A STUDY ON SECOND YEAR STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN READING ESP MATERIALS AT AUTOMOBILE TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT INVIETNAM KOREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE

The results of this study has shown that the second-year students often havedifficulties in many areas of the language such as difficulties with ESP vocabulary,discourse, reading skills

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VIETNAM-KOREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE

(Tìm hiểu những khó khăn của sinh viên năm thứ hai trong việc đọc hiểu tài liệu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành ở khoa

Công nghệ Ôtô, trờng Cao đẳng Kỹ thuật

Việt Nam- Hàn Quốc)

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching

Code: 60.14.10

Master thesis in Education

Vinh, 2011 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled

A STUDY ON SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN READING ESP

MATERIALS AT AUTOMOBILE TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT

IN VIETNAM - KOREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE

is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Education at VinhUniversity I confirm that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees

Student’s signature

Hà Thị Thanh

I also wish to send my sincere thanks to the students of the classes I visited

in order to gather information for my survey questionnaire Without their help, thisstudy could not have been successful

I am indebted to my friends, my classmates, as well as my colleagues fortheir invaluable comments and criticism and also for their continued interest andencouragement

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to family members whosesupport and encouragement greatly contributed to the completion of my study

Reading is one of the four important skills in learning English, especiallyEnglish for specific purposes (ESP) For non-English major students at Vietnam-Korea Technical College, reading has been given the first priority and has been paidmore attention as the students have to read English materials related to their ownspecialist subject However, they have encountered a lot of difficulties in readingESP materials and, therefore, failed to become efficient readers What, then, are thedifficulties that the students at Vietnam-Korea Technical College encounter whenreading ESP materials? And what hinders their reading comprehension?

Many studies have already been conducted in the area of reading problems.This study aims to examine the difficulties in ESP reading for the second-yearstudents at Vietnam-Korea Technical College and the causes of their unsuccessfulreading comprehension

The results of this study has shown that the second-year students often havedifficulties in many areas of the language such as difficulties with ESP vocabulary,discourse, reading skills and subject background knowledge when dealing with ESPtexts and their unsuccessful reading comprehension comes from different sources:inadequate ESP vocabulary, limited background knowledge about the subject,unsuitable materials, the teachers’ teaching methods as well as the negative attitude

of some students This study has also suggested some solutions to help to reducetheir difficulties in reading ESP and obtain desirable achievements in ESP reading

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EFL: English as Foreign Language

EGP: English for General Purposes

ELT: English Language Teaching

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

FL: foreign language

GE: General English

L1: first language

L2: second language

TALO: text and as a linguistic object

TAVI: text as a vehicle of information

VKTC: Vietnam-Korea Technical College

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1 Students’ attitudes towards ESP reading 44Table 3.2 The difficulties in terms of ESP vocabulary 46Table 3.3 The difficulties in terms of grammar 47Table 3.4 The difficulties in terms of text discourse 49Table 3.5 The difficulties related to lack of background knowledge 51Table 3.6 The difficulties due to lack of reading skills 52Table 3.7 Rank order of difficulties in ESP reading 54Table 3.8 Students’ views of sources of difficulties 55Table 3.9 The students’ needs for ESP materials 59Table 3.10 The students’ needs for teachers’ methodology 61Figure 2.1: The vicious circle of the weak readers 15Figure 3.1 Students’ attitudes towards ESP reading 44Figure 3.2 Causes of difficulties from materials 56Figure 3.3 Causes of difficulties from teachers 58Figure 3.4 Causes of difficulties from students 59

APPENDIX A Questionnaire for students

This questionnaire is designed for my research into difficulties in ESP reading of the second year students in Vietnam – Korea Technical College Your assistance in completing the survey is appreciated All the information provided by you is solely for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data.

Thank you very much for your cooperation!

*Where do you come from? □ Rural □ Urban

*Did you learn English before entering Vietnam-Korea Technical College?

□ Yes □ No

- If Yes, when did you start learning English? ………

- If No, did you learn any other foreign languages? ………

* What is your average mark of General English in the first year? ………

Section A: Do you agree with these?

Question 1: I need to read technical texts well for my future job

Question 2: I find it difficult to understand technical texts because my technical words are limited

Question 3: I like reading texts about my specialized topics

Section B: Here are some of difficulties you may encounter when reading ESP.

Please tick the appropriate box according to the level of difficulties you have

Very difficult (VD) Difficult (D) Easy (E) Very easy (VE)

Question 4: Difficulties with ESP vocabulary

4c I find it difficult to memorize technical terms ( such as:

ignition, lubrication, spark plugs )

4d I have troubles in using idomatic expressions and

phrasal verbs (such as: convert into, by means of )

4e When a word has many meanings, I don’t know which

meaning is used in the reading text

4f Others (Please indicate here)

……….………

Question 5: Difficulties with Grammar

5a I don’t remember all grammatical structures that I have

learnt and this makes it difficult to understand the content

of the reading text

5b If the sentence is a new grammatical structure in the

text I do not understand its meaning

VD D E VE

6a I don’t understand how a reading text is organized and

this makes it difficult to understand the content of the text

6b I don’t understand how a paragraph is organized and

this makes it difficult to understand its content

6c I cannot find which is the most important sentence in

each paragraph of the reading text

6d I have problems understanding how meanings of

different sentences are linked together

6e Understanding graphs and diagrams is difficult to me □ □ □ □

6f Others (Please indicate here)

