How to motivate in service students of english at haiphong foreign language center, haiphong university to learn reading

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Vietnam national university, Hanoi
Department of postgraduate studies
-------***-------`

Đỗ Thị Anh Th

How to motivate in - service Students of English at Haiphong
Foreign Language Center, Haiphong University to learn
Reading
(Cách động viên sinh viên không chuyên tiếng Anh tại Trung tâm Ngoại
Ngũ, Trờng Đại học Hải Phòng học đọc hiểu tiếng Anh)

Field : English Methodology
Code : 60.14.10
Course : K13
M.A. Minor Thesis
Supervisor : Dr. Ph¹m Đăng Bình

Hai phong, 20o7

Abstract
In an attempt to investigate the interests of the in - service students of English at
Haiphong Foreign Language Center, Haiphong University in reading materials and to
give some suggestions for meeting these needs to increase the students’ motivation, the
main purposes of the research were to find out : (1) kinds of motivation possessed by the
in – service students of English at HFLC, HPU in learning reading , (2) an examination
of the teaching methods used by the teachers of reading to motivate their learners in
reading activities, (3) giving some recommendations to improve the reading materials for
the in – service students of English at HFLC. The subjects of the study were 101 in -

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service students from six classes of K21 (A, B, C, D, E, G) and 8 teachers of reading.
These teachers and students were invited to answer a survey questionnaire. The result of
the research shows that while among the in - service students in HFLC, HPU, integrative
motivation is less important than instrumental motivation. Besides, the search reveals that
the teachers take very important role in motivating students. They can motivate learners
by giving more chance to work in pairs or groups, and use teaching aids. Finally, besides
the tasks and activities from the textbooks, the teachers should supply the students with
other suitable ones so that the students will not feel boring. Furthermore, the teachers
should find supplementary materials about topics which are interested by the learners.

Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to Dr. Pham Dang Binh, my
supervisor for his invaluable advice, generous assistance and continual encouragement in the
completion of this study.
I would avail myself of this opportunity to express my thankfulness to my friends, my
colleagues for their material support, encouragement as well as their constructive comments
and criticism.
I also wish to thank the in – service students of K21 and especially a group of eight teachers
of English from Haiphong Foreign Language Center, Haiphong University for their
wholehearted cooperation with and suggestion for completion of the survey questionnaires in
particular and the thesis in general.
Last but not least, my sincere thanks would go to my family who have constantly supported,
inspired and encouraged me during the time I carried out this study.


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Table of content
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Table of contents

Page

Chapter I : Introduction
1. Rationale
1
2. Aims of the study
2
3. The research questions
2
4. Methods of the study
3
5. Scope of the study
3
6. Design of the study
3
Chapter Ii: Literature review
2.1 An overview of motivation
5
2.1.1 Definitions of motivation
5
2.1.2 Classification of motivation in second language learning..........................................7
2.1.3 Characteristics of a motivated learners
7
2.1.4 Strategies to encourage students’ motivation

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2.2 An overview on the nature of reading
11
2.2.1 Definitions of reading
11
2.2.2 Types of reading
12
2.2.2.1 According to manner
12
2.2.2.2 According to purposes
12
2.3 Motivation in learning reading
13
2.3.1 The roles of motivation in reading
14
2.3.2 Factors affecting students’ motivation in reading
14
2.3.2.1 The teachers
15
2.3.2.2 The reading materials
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Chapter IIi: The study
3.1 The context
3.2 The informants
3.2 Instruments
3.4 Data analysis and findings

Chapter IV: Conclusion
4.1 Summary of the findings and discussion
4.2 Implications
4.3 Recommendations and suggestions
References
Appendices
A questionnaire completed by the students
A questionnaire completed by the teachers

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Chapter one : Introduction
I. Rationale


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The English language has gained significance since Vietnam started its open – door
policy. Especially, Vietnam has joined World Trade Organization in November 2006 so
the demand for learning English even gets stronger. More and more big companies from
many countries in the world and large multinational corporations are seeking chance to

