The effects of phrase reading on efl students’ reading comprehension at hoa binh junior high school

ABSTRACT Concerning the importance of reading comprehension and the potential use of phrase reading in language learning, the current study aimed at investigating 1 the effects of phrase

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL

-

LE THI THANH HOA

THE EFFECTS OF PHRASE READING

ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

AT HOA BINH JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Major: TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES Major code: 60140111

MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL

Supervisor: LE HOANG DUNG (PhD.)

Ho Chi Minh City, 2020

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that this thesis entitled “The Effects of Phrase Reading on EFL Students’

Reading Comprehension at Hoa Binh Junior High School” is my own work

Except where references is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which

I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

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

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

Ho Chi Minh, 2020

Le Thi Thanh Hoa

Secondly, huge thanks go to the teachers and students at Hoa Binh junior high school who have been so helpful and patient to me They are always willing to support me and give me great opportunity to conduct this research

Finally, my special thanks go to my family members who have supported me with everything so that I could concentrate on this thesis I would not have been able to complete this thesis without their continuous encouragement and unconditional support

Le Thi Thanh Hoa

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CG: Control Group

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

EG: Experimental Group

ESL: English as a Second Language

HBJHS: Hoa Binh Junior High School

SLA: Second Language Acquisition

SPSS: Statistical Package for Social Sciences

RCT: Reading Comprehension Test

ABSTRACT

Concerning the importance of reading comprehension and the potential use

of phrase reading in language learning, the current study aimed at investigating (1)

the effects of phrase reading on EFL students’ reading comprehension, (2) students’

attitude towards the use of phrase reading, and (3) the difficulties of using phrase

reading in the EFL classrooms There were 169 eighth-graders of Hoa Binh junior

high school involved in this study The overall findings indicated that phrase

reading strategy had positive effects on students’ reading comprehension Besides,

students had positive attitude towards the employment of phrase reading and

expressed their willingness to use phrase reading strategy for further learning Also,

the study discovered some critical challenges that students encountered when using

phrase reading strategy The findings have offered intriguing implications for the

employment of phrase reading strategy in secondary school in Vietnam and other

language learning contexts

Keywords: phrase reading, reading comprehension, attitude, challenges

TABLE OF CONTENT

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENT v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES viii

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION 1

1.1Background of the study 1

1.2 Statement of the problem 2

1.3 Aims of the study 3

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Scope of the study 4

1.7 Definitions of the key terms 4

1.8 Organization of the thesis 5

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Overview of reading comprehension 6

2.1.1 Definitions of reading 6

2.1.2 Concept of reading comprehension 8

2.1.3 Taxonomy of reading comprehension 9

2.2 Overview of phrase reading 11

2.2.1 Definitions of phrase reading 11

2.2.2 The benefits of phrase reading 11

2.2.3 Phrase reading instruction 13

2.3 Previous studies on the effects of phrase reading on reading comprehension 15 2.4 Research gap 23

2.5 Conceptual framework 25

2.6 Chapter summary 27

CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 28

3.1 Research design 28

3.1.1 Mixed-methods research design 28

3.1.2 Research hypotheses 29

3.2 Research site and participants 30

3.3 Research instruments 32

3.3.1 Reading comprehension tests 32

3.3.2 Questionnaire 35

3.3.3 Focus group interview 36

3.4 Research procedure 37

3.5 Pilot study 39

3.6 The experiment 42

3.7 Data analysis 46

3.8 Reliability and validity of the study 47

3.8.1 Reliability 47

3.8.2 Validity 48

3.9 Research ethics 49

3.10 Chapter summary 50

CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 51

4.1 Results and findings 51

4.1.1 Statistical analysis of the reading comprehension test results 51

4.1.2 Analysis of data from questionnaire 61

4.1.3 Analysis of data from interview 71

4.2 Discussion 77

4.2.1 Effects of phrase reading on students’ reading comprehension 77

4.2.2 Students’ attitude towards the implementation of phrase reading 81

4.2.3 Challenges of using phrase reading strategy encountered by the students 82

4.3 Chapter summary 85

CHAPTER 5 –SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 86

5.1 Summary of findings 86

5.2 Suggestions for teachers and students 87

5.2.1 Suggestions for teachers 87

5.2.2 Suggestions for students 88

5.3 Limitations of the study and recommendations for further studies 88

5.4 Chapter summary 90

REFERENCES 91

APPENDICES 98

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2 1 - Summary of previous studies on the effects of phrase reading on

reading comprehension 22

Table 3 1 - Description of the participants 31

Table 3 2 – Summary of RCTs’ descriptions 34

Table 3 3 - Description of participants in the pilot study 40

Table 3 4 - Description of reliability statistics of RCTs in the pilot study 41

Table 3 5 – A lesson plan model for the EG and CG 44

Table 3 6 - Description of reliability statistics of RCTs in the main study 48

Table 3 7 - Reliability statistics of the questionnaire 48

Table 4 1 – Summary of t-test result for the pre-test 51

Table 4 2 - Summary of t-test result of CG after the treatment 52

Table 4 3 - Summary of t-test result of EG after the treatment 53

Table 4 4 - Summary of t-test result of post-test 53

Table 4 5 - Summary of t-test result for delayed post-test of CG 54

Table 4 6 - Summary of t-test result for delayed post-test of EG 54

Table 4 7 - Summary of t-test result for two levels of comprehension scores before the treatment 55

Table 4 8 - Summary of t-test result for literal comprehension and inferential comprehension score of CG 56

Table 4 9 - Summary of t-test result for literal comprehension and inferential comprehension score of EG 57

Table 4 10 - Summary of t-test result for the pre-test and post-test of poor readers 58

Table 4 11 - Summary of t-test result for the pre-test and post-test of good readers 58

