The effect of prediction strategy on improving reading comprehension skills of non english majored students at ho chi minh university of industry (HUI)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ********************* LÊ THỊ HOA THE EFFECT OF PREDICTION STRATEGY ON IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT HO CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (HUI) Ảnh hưởng chiến lược phán đoán đến việc phát triển kĩ đọc hiểu sinh viên không chuyên ngữ trường Đại học Công Nghiệp TPHCM M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES ********************* LÊ THỊ HOA THE EFFECT OF PREDICTION STRATEGY ON IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS OF NON-ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS AT HO CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY (HUI) Ảnh hưởng chiến lược phán đoán đến việc phát triển kĩ đọc hiểu sinh viên không chuyên ngữ trường Đại học Công Nghiệp TPHCM M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: PHẠM HỮU ĐỨC, PhD Hanoi, 2014 DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I, LÊ THỊ HOA, declare that this graduation thesis is original and has not been submitted for assessment elsewhere I declare that this assignment is my own work and does not involve plagiarism or collusion Date: … / … / 2014 Signature LÊ THỊ HOA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my thanks to many people who have assisted my research work Firstly, my great appreciations go to the contribution of my supervisor Pham Huu Duc, Ph.D who spent time and energy helping me complete my thesis I am grateful to his valuable guidance and great insight into my thesis writing His guidance was indispensable to the design and completion of the study I am also grateful to him for his comments, correction and for her kindly encouragement and enthusiasm during the development of this study Secondly, my special words are also extended to my students They were very enthusiastic when studying with my instruction; they encouragedme in being confident to accomplish my practice completely Their support is greatly appreciated Next, I would like to thank my family for supporting me, taking care of me and encouraging me during the time I implemented the thesis Their love and expectation for me is a great encouragement to complete the thesis Finally, I also want to give acknowledgement to my friends who spent their time to help me during the process, gave me insightful comments for my thesis, and encouraged me when I was demotivated during this hard and stressful time ABSTRACT This study aims to emphasize the effect of prediction strategy in reading comprehension with the application of some techniques for pre-reading and whilereading activities to check the effect of prediction strategy after the lessons The participants were 52 English non-majored students who participated in the complete learning course This was indicated by students’ responses during the teaching and learning process It was also strengthened by the data from the questionnaires after Cycle in which the students pointed out that they enjoyed and interested in doing the reading activities using the prediction activities The important thing for teachers is that they need to consider the effective techniques used in improving prediction strategy in particular and reading skill in general in order to meet the need of the students and motivate them in learning reading comprehension skill TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEGDEMENT ABSTRACT TABLES OF CONTENTS DEFINITION OF TERMS LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Part A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims of the Study Research questions Scope of the study Importance of the study Method of the Study Design of the Study Part B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Reading skill 1.1.1 Definitions of reading 1.1.2 The importance of reading 1.1.3 Reading comprehension 1.2 Prediction strategy 11 1.2.1 Definitions of prediction strategy… ……………………12 1.2.2 Importance of prediction strategy ……………………………13 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 15 2.1 Participants and settings of the study 15 2.2 Data collection……………… 15 2.2.1 Data collection instrument……………………………………… .15 2.2.2 Data collection procedure 15 2.2.3 Data analysis procedure 17 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION……… 19 3.1 Findings ………………………………………… 19 3.1.1 Analysis from the reading tests 19 3.1.2 Response to questionnaire… 22 3.2 Discussion……………………………… 24 3.2.1 Having authentic reading purpose…………………………………….….24 3.2.2 Choosing authentic reading materials………………………… ……… 25 3.2.3 Improving background knowledge for further reading……………… 26 3.2.4 Improving vocabulary by reading as much as possible………………… 27 3.2.5 Combining prediction strategy with other strategies………… …………28 3.3 Pedagogical Implication 29 PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusion of the study………………… …… ………….………… …30 Limitation of the study………………………… Suggestions for Further Research…………… REFERENCES 33 APPENDIXES I PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale These days, there is no doubt that the English language is becoming something of a forerunner in the global communication It is the language of choice in most countries of the world It brings people together, gets out of the border of a country and brings the world closer As an effective means of international communication, English is used as the official language in many fields of life such as economics, politics, science, technology, sports and many others This leads to an increasing demand of learning English In many Asian countries such as Singapore, Philippine, Malaysia or Thailand, English is used as an official language besides their mother language; and Vietnam is not an exception ―English is now commonly used in exchange between, say, Japanese and Argentinean