Aims and objectives
This study aims at exploring the effectiveness of the application of a discourse-based approach in teaching English reading skill at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism
The specific objectives of the study are:
- To find out changes in the attitude of students at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism after applying a discourse-based approach in teaching English reading skill
- To investigate what extent the application of a discourse-based approach helps students at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism read better.
Scope of research
The thesis focuses on studying the application of discourse analysis in various approaches (top-down, bottom-up and interactive processes) to reading in the literature review and the application of cohesion (reference, conjunction, repetition, synonym, antonym and collocation) analysis in reading comprehension in the action research procedure because these elements mainly count for in the text at the elementary level
The participants are the first-year students who I am teaching at the moment, which facilitates my research.
Theoretical and practical significance of the study
The thesis is believed to be a good reference for teachers and students at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism, especially to those who are teaching or learning reading skill.
Design of the study
This study is divided into three main parts:
Part A INTRODUCTION, presents the Rationale for choosing the topic, the aims and objectives, the scope, significance, methodology and the design of the study
Part B DEVELOPMENT, has three following chapters:
Chapter One presents the literature review which deals with the theoretical background that precedes and necessitates the formation of our research
Chapter Two presents the methodology applied in the study including, action research, setting, participants, instrumentation and action research procedure
Chapter Three presents results and discussions, and implications for teaching English reading skill
Part C CONCLUSION, reviews the findings and proposes possible solutions to the problems identified Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study are also put forward
PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW & THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
In this chapter, the fundamental theoretical concepts will be introduced First of all, definitions pertaining to what is meant by reading and reading comprehension, discourse and discourse analysis, the backbone concepts of this research paper, are presented in 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 as prerequisites to the understanding of subsequent notions and models Second, approaches to reading comprehension are discussed in 1.4, which are bottom-up, top-down and interactive processes Third, the discussions of discourse analysis and the teaching of reading comprehension are presented in 1.5 And at last the discussions of role cohesion in reading comprehension
There are many definitions about reading Goodman (1971:135) believes that
―reading can be understood as an active, purposeful, and creative mental process where the reader engages in the construction of meaning from a text‖
Hedge (2000) defines that ―reading is the interaction of two types: the reader and the text, and the reader and the writer‖
Richards and Schmidt (2002) state ―reading skills (reading micro skills) as abilities required for skillful reading such as discerning main ideas, understanding sequence, noticing specific details, making inferences, making comparison, and making prediction‖ However, Nunan (2003) believes that reading is a fluent process in which readers combine the information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning
From the researchers‘ points, it can be seen that there has been an interest on the ―readers‖ and on how they construct meanings from texts, which contributes to the proliferation of studies on reading Reading is not a ―passive skill‖; it is an active and creative cognitive process Although there are so many definitions of reading, there is no definition covering all the aspects of the process as it happens in reality because of its complexity.
LITERATURE REVIEW & THEORITICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Definition of reading
Reading comprehension
Reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning reading a foreign language It can be understood as the process in which the readers can recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and understand what is implied behind the forms
According to Grabe (2009: 46), there are two modes of reading comprehension ―…the text model and the situation model‖ In the text model, the reader is called for understanding what the text itself is trying to communicate and in the situation model, the reader is required to integrate background knowledge with text information to interpret the text Besides, Alderson (2000) presents two levels of reading understanding: ―literal understanding and text understanding‖ In addition, Swan (1975: 1) states, ―a student is good at comprehension‖ if ―he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text‖ and Grellet (1981: 3) defines, ―reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible‖
Although these views are different, what comes up a common point is that reading comprehension is the process in which the readers can obtain the information as required in the reading text as efficiently as possible.
The concepts of discourse and discourse analysis
The term ‗discourse‘ is used in different senses depending on what school of discourse analysis one adheres to Therefore there are different ways of defining discourse Cook (1989) considers discourse as ―stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive‖ In other words, as Brown and Yule (1983) state, "Discourse is language material, either spoken or written, in actual uses by speakers (and writers) of the language‖ Nunan (2003: 174) states that ―discourse is considered with speakers and listeners and normally, with extended stretches of language rather than single sentences‖ In general, discourse is what the speaker says and the listener understands in a context David Nunan (1993: 7) defines,
―context refers to the situation giving use to the discourse, and within which the discourse is embedded.‖
It is necessary to make a difference between a discourse and a text since a confusion of these two terms may result in the failures of discourse analysis To some linguists, discourse is different from text but to others, they are the same subject matter and can be used interchangeably
Brown and Yule (1983) define text as ―the verbal record of communication act‖ and discourse as ―the language in use‖ Nunan (1993: 6) considers "The term text refers to any written record of a communication event The event itself may involve oral language or written language", "The term discourse refers to the interpretation of the communication event in context" However Cook (1992: 1) considers discourse as ―text and context together, interacting in a way which is perceived as meaningful and unified by the participants‖ Farhady (2005) believes that the meaning of the text depends both on the meanings of the words and sentences, and on the logic behind the text and readers; in order to understand the text, one must understand all these factors together In short, discourse is an act of communication, while text is its means
1.3.2 The concept of discourse analysis
There have been many interpretations to what Discourse Analysis is At a time when linguists were concerned with the analysis of single sentences, a paper under the title ―Discourse analysis‖ was published by Harris (1952) He was interested in the distribution of linguistic elements in extended texts, and the links between the text and its social situation
British discourse analysis was mainly influenced by M.A.K Halliday‘s functional approach to language Halliday‘s framework emphasized the social function of language and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing
According to McCarthy (1991: 5) ―Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used
Discourse analysts study language in use: written texts of all kinds, and spoken data, from conversation to highly institutionalized forms of talk‖
As can be seen, the term ―discourse analysis‖ is very ambiguous However, according to Nguyen Hoa (2000) "Discourse analysis as a study of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context of situation and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes" In other words, discourse analysis is a study of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context In that context, a sentence is called a discourse sequence which can be changed because of the relationship between the previous sequence and the following sequence
According to McCarthy (1991: 37) ―One of the major concerns of written discourse analysts is the relation of neighboring sentences and, in particular, factors attesting to the fact that a given text is more than only the sum of its components It is only with written language analysis that certain features of communicative products started to be satisfactorily described, despite the fact that they were present also in speech, like for instance the use of 'that' to refer to a previous phrase, or clause‖
In this sense, discourse analysis is the analysis of language used in context
Context plays a central role to the notion of discourse Context is understood in the broadest sense to include both the reader and the writer, the situation, the function, the multimodality, and background knowledge Thornbury (2005) defines
―discourse analysis as the study of language – either spoken or written – which is used for communicative effect in a real-world situation and the analysis of the features and uses of texts or text analysis‖.