Table 4 12 - Summary of t-test result for literal comprehension and inferential

comprehension scores of good readers 59

Table 4 13 - Summary of t-test result for literal and inferential comprehension scores of poor readers 60

Table 4 14 - Students’ attitude towards PR strategy 62

Table 4 15 - Students’ attitude towards the benefits of PR 63

Table 4 16 - Participants’ attitude towards the instruction 65

Table 4 17 - Participants’ attitude towards the activities 67

Table 4 18 - Likelihood of further learning with PR strategy 69

Figure 1 – Elements of reading (adapted from Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, 2015, p 3) 7

Figure 2 - Components of reading comprehension (adapted from RAND Reading Study Group, 2002, p 11) 8

Figure 3 - Conceptual framework of the study 26

Figure 4 - Procedure of the study 38

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 describes the statement of the problem as well as the purposes of the present research The significance of the study and research questions will be also clarified in this chapter

1.1 Background of the study

Reading, together with writing, is one of the hallmark activities that differentiate humans from other kinds of animals (Wallot, Hollis, & Rooij, 2013) Indeed, reading is a fundamental element in today's society and in language learning In language learning, the significance of reading skills cannot be denied It

is widely acknowledge that the ability to read in L2 can be considered as one of the most important skills for students, especially in an international setting Among various aspects of language reading skills, reading comprehension has been one of the most important To emphasize the importance of comprehension, Katims (1997) and Duke and Pearson (2002) added that reading without comprehension is pointless or simply word barking Accordingly, there has been an increasing interest

in reading comprehension in recent years (Kaplan, 2002)

On the other hand, English is a foreign language for Vietnamese students It

is certainly not easy for students to comprehend English texts Moreover, it is reported that the average reading level of the eight graders at Hoa Binh junior high school is rather low (see Appendix 14 for detailed students’ reading scores) In particular, students’ ability of reading comprehension is limited Additionally, by observing the EFL classrooms at this school, it is recognized that most of the language teachers spend most of the time asking learners to look for words’ meanings and translating the reading texts word-by-word into Vietnamese Hence, there is a need to foster students’ reading comprehension at this site with the employment of alternative reading methods or strategies PR has not been employed

at this campus before and the students are at low-English-proficiency level; thus,

these reasons paved the way to conduct the current research using PR to enhance students’ reading comprehension at this school

1.2 Statement of the problem

A great amount of effort has been made with the purpose of fostering reading comprehension of language learners in their learning process It is acknowledged that phrase reading can facilitate reading comprehension Phrase reading (PR) is the

“process of organizing or clustering information into compact thought units, such as phrases or clause (Valentine & Franks, 1970, p 48) A good number of researchers have pointed out that PR has beneficial impact on learners’ reading comprehension (Anggraeni, 2015; Klella, 2017; Sekitani, 2017) Nonetheless, many studies have shown that no remarkable relationship between PR and reading comprehension development has been found (Komaba, 1992; Yamashita & Ichikawa, 2010; Yokono, 2016) It can be seen that there are inconsistent results across previous research investigating the influence of PR on language learners’ reading comprehension Moreover, there is a controversy over the effects of PR on good readers and poor readers’ comprehension Besides, it is shown that most of the previous studies in L2 context are conducted on adult and high English-proficiency-level students Additionally, the previous studies have not legibly determined which levels of comprehension are involved in the research As a result, there is a need to investigate the effects of PR on low-language-proficiency level students’ reading comprehension at primary or secondary schools

Overall, there is still a controversy over the influence of PR on learners’ reading comprehension development The impact of PR on low-language-proficiency-level learners at primary or secondary schools have not been sufficiently investigated, especially in L2 context Although students’ perception is one of the most essential factors that significantly influence the success of a strategy

or approach in language learning, most of the previous studies have not investigated learners’ perceptions of the implementation of PR in the EFL classrooms As a

result, there should be more studies that examine participants’ attitudes towards PR Furthermore, many studies have suggested that there should be new study examining the difficulties that the students may have when using PR in their EFL classrooms (Nishida, 2013; Yamashita & Ichikawa, 2010) However, few studies have fulfilled this purpose On the other hand, PR is not popular in Vietnam and few studies have been done with the aim of investigating the influence of PR in Vietnamese context (Le, 2014) Therefore, it is necessary to verify the influence of

PR on reading comprehension of low-language-level learners in Vietnam

1.3 Aims of the study

Based on the research gap that paved the way to for carrying out the current research, the current study was an attempt to investigate the effects of phrase reading on EFL students’ reading comprehension in terms of the reading comprehension test scores Furthermore, the research examined students’ attitude towards the use of phrase reading Also, the difficulties of using phrase reading in the EFL classrooms were identified The study was conducted in order to gain a deeper insight of the effect of phrase reading on reading comprehension improvement

2 What are students’ attitudes towards the use of phrase reading?

3 What are the difficulties of using phrase reading encountered by students in the EFL classrooms?

1.5 Significance of the study

The research was carried out in purpose of finding a way to develop students’ reading comprehension at HBJHS If the use of PR is proved to be effective, the teachers can use it as regular classroom instruction to support their teaching Also, this study was expected to raise the awareness of the role of reading comprehension and PR in language teaching and learning in this context It would also provide some useful implications for teaching and learning L2 reading Besides, the findings of the current research might be generalized to other secondary schools in Vietnam

1.6 Scope of the study

This study focused on the employment of phrase reading on young learners

in EFL reading classrooms at Hoa Binh junior high school Also, the study investigated the effects of phrase reading on students’ reading comprehension Besides, the study identified the students’ attitude towards the implementation of phrase reading and the difficulties of using this strategy encountered by students

1.7 Definitions of the key terms

Attitude - a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain phenomenon

Difficulty - problem or challenge that needs attention and needs to be dealt with

