VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE INCORPORATING EXPLICIT METACOGNITIVE STRATEGY INSTRUCTION IN READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PEOPLE’S SECURITY A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL by HUYNH THI HAU Supervised by NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude is to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyễn Thị Kiều Thu for her dedication and continuous support for my M.A thesis as well as my maternity. Her timely advice and encouragement supported me to get rid of my postpartum depression and completed this work.
My sincere thanks also go to Dr. Phó Phương Dung, Dr. Lê Hoàng Dũng, Dr. Nguyễn Thu Hương, Dr.
Nguyễn Đăng Nguyên and Dr. Nguyễn Thị Hồng Thắm for numerous and valuable discussions and lectures on related topics that help me sharpen my research skills. I would like to acknowledge my colleagues at the Department of Foreign Languages and Informatics as well as my all students at the University of People’s Security for their support and inspiration by different ways during my thesis completion. It is never enough to say “Thank you” to them.
Last but not least, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my whole family and, most specially, my little daughter - An Di and my husband. Thanks to being her mom and his wife, my thesis completion is meaningfully associated with my emotional maturity. i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis, entitled “Incorporating explicit metacognitive strategy instruction in reading comprehension lessons at the University of People’s Security” is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree of diploma in at other institution.
Ho Chi Minh, December 2020 Huynh Thi Hau ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Huynh Thi Hau, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be assessable for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of these. Ho Chi Minh, iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii LIST OF TABLES .ix LIST OF FIGURES. xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. Background to the study.
Aims of the study. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. The organization of the thesis .5 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.
Terms and related theories. Correlation between metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension. Assessment of metacognitive strategies in reading. Review of previous studies.
Summary of the chapter. Teaching and learning materials. The experimental teaching. Surveys of leaners’ awareness of metacognitive strategies.
Data collection procedure. Data analysis procedure. Research questions and data analysis .55 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Findings on the students’ metacognitive awareness.
Findings on the reading comprehension tests. Findings on the relationship of metacognitive awareness raising and reading performance improvement. Findings on the students’ attitudes towards metacognitive strategy training. The increase of UPS students’ metacognitive awareness via explicit instruction of metacognitive strategy.
The improvement of UPS students’ reading performance via explicit instruction of metacognitive strategy. The relationship between metacognitive awareness raising and reading performance improvement. The students’ attitudes towards the metacognitive strategy training. Implications for English learners.
Implications for English teachers and textbook writers. Limitations of the study. Recommendation for further study. Summary of the chapter.
95 Appendix A1 Sample lesson plan for Control Group .95 Appendix A2 Sample lesson plan for Experimental Group .98 Appendix B CALLA Model Instruction (Chamot, 2005) .102 Appendix C Reading text for Sample Lesson plan .105 Appendix D Handout of planning strategies .107 Appendix E1Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading Comprehension (SAMSRC)- English version .108 vi Appendix E2 Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading Comprehension (SAMSRC)- Vietnamese Translation version .111 Appendix F Answer sheet for Reading test .116 Appendix G Reading Test 1 .117 Appendix H Reading Test 2 .122 Appendix I1 Attitudinal Questionnaire_ English version .131 Appendix I2 Attitudinal Questionnaire_ Vietnamese translation version .137 Appendix J SPSS Output of Normality test of SAMSRC .145 Appendix K SPSS Output of Paired Sample T-test of SAMSRC .149 Appendix L SPSS Output of Independent Sample T-test of SAMSRC .154 Appendix M SPSS Output of Normality test of The Reading Test 1 .157 Appendix N SPSS Output of the Paired Sample T-test of reading tests .159 Appendix O SPSS Output of the Independent Sample T-test of reading tests .160 Appendix P SPSS Output of the Pearson product-moment correlation test .161 Appendix Q SPSS Output of the attitudinal questionnaire .162 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AY Academic Year CALLA Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach CG Control Group EFL English as a Foreign Language EG Experimental Group M Mean SAMSRC Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading Comprehension SD Standard Deviation SPSS Statistical Product and Services Solutions SSBI Styles and Strategies-Based Instruction UPS University of People ‘s Security viii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Types of Comprehension.2 Offline Self-reports .4 Summary of the Previous Studies .5 Selection of Strategies.1 Procedures of Piloting .2 Demographic Description of the Participants.4 Format Description of PET .6 Reliability of Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading Comprehension.7 Distribution of The Items in The Attitudinal Questionnaire .8 Reliability of the Main Themes in the Attitudinal Questionnaire .9 Research Questions and the Corresponding Research Instruments and Statistical Test.1 The Shapiro-Wilk Test for Normal Distribution of the Pre-Questionnaire .2 Statistics of Normality Test .3 The results of the Paired Samples T-test of the CG .4 The Results of the Paired Samples T-Test of the EG .5 List of Strategies with the Most Significant Difference .6 The Results of Independent Sample T-Test of the Pre-Questionnaire .7 The Results of Independent Sample T-Test of the Post-Questionnaire .8 The Shapiro-Wilk Test of Distribution of the Pre-test .9 Statistics of Normality Test .10 