A study on using word guessing strategies in reading comprehension of economics texts of third year students majoring in economics at phuc yen college of industry

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** HOÀNG THỊ MINH CHIÊM A STUDY ON USING WORD GUESSING STRATEGIES IN READING COMPREHENSION OF ECONOMICS TEXTS OF THIRD YEAR STUDENTS MAJORING IN ECONOMICS AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng chiến thuật đoán từ kỹ đọc hiểu khóa chuyên ngành kinh tế sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngành kinh tế trường Cao đẳng công nghiệp Phúc Yên) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST–GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** HOÀNG THỊ MINH CHIÊM A STUDY ON USING WORD GUESSING STRATEGIES IN READING COMPREHENSION OF ECONOMICS TEXTS OF THIRD YEAR STUDENTS MAJORING IN ECONOMICS AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY (Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng chiến thuật đoán từ kỹ đọc hiểu khóa chuyên ngành kinh tế sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngành kinh tế trường Cao đẳng công nghiệp Phúc Yên) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: PHẠM THỊ THANH THÙY, Ph.D Hanoi, 2014 DECLARATION I hereby state that I - Hoang Thi Minh Chiem, being an M.A candidate of the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, ULIS, VNU, certify my authorship of the study entitled A STUDY ON USING WORD GUESSING STRATEGIES IN READING COMPREHENSION OF ECONOMICS TEXTS OF THIRD YEAR STUDENTS MAJORING IN ECONOMICS AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY The thesis is my own research and the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for a degree to any other universities or institutions Hanoi, September 2014 Hoàng Thị Minh Chiêm i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and love to my supervisor, Ms Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, Ph.D for her guidance, patience, comments, and especially her sympathy throughout the whole research process Her guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this research My sincere thanks also go to Dr Le Van Canh for his helpful suggestions during this study I would also like to thank all teachers at the Postgraduate Department, ULIS, VNU, whose lectures and guidance have contributed to my understanding of the problem and led to the completion of this thesis Especially, I wish to express my thankfulness to the teachers who will take their precious time reading and commending on this thesis I would like to express my special thanks to all the students who have been really helpful and cooperative in the implementation of the study My thanks go to many writers whose important ideas and notions are exploited and developed in the study And thanks also go to all librarians for their effort to make the atmosphere of reading rooms as convenient and friendly as possible I warmly thank my parents for giving birth to me and supporting me spiritually throughout my life And finally, I wish to send my thanks to my lovely sweet daughter for being a nice girl and to my husband who always supports, cheers me up and stands by me through the good and bad time ii ABSTRACT This study aims at examining the general strategies and the word guessing strategies used by the third year students majoring in economics at Phuc Yen College of Industry to deal with unknown words in reading comprehension economics texts in reading lessons; and the difficulties they experience in using these strategies Three research questions are submitted and answered accordingly A survey questionnaire and a task sheets are used as two research methods in this study The results indicate that: the participants of this study make use of various general strategies to deal with unknown words Of all strategies, guessing meaning from context is most frequently used one by the students Using local context and using discourse context are two most preferred guessing strategies by the students Most of them particularly have difficulties in using strategies requiring knowledge of syntactic, association or collocation and extra-textual to work out the meaning of unknown words Discussion, research limitations and implications for pedagogy and further research are also presented iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as foreign language ELT: English language teaching ESL: English as second language ESP: English for specific purpose L2: Second Language PCI: Phuc Yen College of Industry FIGURE AND TABLES Figure: Types of ESP Table 1: Frequency use of general strategies for unknown words Table 2: General strategies use for unknown words: Mean analysis Table 3: Frequency use of guessing strategies for unknown words Table 4: Guessing strategies for unknown words: Mean analysis Table 5: Guessing strategies for unknown words Table 6: Ranks of strategies use in the Questionnaire and the Task sheets Table 7: The outcome of word inferencing iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES iv PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale for the study Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the study Methods of the study Organization of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Overview of ESP 1.1.1 Definitions of ESP 1.1.2 Characteristics of ESP 1.1.2.1 Characteristics of ESP in general 1.1.2.2 Characteristics of English for Economics 1.1.2.3 Characteristics of English Economics Texts 1.2 The Nature of Reading Comprehension 1.2.1 Definitions of Reading Comprehension 1.2.2 Reading Comprehension Strategies 1.2.2.1 Definition of Reading Comprehension Strategy 1.2.2.2 Classification of Reading Comprehension Strategies 10 1.3 Guessing/ Inferencing Strategy 11 1.3.1 Definitions of Strategy 11 1.3.2 Guessing/ Inferencing strategy 12 v 1.3.3 Classification Types of Guessing/ Inferrencing strategies 12 1.4 College Students’ Characteristics 14 1.4.1 Definitions of Student 14 1.4.2 Characteristics of College Students in General 14 1.4.3 Characteristics of Economics Students 15 1.5 Summary 16 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 17 2.1 Research Context 17 2.1.1 An overview of Phuc Yen College of Industry 17 2.1.2 Students’ background 18 2.1.3 Teachers and teaching methods 18 2.1.4 Course book for teaching ESP 19 2.2 Research Questions 20 2.3 Participants 21 2.4 Data Collection Instruments 21 2.4.1 Survey questionnaire 21 2.4.2 Task Sheets 22 2.5 Data Collection Procedures 23 2.6 Data Analysis Procedures 23 2.7 Summary 24 CHAPTER 3: DATA, DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 26 3.1 Data analysis 26 3.1.1 The students’ general strategies used for unknown words 26 3.1.2 Word guessing strategies used by the students 29 3.1.2.1 The guessing strategies used by the students collected through the questionnaire 29 3.1.2.2 The guessing strategies used by the students collected through the task sheets 32 vi 3.1.2.3 The comparison of word guessing strategies used by the students in the questionnaire and the task sheets 32 3.1.3 The difficulties the student encounter when using the word guessing strategies to make the guess 33 3.2 Discussion 34 PART III: CONCLUSION 37 Conclusion 37 Pedagogical Implications of the Study 38 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 39 REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I vii PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the Study In the last three decades, the “learner-centeredness” theory has become very popular It demonstrates that learners are the key component of the language acquisition process There is a fact that in the classroom, learners’ studying results are not the same though they are taught by the same teachers and under the same studying condition Some students can acquire the language successfully but some fail to master it One of the main reasons is that different learners employ different learning strategies In other words, to be success in learning a second language, learners themselves should use some suitable learning strategies to make their learning more effective Reading is not simply a receptive process of getting information from the page in a word-by-word manner (Grabe, 1991, p.1) It is considered a selective process and characterized as an active process of comprehending Therefore, to become more successful, non-English-speaking readers will need to learn to use different strategies to deal with unknown words encountered in reading This is also true for dealing with reading comprehension texts of English for Specific Purpose (ESP) Generally, a good reader has appropriate strategies to deal with unknown words in reading such as guessing or inferring the meaning of unknown words in a text Therefore strategies of guessing word meaning play an important role in dealing with unknown words encountered in reading comprehension With the hope of helping students to be equipped with necessary qualifications to get a good job after graduation, the English Faculty at PCI has applied ESP courses for all majors in this college and major of economics is not an exceptional one Throughout the teaching ESP courses for economics major students at this college, the researcher observed that the students’ results in reading comprehension are not as good as what they have expected though they have tried a lot This situation has made the researcher wonder how the students market materials participants a lot of new (A) a request to make (B) thins that is grown or (C) a plan or preparation (D) a thing that is orders or supply something produced, usually for sale that you make so that worth the money something