8a I find it difficult to find out the main idea of a reading text □ □ □ □8b I find it difficult to find out the specific ideas of a reading text □ □ □ □8c I don’t know how to guess meanings of new words in a reading

9a The texts are very too long and full of technical terms □ □

9b The texts are full of new and complex grammar structures □ □

9c Some texts are taken from authentic materials, which

makes us difficult to understand

9d The teacher doesn’t teach us sufficient reading strategies □ □

9e The teacher doesn’t give us sufficient practice of grammar

and vocabulary

9h I lack vocabulary especially ESP vocabulary □ □

9i I lack knowledge about the topics I am studying □ □

9j Others ( Please indicate here)

………

Question 10: To make your ESP reading easier, what do you think must be adjusted

in the ESP materials ( choose as many as possible)

10a Reading texts should be more related to my future job □10b Reading texts should be shorter and more motivating □10c Reading texts should have a limited number of new words □10d Technical terms should be explained more carefully □10e Grammatical exercises should be more various in form □

10f Others ( Please indicate here)

11c I expect the teacher to provide us more background knowledge

related to the topics we are working on

□

11d I want the teacher to guide us to choose suitable reading strategies for

each reading text

11g I want the teacher to check us more often about translation □11h Others ( Please indicate here)

………

Thank you for taking time to complete this questionnaire

APPENDIX B PHIÕU §IÒU TRA NGHI£N CøU

Bảng câu hỏi dưới đây nhằm phục vụ nghiên cứu tìm hiểu những khó khăn trong việc đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành của học viên năm thứ hai Trường Cao đẳng Kỹ thuật Việt Nam - Hàn Quốc và những nguyên nhân gây ra những khó khăn

đó Các câu trả lời mà các bạn cung cấp rất quan trọng đối với công trình nghiên cứu này Dữ liệu điều tra sẽ chỉ được sử dụng cho việc nghiên cứu, không vì mục đích nào khác (Chỉ có người nghiên cứu mới được biết câu trả lời của các bạn vì vậy mong các bạn trả lời theo đúng suy nghĩ của mình.)

Cảm ơn sự hợp tác của các bạn

Xin bạn vui lòng cho biết:

* Bạn từ đâu đến? □ Nông thôn □ Thành thị

*Trước khi vào trường Cao đẳng Kỹ thuật Việt Nam - Hàn Quốc bạn có được học

- Nếu có thì bắt đầu học khi nào ? ………

- Nếu không thì bạn được học ngoại ngữ nào? ………

* Điểm trung bình môn tiếng Anh đại cương của bạn trong năm học đầu là bao nhiêu? ………

Phần A: Bạn có đồng ý với những ý kiến sau không ?

Câu hỏi 1: Tôi cần phải đọc tốt các tài liệu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành vì công việc tương lai của tôi

□ Không đồng ý □ Hoàn toàn không đồng ýCâu hỏi 2: Tôi thấy đọc hiểu các tài liệu kỹ thuật thật khó vì vốn từ vựng chuyên

ngành của tôi hạn chế

Câu hỏi 3: Tôi thích đọc các tài liệu tiếng Anh về chuyên ngành chuyên ngành của

tôi

Phần B: Dưới đây làm một số khó khăn các bạn có thể thường gặp trong quá trình

đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Bạn hãy cho biết những khó khăn mà bạn gặp

theo các mức độ:

Câu hỏi 4: Khó khăn về từ vựng chuyên ngành

4b Tôi thấy khó hiểu nghĩa của các từ kỹ thuật trong các bài

đọc hiểu

4c Tôi thấy khó nhớ các từ kỹ thuật (như ignition,

lubrication, spark plugs )

4d Tôi gặp khó khăn khi sử dụng các thành ngữ và các cụm

động từ (như convert into, by means of )

4e Khi một từ có nhiều nghĩa, tôi không biết nghĩa nào được

sử dụng trong bài đọc hiểu đó

4f Các ý kiến khác: ………

Câu hỏi 5: Khó khăn về ngữ pháp

5a Tôi không nhớ hết tất cả các cấu trúc ngữ pháp đã

học và điều này gây khó khăn cho tôi trong việc hiểu

nội dung của bài đọc hiểu

5b Tôi không hiểu nghĩa của câu nếu nó là một cấu

trúc ngữ pháp mới trong bài đọc hiểu đó

6a Tôi không hiểu cấu trúc của một bài đọc và điều

này gây khó khăn cho tôi khi hiểu nội dung của bài

6b Tôi không hiểu cấu trúc của một đoạn văn và điều

này gây khó khăn cho tôi khi hiểu nội dung của nó

6c.Tôi không thể phát hiện ra câu văn quan trọng nhất

trong mỗi đoạn văn của một bài đọc hiểu

ngành không phổ biến

7b Tôi thấy bản thân mình không đủ kiến thức chuyên

ngành liên quan đến những vấn đề mà tôi đang học

8c Tôi không biết cách đoán nghĩa của các từ mới

trong một bài đọc hiểu

8d Tôi thấy khó khăn để nhận ra điều tác giả ngụ ý

trong một bài đọc hiểu

ĐÚNG SAI

9a Các bài đọc rất dài và nhiều thuật ngữ kỹ thuật □ □9b Các bài đọc nhiều các cấu trúc ngữ pháp mới và phức tạp □ □9c Một số bài đọc lấy từ tài liệu nguyên bản và điều này gây khó

khăn cho chúng tôi khi hiểu nội dung của bài

9g Tôi không có đủ tự tin và động cơ học tiếng Anh chuyên

ngành

9h Tôi thiếu vốn từ vựng đặc biệt là từ vựng chuyên ngành □ □9i Tôi thiếu kiến thức chuyên ngành của các vấn đề tôi đang học □ □9j Các ý kiến khác: ………

