The difficulties in learning reading skill of english majored sophomores at tay do university

The result of the research reveals that students encounter many difficulties in Reading involving in Vocabulary, Grammar, Background knowledge, Reading strategy, Psychology factors... CH

TAY DO UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

THE DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING READING SKILL OF ENGLISH

MAJORED SOPHOMORES AT TAY DO UNIVERSITY

Supervisor: Bui Thị Truc Ly, M.A Student

Name: Ly Nguyen Anh Khoa Code:1652220201051

Class: English 11A

May 2020

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

A complete study would not be done without any assistance Therefore, the author who conducted this research gratefully gives acknowledgement to their support and motivation during the time of doing this research as a requirement of completing my English language

First of all, I would like to express my endless thanks and gratefulness to my supervisor Mrs Bui Thi Truc Ly Her kindly support and continuous advices went through the process of completion of my thesis Her encouragement and comments had significantly enriched and improved my work Without her motivation and instructions, the thesis would have been impossible to be done effectively

Secondly, I want to express my special thanks to all lecturers in Faculty of Linguistic and Literature of TDU for their teaching and helping me to enlarge knowledge of English over the past four year

My special thanks approve to my parents for their endless love, care and have most assistances and motivation me for the whole of my life I also would to explain my thanks

to my sibling, brothers and sister for their support me all the time

At last, my deeply thanks come to all my friend during time I study in Tay Do University

COMMENTS

ASTRACT

Reading comprehension is a necessary skill throughout schooling and a vital component of the successful transition to adult responsibilities It is the complex outcome

of the process of constructing meaning from print

This study is carried out to investigate the difficulties in Reading comprehension of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University In other words, the study aims to find out whether student face problems in Reading and their causes The participants of this study are 60 English- majored sophomores (course XIII) at Tay Do University Questionnaire is used in this study as a tool to collect data The result of the research reveals that students encounter many difficulties in Reading involving in Vocabulary, Grammar, Background knowledge, Reading strategy, Psychology factors

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Reading is one of the most important skill in learning foreign language, especially English Reading deficiency in English texts among the university students reflects the students’ poor academic performance which the concern of language teachers as well as learners Teacher should have effective reading strategy for the students to gain better reading comprehension

Obviously, people cannot deny the role of Reading comprehension By reading, someone can obtain much information For the students who study English, reading is not only reading something but also comprehending its content Reading comprehension is a process involving the understanding of the reading text itself Broughton et al (2002: 89) state, “Reading is a complex skill, that is to say that it involves a whole series of lesser skill.” By reading, students will be able to identify and to understand any kinds of text in English Wahyudin (2011:53) also writes, “Since reading becomes one of the basic ways

of obtaining information, it is therefore considered as an important activity in any language classes.” Therefore if students have a bad reading skill, they will face many challenges in their studies and their future jobs

However, there are many barriers that hinders students’ Reading The causes of difficulties in Reading are multiple and complex Many studies have demonstrated that learners face some difficulties in learning reading

Because of the importance of reading comprehension as well as unknown causes for Reading difficulty, this study is carried out to find out some the difficulties in learning Reading skill of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University Knowing the causes will help learners find the suitable ways to improve their Reading Comprehension

1.2 Significance of the study

Reading also is the most important thing in learning English If the people can read and know the meaning in a text, they can improve a lot knowledge from their major to background and through that they can rise their living standard and develop country

This study contributes to find out the difficulties in in learning Reading skill of English majored sophomores at Tay Do University it also encourage students find out the appropriate methods to improve their Reading skill Besides, teacher can realize their students’ difficulties and choose the suitable teaching method or materials This study is also a useful material for those who want to use the findings as a basis for further study in this area

1.3 The organization of study

This study includes five chapters

Chapter 1: introduction

Chapter 2: Literature review

Chapter 3: Research aim- Research question- Hypothesis

Chapter 4: Research methodology

Chapter 5: Expected outcomes

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the definition of reading and its importance, difficulties in learning reading comprehension and strategies of learning

2.1 Definition of Reading

Reading is an activity to understand the content of the text that we read By reading, reader can get any message and information which can increase knowledge According to Pang et al (2003), reading is about understanding written texts and comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text Reading comprehension involves both perception and thought Readers will use background of knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and other strategies to help them to understand a written text It means reading is a process of communication between the writer and the reader The writer has a message such feeling, facts, ideas, and arguments they want to share Then, the writer puts the message into the words So, reading is a way in which something interpreted or understood Reading does not only mean to understand the words

or the grammar It is not only translating but also is thinking, in order to read well in English reading material text, and the reader must think what the text means According to Urquhart and Weir (1998 : 22) : “ Reading is the process of receiving and interpreting information encoded in language form via the medium of print” This means that the message conveyed

by the text is decoded and interpreted through the vocabulary items, the grammatical points, and the rhetorical structure of the text Moreover, Anderson (1999 :1 ) views : “ Reading is an active fluent process which involves the reader and the reading materials in building meaning”

The word “ reading” may have different interpretations For example, it could mean

“reading aloud” which is considered as an oral matter that relates more to pronunciation rather than to comprehension In this sense, it is recommended to introduce simple and familiar text which do not exceed the linguistic capacities of learners On the other hand, the term « reading » could also mean “ silent reading” It is likely the nearest approach to the process of reading

In addition, reading can be viewed as a receptive skill in understanding the words

in a written form It is believed that understanding the purpose of someone is not only in spoken language but also through reading because it is the next step in writing According

to Nunan (1991:70): “ Reading is a dynamic process in which the text elements interact with other factors outside the text, in this case most particularly with the readers’ knowledge of content of the text” That is to say that readers combine different factors in order to build up the text meaning They rely on their background knowledge, their language knowledge, and the text content in order to reach adequate comprehension

English is a foreign language for students of Tay Do University It is certainly not easy for students to interpret the meaning or the idea from written text Because to understand the reading text, the students must have a good competence in knowing the meaning of words, sentences, contents, and the most important is to know about the writer ideas

It is agreed that reading is the ability to read text and understand its meaning In that sense, comprehension requires the reader to be an active contructure of meaning by dint of comprehension strategies Many scholars ( e.g., Eskey, 2002; Gascoigne, 2005; Khalaji & Vafaeeseresht, 2012 ) have asserted that reading comprehension is a complex process to witch different approaches

In summary, Reading is a key to connect everything from the past to the future, from one culture to the other one, from one nation to the others Almost knowledge in the world had stored as text and English is the world language , so we had to hold reading to use or

to learn the infinity knowledge

2.2 The importance of reading skill

In today’s world, reading is basic to everyday life As children we learn to read, and

as adults, we read to learn We read to learn about the news, to learn about rules, and to learn about how to do things We also use reading to learn English Still, reading is seen

by Goodman (1970) as a selective process which involves partial use of available language cues selected from reader’s expectations

If you want to learn English more quickly, reading is important Good reading supports much in learning other skill in language acquiring process The more you read, the more input your brain gets about how the language works When you read in English, you can improve your vocabulary, your grammar, and your writing skills at the same time

2.3 Difficulties in learning reading

Difficulty is something that complicated to do (Richard 2007, as cited in Wahab 2012) It will be seen from students’ mistake or error learning process In fact, many students often find the difficulties in reading comprehension These difficulties result the student’s poor performance in reading test Therefore, from these factors arise some difficulties in reading comprehension

2.3.1 Vocabulary

The student expands their knowledge of vocabulary while he is reading a passage, such as by finding out new words meaning in dictionary and guessing the meaning from the context Context helps students making a general prediction about the meaning (Sharpe, 2005) That means that making prediction from context will help students understand the meaning of a passage without stopping looks up every new word in a dictionary In fact, one of the problems readers have difficulties in understanding material is that they have lack of vocabularies

Francie (2017) in his article proposed the importance of vocabulary on reading success that can be summarized into

1 Comprehension improves when you know what the words mean Since

comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, students cannot overestimate the importance of vocabulary development

2 Words are the currency of communication A sohisticated vocabulary improves all areas of communication — listening, speaking, reading and writing

3 When children and adolescents improve their vocabulary, their academic and social confidence and competence improve, too It shows that Vocabulary represents one of most important skills necessary for teaching and learning a foreign language It is the basis for the development of all the other skills: reading comprehension, listening comprehension,

speaking, writing, spelling and pronunciation Vocabulary is the main tool for the students

to use English effectively

Intentional vocabulary acquisition is memorizing straightforwardly term after term with their respective translations from a list Intentional learning is quick and usually preferred by learners, but it is also superficial Learners find vocabulary in an isolated, often infinitive form and remain incapable of using it correctly in context Moreover, intentionally learned vocabulary sinks faster Recommendable vocabulary acquisition pushes learners to every term, embedding it deeply and solidly in the mental lexicon (Aitchison in Alizadeh, 2016) In other words, students are expected not only memorize the words and the meanings but also use them in the correct context

According to a research done by Rohmatillah (2014), there are some factors causing difficulties in learning vocabulary (1) the difference between written form and the spoken form in English, (2) the large number of words students have to learn or master, (3) the limited knowledge about words, (4) the complexity of word knowledge Knowing a words involves much more than knowing its dictionary definition, (5) causes of lack of understanding of grammatical of the words, (6) the incorrect pronunciation is often caused

by the lack of sound similarity between English and the students‟ native language From the factor number 3, it is clearly stated that knowledge of vocabulary is really important in the process of mastering vocabulary