do business in Vietnam. The Vietnamese will go abroad more often with different
purposes. As a result, having a good command of English has become necessity of all
learners of English in Vietnam and teaching and learning English is getting popular day
by day across the country to meet the growing demands.
In teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam nowadays, besides
grammar, the requirement of four practical language skills: reading, speaking, reading,
writing has been concerned. In the context of Vietnam, reading is perhaps the most
important skill, which Vietnamese learners of English will be working with after leaving
their colleges or universities. It is said that for many students, reading is by far the most
important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or
foreign language”. This also true to the in - service students at Haiphong Foreign
Language Center (HFLC), Haiphong University (HPU). It is necessary for them to read
effectively and efficiently in English because they will be offered a lot of interesting
information as well as a variety of language expressions and structures which are very
useful for developing other skills. However, most of the students experience the lack of
motivation for English reading lessons and therefore their reading is inefficient. In fact, it
is said that one of the key factors to the success (or not) of learning English in general
and learning reading is motivation, but it is a challenging task to motivate students in a
reading lesson.
With this in mind, the researcher hopes to give a hand to get students motivated in
reading, therefore the writer has chosen the research topic :
“How to motivate the in - service students of English at Haiphong Foreign Language
Center, Haiphong University to learn Reading”.

II. Aims of the study
The purposes of the study are to investigate students’ interests in reading materials and to
give some suggestions for meeting these needs to increase the students’ motivation.
The specific aims are :

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(1) To have better insight into motivation and the kinds of motivation possessed by the in
– service students of English at HFLC, HPU in learning reading
(2) To examine the teaching methods used by the teachers of reading to motivate their
learners in reading activities.
(3) To give some recommendations to improve the reading materials for the in – service
students of English at HFLC

III. The research questions
The study was intended to answer the following questions :
(1) What is the motivation of the in - service students of English at HFLC, HPU when
they learn reading ?
(2) What have the teachers done to motivate their students to learn reading?
In seeking answers to these research questions, I look into the following issues :
1. What is the attitude of the in - service students towards reading ?
2. What are the students’ opinions ?
3. What activities, teaching aids and techniques do teachers use to stimulate learners ?

IV. Methods of the study
In the study, the quantitative research method is used with the aim of obtaining
information on student’s motivation when they learn reading. In addition to, the
activities, teaching aids and techniques which teachers have used to stimulate students to
learn reading will be found.

V. Scope of the study


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To enhance the students’ motivation in reading, the teachers have to take into
consideration several factors such as learners, reading materials and teaching and
learning environment. However, due to the limit of time, the researcher will pay more
attention to the teachers’ role in making full use of the reading materials and designing
reading text - based activities.

VI. Design of the study
This minor thesis is divided into four chapters:
Apart from the first chapter, ‘Introduction’, the research includes three other
chapters :
- Chapter two reviews some linguistic concepts most relevant to the research
topic such as definitions of motivation, types of motivation, characteristics of
a motivated learners, strategies to encourage the students’ motivation, and
definitions of reading, types of reading, motivation in learning reading.
-

Chapter three presents the context, description of instruments, data collected
and analyses of the results.

-

Chapter four shows major findings, gives implications and offers
recommendations on teaching reading


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Chapter Two : Literature Review
In this chapter, some of the most important issues in the theories of motivation for teaching
language in general and teaching reading in particular will be taken into consideration. Two

main features will be discussed namely, an overview of motivation and an overview of nature
of reading

2.1 . An overview of motivation
2.1.1 Definitions of motivation
Motivation is the energy that catalyzes behavior. So far, many researchers have given
definitions of motivation and most of them agree that motivation is the extent to which people
make choices about goals to pursue and the effort they will devote to that pursuit.
Zoltan Dornyei (2001: 7) stated “ Motivation explains why people decide to do something,
how hard they are going to pursue it and how long they are willing to sustain the activities”.
Gardner (1985) remarks : “ motivation involves four aspects, a goal, effortful behaviour, a
desire to attain the goal and favourable attitudes towards the activity in question”.
Motivation in second language learning is a complex phenomenon which can be defined in
terms of two factors : Learners’ communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second
language community. If the learners need to speak the second languages in a wide range of
social situations or to fulfill professional ambitions, they will perceive the communicative
value of the second language and will therefore be motivated to acquire proficiency in it.
Likewise, if learners have favourable attitudes towards the speakers of the languages, they will
desire more contact with them.

2.1.2. Classification of motivation in second language learning


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- “Intergrative motivation” : According to Gardner, R and Lambert, W (1972), intergrative
motivation refers to language learning for personal growth and cultural enrichment. Besides,
Finegan (1999 : 568) stated “intergrative motivation typically underlines successful acquisition
of a wide range of registers and a native – like pronunciation”.
- “ Instrumental motivation ” : Gardner, R and Lambert, W (1972) also pointed that

instrumental motivation refers language learning for more immediate or practical goal. That
means learners study to pass an examination, to get a better job, or to get a place at university
or some other reasons.
Besides, the mentioned basic types of motivation, there are some others kinds such as global,
situational, task, resultative, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation
From Brown’s point of view (1981):
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Global motivation consists of general orientation to the global of an L2
learning .

