The reality of teaching and learning reading for non-English majors at Banking Academy- Son Tay Training Center = Nghiên cứu thực trạng của việc dạy và học đọc

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1.1: The three Definitions of Reading by Weaver 1994 6 Table 2.1: The result of how teachers delivered the reading lessons 18 Table 2.2: Teachers’ act

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

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NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG MINH

THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING READING FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT BANKING

ACADEMY-SON TAY TRAINING CENTER

( Nghiên cứu thực trạng của việc dạy và học đọc đối với hệ học tiếng Anh không chuyên tại Học viện Ngân hàng- Cơ sở đào tạo Sơn Tây )

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi - 2011

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

****************

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG MINH

THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING READING FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT BANKING

ACADEMY-SON TAY TRAINING CENTER

( Nghiên cứu thực trạng của việc dạy và học đọc đối với hệ học tiếng Anh không chuyên tại Học viện Ngân hàng - Cơ sở đào tạo Sơn Tây )

M.A Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Vũ Thị Thu Thuỷ,M.A

Hanoi - 2011

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BA-STC: Banking Academy- Son Tay training center

FL: Foreign language

EFL: English as a foreign language

L1: the first language

L2: The second language

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1.1: The three Definitions of Reading by Weaver (1994) 6

Table 2.1: The result of how teachers delivered the reading lessons 18

Table 2.2: Teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage 18

Table 2.3: Teachers’ activities at While- reading stage 19

Table 2.4: Teachers’ activities at Post- reading stage 20

Table 2.5: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage 23

Table 2.6: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at While- reading

1.1.2 The traditional and innovative views of teaching reading 6

1.4 Impacts of attitudes on teaching and learning reading 13

1.5 Factors affecting students’ reading comprehension 14

2.1 Result of the observation of teachers’ activities 18

2.2 Result of the se-mi structured interviews 21

2.2.1 Reasons for choosing the teachers’ reading teaching strategies 21

2.2.2 Teachers’ difficulties in reading teaching 21

2.3 Result of students’ questionnaires 23

2.3.1 Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities in reading lesson 23

2.3.2 Students’ difficulties in learning reading 26

3.1 Research question 1 and 2 28

3.2.1 Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities in reading lessons 32

3.2.2 Students’ difficulties in learning reading 35

2 The suggested procedure for teaching reading at BA-STC 37

3 Limitations and suggestions for further study 40

PART A: INTRODUCTION

Part A - Introduction- provides the background to the study and statement of the problem, the aims, the research question, the significance of the study as well as the research methodology It also outlines the organization of the thesis

1 Background to the study

Reading comprehension is the heart and goal of reading, since the purpose of all reading is to gather meaning from the printed page If a student says a word in a passage without gathering their meaning, one would hesitate to call that reading

Language plays a vital role in reading One cannot read a book in a language unless one knows that particular language If a learner‟s knowledge of English is poor, then his/her reading will also be poor, and naturally also his reading comprehension

Reading is one of the „most complex forms of information processing‟ (Kolers,

1973, p.29) and is probably the „most extensively researched‟ language skill (Bachman,

2000, p.x) In the recent decades, theories and models of reading have changed, from primarily receptive processes from text to reader to interactive processes between the reader and the text (cf., Adams, 1990; Eskey and Grabe, 1988; Perfetti, 1985; and Swaffar, 1988) Approaches to teaching reading materials in a foreign language have attempted to reflect this development through recommendations of interactive exercises and tasks

Based on what successful reading is, many reading specialists have come to agreement that reading lessons should follow such a framework as: pre-, during-, and post-reading instruction (Barnett, 1989; Brown, 2001; Grabe, 1991; Grabe and Stoller, 2001; Wallace, 1992) Barnett (1989) and Grabe and Stoller (2001) made a brief explanation about each type of instruction Pre-reading instruction makes students interested in a text and predicts the content of it through accessing necessary information or activating schema While-reading instruction helps students read strategically, mainly focusing on decoding skills Post-reading instruction deepens students‟ comprehension into the text It

is also emphasized that the activities in this framework are not limited to reading “Reading

is no longer isolated” (Eskey & Grabe, 1988, p.231) As in real life, reading activities

should be integrated with other skills - speaking, listening, and especially writing (Eskey & Grabe, 1988; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001) Accordingly, some of the activities should help students to develop other skills besides the reading Such kind of integration of the four skills will enable students to use more varieties of strategies more often, generating more interaction between the reader and the text

Teaching and learning reading comprehension have been identified by various researchers in both second and foreign language contexts (Barnett, 1989; Brown, 2001; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001; Wallace, 1992) However little empirical research have been conducted to uncover the methods of teaching reading comprehension used by Vietnamese teachers, especially by teachers at BA-STC To address this gap, my study will investigate the reality of teaching and learning reading for non-English major first year students at this training center

