A study on the techniques for improving reading skills to non major students of english at haiphong

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale

English has experienced its popularity in teaching and learning in Vietnam over the last

few decades. Demand for learning English even gets stronger when Vietnam fosters its

international relations. English, in parallel with the knowledge of some other fields, turns

out to be a key to open the door into the bustling world. In any walk of life in Vietnam,

you can find people use English; from the big cities to mountainous areas; from the

international conferences to daily conversations, or just few pidgin words with the

foreign tourists. People learn and use English with different purposes, but there is a fact

that they are trying to learn English with the hope that they can use it effectively.

In Haiphong Foreign Language Center, Haiphong University (HFLC), English is the

foreign language dominating the teaching and learning programs for nearly 30 years.

Despite a prejudice that learning English at a center is less effective than that at some

universities, colleges, or international schools, learners at HFLC, regardless of their ages,

always strive for a good command of English as they are well aware of their learning

purposes.

Learners of English, naturally and obviously, want to become the masters of all the four

skills, and those at HFLC are not exceptions. Though there are some who propose what

they need is speaking a fluent English, therein they consider listening a tool for the

realization of their goal, there also are some who say writing is necessary because

documenting reports, letters, memos, etc is what they daily deal with in their office,

learning to read effectively remains the top in the targets of most learners here. However,

most of them say they find it difficult to focus on reading, and especially to have

effective reading. Some even say it is boring to start reading because there are piles of

new words, and lengthy reading texts.

From this fact, we teachers of this center have to do something new to promote reading

skill among learners. Thereby, if the learners do not know how to gain the reading fruits,

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we need to show them the way; if they do not realize the importance of reading or simply

they do not like it, it is our duty to light them up, set fire to them, and add fuel.

With this in mind, the researcher wishes to give a hand in promoting reading skills among

these learners, and as a result, the thesis title goes as:

“A study on the techniques for improving reading skills to non-major students of

English at Haiphong Foreign Language Center, Haiphong University.”

2. Aims of the study

The purpose of this study is to examine the areas of difficulties in reading encountered by

non-major students at HFLC so that techniques can be given to help them improve this

skill.

The specific aims are:

- to investigate the learners’ attitude in HFLC

- to find out the difficulties encountered by non-major learners at HFLC

- to suggest techniques to help learners better their reading skill

3. Methods of the study

To achieve the aims mentioned above, quantitative method is used, and the following

tasks are involved:

- Collecting data for the analysis from 240 learners of C level classes in 2005

- Assessing what difficulties are dominant

- Evaluating what techniques are best fit

4. Scope of the study

Though the study focuses on techniques to improve reading skills of the non￾major students at HFLC, due to the limit of time, the researcher can just conduct survey

on learners of C level to investigate reading problems experienced by these learners, then

suggest certain techniques to help them better their reading skill. Also, such follow-up

activities after reading are left untouched.

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5. Design of the study

The study is divided into three parts.

The first part, ‘introduction,’ outlines the impetus from which the author decided

to conduct this study as well as the boundary within which the study is realized. This part

moreover presents feasible methods for the fulfillment of research objective.

The second part, ‘Development,’ consists of three chapters:

- Chapter one presents various linguistic concepts most relevant to the research

topic such as definition of reading, classification or reading, reading

comprehension, effective reading, etc.

- Chapter two deals with analyses on general learning situation at HFLC, learning

requirements, teachers and their teaching methods, materials as well as material

assessment, this chapter also focuses on data collections – findings and

discussion.

- Chapter three emphasizes the implication of the study in which certain techniques

for improving reading skills to non-major students at HFLC are suggested.

The last part of the study, ‘Conclusion,’ summarizes what is addressed in the study,

points out the limitations, and provides some suggestions for further study.

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PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter one: Literature Review

1.1. Introduction

To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the re￾examination of concepts most relevant to the thesis’s topic. They are nature of

reading and reading comprehension, reading process, classification of reading.

Moreover, what is effective reading comprehension and the techniques for reading

comprehension will also be discussed.

1.2. An Overview on the Nature of Reading

1.2.1. Definition of Reading

Attempts have been made to give a definition of what reading is. However, the act of

reading is not completely understood nor easily described.

Rumelhart (1977) defines “reading involves the reader, the text, and the interaction

between the reader and the text”. It means the role of learners and reading texts are

placed an important position in reading act.

According to Goodman (1971:135), reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which

the reader, a language users, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has

been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is

viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming.”

William (1986:3) shares the same view on reading when he argues that “written texts,

then, often contain more than we need to understand them. The efficient reader makes

use of this to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning.”

Harmer (1989:153) views reading from a different perspective. He considers reading

as a mechanical process that “eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out

the significance of the message.”

Though definitions of reading are numerous, none can certainly capture all the ideas

and features of what reading is. However, what they all share is that they try to find

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