The use of cognitive and meta cognitive views in teaching reading for second year english majors in ho chi minh city open university obstacles and solutions

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH--- ∞0∞--- PHẠM ĐÔNG QUÂN THE USE OF COGNITIVE AND META-COGNITIVE VIEWS IN TEACHING READING FOR SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH

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PHẠM ĐÔNG QUÂN

THE USE OF COGNITIVE AND META-COGNITIVE VIEWS IN TEACHING READING FOR SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS IN HCM CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY-

OBSTACLES AND SOLUTIONS

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH

TP HỒ CHÍ MINH, NĂM 2020

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH

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PHẠM ĐÔNG QUÂN

THE USE OF COGNITIVE AND META-COGNITIVE VIEWS IN TEACHING READING FOR SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS IN HCM CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY-

OBSTACLES AND SOLUTIONS

Mã số sinh viên: 1557010192

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP NGÀNH NGÔN NGỮ ANH Giảng viên hướng dẫn: ThS BÙI ĐỖ CÔNG THÀNH

TP HỒ CHÍ MINH, NĂM 2020

Tôi tên là : Phạm Đông Quân

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã học viên: 1557010192 Tôi đồng ý cung cấp toàn văn thông tin khóa luận tốt nghiệp hợp lệ về bản quyền cho Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh Thư viện trường đại học Mở Thành phố

Hồ Chí Minh sẽ kết nối toàn văn thông tin khóa luận tốt nghiệp vào hệ thống thông tin khoa học của Sở Khoa học và Công nghệ Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh

Ý KIẾN CHO PHÉP BẢO VỆ KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

CỦA GIẢNG VIÊN HƯỚNG DẪN

Giảng viên hướng dẫn: ThS Bùi Đỗ Công Thành

Học viên thực hiện: Phạm Đông Quân Lớp: DH15AV04

Ngày sinh: 11/10/1997 Nơi sinh: TP.HCM

Tên đề tài: “The use of cognitive and meta-cognitive views in teaching reading for second-year English majors in HCM city Open University – Obstacles and Solutions”

Ý kiến của giáo viên hướng dẫn về việc cho phép học viên được bảo vệ khóa luận trước

Hội đồng:

Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, ngày tháng năm

Người nhận xét .

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude towards my mentor, M.Ed Bui Do Cong Thanh But for his guidance and support, I would have found it almost impossible to conduct this graduation paper Moreover, many thanks are given to my family for their unconditional love and sacrifice that truly encouraged me to make greater attempts in the completion of the thesis Also, I would like to acknowledge and appreciate the active participation of not only the students but also the lecturer in the survey, thanks to which I could collect critical and useful data for analysis and interpretation Such contribution has paved the way for my enlightenment in the instructions of reading comprehension at tertiary education Finally, I would like send my sincere thanks to the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Ho Chi Minh City Open University, particularly all of the lecturers of English for providing me with an unparalleled opportunity to conduct this graduation paper

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that the thesis entitled “The utilization of cognitive and meta-cognitive views to teach reading skills to second-year English majors at HCM city Open University – obstacles and solutions” is my own work

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain materials published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2020

Pham Dong Quan

SUPERVISOR’S REMARKS

I hereby certify to the best of my knowledge that:

 the research and the writing embodied in the thesis are that of the candidate except where due reference is made in the text

 the candidate demonstrated his strong commitment to meeting the supervisor’s fundamental requirements during the implementational process of the thesis

 the language use in the entire thesis is academic and thus being appropriate for the

ABBREVIATIONS

HCMC OU: Ho Chi Minh City Open University

IELTS: International English Language Testing System FFL: Faculty of Foreign Languages

