An investigation into English reading strategies employed by first-year students in Honors Program at Vietnam National University of Agriculture

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES

EMPLOYED BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN HONORS PROGRAMAT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

(Nghiên cứu những chiên lược đọc hiéu tiéng Anh của sinh viên năm thứ

nhất hệ chất lượng cao tại Học viện Nông nghiệp Việt Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching MethodologyCode: 60140111

Hanoi — 2015

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIESFACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES

EMPLOYED BY FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS IN HONORS PROGRAM

AT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

(Nghiên cứu những chiến lược đọc hiểu tiếng Anh của sinh viên năm thứnhất hệ chat lượng cao tại Học viện Nông nghiệp Việt Nam)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Huy Ky

Hanoi - 2015

I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people whosehelp and guidance have encouraged me to complete this thesis.

First and foremost, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my admirable

supervisor, Dr Nguyén Huy Ky, whose patience, prompt consultancy and

encouragement were the most essential factors to the fulfillment of this research.

Secondly, I also counted myself as fortunate to have the six students (S1, S2,S3, 54, S5 and S6) as my research participants Without much of their time devoted

to several survey and think-aloud procedures, this thesis would not have beenfinished.

Thirdly, I must also express my most sincere appreciation to my colleagues

who have assisted me with data analysis and useful advice.

Lastly, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my beloved parents and husband whoseconstant support and patience have encouraged me through the most difficult times.

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preferred than Cognitive by both groups Successful readers reported utilizingmetacognitive and cognitive categories more frequently and employed a wider

range of reading strategies than less successful readers Also, significant differencesbetween successful readers and less successful readers were found on some

prominent Metacognitive and Cognitive strategies From these findings, the

research pointed out some reading strategies the students need to develop Some

teaching implications were that teachers should provide students with instruction onreading strategies, make them aware of self-monitoring their reading strategy use

and apply think-aloud reports in the curriculum.

1H

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART B: DEVELOPMENT, LH HH ng ng nh HH 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEẨẬW Q LH HH HH ru 5

1.1 Language learning sfraf©gØÏ€S - - HH ng TH 5

ID) 4 51.1.2 Classification of learning sffaf€Ø1€S cà + nh rtrierirrkg 61.2 Reading strategies 0.0.0 ốe 91.2.1 Definition of reading - - c + 1121312111115 15911 1111181118111 re 91.2.2 Different approaches to reading prOC€SS - 5c Sc se 10

2.3 Data collection ỉnstrumenfs - - - CC CĐ E92 SS SE 9125533331111 11 11111 re 182.3.1 QuesfionnaIr€s - - - -c + 2112123111121 1119211 1110111118011 1182111881 ke 182.3.2 Think-aloud reports 1332113121131 1111 1118111181111 11 811gr rưy 212.4 Procedures of data collection 0.0.00 ee ceeceeceseeseeeneceeensesneeeaeeeaeens 21

“Nga on an a2 21

ZALL Stage an 21"5U `: 2 222.4.1.3 Results of the pilot-study - Sc St S* vn ray 222.4.2 Administering the questionnaires - -ó- 6 5 2+1 ng re rệt 222.4.3 Administering the think-aloud reports - + c+£+vcsexs+2 222.5 Coding Of data oo 232.6 Procedures of data anaÌySÏS - Á 0 TH HS Hs ng SH HH kg Hy re 23PK.) 23CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION - càcceieeieeire 24

3.1 Research question 1: What reading comprehension strategies are usedby successful readers and less successful readerS? cc+s<cs++ 24

3.1.1 The use of reading strategy Categories - óc So cv sssereerrsee 24

3.1.2 The use of individual strategies within strategy cat€gOTI€S - 253.1.2.1 The use of individual strategies within metacognitive category 253.1.2.2 The use of individual strategies within cognitive category 263.2 Research question 2: How does the use of reading comprehension strategiesby successful readers differ from that by less successful readers? 26

3.2.1 Differences in the use of strategy Caf€ØOTI©S c5 c2 26

3.2.2 Differences in the use of individual strategles - - - «+5 273.2.2.1 Differences in the use of individual metacognitive strategies 293.2.2.2 Differences in the use of individual cognitive strategies 30Km) 0 31PART C: CONCLUSIONS SH HH HH Hit 33

1 Recapitulation of major findinỹs - - - 2 3S xxx ren 33

2 Concluding v2 in e 33

3 Timplicatioms 1n 5 34

3.1 Reading strategies that the students need to develop - 34

3.1.1 Reading strategies that successful students need to develop 34

3.1.2 Reading strategies that less successful students need to develop 35

Figure 1:

Figure 2:

Figure 3:

Figure 4:Figure 5:

Figure 6:Figure 7:

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Learning strategy definition and classification (O'Malley and Chamot,

Questionnaire: Reading strategy coding categories adapted fromO'Malley and Chamot (1990: 119) ¿25c +22 *+++vExeereereerresrs 20Strategy categories used by successful and less successful readers 26

