TABLE OF CONTENTS SUB COVER PAGE STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS .4 LIST OF TABLES .5 LIST OF FIGURES .6 LIST OF APPENDICES. Research aims and objectives. Structure of the thesis .11 CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW. Related recent researches.
Definition of reading comprehension. Understanding vocabulary in reading comprehension texts. The improvement of reading comprehension. Strategies in reading comprehension.
Definition of strategies. Types of reading strategies. Difficulties with reading comprehension strategies faced by students at Vocational Schools. Students and teachers‟ roles in reading comprehension.
Students‟ roles in reading comprehension. Teachers‟ roles in reading comprehension.33 CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Students' points of view on reading comprehension strategies. The importance of reading comprehension strategies.
Common kinds of reading comprehension strategies. Teachers' roles in reading comprehension strategies. Factors related to practising reading comprehension strategies. Teachers' attitudes in teaching reading comprehension strategies.
Students' use of reading comprehension strategies in their technical reading lessons. Frequent practice of reading comprehension strategies. Capacity of evaluating students' reading comprehension strategies. Evaluation of the results of implementing reading comprehension strategies49 4.
Advantages of reading comprehension strategies in students' learning process 48 4. Students with reading comprehension strategies' practices. Importance of reading comprehension strategies in students' learning. Advantages of reading comprehension strategies.
Disadvantages of reading comprehension strategies in students' learning process. Affirmation of difficulties in reading comprehension strategies. Difficulties students encountered in using reading comprehension strategies55 4. Ways of overcoming difficulties in reading comprehension strategies .55 CHAPTER 5 - CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS.
Suggestions for further research. ESP: English for Specific Purposes 2. VS: Vocational Schools 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 4. Common kinds of reading comprehension strategies .2 Advantages of reading comprehension strategies .3 Difficulties students encountered in using reading comprehension strategies .53 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.
The importance of reading comprehension strategies .2 Teachers' roles in reading comprehension strategies. Factors related to practising reading comprehension strategies. Teachers' attitudes in teaching reading comprehension strategies. Frequent practice of reading comprehension strategies.
Students' evaluation of reading comprehension strategies. Results of implementing reading comprehension strategies. Difference between students who employ reading comprehension strategies' practices and students who do not. Importance of reading comprehension strategies in students' learning.
Ways of overcoming difficulties in reading comprehension strategies55 6 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1A: Questionnaire for students Appendix 1B: Results from the questionnaire for students Appendix 2A: Interview questions for students Appendix 2B: Results from the interview for students Appendix 3A: Interview questions for teachers Appendix 3B: Interview results for teachers Appendix 4: Questionnaire for teachers 7 ABSTRACT The thesis is an investigation into reading comprehension strategies used by ESP Students at Vocational Schools in Thua Thien Hue Province. The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the difficulties encountered by students in learning English technical reading and by teachers in teaching the suitable reading strategies in English for specific purposes. This is of great significance for reading comprehension is part of English tests and exercises in the English training program at VS in Thua Thien Hue Province. Thus, when students learn the strategies for the reading, it is important for them to develop the abilities of critical reading to improve their reading as well.
In terms of methods and data collection, the thesis employs both quantitative and qualitative approaches together with questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. The findings show that most of the students are aware of the advantages of using reading comprehension strategies. From the findings, some implications are suggested for students to learn more effectively with reading comprehension and for teachers to improve students' learning abilities of these strategies. Rationale For non- native English speakers, English reading has been considered as one of the necessary skills that they need to achieve.
I have discovered that students at Vocational Schools have encountered some difficulties in English reading due to some factors. The students are capable of employing some kinds of strategies in dealing with reading texts, however, they do not know how to use the strategies appropriately in order to enhance their reading comprehension skill. Besides, both teachers of English and ESP teachers know that when reading English texts, many students meet difficulties in understanding the text properly. This has been attributed to the fact that some students have problems with words and grammar structures of the reading comprehension exercises or tasks.
As a teacher of English at a Vocational School in Thua Thien Hue Province, I have recognized that reading comprehension is an important language skill for students at Vocational Schools in their technical field. In addition, using Strategies for students in teaching reading comprehension in the technical context is necessary as well. On the other hand, not many students realize the importance of strategies in their learning and of implementing those strategies efficiently. Therefore, I am motivated to choose the topic “An investigation into English reading comprehension strategies used for Vietnamese first-year students at Vocational Schools in Thua Thien Hue Province” for my research thesis and I hope to increase the students‟ awareness of the importance of English reading comprehension strategies and improve the students‟ reading comprehension abilities.
Research aims and objectives 1. Research aims This research aims to: 9 1. Build up English comprehension strategies that are suitable for Vietnamese students. Enhance the students‟ awareness for the importance of reading English documents 1.
Investigate the attitudes of the first year students at Vocational Schools on reading comprehension strategies employed in their reading comprehension texts' practice; 2. Identify students' difficulties when they implement reading comprehension strategies in their technical reading texts; 3. Find out how students solve the difficulties concerning reading comprehension strategies in their learning process. Research questions The research paper is an investigation into English reading comprehension strategies used for Vietnamese first-year students.
