the effects of reading strategy instruction on efl students’ reading strategy use and reading comprehension

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY THE EFFECTS OF READING STRATEGY INSTRUCTION ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING STRATEGY USE AND READING COMPREHENSION A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL Submitted by LA THI NGOC MAI Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYEN THANH TUNG Ho Chi Minh City August 2018 i MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY LA THI NGOC MAI THE EFFECTS OF READING STRATEGY INSTRUCTION ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING STRATEGY USE AND READING COMPREHENSION Major: TEACHING ENGLISH TO SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES Major code: 60140111 MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYEN THANH TUNG Ho Chi Minh City, 2018 ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I, Lã Thị Ngọc Mai, hereby declare that this thesis entitled “The effects of reading strategy instruction on EFL students’ reading strategy use and reading comprehension” is the work of my own It is submitted to the Graduate School of HCMC Open University in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL This thesis has not been submitted anywhere before for any degrees or examinations The reference which is made of the results of other authors is duly acknowledged in the text Ho Chi Minh City, August 2018 LA THI NGOC MAI iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completing this thesis, I am extremely grateful to a number of people owing to their involvement Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thanh Tung, my thesis supervisor, for his great kindness and constructive advice for this thesis Secondly, I specially thank all of the lectures of the Master course whose lessons helped me build up a solid foundation for this study Furthermore, I own this success to 100 students majoring in English Translation of Vocational Training Faculty at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) for their participation and assistance in collecting data Finally, I am eternally grateful to my family and best friends for their unconditional love, care, and encouragement throughout the process iv ABSTRACT This research is to investigate the effects of strategic reading instructions on learners’ use of reading strategies and the possible influence on reading comprehension of reading activities in the context of English as a foreign language The research into strategy-based instructions provides a theoretical framework for this study The strategy-based instructions which were adapted from a list of reading strategies initially developed by Holschuh and Kelly (1988) were used as the treatment of the study within the constructivist approach The experiment was conducted from February to May 2016 The setting was a ten week-reading course for 100 learners of HUTECH in 30 lesson meetings All of the participants majoring in English Translation and Interpretation were divided into two groups of the experimental and the control group to examine changes in the extent of using reading strategies and reading comprehension after the treatment The study employed both quantitative and qualitative instruments to measure the extent to which students use strategies at two stages of the experiment – before and after the treatment The quantitative data were collected with the cognitive and metacognitive questionnaire and PET reading tests in the pre- and post-test to measure the improvement in reading scores In addition, the qualitative data were collected from the retrospective interview to discover the possible benefits of reading strategy use to reading comprehension The findings of the study indicate that the program of reading strategy instruction made positive shifts in the participants’ use of reading strategies through raising their awareness of the effectiveness of strategies on reading comprehension Besides, strategy-based instructions affected the learners’ reading comprehension more impressively than the decoding approach did in the context of college students majoring in English Translation and Interpretation at HUTECH v TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv ABSTRACT v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi LIST OF FIGURES x LIST OF TABLES xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.2 Statement of the problem 1.3 The purpose and research questions of the study 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Thesis outline CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Reading strategies 2.1.1 Definitions of reading strategies 2.1.2 Classifications of reading strategies 2.1.2.1 Cognitive reading strategies 2.1.2.2 Metacognitive reading strategies 10 2.2 The instruction of reading strategies 11 2.2.1 Constructivist pedagogy in learning a language 11 2.2.2 Strategy-based instruction in reading a foreign language 13 2.2.3 Models of teaching reading strategies 14 2.3 Reading comprehension 17 2.3.1 Nature of reading comprehension 17 2.3.2 The factors affecting reading comprehension in EFL contexts 18 vi 2.3.3 Effects of reading strategies on reading comprehension 19 2.4 Situations of reading strategy instruction 20 2.5 Stages of reading strategy instruction 21 2.6 Empirical studies 24 2.7 Summary 27 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 28 3.1 Research site 28 3.2 Participants 28 3.3 Methodology 31 3.3.1 Overall approach 31 3.3.2 Method 31 3.3.3 Research instruments 32 3.3.3.1 Reading comprehension tests 33 3.3.3.2 Questionnaire 36 3.3.3.3 Interview 39 3.3.4 Descriptions of reading strategy instruction 43 3.3.4.1 General training program for the experimental and control group 43 3.3.4.2 Procedure classroom for the experimental group 46 3.3.4.3 Procedure classroom for the control group 50 3.4 Analytical framework 52 3.4.1 Quantitative analysis for reading comprehension tests 52 3.4.2 Quantitative analysis for questionnaires 53 3.4.3 Qualitative analysis for interview 54 3.5 Reliability and validity 54 3.5.1 Reading comprehension tests 55 3.5.2 Questionnaire 56 vii 3.5.3 Interview 56 3.6 Summary 57 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 58 4.1 Analysis of reading comprehension tests 58 4.1.1 Analysis of pre-test reading comprehension 58 4.1.2 Analysis of post-test reading comprehension 59 4.1.3 Comparing pre-test and post-test reading scores of each group 60 4.2 Analysis of questionnaires 61 4.2.1 Analysis of pre-questionnaires 61 4.2.1.1 Reliability of pre-questionnaires 61 4.2.1.2 Analysis of pre-questionnaire 62 4.2.2 Analysis of post-questionnaire 64 4.2.2.1 Reliability of post-questionnaires 64 4.2.2.2 Analysis of post-questionnaire 64 4.2.3 Comparing pre-and post-questionnaire of each group 66 4.3 Interview analysis 70 4.3.1 Interview analysis of the high achievers 70 4.3.2 Interview analysis of the low achievers 72 4.4 Summary 74 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 75 5.1 Discussion on the students' reading comprehension 75 5.2 Discussion on the students' reading strategy use 77 5.3 Discussion on high and low achievers' strategies 78 5.4 Summary 80 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 81 6.1 Conclusions 81 viii 6.2 Evaluation of methodology 83 6.2.1 Strengths 83 6.2.2 Weaknesses 84 6.3 Recommendations for teachers and students 85 6.4 Suggestions for further research 87 6.5 Summary 87 REFERENCES 88 APPENDICES 98 Appendix 1: Original cognitive and metacognitive strategy questionnaire 98 Appendix 2: Adjusted cognitive and metacognitive strategy questionnaire 101 Appendix 3: Questionnaire in Vietnamese version 105 Appendix 4: Pre-test of Reading Comprehension 109 Appendix 5: Post-test of Reading Comprehension 119 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure Framework for Strategies Instruction 15 x 114 115 116 117 118 Appendix 5: Post-test of Reading Comprehension 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 ... 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