Luận văn a study on students’ use of reading comprehension strategies

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES KACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES TRAN THI THANH LOAN A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ USE OF READING COMPREHEN

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

KACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRAN THI THANH LOAN

A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ USE OF READING COMPREHENSION

STRATEGIES: A CASE OF 10™ FORM STUDENTS

(NGIIÊN CỨU CÁCH TIỌC SINII SỬ DỤNG CÁC CIIÉN LƯỢC

ĐỌC HIỂU: TRƯỜNG HỢP CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRUNG HỌC

PLO TIIONG)

MLA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Mcthodology Code: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

KACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TRAN THI THANH LOAN

A STUDY ON STUDENTS’ USE OF READING COMPREHENSION

STRATEGIES: A CASE OF 10™ FORM STUDENTS

(NGIIÊN CỨU CÁCH TIỌC SINII SỬ DỤNG CÁC CIIÉN LƯỢC

ĐỌC HIỂU: TRƯỜNG HỢP CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRUNG HỌC

PLO TIIONG)

MLA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Hicld: English Teaching Mcthodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Phuong Nga

Hanoi, 2014

DECLARATION

L hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A study on students’ use of reading comprehension

strategies: A case of 10 form students” is the result of my own research for the depree

of Master of Aris al University of Languages and Tnlernational Studies, Viclnam National

University, Ilanoi The thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other

universities or institutions I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library can

be accessible for the purposes ol’ study and research

Tlanoi, 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T owe a greal many thanks lo so many peaple who have supported me all the way

throughout my study to this final achievement

First and foremost, | would like to express my great gratitude towards Ms, Nguyen Phuong Naa, Associate Professor, Doctor of Philosophy for her enlightening guidance, invaluable advice and inspiration Without her careful instructions and critical feedbacks,

my study would not have been fulfilled

My sincere thanks also go lo all the stall of the Department of Post-Graduntc Studies for giving me assistance and the lecturers who conducted the Master course for

me with valuable knowledge and experience so that I was able to conduct this study

I would like to extend my deep appreciation to my colleagues and students at Pham Hong Thai high school for their cooperation and support so that T could complete

my necessary data collection for the study

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my family and friends, who have always been by my side to encourage and support me during the process of this research Without their help and encouragement, I could not have completed this study.

ABSTRACT

This is the study on students’ use of reading comprehension strategies The target

population is the 10° form students at Pham Hong Thai high school The main aims of

this study are to discover the current situation of applying reading strategies of the 10" form students, and to figure out how to enhance their reading comprehension To achieve

these objectives, the researcher uses (1) survey questionnaire for the students, and (2) unstructured interview for Lnglish teachers The results of the questionnaires show that

the students are aware of the importance of reading comprehension in general and

reading strategies in particular Additionally, the reading strategies applied by the

students are restricted and not frequently Besides, the interview’s result indicates that

teachers alse apply only some of the reuding strategies in their reading lessons including

scanning, skimming and guessing new words in context The researcher also finds it

possible to enhance student's reading comprehension with the use of reading strategies

according lo the teaching methody of teachers in the inlerview Acknowledging ihe

obstacles and the students’ positive attitudes towards the use of reading strategies, it is

recommended ihat more reading strategies be used and adapied in the class time ta meet

the individuals’ needs and abilities.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, FIGURES AND TABLES

ABBREVIATIONS:

Figure 1: The importance of reading comprehension

Figure 2; Students’ purposes of leaming reading in English

Figure 3: The difficulties in reading a text

Figure 4: The importance of having good reading strategies

Table t: Background Information of the Subjects

Table 2: Results of predicting strategy

Table 3: Rosulis of skimming stralogy

‘Table 4: Results of scanning strategy

Table 5: Results of inferring strategy

Table 6: Results of guessing meaning strategy

‘Table 7: Results of self — monitoring strategy

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study - - 1

2 Aims and objectives of the studies 2

4 Research methodoloey of the study 2

G6 Design of the Study à in “3

1.1 Reading comprehension

1.4 Researches ơn reading strategies "D LI

2.1, An overview of the textbook “lieng Anh 10” (the set of standard textbooks) .17

3.3 The participants oÊ the stuáy keo TÔ

2.4 Instruments of data collection - - - 21

2.5, Data collection prooedues

CLIAPTHER 3: RHSHARCH'S RUSULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

PART 3: CONCLUSION

3 Suggestions for further study - - 3&

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem and rationale for the study

Teaching a foreign language in general and English in particnlar requires great

knowledge, experiences and efforts

According to Carell (1984:1), “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or a foreign language” Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in many ways Firstly, reading material is a language input Students

given a variety of materials to read have many opportuniliss to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure and discourse structure Secondly, reading for content

information in the language classroom provides students with both authentic reading

tumlerial and an authentic purpose [or reading Thirdly, reading helps studenis broaden

their knowledge of the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are

sludyinig

Researchers believe that teaching productive reading strategies motivate students

to read and facilitate reading comprehension (Anderson, 2003, liskey, 2002; Grabe, 2004) Tt also appears thal good sludents apply # varicly of reading strategies to their

learning ‘therefore, the importance of teaching reading strategies is to not also facilitate students’ reading process but help stadent enrich their vocabulary and grammar as well

What is more, iu the context of the upper secondary school, reading is sven more

important than other three skills of speaking, listening, and writing The reason is that

students have to take the examinations, which are grammar- and reading- based

However, (he students’ reading proficiency is nol satisfactory

Thus, this study is conducted to investigate the use of reading strategies of the 10"

grads students at Pham Hong Thai high school, ANhough almost all 10 form students

have leamt English since grade 6, many of them do not know or use appropriate reading, strategies yet As a result, they can become easily frustrated when they do not understand

what they arc reading, and they become demotivated.

Vor the above-mentioned factors, the researcher attempted to conduct a study

named “A study on students’ use of reading comprehension strategies: A case of 10*

form students”

2, Aims and objectives of the studies

Firstly, the research is carried out to investigate the current use of reading comprehension strategies applied by the 10" form students in Pham long Thai high

school Secondly, the study is to figure out how to enhance 10 form students’ reading

comprehension ‘Therefore, the research is to seek answers to the following research

questions:

1 What are reading sirategien currently applied by 10" form students in Pham Hong

Thai high school?

3 How to improve 10" form students’ reading comprehension?

3 Significance of the study

Once successfully completed, the study’s findings and discussions are expected to

be beneficial to Linglish teachers, the 10 forms students, the researcher herself as well as

other researchers Firstly, teachers of English can recognize the significant benefits, if

any, of strategies in teaching reading comprehension Based on the findings, (cachers

could adapt their current situation of teaching reading so that they could improve their

sludents’ reading courprehersion Also, there are some suggested solutions for leachers Lo

prepare an efficient technique to motivate students’ participation in their studying and to

teach them how to read effectively Secondly, reading comprehension strategies can

provide students with sell-study to improve their reading skills and to face reading

comprehension difficulties Additionally, this study is expected to bring the researcher an invaluable experience as it provides her with knowledge and techniques to teach reading comprehension strategies Finally, the findings of this study arc hoped to offer reliable and updated information for interested and further studies

4 Research methodolugy of the study

This study is conducted as a descriptive study that applied qualitative approach

The qualitative analy: is employed mainly through the proc of dala collected from a

written survey questionnaire delivered to 10" form students to examine the use of reading

strategies, and through an unstructured group interview which is carried out to teachers to

find out how to improve 10" form students’ reading comprehension

5 Scope of the study

According to the Ministry of Zducation and Training’s requirements, high school

students have to be tanght all four skills including reading, speaking, listening, and

wriling However, it is because of the large size of the class and (est — onented thal English lesson focuses more on reading Thus, this research only put the emphasis on the usc of reading stralegics of the 10 form students, who arc at the beginning of high

school but have just leamt English for more than 5 years

6 Design of the Study

The thesis consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion

The Introduction aims at the rationale, the aims, the scope, and alsa the design of

Tn the Conclusion, the author presents the conclusions and limitations of the study

as well as some suggestions for the further related studies

This chapter is followed by the References and Appendices

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

Tn this first chapter, the theoretical background, literature on the concept of

reading comprehension, and reading strategies are going to be thoroughly presented This

chapter also analyzes some studies on reading slralegies thal have been conducted so far

so that the researcher could discuss on the results later

1.1 Reading comprehension

1.1.1 Reading

Reading plays an important part in the success of second language learning It is

essential to understand the nature of reading

According to Tamer (1989:190), reading is “an exercise dominated by the eyes

and the brain The eyes receive message and the brain ther has io work out the

significance of the message.”

When it comes to reading in second language, Williams (1984:2) stated that

reading is “a process whereby one looks al and understands whal bas been writlon The reader does not necessarily need to look at everything in a given piece of writing ‘The reader is nol simply a passive object, fed with letlera, words and sentenecs, but is aclively working on the text and is able to arrive at understanding without looking at every letter

and word.”

Anderson (2003.68) offered another definition of reading, which is “a flucnt

process of readers combining information from a text and their own background

Imowledge to build meaning The goal af reading is comprehension.”