Its purpose is to build up English reading comprehension strategies that suit Vietnamese students, how students and teachers can use reading comprehension strategies. What are the attitudes of the first year students at VS in Thua Thien Hue Province towards reading comprehension strategies in their reading comprehension texts' practices? 2. What are the difficulties encountered by first year students at VS in Thua Thien Hue Province in reading technical texts? How can they solve the difficulties? 3. What are some suggestions to improve the students‟ awareness of reading comprehension strategies? 1.
Research significance This research aims to increase the students‟ awareness of reading comprehension strategies and help students implement their reading comprehension strategies efficiently in developing their learning. In addition, implications for students to learn more effectively with reading comprehension and 10 for teachers to enhance students' reading comprehension strategies abilities are able to be drawn out. Structure of the thesis The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One introduces the rationale of the study, research purposes, research questions, research significance and the structure of the research.
Chapter Two presents the theoretical background of the research. It includes three main parts: such as (1) related recent research, (2) reading comprehension, and (3) strategies in reading comprehension. The first section is an overview of the related recent researches. The second section presents the definitions of reading comprehension, understanding vocabulary in the reading comprehension texts, and the improvements of reading comprehension.
The third section states the definitions of strategies, types of strategies, difficulties with reading comprehension strategies faced by students at VS as well as teachers and students' roles in reading comprehension. Chapter Three presents the research methodology employed to meet the purposes of the research. It describes the kind of research, participants in the research, data collection, data analysis and research procedure. Chapter Four presents the findings and discussions.
The findings are divided into four categories namely students' attitudes on reading comprehension strategies, students' uses of reading comprehension strategies in their technical reading lessons, advantages and disadvantages of reading comprehension strategies in students' learning process. Chapter Five presents the conclusions of the study. This chapter also includes implications of the findings, limitation and implications for the uses of reading comprehension strategies by students and teachers. and some suggestions for further research.
11 CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW 2. Introduction Reading comprehension strategies enable students to access knowledge, understand and elaborate concepts and to integrate information from lectures, reference books and journals. Since reading is closely with comprehension, students who are unable to identify and analyze main ideas from the texts find it difficult to comprehend the texts fully and properly. Consequently, it is important that students learn techniques for reading that will help them to employ the reading strategies which, in turn, lead to the development and enhancement of students' critical thinking.
Related recent researches These days, with the variety of many kinds of reading comprehension strategies, teachers need to offer suitable guidance, students need to be aware of the important role of their reading comprehension. How to help students realize the benefits of reading comprehension strategies has been an important issue for many researchers. There exist a great number of famous authors in the field of research on reading comprehension strategies such as Block, Hosenfeld, Anderson; Baker and Brown; Brown; Palinscar and Brown; Knight, Padron and Waxman; Olshavsky and so on. These researchers have provided their knowledge about reading comprehension for learners.
Various studies have investigated the importance of reading comprehension strategies in many contexts of reading. The previous researches state that learners who use those strategies prove to be better at comprehending texts than those who do not use those strategies. Also, good learners pay attention to the choice of the strategies to understand the text and make efforts to fulfill the tasks and they are able to realize the objectives of the reading as well as monitor their reading comprehension. In contrast, poor learners 12 do not realize the effective strategies in their monitoring reading activities.
The good readers use cognitive, memory, metacognitive, compensation, and social strategies to a higher portion than the poor readers. In review of Anderson (1991), the personal differences in strategy used by learners as second language were found to distinguish the more effective and less effective learners when they joined two reading tasks: taking a standardized reading comprehension test and reading academic texts. The questions given were divided into two kinds: type of reading skill being measured and the subjects to use think-aloud protocols Hosenfeld (1977) in a second-language study investigated a think-aloud procedure to find out the relation of both exact types of reading strategies and successful or unsuccessful second language reading. The research showed that the successful readers who employed strategies, remembered the meaning or less important words and so they were positive of their knowledge in reading.
However, the unsuccessful readers even did not remember the meaning of the sentences or read in short phrases, ignored words as unimportant and of course they were negative in reading. Though reading comprehension strategies are various, they are necessary to be fully implemented. Through the purpose of reading better, strategies are useful in helping learners focus on understanding the meaning of the matters in every reading text. Recognizing this reality of reading with aim of this research encourages my thought of selecting this topic.
Like other researchers, I hope that the results of my research will contribute to the enhancement of the awareness of students as second language learners and teachers about the improvement of students' abilities in applying reading comprehension strategies. Definition of reading comprehension Reading comprehension is a process, with the purpose of finding out what the readers have understood via reading. Moreover, reading comprehension is also the process of discovering meaning from a text. Comprehension is related to the factors of the reading process as the text is read in the reader‟s brain.
In reading comprehension, students hope to make an effort to get meaning from the text they read.