A study on possible effective pre-reading activities to improve reading skills for 2nd- year english majors at the military science academy

A study on possible effective pre-reading activities to improve reading skills for 2nd- year english majors at the military science academy

PART A: INTRODUCTIONI Rationale

In many second or foreign language teaching situations, reading receives a specialfocus There are a number of reasons for this First, many foreign language students oftenhave reading as one of their most important goals They want to be able to read forinformation and pleasure, for their career, and for study purposes In fact, in most EFLsituations, the ability to read in a foreign language is all that students ever want to acquire.Second, written texts serve various pedagogical purposes Extensive exposure tolinguistically comprehensible written texts can enhance the process of languageacquisition Good reading texts also provide good models for writing and provideopportunities to introduce new topics, to stimulate discussion and to study language.Reading, then, is a skill which is highly valued by students and teachers alike.

In process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam ingeneral, and at the Military Science Academy (MSA) in particular, reading has alwaysbeen offered a great deal of attention both from the teachers and the students

Like many others universities in Vietnam, English at the MSA is learnt and taughtin non-native environment, therefore, reading is not only considered as a means to gainknowledge but also a means by which further study takes place In other words, learners“read to learn” (Burns, 1988:11).

According to Carrel (1981:1), “for many students, reading is by far the mostimportant of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second orforeign language” This is especially true to the students at the MSA, where learners aremostly future interpreters, translators, or teachers of English in others Military Collegeswhose desires are to be able to handle subjects related to written materials in English andto work with their English-speaking colleagues and partners It is essential for them toacquire the ability to read English effectively and efficiently However, despite theteachers’ and students’ effort, students still often claim to have a lot of difficulties inreading English textbooks or English materials, and therefore, they sometimes read theminefficiently.

For the second-year students of English, although they have been learning Englishfor at least several years, it is still often difficult for them to understand a text or a passagein English, since they still lack vocabulary, grammar, reading skills and poor background

knowledge Besides, the teachers sometimes have to face with difficulties in dealing withthe students’ learning demand and newly introduced sources of materials In addition,teaching methods and teaching techniques in general, are still below the internationalstandard of education To find out the areas of students’ difficulty at the MSA and thecauses of their unsuccessful reading comprehension is necessary Therefore, these reasons

have inspired the writing of A Study on some possible effective pre-reading activities toimprove reading skills for the 2nd -year English Majors at the Military Science Academy.

It is hoped that the study will make some contributions to improve the learning of Englishin general, and the learning of reading in particular among the 2nd-year English majors atthe MSA The author also hopes that it will be possible to make suggestions for theteachers to improve the situation of teaching and learning reading at the MSA.

II Aims of the study

The main purposes of the study are to investigate pre-reading techniques employedby the teachers of English at the MSA, and to give a suggestion of some possible pre-reading activities that can be applied to teach the text book More Reading Power to thesecond-year students of English at the MSA.

To achieve these purposes, the study will focus on the following aims:

* To understand better and more fully the notions of reading and readingcomprehension, etc.

* To investigate the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards the pre- reading techniques.* To examine the students’ preference for pre-reading techniques.

* To suggest some possible pre-reading activities which are thought to be effectivefor teaching reading to the 2nd-year students at the MSA.

III Scope of the study

To improve reading skill for students of English at the MSA, the teachers can makeuse of various techniques and number of things should be done However, in this study, theauthor only intends to overview a brief of current situation of teaching and learning readingof the 2nd-year students of English at the MSA, and to suggest some possible activities thatcan be applied in the Pre-reading stage in order to motivate students in reading lesson aswell as help them to become good and effective readers.

IV Methods of the study

The study was carried out on the basis of qualitative research method includingquestionnaires and class observation.

Questionnaires are designed as a mean to make the researcher’s evaluation moreobjective The questionnaires are given to the second-year students and the teachers ofEnglish at the MSA with the hope to find out their attitudes towards pre-reading techniquesand their comments and suggestions for these activities Data were collected through thesurvey questionnaires and class observation.

Analyzing statistics from the survey questionnaire on reading activities conducted withthe cooperation of the both teachers and students at the MSA All comments, remarks,recommendation assumptions, and conclusion provided in the study based on the data analysis.

Besides, more information needed for the study is gathered through other methodssuch as class observations, informal interviews, and discussions with the teachers andstudents at the MSA.

V Significance of the study

The study highlights the importance of motivation to the reading skills in generaland to the pre-reading stage in particular Moreover, the findings of the study are thoughtto be useful for teachers of English to be aware of the essential role of the pre-readingactivities to the students’ motivation in reading lessons.