Approaches to teaching reading comprehension
The two approaches to discourse processing in teaching reading comprehension are a bottom-up approach and a top-down one In the bottom-up approach, we proceed from the most detailed features toward the most general
This approach has a focus on language elements such as grammar, vocabulary and cohesion It enables students to analyze the individual linguistic signals, such as words, phrases, grammatical cues, discourse markers, and so on
According to Nunan (1991:78) ―the bottom-up model assumes that the reader first identifies each letter in a text as it is encountered These letters are blended together and mentally ‗sound out‘ to enable the reader to identify the words that they make up; words are chained together to form sentences and sentences are linked together into paragraphs; and finally paragraphs are tied together to form complete texts Comprehension is thus the final step in a lengthy process of decoding ever larger units of language‖
As Rayner and Pollatsek (1989 :25) posit, bottom-up model revolves around the idea that visual information is transformed through a series of stages with little influence from ―general world knowledge, contextual information, or higher-order processing strategies‖ Meanwhile, the top-down approach focuses on background knowledge about content and organization Top-down approach helps students get the main idea of each part of the text In the top-down model, the reader has an active contribution to the lower processes, comprehension resides in the reader, and there is more dependence on meaning cues rather than the visual elements In this model, the reader uses background knowledge to make predictions that are later confirmed or rejected based on searching the text (Nunan, 2003; Rayner &
From the bottom-up viewpoint, reading is a process of decoding written symbols into their aural equivalents It is a text-centered move in which texts contains rules and codes to be deciphered During the decoding process, understanding the hierarchal, linguistic structures of the language promises reading comprehension The focus is never the meaning of the whole text, but detailed linguistic forms — from phoneme to lexical, syntactic levels
From the top-down teaching viewpoint, the learner‘s prior knowledge is activated, which is capable of promoting learner‘s language learning, and making possible reading comprehension In this process, prior knowledge plays a major role in learner‘s comprehension Hudson (1982) considers that a high degree of background knowledge can overcome linguistic deficiency According to Treiman
(2001) ―top-down model is actually a whole-language teaching approach, in which readers focus on the context, and manage to construct meanings in the text‖
More recently, there has been some serious criticism about top-down processing Stanovich (1980), in an exhaustive review of language-processing models, proposed the third model called interactive process According to Stanovich, most top-down models do not allow for the possibility that less proficient readers may use higher-level processes to compensate for lower-level ones He suggests that, given deficient decoding skills, poor readers may actually be more dependent on higher-level processes than proficient readers
1.5 Discourse analysis and the teaching of reading comprehension
In the field of applied linguistic studies, discourse analysis has become a leading discipline that exerts a significant influence on language teaching
Knowledge of it is very useful for students, trainees and practicing teachers
Discourse analysis is not only concerned with the description and analysis of spoken interaction Discourse analysts are also interested in the organization of written interaction such as newspapers articles, letters, stories, notices, instructions and so on These interactions are always expected to be coherent, meaningful communications in which the words and sentences are linked to one another in a fashion that corresponds to conventional formulae
Explaining discourse patterning at the macro-level is impossible if we do not pay attention to the role of grammar and lexis; similarly, good reading cannot be fostered if we do not consider global and local reading skills simultaneously
In recent years, questions of reading pedagogy have centered on whether bottom-up or top-down strategies are more important After debates, there has been a compromise between local and global decoding, and there is general agreement that efficient readers use top-down and bottom-up processing simultaneously As McCarthy (1991: 168) puts it, ―This fits with our general review of discourse as being manifested in macro-level patterns to which a constellation of local lexico- grammatical choices contribute The best reading materials will encourage an engagement with larger textual forms (for example through problem-solving exercises at the whole-text level) but not neglect the role of individual words, phrases and grammatical devices in guiding the reader around the text‖
At the macro-level, much has been made in recent years of schema theory, that is, the role of background knowledge in the reader‘s ability to make sense of the text McCarthy (1991: 168) explains that the theory is that new knowledge can only be processed coherently in relation to existing knowledge frameworks, and that the efficient reader activates the necessary frameworks to assist in decoding the text being read The frameworks are not only knowledge about the world (e.g about natural phenomena, about typical sequences of real-life events and behaviour), but also about texts, how texts are typically structured and organized, thus enabling us to talk about two kinds of schemata: content and formal, respectively
As for the role of discourse analysis in reading comprehension, Cook (1989:
81) asserts that ―doing discourse analysis helps students adopt top-down approach in reading‖, which he assumes to be natural for L1 speakers He further maintains that an L2 student who is able to set a discourse in its textual and social text may supposedly postpone or neglect dealing with an unknown word if she/ he gets the general idea of text
In contrast to Cook (1989), McCarthy (1991), and McCarthy and Carter
