1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN QUỲNH HOA USING PORTFOLIO IN TEACHING READING SKILL TO SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS – VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI (Vận dụng hồ sơ bài tập vào việc giảng dạy kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm thứ hai không chuyên Tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Kinh tế - Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Cohort: MA 16 HANOI, 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN QUỲNH HOA USING PORTFOLIO IN TEACHING READING SKILL TO SECOND-YEAR NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS – VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI (Vận dụng hồ sơ bài tập vào việc giảng dạy kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm thứ hai không chuyên Tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Kinh tế - Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Cohort: MA 16 Supervisor: Đinh Hải Yến, M.Ed HANOI, 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS …………………………………. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………….
iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES …………………………………………. vi PART I: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………. Rationale of the thesis ……………………………………………………. Objectives of the thesis …………………………………………………….
Scope of the thesis …………………………………………………………. Method of the thesis ………………………………………………………. Design of the thesis ………………………………………………………. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT ………………………………………………….
4 Chapter 1: Literature Review ………………………………………………… 4 1. Definition of reading skill ……………………………………………………… 4 1. Role of reading skill to non-English major students ………………………. Requirements for the teaching and learning of reading skill for non- 6 English major students ………………………………………………………………….
Definition of portfolio …………………………………………………………. Types of portfolio ………………………………………………………………. Characteristics of portfolio ……………………………………………………. Using portfolio in teaching reading skills ……………………………….
Portfolio in practice ……………………………………………………………. Typical gains of using portfolio in teaching reading skill …………………. Typical pitfalls of using portfolio in teaching reading skill ………………. 16 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Research questions and data collection instruments …………………… 16 2. Pre-portfolio questionnaire …………………………………………………. Post-portfolio questionnaire …………………………………………………. Data analysis instruments ……………………………………………….
23 Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion of major findings ………………… 24 3. The effectiveness of the reading portfolio ………………………………. The learning of the introduced reading subskills …………………………… 27 3. The teacher’s and learners’ gains through the reading portfolio ………… 31 3.
Gains for the learners ………………………………………………………… 32 3. Gains for the teacher …………………………………………………………. Difficulties in applying reading portfolio to non-English majors ……… 35 3. A feasible portfolio model for non-English majors …………………….
37 PART III: CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………. Summary of previous parts ……………………………………………. Implications for English teachers …………………. Recommendations for further study …………………………………… 40 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………… 42 I APPENDIX 1: PRE-PORTFOLIO QUESTIONNAIRE ……….
III APPENDIX 2: PORTFOLIO INSTRUCTION …………………. VII APPENDIX 3: TEACHER’S HANDOUTS ……………………. XXXI APPENDIX 4: STUDENTS’ READING ENTRIES …………………… XXXVII APPENDIX 5: PORTFOLIO COVER PAGE …………………. TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 8 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Table 2.
Criteria to assess students’ reading portfolio ………………………. Introduced reading subskills and corresponding reading tasks ……. The participants’ frequency of reading in English …………………. Reasons for difficulty in reading English texts ……………………… 26 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.University 9 PART I: INTRODUCTION I.
Rationale of the thesis Not only recently, teachers and learners in higher education have complained about serious shortcomings of traditional learning and testing, in which learning is only conceived as the accumulation of stimulus-response association. Moreover, most testing systems used in Vietnamese universities consist of only written tests, and mainly focus on checking students‟ memorization of rules or concrete items of knowledge rather than assessing their effort, real understanding or ability to apply knowledge in real situations. Meanwhile, the modern society and the labour market are requiring graduates to have higher-order cognitive skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, analyzing data, and being able to present facts and opinions orally or in written form (Dochy, 2001; as cited in Birgin & Baki, 2007). Those are practical skills that help employees fulfill their increasingly demanding jobs in a competitive environment.
In short, there seems to be a gap between what the society requires and what the educational system offers. To bridge the gap mentioned above, it is necessary for university education to provide learners with realistic knowledge and practical skills. Moreover, assessment is required to measure both on-going efforts and learning outcomes. More importantly, training students to be active and independent learners should be the ultimate educational aim.
In order to do so, the only way is letting students take responsibility for their own learning, design their own learning plan, seek out additional learning materials, assess their own progress, and cooperate with others in learning. In this regard, portfolio is claimed to be a teaching and learning tool that creates such activeness and autonomy in learners. In the world, various kinds of portfolio have been used since the early of 1990s in teaching foreign languages and have shown promising results. In Vietnam, portfolio has gradually become a favourable teaching tool at many universities as it combines both instruction and assessment.
