An investigation into the correlation between cognitive strategies and students reading comprehension at vinh long college of technical education m a

ABSTRACT Currently, using cognitive strategies in reading comprehension becomes a trend in learning and teaching this skill.. The findings of the study showed that successful students us

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CORRELATION BETWEEN COGNITIVE STRATEGIES AND STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION AT VINH LONG COLLEGE OF TECHNICAL

EDUCATION

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirement of

the Master’s degree in TESOL

By

LINH MY HUYNH – TESOL 2008

Supervised by

Assoc Prof Dr TUNG THANH NGUYEN

HO CHI MINH CITY, MAY 2012

CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled:

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CORRELATION BETWEEN COGNITIVE STRATEGIES AND STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION AT VINH LONG COLLEGE OF TECHNICAL

EDUCATION

in terms of the statement of Requirements for Theses in Master’s Programs issued

by the Higher Degree Committee This thesis has not been submitted for the award

of any degree or diploma in any other institution

Ho Chi Minh City, May 31st, 2012

LINH MY HUYNH

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, LINH MY HUYNH, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses

Ho Chi Minh City, May 2012

LINH MY HUYNH

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor Assoc Prof Dr Tung Thanh Nguyen for his precious guidance during my research His intellect and critical advice lead me to the scientific world Without his enthusiasm and patience in reading and giving valuable comments on various drafts, I would have never been able to complete this thesis

I thank the administrators of Vinh Long College of Technical Education who have created favorable conditions for me to pursue the Master’s program and finish my thesis I also need to thank all my students of two classes ĐĐT-09 and TH-09 at this college who assisted me in the data collection Their cooperation was meaningful to me

Also, I am in debt to my close friends for their sincere concern and willing help during the time I were away from home to study My heartfelt thanks are also sent

to my classmates in the TESOL 2008 class for their friendship, suggestions and mental support throughout my research

Last but not least, my special thanks go to my family, my aunt, and my boyfriend anh Tuan Anh who always stood side by side to encourage me to complete the thesis and to share my difficulties Their support brought me the most motivation during the time of my thesis writing

ABSTRACT

Currently, using cognitive strategies in reading comprehension becomes a trend in learning and teaching this skill Research has shown that it brings the learners efficient reading Thus the present study investigates the correlation between these strategies and students’ reading comprehension at Vinh Long College of Technical Education

This study mainly adapted Oxford’ s (1990) classification of cognitive strategies and 50-item Strategy Inventory Language Learning (SILL) of version 7.0 to form a theoretical framework for the investigation

Research was conducted on 85 students from two classes ĐĐT-09 and

TH-09 and 35 of them were chosen to take part in the study These students were divided into successful and unsuccessful students in English reading They were asked to fill in the questionnaire and answer the interview questions for data collection of the study

The findings of the study showed that successful students used more cognitive strategies in reading than unsuccessful students, and there was a strong positive correlation between these strategies and their reading comprehension These findings were a persuasive base for students’ use of these strategies in improving their reading in English

TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages

Statement of authorship i

Retention and use of the thesis ii

Acknowledgements …iii

Abstract ….iv

Table of contents ….v

List of tables ……… … viii

List of figures ……… …… ix

List of charts ……….x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 Rationale 2

1.3 The purpose of the study 4

1.4 Research questions 4

1.5 Significance 4

1.6 Limitations of the study 5

1.7 Delimitations of the study 5

1.8 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: COGNITIVE STRATEGIES: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7

2.1 Definitions of cognitive strategies 7

2.2 Classifications of cognitive strategies 9

2.3 The use of cognitive strategies in reading 14

2.3.1 How to use cognitive strategies in reading 14

2.3.2 Why to use cognitive strategies in reading 16

2.3.3 When to use cognitive strategies in reading 18

2.4 The use of cognitive strategies by good readers and poor readers 20

2.5 The relationship between students’ use of cognitive strategies and their reading comprehension 23

2.6 Summary 26

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 27

3.1 Setting 27

3.2 Participants 27

3.3 Research design 29

3.4 Instruments 29

3.4.1 The test 30

3.4.2 The questionnaire 31

3.4.2.1 Structure of the questionnaire 32

3.4.2.2 Construction of the questionnaire 33

3.4.3 The retrospective interview 36

3.5 Data collection procedures 38

3.5.1 Procedure for conducting the test 38

3.5.2 Procedure for conducting the questionnaire 38

3.5.3 Procedure for conducting the interview 39

3.6 Analytical framework 39

3.7 Summary 40

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 42

4.1 Results from the test 42

4.2 Results from the questionnaire 43

4.2.1 The use of practicing strategies 44

4.2.2 The use of receiving and sending messages strategies 44

4.2.3 The use of analyzing and reasoning strategies 45

4.2.4 The use of creating a structure for input and output strategies 47

4.2.5 Summary 48

4.3 Results from the interview 49

4.3.1 Successful students’ use of cognitive strategies in the reading test 49

4.3.2 Unsuccessful students’ use of cognitive strategies in the reading test 53

4.3.3 Reasons for rare use of cognitive strategies by unsuccessful students ……… 55

4.3.4 Summary 59

4.4 Correlation between students’ cognitive strategy use and their reading

comprehension 60

4.4.1 To successful students 60

4.4.2 To unsuccessful students 62

4.5 Discussion of the findings 64

4.5.1 Cognitive strategy use of successful and unsuccessful students in reading comprehension 64

4.5.2 Correlation between cognitive strategies and students’ reading comprehension 67

4.6 Chapter summary 68

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 69

5.1 Conclusions 69

5.2 Recommendations 70

5.2.2 For teachers 71

5.2.3 For students 72

5.3 Suggestions for further research 72

5.4 Conclusion 73

REFERENCES 75

APPENDICES 81

Appendix 1 Proficiency reading test 81

Appendix 2 Answer key 87

Appendix 3 Questionnaire 88

Appendix 4 Interview questions 92

Appendix 5 Interview responses 94

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Summary of cognitive strategies 14