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Situational motivation is different according to the situation in which learning
takes place. Thus the motivation in classroom setting differs from that in
naturalistic learning.

-

Task motivation is the motivation learners get when they are performing
some particular tasks in learning performance.

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Resultative motivation : Ellis (1994 ) pointed out : “It is likely that the
relationship between motivation and achievement is an interactive one. A
high level of motivation does stimulate learning, but perceived success in
achieving L2 goals can help to maintain existing motivation and even create
new types”. When learners succeed in learning, they may be more or
sometimes less motivated to learn.

-

Intrinsic motivation : According to Edward Deci (1975 : 23), intrinsically
motivated activities are ones for which there is no apparent reward except the
activity itself. People seem to engage in the activities for their own sake and


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not because they lead to an extrinsic reward. …Intrinsically rewarding
consequences, namely, feelings of competence and self – determination.
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Extrinsic motivation: extrinsically motivated behaviors, on the other hand, are
carried out in anticipation of a reward from outside and beyond the self.
Typical extrinsic rewards are money, prizes, grades, and even certain types of
positive feedback.

Among these types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have an
important part to play in classroom motivation and many researchers have proved
that intrinsic is superior to extrinsic.

2.1.3 .Characteristics of a motivated learners
A motivated learner here means the one who participates willingly and actively in
learning activities in class. According to Naiman et al (1978), the most successful
students are not necessarily those from whom a language comes easily. In
contrast, they are simply the ones showing certain typical characteristics
associated clearly with motivation. Here are the following features :
- Positive task orientation : the learner is ready to deal with tasks and challenges,

and has confidence in his or her success
- Ego - involvement : the learner has a need to achieve, to overcome difficulties
and succeed in what he or she sets out to do.
- High aspirations : the learner goes for demanding challenges and high
proficiency
- Goal orientation : the learner is very aware of the goals of learning, and directs
his or her effort towards achieving them.
- Perseverance : the learner consistently invests a high level of effort in learning,
and is not discouraged by setbacks or apparently lack of progress.
- Tolerance of ambiguity : the learner is not frustrated by a temporary lack of
understanding, he or she thinks it will come later.

2.1.4. General strategies to motivate students in language teaching.


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When learners are motivated, they will study much better. As a result, the teachers are
supposed to undertake strategies to enhance students’ motivation. Here are some strategies
suggested by different researchers:
Capitalize on students’ existing needs. According to McMillan & Forsyth (1991), students
learn best when incentives for learning in a classroom satisfy their own motives for enrolling
in the course. Some of the needs your students may bring to the classroom are the need to
learn something in order to complete a particular task or activity, the need to seek new
experience, the need to perfect skills, the need to overcome challenges, the need to become
competent, the need to succeed and do well, the need to feel involved and to interact with
other people. Satisfying such needs is rewarding in itself, and such rewards sustain learning
more effectively than finishing the grades. Design assignments, in – class activities, and
discussion questions to address these kinds of needs.
Make students active participants in learning. From Lucas (1990) Students learn by doing,

making, writing, designing, creating, solving. Passivity dampens students’ motivation and
curiosity. That is why the teacher needs to pose questions. He or she ought not to tell the
students something when you can ask them. In general the teacher needs to encourage the
students to suggest approaches to a problem or to guess the results of an experiment. Small
group work is strongly advised.
Ask students to analyze what makes their classes more or less “motivating”. Sass (1989)
asks his classes to recall two recent class periods, one in which they were highly motivated
and one in which their motivation was low. Each student makes a list of specific aspects of the
two classes that influenced his or her level of motivation, and students then meet in small
groups to reach consensus on characteristics that contribute to high and low motivation. In
over twenty courses, Sass reports, the same eight characteristics emerge as major contributors
to student motivation :


