Những thành tựu mới trong Anh ngữ học có thể ứng dụng vào việc giảng dạy kỹ năng đọc hiểu cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất trường Cao đẳng Công nghệ Vietronics

---***--- NGUYỄN CHÍ DŨNG ADVANCES IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS EMPLOYABLE FOR THE TEACHING OF READING COMPREHENSION TECHNIQUES TO FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT VIETTRONICS TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE Nhữ

-*** -

NGUYỄN CHÍ DŨNG

ADVANCES IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS EMPLOYABLE FOR THE TEACHING OF READING COMPREHENSION

TECHNIQUES TO FIRST YEAR STUDENTS

AT VIETTRONICS TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE

(Những thành tựu mới trong Anh ngữ học có thể ứng dụng vào việc giảng dạy

kĩ năng Đọc hiểu cho sinh viên năm thứ nhất Trường Cao đẳng Công nghệ Viettronics)

M.A Minor Thesis

Filed : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60 14 10

HANOI - 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Declaration i

Acknowledgement ii

Table of contents iii

List of abbreviations, tables, figures and charts vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

2.1 Aims of the study 2

2.2 Objectives of the study 2

3 Methods of the study 3

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1 Review of literature 4

1.1 Introduction 4

1.2 An Overview on the Nature of Reading 4

1.2.1 Definition of reading 4

1.2.2 Definition of reading comprehension 5

1.2.3 Reading process 6

1.3 Types of reading 6

1.3.1 Manner of reading 7

1.3.2 Purposes of reading 8

1.4 Some advances in English linguistics employable for the teaching of reading comprehension techniques 8

1.4.1 Extensive reading 9

1.4.1.1 Extensive reading definitions 9

1.4.1.2 Extensive reading vs Intensive reading 11

1.4.1.3 Using extensive reading in the language class 12

1.5 Previous research studies 14

1.6 Summary 15

CHAPTER 2: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CURRENT SITUATION OF TEACHING AND LEARNING READING AT VIETTRONICS TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE (VTC) 17

2.1 Introduction 17

2.2 An Overview on Viettronics Technology College 17

2.3 Teachers and Teaching Methods 18

2.4 Materials and Assessments 18

2.5 Data Collection, Findings and Discussion 19

2.5.1 Data Collection 19

2.5.1.1 The Subject 19

2.5.1.2 Data collection instruments 19

2.5.2 Data analysis and discussion 20

2.5.2.1 Students’ attitudes towards the role of reading English to their learning and their future career 20

2.5.2.2 Students’ attitude towards the reading text in Lifeline- Elementary book 21

2.5.2.3 Students’ activities in reading 22

2.5.2.3.1 Students’ activities in pre-reading 22

2.5.2.3.2 Students’ activities in while-reading 23

2.5.2.3.3 Students’ activities in post-reading 24

2.5.2.3.4 Teachers’ activities towards their students in the reading lesson 25

2.6 Summary 27

CHAPTER 3: THE EMPLOYMENT OF EXTENSIVE READING AS A POSSIBLE WAY OF TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION TECHNIQUES TO THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT VTC 28

3.1 Introduction 28

3.2 The employment of extensive reading as a possible way of teaching reading comprehension techniques to the first year students at VTC 28

3.2.1 The reading material is easy 28

3.2.2 A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be available 29

3.2.3 Choosing what they want to read 30

3.2.4 Students read as much as possible 30

3.2.5 The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure information and general understanding 31

3.2.6 Reading is its own reward 31

3.2.7 Reading is individual and silent 32

3.2.8 Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower 32

3.2.9 Teachers orient and guide their students 32

3.2.10 The teacher is a role model of a reader 33

3.3 Summary 34

PART III: CONCLUSION 35

1 Recapitulation 35

2 Limitations and suggestions for further research 37

REFERENCES 38 APPENDIX I SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS

ABBREVIATIONS

VTC: Viettronics Technology College

ER: Extensive reading

FIGURES

Figure 1: The traditional types of reading

Figure 2: The general picture of advances in reading

Chart 2: Students’ attitude towards the reading text in Lifeline- Elemetary book

Chart 3: Students’ activities in pre-reading

Chart 4: Students’ activities in while-reading

Chart 5: Students’ activities in post-reading

Chart 6: Teachers’ activities towards their students in the reading lesson

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

In the modern time, when the world entered a new millennium, the tendency towards globalization is an indispensable development Therefore, the desire for having a mutual understanding among the world economies, among the world citizens is becoming more and more urgent

