An investigation into the importance of guessing word meaning in context and strategies to help english major freshmen at quang binh university better at reading skill cao nữ trinh

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPORTANCE OF GUESSING WORDMEANING IN CONTEXT AND STRATEGIES TO HELP ENGLISH-MAJOR FRESHMEN AT QUANG BINH UNIVERSITY BETTER AT READING SKILL Ts Nguyễn Đình Hùng Cao Nữ Trinh Lớp Đại học Ngôn ngữ Anh K54 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study Nowadays, English has been become the language of international communication because it is widely used in many parts of the world It is bringing people around the world closer together It is clear that the English language plays an important role to develop in the fields of economics, politics, education, and many others Especially, in our country, there are more and more people interested in learning English Owing to the importance of English, students at Quang Binh University are trying to learning English effectively And under the guide of teachers, most of students found out solutions to get better at learning English However, many students still face difficulties in learning English language Reading is one of the basic skills that everyone needs It is useful tool for people of many societies to get knowledge and information According to writer observation during doing Praktek Pengalaman (PPL) in SMA Kresten Kondosapata Makassar, most of students are not understood what they have read In fact that many first year students English majored at Quang Binh University got difficulties in reading skill Some of them said that they only read the text to answer the question without know what they read Besides, a number of students have low motivation in reading Therefore, the students are not able to get good marks in reading subject Their problems are various such as lack of vocabulary, background knowledge, grammar, etc And they not know how to apply some useful strategies when they read Most students who meet an unfamiliar word they cannot translate are first asking what it means If they not find out the word’s meaning, they can not continue reading and understanding the content of the text Contextual guessing is the most useful technique for student in attacking new words However, the ability in using that technique of first-year students at Quang Binh University is not good With the wish of aiming the student understand the importance of contextual guessing technique in reading and find out some effective solutions to get better at reading skill, I am doing research on a titled “An investigation into the importance of guessing word-meaning in context and strategies to help English-major freshmen at Quang Binh University better at reading skill.” 1.2 Aims of the research (1) To find out perceptions of English-major freshmen at Quang Binh University toward the importance of the guessing word meaning in context (2) To investigate the real situation of learning reading at Quang Binh University, the difficulties that the English-major first year students at Quang Binh University meet in reading (3) To draw out some possible solutions and suggestions to overcome the difficulties and improve the results of reading skill 1.3 Research questions What are the students’ attitudes toward the importance of guessing word meaning in context while learning reading? What difficulties the students meet when dealing with a reading lesson? What are the most effective strategies for reading? 1.4 Scope of the study Due to the limited time, the study focuses on investigation the freshmen’ attitudes toward the guessing word meaning in context and the difficulties freshmen English majors at the Quang Binh University encounter in the learning reading subject and offers some strategies to help them better at their reading skill Freshmen English majored students at Quang Binh University were chosen as the main participants 2 THE IMPORTANCE OF GUESSING WORD MEANING IN CONTEXT AND DIFFICULTIES THAT ENGLISH-MAJOR FRESHMEN AT QUANG BINH UNIVERSITY MEET IN LEARNING READING SKILL 2.1 Theoretical background of reading 2.1.1 Definitions of reading Harison and Smith [23] defined reading as the act of responding with appropriate meaning to print or written verbal symbols It means that reading is the result of interaction between the graphic symbols that represent language and the reader’s language skill, and cognitive skills and knowledge of the words According to the Gould, Diyanni, Smith and Standford [18], reading is related to interpretation, making sense of all events taking place around us for a process of making potential meanings for readers 2.1.2 The importance of reading No one can deny that reading plays an important role in our life It is important because it is considered an essential skill both at school and afterwards Reading also gives us as readers a lot of opportunities to contact with different contexts in our daily life 2.1.3 Types of reading According to the ways of reading  Aloud reading According to Doff [11], “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.”  