VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ ANH THƯ Developing test-taking strategies for TOEIC Reading Comprehension Tests: A study on non- English major students at University of Economic – Technical Industries. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI, 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ ANH THƯ Developing test-taking strategies for TOEIC Reading Comprehension Tests: A study on non- English major students at University of Economic – Technical Industries. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Ngô Hữu Hoàng HANOI, 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I, Le Anh Thu, hereby state that, this minor thesis is the result of my own research and all the material in this study which is not my own work has been identified and acknowledged.
I also state that the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degree to any other universities institutions. Dated: 25/ 12/ 2013 Lê Anh Thư i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my most sincere thanks to my respected supervisor, Dr. Ngo Huu Hoang for his generous assistance, invaluable advice, guidance, constructive comments. Without his help, this study would not have possibly been completed.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my thankfulness to the Post- Grade Department for their enthusiastic help during the time of studying and writing my thesis. I also wish to acknowledge the cooperation of my colleagues and my students, especially the students at University of Economic – Technical Industries who have helped me to collect data for the study. Hereby, I also would like to thank all the readers for their attention and I highly appreciate any comments and opinions on this study. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT So far, most Vietnamese universities have tended to choose TOEIC as a measure unit to assess input English level and graduation for students.
TOEIC score reports provide accurate, meaningful feedback about a test taker‟s strengths and weaknesses, along with a description of the English language strengths typical of test takers performing at various score levels. However, when taking the TOEIC test, especially the TOEIC reading comprehension section, many students do meet a lot of difficulties in reading, and therefore fail to be efficient readers and get high scores. One of the primary causes is that students seem unskilled or unaware of the use of test-taking strategies for TOEIC reading comprehension tests. Then, which strategies should students be used while taking the TOEIC reading comprehension tests? A number of studies and books have already been released in the area of application of test-taking strategies to TOEIC reading comprehension part.
This study is concerned with developing test-taking strategies to help non-major English students at UNETI reduce reading difficulties, improve their skills and take the TOEIC reading comprehension tests with higher scores. The result of the study show that non-major English students at UNETI often have difficulties, to different extent, in many areas of the language such as difficulties with vocabulary, with grammar, discourse, and reading strategies. Moreover, the data collected in the study also revealed that the students‟ inefficient use of reading strategies is a great source of reading problems. Through the students‟ low frequency of strategy use to deal with question kinds in TOEIC reading comprehension tests, it is shown that students fail to apply reading strategies effectively in responding to questions during tests.
Therefore, the study suggests that to enable to successfully take the TOEIC reading comprehension test, students should actively use strategies involved as skimming and scanning skills, utilize context clues to understand difficult words and find out the synonym or paraphrase for the word. In some cases, if test-takers have no idea about a question, the application of techniques to guess should be needed. Besides, the study also recommends several test- taking strategies for each kind of questions in TOEIC reading comprehension test. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE DECLARATION.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study.
Significance of the study. Design of the study. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1- THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. Reading and Reading comprehension.
Definitions of reading. Definitions of reading comprehension. Models of reading process. Reading comprehension approaches.
Reading Comprehension Skills and Strategies. Reading for specific information. 7 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Finding the main ideas.
Guessing vocabulary from the context. Reading Comprehension Skills. TOEIC reading comprehension tests. What is the TOEIC test?.
TOEIC Test Area. Structure of the Test. Who takes the test?. Test formats: SP and IP.
TOEIC Reading Comprehension Section. The context of the study. Data Collection Instruments. Data collection procedures.
20 CHAPTER 3 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3. Students‟ attitude towards TOEIC tests at UNETI. Students‟ perception of their difficulties in taking TOEIC reading comprehension tests at UNETI. In the area of Vocabulary.
In the area of Grammar. In the area of Discourse. In the area of Reading Strategies. Causes of Reading Difficulties.
Students‟ frequency of strategy use across four main kinds of questions in TOEIC reading comprehension test. 28 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Recommendations on developing test-taking strategies in TOEIC reading comprehension test. General test-taking reading strategies.
Read the questions carefully. Answer every question. Read the questions before reading the passage. Use Context Clues to understand difficult words.
Specific test-taking reading strategies for common question types. Test-taking reading strategies for vocabulary questions. Test-taking reading strategies for factual questions. Test-taking reading strategies for inference questions.
37 PART III – CONCLUSION 1. Limitations and of Recommendations for further Research .I vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES 1. Student‟s perception about the importance of the TOEIC test at UNETI. Difficulties in the area of vocabulary.