Although these definitions are cxprossed dilferently, hey convey the same idea that reading is a selective process and characterized as an active process of

cotuprehending Thus, the reader’s knowledge of the language and knowledge of the

world is of great importance to their reading success:

1.1.2 Reading comprehension

In teaching reading, it is necessary for both teachers and students to have a deep understanding about the definition of reading comprehension

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Reading comprehension can be understood as the ability to obtain the information

as required in the reading text as efficiently as possible Different scholars offered various poinls of view on the definition of reading comprehension

According to Richard, Thomas and Jere (1987: 143), reading comprehension is

a mental process (hat im the final analysis, only ihe readers fully understand

Comprehension is what stimulates readers to remember the past experience ‘That

knowledge is, then, used in trying to get meaning out of print Meaning does not

reside on the printed page but rather in the meaning of the reader

Roe, Stoodt and Bums (1987:2) proposed that “reading comprehension is

teconstruction, interpretation and evaluation of whal author of wrillen content means by

using knowledge gained from life experience”

According ta interactive model of reading, comprehension is built up or constructed

from knowledge sources which interact with cach other on the input from the written

page

Comprehension, by definition, is the process of relating new or incoming information to information already stored in memory Readers make connections between the new information on the printed page and their existing knowledge They must allow the new information to enter and become a part of their knowledge

store,

(Lee and Vanpatten, 1995:191)

Ur (1996:148), on the other bands, staled that effective reading comprehension is a process with the elements as follow:

- aclear purpose in mind

- an cubanced motivation

- appropriate reading comprehension strategies based on the purposes and

motivation

- goad prediction

- sufficient background information and vacabulary

- close altention to the sigmfican bits

- fairly high speed From these opinions, what comes up as a common point 1s that reading

comprehension is not only simply understanding what is written, but also is what stimulates sludends to remember from their experiences That knowledge is then used to get meaning out of printed page, but in the mind of the readers, which included facts,

emotion, belief and critical evaluation It can be concluded that reading comprehension is

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the process of understanding what is conveyed in the text ‘hat means, the readers (or the learners), as they read, can recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and understand

what 1s implied hetnnd these forms

1.2 Reading strategies

1.2.1 Definitions

Much attention has been paid to the study of reading strategies and there are a number of definitions of reading strategies

According to Cohen (1986), reading stralegies refer to those mental processes that

readers consciously choose to use i accomplishing reading tasks Supporting this idea,

Brantmeier (2002) defined reading strategies as the comprehension processes that readers

usc in order lo make sense of whal they read

Oxford, Levine & Crookall, (1989) indicated that reading strategy is reading

lechnique and study skill which makes reading more effective and favililale learning

They also claborated that reading strategies is a process used by the learners to improve reading comprehension and overcome comprehension failures

Brown (1990) considered reading strategies as the ways that help leamers read

mote quickly and effectively

Another definition of reading strategies was given by O° Malley & Chamat (1990)

is that the Lerm reading strategies refers to those conscious and uriconscious procedures,

actions, techniques or behavior that leamers employ so as to enhance their

comprehension and make up for interpretation problems

In short, although many different delinilions were given, what can be come up with is that all the above mentioned definition supported each other What is more,

reading strategies can be delined as the ways show readors how to manage their

interaction with the written text to comprehend and leam new information from the

reading texts effectively

1.2.2 Classifications

Researchers in reading strategy studies have utilized different strategy types when

categorizing reading stralegies

lock (1986) and Carrell (1989) categorized reading strategies they found into

general or global strategies and local strategies Whereas local strategies constitute a

salegory of decoding strategies, global slrategies are related to top-down lypes of reading, including getting the gist of a reading, utilizing background knowledge, and being aware

of tex orgarivalion

According to Barnett (1988), this process may involve skimming, scanning, guessing, recognizing cognates and word families, readmg for meaning, predicting, activating general knowledge, making inferences, following references and separating main ideas from supporting ones

Oxford (1990) identified six components of reading strategies as follows:

There are other scholars who support Oxford’s classification of reading strategies

such as Grellet (1986), Kristin, Leah, & Soro (2009) and Smith (1994) Tach of the

siralegics is as below:

© Prediction

Prediction refers to the technique of using the readers’ prior knowledge to guess the meaning or the message of the text from the topies, pictures, key wards, or consituclions This one of the mosi effective factors that molivatc sludenis to read and

understand the meaning of the context (Oxford, 1990)

© Skimming

Skimming refers to the technique of reading passages quickly in order ta get its

gist Tn skimming, readers do not look for specifie information bul only for general information (Grellct, 1986)

* Scanning

Scanning is quite similar to skimming in that both of them require a quick glance

of a text The difference is that in skimming, readers try to get the general or main information of thie lext but im scamming, the readers would like to obtain specific information In scanning technique, readers are looking to find particular information

the answer to bischer questions

© Inferring

Inferring refers Lo activities of reading between the lines which means that readers

need to know how to get the message from the words and sentences in a text So,

inferring is defined as the interaction between words in a sentence/phrase or between

sentences or phrases (Kristin, Tah, & Soro, 2009)

© Guessing the meaning of new words

Guessing the meaning of new words helps readers to read and understand text quickly because difficult words usually create problems for students and are obstacles in reading comprehension (Smith, 1994)

In conclusion, different scholars classified reading strategies using different terms,

and nol in all contexts thal learners can apply all the above mertioned reading shalegies

They rather base on the purpose of reading to utilize one/ some/ or all of them to read

Hence, the importance of reading strategies should be aware of

Reading slralegies are imporlanl as they help readers to reach their reading goals

and achieve goed results in reading (Block, 1986) As such, students or readers who do

not use any strategies in reading usually face difficulties in reading comprehension

Regarding the importance of reading strategies, readers often encounter problems

in reading the text and have difficulties in understanding the meaning of the context but

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reading strategies help them in leaming foreign language and reading comprehension In fact, students will be able to relate newly acquired information to their prior knowledge

in context arcas which is an essential part of reading comprehension skill

According to Dehnad (2005), reading strategy provides learning opportunities,

facilitates learning and recalling of information as well as strengthening the reading

comprehension ability of language learners Learners need to be explicitly taught how to properly use reading strategies to monitor their reading comprehension ‘'hrough the omployment of reading strategy such as meta-cogrolive instruction in English class, EFT learners will be able to improve their reading comprehension and experience a higher level of competency which will further motivate them to read on a regular basis (Block,

1992)

Chamot (2005) stated that students have their own preference of strategy, but in

order to become motivated and selective strategy users, EFL learners should self monitor

their reading strategy In viher words, EFT learners need to consciously know what and when to apply appropriate reading strategy when comprehension fails

All im all, it can be denied that reading strategies ave of greal importance Lowards

second language learners Hence, students should be exposed to multiple reading strategies as well as the appropriate use of those strategies for better results In addition, students should be taught to become more aware of thew own reading behavier and the processes involved in reading to employ the reading strategies effectively

This study adopted Oxford’s classification of reading, strategies

13 ‘Teaching and Icarning reading strategics

As acknowledged by many rescarchers, teaching sccond or forcign language

readers how to use strategies should be part of every reading lesson

Learning reading strategies refers to any sets of activities stages, programs, or

techniques thal Help students to keep, achieve, or evaluate information CWendon &

Rubin, 1987), ‘Teachers can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in several ways

Firstly, teachers can model the strategies aloud, lalking through the processes of

predicting, skimming, scanning, inferring, guessing the meaning of new words and self

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monitoring ‘This shows students how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text hefore they begin to read word by word

© Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about

content and vocabulary and check comprehension, using knowledge of the text

type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content Skimming: a process of speed reading for getting general meaning: quickly getting

the gist or overview of a passage or bock

¢ Scanning: looking through a text very rapidly for specific information

« Inferring: finding clues and add those clues to what have been known or read

based on prior knowledge

© Guessing the meaning of new words: using prior knowledge of the subject and the

ideas in the text as clues to Lhe meanings of unknown words, insLead of stopping to look them up

Self monitoring: checking comprehension during reading

Secondly, teachers should allow time in class for group and individual to preview anil predict activilies as proparalion for in-class or out-of-class reading Allocatiry, class

time to these activities indicates their importance and value

Another way teachers can utilize is using clove exercises to review vocabulary

itoms This helps students learn to guess meaning from context

Last but not least, teachers are advised to encourage students to talk about what

siralegics they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and thon talkiryg aller reading about what strategies they actually used, This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies

As rogards students, they necd to figure out the purpose for reading Additionally, they should activate their background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or

anticipate conient and identify appropriate reading strategies Next, they should select

strategies that are appropriate to the reading tasks and use them flexibly and interactively Finally, students have to check comprehension while reading and when the reading task

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is completed Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies

IL ean be concluded that wher students use reading sbalogies, hey lind that they can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the

language

1.4 Research on reading strategics

A considerable number of stucies examined the comprehension strategies that

second language readers apply to process a text, Obviously, the participants were of many different ages levels and backgrounds Furthermore, the investigators used a

variely of rescarch method and lasks lo examine sbrategy type and frequency of strategy

use including think-aloud reports, interviews, questionnaires, observations and written

recalls,

14.1 Foreign research on reading strategies

Tn a sceond-language study, Hosenfeld (1977) used a (hink-aloud procedure to

identify relations between certain types of reading strategies and successful or

unsuccessful second language reading The successful reader, for example, kepl the meaning of the passage in mind while reading read in broad phrases, skipped inconsequential or less important words, and had a positive self-concept as a reader The unsuccessful reader on the other hand, lost the meaning of the sentences when decoded, read in short phrases, pondered over inconsequential words, seldom skipped words as unimportant, and had a negative self-concept

Carrell (1989) canicd out the research with two groups of students: the Spanish speaking group and Inglish- speaking group The instrument was questionnaires to find out the relationship between the reading strategies used by first and second language leamers and their reading ability The resulls indicated that the perception of stralegics between good LI readers and good L2 readers had some differences [he Spanish- speaking learners of Rnglish perceived global or lop down slalegies more effectively, whereas local or bottom-up strategies were associated with Hnglish- speaking learners’ reading ability in the L2

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Anderson (1991) investigated the differences in reading strategy use by adult second language learners The results revealed that both high and low scoring readers appeared to be using the same kinds of strategies while answering the comprehension questions, however, high scoring students seemed to be applying strategies more

eflectively and appropriately

Block (1992) investigated the comprehension monitoring process used by first and second language readers of Linglish ‘Ihe subjects were 25 college freshmen and consisted

of proficient and non-proficient readers of English While reading an oxposilory text, the participants were asked to think aloud or more specifically, to "say everything they understood and everything they were thinking as they read each sentence" (Block, 1997:

323) The resulis indicated that when facing a vocabulary problew, proficient EST readers used background knowledge, decided on whether the word contributed to the overall meaning of the passage, reread the sentence and used syntactic clues The

imeaning-based strategies are classificd as global behaviors On the olher hand, non- proficient ISL readers focused on identifying lexical problems and did little to figure out

the meaning of the words

Sugirin (1999) used a multi-method study to explore the comprehension strategies

of DFL readers The research methods used were think-aloud protocol analysis, retellings,

a reading comprehension test, in-depth interviews and casual observations The resulls indicated that there were noticeable gaps among the participants in the degree of comprehension and the strategies used Additionally, the subjects were found to share characteristics of both poor and good readers In the think-aloud activity, they skimmed the whole text at the beginning although they were instructed to read it sentence by

sentence, which indicates that their strategies follow top-down processing, considered a

characteristic of good readers’ strategies

Hung (2001) investigated the frequency and types of reading strategies used by Uhird-ycar inale and (esnale students in semor Ingh school The findings showed that there was a significant difference by gender in the reading comprehension ability, in which

female students were better than male students However, there was no significant

difference between male and female students in terms of overall strategy use Besides, no

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significant difference is found between male and female students when they read

narrative and expository materials separately

Ahmad and Asral (2004) did a research study on (he underlying slralogios used by second language leamers in responding to English texts ‘This case study investigated how

the leamers made an effort lo comprehend the lexis by selecting, understanding and

integrating information in the context of cight reading comprehension sub-skills in the form of comprehension questions, such as word meaning, words in context, literal comuprchension, drawing inferences from single strings, cle The results suggested that [he same comprehension answering strategies were used by the good and average readers Ilowever, the good readers were more consistently focused on each question type than

the average ones, they articulated their comprehension answermg slralegies more often

on each question type than the average readers

In conclusion, the findings of all the above — mentioned researches in reading

siralegics revcalod that reading stratugios [acililaled their comprohonsion proficiency

Additionally, there are indeed differences between successful or good readers, and less

successful or poor readers it terms of stralegy use The results showed thal successful

readers know how to use reading strategies efficiently There is also a strong relationship between reading strategies and proficiency level Poor readers failed to ask questions, lake notes or use a diclionary as oflen as good readers Overall, good readers appear to use a wider range of strategies with higher frequency than poor readers do Besides,

there is no significant difference between male and female students in terms of overall

strategy use

1.4.2 Vietnamese research on reading strategies

Ia (2006) carried out a study named “A study on Linghsh reading strategies

employed by the second year Bridge and Road students at University of Transport and Comemumeations” The aim of the study was to examine the differences in the reading strategies employed by the good and poor readers among a group of 13 second year non

English majors at the University of Transport and Communications Tn this study, both

quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed The quantitative analyses was

employed through the process of data collected from a written questionnaire and think-

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aloud reports to examine the differences between the good and bad readers in their

reading strategies In addition, the qualitative approach is used to deal with the data collected from inlerviews with these lwo groups of readers Based on the analysis of data from questionnaires and think-aloud reports, the study showed that the good or effective

and bad or ineffeclive readers significantly differed from each other in the frequency of

strategy use The cffcctive readers tended to usc the metacognitive and cognitive strategies much more frequently than the ineffective ones

Huong (2007) carried oul a study called “How to Tmprove Reading Comprehension of the 10th-orm Students at Le Hong Phong High School” The objectives of the study were to investigate the real situation of teaching and learning

reading al Le Hong Phong High School, the difficulties in reading thal the 10th-fonn

students often cope with so as to give some suggestions for improving their reading

comprehension The study employed the qualitative approach involving two survey

questiormaires with 97 tenth form students and 8 teachers of English al Te Hong Phong Iligh School to collect the data for the study The findings revealed that the teachers were

aware of many factors (hal affect students’ reading comprehension, and there were four

main factors that should be taken into consideration for the 10th-form students, namely

students’ lack of background knowledge and world knowledge, students’ low motivation, sludents’ Tmited vocabulary and grammatical structures and their lack of appropriate reading strategies Additionally, the findings of the study also indicated that there was a hig gap between what the teachers have done ta motivate the students and what the students prefer ‘[he majority of students prefer having supplementary reading texts for extensive reading, They want their teachers to provide them with reading strategies, how

to read efficiently Besides, it reveals that the teachers do not make full use of games and visual aids of which calch Uke mleresi of most lhe siudents

Sao (2008) conducted a study to investigate students’ difficulties in reading texts

im the new textbook for grade 10 al Nghi Loc TV high school according lo their perceptions ‘The study employed semi-structured interviews will be conducted on a

group of 20 tenth form students to collect the data The findings of the study showed that

when leaming reading skills the students encounter difficultics in vocabulary, grammar,

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background knowledge and reading tasks Ihe findings also showed that despite the awareness of the importance of reading, some students had negative attitude toward

learning English which made their reading more difficult Morcover, students were nol

equipped with necessary skills to become successful readers and some units, reading

lasks were nol appropriate for the studens’ levels Finally, inefficient teaching methods

and classroom techniques might be other causes of the students’ difficulties

Linh (2008) implemented a study among 100 eleventh form students and ten

leachers at Phan Dang uu high school lo invesligate the current, silualion of teaching and learning reading comprehension of the 11 form students to find out advantages as well

as problems facing, both teachers and students in reading lessons, and to suggest useful

lechniques to develop the reading comprehension skills in the while- reading stage for the

11® form in Phan Dang Lua high school ‘Ihe research method included consulting

related materials, survey questionnaires and reading lessons observations The thesis

presented some useful techniques accompanied by a wumber of activilics to develop

certain reading skills for students in the while- reading stage, ie reading for general

understanding, reading for specific information and reading for further understanding Additionally, the statistics indicated that both students and teachers have positive

attitudes toward teaching and leaming reading Lowever the while- reading activities the

teachers used were nol sufficient enough to develop their students reading skills

Huong (2010) conducted a study applying quantitative method including

comprehension tests and strvey questionnaires to investigate the reading strategies

utilized by readers among 32 ethnic minority junior first-year Hnglish-majored students at Tay Bac University The findings confirmed that the readers rarely or sometimes

employed top-down or tended to combine top-down and bottom-up strategies They

hardly ever or sometimes toad questions to know what to Focus on while reading, determined suitable strategies according to their reading purposes, scanned for key

information, skipped unimportant words, guessed meanings of naw words itt context

In short, the above researches mainly focus on the use of reading, strategies of high

school and university students The resulis indicated that there were significant

differences between good readers and bad readers in the frequency of strategy use

1ã

Moreover, both high school and university students had difficulties in choosing and applying appropriate reading strategies while learning reading As for high school students, they also faced up with difficulties regarding vocabulary, grammatical structures, background knowledge and reading tasks

All in all, it can be concluded that learning reading strategy is one of the effective factor in improving LI'L reading comprehension proficiency ‘he more reading strategies readers employed while reading, the better the comprehension What is more, it is the teacher’s responsibilities to motivate reading by selecting the appropriate materials and especially for those at the early stages of learning

SUMMARY

Tu this chapter, the researcher has elaboralcly chscussed lhe theoretica! basis of the study by defining and clarifying the various aspects in the hope of providing an important background for the discussion of the collected data later The following chapter will display the methodology and findings of the research under the light of the above-

mentioned theories

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CHAPTER 2: TIIE METHODOLOGV

‘The previous chapter has provided a necessary theoretical background for the present study This chapter presents the methodology used for the data collection and

analysis in the study Tt starts with setting of the study and the description of the

participants It then describes data collection instruments and analysis procedures of the study

