English reading strategies by students from Northern moutainous provinces at the Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University = Chiến lược đọc hiểu

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES


& * &





PHÙNG THỊ THANH TÚ



ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES BY STUDENTS FROM
NORTHERN MOUTAINOUS PROVINES
AT THE FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY,
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN
CÁC TỈNH MIỀN NÚI PHÍA BẮC
TẠI KHOA CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN - ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN






M.A. MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10









Ha Noi - 2010



VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES


***************




PHÙNG THỊ THANH TÚ

ENGLISH READING STRATEGIES BY STUDENTS FROM
NORTHERN MOUTAINOUS PROVINES
AT THE FACULTY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY,
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

CHIẾN LƯỢC ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN
CÁC TỈNH MIỀN NÚI PHÍA BẮC
TẠI KHOA CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN - ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN





M.A. MINOR THESIS





Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Supervisor: HOÀNG THỊ XUÂN HOA, Ph.D.

HaNoi - 2010
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
ABSTRACT ii
LIST OF TABLES iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
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PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT 4
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 4
1.1. Reading Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.1.1. What is reading? Error! Bookmark not defined.
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1.4. Research on teaching and learning reading strategies in second language learning
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APPENDIX 1: Questionnaires for students
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1

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Reading is an essential way of obtaining information in contemporary society.
Research discovered that readers spontaneously use reading strategies in the reading
process (Pritchard, 1990). Literature also suggested that the use of appropriate reading
strategies may improve reading comprehension (Oxford, 1990). Using reading strategies
can be of great help to non-native readers because it may serve as an effective way of
overcoming language deficiency and obtaining better reading achievement both for regular
school assignments and on language proficiency tests (Zhang, 1992).
Reading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information
or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer's ideas or writing style.
Another person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language
being read. The purpose(s) for reading guide the reader's selection of texts. Reading
strategies help readers to acquire a text quickly. Successful language learners know how to
use reading strategies efficiently. In language learning, students read to learn the language,
to broaden their knowledge, and to do assignments. The purposes of reading strategies are
to have general knowledge, to get a specific detail, to find out the main idea or theme, to
learn, to remember, to delight, to summarize and to do research.
In the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT), Thai Nguyen University, English has
been considered as the important subject due to the fact that many informational
technology documents are now written in English. Once students master the English
language, or are capable of comprehending satisfactorily documents written in it, they can
more easily grasp new technology than those weaker in this language.
There is a new rule for (FIT) students enrolling this academic year: After graduation,
students need to attain an English competency equivalence of 400 points (TOEFL-PBT).
This seems to be a bit high of a requirement for the students; however, this is a motivation
for them to study and concentrate more on the language.

It is natural that in order to master a language, learners often want to improve in all
four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. For the FIT students, the most
important skill is reading as almost all English books about Information Technology are
2

written in English. Moreover, Vietnamese books about Information Technology are
sometimes out of date and difficult to understand due to bad translation. FIT students are
taught reading skills from their first academic year. Through observing English reading
classes, this author has realized that most students read the text and then translate it into
           omprehend the
text. When dealing with a reading lesson, students often suffer from a lack of reading
strategies which are essential for them to overcome the reading comprehension challenges
in the classroom. A large body of research has found that effective readers are aware of
the strategies they use and that they use strategies flexibly and efficiently (Garner, 1987;
Presley, Beard EL, Dinary & Brown, 1992 cited in Nguyen (2007)). Researchers believed
that these strategies can be taught to ineffective language learners so that they can then
become more successful at language learning.
Besides developing reading proficiency for students, teachers who train students to use
reading strategies can also help them become autonomous language learners.
Consequently, teaching students learning strategies is an important duty of the language
teachers since learning strategies can help students monitor and take responsibility for their
own learning. Helping students understand good language learning strategies and training
them to develop and use them can be considered the desired characteristics of a good
language teacher (Lessard C., 1997:3).
Due to the aforementioned reasons, it's necessary for this author to investigate what
English reading strategies students use and ascertain what reading strategies English
teachers in FIT teach. Therefore, implications for teaching and learning reading strategies
can be obtained via the results of the research titled "English Reading strategies by
Students from the Northern Mountainous Provinces at the Faculty of Information
Technology, Thai Nguyen University".

