A survey on current reading strategies of english for specific purpose (ESP) students at a vocational college

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HUYỀN A SURVEY ON CURRENT READING STRATEGIES OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES (ESP) STUDENTS AT A VOCATIONAL COLLEGE Khảo sát chiến lược đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành học viên trường Cao đẳng nghề M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major : English teaching methodology Code : 8140231.01 HANOI – 2018 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HUYỀN A SURVEY ON CURRENT READING STRATEGIES OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES (ESP) STUDENTS AT A VOCATIONAL COLLEGE Khảo sát chiến lược đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành học viên trường Cao đẳng nghề M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Major : English teaching methodology Code : 8140231.01 Supervisor : Trần Thanh Nhàn, PhD HANOI –2018 DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is a presentation of my original research work While any of the content presented is the result of input or data from a related collaborative research program, the literature and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussions The work was done under the guidance of Doctor Tran Thanh Nhan, as appointed by Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Researcher In my capacity as supervisor of the candidate‟s thesis, I certify that the above statements are true to the best of my knowledge Hanoi, April……, 2018 Supervisor i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A completed study would not be done without any assistance Therefore, I would gratefully express my acknowledgement to the following individuals who have provided me with their support and motivation during the time of conducting this research as a requirement of completing my Degree of Master I would first like to thank my thesis supervisor, Doctor Tran Thanh Nhan Her kindly support and continuous advice went through the process of the completion of my thesis Her encouragement and comments had significantly enriched and improved my work Without her motivation and instructions, the thesis would have been impossible to be done effectively During the actual implementation of the project, my research has received immense contribution from all relevant students So far, I would like to thank to the groups who took charge in the process of data collection and data entry for this research I would also express my thankfulness to the Rector of Viglacera Vocational College who actively supported me and my colleagues who gave me very valuable comments on this thesis Finally, I would dedicate my very profound gratitude to my parents for their providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis This accomplishment would not have been possible without them Researcher ii TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ABSTRACT CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background 1.2 Problem statement and research contribution 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Research objectives 1.5 Research scope 1.6 Research methodology 1.7 Thesis structure CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 10 2.1 Definitions 10 2.1.1 Definition of reading 10 2.2.2 Definition of reading comprehension 10 2.2 Reading process 11 2.3 Reading strategies 12 2.4 English for specific purposes 14 2.5 Existing literature of reading strategies 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 19 3.1 Research design 19 3.1.1 Philosophy 19 3.1.2 Approach 19 3.1.3 Method 20 3.2 Data collection methods 20 3.2.1 Sample selection 20 3.2.2 Data collection process 20 3.2 Data analysis method 21 CHAPTER 4: ANALYSES AND FINDINGS 22 4.1 Descriptive statistics of the respondents 22 4.2 Results and Analyses 24 4.2.1 Reading strategy use of vocational students 24 4.2.2 Differences in reading strategies use by gender 26 4.2.3 Differences in reading strategies use by reading proficiency level 32 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION 38 5.1 Conclusion 38 5.2 Recommendation 39 5.3 Limitations of the research 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES 45 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Descriptive statistics of the respondents 22 Table 4.2: Frequency of using reading strategies 24 Table 4.3: Reading strategies of female and male students 26 Table 4.4: Reading strategies of female and male students ranked by frequency 30 Table 4.5: Reading strategies of students with different reading proficiency levels 32 Table 4.6: Reading strategies of students with different reading proficiency levels ranked by frequency 36 A survey on current reading strategies of English for Specific Purpose (ESP) students at a Vocational College ABSTRACT This study is a survey on English for Specific Purposes reading comprehension perceived by 120 students at a Vocational College It dedicates to the existing literature by discovering reading strategies of vocational students, identifying strategies needed to enhance students‟ reading