L1: The first language

L2: The target language

ESL: English as a Second Language

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to delve deeper into reading comprehension problems that year English majors encounter and propose some practical solutions for these problems in HOU context The data of this study is collected through the questionnaire and interview

second-100 second-year English majors took part in answering the questionnaire to give a snapshot about their reading problems in practice An experienced teacher in teaching reading comprehension is interviewed to unveil the obstacles in teaching reading skills and suggest some solutions to such problems The data from the questionnaire and the interview indicates that the main obstacle for students to comprehend a text is the lack of vocabulary and the lack of prior-knowledge, and those for teachers to apply cognitive and meta-cognitive is different learners’ needs Also, these findings indicate the activating and building prior knowledge gives the students a reason to read Therefore, integrated and content-based teaching methods should be considered as remedial action against students’ reading comprehension problems

Key words: cognitive views, meta-cognitive views, prior knowledge, reading comprehension, traditional views

TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS III

SUPERVISOR’S REMARKS IV

ABSTRACT VI

TABLE OF CONTENT VII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Problem statements 2

1.3 Research Aims 3

1.4 Research Questions 3

1.5 Research Significance 3

1.6 Overview 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Views of reading 5

2.1.1 Traditional view 5

2.1.2 Cognitive views 6

2.1.3 Meta-cognitive view 9

2.2 Obstacles in utilizing cognitive and meta-cognitive views in EFL reading classes 10

2.3 Guideline for teachers to enhance student’s reading comprehension 11

2.3.1 Pre-reading strategies 11

2.3.2 While-reading strategies 12

2.3.3 Post-reading strategies 13

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Research design 16

3.2 Research setting 16

3.4 Data collection process 17

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANLYSIS AND INTERPRETATION 18

4.1.1 The views of reading 19

4.1.2 Obstacle in utilizing cognitive and meta-cognitive views in EFL reading classes 21

4.1.3 Guideline for teachers to enhance student’s reading comprehension 24

4.2 Data from interview 26

4.3. Discussion 27

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY 29

5.1 Conclusion 29

5.2 Recommendation 29

5.3 Research Limitations 30

5.4 Suggestions 30

REFERENCES 1

Appendix A: Questionnaire 1

Appendix B: Interview questions 5

Appendix C: Interview transcript 6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides a brief description of the background of the study, problem statements, research aims, research questions, research significance, research limitations, and the overview

Innovations in science and technology in the twenty-first century have brought about astounding changes to people’s life, enabling them to make more progress in their personal and professional life It is apparent that the acquisition of the latest innovations taking place in this constantly changing world has become a necessity for everyone To make effective use of these innovations, there is a need for a common language for everyone to communicate with one another worldwide Over the years, English has proven to be an indispensable tool used for communication as proved in various research (Rao, 2019) According to Hammond(2019), although Chinese is the most spoken language by native speakers, English has become the global language with about 1,121 billion speakers including native and non-native speakers Indeed, having such a global language, a person can pursue a higher career path as well as optimize the opportunity to enrich his experience, knowledge and build good relationship with experts in his field Seeing this great benefit, the government has put much effort to enhance English teaching in the country For instance, the EF English Proficiency Index mentioned that over 380 million USD was planned to invest in teacher training by the government (TuoiTre News, 2014), this created a stimulating and rewarding environment for teachers to harness their teaching skills However, the article also stated that although teachers and learners focused on reading and vocabulary, students are only taught how to deal with reading questions rather than how to understand the ideas of the author This has brought to the meta-cognitive views, which is associated with top-down process, and the key role of prior-knowledge (Smith, 1994) Recent findings have also emphasized the significant role of pre-knowledge

in understanding a text rather than reading skills Results in the research of Ozuru, Demsey, & McNamara (2009) indicated that general comprehension has a mutual relationship with students’ prior knowledge Furthermore, what students had known before positively affected the contribution of working memory to L2 reading comprehension(Joh