Câu hỏi 10 Để giúp các bạn đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành dễ dàng hơn, theo bạn giáo trình tiếng Anh chuyên ngành nên điều chỉnh và bổ sung như thế nào? (Bạn có thể đánh dấu vào các ô sau tuỳ ý)

10a Các bài đọc hiểu nên gắn sát với nghề nghiệp tương lai của tôi □10b Các bài đọc hiểu nên ngắn hơn và tạo hứng thú hơn □10c Các bài đọc hiểu nên có lượng từ mới vừa phải □10d Các thuật ngữ kỹ thuật nên được giải thích kỹ càng hơn □10e Các bài tập ngữ pháp nên phong phú, đa dạng hơn □10f Các ý kiến khác:

………

□

Câu hỏi 11 Để giúp các bạn đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành tốt hơn bạn mong điều gì

ở giáo viện trong việc dạy đọc hiểu (Bạn có thể đánh dấu vào các ô sau tuỳ ý) 11a Tôi muốn giáo viên giải thích kỹ hơn các thuật ngữ kỹ thuật □11b Tôi muốn giáo viên giải thích kỹ hơn các cấc trúc ngữ pháp trong các

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.2.3 Cultural background knowledge problem 15

2.5 Factors causing difficulties for ESP readers 32

2.5.4 Lack of specialist background knowledge 37

3.2.2.The students 39

3.2.4 The teaching and learning English at VKTC 40

3.7.1 Students’ attitudes towards ESP reading 433.7.2 Students’ perception of ESP reading difficulties 453.7.2.1 Difficulties with ESP vocabulary 46

3.7.2.3 Difficulties with the Text Discourse 483.7.2.4 Difficulties related to Lack of Background Knowledge 503.7.2.5 Difficulties due to Lack of Reading Skills 523.7.2.6 Rank order of ESP reading difficulties 54

4.1.1.1.Using visual aids in teaching reading 654.1.1.2 Diverstifying reading activities 674.1.2 Raising students’ awareness of the usefulness of English 684.2 Training students to become efficient readers 694.2.1 Making students aware of the nature of the reading process 69

4.2.2 Making students aware of the purposes of reading 694.2.3 Teaching students different reading strategies 694.2.4 Encouraging students to develop extensive reading habits 724.3 Improving teachers’ classroom techniques and subject background knowledge 724.3.1 Employing three stages in ESP reading lessons 724.3.2 Giving homework and checking previous lessons frequently 744.3.3 Improving teachers’ professional knowledge 74

4.4.1 Adusting and improving reading exercises 75

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 77

5.2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 78

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A (Questionnaire completed by the students)

APPNDIX B ( Translated version of the questionnaire)

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

English learning has experienced its popularity in Vietnam over the last fewdecades Especially, the demand for learning English even gets stronger whenVietnam fosters its international relations Every day an increasing number ofpeople learn and use English for different purposes

From the early 1960’s, English for Specific Purpose (ESP) has grown tobecome one of the most prominent areas of EFL teaching today Hutchinson andWaters (1987) defines ESP as an approach to language teaching in which alldecisions as to content and method are based on the learner’s reason for learning InESP, it is a need analysis that determines which language skills are most needed bythe students and the syllabus is designed accordingly During the last few decades,ESP has been developing vigorously for the reasons that there has been an increase

in vocational training and learning throughout the world and the spread ofglobalisation has resulted in the increasing use of English as the language ofinternational communication, more and more people are using English in a growingnumber of occupational contexts In teaching and learning English as a foreignlanguage in Vietnam, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has recently received agreat deal of attention

According to El-Bashbishy (1993), who studied the importance of readingskills for the students studying English for Specific Purposes, reading is the mostimportant skill needed for those students Indeed, reading is by far the mostimportant skill as they hardly have opportunity to use communicative Englishoutside the classroom However, they need to get access to a great number ofspecialized documents written in English so as to broaden their knowledge abouttheir specialism as well as to obtain up-to-date information in their fields of study.ESP reading is also very necessary in their future work for the reason that duringtheir future job, the students will encounter a lot of documents about their

specialism written in English which they have to read to get needed information so

as to deal with different tasks in their work

According to Carrell (1981:1) “For many students, reading is by far the mostimportant of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second

or foreign language” This is true for the students of Automobile TechnologyDepartment at Vietnam Korea Technical College (VKTC), where English not onlyserves an useful means to help the students in their study and entertainment but alsoplays an important role in their future career The students at my college are futuretechnicians who will work in joint-stock automobile manufacturing factories or will

be hired to work overseas English, therefore, is of importance in their future workbecause the students need English to read materials about their specialism, tounderstand technical terms, manuals, catalogues, leaflets, etc … and to work withtheir foreign colleagues However, despite the efforts of the teachers and students,the teachers often find their students’ reading skill disappointing, which do not meetthe requirements of the college

