Teachers and student attitudes towards the reading texts in new headway a survey at kon tum teachers training college m a 60 14 10

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES LE THI HOANG LAN TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE READING TEXTS IN NEW HEADWAY: A SURVEY AT KON TUM TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

LE THI HOANG LAN

TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE READING TEXTS IN NEW HEADWAY: A SURVEY AT KON TUM

TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts (TESOL)

Supervisor

NGUYEN HOANG TUAN, PhD

Ho Chi Minh City, August 2011

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitle

“Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the reading texts in New Headway: A

survey at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College” is my own work

In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s Program 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, August 28, 2011

LÊ THỊ HOÀNG LAN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Hoang Tuan for his guidance, suggestions, and insight throughout this study I am greatly indebted to the lecturers at Department of Postgraduate Studies, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities for their valuable teaching that has enlightened my research path My special thanks are still extensive to my TESOL

2007 classmates, who shared the happiness and difficulties with me during the course

I would like to take the opportunity to express my sincere thanks to the English teaching staff, the K14 non-major students in the academic year of 2010-2011 at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College in Kon Tum province Last but not least, to my family, I would like to extend my special thanks for their love, great support and encouragement, especially to my parents, my husband and my sixteen month old daughter

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the texts

used in New Headway Elementary It also plans to examine students’ reactions

towards the teaching methods in order to improve the quality of English learning and teaching at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College

Three types of instruments such as questionnaire, the follow-up informal interviews and classroom observations were used The data were collected through the Vietnamese version of a questionnaire distributed to 261 students, and through the English one delivered to 8 teachers of English of Informatics and Foreign Languages Department The follow-up informal interviews were carried out with 30 students and

8 teachers Eleven classroom observations were also conducted during the academic year of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 Therefore, both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to analyze the findings

The results obtained are as follows:

a Readability received both negative and positive comments from the students and teachers Both showed negative attitudes towards lexical difficulty and rather positive ones towards structural difficulty

b In terms of suitability of content, both teachers and students felt like the topics of the reading texts However, they did not think authentic texts were suitable for the students’ low-level In term of cultural dimension, in spite of realizing the seamless relationship between culture and language teaching and learning, the teachers and the students confirmed that they did not teach and learn culture effectively in the reading classes

c According to the teachers and the students, pre-reading and while-reading strategies enjoyed more favourable opinions than post-reading ones Although they showed negative attitudes towards post-reading strategies, they both thought that pre- and while-reading strategies were better and more important

From the findings, some recommendations for teachers of English were made to better the teaching and the learning quality at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Statement of authorship i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents v

