11th grade students awareness of english reading strategies a descriptive research at yen vien high school

However, it is necessary for students to have appropriate reading strategies.Therefore, I intend to examine the awareness of English reading henceforth called readingstrategies of 11th g

LIST OF TABLES

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

Table 4.1 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 1

Table 4.2 Analysis of questionnaires: Question 2

Table 4 3 Analysis of questionnaires : Metacognitive reading strategies

Table 4.4: Analysis of questionnaires : Cognitive reading strategies

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

Table 4.7 Analysis of interviews : Question 2

Table 4.8: Analysis of interviews: Question 3

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

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

(P Hardin in Anderson, 1999:73)

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

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

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration………

Acknowledgements………

List of Tables………

Abstract………

i ii iii iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study……… 1

1 2 Aims of the Study……….3

1 3 Research Questions……… 3

1 4 Research Methodology……… 3

1 5 Scope of the Study……….4

1 6 Significance of the study……… 4

1 7 Design of the Study……… 4

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

2.1 1 What is Reading? 6

2.1.2 What is Reading Comprehension? 7

2 2 Classification of reading……… 8

2.2.1 According to manner……….8

2.2.2 According to the purposes of reading………

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

2.3.1 Reading strategies………

2.3.2 The importance of strategy training………

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

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY……….

2.1 Participants and settings of the study ………

2.1.1 Participants: ………

2.1.2 Settings of the study ……… 18

2.2 Instruments of data collection ………

2.3 Summary ……… 19

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……….

3.1 Results ………

3.1.1 Questionnaires ……… 19

3.1.1.1 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension………

3.1.1 2 Readers’ factors affecting reading comprehension ………

3.1.1 3 Reading strategies………

3.1.1 3.1 Metacognitive reading strategies ………

3.1.1.3.2 Cognitive reading strategies ………

3.1.1.3.3 Social/affective strategies ………

3.2 Interviews ………

3.3 Summaries of main findings ………

3.3.1 Reading strategies ………

3.3.2 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension ………

3.4 Discussion of main findings………

PART 3: CONCLUSION ………

4.1 Summary of main findings………

4.2 Implications of the study………

4.3 Limitations ………

4.4 Suggestions for further research ………

References………

Appendix ………

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study

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

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

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

In Vietnam, the English language plays an important role in the increasing

development of science, technology, politics, culture and international relation There is a

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

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

At Yen Vien high school, students are supposed to master all four skills presented inthe standard text books “Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”and “Tieng Anh 12” After threeyears at high school, they have to pass the GCSE and the entrance examination of someuniversities and colleges with rather challenging tests Students can not pass suchexaminations without being equipped with effect strategies However, with the limitations

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

1 2 Aims of the Study

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

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

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

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

1 3 Research Questions

To achieve the aims of the thesis, the following research questions were proposed with questions 1 and 2 addressing the first aim and question 3 the second aim):

1) What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading comprehension

strategies of Vietnamese 11th grade students?

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

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

1 4 Research Methodology

This study is to be conducted as a descriptive one that employed a writtenquestionnaire and interview to collect information about students’ awareness and possibleuse of reading strategies The data collected were analyzed both qualitatively andquantitatively to help the author achieve the aim of the study, that is answers to researchquestions 1 and 2 to deal with aim number 1 and research question 3 with aim 2

1 5 Scope of the Study

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

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

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

1 6 Significance of the study

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

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

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

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

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

chapters:

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

the rationale, the aims, the methodology and the design

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

is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research such as reading andreading comprehension, classification of reading, strategies and the importance of strategytraining as well as the teacher’s role in strategy training

Chapter 2: The methodology of this study is presented This chapter presents thebackground information of the subjects of the study, the instrument used to collect the data,the procedure of data collection.

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

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

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

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

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 What is Reading and Reading Comprehension?

2.1.1 What is Reading?

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text,resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs thatencode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what thatmeaning is So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however nosingle definition is acceptable to everyone

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

a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, tomaster grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text

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

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

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

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

The bottom - up model

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

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

to larger units at the top (phrases, clauses, intesentential linkages) (Rivers 1964; Yorio1971)

Top down model

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

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

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

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

Interactive model:

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

of the texts

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

to be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes Theinformation obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the mostappropriate interpretation of the printed pages”

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

2.1.2 What is Reading Comprehension?

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

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

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

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

* Silent reading

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

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

2.2.2 According to the purposes of reading

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

Intensive reading

Nutall (1982: 36) defines: "Intensive reading involves approaching the text underthe guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the text" Thus,intensive reading is usually a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on thelinguistic or semantic details of a message to extract specific information Intensive readingcalls students' attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers and other surfacestructures, rhetorical relationships and the like Intensive reading aims at understanding notonly of what the text means, but of how the meaning is produced The "how" and the

