Using the brainstorming technique in teaching the reading skill to esp students at college

study was carried out to answer the question of how to use “brain storming” in teaching reading skill with the hope that students can have good prior knowledge relating to the text befor

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI LIEN

USING THE BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE IN

TEACHING THE READING SKILL TO ESP STUDENTS AT

COLLEGE

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION

Nghệ An, năm 2013

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI LIEN

USING THE BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE IN

TEACHING THE READING SKILL TO ESP STUDENTS AT

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my superior, Doctor Tran Thi Ngoc Yen for her valuable guidance, insightful suggestion, precious orientation and warm encouragement from shaping the first draft of this manuscript till the completed thesis

I am thankful to head of Foreign Language Department at Nghe An Trading Vocational College, Mrs Le Thi Mai Hong, for letting me to carry out the experiment with second-year accounting learners while I was gathering the data for the research

Tourism-I would also like to thank the administrators, teachers, and students of K17A1 and K17A3 at Nghe An Tourism-Trading Vocational College for their cooperation and help

Finally, I would like to delicate this work to my parents and family, whose great support and encouragement have helped me a lot in the production of this study

Brainstorming has been considered an effective strategy to improve learners’ reading comprehension level Research in this area has concentrated on the effect of brainstorming technique on students’ reading achievement This thesis work investigates the degree of the impact of prior knowledge activation through the use

of brainstorming in enhancing learners' reading comprehension To evaluate this, an experimental design was conducted After teaching the eight reading sessions, the learners are supposed to read these informational texts and to do the multiple-choice exercises Their reading comprehension is tested and their achievements are marked Three comparisons: the comparison between average total score of eight sessions for both groups, the comparison between average score of the last session and the average score of the first session and the comparison between the average of the second half sessions and the average of the first half sessions in term of means and standard deviations were made to appreciate the participants’ reading comprehension improvement and it was found that the experimental group outperformed the control one Besides, the analysis of the participants’ patterns of progress demonstrates that the participants of the experimental group made gradually increases during the treatment

TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 4

3.5 Pilot testing 38

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

It is undeniable that English plays a crucial role in all fields of our life, and

it is considered as a tool to help us discover what has been happening around the world It is probably the reason why English is a compulsory subject in school, college and university education

Like many other compulsory subjects learned in many institutions in Vietnam, English for specific purpose (ESP) has more recently received a great attention What is behind ESP is that teachers hope to compile teaching materials that will be suitable for students’ level in the specific subject area English for accounting, for example, aims at improving students’ reading comprehension and analysing ability to apply in the real contexts of economy field

Understanding the importance of English, most students at Nghe An Tourism- Trading Vocational College have tried their best to gain the first objective

to become accountants with good knowledge of English in economy field They consider that among four language skill, listening, speaking, reading and writing, reading is an important one because it does not only help student develop other language skills, but also provides them knowledge of other fields Supporting the importance of reading both in study and real life, West (1941) said that, reading is one of the most important skills in study and daily life Because reading ability is powerful, various researchers have attempted to investigate ways to improve students’ reading ability in reading programs (cited in Tran, 2011, p.1) As we read,

we can enrich our knowledge through reading material and from that we can apply

in other fields

However, while teaching reading following the ESP syllabus for the second year accounting students at Nghe An Tourism-Trading Vocational College, the researcher realized that both the teachers and the students still have difficulties in finding effective way to teach and learn reading lessons For these reasons, the

study was carried out to answer the question of how to use “brain storming” in teaching reading skill with the hope that students can have good prior knowledge relating to the text before reading so that they can comprehend more.

1.2 Aims of the study

The thesis seeks to answer the following research questions:

- Will brainstorming help to increase ESP learners’ reading comprehension? And if

it does,

- To what extend does brainstorming increase ESP learners’ reading

comprehension?

1 3 Scope of the study

There are many strategies to improve reading skill for ESP students, and brainstorming is one of the most important strategies This study was set to investigate the effects of brainstorming on helping students to develop their reading comprehension

1.4 Methods of the study

The main methodology used in the study was experimental Groups of second year ESP students in Nghe An tourism trading vocational College involved

in experimental process The study was to see how brainstorming affects the ESP students’ reading comprehension

1.5 Design of the thesis

The thesis consists the following parts:

This chapter provides background knowledge relevance to the topic such as the definition of reading and reading comprehension, reading process models, classification of reading, factors affecting reading skill, three active stages of reading lesson, brainstorming and its roles in improving reading skill.

