11th grade students'''''''' awareness of English reading strategies: a descriptive research at Yen Vien High school

This finding has provoked interests among researchers and teachers in identifying learning strategies employed by good language learners with a view to training bad learners to be aware

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Learning strategy definition and classification (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:119)

Table 4.1 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 1

Table 4.2 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 2

Table 4 3 Analysis of questionnaires : Metacognitive reading strategies

Table 4.4: Analysis of questionnaires : Cognitive reading strategies

Table 4.5 Illustrates responses concerning two subtypes of social/affective strategies Table 4.6 Analysis of interviews : Question 1

Table 4.7 Analysis of interviews : Question 2

Table 4.8: Analysis of interviews: Question 3

ABSTRACT

“Strategic learning is the key to student success in any endeavor

I view learning by strategies as the foundation for lifelong learning”

(P Hardin in Anderson, 1999:73)

The important role of English reading comprehension is apparent for any students who have a good command of English Good reading comprehension not only widens students’ knowledge but also fulfils other skills For non English major students in Yen Vien high school, reading has been paid more attentions to as they have to take the examinations which are grammar-and reading-based However, they have encountered a lot of difficulties in reading skills Language reading strategies are among the main factors that help determine how - and how well - our students learn a second or foreign language

This study aims to investigate the reading awareness of 11th grade students in Yen Vien high school The result of the study varies among good and poor English readers This study has also given some suggestions to reduce their reading difficulties and enhance students’ reading capacity by equipping them with some reading strategies that help students obtain desirable results in learning reading

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration……… i

Acknowledgements……… ii

List of Tables……… iii

Abstract……… iv

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study……… 1

1 2 Aims of the Study……… 3

1 3 Research Questions……… 3

1 4 Research Methodology……… 3

1 5 Scope of the Study……… 4

1 6 Significance of the study……… 4

1 7 Design of the Study……… 4

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 What is Reading and Reading Comprehension? 6

2.1 1 What is Reading? 6

2.1.2 What is Reading Comprehension? 7

2 2 Classification of reading……… 8

2.2.1 According to manner……… 8

2.2.2 According to the purposes of reading……… 9

2.3 Reading strategies and the importance of strategy training……… 11

2.3.1 Reading strategies……… 11

2.3.2 The importance of strategy training……… 15

2.4 The teacher’s role in strategy training……… 15

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY……… 18

2.1 Participants and settings of the study ……… 18

2.1.1 Participants: ……… 18

2.1.2 Settings of the study ……… 18

2.2 Instruments of data collection ……… 18

2.3 Summary ……… 19

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……… 19

3.1 Results ……… 19

3.1.1 Questionnaires ……… 19

3.1.1.1 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension……… 19

3.1.1 2 Readers’ factors affecting reading comprehension ……… 21

3.1.1 3 Reading strategies……… 25

3.1.1 3.1 Metacognitive reading strategies ……… 25

3.1.1.3.2 Cognitive reading strategies ……… 28

3.1.1.3.3 Social/affective strategies ……… 31

3.2 Interviews ……… 32

3.3 Summaries of main findings ……… 37

3.3.1 Reading strategies ……… 37

3.3.2 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension ……… 38

3.4 Discussion of main findings……… 39

PART 3: CONCLUSION ……… 40

4.1 Summary of main findings……… 41

4.2 Implications of the study……… 43

4.3 Limitations ……… 44

4.4 Suggestions for further research ……… 45

References………

Appendix ………

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study

Internationally, teaching English has changed tremendously over the last few decades More significantly, the traditional teacher-centered approach has been replaced with the learner-centered one, which reflects a desire to explore ways of making responsive

to learner’s need and interests and allowing to learners to play a more active and participatory role in the day-to-day teaching and learning processes Therefore, no longer does the teacher act as the centre of all instructions, controlling every aspect of the learning process Learners themselves now, more than ever, are sharing the responsibility for successful language acquisition and in doing so, are becoming less dependent on the language teacher for meeting their own individual language needs Students are advised to become more autonomous, to diagnose some of their own learning strengths and weaknesses and to self-direct the process of language development

