THE EFFECT OF PREDICTION STRATEGY ON IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT HO CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (HUI

The important thing for teachers is that they need to consider the effective techniques used in improving prediction strategy in particular and reading skill in general in order to meet

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

Hanoi, 2014

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (HUI)

Ảnh hưởng của chiến lược phán đoán đến việc phát triển kĩ năng đọc hiểu của sinh viên không chuyên ngữ tại trường Đại học Công Nghiệp TPHCM

M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111

SUPERVISOR: PHẠM HỮU ĐỨC, PhD

Hanoi, 2014

Secondly, my special words are also extended to my students They were very enthusiastic when studying with my instruction; they encouragedme in being confident

to accomplish my practice completely Their support is greatly appreciated

Next, I would like to thank my family for supporting me, taking care of me and encouraging me during the time I implemented the thesis Their love and expectation for me is a great encouragement to complete the thesis Finally, I also want to give acknowledgement to my friends who spent their time to help me during the process, gave me insightful comments for my thesis, and encouraged me when I was

demotivated during this hard and stressful time

ABSTRACT

This study aims to emphasize the effect of prediction strategy in reading comprehension with the application of some techniques for pre-reading and while-reading activities to check the effect of prediction strategy after the lessons The participants were 52 English non-majored students who participated in the complete learning course This was indicated by students’ responses during the teaching and learning process It was also strengthened by the data from the questionnaires after Cycle 2 in which the students pointed out that they enjoyed and interested in doing the reading activities using the prediction activities The important thing for teachers is that they need to consider the effective techniques used in improving prediction strategy in particular and reading skill in general in order to meet the need of the students and motivate them in learning reading comprehension skill

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEGDEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLES OF CONTENTS iv

DEFINITION OF TERMS v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

Part A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the Study 1

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Importance of the study 2

6 Method of the Study 3

7 Design of the Study 3

Part B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Reading skill 5

1.1.1 Definitions of reading 5

1.1.2 The importance of reading 5

1.1.3 Reading comprehension 9

1.2 Prediction strategy 11

1.2.1 Definitions of prediction strategy… ………12

1.2.2 Importance of prediction strategy ………13

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15

2.1 Participants and settings of the study 15

2.2 Data collection……… 15

2.2.1 Data collection instrument……… 15

2.2.2 Data collection procedure 15

2.2.3 Data analysis procedure 17

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION……… 19

3.1 Findings ……… 19

3.1.1 Analysis from the reading tests 19

3.1.2 Response to questionnaire… 22

3.2 Discussion……… 24

3.2.1 Having authentic reading purpose……….….24

3.2.2 Choosing authentic reading materials……… ……… 25

3.2.3 Improving background knowledge for further reading……… 26

3.2.4 Improving vocabulary by reading as much as possible……… 27

3.2.5 Combining prediction strategy with other strategies………… …………28

3.3 Pedagogical Implication 29

PART C: CONCLUSION 1 Conclusion of the study……… …… ………….………… …30

2 Limitation of the study……… ………….… 31

3 Suggestions for Further Research……… …….… … ……32

REFERENCES 33 APPENDIXES I

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

These days, there is no doubt that the English language is becoming something

of a forerunner in the global communication It is the language of choice in most countries of the world It brings people together, gets out of the border of a country and brings the world closer As an effective means of international communication, English

is used as the official language in many fields of life such as economics, politics, science, technology, sports and many others This leads to an increasing demand of learning English In many Asian countries such as Singapore, Philippine, Malaysia or Thailand, English is used as an official language besides their mother language; and

Vietnam is not an exception ―English is now commonly used in exchange between, say, Japanese and Argentinean business people, or between Singaporeans and their Vietnam counterparts‖, noted Harmer (2007, p.13) In our country, more and more

people consider mastering English skills as an important factor to improve their work, get higher position in their companies Thus, English is playing a very significant role

in bringing the world together In the world integration, English is really an essential tool for the country development Universities and colleges in Vietnam including Ho Chi Minh city University of Industry (HUI) have tried their best to improve their students’ English quality to meet the demand of the country development However, learning another language is not easy at all With four macro skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening and speaking is most used in communication, even in daily life However, reading skill is also essential for us in order to update our knowledge because we have to use reading skill in reading newspaper, reading books

or documents related to our profession With strengthened reading skill, EFL readers will make a greater progress and greater development not only in English but also in

other academic fields Therefore, ―Reading skill need to be fostered so that learners

can cope with more and more sophisticated texts and tasks, and deal with them efficiently: quickly, appropriately and skillfully‖, wrote Ur (1996, p.147)

2 Aims of the research

The research aims:

- To investigate the effects of prediction strategy on the students’ reading ability;

- To provide the teachers with some suggestions to make best use of prediction strategy in teaching and learning reading comprehension

3 Research Question

Based on the aims of the research, the author will attempt to answer the following questions:

- What is the initial reading ability of the students?