Difficulties in the area of Grammar. Difficulties in the area of Discourse. Difficulties in the area of Reading Strategies. Students‟ personal views of the sources of difficulties.
Table 7: Frequency of Strategy Use for Vocabulary Questions. Table 8: Frequency of Strategy Use for Inference Question.29 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATION UNETI University of Economic Technical Industries ELT English language teaching TOEIC Test of English for International Communication ETS Educational Testing System TOEIC RC test TOEIC Reading Comprehension test TOEIC LC test TOEIC Listening Comprehension test viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART I – INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Reading as an active, receptive, and decoding language skill is the main source of meaningful input in the process of learning a foreign language. Besides, according to Kim and Anderson (2011, p.
30), “reading is essential for successfully completing all college- level courses. In other words, college students who are more proficient readers are most likely to experience more success in their courses”. Meantime, tests are the most common evaluating method in nearly all educational systems and academic institutions worldwide. Generally, tests express the most students‟ total grades, particularly at the college level.
Whether the goal is college admission, certification, detection of specific behavior, or personal selection, a decision about an individual‟s ability is usually made based on his or her scores in specific tests. Therefore, it is certain that test takers have developed numerous techniques for finding correct answers to reading tests without fully or even partially understanding the text. However, in a test, to evaluate academic reading ability, the primary needs for test takers is to actually use academic reading skills in responding to items, rather than to rely on test-wiseness tricks. The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) has made great efforts to evaluate the reading comprehension abilities of test takers dealing with academic-like texts.
It is clear that the reading tasks in TOEIC are able to discriminate better readers from poorer readers. However, how exactly do test-takers try to complete the tasks? What reading and test-taking strategies do students use to complete the tasks? For ages of applying TOEIC tests as the standard to assess the level of English proficiency in the workplace and everyday communication of non- major English students at University of Economic and Technical Industries (UNETI), I realize that many students do not know how to utilize multiple test-taking strategies to enhance their performance in successfully taking TOEIC tests in general, and TOEIC reading comprehension tests in particular. In details, when approaching the TOEIC reading comprehension part, they frequently read the questions and carelessly scan the passage, merely guessing answers in the end, due to insufficient knowledge about text types and task design. Some can not complete the whole reading test because they lack the fast reading skill and active application of scanning or skimming strategies.
Some seem unaware of the test-taking strategies. Hence, the significance of a study on developing test-taking strategies for 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TOEIC reading comprehension tests as a way of helping non- major English students at UNETI do well in their tests seems undeniable. Aims of the Study This study was carried out with following specific purposes: 1) To investigate difficulties and causes of difficulties which non- major English students at UNETI encounter in taking TOEIC reading comprehension tests. 2) To investigate the frequency use of test-taking strategies which non- major English students at UNETI deal with question kinds in TOEIC reading comprehension tests.
3) To develop test-taking strategies to help learners reduce difficulties, improve their reading skills and take the TOEIC reading comprehension tests with higher scores. Research questions The study was carried out in order to find out the answers to two research questions: 1) What are the difficulties and causes of difficulties encountered by non- English major students at UNETI in taking TOEIC reading comprehension tests? 2) What is the frequency use of the test-taking strategies which non- major English students at UNETI deal with question kinds in TOEIC reading comprehension tests? 3) How to develop students‟ test-taking strategies for TOEIC reading comprehension tests? 4. Scope of study As the title of the study has indicated, the author only focuses on developing test-taking strategies via TOEIC reading comprehension part. Besides, because of limited time and scope of the minor thesis, the researcher can only conduct a survey on non- English major students at UNETI.
Methods of study In order to fulfill the aims of the study, the study has been carried out using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The data were collected from survey on 120 non- English major students at the UNETI. The survey questionnaire included both closed and open-ended questions to ensure data. Significance of the study Results of the study will help provide a better understanding of test-taking strategies for the TOEIC reading comprehension test placed on non- major English students at UNETI and they are expected to successfully perform in their tests.
2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Design of the study This study consists of three parts: Part I: Introduction. This part supplies an overview of the study with specific reference to the rationale, the aims, the methodology and the design. Part II: Development.
In this part, four chapters are presented. Chapter 1 – Literature Review deals with an exploration of the theoretical background of the research. It is concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research: reading and reading comprehension, and an overview of TOEIC reading comprehension tests.