Summary of the Findings

The present study aimed to examine the impact of FTAs’ presence on learners’

motivation towards English learning, listening anxiety, and listening performance. In the study, data were collected through a questionnaire, a listening test, classroom observations, interviews as well as informal conversations. The learners’ perceptions of English learning motivation and listening anxiety as well as their listening

performance were analyzed quantitatively. To further examine how FTAs influenced the three factors (i.e., learners’ motivation, listening anxiety, and listening

performance), qualitative analyses were conducted to supplement the questionnaire data analyses.

5.1.1 English Learning Motivation

To answer the first research question about students’ motivation toward English learning with the presence of FTAs, the researcher examined students’ learning motivation at two different time periods. In general, compared to the initial

motivation, students’ learning motivation slightly decreased at the end of the school year. Further analyses of individual statements that reached the significant level showed that students generally had an increased motivation towards interacting with the FTAs but decreased motivation towards English language, foreign teachers’ class, and foreign culture.

From the questionnaires, students particularly believed that they were more confident about speaking with foreigners in English. The improvement might be attributed to FTAs’ presence and effort. As mentioned above, due to various

communicating tasks in class, increased chances to interact with FTAs in English also helped provide students with opportunities to speak English and to interact with FTAs in English. From the classroom observation, it was found that students were not afraid to chat with a new FTA at the end of the school year. These efforts made by the FTAs could account for students’ more positive perception and learning motivation.

As for the attitude toward English, the students believed the importance of learning English after having much more practical opportunities to use English in the presence of FTAs. While a possible reason of the pressure from final exams might demotivate the students not to work hard learning English at the end of the school year, the students generally reported positive attitudes towards English learning. In addition, the indirect effect of parental encouragement on English learning seemed to have strengthened learners’ motivation to learn English. While this study did not measure the degree of impact of parents’ view on the importance of English, the result of the questionnaires indicated that students felt that their parents were positive in their English learning journey. The results corresponded to the early work of Gardner (1985) and Gottfried et al. (1994), which pointed out the significant effects of parental encouragement on the learners’ motivation.

Positive attitude towards foreign class was also found. After a year of getting along with the FTAs, students still liked the learning environment created by the FTAs. The relaxing classroom atmosphere and the FTAs’ enthusiasm made students more engaged in the class. Multiple activities were utilized for students to practice English. Although students generally enjoyed FTAs’ classes, there was a slight reduced attention and perception of FTAs’ classes in the second questionnaire. The

slight decrease in students’ interest and attention level could be explained by the possible phenomena that students had gotten a bit more used to the FTAs’ classroom routine, encountered the inappropriate difficulty of activities, and frequently adjusted sitting posture. These findings, while preliminary, suggest that FTAs might need to change classroom activities regularly, set right level of tasks, and utilize different styles of classroom seating arrangement according to their teaching styles and needs for instruction.

Another significant finding from the motivation scale was that in general, students had a more negative perception of foreign culture possibly due to not being enough acquainted with foreigners, not being used to cultural differences in teaching styles, and much more intricate aspects of cultural learning. Perhaps the students need to take time to rethink and adapt to new cultural stimuli provided by the FTAs and then restore their interests in culture learning. Lastly, the comparison of gender

differences in learning motivation with the presence of FTAs, results showed that girls generally had a more positive motivation toward English learning than boys.

Although boys did have relatively lower motivation towards learning English, with the presence of FTAs, their motivation greatly increased, which could be attributed to the increased interaction between the FTAs and the students.

5.1.2 English Listening Anxiety

Another important finding of the present study is in agreement with Vogly’s (1998) suggestion that the presence of a native speaker in the class might help

alleviate FL learners’ listening anxiety. In the present study, the Taiwanese junior high school students reported decreased listening anxiety with the presence of FTAs from the beginning to end of the school year. After interacting with FTAs for a year, the students’ declined listening anxiety suggested that FTAs might positively lessen learners’ listening anxiety. Qualitative data further showed instances in which FTAs

helped reduce the learners’ anxiety about comprehension of English spoken language through creating a meaningful communication environment and aiding the students’

listening comprehension with vivid visualization. Another important theme emerging from the qualitative data was that vocabulary is a source of reduced listening anxiety, although the related statement in the questionnaire did not reach a statistical

significant level. FTAs taught words through a bottom-up approach (e.g.,

pronunciation, spelling, and meaning), giving example sentences, and occasionally explained the vocabulary in Chinese to assist students’ comprehension of the listening content, which might help relieve the students’ listening anxiety resulted from limited vocabulary.

5.1.3 English Listening Performance

To determine the influence of the FTAs’ presence on students’ listening

performance, students’ listening scores at the beginning and the end of the school year were compared. Results showed a significant improvement in students’ listening scores after the presence of FTAs for one year. However, the lack of a control group in this study might limit such a conclusion; yet, the finding may well have a bearing on the positive effect of FTAs’ presence and the constant exposure to English on Taiwanese junior high school students’ listening development.