- Does prediction strategy affect students’ reading ability?

- What can be done to improve prediction strategy?

4 Scope of the study

I have taught English to non-majored students at HUI for more than one year Most of them have difficulties in learning English macro skills Besides listening, writing and speaking, during the process of teaching English to non-majored English students, I found out that they really have problems in reading In other words, they do not have right strategies for learning reading To each reading passage, they try to understand every word, stop and look up the dictionary whenever they reach the unfamiliar words Most students start reading immediately after they receive the text without trying to look at the title to think about the text’s topic before reading or trying

to use their background knowledge to facilitate their comprehension This always takes

time and does not have good results.“The dictionary is often over-used, resulting in slower, less fluent reading, as well as frequently misunderstanding through selection of the wrong definition‖, noted Ur (1996, p.149) Word-by-word translation sometimes

makes them misunderstand the meaning of the whole text Therefore, the final result of reading is not good

5 Importance of the study

According to Richard and Renandya (2002, p.273), good reading texts also provide good models for writing, and also provide opportunities to introduce new topics, to stimulate discussion and to study language It can be said that learning Reading is the challenging part in both teaching and learning languages The findings

of the study will be useful for improving students’ reading comprehension with prediction strategy It is believed to be beneficial to both teachers and learners

6 Methods of the Study

In order to reach the aims of the study mentioned above, the study includes tests and survey questionnaires to collect data on the reading strategies employed by HUI English non-majored students First, the three reading comprehension tests were given to the subjects in order to identify their reading proficiency levels The first test was to estimate their initial reading levels; the two last was to evaluate the effect of prediction strategy on their reading comprehension skills Then, the questionnaires were administered to find out their reading strategies

After the data is analyzed and discussed, some conclusion will be drawn, and some suggestion will be raised in the thesis

7 Design of the Study

The thesis consists of three main parts: INTRODUCTION which provides an

overview of the study, DEVELOPMENT which is the main part and consists of 3 chapters, and CONCLUSION which includes the summary, pedagogical implications,

limitations of the study and suggestions for further study

Three chapters in the main part are as follows:

Chapter 1: Literature Review is the review of the literature related to the research

topic, which serves as a theoretical foundation of the study

Chapter 2: Methodology provides information about the research context, participants,

research approach, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures

Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion is the main part of the study, which reports and

discusses the main findings according to the research questions

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Reading Skill

1.1 Definition of reading

The written word surrounds us daily It confuses us and enlightens us, depresses

us and amuses us, sickens us and heals us (Brown, 1994, p.283) It is the reason why reading is very important to us, even in daily life to update our knowledge However, learning it is not easy, and using adequate method in learning and teaching this skill is

a challenge to both teachers and students Many students have difficulties in reading skill because of different reasons Therefore, there are many research studies on challenges, key principles or strategies for reading skill The question of how can learners be good at reading skill in foreign language is in concern of many linguistics

in order to help students with difficulties in reading skill Many linguists all over the world have paid attention on studying how to teach and learn English reading skill effectively, and which difficulties learners often have when reading in a foreign language Rand Reading Study Group (2002, p.4) in their research also mentioned three factors that cause difficulties for students to understand reading text, noting that the features of the text have a large effect on comprehension It can be said that if the reading text is not suitable for students’ level, understanding fails They also pointed out that the text can be easy or difficult, depending on factors inherent in the text, on the relationship between the text and the knowledge and abilities of the reader, and on the activities in which the reader is engaged Rand Reading Study Group, in their research, studied difficulties related to the text that challenges students to understand the text such as the vocabulary load in the text and its linguistic structure, discourse style and genre Rand Reading Study Group (2002, p.5) concluded that if too many of

these factors do not match a reader’s knowledge and experience, the text might be too difficult for optimal comprehension to occur This means that the text and readers’ knowledge and experience interact with each other; if the reader has no knowledge or experience about what they are reading, they cannot reach the author’s ideas in the text