comprehension as well as appropriate approach for students to improve their reading skills and achieve good knowledge The aim of the study is to point out which strategies the students majoring in building materials at the vocational college need to improve to attain the maximum out of the text they read and differences between “good” and “poor” readers, male and female ones A twenty-item questionnaire with five-point Likert scales was used to collect data Descriptive statistics used to analyze the data were frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation Based on the statistical data, the overall results point out the differences between female and male students, “good” and “poor” readers in terms of their reading strategies Hence, the study suggests several recommendations for the students as well as the English teachers at the Vocational College CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION This chapter first and foremost provides background information about the research topic and stylized facts about students reading both academically and occupationally Subsequently, it identifies practical and theoretical problems as well as defines research questions and research objectives The research scope and methodologies to address the research questions are then clarified Lastly, the chapter wraps up with a demonstration of the thesis structure 1.1 Background Vocational education has been growing in popularity not only in numerous countries around the globe but also in Vietnam It is considered as an alternative door for students to pursue their dreams rather than higher education Vocational education is a practical approach that prepares people to work in specific occupations, such as engineering, trading, or crafting Vocational colleges are designed to provide vocational education, which can be distinguished other colleges in the sense that they provide students with job-specific training instead of high concentration on academic training Consequently, students are well equipped with particular skills required for their specifically selected jobs Among all vocational colleges in Vietnam, Viglacera Vocational College (VVC) is considered as the most well-known vocational institution in the industry of construction materials production It is an education unity of Viglacera Corporation Established in 1998, Viglacera Vocational College has been the first and only college in Vietnam providing intensive vocational training in the industry of construction materials production VVC and Proskill UK have signed a cooperation agreement in vocational training with the aim to propel VVC to become a leading Vietnamese vocational college in the field of construction materials It can be seen clearly that VVC has been putting efforts in building vocational training programs in compliance with international standards VVC focuses on training the workers of forty subsidiaries in the Viglacera Corporation These students have to simultaneously meet the requirements of studying at the college and working at the sites They have to work on shifts (three shifts per day) to maintain the working lines and to ensure the effective production Therefore, they face ample difficulties in learning as well as doing exercises In class, most of them complain that they are too exhausted to absorb new knowledge, and they want to have interesting easy lessons, which pose a real challenge for the teachers to facilitate their learning At VVC, English is considered an international language as it has become increasingly popular as a teaching language in Vietnam‟s education Especially, together with the rapid pace of globalization, it has grown to be an official medium of instruction for many universities More specifically, English is a key to “gain access to the required knowledge that is available, either exclusively or most readily, in English” (Mumby, 1981) In other words, it serves other different specific purposes, which results in significant changes in almost all walks of life and the continuing increase of international communication in these various fields That trend leads to the coming into being of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Being aware of the importance of ESP, teachers at Viglacera Vocational College (VVC) pay more attention to teaching ESP than GE for their students This ESP course aims at providing students with background knowledge and a system of terms related to building materials However, vocabulary and grammar cause various problems for the Table 4.6: Reading strategies of students with different reading proficiency levels ranked by frequency High proficiency level (n=31) Low proficiency level (n=89) Strategy M Strategy Relating the title and 4.81 Relating the title and illustration to the text illustration to the text M 4.78 Reading the first sentence 4.74 Reading the first sentence 4.69 Skimming 4.58 Skimming 4.66 Rereading the text to remember 4.16 Rereading the text to the important points 4.27 remember the important points Rereading the text to make up 4.10 Rereading a sentence if not for comprehension failure 3.96 understood Rereading a