Application of cohesion theory in discourse analysis to the teaching of reading comprehension to foreign language learners

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OFLANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDY BỒ THỊ LÝ APPLICATION OF COHESION THEORY IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS TO THE T

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGESAND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

BỒ THỊ LÝ

APPLICATION OF COHESION THEORY IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

TO THE TEACHING OF READING COMPREHENSION TO

FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS

(Áp dụng lý thuyết về liên kết văn bản trong việc dạy đọc hiểu tiếng Anh cho

học viên học Tiếng Anh như một ngoại ngữ)

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Hanoi, December, 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OFLANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-

GRADUATE STUDY

BỒ THỊ LÝ

APPLICATION OF COHESION THEORY IN DISCOURSE

ANALYSIS TO THE TEACHING OF READING

COMPREHENSION TO FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS

(Áp dụng lý thuyết về liên kết văn bản trong việc dạy đọc hiểu tiếng Anh

cho học viên học Tiếng Anh như một ngoại ngữ

MINOR M.A THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: Huỳnh Anh Tuấn, PhD

Hanoi, December, 2012

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND and LITERATURE REVIEW

I Theoretical background

1.2 Previous approaches to teaching reading comprehension 9

1.5 The role of cohesion competence in reading comprehension 17

Chapter II: Methodology

2.2 Research approach 21

Chapter III: Data Analysis: Results, Discussions and Recommendations

3.1.1 Student‘s pre-existing knowledge about cohesion and coherence 313.1.2 Students‘ level of improvement in reading comprehension 33

PART C: CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

LISTS OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

List of tables:

Table 3.1 Descriptive Statistics for the group‘s performance in the

pre-test and post-test.

Table 3.2 Results of the Paired-Sample T-tests

List of figures

Figure 1.1 The RAND model of reading comprehension From Reading

for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in ReadingComprehension, by RAND Reading Study Group (p 12),

2002, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Copyright 2002 byRAND

Figure 3.1 Number of students who have learnt and have not leant

about cohesionFigure 3.2: Importance of cohesion in a written text

Figure 3.3: Necessity of understanding cohesion in comprehending a

PART A: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

It is widely known that reading is very important for almost everyone,especially for second language learners According to Tomlinson (1990), a goodreading competence is a necessity for those using English for academic andoccupational purposes and many curricula therefore devote large amounts of time

to intensive and extensive reading lessons in order for their learners to achievesuch competence

As a result, teaching English reading has been always the focus of muchconcern However, after a great deal of research has been done in this aspect, weare aware that many students, though having learnt English for years, often end infailure about their comprehension when asked to read a passage After years ofpractice in reading, many learners still find it difficult to make sense of the textsthey want to read One of the reasons is, as pointed out by many scholars such asCook (1989) and Nuttal (1982), the failure to interpret the writer‘s cohesivesignals as intended and so to understand correctly the functional value ofindividual sentences as thus their relationship to each other and the whole

In the view of Halliday and Hasan (1976) the continuity that cohesiverelations bring about is a semantic continuity This makes it possible for cohesivepatterns to play an indispensable role in the processing of text by a listener orreader It is, therefore, necessary to help our students identify different kinds ofcohesive relations which form the backbones of different types of text, becausethose chains signal organizational patterns of different types of text

comprehension to foreign language learners” This is an action research in which

the researcher taught reading comprehension by applying cohesion theory in thelessons and guide students to use the knowledge conveyed to enhance theirreading ability

II Aims

As mentioned above, the knowledge about cohesion may assist students‘comprehension of a reading text Therefore, the study aims to investigate the effect

of cohesion competence on students‘ reading comprehension

In order to fulfill such an aim, two main objectives were set for the study.Firstly, the study was expected to provide an insight into students‘ priorknowledge about cohesion and cohesion in reading Secondly, the researcherexpected to find out whether the teaching of cohesion to students could improvetheir reading ability

III Scope of the study

Although the title of the research is generally ―cohesion theory‖, this papermainly focuses on analyzing types of cohesion that appeared in reading texts.Furthermore, the teaching of cohesion in reading does not only mean theresearcher would teach cohesion theoretically but also by analyzing and guidestudent to analyze cohesive items in reading passages In addition, the researcher

adapted the reading passages in the reading course book for B1 level namely Issue For Today 3 combined with several further practices as homework instead of

providing new out-book reading materials for in-class practice

The informants of the study were 24 non-English majored first year students.They were all of B1 level of English according to the Common EuropeanFramework of Reference The participating students were in the same class towhom the researcher was in charge of teaching reading.

