Luận văn thạc sĩ VNU ULIS an investigation into english reading strategies employed by first year students in honors program at vietnam national university of agriculture

ABSTRACT The present study explores reading strategies used by the first-year students in Honors program at Vietnam National University of Agriculture and find out the differences in st

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



TRẦN THI ̣ THU HIỀN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN HONORS PROGRAM

AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

(Nghiên cứu những chiến lươ ̣c đo ̣c hiểu tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ

nhất hê ̣ chất lươ ̣ng cao ta ̣i Ho ̣c viê ̣n Nông nghiê ̣p Viê ̣t Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi – 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



TRẦN THI ̣ THU HIỀN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN HONORS PROGRAM

AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

(Nghiên cứu những chiến lươ ̣c đo ̣c hiểu tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ

nhất hê ̣ chất lươ ̣ng cao ta ̣i Ho ̣c viê ̣n Nông nghiê ̣p Viê ̣t Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ

Hanoi - 2015

DECLARATION

This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Degree of Master in English Teaching Methodology I confirm that this is my own research, and that it has not been published or submitted for any other degrees

Hanoi, 2015

Trần Thi ̣ Thu Hiền

Secondly, I also counted myself as fortunate to have the six students (S1, S2, S3, S4, S5 and S6) as my research participants Without much of their time devoted

to several survey and think-aloud procedures, this thesis would not have been finished

Thirdly, I must also express my most sincere appreciation to my colleagues who have assisted me with data analysis and useful advice

Lastly, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my beloved parents and husband whose constant support and patience have encouraged me through the most difficult times

ABSTRACT

The present study explores reading strategies used by the first-year students

in Honors program at Vietnam National University of Agriculture and find out the differences in strategy use by successful readers and less successful readers Six first-year students were chosen as the participants The research instruments were questionnaires and think-aloud reports Metacognitive was found to be more preferred than Cognitive by both groups Successful readers reported utilizing metacognitive and cognitive categories more frequently and employed a wider range of reading strategies than less successful readers Also, significant differences between successful readers and less successful readers were found on some prominent Metacognitive and Cognitive strategies From these findings, the research pointed out some reading strategies the students need to develop Some teaching implications were that teachers should provide students with instruction on reading strategies, make them aware of self-monitoring their reading strategy use and apply think-aloud reports in the curriculum

TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Methods of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 2

6 Scope of the study 3

7 Organization of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Language learning strategies 5

1.1.1 Definition 5

1.1.2 Classification of learning strategies 6

1.2 Reading strategies 9

1.2.1 Definition of reading 9

1.2.2 Different approaches to reading process 10

1.2.3 Reading strategies 12

1.2.3.1 Definition 12

1.2.3.2 Previous studies on reading strategies 14

1.3 Summary 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Participants 17

2.2 Settings of the study 18

2.3 Data collection instruments 18

2.3.1 Questionnaires 18

2.3.2 Think-aloud reports 21

2.4 Procedures of data collection 21

2.4.1 Pilot study 21

2.4.1.1 Stage 1 21

2.4.1.2 Stage 2 22

2.4.1.3 Results of the pilot-study 22

2.4.2 Administering the questionnaires 22

2.4.3 Administering the think-aloud reports 22

2.5 Coding of data 23

2.6 Procedures of data analysis 23

2.7 Summary 23

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24

3.1 Research question 1: What reading comprehension strategies are used by successful readers and less successful readers? 24

3.1.1 The use of reading strategy categories 24

3.1.2 The use of individual strategies within strategy categories 25

3.1.2.1 The use of individual strategies within metacognitive category 25

3.1.2.2 The use of individual strategies within cognitive category 26

3.2 Research question 2: How does the use of reading comprehension strategies by successful readers differ from that by less successful readers? 26

3.2.1 Differences in the use of strategy categories 26

3.2.2 Differences in the use of individual strategies 27

3.2.2.1 Differences in the use of individual metacognitive strategies 29

3.2.2.2 Differences in the use of individual cognitive strategies 30

3.3 Summary 31

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 33

1 Recapitulation of major findings 33

2 Concluding remarks 33

3 Implications 34

3.1 Reading strategies that the students need to develop 34

3.1.1 Reading strategies that successful students need to develop 34

3.1.2 Reading strategies that less successful students need to develop 35

3.2 Teaching implications 35

4 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies 36

REFERENCES 38 APPENDICES I

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 Learning strategy definition and classification (O'Malley and Chamot,

1990: 119) 8

Table 2: Reading strategy framework adapted from O‟Malley and Chamot (1990) 14

Table 3: Summary of previous reading strategy studies adapted from Nguyen (2006: 17) 15

Table 4 Background information about the participants 17

Table 5: Questionnaire: Reading strategy coding categories adapted from O'Malley and Chamot (1990: 119) 20

