Nghiên cứu các yếu tố gây nên sự mất hứng thú trong các giờ học nghe tiếng Anh của học sinh một số lớp 10 không chuyên Anh tại trường THPT Chuyên Cao Bằng

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



HOÀNG NGỌC LINH

AN INVESTIGATION OF DEMOTIVATORS IN ENGLISH
LISTENING LESSONS OF THE 10TH FORM NON-
ENGLISH MAJORS AT CAO BANG UPPER SECONDARY
SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED
(Nghiên cứu các yếu tố gây nên sự mất hứng thú trong các giờ học nghe
tiếng Anh của học sinh một số lớp 10 không chuyên Anh tại trường
THPT Chuyên Cao Bằng)



M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10



Hanoi – 2011



VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES




HOÀNG NGỌC LINH


AN INVESTIGATION OF DEMOTIVATORS IN ENGLISH
LISTENING LESSONS OF THE 10TH FORM NON-
ENGLISH MAJORS AT CAO BANG UPPER SECONDARY
SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED
(Nghiên cứu các yếu tố gây nên sự mất hứng thú trong các giờ học nghe
tiếng Anh của học sinh một số lớp 10 không chuyên Anh tại trường
THPT Chuyên Cao Bằng)


M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor: Phạm Minh Hiền, M.A

Hanoi – 2011

iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGES
Declaration
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Table of contents
iii
List of tables and charts
v
List of abbreviations
vi
Abstract
vii
PART A: INTRODUCTION.

1. Rationale
1
2. Aims of the study
2
3. Research questions
2
4. Significance of the study
2
5. Scope of the study
2
6. Method of the study
2
7. Design of the study
3
PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical background of demotivation
4
1.1.1 What is demotivation?
4
1.1.2 Factors demotivating foreign language learning
5
1.2 Theoretical background of listening comprehension
8
1.2.1 Definitions of listening
8
1.2.2. Significance of listening
9
1.2.3. The process of listening comprehension
10
1.2.4. Potential problems in learning listening comprehension
11
Summary

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 The setting of the study
13
2.1.1. The school
13

iv
2.1.2. The teachers and the students

13
2.1.3. The English textbook 10
14
2.2 Subjects of the study
15
2.3 Data collection instruments
15
Summary

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS

3.1 Data analysis of students’ responses
17
3.2 Data analysis of teachers’ responses
25
3.3 Findings and discussion
28
3.4. Recommendations
30
Summary

PART C: CONCLUSION

1. Summary of the study
33
2. Limitations and suggestions for further study
33
REFERENCES

APPENDICE

v
LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS
Chart 3.1:
Students’ attitudes towards the learning of listening English
Chart 3.2: Students’ opinions on what motivates them to learn listening English
Chart 3.3: Teachers’ perceptions of students’ thought over of listening skills
Table 3.1: Students’ motivation in learning listening English
Table 3.2: Students’ demotivation in class
Table 3.3: Students’ opinions on kinds of tasks in listening lessons
Table 3.4: Students’ expectations towards teachers of listening skills
Table 3.5: Students’ expectations towards learning environment of listening skills
Table 3.6: Teachers’ perceptions of students’ demotivation in listening skills
Table 3.7: Teachers’ employment of teaching aids
Table 3.8: Activities adopted by teachers in listening lessons

vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
L2
Second language
CBUSSG
Cao Bang Upper Secondary School for the Gifted

vii
ABSTRACT
Listening has long been considered a boring and difficult skill by many second
language (L2) learners. This study was carried out in an attempt to investigate the
demotivators in listening lessons of the 10
th
non- English majors at Cao Bang Upper
Secondary School for the Gifted (CBUSSG). Specifically, the study has been conducted
in the form of survey research with the informants of 102 students in the 10
th
form of non-

English Section and 6 teachers of English at CBUSSG. The main instruments employed
for the data collection were survey questionnaires and structured interviews. Four factors
including teachers’ behaviors and teaching methods, students’ characteristics and learning
environment were extracted through the analysis of data collected. The research also
reveals that the teachers’ behaviors and teaching methods were the most dominant
demotivating factors for many students at CBUSSG. It is interesting to find that textbook
and curriculum were not a very strong source of demotivation. Based on the findings,
recommendations which are of significance to both teachers and students are provided to
solve the problems. At last, it is hoped that the results of this study could be of much
benefit for developing teaching and learning listening English at CBUSSG.