In the field of second language acquisition research, focus has been shifted away from finding perfect teaching methodologies to investigating why some learners are very successful in their language learning while others are not although they have made much effort learning the language Several studies have been carried out by Oxford (1990), O’Malley and Chamot (1990) Nunan (1991), Rubin and Thomson (1994) and Cohen (1998) have discovered that one of the most significant factors that distinguish successful learners from unsuccessful one is their learning strategies In other words, successful learners do use some effective strategies to deal with the problems that emerge during their learning process while unsuccessful ones are not aware of learning strategies or they may use unsuccessful ones or inappropriate or ineffective strategies resulting in their failure in their language learning This finding has provoked interests among researchers and teachers in identifying learning strategies employed by good language learners with a view to training bad learners to be aware of effective learning strategies and use effective strategies in their English study

In Vietnam, the English language plays an important role in the increasing development of science, technology, politics, culture and international relation There is a

greater demand for teaching and learning through the country for different purposes Moreover, English has become a compulsory subject in the state examination and it is one

of three subjects for the entrance examination of some universities Some studies into this field have been conducted with different types of learners to find out particular strategies employed by effective and ineffective students in order to help the effective ones aware of leaning strategies such as Huyen Tran’s study (2004) on vocabulary learning strategies used by students of English at Qui Nhon university or Mai Duong’s study (2005) on writing strategies employed by the first – year students at HaNoi National University However, Such studies are scare, thus, more research should be done to help more learners use appropriate strategies in their different settings

At Yen Vien high school, students are supposed to master all four skills presented

in the standard text books “Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”and “Tieng Anh 12” After three years at high school, they have to pass the GCSE and the entrance examination of some universities and colleges with rather challenging tests Students can not pass such examinations without being equipped with effect strategies However, with the limitations

of a high school, the number of students who even do not know learning strategies is not small With ten-year experience of teaching English at Yen Vien high school, reading is considered one of the most difficult skill for Yen Vien’s students especially the 11th grade ones Although they know the importance of reading and they have also tried their best, their test scores are not satisfactory due to both subjective and objective causes Their low reading comprehension results from not only their own causes as their lack of vocabulary, grammar and background knowledge, but also some other factors such as the textbook, motivation in class, the teaching staff and their reading teaching methods, schedule, administration and so on With a view to bettering the situation, Both teachers and learners have to adapt However, it is necessary for students to have appropriate reading strategies Therefore, I intend to examine the awareness of English reading (henceforth called reading) strategies of 11th grade students at Yen Vien high school in this study and find out the differences in the strategies used by students of higher reading abilities and those of lower reading abilities Based on the finding, I am going to make some recommendations to improve the students’ reading proficiency

1 2 Aims of the Study

The study aims at finding out the strategies Vietnamese 11th grade students use when they read English so that improvement of the quality of teaching and learning English reading as a second language in the upper secondary education for Vietnamese students could be achieved

To achieve this aim, the study sets out to obtain these specific objectives:

1 To investigate the awareness and possible use of reading strategies of 11th grade students at a Vietnamese high school when they read English,

2 To explore possible ways for improving the students’ English reading proficiency level

1 5 Scope of the Study

The study is designed to explore the 11th students’ awareness and possible use of reading strategies in Yen Vien high school in order to make some methodological recommendations for English learners This study is, therefore, descriptive by nature

The subjects of the study are three groups of 11th grade students in seven classes Three hundred and eighteen students divided into three groups based on the levels of English measured by end-term English test scores All of them are living in Gia Lam district They all have learned English for five years ( four years in lower secondary school and one year in upper secondary school) Based on their English test score of the final examination and the whole year, I divide three hundred and eighteen 11th grade students into three groups: 1st group consists of 68 students (with the total test score from 7 to 10),

2nd group consists of 200 students (with the total test core from 5 to 6) and 50 students in the third group (with the total test below 5)