Table 6: Strategy categories used by successful and less successful readers 26

Table 7: Difference in the use of individual strategies by SRs and LRs 28

Table 8: Reading strategies that successful students need to develop 34

Table 9: Reading strategies that less successful students need to develop 35

Figure 1: Strategy category frequency for successful and less successful readers 24

Figure 2: Individual strategy frequency within Metacognitive category for successful and less successful readers 25

Figure 3: Individual strategy frequency within Cognitive category for successful and less successful readers 26

Figure 4: The use of individual metacognitive strategies by successful readers 29

Figure 5: The use of individual metacognitive strategies by less successful readers 29

Figure 6: The use of individual cognitive strategies by successful readers 30

Figure 7: The use of individual cognitive strategies by less successful readers 31

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Over the last few decades, views on good instruction in language learning approach have shifted from teacher- centeredness to learner-centeredness, which means the focus is on improving student‟s active learning, rather than on the transmission of information Another issue has been raised concerning the question why some learners shine in language learning while others do not Researchers have suggested that their use of learning strategies is a crucial factor affecting learners‟

achievement (Rubin, 1975; Oxford, 1990) In other words, successful learners do make an effective use of learning strategies to deal with problems that emerge during their learning process while less successful ones do not A firm grasp of language learning strategies, thus, is a must for both teachers with an aim to encourage their students‟ language learning process and students with a desire to master language skills It is also important for both successful and less successful language learners to recognize the differences in their strategy uses so that a deep awareness of how to use strategies effectively can be gained

This finding has provoked interest among researchers in investigating how language learners use strategies to acquire vocabulary, grammar and to excel in language skills (Rubin, 1975; Oxford, 1990; Cohen, 1998) Empirical research, however, has been little conducted to uncover the learning strategies in general and reading comprehension strategies in particular, especially by students at Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA) In Honors Program at VNUA, reading

is an essential language skill for the students to support their professional studies as most of the compulsory courses are delivered in English and require a lot of English reading materials However, apart from some students with high level of English reading proficiency, many of them find reading skill challenging, especially when they deal with academic texts though they have studied English for more than ten years They have shown worries about little understanding of the documents they

have read and their unsatisfactory studying results As an English teacher at VNUA with two-year experience in teaching English reading skill to these students, the research is well aware of their problems and has been attempting to support them in dealing with such obstacles This study, hence, mainly focuses on investigating the use of reading comprehension strategies by first-year students in Honors Program and find out the differences in strategy use by successful readers and less successful readers

2 Objectives of the study

The present study aims to examine current situation of using reading strategies among first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA To be more specific, the objectives of the study are

(1) to find out the frequency of reading strategy use of SRs and LSRs among the first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA;

(2) to investigate the differences in the frequency of reading strategy use between SRs and LSRs

3 Research questions

Question 1: What is the frequency of reading strategy use of successful readers and less successful readers?

Question 2: How does the frequency of reading strategy use of successful readers

differ from that of less successful readers?

4 Methods of the study

The study was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires and think-aloud reports (a research method in which participants speak aloud any words in their mind as they complete a task) The quantitative data was collected through a survey on the use of reading strategies and qualitative data was obtained through think-aloud protocol to investigate the learners‟ reading strategies

5 Significance of the study

Since research into reading strategies has never been carried out in the

context of Honors Program, VNUA, this study is hoped to identify the detailed description of reading strategies used by readers of two different levels Besides, it

is also expected to provide an elaborative analysis of the differences in reading strategy uses between SRs and LSRs The findings will then be informed to the students so as to help them make right decisions on how to use reading strategies

The findings also serve a pedagogical foundation for the teachers to draw out some plans to help improve their students‟ reading competence

6 Scope of the study

The participants of this study were at the end of their first year of the Honors Program at VNUA with their major being agricultural economics The subjects were categorized into two groups of successful readers and less successful readers according to their reading test scores throughout two first semesters at the university together with the researcher‟s observations

It should essentially be noted that the primary concerns of this study are the use of reading comprehension strategies used by successful and less successful

readers and the differences in the use between these two groups Investigations into

subjects‟ strategies in other aspects of language such as listening, speaking or writing as well as their learning styles and their teachers‟ instructional methods are beyond this study‟s concerns

7 Organization of the study

The study will be presented in 3 parts

Part A– Introduction- states the reasons for choosing the topic, the objectives

of the study, the questions, the scope, the methods, and the design of the study

Part B – Development - includes 4 chapters

Chapter 1 – Literature Review – provides background of the study and

comprehensive review of the related empirical studies

Chapter 2 – Methodology – describes the participants and instruments of the

study, as well as the procedure implemented to do the research

Chapter 3 – Findings and discussion – presents, analyzes and discusses the

findings that the researcher discovered from the data collected from employed instruments according to three research questions

