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Tgp chi khoa hgc TrUdng Dgi hgc Quy Nhan Sd3, T4p VI ndm 2012 ERRORS IN ENGLISH READING TECHNIQUES OF THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT QUI NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI THANH TAM", HUYNH THI CAM NHUNO'''' 1[.]
Tgp chi khoa hgc TrUdng Dgi hgc Quy Nhan - Sd3, T4p VI ndm 2012 ERRORS IN ENGLISH READING TECHNIQUES OF THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS AT QUI NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI THANH TAM", HUYNH THI CAM NHUNO' INTRODUCTION Today, in order to meet the requirements of intemational communication with native English-speakers or English speaking people worldwide, the training of highly-trained Enghsh majors at higher education is enhanced and strengthened in our country; especially those of high-level skills of English practice, namely speaking, listening, writing and reading English Reading comprehension for English majors al Qui Nhon University (QNU) is enhanced with high-level reading techniques-speed reading, which requires EngUsh-students' thorough knowledge and long regular practice of them to acquire This inevitably expects the students to have regular feedback and timely adjustments to their errors in their realization and practice from the teachers Hence, grasping the first-year English majors' awareness of the reading techniques is of great importance to the students' building good knowledge and practice of EngUsh-reading by giving proper feedback on their errors in reading practice Therefore, the study is intended to identify QNU first-year Enghsh-majors' errors in reading techniques to figure out the reasons for their ineffective reading with waste of time or without correct answers Thereby, their teachers have suitable adjustments to their teaching programs and methods to correct them opportunely for their successfully forming effective and efficient reading habit THEORETICAL BACKGROUND It is clear from the English reading syllabus for first-year Enghsh majors at QNU that the students have to acquire four main reading techniques, namely skimming, scanning, reading for detail and guessing meaning in context in the reading course books Interaction reading and Interaction reading by Kim and Harlmann [2, p 92-95], [3, p 93-96] Skimming is a type of rapid reading technique which is used when a reader wants lo get the main idea or ideas from the passage while scanning is a technique employed when the reader wants to locale a particular piece of information without necessarily understanding the rest of a text or passage [9, p 322] Guessing meaning in context, according to O'Connell [7, p 10], is a technique used to identify the meaning of unknown words in the context by their parts of speech and the clues in the context He also confkms that recognizing whether an unknown word is important to one's understanding or whether it can safely be ignored is a key reading skill [7, p 10] NGUYfeN THj THANH TAM' HUYNH THI CAM NHUNG" Finally, reading for detail partly results from these techniques' coordination Reading for detail is a technique oi studying part of a text very carefully to make sure you understand exactly what the writer means [8 p 10] In order to identify which sentences or information needs to be studied carefully for the detail, skimming is needed to determine which part of the text lo read for the detail required and scanning is used lo locate the sentences or information in the relevant pari of the text by the key words or expressions of the questions 11 p, 561- The new words in these sentences may influence the choice of the answers; hence, guessing the mcaning.s of the new words in context is used when necessary Mastering these techniques requires students lo have insightful knowledge of them and clear distinctions between ihem on the ways of reading, their purposes and their coordination in effective practice This is inevitable for students lo have certain confusions in their awareness, which results in errors in their practice It is obvious that people have to learn not only from inslruclions on what to but also from theuerrors or warning of what not to do, which helps them lo avoid undesirable consequences METHOD AND PROCEDURE The study is based on quantitative and qualitative methods The quahtative method helps us determine which errors in English reading techniques students commit during reading practice and the quantitative method is carried out lo decide the percentage of the poll sample to have the same mistakes so as to figure out the popular ones that students usually have to determine their influence on ihe students' English reading The study involves 160 first-year English majors of course 33 al QNU responding lo the questionnaire of questions related to the four main reading techniques, namely skimming, scanning, reading for detail and guessing meaning in context mentioned in the course books for Reading 1: Interaction I reading and Interaction reading by Kim and Harlmann [5 & 6] The survey was carried out as the end-of-term check on their acquisition of reading techniques after the course Reading The findings are analysed in percentage terms (with two figures in decimal fraction) and sorted out into two main ways - correct and incorrect ones The incorrect ones are further analysed to determine the kind of errors and the possible causes or reasons for them; thereby, the consequences can be inferred or confirmed FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION For convenient observation, the findings presented in the tables in the following sections have the following abbreviations: a, b, c d etc represent the choices of answers to each question in the questioimaire; C