Using prediction strategy to enhance reading comprehension skill for the 10th form students at a high school in ninh binh province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ TÚ ANH USING PREDICTION STRATEGY TO ENHANCE READING COMP

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ TÚ ANH

USING PREDICTION STRATEGY TO ENHANCE READING

COMPREHENSION SKILL FOR THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT A

HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH PROVINCE

SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC PHÁN ĐOÁN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ

THÔNG THUỘC TỈNH NINH BÌNH

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi - 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES

BÙI THỊ TÚ ANH

USING PREDICTION STRATEGY TO ENHANCE READING

HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH PROVINCE

SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC PHÁN ĐOÁN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ

THÔNG THUỘC TỈNH NINH BÌNH

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Dr Mai Thị Loan

Hanoi - 2018

DECLARATION

I, Bùi Thị Tú Anh, hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Using prediction strategy

to enhance reading comprehension skill for the 10th form students at a high school

in Ninh Binh province.” is submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi I also declare that this thesis is the result of my own research and efforts and it has not been submitted for any other purposes

Hanoi, 2018

Bùi Thị Tú Anh

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my heart - felt thank and my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Mai Thi Loan for her enlightening guidance, precious suggestions and invaluable encouragement during my fulfillment of this minor thesis

My sincere thanks go to all of the lecturers and the staff of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies for their valuable lectures on which my minor thesis was laid the foundation

I truly wish to thank all the students of class 10A and 10B at Nho Quan C High School who have actively participated in the research

I am deeply grateful to my family for their great support and to many of my friends for their notable assistance

ABSTRACT

This research is an investigation into the predominant problems in learning reading at a high school in Ninh Binh province and the implementation a of new reading strategy, which is prediction strategy in this case to deal with the situation The primary purpose of the study is an attempt to examine the impact of using prediction strategy on the improvement of reading comprehension skill of the 10thform students and find out effective ways to implement prediction strategy in reading comprehension lessons Data were collected through pretest, posttest, questionnaire and teaching diaries and then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively The results of the data analysis indicate that most of the students achieved considerable progress in their reading comprehension skill after being taught prediction strategy The students also participated in the lesson more and more actively and excitedly In addition, the findings of the research suggested some effective ways to teach students to use prediction strategy in reading comprehension lessons such as conducting the lesson with three stages (pre-, while and post reading), choosing well-suited reading materials, enlarging students‟ schema for further reading, instructing the strategy clearly, combining prediction strategy with other reading strategies, designing useful and exciting tasks, and letting students work in pairs or groups

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES ix

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research question 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 The nature of reading comprehension 5

1.1.1 Definitions of reading 5

1.1.2 Definitions of reading comprehension 6

1.1.3 Reading models 7

1.1.4 Schema theory 9

1.2 Reading strategies 10

1.2.1 Definitions of reading strategies 10

1.2.2 Classifications of reading strategies 11

1.2.3 Reading strategy instruction 13

1.3 Prediction strategy 14

1.3.1 Definitions of prediction strategy 14

1.3.2 The importance of prediction strategy 14

1.3.3 Application of prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson 15

1.4 Previous studies on the use of prediction strategy 18

1.5 Summary 20

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 21

2.1 Context of the study 21

2.1.1 Setting of the study 21

2.1.2 Participants 22

2.1.3 Materials 22

2.2 Research design 22

2.2.1 Research approach 22

2.2.2 Research procedures 23

2.3 Data collection instruments 28

2.3.1 Pretest and posttest 29

2.3.2 Questionnaire 29

2.3.3 Teaching diaries 30

2.4 Data analysis methods 31

2.5 Summary 31

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 32

3.1 Data analysis 32

3.1.1 Analysis of test results 32

3.1.1.1 Results of the pretest 32

3.1.1.2 Results of the posttest 34

3.1.2 Analysis of questionnaires 36

3.1.2.1 Students‟ belief about the impact of prediction strategy on their reading comprehension competence 36

3.1.2.2 Students‟ self-evaluation of the improvements of their reading comprehension skill after attending the reading course implementing prediction strategy……….……… ………38

3.1.2.3 Students‟ evaluation of the effectiveness of teacher‟s strategy instruction ….……… ……… ……….39

3.1.2.4 Students‟ rating of the familiarity of each reading text before the treatment……… 40

3.1.2.5 Students‟ preferred practices in the pre-reading stage 41

3.1.2.6 Students‟ preferred practices in the while reading stage 42

3.1.2.7 Students‟ opinion about the reading tasks 43

3.1.2.8 Some disadvantages of implementing prediction strategy in reading lessons 43

3.1.3 Analysis of teaching diaries 44

3.2 Findings and discussion 49

3.2.1 To what extent does the use of prediction strategy affect Nho Quan C high school‟s grade 10 students‟ reading comprehension? 49

3.2.2 How should prediction strategy be implemented to improve the students‟ reading comprehension skill? 50

3.3 Summary 53

PART C: CONCLUSION 55

1 Recapitulation 55

2 Concluding remarks 56

3 Limitation of the current research 56

4 Recommendation and suggestions for future research 57

REFERENCES 58 APPENDIX 1: READING COMPREHENSION TEST 1 I APPENDIX 2: READING COMPREHENSION 2 IV APPENDIX 3A: POST-TREATMENT QUESTIONNAIRE VII (ENGLISH VERSION) VII APPENDIX 3B: POST-TREATMENT QUESTIONNAIRE X (VIETNAMESE VERSION) X APPENDIX 4A: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP……… ……….XIV APPENDIX 4B: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN FOR THE CONTROL GROUP XX APPENDIX 5: PREDICTION CHART XXIV APPENDIX 6A: CRITERIA FOR TEACHING DIARIES XXV APPENDIX 6B: A SAMPLE OF TEACHING DIARY XXVI

