FEATURES OF CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT in FIRST YEAR MAINSTREAM STUDENTS’ ENGLISH SPEAKING Classes – A multiple case study

Abstract

This research focuses on finding out the classroom environment in two English speaking classes with different levels of motivation in the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Eleven classes in this faculty took part in the first round by answering questionnaires to sort out which class was the most highly motivated and which one was the least motivated. After that, these two classes continued with the second step to investigate their classroom environment features. The question framework was based on the instrument Classroom Environment Scales (CES) of Moos and Trickett (1973) with nine factors. They are teacher, rule clarity, order and organization, innovation, student involvement, competition, affiliation, and task orientation. By using a forty-two item questionnaire, the researcher found out the features which were quite relevant to what was written in the literature. Teacher was very friendly, approachable, and humorous. Besides, the teacher held many activities as well as spent time answering their questions carefully. Moreover, there must be a set of rules which was discussed and decided by both teacher and students in speaking class for students to follow. Especially, these rules must be informed to students at the very beginning of semester. For the factor ‘organization’, teacher should change students’ positions to avoid boredom. Lighting and sanitation condition and noise level outside the classroom in classroom were also important. Another factor, innovation, in both teaching content and method, should be encouraged in class. Competitive activities were good choices to motivate students to speak in class. The tasks should be designed and adapted to make them suit with students’ level. Apart from this, speaking tasks should be well-organized and clearly instructed. Finally, to involve students in learning, activities in class were common strategies in accordance with the above factors.