stands for correctness and IC for incorrectness ERRORS IN ENGUSH READING TECHNIQUES OF THE RRST-YE AR 4.L Errors in skimming In regard to the way of skimming, thefirstquestion is on the ways dial the students skim a paragraph for its main idea The answer is one of Ihq choices: (a) read the paragraph quickly and focus on its main point, (b) read the paragraph carefully with every detail (c) read the paragraph slowly and try lo cover every detail, and (d) read and stop to look up the new words in the dictionary for thorough understanding of the paragraph Their choices are presented in table Table I Students' ways of skimming Ways of skimming a b c d Bc/bd/cd ab/ac/ad/abd Ntmiber of students 117 13 16 0.62 8.12 3.12 Percentage 73.12 Correctness C 16,87 10 26.87 IC Table has shown that more than a quarter (26.87%) of the students have incorrect knowledge of ways of skunming Specifically, 16.87% of the students have mistaken skimming for careful reading or reading for detail On the other hand, 10% of the students are confused in their way of skimming by their conflicting choice of different ways of reading This provides evidence that more than a quarter of the students still commit errors in skimming because of their tough habit of careful reading and incomplete knowledge of skimming This mformation is confmned by the students' knowledge of skimming purpose by the data in question The answers are: (a) to read for the main points, (b) to read for details, (c) to read for specific information, and (d) to read for supporting ideas Table Students' knowledge of the purpose of skimming Purposes of skimming a Number of students 114 Percentage 71.25 b c d bc/cd 12 C 27 19 16.87 11.87 28.75 Correctness ac/ad/abcd/acd IC NOUVfeNTHI THANH TAM", HUYNH THI CAM NHUNG* According to Kirn and Harlmann [5, p 65), the common reason to skim is to find out the topic or to get the main idea of some reading material By comparison with the data in lahlc 1, a nearly similar number of students (28.75% in comparison with 26.87%) have misunderstood the purpose of skimming technique; particularly, 11.87% of the students have confused skimming purpose with that of scanning or reading for detail while 16.87% are completely confused about it This is further proved in their choice of first reading texts of different task types, which is manifested in questions in the questionnaire Table Students' ways ofjiisl Ways of reading Number of students Percentage a 86 53.75 reading a le.xt ol different task types b c D 13 23 ac/ab/ad/abc/acd 32 55 19 34J7 U.87 46.25 Correctness C IC The data in table show the students' choice of ways of first reading texts of different task types: (a) skim the passage loform a general picture of the text (its topic and its structure), (b) read the whole passage in detail lo understand it carefully, (c) scan the passage for specific information, and (d) It depends As is clearly shown in table nearly a half of the students questioned (46.25%) not understand that the purpose of their first reading text is to cover the text in general or to realize the text's organization for specific tasks Nearly a third of students (34.37%) are unclear about their first reading text for different task types According to O'Connell [7, p 9], skimming is considered as the first basic step of dealing with many kinds of tasks and it is always required in every text in part of reading course Interaction I and Thus, their misunderstanding of skimming technique in first reading texts unavoidably leads to their ineffecti\ c reading texts for different tasks In general, over a quarter of the students are confused on the wav of skimming (26.87%) and its purpose (28.75%) but nearly half of them (46 25*:^) are unaware of its application m reading tasks 4.2 E r r o r s in scanning The data obtained by questions and in the questionnaire have given a clear view of QNU first-year English majors' knowledge of scanning In regard to the way of scanning, question shows accurate information on the students' perception of the way of scanning There are choices to question 4: (a) read the whole text in detail ERRORS IN ENGLISH READING TECHNIQUES OFTHE nRST-YEAR 123 (b) read through the text quickly for general idea and its organization, (c) read the relevant section in detail for the information required, and (d) read through the text to locate the key words In the question or their synonyms, read for Ihe answer Table Students' ways of scanning W ^ s of scanning d Number of students 63 c cd a ad b bd 45 22 11 76 Percentage 18 47.5 39.37 bc/bcd 1.87 11,25 60.62 Correctness C IC As is seen clearly in table above, the majority of students (60.62%) have inaccurate knowledge of ways of scanning 47.5% of the informants have mistaken scanning for reading for detail or careful reading while 13.12% of the students make a serious mistake when confusing scanning with skimming or completely confused about scanning To clarify the extent of their misunderstanding of scanning, question indicates further information about their awareness of scanning purpose Table Students' knowledge of the purpose of scanning Purpose of d a c ad cd bd b Number of 39 students Percentage bc/abcd/ No ciioice abd/bcd scanning 34 12 27 82 24.37 51.25 21 11 6.87 1.25 26 16.25 75.62 Correctness C IC The choices are: (a) to read for details, (b) to read for the main points, (c) to read for supporting ideas and (d) lo read for specific Information It is obvious from table that a great percentage of the students (75.62%) have inaccurate knowledge of scanning purpose Most of them (51.25%) mistake the purpose of reading for detail for that of scanning because of their confusion between details and specific information which is considered easily