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

Instructor’s enthusiasm



Relevance of the material



Organization of the course



Appropriate difficulty level of the material



Active involvement of students



Variety



Rapport between teacher and students



Use of appropriate, concrete, and understandable examples

Incorporating instructional behaviors that motivate students. The teacher ought to
hold high but realistic expectations for your students. Research has shown that a teacher’s
expectations have a powerful effect on a student’s performance. If you act as though you
expected your students to be motivated, hardworking, and interested in the course, they are
more likely to be so. Set realistic expectations for students when you make assignments,
give presentations, conduct discussions, and grade examinations. “Realistic” in this
context means that your standards are high enough to motivate students to do their best
work but not so high that students will inevitably be frustrated in trying to meet those
expectations. To develop the drive to achieve, students need to be provided with early
opportunities for success.
Help students set achievable goals for themselves. Failure to attain unrealistic goals can
disappoint and frustrate students. The teacher should encourage students to focus on their

continued improvement, not just on their grade on any one test or assignment. They must
help students evaluate their progress by encouraging them to critique their own work,
analyze their strengths, and work on their weaknesses. For example, consider asking
students to submit self – evaluation forms with one or two assignments.


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Tell students what they need to do to succeed in your course. The teacher ought not to
let your students struggle to figure out what is expected of them. He or she must reassure
students succeed. The teacher ought to say something to the effect that “If you can handle
the examples on these problem sheets, you can pass the exam. People who have trouble
with these examples can ask me for extra help”. Or instead of saying, “You’re way
behind,” tell the student, “Here is one way you could go about learning the material. How
can I help you ?”
Strengthen students’ self – motivation. Avoid messages that reinforce your power as an
instructor or that emphasize extrinsic rewards. Instead of saying, “I require”, “you must”,
or “you should,” stress “I think you will find …” or “I will be interested in your reaction.”
Avoid creating intense competition among students. Competition produces anxiety, which
can interfere with learning. Reduce students’ tendencies to compare themselves to one
another. Bligh (1971) reports that students are more favourable to the teaching method
when they work cooperatively in groups rather than compete individuals. Refrain from
public criticisms of students’ performance and from comments or activities that pit
students against each other.
Be enthusiastic about your subject. An instructor’s enthusiasm is a crucial factor in
student motivation. If you become bored or apathetic, student will too. Typically, an
instructor’s enthusiasm comes from confidence, excitement about the content, and genuine
pleasure in teaching. If you find yourself uninterested in the material, think back to what
attracted you to the field and bring those aspects of the subject matter to the life for your
students. Or challenge yourself to devise the most exciting way topresent the material,

however dull the material itself may seem to you.
Increase the difficulty of the material as the semester progresses. Give students
opportunities to succeed at the beginning of the semester. Once students feel they can
succeed, you can gradually increase the difficulty level. If assignments and exams include


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easier and harder questions, every student will have a chance to experience success as well
as challenge.
Vary your teaching methods. Variety reawakens students’ involvement in the course and
their motivation. Break the routines by incorporating a variety of brainstorming,
discussion, demonstrations, case studies, audiovisual presentations, guest speakers, or
small group work.
Give students feedback as quickly as possible. Return tests and papers promptly, and
reward success publicly and immediately. Give students some indication of how well they
have done and how to improve. Rewards can be as simple as saying a student’s response is
good, with an indication of why it is good, or mentioning the names of the contributor.

2.2 An overview of nature of reading
2.2.1. Definitions of Reading
Most of us think of reading as a simple, passive process that involves reading words in a linear
fashion and internalizing their meaning one at a time. But reading is actually a very complex
process that requires a great deal of active participation on the part of the reader. There are
many definitions of reading from experts in the field.
According to Frank Smith (1997), reading is asking questions of printed text. And reading with
comprehension becomes a matter of getting your questions answered.
From Goodman’s point of view, reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. It involves an
interaction between thought and language. Efficient reading does not result from precise
perception and identification of all elements, but from skill in selecting the fewest, most

productive cues necessary to produce guesses which are right the first time. The ability to
anticipate that which has not been seen, of course, is vital in reading, just as the ability to
anticipate what has not been heard is vital in listening .
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, reading is a process of retrieving and comprehending
some form of stored information or ideas. These ideas are usually some sort of representation


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of language, such as symbols to be examined by sight, or by touch (for example Braille). Other
types of reading may not be text – based, such as music notation or pictograms. By analogy,
in computer science, reading is acquiring of data from some sort of computer storage.
As we can see , all the authors share the same idea that reading means comprehending written
language and it involves a variety of skills.

2.2.2. Types of reading
With different reading materials, people may have different ways of reading. In this study,
manner and purposes are present as the criteria necessary for the classification of reading.