The Results of Independent Samples T-Test of the Pre-test .11 The Results of Paired Samples T-Test of Reading Performance Tests .12 The Results of the Independent Samples T-Test for the Post-test .13 Pearson Correlation Matrix among Reading Comprehension Scores and the Metacognitive Awareness Scores .14 The Students’ Feelings towards the Instruction .15 The Students’ Cognitions about the Benefits of the Metacognitive Strategy Instruction .16 The students’ Cognitions about the Drawbacks of the Metacognitive Strategy Instruction .17 The Students’ Behaviors towards the Metacognitive Strategy Instruction77 x LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Coady’s Model of Reading Comprehension .2 The Conceptual Framework of the Study .1 Data Collection Procedure .1 A Boxplot of the Pre-test Scores .2 The Correlation of Metacognitive Awareness and Reading Performance after the Intervention in the Experimental Group .3 The Importance of Learning Reading Skills .4 The Necessity of Learning Reading Strategies .5 The Overall Feelings about the Instruction .73 xi ABSTRACT The role of metacognitive reading strategies in reading comprehension has been emphasized in various studies in the EFL context with profound positive impacts. However, in Vietnam, previous studies regarding metacognitive strategies in reading have only focused on an overview of learners’ awareness of metacognitive reading strategies as well as a description of the relationship between metacognitive awareness and reading performance. There is a lack of experimental studies on the extent to which explicit metacognitive strategy instruction increases students' metacognitive awareness and reading performance. This study is an attempt to fulfill this gap.
By quantitative approach, especially quasi-experimental design, the aim of this work was to investigate the effectiveness of explicit instruction of metacognitive strategies through Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) on metacognitive awareness and reading performance of non-English majors. The findings corroborated previous research that explicit metacognitive strategy instruction makes positive effects on the improvement of the students’ metacognitive awareness as well as their reading comprehension performance. Moreover, the correlation between the students’ metacognitive awareness raising and reading performance improvement after the explicit metacognitive strategy instruction was asserted. The success of the strategy instruction was supported by the results of the attitudinal questionnaire on the students receiving the treatment.
Based on these findings, several suggestions were proposed to researchers, teachers, learners and textbook writers. Key words: metacognitive strategies, explicit instruction, CALLA, reading comprehension, metacognitive awareness xii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Background to the study The attraction of reading has been proved over time by a large number of scholars’ interest due to two main reasons. Firstly, it is common knowledge that reading supports the human beings’ access to endless knowledge; therefore, the doors to new understanding are also open.
Grabe (2009) also asserted that in a modern society like ours, individuals should be good readers to get success. Although it is not guaranteed for success by reading skills, it is more difficult for people to be outstanding without them. At tertiary education taken, the more reading ability students develop, the greater progress they make in all academic areas (Anderson, 2002). As for learning languages, it is increasingly becoming a vital factor to recognize good language learners by their understanding of a new target language and culture.
Secondly, the inherent complexity of reading process as well as efficient ways to develop it is such a big challenge appealing to curiosity of researchers. Reading process includes activities in readers’ brains with different behaviors from distinct groups of readers, which requires more intensive studies. Up to now, training reading, as a vital section in language learning and teaching, has been considered a critical issue for more academic investigation in its nature. Grabe and Stoller (2002) stated that students are usually struggling with constructing meaning from reading texts in the process of comprehension.
Therefore, difficulties in comprehension especially in a reading process have appealed to a number of studies with considerations into the question with “how” as practical ways facilitating a learners’ language acquisition process. Most of research studies have recommended the use of different approaches or reading strategies as solutions to any problems related to “comprehension”. O'Malley and Chamot (1990) concluded that language learning strategies should be divided into three tracks: cognitive strategies, socioaffective strategies and metacognitive strategies. It obviously means that reading strategies or cognitive strategies are not the sole treatments for poor comprehension in reading.
In addition, reading process requires a combination of both information of texts and background’s knowledge of readers (Anderson, 2005). In that way, reading is an active 1 and fluent process which includes monitoring comprehension as a metacognitive activity (Baker & Brown, 1984). From 1960s, educational scholars began seeking answers for a question of great interest related to metacognitive strategies which refer to the control of the learners on their learning process (Schunk & Zimmerrman, 1998). Mokhtari and Reichard (2002) also asserted that the awareness of metacognitive reading strategies can foster the process of comprehending a text.
With regard to these elements, it is worth considering that metacognitive strategies should be employed to enhance learners’ reading comprehension. As a matter of fact, in Vietnam, metacognitive strategies have still not paid enough attention, which is not equivalent to the roles of them in the picture of scientific studies of the world. Studies published and related to metacognitive strategies in reading conducted in Vietnam just offered an overview of learners’ awareness of metacognitive reading strategies at secondary high schools as in the study of Nguyen, T. (2011) as well as the frequency of metacognitive reading strategy employment among the students at tertiary levels in the paper of Cuu, Q.