Table 3.1 Demographic data of the subjects 28

Table 3.2 Key to understanding students’ averages 32

Table 3.3 Original items adopted from SILL 33

Table 3.4 Items adapted from SILL 34

Table 3.5 Items added to the questionnaire 35

Table 3.6 Distribution of items on the questionnaire 36

Table 3.7 Checklist of cognitive strategies 37

Table 4.1 Average frequency of students’ use of cognitive strategies 43

Table 4.2 The means and standard derivations of practicing strategies 44

Table 4.3 The means and standard derivations of receiving and sending message strategies……… 45

Table 4.4 The means and standard derivations of analyzing and reasoning strategies……….46

Table 4.5 The means and standard derivations of creating a structure for input and

output strategies………48

Table 4.6 Students’ use of cognitive strategies in the reading test 50

Table 4.7 Reasons for not using cognitive strategies by unsuccessful students 56

Table 4.8 Correlations of the marks and the mean scores of cognitive strategy use by successful students in reading ……… ……… 61

Table 4.9 Correlations of the marks and the mean scores of cognitive strategy use by unsuccessful students in reading………63

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 4.1 Scatterplot of successful students’ marks 61

Figure 4.2 Scatterplot of unsuccessful students’ marks .62

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 4.1 The reading test scores of all participants……… 42

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

As a matter of fact, Vietnamese people have witnessed a giant need of learning and using English during recent decades Around 90% of foreign language learners studying English is a fascinating statistic, though it has not been fully documented yet (as cited in Do, 2006) In reality, English opens the door to the world It is used, to some extent, in every aspect such as economy, culture, politics, society, and education in Vietnam nowadays One more important thing is that it is required in employment and educational opportunities According to Nunan (2003, as cited in Phan, 2005), in Vietnam almost all of the jobs require a certificate in English, and even work promotion now starts considering English proficiency as a criterion

Certainly, any skill plays a vital role in learning a foreign language, and reading is really beneficial to any learner First and foremost, he or she can manage well in a modern life from reading traffic signs to traveling and integrating into other cultures, especially accessing the Internet Then, in the time of globalization, reading in English as a foreign language is very necessary for everyone to widen his or her knowledge, to get information, or to enjoy life People today have a need

to read authentic books and magazines for pleasure, entertainment or even curiosity In addition, reading skill is highly used in academic education According to Harmer (1991), students can attain a higher level of language in receptive skills than in productive skills since actually they can read English often for scientific or academic purposes without speaking it well Besides, in learning a foreign language, this skill is necessary for the learner to acquire vocabulary and grammar and supports other skills such as listening, speaking and writing

In addition to the above benefits, reading skill is rather necessary for students at Vinh Long College of Technical Education (VLCTE) for some other

reasons Firstly, for practical requirements, we are supposed to train skilled workers and educated workers who can comprehend English materials which are necessary for their job Secondly, since they are technical students, they have a need to make references from many English books, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet Generally, they have to efficiently deal with several kinds of text, both authentic and academic Thus when facing with a large amount of information from such sources, according to Beyer (1995), students need to be critical readers who can interpret written texts through analyzing and evaluating key concepts and ideas, reasons and justifications, supporting examples, parallel experiences, implications, and consequences presented by the writer

Although all teachers of English intend to enhance students’ reading comprehension, there has not been any remarkable change in the routine of teaching reading skill at VLCTE Mostly, students are provided with vocabulary first Then they do all the tasks in the book such as answering the questions, choosing the correct answer(s), marking the True/ False statements, and completing the sentences Hardly were they taught such strategies as skimming, scanning, guessing, inferencing, and so on explicitly As a result, they are so dubious in using these strategies, and cannot attain a required capacity in reading

in English

1.2 Rationale

Through her teaching experience at VLCTE, the researcher finds that most

of her students do not read as effectively as they are expected to Mostly, they are very eager to learn reading because of its usefulness for their major and future job Yet, they usually express the difficulties they encounter as follows: “I am tired of reading a long text.”, “There are too many new words.”, “Even I know the meaning of every word, I do not know what the whole text means.”, “I never get high marks in reading although I have tried a lot.”, “I am really afraid of reading specialized materials.”, “It is hard for me to make references from English books because it takes a lot of time.” and “Ooh, I cannot read English materials

effectively, teacher.” These are what she normally receives from her students when she asked them about their confidence in reading comprehension

From what these students confide in the researcher, there are some problems identified Firstly, they have to face many new words which prevent them from the stream of reading Secondly, there are differences in the transfer from English to their native language Last but not least, they are not familiar with reading long and advanced texts, and they are not well aware of several strategies which can facilitate their reading in a foreign language Theoretically, there has been found that in the field of language learning strategies, there are groups of strategies that may positively affect reading skill Among them, cognitive strategies are seen to have considerable effects on students’ reading comprehension

Actually, the effectiveness of cognitive strategies has been proven through research As one of the dedicated authors in this field, Oxford (1990) affirmed:

“Cognitive strategies are typically found to be the most popular strategies with language learners” (p 43) Recently, the use of cognitive strategies has become a new trend in teaching and learning English, especially in reading skill For example, there has been research on their effects on learners’ reading comprehension (Hamdan, Ghafar, Sihes, & Atan, 2010; Padrón & Waxman, 1988; Phakiti, 2006; Zhi-hong, 2007) Furthermore, in the study of awareness of reading strategy use and reading comprehension among good and poor readers by Anastasiou and Griva (2009), it has been found that good readers employ cognitive strategies much more frequently, almost twice, than poor readers Moreover, Nga (2009) offered that among six teachers being interviewed, four of them believed in using cognitive strategies as a good method to teach students reading skills

