Obstacles and favourable materials for extensive reading on 9th graders at hoai hai lower secondary school

The reality of students‟ difficulties that secondary students face during their reading lessons can be observed when they often meet with difficulties in extensive reading practice for t

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

TRUONG THI BICH NGOAN

OBSTACLES AND FAVOURABLE MATERIALS

AT HOAI HAI LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOL

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching

Code: 8140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYEN QUANG NGOAN

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

Quy Nhon, May 2022

Trương Thị Bích Ngoan

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Assoc

Prof Dr Nguyen Quang Ngoan who spent the valuable time on giving me

instructions, advice, constructive comments, and encouragement This thesis would not have been completed if it had not been for my supervisor‟s great support

Secondly, I would like to thank my colleagues who encouraged me and shared with me much experience in thesis writing

Thirdly, I am also grateful for all the students in my class who participated in the study, giving me useful insight into the research problem

Finally, thanks to all my family support, I was able to complete the thesis on time

ABSTRACT

The benefits of extensive reading (ER) have been convinced by much literature The employment of ER helps improve EFL learners‟ reading abilities and motivation However, there remain many questions of obstacles and favorable reading materials, confirmed by EFL learners These findings seemed to receive less scholarly attention, especially in Vietnamese context As an attempt to understand this research phenomenon, the current study employed a questionnaire and face-to- face interview to gather the insights of 90 ninth graders at Hoai Hai Lower Secondary School They were invited to confirm obstacles and favorable materials for extensive reading within the semester Five voluntary interviewees expressed their perspectives later on these findings The results revealed major obstacles to the students‟ extensive reading practice were the limited command of language, low reading motivation, poor reading comprehension abilities, limited cultural or world knowledge, lack of reading resources, and lack of technological support The favourable materials were ones related to school exams and students‟ needs The students were particularly interested in their own favorite topics, and this motivation decreased when they had to read teachers‟ assigned reading materials This study, therefore, may give specific ideas for local EFL teachers to adapt language materials suited to students‟ needs, in the hope that they could improve their reading comprehension abilities and motivation in the future

Key words: extensive reading, reading comprehension, reading motivation

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions 4

1.3 Scope of the study 4

1.4 Significance of the study 5

1.5 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Reading 7

2.1.1 Definitions of reading 7

2.1.1 Extensive reading 10

2.2 Approaches to teaching reading in the second language classroom 12

2.3 Use of extensive reading in reading teaching 15

2.4 Possible difficulties of students in extensive reading 16

2.5 Previous studies on extensive reading in reading teaching 18

2.6 Summary 26

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Research design 27

3.1.1 Case study 27

3.1.2 The current research design 28

3.2 Data collection instruments 28

3.2.1 Questionnaire 28

3.2.2 Semi-structured interview 30

3.3 Sampling and participants 30

3.4 Data collection 31

3.4 Data analysis 31

3.5 Summary 32

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 33

4.1 Main findings 33

4.1.1 The obstacles 33

4.1.2 Favorable materials 42

4.2 Discussion 50

4.2.1 Research question one 50

4.2.2 Research question two 52

4.3 Summary 54

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 55

5.1 Conclusions 55

5.2 Limitations 58

5.3 Recommendations 59

5.3.1 For local students 59

5.3.2 For local teachers 59

5.3.3 For future research 60

REFERENCES 62 APPENDICES

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

ER Extensive reading

EFL English as a foreign language

LIST OF TABLES

Table

Page number

Table 4.3 Favorable materials for extensive reading 42

Table 4.4

Specific favorable extensive reading topics shared

by the interviewees

48

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Chapter one presents the introduction of the study This chapter discusses five parts, namely rationale, the aim of the study and research question, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, and the outline

of the study

1.1 RATIONALE

Researchers have proven reading to be an essential skill in our life when

it keeps our mind updated, healthy and bright during our lifetime Good reading skills are essential for effective daily communication, knowledge and skill acquisition, researching for academic purposes, business cooperation and operation, etc (Heilman, 1967; Grabe & Stoller, 2000) Watkins (2017) discussed reading as “incredible human achievements” that allow people to communicate “across both space and time” Reading is a complicated skill that can only be learned by continuous practice and effort of the people on the purpose of communicating, learning, or achieving knowledge Reading, together with writing, is the scale to evaluate a person‟s literacy: a proficient reader will have better opportunities in learning and working than others, and higher literacy is often linked to the reduction of poverty in many countries (Giovetti, 2020)

Reading is one of the macro skills in language teaching and learning and

is highly evaluated by educators, teachers, and students for its functions in students‟ study progress (Brown, 2001) The skills allow students to have efficient access to the wide knowledge that is communicated among different regions and areas, leading them along the pathway of broadening their horizons of life skills and knowledge Students mastering competent reading skills will find their gaining new knowledge and skills much easier and with

much better performance and speed during their study Thus, learning to read efficiently and proficiently takes time It takes memorizing rules and practicing methods and techniques; it takes long-term and continuous practice with reading for larger knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical structures, and ideas However, this effort will prove valuable in students‟ school performance and during their lifetime (Nunan, 1991)

