a study on reading strategy training for grade 11th english majors at binh xuyen high school, vĩnh phúc province = luyện một số thủ thuật đọc hiệu quả cho học sinh chuyên tiếng anh lớp 11

With the desire to improve students‟ reading skill, the author carried out the research on the training reading strategies at Binh Xuyen high school, Vinh Phuc province.. Objectives are

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Anh lớp 11, trường THPT Bình Xuyên, tỉnh Vĩnh Phúc

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

HA NOI, 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Anh lớp 11, trường THPT Bình Xuyên, tỉnh Vĩnh Phúc

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Dr, Võ Đại Quang

HA NOI, 2013

STATEMENT OF THESIS ORIGINALITY

grade English non-majors at Binh Xuyen high school, Vinh phuc province”, partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts is the result of my own and has not been submitted for a degree to any other universities or institutions

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr

Vo Dai Quang, for his assistance, guidance and critical comments so that I can complete my study

I also wish to send my thanks to lecturers during the M.A course, who have helped me to fulfill the thesis

I owe my sincere thanks to teachers and students at Binh Xuyen high school, Vinh Phuc province, who have been enthusiastic to participate in my research

Finally, I would like to show my big gratitude to my mother, my colleagues and my friends who have encouraged me to overcome difficulties when I carried out the research

ABTRACT

Reading is one necessary and important skill in learning English Reading is also the means to gain success in learning other subjects However, teaching strategies are still not paid attention at Binh Xuyen high school so as for students to overcome difficulties in this skill school As a teacher of English, I recognized that their results in graduation and university entrance exam are not high at Binh Xuyen high school and frequently complained by other teachers The students felt bored and afraid to cope with reading lessons With the desire to improve students‟ reading skill, the author carried out the research on the training reading strategies at Binh Xuyen high school, Vinh Phuc province The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of the training the strategies, give findings and useful implications in learning and teaching reading

This study consists of three main parts:

Part A, Introduction states the background of the study and the problem Part B is the main part of the study, Development continuing with three chapters in which the first presents the literature review and the second describes the study in details and analysizes the statistics Chapter three focuses on data analysis, findings and discussions Part C draws conclusions and shows the limitations and suggestions in the future studies

The rest of the thesis is Part D: REFERENCES and Part E: APPENDICES

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Background information about the subjects of the study

Table 2:Numbers of students in score levels according to pretest and posttest results

of the Control group

Table 3:Mean and Standard Deviation of Pretest and Posttest according to

categories of test items and overall results of the Control group

Table 4:Numbers of students in score levels according to Pretest and Posttest

results of the Experimental group

Table 5:Mean and Standard Deviation of Pretest and Posttest according to

categories of test items and overall results of the Experimental group Table 6:Numbers of students in score levels according to Pretest results of the

Control and Experimental group

Table 7:Mean and Standard Deviation of Pretest according to categories of test

items and overall results of the Control and Experimental group

Table 8:Numbers of students in score levels according to Posttest Results of the

Control and Experimental group

Table 9:Mean and Standard Deviation of Posttest according to categories of test

items and overall results of the Control and Experimental group

Table 10: Mean and Standard Deviations of Overall Pretest and Posttest of Control

and Experimental group

VNU : Vietnam National University

TABLE OF CONTENS

Statement of thesis originality i

Acknowledgements ii

Abtract iii

List of tables iv

List of abbreviations v

Part A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3.Research questions for the study 2

4.Scope of the study 2

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Design of the study 3

Part B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Learning strategies 5

1.1.1 Definition 5

1.1.2 Classification of language learning strategies 5

1.2 Definition of reading 6

1 3 Reading comprehension 7

1.4 Reading strategies 8

1.4.1 Definition of reading strategies 8

1.4.2 Classification of Reading strategies 10

1.4.3 The role of Reading Strategies 13

1.4.4 Reading Strategy Instruction and Principles for Strategies Instruction 14

1.4.5 Research on learning and teaching reading strategies 16

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 26

2.1 Setting of the study 26

2.2 Restatement of research questions 27

2.3 Research methods 27

2.3.1 Type of method 27

2.3.2 Population sampling 28

2.3.3 Data collection instruments 29

2.3.4 Data analysis techniques 30

2.4 Procedure 31

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 33

3.1 Data analysis 33

3.1.1 Comparison of the Pretest and Posttest Results within each group 33

3.1.2 Comparison of the Pretest and Posttest Results of Experimental group 34

3.1.3 Comparison of the Pretest Results between Control and Experimental group36 3.1.4 Comparison of the Posttest Results between the Control group and Experimental group 38

3.1.5 Comparison of the Overall Pretest and Posttest of the Control Group and Experimental group 40

3.2 Findings 41

3.2.1 Finding 1 and comments on this finding 41

3.2.2 Finding 2 and comments on this finding 42

3.2.3 Finding 3 and comments on this finding 43

Part C: CONCLUSION 44

1 Recapitulation 44

2 Concluding remarks on each of the thesis objectives 44

2.1 Concluding remarks on objective 1 44

2.2 Concluding remarks on objective 2 45

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 47

3.1 Limitations of the study 47

3.2 Suggestions for future study 47

PART D: REFERENCES 49 APPENDIXES I

Part A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

It is easy to see that reading is one of essential skills at high school First, reading lessons have been systematically introduced together with other skills such as listening, speaking and writing in the English textbook in Vietnam Reading always begins each unit in the textbook then, listening or speaking and writing The structures or new words in the reading lesson will continue to appear and be practised in the following sections Second, all regular tests in English class involve reading comprehension questions Especially, the points for reading questions always make up a large number in graduate or university entrance exams Reading is also the database that provides knowledge for students to enhance their language learning and improve skills in life When students are provided with a variety of language expressions, structures and a wide range of information, it is easier for them to practise the rest skills such as writing or speaking Moreover, reading skill is also useful in other fields of science; for example, when students have to study information technology subject or find out materials involved tourists, history, even maths or chemistry in English Students may read in order to gain information or verify existing knowledge, do research and so on

