The use of reading strategies when reading ESP by 4th-year English-majored students at the People’s Security Academy

Reading is considered one of the most important skills which language learners should master, particularly as it helps to build a variety of language expression and structures, widen gen

The use of reading strategies when reading ESP

People’s Security Academy

Nguyễn Khả Thanh Tùng

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS Chuyên ngành: English teaching methodology; Mã số: 60 14 10

Người hướng dẫn: Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, M.A

Năm bảo vệ: 2013

Keywords: Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Ngôn ngữ; Kỹ năng đọc hiểu

Content

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

English has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism, telecommunication, culture, science and technology In the current context of global integration, English which has become more and more important is not only a means of but also a key to accessing the latest scientific and technological achievements Therefore, it is necessary for many Vietnamese students to have a good command of English to satisfy the growing demands in a developing country like Vietnam

Internationally, teaching English has changed tremendously over the last few decades More significantly, the traditional teacher-centered approach has been replaced with the learner-center one, which reflects a desire to explore ways of making responsive to learner’s need and interest and allowing learners to play a more active and participatory role in the day-to-day teaching and learning processes Therefore, no longer does the teacher act as the centre of all instructions, controlling every aspect of the learning process Learners themselves now, more

than ever, are sharing the responsibility for successful language acquisition and in doing so, are becoming less dependent on the language teacher for meeting their own individual language needs Students are advised to become more and more autonomous to diagnose their own learning strengths and weaknesses and to self-direct the process of language development

Reading is considered one of the most important skills which language learners should master, particularly as it helps to build a variety of language expression and structures, widen general knowledge and leads to lifelong learning and improvement in the first and second language skills “Reading is an essential skill for English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) student; and for many, reading is the most important skill to master” (Anderson, 1999) Carrell (1984:1) states “For many students, reading is by far the most important of four skills in a second language, particularly in a language as a second or foreign language” This is true for Vietnamese learners who have studied English through reading since English is taught and learned as a foreign language and in a non-native environment But acquiring and mastering this skill is likely to be a big hindrance to many learners while they often find it difficult to exploit this skill in their learning experience On the other hand, the findings of many ESL/EFL research projects have shown the positive effects of learning strategies to enhance the comprehensibility of learners or to overcome comprehension failures The use of suitable language learning strategies can improve proficiency and greater self-confidence

In process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam in general, and at the People’s Security Academy (PSA) in particular, reading has always been attracted a

great deal of attention both from the teachers and the students Reading is regarded as an

important skill to the students because these students need to read a lot of English books and documents to support their professional studies Having taught English majored students at PSA for several years, I am aware of their problems and very much want to help them to improve their reading ability Therefore, I conducted a survey research on their use of reading strategies Based on the findings, I worked out some solutions to improve PSA students' reading proficiency

2 Aim of the study

The major purpose of this study is to identify the reading strategies utilized by fourth-year English-majored students at the PSA

In order to achieve the above the aim of the study, the following major research question was addressed:

What are the reading strategies employed by fourth-year English-majored students at the People’s Security Academy?

3 Significance of the study

The study is the first one to be carried out in the field of reading strategies research at the PSA It helps give a detailed description of reading strategies used by fourth-year English-majored students at the PSA More importantly, the findings of their reading strategies can help teachers to understand more about their students and they can serve as the foundation for some recommendations on how to improve the students' reading proficiency They are also an important basis for reading strategies based instruction to be implemented in the future

4 Method of the study

In order to achieve the aim mentioned above, the present study utilized survey research with two instruments the questionnaire for 35 fourth-year English-majored students of class AV41 and interviews for 4 teachers to collect data on the students’ reading strategies

The questionnaire designed as a means to make the researcher’s evaluation more objective was developed and given to 35 fourth-year English-majored students of class AV41

The interviews were conducted among four teachers who have been teaching reading for

4th-year English-majored students to obtain their perceptions, comments and evaluation toward the matter under investigation

After the data was analyzed and discussed, some conclusions were drawn, and some

suggestions were raised in the thesis

5 Scope of the study

The present study investigated “the use of reading strategies when reading ESP by 4 th -year English-majored students at the People’s Security Academy” The study of learning

strategies in other English skills was beyond the scope

6 Organization of the study

The study is divided into three main parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion

Part I: Introduction includes the rationale, scope, aims, significance, methods and organization of the study

Part II: Development consists of three chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the literature relevant to the topic of research and summarizes some selected studies on reading strategies, which serve as a theoretical and methodological foundation of the study

Chapter 2 presents the research methodology of the study It provides information about the participants, the research method, the instrumentation, the data collection procedures and data analysis

Chapter 3 presents the results of the study, analyzes the data

Part III: Conclusion summarizes the findings, presents the implications and limitations of the study and finally gives some suggestions for further research

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