List of figures ix

List of tables x

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1

1.2 A DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH SITE 2

1.3 A DESCRIPTION OF NEW HEADWAY ELEMENTARY 3

1.4 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE 8

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 8

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 9

1.7 ASSUMPTIONS 9

1.8 ORGANIZATION OF THE REMAINDER OF THE STUDY 9

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 11

2.1 READABILITY 11

2.1.1 Lexical difficulty 12

2.1.2 Structural difficulty 13

2.2 SUITABILITY OF CONTENT 14

2.2.1 Topic 15

2.2.2 Authenticity 17

2.2.3 Cultural dimension 19

2.3 EXPLOITABILITY 20

2.3.1 Pre-reading strategies 21

2.3.2 While-reading strategies 22

2.3.3 Post-reading strategies 23

2.4 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2 23

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 25

3.1 INTRODUCTION 25

3.2 PARTICIPANTS 25

3.2.1 Students 25

3.2.2 Teachers 29

3.3 INSTRUMENTS 30

3.3.1 Questionnaire 30

3.3.2 Interviews 31

3.3.3 Classroom observations 32

3.4 RESEARCH PROCEDURE 39

3.5 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 3 39

Chapter 4: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 40

4.1 STUDENT DATA ANALYSIS 40

4.1.1 READABILITY 40

4.1.1.1 Lexical difficulty 40

4.1.1.2 Structural difficulty 41

4.1.2 SUITABILITY OF CONTENT 43

4.1.2.1 Topic 43

4.1.2.2 Authenticity 46

4.1.2.3 Cultural dimension 48

4.1.3 EXPLOITABILITY 49

4.1.3.1 Pre-reading strategies 49

4.1.3.2 While-reading strategies 51

4.1.3.3 Post-reading strategies 53

4.2 TEACHER DATA ANALYSIS 55

4.2.1 READABILITY 55

4.2.1.1 Lexical difficulty 55

4.2.1.2 Structural difficulty 57

4.2.2 SUITABILITY OF CONTENT 59

4.2.2.1 Topic 59

4.2.2.2 Authenticity 60

4.2.2.3 Cultural dimension 62

4.2.3 EXPLOITABILITY 65

4.2.3.1 Pre-reading strategies 65

4.2.3.2 While-reading strategies 66

4.2.3.3 Post-reading strategies 69

4.3 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 4 71

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 72

5.1 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TEACHERS 72

5.1.1 Readability and Suitability of Content 72

5.1.2 Exploitability: Teaching reading as a process 76

5.1.3 Raising students’ positive attitudes towards learning reading 77

5.2 STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 77

5.3 SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 78

5.4 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5 78

REFERENCES 80

APPENDICES 84

Appendix A 84

Appendix B 92

Appendix C 100

Appendix D 108

Appendix E 116

Appendix F 117

Appendix G 118

Appendix H 122

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 3.1: Age of the respondents 27

Figure 3.2: The average marks of three final exams during three semesters of General English 1, 2, 3 28

Figure 3.3: How long have the students learned English 28

Figure 3.4: Information about gender of the teacher respondents 29

Figure 4.1: Item 11 44

Figure 4.2: Item 12 44

Figure 4.3: Item 13 45

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1.1: The length and the types of the reading texts in New Headway Elementary

3

Table 3.1: The summary of the detailed outlines applied for teaching English non-major students general English 25

Table 3.2: General information about gender and minority group of the respondents26 Table 3.3: Classroom observations during three semesters of general English 33

Table 4.1: Students’ responses to lexical difficulty 41

Table 4.2: Students’ responses to structural difficulty 42

Table 4.3: Students’ responses to authenticity 46

Table 4.4: Students’ responses to culture 47

Table 4.5: Students’ responses to pre-reading strategies 49

Table 4.6: Students’ responses to while-reading strategies 51

Table 4.7: Students’ responses to post-reading strategies 53

Table 4.8: Teachers’ responses to lexical difficulty 55

Table 4.9: Teachers’ responses to structural difficulty 56

Table 4.10: Teachers’ responses to topic 58

Table 4.11: Teachers’ responses to authenticity 60

Table 4.12: Teachers’ responses to culture 63

Table 4.13: Teachers’ responses to pre-reading strategies 65

Table 4.14: Teachers’ responses to while-reading strategies 66

Table 4.15: Teachers’ responses to post-reading strategies 68

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

Like all other universities and colleges in Vietnam, English is a compulsory subject to

English non-major students at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College New Headway

Elementary (Liz & Soars, 2005) has been applied for teaching the students in recent

years However, there has been a lack of a systematic and reliable set of criteria for textbook evaluation as well as reading texts until now

Duong Cong Thuy (2009) did the survey on teachers’ and learners’ attitudes towards reading in English 10 textbook She shaped a theoretical framework consisting of two broad criteria such as text selection and task design, and suggested future studies on the same topic

Two main points of consideration have promoted the researcher to start the survey on teachers’ and learners’ attitudes towards the reading texts in New Headway Elementary

Firstly, attitude is related to the motives of learning a language Positive attitude will

by no doubt lead to more successful learning Attitude towards the target language, its speakers and the learning context may play some part in explaining students’ success

or failure (Candlin & Mercer, 2001) Choy (2002) also says that students with positive attitude will spend more effort to learn by using strategies such as asking questions, volunteering information and answering questions Fortunately, attitudes do not remain static, they can be changed through the learning process by using appropriate materials and teaching technique Secondly, one of the main challenges in reading is the mismatch between the texts selected, teaching methods and students’ reading

ability Hence, it would be very beneficial and valuable to collect the responses of the teachers and the non-major freshmen at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College to the reading texts in New Headway

