Students: Phạm Thị Thu

ID: 10075571

Course: 2010-2014

Supervisor: Ms. Le Pham Thien Thu

Abstract:

The study investigated the motivation of first-year English majors at IUH for taking the speaking course.  96 first-year English majored students in 4 classes participated in the study by completing questionnaires aiming at finding out their motivation as well as factors causing their demotivation during the course. In order to explain more fully the demotivating factors, 4 first-year English majors were selected during classroom observations for semi-structured interviews. The results of the study revealed that the majority of the students were motivated to attend lessons by different factors. The most popular reason was for acquiring knowledge. However, one third of the students attended the class only because of their teachers’ checking attendance. All of the factors related to speaking topics, learning activities, text books, classroom facilities, classmates affected the students’ motivation during the course; however, being overwhelmed by outstanding students was the most popular demotivating factor shared by most of the first-year English majors at Ho Chi Minh University of Industry.