can happen that you pay for it buyers (A) to something (B) to move into position (C) to manage to achieve (D) to show a scramble more quickly than all around something or something with difficulty strong desire for around to buy usually because there is somebody especially to , or in a hurry, without something more rice not much time much control prevent them from escaping A good such as (A) to produce more of (B) to buy or make more (C) to sell too much or (D) to put too great cars becomes something than is of something than you need more of something than is a load on something overstocked at wanted or needed or can sell available in their rush to (A) to let something (B) to put something in a (C) to get rid of or sell (D) to offer unload fall, to drop something particular order to make something something for the going market price unwanted something neat or attractive VIII people to buy models a balance (or (A) the quality or state (B) a situation in which (C) enough in quality, or (D) appropriateness equilibrium) of being steady and not different things exist in good enough in quality, to the situation changing or being equal, correct or good for a particular purpose or disturbed in any way amount need a balance (or (A) to succeed in (B) to bring back a (C) to receive something (D) to achieve a equilibrium) reaching a particular situation or feeling that as suitable or good particular aim between buyers goal, status or standard, existed before and sellers will especially by making be restored an effort for a long enough time 10 classical triad (A) a group of three of land, labor related people or things things that are together in and capital (B) a number of people or the same place or that are (C) Three cards of one (D) Having or kind and two of another made of three things kind or part that are connected in some ways 11 equal or similar job (A) attracting your (B) causing great interest (C) not ordinary or usual, (D) good for opportunities attention because it is or excitement different from what is something and will be more special, exciting or normal making it likely to IX favorable in the unusual be successful or computing field 12 have an advantage The shift in (A) the process of (B) a change in position or (C) a change in ideas, (D) the act of keep relative wages replacing something direction attitudes or behavior something in a good with something new or condition different X Reading Passage Direction: Read the following text and the vocabulary task Microeconomics ( Adapted from Economics by Fischer Dornbusch, and Schmalensee) Microeconomics deals with the economic behavior (1) of individual economic agents-mainly households and firms, and of particular markets and industries The focus is on the prices and outputs (2) of particular goods and services and on how markets interact to determine (3) the allocation of scarce (4) resources among millions of alternative uses Typical (5) microeconomics questions include: What determines the relative prices of particular goods, the prices of cars and stereos and bread and books? How does the total national output get divided (6) among various goods and services? Through microeconomics theory, one can see how the system of market prices allows equilibrium (7) to be reached between people’s tastes for different goods and the scarcity (8) of total resources to produce them Supply and demand analyses are two of the basic tools of microeconomic analysis and can be used to see how taxes affect prices and quantities (9), how government interference (10) with markets can cause shortages (11), and what happens when a small number of producers come to dominate (12) a market XI Post quiz I Vocabulary task Directions: Please work through the following list and put a circle around the best definition of the underlined word This is not a test so please not use a dictionary or other text to assist you If you not have any idea about the meaning of a word, please leave it blank No Target words Meaning Microeconomics (A) a way of behaving that (B) the process of doing (C) something that deals with the is not sincere but is intended something in order to you or say to show somebody behaves, economic to have a particular effect on make something happen a particular feeling or especially toward behavior others or to deal with a situation intention other people The focus is on (A) the amount of (B) a product or a raw (C) A thing that is (D) goods are the prices and something that a person, a material that can be useful or has a useful bought and sold outputs of machine or an organization bought or sold quality particular goods produces markets interact (A) to think carefully about (B) to make something a (C) to make (D) to create or to determine the different possibilities permanent part of a something happen