1
PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study

With Vietnam‟s entry into the WTO and opening its markets to the outside world,
the demand for English speaking proficiency among people especially students is on the
rise than ever before. In fact, large numbers of students are being required to learn it
through compulsory programs in schools and universities. Therefore, the teaching and
learning of English at all levels especially at high schools has been given a lot of special
attention in recent years. Since the introduction of the new English textbook 10 which
emphasizes the need for the development of students‟ communicative competence through
the four skills including speaking, listening, reading and writing, there has been shift from
the traditional teaching methods to communicative language teaching. However, most
English language classrooms continue to be places to memorize textbooks rather than
practise communication and English is still to be treated as a school subject that needs to
be mastered and tested rather than a tool for communication. The current teaching and

learning English at CBUSSG has shown that in spite of the great efforts exerted to teach
English, weakness in listening and speaking skills is a matter of great concerns because
teachers tend to educate students in a manner which is directed to meet the requirements of
the exams which mainly focus on extensive vocabulary and grammatical rules. Because the
General Secondary Exam is not directed toward the speaking and listening skills, non-
English major students find themselves uninterested in learning the skills which will not be
examined. As a result of my experience in the teaching field, I found out that most students
have passive attitudes toward learning listening English due to the previous experiences
that listening skill is hard to learn and they fail to take listenig input. That is the reason
why many of them get bored and become demotivated when listening classes start. For
these reasons, it is necessary to have a study on factors causing demotivation in listening
lessons for students in general and for non- English majors at CBUSSG in particular.
In literature so far, there have been so few studies on demotivation because it is
considered a relatively new issue in the field of L2. However, most of the researchers have
come to an agreement to a list of common demotivating factors facing students in learning
English generally and learning listening particularly. These factors involve learning
environment, teachers‟ teaching methods and personality.



2
2. Aims of the study
The main purpose of the study is:
- to investigate the demotivators in listening lessons of the 10
th
form non- English
majors at CBUSSG.
- to give some suggestions to eliminate demotivation factors in listening lessons in
order to improve students‟ listening skills.
3. Research questions

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the following research questions were
proposed:
(1) What are demotivators in listening lessons of the 10
th
non- English majors at
CBUSSG?
(2) What can teachers do to motivate students in their listening lessons?
4. Significance of the study
This study points out factors causing demotivations in listening lessons of the 10
th

form non- English majors at CBUSSG. More importantly, it can be used as additional
evidence for demotivation factors that Vietnamese Upper Secondary School students have
when listening in English. The findings and recommendations of this study will be of great
use to the improvement of the teaching and learning of listening of Upper Secondary
School students in general and of the 10
th
form non- English majors at CBUSSG in
particular. The study may guide teachers to help their students eliminate demotivators in
listening lessons and better their listening skills. The results of the study may also be
helpful for the students themselves and those who are interested in this field.
5. Scope of the study
This study mainly focuses on the demotivation factors that the 10
th
form non-
English majors at CBUSSG have in their listening lessons. The study of demotivators in
other skills would be beyond of the scope. It involves the participants of 6 teachers of
English and 102 students in the 10
th
form of non- English Section at CBUSSG. To go

ahead, the thesis also offers some appropriate suggestions to better the current context.
6. Method of the study
In order to achieve its aims, the research is carried out by both quantitative and
qualitative methods: Firstly, the data were collected with the use of the survey
questionnaire which was conducted with informants of 6 teachers of English and 102



3
students in the 10
th
form of non- English Section at CBUSSG. Then, interviews were
employed with students randomly selected from non- English Section for further
information.
7. Design of the study
The study is organized as follows:
Part A, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, the aims, and research questions,
significance of study, method and design of the study.
Part B, DEVELOPMENT, consists of the following chapters
Chapter 1, LITERATURE REVIEW, presents the theoretical background related to
demotivation including the definition of demotivation, factors demotivating foreign
language learning. In addition, this chapter also covers the followings: the definitions of
listening, the significance of listening, the listening comprehension process and potential
problems in learning listening comprehension.
Chapter 2, METHODOLOGY, provides general information about the current
situation of teaching and learning listening at CBUSSG as well as study subjects and data
collection instruments.
Chapter 3, ANALYSIS OF DATA, gives a detailed analysis of data collected.
Besides, the chapter also presents some explanations and interpretations of the findings of
the study.