Part C – Conclusions – restates the findings of the study, discusses the

implications and the limitations of the study and proposes some suggestions for further research Following this part are the References and Appendices

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews theories and research related to learning strategies in general and reading strategies in particular A justification on the basis of literature review for the learning strategies as well as reading strategy definitions and framework adopted by the researcher of the current paper are also presented

1.1 Language learning strategies 1.1.1 Definition

The field of language learning strategies has gained a massive amount of interest in applied linguistics in the last thirty years Tarone (1981) claimed that a language learning strategy is “an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language to incorporate these into one‟s inter-language competence” Holding the same viewpoint, irrespective of other aspects of language learning such as cultural understanding, Clause & Kasper (1983) defined language-learning strategies as learners‟ trial to achieve linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language

According to Richards (1992) in the Dictionary of Language Teaching and

Applied Linguistics, the definition for language learning strategies is „intentional or

potentially intentional behaviors carried out with the goal of learning to better help them understand, learn and remember new information‟ Similarly, Cohen (1998) broadly views language learning strategies as steps or actions selected by learners either to improve the learning of a L2 or the use of it or both These definitions are generally considered comprehensive among scholars in the field because learning strategies are regarded as conscious and intentional actions However, these definitions view language learning strategies only as “behaviors” or "actions", i.e

learning strategies are behavioral, and therefore, they are mostly observable

However, many studies later showed that learning strategies are not always explicitly displayed

Evolving from others, O‟Malley and Chamot‟s definition (1990) considers language learning strategies “the special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use

to help them comprehend, learn, and/ or retain new information” In this definition, language-learning strategies can be either observable or unobservable, and are individually characterized (i.e every learner's strategies are different) For its comprehensiveness, this definition will be used as the key direction in this study

1.1.2 Classification of learning strategies

Different classification systems of language learning strategies have been developed The one proposed by Stern (1975) consists of ten categories including planning strategy, active strategy, empathetic strategy, formal strategy, experimental strategy, semantic strategy, practice strategy, communication strategy, monitoring strategy, and internalization strategy This scheme, despite being considered to be the foundation for several other frameworks, needs to be confirmed, modified or rebutted since Stern himself regards this list as „highly speculative‟

Rubin (1981) identified two broad categories of learning strategies: indirect and direct learning strategies In the latter ones, a list of six types was drawn up (classification/ verification, monitoring, memorization, guessing/ inductive inferencing, deductive reasoning and practice), and the former ones are divided into two types (creating opportunities for practice and production tricks) However, that this taxonomy does not include social and affective strategies is its limitation

Built on Rubin‟s classification, Oxford (1990) draws a general distinction between direct and indirect strategies The former consists of memory, cognitive and compensation strategies while the later includes metacognitive, affective and social strategies However, Oxford's classification of learning strategies is relatively confusing when separating cognitive strategies from memory strategies

In comparison with other taxonomies above, O‟Malley and Chamot‟s framework (1990) is perhaps the most commonly used to date In this classification scheme, language-learning strategies are divided into three main categories:

metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies These strategies were presented in table 1

Strategy categories

Learning strategies

Definition

cognitive

Meta-Advance organizers

Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material to be learned, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle

Directed attention

Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task and to ignore the irrelevant distracters

Functional planning

Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components necessary for an upcoming task

Selective attention

Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of input, often by scanning for key words, concepts and/or linguistic markers

management

Self-Understanding the conditions that help one‟s learning and arranging for the presence of those conditions

monitoring

Self-Checking one‟s comprehension during listening or reading or checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness of one‟s oral or written production while it is taking place

Self-evaluation Checking the outcomes of one‟s own language

against a standard after it has been completed

encyclopedias or textbooks

and silent rehearsal

according to their attributes or meaning

making up rules based on language analysis

understand or remember new information

Auditory representation

Planning back in one‟s mind the sound of a word, phrase or longer language sequence

Cognitive Key word

method

Remembering a new word in the L2 by (1) identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like the new word or otherwise resembles that new word (2) generating easily recalled images

of some relationship with the first language homonym and the new word in the L2

relating different parts of new information to each other or making meaningful personal associations with the new information

assist comprehension or production

new items, predict outcomes or fill in the missing information

verbal, graphic, or numerical form while listening or reading

information gain through linguistic skills

Recombination Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger

language sequence by combining known element in

a new way

and/or producing the L2

Social/

Affective

Questioning for

clarification

Eliciting from a teacher or peer additional explanations, rephrasing, examples or verification

problem, pool information, check a learning task, model a language activity or get feedback on oral or written performance