sentence if not 3.97 Rereading the text to make understood 3.96 up for comprehension failure Checking the dictionary only 3.87 Summarizing the main points 3.84 for important words in the text Summarizing the main points in 3.77 Checking the dictionary only the text Taking 3.82 for important words notes on important 3.58 Skipping unknown words 3.58 previous 3.52 Taking notes on important 3.52 points Thinking about knowledge Skipping unknown words points 3.45 Thinking about previous 3.37 knowledge Thinking-aloud when reading 3.35 Relating the text to 36 3.21 background knowledge Relating the text to background 3.23 Thinking-aloud when knowledge Contextual guessing 3.18 reading 2.94 Contextual guessing Translating the text word-for- 2.84 Making guesses about what word 2.72 2.72 will come next based on information already given Making guesses about what will 2.84 Classifying words according come next based on information 2.60 to meaning already given Classifying words according to 2.58 Translating the text wordmeaning 2.47 for-word Classifying words according to 2.29 Using grammatical clues to grammatical categories 2.26 guess the meaning Looking up every unknown 2.23 Classifying words according word in the dictionary 2.12 to grammatical categories Using grammatical clues to 2.06 Looking up every unknown guess the meaning word in the dictionary 37 1.94 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATION 5.1 Conclusion The study is launched with the objective of identifying the reading strategies commonly used by a sample of ESP students in VVC It draws three important conclusions: Firstly, most of students at VVC use the following strategies when they read ESP texts: Relating the title and illustration to the text, Reading the first sentence, Skimming, Rereading the text to remember the important points, Rereading the text to make up for comprehension failure, Rereading a sentence if not understood, Checking the dictionary only for important words, Summarizing the main points in the text, Skipping unknown words, and Taking notes on important points Furthermore, these strategies also have high frequency of usage Students rarely use strategies such as using grammatical clues to guess the meaning, Classifying words according to grammatical categories and Looking up every unknown word in the dictionary Secondly, the study provides similar findings with previous studies that vocational female students are more aware of reading strategies and they use reading strategies more often than male students Most of the strategies are used similarly between male and female students and that gender has no significant effect on strategy usage of students for many strategies However, male and female students have a striking difference in use of Contextual guessing strategy While male students consider Contextual guessing as a top favored strategy, it is the least favored strategy for female students Finally, there is no statistically significant difference in reading strategies between students with high proficiency level and students with low proficiency level at the sample vocational college Nonetheless, students with 38 high proficiency level show a slightly higher frequency in the use of reading strategies than students with low proficiency level In conclusion, it has become clear that these ESP students need to improve more appropriate reading strategies to help them cope with the increasing demands of their academic study 5.2 Recommendation Based on the study‟s findings, several recommendations are suggested to improve reading skill and comprehension of students: First and foremost, while-reading strategies should be developed because they play a decisive role in the reading comprehension of students There is a serious lack of while-reading strategies in the reading habits of students at VVC Those strategies such as translating the text word by word or looking up every single word in the dictionary should be avoided Good reading strategies should be strengthened, especially Reading aloud when text becomes hard, Reading slowly and carefully for important texts, Predicting or guessing text meaning, Evaluating what is read, Guessing meaning of unknown words, Taking notes while reading, Underlining key information in text, Asking oneself questions, and Resolving conflicting information Moreover, reading comprehension would be accomplished with the harmonious combination of strategies in all three stages of reading including before-reading, while-reading, and after-reading The fact shows that students at this vocational college only use before-reading (Relating the title and illustration to the text, Reading the first sentence, Skimming) and afterreading strategies (Rereading the text to remember the important points, Rereading the text to make up for comprehension failure) when they read academic materials This leads to an imbalanced reading method Last but not least, readers and students need to choose appropriate 39 reading strategies for themselves depending on each individual characteristics One reading strategy can be effective to a student, but it can also be ineffective to