Part C, CONCLUSION, summmarizes the major findings and points out the
limitations of the study. Furthermore, some suggestions for further studies are also given in
this part.













4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This chapter presents theoretical background of demotivation, nature of listening
comprehension and discussion of issues and aspects concerning the topic of the study.
1.1 Theoretical background of demotivation
1.1.1 What is demotivation?
Motivation plays an important role in the process of English learning – teaching,
research shows that motivation is one of the main determining factors in an individual‟s
success in developing a L2, it is crucial for L2 learning (Dornyei,1994;
Oxford&Shearin,1996) because it directly influences how much effort students make, how
often students use L2 learning strategies, how much students interact with native speakers,
how much input they receive in the language being learned, how well they do on

curriculum related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency level becomes,
and how long they preserve and maintain L2 skills after language study is over. In recent
decades, there have been studies carried out on motivation, however, motivation research
alone cannot explained all the faucets of motivation, it is necessary to investigate other
variables, one of which is demotivation (Hamada & Kito, 2007). Demotivation as a
concept is relatively new in the field of L2 motivation and therefore not many
definitions can be found for it.
In light of Dornyei‟s considerations, “demotivation” concerns “specific external
forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an
ongoing action”. Furthermore, a demotivated learner is defined as someone who is
originately motivated and lost his/her interest or motivation in learning because of negative
external factors. According to him, there are two sources of demotivators: external and
internal, external factors include grading and assignment, learning facilities etc and internal
factors include reduced confidence (Dornyei, 2001a) and negative attitude toward the
foreign language. In his study, Dornyei identifies the three negative factors that cannot be
considered as instances of demotivation. Firstly, powerful distractions, such as watching
TV instead of doing one‟s homework, are not demotives because they do not carry a
negative value in the same way as demotives. Secondly, the gradual loss of interest in a
long-lasting, ongoing activity cannot be seen as a demotive because it does not result



5
from a particular incident. Thirdly, sudden recognitions of the costs of an activity, for
example, realizing that how demanding it is to attend an evening course while working
during the day, cannot be regarded as demotives because these types of recognitions do
not have any specific external trigger but result from internal processes of deliberation.
Dornyei also makes the distinction between „demotivation‟and „amotivation‟. For
him, „amotivation‟ refers to a lack of motivation brought about by the realisation that
„there is no point…‟ or „it’s beyond my ken…‟ Thus, „amotivation‟ is inextricably related to

general outcome expectations that are deemed to be unrealistic, whereas „demotivation‟ is
related to specific external causes. Dornyei also pointed out that some demotives can lead
to amotivation (e.g. a series of horrendous classroom experiences can put paid to the
learner‟s self-efficacy), but with some other demotives, as soon as the detrimental external
influence ceases to exist, other positive motives may again surface (e.g. if it turns out that
someone who dissuaded the individual from doing something was not telling the truth.
Researchers have taken an interest in demotivation, as it is considered to be a frequent
phenomenon related to the teacher‟s interaction with the students. In L2 studies, in
particular, the interest in demotivation has been aroused by a different reason. The L2
domain is most often characterised by learning failure, in the sense that merely everyone
has failed in the study of at least one foreign language. So, language learning failure is
directly related to demotivation.
1.1.2. Factors demotivating foreign language learning
Much research has been conducted on language learning motivation but less on
the demotivating factors in learning L2. The studies by such authors as Gorham and
Christophel (1992), Chambers (1993), Keblawi (2005), Rebecca Oxford (1998), Sakai and
Kikuchi (2007), Ushioda (1998), Tran and Baldauf (2007) discussed in the following
illustrate that demotivation in learning a L2 is a matter of concern worldwide.
Therefore, much more information is needed on the nature of the phenomenon.
Gorham and Christophel (1992) tried to determine what factors were perceived
as demotives by college students taking introductory communication classes. Demotivators
were collected from students‟ responses to the open-ended question: “ What things
decrease your motivation to try hard to do your best in that class?” the research findings
revealed three main categories of demotives, i.e., context demotives (factors likely to be
regarded as antecedent to the teacher‟s influence), structure/format demotives (factors over



