Perception of the biological students about the advantages and disadvantages of studying English with the native and non-native English speaking teachers

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

-----------------------------------------------

PHẠM CỬ THIỆN

PERCEPTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL STUDENTS ABOUT

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF

STUDYING ENGLISH WITH THE NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE

ENGLISH-SPEAKING TEACHERS

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Ho Chi Minh City, 2019

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I herewith formally declare that I myself have written the submitted Master thesis

“Perception of the biological students about the advantages and disadvantages of

studying English with the native and non-native English-speaking teachers”.

I did not use any outside support except for the literature and other sources

mentioned at the end of this paper.

This thesis has not published at any Universities or Institutions.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2019

…………………………..

Phạm Cử Thiện

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am greatly indebted to Dr. Huynh Cong Minh Hung, my supervisor, for the

overall support to my Master program and thesis writing.

I would like to express my profound gratitude to all lecturers and staff at Ho

Chi Minh City Open University, especially the ones at Graduate Department and

Foreign Languages Department for the guiding and assistant to my learning.

I am so thankful to all teachers and staff at Edith Cowan University, Australia

for the courses and teaching model during the study tour in Perth. Sincere thanks to

Ms. Pham Thi Hong Anh, Ms. Ho Thi Bao Uyen and Ms. Huynh Thi Ngoc Huyen

for the support to my study tour and make it more successful.

I would like to extend my wholehearted thanks to all my friends, especially

Mr. Cao Ba Hoang, Mr. Phan Ngoc Huy and Mr. Ly Nhut Thien for the

encouragement during my studying period.

Last but not least, I would like to say thank you very much to all my students

in Faculty of Biology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Education for joining the

research.

This thesis is dedicated to my parents, sisters and brother. It is also a gift for

my wife and my son.

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ABSTRACT

A study on 126 students from Department of Biology, Ho Chi Minh City University of

Education on the advantages and disadvantages of learning English with native and non￾native English-speaking teachers was carried out in January, 2018. Data on their

perceptions towards the reasons why they liked studying with native and non-native

English-speaking teachers were gained from questionnaires. Thirty students in this

research were also randomly selected for interview to get their suggestions for the better

ways of teaching and learning English. The result from questionnaire (N=126) and

interview (N=30) showed that biological students preferred learning pronunciation,

listening, speaking and reading in General English with native English-speaking teachers.

However, most of them indicated preference to study grammar, writing in General English

and English for Biology with non-native English-speaking teachers. The findings will help

Deans take into consideration the importance of teachers in teaching English.

Keywords: student’s perception, biological student, English for Biology, teacher of

English.

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Page

Statement of authorship .................................................................. i

Acknowledgement .......................................................................... ii

Abstract .......................................................................................... iii

Table of Contents ........................................................................... iv

Lists of figures ............................................................................... v

List of Tables ................................................................................. vi

Abbreviations .................................................................................. vii

1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 1

1.1. Background to the study ............................................... 1

1.2. Aims of the study .......................................................... 4

1.3. Research questions ........................................................ 4

1.4. Key terms for the study................................................. 5

1.5. Structure of the English courses ................................... 5

1.6. Organization of the thesis ............................................. 6

1.7. Chapter summary .......................................................... 6

2. LITERATURE .......................................................................... 7

2.1. English for Special Purposes……………………….. .. 7

2.2. Differences between native and non-native English-speaking

teachers ................................................................................ 8

2.3. Previous related studies………………………………. 14

2.4. English language teaching ........................................... 28

2.5. Research gap ................................................................. 30

2.6. Chapter summary…………………….. ……………... 31

3. METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 32

3.1. Research design ............................................................ 32

3.2. Reliability and validity ................................................ 34

3.3. Definitions of terms ...................................................... 36

3.4. Data analysis ................................................................. 36

3.4. Chapter summary…………………………………….. 36

4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSSION ........................................... 37

4.1. Information of participants in the research ................... 37

4.2. Research question 1 ...................................................... 40

4.3. Research question 2 ...................................................... 55

4.4. Research results from the interview ............................. 62

4.5. Chapter summary…………………………………….. 73

5. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATION ................................... 76

REFERENCES .............................................................................. 80

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LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 2.1. Three concentric circles……………………………................................ 8

Figure 4.1 Percentage of English skills and aspects that students already practiced with

native English speakers ………………………………………………………… 39

Figure 4.2. Percentage of students in each batch already studied English with native

English-speaking teachers (%) (N=80)……………………………………………... 40

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 2.1. Students’ perceptions of native English-speaking teachers and non￾native English-speaking teachers in terms of their strengths………………….20

Table 2.2. Students’ perceptions of native English-speaking teachers and non￾native English-speaking teachers in terms of their weaknesses……………… 21

Table 3.1. Reliability statistics……………………………………………...... 35

Table 4.1 Total students in each batch in Faculty of Biology………………... 37

Table 4.2 Percentage of students in participated in the research…………...... 38

Table 4.3. Percentage of students liked studying General English…………....41

Table 4.4 Biological students’ perception of studying pronunciation………...42

Table 4.5 Biological students’ perceptions of studying grammar…………… 44

Table 4.6 Biological students’ perception of studying listening…….. ……… 45

Table 4.7 Biological students’ perception of studying speaking.……………. 47

Table 4.8 Biological students’ perception of studying reading.……………... 48

Table 4.9 Biological students’ perception of studying writing.……………… 50

Table 4.10 Percentage of students liked learning English for Biology..……... 56

Table 4.11 Students’ perceptions of studying English for Biology......……… 58

Table 4.12. Percentage of students liked learning English with English teachers

(N=30)……………………………………………………………………….. 63

Table 4.13. Students’ perception of studying English with English teachers

(N=30)……………………………………………………………………….. 64

Table 4.14 Suggestions for better ways of teaching general English……….. 66

Table 4.15 Suggestions for better ways of learning general English……….. 69

Table 4.16 Suggestions for teaching English for Biology.…………………. 70

Table 4.17 Suggestions for learning English for Biology.…………………. 72

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ABBREVIATIONS

NET: native English-speaking teacher

NNET: non-native English-speaking teacher

ESP: English for Special Purposes

1

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the study

English is an international language and it has been widely used as an

important means of communication all over the world (Xue & Zuo, 2013;

Tosuncuoglu, 2017). It becomes an important skill that the employers wanted

their staff to have at work (Foley, 2011) and the employers requires the

competence in English for the employees increasingly (Graddol, 2000).

Therefore, learners at different ages all over the world have been studying

English for their work, for immigration to an English-speaking country, for

travelling purposes or for entertainment (Harmer, 2010). Students at Ho Chi

Minh City University of Education also have to learn English because of

different reasons, but the common one is that it is one of their subjects in the

training program. Beside the learning program, the syllabus, and all the

means for learning English such as books, video clips, figures, photos, etc,

teachers play an important role when teaching a foreign language like

English. When learners study English, they understand that teachers have

individual differences and their work is very important (Harmer, 2010).

Luk & Lin (2007) says that the term “non-native speaker” is often

defined differently to the “native speaker” of a language, but it is not easy to

give definition correctly. The native English-speaking teachers have made a

contribution to English teaching in the world (Albakrawi, 2014), but the

quantity of non-native English-speaking teachers has been growing up and

there are more non-native English-speaking teachers than native English￾speaking teachers (Canagarajah, 1999; Ma, 2012; Ur, 2012; Richardson,

2016). Nine out of ten teachers in the world are non-native (Richardson,

2016). English has been taught as a compulsory foreign language subject at

all levels of education and mainly conducted by Vietnamese English

teachers. In some schools and universities, it is taught by native English