1 6 Significance of the study

The study helps solve the problem of uplifting the quality of English reading of Vietnamese grade 11 students It would enable the teaching and learning of English to be more effective and efficient Above all, it would help to promote reading power of students and this is very important to them in study as well as in their future jobs

It is also hoped that the study would make some valuable contributions to the field

of language teaching methodology Results obtained from the study can help English teachers to enhance their teaching with Vietnamese students especially with poor readers

On the other hand, students can use the suggested techniques to self-improve their English learning

1 7 Design of the Study: This study consists of 3 parts with part 2 dividing into 3 chapters:

Part 1: Introduction This part supplies an overview of the study with specific reference to

the rationale, the aims, the methodology and the design

Part 2: Chapter 1 deals with an exploration of the theoretical background of the research It

is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research such as reading and reading comprehension, classification of reading, strategies and the importance of strategy

training as well as the teacher’s role in strategy training

Chapter 2: The methodology of this study is presented This chapter presents the

background information of the subjects of the study, the instrument used to collect the data, the procedure of data collection

Chapter 3: is aimed at describing data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion of the findings of the study Some explanations and interpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter

Part 3: Conclusion gives the summary of the findings and some implications which are

proposed for improving 11th grade students; points out the limitations and some recommendations and directions for further research and makes a final conclusion of the study

The appendixes lie on the last part of the study, preceded the References

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 What is Reading and Reading Comprehension?

2.1.1 What is Reading?

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to everyone

Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded

by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text,

to master grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text

Having the same point with Goodman, William, E (1990, p.2) said that “reading is

a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” According William, in reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depend on the context in which it appears

One more definition offered by Harmer (1989, p.153) showed us his opinion and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages”

Reading is a completely individual activity which takes place in all types such as newspapers, magazines, written texts, telephone directories, labels on medicine bottles, etc The ability to read is such a natural part of human beings These views are divided into three groups named the bottle - up, the top – down and the interactive ones

The bottom - up model

Reading is viewed as “the process of meaning interpretation” in which “the language is translated” from on form of symbolic representation to another” (Nunan, 1991)

It was also understood as the process of recognizing the printed letters and words and building up a meaning from the smallest textual units at the bottom (letters and words)

to larger units at the top (phrases, clauses, intesentential linkages) (Rivers 1964; Yorio 1971)

Top down model

In this model reading was seen as the process in which readers move from the top, the higher level of mental stages own to the text itself The readers prove their active roles

in the reading process by bringing to the interaction their available knowledge of the subject, knowledge of and expectation about how language works, motivation, interest and attitudes towards the content of the text

Ur (1996: 138) indicated that reading means “ reading and understanding” and according

to Anderson (1991: 1) “reading is not a passive process but an active fluent process which involve the reader and the reading material in building meaning”

Interactive model:

Interactive theories appreciate the role of prior knowledge and prediction and at the same time emphasize the importance of rapid and accurate processing of the actual words

of the texts

As defined by Hayes (1991: 7) “interactive models, different processes are thought

to be 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 pages”

Thus, obviously, definitions of reading have been various in using words and expressions but they all focus on two activities: looking with eyes and understanding with brains in which the latter is more important

2.1.2 What is Reading Comprehension?

Reading comprehension results in the fact that when readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purpose Swan (1975, p.1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc

To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most important part in reading teaching Thus, learners should be aware of reading skills/ strategies and use them appropriately as well as effectively

In addition, this way of reading usually waste much time because students read in turn so they have to wait one after one It can be inferred that there is little value in reading aloud

if we want to improve the readers' reading skills Therefore, students should decide whether to apply reading aloud or not as a reading strategy

* Silent reading

Silent reading is "the method we normally use with our native language and on the whole quickest and most efficient" Lewis (1985: ll0) Sharing the same idea, Doff (1988: 67) defined silent reading as followed: “silent reading involves looking at sentence and understanding the message it conveys, in other words making sense of a written text It does not normally involve saying the words we read nor even silently in our heads" Therefore, we can see that silent reading is an effective skill for reading comprehension since students do not need to read all the words of a text, they can read at their own speed and in case they do not understand a sentence they can go back to read again When reading silently, students not only obtain its main ideas in the shortest length of time but also deeply understand its details and can answer the questions as well

