USING READING STRATEGIES IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION FOR THE 11TH GRADE STUDENTS AT TRAI CAU HIGH SCHOOL

i THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LE THI THU HUONG USING READING STRATEGIES IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION FOR THE 11TH GRADE STUDENTS AT TRAI CAU HIGH SCHOOL Sử

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THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE

LE THI THU HUONG

USING READING STRATEGIES IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION FOR THE 11TH GRADE STUDENTS

AT TRAI CAU HIGH SCHOOL

Sử dụng các chiến lược đọc trong việc dạy kỹ năng đọc hiểu

cho học sinh lớp 11 tại trường THPT Trại Cau

M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Prof Dr Pham Lan Anh

THAI NGUYEN - 2019

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I declare that this research report entitled “Using the reading strategies in teaching

composed by myself, and described my own work, unless otherwise acknowledged in the text I confirm that this work is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master at School or Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University This work has not been and will not submitted for any degree at any institution of higher education

Author’s signature

Le Thi Thu Huong

Approved by SUPERVISOR

Pham Lan Anh, Ph.D

Date: May, 2019

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor,

Ms Pham Lan Anh, Ph.D for the wholehearted guidance she gave me while I was doing this research I am truly grateful for her valuable support, inspiring suggestions, and timely encouragement during the accomplishment of the research Without these, the thesis could not have been completed

Secondly, I would also acknowledge my great gratitude to all the professors as well as lectures at School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for the valuable lectures, which have contributed to lay the foundation for this thesis

Thirdly, I take this opportunity to show my gratitude to my colleagues and Trai Cau High School administrations help and comments Also, my special thanks go to my students of class 11A2 for their active taking part in research Without help, this study could not have been fulfilled

I owe great debt of gratitude to be my beloved family – my parents, my husband and

my children whose support and encouragement have always been a great deal of strength that has helped me to overcome all problems to complete this thesis

Finally, I would like to send my special thanks to my readers for their concern, interest and constructive comments

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ABSTRACT

difficulty experienced by the 11th grade students at Trai Cau High School with an intervention of using reading strategies

Having identified the problem, a plan for implementing and giving three specific reading strategies was set up and carried out during 6 Units with the aim to seek for the effectiveness of using reading strategy

First, the researcher conducted questionnaire survey of teaching and applying reading strategies for students The results of the questionnaire implied that students did not have awareness of using reading strategies Thus, the researcher implemented the second step to find out the effectiveness of using reading strategies by students’ reflection of three strategies in 6 reading Units The results of the students’ reflection point out that these strategies had the dissimilar level of the difficulty, but almost students felt interesting when applying these strategies and saw that they were useful

At the end of the action research cycle, the researcher interviewed students to get the deep information about the effectiveness of using reading strategies The results of this interview indicated students like using reading strategies to deal with reading tasks Moreover, although students faced the difficulties in using reading strategies, they all saw that these strategies helped them not only to enhance reading comprehension but also to solve reading tasks’ problem In general, using reading strategies had positive impact on the students’ reading comprehension Based on the findings of the study, some discussions and implications were made along with suggestions for further research

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions of the study 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Methods of the study 4

7 Structure of the study 4

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1 Reading comprehension 6

1.1 Definitions of reading comprehension 6

1.2 The importance of teaching reading 7

2 Language learning strategies 7

3 Reading strategies 8

3.1 Definitions of Reading Strategies 8

3.2 Classification of Reading Strategies Error! Bookmark not defined. 3.3 Models of reading strategy instruction 11

3.4 Benefits of reading strategy 11

4 Review of the previous studies 12

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 14

3.1 Restatement of research questions 14

3.2 Rationale for the use of action research 14

3.4 Action research model of the study 15

3.4.1 Action research process 15

3.4 2 Data collection instruments 18

3.5 Data analysis 19

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 21

4.1 The findings from students’ reflection 21

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4.1.1 Data from students’ reflection 21

4.2 Specific Cases 23

4.2.1 The difficulty of reading strategy 23

4.3 The usefulness level of reading strategy 26

4.4 The students’ enjoyment level of reading strategy 28

4.5 The students’ satisfaction level of reading strategy 31

4.6 The findings from the interview 33

3.4 Discussion 36

CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION 40

5 1 Recapitulation 41

5.2 Implication and conclusion 41

5.3 Limitation of the study and recommendations for further research 43

REFERENCES 45

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LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1 Students’ overall reflection 21 Chart 4.1.2 Students’ reflection on the use of reading strategy in 6 Units 22 Chart 4.2.1 Students’ reflection on the difficulty level of reading strategy in 6 Units 25 Chart 4.3.1 Students’ reflection on the usefulness level of reading strategy in 6 Units 27 Chart 4.4.1 Students ‘reflection on the enjoyment level of reading strategy in 6 Units 30 Chart 4.5.1 Students’ reflection on the satisfaction level of the 33