Thanks to the globalization and the entry to the WTO, Viet Nam is striving to the growth rate of world economy Using English as a useful means of communication is really in need Furthermore, to have good chances to find out stable jobs as well as to get high social positions, one of the key factors to the success is good at English For the reasons, teaching and learning English is getting highly development in the world

Learners of English must concern in four practical skills in English as reading, speaking, writing and listening Obviously and surely, most of learners want to be the masters of all Some of them pay attention to speaking and listening, they consider speaking and listening

as a tool for the communication and realization of their goal Also, writing is important and necessary for others because of their office documents, reports and business letters etc requirement However, most of them confirm reading is one of the most complex skills It

is difficult for them to focus on reading, especially for reading texts with lengthy and unknown words They also complain that the reading classes are boring and they feel bored because they are able to understand a little about the subject they are reading Therefore teachers need to have some new advances to improve reading skill for learners Learners must be taught how to read and teachers should give best methods and new advances in reading to motivate and develop learners’ reading skill

Viettrronics Technology College, a seven – year – old College is located in Hai Phong city has four faculties, Basic department, Electrical and Electronics department, Information Technology department and Economic Administration department We, English group belong to Basic department so we teach for non- English major students who are offered reading course in Lifelines book (Elementary by Tom Hutchinson) for the first term and second term For the first year students have to face up with quite a lot of problems in

learning reading because most of them have just graduated from high school They seem to lack of basic background knowledge of reading Moreover, they are not acquainted with lengthy and unknown words reading texts in limitation time They only have two periods

to read and carry out a reading text in each lesson that cause them many difficulties in reading and understanding the text That is also the reason why the first year students often have to look up new words and write down everything the teachers explain As a certain result, they are tired of reading and their reading skills still keep stable

For all above reasons, the researcher wishes to try some new advances to improve reading skill for students, especially the first year students And the writer’s thesis is:

“Advances in English Linguistics Employable for the Teaching of Reading Comprehension Techniques to First Year Students at Viettronics Technology College”

2 Aims and objectives of the study

2.1 Aims of the study

The purpose of this study is to investigate and survey the difficulties in reading encountered by non – English students at Viettronics Technology College from that Advances in English Linguistics Employable for the Teaching of Reading Comprehension Techniques can be given to motivate and help them to improve reading skill

The specific aims are:

+ To investigate into current situation of teaching and learning reading at VTC

+ To find out the difficulties encountered by non – English students at VTC

+ To give the employment of extensive reading as a possible way of teaching reading comprehension techniques to the first year students at VTC

2.2 Objectives of the study

+ Data collection for the analysis from the first year students of classes in Economic administration department at VTC:

+ Find out the dominant difficulties

+ Evaluate what advances in English linguistics employable for the teaching of reading Comprehension Techniques are best suitable

3 Methods of the study

To get the aims of this study, the quantitative and qualitative research methods are used to observe and obtain information on students’ attitude in reading lesson Besides that Writer intends to use categorized and systematized research methods to find out students’ difficulties in reading and choose the best suitable advances using for teaching of reading comprehension techniques to first year students at Viettronics Technology College

4 Scope of the study

The main focus of the study is the employment of extensive reading as a possible way of teaching reading comprehension techniques to help non- English major students to solve reading texts, especially, lengthy and unknown words texts Due to the limitation of time, the author will pay more attention to survey on the first year students of Economic Administration department at VTC to investigate reading difficulties that students are often coped with then give some principles of extensive reading employable for the teaching of reading comprehension techniques to motivate them better in their reading skill