To summarize, silent reading is one effective skill for reading process in general and reading comprehension in particular Therefore, it should be applied in teaching and learning a foreign language

2.2.2 According to the purposes of reading

Theorists have tried to set up a catalogue of reading strategies (reading skills and reading strategies have been used interchangeably) and establish their relationship with one another, but the issues remain controversial As we have seen, different theorists look at strategies/skills with different views

Intensive reading

Nutall (1982: 36) defines: "Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the text" Thus, intensive reading is usually a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a message to extract specific information Intensive reading calls students' attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers and other surface structures, rhetorical relationships and the like Intensive reading aims at understanding not only of what the text means, but of how the meaning is produced The "how" and the

"what" are equally received Consequently, intensive reading lessons train primarily strategies for students to encounter with other texts There are two sub-distinction of intensive reading; they are skills-based and text-based While the former focuses on a particular skill (for example: distinguish the main idea of a text from the details, inferences

from content), the latter, on the other hand refers to the lesson focus in the text itself and students try to understand it as fully as necessary, using all acquired skills

Extensive reading

The purpose of extensive reading is to train students to read directly and fluently in

a foreign language for his own enjoyment, without the aid of the teacher to achieve a general sense of the text, skimming for the gist and scanning for some key details Extensive reading is a relatively rapid and efficient process of reading a text for global or general meaning

Skimming

Actually, skimming is the act of looking at some prominent parts of an article By catching a few words only, the readers can get an overall picture of the “what”, of course only on a rather superficial level Because of its nature, the key to skimming is to know where to find the main idea of different paragraphs and to be able to synthesize them by way of generalization

Scanning

Scanning is another useful skill to locate specific item of information that we need and often we do not even follow the linearity of the message, but focus only on the needed information In contrast with skimming, scanning is far more limited since it only means retrieving needed information

In the teaching of reading as a language skill, Kenedy and Bolitho (1991: 74) designate some necessary reading skills: skimming, scanning, reference skills, relating diagram to text, predicting and sequencing the structure of a text and reading notices and instructions However, students will never read efficiently unless they can adapt their reading speed and techniques to their aims when reading So the main conclusion to be drawn from all above mentioned is that students would waste time and fail to remember points of importance to them because they would absorb too much non-essential information if they are not helped

to read appropriately Hence, to understand a text effectively, the readers should not select types of reading separately but in combination of purpose oriented strategies so that they can cope with more and more sophisticated texts and tasks, and deal with them efficiently: quickly, appropriately, and skillfully

Besides, we will have to consider the seven main factors connected with reading success They are: Physical condition, Speed of reading, Oral reading, Vocabulary , Reading comprehension , Ability to use references, Pattern of reading All these relate to the success for the students in developing the skills,

habits, and attitudes that contribute to efficient reading Among these factors, whether students make use of effective reading strategies for their comprehension or not is chosen

as a theme of this study as it is within the reach of students or students can be better trained for these purposes

2 3 Reading strategies and the importance of strategy training

2.3.1 Defining strategies

Nunan (1991) defined learning strategies as “a communicative procedure learners use in order to learn and use a language” According to Scarcella and Oxford (1992: 63) learning strategies are “ specific actions, behavior, steps, or techniques – such as seeking out conversation partner, or giving oneself encouragement to tackle a difficult language task – used by students to enhance their own learning” Language learning strategies have been classified by many scholars For example, Rubin classified them as language learning strategies, Communication Strategies and Social strategies Oxford (1990: 9) divided language strategies into two main classes, direct and indirect The former consists of memory, cognitive and compensation strategies while the latter includes metacognitive, affective and social strategies

According to Stern (1992:262-266), there are five main language learning strategies, these are Management and Planning Strategies, Cognitive Strategies, Communicative-Experiential Strategies, Interpersonal Strategies, Affective Strategies

O’Malley and Chamot’s framework has been the most useful and generally accepted

In their framework, there are three major types name as metacognitve, cognitive, social awareness

