VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY -HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------ NGUYỄN LÊ HỒNG HẠNH APPLYING SQ3R READING METHOD TO IMPROVE ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION OF LEARNERS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT AN ENGLISH CENTER IN HANOI ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP ĐỌC SQ3R ĐỂ TĂNG KHẢ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC VIÊN: NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI MỘT TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi - 2024 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY -HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------ NGUYỄN LÊ HỒNG HẠNH APPLYING SQ3R READING METHOD TO IMPROVE ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION OF LEARNERS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT AN ENGLISH CENTER IN HANOI ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP ĐỌC SQ3R ĐỂ TĂNG KHẢ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC VIÊN: NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG TẠI MỘT TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231. Đỗ Thị Phương Mai Hanoi - 2024 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the minor thesis entitled “Applying SQ3R reading method to improve reading comprehension of learners: An action research project at an English center in Hanoi” is the result of my own work in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Teaching Methodology at Faculty of Post – Graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University.
The research has not been submitted to any other university or institution wholly and partially. Hanoi, 2024 Approved by SUPERVISOR The researcher Dr. Do Thi Phuong Mai Nguyen Le Hong Hanh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis could not have been fulfilled without the help and support from a number of people. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Do Thi Phuong Mai for her precious guidance and valuable suggestions during this process. Second, I truly appreciate to my students who have participated attentively in the research. Finally, I am grateful to my family for their great support for this thesis could be accomplished. ii ABSTRACT This research is an investigation into a problem in learning English reading at an English center in Hanoi and interferes with a new reading method to change the situation.
It aims to explore the effect of using the SQ3R method on improving English reading comprehension skills. Despite being commonly mentioned as an effective way to improve reading skills, the SQ3R method has not received extensive research. Therefore, the teacher decided to choose this method to examine its impact on students’ reading comprehension ability. The researcher conducted the research at an English center in Hanoi with twenty participants.
A pretest and a posttest, a questionnaire, a teaching diary, and an interview were included. After applying the method, the result indicated that many students made progress in their reading comprehension skills. Additionally, they made comments and showed feelings in terms of involvement in reading activities, expectations of further application, and their preferred practices. iii LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Classification of reading strategies (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990) .99 Table 2: Data collection procedure .276 Table 3: Percentage of the students’ correct answers in the pretest and posttest .311 Table 4: Mean of the students’ correct answers in the pretest and posttest .311 Table 5: Paired Samples Test………………………………………………………32 Table 6: Correlation between the two tasks before the SQ3R method .333 Table 7: Correlation between the two tasks after the SQ3R method.
344 Table 8: Students’ agreement in their improvement in reading aspects .355 Table 9: The students’ attitudes after applying the SQ3R method. 377 Table 10: The students’ favorite practices when using the SQ3R method .377 Figure 1: Kemmis and McTaggart's (1988) cyclical AR model. 177 Figure 2: Pearson & Gallagher’s gradual release of responsibility model .255 Figure 3: Results of pre-test and post-test. 3030 iv Table of Contents DECLARATION.
iii LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES. iv PART A: INTRODUCTION. Rationale for the study. Aim and objectives of the research.
Scope of the research. Significance of the research. Structure of the research. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Reading and Reading Comprehension .1 Definition of reading. The importance of reading. The SQ3R method. Definition of SQ3R.
Steps of SQ3R. The importance of the SQ3R method. Previous studies related to the use of the SQ3R method.14 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Setting of the research.
Participants in the research. Data collection instruments. Pre-test and Post-test. Intervention: Instruction of the SQ3R method in reading lesson.
Steps of the Instruction in the SQ3R Method. Data Collection Procedures. Pre – test and Post – test. Questionnaire, Teaching diary and Interview .28 vi CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.
Findings of the research. The impact of the use of SQR3 in English reading lessons on the students’ English reading comprehension. Students’ attitudes towards the use of SQR3 in English reading lessons 35 3. Findings from the questionnaire.
Findings from the interviews. Findings from the teaching diary. Limitations of the research. Implications of the research.
Recommendation and suggestions for future research. i vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study Currently, globalization has made the world more connected, and as a result, the need for studying abroad and learning foreign languages has increases. Thus, the requirement of teaching and learning English has become a trend all over the country, and the English language is a compulsory subject in many Vietnamese schools.
Therefore, many students who want to improve their English proficiency choose to learn at English centers. Among the four English necessary skills, reading is one of the most necessary skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) that students have to handle to achieve certain language proficiency. According to Carnell (as cited in Duong Thi Huyen & Phạm Thi Thanh, 2022, p.81), “For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a second or a foreign language.” Plus, reading is a means for students to gain knowledge; hence, this skill is focused on English lessons. From my experience as a teacher of English, the students at an English center in Hanoi have troubles with reading comprehension, though they acknowledge the importance and urgency of reading skills.
Reading takes them a lot of time to finish a reading task, and they feel bored as well as inattentive while reading. Though the skimming technique is used, in some cases, the students still cannot grasp the main idea of the whole text. In order to improve students’ reading skills, I planned to apply the SQ3R reading method, a new method to understand the texts better and get higher performance in the reading part. Therefore, the question needed to be answered about whether this new reading method helps students work more efficiently with reading tasks.
Aim and objectives of the research The research aimed at improving English reading comprehension skills of the students at an English center in Hanoi through the use of the SQ3R method. The objectives of the research were as follows: Finding out the effectiveness of applying the SQ3R method in improving reading skills for these students Exploring the students’ attitudes towards the SQ3R reading method. Research questions This research is conducted to answer the following questions: 1) To what extent did the use of SQR3 in English reading help to improve the students’ reading comprehension? 2) What were the students’ attitudes towards the use of SQR3 in English reading lessons? 1. Scope of the research This research only focused on the teaching of the SQ3R method to the students at an English center in Hanoi in seven weeks, so applying other reading strategies or other subjects would be beyond the scope.
Significance of the research This research focused on examining the effect of the SQ3r method as a way to improve the students’ reading comprehension ability at an English center in Hanoi. If the application of the SQ3R method leads to good results, it can be used as a reference for wider scales. Plus, this research also investigated students’ attitudes towards the new reading method so teachers can find better solutions to their problems. Structure of the research The thesis is designed as follows: Part A: Introduction presents an overview of the research: rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, scope, significance and structure of the research.
Part B: Development includes three chapters: o Chapter I is the Literature Review, which represents theoretical issues related to reading comprehension. o Chapter II presents the Methodology of the research, which includes background information on the research context, a description of the participants, data collection instruments and data collection procedures. o Chapter III is the Data Analysis which shows findings and discusses findings. Part C: Conclusion provides a summary of the main points mentioned in the research, the conclusion drawn from conducting this research.
The limitations and suggestions are also mentioned in this part. 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Reading and Reading Comprehension 1.1 Definition of reading As we all know, reading is a form of entertainment, as people spend time reading newspapers, novels, comic books, etc. It reduces stress and relaxes people’s minds after a long day of working and studying.
Reading requires understanding the text, grasping its meaning or the author’s implication, and collecting useful information. There are different authors and researchers have their own ideas about how to define reading as follows: According to Frank Smith (2004, p.2), whose book was about the psycholinguistic analysis of reading, “reading is the most natural activity in the world.” The author gave a broad definition of reading, which means “making sense” of the world we live in from the beginning of our existence. It started when we were infants, and we explored the surrounding environment by “reading” it or, like the author claimed, “making sense” of it; therefore, reading is an innate behavior that human beings possess. The author also explained that reading was “a matter of interpreting, relating the situations you are in to everything you know already.
Not part of what you know, but everything, because all our knowledge hangs together.” When discussing reading from a text, Smith (2004, p.2) came to the conclusion that reading was interpreting an event from its context, and “All reading of print is interpretation, making sense of print.” Thus, interpreting the text and taking advantage of prior knowledge are what a reader needs to do when reading.138) put that: “reading means reading and understanding” and gave some detailed features of reading in her book “A Course in Language Teaching”: (1) We accept and decode letters to read the whole word; (2) We have to understand all the words to understand the meaning of the text; (3) The more letters or words appear in a text, the longer it will take to read it; (4) We come to conclusions from what we read; (5) Our understanding of a text comes from understanding the words of which it is composed. Though the author provided a very direct explanation of reading, she emphasized the need to fully comprehend a text by interpreting individual symbols, understanding words, and ultimately grasping the entire text. Another definition given by Grellet (1981, p.3) showed us: “Understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.” It is clear what the author wanted to say: after reading a text, the most important thing is what a reader gets from it. Plus, the amount of information that a person collects from the same reading materials is different; therefore, a reader should extract the information as much as he or she can.
Moreover, Brown (2003) offered another definition of reading: reading is a process of communication from the author.