An investigation into the IT students’ application of vocabulary guessing strategies in ESP reading comprehension at a university in bac ninh province

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the application of guessing strategies among third-year IT students at PPUTL while doing ESP reading comprehension tasks and to propose

- -

TRUONG THI HONG NHUNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IT STUDENTS’ APPLICATION OF VOCABULARY-GUESSING STRATEGIES IN ESP READING COMPREHENSION AT A UNIVERSITY IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

( Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng các chiến thuật đoán từ trong kỹ năng đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành của sinh viên Công nghệ thông tin ở một trường Đại học ở Bắc Ninh )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi - 2018

- -

TRUONG THI HONG NHUNG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IT STUDENTS’ APPLICATION OF VOCABULARY-GUESSING STRATEGIES IN ESP READING COMPREHENSION AT A UNIVERSITY IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

( Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng các chiến thuật đoán từ trong kỹ năng đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành của sinh viên Công nghệ thông tin ở một trường Đại học ở Bắc Ninh )

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology

Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Phạm Thị Thanh Thùy

Hanoi - 2018

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, certify my authority of the M.A minor thesis entitled “ An investigation into the IT students' application of vocabulary-guessing strategies in ESP reading comprehension at a university in Bac Ninh Province ” in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts To the best of my knowledge and belief, this minor thesis contains no material which has previously been submitted to any university or institution Except where the references are indicated, no other person’s piece of work has been used without due acknowledgements in the text

of the thesis

Ha Noi, 2018 Student

Trương Thị Hồng Nhung

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge my deep gratitude to all those who have supported

me in doing this independent study

First and foremost, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Pham Thi Thanh Thuy for her valuable time and useful guidance towards the completion of this minor thesis

Secondly, I am extremely grateful to my lecturers, my friends, my classmates,

as well as my colleagues for their invaluable comments and criticism and also for their continued interest and encouragements, without their sincere participation, this paper would not have been possible

Next, I truly wish to thank all my students at PPUTL, especially those of class B1D5 and B2D5 who have actively participated in the study

Last but not least, my sincere thanks are extended to my beloved people, my parents, my husband and my daughter for their love, care, tolerance and encouragement

during the time I had to spend for this thesis

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the application of guessing strategies among third-year IT students at PPUTL while doing ESP reading comprehension tasks and to propose solutions to help students overcome the difficulties they experienced when applying these strategies Three research questions are submitted and answered accordingly A pre-test, a post-test, a survey questionnaire and think-aloud protocol are employed as research tools in this study The collected results indicate that the participants of this study make use of various strategies to deal with unknown words while reading ESP texts Among those strategies, vocabulary-guessing one is the most preferred method Of all word-inferring strategies, guessing meaning from context is the most frequently-used one by the students Using collocation and syntactic knowledge are the next two most preferred guessing strategies by the students And most students admitted that they particularly lack knowledge of vocabulary-guessing strategies, linguistic knowledge and intrinsic motivation for reading Some solutions then have been given by the author in order to help them overcome these difficulties Discussion, research limitations, pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research are also presented in this thesis

vocabulary-TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii

LIST OF CHARTS ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale of the Study 1

2 Aims of the Study 2

3 Research Questions 2

4 Scope of the Study 3

5 Significance of the Study 3

6 Method of the Study 4

7 Design of the Study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 6

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.1 An Overview of Reading Comprehension 6

1.1.1 The Nature of Reading Comprehension 6

1.1.2 The Relationship between Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension 7

1.2 Reading Comprehension Strategies 8

1.2.1 Definition of Reading Comprehension Strategies 8

1.2.2 Classification of Reading Comprehension Strategies 9

1.3 Vocabulary-guessing Strategies 11

1.3.1 Definition of Vocabulary-guessing Strategies 11

1.3.2 Classification of Vocabulary-guessing Strategies 12

1.3.3 Importance of Vocabulary-guessing Strategies 15

1.4 An Overview of ESP 16

1.4.1 Definition of ESP 16

1.4.2 Classifications of ESP 16

1.4.3 Characteristics of ESP 17

1.5 Summary of Chapter 1 19

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

2.1 Research Setting 20

2.1.1 An Overview of PPUTL and ESP Course in this University 20

2.1.2 The Students at PPUTL 20

2.1.3 The Teachers and Teaching Methods of ESP at PPUTL 21

2.1.4 Course Books for Teaching ESP at PPUTL 22

2.2 Research Methods 23

2.2.1 Description of the Subjects 23

2.2.2 Data Collection Instruments 24

2.2.3 Data Collection Procedures 27

2.2.4 Data Analysis Procedures 29

2.3 Summary of Chapter 2 29

CHAPTER THREE: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 31

3.1 Analysis of Questionnaires 31

3.1.1 The Students’ Attitudes towards the Role of ESP Reading Comprehension 31

3.1.2 The Students’ Attitudes towards Application of Vocabulary-guessing Strategies in ESP Reading Comprehension 33

3.2 Analysis of Verbal Reports 37

3.2.1 Word-guessing Strategies Employed by Students Collected through Think-aloud Protocol 37

3.2.2 Comparison of Word-guessing Strategies Used by the Students in the Questionnaire and Think-aloud Protocol 39

3.2.3 Difficulties the Students’ Encountered When Using Word-guessing Strategies to Make Guess 40

3.3 Solutions to Help Students Overcome Their Difficulties When Applying These Word-guessing Strategies 43

3.4 Discussion of Research Questions 45

3.4.1 Research Question One 45

3.4.2 Research Question Two 46

3.4.3 Research Question Three 47

3.5 Summary of Chapter 3 47

PART C: CONCLUSION 49

1 Conclusion 49

2 Pedagogical Implications of the Study 49

3 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 51

REFERENCES 53 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX 1: PRE-TEST I APPENDIX 2: POST-TEST V APPENDIX 3: ANALYSIS OF DIFFICULT LEVELS OF PRE-TEST IX APPENDIX 4: ANALYSIS OF DIFFICULT LEVELS OF POST-TEST XIV APPENDIX 5: ANSWER KEYS OF PRE- AND POST-TEST XX APPENDIX 6: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR VOCABULARY-GUESSING

