Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University

Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University Difficulties in reading English skills of secondyear Englishmajoring students at Thuongmai University

THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY

HANOI – 2021

Currently, English is gradually becoming a common language for all ages As

Vietnam develops and becomes more popular, English will become more and more important in everyday life Therefore, English reading comprehension skills are an essential skill in every student's life Many universities have also incorporated

Reading Skills into their curriculum And English reading skills are more important than ever for students of the English Department

However, gaining proficiency in reading English is not easy for learners in this

situation This study aims to summarize the difficulties faced by second-year students

of the English Department of Thuong Mai University For the purposes of the study, I applied one tool: a questionnaire with 50 students

According to the questionnaire, the results are as follows: Students of the English Department face internal and external challenges and make recommendations to help students communicate more effectively in English

During the graduation exam, I received a lot of help, help, guidance and

encouragement from teachers, family and friends Firstly, with deep gratitude, I wouldlike to thank Mrs Ha Thi Vu Ha for her enthusiastic guidance, guidance, help and encouragement tirelessly throughout the study process Without her enthusiastic help and support, I would not have been able to complete this study on schedule Through sharing and feedback from Mrs.Ha, I was inspired and motivated to overcome all difficulties along the way

Secondly, I would also like to express my sincere and deep thanks to the teachers of Thuong Mai University, especially the teachers in the English Department in recent years I would like to thank the teachers who always create conditions for us to have the opportunity to study in the best and most effective environment

Thirdly, I would like to send my most sincere thanks to my family, friends, who have always encouraged and inspired me to complete this graduation article

Finally, I would like to thank the students who participated in answering the survey questions for my thesis Thanks to your enthusiasm, I was able to complete this gaduation article

I sincerely thank you all!

Hanoi, 16th April 2021

StudentNguyen Thi Bich Ngoc

TABLE OF CONTENT

ABSTRACT i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLE AND CHART vii

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Previous studies 2

1.2.1 Studies abroad 2

1.2.2 Studies in Vietnam 3

1.3 Aim of the study 4

1.4 Research subjects 4

1.5 Scope of the study 5

1.6 Research methodology 5

1.7 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 An overview of reading 7

2.1.1 Definition of reading 7

2.1.2 The importance of reading skill 8

2.1.3 Classification of reading skill 9

2.1.3.1 Intensive reading 11

2.1.3.2 Extensive reading 11

2.2 Difficulties in learning the reading skill 12

2.2.1 Decoding difficulties 13

2.2.2 Retention difficulties 13

2.2.3 Comprehension difficulties 15

2.3 Factors affecting reading difficulties 17

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 18

3.1 Methodology 18

3.1.1 Participants 20

3.1.2 Instrument 22

3.1.3 Research questions 22

3.1.4 Instrument 22

3.1.5 Data collection procedures 22

3.2 Data Analysis 22

3.2.1 General information 22

3.1.5 Data collection procedures 23

3.2 Data Analysis 24

3.2.1 General information 24

3.2.2 English usage and reading skills 24

3.2.3 English reading skills problems 30

3.2.4 Proposals for solving difficulties in reading skill experienced by second year English majors at Thuongmai University 37

3.3 Conclusion 40

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 41

4.1 Recommendations for students 41

4.1.1 Cultivating vocabulary and grammar 41

4.1.2 Practicing reading more 42

4.2 Recommendations for teachers and university 42

4.2.1 Identifying students' needs and motivate them 43

4.2.2 Changing teaching methods 43

4.2.3 Giving more advices and instructions 43

4.2.4 Recommendation for university 44

4.3 Conclusion 44

CONCLUSION 45 REFERENCES

APPENDIX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations English meaning

