11th grade students awareness of english reading strategies a descriptive research at yen vien high school

iii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Learning strategy definition and classification (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:119) Table 4.1 Analysis of questionnaires: Question Table 4.2 Analysis of questionnaires: Question Table Analysis of questionnaires : Metacognitive reading strategies Table 4.4: Analysis of questionnaires : Cognitive reading strategies Table 4.5 Illustrates responses concerning two subtypes of social/affective strategies Table 4.6 Analysis of interviews : Question Table 4.7 Analysis of interviews : Question Table 4.8: Analysis of interviews: Question iv ABSTRACT “Strategic learning is the key to student success in any endeavor I view learning by strategies as the foundation for lifelong learning” (P Hardin in Anderson, 1999:73) The important role of English reading comprehension is apparent for any students who have a good command of English Good reading comprehension not only widens students’ knowledge but also fulfils other skills For non English major students in Yen Vien high school, reading has been paid more attentions to as they have to take the examinations which are grammar-and reading-based However, they have encountered a lot of difficulties in reading skills Language reading strategies are among the main factors that help determine how - and how well - our students learn a second or foreign language th This study aims to investigate the reading awareness of 11 grade students in Yen Vien high school The result of the study varies among good and poor English readers This study has also given some suggestions to reduce their reading difficulties and enhance students’ reading capacity by equipping them with some reading strategies that help students obtain desirable results in learning reading v TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration……………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………… ii List of Tables…………………………………………………………………… iii Abstract………………………………………………………………………… iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study…………………………… 1 Aims of the Study……………………………………………………………….3 Research Questions…………………………………………………………… Research Methodology………………………………………………………… Scope of the Study……………………………………………………………….4 Significance of the study……………………………………………………… Design of the Study……………………………………………………………… PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 What is Reading and Reading Comprehension? 2.1 What is Reading? 2.1.2 What is Reading Comprehension? 2 Classification of reading……………………………………………………… 2.2.1 According to manner………………………………………………………….8 vi 2.2.2 According to the purposes of reading……………………………………… 2.3 Reading strategies and the importance of strategy training…………………… 2.3.1 Reading strategies…………………………………………………………… 2.3.2 The importance of strategy training………………………………………… 2.4 The teacher’s role in strategy training………………………………………… CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………… 2.1 Participants and settings of the study ……………………………………… 2.1.1 Participants: ……………………………………………………………… 2.1.2 Settings of the study ……………………………………………………… 18 2.2 Instruments of data collection …………………………………………… 2.3 Summary …………………………………………………………………… 19 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………………………………… 3.1 Results ………………………………………………………………………… 3.1.1 Questionnaires ……………………………………………………………… 3.1.1.1 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension………………………… 19 vii 3.1.1 Readers’ factors affecting reading comprehension …………………… 3.1.1 Reading strategies………………………………………………………… 3.1.1 3.1 Metacognitive reading strategies …………………………………… 3.1.1.3.2 Cognitive reading strategies …………………………………………… 3.1.1.3.3 Social/affective strategies ……………………………………………… 3.2 Interviews ……………………………………………………………………… 3.3 Summaries of main findings ………………………………………………… 3.3.1 Reading strategies ………………………………………………………… 3.3.2 Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension …………………………… 3.4 Discussion of main findings………………………………………………… PART 3: CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………… 4.1 Summary of main findings…………………………………………………… 4.2 Implications of the study…………………………………………………… viii 4.3 Limitations …………………………………………………………………… 4.4 Suggestions for further research …………………………………………… References…………………………………………… Appendix …………………………………………… -1- PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale of the study Internationally, teaching English has changed tremendously over the last few decades More significantly, the traditional teacher-centered approach has been replaced with the learner-centered one, which reflects a desire to explore ways of making responsive to learner’s need and interests and allowing to learners to play a more active and participatory role in the day-to-day teaching and learning processes Therefore, no longer does the teacher act as the centre of all instructions, controlling