STRATEGIES XXI APPENDIX 7: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS XXIV APPENDIX 8: PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT Ý KIẾN HỌC VIÊN XXVIII APPENDIX 9: STUDENTS’ VERBAL REPORTS XXXI

LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS

CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

EFL English as foreign language

ESL English as a second language

ESP English for specific purposes

EST English for Science and Technology

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

1 List of Tables

Table 1.1: Summary of vocabulary- guessing strategies that might be used by the IT students at PPUTL when doing ESP reading comprehension tasks

Table 2.1: Vocabulary-guessing strategies used by the IT students at PPUTL

Table 3.1: Ranks of strategies use according to results from Questionnaire and aloud protocol

Think-2 List of Figures

Figure 2.1: Research procedure

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 3.1: The importance of ESP reading comprehension

Chart 3.2: Students' evaluation of difficult levels of ESP reading comprehension texts Chart 3.3: Students’ evaluation of some factors influencing performance of ESP reading comprehension

Chart 3.4: Students’ frequency use of strategies for unknown words

Chart 3.5: Students’ frequency use of vocabulary-guessing strategies

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the Study

Under the circumstance of the blooming Fourth Industrial Revolution, English

has become the key to world’s science, technology and commerce Thus, at present learning English is not only the interest but also the great and practical demand for everyone, especially for those who want to be able to get well-paid jobs in foreign companies, have opportunities to study abroad or have chances of being promoted and so

on

Being aware of the importance of English language, Vietnamese leaders have been paying great attention and investment on improving students’ English competence A typical example can be listed is the National Foreign Languages Project scheme for the 2008-2020 periods which delves into brand-new advances to improve effectively the quality of English language learning and teaching across all school levels in Vietnam

Keeping up with the current trend and implementing the scheme, the administration board of the People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics (PPUTL) once again affirmed that English is among the most important skills which IT students had better improve while training at this university

Among the four general skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing that any learners need to master when studying English, reading skills in general and reading comprehension skills in particular are considered the most crucial Al-M’tassim (2014) wrote in his article that “the mastery of reading comprehension skills

is the key for students to get well with most content courses” In PPUTL, this is definitely true for students specializing in Information Technology because there are a plenty of available materials relevant to Information and Technology are written in English

In the context of teaching and learning ESP at PPUTL, very little classroom time, even not at all, is spent on instructing students reading strategies meanwhile

comprehension questions are the most dominant tasks in ESP reading lessons Throughout the teaching ESP for IT students at this university, the author observed that the students had poor results in ESP reading comprehension In reality, most IT students at this university admitted that a lack of vocabulary knowledge is the largest obstacle for them to overcome ESP reading comprehension tasks Additionally, misconception about the nature of reading and incomplete awareness of reading comprehension strategies may be the reasons for their poor achievement in ESP reading comprehension It is the same as Alderson’s point of view, “the answer perhaps inevitably, is equivocal and tentative – it appears to be both a language problem and a reading problem” (p.24)

In brief, all the above have inspired the author to conduct a study on “An investigation into the IT students' application of vocabulary-guessing strategies in ESP reading comprehension at a university in Bac Ninh Province” with the hope to make a little contribution to the quality of teaching and learning reading comprehension skills

of ESP texts for IT students at this university

2 Aims of the Study

This study aims to address the following issues:

(1) Identifying the students’ attitudes towards application of word-inferring strategies when reading ESP texts;

(2) Finding out the vocabulary-guessing strategies which the IT students at PPUTL use most frequently to make sense of unfamiliar words;

(3) Proposing solutions to help students overcome their difficulties when applying these word-guessing strategies

Question Two: Which vocabulary-guessing strategies do the IT students at PPUTL use most frequently to work out the meaning of unknown words in ESP reading

comprehension?

Question Three: What might be good solutions to help students overcome their difficulties when applying these word-guessing strategies?

4 Scope of the Study

Within the frame of this research, the author focuses on examining inferring strategies employed by IT students to surmise the meanings of unknown words as well as their difficulties when applying these strategies The research was conducted during the second term of 2017-2018 academic year when the students were studying ESP course And the subjects of the study were 100 third-year IT students at PPUTL

word-5 Significance of the Study

Among many problems when doing reading comprehension sections of ESP texts like factual information, references, vocabulary, summary, negative facts, inferences,vocabulary is still considered a challenging task It is impossible to learn by heart all the words Thus making an educated guess based on context clues is a solution

to this problem

The study is expected to contribute to the development of teaching and learning reading comprehension skills of ESP First and foremost, it would be of great value in raising students’ awareness of employing word-guessing strategies when they come up with unknown words in the reading lessons These strategies also play an important role in improving students’ reading comprehension skills and help them have ideas to turn reading lessons into more exciting and successful ones Furthermore, this research can be used as a reference source for those who are interested in this issue and a supplement to the previous studies on application of word-guessing strategies to develop reading comprehension skills of ESP texts

6 Method of the Study

This study was conducted as a survey research that utilized both quantitative and qualitative approaches The quantitative analysis was employed through the process of data collection from a survey questionnaire In addition, the qualitative approach was used to deal with data collected from semi-structured interview and think-aloud protocols The author employed think-aloud protocol with the aim of finding out actual vocabulary-guessing strategies which had been used by the students

as well as their difficulties when applying these strategies According to Mami (2008),