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Plan for 6 Units 16

Table 4.2 1.Data of the difficulty of reading strategy 23

Table 4.3.1 Data of the usefulness level of reading strategy 26

Table 4.4.1 Data of the students’ enjoyment of reading strategy 28

Table 4.5.1 Data of the students’ satisfaction of reading strategy 31

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

English is considered as the international language, Pressly (2008) said that

“Reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning reading a foreign language because it is the foundation of all content knowledge”, today’s world requires that the goal of teaching reading comprehension should improve students’ reading comprehension skill, because only in that way, students can understand more about the outside word The learners are informed of the events, culture, people, and many other fields in foreign countries through English newspaper, magazines, books or internet Reading is the key that unlocks the door in the world of enlightenment and enjoyment

Among the four skills in learning English as a foreign language, reading comprehension is the most challenging and difficult task for the learner in studying English Reading comprehension is a complex process for many students, it is even more complicated

to read in a foreign language

Vietnamese teachers and learners of English in high school are facing many difficulties in teaching and learning reading comprehension skills For the learners, it is sometimes very difficult to understand a text or a passage in English because they do not know the ways to improve their English reading comprehension skill It is necessary

to use strategies to improve English reading comprehension skill of students at high school because reading comprehension is a complicated activity that involves many skills, literal understanding, distinguishing fact/opinion, grammar and vocabulary Many Vietnamese teachers today are using reading strategies to make students easier to improve English reading comprehension skills It includes guess from context, define expectations, make inferences about the text, skim ahead to fill in the context, Finding the main idea – skimming, Selecting details – scanning, Interpreting graphics, Vocabulary, Summarizing, outlining, Figure of speech Appeal to senses, making conclusion, Paraphrasing, Interpreting, Getting the idea quickly, Highlighting, Using linguistic clues … and any other strategy instruction which may contribute to teaching reading comprehension

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Using reading strategies can help students to become more interested in reading comprehension and encourage them to read During reading comprehension, the reader processes the text with regard to the purpose Processing the text involves, beyond decoding, higher-level linguistic and semantic processing and monitoring Each process

is more or less important in different strategy instructions of reading, including Getting

the idea quickly, Highlighting, Using linguistic clues

Using reading strategies in teaching reading comprehension, students need prior knowledge of a subject activated or built This can be done by first establishing a purpose for reading; Getting the idea quickly, Highlighting, Using linguistic clues Next, teachers guide students to generate questions about the topic and make predictions and inferences The text structure needs to be evaluated to identify any supports present; comprehension should be taught using the context of the selection

In using reading strategies in teaching reading comprehension process, students need to monitor their comprehension by asking themselves questions, making inferences, and creating mental images If confused or not understood, the student must know how to reread a passage Students can be summarized, analyzed Among the many advantages of using reading strategy instructions are the control they give to the individual learner over his or her own rate and sequence of learning, their interactive nature which ensures the learner's active participation in the learning process and immediate reinforcement they provide

At Trai Cau high school it was observed that majority of students’ are lack of using reading strategies which are needed to become effective readers To help the students enhance reading comprehension skill, the researcher would like to establish the using reading strategies for students with the purpose of helping teachers find possible, effective ways and means to improve the reading comprehension skills of the students Thus making them realize that reading problems may be minimized if not totally remedied

2 Aims of the study

This action research study aimed to solve the 11th grade Trai Cau students’ problem

in reading comprehension by using reading strategies

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3 Research questions of the study

The purpose of this study is to examine if the solution for the 11th grade students’ problem in reading comprehension is effective or not Specifically, this sought to answer the following question:

To what extent is the use of reading strategies effective in teaching reading comprehension?

