A study on application of some reading techniques to doing IELTS reading comprehension tasks for the 1st – year english majors in the foreign language department, hai phong university

PART 1: INTRODUCTION RATIONALE Nowadays, English is the most popular language in the world Demand for learning English gets stronger when Vietnam fosters its international relation As an effective means of international communication, it is used as the official language in many fields of life such as economics, politics, science, technology, sports and many others People learn and English with different purposes, but there is a fact that they are trying to learn English with the hope that they can use it effectively In Vietnam, English has been brought into school curriculum as a compulsory subject and the learning of that international language recently has been paid great attention to The students, naturally and obviously, have to try their best to master language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking Among these four skills, reading is an important one during the English learning process and plays a role in enriching the student’s general knowledge and in helping them with their further study later Reading comprehension is important not only at school, but also afterwards That is reading helps students as readers develop their language ability in general and comprehension skills in particular at school as well as gives them other benefits to avoid cultural and language bias, etc in daily communication In the Foreign Language Department, Hai Phong University (HPU), there is a fact that many st year English majors not pay proper attention to basic reading techniques to IELTS reading tasks Thus, it leads to the situation that many of them get the poor exam results From this fact, I decide on choosing “A study on application of some reading techniques to doing IELTS reading comprehension tasks for the 1st – year English majors in the Foreign Language Department, Hai Phong University” AIMS OF THE STUDY The purpose of the study is to investigate the difficulties faced by the 1st – year English majors at Foreign Language Department, HPU in doing IELTS reading comprehension tasks so that techniques can be given to help them improve this skill The specific aims of the study are as following: - To find out student’s difficulties in doing IELTS reading comprehension texts - To investigate the reasons for these difficulties - To suggest some useful reading techniques and tips that help students IELTS reading comprehension tasks well METHODS OF THE STUDY The research is carried out with a combination of methods: survey questionnaires, reading sample works, data and material collection, observations and analysis - Delivering survey questionnaires and observing reading lessons: This method ensures the study to be practical and reliable Questions in survey questionnaires related to content of application of some reading techniques and two reading samples will be given to the st - year English majors in the Foreign Language Department, HPU in form of a survey Some reading class observations were carried out to find out the difficulties in doing IELTS reading comprehension tasks - Consulting related materials: For the sake of getting knowledge and useful ideas, I read many books and other materials in addition to earlier research about reading and reading comprehension techniques SCOPE OF THE STUDY Though the study focuses on techniques to improve reading comprehension skill for the 1st – year English majors in the Foreign Language Department, HPU, due to the limitation of time, the researcher just can conduct survey on students of two classes to investigate reading problems experienced by these students then suggest some certain techniques to help them better their reading comprehension skill DESIGN OF THE STUDY The study is divided into three parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion The introduction provides the basic information such as: rationale, aims of the study, methods of the study, scope of the study and design of the study The development is the main part which consists three chapters: - Chapter 1: “Literature review” presents the definitions and types of reading, the importance of reading skill, stages of a reading lesson, definitions and techniques for reading comprehension, factors in teaching and learning reading as well - Chapter 2: “Methodology” investigates the situation analysis and instrumentation of the study - Chapter 3: “Data analysis and class observation” focuses on data collection, findings and discussion - Chapter 4: “Major findings and some suggested techniques to improve reading comprehension to the 1st – year English Majors in the Foreign Language Department, Hai Phong University” offers major findings, recommendations and some technique suggestions for doing reading comprehension tasks The conclusion is a review of the study, future directions for further research and limitation of the study PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW I.1 AN OVERVIEW ON THE NATURE OF READING I.1.1 Definition of reading The term “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 Moreover, each definition only can reflect some aspect of reading Herein, I would like to mention some definitions of reading extracted from different sources on the theme According to Carell Devine and Eskey (1988:13), “Reading is a process in that it starts with linguistic surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with meaning, which reader constructs There is, thus, an essential interaction between language and thought in reading The writer encodes thought in language and the reader decodes language to thought” In this definition, we can see clearly the interrelationship between the writer, the reader and the text Besides, Elias and Ingram (1977:55) states: “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.” William (1986:3) shares the same view on reading when he argues that “Written texts, 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) views reading from a different perspective He considers reading as a mechanical process that “Eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out the significance of the message.” Moreover, according to Ramelan(1990:i), “Reading is a very important part in our life Through reading we can explore the world, countries that have never been visited before and the minds and ideas of great people in the past, all of which will enrich our experience and