MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING LAC HONG UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI MAI THU ENHANCING STUDENTS’ AWARENESS OF READING STRATEGIES AT PEOPLE’S POLICE COLLEGE II MASTER GRADUATION PROJECT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE DONG NAI, 2024 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING LAC HONG UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI MAI THU ENHANCING STUDENTS’ AWARENESS OF READING STRATEGIES AT PEOPLE’S POLICE COLLEGE II MASTER GRADUATION PROJECT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8220201 TABLE OF CONTENTS INSTRUCTORS 1. Ly Ngoc Toan, Ph. Nguyen Thi Chau Anh, Ph. D DONG NAI, 2024 I TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS.
IV THE RECOGNIZANCE FOR NON-PLAGIARIZM. V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. VI LIST OF TABLES .1 Background of the study .1 Statement of the problems .3 Purposes of the study .4 Scope of the study .5 Significance of the study .5 Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Reading as a language skill.
Significance of reading comprehension. The levels of reading comprehension. The roles of reading strategies. Types of reading strategies.
Text-driven strategies. Think-aloud strategy. Participants and samples. Instruments for data collection.
Data collection procedure .40 Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS. The roles of reading strategies. Students’ awareness of reading strategies. Scale 1: Students’ knowledge of reading strategies.
Scale 2: Students’ beliefs of reading strategies. Scale 3: Students’ feelings of reading strategies. Discussion on research question 2 .76 Limitations of the study .77 Recommendations for further research. APPENDIX 1: The first questionnaire.
APPENDIX 2: The second questionnaire. APPENDIX 3: The third questionnaire. APPENDIX 4: Experimental materials. APPENDIX 5: Experimental activities.
III ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my utmost gratitude to my supervisor, Ly Ngoc Toan, Ph.D for his endless enthusiasm, patience, extensive expertise, and constant motivation. He was always available to review my work, address my inquiries without delay, and furnish me with valuable materials that facilitated the completion of this project. Additionally, I wish to extend my sincere thanks to the Director of the Foreign Languages and Informatics Faculty at People’s Police College II. He kindly permitted me to select the students to participate in the experimental course imperative for this research, which I am extremely appreciative of.
Moreover, I am deeply grateful to all my colleagues from Lac Hong University and People's Police College II for their insightful recommendations and willingness to share their invaluable experiences. Their perspectives undeniably enriched this project. Last but not least, I sincerely thank the 102 students from People’s Police College II who voluntarily participated in this study. Their contributions were fundamental to completing this research, and I greatly value the time they devoted to partaking in this project.
This acknowledgment sincerely encapsulates my gratitude to all those who supported the undertaking and fulfillment of this research endeavor and facilitated the comprehensive development and fruition of this project. Dong Nai, January, 2024 Author Nguyen Thi Mai Thu IV ABSTRACT This study aims to enhance awareness of reading strategies among students at People's Police College II (henceforth PPC II) in order to improve their English reading comprehension. Students face challenges comprehending texts due to disinterest, limited vocabulary, and ineffective teaching methods. The study investigates the importance of bottom-up, top-down, and think- aloud reading strategies in addressing comprehension problems.
Bottom-up strategies focus on understanding texts through vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure analysis. Top-down strategies rely on using background knowledge and making inferences. Think-aloud strategies involve verbalizing thought processes when reading. 102 first-year PPC II students from two classes specializing in Police of Administrative Management on Social Order and Police of Criminal Investigation on Hot Traces participated.
Quantitative data was gathered via questionnaires to shed light on the roles of reading strategies and raise students' knowledge. Using reading strategies helped students better understand what they were reading. Students increased their awareness of the importance of reading strategies. However, some problems persisted regarding getting students to read outside of class.
More reading strategies should be employed in the classroom to continue enhancing comprehension. Students' knowledge of reading strategy importance should be reinforced. Additional research into effective motivational techniques to inspire students to read outside of school is warranted. In conclusion, despite some lingering issues, the introduction of key reading strategies yielded useful insights into how they can assist police college students in improving English reading comprehension.
The study provides a foundation for further inquiry into supplemental strategies and motivation tactics. V THE RECOGNIZANCE FOR NON-PLAGIARIZM I confirm that the Master’s project titled “Enhancing Students’ Awareness of Reading Strategies at People’s Police College II” submitted today is my work. Unless explicitly stated within the text, this project does not contain any previously published material or extracts from a thesis/project that has been used to obtain another degree or qualification. The core text of this project does not include any unattributed usage of anyone else's work.
This project has not been presented to obtain a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. I have ensured academic honesty and integrity in conducting and presenting this research. Proper citations have been included for reference to any external sources. This project contains no plagiarism or fabrication to the best of my knowledge.
Dong Nai, January, 2024 Author Nguyen Thi Mai Thu VI LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS People's Police College II (PPC II). IV The experimental class (EC) .29 VII LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Reading as language skill. Significance of reading comprehension.
Levels of reading comprehension. Approaches to reading strategies. Dimensions of awareness. Content of the second questionnaire.
Content of the third questionnaire. Content of interval scale of the first questionnaire. Content of nominal scale of students’ background. Content of interval scale of the second research question.
The reliability statistics: the roles of reading strategy. The descriptive statistics: the roles of reading strategy .Gender of participants .Participants’ backgrounds: Age. Participants’ backgrounds: class. Participants' years learning English.
The reliability statistics: Reliability of reading skills survey. Survey responses on English and reading skill. Survey responses frequencies. The reliability of Top-down strategy before the treatment.
Descriptive Statistics: Top-down strategy before the treatment. The reliability of Top-down strategy after the treatment. The descriptive statistics: Top-down strategy after the treatment. The reliability of Bottom-up strategy before the treatment.