“reading is normally a silent, hidden process, researchers cannot determine what is happening by simple observation or by product-based assessment; therefore, asking readers to provide verbal reports or protocols is the most direct way to access this process” Thus, think-aloud techniques are a useful way to find out why these choices are being made, as the participant can take the survey with the researchers present, and the researchers can observe what is happening and ask questions as the participants interacts with the survey In conclusion, using think-aloud protocol helps the researcher improve the validity of instruments that are used to support primarily quantitative research goals Specifically, the combination of various data collection methods in the current study not only enables the researcher to examine in-depth the vocabulary-guessing strategies employed by the IT students, but also helps her achieve the aims of the study

7 Design of the Study

The study is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion

Part A: Introduction which states the rationale, aims, research questions,

scope, significance, method and design of the study

Part B: Development consists of three chapters:

Chapter One: Literature Review provides the background of the study,

including the nature of reading comprehension, the relationship between

vocabulary and reading comprehension, reading comprehension strategies, word-inferring strategies and an overview of ESP

Chapter Two: Research Methodology deals with information of the research

context, participants, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures

Chapter Three: Findings and Discussion presents data analysis, the results

and discussions

Part C: Conclusion summarizes the main issues covered in the paper, points

out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further studies in the research area

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents the theories concerning vocabulary-guessing strategy in reading comprehension of ESP texts It is divided into four main sections The first section provides an overview of reading comprehension In the second part, theories

on reading comprehension strategies are given The third section provides details about vocabulary-guessing strategy with its definition, classification and importance The last part gives an overview of ESP including its definition, characteristics and classifications

1.1 An Overview of Reading Comprehension

1.1.1 The Nature of Reading Comprehension

In teaching and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading skill

in particular, it is necessary to understand the nature of reading comprehension Grabe (1991) showed in his study that reading was considered as the primary skill in second language learning, especially in academic settings It can be understood reading comprehension as the ability to draw attention to the required information from the text

as efficiently as possible In fact, methodologists have been providing different definitions of reading comprehension

According to Grelet (1981:3), “Reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible” This means that the reader can show his understanding of the text by re-expressing its content in various ways such as summarizing or answering questions, etc

Studying the nature of reading comprehension, Richards (1978) indicated,

“reading comprehension is not only understanding simply what is written, but also is what stimulates students to remember from their experiences” This point of view concentrates on the reader’s understanding of the message based on the individual’s background knowledge and experience Smith (1985) shared the same idea that reading

comprehension involves bringing a prior knowledge that readers already have in their heads interacted with what they are reading, so that they can make inferences from the different words and expressions the writer uses, in order to comprehend information, ideas and viewpoints

From the aforementioned theories, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a process in which readers filter understanding through the lens of their motivation, knowledge, cognitive abilities and experiences to get what is

conveyed in the text It does not mean that the reader needs to understand every single

word in the text but actively work on the text and extract the required information efficiently In other words, according to Durkin (1993), “reading is the construction of meaning of a written text through the interactions between text and reader”

1.1.2 The Relationship between Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension

It is undeniable that vocabulary knowledge seems to have an obvious and distinct role in L2 reading comprehension According to Nation and Coady (1988),

“although vocabulary knowledge is not the only factor contributing to reading comprehension, vocabulary can be an accurate predictor of the difficulty of a certain text” If the students lack L2 vocabulary knowledge, it is very difficult for them to understand the text

Zheng (2002) once again affirmed in his study that vocabulary knowledge plays

a tremendous role in the reading comprehension Therefore, adequate vocabulary knowledge seems to be a prerequisite for more high level reading processes like activating appropriate background knowledge and guessing words successfully from context It is true according to Perfetti’s point of view (1995: 112) that “helping students develop text problem solving skills such as using context to figure out interpretations, intentions, conclusions, and so on is a good idea But getting good at word identification is an important goal in setting the stage for the successful use of such comprehension strategies.” This means that it is necessary to instruct the students

to utilize vocabulary-based strategies in order to enhance reading comprehension skill

One thing to bear in mind, however, is that the density of unfamiliar words in a text often plays a significant role in the success or failure in this type of guessing Nation (2001) affirmed that the higher the density of unknown words is, the more challenging the guessing task will be While there are a number of ways of dealing with unknown words, in-formed lexical guessing, or inferring, is often seen as a popular and useful approach to text processing in L2 reading (Qian, 1999)

In short, the above showed the strong relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension Although there is no clear link between vocabulary and comprehension (Hiebert & Kamil, 2005), understanding of vocabulary is an entrenched predictor of overall reading comprehension and recognized as a strong determinant of reading success (Lovelace & Stewart, 2009) Hence, applying vocabulary-based strategies is really an effective way to help students improve their reading comprehension

1.2 Reading Comprehension Strategies

1.2.1 Definition of Reading Comprehension Strategies

In order to become successful in studying any foreign language, it is necessary for learners to know how to employ different strategies to overcome obstacles they encounter during their learning process Many authors attempted to provide descriptions for reading comprehension strategies; nevertheless, there is a lack of consensus on this

Strategy is defined in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as “a plan that

is intended to achieve a particular purpose” (2005) Garner (1987: 50) defined reading strategies as “generally deliberate, playful activities undertaken by active learners, many times to remedy perceived cognitive failure”

Another definition suggested by Barnett (1988: 150-162) regards reading strategies as the mental operations included when the reader approaches the text effectively and makes sense of what he reads Some techniques include skimming, scanning, reading for meaning, predicting, activating general information, making

inferences and guessing word meanings from context, etc Later, reading strategies are given by Carrell (1998: 97) as 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