knowledge and broaden our horizon.” Though definitions of reading are numerous, none can certainly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is However, what they all share is that they try to find out the nature of reading, and reading act, in which the readers, reading process, and reading message are emphasized I.1.2 The importance of reading skill Learning a foreign language is a process which requires learners to integrate many language skills It is generally accepted nowadays that reading is a key skill for most students learning a foreign language and that it should, therefore, take place alongside the development of oral ability in the school program From time to time, reading itself has proved its importance in daily life as well as in learning a foreign language And from our experience in real life, we find reading quite important Its importance is also confirmed by linguistics Byrne (1988:46) provides three reasons for the importance of reading: - It offers language learners another area of success We should accept that not all students will be good speakers and at least give them credit if they become good readers - It gives the students a skill which they can use on their own (i.e it is a key to self- access work) - It is likely to be one of the skills that most students will need in the long term Certainly, it is one that they will always be able to put to use That is, they can read even if they not get any opportunities to speak According to Bright and Gregor (1970:52), “books provide most pupils with the situation in which learning takes place Where there is little reading, there will be little language learning” It is obvious that reading is a means by which further learning takes place Generally, reading brings readers an ocean of knowledge of different areas Being well informed by reading, learners can have stable background knowledge, wide vocabulary and much information so that they will feel selfconfident to share opinions and communicate with others 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 an important way of expanding the students’ receptive knowledge of a language In short, reading plays a vital role in learning a foreign language I.1.3 Classifications of reading I.1.3.1 According to manner Reading, according to manner, is divided into two kinds: reading aloud and silent reading I.1.3.1.1 Reading aloud Doff (1988:67) states that, “aloud reading involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it Its purpose is not just to understand a text but to convey the implication to someone else.” In fact, aloud reading is unnatural activity because most people not read aloud in real life, and it is difficult for the speaker to pay attention to the meaning of the text when reading aloud It focuses on the pronunciation of words in the text rather than understanding In reading a text, students come across many new words and phrases that they not know how to pronounce The teacher, in this case may help his students pronounce words by reading the text orally and loudly However, in the classroom, only the reading student is active at a time, others are either not listening at all or listening to a bad model In addition, some students’ speed of reading is very slow so it takes a lot of time in class Students are concerned with pronunciation so it is hardly for them to understand the meaning of the text as Lewis and Hill (1995:110) mention: “Asking a student to read aloud also means that he may concentrate inadequately on their meaning He may read correctly but afterward will not be able to tell what he has read” Therefore, it must be admitted that the usefulness of reading aloud is limited In short, reading aloud should be applied for those who are beginners to establish the connection between sound and spelling of letters and words, and assists the teachers to check learner’s pronunciation But for the st English major students, the purpose of reading is more than connecting the pronunciation They focus on understanding the text and doing comprehension exercises which cannot be completed by reading aloud It is very difficult to read aloud and understand the text at the same time of reading So reading aloud might be a good way to practice pronunciation and intonation I.1.3.1.2 Silent reading Unlike reading aloud, silent reading is more often used in both real life and classroom, and “It is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985:110) Silent reading can be applied effectively to teaching and learning a comprehension text because reading a text silently helps students concentrate on its meaning Only by reading silently, the readers can best comprehend the written materials in the shortest possible time According to Doff (1988:67), silent reading or reading for meaning “is the activity we normally engage in where we read books, newspapers, road signs, etc It involves looking at sentences and understanding the message they convey, in other words, ‘making sense’ of a written text ” Reading is a personal skill, so silent reading is an effective skill for reading comprehension because learners not need to read all the words in the text and they can read at their own speed If they not understand the word or the sentence, they can go back and read it again Therefore, they can cover the greatest possible amount of the text in a shortest possible time Moreover, students can understand its details thoroughly to answer the questions, and finally the teacher can check his/her learners’ understanding easily and add reading materials and exercises suitable to their ability In sequence, silent reading is a useful technique in a reading comprehension process applied to students to exploit reading lessons and it is also a good way to help teachers control the class I.1.3.2 According to purpose According to purpose, reading is categorized into four main types: skimming, scanning, extensive reading and intensive reading I.1.3.2.1 Skimming Skimming is commonly used in reading comprehension because it is one of specific reading techniques necessary for quick and efficient reading and sometimes skimming may be the prerequisite of reading for full understanding There have been many definitions of reading as follows: According to Wood (1984:92), “Skimming occurs when the reader looks quickly at the content page of a book, or at the chapter headings, subheading, etc This is sometimes called previewing” Grellet (1981:19) states that “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 intention