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Output file VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES & * & PHÙNG THỊ THANH TÚ ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES BY STUDENTS[.]
VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES & * & PHÙNG THỊ THANH TÚ ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES BY STUDENTS FROM NORTHERN MOUTAINOUS PROVINES AT THE FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN CÁC TỈNH MIỀN NÚI PHÍA BẮC TẠI KHOA CƠNG NGHỆ THƠNG TIN - ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Ha Noi - 2010 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES *************** PHÙNG THỊ THANH TÚ ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES BY STUDENTS FROM NORTHERN MOUTAINOUS PROVINES AT THE FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN CÁC TỈNH MIỀN NÚI PHÍA BẮC TẠI KHOA CƠNG NGHỆ THƠNG TIN - ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA, Ph.D HaNoi - 2010 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT ii LIST OF TABLES iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Error! Bookmark not defined Rationale Error! Bookmark not defined Aims of the study Error! Bookmark not defined Methods of the study Error! Bookmark not defined Scope of the study: Error! Bookmark not defined PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Reading Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1.1 What is reading? Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1.2 Models of reading Error! Bookmark not defined 1.1.3 Classroom approaches to reading Error! Bookmark not defined 1.2 Reading strategies Error! Bookmark not defined 1.2.1 What are reading strategies? Error! Bookmark not defined 1.2.2 Reading strategies Error! Bookmark not defined 1.3 Teaching reading strategies Error! Bookmark not defined 1.3.1 Teaching reading strategies Error! Bookmark not defined 1.3.2 Teaching reading activities Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4 Research on teaching and learning reading strategies in second language learning Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4.1 Research on teaching reading strategies in second language learning Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4.2 Research on learning reading strategies in second language learning Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY Error! Bookmark not defined 2.1 The context of the study Error! Bookmark not defined v 2.1.1 Setting of the study Error! Bookmark not defined 2.1.2 Sampling and participants Error! Bookmark not defined 2.2 Instruments of data collection Error! Bookmark not defined 2.3 Data collection procedures Error! Bookmark not defined 2.4 Data analysis Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1 FIT students' opinions and reading strategies Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1.1 FIT students’ attitude to reading strategies Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1.2 Strategies taught to FIT students Error! Bookmark not defined 3.1.3 Reading strategies employed in students' reading Error! Bookmark not defined 3.2 FIT English teachers' opinions and reading strategies Error! Bookmark not defined 3.3 Summary Error! Bookmark not defined.0 3.4 Implications of the study Error! Bookmark not defined.2 PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS Error! Bookmark not defined.4 Conclusions Error! Bookmark not defined.4 1.1 Conclusion Error! Bookmark not defined.4 1.2 Conclusion Error! Bookmark not defined.4 Limitations and suggestions for further study Error! Bookmark not defined REFERENCES Error! Bookmark not defined APPENDIX 1: Questionnaires for students Error! Bookmark not defined APPENDIX 2: Questionnaires for teachers Error! Bookmark not defined 1 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale Reading is an essential way of obtaining information in contemporary society Research discovered that readers spontaneously use reading strategies in the reading process (Pritchard, 1990) Literature also suggested that the use of appropriate reading strategies may improve reading comprehension (Oxford, 1990) Using reading strategies can be of great help to non-native readers because it may serve as an effective way of overcoming language deficiency and obtaining better reading achievement both for regular school assignments and on language proficiency tests (Zhang, 1992) Reading is an activity with a purpose A person may read in order to gain information or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer's ideas or writing style Another person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language being read The purpose(s) for reading guide the reader's selection of texts Reading strategies help readers to acquire a text quickly Successful language learners know how to use reading strategies efficiently In language learning, students read to learn the language, to broaden their knowledge, and to assignments The purposes of reading strategies are to have general knowledge, to get a specific detail, to find out the main idea or theme, to learn, to remember, to delight, to summarize and to research In the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT), Thai Nguyen University, English has been considered as the important subject due to the fact that many informational technology documents are now written in English Once students master the English language, or are capable of comprehending satisfactorily documents written in it, they can more easily grasp new technology than those weaker in this language There is a new rule for (FIT) students enrolling this academic year: After graduation, students need to attain an English competency equivalence of 400 points (TOEFL-PBT) This seems to be a bit high of a requirement for the students; however, this is a motivation for them to study and concentrate more on the language It is natural that in order to master a language, learners often want to improve in all four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing For the FIT students, the most important skill is reading as almost all English books about Information Technology are written in English Moreover, Vietnamese books about Information Technology are sometimes out of date and difficult to understand due to bad translation FIT students are taught reading skills from their first academic year Through observing English reading classes, this author has realized that most students read the text and then translate it into Vietnamese They don’t know what or how to use reading strategies to comprehend the text When dealing with a reading lesson, students often suffer from a lack of reading strategies which are essential for them to overcome the reading comprehension challenges in the classroom A large body of research has found that effective readers are aware of the strategies they use and that they use strategies flexibly and efficiently (Garner, 1987; Presley, Beard EL, Dinary & Brown, 1992 cited in Nguyen (2007)) Researchers believed that these strategies can be taught to ineffective language learners so that they can then become more successful at language learning Besides developing reading proficiency for students, teachers who train students to use reading strategies can also help them become autonomous language learners Consequently, teaching students learning strategies is an important duty of the language teachers since learning strategies can help students monitor and take responsibility for their own learning Helping students understand good language learning strategies and training them to develop and use them can be considered the desired characteristics of a good language teacher (Lessard C., 1997:3) Due to the aforementioned reasons, it's necessary for this author to investigate what English reading strategies students use and ascertain what reading strategies English teachers in FIT teach Therefore, implications for teaching and learning reading strategies can be obtained via the results of the research titled "English Reading strategies by Students from the Northern Mountainous Provinces at the Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University" Aims of the study This study aims to: - Investigate what reading strategies FIT students employ when reading in English - Explore what reading strategies FIT English teachers teach 3 In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims of the study, the following major research questions will be posed: - What are the reading strategies in English used by students at Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University? - What reading strategies the English teachers in FIT teach? Methods of the study In order to achieve the aims mentioned previously, the study employed quantitative methods including survey questionnaires for students The survey questionnaires for students were used to determine what reading strategies employed by the students when reading in English And survey questionnaires for teachers were also administered to explore what reading strategies English teachers in FIT taught After the data is analyzed and discussed, all comments, remarks, recommendations, assumptions and conclusions pertaining to the study will be available and some suggestions will then be raised concerning the thesis Scope of the study: A learners' success or failure in acquiring a language can be affected by many interrelated factors Among these factors, the teaching of reading strategies should be taken into consideration However, this study only focuses on the learning reading strategies of students at the Faculty of Information Technology – Thai Nguyen University and includes suggestions for employing these strategies in those classrooms In order to survey learners' reading strategies and investigate the teachers' teaching methods, numerous ways of collecting data may be used However, the present study employs only the questionnaire Therefore, there is a limitation concerning the reliability of the data used As Dornyei Z (2003) states questionnaires have some serious limitations, and some of these have led certain researchers to claim that questionnaire data are not reliable or valid 4 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews theories related to reading and reading activities in general and reading strategies in particular It also reviews current research on teaching and learning reading strategies that have been conducted so far All of these serve as a basis for an investigation into reading strategies in English employed by students from northern mountainous provinces at Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University which is carried out and presented in the next chapter 1.1 Reading 1.1.1 What is reading? The definition of reading has changed substantially during the past few decades, from a focus on reading as decoding or as set of decontextualized or context free skills, to a view of reading as information processing (Goodman, 1967, Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B E and Kamil L M., 2003) or as an interactive process in which reader is actively involved in using available content knowledge to construct the meaning of the text (Anderson & Pearson, 1984, Richards and Schmidt, 2002, Anderson, 2003) Richards and Schmidt (2002) define reading in Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B E and Kamil L M.