5 Design of the study

This minor thesis is divided into three parts

Part A “Introduction” firstly, introduce how important English language is in modern society The students’ demands for studying English including four skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing as well as students’ attitude to these Secondly, talk a little about the difficulties in studying reading comprehension at VTC Thirdly, presents the background aims, objectives, research methods, scope and design of the study

Part B: Consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1: Reviews literature and the literature of previous works and some linguistic concepts concerning to research topic such as definitions of reading, definitions of reading comprehension, types of reading, reading comprehension, definition of extensive reading, extensive reading versus intensive reading etc

Chapter 2: Analyzes the general learning situation at VTC, teachers and their teaching methods, materials and assessment, especially, data collection, finding and discussion also will be focused in this chapter

Chapter 3: Gives the employment of extensive reading as a possible way of teaching reading comprehension techniques to the first year students at VTC

Part C: “Conclusion” summarizes what is obtained in this study and shows the limitations and gives some suggestions for further study

on students’ reading The fourth section summarizes this chapter

1.2 An Overview on the Nature of Reading

1.2.1 Definition of reading

There are numerous of reading definitions as:

According to Goodman (1971: 135), reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language users, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming”

Rumelhart (1977) defines “reading involves the reader, the text and the interaction between the reader and the text”

William also shares the same idea on reading when he points out “written, then, often contain more than we need to understand them The efficient reader makes use of this to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning”

Harmer (1989:153) states that “eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out the significance of the message” He views reading from a different perspective and he consider reading as a mechanical process

Obviously, Experts give different reading definitions but they all share the same idea that reading includes reader, text, reading process and reading message

1.2.2 Definition of reading comprehension

Reading comprehension plays a very important part in teaching and learning reading a foreign language It is the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it appropriately So that:

Swam (1975:1) states “a student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding”

Grellet (1981:3) proposes “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”

Lenz (2000:3) also says “reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from the text” It means that reading comprehension consists of at least two people, the reader and the write Thus, the process of comprehending involves decoding the writer’s words and using background knowledge to construct an approximate understanding of the writer’s passage

On the whole, reading comprehension is the process that helps readers obtain information

in a text and understand it appropriately

1.2.3 Reading process

Kamil (1986) claims that there have been three general orientations of reading models: bottom-up models (text – based), top- down models (reader – based), and interactive models (balanced – models)

In bottom-up the reader begins with the written text and constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and sentences and then processes the text in a linear fashion as Kamil (1986: 73) says “the reader begins the reading process by analyzing the text in small units and these units are built into progressively larger units until meaning can be extracted”

In top-down processing, reader moves from the top, the higher level of mental stages to the text itself This model emphasizes the reconstruction of meaning rather than decoding of form as well as the interaction between the reader and the text rather than the graphic forms As Researcher, Goodman (1976) states that “reading processes are initiated by making guesses about the meaning of the text”

The interactive approach suggested by Samuel and Kamil (1988) combine bottom-up and top-down models interactively and constantly In this model, the reader plays an active role

in employing different strategies which requires both the knowledge of the world and the linguistic knowledge to interpret the meaning of the text

The appearance and popularity of interactive model shows that this model can maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the separate use of either bottom-up or top-down model The interplay between bottom-up and top-down processing creates successful reading

Figure 1: The traditional types of reading

1.3.1 Manner of reading

According to Doff (1988), reading is divided into two main types: reading aloud and silent reading in which “reading aloud involves looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it” This type is considered as a good way to convey necessary information to the other but it is not common activity outside classroom However, there is also other researcher consider reading a loud as a way for students to make the connection between

Reading for information

Reading for

pleasure

Reading for language

sounds and spelling of words and to assist teachers to check students’ pronunciation Natal (1996) says “reading aloud is an aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation”

According to Lewis (1985:110) says “silent reading is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient Clearly, this type of reading is more often use in real life and in classroom