every aspect of the learning process Learners themselves now, more than ever, are sharing the responsibility for successful language acquisition and in doing so, are becoming less dependent on the language teacher for meeting their own individual language needs Students are advised to become more autonomous, to diagnose some of their own learning strengths and weaknesses and to self-direct the process of language development In the field of second language acquisition research, focus has been shifted away from finding perfect teaching methodologies to investigating why some learners are very successful in their language learning while others are not although they have made much effort learning the language Several studies have been carried out by Oxford (1990), O’Malley and Chamot (1990) Nunan (1991), Rubin and Thomson (1994) and Cohen (1998) have discovered that one of the most significant factors that distinguish successful learners from unsuccessful one is their learning strategies In other words, successful learners use some effective strategies to deal with the problems that emerge during their learning process while unsuccessful ones are not aware of learning strategies or they may use unsuccessful ones or inappropriate or ineffective strategies resulting in their failure in their language learning This finding has provoked interests among researchers and teachers in identifying learning strategies employed by good language learners with a view to training bad learners to be aware of effective learning strategies and use effective strategies in their English study In Vietnam, the English language plays an important role in the increasing development of science, technology, politics, culture and international relation There is a -2- greater demand for teaching and learning through the country for different purposes Moreover, English has become a compulsory subject in the state examination and it is one of three subjects for the entrance examination of some universities Some studies into this field have been conducted with different types of learners to find out particular strategies employed by effective and ineffective students in order to help the effective ones aware of leaning strategies such as Huyen Tran’s study (2004) on vocabulary learning strategies used by students of English at Qui Nhon university or Mai Duong’s study (2005) on writing strategies employed by the first – year students at HaNoi National University However, Such studies are scare, thus, more research should be done to help more learners use appropriate strategies in their different settings At Yen Vien high school, students are supposed to master all four skills presented in the standard text books “Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”and “Tieng Anh 12” After three years at high school, they have to pass the GCSE and the entrance examination of some universities and colleges with rather challenging tests Students can not pass such examinations without being equipped with effect strategies However, with the limitations of a high school, the number of students who even not know learning strategies is not small With ten-year experience of teaching English at Yen Vien high school, reading is considered one of the most difficult skill for Yen Vien’s students especially the 11 th grade ones Although they know the importance of reading and they have also tried their best, their test scores are not satisfactory due to both subjective and objective causes Their low reading comprehension results from not only their own causes as their lack of vocabulary, grammar and background knowledge, but also some other factors such as the textbook, motivation in class, the teaching staff and their reading teaching methods, schedule, administration and so on With a view to bettering the situation, Both teachers and learners have to adapt However, it is necessary for students to have appropriate reading strategies Therefore, I intend to examine the awareness of English reading (henceforth called reading) strategies of 11 th grade students at Yen Vien high school in this study and find out the differences in the strategies used by students of higher reading abilities and those of lower reading abilities Based on the finding, I am going to make some recommendations to improve the students’ reading proficiency -3- Aims of the Study The study aims at finding out the strategies Vietnamese 11 th grade students use when they read English so that improvement of the quality of teaching and learning English reading as a second language in the upper secondary education for Vietnamese students could be achieved To achieve this aim, the study sets out to obtain these specific objectives: To investigate the awareness and possible use of reading strategies of 11 th grade students at a Vietnamese high school when they read English, To explore possible ways for improving the students’ English reading proficiency level Research Questions To achieve the aims of the thesis, the following research questions were proposed with questions and addressing the first aim and question the second aim): 1) What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading th comprehension strategies of Vietnamese 11 grade students? 