At BA-STC, students are required to take an English course in two terms in the first year The aim of this course is to equip students the general English program, consisting of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing In the first term of the first year, the students learned English in 45 periods of the New Headway Elementary After 12 weeks, the students had a final test that consisted of four parts: Vocabulary, Grammar and Reading comprehension and Writing The result of the final test in the first term showed us a surprising number: 72 percent of all the students (115) got bad marks in the reading comprehension section of the English test, although they had good marks in the other parts

of the test I would like to look into different aspects and try to find out the reasons leading

to this bad situation One of the main reasons lies in the fact that the teachers often simply give students a text and require them to answer a series of comprehension questions when they have finished reading the text The teachers do almost nothing to provide them with the skills or strategies needed to become efficient and independent readers For the lack of necessary strategies for teaching reading comprehension, it is more likely to have poor reading comprehension results

Therefore, in this study I intend to carry out some research in the reality of teaching and learning reading comprehension for non-English major first year students at BA-STC and basing on the findings and discussions to help to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning reading comprehension at this training center

2 Aim of the study

The purpose of this study is:

- To address teachers‟ and students‟ difficulties in teaching and learning reading comprehension

- To investigate students‟ attitude towards reading skill and understand their learning needs and learning style

- To make some suggestions to improve the current situation

3 Research question

This study aimed at the reality of teaching and learning reading comprehension at BA-STC and more specifically to answer the following questions:

1 How do teachers actually deliver the reading lesson at BA-STC?

2 What difficulties do teachers and students encounter while teaching and learning reading comprehension?

3 What are students‟ attitudes towards teachers‟ activities in a reading lesson?

4 Significance of the study

My present study is significant for some reasons Firstly, investigating the reality of teaching and learning reading comprehension helps the researcher to understand clearly how teachers taught reading and how students learned reading at BA-STC, the difficulties the teachers and students experienced while teaching and learning reading and students‟ preference towards the teacher‟s methods of teaching From this result, the study will make some important discussions to improve the quality of teaching and learning reading in the target college Moreover, these instructions may help teachers of English at BA-STC in their teaching careers

5 Research methodology

5.1 Data collection instruments

A description of the methodology was employed in this study First, the classroom observation was chosen to find out actually how a reading lesson was taught From the result of the observation, the researcher carried out three semi-structured interviews to

have reasons why teachers chose this approach and methods for teaching reading and what difficulties teachers had in teaching reading Finally, these questionnaires were designed to find out the students‟ preferences towards teachers‟ methods in reading lessons and students‟ difficulties in learning reading

5.2 The procedure of the study

At first, I investigated the reality and difficulties of English teaching reality in general and teaching reading in particular at BA-STC with the use of classroom observation and semi-structured interview tools, then I designed questionnaires to study learners‟ preference of teachers‟ activities in reading lessons and their difficulties The classroom observation was undertaken at this college in 6 weeks and I attended some reading classes instructed by three teachers To get reliable real data of how and what to be taught in reading lessons, I asked the teachers for their permission to attend their classes, but they were not informed the lessons to be observed When observing the lessons, I mainly based on the checklist observation sheets which include anticipated activities that teachers may use and those which are expected to be used in a good reading lessons I also took notes of evidences found in the classes and her comments on the activities, techniques and procedure At the end of the lessons, I conducted semi-structured interviews with the teachers for their explanation of the activities and steps of procedure they applied in the lessons I took notes during the interview Then, the data gathered from the observation and interview were synthesized and used as basis to design two questionnaires with Vietnamese versions for students The first questionnaire distributed after the observed lessons The second one was delivered in the sixth week of the study to students to investigate the problems and difficulties in learning reading they had in lessons with the quite complicated texts in the second part of the elementary book

6 Organization of the study

This minor thesis is composed of three parts as follow:

Part A - Introduction: presenting back ground to the study, aims, research

question, significance and design of the study

Part B - Development: consisting of three chapters Chapter 1 is for literature

which provides the theoretical background of the study Chapter 2- Result which reports

the results of classroom observations, questionnaires and the semi-structured interview Chapter 3- Finding and discussions, focuses on analyzing the research results to find

answers for the research questions

Part C - Conclusion: provides suggestions for teaching and learning reading at

BA-STC and give limitations and directions for further research and makes a final

conclusion

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE review

This chapter discusses the theory and research into the areas that are basic for this study The first section provides the definitions of reading The second section discusses approaches to teaching reading The third section gives the impact of attitudes on learning and teaching reading The fourth section concerns factors affecting students‟ reading comprehension The chapter concludes with a review of previous studies on the reality of teaching and learning reading

1.1 Reading

1.1.1 Definitions of reading:

According to Weaver (1994), the first definition of reading is being able to pronounce the words Phonemic awareness is the ability to segment, delete, and combine speech sounds into abstract units While students will be able to hear phonemes, they may not be able to conceptualize them as units Phonemic awareness must be based upon a growing understanding of the alphabetic principle of English; there is sufficient evidence that many children basically understand this before they have mastered the set of letter to sound correspondences (Adam, 1990) This definition supports the bottom-up theory of reading where the reader decodes the text by referring the smallest unit (letters to words to phrases and to sentences)

