A STUDY ON GRADE 10 TH STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS LEARNING TO READ ENGLISH AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCUTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ THÚY A STUDY ON GRADE 10 TH STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS LEARNING TO READ ENGLISH AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC HỌC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH Ở MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT Ở MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM M.A. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI–2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCUTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ THÚY A STUDY ON GRADE 10 TH STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS LEARNING TO READ ENGLISH AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC HỌC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH Ở MỘT TRƯỜNG THPTỞ MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM M. A. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Hoàng Thị Hạnh, PhD HANOI – 2014 i DECLARATION I certify that all the material in this study which is not my own work has been identified and acknowledged, and that no material is included for which a degree has already been conferred upon me. Hanoi, September, 2014 Đỗ Thị Thúy ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Hoàng Thị Hạnh, for giving effective instructions and invaluable advice during the preparation and completion of this graduation paper. I also wish to acknowledge my debt to all the teachers of Faculty of Postgraduate Studies at Vietnam National University, Hanoi – University of Languages and International Studies, whose lectures and ideas have inspired my thesis. My appreciation also goes to the teachers and students at Hai Hau A high school for their valuable assistance in completing my survey questionnaire and interview, and providing me with a lot of useful information. Finally, I would like to send my great thanks to my family, my friends who have directly or indirectly helped me with their encouragement and advice. iii ABSTRACT Pleasure reading has greatly affected reading achievements. There have been some studies investigating students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English such as Camiciottoli (2001); Ro and Chen (2014). However, few are found investigating high school students in the context of Vietnam. Therefore, this study will focus on high school students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English. A set of survey questionnaire and interview are used to explore the 10 th students‟ pleasure reading frequency and their attitudes towards reading in English for pleasure at a high school in the North of Vietnam. Besides, factors that may have influenced pleasure reading and students‟ attitudes are also examined. The findings show that most students do not have good reading habits, and “lack of time” is the reason limiting their reading. The study also finds out that reading frequency and students‟ attitude have strongly positive relationship. In addition, “past access of English books” and “L1 reading habits” are correlated with pleasure reading frequency and students‟ attitude towards reading in English. The recommendations, limitations and suggestions for further studies are mentioned carefully in this study. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF GRAPHS viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Rationale 1 2. Scope of the study 2 3. Aims of the study 2 4. Research questions 2 5. Methods of the study 3 6. Significance of the study 3 7. Structure of the report 3 PART B: THE BODY 5 Chapter 1: Literature review 5 1.1 Extensive reading and pleasure reading 5 1.1.1 Reading 5 1.1.2 Extensive reading 5 1.1.3 Pleasure reading 7 1.2 Pleasure reading habits 9 1.3 Reading attitudes 10 Chapter 2: The study 13 2.1 Setting 13 2.2 Participants 13 2.3 Instruments 14 2.4 Procedures 16 v Chapter 3: Data analysis and findings 17 3.1 Coding and Analysis 17 3.2 Results 19 Part C: Discussion/Conclusion 31 1. Summary of major findings 31 2. Pedagogical implications 33 3. Limitations and recommendations for further studies 35 References 36 Appendix A …………………………………………………………… …….I Appendix B V Appendix C IX vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS L1: First Language L2: Second Language ER: Extensive Reading ESL: English as Second Language EFL: English as Foreign Language CEP: Community English Program JFL: Japanese as Foreign Language vii LIST OFTABLES Table 3.1: Pleasure Reading Frequency in English Table 3.2: Types of Reading Materials Table 3.3: Number of Books Read in the last 12 Months Table 3.4:Reasons Limiting Pleasure Reading Frequency in English Table 3.5: Ranking of Reasons Limiting Pleasure Reading Frequency in English Table 3.6:Reasons for Reading in English for Pleasure Table 3.7: Ranking Reasons for Reading in English for Pleasure Table 3.8: Reasons Why Reading in English for Pleasure Important Table 3.9: Gender and Frequency of English Pleasure Reading Table 3.10: Gender and Attitude towards Pleasure Reading in English Table 3.11: Factors that may have influenced on Pleasure Reading Habit and their Attitudes (Pearson correlations (r)) viii LIST OF GRAPHS Figure 3.1: Pleasure reading habit and preference scores Figure 3.2: Reading attitudes scores Figure 3.3: Reading habits and attitudes relationship [...]... According to Yamashita (2013) reading attitude may foster intrinsic motivation (p 258), and attitude is one of the factors that influence the decision to read (p 249) Thus, it is difficult to deny the important role of pleasure reading and attitudes towards reading in general, and reading in English in particular There have been some studies investigating students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes... learning reading that uses reading materials that are understandable and meaningful to the learner in order for learners to be able to read large amounts The aim of ER is improvement in reading ability, fluency, and enjoyment (Krashen, 2011) Another definition by Grabe & Stoller (2011) was that ER is an approach to reading pedagogy that encourages students to engage in a large amount of reading Sharing... they find that the participants with positive attitudes towards reading tend to read more They also mention that lack of time was the most selected reasons for poor reading habits The importance of reading in learning process as well as the role of pleasure reading habits and reading attitudes towards reading and others skills has been 11 presented It is clearly seen that most of studies have been carried... type A while extrinsic motivation type B and notes that intrinsic motivation can lead to overall more frequent reading than extrinsic motivation Besides, the reason for scoring criteria is that intrinsic motivation is a stronger predictor of the amount and the breadth of reading than extrinsic motivation For all reasons above, this current study also used the same scoring system as that of Ro and Chen... difficult to entirely discuss the matter in a minor thesis Therefore, this study only focuses on students‟ pleasure reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English, and factors affecting their reading frequency and attitudes The subject under this research is 100 grade 10 students from a high school in the North of Vietnam 3 Aims of the study In general, this study is designed to find out high. .. those without Another study by Beglar, Hunt and Kite (2012) find that the large amount of pleasure reading could lead to significant reading rate gains Thus, it is evident that pleasure reading greatly affects reading achievement In addition, many studies have also presented that attitudes towards reading have a great influence on reading achievements (Kamhi-Stein, 2003; Yamashita, 2004, 2007, 2013) According... first is that extensive reading is generally associated with reading large amounts or long texts on the purpose of getting an overall understanding of the material The second is readers often use this kind of reading to find out the meaning of the whole text rather the meaning of individual words or 6 sentences The last one is extensive reading provides students opportunities to update and enrich their... second or a foreign language” However, it seems that many learners are not aware of this importance Consequently, their reading achievement is not high In fact, there are many factors affecting reading results, two of them are pleasure reading habits and attitudes towards reading The study by Robb and Kano (2013) show that 84% of students with pleasure reading get higher score on reading tests than those... prevented them from understanding what they read, so they were not interested in reading in English in their free time In addition to all reasons above, laziness was also chosen by three interviewees as a reason they did not read in English for pleasure Additionally, the researcher also tried to find out the reasons encouraging participants to read in English for pleasure (Table 3.6 and Table 3.7) The study. .. in this study did not have good reading habits In contrast, the result of a study by Ro and Chen (2014) on advanced non-academic English- as -a- second-language learners in the US not only shows that the participants had good reading habits, but also reveals that they read more English books for pleasure than the participants in the one by Camiciottoli (2001) However, when investigated factors affecting . A HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC HỌC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH Ở MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT Ở MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM M.A. Minor Programme Thesis . AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN THE NORTH OF VIETNAM NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 10 ĐỐI VỚI VIỆC HỌC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH Ở MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM M. A. Minor Programme Thesis. reading frequency and attitudes. The subject under this research is 100 grade 10 students from a high school in the North of Vietnam. 3. Aims of the study In general, this study is designed to