in develop something XII (D) the way that the allocation of that are available and choose system, plan, etc a particular way or be scarce resources one of them of a particular type markets interact (A) having or containing a (B) there is not enough of (C) not important, (D) existing in the allocation of large number or amount of something and it is only large quantities; scarce resources something available in small not serious more than enough quantities Typical (A) having the usual (B) more important than (C) different from (D) in the way that microeconomics quantities or features of a others; deserving or what is normal is normal or usually questions particular type of person, getting more attention thing or group than usual the total national (A) something is combined (B) something is (C) something is (D) something is output get with others to form a single separated into parts and separated from mixed with other divided thing given a share to each of a something thing and become number of different part of it people the system of (A) enough in quality, or market prices allows (B) a state of balance, (C) the quality or (D) appropriateness good enough in quality, for a especially between state of being steady to the situation particular purpose or need and not changing or opposing forces or XIII equilibrium to influences be reached being disturbed in any way the scarcity of (A) not available in large (B) an amount of (C) not enough of (D) an amount that total resources amount or number something that is enough something and it is is greater than is for particular purpose difficult to obtain it needed or can be used to see how taxes (A) the standard of (B) the amount of money (C) the number of affect prices and something when it is that a person saves in a things or people that a number of quantities bank container or space can something compared to other things like it 10 hold government (A) the act of making (B) the act of involving (C) the act or (D) the act of interference something become easier or in the affairs of other progress of sharing or with markets possible for somebody to people or organization combining two or exchanging something by doing more things so that something, something o them or by they work together especially ideas or giving something they need 11 (D) the amount or information can cause (A) a situation when there is (B) a situation in which (C) a fault in (D) a continuous shortages not enough of the people or something or in the decrease in the there is a large supply of XIV things that are needed food, money, etc way it has been made number, value, which means that it is quality, etc not perfect 12 a small number of producers come to dominate a market (A) price or cost is so high (B) important or well (C) suited to the taste (D) to control or that it prevents people from known and knowledge of have a lot of ordinary people influence over buying something or doing something somebody/ something II Answer the following question that covers the guessing strategies you employed to deal with the unknown words in the text Which strategies you employed to deal with the unknown words in the text? Put a circle around the number of your choice You can choose more than one strategies Guess using local (sentence level) context Guess using association or collocation knowledge (i.e a clue word) Guess using syntactic knowledge Guess using visual form (similarity or morphological understanding) Guess using extra textual (thematic or world) knowledge XV Guess using discourse context i.e outside the sentence in which the word occurred (using forward or backward context) You used the other strategies or skills that were not listed above to deal with the unknown words in the article, they are _ Tasks Answer Key No Task Task Task C B D A C A C B C A A B D C A A B B B C B C B C D B D 10 B A B 11 B D A 12 A B D XVI APPENDIX B Questionnaire on Strategies Used to Deal with Unknown Words in Reading (English Version) SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE Dear my students, Thank you very much for participating in this survey questionnaire Currently, I am doing my MA thesis on “A Study on Using Word Guessing Strategies in Reading Comprehension of Economics Texts of 3rd Years Students Majoring in Economics at Phuc Yen College of Industry” Its purpose is to find out what the 3rd year students majoring in economics actually to deal with unknown words, the guessing strategies you used and the difficulties you encountered when using these guessing strategies to work out the meaning of unknown words in reading comprehension of economics texts This survey questionnaire is designed to ask you what you actually do, not what you think you should so please complete it honestly to help me complete successfully this thesis You can be sure that this questionnaire is for research only and that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data You are kindly requested to fill in the following information and answer the questions that follow I General Information - Age: - The years that you have been exposed to English? 