Nghiên cứu tính hiệu quả của lời chú giải bằng ngôn ngữ thứ nhất và ngôn ngữ thứ 2 trong các giờ đọc hiểu của sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên trường cao đẳng công nghiệp thực phẩm

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

TRẦN THỊ THU NGA

AN INVESTIGATION ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF L1-L2 GLOSSING
IN READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE FIRST YEAR NONENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT FOOD INDUSTRY COLLEGE

Nghiên cứu tính hiệu quả của lời chú giải bằng ngôn ngữ thứ nhất và ngôn ngữ
thứ hai trong các giờ đọc hiểu của sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên
trường Cao đẳng Công nghiệp Thực phẩm

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111

Hà Nội- 2015


VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

TRẦN THỊ THU NGA

AN INVESTIGATION ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF L1-L2 GLOSSING
IN READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS OF THE FIRST YEAR NONENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT FOOD INDUSTRY COLLEGE

Nghiên cứu tính hiệu quả của lời chú giải bằng ngôn ngữ thứ nhất và ngôn ngữ
thứ hai trong các giờ đọc hiểu của sinh viên năm thứ nhất không chuyên
trường Cao đẳng Công nghiệp Thực phẩm

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60140111
Supervisor: Dr. Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà

Hà Nội- 2015


DECLARATION
I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “An investigation on the effectiveness of
L1-L2 glossing in reading comprehension lessons of the first year non-English
major students at Food Industry College.” is the result of my own research for
the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International
Studies, Viet Nam National University, and that this thesis has not been submitted
for any other degrees.

Ha Noi, October 2015

Tran Thi Thu Nga

1


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like primarily to thank Dr. Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà for helping me
complete this study. This paper would not have been possible without her constant
support and encouragement. Her patience and helpful criticism helped me
confidently express my ideas into this paper. I regard myself extremely fortunate in
having her as my dissertation supervisor.
I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all my lecturers at the
Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies
for their valuable lectures which have helped me a great deal in gaining a lot of
theoretical as well as practical knowledge.
My special thanks go to my colleague at the English Group, Department of
Basic Sciences and Technique Studies at Food Industrial College (FIC) who has
helped me enthusiastically teach reading lessons by applying L1-L2 glossing
technique and collect data through the interview.
I never forget to express my thanks to 40 first-year students in the class
K8TP at Food Industrial College.
Finally, I would also like to express my deep gratitude and love to my
devoted parents, my sister, my husband and my lovely daughter who gave me time
and encouraged me to complete this study.

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ABSTRACT
Some researchers (e.g., Anderson, 2003 & Carrell, 1988) claim that reading is one
of the most essential and important skills which language learners need to master.
However, the majority of students at FIC express that reading in English is a
challenging problem for them because most of the reading texts in English contain a
lot of unknown words; whereas their amount of vocabulary is limited. This causes
students’ reading comprehension to decrease sharply. Accordingly, it is necessary to

find out an effective way to increase the students’ reading comprehension. This
study is aimed at investigating the effectiveness of L1-L2 glossing in reading
comprehension lessons of the first year non-English major students at Food Industry
College and the students and the teacher’s attitudes toward using this technique. The
participants included one English teacher and 40 non-major English students from
the class K8TP. The participants took part in the intervention stage in an action
research project which L1-L2 glossing technique was applied in the second
semester of the first academic year. The data were collected through classroom
observation, survey questionnaire for students and interview for the teacher. The
results showed that L1-L2 glossing improved considerably students’ reading
comprehension in three aspects: students’ reading comprehension ability,
motivation and vocabulary extension. In addition, the study also indicated that the
teacher and most of the students had positive attitudes toward this technique. Some
pedagogical implications, limitations and suggestions for further studies were
included in this study.

