some strategies for dealing with unfamiliar words in reading comprehension for students of english

Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – K13U

Hanoi open university

Faculty of english and modern languages

Graduation paper

B.A Degree in English

Some strategies for dealing with unfamiliar

words in reading comprehension for students

of English faculty, Hanoi open university

Supervisor : Le Phuong Thao, M.A

Student : Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy

Date of birth: 29/09/1988

Course : 2006 – 2010

Hanoi, May 2010

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Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – K13U

Declaration

Title: Some strategies for dealing with unfamiliar

words in reading comprehension for students of

English faculty, Hanoi open university

(Graduation Paper submitted in Partial Fulfillment for B.A Degree in

English)

I certify that no part of the above report has been copied and reproduced

by me from any other person’s work without acknowledgement and that the

report is originally written by me under strict guidance of my supervisor.

Date submitted: May 15th, 2010

Student: Supervisor:

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Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – K13U

Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy Lê Phương Thảo

Acknowledgements

I am so glad to have a good opportunity of doing this graduation paper. It

helps me much in collecting and classifying my knowledge which I have studied.

To finish paper, I have worked under extremely high responsibility. I received

many supports from teachers and friends. I cannot accomplish this task without

their help.

First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to all the teachers of

English faculty, Hanoi Open University for teaching me to be a well-educated

student. I have learnt so many things from what they taught me. They have made

favourable conditions for me to study at school during my precious four years

here.

Secondly, I would like to give special thanks to Ms. Le Phuong Thao, my

supervisor, for both her positive response to my ideas for this paper and her

advice that helped me to complete it. I would not complete my graduation paper

without her enthusiastic instructions and correction.

Besides, I also would like to thank my friends and all the students who

helped me implement my study.

Finally yet important, I am very thankful to my family and my boyfriend

for their spiritual and financial supports to help me finish my course in Hanoi

Open University.

Hanoi, May 2009

Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy

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Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – K13U

Chapter I: Introduction

1.1 Rationale:

Reading is an important tool for people of many societies allowing them

to access information or knowledge. Everyone needs reading skills for various

purposes as survival, broadened knowledge and pleasure. Reading is a basic skill

not only every school requires but every job expects. It is the fact that skills of

reading and analyzing documents or a variety of data sources are major factors

which affect a person’s work results and his salary as well. Therefore, improving

reading skill is very important for undergraduate students of English in general

and English faculty at Hanoi Open University in particular.

Reading is not just pronouncing words but requires understanding.

However, the first thing students learning English as a foreign language meet

when they are reading is the vocabulary. Many students probably consider that

their main problem in reading is not having a big enough vocabulary. Most

students who meet an unfamiliar word they cannot interpret are first likely to ask

what it means. If they do not find out the word’s meaning, they cannot go on

reading and comprehending the text. College material contains unfamiliar words

and specialized or technical vocabulary that students must learn. Also, college

textbooks in general are written at a higher level than other materials, so some

effective strategies for dealing with unfamiliar words in reading comprehension

are necessary.

In studying process, the author of this paper and other students of English

faculty at Hanoi Open University have met many difficulties made by unfamiliar

words in reading comprehension. Therefore, the author would like to present

some reading compehension and unfamiliar word knowledge and propose some

effective strategies for dealing with unfamiliar words in reading comprehension

for students of English faculty at Hanoi Open University.

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Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – K13U

1.2 Aims of the study:

It is obvious that reading plays an important role in our life. No worker

can work well without reading documents and no student can study without

reading books. Yet, we always have trouble with unfamiliar words in reading.

The objective of the study is to bring out some strategies which are helpful in

dealing with unfamiliar words in reading comprehension for students of English

faculty, Hanoi Open University. In this study, the author would like to focus on

finding what difficulties students usually meet when encountering unfamiliar

words in reading and from that point, the author would like to bring out some

effective strategies to help students learning English as a foreign language in

general and the students of English faculty at HOU in particular to overcome

their difficulties. To help students deal with unfamiliar words in reading

comprehension, this study focused on the following main points:

• Overview of basic knowledge on reading comprehension and

unfamiliar words in reading

• Difficulties made by unfamiliar words in reading comprehension for

students

• A survey to get what exactly students find hard in encountering

unfamiliar words in reading comprehension and their habit of dealing

with this

• Proposed effective strategies of dealing with unfamiliar words in

reading comprehension based on the result drawn from the survey.

Hopefully, this research will be a good source for students in general,

especially the students of English faculty at HOU in particular.

1.3 Scope of the study:

English reading comprehension is a wide field for research. In the scope

of this study, due to the limited time and knowledge, the author mainly focuses

on difficulties made by unfamiliar words in reading comprehension and some

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Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy – K13U

effective strategies for dealing with it. The research aimed at English learners,

especially students at Faculty of English, Hanoi Open University.

1.4 Method of the study:

In order to accomplish this thesis systematically and adequately, the

author has acquired all the literature resources from many sources of data such as

the internet, newspapers and linguistic books in the Library of Faculty of English

and Modern Languages, HOU and the Vietnam National Library. The author

implemented a survey with subjects who are students of English faculty, Hanoi

Open University. Personal observation consulted and discussed by the supervisor

in the process of researching also contributed much to the completion of this

thesis.

1.5 Design of the study:

The study is divided into five chapters:

• Chapter I: Introduction

• Chapter II: Literature Review

• Chapter III: The study

• Chapter IV: The finding and discussion

• Chapter V: Conclusion

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