business people, or between Singaporeans and their Vietnam counterparts‖, noted Harmer (2007, p.13) In our country, more and more people consider mastering English skills as an important factor to improve their work, get higher position in their companies Thus, English is playing a very significant role in bringing the world together In the world integration, English is really an essential tool for the country development Universities and colleges in Vietnam including Ho Chi Minh city University of Industry (HUI) have tried their best to improve their students’ English quality to meet the demand of the country development However, learning another language is not easy at all With four macro skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening and speaking is most used in communication, even in daily life However, reading skill is also essential for us in order to update our knowledge because we have to use reading skill in reading newspaper, reading books or documents related to our profession With strengthened reading skill, EFL readers will make a greater progress and greater development not only in English but also in other academic fields Therefore, ―Reading skill need to be fostered so that learners can cope with more and more sophisticated texts and tasks, and deal with them efficiently: quickly, appropriately and skillfully‖, wrote Ur (1996, p.147) Aims of the research The research aims: - To investigate the effects of prediction strategy on the students’ reading ability; - To provide the teachers with some suggestions to make best use of prediction strategy in teaching and learning reading comprehension Research Question Based on the aims of the research, the author will attempt to answer the following questions: - What is the initial reading ability of the students? - Does prediction strategy affect students’ reading ability? - What can be done to improve prediction strategy? Scope of the study I have taught English to non-majored students at HUI for more than one year Most of them have difficulties in learning English macro skills Besides listening, writing and speaking, during the process of teaching English to non-majored English students, I found out that they really have problems in reading In other words, they not have right strategies for learning reading To each reading passage, they try to understand every word, stop and look up the dictionary whenever they reach the unfamiliar words Most students start reading immediately after they receive the text without trying to look at the title to think about the text’s topic before reading or trying to use their background knowledge to facilitate their comprehension This always takes the last meeting of Cycle showed that 96% (50 students) agreed that prediction strategy with those kinds of technique made the reading activity more interesting than before and it also motivated them in learning reading comprehension 3.1.2 Responses to the questionnaire Question Question 5.Có (How many/total?): 50/52Không (How many/ total?): 2/52 After finishing the lessons, a questionnaire with five questions was delivered to students to complete, and the result was positive For question 1, most of the students consider the lessons were useful to them We can see in the table above, the number of students choose number is 14 and 18 for number However, four students think the lessons are not very useful For question 2, the number of students who think that learning reading comprehension in this way is easy for them to understand is 42 (11 for number and 23 for number 2) Two students find a little bit difficult to understand Question is about the application of students in using English after the lesson This revealed that the number of the students who were able to apply the strategy in reading practice was not very satisfied There were only 29 students using it well while 13 students found hard when putting into practice For the question 4, after analyzing the result from the students’ responses, the researcher found that most of the students are having difficulties in reading comprehension because of their lack of vocabulary and background knowledge Most of the answers are vocabulary and grammar structure in reading comprehension, which makes them confused and harder to understand the reading passages Therefore, the result from question was not very positive In short, most of the students express their expectation to continue using this kind of strategy for the next classes They found that there was some effectiveness in their reading However,13 students got confused with the effectiveness of the strategy because they had difficulty in applying what they learned in the class into practice and they found that that did not have enough time to complete the reading passage if they try to use prediction strategy Therefore, they read naturally through the passage and passed the strategy 3.2 Discussion Based on the result of the findings, it can be concluded that although the prediction strategy has a positive effect on the students’ reading comprehension, students still have face some problem while they are reading because of some other factors such as the problem with vocabulary, activating background knowledge, using authentic materials, and scanning and skimming skills Considering with that result, there points that can be raised and discussed with regard to the findings in order to make students improve in reading comprehension skill 3.2.1 Having authentic reading purpose Reading with a purpose means approaching texts with a specific goal When possible, students can be asked to read a text from a specific point of view, depending on what the text might suggest Students must be reading for reasons that make sense and have relevance to them They have to decide your purpose of reading before going to read Now that you have a general grasp of the material, you need to define a purpose What information are