In addition, reading also develops some skills in real situations in life such as scanning the timetable when they fly by plane to go abroad or look for information

in TV or magazines in English In other cases, students can read to understand other cultures, the relationship between people or social communication The more they read, the more knowledgeable they become Therefore, it is crucial for them to read English effectively However, English reading is often said to be difficult in spite of students‟ effort The requirement for teachers is to teach their students how to overcome the difficulties, but this is not an easy task

At Binh Xuyen high school, English is a compulsory subject Moreover, for the

majors of English, after graduation they will have to take a university entrance

exam However, through observing English reading classes, the author has realized most of the students read texts at low speed They lack strategies to take advantage

of their vocabulary, linguistic or prior knowledge to do tasks Besides, the method

of teaching is sometimes not suitable; for example, some teachers translate the texts into Vietnamese or explain too many new words, which is waste of time without dealing with the tasks For aforementioned reasons, it‟s necessary for the author to investigate what strategies should be trained to bring effects and whether the teaching of strategies benefits students‟learning of reading or not

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This thesis is aimed at gaining an insightful look into reading strategies with a view to improving the teaching of reading skills at Binh Xuyen high school

Objectives are set for investigation:

- Identifying the effects brought about by the 4 reading strategies to the teaching and learning of reading skills at Binh Xuyen high school: Scanning, Skimming, and guessing vocabulary in context and Inference

- Identifying the techniques possibly applicable to the teaching of reading

3 Research questions for the study

The aims are specified in two research questions:

1 To what extent does the training of four reading strategies (skimming, scanning, guessing vocabulary in context, and inference) affect grade 11 English majors‟ reading learning at Binh Xuyen high school?

2 How can students‟ abilities in reading be improved via four reading strategies?

4 Scope of the study

A learners‟ success or failure in acquiring a foreign language can be affected by many interrelated factors from both students and teachers At high school, students learn all English skills: listening, speaking, writing and grammar However, this study only focuses on the teaching some of reading strategies at Binh Xuyen high school, and the effects are brought about by those strategies

5 Significance of the study

The research is carried out at Binh Xuyen high school with a view to applying reading strategies and exploring its effects Although it only focuses on 4 reading strategies for reading, its significance is remarkable First, it touches on reading strategies that is often overlooked in teaching reading at Binh Xuyen high school It highlights the importance of teaching strategies in classes With clear evidence from the study, the researcher hopes to encourage students to take advantage of self-study competence and teachers to use creative methods of teaching Second, the study helps the author-teacher understand more about the students‟ learning and using reading strategies at Binh Xuyen high school Third, through a thorough analysis of the results, the author desires to share ideas and experiences with other teachers in the school to come up with solutions to drawbacks existing in teaching Such findings will help improve both the learning and teaching in reading in the future Finally, useful implications from this study will be beneficial for further studies

6 Design of the study

The study comprises 3 main parts:

Part A is the introduction, which presents the rationale of the study, the aims

and objectives, research questions, the scope and the significance and design of the study

Part B, Development including three chapters, presents the contents of the

study:

Chapter one – Literature review - provides theoretical background of the

study focusing on learning and reading strategies which are discussed and analyzed

by experts and researchers

Chapter two – Methodology – describes how the authors carried out the

study with the participating of the students (group 11A10 and 11A11) at Binh

Xuyen high school, Vinh Phuc province The process includes administrating the

pretest and posttest, teaching reading four strategies and the way of collecting, analyzing data

Chapter three – Analyses and Findings – includes the analyzing data,

findings and the comments for each finding

Part C is the conclusion which summarizes all the main contents of the

study, reviews objectives, limitations of current research and gives suggestions for further studies

Appendixes with supplementary materials and references are included in

Part D and Part E

Part B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Learning strategies

1.1.1 Definition

Learning strategies is the concept discussed much in language research Why this person studies better, more easily and more effectively than others? The reason for this is the use of reading strategies Learning strategies are considered important

to comprehension, learning, or retention of the information

Many researchers describe learning strategies from different points of view Strategies are considered as “any sets of operations, steps, plans, routines used by the learner to facilitate the obtaining, storage, retrieval, and use of information.” (Wenden and Rubin, 1987) Learning strategies become the means to gain success in

students‟ learning

Wenden (1987) and Brown (2007:119) mention learning strategies as “language learning behaviors” Brown cites another definition that shows second language learning strategies as “specific actions, behaviors, steps, or techniques…used by students to enhance their own learning” (Oxford & Ehrman, 1998, p.8) He explains that “Strategies are specific methods of approaching a problem or task, modes of operation for achieving a particular end, planned designs for controlling and manipulating certain information.” Oxford (1990:8) also defines language learning strategies as “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations” In spites of any expressions or terms, language strategies are acknowledged to facilitate the learning

1.1.2 Classification of language learning strategies

Together with the definition of language strategies is its classification Alderson (2000) reviews the classification from Rubin (1987:19) in terms of cognitive, meta-cognitive, and communication strategies as the following:

“Cognitive learning strategies (clarification/verification; guessing/ inductive inferencing; deductive reasoning; practice; memorization; and monitoring)

Meta-cognitive learning strategies (choosing, prioritization, planning, advance preparation, selective attention and more);

Communication strategies (including circumlocution/ paraphrase, formulae use, avoidance strategies and clarification strategies)

Social strategies”

(Rubin, 1987:20 passim)

Lee (2010:140) summarizes another classification according to Oxford (1990) Strategies are divided into direct and indirect ones Direct strategies are “used to deal with new language” while “indirect ones do not directly involve using the language, but they support language learning.” Three groups that belong to the direct one are memory, cognitive, and compensation strategies The indirect strategies also include three groups: meta-cognitive, affective and social strategies

1.2 Definition of reading

A person reads for different purposes in native language or other second or foreign languages Reading is considered a daily activity which is integral part of people, so what is reading?

