Incorporating explicit metacognitive strategy intruction in reading comprehension lessons at the university of peoples security

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

INCORPORATING EXPLICIT
METACOGNITIVE STRATEGY INSTRUCTION
IN READING COMPREHENSION LESSONS
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PEOPLE’S SECURITY
A thesis submitted to
the Faculty of English Linguistics and Literature
in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL

by
HUYNH THI HAU
Supervised by
NGUYEN THI KIEU THU, Ph.D.

HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2020


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My deepest gratitude is to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyễn Thị Kiều Thu for her dedication
and continuous support for my M.A thesis as well as my maternity. Her timely advice
and encouragement supported me to get rid of my postpartum depression and completed
this work.
My sincere thanks also go to Dr. Phó Phương Dung, Dr. Lê Hoàng Dũng, Dr. Nguyễn
Thu Hương, Dr. Nguyễn Đăng Nguyên and Dr. Nguyễn Thị Hồng Thắm for numerous
and valuable discussions and lectures on related topics that help me sharpen my research
skills.
I would like to acknowledge my colleagues at the Department of Foreign Languages
and Informatics as well as my all students at the University of People’s Security for their

support and inspiration by different ways during my thesis completion. It is never
enough to say “Thank you” to them.
Last but not least, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my whole family and, most
specially, my little daughter - An Di and my husband. Thanks to being her mom and his
wife, my thesis completion is meaningfully associated with my emotional maturity.

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify that this thesis, entitled “Incorporating explicit metacognitive strategy
instruction in reading comprehension lessons at the University of People’s Security” is
my own work.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree of diploma in at other
institution.

Ho Chi Minh, December 2020

Huynh Thi Hau

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RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS
I hereby state that I, Huynh Thi Hau, being the candidate for the degree of
Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention
and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in
the Library should be assessable for the purposes of study and research, in accordance
with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction

of these.

Ho Chi Minh,

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...........................................................................................i
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ............................................................................ ii
RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ............................................................. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................... viii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ix
LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................xi
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ xii
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION....................................................................... 1

1.1. Background to the study .......................................................................................1
1.2. Aims of the study ..................................................................................................4
1.3. Research questions ................................................................................................4
1.4. Significance of the study .......................................................................................4
1.5. Scope of the study .................................................................................................5
1.6. The organization of the thesis ...............................................................................5
CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 7

2.1. Terms and related theories ....................................................................................7
2.1.1. Reading comprehension..................................................................................7
2.1.2. Metacognitive strategies ...............................................................................10
2.1.3. Correlation between metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension .15
2.1.4. Assessment of metacognitive strategies in reading ......................................17
2.1.5. Strategy instruction .......................................................................................19
2.1.6. Attitudes ........................................................................................................21
2.2. Review of previous studies .................................................................................23

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2.3. Conceptual framework ........................................................................................28
2.4. Summary of the chapter ......................................................................................32
CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY ................................................................... 33

3.1. Research design ...................................................................................................33
3.2. Research site........................................................................................................35
3.3. Pilot study............................................................................................................36
3.4. Participants ..........................................................................................................38
3.5. Teaching and learning materials .........................................................................40
3.5.1. Text book ......................................................................................................40
3.5.2. The experimental teaching ............................................................................40
3.6. Research instruments ..........................................................................................42
3.6.1. Reading tests .................................................................................................42
3.6.2. Surveys of leaners’ awareness of metacognitive strategies ..........................44
3.6.3. Attitudinal questionnaires .............................................................................49
3.7. Data collection procedure ...................................................................................52

3.8. Data analysis procedure ......................................................................................53
3.8.1. Statistical Analysis........................................................................................53
3.8.3. Research questions and data analysis ...........................................................54
3.9. Chapter summary ................................................................................................55
CHAPTER 4

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .............................................. 56

4.1. Findings ...............................................................................................................56
4.1.1. Findings on the students’ metacognitive awareness .....................................56
4.1.2. Findings on the reading comprehension tests ...............................................64
4.1.3. Findings on the relationship of metacognitive awareness raising and reading
performance improvement ......................................................................................70