Reading - the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from them

Reading comprehension – the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language

Phrase reading – a strategy of reading by chunking and organizing individual words into meaningful word groups in order to foster fluency and comprehension

1.8 Organization of the thesis

This paper is organized into 5 chapters with an introduction to each chapter Chapter 1 consists of statement of the problem, aim of the research, research questions, and the significance of the study as well as organization of the thesis Chapter 2 focuses on the theoretical framework of PR, beginning with an overview

of reading comprehension and PR Next, there is a section which presents the review of previous research on the influence of PR on learners’ reading comprehension and research gap for conducting the current study Chapter 3 describes the research methodology involving the design of the study and the procedure for conducting the experiment The methodological procedures including the main points such as the information of participants, settings, sampling method, the research instruments, the treatment, data collection and methods of data analysis have been presented Data collected from students’ reading comprehension score, questionnaire and interview will be analyzed and discussed in chapter 4 The last chapter presents the conclusion of the paper founded on the findings and discussions in the preceding chapters Suggestions for further research, implications for teachers and students will be offered to assure the efficacy of using PR in EFL classes Lastly, some limitations of the study will be acknowledged in the final chapter

CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter first describes an overall picture of reading comprehension in language learning Then, the definitions and instructions of PR are also included Finally, the chapter reviews the previous research associated with the effect of PR

on reading comprehension and research gap for conducting the present study

2.1 Overview of reading comprehension

2.1.1 Definitions of reading

Reading is an essential element in society and in language learning now It is widely acknowledged that the ability to read in L2 can be seen as one of the most fundamental skills acquired by students, especially in an international setting First and foremost, it is crucial to obtain the definitions of reading Reading can be described as the act of extracting meaning from a reading text; however, this definition is insufficient Hence, various researchers have provided different definitions of reading Definitions of reading range from the descriptions of two main components of reading to various complicated definitions to capture the notion of reading A good number of contemporary definitions of reading concentrate on two fundamental elements of reading For instance, Ur (1996) maintains that reading means reading and understanding To illustrate her point, she gave an example that ‟a foreign language learner who says, ‘I read the words but I don’t know what they mean’ is not, therefore, reading in this sense” (p.138) In this case, the learner was simply decoding and transferring letter patterns into equivalent sounds In harmony with Ur’s point of view, Oakhill, Cain and Elbro (2015) clarify these two major elements of reading, including word decoding and language comprehension

Decoding is capacity of using knowledge of letter patterns to recognize and read the words Comprehension relates to the capacity of understanding at different levels including words, sentences, and texts Figure 1 demonstrates the relationship

of the two fundamental elements of reading If the reader lacks either of the components, s/he cannot read This definition emphasizes the importance of two essential components of reading, namely word decoding and comprehension and the interdependent relationship between these two aspects On the other hands, Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko and Hurwitz (1999) provide a more detailed definition of reading by asserting that reading is a “complex process of problem solving in which the reader works to make sense of the text not just from the words and sentences in the page but also from the ideas, memories and knowledge evoked

by those words and sentences” (p 38) It can be seen that reading comprehension is not just an effortless process but it involves the reader’s manipulation of diverse cognitive abilities Furthermore, Pang, Muaka, Bernhardt and Kamil (2003) define reading as a complex activity in which the reader communicates with the author Indeed, reading does not only mean to lift the words off the page but it is a means of interpreting meaning

On the basis of the definitions given by the researchers and authors mentioned above, reading can be described as a complex process of problem

Figure 1 – Elements of reading (adapted from Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, 2015, p 3)

solving in which the reader decodes and understands the written texts This definition serves as a foundation for further discussion of the current study

2.1.2 Concept of reading comprehension

Reading comprehension is a fundamental aspect in reading and language learning Over the years, various researchers have offered different definitions of reading comprehension; however, full consensus on the definition of reading comprehension continues to elude those who examine it RAND Reading Study Group (2002) maintained that reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (p.11)

The two words ‘extracting’ and ‘constructing’ were used to highlight the significance and inadequacy of the text as a decisive factor of reading comprehension As such, comprehension includes three components: (1) the learner (i.e reader), (2) the reading text, and (3) the activity of comprehending Similarly, Pang et al (2003) have described reading comprehension as the activity of obtaining meaning of the reading text which involves reader’s ability to decode and mental processing This definition illuminates the essence of comprehension which requires the learner to actively engage with the texts to establish the meaning of the text by using their prior knowledge and making inferences from the texts

Figure 2 - Components of reading comprehension (adapted from RAND Reading Study

Group, 2002, p 11)

According to Brassell and Rasinski (2008) the term ‘comprehend’ originates from the Latin word ‘prehendere’ which means ‘to grasp’ It means that reading

comprehension is a dynamic activity in which meaning cannot “magically” appears once the reader reads the words in the text More specifically, the readers need to actively engage with the texts and transform the information by using their own mental processes in order to comprehend what they have read beyond narrating the facts of the written text Therefore, reading comprehension can be defined as “the ability to take information from written text and do something with it in a way that demonstrates knowledge or understanding of that information” (Brassell & Rasinski, 2008, p 18)

In brief, reading comprehension is an active process of interacting with the text to comprehend or construct meaning from the text and to integrate it with readers’ background knowledge As such, the researcher used this definition as the operational definition of the current research

2.1.3 Taxonomy of reading comprehension

To assist the teachers in developing students’ reading comprehension and in designing RCT, different levels of reading comprehension are classified according

to the degree of complexity Brassell and Rasinski (2008) listed three-level taxonomy of reading comprehension which was originally proposed by Thomas Barrett as follows,

Literal comprehension is the starting point for understanding of what is

being communicated encompassing the comprehension of the details directly presented in the texts As the lowest of the three levels, literal comprehension relates to the recognition and understanding of words in the text which involves students’ ability to recall or locate the details of the texts such as names of characters and detail of the setting

Inferential comprehension is the next level of comprehension which

requires the learner to understand the information implicitly stated within a text.Inferential comprehension is more complicated than literal comprehension since it involves organizing the information of the reading texts and their background knowledge Inferential comprehension pertains making inferences about things implicitly stated such as main idea of the text, writer’s purpose, author’s attitude or the tone of the passage

Critical or evaluative comprehension is the last level in the taxonomy

which demands evaluating and judging the ideas embedded in the texts For

instance, the questions used to assess evaluative comprehension are Do you agree

or disagree with these messages? How did this text make you feel? Do you agree with the character’s behavior in a particular situation? What would you change about the text if you were the author? Responses to critical-level questions demand

in-depth analysis and critical thinking Hence, answers to these questions are highly dependent on many aspects of the readers such as their background, level, interest and disposition

All three levels of comprehension are crucial and should to be developed Nonetheless, an emphasis on literal comprehension and inferential comprehension

is appropriate for elementary English proficiency level students Critical comprehension would be expected to find in higher level EFL classrooms Accordingly, the current study delved into a deeper investigation into the influence

of PR on reading comprehension by deliberating two levels of reading comprehension namely literal comprehension and inferential comprehension The review above provides the foundation for designing the conceptual framework, RCTs and further discussion of the study

2.2 Overview of phrase reading

2.2.1 Definitions of phrase reading

Over the years, various researchers have offered different reading strategies for the development of students’ reading comprehension Anderson (1991) describes reading strategies as cognitive steps that allow the learners to obtain, store and recall information Among various reading strategies, phrase reading (PR), also known as chunk reading, has raised a great amount of interest among the researchers in the world PR, in the most basic sense, is the act of segmenting words into meaningful units while reading In other words, PR is the “process of organizing or clustering information into compact thought units, such as phrases or clause (Valentine & Franks, 1970, p 48) Similarly, Casteel (1988) deduced that chunking or phrasing is the act of segmenting and organizing individual words into meaningful units which typically arrange from three to five words To provide a more detailed definition, Henk (1986, as cited in Nichols, Rupley, & Rasinski,

2009, p 7) defines PR as an “excellent strategy for promoting students’ ability to read in syntactically appropriate and meaningful idea units or phrases, in order to understand what they read, and to increase automaticity in word recognition and enhanced comprehension” Furthermore, Dechant (1991) argues that PR is a process which involves lexical access, semantic encoding, assembly of propositions, chunking, microselection, and integration of propositions

In short, PR is a strategy of breaking down and organizing a text into different but related thought groups or meaningful units, such as phrases or clauses, then reading these parts phrase-by-phrase This definition will be applied as the main definition for the current study

2.2.2 The benefits of phrase reading

PR is proved to be a fruitful way for enhancing reading comprehension due

to various reasons

In the first place, PR increases learner’s capability of extracting information from the context despite constant cognitive restraint Miller (1956) asserts that “the span of absolute judgment and the span of immediate memory impose severe limitations on the amount of information that we are able to receive, process, and remember” (p 95) By concurrently arranging the stimulus input into a chain of chunks, learners are able to overcome this informational obstruction

Secondly, PR process contributes to avoid word-by-word reading which may cause lack of comprehension Cromer (1970) asserts that reading in word-by-word fashion which is often favored by poor readers, dismisses readers the chance of getting the meaning conveyed in the texts Reading a text in individual word manner, learners probably forget the beginning of a sentence before they get to the end (Casteel, 1988) If the learners concentrate on individual units, they probably fail to get larger meaning of the passage or sentence Moreover, it is found that good readers tend to process information in syntactic-chunking manner; meanwhile poor readers are rather dependent on individual words (Clay & Imlach, 1971) Hence, reading a text in meaningful phrases enables learners to get the gist of the text or sentence instead of processing the meanings of separate units

Thirdly, PR promotes the brain to enhance the channel capacity of short term memory Miller (1956) depicts that learners can store more information if they segment or connect some pieces of information Indeed, human mind cannot consistently keep in short-term memory more than approximately four to seven separate words Thus, learners should expand short-term memory for elements with low-information-content by mentally “recoding” them into a smaller number of high-information-content elements

Furthermore, PR facilitates information building-up in long-term memory Casteel (1988) emphasizes that chunking words into phrases allows learners to transmit information from short-term memory (where information is initially obtained) to long-term memory (where comprehension is achieved) The notion of

chunking makes clear why experts can memorize greater amount of information than novices despite the limit of short-term memory capacity Therefore, good reader can store more information by chunking the information into meaningful pieces that have been built up in long-term memory instead of storing individually unit in short-term memory

Last but not least, PR may minimize the overload of information According

to Sweller (1988), the amount of information and interactions which are processed concurrently can either excess the restricted size of learner’s memory If overloaded, all of the items of information must be managed in advance so that meaningful learning can carry on In other words, the more a person studies in a short duration of time, the more challenging it is to process the information Learner’s working memory may not be overloaded if the information is segmented into different chunks or rather than as a whole continuous lesson (Mayer & Moreno, 2010) Thus, reading in meaningful phrases can diminish the information excess

In short, chunk or PR is among the potential ideas for language teaching and learning Thus, more studies should be carried out to gain a deeper insight of the effectiveness of PR in boosting reading comprehension