(2003) perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents This can be done silently called silent reading The understanding that results is called reading comprehension Saying a written text aloud which can be done with or without an understanding of the contents is called oral reading Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B E and Kamil L M.(2003:6) also consider "reading is about understanding written texts Reading is a complex activity that consists of two related processes: word recognition and comprehension Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understand written text" 5 1.1.2 Models of reading Researchers have created models that describe what happens when people read According to Aebersold J A & Field M L (1997), in Hudson T (2007), there are three main model of how reading occurs identified as bottom-up, top-down and interactive * Bottom-up theory In bottom-up theory, the smallest units of a text from letters to words to phrases to sentences, etc are constructed by a reader Bottom-up processing focuses on how readers extract information from the printed page, claiming that readers deal with letters and words in a relatively complete and systematic fashion According to Nunan (1991), reading was viewed as ― "the process of meaning interpretation'' in which ―the language is "translated from one form of symbolic representation to another" The bottom-up theory (Hudson T (2007) to reading focus fairly on text rapid processing and word identification By mapping the input directly on to some independent representational form in the mental lexicon, the reader can have the ability to recognize words in isolation Researchers of bottom-up model are primarily interested in how a reader reads rather than in what the reader comprehends The view from Perfetti (1997) in Hudson T (2007) is that reading comprehension is equal to language comprehension, plus decoding, plus some minor other contributing variable In other words, in the bottom – up model, the reader begins with the written text (the bottom) and constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and sentences found within, and then processes the text in a linear fashion Theories of reading that stress bottom-up processing claim that the reader processes all of the letters in the last word of the sentence, regardless of its predictability Obviously, in the view of this driven model, the reader seems to play a relatively passive role because the basis of bottom – up processing is the linguistic knowledge of the reader Another shortcoming of the bottom-up model shown by Samuel and Kamil (1988: 31) is that "because of the lack of feedback loops in the early bottom – up models, it was difficult to account for as facilitating variables in word recognition and comprehension" Because of this drawback, and as well as the introduction of the top-down model of reading, many researchers was not interested in the bottom-up model * Top-down theory Top-down model rejects the notion that identification of letters to form words, and the derivation of meaning from these words is efficient reading On the contrary, it assumes that efficient reading requires the readers to make predictions and hypothesis about the text content by relating the new information to their prior knowledge and by using as few language clues as possible It is further assumed that the readers can check whether the hypothesis are correct or not by sampling the text Kenneth Goodman and Frank Smith are the researchers who are most closely identified with top-down theory to the reading process Goodman use the term "psycholinguistic guessing game" (also Carrell, 1998: 2) to "value the cognitive economy of linguistic information over graphemic information" He specifies four processes in reading: predicting, sampling, confirming, and correcting In top-down process, the reader guesses the meaning of the text and samples the print to confirm or disconfirm the guess In other words, the reader brings to bear not only knowledge of the language, but also internal concepts of how language is processed, past experiential background and general conceptual background The top-down model is influenced by schema theory, which emphasizes the importance of the reader’s background knowledge in the reading process (Carrell, 1998:4) According to this theory, so as to comprehend a text, readers make use of both the text and their background knowledge Therefore, interaction of the background knowledge and the text is essential for efficient reading Smith (1971, 1994) in Hudson T (2007) see that reading instruction should take place when comprehension of a text is possible, rather than focus on isolated phoneme-grapheme correspondence activities and drills The readers bring a great deal of knowledge, expectations, assumptions, and questions to the text and, given a basic understanding of the vocabulary, they continue to read as long as the text confirms their expectations (Goodman, 1976) Apparently, according to Eskey (1988), the top-down model tends to emphasize higher level skills as the prediction of meaning by means of context clues or background knowledge at the expense of lower skills like the rapid and accurate identification of lexical and grammatical forms In making the perfectly valid point that fluent reading is primarily a cognitive process, they tend to