VI Design of the study

The study is composed of three parts: Part A-Introduction provides rationale, theaims, scope, methods, and design of the study Part B-Development consists of threechapters: Chapter 1-Literature review, conceptualizes the study’s theoretical background,

presents the concepts relevant to the topic of the thesis: reading and readingcomprehension, classification of reading, role of reading in foreign language learning,motivation and factors in teaching and learning reading Chapter one will be closed with

the importance of the Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson Chapter 2-The study,

presents the methodology used in the study It also shows the detailed results of the surveyand covers a comprehensive analysis on the data collected form questionnaires and class

observations Chapter 3-offers some major findings and suggestions of some possible

Pre-reading activities which are thought to be helpful for teaching Pre-reading to the 2nd-year

students of English at the MSA Part C- Conclusion is a review of the study, future

directions for further research and limitations of the study as well.

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1

LITERATURE REVIEW1.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the author mainly concerns with reviewing the notions of readingand reading comprehension The review includes the definitions of each notion andfollowed by the classification of reading, the importance of reading in foreign languagelearning, theory of motivation and factors in teaching and learning reading Last but notleast, the importance of the Pre-reading activities are also presented in this chapter as themain purpose of the research

1.2 Theoretical background of reading

1.2.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension1.2.1.1 Definition of reading

Reading is often referred to as the most important of the four language skills forEFL learners, as it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and receivevaluable linguistic input to build up language proficiency (Erten & Razı, 2003) We cannot be sure when reading activity begins, but we have to admit that reading is essentialactivity that provides a great contribution in obtaining knowledge It is obvious that in reallife we usually spend much time reading all sorts of things like books, magazines,newspapers, novels, stories However, sometimes we read but we do not understand whatthey mean, or can not understand the text we read In this case, it can not be called reading.So what is reading?

There have been numerous definitions of reading each of them is the reflection ofits author’s view of the reading process Anderson (1999: 1) explains this very neatly asfollows: “Reading is an active, fluent process which involves the reader and the readingmaterial in building meaning Meaning does not reside on the printed page or occurs inreading, which combines the words on the printed page with the reader’s backgroundknowledge and experiences.”

According to Harmer (1989: 153), reading is a mechanical process that “eyesreceive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message” Inhis definition, Harmer focuses on both two actions dominated by the eyes and the brain aswell as on the speed of the process “a reading text moves at a speed of the reader”, whichmeans that the readers themselves decides how fast he wants to read the text.

Sharing the same opinion, Smith (1985:102) defines “reading understands theauthor’s thought” He also added that “understanding print or even receivingcommunication can hardly be said to explain reading” The problem still remains how thereader understands the print or the message “It means that we-the reader-read the author’smind not the author’s words” Roe, Stood and Burns (1987:2) describes reading in a moreextensive way In their opinion, “reading is understanding written language”, “reading is acomplex mental process”, “reading is thinking”, or “reading comprehension isreconstruction, interpretation and evaluation of what author of written content means byusing knowledge gained from life experience.”

Another definition of reading was offered by Allen and Valletta (1977: 249) Intheir opinion, “reading is a developmental process” We learn reading not only to knowhow to read, to master the symbols, the sound, the language, the grammar etc, that used inthe text but also to understand the ideas, the information expressed in that text or todevelop the ability of reconstructing its content using our own words One more researchercalled Goodman (1971: 153) considers reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which thereader- a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encodedby a writer as a graphic display.”

Reading involves a reader, a text, and a writer Reading skills are developed in anactive process This process involves the surface representation encoded by a writer andends with interpretation of the written text and interchanges between the writer and thereader (Goodman 1969 in Carrell 1988) If the writer is careless, the reader may not get themessage If the writer makes demands that the reader cannot fulfill, the message will not bereceived, even though to another reader it might be clear If the reader is careless, readingwill result in incomplete interpretation The reader tries to interpret the text through his/herown experiences, but they may differ from the writer’s experiences This explanationproves that reading is not just an active process, but also an interactive one Reading isclosely linked with meaning For this reason, lack of shared assumptions presents the mostdifficult problem in reading.

To sum up, from all these opinions above, it is obvious that no definition canpossibly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is Each linguist’s definitionreflects what reading means as seen from his own point of view However, they all havesome features in common, they share the same ideas that reading means we-the readers

read the author’s mind not author’s word, and that reading means comprehending writtenlanguage and it employs a variety of skills In addition, they all concentrate on the natureof reading.

1.2.1.2 Definition of reading comprehension

In teaching and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading inparticular, reading comprehension plays an important part, it can be understood as theability to draw attention to the required information from the text as efficiently as possible.So what is reading comprehension?

According to Richard and Thomas (1987: 9), “Reading comprehension is bestdescribed as an understanding between the author and the reader” This point of viewconcentrates on the reader’s understanding of the message based on the individual’sbackground knowledge They stated that “reading is much more than just pronouncingwords correctly or simply knowing what the author intends: it is the process whereby theprinted pages stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual.”

In his book, Swan (1975: 1) pointed out that “A student is good at comprehensionwe mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum informationof a text with the minimum of understanding” For Roe, Stood and Burns (1987: 9):

Reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation, and evaluation of what author ofwritten content means by using knowledge gained from life experience.