Some previous studies proposed games as media to teach vocabulary A study held

by Silsüpür (2017) found that in reality, there was not a significant difference between the results of the quiz Similarly, the findings of the questionnaire indicated that the participants preferred learning through vocabulary games rather than traditional way The findings also revealed that games reduce negative feelings during the learning process It suggested that teachers should reconsider the role of games and appreciate their educational value In other words, negative feelings can also influence the process of learning in the classroom and fun activities such as game can reduce the feelings to make students feel more comfortable and master or understand the lesson better

Mauli, et al (2014) in her research about Students’ Difficulties In Finding Main Ideas, found that there were 6 problems faced by students; low interest inreading, poor knowledge on vocabulary, long sentences, poor reading strategy, grammatical confusion, and poor knowledge on paragraph The results showed that the 8th grade students felt difficult in finding main ideas because they did not know the meaning of main idea and many difficult words causing difficulties to find main ideas in the text From this research,

it can be seen that vocabulary is also one of big problems faced by students in reading comprehension This shows that there is need to overcome the problem

AlQahtani (2015) stated that vocabulary learning is an essential part in foreign language learning as the meanings of new words are very often emphasized, whether in books or in classrooms It is also central to language teaching and is of paramount importance to a language learner Recent research indicate that teaching vocabulary may

be problematic because many teachers are not confident about best practice in vocabulary teaching and at times don’t know where to begin to form an instructional emphasis on word learning (Berne & Blachowicz, 2008)

2.3.2 Grammar

According to linguistics, grammar is a inclution of linguistic elements such as words, phrases, clauses arranged according to rules and order to form a complete and meaningful sentence In communication, a grammatical expression will make the conversation more interesting and exciting No one likes to talk to a person who has to interrupt the conversation to ask what he or she wants to talk about Therefore, in communication, poor grammar will cause discomfort, bringing bad emotions to the opposite person If you think that grammar doesn't interfere with your reading, that's a completely wrong idea

Sometimes English learners also confuse "being grammatically correct" and

"speaking fluently" If you follow the method of not taking grammar seriously, after a while you will easily "speak fluently" English but this is only your own English, it is not native English and in communication nobody can’t understands what you are trying to say So instead of using the "speak fluently" way, it's not true You should start with the grammar,

and then have the ability to use English fluently Grammar help students learn how to arrange words in a structured with exactly and easily way for the opposite can understand English grammar is really necessary for anyone who wants to communicate effectively in English

2.3.3 Reading Strategy

The students who lack of reading strategies often fails in understanding the text The students who are not familiar with reading strategies such as skimming and scanning will feel down and frustrated because they lack of tool necessary to succeed in reading comprehension test (Duarte, 2005) There are characteristics of the students who lack in use of reading strategies First, the students read word by word within the text, relying too heavily on their visual information, which greatly impedes their reading speed and hampers their reading comprehension Second, the students spent a lot attention on detail with the result they often miss the main idea of the text Third, they just focused too much attention

on form of the expense meaning Furthermore, the students who do not possess effective reading strategies may be difficulty to deal with reading comprehension test (Mei-yu, 1998

as reading the title or the other heading and look at the picture, reading the first and the last paragraph of the text (Islam and Steenburgh, 2009)

SCANNING

Scanning means glancing rapidly through a text to search for a specific piece of information (Grellet, 1981) It means that scanning is the ability to read a text quickly in order to find specific information that is needed like a date, a figure, or a name and ignore over all unimportant information For example, a student scans the list of names in a

telephone directory to find a phone number Scanning helps the reader find information quickly without reading the whole text

EXTENSIVE READING

In extensive reading, the readers usually face a longer text In reading, the readers need a total understanding of writing According to Brown (2001), extensive reading is carried out to achieve a general understanding of a text Long and Richards (1987) identify extensive reading as occurring when the students read large amounts of high interest material, concentrating of meaning, reading for gist and skips unknown the words So, the aims of extensive reading are to build the readers’ confidence and enjoyment

INTENSIVE READING

Intensive reading is reading for detail It usually has a shorter text A reader usually wants to get some specific information According to Macleod (2011), intensive reading exercises may include looking at main ideas versus details, understanding of what the text implies, making inferences, looking at the order of information and how it affects the message, identifying words that connect one idea to another and identifying words that indicate change from one section to another

2.3.4 Poor background knowledge

There’s a lot going on in reading, from letter and word recognition to understanding meaning at the phrase, sentence, and paragraph level When a beginner reader encounters vocabularies they do not know or do not recognize due to inaccurate decoding, they are likely to skip ahead The more blanks in a line of text, the harder it is to make meaning and the more cognitively challenging and frustrating the reading task becomes That’s why poor comprehension can result when a student struggles with decoding, has a limited vocabulary or attempts to read a text that is at too high of a level

Student with poor background knowledge can study Reading well because they can not understand what the Reading passage want to convey even they know all the words in the text Therefore, student should find many different reading topic to expand their knowledge

2.3.5 Psychology factors