Chapter 3: The study

This part presents the study and these include, research questions, participants, material, procedures and results

Chapter 4: Conclusion

In this part the main points and contents of the study will be summarized

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the background knowledge on the topics that relate to the research Previous studies on reading process, reading process models, comprehension, reading comprehension, classification of reading, factors affecting learning the reading skill, the three stages of a reading lesson, brainstorming in reading comprehension, brainstorming rules, and the roles of brainstorming in reading comprehension, will be discussed

2.1 Reading

Reading has a multifaceted impact on our life People have demand for reading to expand their knowledge Through reading different books and materials, people can discover what happen around the world Today, when people have to update new mass information all over the world, reading becomes more and more important There have been different definitions of reading and reading comprehension Each linguistic has given his own definition of reading and reading comprehension presented below

Reading is regarded as the most important of the four language skills for both foreign and second language learners Carell, Davine and Eskey (1988, p.1) stated

that “without solid reading proficiency, second language learners cannot perform at

levels they must in order to succeed” Sharing the same ideas, Anderson (1999, p.3)

also emphasized that the more exposure a student has to language through reading, the greater the possibilities that overall language proficiency will increase Etc

Although we read various types of material such as book, newspaper, magazine, the act of reading is not completely understood nor easily described There have been numerous definitions of reading, each of which is the reflection of the author’s view of the reading process According to Anderson (1999, p.1)

“Reading is an active, fluent process which involves the reader and 342 the reading material in building meaning Meaning does not reside on the printed page or

occurs in reading, which combines the words on the printed page with the reader’s background knowledge and experiences” Rumelhart (1977) argues that reading

involves the reader, the text and the interaction between the reader and text

Aebersold and Field (1997, p.15) also show that "reading is what happens when

people look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbols in that text The text and the reader are the two physical entities necessary for the reading process to start It is, however, the interaction between the text and the reader that constitutes the actual meaning” Sharing the same point of view on reading, William (1984,

p.3) argued that “written texts, then, often contain more than we need to understand

them The efficient reader makes use of this to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning” One more definition of reading is offered by Smith (1985, p.102)

who defined reading as “understanding the author’s thought” It means that the

readers read the author’s mind not the author’s words

Most linguists think that understanding is not only trying to get what the writer implied but also interacting with the author

2.2 Reading process models

There have been numerous points of views on reading process In general, they have focused on three different reading models named the bottom up, the top down and the interactive These three models will be discussed in turn

2.2.1 The bottom-up model

According to Nunan (1991), in bottom-up model, the reader begins with the written text, and construct meaning from letters, words, phrases, and sentences found and then processes the text in a liner way In the process of meaning interpretation, the language is translated from one form of symbolic representation

to another The are text driven models so the reader to letters to letters, words to words, phrases to phrases, and sentences to sentences to identify their exact meaning in which shortcomings of theses models are stated This view is shared by

Goodman who believes that “in bottom up processing, reader must first recognize a

multiplicity of linguistic signal (letter, morphemes, syllables, words, phrases, grammatical cues, discourse markers) and use their linguistic data processing mechanisms to impose some sort of order on these signals”(Goodman, 1970 as

cited in Brown, 2001, p.299)

In the bottom-up process, the reader has to build comprehension from letters

to sentences level to links their exact meaning It means that the basic for bottom up processing is the linguistic knowledge of the reader Therefore, this model has some limitation as pointed out by Samuel and Kamil (1988, p.31):

"the lack of feedback, in that no mechanism is provided to allow for processing stages which occur later in the system to influence processing which occurs earlier in the system Because of the lack of feedback loops in the early bottom up models, it was difficult to account for sentence context effects and the role of prior knowledge of text topic as facilitating variables

in word recognition and comprehension”.

2.2.2 The top-down model

In the top down processing, the reader gives his or her own intelligence and experience to understand the writer’s meaning in the text As shared by Christine

Nuttall (1996, p.16), “we draw our intelligence and experience - the prediction we

can make, based on the schemata we have acquired- to understand the text this kind of processing is used when we interpret assumptions and draw inferences” He

also compared this process like taking an eagle’s eye view of landscape below It means that to access the text, the reader has to have his or her own back ground knowledge to understand the whole text Goodman (1970, p.135) also described

reading as a “guessing game", in which the "reader reconstructs, as best as he can,

a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display" This idea

shows the important role of the reader’s background knowledge to the text More background knowledge the reader has, the more he understands the text However,

there are certain limitations in this model Eskey (1998, p.93) argues that these models

"tend to emphasize such higher-level skills as the prediction of meaning by means of context clues or certain kinds of background knowledge at the expense of such lower skills as the rapid and accurate identification of lexical and grammatical form That is, in making the perfectly valid point that fluent reading is primarily a cognitive process, they tend to deemphasize the perceptual and decoding dimensions of that process".

Samuel and Kamil (1988, pp.22-34) also shared the same view According to them, one of the problems for the top-down model is that for many texts, the reader has little knowledge of the topic and cannot generate predictions A more serious problem is that even if a skilled reader could generate predictions, the amount of time necessary to generate a prediction may be greater than the amount of time the skilled reader needs simply to recognize the words

Due to the above limitation of both bottom down and top down models, some recent researches on teaching reading has shown that when teach reading skill, the teacher should combine between bottom down and top down model This combination of bottom up model and top down model is also called interactive reading This model will be discussed as follow

2.2.3 The interactive model

The interactive model is combination of bottom-up and top-down processing

in the construction of the meaning of a text There have been numerous studies about this model According to Widdownson (1978) reading as the process of combining textual information with the information the reader brings to a text In this view, the reading process is not simply a matter of extracting information from the text Rather, it is one in which the reading activates a range of knowledge in the reader's mind that he/she uses, and that, in turn, may be refined and extended by the new information supplied by the text Hayes (1991) is convinced that in active

model, different processes are responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes The information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the most appropriate interpretation of the printed page.