Table 1 Learning strategy definition and classification

(O'Malley and Chamot, 1990: 119)

Metacognitive category concerns the act of thinking about the learning process, planning information, monitoring the learning task and evaluating how well one has started Cognitive category involves interacting with the material to be learned, manipulating over the material mentally or physically, or applying specific techniques to a learning task Social/ Affective relates interacting with other people

or ideational control over affect This classification of learning strategies is perhaps

the most comprehensive and much easier for the researcher to adapt to reading comprehension strategy framework Therefore, the current study will adopt O'Malley and Chamot's classification of learning strategies as the theoretical framework for investigation

1.2 Reading strategies 1.2.1 Definition of reading

Different scholars understand the term “reading” in various ways According

to Harmer (1989), “Reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages.” The definition given by Anderson (1999), which says “reading is an active, fluent process which involves the reader and the reading materials in building meaning” has some points in common It casts some lights on the idea that reading is a cognitive process of working out the intended meaning from a text

Rumelhart (1977) deduces that reading involves three elements: the reader, the text and the interaction between the reader and text Aebersold and Field (1997) share the same view on reading when stating “reading is what happens when people look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbols in that text The text and the reader are the two physical entities necessary for the reading process to start It

is, however, the interaction between the text and the reader that constitutes actual meaning.” This definition differs from Rumelhart in that it emphasizes the interaction between purpose and manner of reading that determines how people read

a text or what reading strategies they use to decode the text

In short, working out a thorough definition of reading is a hard nut to crack

However, several researchers reach an agreement on the idea clearly stated in the definition by Aebersold and Field (1977) Because the above-mentioned definitions are general, it is necessary to look at different reading models so that a full understanding of the reading process can be achieved

1.2.2 Different approaches to reading process

Over the last twenty years, a lot of research has been done on the interaction between readers and text and different views of the reading process have been proposed These views are often grouped under three different reading models

named the bottom-up, the top-down and the interactive one

In the bottom-up approach, reading is meant to be a process of decoding;

identifying letters, words, phrases and then constructing the meaning from smallest textual units (letters and words) at the bottom to larger and larger units (phrases, utterances, clauses and sentences) at the top (Rivers, 1964; Plaister, 1968; Yorio, 1971; cited in Nguyen, 2006) In other words, in the bottom-up reading model, the reader begins with the written text and constructs meaning from the letters, words, phrases and sentences found within the text The coming data from the text must be received before the transformation and recoding of the data In short, the bottom-up model tends to be linear as they start with the printed stimuli and proceed to higher-level stage, one step after another

The basis for bottom-up processing is the reader‟s linguistic knowledge

However, it reveals several shortcomings in describing the actual reading process

First, it was claimed to be “difficult to account for sentence-context effects and role

of prior knowledge of text topic as facilitating variables in word recognition and comprehension.” (Samuel and Kamil, 1988: 3) In other words, in this model the interaction between the reader and the text includes little or no interference from the reader‟s own background knowledge Due to this limitation, the bottom-up view of reading fell into disfavor and thus, the favor of another one, the top-down approach can be understood

The top-down approach emphasizes the importance of the reader's

background knowledge in the reading process (Carrell, 1998: 4) According to this theory, so as to comprehend a text, readers make use of both the text and their background knowledge Therefore, interaction of the background knowledge and the text is essential for efficient reading In this top-down approach, the reader begins with a set of hypotheses or predictions about the meaning of text he is about

to read and then base on the maximum of existing, activated knowledge and the minimal information of the texts to determine whether or not his predictions are correct

The main drawback of top-down model, according to Samuel and Kamil‟s point of view (1988), is that for many texts, the reader has little knowledge of the topic and cannot generate predictions Besides, generating a prediction may take more time than recognizing the words

The shortcomings of both bottom-up and top-down models have led to a proposal of a new and more insightful model of reading process, interactive approach which combines elements of the two previous approaches using that "a pattern is synthesized based on information provided simultaneously from several knowledge sources" (Stanovich, 1980: 35)

Widdowson (1978, cited in Nguyen, 2006) inserts that reading is a process of combining textual information and the world knowledge that readers bring to the text In this view, the reading process is not merely a matter of extracting information from the text Rather, it uses this information to extend the general knowledge in his mind

In Eskey‟s view (1988, cited in Nguyen, 2006), the interactive model "posits

a constant interaction between bottom-up and top-down processing in reading, each source of information contributing to a comprehensive reconstruction of the meaning of the text." Accordingly, good readers are regarded as "both good decoders and good interpreters of texts, their decoding skills become more automatic but no less important as their reading skill develops." The following comment by Stanovich (1980) can summarize all the strengths of the interactive

model over the other two models: "Interactive models of reading appear to provide

a more accurate conceptualization of reading performance than strictly top-down or bottom-up models When combined with an assumption of compensatory processing (that a deficit in any particular process will result in a greater reliance on their knowledge sources, regardless of their level in the processing hierarchy), interactive models provide a better account of the existing data on the use of orthographic structure and sentence context by good and poor readers"(1980: 32)

