THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DO THI THUY DEVELOPING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ INFERENTIAL READING SKILLS (Phát triển kỹ năng đọc suy luận cho học sinh bậc THPT) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2019 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DO THI THUY DEVELOPING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ INFERENTIAL READING SKILLS (Phát triển kỹ năng đọc suy luận cho học sinh bậc THPT) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Ph. Nguyen Thanh Long THAI NGUYEN – 2019 ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere. Name: Do Thi Thuy Date:.
This study was approved by Dr. Nguyen Thanh Long iii i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the encouragement and whole-hearted assistance of many people. Firstly, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Thanh Long Nguyen, whose encouragement, guidance and support from initial to the final level has enabled me to overcome many difficulties and develop my research skills.
I would like to extend my special thanks to all the staff, especially the teaching staff at Thai Nguyen University where I have studied for providing me with knowledge, research skills and facilities. My special thanks also go to the students who have participated in this project. Without their assistance, I would not have been able to collect valuable data for the project. Finally, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my family, whose continuous encouragement, support, and love helped me pass through insurmountable difficulties during my research.
ii iv ABSTRACT This study aimed to examine how cognitive strategies are beneficial to 12th grade students in performing their reading tasks related to inference. To focus on the overall objective above, the study concerned about what high school students’ attitudes toward inferential reading tasks were, how the motivation factor affected high school students’ inferential reading result, and how the cognitive reading strategies applied in inferential reading affected students’ results in terms of scores. Participating in this study were 80 students of grade 12 from Van Lang School. In collecting the research data, I used inferential pre-test and post-test reading instrument, questionnaire, interviews and diary notes.
The tests were used to measure the students’ ability to understand the texts, the improvement of students after 8-weeks introducing cognitive strategies and having students practice cognitive strategies in inferential tasks while the questionnaire was used to obtain information about some necessary personal participants and find out cognitive strategies used by students. Research data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively. The research findings show that students used strategies of cognitive dimensions in inference effectively and moderately, and prove that students’ attitudes and motivation affected positively in inferential task performance. iii v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES v PART A.
Background of the study 1 2. Statement of the problem 2 3. Aims of the study 4 5. Significance of the study 5 6.
Scope of the study 5 7. Organization of the thesis 5 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 7 CHAPTER 1. Attitudes and Motivation towards reading 16 CHAPTER 2. Research questions and objectives 21 2.
Data collection instruments 22 2. Data collection procedure 24 2. Data analysis 26 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 29 3. Discussion 40 PART C: CONCLUSION 44 1.
Limitations of the study and recommendations for further studies 45 REFERENCES 47 APPENDICES I iv vi LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Students’ attitude towards inferential reading 30 Table 3. Reasons students to learn English 31 Table 3. Students’ self- assessed English inferential reading proficiency 34 Table 3.
Statistics from pre-test 34 Table 3. The marks students gained in pre-test 35 Table 3.6: Pre- test and post- test performance 35 Table 3. Paired Samples t-Test 36 Table 3.8: Individual cognitive strategies used by respondents 36 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Types of inferences 10 Figure 1.2: A tetrahedral model of studies on inference generation in reading 11 Figure 1.3: Types of strategies 13 Figure 3.