According to Harmer (1991:190) reading is a mechanical process in which “eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message.”

Alderson and Urquhart (1984) confirm “Reading undeniably and incontrovertibly

involves two necessary elements: a reader and a text.” The third element is “the writer.” Likewise, Nuttal (1996: 11) considers reading as “an interactive process- as conversation because both reader and writer depend on one another.” He acknowledges that the interaction is of complexity because of no writer‟s explaining

or facilitating at the time of reading The reader has to find out the meaning of the

text written by the author Consequently, there seems to be no “complete” concept

of meeting between the reader and the writer

Williams (1984:2) defines “reading is a process whereby one looks at and

understands what has been written.” Reading aloud without understanding is not called reading and requiring students to read what students knows is also considered

“an activity of very limited value”; however, reading aloud is also included in reading and is one of activities to practise pronunciation The word “understand” in the definition is comprehended in a flexible way He claims that “This definition of reading does not mean that a foreign learner (or indeed any reader) needs to understand everything in a text.” Also, the reader does not simply work with words and sentences in a boring or passive way, but he or she is actively working on the text He can arrive at understanding without looking at every letter and word In summary, reading is a process related to understanding written text, but it is not “an absolute process- understanding nothing or all.” One efficient reader must know what he/she needs and how he/she does to obtain meaning without reading everything in the text

The aforementioned definitions make an effort to identify what the reading is and what is involved in reading Another term often appearing in studies on reading is

reading comprehension which is presented in the next part

1 3 Reading comprehension

Many studies confirm that the final goal of reading instruction is

comprehension and one of the most important goals of skilled reading is decoding and understanding written text However, the decoding and the ability to recognize words in texts are only the beginning stages of reading and reading comprehension (Adam, 1990) The concept of comprehension is explained in a higher level by

Grellet (1981), he states that “Understanding a written text means extracting the

required information from it as efficiently as possible.” He also shows the examples

in which a good reader will omit unnecessary information and find out what he or she is searching for

Other people believe that reading comprehension is not just a receptive process It requires many other skills in combination “It implies a complex process

in which the readers identify basic information and are able to predict, to infer, to

Pang, Muaka, Bernhardt and Kamil (2003), also states that “Reading is a complex activity” in the combination of 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.”

Harris and Hodges (1995) suggest that reading comprehension is “the construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text” Aebersold (1997: 15) also emphasizes two “entities” in the reading process; they are the text and the reader He adds that “the meaning the reader gets from the text may not exactly the same as the meaning the writer wished to convey Because of influences from “the family, community, aptitude and other personal characteristics”, consequently,

“reading comprehension differs from one reader to another.”

Combined from the all definitions, reading comprehension can be defined as “a fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning The goal of reading is comprehension…”

(Anderson, 2000, p.68)

1.4 Reading strategies

1.4.1 Definition of reading strategies

Barnet (1998) considers reading strategies as the mental operations which happens when a person reads effectively and makes sense of the meaning Alderson (1999:70) argues that strategies like “deliberate action that learners select and control to achieve desired goals or objectives” (Winograd and Hare, 1988, p.123)

He highlights the “active role” of the readers in using effectively in obtaining

“desired results” However, reading strategies are not considered “a single event” but “a sequence of activities” and it is not hoped they can meet demands of getting all but only “some of the sequence”

In terms of monitoring text comprehension that refers to the readers‟ “constantly

checking to see if the strategies they are using”, Smith (1988:3) states that

“strategies that build comprehension focus on how the text progresses and the

meaning of the text as it builds sentence and paragraph by paragraph.”

In reading research, reading strategies may be confusing to be understood in comparison with reading skills It is said that they are used interchangeably and mutually supportive Strategies support skills, so they are placed in “complementary relations” Skills and strategies also refer to the development in progress “e.g first phonics skill then the comprehension strategies.” Smith (1988:364) However, a group of researchers such as Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008: 365) who try to make a distinction claim that skill is related to the “proficiency of a complex act” and strategies refer to “a conscious and systematic plan” Skills come from

“learning through practice” but strategies from “constructive, self-controlled theories of information processing.” They also show that using skills and strategies depends on students‟ knowledge They tend to use skills when their tasks are easy and “their knowledge is strong” while strategies are used when they do not have enough knowledge to confront a difficult text A number of distinctions are listed:

“Skills make up strategies.”

“Strategies lead to skills.”

“Skill is the destination, strategy is the journey.”

“We learn strategies to do a skill.”

“Skills are automatic, strategies are effortful and mediated.”

“We use strategies as tools.”

“Strategies that work require a skill set.”

“We have to pay attention in learning skills, but eventually we use them automatically.”

“You don‟t think about skills, and you do think about strategies.”