Being an ESP teacher of Automobile English, the researcher has alwaysbeen aware of the importance of developing reading skills for automobilestudents If students read well, they are able to handle subjects related writtenmaterials in English and to work with modern technological equipments But infact, despite the efforts of the teachers and students, the researcher found herstudents’ reading skills disappointing which do not meet the requirements ofthe college With some years of experience in teaching ESP, the researcherrecognized that there are many factors that affect the teaching and learningprocess such as inappropriate teaching methods and classroom techniques,inappropriate attitudes of the teachers and the students towards the subject,inappropriate teaching materials…

In an attempt to improve the students’ reading proficiency, this study isaimed at finding out the difficulties the students at Vietnam Korea TechnicalCollege are encountering with and the causes of those difficulties as the first step to

the pedagogical solutions The researcher believes that these solutions would bebased on the understanding of what the students find most challenging to themwhile reading English texts and why they find it challenging

1.2 Aims of the study

The study aims to examine the difficulties in reading English forAutomobile Technology of the second year students at VKTC

To be more specific, the objectives of the study are:

- To explore the students’ perceived difficulties in reading English forAutomobile Technology at VKTC

- To find out the causes of those difficulties

- To investigate the students’ expectation in terms of ESP materials andmethodology

- To suggest some solutions to reduce those difficulties, thereby helpingstudents improve their reading skills

1.3 Research questions

In order to meet the aims of the study, the following research questions aregenerated:

1 What are the students’ difficulties in reading ESP materials at VKTC?

2 What are the causes of those difficulties ?

3 What are the possible pedagogical implications that can help to reducethose difficulties ?

1.4 Scope of the study

The study is a survey which focuses on the indentification of the difficultiesthat students of Automobile Department encountered with according to theiropinions as well as some suggested solutions to help them deal with those problems

1.5 Method of the study

With the aim of finding out the areas of difficulties in ESP reading of thesecond-year students at VKTC and the causes of their unsuccessful reading

comprehension, this study adopts a survey approach To achieve the aims of thestudy, a questionnaire and informal discussions are used to collect the needed data.

1.6 Design of the study

The study consists of six parts:

Chapter I: ‘Introduction’ presents the background to the study, rationale,

aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, method and the design ofthe study are also presented in this part

Chapter II: ‘Literature review’ provides the literature review of the

research, including: reading and reading comprehension; the factors involve inreading proficiency; reading problems for L2 readers; sources of difficulties for L2readers; ESP and the differences between ESP and EGP and factors that causedifficulties for ESP reading

Chapter III: ‘The study’ focuses on the methodology of the research,

including the methods, the participants and the instrument and data collectionprocedure This chapter also presents preliminary results, data analysis and researchfindings

Chapter IV: ‘Pedagogical implications’ offers some suggestions to improve

the teaching and learning of ESP reading

Chapter V: ‘Conclusion’ summarizes the issues addressed and presents

recommendations for further improvements and some suggestions for furtherresearches

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the relevant literature will be reviewed in order to create atheoretical background for the study First, an overview of reading comprehensionincluding definition, factors involved in reading comprehension, reading difficultiesfor foreign language learners and the causes of those difficulties will be presented Then a brief description of ESP will be discussed including the definition of ESP,differences between English for General Purposes (EGP) reading and English forSpecific Purposes (ESP), ESP reading skills as well as ESP materials Finally,factors causing difficulties for ESP readers will be reviewed

2.1 Reading and reading comprehension

2.1.1 Definition of reading

It is stated that reading is a kind of culture that people regardless of age, sex,

or class should learn and have Although no one can deny the high frequency ofreading in daily life, many people do not fully understand thoroughly what reading

or reading comprehension There have been so many definitions of reading that theycause much confusion However, no single definition or explanation can live up toeveryone’s satisfaction

According to Goodman (1971:135), reading is “a psycholinguistics process

by which the reader - a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a messagewhich has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” For Goodman, this act ofreconstruction is considered as a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing,and confirming To make the matter simple and easy, from the motor-psychologicalperspective, Harmer (1989:153) considers reading as a mechanical process that

“eyes receive messages and the brain then has to identify the meanings of thosemessages” So the speed of reading depends much on the mechanical process oflooking and perceiving and it is the reader who decides how fast he wants to readthe text

From a cognitive perspective, Smith defines that “reading is to understandauthor’s thought” (Smith, 1985:102) But the problem posed hereof is that how the

reader understands the written texts because the meanings of a word depend on thecontext in which it appears The closer the reader shares the context with the author,the more he/she can understand what the author wants to say through the message.This mostly depends on the reader’s reading proficiency.

