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DECLARATION
This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master
of Education. I confirm that this is my own research, and that it has not been published or
submitted for any other degrees. Student’s signature
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ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people, without those help
and guidance, this thesis would not have been completed.
First and foremost, I counted myself very fortunate to have had Nguyen Thai Ha, MEd as

(TBU). To address this gap, the present study investigates reading comprehension
strategies used by third-year English majors of Thai and Muong ethnic minorities at TBU.
The present study investigated the use of reading learning strategies of 12 third year
English major students of Thai and Muong minorities at TBU and the possible influence on
their choice of strategies by their ethnicity. The use of strategies by Muong and Thai
ethnic students at TTBU were assessed and measured by think-aloud reports. The gathered
data was analyzed with the help of t-test. The most frequently used strategies were reported
were metacognitive, followed by cognitive and social/affective. Besides, Thai and Muong
ethnic showed that they were significantly different in the choice and frequency of strategy
use. Muong students had more preference for the use of metacognitive and cognitive
strategies, whereas Thai used social/ affective strategies more frequently than their Muong
ethnic counterparts. These results of the study indicated that ethnicity is a factor that had
influence on the use of strategies as the findings of the previous research. Based on the
findings some discussion and implications were made along with suggestions for further
research. 
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LIST OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT III
LIST OF CONTENTS IV
LIST OF FIGURES VIII
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Rationale 1
1.3 Aims of the study 2
1.4 Scope of the study 3
1.5 Significance of the study 3
1.6 Design of the thesis 3

Coding of data 32
3.7.1 Coding of questionnaire data 32
3.7.2 Think-aloud report data 32
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3.8 Data analysis procedures 34
3.8.1 Questionnaire data 35
3.8.2 Think-aloud report data 35
3.9 Summary 35
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 36
4.1 Introduction 36
4.2. Results of Questionnaires 36
4.2.1 Readers’ attitude to reading comprehension 36
4.3 Results of think- aloud reports 39
4.3.1 Students’ use of reading comprehension strategies 39
4.3.2 Difference in strategy use between Muong and Thai ethnic minorities 43
4.4 Summary 48
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS 49
5.1 Introduction 49
5.2 Discussion 49
5.2.1 Muong and Thai ethnic minorities’ attitude to reading comprehension. 49
5.2.2 Strategy frequency 50
5.2.3 Difference in strategy use between Muong and Thai ethnic minorities 51
5.3. Reading strategies that Muong and Thai ethnic students need to develop 54
5.3.1 Reading strategies that Muong ethnic students need to develop 54
5.3.2 Reading strategies that Thai ethnic students need to develop 55
5.4 Implications 56
5.5 Limitations and further research 59
5.6 Conclusion 60
REFERENCES 62

readers 43
Table 8: Reading strategies that Muong ethnic students need to develop 54
Table 9: Reading strategies that Thai ethnic students need to develop 55

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Reading comprehension strategy category frequency for Thai and 40
Figure 2: Individual strategy frequency within Metacognitive category for Thai and Muong
ethnic students 41
Figure 3: Individual strategy frequency within Cognitive category for Thai and Muong
Ethnic Students 41
Figure 4: Individual strategy frequency within Social/Affective category for Thai and
Muong Ethnic Students 42
Figure 5: CALLA Instructional Framework 58

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
This chapter introduces the rationale and the aims of the study. The scope of the
study and the significance as well as the design of the thesis will also be presented in this
chapter.
1.2 Rationale
Reading is considered one of the most important skills which language learners

to suggest that training students to use reading strategies means training them to become
autonomous readers. Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to raise learners’ awareness of
strategy use.
In reality, in reading lessons for English majors at TBU, more was done to link
reading comprehension and student background knowledge in order to equip them with
strategic learning method. However, these students still find reading is the most
challenging skill, and they complain that they do not know how to get the right answers of
the reading tasks, how to find the information in the reading texts effectively and so forth.
To be their teacher who is interested in teaching the reading skill, I really want to help
them to overcome these obstacles and improve their reading comprehension capacity.
For all of these reasons, I would like to carry out this study to investigate reading
strategies used by third-year English majors identified as Muong and Thai ethnic learners
in terms of the frequency of strategy use and strategy choice.
It is expected that the findings of this study will be helpful for researcher and other
teachers in some ways to exploit appropriate techniques to train students the use of reading
strategies and raise students’ awareness of employing suitable reading strategies.
1.3 Aims of the study
The study focus on investigating the reading strategies employed by third-year English
majors at TBU. Particularly, it examines the effects of ethnicity on the frequency of
strategy use and the choice of reading strategies. Thus, others factors that influence on
reading strategies and LLS in other skills would be beyond the scope of this paper.