2.2.3 Phrase reading instruction

Nichols, Rupley and Rasinski (2009) have suggested the essential procedures for the implementation of PR First of all, teacher selects the texts which are appropriate for students’ level Secondly, teacher asks the learners to read the text aloud and records Thirdly, teacher reads the texts in two ways of word-by-word and phrased manner Next, teacher segments the first two sentences or paragraph into phrases by using lines or typing in a vertical column Then students phrase the rest of the reading text and follow teacher’s explanation of how to segment the sentences After that students read the text aloud with appropriate pauses to mark the phrase boundaries and the teacher provides feedback or model reading if necessary Later the teacher records the final reading and compares with the

recordings in the first lesson Finally, the teacher discusses with the student the advantages of PR comparing with word-by-word reading

In addition to the basic step of PR program mentioned above, Rasinski, Yildirim and Nageldinger (2011) propose a two-day-phrased-text lesson which provides direct instruction for PR In day 1, teacher provides students with a relatively short passage which should be appropriate for oral reading The teacher will determine phrase boundaries of the texts Next, the teacher will deliver the segmented text to students and explain the significance of phrasing to learners In the second day, the teacher will deliver the same reading text without phrasing for students Then the teacher will conduct the similar practice as in Day 1 Without model segmented text, learners will have to use what they have learnt from Day 1 to phrase the conventional text When learners become more capable of recognizing how chunks convey meaning, they can segment other texts independently Besides, learners must acknowledge how the meaning of the text is conveyed through separate phrases

On the other hand, guidelines for chunking the texts are based on the criteria summarized by O'Shea and Sindelar (1983) as follows In simple sentences, subject and predicate are segmented and the object is also split off from the predicate Phrases which are primarily prepositional will be separated Short noun modifiers are connected with the noun Short verb modifiers are attached with the verb Short clauses are separated Long clauses can be chunked into units In terms of sentence

in a dialogue, subject and verb at the end of that sentence are not divided

Contractions including subject and verb such as we’re, you’ll, etc are not

segmented These guidelines for chunking the texts were applied in the treatment of the current study and many other temporary studies as they were straightforward, practical and suitable for the experimental participants

The basic steps and instruction of PR lesson mentioned above were used as the guideline for designing the lesson plans used in the treatment for experimental students of the current study

2.3 Previous studies on the effects of phrase reading on reading comprehension

It is widely believed that the employment of PR can enhance learners’ reading comprehension Therefore, various researchers have carried out investigation to study the influence of PR on students’ reading comprehension

2.3.1 Studies done in first language context

Recognizing that impacts of segmentation had not been systematically studied, Coleman and Kim (1961) used untrained undergraduates from Johns Hopkins university in order to compare the effects of segmented texts in five types

of presentation, including vertical, square span, one phrase in each line, spaced and normal (i.e without phrasing) In terms of reading comprehension scores, vertical, spaced, and square span styles showed significant influence on learners The tachistoscope series reflected that new arrangements had many benefits; however, participants should be trained to read these styles before the advantages were accurately examined

Studying the function of PR program, Amble and Kelly (1970) conducted research by presenting segmented passages with slashes to the elementary learners The investigation found that PR program developed reading comprehension ability

of young learners who had reading difficulties

To examine the discrepancy in parsing ability between children and adult learners and the impact of pre-chunked texts on reading comprehension, Mason and Kendall (1979) conducted two experiments In the first experiment, it was depicted that young learners had difficulties of chunking the sentences into meaningful units Furthermore, the finding of second experiment revealed that shortening or segmenting sentences increased low-ability readers’ reading comprehension scores while good readers showed no improvement

In the same vein, O'Shea and Sindelar (1983) studied the influence of phrasing texts into units to increase students’ understanding of the reading texts The researchers argued that segmenting texts provided the opportunity to develop both good and poor readers’ performance Nonetheless, the study used the same criteria to identify high- and low-ability readers at each grade level Thus, this study would have been more persuasive if different criteria had been employed to distinguish those learners

To investigate the efficacy of using chunking in boosting students’ comprehension, Brozo, Schmelzer and Spires (1983) conducted two successive studies on good readers who achieved above 50% in the reading comprehension pre-test Due to the problem of inefficient selection of items in the reading comprehension tests, the first study showed no difference between two groups As a result, Brozo, Schmelzer and Spires conducted another study on 58 good readers with the same procedures but with more thorough selection of test items The results inferred that good readers notably enhanced their reading comprehension test score after the treatment Thus, their studies contribute to verify the efficacy of phrasing

on good readers’ reading comprehension achievement

As Amble and Butler (1967) proposed that PR related to presented program could be beneficial for slow readers, Gerrell and Mason (1983) investigated the effectiveness of computer-displayed chunked texts on learners’ reading comprehension achievement The findings implied that learners understood computer-displayed chunked texts better than conventional texts However, there was also an indication that chunked texts displayed on the screen appeared to be as comprehensible as on the printed page

technologically-By exploring the impact of chunking on disadvantaged learners, Negin (1987) illuminated that segmenting remarkably advanced the understanding of narrative and expository texts Importantly, this research provided some advantageous implications for further employment of PR Firstly, chunks were

tactfully segmented by vertical lines in standard typography which appeared to be more practical than other types of text presenting such as spaced units and square span Secondly, segmentation can be effectively employed with various instructional materials In addition, it is suggested from the study of Negin (1987) that teacher should present the key vocabulary in chunks, organize and prepare phrased texts, give time for learners to phrase the texts before reading and cue learners to mentally recognize phrases while reading

Casteel (1990) conducted research to examine whether chunked texts would remarkably assist 50 eighth-grade students in reading comprehension It was pointed out from the study that the low-ability readers’ notably enhanced reading comprehension by using phrased materials However, chunked texts had no positive influence on high-ability readers This means that segmented texts are more beneficial to the poor readers than the good counterparts Although the study the show efficacy of PR, it is hard to affirm that the learners in this research employed reading in phrases when taking the reading comprehension test