1.2 A description of the research site

Kontum Teachers’ Training College in Kon Tum city – Kon Tum Province is the place where teachers of preschool, elementary and middle school have been trained to

signed Decision No 222/1998/QD-TTg, establishing Teachers’ Training College on the basis of upgrading KonTum Teacher School The college consists of five faculties: Department of Science, Department of Social Science, Department of Management Teachers Improvement, Informatics-Foreign Languages Department, Department of Primary Education and Political Theory Education Office The number of K14 students in the academic year of 2010-2011 is 305 To meet the requirements of education, Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College keeps on improving the teaching and learning quality In some recent years, the college has been rather well-equipped There are three hi-classes with more than 60 computers, one resource room for each Department Therefore, the teaching staffs are very eager to apply new teaching facilities into their teaching For instance, they make use of Violet or PowerPoint software to make lesson plans

The Informatics and Foreign Languages Department was established in May, 2004 There are two professional groups: Informatics and Foreign Languages The main missions of the Foreign Languages Group are training teachers of English for High schools, teaching English for business-tourism and Laos, teaching general English for non-major students, conducting research studies

1.3 A description of New Headway Elementary

According to Liz and Soars (2005), New Headway Elementary is “the world’s most trusted course.” The book claims that its "authoritative integrated syllabus, motivating topics, and clearly focused tasks, combine with a real understanding of what works in the classroom." It is the reason why the vastly popular New Headway series have been chosen to meet students’ needs and interests The writers of the series have made

an attempt to ensure that learning English is interesting and motivating They point out that the aim of the course is to encourage students to use the language, to expose them to a variety of challenging and interesting text-types in various activities, and to bring their own experiences and feelings in order to achieve accurate and confident language use

Hence, this part aims at describing the reading texts in New Headway Elementary to help readers know more about the material in terms of length, type, topic, integration into other skills, authenticity, and culture embedded

Table 1.1: The length and the types of the reading texts in

New Headway Elementary

Unit The reading title Length Type

newspaper

Amelia Earhart and Yuri Gagarin

wings (Song lyrics)

13 Storytime A short story – The

Type

The importance of the type or genre of text used is underlined and Cunningsworth (1995, p 75) lists many different types used in coursebooks such as “press extracts, advertisements, instructions, recipes, information leaflets, poems, letters, transcripts

of interviews, extracts from magazine stories, questionnaires, extracts from factual books such as travel guides, and extracts from novels.”

Not just a few types of texts but multiple ones in a textbook can arouse interests of

and motivate a learner to engage in the learning process New Headway Elementary is one of the well-known coursebooks that can satisfy the foreign language learners, thanks to its various types Some of them are based on real newspaper articles

Actually, dealing with the multiple types of texts in the material makes students feel more excited In unit one, they can develop the ability to introduce themselves or someone else, or they can familiarize with the form of an e-mail in unit two, some

extracts from the articles, magazines, novels in unit 5, 6, 12, 13 can also fascinate them

Authenticity

If we take a look at the types of the reading texts mentioned above, we can easily realize that the reading texts contain much information about real persons or places with photographs based on or extracted from newspapers, magazines, travel brochures and so on All of those authentic texts were written by native speakers not for pedagogic purposes but for social purposes, so obviously they can involve the learners

in reading more

Cultural dimension

The study of culture increases learners’ not only curiosity about and interest in target countries but their motivation as well Also, the reading passages give the students chances to discover the similarities and the differences between their own culture and the target one Moreover, having some basic knowledge of the new culture can partly minimize some major problems when the students confront it

Integration into other skills

Reading comprehension and other skills should not be in isolation The coursebook New Headway Elementary can do a great job in presenting reading with all other

skills perfectly

In New Headway Elementary, reading is integrated with all other skills This is done through pre-reading discussion questions, information gaps, group discussion on the subject that is given in parallel to the written text, etc

