Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)
In Vietnam, learning strategies have also become a topic of interest in recent years when the concepts of "self-learning" and "life-long learning" have been familiar to the ears of both Vietnamese teachers and learners
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Internationally, within the field of education over the last few decades a gradual but significant shift has taken place, resulting in less emphasis on teachers and teaching and greater stress on learners and learning This change has been reflected in various ways in language education Teaching English as a second or foreign language (TESL/TEFL) has also changed tremendously Most significantly, the traditional teacher-centred approach has been replaced with the learner-centred one, which reflects a desire to explore ways of making teaching responsive to learner needs and interests and allowing learners to play a fuller, more active and participatory role in the day-to-day teaching and learning processes Inherent in this approach is a shift in the responsibilities of both teachers and students in the foreign language classroom No longer does the teacher act as the centre of all instruction, controlling every aspect of the learning process Learners themselves now, more than ever, are sharing the responsibility for successful language acquisition and, in doing so, are becoming less dependant on the language teacher for meeting their own individual language learning needs By giving students more responsibility for their own language development, language programs are inviting learners to become more autonomous, to diagnose some of their own learning strengths and weaknesses and to sift-direct the process of language development Then, for all L2 teachers who aim to develop their students' communicative competence and language learning, an understanding of language learning strategies is crucial As Oxford (1990) puts it, language learning strategies" are specially important for language learning because they are tools for active, self-directed involvement, which is essential for developing communicative competence" (p.1) According to Nunan (1999), learner-centeredness does not mean that teachers should devaluating their own professional roles or handling their duties and responsibility to the learner Learner-centered instruction "is a matter of educating learners so that they can gradually assume greater responsibility for their own learning" (Nunan, 1999: 12) and research suggests that training students to use language learning strategies can help them become better language learners In the field of second language acquisition, focus has been shifted away from finding perfect teaching methodologies to investigating why some learners are very successful in their language learning while others are not although they have made as much effort learning the language Several studies that have been carried out by Oxford (1990), O'Malley and Chamot (1990), Nunan (1991), Rubin and Thompson (1994) and Cohen (1998) have shown that one of the most important factors that distinguish successful learners from unsuccessful ones is their learning strategies In other words, successful learners use some effective learning strategies to deal with problems that emerge during their learning process while unsuccessful ones employ inappropriate or ineffective strategies resulting in their failure in their language learning This finding has provoked interest among researchers and teachers in identifying learning strategies employed by good language learners with a view to training bad learners to use such effective learning strategies In Vietnam, learning strategies have also become a topic of interest in recent years when the concepts of "self-learning" and "life-long learning" have been familiar to the ears of both Vietnamese teachers and learners Several studies into this field have been conducted with different type of learners to find out particular strategies employed by effective and ineffective learners such as Huyen Tran study (2004) on vocabulary learning strategies used by students of English at Quy Nhon University or Mai Duong's (2005) on writing strategies employed by firstyear students at Hanoi National University or Nguyen Thi Thu Ha's (2006) on reading strategies employed by second-year bridge and road students at the University of Transport and Communications or Mai Van Binh's (2007) on vocabulary learning strategies preferred by students at College of Finance and Business Administration However, studies as such are still scarce, thus, more research should be done in order to clarify particular strategies used in different settings and by learners of different levels At Tay Bac University (TBU), reading is regarded as an important skill to the students because these students need to read a lot of English books and documents to support their professional studies However, apart from some students who are quite good at English reading, most students especially ethnic minority junior ones find reading difficult They often complain that they have little understanding of the text they have read and hardly finish their reading exercises and exams successfully Having taught English majored students at TBU for several years, I am aware of their problems and very much want to help them to improve their reading ability Therefore, I intend to examine their reading strategies to find out the reading strategies used by students of lower reading ability Based on the findings, I am going to make some implications to improve TBU students' reading proficiency 1.2 Scope, aims and significance of the study 1.2.1 Scope of the study The present study investigates the reading strategies used by readers among ethnic minority junior first-year English-majored students at Tay Bac University (hereafter TBU) The study of learning strategies in other English skills would be beyond the scope 1.2.2 Aims of the study The major purposes of this study are: (1) to identify the reading strategies utilized by readers among ethnic minority junior first-year English-majored students at Tay Bac University; (2) to inform the concerned teachers so that they can find ways to improve their students' reading proficiency In order to achieve the above aims of the study, the following major research question will be addressed: - What are the reading strategies employed by readers among TBU ethnic minority junior first-year English-majored students? 