A STUDY ON GRADE 10 TH STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS LEARNING TO READ ENGLISH AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM

There have been some studies investigating students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English such as Camiciottoli 2001; Ro and Chen 2014.. Therefore, this

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ THÚY

A STUDY ON GRADE 10TH STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS LEARNING TO READ ENGLISH AT A HIGH

SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM

NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC HỌC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH Ở MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT Ở

MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

HANOI–2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCUTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ THÚY

A STUDY ON GRADE 10TH STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS LEARNING TO READ ENGLISH AT A HIGH

SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM

NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC HỌC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH Ở MỘT TRƯỜNG THPTỞ

MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM

M A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Hoàng Thị Hạnh, PhD

HANOI – 2014

DECLARATION

I certify that all the material in this study which is not my own work has been identified and acknowledged, and that no material is included for which a degree has already been conferred upon me

Hanoi, September, 2014

Đỗ Thị Thúy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Hoàng Thị Hạnh, for giving effective instructions and invaluable advice during the preparation and completion of this graduation paper

I also wish to acknowledge my debt to all the teachers of Faculty of Postgraduate Studies at Vietnam National University, Hanoi – University of Languages and International Studies, whose lectures and ideas have inspired my thesis

My appreciation also goes to the teachers and students at Hai Hau A high school for their valuable assistance in completing my survey questionnaire and interview, and providing me with a lot of useful information

Finally, I would like to send my great thanks to my family, my friends who have directly or indirectly helped me with their encouragement and advice

ABSTRACT

Pleasure reading has greatly affected reading achievements There have been some studies investigating students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English such as Camiciottoli (2001); Ro and Chen (2014) However, few are found investigating high school students in the context of Vietnam Therefore, this study will focus on high school students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English A set of survey questionnaire and interview are used to explore the 10th students‟ pleasure reading frequency and their attitudes towards reading in English for pleasure at a high school in the North

of Vietnam Besides, factors that may have influenced pleasure reading and students‟ attitudes are also examined The findings show that most students do not have good reading habits, and “lack of time” is the reason limiting their reading The study also finds out that reading frequency and students‟ attitude have strongly positive relationship In addition, “past access of English books” and “L1 reading habits” are correlated with pleasure reading frequency and students‟ attitude towards reading in English The recommendations, limitations and suggestions for

further studies are mentioned carefully in this study

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF GRAPHS viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Scope of the study 2

3 Aims of the study 2

4 Research questions 2

5 Methods of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Structure of the report 3

PART B: THE BODY 5

Chapter 1: Literature review 5

1.1 Extensive reading and pleasure reading 5

1.1.1 Reading 5

1.1.2 Extensive reading 5

1.1.3 Pleasure reading 7

1.2 Pleasure reading habits 9

1.3 Reading attitudes 10

Chapter 2: The study 13

2.1 Setting 13

2.2 Participants 13

2.3 Instruments 14

2.4 Procedures 16

Chapter 3: Data analysis and findings 17

3.1 Coding and Analysis 17

3.2 Results 19

Part C: Discussion/Conclusion 31

1 Summary of major findings 31

2 Pedagogical implications 33

3 Limitations and recommendations for further studies 35

References 36 Appendix A ……… …….I Appendix B V Appendix C IX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

L1: First Language

L2: Second Language

ER: Extensive Reading

ESL: English as Second Language

EFL: English as Foreign Language

CEP: Community English Program

JFL: Japanese as Foreign Language

LIST OFTABLES

Table 3.1: Pleasure Reading Frequency in English

Table 3.2: Types of Reading Materials

Table 3.3: Number of Books Read in the last 12 Months

Table 3.4:Reasons Limiting Pleasure Reading Frequency in English

Table 3.5: Ranking of Reasons Limiting Pleasure Reading Frequency in English Table 3.6:Reasons for Reading in English for Pleasure