Therefore, interactive model is regarded as the best model of all, because it combines bottom up and top down models With the skilful combination of the two models the reader can be successful in comprehending the text Stanovich (1980, p.32) concluded:

"Interactive models of reading appear to provide a more accurate conceptualization of reading performance than strictly top-down or bottom-up models When combined with an assumption of compensatory processing (that

a deficit in any particular process will result in a greater reliance on their knowledge sources, regardless of their level in the processing hierarchy), interactive models provide a better account of the existing data on the use of orthographic structure and sentence context by good and poor readers"

2.3 Reading comprehension

For the text we read, it is important to understand the massage that the author wants to convey Therefore, reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning a language reading skill The following definitions of comprehension and reading comprehension will be discussed

According to Smith (2004, p.379) comprehension “as a process by which

someone links what he knows about the world to what he already has as information, (intentions) and (expectations) in his head Thus, comprehending is the state of being out of confusion and puzzling to get things clear with no misunderstanding” In addition, Anderson (1995, pp.379-380) stated that

comprehension can be analyzed in three stages The first stage is concerned with perception At this stage, the message being either talk or print is encoded The second stage is called the parsing stage At this point, what was encoded is turned into a mental map for all gained meanings The final stage is termed the utilization stage In this stage, what was acquired as new knowledge from sentences' meanings

is used in understanding other things Comprehension is to take in information, and then try to work it.

According to Grellet (1981, p.3) “reading comprehension or understanding

a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” This point of view concentrates on the reader’s understanding of the

message based on the individual’s background knowledge Similarly, Swam (1975,

p.1) stated that when we say “a student is good at comprehension we mean that he

can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information a text with the minimum of understanding” Supporting these ideas, Wray (2004, p.14)

also considers reading comprehension as an interaction between what the text provides and what the reader brings to it when he states:

“Understating in reading is exactly like this It is not simply a question of getting meaning from what is on the page When you read, you supply a good deal of the meaning to the page The process is an interactive one, with resultant learning being a combination of your previous ideas with new ones encountered in this text”.

According to the authors, reading is much more than just pronouncing words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends and it is also the primary purpose for reading Therefore, raising students' awareness of main ideas in a text and exploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension

2.4 Main concepts in reading

There are many concepts in reading However, in this study, we focus on the following concepts: oral reading versus silent reading, skimming versus scanning and intensive versus extensive reading They will be discussed in turn

2.4.1 Oral reading versus silent reading

Oral reading is popular in classrooms for the beginner in classroom It

“involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it”, (Doff, 1995, p.67)

This means when the reader reads aloud he or she not only understands the content

of the text but also helps others to listen and know the information of the text Doff

asserts that “reading aloud can be useful at the earliest stage of reading

(recognising letters and words); it can help students to make the connection between sound and spelling”.

In fact, oral reading proves itself to be advantageous for the learners because

it helps them make the connection between sounds and spelling of letters and words, and assists the teachers to check learner’s pronunciation However, this kind

of reading is not useful out side classroom Doff (1995, p58) stated: "for reading a

text, it is not a very useful technique" This is because it is not a natural activity –

most people do not read aloud in real life

Accordingly, oral reading should be applied only for the beginner and limited in upper classes because it can help the beginner to improve their pronunciation than understand the content of the text In fact the upper classes acquire more: learners need to read and understand the meaning of the text at the same time

Unlike oral reading, silent reading is normally applied both in classroom and

in the real life According to Abbott and Wingard (1985, p.81) “Normally, reading

is a silent and individual activity since the writer's expectation was that the text would be read, not heard” Supporting this view, Doff (1995, p.67) believes that “it involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they convey, in other words, "making sense" of a written text” This means that in the reading process,

the reader has to know how to combine skilfully between his or her knowledge of the word and the information of the text to relate the knowledge in the real life

2.4.2 Skimming versus scanning

Skimming is one of specific reading techniques necessary for quick and

efficient reading According to Nuttall (1989, p.34) “By skimming we mean

glancing rapidly through a text to determine its gist, for example in order to decide whether a research paper is relevant to our own work , or in order to keep

ourselves superficially informed about matters that are not of great importance to us” Grellet (1981, p.19) also stated “when skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to gets its main points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions,… when scanning, we only try to locate specific information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to

do so”.

According to these views, by skimming the text, the reader can get the main ideas of the text by go through the text very fast without paying attention to the detail Therefore, skimming is a useful technique to help the learner organize his thoughts and specify what information he can get from a book

Like skimming, scanning is also a helpful technique used popularly in reading lessons This technique helps the reader to read the text very quickly to find

the main information from the text Nuttall (1989, p 34) states that “by scanning

we mean glancing rapidly through a text either to search for a specific piece of information or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purpose ”

In addition, Grellet (1981, p.19) gives a more detailed definition of scanning:

“when scanning, we only try to locate information and often we do not even follow the linearity of passage to do so, and scanning is far more limited since it only means retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose” This means by

scanning, the readers usually focus on searching the information what they want by moving their eyes quickly along the lines This is reason why scanning is widely used in everyday life

2.4.3 Intensive versus extensive reading

The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced According to Nuttall (1989, p 23), intensive reading

“involves approaching the text under the close guidance of the teacher , or under the guidance of a task which forces the student to pay great attention to the text The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text: not only of what it means, but also of how the meaning is produced The "how" is as important as the "what", for the intensive reading lesson is intended primarily to train students in reading strategies”.