1.2.3 Significance of the study The study is the first one to be carried out in the field of reading strategies research at TBU It helps give a detailed description of reading strategies used by readers among first-year English- majored students at junior grade at the university More importantly, the findings of their reading strategies can help teachers to understand more about their students and they can serve as the foundation for some recommendations on how to improve the students' reading proficiency They are also an important basic for reading strategy based instruction to be implemented in the future 1.3 Method of the study In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the present study utilized quantitative method including tests and survey questionnaires to collect data on the reading strategies employed by TBU students First, the two reading comprehension tests were given to the subjects in order to identify their English reading proficiency levels Then, the questionnaires were administered to find out their reading strategies After the data is analyzed and discussed, some conclusions will be drawn, and some suggestions will be raised in the thesis 1.4 Organization of the thesis The study is divided into five chapters Chapter includes the rationale, scope, aims, significance, methods and organization of the study Chapter reviews the literature relevant to the topic of research and summarizes some selected studies on reading strategies, which serve as a theoretical and methodological foundation of the study Chapter presents the research methodology of the study It provides information about the participants, the research method, the instrumentation, the data collection procedures and data analysis Chapter 4, the main part of the study that reports, discusses the main findings according to the research question Chapter is the conclusion that summarizes the findings, presents the implications and limitations of the study and finally give some suggestions for further research CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction This chapter reviews theories related to learning strategies in general and reading strategies in particular It also summarizes some studies on reading strategies that have been conducted so far All of these serve as a basic for an investigation into reading strategies which is carried out and presented in the next chapter 2.2 Language learning strategies 2.2.1 Learning strategies - The definitions Over the last two decades, the study of learning strategies has seen as "explosion of activity" (R Ellis, 1994) with the contributions of such well-known researchers as Tarone (1981), Weinstein and Mayer (1986), Rubin (1987), O' Malley and Chamot (1990), Oxford (1990) and Cohen (1998) These studies have helped figure out a comprehensive overview of learning strategies Although research on learning strategies is becoming increasingly popular, there have been some considerable differences in the definition of learning strategies in the literature Taron (1981) claimed that "Learning strategies as attempts to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language" Learning strategies, according to Weinstein and Mayer (1986) (in O' Malley and Chamot 1990), have learning facilitation as a goal and are intentional on the part of the learner The goal of strategy use is to "affect the learner's motivational or affective state, or the way in which the learner selects, acquires, organizes, or integrates new knowledge." (1986: 43) These definitions are too general in comparison to the complex nature of learning strategies Oxford (1990) defined learning strategies as "specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations" (1990: 5) This definition is judged to be quite comprehensive as it not only covers the cognitive but also the affective aspects of learning strategies (i.e to increase enjoyment in learning) However, Oxford's definition is not sufficient in the sense that it regards learning strategies as "specific actions", i.e learning strategies are behavioral, and therefore, they are mostly observable However, many studies in this field have shown that learning strategies are difficult to observe as they are not only behavioral In an attempt to define learning strategies in a more sensible manner, Weinstein and Mayer (in Ellis,1994: 531) claimed that learning strategies "are the behaviors and thoughts that a learner engages in during learning that are intended to influence the learner's encoding process" Thus, these two authors see learning strategies both behavioral and mental Their view has been shared by most researchers in strategies studies The definition that has been widely accepted to date was proposed by O' Malley and Chamot (1990) According to them, learning strategies are "the special thoughts or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn or retain new information" (1990: 1) In spite of being quite short, their definition covers the most important aspects of learning strategies, that is learning strategies are both mental and behavioral (therefore both observable and