Table 3.7: Ranking Reasons for Reading in English for Pleasure

Table 3.8: Reasons Why Reading in English for Pleasure Important

Table 3.9: Gender and Frequency of English Pleasure Reading

Table 3.10: Gender and Attitude towards Pleasure Reading in English

Table 3.11: Factors that may have influenced on Pleasure Reading Habit and their Attitudes (Pearson correlations (r))

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Reading is one of the essential skills in learning and teaching English as a second language (ESL) or a foreign language (EFL) Carrel (1988, p 1) has found out that for ESL and EFL students, reading may be the most important of the four skills to master: “for many students, reading is by far the most importance of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or a foreign language” However, it seems that many learners are not aware of this importance Consequently, their reading achievement is not high In fact, there are many factors affecting reading results, two of them are pleasure reading habits and attitudes towards reading The study by Robb and Kano (2013) show that 84% of students with pleasure reading get higher score on reading tests than those without Another study by Beglar, Hunt and Kite (2012) find that the large amount of pleasure reading could lead to significant reading rate gains Thus, it is evident that pleasure reading greatly affects reading achievement In addition, many studies have also presented that attitudes towards reading have a great influence on reading achievements (Kamhi-Stein, 2003; Yamashita, 2004, 2007, 2013) According to Yamashita (2013) reading attitude may foster intrinsic motivation (p 258), and attitude is one of the factors that influence the decision to read (p 249) Thus, it is difficult to deny the important role of pleasure reading and attitudes towards reading in general, and reading in English in particular

There have been some studies investigating students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English such as Camiciottoli (2001); Ro and Chen (2014) However, their subjects are university students, and few are found investigating high school students especially in the context of Vietnam Therefore, this study focuses on high school students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English The findings are compared with current

literature It is hoped that this study reveals issues concerning students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English in order that the researcher can give more help for her students to encourage them to read more or develop their reading habits Besides, some recommendations are given to other teachers to help students to facilitate their reading

2 Scope of the study

Reading is a broad issue, so it is difficult to entirely discuss the matter in a minor thesis Therefore, this study only focuses on students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English, and factors affecting their reading frequency and attitudes

The subject under this research is 100 grade 10 students from a high school in the North of Vietnam

3 Aims of the study

In general, this study is designed to find out high school students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English

To be specific, the research aims at:

- Investigating students‟ pleasure reading habits

- Exploring students‟ attitudes towards reading in English

- Finding out factors affecting students‟ pleasure reading frequency and attitudes

4 Research questions

The study aims to answer the following questions:

1 How frequently do grade 10thstudents read in English for pleasure?

2 What are the students‟ attitudes toward reading in English?

3 Which factors may have influenced the students‟ pleasure reading frequency and attitude?

5 Methods of the study

In order to find out the answers to three above questions, a survey research is conducted A questionnaire and a semi-structured interview are used to collect data The questionnaire, which is adapted from Ro and Chen‟s one (2014), consists of 17 questions The semi-structured interview is used in order to deeper understand information from questionnaire

6 Significance of the study

This study focuses on finding out students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English Additionally, factors affecting students‟ reading frequency and attitudes towards reading in English will also be revealed Moreover, the findings of this research are thought to be useful for teachers to help students during reading process Specifically, the results on students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English in this study will be used to help the researcher improve her teaching in the future Besides, she is able

to encourage her students to read more and enjoy reading

7 Structure of the report

The paper is divided into three parts as follows:

Part A: Introduction - provides readers with rationale, aims, research questions,

significance, scope, methods and structure of the study

Part B: Body- consists of three chapters

Chapter 1: Literature review - presents the theoretical background for the

research and gives definitions of some key words in the study

Chapter 2: The study - describe the methodology of the study This includes

the setting, the participants, the research instruments and procedures used in this study

Chapter 3: Data analysis and findings - describes and analyse the finding from

the students‟ questionnaire and interview

Part C: Discussion/ Conclusion – gives a summary of the whole study, its

pedagogical implication for teachers, limitations of the study and some recommendations for further research

PART B: THE BODY Chapter 1: Literature review

This chapter provides readers with theoretical background of the study and critical review of previous related studies