of the writer.” Besides, Nuttal (1982:36) says “By skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through the text to determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed about matters that are not of great importance to us.” In this term, Douglas Brown has the same opinion but it is clearer than those of above authors He wrote:“Skimming consists of quickly running eyes across the whole text for its gist Skimming gives readers the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic, or massage, or possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas.” In brief, skimming is understood as a necessary technique for reading comprehension which enables readers to get the main points of the text without being concerned with the details It is a very useful study technique to help the learner organize their thoughts and specify what information they can get from a book Skimming gives students the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic or message, or possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas so that their reading are more efficient Hence, skimming should be applied in teaching reading to help students have an overview of what they read I.1.3.2.2 Scanning Similar to skimming, scanning is a necessary technique in reading efficiently However, scanning is far more limited than skimming since it only means retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose Scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information Douglas (2001:308) defines scanning as follows: “Scanning was quickly searching for some particular piece or pieces of information in a text.” In addition, Francois (1981:19) understands that “When scanning, we only try to locate specific information and often we not even follow the linearity of the passage to 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” With the same opinion, Mabel gives a more detailed definition of scanning: “Scanning is the speed technique that helps you locate a bit of specific information very rapidly It could involve finding a name, date, place or statistic Or it might involve identifying a general setting in a short story Scanning is the technique you use when you read maps, charts, tables, or graphs It is the main skill that the researchers use when they examine various sources to locate information about a specific topic” These authors have the same point that while scanning reader does not need to read from cover to cover, they only look for the information they want by running their eyes rapidly along the lines Scanning requires two skills of the reader One of them is that they recognize the specific type of word that identifies the item The other is the use of a different eye movement pattern, vertical vision Nearly all the background reading required for the presenting of a topic to the class by a group calls for proficiency in this type of reading There is a great range of text suitable for scanning – indexes, dictionaries, maps, advertisements, labels, reference material, etc., so this kind of reading is very useful in reading selectively In general, both skimming and scanning are effective techniques for quick and efficient reading, and they should not be selected separately because a text can be best tackled by a combination of strategies I.1.3.2.3 Extensive reading Extensive reading is a fluency activity, mainly involving general understanding It provides valuable reinforcement of the language already presented and practiced in the class as well as giving students useful practice in inferring meaning from the context of the text The students read long texts to have general understanding, to develop fluency in reading or to relax Carrell and Carson (1997:297) defined: “Extensive reading generally involves rapid reading of large quantities of material or longer readings” What is more, “Extensive reading means students have a general understanding of the text without necessarily understanding every word”, (Lewis and Hill, 1985:1099) And to Nuttal (1982:168), this kind of reading is also a very useful skill for students to widen their knowledge as he wrote: “The best way to improve 10 Chart 7: The way to deal with new words and unfamiliar structures When unfamiliar words and structures appear, a half of students (50%) often rely on the dictionaries for the meanings or explanations 38% confess that they try to figure out the meanings of the word from the text 20% ignore them so as not to let them steal their concentration They added the whole content of the reading text does not depend on just a few sentences that not make sense to them 4% agree that they not know what to so they often stop reading if many unfamiliar words appear, or ask the teacher for help because asking the word meaning from the teacher is the easiest and most effective way 3.1.8 Question A Usually B Sometimes C Seldom D Never 28 Chart 8: The frequency of reading the sentences around the answer to look for traps and check other information The next question aims at finding out the frequency of reading the sentence around the answer to look for traps and check other information The figures indicate that only 20% of students usually it; 60% say sometimes; 10% seldom and an equal number (10%) say that they never it because this activity will cost much time so that they cannot have enough time to complete the other questions 3.1.9 Question A Usually B Sometimes C Seldom D Never Chart 9: The frequency of time allowance in reading comprehension exercises This question is conducted to find out how often students limit the time for each answer when working on reading comprehension exercises It is 29 evident from this chart that only 12% of students this frequently They not want their concentration on one question will affect the other ones, this will cost much time and they cannot complete all the questions in a reading text 20% say sometimes; 36% seldom and surprisingly, the majority of them (36%) thought that it is not important to so they never it 3.1.10 Question 10 A Newspapers and magazines B Reference books C Internet D Others (Optional): …………… Chart 10: The student’s using supplementary materials In order to know the source of supplementary materials, the last question is designed The data indicates that 15% of the students often find extra reading texts in newspapers and magazines 35% get them from the reference books Most of them (50%) recognized that Internet can be used as a fantastic tool for their own development and as a resource