many other students Therefore, it is an essential step to identify first which strategies among the recommended list fit the students‟ reading habit Choosing suitable reading strategies and applying them to develop every day would eventually enhance reading proficiency and comprehension of students 5.3 Limitations of the research The author puts great efforts to make sure that the research is processed formally and accurately Nevertheless, it is inevitable to expose to several limitations The first difficulty is that it is impossible to include all students of the vocational college, so only certain students are chosen Another challenge is limited time to complete the whole study Although some limitations exist in the study preparation, the best possible solutions are adopted by the author to ensure the accuracy, reliability, as well as the meaningful contributions of this study 40 REFERENCES Alderson, J (1984) Reading in a foreign language: a reading problem or a language problem? In: Alderson, C., Urquhart, X (Eds.), Reading in a Foreign Language Longman, New York, pp 1–24 Almasi, J F., & Fullerton, S K (2012) Teaching strategic processes in reading Guilford Press Bell, T (2001) Extensive reading: Speed and comprehension The reading matrix, 1(1) Bereiter, C., & Bird, M (1985) Use of thinking aloud in identification and teaching of reading comprehension strategies Cognition and instruction, (2), pp 131 - 156 Block, E (1986) The comprehension strategies of second language readers TESOL Quarterly, (20), pp.163-494 Brown, A., & Palincsar, A (1984) Reciprocal teaching of comprehensionfostering and comprehension monitoring activities Cognition and Instruction, 1(2), pp 117-175 Brown, A., & Palincsar, A (1989) Guided, cooperative learning and individual knowledge acquisition In L B Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, learning and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser, pp 393-451 Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Camiciottoli, B C (2003) Metadiscourse and ESP reading comprehension: An exploratory study Reading in a foreign language, 15(1), p.28 Carrell, P L (1984) Evidence of a formal schema in second language comprehension Language learning, 34(2), pp 87-108 Carrell, P L (1985) Facilitating ESL reading by teaching text structure TESOL Quarterly, 19, pp 727-752 41 Clarke, M (1979) Reading in Spanish and English Language Learning (29), pp 121–215 Cziko, G (1978) Differences in first and second language reading: the use of syntactic, semantic, and discourse constraints Canadian Modern Language Review (34), pp 473–489 Davies, A., & Munby, J (1981) Communicative Syllabus Design Devine, J (1993) The role of metacognition in second language reading and writing In: Joan, G., Carson, L.I (Eds.), Reading in the Composition Classroom, Second Language Perspective Heinle & Heinle, Boston pp.105– 130 Dhieb-Henia, N (2003) Evaluating the effectiveness of metacognitive strategy training for reading research articles in an ESP context English for Specific Purposes, 22(4), pp 387-417 Dudley-Evans, T., & St John, M J (1998) Developments in English for specific purposes: A multi-disciplinary approach Cambridge university press Durkin, D (1993) Teaching Them to Read, sixth ed Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA Flavell, J.H (1981) Cognitive monitoring In: Dickson, W.P (Ed.), Children‟s Oral Communication Skills Academic Press, New York 35–60 Goodman, K (1971) Psycholinguistic universals in the reading process In: P.Pimsleur and T Quinn (Ed.) 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TESL-EJ 4(4) Li, F (2010) A Study of English Reading Strategies Used by Senior Middle School Students Asian Social Science (10) Oxford, R., & Crookall, D (1989) Research on language learning strategies: Methods, findings, and instructional issues Pearson, P D., & Fielding, L (1991) Comprehension instruction In R Barr, M Kamil, P Mosenthal, & P Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research, pp 815-860 White Plains, NY: Longman Rigney, J W (1978) Learning strategies: A theoretical perspective Learning strategies, p 165 Robinson, P C (1980) ESP (English for Specific Purposes): the present position Oxford England: Pergamon Press Robinson, P C (1991) ESP today: A practitioner's guide Prentice Hall Scott, M., Carioni, L., Zanatta, M., Bayer, E., & Quintanilha, T (1984) Using a „Standard exercise‟ in teaching reading comprehension ELT Journal 38 (2), pp 114- 120 Sheorey, R and Mokhtari, K (2001) Differences in the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies among native and non-native readers System (29), pp 431–449 Singhal, M (2001) Reading proficiency, reading strategies, metacognitive awareness and L2 readers The Reading Matrix, 1(1) Song, M J (1998) Teaching reading strategies in an ongoing EFL university reading classroom Asian Journal of English Language Teaching (8), pp 41-54 43 Swan, M (1975).Inside Meaning Cambridge: CUP Wood, E., Motz, M., and Willoughby, T (1998) Examining students‟ retrospective memories of strategy development Journal of Educational Psychology (90), pp 698–704 44 