VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN READING TASKS: A SURVEY RESEARCH AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY (PYCI) THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI TẬP ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CÓ SỬ DỤNG HAI MÔ HÌNH “TỪ DƯỚI LÊN” VÀ “TỪ TRÊN XUỐNG”: MỘT KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CÔNG NGHIỆP PHÚC YÊN M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN READING TASKS: A SURVEY RESEARCH AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY (PYCI) THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI TẬP ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CÓ SỬ DỤNG HAI MÔ HÌNH “TỪ DƯỚI LÊN” VÀ “TỪ TRÊN XUỐNG”: MỘT KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CÔNG NGHIỆP PHÚC YÊN M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Prof. Nguyễn Quang HANOI – 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Non-English Major Students’ Attitudes Towards Bottom-up and Top-down Reading Tasks: A Survey Research at Phuc Yen College of Industry (PYCI)” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Hanoi National University, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions.
Hanoi, September 2014 Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Nguyen Quang, Ph.D for his experienced guidance, valuable suggestions, invaluable critical feedback and encouragement in the writing of this study. Without his support, this thesis would not have been completed. My great gratitude goes to all the lecturers and the staff of the Post-Graduate Department for giving me valuable knowledge and helpful assistance.
My thanks are extended to my students, especially the students in two classes TA2.LT1 and TA2.LT3, who provided me with enthusiastic cooperation and valuable feedback during my research conducting. Finally, this thesis is also dedicated to my family for their care and encouragement during the time I carried out this study. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This is a study of students’ attitudes towards Bottom-up and Top-down reading tasks in Phuc Yen college of Industry, Vinh Phuc. The study is aimed at finding out the students’ attitudes towards reading tasks using bottom-up and top-down models.
Therefore, the findings of this study can serve as the answer to a main research question: What are PYCI students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks? The data of this study are collected through questionnaires and interviews. The data from the questionnaire are calculated in percentage for interpretation and analysis based on the theory of attitude. The participants are 78 second-year students who come from different majors in Phuc Yen College of Industry taking English2 course as a general subject. The findings of the study revealed that most of the participants showed their positive attitude towards both Bottom- up and Top-down reading tasks; however, they put their positive attitude to the Bottom-up tasks and preferred to do these tasks more.
Through the findings, the research is expected to give benefit to the students by providing them necessary information about their own attitudes towards reading, especially bottom-up and top-down reading. Besides, the results of the study also provide teachers with better awareness of their students’ attitudes. From that, they will adjust their teaching to encourage and motivate their students in reading activities as well as prepare more interesting reading materials and activities that meet their students’ needs and interests. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration.
iii Table of contents. iv List of tables and figures. vii List of abbreviations. vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Organization of the study.
3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter One: Literature Review 1. Definitions of attitudes. Attitudes in language learning. Reading and schema theory.
Types of reading. Models of reading process. Bottom-up model. Top-down model.
12 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Pre-reading tasks. While-reading tasks. Post-reading tasks.
Review of previous studies. 17 Chapter Two: The Study 2. Context of the study. The teachers and the students.
The course book used. Data collection procedures …………………………………………. 23 Chapter Three: Data Analysis and Discussion 3. Bottom-up strategies.
Top-down strategies. Students’ general assessments of the reading tasks. Students’ perceptions of difficulties of the reading tasks. Students’ perceptions of the most useful stage in reading.
Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in three stages. In Pre-reading stage. In While-reading stage. In Post-reading stage.
Students’ preference of the teachers’ ways of teaching reading. 35 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART C: CONCLUSION 1. Limitations and suggestions for further study. III vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Types of reading tasks (unit 9 to unit 14) in the Lifelines Pre-intermediate book.