Taking an interactive perspective, Nuttall (1982:4) relates reading tocommunication process and concludes that “reading means getting out of the text as

nearly as possible the message the writer puts into it” He also emphasizes the interaction between texts and readers in the reading process In his opinion, “text is

full of meaning like a jug of water, the reader’s mind soaks it up like sponge”

It is clear that reading is defined from a variety of perspectives:psychological, motor-psychological, cognitive, and interactive Therefore, nodefinition can possibly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is Eachscholar’s definition reflects what reading means as seen from his point of view.However, what they all share is that they try to find out the nature of reading, andreading act, in which the readers, reading process and reading messages areemphasized

2.1.2 Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension takes a very important part in teaching and learningreading a language and a foreign language as well It can be seen as the ability toretain information of a written text to the fullest of the readers Grellet defines that

“reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the

required information from it as effectively as possible” (Grellet, 1981:34) From this

point of view, Grellet focuses on readers’ ability of understanding the meaning of awritten text based on the individual’s background knowledge Having the samepoint of view with Grellet, Swan states that “A student is good at comprehension wemean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum

information of a text with the minimum of understanding” (Swan, 1975: 1) This

means that the student can show his understanding by re-expressing the content ofthe text in many ways such as summarizing the text, answering questions, etc

For a little more different definition of reading comprehension, Richards andRodgers put their emphasis on the share of opinion between the author and thereader So according to them, “reading comprehension is best described as anunderstanding between the author and the reader” (Richards and Rodgers, 1986:7).This implies that during the reading process, readers on the way to discover whatthe author means and to build meaning for themselves at the same time in their ownlanguage, their thoughts, and their own view of the world based on theirbackground knowledge It is very difficult, even impossible to understand theauthor’s meaning to the maximum if there is no interaction between the author andthe reader about language and thoughts Consequently, the reader is as active insearching for meaning as is the writer in creating written language.

Though these ideas are not exactly the same, they all come up to the commonpoint that reading comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read,can recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and understand what is impliedbehind these forms

Reading plays a very important role in second language learning According

to Krashen (1983), reading can provide “comprehensible input”, which is critical tothe second language acquisition The input from reading is more important wherestudents have limited or no exposure to the second language environment Thus byreading the students are exposed to the input, which, ideally, is comprehensible tothem, i.e., the text is a little bit more difficult than their current proficiency in thetarget language He states that:

“Reading may contribute significantly to competence in a second language.There is good reason, in fact, to hypothesize that reading makes a contribution tooverall competence, to all four skills” (Krashen & Terrel, 1983:131)

To sum up, reading comprehension plays a very important role in teachingand learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading in particular.However, the reasons for reading differ from one person to another As a result, theways we read are also different In other words, the purposes of reading determine

the ways or the styles of reading Now it is necessary to identify the factorsinvolved in the reading comprehension to have a closer look at readingcomprehension.

2.1.3 Factors involved in reading comprehension

There are various factors affecting reading skills that both teachers andstudents have to take into consideration when doing reading process According toAebersold and Field (1997:23), those factors are as follows:

- Cognitive development and cognitive style orientation at the time ofbeginning L2/FL study

- Language proficiency in the L1

- Metacognitive knowledge of L1 structure, grammar, and syntax

- Language proficiency in a L2/FL

- Degree of difference between the L1 and a L2/FL (writing systems,rhetorical structures, appropriate strategies)

- Cultural orientation which includes:

+ attitudes toward text and purpose for reading

+ types of reading skills and strategies used in the L1

+ types of reading skills and strategies used or appropriate in the L2/FL.+ beliefs about the reading process (use of inference, memorization,nature of comprehension)

+ knowledge of text types in the L1 (formal schemata)+ background knowledge (content schemata)

Among the factors mentioned above, language proficiency in L2 andbackground knowledge are likely to be two factors affecting most the success ofreading process because when reading readers always bring their backgroundknowledge into reading texts to comprehend them, and if their languagecompetence is good enough, it is much easier for them to understand and acquirethe L2 they are learning Therefore, to help students able to read texts or documents

in the classroom to the fullest, it is advisable for teachers to identify what level oflanguage proficiency their students are at, and how much they understand therequired reading texts so that they could give their students suitable texts to read.Besides, teachers should be aware of the rest factors affecting reading skills to helptheir students to the maximum Specifically, teachers should motivate their students

by providing them with as many reading skills as possible and know to focus them

on suitable ones when practising, and try to decrease the difference between theirnative language and the target one

2.2 Reading difficulties for foreign language learners

No one can deny the great importance of reading in a foreign language toacademic studies, personal development and professional success As a result,readers can acquire the target language to the fullest if they have strong readingskills In fact, without strong reading skills, learners may find class discussions to

be uncomfortable, or somewhat intimidating If learners feel that they are notgetting enough from the reading, they may fall behind, or miss out on a great book,and they are not benefiting from the experience and lose out an opportunity to learn.However, reading in a language which is not the learners’ mother tongue is muchmore difficult Problems in reading for foreign learners come from many variablessuch as reading skills, language competence or readers’ cultural backgroundknowledge

2.2.1 Language problem

Yorio (1971) gives out a contrary view to reading problems He argues thatreading problems of foreign language learners are largely due to the knowledge ofthe target language and the mother tongue interference in the reading process In hisopinion, reading involves four factors: knowledge of the language, ability to guess

so as to make the correct choice, ability to remember the previous cues, and ability

to make necessary association between the different cues that have been selected.Therefore, learners with limited knowledge of the target language may face withconsiderable difficulties when reading in the target language

Besides, readers have to face various difficulties The first and the foremostproblem is that they may have to work with unfamiliar and difficult topics Theseare called “ text problems” The content of the text might be rather strange to thestudents and the grammatical structures might be new Therefore, they can notunderstand it The readers will find the text very challenging and might not haveany motivation left to keep on reading L2 readers may have difficulty adjustingtheir reading strategies to match the author’s intent or purpose They may not befamiliar with a particular story “grammar” or the organizational patterns ofinformational text They may not be familiar with specific genre and the literarydevises used in text.