6
which the teacher is likely to have some degree of influence, if not complete control), the

teacher behaviour (factors likely to be perceived as under the teacher‟s direct control.
Teacher-related factors, which consist of class structure or format-related demotives and
the demotives resulting from teacher behavior, accounted for 79% of all responses. In a
follow-up study to ascertain whether the perceived sources of demotivation could be
replicated, Christophel and Gorham (1995), using the same question to detect demotives
with another group of college students studying communication, obtained findings that
were consistent with those from the first study. However, in both studies, no attempt was
made to examine the cases of the students who might have already been demotivated
before entering the class or was it clear whether the responses were not real or hypothetical
sources of demotivation.
To examine the degree to which teachers‟ perceptions of what affects student
motivation were similar to those found in student reports, Gorham and Millette (1997)
conducted a further study based on Gorham‟s previous research in which teacher
participants were asked, with reference a specific class, to respond to the open-ended
question, “What do you perceive decreases students‟ motivation to try to do their best in
this class and to achieve your instructional goals?” The results indicated that teachers and
students agreed on a set of central factors that are relevant to demotivation. teachers were
more likely to attribute student demotivation to performance-related factors such as the
students‟ lack of success on graded work, the students‟ lack of prerequisite skills or
knowledge and the students‟ heavy workload. In contrast, students attributed more of their
demotivation to teacher behavior, in particular poor presentational skills, lack of
enthusiasm and organization of course material.
. In contrast to the findings of the Gorham and Millette‟s study (1997), Chambers
(1993) investigated demotivation in language learning in four schools in the UK. The
study was conducted on the school students and their teachers. Students placed most blame
on teachers and learning materials. While the teachers claimed that the students' motivation
caused by psychological, social and attitudinal reasons.
Keblawi (2005) conducted a study to explore the factors affecting negatively
learning English in Palestine high schools. The data revealed that English teachers were
referred to directly or indirectly-as demotivators- by almost half of the respondents.

Interestingly, the study revealed that about half of the respondents referred to aspects of



7
English (grammar, vocabulary) as main demotivators. Furthermore, depending on the
results of a study conducted on secondary students in Budapest who were identified as
demotivated, Dornyei (2001) categorized nine demotivating factors including: the teacher -
personality, commitment, competence, teaching method; inadequate school facilities -
group is too big or not the right level; frequent change of teachers; reduced self-confidence
- experience of failure or lack of success; negative attitude towards the L2; compulsory
nature of L2 study; coursebook.
Rebecca Oxford (1998) carried out a content analysis of essays written by 250
American students (in high schools and universities) about their learning experiences over
a period of five years. In this analysis, four demotivating factors were extracted, they are:
The teacher’s personal relationship with the students, including hypercriticism,
belligerence, a lack of caring, and favouritism; the teacher’s attitude towards the course or
the material, including lack of enthusiasm, sloppy management and close-mindedness;
style conflicts between teachers and students, including multiple style conflicts, conflicts
about the amount of structure or detail, and conflicts about the degree of closure or
„seriousness‟ of the class; the nature of the classroom activities, including overload,
repetitiveness, and irrelevance.
Sakai and Kikuchi (2009) explored Japanese high school students‟ demotivation
by collecting data from 656 students through a 35-item questionnaire. The
questionnaire were designed to measure six constructs derived from previous studies:
teachers, characteristics of classes, experiences of failure, class environment, class
materials, and lack of interest. Five demotivational factors found were learning
contents and materials, teacher’s competence and teaching styles, inadequate school
facilities, lack of intrinsic motivation, and test scores. Contrary to most of the
previous studies presented so far, factors related to teacher were not found to have very

strong demotivating influence compared to learning contents and materials or test
scores which were found to be the two most dominant demotives among participants. In
addition, lack of intrinsic motivation was found to be as salient as a teacher‟s
competence and teaching styles which suggests that internal forces have to also be
taken into account when discussing demotivation. Inadequate school facilities were
not found as demotivating although it was mentioned by some participants.
Ushioda (1998) asked the participants to identify what they found to be