IV Research methodology

1 Research questions

The study was conducted to address the following two research questions:

1 What kind of prior knowledge did the students in the study have in terms

of cohesion and cohesion in reading comprehension before the experimental teaching phase?

2 How does the teaching of cohesion improve the reading comprehension

of second language learners?

2 Research approach

To address the two research questions, action research was adopted as theresearch approach as it meets the aim and objectives of the study This approach isalso justified to offer significant benefits for the researcher, who is also a teacher.Johnson (1995) pointed out three mains advantages of action research namely topromote personal and professional growth, to improve practice to enhance studentlearning, and to advance the teacher profession

3 Data collection instruments

The four main instruments for data collection used in the study wereobservation and field notes, reading comprehension tests, and survey

An observation checklist was particularly designed to assess the students‘participation and motivation in the reading lesson The researcher based on theobservation checklist and takes notes about the students‘ performance in the class.There are two reading comprehension tests, namely a pre-test taken before theintervention and a post-test taken after the intervention Both tests were of thesame level of difficulty regarding timing, number of questions, number of text,length, passage structure and vocabulary level.

Two survey questionnaires were designed to gain data for the research Onequestionnaire was sent out before the intervention to find information aboutstudents‘ prior knowledge, experience and belief in learning cohesion The otherwas distributed after the intervention to collect data about students‘ attitudetowards the experimental teaching

4 Data collection procedure

The data collection was conducted through 3 phases including intervention, while-intervention and post-intervention The data collectioninstruments were adopted flexibly for each phase as illustrated in the timelinebelow:

pre-Pre- intervention While – intervention Post- intervention

(6 weeks)

Survey questionnaire Observation Survey questionnaire

The survey questionnaires and reading comprehensions tests went throughthree stages regarding piloting, delivering and collecting Observation and field

notes were taken during the six-week experimental teaching phase to assessstudents‘ motivation and participation in the reading lessons.

5 Data analysis methods

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized to analyze the datacollected Specifically, quantitative method was used to analyze objective datafrom tests and survey questionnaires Meanwhile, qualitative method was for datafrom field notes and open-ended questions in the survey questionnaires

Furthermore, statistical analysis was employed to analyze the data collected.Simple descriptive statistics is the most suitable method to present the finding ofthis study in terms of the study scope as well as the researcher‘s own capabilities

V Significance of the study

In general, teachers, educational administrators and researchers working onrelated issues could gain certain benefits from the study First, the researcher wasprovided a precious chance to reflect her own teaching, to investigate a newteaching strategy and raise other teachers‘ awareness of such a strategy

Besides, this research could offer references about updated and reliableinformation about a context of applying cohesion in teaching reading skills forsecond language learners to interested individual to conduct further studies

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND

LITERATURE REVIEW

I Theoretical background

1.1 RAND Model of reading comprehension

Researchers and linguists have presented different definitions on the concept

of reading, ranging from the simple to complicated ones According to Durkin(1993: 37), reading is ―intentional thinking during which meaning is constructedthrough interaction between text and reader‖ Similarly, Harris & Hodges (1995:26) see reading as a process of constructing meaning of a written text through

―…a reciprocal interchange of ideas…‖ between the reader and the text

More expansively, reading is a complicated process of ―simultaneouslyextracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement withwritten language‖ which engages different factors as pointed out by Rand ReadingStudy Group (2002): the reader, the text and the activity or purpose for reading.This is one of the most comprehensive definitions of reading as it describesreading with its specific elements Reading is not the unilateral activity of readersbut an active interaction between the reader and the text in which the salience ofboth the text (extracting meaning) and the reader (constructing reading) throughinteraction (the activity) with written language is emphasized

Below is the model of reading comprehension by RAND (2000)

Figure 1 The RAND model of reading comprehension From Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension, by RAND Reading Study Group (p 12), 2002, Santa Monica, CA: RAND Copyright 2002 by RAND.

Reader The reader factor includes:

 cognitive capacities: attention, memory, critical analytic ability, inferencing,

visualization ability

 motivation : a purpose for reading, an interest in the content being read,

self-efficacy as a reader

 various types of knowledge : vocabulary, domain and topic knowledge,

linguistic and discourse knowledge, and knowledge of specific

comprehension strategies

 Structure: the organization of the text and

 the overall coherence: degree of similarity of ideas from one sentence to the

next



 Sentence difficulty: including vocabulary and syntax

 Content

Activity: This factor consists of 3 elements

 Purpose/task: skimming for gist, studying to retain information….