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

1 Chart 1 The period of time the students have been studying English

2 Chart 2 The time of learning English students spend each day

3 Chart 3 Confidence in communication with foreigners

4 Chart 4 Habit of learning new words after each reading lesson in class

5 Chart 5 The frequency of learning English through books, newspapers

and the Internet

6 Chart 6 The effect of the lack of vocabulary

7 Chart 7 The necessary level of the deepening of the words and phrases

in the text rather than just learn writing surface

8 Chart 8 The teaching method of the teachers at TMU

9 Table 1 The difficulties of reading skill of the students

10 Table 2 Difficulties of students in reading

11 Chart 9 General solutions for students

12 Chart 10 The solutions adopted by students

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 1.1 Rationale

Currently, when technology 4.0 is developing, the need to improve foreign language skills of businesses is increasingly higher That leads to universities in the country as well as around the world needing English as their educational tool Out of the four most important skills when learning a foreign language, reading comprehension is the most important It helps readers have more knowledge through books, newspapers, magazines Not only that, but reading skills bring us many benefits such as

expanding our vocabulary, improving memory, training concentration and thinking ability That is also the reason that students in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular, especially students of Thuongmai University (TMU), invest time in

practicing reading skills In addition, reading skills help readers discover new words and phrases that learn to encounter in everyday life For text that is a literary work, reading comprehension helps us to feel the unique value of the images, artistic

elements; the meaning of words used in text structure Moreover, through reading the text, we will see the author's thoughts, intentions and purposes embedded in the work Especially with English documents, reading is not only considered a means to acquire vocabulary and grammar, but also a means to further study

As Block (1992: 319-343) indicates, “reading is such a hidden process that it is often unnoticed in the language classroom Teachers often believe that reading classes should be teacher-centered.” People often assume that reading is passive, but in fact, itmust be active You will always have to actively seek basic knowledge so that you canimprove your reading skills without ever being passive Once you are passive, you will make yourself lazy and never brainstorm Therefore, we must focus on reading skills as well as language problems The fact is that reading in a foreign language is closely related to thinking in that language Once you want better reading skills, you have to think in English when you read If you want to read in English but think in another language and translate it into English, you will have difficulty in

understanding This usually takes a long time and does not produce the expected results Readers need to combine ideas and information in the text so that it is

reasonable Thuongmai University's English language students often focus less on reading skills, only focus on communication and presentation skills, especially

sophomores Therefore, reading skills will not be improved This resulted in poor grades in the reading portion of their test As observed by the researcher, the students complained about their grades and they did not know how to deal with texts in

English However, in my opinion, the problem is about their approach towards a writing If students can understand the presentation of that information in the text, they will be able to understand better

Even though they have studied English for at least a few years, they still often have difficulty understanding English text or a passage, because they lack vocabulary, grammar, reading skills, and background knowledge In addition, teaching methods and teaching techniques in general have not yet met international education standards The faculty in the school always try to help students with reading difficulties, but those students still want to find the shortcomings and fix them on their own That is also the reason that I do this research as a reference to help the second year students ofThuongmai University to realize and overcome difficulties in reading skills

1.2 Previous studies

Reading skills in English are of great interest to many domestic and foreign

researchers Before learning about the difficulties that Thuongmai University students

face in reading skills, I will introduce some research related to the topic " Difficulties

in reading English skills of second-year English-majoring students at Thuongmai University”.

1.2.1 Studies abroad

The thesis with the theme "Reading comprehension skills and performance in science among high school students in the Philippines" is conducted to better study students'

reading comprehension skills Research has outlined the characteristics and

importance of reading skills in student learning

The second study abroad related to reading difficulty that I refer to is "Reading

Comprehension of Multigrade Pupils in San Jose District" The primary purpose of

this study is to evaluate the reading performance of selected composite students for the 2013-2014 school year in San Jos County; Issues affecting reading performance ofstudents in composite classes.

