VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ TÚ ANH USING PREDICTION STRATEGY TO ENHANCE READING COMPREHENSION SKILL FOR THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH PROVINCE SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC PHÁN ĐOÁN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG THUỘC TỈNH NINH BÌNH M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi - 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ TÚ ANH USING PREDICTION STRATEGY TO ENHANCE READING COMPREHENSION SKILL FOR THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN NINH BINH PROVINCE SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN LƯỢC PHÁN ĐOÁN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG THUỘC TỈNH NINH BÌNH M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231. Mai Thị Loan Hanoi - 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I, Bùi Thị Tú Anh, hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Using prediction strategy to enhance reading comprehension skill for the 10th form students at a high school in Ninh Binh province.” is submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
I also declare that this thesis is the result of my own research and efforts and it has not been submitted for any other purposes. Hanoi, 2018 Bùi Thị Tú Anh i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my heart - felt thank and my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Mai Thi Loan for her enlightening guidance, precious suggestions and invaluable encouragement during my fulfillment of this minor thesis. My sincere thanks go to all of the lecturers and the staff of the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies for their valuable lectures on which my minor thesis was laid the foundation. I truly wish to thank all the students of class 10A and 10B at Nho Quan C High School who have actively participated in the research.
I am deeply grateful to my family for their great support and to many of my friends for their notable assistance. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This research is an investigation into the predominant problems in learning reading at a high school in Ninh Binh province and the implementation a of new reading strategy, which is prediction strategy in this case to deal with the situation. The primary purpose of the study is an attempt to examine the impact of using prediction strategy on the improvement of reading comprehension skill of the 10th form students and find out effective ways to implement prediction strategy in reading comprehension lessons. Data were collected through pretest, posttest, questionnaire and teaching diaries and then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.
The results of the data analysis indicate that most of the students achieved considerable progress in their reading comprehension skill after being taught prediction strategy. The students also participated in the lesson more and more actively and excitedly. In addition, the findings of the research suggested some effective ways to teach students to use prediction strategy in reading comprehension lessons such as conducting the lesson with three stages (pre-, while and post reading), choosing well-suited reading materials, enlarging students‟ schema for further reading, instructing the strategy clearly, combining prediction strategy with other reading strategies, designing useful and exciting tasks, and letting students work in pairs or groups. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES. ix PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Design of the study .5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 The nature of reading comprehension .1 Definitions of reading .2 Definitions of reading comprehension.1 Definitions of reading strategies .2 Classifications of reading strategies .3 Reading strategy instruction .1 Definitions of prediction strategy .2 The importance of prediction strategy .3 Application of prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson .15 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.4 Previous studies on the use of prediction strategy .20 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY .1 Context of the study .1 Setting of the study .3 Data collection instruments .1 Pretest and posttest.4 Data analysis methods .31 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS .1 Analysis of test results .1 Results of the pretest .2 Results of the posttest .2 Analysis of questionnaires .1 Students‟ belief about the impact of prediction strategy on their reading comprehension competence .2 Students‟ self-evaluation of the improvements of their reading comprehension skill after attending the reading course implementing prediction strategy…………………….3 Students‟ evaluation of the effectiveness of teacher‟s strategy instruction ….4 Students‟ rating of the familiarity of each reading text before the treatment…………….40 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.5 Students‟ preferred practices in the pre-reading stage .6 Students‟ preferred practices in the while reading stage .7 Students‟ opinion about the reading tasks .8 Some disadvantages of implementing prediction strategy in reading lessons.3 Analysis of teaching diaries .2 Findings and discussion .1 To what extent does the use of prediction strategy affect Nho Quan C high school‟s grade 10 students‟ reading comprehension? .2 How should prediction strategy be implemented to improve the students‟ reading comprehension skill?.
Limitation of the current research. Recommendation and suggestions for future research .58 APPENDIX 1: READING COMPREHENSION TEST 1. I APPENDIX 2: READING COMPREHENSION 2. IV APPENDIX 3A: POST-TREATMENT QUESTIONNAIRE.
VII APPENDIX 3B: POST-TREATMENT QUESTIONNAIRE. X APPENDIX 4A: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL GROUP…………………………………….XIV APPENDIX 4B: SAMPLE LESSON PLAN FOR THE CONTROL GROUP. XX APPENDIX 5: PREDICTION CHART .XXIV APPENDIX 6A: CRITERIA FOR TEACHING DIARIES. XXV APPENDIX 6B: A SAMPLE OF TEACHING DIARY .XXVI vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com APPENDIX 7: THE FORMULA OF MEAN, STANDARD DEVIATION AND MEDIAN .XXIX vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS MOET: the Ministry of Education and Training % : Percentage N : Number viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1.1: Classification of reading strategies……………………………….2: Activities/ tasks to develop prediction strategy………………….1: The course procedures for the experimental group……………….1: Mean and std.
