Self Confidence and Self Efficacy

“I have some classes where if I ask a question every single student will have their hand up. I have a student. She’ll just start making noises because she wants to speak so badly. So, yeah, they are almost fighting to talk because I give points, participation points for speaking.” (Interview 1)

Factors that can lead to success or failure in language proficiency include how much confidence students have in their own ability and the power to attain the desired goal. If the student believes that their goals of learning the language can be reached they may be more persistent in attaining their goals as well as devote more effort towards reaching them (Tremblay & Gardener, 1995). If a student is confident about participating or asks questions in class, they are more likely to reach their language learning goals. If however, they are hindered by shyness, lack of confidence in ability, or feel unable to participate due to societal rules, they are less likely to reach their goals. One participant commented that a lot of the students were fearful of making mistakes at first which has to do with what is known in Korean as nunchi and chemyeon. Nunchi is the ability to understand other people’s moods, similar to emotional intelligence, however, it is also important to understand the social status in regards to the person with whom they are interacting. Chemyeon is to save face or maintain respectability in social situations. It is important for Koreans to keep a positive self image in front of others and they often care what other people or countries think of them. In this regard, Koreans often avoid giving their opinions or accept blame for their actions. These factors can cause problems in the language classroom where students are afraid to speak up in class. This is not always the case, however, as the teachers conveyed that the students tried to participate, especially if it was part of their final grade. The classes with the most participation also had no age gap, because it was either part of their grade or they became more accustomed to the class. One interview participant stated that if a student took the role of leader it motivated the rest of the class to be more active. In that particular classroom, there was an age gap, because the class was an adult hagwon, and the class leader was usually an older student who did not follow the social conventions.

5.2. The Attitudes of Korean University Students Toward Learning English

I will now attempt to answer the second specific research question, namely:

RQ 2: What are the attitudes of Korean university students toward learning English?

In order to address the question, quantitative findings from the questionnaire will be presented and discussed according to the five categories of motivation, as outlined in Section 4.6.1. Table 5.2 below presents these broad categories and their corresponding items in the questionnaire.

Table 5.2. Themes of Items on the Questionnaire

Theme Number of item(s) in questionnaire

relating to the particular theme

Classroom motivation 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16

Sociolinguistic variables affecting attitude towards learning English 1, 4, 19 Integrative motivation 12, 17, 18 Instrumental motivation 2, 3, 20 Intrinsic motivation 5, 7, 9, 11, 14 5.2.1. Classroom Motivation

The questions on classroom motivation relate to students’ opinions of their teachers, participation and whether or not they have a positive view of the classroom setting where they study English. Based the students’ answers, the majority had a positive view of their classroom environment and a positive view of their teachers.

Table 5.3. Responses to Questions Regarding Classroom Motivation

Strongly

agree Agree Disagree

Strongly disagree

I think my English teacher is well educated. 59 (26.8%) 150 (68.2%) 10 (4.5%) 1 (0.5%) I ask questions during my English class. 15

(6.9%) 84 (38.7%) 100 (46.1%) 18 (8.3%) I think my current class is a good place to

learn English. 27 (12.2%) 164 (74.2%) 27 (12.2%) 3 (1.4%) I think that my English class is interesting. 36

(16.4%) 151 (68.6%) 31 (14.1%) 2 (0.9%) The teacher and materials are too difficult to

understand. 9 (4.1%) 41 (18.6%) 144 (65.2%) 27 (12.2%) I don’t want to speak English if I will make a

mistake in front of my peers.

15 (6.8%) 84 (38%) 96 (43.3%) 26 (11.8%)

In cultures influenced by Confucian principles, teachers are held in high regard in society. The majority of participants (95%) agreed or strongly agreed that their teacher was well educated (see Table 5.3 above). The high number of positive responses on this item seems to reflect this sentiment, even though in practice not all teachers in South Korea are necessarily well educated. Most teachers in universities must now have a master’s degree, although this has only been implemented in the last few years. Some university teachers, including an interview participant, never received their bachelor’s degree. Other participants had degrees in fields other than languages or teaching4

A slightly higher percentage of students said that they were unwilling to answer questions in their classes (54%). When Korean students take their first class taught by a native foreign teacher, many have trouble adapting to the environment and following non-Confucian discipline (Martin, 2003). The teachers who were interviewed expressed difficulty encouraging their students to participate even though slightly more than half of the students reported that they were willing to speak in class..

4 _{Ten years ago, when I first came to Korea, I was able to get my first job with a bachelor’s degree and had no} previous teaching experience. My teacher training consisted of watching videos of other teachers in their classrooms a day before my classes started.

The majority of the participants (86%) believed that their current class was a good place to learn English and 85% thought that their class was interesting. However, half of the interview participants believed most of their students did not find the class interesting, although the other half believed that the majority of their students were interested in learning English. These participants were also the teachers who, overall, had a more positive opinion of teaching in the Korean classrooms.

Only 25% of students agreed or strongly agreed that the teacher and materials were too difficult to understand. Comparing the two languages, perhaps no two are more dissimilar than the Korean and English languages (Robinson, 2003), as expressed in the following two quotations: “Korean and English are so different in structure as well as in their sound system that not only should word order be converted, subjects turned into objects, nouns into verbs, but also in most cases the wording itself must be changed” (Park, 1979:13). “Differences between the syntax of English and Korean include: word order, prepositions, articles, use of subject deletion and agreement in responses to Yes/No questions” (Richards, 2003:214). There are other major differences in phonology and socio-cultural vocabulary usage and expressions of politeness (Richards, 2003). However, this difference between the two languages seems to have been problematic for a minority of the participants in this study.

Less than half of the participants (44%) stated that they did not want to speak English in front of their peers if there was a chance they would make a mistake which is slightly lower to the percentage of participants (54%) who also said they were not willing at ask questions during their English class. The reasons for these findings could be from the students’ past experience of teacher-centered classrooms, shyness in a new environment, lack of interaction with foreigners or few chances to speak English outside the classroom.