According to Block (1986), reading strategies indicate how readers conceive a task, what textual cues they attend to, how they make sense of what they read, and what they do when they do not understand a particular text

Brown (2007) also defined strategies 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.” In his research, Brown clearly shows that strategies vary within individuals from moment to moment as the specific problems and contexts change

Although the definitions of reading strategies are based on different points of view,

it can be summarized that reading comprehension strategy is “a cognitive or behavioral action that is enacted under particular contextual conditions with the goal of improving some aspects of comprehension” (Graesser, 2007) In this sense, the appropriate implementation of comprehension skills and strategies is one of critical components of reading comprehension success From all of these above, it can be inferred that the purpose of reading strategies is to help students approach the text effectively and to have general knowledge, to get specific detail and to find out the main idea or theme of the reading materials

1.2.2 Classification of Reading Comprehension Strategies

Up to the present reading comprehension strategies have been classified in various ways by different authors

According to study of Goodman (1970), he divided L2 reading strategies into two types of processing: bottom-up and top-down On the one hand, bottom-up strategies involve recognizing a multiplicity of linguistic signals, such as letters, morphemes, syllables, words, phrases, grammatical cues, and discourse markers, and

applying linguistic data-processing mechanisms to impose order on these signals; on the other hand, top-down strategies involve drawing on one’s own intelligence and experience to understand a text through a puzzle-solving process, or inferring meaning

to decide what to retain and what not to retain

Eleven years later, Rubin (1981) proposed six general reading strategies, namely clarification, guessing, deductive reasoning, practice, memorization, and monitoring These strategies might contribute directly to language learning

Later, Oxford’s (1990) classification is another taxonomy of learning strategies that is used popularly in many language learning researches He divided learning strategies into six types They are memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies

In another study, O’Malley & Chamot (1990) emphasized that these strategies are used to construct associations between new and existing knowledge of the learners The prominent cognitive strategies include translation, grouping, note-taking, deduction, imagery, keyword, contextualization, elaboration and inference

Metacognitive strategies are higher critical thinking skills that help readers achieve awareness of whether they understand a reading text or not (Wenden & Rubin, 1987: 19) These strategies help learners identify available resources, decide which of these resources are important for the specific task they perform and set goals for comprehension In fact, the effectiveness of the application of those strategies relies on not only the strategy itself but also the factors including (a) who is employing it, (b) how consciously it is employed, (c) what kind of text is being read, (d) when it is being employed and (e) why it is being used (Carrell, 1998; Farrell, 2001) Bishop et al (2005: 207-208) mention that metacognitive deals with various kinds of reading strategies such as imagining, using a variety of senses, making connections, analyzing text structure, recognizing words and understanding sentences, exploring inferences,

asking questions, determining important ideas and themes, evaluating, summarizing and synthesizing

To sum up, reading comprehension is the act of understanding what you are reading It is an active process readers made by connecting their prior knowledge and a particular piece of writing to comprehend the author’s messages Importantly, to become successful readers, it is necessary for L2 learners to be active and selective in using strategies applying to fully comprehend reading texts

1.3 Vocabulary-guessing Strategies

1.3.1 Definition of Vocabulary-guessing Strategies

There have been various studies on word-guessing strategies in reading comprehension skills so far Effective readers wisely use pictures, titles, headings, and text - as well as personal experiences—to make predictions before they begin to read Making predictions is a strategy in which readers use information from a text (including titles, headings, pictures, and diagrams) and their own personal experiences

to anticipate what they are about to read (or what comes next)

Word-inferring is defined as a cognitive process that utilizes “familiar attributes and contexts” to recognize something unfamiliar in reading (Paribarht & Wesches, 1999: 198) Besides, lexical inference involves the process of “making informed guesses as to the meaning of a word in light of all available linguistic cues in combinations with the learner’s general knowledge of the world, her awareness of context and her relevant linguistic knowledge” (Haastrup, 1991: 40) Therefore, guessing is necessary when learners encounter unknown words in reading texts

Sharing the same idea, Oxford (1990) said that guessing intelligently in reading, sometimes called “inferring”, and involves using a wide variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic clues to guess the meaning when the learner does not know all the words

To conclude, vocabulary-predicting strategy plays an important role in reading comprehension It can help students become good readers and make reading comprehension tasks more fun By using this strategy in combination with such

techniques as skimming and previewing a text, students are motivated to read and encouraged to study the text carefully to confirm their prior predictions

1.3.2 Classification of Vocabulary-guessing Strategies

Different researchers have carried out research on classifications of

word-predicting strategies Based on these previous studies, the researcher lists out all

vocabulary- guessing strategies that might be used by the IT students at PPUTL when doing ESP reading comprehension tasks as in the following table:

Table 1.1: Summary of vocabulary- guessing strategies that might be used by the

IT students at PPUTL when doing ESP reading comprehension tasks

No

Vocabulary- guessing strategies that might be used by

the IT students at PPUTL when doing ESP reading

comprehension tasks

Researchers

1 Looking for relationships between words to determine

the meaning of unknown word

Kaivanpanah and Alavi (2008)

2 Deconstructing word parts and examining the meaning

of each part

3 Analyzing the compound words into their constituents

4 Guessing based on sentence level semantic clues

5 Looking beyond the word, or even the sentence, level for

clues to determine the meaning

6 Looking for homonym/ phonetic similarity

7 Making guess based on collocation knowledge

8 Paraphrasing Devices, which consisted of definition,

exemplification, and restatement Gao (2012)