A case study:

Food around the world (Unit 9, p 70)

which food and drink come from their country, and which foreign food and drink is popular in their country

- T asks sts to identify places and nationalities in the photos

- Sts are asked to read and

individually first and then exchange the answers with the whole class

- They work individually to write a paragraph about meals

in their country, using ides from the previous activity

chosen in New Headway Elementary Those types of topics are considered to be

applicable to almost all cultures according to Neuner ve Hunfeld (1993, pp 112-113

as cited in Arkian, 2008 )

1.4 Statement of purpose

The material New Headway Elementary has been used for teaching non-major

students at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College in recent years However, there has been no survey on the teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward its reading texts so far This study aims to investigate students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the texts used

in the material It also plans to examine students’ reactions towards the teaching methods in order to improve the quality of English learning and teaching at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College

1.5 Research question

To achieve the aim mentioned above, this thesis will try to find the information

to answer the following research questions:

1 What are the participants’ perceptions of the readings’ readability,

suitability of topics and exploitability?

contexts?

readings?

1.6 Significance of the study

The result of the research will help teachers of English to use the reading texts in New Headway Elementary more effectively in colleges Thanks to the students’ and the teachers’ responses to the reading texts, it is possible to conclude whether or not there

is a match between the texts selected, teaching methods and students’ reading ability

On that basis, recommendations would be made to better the teaching and the learning quality at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College

1.7 Assumptions

The study was based on the following assumptions:

and appropriate to get the information to answer the research questions

their responses

1.8 Organization of the Remainder of the Study

Chapter 2 presents a review of the literature in which the researcher aims to deal with three broad themes Chapter 3 deals with methodology employed to carry out the research Chapter 4 analyzes and interprets the data collected from students and teachers at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College Chapter 5 offers some

recommendations for teachers of English, shows the strengths and limitations of the

study and finally suggests further research concerning this field

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

As presented in the first chapter, positive attitude leads to successful teaching and learning and vice versa; therefore, measuring the attitudes of both teachers and students is extremely essential This chapter will shape a theoretical framework serving as criteria to help measure teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the reading texts The evaluation is limited to three criteria such as readability, suitability

of content and exploitability (Nuttall, 1982)

& Conard, 1991) Students who are given materials that are too difficult fail to make progress (Gambrell, Wilson, & Gantt, 1981), are frequently off task (Anderson, 1990; Enz, 1989), may become behavior problems (Anderson, 1990), and may become so frustrated that they simply give up (Kletzien, 1991) There is a good chance that they will also learn to hate reading (Juell, 1994) Making the match requires knowing the readability level of materials Therefore, teachers must find out how much language their students know if they are to select suitable texts (Nuttal & Christine: 1982, p.25)

2.1.1 Lexical difficulty

Vocabulary plays a very important role in reading tests The relationship between vocabulary knowledge and text readability is a robust one Vocabulary knowledge has consistently been found to be the foremost predictor of a text's difficulty In studies of readability, most indices of vocabulary difficulty account for about 80%

of the predicted variance (Alderson, 2000, p 99)

The Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics (1992, p 163) defines lexical

density as "a measure of the ratio of different words to the total number of words in

a text." Lexical density is more commonly defined, as McCarthy (1990) states, as the proportion of the content (lexical) words over the total words Though lexical density is generally a measure of comprehensibility, lexical difficulty is influenced

by a multitude of variables such as word frequency, word length, irregular word spelling, multiple word denotations, specialized word applications, and selectional and subcategorical restrictions (Thor, 1987)

Woolley (2000) points out that comprehension involves relating the new to the known, but if there is too much unknown text information then the assimilation of new material becomes difficult

It is important to assess the right level for the right students According to Nuttall (1982), it is not difficult to assess lexical difficulty if the teachers know their students “They can list or mark all the new words or phrases, remembering to include new uses of familiar words and new idiomatic combination (such as phrasal verbs whose meaning is more than the sum of their parts.” In case the teachers do not know their students well, it is quite essential to find out “how much language they know” by “making use of any vocabulary lists supplied in the syllabus or the earlier textbook”