Relying on what stated above, and from the fact that there had not been any research into the application of these strategies on reading in her local context, the researcher decided to make a study in this field Initially, she would explore the role of cognitive strategies in reading in English This task was carried out with the

hope to pave the way for the use of these strategies in teaching and learning reading skill to improve students’ reading in English as a foreign language at VLCTE

1.3 The purpose of the study

To encourage the use of cognitive strategies in teaching and learning reading skill in the local context, this study aims to investigate the important role

of these strategies in reading in English This aim entails the following two objectives: to discover the extent in the use of these strategies by successful and unsuccessful students when they read a text, and to find out the correlation between them and students’ reading comprehension at VLCTE

strategies and their application in teaching and learning reading Therefore, this study is hopeful to make a small contribution to the improvement of the method of teaching this skill

1.6 Limitations of the study

This study only investigates the correlation between technical education students’ use of cognitive strategies and their reading comprehension in some practical classrooms at VLCTE Therefore, the results may not be properly applied for students of many other majors, or in other schools, colleges or universities

1.7 Delimitations of the study

Within this study, the researcher only tries to find out the correlation between technical students’ use of cognitive strategies and their reading ability She does not intend to teach them these strategies in a practical classroom Nor does she evaluate the effects of her teaching on students’ reading comprehension

1.8 Organization of the study

The thesis consists of five chapters Chapter 1 is an introduction to the topic

of the study including its background, aims, research questions, significance,

limitations, delimitations, and organization Chapter 2 aims at building a

theoretical framework for the study by focusing on five parts The first deals with definitions of cognitive strategies in reading The second classifies cognitive strategies in reading The third discusses their use in reading The fourth is about the use of cognitive strategies by good readers and poor readers The last shows

the relationship between cognitive strategies and readers’ proficiency Chapter 3 is

about the methodology proceeded in the study It consists of the setting, participants, instruments, data collection procedure, and analytical framework Chapter 4 presents the data analysis and interpretation for three types of data – the test, the questionnaire and the interview – and raises discussion as well

Chapter 5 is the conclusion based on the findings of the study It also offers recommendations for teachers and students and suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2 COGNITIVE STRATEGIES: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter reviews the theoretical background of the study It first presents definitions of cognitive strategies Then, it provides the classifications of these strategies which have a close tie to reading skill In addition, the use of such strategies in reading including issues of how, why, and when to use is figured out Next, it shows an overview of the use of several cognitive strategies by both good readers and poor readers Finally, it indicates the relation between these strategies and readers’ proficiency

2.1 Definitions of cognitive strategies

Research into language learning strategies leads to some careful definitions

of cognitive strategies There is a fact that each researcher defines them within the context of his or her study, and although there are several definitions of these strategies, all of the researchers do not vary a lot in the content

Generally, cognitive strategies are known as direct strategies, information processing and problem-solving According to Brown and Palinscar (1982) and O’Malley, Russo and Chamot (1983), they are “the steps or operations used in learning or problem-solving that require direct analysis, transformation, or synthesis of learning materials” (as cited in Rubin, 1987, p 23) Meanwhile, Wenden (1987a) directed human information processing theories to language learning, so she viewed these strategies as “the techniques actually used to manipulate the incoming information and, later, to retrieved what has been stored” (p 6) Later, O’ Malley and Chamot (1990) noticed the characteristic of manipulating the language; they wrote: “cognitive processing as a set of behaviors that involve mental manipulations or transformations of materials or tasks servers

to enhance comprehension, acquisition, or retention” (p 229)

Then, in her turn, Oxford (1990) looked at these strategies more concretely

in all four skills In her opinion, they are varied a lot, ranging from repeating to

analyzing expressions to summarizing, and they are unified by a common function which is “manipulation or transformation of the target language by the learner” (p 43) In addition, she clarified “Cognitive strategies, such as summarizing or reasoning deductively, enable learners to understand and produce new language by many different means” (p 37)

Later on, like Oxford, researchers tended to study cognitive strategies in concrete aspects of language learning For example, when looking at reading and cognition, Anderson (2000) remarked the role of problem solving as follows:

“There are those who hold that many aspects of reading represent problem-solving, and that problem-solving strategies are useful for the resolution of many difficulties in reading, for example the deduction of the meaning of unknown words” (p 21) Furthermore, at the simplest level, Dole, Nokes and Drits (2009) defined “a strategy is a routine or procedure for accomplishing a goal”, and they supposed that cognitive strategies, therefore, are “mental routines or procedures for accomplishing cognitive goals like solving a problem, studying for a test, or understanding what is being read” (p 350) It is not all, as Grabe (2009) reminded:

Cognitive strategies have commonly been described as strategies that a reader is trained to use, such as guessing from context, noting discourse organization, recognizing a transition phrase, skipping a word, identifying a known word part, forming a question about an author or identifying a main idea (p 223)

To sum up, among language learning strategies, cognitive strategies are distinguished in three most prominent aspects Firstly, they are direct strategies in dealing with specific language tasks Secondly, they are used to manipulate incoming information, so they can help learners understand and produce the language by several means And finally they are also characterized as problem solving strategies Therefore, they are considered to have much effect on the reading skill

2.2 Classifications of cognitive strategies

Cognitive strategies have been classified in different criteria without any radical changes As a pioneer in this field, Rubin (1981, as cited in Rubin, 1987) identified cognitive learning strategies as consisting of six general strategies that directly affect language learning: clarification/ verification, guessing/ inductive inferencing, deductive reasoning, practice, memorization, and monitoring