& Plakans, 2017) Besides, prior-knowledge activation method resulted in better reading

comprehension, metacognitive and inference-making processes(Tarchi, 2015) Lastly, prior-knowledge both directly and indirectly influences reading comprehension through the mediation of inferences(Tarchi, 2010) Moreover, only prior-knowledge cannot help the students to accquire new information they read, so meta-cognitive view is created for such purpose Block (1992) decribed the view as different stages executed by reader in order to

understand a text, such as assesing, evaluating, planning, and reflecting

Although there has been much evidence of the significance of cognitive views and cognitive view in reading, it is hardly put into practice in the teaching of reading in Vietnamese schools This leads to the fact that despite passing reading tests with flying colours, Vietnamese students still struggle to comprehend a text written by a native writer such as articles on newspapers or even books and research journals Nevertheless, universities, especially foreign faculties have tried to adjust their teaching curriculum as a solution to that problem Therefore, besides learning skills to pass reading exams, students are taught how to actually comprehend a text Hence, reading is considered as a crucial skill to acquire the target language and culture, and research into this field should be carried out more regularly and carefully

meta-Language has long been the author’s passion inspired by his very first teacher Becoming

an English major has provided him with a favorable condition to deeply understand such a global language Specifically, he has learned how the language and culture are shaped and intertwined Witnessing the obstacles and drawbacks of teaching English, especially in reading, in secondary and high school in Vietnam, I have a determination to become an English teacher As an English major, he has experienced some difficulties in learning reading skills First, it is obvious that one of the reasons for the difficulty in learning reading is that teachers themselves have to struggle to teach them Second, even when students are able to acquire them, they cannot apply it in the tests at school Third, students just learn reading skills because they must pass the end of course test Fourth, the texts in tests require the combination of different skills to solve it, which is not taught before, or the students have almost no idea about the topic of the texts Learning teaching methodology has given me a marvelous opportunity to further investigate the problems that teachers encounter while teaching reading skills Due to the aforementioned, language teaching has been regarded as his major field in this research and priority is given to the

topic “The utilization of cognitive and meta-cognitive views to teach reading skills to

second-year English majors at HCM City Open University – Obstacles and solutions”

Since little research about the topic has been done, the author is motivated in doing this in order to find an effective and practical solution to the teaching of reading comprehension at HOU

Based on the findings of this study, lecturer may have a deeper insight of the problem students have when learning reading They can adapt their lesson plans by developing suitable aims for each lesson in light of the level of their classes Moreover, they can find useful ways to avoid hindrance in building students’ knowledge and pondering the implications of this paper for their reading classes

Finally, in terms of the English majors, they are properly guided and become more active

in their practice of reading skills By deeply understanding the nature of reading, the pivotal role of background knowledge in learning reading skills, they can identify their own needs and develop their own learning strategy in order to acquire reading skills and comprehend authentic written materials such as books, magazines, and other genres

1.6 Overview

The thesis is composed of five chapters

Chapter 1 provides some information about the background of this study and states the problems together with the research aim and two research questions

Chapter 2 is the review of literature in which the theoretical knowledge about the views of reading and obstacles for applying those views in teaching reading skills are discussed Chapter 3 introduces the methodology of this study and clearly states the research setting, participants, design, and data collection process

Chapter 4 places an emphasis on analyzing the data collected previously as well as discusses the findings drawn from the collected data

Chapter 5 summarizes the main findings of the study and offers some recommendations as well as suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter encompasses three views of reading: traditional, cognitive, and cognitive views along with their implications in teaching reading in HCMCOU’s context There are obstacles in utilizing cognitive and meta-cognitive views which will be carefully discussed and an effective guideline will be proposed to solve these problems

There has been a shift in not only teaching methodology but also reading theories They are enhanced from the traditional view focusing on the form of the text to the cognitive view which highlights the role of background knowledge, and they culminated in the meta-cognitive view, which is now in vogue It is based on readers’ ability to control and

manipulate the text when comprehending it (Vaezi, 2006)

2.1.1 Traditional view

It was widely claimed by behaviorist psychology of the 1950s that learning was based on habit formation, a consequence of repeated association of a stimulus with a response As a consequence, language learning is described as persisting language patterned reinforced by the community of language users(Hadley, 1993) According to this view, reading is a