Deviation of the pretest results…………………….2: Comparison of mean, std deviation, mode, minimum and maximum between the two groups‟ tests…………………………………….3: Students‟ belief about the impact of prediction strategy on reading comprehension competence………………………………………………….4: Students‟ ratings of the familiarity of each reading topic………….5: Students‟ preferred practices in the pre-listening stage…………… 41 Table 3.6: Students‟ preferred practices in while reading stage……………… 42 Figure 3.1: Pretest results of two classes…………………………………….2: Posttest results of two classes…………………………………….3: Students‟ self-evaluation of their improvement after the treatment………………………………………………………………….4: Students‟ evaluation of teacher‟s strategy instruction‟s effectiveness………………………………………………………………….5: Students‟ opinion about the reading tasks………………………. 43 ix TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Globalization and technological advancements are breaking down barriers and borders with vast implications for education in general and foreign language teaching in particular. As a result, there has been a positive trend of teaching and learning English across our country.
English has been taught almost everywhere in Vietnam from schools, colleges to universities and mostly become a compulsory subject. Four English practicing skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing) are very significant and set the basis for the ability of communication. According to Carrell (1988:1), “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or a foreign language”. It is also true to students at a high school in Ninh Binh province because the purpose of reading lessons is not only to develop students‟ reading skills but also to equip them with important language input for the lessons that follow, such as: listening, speaking and writing.
In addition, reading has become not only an important means to gain and enrich the students‟ general knowledge but also a means to help them with their further study in the future. Therefore, reading is always the first skill presented in each unit in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”, “Tieng Anh 12” published by Ministry of Education and Training. Traditionally, researchers have agreed that reading was a passive or receptive process in which the reader attempted to decode the intended meaning of the author through recognizing the letters and words as meaningful units, the reader was merely a recipient of information from the printed pages and brought nothing to the text (Barnett, 1988). However, modern researches on reading have found the reading process active rather than passive as well as individualized and complicated.
Reading strategy becomes a crucial part in reading process and more and more emphasis has been put on the importance of training EFL learners to be strategic readers. Researches reveal that good readers are aware of using reading 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com strategies in the reading process (McNamara, 2009), and the use of appropriate reading strategies can help readers to overcome reading problem and become better readers (Block, 1986; McNamara, 2009). Therefore, strategy instruction is important for students to improve comprehension. Being a teacher of English, the researcher is well aware of the importance of reading strategies in reading process.
However, to the researcher‟s experience, students at a high school in Ninh Binh province, especially the 10th form students turn out to be word-by-word readers; they tend to read the text slowly and translate every word into their mother tongue. This costs them a lot of time and makes them discouraged when encountering unfamiliar words or concepts. Very few students who are better at English know how to get the specific information or the main ideas of the text by scanning or skimming the passage. It means that very few students of grade 10 are aware of using reading strategies when reading a text, and the strategies they use remain the two main ones which are scanning and skimming.
This leads the author to the choice of the study “Using prediction strategy to enhance reading comprehension skill for the 10th form students at a high school in Ninh Binh province” to gain some insights into reading strategies and find out good ways to help the students improve their reading skill. Aims and objectives of the study The study aimed at improving reading comprehension skill of the 10th form students at a high school in Ninh Binh province through the use of prediction strategy instruction and finding out effective ways to implement prediction strategy in reading comprehension lessons. This overall aim was specified into the following objectives: (1) To examine the impact of using prediction strategy on the improvement of reading comprehension skill of the 10th form students at a high school in Ninh Binh province 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com (2) To find out effective ways of teaching the students prediction strategy to improve their reading comprehension skill 3. Research question In an attempt to achieve the aims and objectives stated above, the following research questions were addressed: (1) To what extent does the use of prediction strategy affect the school‟s grade 10 students‟ reading comprehension skill? (2) How should prediction strategy be implemented to improve the students‟ reading comprehension skill? 4.
Scope of the study This study only focuses on the teaching of prediction strategies to the 10th graders at a high school in Ninh Binh province, so the teaching of other reading strategies or to other grades would be beyond the scope. Significance of the study In terms of theory, the study is expected to contribute the effective ways to teach prediction strategy in reading comprehension lesson.