VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN READING TASKS: A SURVEY RESEARCH AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY (PYCI) THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI TẬP ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CÓ SỬ DỤNG HAI MÔ HÌNH “TƯ ̀ DƯỚI LÊN” VÀ “TƯ ̀ TRÊN XUỐNG”: MỘT KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CÔNG NGHIỆP PHÚC YÊN M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THỊ THU THỦY NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS BOTTOM-UP AND TOP-DOWN READING TASKS: A SURVEY RESEARCH AT PHUC YEN COLLEGE OF INDUSTRY (PYCI) THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI TẬP ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CÓ SỬ DỤNG HAI MÔ HÌNH “TƯ ̀ DƯỚI LÊN” VÀ “TƯ ̀ TRÊN XUỐNG”: MỘT KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CÔNG NGHIỆP PHÚC YÊN M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Nguyễn Quang HANOI – 2014 i DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “Non-English Major Students’ Attitudes Towards Bottom-up and Top-down Reading Tasks: A Survey Research at Phuc Yen College of Industry (PYCI)” is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Hanoi National University, and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions. Hanoi, September 2014 Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Nguyen Quang, Ph.D for his experienced guidance, valuable suggestions, invaluable critical feedback and encouragement in the writing of this study. Without his support, this thesis would not have been completed. My great gratitude goes to all the lecturers and the staff of the Post-Graduate Department for giving me valuable knowledge and helpful assistance. My thanks are extended to my students, especially the students in two classes TA2.LT1 and TA2.LT3, who provided me with enthusiastic cooperation and valuable feedback during my research conducting. Finally, this thesis is also dedicated to my family for their care and encouragement during the time I carried out this study. iii ABSTRACT This is a study of students’ attitudes towards Bottom-up and Top-down reading tasks in Phuc Yen college of Industry, Vinh Phuc. The study is aimed at finding out the students’ attitudes towards reading tasks using bottom-up and top-down models. Therefore, the findings of this study can serve as the answer to a main research question: What are PYCI students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks? The data of this study are collected through questionnaires and interviews. The data from the questionnaire are calculated in percentage for interpretation and analysis based on the theory of attitude. The participants are 78 second-year students who come from different majors in Phuc Yen College of Industry taking English2 course as a general subject. The findings of the study revealed that most of the participants showed their positive attitude towards both Bottom- up and Top-down reading tasks; however, they put their positive attitude to the Bottom-up tasks and preferred to do these tasks more. Through the findings, the research is expected to give benefit to the students by providing them necessary information about their own attitudes towards reading, especially bottom-up and top-down reading. Besides, the results of the study also provide teachers with better awareness of their students’ attitudes. From that, they will adjust their teaching to encourage and motivate their students in reading activities as well as prepare more interesting reading materials and activities that meet their students’ needs and interests. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of tables and figures vii List of abbreviations vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale 1 2. Aims of the study 2 3. Research questions 2 4. Scope of the study 2 5. Methods of the study 3 6. Organization of the study 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter One: Literature Review 1.1. Attitudes 4 1.1.1. Definitions of attitudes 4 1.1.2. Attitudes in language learning 5 1.1.3. Reading Attitudes 5 1.2. Reading and schema theory 6 1.2.1. Reading 6 1.2.2. Schema theory 7 1.3. Types of reading 8 1.3.1. Reading aloud 8 1.3.2. Silent reading 8 1.3.2.1. Intensive reading 8 1.3.2.2. Extensive reading 10 1.4. Models of reading process 11 1.4.1. Bottom-up model 11 1.4.2. Top-down model 12 v 1.5. Reading tasks 13 1.5.1. Pre-reading tasks 14 1.5.2. While-reading tasks 15 1.5.3. Post-reading tasks 16 1.6. Review of previous studies 16 1.7. Summary 17 Chapter Two: The Study 2.1. Context of the study 18 2.1.1. The teachers and the students 18 2.1.2. The course book used 19 2.2. Participants 20 2.3. Methodology 21 2.3.1. Instruments 21 2.3.2. Data collection procedures ………………………………………… 22 2.4. Summary 23 Chapter Three: Data Analysis and Discussion 3.1. Questionnaire 1 24 3.1.1. Bottom-up strategies 24 3.1.2. Top-down strategies 25 3.2. Questionnaire 2 25 3.2.1. Students’ general assessments of the reading tasks 26 3.2.2. Students’ perceptions of difficulties of the reading tasks 27 3.2.3. Students’ perceptions of the most useful stage in reading 27 3.2.4. Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in three stages 28 3.2.4.1. In Pre-reading stage 29 3.2.4.2. In While-reading stage 30 3.2.4.1. In Post-reading stage 31 3.2.5. Students’ preference of the teachers’ ways of teaching reading 32 3.3. Interviews 33 3.4. Summary 35 vi PART C: CONCLUSION 1. Conclusions 36 2. Implications 37 3. Limitations and suggestions for further study 39 REFERENCES 40 APPENDICES I Appendix 1 I Appendix 2 III vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Types of reading tasks (unit 9 to unit 14) in the Lifelines Pre-intermediate book. Table 2: Characteristics of the subjects Figure 1.1: Frequency of the bottom-up strategies used by PYCI students (N=78) Figure 1.2: Frequency of the top-down strategies used by PYCI students (N=78) Figure 2.1: Students’ general assessments of the reading tasks (N=50) Figure 2.2: Students’ general assessments of the types of reading tasks (N=50) Figure 2.3: Students’ perceptions of difficulties of the reading tasks (N=50) Figure 2.4: Students’ perceptions of the most useful stage in reading (N=50) Figure 2.5: Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in the Pre- reading stage (N=50) Figure 2.6: Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in the While-reading stage (N=50) Figure 2.7: Students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks in the Post- reading stage (N=50) Figure 2.8: Students’ preference of the teachers’ way of teaching reading (N=50) LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS PYCI: Phuc Yen College of Industry EFL: English as a Foreign Language N: Number Q: Question BU: Bottom-up TD: Top-down 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale: In this age of globalization, English as a foreign