“linear process” by which readers decode a text word by word and put these words together to form phrases and sentences (Gray and Rogers, cited in Kucer, 1987) However, this belief was heavily criticized by Samuels and Kamil (1988) They claimed that reading was treated as recognition process responding to the stimuli of the printed words, where there was little explanation for what went on within the recesses of the mind allowing human to make sense of the printed page In other words, readers can comprehend the text

by adding meaning of words to get the meaning of clauses and sentences This process had

a great emphasis on recognizing and recalling Thus, in traditional view, reading is considered as a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills, and having mastered these skills, readers are viewed as experts who comprehend what they read (Dole et al., 1991)

Today, the main method associated with the bottom-up approach to reading is known as

‘asphonics’, which requires learners to match letters with sounds in a defined sequence (Pardede, 2008) Like the audio-lingual teaching method, phonics emphasizes repetition and drills using the sounds that make up words Learners will receive and process the information from the smallest sound units, and proceeded to letter blends, words, phrases, and sentences Thus, novice readers acquire “a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills” that

sequentially build toward comprehension ability The bottom-up model considers information flow as a series of stages transforming the input and passing it to the next stage without any feedback or possibility of later stages of the process influencing earlier stages (Stanovich, 1980) Therefore, readers are considered as passive recipients of the information in the texts and they have to reproduce the meaning resided in them Consequently, the ESL and EFL books influenced by this model only focus on literal comprehension, recalling lexical and grammatical forms, and decoding aspects

This model of reading has almost always been under attack as being insufficient and defective because it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and structures (Vaezi, 2006) Although this view of reading is rejected since it is over-reliance

on the structure or form of the language, it is undeniable that knowledge of linguistic

features is also necessary for reading comprehension to some extent

2.1.2 Cognitive views

In 1960s, a dramatic shift occurred in the cognitive sciences (Pardede, 2008) The new cognitive theory, which represented the mind’s innate capacity for learning and gave a new way to explore how human required their first language, has led to the discredit of behaviorism The new theory has provided such an advanced way to explain how human acquire their first language, resulting in a tremendous impact on the field of ESL/EFL This explained “how such how such internal representations of the foreign language develop within the learner’s mind” (Hadley, 1993, p 57)

Meaningful study and rote learning hav been distinguished by Ausubel (as cited inHadley, 1993) An example of rote learning is to memorize lists of isolated words and rules in the new language Learning by this way, the information acquired is stored in short-term memory and gradually lose without revision In contrast, when new information is put in a specific context connecting with what learners have already known, meaningful learning occurs The information can be easily integrated into one’s existing knowledge and becomes permanent This emphasis on meaning eventually formed the top-down approach

in L2 learning and led to the explosion of teaching methods and activities whichinvolved learners’ experience and knowledge in 1960s and 1970s

These new cognitive and top-down approaches have dramatically changed the way students learn to read(Smith, 1994) In this view, reading is not just separating meaning from the text but associating information in the text with learners’ existing one Moreover, reading is a dialogue between readers and the text, in which the creation of meaning is formed by readers’ background knowledge (Tierney & Pearson, 1981) That is to say,

reading is not a passive mechanical activity but an active cognitive process heavily dependent on the prior knowledge and expectation of readers In support of this view, Goodman (as cited in Paran, 1996) described reading as a linguistic guessing game of the brain, a process in which readers sample the text, make hypotheses, confirm or reject them, and formulate new ones

Schema theory is based on the principle that past experience leads to the creation of

“mental frameworks” that help learners make sense of new experience Smith (1994) defined schemes as the extensive representations of more general patterns or regularities that occur in our experience For instance one’s generic scheme of a bus will allow him to define and imagine the bus although he has not been on one before This means that past experience will foster new experiences, which may involve the knowledge of objects, situations, and events as well as that of the procedures for retrieving, organizing and interpreting information In Anderson’s research (2018), he highlighted that readers’ schemata significantly affects their comprehension He explained that they can understand the message conveyed in the test when they can recall a schema that provides the detail or explanation of the objects and events described In other words, comprehension is the process of “activating or constructing a schema that provides a coherent explanation of objects and events mentioned in a discourse” (Anderson, 2018) Anderson and Pearson (1988) strongly believed that comprehension was the interaction between old and new information, in which new information was modified by old ones Therefore, new information will be added to their schemata, a network that restructures itself to accommodate new information (Hadley, 1993)