2. Aims of the study
This study aims to:
- Investigate what reading strategies FIT students employ when reading in English.
- Explore what reading strategies FIT English teachers teach.
3

In order to achieve the above-mentioned aims of the study, the following major
research questions will be posed:
- What are the reading strategies in English used by students at Faculty of Information
Technology, Thai Nguyen University?
- What reading strategies do the English teachers in FIT teach?
3. Methods of the study
In order to achieve the aims mentioned previously, the study employed quantitative
methods including survey questionnaires for students. The survey questionnaires for
students were used to determine what reading strategies employed by the students when
reading in English. And survey questionnaires for teachers were also administered to
explore what reading strategies English teachers in FIT taught.
After the data is analyzed and discussed, all comments, remarks, recommendations,
assumptions and conclusions pertaining to the study will be available and some
suggestions will then be raised concerning the thesis.
4. Scope of the study:
A learners' success or failure in acquiring a language can be affected by many
interrelated factors. Among these factors, the teaching of reading strategies should be taken
into consideration. However, this study only focuses on the learning reading strategies of
students at the Faculty of Information Technology  Thai Nguyen University and includes
suggestions for employing these strategies in those classrooms.
In order to survey learners' reading strategies and investigate the teachers' teaching
methods, numerous ways of collecting data may be used. However, the present study
employs only the questionnaire. Therefore, there is a limitation concerning the reliability of
the data used. As Dornyei Z. (2003) states questionnaires have some serious limitations,

and some of these have led certain researchers to claim that questionnaire data are not
reliable or valid.
4

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews theories related to reading and reading activities in general and
reading strategies in particular. It also reviews current research on teaching and learning
reading strategies that have been conducted so far. All of these serve as a basis for an
investigation into reading strategies in English employed by students from northern
mountainous provinces at Faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University
which is carried out and presented in the next chapter.
1.1. Reading
1.1.1. What is reading?
The definition of reading has changed substantially during the past few decades, from
a focus on reading as decoding or as set of decontextualized or context free skills, to a
view of reading as information processing (Goodman, 1967, Pang S.E., Muaka A.,
Bernhardt B. E. and Kamil L. M., 2003) or as an interactive process in which reader is
actively involved in using available content knowledge to construct the meaning of the text
(Anderson & Pearson, 1984, Richards and Schmidt, 2002, Anderson, 2003).
Richards and Schmidt (2002) define reading in Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B. E.
and Kamil L. M.(2003) perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents. This
can be done silently called silent reading. The understanding that results is called reading
comprehension. Saying a written text aloud which can be done with or without an
understanding of the contents is called oral reading.
Pang S.E., Muaka A., Bernhardt B. E. and Kamil L. M.(2003:6) also consider "reading
is about understanding written texts. Reading is a complex activity that consists of two
related processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the
          
Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text.

Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical
knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understand written text".
5

1.1.2. Models of reading
Researchers have created models that describe what happens when people read.
According to Aebersold J. A. & Field M. L. (1997), in Hudson T. (2007), there are three
main model of how reading occurs identified as bottom-up, top-down and interactive.
* Bottom-up theory
In bottom-up theory, the smallest units of a text from letters to words to phrases to
sentences, etc. are constructed by a reader. Bottom-up processing focuses on how readers
extract information from the printed page, claiming that readers deal with letters and words
in a relatively complete and systematic fashion. According to Nunan (1991), reading was
viewe            
"translated from one form of symbolic representation to another". The bottom-up theory
(Hudson T. (2007) to reading focus fairly on text rapid processing and word identification.
By mapping the input directly on to some independent representational form in the mental
lexicon, the reader can have the ability to recognize words in isolation. Researchers of
bottom-up model are primarily interested in how a reader reads rather than in what the
reader comprehends. The view from Perfetti (1997) in Hudson T. (2007) is that reading
comprehension is equal to language comprehension, plus decoding, plus some minor other
contributing variable. In other words, in the bottom  up model, the reader begins with the
written text (the bottom) and constructs meaning from letters, words, phrases and sentences
found within, and then processes the text in a linear fashion. Theories of reading that stress
bottom-up processing claim that the reader processes all of the letters in the last word of
the sentence, regardless of its predictability. Obviously, in the view of this driven model,
the reader seems to play a relatively passive role because the basis of bottom  up
processing is the linguistic knowledge of the reader.
Another shortcoming of the bottom-up model shown by Samuel and Kamil (1988: 31)
is that "because of the lack of feedback loops in the early bottom  up models, it was