2) th Do the good readers (11 grade students) have different awareness and use of reading strategies from the medium and weak ones? 3) th What can be done to help Vietnamese grade 11 poor readers to improve their reading comprehension level? Research Methodology This study is to be conducted as a descriptive one that employed a written questionnaire and interview to collect information about students’ awareness and possible use of reading strategies The data collected were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively to help the author achieve the aim of the study, that is answers to research questions and to deal with aim number and research question with aim Scope of the Study -41- PART 3: CONCLUSION The study’s objective was to examine the awareness of English reading strategies, differences in the reading employed by the good, medium and poor readers among a group th of 300 11 grade students at the Yen Vien high school Two sets of data were collected via written questionnaires and individual interviews This chapter summarizes the main findings of the study based on the research questions discusses the implications and the limitations of the study and proposes some suggestion for further research 4.1 Summary of main findings Two research questions, as stated in the Introduction chapter, were addressed in the study: 1) What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading th comprehension strategies of Vietnamese 11 grade students? 2) th Do the good readers (11 grade students) have different awareness and use of reading strategies from the medium and weak ones? 3) th What can be done to help Vietnamese grade 11 poor readers to improve their reading comprehension level? The main findings can be summarized as followed Research question Based on the analysis of data from questionnaires and interview, it is conducted that good and medium readers used the same range of reading including metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies Concerning the metacognitive strategies, the readers used three namely advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention strategies The self-evaluation was not an on-line strategy was not concerned This could be due to the fact that the readers had to the reading tasks quickly and had no time for evaluating the task they had done -42- Regarding the cognitive strategies, the readers employed five strategies including resourcing, elaboration, inferencing, translation and summarizing in questionnaires Some other strategies that were found in questionnaire but not available in interview In summary, the strategies used by the readers in the questionnaires and interview categorized into metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective which consisted of many different subtypes However, the frequencies of use by the two groups were different, which might considerably affect their reading proficiency Research question Based on the analysis of data elicited from the questionnaires in the previous chapter, the study has come to a conclusion that there are some significant differences in the strategies use among the good, medium and poor readers These differences were shown in the frequency of metacognitive and cognitive strategies used by the three groups of readers In terms of metacogritive strategies, significant differences in the frequency of strategy use by the readers were found in questionnaires Specifically, the good and medium readers employed the metacognitive strategies of advance organizers, directed attention and selective attention with different frequencies While the good readers often previewed the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text before reading; read the questions to decide important information that should be noted; chose reading strategies according to their reading purposes; skipped inessential words; scanned for key words that were closely related to the questions in order to answer them, the bad readers only sometimes or rarely used those strategies Some significant differences in the frequency of cognitive strategy use between the groups were also reported The good readers significantly differed from the weaker ones in the frequency of grouping, inferencing, notetaking, summarizing, elaboration and rereading strategies use While the good readers often determined the word functions in a sentence while reading, guessed meanings of new words in contexts, noted down key words, mentally summarized main ideas of the texts after reading, related their knowledge to the new information and reread the difficult parts, the bad ones sometimes or rarely did so In contrast, the bad readers often