APPENDIX 7: THE FORMULA OF MEAN, STANDARD DEVIATION AND MEDIAN XXIX

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

% : Percentage

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1: Classification of reading strategies……… 12

Table 1.2: Activities/ tasks to develop prediction strategy……… 18

Table 2.1: The course procedures for the experimental group……… 25

Table 3.1: Mean and std Deviation of the pretest results……… 33

Table 3.2: Comparison of mean, std deviation, mode, minimum and maximum between the two groups‟ tests……… 35

Table 3.3: Students‟ belief about the impact of prediction strategy on reading comprehension competence……… 37

Table 3.4: Students‟ ratings of the familiarity of each reading topic………… 40

Table 3.5: Students‟ preferred practices in the pre-listening stage……… 41

Table 3.6: Students‟ preferred practices in while reading stage……… 42

Figure 3.1: Pretest results of two classes……… 32

Figure 3.2: Posttest results of two classes……… 34

Figure 3.3: Students‟ self-evaluation of their improvement after the treatment……… 38

Figure 3.4: Students‟ evaluation of teacher‟s strategy instruction‟s effectiveness……… 39

Figure 3.5: Students‟ opinion about the reading tasks……… 43

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Globalization and technological advancements are breaking down barriers and borders with vast implications for education in general and foreign language teaching in particular As a result, there has been a positive trend of teaching and learning English across our country English has been taught almost everywhere in Vietnam from schools, colleges to universities and mostly become a compulsory subject Four English practicing skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing) are very significant and set the basis for the ability of communication According to Carrell (1988:1), “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or a foreign language” It is also true to students at a high school in Ninh Binh province because the purpose of reading lessons is not only to develop students‟ reading skills but also to equip them with important language input for the lessons that follow, such as: listening, speaking and writing In addition, reading has become not only an important means to gain and enrich the students‟ general knowledge but also a means to help them with their further study in the future Therefore, reading is always the first skill presented in each unit in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”, “Tieng Anh 12” published by Ministry of Education and Training

Traditionally, researchers have agreed that reading was a passive or receptive process in which the reader attempted to decode the intended meaning of the author through recognizing the letters and words as meaningful units, the reader was merely a recipient of information from the printed pages and brought nothing to the text (Barnett, 1988) However, modern researches on reading have found the reading process active rather than passive as well as individualized and complicated Reading strategy becomes a crucial part in reading process and more and more emphasis has been put on the importance of training EFL learners to be strategic readers Researches reveal that good readers are aware of using reading

strategies in the reading process (McNamara, 2009), and the use of appropriate reading strategies can help readers to overcome reading problem and become better readers (Block, 1986; McNamara, 2009) Therefore, strategy instruction is important for students to improve comprehension

Being a teacher of English, the researcher is well aware of the importance of reading strategies in reading process However, to the researcher‟s experience, students at a high school in Ninh Binh province, especially the 10th form students turn out to be word-by-word readers; they tend to read the text slowly and translate every word into their mother tongue This costs them a lot of time and makes them discouraged when encountering unfamiliar words or concepts Very few students who are better at English know how to get the specific information or the main ideas of the text by scanning or skimming the passage It means that very few students of grade 10 are aware of using reading strategies when reading a text, and the strategies they use remain the two main ones which are scanning and skimming This leads the author to the choice of the study “Using prediction strategy to enhance reading comprehension skill for the 10th form students at a high school in Ninh Binh province” to gain some insights into reading strategies and find out good ways to help the students improve their reading skill

2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aimed at improving reading comprehension skill of the 10th form students at a high school in Ninh Binh province through the use of prediction strategy instruction and finding out effective ways to implement prediction strategy

in reading comprehension lessons

This overall aim was specified into the following objectives:

(1) To examine the impact of using prediction strategy on the improvement of reading comprehension skill of the 10th form students at a high school in Ninh Binh province

(2) To find out effective ways of teaching the students prediction strategy to improve their reading comprehension skill

3 Research question

In an attempt to achieve the aims and objectives stated above, the following

research questions were addressed:

(1) To what extent does the use of prediction strategy affect the school‟s grade

10 students‟ reading comprehension skill?

(2) How should prediction strategy be implemented to improve the students‟ reading comprehension skill?

4 Scope of the study

This study only focuses on the teaching of prediction strategies to the 10thgraders at a high school in Ninh Binh province, so the teaching of other reading strategies or to other grades would be beyond the scope

5 Significance of the study

In terms of theory, the study is expected to contribute the effective ways to teach prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson In terms of practice, the findings of this study can be used as a reference for teachers of English in general and teachers at the school in particular to improve their teaching

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three main part: the introduction, the development and

the conclusion

Part A is the introduction presenting the rationale, aims, objectives, research

questions, scope, significance and design of the study

Part B, the Development, includes four chapters:

Chapter I is the Literature Review, which reviews theoretical issues related to the

nature of reading comprehension, reading strategies, the importance of reading strategies and their classifications, prediction strategy with its definitions, its

importance and some main activities as well as previous studies on the use of prediction strategy in reading process

Chapter II presents the methodology of the study, including the background

information of the context where the study is conducted, the subject, the instruments used to collect data, and the procedures of data collection

Chapter III is the Data analysis and findings which aims at describing the analysis

of data in detail and giving the summary of the findings as well as a thorough discussion of the findings of the study Some explanations and interpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter

Part C, the Conclusion of the study, provides the summary of the main issues and

concluding remarks of the study The limitations as well as some suggestions for further research are also discussed in this part

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 The nature of reading comprehension

1.1.1 Definitions of reading

Reading has been defined differently by linguists, psychologists, educators and second language researchers, but an exact definition of reading really causes much confusion The act of reading is not easily understood and described Different authors define the term in different ways