difficult to account for as facilitating variables in word recognition and comprehension".
Because of this drawback, and as well as the introduction of the top-down model of
reading, many researchers was not interested in the bottom-up model.
* Top-down theory
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Top-down model rejects the notion that identification of letters to form words, and the
derivation of meaning from these words is efficient reading. On the contrary, it assumes
that efficient reading requires the readers to make predictions and hypothesis about the text
content by relating the new information to their prior knowledge and by using as few
language clues as possible. It is further assumed that the readers can check whether the
hypothesis are correct or not by sampling the text.
Kenneth Goodman and Frank Smith are the researchers who are most closely
identified with top-down theory to the reading process. Goodman use the term
"psycholinguistic guessing game" (also Carrell, 1998: 2) to "value the cognitive economy
of linguistic information over graphemic information". He specifies four processes in
reading: predicting, sampling, confirming, and correcting. In top-down process, the reader
guesses the meaning of the text and samples the print to confirm or disconfirm the guess.
In other words, the reader brings to bear not only knowledge of the language, but also
internal concepts of how language is processed, past experiential background and general
conceptual background.
The top-down model is influenced by schema theory, which emphasizes the
importance of rrell, 1998:4).
According to this theory, so as to comprehend a text, readers make use of both the text and
their background knowledge. Therefore, interaction of the background knowledge and the
text is essential for efficient reading.
Smith (1971, 1994) in Hudson T. (2007) see that reading instruction should take place
when comprehension of a text is possible, rather than focus on isolated phoneme-grapheme
correspondence activities and drills.
The readers bring a great deal of knowledge, expectations, assumptions, and questions

to the text and, given a basic understanding of the vocabulary, they continue to read as long
as the text confirms their expectations (Goodman, 1976).
Apparently, according to Eskey (1988), the top-down model tends to emphasize higher
level skills as the prediction of meaning by means of context clues or background
knowledge at the expense of lower skills like the rapid and accurate identification of
lexical and grammatical forms. In making the perfectly valid point that fluent reading is
7

primarily a cognitive process, they tend to deemphasize the perceptual and decoding
dimensions of that process. This model is good for the skillful, fluent reader for whom
perception and decoding have become automatic, not for the less proficient, developing
reader.            
more time  consuming than decoding. Therefore, a top-down model of reading is
essentially a model of the fluent reader and does not account for all the needs of students
who are acquiring reading skills.
For many reading theorists who recognized the importance of both the text and the
reader in the reading process, a combination of the two emerged the interactive model.
* Interactive theory
Presently, interactive model of reading is accepted by most researchers and teachers
(Hudson T. (2007). Reading is seen as a skill that can be understood independently from
issues of general comprehension. Context can aid in the process, but has less direct
influence than the cognitive processing of print. The interactive model reflected in Smith
(1994) that language has a surface structure, the observable characteristics of language as it
exists in print or speech, and it also has a deep structure, the meaning obtained from the
message. In such views of the interactive nature of reading, priority is given to the process
of sampling the text, making predictions about the intended meaning, and then evaluating
the message through subsequent reading. The third orientation focuses on the necessity of
addressing social context, and is associated with the new literacy studies. This orientation
sees reading and writing together rather than as separate skills. The interactive models of
reading assume that skills at all levels are interactively available to process and interpret

the text. In this model, good readers are both good decoders and good interpreters of text,
their decoding skills becoming more automatic but no less important as their reading skill
develops.
In short, the interactive process of reading involves not only the processing of text on a
page or elsewhere, and cultural background knowledge, but also the power relationships in
the society which have produced concepts of the reading process.
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To sum up, the advent and popularity of interactive models show that interactive
models can maximize the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of both bottom  up and
top down models.
1.1.3. Classroom approaches to reading
Williams E. (1996:37) tries to deal with some of the problems that language teachers
report. He looks at exploitation in terms of three phases including the pre-, while- and post-
reading which "helps not only with the problems of motivation, but also with the other
problems of language, and the selection or construction of reading".
The pre-reading phase tries to:
1) Introduce and arouse interest in the topic
2) Motivate learners by giving a reason for reading
3) Provide some language preparation for the text.
The while-reading phase's aims are:
1) to help understand the writer's purpose
2) to help understand the textual structure
3) to clarify textual content.
The post-reading phase is to:
1) consolidate or reflect upon what has been read
2) to relate the text to the learners' own knowledge, interests or views.
Apparently, the three phases are not necessary to carry out in one lesson. However,
these following advantages are the evidences to perform this three phases approach. First,
it elicits students to share their own knowledge or knowledge of the world and uses this as