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

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

Extensive reading

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

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

Skimming

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

Scanning

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

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

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

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

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

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

2 3 Reading strategies and the importance of strategy training

2.3.1 Defining strategies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

material itself and are responsible for marking new words in a text, memorizing by sentences,taking notes, etc

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

relaxation, asking questions (see Table 2.1)

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

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

Learning strategies Definition

A METACOGNITIVE

STRATEGIES

Planning

advance organizers Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material

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

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

task and to ignore irrelevant distracters

Functional planning Planning for and rehearing linguistic components

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

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

Self - management Understanding the conditions that help one learn and

arranging for the presence of those conditions

Monitoring

Self - monitoring Checking one's comprehension during listening or

reading checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness

of one's oral or written production while it is takingplace

Evaluation

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

a standard after it has been completed

B COGNITIVE

STRATEGIES

Resourcing Using target language reference materials such as

dictionaries, encyclopedias, or textbooksRepetition Imitating a language model, including overt practice

and silent rehearsal

Grouping Classifying words, terminology or concepts according

to the attributes or meaningDeduction Applying rules to understand or produce the second

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

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

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

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

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

Elaboration Relating new information to prior knowledge, relating

different parts of new information to each other, ormaking meaningful personal associations with the newinformation

Transfer Using previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills to

assist comprehension or production

Inferencing Using available information to guess meaning of new

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

verbal, graphic or numerical form while listening orreading

summarizing Making a mental, oral or written summary of new

information gained through listening or reading

Recombination Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language

by combining known elements in a new way

Translation Using the first language as a base for understanding

and/or producing the second language

C SOCIAL / AFFECTIVE

STRATEGIES

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

rephrasing, examples or verification

Cooperation Working together with one or more peers to solve a

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

Self – talk Reducing anxiety by using mental techniques that

make one feel competent to do the learning task

2.3.2 The importance of strategy training

Training is a key component on the adoption of a new system and the efficient andeffective use by the end users Just think of all the ‘shelf-ware’ and wasted money becausenobody knew how to use the software Also think of all the times that users havecomplained that the tool does not work, yet the real cause is inadequate training To assist

in this a training strategy must be developed

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

+ Identify your targets training needs in terms of their involvement with the software beingdeployed Ensure that you also include the value each target group will receive by taking training.+ Review the training needs and define and current gaps and any potential future gaps.+ Define the training objectives

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

+ Define how the training content will be created

+ Define how the training will be monitored

+ Define how the training will be assessed

+ Define the schedule training revisions

2 4 The Teacher's Role in Strategy Training

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

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

can prepare a short questionnaire so that students can fill in at the beginning of a course todescribe themselves and their language learning Thus, the teacher can learn the purpose oftheir learning a language, their favorite / least favorite kinds of class activities, and thereason why they learn a language The teacher can have adequate knowledge about thestudents, their goals, motivations, language learning strategies, and their understanding ofthe course to be taught (Lessard-Clouston 1997:5) It is a fact that each learner within thesame classroom may have different learning styles and varied awareness of the use ofstrategies The teacher cannot attribute importance to only one group and support theanalytical approach or only give input by using the auditory mode The language teachershould, therefore, provide a wide range of learning strategies in order to meet the needs andexpectations of his students possessing different learning styles, motivations, strategypreferences, etc Therefore, it can be stated that the most important teacher role in foreignlanguage teaching is the provision of a range of tasks to match varied learning styles (Hall1997:4).

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

The language teacher should also study his own teaching method and overallclassroom style Analyzing his lesson plans, the language teacher can determine whether hislesson plans give learners chance to use a variety of learning styles and strategies or not.The teacher can see whether his teaching allows learners to approach the task at hand indifferent ways or not The language teacher can also be aware of whether his strategytraining is implicit, explicit, or both It should be emphasized that questioning himself aboutwhat he plans to do before each lesson and evaluating his lesson plan after the lesson interms of strategy training, the teacher can become better prepared to focus on languagelearning strategies and strategy training during the process of his teaching (Lessard-Clouston 1997:5)

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

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

of reading and reading strategies and provided a necessary theoretical background for thepresent study This chapter presents the methodology used for the data collection andanalysis in the study It starts with a description of the participants and the setting of study

It then describes data collection instruments and analysis procedures of the study

2.1 Participants and settings of the study

2.1.1 Participants:

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

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

2.1.2 Settings of the study

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

2.2 Instruments of data collection and data analysis methods

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

a The questionnaire

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

b The interview

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

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

The reason why I used multiple approaches to data collection is that different method

of data collection procedures may lead to different conclusions about their awareness ofreading strategies Individual structured interviews were used to supplement the datacollected from survey questionnaires Interviews were conducted in Vietnamese with threedifferent groups of good, medium and weak readers in order to know the level ofawareness and use of reading strategies and identify differences among them Theseinterviews have truly provided a lot of valuable information about the reading habits of thesubjects

However, this process took me a lot of time and effort to complete Anotherdisadvantage of interviews is it they may introduce elements of subjectivity and personalbias, and rapport may cause interviewees to respond in a certain way to please theinterviewer To avoid these problems I had to assure my students that their answers did notaffect the way I judged them so that they should answer honestly I also told them that onlytrue answers contributed to the success of my study

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

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

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

on the participants' reading strategies This chapter reports results gained from the analysis

of data elicited from each instrument

3.1 Results

3.1.1 Questionnaires

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

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

3.1.1.1 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension

Question 1 asks the participants how important reading comprehension is to

their purpose for English learning by circling the most suitable option.