1.2.2 Studies in Vietnam

The study "Reading Comprehension and Translation Performance of English

Linguistics Students of Hung Vuong University: A Correlational Study" was

conducted by Pham Thi Kim Cuc - a foreign language student, Hung Vuong

University The study aims to correlate reading and translation performance of Englishlanguage students, then informs some pedagogical implications for the teaching of readingcomprehension in translation classes in order to enhance the translation

quality

Another study was "A study of reading comprehension problems in English

encountered by first year students of faculty of Vietnamese studies at HUE" was

conducted by Ho Van Chung, M.A - ESP Division This study aims to provide

answers to two main research questions One is what are the main reading

comprehension problems encountered first ?; The other are what are the strategies thatstudents use to process a text and solve comprehension problems?

In general, we can easily find studies related to reading but very few studies mention difficulty in reading skills of students Therefore, I decided to carry out this study to clarify difficulties in reading skills and propose some solutions to solve those

difficulties

1.3 Aims of the study

The main purpose of this study is to identify difficulties in reading English skills of second-year English-majoring students at Thuongmai University Then, this study proposes and recommends suitable solutions to solve these problems and create the best results in learning English for second-year students of the English Department

To achieve these purposes, this study must focus on addressing the following

questions:

 "What is the cause of the reading difficulties of the second-year English

majoring at Thuongmai University?"

 "What are possible solutions to student reading problems?"

1.4 Research Subjects

Based on the rationale and the aims of the problems, the main subject of this research

is “Difficulties in reading English skills of second-year English-majoring students

at Thuongmai University.” It's easy to see that there is one main subject here:

Reading English skill Therefore, there is one main subject of “Difficulties in reading English skills of second-year English-majoring students at Thuongmai University”:

• To investigate the English reading skill problems made by students of English Faculty, TMU

• To suggest some solutions in order to improve English reading skill

1.5 Scope of the study

In terms of reading skills, there are many aspects surrounding it But in this research paper only focuses on the difficulty in English reading skills of the second-year

students majoring in English at Thuongmai University to offer solutions to improve those difficulties I hope this study will be a reference for Thuongmai university students in particular and all Vietnamese students in general to improve reading skills

1.6 Research methodology

The study is conducted on the basis of quantitative research methods, in which the questionnaire is selected as the main tool The questionnaire was designed as a means

of making the researcher's assessment more objective Second-year students at

Thuongmai University are given a questionnaire to find the cause of their reading difficulty and some of their solutions to problems The analysis of statistics from the reading survey questionnaire was carried out in collaboration with second year

English majors at Thuongmai University All hypothetical comments,

recommendations, and conclusions provided in the study were based on data analysis

1.7 Organization of the study

This study consists of four main parts as follows:

Chapter 1 is the introduction which consists of rationale, the aims, research subjects, scope, research methodology, and organization of the study

Chapter 2 is literature review which provides an overview of reading, difficulties in learning reading skill and factors affecting reading difficulties

Chapter 3 is research findings which include the result from the study, evaluation and analysis from the survey questionnaire

Chapter 4 is Recommendations and suggestions for improving English reading skills of the second-year students majoring in English at Thuongmai University

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 An overview of reading

2.1.1 Definition of reading

First of all, we need to find out why having students read English text is such an important part of a teacher's job? Students want to use reading English for their work, study and entertainment Anything we can do to make this easier for them should be a good idea Reading is very useful for language acquisition provided that students read more or less, the more they read, the better they learn

However, the students also find it complicated to learn to read as Козак points out:

"Reading is a complex activity involving both perception and thinking Reading

involves two related processes: word recognition and understanding Word

recognition refers to the process of perceiving how symbols are written to correspond

to a person's spoken language Understanding is the process of making meaning of words, sentences and connected text " (2017: 7)

In addition, there are many definitions of "reading" based on a number of different perspectives In the Longman Applied Linguistics Dictionary, the reading is said to be:

 “Perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents This can be done silently (silent reading) The understanding that result is called reading

comprehension.

 Saying a written text aloud (oral reading) This can be done with or without understanding of the content.”