a basis for involvement, motivation, and progress. Second, the reading lesson is not simply
isolated as it is performed with integrated skills.
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1.2. Reading strategies
1.2.1. What are reading strategies?
Reading strategies have been studied by many researchers. Therefore, many reading
strategy definitions are given. According to Wallace, reading strategies involve ways of
processing a text that will vary with the nature of the text, the reader's purpose, and the
context of the situation. (Wallace C., 1992: 57). Duffy G. G. (2009:13, 14) states that , in
reading, making predictions is a strategy because readers are thoughtful in using text clues
and prior knowledge to make an initial prediction, but they remain ready to change or
adjust a prediction when subsequent text clues provide more information. Barnett (1988)
calls reading strategies the mental operations involved when readers approach a text
effectively and make sense of what they read.
According to Hudson T., 2007:107 a reading strategy can be described as:
"any interactive process that has the goal of obtaining meaning from connected
text, and reading skills operate within the context of such reading strategies. The
strategies of predicting, confirming, monitoring, reflecting, and evaluating are
consciously brought to bear. Strategies operate to lessen demands on working
memory by facilitating comprehension processing".
In this definition, the author gives quite clearly and comprehendingly the explanation
of reading strategies. Therefore, the present study utilized this definition as the key
direction in its investigation.
1.2.2 Reading strategies
There are many reading strategies that appear to be very important according to a large
number of researchers. It is a difficult task to decide which strategies are the most
significant. According to Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995), there are six categories of
language learning strategies. They are memory strategies, cognitive strategies,
compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies.

They 
Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). However, this inventory is not used in the
10

present study but a more refined instrument called Survey Of Reading Strategies (SORS) is
adapted and used instead. This survey was originally developed as a tool for measuring

reading academic or school-related materials and it was called the Metacognitive
Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) devised by Mokhtari and Reichard
(2000).
1.3. Teaching reading strategies
1.3.1. Teaching reading strategies
As mentioned previously, there should be three phases in teaching a reading lesson.
There are many variations on what strategies to use for teaching in each phase, but they all
draw out a similar pattern.
Pre-read.
Before reading, it is usually recommended to have students access their prior
knowledge. Researchers identify this of being of particular importance. Of the many ways
of doing this, there are two that seemed interesting. Anticipation guides give the students
four to six true false questions to answer before and after they read. Variations on this call
for written justification for their answers and support from the reading. Another is a K-W-
L chart, which requires the reader to write what they already know, what they want to
know, and, after they read, what they learned.
The importance of vocabulary instruction is also well documented. The danger here is
that looking up words in the dictionary is universally considered ineffective. It is better that
students learn words within their context, or derive meaning from root words, prefixes, and
suffixes.
Read.
During reading, it is important that students are able to decode the text style to find the
main ideas and extract meaning. This must be modeled in the classroom. Another strategy

that is recommended is reciprocal reading. Students work in small groups to pose
questions, make predictions, summarize, clarify what they have read. This would also have
11

to be started as a teacher moderated activity until the students are able to moderate their
own groups.
A combined set of strategies, really involves many of the skills already listed. It
combines accessing prior knowledge, monitoring comprehension, posing questions, sorting
questions into categories, developing a web of information from the reading, connecting
question categories to web, and reflection.
Whatever strategies are used it is strongly suggested that they be modeled in a setting
that ensures success so that students will be able to see the value. Another recommendation
by the same author is to add a few strategies at a time. It is not effective to suddenly expect
the students to use six or seven different skills. The intent must be for the students to build
a set of skills that they will use independently.
Post-read
The purpose of post-reading strategies is to extend the reading experience by helping
the reader to: (1) consolidate or reflect upon what has been read; (2) relate the text to the
learners' own knowledge, interests, or views. It is suggested that summarizing and
predicting the ending of the text are good strategies to use. In addition, taking notes about
what they have read and how much they have read mean to reinforce strategic behavior
and to encourage transfer of strategies training to other tasks.
1.3.2. Teaching reading activities
The design of useful reading activities is one of the  responsibilities in
helping students develop their reading ability. And in designing the reading activities, a
three-phase procedure involving pre-, while-, and post-reading stages should be taken into
consideration. The intention is to ensure that reading is  in the sense of helping
readers develop increasing ability to tackle texts. Actually each phase has a different goal
and deals with different reading strategies. The overall aim is to train the students to be
efficient readers in the foreign language. Other aspects have to be considered as well

