An investigation into the reality of teaching and learning reeding for non english majors at thai nguyen teacherss training college submitted in fulfilment of requirement of degree of master in tesol

W ith an investigation o f the reality o f teaching and learning reading comprehension at Thai Nguyen Teachers’ Training College TNTTC, the purposes o f this research were: 1 to find out

OF REQ UIREM ENTS O F TH E DEGREE O F M ASTER IN TESOL

Supervisor: M A Pham T h i Hong Thuy

Ha Noi - June, 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s i v

A b s t r a c t V

L i s t o f t a b l e s v i

L ist o f fig u r e s vii

List o f abbreviations viii

C H A P T E R 1: IN T R O D U C T IO N 1

1Л BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1

1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 3

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE S T U D Y 3

\л. ORGANIZATION OF THE TH ESIS 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE R E V IE W 5

2 READING 5

2 1 1 D e f in it io n s o f R e a d in g 5

2.7.2 T h e t r a d it io n a l a n d in n o v a tiv e v ie w s o f te a c h in g r e a d in g 7

2.1 APPROACHES TO TEACHING READING 8

2.1 STAG ES O F A READING L E SSO N 1 1 2 3 1 T h e P r e - r e a d in g s t a g e 11

2 3 2 T h e W h ile - r e a d in g s t a g e 12

2.3.3 The P ost-reading stage 14

2 Հ IMPACTS O F A TTỈTUDES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING READING 15

2.: FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION 16

2 5 1 L e a r n in g s t r a t e g ie s 17

2 5 2 V o c a b u la r y 18

2 5 3 B a c k g r o u n d k n o w le d g e 19

2 5 4 M o t iv a t io n 20

2 x PREVIOUS STUDIES 20

2 / SUMMARY 22

T a b le o f c o n te n ts i

REFERENCES 69

A PPEN D IX 1: C L A SSR O O M O BSERVATION 1 7 7

A PPE N D IX 2: C L A SSR O O M O BSERVATION 2 81

A PPE N D IX 3: C L A SSR O O M O BSERVATION 3 8 3

A PPEN D IX 4: C L A SSR O O M OBSERVATION 4 8 9

A PPE N D IX 5: C L A SSR O O M O BSERVATION 5 9 2

A PPE N D IX 6: C L A SSR O O M O BSERVATION 6 9 5

APPENDIX 7A: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS AT T N T T C 9 8

APPENDIX 7B: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS AT T N T T C 1 0 0

APPENDIX 8A: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS AT T N T T C 1 0 2

APPENDIX 8B: QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS AT T N T T C 103

A PPE N D IX 9: Q U E ST IO N S FOR THE IN TER V IEW 1 0 4

A PPE N D IX 10: PR E V IE W IN G SHEET 1 0 5

A PPE N D IX 11 : PO ST -R E A D IN G S H E E T 1 0 6

A PPEN D IX 12: G R A PH IC O R G A N IZER S SPIDER M A P 1 0 7

A PPEN D IX 13: G A PH IC O R G A N IZ E R S 1 0 8

First o f a ll，I would like to express my deepest thanks to my thesis supervisor, Mrs Pham Thi Hong Thuy for the wholehearted guidance she gave me while I was doing this thesis Her insightful instructions, helpful comments, considerate assistance and valuable criticism as well as her kindly encouragement and correction help me a lot fo r the completion o f my dissertation

I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the Post-Graduate Department, especially D r Vu Van Dai, Mrs Nguyen Thai Ha, M r Nguyen Quoc

M inh, Mrs Dang Thi Lan for their help during the time o f studying and writing

m y thesis at Hanoi University

I wish to express m y appreciation and gratitude to all my colleagues and my students at Thai Nguyen teachers’ training college fo r their cooperation, kindness, enthusiasm

Finally, I would like to acknowledge my great gratitude to my fam ily for their priceless support and assistance and encouragement during my implementation

o f the study, w ithout which I could not complete this dissertation

W ith an investigation o f the reality o f teaching and learning reading comprehension at Thai Nguyen Teachers’ Training College (TNTTC), the purposes o f this research were: 1) to find out how the teachers taught reading at TNTTC, 2) to survey the difficulties o f teachers and students encountered in teaching and learning reading and 3) to find out students，attitudes towards teachers’ methods o f teaching reading in English periods

The instruments used were the classroom observation, the semi-structured interviews, the questionnaires The researcher observed three classes to investigate how teachers taught reading comprehension at T N T T C and the frequency o f teachers’ activities in reading lessons Results indicated that most

o f teachers still used the traditional method in reading periods and the students had negative attitudes towards these teachers’ methods o f teaching The results o f the questionnaires also indicated that teachers faced many d ifficulties in teaching reading such as students’ lim ited linguistic and background knowledge，large classroom, students’ bad reading habit and low motivation; students were lack o f vocabulary，background knowledge and reading strategies For the lack o f necessary strategies fo r teaching and reading comprehension，it was more likely

to have poor reading comprehension results

Finally, after analyzing the results from the classroom observation，

questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, some suggestions to improve the quality o f teaching and learning reading comprehension at TN TT C have beenmade

LIST OF TABLES

T a b le 4 1 T h e r e s u lt o f h o w te a c h e r s d e liv e r e d th e r e a d in g le s s o n s 29

T a b le 4 Հ 1 e a c h e rs ’ a c tiv it ie s a t P r e - r e a d in g s ta g e 30

T a b le 4 3 T e a c h e rs ’ a c t iv it ie s a t W h ile - r e a d in g s ta g e 31

T a b le 4 4 T e a c h e rs ’ a c t iv it ie s a t P o s t- r e a d in g s t a g e 33

T a b le 4 5 S tu d e n ts ’ a ttitu d e s to w a r d s te a c h e rs ' a c tiv itie s a t P r e - r e a d in g s ta g e 37

T a b le 4 6 S tu d e n ts ， a ttitu d e s to w a rd s te a c h e rs, a c tiv itie s a t W h ile -re a d in g s ta g e 39

T a b le 4 7 S tu d e n ts ，a ttitu d e s to w a r d s te a c h e r s 1 a c tiv it ie s a t P o s t- r e a d in g stage 4 0 T a b le 4 8 S tu d e n ts ' d if f ic u lt ie s in le a r n in g r e a d in g 41

LIST OF FIGURES

F:gure 2.1 T h e T h r e e D e f in it io n s o f R e a d in g b v W e a v e r ( 1 9 9 4 )