The second definition on reading by Weaver (1994) pertains to the ability to identify words and extract meanings from words Knowledge of phonics or basic letter-sound relationship is necessary but not sufficient when reading to extract meaning from a text Just teaching the letter and the associated sound does not develop good readers The teaching of phonics should be contextualized and the students‟ learning ability needs to be taken into consideration

The third definition on reading as posited by Weaver (1994), supports the interactive model of reading In the interactive model, the reader interacts with the text The level of depth of text processing depends on the reader‟s background knowledge, language proficiency level, motivation, strategy used and culturally shaped beliefs about reading The ultimate goal of reading will be to enable the readers to understand what they

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have read Good comprehension readers have good vocabularies They are able to understand and describe words They use the word in the text to unravel its meaning They ask questions, predict and extract main ideas They are also facile in employing sentence structures within the text to enhance their comprehension Therefore, one can conclude that the three definitions of reading by Weaver (1994) encompass three elements: the ability to recognize and pronounce words, the ability to extract meaning and to interact with the text The three definitions of reading by Weaver (1994) are illustrates in the following diagram:

Figure 1.1: The three Definitions of Reading by Weaver (1994)

For the purpose of this study, reading can be defined as “reading means

understanding” (Ur, 1996, p.138) A foreign language learner who says, „I can read every

word but I don‟t know what they mean‟ is not, therefore, reading, in this sense He or she

is merely decoding-translating written symbols into corresponding sounds‟

1.1.2 The traditional and innovative views of teaching reading

Reading has been “viewed as a two fold phenomenon involving process (comprehending) and product (comprehension)” (Silberstein, 1987, p.30) In brief, there are two main outlooks on reading The first, a product oriented approach to reading, assumes meaning exists in the text itself, and it is text-based factors that determine meaning In this view, pre-reading activities rely mostly on clarifying the meaning of difficult words or complex structures Whereas, for the second, process-oriented approach

to reading, meaning is obtained through a successful interaction between the reader and the text, and it is inside-the-head factors that play an important role in comprehension

In the traditional methodology, the teacher explains a text sentence by sentence, analyzing the structure of the sentence, elaborating on the language points (i.e., difficult words and

Learning to pronounce the words

Learning to identify words and

get their meaning Learning to bring meaning to a text

in order to get meaning from it

Learning to read

idiomatic expressions) Then translation of the sentence is followed, which is mainly done

by the teacher

Following is a typical procedure for a product oriented approach to reading (Silberstein, 1987, p.30): 1/ the teacher presents new vocabulary, often at length; 2/ the teacher reads the text aloud to the class (who has not yet seen it) S/he asks them what it is about; 3/ the teacher reads it aloud again while the students follow it in their book Then s/he may ask them one or two more questions; 4/ Individual students read the text aloud

“ reading aloud the class” and the teacher interrupts to correct pronunciation; 5/ the students read the text silently and try to remember as much as they can for the questions the teacher may ask afterwards; 6/ the teacher asks oral questions on the text and students answer orally

It can be seen that none of the above activities involved are what the learner needs Clearly, there is little here to help students become efficient readers Therefore, the question is that how to teach learners to read effectively

The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of classroom procedures that give practice in useful sub skills of the reading and comprehending process Jeremy Harmer sets out guidelines for this in the form of a five-stage model (Harmer, 1983, p.151): 1/ the teacher introduces the topic and explores the students‟ previous knowledge of it; 2/ the teacher sets the tasks that the students will have to perform during or after reading; 3/ the students read silently and perform the task; 4/ the teacher gives feedback on the students‟ performance of the task (Stages 2 to 4 can be repeated); 5/ the teacher gives follow-up tasks

Stage 2 ensures that the learners have a reason for reading-which they know, before they even begin to read, what they will have to get out of the text This mean that they read

in a certain way, i.e., practice a particular sub skill of reading The teacher ( or material writer ) chooses tasks for the students to perform while they read, in light of the type of text, its organization, its content, the new language it contains and-most importantly- the reading styles that are appropriate for the act of comprehending ( Williams, 1984, p.38 )

Classroom reading activities are designed to teach students the reading comprehension process, not just to test their ability to come up with the right product

1.2 Approaches to teaching reading

“How do we read?” To this question, which seems simple but is really profound, many researchers have tried to find an answer At present, there are three main models of how reading occurs based on various reading theories

The first and oldest approach to the reading process is the bottom-up processing which can be said to be a traditional view of the reading process According to Eskey and Saville-Troike (as cited in Carrell, 1988a), it has existed since before reading research began to be recognized as an independent scholastic field This processing goes from the smaller units of text to the larger units of it (Carrell, 1988b; Frehan, 1999) After the readers recognize the letters and know what word the combinations of these letters are, they extract its meaning from their lexicon Next, they construct the meaning of a phrase or

a clause by gathering the meaning of each word Finally, they build up the meaning for a sentence by assembling of each phrase or clause In short, the meaning of a sentence consists of the combinations of the smaller units of the sentence In other words, meaning was considered to be buried in the text (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983) What is emphasized

in this processing, Segalowitz, Poulsen and Komoda (as citied in Anderson, 1999) described, is linguistic knowledge such as:

Word recognition and include visual recognition of letter features, letter identification, the generation of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, unitization of orthographic redundancies such as regularities in letter sequences, the association

of words to words to their semantic representations, possibly the identification of basic syntactic structures within the portion of the text currently being in read, and with the generation of prepositional units (p 3)

The second type of reading processing is top-down, which arose from psycholinguistics (Frehan, 1999) The greatest difference between this processing and the bottom-up processing is that, according to Goodman (as citied in Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983), readers do not use every piece of on formation in the text That is to say, the readers select some parts of text according to their current purpose and use them only so as to predict meaning and to confirm the predicted meanings by relating the readers‟ own previously acquired knowledge (Carrell, 1988a) Many researchers have insisted that “the concepts which a reader brings to a text are actually more important than text itself for comprehension” (Mikulecky, 1990, p.4) Among those concepts that the readers use in the process of comprehension, the knowledge about the content of the text, rather than the

knowledge of the text, is emphasized As for linguistic knowledge, Segalowitz, Poulsen and Komoda ( as cited in Anderson, 1999) stated that focus is mainly put on “higher- level” reading skills, such as “ integrating prepositional units across sentences, generating and updating a schema or representation of the text as a whole, and integrating textual information with prior knowledge” (p.3)

The third and newest reading process is currently most accepted (Anderson, 1999) The process which comes from schema theory is called “interactive processing” (Carrell, 1988b; Chia, 2001) Rumelhart (as cited in Carrell, 1988b) defined is as “a combination of top-down and bottom-up processing” (p.101) Rumelhart (as cited in Mikulecky, 1990) explained how these two types of processing works as follows: In trying to comprehend a text, the reader is in the bottom-up mode when she “replies primarily on textual information”, and she is in the top-down mode when she “focuses primarily on what is already known” (p.2) Mikulecky (1990) and Chia (2001) insisted that both kinds of processing are employed simultaneously complement one another, which means that what

is important in the interactive processing is both “second language proficiency and background knowledge about the topic for deficiencies with each other (as cited in Anderson, 1999) So good readers are those who have “both decoding and interpretation skills” (Anderson, 1999, p.3) and in Spiro‟s (as cited in Carrell, 1988b) words, “ constantly shift their mode of processing , accommodating to the demands of a particular text and a particular reading situation” (p.101)

The notion that reading is the interactive process, which means a kind of “whole” process because of any other kind of knowledge other than linguistic knowledge, will change the way for teachers to teach and the way for students to read English Reading English becomes a little more similar to reading native language

1.3 Stages of a reading lessons

The process of a reading lesson usually consists of three stages: pre-reading in), while- reading (skimming and scanning) and post-reading (Brown, 1994) It is affirmed that the pre-reading, while- reading, and post-reading are very important when teaching any reading text Each of these stages has its own characteristics, although they are related to one another

(lead-1.3.1 The pre- reading stage

According to Williams (1984, p.37), the purposes of pre-reading are to introduce and arouse interest in the topic; to motivate learners by giving a reason for reading; to provide some language preparation for the text

Schema theory research provides strong evidence for the effectiveness of pre- reading activities that include both providing the outline for reading the text and teaching cultural key concepts According to Chastain (1988), pre-reading activities motivate readers to read the text and when they are motivated-prepared for the reading activity -they complete the activity better and with less effort and are eager to participate in the activity since they have gained confidence Lewin (1984) recommends that language teacher- like other course teachers -should encourage learners to evaluate what they read Pre-reading activities may help the teacher to facilitate this If the readers do not have sufficient background knowledge then the teacher should provide them with at least some background knowledge Activating readers‟ prior knowledge of a topic before they begin

to read may help students‟ comprehension (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983; Grabe, 1991; Ur, 1996) Ur also argues that tasks make the activity more interesting since the readers have a purpose in reading and also the reading teacher may see how well the text is understood with the help of tasks given before and/ or after reading

Davies ( 2000, p.93) states some activities commonly used in C: guessing the topic

of the text from the heading, illustration etc…; brainstorming around a topic word on the board; predicting what the text will say; writing questions that may be answered by the text

In conclusion, the pre-reading stage helps to make the next stages of reading more easily adaptable for the reader As the reader processes along the necessary reading stages, more skills begin to develop Therefore, this stage is very important to orient students to any new material they do not know, to activate schema for previous knowledge of a topic, and to help motivate students Also, without the pre-reading stage, the task (while-reading) might be more difficult and progressively less enjoyable As a result, the reader may struggle and may withdraw from reading

1.3.2 The While-reading stage

Williams (1984, p.38) states the purposes of while-reading as follows: to help students‟ understanding of the writer‟s purpose; to help students‟ understanding of the text structure; to clarify text content