This view is supported by Grellet (1981, p.4) who states that “intensive

reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details” This means that in intensive reading, the reader

read the text carefully to find out the specific information Therefore, it is considered as a useful technique applied popularly in classroom

In contrast with intensive reading, extensive reading is one of good ways to improve reader’s knowledge of a foreign language because its aim is to cover the content of text in the shortest possible period of time and it is also called reading for fluency The student reads long texts to have general understanding, to practise his

fluency in reading, or to relax Grellet (1981, p.4) confirms “extensive reading

means reading longer text, usually or one’s own pleasure This is a fluency activity mainly involving general understanding” Extensive reading is order to gain a

general understanding of what is read Therefore, it can help to develop reader’s good reading habits, to build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure, and to encourage a liking for reading

Accordingly, in the language classroom, the teacher must introduce some suitable reading materials to students, as it is useful for them to form a good habit of reading

2.5 Factors affecting the learning of reading skill

There are many different factors affecting the learning reading skill However, in this thesis, these factors are grouped into text factors and reader factors

2.5.1 Text factors

The reading text is one of the main factors which influence reading

comprehension The text is defined by Davies (1995, p.194) as "a coherent piece of

writing exhibiting both structure and texture, assignable to a single author or collaborating authors, with clearly defined boundaries making the beginning and end of the writing" Accordingly, in the text, the author has to try to make the text

with clear beginning and clear end This print is delivered under conditions of coherence and cohesion The text can be a paragraph, or a set of paragraphs as it can

be in prose or verse It may have different types according to the content it expresses In addition, vocabulary, sentence structure and syntax are important elements to look at while analyzing text's influence on reading comprehension These elements contribute to help the reader analyzing and achieve the author’s message

2.5.1.1 Vocabulary

Vocabulary plays a crucial role in the text and it is an aspect which has a great influence on reading comprehension When the reader has known mast of words in to the text, he or she will read and comprehend the author’s message better In fact, it is invisible that most foreign readers have to face with difficult vocabulary items and sometimes they just have to ignore them The lack of vocabulary leads them to misunderstand the message of the text Readers usually check up definitions in dictionaries or ignore new words which appear in the text However, these strategies sometime do not work In other words, mastery of vocabulary is an essential factor that affects reading comprehension If readers possess an expansive vocabulary, they are more likely to understand textual writing, and will be less likely to become confused or frustrated Sharing with this opinion,

Coady and Huckin (1975, p.20) commented that “for them, comprehension is

reached once a passage's lexis is covered This is a general rule for any text's language being a foreign, a second and even a native one So, vocabulary

knowledge is recommended for the understating of a given text either being in a native language or a target one”.

In cases when the reader aims at gaining a general comprehension of the text,

he may skip words and try to predict their meanings from the surrounding context

In some other cases, when the reader studies the text intensively with a need for thorough comprehension, he needs to have an acceptable percentage of known words and very little amount of unfamiliar ones In general, lexical knowledge is critical while comprehending The amount of this knowledge determine by the level

of comprehension

2.5.1.2 Text types

There is evidence that knowledge of the text type facilitates reading comprehension Each type has its own characteristics concerning the general theme and the way it is structured In addition, each text type presents its own characters about forming sentence structure as well as vocabulary item According to Davies (1995, pp 83-85) a text is described according to its rhetorical function A text can

be persuasive, descriptive, expository, etc These functions reflect neither the text's level of difficulty nor its content, but simply, they are indicators of the author's social goals He referred also to more specific lower-level rhetorical functions such

as cause-effect, comparison-contrast argument-exemplification, problem-solution patterns and general particular patterns of the text Accordingly, each type of writing shows a particular field and draws the author’s especial intention It is necessary for the reader to understand and category the type of text to make sure that he will be successful in following the author's flow of ideas

In general, there are two types of text namely narrative and expository text

In each type, it has its own characteristics to distinguish When reading narrative texts, for example, the reader needs to be aware that this type usually tells about a tale, either a short story, folktale, myth, fable, legend, fantasy or science fiction as it reports biographies It consists of three parts: an opening section, a central of story

and the ending It has an opening section, the heart of the events and a closing section The narrative text centers on some elements which are the characters, settings, themes, the conflict, sequence of events which settle the plot and a resolution of the conflict These characteristics are named by Rumelhart (1980,

p.313) as ''story grammars'' He emphasizes that these story grammars are helpful

and very useful in understanding considerable portions of the story to be read

According to Hyland (1990, p.14) "effective understanding is therefore seen as

being dependent on the reader's ability to relate the structure of a text to a familiar conventional pattern" Therefore, the reader should get inside the text with the

previous knowledge of meeting characters, following a sequence of events with conflicts and solutions This will help the reader to understand the content that the author wants to convey in the text better

Besides, the reader also focuses on what the expository tell This type of text

is usually related to two fields namely science and history texts In this text, the reader has to face with many different specific vocabularies in some cases domain specific or technical items Therefore, it can be considered as a difficult text, so to read and understand the text effectively, the reader should be prepared for the expository text features, information statistics, numbers, graphs, technical vocabulary with the different types of development namely description, classification, contrast, cause and effect and so on

In short, the text type has an impact on reaching comprehension for the reader The reader’s reading comprehension skill will be more successful when he distinguishes text types and know the different rhetorical goals and organizational patterns

2.5.1.3 Coherence and Cohesion

Coherence means the connection of ideas at the idea level, and cohesion

means the connection of ideas at the sentence level A text with coherent and cohesive device seems easier to understand than a text which lacks these two

aspects Therefore, both coherence and cohesion have influence on reading comprehension.