 Operations to process the text : decoding, higher-level linguistic and

semantic processing, or self-monitoring for comprehension)

 Outcomes of performing activity: an increase in knowledge, a solution to

real-world problem, or increased engagement with text

As can be clearly seen, from the simple to the complex definitions, reading isunderstood as abroad term that covers reading comprehension In other words,reading comprehension is not a separate process but a component stage in themulti-element process of reading To sum up, reading is a multi-componentprocess which involves a ―…triangular relation…‖ between reader, author andthe text rather than a linear transmission of meaning from author to reader(Lunzer, E.A and Gardner, K, 1979)

1.2 Previous approaches to teaching reading comprehension

Three teaching approaches are proposed and discussed for their respectivebenefits and drawbacks: bottom-up, top-down and interactive reading

1.2.1 Bottom-up reading approach

Bottom-up approach focuses on the text as the convergence of encodedmessages to be deciphered Instructors who uphold bottom-up processing focus onhow learners extract information from the printed page, and on whether or notlearners deal with letters and words in a systematic fashion Therefore, the goals ofthe bottom-up approach are automatic word recognition and rapid reading rate To

reach the aims, explicit instruction in phonetics and spellings is crucial; studentsshould not be ―word-bound‖ in bottom-up processing (Grabe, 1991).

This bottom-up teaching approach has been proved of its effectivenessthrough eye-movement experiment, and been realized in Grammar-TranslationMethod, in which native language may be adopted to translate the target language

to make sense the whole verbal construction From the bottom-up viewpoint,therefore, reading is a process of decoding written symbols into their auralequivalents It‘s a text-centered move in which texts are the containers of rules andcodes to be deciphered Specifically speaking, in this lower-level reading process(Grabe 1991), readers are passive recipients of textual information During thedecoding process, understanding the hierarchal, linguistic structures of thelanguage promises reading comprehension The focus is never the meaning of thewhole text, but detailed linguistic forms—from phoneme to lexical, syntacticlevels

1.2.2 Top-down reading approach

As to top-down teaching approach, the learner‘s prior knowledge is activated,which is capable of enhancing learner‘s language learning, and making possiblereading comprehension In other words, in top-down approach, content schemata,

or background knowledge, are to be activated; prior knowledge plays a major role

in learner‘s comprehension Carrell (1988) argued that a lack of content schemataactivation would lead to insurmountable processing difficulties with secondlanguage readers Hudson (1982) has even argued that a high degree ofbackground knowledge can overcome linguistic deficiency In addition to priorknowledge as a key point, top-down model is actually a whole-language teachingapproach, in which readers focus on the context, and manage to construct

contain predicting, inferring, and focusing on meanings (Grabe 1991) Reading isactually ―a psychological guessing game‖, in the words of Goodman (1970: 45).

1.2.3 Interactive Reading approach

Kern (2000) defined reading as a dynamic, interactive process whichproduced meanings and derived discourse from texts Reading is an active,constructive, and meaning-making process Therefore, reading comprehension isgenerally associated with the ability to read, and to construct meanings as well(Fielding & Pearson, 1994)

Iser (1980) further developed the cognitive view of reading to response theory In reading process, readers stand at the center; readers‘ priorknowledge and textual reading interact Meanings are thus eventually incited inthis way There is a dynamic relationship between reader and text, in whichreading is a creative process rather than a textual decoding only The reader istherefore granted an authorial role

reader-Therefore, the interactive model for teaching and reading refers to thedynamic relationship between bottom-up and top-down, between decoding andinterpretation, and between text and reader This approach is best applied toteaching literary works because the reading/teaching goals—interpretation andmeaning construction—are likely to be reached, and the reader/learners are notexcluded from the text/learning process

1.3 Discourse and discourse analysis

Discourse analysis, as remarked by Brown and Yule (1983:8), ―has come to

be used with a wide range of meanings which cover a range of activities at theintersection of many disciplines from sociolinguistics, philosophical linguistics tocomputational linguistics‖ In other words, discourse analysis is a field of study

which concerns different aspects basically including three basic strands; that istext grammar, conversation analysis, and pragmatics, as pointed out by HoaNguyen (2000:11) He also defines discourse analysis, in the eyes of a linguist, as‖

a study of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context ofsituation and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes.‖

In the study of discourse analysis, it is crucial to make a clear distinctionbetween two terms: discourse and text

According to Brown and Yule (1983:6), text is ―the verbal record of acommunicative act‖; meanwhile, discourse … ―is language in use‖…(p.1) DeBeaugrande and Dressler (1981) presents an elaborate definition of text as a

―communicative occurrence which possesses seven constitute conditions oftextual communication, cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability,informability, situationality and intertextuality‖ In this approach, De Beaugrandeand Dressler see text and discourse in the same light