unobservable), and learning strategies are individually characterized (i.e every learner's strategies are different) Because of its comprehensive features, the present study utilized this definition as the key direction in its investigation 2.2.2 Why studying learning strategies? When commenting on the role of learning strategies, Weinstein and Mayer (in O' Malley and Chamot 1990) say that learning facilitation is the goal of learning strategies, which are intentional on the part of the learner The goal of learning strategy use is to "affect the learner's motivational or affective state, or the way in which the learner selects, acquires, organizes, or integrates new knowledge." (1986: 43) Oxford (1990), one of the leading teachers and researchers in language learning strategies field, also gives her own evaluation on learning strategies: "strategies are especially important for language learning because they are tools for active, self-directed involvement, which is essential for developing communicative competence" (1990: 1) As a teacher of English, my strong belief is that " It takes better teachers to focus on the learner" (Peter Strevens, cited in Oxford, 1990: 193) and "We cannot teach another directly; we can only facilitate his learning (Carl Rogers, cited in Oxford, 1990: 193) The current approach that is encouraged to be taken to teach English in our country in general and in our own language setting in particular is communicative language teaching in which learners are central to the learning process Helping learners to be independent during their learning process is a task of every teacher To gain this aim, one of the suggestions is that learners should be equipped various strategies so that they control their own learning process confidently and independently That is the reason why learning strategies are chosen as the topic of this thesis 2.2.3 Classification of learning strategies Much of the earlier research (Rubin 1975 and 1981; Stern 1975; Naiman et al 1978) focused on compiling inventories of the learning strategies that learners were observed to use or reported to use Rubin (1981) proposed a classification scheme that subsumes learning strategies under two primary groupings and a number of subgroups Rubin's first primary category, consisting of strategies that directly affect learning, includes clarification/verification, monitoring, memorization, guessing/inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning and practice The second category, consisting of strategies that contribute indirectly to learning, includes creating practice opportunities and using production tricks such as communication strategies An alternative classification scheme proposed by Naiman et al (1978) contains five broad categories of learning strategies and a number of secondary categories The primary classification includes an active task approach, realization of language as a means of communication and interaction, management of affective demands and monitoring of second language performance Subsequent descriptive studies have endeavored to identify broad classes of learning strategies, under which a large number of more specific strategies can be grouped The works by Wenden (1983), Oxford (1990), O'Malley et at (1985a and 1985b), O'Malley and Chamot (1990) have made an important contribution to our knowledge of learning strategies Wenden's (1983) research examined the strategies that adult foreign language learners use in order to direct their own learning She identifies three general categories of self-directing strategies: (1) knowing about language (relating to what language and language learning involves), (2) planning (relating to what and how of language learning), and (3) self-evaluation (relating to progress in learning and learner's response to the language experience) Wenden's framework devised as a basic for learner training R Oxford (1990) built on the earlier classifications with the aim of subsuming within her taxonomy virtually every strategy previously mentioned in the literature Oxford (1990) draws a general distinction between direct and indirect strategies The former consists of memory, cognitive and compensation strategies while the later includes metacognitive, affective and social strategies However, Oxford's classification of learning strategies is somewhat complicated and confusing as she treats compensation strategies as a direct type of learning strategies and memory strategies as separate ones from cognitive strategies Perhaps, the framework that has been most useful and generally accepted is O'Malley and Chamot (1990)'s In O'Malley and Chamot 's framework, three major types of strategies are distinguished in accordance with the information processing model, on which their research is based Metacognitive strategies are "higher order executive skills that may entail planning for, monitoring or evaluating the success of learning activity" (O'Malley and Chamot: 44) Cognitive strategies "operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that enhance learning" O'Malley and Chamot, 1990: 44) The last subtypes of these strategies presented in Table 2.1 were identified by O'Malley and Chamot on the basis of their several descriptive studies on learning strategies used by second language learners Learning strategy A Metacognitive Definition strategies Planning Advance Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material to be learned, often by skimming organizers Directed attention the text for the organization principle Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task and to ignore irrelevant Functional distracters Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components necessary to carry out an outcoming task planning Selective attention Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of