VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE THE EFFECTS OF QUESTIONING-THE-AUTHOR STRATEGY ON EFL YOUNG LEARNERS’ READING COMPREHENSION A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By NGUYEN MAI TRAN Supervised by NGUYEN THU HUONG, Ph. HO CHI MINH CITY, OCTOBER 2021 ACKNOWLEDMENT This thesis would have not been completed without the encouragement, suggestion and assistance from many members. First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thu Huong, who has supported me and guided me through the thesis, and forgiven me for my occasional tardiness during the thesis.
He has given me the greatest encouragement and stimulation, and I deeply appreciate his wholehearted and professional guidance. Next, I would like to extent my grateful thanks to SEAMEO RETRAC Kiddy Programs for authorizing me to conduct my experiment at the center. In addition, I would like to express my special thanks to my beloved colleagues, who gave me many valuable suggestions, who took time to correct my questionnaire and frequently asked me about the progress so that I could feel a great sense of warmth and care. Hence, I was strongly motivated to fulfill the thesis.
I would also like to send my thanks to my students, who accompanied with me during the thesis. Last but not least, I would like to send my thanks to my family for their continuous support during the time I completed thesis. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis entitled “THE EFFECTS OF QUESTIONING-THE-AUTHOR STRATEGY ON EFL YOUNG LEARNERS’ READING COMPREHENSION” I hereby declare that this thesis has not been submitted, either in full or in part to any institutions for any purposes. Ho Chi Minh City, October 6th, 2021 NGUYỄN MAI TRÂN ii RETENTION AND USE OF MY THESIS I hereby state that I, Nguyen Mai Tran, being the candidate of the degree of Master in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities regarding the retention and use of my thesis deposited in the library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis should be made accessible to individuals for the purpose of research and study in accordance with the conditions established by the University’s library for the care, loan or reproduction of the thesis. Ho Chi Minh City, October 6th, 2021 NGUYEN MAI TRAN iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDMENT. i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY.ii RETENTION AND USE OF MY THESIS. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii LIST OF FIGURES. ix LIST OF TABLES.xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.1 Background of the study.2 Aims of the study.5 Significance of the study.6 Scope of the study.7 Outline of the thesis. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.1 A brief overview of reading skills.1 A description of reading.1 Definition of RC.2 Components of reading comprehension.2 Teaching English reading comprehension.1 Reading comprehension strategies.2 Teaching RC strategies in reading class.3 Young learners in EFL classroom.4 The use of L1 in foreign language classroom.3 Questioning-the-Author reading strategy.1 Definition of QtA.2 The development of QtA.3 The main steps of QtA in reading classroom.4 Queries in QtA strategy.5 Discussion in QtA.4 Related study on the implementation of QtA.1 The content of the questionnaire on queries of QtA.2 The content of the questionnaire on discussion of QtA.3 The content of the questionnaire on influence of QtA.4 The content of the questionnaire on overall preference and willingness to use QtA .5 The content of the questionnaire on students’ difficulty.6 The content of the questionnaire on improvement.6 Data collection procedure.7 Data analysis procedure.8 Summary of Chapter 3.1 Testing of the difference between the test results of the experimental class and the comparison class.1 Testing of the difference of academic achievement between classes with QtA strategy and classes without QtA strategy.2 Testing the difference in learning outcomes before and after applying the QtA strategy.3 Students’ perception analysis of QtA strategy.1 Understanding level of queries in QtA.2 Students’ perception of the queries in QtA.3 Evaluation of students’ participation in QtA strategy discussion.4 Students’ perception of the influence of QtA strategy.5 Evaluation of students after experiencing QtA strategy.6 Students’ Difficulties in QtA strategy.7 Students’ expectations for improving QtA strategy more effectively.1 Discussion on RQ1.2 Discussion on RQ2.1 Summary and contribution.1 Implications for EFL learners.2 Implications for EFL teachers, syllabus designers and textbook writers.3 Limitations of the study.4 Recommendation for further studies.96 REFERENCES APPENDIX vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language RC reading comprehension QtA Questioning-the-Author viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 The definition of Reading (Anderson, 2003).2 Figure of comprehension (Perdo, 2004).3 A Heuristic for Thinking About RC (Snow, 2002).4 QtA strategy in detail (Beck et.5 Three main steps in QtA (Beck & McKeown, 2002).6 Question-Driven and Query-Driven discussion (Beck & McKeown, 2002).1 Test results of experimental group and comparison group.2 Understanding level of queries in QtA.3 Students’ perception of the queries in QtA.4 Students’ perception of discussion part in QtA strategy.5 Participation in QtA strategy discussion.6 Students’ perception of the influence of QtA strategy.7 Overall preference and willingness to use QtA.8 Students’ Difficulties in QtA strategy.9 Students’ expectations for improving QtA strategy more effectively.79 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Processes that define reading (Grabe, 2009, p.2 Reading comprehension strategies.3 Teacher’s and students’ use of L1 in class.4 Characteristics of some traditional questions and QtA queries (Beck et al, 1997, p.5 Summary of recent studies related to QtA.1 Methodology of the study.2 Experimental group description.3 Comparison group description.4 Description of pretest and posttest.5 A brief summary of questionnaire.6 Questionnaire items about queries.7 Questionnaire items about discussion.8 Questionnaire item about influence of QtA.9 Questionnaire item about overall preference and willingness to use QtA.10 Questionnaire item about difficulty of QtA.11 Questionnaire item about future improvement of QtA.12 Information about reading texts used in the study.1 Difference test results between classes with and without QtA strategy.2 Results of testing the difference in learning outcomes before and after applying the QtA strategy.