8
demotivating in their L2-related learning experience. Her findings were not unlike the
conclusions arrived at in the previous studies, that is, the demotives were related to
negative aspects of the institutionalized learning context such as particular teaching
methods and learning tasks.
Reviewing above - discussed studies discussed above, Tran and Baldauf (2007)
conducted a case study project with Vietnamese students by using stimulated recall essays
from 100 students of their foreign language learning experiences. The results of the study
revealed that there are two groups of demotives: including internal attributions and
external attributions. The internal attributions includes students‟ attitudes towards English,
their experiences of failure or lack of success and the incidents related to their self- esteem,
meanwhile the external attributions contain teacher-related factors, the learning
environment and other external factors. The researchers have given a specific and
comparatively full description of the issue in Vietnamese condition.
Generally, most studies conducted in the field of motivation and demotivation
found out that the personality of the teacher, teaching methods, learning context in
addition to the learner's attitudes toward L2 could play a vital role in the students'
motivation or demotivation toward learning.
1.2 Theoretical background of listening comprehension
1.2.1 Definitions of listening comprehension

There are many different approaches to the definition of listening comprehension.
However, most researchers agree that all listening comprehension involves the use both
linguistics and non-linguistics knowledge. Linguistic knowledge includes phonology, lexis,
semantics and discourse structure as well as the ability to interact with the input in real
time (Buck, 2001:3). Meanwile non- linguistic is concerned with contextual knowledge
(Buck, 2001:2; Lynch, 1998: 3).
According to Buck, listening comprehension is a process whereby listeners extract
meaning based on their own knowledge and experience. He believes that since
comprehension takes place in the listener‟s mind, the setting or context for interpretation is
the cognitive environment of the listener.
Like Buck, Rost (2002:59) believes that listening comprehension is a process
whereby language is linked to previous stored notions and associations in real life. In other



9
words, it is the understanding of what the language is referring to, based on one‟s past
experience or knowledge.
From the viewpoint of Shohamy and Inbar (1991:26), listening comprehension
entails an ability to receive and interprete input simultaneously because a listener cannot
replay what he or she has heard. A competent listener is therefore dependent on instant
comprehension as well as an ability to remember information. Unlike written text,
utterances are dependent on the context and are usually unedited. In accordance with the
ideas of Buck and Rost, Shohamy and Inbar also believe that listening comprehension
necessitates an interaction between the listener‟s background knowledge and the spoken
text.
Listening is described by Bejar, Douglas, Jamieson, Nissan and Turner (2000:2) as
“the process of receiving an acoustic signal which is then structures”. According to them,
the reception of the signal occurs in real-time but the structuring is dependent on cognitive
processes which involve linguistic, situational and background knowledge which have to

be synthesized in order to achieve meaning.
Brinley (1998:181) also defines listening as a multi-faceted and interactive process
“listeners use verbal and non-verbal cues to interprete messages.
1.2.2. The significance of listening comprehension
Listening plays a very important role in student‟s academic success. Research
shows that language learning depends on listening because it provides the aural input that
serves as the basis for language acquisition and enables learners to interact in spoken
communication.
It is undeniable that “listening is the first language mode that children acquire. It
provides the foundation for all aspects of language and cognitive development, and it plays
a life-long role in the process of communicating” (Guo, N. & Wills, R., 2006:3). A study
by Wilt (1950), found that people listen 45 % of the time they spend communicating, 30 %
of communication time was spent speaking, 16 % reading, and 9 % writing. That finding
confirmed what Rankin discovered in 1928, that people spent 70 % of their waking time
communicating and that three-fourths of this time was spent listening and speaking.
According to Bulletin (1952), listening is the fundamental language skill. It is the
medium through which people gain a large portion of their education, their information,
their understanding of the world and of human affairs, their ideals, sense of values, and



