iii LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Learning strategy definition and classification (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:119) Table 4. Analysis of questionnaires: Question 1 Table 4. Analysis of questionnaires: Question 2 Table 4.
Analysis of questionnaires : Metacognitive reading strategies Table 4.4: Analysis of questionnaires : Cognitive reading strategies Table 4. Illustrates responses concerning two subtypes of social/affective strategies Table 4. Analysis of interviews : Question 1 Table 4. Analysis of interviews : Question 2 Table 4.8: Analysis of interviews: Question 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv ABSTRACT “Strategic learning is the key to student success in any endeavor I view learning by strategies as the foundation for lifelong learning” (P.
Hardin in Anderson, 1999:73) The important role of English reading comprehension is apparent for any students who have a good command of English. Good reading comprehension not only widens students’ knowledge but also fulfils other skills. For non English major students in Yen Vien high school, reading has been paid more attentions to as they have to take the examinations which are grammar-and reading-based. However, they have encountered a lot of difficulties in reading skills.
Language reading strategies are among the main factors that help determine how - and how well - our students learn a second or foreign language. This study aims to investigate the reading awareness of 11th grade students in Yen Vien high school. The result of the study varies among good and poor English readers. This study has also given some suggestions to reduce their reading difficulties and enhance students’ reading capacity by equipping them with some reading strategies that help students obtain desirable results in learning reading.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com v TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration……………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………. ii List of Tables……………………………………………………………………. iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problems and rationale of the study…………………………….
Aims of the Study………………………………………………………………. Scope of the Study………………………………………………………………. Significance of the study………………………………………………………. Design of the Study……………………………………………………………… 4 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.
What is Reading and Reading Comprehension?. What is Reading?. What is Reading Comprehension?. Classification of reading……………………………………………………….
According to manner…………………………………………………………. 8 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. According to the purposes of reading………………………………………. Reading strategies and the importance of strategy training…………………….
The importance of strategy training…………………………………………. The teacher’s role in strategy training…………………………………………. Participants and settings of the study ……………………………………… 18 2. Settings of the study ……………………………………………………….
Instruments of data collection ……………………………………………. 19 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION…………………………………. Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension………………………… 19 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Readers’ factors affecting reading comprehension …………………… 21 3.
Metacognitive reading strategies ……………………………………. Cognitive reading strategies ……………………………………………. Social/affective strategies ………………………………………………. Summaries of main findings ………………………………………………….
Readers' attitudes to reading comprehension ……………………………. Discussion of main findings…………………………………………………. Summary of main findings…………………………………………………… 41 4. Implications of the study…………………………………………………….
43 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Suggestions for further research ……………………………………………. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com -1- PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problems and rationale of the study Internationally, teaching English has changed tremendously over the last few decades.
More significantly, the traditional teacher-centered approach has been replaced with the learner-centered one, which reflects a desire to explore ways of making responsive to learner’s need and interests and allowing to learners to play a more active and participatory role in the day-to-day teaching and learning processes. Therefore, no longer does the teacher act as the centre of all instructions, controlling every aspect of the learning process. Learners themselves now, more than ever, are sharing the responsibility for successful language acquisition and in doing so, are becoming less dependent on the language teacher for meeting their own individual language needs. Students are advised to become more autonomous, to diagnose some of their own learning strengths and weaknesses and to self-direct the process of language development.
In the field of second language acquisition research, focus has been shifted away from finding perfect teaching methodologies to investigating why some learners are very successful in their language learning while others are not although they have made much effort learning the language. Several studies have been carried out by Oxford (1990), O’Malley and Chamot (1990) Nunan (1991), Rubin and Thomson (1994) and Cohen (1998) have discovered that one of the most significant factors that distinguish successful learners from unsuccessful one is their learning strategies. In other words, successful learners do use some effective strategies to deal with the problems that emerge during their learning process while unsuccessful ones are not aware of learning strategies or they may use unsuccessful ones or inappropriate or ineffective strategies resulting in their failure in their language learning. This finding has provoked interests among researchers and teachers in identifying learning strategies employed by good language learners with a view to training bad learners to be aware of effective learning strategies and use effective strategies in their English study.
In Vietnam, the English language plays an important role in the increasing development of science, technology, politics, culture and international relation. There is a TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com -2- greater demand for teaching and learning through the country for different purposes. Moreover, English has become a compulsory subject in the state examination and it is one of three subjects for the entrance examination of some universities. Some studies into this field have been conducted with different types of learners to find out particular strategies employed by effective and ineffective students in order to help the effective ones aware of leaning strategies such as Huyen Tran’s study (2004) on vocabulary learning strategies used by students of English at Qui Nhon university or Mai Duong’s study (2005) on writing strategies employed by the first – year students at HaNoi National University.