9 Logical Clues, which included comparison and contrast,

causal clues, parallel, or parataxis, and collocation

10 Background Clues, which were composed of scene,

common knowledge, and experience

Guess using discourse context i.e outside the sentence in

which the word occurred (using forward or backward

context)

15 Guess using syntactic knowledge

16 Guess using visual forms (similarity or morphological

understanding)

17 Guess using phonological similarity

18 Guess using local (sentence level) context

19 Guess using association or collocation knowledge (i.e a

clue word)

20 Guess using pictures

Hypothesis of the author

21 Guess using head titles

Source: Summary of the author

Kaivanpanah and Alavi (2008), from a study on the role of linguistic knowledge, identified seven different word-guessing strategies The first strategy is looking for relationships between words to determine the meaning of unknown word It belongs to grammatical knowledge of sentence level The second one is deconstructing word parts and examining the meaning of each part, which lies in the level of word morphology and class membership The third one is analyzing the compound words into their constituents This strategy is similar to the second in that it involves deconstructing words and examining the meaning of each part The next strategy they find is sentence level semantic clues This strategy seems to be more sophisticated and shows deeper word knowledge than the previously mentioned strategies The next strategy involving discourse/text, by which learners attempts to look beyond the word,

or even the sentence, level for clues to determine the meaning And homonym/ phonetic similarity and collocation are the last two strategies The former compares words that sound similar in the second language and the latter uses knowledge of how words are usually paired together to infer meaning

Gao (2012), based on Palmberg’s (1987) understanding of the characteristics of the unknown words and the context clues where those unknown words occurred, from

a new perspective, classified these strategies systematically into five types, namely: (1) Paraphrasing Devices, which consisted of definition, exemplification, and restatement (2) Logical Clues, which included comparison and contrast, causal clues, parallel, or parataxis, and collocation (3) Background Clues, which were composed of scene, common knowledge, and experience (4) Morphological Clues and (5) Monitoring Devices He adds that these strategies though classified separately, it does not mean that they work in isolation Readers might employ more than one strategy in facilitating their understanding of the text in reading

Later, according to Wang (2011:303), the taxonomy of word-guessing strategies including seven different guessing strategies as follows:

+ Guess using extra textual (thematic or word) knowledge

+ Guess using discourse context i.e outside the sentence in which the word occurred (using forward or backward context)

+ Guess using syntactic knowledge

+ Guess using visual forms (similarity or morphological understanding)

+ Guess using phonological similarity

+ Guess using local (sentence level) context

+ Guess using association or collocation knowledge (i.e a clue word)

With the advantage of having been designed for students as the primary goal, the above discussed strategies are relatively simple and easy for students to follow and

to remember They are valuable resources for the author to conduct this study in general and for teachers’ use to improve their students’ reading comprehension skills in particular

1.3.3 Importance of Vocabulary-guessing Strategies

According to Laufer (1997), “no text comprehension is possible, either in one’s native language or in a foreign language, without understanding the text’s vocabulary” However, in reality, it is impossible for learners to grasp all vocabulary in a text, especially a technical one Therefore, to improve comprehension of text, students must learn to apply vocabulary strategies consistently and efficiently in every class across all content areas

In addition, making predictions of unknown words is more than just guessing what is going to happen in the text, it helps students become more actively involved in reading and keep their interest Snow (2002) has found that throughout the early grades, reading curricula should include explicit instruction on strategies used to comprehend text either read to the students or let students read themselves These strategies include summarizing the main idea, predicting events or information to which the text is leading, drawing inferences, and monitoring for misunderstandings This once again affirmed the importance of vocabulary-inferring strategies for students when doing reading comprehension tasks

Normally, when doing reading comprehension tasks, good readers frequently make predictions about what is to come or make educated guess of unfamiliar words

In reality, it is a better strategy is to use the context, the words and sentences surrounding a particular word, to help learners surmise meanings of unknown words These guesses will be accurate enough for readers to understand the author’s ideas

To summarize, it is said that word-predicting strategies play an important role in motivating students to read and understand the meaning of the texts Thus, applying vocabulary-guessing strategies in reading comprehension is an efficient method so as

to enhance students’ reading skill in particular and their language competence in general

1.4 An Overview of ESP

1.4.1 Definition of ESP

It is undeniable that ESP is an important and integral branch of the EFL/ESL system Until now there have been various definitions of ESP which are given by different linguists, but they are in agreement with one typical feature of ESP that it puts the emphasis on the needs of a particular group of learners

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 19), ESP is “an approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and approach are based on the learner’s reason for learning” They state that “the foundation of ESP is the simple question: Why does this learner need to learn a foreign language?” This means that ESP exactly involves the needs of the learners Therefore, ESP can be seen as an

approach which is instructed by particular and obvious reasons for learning

1.4.2 Classifications of ESP

Hutchinson and Waters (1987: 16) classify ESP into three types: English for Science and Technology (EST), English for Business and Economics (EBE) and English for Social Studies (ESS) Each of these branches falls into two categories: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) Nevertheless, Hutchinson and Waters do emphasize that there is no clear distinction between English for

Academic Purposes and English for Occupational Purposes because: “people can work and study simultaneously; it is likely that in many cases the language learnt for immediate use in a study environment will be used later when the students take up, or return to a job”

According to Dudley-Evans and John (1998: 6), ESP is divided into two branches: English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) EAP

is further divided into: English for Academic Science and Technology, English for Academic Medical Purposes, English for Academic Legal Purposes and English for Management, Finance and Economics English for Occupational Purposes is also further divided into: English for Professional Purposes and English for Vocational Purposes Within English for Professional Purposes, there are two sub-sections: English for Medical Purposes and English for Business Purposes