1.1 Extensive reading and pleasure reading

1.1.1 Reading

Reading is an important instrument providing human beings with a lot of information which helps to build their understanding of life or worldview Clark and Rumbold (2006, p 5) state that in addition to personal and mental developments, reading is critical for ensuring one‟s access to social, economic and civic life Obviously, each person reads for his or her own purposes A study

by the Nestle Family Monitor (2003) shows that 55% of young people read to understand different people/cultures, 40% to learn more about new subjects, and 33% to try new hobbies When asked how they would describe reading, half of the respondents describe it as relaxing while a third finds it funny Two in five also consider reading as educational, while a quarter believed it to be informative for learning (Nestle Family Monitor, 2003 as cited in Clark & Rumbold, 2009, p 9)

1.1.2 Extensive reading

Based on purposes of reading, Nuttall (2005, p 38) classifies reading into two main types: intensive and extensive reading (ER) There have been many studies reporting positive effects of ER on a range of EFL and ESL contexts The positive effects have been seen in areas such as reading comprehension (Bell, 2001; Yamashita, 2008; Taylor, 2014), reading rate (Beglar, Hunt & Kite, 2012; Fujita & Noro, 2009; Matsui & Noro, 2010), vocabulary (Pigada & Schmitt, 2006; Poulshock, 2010), grammar (Yang, 2001), L2 proficiency (Iwahori, 2008) There

also is evidence that ER has positive impacts on the affective domains of reading, such as attitude and motivation (Grabe, 2009) Taylor (2014, p 196) concludes that those with extensive reading perform higher on tests of reading comprehension than those without Additionally, Anderson (2008, p 67) affirms that extensive reading has a consistently beneficial effect on reading rate development, especially for students at low reading proficiency levels Beglar, Hunt, and Kite (2012) find the same result that is reading rates of Japanese university studentswho read books for pleasure increased greater than reading rates of those reading intensively Additionally, ER (extensive reading) has been shown to increase learners‟ positive attitude toward reading (Karlin & Romanko, 2008) Therefore, understanding and applying ER is necessary for EFL students

There have been many definitions of ER Waring & Takahashi (2000, p 6) define

ER classrooms: students read a “huge amount of very simple text so that [they] can read smoothly, confidently and pleasurably” Extensive reading is an approach

to teaching and learning reading that uses reading materials that are understandable and meaningful to the learner in order for learners to be able to read large amounts The aim of ER is improvement in reading ability, fluency, and enjoyment (Krashen, 2011) Another definition by Grabe & Stoller (2011) was that

ER is an approach to reading pedagogy that encourages students to engage in a large amount of reading Sharing the same opinion, Richards & Schmidt (2002, p 193–194) stated that ER “means reading in quantity and in order to gain a general understanding of what is read It is intended to develop good reading habits, to build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure, and to encourage a liking for reading” It can be seen that each author viewed ER at different aspects, but they shared some features The first is that extensive reading is generally associated with reading large amounts or long texts on the purpose of getting an overall understanding of the material The second is readers often use this kind of reading

to find out the meaning of the whole text rather the meaning of individual words or

sentences The last one is extensive reading provides students opportunities to update and enrich their knowledge by reading the topics they like for enjoyment without consideration for pressure of time Therefore, extensive reading is regarded as an effective way for the students to improve their reading skills and increase their general knowledge as well

1.1.3 Pleasure reading

Sometimes, ER is referred to alternative terms such as pleasure reading, sustained silent reading, free voluntary reading or book flood (Richards & Schmidt, 2002, p 193–194) However, to some extents, pleasure reading and extensive reading are not completely the same Maley (2008) states the purposes of ER that are for pleasure, information and general understanding It means that in addition to pleasure, readers learn, analyze, question and think about something during their extensive reading In contrast, when someone reads for pleasure, he or she reads for fun to relax and enjoy Obviously, they are different but connected things Sometimes, readers can even read for both meaning and pleasure They may read a book and analyze it but find as well that what they are reading is quite enjoyable Finding the difference between two terms, the researcher will apply the term