Hudson (2007:105) says: “Other researchers restrict reading skills to automatic

processes and contrast those to the view that strategies are conscious and deliberate repair strategies” He also cites the differences between skills and strategies by Paris Walsik and Turner (1996):

“Skills refer information- processing techniques that are automatic, whether at the level of recognizing phoneme-grapheme correspondence or summarizing a story Skills are applied to text unconsciously for many reasons including expertise, repeated practice, and compliance with directions, luck, and naive use In contrast, strategies are actions selected deliberately to achieve particular goals An emerging skill can become a strategy when it is used intentionally Likewise, a strategy can

“go underground” and become a skill Indeed, strategies are more efficient and developmentally advanced when they become generated and applied automatically

as skills” (Paris et all 1996: 610-11)

All the distinctions help make the definition of strategies clear and in the next part; classification of reading strategies is presented

1.4.2 Classification of Reading strategies

Grellet (1990) provides 3 groups of techniques:

Sensitizing: Inference, Understanding relations within the sentences, linking sentences and ideas

According to Ur (1996), an effective reader:

and ideas

- Can guess many word meanings form sentences around the unfamiliar

words

- Use critical, logical meaning to access and apply new ideas

- Summarizes new knowledge in own words

- Use review methods with texts

- Integrates new ideas, fact and theory into knowledge already acquired about

the subject

- Read in phrases and thought units , not word by word

- Always previews material before reading

- Learn and can apply main ideas and find details as they relate to main ideas

- Make use of both inductive and deductive reasoning

- Locate thesis statement, topic sentences, generalizations

O‟Malley and Chamot (1990) classify reading strategies into cognitive, cognitive and social/ affective Some items such as “Clarification or verification, guessing or inductive inferencing, deductive reasoning, practice, memorization, and monitoring” belong to cognitive strategies Other items like “a conscious overview

meta-of the learning process; making decisions about planning, monitoring, or evaluating” are included meta-cognitive strategies

Alderson (1999:82) also gives the list with 24 strategies in while reading that is classified into three different groups: cognitive reading strategies, meta-cognitive reading strategies, and compensating reading strategies:

Cognitive Reading Strategies

1 Predicting the content of an upcoming passage or section of the text

2 concentrating on grammar to help you understand unfamiliar constructions

3 Understanding the main idea to help you comprehend the entire reading

4 Expanding your vocabulary and grammar to help you increase your reading

5 Guessing the meanings of unfamiliar words or phrases to let you use what you already know about English

6 Analyzing theme, style, and connections to improve your comprehension

7 Distinguish between opinions and facts in your reading

8 Breaking down larger phrases into smaller parts to help you understand difficult passages

9 Linking what you know in your first language with words in English

10 Creating a map or drawing of related ideas to enable you to understand the relationships between words and ideas

11 Writing a short summary of what you read to help you understand the main ideas

Meta-cognitive Reading Strategies

12 Setting goals for yourself to help you improve areas that are important to you

13 Making lists of relevant vocabulary to prepare for new reading

14 Working with classmates to help you develop your reading skills

15 Taking opportunities to practice what you already know to keep progress steady

16 Evaluating what you have learned and how well you are doing to help you focus your reading

Compensating Reading Strategies

17 Relying on what you already know to improve your reading comprehension

18 Taking notes to help you recall important details

19 trying to remember what you understand form a reading to help you develop better comprehension skills

20 Reviewing the purpose and tone of a reading passage so you can remember more effectively

21 Picturing scenes in your mind to help you remember and understand your reading

22 Reviewing key ideas and details to help you remember

23 Using physical action to help you remember information you have read

24 Classifying words into meaningful groups to help you remember them more clearly

An another classification with ten strategies relating to bottom-up procedures, and others to top down processes is proposed by Brown (2001) :

1 Identify the purpose of reading (clearly identify the purpose in reading something

so you will know what you are looking for);

2 Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid bottom-up decoding, especially for beginning level learners;

3 Use efficient silent reading technique for rapid comprehension (for intermediate

to advanced levels)

4 Skim the text for main ideas (quickly running one‟s eyes across whole text for its gist) for prediction;

5 Scan the text for specific information (quickly searching for some particular piece

or pieces of information in a text)

6 use semantic mapping or clustering (group ideas meaningful clusters, helps readers to provide some order to the chaos)

7 guess when you aren‟t certain (guess a meaning of a word, guess a grammatical relationship, guess a discourse relationship, guess a discourse relationship, infer implied meaning, guess about a cultural reference and guess content messages)

8 analyze vocabulary (look for prefixes, look for suffixes, look for roots that are familiar, look for grammatical contexts that may signal information, look at semantic context for clues)

9 Distinguish between literal and implied meanings;

10 Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships

1.4.3 The role of Reading Strategies

Reading strategies play an important role in reading comprehension They are considered as centered in learning process to gain success and nowadays more and more attention is paid to them It is the reason that Anderson (1999) states “recently, there has been a shift in attention from a focus on the product of reading (such as a score on a reading comprehension test) to an emphasis on determining the strategies that readers use in various reading contexts

Various studies on reading strategies show that reading strategies can support students‟ reading comprehension (Cohen, 1998; Chamot, 1999) Researchers acknowledge that efficient readers know how to operate their reading strategies to achieve success while poor readers lack the development of reading strategies

O‟Malley & Chamot ( 1990) also add that students using strategies perform better

in reading than that of students who are not provided with reading strategies instruction Moreover, according to (Allen, 2003; Rubin, 1987), reading strategies activate autonomic independent learning In the reading process, students can do self-direct their learning or reading

In summary, reading strategies facilitate reading process and enable readers to construct meaning from the text effectively They direct readers on the right track and discover the reasons why they are poor reader or how they can do to improve reading comprehension

1.4.4 Reading Strategy Instruction and Principles for Strategies Instruction

Anderson (1999) confirms that “teaching readers how to use strategies is a prime consideration in reading classroom.” It may be the reason why in the past decades,

so many studies explore the teaching in reading strategies with the hope to enable students to cope with difficulties and improve their reading abilities

In a study, a group of authors such as Shohreh Raftari, Keivan Seyyedi, and Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail Hamp( 2012) who have reviewed studies on reading strategies instruction draw conclusions that the teaching strategies are “always useful” However, “its usefulness varies according to different factors such as the teaching methods and the learners‟ personal variables.”