To sum up, the interactive approach is a process of interaction of different knowledge sources (both linguistic and subject matter knowledge) It is generally agreed that the interactive model is the best one that can truly reflect the reading process that takes place in the reader's mind In this approach, readers constantly shuttle between bottom-up and top-down processes and they cannot be successful in reading comprehension without either of these two processes As this study focuses

on reading strategies, the next part is going to summarize some outstanding studies

on reading strategies that have been carried out

1.2.3 Reading strategies 1.2.3.1 Definition

Empirical research has been done to define reading strategy in different ways As mentioned earlier, research in second language learning suggests that learners use a variety of strategies to assist them with the acquisition, storage, and retrieval of information Brantmeior (2002: 1) defined reading strategies as "the comprehension processes that readers use in order to make sense of what they read"

This process may involve skimming, scanning, guessing, recognizing cognates and word families, reading for meaning, predicting, activating general knowledge, making inferences, following references and separating main ideas from supporting ones (Barnett, 1988; cited in Nguyen, 2006)

According to O'Malley and Chamot's definition (1990), reading strategies can be understood as “special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them to comprehend, learn and retain new information from the reading text.”

These strategies are therefore both observable and unobservable and vary from individual to individual In their view, reading strategies can be classified into three main types including metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies Based

on the L2 learning strategy framework proposed by the two authors, a categorization scheme of these strategies can be adapted as followed:

Strategy categories

Reading

cognitive

Meta-Advance organizers

Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the text, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle

Directed attention

Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task and to ignore the irrelevant distracters

Selective attention

Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of input, often by scanning for key words, concepts and/or linguistic markers

monitoring

Self-Checking one‟s comprehension during reading while it

is taking place

evaluation

Self-Checking the outcomes of one‟s own language against a standard after it has been completed

encyclopedias or textbooks

to their attributes or meaning

rules based on language analysis

or remember new information

Elaboration Relating the new information to prior knowledge,

relating different parts of new information to each other

items, predict outcomes or fill in the missing information

verbal, graphic, or numerical form while reading

Summarizing Making a mental, oral, or written summary of new

information gain through linguistic skills

L2

Table 2: Reading strategy framework adapted from O’Malley and Chamot (1990)

In this adapted framework, some significant changes are made to suit the current study Firstly, the two strategies functional planning and self-management in metacognitive strategy group and four strategies in the cognitive strategy group (repetition, auditory presentation, recombination, key word) are omitted due to the researcher‟s hypothesis that these are more frequent in skills other than reading

Besides, the group social/affective strategy is excluded as within the scope of this study, neither can the researcher observe how readers cooperate with their peers to achieve reading comprehension nor does she have enough space to elaborate on how readers accommodate themselves to affective changes This newly adapted framework will be used as the theoretical framework for the whole research, especially as the coding framework for analyzing data

1.2.3.2 Previous studies on reading strategies

A number of studies examine the comprehension strategies that second language readers utilize to process a text In these studies, the participants are quite diverse with some from elementary, secondary and university levels while others

language centers Obviously, the participants are of different ages and backgrounds

Furthermore, the investigators use a variety of research methods and tasks to examine strategy type and frequency of strategy use including think- aloud reports, interviews, questionnaires, observations and written recalls (Bernhardt, 1991; cited

in Nguyen, 2006) The following table provides a comprehensive look at these studies

Hosenfield (1977) Carrell (1988) Block (1992) Participants Ninth graders

studying French;

20 SRs and 20 LRs

75 native English speakers learning Spanish, 45 Spanish

intermediate ESL course

16 proficient

English, 9 non- proficient readers

Main-meaning line and word solving strategies

Global or top-down strategies; local or bottom-up strategies

Two different codes: Meaning-based (global) and word level (local)

Results SRs kept meaning

of passage in mind while assigning

sentence while LRs focused on solving unknown words or phrases

+ Spanish as a foreign language group at lower proficiency levels used more bottom-up strategies + ESL group at advanced levels used top-down strategies

+ Less proficient readers used local strategies

+ More proficient readers relied on global strategies

Table 3: Summary of previous reading strategy studies

adapted from Nguyen (2006: 17)

The findings of those studies above have revealed that there are indeed differences between successful readers and less successful readers in terms of strategy use Generally, successful readers use top-down in combination with bottom-up reading strategies but tend to use more the former than the latter

These above reading strategy studies provided detailed description of the

characteristics of successful readers as well as firm foundation for more studies on reading strategy Despite a thick body of empirical research on reading strategies, little research has been done using the comprehensive framework proposed by O‟Malley and Chamot (1990) Moreover, there has yet been any research investigating reading strategies employed by learners in the current research population This study, therefore, tries to bridge that gap by using O‟Malley and Chamot‟s scheme to investigate the reading strategies used by the SRs and LSRs from the first year students in Honors Program at VNUA

1.3 Summary

So far the chapter has presented the related theories and research that provide solid foundation for this research Such significant issues as language learning strategies, reading approaches and reading strategies have been reviewed in details

Among some language learning frameworks, the one by O‟Malley and Chamot (1990) was found to be the most comprehensive and also compatible to the research objectives, scope and settings This current study, therefore, based on the L2 learning strategy framework proposed by the two authors from which the new reading strategy framework The next chapter will discuss the methodology of the study

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

As the validity and reliability of a study depend largely on the research methods, it is essential that the researcher decide on the most precise instruments to suit the objectives of the study Accordingly, this chapter discusses the methodological issues beginning with the description of research participants as well as settings The most important methodological issues – data collection instruments, data collection and data analysis procedures, are also thoroughly presented in this chapter

2.1 Participants

Six of twenty first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA were selected

as the participants of the study They are non-English major students and have been spending 8 to 11 years learning English These participants were selected on the basis of their reading test scores throughout two first semesters at the university together with the researcher‟s observations Three students with the most outstanding performance results and three others with the worst ones were categorized into the group of successful readers and less successful readers respectively

Table 4 summarizes the background information about the participants such

as genders, number of years learning English and their English proficiency

Total number of participants

Gender Number of years learning English English

proficiency

Table 4 Background information about the participants

These junior students are at CEFR level A2 and above as they all passed the Honors Program English placement exam held at the beginning of the first semester and are now studying the second semester of the EFL compulsory course In their first year, they have to learn intensive English courses, which are the bases for them

to study professional subjects delivered in English and using a great amount of

English reading material Therefore, English in general and reading skill in particular play a vital role in their study at the university

There are some reasons for choosing these freshmen as the participants of this study Firstly, the training quality of these students is always of great concern to both the authority and teachers at VNUA The findings of the study would provide essential information for teachers to improve their students' reading proficiency and hence contribute to enhancing the overall training quality of these students

Secondly, they are suitable participants for the study because having finished the first English reading course, their use of English reading strategies is the researcher‟

great concern In addition, as these students are those who the researcher has been directly teaching, favorable conditions are brought to carry out the research

2.2 Settings of the study

The present study was conducted when the participants were at the end of the second semester of the first year Up to the time of the study, they had been studying English reading at the university for nearly 150 periods The students sit for different types of summative and informative assessments to indicate how well they have performed throughout each semester

2.3 Data collection instruments

The data on what LLSs learners utilized can be collected by several ways such as: interviews, verbal reports, learning strategy inventories, diaries, observation, and dialogue journals The study was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires and think-aloud reports The quantitative data was collected through a survey on the use of reading strategies and qualitative data was obtained through think-aloud protocol to investigate the learners‟ RSs as well

investigate students‟ use of reading strategies when they do reading comprehension tasks It is adopted from Phakiti‟s (2003) and adjusted by the author There are two reasons for the adjustments First, several statements proposed by Phakiti are similar

to each other, so they are excluded from this paper Second, some statements are added in the present study with reference to O‟Malley and Chamot‟s classification (1990) of learning strategies In order for the participants to understand the questionnaire thoroughly, the questionnaire is written in Vietnamese (Appendix 1)

The English version of this questionnaire can be found in Appendix 2 The questionnaire is concerned with the students‟ self-assessment of their reading strategies use and contains 18 statements related to metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies In the questionnaire, the 1-5 Likert Scale is used, so five choices are offered for each statement Participants are asked to choose the option that best represents their opinions Among the statements, 8 items can be coded as metacognitive reading strategies and the other 10 items cognitive reading strategies

The 8 items of metacognitive reading strategies are further divided into five subcategories: advanced organization, directed attention, selective attention, self-monitoring and self-evaluation Similarly, the 10 items of cognitive strategies are also grouped into 10 subcategories, namely, resourcing, grouping, deduction, imagery, elaboration, transfer, inferencing, note-taking, summarizing and translation The detailed information is shown in table 5

Strategy categories

Learning strategies Items in the questionnaire

Meta -cognitive

Advanced organizers

Item 2: I skim through the text to understand main ideas of the texts before focusing on details

Item 4: I preview the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text before reading

Directed attention

Item 1: Before reading, I read the comprehension questions to decide important information that should be noted