employed the translation strategy during the reading process They tried to translate every word they read but still failed to have a full comprehension of the text -43- Regarding research question 3, the subjects' judgments of the important reading comprehension, the factors affecting reading comprehension, their motivation, habits and problems were examined in the study In general, the students' opinions were quite similar except for their reading motivation, reading habits and their views on reading strategies The good readers had better mo than the bad ones and particularly, they reading comprehension These factors students’ reading proficiency and their use of reading strategies In conclusion, the study has shown that the good or effective, medium ineffective readers significantl use The effective readers tended to use the metacognitive and cognitive strategies much more frequently than the ineffective ones This finding has confirmed and supplemented outcomes of metacognitive and lead to a higher reading proficiency Such other factors as motivation, and views on reading strategies proficiency 4.2 Implications of the study The study has made some English at Yen Vien high school It has attempted strategies based on O'Malley and Chamot's framework specific data of the study This categorization scheme reading strategies In addition, the study has found out the differences in by the good and bad readers Based on the findings, made to the teachers as follows: As shown in the study, the significant difference readers is that the effective readers used metacognitive more frequently than the ineffective ones This can be considered one proficiency Therefore, it is necessary for a teacher to be aware of this difference of ways to improve his/ her students’ reading proficiency on reading strategies -44- should examine Then, a number of metacognitive and cognitive develop their reading comprehension These strategies may include advance (i.e previewing specific information), knowledge, making inferences oral or written summary and so on In addition, the teacher strategies Perhaps, one of the most e that the teacher can refer to is the CALLA (Learning Language Learning Approach) model is applicable efficient students In their book, Learning Strategies O’Malley and Chamot (1990) described instructions on in their own studies such as Rubin and Thompson (1982), These are useful and valuable reference order to enhance his students' reading 4.3 Limitations While the study general, it is not free from limitation participants and collection instruments from interview may be insufficient number of participants Finally, this study was carried out within mentioned teaching methods may not be suitable to apply to other of learners' differences 4.4 Suggestions for further research th As the present study only investigated the awareness and use of 11 form students’ reading strategies, it would be useful if further research considers examining the awareness -45- th th and use of reading strategies of 10 form and 12 form students to see whether there is any dissimilarity among those students’ reading strategies Besides, it would be of greater value if further studies investigate the impacts of reading strategies – based instruction on English learners’ reading proficiency Based on the findings of this study, researcher may conduct instruction on metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies and determine whether such explicit instruction would improve students’ reading comprehension - I - References Anderson, N.J (1999) Exploring Second Language Reading: Issues and Strategies Toronto: Heinle & Heinle Publisher Doff A(1988) Teaching English: A training course for teachers Cambridge: CUP Goodman (1971) Psycholinguistic Universals in the Reading Process In P Pimsleur & T Quinn (Eds) Psychology of Second Language Learning Cambridge: CUP Greenwood, J (1985) The teacher of English as an International Language Collins: Glassgrow and London Harmer J (1989) The Practice Language Teaching Essex: Longman Group Ltd Hayes, B.L (1991) The effective teaching of reading In B.L Hayes (Eds), Effective strategies for teaching reading, 3-12 Boston: Allyn & Bacon Hosenfeld, C et al (1981) Second Language reading: A curricular sequence for teaching reading strategies Foreign Language Annals 14 Kenedy, C and R Bolitho, (1991), English for Specific Purpose Hongkong: MacMillian Press Ltd Lessard, C M (1997) Language Learning Strategies: An overview for L2 Teachers The Internet TESL Journal 10 Ngan, P (2006) Effective Reading Teachers articles Asian EFL Journal (15) th Pp 1-3 Retrieved August 16 , 2011 from the World Wide Web http://www.asian efl journal.com 11 Nunan, D (1991) Language teaching methodology Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education 12 Nutall, C (1982) Teaching Reading Skills in a foreign Language London: Heinemann Educational Books 13 O’Malley, J.M and Chamot, A.U (1990) Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition Cambridge: Cambridge University Press -II- 14 Oxford, R.L (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every teacher should know New York: Newbury House 15 Rivers, W (1964) The psychologist and The Foreign Language Teacher Chicago: University of Chicago Press 16 Scarcella, R.C and R L Oxford (1992) The pastry of language learning: The individual in the communicative classroom Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle Publishers 17 Stern, H.H (1992) Issues and Options in Language Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press 18 To Thu Huong, Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa, Nguyen Thi Thuy Minh (2008), ELT Methodology I: Course Book, English Department, CFL 19 Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP 20 Wenden, A and Rubin, J (1987) Learner Strategies in Language Learning New Jersey: Prentice Hall 21 Yorio, C A (1971) Some source of reading problems for foreign language learners Language learning 21 (1), pp 107 – 115 -III- Appendix PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ NHẬN THỨC CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT N VIÊN Tơi tên là: HỒNG THỊ OANH – giáo viên trường THPT Yên Viên, tiến hành nghiên cứu nhận thức học sinh lớp 11 chiến lược học đọc hiểu môn Anh văn Bảng câu hỏi nhằm phục vụ đề tài nghiên cứu tơi nói Đây khơng phải kiểm tra nên khơng có ý kiến sai Các ý kiến mà em cung cấp quan trọng cơng trình nghiên cứu tuyệt đối giữ kín Các liệu điều tra sử dụng cho việc nghiên cứu, khơng mục đích khác Em lựa chọn câu trả lời phù hợp cách học Xin chân thành cảm ơn hợp tác em! Phần I Theo em đọc hiểu quan trọng mục đích học tiếng Anh A hồn tồn khơng quan trọng D quan trọng B không quan trọng E quan trọng C quan trọng 2.a Em có biết cách để đọc hiểu tiếng Anh hiệu không? A Có B Khơng Nếu có, em nêu cụ thể cách cách viết vào khoảng trống đây: ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… 2.b Theo em, để đọc hiếu tốt, điều sau quan trọng em (em đánh dấu tích vào phương án em cho với thân mình) -IV- trọng A Có vốn từ tiếng Anh rộng B Nắm vững ngữ phápTiếng Anh C Có kiến thức tốt nội dung đọc D Có phương pháp đọc hiệu Phần II: Em đánh dấu vào phương án mà em cho với cách em sử dụng đọc Cách đọc hiểu Khi bắt đầu đọc đọc Tiếng Anh, em nhìn vào tiêu đề xem tranh ảnh minh hoạ kèm theo đọc dể đoán trước nội dung đọc Khi làm đọc hiểu Tiếng Anh, để tiết kiệm thời gian, em đọc nội dung đọc đến hai lần Em vừa đọc câu hỏi vừa quét mắt tìm đáp án trả lời câu hỏi Trước đọc em đọc câu hỏi kèm theo đọc để xác định thông tin quan trọng Em chọn cách đọc tuỳ ý tuỳ theo mục đích đọc - V - Trong đọc, em liên hệ kiến thức có với chủ đề mà em đọc Khi bắt đầu đọc em đọc tồn để hiểu thơng tin khái quát trước tập trung vào thơng tin chi tiết Khi đọc em có ý tìm câu chủ đề đoạn mà đọc hay không 10 Khi bắt đầu đọc, em tập trung vừa đọc vừa cố tìm đáp án phải trả lời 11 Trong đọc, em dịch câu đọc tiếng Việt trước trả lời câu hỏi 12 Khi trả lời câu hỏi kèm đọc, em xem lướt đọc ý tìm thông tin liên quan đến câu hỏi để trả lời 13 Khi gặp từ em nghĩa em dừng lại để tra từ hỏi bạn bè, thầy 14 Khi gặp từ em khơng biết nghĩa em cố đoán nghĩa từ dựa vào thông tin 15 Khi gặp từ em khơng biết nghĩa em cố đốn nghĩa từ dựa vào hiếu biết ngữ pháp, từ vựng để hiểu nội dung khó 16 Khi đọc câu tiếng Anh, em xác định -VI- chức ngữ pháp từ (danh từ, động từ, tính từ, trạng từ, giới, từ, chủ ngữ, vị ngữ ….) 17 Trong đọc em hơp tác với bạn để trả lời câu hỏi vấn đề đọc 18 Trong đọc, em ghi chép từ ý quan trọng 19 Sau đọc em đánh giá xem dự đoán nội dung hay sai 20 Sau đọc em tóm tắt ý đọc 21 Khi đọc đọc hiểu Tiếng Anh, em cho cần phải đọc từ đầu đến cuối đoạn văn em hiểu làm tập 22 Khi đọc em làm hiểu mà không cần biết hết tất từ THÔNG TIN CÁ NHÂN Họ tên: Lớp 11 A …… Điểm thi học kỳ II môn Anh:………… Điểm tổng kết năm môn Anh:……… Rất cảm ơn giúp đỡ em! -VII- Appendix 2: Interviews Questions (English translation) Do you like reading English? Why or why not? How you ever care for reading strategies? What is the biggest problem for you in comprehending English tests? Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to Purchase Now>> AnyBizSoft PDF Merger  Merge multiple PDF files into one   Select page range of PDF to merge Select specific page(s) to merge Extract page(s) from different PDF files and merge into one  ... topic of the research such as reading and reading comprehension, classification of reading, strategies and the importance of strategy training as well as the teacher’s role in strategy training... paid attention to reading strategies Only nearly half of the medium students not concentrate on reading th strategies This can inferred that English reading strategies are not much used by 11 grade. .. was presented 3.3.1 Reading strategies Overall, questionnaire data show that students may not be aware of theoretical “names” of effective reading strategies They, however, did use many strategies