Silent reading According to Broughton, Brumfit [7], the nature of silent reading skills is far from uniform According to the purposes of reading Obviously, people read for many different purposes There are different types of reading for different situations  Skimming: Skimming is a reading skill used to get an overview of the highlights of the material There have been many definitions of skimming  Intensive reading It is an effective way to explore the text, to go deeply into the meaning and the organization of the text According to Grellet [19] “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details.”  Extensive reading It is an activity involving global understanding just as Grellet [19] confirms: “Extensive reading means reading longer text, usually or one’s own pleasure This is a fluency activity mainly involving general understanding.” 2.2 Theoretical background of reading strategies 2.2.1 Definition of reading strategies Garner [15] defined reading strategies as an action or series of actions employed to construct meaning Barnett [2] used the term “reading strategy” to refer to the mental operations involved when readers purposefully approach a text to make sense of what they read 2.2.2 Classification of reading strategies Oxford [34] classified reading strategies into six types including cognitive, memory, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social strategies Another author also classified reading strategies into six types, including recognizing text type; recognizing text structure; predicting or summarizing the context of the text; making guesses; using the context to determine the meaning of unknown words and analyzing the word form of unknown words (Pattersen and Van Pattersen [35]) 2.3 Theoretical background of guessing word meaning in context 2.3.1 Definitions of context Context (language context) means “textual or discoursal place in which a particular word or structure can be found” (GU [21]) Context can be as short as a sentence or as long as several paragraphs, and it will usually contain unfamiliar word Context refers to the meaning of a new word Bialystok (1983) proposes that context exits in relation and proportion to the reader’s implicit knowledge, other knowledge and context 2.3.2 Definitions of guessing word meaning in context According to Oxford [34] guessing is a compensation strategy which allows learners to use the new language for either comprehension or production despite limitations in knowledge Nassaji [32] defines guessing from context technique as any cognitive or metacognitive activity that the learner turned to for help while trying to derive the meaning of the unknown word from context 2.2 Methodology 2.2.1 Participants The participants in this research were 60 first- year students, including 38 students from the class University of English Language K57 and 22 students from the class College of English Language K57 at Quang Binh University 2.2.2 Data collection method In oder to seek the answer to the research questions mentioned above, the instruments used to get data are questionnaire and interview Questionnaire The questionnaire delivered to 60 freshmen of the class University of English Language K57 and College of English Language K57 consist of 10 questions with both multiple choice and open-ended ones Interview There are 15 students who were chosen randomly from the class University of English Language K57 and the class College of English Language K57 at Quang Binh University To get information from this group of participants, there are open-ended questions All of them are written in English 2.2.3 Data analysis methods Data analyses were based on two approaches which are quantitative and qualitative approaches 2.3 Students’ perceptions towards guessing word meaning in context 2.3.1 Students’ response on the importance of guessing word meaning in context Students' awareness of the importance of guessing word meaning in context is expressed on the chart below Figure 1: Students’ response toward the importance of guessing word meaning in context Figure 2: Students’ opinions about the difficulty of guessing word meaning in context Figure 3: The use of guessing word meaning in context technique to attack new words while reading Figure 4: The effectiveness of using guessing word meaning technique to deal with new words while reading 2.4 Difficulties in learning reading skill that the students encounter 2.4.1 Difficulties in fully understanding the reading passage Table 1: Reasons that student can not complete reading the text Reasons Percentage The text is too long 45% The tasks are difficult 57.67% There are many unknown words 95% There are too many new grammatical structures 38% The topic and content are unfamiliar 27.5% Others 0% 2.4.2 Difficulties in students’ reading strategies The importance of reading strategies is becoming increasingly recognized However, students cannot apply them correct and effective The ways students read the text are expressed in table Table 2: Students’ ways to read the text Items Percentage Word-by-word reading 75% Skimming 15% Scanning 21.67% Reading aloud 35% Slient reading 33% Translating the text into Vietnamese 92% Reading the topic sentences 8% Other 0% 2.4.3 Factors influence the progress of reading in language learning Figure 5: Factors