Ur (1999:138) shows us his simple definition “reading means reading and understanding” He emphasizes that reading without understanding is only decoding

or translating the words into corresponding sounds Sharing the same view, Smith (1985: 102) defined reading as the process of understanding the author‟s thought It means that the readers read the author‟s mind not the author‟s words If the readers only understand the words, the surface of the text without understanding the author‟s thought, their reading will be useless

Silberstein (1994: 12) states that “reading is a complex cognitive process in which reader and text interact to (re)create meaningful discourse” According to this view, it is apparent that reading is a process in which the reader interacts with the text to gain some kinds of meaning This meaning mainly depends on the reader who is the cognitive subject of the text

Moreover, Anderson (1985: 19) offers another definition of reading Reading

is a process in which information from the text and the knowledge owned by the reader act together to create meaning From this point of view, the reader‟s knowledge of the text and knowledge of the world is of importance to their reading success Brown (2001: 299-300) also emphasizes that a text does not carry meaning

by itself However, in reading process, the readers bring their own information, knowledge, emotions and experiences – that is schemata, to the printed words to make it meaningful He adds that there are two categories of schemata which are content schema and formal schema Content schema refers to our knowledge of people, the world, culture and the universe, whereas formal schema is what we

know about discourse structure Related schema the readers possess exerts a certain influence on their comprehension of given texts

In summary, the definitions of reading come from particular attitudes towards the language However, most of these show some common characteristics, that is, the close relation between reading and comprehension as well as the reading process which includes the reader, the text, and the interaction between the reader and the text

1.1.2 Definitions of reading comprehension

In teaching reading, it is necessary to understand the nature of reading comprehension What the teacher understands about it will have a great influence on what he or she teaches in the class In fact, methodologists have been providing different definitions of reading comprehension

Richard and Thomas (1987: 9) state that reading is best described as an understanding between the writer and the reader On the unique experience of the individual reader, reading is more than just pronouncing the word accurately or simply what the author intended That is the process by which the pages are printed

to stimulate the idea and the unique experience as well as reaction of each individual

Grellet (1981: 3) also states that reading or understanding a written document means exploiting the necessary information from it as efficiently as possible The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way It can be concluded that reading comprehension is a process of understanding what is conveyed in the text It does not mean that the readers need to understand every single word in the text but actively work on the text and extract the required information efficiently

In more detail, Snow (2002: 11) defines reading comprehension as the process

in which readers extract and construct meaning through interaction and involvement with written language at the same time She believes that the process of comprehension change over time as the readers mature and develop cognitively,

gain increasing experience with more challenging texts, and benefit from instructions (Snow, 2002: 13) Furthermore, she claims that reading comprehension process involves three elements including the reader, who is doing the comprehending, the text to be comprehended, and the activity whose part is comprehension All three elements interact under the impact of social-cultural context

Regardless of certain differences, all definitions of reading comprehension mentioned above share the core idea that reading comprehension involves the processes of extracting, analyzing and understanding the information transmitted through written words Nevertheless, the definition given by Snow (2002) seems to

be the most comprehensive for not only clarifying the nature of reading comprehension but also detailing the components of the reading process

1.1.3 Reading models

In looking for ways to describe the interaction between the reader and the text, researchers have created models that describe what happens when people read According to the researchers, there are three main models of how reading occurs named the bottom - up, the top – down and the interactive ones

However, this model reveals several shortcomings in describing the actual reading process An important weak point of this model, as pointed out by Samuel and Kamil (1988: 31), is the lack of information about studying results, in which no mechanical system is provided to allow subsequent processing stages which happen later to affect processing that occurs earlier in the system Due to the lack of feedback flows in the bottom-up models, it was hard to explain the contextual

effects and the role of prior knowledge of the subject matter as facilitating the variables in identify and understand words

Top - down model

According to Carrell (1988: 4), the top - down approach emphasizes the importance of the reader's background knowledge in the reading process So as to comprehend a text, readers make use of both the text and their background knowledge Therefore, the interaction of the background knowledge and the text is essential for efficient reading In this top - down approach, the reader begins with a set of hypotheses or predictions about the meaning of text he is about to read and then bases on the maximum of existing, activated knowledge and the minimal

information of the texts to determine whether or not his predictions are correct

The main drawback of top - down model, according to Samuel and Kamil‟s point of view (1988: 32), is that if the reader has insufficient prior knowledge of the topic, he/she will not be able to generate predictions, and reading process will not occur Another shortcoming, according to Samuels & Kamil (1988: 32), is that the amount of time needed to make predictions, even for the skilled reader, is more than the time needed to decode and identify words In other words, it is easier and more efficient for a reader to identify all the words than to make predictions and then confirm or reject them

The shortcomings of both bottom - up and top - down models have led to a proposal of a new and more insightful model of reading process, interactive approach which combines elements of the two previous approaches using that “a pattern is synthesized based on information provided simultaneously from several knowledge sources” (Stanovich, 1980:35)

Interactive model

up and top - down processing in reading, in which each source of information contributes to reconstructing the meaning of the text According to this view, good readers are regarded as “both good decoders and good interpreters of texts”, their decoding skills become more automatic but no less important as their reading skill

improves Eskey (1988: 95) also believed that to achieve both fluency and accuracy

in reading, developing readers must work at perfecting both their bottom - up recognition skills and their top - down interpretation strategies In other word, good reading that is, fluent and accurate reading - can result only from a constant interaction between these two processes

The interactive model appears to be the most promising in explaining the reading process (Grabe, 1991: 385) The model encompasses different types of first-language and second- language reading, incorporates both bottom – up and top – down processes, and recognizes the contribution of both the reader and the text The interactive model also recognizes reader variables such as background knowledge, prediction, and other reading strategies, which are unaccounted for in bottom - up models but accounted for in all aspects of in top – down reading models