The reading or the while-reading stage could be approached in different ways For example, Richards sees reading “ as an integration of top-down processes that utilize background knowledge and schema, as well as bottom-up processes that are primarily text

or data driven” (1990, p.87) It is the best way that teachers should be encourage and stimulate for students in regards to the use of the two processes, top-down and bottom-up, when they actually tackle any text The students, on the one hand, might be asked to treat the text as a whole to get the general picture without being too concerned with the details, i.e., skimming the text to pick out main points rapidly On the other hand, they might be asked to look at a text and extract specific information, i.e., scanning the text to find out a fact that they are interested in or asked for Thus, whether the readers skim or scan the text depends on their purpose and the goal

The activities in while-reading (William, 1984, p.38) can be: reading for general understanding (skimming); reading for extracting specific information (scanning); reading for detailed information; predicting continuing events, then reading to confirm expectation; reading on communicative tasks

Hyland (1990), Nunan (1999) and Brown (2001) discuss scanning and skimming activities According to Brown, skimming and scanning are thought to be the most valuable reading strategies Through skimming, a reader is able to predict the purpose of the passage, and gets the writer‟s message (Flowerdew and Peacock (2001) In this way readers are asked to predict the whole text, though they do not read all of it Similarly, Anderson (2000) proposes that skimming is a metacognitive skill that is used by good readers Bachman and Cohen (1998) and Flowerdew and Peacock (2001) also state that skimming allows readers to read for general understanding Scanning and skimming work better if they are supported with evaluation activities ( Karakas, 2002) Hyland (1990) states that, through surveying, the reader previews the text content and organization where she uses referencing and non-text material Basically, it aims to make quick check of the relevant extra-text categories such as: referencing data, graphical data, and typographical data Karakas (2002) proposes that readers better comprehend if they are asked to state their ideas about the topic of the text and then evaluate it with their friends in the class and

the activities reciprocal teaching, evaluating, inferring and re-reading provide a dialogue between the reader and the writer while the activities scanning and clarifying draw a clear mental picture for the reader

In conclusion, the reading activities which teachers might use range from reading for the pure sake of reading, silent reading, to more focus reading where the students learn

to skim for the main idea, scan for the secondary categories, or read intensively for the supporting ideas Obviously, this helps to encourage critical thinking and increases comprehension and easy retention

1.3.3 The Post-reading stage

According to Chastain (1988), post- reading activities help readers to clarify any unclear meaning where the focus is on the meaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects of the text Ur (1996) discusses summarize as a kind of post-reading activities where the readers are asked to summarize the content in a sentence or two It is also possible to give this post-reading activity in the mother tongue Karakas (2002) proposes that readers interpret the text and illustrate the relationship between the questions and their answers by using activities such as summarizing, questions and answer and drawing conclusions and it is possible to catch the missing parts of the mental picture through thinking aloud, discussion and summarizing

Karakas (2002) proposes that readers interpret the text and illustrate the relationship between the questions and their answers by using activities such as summarizing, questions and answer and drawing conclusions and it is possible to catch the missing parts of the mental picture through thinking aloud, discussion and summarizing William (1984, p.39) gives the following activities: multiple choice questions; table, chart, questionnaire completion with facts or based on text information; follow-up writing or listening; role-play; debate/class discussion on the topic; and problem-solving with the aid

of information from the text

In conclusion, following and implementing the aforementioned stages and insights would help the students to depend on themselves and on other resources, rather than on us

as the primary source of information This is where students‟ initiative/interaction comes into play They start developing skills by themselves, which later become their own skills through interaction with the reading text That is, the goal of teaching reading should

ultimately be to help encourage critical thinking and increase comprehension and easy retention

1.4 Impacts of attitudes on teaching and learning reading

There are many ways of definitions of attitudes on teaching and learning reading Allport (1954) defines an attitude “mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual‟s response to all objects and situations with which it is related” Gardner (1985, p.10) sees attitudes as components of motivation He also made the connection “motivation refers to the combination of effort plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language” Attitudes have many impacts towards learning and teaching

Social psychologists would expect “success in mastering a foreign language would depend not only on intellectual capacity and language aptitude, but on one‟s attitudes towards representatives of that language as well” (Gardner & Lamber, 1972) In fact, learner possess a set of attitudes which relate to the language learning situation, e.g attitudes to the course book, to the variety of language, to the target language community, and so on Ewards (1982) (cited in Gibb, 1998) assumed that attitudes influence learning: positive attitudes are likely to result in students‟ motivation, which leads to better learning; and the students‟ learning will suffer from negative attitudes

Concerning attitudes in the language learning, it is claimed that attitudes control an individual motivation and are especially relevant for language learning because language learning includes many different aspects besides learning skills (Gardner & Lamber, 1972)

It is claimed that attitudes have influence on the development of motivation… and have more specific effects, so that attitudes appear to carry into particular motivation

A learners‟ motivation for language study would be determined by his attitudes and readiness to identify and by his orientation to the whole process of learning a foreign language ( Gardner & Lamber, 1972) The more motivation a learner has, the more time s/he will spend learning an aspect of the language (Slopsky, 1992, p.148) Similarly, Lundberg (1974), in his research, found both motivation for learning a language and attitudes towards the target culture to be important in factors in effecting learning According to these claims attitudes may play a very important role in language learning, as they would appear to influence students‟ success or failure in their learning