Using reading strategies are necessary and powerful to an efficient reader, but to help students become such good readers, strategies instructions must be considered The principles or how strategy instructions are delivered in effective way are discussed Garner (1982, cited in Anderson, 1999) “emphasizes that low-proficiency readers need guided practice if strategy training is to be successful Such training can emphasizes the “when” and “why” of strategy use at least as

much as the “what” Anderson pays close attention to the role of teacher in teaching strategies He states that “teacher explanation is an intergral part of success in learning how to verify strategy use.” Some elements are shown clearly by Winogard and Hare (1998, cited in Anderson, 1999): “(1) what the strategy is, (2) why the strategy should be learned, (3) how to use the strategy, (4) when and where the strategy is to be learned, and (5) how to evaluate the use of the strategy.” (p.71)

In addition, Hudson (2007) shows a variety of studies on second language strategy and comes to conclusion that the training must depend on “second language ability and the depth of the training” He also argues that instruction is only become the most effective when the instructor:

1 carefully explains the nature and purpose of the strategy

2 models its use through reading and thinking aloud

3 provides ample practice and feedback for the students

4 reminds students of the benefits of strategy use and encourages the independent transfer of these skills to new learning situation

5 provides a content base so that strategy learning is embedded in authentic purposes

Other his implications for instruction are the instructional time for direct-strategy instruction and modeling available for strategy instruction to be effective The strategies need to be taught in “a sufficient duration for the training to be effective” The strategies taught must be “determined through task analyses of strategies needed.” They are suitable enough for students to do, not too difficult or not too easy Finally, strategies “should be presented over a number of contexts with a variety of texts.” (p.136)

Yang (1995, p.6, cited in Shang, 1996, p.24) generalizes steps as follows:

1 Diagnosis: Developing students‟ awareness toward different strategies; identifying and assessing students‟ current strategies through observations questionnaires, interviews, diaries, self-report surveys, think-aloud procedure, etc

2 Preparation: Explaining the concept and importance of learning strategies; providing students with knowledge about language learning strategies and information on motivation and belief, etc

3 Instruction: Providing direct and informed instructions on learning strategies through explanation, modeling, practice, and integration; and providing different practice opportunities with various learning tasks

4 Evaluation: Helping students evaluate their own strategy use, evaluating the whole strategy training and revising the training component if necessary

1.4.5 Research on learning and teaching reading strategies

1.4.5.1 Research on teaching reading strategies

Barnet (1988) investigates the relationships among reading strategies and perceived strategies use on reading-comprehension in a two-part study He firstly looks 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 results indicates that students had better reading comprehension with use of reading strategies through context This study 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 intermediate level French students” The study focuses not only on whether direct strategy instruction is effective, but also whether it is differentially effective depending upon second language reading ability The subjects are fifty-three French students in the third semester, divided into two groups The experimental group receives explicit strategy instruction in reading while the Control group received the normal course without the strategy training The results indicates there is a statistically significant difference in comprehension between the Experimental group and the control group

Recently,the authors, Shohreh Raftari, Keivan Seyyedi, and Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail Hamp (2012:26) have listed a variety of studies around the world:

Lions (1985) explored in the influence of teaching EFL reading on the progress of students in academic reading classes of a university preparation course, comparing two different methods of reading instruction, i.e., “traditional” and “text-strategic” Hamp-Lyons (1985) and Kern (1989) found that students who had strategy training did better in reading than who did not having strategy training

Carrell, Pharis and Liberto (1989) and Pappa, Zafiropoulou and Metalliou(2003) also found that learners who had training on using semantic mapping and metacognitive strategies outperformed those…

Auerbach and Paxton (1997) conducted a study to apply L2 reading research findings in an ESL course classroom of non-proficient readers to discover the effects of new reading strategies on the students‟ comprehension performance

Farrell (2001) did research on reading strategies, argued that effective reading strategy training needs to include two key meta-cognitive factors: 1) knowledge of cognition 2) regulation of cognition

Taylor, Steven, and Asher (2006) after their meta-analysis of reading strategy instruction studies concluded that teaching of reading strategies influence the improvement of L2/ FL proficiency

These studies contribute to pedagogic implications in teaching readings strategies and become data for ongoing research

1.4.5.2 Research on learning reading strategies in second language learning

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 questionnaire with 14 items

on reading strategies 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 out seven of the strategies positively related to students‟ reading :

1 Summarizing in writing

2 Underlining important parts of the story to see if everything is remembered

3 Self-generated questions

4 Checking through the story to see if everything is remembered

5 Asking questions about parts of the story not understood

6 Taking notes

7 Imagining or picturing the story mentally

The results indicated that lower-achieving students used less sophisticated reading strategies while reading and there was a relationship between second language reading proficiency and the types of reading strategies that were used

Anderson learns from his data that successful second language reading comprehension is “not simply a matter of knowing what strategy to use, but the reader must also know how to use it successfully and know how to orchestrate its use with other strategies It is not sufficient to know about strategies, but a reader must also be able to apply them strategically” (Anderson, 1991:19)

Similarly, Kern (1989) states that there are good and bad uses of the same strategy, and that the difference between a “good” use and a “bad” use of the same strategy is

in the context in which they are used, how they are used and how they interact with other strategies In other words, the differences are how the strategies are

“operationalized”

The group of researchers: Shohreh Raftari, Keivan Seyyedi, and Shaik Abdul Malik Mohamed Ismail Hamp (2012:29) also bring back useful result from systemizing studies on reading strategies Investigating a wide variety of the training and using strategies by both native and non-native language readers around the world, the authors classify them into 10 categories:

A successful and unsuccessful readers‟ strategies

B reading strategy instruction outcomes

C factors affecting the use of reading strategies

D reading strategies of natives and L2/FL readers of the same language

E reading strategy use and reading comprehension

F reading strategies of FL readers and L2 readers

G reading strategies while reading in the first language vs reading in L2/ FL

H frequency of strategy use and readers‟ preferences

I which strategies suit which readers

J using the first language while reading FL/ SL

The authors draw to the most important conclusions:

“First, successful readers use reading strategies more actively and make use of a greater variety of strategies and

Second, explicit reading strategy instruction is always useful; though, its usefulness varies according to different factors such as the teaching methods and the learners‟ personal variables.”