Another definition of the Collins English Learner Dictionary is that reading is an act

of looking at and understanding a score This is true because reading requires using vision to understand certain words in a sentence and make them sense Same goes to each sentence in order to understand the entire text

Besides all dictionary definitions, there are also definitions made by certain people According to William (1984), he defined reading as a process by which one sees and understands what has been written Rohani Ariffin (1992: 1) in her book The

Anthropology of Youth Poetry defines reading as a highly personal activity, primarily

done in a quiet, solitary manner There is a clear understanding that reading is

something related to the act of acquiring information and that it is done silently or aloud

Reading is an interactive process between a reader and a writer For example, Brunan

WK (1989) defines reading as a two-way interaction in which information is

exchanged between reader and author Smith (1973) had the same view This is

evidenced by his lines: "Reading is a communication act in which information is passed from the transmitter to the receiver" (Smith 1973: 2)

Regardless of all given definitions, there are also definitions of reading given by teachers as well as students According to Stallfter (1969), teachers define reading as:

“A complicated procedure Readers read to get information from printed pages They will be able to pronounce and understand words, signs, letters and symbols printed by assigning meaning to them "

For students, they define the reading quoted from Jensen and Petty (1918) as:

“Where the word goes into your eyes and out of your mouth They say books are written with many adventures and over and over again there are places where they say 'I know!' it's so interesting for them when they open the book, words come out and

go through their mind ”

In order for a person to read, other skills are needed to assist the reader in reading Reading is a mental process as mentioned earlier, so it needs other built-in skills like listening, speaking, and writing According to Chitravelu et al (1995), reading is not asingle skill that we use all the time in the same way that it is used differently for different types of tests and purposes This was previously stated by Thomas and Loving (1979) when they considered reading as a communication skill along with listening, speaking, writing and thinking

2.1.2 The importance of reading skill

People sometimes wonder why reading is important Seems like there are lots of other things to do with one's time Reading is important for many reasons Here are some of the most typical reasons

Firstly, Reading is an important skill in finding a good job Many high-paying jobs require reading as part of productivity There are reports and memos that must be read

and responded to Poor reading skills increase the workplace's learning and reaction time A person is limited in what they can accomplish without good reading and comprehension skills Secondly, Reading is the foundation of activity in today's society There are many adults who cannot read carefully to understand the

instructions on the bottle That's a terrifying thought - especially for their kids Filling out an application would be impossible without assistance even keeping track of a map becomes a chore Everyday activities that many take for granted become a source

of frustration, anger, and fear Moreover, Reading develops imagination TV and computer games have their place, but they are more like entertainment Play is

thoughtless activities With reading, one can go anywhere in the world or even out

of it! They can be a king, or an adventurer, or a princess Non-readers should never experience these pleasures to the same level

Studies show that reading for fun makes a big difference to a student's educational performance Likewise, evidence shows that students who read for daily enjoyment not only perform better on reading tests than those who do not read, but also develop broader, enhanced vocabulary have a greater general knowledge and understanding ofother cultures

In fact, reading for entertainment is more likely to determine if a student does well in school than their economic or social background

In line with the above, reading is fundamental in developing a good self-image

People who do not read or read poorly often have low opinion of themselves and their abilities Sometimes they feel as if the whole world is against them They feel isolated and behavioral problems may emerge They may be poor in other subjects because they cannot read and understand material Often readers tend to "give up"

Especially, for the second year students of the English language department of

Thuongmai University, when learning a language other than their native language, they need to improve their reading skills more to be confident with their existing knowledge In addition, reading helps to expand vocabulary Reading new words will keep them in mind for later use Seeing how words are used in different contexts can help to better understand word usage and its definitions rather than just the cold facts

of a dictionary

2.1.3 Classification of reading skill

According to Hafiz and Tudor (1989: 5), reading skill can be divided into two main categories, namely, intensive and extensive reading In this study, I relied on analysis

by Maija MacLeod, governor of the University of Calgary to make the readings more pronounced He analyzed that:

“Intensive reading is used to teach or practice specific reading strategies or skills Thetext is considered an end by itself Extensive reading, on the other hand, involves reading large amounts of material, directly and fluently It is seen as a means to an end It may include reading simply for entertainment or reading technical, scientific orprofessional literature The latter type of text, more scholarly, can involve two specifictypes of reading, skimming through key details, or skimming for essential meaning A relatively quick and efficient reading, by itself either after scanning or skimming, gives general or global meaning "

2.1.3.1 Intensive reading

As the terminology, it says, Intensive is depth This type of reading is a careful

reading with the highest regard for understanding of the text at hand This has more to

do with the academic reading we talk about today and sees that as the primary goal of our students A reader for details and information gathering It is for 'knowledge' Specialization occurs through this type of reading Research Paper, Semester Article, Oral Report or Project Task have been prepared and submitted through this reading Typically, this type of reading is used in English language studies for in-depth

analysis of proposed short instructional texts With this reading, grammatical

structures, unfamiliar words and phrases are carefully examined

2.1.3.2 Extensive reading

This means reading for entertainment and relaxation A reader can view any topic of interest and feel at ease The purpose is to enjoy From our childhoods, we have read comics, stories, novels and now general studies or books of particular interest or other publications There is no constraint for us to read them and appear in some tests This type of reading does not carry any accountability to the reader and does not infringe

on their reading pleasure In this mode, people read art or science material without being distracted by new, unfamiliar words, if their meanings can be understood

roughly with context Furthermore, that may be the only way learners can get exposed

to English outside of classroom sessions It also provides valuable reinforcement of the language and structure presented in the classroom Therefore, extensive reading is the best possible way for learners to develop autonomy, which is to automatically recognize words when they see them So far, this is the best way to improve their English when reading From that point on, it is important to convince learners of the value of comprehensive reading Learners should be encouraged to read a lot outside

of the classroom In short, the purpose of this reading is to get used to new

unfamiliar words, so after translating them it will be easier to read the full text This reading is also known as "diagonal reading"

 Skimming: Skimming creates succinct understanding of a given text This is also a quick reading that focuses on Text Title, Title, Topic Sentence, Table and Chart, Figure and Diagram, etc While making a decision to buy a specific magazine, we tend to look at the content page and quickly 'flip through' the pages, read the title or view images to make a decision We have a 'total idea'

of the publication and it's not like scanning Our comprehensive review and skimming will take us to re-read the text from head to toe if skimming

understanding is impressive That is why it is essential to write headlines and titles in scholarly articles This reading mode is used to know and understand ifthis information is useful to you (you are looking at a book in a store or a magazine on the shelf before buying) In this case, the text is viewed quickly, but not as carefully as in the previous case The purpose is not to find specific facts, but to assess the complexity, interest, and overall plot of the text.

2.2 Difficulties in learning the reading skill

2.2.1 Decoding difficulties

In fact, all of us want to know where and why the reading process is broken down Decoding is an important skill to learn to read that involves separating sounds in words (segments) and mixing sounds together It requires both knowledge of letter-to-sound relationships, as well as the ability to apply that knowledge to successfully identify written words and make meanings For example, a student who has difficulty pronouncing a certain syllable, especially unable to decipher why he or she is difficult

to pronounce, will not be able to distinguish that syllable According to Klinger

(2011), signs of difficulty decoding:

 Difficult to pronounce words and identify words out of context

 Confuse letters and the sounds they represent

 Slow oral reading speed (word by word)

 Read without expression

 Skip punctuation while reading

Decoding is essential for reading skills It allows students to find out most words they have heard but have never seen in the print media, as well as pronounce words they are not familiar with Decoding capabilities are the foundation for building all

instructions for reading fluency, vocabulary, reading comprehension, etc

2.2.2 Retention difficulties

Retention requires both decoding and understanding what is written This work is based on high-level cognitive skills, including memory and the ability to group and retrieve related ideas As students progress through grade levels, they are expected to retain more and more of what they read From freshman, reading to study is at the

heart of class work But for students second year English major at TMU it is an

essential task According to David(2007), signs of retention difficulties:

 Trouble remembering or summarizing what has been read

 Difficulty connecting what has been read with previous knowledge

 Difficulty applying the content of a text to personal experience

"bus", as in "cut" and "cat" One particular example are idioms and proverbs that seem

to differ from learner's culture We will translate word by word a certain proverb, so

we cannot get the real meaning but only literary meaning According to Farshad farzami (2016: 10), signs of confusing:

 Confusion about meaning of words and sentences

 Inability to connect ideas in a paragraph

 Missing or shading too detailed

 Difficulty distinguishing important information from details focus while reading

As for TMU's second year students in English major, the difficulty in reading

comprehension is a very complicated problem and can not find the best solution to improve it But the main problem is they lack vocabulary Insufficient vocabulary leads to many difficulties in reading comprehension because lexis is very important to

a successful reading When learners have a large vocabulary, we will not have trouble understanding the entire text, and this comes from the habit of reading

2.3 Factors affecting reading difficulties

Difficulties in reading was the focus for a long time, mainly focused on students with poor decoding skills, usually defined as the problem difficult to read These

difficulties are often the result of a deficiency in the phonetic composition of

language Secondary consequences can include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experiences that can hinder vocabulary and background

development In this regard, David Morgan (2017) gives 9 factors that affect reading difficulty:

 Difficulty decoding long words

An important element of learning to read by decoding is that you must hold various complex bits of information in your short-term auditory memory There are syllables

in a word, then when you have combined those sounds, you need to keep the word in memory while you search for its meaning Then, you memorize it as you go through itall over with the next word And then you store a bunch of words in memory as you form a sentence So all of these things are spinning around the temporary storage area

of your brain If your short term memory is overwhelmed, you will lose part of what you are trying to remember and the reading will fail

 Guessing short words and poor spelling

"Most of the kids we help try to read whole words visually, instead of decoding them.That leads to a lot of errors with short, easy-to-understand words, as they tend to be very easy replace each other." David Morgan (2017)

This is quite true for the second year students of TMU's English department Usually the first year students will only learn an overview of reading skills, so when they reachthe second year they cannot fully understand how to improve their own reading skills They still frequently read entire words visually, instead of decoding them They only understand words in terms of words but have not understood the meaning that the author wants to put in those words and phrases This leads to misinterpretation of the meaning of the passage

 Difficulty with mixing sounds

Poor processing of the hearing or hearing loss is a common cause of difficulty

reading Freshman has a weakness in hearing processing and this weakness can

significantly affect a student's ability to learn to read, as it is difficult to pronounce sounds in words when you have processing weakness hearing That makes phonics very difficult to apply when you try to read

 Ignore words and entire lines of text

When you read text on a page, your eyes focus on one word or group of words and then shift to the right to see the next word or group of words Each jump is called a jump If you can read single words well but are really having trouble with lines of text,that's a good indication of some eye tracking difficulty And if the eyes are unable to focus and focus comfortably on each word, the reading will be severely affected.

 Battles and downfall

The body is designed to respond to fear and excitement in clear ways that help us survive in dangerous situations Reading is a much higher brain function So it's no surprise that stress is generally a negative input to learning to read However, as anyone knows who helped someone who is having difficulty reading, stress levels can rise very quickly, sometimes for everyone involved So it's easy to fall into a negative spiral of failure, which leads to stress, leads to shutdowns, to more failures, and

ultimately to crisis In fact, the usual reading experience for many students is an inevitable series of failures when learners stumble upon unreadable words

 Poor concentration when trying to read

It is not surprising that any form of inattention makes learning to read very difficult, because it is a skill that takes long-term practice and application to master There are many theories about how to help a student with attention difficulty, but simple ways tohelp them read And the key to that is getting them interested in tasks and keeping sessions short