though, 
12

A variety of activities can be developed to help students acquire more appropriate
reading skills and strategies; to expand their vocabulary, structural knowledge, and
discourse knowledge; and to become more effective English language reader.
To encourage students to use effective strategies when reading in a second language,
the teacher can develop simple activities to elicit information via targeted strategies. These
activities can be divided by the stage of reading at which they occur.
Pre-reading activities introduce students to a particular text, elicit or provide
appropriate background knowledge, and activate necessary schemata. Previewing a text
with students should arouse their interest and help them approach the text in a more
meaningful and purposeful manner as the discussion compels them to think about the
situation or points raised in a text. The pre-reading phase helps students define selection
criteria for the central theme of a story or the major argument of an essay. Pre-reading
activities include: discussing author or text type, brainstorming, reviewing familiar stories,
considering illustrations and titles, skimming and scanning (for structure, main points, and
future directions).
While-reading activities help students develop reading strategies, improve their control
of the second language, and decode problematic text passages. Helping students to employ
strategies while reading can be difficult because individual students control and need
different strategies. Nevertheless, the teacher can pinpoint valuable strategies, explain
which strategies individuals most need to practice, and offer concrete exercises in the form
of "guided reading" activity sheets. Such practice activities might include guessing word
meanings by using context clues, word formation clues, or cognate practice; considering
syntax and sentence structure by noting the grammatical functions of unknown words,
analyzing reference words, and predicting text content; reading for specific pieces of
information; and learning to use the dictionary effectively.
Post-reading activities first check students' comprehension and then lead students to a
deeper analysis of the text, when warranted. Because the goals of most real world reading

are not to memorize an author's point of view or to summarize text content, but rather to
see into another mind, or to mesh new information into what one already knows, second
language reading must go beyond detail-eliciting comprehension drills to help students
13

recognize that different strategies are appropriate with different text types. For example,
scanning is an appropriate strategy to use with newspaper advertisements whereas
predicting and following text cohesion are effective strategies to use with short stories. By
discussing in groups what they have understood, students focus on information they did not
comprehend, or did not comprehend correctly. Discussions of this nature can lead the
student directly to text analysis as class discussion proceeds from determining facts to
exploring deeper consequences of the texts.
Integrative activities use text language and ideas in second language listening,
speaking, and/or writing. Integrative skills exercises include such activities as students
reacting to texts with summaries, new endings, or pastiches; reenacting text; dramatizing
interviews based on the text; carefully listening for key words or phrases in authentic video
or audio tapes; and creating role-play situations or simulations of cultural experiences.
1.4. Research on teaching and learning reading strategies in second language
learning.
1.4.1. Research on teaching reading strategies in second language learning.
There have been a number of intervention studies in second language reading
strategies which have focused on reading strategies training.
Carrel (1985) provided explicit instruction in text-structure in order to determine
whether such instruction would facilitate reading comprehension. The participants were 25
high-intermediate proficiency English as Second Language (ESL) students in an intensive
English program. The subjects received text-structure training for five successive one-hour
sections during a one-week period. The training sections included four text structures: 1)
collection of descriptions; 2) causation; 3) problem/solution; and 4) comparison. Subjects
were given study packets explaining the benefits of the strategy, and checklists for the
monitoring and regulating of their own learning. The results indicated that the treatment

group showed a significant gain in their recognition and use of the text structure while the
control group did not. In addition, the treatment group recalled a significantly larger
number of idea units from the test passages than the control group, indicating an effect on
reading comprehension of the text structure training. Finally, Carrell concluded that
14

