Ways to motivate the first year non-English majors at Ha Noi University of Technology in Learning English Speaking Skill Nguyễn Thị Phương Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: Theory and methodology of English teaching Mã số: 60 14 10 Người hướng dẫn: M.A. Nguyễn Huyền Minh Năm bảo vệ: 2011 Abstract: This study is an effort to investigate ways to motivate the first year non- English majors in learning English speaking skill at Ha Noi University of Technology. The main purposes of the study are to find out: types of motivation possessed by the first year non-English majors at Ha Noi University of Technology, factors affecting students’ motivation in learning English speaking skill, speaking motivational activities and techniques applied by teachers and students’ opinions about them and then give some recommendations for teachers to encourage students to speak English. The study is composed of three main parts. Part I, the introduction, reveals the rationale, aims, research questions, scope, design, methods of the research. Part II is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 reviews theoretical background of motivation and speaking. Chapter 2 gives the instrumentation, data collection and data analysis. Chapter 3 sums up some major findings and discussion, and then presents recommendations to the English teachers. Part III, the conclusion, points out what the researcher have done and what she have not done and give some suggestions for further study. Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Kỹ năng nói Content PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale It is a truth that English has become an international language. It is widely used in many fields of our life such as business, trade, banking, science, technology, aviation, diplomacy, etc. Because of the wide spread of globalization and the rapid development of information technology, the demand for English has become more and more urgent in our life. As a result, there has been an increase in the number of people desiring to learn and master English with the hope of finding a good job, keeping up with the latest technology in the world. In Vietnam, English is taught not only at schools or colleges/ universities but also at many foreign language centers. However, not all English learners succeed in learning English. Some people succeed while others fail because learning a foreign language is not similar to the study of other subjects. Second language learning is affected by many factors such as motivation, learning environment, learning conditions, methods of teaching, attitude, age, etc. Among these factors, motivation is considered as a key factor affecting success or failure of a second language learner. Therefore, exploring ways to motivate learners is extremely important for teachers. There have been many researchers investigating what factors have effects on foreign language learning or types of motivation; little has been discussed about what ways should be used to motivate learners. In many Universities in general and in Ha Noi University of Science and Technology in particular, teachers have to struggle with large class, prescribed books, limited time for formal instruction and students with low English level, etc. Many teachers fail to try out communicative activities because of these factors. The inhomogeneity of the students’ English proficiency is also a barrier to the success in carrying out communicative tasks. As a result, a large number of students cannot use English to communicative in real life. This actually drives the researcher to her study namely “Ways to Motivate the First Year Non – English Majors at Ha Noi University of Technology in Learning Speaking Skill” in order to study the current situation of teaching and learning the speaking skill, the activities, methods and techniques used and then give recommendations to motivate the students to speak English. 2. Aims of the study The study is aimed at:  Investigating methods, activities and techniques used by the teachers to motivate the students in speaking skill.  Recommending several activities and techniques to motivate the students to speak English. 3. Research questions In order to gain the aims mentioned above, the following questions were asked in the study: 1. What are the activities and techniques used by the teachers to motivate students in learning English skill? 2. Which activities and techniques are considered as effective tools in motivating students to speak English? 4. Scope of the study The study will be carried out within the following scope: As we know, motivation is a broad topic that cannot be thoroughly discussed in this paper. So in this study, the researcher will discuss one specific aspect: ways to motivate students in speaking skill. The subjects for this study are 99 first year non-English majors at Ha Noi University of Science and Technology in the hope that the results of this study are representative to all Vietnamese non – English majors. 5. Methods of the study The study was planned to use a variety of methods to obtain its aims as follows: A questionnaire was distributed to 14 teachers who are now teaching or have taught speaking skill to first year non – English majors to collect their opinions on motivation, examine speaking motivational activities, techniques used by teachers to motivate students to speak and explore their attitudes towards students who are reluctant to speak and keep making mistakes as well as their ways for error correction. Another questionnaire was distributed to 99 first year non-English majors to gather their opinions on speaking skill, factors affecting their motivation to speak English in class, and what activities and techniques used by the teachers. An interview was conducted with 8 students randomly selected from the survey population to explore further issues of interest. An observation was conducted at the two speaking classes to investigate the students’ responses and attitudes on the speaking lessons as well as speaking motivational activities and techniques used by the teachers to motivate students to speak. 6. Design of the study This paper consists of three main parts. PART I. INTRODUCTION presents the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the method and the design of the study. PART II. DEVELOPMENT is composed of four following chapters: CHAPTER ONE: Literature review presents the concepts relevant to the study such as motivation, kinds of motivation, the importance of motivation in second language learning, factors affection motivation in second language learning, the nature of speaking: definitions of speaking, the importance of speaking, phases to teaching speaking, key issues in teaching speaking, speaking motivational activities and techniques to motivate students to speak. 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Retrieved on 7 th July 2011 from website: http://www.engh.kuas.edu.tw/files/ne/1nz0965az6.pdf Other websites: http://www.cnmag.ca/issue-22/513-importance-of-speaking-english http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/knowledge-wiki/information-gap http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kayi-Teaching Speaking.html http://teflchina.org/teach/speak/ http://www.actionresearch.net/living/moira/He%20Lina.htm http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Huang-RolePlay.html http://www.caslt.org/Print/gapp.htm http://www0.hku.hk/clear/conference08/doc/handouts/VERMA%20Meenakshi%20H_han dout.pdf . Ways to Motivate the First Year Non – English Majors at Ha Noi University of Technology in Learning Speaking Skill in order to study the current situation of teaching and learning the speaking. the first year non- English majors in learning English speaking skill at Ha Noi University of Technology. The main purposes of the study are to find out: types of motivation possessed by the first. learning, the nature of speaking: definitions of speaking, the importance of speaking, phases to teaching speaking, key issues in teaching speaking, speaking motivational activities and techniques to