10
their appreciation. In this day of mass communication, much of it oral, it is of vital
importance that students are taught to listen effectively and critically.
According to second language acquisition theory, language input is the most
essential condition of language acquisition. As an input skill, listening plays a crucial role
in students‟ language development. Krashen (1985) argues that people acquire language by
understanding the linguistic information they hear. Thus language acquisition is achieved
mainly through receiving understandable input and listening ability is the critical
component in achieving understandable language input. Given the importance of listening

in language learning and teaching, it is essential for language teachers to help students
become effective listeners. In the communicative approach to language teaching, this
means modeling listening strategies and providing listening practice in authentic situations:
precisely those that learners are likely to encounter when they use the language outside the
classroom.
1.2.3. The process of listening comprehension
Listening comprehension is a complex psychological process of listeners‟
understanding language by sense of hearing. It is an interactive process of language
knowledge and psychological activities. However, this process is not simply decoding
the message; it also involves the combining of the decoding of the message process with
its reconstruction as meaning (Ma Lihua, 2002).
According to Underwood, there are three distinctive stages in the listening process.
At the first stage, the sounds go into a sensory store called the “echoic memory”, and are
organized into meaningful units according to the knowledge of the language the listener
has. The second stage is the processing of the information by the short – term memory.
This is a brief stage at which words or groups of words are checked and compare with the
information already held in the long-term memory and the meaning is extracted from them.
When the meaning has been grasped, the actual words are generally forgotten. Once the
listener has constructed a meaning from the utterance, he or she might transfer the
information to the long-term memory for later use. It can be seen that here Underwood
relates the aural process in terms of time and memory. The background knowledge of
listeners is also mentioned in the listening process.
In addition, the conception of bottom- up and top- down processes in
comprehension are also mentioned by such authors as Lynch (1988), Rubin (1994) and



11
Rost (2002). According to them, listeners use top- down processes when they use context
and prior knowledge to build a conceptual framework for comprehension. Prior-knowledge

includes topic of the listening material, context of the listening material, culture of the
listening material, text type of the listening material. Whereas bottom- up processes are
used when they construct meaning by accretion from phoneme-level to discourse- level
features. In the past, people used to prefer top- down to bottom- up processes because they
thought that the using of top- down processes would help English learners listen more
effectively. Nowadays, both processes are equally appreciated and should be applied
properly in a specific context and for certain purpose of listening. It is important for both
teachers and students to recognize the existence of these two types of processing listening
input as they both contribute to the development of listening skills.
1.2.4. Potential problems in learning listening comprehension
It cannot be denied that, listening is regarded as the most difficult among the four
skills for many second language learners. The problems they may have in learning
listening are various.
From the points of view of Underwood (1989), there are seven problems which
learners often encounter in learning listening. First, listeners cannot control the speed at
which speakers speak. Another problem is that listeners cannot always have words
repeated. Next, the listeners have a limited vocabulary, the speakers may use words that
the listener doesn‟t know. Fourth, listeners may fail to recognize the signals indicating that
the speaker is moving from one point to another, giving an example or repeating a point.
Fifth, listeners may lack contextual knowledge because sharing mutual knowledge and
common contexts makes communication easier. Sixth, it can be difficult for listeners to
concentrate in a foreign language, concentration is easier when the students find the topic
of listening interesting. Finally, students may have established learning habbits such as a
wish to understand every word.
Meanwhile, Yagang (1984) attributes the difficulties of listening comprehension to
four sources: the messages, the speaker, the listener and the physical setting. Higgi (1995)
studies Omani students‟ problems in listening comprehension and finds the factors which
hinder or facilitating listening are speech rate, vocabulary and pronunciation. Rubin (1994)
identified five factors that affect listening comprehension such as text characteristics,
interlocutor characteristics, task characteristics, listener characteristics and process

12
characteristics. Besides, he also identifies some problems which listeners often face
including the speed of the speaker and the language he uses; students‟ unfamiliarity with
the sounds, stress, intonation and rhythm of natural spoken English; different varieties or
accents; false starts, hesitation, repetitions and incomplete sentences. In addition, he also
points out that boredom, fatigue or distraction outside the classroom may affect the
concentration of the listeners.