Nevertheless, there were other studies have reported that chunked texts have little or no positive effects on students’ reading comprehension By way of example, Hartley and Burnhill (1971) conducted three separate experiments in different settings of unjustified texts It is reported from the study that students’ reading comprehension scores unremarkable improved after the experiments In other words, chunked texts did not influence learners’ reading comprehension In spite of the positive results of previous studies discussed above, other studies did not found the efficacy of PR on students’ comprehension As an illustration, Taylor, Wade and Yekovich (1985) carried out research on 45 fifth grade students in different conditions They confirmed that the phrased texts do not have positive impact on both high and low students’ reading comprehension even when the participants have been given practice with phrased texts in advance The reason why PR failed

to improve reading comprehension in this study remained unclear However, it was deduced from this study that phrasing assist learner in reducing the number of

miscues such as substitutions, omissions, and insertions committed by all readers during reading The findings of this study are supported by Tzeng (1985) and Komaba (1992)

In brief, there is an inconsistency in the findings of preceding research on the influence of PR on learners’ reading comprehension While many studies found the effectiveness of PR, other studies have shown the opposite results Also, it is suggested from these research that the influence of PR instruction on students’ understanding of the reading texts needs to be examined in light of the intricate relationship between text complexity and various aspects of reading

2.3.2 Studies done in second language context

Since PR has been widely implemented and investigated in L1 context, many studies have been carried out for the purpose of examining the impact of PR in L2 context However, PR is reported to have negative influence on learners’ reading process By employing a self-paced reading task in a moving-window condition, Yamashita and Ichikawa (2010) asserted that the difficulty in segmenting the text could become reading obstacles for poor readers The difficulties of chunking a text negatively influenced reading comprehension and smoothness for the intermediate students Although the negative impacts of chunking difficulty were reported, the positive effects of chunk reading were not legibly found Also studying the effect of the chunk-based reading on reading, Yokono (2016) could not prove the efficacy of chunk-based reading on reading comprehension Possibly, if the participants had given more training in how to chunk the texts or sentences into phrases and longer period of time spent for practicing this strategy, their comprehension would have progressed Nonetheless, the study provides some implications for further study For example, the researcher should control the absence of participants which may lower the validity of the study Also, the participants should have the opportunity to compare two teaching methods: chunk-based reading and reading without it

On the other hand, it is asserted that PR can facilitate L2 learners’ reading comprehension Starting with Kıroğlu and Demirel (2012), their research was conducted in the interest of identifying the effects of chunking strategy on text comprehending of university students It was reported that chunking produced no positive impact on good readers’ reading comprehension Meanwhile, poor readers notably improved their reading comprehension achievement Nonetheless, the conclusions would have been more convincing if this study had carried out on bigger size of samples Therefore, further research is suggested to check and confirm the efficacy of chunk reading

Another researcher, Nishida (2013) contributed to identify the effectiveness

of chunk reading on students’ understanding of the reading texts by doing a study with 122 EFL university students in Japan It was found that chunking errors downturned when learners were given more lectures on segmenting the texts and syntactic knowledge Nevertheless, the improvement on reading comprehension was not closely dependent on the decline in phrasing errors It was also reported from the study that comprehension was mainly influenced by the acquisition of syntactic structure Although the study was logically and effectively conducted with clear teaching procedure and critical analysis, the small number of participants in this research made it hard to generalize the results At the same time, it is suggested from the study that PR is beneficial to students once they have sufficient knowledge

of syntactic structures

In Vietnam, Le (2014) carried out research to identify the efficacy of PR on EFL nineteen to twenty-two-year-old intermediate students’ reading fluency and comprehension PR instruction was given to the experimental learners whereas no special treatment was given to the control ones It was suggested from the findings that those students who used PR strategy showed higher level of reading rate and comprehension than the control counterparts

In the same vein, Anggraeni (2015) conducts a research to investigate the effectiveness of chunking on comprehending narrative text This study successfully resolved learners’ problems in understanding the texts by employing chunking strategy Furthermore, it is suggested from this study that chunking strategy is a fruitful strategy for developing reading comprehension due to the fact that this strategy helps learners memorize and comprehend the information easily Additionally, chunking strategy can facilitate learner to avoid some reading difficulties such as limited knowledge of vocabulary and misapprehending of word meaning However, there were only 6 meetings of PR in this study Thus, it would have been more persuasive if the treatment had lasted for longer period of time

Setiasih (2015) conducted research on the employment of chunking, elaborating, and mapping strategies in teaching reading for 60 university students

It was asserted from the findings that the use of these strategies could assist EFL students in comprehending expository texts However, this study used a range of strategies, thus, the effects of chunking alone was not clear

Recognizing that the majority of previous research accounted for the influence of PR mainly on students, Klella (2017) carried new study with an attempt

to scrutinize the efficacy of using chunking technique in improving teaching and learning EFL reading comprehension of both teachers and students in a university

of Lybia The results indicated that chunking was proved to be an effective technique which enhanced students’ reading comprehension in all its level by using the chunking habit In addition, the teachers in this study had a desire to apply PR in their teaching Nonetheless, the researcher did not describe any obstacle of using chunking technique during the course Also, the limited size of subjects reduced the generalization of the study

Most recently, Sekitani (2017) investigated whether prior experience of using PR was associated with students’ reading comprehension at a high school in Japan The findings revealed that the participants who had prior experience of

chunked reading outperformed the inexperienced counterparts in the RCT without the help of chunking cues On the other hand, the experienced students’ RCT scores with the help of chunking cues did not differ from those of inexperienced ones This paper provides some fruitful implications for further use of PR First of all, PR facilitates learners’ tentative comprehension However, the improvement can be stable if learners receive a long period of time spent for training chunk reading Secondly, if students have been trained with chunked reading as a strategy, they are likely to get the meanings of passages more easily in normal reading than those who have not