deemphasize the perceptual and decoding dimensions of that process This model is good for the skillful, fluent reader for whom perception and decoding have become automatic, not for the less proficient, developing reader Stanovich (1988) stated that ― the generation of hypotheses would actually be more time – consuming than decoding Therefore, a top-down model of reading is essentially a model of the fluent reader and does not account for all the needs of students who are acquiring reading skills For many reading theorists who recognized the importance of both the text and the reader in the reading process, a combination of the two emerged the interactive model * Interactive theory Presently, interactive model of reading is accepted by most researchers and teachers (Hudson T (2007) Reading is seen as a skill that can be understood independently from issues of general comprehension Context can aid in the process, but has less direct influence than the cognitive processing of print The interactive model reflected in Smith (1994) that language has a surface structure, the observable characteristics of language as it exists in print or speech, and it also has a deep structure, the meaning obtained from the message In such views of the interactive nature of reading, priority is given to the process of sampling the text, making predictions about the intended meaning, and then evaluating the message through subsequent reading The third orientation focuses on the necessity of addressing social context, and is associated with the new literacy studies This orientation sees reading and writing together rather than as separate skills The interactive models of reading assume that skills at all levels are interactively available to process and interpret the text In this model, good readers are both good decoders and good interpreters of text, their decoding skills becoming more automatic but no less important as their reading skill develops In short, the interactive process of reading involves not only the processing of text on a page or elsewhere, and cultural background knowledge, but also the power relationships in the society which have produced concepts of the reading process 8 To sum up, the advent and popularity of interactive models show that interactive models can maximize the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of both bottom – up and top –down models 1.1.3 Classroom approaches to reading Williams E (1996:37) tries to deal with some of the problems that language teachers report He looks at exploitation in terms of three phases including the pre-, while- and postreading which "helps not only with the problems of motivation, but also with the other problems of language, and the selection or construction of reading" The pre-reading phase tries to: 1) Introduce and arouse interest in the topic 2) Motivate learners by giving a reason for reading 3) Provide some language preparation for the text The while-reading phase's aims are: 1) to help understand the writer's purpose 2) to help understand the textual structure 3) to clarify textual content The post-reading phase is to: 1) consolidate or reflect upon what has been read 2) to relate the text to the learners' own knowledge, interests or views Apparently, the three phases are not necessary to carry out in one lesson However, these following advantages are the evidences to perform this three phases approach First, it elicits students to share their own knowledge or knowledge of the world and uses this as a basis for involvement, motivation, and progress Second, the reading lesson is not simply isolated as it is performed with integrated skills 9 1.2 Reading strategies 1.2.1 What are reading strategies? Reading strategies have been studied by many researchers Therefore, many reading strategy definitions are given According to Wallace, reading strategies involve ways of processing a text that will vary with the nature of the text, the reader's purpose, and the context of the situation (Wallace C., 1992: 57) Duffy G G (2009:13, 14) states that , in reading, making predictions is a strategy because readers are thoughtful in using text clues and prior knowledge to make an initial prediction, but they remain ready to change or adjust a prediction when subsequent text clues provide more information Barnett (1988) calls reading strategies the mental operations involved when readers approach a text effectively and make sense of what they read According to Hudson T., 2007:107 a reading strategy can be described as: "any interactive process that has the goal of obtaining meaning from connected text, and reading skills operate within the context of such reading strategies The strategies of predicting, confirming, monitoring, reflecting, and evaluating are consciously brought to bear Strategies operate to lessen demands on working memory by facilitating comprehension processing" In this definition, the author gives quite clearly and comprehendingly the explanation of reading strategies Therefore, the present study utilized this definition as the key direction in its investigation 1.2.2 Reading strategies There are many reading strategies that appear to be very important according to a large number of researchers It is a difficult task to decide which strategies are the most significant According to Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995), there are six categories of language learning strategies They are memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies They are also applied to Oxford’s six dimensions of strategy classification for