Basing on the classification by Dubley-Evans and John above, English for Information Technology at PPUTL could be seen as English for Science and Technology which further belongs to English for Professional Purposes branch However, according to Hutchinson and Water’s viewpoint, it can belong to both two types: English for Academic and for Occupational Purposes

1.4.3 Characteristics of ESP

1.4.3.1 Characteristics of ESP in general

In their recent study, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998: 4-5) have stated different characteristics of ESP The absolute characteristics include: (1) designed to meet specified needs of the learner; (2) related in content (that is in its themes and topics) to particular disciplines, occupations and activities; (3) centered on language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics and so on, and analysis of the discourse; and (4) in contrast with “General English” Variable characteristics were defined by Dudley-Evans and St John, namely: (1) designed for specific disciplines and (2) used in specific teaching situation; (3) designed for adult learners, either at the tertiary level institution or in a professional work situation It

could, however, be for learners at the secondary school level; and (4) generally designed for intermediate or advanced students or students must have some basic knowledge of the language before studying ESP

The division of ESP into absolute and variable characteristics is very helpful to distinguish ESP from what is not ESP It is very clear that the absolute characteristics concern about the methodology of teaching and the factors of language However, according to Munby (1978), one important feature which characterizes ESP as being different from other general language courses, is that “the domains not only relate to distinctive content, but also to discipline-specific lexis, genres and registers.”

1.4.3.2 Characteristics of English for Information Technology

As being mentioned above, English for Information Technology at PPUTL could be seen as English for Science and Technology which further belongs to English for Professional Purposes branch Therefore, characteristics of English for Information Technology are also considered as characteristics of English for Science and Technology So far there have been more and more works and papers on science and technology published in English ; therefore, it can not be denied that English for science and technology (EST) has developed into an important variety of modern English with its unique characteristics In a recent study about “Characteristics of English for Science and Technology”, Xiuhua & Li (2015) summarized three prominent linguistic characteristics of EST, namely:

(1) The lexical Characteristics of EST include the frequent use of technical words, the extensive use of abstract nouns and descriptive adjectives and the replacement of verb phrases by verbs This might be the most difficult characteristic of EST texts

(2) The syntactic Characteristics of EST can be named the extensive use of postpositive attributive, non-predicative verbs, passive voice as well as the wide employment of long and complicated sentences

(3) The rhetoric characteristics of EST contain the limited use of tenses, the simple rhetorical choices, the common use of abnormal sentences, and the deliberate use of subjunctive mood and imperatives

In summary, mastering the characteristics of EST helps learners a lot in reading

comprehension of ESP texts

1.5 Summary of Chapter 1

The chapter has presented the relevant literature, which has helped to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the study, including a number of concepts about reading comprehension, reading comprehension strategies, vocabulary-guessing strategy as well as ESP This chapter serves as a theoretical basis for the author to conduct this research

CHAPTER TWO: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter deals with information of the research context, participants, data

collection instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures

2.1 Research Setting

2.1.1 An Overview of PPUTL and ESP Course in this University

People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics is located in Bac Ninh province Up to the present, the university has been in function for thirty-five years At the starting point, it was a People’s Police Technical School with the duty of training technical skilled police officers for the whole country Since 2010, this School was upgraded to become a University New branches such as Information Technology, Electronics and Telecommunications, Finance and Accounting have been established

to meet the requirement of the society Accordingly, English has become a major and compulsory subject for students in this university English education then has been divided into two phases During the training program at PPUTL, students have to complete three terms of General English For the first two terms of General English, each of them counts for 75 periods (forty-five minutes/ one period) and the third one has 60 periods After finishing these three General English terms, the IT students have

to take part in one ESP term which makes up 60 periods

At People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics, there are ten offices, four centers, six faculties and five departments Department of Foreign Languages was established at the same time with the university’s foundation The mission of this Department is teaching English to non-English major students of all other faculties at

the University

2.1.2 The Students at PPUTL

Students of People’s Police University of Technology and Logistics come from different parts of Vietnam: big cities, provinces and mountainous areas Most of them are at the age of 18 to 22 However, their English proficiency levels are very different from one another Before enrolling into this university, most of them studied English at

different secondary and high schools and have relatively high proficiency level but some of them are just a little above “starter” threshold After studying three General English terms, the gap of English proficiency among the students are narrowed down and the students can reach B1 (CEFR) level of proficiency

Despite differences in the level of English proficiency, they have common in being familiar with traditional grammar-translation learning method in which one of two main goals is to develop students’ reading ability to a level where they can read literature in the target language Therefore, in comparison with other three skills (listening, speaking and writing skills), reading comprehension skills attracted the attention of most of students The reason for this condition is due to the unbalance in their time allocation for each subject They commonly spent their time studying the subjects of the natural sciences such as: mathematics, physics, time for English subject accordingly is very limited

When this study is in progress, D5 batch (third-year students) has completed or partly completed the ESP course while the freshmen (D7) and sophomores (D6) have not studied the ESP terms yet At this university, all batches of students are supposed to study ESP courses at the second term of the third year when they have studied subjects

of their majors for at least three terms

2.1.3 The Teachers and Teaching Methods of ESP at PPUTL

The teaching staff of Foreign Languages Department of PPUTL has 14 teachers; however, there are five teachers are in charge of teaching ESP for students of Information Technology These teachers have five to twenty-five years of experience

in teaching ESP They all took full-time courses in English language and English language teaching methodology in different universities nationwide Most of teachers

at the university are well qualified Therefore, they have done much to improve the method of teaching English and help students to overcome difficulties in their learning process