However, Such studies are scare, thus, more research should be done to help more learners use appropriate strategies in their different settings. At Yen Vien high school, students are supposed to master all four skills presented in the standard text books “Tieng Anh 10”, “Tieng Anh 11”and “Tieng Anh 12”. After three years at high school, they have to pass the GCSE and the entrance examination of some universities and colleges with rather challenging tests. Students can not pass such examinations without being equipped with effect strategies.
However, with the limitations of a high school, the number of students who even do not know learning strategies is not small. With ten-year experience of teaching English at Yen Vien high school, reading is considered one of the most difficult skill for Yen Vien’s students especially the 11th grade ones. Although they know the importance of reading and they have also tried their best, their test scores are not satisfactory due to both subjective and objective causes. Their low reading comprehension results from not only their own causes as their lack of vocabulary, grammar and background knowledge, but also some other factors such as the textbook, motivation in class, the teaching staff and their reading teaching methods, schedule, administration and so on.
With a view to bettering the situation, Both teachers and learners have to adapt. However, it is necessary for students to have appropriate reading strategies. Therefore, I intend to examine the awareness of English reading (henceforth called reading) strategies of 11th grade students at Yen Vien high school in this study and find out the differences in the strategies used by students of higher reading abilities and those of lower reading abilities. Based on the finding, I am going to make some recommendations to improve the students’ reading proficiency.
TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Aims of the Study The study aims at finding out the strategies Vietnamese 11th grade students use when they read English so that improvement of the quality of teaching and learning English reading as a second language in the upper secondary education for Vietnamese students could be achieved. To achieve this aim, the study sets out to obtain these specific objectives: 1. To investigate the awareness and possible use of reading strategies of 11th grade students at a Vietnamese high school when they read English, 2.
To explore possible ways for improving the students’ English reading proficiency level. Research Questions To achieve the aims of the thesis, the following research questions were proposed with questions 1 and 2 addressing the first aim and question 3 the second aim): 1) What are the levels of awareness and use of English reading comprehension strategies of Vietnamese 11th grade students? 2) Do the good readers (11th grade students) have different awareness and use of reading strategies from the medium and weak ones? 3) What can be done to help Vietnamese grade 11th poor readers to improve their reading comprehension level? 1. Research Methodology This study is to be conducted as a descriptive one that employed a written questionnaire and interview to collect information about students’ awareness and possible use of reading strategies. The data collected were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively to help the author achieve the aim of the study, that is answers to research questions 1 and 2 to deal with aim number 1 and research question 3 with aim 2.
Scope of the Study TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com -4- The study is designed to explore the 11th students’ awareness and possible use of reading strategies in Yen Vien high school in order to make some methodological recommendations for English learners. This study is, therefore, descriptive by nature. The subjects of the study are three groups of 11th grade students in seven classes. Three hundred and eighteen students divided into three groups based on the levels of English measured by end-term English test scores.
All of them are living in Gia Lam district. They all have learned English for five years ( four years in lower secondary school and one year in upper secondary school). Based on their English test score of the final examination and the whole year, I divide three hundred and eighteen 11th grade students into three groups: 1st group consists of 68 students (with the total test score from 7 to 10), 2nd group consists of 200 students (with the total test core from 5 to 6) and 50 students in the third group (with the total test below 5). Significance of the study The study helps solve the problem of uplifting the quality of English reading of Vietnamese grade 11 students.
It would enable the teaching and learning of English to be more effective and efficient. Above all, it would help to promote reading power of students and this is very important to them in study as well as in their future jobs. It is also hoped that the study would make some valuable contributions to the field of language teaching methodology. Results obtained from the study can help English teachers to enhance their teaching with Vietnamese students especially with poor readers.
On the other hand, students can use the suggested techniques to self-improve their English learning. Design of the Study: This study consists of 3 parts with part 2 dividing into 3 chapters: Part 1: Introduction. This part supplies an overview of the study with specific reference to the rationale, the aims, the methodology and the design. Part 2: Chapter 1 deals with an exploration of the theoretical background of the research.
It is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research such as reading and reading comprehension, classification of reading, strategies and the importance of strategy training as well as the teacher’s role in strategy training. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com -5- Chapter 2: The methodology of this study is presented. This chapter presents the background information of the subjects of the study, the instrument used to collect the data, the procedure of data collection. Chapter 3: is aimed at describing data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion of the findings of the study.
Some explanations and interpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter.