A study on english reading strategies employed by second year bridge and road students university of

1

 



 

1.1. Rationale

Internationally, teaching English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) has

changed tremendously over the last few decades. 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 dependent 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 self-direct the process of language development.

In the field of second language acquisition research, 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 do 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

interests 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.

2

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 students. Some studies into this field have been conducted

with different types of learners to find out particular strategies employed by effective and

ineffective learners such as Huyen Tran’s study (2004) on vocabulary learning strategies

used by students of English at Qui Nhon university or Mai Duong’s (2005) on writing

strategies employed by first-year students at Hanoi National University. 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 the University of Transport and Communications, reading is regarded as the

most important skill to the students because these students need to read a lot of English

technical books and documents to support their professional studies. However, apart from

some students who are quite good at English reading, most students find reading difficult.

They often complain that they have little understanding of the texts they have read and

hardly gain any knowledge from their reading. Having taught the Bridge and Road

Engineering students 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 and find out the differences in the strategies used by students of higher reading

abilities and those of lower reading abilities. Based on the findings, I am going to make

some recommendations to improve the students’ reading proficiency.

1.2. Scope, aims and significance of the study

1.2.1. Scope of the study

The study investigates the reading strategies used by effective and ineffective readers

among second-year students of English Bridge and Road class (hereafter EBR) at the

University of Transport and Communications (hereafter UTC). 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 range of reading strategies utilized by the good readers and poor

readers among the second-year EBR students at the UTC;

3

(2) to examine the differences in reading strategy use between these two groups of

readers;

(3) to inform 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 questions

will be addressed:

- What is the range of reading strategies used by the good and poor readers among the

EBR students?

- How do the good readers and poor readers differ in terms of reading strategies

employed?

1.2.3. Significance of the study

The study is the first one to be carried out in the field of reading strategy research at

the UTC. It helps give a detailed description of reading strategies used by the good and

poor readers among second-year EBR students at the university. More importantly, it

works out a classification scheme for these reading strategies. It also provides a thorough

analysis of the differences in the reading strategies employed by these two groups of

readers. 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 basis for reading

strategy based instruction to be implemented in the future.

1.3. Methods of the study

This study is to be conducted as a descriptive study that utilizes both quantitative

and qualitative approaches. The quantitative analysis is employed through the process of

data collected from a written questionnaire and think-aloud reports to examine the

differences between the good and bad readers in their reading strategies. In addition, the

qualitative approach is used to deal with the data collected from interviews with these two

groups of readers. The combination of these data collection methods will help the author

achieve the aims of the study.

4

1.4. Organization of the thesis

The study consists of five chapters.

Chapter 1 is the Introduction, which states the rationale, scope, aims, significance, methods

and organization of the study.

Chapter 2 reviews the literature relevant to the topic of research and summarizes some

selected studies on reading strategies, which serves as a theoretical and methodological

foundation of the study.

Chapter 3 presents the research methodology of the study. It provides information about

the participants, the instrumentation, the data collection procedures and data analysis.

Chapter 4 is the main part of the study that reports and discusses the main findings

according to the research questions.

Chapter 5 is the Conclusion that summarizes the findings, presents the implications and

limitations of the study and finally gives some suggestions for further research

5

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

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 basis for an investigation into reading

strategies which is carried out and presented in the next chapter.

2.1. Learning strategies

2.1.1. Definition

Over the last two decades, the study of learning strategies has seen an “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.

Concerning the definition of learning strategies, there have been some considerable

differences in the existing literature. Rubin (1987) gave quite a broad definition of learning

strategies: “Learning strategies are strategies which contribute to the development of the

language system which the learner constructs and affect learning directly” (1987: 23).

Tarone (1981) defined learning strategies as attempts to develop linguistic and

sociolinguistic competence in the target language. These definitions are too general in

comparison to the complex nature of learning strategies.

Oxford (1990) claimed that “Learning strategies are 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, a lot of

studies in this field have shown that learning strategies are difficult to observe as they are

not only behavioral.

6

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 strategy 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.

2.1.2. 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 of Wenden (1983), Oxford (1990), O’Malley et al (1985a and 1985b),

7

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 the what and how of

language learning) and (3) self-evaluation (relating to progress in learning and the learner’s

response to the learning experience). Wenden’s framework was devised as a basis 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 latter 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 a 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 type of learning strategies is Social/Affective which “involves either

interaction with another person or ideational control over affect”. (O’Malley and Chamot,

1990: 45). The 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.