1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN KHẢ THANH TÙNG THE USE OF READING STRATEGIES WHEN READING ESP BY 4TH-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE PEOPLE’S SECURITY ACADEMY (VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ 4 TẠI HỌC VIỆN AN NINH NHÂN DÂN) M. MINOR THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60.10 Hanoi, 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN KHẢ THANH TÙNG THE USE OF READING STRATEGIES WHEN READING ESP BY 4TH-YEAR ENGLISH-MAJORED STUDENTS AT THE PEOPLE’S SECURITY ACADEMY (VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH CHUYÊN NGÀNH CỦA SINH VIÊN CHUYÊN TIẾNG ANH NĂM THỨ 4 TẠI HỌC VIỆN AN NINH NHÂN DÂN) M. MINOR THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 60. Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa Hanoi, 2013 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 DECLARATION --------*****--------- I hereby declare that the thesis entitled: “The use of reading strategies when reading ESP by fourth-year English-majored students at the People’s Security Academy” is the result of my own research for the degree of Master of Arts and that this thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree.
Hanoi, December 2013 Author’s signature Nguyễn Khả Thanh Tùng LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 ACKNOWLEGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, my supervisor, for thorough reading, critical comments, invaluable suggestions, various sources of reference and precious corrections on my writing. Furthermore, I am grateful to her close guidance and generous help, which have been great encouragement to me during the process of writing up the thesis. I, hereby, would like to express my sincere thanks to lecturers of Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies of Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their interesting lessons and suggestions, which aroused the thesis for this study to be realized.
I also owe my sincere thanks to English teaching staff and fourth-year English majors at the People’s Security Academy who have enthusiastically participated in my study. Finally, my heart-felt thanks go to my beloved parents, my wife and my son who have encouraged and supported me in every stage of this study. Hanoi, December 2013 Nguyễn Khả Thanh Tùng LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 ABSTRACT Reading is considered one of the most important skills which language learners should master. During the process of acquiring English language in the light of communicative approach, reading English for public security seems to be the most challenging and difficult for teachers and learners.
The present study primarily investigated the use of reading strategies of English for public security by 4th-year English majors at the People’s Security Academy. Data was collected via survey questionnaire for 35 4th-year English majors and interviews for 4 teachers of English. The findings revealed that both teachers and students at the People’s Security Academy strongly advocated the importance and necessity of using reading strategies and students used metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies more frequently than social/affective reading strategies. From the findings, some suggestions were given with the hope that they might be a reliable source of reference for teachers of English at the People’s Security Academy to improve their students’ reading proficiency LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iv LIST OF CHARTS, TABLES, ABBREVIATIONS .vi PART I: INTRODUCTION.
Aims of the study. Significance of the study. Method of the study. Scope of the study.
Organization of the study. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Language learning strategies.
The importance of learning strategies. Classification of learning strategies. Definitions of reading. Models of reading.
Bottom-up model. Top-down model. Definitions of reading strategies. Review of reading strategies research.
19 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The context of teaching and learning listening skill to English majors at the PSA. Instruments of data collection. Data collection procedures.
Coding of questionnaire data. 27 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. PSA 4th-year English-major students' attitudes to reading comprehension. Metacognitive reading strategies.
Cognitive reading strategies. Social/affective reading strategies. 39 PART III: CONCLUSION. Summary of major findings.
Implications of the study. Limitations and suggestions for further research. XV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: PSA students’ attitude toward the importance of reading strategies. 28 Chart 2: PSA students’ perception of their reading speeds.
29 Chart 3: PSA students’ attitude toward the importance of factors to their reading comprehension. 30 Chart 4: Questionnaire results: Metacognitive reading strategies. 32 Chart 5: Questionnaire results: Cognitive reading strategies. 34 Chart 6: Questionnaire results: Social/affective reading strategies.
36 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Learning strategy definition and classification (O'Malley and Chamot, 1990: 119). 8 Table 2: Background information about the participants: Students. 21 Table 3: Questionnaire: Reading strategy coding categories adapted from O'Malley and Chamot (1990: 119). 24 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ESL/EFL: English as a second/foreign language The PSA: The People’s Security Academy L1: first language L2: second language ESP: English for special purpose LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale English has been widely used in many areas such as politics, economics, tourism, telecommunication, culture, science and technology. In the current context of global integration, English which has become more and more important is not only a means of but also a key to accessing the latest scientific and technological achievements. Therefore, it is necessary for many Vietnamese students to have a good command of English to satisfy the growing demands in a developing country like Vietnam. Internationally, teaching English has changed tremendously over the last few decades.