“pleasure reading” in this paper because it describes the type of reading that the participants in this study engaged in Besides, this study aims at exploring students‟ reading habits in leisure time, so it would be better to use the term “pleasure reading”

According to Nell (1988), reading for pleasure is a form of play that allows us to experience other worlds and roles in our imagination However, Pullman (2004) argues that reading for pleasure is so much more than just a form of play or escapism – it is also a way of connecting with text Both of them agree that reading for pleasure refers to reading that readers do in their own free time They begins reading not because of someone else‟s request but because they are interested in it

It typically involves materials that reflect their own choice, at a time and place that suits them

Some of studies emphasize the importance of reading for pleasure for both educational as well as personal development Reading enjoyment plays an important role in children‟s educational success It is supported by Krashen (1993,

p 85) He explores that when children read for pleasure, it acquires nearly all of the so-called “language skills”: vocabulary, grammatical constructions, writing style However, he adds that pleasure reading alone though would not ensure attainment

of the highest levels of literacy; it will at least ensure an acceptable level Without

it, children may simply do not have a chance to acquire necessary skills to reach acceptable level in language Additionally, there is also evidence that reading for pleasure not only impacts reading achievement but also increases general knowledge (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998), understanding of other cultures (Meek, 1991), and a greater insight into human nature and decision-making (Bruner, 1996) Moreover, reading for leisure can also promote or enhance social skills in children (Allan, Ellis & Pearson, 2005) Overall, when individuals read for pleasure frequently, “they experience the value of reading as efferent and aesthetic processes Thus, they are more likely to read with a sense of purpose, which further supports their developing reading habit (Sanacore, 2002, p 68)

In conclusion, this part has presented some information on reading, extensive reading, pleasure reading and their roles Reading is not only an essential tool to achieve knowledge but it is an means of relaxing There has been evidence that extensive reading and pleasure reading have influence on reading achievement Therefore, it is necessary to encourage students to apply these two forms of reading

1.2 Pleasure reading habits

The concept of reading habit is defined as “how often, how well, and what adults like to read” (Scales & Rhee, 2001, p 178) It means that reading habit is measured by how frequently readers read, whether they read entire books, and what they like to read It refers to people‟s reading activities and how frequently they engage in reading them (frequency of engagement) The benefits of reading in general and pleasure reading in particular have been stated In some countries, however, there is evidence that reading habits have declined A UK survey by Sainsbury and Schagen (2004) indicates that children‟s reading enjoyment has declined significantly in the last five years, especially amongst older children The study shows that the percentage of engaged readers has decreased from 77% to 71% among Year 4 pupils and from 77% to 65% amongst Year 6 pupils between

1998 and 2003 Additionally, reading habit of students in Social Sciences and Arts

at Rajshahi university have been declined (Eamin Ali Akanda, Hoq & Hasan, 2013).These researchers state that this decline is most noticeable among young people because they are the people who are most affected by the emerging digital technologies, especially the Internet and TV-based entertainment Another study carried out by Camiciottoli (2001) on Italian university EFL students‟ habits and attitudes towards extensive reading found that “positive attitude + low frequency” was the most common reading profile, accounting for 41.8% of the respondents It means that most of participants in this study did not have good reading habits In contrast, the result of a study by Ro and Chen (2014) on advanced non-academic English-as-a-second-language learners in the US not only shows that the participants had good reading habits, but also reveals that they read more English books for pleasure than the participants in the one by Camiciottoli (2001) However, when investigated factors affecting reading habits, both these studies agree that lack of time was the most selected reasons for poor reading habits Besides, other studies showed that there are some other factors that

influence reading habits such as age, gender, educational level, reading level (Mellard, Patterson, & Prewett, 2007; Scales & Rhee, 2001) The studies above, therefore, indicate that, generally, multiple factors may play a crucial role in the creation of reading habits Research has also found that an important factor in the development of a reading habit is a positive attitude towards reading (Kim, 2003; Camiciottoli, 2001; Ro & Chen, 2014)