the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) However, this inventory is not used in the 10 present study but a more refined instrument called Survey Of Reading Strategies (SORS) is adapted and used instead This survey was originally developed as a tool for measuring native English speaking students’ awareness and perceived use of reading strategies while reading academic or school-related materials and it was called the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) devised by Mokhtari and Reichard (2000) 1.3 Teaching reading strategies 1.3.1 Teaching reading strategies As mentioned previously, there should be three phases in teaching a reading lesson There are many variations on what strategies to use for teaching in each phase, but they all draw out a similar pattern Pre-read Before reading, it is usually recommended to have students access their prior knowledge Researchers identify this of being of particular importance Of the many ways of doing this, there are two that seemed interesting Anticipation guides give the students four to six true false questions to answer before and after they read Variations on this call for written justification for their answers and support from the reading Another is a K-WL chart, which requires the reader to write what they already know, what they want to know, and, after they read, what they learned The importance of vocabulary instruction is also well documented The danger here is that looking up words in the dictionary is universally considered ineffective It is better that students learn words within their context, or derive meaning from root words, prefixes, and suffixes Read During reading, it is important that students are able to decode the text style to find the main ideas and extract meaning This must be modeled in the classroom Another strategy that is recommended is reciprocal reading Students work in small groups to pose questions, make predictions, summarize, clarify what they have read This would also have 11 to be started as a teacher moderated activity until the students are able to moderate their own groups A combined set of strategies, really involves many of the skills already listed It combines accessing prior knowledge, monitoring comprehension, posing questions, sorting questions into categories, developing a web of information from the reading, connecting question categories to web, and reflection Whatever strategies are used it is strongly suggested that they be modeled in a setting that ensures success so that students will be able to see the value Another recommendation by the same author is to add a few strategies at a time It is not effective to suddenly expect the students to use six or seven different skills The intent must be for the students to build a set of skills that they will use independently Post-read The purpose of post-reading strategies is to extend the reading experience by helping the reader to: (1) consolidate or reflect upon what has been read; (2) relate the text to the learners' own knowledge, interests, or views It is suggested that summarizing and predicting the ending of the text are good strategies to use In addition, taking notes about what they have read and how much they have read mean to reinforce strategic behavior and to encourage transfer of strategies training to other tasks 1.3.2 Teaching reading activities The design of useful reading activities is one of the teacher’s responsibilities in helping students develop their reading ability And in designing the reading activities, a three-phase procedure involving pre-, while-, and post-reading stages should be taken into consideration The intention is to ensure that reading is ―taught‖ in the sense of helping readers develop increasing ability to tackle texts Actually each phase has a different goal and deals with different reading strategies The overall aim is to train the students to be efficient readers in the foreign language Other aspects have to be considered as well though, such as the student’ interest and motivation 12 A variety of activities can be developed to help students acquire more appropriate reading skills and strategies; to expand their vocabulary, structural knowledge, and discourse knowledge; and to become more effective English language reader To encourage students to use effective strategies when reading in a second language, the teacher can develop simple activities to elicit information via targeted strategies These activities can be divided by the stage of reading at which they occur Pre-reading activities introduce students to a particular text, elicit or provide appropriate background knowledge, and activate necessary schemata Previewing a text with students should arouse their interest and help them approach the text in a more meaningful and purposeful manner as the discussion compels them to think about the situation or points raised in a text The pre-reading phase helps students define selection criteria for the central theme of a story or the major argument of an essay Pre-reading activities include: discussing author or text type, brainstorming, reviewing familiar stories, considering illustrations and titles, skimming and scanning (for structure, main points, and future directions) While-reading activities help students develop reading strategies, improve their control of the second language, and decode problematic text passages Helping students to employ strategies while reading can be difficult because individual students control and need different strategies Nevertheless, the teacher can pinpoint valuable