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4.1.4. Findings on the students’ attitudes towards metacognitive strategy training
................................................................................................................................71
4.2. Discussion ...........................................................................................................77
4.2.1. The increase of UPS students’ metacognitive awareness via explicit
instruction of metacognitive strategy......................................................................77
4.2.2. The improvement of UPS students’ reading performance via explicit
instruction of metacognitive strategy......................................................................79
4.2.3. The relationship between metacognitive awareness raising and reading
performance improvement ......................................................................................80
4.2.4. The students’ attitudes towards the metacognitive strategy training ............81
CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION ......................................................................... 83

5.1. Conclusion...........................................................................................................83
5.2. Pedagogical implications ....................................................................................85
5.2.1. Implications for English learners ..................................................................85
5.2.2. Implications for English teachers and textbook writers ...............................85
5.3. Limitations of the study ......................................................................................86
5.4. Recommendation for further study .....................................................................86
5.5. Summary of the chapter ......................................................................................86
Preferences ................................................................................................................... 88
Appendices ................................................................................................................... 95
Appendix A1 Sample lesson plan for Control Group ................................................95
Appendix A2 Sample lesson plan for Experimental Group ......................................98
Appendix B CALLA Model Instruction (Chamot, 2005) ........................................102
Appendix C Reading text for Sample Lesson plan .................................................105
Appendix D Handout of planning strategies ............................................................107
Appendix E1Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading
Comprehension (SAMSRC)- English version ........................................................108
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Appendix E2 Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading
Comprehension (SAMSRC)- Vietnamese Translation version ...............................111
Appendix F Answer sheet for Reading test ............................................................116
Appendix G Reading Test 1 .....................................................................................117
Appendix H Reading Test 2 .....................................................................................122
Appendix I1 Attitudinal Questionnaire_ English version ........................................131
Appendix I2 Attitudinal Questionnaire_ Vietnamese translation version ...............137
Appendix J SPSS Output of Normality test of SAMSRC ......................................145
Appendix K SPSS Output of Paired Sample T-test of SAMSRC ...........................149
Appendix L SPSS Output of Independent Sample T-test of SAMSRC ..................154

Appendix M SPSS Output of Normality test of The Reading Test 1 ......................157
Appendix N SPSS Output of the Paired Sample T-test of reading tests ..................159
Appendix O SPSS Output of the Independent Sample T-test of reading tests ........160
Appendix P SPSS Output of the Pearson product-moment correlation test ...........161
Appendix Q SPSS Output of the attitudinal questionnaire .....................................162

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AY

Academic Year

CALLA

Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach

CG

Control Group

EFL

English as a Foreign Language

EG

Experimental Group

M

Mean

SAMSRC

Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading
Comprehension

SD

Standard Deviation

SPSS

Statistical Product and Services Solutions

SSBI

Styles and Strategies-Based Instruction

UPS

University of People ‘s Security

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Types of Comprehension................................................................................8