Schemata is divided into formal schemata (knowledge about the structure of a text) and content schemata (knowledge about the subject matter of a text), and they will allow readers to predict events and deduce meaning from a wide context Formal schemata will allow learners to identify how texts differ from one another For instance, learners can see the difference in structure between a fiction work and a research essay According to Smith (1994), knowing the genre of the text will significantly contribute to learners’

comprehension since it provides them with a basis for predicting what a text will be like Thus, teaching formal schemata will bring a huge benefit for learners to help them comprehend what they read better In comparison, content schemata refers to the message conveyed in the text Additionally, as Anderson (2018) explained readers can understand the message when they are able to recall a schema that provides details about the objects and events described in the message Accordingly, their familiarity with the content will make it more productive and efficient for them to grasp the precise meaning of the text

2.1.2.2 Activating and building schemata

Since learners play a key role in this view, their age, gender, experience, and culture will affect the text selection A text with appropriate level will not only make it easy for learners to understand, but also motivate them in reading it Anderson (2018) noted that when readers cannot bring to mind a schema that fits a text, they may find it incomprehensible There are many cases that learners do not have a schema that is important for the text and cannot activate relevant schema to understand the text In such cases, teachers need to be ready to engage in building new background knowledge as well

as activating existing one(Carrell, 1984) That is to say, teachers can help students to merge isolated “parcels” of knowledge into a schema or to build a new one (Bransford, 1994) This is referred by Bransford (1994) as the integrated model, in which students combine different skills to merge new information with the old one

McDonough (1995) claimed that if the context of the text involves cultural aspects different from students’, formal and content schemata become even more important He also explained that due to the lack of culture background knowledge, learners may misunderstand the events mentioned in the reading text Therefore the teachers’ role in building and activating schemata is highlighted

2.1.2.3 Applying schema theory to L2 reading

In order to teach reading effectively, teachers should select the text appropriate to learners’ needs, preferences, individual differences, and cultural aspects It will enable students to comprehend the text as well as activate existing schemata and build new ones Subsequently, they need to do the following three stages: pre-reading activities, while-reading activities, and post-reading activities (Pardede, 2008)

In the first stage, students have to think, write, and discuss everything they have known about the topic through some of the techniques like prediction, semantic mapping, and reconciled reading The objective in this stage is to ensure that students have relevant schemata to understand the text In the second stage, students’ interaction with the text will

be observed carefully Teachers can teach students skills such as note-taking, which allows them to organize new vocabulary and important details, and summarize the formation in the text In the final stage, activities will consolidate the knowledge they gain through the text Accordingly, they will be given a chance to reproduce the language and apply it into their daily conversation Although schema activation and building can occur in all the stages, the pre-reading stage is crucial since it provides initial impression and contact of learners and the text (Pardede, 2008)

2.1.2.4 Pre-reading stage

Pre-reading stage is the main stage where schema theory is applied in reading The main aim of this stage is to recall what students have known about the topic of the text; and all the activities are defined as means for bridging the gaps between the text’s content and learner’s schemata (Chen & Graves, 1995) Key vocabulary can be introduced by various activities which reinforce concept association to activate both formal and content schemata While activities such as organizing and reading for main ideas are frequently used to activate formal schemata, brainstorming and predicting the events in a text are highly recommended for building content schemata According to Goodman (1998), prediction is indispensable since the brain is continuously anticipating and predicting while seeking order and significance in sensory input Smith (1994) defines prediction as the questions readers ask, and comprehension is deducing the meaning from the text He strongly believed that it is the prediction that helps readers to become more effective in reading texts which contain familiar subject matters Smith (1994) pointed out that prediction brings possible meanings to the text, lower ambiguity and exclude irrelevant alternatives Therefore, learners can generate comprehensible experience from the text

which have been divided into three - pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading stage