2.1 An overview of the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” (the set of standard

lextbuaks}

2.L1 Objectives

‘The Linglish textbook “Tieng Anh 10” (the set of standard textbooks) was written

by a group of lecturers of ULIS (VNU, Hanoi) and published in 2006 The syllabus of the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” 1s the contimuztion of that of the Llextbooks al sceondary

schools

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, by the end of the 10" form

students arc expected to achieve the following,

- Listen for the main ideas or for specific information of a monologue or a dialogue with the longth of 120 - 150 wards of the topics they have learnt

- Exchange information in English at a simple level about the situations relating to the topics they have learnt

- Comprehend passages of appropriately 190 - 230 words about the topics they have

learnt

- Understand the main ideas of the text or understand the text in detail Develop

vocabulary comprehension: gap - filling, matching, ole

- Write paragraphs (of about 100 - 120 words) relating to the topics they have learnt

according to a madel or with prompts

It can be seen that although students have learnt English for many years (may be

since secondary school); they come from different schools with different teaching

mlhods, Therefore, their levels and proficiency also vary Additionally, in such context

of large class size and short period of time, it is likely that not all students can achieve the

goals, and there are differences hetween students

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2.1.2 Content of the textbook

The English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” is designed under theme- based approach

with]6 units covering six topics Topic one is “You and Me” consisting of unit 1 (A day

in the life of ), urit 2 (School talk) and unil 3 (People’s background) Topic 2 is about

“Education” which includes unit 4 (Special education), uit 5 (Yechnology and you), and unit 6 (An excursion) Topic 3 is “Community” comprising unit 7 (The mass media) and unit 8 {The story of my village) Topic 4 is about “Nature and Environment” (Unit 9 -

Lndersea world, 10 - Conservation, and 1] - National parks) ‘The next topic is

“Recreation” (Unit 12 - Music, 13 - Films and cinema, 14 - The world cup) People and Places (Units 15 Cities, 16 Historical places)

There are five parts in each unit arranging in equal arder as follows: Reading,

Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language focus Rach part is carried oul in a period

(45 minutes) The aim of the arrangement is to help students to practice four macro-skills

as much as possible In addition, there is a “Test yourself” after every two or three units The objectives of the “Test yoursell” is to examine how well students have achieved m the previous units ‘The “Yest yourself” is constructed as follows: Listening, Reading, Grammar and Writing,

Reading is the beginning part of each unit ‘the aims of tlus is that through reading and through developing reading skills such as scanning, skimming, etc the students are

provided with language input Therefore, students can speak, listen and write about the

things relating to the theme in the next parts

Hence, it is essential for students to have good reading strategies to leam other skills Duc to the scope of the study, below arc the characteristics of reading part in the

textbook

2.1.3 Characteristics of reading part in the textbook

In reading part, there is always a passage whose topic relates to other three skills

It is designed with three parts including “Before you read” (pre-reading), “While you

read” (while-reading) and “Alter you read” (post-rcading)

“Before you read” often gives questions with clear and beautiful pictures to lead in

the topic of the text In “While you read” (While - reading) of each unl, there are two or

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three tasks with its own aim Students often have to scan for specific information and skim for general ideas By doing the tasks with such reading strategies students can be able lo cnbance their reading skills “After you read” also provides uselul activities [or students and helps students revise what they have leant from the passage

Obviously, various topics in the reading lexts are beneficial for reading comprehension development Llowever, sometimes students struggle to understand the reading texts because same passages have got new words and grammatical structures Thus, int order to understand the reading passages, Ihe teachers have to provide students

with reading strategies, guidance, aud support

In conclusion, reading part helps studenls improve mainly scamming and skiraming strategies, so they haven’t learnt all of the reading strategies well

2.2 Objectives and method of the study

The research was camiel out to investigale the current use of reading

comprehension strategies applicd by the 10” form students in Pham Hong Thai high

school and find out how to enhance 10" form students’ reading comprehension

Therefore, the research was to sock answers lo the following research questions

I What are reading strategies currently applied by 10" form students in Pham Hong

Thai high school?