Study the nature of reading comprehension, Grilled (1981: 3) indicated that“Reading comprehension or understanding written text means extracting the requiredinformation from it as effectively as possible” This means that the student can show hisunderstanding by re-expressing the content of the text in many ways such as summarizingthe text, answering questions etc.

From these theories above, it can be understood that reading for comprehension isthe primary purpose for reading; raising students' awareness of main ideas in a text andexploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension It is the processin which the readers - as they read, can recognize the graphic form and understand therelation between the writing and the meaning It means that after reading, students canmaster grammar structures, words, pronunciation etc and can understand the content of thetext and use it in their real life as effective as possible Furthermore, “reading withoutcomprehension is the meaningless” (Karolin and Karin, 1988: 2) Reading means

comprehending written language so when understanding break down, reading actually doesnot occur.

1.2.2 Classification of reading1.2.2.1 According to manner

According to Doff (1988), reading is divided into two main types: reading aloudand silent reading.

* Reading aloud involves “looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it”

(Doff: 70) and he considers reading aloud as a way to convey necessary information tosomeone else Very few people are required to read aloud as a matter of daily routine Thereaders are asked to read the text so loudly that other people can hear it Reading alouddoes not happen outside the classroom as Doff (1988: 67) said, “reading aloud is not anactivity we engage in very often outside the classroom”

Reading aloud has both advantages and disadvantages Natal (1966) sees readingaloud as an important aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation It helps students tomake the connection between sounds and spelling of letters and words and also assists theteacher to check students’ pronunciation Moreover, it is a technique for him to keep theclass under control, since when one student reads aloud, the others are asked to listen incase they may be required to continue the reading.

However, Greenwood (1985) criticizes this idea; he claims that students may unableto focus adequately on the text’s meaning when they highly concentrate on pronouncingthe words His point of view implied that there are also some negative effects that shouldbe taken into account in the process of teaching and learning that involves reading aloud.First of all, when reading aloud, students only focus on the pronunciation not on themeaning of the text The second thing is that when students take turn to read a text aloud,only one student is active; the others will do something else, since they do not have to read.In addition, this way of reading usually waste much time because students read in turn sothey have to wait one after one It can be inferred that there is little value in reading aloudif we want to improve the readers’ reading skills Therefore, the teachers as educatorsshould identify the level of their students and decide whether to apply reading aloud or notin teaching reading to their students.

* Silent reading is “the method we normally use with our native language and on

the whole quickest and most efficient” Lewis (1985: 110) Sharing the same idea, Doff

(1988: 67) defined silent reading as followed: “silent reading involves looking at sentenceand understanding the message it conveys, in other words making sense of a written text Itdoes not normally involve saying the words we read nor even silently in our heads”.Therefore, we can see that silent reading is an effective skill for reading comprehensionsince students do not need to read all the words of a text, they can read at their own speedand in case they do not understand a sentence they can go back to read again Whenreading silently, students not only obtain its main ideas in the shortest length of time butalso deeply understand its details and can answer the questions as well

To summarize, silent reading is one effective skill for reading process in generaland reading comprehension in particular, since the teacher can check his or her students’understanding easily and can adjust the reading materials and exercises to suit the students’ability Therefore, it should be applied in teaching and learning a foreign language.

1.2.2.2 According to purposes

People do not usually read unless they have a reason or a purpose for reading Theyalways have a need of some kind that can be satisfied through reading In the case of aneffective reader, his reason for reading will also determine his style of reading and therelevant reading skills to be used because the purpose could be very general when he readsfor pleasure or escape On the other hand, it could be specific like looking up a telephonedirectory for someone’ phone number he can not use the same way of reading.

According to Nutgall (2000: 38), there are two main types of reading, namely,intensive and extensive readings, these are not just two contrasting ways of reading but aninfinitive variety of interrelated strategies; both of them are complementary and necessary.

* Intensive reading (IR)

The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding ofthe text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced IR meansreading short texts to extract specific information Its main concern is for detailedcomprehension In IR, students normally work with short texts with close guidance fromthe teacher The aim of IR is to help students obtain detailed meaning from the context, todevelop reading skills- such as identifying main ideas and recognizing text connectors- andto enhance vocabulary and grammar knowledge Nutgall’s opinion about this kind of

reading is: “Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the close guidance of

the teacher or under the guidance of task which forces the students to pay great attention

to the text” Nuttal (1982: 23) “Intensive reading”, from Francoise’s point of view, “means

reading short texts to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity that involvesreading for detailed” Francoise (1981: 41) It can be inferred that IR often refers to thecareful reading of shorter, more difficult foreign language texts with the goal of completeand detailed understanding IR is also associated with the teaching of reading in terms ofits component skills Texts are studied intensively in order to introduce and practicereading skills such as distinguishing the main idea of a text from the detail, findingpronoun referents, or guessing the meaning of unknown words.