1.3 Reading attitudes

Attitude is a complex psychological construct It refers to “a learned predisposition

to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object” (McKenna, 1994) Reading attitude has been defined as “a system of feelings related to reading which causes the learner to approach or avoid a reading situation” (Alexander & Filler, 1976, p 1) and as “a state of mind, accompanied by feelings and emotions, which makes reading more or less probable” (Smith, 1990,

p 215) According to an extensive and in-depth review of literature by Reeves (2002), there is considerable agreement among contemporary researchers that reading attitude is defined by three components: cognitive (personal, evaluative beliefs), affective (feelings and emotions), and conative (action readiness and

behavioral intentions) Cognitive component shows our thoughts, beliefs, and ideas about reading For example: “I believe reading is useful for our brain“ .Affective

component, on the other hand, shows feelings or emotions about reading (e.g fear, sympathy, hate) For instance: “I like reading in English for pleasure” The last component is conative or behavioral one which shows the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave For example: “I will read in English more in my leisure time”

Various studies on reading attitudes have been carried out (Camiciottoli, 2001; Mori, 2002; Kamhi-Stein, 2003; Yamashita, 2004, 2007) These studies have consistently found that reading attitude is one of the factors that influence the

decision to read, and it greatly affects the reading achievement and performance of second language (L2) learners Specifically, Kamhi-Stein (2003) uses in-depth qualitative analysis to explore four L2 college students‟ attitudes towards their home language and beliefs about reading She also finds that her participants‟ attitudes towards L1 and beliefs about reading affect reading processes in both L1 and L2 To be more specific, those who valued L1 used it in the process of decoding the L2 text Moreover, Yamashita (2004, 2007) gives evidence to show the close relationship between Japanese college students‟ attitudes and their L2 proficiency in an EFL setting The questionnaire items measures both affective (i.e., feeling) and cognitive (i.e., evaluative beliefs) reactions to reading In Yamashita (2007) she finds that positive L1 reading attitude would likely lead the learners, even low proficiency ones, to read in L2 While L2 proficiency has very little effect on the transfer of reading attitude, L1 reading attitude had strong impact

on L2 reading In her previous paper (Yamashita, 2004), she provides four components of reading attitudes including comfort, anxiety, value ascribed to reading, and self-perception as a reader and argues that comfort with reading and positive self-perception as a reader in both L1 and L2 had positive impact on the learners‟amount of EFL reading while anxiety and value had no influence at all However, Camiciottoli (2001) argues that mere attitudes of being positive do not guarantee frequent reading Based on her findings, Ro and Chen (2014) carry out a replicated study on nonacademic students in an English-as-a-second-language (ESL) setting in order to investigate whether learners‟ positive attitudes towards L2 reading can lead to higher reading frequency (i.e., higher amount of reading) Unlike Camiciottoli‟s result, they find that the participants with positive attitudes towards reading tend to read more They also mention that lack of time was the most selected reasons for poor reading habits

sub-The importance of reading in learning process as well as the role of pleasure reading habits and reading attitudes towards reading and others skills has been

presented It is clearly seen that most of studies have been carried out in EFL or ESL contexts with university student participants It is a big gap if there is not a study on high school students‟ pleasure reading Therefore, the researcher will implement study on high school students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English in the context of Vietnam The current study is a replicated one of Camiciottoli (2001) carried out in Italy with non-academic ESL learners and Ro and Chen (2014) done in the US with academic EFL students The findings will be compared with non-academic ESL learners‟ reading habits and attitudes, and with academic students‟ reading habits and attitudes in an EFL context

Chapter 2: The study

This chapter describes the methodology of the study This includes the setting, the participants, the research instruments and procedures used in this study

2.2 Participants

Unlike two previous studies by Ro and Chen (2014) and Camiciottoli (2001) which were conducted with non-academic ESL students at advanced level and EFL university students respectively, the participants in this study were 81 grade 10 students (45 females,36 males) from two classes All of them were born in 1998 and live in communes around the school Their English levels are at pre-intermediate level They learn English as a foreign language and do not have English environment to practice using English