Stanovich (1980: 32) refers to his model as an “interactive compensory” one

in which weaknesses in any levels of processing the inputs can be compensated for

by others Those deficient in a low – level skill such as word recognition can be made up for by higher-level skills such as use of knowledge about the topic of the text, whereas those with few clues of the topic of the text can be helped by their good word recognition skill

Therefore, it is generally agreed that the interactive model is the best one that can truly reflect the reading process that takes place in the reader's mind In this process, the reader constantly shuttles between bottom – up and top – down processes and he cannot be successful in reading comprehension without either of these two processes

1.1.4 Schema theory

Schema theory deals with the reading process, where readers are expected to combine their previous experiences with the text they are reading Carrell and Eisterhold (1983: 556) formalize the role of background knowledge in language comprehension as schema theory, and claim that any text either spoken or written does not itself carry meaning, and that “… a text only provides directions for

readers as to how they should retrieve or construct meaning from their own, previously acquired knowledge.” Therefore, a reader‟s comprehension depends on her ability to relate the information that she gets from the text with her pre-existing background knowledge

Many reading researchers intend to subcategorize the term schema, with the most popular categorization being the distinction between formal and content schema Formal schema is background knowledge relating to the formal and rhetorical organizational structures of different types of texts (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983; Alderson, 2005) Carrell (1983) says that reading comprehension

is affected by the reader‟s formal schemata interacting with the rhetorical organization of a text In the meanwhile, content schema is defined as background knowledge of the content area of the text that a reader brings to a text such as knowledge about people, the world, culture, and the universe (Brown, 2001) Carrell and Eisterhold (1983) propose that appropriate content schema is accessed through textual cues According to Alderson (2005), readers need knowledge about the content of the passage to be able to understand it

From the schema theory, meaning is reconstructed or created during the reading process through the interaction of text and the reader‟s background knowledge What the teacher should do is to teach the students to link their prior knowledge with the text so that the students better understand the global meaning of the text

1.2 Reading strategies

1.2.1 Definitions of reading strategies

Reading strategies have been studied by many researchers Reading strategies are of interest for what they reveal about the way the readers manage their interaction with written text and how these strategies are related to text comprehension

Brantmeier (2002:1) defined reading strategies as “the comprehension processes that readers use in order to make sense of what they read” According to Garner (1987), reading strategies are “actions or series of actions employed in order

to construct meaning Reading strategies can also be understood as “the special thoughts or behaviors that individual use to help them to comprehend, learn and retain new information from the reading text” (O„Malley and Chamot, 1990) More specifically, reading strategies are special actions students take on paper, in their heads, or aloud that help them understand what they are reading Therefore, they are both observable and unobservable

It is a common mistake that skills and strategies are interchangeable Strategies are deliberate and goal – directed (Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris, 2008), whereas skills are automatic, and they lead to increasingly fluent and efficient reading (Afflerbach, et al., 2008) Readers who are aware that they must apply a cognitive strategy and do so may become less reliant on the strategy over time As this happens, a cognitive strategy becomes a skill

1.2.2 Classifications of reading strategies

In the scheme of O‟Malley and Chamot (1990), there are three major categories of reading strategies which are cognitive, meta-cognitive, and social/affective Cognitive reading strategies are cognitive activities or processes that the reader executes in his attempt to construct the meaning out of a text These include both the bottom up process, when the reader focuses on the analysis of linguistic features, and the top down process, when the reader focuses on sampling and predicting, testing the prediction, getting the gist, making inference, etc using available resources to guess or complete the missing information Meta-cognitive strategies involve the general management of the course and the outcomes of the cognitive process, like planning for the process, controlling or monitoring the process and checking or evaluating the achievement of the specific task goal Affective reading strategies are techniques for managing emotions, feelings and motivations It involves relaxing oneself and making positive statement about the task and one‟s ability These strategies are applicable to all learning activities, but less directly than the cognitive and meta-cognitive ones Following is the possible classification of reading strategies by O‟Malley and Chamot‟s (1990):

Meta-cognitive Cognitive Social Planning Monitoring Evaluating Top - down Bottom – up

Advance

organizers

monitoring

Self-Self –evaluation

Elaboration Grouping Cooperation

Directed

attention

Transfer Deduction Question for

classification Functional

Table 1.1: Classification of reading strategies (O‟Malley and Chamot‟s, 1990) Previous research in reading strategies proved there were differences between good readers and poor readers in terms of strategy use Overall, more proficient readers combine both top - down and bottom - up strategies in reading, but tend to use more top - down strategies than bottom - up ones Following are the most common reading strategies mentioned by many researchers (NRP, 2000; McNamara, 2004):

(1) Comprehension monitoring in which the reader learns how to be aware or conscious of his or her understanding during reading and learns procedures to effectively deal with pro arising in understanding the text

(2) Previewing identifies the topic and the level of readers‟ familiarity with the topic

(3) Identifying paragraph structure to see the pattern of the paragraph, whether it is deductive or not In other words, this strategy suggests that the readers should locate the position of the topic sentence first to get the main idea of the whole paragraph

(4) Using background knowledge to relate new idea presented and what is already known about it by asking questions about the topic

(5) Predicting what types of information could be provided in the text

(6) Guessing the meaning of new words from the context

(7) Inferring information from what is written

(8) Question answering in which the reader answers questions posed by the teacher and is given feedback on the correctness

(9) Summarizing in which the reader attempts to identify and write the main or most important ideas that integrate or unite the other ideas or meanings of the text in a coherent way

1.2.3 Reading strategy instruction

Duke and Pearson (2009: 208) suggest an instructional model including the following five components:

(1) An explicit description of the strategy and when and how it should be used (2) Teacher and/or student modeling of the strategy in action

(3) Collaborative use of the strategy in action

(4) Guided practice using the strategy with gradual release of responsibility (5) Independent use of the strategy

Throughout these five phases, it is important that neither the teacher nor the students lose sight of the need to coordinate or orchestrate comprehension strategies

In addition, Hudson (2007) shows a variety of studies on second language strategy and comes to conclusion that the training must depend on “second language ability and the depth of the training” He also argues that instruction is only become the most effective when the instructor:

(1) carefully explains the nature and purpose of the strategy

(2) models its use through reading and thinking aloud

(3) provides sample practice and feedback for the students

(4) reminds students of the benefits of strategy use and encourages the independent transfer of these skills to new learning situation

(5) provides a content base so that strategy learning is embedded in authentic purposes

Other his implications for instruction are the instructional time for strategy instruction and modeling available for strategy instruction to be effective The strategies need to be taught in “a sufficient duration for the training to be effective” The strategies taught must be “determined through task analyses of strategies needed.” They are suitable enough for students to do, not too difficult or not too easy Finally, strategies “should be presented over a number of contexts with

direct-a vdirect-ariety of texts.” (p.136)

1.3 Prediction strategy

1.3.1 Definitions of prediction strategy

According to Collins & Smith (1980: 4), predicting is an integral part of competent readers‟ meta-cognitive strategies, which are used to monitor comprehension while reading a text The theoretical foundation for this strategy is schema theory and comprehension as the bridge between the known and the new (Anderson and Pearson, 1984)

Nuttall (1996: 13) explains that prediction is a kind of sharing of presuppositions of the writer, and a reader who shares these presuppositions most will be able “to think along with the writer and use his own experience to resolve difficulties”

Magiliano (1993: 35-53) stated that the prediction strategy involves thinking about what might be coming next in the text Effective readers used pictures, headings and text as well as personal experience to make predictions before they begin to read Predicting involves thinking ahead while reading and anticipating information and events in the text Roit (2017: 8) also believed that predictions are not wild guesses They involve making inferences, using information in the text and prior knowledge to anticipate what will happen next

1.3.2 The importance of prediction strategy

It has been proved that predicting is of key importance in reading comprehension Efficient reading often includes the use of prediction strategies

(Goodman, 1973; Brown & Palincsar, 1989) Good readers usually make predictions about what to come next while reading (Block & Israel, 2005; Duke and Pearson, 2009: 205)

Making predictions can help students to become good readers and make reading more fun Harvey and Goudvis (2000) affirm that predicting, confirming predictions and making predictions motivates and engages readers, provides direction for reading and leads to deeper thinking about text Predicting also arouses readers‟ interest (Mason & Au, 1986; Nichol, 1983, Oczkus, 2003), sets the purpose for their reading and focuses on important details According to James Nichols (1983:225), by using this strategy in combination with such strategies as skimming and previewing a text, students are motivated to read and encouraged to study the text carefully to confirm their prior hypothesis In order to make a prediction, readers need to explain what they believe will happen in the text before reading Predictions can be done at the beginning of the text or throughout reading Predicting allows us to think ahead before we begin reading Prediction gets us thinking about the ideas that may occur throughout the text, and create our own In doing this, it makes readers become more engaged in the text Good readers know how to use their background knowledge and experiences to help them understand what they are reading

1.3.3 Application of prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson

Strategies are not to be used singly - good readers do not read a book and only make predictions, but they use multiple strategies constantly According to Duke and Pearson (2009), predicting is better considered as a family of strategies than a single, identifiable strategy The core of this strategy is making predictions and then reading to check how they turned out, however, it entails such pre-reading activities

as activating prior knowledge, previewing and overviewing, which encourage readers to use their existing knowledge to facilitate their understanding of new ideas encountered in text, and while-reading activities to confirm the prior predictions

Below are some strategies which should be used in combination with prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson:

Activating prior knowledge relevant to the text

Readers use their prior knowledge in concert with cues in the text to generate predictions; therefore, teachers should help students activate prior knowledge before reading so that information connected with concepts or topics in the text is more easily accessible during reading (Keene & Zimmermann, 1997; Miller, 2002) As Nuttall (1996:13) explains, prediction invokes learners‟ personal experiences thus establishing associations they have about the topic of the text It has been made clear that while activating schemata and stimulating predictions, learners may be able to tackle beforehand aspects of the text that are likely to cause them problems According to Yuksel (2012), in order to activate the readers‟ prior knowledge relevant to the text, a lot of techniques and activities can be employed such as brainstorming, reflection and recording, small group discussion, KWL, etc…

content of the text based on any of them

Finding the text structure

Text structure refers to how the information within a written text is organized This strategy helps students understand that a text might present a main idea and details, a cause and then its effects; and/or different views of a topic Teaching students to recognize common text structures can help students monitor their comprehension The text structure can be modeled using a graphic organizer to chart

Overviewing

Students should conduct a broad survey prior to reading (Pressley, 2002) The goals of overviewing are to get a sense of what the text is about, to determine its

relevance to one‟s purpose for reading, and to identify important sections given one‟s purpose Implementing this strategy involves reading and thinking about the title of the text and major headings, reading the introduction and conclusion, and examining text support features, such as tables and graphs, with the purpose of answering questions such as the following: What does this text appear to be about?

What are some of the major topics covered in the text? How is the text organized?