 “Metacognitive” strategies are responsible for planning, and arranging

learning, centering one’s learning, and self-monitoring

 “Cognitive” strategies involve more direct manipulation of the learning

material itself and are responsible for marking new words in a text, memorizing

by sentences, taking notes, etc

 “Socio/affective” strategies have to do with cooperation with other learners,

relaxation, asking questions (see Table 2.1)

Table 2.1 Learning strategy definition and classification (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:119)

Learning strategy definition and classification (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:119)

Learning strategies Definition

A METACOGNITIVE

STRATEGIES

Planning

advance organizers Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material

to be learned, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle

|Directed attention Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning

task and to ignore irrelevant distracters

Functional planning Planning for and rehearing linguistic components

necessary to carry out an upcoming task Selective attention Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of

input, often by scanning for key words, concepts and/ or linguistic markers

Self - management Understanding the conditions that help one learn and

arranging for the presence of those conditions

Monitoring

Self - monitoring Checking one's comprehension during listening or

reading checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness

of one's oral or written production while it is taking place

Evaluation

Self - evaluation Checking the outcomes of one's own language against

a standard after it has been completed

B COGNITIVE

STRATEGIES

Resourcing Using target language reference materials such as

dictionaries, encyclopedias, or textbooks Repetition

Grouping

Imitating a language model, including overt practice and silent rehearsal

Classifying words, terminology or concepts according

to the attributes or meaning Deduction Applying rules to understand or produce the second

language making up rules based on language analysis Imaginary Using visual images (either mental or actual) to

understand or remember new information Auditory representation Planning back in one's mind the sound of a word,

phrase or longer language sequence Key word method Remember a new word in the second language by: (l)

identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word, and (2) generating easily recalled images of some

relationship with the first language homonym and the new word in the second language

Elaboration Relating new information to prior knowledge, relating

different parts of new information to each other, or making meaningful personal associations with the new information

Transfer Using previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills to

assist comprehension or production

Inferencing Using available information to guess meaning of new

items, predict outcomes or fill in missing information Notetaking Writing down key words or concepts in abbreviated

verbal, graphic or numerical form while listening or reading

summarizing Making a mental, oral or written summary of new

information gained through listening or reading Recombination Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language

by combining known elements in a new way

Translation Using the first language as a base for understanding

and/or producing the second language

C SOCIAL / AFFECTIVE

STRATEGIES

Question for clarification Eliciting from a teacher or peer additional explanations,

rephrasing, examples or verification

Cooperation Working together with one or more peers to solve a

problem, pool information, check a learning task, model a language activity, or get feedback on oral or written performance

Self – talk Reducing anxiety by using mental techniques that

make one feel competent to do the learning task

2.3.2 The importance of strategy training

Training is a key component on the adoption of a new system and the efficient and effective use by the end users Just think of all the ‘shelf-ware’ and wasted money because nobody knew how to use the software Also think of all the times that users have complained that the tool does not work, yet the real cause is inadequate training To assist

in this a training strategy must be developed

A training strategy is basically an explanation of the process that will be used to provide training Below are some of the things to consider when creating a training strategy

+ Identify your targets training needs in terms of their involvement with the software being deployed Ensure that you also include the value each target group will receive by taking training

+ Review the training needs and define and current gaps and any potential future gaps + Define the training objectives

+ Create the training action plan (for each target audience) This should also define the necessary systems that are required to deliver training, and also define the training delivery mechanisms

+ Define how the training content will be created

+ Define how the training will be monitored

+ Define how the training will be assessed

+ Define the schedule training revisions

2 4 The Teacher's Role in Strategy Training

The language teacher aiming at training his students in using language learning strategies should learn about the students, their interests, motivations, and learning styles The teacher can learn what language learning strategies students already appear to be using, observing their behavior in class Do they ask for clarification, verification or correction?