training in text structure can benefit at least relatively high-level second language readers'
reading comprehension.
Barnett (1988) investigated the relationships among reading strategies and perceived
strategies use on reading - comprehension in a two-part study. He firstly looked at the
strategies use, and secondly looked at the effect of a teaching intervention designed to help
students develop more effective reading strategies before, during, and after reading. The
participants were 272 college level students in fourth-semester French classes. The reading
strategies training included skimming, scanning, guessing, and predicting. The results
indicated that students had better reading comprehension with use of reading strategies
through context. They also increased their self-perception of effective strategies use.
Additionally, the treatment group had significantly higher scores for strategy use.
However, the groups did not differ in term of perceived strategy use as well as their
comprehension scores. This finding may show the importance of quality and intensity of
the strategy instruction.
Kern (1989) has shown the effects of strategy instruction on the study "the effects of
strategy instruction on the reading comprehension and inferential ability of intermediate-
level French students". The study focused not only on whether direct strategy instruction
was effective, but also whether it was differentially effective depending upon second
language reading ability. The subjects were fifty-three French students in the third-
semester, who were divided into two groups: 1) the experimental group that received
explicit instruction in reading strategy use added to normal course content; and 2) control
group that received the normal course content without the strategy training. The strategies
for the experimental group included: 1) word analysis (cognates, prefixes, etc.); 2)
sentence analysis (questioning strategies, attention to cohesive devices); 3) discourse

analysis (diagramming, cloze, inferring word meaning from context, hypothesis formation
about prediction, main idea identification); and 4) reading for specific purposes (solve a
particular problem being presented). The results indicated that, for the comprehension
measure, there was a statistically significant difference in comprehension gain between the
strategy-training group and the control group subjects within the low-ability level.
However, this was not found for the middle- or high-ability level. For the inference
measure, the strategy-training group showed a significantly higher gain than the control
15

group, but there were no differential effects based on level of ability. Thus the study has
shown that strategy instruction affects comprehension, but the degree to which it is
differential depending upon reading ability level is still not clear answered.
A case study was presented by Jiménez (1997), which studied on how instruction
affects strategy use and perception. The participants were five bilingual Latino students
with low literacy levels in English. The author assumed that a reading program that
emphasizes comprehension and the use of strategic reading processes can improve word
recognition and reading fluency. The program included the components of: 1) culturally
relevant and familiar text; 2) a focus on comprehension, stressing important reading
strategies; and 3) provision of opportunities to build reading fluency. The strategies that
were taught included: 1) resolving the meaning of unknown vocabulary; 2) how to
investigate prior knowledge; and 3) how to formulate questions. The results shown that
students took more active role in their reading. They actively asked questions and
connected textual information with their prior knowledge. They believed that the
awareness of reading requires thinking and on occasion explicitly labeled their strategy use
such as questioning. Several of them also developed explicit strategies for addressing
unknown vocabulary. The study provides insight into how reading can be made a little less
mysterious and how selection of appropriate text is an important tool in strategy training.
1.4.2. Research on learning reading strategies in second language learning.
Hosenfeld (1977) in an early second language reading study examined the
relationships between different reading strategies and successful or unsuccessful readers

using think-aloud protocols. The participants were 40 students who half identified as
proficient and half identified as non-proficient. Hosenfeld found that her successful
readers: 1) kept the meaning of the passage in mind during reading; 2) read (translated) in
broad phrases; 3) skipped words viewed as unimportant to total phrases meaning; and 4)
had a positive self-concept as a reader. In contrast, her unsuccessful readers 1) forgot the
meaning of sentences as soon as they decoded them; 2) read in short phrases; 3) seldom
skipped words as unimportant, viewing words as equal in term of their contribution to total
meaning; and 4) had a negative self concept as a reader.
16