To answer the research question, the researcher carried out the following three steps:

- The first step is investigating what and how reading strategies have been used

by the 11th grade students up to the time this thesis was started

- The second step is taking the action of using reading strategies when teaching reading comprehension

- The third step is examining how students use reading strategies

4 Scope of the study

The study was conducted with the participation of 30 11th grade students at Trai Cau High School Due to time and energy constraints, the study hardly cover all types

of reading strategies So, it focuses on three reading strategies among direct strategies suggested by Oxford 1990 They are: getting the idea quickly, highlighting, and using linguistic clues in teaching reading comprehension

5 Significance of the study

This research might be beneficial to people who are interested in enhancing the students’ ability in reading comprehension It can benefit the students and teachers

This study is significant because of several reasons Firstly, the reality has shown that learning reading skills Trai Cau High School is far from satisfaction, so it is expected that the study would make the students at Trai Cau High School more aware

of the importance of reading strategies in improving reading comprehension Especially, the study points out how the use of reading strategies, particularly three reading strategies: getting the idea quickly, highlighting, and using linguistic clues in teaching reading comprehension Trai Cau high school Secondly, the results of the study probably

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suggest the efficient ways to help not only students at Trai Cau High School to improve their reading comprehension skill, but also teachers there know how to improve their students’ reading comprehension skill Finally, it is hoped that the study will bring new ideas in teaching and developing students’ reading skill It will also raise their interest

in reading

6 Methods of the study

To achieve these aims, both qualitative and quantitative methods were exploited

in this action research The data were collected via student’s reflection, and structured interview Specifically, the data about the effectiveness of students’ use of strategies on their reading skills during the action of the study, were collected via students’ reflection and semi-structured interview

semi-7 Structure of the thesis

The thesis comprises of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1: “Introduction” - covers the reasons why the study is carried out, defines the aims of the study as well as the research questions The significance of the study and the organization of the thesis will be covered

Chapter 2: “Literature review” - gives an overview of reading strategies - different definitions and classification systems Furthermore, reading comprehension and reading strategies were also referred to, followed by the definitions and classification of reading strategies This chapter also addresses the review of previous research into reading strategies use in general and reading strategy use in particular

Chapter 3: “The research methodology” - discusses the methodology for this study as well as the procedure to carry out It includes issues like instrumentation and process of data collection, data analysis

Chapter 4: “Research findings and discussions” - presents the results after data collection was analyzed The findings of the research will also be discussed in comparison with ones mentioned in the study

Chapter 5: “Implications and conclusion” - proposes some implications in the field of language teaching and learning based on the results from the study The next

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part is about the limitation of the research and suggestion for further research as well After that, the conclusion of the study is made to summarize the whole study

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CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews the literature relevant to the study It gives an overview of reading strategies - different definitions and classification systems Furthermore, reading comprehension and reading strategies were also referred to, followed by the definitions and classification of reading strategies This chapter also addresses the review of previous research into reading strategies use in general and reading strategy use in particular

1 Reading comprehension

1.1 Definitions of reading comprehension

The term “Reading” is defined in Longman Dictionary of Language teaching and Applied Linguistic (2002) as: “perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents This can be done silently (silent reading) The understanding that results is called reading comprehension.” and “saying a written text aloud (oral reading) This can

be done with or without an understanding of the contents

a, Literal comprehension: reading in order to understand, remember, or recall the

information explicitly contained in a passage

b, Inferential comprehension: reading in order to find information which is not

explicitly stated in a passage, using the reader’s experience and intuition, and by inferring

c, Critical or evaluative comprehension: reading in order to compare information

in a passage with the reader’s own knowledge and values

d, Appreciative comprehension: reading in order to gain an emotional or other kind

of valued response from a passage”

However, some researchers argued that reading is a selective process For example, Goodman (1967); Harmer (1991); Anderson (2003); Woolley, G (2011); Snow (2002); Abu Shamla (2010); Swihart (2009); Chio (2009);

Moreover, there are a lot of useful things that we get when reading Other skills such as spelling, vocabulary and pronunciation, and so on are improved through reading Besides, Fitzgerald (1989) points out that most of these studies focus on reading and its

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influence on other skills Thus, teaching reading is essential thing, and we need to concern about this problem

1.2 The importance of teaching reading

Reading is the important element of knowledge because we need to read written materials Swihart (2009) states that “reading is a very pivotal skill in our life and it is important for the mind and the success of students’ academic career as people who can not read well, don’t do well in school and lose a lot of important things in life” Moreover, Chio (2009) states that reading is asserted to have close relationship with other language leaning processes and play an important role in language learning in general

Besides, Fitzgerald (1989) points out that most of these studies focus on reading and its influence on other skills Thus, teaching reading is essential thing, and we need

to concern about this problem

2 Language learning strategies

* Definition of language learning strategies

For many years, Language learning strategies have been one of the most researched topics of second and foreign language education Based on Language learning strategies, scholars and researchers will propose specific strategies Following, Rubin (1975) defines learning strategies as “the techniques or devices, which a learner may use to acquire knowledge”

In another study, Rubin (1987) states that “Language learning strategies are strategies which contribute to the development of the language system which the learner constructs and affect learning directly”