input, often by scanning for key words, Self-management concepts and/or linguistic markers Understanding the conditions that help one learn and arranging for the presence of those conditions Monitoring Self-monitoring Checking one's comprehension during listening or reading or checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness of one's oral or written production while it is taking place Evaluation Self-evaluation Checking the outcomes of one's own language against a standard after it has been completed B Cognitive strategies Resourcing Repetition Grouping Deduction Using target language reference materials such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, or textbooks Imitating the language model, including overt practice and silent rehearsal Classifying words, terminology or concepts according to their attributes or meanings Applying rules to understand or produce the second language or making up rules based on Imagery Auditory language analysis Using visual images (either mental or actual) to understand or remember new information Planning back in one's mind the sound of a word, phrase or longer language sequence representation Key word method Remembering a new word in the second language by: (1) identifying a familiar word in the first language that sounds like or otherwise resembles the new word, and (2) generating easily recalled images of some relationship with the first language homonym and the new Elaboration word in the second language relating new information to prior knowledge, relating different parts or new information to Transfer Differencing each other, or making meaningful personal associations with the new information Using previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills to assist comprehension or production Using available information to guess the meanings of new items, predict outcomes or fill in Note taking missing information Writing down key words or concepts in abbreviated verbal, graphic or numerical form while Recombination listening or reading Constructing a meaningful sentence or larger language sequence by combining known elements in a new way Using the first language as a base for understanding and/or producing the second language Translation C Social(affective) strategies Question for Eliciting from a teacher or peer additional explanation, rephrasing, examples or verification clarification Cooperation Working together with one or more peers to solve a problem, pool information, check a Self-talk learning task, model a language activity, or get feedback on oral or written performance Reducing anxiety by using mental techniques that make one feel competent to the learning task Table 2.1 Learning strategy definition and classification (O'Malley and Chamot, 1990: 119) This classification of learning strategies is comprehensive and sufficient and it is applicable to learning strategy studies on four English disciplines Therefore, the current study will adopt O'Malley and Chamot's classification of learning strategies as the theoretical framework for investigation 2.4 The theory of reading 2.4.1 Definition of reading For many foreign language or second language learners, reading is a very important skill Concerning the role of reading, Carrell (1988:1) stated that "Without solid reading proficiency, second language learners cannot perform at levels they must in order to succeed" Anderson (1999) also confirms that "the more exposure a student has to language through reading, the greater the possibilities that overall language proficiency will increase" (1999:3) Reading plays such a significant part in the success of second language learning and it is essential to understand what reading really is However, the act of reading is not completely understood nor easily described In a general term, (Anderson,1999:1) defines reading as "an active, fluent process which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning" This definition of reading has been generally shared by other researchers According to Rumelhart (1977), reading involves the reader, the text and the interaction between the reader and text Aebersold and Field (1997:15) share the same view on reading: "Reading is what happens when people look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbols in that text The text and the reader are the two physical entities necessary for the reading process to start It is, however, the interaction between the text and the reader that constitutes the actual meaning" These interaction, in their opinion, are the interactions between purpose and manner of reading and through reading strategies and schema Purpose determines how people read a text People may read the text to understand it (reading for full comprehension), or simply to get the general idea (skimming), to find the part that contains the information they need (scanning) Readers also use some mental activities that are often referred to as reading strategies to construct meaning from a text In addition, readers base on their previous knowledge that they bring meaning to the text to assist their reading comprehension This prior knowledge is known as the schema Research in reading has shown that schema plays an important role in helping the reader to comprehend a text 10 C D 6.25% 9.375% 9.375% 12.5% 6.25% 6.25% Table 4.2.3 Analysis of questionnaires (percent): Question As indicated in the table, there were responses given by two groups to question 3A including readers (18.75%) thought that a large English vocabulary was very important to reading comprehension while those of participants (9.375%) evaluated it as important For the question 3B, only students (9.375%) thought that a good knowledge of English grammar was very important to reading comprehension while those of participants (12.5%) judged it