willis (1981) noise and quality of listening facilities might cause
students’ listening become challenging, which lead to demotivation. Noise
including both background noises on the recording and environmental noises, can
take the listener’s mind off the content of the listening passage. Besides, listening
material on tape or radio lacks visual and aural environmental clues. Not seeing the
speaker’s body language and facial expressions makes it more difficult for the
listener to understand the speaker’s meaning. Moreover, unclear sounds resulting
from poor-quality equipment can interfere with the listener’s comprehension

27

CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY

2. 1 Research questions

The study aims at answering the three following questions:
1. What are dominant demotivating factors affecting students in listening
lessons?
2. What are techniques used by teachers to motivate their students in listening
lesson?
3. What are the factors that assist students to overcome demotivation in
listening?

2.2 Participants of the study

Four teachers of English and 110 students participated in this study. The students
attend 10
th
grade at No.1 Lao Cai high school. They are students in three classes
that were chosen randomly from eight classes. Originally, questionnaires were
delivered to 125 students but only 110 questionnaires were collected. Although
there are totally ten classes in grade 10, two classes study Chinese as a second
language. For those who study English, they have learnt English for 4 years and a
half as a compulsory subject. They have three periods of English per week. Each
period lasts 45 minutes. In general, most of the students have same age (16-17 years
old), background knowledge and equality in gender (60 male and 65 female). The

four female teacher’s age ranges from 29 to 37. They had been taught the textbook
“Tiếng Anh 10”. All of them are university graduates and they have at least six
years of English teaching.

2.3. Method of the study


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The methods used in this study are quantitative and qualitative. In particular, data
was collected via two survey questionnaires, one for the four teachers and the other
for 125 students. At first, 10 students did the pilot questionnaire. Then, the final
version was delivered to the students. Besides, a semi- structure interview with the
teachers was conducted to get information on teachers’ techniques used in their
listening lessons in order to motivate their students. The research methodology is
illustrated as follows:

Diagram 1: The research methodology
Methodology






Teachers (4)
Students (125)
Survey questionnaire
Pilot questionnaire
(10)

Final
version
125
students
Interviews
Survey
questionnaire
Results
Results
Results


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2.4. Instruments

The instrumentation of the research was two survey questionnaires for students and
teachers staff. In addition, a semi structure interview with the teachers was carried
out to get deeper understanding of relevant information.
2.4.1 Questionnaire for students
The purpose of this questionnaire is to identify main demotivating factors which
affect 10 grade students’ listening at No.1 Lao Cai High School and possible factors
that help students to overcome demotivation. The questionnaire contains three main
parts. The first part aimed to discover students’ perceptions of their own listening
proficiency and motivation in listening lessons. In the second part, the researcher
generated 35 possible demotivating items depending on the results of relevant
studies on demotivating in second language learning in general and on her
experiences as an English language teacher. In the third part, students were asked
about some possible reasons that help them recover their interests in listening
lessons to investigate factors that assist them to overcome demotivation in listening.

2.4.2 Questionnaire for teachers

This questionnaire consists of eight questions. The questions are of three kinds:
close-ended, open-ended and scaling. The questionnaire aims to identify teachers’
opinions on teaching listening and their teaching activities in listening lessons and
teachers’ perceptions on their students’ listening proficiency and motivation.

2.4.3 Semi structured interview for teachers