difficulties in teaching reading comprehension with the new english textbook “tieng anh 10” (the set of standard textbooks) to the 10th form students at ke sat high school

Aims of the study The specific aims of the study are: - to investigate the areas of difficulty that the teachers at Ke Sat High School are coping with in their daily teaching reading co

1 Rationale

Nowadays, English is an international language and has been widely used in many countries in the world In Vietnam, English is also considered the most important foreign language and taught as a compulsory subject in most schools throughout the country It has also become an important need of the Vietnamese as a means of communication As a result, there have been a lot of changes in English teaching in order to meet the need One of the changes relates to new English language teaching syllabus and new textbooks, which have arrived at high schools since 2006 The new textbooks change from a grammar and vocabulary focus into a skill focus: listening, writing, speaking and reading This, therefore, has advantages as well as disadvantanges in teaching and learning English

In the new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” ,which refers to "English 10", reading is the first skill presented in each unit This proves the important role of reading This is understandable as generally speaking, reading provides students with the abilities to understand the written materials Reading has become not only an important means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place

This is the second year I have taught the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10” to the 10th form students I have met a lot of difficulties The biggest challenges emerge from teaching reading comprehension My colleagues in my school have the same problems We usually find it difficult and hard to teach in reading lessons Despite the teachers’ efforts, the students’ reading skills are disappointing Most of the students do not understand the texts and do not complete the reading tasks well If those difficulties are not found out and no solutions to overcome are given, it is certain that reading lessons cannot be successful and it even becomes worse This has a great effect on students’ learning result On the other hands, students will be fed up with learning English if they find it worthless to study this subject

For all these reasons, it is necessary to find out difficulties in teaching reading

encouraged to carry out the study on “difficulties in teaching reading comprehension with the

at Ke Sat High School” Once the difficulties are identified, some solutions to overcome them will be suggested

2 Aims of the study

The specific aims of the study are:

- to investigate the areas of difficulty that the teachers at Ke Sat High School are coping with

in their daily teaching reading comprehension to the 10th form students with the textbook

“Tieng Anh 10”

- to suggest some solutions to overcome these difficulties

The study is carried out with a hope that the findings from the study will be of some benefits

to the teachers at Ke Sat High School

3 Scope of the study

This study is limited to:

- the 10th form students at Ke Sat High School

- the teachers of English at Ke Sat High School

- reading comprehension in the new English textbook “Tieng Anh10”

4 Methods of the study

With the aim of finding out the difficulties in teaching reading comprehension with the new English textbook "Tieng Anh 10" to 10 - form students at Ke Sat High School, this study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods To achieve the above aims, the study has been carried out with the data collected from different instruments:

- interview questions for teachers of English at Ke Sat High School to investigate their perceptions of reading difficulties

their views of reading difficulties and causes of them

Beside these instruments, classroom observation is used to record information from teachers

5 Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts:

- The first part is the Introduction, which presents the retionale for the study, the aims, methods, scope of the study as well as the design of the thesis

- The second part is the Development of the study, divided into five chapters:

+ Chapter 1 is for Literature review, which provides the theoretical background

+ Chapter 2 gives an overview of the new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” and current situation of teaching the textbook at Ke Sat High School

+ Chapter 3 deals with the study: context of the study, research questions, the participants, the data collection methods and data analysis

+ Chapter 4 is for findings and discussion of findings

+ Chapter 5 suggests some solutions to overcome difficulties

- The last part is the Conclusion of the study, which summarises the study, states the limitations of the study and recommendation for further research

1.1 The nature of reading

1.1.1 Definition of reading and reading comprehension

Harmer (1989: 153) views reading from a different perspective In his definition, “reading

is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out the significance of the message” Smith (1985: 102) shares the same view on reading when he defines “reading is understanding the author’s thought” It means that the readers “read the author’s mind not the author’s words”

Attempts to define reading have been numerous However, the act of reading is not completely understood nor easily described The definitions have been drawn from different reading theories and models by various scholars However, they all try to find out the nature of reading and reading act, in which the readers, reading process and reading message are emphasized

Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning reading a foreign language It can be understood as the ability to obtain the information as required in the reading text as efficiently as possible

According to Swam (1975: 1) “a student is good at comprehension” if “he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text”

Acording to Grellet (1981: 3) “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”

Though these opinions are different, they all have a common point, that is, reading comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and understand what is implied behind these forms