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PART I: INTRODUCTION
In this part, the researcher will present the rationale of the study, the aims and
objectives, the research questions, the scope, the methods, the significance, and the
design of the study.
1. Rationale of the study
In today’s world, the importance of English cannot be denied and ignored since
English is used as an effective medium of international communication. With the
help of developing technology, English has been playing a major role in many
sectors including education, trade, science, technology, tourism, sport, music and
many other fields of life.
To master English, the students need to grasp all the four skills that are closely

related to one another: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these skills,
reading is considered one of the most important skills which language learners
should master, particularly when it helps build a variety of language expressions
and structures; widen general knowledge and leads to lifelong learning and
improvement in the first and second language skills. According to Anderson
(2003:2), "reading is an essential skill for learners of English. For most of learners it
is the most important skill to master in order to ensure success in learning. With
strengthened reading skills, learners of English tend to make greater progress in
other areas of language learning”. Carrell (1988:1) also argues that “for many
students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills, particularly in
English as a second or a foreign language”.
For many university and college students in Vietnam who study English as a part of
their general education requirement, reading has long been considered an essential
skill. For them; however, reading in English can be an ordeal, often because of the
great amount of unknown vocabulary that makes it difficult or even impossible to
get the main ideas or specific details of a text. One of the common techniques many
researchers used to make L2 reading more effective is to gloss unfamiliar words or

4


phrases. Here, glossing refers to the addition of brief definitions or notes either in
the first language (L1) or second language (L2) or both L1 & L2. Nation (2001:
174-175) defines gloss as “a brief definition or synonym of unknown words
provided in the text in L1 or L2”. Textual glosses are considered valuable
tools which facilitate reading in a foreign language (Watanabe, 1997; Jacobs,
1994) as they minimize the interruptions to reading flow as when using a dictionary,
which is time-consuming and interrupts the reading process (Ko, 2005;
Nation, 2001). Ko (2005) also states that the two most important reasons to use
glosses are to assist reading comprehension and aid vocabulary learning.

Food Industry College (FIC) is a college which was upgraded from Technical and
Industrial Junior College in 2006. Its English language teaching and learning
program is implemented in the first and second semester of the first academic year
and in the third semester of the second academic year. In the first academic year, the
students are taught General English (GE) with the textbook “Lifelines - PreIntermediate” by Tom Hutchinson (Oxford University Press, 1997) 90 periods
(corresponding to 45 periods each semester). GE program is for all students at FIC.
After finishing GE program, the students continue learning English for specific
purposes (ESP) in the third semester of the second year. Teaching ESP program
depends on the training section that the students registered when entering the
college.
Being a teacher of English at FIC for 8 years, I have realized that the teaching and
learning of English in general and of reading in particular are mostly based on
textbooks. Most of the students are struggling with reading comprehension. They
find reading difficult and boring and they find it difficult to catch the main ideas of
the text or answer the questions following the text as well. Therefore, they do not
often participate and raise their voices actively in reading lessons. Some students
even keep silent when the teacher asks questions. I myself as well as my colleagues
usually employ the traditional methods of teaching, which is Grammar-Translation
method, especially in reading lessons. Reading texts often contains a lot of new
5


words, whereas the students’ amount of vocabulary is limited. Therefore, whenever
the students encounter unfamiliar words in the text, the teachers often provide the
meaning of these words instead of using some useful techniques to aid vocabulary
for the students while reading. Therefore, it is essential to find an effective way to
improve the students’ reading comprehension. That is the reason why I decided to
work on “An investigation on the effectiveness of L1 - L2 glossing in reading
comprehension lessons of the first year non-English major students at Food
Industry College” for my thesis.

2. Aims of the study
The purpose of this study is to examine whether the use of L1-L2 glossing in
reading comprehension lessons is effective for the first year non-English major
students at FIC in three aspects: students’ reading comprehension ability,
motivation and vocabulary extension.
Additionally, it investigates the teacher and the students’ attitudes towards L1-L2
glossing in reading comprehension lessons.
3. Research questions of the study
This study seeks to answer the following research questions:
Q1/ To what extent does the use of L1-L2 vocabulary glossing in reading text
improve the students’ reading comprehension ability, motivation and vocabulary
extension from the teacher and the students’ perspectives?
Q2/ What are the attitudes of the teacher and the students at FIC towards L1-L2
glossing in reading comprehension lessons?
4. Scope of the study
The study was conducted at Food Industry College, Phu Tho province. Because of
limited time, it only focused on examining the effectiveness of L1-L2 vocabulary
glossing in reading comprehension lessons of the first year non-English major
students in three aspects: students’ reading comprehension ability, motivation and

6


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