In the process of teaching, the approach that teachers use in the classroom depends

on their attitudes towards it Doukas (1996) mentioned the importance of teachers‟ attitudes in the classroom that „teacher‟ educational attitudes and theories, although in many cases unconsciously held, have an effect on their classroom behavior, influence what student actually learn, and are a potent determinant of teachers‟ teaching style In the curriculum innovation literature, teachers‟ attitudes are seen to play a crucial role in determining the implementation of an approach (Doukas, 1996) If teachers hold positive attitudes to a theory of teaching, they are considered being good for both language learning and teaching They will be better and help students‟ learning very much, nevertheless, if they hold negative attitudes to it, they will refuse to apply it in their teaching, and their students will suffer from it

1.5 Factors affecting students’ reading comprehension

Reading, whether in a first or second language context, involves the reader, the text and the interaction between the reader and text (Rumelhart, 1977) The identification of the factors affecting reading comprehension will undoubtedly help us a lot in the effective teaching of English reading “The research in 1970s and 1980s laid out many of the variables associated with the second language reading process” (Elizabeth, 2005) Among these variables, strategies, background knowledge and vocabulary, motivation are major factors affecting reading comprehension

1.5.1 Learning strategies

Learning strategies are important and should be paid attention to because they are one of the major applications of cognitive theory Oxford (1990) claims that “learning strategies are behaviors or actions which learners use to make language learning more successful, self-directed and enjoyable” Learning strategies are procedures undertaken by the learner, in order to make their own language learning as effective as possible

Learning strategies can be classified into three categories, cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, and social strategies In O‟Malley and Chamot‟s (1990, p.52) view, learning strategies are complex procedures that individuals apply to tasks; consequently, they may be represented as procedural knowledge which may be acquired through cognitive, associated, and autonomous stages of learning As with other procedural

skills at the different stages of learning, the strategies may be conscious in early stages of learning and later performed without the person‟s awareness As an important application

of cognitive theory, cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies, both of which belong

to learning strategies, should influence reading comprehension greatly

Hosenfield (1977) identifies a good reader as one who tries to keep the meaning pf the passage in mind, read in chunks, ignores less important words, tries to guess the meanings of unknown words using contextual clues, and has a good concept of himself/ herself as a reader Following these studies, three have been attempts to instruct learners in using these strategies to make them better readers (Block, 1992; Victori & Lockhart, 1995) These studies show a positive correlation between reading strategy instruction and reading proficiency

Since the development of psycholinguistic models of reading, researchers and teachers alike argue that the best way to handle the unfamiliar words in the text is by drawing inferences from the rest of the text According to Hosenfield (1984) readiness to guess from context is what distinguishes a good reader from a bad one

However, while most researchers find that successful L2 and FL readers can correctly guess the meaning of unknown words while reading (Carrol & Drum, 1982), others question the effectiveness of contextual guessing Thus, Kelly (1990) claims that in anything other than a highly constrained context, guessing on its own help comprehension Likewise, according to Bensoussan & Laufer‟s (1984) observation, many FL readers do not effectively use context to guess word meanings

1.5.3 Background knowledge

Another reading problem is the lack of prior knowledge to help students to make connections to the text As a result, under confident students revert to lower level reading processes such as word level literal comprehension Support materials such as television and films can help enlarge experience and supply the necessary vocabulary to aid comprehension Many struggling readers lack confidence in their own ability to learn unfamiliar words or phrases found in a text This can sometimes impede the reading process when students assume that the text is far more difficult than actually it is Moreover, if the reader chooses to disregard portions of a text deemed unimportant or make irrelevant associations, then the actual meaning of the text can be misconstrued To solve this problem, the reader needs to be exposed to other viewpoints of the text Reading and discussing about the text will help individual readers gain different perspectives on issues in the text Hence, this will enable the reader to realize that his interpretation of the text is limited by his subjective view

Prior knowledge has a large influence on student performance, explaining up to 81% of the variance in posttest scores (Dochy, Segers & Buehl, 1999) And there is a well established correlation between prior knowledge and reading comprehension (Langer, 1984) Irrespective of students‟ reading ability, high prior knowledge of a subject area or key vocabulary for a text often means higher scores on reading comprehension measures (Langer, 1984; Long et al., 1989) In addition, high correlations have been found between prior knowledge and speed and accuracy of study behavior (reviewed in (Dochy et al, 1999) as well as students interest in a topic (Tobias, 1994) Thus, prior knowledge is associated with beneficial academic behaviors and higher academic performance

1.5.4 Motivation

A review of literature on second language learning emphasizes motivation as an important affective variable Collins (1996) identifies other causes for incomprehension besides poor motivation to a lack of experience or inadequate prior knowledge and a limited or subjective view of what is read Students experience low motivation in reading when they are unable to use the language in meaningful situations Only widespread involvement in language can solve the problem of poor motivation Communicative- based activities such as oral and recorded reading, asking questions, dictating stories and working

in small groups will also facilitate learning as well as increase students‟ motivation for reading (Carr, 1995) Commitment to read and invest interest in reading is crucial in order for instruction in learning strategies to be effective