Grellet (1981:19) states that “when scanning, we only try to locate specific information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so” This type of reading use

to read the text rapidly to find a specific piece of information

Unlike skimming and scanning, extensive and intensive reading are viewed differently While extensive reading is associated with long texts and is used to read for pleasure with emphasis on overall meaning Intensive reading pays attention to short texts with detailed information

1.4 Some advances in English linguistics employable for the teaching of reading comprehension techniques

According to Jack C Richards (2003), reading is divided into three types: Extensive, Intensive and Oral reading The figure 2 shows the general picture of these types

Figure 2: The general picture of advances in reading

1.4.1 Extensive reading

1.4.1.1 Extensive reading definitions

According to Hill (2006) “reading quantity with the purpose of learning the language and

of acquiring fluency for extensive reading” He makes the difference between library extensive reading based on the quantity of books that students read and class reading related to the quality of the reading experience and with the ability that students can interact with texts and over the content of the book with the teacher or by themselves

Pre-reading Prediction Main

ideas

Comprehension

READING

EXTENSIVE READING

ORAL READING

INTENSIVE READING

Cohesion Scanning Skimming

RichardDay and Bamford (2004) consider extensive reading as ten principles:

4 Readers should read as much as they can

5 The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure,

information and general understanding

6 Reading is its own reward

7 Extensive reading should be silent and at the students’ pace

8 Reading speed is usually faster than slower

9 Teachers orient and guide their students

10

Teachers should be good models of students by reading the same materials that students are reading and exchanging opinions about them with students

Table 1: Ten principles of extensive reading

“Although out-of-class reading is a school assignment, it can resemble real-world reading

if students choose what they want to read and respond to it in their own way, without being tested on it They are likely to be interested in and inspired by the opinions and reading experiences of their peers but should be held individually accountable for what they read” Jack C Richards (2003:3)

1.4.1.2 Extensive reading versus Intensive reading

There are two kinds of reading, intensive reading and extensive reading Both are important though their importance finds expression in different ways

Extensive reading will be selected at a lower level of difficult than that for intensive reading Where frequency word counts are available for the language being learned, extensive reading will conform to a lower frequency word count than intensive reading Material will be selected whose choice of structure is less complex and whose vocabulary range is less extensive The aim of extensive reading is to train the students to read directly and fluency in the target language for enjoyment without the aid of the teachers Where graded texts are available, structures in texts for extensive reading will be familiar, and new items of vocabulary will be introduced slowly in such a way that their meaning can be deduced from context The students will be motivated to make intelligent guesses at the meaning of unknown words Material consists of short stories, plays or articles from newspapers and magazines A few adaptations of vocabulary and structure will be made The style of writing should entail a certain a number of repetition without monotony And

it is intended to develop good reading habits, to build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure and to enable students to get independence in basic skill development

In contrast, the purpose of intensive reading is to practice and learn the grammar and vocabulary of the target language through reading Students are involved in looking inside the texts at the vocabulary and grammar, and is paying attention to a “detail reading” of the texts

According to Holden (2003), there are ten features of an intensive reading approach

Firstly, the material is often collected by teachers Secondly, Most of students have the same document at the same time in their class Thirdly, the text is not very long enough for students to practice Next, there is a heavy emphasis on using the texts to study new words structures and grammar Then, there are many difficult words that appear in the reading texts Sixthly, Vocabulary is explained by translation Seventhly, there is a pre-reading task Eighthly, comprehension is tested Ninthly, there are post-reading grammar and vocabulary exercises Finally, students rarely meet new words again in later lessons

Certainly, there is very little practiceof the skill of reading The students will be unable to read fast because of many unknown words The students often give up reading to use dictionary, ask their teacher for explanation, or analyze the texts word-by-word Beside that the texts may or may not create interest for students because it is selected by teachers Obviously, intensive reading gives students the opportunity to learn new word, practice grammar and have tightly relationship with the topic of the texts However, only with intensive reading is not enough to be a good reader, students’ reading skills will be widened and developed better by using extensive reading