Item 3: I skip the words that are not essential for

Selective attention

Item 5: I scan for key words or concepts that are closely related to the questions in order to answer them

Item 9: I choose reading strategies according to

my reading purposes

Self-monitoring Item 10: Sometimes, I stop reading and consider

whether I comprehend what I have read

Self-evaluation Item 18: I check if my answers to the questions

are correct or wrong after reading

Cognitive

Resourcing Item 6: I use a dictionary to look up words when

encountering a new word while reading

Grouping Item 11: I can determine the function of a word in

a sentence while reading

Deduction Item 7: I often read the first line of every

paragraph to understand the whole text

Imagery Item 8: I look at illustration or create pictures in

my mind while I read

Elaboration Item 13: I relate my prior knowledge to the

information of the texts I am reading

Transfer

Item 12: I use my knowledge of grammar or vocabulary to help understand difficult parts in reading texts

Inferencing Item 14: I guess meanings of new words using

the available information

Note-taking Item 16: I write down key words while reading

Summarizing Item 17: I mentally summarize the main ideas of

the texts after reading

Translation Item 15: I translate the reading text into

Vietnamese to understand it more clearly

Table 5: Questionnaire: Reading strategy coding categories

adapted from O'Malley and Chamot (1990: 119)

2.3.2 Think-aloud reports

The think-aloud, one of the three types of verbal report known as consciousness disclosure of thought processes while the information is being attended to” (Cohen, 1998: 34), was used to obtain information about reading strategies employed by first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA According

“stream-of-to Kuusela, H., & Paul, P (2000), think-aloud can be carried out either concurrently: at the time the subject is solving the problem or completing the task (known as a „live‟ report), or retrospectively: after the event There were several reasons for the researcher of this study to use this method Firstly, the think- aloud was adopted as a major source of data in several reading researchers (Hosenfield, 1977; Block, 1986; cited in Nguyen, 2006) Secondly, “the think-aloud approach would be suitable for receptive tasks” (O‟Malley and Chamot, 1990: 90) Another reason is that think-aloud “are, in fact, valuable and thoroughly reliable sources of information about cognitive process” (Cohen, 1998)

2.4 Procedures of data collection 2.4.1 Pilot study

These data collection instruments were piloted prior to the conduct of the main study to obtain the following objectives:

1 To ensure the understanding by the participants

2 To familiarize the researcher and participants with the instructions

Data were collected at two stages in which the administration of questionnaires was followed by the think-aloud reports

2.4.1.1 Stage 1

The instructions for answering the questionnaires were explained to the participants before they received the handouts of questionnaires The participants were asked to take note or mark in their questionnaires any words and items they found unclear It took the participants about 10 minutes to answer the questionnaires

2.4.1.2 Stage 2

After the instructions for think-aloud protocol were presented to the participants; they were explained about what to do with think-aloud reports First, they were given a reading text with questions, then required to report what they were thinking during their reading process They could verbalize in English or Vietnamese

2.4.1.3 Results of the pilot-study

According to the participants‟ comments, the instructions given by the researcher were clear and no troublesome issues were found in the questionnaires as all of the statements were understood by the participants For the think-aloud reports, they could verbalize what they were thinking when doing a reading comprehension task

2.4.2 Administering the questionnaires

Handouts of the questionnaires were delivered to six students at the end of their first year (at the end of May, 2015) The questionnaires were administered after the end-of-term reading test finished A brief explanation of the purpose of the study was given The students were informed that their responses to the questionnaires would be kept confidential The completed questionnaires were collected right after the participants completed them It took the participants approximately 10 minutes to answer the questionnaires

2.4.3 Administering the think-aloud reports

The think-aloud reports were conducted in early June Firstly, the purposes

of the study were given Then the participants were explained about how to do with think-aloud reports When the participants were given a reading text of about 400 words with four parts of questions (see Appendix 3), they were required to report what they were thinking while reading The participants could choose to verbalize

in either Vietnamese or English Such question as “What (else) are you thinking?”

was asked, when necessary, to stimulate the participants‟ responses All of the think- aloud reports were tape-recorded and then transcribed

2.5 Coding of data

After the think-aloud reports were tape-recorded and transcribed, the researcher followed the four steps in coding the protocols (Young, 1997): (1) read the think aloud reports carefully for several times, (2) underlined the corresponding think-aloud verbalization, (3) classified the strategies used in the excerpt, and (4) wrote the strategies code in the protocol

The frequency of reading strategies used will be defined as follow:

High use (Always used with a mean of 4.5 - 5.0, or often used with a mean

of 3.5 - 4.4)

Medium use (Sometimes used with a mean of 2.5 - 3.4)