strategies, explain which strategies individuals most need to practice, and offer concrete exercises in the form of "guided reading" activity sheets Such practice activities might include guessing word meanings by using context clues, word formation clues, or cognate practice; considering syntax and sentence structure by noting the grammatical functions of unknown words, analyzing reference words, and predicting text content; reading for specific pieces of information; and learning to use the dictionary effectively Post-reading activities first check students' comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis of the text, when warranted Because the goals of most real world reading are not to memorize an author's point of view or to summarize text content, but rather to see into another mind, or to mesh new information into what one already knows, second language reading must go beyond detail-eliciting comprehension drills to help students 13 recognize that different strategies are appropriate with different text types For example, scanning is an appropriate strategy to use with newspaper advertisements whereas predicting and following text cohesion are effective strategies to use with short stories By discussing in groups what they have understood, students focus on information they did not comprehend, or did not comprehend correctly Discussions of this nature can lead the student directly to text analysis as class discussion proceeds from determining facts to exploring deeper consequences of the texts Integrative activities use text language and ideas in second language listening, speaking, and/or writing Integrative skills exercises include such activities as students reacting to texts with summaries, new endings, or pastiches; reenacting text; dramatizing interviews based on the text; carefully listening for key words or phrases in authentic video or audio tapes; and creating role-play situations or simulations of cultural experiences 1.4 Research on teaching and learning reading strategies in second language learning 1.4.1 Research on teaching reading strategies in second language learning There have been a number of intervention studies in second language reading strategies which have focused on reading strategies training Carrel (1985) provided explicit instruction in text-structure in order to determine whether such instruction would facilitate reading comprehension The participants were 25 high-intermediate proficiency English as Second Language (ESL) students in an intensive English program The subjects received text-structure training for five successive one-hour sections during a one-week period The training sections included four text structures: 1) collection of descriptions; 2) causation; 3) problem/solution; and 4) comparison Subjects were given study packets explaining the benefits of the strategy, and checklists for the monitoring and regulating of their own learning The results indicated that the treatment group showed a significant gain in their recognition and use of the text structure while the control group did not In addition, the treatment group recalled a significantly larger number of idea units from the test passages than the control group, indicating an effect on reading comprehension of the text structure training Finally, Carrell concluded that 14 training in text structure can benefit at least relatively high-level second language readers' reading comprehension Barnett (1988) investigated the relationships among reading strategies and perceived strategies use on reading - comprehension in a two-part study He firstly looked at the strategies use, and secondly looked at the effect of a teaching intervention designed to help students develop more effective reading strategies before, during, and after reading The participants were 272 college level students in fourth-semester French classes The reading strategies training included skimming, scanning, guessing, and predicting The results indicated that students had better reading comprehension with use of reading strategies through context They also increased their self-perception of effective strategies use Additionally, the treatment group had significantly higher scores for strategy use However, the groups did not differ in term of perceived strategy use as well as their comprehension scores This finding may show the importance of quality and intensity of the strategy instruction Kern (1989) has shown the effects of strategy instruction on the study "the effects of strategy instruction on the reading comprehension and inferential ability of intermediatelevel French students" The study focused not only on whether direct strategy instruction was effective, but also whether it was differentially effective depending upon second language reading ability The subjects were fifty-three French students in the thirdsemester, who were divided into two groups: 1) the experimental group that received explicit instruction in reading strategy use added to normal course content; and 2) control group that received the normal course content without the strategy training The strategies for the experimental group included: 1) word analysis (cognates, prefixes, etc.); 2) sentence analysis (questioning strategies, attention to cohesive devices); 3) discourse analysis (diagramming, cloze, inferring word meaning from context, hypothesis formation about prediction, main idea identification); and 4) reading for specific purposes (solve a particular problem being presented) The results indicated that, for the comprehension measure, there was