1 Clarification indicates strategies students use to clarify their

understanding of the new language They have a demand to confirm rules they learn and to check whether their production of words, phrases or sentences is

consistent with the target language Verification refers to the information that

students store for further use

2 Guessing/ inductive inferencing refers to strategies which use previous

linguistic or conceptual knowledge to derive explicit hypotheses about the linguistic form and meaning Thus learners can infer meaning by what they know about their own or a second language

3 Deductive reasoning relates to problem-solving strategy in which

learners use general rules to approach the new language There is a difference between inductive and deductive reasoning That is in inductive reasoning, the learner is looking for a specific meaning or specific rule whereas in deductive reasoning the learner is looking for and using general rules

4 Practice refers to the strategies which focus on the storage and retrieval

of language They involve repetition, rehearsal, experimentation, application of rules, imitation, and attention to detail

5 Memorization focuses on the storage and retrieval process to which the

goal is organization Therefore, some mnemonic strategies known here are using one item to recall a number of others (called key words) and using some sorts of mechanical means, like taking notes, to store the information

6 Monitoring refers to strategies in which the learner observes receiving

and interpreting of messages by the addressee

Later, the research ‘The Learning Strategies of ESL Students’ by Chamot

(1992) provided a list of learning strategies reported by students It was adopted to describe and classify them into the metacognitive, cognitive, and social-affective scheme The following are cognitive strategies mentioned

- Repetition: Imitating a language model, including overt practice and silent

rehearsal

- Resourcing: Using target language reference materials

- Translation: Using the first language as a base for understanding and/ or

producing the second language

- Grouping: Reordering or reclassifying and perhaps labeling the material

to be learned based on common attributes

- Note-taking: Writing down the main idea, important points, outlines, or

summary of information presented orally or in writing

- Deduction: Consciously applying rules to produce or understand the

second language

- Recombination: Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language

sequence by combining known elements in a new way

- Imagery: Relating new information to visual concepts in memory via

familiar easily retrievable visualizations, phrases or locations

- Auditory representation: Retention of the sound or similar sound for a

word, phrase or longer language sequence

- Key word: Remembering a new word in the second language by

identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word, and generating easily recalled images of some relationship between the new words

- Contextualization: Placing a word or phrase in a meaningful language

sequence

- Elaboration: Relating new information to other concepts in memory

- Transfer: Using previously acquired linguistic and/ or conceptual

knowledge to facilitate a new language learning task

- Inferencing: Using available information to guess meanings of new items,

predict outcomes or fill in missing information

Last but not least in this literature review is the classification of cognitive strategies applied to the four language skills by Oxford (1990) There are four sets

of strategies: practicing, receiving and sending messages, analyzing and reasoning, and creating structure for input and output The following part which has been adapted from Oxford only extracts the strategies applied in reading skill which are homogeneous and suitable to this research (1990, pp 70-90)

A Practicing

1 Repeating: This strategy might mean reading a passage more than once

to understand it more completely A useful technique is to read a passage several times, and each time for different purposes like to get the general drift or main ideas, to predict, to read for detail, to write down questions, and so on

2 Recognizing and using formulas and patterns: There are many useful

patterns existing in every language Patterns have at least one slot that can be filled with an alternative word, and formulas are unanalyzed expressions They can be taught as whole chunks early in the language learning process Recognizing and using routine formulas and patterns does enhance the learner’ comprehension and production Furthermore, these routines will help build self-confidence, increase understanding, and enhance fluency

B Receiving and Sending Message

1 Getting the idea quickly: It helps learners home in on exactly what they

need or want to understand, and allows them to disregard the rest or use it as background information only Two techniques constituting this strategy are skimming and scanning Skimming involves searching for the main ideas the

speaker wants to get across, while scanning means searching for specific details of interest to the learner Questions to preview, charts to complete, lists to write, diagrams to fill out, and other mechanisms provide clues about what kind of general points or specific details the learner needs to pick up in a reading passage

2 Using resources for receiving and sending messages: This strategy

involves using resources to find out the meaning of what is heard or read in the new language To better understand what is heard or read, printed resources such

as dictionaries, word lists, grammar books, and phrase books may be valuable Encyclopedia, travel guides, magazines, and general books on culture and history can provide useful background information so that learners can better understand the spoken or written language

C Analyzing and Reasoning

1 Reasoning deductively: This strategy involves deriving hypotheses about

the meaning by means of general rules the learner already knows Reasoning deductively is a common and very useful type of logical thinking

2 Analyzing expressions: To understand something spoken in the new

language, it is often helpful to break down a new word, phrase, sentence, or even paragraph into its component parts This strategy is known as analyzing expressions It is especially useful for reading because readers have time to go back and analyze complicated expressions

3 Translating: Translating can be a helpful strategy early in language

learning, as long as it is used with care Though it is a frequent occurrence among beginners, word-for-word (verbatim) translation can become a crutch or provide the wrong interpretation of target language material Furthermore, translating can sometimes slow learners down considerably, forcing them to go back and forth constantly between languages

4 Transferring means directly applying previous knowledge to facilitate

new knowledge in the target language However, sometimes there is just no equivalent from one language to the other

D Creating Structure for Input and Output

1 Taking notes: The focus of taking notes should be on understanding, not

writing There are many ways to take notes such as raw notes, a “shopping list”, a semantic map, a T-formation, a tree diagram or a flow chart by means of arrows, diamonds, circles, and so forth

2 Summarizing: Another strategy that helps learners structure new input

and show they understand is summarizing – that is making a condensed, shorter version of the original passage

3 Highlighting: This strategy emphasizes the major points in a dramatic

way, through color, underlining, capital letters, initial capitals, big writing, bold writing, stars, boxes, circles, and so on