language (EFL) occupies an important place in Vietnamese educational system. Of the four English basic skills, reading is considered the most important skill for students to master, as Carrell (1981, p.1) emphasizes “For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. As Eskey (2005) shows in his research that many students of English as a foreign language rarely need to speak the language in their day-to-day lives but many need to read it in order to “access the wealth of information” (p.563). The more we strengthen reading skills, the greater progress we make in English learning as well as in other areas. Reading is not only a good source of information and enjoyable activity, but a valuable means of extending and consolidating one's knowledge of the language (Rivers, 1981). In my teaching experience, although I provided my students different reading strategies to improve their reading comprehension, they have still had a lot of difficulties in reading and doing reading tasks. As Amiryousefi (2012) states that the problems that students encounter may be due to a number of factors such as “lack of appropriate reading strategies, lack of background knowledge related to the topic of the target text, lack of attitudes toward reading or lack of vocabulary knowledge to name a few” (p. 1172). While a lot of researchers have carried their studies on students’ reading strategies or ways of improving reading abilities, not many studies on EFL students’ attitudes towards reading in higher education, especially reading with particular models like bottom-up and top-down have been conducted. In fact, students’ attitudes are very important in learning process as it is one important factor affecting motivation in language learning (Oxford and Shearin, 1994). Having positive attitude towards learning, students will carry out their learning to the best of their ability and vice verse. Therefore, with a view to gaining some insights into students’ attitudes towards reading to ascertain what reading task (top-down or bottom-up) EFL students prefer to use and find out the students’ attitudes towards the two model reading tasks, the writer decides to do research on “Non-English Major Students’ Attitudes Towards Bottom-up and Top- [...]... the reader to organize and remember some of the information given by the author, not just to locate it Advantages and disadvantages of Extensive reading There are also some advantages and disadvantages of extensive reading The advantages can be developing students’ reading habit, gaining more confidence in reading and improving their attitude towards reading From that, they become motivated to read However,... conclusions about the relationship between attitudes and learning reading Reading attitude is defined as a system of feelings related to reading which causes the learner to approach or avoid a reading situation” (Alexander and Filler, 1976, p 1) Smith (1990, p 215) describes it as 5 a state of mind, accompanied by feelings and emotions that make reading more or less probable” According to Harris and Sipay... obviously a mutual relationship between attitudes and motivation in language learning He also adds in his later research (1985) that positive attitude and motivation are related to success in second language learning If learners have positive attitudes, they will have motivation in their study and then can get better results Also, Champer (1999) asserts that when the learner has a positive attitude towards. .. in a recreational or an academic context” (p 150) Measuring third through fifth grade students’ attitudes towards digital and printbased reading, Allen’s (2013) research indicates that the female students have more positive attitudes toward reading than males; “younger students do not have more positive attitudes toward reading than older students” (p 160); and students’ attitudes towards reading are... students’ attitudes towards Bottom-up and Top-down reading tasks 3 Research Questions: The research questions addressed in this study are: 1 What strategies (Bottom-up or Top-down) are frequently used by PYCI students in their reading? 2 What are PYCI students’ attitudes towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks? 4 Scope of the study This study is limited to the area of investigating attitudes of non-English. .. review of the issues most relevant to be the focus of the study will be included: theory of attitudes, reading, reading tasks, top-down and bottom-up strategies in reading 1.1 Attitudes 1.1.1 Definitions of Attitudes Generally, attitudes can be understood as people’s response to a certain thing such as an object, an idea, a person or a situation Hogg & Vaughan (2005) define that an attitude is a relatively... the language learning, their learning will occur more easily Positive attitude can enhance an integrative motivation, so enhance the proficiency as well In conclusion, all researchers have claimed that students’ attitude is an integral part of learning, and therefore, should be an essential component of second language pedagogy 1.1.3 Reading Attitudes For a particular skill like reading, some researchers... details of a passage" Long and Richards (1987) say intensive reading is a "detailed in-class" analysis, led by the teacher, of vocabulary and grammar points, in a short passage" Agreeing with this view, Brown (1989) explains that intensive reading "calls attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers, and other surface structure details for the purpose of understanding literal meaning, implications,... on their access to modern technologies (p 161) In comparison with the research related to early readers, research related to adolescent readers seems to fall short Sarawit (2009) do research on freshman students’ attitude towards reading in an international bachelor degree program in Thailand, the results show that, in general, there are slightly negative attitudes towards reading among all of the students...down Reading Tasks” It is hoped that the findings from this study will be of some benefit to teachers and students at PYCI in teaching and learning reading 2 Aims of the study: The primary aim of the study is finding out attitudes of the non-English major students towards bottom-up and top-down reading tasks at Phuc Yen College of Industry The author believes that positive attitude is very important . THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI TẬP ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CÓ SỬ DỤNG HAI MÔ HÌNH “TƯ ̀ DƯỚI LÊN” VÀ “TƯ ̀ TRÊN XUỐNG”: MỘT KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CÔNG NGHIỆP PHÚC YÊN. THÁI ĐỘ CỦA SINH VIÊN KHÔNG CHUYÊN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC BÀI TẬP ĐỌC HIỂU TIẾNG ANH CÓ SỬ DỤNG HAI MÔ HÌNH “TƯ ̀ DƯỚI LÊN” VÀ “TƯ ̀ TRÊN XUỐNG”: MỘT KHẢO SÁT TẠI TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG CÔNG NGHIỆP PHÚC YÊN