In Vietnam, there are a huge number of studies on reading strategies in different

areas and aspects by both lecturers, and professors at universities or MA students

Recently, two authors Nguyen Thanh Duc and Trinh Hong Tinh has investigated the three most frequently used cognitive-metacognitive strategies in reading process responded by 196 Can Tho Unitversity English-majored students through the questionnaire The authors discover the level of frequent use of the reading strategies From the results, the authors suggest the applying meta-cognitive strategies in reading so that they can improve their abilities and become successful language learners

In addition, the major of MA students‟ studies focus on difficulties or the use of strategies in learning and teaching in reading classes For example:

- A study on difficulties in reading English for Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Vinh Technical Teachers‟ training university by Phạm Hải Yến(2008)

- Difficulties in teaching reading comprehension with the new English “Tieng Anh 10” (the set of standard textbooks to the 10th form students )at Ke Sat High School

by Vũ Thị Thu Hà(2010)

There are also studies investigating the effect of training strategies like:

- Improving students‟ reading comprehension through predicting strategy instruction: an action research at Cao Ba Quat Upper Secondary School by Hoang Thi Kim Que(2011)

However, a few of people have done research on the effect of the integrating a number of strategies to train students at high school Moreover, in most of the studies mentioned above, the authors just used questionnaires and interviews for teachers and students as a means of data collection Not many of them conducted the quasi-experiment which is said to be helpful to get more accurate and trustworthy information

1.4.5.3 Research on four strategies: skimming, scanning, guessing vocabulary

in the context and inference

1.4.5.3.1 Four strategies: skimming, scanning, guessing vocabulary in context and inference

Skimming

According to Nutall (1996), “when skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get the gist of it, to know how it is organized, or to get

an idea of the tone or the intention of the writer.” Nutall (1996) states that skimming

is the „process of rapid glancing through a text either to search for a specific piece

of information (a name, a date) or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purpose‟ (p 49) Likewise, Brown (2001: 308) adds “Skimming gives readers the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the reading text, the main topic, or message, and possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas.” In summary, skimming is important for speedy reading to know the purpose, the topic, organization of the text; readers read for general sense but not for the meaning of every word or detail

Scanning

Grellet (1981) considers scanning as the way of “quickly going through a text to find a particular piece of information” Having the same ideas, Williams (1984:100), states that “Scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very

quickly in order to find a particular point of information.” He also indicates the cases in which scanning may be performed “indexes, dictionaries, maps, advertisements, labels, reference material, etc.” Both scanning and skimming are helpful to read quickly but they are different in some ways When scanning, we

“only try to locate specific information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so We simply let our eyes wander over the text until

we find what we are looking for, whether it is a name, a date, or a less specific piece

of information.” Grellet (1981: 19)

Guessing the words from the context

Aldelson (1999) emphasizes the role of vocabulary in reading process He reports

many results from other researchers “Lack of adequate vocabulary…as one of the obstacles to text comprehension” (Levine and Reves, 1990, p.37) Grable (1991) stresses the important role of vocabulary as a predictor of overall reading ability More specifically, how to learn is discussed by Nation (1990) and Alderson (1999) Nation (1990:1) emphasizes “a systematic and principled approach to vocabulary by both the teacher and the learner” and instructions are “effective” when the teacher

“makes informed decisions” about how to teach vocabulary He also suggests his own way of teaching vocabulary in reading “basic vocabulary should be explicitly taught and L2 reader should be taught to use context to effectively guess the meanings of less frequent vocabulary.” Anderson (1999) cites 5 steps to guess the words proposed by Clark and Nation (cited in Nation, 1990: 162-63):

“Step 1: Look at the unknown word and decide its part of speech Is it a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb?

Step 2: Look at the clause or sentence containing the unknown word If the unknown word is a noun, what adjectives describe it? What verb is it near? That is, what does this noun do, and what is done to it? If the unknown word is a verb, what nouns does it go with? Is it modified by an adverb? If it is an adjective, what noun does it go with? If it is an adverb, what verb is it modifying?”

Step 3: Look at the relationship between the clause or sentence containing the unknown word and other sentences or sentence containing the unknown word and other sentences or paragraphs Sometimes this relationship will be signaled by a conjunction like “but”, “because”, “if”, “when”, or by an adverb like “however” or

“as a result” Often there will be no signal The possible types of relationship include cause and effect, contrast, inclusion, time, exemplification, and summary…Punctuation may also serve as a clue Semicolons often signal a list of inclusion relationships; dashes may signal restatement Reference words like “this”,

“that” and “such” also useful information

Step 4: Use the knowledge you have gained from Steps 1-3 to guess the meaning of the word

Step 5: Check that your guess is correct

a See that the part of speech of your guess is the same as the part of speech of the unknown word If it is not the same, then something is wrong with your guess

b Replace the unknown word with your guess If the sentence makes sense, your guess is probably correct

c Break the unknown word into its prefix, root, suffix, if possible If the meanings

of the prefix and root correspond to your guess, good If not, look at your guess again, but do not change anything if you feel reasonably certain about your guess using the context

d Using the dictionary could be (an additional) way of checking

Alderson also highlights the crucial role of perceiving the meaning of prefixes, suffixes, and roots This is considered as a “strategy to guessing the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary.” (p.27)