In Cohen’s words (1996, cited in J.Liu, 2010), Language learning strategies are defined as “learning processes which are consciously selected by the learner which may result in actions taken to enhance learning” According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990) offers another definition of Language learning strategies as “the special thoughts or behaviours that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information” Oxford (1990) states that Language learning strategies are “specific action taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed,

3.1 Definition of reading strategies

Reading strategies are necessary for students when they want to improve their reading skills Reading strategies are often taught by teachers or used by students in various ways Farrell (2001) stated that students can benefit from learning reading strategies and that these strategies can be taught Yang (2006) determined that the procession and utilization of comprehension monitoring strategies provide readers greater help in the comprehension of material Most individuals have personal strategies that they develop as ways to understand what they read

To have a deep understanding of reading strategies, it is necessary to make clear the terms “strategy” and “learning strategy” Strategy is defined as a plan or method that

is designed to reach a goal According to Brown (2007) strategies are defined as the specific methods of approaching a problem or task, modes of operation for achieving a particular end, planned designs for controlling and manipulating certain information Learning strategies can be defined in various ways An early definition by O’Malley and Chamot (1990) stated that learning strategies are “the special thoughts or behaviours that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or retain new information” (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990, p.1) Another definition given by Oxford (1990)

“Learning strategies can be defined as conscious “steps taken by students to enhance their own learning” Oxford (2003) expands and defines learning strategies as “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations” (Oxford, 2003, p.9)

It can be understood that learning strategies are taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, and more effective

Reading strategies are defined differently by researchers Davies (1995) defined reading strategy as a physical or mental process used consciously or unconsciously in

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order to facilitate text comprehension and learning Similarly Abbott (2006) stated that reading strategies are “the mental operations or comprehension processes that readers select and apply in order to make sense of what they read.” (Abbott, 2006, p.637) According to Garner (1987), reading strategies are defined as “Generally deliberate, playful activities undertaken by active learners, many times to remedy perceived cognitive failure” (Garner, 1987, p.50) Carrell (1998) stated that “Reading strategies are of interest not only for what they reveal about the ways readers manage interactions with written text but also for how the use of strategies is related to effective comprehension” (Carrell, 1998, p.97) Another definition suggested by (Baker & Boonkit, 2004) is that reading strategies are “techniques and methods readers use to make their reading successful” Also Yang (2006) stated that reading strategies include things such as predicting content, posing questions, recognizing text structure, integrating information, reflecting, monitoring comprehension, utilizing general knowledge, and reacting to the text According to Baker and Brown (1984), reading strategies contain cognitive and metacognitive strategies in reading Cognitive strategies are conscious ways in dealing with learning, such as resourcing, deduction, grouping, note-taking, translation and elaboration Metacognitive strategies are used to monitor or regulate cognitive strategies, which include checking the outcome of any attempt to solve a problem, planning one’s next move, monitoring the effectiveness of any attempted action, revising, and evaluating one’s strategies for learning Additionally, Barnett (2002) has used the term reading strategy to refer to the cognitive operations when readers approach a text in order to make sense of what they read In this sense, reading strategies can be understood as the comprehension processes that are used by readers to make sense of the reading text

From another perspective, Janzen (2003) defined reading strategies as plans and behaviors for solving problems when faced in constructing meaning He believes that these strategies range from bottom-up strategies to top-down strategies Bottom-up strategies are defined as making use of information such as understanding the text by analyzing the words and sentences in the text itself, or looking up an unfamiliar word in the dictionary Top-down strategies make use of previous knowledge such as connecting what is being read to readers’ background knowledge

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From the various opinions of linguists, it can be concluded that reading strategies are actions and techniques that help readers to comprehend the written and achieve reading tasks It is important to note that there are many types of reading strategies and they are used in many different ways according to contexts and learners Therefore, finding out which reading strategies are employed effectively in improving reading skill

is essential for both teachers and learners Also it is important for teachers to determine which strategies should be included in the syllabus when teaching the reading comprehension skill

Reading strategies are categorized in many ways by various researchers Some researchers classified reading strategies according to the time namely before, during, or after reading Before-reading or pre-reading strategy is used to activate prior knowledge

of the readers in relevance to the reading text During reading strategies are used to identify main idea, make reference and cross-reference whereas after reading, or post-reading, strategies are used to review the text content Some others categorize these strategies as either global or local according to the part of the text on which they focus Block (1986) classified reading strategies as general strategies (comprehension-gathering and comprehension-monitoring) and local strategies (understanding specific language Units) Meanwhile, Anderson (1991, p.463) proposed a detailed classification

of reading strategies including five major groups: supervising strategies, support strategies, paraphrase strategies, coherence strategies and test-taking strategies The O’Malley and Chamot (1990) used three categories to classify the types of strategies in their framework: metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social/affective strategies Metacognitive strategies involve learning and controlling learning through planning, monitoring and evaluating the learning activity Cognitive strategies involve the manipulation or transformation of the material to be learned, such as resourcing, repetition, grouping, deduction, imagery, auditory representation, key word method, elaboration, transfer, note taking, summarizing, and translation Social/affective strategies mainly involve the learner in communicative interaction with another person