In summary, learning strategies, vocabulary, motivation and background knowledge have been confirmed to have influence on learners‟ reading comprehension in many prior researches It is likely that these factors would affect the students‟ difficulties

in learning reading comprehension in this study

1.6 Previous studies

Zenhui (2004) presented his application of a new method in teaching EFL reading, namely combination of top-down methods and bottom-up methods His classroom observations showed that in reading classes in Asia, many teachers focused on grammar and vocabulary Their reading teaching methodology often started with reading the text word- by- word, explaining the meanings or words and grammar structures in the text He pointed out some limitations of bottom-up strategies and features of bottom-down methods Bottom-down methods often resulted in a meticulous emphasis on linguistic details and a corresponding lack of attention to communicative skills He described the new method of reconciling top-down and bottom-up methods employed in his reading classes He concluded that this reconciliation of top-down and bottom-up methods for teaching English reading worked quite satisfactorily for his students, helping them to integrate content and language points, speed and comprehension, fluency and accuracy His students overall reading ability has improved as a result of this teaching procedure

1.7 Summary

This chapter has addressed some major issues in terms of reading definitions, approaches to reading, the impacts of attitudes towards teaching and learning reading, factors affecting students‟ reading comprehension, previous study and summary

Chapter 2: RESULT

In this section, answers to the three research questions will be given In the 1stresearch question, the result of descriptive analysis on the teachers‟ activities in reading periods will be presented To find out the answer for the 2nd research question, the result of descriptive analysis on the teachers‟ and students‟ difficulties will be carried out and the

3rd research question will be reported finally

2.1 Result of the observation of teachers’ activities

Table 2.1: The result of how teachers delivered the reading lessons

A detailed analysis of the frequency of each activity teachers used in three stages of

a reading lesson will be reported below:

2.1.1 At Pre- reading stage

Table 2.2: Teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage

Teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage Lessons

1 2 3 4 5 6

2 Making students guess the topic of the text from the

heading, illustration…

√

4 Introducing and explaining new grammatical

structures in the text

5 Having students brainstorm words, structures, ideas related

to the topic of the text to discuss about the content of the text

√

6 Asking students to predict what the text will say √

8 Asking students to survey the text‟s title and heading

for the topic

√

9 Making students write questions about the text √

As seen on the table, there were two lessons with no Pre- reading stage Among the six lessons observed, pre-teaching vocabulary and new grammatical structures in the text had the highest average frequency (4/6 times), followed by introducing the topic of the text (3/6 times) The activities 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 seldom used in teaching reading at BA-STC (1/6 times) From these results, we could clearly see that teachers emphasized the importance of vocabulary and new grammatical structures when teaching reading Teachers helped students to recognize letters at first, then recognize the words, and in the end the reader got the meaning intended by the writer by combining the words that the reader recognize earlier In general, teachers tended to use bottom- up process of reading to help students to understand the content of the text and do the reading tasks

2.1.2 At While- reading stage

Table 2.3: Teachers’ activities at While- reading stage

Teachers’ activities at While- reading stage Lessons

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Reading aloud the text

2 Asking students to read aloud the text

3 Asking students to skim for general information √

4 Making students read the reading tasks first then read

the text to find the answer

7 Asking students to read the text and then do the

reading tasks

8 Asking students to find the main ideas for each paragraph √

9 Asking students to read for detailed information √ √ √

10 Having students guess meaning in context

Table 2.3 sums up activities used by teachers at While- reading stage As displayed

on the table, asking students to read the text and then do the reading tasks was the most frequent activity used by teachers (4/6 times); asking students to read for detailed information was widely used by teachers (3/6 times) The activities utilized least were asking students to skim for general information, making students scan for specific ideas and asking students to find the main ideas for each paragraph (1/6 times) meanwhile having students guess meaning in context was never used in these periods The classroom observation indicated a surprised result that no teacher read aloud the text or asking students to read aloud the reading text Analysis of table 3.3 showed that the traditional

methods were still popular in teaching reading at BA-STC

2.1.3 At Post- reading stage

Table 2.4: Teachers’ activities at Post- reading stage

Teachers’ activities at Post- reading stage Lessons

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Getting students to work in pairs/ groups to discuss

about the text

√

3 Making students have role-plays, follow-up writing or

listening

4 Getting students to have table, chart, questionnaire

completion with facts or based on text information

5 Asking students to summarize the text

As can be seen in table 2.4, there was a half of reading lessons observed with no Post- reading stage Among three lessons left, asking students to translate the text into Vietnamese was the most frequently used by the teachers meanwhile getting students to work in pairs/ groups to discuss about the text was only utilized once The results also indicated that no teacher asked students have role-plays, follow-up writing or listening, summarize the text or got students to have table, chart, questionnaire completion with facts

or based on text information These results proved that teachers did not consider Post- reading stage a necessary and important stage