In term of cohesive device, Trimmer (1995, p 69) stated that a coherent paragraph as a set of connected sentences helps the reader to move from one idea to another easily with no separations If the text at the reader's hand lacks coherence, the reader will not be able to follow the writer's train of thoughts He may read the text several times in an attempt to establish connections This is likely to turn reading into a difficult boring task Accordingly, coherence plays a crucial role in reading comprehension, and it is an effective device that helps the reader to connect

at the idea level in the text better

Likewise, cohesion also plays an important role in reading texts Davies (1995, p 101) stated that cohesion is crucial for establishing coherence That is to say, a text which lacks cohesion will not be coherent Furthermore, cohesion

facilitates reading Yun (1993, p.13) asserts that "it provides the basis for making

predictions and building expectations The continuity expressed by cohesion constitutes the context that provides the basis for making predictions and building expectations in reading".

In short, cohesion helps the reader to put alternatives for the meaning intended by the writer It also encourages the reader to predict the difficult words in

a sentence and help him to avoid looking up these words on dictionary

2.5.1.4 Syntax

Problems of comprehension may arise from sentences' syntax Sentences vary in their structures They are simple, complex, compound or complex compound Text subordination and coordination may cause problems of comprehension In addition, very long phrases are likely to create difficulties In other words, a very long stretch of words with no verb or action may be a source of confusion Moreover, types of words may also cause syntactic problems Complication of a sentence may be attributed to the presence of complex,

compound or nominal words in it Sentence length is another factor which may settle difficulties in understanding Erickson (2003, p.6) argues that the reader who

is not accustomed to the different sentence structures, will certainly face problems

“We also know from reading research that it's very important for students to

have purposes, very specific purposes when they read We know that when you're reading without a purpose, and almost all of us have experienced some time in our life where we lost our purpose for reading and then we realized we didn't remember much of what we read” (Curriculum Strategies

for Reading, n.d.)

In other words, the reader should have a purpose in his mind while reading Reading will be a pointless activity if he gets inside a text aimless Wallace (1980, p.9) argues that it is necessary to have a purpose Someone who starts reading with no pre-established purpose or simply starts with a kind of confusion is likely to end up

by being bored of the reading act In addition, his results in terms of comprehension are to be low or he will fail to understand at all That is what will happen if the reader reads with no objectives Whether he intends to find answers to questions, aims at getting information, or simply searches joy, he cannot engage in the text without

having a precise purpose It is one way to save the reader's time and energy Moreover, it ensures his involvement and enthusiasm while reading Supporting Wallace’s point of view, Donoghue (2009, p.1) states that the purpose of reading can focus the readers’ attention and it can help them in understanding the text He also

points out that “comprehension in reading is stronger when the purpose is

specific” It means that the purpose of reading determine how will the readers

comprehend a text When the readers set a purpose for reading the text, they will draw their attention to the text and they will try to comprehend the text It is obvious that the purpose of reading must be set before reading Therefore the instructors should be able to help the readers in constructing their purpose before reading

In short, the reader should identify the reasons for reading By setting the different purposes of reading and his intention while reading, the reader will achieve a good level in comprehending the message of the text Thus, reading purpose has a special influence on getting information as well as remembering the information from the text

2.5.2.2 The reader’s interest in reading

A reader who is highly interested to read a passage is likely to comprehend

it According to Donoghue (2009, p.176) when the readers are curious about a subject, they will have a higher interest in reading the text to seek information and discover answers to satisfy that curiosity Besides, a text which draws the reader's attention through its aesthetic aspects, choice of vocabulary and theme is likely to encourage the reader to sink in it The reader's desire to stick to the text gets higher and higher until he ends up with it In most cases, he rereads once and twice widening, each time, the scope of his comprehension reading interest will affect the readers’ comprehension in reading the text Thus, the reader's preferences and motivation are of a crucial importance in reading comprehension Supporting these ideas, Widdowson (1978, p.80) argues that the readers usually attend to what is related to their likes and interest and that they do not worry about texts which do not

a rose their curiosity and motivation Boredom and difficulty while reading may be reduced if the reader reads the selections which correspond to his preferences.