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3.3 Models of reading strategies

There are many similar features in these instructional models All of them agree

on the importance of developing students’ metacognitive awareness of the value of learning strategies and suggest that this is facilitated through teacher demonstration and modeling All these models emphasize the importance of providing opportunities to practice with the strategies so that students can use them autonomously All suggest that students should evaluate how well a strategy has worked and choose appropriate strategies for a task, and actively transfer these strategies to new tasks

As mentioned in 1.2.2, we can see typical models of learning language srategy However, although these instructional models have some differences in effectiveness, the explicit reading strategy instruction suggested by Chamot & O’Malley (1993) is chosen for this study because it is suitable for my training program and kind of the text and reading tasks The application of this model was discussed in 2.5.1.2

3.4 Benefits of reading strategies

Obviously, reading strategies bring the positive effect for the users Macalister (2010) believes that “in order to teach learners how to read, there needs to be focus on developing strategies that will assist further reading” In Sergio’s study (2011), he pointed out the benefits of using reading strategies For the foreign language readers, reading strategies helps them to improve in reading comprehension Also, students apply the reading strategies, their performance becomes confident and their motivation enhances considerably Moreover, the use of a dictionary reduces as they read or fulfill reading tasks

In a study, Carrell et al (1989) conducted a research study to examine the effects

of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategy teaching on high-intermediate level adult ESL students of various first language backgrounds The students were trained in semantic mapping and the experience-text-relationship method to activate background knowledge Each group of students also received training in metacognitive awareness and regulation of the two strategies The findings from the post-tests positively indicated that the metacognitive and cognitive strategy instruction were successful in enhancing reading comprehension

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In conclusion, reading strategies help learners to do reading tasks better in reading process They change students’ performance and awareness in reading comprehension better Besides, reading strategies motivate student to read and to fulfill reading tasks

4 Review of the previous studies

In the field of reading strategy instruction, a vast number of studies have been conducted to examine the effect of reading strategy instruction on learners’ reading comprehension

A research conducted by Oyetunji (2011) showed teaching reading is considered

as a process that involves an application of reading strategies to understanding text The researcher conducted her study for 56 students with two instruments: questionnaire and pre and post-test at Botswana during the 6-week period of intervention Before the intervention, based on the questionnaire, she saw that students have not had the habit of using reading strategy Thus, she instructed reading strategies for students In particular, she divided these students into two groups: control and intervention in order to implement pre and post test From the results of her study, she showed that the intervention group improved significantly in both their strategy use and reading comprehension after the intervention Through it, we can see the role of teachers in guiding reading strategies for students Based on the results of the study, he pointed out that explicit reading strategy instruction is one of the ways to achieve reading proficiency

At another foreign setting, Ballou (2012) investigated the effect of using explicit instruction in improving students’ reading comprehension for the students at The Harley School He used two instruments: questionnaire and interview in order to examine the effect of explicit reading strategy instruction for students at here From the results of his study, he suggested that explicit strategy instruction improves students’ reading ability

to answer comprehension questions accurately Moreover, this instruction also helps students to get attitude toward reading and their ability to use a wide variety of strategies when reading independently

More recently, Vu Tue Minh (2014) conducted investigation on the use of reading

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pre and post- test and questionnaire Through the data analysis in her study, she stated that reading strategies can bring benefits to both teacher and the students For teachers, using reading strategies will add the interest to reading lessons For students, it is a way to stimulate students’ comprehension and their participation in in-class reading activities Besides, reading strategies improve students’ reading, especially the students whose limited knowledge of English, lack of self-confidence and activeness in participating in in-class activities From the results of her study, she strongly believed that reading strategy instruction can be an effective tool for improving students’ reading comprehension

In short, the previous studies on reading strategies, which were conducted outside and inside Vietnam, have been reviewed, and it has been found that reading strategy

instruction has been important in teaching and learning reading comprehension

in this chapter Regarding the reading comprehension strategies, definitions, classifications and types of reading stragies have been discussed Finally, previous studies on reading strategies have been reviewed briefly

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter aims to bring about a fully detailed description of how the study was conducted It will mention the research questions of the study and the instrumentation for the research Also, the subjects and the setting of the study will be clearly described, followed by the data collection procedure as well as data analysis Finally, the coding scheme for the data collected will be mentioned

3.1 Restatement of research questions

As mentioned in chapter 1, the study was carried out to answer the research question:

To what extent is the use of reading strategies effective in teaching reading comprehension?