(1994) adopt an interactive approach (focusing on the interaction between the top- down and bottom-up processes) in teaching EFL reading and underscore the interdependence of higher order operations of language (i.e., cultural and ideological meanings) and lower-order forms of language that contribute to patterning the meaning In layman‘s terms reader cannot neglect the role of individual words or grammatical makers in comprehending a text According to them, discourse analysts should concern about not only the macro-level but also the micro-level discourse In addition to the interactive approach in teaching reading, they highlight two features of discourse analysis, namely intertextuality and language awareness According to Fairclough (1992: 270) intertextuality ―points to how texts can transform prior texts and restructure existing conventions (genres, discourse) to generate new ones‖ Language awareness defined by Carter ( 2003:
64 ) as ―the development in learners of an enhanced consciousness of and sensivity to the forms and functions of language‖
Up to now, many researchers have investigated the importance of using discourse analysis in reading comprehension (e.g., Ivanov, 2009; Wenquan, 2009)
For example, Wenquan (2009) used discourse analysis for teaching reading comprehension by familiarizing the students with common structural-textual ways of organizing content of the paragraph or discourse level, training them to activate their background knowledge, and teaching the cohesion and coherence inside paragraphs and sentences as well as between paragraphs for overall comprehension
The result of his study showed that students in experimental group gained more effective reading ability
In conclusion, discourse analysis plays an important role in teaching of reading comprehension, the teachers can helps their students comprehend a text by teaching them to analyze the structure of a text, cohesion and coherence in a text
Cohesion in reading comprehension
Cohesion is a part of text structure, cohesive devices are elementary items to construct a text It is impossible to grasp the existence of a text that is more than two sentences without the presence of cohesive devices Cohesion is formal links which exist between sentences, the relationship that cause texts to cohere or stick together According to Halliday & Hasan (1976:8) cohesion is ―a semantic relation between an element in a text and some other element that is crucial to the interpretation of it‖ Thus cohesion plays a crucial role in making of sense of the text They also identified five types of cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion (reiteration and collocation)
- Referential cohesion: There are two different ways in which reference items can function within a text: anaphoric and cataphoric Anaphoric reference points the reader or listener ―backwards‖ to a previously mentioned entity, process or state of affairs, whereas cataphoric reference points them forward It drives reader or listener further into the text so as to identify the elements to which the reference items refer Personal pronouns, determiners, adverbs and adjectives perform these types of reference, thus identified as personal, demonstrative, and comparative reference
- Substitution and ellipsis: Ellipsis is described as a form of substitution in which the original item is replaced by zero, ellipsis occurs when some essential structural is omitted from a sentence or clause and can only be recovered by referring an element in the preceding text There are three types of substitution: nominal, verbal and clausal
- Conjunction: Conjunction signals relationships that can only be fully understood through reference to other parts of the text Four different types of conjunction are temporality, causality, addition and adversity Adversatives show contrast in information; additives signal the presentation of additional information; temporal point out chronological order of events in a text, and causal show a relationship which is one of cause and consequence
Reiteration: Reiteration includes repetition, synonym or near synonym, super- ordinate, and general word In repetition, the writer repeats words to make a text cohesive On the contrary, to avoid repetition, the writer uses synonyms or near synonyms, super-ordinates and general words Super-ordinate and general word occur when writer uses words conveying a more general meaning than meaning of the ones previously mentioned (eg pneumonia and illness; steamed buns and things)
Collocation includes all those items that are semantically related or belong to a semantic field in a particular text There is no limit to the items that can be used to express collocation because it is expressed through open rather than closed class items Another important point is that some words and phrases that are related in one text may not be related in another
While substitution and ellipsis appear more frequently in the spoken discourse, reference, conjunction, and lexical cohesion are found more frequently in the written discourse According to Malki (2009:33) ―The ability to identify these devices and their referents is quite significant in promoting the reading comprehension of the students‖ In the vein, Demel (1990: 268) states that ―the readers‘ ability to link a pronoun with the concept referred to by the author is a crucial component of the reading process‖
Many studies on reading comprehension have shown how cohesion is an important factor in the development of reading Chapman and Irwin (1986) indicates that the perception and understanding of cohesion functions can contribute to improve and promote comprehension in the reading process Chapman‘s findings show the readers have actually shown growth in their abilities to perceive cohesive in texts and even to use it as a strategy to support comprehension According to Irwin‘s ones if the level of cohesion in a text is increased, this will promote wordiness and facilitate the comprehension of a text
In conclusion, cohesion is a very necessary element to construct a text, thus if readers realized cohesive devices in the text, they will understand it
The chapter provides a theoretical framework for the study Focus on the application of discourse analysis in teaching reading, the research has discussed concepts of reading, reading comprehension, discourse analysis, the approaches
(bottom-up, top-down and interactive) to teaching reading comprehension and the discussions of discourse analysis and the teaching of reading comprehension are presented The application of discourse-based approach in teaching reading is the application of the top-down, bottom-up and interactive process in reading
However, this study is carried out for the students at the English level of elementary, its focus is on cohesion in reading texts, so the role of cohesion in reading comprehension and types of cohesive devices are discussed.
METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research design
Rationale for the use of an action research
Action research had been defined in many different ways In Tsui‘s definition (1993) ―action research is a very effective way of helping teachers to reflect on their teaching and to come up with their own alternatives to improve their practice‖
In another way, Grebhard and Oprandy (1999) state that there are two levels in an action research: ―At one level, action research is about teachers identifying and posing problems, as well as addressing issues and concerns related to the problem It is about working toward understanding and possibly resolving these problems by setting goals and creating and initiating a plan of action, as well as reflecting on the degree to which the plan work At another level, it can be about addressing educational practices that go beyond each teacher‘s classroom‖
According to O'Brien, R (2001), action research is known by many other names, including participatory research, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning, and contextual action research, but all are variations on a theme Put simply, action research is ―learning by doing‖ - a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see how successful their efforts were, and if not satisfied, try again
Action research is a form of research which is becoming increasingly significant in language education If a teacher is trained to carry out an action research, he can solve his problems on his own or in collaboration with other teachers Furthermore, action research is also for teachers‘ professional developments He would become a better teacher because he knows how to find out and solve his problems in teaching scientifically on his own
Anders (1998), Curtus (1988) and Tsui ( 1993) give three reasons why a teacher needs action research:
- to solve own problem in scientific process
- to adapt theory to practice
- to share the results of action research with other teachers
In brief, action research is a kind of scientific research which is undertaken in a school setting by a teacher or an educator to search for solutions to everyday, practical problems experienced in schools, or looking for ways to improve instruction and increase student achievement The solutions which are found out are often practical and useful for teachers and educators From the definitions of action research and the reasons for carrying out an action research, I find that action research is the best for me to apply discourse based-approach to teaching reading comprehension for the purpose of improving reading situation at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism.
Steps for action research
To carry out an action research in a language classroom Researchers suggest following steps
Susman, Gerald (1983) gives a somewhat more elaborate listing He distinguishes five phases to be conducted within each research cycle Initially, a problem is identified and data is collected for a more detailed diagnosis This is followed by a collective postulation of several possible solutions, from which a single plan of action emerges and is implemented Data on the results of the intervention are collected and analyzed, and the findings are interpreted in light of how successful the action has been At this point, the problem is re-assessed and the process begins another cycle This process continues until the problem is resolved
Tsui (1993) suggests five steps in conducting action research:
Step 1: Identifying problems you wish to solve or an area you wish to improve by:
- reviewing an audio- or a video- taped lesson and the transcription of a segment of the lesson that illustrates the problem
- Conducting a survey to hear from your students
Step 2: Finding causes of the problem by:
- consulting with your colleagues, trainers
- reading professional books/ journals for ideas and suggestions
Step 3: Designing strategies for improvement (plan for action) and writing a proposal for action research
Step 4: Trying out the strategies (action) and keeping a diary of what happened in the class
Step 5: Evaluating the try-out by:
- reviewing a lesson (taped at the end of the try-out period) that illustrated the change that have been made
- Reflecting on the reasons for those changes (which could include things that have been improved or that have been gotten worse)
- Carrying out a survey to get information from students
Nunan (1992) suggested seven steps of action research as follows:
- Step 1: Initiation (Identify the problem)
- Step 2: Preliminary Investigation (Collect data through a variety of means)
- Step 3: Hypothesis (Develop research question)
- Step 4: Intervention (Devise strategies and innovation to be implemented)
- Step 5: Evaluation (Collect data again and analyze it to work out the findings)
- Step 6: Dissemination (Report the result by running workshop or issuing a paper)
- Step 7: Follow-up (Find alternative methods to solve the same problem)
In short, the action research design is useful and practical for the researcher The researchers have discussed different steps in an action research This study follows seven steps of action research suggested by Nunan (1992).
The context of teaching and learning reading comprehension at Thanh Hoa
Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism is established on the basis of upgrading Internal Trade Vocational School founded in 1975 The School is responsible for training professionals in tourism and commerce with vocational primary and intermediate level in Thanh Hoa province
English has been made compulsory in the curriculum of our School, according to the framework defined by Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs In the curriculum, 60 class hours are dedicated to basic (general) English, and 270 class hours to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) There are three text books, they are basic English in 2008, English for chef written in 2008 and English for tourism staff in 2012 edited by the teachers in Thanh Hoa Vocational school of Commerce-Tourism and ―New Headway (Elementary)‖ (Liz & John Soars, 2000) Basic English and English for chef aims at developing four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, English for chef is only used for students of culinary degree English for tourism staff is used for all majors in School such as English for restaurant staff, hotel staff and chef This book is mainly focuses on speaking, so it is difficult for teachers to develop all skills for students
In Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism, there are totally 7 teachers of English aged from 27 to 38, who graduated from many different universities such as VNU University of Languages and International Studies, Vinh University and Hong Duc University; all of them are female They are enthusiastic with their career, some of them are so young and have at least 3 years experienced in English teaching
Students are from all districts in Thanh Hoa They are students who did not pass the entrance exams to university, so they applied for this school Most of them are studying cooking major; they think that English is not necessary for their job in their future, so they do not care to learn English and their English level is low although they have learnt English for seven years since they were in secondary school and high school For these reasons, the teachers have many difficulties in teaching English, especially reading skills
While teaching reading part, the teachers always write new words or structures on the blackboard and they give Vietnamese meaning of every word without any requirement for the students‘ prediction or guessing from context
Next, they read aloud and ask the students to listen and repeat Then, they order the students read the text for the first time, in order to find other words or structures still unfamiliar to them After that, the teachers ask the students to read again to do exercises given at the end of the reading text Finally, the teachers or they require the students to translate the text from English into Vietnamese For students‘
English level as mentioned above and the teachers have not applied reasonable methods, teaching and learning reading comprehension have still been ineffective.
Research questions
This paper was aimed at studying the effectiveness of the application of discourse-based approach in teaching reading skill to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning reading at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce- Tourism Thus it was designed to seek answers to the following questions:
Question 1: To what extent does the application of a discourse-based approach change the attitude of students at Thanh Hoa Vocational school of Commerce- Tourism toward leaning reading skill?
Question 2: To what extent does the application of a discourse-based approach help students at Thanh Hoa Vocational school of Commerce-Tourism to read better?