Moreover, portfolio focuses on various language and learning skills not just concrete language items. However, this tool has been mainly applied to English major students as it requires much time, effort and higher-order cognitive skills. As for non-English majors, portfolio is assumed to be not feasible. To check validity of such assumption, the writer has selected the topic “Using portfolio to teach reading skill to second-year non-English major students at University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University, Hanoi” to conduct a study.University TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Objectives of the thesis This study aims at investigating the implementation of portfolio and examining its effects on teaching reading skill to second-year non-English major students at University of Economics and Business – Vietnam National University Hanoi (UEB). It is hoped to build up a feasible portfolio model and offer suggestions for the teaching and learning of this basic receptive skill. Specifically, answers to the following research questions are sought: 1. What are portfolio‟s effects on improving learners‟ reading skill? 2.
What are the problems emerging in the implementation process? 3. What are possible adjustments to tailor the common portfolio design and make it more suitable to non-English majors? I. Scope of the thesis Portfolio can be used for various reasons – assessing learners‟ performance, teaching concrete language items, or assisting learners in improving their language skills. Within the scope of this study, portfolio is manipulated mainly as a teaching tool to help students build up and enhance their awareness of the importance of reading skill, as well as train them how to apply basic reading subskills effectively in comprehending English texts.
Specifically, portfolio is intended for strengthening only the reading skill as such concentration would ensure better results than conducting an unfocused research spreading over all four skills. As mentioned above, it has become common to apply portfolios to students of English major. However, to their non-English major counterparts, this teaching tool is quite new. Consequently, the study selects second-year non-English majors at UEB as the tentative subjects.
For these learners, English is not the top priority but still a necessity as their future jobs majoring in Finance and Banking, International Economy, or Business Administration all require good English proficiency. Furthermore, reading skill would be a useful tool for these learners to develop other English skills as well as knowledge to widen other subject areas. Additionally, adjustments suggested in this thesis target at non-English major students only. They can be altered to match specific teaching and learning conditions.
Selection of those adjustments is decided according to pedagogical theories of specialists and teaching experience of the writer of this thesis.University TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Method of the thesis The study is carried out in form of an action research, conducted by the writer herself as a practitioner in EFL teaching and concurrent with the teaching and learning process. Both quantitative and qualitative data are collected in order to get a full view of the effects that the designed portfolio brings to classroom practice. To collect desired data, two research instruments are made use of, namely survey questionnaire and portfolio analysis.
As for the first instrument, there are two questionnaires – the pre-portfolio questionnaire and its post-portfolio version. They were manipulated to gather information to answer three research questions. In addition, teacher‟s notes and informal talks between learners and the teacher – mostly occurring during break time – are used to obtain detailed information about students‟ feedback and suggestions. However, these data are merely students‟ opinions; thus, quite subjective.
Accordingly, to improve validity of the research results, submitted portfolios are analyzed from the pedagogical standpoint to reveal effectiveness and feasibility of reading portfolio. Design of the study The study consists of three parts: Part I: Introduction This part introduces the objectives, scope, and organization of the study. Part II: Development This is the main part of the study. It is divided into three chapters.
Chapter I: Literature Review Theoretical background relevant to the topic and critical survey of related articles, books and other resources are presented. Chapter 2: Methodology This chapter presents the detailed procedure of the study: the ESP course, population selection, and methodology for data collection and data analysis. Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion of major findings This chapter deals with the findings drawn out from the analysis of data. The findings and discussion are based on information gained through the two questionnaires, informal conversations between participants and the researcher, as well as the students‟ portfolios.
Part III: Conclusion Major findings of the study are summarized in this part. Besides, implications for English teachers and recommendations for further research are presented.University TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.University 12 PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review As the study is centered on the use of reading portfolio to non-English majors, two key terms are clearly defined, namely reading skill and portfolio. This chapter is wholly distributed to review relating theories and practical studies so that these two terms are understood precisely and applied successfully to non-English major learners. Definition of reading skill Reading is a common term but defining it is not easy.
Most authors tend to define the term by pointing out its characteristics rather than giving a concrete definition. According to Nunan, reading is “essentially concerned with meaning, specifically with the transfer of meaning from mind to mind: the transfer of a message from writer to reader” (2000, p. As for Nuttall (1996), he views reading in relation with communication and as a process with the ultimate aim of approaching the writer‟s underlying idea in the text. As such, these authors consider reading as an interactive process in which reader and writer are key participants.
However, unlike face-to-face communication, the writer is not present; which brings much challenge and even the risk of misunderstanding to the interaction. Perhaps because of the writer‟s absence, Anderson focuses mainly on the interaction between the reader and the text in building meaning. He further describes that: A synergy occurs in reading which combines the words on the printed page with the reader‟s background knowledge and experiences. Readers move through the printed text with specific purposes in mind to accomplish specific goals.1) Similarly, in Silberstein‟s words (2002, p.12), reading is “a complex information processing skill in which the reader interacts with text so as to (re)create meaningful discourse.” The mentioned viewpoints persuasively reject the old conception that reading is merely a receptive process in which the reader passively absorbs the written text.
In short, reading is the integration of the direct interaction between the reader and the text, the indirect interaction between the reader with his/her prior knowledge and experience and the writer. Another way to understand a notion is looking into its components. As for reading, they are its subskills.