As reading is important, it has been among the priorities of language teaching to provide students with the appropriate tools to achieve the skills effectively In Vietnam, the distinctive features of English from Vietnamese

in discourse, style, grammar, and vocabulary have resulted in inevitable difficulties for students However, since the consciousness that reading is the major skill in English language acquisition, educators, teachers, and students have paid much concern over the practice of reading comprehension (Dang, 2012; Dung, 2020; Truong, 2018) and have suggested extensive reading as one of the solutions to the needs of reading improvement Extensive reading refers to reading in large amounts and a wide range of topics for the readers‟ pleasure to absorb the advantages of the written materials and upgrade the readers‟ reading comprehension skills (Nation & Waring, 2020) When readers are free to choose the extensive reading materials, they will be enjoying reading them to know more about the topics for background knowledge; therefore extensive reading is an integrated means to study reading as well as other language skills

The literature review has brought to the researcher‟s mind the studied and potential difficulties with students when they practice extensive reading activities Students may be challenged by the given extensive reading materials (Day et al, 1998) for the materials‟ level is higher than their level; they may find extensive reading difficult for their lack of vocabulary (Nation

& Ming-tzu, 1999) or lack of general knowledge to comprehend the reading text Other difficulties may be the culture difference (Nation & Waring, 2020), learning environment, the teacher-student relationship, the curriculum, teaching method, time for reading (Westwood, 2002), and even the language metalinguistics problems (Chan & Dally, 2000) Among the many difficulties that the students may encounter during their reading practice, the researcher‟s hope is to analyze and compare the literature with the actual situation reflected in the collected data

The reality of students‟ difficulties that secondary students face during their reading lessons can be observed when they often meet with difficulties

in extensive reading practice for their lack of vocabulary, inadequate grammatical structures, and wrong application of reading strategies, etc The problem of students‟ reading ability appeared in the researcher‟s class when I gave them extensive reading assignments to find that they took longer time than given to fulfill the requirements This reality encouraged me to carry out

a case study to find out the major obstacles that the students met with when they were facing extensive reading and work out the favorable extensive reading materials that may help in teaching reading to students

The assumption of the students‟ difficulties relating to the reading and extensive reading is from their lack of vocabulary, grammatical structures, and reading strategies shortage or wrong use Therefore the researcher intended to deliver questionnaires and intensive interviews to collect students‟ opinions and toward the reading practice The questionnaires had two parts, part 1 consisted of 7 questions asking students‟ opinions about their interest in extensive reading, the importance of extensive reading in learning reading skills, and their difficulties in extensive reading practice The questions also investigated students‟ reasons for their difficulties in extensive reading, as

well as their suggestions for the activities that may help them improve their extensive reading Part 2 of the questionnaire encouraged students to state their favorite reading materials and sources

The questionnaires were first delivered to 10 students to find out whether their answers match the initial anticipation of the researcher The data collected from the small-scale of students were inputted and analyzed so that the researcher decided to continue to apply the questionnaire to the remaining students of the researching population

Intensive interviews were then delivered to 12 randomly picked students

to collect their detailed statements about the major difficulties that they face with extensive reading and the reasons for those difficulties The interviews aimed at finding students‟ favorite materials for extensive reading so that the researcher can collect more precise and valuable data for the study

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The aim of this research is to study the difficulties the students have when they practice with extensive reading, and to work out the appropriate extensive reading materials that can be used to the students; therefore the study is conducted to study the questions:

1 What are the obstacles ninth graders at Hoai Hai Secondary School face with in extensive reading?

2 What are the favorable materials for ninth graders at Hoai Hai Secondary school in extensive reading?

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study was carried out with 90 students who study in classes 9A2, 9A3, 9A4 of Hoai Hai Secondary School The study was based on the survey questionnaires and interviews with the students It restricts the conclusion

only to the collected data when the students‟ opinions and performance were gathered among this population of students only Furthermore, the focus is on obstacles and favourable materials in extensive reading

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

After the study, the teacher-researcher can have a more intensive understanding of students‟ difficulties in their extensive reading as well as improve teaching methods in teaching reading The findings of the study will help the teacher determine the favorable extensive reading materials that are appropriate for students‟ reading practice Moreover, the study will help students realize their obstacles in reading skills, encouraging them in their further language study

1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1, Introduction, introduces the the rationale, aim of the study

with the research questions The scope of the study, the significance of the study, and an introduction to the thesis structure are presented in this chapter

as well

Chapter 2, Literature Review, discusses the literature related to different

authors on teaching reading approaches and the application of the extensive reading approach on teaching reading Some studies on students‟ difficulties

in reading were also reviewed

Chapter 3, Methodology, states the research questions, the data

collection instruments, the research methods, the participants, and the research procedures

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion, analyses and discusses the data and

the lists of major findings of the study

Chapter 5, Conclusions and Recommendations where conclusions are

written based on the major findings and discussion in the previous chapter for better use of extensive reading materials to teach reading

The final section of the thesis contains the appendices showing all documents concerning or used in the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 2, Literature Review, is composed of four sub-sections The first section discusses the theoretical background of reading and extensive reading including the definitions of reading and types of reading The second section studies some approaches to teaching reading in the second language classroom The third section gives summaries of relating studies of applying extensive reading into the teaching of reading in the classroom, and students‟ difficulties in extensive reading practice The last section summarizes key points studied in this chapter

2.1 READING

2.1.1 Definitions of reading

Reading is a complex but basic skill in human life (Anderson et al, 1985) that measures a person‟s achievement from his childhood and during his lifetime According to Anderson et al (1985), reading can be compared to a symphony orchestra for its characteristics of comprehension, life-long effort, and the multiple ways of interpretation of a text The researchers also defined

“Reading is a process in which information from the text and the knowledge possessed by the reader act together to produce meaning Good readers skilfully integrate information in the text with what they already know.” They generated five principles of reading that orient its achievement: (1) reading

is a constructive process, in which the meaning from the same text can be different greatly among people for the difference in their knowledge, (2) reading must be fluent, in which the background ability is identifying individual words and the higher skill is decoding the words quickly and accurately, (3) reading must be strategic but flexible depending on the complication of the text, the familiarity of the text, and the reading purpose of the readers (4) reading requires

motivation as the key to readers‟ success, and (5) reading is a continuously developing skill like playing musical instruments by the readers‟ long-term practice” (p.7-18) RAND Reading Study Group (2002) discussed reading as

“the process of extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (p 11) More recently, Purcell-Gates et al (2016) argued that reading definitions must go further by addressing the process

as it occurs in the context of "socioculturally constructed literacy practices" (p 1218), which includes the values, beliefs, and power relations that characterize those practices, such as those related to language, gender, ethnicity, religion, economics, and geopolitics

Reading has been playing a vitally important role in human‟s long history of survival and development, presented by its various advantages and notably positive effects on other language macro and micro-skills as well as a diverse application into different aspects of life (Brown, 2001; Gunderson, 2013; Pearson & Johnson, 1978; Watkins, 2018) Either in printed form or electric form, reading has maintained the constant central keys to the voyage

of acquiring new knowledge, skills, and technology of human beings Reading and applying new things into life allowed people to make progress through the years so that people could record their knowledge and hand it over from generation to generation (Heilman, 1967; Krashen, 1982) In another study, Alyousef (2005, P.143) recommended automatic recognition skills, vocabulary and structural knowledge, discourse/content/word background knowledge, synthesis, and evaluation skills and strategies, and metacognitive knowledge and skills monitoring as general component skills and knowledge areas in reading

In modern EFL situations, reading is highly appreciated by students for its value in acquiring language skills and knowledge (Brown, 2001)

Researchers have paid much concern as to defining reading, researching effective reading comprehension strategies which should happen to make readers improve their background knowledge and linguistic competence Grabe (1991) had an intensive discussion that many researchers attempt to understand and explain the fluent reading process by analyzing the process

into a set of component skills: (1) auto recognition skills could be understood

as perceptional or identificational skills; the development of these skills was

critical to fluent reading ability; (2) Vocabulary and syntactic knowledge had

a vital facilitative impact on reading comprehension as the fluency of readers

depended on the number of vocabulary they knew; (3) Formal discourse

structure knowledge was the knowledge that readers were expected to master

since they would better understand the text by knowing how it was organized,

(4) Content/word background knowledge had a major impact on readers‟

comprehension of the text when they read, evaluated and compared the information they were reading with their sources of knowledge they had

already been experiencing, (5) Synthesis and evaluation skills/strategies

helped the readers to predict from the text, so the skills played a critical role

to reading comprehension , (6) Metacognitive knowledge and skills

monitoring presented its importance in the readers‟ language knowledge,

structure and organization recognition, and proper strategies use for specific targets in reading practice (P.379-382) Krashen (1982, P.23) stated: “Reading

is good for you The research supports a stronger conclusion, however Reading is the only way, the only way we become good readers, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar, and the only way we become good spellers.”, and Brown (2001) mentioned the „SQ3R‟ effective series of procedures for approaching a reading text:

1 Survey: Skim the text for an overview of main ideas

2 Question: The reader asks questions about what he or she wishes to

get out of the text

3 Read: Read the text while looking for answers to the previously

formulated questions

4 Recite: Reprocess the salient points of the text through oral or

written language

5 Review: Assess the importance of what one has just read and

incorporate it into long-term association (P.315)

Comprehending a reading text, according to scholars, entails more than

just comprehending the meaning of the words or the structures utilized; it also

entails the interpretation of signs, the realization of sophisticated cognitive

processes, and the comprehension of intrinsic conventions Reading

comprehension is a cognitive and selective process in which readers must

demonstrate their background knowledge, linguistic competence, strategy

application, and critical evaluation of what they have learned from the text

(Hedge, 2000)

2.1.1 Extensive reading

For its practical and useful application in language acquisition and

reading comprehension improvement, there are many definitions of extensive

reading that have been given by different researchers (Nation & Waring,

2020) The authors stated that extensive reading is the case of “each learner

independently and silently reading a lot of material which is at the right level

for them” and involves comprehension so that learners should gain

information from the input The reading content should be interesting and

motivating so that it can encourage the learners to read, comprehend and

acquire some language skills (Krashen, 1982, Nation & Waring, 2020)

Extensive reading is reading in large quantity, normally outside the classroom, often in free time for information, pleasure, or expansion of knowledge or vocabulary (Krashen, 1982; Day et al, 1998) Extensive reading brings a lot of benefits to students, varying from knowledge, meaning, pleasure, to confidence and enthusiasm Extensive reading gives students much exposure to the rich context of reading materials for large vocabulary input Krashen believed that developing a large vocabulary is the necessary part of mastering a language that is most associated with implicit learning of vocabulary through reading, and reading comprehensible input plays the most valuable source of vocabulary acquisition

According to Day et al (1998, P.188), a successful extensive reading program should contain the key characteristics:

1 Students read large amounts of printed material;

2 Students read a variety of materials in terms of topic and genre;

3 The material students read is within their level of comprehension;

4 Students choose what they want to read;

5 Reading is its own reward;

6 Students read for pleasure, information, and general understanding;

7 Students read their selection at a faster rate;

8 Reading is individual (students read on their own);

9 Teachers read with their students, thus serving as role models of good readers;

10 Teachers guide and keep track of students‟ progress

In a foreign language curriculum, extensive reading plays an important role in students‟ language acquisition (Day, 2015), including student‟s improvements in grammar understanding, reading speed, and reading fluency; therefore, it has often been used by teachers and educators as a practice in reading teaching methodology

2.2 APPROACHES TO TEACHING READING IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Along with the improvement of language teaching worldwide, approaches to teaching reading have been intensively and extensively researched for further application and studies Westwood (2002) discussed the two main approaches to teaching reading in the second language classroom: meaning-emphasis and skill-based approaches

Meaning-emphasis approaches believe that students will acquire the necessary skills and strategies of reading via incidental reading Using this approach, the teachers often combine different teaching methods and design programs that provide real materials with words in context rather than in isolation

Meaning-emphasis approaches consist of methods referring to “whole language” such as “shared book experience”, “guided reading”, “literature-based reading” and “language-experience approach” (Westwood, 2002, P.40-41) When teachers conduct these approaches, they should follow the list:

- reading good literature to children every day and having „real‟ literature available for children to read for themselves

- providing time each day for shared reading

- discussing and reflecting upon stories or other texts

- encouraging silent reading

- providing daily opportunities for children to read and write for real purposes

- encouraging children to invent the spelling for words they do not know

- adopting a conference-process approach to writing (drafting, sharing, editing, and revising with feedback from teachers and peers)

- assisting children with any particular aspect of reading and writing at the time they require such guidance (the „teachable moment‟)

- teaching specific skills always within the context of material being read or written

- integrating language and literacy activities across all areas of the curriculum

(Westwood, 2002, P 40-41) The guided-reading approach, a popular reading teaching method as mentioned above, has been introduced by many researchers (Heilman, 1967; Nation & Waring, 2020; Willis, 2008) The approach is based on the belief that a reader will have optimal learning when they are instructed and supported by guidance from the teachers, which provide students with effective reading strategies and proper practice

The skills-based approach is the opposite use of approach to emphasis approach when teachers believe that they should teach their students

meaning-of the component skills and strategies for the reading process Skills are:

“phonemic awareness, letter recognition, all levels of phonic decoding, sound blending, sight recognition of words and the identification of unfamiliar words by analogy with known words.” And the strategies consist of “self-questioning while reading, self-monitoring, self-correction to restore meaning, identifying and summarising main ideas, predicting, inferring and evaluating critically what is read.”

There are at least three teaching methods that are termed skills-based approach to reading: synthetic phonics (words are broken into the smallest units of sound), analytic phonics (reading from the words level), and analogic phonics (students read and decode words they don‟t know when reading by using the parts of words they have learned) (Westwood, 2002) Using the

synthetic phonics approach, the teachers begin with sounds and letters, then step on to word-forming and decoding so that their students can practice having better auditory discrimination, skills of sound-blending, and the ability

to store and restore the relationships between sounds and symbols from their long-term memory Teachers may prefer and apply the analytic phonics approach by building the foundation of letter-to-sound correspondences among their students, for the analytic approach works with meaningful units

of words, while the synthetic approach works with meaningless units, which are phonemes and letters Extensively, some teachers may apply the combination of the two approaches for a better teaching method The third approach, the analogic phonics approach, is used to teach students to recognize spelling patterns as syllables and rimes Students are expected to have all the skills for the previous two approaches, in addition to the spelling patterns and “visual-sequential memory span to process” The last approach is often combined with either of the above-mentioned approaches for easier process and better achievement of students (Westwood, 2002; p 42-44)

There have been many criticisms of the skills-based approach; some researchers are concerned about a risk that students will fail to enjoy reading

by the boring drill and practice activities, some others argued the difficulties

of generalization of the teaching practice, some discussed the inappropriate teaching methods to children at early ages, and some even pointed out that

“learning phonics actually makes reading more difficult.” (Westwood, 2002) However, the teaching of phonics has been researched, analyzed, and supported by other researchers In 1997 the International Reading Association (IRA) publicized Position Statement on the Role of Phonics in Reading Instruction, which then comprehensively supported the teaching of phonic foundation and skills in reading instruction and practice: “Phonics instruction

should not be provided in the form of totally decontextualized drill exercises The typical worksheets purporting to provide practice in simple phonics are of limited value in helping children develop functional phonic skills for identifying words in books and for spelling the words they need as they write” Following the principles, other researchers have recommended that teaching phonics should be explicit, pervasive, systematic, strategic, and diagnostic (Afflerbach et al, 2000; Hoffman & McCarthey, 2000)

A balanced approach between the meaning-emphasis approach and skills-based approach has been widely studied (Afflerbach et al, 2000; Searfoss et al, 2001) in which they suggested a combination of the best features of the two approaches The balanced approach formulates teaching skills, concepts, strategies through explicit reading instructions, student-centered exploration, guided practice activities, and structured reading materials, and the flexible application of teachers‟ instructions is recommended when necessary