The second but not less important kind of problem is the “vocabulary

problems” As everyone knows, grammatical knowledge accounts for a great deal of

competence in reading However, knowledge of vocabulary is a great deal moreimportant as a factor to reading comprehension than awareness of grammaticalstructures (O’Donnel, 1961: 313-316)

L2 readers may lack knowledge of English grammar and syntax andtherefore, may read word by word They may encounter too much unfamiliarvocabulary to grasp the overall concept conveyed in the sentence They are alsochallenged when reading idiomatic expressions and unfamiliar grammaticalconstructions

In addition, L2 readers may have difficulty with more complex andcompound sentences They may lose the meaning of references within the text, such

as with frequent use of pronouns Pronoun usage may be different or less frequent inthe native language Connectives may be overlooked or misunderstood so they losethe relationships between concepts and ideas

Another difficulty that readers face is vocabulary and grammatical structures.This is especially true when they deal with idioms, proverbs, synonyms, antonyms,etc., which can be considered to have an impact on the readers’ motivation.According to Aebersold and Field (1997), it is necessary for a reader to know

vocabulary and structures in order to get meaning from a text This is especially true

to second or foreign language readers because it is not all readers to possess enoughvocabulary and structures to read what they want But most are on the way to enrichthemselves with more new words and structures to infer the meaning of thesentences when dealing with reading texts Therefore, when the readers have limitedknowledge of vocabulary and grammatical structures, they will be unwilling toexplore the text

These problems are the difficulties that foreign language learners, GEstudents, ESP students share in common Besides, ESP students encounter otherdifficulties in dealing with terminologies, concepts, tables, charts, graphs etc intheir specific field All the above mentioned difficulties interfere with their process

of learning reading ESP and set challenges for ESP teachers whose duty is to findways to help their students to overcome them

2.2.2 Reading skill problem

Reading skills should be employed in reading processes to make the readingeffective According to Alderson (2000:9-10), there are 8 skills of reading such as:

- recalling word meanings

- drawing inferences about the meaning of a word in context

- finding answers to questions answered explicitly or in paraphrase

- weaving together ideas in the content

- drawing inferences from the content

- recognizing a writer’s purpose, attitude, tone and mood

- identifying a writer’s technique

- following the structure of a passage

Second language readers often expose to be problems with the above skillsbecause when making reading processes, it is clear to identify that they read in aforeign language slower than in their first language Moreover, they do not knowhow to use the appropriate ways to read They just look at every single word, read

slowly from the beginning to the end and consequently fail to grasp the generalmeaning of the passage Sometimes, they may encounter a lot of new words, a longtext or an unfamiliar topic Yet they can not concentrate well on the text and whenthey get to the last paragraph they may not recall what they have read in theprevious ones In other words, they find difficult, even impossible in weavingtogether ideas in the content.

It is common that there are new words, new structures, and ideas in a readingtext to every language learner If a learner does not know how to make use ofgrammatical, logical and cultural clues and have a guess or predicting ability, hewill read the text with less comprehension than he might expect And poor readingcomprehension may result in disinterest in reading He may be trapped in a viciouscircle:

Figure 2.1: The vicious circle of the weak readers (Nuttall, 1982: 167)

From the above diagram, one of the important factors affecting theeffectiveness of reading processes is learner’s motivation toward reading When astudent does not read much, he/she of course does not feel like reading that leads tothe speed of reading is slow And when he/she does not read much, he/she will notunderstand the subject matter as he/she expects which also makes him/her readslowly

2.2.3 Cultural background knowledge problem

Several studies on reading skills indicate that apart from language problemsand reading skill problems, cultural knowledge can also affect students’ readingability

Strang (1972) states that readers will have different levels of comprehension

of the same text because they start off from different positions They interprete textsdifferently because of the differences in the high-level cultural schemata that wereactivated

Many studies including Steffensen et al (1979) and Carrell (1981) havedemonstrated the effect of cultural knowledge on the product of comprehension.Appealing to the processes of distortion and elaboration to account for thedifferences between a recall of text and the original text Readers facing withunfamiliar cultural contents may mistranslate or misinterprete the text according totheir own cultural experiences Reading comprehension is a function of culturalbackground knowledge If readers possess the schemata assumed by the writer, theyunderstand what is stated and effortlessly make the inferences intended As Hudson(1982:9) states: “the reading problems of the L2 readers are not due to an absence

of attempts at fitting and providing specific schemata Rather, problem lies inprojecting appropriate schemata”

To conclude, in most cases, reading and understanding a text is often achallenging task for a reader during a reading process if he/she does not have fullbackground knowledge of the subject matter, his/her low reading speed is low tokeep pace with other better students’, the topics are unfamiliar, and he has notenough reading strategies in hand, etc All of those difficulties prevent him/her fromunderstanding to the fullest the writer’s purposes and ideas and lead to decrease inreading motivation So it is necessary to create learners’ interest, enhance theirmotivation in teaching reading

2.3 Causes of difficulties in L2 reading

As can be seen from the above discussion about the definition of reading,factors influencing reading and the readers’ various strategies, the difficulties stemfrom a variety of reasons and in no way are easy to identify and categorize intogroups From a general view, the problems usually originate from internal factorsand external ones The internal causes have to do with the leaner himself including

low motivation problem, insufficient reading skills, language proficiency problem,lack of lexical knowledge, cultural background knowledge problem, and lack ofinferencing ability The external causes are mainly due to reading materials andteaching method of the teachers.

