MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ PHAN ANH DUNG A STUDY ON APPLICATION OF SOME EXPLORATORY SPEED READING STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING READING COMPREHENSION FOR THE TENTH GRADERS IN ASIAN PACIFIC COLLEGE SCHOOL IN GIA LAI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, HUE UNIVERSITY ------------ PHAN ANH DUNG A STUDY ON APPLICATION OF SOME EXPLORATORY SPEED READING STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING READING COMPREHENSION FOR THE TENTH GRADERS IN ASIAN PACIFIC COLLEGE SCHOOL IN GIA LAI PROVINCE MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 8140111 SUPERVISOR: Assoc. TRAN VAN PHUOC HUE, 2019 BỘ GIÁO DỤC ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ PHAN ANH DŨNG NGHIÊN CỨU ỨNG DỤNG MỘT SỐ KỸ THUẬT ĐỌC HIỂU NHANH NHẰM TĂNG CƯỜNG KHẢ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚPP 10 TẠI TRƯỜNG QUỐC TẾ CHÂU Á THÁI BÌNH DƯƠNG TỈNH GIA LAI LUẬN VĂN THẠC SỸ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 8140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. TRẦN VĂN PHƯỚC HUẾ, 2019 Statement of Original Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, my thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Abstract Although the National Foreign Languages 2020 Project was launched since 2008, high school learners of English have encountered many difficulties in mastering communication skills, especially reading comprehension skill. The study analyzed the result of applying speed reading strategies to treat the experimental group of 20 tenth graders at Asian Pacific College School in Gia Lai Province who was involved in 15-week training course after having attended reading practice tests with another group (control group). This experimental approach also showed that the application of fast reading strategies such as skimming and scanning did not only enhance learners’ reading speed, confidence and motivation but forced them to concentrate better on doing comprehension questions as well. Hence, these strategies should be considered as a strategic choice to speed up reading comprehension skill for high school learners of English, which will surely help widen their knowledge as the foundation for mastering other communication skills in English.
Keywords: speed reading, strategies, reading comprehension skill, enhance… ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research paper is the end of my long journey in obtaining my M. There are many people who made this journey easier with words of encouragement. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the following people for their help, advice, and encouragement in both direct and indirect ways during the study. First, I wish to express my deep and sincere grateful thanks to my advisor, Assoc.
Tran Van Phuoc, for his valuable and thorough comments, assistance, and support throughout the study. I would like to thank Dr. Truong Bach Le, Dr. Ton Nu Nhu Huong, Dr.
Pham Hoa Hiep and Dr. Le Pham Hoai Huong for their kindness and support for my work. My thanks also go to Asia Pacific College Gia Lai (APC), especially Director-Board and School-Board for support of the research study; besides, I appreciate the whole-hearted co-operation from APC’s English teachers team and all tenth-grade students (school year 2018-2019). Finally, I would like to give my appreciative thanks to my wife and sons, my family and close friends for their kind assistance and constant encouragement which always bring about success to my life.
i TABLES OF CONTENTS Statement of Original Authorship. i Tables of contents. ii List of tables. v List of figures.
vii List of abbreviations. Aim of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Structure of the study. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of terms in the study. Reading and reading comprehension skills in learning EFL.
Sub-reading skills of EFL learners. Speed reading strategies. Cognitive and psycholinguistic influence on EFL learners’ reading comprehension. Overview of previous studies.
Introduction to learning EFL at Asia Pacific College. 23 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Revisited research questions. Research methods: Data collection methods.
Population, sampling and participants. Instruments for data collecting. Data collection procedure. Data analysis methods.
Qualitative data analysis. Quantitative data analysis. 39 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Differences in students’ reading comprehension before and after the speed reading training course.
Pre-test and post-test data. Significant differences between levels of reading comprehension of two groups after speed reading intervention. Students’ perceptions of speed reading strategies. The importance of learning speed reading at school.
Students’ reading experience. Students’ speed reading strategies practice. Speed reading strategies to improve students’ reading speed. Speed reading strategies to improve students’ their reading comprehension.
Frequency of speed reading strategies use. Students’ speed reading practice and students’ reflection. Student’s satisfaction with speed reading strategies and speed reading practice tests. Student’s satisfaction with their reading tests’ results in school year 2017-2018 55 4.
How do students like learning speed reading classes?. The students’ reasons for speed reading class. Reading obstacles that students generally face. Positive influence of timed reading and paced reading on students’ reading speed improvement.
Positive influence of timed reading and paced reading on students’ reading comprehension improvement. Attitudes of students. Development of students’ language proficiency in learning English with timed and paced reading activities. Students’ suggestion for implementation of speed reading strategies in English class.