2.3 USE OF EXTENSIVE READING IN READING TEACHING

Students‟ reading ability can just improve with their experiences of reading extended materials during extended time durations (Grabe & Stoller, 2002) when they read independently, read for enjoyment, and develop a higher level of reading comprehension ability (Day et al, 1998) and develop better attitudes toward reading (Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Wang & Guthrie, 2004)

In parallel with the diversity of studies on extensive reading, the implementation of this reading method has been popular in the reading classrooms for the teachers as researchers wanted to find out the effectiveness

of it to their students (Grabe & Stoller, 2002; McDonough et al, 2013; Wang & Guthrie, 2004) that have brought a lot of meaningful findings to teaching and researching as will be discussed in the following session of previous research

2.4 POSSIBLE DIFFICULTIES OF STUDENTS IN EXTENSIVE READING

When applying the method of extensive reading to students in reading lessons, the teachers/researchers have found several difficulties that their students met with According to Watkins (2018), extensive reading is still under-utilized in many language learning contexts, which could be attributable to a variety of causes These include the fact that extensive reading is frequently teacher-centered when they try to control and orient students with what to read, that students may have negative attitudes regarding reading, and that time limits may exist in various school settings In many educational institutions, syllabuses often do not explicitly state that fluent reading is a goal and will be assessed for final evaluation, so extensive reading may be overlooked

According to Day et al (1998), students may find extensive reading difficult because of the materials with more challenges to their level; so it should be the teacher‟s job to choose the text in clear and accessible language for students to easily interact Students will find it challenging if there are various new words (Nation & Ming-tzu, 1999) so the reading materials should provide them with opportunities of encountering high-frequency words by using graded readers This method will help students build their confidence and fluency in their reading practice

When students' background knowledge is insufficient, it can be difficult for them to understand the cultural or information assumptions and concepts

in the reading text, especially when the reading materials are internationally read (Nation & Waring, 2020) Besides, some causes of students‟ difficulties that were mentioned by Westwood (2002) include learning environment, working relationship with the teacher, or factors that teachers can control:

curriculum, teaching method, time allocated to learning Other difficulties were summarized by Chan & Dally (2000) as language and metalinguistic problems, phonological processing problems, word recognition problems, and text-processing problems Language and metalinguistic problems refer to restricted vocabulary, weak syntactical awareness, limited memory span for verbal material, difficulty in word-finding, and poor listening comprehension Phonological processing problems often occur to students when they acquire and apply sound-symbol information to help them identify words The poor phonic decoding skills prevent students from shifting and identifying words, therefore students should be provided with a high proportion of decodable words in their extensive reading materials (Kameenui & Simmons, 1999) Word recognition problems sometimes happen to students due to their lack of reading experience and lack of phonic knowledge; this problem can be resolved by increasing students‟ sight vocabulary (Gunning, 2001; Westwood, 2002) Text processing problems are identified when readers have difficulties

in fully comprehending the reading text (Westwood, 2002), showing in their weakness of fast and accurate recognization of words within and without context Chan and Dally (2000, p.165) described the problems:

… poor readers often remain dependent on context The use of context to identify unfamiliar words and the labor-intensive efforts of poor readers to decode words, due to deficits in either phonological or orthographic processing, tax the limited resources of working memory When the lower-level skills of word recognition are not automatic less attention is available for comprehending the meaning of the text The problems of lack of reading fluency (demands on working memory to hold words of a sentence long enough to derive its meaning) and effortful recognition of unfamiliar words compromise higher-order processes such as comprehension and learning from texts

Students can also have difficulties in practicing at the level of inferring, predicting, questioning, reflecting, and criticizing (Walker, 2000) due to their weakness in applying effective strategies in extracting meaning In this case, students should be taught effective comprehension strategies to be more confident and successful in tackling the reading text (Kavale & Forness)

2.5 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON EXTENSIVE READING IN READING TEACHING

The application of extensive reading into teaching reading can be found everywhere in the world and Vietnam Over the last 40 years or more, various studies and reports have been conducted about the teacher‟s difficulties when teaching reading, and their use of extensive reading into their teaching reading

so as to improve their students‟ reading ability in terms of vocabulary, reading fluency, etc

Several researchers and teachers have been studied the implementation

of extensive reading in the classroom (Arifuddin, 2018; Camiciottoli, 2001; Dung, 2002; Jusnaeni, 2019; Natasya (2020); Petulla, 2010; Suk, 2016; Tamarakitkun, 2020; Truong, 2018) and have given their conclusion to the effectiveness of using extensive reading to their reading lessons Other researchers have tried to find their students‟ obstacles or difficulties in their reading comprehension (Dang, 2012; Meylana, 2019)

Extensive reading has been researched to experiment more impacts on other language skills and aspects of language learning, such as writing, motivation, confidence, etc Brown et al (2008) and Lituanas, et al (2001) concluded that significant reading improved linguistic skills, Hafiz & Tudor (1990) and Tsang (1996) said extensive reading improved students‟ writing ability, as is spelling (Hafiz & Tudor, 1990; Krashen, 1989; Tsang, 1996) Extensive reading is considered to improve the students‟ motivation to read as

well as the development of a positive attitude toward reading in the second language (Camiciottoli, 2001; Constantino, 1994; Lipp, 2017; Liu, 2016; Tamarakitkun, 2020) Several studies have found that extensive reading can increase readers‟ vocabulary (Chun et al, 2012; Grabe & Stoller, 1997; Webb, 2015; to name a few)