Difference in the use of individual strategies by SRs and LRs 28

Reading strategies that successful students need to develop 34

Reading strategies that less successful students need to develop 35

Strategy category frequency for successful and less successful readersIndividual strategy frequency within Metacognitive category forsuccessful and less successful readers stress 25Individual strategy frequency within Cognitive category for successfuland less successful T€4(€TS - - cà kg HH HH nhiệt 26The use of individual metacognitive strategies by successful readers 29

The use of individual metacognitive strategies by less successfulLOCALS 00 Ả 29

The use of individual cognitive strategies by successful readers 30

The use of individual cognitive strategies by less successful readers 31

vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Over the last few decades, views on good instruction in language learningapproach have shifted from teacher- centeredness to learner-centeredness, whichmeans the focus is on improving student’s active learning, rather than on thetransmission of information Another issue has been raised concerning the question

why some learners shine in language learning while others do not Researchers havesuggested that their use of learning strategies is a crucial factor affecting learners’

achievement (Rubin, 1975; Oxford, 1990) In other words, successful learners domake an effective use of learning strategies to deal with problems that emergeduring their learning process while less successful ones do not A firm grasp oflanguage learning strategies, thus, is a must for both teachers with an aim to

encourage their students’ language learning process and students with a desire to

master language skills It is also important for both successful and less successfullanguage learners to recognize the differences in their strategy uses so that a deep

awareness of how to use strategies effectively can be gained.

This finding has provoked interest among researchers in investigating how

language learners use strategies to acquire vocabulary, grammar and to excel in

language skills (Rubin, 1975; Oxford, 1990; Cohen, 1998) Empirical research,

however, has been little conducted to uncover the learning strategies in general andreading comprehension strategies in particular, especially by students at Vietnam

National University of Agriculture (VNUA) In Honors Program at VNUA, readingis an essential language skill for the students to support their professional studies as

most of the compulsory courses are delivered in English and require a lot of Englishreading materials However, apart from some students with high level of Englishreading proficiency, many of them find reading skill challenging, especially whenthey deal with academic texts though they have studied English for more than ten

years They have shown worries about little understanding of the documents they

have read and their unsatisfactory studying results As an English teacher at VNUA

with two-year experience in teaching English reading skill to these students, the

research is well aware of their problems and has been attempting to support them in

dealing with such obstacles This study, hence, mainly focuses on investigating the

use of reading comprehension strategies by first-year students in Honors Program

and find out the differences in strategy use by successful readers and less successful

2 Objectives of the study

The present study aims to examine current situation of using reading strategies

among first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA To be more specific, the

objectives of the study are

(1) to find out the frequency of reading strategy use of SRs and LSRs among

the first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA;

(2) to investigate the differences in the frequency of reading strategy use

between SRs and LSRs3 Research questions

Question 1: What is the frequency of reading strategy use of successful readers andless successful readers?

Question 2: How does the frequency of reading strategy use of successful readers

differ from that of less successful readers?

4 Methods of the study

The study was conducted using both quantitative and qualitative methodsincluding questionnaires and think-aloud reports (a research method in whichparticipants speak aloud any words in their mind as they complete a task) The

quantitative data was collected through a survey on the use of reading strategies andqualitative data was obtained through think-aloud protocol to investigate thelearners’ reading strategies.

5 Significance of the study

Since research into reading strategies has never been carried out in the

context of Honors Program, VNUA, this study is hoped to identify the detailed

description of reading strategies used by readers of two different levels Besides, itis also expected to provide an elaborative analysis of the differences in reading

strategy uses between SRs and LSRs The findings will then be informed to the

students so as to help them make right decisions on how to use reading strategies.

The findings also serve a pedagogical foundation for the teachers to draw out someplans to help improve their students’ reading competence.

6 Scope of the study

The participants of this study were at the end of their first year of the Honors

Program at VNUA with their major being agricultural economics The subjects

were categorized into two groups of successful readers and less successful readersaccording to their reading test scores throughout two first semesters at the university

together with the researcher’s observations.

It should essentially be noted that the primary concerns of this study are the

use of reading comprehension strategies used by successful and less successfulreaders and the differences in the use between these two groups Investigations into

subjects’ strategies in other aspects of language such as listening, speaking orwriting as well as their learning styles and their teachers’ instructional methods are

beyond this study’s concerns.7 Organization of the study

The study will be presented in 3 parts.

Part A— Introduction- states the reasons for choosing the topic, the objectives

of the study, the questions, the scope, the methods, and the design of the study.Part B — Development - includes 4 chapters.

Chapter I — Literature Review — provides background of the study andcomprehensive review of the related empirical studies.

Chapter 2 — Methodology — describes the participants and instruments of the

study, as well as the procedure implemented to do the research.

Chapter 3 — Findings and discussion — presents, analyzes and discusses the

findings that the researcher discovered from the data collected from employed

instruments according to three research questions.

Part C — Conclusions — restates the findings of the study, discusses the

implications and the limitations of the study and proposes some suggestions forfurther research Following this part are the References and Appendices.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews theories and research related to learning strategies ingeneral and reading strategies in particular A justification on the basis of literaturereview for the learning strategies as well as reading strategy definitions and

framework adopted by the researcher of the current paper are also presented.