* Extensive reading (ER)

In everyday life, to read extensively means to read widely and in quantity In theearly part of this century, extensive reading took on a special meaning in the context ofteaching modern languages Some researchers such as Harold Palmer in Britain andMichael West in India worked out the theory and practice of extensive reading as anapproach to foreign language teaching in general, and to the teaching of foreign languagereading in particular

Carrell and Carson (1997: 49,50) stated that “extensive reading generally involvesrapid reading of large quantities of material or longer reading for general understanding,with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being read than on the language.”Although this definition provides an overview of ER, Davis (1995: 329) offers anotherdescription of ER from an English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom implementationperspective: “An extensive reading program is supplementary class library scheme,attached to an English course, in which pupils are given the time, encouragement, andmaterials to read pleasurably, at their own level, as many books as they can, without thepressures of testing or marks Thus, pupils are competing only against themselves, and it isup to the teacher to provide the motivation and monitoring to ensure that the maximumnumber of books is being read in the time available The watchwords are quantity andvariety, rather than quality, so that books are selected for their attractiveness and relevanceto the pupils’ lives, rather than for literary merit”

According to Grellet (1981: 2) ER means “reading a longer text usually for one’sown pleasure This is a fluency activity, mainly involving general understanding” Sharingthe same view, Hammer (1986: 497) claimed that: “Extensive reading would normally startwith reading for the main ideas or for general information then for general comprehension

and finally, after much practice, for details comprehension” ER is generally associatedwith reading large amounts with the aim of getting an overall understanding of thematerial Readers are more concerned with the meaning of the text than the meaning ofindividual words or sentences In fact, most of ER is usually done silently and outside theclassroom, it gives the students opportunities to use their knowledge of the target languagefor their own purposes Besides, it provides the valuable reinforcement of language itemsand structure already presented in the classroom, gives the students chance to update andenrich their language knowledge by reading the topics they like and read for enjoymentwithout consideration for pressure of time, intense concentration, and total comprehension.ER therefore, is regarded as an effective way for the students to improve their languagereading; it helps students enhance language learning in such areas as spelling, vocabulary,grammar, and text structure Besides, it gives students more positive attitude towardreading offers them greater enjoyment of reading, helps them to read with pleasure It isalso considered as an advisable sort of work for the students to increase and improve theirgeneral knowledge of the world as well.

Basing on the purposes of reading, people may be skimming or scanning as they arereading extensively.

* Skimming

According to Grellet (1981: 19) skimming appears when “we go through thereading material quickly in order to get its main points or the intention of the writer, butnot to find the answer to specific questions” And Nuttall (1982: 36) also stated that “Byskimming, we mean glancing rapidly through a text to determine whether a research paperis relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed aboutmatters that are not of great importance to us” In addition to the definitions of skimming,Wood (1990: 92) said that “When the reader looks at the content page of the book, or thechapter headings, sub headlines, etc This is sometimes called previewing Anotherexample is when reader glances quickly through a newspaper to see the main items of theday are This will often mean just glancing at the headlines” That means when we quicklyto get general impression to see whether the text is useful to us, it is not necessarilysearching for a specific details and key words Skimming provides an overview of the textso it is beneficial to look at chapter/ section headings, summaries and opening paragraphs,

therefore, the purpose of skimming are to check relevance of the text and to set the scenefor more concentrated effort that is to follow if the text is useful

To sum up, skimming is a very useful reading skill for students, and it is advisableto apply at the first stage of teaching reading with the hope that it can help them to have anoverview of what they are reading Moreover, it will be easier for them to deal with theother tasks that followed.

* Scanning

Based on the theory of scanning made by Williams (1986: 100) “Scanning occurswhen a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point ofinformation”, it can be understood that scanning is very high speed reading When youscan, you often have a question in your mind You do not read every word, only the wordsthat answer your question Practice scanning can help you to skip over unimportant wordsso that you can read faster Scanning is another useful skill of reading which involvesfinding a particular piece of information that we need In scanning, we-the reader, usuallyfocus on searching the information we want, moving our eyes quickly along the lines Thatis why scanning is widely used in everyday life For example, you might scan the list ofnames in a telephone directory in order to find a phone number It can also be usuallypracticed with variety of sources such as dictionaries, indexes, advertisements, magazine,newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, labels, or reference materials and so on Scanningis regarded as a useful and important technique that helps students understand the gist ofthe texts well

Generally speaking, there are different styles of reading and they are determined notby the texts but by the readers’ reasons for reading An effective reader is the one who canadapt his flexibly according to his purpose of reading A reader skims through the text tosee what it is about before scanning for specific information he is looking for He does notchoose the text either extensively or intensively To understand a text, these types ofreading are not used separately but in a combination altogether

1.3 Teaching and learning reading skills

1.3.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning

In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the teachingand learning of reading are always received much attention, since it is regarded as one ofthe most important major skills as what Carrell (1971: 1) stated: “for many students,

reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as asecond or foreign language” This is also true for the MSA, because at our academy,reading is an active skills namely speaking, listening and writing To master reading skill isalways challenging task that requires students a number of factors: a good competence ofEnglish grammar, rich vocabulary, and reading techniques First of all, reading helpsstudents learn to think in English, enlarge their English vocabulary, improve their writing.Richard (1993:4) claimed that “reading may help to increase knowledge of the targetlanguage through exposure to new vocabulary and grammatical structures” There is aclose relationship between reading and vocabulary knowledge, because while reading, thereaders know most of the words in the text already, and they can also determine themeaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the contexts Therefore, the best way toacquire a large vocabulary is to read It is understandable that anyone who has a largevocabulary is usually a good reader

Besides, Richard (1993: 4) also stated that “reading in the new language is also animportant way to learn about the target culture”, which means that reading provides thestudents with a wide range of interesting information, helps them understand the ways oflife, behaviors, thoughts and other aspect of the native people and it is also a good way tofind out about new ideas, facts and experiences Therefore, they can master vocabulary,grammar and the background knowledge or cross-cultural problems that they encounter.In other words, reading is very important to the foreign language learners because it widentheir knowledge of language and life In the context of MSA, it seems to be the mostimportant skill to the students of English since their main purpose is to understand thewritten texts.

1.3.2 Factors in teaching and learning reading1.3.2.1 Teacher’s role

Many linguistics state that the teacher is the most important factor in teachingreading In a reading class, the teacher plays so many roles, such as an organizer, amanager and a counselor, an instructional expert, so he or she should be a guide to assist,encourage them, employ various types to support the students develop reading skills He orshe also the person who provides the students with an anxiety-free atmosphere which helpsthem feel free to join new reading style, practice to master new strategies, work underpressure of time.

Besides, linguistics point out an essential element of the teacher’s role-a modelreader According to Nuttall (1982: 192) “showing that you are a reader means carryingbooks around with you, referring to books as you teach, reading out brief passages thatmay interest students, talking about what you are reading at the moment, and handlingbooks as if you loved them” He also states that “teacher’s job as providing, first, suitabletexts and second, activities that will focus the students’ attention on the texts”

1.3.2.2 Students’ role

Obviously, students themselves play an important role in improving their ownreading skills Nuttall (2003: 33) provides several major roles for the students in a readinglesson First, they should “take an active part in reading” This is the first and foremostresponsibility of the learners They have to be active and take charge of what they do.Second, students have to take the risk of making mistakes because a mistake is anopportunity to learn The next thing is “monitoring comprehension”, which means studentsneed to understand how texts work and what they do when they read They have to learnhow to carry on a dialogue with the text The last thing for them to do is learning not tocheat oneself, students who do not want to learn to read can easily cheat, but in fact, theyare cheating themselves, it is just a waste of time and their opportunities as well

1.3.2.3 The reading texts

It can not be denied that reading texts play a crucial role in teaching and learningreading because through them new grammar, phonetic and lexical items of the targetlanguage are introduced Furthermore, texts are also means to help students enrich theirbackground knowledge and vocabulary as well In reading lesson, students are supposed tounderstand the texts correctly as much as possible, learn some new language items e.g.words, structures, and use what they have got from the text through reading tasks andcommunication activities that follow Therefore, in teaching reading, the teacher shouldpay much attention to the following aspects such as language content, vocabulary andgrammatical structures, types of reading activities, though it is not simple thing to do aswhat Buck, G (2001) states: “Providing suitable texts is not a simple matter It takes time,effort and some expertise”.

1.4 Theoretical background of motivation1.4.1 Definition and types of motivation

It is common knowledge that motivation is vast and complicated subjectencompassing many theories Motivation is thought to be important and inevitable in most

fields, without which one is difficult to succeed Most definitions of motivation reflect thatmotivation is an internal state or condition that serves to activate or energize behavior andgive it direction Kleinginna (1981: 6) defines motivation as “a desire or want thatenergizes and directs goal-oriented behavior” Sharing the same point, Brown (2000: 160)indicates that “motivation is some kinds of internal drive which pushes someone to dothings in order to achieve something” Motivation is also suggested by Woolfork (2001:136) as “an internal state that arouses, directs and maintains behavior”.

Kinds of motivation and their features have been discussed by scholars andpsychologists, who refer to motivation which comes from inside as well as from outside.According to the researchers, there are many different kinds of motivation such asIntegrative, Instrumental Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Global Situational, and Tasks Among them,intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have an important part in classroom motivation and theyare partially accessible to teacher influence.

