Classroom Participation in EFL Speaking Classes: Students’ Perceptions

Abstract

Introduction Research on classroom participation has undergone its growing changes over the past thirty years and recognized its benefits in assisting students in speaking English (Fassinger, 1995; Lyons, 1989; Rocca, 2010). Thus, active classroom participation plays an indispensable role in improving students' language learning and personal development(Tatar, 2005). In particular, the more student participation takes place, the better their learning and course content retention is likely to achieve. Or in other words, students are likely to foster their English language proficiency and speaking performance by actively participating classroom discussions. This influence may lead students to enhance their confidence while sharing, discussing, or evaluating different speaking topics in class or in front of other peers. However, students' oral participation is neglected because of their timidity, passivity, and fear of sharing ideas or opinions in front of the class, as indicated in the literature(Rocca, 2009, 2010; Weaver & Qi, 2005). Also, at the context of the study, students were reported to lack motivation to learn English, interaction with their peers and teachers. For most parts of speaking milieu, students learned English merely because of passing the end-of the course or graduation examinations. In addition, students were unlikely to become aware of the importance of classroom participation while learning English as a foreign language. Despite the fact that recent studies in Vietnam addressed the factors influencing pair or group work activities, little research focuses on students' perceptions about participation in class discussions. Hence, this paper reported in this study fills this gap and seeks factors influencing their participation while implementing speaking activities. 2. Literature Review 2.1. Theory of Student Involvement This study is based on Astin's (1984) theoretical framework of student involvement. Astin defines student involvement as 'the amount of physical and psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience'(p. 297). This theory suggests the notion of what students do instead of what they think, how they feel, and make sense of their practices (Harper & Quaye, 2009). Student participation, willingness to make oral presentations, discussion, and role play are examples of such practice. In particular, highly involved students are likely to spend more time, energy, and efforts on completing their studies, participate actively in activities, and interact with others to achieve their desired goals (Astin, 1984, 1999). On the other hand, poorly involved students tend to neglect their studies, fail to focus on given assignments or interact with other peers or their teacher. Krause and Coates (2008)further advocate Astin's (1984)theory of involvement as they stress that student involvement is targeted at the quality of effort and energy that influences student learning at a desirable level. It is therefore student involvement in the learning process that characterizes be...