In short, the classification of cognitive strategies by Oxford (1990) is comprehensive and apparent to the reading skill However, the criterion of analyzing and reasoning does not mention inferencing strategy which was noticed

by both Rubin (1981) and Chamot (1992) as mentioned above Besides, contextualization and elaboration strategies in the classification described by Chamot are also useful for reading comprehension Therefore, this current study would consider adding these three strategies of inductive inference, contextualization and elaboration in the part of analyzing and reasoning by Oxford, and based itself on this combination as a framework for investigating as follow

Table 2.1 Summary of cognitive strategies

C Analyzing and reasoning: reasoning deductively, translating, transferring, inferencing, contextualizing, and elaborating

D Creating a structure for input and output: note-taking, summarizing, and highlighting

2.3 The use of cognitive strategies in reading

2.3.1 How to use cognitive strategies in reading

Knowledge of how to use the strategies is very necessary to any student According to Anderson (1999), “a cognitive understanding of what should be done

is not enough to guarantee success while reading The reader must also understand how to apply the use of a given strategy” (p 71) So, this author affirmed the suggested idea that “teaching readers how to use strategies is a prime consideration

in the reading classroom” (p 70)

First and foremost, there is a fact that explicit strategy instruction is suggested by many researchers “Students will be able to learn and apply strategies more effectively with new tasks if they verbalize and describe their efforts to apply strategies with learning activities” (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994, p 11) Furthermore, explicit learning involves conscious attention to specific skills or knowledge, thus registering in long-term memory As a result, “strategic reading depends heavily on the initial explicit learning of strategies to establish themselves and then gradually become skilled routines” (Grabe, 2009, p 61)

Besides, research has shown that strategies should not be taught as a separate topic in the curriculum “Important strategies are best learned when they are practiced with the kinds of material that students are expected to master when using the strategies” (Pressley & Woloshyn, 1995, as cited in Grabe, 2009, p 240) Similarly, it has been found that reading strategy instruction should be part of everyday reading lessons (Block & Pressley, 2002, 2007)

As a fact, in manipulating strategies in reading, there are some approaches

to meet two criteria above The first one is the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) which is an instructional model for second and foreign language learners based on cognitive theory and research It has been designed by Chamot and O’Malley (1994) The CALLA consists of five phases:

(1) Preparation: to find out what the students already know about the content and what related prior experiences they have had; (2) Presentation: to consider what

the best way to present this content is so that students understand what the

concepts are; (3) Practice: to find kinds of activities that will help students apply the new cognitive strategy we are introducing; (4) Self-evaluation: to recommend

ways for students to assess their own success in using the strategy; and (5)

Expansion: to encourage students to transfer what they have learned to new

situations (Chamot & Robbins, 2005, p 20)

Another approach is Strategy-Based Instruction (SBI) by Cohen and Weaver (1998) It has two major components: students are explicitly taught how, when, and why strategies can be used; and strategies are integrated into everyday class materials More specifically, in a SBI classroom, there appear these steps: (1) describe, model, and give examples of strategies; (2) elicit additional examples from students based on their learning experiences; (3) lead discussions about strategies; (4) encourage students to experiment with a broad range of strategies; and (5) integrate strategies into everyday class materials, explicitly and implicitly embedding them into the language tasks to provide for contextualized strategy practice (ibid., p 8)

In brief, research has shown that cognitive strategies should be taught explicitly in the classroom and integrated into the materials in the curriculum Thus they can impress in long-term memory and become students’ own reading skills

2.3.2 Why to use cognitive strategies in reading

A great deal of research has explored the advantages of cognitive strategies when they are known to directly affect learning The most prominent benefit many researchers find out is that they can help learners to better understand For example, Levin and Pressley (1981) discovered that note-taking enhanced the learners’ understanding because they had to obtain the content of the text to get information for their notes In addition, according to Oxford (1990), certain cognitive strategies such as analyzing are “highly useful for understanding and recalling new information – important functions in the process of becoming competent in using the new language (p 9) Also, in Gagne, Weidemann, Bell, and Ander’s (1984) opinion, “elaborating encourages learners to write their own version of information and therefore requires understanding” (as cited in Najar,

Besides, through the findings of several researchers, these strategies are persuasive in making learners read effectively “Cognitive strategies help learners make and strengthen associations between new and already known information”

(O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990, 1996; as cited in Oxford, 2001, p 167) Furthermore, Ozek and Civelik (2006) indicated that “students have to use some cognitive reading strategies which help them to solve the problem when they read a text” (p 23) They also listed cognitive strategies which helped readers to improve their reading ability significantly: relating the title, illustrations/pictures and background knowledge to the text, skimming, using dictionary parsimoniously, guessing, remembering a word through situations, rereading, using the first language as a base, visualizing events, being careful about how the text is organized, making notes and summaries of the important information, and classifying words

Furthermore, cognitive strategies are effective to assist students in performing a test In her research, Najar (1998) found that highlighting key ideas and taking notes lead to more successful task performance This finding is consistent with the research on the use of note-taking strategy (Bretzing & Kulhavy, 1979; Gagne, Weidemann, Bell, & Ander, 1984; Kiewra & Fletcher, 1984; Levin & Pressley, 1981; Woodward, 1992; as cited in Najar, 1998, p 10) In the same vein, Phakiti (2003) found that “cognitive strategies are directly and positively related to test performance” (p 32) Similarly, when investigating cognitive and metacognitive strategy use during an English proficiency test, Zhang and Liu (2008) concluded that “the more frequently the correspondents utilized the overall cognitive strategies and/or the cognitive strategy of analyzing and reasoning, the better they performed in the reading part of the proficiency test” (p 133) More recently, Dole, Nokes and Drits (2009) reconfirmed that cognitive strategies when being taught can lead to increased performance