64 x ABSTRACT For long, Questioning the Author has been described as a mean to improve learners’ first language reading comprehension and recently as an effective strategy in EFL reading classroom with positive impact on their language perception and reading comprehension as well. This study investigated the effectiveness of QtA in young learner classroom (approximately at the age of 10) towards the 3-month application of this method. In addition, it also looked into the impact of QtA on students’ perception with regard to their preference and the difficulty this strategy. This study adopted quantitative research method by which independent T test design was used to discover students’ changes in their reading comprehension after the application of QtA.
A questionnaire was also administered to probe into students’ perception of QtA in terms of preference and level of difficulty. The results indicated that (a) students showed positive attitudes towards QtA about preference and positive reactions to it in the future, but it was considered as a challenge for them and (b) QtA improved students’ reading comprehension after a 3-month period. Several implications are drawn from the results of this study with regards to reading instruction and guidelines for teaching EFL in young learners classroom. Keywords: Questioning the Author, Reading comprehension, EFL young learners.
xi 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Reading is a crucial skill for English learners, especially those who take it as a compulsory demand for education and profession. Good reading skill in English will give ESL and EFL learners the key to open doors to better life regardless of their location, occupation and nationality. From a survey in 38 countries of Cambridge University, generally, employers prefer all four language skills but reading is mentioned as the most essential language skill (in 12 industries). The reason possibly is that English is the language most often used in international publications, contracts and instructions.
Owing to the increasing for working and studying in an international environment on an unprecedented scale, English reading skill has grown in popularity in recent years as one of the primary communication channels. Hence, this skill still gains enormous from teachers, administrators and learners as well.1 Background of the study Reading skill, or English reading skill in this case, is normally considered a relatively passive activity as the readers merely sit down and extract the information from the text in a silent way. However, meaning from the text should be and actually can be build in a more active process with the use of various strategies. Reading strategies are proved the essential factors that influence English reading skill.
Grabe (2009) mentions ten processes that are utilized by fluent readers, which also include strategy along with interaction, flexibility, and evaluation. According to O’Malley & Chamot (1990),there are 24 reading strategies felling into three major types of reading strategies as metacognitive, cognitive and social/ affective strategies. However, the number of strategies used in EFL reading classroom is still limited in Vietnamese context (Minh & Nga, 2020). Reading the text again, skimming, applying existing knowledge, and skipping unknown terms are the four most common strategies found 1 in their research.
Ba & Huan (2017), in particular, pay their attention to the instruction of reading strategy for young learners and report different ranges of strategy applied for this age group. The most frequent strategies listed in their study are using context clues, connecting, questioning and predicting. Consequently, from their relatively unrelated findings, it might be said that there should be a more systematic instruction of reading strategy for learners in order to better their skills and RC. The lack of guidance on reading strategy, especially from the early stages of learning English as a foreign language, can lead to many difficulties for students later on.
Regarding the participants in this study, reading skill is covered as part of students’ language learning at a language center. They will be prepared for their Cambridge Flyer test once they complete this course; thus, reading will provide as a basic skill for earning satisfactory scores on their test. However, according to the researcher’s observation, learners, notably those at SEAMEO Retrac, continue to struggle with reading comprehension since they have not been exposed to a variety of reading strategies. This is one of the reasons behind the researcher’s intention to conduct this study.
Among the reading strategies mentioned and classified by many researchers, QtA was introduced by Grabe & Stoller (2011) and Kamil et al (2011) as a strategy to support students’ reading comprehension process to construct meaning of the text. Furthermore, QtA, with its combination of invisible author-directed queries and discussion giving students the opportunity to construct information from the text (Beck et al, 1997), has also recently been applied and yielded good results. positive results for students’ RC (Foong et al, 2009; Baleghizadeh, 2011; Ayu, 2012; Sencibaugh & Sencibaugh, 2015). The positive effects of QtA on different research subjects and contexts have exhorted researchers to apply QtA to young students.
2 Given the benefits of QtA and the lack of reading strategy training at SEAMEO Retrac, a study investigating the impact of QtA on young learners’ RC and perceptions of QtA use in the reading classroom is necessary. Furthermore, while the favorable influence of QtA on RC has been extensively studied, there are few studies that look into how this method is used in the context of teaching EFL to young learners.2 Aims of the study This study was aimed to (1) find out if QtA strategy is effective in improving reading comprehension of EFL young learners and (2) to gain knowledge of student s’ perception of the use of QtA in the English reading lesson. In detail, the researcher would seek for their preferences, opinions about how the use of the treatment affect their RC, difficulties they faced and their suggestions for better application of QtA in the future.