2.3.1 Low motivation

There have existed many different points of view on the definition ofmotivation in second language learning However, all the scholars share the sameview that motivation combines effort and desire plus favorable attitude and occurs

as a result of a combination of internal and external influences William and Burdendefine motivation as:

“….motivation may be construed as a state of cognitive and emotionalarousal, which leads to a conscious decision to act, and which gives rise to period ofsustained intellectual and/or physical effort in order to attain a previous set goal orgoals”

(William and Burden, 1997:120)Motivation plays a crucial role not only in second language learning but also

in reading comprehension Reading behaviors are influenced by motivation acrosscultures and languages (Lorch & van den Broek, 1997; Oldfather, 2002; Wigfield,1997) Indeed, even the most skillful readers can hardly be effective readers if theylack motivation (Watkins & Coffey, 2004) A variety of motivation constructs areimportant correlates of reading performance (Wigfield & Guthrie, 1997; Law,2009) Wigfield noted that instrinsic reading motivation, consisting of curiosity inlearning about a particular topic of interest, the pleasure gained from being engaged

in reading interesting materials, and the challenge in learning complex or difficultideas, is an important component in students becoming profiecient readers

It is said that readers’ motivation has an effect not only on the result ofcomprehension but also upon the process of understanding If the readers have nointerest in the text, it means that they do not want to read than the reading activity

will become a pressure to themselves and even the reading process may not happen

at all

In the case readers are motivated to read, they will start reading the texts tosatisfy their desire, to find a number of questions and specific information or ideasthey are interested in A great deal of conducted studies on the motivation of secondlanguage readers have shown that poor readers usually lack motivation to read andmake efforts to improve their reading competence This is, of course, the effect ofpoor reading as the cause of it

It is suggested that learners should be encouraged to choose the topics theywish to read as well as to have enough time getting ready before starting reading Toput it bluntly, the teachers should arouse leaners’ interest and curiosity in the text,encourage their prediction and stimulate them when dealing with reading activities

In other words, “it is an important part of a reading teacher’s job to motivatelearners” (Girard, 1997:120)

2.3.2 Insufficient reading skills

There is a close relationship between students’ reading ability and readingstrategies It is very important for students to choose a proper reading strategy inorder to improve their reading speed and reading efficiency

Although a number of studies have attempted to conceptualize the notion ofstrategies used by language learners, Oxford (1990) particularly offers a useful andcomprehensive classification scheme of the various strategies used by learners Hesees the aim of language learning strategies as being oriented towards thedevelopment of communicative competence (Oxford,1990:9) and divides languagelearning strategies into two main classes, direct and indirect, which are furthersubdivided into 6 groups In Oxford's system, metacognitive strategies help learners

to regulate their learning Affective strategies are concerned with the learner'semotional requirements such as confidence, while social strategies lead to increasedinteraction with the target language Cognitive strategies are the mental strategieslearners use to make sense of their learning, memory strategies are those used for

storage of information, and compensation strategies help learners to overcomeknowledge gaps to continue the communication Oxford's (1990:17) taxonomy oflanguage learning strategies is shown in the following :

Direct strategies

Memory strategies:

- Creating mental linkages

- Applying images and sounds

- Reviewing well

- Employing action

Cognitive strategies:

- Practising

- Receiving and sending messages strategies

- Analysing and reasoning

- Centering your learning

- Arranging and planning your learning

- Evaluating your learning

- Cooperating with others

- Emphasizing with others

Techniques that help the learner to remember and retrieve information are

referred to as memory strategies These include creating mental images through

grouping and associating, semantic mapping, using keywords, employing wordassociations, and placing new words into a context

Cognitive strategies are used by learners to transform or manipulate the

language In more specific terms, these might include note taking, formal practicewith the specific aspects of the target language such as sounds and sentencestructure, summarizing, paraphrasing, predicting, analyzing and using context clues

Compensation strategies include skills such as interferring, guessing while

reading, or using reference materials such as dictionaries

Metacognitive strategies are behaviors undertaken by the learners to plan,

arrange, and evaluate their own learning Such strategies include directed attentionand self-evaluation, orga nization, setting goals and objectives, seeking practiceopportunities, and so forth In the context of reading, selfmonitoring and correction

of errors are further examples of metacognitive strategies

Learners also use affective strategies, such as self-encouraging behavior, to

lower anxiety and encouraging learning It might also include the ability to dealwith difficult texts soberly and without any sign of panic

Lastly, social strategies are those that involve other individuals in the

learning process and refer to cooperation with peers, questioning, asking forcorrection, and feedback; for example, while reading a student may ask anotherindividual for feedback about his/her reading reponses