for improving their reading skills The Internet contains a lot of resource that the students can access and use to prepare reading materials for the class reading lesson Therefore, it is necessary for students to explore and utilize the vast amount of information on the Internet to help them improve their English, especially reading skill 30 3.2 CLASS OBSERVATION From the factual class observation, there still exist both strong and weak points in the process of applying some techniques to doing reading comprehension texts, especially in the while- reading stage In terms of strong points, most of the students prepared the supplementary materials very carefully All of their extra reading texts were from Internet which contains of various interesting topics and types of questions so that students can be more enthusiastic in reading Moreover, a large number of them underlined key words by highlighter before skimming the text and worked in a pair or a group to find out the right answer In contrast, there are numerous problems The number of students in class was quite large (from 37 to 40) and students did not pay adequate attention to the lessons Many of them made noise; and some others studied other subjects There are many students were passive and waiting the answers corrected by the teacher Besides, they still used the method of translating the text into Vietnamese in the while- reading stage In addition, some students did not limit the time for each question As a consequence, when the time was up, they chose the answer randomly and this leads to low quality of the reading text To summarize, the application some techniques to doing reading comprehension texts still faces shortcomings It is advisable to enrich the learning strategies for students to develop their effective reading skills 3.3 READING SAMPLES After answering the survey questionnaires, I gave the students a reading comprehension sample – Multiple choice tasks The reading sample has five questions, and students have to that in five minutes without any guidance 31 When the time was up, I collected all the paper The obtained result is that no one had all the right answers, and there was still some students had not completed the questions yet It was a pity that 10% of them had no correct answer The good point is that most of them read the questions first before reading the text when working on a reading comprehension However, they read the text attentively from the beginning to the end to answer the question no.1 which asks to find the main idea of the passage Although, the majority of them (80%) got the right answer, they cost much time for just one question Consequently, some questions have not completed, and students got the poor result In addition, they did not read the options to get the idea what they may need to look for, and have the habit of highlighting the key words at the same time Hence, there were 28% of students having the correct answers for question no.2 which needs to use scanning technique Moreover, a large number of them (78%) got the wrong answer for two questions related to the vocabulary and synonyms as question no.4 and no.5 because they did not guess the meanings from the text to answer this type of question This leads to the situation that some students ignored these two questions and the others chose randomly There were just some students (12%) getting the right answers for these questions After 10 minutes doing the first reading sample, I continued to give the students another reading comprehension task which was as difficult as the previous one This time, I gave them some tips and techniques to multiple choice questions For example, they should read the questions stems as well as the options first to get an idea of what they may need to look out for As reading the text, students should get into the habit of highlighting words that they think may be important and it will help them find the answers later When the question asks students to find the main idea, they should focus on the topic sentence and skim the rest of the passage After skimming the passage, they should read the questions again and those highlighted words 32 will help students find out the answers which need to find the specific information more quickly When getting new words or unfamiliar structures, they should try to figure the meaning out using text clues Besides, students not spend too long trying to find one answer because it is just worth one point, move on to the next question and come back to it later if time allowance is still not counted In the case that the time running out or students not know the answer, they should have a guess in order to have a 25% chance of getting the correct answer As a result, there were many students having all the right answers for this time (60%) Firstly, students applied skimming and scanning very well They just read through the passage very quickly to find the main idea and focus on key words to locate the specific information For this reason, they saved much time for the other questions and the quality of the answer was also ensured Therefore, 90% of students answered correctly no.1 and 80% for question no.2 and no.4 Secondly, they tried to guess the meaning of words in the text instead of using dictionaries or choosing randomly, so the number of students having the exact answers related to vocabulary as question no.3 and no.5 was higher than the previous time, accounting to 70% Lastly, everyone had completed all the questions because they managed the time successfully, and no one had all the wrong answers To summary, students should enhance their reading techniques and know how to apply it accurately for each type of reading comprehension questions If students that well, their readings will be better and their results will be improved remarkably CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND SOME SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION TO THE 1ST - YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS 33 IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT, HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY 4.1.MAJOR FINDINGS My study is carried out to investigate some reading techniques applied by the first year English majors at Foreign Language Department, HPU From the data analysis, I experienced findings in using these techniques to doing IELTS reading comprehension texts Firstly, according to the statistics, all the students have the difficulties working on reading comprehension texts