as important There was significant difference among the responses given by the readers to question 3C There were students thought that a good knowledge of the reading topic was very important (6.25%) and important (9.375%) whereas those of participants (6.25%) evaluated it as a little important and the same responses (6.25%) claimed that a good knowledge of the reading topic was not important to reading comprehension As opposed to the results of the above questions, the last question concerned to the importance of reading strategies on reading comprehension shows that among 32 participants there were only readers (9.375%) claimed that effective reading strategies were very important and those of (12.5%) thought that they were important to reading comprehension 4.2.2 Reading strategies The next 17 questions were about the subjects' reading strategies these strategies were classified into metacognitive, cognitive and social/affective strategies on the basic of O'Malley and Chamot's framework (1990) The following analysis utilized this framework in order to clarify the reading strategies employed by the TBU subjects 4.2.2.1 Metacognitive reading strategies The first part deals with the analysis of TBU subjects' metacognitive reading strategies As discussed in the previous chapter, the metacognitive reading strategies were categorized into 32 three subtypes including advance organizers, directed attention and selective attention and there were two questions for each subtype Table 4.2.4 presents the responses given by TBU subjects for metacognitive reading strategies Metacognitive strategies N Participants Advance organizers Never P N Rarely P Sometimes N P N Often P Very often N P Item 4: I preview the headings and illustrations to get the main idea of the text before 25% 43.75 % 10 31.25% reading Item 8: I skim through the text to understand main ideas of 3.125% 3.125% 15.625% 15 46.875% 10 31.25% 15.615% 9.375% 15 46.875% 25% 3.125% 6.25% 18 56.25% 21.875% 15.625% 9.375% 15 46.875% 18.75% 28.125% 18.75% 9.375% the texts before focusing on details Directed attention organizers Item 5: Before reading, I read the comprehension questions to decide important information that should be noted Selective attention Item 10: I scan for key words or concepts that are closely related to the questions in 43.75% order to answer them Item 13: I skip the words that are not essential for comprehending the texts while reading 33 25% Self-evaluation Item 19: I check if my answers to the questions are correct or 6.25% 28.125% 11 34.375% 10 31.25% wrong after reading * N = number of subjects, P = percent Table 4.2.4 Analysis of questionnaires (percent): Metacognitive reading strategies For advance organizers, the first subtype of metacognitive reading strategies, there were two questions, question and question The answers to question indicated that most readers often (43.75%) and very often (31.25%) previewed the headings and illustrations to get the main ideas of the text before reading whereas only 25% sometimes did this As can be seen from the results of question 8, almost of the subjects skimmed through the text to understand main ideas before focusing on details with high frequency (15.625% sometimes, 46.875% often, 31.25% very often), only 3.125% never and the same number of subjects (3.125%) rarely did this In the second subtype of metacognitive reading strategies, directed attention was discussed with two questions (question and 6) The results in question showed that most of the subject did not pay enough attention to reading the comprehension questions to decide the important information before reading (15.61% never, 9.375 rarely, 46.875 sometimes) compared to that of 25% often and 3.125% very often employed this strategy The answers to question indicated that only 15.615% often chose reading strategies according to their purposes while 56.25% sometimes, 21.875% rarely and 6.25% never did it The third type of metacognitive strategies was selective attention (question 10 and 13) Not to our surprise for question 10, there was no significant difference in the answers given by the students In general, almost of them hardly ever scanned for key words or concepts that are closely related to the questions in order to answer them However, question 13 showed a variety in the answers This indicated that 18.75% never, 28.125% rarely, 25% sometimes, 18.75% often and 9.375% very often skipped the words that are not essential for comprehending the text The last type of metacognitive strategies was self-evaluation (question 19), which showed that most of the subjects sometimes checked if their answers were right or wrong after reading (34.375% sometimes and 31.25% often) while there were students counted to 28.125% rarely and 6.25% never used this strategy 34 4.2.2.2 Cognitive reading strategies The second part analyzes the cognitive reading strategies employed by the TBU readers These cognitive strategies were also discussed on the basis of the O'Malley and Chamot's framework (1990) They were categorized into subtypes including resourcing, grouping, transfer, elaboration, inferencing, note-taking, translation and summarizing Table 4.2.5 presents the percentage given by the readers regarding their use of the cognitive strategies Cognitive strategies N Subjects Resourcing Never P N Rarely P Sometimes N P N Often P Very often N P Item11: I use a dictionary to look up words when encountering a new word 0.32% 12.5% 12 37.5% 10 31.25% 15.6% 0% 18.75% 16 50% 21.875% 9.37% 0% 15.625% 14 43.75% 12 37.5% 3.12% 6.25% 12.5% 18 56.25% 25% 0% 0% 15.625% 11 34.375% 13 40.625% 9.375 while reading Grouping Item 16: I determine the function of words in a sentence while reading Transfer Item 14: I use my knowledge of grammar or vocabulary to help understand difficult parts