2.5.2.3 The reader's language proficiency

The readers’ language proficiency affects reading comprehension It is a factor that determines the success of the readers in understanding the author’s message If the reader has a large amount of vocabulary, knows different cohesive devices and masters different sentence structures, he is likely to face less difficulty while processing the text Likewise, if the reader is lack of language proficiency, he will fails to understand what is represented on the page and he cannot go on guessing and anticipating The reading process will be therefore hindered

2.5.2.4 The reader’s background knowledge about the topic

A reader who is familiar with the text's topic is likely to achieve better comprehension Someone who engages in reading without knowing before hand what he is reading about will not get the whole message of the text He may understand isolated words, as he may comprehend phrases and sentences but the overall meaning will always remain ambiguous The reader keeps on wondering what is the point raised by the author, but each time, he fails to state a given sense Therefore, to achieve a better comprehension, the reader should prepare good background knowledge about the topic In teaching reading skill, the instructor should also find effective ways to introduce the topic to warm up the students in order that the students can become familiar with the text and this will bring them to

a higher level in reading comprehension

interpretation of the text than when they are not In cases of unfamiliar cultural norms, readers tend to refer to their own cultural properties, which results in poor interpretations of the text In his study, Alptekin (2006, pp 494-508) stated that when cultural elements of a short story are nativized to make the text culturally more familiar, students can make better inferences than when they read the original but culturally-remote story Alptekin’s research supported Oller’s (1995 pp 273–306) assertion that changing certain words in authentic texts with more familiar ones helps readers to achieve better comprehension Therefore, when the readers have good knowledge of culture, they can understand how people treat or behave each other Knowing culture when he engages in reading text will contribute him to face difficulty barrier while reading to achieve better comprehension.

2.5.2.6 The reader’s reading strategies

According to Oxford (1990, p.5) claimed that “learning strategies are

specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations” This means that the learners must have knowledge of specific

comprehension strategies in reading to achieve comprehension If the readers have effective reading comprehension, he will have many opportunities to comprehending the information from the text Likewise, the reader who has no knowledge in reading strategies will have a lot of difficulties to achieve comprehension Therefore, reading strategies are an important factor that contributes to help students to overcome difficulties in comprehending the text

2.5.2.7 Reading automacity

Automacity is also considered as a factor that influences reading comprehension Automacity happens when the reader recognizes rapidly in various words in the text while he reads It is required by the fluent reading Hawkins (1991,

p.171) stated that “as automacity in decoding develops, the learner would also

improve in terms of comprehension, since there would be more "freed-up" processing capacity for comprehension as decoding skills become automatic”.

In short, if the reader reaches automacity in reading skill at high level, he will recognize the meaning process more rapidly, and it also helps him to save time

on reading comprehension process

2.5.3 The instructor

Donoghue (2009, p.1) states that the quality of instruction can influence the students’ reading comprehension The quality of the instruction is determined by the instructors themselves An effective instructor engages the students productively on the reading tasks They can motivate the students in the reading lesson The types of their instruction also can encourage the students to be active readers Those will give positive impact to the students’ reading comprehension

2.6 The three stages of a reading lesson

According to Brown (2001, p.315) a reading lesson can be arranged in to three stages namely: Pre-reading stage, while-reading stage and post-reading stage Each stage has its own characteristics and acquires student’s different techniques as well as strategies These stages help students to develop their comprehending the text in effective way through doing some activities and exercise in each phase

2.6.1 Pre-reading stage

In a reading comprehension lesson, the pre-reading stage plays an important role because it can help to motivate students and promote their attitude before accessing the topic of the text It is also prior knowledge to aid reading process

Stoller (1994, p.3) emphasize that: "…Pre-reading activities can be utilized (a) to

tap students already existing background knowledge, and/or (b) to provide students with new information that will help them comprehend the passage” This means

that the activities provided by the teacher before the students read the text are

necessary as they help students to break the ice and are also a technique that invite the reader to be ready to attend the text.

There are various pre-reading activities for the teachers to choose However, they need to know how to select effective activities that are suitable with the student’s level and the text to be read A good choice of activities for the reading text will results in better teaching and learning The following is a table summarizing the combination of pre-reading activities by Stoller (1994, pp 2-7):

Table 2.1 Pre-reading activities

The pre- reading

Activity

Brief definition Benefit

Semantic mapping A graphic representation on a

blackboard showing readers' prior knowledge in the form of connected categories to a given concept

- It helps learners bring their prior knowledge to the surface

- It ensures group interaction

- It aids readers to understand what they will meet in the text

Study the lay out of

the reading passage

Pass quickly by: the text's title, subtitles, headings and visual representations and guess what they hold as meanings

- Aid learners to go on rereading the text's content

- Prompt readers to ask questions which they will try

to answer after reading.Skim for the main

idea(s)

Readers are asked to read the first and last paragraphs of a text plus the first sentence in theremaining paragraphs

- To state the main idea

of the text they are about

to readScan for details Readers are asked to search for - To make them know what

specific information in the text is the difference between

skimming, scanning and reading

Match main ideas

with Paragraphs

The teacher provides learners with the main ideas of a text's paragraphs They are to be asked to match each paragraph with the idea it expresses

- Readers will be accustomed to the idea that each paragraph centers around one idea

Examine the visuals Readers examine the charts,

graphs or figures

- It helps reader to guess the text's ideas

It helps reader to

guess the text's ideas

The reader may read just one article which may cover what is

to be expressed in the rest of the magazine

- Readers may answer questions about the whole text through reading one paragraph (to save time).Present main ideas The teacher informs readers

about the article's topic if they are unfamiliar with it

- Direct readers towards the text's key words and ideas

Consult the

dictionary

Readers search words (presented in a context) in their dictionaries

- Helps students know words meaning in context

- Helps students know words synonyms and antonyms

- Helps students know about the text content

Consider new

Vocabulary

Difficult, new and crucial vocabulary in comprehension is considered prior to reading the text