Table 2.2 Offline Self-reports ......................................................................................17
Table 2.3 Online Assessments ......................................................................................18
Table 2.4 Summary of the Previous Studies ................................................................26
Table 2.5 Selection of Strategies..................................................................................30
Table 3.1 Procedures of Piloting .................................................................................37
Table 3.2 Demographic Description of the Participants.............................................39
Table 3.4 Format Description of PET .........................................................................44
Table 3.6 Reliability of Survey of Awareness of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading
Comprehension...............................................................................................................48
Table 3.7 Distribution of The Items in The Attitudinal Questionnaire ........................51
Table 3.8 Reliability of the Main Themes in the Attitudinal Questionnaire ................52
Table 3.9 Research Questions and the Corresponding Research Instruments and
Statistical Test................................................................................................................54
Table 4.1 The Shapiro-Wilk Test for Normal Distribution of the Pre-Questionnaire .56
Table 4.2 Statistics of Normality Test ..........................................................................57
Table 4.3 The results of the Paired Samples T-test of the CG .....................................58
Table 4.4 The Results of the Paired Samples T-Test of the EG ...................................59
Table 4.5 List of Strategies with the Most Significant Difference ...............................60
Table 4.6 The Results of Independent Sample T-Test of the Pre-Questionnaire .........61
Table 4.7 The Results of Independent Sample T-Test of the Post-Questionnaire .......63
Table 4.8 The Shapiro-Wilk Test of Distribution of the Pre-test .................................65
Table 4.9 Statistics of Normality Test ..........................................................................65
Table 4.10 The Results of Independent Samples T-Test of the Pre-test ......................67
Table 4.11 The Results of Paired Samples T-Test of Reading Performance Tests .....68
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Table 4.12 The Results of the Independent Samples T-Test for the Post-test ..............69
Table 4.13 Pearson Correlation Matrix among Reading Comprehension Scores and
the Metacognitive Awareness Scores ............................................................................70

Table 4.14 The Students’ Feelings towards the Instruction ........................................74
Table 4.15 The Students’ Cognitions about the Benefits of the Metacognitive Strategy
Instruction ......................................................................................................................75
Table 4.16 The students’ Cognitions about the Drawbacks of the Metacognitive
Strategy Instruction .......................................................................................................76
Table 4.17 The Students’ Behaviors towards the Metacognitive Strategy Instruction77

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Coady’s Model of Reading Comprehension ................................................8
Figure 2.2 The Conceptual Framework of the Study ...................................................32
Figure 3.1 Data Collection Procedure ........................................................................53
Figure 4.1 A Boxplot of the Pre-test Scores ................................................................66
Figure 4.2 The Correlation of Metacognitive Awareness and Reading Performance
after the Intervention in the Experimental Group .........................................................70
Figure 4.3 The Importance of Learning Reading Skills ..............................................72
Figure 4.4 The Necessity of Learning Reading Strategies ..........................................72
Figure 4.5 The Overall Feelings about the Instruction ...............................................73

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ABSTRACT
The role of metacognitive reading strategies in reading comprehension has been
emphasized in various studies in the EFL context with profound positive impacts.
However, in Vietnam, previous studies regarding metacognitive strategies in reading
have only focused on an overview of learners’ awareness of metacognitive reading
strategies as well as a description of the relationship between metacognitive

awareness and reading performance. There is a lack of experimental studies on the
extent to which explicit metacognitive strategy instruction increases students'
metacognitive awareness and reading performance. This study is an attempt to fulfill
this gap. By quantitative approach, especially quasi-experimental design, the aim of
this work was to investigate the effectiveness of explicit instruction of metacognitive
strategies through Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) on
metacognitive awareness and reading performance of non-English majors. The
findings corroborated previous research that explicit metacognitive strategy
instruction makes positive effects on the improvement of the students’ metacognitive
awareness as well as their reading comprehension performance. Moreover, the
correlation between the students’ metacognitive awareness raising and reading
performance improvement after the explicit metacognitive strategy instruction was
asserted. The success of the strategy instruction was supported by the results of the
attitudinal questionnaire on the students receiving the treatment. Based on these
findings, several suggestions were proposed to researchers, teachers, learners and
textbook writers.
Key words: metacognitive strategies, explicit instruction, CALLA, reading
comprehension, metacognitive awareness