3.2 Rationale for the use of action research

The students are 20 females 10 males and they come from class 11A2 of Trai Cau Upper Secondary School All of them are 17 years old Most of them are ethnic minority and have learnt English for at least 5 years at their lower secondary schools where their English learning had been mainly focused on grammar and vocabulary Moreover, they face a lot of difficulties in learning English in general in reading in particular Firstly, for a number of reasons, there is a restriction for the students on communication with the outside world After finishing lessons, they have to spend a lot

of time do the household chores to help their parents to make ends meet Therefore, they have limited opportunities to learn English, update new information and knowledge which may be useful for them to improve their English ability The next disadvantage for the students to have limited access to the mass media such as television and the Internet which might help them a lot in their studying Besides, large-sized classes (over 30 students per class) also causes difficulties for the learners at Trai Cau high school to develop their English Many of them lack the basic knowledge of English, and learning English seems these students’ beginnings Besides, as an English teacher, in the process

of teaching, the researcher notices that reading strategies are not showed in each text Thanks to teaching process, teachers point out reading strategies to their students based

on text tasks

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3.4 Action research model of the study

3.4.1 Action research process

There are different models given by researchers in their AR In this study, action reasearch model by Mc Targart and Kemmis (1988) was adapted because of its simplicity and effectiveness The procedure in the Mc Targart and Kemmis (1988)’s model are not separate but embeded with action and reflection There are only four steps

in this model as described in the figure 1, so it is very easy for the reasearcher to follow: Step 1: Plan project

Step 2: Implement the project

Step 3: Observe the project

Step 4: Reflect and evaluate

The study was implemented with a class of 30 grade 11 students where the researcher worked in the second semester at Trai Cau school for 12 weeks ( from the beginning of December 2018 until late March 2019)

The procedure of this action research project is described as follows:

Step 1: Plan (from week 1 to 2)

Identification and analysis of problem and situation and planning

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the researcher identified and realised the problem that students at Trai Cau Upper Secondary School were not good at reading comprehension Also, the students were not efficient in vocabulary knowledge and were not motivated enough to practice reading outside class Consequently, their results in the final test were

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not good in comparison with other skills Through class observation, discussion with students at class and analysis, the researcher came to the conclusion that the problem stemmed from the lack of reading strategies and lack of reading practice during class During the first two weeks, the researcher prepared for the action very careful by analyzing the problem, raising questions, building hypothesis, basing on teaching experience and reading the literature From the review of the literature (see in the Chapter 2) the researcher concluded that reading strategy instruction may help students improve reading comprehension and also change their attitude toward reading Therefore, this action research project was implemented to improve the situation in the researcher’s teaching context The detailed plan for the intervention, (i.e, reading comprehension instruction) is as follows,

Table 3.1 Plan for 6 Units

“answering the questions”

Unit 2: The Post

One passage consists of 3 questions of

“answering the question” 5 and sentences of “True or False”

Unit 3: Nature in

The first task has 6 definitions “finding

a word or phrase”

The second task includes 6 questions

“answering the questions”

The last one is one the article with 3 sentences “completing the sentences”

One passage has 6 sentences of “Filling

in each blank with a suitable word”, 4 sentences of “Circling A, B, C or D that

Using linguistic clues

& Getting the idea quickly

The first task is 5 sentences of “Filling

in the blank”

The second task includes 5 sentences of

“Writing down the advantages and disadvantages”

The last is answering 3 questions

Unit 6:

The wonders of the

world

All three strategies

One passage has 4 paragraphs The first task is filling each blank with

a suitable word (6 questions) The next task is answering 5 questions The last is scanning the text and say what 4 words refer to

Step 2: Act (from week 3 to 9)

This research was conducted in the second semester of the school year 2018 -2019

at Trai Cau High School in Thai Nguyen province

In the first step, the researcher seeks permission and approval of the head of agency of the subject in the study by sending him letter requesting to gather data from that place

The reading strategies were introduced as planned The participants were guided how to employ the three specific reading strategies when reading The explicit instruction was guided by researcher The training was based on the explicit reading strategy instruction The focus of this phase was on modeling the use of the new reading strategy or strategies and explaining how and when to use

Step 3: Observe (from week 10 to 11)

