NHỮNG yếu tố TÌNH cảm ẢNH HƯỞNG tới sự THAM GIA của SINH VIÊN vào HOẠT ĐỘNG nói ở TRÊN lớp một

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationales

The Department of English - Tay Bac University operates within the curriculum

framework of the Ministry of Education and Training. However, the fact shows that there

has not been a specific curriculum for English Departments, which makes it difficult for

the teachers to design their own syllabus based on general objectives of the Ministry of

Education and Training. After the course the students have to be able to communicate

successfully in social situations such as talking about life or career. They have to take part

in discussion, negotiation or explanation of social issues, agree or disagree with others’

opinions, .... They have to gain confidence in communicating successfully, using

communicative strategies to express their ideas, and feelings appropriately and fluently.

However, there is a fact that the students do not gain these objectives.

In order to achieve these objectives, the teachers have to invest a lot of time,

energy, passion, intelligence and creativity into designing suitable lessons as well as

finding out how to teach speaking skill to help the students achieve the above objectives.

Therefore, the teacher should begin analyzing students’ needs, and interests in learning

English during the process of designing lesson activities.

After several years of teaching speaking skills, we have found that the first year

students are still quite passive in speaking English. They do not actively participate in

speaking activities. Students’ participation in classroom activities has been the centre of

various TEFL research. In general, it can be affected by a variety of factors coming from

teachers’ side like teacher’s teaching methods, teachers’ characteristics, teachers’

knowledge; students’ side such as motivation, attitudes, personality, learning styles, age,

gender differences; and others including classroom environment, types and contents of

activities, etc. All the factors, even they are subjective or objective, are composed of social,

cognitive and affective features. These features are equally important for learners to learn

an L2.

It can be seen from the fact of our teaching and learning that students’ learning is

much affected by their feelings and emotion. When being asked if they like learning

English or not one of the students who had poor participation in learning answered: “I

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don’t really like learning English. The reason why I’m here to study English is I have no

other choice.” I was very surprised at what the student said. This also helped me

understand why that student didn’t participate actively in the speaking activities. It can not

be denied that the student’s feelings and attitudes toward learning English affect his

learning process in general and his participation in learning activities in particular.

Research on second/foreign language acquisition has identified a variety of factors

hypothesized to account for some of the variance in the level of proficiency attained by

individuals learning a second language. The factors considered may generally be classified

into two basic categories: cognitive and affective variables. Cognitive variables are the

relatively stable ability characteristics of learners that may affect the success with which an

individual learns another language. These are factors such as aptitude, intelligence, and

certain cognitive style characteristics. Affective variables, on the other hand, describe

individual characteristics relating to factors such as attitude and motivation.

In fact there are quite a lot of affective factors other than motivation and attitude,

but in this study I limit the concept to four factors: attitude, motivation, anxiety, and

personality. Although there have been many studies on affective factors conducted in

various contexts, especially factors causing anxiety in second/foreign language learning,

not a single one has ever been done on students in the mountainous areas. This study is an

attempt to explore this issue in relation to speaking English.

In conclusion, the study is of great value in terms of both theoretical and practical

aspects. From the theoretical angle, it provides us with the knowledge about the factors and

affective factors affecting students’ participation in speaking activities, and also the study

can be an implication for teachers who want to enhance learners’ participation in their

learning.

1.2. Aims of the study

The study was carried out to find out some of the affective factors affecting the first

year students’ participation in classroom speaking activities, and why these factors affect

their participation in classroom activities. In order to find out a theoretical framework or

the investigation in this thesis, the literature on the factors affecting second language

learning, theoretical foundation of affective factors in second language learning, affective

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factors affecting students’ participation in classroom speaking activities, and learners’

participation and related issues is reviewed.

1.3. Research Questions

To achieve the aims which are mentioned above, the following research questions

were raised for exploration:

1. What are the students’ motivation and attitudes towards speaking English?

2. To what extent does anxiety affect their participation in speaking English?

3. What is the relationship between their personality and their participation in

speaking activities?

1.4. Scope of the study

Learners’ participation in language learning can be affected by many factors which

are closely related. Among these factors, affective factors seem to be a complex one that

needs to be studied. However, the study only focuses on the first year students of English

at Tay Bac University because at this level learners often have more difficulties than those

of higher levels. Further more, the study only focuses on speaking activities because

speaking skill is one of the most important and difficult skills, and need developing for

their future job as teachers.

1.5. Method of the study

In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the study uses a survey questionnaire

as the sole research instrument for collecting data. There have been many studies on

factors in second/foreign language learning which employed survey questionnaires as the

major method. After the data is collected, analyzed and discussed, some conclusions will

be drawn, and some suggestions will be made in the thesis.

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1.6. Design of the study

The study consists of four chapters: Chapter one includes the rationale, the aims,

the research questions, the scope, the method and the design of the study.

Chapter two provides a theoretical background of factors and affective factors

affecting students’ participation in classroom speaking activities such as anxiety,

motivation, attitudes, personalities, teacher characteristics and classroom atmosphere; a

theoretical foundation of affective factors and learner participation. This is viewed as the

theoretical framework for the investigation in the next chapter.

Chapter three presents the study. It includes the context of the study, the research

questions, the research method, the participants and the findings of the study.

Chapter four is the conclusion of the study, providing the summary of the findings

and some implications for teachers of English as a foreign language. Some possible

suggestions for further research are also discussed in this chapter.

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