recognizable without reasoning or inference [4, p 13] On the other hand, 16.25% of the informants make a serious mistake when confusing scanning purpose with skimming one regardless of the clear distinction NOUyfeN THI THANH TAM', WfiNH THj CAM NHUNG" between them Similarly, 6.87% of the students make no distinction between scanning and other techniques namely skimming and reading for detail by their mixed choices between them Specially, this question actually confuses two students without answer Thus, the vast majority of respondents have not grasped the way of scanning (60.62%) and scanning purpose (75.62%), in which most of them confuse it with reading for detail (47.5% and 51.25% respectively in the way and purpose) V Errors in guessing nicanln); hi context Being asked about the usual way of dealing with unknown words, the students have the following answers: (a) look them up In the dlcllonary, (b) rough guess the meaning of the unknown words by the clues In their contexts, and (c) ask their friends or teachers for help Table Students' ways of dealing with new words \\ a> s of dealing with b abc/ab/lK A 44 19 c ac new words Number of students 90 Percentage 56.25 Correctness C 16.25 27.5 43.75 IC It is obvious from the data in table that nearly half of the students (43.75%) have incorrect ways of dealing with new words in a texl Among them 16.25% of the students just depend on dictionaries or other people while more than a quarter of them (27.5%) are not quite sure about the usual \va\ to deal with new words in the text or they lack self-confidence in using one of the ways mentioned Students are trained to process the text without using dictionaries or exchanging with other people when taking a test and they are equipped for completing their tasks \^hcnever or wherever they carried out reading for a certain reason-they can not use a dictionary or ask for help anywhere or anytime to a job or make a living It is not involved in a natural way of doing reading in the real life Furthermore, a great number of words are polysemous and their meanings are realized in the context Consequently, looking up new words in the dictionary lakes their lime to realize them in the context Therefore, they have to practice guessing meaning in context when necessary On the other hand, students not need to find the meanings of all the new words in the text lo complete a task Question gives us a good view of their ways of determining words to make a guess ERRORS IN ENGLISH READING TECHNIQUES OF THE FIRST-YEAR Table Determination of words for guessing meaning Words requiring guessing be b c a d ad 21 19 50 11 28 ab/ac/bd/cd bcd/acd Number of students Percentage 56.25 Correctness C 26.87 27 16.87 43.75 IC The choice in table are: (a) any new words in the text, (b) the unknown words outside the relevant sections of the texl for the answers can be ignored, (c) the unknown words important to your understanding of the answers, and (d) the words that prevent you from underslanding some sentences It can be seen clearly in table that nearly half of the informants (43.75%) not realize which words are important to the task, in which more than a quarter (26.87%) not focus on the task and are unaware of the selection of words for the answer; on the other hand, 16.87% of the students are completely confused about the way of choosing words for task completion When students figure out the words important to the answer, they have to decide the way to make a guess at them Question reveals their ways of guessing a word in context There are ways mentioned in the answers: (a) by its part of speech, (b) by the words around it (after or before it) in collocations, (c) by ihe sentence meaning, and (d) by the paragraph meaning The mformants may have more than one correct choice Table Students' ways of guessing new words Way of guessing new words a b c d Number of students 19 126 79 18 Percentage Correctness 11.87 78.75 49.37 11.25 Incorrectness 88.13 21.25 50.63 88.75 The data in table show that more than three quarters of the stodents (88.13%) not realize that the part of speech of a word can help figure out the meaning of the word more exactly The meaning of a word changes according to its parts of speech; however, different parts of speech of a word may be in the same form; for example, the word "back" may be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb Hence, the meaning of the word is clarified in the context when its part of speech is determined NGUYSN THI THANH TAM', HUYNH THI CAM NHUNG' Table also indicates that many students not understand the context of a word fully Specifically, 21.25% of the students not know that the words around it really affect their meaning in the word combination or phra.se meaning Worse, more than half of Ihem (5().fi37r) ignore the meaning of the word decided in the sentence (sentence structure) and more than three quarters (88.75%) are unaware that the meaning of a word can be determined in the other sentences in Ihc paragraph by its synonyms for diverse expressions in writing or by paragraph's topic or idea To sum up, the same percentage of the students (43.75%) have incorrect way of dealing with new words and determining words necessary for guesses However, different percentages of them miss important information in guessing meaning in context; including the words' parts of speech (88.13%), their paragraph meaning (88.75'«) the sentence meaning (50.63%) and the phrase mcanmg or word combination (21.25%) 4.4 E'>rors in reading for detail Reading for detail is commonly involved in quite difficult tasks uhlch require high comprehension of the text (809(.9()'/f comprehension of the text) Therefore, this technique involves a range of steps of reading to process