* Intrinsic Motivation (IM)

According to Wlodkowsk (1991) intrinsic motivation refers to “motivation toengage in an activity for its own sake” Sharing the same point, Reeve (1996) defines thatintrinsic motivation “is the natural tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as wepursue personal interests and exercise capabilities” Raffini (1996) also states that “whatmotivates us to do something when we do not have to do anything” The factors thatsupport intrinsic motivation are competence-feeling that you know how to do things,autonomy-being able to perform an activity by yourself without external help andrelatedness-connection with your social environment like helping the others This can beunderstood that intrinsic motivation comes from the individual, or in other words, fromone’s interest or curiosity.

* Extrinsic Motivation (IM)

We experience extrinsic motivation when we do something tin order to earn a gradeor reward or when we are not interested in the activity for its own sake Harmer (2001)indicates that extrinsic motivation is “caused by any number of outside factors such as theneed to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward or the possibility of future travel”

Most writers agree that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation interact with each otherand play an important role in second language learning As a result, students can be eithermotivated by internal or external factors depending on the circumstances and conditionsthe activity is performed

1.4.2 The importance of motivation in second language learning

As mentioned above, motivation is essential to success in most field of learning Wewill almost certainly fail to make the necessary effort without motivation Many studieshave proved that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning.Brown (1990) shares this point of view by claiming that “a learner will be successful withthe proper motivation”.

There has been a great deal of research on the role of motivation in second languagelearning However, it is not simple for researchers to indicate precisely how motivation isrelated to learning This can be explained that “motivation in second language is a complexphenomenon, which can be defined in terms of two factors: learners’ communicative needsand their attitudes towards the second language community” (Lightbown and Spada,1999) Motivation is one of the main determining factors in success in foreign or secondlanguage learning According to Oxford and Shearing (1996: 121,122) “motivation isimportant because it directly influences how often students use L2 learning strategies, howmuch students interact with native speakers, how much input they receive in the languagebeing learned (the target language), how well they do on curriculum-related achievementtests, how high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they persevere andmaintain L2 skills after language study is over… Therefore, motivation is crucial for L2learning, and it is essential to understand what our students’ motivations are” In theirresearch on motivation, Brown, Mallow, Crooks, and Schmidt seem to be in favor ofintrinsic orientation However, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are necessary forlanguage learners, especially for most Vietnamese learners, who are often influenced bysocial and institutional factors like finding better job opportunities as well as pressure ofexams That is why it is essential to make the learners aware that both intrinsic andextrinsic motivations are beneficial in second language learning

1.4.3 The importance of motivation in learning reading

Study on the importance of motivation in learning reading, Redneck and Lester,(2000: 5) state that: “motivation is one of the most important ingredients in skilledreading” You can realize that you are more engaged when you are reading something thatinterests you There are many factors that can help you become interested in what you arereading, such as: your thoughts, feelings, interests, and your background knowledge.Reading motivation refers to the desire to read, even when not required to do so Reading

motivation involves seeking out opportunities to read for curiosity, knowledge, andinvolvement Researchers, who study on reading, recognize that in order to create lifelongreaders, endowing the learners with proficient reading are not enough They also need tohave internalized motivation Besides, reading material is another important factor thatgreatly influences the students’ motivation in a reading lesson First of all, if the readingmaterial is interesting and relevant to the students, it will motivate them to read more.Reading material should have suitable contents, this means, the texts are consideredsuitable will tell the students thing they do not know and introduce them to new andrelevant ideas Secondly, reading material’s language items such as vocabulary andgrammatical structures may have an impact on the students’ motivation Through the texts,the students can understand the way the others feel or think and make them read forthemselves In addition, teacher also poses an important factor in motivating the students ina reading lesson The teachers play the key role in creating a good classroom environment,since it has a powerful effect on the encouragement or discouragement of motivation tolearn Furthermore, the teachers’ activities and tasks are the key component to the students’motivation learning reading skill Therefore, the teachers should aware of their students’needs, including their motivation for reading and the purpose that reading has in their lives.They should provide suitable techniques to help the students to develop their competenceas readers during the reading lessons.

1.4.4 Definition and the importance of Pre-reading activities in learning reading

Different researchers such as Lazar (1993: 83), Chen and Graves (1995: 664),Taglieber, Johnson and Yarbough (1988: 456), and Moorman and Blanton (1990: 176)have provided many definitions of Pre-reading activities Lazar for example, defines pre-reading activities as activities that help students with cultural background, stimulatestudent interest in the story, and pre-teach vocabulary Chen and Graves define Pre-readingactivities as “devices for bridging the gap between the text’s content and the reader’sschemata”.

Focusing on L1 reading instruction, Taglieber, Johnson and Yarbough (1988: 456)point out the motivational aspect of Pre-reading activities According to these writers, pre-reading activities activate or develop prior knowledge, provide knowledge of the textstructure and also establish a reason for reading.