1.4.1.3 Using extensive reading in the language class

Firstly, extensive reading can provide comprehension input

Krashen (1982) states that “extensive reading will lead to language acquisition, provide that certain preconditions are met” These include adequate exposure to the language, interesting material, and a relaxed learning environment

Elley and Manghubai (1983:55) says that exposure to the second language is normally

“planned, restricted, gradual, and largely artificial”

Secondly, it can enhance learners’ general language competence

Grabe (1991) and Paran (1996) have emphasized the importance of extensive reading in providing learners with practice in automaticity of word recognition and decoding the symbols on the printed page (often called bottom-up processing)

Thirdly, it increases the students’ exposure to the language

The quality of exposure to language that learners receive is seen as important to their potential to acquire new forms from the input Elley views provision of large quantities of reading material to children as fundamental to reducing the ‘exposure gap’ between L1 learners and L2 learners He reviews a number of studies with children between six and twelve years of age, in which subjects showed rapid growth in language development compared with learners in regular language programs There was a “spread of effect from reading competence to other language skills - writing, speaking and control over syntax,” (Elley, 1991:404)

The forth is that it can increase knowledge of vocabulary

Nagy & Herman (l987) claimed that children between grades three and twelve (US grade levels) learn up to 3000 words a year It is thought that only a small percentage of such learning is due to direct vocabulary instruction, the remainder being due to acquisition of words from reading This suggests that traditional approaches to the teaching of vocabulary, in which the number of new words taught in each class was carefully controlled (words often being presented in related sets), is much less effective in promoting vocabulary growth than simply getting students to spend time on silent reading of interesting books

Then, it can lead to improvement in writing

Stotsky (1983) and Krashen (l984) reviewed a number of L1 studies that appear to show the positive effect of reading on subjects' writing skills, indicating that students who are prolific readers in their pre-college years become better writers when they enter college L2 studies by Hafiz & Tudor (l989) in the UK and Pakistan, and Robb & Susser (1989) in Japan, revealed more significant improvement in subjects' written work than in other language skills These results again support the case for an input-based, acquisition-oriented reading program based on extensive reading as an effective means of fostering improvements in students writing

The sixth benefit of ER is that it can motivate learners to read

Reading material selected for extensive reading programs should address students' needs, tastes and interests, so as to energize and motivate them to read the books In Yemen, this was achieved through the use of familiar material and popular titles reflecting the local culture (e.g Aladdin and His Lamp) Bell & Campbell (1996, 1997) explore the issue in a South East Asian context, presenting various ways to motivate learners to read and explaining the role of extensive reading and regular use of libraries in advancing the reading habit

And it can consolidate previously learned language

Extensive reading of high-interest material for both children and adults offers the potential for reinforcing and recombining language learned in the classroom Graded readers have a controlled grammatical and lexical load, and provide regular and sufficient repetition of

new 1anguage forms (Wodinsky & Nation, 1988) Therefore, students automatically receive the necessary reinforcement and recycling of language required to ensure that new input is retained and made available for spoken and written production

The eighth is that it helps to build confidence with extended texts

Much classroom reading work has traditionally focused on the exploitation of shorts texts, either for presenting lexical and grammatical points or for providing students with limited practice in various reading skills and strategies However, a large number of students in the EFL world require reading for academic purposes, and therefore need training in study skills and strategies for reading longer texts and books Kembo (1993) points to the value

of extensive reading in developing students’ confidence and ability in facing these longer

texts

The ninth, it encourages the exploitation of textual redundancy

Insights from cognitive psychology have informed the understanding of the way the brain functions in reading It is now generally understood that slow, word-by-word reading, which is common in classrooms, impedes comprehension by transferring an excess of visual signals to the brain This leads to overload because only a fraction of these signals need to be processed for the reader to successfully interpret the message Kalb (l986) refers

to redundancy as an important means of processing, and to extensive reading as the means

of recognizing and dealing with redundant elements in texts

And the last using of extensive readingfacilitates the development of prediction skills One

of the currently accepted perspectives on the reading process is that it involves the exploitation of background knowledge Such knowledge is seen as providing a platform for readers to predict the content of a text on the basis of a pre-existing schema When students read, these schemas are activated and help the reader to decode and interpret the message beyond the printed words These processes presuppose that readers predict, sample, hypothesize and reorganize their understanding of the message as it unfolds while reading (Nunan, 1991)