The findings of previous studies on the effects of PR on reading comprehension are summed up in Table 2.1

Table 2 1 - Summary of previous studies on the effects of phrase reading on reading

comprehension

L1 context Coleman & Kim (1961); O'Shea &

Sindelar (1983); Gerrall & Mason

low-Hartley & Burnhill (1971); Taylor,

Wade & Yekovich (1985); Tzeng

(1985); Komaba (1992)

Phrased texts do not have positive impact on both high and low students’ reading

comprehension

Amble & Kelly (1970); Brozo,

Schmelzer & Spires (1983)

PR develops students’ reading comprehension

L2 context Nishida (2013); Le (2014); Anggraeni

(2015); Setiasih (2015); Klella (2017);

Sekitani (2017)

PR facilitates learners’ reading comprehension

Kıroğlu & Demirel (2012)

Chunking shows positive impact on poor readers while had no influence on good readers

comprehension

Yamashita & Ichikawa (2010)

The difficulties of chunking a text negatively influence reading comprehension and smoothness for the intermediate

students

Overall, there is still a controversy over the influence of PR on learners’ ability of understanding the reading texts The studies of Amble & Kelly (1970); Anggraeni (2015); Klella (2017); Le (2014); and Sekitani (2017) have proved the efficacy of PR on students’ reading comprehension Nonetheless, other studies of Komaba (1992); Yamashita & Ichikawa (2010) and Yokono (2016) have showed the opposite results Also, the findings of previous studies comparing high and low ability readers are still inconsistent Moreover, the effects of PR on low-English-proficiency-level students, especially in L2 context, have not been sufficiently investigated On the other hand, it is showed that most of the studies in L1 context used phrased texts in testing while in L2 context phrased texts are used as the learning texts Besides, the previous studies on PR have not examined other aspects such as students’ attitude and difficulty Additionally, these studies have not specified which level of comprehension that has been examined In conclusion, these research gap deduced from the previous research provides advantageous ideas

to carry out the current research

2.4 Research gap

In spite of the fact that the previous studies have provided fruitful implications for teaching and learning reading, there are some insufficiencies that should be pointed out Firstly, the majority of contemporary research in L2 context was conducted on adult students at university, college and high school level Due to the fact that students’ age is closely associated with their SLA, there should be further studies that conduct on younger learners such as middle school or primary learners Moreover, the effects of PR on low-English-proficiency-level students have not been sufficiently investigated Thus, there is a need to conduct more studies to clarify the impact of PR on low-ability EFL students’ comprehension at middle or primary school

Second, previous studies indicate that the chunking cues should be used in the learning texts rather than in the reading comprehension tests In daily-life and

learning situation, students are rarely provided with readily phrased texts Thus, students should be trained to mark the phrase boundaries by themselves Gradually, learners will be able to phrase the texts mentally Hence, phrased texts should be used as complement for training PR strategy

Thirdly, the participants should be given a lot of training in how to chunk the texts or sentences into phrases and time to try out this strategy of reading during and after school time The reading texts have fewer supra-segmental cues to assist learners in segmenting the texts; hence, students are needed learn to make up for the lack of prosodic cues to break down the texts Therefore, the leaners should be provided with instruction and training in how to chunk the texts or sentences into phrases

Moreover, the previous studies have not provided a satisfactory answer to which level of comprehension that has been examined Hence, new studies on reading comprehension should legibly determine the level of comprehension such

as literal comprehension or inferential comprehension or critical comprehension

Although students’ perception is one of the most crucial elements that significantly influence the result of a strategy or approach in language learning, most of the studies have not investigated participants’ attitudes towards the employment of PR in their classrooms Further, some studies have recommended that there should be new study examining the difficulties that students may encounter when using PR in their EFL classrooms (Nishida, 2013; Yamashita & Ichikawa, 2010) Nonetheless, few studies have fulfilled this purpose As a result, there should be more studies that examine learners’ perceptions and difficulty of using PR Further, the previous studies showed inconsistent results on good readers and poor readers’ comprehension achievement Hence, new research should be done

to clarify the influence of PR on good and poor readers’ comprehension

The research gap deduced from the previous research provides fruitful suggestions to the current study Thus, this research aimed at filling the gap

discussed above as well as contributing to the studies on reading comprehension Particularly, this research was conducted on low English level students at junior high school students in Vietnam Moreover, phrased texts were used for learning rather than for testing In addition, learners were given a great amount of time for training and practicing using PR The current study examined two levels of reading comprehension including literal comprehension and inferential comprehension with

a strong focus on literal comprehension Also, influence of PR on good and poor readers’ comprehension was thoroughly examined Further, students’ attitude and difficulty were also taken into account

2.5 Conceptual framework

In order to diminish any possible matter that was prone to occur, the conceptual framework was thoroughly designed to provide the orientation and impetus to fulfill the purposes of the study First of all, a good number of researchers hold a consensus that PR is a potential idea for enhancing reading comprehension The work on PR was successfully developed by Amble and his colleagues in the 1970s The succeeded studies, especially of Brozo, Schmelzer and Spires (1983); Nishida (2013) and Sekitani (2017), continue to prove the efficacy of the PR Nonetheless, these studies have not specified the levels of reading comprehension Hence, this gap paved the way to conduct the present study Among different levels of comprehension discussed in the previous section, literal comprehension and inferential comprehension are two fundamental components of reading comprehension which is expected to find in elementary English proficiency level students’ classrooms Accordingly, the current study delved into a deeper investigation into the influence of PR on reading comprehension by deliberating two levels of reading comprehension namely literal comprehension and inferential comprehension