65 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION. Summary of the key findings. Implications and suggestions. Implications for school and teachers.
Implications for students. Limitations of the study. 80 iv List of tables Table 3. 1 The population of the research.
2 Sample for pre-test and post-test. 3 Demographic Data of the Participants in Experimental group. 4 Sample for the questionnaire. 1 The results of groups in the pre-test and post-test.
2 Result of group in pre-test. 3 Result of group in post-test. 4 Results of Independent Sample test on Pre-test scores. 5 Results of Independent Sample test on Post-test scores.
6 Compared mean values of post-test. 7 Students’ reading experience. 8 Students’ Speed Reading strategies practice. 9 Speed reading strategies improving students’ reading speed.
10 Speed reading strategies improving students’ reading comprehension. 11 Students’ speed reading practice and reflection. 12 Student's satisfaction with speed reading strategies and tests. 14 How students like learning Speed Reading Classes.
15 The students' explanation to reasons they like speed reading class. 16 Studens' Reading obstacles. 17 Positive influence of timed reading and paced reading on students' reading speed improvement. 19 Positive influence of timed reading and paced reading on students' reading comprehension improvement.
21 Students’ language proficiency in learning English with timed and paced reading activities. 23 Statistics of students’ suggestion. 65 vi List of figures Figure 4. 1 The differences of mean value between two groups.
2 Effect of the treatment on the experimental group. 3 The importance of learning Speed Reading strategies at school. 4 Frequency of Speed reading strategies use. 52 vii List of abbreviations APC: ASIA PACIFIC COLLEGE DOET: Department of Education and Training EFL: English as a Foreign Language MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale Apart from speaking, listening and writing, reading is considered to be one of the most important skills for accessing information and for communication. People can hardly deny the significant role of reading brought to human living. As Eskey (2005) points out “many students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), for example, rarely speak the language in their day- to-day lives but may need to read it in order to access the wealth of information recorded exclusively in the language” (p. It is the fact that reading has played a vital part not only in people’s daily life but in school life as well.
Reading comprehension is also an essential element to develop children learning skills and their ability to obtain an education. However, comprehending the texts, to some extent, is not an easy matter. It is an active process which needs a strategy to translate every symbol that included in the text. Kamil (2000) writes in National Reading Panel: First, reading comprehension is a complex cognitive process that cannot be understood without a clear description of the role that vocabulary development and vocabulary instruction play in the understanding of what has been read.
Second, comprehension is an active process that requires an intentional and thoughtful interaction between the reader and text comprehension instruction. Although there are many areas of English skills that students should improve, reading as a receptive skill can be the foundation for students as a kind of competence to further exploration of the English for themselves. However, the tenth-grade students at Asian Pacific College (APC) in Gia Lai province seem not to be proficient in reading skills regarding vocabulary, reading rates and time allocation. Firstly, most of them have a lack of vocabulary.
Secondly, the students read a long text slowly. In other words, the speed rate is limited. Finally, students usually complain about the time allocation, which is limited to understand the text. Therefore, students may not have an opportunity to analyze questions because they tend to read every 2 single word.
Related to the efficient way of teaching reading comprehension, speed reading technique is one of the alternative ways that can be used to help the students read quickly. Slow reading is defined by Brown & Hirst (1983) as a problem of independent weakness of the purpose of reading, involving the processing of information at a slow rate that the readers are unable to grasp enough detail in short term memory to permit decoding the overall message of the text. Many educational studies on different issues relating to the influence of speed reading on reading comprehension have been conducted by different researchers, including both foreign and Vietnamese ones. However, difficulties in EFL English reading comprehension still leave many things to study, especially at Asian Pacific College, in Gia Lai province.
I am really concerned and interested in studying the application of some exploratory speed reading strategies to help students to overcome the difficulties related to reading comprehension, which they encounter in learning EFL reading comprehension. For these reasons, I managed the time to do this study, namely “A study on application of some exploratory speed reading strategies for enhancing reading comprehension for the tenth graders in Asian Pacific College School in Gia Lai province”, with the wish to contribute a humble part to improving the quality of EFL learning in general and the quality of learning EFL reading comprehension in particular. Aim of the study The study aims to understand whether the exploratory speed reading strategies can influence in improving students’ reading comprehension in English among the tenth-grade students at APC in Gia Lai province. In addition, the possibility of applying speed reading strategies is also targeted, and therefore suitable suggestions could be proposed to help the students overcome their difficulties and make the learning of EFL reading comprehension become more effective.
Research questions The study is conducted to answer the following research questions: 1. What is the effectiveness of speed reading strategies instruction on tenth grade students’ comprehension? 2. What is students' perception of speed reading strategies? 3. What do students think about integrating speed reading strategies into EFL class to improve their reading comprehension? 1.