Suk (2016) had his research targeted on the differences in positive effects of extensive reading and intensive reading on second and foreign language environments He conducted a 15-week semester quasi-experimental research design applying to 171 students at age range between 18-26 in a Korean university of EFL, among those 88 students in two control classes and

83 students in two experimental classes The researcher designed tests to investigate the effect of extensive reading on the students‟ reading comprehension, reading rate, and vocabulary improvements after the research duration For the vocabulary test, he used Compleat Lexical Tutor to find the results To test the effects of extensive reading, he ran a repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with group and time Further analyses were also conducted using analyses of variance (ANOVAs) to lead

to assumptions and findings In the result discussion, pre-test reading comprehension is the field that had very little difference between extensive and intensive reading, pre-reading rate test had a larger difference between the two groups, and the vocabulary test showed the difference between the two groups The three post-tests revealed differences in the effects of extensive reading and intensive reading: small difference in reading comprehension, improvement in post-test reading rate, higher results from extensive than intensive reading to the participants The researcher discussed that his research should have been longer with more reading amount

Truong (2018) conducted a study among second-year English-major

students at the University of Languages and International Studies with an aim

at applying extensive reading to improve some aspects of her students‟ vocabulary on economics The study concluded some improvements in new and learned vocabulary among students, and some benefits in improving students‟ spelling, grammar use, and vocabulary definition She recommended the teachers should consider time duration, number of reading materials, and proper material choice, as well as create a learning environment with Internet support and design an extensive reading program for second-year students at her university

Dang (2012) conducted an action research among her first-year students

to find out whether reading may help them in writing Released in 2012, the study was taken among 25 students in 16 weeks With the hope to improve the paragraph writing ability of the first-year non-English major students at Nguyen Trai University (NTU), the research aimed at finding the causes of the students‟ poor writing, difficulties they faced with writing lessons, and what could be done to help them The researcher used a combination of research instruments including questionnaires, written tests, reading journals, additional reading passages, text selection, and reading-writing connection activity to elicit the data The analysis of the pre-data showed that most of the students had a positive attitude toward learning English and writing; however, they found the skills difficult Many students did not feel confident when they moved into independent writing The results of the writing study in their previous years at high school revealed their weakness in all: organization, coherence, vocabulary, spelling, and mechanics Obviously, additional reading should have been provided to the students before each writing lesson

to learn how to write from native writers It was then hypothesized that if the students had been given additional readings before their own writing, they

would improve their writing skills An action research plan in 9 weeks was adapted from the theory on the reading-writing connection activities to help students improve their writing From the post data analysis, the evaluation of the action research proved that after the implementation of reading-writing connection activities, the students‟ writing improved and their confidence was also enhanced The results of the study confirmed that teaching writing with additional reading materials as well as carrying out reading-writing connection activities is helpful in teaching writing for students who are non-English majors in their first year at the university The researcher mentioned her limitation in the small scope of the study, short time duration, and the participants are not English major students However, the findings are promising

Camiciottoli, (2001) conducted a study among 182 Italian EFL students

in nine regularly-scheduled classes at the University of Florence The findings

of a 22-item questionnaire survey of reading frequency and attitudes related to extensive reading in English and that the frequency of reading among the students is low, attitude towards it is favorable The researcher then delivered ten-minute face-to-face interviews with 20 students, applied a test-retest method, and the questionnaire was used the second time as a post-survey to the participants The researcher used multiple regression analysis to determine potentially influential factors A negative correlation between the number of years of English study and the students' reading attitude was found The descriptive data collected from the questionnaire provided information for the analysis: most students have not developed the habit of reading in English, their attitude toward reading is positive The researcher discussed the reasons collected from the literature review, Italian culture, and the surveys and concluded the findings to be encouraging results to be useful for appropriate

instructional actions and identifying further research

Dung (2020) carried out his quantitative research to measure the level of reading anxiety among 48 second-year English major students at Thai Nguyen University The research aimed at answering the 3 research questions relating

to students‟ reading anxiety, the correlation between reading anxiety and reading strategy use, and the relationship between reading anxiety and reading achievement The researcher adopted the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS), the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS), and extracted reading results from the IELTS-simulation test The application of SPSS was used to analyze the data collected from the different instruments A minority

of the participants showed a low level of reading anxiety, while others who had taken the IELTS test for the first time felt challenged The researcher found the impacts of reading anxiety over the use of reading strategies when taking the reading test, and the relationship between reading anxiety and reading achievement was obvious and significant from the data collected and the analysis There were some limitations of the study: the small sampling size and research question 1 cannot be further analyzed and developed since

he adapted the questionnaire from another research

Arifuddin (2018) studied the students‟ perception of the impact of extensive reading courses The research investigated the benefits of using extensive reading in teaching reading and as well as students‟ attitudes toward extensive reading The researcher aimed to use extensive reading as a fascinating activity, creating an enjoyable learning atmosphere, helping students in developing vocabulary, improving students‟ reading comprehension, and increasing their motivation in reading The study used a qualitative research design with four respondents from 2 different classes The data were collected from the interview

as the main source, observational notes, and documents analysis as the

confirmatory data to support the triangulation The study revealed that the Extensive Reading approach boost students‟ interest in reading, build their reading habit, improve their reading level The study recommended that the efficiency of the extensive reading class should be improved, further studies need to investigate how the lecturer can modify the class to make an output product from Extensive Reading class that can be used continuously through generation, such as storybook, dialog book