2.3 Instruments

If Camiciottoli (2001) used a 22-item questionnaire and Ro and Chen (2014) designed a 23-item one to collect data on reading frequency and attitude, the study only used a 17-item questionnaire to investigate students‟ pleasure reading habits and attitudes towards reading in English Besides, an interview with students was also implemented to have deeper understanding about information collected from questionnaire

The questionnaire was written in Vietnamese to ensure that all participants fully understood the questions Like the two original studies (Camiciottoli, 2001; Ro & Chen, 2014), the survey questionnaire was divided into three parts Part 1 consists

of 6 items explored general information: gender (item 1), past access to English books (item 2), encouragement from others to read in English for pleasure (item 3), self-perception of reading ability in English (items 4-5), and purposes of learning English (item 6) These are some contributing factors that may affect students‟ pleasure reading habit and attitude Part 2 consists of 5 items which tried to investigate reading habits: frequency and preference Specifically, items 7 and 8 took information on frequency of reading books in one‟s native language, and items

9 to 11 on frequency of reading in English (reading volume and types of materials) Part 3 asked about learners‟ desire to read more, their readiness to read in English and opinions towards the importance of reading in English for leisure

In order to have a study which suited to the current context, the researcher adapted

Ro and Chen„s questionnaire (2014) by adding, modifying and deleting the following question items:

Addition: purpose of studying English (item 6)

Modification: reasons why reading English for pleasure (item 13)

Deletion: Name (item 1), nationality (item 3), age (item 4), years of studying English (item 5), past attendance in extra classes (item 6), and time staying in English native country (item 11) and purposes of staying in English native country (item 12)

First of all, the purpose of studying was added to suit to the current study Each participant has his/her own purpose of learning English, which may have influence

on their reading habits and attitudes Secondly, item 13 asking about reasons of pleasure reading was modified because the researcher found the similar options were given, so she combined them and made it clear to her participants Thirdly, item about name was deleted due to ethical issue of research Besides, because all participants are from the same district, same age and years of studying English, items asking about this information were deleted Additionally, extra classes were not allowed in the area where the study was carried out, so question related to this private course was not relevant Lastly, due to Vietnamese setting of the research, items investigating time and purposes of staying in English native countries were eliminated

The study by Camiciottoli (2001) and Ro and Chen (2014) ask university-level EFL instructors and CEP teachers about questionnaire items to gain construct validity This study also asked teacher at the high school where the research was carried out to see if the adapted questionnaire was suitable to the participants and the purposes of the study Additionally, before delivering the survey questionnaire, the researcher gave it to 10 students to make sure that they understood all the questions

In addition to survey questionnaire, the researcher conducted an interview on the purpose of having deeper understanding about pleasure reading habits and attitudes

as well as factors affecting their reading frequency The interview was carried out after the survey questionnaire was collected

2.4 Procedures

In order to increase return rate, the questionnaire was administered to the students during the last 15 minutes of their lesson Before delivering the questionnaire, the researcher gave them a brief description of the study, time involvement, confidentiality, potential use of the results, and voluntary participation The researcher delivered 100 survey questionnaires and collected 81 ones

After the survey questionnaire ended, the author conducted 8 individual interviews with each participant in 5 to 8 minutes These interviewees were randomly chosen from 81 participants They are divided into three groups according to their levels of proficiency in comparison with each other in the same class However, the process

of dividing was done by the researcher without letting participants know Before interviewing, the researcher also asked for informed consent and permission to record the interview process The interview was conducted in classroom during participants‟ free time After finishing the interview, the interviewer asked participants whether they had any questions about the interview to make information clear The interview was recorded and then taken notes carefully

Chapter 3: Data analysis and findings 3.1 Coding and Analysis

Similar to studies by Camiciottoli (2001) and Ro and Chen (2014), this study also applied a four-point response scale to analyze data from survey questionnaire The lowest point (point 1) was given to the lowest frequency (how often participants do the act of reading or language-related activities), quantity (the amount of time spent

in reading), intensity (the pressure of the contact and need of language) or least positive degree of the characteristics The highest point (point 4) was attached to the highest frequency, quantity, intensity, or the most positive degree of the characteristics For instance, item 8 asked about the number of books in Vietnamese read in the past 12 months The response “more than 8” was considered the highest quantity and given point 4, while “1-2” only received point