in reading texts Elaboration Item 7: I relate my prior knowledge to the information of the texts I am reading Inferencing Item 12: I guess meanings of new words using the available information % 35 Note-taking Item 18: I write down key 6.25% 28.125% 12 37.5% 21.875% 6.25% 0% 12.5% 28.125% 12 37.5% 21.87 words while reading Translation Item 9: I translate the reading text into Vietnamese to understand 5% it more clearly Summarizing Item 20: I mentally summarize the main ideas 3.125 25% of the texts after reading % * N = number of subjects, P = percent 16 50% 21.875 0% % Table 4.2.5 Analysis of questionnaires (percent): Cognitive reading strategies Concerning the strategy of resourcing, the results did not indicate a significant difference in the frequency (37.5% sometimes, 31.25% often, 15.625% very often), only 0.32% never and (12.5%) rarely This confirmed the fact that almost the readers used a dictionary to look up words when encountering new words while reading With regards to the grouping strategy, the answers to question 16 indicated that half of the readers (50%) sometimes and (21.875%) often and (9.375%) very often determined the function of words in a sentence while reading whereas not any student never did this and only 18.75% rarely used this strategy For the strategy of transfer, question 14 showed a variety in the answers 15.625% rarely, 43.75% sometimes, 37.5% often and 3.125% very often used their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary to help understand difficult parts in the reading text while not any students (0%) never did this For the next strategy, there were some similarities in the answers given by the TBU readers to other items The frequency of using elaboration strategy was quite various In general, the readers sometimes (56.25% ) relate their prior knowledge to the information of the texts they are reading while 6.25% never, 12.5% rarely, 25% often and 0% very often used this strategy 36 Quite the same conclusion could be drawn for the learners' use of the strategy of inferencing This indicated that those readers who are more successful often guessed the meanings of new words using available information (40.625% often and 9.375% very often) whereas those less successful ones differed from one other in terms of strategy uses (15.625% rarely, 34.375% sometimes) For the strategy of note-taking, it can be said that the readers rarely and sometimes write down key words while reading The answers to this item showed that 28.125% rarely, 37.5% sometimes, 21.875% often and 6.25% very often while only 6.25% never employed this strategy The results in item showed the some similarities in the frequency of using translation strategy as in those of note-taking one This indicated that the subjects often and very often translated the text into Vietnamese to understand it more clearly (37.5% often and 21.875% very often) while only 12.5% rarely and 28.125% sometimes did the same The last strategy mentioned in this cognitive subtype was summarizing The responses to item 20 given by the subjects also varied greatly 25% rarely, 50% sometimes, 21.875% often and only 3.125% never used this strategy This confirmed the fact that the readers sometimes mentally summarized the main ideas of the text after reading 4.2.2.3 Social/affective reading strategies The last type of reading strategies to be discussed was social/affective strategies They were classified into two subtypes namely question for clarification and cooperation Table 4.2.6 illustrates the responses concerning two subtypes of social/affective strategies Social/affective strategy Participants Question N Never P N Rarely P Sometimes N P N Often P Very often N P for clarification Item 15: I ask my teacher or my friends to explain 3.1% difficult parts in the reading 34.37% 12 37.5% 15.62% 9.375% 18.75% 14 43.75% 15.625% 18.75% text Cooperation Item 17: I work together with my classmate or friend to solve a problem in the 3.125 % reading text 37 * N = number of subjects, P = percent Table 4.2.6 Analysis of questionnaires (percent): Social/affective reading strategies As indicated in table 4.2.6, the answer to question 15 showed a variety in the answers There was only one student (3.125%) never asked the teacher or friends to explain difficult part in the reading text while among the others 34.375% rarely, 37% sometimes, 15.625% often and 3.975% very often employed this strategy This showed that almost of the TBU subjects rarely and sometimes used question for clarification strategy The second and also the last strategy mentioned in this social/affective subtype was cooperation, the frequency of using cooperation strategy was quite various In general, the readers sometimes (43.75% ) work together with classmate or friend to solve a problem in the reading text while 3.125% never and the frequency use in other scales are quite the same, 18.75% rarely, 15.625% often and 18.75% very often used this strategy 4.3 Summary In conclusion, this chapter reports findings gained from the analysis of data elicited from each instrument Overall, the TBU subjects’ strategy use was quite different They used metacognitive and cognitive strategies more frequently than social/affective strategies However, the frequency of those strategy use by the subjects was quite the same CHAPTER CONCLUSION The objectives of the study was to investigate the reading strategies employed by 32 ethnic minority junior first-year English majored readers at Tay Bac University This chapter draws conclusions based on the findings of the study, discusses the implications and the limitations of the study and proposes some suggestions for further research 5.1 Conclusions As stated in Section 1.2.2, Aims of the study, the research question: What are the reading strategies employed by readers among TBU