you hoping to gain? This sounds like a simple question, but sometimes it is not Different readers can have drastically different objectives Thus, it is important for students to have a clear purpose and to keep in mind what they want to gain from the text If we have a clear purpose of reading, you will find down the pleasure in reading This makes your reading practice more comfortable and effective However, if you don’t define a purpose, it’s likely you’ll get bogged down by unimportant sections or ignore crucial ones The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know In addition, if you not know anything about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand You not retain much By clarifying what you need to know, you will be able to distinguish the important from the irrelevant and allocate your attention accordingly A clear purpose of reading usually enhances postreading discussion 3.2.2 Choosing authentic reading materials There is no reading without materials This means that the reading material should be suitable with each level and its context should be related to pleasure, information and general understanding Varied reading material not only encourages reading, it also encourages a flexible approach to reading Learners are led to read for different reasons (e.g., entertainment; information; passing the time) and, consequently, in different ways (e.g., skimming; scanning; more careful reading) Reading materials should not contain a large a mount of language that it is too difficult for most of the class In addition, a purposeful reading can occur with specially prepared texts that imitate real life counter parts but simple language Furthermore, the topic of the text plays an important role because how difficult or easy a text is depends not only on the language of the text but on what sort of knowledge the learners bring to the text and how much they like to read it Besides reading passages in course-book, teachers can select different materials from different sources such as books, magazines, newspapers, or even from the internet to make the materials more enticing and varying Reading a selection for which students have little background knowledge also makes comprehending the passage more difficult Students are much more likely to comprehend what they read if teachers help them connect new information to prior knowledge and experiences, plan ways to build their background knowledge, and increase their understanding of the world Sometimes, teachers should let their students select what they want to read about The principle of freedom of choice means that learners can select texts as they in their own language, that is, they can choose texts they expect to understand, to enjoy or to learn from Correlative to this principle, learners are also free, indeed encouraged, to stop reading anything they find to be too difficult, or that turns out not to be of interest 3.2.3 Improving background knowledge for further reading A successful reading process partly depends on the amount of background knowledge of the readers Background knowledge is the information that learners already know through process of reading or studying before While reading, using what they already know to understand the reading text is also a good way to gain the reading purposes quickly Having background knowledge will imply that students have a certain amount of knowledge of the subject they are reading about or related knowledge due to personal experiences and cultural background Using background knowledge to apply in reading texts is also another effective way to read successfully Moreover, using what readers already knew in the reading process helps readers understand easier and faster the reading contents It will help learners to have a correct orientation for the content of the whole reading text Therefore, students who not have an adequate amount of background knowledge on the subject of a text will have a lower comprehension of the text To activate students’ background knowledge, teachers can use many activities such as class discussion related to the text, or letting student watch a video clip about the reading topic In this way, students will have a clear imagination in their head about what they are going to read about This will make their reading process more fluent and effective To that, one need to be raised is to read as much as possible Learners should be encouraged to read the books they like as well as research the information given in internet and websites It helps learners to build up a good habit and explore the knowledge about the world outside 3.2.4 Improving vocabulary by reading as much as possible Vocabulary is an extremely important part in a language It is said that language is a set of vocabularies When we build a house, foundation is the most important Similarly, vocabulary is the first important thing need to be paid attention when we start learning a language Vocabulary is the basic tool in communicating as well as imparting and receiving knowledge We cannot understand or study a language without understanding of its vocabulary As seen in the study, students could not made good use of predicting strategies in their reading comprehension because of their deficiency in their prior knowledge of the text topic and the textual structure as well as their vocabulary Nevertheless, in many cases, even though the students understood all the linguistic cues, they failed to make predictions due to their insufficient relevant prior knowledge of the topic Therefore, it is vital that teachers help students broaden their knowledge and vocabulary, and this might be aided by extensive reading Teachers should frequently assign students reading texts of different topics and structures, then ask them to summarize each text in the form of network, or semantic map and note useful words and phrases Reading various kinds of materials will help students