1.1 Language learning strategies

1.1.1 Definition

The field of language learning strategies has gained a massive amount ofinterest in applied linguistics in the last thirty years Tarone (1981) claimed that a

language learning strategy is “an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic

competence in the target language to incorporate these into one’s inter-language

competence” Holding the same viewpoint, irrespective of other aspects of language

learning such as cultural understanding, Clause & Kasper (1983) defined learning strategies as learners’ trial to achieve linguistic and sociolinguisticcompetence in the target language.

language-According to Richards (1992) in the Dictionary of Language Teaching and

Applied Linguistics, the definition for language learning strategies is ‘intentional or

potentially intentional behaviors carried out with the goal of learning to better help

them understand, learn and remember new information’ Similarly, Cohen (1998)broadly views language learning strategies as steps or actions selected by learners

either to improve the learning of a L2 or the use of it or both These definitions aregenerally considered comprehensive among scholars in the field because learning

strategies are regarded as conscious and intentional actions However, thesedefinitions view language learning strategies only as “behaviors” or "actions", i.e.learning strategies are behavioral, and therefore, they are mostly observable.

However, many studies later showed that learning strategies are not always

explicitly displayed.

Evolving from others, O’Malley and Chamot’s definition (1990) considers

language learning strategies “the special thoughts or behaviors that individuals useto help them comprehend, learn, and/ or retain new information” In this definition,

language-learning strategies can be either observable or unobservable, and areindividually characterized (i.e every learner's strategies are different) For itscomprehensiveness, this definition will be used as the key direction in this study.

1.1.2 Classification of learning strategies

Different classification systems of language learning strategies have beendeveloped The one proposed by Stern (1975) consists of ten categories including

planning strategy, active strategy, empathetic strategy, formal strategy,experimental strategy, semantic strategy, practice strategy, communication strategy,monitoring strategy, and internalization strategy This scheme, despite being

considered to be the foundation for several other frameworks, needs to beconfirmed, modified or rebutted since Stern himself regards this list as ‘highly

Rubin (1981) identified two broad categories of learning strategies: indirectand direct learning strategies In the latter ones, a list of six types was drawn up

(classification/ verification, monitoring, memorization, guessing/ inductive

inferencing, deductive reasoning and practice), and the former ones are divided into

two types (creating opportunities for practice and production tricks) However, that

this taxonomy does not include social and affective strategies is its limitation.

Built on Rubin’s classification, Oxford (1990) draws a general distinction

between direct and indirect strategies The former consists of memory, cognitiveand compensation strategies while the later includes metacognitive, affective and

social strategies However, Oxford's classification of learning strategies is relativelyconfusing when separating cognitive strategies from memory strategies.

In comparison with other taxonomies above, O’Malley and Chamot’sframework (1990) is perhaps the most commonly used to date In this classification

scheme, language-learning strategies are divided into three main categories:

metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies and social/affective strategies These

strategies were presented in table 1.

Strategy Learning Definition

categories strategies

Advance Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the

organizers material to be learned, often by skimming the text for

the organizing principle.

Directed Deciding in advance to attend in general to a

attention learning task and to ignore the irrelevant distracters.

Functional Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components

planning necessary for an upcoming task.

Selective Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of

Meta- attention input, often by scanning for key words, concepts

cognitive and/or linguistic markers.

Self- Understanding the conditions that help one’s

management learning and arranging for the presence of those

Repetition Imitating a language model, including overt practice

and silent rehearsal.

Grouping Classifying words, terminology or concepts

according to their attributes or meaning.

Deduction Applying rules to understand or produce the L2 or

making up rules based on language analysis.

Imagery Using visual aids (either mental or actual) to

understand or remember new information.

Auditory Planning back in one’s mind the sound of a word,

representation | phrase or longer language sequence.

Cognitive Key word

Remembering a new word in the L2 by (1)

identifying a familiar word in the first language that

sounds like the new word or otherwise resembles

that new word (2) generating easily recalled imagesof some relationship with the first languagehomonym and the new word in the L2.

Elaboration Relating the new information to prior knowledge,relating different parts of new information to each

other or making meaningful personal associations

with the new information.

TransferUsing previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills toassist comprehension or production.

Inferencing Using available information to guess meanings of

new items, predict outcomes or fill in the missinginformation.

Note taking Writing down keywords or concepts in abbreviatedverbal, graphic, or numerical form while listening or

Summarizing Making a mental, oral, or written summary of new

information gain through linguistic skills.

RecombinationConstructing a meaningful sentence or larger

language sequence by combining known element in

anew way.

Translation Using the first language as a base for understanding

and/or producing the L2.

Cooperation Working together with one or more peers to solve a

problem, pool information, check a learning task,

model a language activity or get feedback on oral orwritten performance.

Table 1 Learning strategy definition and classification(O'Malley and Chamot, 1990: 119)

Metacognitive category concerns the act of thinking about the learning

process, planning information, monitoring the learning task and evaluating how

well one has started Cognitive category involves interacting with the material to be

learned, manipulating over the material mentally or physically, or applying specifictechniques to a learning task Social/ Affective relates interacting with other peopleor ideational control over affect This classification of learning strategies is perhaps

the most comprehensive and much easier for the researcher to adapt to readingcomprehension strategy framework Therefore, the current study will adoptO'Malley and Chamot's classification of learning strategies as the theoretical

framework for investigation.

1.2 Reading strategies

1.2.1 Definition of reading

Different scholars understand the term “reading” in various ways According

to Harmer (1989), “Reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The

eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of thesemessages.” The definition given by Anderson (1999), which says “reading is an

active, fluent process which involves the reader and the reading materials inbuilding meaning” has some points in common It casts some lights on the idea that

reading is a cognitive process of working out the intended meaning froma text.

Rumelhart (1977) deduces that reading involves three elements: the reader,

the text and the interaction between the reader and text Aebersold and Field (1997)share the same view on reading when stating “reading is what happens when people

look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbols in that text The text andthe reader are the two physical entities necessary for the reading process to start It

is, however, the interaction between the text and the reader that constitutes actual

meaning.” This definition differs from Rumelhart in that it emphasizes theinteraction between purpose and manner of reading that determines how people reada text or what reading strategies they use to decode the text.

In short, working out a thorough definition of reading is a hard nut to crack.

However, several researchers reach an agreement on the idea clearly stated in thedefinition by Aebersold and Field (1977) Because the above-mentioned definitionsare general, it is necessary to look at different reading models so that a full

understanding of the reading process can be achieved.

1.2.2 Different approaches to reading process

Over the last twenty years, a lot of research has been done on the interaction

between readers and text and different views of the reading process have beenproposed These views are often grouped under three different reading modelsnamed the bottom-up, the top-down and the interactive one.

In the bottom-up approach, reading is meant to be a process of decoding;identifying letters, words, phrases and then constructing the meaning from smallest

textual units (letters and words) at the bottom to larger and larger units (phrases,utterances, clauses and sentences) at the top (Rivers, 1964; Plaister, 1968; Yorio,

1971; cited in Nguyen, 2006) In other words, in the bottom-up reading model, the

reader begins with the written text and constructs meaning from the letters, words,phrases and sentences found within the text The coming data from the text must be

received before the transformation and recoding of the data In short, the bottom-upmodel tends to be linear as they start with the printed stimuli and proceed to higher-

level stage, one step after another.

The basis for bottom-up processing is the reader’s linguistic knowledge.

However, it reveals several shortcomings in describing the actual reading process.First, it was claimed to be “difficult to account for sentence-context effects and role

of prior knowledge of text topic as facilitating variables in word recognition andcomprehension.” (Samuel and Kamil, 1988: 3) In other words, in this model the

interaction between the reader and the text includes little or no interference from thereader’s own background knowledge Due to this limitation, the bottom-up view ofreading fell into disfavor and thus, the favor of another one, the top-down approach

can be understood.

The top-down approach emphasizes the importance of the reader's

10

background knowledge in the reading process (Carrell, 1998: 4) According to thistheory, so as to comprehend a text, readers make use of both the text and theirbackground knowledge Therefore, interaction of the background knowledge and

the text is essential for efficient reading In this top-down approach, the reader

begins with a set of hypotheses or predictions about the meaning of text he is about

to read and then base on the maximum of existing, activated knowledge and theminimal information of the texts to determine whether or not his predictions are

The main drawback of top-down model, according to Samuel and Kamil’s

point of view (1988), is that for many texts, the reader has little knowledge of the

topic and cannot generate predictions Besides, generating a prediction may take

more time than recognizing the words.

The shortcomings of both bottom-up and top-down models have led to a

proposal of a new and more insightful model of reading process, interactive

approach which combines elements of the two previous approaches using that "apattern is synthesized based on information provided simultaneously from several

knowledge sources" (Stanovich, 1980: 35).

Widdowson (1978, cited in Nguyen, 2006) inserts that reading is a process of

combining textual information and the world knowledge that readers bring to the

text In this view, the reading process is not merely a matter of extracting

information from the text Rather, it uses this information to extend the generalknowledge in his mind.

In Eskey’s view (1988, cited in Nguyen, 2006), the interactive model "positsa constant interaction between bottom-up and top-down processing in reading, each

source of information contributing to a comprehensive reconstruction of themeaning of the text." Accordingly, good readers are regarded as "both gooddecoders and good interpreters of texts, their decoding skills become moreautomatic but no less important as their reading skill develops." The following

comment by Stanovich (1980) can summarize all the strengths of the interactive

11

model over the other two models: "Interactive models of reading appear to providea more accurate conceptualization of reading performance than strictly top-down orbottom-up models When combined with an assumption of compensatory

processing (that a deficit in any particular process will result in a greater reliance on

their knowledge sources, regardless of their level in the processing hierarchy),

interactive models provide a better account of the existing data on the use of

orthographic structure and sentence context by good and poor readers"(1980: 32)