ethnic minority junior first-year Englishmajored students? has now been addressed and the following are some concluding remarks based on the findings of the study 38 In general, based on the analysis of the questionnaire data, there were several significant points found in the reading strategies employed by TBU readers Overall, they used metacognitive and cognitive strategies more frequently than social/affective strategies However, the frequency of those strategy use by the subjects was quite the same Regarding the metacognitive strategies including advanced organizers, directed attention, selective attention and self-evaluation in the questionnaire, the results indicated that the frequency of strategy use was various The TBU readers often previewed the headings and illustrations to guess the main ideas of the text before reading; chose reading strategies according to their reading purposes; and almost of them often checked if their answers were right or wrong after reading However, almost of them rarely scanned for key words or concepts that are closely related to the questions in order to answer them In general, they only sometimes read the questions to decide important information that should be noted and skipped inessential words for comprehending the text Concerning the cognitive strategies, the frequency use of grouping, inferencing, notetaking, summarizing, elaboration and rereading strategy were also varied According to the questionnaire analysis, almost the readers often used a dictionary to look up words when encountering new words Half of them sometimes tried to find out the function of words in a sentence while reading; used their knowledge of grammar and vocabulary to help understand difficult parts and related their prior knowledge to the information of the texts they are reading They translated the text into Vietnamese to understand it more clearly and mentally summarized the main ideas of the text after reading with high frequency For the two subtypes of social/affective strategy, the responses given by the TBU readers showed that almost of them rarely and only sometimes asked the teacher and friends to explain difficult parts in the reading text In general, they sometimes work together with classmates or friends to solve a problem in the reading text Basically, the outcome of the present study partly confirmed the findings of the previous study (see Chapter 2) The TBU readers who were at the lower proficiency levels mostly used more bottom-up strategies The findings of questionnaire confirmed that the readers rarely or sometimes employed top-down or tended to combine top-down and bottom-up strategies They hardly ever or sometimes read questions to know what to focus on while reading, determined suitable strategies according to their reading purposes, scanned for key information, skipped 39 unimportant words, guessed meanings of new words in context, wrote down key words while reading or mentally summarized main ideas and checked their answers after reading In contrast, they frequently employed the translation strategy During the reading process, they tried to translate the text into Vietnamese but lost the general meaning of the text Concerning the strategy of resourcing, the findings confirmed the fact that almost the readers used a dictionary to look up words when encountering new words while reading This abuse of the translation and resourcing strategies might slow down their reading speed and badly affect their reading comprehension 5.2 Implications of the study The study has made some contributions to the learning and teaching of English reading at TBU It has attempted to categorize the learners' reading strategies based on O'Malley and Chamot's framework (1990) that has been adapted to fit the specific data of the study This categorization scheme can be applied to other studies on reading strategies In addition, the study has found out the reading strategies used by the TBU subjects Based on these findings, some recommendations can be made to the teachers as follows As shown in the study, the significant point is that the ineffective readers used metacognitive and cognitive strategies with low frequency so that they were not very successful in reading comprehension This indicated that these reading strategies can be considered one of the most important factors that affect the students' reading proficiency Therefore, it is necessary for a teacher to be aware of this factor and think of ways to improve his/her students' reading proficiency by providing them instruction on reading strategies Besides, reading motivation, habits and problems are important factors that might influence the students' reading proficiency and their use of reading strategies Therefore, for the first meeting, especially in the big size classes, the teacher should spend time on a pre-test to examine students' reading motivation, habits and their views on reading strategies as well as the factors affecting reading comprehension so that he/she can divide the class into groups according to the students' levels of proficiency Before conducting such a strategy-based instruction, the teacher should examine the students' reading strategies to identify what gaps they have in their strategies Then, a number of metacognitive and cognitive strategies can be taught to students to develop their reading 40 comprehension These strategies may include advanced organizers (i.e previewing the title, the text and illustration), selective attention (i.e scanning for specific information), evaluation of one's own comprehension, elaboration of prior knowledge, making inferences about meanings of new words, taking notes, producing oral or written summary and so on In addition, the teacher can also consult other studies on the training of reading strategies Perhaps, one of the most effective strategy-based instruction model to date that the teacher can refer to is Learning Strategies Taught in The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach Model developed by O'Malley and Chamot (1990) This model is applicable to develop four language skills for limited English proficient students and very useful and valuable that the teacher can make use of in order to enhance his students' reading proficiency 5.