13
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
This chapter deals with the context of the study, subjects and methods of the study
as well as the analysis of data collected.
2.1. The setting of the study
2.1.1. The school
The study was conducted at CBUSSG which is located in the center of Cao Bang
town, a mountainous province of Vietnam. It is also the only specialized school in Cao
Bang province. The school was originally founded in 1974 with only one class specializing
in Maths. After many years of establishment and development, today, it has been widened
with 18 classes specializing in different subjects such as Maths, Physics, Chemistry,
Biology, Literature and English. The main duty of the school is to train and foster talents
for the country in general and the province in particular. Therefore, the teachers and
students are carefully selected from schools in the province and there is always competitive
learning environment, which creates real opportunities for students to develop their full
ability.
The school has 18 classes with a number of students ranging from 30 to 36 for each.
This class size seems favorable for students to study English comparing with that in other
schools in the province. However, the school is equipped with only one language
laboratory, which is not good enough because teachers and students sometimes get troubles
when using it. So students often practise listening to English at their classroom with a

cassette player.
2.1.2. The teachers and the students
As in every high school, English is taught here as a compulsory subject by 7
teachers aged from 26 to 48. Two of them graduated from the English Department of
College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi four others were
from Thai Nguyen University of Education and one is taking MA course. Most of them
are so young and have at least 5 years of teaching experiences, some of them have had
opportunities to attend the national or provincial textbook introduction workshops or
training programmes to get the ideas about the textbook and new teaching methodology.
However, they do not have chances to contact with native speakers or specialists who can
give them precious help and advice.



14
Concerning students, currently, there are approximately 618 students whose age
ranges from fifteen to eighteen. Most students in natural scientific classes are males.
Many of them come from districts of Cao Bang province and belong to different ethnic
minority groups of Tay, Nung, Dao. One advantage of students studying at this school is
that they are brought up by scholarships from national and provincial budgets. To be
eligible for the school, students have to take hard entrance exams and have at least 4 years
of experiencing in English at lower secondary schools. However, their English
competence is very low. It can be due to the lack of native learning environment. Students
rarely have chance to communicate with English speaking people in both classroom and
outside classroom. Consequently, their abilities to speak and listen in English cannot be
improved and motivated as much as they live in the target language learning environment.
Although they are aware of the importance and necessity of learning English, few
students have real interest in learning English. In other words, the majority of the students
do not pay much attention to English, they are reluctant to speak English at school or
even in real- life communication. Instead, they only give special attention to their

specialized subjects and consider English a pre- requisite.
2.1.3. The English textbook 10
The new textbook English 10 is theme-based designed with 16 units, equivalent to
16 topics divided into 6 themes which are updated and relevant to many aspects of the
daily life including: Personal information, Education, Community, Health, Recreation,
The world around us. Those themes are represented through five sections: Reading,
Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus respectively. Each section is designed
to be taught in forty-five period. These sections are theme- based closely related to each
other to improve students‟ communicative skills. After every three unit, there is a TEST
YOURSELF, which provides students with more exercises to test how they are good at
English. According to the syllabus, students have three periods a week for their English
classes. Accordingly, time allocated for listening skills is one period (45 minutes long)
every two weeks. As a result, students have few chances to have further practice with
other listening material prepared by their teachers.
In the English textbook 10, different listening skills are utilized depending on
what to listen for such as listening for general understanding, listening for specific or
detailed information, predicting guessing and interpreting. In addition, the listening tasks



15
are various and flexible based on linguistic difficulty level, topics and students‟ interest.
However, it is noticeable that all of these listening skills develope simultaneously as the
learners become more proficient at listening. Therefore, it is important to provide learners
with practice in all skills at all levels and design suitable activities to help them develop
that listening skill.
2.2. Subjects of the study
The study was carried out with 108 participants categorized into two groups:
The first group are 102 tenth form students from classes of, Chemistry, Physics,
Biology at CBUSSG. The participants included 69 male students and 33 female students.