Besides, Strong et al (2002) in their research on Reading for Academic Success also showed the reasons why the textbooks cause difficulties for students to read In their opinion, there are four reasons for that These are text structure, information overload, the ―authority‖ of the textbook and new vocabulary and concepts that are disconnected from experience and prior knowledge Strong et al (2002, p.2)noted that trying to differentiate the important information from the not-so-important information, attempting to make sense of tables and diagrams that were sandwiched into text, keeping track of all the new vocabulary words, doing their best thwart boredom and lagging attention pans-these are the associations Sharing the same view with Strong and his friends, Ur (1996, p.146) in his book also gave a suggestion that the text should

be accessible: if learners cannot understand vital information without looking up words

or being given extra information from elsewhere

In addition to the text, background knowledge also plays an important role in reading process Many students have difficulties in reading because they have no idea about what they are reading For this issue, Patricia L Carrel from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale carried out a research on some issues in studying the role of background knowledge in Second Language Comprehension which was presented at the TESOL Convention in Toronto She found out the effect of background knowledge

in reading on both in native language comprehension and second or foreign language comprehension She indicated that ―English as a foreign or second language which shows the joint or interactive effects of content and formal background information in comprehension‖ (Carrel, 1983, p 88) In the same view with Carrel, Nunan(1999,

p.257) also mentioned to the challenge with background knowledge, ―Reading comprehension is thus an interactive process between the reader and the text, in that reader is required to fit the clues provided in the text to his or her own background knowledge To be skilled in reading depends on the efficient interaction between linguistic knowledge and knowledge of the world (Nunan, 1994, p 284)

The term of ―Reading‖ is widely used in practice However, reading is differently defined due to the areas of defining in term of activities or goals at any one level on grade That is why no definition of reading can possibly include all points of views and features

However, a careful considered definition of reading is very necessary for the reading teacher Because reading is the most critical aspect of any teaching program and for the teachers to decide what they will teach in the classroom, herein, I would like to mention some definitions of reading extracted from different sources on the theme Elias and Ingram (1977, p.55) stated that Reading was defined as the abstraction of meaning from a visual configuration, and was shown to involve desirably not a painstaking grapheme- by- grapheme decoding but the postulation of alternatives of meaning which one reduced by the parsimonious interaction of the component process with the visual configuration Besides, Moses A Adeniji and Anne Omaley(1997) gave definition of reading that reading is the recognition of printed or written symbols, which serve as stimuli for the recall of meanings built up through the reader's past experience It has also been described as a process of translating alphabetical symbols into a form of language from which the native speaker has already derived the meaning Especially, Buzan in his book – The Speed Reading (1997) finds that all common reading definitions only relate to a part of the process and

an accurate definition of reading must contain the full range of reading skills, or reading as a multi- level process, which comprise the following steps:

 Recognition: You are concerned with understanding of alphabetical symbols This step occurs instantly before physical reading begins

 Assimilation: This step starts with word then to the eye and via the

optic nerve to the brain

 Intra- Integration: This step refers to the link of all parts of the

information being read with all other appropriate parts

 Extra- Integration: This step requires learners to bring all of their previous knowledge to what they read, making appropriate connections,

analyzing, criticizing, appreciating, selecting and rejecting

 Retention: This step requires the basic storage of information of the

readers

 Recall: This process shows the ability of the readers to get back the

storage when it is needed

 Communication: This process includes written and spoken in which information is used immediately or eventually It also contains very crucial and often neglected human function: Thinking- thinking is your ongoing extra

information, so the one is not simply ―barking at print‖ Hunt (2004: 137) also

expressed that reading is a process shaped partly by the text, partly by the readers’ background, and partly by the situation the reading occurs in Deriving from those

opinions, reading is considered as a process in which a reader looks at and understands what has been written out

1.2 Importance of reading

According to Rubin (1987), cited in Schmitt (1997, p.203), learning strategies are defined as ―the process by which information is obtained, stored, retrieved, and used‖ and ―therefore vocabulary learning strategies could be any which affect this broadly-defined process‖

To Carrel (1984, p.1), for many students, reading is by far the most important of

the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a second language This is also true to the students at FFL at HUI since the reading skill offers them a wide range of interesting information as well as a variety of language expressions and structures that are of great usefulness for developing other language skills For example, if you read a lot, you will have a large of number of vocabulary It is very useful when you learn writing; or if we want to express something but not want to repeat the former word you easily to find another word to replace Vocabulary is also a great help to your speaking skill Moreover, when reading we discover new things about what you have never known before Besides widening reader’s knowledge about things outside world and the realistic society, it is also the best way to develop mind The mind is a muscle It needs exercise Knowing and understanding the written word is one way the mind grows in its ability Reading lots, having knowledge from that also builds self-confident because The more you read, the more knowledgeable you become and with more knowledge come more confidence More confidence builds self-esteem Generally, no one can deny that reading brings readers an ocean of knowledge of different areas They can learn more experience of life Then they have necessary benefits to avoid difficulties in mutual understanding in communication such as culture

shock, language shock due to different cultures, habits, and languages Moreover, reading is also an important way of expanding students’ receptive knowledge of language and stimulating students to talk and write