2.2 Result of the se-mi structured interviews

2.2.1 Reasons for choosing the teachers’ reading teaching strategies

Two in three teachers interviewed affirmed that they often taught reading according

to the following steps: (1) teaching new words, (2) explaining sentences, (3) asking students to read the text and do the reading task, (4) translating the text Sometimes, they organized some communicative activities such as brainstorming words, structures, ideas related to the topic of the text, predicting what the text will say, surveying the text‟s title and heading for the topic, guessing the topic of the text from the heading, illustration, writing question about the text However, these activities were seldom used in teaching reading at BA-STC For these teachers, teaching vocabulary was one of the most important techniques to help students to read the text and answer the questions about the text They explained the reason why they chose these reading teaching strategies because they were under such great pressure to prepare their students to pass their examinations that they hardly had the time or the energy to teach other aspects of the language other than the potential test items and formats Students needed an amount of vocabulary and structures

to pass the exam Therefore, reading has been taught in a way which treated it as a subject, instead of a tool of communication

One teacher said that she skipped Pre-reading stage and Post-reading stage in her reading period In her opinion, her students had to prepare the lesson at home and look the new words up in the dictionary They had to be ready before the reading periods The teachers‟ duties were to help their students to solve the reading tasks

2.2.2 Teachers’ difficulties in reading teaching

When asked about the difficulties the teachers had to deal with in teaching reading comprehension, most of them indicated the following difficulties: students‟ limited linguistics knowledge and limited background knowledge, large classroom, students‟ bad reading habit and low motivation

First, the teachers affirmed that most of the students had a very small amount of vocabulary and limited knowledge of the world, the topics as well as experience meanwhile these were necessary factors for the comprehension process Understanding clearly these students‟ deficiencies, most of the teachers taught vocabulary before

beginning the text According to these teachers, their students could not understand the text and do the reading tasks if the teachers did not give them the meaning of the new words and explain the sentences If, the teachers did not give them the meaning of the new words, their students often looked them up in the dictionary or asked teachers or friends what the words mean In their opinion, the best way to help students to comprehend the text and easily do the reading tasks was giving students the meaning of the new words and explaining some difficult sentences Therefore, teachers often had a strong emphasis on the bottom-up reading process model and neglect of the top-down reading process Furthermore, teachers also insisted that in top-down processing model, decoding skills were greatly neglected through emphasizing the importance of the prediction of meaning

by means of context clues or certain kind of background knowledge Teachers of English, who thought that language decoding skills always had a crucial role in reading foreign languages, had difficulty in accepting the view that decoding skills were neglected Moreover, they said that top-down approaches did not give “true picture of reading” That was the reason why they seldom used top-down processing model in reading periods

Secondly, English language classes were bound to be large; most English language teachers were confronting the challenge of teaching large classes than before What happened too often in large classes, when the answers to comprehension tasks were given orally and activities were dominated by a minority of good students? Most of the other students could not even have time to finish doing the reading meanwhile the few quick and bright students volunteered and forced the pace of the lesson, impelled the teacher called them to answer The good students answered the questions quickly meanwhile the weaker students were still reading the text and they did not have the answers for reading tasks And so the gap between the few good students and the silent majority widened steadily, even though the teacher was setting the right sort of tasks to train all the students in the reading process The teacher should be aware that many students were not participating, and felt that it was their fault, on the ground that “you can lead a horse to water but you can not make him drink”

The result of the interviews indicated that the students‟ low motivation in learning reading was a difficulty which most of the teachers have in teaching reading Surely, one teacher could not teach well if their learners did not want to learn at all Conley (1995) emphasized that when readers were unmotivated, every door would close and thus the

level of understanding would be lower It seemed as if students had high extrinsic motivation to pass the exam Therefore, they were never effective reader Students who lacked interest in the reading lesson were also unwilling or uncooperative learners These were mainly weak students who often did not voluntarily get involved or participate in classroom activities Some were weak in reading What prevented them from attempting to read in class was their lack of confidence and fear of being embarrassed by other students

Most of the teachers stated that most of the students often read words by words, looked up the unfamiliar words in the dictionary and translated sentences by sentences into Vietnamese when reading This habit started from secondary school; therefore it was difficult for teachers to ask students to change it

2.3 Result of students’ questionnaires

2.3.1 Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities in reading lesson

Students‟ attitudes have great impact on teaching and learning reading If students prefer teachers‟ reading strategies, they will be active in taking part in reading and they will have good result in comprehending the content of the text and vice verse

2.3.1.1 At Pre-reading stage

Table 2.5: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage

Students‟ attitudes towards the teachers‟

activities at Pre- reading stage

No of students (115)

1 Introducing the topic of the text 30 26.1 36 31.3 49 42.6

2 Making students guess the topic of

the text from the heating, illustration…

4 Introducing and explaining new

grammatical structures in the text

5 Having students brainstorm words,

structures, ideas related to the topic

6 Using visual aids to introduce the 54 46.9 34 29.6 27 23.5