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1.4 Scope of the study
The study was conducted on the third- year students of Thai and Muong ethnic
minorities of English department at TBU only. These students’ reading strategy use was
investigated. This means the study was not intended to investigate the strategies in other

study, the aims, the scope, the significance as well as the design of the study. The next
chapter will review the relevant literature which provides a theoretical framework for the
study.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter provides a brief review of the theory and research into language learning
strategies in general and reading learning strategies in particular including the researchers’
findings relating to definitions of learning strategies and reading, reading strategies,
previous studies on language and reading learning strategies, their taxonomies, data
collection methods and the factors affecting learners’ choice of reading learning strategies.
A justification on the basis of the literature review for the learning strategies definitions
and framework adopted by the researcher of the present study are also presented.
2.2 Language learning strategies
2.2.1 Definition
In the last two decades, there have been numerous studies of learning strategies used by
language learners by such well-known researchers as Tarone (1981), Oxford (1990),
Richard and Plat (1992), Cohen (1998). According to Tarone (1981), a learning strategy is
“an attempt to develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language to
incorporate these into one’s interlanguage competence”. Clause & Casper (1983) defined
language learning strategies as learners’ trial to achieve linguistic and sociolinguistic
competence in the target language. These definitions are too narrow when they only focus
on the linguistic and sociolinguistic competence without mentioning to other aspects of
language learning such as cultural understanding.
Learning strategies in MacIntyre’s (1994) study are defined as “the actions chosen by
language students that are intended to facilitate language acquisition and communication”,
or learning strategies are “ intentional behaviors and thoughts used by learners during

monitoring involve in strategies that utilized for language practice in the classroom. And
guessing meaning from context refers to the last strategy, inferencing. Obviously, the
emphasis of this model is on the cognitive and metacognitive aspects of learning. An
alternative classification scheme proposed by Naiman et al (1978) consists of five major
categories of learning strategies and a number of secondary categories. The five-primary
classification contains an active task approach, realization of language as a means of
communication and interaction, management of affective demand and monitoring second
language performance.
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Rubin (1981) identified two kinds of learning strategies: those which contribute
directly to learning and those which contribute indirectly to learning. In direct learning
strategies, she divided into six types (classification/ verification, monitoring,
memorization, guessing/ inductive inferencing, deductive reasoning and practice), and
indirect learning strategies are divided into two types (creating opportunities for practice
and production tricks). Similarly to the model of Bialystok (1978), the limitation in
Rubin’s taxonomy is that it does not contain social and affective strategies.
Further step in language learning strategy classification has been made by Wenden
(1985) who conducted a research with adult foreign language learners to examine their
language learning strategies. Data analysis led to their classification of learning strategies
with three types: (1) Knowing about the language (relating to what language and learning
involves), (2) planning (relating to what and how of language learning), and (3) self-
evaluation (relating to progress in learning to the learners’ response to the learning
experience).
The more comprehensive and widely accepted framework is the classification systems
of O’Malley & Chamot (1990) and Oxford (1990). The strategy system proposed by
Oxford (1990) consists of both direct and indirect strategie (See appendix I). Direct
strategies required mental processing of the target language. Indirect strategies, on the

In comparison with other classification schemes above, Oxford’s “perhaps the most
comprehensive classification of learning strategies to date” (Ellis, 1994, p. 539), and it is
more systematic since “it links individual strategies, as well as strategy groups, with each
of the four language skills” (Vidal, 2002, p. 47). Affective and social strategies are also
discussed in greater details. However, it is fairly confusing when memory strategies are
separated from cognitive ones.
In O’Malley & Chammot’s (1990) framework, strategies are divided into three major
types: metacognitive, cognitive, and social (affective. Metacognitive strategies are “higher
order executive skills that may entail planning for, monitoring or evaluating the success of
a learning activity” (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990, 44). Cognitive strategies “operate directly
on incoming information, manipulating in ways that enhance learning” (O’Malley &
Chamot, 1990, p.44). Social or affective strategies “involve either interaction with another
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person or ideational control over affect” (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990, p.45). These
strategies were presented in table 1.
Table 1. Learning strategy definication and classification (O’Malley and Chamot
,1990, pp.119-120)
- M Metacognitive strategies involve thinking about the learning process, planning for
learning, monitoring the learning task, and evaluating how well one has learned.
Advance organizers

Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material to be
learned, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle.
Directed attention Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task and to
ignore irrelevant distracters.
Functional planning Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components necessary to
carry out an upcoming language tasks.