It can not be denied that Pre-reading activities play a crucial important role inmotivating the students through the reading lesson The aim of using Pre-reading activitiesis to activate the reader’s background knowledge, to prevent failure, and to support thereader’s interpretation of the text Employing Pre-reading activities in the first stage of thereading lesson can promote interaction between the reader and the text Ur (1996)emphasises that the aim of Pre-reading activities is to provide anticipation and activatereader in the next stages of the reading process The purpose of using these activities is todevelop a better self-awareness of the relationship between the reader’s meaning and theauthor’s meaning; and to help readers understand the teacher’s expectations and views

1.5 Summary

In this chapter, the relevant literature which has helped from the theoreticalbackground and conceptual framework for the study is presented First, definitions ofreading and reading comprehension have been given Second, some kinds of readingsuggested by different theorists have been presented and taken into consideration What ismore, concepts and ideas about motivation in general and in second language learning inparticular have been mentioned In addition, the importance of motivation and the factorsaffecting the students’ motivation in learning reading skill as well as definitions and theimportance of Pre-reading activities have also been reviewed The next chapter will displaythe methodology and findings of the research in the light of the theories mentioned above

Chapter 2

THE STUDY2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the author attempts to outline two parts of the study The first partfocuses on the current situation of teaching and learning reading skill at the MSA, in whichthe description of the subjects as well as settings for the study and instruments arediscussed The second part is an analysis on the data collected from the surveyquestionnaires and the class observation

2.2 Situation analysis2.2.1 Aims of the study

Being a teacher of English at the English Department, MSA for over ten years, I havedecided to carry out a survey on pre-reading activities conducted by the teachers and studentsat the MSA in order to find out whether the assumption above is true or not Finally, I willcome up with a suggestion of some possible pre-reading activities with the hope to motivatestudents in reading lessons as well as to improve their reading skills in general.

2.2.2 The setting of the study

This study was conducted at the MSA, where the author is teaching The Academyhas been in operation for more than fifty years It is the unique Military College of theMinistry of Defense that train teachers, translators, interpreters and others who needforeign languages in their jobs English is only one of many other languages taught such asFrench, Chinese, Russian, Thai, etc The students have to go through a four-year courselearning both background and specialized knowledge.

Like other languages, in the English Department, English is taught in a formalsetting known as a classroom The teaching is divided into two stages During the firststage, students spend the first two years studying general English and the four macrolanguage skills such as speaking, reading, listening and writing under the guidance of theteachers Usually, three or four teachers are in charge of a class, each of them isresponsible for teaching one or two language skills using certain textbooks selected by thestaff of the Department and additional materials chosen by the teachers themselves At thesecond stage, the students have to spend time on studying other subjects like grammar,phonetic, lexicology, country study, translations, methodology English and Americanliterature, etc The students have English classes almost every working day However,

class time spent for reading skill might not be sufficient enough; particularly at anintermediate level because there are only two periods of reading per week (each periodlasts for 45 minutes)

Furthermore, the students learn English in the Vietnamese context and do not haveany chance to be in contact with the native speakers, thus, they are only learn English in aforeign language setting This is another obstacle that prevents them from masteringEnglish in general and the reading skill in particular.

2.2.3 Subjects

This study was carried out with the participation of 30/45 full-time teachers agedfrom 25 to 45 (half of them have been in Great Britain, Australia, America and India forfurther training) and 80/110 second-year students and they are learning text book MoreReading Power.

(*) Of the 30 teachers, they all have Diploma Degree in English while twenty ofthem have M.A Degree in Education, Linguistics, or International Relations and anotherone has Ph.D Degree in Linguistics Most of them have at least three years of teaching,therefore, with no doubt, they are experienced and enthusiastic teachers, they are alwayswilling to help their students overcome the difficulties and make progress in learningEnglish These teachers are now teaching English to the students of different courses at theMSA: full time, short time courses (These courses last for about two years and they areused for Army Officers who have Diploma Degree in other foreign languages and now areserving in different branches of the Army belonging to the Ministry of Defense).

(*) The 80 students under investigation are in the second term of the second year atthe English Department of the MSA (both cadet and civilian students, male and female).These students’ ages are between 20 and 22 years old They are supposed to have quite anequal knowledge of English before entering the MSA since most of them have learntEnglish for at least 7 years (from grade 6 to grade 12 at school) Moreover, they all passeda very challenging entrance exam Some of them come from Hanoi, the rest come fromdifferent provinces around the country These students were chosen from 110 second yearstudents during the school year of 2006-2007 They have completed their first three termsof the four-year course Of course it was very difficult to select a sample of individualssince the students had already assigned to four different classes

2.2.4 Reading materials

2.2.4.1 An overview of the textbook More Reading Power

English has been made compulsory in the curriculum of our Academy It is mainlytaught to those who work for the Ministry of Defense and most of them are army officers-to-be When they enter the academy, they continue to study English for at least four years.During this time, they are divided into two stages: The first stage is for pre-intermediateand intermediate levels The second one is for upper-intermediate and advanced levels Thestudents have to work very hard to gain knowledge of English to support for their jobswhen graduating since they use English as main tool in their work For the last severalyears, English teaching methodology has been improved much and course-books have

been changed yearly to meet the demand of the students at the MSA The text book More

Reading Power is chosen as a core text book for teaching reading to the second year

students at our Academy They have only 30 periods of reading for each term, whichcounts for 60 periods for the whole second year, so the teacher who teaches reading has to

select only some typical reading lessons in the textbook More Reading Power for teaching,

but not all the lessons included in the book Other texts have been read by the studentsthemselves at home as homework or reference materials.