Their difficulties are various with the majority get trouble with vocabulary, some lack of grammatical structures and not a small number of them recognize that their using inappropriate techniques are the reason affecting their reading However, their attitudes to reading techniques are quite positive All of them agree that it is necessary to apply appropriate reading techniques in doing reading comprehension texts Secondly, before reading the texts, most of them acclaim it is vital to read the questions to underline key words and reflect those words to synonyms or all possible ways of paraphrasing them before skimming text as this step provides them with the gist of the text which hopefully gets them well-prepared for specific terminology related to the topic presented in the reading task, accelerating their speed of fulfilling the exercise Yet, there are some students often read the text attentively from the beginning to the end first and then read the questions It is not a good way because doing IELTS reading comprehension tasks doesn’t required you understand the passage at all, but you should aim to answer the question correctly Therefore, the effective way to start a task when you first get your reading passage is reading the questions thoroughly and underline important words at the same time then applying skim and scan techniques meaning you cast your eyes over the passage to get to know the general topic and content as well as to see the 34 general layout of the passage to get each question done correctly After conducting those initial phases, students get to the first question immediately Due to wanting to save time for trickier questions, the largest percentage of them agree that the time allowance for answering each question should be limited and so is the times for re-reading sentences containing the answer in order to dodge the reading traps Thus, to lessen the frequency of re-reading, they should stay concentrated and read the location for the answer carefully If they cannot find out the answer for a couple of times, it will be better to leave it till the end In addition to the times of re-reading, which is blamed for consuming too much time, new words are also obstacles for hindering their reading speed While many students say they look them up in dictionaries or just ignore, it would be time-saving and effective if they can guess the meanings of those terms from the context provided in the passage As a consequence, to ensure both quantity (the number of questions answered) and quality (the number of correct answers), students should set time for each task and enlarge their vocabulary stock at the same time Last but not least, there are diversified sources where students can find the supplementary materials to boost their reading skills raging from reference books, newspaper and magazines to the Internet, etc Each kind of source has its own advantages and would be helpful if they know how to fully exploit these advantages For example, books are said to be mobile, so students could have books with them everywhere and reading exercises in the books every time While books are not illustrated with vivid images, students are highly recommended to turn to magazines or newspapers for assistance to foster their reading capacity It has long been proved that images play a chief role in activating our brains, thus by doing exercise featured with pictures, students can the task more efficiently and as the reference books, newspapers and magazines can be brought with students 35 4.2 SOME SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION TO THE 1ST - YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT, HAI PHONG UNIVERSITY Based on the nature of reading and learning reading in addition to what is found from the survey, some useful techniques are suggested to help students read better, especially IELTS reading comprehension tasks well Below is a list of IELTS question types and some suggested skills used in each kind 4.2.1 Paragraph headings This is the common type of IELTS reading question which will ask the students to select headings of paragraphs and match them to the paragraphs from a text Their task is to glance quickly at the entire paragraph and match the suitable heading for each If students can find out the right title for each paragraph, they may understand efficiently all the main points conveyed in the text In this kind of reading, students should quickly read through the paragraph headings first and then look at each paragraph In itself, it is not entirely an exercise in skimming The students sometimes need to read some paragraphs carefully to choose an appropriate heading as there are always more choices of paragraph headings on the list than paragraphs and the answer not come in order, so be careful when matching them However, the students should be encouraged to it as quickly as possible to see how quickly they understand the gist of the text 4.2.2 Multiple choice questions This is one of the most common types in reading comprehension It can be used to focus on the whole text and enables students to understand the text by giving them clues This kind of questions certainly contains a statement and a set of possible answers Students’ task is to select the best one form the answers depending on the text 36 When doing this kind of exercise, students should read the questions stems as well as the options first to get an idea of what they may need to look out for As reading the text, students should get into the habit of highlighting words that they think may be important and it will help them find answers later After skimming the passage, read the questions again and those highlighted words will help students find out the answers more quickly This type of question is also used to draw students to just on word of the text or specific information, so it is necessary to use scanning skill to locate the precise information of the passage If students are running out of time or really not know the answer, they should have a guess Students will not lose marks for wrong answers and have a 25% chance of getting the correct answer just by guessing 4.2.3 Summary completion This type of question directs the students to the main points of the text for a full understanding The students’ task is to read the text and use the information to complete the summary passage by filling in the blanks with a single word or group of words There will be more words in the list than required to fill the gaps It is necessary