2.1.2 Structural difficulty

Structural difficulty is fundamental, but harder to access (Nuttall, 1982) It is hardly surprising that sentence length correlates with difficulty Apart from memory considerations, longer sentences are likely to contain more complex structures such as coordination and subordination (Beaman, 1984)

Miller & Chomsky (1963) pointed this out:

"It is almost certain that sentence (or clause) length can predict readability only

because it is correlated with more fundamental predictors of syntactic complexity such as nesting, transformational complexity, and others )." (cited in Coleman 1964,

p.190)

If it is indeed true that certain structures do cause more difficulty than others, what we would like to know is which they are and why they cause difficulty Chomsky (1969, pp.6-7) provides a theoretical consideration of linguistic complexity She postulates that difficulty of interpretation of the grammatical relations which hold among the words and phrases of a sentence is increased by the presence of four conditions:

(A) The true grammatical relations which hold among the words in a [sentence] are not expressed directly in its surface structure

(B) The syntactic structure associated with a particular word is at variance with

a general pattern in the language

(C) A conflict exists between two of the potential syntactic structures associated with a particular verb

(D) Restrictions on a grammatical operation apply under certain limited conditions only

For Cunningsworth (1995), one of the things we need to know when concerning the texts themselves is that how long they are This helps to explain the reason why the

length of a reading text is one factor that can make great contributions to the teaching and learning of a language Alderson, (2000, pp 153-154) also maintains that, “the length of input is clearly very important in reading Texts may be a single word, a phrase (as in the case of public warnings and notices), single sentences (in advertisements), or they may be whole novels, 20-page academic articles, two-page memoranda, or two paragraphs on a postcard.”

Actually, text length should be appropriate for a particular group of learners, and the number of words in each reading passage and the number of reading passages in the textbook can be accessed by their age (Cunningsworth, 1995)

In contrast, Riazi (2009) found that when texts longer than 1,000 words were used, the abilities which could be measured changed This, in turn, suggests that longer texts allow testers to assess more study-based abilities and to reduce reliance on sentential processing abilities that might measure syntactic and lexical knowledge

more than discourse abilities Besides, Terzi (1984 as cited in Riazi) investigated the

impact of text length on the development of second-language reading skills On the basis of positive results obtained using a novel by Isaac Asimov in the early stages of

an instrumental English reading course for Brazilian electrical engineering students, she questioned the soundness of the common practice of utilizing shorter texts at the initial stages of second-language instruction and reserving longer texts for advanced students She finally argued that different texts invite distinct reading strategies partially as a function of their length Longer texts appear to require a more intense interaction, which encourages increased sensitivity to the linguistic aspects of the written language

2.2 Suitability of content

Nuttall (1982) gives three main criteria when choosing texts to be used in the classroom as mentioned in the opening of the second chapter Suitability of content

can be considered to be the most crucial of the three, in that reading material should interest the students, be relevant to their needs as well as motivate them to read more

2.2.1 Topic

Many writers and foreign language teachers agree that topics are fundamentally important for teaching and learning reading comprehension Among them is Arkian (2008) who puts stress on the importance of topic selection in any second and foreign language teaching classroom He carried out a study to “identify the topics of the reading passages in English language course books and analyze them from a pedagogical perspective” (2008) Harmer (2001) advises that teachers should choose topics that can interest their students although different students may not have the same interests Hence, it is expected that course books should consist of interesting and catchy topics for reading passages so that the learners can be led to a productive reading and learning activity As Shih (1992 as cited in Arkian, 2008) states, the selection of topics should be appropriate to students’ ages, educational levels, and interests especially at the secondary and college level ESL classes Once again, Arkian (2008) concludes the significance of topics for the success of reading as a skill with its teaching as well as its place in coursebooks However, “choosing topics is not

as easy as it may be” (Cunningsworth, 1995, p.75) , for “there is a wide gap between the information on who those surveyors were and to whom the coursebook is taught” (Murdoch, 2000 as cited in Arkian, 2008) and some subjects which are familiar to one culture are unacceptable in another one (Cunningsworth, 1995, p.75) Hence, Neunerve Hunfeld (1993, pp 112-113 as cited in Arkian, 2008 ) have pinpointed the following types of topics which are considered to be applicable to almost all cultures:

1 Fundamental existence (birth and death)

2 Individual identities (the self and the personal)

3 Social identities in private life (family, “we”)

4 Social identities in social sphere (neighbors, group identities, nation and the State)

5 Relationships (friendships, love, and “you”)

6 Housing (home and housing)

7 External world (environment, Nature, and civilization)

8 Work life

9 Education

10 Needs (nutrition and clothing)

11 Mobility (deportation and tourism)

12 Free time activities (hand crafts)

13 Communication and the use of media

14 Health (Illness and Hygiene)

15 Norms and approaches to norms (ethics, norms, religion, and values)

16 Chronological and historical experiences (the past, present, and future)

17 Mental and psychological processes (cognitive psychological processes, self reflexivity, dreams and fantasies, the emotional)

Also, Wade (1992, as cited in Arkian, 2008 ) suggests some sensational topics such

as death, danger, chaos, power, money, sex, and romantic intrigue which are students’ interesting ones

2.2.2 Authenticity

One of the criteria should be considered when selecting texts for our students is that texts should be “authentic, that is a naturally occurring text, not specially written for pedagogic purposes” (Wallace, 1992)

‘Authentic” is the term used as opposed to the “prefabricated artificial language of textbooks and instructional dialogues”, and it refers to real life situation and natural communication (Kramsch, 1993, p 177) As Little and Singleton (1988, p.21 as cited

in Kramsch, 1993) point out “an authentic text is a text that was created to fulfill some social purpose in the language community in which it was produced” Authentic texts are, therefore, often considered to be more interesting than those written for pedagogic purposes (Wallace, 1992) The language in non-authentic texts is, in contrast, artificial, concentrating on perfectly formed sentences, a question using a grammatical structure asking for a full answer, and repetition of structures How can these texts reflect how language is really used in the real world? Hence, texts that teachers select for their students are supposed to be authentic

The sources of authentic material that can be used in the classroom are infinite, but the most common are newspapers, magazines There is also easier access to many different types of material from the Internet Although being able to read an authentic text such as a real newspaper article interests most students, it is really challenging to read it in the limited time given in class Therefore, as usual, students prefer having more time to read it slowly with a dictionary at home, but it is against the way of developing the reading skill One of the good reasons for using difficult authentic texts in class that many foreign language teachers agree with is to train students to use special reading skills such as ignoring the parts that are not important, guessing the meaning of words in context, skimming and scanning quickly, reading for general understanding, increasing reading speech

However, fully authentic texts may be too complex and challenging for many learners and for teachers as well In Fig 2 in the article “The use of authentic materials in the teaching of reading”, Berardo (2006) presents the advantages and disadvantage of reading authentic materials as follows:

reflected

Students are informed about what is

happening in the world

become outdated very quickly

The same piece of material can be used

for different tasks

Ideal for teaching/ practicing

mini-skill- skimming/ scanning

Contain a wide range of text types not

easily found in conventional teaching

materials

Encourage reading for pleasure, likely

contain topics of interest

Often too culturally biased, difficulty to

community Vocabulary might not be relevant to the students’ immediate needs

Too many structures are mixed so lower levels have problems decoding the texts Special preparations is necessary, can

be time-consuming Can become outdated easily, eg News stories, articles

Hence, simplified reading materials prepared by the teacher and taking the form of published materials are quite important in the foreign language classroom in order to reduce the complexity which may disappoint the learners, as Wallace (1992, p 76) states

2.2.3 Cultural dimension

“Culture” is believed to be one of the most complicated words in the English language Byram (1989) refers to culture as “the whole way of life of the foreign country, including but not limited to its production in the arts, philosophy and high culture in general” Brown confirms that “because learning a second language implies some degree of learning a second culture, it is important to understand what we mean

by the process of culture learning” (2000, p 182) Second language learning involves the acquisition of a second identity “This creation of a new identity is at the heart of culture learning, or what some might call articulation.”