4 Similarly, item 16 explored participants‟ view about the importance of pleasure reading in English Point 4 was assigned to the answer “very important”, while “not important” got only point 1

Question 10 asked students to rank the four types of reading materials (i.e., books, magazines, newspapers, and lyrics) according to their frequency of reading in their leisure time In this case, Camiciottoli (2001) gives books the highest point and lyrics the lowest one She also explains her way of coding According to her, there

is the connection between the volume and frequency of the reading Books are considered more voluminous material than other materials (magazines, newspapers, and lyrics) It means that those who frequently read books have to spend more time

on reading than those reading other types

For items 13, 14 and 17, participants needed to rank the top three options from a list of six or seven This study continued using the way of coding of Camiciottoli (2001) and Ro and Chen (2014) The authors in these studies distinguished a more

favorable attitude toward reading (type A) from a relatively less favorable attitude towards reading (type B) Camiciottoli (2001) assigns point 4 for participants selecting all three responses type A, while point 1 is given to all type B responses Three points were given if the participants chose two A responses and one type B response, and two points were given if they provided two type B responses and one type A

Item 13 asked about reasons why students read in English for pleasure The responses were divided into two types: intrinsic motivation (response a, c) which indicates the individual‟s desire to read for one‟s own sake and extrinsic motivation (response b, d) that is contingent rewards These four options were based on the theory of Ro (2013) which talks about motivational contributing factors According

to him, twenty-four ER sessions change an unmotivated English reader to be an avid L2 reader He gives contributing factors for the participant‟s motivational shift: confidence in reading ability, easy accessibility and convenience in reading, enjoyment from the content and language, and realization of the usefulness of reading He states that these factors play an important role in promoting reading motivation and extensive reading performance Therefore, they were used in the current study Ro and Chen (2014) decides to assign intrinsic motivation type A while extrinsic motivation type B and notes that intrinsic motivation can lead to overall more frequent reading than extrinsic motivation Besides, the reason for scoring criteria is that intrinsic motivation is a stronger predictor of the amount and the breadth of reading than extrinsic motivation For all reasons above, this current study also used the same scoring system as that of Ro and Chen (2014) It meant that responses a, c were considered as type A and b, d type B

For item 14, type A were represented by the options (a, c, e) that are not related in which a reader would be likely to find time to read if the issues were resolved, while type B carried time-related options (b, d, f) that may lead to less

time-favorable attitude towards reading (Camiciottoli, 2001) Similarly, for item 17, both Camiciottoli (2001,p 140) and Ro and Chen (2014, p 55) agreed that items b, d, f showed a “broader awareness of the value of reading in English and its importance

in ongoing literacy”, so they belongs to type A Whereas responses a, c, e corresponding to the practical or short-term viewpoints (e.g., reading is useful for

my career) were considered type B

The coding scores can be seen at appendix C

Table 3.1:

Pleasure Reading Frequency in English

number of participants (%)

sometimes (for example, during vacation

periods)

Secondly, item 10 was analyzed to find the types of materials most frequently chosen to read by participants The results can be seen in Table 3.2 It could be seen that with 62.5% of choice, books and magazines were students‟ favorite types of materials This result was the same as the one in the interview in which most of interviewees liked to read fiction or non-fiction in their leisure time Lyrics of songs were also chosen by 25.9 % of students in the survey

Table 3.2:

Types of Reading Materials

Finally, the scores of the three corresponding items (9, 10, and 11) were combined

to find out pleasure reading habits and preference The study‟s scores were varied from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 17 as shown in Figure 3.1 X-axis presents scores of 1 to 17 while Y-axis shows the number of participants who got that score

Figure 3.1: Pleasure Reading Habit and Preference Scores

In sum, high school students in this research did not have good reading habits Additionally, most of participants who often or sometimes read liked reading books, magazines or comics However, the number of English books they read for pleasure was low

Number of participants

Scores