Low use (Rarely used with a mean of 1.5 - 2.4; or never used with a mean of 1.0 - 1.40)

2.6 Procedures of data analysis

Data collected through the questionnaires and the think-aloud reports were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) and the t- tests The frequency of strategy use by successful and less successful readers was counted and entered in SPSS to gain the means to explore the frequency of strategy use The t- tests were applied to determine if there were any differences in the frequency of strategy use and the choice of individual strategies between successful and less successful readers

2.7 Summary

This chapter has presented the methodological framework of the study including research questions, participants, settings of the study, the explanation of the use of think-aloud reports and survey questionnaires as collecting data instruments, the detailed description of data collection procedure as well as explanation for calculating descriptive statistics and t- test in data analysis procedures

The results through analyzing the think-aloud and survey questionnaire data will be presented in the next chapter

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, answers to the proposed research questions were presented based on the analysis of data from both questionnaires and think-aloud reports The analysis framework adapted from O‟Malley and Chamot‟s reading strategy framework has been a significant tool in analyzing data It should also be noticed that the chapter does not simply end with the sheer analysis of data or the literal presentation of empirical findings, but goes two further steps – interpreting the findings and comparing them to other related studies

3.1 Research question 1: What is the frequency of reading strategy use of

successful readers and less successful readers?

3.1.1 The use of reading strategy categories

Figure 1: Strategy category frequency for successful and less successful readers

Figure 1 showed that Metacognitive was more preferred by both successful and less successful readers (M1 = 3.75; M2 = 3.67) than Cognitive (M1 = 3.1; M2 = 2.97) This result supports the findings of the studies carried out by O‟Malley &

Chamot (1990), which concluded that Metacognitive had the highest frequency in use What can be inferred from this is that the participants in this research were more likely to plan, monitor and evaluate learning tasks than to work with the new

information

3.1.2 The use of individual strategies within strategy categories 3.1.2.1 The use of individual strategies within metacognitive category

Figure 2: Individual strategy frequency within Metacognitive category for

successful and less successful readers

As can be seen in Figure 2, in the metacognitive categories, Selective attention (M1 = M2 = 5) was the strategy of the highest frequent use, followed by Advanced organizers (M1 = 3.83, M2 = 3.67), Self-evaluation (M1= 3.83, M2 = 3.83), Directed attention (M1=3.58, M2 = 3.67) Self-monitoring was used the least frequently (M1 = 2.50, M2 = 2.17) These results showed that the participants in this research frequently skim through the text to understand main ideas of the texts before focusing on details, scan for key words or concepts that are closely related to the questions in order to answer them, preview the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text, read the comprehension questions to decide important information that should be noted before reading And thus, the results revealed the participants active planners Besides, with M1 = M2 = 3.83 for Self-evaluation, the readers were well aware of the task of checking the outcomes of one‟s own language against a standard after it has been completed However, the subjects did not frequently and consciously use self-monitoring strategy in aiding text comprehension

3.1.2.2 The use of individual strategies within cognitive category

Figure 3: Individual strategy frequency within Cognitive category for

successful and less successful readers

As displayed in Figure 3, among strategies within Cognitive category, there were 4 prominent strategies that were utilized with highest frequency among the rest, namely Deduction (M1 = 3.83, M2 = 4.17), Inferencing (M1 = 3.83, M2

=3.67), Grouping (M1 = 3.83, M2 = 3.33) and Elaboration (M1 = 3.00, M2 = 3.17)

Surprisingly, note-taking strategy (M1= 2.33, M2 =1.83) was seen unimportant in all of the questionnaires and think-aloud reports

3.2 Research question 2: How does the frequency of reading strategy use of

successful readers differ from that of less successful readers?

3.2.1 Differences in the use of strategy categories

than less successful students in the two strategy groups As shown in the results from the questionnaires, the mean scores of successful readers and less successful readers for Metacognitive were M = 4.37 and M= 3.13 and for Cognitive were M=

3.53 and M= 2.67 respectively Similar figures were seen in the results from the think-aloud reports with the mean scores of successful readers and less successful readers for Metacognitive being M = 4.4 and M= 2.93 and for Cognitive being M=

3.4 and M= 2.53 respectively More precisely, successful readers employed Metacognitive and Cognitive strategies with greater frequency than less successful readers Moreover, while the frequency of using both metacognitive and cognitive strategy by successful readers was considerable, that by less successful readers was not This strengthened the finding of some research which claimed that good readers make higher strategy frequency use, in terms of both metacognitive and cognitive strategy, than less proficient readers

However, the t-values yielded by the t-test in the two cases for both of the categories were all over 0.05, which shows no significant difference in the use of these strategy categories between the two groups of readers

3.2.2 Differences in the use of individual strategies

Strategy categories Group N