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ESL : English as a Second Language

HUPS : Hanoi University o f People’s Security

L I : The first language

MAS : M ilitary Academy o f Science

TN TTC : ThaiNguyen Teachers’ Training College

C H A PTER 1: IN T R O D U C T IO N

1.1.Background to the study

Reading is one o f the 'most complex forms o f inform ation processing’ (Kolers, 1973，p 29) and is probably the 'most extensively researched’ language s k ill (Bachman, 2000，p X ) In the recent decades，theories and models o f reading have changed, from prim a rily receptive processes from text

to reader to interactive processes between the reader and the text (cf., Adams, 1990; Eskey and Grabe, 1988; Perfetti, 1985; Samuels, 1994; Stanovich, 1992; and Swaffar，1988) Approaches to teaching reading materials in a foreign language have attempted to reflect this development through recommendations o f interactive exercises and tasks

Based on what successful reading is, many reading specialists have come to agreement that reading lessons should fo llo w such a framework as: pre-, during-，and post-reading instruction (Barnett, 1989; Brown, 2001; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller，2001; Wallace, 1992) Barnett (1989) and Grabe and Stoller (2001) made a b rie f explanation about each type o f instruction Pre - reading instruction makes students interested in a text and predicts the content

o f it through accessing necessary inform ation or activating schema W hile- reading instruction helps students read strategically, m ainly focusing on decoding skills Post-reading instruction deepens students’ comprehension

in to the text It is also emphasized that the activities in this framework are not lim ited to reading "Reading is no longer isolated" (Eskey & Grabe, 1988，

P 2 3 1 ) As in real life, reading activities should be integrated w ith other skills

- speaking, listening, and especially w ritin g (Eskey & Grabe, 1988; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001) Accordingly, some o f the activities should help students to develop other skills beside the reading Such kind o f integration o f the four skills w ill enable students to use more varieties o f strategies more often, generating more interaction between the reader and the text

Teaching and learning reading comprehension have been identified by various researchers in both second and foreign language contexts (Barnett, 1989; Brown，

2001; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001; Wallace, 1992) However，little empirical research has been conducted to uncover the methods o f teaching reading comprehension used by Vietnamese teachers, especially by teachers at Thai Nguyen Teachers’ Training College (TNTTC) To address this gap, the present study investigates the reality o f teaching and learning reading at TNTTC

A t Thai Nguyen Teachers’ Training College, undergraduate students in the four faculties: Humanities, Sciences, Fine and Applied Arts and Music are required to take an English course in three terms in the first two years The aim o f this course

is to equip students the general English program, consisting o f four skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing In the first term o f the first year, the students learned English in 60 periods o f the New Headway Elementary After fifteen weeks, the students had a final test which consisted o f four parts: Vocabulary, Grammar and Reading comprehension and W riting The result o f the final test in the first term showed us a surprising number: 72 per cent o f all the students (115 students) got bad marks in the reading comprehension section

o f the English test, although they had good marks in the other parts o f the test This result made teachers worried and thoughtful The researcher tried to look into different aspects，trying to find out the reasons leading to this bad situation One o f the main reasons lies in the fact that the teachers often simply give students a text and require them to answer a series o f comprehension questions when they have finished reading the text The teachers do almost nothing to provide them w ith the skills or strategies needed to become efficient and independent readers For the lack o f necessary strategies fo r teaching reading comprehension，it is more lik e ly to have poor reading comprehension results.The researcher therefore intends to carry out some research in the reality o f teaching and learning reading comprehension fo r non-English m ajor first year students at TN TTC and basing on the findings to give some solutions to help

to increase the effectiveness o f teaching and learning reading comprehension

at college

1.2 Aim s o f the study

The purpose o f this study is to investigate the reality o f teaching and learning reading comprehension o f non-English major first year students at TNTTC Especially, it is aimed to answer the follow ing questions:

1 How do teachers actually deliver the reading lesson at TNTTC?

2 What difficulties do teachers and students encounter while teaching and learning reading comprehension?

3 What are students' attitudes towands teachers’ activities in a reading lesson?1.3 Significance o f the study

This study is significant fo r several reasons Firstly，investigating the reality o f teaching and learning reading comprehension helps the researcher to understand clearly how teachers taught reading and how students learned reading at TN TTC，

the difficulties the teachers and students experienced while teaching and learning reading and students9 preference towards the teachers’ methods o f teaching From this result，the study w ill make some important suggestions to improve the quality o f teaching and learning reading in the target college Moreover，these instructions are also hoped to help teachers o f English at TN TTC in their teaching careers

1.4 O rganization o f the thesis

The thesis consists o f five chapters Chapter I - Introduction, presents the background to the study, states the aims o f the study and lists the research questions that intend to guide the investigation The significance o f the study is also discussed Chapter II - Literature review provides theoretical basis fo r the study This chapter consists o f the definitions o f reading，approaches to teaching reading，the impacts o f attitudes on learning and teaching reading, the factors affecting reading comprehension as well as some studies related to the thesis issue Chapter 3，Methodology, focuses on the methods used to gather and analyze data First，the researcher addresses the setting o f the study Second, the researcher gives the research questions Then, the instruments for data collection,

the subjects o f this study and the procedure to carry out the study are described Chapter 4 Results and discussions, reports the results o f classroom observations, questionnaires and the semi-structured interview, and finally discusses the major findings Chapter 5, Recommendations and conclusion, provides suggestions for teaching and learning reading at TN TTC give limitations and directions for future research and make a final conclusion.