3-5 years Gender: Male 6-10 years Female more than 10 years XVII II Question Content Part Questionnaire of Students’ General Strategies Use for the Unknown Words Direction: Please place a tick (√) in the corresponding boxes against each of the items below to show your response to unfamiliar words when reading English texts No Items Often Sometimes Rarely Never Ignore the word Look for clues to meaning in the word itself Guess its meaning from the context Ask a friend if they know the word Ask a teacher for assistance Look up the word in an English – Vietnamese dictionary Look up the word in an English – English dictionary Others (take notes, underline, etc.) _ Part Questionnaire of Students’ guessing strategies use to deal with the unknown words in the text Direction: Please place a tick (√) in the corresponding boxes against each of the items below to show what guessing strategies you use to guess the meaning of unknown words in reading English texts No Strategies Often Guess using local context (meaning from the word and sentence itself) Guess using association or collocation knowledge (e.g corporate XVIII Sometimes Rarely Never finance, market share, etc.) Guess using syntactic knowledge (sentence structures and word order) Guess using visual forms (word derivations such as prefixes and suffixes) Guess using extra textual knowledge (back ground knowledge) Guess using discourse context i.e outside the sentence in which the word occurred (using forward or backward context) Other strategies or skills used to deal with the unknown words in reading comprehension of English texts Thank you very much for your cooperation! XIX APPENDIX B: Questionnaire on Strategies Used to Deal with Unknown Words in Reading (Vietnamese Version) CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT Các em học sinh thân mến! Hiện cô thực đề tài nghiên cứu luận văn thạc sỹ với tiêu đề: "Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng chiến thuật đoán từ đọc hiểu khóa chuyên ngành kinh tế sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngành kinh tế trường Cao đẳng Cơng nghiệp Phúc n” Mục đích nghiên cứu nhằm tìm hiểu mà thực tế sinh viên năm thứ chuyên ngành kinh tế làm gặp từ nghĩa, chiến thuật đốn từ khó khăn em việc áp dụng chiến thuật này việc đoán nghĩa từ đọc khóa chuyên ngành Bản câu hỏi kháo sát thiết kế nhằm tìm hiểu em thực làm khơng phải em cho nên làm trả lời câu hỏi theo em làm để giúp hồn thành thành cơng đề tài nghiên cứu Các em chắn câu hỏi thiết kế với mục đích nghiên cứu thơng tin em bảo mật thảo luận II Thông tin cá nhân - Tuổi: - Mã sinh viên: - Em học tiếng Anh rồi? 3-5 năm Giới tính: Nam 5-10 năm Nữ 10 năm XX II Nội dung câu hỏi Câu hỏi chiến thuật chung em sử dụng cho từ Hướng dẫn: Em đánh dấu (√) vào ô tương ứng cho mục sau để cách thức em làm gặp từ đọc khóa tiếng Anh STT Chiến thuật Thường xuyên Thỉnh thoảng Hiếm Không Bỏ qua từ Tìm manh mối từ Đốn nghĩa từ dựa vào ngữ cảnh Hỏi bạn bè Hỏi giáo viên Tra từ từ điển Anh – Việt Tra từ từ điển Anh – Anh Cách khác (ghi chú, gạch chân, v.v) _ Câu hỏi chiến thuật đoán từ em sử dụng để đốn từ khơng biết đọc Hướng dẫn: Em đánh dấu (√) vào ô tương ứng cho mục sau để chiến thuật đoán từ em sử dụng để đoán nghĩa từ mà em khơng biết đọc khố tiếng Anh STT Chiến thuật Thường xuyên Đoán từ dựa vào ngữ cảnh (dấu hiệu từ câu chứa từ không biết.) XXI Thỉnh thoảng Hiến Không Đoán từ dựa vào kiến thức kết hợp từ hiểu biết cụm từ thường với (VD: corporate finance, market share, v.v) Đoán từ dựa vào kiến thức cấu trúc câu, trật tự từ Đoán từ dựa vào việc phân tích hình thái từ Đốn từ dựa vào kiến thức bên ngồi (kiến thức nền, kiến thức chủ đề liên quan) Đoán từ dựa vào dấu hiệu bên phạm vi câu có chứa từ khơng biết (sử dụng ngữ cảnh câu trước câu sau) Các chiến thuật kỹ khác mà em sử dụng để đoán từ khơng biết đọc khố tiếng Anh Xin chân thành cảm ơn em tham gia trả lời bảng câu hỏi khảo sát này! XXII ... STUDY ON USING WORD GUESSING STRATEGIES IN READING COMPREHENSION OF ECONOMICS TEXTS OF THIRD YEAR STUDENTS MAJORING IN ECONOMICS AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY The thesis is my own research and... and the word guessing strategies used by the third year students majoring in economics at Phuc Yen College of Industry to deal with unknown words in reading comprehension economics texts in reading. .. Guessing/ Inferrencing Strategies Numerous researchers (Roskams 2005; Kaivanpanah and Alavi, 2008 and Huaiyong Gao, 2012) have investigated the classifications of inferencing strategies Kaivanpanah