Do they cooperate with their peers or seem to have much contact outside of class with proficient foreign language users? Besides observing their behavior in class, the teacher

can prepare a short questionnaire so that students can fill in at the beginning of a course to describe themselves and their language learning Thus, the teacher can learn the purpose of their learning a language, their favorite / least favorite kinds of class activities, and the reason why they learn a language The teacher can have adequate knowledge about the students, their goals, motivations, language learning strategies, and their understanding of the course to be taught (Lessard-Clouston 1997:5) It is a fact that each learner within the same classroom may have different learning styles and varied awareness of the use of strategies The teacher cannot attribute importance to only one group and support the analytical approach or only give input by using the auditory mode The language teacher should, therefore, provide a wide range of learning strategies in order to meet the needs and expectations of his students possessing different learning styles, motivations, strategy preferences, etc Therefore, it can be stated that the most important teacher role in foreign language teaching is the provision of a range of tasks to match varied learning styles (Hall 1997:4)

In addition to the students, the language teacher should also analyze his textbook to see whether the textbook already includes language learning strategies or language learning strategies training The language teacher should look for new texts or other teaching materials if language learning strategies are not already included within his materials

The language teacher should also study his own teaching method and overall classroom style Analyzing his lesson plans, the language teacher can determine whether his lesson plans give learners chance to use a variety of learning styles and strategies or not The teacher can see whether his teaching allows learners to approach the task at hand in different ways or not The language teacher can also be aware of whether his strategy training is implicit, explicit, or both It should be emphasized that questioning himself about what he plans to do before each lesson and evaluating his lesson plan after the lesson

in terms of strategy training, the teacher can become better prepared to focus on language learning strategies and strategy training during the process of his teaching (Lessard-Clouston 1997:5)

The review of literature above points to the need to investigate the awareness and possible use of reading strategies so that improvement could be done that is the aim of the current study which seeks answers to the three research questions:

1 What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading comprehension strategies of Vietnamese 11th grade students?

2 Do the good readers (11th grade students) have different awareness and use of reading strategies from the medium and weak ones?

3 What can be done to help Vietnamese grade 11th poor readers to improve their reading comprehension level?

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

The previous chapter has presented a literature review on learning strategies, theories

of reading and reading strategies and provided a necessary theoretical background for the present study This chapter presents the methodology used for the data collection and analysis in the study It starts with a description of the participants and the setting of study It then describes data collection instruments and analysis procedures of the study

2.1 Participants and settings of the study

2.1.1 Participants:

The research was carried out at Yen Vien high school with the participation of 318

11th form students, aged 16, both males and females To students, English is a compulsory subject in the schedule the English The classification of good readers, weak readers and average or medium readers was based on their English final results and their marks in second term examination with the assumption that the tests of English are both valid and reliable Good readers were the ones who got above 7, bad readers were the ones who got below 5 and the medium readers are the ones who got their marks from 5 to 7

2.1.2 Settings of the study

The present study was conducted from early April to mid June 2011 when they were in the second semester of the school year Up to the time of the study, they have been studying English at Yen Vien high school for nearly two years and all of them have learned English for 6 or 7 years

2.2 Instruments of data collection and data analysis methods

To obtain data for the study, two different instruments were employed: a survey questionnaire and interview

a The questionnaire

The questionnaire was designed with two main parts Part one asked about the students’ attitude towards the importance of reading skill (question 1) and the factors affecting this skill (question 2) Part two was about their reading strategies

b The interview

Besides questionnaires, interviews are regarded as a useful tool for collecting data in second language acquisition research and they are proved to be a very effective instrument

for data collection in strategies study Twelve students were chosen randomly from these three groups for more in-depth data which mainly focus on their awareness and possible use of strategies including metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies

The reason why I used multiple approaches to data collection is that different method of data collection procedures may lead to different conclusions about their awareness of reading strategies Individual structured interviews were used to supplement the data collected from survey questionnaires Interviews were conducted in Vietnamese with three different groups of good, medium and weak readers in order to know the level of awareness and use of reading strategies and identify differences among them These interviews have truly provided a lot of valuable information about the reading habits of the subjects