1.1.2 Effective reading comprehension

Cook (1989: 14) shows that effective reading comprehension would be best reflected if we bring distinct cognitive behaviors of good versus poor readers before, during and after reading

an assignment into a comparison

Before

reading

- Active prior knowledge

- Understand task and set purpose

- Choose appropriate strategies

- Start reading without preparation

- Read without knowing why

- Read without considering how to approach the material

- Are easily distracted

- Read to get done

- Do not know what to do when lack

of comprehension occurs

vocabulary

- Do not see any organization

- Add on rather than integrate new information

- Do not realize they do not understand

After

reading

- Reflect on what was read

- Feel success is a result of effort

- Summarise major ideas

- Stop reading

- Feel success is s result of luck

- Seek additional information from

- sufficient background information and vocabulary

- close attention to the significant bits

- fairly high speed

1.2 Stages of teaching reading

It is common knowledge that a reading lesson consists of three important stages: Pre - reading (Before you read), While - reading (While you read) and Post - reading (After you read) Obviously, each stage has its own chatacteristics and time allocation

1.2.1 Pre - reading (Before you read)

This stage is carried out before the students begin reading the text It plays an essential part

in the whole process of a reading lesson, because it is difficult to ask students to read the text without the preperation that involves such activities as pre - reading questions, pre - teaching vocabulary According to William (1984: 37), the purposes of the pre - reading stage are:

- to introduce and arouse interest in the topic

- to motivate learners by giving a reason for reading

- to provide some language preparation for the text

Normally, pre - reading stage often makes up about one-tenth of the time allocation for the whole lesson However, depending on each lesson, it may last shorter or longer Before delivering activities for this stage, the teacher needs to pay careful attention to the objectives

of the lesson, the situation of teaching and learning, the students’ needs into account

1.2.2 While - reading (While you read)

William (1984: 38) states that while - reading stage is the main part of a reading lesson with the following specific aims:

- to help understanding of the writer’s purpose

- to help understanding of the text structure

- to clarify text content

The teacher, at the while - reading stage, needs to help their students comprehend the text thoroughly while the students have to apply to the best their reading skills like skimming, scanning, guessing, etc to understand the text as well as the writer’s purpose conveyed through the reading text Apparently, time allocation for this is nearly two-thirds of the whole lesson

1.2.3 Post - reading (After you read)

It is the last step of a reading lesson It is the time for students’ reproduction What they reproduce will reflect how well they comprehend the text In William’s view (1984: 39), the post - reading stage is aimed at consolidating or reflecting upon what has been read and relating the text to the learners’ own knowledge, interests or views Normally, it takes ten or fifteen minutes to complete all activities at this stage

To conclude, the above-mentioned stages are essential for a reading lesson However, it is not necessary to carry out all these stages mechanically on every occasion Depending on the purposes of a reading lesson, the teacher may apply these stages as well as allocate time for each stage appropriately

1.3 Difficulties in teaching reading

In reading, it is not easy for a student to be successful in learning reading, because there are many factors affect the success such as students’ habits, attitude, motivation, exposure to the target language , textual characteristics, the way reading is taught, and the teacher’s classroom techniques or learning environment, etc Yorio (1971), Jolly (1978), Coady (1979) and others have grouped those factors into three types: Reading skill problems, Language problems, and Cultural background knowledge

1.3.1 Reading skill problems

According to Jolly (1978), Coady (1979) and others, one’s first language reading ability plays a more important role in reading success than his level of the target language does, because foreign language reading requires the transference of old skills, not the learning of new ones They believe that if the reader has a poor reading ability in his mother tounge, then,

he cannot read well in a foreign language

Students’ limited reading skills cteate many problems, such as reading slowly, failing to understand and summarise main ideas of the reading text, unabling to guess or predict meaning of the words or phrases used in that context, etc Therefore, such students find it hard

to be successful in their reading They cannot understand the text thoroughly and those are the reasons why they do not want to keep on reading

In addition, learner’s motivation towards reading is also an important factor in reading process It may effect on reading result such as good speed, enjoyment and comprehension Lack of motivation, the reader does not want to read any more

1.3.2 Language problems

According to Yorio (1971: 108), reading problems of foreign language learners are due largely to imperfect knowledge of the target language and to mother tongue interference in the reading process In his view, reading involves four factors: knowledge of the language, ability

to predict or guess in order to make the correct choice, ability to remember the previous cues, and ability to make the necessary associations between the different cues that have been selected Therefore, learners with limited knowledge of the target language might have considerable difficulty when reading in the target language Clarke (1980) and Alderson (1984) share this view They acknowledge that a lack of appropriate linguistic knowledge constrains the transfer of reading skills and strategies from L1 to L2