- Helps students to get words' meanings to face no problems in reading comprehension

The purpose of pre-reading stage activity is to help students to be accustomed to the topic of lesson Therefore, choosing suitable activities to

introduce the lesson for students is very necessary and it may make the lesson be more effective.

more time for reading According to Eskey (2005, p.574) "people learn to read and

to read better, by reading" Therefore, in this phase, various activities should be

carried out to aid the reader to find the specific information in the text Stoller (1994, p 6) summarized these activities as in the table below:

Table 2.2 While-reading activities

The while-reading

Activity

Brief definition Benefit

Reading for specific

main ideas

- This helps readers find answers to question to be asked after reading easily

Note taking Readers take notes on the text

while they are reading

- These notes will be used to deal with other tasks

Predicting the

content of the article

After reading a part of the text, readers try to predict what will come next to it

- Readers gain the chance to know about possible interpretations of the text

Determining what

has happened

After reading a part

of the text, readers try to give the main idea of what they have read

- Readers engage in reading other parts with a summary in their minds

2.6.3 Post – reading stage

This stage is the last phase in a reading lesson but not a less important stage

in the lesson because this phase links the reading in class with the life’s knowledge Various activities can be organized in this stage Stoller (1994, pp 5-7) has summarized these actions as in the table below:

Table 2.3 Post-reading activities

Post-Reading Activity Brief definition Benefit

Discussing the text

with classmates

After finishing reading, students discuss what is expressed in the text

- Communication among readers

- Invite readers' ownResponses

Searching for meaningful

vocabulary

Students check idiomatic expressions, words' synonyms and antonyms

- Students know more meaningful vocabulary items

Scanning for details Students searching the text's

details through answering specific questions

- Students know the text's deep details

Making inference Readers infer hidden meanings - Students know the

between lines hidden meanings

Sequencing events Students are required to order - Students follow the text's

disordered list of events chronology to arrive at

sequencing eventsApplying information

From the text

Students use information in other activities: information gap activity, problem solving activity, debate,

simulation game, roleplay,… etc

- Students use the information gained from the text in situations in their lives

post Students confirm or disconfirm the pre-made assumptions

Creating or revising

semantic maps

Readers revise their prior reading semantic maps or create new ones

- Students summarize and better recall of the text's content

Synthesizing information

from multiple sources

Students gather information about the text’s topic from other sources

- Helps students to connect ideas from different reading sources

2.7 Brainstorming in teaching reading skill

The brainstorming technique plays an important role in teaching and learning reading skill This technique is mainly used in the pre-reading phase Through brainstorming, the reader is likely to bring all that is in his brain which he may think

is linked to the text's topic

2.7.1 Brainstorming

Brainstorming enables students to create and share their prior knowledge to solve problems to reach the goal Students have to think to generate the ideas from their mind toward the topic that they are going to read In his study, Isaksen (1998, p.3) stated that there are various meanings for the term brainstorming It can be seen

as a meeting where people are together in a debate attempting to bring some ideas Others consider brainstorming as synonymous with idea generation It means that brain storming is considered as an effective tool to generate new ideas, this activity

MONEY MONEY

Different ideas that may seem

Similar ideas

Full definition

ATM Cards

Value set by goverment

Examples

Pennies

US Dollar Bill

Canidian Dollar Bill

Standard, accepted amount

is also a way to be creative in whatever matter In addition, while brainstorming, the reader brings his storm many different meanings that he has already known about

the subject matter of the text According to Feather (2004, p 82) "during a

brainstorming session, information that is already known is brought forward and becomes more accessible" Brain storming is therefore a tool that helps the reader to

activate his prior knowledge and facilitates the reading process

The figure bellow illustrates a simple brainstorming activity about money (The Graphic Organizer, n.d.)

Figure 2.1 An example of a brainstorming about money

2.7.2 Types of brainstorming

There are two types of brainstorming: individual and group brainstorming One reader may go on brainstorming by his own Prior to reading a text, he gets its title and tries to jot down on a paper all his previous acquired knowledge about the text’s topic He may decide to share those ideas with others who are reading the same text In this case, brainstorming turns to be an interactive group activity through which the reader shares their ideas In group brainstorming, there must be a header who controls, organizes and guides the process In classroom environment, the teacher is the one to play this role

2.7.3 Brainstorming rules

An activity process does not come suddenly but has to follow certain rules and brainstorming does too In the brainstorming process, if the teacher and the reader pay

enough attention to its rules, they will gain a considerable success According to Orborn (1953), brainstorming activities have to follow four following sessions:

a Criticism is ruled out Adverse judgment of ideas must be withheld until later The purpose of the brainstorming session is the generation of many, varied and unusual options

b Freewheeling is welcomed The wilder the idea, the better; it is easier to tame down than to think up Since criticism is temporarily ruled out it is acceptable and desired that really wild and unusual ideas are shared

c Quantity is wanted The greater the number of ideas, the great like hood of useful ideas

d Combination and improvement are sought In addition to contributing ideas

of their own, participant should suggest how the ideas of others can

be turned into their ideas; or how two or more ideas can be joined into still another idea