Participants
To achieve the aims of the thesis and answers to the above research questions, the participants of the study consists of 35 first-year students of cooking technique major from the same class and two English teachers as observers and a teacher of the course in Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism
Thirty students were male and five students were female aged between 18 and 21 All of them have learnt English for seven years since secondary school.
Instrumentation
In order to pursue this study, the following instruments were employed:
- Pre-test delivered to students before the course was to diagnose their problems relating to reading comprehension
- Two post-test delivered to students after the course was aimed at evaluating their achievements
- A three-item questionnaire before the course was to investigate the students‘ difficulties and limitations in learning reading
- Another nine-item questionnaire after the course was to investigate the students‘ achievements and to what extent the application of a discourse- based approach help students at Thanh Hoa Vocational school of Commerce- Tourism to read better
- Teachers‘ observations were aimed at observing in the class the students‘ attitudes with towards the teachers‘ activities applying discourse analysis in reading texts, the students‘ involvement in the activities, their interaction with each other while completing the tasks and the result which they gained when doing exercises
- Reading texts were collected from ―New Headway (Elementary)‖ (Liz &
John Soars, 2000) and ―Lifelines‖ (Tom Hutchinson, 2004).
Action research procedure
From the context of teaching and learning reading comprehension at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism, I realized that students could not comprehend reading text because of unknown vocabulary, inability to identify people, things, states of affairs referred to and logical relationships between sentences Therefore, they could not do tasks given after each text and as a result, most of the students feel bored with reading lesson To solve this issue, I carried out this action research ―An application of a discourse-based approach in teaching English reading skill at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism‖
Sep 2: Preliminary Investigation (Collecting data through a variety of means)
When taking with my colleagues and students, I found that the students tried to translate reading texts into Vietnamese without paying attention to cohesive devices which helped them to understand texts easier Also, to identify their ability to analyze cohesive devices, I gave a pre-test to 35 first-year students of cooking technique major The pre-test was a text collected from ―New Headway‖
(Elementary), this text was suitable with the students‘ English level of elementary
The pre-test consists of two parts:
- Section one included pronouns and conjunction in order to test the students‘ ability of identifying the reference of people and things and logical relationships between sentences in the text
- Section two was about comprehension questions to test the students‘ overall comprehension of the text
The test lasted forty five minutes During the time, they were encouraged to do the test on their own
To find out difficulties faced by the students and causes of the problem I conducted a survey to get information from 35 first-year students of cooking technique major by questionnaires
Step 3: Hypothesis (Developing research questions)
After reviewing the initial data, I form the hypothesis that the students did not like reading skill and they could not do tasks in the text because they did not analyze cohesive devices
Step 4: Intervention (Devising strategies and innovation to be implemented)
The criterion for selection was the reading texts that were appropriate to the students‘ proficiency So the eight reading texts used as the reading material in this study were collected from ―New Headway (Elementary)‖ (Liz & John Soars, 2000) and ―Lifelines‖ (Tom Hutchinson, 2004) dealing such topics as food, places, famous person, daily life, adventure, travel, fashion and survivors With each passage, different tasks were designed to find out whether students understood the text or not These tasks were finding out reference, matching conjunction with it function, finding out repetition, relating given words in the same field, finding antonym and synonym, answering the questions, discussion and writing summary
The period of applying a discourse-based approach lasts two months with class meeting once a week Each lesson lasts 45 minutes
Week Unit Title of reading text Book
1 Unit 7: Then and now George Washington New Headway
2 Unit 9: Food you like Food around the world New Headway
3 Unit 10: Bigger and better New Orleans New Headway
4 Unit 12: Life‘s adventure Sky- diver New Headway
5 Unit 6: Daily life It‘s a job, not a holiday Lifelines
6 Unit 9: Survivors Chairlift terror Lifelines
7 Unit 10: Travel TorQuay? But I said
8 Unit 11: Fashion Tamara‘s a model pupil Lifelines
While teaching the reading text, I implemented following activities
Teaching how to guess the meaning of unknown words
The meaning of a word can be inferred from the context in which the word is embedded so the knowledge of lexical cohesion can help in some way
The teacher teaches the students about synonym, antonym, general word and collocation For example, in the text “Food Around The World”, it supposes that students do not know the word “ noodles”, they can guess its meaning because they have already known what “rice” is and for “rice‖ and “ noodles‖ in the context are related to each other Similarly, in the text “TorQuay? But I Said Turkey ‖ two verbs in the paragraph four, “ recognize” and “know”, students can guess meaning of one of them provided that the meaning of one item is familiar to them In this case, “ recognize” and “know” must be synonym
In summary, the teacher helps the students to guess the meaning of unknown words by basing on the meaning of relating words and the whole context to infer their meaning
Teaching how to identify referential relationships
To deal with questions like ―what is it in line….?‖, ― what does this in line…refer?‖ ―who does he in line…refer to‖, the knowledge of reference is necessary, the teacher shows the students how to track for words or phrases that are referred to For example, in the text ― Vienna ‖, pronoun “It” in line 2 refers to “
Vienna” in line 1 In the text ― Sky-diver ‖, pronoun “he” in line 2 refers to ― Clem Quinn ‖ in line 1 The students should know that if they meet pronoun (he, she, it…) or demonstratives (this, that, those, these, here, there), they have to go backward or forward to identify the referred items
Teaching how to identify logical relationships between sentence boundaries
Conjunctions in a text always help reader to identify logical relationships between sentences Some conjunctions have more than one translation in Vietnamese, so the teacher groups conjunctions by their function and provides the students a list of each type which usually appears in texts and helps the students realize them
Additives: and, in other words, in particular, moreover, furthermore, besides…
Adversatives: however, on the contrary, on the other hand, but, yet, nevertheless, although, though…
Temporal: Now, then, first, finally, at first…
Causal: because, therefore, so, thus, hence, for this reason, so that, if, unless, otherwise, in that case…
Step 5: Evaluation (Collecting data again and analyze it to work out the findings)
To evaluate the effectiveness of the application of a discourse-based approach in teaching comprehension a survey was carried out to get result from students by means of the two post- tests and the questionnaires Also the result of class observation was used to reflect on the reasons for those
The results of the action research were reported in this thesis
Step 7: Follow-up (Finding alternative methods to solve the same problem)
After having conducted this study, I became aware of that the application of discourse-based approach can improve the students‘ ability of reading However, I only limited at analysis of cohesive devices Therefore, in the next cycle I will widen the application of discourse-based approach in analysis of discourse patterns for my students who have learnt to analyze cohesive devices
This chapter has carried out the action research procedure I have found out the reasons why the students could not read the reading text From those reasons, I have implemented the activities applying discourse-based approach: teaching how to guess the meaning of unknown words, identify referential relationships and logical relationships between sentence boundaries The results of this procedure will be discussed in the following chapter.