Predicting

In order to be a good reader, learners should set a goal for their reading; therefore good readers have a purpose for reading One strategy for improving comprehension is predicting, which helps the reader set a purpose for their reading Research has shown that good readers use their experiences and knowledge to make predictions and formulate ideas as they read (Block & Israel, 2005) This strategy also allows for more student interaction, which increases student interest and improves their understanding of the text (Oczkus, 2003) It is important to compare the outcome in the actual text with the prediction process as it will lead the learner

to improve his understanding Using the title, table of contents, pictures, and key words is one prediction strategy Another key prediction strategy is to have students predict at specific points through the text, evaluate the prediction, and revise predictions if necessary (Teele, 2004)

Skimming the text

Grellet (1981:19) states that when skimming, readers go through the reading material quickly in order to get its general idea, to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the writer‟s tone or intention Skimming gives students the advantage

of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic or message, or possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas

Scanning the text

According to Aebersold & Field (1997:76), scanning involves three steps: determine what key words to look for, look quickly through the text for those words, then read the sentences around them to see if they provide the information

being sought Scanning is useful in pre-reading stage to build knowledge and to

check predictions that students make about the content of the text to be read

The table below is a summary of predicting strategies and some tasks/ activities that are usually used to develop these strategies:

predict what the reading text is about

 Look at the pictures to predict what the reading text is about

predict the main ideas of the paragraph

Table 1.2: Activities/ tasks to develop prediction strategy

1.4 Previous studies on the use of prediction strategy

There have been a lot of studies on the use of prediction strategy when reading

in the world, but there are not many of them in the context of Vietnam

In terms of predicting strategy in reading, Goodman and Burke (1980) describe the successful reader as one who actively constructs meaning, using prediction and confirmation strategies According to these researchers, competent readers are adept at using their language experience and world knowledge to choose appropriate cues in text to help generate predictions The generation of a prediction

is a crucial step in the development of a metacognitive system, in which information concerning the appropriateness of a prediction is obtained from the text through self-monitoring

Investigating readers‟ predicting strategies as they read two specific genres; expository and narrative, Olson, Mack and Duffy (1981) proposed that readers of the former did not engage in “rich” prediction and hypothesis testing, whereas readers of the latter did Thus, these researchers concluded that text genre had a significant influence on whether or not readers used predictions in constructing meaning for a text

In contrast, Afflerbach (1990) pointed out that competent readers used predicting strategies while reading expository texts Results from the study suggested that prior knowledge for the content of the text, in addition to knowledge

of text genre, influenced readers‟ predicting strategies Familiar materials, which may engage readers‟ formal and content schema, ensured more appropriate predictions in the reading process

use of top-down approach to improve reading skill for learners at Equest English Centre The study is an attempt to apply top – down approach in teaching reading to improve reading skills for learners at the centre The study was carried out with the data for the analysis collected from the pretest, posttest and questionnaire that completed by students in the experimental group These data showed that the learners in the experimental group at Equest English Centre have shown a good view

to top - down approach in reading

Lê Thị Hòa (2014) conducted a study on the effect of prediction strategy on improving reading comprehension skills of non – English majored students at Ho

Chi Minh university of industry (HUI) This study aims to emphasize the effect of prediction strategy in reading comprehension with the application of some techniques for pre-reading and while-reading activities to check the effect of prediction strategy after the lessons The participants were 52 English non-majored students who participated in the complete learning course This was indicated by students‟ responses during the teaching and learning process It was also strengthened by the data from the questionnaires after Cycle 2 in which the students pointed out that they enjoyed and interested in doing the reading activities using the prediction activities

Given the teaching and learning situation, the researcher is well aware of the importance of prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson The fact is that there has been little research into implementing prediction strategy to improve the students‟ reading comprehension skill, especially for high school students Therefore, the researcher decided to conduct an action research to examine the impact of prediction strategy on the improvement of high school students‟ reading comprehension skills and find out effective ways to implement prediction strategy

in reading comprehension lesson

1.5 Summary

The chapter has so far presented the relevant literature, which has helped to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the study It is firstly concerned with the nature of reading comprehension, including some definitions of reading and reading comprehension, models of reading and the schema theory It also reviews reading strategies, their classifications and strategy instruction The next part focuses on presenting a review of the main reading strategy employed in this study which is prediction strategy with its definitions, its importance, some main activities and previous related studies All of these serve as a basis for an action research on using prediction strategy to enhance reading comprehension for the 10thform students which is carried out and presented in the next chapter

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Context of the study

2.1.1 Setting of the study

The research was carried out at a quite new public high school in Ninh Binh province The school was established in 2007 and up to now it has 26 classes with

60 teachers of different subjects and more than 900 students mostly from 7 villages nearby Like other normal high schools in the province, its curriculum is divided into three streams: basic, natural sciences (and mathematics) and social sciences (and foreign languages)

The teaching staff consists of 8 English teachers, most of them have at least 3 years of teaching experiences They graduated from different universities in Vietnam, and one of them has had MA degree of University of Languages and International Studies, Viet Nam National University, Ha Noi The researcher also worked as an English teacher at this high school before attending an MA course at University of Language and International Studies, Viet Nam National University,

Ha Noi In order to conduct the research to complete the course, the researcher received the principal‟s permission and the support of other English teachers

In this school, English is considered as one of the most important subjects in training the students The leaders have created favorable conditions for English teaching and learning Speaking lessons are allowed to take place outside classroom

so that students can get involved in the activities more easily and feel more comfortable to speak English without being afraid of annoying other classes English club has also been established recently in order to provide students with more chances to learn and help each other learn English In addition, students also have opportunities to speak English with foreigners through many field trips to some famous places in the local and other provinces nearby Furthermore, a lot of extra-curricular activities such as English Speaking Contest, Journeys to the Heritage Sites have been held in the school‟s weekly assembly in order to motivate students to learn English and create a playing field for both English teacher and

students As a result, the atmosphere of English teaching and learning in the school has become much more cheerful, and the quality has been gradually improved

2.1.2 Participants

The participants involved in this thesis study were 68 students from class 10A and 10B at the chosen school Of the 34 students in class 10A, there were 22 girls and 12 boys In class 10B, there were 20 girls and 14 boys The rationale for the researcher‟s choosing grade 10th

students as the population of the research is based on her belief that they were not taught any reading strategy before entering high school Both of class 10A and class 10B is a natural sciences and mathematics class, which means their majors are mathematics and natural sciences subjects Almost all of them also got better marks at the entrance examination to high school than students in other 10th classes According to the results of placement test taken

at the beginning of the school year, their English were at pre-intermediate level Each week, the participants had 3 periods of English in the morning and a four – period supplementary lesson in the afternoon A reading course implementing prediction strategy was taken place in the time of their supplementary lessons for students in class 10A Students in class 10B were also taught the same reading materials in their supplementary lessons but without using prediction strategy All

of the participants were willing to join the course

2.1.3 Materials

The textbook used as the official English material for grade 10 students at the school is Tieng Anh 10 – standard syllabus published by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) The students still learn this textbook in the morning The materials chosen for the reading course implementing prediction strategy are reading texts from five units of the new English textbook, “Tieng Anh 10 tập một, sách thí điểm” published by MOET

2.2 Research design

2.2.1 Research approach

The study was conducted as a classroom action research According to Carr and Kemmis (2003: 162), action research is simply a form of self-reflective inquiry

undertaken by participants in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practices, their understanding of those practices and the situations in which the practices are carried out

Cohen and Manion (2002) argued that action research is first and foremost situational, being concerned with the identification and solution of problems in a specific context According to them, the aim of action research was to improve the current state of affairs within the educational context in which the research was being conducted In other words, action research is situational; the research is initiated by practitioner and derived from a real problem in the classroom Using action research concurrently to solve a problem, improve the current state of affairs and generate new knowledge

Although action research has been defined differently as indicated in this literature review, the generally agreed purpose of action research is researching one‟s own teaching for improvement This fits well the purpose of this study, which

is to find out the extent to which prediction strategy helps to improve the researcher‟s students‟ reading skill That is the rationale for choosing action research as an approach to this study

2.2.2 Research procedures

The research was developed and carried out during 8 weeks from the 4th week

to the 11th week of the first semester As mentioned above, the subjects of the study were 68 students from 2 classes 10A and 10B at a high school in Ninh Binh province The action research was conducted using the action research cycle suggested by Nunan (1992) The research cycle consists of seven phases: Initiation/ problem identification; preliminary investigation; hypothesis; intervention; evaluation, dissemination and follow-up

Step 1: Initiation/ Problem Identification:

In the process of teaching reading lesson to the 10th form students, the author found that many students seemed to gain very little after the lesson Some students could not understand what the reading text was about Others did not know what to

do to comprehend the reading text and they usually used De Hoc Tot Tieng Anh 10

to give the answers for the tasks/exercises in the textbook Some tended to read the text slowly and translate every word into their mother tongue This cost them a lot

of time and made them discouraged when encountering unfamiliar words or concepts Very few students who are better at English know how to get the specific information or the main ideas of the text by scanning or skimming the passage Therefore, when dealing with reading texts from supplementary materials, they could only give few correct answers for the exercises/ tasks following these reading texts

Step 2: Preliminary Investigation

To identify the actual reading proficiency of the students in class 10A and class 10B at the chosen high school, the researcher conducted a pre-test The 68 non-English major students took the test in which they had to read two texts and then completed ten multiple choice comprehension questions The low result of the pre-test showed that they really had problems with their reading comprehension skill More than half of the students in class 10A (58.9%) got bad results (with under-five scores) and the rest of them just got modest results (5-7/10 scores) The situation of the students in class 10B was quite similar

In order to understand more about the current situation, the researcher had informal chats with the students in the free breaks to discover their problems The students themselves recognized that their reading comprehension skill was still at low level, and they did not gain much after each lesson as well as could not understand the text They thought that their lack of vocabulary seemed to be a big problem because they could not understand the text without knowing the meaning

of the new words Others said that their lack of appropriate learning strategies would also cause bad results in comprehending the text Other causes were mentioned namely their lack of motivation, their laziness, the boring activities, etc

Step 3: Hypothesis

The results of the informal chats analysis in Step 2 revealed that students‟ low proficiency in reading comprehension skill could be hypothesized as their lack of vocabulary, motivation and appropriate reading strategies This motivated the

researcher to read the literature on classroom strategies applicable to reading lessons While reading the literature (teaching methodology books, journal articles, etc…) the researcher came across the idea of prediction strategy in language teaching, and hypothesized that the use of prediction strategy might help to improve the situation

Step 4: Intervention

In this phase, the researcher designed two reading courses for the participants from the two classes 10A and 10B: one reading course implementing prediction strategy and one course without prediction strategy Class 10A was chosen as the experimental group and class 10B was the control group It means that the students

in class 10A attended the reading course implementing prediction strategy, and the students in class 10B attended the course without the implementation of prediction strategy Both of the two courses employed different reading texts from five units in the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10, tập một, sách thí điểm” published by MOET as the materials for the course

The course for experimental group was applied in 8 weeks All the course procedures are shown in table 2.1:

orientation

Students were administered the pretest The research program were introduced to the students

instruction through the activities and exercises using in the lesson The lesson was strictly taught according to three stages: pre, while and post

questionnaire

Table 2.1: The course procedures for experimental class

In the 1st week, students were administered the pretest and asked to finish it in

30 minutes (see appendix 1 for the content of pretest) The exam papers in the pretest were collected as soon as the subjects finished each test and the subjects were not provided with any correct answers after the pretest The background concepts of prediction strategy were introduced, and a frame work about the lessons

in five weeks was also formed

From the 2nd to the 6th week, the teacher distributed the first to the fifth lesson

to the students Simultaneously, the second step was being implemented In each lesson, the teacher asked them to do exercises about a chosen topic, often the familiar topics with students such as sharing housework, wonderful nature etc The lesson was carried out strictly based on the reading stages: pre-reading, while reading and post reading (see appendix 4A for a sample lesson plan for experimental class)

Pre-reading activities are worth contemplating because when applying prediction strategies in reading comprehension, the readers make predictions and confirm or change the predictions while they read Therefore, in order to let students have some expectations about the content of the text, it is necessary to activate their background knowledge related to the text through pre-reading activities In this study, the researcher focused much more on the pre-reading and while reading stage

At pre-reading stage, instead of introducing new words or grammar structures firstly, teacher would begin the lesson with the previewing task in which the teacher asked students to look at the title, or the given pictures in the book, then ask them to describe the pictures and from what they described, they can predict the topic of the lesson Their predictions were noted on their own given prediction chart (see appendix 5) Then the teacher helped students to activate their formal and content schemata with some tasks/ activity such as brainstorming, small group discussion, K-W-L, T/F statements, etc The teacher also asked students to overview the text so that they could have more things to make predictions about the text

Secondly, in the second stage, instead of asking student to translate the whole text, the teacher made it more interesting by different activities such as asking students to predict content of the reading text based on their prior knowledge, experiences, the first or the last sentence of the reading text or asking students to predict the next part of the text from various clues Then students could base on their predictions to do the required task After that, students were asked to skim or scan the text to confirm or reject their prior predictions

In the last stage of a reading lesson, to check whether students comprehend the text or not, the teacher will carry out some different activities Discussing in pairs or groups, comparing/contrasting what students predicted about the text before reading with what they found out after reading the text, or answering comprehension questions were some useful activities for the post-reading stage

In the 7th week, the posttest was given to the students to compare their reading competence before and after the treatment, so the posttest had the same format and level of difficulty According to Crowl (1996:114), “the test has been designed so that the procedures for administering the test, the materials used in the test, and the way in which the test is scored are constant” In this study, the researcher did not use the same test for pretest and posttest, but the researcher used two different tests with the same form and level to avoid students remembering the pretest and checking the answers

In the 8th week, students were asked to fill in the questionnaire in 60 minutes, and then the researcher collected their responses after that

Another reading course was also carefully designed to teach students in class 10B, the control group of the study The researcher also used the reading texts from from five units in the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10, tập một, sách thí điểm” published by MOET to teach for this control group However, prediction strategy was not applied in this course Instead, they were taught to use other reading strategies such as scanning, skimming, (see apendix 4B for a sample lesson plan for the control group) At the end of the course, the control group took the same posttest as the experiemtal group to examine if there would be any differences

between learning reading with and without prediction strategy Both of the students

in the two groups did the test at the same time to prevent the group taking the test later from knowing the test before doing it When the students did the test, the researcher worked as an examiner of the experimental group and asked another teacher to examine the control group Both of the two classes were observed strictly

to avoid cheating

Step 5: Evaluation

In order to clarify to what extent prediction strategy would affect the students‟ reading comprehension skill and find out effective ways to implement prediction strategy in reading comprehension lessons, results of the students‟ tests and questionnaires as well as the teacher‟s diaries were collected, analyzed and interpreted

Step 6: Dissemination

The researcher discussed the impact of prediction strategy on the students‟ reading comprehension skill and the effective ways to implement prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson in this thesis

Step 7: Follow-up

The researcher suggested some further researches to improve reading comprehension skill for the students

2.3 Data collection instruments

The present study employed both quantitative and qualitative method including tests, and post – treatment questionnaires administered to the experimental class and teaching diaries written by the researcher after each reading lesson for experimental class The combination of various data collection instruments would provide a comprehensive overview of the students‟ reading proficiency before and after the treatment as well as the ways to apply this strategy effectively The following part discusses each data collection instrument used in this study in detail

2.3.1 Pretest and posttest

Tests are considered a very effective tool in the assessment of the research In second language acquisition studies, tests are used to collect data about the subjects‟ ability and knowledge of the second language such as vocabulary, grammar, and reading (Seliger & Shohamy, 1989: 176) In this study, in order to assess the students‟ ability before the treatment and their achievement after treatment, two reading comprehension tests were administered: pretest and posttest As mentioned above, the pretest and posttest had the same format and level of difficulty with the pretest The students had 30 minutes to do each test Both of the tests included 2 reading text with 10 multiple choice questions taken from Language in use pre – intermediate tests by Adrian Doff & Christopher Jones All of these reading test tasks are included in Appendix 1 and 2 The reason for choosing these test items is that all of them can be regarded as standard tests They are developed by experts and therefore considered to be well constructed In addition, selecting these test items were done in consideration to the subjects‟ reading ability At the time of the study, their English proficiency was at pre-intermediate level, so short and simple reading tasks were chosen to be more appropriate for the subjects

The advantages of tests are that they can measure the students‟ language proficiency, and that the test scores can be marked objectively; therefore, the test result can be concise and objective enough for the study However, using test cores

to assess students‟ language proficiency also has potential drawback that they do not always reflect students‟ real ability as some students may not perform well in tests due to some psychological factors such as nervousness or anxiety or other reasons such as lack of reliability and validity in some available tests Therefore, other instruments, questionnaire and teaching diaries were employed to gather more information about the experimental group

2.3.2 Questionnaire

In this study, the researcher applied questionnaire as one of the main means of data collection because of some advantages Firstly, this method can give the researcher the needed data in both of quantitative and qualitative form Secondly, all