to notice that the passage used for this type of exercise must be based on the reading text and focus on the general message on the text, so that the students can make full use of what they have read Students not need to try to understand the whole text but they just focus more on the summary in the question The tip is that students should read the questions carefully, identify the type of word need for each gap (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) and note how many words they can write, then they should skim the summary and try to understand the overall meaning Remember paying attention to the words collocating well with the words in the sentence; and the answers usually come in order 4.2.4 True/False/Not given 37 This task is deciding if the information or the writer’s opinion in the question statements can be found in the message In all the provided statements, some of them are right, some are wrong, and some are not mentioned in the text The students must write true (T) or (F) or not given (NG) next to each statement according to what they get from the text This type of question requires students identify the specific information in the passage, so that the skill used is scanning Students should paraphrase the statements before trying to locate the answers and not spend a long time for looking for the answer to one question because it is probably NG if they cannot find it 4.2.5 Sentence completion In this type of task, students are given sentences from the reading with a gap in it and have to fill it with words taken directly from the reading Students should indentify the type of words needed for each gap (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) first and then used scanning to locate the information in the passage in order to choose the right word They should remember checking the number of words can be used for each answer and be aware of paraphrasing and synonyms 4.2.6 Short answer questions The task is answering the question regarding detail in the passage briefly with the limitation of words To this task well, students should read the instruction carefully in order to check how many words can be used for the answer first, then quickly read through all the questions so students can get an idea of what information they will have to find in the text Besides, students should remember highlight the key words as reading the questions because this activity will help them skim the text easily After that, they scan the passage to locate the information to see which words will answer the question and make sure the sentence will be grammatical 38 4.2.7 Matching paragraph information The requirement of this type is matching information given in the question with information found in one of the paragraph in the passage Students have to scan for specific words within the paragraphs It is more likely that they will be looking for synonyms (different words that mean the same or nearly the same) and paraphrases rather than keywords from the question statements When students have found the words or phrases they think might give them the correct answer, they have to read very carefully in order to fully understand the meaning to be able to decide if it is really the correct answer In general, skimming and scanning are the two important techniques in reading comprehension While skimming directs students to a global understanding of reading texts, scanning helps to exploit information of the text in a short period of time 39 PART 3: CONCLUSION It is obvious that in the process of learning a foreign language in general and English in particular, reading comprehension is a crucial skill of acquisition That is why the students have to think creatively and work efficiently in the learning process Moreover, applying the useful techniques to doing reading comprehension exercises will help the students develop their reading skills as well as gives them other benefits to avoid cultural and language bias, etc in daily communication This is the reason why this topic is chosen for my study The research is done with four main chapters The first content of the graduation paper is theoretical knowledge about reading The definitions and types of reading, the importance of reading skill, stages of a reading lesson, some techniques used in reading comprehension and factors in teaching and learning reading as well have been presented The second content is methodology which investigates the situation analysis and the instrumentation of the study The next part elaborates the situation of applying reading techniques to doing reading comprehension tasks of English majors at Foreign Language Department, Hai Phong University The actual learning status was clarified through the survey questionnaires, reading sample texts and some class observations at Foreign Language Department, Hai Phong University Time and efforts have been spent on accumulating information about reading methods used in doing reading tasks The statistics indicates that all of the students have positive attitudes toward reading, but the techniques applied were not sufficient enough to develop their reading skills It is advisable for them to apply more accurate techniques in doing reading comprehension tasks The last part focuses on some suggestions for better reading The thesis has presented some useful techniques to develop certain reading skills for 40 students mostly in the while reading stage, i.e reading for general understanding, reading for specific information and some tips to help students IELTS reading comprehension tasks well Some techniques and tips presented in chapter four are all possible to apply for doing reading comprehension, but the students must be flexible in using them for each kind of reading My study is carried out with the hope that it may become a useful document for the students concerning about the reading techniques Due to the shortage of time and knowledge, mistakes and short comings are unavoidable Thus, I will highly appreciate further remarks on my graduation paper from teachers and friends to improve it both in the content and in the form Moreover, it is expected that the further studies will be the continuance for this one, which suggest techniques to the remained stages, the pre- reading and the post- reading stage Despite all the aforementioned limitations, I hope that the study will make a contribution to the better situation of learning reading for English majors at Foreign Language Department, Hai Phong University 41