Jusnaeni (2019) from the university Muhammadiyah Makassar researched the effectiveness of an extensive reading approach to improve students‟ vocabulary mastery in terms of nouns and verbs The study was taken to 30 students at eleventh grade of SMA Negeri 2 Takalar The researcher applied vocabulary tests before and after the introduction of the extensive reading approach The data analysis revealed the difference between the pre-test and post-test: 42.67 vice versa 74.67 The study discussed the improvement of students‟ vocabulary in terms of verbs and nouns The students became more active and confident in reading activities; they can memorize the words easily by using the strategies The extensive reading approach was then concluded to effectively improve students‟ vocabulary mastery The researcher suggested other teachers use this approach to help their students improve their vocabulary; they should be selective and understand what kinds of materials that suitable to students‟ level Further studies can use the findings as a reference when the researchers want to enhance other language skills of students such as writing skills

Meylana (2019) did an investigation into students‟ reading comprehension ability and problems in an advanced reading comprehension class as a final thesis to the Faculty of Languages and Arts, University Negeri Semarang The objectives of the study were to find out the ability of reading comprehension of

the targeted students, the factors that affect students‟ reading ability, and the factors bringing the difference between the good and the weak students By using the descriptive qualitative method, the study analyzed the collected data and classified students‟ reading ability based on the score list from the questionnaires The result revealed that there were some differences between students at high levels and students at low levels of comprehension Students at the high level of comprehension had more interest in reading English, while students with low level had a better effort in using a dictionary when facing new words and prepared much for the test There were some factors affecting students in their reading comprehension test: lack of interest in reading, lack of using English after the class was over, lack of vocabulary, lack of using reading strategies and did repetition in reading, lack of preparation before facing the test The researcher suggested students improve their interest in reading, regularly use English in daily life, apply reading strategies, and practice before the test The researcher suggested teachers give more reading materials and reading tasks to students when researchers should discover some aspects that were not mentioned

in the research

Researcher Natasya from English Education Study Program Language and Arts Education Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Sriwijaya University conducted a study with 176 eleventh grade students in

2020 to find out (1) whether there was a significant difference in reading comprehension achievement after being taught with extensive reading strategy, and (2) if there was any difference in reading comprehension achievement between the students who were taught by using extensive reading and those who were not The students were divided into experimental and control groups to collect data for the research The researcher used pre-test and post-test for both groups The findings of the research proved the

significant difference in students‟ reading comprehension results between before and after the extensive reading instruction and practice, and the difference between the experimental and control groups‟ reading achievement The researcher recommended using an extensive reading strategy to improve students‟ reading achievement, to make students more interested in reading tasks following the extensive reading materials The researcher hopes the study may act as a reference to other researchers when studying extensive reading strategies in teaching reading

Kamonnat Tamarakitkun (2020) from the School of Languages University of Salford, Salford, United Kingdom, conducted a study that investigated reading comprehension, reading fluency, and attitudes of students after exposure to extensive reading It was conducted in the Thai context with English as a foreign language (EFL) students at Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT) in Thailand in one semester of four months The teaching procedure conformed to the principles of extensive reading with a wide range of selection of graded reader books Multiple measurements were used to assess comprehension with three narrative texts were written recall protocol, and translation tests; multiple-choice questions with twelve texts in timed reading to assess reading fluency; and a survey questionnaire as well as an in-depth interview to gather data on attitudes towards extensive reading The study used a double-control pre-and post-test design with two experimental groups (N = 52 and 50) and four control groups (N = 46, 48, 42, and 46) The findings suggested positive effects of extensive reading on the learners‟ reading comprehension and provide evidence of reading fluency improvement and positive attitude on extensive reading The study concluded that credit/score was key encouragement to students in reading when students liked reading in a controlled environment The thesis

discussed using testing as a tool to assess and improve students‟ reading skills and implied that more adjustments of procedures should be made before applying to the language teaching courses

2.6 SUMMARY

In this chapter, the researcher has reviewed the issues relating to the literature under the topic discussed including the definition of reading and extensive reading, factors affecting reading qualities, and previous studies on the extensive reading application in the second language classroom The researcher has also discussed the difficulties the students face with extensive reading

In short, students‟ difficulties in extensive reading may vary; therefore, the researcher of the present study aims to study the student‟s obstacles when facing extensive reading and find out the favorable materials for students in extensive reading

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This section provides a comprehensive description of the research methodology employed in the study The researcher chooses case study methodology to investigate the problems In this chapter, the literature review

on relevant studies is stated; the data collection instruments, the data collection procedure, and the way of data analysis are mentioned