To sum up, the interactive approach is a process of interaction of differentknowledge sources (both linguistic and subject matter knowledge) It is generally

agreed that the interactive model is the best one that can truly reflect the reading

process that takes place in the reader's mind In this approach, readers constantlyshuttle between bottom-up and top-down processes and they cannot be successful in

reading comprehension without either of these two processes As this study focuses

on reading strategies, the next part is going to summarize some outstanding studies

on reading strategies that have been carried out.1.2.3 Reading strategies

1.2.3.1 Definition

Empirical research has been done to define reading strategy in different

ways As mentioned earlier, research in second language learning suggests that

learners use a variety of strategies to assist them with the acquisition, storage, and

retrieval of information Brantmeior (2002: 1) defined reading strategies as "the

comprehension processes that readers use in order to make sense of what they read".

This process may involve skimming, scanning, guessing, recognizing cognates and

word families, reading for meaning, predicting, activating general knowledge,

making inferences, following references and separating main ideas from supporting

ones (Barnett, 1988; cited in Nguyen, 2006).

According to O'Malley and Chamot's definition (1990), reading strategies

can be understood as “special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to helpthem to comprehend, learn and retain new information from the reading text.”

12

These strategies are therefore both observable and unobservable and vary fromindividual to individual In their view, reading strategies can be classified into threemain types including metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies Based

on the L2 learning strategy framework proposed by the two authors, acategorization scheme of these strategies can be adapted as followed:

Strategy Reading

categories | strategies

Advance Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the text,

organizers often by skimming the text for the organizing principle.

Directed Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning

attention task and to ignore the irrelevant distracters.

Selective Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of

Meta- attention input, often by scanning for key words, concepts and/or

cognitive linguistic markers.

Self- Checking one’s comprehension during reading while it

monitoring | is taking place.

Self- Checking the outcomes of one’s own language against a

evaluation standard after it has been completed.

Resourcing | Using target language reference such as dictionaries,

encyclopedias or textbooks.

Grouping Classifying words, terminology or concepts according

to their attributes or meaning.

Deduction Applying rules to understand the text or making up

rules based on language analysis.

Imagery Using visual aids (either mental or actual) to understand

or remember new information.

Elaboration | Relating the new information to prior knowledge,relating different parts of new information to each other

13

or making meaningful personal associations with thenew information.

Cognitive | Transfer Using previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills to

assist comprehension.

Inferencing | Using available information to guess meanings of new

items, predict outcomes or fill in the missing

Note taking | Writing down keywords or concepts in abbreviatedverbal, graphic, or numerical form while reading.

Summarizing |Making a mental, oral, or written summary of new

information gain through linguistic skills.

Translation | Using the first language as a base for understanding the

Table 2: Reading strategy framework adapted from O’Malley and Chamot (1990)In this adapted framework, some significant changes are made to suit the

current study Firstly, the two strategies functional planning and self-management in

metacognitive strategy group and four strategies in the cognitive strategy group

(repetition, auditory presentation, recombination, key word) are omitted due to the

researcher’s hypothesis that these are more frequent in skills other than reading.Besides, the group social/affective strategy is excluded as within the scope of this

study, neither can the researcher observe how readers cooperate with their peers toachieve reading comprehension nor does she have enough space to elaborate onhow readers accommodate themselves to affective changes This newly adapted

framework will be used as the theoretical framework for the whole research,

especially as the coding framework for analyzing data.

1.2.3.2 Previous studies on reading strategies

A number of studies examine the comprehension strategies that second

language readers utilize to process a text In these studies, the participants are quite

diverse with some from elementary, secondary and university levels while otherscome from remedial reading classes or enroll in courses taught at non-university

14

language centers Obviously, the participants are of different ages and backgrounds.

Furthermore, the investigators use a variety of research methods and tasks toexamine strategy type and frequency of strategy use including think- aloud reports,

interviews, questionnaires, observations and written recalls (Bernhardt, 1991; citedin Nguyen, 2006) The following table provides a comprehensive look at these

Hosenfield (1977) Carrell (1988) Block (1992)Participants Ninth graders

studying French;20 SRs and 20 LRs

75 natve English

speakers learningSpanish, 45 Spanish

non-Methodology Think-aloud

reports for each

sentence they read

Questionnaires of RSs,multiple choice reading

unknown words orphrases

+ Spanish as a foreign

language group at

lower proficiencylevels used morebottom-up strategies

+ ESL group at

advanced levels used

top-down strategies

+ Less proficientreaders used local

+ More proficientreaders relied on

global strategies

Table 3: Summary of previous reading strategy studiesadapted from Nguyen (2006: 17)

The findings of those studies above have revealed that there are indeed

differences between successful readers and less successful readers in terms ofstrategy use Generally, successful readers use top-down in combination withbottom-up reading strategies but tend to use more the former than the latter.