Dealing with the text, readers have to work with unfamiliar and difficult topics These are called “text problems” The context of the text might be rather strange to the students, that makes them unable to understand Besides, another kind of problem is “vocabulary problems” Readers encounter a lot of difficulties in dealing with proverbs and idioms, synonyms and antonyms, polysemantic and subtechnical vocabulary

1.3.3 Cultural background knowledge

Apart from language problems and reading skill problems, cultural background knowledge also affects students’ reading ability as culture plays a central role for many topics And that comprehension of a culturally unfamiliar text is more difficult than comprehension of a culturally familiar text, because readers, facing up with unfamiliar cultural context, may mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to their own cultural experience

For the text structure, the impact of culture is less outwardly evident but apperently still present They will greatly affect the reader’s comprehension Sometimes, the implicit cultural knowledge presupposed by a text or from different assumption about meaning and comprehension held by the writer also causes difficulty to the reader

From what has been discussed, it can be concluded that there are three main factors that affect reading comprehension: reading skills, language knowledge, and cultural background knowledge Reading difficulties may be caused by a number of other factors Whatever kind

of problems are, they are various in the reading process in a foreign language and great efforts must be made to overcome them

Summary

This chapter provides a theoretical framework for the study First, it provides an overview

of the nature of reading, in which the definitions of reading and reading comprehension are discussed Then, effective reading comprehension is addressed What is more, this chapter also discusses stages of teaching reading Finally, it provides an insight into reading difficulties Having looked at the literature review of reading, the textbook related to this thesis will be presented hereby

- Listen for the main ideas or for specific information of a monologue or a dialogue with the length of 120 - 150 words of the topics they have learnt

- Exchange information in English at a simple level about the situations relating to the topics they have learnt

- Comprehend passages of appropriately 190 - 230 words about the topics they have learnt Understand the main ideas of the text or understand the text in detail Develop vocabulary comprehension: gap - filling, matching, ect

- Write paragraphs (of about 100 - 120 words) relating to the topics they have learnt according to a model or with prompts

2.1.2 Content of the textbook

The new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” is designed under theme- based approach with

16 units Each unit is about a theme The units are set up in the following order:

- Unit 1: A day in the life of - Unit 9: Undersea world

- Unit 2: School talks - Unit 10: Conservation

- Unit 3: People’s background - Unit 11: National parks

- Unit 4: Special education - Unit 12: Music

- Unit 5: Technology and you - Unit 13: Films and cinema

- Unit 6: An excursion - Unit 14: The world cup

- Unit 7: The mass media - Unit 15: Cities

- Unit 8: The story of my village - Unit 16: Historical places

These units cover six topics required:

- You and Me (Units 1, 2, 3)

- Education (Units 4, 5, 6)

- Community (Units 7, 8)

- Nature and Environment (Units 9, 10, 11)

- Recreation (Units 12, 13, 14)

- People and Places (Units 15, 16)

There are five parts in each unit arranging as follows: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language focus Each part is carried out in a period (45 minutes) The aim of the arrangement is to help students to practise four macro-skills as much as possible

In addition, there exists a “Test yourself” after every three or two units The objectives of the “Test yourself” is to examine how well students have achieved in the previous units The

“Test yourself” is constructed as follows: Listening, Reading, Grammar and Writing

Reading is the beginning part of each unit The aims of this is that through reading and through developing reading skills such as scanning, skimming, etc the students are provided with language input This can help them to be acquainted with the theme and the language relating to the theme From then, the students can speak, listen and write about the things relating to the theme in the next parts

2.2 Characteristics of reading passages and reading tasks in the textbook

2.2.1 Characteristics of reading passages

A reading passage in the new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” has 190 - 230 words in length Each passage closely relates to the theme of the unit It is divided into small paragraphs According to "Tai lieu boi duong giao vien " (2006: 60) ("Teacher Training Manual"), the passage is written with simple and easily understandable style However, some passages are long and rather difficult for the students to understand, as there are a lot of difficult new words It takes time to elicit them Moreover, in each passage, some sentences

with the new grammatical structures of the unit are also introduced This requires the teacher

to explain them to the students (quick explanation)

2.2.2 Characteristics of reading tasks

In “While you read” (While - reading) there is always a requirement: “Read the passage and do the tasks that follow” In each unit, three kinds of tasks are designed Each task has its own aim

- Task 1 helps the students to understand words or phrases in the passage (Vocabulary comprehension)

- Task 2 helps the students to comprehend the content of the passage (Passage comprehension)

- Task 3 helps the students to have an overall understanding of the passage

In task 1, the following exercises are included: Matching, Gap-filling Students are asked to guess meaning in context or finding words from context to match or to fill in the blank Matching is the most popular exercise in Task 1

In task 2, to help students to comprehend the passage, the following exercises are dealt with: - Deciding on True or False statement

- Scanning for specific information to fill in the sentenses or the table

- Gap-filling (in “After you read”)

Among the exercises, answering the questions appears most

To meet the requirement of Task 3, one type of exercise is designed: Multiple-choice This type is used to identify the main idea of the passage

Normally, Task 1 and 2 are complicated and they require more time to do These tasks themselves cause a lot of difficulties for students

2.3 The current situation of teaching the textbook at Ke Sat High School

2.3.1 Introduction to Ke Sat High School and students

Ke Sat High School is located in Binh Giang district, Hai Duong province This is a small school It has 21 classes It has been in operation for over 20 years The school is surrounded

by villages Like other high schools, its duty is to train students from the 10th form to the 12th

form Every year the school admits about 300 students for the 10th form After leaving the school, our students are provided with knowledge of English which is good enough for them

to take the entrance exams to colleges or universities, or to begin working for their own living

In our school, Maths, Physics and Chemistry are chosen by most of the students who wish to take the exams to colleges or universities English is one of the compulsory subjects at high school and in the school-leaving exam However, few students choose the colleges or universities which require an English exam

The students at Ke Sat High School are approximately 16 - 18 years of age They come from the villages surrounding the school Most of their parents are farmers Their main work is doing farming Besides, they do extra work in cities Some of them do not take good care of their children

What is more, the students are of different learning abilities and have different attitudes towards learning English: some are learning for the entrance exams to colleges or universities, some are learning only for graduating exam, and others are learning for nothing, i.e they cannot identify what they learn English for They consider it as a subject they have to learn at school.Thus, the teachers in our school cope with the difficulties which come from our students’ different motivations

Moreover, most of our students have low English level They have learnt English for four years at secondary schools However, their English background knowledge has been remained

a little When they come to the 10th form, it is surprising that they have limited vocabulary and grammatical structures For some students, the things they have learnt at secondary school seem to be completely new at the moment Some students want to go to English in order to improve their English However, it is impossible for them to go to the English centres, because they are too far from the school So they attend the extra English classes which are held by the English teachers of our school

Another problem of the students is that most of them do not have the habit of learning independently and tend to depend on the textbook or the textbooks with the available answers (namely “De hoc tot Tieng Anh” i.e." To learn English well"), and on the teachers for

knowledge This fact calls for suitable teaching methods to help the students become more active in learning English

2.3.2 Teachers and teaching methods

Our school has got five English teachers, aged from 30 to 45 Three of them took full- time ELT training courses at the College of Foreign Languages (VNUH), and two of them took in-service ELT course at the same college The oldest teacher has more than 20 years of teaching experience and the yougest teacher has got 7 years All of us have never participated in any training course abroad However, we have been to some domestic workshops in language teaching and some summer workshops on changes in English textbooks

Each teacher has to teach approximately 12 periods a week Each has the responsibility to teach 3 periods in each class Three of the teachers also have to teach in two forms , and two

of the teachers are in charge of two classes

As far as the methodology is concerned, the teachers are aware of the new trend in teaching method nowadays: Learner - centered approach They try to give their students independence

in studying by asking them to work through the text or discuss subject matters in groups or in pairs, after giving the some instructions However, not all of the teachers can do that and the amount of time spent on such activities is not much Furthermore, most of the 10th form students cannot do these themselves Therefore, the teachers often employ the traditional method of teaching in reading lessons The teachers play the key role in the classroom, being the main speakers working through the text The teachers explain new words, new structures, even give the answers to some difficult exercises The students are passive And the success depends on how flexible and adaptable the individual teacher is to respond to the requirement

of the teaching situation

2.3.3 Teaching facilities

Teaching facilities are considered significant and may affect the teaching process positively or negatively According to the Ministry of Training and Education, the changing teaching methods are closely related to the changing teaching facilities In teching competitions between high schools, lessons with modern teaching facilities are highly appreciated, because they bring great results In general, the teaching facilities at Ke Sat High

School are poorly equipped There is no English laboratory, there is only one library which provides books on different subjects, mainly on Maths, Physics and Chemistry There are not any projectors The equipment in classrooms is very simple and traditional A board, chalk, a cassette player (which is in bad condition) and a textbook are main teaching equipments in every class

2.3.4 Syllabus of teaching English and time allocation for a reading period

At the moment, the 10th form and the 11 form students are using the new textbooks, published in 2006 The new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” has totally 16 units and 6 Tests yourself The units and tests are divided into 105 periods Each week has 3 periods and each one lasts 45 minutes Each unit is taught within 5 periods This is shown very clearly in the textbook, under the macro-skills: Reading, Speaking, Listening and Writing Language focus is the last part of the unit in order to introduce the new grammatical structures

In each reading lesson, three stages have been applied, but more time is spent on While reading than two other stages, as students have to read the passage and do the tasks that follow It does take time to read and correct the tasks Normally, While - reading stage accounts for half of the time allocated (or even two-thirds of the time if the text is long and difficult for the students)

+ # ) ,

This chapter deals with the research methodology that has been employed for the achievement of the aims of the study Data were obtained by means of a survey questionnaire for the students and interview with the English teachers at Ke Sat High School Besides, additional data were gathered by classroom observation to provide more in-depth information 3.1 Context of the study

The study is carried out at Ke Sat High School, Hai Duong and limited to the 10th form students

3.2 Research questions

As it has been stated, this study was carried out to provide insights into the areas of difficulties in teaching reading comprehension with the new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10”

designed in an attempt to seek answers to the following questions:

- What are the difficulties experienced by teachers who are teaching reading comprehension

students?

- What are feasible solutions to overcome those difficulties?

In order to find out the answers to the research questions, a lot of sub-questions will be dealt with:

+ What are teachers’ and students’ opinions on the new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10”? + What are difficulties in learning reading comprehension in this textbook revealed by the students and is there any relation between students’ difficulties and their teachers’ teaching methods?

+ What are difficulties in teaching reading comprehension in this textbook revealed by teachers?

Once the difficulties are found, appropriate solutions to overcome those difficultis will be suggested

3.3 The participants

In order to achieve the aims of the thesis and answers to the above research questions, the participants of the study include: a group of 3 teachers of English at Ke Sat High School All

of them are female Two of them are teaching the new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10”, one

of them taught it in the last school year

Besides, in order to get more information supporting the answers to the research questions,

100 students of the 10th form were surveyed 67% of them are female They were selected from seven classes of the 10th form at Ke Sat High School

3.4 The data collection instruments

In order to get the most exact information for the study, the following instruments were employed :

- survey qestionnaire to students

- informal interview with teachers of English

- classroom observation

Each instrument has its purposes:

- Classroom observation was employed to know the purpose of reading class (What the teachers focus most on in teaching reading comprehension?), teaching methods (How and When the teachers often explain new words and grammar structures in a reading lesson? Why?) and difficulties frequently met in reading class (What problems arise during reading class? and How to solve them?)

- 4 interview questions were carried out with the teachers of English (see Appendix 1)

+ Question 1"Do you think the new English textbook "Tieng Anh 10" is suitable to your students? Give your opinion on reading passages and reading tasks." is aimed at investigating the teachers’ comment on the textbook they are teaching

+ Question 2 "What problems are you coping with in teaching reading with the textbook in preparation of the lesson, "Before you read" stage, "While you read" stage, and "After you read" stage?", and Question 3 "What do you think is the most difficulty when teaching reading comprehension with the textbook?" are aimed at investigating difficulties the teachers are coping with in teaching reading comprehension

+ Question 4 "What have you been doing to overcome these difficulties" are aimed at investigating solutions the teachers are using to overcome the difficulties

- Questionnaire for students was designed in order to get more information supporting other instruments to find out teachers’ difficulties (see Appendix 2)

+ Question 1: students’ comment on the textbook

+ Question 2, 3: students’ areas of difficulty

+ Question 4 - 14: causes of difficulty and students' expectation from the teachers

3.5 Data collection procedure

As being described in the previous part, various instruments were designed Classroom observation was the first instrument for this study It was carried out during my colleagues’ reading lessons In addition, after class hour we normally sat together aduring the short break

to discuss the lessons At that time difficulties arised were recorded during the lessons as well

as the solutions the teacher made to overcome the difficulties

To collect more information, 4 interview questions for the teachers were designed All the answers to the questions were recorded to analyze

It is noted that in order to make it easy in analyzing data, 100 students of the 10th form were surveyed Instead of randomly selecting the individual, the researcher randomly selected the groups or classes for investigation The questionnaires were delivered to the students at class meeting hour on Saturday under the permission and help of the head teachers of the classes

-

4.1 Discussion of the data collected by means of questionnaires

In this part, the data collected from survey questionnaires will be presented in the tables according to the purposes of the study

4.1.1 Students’ opinion on the new English textbook “Tieng Anh 10” (Table 1)

the topic, the reading passage and the reading task) is

suitable to me

The table shows that 71% of the students find the new textbook unsuitable to them Why not? Most of the students said that although they found the topics in the textbook were very interesting and attractive, they were long and had a lot of new words This caused the students diffuculty in understanding the content of the reading passages As a result, they could not complete the reading tasks easily

4.1.2 Difficulties faced by the students (Table 2)

- Pre - reading stage

- While - reading stage

- Post - reading stage

or summarise the content of the text in their own words or to connect the things in the text with their real life

(Table 3)

a understanding the main idea of the whole reading

passage

b understanding the details of reading passages

c doing reading tasks, especially the task of guessing

vocabulary through context or definition

d understanding the teacher's explanation in English

In addition, understanding the teacher's explanation in English is the threat to the students They cannot understand all the things the teacher explains in English That is the reason why the teacher has to use both English and Vietnamese in lecturing After explaining in English, she has to translate into Vietnamese in order to help the students understand thoroughly The result also shows that there are more students who have difficulty in understanding the details of reading passages (64%) It may due to the long texts with a lot of words which the students do not know or they cannot memorise although they have already learnt That makes the students unable to interpret

It is noted from the result of the survey that in each area of difficulty, there are number of students who do not give their answers They cannot decide whether that issue is their difficulty or not, because it depends on many factors such as the topic, the requirements of each reading lesson (whether the topic is easy to understand or not, and/ or the requirements of the reading lesson are simple or not)

4.1.3 Causes of difficulties and the students' expectation from the teacher (Table 4)

The reading passages are too long and full of new words

The reading passages are full of new and complex

grammartical structures

I lack English knowledge to understand the teacher's

explanation in English

I have limited vocabulary and grammartical structures

I lack interest and motivation in reading

The teacher's explanation on reading tasks is not

sufficient and clear enough

The teacher does not correct reading tasks carefully

The teacher does not always give Vietnamese equivalent

for long and difficult words

The teacher’s lecture is not interesting and efficient

The teacher uses the same teaching method in every

It can be recognized that the difficulties are from three causes: (1) from the students themselves (6 - 8), (2) the textbook (statements 4 - 5); and (3) from the teacher’s lectures (statements 9 -14)

First, looking at the first and second group of factors, most of the difficulties come from the students themselves: 82% of the students’ dificulties are due to the lack of vocabulary and grammatical structures and 61% are due to the lack of English knowledge to understand the teacher's explanation in English In addition, a factor that causes difficulty for students is that the reading passages are too long and full of new words (78%) It means it also relates to vocabulary Regarding attitude to learning, 72 % perceived that they lack interest and motivation in reading

How about the second group of factors? Surprisingly, most of the students do not complain their teacher’s lectures Vice-versa, they highly assess their teacher’s lectures In teaching, the teacher always gives Vietnamese equivalent for long and and difficult words (78%) Dealing with the reading tasks, the teacher's explanation on reeading tasks is sufficient and clear enough (78%), and they correct them carefully (87%) The students also find their teacher’s lecture interesting and efficient (86%) About the teacher’s attitude, 83% of the students did not think that their teacher was too strict and demanding When being asked why they thought that, they said that their teachers understood their difficulties As a result, the teachers simplify complicated requirements to make them understandable to students Some of the students revealed that their teachers were sympathetic with them

Regarding the teaching method, it is not simple and easy at all Although the teacher’s lectures make the students satisfied, the teaching method is not diversified 70% of the students claim that the same teaching method is used in every reading lesson, and 35% revealed that they do not lack English knowledge to understand the the teacher's explanation in English In order to help the students understand the lecture in English easily and maintain their interest in reading class, improvement should be made regarding the teaching method

In conclusion, through the survey questionnaire to the students, various difficulties in learning reading, the causes of those difficulties as well as their expectation from the teachers have been revealed Those comments from the students on their teacher’s lectures reflect the existing problems of the English teachers in teaching reading comprehension It is eligible for the students to claim the need for efficient learning, without which the students’ and teachers’ difficulties in teaching and learning may remain unsolved And as a result, the students find no