The most explicit and clearest distinction is by Widowson (1984) Heelaborates discourse as ―a communicative process by means of interaction Itssituational outcome is a change in a state of affair: information is conveyed,intention made clear, its linguistic product is Text‖ (as cited in Hoa Nguyen, 2000,p.14) In the explanation, text is understood as simply a representation of acommunicative process In other words, text is the verbal realization of discourse

1.4 Cohesion and Coherence

Basically, cohesion can be thought of as all the grammatical and lexical linksthat link one part of a text to another According to Linke et all (2004: 245),cohesion refers to the ―relations between sentences that are indicated by explicitsyntactic or semantic ties between linguistic element‖ Halliday & Matthiessen

“set of lexico-grammatical systems that have evolved specifically as a resources for making it possible to transcend the boundaries of the clause- that is the domain of the highest-ranking grammatical unit.”

Coherence, on the other hand refers to the semantic relations that underline texts Van Dijk (1979:93) writes:

“Coherence is a semantic property of discourse formed through the interpretation of each individual sentence relative to the interpretation of other sentences, with “interpretation” implying interaction between the text and the reader”

With this definition, Van Dijk (1979) highly relates coherence with theinterpretation of the text However, the text here is limited to written texts, notcovering spoken texts

Palmer (1983) defines coherence as the type of rhetorical relationshipsterms of both written and spoken texts, that is‖ coherence refers to therhetorical devices, to ways of writing and speaking that bring about order anunity and emphasis‖

Blum-Kulka (1986: 17) provides an elaboration which covers both theideas of Palmer (1983) and Van Dijk (1979); that is, coherence is viewed as

―a covert potential meaning relationships among parts of a text, made overt

by the reader or listener through processes of interpretation‖

Briefly put, a text has cohesion, or is cohesive if its elements are tiedtogether with explicit linguistic marking of meaning relation Meanwhile, atext has texture, or is coherent, if it makes sense In other words, it builds upmental creation of meaning relations during text processing

1.4.1 Type of cohesion

1.4.1.1 Grammatical Cohesion

1.4.1.1.1 Reference

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976:32), reference is a semantic relation and

―since the relationship is on semantic level, the reference item is in no way constrain

to match the grammatical class of the item it refers to‖ The two scholars also classifydiscourse reference into two types, namely exophoric and endophoric

If the reference item is endophoric, it can be either anaphoric or cataphoric.Anaphoric reference occurs when the writer refers back to someone or somethingthat has been previously identified, to avoid repetition It points the listeners andreaders backward to previous entity to understand the text In constrast, cataphoricreference lead listeners and readers forward to the text

Exophoric reference is different from these two types by describing generics

or abstracts without ever being identified In this case, the interpretation is assisted

by the context of the situation

Reference items in English comes into three main forms, including personalreference expressed by pronouns (he, she, it, me, mine…) and determiners (his,her, your…); demonstrative reference (this, that, there, then, etc.) and comparativereference which is expressed by adjectives and adverbs such as same, identical,equal, different, other, etc

1.4.1.1.2 Substitution

Halliday and Hasan (1976:89) define substitution as ―a relation betweenlinguistic items such as words or phrases and in terms of linguistic level, it is arelation on the lexico-grammar level, the level of grammar and vocabulary‖ Hoa

Nguyen (2000: 24) also sees substitution as ―a device which shows the relationbetween sentences, where it is derivable to avoid repetition‖

In this light, Halliday and Hasan (1976) categorized substitution into nominal,verbal and clausal substitution Nominal substitution is realized by one, ones, andsame Verbal substitute in English is ―do‖ and clausal substitutes are ―so‖ andnot Clausal substitution is commonly used after verbs: think, hope, suppose, etc

1.4.1.1.3 Ellipsis

In Halliday and Hasan (1976:142)‘s point of view ellipsis is ―the omission

of certain elements from a sentence, allowed by context‖ It is important to make adifference between ellipsis and substitution With ellipsis, the omitted parts can berecovered based on the context but such possibility does not exist

Quirk et all (1972) discuss three conditions under which ellipsis may occurnamely, repetition, expansion and replacement

a Repetition: the speaker repeat what has been said by the first

E.g/ Did you go there?

Yes, I did (go there)

b Expansion: the speakers adds to what has been said

E.g/ Will he come?

Probably (he will come)

c Replacement: the second speaker replaces what has been said by the first with new information

E.g/ Where did he go?