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background to the study
The attraction of reading has been proved over time by a large number of scholars’
interest due to two main reasons. Firstly, it is common knowledge that reading supports
the human beings’ access to endless knowledge; therefore, the doors to new

understanding are also open. Grabe (2009) also asserted that in a modern society like
ours, individuals should be good readers to get success. Although it is not guaranteed
for success by reading skills, it is more difficult for people to be outstanding without
them. At tertiary education taken, the more reading ability students develop, the greater
progress they make in all academic areas (Anderson, 2002). As for learning languages,
it is increasingly becoming a vital factor to recognize good language learners by their
understanding of a new target language and culture. Secondly, the inherent complexity
of reading process as well as efficient ways to develop it is such a big challenge
appealing to curiosity of researchers. Reading process includes activities in readers’
brains with different behaviors from distinct groups of readers, which requires more
intensive studies. Up to now, training reading, as a vital section in language learning and
teaching, has been considered a critical issue for more academic investigation in its
nature.
Grabe and Stoller (2002) stated that students are usually struggling with constructing
meaning from reading texts in the process of comprehension. Therefore, difficulties in
comprehension especially in a reading process have appealed to a number of studies
with considerations into the question with “how” as practical ways facilitating a
learners’ language acquisition process. Most of research studies have recommended the
use of different approaches or reading strategies as solutions to any problems related to
“comprehension”. O'Malley and Chamot (1990) concluded that language learning
strategies should be divided into three tracks: cognitive strategies, socioaffective
strategies and metacognitive strategies. It obviously means that reading strategies or
cognitive strategies are not the sole treatments for poor comprehension in reading. In
addition, reading process requires a combination of both information of texts and
background’s knowledge of readers (Anderson, 2005). In that way, reading is an active

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and fluent process which includes monitoring comprehension as a metacognitive

activity (Baker & Brown, 1984).
From 1960s, educational scholars began seeking answers for a question of great interest
related to metacognitive strategies which refer to the control of the learners on their
learning process (Schunk & Zimmerrman, 1998). Mokhtari and Reichard (2002) also
asserted that the awareness of metacognitive reading strategies can foster the process of
comprehending a text. With regard to these elements, it is worth considering that
metacognitive strategies should be employed to enhance learners’ reading
comprehension.
As a matter of fact, in Vietnam, metacognitive strategies have still not paid enough
attention, which is not equivalent to the roles of them in the picture of scientific studies
of the world. Studies published and related to metacognitive strategies in reading
conducted in Vietnam just offered an overview of learners’ awareness of metacognitive
reading strategies at secondary high schools as in the study of Nguyen, T.M.T. & Trinh,
Q.L. (2011) as well as the frequency of metacognitive reading strategy employment
among the students at tertiary levels in the paper of Cuu, Q. T. (2014). These papers also
figured out further development in this field regarding the instruction delivered in some
explicit ways with the aim to advance the learners’ reading ability. Therefore, this paper
should fill the research gap in the teaching and learning context of Vietnam.
In Vietnam, additionally, the approaches to teaching reading skills just emphasize on
finding answers for questions in the reading texts , “teaching to the test”, which has
blunted the students’ thinking day by day. Hence, the introduction of metacognitive
strategies in reading comprehension will encourage students to pause to think about their
learning progress and consider the effectiveness of what strategies they utilize in their
reading. By investigating the impacts of teaching metacognitive strategies in reading,
this study is considered a new approach to teaching reading comprehension in the
context of Vietnam, especially in the researcher’s.
Related to the rationale for the study, learning environment and perceptions of teachers
and learners towards reading comprehension are considered the fundamental reasons of
this study.

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Since the establishment in 1963, the University of People’s Security (UPS) has been in
charge of providing security officers in the domains of National Security in the South
of Viet Nam. As requirements, the students are hoped to achieve the level of
Intermediate after graduation in order to adequately accomplish the tasks assigned.
English has been taught in this university since 1983. Over more than 30 years of
development, the department of foreign language has achieved many successes due to
its efforts in supporting students’ English exploration. The students at UPS specially
differ from others students of others, which highlights the topic selections of the
researchers. UPS students are officially required to live in the university’s dorm together
for 4 years. In addition, they have to learn management skills to arrange their daily
activities. It is such a big advantage for the researcher to introduce metacognitive
strategies, which requires the learners’ investment in their thinking process.
English teachers at UPS are familiar with the terms “reading skills”, “reading strategies”
in their practice of teaching reading in class. The terms “metacognition”, “metacognitive
strategies”, however, are not collected in their practice. Hence, they all believe that only
good application of reading strategies or cognitive reading strategies can improve
learners’ reading skills. Therefore, the extent to which metacognitive strategies support
the improvement of learners’ reading skills is questioned.
As for learners, trying to complete all the requirements of the tasks by using bilingual
dictionaries, translating word by word, etc. is understood as what they should do in a
reading lesson. That leads reading comprehension activity to a passive way of acquiring
language in which the role of strategy usage and instruction is not emphasized (Tavakoli
& Koosha, 2016).
The importance of reading is recognized by UPS students. However, the wrong
understanding of the definition of a good reader leads to little care taken in reading.
Firstly, to be a good reader, a learner has to be excellent at vocabulary, which means the
learners have to know all words in the reading texts. It could be an impossible mission