2 How to improve 10” form students’ reading comprehension?

To conduct this study, qualitative approach was employed The qualitative analysis was employed mainly through the process of data collected from a written

survey questionnaire delivered to 10 form students and ar unstructured group interview

with 10" form Fnglish teachers ai Phạm Hong Thai high school

2.3 The participants of the study

The perticipants of the study consisted of the tenth form students and the tenth form English teachers at PHT high school

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2.3.1, Students

As for the students, the samples were 150 tenth form students from four classes

chosen randomly as follow:

There are 13 classes of the tonth form students, and cach class has approximatcly

35 students ‘These 13 classes were arranged in ascending order from 1 to 13, then one

class chosen after every 3 classes

‘There are some reasons for choosing these tenth form students as the participants

of this study Firstly, the training quality of these students is always of greal concern to teachers at PHT high school The findings of the study would provide essential information for teachers to improve FIET students’ reading proficiency and hence

contribute to enhancing the overall training quality of these students Secondly, they are

suitable participants for the study because they have already finished the first semester in

English reading Their proficiency levels were generally reported to be between

clemenlary and intermediate, which is of greal concern towards the researcher to conduct the study on reading strategies In addition, these students are chosen randomly from four

classes, if is feasible for the researcher to have favorable conditions to carry oul all the

steps of the research process

2.3.2 Teachers

As regards the teachers, currently, there are five linglish teachers including the researcher hersel! being in charge of teaching Bnglish to the 10° form students However, to assure the objective opinions, only four teachers were chosen to be the participants All of them are energetic and are willing to devote their time and energy to leaching Additionally, all of them have much valuable experience of leaching (more than ten years) Thus, they can be well-aware of students’ needs, their strengths and weaknesses as well as their strategies in leaming English reading skill They were interviewed 10 share their opinions and experience on how lo improve their students? reading, comprehension

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2.4, Instruments of data collection

‘rhe major instraments employed in this study are survey questionnaire for students and semi unstructured group interview for teachers

research There are a few advantages to use survey questionnaire as a research method

"The main attraction of questionnaires is their unprecedented efficiency in torms of (a)

researcher time, (b) researcher effort, and (c) fmancial resources." (Zoltan Dornyei, 2003

9) Also, Selinger and Shohany (1989) poimted out the following advantages of

questionnaires Firstly, they do not take so much time to administer as other procedures

Secondly, since the same questiommire is giver to all subjects at the same time, the data

are more uniform, standard and accurate Lastly, questionnaires can be easily quantified because multiple choice questions are used Because of these advantages, questionnaire is

employed as a main data collection method in this study

The questionnaire used in this study consisted of two main parts The first one asked for the subjects’ background information including their ages, genders, the number

of years learning English, and their self-evaluated English proficiency levels The second part comprised of seven questions, in which two questions used 4 — point Likert scale to figure out the students’ attitude toward reading comprehonsion and having, good reading strategies Two other questions are multiple choice ones which asked for students’ purposes of learning reading and their difficulties in reading a text ‘he next question

used 5 — paint Likert scale to measure the participants' reading strategies and two last

questions were open — ended ones seeking for their use of other reading strategies and their ideas about teachers’ action to help enhance their reading comprehension (See

Appendix 1)

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2.4.2 Unstructured group interview for teachers

Together with survey questionnaire for students, the researcher also employed an

unstructured group interview for teachers as anothor source of data collection to assure the validity and reliability of the data collected for the study As interviews are

interactiv

, the researcher can “elicit additional data if initial answers are vague,

incomplete, off-topic or not specific enough” (Mackey and Grass, 2005:173)

It ts noted that the interview was an unstractured interview seeking for their opinion an how to enhance their students’ reading comprehension Additionally the

questions were all opereended, which oncouraged the inlerviewoes to expand upon their answers, clarify some issues; give more details or add additional perspectives around the

lopic Additionally, the imlerview was tape-recorded and the important points throughout

the interview were noted down, which was useful for later interpretation

2.5 Data collection procedures

The procedure of data collection consists of three main stages as follows:

Stage 1; In this stage, the survey questiomaire was constructed and edited carefully After that, it was modified and piloted with some respandents to ensure that

both of their content and structures could be suitable to the samples

Stage 2: The survey questionaire for the shudenls was administered by the

researcher in the classes The aim of this questionnaire was to figure out the owrent

situation of reading comprehension strategies used by the samples The researcher briefly

introduced her study, instructed dhem how to complete the survey questions (Vietnamese version) and got trimmed to help them if needed in order to avoid misunderstanding and

achieve the most accurate results,

Stage 3: Then, the researcher contacted with four 10% form English teacher so as

lo invite them to participale in the imterviews [tis noted that, all of respondents” personal

information were assured to be particularly kept confidential by the researcher

The interview with the tenth form Enghsh teachers was conducted after the data of

the survey questionnaire were analyzed ‘I'he purpose of thus interview was to affirm the

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