Block (1986) examined the strategies employed by first language and second language
readers. The participants were three native and six non-native speakers enrolled in
freshman remedial reading courses in the US. Each student was given two self-contained
reading selections rated at approximately the ninth-grade readability level. After think-
aloud session, the students retold the story as closely as possible, and answered a 20
questions multiple choice test. The results show that there was not a systematic non-native
pattern of strategy use different from a native speaker pattern for the readers in the
remedial courses. Moreover, one of the readers in each language group integrated
information more consistently than the others, recognized text structure more frequently,
and referred to personal experiences less frequently than the others. They also made more
progress in developing their reading skill and demonstrated greater success after one
semester. On the other hand, the other readers in each group tent to make associations in a
reflexive manner, failing to integrate information from the text effectively, and seeming
unaware of text structure. They also made less progress in their reading skill development
over the semester.
Padron and Waxman (1988) conducted a study on the reading strategies of young EFL
readers. The purpose of this research was to identify the strategies the students felt that
they used. The population of the study was 82 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade Hispanic EFL
students. They were asked to complete a 14 item reading strategies questionnaire and two
standardized reading comprehension tests in order to identify which strategies they felt that

they used and to examine the relationship between the self-reported reading strategies and
reading comprehension. Padron and Waxman found that seven of the strategies were
found to be positively related to students' reading as follows:
1. Summarizing in writing
2. Underlining important parts of the story to see if everything is remembered.
3. Self-generated questions
4. Checking through the story to see if everything is remembered.
5. Asking questions about parts of the story not understood.
6. Taking notes
17

7. Imaging or picturing the story mentally.
These seven strategies were found to be negatively related to their achievement.
1. Think about something else while reading
2. Writing down every word
3. Skipping the parts not understanding
4. Reading as fast as possible
5. Saying every word over and over
6. Looking up words in the dictionary
7. Saying the main idea over and over.
The results indicated that lower-achieving students used less sophisticated and at times
inappropriate reading strategies during reading. And there was a relationship between
second language reading proficiency and the types of reading strategies that were used.
"Relative strategy use by bilinguals in their first language and second language is an
important concern in the teaching and assessment of second language reading" (Hudson,
2007). Calero-Breckheimer and Goetz (1993) studied on how strategy use differed in the
two languages: English and Spanish. 26 bi-literate third and fourth-grade students whose
first language was Spanish took part in the study. In this bilingual program, the students
participated in provided instruction in the students' first language while offering structured
and sequenced instruction for mastery in English. The students were given two stories in

Spanish and English version at the second and third-grade difficulty level. Each story was
presented one line at a time via a computer that recorded the reading time for each line.
After finishing reading the story, each student was asked what kind of strategies had been
used, completed a strategy checklist, retold the gist of what happened in the story, and
answered a multiple choice test. The results show that the students reported about the same
number of strategies regardless of language. The study indicates that reading skills initially
developed in the first language can be transferred to the second language relatively
quickly.
18

More recently, Kern (1997) reported at the American Association of Applied
Lingusitics meeting in Orlando on a case study of two American university students
reading in French as a second language, one a "good reader of French as L2," one less
good. Kern showed that no strategy is inherently a "good" or "bad" strategy; that so-called
"bad" strategies are used by "good" readers and vice-versa. For example, using prior
knowledge may sometimes be an effective strategy for one reader in one reading situation,
but not for another reader or in another reading situation. Kern showed that the same is true
of translation as a strategy.
Anderson concluded from his data that successful second language reading
comprehension is "not simply a matter of knowing what strategy to use, but the reader
must also know how to use it successfully and know how to orchestrate its use with other
strategies. It is not sufficient to know about strategies, but a reader must also be able to
apply them strategically" (1991:19). Similarly, Kern concluded from his data that there are
good and bad uses of the same strategy, and that the difference between a "good" use and a
"bad" use of the same strategy is in the context in which they are used, how they are used
and how they interact with other strategies. In other words, Kern says, the differences are
how the strategies are "operationalized."
Sheorey R. and Mokhtari K., (2001) examine differences in the reported use of reading
strategies of native and non-native English speakers when reading academic materials.
Participants were 302 college students (150 native-English-speaking US and 152 ESL

students), who completed a survey of reading strategies aimed at discerning the strategies
readers report using when coping with academic reading tasks. Results of the study
revealed, first, that both US and ESL students display awareness of almost all of the
strategies included in the survey. Secondly, both groups attribute the same order of
importance to categories of reading strategies in the survey, regardless of their reading
ability or gender: cognitive strategies (the deliberate actions readers take when
comprehension problems develop), followed by metacognitive strategies (advanced
planning and comprehension monitoring techniques), and support strategies (the tools
readers seek out to aid comprehension). Thirdly, both ESL and US high-reading-ability
students show comparable degrees of higher reported usage for cognitive and
metacognitive reading strategies than lower-reading-ability students in the respective
19