C H A P T E R 2 : L I T E R A T U R E R E V I E W

This chapter discusses the theory and research into the areas that are basic for this study The first section provides the definitions o f reading The second section discusses approaches to teaching reading The third section gives the impacts o f attitudes on learning and teaching reading The fourth sections concerns factors affecting students9 reading comprehension The chapter concludes with a review o f previous studies on the reality o f teaching and learning reading

2.1 Reading

2.1.1 D e fin itio n s o f R eading

According to Weaver (1994), the first definition o f reading is being able to pronounce the words Phonemic awareness is the ability to segment, delete, and combine speech sounds into abstract units W hile students w ill be able to hear phonemes, they may not be able to conceptualize them as units Phonemic awareness must be based upon a growing understanding o f the alphabetic

The third definition on reading as posited by Weaver (1994), supports theinteractive model o f reading In the interactive reading model, the reader interacts w ith the text The level o f depth o f text processing depends on the reader's background knowledge， language proficiency level, motivation, strategy used and culturally shaped beliefs about reading (Aebersold and Field, 1997) The ultim ate goal o f reading w ill be to enable the readers to understand what they have read Good comprehension readers have good vocabularies They are able to understand and describe words They use the word in the text to unravel its meaning They ask questions, predict and extract main ideas They are also facile in employing sentence structures

w ith in the text to enhance their comprehension Therefore, one can conclude that the three definitions o f reading by Weaver ( 1994) encompass three elements: the a b ility to recognize and pronounce words, the a b ility to extract meaning and to interact w ith the text The three definitions o f reading by Weaver (1994) are illustrated in the follow ing diagram:

L K A R K IN G T O

B R IN G

M E A N IN G T O A TEX T IN

For the purposes o f this study, reading can be defined as 'reading m e a n s

u n d e r s ta n d in g \ (Ur 1996，p 138) A foreign language learner who says, CI can read every words but I don’t know what they mean’ is not, therefore, reading，in this sense He or she is merely decoding-translating written symbols into corresponding sounds’

2.1.2 The tra d itio n a l an d in n ovative views o f teaching reading.

Reading has been “ viewed as a twofold phenomenon involving process (comprehending) and product (comprehension)” (Silberstein, 1987，P.30) In brief，

there are two main outlooks on reading The first, a product oriented approach to reading, assumes meaning exists in the text itself, and it is text-based factors that determine meaning In this view pre-reading activities rely mostly on clarifying the meaning o f difficult words or complex structures Whereas, for the second, process- oriented approach to reading, meaning is obtained through a successftil interaction between the reader and the text, and it is inside-the-head factors that play an important role in comprehension Accordingly, background knowledge w ill be o f primary importance for ESL readers, and schema-based pre- reading activities should be used for activating and constructing such background knowledge

In the traditional methodology, the teacher explains a text sentence by sentence，

analyzing the structure o f the sentence, elaborating on the language points (i.e.,

d ifficu lt words and idiomatic expressions) Then translation o f the sentence is followed, which is m ainly done by the teacher To sum up，the methodology is thoroughly based on grammar and translation and it is obvious that classes are totally teacher-centered

Follow ing is a typical procedure fo r a product oriented approach to reading (Silberstein, 1987，p 30): 1) the teacher presents new vocabulary，often at length; 2) the teacher reads the text aloud to the class (who has not yet seen it) S/he asks them what it is about; 3) the teacher reads it aloud again while the students fo llo w it in their books Then she may ask them one or two more questions; 4) Individual students read the text aloud (“ reading around the

class，，) and the teacher interrupts to correct pronunciation; 5) the students read the text silently and try to remember as much as they can fo r the questions the teacher may ask afterwards; 6) the teacher asks oral questions on the text and students answer orally.

It can be seen that none o f the above activities involved are what the learner needs Clearly, there is little here to help students become efficient readers Therefore, the question is that how to teach learners to read effectively

The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence o f classroom procedures that give practice in useful sub skills o f the reading and-comprehending process Jeremy

H armer sets out guidelines fo r this in the form o f a five-stage model (Harmer,

1983，P.151): 1) the teacher introduces the topic and explores the students’ previous knowledge o f it; 2) the teacher sets the tasks that the students w ill have

to perform during or after reading (The nature o f the task determines which specific sub skills o f reading are practiced.) ； 3) the students read silently and perform the task，e.g., answer the questions set beforehand; 4) the teacher gives feedback on the students’ performance o f the task (Stages 2 to 4 can be repeated); 5) the teacher gives follow -up tasks

Stage 2 ensures that the learners have a reason for reading-which they know, before they even begin to read, what they w ill have to get out o f the text This means that they read in a certain way, i.e., practice a particular sub skill o f reading The teacher (or materials writer) chooses tasks fo r the students to perform while they read，in light o f the type o f text, its organization, its content, the new language it contains and-most importantly -the reading styles that are appropriate fo r the act o f comprehending (W illiam s，1984，p.38) Classroom reading activities are designed to te a c h students the reading comprehension process, not just to te s t their ability to come up w ith the right product

2 2 A p p r o a c h e s t o t e a c h i n g r e a d in g

“ H ow do we read?” To this question, which seems simple but is really profound, many researchers have tried to find an answer A t present, there are three main models o f how reading occurs based on various reading theories

The first and oldest approach to the reading process is the bottom-up processing, which can be said to be a traditional view o f the reading process According to Eskey and Saville-Troike (as cited in Carrell, 1988a), it has existed since before reading research began to be recognized as an independent scholastic field This processing goes from the smaller units o f text to the larger units o f it (Carrell，

1988b; Frehan, 1999) After the readers recognize the letters and know what word the combinations o f these letters are, they extract its meaning from their lexicon Next，they construct the meaning o f a phrase or a clause by gathering the meaning

o f each word Finally，they build up the meaning for a sentence by assembling o f each phrase or clause In short, the meaning o f a sentence consists o f the combinations o f the smaller units o f the sentence In other words, meaning was considered to be burned in the text (Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983) What is emphasized in this processing, Segalowitz, Poulsen and Komoda (as cited in Anderson, 1999) described, is linguistic knowledge such as:

Word recognition and include visual recognition o f letter features, letter identification, the generation o f grapheme-phoneme correspondences, unitization o f orthographic redundancies such as regularities in letter sequences, the association o f words to words

to their semantic representations, possibly the identification of basic syntactic structures

within the portion o f the text currently being read, and with the generation o f prepositional units, (p.3)

It follows that good readers are regarded as those who have an extensive vocabulary and can analyze the sentences by making excellent use o f their grammatical knowledge w ith rapidity and efficiency Therefore, many researchers thought that problems o f reading comprehension were almost exclusively attributed to deficiency in linguistic knowledge or some decoding skill (Carrell，1988a) Some researchers such as Nicholson and Perfetti (as cited

in Hudson, 1998) wrote that reliance on the context instead o f using linguistic knowledge was viewed as poor readers’ strategy

The second type o f reading processing is top-down, which arose from psycholinguistics (Frehan，1999) The greatest difference between this processing and the bottom - up processing is that, according to Goodman (as cited in Carrell

& Eisterhold, 1983) ，readers do not use every piece o f on formation in the text That is to say, the readers select some parts o f text according to their current purpose and use them only so as to predict meaning and to confirm the predicted meanings by relating the readers own previously acquired knowledge (Carrell,

1988 a) Many researchers have insisted that “ the concepts which a reader brings

to a text are actually more important than text itself for comprehension，

(M ikulecky， 1990，p 4) Among those concepts that the readers use in the process o f comprehension, the knowledge about the content o f the text, rather than the knowledge o f the language o f the text, is emphasized As for linguistic knowledge, Segalowitz，Poulsen and Komoda (as cited in Anderson，1999) stated that focus is mainly put on “ higher-level” reading skills, such as “ integrating prepositional units across sentences, generating and updating a schema or representation o f the text as a whole, and integrating textual information with prior knowledge” (p.3)

The third and newest reading process is currentlv most accepted (Anderson, 1999) The process which comes from schema theory is called “ interactive processing” (Carrell，1988b; Chia，2001) Rumelhart (as cited in Carrell，1988b) defined is as “ a combination o f top - down and bortom-up processing，(p.101) Rumelhart (as cied in M ikulecky，1990) explained how these two types o f processing works as follows: In trying to comprehend a text, the reader is in the bottom-up mode when she “ relies prim arily on textual information” ，and she is in the top-down mode when she “ focuses prim arily on what is already known，(p.2)

M ikulecky (1990) and Chia (2001) insisted that both kinds o f processing are employed simultaneously complement one another，which means that what is important in the interactive processing is both “ second language proficiency and background knowledge about the topic fo r deficiencies w ith each other (as cited

in Anderson，1999) So good readers are those who have “ both decoding and interpretation skills，(Anderson, 1999，p 3) and, in Spiro’ s (as cited in Carrell，

1988b) words, “ constantly shift their mode o f processing, accommodating to the demands o f a particular text and a particular reading situation” (p 1 이 )

The notion that reading is the interactive process, which means a kind o f “ whole，

process because o f any other kind o f knowledge other than linguistic knowledge, w ill change the way for teachers to teach and the way for students to read English Reading English becomes a little more similar to reading native language

Interactive models o f reading describe what readers do in three basic stages o f the process: as they begin to read, while they are reading and after they have read Following is the process o f a reading lesson with three stages

2 3 S t a g e s o f a r e a d in g le s s o n

The process o f a reading lesson usually consists o f three stages: pre-reading (lead-in), while-reading (skimming and scanning) and post-reading (Brown, 1994) It is affirmed that the pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading stages are very important when teaching any reading text Each o f these stages has its own characteristics, although they are related to one another That is, the pre reading stage leads to the while-reading stage and finally to the post-reading one Going through all the three stages respectively, the reader gets a better understanding o f any text s/he has already tackled and ultimately becomes

r e s p o n s i b l e f o r h i s / h e r o w n l e a r n i n g

2.3.1 The P re-reading stage

According to W illiams (1984, p 37), the purposes o f Pre-reading are to introduce and arouse interest in the topic; to motivate learners by giving a reason forreading; to provide some language preparation for the text

Schema theory research provides strong evidence for the effectiveness o f pre- reading activities that include both providing the outline for reading the text and teaching cultural key concepts According to Chastain (1988)， pre-readingactivities motivate readers to read the text and when they are motivated-preparedfor the reading activity - they complete the activity better and w ith less effort and are eager to participate in the activity since they have gained confidence Lewin (1984) recommends that language teacher- like other course teachers - should encourage learners to evaluate what they read Pre-reading activities may help the

teacher to facilitate this I f the readers do not have sufficient background knowledge then the teacher should provide them with at least some background knowledge Activating readers’ prior knowledge o f a topic before they begin to read may help students，comprehension (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983; Grabe, 1991; Ur, 1996) U r also argues that tasks make the activity more interesting since the readers have a purpose in reading and also the reading teacher may see how well the text is understood w ith the help o f tasks given before and/or after reading.

Davies (2000, p 93) states some activities commonly used in pre-reading stage: guessing the topic o f the text from the headings, illustration etc ; brainstorming around a topic word on the board; predicting what the text w ill say; writing questions that may be answered by the text

In conclusion, the pre-reading stage helps to make the next stages o f reading more easily adaptable for the reader As the reader progresses along the necessary reading stages, more skills begin to develop Therefore, this stage is very important to orient students to any new material they do not know, to activate schema for previous knowledge o f a topic, and to help motivate students Also, without the pre-reading stage, the task (while reading) might be more

d ifficu lt and progressively less enjoyable As a result, the reader may struggle and may withdraw from reading

2.3.2 The W hile-reading stage

W illiam (1984，P.38) states the purposes o f while-reading as follows: to help students’ understanding o f the w riter’ s purpose; to help students’ understanding

o f the text structure; to clarify text content

The reading or the while-reading stage could be approached in different ways For example，Richards sees reading “ as an integration o f top-down processes that utilize background knowledge and schema, as well as bottom up processes that are prim arily text or data driven” (1990，p 87) It is the best way that teachers should be to encourage and stimulate for students in regards to the use o f the two

processes, top-down and bottom-up, when they actually tackle any text The students, on the one hand, might be asked to treat the text as a whole to get the general picture without being too concerned with the details, i.e., skimming the text to pick out main points rapidly On the other hand, they might be asked to look at a text and extract specific information, i.e., scanning the text to find out a fact that they are interested in or asked for Thus，whether the readers skims or scans the text depends on their purpose and the goals.

The activities in while -reading (W illiam , 1984，p 38) can be: reading for general understanding (skimming); reading for extracting specific information (scanning); reading fo r detailed information; predicting continuing events, then reading to confirm expectation; reading for communicative tasks

Hyland (1990)，Nunan (1999) and Brown (2001) discuss scanning and skimming activities According to Brown, skimming and scanning are thought to be the most valuable reading strategies Through skimming，a reader is able to predict the purpose o f the passage, and gets the w riter’s message (Flowerdew and Peacock 2001) In this way readers are asked to predict the whole text，though they do not read all o f it On the other hand, Brown proposes that readers scan to get specific information in a text, such as names, dates, etc Similarly, Alderson (2000) proposes that skimming is a metacognitive skill that is used by good readers Bachman and Cohen (1998) and Flowerdew and Peacock (2001) also state that skimming allows readers to read for general understanding Scanning and skimming work better i f they are supported w ith evaluation activities (Karakas，2002) Hyland (1990) states that， through surveying, the reader previews the text content and organization where she uses referencing and non­text material Basically，it aims to make a quick check o f the relevant extra-text categories such as; referencing data, graphical data, and typographical data Karakas (2002) proposes that readers better comprehend i f they are asked to state their ideas about the topic o f the text and then evaluate it w ith their friends in the class and the activities reciprocal teaching, evaluating, inferring and re-reading provide a dialogue between the reader and the w riter while the activities scanning, skimming and clarifying draw a clear mental picture for the reader

In conclusion, the reading activities which teachers might use range from reading for the pure sake o f reading, silent reading, to more focus reading where the students learn to skim for the main idea, scan for the secondary categories, or read intensively for the supporting ideas Obviously, this helps to encourage critical thinking and increases comprehension and easy retention.

2.3.3 The P ost-reading stage

According to Chastain (1988)，Post-reading activities help readers to clarify any unclear meaning where the focus is on the meaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects o f the text U r (1996) discusses summarize as a kind o f post­reading activity where the readers are asked to summarize the content in a sentence or two It is also possible to give this post-reading activity in the mother tongue 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, question and answer and drawing conclusions and it is possible

to catch the missing parts o f the mental picture through thinking aloud，

d i s c u s s i o n a n d s u m m a r i z i n g

W illia m (1984，P.39) gives the follow ing activities: m ultiple choice questions; table，chart，questionnaire completion w ith facts or based on text information; follow-up w riting or listening; role-play; debate/class discussion on the topic; and problem-solving w ith the aid o f information from the text

In conclusion，following and implementing the aforementioned stages and insights would help the students to depend on themselves and on other resources, rather than on us as the primary source o f information This is where students，

initiative/interaction comes into play They start developing skills by themselves, which later become their own skills through interaction w ith the reading text That is，the goal o f teaching reading should ultimately be to help encourage critical thinking and increase comprehension and easy retention

2 4 I m p a c t s o f a t t it u d e s o n t e a c h i n g a n d le a r n in g r e a d in g

There are many ways o f definitions o f attitudes in teaching and learning reading

A llport (1954) defines an attitude “ mental and neural state o f readiness, organized through experience，exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’ s response to all objects and situations w ith which it is related Gardner (1985，p 10) sees attitudes as components o f motivation He also made the connection "motivation refers to the combination o f effort plus desire to achieve the goal o f learning the language plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language，， Attitudes have many impacts towards learning and teaching

Social psychologists would expect “ success in mastering a foreign language would depend not only on intellectual capacity and language aptitude, but on one's attitudes towards representatives o f that language as w e ir，(Gardner & Lamber, 1972) In fact, learner possess a set o f attitudes which relate to the language learning situation, e.g attitudes to the course book，to the variety o f language, to the target language community, and so on Edwards (1982) (citied in Gibb, 1998) assumed that attitudes influence learning: positive attitudes are like ly to result in students’ motivation, which leads to better learning; and the students’ learning w ill suffer from negative attitudes

Concerning attitudes in the language learning, it is claimed that attitudes control

an individual’ s motivation and are especially relevant fo r language learning because language learning includes many different aspects besides simply learning skills (Gardner & Lamber，1972) It is claimed that attitudes have influence on the development o f motivation and have more specific effects，so that attitudes appear to carry into particular motivation

A learner’s attitudes affect the development o f motivation In other words, the learners’ motivation fo r language study would be determined by his attitudes and readiness to identity and by his orientation to the whole process o f learning a foreign language (Garder & Lamber, 1972) The more motivation a learner has，

the more time s/he w ill spend learning an aspect o f the language (Slopsky, 1992，

p 148) Similarly, Lundberg (1974)，in his research, found both motivation for learning a language and attitudes towards the target culture to be important in factors in effective learning According to these claims attitudes may play a very important role in language learning, as they would appear to influence students’ success or failure in their learning

In the process o f teaching, the approach that teachers use in the classroom depends on their attitudes towards it Doukas (1996) mentioned the importance

o f teacher’s attitudes in the classroom that "teacher’ educational attitudes and theories，although in many cases unconsciously held, have an effect on their classroom behavior, influence what students actually learn, and are a potent determinant o f teacher1 teaching style In the curriculum innovation literature，

teachers’ attitudes are seen to play a crucial role in determining the implementation o f an approach (Doukas， 1996) I f teachers hold positive attitudes to a theory o f teaching，they are considered being good for both language learning and teaching They w ill be better and help students’ learning very much，nevertheless, i f they hold negative attitudes to it, they w ill reftise to apply it in their teaching, and their students w ill suffer from it

2 5 F a c t o r s a f îe c t in g s t u d e n t s 9 r e a d in g c o m p r e h e n s io n

Reading，whether in a first or second language context, involves the reader，the text, and the interaction between the reader and text (Rumelhart, 1977) The identification o f the factors affecting reading comprehension w ill，undoubtedly, help us a lot in the effective teaching o f English reading “ The research in 1970s and 1980s laid out many o f the variables associated w ith the second language reading process” (Elizabeth， 2005) Among these variables, strategies，

background knowledge and vocabulary, motivation are major factors affecting reading comprehension

շ 5 Լ L e a rn in g strategies

From the cognitive view, reading comprehension, which is the construction o f meaning from a printed or written message, is a conversation between reader and author, and thus the widely accepted models o f fluent reading is an interactive one in which a variety o f processes interact w ith text features There are many factors influencing reading comprehension such as reader’ s characteristics，

nature o f reading materials, and reading tasks, etc Learning strategies are important and should be paid attention to because they are one o f the major applications o f cognitive theory Oxford (1990) claims that “ learning strategies are behaviors or actions which learners use to make language learning more successftilly, self-directed and enjoyable，， Learning strategies are procedures undertaken by the learner, in order to make their own language learning as effective as possible

Learning strategies can be classified into three categories, cognitive strategies，

metacognitive strategies, and social strategies In O 'M alley and Chamot’ s (1990，

p 52) view, learning strategies are complex procedures that individuals apply to tasks; consequently, they may be represented as procedural knowledge which may be acquired through cognitive, associated，and autonomous stages o f learning As w ith other procedural skills at the different stages o f learning, the strategies may be conscious in early stages o f learning and later performed

w ithout the person’s awareness As an important application o f cognitive theory, cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies, both o f which belong to learning strategies, should influence reading comprehension greatly

Barnett (1988) calls reading strategies the mental operations involved when readers approach a text effectively and make sense o f what they read Pearson and Gallagher (1983) identify better readers as having better ability to summarize and make effective use o f background knowledge They also use the structure o f the text，make inferences, have an awareness o f the strategies they employ and in general they are better at monitoring and adjusting the strategies they use Thus better readers are more strategic

Hosenfield (1977) identifies a good reader as one who tries to keep the meaning

o f the passage in mind, reads in chunks, ignores less important words, tries to guess the meanings o f unknown words using contextual clues, and has a good concept o f himself /herself as a reader Following these studies, there have been attempts to instruct learners in using these strategies to make them better readers (Block, 1992; V ictori & Lockhart, 1995) These studies show a positive correlation between reading strategy instruction and reading proficiency

2.5.2 V ocabulary

Another factor that can have a significant impact on reading comprehension is vocabulary Interest in the relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension has a long history in the research o f foreign language reading Observing the performance o f foreign language readers，confronted w ith unknown vocabulary, researchers have noted the important role o f vocabulary as a predictor

o f overall reading ability (Nation, 1990; Grabe, 1991) In fact, second language readers often cite "lack o f adequate vocabulary as one o f the obstacles to text comprehension” (Levine & Reves，1990) In certain contexts，a sentence or even

an entire paragraph might become incomprehensible because o f the occurrence o f even a small number o f unknown vocabulary items (U lijn，1981; Koda 1989; Barnett, 1988; Coady 1991; Huckin et al., 1993)

Since the development o f psycholinguistic models o f reading, researchers and teachers alike argue that the best way to handle the unfam iliar words in the text

is by drawing inferences from the rest o f the text According to Hosenfeld (1984)，readiness to guess from context is what distinguishes a good reader from a bad one

However, while most researchers find that successful L2 and FL readers can correctly guess the meaning o f unknown words while reading (Carrol & Drum, 1982)，others question the effectiveness o f contextual guessing Thus, K elly (1990) claims that in anything other than a highly constrained context, guessing

on its own rarely helps comprehension Likewise, according to Bensoussan & Laufer*s (1984) observations, many FL readers do not effectively use context to guess word meanings.

2.5.3 B ackgro un d knowledge

Another reading problem is the lack o f prior knowledge to help students make connections to text As a result, under confident students revert to lower level reading processes such as word level literal comprehension Support materials such as television and film s can help enlarge experience and supply the necessary vocabulary to aid comprehension Many struggling readers lack confidence in their own ability to learn unfamiliar words or phrases found in a text This can sometimes impede the reading process when students assume that the text is far more d iffic u lt than it actually is Moreover, i f the reader chooses to disregard portions o f a text deemed unimportant or make irrelevant associations，then the actual meaning o f the text can be misconstrued To solve this reading problem, the reader needs to be exposed to other viewpoints o f the text Reading and discussing about the text w ill help individual readers gain different perspectives

on issues in the text Hence，this w ill enable the reader to realize that his interpretation o f the text is limited by his subjective view

Prior knowledge has a large influence on student performance, explaining up to 81% o f the variance in posttest scores (Dochy，Segers，& Buehl，1999) And there is a w ell established correlation between prior knowledge and reading comprehension (Langer, 1984; Long, Winograd，& Bridget, 1989; Stevens, 1980) Irrespective o f students’ reading ability，high prior knowledge o f a subject area or key vocabulary for a text often means higher scores on reading comprehension measures (Langer, 1984; Long et al., 1989; Stevens, 1980) In addition, high correlations have been found between prior knowledge and speed and accuracy o f study behavior (reviewed in (Dochy et al.5 1999) as w ell as student interest in a topic (Tobias, 1994) Thus, prior knowledge is associated

w ith beneficial academic behaviors and higher academic performance

2 5 4 M o tiv a tio n

A review o f literature on second language learning emphasizes motivation as an important affective variable Collins (1996) identifies other causes for incomprehension besides poor motivation to a lack o f experience or inadequate prior knowledge and a lim ited or subjective view o f what is read Students experience low motivation in reading when they are unable to use the language in meaningftil situations Only widespread involvement in language can solve the problem o f poor motivation Communicative-based activities such as oral and recorded readings, asking questions，dictating stories and working in small groups w ill also facilitate learning as well as increase students’ motivation for reading (Carr，1995) Commitment to read and invest interest in reading is crucial

in order for instruction in learning strategies to be effective

In summary, learning strategies, vocabulary, motivation and background knowledge have been confirmed to have influence on learners， reading comprehension in many prior researches It is likely that these factors would affect the students’ difficulties in learning reading comprehension in this study Following is the discussion o f previous studies on the reality o f teaching and learning reading

2 6 P r e v io u s s tu d ie s

This section w ill provide an overview o f previous studies on teaching and learning reading in the world in general and Vietnam in particular in terms o f subject selection, data collection methods and results w ith aims to choose the most appropriate methods for gathering data

Zenhui (2004) presented his application o f a new method in teaching EFL reading, namely combination o f top-down methods and bottom-up methods His classroom observalions showed that in reading classes in Asia, many teachers focused on grammar and vocabulary Their reading teaching methodology often started w ith reading the text word-by-word, explaining the meanings o f words

and grammar structures in the text Zenhui pointed out some lim itations o f bottom-up strategies and features o f top-down methods Bottom-up methods often resulted in a meticulous emphasis on linguistic details and a corresponding lack o f attention to communicative skills He described the new method o f reconciling top-down and bottom-up methods employed in his reading class He concluded that this reconciliation o f top-down and bottom-up methods fo r teaching English reading worked quite satisfactorily for his students, helping them to integrate content and language points, speed and comprehension, fluency and accuracy His students overall reading ability has improved as a result o f this teaching procedure.

Nguyen Thi Huyen (2006) investigated the reality o f teaching reading to the second-year students at National Economics University One hundred and twenty students from twenty classes and ten teachers took part in this study The survey method was applied It included two data collection instruments: classroom checklist observation and questionnaires The research revealed that most o f the teachers’ reading teaching methods were traditional The findings also showed

t h a t m a n y s t u d e n t s d i d n o t h a v e p o s i t i v e a t t i t u d e s t o w a r d s t h e t e a c h i n g r e a d i n g

methods utilized by teachers Finally，the study recommended that in order to improve the teaching o f reading，the teachers should make greater efforts to change their reading teaching methods to make the lessons more interesting to the students

Nguyen Thi Phuong (2001) conducted an investigation into the reality o f teaching and learning reading skills for the third-year students at Hanoi University o f People’ s Security (HUPS) The subjects o f this study were ten English teachers and 105 students Questionnaires were instruments to collect data fo r this research The findings o f the survey have shown four main problems Firstly, students lacked reading skills/strategies Secondly，students had low motivation in learning reading Thirdly, material used for teaching and learning reading was not relevant to the specialty o f security students Fourthly, the teachers1 teaching methods were not very effective enough for the

development o f teaching and learning reading skills Finally，the researcher wished to make some useful suggestions to overcome the difficulties to solve the above problems w ith the aim to improving reading skills for the third year Security student’ s at HUPS.

Tran 丁hi Ha (2003) conducted an investigation into the methods for developing reading skills to final year army officer trainees o f English at the M ilitary Academy

o f Science (MAS) She found out some problems in teaching and learning texts in Effective Reading at the MAS, and then she suggested methods，which were thought

to be appropriate for reading teaching skills to final year students at the MAS Based

on the findings o f their study and the areas they chose to adapt, the researcher decided to choose the most suitable teaching methods for adaptations

2 7 S u m m a r y

This chapter has addressed some m ajor issues in terms o f reading definitions, approaches to reading，the impacts o f attitudes towards teaching and learning reading, factors affecting students9 reading comprehension，previous studies and summary

C H A P T E R 3 : M E T H O D O L O G Y

The previous chapters are a b rie f introduction o f the study and literature review

o f theoretical framework for the study In this chapter, the researcher is going to present the research methodology including five sections: setting o f the study, research questions, instruments for data collection, subjects o f the study and procedure o f the study

3 1 S e t t i n g o f th e s t u d y

A t T N T T C ，the curriculum for students o f other majors，not English is 150 periods w hich is distributed in three terms (60 -45 -45 periods) The aims o f this course are to equip students w ith the Basic English and language skills In the first term, the course program mainly focuses on the general English which aims

to develop students’ four micro-skills in English such as: listening, speaking，

reading and w riting and a little knowledge o f English grammar and a certain amount o f lexis In the second term，the aim o f English program is to develop communicative competence in English, however reading skill is especially emphasized; students are instructed to use English as a tool to get information needed to their special academic fields

The material chosen to teach at TNTTC is New Headway Elementary In the second term in which this study is conducted, students learn from U nit 6 to U nit

10 in 15 weeks In each unit, the reading text is taught w ithin 90 minutes to develop students’ reading skills

3 2 R e s e a r c h q u e s t io n s

This study aimed at investigating the reality o f teaching and learning reading comprehension at T N TTC and more specifically to fin d answers to the

fo llo w in g questions:

1 H ow do teachers actually deliver the reading lessons at TNTTC?

2 W hat difficulties do teachers and students encounter while teaching and learning reading comprehension?

3 What are students’ attitudes towards teachers’ activities in a reading lesson?

To gather data for the answers, three data collection instruments have been used: classroom observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires

3 3 D a t a c o ll e c t i o n in s t r u m e n t s

3.3.1 Classroom observation

To collect information about what teaching reading methods actually used by the teachers in a reading lesson and how often they were used, the researcher has chosen the classroom observation to investigate the procedure o f reading lessons and the activities used by the teachers in the reading lessons

The reason fo r choosing classroom observation as a research instrument is that this tool helps researchers to have data “ collected in genuine classroom，(Nunan, 1992) Furthermore, observations are most popular used to collect data about actual process

o f lessons in classroom in studies o f language learning and teaching

There are a great number o f observation methods In this study, the researcher chose checklist observation method because it helps the observer lim it the scope

o f what is observed and allows him to focus on one or two particular aspects (W ajnryb, 1992) In this study, a checklist o f observation was designed (see Appendix 1) to investigate what teachers actually did in a reading lesson, frequency o f the activities teachers often used in different stages o f a reading lesson Beside presented points, there were spaces on the observation sheet for taking notes o f the reading teaching methods and giving ftirther comments on the activities and evidences found in the lessons The results o f the classroom observation were the basis to design semi-structured questions for interviews and questionnaires

The observation was carried out in six weeks o f the second semester o f the school year 2006-2007 The researcher observed three teachers out o f seven in English staff who were teaching English for non- English major first year students in their reading lessons in unit 6 and unit 7 o f New headway material

The observation would help the researcher understand the reality o f teaching and learning reading at TNTTC.

The purposes o f the semi-structured interviews are to study the observed teachers，

opinions on their teaching methods and their difficulties while teaching reading

3.3.3 Q uestionnaires

Questionnaires were chosen here because it is relatively popular means o f collecting data (Nunan， 1992) Moreover, questionnaires are considered an effective way o f collecting data quickly in term o f affective dimension o f teaching and learning as beliefs，attitudes, motivation and preferences (Richard and Lockhart, 1994) The advantages o f the questionnaire are that it saves time and it can be used w ith the large number o f subjects Besides, it encourages people to answer the questions straightforwardly and genuinely Moreover, the information collected is not d iffic u lt to tabulate and to analyze (Brown, 1995)For all o f the above reasons, the researcher decided to use questionnaires for the research The ideas fo r these questionnaires were based on the results o f classroom observation Questionnaires aimed at finding out students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ reading teaching methods and the difficulties they encountered in learning reading at TNTTC

The first part o f the questionnaire, consisting o f 3 questions, delivered to 115 first-year students at TNTTC, focused on the students，preferences towards the activities carried out by the teachers in reading lessons (see Appendix 7A，7B) The questions are closed w ith question 1 including 9 items o f teachers，activities

at Pre-reading stage，10 items o f teachers’ activities at While-reading stage in the

second questions and 5 items o f teachers，activities at Post-reading stage in the third questions Therefore, the subjects can easily choose the answers among the given alternatives.