Apparently, language teaching should not be separated from culture teaching Some

of the benefits of teaching culture listed by Kitao (2000, cited in Genc and Bada) as the following:

• Studying culture gives students a reason to study the target language as well as rendering the study of L2 meaningful (Stainer, 1971)

• From the perspective of learners, one of the major problems in language teaching is to conceive of the native speakers of target language as real person Although grammar books gives so called genuine examples from real life, without background knowledge those real situations may be considered fictive by the learners

In addition providing access into cultural aspect of language, learning culture would help learners relate the abstract sounds and forms of a language to real people and places (Chastain, 1971)

• The affect of motivation in the study of L2 has been proved by experts like Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1965, 1972) In achieving high motivation, culture classes have a great role because learners like culturally based activities such as role playing, doing research on countries and peoples, etc The study of culture increases learners’ not only curiosity about and interest in target countries but also their motivation For example, when some professors introduced the cultures of the L2 they taught, the learners’ interests in those classes increased a lot and the classes based on culture became to be preferred more highly than traditional classes

• Besides these benefits, studying culture also plays a useful role in general education; studying culture, we could also learn about the geography, history, etc of the target culture (Cooke, 1970)

Recent studies focus on the relationship between L2 teaching and target culture teaching For Purvelness (2003), people involved in language teaching have started to understand the deep relation between culture and language It has been emphasized that without the study of culture, teaching L2 is incomplete For ESL learner, language study seems senseless if they know nothing about the people who speak the target language or the country in which the target language is spoken

2.3 Exploitability

For Nuttall (1982), Exploitability refers to how the texts can be used to develop the students’ competence as readers A text that can not be exploited for teaching purposes has no use in the classroom Therefore, when choosing a text, the teacher should answer the following question: “What skills/ strategies can be developed by exploiting the text?”

Garner (1987) defines reading strategies as an action or series of actions employed in order to construct meaning Oxford and Crookall (1989) define strategies as learning

techniques, behaviour, problem-solving, or study skills which make learning more effectively and efficient Typically, to help learners read with understanding and enjoyment, the texts are often explored gradually through the three phase strategies such as pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading strategies

2.3.1 Pre-reading strategies

Pre-reading instruction happens before students read a particular text L2 have suggested, although they do not have studies to suggest it, that using pre-reading activities makes learners comprehend the text more easily (Grabe & Stoller, 2001; Holme & Roser, 1987)

Reading becomes more effective when students have "background knowledge" (McNamara & Kintsch, 1996, p 248) Therefore, the role of the pre-reading activities

is quite crucial According to Wallace (1992), a reading lesson might try to reflect the process of reading in the following way: before reading, there are plenty of kinds of pre-reading activities, or discussion of shared expectations about the topic of the text, and so on

These activities can be an introduction to the text and learners are encouraged to activate their formal schemata or background knowledge to predict the contents of the text, skim the text, answer questions about information in the text, identify and explore key vocabulary, connect common themes in the texts to previous texts read (Grabe & Stoller, 2001, p.191)

Pre-reading strategies do not require much reading and writing but student integration

so that students have opportunities to share knowledge and ways of thinking There are some strategies to introduce a text such as brainstorming, semantic mapping, and free writing (Crandal, 1995, as cited in Richards, 2001, p 272) or group discussion, pre-question, visual aids, motivating and setting the purposes for reading, relating the reading to students’ lives (Sasson, 2007)

To sum up, once a reader has made general conclusions about what he or she will find

in the rest of the text, s/he will feel more confident to continue reading about the subject and other reading strategies will be of use to the learner in the later stages of reading

Ideally, while-reading activities are supposed to help learners develop not only the techniques of scanning (looking for specific information), skimming (looking for general information), develop comprehension for the reading text content but also help students use their own inferring and judging abilities, help them make use of cross-cultural elements, develop their linguistic and sociolinguistic knowledge (Saricoban , 2002)