2.2.4.2 Structure of the textbook More Reading Power

Considering the need to learn reading at the MSA, the importance role of reading in

the students’ future job and its practical purposes, More Reading Power appears to be one

of the most suitable and productive textbook for second year students Many students have

a conceptualization of reading which is interferes with their reading in English More

Reading Power aims to help students acquire an accurate understanding of what it means

to read in English Student awareness of reading and thinking process is further encouragedin many parts of the book by exercises which require them to work in pairs or smallgroups In discussion with others, students need to formulate and articulate their ideasmore precisely, and so they also acquire new ways of talking and thinking about a text.Students are also required to write and then read each other’s work so they can experiencethe connections between reading and writing This book is different from other reading

books More Reading Power is divided into four parts so the learners can practice in four

different kinds of reading skills.

Part one: Reading for Pleasure

Many students have never learned to enjoy reading for pleasure (readingextensively) in English We all know that in order to be a good reader, it is necessary toread a lot Students must understand the importance of reading extensively, and then theymust be encouraged to develop the habit of reading regularly for pleasure

In this part, students are instructed to select books to read for pleasure or individualbasic These books should be neither too easy nor difficult They should not be books thatare required in other courses that students have already read in translation Most important,students should be encouraged to choose any books they want such as: fiction, nonfiction,literature, or popular culture What concerns most is that the book is of interest to theindividual student and that the student actually wants to read it

Part two: Reading comprehension Skills

Reading is a very complex task involving many different skills In this part of the book,students will practice some important reading comprehension skills Each new comprehensionskill is introduced with a rationale and practiced in a series of exercises sequenced from simpleto more difficult ones in order to build up the students’ mastery of the skill The skills coveredinclude both “top-down” (concept-driven) and “bottom-up” (text-driven) models of reasoningand comprehending Through which they will learn to think in new ways about what they arereading And they may find that their reading comprehension in their native language will alsobe improved There are ten Units in this Part:

Unit 1: Scanning

Unit 2: Previewing and Predicting

Unit 3: Vocabulary Knowledge for Effective ReadingUnit 4: Topics

Unit 5: Topics of ParagraphsUnit 6: Main ideas

Unit 7: Patterns of OrganizationUnit 8: Skimming

Unit 9: Making inferencesUnit 10: Summarizing

The exercises in this part are grouped under headings which refer to the followingspecific skills and areas:

* Scanning: Speed is essential skill that mainly discussed in unit one of this part,

students are encouraged to scan different sources of materials under pressure of time Theyare also given an opportunity to practice asking and writing questions which helps themlearn to ask themselves questions as they read

* Previewing and Predicting: Before reading a passage, the students usually ask

themselves what they know about the subject matter Previewing and Predicting makeeasier to see what information they already know about what they read the passagePreviewing and Predicting are considered to be essential skills for a good reader that helpstudents predict or make some educated guesses about what is in the passage Thesereading skills also encourage students to get some ideas about what they will read processthe information more quickly and will also be able to follow the writer’s ideas better

* Dealing with unfamiliar words: As we all know that, in the process of language

learning in general, learning of a foreign language in particular, vocabulary plays a crucialimportant role This part tries to convince the students that it is not always necessary tolook up the words in the dictionaries It also mentioned some advantages to guessingmeaning and points out that there are multiple clues to meaning such as: guessing unknownvocabulary, guessing meaning from context in sentences, using grammar to guess wordmeaning and recognizing words that connect ideas.

* Understanding the topics: When the students read for the meaning, they should

begin by looking for the topic This helps them connect what they read to what theyalready know Through the exercises provided in these units, students are required tochoose topic of a group of words, or identify the topics from the words and paragraphsgiven, etc.

* Extracting main ideas: Sometimes it is difficult to see what the main ideas of a

passage are, or to distinguishing between important and unimportant information Theexercises in unit six of this part encourage students to read for the general sense rather thanfor the meaning of every single word.

* Understanding text organization patterns: Students may have trouble in seeing how

a passage is organized The exercises in unit 7 of this part give practice in recognizing howsentences are joined together to make paragraphs form the passage, and how thisorganization is signaled Besides, the students are also work with four of the most commonpatterns of organization such as: Listing, Sequence, Comparison/ Contrast and Cause-Effect