The researcher presented the reading comprehension strategies and collected data

on how the students reacted to the researcher’s instruction

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In order to reach the aim of this phase, the researcher used a student’s reflection

to explore the effectiveness of each reading strategy in students’ comprehension so that students can consciously evaluate their reading strategy that they use during their completion of the reading tasks

In this phase, the students were encouraged to extend the use of the strategy or strategies they were trained into new situations or tasks

To be more specific, positive and negative points related to using reading strategies, especially, three strategies that the researcher had introduced to the students were shown through the students’ written reflection after each lesson

Step 4: Reflect (week 12)

The main purpose of this phase was to provide students with opportunities to evaluate their use of the reading strategy or strategies and its effectiveness for the reading task

At the end of the study, the researcher conducted a semi-structured interview to seek for information about the strategies that learners were used during the reading lessons and some questions about their ideas in the process of learning the new

strategies

3.4 2 Data collection instruments

In order to find answer for research question, the following data collection instruments were used in the study

In this study, the researcher combines student’s reflection and semi-structured interview

to collect data Also, students’ reflection and semi-structured interview were used during the action phrase in order to examine the effectiveness of using reading strategies for students at Trai Cau Upper Secondary School

Students’ reflection

After being introduced the reading strategy in each reading unit, the students’ reflection was administered Students were asked to complete the student’s reflection right after they have finished their reading tasks It was expected that when students were asked

to complete the reflection sheet right after doing a reading comprehension, the

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impressions of the reading strategies were still fresh and conscious Thus, they were supposed to remember clearly how they felt As such, it was likely that they could provide accurate information about the effects of the strategies on their understanding of the reading texts

Semi-structured interview for students

In this study, the researcher used the semi-structured interview This kind of interview allows the researcher to prepare the questions before interviewing Especially, interviewer can show their views in their own term Moreover, semi-structured interview gives reliable and comparable qualitative data to both the researcher and the readers Thus, the researcher chose the semi-structured interview for the study Besides, it conducted at the end of the research

- Purpose: The purpose of the interview for students is to investigate students’

reaction and attitude towards reading strategies

- Structure of semi-structured interview: This interview consists of three parts: the

first part focuses on how students learn reading and how they apply reading strategies

in reading comprehension The second part mentions their attitude towards three strategies The last is the effectiveness of reading strategies in students’ reading comprehension (See Appendix 6)

- Participants: According to Nielson (1994), sample sizes as small as five

participants can provide enough information for making inference I interviewed 5 students whose reading comprehension performance has been promoted the most, the least, or at unstable development

- Procedure: The semi-structured interview was carried out from 15 to 20 minutes

for each objective Moreover, it took place in the morning of the last reading lesson when they were in the classroom and this interview was recorded by audio recording

3.5 Data analysis

The data used in this study were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively The quantitative analysis included the student’s reflection The qualitative analysis was conducted with interview data

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Summary

This chapter provides a detailed description of the methodology employed in this study First, the context of study and the subjects participated in the current study were described Second, the method and procedure to implement the study were showed The researcher conducted action research with helpfulness of the instruments: student’s reflection and semi-structured interview Finally, the results from data instruments will

be reported in Chapter 4

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CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The aim of this chapter is to report results gain from the data collection instruments describe in chapter 3 and to present some discussions about the important findings According to the research questions, the results will be presented based on the data of two instruments: students’ reflection and the interview A summary of the major points presented will end the chapter

4.1 The findings from students’ reflection

4.1.1 Data from students’ reflection

As described in the study procedure, after the completion of reading strategy instruction sections in each reading unit, the students’ reflection was administered Students were asked to complete the student’s reflection right after they have finished their reading tasks It was expected that when students were asked to complete the reflection sheet right after reading a text, their thoughts about the reading strategies were still fresh Thus, they were supposed to remember clearly how they did, and it was likely that they could provide accurate information about the strategies they used Based on the explicit instruction suggested by Chamot and O’Malley (1993), steps were carried out in the reading class After guiding three strategies in each lessons, the researcher got the data

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It could be seen in the Chart 1 that the level of 4 items in students’ reflection in 6 units It is obviously the scales of each questions for 6 units are different Their difference was indicated in 4.2 However, based on chart 1, the researcher collected overall using reading strategies of students in 6 reading units below

Chart 4.1.2 Students’ reflection on the use of reading strategy in 6 units

Chart 4.1.2 presents the information of the overall using reading strategy for students from students’ reflection As can be seen from this table, basically, overall the effectiveness of using reading strategy increased because there were a lot of the number

of units that is higher than the average (3) (5 out of 6 units)