for Intermediate –level learners. Secondly, high scores in English tests is one of the main
targets to identify a good reader. These factors cause the discouragement of enhancing
reading skills. Therefore, the attitudes of learners towards reading instruction should be
investigated in the study.
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1.2. Aims of the study
The study is conducted to explore the effectiveness of explicit metacognitive strategy
training on students’ reading comprehension in terms of their metacognitive awareness
and reading performance within the framework of a Vietnamese university. In relation
to this aim, four clear objectives of the study pointed include (1) measuring the extent
to which explicit metacognitive strategy training affects students’ metacognitive
awareness of reading strategies, (2) examining the extent to which explicit
metacognitive strategy training influence their reading performance, (2) checking the
relationship between metacognitive awareness raising and reading comprehension
improvement, and (3) investigating students’ attitudes towards reading instruction
throughout training process.
1.3. Research questions
To fulfil the aims above, this study is guided by the following research questions:
1. To what extent does explicit metacognitive strategy training increase UPS students’
metacognitive awareness of reading strategies?
2. To what extent does explicit metacognitive strategy training improve UPS students’
reading performance?
3. Is metacognitive awareness raising related to reading comprehension improvement?
4. What are UPS students’ attitudes towards the application of metacognitive strategies
to teaching reading comprehension?
1.4. Significance of the study
The connection between metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension is
officially confirmed in various studies around the world. However, few researchers have

addressed the effectiveness of metacognitive strategy instruction in reading
comprehension with scientific works published in the Vietnamese context. The
significance of this study can be assessed in term of theoretical and practical
contributions. Theoretically, the researcher tried to provide more empirical evidence for
the positive link between metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension, filling
the literature gap in the application of metacognitive strategies in reading in Vietnam
context.

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Regarding practicality, this work can be considered an initial one studying the
application of metacognitive strategies in language teaching in general and in reading
comprehension at UPS. The research findings can support the understanding of the
teachers at the UPS about the link between metacognitive strategies and reading
comprehension. Thanks to that, they may have more options in training students’
reading comprehension as well as enhancing their teaching methods.
1.5. Scope of the study
The study explored the utilization of metacognitive strategies in reading based on the
students’ reading achievement and their metacognitive awareness of reading strategies
in a 12- week experiment period. That is to say, this study was confined to investigate
the immediate, not long-term impacts of metacognitive reading strategies on students’
reading comprehension. In fact, the researcher could not investigate what was inside the
participants’ brain when they were doing reading texts. Hence, the data that the
researchers accumulated was what the students thought and believed they did during
reading time. The study was conducted on the second-year students at the University of
People’s Security. Moreover, this study employed convenience sampling in a limited
population, which negatively affected its generalizability. In short, this study would
restrict itself to look into the increase of students’ metacognitive awareness and the
improvement of students’ performance in reading comprehension under the short-term

impacts of incorporation of explicit metacognitive strategy in reading lessons at UPS.
1.6. The organization of the thesis
This thesis is divided into five chapters with the following descriptions.
Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the study by presenting two primary reasons from the
current setting of the authors with some theoretical aspects to figure out a research gap
this study would fill out. Moreover, the main aim of the study followed by four clear
research questions are also presented, which directs the paper. The contributions and
scope of this study are mentioned in this part.
Chapter 2 presents the review of literature in relation to reading comprehension,
metacognitive strategies and roles of learners’ attitudes towards strategy instruction
employed. From that, the conceptual framework of this study is demonstrated.