More significantly, the traditional teacher-centered approach has been replaced with the learner-center one, which reflects a desire to explore ways of making responsive to learner’s need and interest and allowing learners to play a more active and participatory role in the day-to-day teaching and learning processes. Therefore, no longer does the teacher act as the centre of all instructions, controlling every aspect of the learning process. Learners themselves now, more than ever, are sharing the responsibility for successful language acquisition and in doing so, are becoming less dependent on the language teacher for meeting their own individual language needs. Students are advised to become more and more autonomous to diagnose their own learning strengths and weaknesses and to self-direct the process of language development.
Reading is considered one of the most important skills which language learners should master, particularly as it helps to build a variety of language expression and structures, widen general knowledge and leads to lifelong learning and improvement in the first and second language skills. “Reading is an essential skill for English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) student; and for many, reading is the most important skill to master” (Anderson, 1999). Carrell (1984:1) states “For many students, reading is by far the most important of four skills in a second language, particularly in a language as a second or foreign language”. This is true for Vietnamese learners who have studied LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 English through reading since English is taught and learned as a foreign language and in a non-native environment.
But acquiring and mastering this skill is likely to be a big hindrance to many learners while they often find it difficult to exploit this skill in their learning experience. On the other hand, the findings of many ESL/EFL research projects have shown the positive effects of learning strategies to enhance the comprehensibility of learners or to overcome comprehension failures. The use of suitable language learning strategies can improve proficiency and greater self-confidence. In process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam in general, and at the People’s Security Academy (PSA) in particular, reading has always been attracted a great deal of attention both from the teachers and the students.
Reading is regarded as an important skill to the students because these students need to read a lot of English books and documents to support their professional studies. Having taught English majored students at PSA for several years, I am aware of their problems and very much want to help them to improve their reading ability. Therefore, I conducted a survey research on their use of reading strategies. Based on the findings, I worked out some solutions to improve PSA students' reading proficiency.
Aim of the study The major purpose of this study is to identify the reading strategies utilized by fourth-year English-majored students at the PSA. In order to achieve the above the aim of the study, the following major research question was addressed: What are the reading strategies employed by fourth-year English-majored students at the People’s Security Academy? 3. Significance of the study The study is the first one to be carried out in the field of reading strategies research at the PSA. It helps give a detailed description of reading strategies used by fourth-year English-majored students at the PSA.
More importantly, the findings of their reading strategies can help teachers to understand more about their students and they can serve as the foundation for some recommendations on how to improve the LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 students' reading proficiency. They are also an important basis for reading strategies based instruction to be implemented in the future. Method of the study In order to achieve the aim mentioned above, the present study utilized survey research with two instruments the questionnaire for 35 fourth-year English-majored students of class AV41 and interviews for 4 teachers to collect data on the students’ reading strategies. The questionnaire designed as a means to make the researcher’s evaluation more objective was developed and given to 35 fourth-year English-majored students of class AV41.
The interviews were conducted among four teachers who have been teaching reading for 4th-year English-majored students to obtain their perceptions, comments and evaluation toward the matter under investigation. After the data was analyzed and discussed, some conclusions were drawn, and some suggestions were raised in the thesis. Scope of the study The present study investigated “the use of reading strategies when reading ESP by 4th-year English-majored students at the People’s Security Academy”. The study of learning strategies in other English skills was beyond the scope.
Organization of the study The study is divided into three main parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion. Part I: Introduction includes the rationale, scope, aims, significance, methods and organization of the study. Part II: Development consists of three chapters Chapter 1 reviews the literature relevant to the topic of research and summarizes some selected studies on reading strategies, which serve as a theoretical and methodological foundation of the study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 Chapter 2 presents the research methodology of the study.
It provides information about the participants, the research method, the instrumentation, the data collection procedures and data analysis. Chapter 3 presents the results of the study, analyzes the data Part III: Conclusion summarizes the findings, presents the implications and limitations of the study and finally gives some suggestions for further research. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 13 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews theories related to language learning strategies in general and reading strategies in particular. It also summarizes current research on reading strategies that have been conducted so far.
All of these serve as a basis for an investigation into reading strategies which is carried out and presented in the next chapter.