1.5 Previous research studies

Susser and Robb (1990) survey the literature on extensive reading and establish a working definition of extensive reading as a language teaching/learning procedure In this journal,

they definite of “extensive reading” as a language teaching/learning procedure is that it is reading of large quantities of material or long texts; for global or general understanding; with the intention of obtaining pleasure from the text Further, they give some reasons from other researchers that because reading is individualized, with students choosing the books they want to read, the books are not discussed in class

Besides, Tignanelli’s (2007) subjects are group of 5th form students at a bilingual institution in the province of Buenos Aires She proved that Extensive reading (ER) is not only important and compulsory in Ll but also can be extended to L2 and FL programs since the teaching of another language apart from the mother tongue is included as compulsory in the curriculum In her conclusion, she said that, educators will necessarily have to work on ER more in these days when a world in constant change will need, in the near future, students who can enlarge their knowledge of the world through their native as well as another language

Macalister (2008) claimed that the integration of the reading reflected teacher and learner differences, and supported that the way in which extensive reading is included in a program should be determined by the specific language learning environment

Renandya, Rajan, and Jacobs (1999) conducted a study on the impact of extensive reading (ER) on the language proficiency of a group of Vietnamese government officials studying English They came to a conclusion that ER can indeed be beneficially implemented with second language learners beyond the age of university undergraduates

All the studies prove that ER is good for students, like Krashen (l993:23) states after reviewing hundreds of research studies in both first and second language learning contexts: Reading is good for you The research supports a stronger conclusion, however Reading is the only way, the only way we become good readers, develop a good writing style, an adequate vocabulary, advanced grammar, and the only way we become good spellers

1.6 Summary

There are a lot of definitions concerning reading in general and extensive reading in particular but it can be summarized with some main points Firstly, reading is often referred to as the most important of the four language skills for students Traditionally, the types of reading are divided into scanning, skimming, extensive reading and intensive reading Secondly, Bam ford and Day (2004) explain extensive reading as a set of ten principles Thirdly, extensive reading can be conducted in different ways

Bell (1998) provides several role of extensive reading in language learning such as ER can provide comprehensible input, enhance students’ general language competence, increase

the students’ exposure to the language, and increase knowledge of vocabulary It can lead

to improvement in writing, motivate students to read, consolidate previously learned language, help to build confidence with extended texts, encourage the exploitation of textual redundancy, facilitates the development of prediction skills And the researcher also knows that with regard to the practical use at VTC, it can bring more effectiveness to the students

The researcher wants to show that it is possible to introduce and implement ER at VTC to

help students to feel more confident with their English abilities And extensive reading will

promote a positive attitude toward reading and at least, their motivation for choosing an English book for themselves

In conclusion, this chapter focuses on the different useful aspects related to reading skills

as concepts of reading, the process of reading, types of reading support for this study And the most useful way, extensive reading is also given in this chapter with the hope to improve students reading skills

CHAPTER 2:

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CURRENT SITUATION OF

TEACHING AND LEARNING READING

AT VIETTRONICS TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE (VTC)

2.2 An Overview on Viettronics Technology College

Viettronics Techonogy College was established in 2003 and now it is located at 118 Cat Bi street, Hai An district, Hai Phong city Because of a newly founded college, there are a lot

of difficulties with nearly 130 students into four classes and over ten teachers and staffs for the first year

Currently, VTC has over 73 classes with nearly 5,000 students and over 130 teachers and staffs at which four departments as Basic department, Electrical and Electronics department, Information technology department and Economic administration department