a statistically significant difference in comprehension gain between the strategy-training group and the control group subjects within the low-ability level However, this was not found for the middle- or high-ability level For the inference measure, the strategy-training group showed a significantly higher gain than the control 15 group, but there were no differential effects based on level of ability Thus the study has shown that strategy instruction affects comprehension, but the degree to which it is differential depending upon reading ability level is still not clear answered A case study was presented by Jiménez (1997), which studied on how instruction affects strategy use and perception The participants were five bilingual Latino students with low literacy levels in English The author assumed that a reading program that emphasizes comprehension and the use of strategic reading processes can improve word recognition and reading fluency The program included the components of: 1) culturally relevant and familiar text; 2) a focus on comprehension, stressing important reading strategies; and 3) provision of opportunities to build reading fluency The strategies that were taught included: 1) resolving the meaning of unknown vocabulary; 2) how to investigate prior knowledge; and 3) how to formulate questions The results shown that students took more active role in their reading They actively asked questions and connected textual information with their prior knowledge They believed that the awareness of reading requires thinking and on occasion explicitly labeled their strategy use such as questioning Several of them also developed explicit strategies for addressing unknown vocabulary The study provides insight into how reading can be made a little less mysterious and how selection of appropriate text is an important tool in strategy training 1.4.2 Research on learning reading strategies in second language learning Hosenfeld (1977) in an early second language reading study examined the relationships between different reading strategies and successful or unsuccessful readers using think-aloud protocols The participants were 40 students who half identified as proficient and half identified as non-proficient Hosenfeld found that her successful readers: 1) kept the meaning of the passage in mind during reading; 2) read (translated) in broad phrases; 3) skipped words viewed as unimportant to total phrases meaning; and 4) had a positive self-concept as a reader In contrast, her unsuccessful readers 1) forgot the meaning of sentences as soon as they decoded them; 2) read in short phrases; 3) seldom skipped words as unimportant, viewing words as equal in term of their contribution to total meaning; and 4) had a negative self concept as a reader 16 Block (1986) examined the strategies employed by first language and second language readers The participants were three native and six non-native speakers enrolled in freshman remedial reading courses in the US Each student was given two self-contained reading selections rated at approximately the ninth-grade readability level After thinkaloud session, the students retold the story as closely as possible, and answered a 20 questions multiple choice test The results show that there was not a systematic non-native pattern of strategy use different from a native speaker pattern for the readers in the remedial courses Moreover, one of the readers in each language group integrated information more consistently than the others, recognized text structure more frequently, and referred to personal experiences less frequently than the others They also made more progress in developing their reading skill and demonstrated greater success after one semester On the other hand, the other readers in each group tent to make associations in a reflexive manner, failing to integrate information from the text effectively, and seeming unaware of text structure They also made less progress in their reading skill development over the semester Padron and Waxman (1988) conducted a study on the reading strategies of young EFL readers The purpose of this research was to identify the strategies the students felt that they used The population of the study was 82 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade Hispanic EFL students They were asked to complete a 14 item reading strategies questionnaire and two standardized reading comprehension tests in order to identify which strategies they felt that they used and to examine the relationship between the self-reported reading strategies and reading comprehension Padron and Waxman found that seven of the strategies were found to be positively related to students' reading as follows: Summarizing in writing Underlining important parts of the story to see if everything is remembered Self-generated questions Checking through the story to see if everything is remembered Asking questions about parts of the story not understood Taking notes ... via the results of the research titled "English Reading strategies by Students from the Northern Mountainous Provinces at the Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University" Aims of the. .. study, the following major research questions will be posed: - What are the reading strategies in English used by students at Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University? - What reading. .. teaching of reading strategies should be taken into consideration However, this study only focuses on the learning reading strategies of students at the Faculty of Information Technology – Thai Nguyen