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 The results of the pre-test
The results of the pre-questionnaire
Chart 1: The students‘ attitude toward reading part
The data in the chart 1 indicate that only 11.4% students really liked reading part, 28.6 % learn it, perhaps it was a compulsory part in English subject On the contrary, 60 % said that they did not like English, for it was likely that the students did not understand reading texts and they could not do tasks As a result, they felt bored with reading texts To improve this situation, the teacher carried out investigating the students‘ difficulties and their causes of these difficulties in question 2 and 3
3.2.2 Difficulties faced by the students
2 Pointing out reference in the text 32 91.4
Finding conjunction in the text 23 65.7
Realizing repetition in the text 08 22.9
Relating collocation in the text 28 80
Realizing synonym and antonym in the text 24 68
Table 1: Difficulties faced by the students
As can be seen in the table 1 that while reading only 08 students (22.8%) had difficulty realizing repetition, 32 students (91.4%) could not point out reference in the text, 28 ones (80%) said that they found difficulty relating collocation, 24 ones (68,6%) could not realizing synonym and antonym and 23 students (65.7 %) could not finding conjunction in the text From these data, we could see that the students could not realize cohesive markers in the text
3.2.3 Causes of difficulties faced by the students
Not understanding the meaning of conjunction 23 65.7
Not finding out words sharing the same lexical environment
Not guessing the meaning of unknown words in the context
Table 2 Causes of difficulties faced by the students
As the result of the survey, students had many difficulties learning reading comprehension because of many causes 85.7% students said that they could not guessing the meaning of unknown words in the context, 80% did not learn about reference, 65.7% did not understand the meaning of conjunction and 17.1 % always ignored repetition
Many students had too many difficulties identifying what and whom ―he, she, they, it, this, that, these, those‖ because they had not known that these demonstratives and personals had relationships with particular nouns in the text
And even if they had known about that, they could not find the referred nouns easily Those basic and simple anaphoric and cataphoric relationships marked by items such as pronouns and demonstratives were students‘ problem in learning reading needed to be solved
Logical relationships in a text were often marked by conjunctions However, the students did not pay enough attention to these so they did not understand the meanings and functions of them They thought that those items were only connective words Therefore, they did not carry the main content of a text Although some students were aware of the role of conjunctions, they did not have an adequate knowledge of them Therefore, it was easy to see that most students were unable to identify logical relationship across sentence boundaries, as a result, they could not comprehend a text on the whole
In a reading text in a foreign language, unknown words were unavoidable and the teacher always gave equivalent meanings in Vietnamese in order to help students to understand texts quickly but this had made them passive in reading and they lost their ability of predicting unknown words in the context They could not infer the meaning of a word basing on meaning of other words that were related to the unknown word in a text
In conclusion, through the results of pre-test and survey questionnaires to the students The teacher had identified the students‘ inability to analyze cohesive devices in reading texts Their various difficulties in learning as well as the causes of those difficulties were revealed, the barriers to comprehension of a text were mostly related to cohesive devices So it was certain that good knowledge of discourse devices would help English learners to comprehend reading texts and it was necessary for the teachers to adopt the discourse-based approach in their teaching reading lessons.
The result of the students‘ post-tests after the course
To evaluate the effectiveness of the application of a discourse-based approach in teaching comprehension two post-tests were delivered to the 35 students upon the completion of the activities applying a discourse-based approach in the classroom with the purpose of finding out the results the students got after the course
The time of the first post-test lasted forty five minutes at class and the second post-test was assigned at home in order to know how progressed the students got
The teacher gave the students two tests with different levels and places to do them, the second test were more difficult than the first test because of unlimited time so that the author got reliable results
The both post-test consisted of two parts:
- Section one included pronouns, repetition, collocation, conjunction in order to test the students‘ ability of identifying the reference of people and things and logical relationships between sentences in the text and guessing new words
- Section two was about comprehension questions to test the students‘ overall comprehension of the text (in the first post-test, the students had to answer the questions, in the second post-test, they had to choose the best answer and summarize the text)
Below was the result of the two post test in the form of a chart
Graph 2 The first post-test score of the students
The graph 2 indicates that the highest score was 9 and the lowest was 5, the most common was 7 ( twelve students gained 7) We could calculate the Mean was
7.2, the Mode was 7 and the Median was 8 It proved that the course got effectiveness since all the parameters were higher than those of the pre-test
The following chart was about the result of the second post-test
Graph 3 The second post-test score of the students
As we can be seen from the graph 3 that the highest score (9), the lowest (5) and the common (7) were the same as the score of the students in the first post-test
It was only different that amount of the students getting 9 mark were higher one than they were in the first post-test Similarly, most of the parameters of both post- tests were the same Only the Mean (7.25) in the second post-test was higher than it was in the first-post test (7.2) The result of the second post-test was quite satisfactory, although the second post-test were more difficult, the students had more time to do and they could discuss with each other, so their scores were a bit higher Thus, it could be concluded that these results were reliable
The following was the comparison of parameters between pre-test and post- tests
Result of the pre- test
Result of the first post-test Result of the second post- test Mean = 4.25
Table 3 A comparison of parameters between the pre-test and the two post- tests
Obviously, with the application of discourse- based approach, the course had helped the students improve their reading comprehension Most of the students had mark 7/10 increasing higher than the result they had got before the course (4/10), the score range from 5 to 9 was compared with from 1 to 8 in the pre-test That was an impressive proof for the success of the course.