(He went to) Canada

1.4.1.1.4 Conjunction

According to Cook (1989:21), ―conjunction is words or phrases whichexplicitly draw attention to the type of relationship between one sentence andclause and another‖ Briefly speaking, conjunctions are used to connect sentencesand clauses together into one context.

Halliday and Hasan (1976: 242-243) divide conjunction into four typesincluding additive, adversative, causal and temporal

a additive: the relation of adding meaning among sentences E.g/ and, also,

moreover, in addition, etc

b adversative: information appears in the contradict way E.g/ but, yet, though,

however, on the contrary, etc

c causal: the relation of cause and effect

E.g/ so, hence, before, consequently, as a result, etc

d temporal: this relation creates unified and tied discourse.

E/g : then, next, last, etc…

1.4.1.2 Lexical cohesion

According to Van (2006:80-81), the concept of lexical cohesion was firstdefined in terms of collocation by Firth (1975), then developed by Halliday andHasan (1976) Eggins (1994) and Halliday (1985) share the same idea that lexicalrelation analysis is a way of systematically describing how words in a text related

to each other, how they cluster to build up lexical sets or lexical strings Lexicalrelation appears in two main types, reiteration and collocation

1.4.1.2.1 Reiteration

According to Mc Carthy (1991:65) presents that ―reiteration means eitherrestating an item in a later part of discourse by direct repetition or else reasserting

its meaning by exploiting lexical relations‖ Reiteration is divided into five types,namely repetition, synonyms, super-ordinate and general words.

1.4.1.2.2 Collocation

Collocation occupies an important role in lexical items to create cohesion in atext In fact, words seldom stand alone, but tend to combine together and relate toeach other According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), ―Word combination‖ or

―word co-occurrence‖ is known as collocation which brings a particular sense ormeaning

1.4.2 The role of cohesion competence in reading comprehension

Halliday and Hasan (1976) propose that the distinction between a text and anontext is the existence of texture which is primarily provided by cohesion and

―since the speaker and writer uses cohesion to signal texture, the listener and thereader has to react to it in order to interpret it‖ In the view of the two scholars thecontinuity that cohesive relations bring about is a semantic continuity Theimportance of cohesion lies in the continuity it expresses which is necessary forthe interpretation of the text Yue (1993) points out the 4 roles of cohesions inassisting reading comprehension

1 Cohesion provides the main thread of a text by showing that some entity orcircumstance, some relevant feature or argument persists from one moment to another

in the semantic process as meaning unfold

2 Cohesion creates the characteristic ―feel‖ of a text The continuityexpressed by cohesion not only makes a text interpretable, it also provides it with itsaffective power

3 Cohesion enables readers to supply all the missing items necessary for the interpretation of a text.

4 Cohesion provides the basis for making predictions and building

expectation

II LITERATURE REVIEW

Within the recent decades, there have been numerous researches on cohesion,coherence and EFL reading worldwide, in which many have shown the importantrole played by cohesion and coherence in facilitating reading comprehension.Chapman (1983) finds a relationship between reading ability and the ability

to complete anaphoric relation in a cloze test, and he concludes that the masters ofsuch textual features- including cohesive ties (Halliday and Hasan, 1976)- is acentral factor in fluent reading and reading comprehension Mackay (1979) andCowan (1976) similarly argue that the recognition of conjunctions and otherintersentential linguistic devices is crucial to the information gathering skills ofsecond language readers As a result, the teaching of reading should includeclassroom instruction on the cohesive devices of English, and their function acrosssentences and paragraphs

William (1983) not only discusses the importance of recognizing cohesiveties in reading in a foreign language, but also suggests teaching materials andmethods to bring this about Specifically, he proposes a system of symbols andtextual markings that teach foreign readers how to use cohesive signals in order toincrease their reading comprehension and its relationships to reading development

In the study ―Cohesion and the teaching of EFL reading‖, Fulcher (1987)determines the roles of cohesion in assisting reading comprehension The scholaralso states that cohesion plays a crucial role on the interpretation of a text

Muto, Keiko (2007) in his study named ―The Use of Lexical Cohesion inReading and Writing‖ provokes the considerable effect that the knowledge oflexical cohesion has on their understanding of the story The necessaryinformation, which authors hint at in the text, could be exposed by payingattention to the cohesive ties among words There were, however, occasions when

L2 learners needed to improve in order to make the general knowledge of lexicalcohesion more useful for reading: acquiring cultural knowledge, expanding thearea of lexical cohesion to the whole text, creating original.