They have been learning English for at least 4 years, their English proficiency is rather
low. Most of them have poor knowledge of English pronunciation, vocabulary and
communicative skills like speaking and listening.
Another group includes 6 teachers ranging from the age of 26 to 48. They have at
least 5 years of teaching English. Two of them graduated from the English Department of
Vietnam National University, Hanoi College of Foreign Languages, the rest were from
Thai Nguyen University of Education.
2.3. Data collection instruments
Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to give qualified
background data for investigating non- English majors‟ demotivation to learn listening
English. In this study, the qualitative data (interviews) was conducted after the quantitative
data collection to deepen understanding and interpretation of the results.
In order to get detailed data, the study used a variety of research instruments,
namely questionaires and interviews.
The two survey questionnaires, one for non- English majors and the other for the
teachers, were adapted from Trang Tran., Balduf Jr. (2007), Demotivation: Understanding
Resistance to English Language Learning – The Case of Vietnamese Students. The first
questionnaire, consisting of 13 questions was delivered to 102 tenth form students from
classes of Chemistry, Physics, Biology at CBUSSG with an aim to elicit students‟ opinions
about factors demotivating them in their listening lessons, explore their attitudes towards
listening lessons as well as their interest and desire. All the questions were written in
Vietnamese to make sure that the students properly understood and express their ideas
fully. Whereas the second questionaire including 6 questions was conducted in English and



16
administered to teachers of English to identify their perspectives on demotivators in
listening English of the 10
th

form non- English majors and their current teaching methods
and activities used in class to help students motivated in the listening lessons.
The interview questions structured with a list of 7 open-ended questions were based
on the survey questionnaires to get a more comprehensive view of the matter. 10 students
were chosen randomly to clarify information about the items raised in the questionnaires.
All the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese in order for the participants to fully
express their views without being constrained by the use of a L2. They were then recorded,
transcribed for the analysis purpose, and then translated into English.
Summary
In this chapter, the current situation of teaching and learning at CBUSSG has been
presented as the context of the study. Futhermore, the research methods including the
subjects of the study, data collection instruments are also discussed.

17
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS
This chapter deals with the analysis of data collection. A careful analysis is clearly
presented in order to examine demotivators among the students.
3.1 Data analysis of students’ responses
(1) Students’ attitudes towards the learning of listening English


Very important
Important
Quite important
Not important
Not important at
all


Chart 3.1: Students’ attitudes towards the learning of listening English
As can be seen from the chart, most of the students consider learning to listening
English important while only 0.98% students think that it is not important to learn listening
English. It is evident that the majority of them are aware of the importance of listening
skill, however, not many of them show their interest in learning. This can be illustrated in
the following table:
(2) Students’ motivation in learning listening English

Options
Questions

A
B
C
D
E



Question
1
How interested are you in learning
listening English?
A. very interested B. interested
C. quite interested D. not interested
E. not interested at all


1.96
%


17.6%


64.7
%


11.8
%

3.9
%
0.98%
31.4%
33.3%
32.4%



18


Question
3

How often do you listen to English at
home?
A. everyday C. never
B. sometimes D. once a week
E. usually


19.6
%

59.8%

2.94

%

17.%

0%


Question
4
What is your purpose of learning
English?
A. To improve your
knowledge of English.
B. To listen to English news,
songs and films
C. English is a compulsory
subject
D. To communicate with
foreigners
E. To get good jobs in the
future


17.6
%

26.5%

21.6
%

9.8%

24.
5%










Question
5
What do you often do in listening
classes?
A. participate actively in all
activities
B. only pay attention to
activities you like
C. not participate in any
classroom activity
D. do other things instead
E. get too bored to concentrate


25.5

%


49%


1.96
%


3.92
%


19.
6%

Table 3.1: Students’ motivation in learning listening English