It is important to recognize that the above strategies can be used to facilitatelearning, or can be used to facilitate comprehension For example, a learner canemploy the memory strategy of grouping in order to learn vocabulary words morequickly and more effectively Similarly, grouping can also be used to faciliate theunderstanding and meaning of words Furthermore, such strategies will vary

depending on the language area or skill to be mastered In other words, taskrequirements help determine strategy choice; leaners would not use the samestrategy for writing an essay as they would for engaging in informal conversation in

a sencond language

Researchers in the strategy use of second language readers fall into twogroups (Block, 1986) One argues that reading ability in a second language islargely a function of proficiency in that language The major figures in this groupare Clarke (1979) and Macnamara (1970) According to this group of researchers,therefore, language skills develop in a linear progression, moving from lower levelletter-and-word level skills and higher level cognitive ones The other group assertsthat higher level strategies developed in a “first language” can be transferred to asecond language and operate alongside lower processing strategies The majorproponents of this view are Benedetto (1984), Coady (1979), Cummins (1980),Goodman (1973) and Hudson (1982) These researchers believe that as languageproficiency develops linguistic cues can be used more efficiently and thatpredictions and other cognitive processes will therefore operate more smoothly Inhis study on Spanish students learning English as a second language, Anderson(1991:469) found that there is no single set of processing strategies thatsignificantly contributes to success on the two reading measures he used Readersscoring high and those scoring low appear to be using the same kinds of strategies.This seems to indicate that strategic readings is not only a matter of knowing whatstrategy to use, but also the reader must know how to use a strategy successfullyand combines its use with other strategies In this regard, Anderson states that it isnot sufficient to know about strategies; a reader must also be able to apply themsuccessfully

Furthermore, according to Jolly (1978), one’s first language reading abilityplays a more important role in reading success than his level of the target languagedoes because foreign language reading requires the transference of old skills, notthe learning of new ones Therefore, students who fail to read adequately in theforeign language fail because they either do not possess “old skills”, or because they

have failed to transfer them This view is shared by Coady (1979) who asserts thatforeign language reading is a reading skill problem, not a language problem.

Bernhard and Kamil (1995:17) assumesd that “reading performance in asecond language is largely shared with reading ability in a first language” In thelate 1980s, Gissi Sarig conducted a qualitative study with ten advanced learners ofEnglish as a foreign language whose first language was Hebrew to investigate thecontribution of L1 reading strategies and L2 language proficiency to L2 reading, aswell as the relationship between L1 and L2 reading strategies Sarig’s resultsrevealed that subjects transferred strategies from L1 reading to L2 reading and that

“the same reading strategies types accounted for success and failure in bothlanguages to almost the same extent” (Sarig, 1987:118) It can be concluded, then,that reading processes from the first language appear to transfer to the foreignlanguage

2.3.3 Language proficiency problem

Many studies focused on the relationship between proficiency level(generally referring to grammatical competence) and performance in reading Someauthors including Macnamara (1970), Clarke (1979), Crizko (1980) and manyothers concluded that the reading level is closely linked to the level of proficiencythe students has in the language Yorio (1971) claims that reading problems arelargely due to imperfect knowledge of language and language inteference in thereading process It is suggested that reading involves knowledge of language, ability

to predict and remember the previous cues and ability to make associations betweendifferent cues previously selected The work of Pardón and Waxman (1988)analyses the reading strategies used by 82 Hispanic in primary education and theresults revealed that, besides the students’ level of English, the use of the wrongcognitive strategies interferes with their level of comprehension The work whichdirectly confronts the question of whether reading in a second language depends onreading skills or on the level of proficiency is that of Carrell (1991) in the UnitedStates Carrell (1991) investigated the relationship between L1 and L2 reading

comprehension of 45 native Spanish speakers learning English (as L2) and 75English speakers studying Spanish (as L2) The results showed significant effectsfor both L1 reading ability and L2 proficiency on L2 reading performance, without

a clear relationship regarding which is the most important A similar conclusion wasdrawn in a later work by Bernhardt and Kamil (1995) who examined therelationship between L1 literacy and L2 reading among 186 adult, native Englishspeakers learning Spanish at beginning, intermediate and advanced proficiencylevels and their results indicated that language ability is a major determinant ofsuccessful reading When there is a language deficiency, readers are not able tomake use of syntactic, contextual, semantic and discoursal clues (Haynes, 1993;Devine, 1984) The research carried out by Lee and Schallert (1997), in their studywith 809 ninth and tenth-grade Korean EFL students found that an advanced level

of proficiency in the L2 ( a threshold level) is required to be able to make effectiveuse of reading strategies employed in the mother tongue

Ulijin and Salager-Meyer (1998) identifies vocabulary knowledge as criticalcomponent of reading comprehension and claimed that it is an important predictor

of reading ability Coady (1993) asserts that readers with better vocabularyknowledge are generally believed to be better “comprehenders” Most current L1and L2 reading theories maintain that processing at the word level is central tosuccessful reading and that lack of skill at recognizing words is almost always apredictor of difficulties in developing reading comprehension (Stanovich, 1980;Grabe, 1991) In addition, automatic word identification is now considered as one

of the most striking differences between skilled and less skilled readers

Closely related to the importance attached to lexical development in L2reading is the notion of a “lexical threshold” (Yorio, 1971; Devine, 1987) It isclaimed that reading ability and strategy use are dependent upon L2 proficiency andthat below a certain threshold in L2 proficiency, comprehension process used by thereaders in L1 cannot be used as effectively in L2 reading Well-known scholars inthe field such as Alderson and Urquhart (1984); Silberstein (1987); Devine (1989)