These above reading strategy studies provided detailed description of the

15

characteristics of successful readers as well as firm foundation for more studies onreading strategy Despite a thick body of empirical research on reading strategies,

little research has been done using the comprehensive framework proposed by

O’Malley and Chamot (1990) Moreover, there has yet been any researchinvestigating reading strategies employed by learners in the current researchpopulation This study, therefore, tries to bridge that gap by using O’Malley and

Chamot’s scheme to investigate the reading strategies used by the SRs and LSRsfrom the first year students in Honors Program at VNUA.

1.3 Summary

So far the chapter has presented the related theories and research that provide

solid foundation for this research Such significant issues as language learningstrategies, reading approaches and reading strategies have been reviewed in details.

Among some language learning frameworks, the one by O’Malley and Chamot

(1990) was found to be the most comprehensive and also compatible to the research

objectives, scope and settings This current study, therefore, based on the L2learning strategy framework proposed by the two authors from which the new

reading strategy framework The next chapter will discuss the methodology of the

16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

As the validity and reliability of a study depend largely on the researchmethods, it is essential that the researcher decide on the most precise instruments to

suit the objectives of the study Accordingly, this chapter discusses the

methodological issues beginning with the description of research participants as

well as settings The most important methodological issues — data collection

instruments, data collection and data analysis procedures, are also thoroughly

presented in this chapter.

2.1 Participants

Six of twenty first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA were selectedas the participants of the study They are non-English major students and have beenspending 8 to 11 years learning English These participants were selected on the

basis of their reading test scores throughout two first semesters at the universitytogether with the researcher’s observations Three students with the most

outstanding performance results and three others with the worst ones werecategorized into the group of successful readers and less successful readers

Table 4 summarizes the background information about the participants such

as genders, number of years learning English and their English proficiency.

Total Number of years learning English English

number of SRs LRs proficiency

participants | Male | Female | S1 | S2 | S3 | S4 | S5 | S6 | SRs | LRs

6 2 4 11 | 10 | 10 | 11 8 10 | BI | A2

Table 4 Background information about the participants

These junior students are at CEFR level A2 and above as they all passed the

Honors Program English placement exam held at the beginning of the first semester

and are now studying the second semester of the EFL compulsory course In their

first year, they have to learn intensive English courses, which are the bases for them

to study professional subjects delivered in English and using a great amount of

17

English reading material Therefore, English in general and reading skill inparticular play a vital role in their study at the university.

There are some reasons for choosing these freshmen as the participants of

this study Firstly, the training quality of these students is always of great concern toboth the authority and teachers at VNUA The findings of the study would provideessential information for teachers to improve their students' reading proficiency andhence contribute to enhancing the overall training quality of these students.

Secondly, they are suitable participants for the study because having finished thefirst English reading course, their use of English reading strategies is the researcher’

great concern In addition, as these students are those who the researcher has beendirectly teaching, favorable conditions are brought to carry out the research.

2.2 Settings of the study

The present study was conducted when the participants were at the end of thesecond semester of the first year Up to the time of the study, they had been

studying English reading at the university for nearly 150 periods The students sitfor different types of summative and informative assessments to indicate how wellthey have performed throughout each semester.

2.3 Data collection instruments

The data on what LLSs learners utilized can be collected by several ways

such as: interviews, verbal reports, learning strategy inventories, diaries,

observation, and dialogue journals The study was conducted using bothquantitative and qualitative methods including questionnaires and think-aloud

reports The quantitative data was collected through a survey on the use of readingstrategies and qualitative data was obtained through think-aloud protocol to

investigate the learners’ RSs as well.2.3.1 Questionnaires

According to Parrot (1993), the questionnaire is an important tool that is often

used to examine the learners’ response to specific factors in their learning process.

The questionnaire in this thesis (see Appendices 1 and 2) was designed to

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investigate students’ use of reading strategies when they do reading comprehensiontasks It is adopted from Phakiti’s (2003) and adjusted by the author There are tworeasons for the adjustments First, several statements proposed by Phakiti are similar

to each other, so they are excluded from this paper Second, some statements are

added in the present study with reference to O’Malley and Chamot’s classification

(1990) of learning strategies In order for the participants to understand thequestionnaire thoroughly, the questionnaire is written in Vietnamese (Appendix 1).

The English version of this questionnaire can be found in Appendix 2 Thequestionnaire is concerned with the students’ self-assessment of their reading

strategies use and contains 18 statements related to metacognitive and cognitivereading strategies In the questionnaire, the 1-5 Likert Scale is used, so five choices

are offered for each statement Participants are asked to choose the option that best

represents their opinions Among the statements, 8 items can be coded as

metacognitive reading strategies and the other 10 items cognitive reading strategies.

The 8 items of metacognitive reading strategies are further divided into five

subcategories: advanced organization, directed attention, selective attention,

self-monitoring and self-evaluation Similarly, the 10 items of cognitive strategies are

also grouped into 10 subcategories, namely, resourcing, grouping, deduction,

imagery, elaboration, transfer, inferencing, note-taking, summarizing and

translation The detailed information is shown in table 5.

Strategy Learning Items in the questionnaire

categories strategies

Item 2: I skim through the text to understand

Advanced main ideas of the texts before focusing on details.

organizers Item 4: I preview the headings and illustrations to

Met get the main idea of the text before reading.