2.2.2.1. According to manner
In Doff’s opinion (1988), there are two main types or reading : reading aloud and silent
reading in which “reading aloud involves looking at the text, understanding it and also saying
it”. Although reading aloud is said to be a way to convey necessary information to the others, it
is uncommon activity outside classroom.
There are two contradictory opinions about reading aloud. While Nuttal (1996) sees reading
aloud as an important aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation, Greenword (1985)
criticizes the overemphasis on the purpose of “teaching pronunciation” of reading aloud. He is
afraid that students may be unable to focus adequately on the text’s meaning when they
concentrate too hard on producing the words.
Silent reading is the method we normally use with our native language,and on the whole the

quickest and most efficient (Lewis, 1985 : 110). As a result, silent reading is used more often
in real life and in classroom.

2.2.2.2. According to purposes
Reading is categorized into four types : skimmimg, scanning, extensive reading and intensive
reading
Scanning, the idea that we can read a text looking for specific information, is a useful skill,
based on keywords, that gets you to where you want to be in a larger text before you start


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really reading it. Scanning should be restricted to specific kinds of texts as an access skill –
finding the entry on volcanoes for example or as a re – reading skill to find a passage to quote
or read aloud.
Skimming is the partnerin aim of scanning. Students are often asked to skim a text to get the
general idea or “gist” before reading it in more detail.
Lewis (1985 : 110 ) points out “Intensive reading means students are expected to understand
everything they read and to be able to answer detailed vocabulary and comprehension
questions. Unlike intensive reading, extensive reading means students have a general
understanding of the text without necessary understanding every word”

2.3 Motivation in learning reading
2.3.1 The role of motivation in reading
It is said that reader’s motivation has an effect not only on the product of comprehension but
also upon the process of understanding. Motivation is of great importance when we are
reading. If we show no interest in the text, it means that we do not want to read then the
reading activity will become a pressure to ourselves and even the reading process may not
happen at all. In reality, most of what we read such as books, magazines, advertisements, etc
are what we really want to read.

In the case, we are motivated to read we will start reading the text prepared to satisfy our
desire to find a number of questions and specific information or ideas we are interested in.
Then motivated readers find themselves eager to explore the text and to confirm their
expectation as efficiently as they can. It is undeniable that the more they read, the better they
gain.
A great deal of studies of poor first and second language readers have consistently shown that
poor readers lack motivation to read or to spend time improving their ability to read. This is, of
course, as likely to be the effect of poor reading as the cause of it, but once established, poor
motivation doubles compounds the problem. The dilemma for the language teacher is thus to
improve the reader's motivation.


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It is suggested that students should be encouraged to choose the topics they wish to read about
as well as to spend sometime getting ready before starting reading. To put it bluntly, the
reading teachers should arouse their students’ interest and curiosity in the text, encourage their
expectation and stimulate them when dealing with reading activities. However, the student’s
motivation is aroused and maintained by not only the teacher but also other factors .

2.3.2 . Factors affecting students’ motivation in reading
There are many factors such as the students, the teachers, the reading texts and success which
affect the motivation of students in learning reading. However, I mention here only two very
important motivational factors.

2.3.2.1 . The teachers
In fact a modest number of students seem naturally enthusiastic about reading in the target
language, but many need or expect their teacher to inspire, challenge and stimulate. However,
no matter what level of motivation the students bring the classroom, it will be transformed, for
better or worse, by what happen in the classroom in which the teacher has a significantly

impact.
Firstly, the teacher’s personality and attitude towards the students play a prime role in
affecting both student motivation and progress. Many educational researchers admit that the
teacher with warm, empathetic, sensitive, enthusiastic and humorous characteristics would be
more likely successful in teaching than the ones without those characteristics. Those teachers,
who are enthusiastic in teaching have a positive attitude to the subject and the students, would
be capable of keeping students interested in reading. The teacher can raise the students’ love
for reading by their rapport with the students, their personality themselves because they are the
ones of students’ respect and can affect them a great deal.
Secondly, the teacher’s language ability, methods of teaching and assessing are also more
crucial to the student motivation to read. The teacher’s ability to design and give interesting
lesson with a well – planned series of teaching techniques and activities can involve the
students in the text and then motivate them to read.
Finally, the way the teacher assesses and evaluates the students’ progress also influences their
motivation in learning the subject. The teacher should not compare the performance of a


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student to that of the others but encourage and create a supportive environment for them to put
more effort. It is advisable to evaluate their progress with themselves in order to make them
more self – confident and motivated.