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Chapter 3 deals with research method employed, sample and sampling procedures. The
research instruments with clear data collection and analysis procedures are described
including reading comprehension tests, surveys of the awareness of metacognitive
strategies and attitudinal questionnaires in this chapter.
Chapter 4 includes analyzing data and discussing the findings based on research
questions above.
Chapter 5 indicates implications of the study for both English learners, English teachers
and book writers as well as suggestions and recommendations for further study.

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Terms and related theories
In order to construct the conceptual framework for the study, the key terms related to
reading comprehension, metacognitive strategies as well as their relationships proved in
the previous studies have been presented and analyzed in the first part of Chapter 2.
2.1.1. Reading comprehension
2.1.1.1. Definition of reading comprehension
The role of reading in language acquisition has been emphasized in thousands of studies
before investigating many specific questions revolving around it. In a basic idea of
Jensen and Petty (1980), reading is just a process of words moving from eyes to mouth.
It is true for physical requirements but not for the ultimate goal of reading instruction.
With the hope of training reading skills for learners, the participation of readers and
other factors has been explored in order to figure out solutions from them. Baker and
Brown (1984) as well as Grabe (2009) identified reading as an interactive cognitive
process requiring the interaction of both readers, texts and authors’ perspectives. This
involvement can happen in many forms. Readers with the purpose of grasping the
meaning of texts can read by eyes as in silent mode. On the other hand, they can read
aloud the content of written texts, which is considered as oral reading with or without
comprehension of the contents (Richards & Schmidt, 2002).
Especially in reading instruction domain, the term “reading comprehension” has been
analysed due to its vital role for successful readers as well as the main target in teaching
reading to different learners. Hence, there remain such many definitions of reading
comprehension for the sake of the difference of authors’ awareness of reading process
and the involvements of factors.
The concept of reading comprehension has gradually changed over time. In the
traditional approach, McDonough and Shaw (1993) stated that a reader was considered
‘a recipient’ of knowledge while the text was identified as an object. In this reading
circle, the reader does not provide any contribution to the reading process. There is still
considerable uncertainty with regard to this definition owing to excluding the important
roles of readers. In recent years, various approaches have been put forward to define a

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reading comprehension process in details. The generally accepted definition of reading
comprehension refers to a process emphasizing close interactions between readers and
texts in a three-step process including understanding, analyzing and interpreting
messages of writers (Grabe & Stoller, 2002). In a clearer description, Richards and
Schmidt (2002) suggested four types as well as four levels of reading comprehension in
the Table 2.1 below.
Table 2.1
Types of Comprehension (Richards & Schmidt, 2002)
Types of Comprehension

Description

Literal comprehension

Reading in order to understand, remember, or recall the information explicitly
contained in a passage.

Inferential comprehension

Reading in order to find the information which is not explicitly stated in a
passage, using the readers’ experience and intuition, and by inferring.

Critical or evaluative
comprehension

Reading in order to compare information in a passage with the readers own
knowledge and values.

Appreciative
comprehension

Reading in order to gain an emotional or other kind of valued response from a
passage.

Under the influence of psycholinguistics from the 1970, ESL reading theory has
changed with the clarification of which factors of texts, readers included in
comprehension process of ESL reading. The definitions of reading were investigated in
the perspectives of both psychologists and linguists. Coady (1979, as cited in Zainal,
2003) suggested the model of reading in ESL in Figure 2.1.
Figure 2.1
Coady’s Model of Reading Comprehension
CONCEPTUAL ABILITIES

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

PROCESS STRATEGIES

Three elements within the interaction includes conceptual abilities, background
knowledge, and process strategies. Simply explaining, apparently, reading is not a
passive sequence. It requires the experience and background knowledge of readers in
relation to content which is applied to explain the messages of writers in reading texts.
8