What readers do in the first stage is to identify the purpose of reading and form or type of

in order to get the meaning of the whole text Readers can read the topic sentence to get the general meaning and supporting details for more specific information Subsequently, they can predict what might happen next in the text by combining prior-knowledge of the topic and the information received in the previous paragraph In the last stage, readers can make

a conclusion and a summary about the text or they can do some tasks to fully exploit the text

classes

Wexler (2019) has stated that there have been widespread problems with training in comprehension instructions While the effectiveness of systematic phonics in helping children to decode the written language, quite a few teachers have claimed that they were given this information in their training Also, she pointed out that teacher training courses are more likely to include reading comprehension However, what potential teachers learnt

in those courses is “dangerously inaccurate” One of the reasons is the influential 2001 report of the National Reading Panel, which proposed the “five pillars” of reading instruction, including phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and strategies designed to boost comprehension However, she pointed out that the comprehension strategies endorsed by the panel are only achieved when learner’s prior knowledge is adequate to understand the text in the first place

In a typical comprehension lesson, teachers focus on supposed skills or strategies such as answering eliciting questions or recognizing the author’s attitude She declared that teaching those skills is like pressing the elevator button twice: it may make people feel safer but does not make the elevator go faster Even when teachers try to imply strategies supported by research, they do not do it properly in the way it proposed Instead of providing a difficult text first and modeling strategies to exact its meaning, they put a strategy in foreground and choose a simple text to demonstrate how the skill works, without paying attention to its topic Studies have shown that students stop getting benefits after only two weeks of strategy instruction (Wexler, 2019)

After being explained a “comprehension skill”, students start practicing it on books which are easy enough for them to read on their own or with little help However, there has been

no evidence that graded texts boost comprehension, and studies have found that students learn more from texts above their level with enough support from the teachers (Wexler, 2019) Indeed, leveled reading has little contribution to building knowledge process, which requires staying on the same topic for several weeks As mentioned, due to the reading

texts teachers use to demonstrate a “comprehension skill”, the books students use to practice are not organized by topics

Another spreading and dangerous misconception is the delusion that students need to

“learn to read” before they can “read to learn” (Wexler, 2019) This results in high-stakes tests in reading through not only in elementary but also in middle-school curriculum Moreover, this belief ignores the fact that that gaining knowledge is part of learning to read Even while students are learning to decode, they can take in far more sophisticated concepts and language by listening to them than by reading on them own If students are not provided text-relevant knowledge and vocabulary, they will fail to understand the text when they decode it by themselves Furthermore, the hesitation in building students’ knowledge widens the gap between those lucky enough to gain knowledge outside the school and their less fortunate peers (Wexler, 2019)

After much discussion related to concepts and precepts has been made in the three reading theories, it is important to arrange tips to make a good guideline to enhance learners’

reading abilities The following tips are arranged in three reading stages: pre-reading,

while-reading, post-reading Pardede, P (2008) has proposed a guideline for effective

teaching of reading, which will be under scrutiny in relation to its implication in the HCMCOU context

2.3.1 Pre-reading strategies

In the earliest stage of reading, activities are designed to make the text easily comprehensible First of all, teachers should make sure that the level of the text is associated with learners’ level and its topic should be in correspondence with learners’ needs Then, teachers should prepare learners with necessary background knowledge to get them familiar with the topic and the text This could be done through letting learners brainstorm ideas and discuss what they have known about the topic with their peers Finally, teachers should ensure that the text mostly contains familiar vocabulary and grammar points with learners Should there be any new words or unlearnt grammatical points, it is the teacher’s responsibility to provide them for learners

There are some activities which might be very useful in helping the students to overcome the fear to read the text as soon as they receive it

 Teacher-directed pre-reading activities

In these activities, the teacher directly provides key concepts and vocabulary for learners The types of text are also introduced to the learners since its importance Each text layout has a different way to display information Therefore, by knowing the layout, students can easily find necessary information for comprehension Such familiarity will significantly contribute to the speed of the learner’s comprehension; in other words, they will be able to understand the text more deeply and read it faster Even by looking at the publication date and the author, students may make their own prediction of the layout and content of the text