The fact is that not all the teachers use the same techniques and strategies to teach reading comprehension skills Some of them choose to use traditional teaching method such as “introducing new words and new grammar structures” as the most effective techniques, the others may take some other techniques such as “giving background information” as the most effective one In reality, from the experience of teaching ESP and discussions with colleagues, the author also finds it difficult to apply various and updated teaching methods in ESP lessons since there are lots of professional knowledge and technical terms Almost teachers said that teaching students how to read is also an important factor because they see that most of students lack needed strategies for reading comprehension, especially reading comprehension of ESP texts Therefore, they have been trying to choose the activities that are suitable for their students

2.1.4 Course Books for Teaching ESP at PPUTL

Materials selection, adaptation, or writing is an important area in ESP teaching, representing a practical result of effective course development and providing students with materials that will equip them with the knowledge they will need in their future job The textbook named “Infotech: English for Computer Users” (fourth edition) by Santiago Remacha Esteras is used for third-year students majoring in Information Technology The course book consists of eight modules; each module includes three to five units; however, according to the subject syllabus which is built by Department of Foreign Language at PPUTL, only two units for each module will be taught in class and the others are for self-study In each unit, the first and also the most important part

is the reading text with comprehension questions The second part deals with the language focus This part explains grammatical points in the reading text Exercises about related content are also designed for students to practice The third part is word-study with vocabulary exercises in the forms of gap-filling and matching These activities are designed for students to practice the new terminologies in the reading text At the end of each unit are some useful language extracted from the reading text

Though this course book was being carefully selected, there are still some points that should be taken into consideration Firstly, this course book was designed in the form of a topic-based book It means that teaching approach of this book focuses on learning language through learning about things related to computer field This can confuse learners and may give them the impression that they are not actually learning language Secondly, method for teaching and learning of this course book is grammar-translation with vocabulary explanations With this method, translation and grammar study are used as the main teaching and learning activities Learners mainly focus on grammatical rules, the memorization of vocabulary, translations of texts and doing written exercises, there is almost no interaction between learners and learners This self-study method seems to be more suitable for researchers not for ESL learners Consequently, students tend to deal with vocabulary problems by trying to learn by heart as many words as possible instead of trying to use strategies to guess the meaning

of unknown words in reading IT texts in English or in some cases they are not fully aware of what strategies they are using

2.2 Research Methods

2.2.1 Description of the Subjects

The participants in this study are 100 third-year students in class B1D5, B2D5

of Information Technology Faculty at PPUTL in the second term of 2017-2018 school year These students are at the age of twenty-one, most of them are male, only eight of them are female They have learnt English at different high schools all around the country Most of them are not good at English since they mainly study natural science subjects such as Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry before being admitted into this university When entering this university, the students have to take part in an entry test equivalent to A2 level (according to CEFR), then they will be allowed to study three

GE courses After studying these GE terms, students can reach B1 (CEFR) level of proficiency Therefore, the students are considered at pre-intermediate level when participate in this research

2.2.2 Data Collection Instruments

The ultimate goal of this study is to improve the students’ reading comprehension skills of ESP texts by using vocabulary-guessing strategies To achieve this goal, the study used both quantitative and qualitative approach Quantitative data were collected based on the results of a pre-test, a post-test, a questionnaire and think-aloud protocol The combination of these instruments will increase the preciseness and reliability of the data collected because the data obtained from one tool will help to inform and refine the others

2.2.2.1 Pre-test and Post-test

The first research tools include the pre-test administered to the students in the first week of March 2018 and the post-test used in think-aloud procedures during the second semester of school-year 2017-2018

The pre-test and post-test (for more details see Appendix 1, 2) contain reading passages and vocabulary tasks The reading passages are extracted from Infotech: English for Computer Users teacher’s book (fourth edition) by Santiago Remacha Esteras Each test consists of 10 questions, and the length of the passages is 412 words and 440 words, respectively The topics of the tests are related to the topics of the students’ textbook taught in class In the vocabulary tasks, the students are required to choose the best definition of the underlined words from three given choices The target words were selected as the words that these students would be least likely to know This resulted in a list of 10 words for each passage The tests lasted 20 minutes and the grading scale was 10 points The pre-test and post-test were designed to have the same level of difficulty regarding the number of questions, question types, the length of the text and the text structure

The passages were chosen based on two innovative online assessment tools: English Vocabulary Profile Online and English Grammar Profile Online (as shown in Appendix 3, 4) which helps the researcher decide what level the passages belong to (according to CEFR) The author chose this tool because this online resource

classifies words by level according to their meaning, as some senses of a word may be learned at a higher level than others In this study, the pre-test and post-test are a little beyond the participants’ current reading levels because as mentioned above the students’ level is pre-intermediate meanwhile the two tests are assessed intermediate (between B1 and B2 level) If the word levels are higher than the students’ actual English level of proficiency, they will have to manage to work out the meaning of new words to comprehend the passages According to Yayh (2010), “trouble-free reading is not believed to stimulate comprehension strategy use”; thus, the students will have to manage to work out the meaning of unknown words due to their range of vocabulary is assessed lower than the level of the texts

2.2.2.2 Survey Questionnaire

The investigator chose questionnaire as one of the research instruments because

it is very effective and time-saving Besides, questionnaire also has a lot of advantages Firstly, a questionnaire is confidential and respondents can remain anonymous Secondly, a questionnaire is easy to administer enabling the researcher to survey a large number of respondents Thirdly, all informants have chance of expressing their opinions and attitudes comfortably In this study, the researcher employed two survey questionnaires

The first questionnaire (as shown in Appendix 6) aims at finding out the most familiar and important vocabulary-inferring strategies used by the IT students at PPUTL This questionnaire was sent to 20 people including 10 third-year students, and

10 English lecturers from the Department of foreign languages at PPUTL The collected results will be the basis to build up the variables of this thesis Accordingly, the vocabulary-guessing strategies employed by the IT students at PPUTL can be listed

as in the following table:

Table 2.1: Vocabulary-guessing strategies used by the IT students at PPUTL

No Vocabulary-guessing strategies used by the IT students at PPUTL

1 Guess using background knowledge (extra textual knowledge)

2 Guess using context clues (punctuations, definitions, examples, surrounding words)

3 Guess using collocation knowledge

4 Guess using syntactic knowledge (sentence structures and word order)

5 Guess using visual forms (word derivations such as prefixes and suffixes)

Source: Summary from previous researchers

With the aims of finding out the students’ attitudes towards ESP reading comprehension and the most frequently-used vocabulary-guessing strategies they use

to deal with unknown words in reading comprehension of ESP texts, the researcher employed the second survey questionnaires It was translated into Vietnamese in order

to avoid any language difficulties due to lack of English proficiency that might affect the objectiveness of the research results The English and Vietnamese versions of the questionnaire are in Appendices 7 and 8 The questionnaire included both closed and open-ended questions, which gave the researcher certain control over the subsequent analysis and allowed the subjects to offer in-depth information

2.2.2.3 Interview and think-aloud protocol

To gather verbal report data on actual cognitive reading strategies used by the third-year students at PPUTL, the researcher used think-aloud protocol as another research tool According to Afflerbach (2000), think-aloud protocol is an effective and commonly used tool to elicit data on cognitive and metacognitive strategy use by readers as it provides a rich source of information about comprehension processes This allows the author to find out how students approached the vocabulary problems and described the problem solving techniques they used Besides, this method also provides rich, qualitative information about how students reason their actions in doing

the vocabulary task This information may aid the researcher in identifying the actual word-guessing strategies the students used to deal with unfamiliar words in the reading tasks

To assess the quality of verbal protocols, the researcher uses a cognitive interview with probing questions given to the students to elicit continuance of their thought process First, the participants were asked to read and complete the vocabulary task in the post-test during the think-aloud session Second, in the retrospective session, they were asked to share how they deal with unknown words in the reading passages, what word-guessing strategies they used and what difficulties they had while doing this Questions were asked in Vietnamese to make the interviewees feel convenient and self-confident in providing as much information as they can Data obtained from the interview was subsequently translated into English

2.2.3 Data Collection Procedures

The entire procedure of the study is illustrated by the following diagram:

Figure 2.1: Research procedure Giving Conclusions

Using Statistical Tools to Analyze the Data Conducting Survey and Collecting data

Developing Instruments Deciding Methods of Data Collection

Specifying Population Stating Research Questions Determining the Aims of the Study

The time frame of the study, which was designed according to the schedule of the university, was ready in late February 2018 after Tet Holiday It was during the second term of 2017-2018 school year when the third-year students were studying the ESP course

In order to get insights into participants’ attitudes towards ESP reading comprehension and application of vocabulary-guessing strategies, a pre-reading test (as shown in Appendix 1) was administered A questionnaire was then given to the third-year IT students who agreed to take part in the research Then the researcher informed the purpose of the questionnaire and asked the participants to read each item and give their attitudes towards that item using a 5-point Likert scale The participants were also reminded that their responses were to refer only to the strategies they used when reading the school-related materials like ESP textbooks They were also encouraged to rate strategies and to ask any questions about the items they did not understand The questionnaires were collected after 30 minutes Information from these questionnaires were then summarized and presented in the form of statistic information (tables and charts) for analysis to make implications and recommendations on the application of vocabulary-guessing strategies to enhance ESP reading comprehension for third-year students at PPUTL

Besides, think-aloud protocol also employed during the second semester, one week after the administration of the questionnaires in order to find out the actual reading strategies used by IT students at PPUTL Eight out of one hundred students were chosen randomly to conduct a post-test during the think-aloud procedures First, the think-aloud protocol procedures were introduced to the participants individually Each participant was asked to think aloud and tell the researcher whatever passed through his/ her mind while reading the post-test In the think-aloud session, the students had to paraphrase the texts in their own words (in English or in Vietnamese) The purpose of this task is to reveal the students’ process of meaning inference and problem-solving Since the segments were presented in power point slides, they read

and talked aloud without losing their focus When the participants fell silent for a long period, they were prompted, for example, “Just say out loud what goes on in your mind”, or “Do not hesitate to express yourself, there is nothing wrong with it” Finally, after the think-aloud session was completed, the retrospective one started The participants were asked to remember the thoughts they had while comprehending the texts by the researcher In order to prompt students to better report their reading comprehension processes retrospectively, the researcher underlined the importance of sharing their experiences of how they guessed the meaning of unknown words, and what problems they encountered while applying these guessing strategies The whole session, including introducing the method, lasted about 60 minutes for each participant each week

2.2.4 Data Analysis Procedures

Apart from descriptive, analysis, synthesis method, the researcher mainly used qualitative and quantitative method Quantitative data were gathered from questionnaires while the qualitative data was obtained from the transcriptions of think-aloud protocol

The data collected from survey questionnaire were given in-depth analysis according to pre-determined categories The results are obtained by frequency count and presented in percentage And the data are entered into excel spreadsheet and then analyzed quantitatively Then, the researcher used charts and tables to present the data Some comparisons and contrasts figures from the collected data were given

The verbal reports were analyzed with such procedures as developing a thematic framework, organizing the data, coding the data, deducing the data and interpreting the data The data were coding in light of what vocabulary-guessing were employed by students and difficulties hindering the use of these strategies

2.3 Summary of Chapter 2

To sum up, this chapter provided detail information about the context of the study, participants, data collection instruments, procedures of data collection and procedures of data analysis The findings of real situation of applying vocabulary-