groups, and while the US high-reading-ability students seem to consider support reading
strategies to be relatively more valuable than low-reading-ability US students, ESL
students attribute high value to support reading strategies, regardless of their reading
ability level. Lastly, in the US group, the females report significantly higher frequency of
strategy usage; this gender effect is not reflected in the ESL sample.
In the aforementioned researches, almost of the researchers took studies on reading
strategies and successful or unsuccessful readers, first language and second language
readers, reading strategies of young EFL readers, reading strategies of native and non-
native English speakers. Therefore, a gap can be found that few researchers have attempted
to classify the strategies used by mountainous area students who do not have good English
environment as well as good conditions for studying English. Moreover, the teaching
reading strategies for students in mountainous area needs to be examined in order to find
out the best methods in teaching and learning reading strategies in this region.
20

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY
The previous chapter has provided a necessary theoretical background for the present

study. This chapter presents the methodology used for the data collection and analysis in
the study. The first section will begin with a description of the participants and the setting
of the study. It will be followed by information about the research method. Finally in the
last section of this chapter, the measures used will be explained in further detail.
2.1. The context of the study
2.1.1. Setting of the study
Students at the faculty of Information Technology, Thai Nguyen University
participated in this study. The aforementioned faculty enrolls more than 400 students for
the present academic year (2009-2010), with an average of 60 students per class. In the
classroom, benches are arranged in vertical lines with up to 5 students per bench. A cohort
is five academic years in which four and a half years are dedicated to studying and the final
half year to professional practice. Students have 4 periods per week for studying English.
Each period comprises 50 minutes. They study English from the first semester to the fifth
semester. The first three semesters are reserved for General English study and the last two
semesters reserved for English for Information Technology. In class, students work with
only an adapted textbook or a document provided by the teachers themselves. Therefore,
English reading skill is integrated with other skills during the five semesters studying
English. There is no separated lesson for teaching reading skill or any other skills. At
home, students can access the Internet to find out more associated useful information. In
entific
research, reference books, and entertainment books.
The present study was conducted from September to December 2009 when the
participants were in the first semester of the second year. At that time, they were using an
adapted material from the course book Inside out Elementary written by Sue Kay &
Vaughan Jones for their English study. While using this adapted material the FIT English
teachers and the author have found that it matches the objectives of the learning program
proficiency as they already had knowledge about basic structures as
21

well as vocabulary in the book Inside Out Elementary- the serial book written by the same

author in the first year. There are 6 units with integrated skills in each unit. Every unit has
at least one reading text related to the topic of each unit. The reading text provides students
with new words for presentations, word collocations and grammar structures. The
comprehension tasks give students another look at the text, helping them to better
comprehend and remember what is mentioned in the text. However, students might find
cultural bias in the text as the present-giving custom of the country concerned is
considerably different from that in Vietnam. The tasks are not enough for students to
realize what they need to learn from the text. While good students have done all the tasks,
slower students still only have a vague idea of what has been mentioned in the text. The
cause is that students         ents, the
numbers of years studying English is quite different from 2 years to 10 years. In this
semester including 12 weeks, they have to participate in 45 periods in class in which there
are 4 periods per week and doing a lot of tasks at home.
With the regard to teaching reading, the FIT English teachers' aims in this semester
are: supporting their 
the students  sh
teacher to obtain these aims. In order to see if these aims are gained or not, there are many
different ways to examine. That is the reason why the author conducted the research in this
field.
2.1.2. Sampling and participants
The sample of the study consisted of 100 mountainous area students at the age of 20
to 24 in course k7  faculty of Information Technology, of them 89 students were males
and 11 students were females. They were selected from about 250 mountainous area
students of a population of nearly 400 students in the course K7 through their curriculum
vitas. 20 students were randomly chosen from odd number list of mountainous area
students in each class of the course K7. Most of them were 20 years old (72 students), 18
were 21 years old, 6 were 22 years old, 3 were 23 years old, and only 1 was 24. Most of
them have spent 5 to 10 years studying English in which 32 students have been learning
English for 5 years and 51 students for 8 to 10 years. Table 3.1 summarizes the background