Many researchers have come to the conclusion that all types of textualcohesive conjunctions facilitate reading comprehension in the same way (Cooper(1984); Chung (2000); Degand & Sanders 2002)

Overall, it can be seen clearly that these aforementioned findings areinarguably illuminating and valuable in the world However, as far as concerned,such researches have remained limited in the context of Vietnam

First, cohesion and coherence have been widely studied as an aspect oflinguistics field by Vietnamese researchers To be more specific, almost studiesrelated to cohesion are associated with analyzing cohesive items in well-knowntexts or contrasting the use of cohesion in Vietnamese and English written texts Inother word, most studies on cohesion and coherence belong to linguistics andcontrastive analysis Little has been done in the field of teaching methodology.Second, in terms of cohesion and coherence, Vietnamese researchers havegiven considerable attention to EFL writing rather than EFL reading as one ofessential criteria for assessing writing, coherence and cohesion

All these aforementioned conditions have motivated the researcher to conduct

an action study on the cohesion and EFL reading teaching in the context ofVietnam

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

2.1 Research questions:

The research is conducted to address the following two research questions:

1 What kind of prior knowledge did the students in the study have in terms of cohesion and cohesion in reading before the experimental teaching phase?

2 How does the teaching of cohesion improve the reading comprehension of second language learners?

2.2 Research approach

Action research was adopted as the research approach to firstly answer thetwo research questions and finally achieve the aim and objectives of the study.According to Ferrance (2000), action research is a suitable method for teacherswho want to make appropriate changes to student learning and measure thepossible effects Ferrance (2000:27) demonstrates ―Action research is used tochart the effects of implementation of a curriculum or strategy, to study studentlearning and responses.‖ This method is also justified to offer significant benefitsfor the researcher, who is also a teacher Johnson (1995) pointed out three mainsadvantages of action research namely to promote personal and professionalgrowth, to improve practice to enhance student learning, and to advance theteacher profession

2.3 Data collection methods

2.3.1 Informants

Since the study was designed to assess the effectiveness of applying teachingcohesion in teaching reading comprehension, students‘ role was put into greatconsideration Therefore, 24 students from a class were chosen as the subjects ofthe study They were homogeneous regarding their time of having Englisheducation in school and L1 background Furthermore, at the time of the study,they were all first-year non-English majored students from the InternationalStandard Programme (ISP) who were studying to reach B1 level according to theCommon European Framework of Reference The homogeneity in terms oflanguage proficiency of the participating students was established thanks to aplacement test at the beginning of the course These students were selectedbecause they all belonged to one class to whom the researcher was in charge ofteaching reading As a result, effects from other factors on students‘ reading werelimited to the minimum.

2.3.2 Data collection instruments

The data to be analyzed principally came from four main sources, namelyobservation, field notes, reading comprehension tests and survey questionnaires

Survey questionnaires:

According to Dornyei (2003), questionnaires are ―easy to construct,extremely versatile, and uniquely capable of gathering a large amount ofinformation quickly in a form that is readily processible‖

Before the intervention, or the experimental teaching phase, students filledout one survey questionnaire in order to provide insightful information regardingtheir prior experiences as well as their general knowledge about cohesion inEnglish

The questionnaire covers 6 questions in two themes, namely Students’ experience with cohesion in reading lessons and Students’ belief/ knowledge about cohesion in a text

After the intervention, the students were asked to complete another question survey questionnaire to express their thoughts about their level ofunderstanding and the knowledge and skills they grasp after the learning process.Since the questionnaires were designed for collecting factual, behavioral andattitudinal data so that it uses various types of questions regarding yes- noquestion, multiple-choice items, open-ended questions, and likert-scale However,most of the questions do belong to the two main kinds multiple-choice and likertscale The survey questionnaires are in Appendix A (p.I) and Appendix B (p.III)

six-Tests of reading comprehension in English:

The tests of reading comprehension in English (one pre-test and one post-test)were designed by the researcher The time allowed was 40 minutes with 30 itemsand 3 reading passages The pre-test and the post-test were designed to have thesame level of difficulty regarding the number of questions, question types, thelength of the text, the text structure Regarding vocabulary range, a softwarenamed Lexical tutor was used to make sure the passages in the pre-test and post-test have similar lexical level

The reading passages used in this study was carefully selected from theTOELF reading practice passages and contained a general content, which were ofinterest to the students The questions used in the tests were all objective with themain type of multiple choice questions The two reading comprehension tests are

in Appendix F (p.XIV.) and Appendix G (p XX)

Direct Observation and Field Notes:

Observations and field notes on the student‘s performance were taken inorder to keep records of relevant information used in data analysis The

observation and note taking was conducted with two key themes in terms ofstudents‘ motivation and participation The criteria for students‘ motivation andparticipation were listed out in detail in the comprehension checklist (seeAppendix C, p.V).