a texl in an efficient way for the task Question in the questionnaire exploits students' knowledge of this technique Step of reading N u m b e r of students CT" Table Students' win \ of reading for detail c d e g a f 70 120 79 79 49 19 49.37 49.37 30.62 88.13 94.38 511.63 50.63 69.38 11.87 5.62 Correctness 43.75 Incorrectness 56.25 25 The answers to question are: (a) read the whole te.xi carefully, (b) skimming for the text structure, (c) identify the relevant sections for the detail, (d) scanning for the key words of the questions or their synonyms, read around iheni for the answer, (e) rough guess the meaning of ihe unknown words important to ihe answers, (f) try to understarul every word in the texl (g) ignore the words thai are not important lo your understanding of the answers In this question, students have to identify all the steps that are necessary for the task, hence, they have more than one option for the answer As is shown in table 9, more than half of the students have ignored most of the steps that are involved in reading for detail, specifically skimming for the general picture of the text (56.25%), scanning for the key words of the questions in the text (50.63%) or making a guess at the meanings of important words in context (by the choice of e and g by 50.63% and ERRORS IN ENGLISH READING TECHNIQUES OFTHE FIRST-YEAR 127 69.38% respectively) Without these steps, they can not figure out the answers to the questions more quickly and exactly Seriously, a quarter of the students have overlooked the important part of reading for detail, which speeds them in finding the answer and focusing on the correct one by identifying the relevant section to study in detail for the answer (choice c) On the other hand, a small number of the students have a severely mistaken idea about reading for detail by carefully reading the whole text (11.87%) or figuring out every word in the text (5.62%) This means that these students read without strategy or exactly speaking, they read without a reason CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Conclusion Through the survey of QNU first-year English majors on iheir English reading techniques, the study has come to the following conclusions: - A number of the students confuse between the three main ways of reading, namely skimming, scanning and reading for detail Specifically, over a quarter of the students confuse skimming way with careful reading or skimming purpose with that of scanning and reading for detail The majority of the students mistake reading for detail or skimming for scanning in the way of reading and its purpose Consequently, over half of the students forget skimming and scanning steps m reading for detail - Their confusion between these techniques in the way of reading and on their purposes has led lo their improper application of these techniques m processing a text, for example, their wrong way of first reading texts or their missing steps of skimming and scanning in the process of reading for detail, which will result in ineffective reading, waste of time or incorrect answers - The technique of guessing meaning in context plays an important role in the process of decoding information in a text for tasks However, nearly half of Ihe students (43.75%) not lake it seriously and still depend on dictionaries or other people, which is usually not available for natural reading Especially, the same percentage of students are still confused about the words important to the tasks and the majority of them have incomplete knowledge of the way of guessing meaning in context, which inevitably results in their waste of lime for unnecessary words and in incorrect guesses - Their misleading knowledge of the four main reading techniques undoubtedly leads to their confusion about their effects in reading strategies for specific tasks, or their uncertainty of using these techniques in reading practice Therefore, they may use another way of reading-careful reading of the whole text for different kinds of tasks-as they reveal in the interview after the survey 128 _ NGUYEN THI THANH TAM' HUYNH THI CAM NHUNG* 5.2 Recomnumdations Based on ihe findings and conclusion of the study, the following solutions are recommended: To clear up their confusion between ihese reading techniques, the students require thorough instructions on them with the focus on the main differences in the ways of reading and the purposes for clear distinction between them To help students understand ihe usages of these techniques and their effects more deeply, teachers should instnid the students to realize them in practice in specific tasks with each task for each technique In specific situations, they will realize the real application of each technique and their coordination in a test of different kinds of lasks or in the processing of a text for diverse task types - To help students lo avoid undesirable effects of ineffective reading, common errors in reading techniques are mentioned with their consequences Examples of errors are given in specific situations to clarify their impacts on ineffective reading in time consuming or in finding correct answers To sum up, the study has provided a general view of the present situation of QNU first-year English majors' reading techniques; thereby, their teachers have suitable directions to their reading study in their next course, simultaneously, other teachers of Reading at QNU will probably plan appropriate leaching methods and programs for first-year English majors in the future TAI LIEU THAM KHAO [1] [2] [3] |4| [5] [6] [7] [8] [9) G.Adams and T Peck 101 Helpful Hints for lELTS, Adams & Austen Press, Sydney, Australia (1995) Chuang irinh gido dgc Dgi hgc, Tfn chi, Ni;anh sU pham iieng Anh, B