Table 2: Characteristics of the subjects Figure 1.1: Frequency of the bottom-up strategies used by PYCI students (N=78) Figure 1.2: Frequency of the top-down strategies used by PYCI students (N=78) Figure 2.1: Students’ general assessments of the reading tasks (N=50) Figure 2.2: Students’ general assessments of the types of reading tasks (N=50) Figure 2.3: Students’ perceptions of difficulties of the reading tasks (N=50) Figure 2.4: Students’ perceptions of the most useful stage in reading (N=50) Figure 2.5: Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in the Pre- reading stage (N=50) Figure 2.6: Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in the While-reading stage (N=50) Figure 2.7: Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in the Post- reading stage (N=50) Figure 2.8: Students’ preference of the teachers’ way of teaching reading (N=50) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PYCI: Phuc Yen College of Industry EFL: English as a Foreign Language N: Number Q: Question BU: Bottom-up TD: Top-down vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale: In this age of globalization, English as a foreign language (EFL) occupies an important place in Vietnamese educational system. Of the four English basic skills, reading is considered the most important skill for students to master, as Carrell (1981, p.1) emphasizes “For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. As Eskey (2005) shows in his research that many students of English as a foreign language rarely need to speak the language in their day-to-day lives but many need to read it in order to “access the wealth of information” (p.
The more we strengthen reading skills, the greater progress we make in English learning as well as in other areas. Reading is not only a good source of information and enjoyable activity, but a valuable means of extending and consolidating one's knowledge of the language (Rivers, 1981). In my teaching experience, although I provided my students different reading strategies to improve their reading comprehension, they have still had a lot of difficulties in reading and doing reading tasks. As Amiryousefi (2012) states that the problems that students encounter may be due to a number of factors such as “lack of appropriate reading strategies, lack of background knowledge related to the topic of the target text, lack of attitudes toward reading or lack of vocabulary knowledge to name a few” (p.
While a lot of researchers have carried their studies on students’ reading strategies or ways of improving reading abilities, not many studies on EFL students’ attitudes towards reading in higher education, especially reading with particular models like bottom-up and top-down have been conducted. In fact, students’ attitudes are very important in learning process as it is one important factor affecting motivation in language learning (Oxford and Shearin, 1994). Having positive attitude towards learning, students will carry out their learning to the best of their ability and vice verse. Therefore, with a view to gaining some insights into students’ attitudes towards reading to ascertain what reading task (top-down or bottom-up) EFL students prefer to use and find out the students’ attitudes towards the two model reading tasks, the writer decides to do research on “Non-English Major Students’ Attitudes Towards Bottom-up and Top- 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com down Reading Tasks”.
It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefit to teachers and students at PYCI in teaching and learning reading. Aims of the study: The primary aim of the study is finding out attitudes of the non-English major students towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks at Phuc Yen College of Industry. The author believes that positive attitude is very important in learning because if the students do not have positive attitudes towards a subject, technique and innovation used by teachers in teaching that subject seem to be likely worthless. It is hoped that the results of the study will provide PYCI teachers with better understanding of their students’ attitudes, and then they can adjust their teaching to teach more effectively.
Moreover, the findings of the study will also be some help to PYCI students by providing them with necessary information about their own attitudes towards reading. Then, they can know more about their ways of learning reading and adjust their learning to get better results. To achieve this aim, the study has the following objectives: To examine what strategies (Bottom-up or Top-down) are used by students at PYCI To investigate PYCI students’ attitudes towards Bottom-up and Top-down reading tasks 3. Research Questions: The research questions addressed in this study are: 1.
What strategies (Bottom-up or Top-down) are frequently used by PYCI students in their reading? 2. What are PYCI students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks? 4. Scope of the study This study is limited to the area of investigating attitudes of non-English major students in doing English reading tasks using bottom-up and top-down models at PYCI. It is not intended to find out the effect of the two models on students’ achievements in reading.
The study takes place within one vocational school; therefore, there will be no generalization of the findings for other places. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methods of the study This study adopts a descriptive method, especially, the survey method with two questionnaires taken as the main instrument in collecting data. Besides, follow-up interviews are also carried out to get better understanding of the students’ attitudes towards reading and give more accurate data to the study.
Organization of the study The thesis consists of three main parts: INTRODUCTION which provides an overview of the study, DEVELOPMENT which is the main part and consists of 3 chapters, and CONCLUSION which includes the summary, pedagogical implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for further study. Three chapters in the main part are as follows: Chapter I: Literature Review is the review of the literature related to the research topic, which serves as a theoretical foundation of the study. Chapter II: The Study provides information about the research context, participants, research approaches, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures. Chapter III: Data Analysis and Discussion is the main part of the study, which reports and discusses the main findings according to the research questions.
3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.