Literal comprehension is the starting point for understanding what is being communicated encompassing the comprehension of the information explicitly expressed from the texts Conversely, inferential comprehension pertains making inferences about things implicitly stated such as writer’s purpose, or the main idea

of the passage These two levels of comprehension are the basic elements for the growth of reading comprehension In other words, the improvement on these two levels of comprehension leads to the enhancement of the overall reading comprehension achievement As such, the study initially conducted an investigation into influence of PR on students’ overall comprehension Then each level of reading comprehension was examined separately

Further, the influence of PR on good readers’ and poor readers’ literal comprehension and inferential comprehension was taken into account Various writers have suggested different terms used for distinguishing kinds of readers such

as successful and unsuccessful, high-ability and low-ability, fluent and non-fluent, etc Although these terms had been applied interchangeably, the current study used

a more holistic pair of good and poor readers which provided the opportunities for covering different attributes of the reading comprehension The terms good readers and poor readers did not relate to readers’ disadvantaged aspects such as dyslexics Poor readers in this study referred to normal students comparing with other normal counterparts in terms of level of reading proficiency Hence, the discrimination was based on their RCT achievement (see section 4.1.1) In short, the influence of PR on

Phrase reading

Literal comprehension

Inferential comprehension

Reading comprehension

good readers’ and poor readers’ literal comprehension and inferential comprehension was further investigated for clarifying the effects of PR strategy

In conclusion, the previous review has provided a brief outline of the pertinent theoretical aspects On the theoretical grounds provided, the procedures designed for the present study stringently followed this conceptual framework to achieve the aims of the current research

2.6 Chapter summary

Overall, chapter 2 has reviewed an overview of reading comprehension in language learning Moreover, a summary of PR and its merits have been presented Previous studies related to PR have been reviewed and compared These studies have strengthened the efficacy of PR In the next part, the research methodology will be clarified

CHAPTER 3 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In chapter 2, the researcher reviewed the theoretical foundations regarding to the use of PR in reading class The review of related literature served as a guide to establish the methodological focus in this chapter The current chapter provides the methodology including the research design, research settings, participants, research instruments, method of data collection and how to analyze the data

3.1 Research design

This section of the paper presents the framework of methods and techniques chosen by the researcher for conducting the study It will provide an insight into the design of the study namely mixed-methods research design Hence, this part includes a description of mixed-methods research design and the reasons for choosing this kind of research The sampling method and research hypotheses of the research are also discussed

3.1.1 Mixed-methods research design

A research design refers to “a blueprint for conducting a study” (Burns & Grove, 2003, p 195) in order to answer the research question or testing the research hypothesis (Pilot, Beck, & Hungler, 2001, p 167) The design of the current study was mixed-methods design Mixed-methods research refers to the combining both quantitative and qualitative methods in one study (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009) Mixed-methods research was chosen because it allowed the researcher to delve into the relationships between variables in depth (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009) Firstly, the study investigated the effects of phrase reading on EFL students’ reading comprehension by using reading comprehension tests Secondly, the study examined the attitude of learners towards the use of phrase reading in their language learning through the use of questionnaire Finally, the difficulties of using phrase reading were further identified via conducting focus group interview The data collected were be followed by both quantitative and qualitative analysis

Due to due to the fact that all of classes at HBJHS had been formed at the beginning of the school year 2018-2019, the present study used convenience sampling method Dörnyei (2007) describes convenience sampling method as a type

of nonprobability sampling in which the participants of the study will meet specific practical conditions such as geographical accessibility or willingness to take part in the research Convenience sampling method was chosen for this study because it was relatively affordable and easy to conduct Also, 169 students of four classes of the research site were readily available and pleased to get involved in the study Furthermore, the researcher asked 87 participants in the EG to respond to a questionnaire to obtain data for the second aim of the study Besides, 6 students of

EG participated in the focus group interview in order to answer research question 3 These six students were chosen as they volunteered to take part in the interview

3.1.2 Research hypotheses

The previous chapter has proved that PR is a potential idea for reading lesson Nonetheless, the research gap drawn from prior studies paved the way to conduct the research at HBJHS Based on the research questions of the current study, the hypotheses of the present study are as follows,

• Main hypotheses:

- H1: Experimental group (EG) would significantly enhance their English reading comprehension after the treatment

- H2: EG would have positive attitudes towards phrase reading

In relation to the research gap which paved the way for conducting the research and the conceptual framework of the study, the two primary hypotheses mentioned above led to 9 sub-hypotheses and 2 null hypotheses associated with the influence of PR on reading comprehension

• Sub-hypotheses:

- H1a: EG would surpass control group (CG) in the RCT after the treatment

- H1b: EG would improve their literal comprehension after the treatment

- H1c: EG would improve their inferential comprehension after the treatment

- H1d: Good readers of the EG would improve their reading comprehension after the treatment

- H1e: Poor readers of the EG would improve their reading comprehension after the treatment

- H1f: Good readers of the EG would improve their literal comprehension after the treatment

- H1g: Good readers of the EG will improve their inferential comprehension after the treatment

- H1h: Poor readers of the EG will improve their literal comprehension after the treatment

- H1i: Poor readers of the EG will improve their inferential comprehension after the treatment

• Null hypotheses:

- H0a: EG would not enhance their English reading comprehension after the treatment

- H0b: EG would have negative attitudes towards phrase reading

Accordingly, the researcher attempted to eliminate that employing PR did not assist learners in comprehension by gathering factual evidence from an experiment in their reading class The hypotheses mentioned above will be tested and readdressed in the next chapter of the study

3.2 Research site and participants

This research was done at HBJHS in Dong Nai province This is one of a public school with students ranging in age from 11-15 At the time of data collection, there were 32 classes being offered across 4 grade levels There were 8 classes in each grade, which had 38 to 45 learners in each class Learners at this school started to learn English from grade one Also, students have three periods per week spent for