Deriving from some of reading definitions above, we find that reading is a very important factor in language acquisition It is important because it is considered an essential skill both at school and afterwards Reading takes its place alongside the development of oral ability in the school program Reading also gives us as readers many opportunities to contact with different contexts in our daily life Byrne (1988, p.46) provides three reasons for the importance of reading as follows

a) It offers language learners another area of success We should accept that not all students would be good speakers and at least give them credit if they become good readers

b) It gives the students a skill that they can use on their own (i.e it is a key to self- access work)

c) It is likely to be one of the skills that most students will need in the long term

It is one that they will always be able to put to use That is, they can read even if they

do not get any opportunities to speak

Generally, no one can deny that reading brings readers an ocean of knowledge

of different areas They can learn more experience of life Then they have necessary benefits to avoid difficulties in mutual understanding in communication such as culture shock, language shock due to different cultures, habits, and languages Moreover, reading is also an important way of expanding students’ receptive knowledge of language and stimulating students to talk and write

However, all reasons mentioned earlier show that in terms of classroom activities it is good for students to read but we cannot assume that all students are efficient readers Much depends on how well they have been taught to read in their mother tongue

1.3 Reading comprehension

Richard and Renandya (2002, p 277) noted that ―Reading for comprehension is the primary purpose for reading and that raising students’ awareness of main ideas in a text and exploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension‖

In teaching reading, it is necessary to understand the nature of reading comprehension What the teacher understands about it will have a great influence on what he or she teaches in the class He would know what to teach and how to make his reading lesson effectively In fact, methodologists have been providing different definitions of reading comprehension

According to Grelet (1981, p 3), ―Reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible‖ He means that reading comprehension is an activity that aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way

Also concerning the reading comprehension, Richard (1978) provided a clearer point of view:

Reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between

the author and the reader The emphasis is on the reader understanding of

the printed page based on the individual reader’s unique background of

experience Reading is much than just pronouncing words correctly or

simply what the author intends It is the process whereby the printed

pages stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an

individual

According to Richard (1978), reading comprehension ―is not only understanding simply what is written, but also is what stimulates students to remember from their experiences‖ This means that that knowledge is then used to get meaning out of printed page, but the mind of the readers includes not only facts and details but also emotion, belief and critical evaluation

From these opinions, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a process of understanding what is conveyed in the text It does not mean that the reader needs to understand every single word in the text but actively work on the text and extract the required information efficiently

Reading model: top-down; bottom-up; interaction

revising, and verifying his or her predictions This strategy also helps students make connections between their prior knowledge and the text Predicting involves thinking ahead while reading and anticipating information and events in the text After making predictions, students can read through the text and refine, revise, and verify their predictions The strategy of making predictions actively engages students and connects them to the text by asking them what they think might occur in the story Using the text, students refine, revise, and verify their thinking and predictions

(http://beyondweather.ehe.osu.edu)

2.2 Importance of prediction strategy

Making predictions is more than just guessing what is going to happen next Predicting helps students become actively involved in reading and helps to keep their interest level high Making predictions activates students' prior knowledge about the text and helps them make connections between what is new and what they already know By making predictions about the text before, during, and after reading, students use what they already know – as well as what they suppose might happen – to make connections to the text

Snow (1998) has found that throughout the early grades, reading curricula should include explicit instruction on strategies used to comprehend text either read to the students or let students read themselves These strategies include summarizing the main idea, predicting events or information to which the text is leading, drawing inferences, and monitoring for misunderstandings

Normally, when having reading comprehension, good readers frequently make predictions about what is to come Douglas (1994: 295) showed that one way for learners to make guessing pay off when they don’t immediately recognize a word is to

analyze it in terms of what they know about it Making prediction is a strategy in which readers make use of the information from the text and their prior knowledge to generalize about what they are going to read about He also concluded thata better strategy is to use the context, the words and sentences surrounding a particular word, to help you guess that word’s meaning These guesses will be accurate enough for readers

to understand the author’s ideas

As for language learning strategies about what every teacher should know, it is said that prediction is one of the most effective factors that motivates students to read and understand the meaning of the context In order to make a prediction, readers need

to explain what they believe will happen in the text before reading Predictions can be done at the beginning of the text or throughout reading Predicting allows us to think ahead before we begin reading Prediction gets us thinking about the ideas that may occur throughout the text, and create our own In doing this, it makes readers become more engaged in the text Good readers know how to use their background knowledge and experiences to help them understand what they are hearing or reading