2.3.2.2. The reading materials
The reading materials play an important role to students’ motivation in reading in terms of its
level of challenge, its topic and content. If the students are assigned to read the text beyond
their language proficiency level, they become overwhelmed. The students would also be
frustrated and tired when encountering with a great deal of unknown words, complex sentence
structures and so on. In the case the topic of the text is not interesting and irrelevant to their
experience and knowledge they may stop reading because they can not understand the

meaning of the text enough to satisfy their expectations, need or interests. It is a challenge for
the teacher to select the text or exploit the texts in the ways that improves students’ interests
and motivation in reading.

In general, if students enjoy what they read, the reading comprehension is the best achieved.
Although it is said that “literature is caught, not taught”, the text must satisfy some criteria that
catch up with the readers’ interests with some relevance to their situation and context. In terms
of linguistic items, the vocabulary in the reading text must be of appropriate level with suitable
density of idioms. The complexity of grammar must not be too great. Besides, the background
of the text must be within the students’ imaginative grasp.


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Chapter Three: The study
This chapter discusses the contextual conditions that determine the study of motivation. The
author begins with the description of the situation where the study was conducted and
informants involved in the study. After that, the research method followed by the data
collection procedures and scheme for data interpretation are mentioned.

3.1 The context
The study was conducted at Haiphong Foreign Language Center (HFLC), which was
established in 1976. HFLC has become a reliable address for those who are eager to learn
foreign languages such as English, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German.
Since 2000 HFLC has officially been a member of Haiphong University (HPU). With this new
position the Center continues to upgrade teaching and learning facilities. In HFLC, English has
been taught with different levels : elementary (A level), pre - intermediate (B level),
intermediate (C level) and upper - intermediate (tertiary level). My research only focuses on
tertiary level.
After finishing C level, the students can take an entrance exam to attend the advanced in service course during two years and a half. The teaching of English for this course is divided

two stages, which last in one year each. For the first stage (3 terms), the students study four
language skills : reading, speaking, listening and writing. In the second stage, they have to
learn grammar, phonetics, lexicology, semantics, and other subjects in English such as
discourse analysis, translation, English literature.
Three reading materials are chosen to teach for students : New Progress to Certificate by Leo
Jones, Cambridge - University Press for the first term, First Certificate Master class by Simon
Haines, Barbara Stewart, Oxford University Press for the second term and finally, Developing
Reading skills (Intermediate 1) by Linda Markstein Louise Hirsawa. The first two books
combine four skills together in a unit. Approaching to the third phrase, the students have their
own textbooks only for developing reading skills. The material has been selected so as to
improve the students' reading ability.
The students study four periods of reading a week and always at weekends. The students are
trained to improve such reading strategies as: skimming for gist, scanning for specific
information, drawing conclusion, making inferences and restatements, writing summaries. The


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students need to apply different types of reading strategies for different texts more accurately
and speedily. During one term of learning reading, the students have to do two tests: mid term and achievement test. What the teachers have to do is help students to improve their
performance of reading comprehension through explanation, feedback and modeling.
In HFLC, the language skills group consists of eight teachers of English aged 26 to 60. The
oldest teachers have more than 30 years of teaching experience and the youngest ones have
more than four years of experience. Three of them finished their post - graduate courses, four
others are going to graduate.

3.2 The informants
This survey was conducted with the participation of 101 in - service students of which 34 were
male and 67 were female. These students were from 6 classes of K21 (A,B,C,D,E,G) from
HFLC, HPU. The youngest student was 18 while the oldest was 43 years old. 70 students were

from 18 to 24, 18 students from 25 to 28, the rest from 30 to 43 (14 students). The youngest
group (18 -24) are mainly students attending in other universities in Hai Phong now, the others
are working or holding certain positions in many offices and they have graduated from
universities or colleges. All of them have one thing in common, that is they all officially or
unofficially experienced at least three years of learning English. These figures show that the
data collected from the survey will certainly be reliable because the learners have full
understanding of their mission and have enough knowledge of English to answer the questions
given.

3.3 . Instruments
To obtain the information for the study, the researcher used two instruments.

Instrument one : A questionnaire completed by the students
Two main parts were focused in the questionnaire. The first part was about the students'
demographic information which included the students' gender, age, the number of years they
had been learning English. The second part was designed to elicit the students' opinions about
the reading subject. It consisted of 8 questions, seven of which were closed and two of which
were open - ended. The first two questions 1,2 dealt with the students' attitudes towards
reading English, questions 3,4,5 mentioned the way the teachers often do to motivate students
in learning reading. The teachers' opinion about current reading materials in class and