The result of the questionnaires for the students after the course
At the end of the course, 35 students were asked to give their answers to the
9 questions and then handed in their papers to the teacher The survey questionnaires were delivered to investigate the change of the students‘ attitude after the course, extent to which the application of a discourse-based approach help the students to read better and the students‘ assessment on the application of discourse-based approach
3.4.1 Change in percentage of the students’ attitude to reading comprehension after the application of discourse-based approach
Chart 2: The students‘ attitude toward reading part after the course
It can be seen in the chart 2 that 26 students (73.4%) really liked reading part, 8 ones (22.8 %) learnt it for it was a compulsory part in English subject and only student (2.9%) did not like English These data prove that the students‘ attitude had change after the course, most of them like reading part, that was the reason why the majority of the students got the marks from 7 to 9 and only one got 5 and eight got
6 It may be concluded that the application of discourse analysis has motivated the students to learn English reading comprehension
3.4.2 Extent to which the application of a discourse-based approach help the students to read better
Question The teacher‘ s activities Results
2 Explaining reference in the paragraphs 91.4% 8.6% 0% 0%
3 Relating conjunction with its function in the text
4 Indicating repetition in the text 82.8% 17.2% 2.9% 0%
5 Explaining collocation in the text 85.7% 14.3% 0% 0%
Table 4 Extent to which the application of a discourse-based approach help the students to read better
The data in the table 4 shows that the teacher‘s explaining reference in the paragraphs helped most of the students (91.4%) really read the text better, the second rank was relating conjunction with it function making, (88.6%) students understood the text very much, the third was explaining collocation, synonym and antonym (85.7%) and the last was indicating repetition in the text (82.8)
From the data, it can be inferred that identifying people, things and states of affairs referred to was very important for the students to understand reading texts If they knew ―he, it, they, this…‖ referred to ― who or what‖, they would understand the sentences in the paragraphs mentioning to ―who or what‖ Next, identifying logical relationships between sentence boundaries was also necessary, the conjunction gave the readers logical relationships about facts, ideas, time, place, cause, result, etc… in a text At last, identifying lexical cohesive devices helped the students guessing new words in texts, which was an important skill while reading
3.4.3 The students’ assessment on the application of discourse-based approach
The students’ assessment on the activities applying discourse-based approach
Finding out reference in the text 30 85.7 Relating out conjunction and its function in the text
Realizing repetition in the text 20 42.5%
Finding out collocation in the text 28 80 Realizing synonym and antonym in the text
Table 5: The students‘ assessment on the activities applying discourse-based approach
We can see from the table 5 that the activity which the students enjoyed the most was finding out reference in the text (85.7%) Perhaps, the students felt interested in realizing pronouns and demonstratives referring to ―who‖ and ― what‖, which was necessary for them to comprehend texts The second activity which the students liked the most was relating conjunction with its function (82.9%), which was useful for them to understand connections between ideas in a text The activities ranked the third was finding out collocation, synonym and antonym (80%), which helped them to develop their ability of guessing new words The last was realizing repetition in the text (42.9%) The students liked it the least because it was likely that it is easy for the students to finding out words repeated and they felt bored with words used again and again in a text
The students’ assessment on the exercises applying discourse-based approach
Question Types of exercises Results
8 Finding out reference in the text 32 91.4
Matching conjunction with its function 30 85.7
Find out repetition in the text 20 57.1
Relating given words in the same field 26 74.3 Find out synonym and antonym in the text 26 74.3
Table 6: The students‘ assessment on the exercises applying discourse-based approach The data from the table 6 indicate that as for exercises to test the students‘ ability to identify the reference of people and things, logical relationships between sentences in the text and guessing new words, almost students (91.4%) liked the exercises of finding out reference Next, it was matching conjunction with its functions (85.7%) It proved that these types were interesting for them to do., so
On the contrary, only 74.3% students liked the relating given in the field and finding out synonym and antonym due to limitations of vocabulary and guessing new words in the context Only 57.1% liked finding out repetition
The following table was about the types of exercises to test the students‘ overall comprehension of the text
Question Types of exercises Results
Finding main idea in each paragraph 22 62.9
Writing summary of the text 18 47.7
Table 7: The students‘ assessment on the exercises applying discourse-based approach
As can be seen from the table 7, the exercise which the students liked most was choosing the best answer (94.3%) and the second was answering the question (91.4%) These were types exercises that they usually did in reading part, so when these types were used in the course, the students found them easier to do The third was finding the main idea (62.9%) and the exercise which they liked the least was writing summary of the text (62.9%) Writing summary was a difficult type, it required that the students had to apply both reading and writing skill However, if they understood the function of conjunction, reference and lexical cohesion, they would do well and they could improve writing skill.