Aebersold (1997) asserts that “Guessing the meaning of a word from the other words around it, the context, is perhaps the most useful vocabulary skill that readers can have The ability to use the words and information around an unknown word in order to guess, or infer, what that word means in a general sense will serve students well in almost every reading situation.” (p.142) He considers vocabulary in pre-,

during- and post- reading In addition, he claimed that the number of unknown words in a text depends the level of language proficiency and the role of the teacher

is “to have knowledge of strategies available to readers for use during reading, and they need to promote the understanding and use of these strategies in the L2/FL reading classroom”

Inference

Inference is a difficult strategy that “causes discouragement and apprehension

in students when they are faced with a new text” Gellet (1981:14) He adds

“inferring means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the meaning of unknown elements If these are words, then word-form and derivation will also play an important part.” To cope with inferring of unknown elements, readers need to understand relations within the sentence and linking sentences and ideas

Nuttall (1996) considers the inference of meaning from context as a “powerful aid to comprehension” In addition, it is interesting for students to learn because it arouses “intelligence” Although it “challenges” readers‟ knowledge, it still can be understood because the readers do not need to “fully understand” (p.72) To deal with the difficulties, readers need “schemata” which is the knowledge about the world used to guess He points out some items that related to the inference of meaning from context such as clues and lexical density “If the context does not offer enough clues, it is unproductive, inference is impossible” or if the sentence need inferring contains other new words, it is difficult to make inference because of increasing “uncertainty” Nuttall also generalizes inference in the broader meaning, not only being used to get the meaning of the words when he said that “inference can often be used to reconstruct the writer‟s unstated presuppositions It can also be used for a different purpose: when the writer expects the reader to draw certain unstated conclusions from facts, points in an argument, etc In this case, the reader has all the evidence required, but is expected to take the final steps himself In practice the division between these uses of inference is not always clear.” (p.114)

Inference is considered “an essential skill, but a tricky one because often it is not clear how much the writer expects us to infer” (p.115)

1.4.5.3.2 Research on skimming, scanning, inference and guessing word meaning from the context

Many researchers conduct a variety of reading strategies that are related to 4 strategies and find out the results representing their own settings or contexts However, in the scope of this study, the author only mentions some studies in recent years First, in one study, Flora Debora Floris Marsha (2009) shows the specific results of wrong answers from students In skimming, 42, 5 % of respondents‟ total answers was incorrect For inference, there were 70 % of the wrong answers He concludes that vocabulary skill is the third most difficult reading skill for these respondents Inference from context skill is also one of important word attack skill and few of the respondents are successful in guessing word meanings from the context However, when scanning, the students do not have trouble like other skills because it might they have been taught to use it in all reading classes

In terms of each strategy, first, inference, Philips (1987:17) discovers that reading proficiency “may compensate in instances where there is insufficient background knowledge; however, whether one had sufficient background knowledge or not makes little difference in overall performance when the level of reading proficiency

is low” Another interesting point is that “adult readers have a greater breadth and depth of understanding of reading comprehension than do the young reader” This is the results of many years of reading, and the problem for educators is to find out which strategies to teach younger learners In another study, Attaprechakul (2013) lists some factors related to inference such as “Explicit Main Idea, Lexicon, Syntax, Summary of the Section, Discourse, Style and Tone, Implicit Main Idea” He believes that to promote efficient reading needs inference strategies He recommends Linguistic ability: Automatic Processing of Text, the Reader‟ Prior Knowledge, as well as Training in use of strategies as factors to solve the problem

The same conclusion from both studies is that the training of inference strategy is necessary

Another study on “How to improve Sixth Grader‟s Reading comprehension through the Skimming techniques” by a group of authors: Sandra Calderon Agudelo, Ligia Milena Carvajal Avila, Anna Yamile Guerrero Lopez (2007), explores different interesting aspects and give some useful implication They discover that their students liked this technique and found it easy and understandable They could understand the whole meaning of the key words or the text in an effective way In addition, 75% of students said that the activity was

“excellent” Skimming led them to “become proficient readers.” (p 31)

As far as guessing vocabulary is concerned, in a study on “Guessing the Meaning

of Words From context: How and why”, the author Çağrı Tuğrul Mart (2012)

comes to conclusion that vocabulary plays an important role in helping students read fluently, so it must be paid attention, but “New words presented in isolation are hard to learn but words in context help learners to deduce meaning from context and learners see how new words are used grammatically in a sentence.” Other authors such as Ahmad Azman Mokhtar and Rafizah Mohd Rawian (2012) show the limitations of guessing words in context First, guessing vocabulary is useful for reading but students need practicing vocabulary to enhance their knowledge In addition, if a text contains too many unknown words, they become frustrated Therefore, they claim that reading develops vocabulary but it “must be accompanied with exercises or activities that focus student attention on the

words.”(p.302)

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Setting of the study

Students

Students grade 11 at Binh Xuyen high school participated in this study There were 10 classes with 30 students, 2 classes of which included English majors Students in these two classes would take a university entrance exam Therefore, their English program was also different from the others They had 5 periods per week for studying English while the others only studied in 3 periods They started English from the first semester at grade 10 and would finish the sixth one at grade

12 at Binh Xuyen high school Students worked with only textbook in 3 periods, and 2 periods with materials provided by the teacher in optional lessons Each period comprised 45 minutes

Textbook and Materials:

Students worked with English 11 based on the new national curriculum and approach (learner-centered and communicative approach with task-based teaching)

In the textbook, there are 16 units with diverse topics related to 6 topics: You and

me, Education, Community, Nature, Recreation, and People and Places 5 sections were included in a unit: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus Because they were English majors, they were assigned extra exercises, differently designed lesson plan to practise The aim of the textbook was to provide knowledge and necessary skills of a foreign language speaker

The study were conducted from when the participants were in the second semester when they already had had knowledge about basic structures as well as vocabulary

in textbook of grade 10 and 11 Therefore, the author found that it matched with the objectives of the learning program and students‟ levels of proficiency

Facilities

The school was equipped with a library and a multi-media room for learning English However, English materials in the library were limited There were only English books for exams, not for extensive reading

Teachers:

There were 8 teachers of English teaching in 30 classes at Binh Xuyen high school Two of them were at the age of above 30 years old; the rest were under this age All of them had studied English as their major at pedagogical universities

2.2 Restatement of research questions

Two questions are above-mentioned in the introduction:

1 To what extent does the training of four reading strategies (skimming, scanning, inference, and guessing new words in context) affect grade 11 English majors‟ reading learning at Binh Xuyen high school?

2 How can students‟ abilities in reading be improved via four reading strategies?

2.3 Research methods

2.3.1 Type of method

Why is quasi-experimental research used?

The researcher chose it because of some reasons First, it could “explore the

strength of the relationships between variables” and “an appropriate way of gathering data” Nunan (1992:25) The second reason was that the study was suitable

to the characteristics of the experimental research There are three designs in the experimental method: true -experimental, quasi-experimental and pre-experimental The differences are the designs of control group According to Nunan (1992:41), the pre-experiment “may have pre- and posttreatment tests, but lacks a control group The quasi-experiment “has both pre-and posttests and experimental and control groups, but no random assignment of subjects” The true- experiment “has both pre- and posttests, experimental and control groups, and random assignment of subjects.” The subjects of the study had already been assigned before the treatment

In addition, the number of students in two classes was not changed or moved, so it

contributed to the increase in the external validity Extraneous variables were also controlled prior to the experiment such as the gender, the group size, the age, and English proficiency The searcher saved a lot of time in managing the groups Finally, all the participants were Vietnamese of the same age They lived all over areas around Binh Xuyen high school, so they were said to be at the same level of social and cultural background Moreover, their English proficiency was the same according to their scores in the placement test they had done With above-mentioned rationale the quasi-experimental research was suitable, and feasible to be chosen

Variables:

Independent variable: Four strategies

In this study, the Control group learned with traditional activities in reading provided by the teacher in a reading lesson Meanwhile the Experimental group was explained four strategies and supplied materials to practise reading exercises The independent was considered to be the cause of changes in the values of the dependent variable

Dependent variable: Students‟ scores in reading

The students‟ reading comprehension proficiency was reflected in the reading comprehension test administered in both pretest and posttest

Intervening variables such as learners‟ age, gender, personality, prior knowledge, motivation and attitudes, belief and learning strategies, learner language proficiency, society and education, and teacher might appear However, it was assumed that these factors randomly distributed in both groups and the influences

on the data seemed to be equal

2.3.2 Population sampling

This research was conducted with 60 students major of English in two classes There were 40 females and 20 males They were studying the second term of the

old; three-fourth of whom came from the countryside There were some reasons for

choosing students at grade 11 First, as these students were the ones who I had been directly teaching, so I could have favorable conditions to carry out all the steps of the research process Second, they had experienced 1 year at Binh Xuyen high school and they had some proficiency in English at high school

Table 1: Background information about the subject of the study

Third, regarding English background, all subjects had studied English for 4 years

in lower-secondary school before upper-secondary school Although they had one year with English at upper-second or high school and all of them planned to take university entrance and final exam, they were reported to face with lots of difficulties in reading skill The results of tests at the previous grade were discouraging and which were often complained by the teacher Many students got bad marks; English reading skill scores were estimated to be low

In this study, the subjects were divided into 2 groups: class 11A10 (the experimental group, N= 30) and the control group (N=30) Both groups took the pre-and post- reading comprehension tests The experimental group received a 5-week reading strategies training course while the control group received regular reading training

2.3.3 Data collection instruments

In this study, the author uses pretest and post test to investigate the effect of 4 strategies taught

Only one test is used for both pretest and posttest The rationale for using the same test as suggested by Song (1998) was:

1 It assured the exact comparable test and helped avoid the problem of equating different forms of pretest and posttest

2 Students were not given answer keys after doing the test, so even if they remembered how they had answered the first time they did not know whether their answers were correct or not

3 Any effects due to the test would be compared between the two groups

4 It ensures test reliability

The values of the dependent variable were measured by scores of both Control and Experimental groups in pre and posttest The test scores were calculated and compared by a t-test after the treatment

The test was based on standardized tests of TOEFL (Milada Broukal (2004)

Test Assistant Before the test, the researcher consulted a group of teachers with many years teaching English to identify the level that is suitable to the students There were 50 multiple-choice questions in the test focusing on four strategies tested: skimming, scanning, inference and vocabulary Each text contains the number of words that satisfied with the requirement for the level of students according to the national curriculum (230-270 words for students at grade 11).There was 7 inference questions and 5 skimming questions (main ideas / topic); 17 scanning questions and 21 vocabulary questions Each correct answer gained by students was mark 0, 2 The time allowance for each test was 55 minutes

2.3.4 Data analysis techniques

The teacher delivered instructions while training 4 strategies and observed the students‟ behaviors

For the statistical analyses of the data obtained, the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used T-test were used to compare mean scores of reading comprehension between the two groups and within each group itself at the beginning and end of the study