Another point is that these strategies are necessary for students when they become more advanced learners Indeed, drawing on Wenden and Oxford’s research, a group of teachers and students carried out the Pathway Project in eight years (1996-2004) in which they did apply cognitive strategies in reading and writing Through it, researchers came to the conclusion that “the most meaningful aspect of the project has been to cultivate in students the confidence and

competence as readers and writers to succeed in advance educational settings as independent learners” (as cited in Oslon & Land, 2007, p 298) Also in this period

of time, through observation and analysis among teachers and students, Flippo (1997) cited the idea of a teacher, Miss Beane, who believed “it is important that students can summarize and support their content reading and learnings; this is the kind of work they must be able to do in the upper elementary and middle school graders” (p 255)

There is a fact that students use many cognitive strategies in reading a text Hamdan, Ghafar, Sihes, and Atan (2010) in a study about the students’ cognitive and metacognition reading strategies of foundation course in teacher education institute in Malaysia found that “the students were high frequency users of the cognitive reading strategies but they were only categorized as medium users of the metacognitive reading strategies” (p 140)

In a word, cognitive strategies are proven to be useful for students when they deal with reading They can let them better understand, remember information, read effectively and perform a test well More importantly, they can build confidence and increase competence when they get in a more advanced level Additionally, these strategies are shown to be used more frequently than other learning strategies, especially in reading skill

2.3.3 When to use cognitive strategies in reading

There has been research into stages on which one can use cognitive strategies in reading, and it is found that they most occur in while reading although they are believed to be helpful during the whole process Wenden (1987b) supposed: “students would be expected to apply or use the skills on their own in situations where they deemed it appropriate to do so” (p 161)

Theoretically, in the process approaches towards intermediate to advanced reading, Wallace (2001) raised that one of the two criteria was “to make maximum use of cognitive and linguistic resources during text processing” (p 26) It was

proven by the appearance of pre-reading tasks (such as brainstorming, semantic mapping, true/false or agree-disagree tasks) and while-reading tasks (such as margin prompts, encouraging the linking or cross-referencing, or first skimming readings followed by closer, more focused ones) in many contemporary course books (e.g Murphy & Cooper, 1995; Rossener, 1988)

In reality, through an analysis of skills and strategies in teaching tasks, Weir, Huizhong and Yan (2000) observed four major cognitive strategies mainly used in the while-reading tasks Out of the total 14 textbooks, there were 9 for skimming (SKM), 10 for search reading (SCH), 11 for scanning (SCN), 10 for understanding explicitly stated main ideas (EXMI), 10 for inferring propositional meanings (IPROP), 7 for inferring pragmatic meanings (IPRAG), 11 for inferring lexical meanings (ILEX), and 9 for understanding syntax (SYN) Regarding post-reading, 6 out of 14 textbooks offered post-reading activities in the form of

summarizing, and it was said that less attention was paid to this stage

Similarly, Ozek and Civelik (2006) published a study on the use of cognitive reading strategies by ELT students in which several cognitive strategies were found in while-reading while very few were used in pre-reading and none was used in post-reading The results of Think-Aloud Protocol’s (TAP) analysis revealed that only one strategy, namely “relating the title to the text content” was used in pre-reading phase These authors found that “the realization percentage of these strategies was either too low or zero for the inefficiently used ones”, and the reason “may be that the students do not want to spend their time on them but they directly start to read the text instead” (p 15) Similarly, in post-reading, though it was supposed that students employed the strategy of classifying words according

to their meanings, summarizing the main ideas and rereading the text, none of them was used by the participants during the TAP Meanwhile, in while-reading, they used several cognitive strategies such as reading without looking up every word, guessing the meaning of a word from the context, skipping some unknown words, reading without word-for-word translation, assimilating the text with the background knowledge, and rereading a sentence efficiently

Similarly, in an investigation into the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies for 3rd semester students majoring in English in reading, Hamdan, Ghafar, Sihes, and Atan (2010) concluded that “the students belong to high frequency users for the pre-reading and while-reading phase”, and the most frequently used strategies were imagining, rereading, guessing meaning of words and sentences, and the use of dictionary Besides, “students’ cognitive reading strategies in the post-reading phase [… ] were not being utilized most frequently” (ibid., p 141)

In a word, cognitive strategies are necessary in dealing with reading during the reading process Actually, they are used in all stages, but took the most part in

while-reading among learners to gain effective reading

2.4 The use of cognitive strategies by good readers and poor readers

Regarding language learners’ use of cognitive strategies in reading comprehension, research has shown that good readers have a tendency to use cognitive strategies more frequently than poor readers (Anastasiou & Griva, 2009; Block, 1992, as cited in Anderson, 2000; Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000; Eamon, 1978; Hosenfeld, 1977, as cited in Rubin, 1987; Hsu, 2006; Meyer, Brandt & Bluth, 1980; Pressley, 2002a, 2002b, 2006, as cited in Grabe, 2009; Shokrpour & Nasiri, 2011; Thorndike, 1917, as cited in Anderson, 2000)

Thorndike (1917, as cited in Anderson, 2000, p 21) considered reading as reasoning and indicated that good readers could do this process rather well He wrote: “… many of the strategies by which readers resolve matters of meaning approximate to a logical process of deduction and inference, and that good readers are those who can think clearly”

Hosenfeld (1977, as cited in Rubin, 1987, p 21) used the “think-aloud” type

of introspection to research reading strategies of successful and unsuccessful learners and found out that “successful readers use some form of contextual

guessing – based on the process of inductive reasoning” In addition, this author indicated some inferencing strategies used by successful second language readers:

“(1) Keep the meaning of a passage in mind while reading, and use it to predict meaning; (2) Keep unfamiliar words and guess the meaning from remaining words in a sentence or later sentences; (3) Circle back in the text

to bring to mind previous context to decode an unfamiliar word; (4) Identify the grammatical function of an unfamiliar word before guessing its meaning; … (6) Examine the illustration and use information contained in it

in decoding; (7) Read the title and draw inferences from it; (8) Refer to the side gloss; … (12) Recognize cognates; (13) Use knowledge of the world

to decode an unfamiliar word; (14) Skip words that may add relatively little

to total meaning ….” (p 24)

Regarding summarizing, Eamon (1978) stated that good readers recalled more topical than non-topical information from a paragraph while poor readers did not make that distinction Furthermore, Meyer, Brandt and Bluth (1980) remarked good comprehenders among ninth-graders organized their recall of the text as same as the author, but low comprehenders did not

As for vocabulary problem, Block (1992), when comparing proficient native and ESL readers with less proficient native and ESL readers in a US College by using verbal protocols, reported: “The less proficient readers, including the native readers, were frequently defeated by word problems Whereas less proficient readers noticed and emphasized word problems, more proficient readers appeared not to worry so much if they did not understand a word” (as cited in Anderson, 2000, p 42)

In addition, Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000) found that “The reading task requires readers to choose and apply some of what they know to each new text It seems that “good” readers do this very effectively while poorer readers encounter a multitude of difficulties” (p 121) Moreover, “The effective readers makes

constant adjustments to the text by recruiting background knowledge for top-down processing and by changing strategies to fit bottom-up decoding of the particular text”, and good readers, “continuously match old and new information and experience” (ibid., p 124)

Pressley (2002a, 2002b, 2006, as cited in Grabe, 2009) listed many cognitive strategies that good readers actively engaged with the text such as reading carefully in key places, rereading as appropriate, identifying important information, filling in gaps in the text through inferences and prior knowledge, making guesses about unknown words, making inferences about the author, key information, and main ideas, building interpretations of the text and building main-idea summaries

In a study in 2006, Hsu investigated the use of language learning strategies among 41 fourth-year technical college students in the Department of Applied Foreign Languages at Nanya Institute of Technology It was carried out based on a questionnaire consisting of 55 items with a 5-point Likert scale ranging from

“strongly disagree” (1 point) to “strongly agree” (5 points) The results revealed that the effective learners tended to use specific kinds of strategies more frequently than ineffective learners did The top strategies used among effective learners were

“I remind myself by underlining the words or phrases I don’t understand” and “I often check if I understand the contents.”

A study conducted by Anastasiou and Griva (2009) explored the relation between reading strategy use and reading comprehension among good readers and poor readers in which there were 18 poor readers and 18 good readers, aged between 11 and 12, and selected from a total of 201 6th grade students, participating in the study The results showed that good readers tended to use more frequently meaning-oriented reading, while poor readers adopted a word-centered model of reading Thus poor readers seemed to be less aware of strategies related

to elaborate cognitive process such as guessing from the context, activating prior knowledge, using imagery, keeping meaning in mind, summarizing as well as

those based on such linguistic features of the text as using linguistic clues and using text markers

Finally, Shokrpour and Nasiri (2011) investigated the use of cognitive and metagognitive reading strategies among 94 Iranian IELTS test takers According to them, good readers outperformed the poor ones, but the difference was not significant Accordingly, no matter good or poor, all test-takers took a good care of skimming and scanning strategies while taking the reading section of the academic IELTS test The reason was that scanning and skimming were used both in the second or foreign and in the first language Therefore, almost all test takers had employed skimming and scanning either consciously or subconsciously even before they attempted to take the test Besides, poor readers had more tendencies

to translate the reading text and tasks into Persian than good readers For other cognitive subscales such as note-taking, comprehension and retrieval strategies, good readers outnumbered poor readers, but it was not too much

Certainly, every reader may use a repertoire of reading strategies when he

or she reads Research shows that good readers more or less use cognitive strategies in their reading comprehension more than poor readers Furthermore, according to several researchers, good readers use these strategies more effectively than the poor ones in most cases

2.5 The relationship between students’ use of cognitive strategies and their reading comprehension

Research on learners’ use of cognitive strategies and their effects on reading comprehension reveals both positive and negative results However, this thesis figures out that except for Zare-ee (2007) expressing the insignificant correlation between these two factors, there is a fact that a reader’s proficiency is closely related to cognitive strategies he or she may use consciously or unconsciously in the reading process (Alsamadani, 2009; Phakiti, 2003; Rubin & Thompson, 1982,

as cited in Brown, 1994; Zhang & Liu, 2008)

Zare-ee (2007) carried out a study among 30 Iranian students at Kashan University to research the relationship between cognitive and meta-cognitive strategy use and EFL reading achievement To use both quantitative and qualitative data analysis, the study applied the triangulation method using the test, the questionnaire and the retrospective interview It showed that the correlation between cognitive strategies and reading achievement was not significant However, the researcher still found the difference between successful and unsuccessful test takers in which the mean for cognitive strategies for both moderately and highly successful test-takers was almost the same, and unsuccessful test-takers are less cognitive than successful test-takers Besides, the use of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies, as the interview showed, between successful and unsuccessful test-takers did not differ qualitatively but differed quantitatively Therefore, the study has opened more areas of investigation into the performance consistency in the relationship between the use of cognitive strategies and reading comprehension

Actually, in many cases, it was proven that the use of several cognitive strategies positively correlated with learners’ reading comprehension Rubin and Thompson (1982, as cited in Brown, 1994, p 191) found that “being creative, developing a “feel” for the language by experimenting with its grammar and words, using linguistic knowledge, including knowledge of their first language, and using contextual cues could help good learners do well in comprehension”