The agreement on this model were also presented in the ideas of Adams & Collins
(1979); Mokhtari & Sheorey (2005). The understanding of readers about reading texts
depends much on the personal knowledge and experience they applied to translate the

messages of the writers. Although the awareness of reading comprehension are different
from the perspectives of scholars based on their studies interest, the definition of reading
comprehension should not deny the vital role of the readers as well as their dynamic and
independent thinking process.
The more sophisticated scholars define the term reading comprehension, the more
dedicated readers’ contribution is identified in a reading process. The readers with their
proactive involvement receive much care from the scholars. Based on that, studies
related to reading comprehension have recently focused on learners by themselves as
treatments for poor reading comprehension.
In their analysis, Naiman, Frohlich & Todesco (1975) concluded that the employment
of strategies of learners are different between the successful and less successful language
learners. For instance, the successful learners have more understanding of selection and
use of strategies while the less successful does not succeed in choosing and
understanding the nature of the strategies they use. They have a tendency to reuse a
group of strategies without any advance in their task completion (as cited in Ajideh,
Zohrabi, & Pouralvar, 2018). On the contrary, especially in reading, the skilled readers
as well as language learners are excel at reflecting on and monitoring their cognitive
processing while reading to solve their tasks (Sheorey & Mokhtari, 2001). It is also
pointed out that the less skilled readers lack the understanding of declarative, procedural,
and conditional knowledge of strategies (Baker & Brown, 1984; Mokhtari & Reichard,
2002). Therefore, to facilitate learners’ comprehension in reading, the introduction of
reading strategies are encouraged. Taking the context of teaching English as a foreign
language (EFL) into account, some specific characteristics of learners should be
considered when teaching strategies in reading.
2.1.1.2. Teaching reading comprehension in Vietnam context
In Asian countries, especially in Vietnam, reading English is considered a criterion to
assess academic performance. Learners will achieve more success with greater
development in reading in EFL countries (Anderson, 2002). Tavakoli and Koosha
9

(2016) emphasized that EFL students involve passively with the employment of
bilingual dictionaries in their reading. They are gradually familiar with sentence
translation. Despite the effort they make, their reading performance is not enhanced.
Moreover, especially in Vietnam, the passive role of students can be seen through the
way they are taught. Le, V. H. V. (2013) pointed out that teachers define reading is
extracting the right information for questions in tasks without students’ thinking about
themselves. In fact, Phan, T. T. K. (2014) found out that students actually want to
explore themselves.
Therefore, there have been considerable amount of studies carried out in reading
comprehension recently, such as the effectiveness of the model of teachers’ codeswitching (Nguyen, T. B., 2017), the students’ attitudes and practice in reading fluency
and reading comprehension in the model of graded readers (Huynh, T. M. V., 2016),
teaching critical thinking in reading comprehension (Phan, T. T. K, 2014), effectiveness
of summarization strategies on reading comprehension of literary prose texts (Le, T. H.,
2014), a survey of cognitive strategies in learning English comprehension at a high
school (Luong, P. T., 2014) and the frequency of use of cognitive-metacognitive reading
strategies among English majors (Nguyen, T. D. & Trinh, H. T., 2011). Many aspects
of reading comprehension have been explored in different contexts with meaningful
results in practice. Nevertheless, there are no such studies in the environment of UPS
up to present. Therefore, this study hopefully contributes to the practice of teaching
reading comprehension in this environment.
2.1.2. Metacognitive strategies
2.1.2.1. Definition of strategies
Strategy, etymologically, origins from Greek, which means “generalship” or “ art of
leading an army”. According to Oxford and Longman dictionaries, this term has been
used popularly in war setting, which means a plan towards a specific goal and the
process of planning something. Generally, this term should involve some specific
characteristics. First of all, it should be defined in relation to a mental work or
“conscious manipulation” as mentioned in Oxford (1990). Secondly, it is always
employed to achieve a goal or specific target (Oxford, 1990; Richards & Schmidt, 2002).