Part 2 o f the questionnaire consisting o f 3 questions with 12 items was devoted to finding out students’ difficulties in learning reading As the main task in a reading lesson is to make students understand the reading passage so the researcher tried to find out what is like ly to prevent the learner from understanding a given text To make this case clear, a questionnaire on the problems and difficulties were designed to find out on the problems and difficulties that students are most like ly to meet in reading The questionnaire asked the students to give answers to the items w ith “ Yes” or “ No”

3 4 S u b j e c t s o f t h e s t u d y

There were two groups o f subjects involved in this study The first group included three members o f English teaching staff at TNTTC The researcher only observed and interviewed three teachers who were teaching English o f the second term for non-English major first year students at TNTTC Among these three teachers, two teachers graduated from Thai Nguyen College o f Education，one learned English in service-training centers A ll the English teachers are young and enthusiastic They have over 4-year experience in teaching English at TNTTC

The second group o f subjects was 115 non- English major first year students at TNTTC Their average age is 20，and the range from 19 to 21，40 are males，75 are females，85 per cent o f them are minorities Most o f the students at TNTTC are from mountainous districts o f Thai Nguyen province where conditions for foreign language learning are not convenient Especially their proficiency, competence and motivation are very low The majority o f the students started learning English at the upper secondary schools where their English learning had been mainly focused on vocabulary and grammar，and had a h a lf - year course o f English at TNTTC in which they had access to the four main language skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading and W riting) w ith 60 periods However, reading only accounted fo r 12 periods a semester, which means that they had 2 periods

(90 minutes) every two weeks When this research was carried out, they had finished the first term o f the first year.

The researcher chose all the students o f the first year at TN TTC because they experienced one semester at TN TTC and many o f them got bad marks at reading part o f the final test in this first term

3 5 T h e p r o c e d u r e o f t h e s tu d y

This study followed two steps A t first, the researcher investigated the reality and difficulties o f English teaching reality in general and teaching reading in particular at TNTTC w ith the use o f classroom observation and semi-structured interview tools, then the author designed questionnaires to study learners’ preference o f teachers’ activities in reading lessons and their difficulties

The classroom observation was undertaken at TNTTC in six weeks from January to February, 2007 The researcher attended 6 reading classes instructed by 3 teachers, each o f them was observed twice To get reliable real data o f how and what to be taught in reading lessons, the researcher asked the teachers for their permission to attend their classes，but they were not informed the lessons to be observed

When observing the lessons，the researcher mainly based on the checklist observation sheets which included anticipated activities that teachers might used and those which were expected to be used in a good reading lessons The researcher also look notes o f evidences found in the classes and her comments on the activities，techniques and procedure

A t the end o f the lessons，the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews

w ith the teachers for their explanation o f the activities and steps o f procedure they applied in the lessons, their opinions o f English teaching at TNTTC and difficulties they confronted in teaching reading The researcher took notes during the interview

Then, the data gathered from the observation and interview were synthesized andused as basis to design 2 questionnaires w ith Vietnamese versions fo r students The first questionnaires distributed after the observed lessons aimed at studying students’ preference towards the activities in the reading lessons The second questionnaire was delivered in the sixth week o f the study to students to investigate the problems and difficulties in learning reading they had in lessons

w ith the quite complicated texts in the second part o f the elementary book

3 6 S u m m a r y

This chapter provided a detailed description o f the methodology employed in this study First, the classroom observation was chosen to find out actually how a reading lesson was taught From the result o f the observation, the researcher carried out three semi- structured interviews to have reasons why teachers chose this approach and methods for teaching reading and what difficulties teachers had

in teaching reading Finally, two questionnaires were designed to find out the students ^ preferences towards teachers1 methods in reading lessons and students9 difficulties in learning reading The result o f the study w ill be reported and discussed in Chapter 4

C H A P T E R 4: RESULTS A N D DISCUSSIONS

This chapter reports the results and discussions from the investigation o f the reality o f teaching and learning reading at TNTTC In this section, answers to the three research questions w ill be given In order to answer the first research question, 4How do teachers actually deliver the reading lessons?，，the result o f descriptive analysis on the teachers’ activities in reading periods w ill be presented To find out the answer for the second research question “ What difficulties do teachers and students encounter while teaching and learning reading comprehension?” the result o f descriptive analysis on the teachers’ and students，difficulties w ill be carried out and the answer for the third research question “ What are students’ attitudes towards teachers’ activities in a reading lesson? w ill be reported finally

Among these six lessons, there were two lessons (5th and 6th lessons) fu lly consisted o f three stages: pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading On the contrary, there was only while-reading stage in the fourth lessons observed

A detailed analysis o f the frequency o f each activity teachers used in three stages

o f a reading lesson w ill be reported below:

1 Introducing the topic o f the text V ✓ > /

2 Making students guess the topic o f the text

from the headings，illustration

З.Рге-teaching vocabulary V

V

^Introducing and explaining new grammatical

structures in the text

V

V

5.Having students brainstorm words， structures,

ideas related to the topic o f the text to discuss about

the content o f the text

6 Asking students to predict what the text w ill say ✓

7.Using visual aids to introduce the topic o f the text V

8.Asking students to survey the text’ s title and

heading for the topic

✓

9 M aking students write questions about the text ✓

Table 4.2 shows the frequency o f activities used by three teachers at Pre-reading stage As seen on the table，there were two lessons w ith no Pre-reading stage Among the six lessons observed, pre-teaching vocabulary and new grammatical structures in the text had the highest average frequency 4/6 times), followed by introducing the topic o f the text (3/6 times) Having students brainstorm words, structures，ideas related to the topic o f the text，making students predict what the text w ill say，asking students to survey the text’s title and heading fo r the topic,

making students guess the topic o f the text from the headings, illustration, using visual aids to introduce the topic o f the text, making students write questions about the text were the activities seldom used in teaching reading at TNTTC (1/6 times) From these results, we could clearly see that teachers emphasized the importance o f vocabulary and grammatical structures when teaching reading Reading teachers helped students to recognize letters at first，then recognize the words, and in the end the reader got the meaning intended by the w riter by com D in in g th e w o rd s th a t th e re a d e r re c o g n iz e earlier In g e n e ra l, te a c h e rs te n d e d

to use bottom-up process o f reading to help students to understand the content o f the text and do the reading tasks

1 Reading aloud the text

2 Asking students to read aloud the reading text

3 Asking students to skim fo r general

information

4 M aking students read the reading tasks first

and then read the text to fin d the answers

>/

>/

5 Getting students to work in pairs/groups V V

6 Asking students to find the main ideas fo r each

ᄀ, Asking students to read the text and then do the

reading tasks

8 M aking students scan fo r specific ideas

9 Asking students to read for detailed

10 Having students guess meaning in context