Phakiti (2003) carried out an investigation into the relationship of takers’ use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies to the EFL (English as a foreign language) reading test performance Three hundred eighty four students in

test-a fundtest-amenttest-al English course test-at test-a Thtest-ai university were test-asked to finish the retest-ading comprehension achievement test, the cognitive–metacognitive questionnaire and the retrospective interview The results suggested that the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies had a positive effect on the reading test performance

Zhang and Liu (2008) researched cognitive and metacognitive strategy use and its effect on the students’ test performance at a tertiary level in a Chinese EFL context Questionnaires were delivered among 526 undergraduate non-English majors Based on the mean scores and standard deviation, the study revealed that cognitive and meta-cognitive strategy use significantly correlated with the students’ performance in a certain part of the proficiency test That is the more frequently the correspondents utilized the cognitive strategies of analyzing and reasoning, the better they performed in the reading part of the proficiency test

In Alsamadani’s (2009) study, a survey was conducted among 140 major English students of different academic levels from four universities and colleges in Saudi Arabia: King Abdul-Aziz University, King Faisal University, Teachers’ College in Jeddah, and Teachers’ College in Al-Ahsa to find out the effects of cognitive strategies on students’ reading The researcher used a mixture

non-of different levels to make sure that he had a convenient and representative sample The results of the study revealed that the use of planning strategies (before reading), attending strategies (while reading) and evaluating strategies (after reading) did not guarantee a high level of comprehension but the use of some cognitive strategies did contribute to this level as well Among the listed factors, prior knowledge (appropriate schemata) and the role of transfer and vocabulary size were seen as significant factors that contributed much to the final comprehension These factors closely related to using several cognitive strategies

In fact, 60% of the students reported that they compared and contrasted what they were reading with their previous knowledge Besides, 40% of them reported that even before they started learning English, they were familiar with such strategies they used to read English texts as taking summaries, skimming, scanning, discussing with others, and writing main ideas which were to them feasible to transfer They also stated that they tended to translate words that they did not know because they felt anxious when reading something they did not understand For translating strategy, only 10% said they would translate word by word, while 90% reported that they translated what they thought of as important for the overall

understanding of the text The findings indicated that all these cognitive strategies actually had a great contribution to students’ reading comprehension

In a word, the empirical research above shows that difference between good readers and bad readers relates to the use of several cognitive strategies Therefore,

these strategies do play an indispensable role in reading comprehension

2.6 Summary

This chapter presents the conceptual framework for the study First and foremost, it introduces the concept of cognitive strategies in general as well as some definitions in relation to reading skill Next are the classifications of these strategies Regarding this part, the study by Oxford (1990) was found to be more comprehensive as it clearly stated the application of cognitive strategies to reading,

so it was adopted, with some modifications, to be the theoretical framework for the current study Furthermore, an observation of how, why and when to use these strategies in reading skill has been acknowledged Then, it explores the use of such strategies by good readers and poor readers Finally, it mentions the relation between students’ reading comprehension and their use of these strategies

Based on this theory chapter, the following chapter describes the methodology used to carry out the study Thus the setting, the participants, the instruments, data collection procedures, and the analytical framework are going to

be presented

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter describes the methodology employed in the current study It begins with the setting in which the study occurred Then it presents the participants After that, it shows the overall research design, the instruments, the data collection procedures and the analytical framework

3.1 Setting

This study was proceeded at Vinh Long College of Technical Education This is the only public technical education college in the South of Vietnam which

is responsible for training technical teachers of upper and lower secondary schools

as well as skilled workers and educated workers nationwide, especially in the Mekong Delta The research was conducted when this college was focusing on raising the quality of teaching and learning to well prepare for being a university in the forthcoming years Certainly, the role of foreign language assistance was indispensable and the guideline for teaching English reading skill as mentioned in the first chapter was always reminded Furthermore, the study was carried out in the context where English was being used as a fundamental course in which reading comprehension skills were emphasized in the assessment of students’ achievement At the time of data collection, the staff consisted of 130 teachers and officers, and we trained about 1,120 students in both regular and in-service form

3.2 Participants

The participants were 85 second-year students from two classes: 55 from TH-09 and 30 from ĐĐT-09 They were chosen based on the convenience sampling technique According to McMillan and Schumacher (2001), a convenience sample is selected since it is expedient, for example, a university class

of a professor who is doing research, classrooms of teachers enrolled in a graduate class or school principals who participate in a workshop

In the current study, these two classes were selected as the participants for research because of that reason The researcher herself taught them English as a foreign language, so it was easier to conduct the research They were described in terms of gender, age and English learning experience The background profiles of the students were summarized in Table 3.1

Table 3.1 Demographic data of the subjects

technical students, and paid much attention to reading skill because of several benefits it might bring them

After finishing the proficiency reading test, these participants were classified into two groups of readers based on the following grading: getting the total score from 7 to 10, the students were considered as successful readers, and from 1 to 4, they could be seen as unsuccessful readers Then, these students would be chosen to take part in the study on the correlation between cognitive strategies and their reading ability

3.3 Research design

In this context, quantitative data were collected through a test and a questionnaire while qualitative data were in the form of a retrospective interview First of all, all the participants were asked to do the test so that the researcher would divide them into successful and unsuccessful students in reading comprehension Then, the students of these two groups would complete the questionnaire so that the researcher could get information about their cognitive strategy use in reading in general Finally, the interview of some representatives of these groups would be conducted to see their actual use of several cognitive

strategies in a specific reading task like in a reading test

3.4 Instruments

To find out about students’ use of cognitive strategies in reading in English

as well as the correlation between these strategies and their reading ability, the researcher used triangulation According to Lynch (1996), it is gathering and reconciling data from different techniques to recheck or reassure what counts as evidence In this study, it was accomplished by combining the test and questionnaire data with retrospective interview data They were all used with the students