A Not important at all B Not important

Table 3.1 presents the different answers of the importance of reading

comprehension among these three groups to the first question

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

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

3.1.1 2 Readers’ factors affecting reading comprehension

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

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

Question 2.a 50 18 92 108 5 45

Question 2.a 120

Looking at the chart, we can find out that poor readers are not as much aware ofreading strategies as the good and the medium ones 73.58% of good readers used readingstrategies while reading meanwhile only 10% of poor readers paid attention to readingstrategies Only nearly half of the medium students do not concentrate on readingstrategies This can inferred that English reading strategies are not much used by 11th gradestudents at Yen Vien high school

Question 2b asks the 11 th form student to indicate the importance of the following factors to reading comprehension by circling the most suitable option.

A have a large English vocabulary

B have a good knowledge of English grammar

C have a good knowledge of the reading topic

D have effective reading strategies

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

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

question in the questionnaire

As clearly shown in the table, there was no significant difference among responses

given by good, medium and weak readers to question 2b A The good learners’ response

large English vocabulary was important to reading comprehension Vocabulary, actually, is

a language component that plays an important role in deciding a learner’s languageproficiency It is central to language because it is considered as the basic building block oflanguage, the unit of meaning from which larger structures such as sentences, paragraphsand the whole text are formed For methodologists, vocabulary is considered as the strongfoundation for learners to build up their communicative castles Concerning thesignificance of vocabulary, Wilkin (1972: 110) stated that “vocabulary is one of the threedimensions of a language Without grammar, very little can be conveyed, withoutvocabulary nothing can be conveyed.”

I am very excited at the figure collected in the survey However, it will not be an advantage

if learners pay too much attention on the meaning of words without concerning otherfactors

For question 2b.B, students’ response on the importance of grammar was considered

As can be seen from the chart, medium students had the largest percentage of students whowere in favor of having a good grammar in reading comprehension ( 89% ), There was aslight fall in the number of weak students who considered grammar important (84%).While weak and medium readers were at nearly the same, those of good readers were alittle varied 76% of them thought that grammar was important to their good readingcomprehension In all, less students denied the importance of grammar when they didreading comprehension This trend was understandable At high schools, tests,examinations and event homework checking are grammar based Teachers and studentsfocused on it most of the time However, in reading comprehension, paying too muchattention to grammar may not lead to success

For question 2b.C, attitudes of readers towards the importance of having a goodknowledge of English grammar was measured From the chart, the differences between theresponses given by the good and medium groups was small 70.59 percentage of goodstudents and 72.50 percentage of medium cared for the content of their reading lessons butonly 34 percentage of weak readers understand the reading topics when doing reading test.Therefore, both good readers and medium readers thought that identifying the content ofthe reading was necessary On the other hand, only 34 % of the weak students agreed onthe importance and 66% of them didn’t think the content of the reading was important

This gap may be a barrier banning the weak students have better marks and made them lesssuccessful.

As opposed to the results of the above questions, the last question (2b.D)concerning with the importance of reading strategies on reading comprehension showed asignificant difference among the three groups 86.76% of good readers, 56.50% of mediumreaders and 60% of weak ones were in favor of the importance of reading strategies onreading comprehension The good readers claimed that effective reading strategies wereimportant whereas nearly half of the bad and medium readers thought they were notimportant to reading comprehension

3.1.1.3 Reading strategies

The next 20 questions were about the subjects' reading strategies These strategieswere classified into metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies on the basis ofO'Malley and Chamot's framework (1990) The following analysis utilized this framework

in order to clarify the differences and similarities in the reading strategies employed bythree different groups

3.1.1.3.1 Metacognitive reading strategies

The first part deals with the analysis of 11th form learners’ metacognitive readingstrategies As discussed in the previous chapter, the metacognitive reading strategies wascategorized into three subtypes including advance organizers, directed attention andselective attention and there were two questions for each subtype

Question 3: Advance organizers

I preview the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text before reading

Question 4: Selective attention

To save time I read the text once or twice and I scan for key words or concepts that are closely related to the questions in order to answer them at the same time

Question 5: Directed attention

Before reading, I read the comprehension questions to decide important information that should be noted

Question 6: Directed attention

I choose reading strategies according to your reading purposes