We, English group belong to Basic department so we teach for non- English major students

This figure shows the quick development of our college as well as the potential for teachers to access to students’ variable requirements

The English teaching at VTC is divided into two parts At the first part, students have to study general English for two terms In the first term (15 weeks), They have to learn four skills but they much focus on listening and speaking skills and they have to much pay attention to reading and writing at the second term (15 weeks) and this term also equips background knowledge as well as reading skill for students before starting learning ESP for the second part (in the third and the fourth term) so that reading skill seem to be very important for students, especially for the first year students In addition, teachers’ role and the way of teachers’ teaching reading have great influences on students

2.3 Teachers and Teaching Methods

At VTC, there are totally 08 English teachers with the age of 26 to 34 Most of them graduated from university Two of them are studying for English master of Post Graduate Department at College of Foreign Languages, Viet Nam National University They are all young and maybe lack of experiences in teaching but they all have good qualification and strong enthusiasm in teaching to upgrade their teaching quality

For the first part (in the first and second term), the teachers are distributed into the same levels with different classes Each teacher has to be responsible for some classes with 75 periods for one for each term so that teachers often have 5 periods a week divided two days

of that week Therefore, they have enough time to do well with four different skills Perhaps, the matter here is lacked experience in teaching They often attach themselves to the traditional teaching method, in which grammar and vocabulary always become the focus of their attention every lesson Teachers often ask students to read and scan the text then find out new words and structures then they often write down new words and structures on the board and explain for the meaning They rarely require students to predict

or guess the meaning from the text In addition students are asked to translate the text from English into Vietnamese or complete the exercises provided in each lesson They hardly use extensive activities and tasks in their teaching reading Therefore, there should be more appropriate advances in teaching reading to improve students’ ability of reading

2.4 Materials and Assessments

At VTC, Students who are offered reading course in Lifelines book (Elementary by Tom Hutchinson) for the first term and second term It consists of 14 units, which are covered in

150 periods for two terms (45 minutes for each period) There are four skills in this book

In each unit, the first section is grammar and grammar in use, next is vocabulary related to the reading text so that it makes the reading text more exciting than others In addition, this book also provides reading passages of various topics such as: “people and jobs” (in unit 2), “family” (unit 3), “food and drinks” (unit 5) etc Mainly they are designed for the aims of teaching reading so reading activities are set in each reading text (pre–reading activities, while-reading activities, post-reading activities), and at the end of the reading texts are exercises for ideas or information from the text Therefore teachers will be

depended on too much the text in this book They become lazy for finding extra materials

or extensive activities to improve students’ habit of reading as well as their reading ability development And the last part of this material is listening, speaking and pronunciation

2.5 Data Collection, Findings and Discussion

2.5.1 Data Collection

2.5.1.1 The Subject

The subjects of the study are 210 students of elementary level (including of 4 classes KTK7A, KTK7B, QTK7E, QTK7F) of Economic Administration department at VTC Both male and female students’ ages are from 19 to 22 and they come from different areas

of Viet Nam as Thai Binh, Quang Ninh, Bac Giang, Ha Noi, even there are some students who come from mountainous or remoted religions as Cao Bang, Lang Son Now they are studying for the second term at VTC

2.5.1.2 Data collection instruments

In this study, the researcher used survey questionnaire as a main means of data collection

to get information concerning The questionnaire was designed with 20 questions divided into 4 parts The first part pointed out students’ attitude towards the role of reading English

to their learning and their future career (question 1) The second part dealt with students’ attitude towards the reading text in Lifeline- Elementary book (questions 2-5) The third part gave students’ activities in reading (pre-reading, while-reading, post-reading), (questions 6-13) And the last part emphasized students’ attitude towards the activities of their teacher in the reading lesson (questions 14-20) From the information, the researcher can give some advances in English linguistics employable for the teaching of reading comprehension techniques to first year students at Viettronics Technology College