Item 3: I skip the words that are not essential for

comprehending the texts while reading.

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Item 5: I scan for key words or concepts that are

closely related to the questions in order to answerthem.

Item 9: I choose reading strategies according to

my reading purposes.

Self-monitoring Item 10: Sometimes, I stop reading and consider

whether I comprehend what I have read.

Self-evaluationItem 18: I check if my answers to the questionsare correct or wrong after reading.

Item 6: I use a dictionary to look up words when

Resourcing ; | ;

encountering a new word while reading.

- Item 11: I can determine the function of a word in

Grouping

a sentence while reading.

; Item 7: I often read the first line of every

paragraph to understand the whole text.

Item 8: I look at illustration or create pictures in

Imagery

my mind while I read.

; Item 13: I relate my prior knowledge to the

Elaboration

information of the texts I am reading.

Item 12: I use my knowledge of grammar or

Transfer vocabulary to help understand difficult parts in

reading texts.

; Item 14: I guess meanings of new words using

the available information.

Note-taking Item 16: I write down key words while reading.

Summarizing Item 17: I mentally summarize the main ideas ofthe texts after reading.

Translation Item 15: I translate the reading text intoVietnamese to understand it more clearly.

Table 5: Questionnaire: Reading strategy coding categories

adapted from O'Malley and Chamot (1990: 119)

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2.3.2 Think-aloud reports

The think-aloud, one of the three types of verbal report known as consciousness disclosure of thought processes while the information is being

“stream-of-attended to” (Cohen, 1998: 34), was used to obtain information about reading

strategies employed by first-year students in Honors Program at VNUA According

to Kuusela, H., & Paul, P (2000), think-aloud can be carried out either

concurrently: at the time the subject is solving the problem or completing the task(known as a ‘live’ report), or retrospectively: after the event There were severalreasons for the researcher of this study to use this method Firstly, the think- aloud

was adopted as a major source of data in several reading researchers (Hosenfield,

1977; Block, 1986; cited in Nguyen, 2006) Secondly, “the think-aloud approachwould be suitable for receptive tasks” (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990: 90) Another

reason is that think-aloud “are, in fact, valuable and thoroughly reliable sources ofinformation about cognitive process” (Cohen, 1998).

2.4 Procedures of data collection

2.4.1 Pilot study

These data collection instruments were piloted prior to the conduct of themain study to obtain the following objectives:

1 To ensure the understanding by the participants.

2 To familiarize the researcher and participants with the instructions.

Data were collected at two stages in which the administration ofquestionnaires was followed by the think-aloud reports.

2.4.1.1 Stage 1

The instructions for answering the questionnaires were explained to the

participants before they received the handouts of questionnaires The participantswere asked to take note or mark in their questionnaires any words and items they

found unclear It took the participants about 10 minutes to answer the

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2.4.1.2 Stage 2

After the instructions for think-aloud protocol were presented to the

participants; they were explained about what to do with think-aloud reports First,

they were given a reading text with questions, then required to report what theywere thinking during their reading process They could verbalize in English orVietnamese.

2.4.1.3 Results of the pilot-study

According to the participants’ comments, the instructions given by theresearcher were clear and no troublesome issues were found in the questionnaires as

all of the statements were understood by the participants For the think-aloud

reports, they could verbalize what they were thinking when doing a reading

comprehension task.

2.4.2 Administering the questionnaires

Handouts of the questionnaires were delivered to six students at the end of

their first year (at the end of May, 2015) The questionnaires were administeredafter the end-of-term reading test finished A brief explanation of the purpose of the

study was given The students were informed that their responses to thequestionnaires would be kept confidential The completed questionnaires were

collected right after the participants completed them It took the participants

approximately 10 minutes to answer the questionnaires.

2.4.3 Administering the think-aloud reports

The think-aloud reports were conducted in early June Firstly, the purposes

of the study were given Then the participants were explained about how to do withthink-aloud reports When the participants were given a reading text of about 400

words with four parts of questions (see Appendix 3), they were required to reportwhat they were thinking while reading The participants could choose to verbalizein either Vietnamese or English Such question as “What (else) are you thinking?”

was asked, when necessary, to stimulate the participants’ responses All of thethink- aloud reports were tape-recorded and then transcribed.

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The frequency of reading strategies used will be defined as follow:

High use (Always used with a mean of 4.5 - 5.0, or often used with a meanof 3.5 - 4.4).

Medium use (Sometimes used with a mean of 2.5 - 3.4).

Low use (Rarely used with a mean of 1.5 - 2.4; or never used with a mean of

1.0 - 1.40).

2.6 Procedures of data analysis

Data collected through the questionnaires and the think-aloud reports were

analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) and the t- tests Thefrequency of strategy use by successful and less successful readers was counted andentered in SPSS to gain the means to explore the frequency of strategy use The t-

tests were applied to determine if there were any differences in the frequency of

strategy use and the choice of individual strategies between successful and less

successful readers.