The descriptive statistics: Bottom-up strategy before the treatment. The reliability of Bottom-up strategy after the treatment. The descriptive statistics: Bottom-up strategy after treatment. The reliability of Think-aloud strategy before the treatment.
Descriptive Statistics: Think-aloud strategy before the treatment. The reliability of Think-aloud strategy after the treatment. The descriptive statistics: Think-aloud strategy after the treatment. The reliability of beliefs before the treatment.
Students’ reading beliefs before the treatment. The reliability of beliefs after treatment. Students' reading beliefs after the treatment. The reliability of feelings before the treatment.
Students’ reading feelings before the treatment. The reliability of feelings after the treatment. Students’ reading feelings after the treatment .72 1 INTRODUCTION Background of the study Developing strong English reading comprehension abilities is imperative for students to fully grasp texts and acquire knowledge. However, many students at People’s Police College II (henceforth PPC II) struggle to comprehend English texts effectively.
This hinders their ability to optimally learn and prepare for future law enforcement careers requiring robust language skills to review cases, legal codes, forensic reports, and investigative texts. Several intertwined factors contribute to PPC II students’ reading challenges. Firstly, some students lack motivation to learn English, failing to dedicate sufficient effort. Additionally, students have limited vocabulary, impeding understanding of textual word meanings.
Another issue is difficulty mastering reading comprehension techniques for tackling complex texts. Complicating matters, reliance on monotonous teacher-centric lectures reduces engagement. Consequently, PPC II students exhibit specific comprehension problems. Many cannot identify the main ideas, instead getting overwhelmed by fragmented details.
Students also frequently struggle to infer unknown vocabulary meanings from textual clues. Locating explicitly stated facts to answer questions also proves difficult. Most critically, tying information together into a coherent whole and summarizing overall purposes or arguments consistently challenges students. Thus, investigating reading strategy instruction is vital.
Reading strategies involve deliberate, conscious activities that active learners employ to enhance understanding, overcome perceived comprehension failures, and achieve goals (Garner, 1987; Brown, 2007). Strategies can target different reading processing levels, from foundational decoding to higher-order integration and critical evaluation. Techniques examined here include bottom-up, top-down, and think-aloud. Bottom-up strategies involve a text-driven approach focused on vocabulary, grammar, and linguistic components to enable meaning assembly from words/propositions to full passages (Birch, 2007; Carrell, 1989).
Readers carefully analyze letter patterns, word structures, sentence syntax, semantics, discourse markers, and other granular details to comprehend texts. In contrast, top-down 2 strategies rely on background knowledge and inferences rather than specific text features (Goodman, 1967; Nunan, 1991). Readers activate relevant prior knowledge to interpret content through existing mental frameworks rather than purely objective information processing. Think-aloud protocols involve verbalizing all conscious thoughts during reading to externalize internal comprehension processes (Afflerbach & Johnson, 1984).
Teachers first model appropriate strategy use by reading sample passages aloud, highlighting where and why problems emerge to demonstrate adaptive techniques (Baumann et al. Students then practice think-aloud with similar texts, receive feedback, and learn to self-monitor. Originally an assessment instrument, think-aloud evolved into a metacognitive strategy instruction approach (Israel et al. However, some challenges exist regarding think-aloud strategy.
Overthinking while verbalizing can increase cognitive load and inhibit comprehension. Determining optimal intervention timings also proves difficult (Israel et al. Hence effective think-aloud training requires scaffolding where teachers initially provide ample support and then gradually transfer responsibility to learners (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). For bottom-up and top-down strategies too, balance is key, as purely text or knowledge-driven processing alone is insufficient.
Interactive models argue both approaches simultaneously complement each other, with bottom-up decoding enabling propositional meaning to integrate with top-down schematic systems for optimal comprehension (Carrell et al. Fluid toggling between strategies tailored to needs facilitates approach alignment with reader purpose, task demands, and text properties. Extensive research demonstrates reading strategy instruction improves awareness, perceived usefulness, usage, and achievement (Ahmadi et al. However, most studies focus on single strategies rather than coordinated approaches.
Investigating synergistic combinations can provide deeper insights into ideal comprehension processes. This gap is especially prominent in Vietnamese police college contexts featuring more complex reading demands than in secondary schools. Hence, this exploratory study offers value. 3 As a result of these significant potential benefits, the researcher has developed an interest in undertaking the current study titled “Enhancing Students’ Awareness of Reading Strategies at People’s Police College II.” By assessing the impacts of combined bottom-up, top-down, and think-aloud strategies training on reading outcomes, the research can provide data-driven best practices for comprehension instruction tailored to contexts.
Hence this exploration of reading strategy impacts aims to unlock students’ learning potential, preparing Vietnam’s future police with strong language capabilities supporting public safety and justice duties. The research offers practical teaching insights alongside theoretical and context-specific contributions regarding coordinated reading strategy instruction in English language policing education. Statement of the problems While English language learners continue growing exponentially, research on awareness of learning strategies in general and reading comprehension techniques, in particular, remains scarce in Vietnamese police education contexts. No studies have examined the impacts of reading strategy awareness among students at PPC II.
Several intertwined factors contribute to comprehension difficulties facing PPC II students. Many struggle to locate main ideas, grasp unknown vocabularies, identify key details, and tie information together into coherent wholes (Iftanti, 2012; Albadawi, 2017). Causes include declining student motivation, limited exposure to English textual materials, inability to acquire requisite analytical skills, and reliance on ineffective lecture-based pedagogy - all exacerbating comprehension barriers. This study aims to address these gaps by assessing the concerted impacts of combined bottom-up, top-down, and think-aloud reading strategies on comprehension and awareness among PPC II students.
Findings may reveal optimal coordination methods to enhance literacy capabilities critical for public safety roles.