enhance their vocabulary knowledge Students, in my opinion, should read books, newspapers or any kind of English resources as much as possible The more you read, the more knowledgeable you become and with more knowledge come more confidence More confidence builds self-esteem The ability to read opens up new worlds and opportunities It enables us to gain new knowledge, enjoy literature, and everyday things that are part of modern life, such as, reading the newspapers, job listings, instruction manuals, maps and so on Books are evidently the best way to improve reading comprehension With effective reading, you get to know many things from the matter included in the books You need to develop a good vocabulary to improve reading comprehension, which can only be done by reading books Nowadays, there are many books available in bookstores that are exclusively meant for meliorating the readers’ comprehension skills This is the useful way for them to fulfill their knowledge In this way, they will use their knowledge for their future reading They enrich their vocabulary as well as their grammar, and they will remember them longer When you learn to read, you learn how to figure out the meaning of one word by reading the context of the other words in the sentence and from your background information about the reading tasks Reading everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying When students have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety, and monolithic cultural stereotypes begin to break down This will provide students a wide range of vocabulary in different fields in life In conclusion, reading is indispensable in learning process of any field, especially in language studying Reading skill benefits not only in our learning process, but also for the purpose of relaxation Through reading, you can also improve your vocabulary and grammar structures you find out when reading Moreover, it also contributes to develop your other skills because you can know more words to present your ideas in speaking or writing 3.2.5 Combining prediction strategy with other strategies The four key principles to developing reading skill are letting students use their prediction skill It means that teachers should not give students every explanation For example, when we give our students reading tasks, we should not give all definitions of all vocabulary; when we that, our students have to brainstorm, and predict the meanings depending on the context of the reading passage We should give chances for them to ask questions about the text or vocabulary just when they not find out the answers Using prediction skill, students will save time in looking up dictionary Moreover, it also creates a good habit for students in reading information and they will remember what they learn longer However in order to get the best result in reading comprehension, combination with other strategies such as skimming and scanning is necessary This requires the teacher with the good combination and methodology in transferring and guiding the students reading with their useful own ways of reading 3.3 Pedagogical Implication English teachers in general and teachers at HUI in particular can benefit from the present findings because they can modify their further reading teaching to really meet the students’ urgent needs The implications for teaching derived from the present research include the following points Firstly, the teachers are expected to encourage the students apply their learning strategy consciously and systematically We should try to make students aware of the importance of prediction strategy in learning reading Besides, we should help students be aware of there are various strategies they can combine while reading, not only prediction strategy Many students complain that they have many difficulties in learning and remembering new words Therefore, their total score of reading comprehension is also affected What we teachers can is to encourage students to overcome their emotional fear We should try to help learners build positive motivation, such as learning vocabulary is a job full of challenge For example, we can encourage students from time to time by never hesitate to give our praises to them Moreover, teachers must be knowledgeable about as many strategies as possible and introduces them to their students in order that students can approach and choose the most effective strategy with proper useful techniques for them Moreover, the teachers also have to adapt themselves to the needs of the students They must be flexible in designing lessons and providing authentic materials that fit to their students PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusion of the study In the world integration, English becomes the most popular language in the world However, learning another language is not easy at all We have to encounter many difficulties in learning English With four macro skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing, listening and speaking is most used in communication, even in daily life, but reading skill is also essential for us in order to update our knowledge because we have to use reading skill in reading newspaper, reading books or documents related to our profession Reading is very important and it is an essential skill for students who study English as a foreign language Therefore, improving reading comprehension skill for students is an important work to the teachers Finding the new ways of teaching to make it effective to students is also a challenge to teachers themselves It is important to apply suitable methods in teaching macro skills in general, and reading skill in particular for reading, prediction strategy is a family of reading strategies This study is conducted to emphasize the effect of prediction strategy in reading comprehension On conducting the research, the researcher also applied some techniques for pre-reading