 Very poor fluidity

Some students develop a very good ability to decode words, but always have difficultydecoding them without becoming fluent The reason for this seems to be that they are giving themselves a mapping of letter patterns into sounds with letter patterns stored

in their general visual memory, not the specialized "mailbox" cortex Usage is

commonly used by most readers

 Words “moving around on the page”

For good reading your eyes must function optimally The first step is to have a

complete physical exam with a qualified eye doctor But apart from this, there is a syndrome that some ophthalmologists may not examine, which is the eye sensitivity tothe contrast of pure black against a white background The eye is actually the part of

your brain that pushes itself out of your skull One of the most important elements of the processing that happens in the eye is finding the shape and the edges of the shape There are about 100 million rods and cones in each retina and only 1 million neurons

in each optic nerve Therefore, the eye is a collection of individual rod and cone cells and during synthesis the eye is very sensitive to changes in intensity

 Poor comprehension:

There is a lot going on in the reading process, from letter and word recognition to understanding meaning at the phrase, sentence, and paragraph level When a new reader begins to encounter vocabulary that they do not know or recognize due to incorrect decoding, they are likely to ignore it The more space in a line of text, the harder it becomes to make meaning, and the more difficult and cognitively difficult the task to read That is why poor comprehension can occur when students have difficulty decoding, have a limited vocabulary, or attempt to read an overly qualified text

In short, from the above comments, each element that reflects reading difficulties is viewed from its own point of view From there, it will help domestic students in general and TMU university students in particular to find out problems about reading difficulties as well as understand the factors that affect their own reading then find a solution for myself

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH FINDINGS 3.1 Methodology

3.1.1 Participants

This study will be conducted with the participation of 50 second year students from the English department at TMU By doing questionnaire survey over the internet, the analyzed data received will be clear and give the most honest results All participation

is random and voluntary without any strings attached All of these participants were students from different regions of Vietnam They have been studying English as a school subject for more than 12 years from Primary to High School They had to studymany different subjects Therefore, they do not spend enough time focusing on

learning English These students have just had access to basic English, so they are generally at elementary and elementary English proficiency After this survey is completed, we will have a better understanding of the causes of the reading difficulties

The purpose of this study is to answer the following two questions:

- The first question: What are the common difficulties in reading English skills of second year students in English Department of ThuongMai University?

- Question 2: How to improve English reading skills of second year students of the English Department of Thuong Mai University?

3.1.4 Instrument

In this study, the main tool used to collect data in quantitative format is the

questionnaire It is considered to be one of the easiest tools to analyze, summarize, report collected data and find out the causes of difficulties in English reading skills of learners It involves a set of questions answered to informants for data collection purposes In this regard, Dornyei (2007: 101) states: “The popularity of questionnaires

is due to the fact that they are relatively easy to construct, extremely versatile and uniquely capable of gathering a large amount of information quickly in a form that is accessible” In this study, the questionnaire consisted of twelve questions divided into three main parts Questions from one to five are mainly aimed at determining English reading and usage skills; meanwhile, questions six through ten are designed to addressthe problems that lead to student difficulty in reading Finally, two questions aim to find suggestions for solving these problems

3.1.5 Data collection procedures

To increase the reliability and validity of the study, a random sampling procedure was used in the survey questionnaire The questionnaire will be established and surveyed

40 second year students from the Faculty of English Language of Thuongmai

University The data collection process is described as follows:

There are three main steps of data collection:

Step 1: Design the questionnaire: the questionnaire is divided into four parts including

the participants' general information, English reading usage and skills, reading

problems and finally solutions to overcome difficulties There are a total of twelve questions to address the above problems Questionnaires were distributed to 50

students during recess Students have 10 minutes to fill in personal information in partone and choose the best answer to the ten multiple choice questions in part two All participants' responses were kept confidential for data analysis