(Cited in Isaksen, 1998, p.4).From the rules below, it can be seen that what is important in brainstorming process is to give out as many as possible ideas These ideas may be right or wrong, however all are accepted and they are considered as of equal importance When the readers gain many different ideas coming from their mind, they will be more successful in their reading process This idea was also emphasized by Feathers (2004, p 84) who noticed that everything brought by participants is accepted even it

is seen as mistaken Wrong and right ideas are of equal importance in the sense that wrong information shows misunderstanding That is to say, when readers start reading they meet information in the text which contradicts with what they have already brainstormed, thus, they will work on correcting what is wrong

In addition, combination among these ideas of the readers is also very necessary When each reader gives out his idea, other members may be encouraged

to generate a new idea Another member may combine the previous idea with others

to give out other ones It makes the lesson become more exiting and contributes to a

successful lesson In his work, Feathers (2004, p84) stated that "sharing ideas with a group or the whole class is important because one student's thoughts trigger others

to bring to a conscious level information that may have been buried"

Accordingly, readers should obey the rules of brainstorming because these rules can help them to generate many different ideas that may be involved in the text When they meet these ideas in the text, they will find the text easier to understand Moreover, combination among this reader’s opinion and others’ one will make the reading process more successful

* Establish "playing rules" for brainstorming sessions They should include:

- The leader is responsible for controlling the activity

- No member is entitled to have obstruction, evaluation, criticism or additions to opinions, vocabularies or answers of other members

- Collecting all the answers, ideas, phrases (except it was repeated)

(the record can be summed up in one word or one sentence for each idea separately)

- Mapping the working time and stopping when time runs out

* Start brainstorming: The leader appoints or selects members to share their answers (or discrete concepts) The secretary must write down all the answers, if possible showing publicly for people to see (such as writing on the blackboard)

(Comments or review of any comments on any answer are not allowed until the action ends)

* Take turns to evaluate the responses

Some notes on the quality of answers included:

- Find the duplicated sentences or similar ideas to re-collapse

- Submit the answer with the same or similar master about principles or principles

- Remove all the comments which are completely irrelevant

- After having the list of comments, debate about the general answer

2.7.5 The roles of brainstorming in reading comprehension

Brainstorming is a powerful way to generate, share and maximize new ideas

It provides many advantages in reading comprehension for several reasons

Firstly, brainstorming helps to encourage reader’s prior knowledge toward the text Because what the reader brainstorms before reading connect to the topic of the text and it help the reader to make prediction of the message conveyed in the

reading text According to Feather (2004, p.82), "brainstorming provides plenty of

materials for making prediction" Prediction may be of vocabulary items, content,

culture and situations in the text Therefore, through brainstorming, the reader can determine his reading goals, so, he can predict what will happen in the text Feather, in the same study (2004, p.84), also stated what is recorded before readers' eyes as ideas or vocabulary items aids them to remember what was said, to build on

it, correct or modify it themselves

Secondly, brainstorming can encourage creative thinking When sitting in a group together to give the ideas for a given new topic through brainstorming, each reader provides an idea that will promote ideas from other members In that way, ideas give birth to more ideas and people will bounce ideas off one another and the creativity will bubble over This process makes the reader more creative and contributes to discover the text more successfully

Thirdly, brainstorming is considered as a tool that stimulates everyone of the team Brainstorming creates working atmosphere Working creatively motivates participants It encourages everyone to take part in generating ideas and it also can enable all members of the group to feel like part of the team Therefore, it can promote team work and make all participants feel like an important member of the group and that their ideas and input are respected and valued By co- operating in work, the readers can solve the problems together, and this work will be more exciting as well as motivates every member to be ready to engage the text.

Last but not least, brainstorming states a purpose for reading Feathers (2004, P.83) emphasized that after recording the brainstormed ideas in a list, readers start reading and verifying whether what was brainstormed is correct or wrong Thus, they will be reading with a purpose in mind It means that brainstorming is an important technique used in the before-reading stage that helps the readers to determine the purposes for reading the text

To sum up, brainstorming is an effective technique for readers to activate prior knowledge for reading comprehension Brainstorming makes readers think creatively and encourages them to generate as many ideas as possible Therefore, if readers obey the rules of brainstorming, they will get optimal results for a reading text However, there has been not much research on how brainstorming improves reading comprehension In this study, an experiment will be carried out to measure the effects of brainstorming in increasing reading comprehension The next chapter will display the methodology and findings of the research in the light of the theories mentioned above

The previous chapter has provided a necessary theoretical background for the study This chapter presents research questions and then describes the participants, the materials and the procedure of the study The findings and the discussion based

on the data collected from the eight tests of eight reading lessons will be also provided in this chapter.

3.1 Research questions

The study aimed to seek the answers for the following questions:

- Will brainstorming help to increase ESP learners’ reading comprehension? And if

at the College All of them passed the English final exam with scores over 6 out of

10 marks In the first semester of the second year, these students started to learn English for specific purposes with the course book “ English for accounting” This book was designed based on some other course books by the researcher and her colleagues with the aims to make the course book suitable to the English level of students at Nghe An Tourism-Trading Vocational College

Before taking part in experiment, they were selected based on the score of general English test This test found no statistically significant difference between two groups These scores of general English test of two groups are illustrated in detail in the results section

3.3 Materials