 Interactive activities

As it is known, discussion is one of the best methods to activate the prior-knowledge The teacher can lead a discussion on the topic of the text to combine their prior-knowledge and new knowledge needed to understand the text Furthermore, explicit links between important information in the text and learners’ prior-knowledge can be made during the procedure

 Reflective activities

It is important for students to be aware of the reason to read the text They can be guided to have their own reason to read The guidance can be given to young learners from the beginning in order to develop a habit of having a reason to read For example, student can

be guided to ask themselves questions such as Why am I reading this text? What do I know

or what can I do after reading this text? Such questions can help learners determine what

skills they need to use to understand the text (skimming, scanning, reading for gist, reading for details, critical think0ing, and so forth)

2.3.2 While-reading strategies

While-reading stage is where the most students’ comprehension of the text happened In this stage, students may adopt a flexible approach & vary reading strategies according to the type of reading materials & purposes for reading Therefore, the teacher plays an important role in helping the students to develop their skills The followings may be effective in encouraging active reading which does not heavily depend on the dictionary

 Anticipating (expect) & predicting what will come next in the text

Not only do the students make prediction about what might happen in the text according to the topic, but they also guess what happens next while they are reading it It would be great

if they know how to use the previous information in the text to make prediction while they are reading

 Deducing the meaning of words by understanding word formation and contextual

clues

It is unnecessary for students to know the meaning of every word in the text Instead, breaking unfamiliar words into smaller parts such as affixes and bases might help the students to get the meaning of the words and keep the process of comprehension ongoing

 Identifying the main idea & other salient (important/noticeable) features

Knowing the main idea of not only the text but also that of component paragraphs might help students to locate the explicitly stated information Moreover, understanding salient features also helps students to get the main idea of the text and understand how the information is organized

 Integrating prior knowledge

The schemata that have been activated in pre-reading stage can be used to facilitate students’ reading comprehension

 Skipping insignificant parts

Students should be taught to concentrate on important pieces of information and skip the unimportant ones

 Reading in chunks

By reading groups of words together, students can ensure their reading speed This can improve their comprehension by focusing on groups of meaning-conveying symbols at the same time

further analysis of it (Barnett, 1988) He also pointed out that second language reading must go beyond memorizing the author’s point of view or summarizing the text content due to the goal of integrating new information with the already existed one Students must

be flexible in adopting variety reading strategies For example, scanning might be suitable for newspaper advertisements whereas predicting might be suitable for short stories He has proved that group discussion provides a great opportunity for students to focus on information they did not comprehend or comprehended incorrectly

Furthermore, Philips (1985) claimed that “follow-up” exercises can benefit learners by either transferring reading skills to other texts or integrating reading skills with other language skills Transferable reading strategies are those that readers can embrace and use with other texts

Post reading usually involves these activities: discussing the text: written/oral, summarizing: written/oral, making questions: written/oral, answering questions: written/oral, filling in forms and charts, writing reading logs, completing a text, listening to

or reading other related materials, and role-playing

To sum up, in traditional view of reading, a good reader is supposed to acquire all of hierarchy set of reading skills Nevertheless, the cognitive and meta-cognitive emphasize learners’ prior knowledge rather than focus on “comprehension skills” Still, there are some obstacles faced by the teachers in utilizing them in teaching reading:

 Paying less attention to phonics instructions

 Putting “comprehension skills” in foreground instead of difficult texts

 Choosing leveled reading texts which are not very useful in boosting learners’ comprehension

 The topics of practice texts are not categorized

 Misconception of learning to read before “read to learn”

 High-stakes tests

 Hesitation in building learners’ knowledge

 Big gap between learners acquiring knowledge outside school and those who do not Therefore, it is pivotal for teacher to make use of students’ prior knowledge generate general context which greatly contributes to their reading comprehension The role of cognitive and meta-cognitive views is highlighted by its wide application in preparing reading lesson plans The views usually appeared in the form of three-stage process: pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading The significant role of activating prior-knowledge of