The result of class observation
During the course, the two colleagues were asked to observe in the class the students‘ attitudes with towards the teachers‘ activities applying discourse analysis in reading texts, the students‘ involvement in the activities, their interaction with each other while completing the tasks and the result which they gained when doing exercises
According to the teachers‘ observation sheets during each lesson, the students were always ready to participate in the activities and they were willing to interact with each other while completing the tasks Most of them became interested in reference, conjunction, repetition, synonym, antonym and collocation in a text As a result, the majority of students could do exercises on identifying grammatical and lexical cohesion well Furthermore, they could do difficult exercises such as answering the questions, writing summary of the text ,etc… which were used to test their comprehension of the texts with a good result The students took part in each lesson enthusiastically and they got a good result in doing exercises, this means that the application of discourse-based approach was suitable to teaching reading skill.
Implications for teaching English reading skill
A large number of students find difficulties in reading comprehension, they only translate word by word in order to do tasks but they have failed As a result they do not understand reading texts The causes of these difficulties are from both teachers and students The teachers do not teach them techniques to read texts, they only focus on the meaning of text and tasks The students read texts and do tasks passively Through the action research procedure, the application of discourse-based approach in teaching English reading skill has got a good fruit The following suggestions will help the application of discourse-based approach easier and better
First of all, the teachers need to master knowledge of discourse analysis If the teachers do not understand what discourse analysis is, they can not apply the discourse-based approach Also the teachers need to relate the techniques to teach how to guess words‘ meanings, to identify referential relationships and logical relationships between sentence boundaries with other techniques such as the techniques for reading interest and motivation and improving students‘ background knowledge
Secondly, the teachers need to prepare the reading lesson in detail, they should carry out enough three stages in a reading text because each stage has various impacts to help students read better According to William (1984:37), the purpose of the Pre-reading is to introduce and arouse interest in the topic, to motivate learners by giving a reason for reading and provide some language preparation for the text, the purpose of the While-reading is to help understanding of the writer‘s purpose, to help understanding of the text structure and to clarify text content Meanwhile, the Post-reading stage is aimed at consolidating or reflecting upon what has been read and relating the text to the learner‘s own knowledge, interests or view
Thirdly, the teachers teach and train their students techniques to analyze cohesive devices in texts, after they have mastered them, the teacher should guide them to do by themselves so that they read text actively rather than passively
Lastly, the teachers should give their students different types of exercises to test the students‘ ability to identify people, things, states of affairs referred, logical relationships between sentences in a text, guessing unknown words in the context, and comprehend texts the whole
This chapter discusses about the results of the action research procedure The students could not comprehend reading text because of unknown vocabulary, inability to identify people, things, states of affairs referred to and logical relationships between sentences From these difficulties and causes, the application of discourse-based approach has designed and implemented, the discourse analysis focuses on analyzing grammatical and lexical cohesive devices in the texts The two post tests, survey questionnaires and personal observation are used to collect the results after the course As a result, the students become more interested in reading texts, they can understand them and do tasks with a good result From findings and discussion of the study, the implication for teaching English reading skill have been suggested
In this part, I provide a brief summary of the findings with reference to the research questions and give the conclusions All major findings, limitations and suggestions for further study will be presented
This study aims at exploring the effectiveness of the application of a discourse-based approach in teaching English reading skill at Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism Through the critical analysis of the instrumentation, significant results could be put forward as follows:
Firstly, the results which the students got after the course were better and the students‘ attitude toward reading skill has changed, they became more interested in reading skill
Secondly, the application of a discourse-based has helped the students improve their ability to guess the meaning of unknown words in the context, to identify what or who people, things, states of affairs refer to, logical relationships between sentences in a text The teacher‘s activities applying the analysis of cohesive devices helped the students read better As the result the students understood reading texts so most of them could do tasks well
Also, the teacher‘s observation sheets during each lesson show that, the students are always ready to participate in the activities and they took part in lesson enthusiastically
The results of the study clearly show that the implementation of this action research project and its results were fairly effective After applying the discourse- based approach, most of the students can understand reading texts and do tasks well
It will result in making progress in their English language learning
From the main findings of the study, I have drawn the following conclusions:
Firstly, the application of a discourse-based change the student‘s attitude toward reading skill They become more interested in learning English because they understand each text clearly rather than they only knew Vietnamese meanings without understand words and relationships between sentences
Secondly, It is worth training students in applying the discourse-based approach and encourage them applying it regularly This approach does not only improve the students‘ reading skill but it also helps the students develop their writing skill because they can accumulate vocabulary and learn cohesive device and the way of organization of sentences and paragraphs in reading texts
Thirdly, when applying this approach, the teacher should carry out enough three stages in teaching a reading text, because each stage has different purpose to help students to read better Also, the teachers should train their students the techniques analyzing discourse because they do not know ―what is discourse analysis?‖, after they have mastered them the teacher should guide them to do by themselves
Lastly but not least, the application of discourse-based approach must be suitable to student objectives, it can create effectiveness as we wish there are two levels in the application of a discourse –based, the micro level is the analysis of cohesive devices, which is suitable to students with low proficiency and the macro level is the analysis of discourse patterns which is for more advanced students
In any research papers, limitations are inevitable The study presented in this thesis is of no exception
- The area of the study was only restricted in a classroom for 35 first- year students of cooking technique major in Thanh Hoa Vocational School of Commerce-Tourism and it involves administering the application of a discourse- based approach for 45 minutes per week (only 8 weeks) As a result, the treatment may not be enough strong to have significant effect on the dependable variables
- The materials were only collected from ― New Headway (Elementary)‖
(Liz & John Soars, 2000) and ―Life lines ( Elementary)‖ (Tom Hutchinson, 2004)
Thus, any application outside context and other materials requires careful thoughts and considerations