2.3.3 Data collection procedure

The data for the research results came from the information collectedthroughout three main phases, namely pre-intervention, while intervention andpost-intervention With each stage, different data collection instruments wereutilized in order to gain the most valid and reliable information The use of theinstrument in the data collection process was primarily illustrated in the followingtimeline

Timeline

Pre- intervention While – intervention Post- intervention

(6 weeks)

Survey questionnaire Observation Survey questionnaire

2.3.3.1 Pre-intervention

The purpose of the first phase - pre-intervention, or before the experimental

teaching phase, is find out the answer for the first research question, ―What kind

of prior knowledge did students in the study have in terms of cohesion and cohesion in reading before the experimental teaching phase?” Therefore, one survey questionnaire and a test of reading comprehension were used as the data

collection instruments for this stage

The procedure of data collection for the two instruments was carried outthrough 3 stages including piloting, delivering and collecting.

Piloting

This stage was carried out in order to assess the reliability of the readingcomprehension test and the survey questionnaire The reading comprehension testswere pre-tested with a sample group of 24 students having characteristics similar

to the target group Then after interpreting the collected data, weak,malfunctioning and non-functioning items were removed from the whole test, andsome were modified

As to the questionnaires, ten volunteer students were chosen randomly fromthe sample group to complete the questionnaires They were encouraged to markany items that they considered unnecessary, unclear and unsuitable Suggestionsfor improvement were welcome and highly appreciated Once the first versionswere reviewed and completed, printed handouts were made for the researchedparticipants

Delivering

At the first stage, the pre-test was administered to all the students before theintervention The students were told that the result of the test was counted in theirfinal learning result; therefore, all the students did the test to the best of theirability

The survey questionnaire was delivered at the break time of the class All thekey terms related to cohesion were explained and exemplified in Vietnamese forstudents to easily understand and know what they are asked about The studentswere asked to spend some time reading the questionnaire to grasp the nature of thetopic and the key terms Questions were exchanged frequently between thestudents and the researcher to ensure the comprehension of the questions and theaccuracy of the collected data

After all, the researcher collected the data After all the questionnaire papersand tests were collected, the researcher checked whether all the given items hadbeen collected or not Additionally, the participants got the researcher‘s feedbackfor their questions about the questionnaires and the tests

2.3.3.2 While-intervention.

After doing the pre-test and the survey questionnaire, the students took part in

a 6-week experimental teaching phase, in which they had 12 reading lessonsdelivered by the researcher During the phase, the researcher taught and raisedstudents‘ awareness about cohesion in a written text as well as oriented and guidedthem to apply their knowledge and understanding about cohesion during thereading process to enhance comprehension

In this stage, observation and field notes were employed to gather data for thestudy An observation checklist was designed for the researcher to take notesabout the performance of the students in class During every lesson, the teacherobserved and made notes regarding the students‘ attitudes and participation inclass activities The observation checklist was attached in Appendix C

The comprehensive syllabus designed was covered in Appendix D (p.VI).The detailed lesson description is illustrated below:

LESSON DESCRIPTION

The time limit for each reading lesson was 100 minutes In general, eachreading lesson goes through 2 key phases, namely knowledge development andskill practice

Phase 1: Knowledge development

This phase lasted 50 minutes with 3 main steps regarding illustrating

examples, explanation and item practice

 Step 1 : Illustrating examples:

Easy examples were deliberated designed and provided to give studentsconfidence as well as simply introduce the type of cohesive devices to students.Teacher modeled analyzing one example and guides students to do the taskthemselves

 Step 2 : Explanation

Teacher explained and lectured about the cohesive items to the students

 Step 3 : Item practice

Teacher guided students to find cohesive items in the reading passage and analyzed them This activity could be done in pair work or group work

Phase 2: Skill practice

The second phase lasted 50 minutes with two steps: workbook covering and

homework assignment

 Step 1: Workbook covering

After analyzing and making sure that students understood about the type ofcohesion, teacher let students do the reading exercises provided in the coursebook

 Step 2: Homework assignment

Another reading passage would be assigned as homework to students Thestudents have to analyze the use of cohesive devices just as what they had doneduring the class practice

3.3.3.1 Post-intervention

Since the purposes of this phase is to answer research question 2 ―How does the teaching of cohesion improve the reading comprehension of second language learners?”, the students were required to sit for another reading comprehension

test in order to assess their improvement in reading ability

Besides, another survey questionnaire was delivered to collect informationabout students‘ satisfaction about the intervention as well as their suggestions for abetter experimental teaching

Just like what had been done in the pre-intervention, the test and surveyquestionnaire in the post-intervention underwent three stages; that is, piloting,delivering and collecting with a view to gaining the most reliable and valid datafor the data analysis procedure

3.4 Data analysis methods

Both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted to analyze the

data collected Each method of data analysis corresponded with the informationcollected from one data collection instrument As a result, the data analysis

method was illustrated in accordance with the instruments

Survey questionnaires.