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research While the study provides some implications for teachers and researchers in general, it is not free from limitations These limitations are found in the number of participants and the data collection instruments Due to the limited time for conducting the study, only 32 TBU students were chosen as the participants of the study Only questionnaire data collection instrument of this small number of participants could be insufficient to ensure the reliability of the study findings Besides, as the reading tasks used in the pre-test are short and quite simple, the reading strategies employed by the readers were not very varied, which could limit the findings of the study As the present study only investigated the reading strategies used by the students of the same English major at TBU, it would be useful if further research considers examining reading strategies employed by students of different majors to see whether there is any dissimilarity among those students' strategies In addition, it would be of greater value if further studies investigate the impacts of reading strategy-based instruction on English learners' reading proficiency Based on the findings of the present study and others on reading strategy, researchers may conduct instruction on metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies and determine whether such explicit instruction would improve students' reading comprehension 41 REFERENCES Aebersold J,A & Field, L, M (1997) From Reader to Reading Teacher CUP Ackert (1998) Concepts and Comments-An ESL Reader CUP Anderson, N, J (1999) Exploring Second Language Reading: Issues and Strategies Heinle & Heinle Publisher Anderson, N, J (1999) Improving Reading Speed, English Teaching Form 21, pp.2-4 Anderson, J.R (1985) Cognitive Psychology and Its Implication (2nd edn) W.H Freeman 42 Barnet, M.A (1988) Reading Through Context: How Real and Perceived Strategy Use Affects L2 Comprehension, Modern Language Journal 72, pp 150-160 Block, E (1986) The Comprehension Strategies of Second Language Readers, TESOL Quarterly, 20, pp 319-341 1992 See How They Read: Comprehension Monitoring of L1 and L2 Readers, TESOL Quarterly, 26, pp 319-341 Brantmeier C (2002) Second Language Reading Strategy Research at the Secondary and University Levels: Variations, Disperities and Generalizability, The Reading Matrix, Vol.3, pp 1-14 Brown, J.D (1988) Understanding Research in Second Language Learning CUP Brown, J.D & Rodgers T.S (2002) Doing Second Language Research OUP Brown, H.D (1994) Principles of Language Learning and Teaching Prentice Hall Carel, P, J.Devine and D Eskey (eds) (1988) Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading CUP Cohen, A (1998) Strategies in Learning and Using Second Language Longman Ellis, R (1994) The Study of Second Language Acquisition OUP Hosenfield, C (1977) A Preliminary Investigation of the Reading Strategies of Successful and Unsuccessful Second Language Learners, System, 5, pp 11-123 Jones et al (1987) Strategic Teaching and Learning: Cognitive Instruction in the Content Area Alexandria, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development 43 Mc Donough, S.H (1995) Strategy and Skill in Learning a Foreign Language Edward Arnold Nunan, D (1990) Research Methods in Language Learning CUP Nunan, D (1991) Language Teaching Methodology Prentice Hall International Ltd O'Malley, J.M & Chamot, A.U (1990) Learning Strategies in Second language Acquisition CUP Oxford, R.L (1990) Language Learning Strategies: What Every Teacher Should Know, Newbury House Rubin, J & Thompson, I (1994) How To be a More Successful Language Learner Heinle and Heinle Publisher Rumelhart, D.E (1977) Toward an Interactive Model of Reading, Attention and Performance 6, pp 573-603 Samuel, S and M.Kamil (1988) Models of the Reading Process, in Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading, pp 22-34 CUP Sarig (1987) High-level Reading in the First and in the Foreign Language: Some Comparative Process Data, in Joan devine, P.L Carrel & D.E Eskey (Eds), Research in Reading in English as a Second Language, Washington, TESOL, pp 102-120 Stanovich, K, E (1980) Toward an Interactive-Compensatory Model of Individual Differences in the Development of Reading Fluency, Reading Research Quarterly 16 (1), pp 32-71 Stern, H.H (1975) What Can We learn From The Good Language Learner? Canadian Modern Language Review 31, pp 285-295 44 Tarone, E (1981) Some Thoughts on The Notion of Communication Strategy, TESOL Quarterly 15, pp 285-295 Wenden, A.L (1985) Learner Strategies, TESOL Quarterly 19 (5), pp 1-7 Widdowson, H.G (1978) Teaching Language As Communication OUP 1983 Learning Purpose and Language Use OUP 45 ... at TBU for several years, I am aware of their problems and very much want to help them to improve their reading ability Therefore, I intend to examine their reading strategies to find out the reading. .. reading strategies used by students of lower reading ability Based on the findings, I am going to make some implications to improve TBU students'' reading proficiency 1.2 Scope, aims and significance... concern to both the authority and teachers at TBU The findings of the study would provide essential information for teachers to improve TBU students'' reading proficiency and hence contribute to enhancing