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

Embedded in the initiative for improving students‟ reading ability, the study is a combination of appropriate methodologies to answer the counterfactual The case study is used in this research

it is meant to concentrate on a single topic, feature, or unit of analysis The case study method was used to investigate and examine the processes of training activities in businesses This strategy allows the researcher to comprehend complex real-world operations involving various sources of evidence As noted by Patton, the use of case studies to examine an area of interest in depth is particularly appropriate Case studies are particularly beneficial when one needs to comprehend a certain topic or scenario in great

depth, and where one may uncover situations rich in information

Case studies are defined in a variety of ways, with some emphasizing the number of observations (a small N), the method (qualitative), the depth of the research (a full analysis of a phenomenon and its context), and the naturalism (the research is conducted in a "real-life context") (Gerring, 2006) The case study approach is defined as "an intensive study of a single unit or a small group of units (the cases), for the purpose of understanding a larger class of similar units (a population of cases), and can be featured by either qualitative non-comparable observations or quantitative comparable observations, or both (Gerring, 2006)

3.1.2 The current research design

This study uses collective case study design, recited in Creswell(2012) This design is characterized by the combination of many data sources This research design is chosen for some rationales First of all, the research objectives were to explore the obstacles to and favourable materials of extensive reading among the secondary school students This research problem could be related to many cases of research participants Finally, the research included the combination of different data collection procedures The researcher intentionally used this research design to consider the problem from different sides

The research is divided into two phases In the first phase, the questionnaire was given to the students In the second phase, five representatives of the students were interviewed

3.2 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS

3.2.1 Questionnaire

A survey questionnaire is chosen for this study for the four following reasons Firstly, it is believed that questionnaire costs little money as well as time

to collect data from a potentially large number of respondents Richards (1992, p.10) points out that it is useful in “gathering information about affective information of teaching and learning such as beliefs, attitudes, motivation, preferences, etc, and enables a teacher to collect a large amount of data in a relatively short time.” Rowley (2013) discusses that by using questionnaires, the researchers can pursue their aim strictly, as the researchers can make a list of the things they want to question

Secondly, the data collected from questionnaires is relatively easy to summarize and analyze as all the informants answer the same questions (Saris

& Gallhofer, 2014)

Thirdly, the questionnaire can be used to obtain information about different kinds of characteristics such as “the thought, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, personality, and behavioral intentions of research participants” (Johnson & Christensen, 2000) According to Beaty et al (2020), if a teacher wanted to find out what his or her students thought about anything, he or she may give a questionnaire for its feasibility and convenience Thus, this instrument was expected to be helpful in getting information about different aspects of the students‟ behavior and pre-speaking activities

Lastly, the questionnaire gives students the opportunity to express their opinions and needs without fearing being embarrassed or punished because they are not required to write their names on the questionnaire sheet

The questionnaire was given to 90 students at the beginning of the study

to investigate students‟ attitude toward extensive reading, their problems in extensive reading, the reason(s) for their difficulties, and the way they think they would like to do to improve their extensive reading (Appendix A) The Vietnamese version of questionnaire was given simultaneously with English

version in order to make sure that the students would not misunderstand any item in the questionnaire due to possible problems with English

3.2.2 Semi-structured interview

Semi-structured interviews are a type of qualitative research methodology It's a type of personal study in which the interviewer can ask follow-up questions and elicit detailed information from the interviewee An interview decreases disagreements between interviewer and interviewees because it is a face-to-face engagement (Seidman, 2006) Interviews are “not

to get answers to questions, nor to test hypotheses, and not to “evaluate” as the term is normally used … At the root of in-depth interviewing is an interest

in understanding the lived experience of other people and the meaning they make of that experience” (Seidman, 2006, p.9) It claims the interest of the interviewer toward the interviewee(s), as well as the appreciation to what the interviewee is sharing Interviews also dig deeply and flexibly into the others‟ understanding via the context and the conversation, in cooperation with observation (Seidman, 2006)

An interview was taken with 5 voluntary students from the participants after the questionnaire was delivered to collect students‟ deeper opinions on the research topic (Appendix B)

Choosing interview as a method of collecting data, the researcher hoped the advantages of it would help to get students‟ detailed description of their difficulties their reasons, as well as some features of their favorite extensive reading materials

3.3 SAMPLING AND PARTICIPANTS

Convenience sampling was used in order to include the student participants of the current study As mentioned in Creswell (2012), the use of convenience sampling method, as its name suggests, is convenient because of

the availability of the participants for data collection Because the research could gain access to the groups of ninth graders at Hoai Hai secondary school

in real class, all of them were included in the research

The number of the students completing the questionnaire was 90 students who were studying in classes 9A2, 9A3, 9A4 of Hoai Hai secondary school They had learned English for nine to eleven years prior to the data collection

The interviewees were five of those students who were invited to the semi-structured interview This group of interviewees consisted of one class monitor, one vice-monitor, and three class members

3.4 DATA COLLECTION

The questionnaire in print was delivered to the students in their English class in week 3 of the course Then the researcher invited five of them to the semi-structured interview which were face-to-face and one-on-one While asking the interviewees, the interviewer took notes of key ideas and asked further questions whenever necessary

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS

SPSS (Version 20.0) was used to analyze the quantitative data from the questionnaire Content analysis was applied into the interview responses For the key questions relating to the obstacles and favorable materials for extensive reading, multiple response was analyzed Because these questions allow the students to vote more than one option, the multiple response helped analyze the true percent of each voted option of the multiple choice questions (percent of cases) For the interview, similar ideas were underlined while the distinctive ones were highlighted in different colors Then the important ideas were grouped by themes