2.7 Summary

This chapter has presented the methodological framework of the study

including research questions, participants, settings of the study, the explanation ofthe use of think-aloud reports and survey questionnaires as collecting data

instruments, the detailed description of data collection procedure as well asexplanation for calculating descriptive statistics and t- test in data analysisprocedures.

The results through analyzing the think-aloud and survey questionnaire datawill be presented in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, answers to the proposed research questions were presented

based on the analysis of data from both questionnaires and think-aloud reports Theanalysis framework adapted from O’Malley and Chamot’s reading strategyframework has been a significant tool in analyzing data It should also be noticedthat the chapter does not simply end with the sheer analysis of data or the literal

presentation of empirical findings, but goes two further steps — interpreting thefindings and comparing them to other related studies.

3.1 Research question 1: What is the frequency of reading strategy use ofsuccessful readers and less successful readers?

3.1.1 The use of reading strategy categories

Figure 1: Strategy category frequency for successful and less successful readers

Figure 1 showed that Metacognitive was more preferred by both successful

and less successful readers (M1 = 3.75; M2 = 3.67) than Cognitive (M1 = 3.1; M2 =2.97) This result supports the findings of the studies carried out by O’Malley &Chamot (1990), which concluded that Metacognitive had the highest frequency in

use What can be inferred from this is that the participants in this research weremore likely to plan, monitor and evaluate learning tasks than to work with the newinformation.

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3.1.2 The use of individual strategies within strategy categories

3.1.2.1 The use of individual strategies within metacognitive category

Selective attentionB Self-evaluation

Advanced organizer

& Directed attention

© Self-mornitoring

Questionnaires Think-aloud reports

Figure 2: Individual strategy frequency within Metacognitive category for

successful and less successful readers

As can be seen in Figure 2, in the metacognitive categories, Selectiveattention (M1 = M2 = 5) was the strategy of the highest frequent use, followed byAdvanced organizers (M1 = 3.83, M2 = 3.67), Self-evaluation (M1= 3.83, M2 =

3.83), Directed attention (M1=3.58, M2 = 3.67) Self-monitoring was used the least

frequently (M1 = 2.50, M2 = 2.17) These results showed that the participants inthis research frequently skim through the text to understand main ideas of the texts

before focusing on details, scan for key words or concepts that are closely related to

the questions in order to answer them, preview the headings and illustrations to getthe main idea of the text, read the comprehension questions to decide important

information that should be noted before reading And thus, the results revealed theparticipants active planners Besides, with M1 = M2 = 3.83 for Self-evaluation, the

readers were well aware of the task of checking the outcomes of one’s own

language against a standard after it has been completed However, the subjects did

not frequently and consciously use self-monitoring strategy in aiding text

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3.1.2.2 The use of individual strategies within cognitive category

Figure 3: Individual strategy frequency within Cognitive category forsuccessful and less successful readers

As displayed in Figure 3, among strategies within Cognitive category, there

were 4 prominent strategies that were utilized with highest frequency among the

rest, namely Deduction (M1 = 3.83, M2 = 4.17), Inferencing (MI = 3.83, M2

=3.67), Grouping (M1 = 3.83, M2 = 3.33) and Elaboration (M1 = 3.00, M2 = 3.17).

Surprisingly, note-taking strategy (M1= 2.33, M2 =1.83) was seen unimportant inall of the questionnaires and think-aloud reports.

3.2 Research question 2: How does the frequency of reading strategy use ofsuccessful readers differ from that of less successful readers?

3.2.1 Differences in the use of strategy categories

Metacognitive Cognitive

Questionnaires Think-aloud Questionnaires | Think-aloud

Mean SRs 4.37 4.4 3.53 3.4Mean LRs 3.13 2.93 2.67 2.53

t-value 0.19 0.065 0.68 0.053

Table 6: Strategy categories used by successful and less successful readers

It can be seen from Table 6 that successful readers had higher mean scores

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than less successful students in the two strategy groups As shown in the resultsfrom the questionnaires, the mean scores of successful readers and less successfulreaders for Metacognitive were M = 4.37 and M= 3.13 and for Cognitive were M=

3.53 and M= 2.67 respectively Similar figures were seen in the results from thethink-aloud reports with the mean scores of successful readers and less successfulreaders for Metacognitive being M = 4.4 and M= 2.93 and for Cognitive being M=

3.4 and M= 2.53 respectively More precisely, successful readers employedMetacognitive and Cognitive strategies with greater frequency than less successfulreaders Moreover, while the frequency of using both metacognitive and cognitive

strategy by successful readers was considerable, that by less successful readers wasnot This strengthened the finding of some research which claimed that good readers

make higher strategy frequency use, in terms of both metacognitive and cognitive

strategy, than less proficient readers.

However, the t-values yielded by the t-test in the two cases for both of the

categories were all over 0.05, which shows no significant difference in the use ofthese strategy categories between the two groups of readers.

3.2.2 Differences in the use of individual strategies

SRs 3 | 4.67 | 5.00

Directed attention 0.003 | 0.016

LRs 3 | 2.50 | 2.33

SRs 3 5.00 | 5.00Selective attention