FACTORS AFFECTING NON-MAJORED ENGLISH STUDENTS’ LOW PARTICIPATION IN EFL SPEAKING CLASSROOM: A CASE IN VIETNAM

Le Khanh Ngoc, Le Xuan Mai

Abstract


EFL learners’ low level of participation is reported as a problem commonly found in English speaking classrooms. This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions of factors hindering their participation in English speaking classrooms. Questionnaires and interviews were conducted as data collection instruments of the study. 153 first-year non-majored English students from two Advanced programs and seven High-quality programs in a major university in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam responded to the questionnaire and then 6 of them participated in the semi-structured interview sessions. The results strongly endorsed that students’ lack of vocabulary, fear of being judged by peers and lecturers and feeling overwhelmed by interactive activities in Speaking classes were significant factors causing students’ low level of participation. Recommendations are suggested to educators or lecturers in formulating future teaching strategies that promote students’ participation in the context of higher learning.

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


EFL speaking classrooms, high-quality programs, non-majored English students, students’ low participation, Vietnam

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bas, G. (2010). Effects of Multiple Intelligences Instruction Strategy on Students Achievement Levels and Attitudes Towards English Lesson. Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, 5(3).

Cortazzi M., & Jin L. X. (1996). Cultures of learning: Language classrooms in China. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Society and the language classroom (pp. 169–206). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fawzia Al-Seyabi. (2002). Factors Affecting Students’ Oral Participation in University Level Academic Classes within the Omani Context. Paper presented at Second Annual National National ELT Conference. March, 27 – 28, 2002. Sultan Qaboos University, Oman.

Gomez, A. M., Arai, M. J., & Lowe, H. (1995). When Does a Student Participate in Class? Ethnicity and Classroom Participation. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association (81, San Antonio, TX).

Hamouda, A. (2013). An Exploration of Causes of Saudi Students' Reluctance to Participate in the English Language Classroom. International Journal of English Language Education. 1. 10.5296/ijele.v1i1.2652.

Hussein, G. (2010). The Attitudes of Undergraduate Students towards Motivation and Technology in a Foreign Language Classroom. International Journal of Learning and Teaching, 2(2), p.14-24.

Koch, A. S. & Terrell, T. D. (1991). Affective reactions of foreign language students to Natural Approach activities and teaching techniques. In: E. K. Horwitz & D. J. Young (Eds.), Language anxiety: From theory and research to classroom implications (pp.109-126). Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall.

Le, T. M. (2019). An investigation into factors that hinder the participation of University students in English speaking lessons. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IOSR-JHSS), 24(4), pp. 84-94.

Lee, P. (2005). Students’ personality type and attitudes toward classroom participation. Proceedings of the CATESOL State Conference, California State University, Los Angeles, USA.

Li, H., & Liu, Y. (2011). A brief study of reticence in ESL class. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1(8), 961-965. http://dx.doi.org/10.4304/tpls.1.8.961-965

Liu, J. (2001). Asian Students' Classroom Communication Patterns in U.S. Universities: An Emic Perspective. Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

Mohd Yusof, et al. (2011). The Dynamics of Student Participation in Classroom: Observation on level and forms of participation. Paper presented at Learning and Teaching Congress of UKM, 18 -20. December, Penang, Malaysia.

Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating Participation and Identity in Second Language Academic Communities. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 573-603. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588281

Murad, A. and Jalambo, M. (2019). EFL Students’ Reluctance in Participating in English Speaking Activities at University College of Applied Sciences: Challenges and Solutions. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 7, p. 28-51. doi: 10.4236/jss.2019.73003.

Nguyen, H. T. (2018). English-medium-instruction management: The missing piece in the internationalization puzzle of Vietnamese higher education. In Internationalization in Vietnamese Higher Education (pp. 119–137). Cham: Springer.

Nguyen, T. H. (2002). Vietnam: Cultural background for ESL/EFL Teachers. Review of Vietnamese Studies, 2(1), 6 pages.

Nguyen, T. T. & Nguyen, T. K. T. (2016). Oral English Communication Strategies among Vietnamese Non-majors of English at Intermediate Level. American Journal of Educational Research, 4(3), p. 283-287. doi: 10.12691/education-4-3-9.

Petress, K. (2001). The ethics of student classroom silence. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 28(2), pp. 104–107.

Petress, K. (2006). An operational definition of class participation. College Student Journal, December, 12(1).

Price, M. L. (1991). The subjective experience of foreign language anxiety: Interviews with highly anxious students. In E. K. Horwitz, & D. J. Young (Eds.), Language anxiety: From theory and research to classroom implications (pp. 101-108). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Savaşçı, M. (2014). Why are Some Students Reluctant to Use L2 in EFL Speaking Classes? An Action Research at Tertiary Level. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 116. 2682-2686. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.635

Simanjalam, N. D. (2008). Students’ perception in English language classroom. A project for a Bachelor of Education with honor, University Malaysia Sarawak.

Tani, M. (2005). Quiet, but only in class: Reviewing the in-class participation of Asian students. In Higher Education in a Changing World: Proceedings of the 2005 Annual International Conference of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia Inc. (HERDSA). Sydney, NSW: Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia.

Tanveer, M. (2007). Investigation of the factors that cause language anxiety for ESL/EFL learners in learning speaking skills and the influence it casts on communication in the target language. MA thesis, MEd English Language Teaching (ELT) University of Glasgow UK, 10.13140/RG.2.1.1995.1129.

Tatar, S. (2005). Why keep silent? The classroom participation experiences of non-native-English-speaking students. Language and Intercultural Communication. 5(3&4), 284-293.

Thompson, J. (2009). Changing chalk and talk: The reform of teaching methods in Vietnamese higher education. The George Washington University. p. 68.

Ton, N. N. H., & Pham, H. H. (2010). Vietnamese teachers’ and students’ perceptions of global English. Language Education in Asia, 1(1), 48–61.

Trang, T. T. T., & Baldauf, R. B., Jr. (2007). Demotivation: Understanding resistance to English language learning-the case of Vietnamese students. The journal of Asia TEFL, 4(1), 79–105.

Zainal Abidin, B. S. (2007). An investigation into first year Engineering students’ oral classroom participation: a case study. (Unpublished degree dissertation). Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v7i11.3352

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2020 Le Khanh Ngoc, Le Xuan Mai

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright © 2015-2023. European Journal of Education Studies (ISSN 2501 - 1111) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All authors who send their manuscripts to this journal and whose articles are published on this journal retain full copyright of their articles. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).