and while-reading activities to check the effect of prediction strategy after the lessons However, to be skilled in reading asks for their learners’ efforts and hardworking What can be drawn from the findings of the research is that the prediction strategy could increase the students’ motivation in doing the reading activities This was indicated by students’ responses during the teaching and learning process It was also strengthened by the data from the questionnaires after Cycle in which the students pointed out that they enjoyed and interested in doing the reading activities using the prediction activities The important thing for teachers is that they need to consider the effective techniques used in improving prediction strategy in particular and reading skill in general in order to meet the need of the students and motivate them in learning reading comprehension skill Limitation of the study Despite my effort to take all aspects of the research into consideration, the study still bore some limitations in terms of the data collection instruments Some of the limitations of this study include external validity, or the generalizability of the study Only 52 participants who participated in the complete study and each participant was an English non-majored student They are shy and not confidents to join in the activities Moreover, in the limited time and condition, the research process just ended in Cycle when the total learning score in reading of the students was 61.9 It would be more reliable if the researcher had more time to make it up to 70.0 In addition, prediction strategy is just one of reading strategies The research cannot have a comprehensive view on students’ reading learning strategies Suggestion of the study The present study explored the improvement that predicting strategy instruction has made in the subjects’ reading comprehension and determined effective techniques to teach these reading strategies, and this study, based on the findings of the research offered some suggestions for further research as follows: Since the prediction strategy can help the students’ reading comprehension ability and increase their interest in doing reading activities, it is recommended that English teachers incorporate the use of prediction strategy in the classroom environment by selecting effective materials to activate students’ background knowledge and their prediction abilities In addition, the prediction strategy can also be useful in teaching other skills such as listening and speaking Therefore, the research can also serve as a reference for other researchers to conduct further research Moreover, by doing the research, the researcher found that students also had problems with questions for scanning and skimming It was suggested that further research could be conducted on other reading scanning and skimming reading strategies Besides, new vocabulary appearing in the reading passages cause students some difficulties in reading For further researcher, it can be a great benefit if researchers can carry out the study on what to be done to improve students’ vocabulary This has advantages not only on students’ reading ability but also on their total learning of English in general Finally, It would be of great value if further research on the same issue was carried out with the think-aloud protocols with a larger size of the participants REFERENCES Abbot, Wingard, Greenwood and McKeating ( 1981) The Teaching of English as an International Language – A Practice Guide Cambridge University Press Adeniji& Omale (2010).Teaching Reading Comprehension University of Nebraska Byrnes D (1988) Technique for classroom interaction Longman Express Buzan (1997) The Speed Reading BBC Book Carrel (1983) Some Issues in Studying the Role of Schemata, or Background Knowledge, in Second Language Comprehension Southern Illinois University Doghlas (1994).Teaching By Principles, an 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Language and Foreign Language learning: issues & approaches Newbury House Publishers Rubin, J (1975) What “good language learner” can teach us TESOL Quarterly, (1) 41-51 Schmitt, N (1997) Vocabulary learning strategies In N Schmitt & M McCarthy Vocabulary : description, acquisition, and pedagogy Page 199 - 227 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Strong, Siliver, Perini &Tuculescu( 2002) Reading for Academic Success Corwin Press Ur (1996) A Course in Language Teaching – Practice and Theory Cambridge University Press APPENDIX Questionnaire: Give your comments on kinds of activities for prediction strategy on the lessons Circle the number you choose Question 1: These activities and techniques for prediction strategy are: very useful useful normal not useful not very useful Question 2: Learning English with this method for prediction strategy is: Very easy to understand easy to understand normal not easy to understand very uneasy to understand Question 3: These kinds of activities for prediction strategy help you while reading: 1.Very well Question 4: What are your difficulties in reading? Tick for the ones you choose Vocabulary Grammar structure Background knowledge Time consuming Other ideas: …………………………………… Question 5: Do you want to continue learning reading with these kinds of activities for reading prediction strategy? Yes No ... is the main indicator of the success of the employment of prediction strategy is In the first reading test in Cycle 1, the result of the test showed that the average score of the students in reading. .. initial reading levels; the two last was to evaluate the effect of prediction strategy on their reading comprehension skills Then, the questionnaires were administered to find out their reading strategies... application of some techniques for pre -reading and whilereading activities to check the effect of prediction strategy after the lessons The participants were 52 English non- majored students who