However, this process took me a lot of time and effort to complete Another disadvantage of interviews is it they may introduce elements of subjectivity and personal bias, and rapport may cause interviewees to respond in a certain way to please the interviewer To avoid these problems I had to assure my students that their answers did not affect the way I judged them so that they should answer honestly I also told them that only true answers contributed to the success of my study

The collected data from questionnaire and interview were then analyzed both quantitatively (for descriptive statistics) and qualitatively (for tendency and patterns) according to the “interpretive model” proposed by Hatch (2002)

2.3 Summary

This chapter reported the methodology employed for the study in terms of collection methods, participants, data collection procedures Description of participants and settings of the study was given The data collection instruments including questionnaires and interviews were also presented

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The methodology used for the study was presented in the previous chapter including the participants, the data collection instruments and data analysis procedures By using such instruments as questionnaires, interviews, the study collected three sets of data

on the participants' reading strategies This chapter reports results gained from the analysis of data elicited from each instrument

3.1 Results

3.1.1 Questionnaires

The questionnaire that was administered to three hundred and eighteen 11th grade English learners including 68 good ones, 200 medium ones and 50 bad ones (respectively the school result of English reported at the end of the school year 2010-2011) There were

22 questions, of them, the first two questions asked about students' personal opinions on the importance of reading comprehension, their ideas of some factors affecting reading comprehension The rest of 20 questions investigated their reading strategies

3.1.1.1 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension

Question 1 asks the participants how important reading comprehension is to their purpose for English learning by circling the most suitable option

A Not important at all B Not important

C A little important D Important E Very important

Table 3.1 presents the different answers of the importance of reading comprehension among these three groups to the first question

Table 3.1 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 1 The importance of reading comprehension

G (68 pupils) M (200 pupils) W (50 pupils)

me worried Almost all of participants thought that reading comprehension was important

to their purpose of English learning The number of students who didn’t know that reading skill is important in these three groups, they didn’t pay attention to improving their reading efficiency or in other words they learned English without motivation Students having this attitude towards reading skill especially the weak ones must be taken into consideration Therefore, it is the teachers’ responsibility to change their attitudes and draw their attentions to this skill during their lesson Motivation and interest appear to be keys to any learning, especially to a foreign language It is easy to assume that without the strong motivation of the students, reading lesson would become boring and inefficient Teachers should vary pre-reading techniques and use them appropriate and flexibly such as using visual aids, using brainstorming web and giving pre-reading questions and so on so that they can make their lessons more attractive to weak learners and the others

3.1.1 2 Readers’ factors affecting reading comprehension

Question 2a asks the 11 th form student if they are aware of reading strategies for effective reading comprehension

Analysis of questionnaires: Question 2a Factors contributing to good reading comprehension

Theme G (68 pupils) M (200 pupils) W (50 pupils)

M (200 pupils)

W (50 pupils)

Question 2.a

Looking at the chart, we can find out that poor readers are not as much aware of

reading strategies as the good and the medium ones 73.58% of good readers used reading

strategies while reading meanwhile only 10% of poor readers paid attention to reading

strategies Only nearly half of the medium students do not concentrate on reading

strategies This can inferred that English reading strategies are not much used by 11th grade

students at Yen Vien high school

Question 2b asks the 11 th form student to indicate the importance of the

following factors to reading comprehension by circling the most suitable option

A have a large English vocabulary

B have a good knowledge of English grammar

C have a good knowledge of the reading topic

D have effective reading strategies

Table 3.2 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 2b Factors contributing to good reading comprehension

Theme G (68 pupils) M (200 pupils) W (50 pupils)

G (68 pupils) M (200 pupils) W (50 pupils)

Table 3.2 presents the results of good readers and bad readers' answers to the second question in the questionnaire

As clearly shown in the table, there was no significant difference among responses given by good, medium and weak readers to question 2b A The good learners’ response to the importance of vocabulary totaled 89.71% (61/68), the average learners’ response accounted to 99% (188/200) and 90% (45/50) was the percentage of the weak group The greater percentage of participants of these three groups thought that a