Hyland (1990), Nunan (1999) and Brown (2001) discuss scanning and skimming According to Brown, they are thought to be the most valuable reading strategies Through skimming, a reader can predict the purpose of the passage without reading all of it On the other hand, according to Brown (2001), readers scan to get information they need such as names, dates, etc Karakas (2002) suggests that readers often understand the text better if they are asked to state their ideas about the topic of the text and then evaluate it with their friends in the class

Therefore, while-reading activities should be designed to help students construct meaning from the text, develop fluency, and make connection to the real world

2.3.3 Post-reading strategies

One of the common reading strategies employed by the teacher is post-reading ones designed to help students after they read According to Chastain (1988), post-reading activities help learners to clarify any unclear meaning where the focus is on the meaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects of the text

The aims of post-reading strategies found in the work of Saricoban (2002) are to help students use acquired knowledge in similar reading; to help them integrate their reading skill with the other language skills such as listening, speaking and writing; to help them integrate with the foreign culture; to make use of key words and structures

to summarize the reading passage; to extract the main idea of a paragraph or a reading text

Ur (1996) discusses “summarize” as a kind of post-reading activity where readers are asked to summarize the content in one sentence or two Karakas (2002) proposes that the readers interpret the text and illustrate the relationship between the questions and their answers by using activities such as summarizing, questions and answers, and drawing conclusion

In fact, learners should clarify, summarize, evaluate, and analyze the text

2.4 Summary of Chapter 2

This chapter has established a theoretical framework for the study which consists of three main criteria to help measure teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the reading texts

Firstly, readability is the combination of lexical and structural difficulty It is important to provide students with materials on the appropriate level of challenge Secondly, topic, authenticity and cultural dimension must be taken into consideration

in term of suitability of content:

+ The materials should contain interesting and catchy topics for reading passages so that the learners feel like reading more

+ Authenticity is important for its characteristics of genuineness and naturalness, but fully authentic texts may be too complex and challenging for many learners and for teachers as well Therefore, simplified reading texts prepared by the teacher are really essential in the foreign language classroom

+ Cultural dimension should be paid attention Language teaching should not

be separated from culture teaching

Thirdly, in relation to exploitability, three strategies in teaching reading texts are pre-, while-, post-reading ones:

understandings about a text before they actually begin reading it Prediction is one main type of strategy in this category

Activities at while-reading stage help learners develop some techniques such as scanning, skimming; develop comprehension for the reading text content; use their own inferring and judging abilities, make use of cross-cultural elements, develop their linguistic and sociolinguistic knowledge

applications

3.2 Participants

3.2.1 Students

Table 3.1 : The summary of the detailed outlines applied for teaching

English non-major students general English

From 11 to 14 (45 periods)

It took English non-major students of K14 three semesters to learn “English 1”,

“English 2”, English 3” according to the detailed outlines applied at Kon Tum Teachers’ Training College (See the table above) It means not until the first semester

in the academic year of 2010-2011 did they finish studying 14 units in New Headway Elementary Therefore, the survey on the students’ attitudes towards the reading texts started in January, 2011

In this study, 261 non-major English students of K14 were chosen as population Here are the details:

Table 3.2 : General information about gender and minority group of the respondents

of students

18-20 21-23 24-26 33.7

43%

23.3%

Figure 3.1: Age of the respondents

Below 5 From 5 to 6.5 From 7 to 8.5 From 9 to 10 34.1%

Learning English since the first year

at the college

Figure 3.3: How long have the students learned English?

As seen from Table 3.2, 261 questionnaires were distributed to 261 participants in the classroom after three semesters had ended, but just 258 responded ones were valid A total of 82.9% and 17.1% are female and male learners respectively, 25.6% were ethnic students Figure 3.1 shows that the majority of the subjects (90.9%) are between the age of 18 to 25 Figure 3.3 illustrates most of them (96%) have learned English since grade 6 at Secondary school while only 4% have studied English since the first year at the college

96%

4%