Thirdly, although the original meaning of this word mentions the setting of military, in
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fact, the application of this word is witnessed in a variety of setting especially in
language teaching and learning.
In the setting of this paper, the strategies mentioned are related to language learning
strategies. There exist enormous definitions of the term language learning strategy of
different key authors. According to Oxford (1990), language learning strategies are
understood as “operations employed by the learner to aid the acquisition, storage,
retrieval, and use of information”. In this statement, the nature and functions of language
learning strategies are listed. However, the nature of language learning strategies need
complementing and clarifying. Cohen (2011) noted that language learning strategies
should be investigated as “thoughts and actions consciously chosen and operationalized
by language learners to assist them in carrying out a multiplicity of tasks from the very
onset of the most advanced levels of target-language performance”. In this definition,
the active role of learners related to the awareness of users have been emphasized. In
addition to that, the general actions in Oxford (1990)’s definition are clarified in form
of tasks with clear targets. In the same light, Chamot (2005) also emphasized the
consciousness and goal-driven elements in strategies. She also stated the automaticity
of strategies can happen due to repeated uses of learners.
Although the consensus on language learning strategy definition has not built, the core
values of language learning strategies can be drawn in three main factors. Firstly, it is
the involvement of the learners as users in forms of thoughts, actions, behaviors, etc.
The target of the strategy usage is considered as the second aspect the researchers always
care. As the name of language learning strategy, the application of these strategies is
definitely made to advance as well as facilitate learner acquisition process. The third
point related to the active role of the leaners as the consciousness of theirs has been
investigated by many researchers. As Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001) state that “[skilled
readers] are aware not only of which strategies to use, but they also tend to be better at

regulating the use of such strategies while reading…” (p.445), the consciousness of the
learners contributes to encourage the trainability of language learning strategies.
2.1.2.2. Classification of strategies
The efforts to identify “a good language learner” has been noted since 1970s (Rubin,
1975), which contributes to the development of learning strategy classification
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frameworks. Because researchers found out that the strategies which good language
learners employed can be considered solutions to language learning problems. The ways
researchers group strategies are varied regarding different frameworks the authors draw
and explain. Among those researchers, some pioneers’ names can be listed O’Malley
and Chamot (1990), Oxford (1990), Rubin (1987) and Richard and Schmidt (2002).
Rubin (1987) built up the classification scheme of strategies based on the way the
strategy affects to learning process. For the first group including classification,
monitoring, memorization, guessing, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning and
practicing, the effectiveness of them on learning is directly presented. The second group
involves the strategies contributing to create practice opportunities and applying some
production tricks.
O’Malley and Chamot (1990) mentioned that learning strategies should be divided into
three main groups named cognitive, metacognitive and social/affective strategies. While
cognitive strategies mainly focus on the strategies directly employed in individual
learning tasks, metacognitive strategy group refers to strategies knowing about learning
and controlling learning by planning, monitoring and evaluating the learning.
Differently, socio/affective strategies primarily highlight the interaction or
communication with others elements during learning process.
To compare with other classification framework, the categorization of Oxford (1990)
has been widely accepted thanks to its clarity and much more comprehensiveness. The
author groups the strategies into two main groups including direct and indirect groups
following the way they affect language learning process. Although, in the same light

with Rubin (1987), this category of Oxford (1990) is presented more clearly with
subgroups. In this study, the attention of the researcher has been put on metacognitive
strategies which are belonged to the indirect group. As explained, they reflect the
practicing executive control through planning, arranging, focusing and evaluating
learners on their learning process. From that, metacognitive strategies can be considered
one of the treatments for the limited performance in language learning as well as in some
particular language skills, which is worth investigating.
Though the dissimilarities in learning strategy classification still remain, metacognitive
strategies are still reminded in almost categorizations with distinct name group. For that
reason, the role of metacognitive strategies should be explored and documented.
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