Quantitative data analysis was the key method to analyze the informationfrom survey questionnaires At first, the researcher intended to use both qualitativeand quantitative method for the questionnaires; to be more specific, qualitativemethod for open-ended questions and quantitative method for yes/no, multiplechoice and likert-scale However, there was no information gathered from open-ended question As a result, quantitative is the only method of data analysis forquestionnaires

Reading Comprehension tests.

Similarly, quantitative method was employed to analyze data from thereading comprehension tests since both the tests were designed objectively withmultiple choice questions Besides, in order to comprehensively analyze andclearly illustrate to improvement of the students, a soft ware named SPSS, morespecifically the Paired Sample T-tests was utilized to show whether theintervention did have a significant effect on students‘ reading comprehension ornot.

Observation and field notes

As for observation and field notes, the data analysis method was qualitative.The notes from observation was numbered and analyzed under two key terms forthe corresponding three themes namely students‘ motivation and participation

In the study, statistical analysis was employed to analyze the data collectedfrom the questionnaires and reading comprehension tests Simple descriptivestatistics is the most suitable method data analysis for this study in terms of thestudy scope as well as the researcher‘s own capability

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS: RESULTS, DISCUSSIONS

After all the results are presented, three recommendations are put forward foradministrators, teachers and those of concerns to enhance and develop the newapproach in teaching reading comprehension

3.1 Results and discussions

3.1.1 Student’s pre-existing knowledge about cohesion in reading

22 Figure 3.1 Number of students who have learnt and have not leant about cohesion

Taking into account the surveys, twenty two out of twenty four studentsclaimed that they had not learnt or read about cohesion before One of the othertwo students explained that they noticed the existence of cohesion whentranslating reading texts and referring to Vietnamese language The other said heknew about cohesion in written text through the feedback of a teacher in one of his

writing task As a result, when answering the question of “What do you think can make a text coherent?” the answer of most of the students was limited to primarily two factors, namely linking words and repetition Several students mentioned

synonyms The options of ellipsis, substitution and collocation were rarely chosen.More noticeably, all the students stated that they had never done anyexercises related to analyzing cohesion in reading lessons

As to the result of the pre-test, it was shown that the students did poorly withquestions related to cohesion or cohesive devices, even those who got quite good

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 Students’ belief about the role of cohesion and the study of cohesion in

reading lessons

According to the survey, although the students had poor knowledge aboutcohesion in English, most of them considered cohesion important in a written text.The students‘ rate of the importance is illustrated in figure 2 below:

Not important Little important

Quite important Important

7

0 3

Figure 3.2: Importance of cohesion in a written text

Not necessary Little necessary Quite necessary Necessary

5

17 0

2

understanding cohesion in comprehending a text?

As can be seen clearly, above a half of the surveyed students stated thatcohesion played an important role in reading passages Cohesion was perceived as

―quite important‖ by nearly third of the students Meanwhile, only three studentssaid that cohesion had little to do with the development of a written text

Although the students attached different levels of importance to the role ofcohesion, all of them agreed that cohesive devices had a significant role in awritten text Therefore, all the students stated that it was necessary to understandabout cohesion when comprehending a reading passage with two students said

―little necessary‖, five ―quite necessary‖ and seventeen ―necessary‖ because

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Overall, it can be seen that the students had strong motivation to learn aboutcohesion since they all believed this would help them improve their readingability.

3.1.2 Students’ level of improvement in reading comprehension

The improvement in reading performance was strikingly illustrated throughthe difference in their reading results in the pre-test and post-test In order toexamine the effect of the , SPSS software, more specifically the Paired Sample T-tests, was employed to analyze and compare the students‘ results in the pre-testand the post-test Bellow is the result of the analysis process

Table Paired Samples Statistics 3 1:

Mean N Std Deviation Std Error Mean

Pair 1 Pre-test

5.8750 24 85019 17354

Post-test 6.3125 24 60456 12340

Descriptive Statistics for the group’s performance in the pre-test and post-test.

As can be clearly seen, there was a significant rise in the average score of thewhole students In the pre-test, the mean stood at 5.8750 After 6 week training,this figure rose to 6.3125, which is an indicator of the students‘ generalimprovement