Among the 6 units, Unit 6- All three strategies brings students a good chance to enhance reading comprehension skills is ranked first with a weighted mean of 3.50 described as strongly effectiveness Least rated among the unit is unit 5 - Using linguistic

clues & Getting the idea quickly Use of Using linguistic clues & Getting the idea

quickly relates to the present trends in learning reading comprehension ability with a

weighted mean of 2.98 described as less effectiveness

The results implied that the use Students found applying reading strategy effective

or not depends on the type and the number of reading strategy in unit

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4.2 Specific Cases

4.2.1 The difficulty of reading strategy

Through 6 units, the researcher collected data and had the summary of the data

Based on table 4.2.1, we can see the evaluation of the level of difficulty in applying

reading strategy from students in 6 units In Unit 1- Getting the idea quickly, the number

of students chose the scale 1 and 2 are the same (3 students for each level) The total percentage of students for two evaluations is 20.0% Meanwhile, the scale 4 is 12 and the scale 5 is 7 students had the opposite idea making up 63.3% of all Moreover, 5 students felt normal when implementing getting the idea quickly (about 15.0%)

Besides, in Unit 2 when employing Highlighting, there is a change in the number

of students from the level 1 to 2 The number of students chose the scale 1 is 3 and the scale 2 is 5 In addition, 8 students did not face the difficulty in applying Highlighting (equal approximately 26.6%) However, 9 students circled the scale 3 (roughly 30.0%

of all) Moreover, the total of students ticked the level 4 is 7 and the level 5 is 6 The total percentage of students for two evaluations is 43.3%

In Unit 3 when employing Using linguistic clues, it is obvious that the number of students chose the scale 1 and 2 is the same (4 students for each level) The total percentage of students for two evaluations is 26.6% However, the number of those of

two scales 4 and 5 are at high level when using Using linguistic clues, in reading In

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particular, the number of students gains the highest at the scale 4 9 students are for this one accounting for about 30.0% Besides, 23.3% of students chose the level 5 and 6 students felt normal when implementing Using linguistic clues, (about 20.0%) when evaluating this strategy

When two strategies Getting the idea quickly and Highlighting were employed,

the level of difficulty of reading strategy declined significantly in Unit 4 To be more specific, only 4 students marked scale 5 and scale 4 was chosen by 4 students Thus, the total percentage of students felt that utilizing this combination was difficult for them is 26.1% of all Meanwhile, the proportion of students had not trouble in using these strategies is higher than other one because there are a lot of students that chose the scale

1 and 2 In particular, the total of students is 15 ones accounting for 50%

Based on the table above, it is clear that in Unit 5, the proportion of students who evaluated Using linguistic clues and Getting the idea quickly as Easy is equal to those who thought it was hard to apply Besides, there were 10 students who found it was difficult to use this strategy, accounting for 33.3% of all The number of students who had opposite idea is also 10 Besides, a quarter of students chose the scale 3 for the item and it makes up 33.3%

Finally, three strategies were used in Unit 6 The students utilized highlighting in this lesson, and the researcher collected following data It is clear that the number of students who saw the strategy is difficult for them to do it is lower than the number of those disagreed with this idea In particular, only 4 students felt hard to use this strategy; whereas, 18 students applied the strategy easily Thus, the total percentage of students chose the scale 1 and 2 is 60.0% In addition, 8 students circled the scale 3 and it is equal 26.6% of all

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Chart 4.2.1 Students’ reflection on the difficulty level of reading strategy in 6 Units

As displayed from Chart 4.2.1, it is clear that the difficulty of reading strategy fluctuates in 6 units In particular, the level of this item is in Unit 1, unit 2 and unit 3 However, there is a downward trend from unit 4 to unit 5 respectively Specially, the difficulty level of the strategies go down remarkably when students applied using All three strategies in unit 6, the combination of three strategies was used in unit 6 is less difficult for the students learning reading comprehension

Furthermore, each strategy was instructed in each unit, so a comparison on how each student used the same strategy in different lessons can be made To be more specific, students applied strategies in unit4 and unit 5 Based on table 4 3, it clearly that there is no significant difference in the level between unit 2 and unit 3 The difficulty level of this strategy in unit 6 is lower than that in unt 1 In addition, there is a big reduction in the level from 3.57 in unit 1 to 2.43 in unit 6 Specially, teacher combined three strategies in unit 6 the level of the difficulty in using them went down significantly

Summary

To sum up, the results described in table 4.3 reveal the difference in the difficulty

of reading strategies Particularly, students felt less difficult when utilizing for Units 4 and 5 It is difficult for students to apply the strategies for Units 1, 2 and 3 because the level of difficulty is above the average (i.e., scale 3) Besides, the results of data analysis