influence to progress of reading 2.5 Suggestions for the improvement of students’ reading skill Table 3: Solutions to improve reading skill Items Percentage Students should spend more time reading at home 60% Students should enrich their vocabulary 85% Students should use more strategies in reading 32% Students should spend more time on watching film, video 46% with English subtitle Others 10% CONCLUSION 3.1 Conclusion The learning of reading has become more and more important at university English majored students are, therefore, trying their best to find more useful strategies to develop their reading skill The investigation into the students’ attitudes toward guessing word meaning in context helps students realize the importance and effectiveness of contextual guessing word meaning to improve their ability in use it in reading Besides, this study is conducted to find difficulties that the English - major freshmen at Quang Binh University encounter helps them have a better insight of what obstacles in reality and what strategies should be made to improve their reading skill The following are the main findings of the study First, most of the students are aware of the importance of guessing word meaning in context in reading Second, from the questionnaire data, the researchers have found the difficulties that the English majored students at Quang Binh University encounter One of the most difficulties that students encounter is can not fulfill the text Vocabulary is considered the main factor that makes students hard to understand the idea of the text And the new grammatical structures, the unfamiliar topic and content of the text are also the problems of students in reading Another, lacking of reading strategies is a difficulty that most students encounter Therefore, some useful strategies are suggested in this study Furthermore, researchers also found out some factors influence the reading’ progress From the results, motivation is the most factor affect to students in reading In conclusion, from what have been presented, the study is hoped to helpful for first year English-majored students of the Department of Foreign Languages at Quang Binh University 5.2 Implications Through the investigation, the researchers show the importance of guessing word meaning in context and a number of problems, suggestions which may help contribute to the promotion of students’ reading learning results First, students need to be aware of the importance of guessing word meaning in context Students can overcome new vocabulary by using this strategy In addition, students could improve their vocabulary knowledge by self-learning Reading books from various reference sources in the library are a useful way for students to enlarge their knowledge and develop reading skills By doing so, they may consider reading to be more interesting during the reading process Next, students should use more strategies to be better at reading skills Students need to know the purpose of reading to apply the suitable strategies For example, if students want to get main idea, they will apply the skimming strategies Last but not least, they should spend more time practicing reading skills at home with high frequency by reading magazine, novels, watch film with English subtitle, etc 5.3 Limitations of the study and recommendations for further study In spite of the significant findings that supported the hypothesis of the positive effect of the strategy of guessing meaning from context on students' word-attack skill and reading strategies, there existed some limitations to the study Due to the shortage of time and the lack of practical experience, the investigation is not good at all As a preliminary investigation into the guessing meaning from context and useful reading strategies, the sample size was limited only to 60 first-year students at Quang Binh University Even though it is true that the study has provided valid data, should the sample size be bigger, the generalizability of the findings would be higher Based on the limitation of the study as discussed above, a longitudinal study over a longer period of time should be conducted to have more fruitful result Furthermore, further research should investigate the impact of reading strategies on gender as well as on the ability apply reading strategies in practical REFERENCES [1] Abbot, Wingard, Greenwood, Mc Keating (1981) The teaching of English as an International language: A practical Guide London: Collins [2] Barnett, M.A (1989) More than meets the eye, foreign language reading theory and practice New Jersey: Prentice Hall [3] Beck I.L, McKeown, M.G, and McCaslin, E.S (1983) “Vocabulary Development: All Contexts are Not Created Equal.” Elementary School Journal, 83, 177-181 [4] Block, 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(1) To find out perceptions of English- major freshmen at Quang Binh University toward the importance of the guessing word meaning in context (2) To investigate the real situation of learning reading. .. on investigation the freshmen? ?? attitudes toward the guessing word meaning in context and the difficulties freshmen English majors at the Quang Binh University encounter in the learning reading