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Official questionnaire (English version) QUESTIONNAIRE A SURVEY ON CURRENT READING STRATEGIES OF ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES STUDENTS Hello everyone, I am a student of Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University Hanoi I am now doing thesis graduation with the topic “A survey on current reading strategies of English for Specific Purposes students at a vocational college” Please take a few minutes to answer questions based on your personal perspective All information provided will be secured and ONLY used for researching purposes of this topic Thank you! PART 1: SCREENING QUESTION You are a student at Viglacera Vocational □ Yes □ No College □ Yes You study with English for specific □ No purposes If you are a student at Viglacera Vocational College and study English for specific purposes, please continue to this questionnaire PART 2: DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONS Sex □ Male □ Female What is your age group? □ 18-22 years old 45 □ 23-30 years old Do you have interests in reading? □ Strong □ Weak How is your reading proficiency? □ Good □ Normal □ Poor PART 3: MAIN QUESTIONS Please choose the level of each strategy you commonly use in the pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading stages when you read an English-for-specialpurposes texts below by circling suitable number with following rule: Never Rarely Sometimes Usually Always No Strategy LEVEL OF AGREEMENT PRE-READING STRATEGIES Relating the title and illustration to the text Skimming Reading the first sentence Thinking about previous knowledge WHILE-READING STRATEGIES Looking up every unknown word in the 5 Contextual guessing Using grammatical clues to guess the dictionary Checking the dictionary only for important words meaning 46 Skipping unknown words 10 Rereading a sentence if not understood 11 Translating the text word-for-word 12 Thinking-aloud when reading 13 Taking notes on important points Making guesses about what will come next 5 14 15 based on information already given Relating the text to background knowledge POST-READING STRATEGIES 16 17 18 19 20 Classifying words according to meaning Classifying words according to Summarizing the main points in the text Rereading the text to make up for 5 grammatical categories comprehension failure Rereading the text to remember the important points Thank you for your help! 47 APPENDIX 2: Official questionnaire (Vietnamese version) CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT VỀ CÁC CHIẾN THUẬT ĐỌC CỦA CÁC HỌC VIÊN TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH Xin chào bạn, Tôi học viên Khoa Sau đại học, Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội Tôi thực luận văn tốt nghiệp với đề tài “Khảo sát chiến thuật đọc tiếng Anh chuyên ngành học viên trường Cao đẳng nghề” Vui lòng dành vài phút để trả lời câu hỏi dựa quan điểm cá nhân bạn Tất thông tin cung cấp bảo mật CHỈ sử dụng cho mục đích nghiên cứu đề tài Cảm ơn! PHẦN 1: CÂU HỎI SÀNG LỌC Bạn sinh viên trường Cao đẳng □ Có □ Khơng □ Có □ Khơng nghề Viglacera Bạn học môn Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành Nếu bạn sinh viên trường Cao đẳng nghề Viglacera có học mơn Tiếng Anh chun ngành, tiếp tục trả lời câu hỏi PHẦN 2: CÁC CÂU HỎI THÔNG TIN CÁ NHÂN Giới tính □ Nam □ Nữ Bạn thuộc nhóm tuổi nào? □ 18-22 tuổi □ 23-30 tuổi Bạn có đam mê với việc đọc không? □ Mạnh □ Yếu 48 Khả đọc bạn nào? □ Tốt □ Trung bình □ Yếu PHẦN 3: CÁC CÂU HỎI CHÍNH Hãy chọn mức độ thích hợp cho chiến lược mà bạn thường sử dụng trước đọc, đọc sau đọc bạn đọc tài liệu Tiếng Anh chuyên ngành cách khoanh trịn vào số thích hợp theo quy tắc sau: Chưa Ít Thỉnh thoảng Thường Ln ln xun Chiến lược ST MỨC ĐỘ ĐỒNG TÌNH T CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC TRƯỚC KHI ĐỌC Liên hệ tiêu đề hình minh họa với nội dung đọc Đọc lướt Đọc câu đầu Nghĩ đến kiến thức có CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC TRONG KHI ĐỌC Tra từ điển tất từ Chỉ tra từ điển từ quan trọng Đoán nghĩa theo ngữ cảnh đọc Sử dụng đầu mối ngữ pháp để đoán nghĩa Bỏ qua từ 10 Đọc lại câu chưa hiểu 49 11 Dịch đoạn văn từ 12 Nói suy nghĩ đọc 13 Ghi điểm quan trọng Dự đoán nội dung dựa vào 5 14 15 thơng tin có đọc Liên hệ nội dung đọc với kiến thức có CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC SAU KHI ĐỌC 16 Phân loại từ theo nghĩa 17 Phân loại từ theo mục ngữ pháp 18 Tóm tắt ý đoạn văn Đọc lại đoạn văn để làm rõ chỗ chưa 5 19 20 hiểu Đọc lại đoạn văn để nhớ ý quan trọng Cảm ơn bạn ! 50 ... use of reading strategies between native speakers and non-native English speakers when they read academic materials The findings illustrate that both native and nonnative students are aware of almost... dreams rather than higher education Vocational education is a practical approach that prepares people to work in specific occupations, such as engineering, trading, or crafting Vocational colleges... 36 A survey on current reading strategies of English for Specific Purpose (ESP) students at a Vocational College ABSTRACT This study is a survey on English for Specific Purposes reading comprehension