Classifying words, terminology, or concepts according to their
attributes or meaning
Deduction

Applying rules to understand or produce the second language or
making up rules based on language analysis.
Imagery Using visual images (either mental or actual) to understand or
remember new information.
Auditory
representation
Planning back in one’s mind the sound of a word, phrase, or
longer language sequence.
Keyword 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 word n the second language.
Elaboration relating new information to prior knowledge, relating different
parts of new information to each other, or making meaningful
personal associations with the new information.
Transfer

:Using previous linguistic knowledge or prior skills to assist
comprehension or production.
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In brief, to discuss the result of our study, we have adopted the O’Malley &
Chammot’s framework .
2.2.3 Factors affecting the learners’ learning strategy choice
The choice of strategy use by different learners varied due to different factors, such as
language proficiency, motivation, gender, cultural background, attitudes and beliefs, types
of task, learning age and L2 stage, learning style and tolerance of ambiguity (Oxford,
1990). A great number of studies carried out to examine differences in strategy use in
relation with factors such as school year, gender and level of language proficiency (These
studies will be presented in 2.5.1). It is undeniable that the learner’s choice of language
learning strategies is much affected by the factors mentioned above in which learners’
ethnicities seem to have a strong influence on the kinds of strategies they use (Grainger,
1997; Oxford, 1994; Politzer & McGrroarty, 1985; Reid, 1987).
In fact, over the past two decades, ethnicity has been neglected as a variable in most
research on language learning strategies, however, the effects of ethnicity on the use of
LLS has not received due attention in the literature (Yang, 2007). Moreover, Reid (1987)
insisted that since ESL students of different ethnicities demonstrated the tendency to use or
avoid certain strategies, more research should be conducted in this area. Thus, our interest
focuses on whether this factor has any influences on learners’ frequency of strategies and
choice of reading strategies or not. If reading strategies used by learners with different
ethnic backgrounds are identified, more insights will be gained into the characteristics and
learning process of these learners. The situation leads to the need to study the relationship
between LLS use and language learners’ ethnicities.
2.3 The theory of reading
2.3.1 Definition of reading
Reading has been the subject of research for over a century (Cheng, 1985). In fact, a lot
of trials have been made by those who are interested in this approach. However, working
out a thorough definition of reading is a hard nut to crack since different researchers have

So far, general views on reading have been mentioned, the next section will look into
the models that describe the reading process in order to have a full understanding about the
nature of reading.
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2.3.2 Reading processes
A lot of research has been done on reading strategy over the last twenty years and
different views of reading approaches that emphasis the interactions between readers and
text have been proposed. These views can be grouped to three processes. One is the
bottom-up approach, the other is top- down approach, and the last one is the interactive
one.
2.3.2.1 Bottom- up model
Goodman refers to the bottom up model as the "common sense notion" (1998, p.11). In
this approach, reading is meant to be a process of decoding; identifying letters, words,
phrases, and then sentences in order to get the meaning.
Alderson (2000) defined that “Bottom- up approaches are serial models, where the
reader begins with the printed words and recognizes graphic stimuli, decodes them to
sounds, recognizes words and decodes meaning. Each component involves subprocesses
which take place independently of each other”. Those definitions show that bottom- up
processing is analogous to field- independent cognitive styles.
It can be seen that, in bottom- up processing, readers are passive decoders of essential
graphic- phonemic- syntactic- semantic system (Alderson, 2000). Therefore, the
sophisticated linguistic knowledge of the reader is essential.
Although bottom-up approach was considered as “the best way to teach reading”
(Brown, 2001), it was claimed to be “difficult to account for sentence-context effects and
role of prior knowledge of text topic as facilitating variables in word recognition and
comprehension.” (Samuel and Kamil, 1988, p.3). In other words, in this model the
interaction between the reader and the text includes little or no interference from the

The limitations of bottom-up and top-down approaches have led to new, insightful
models, interactive approach. Interactive approach is a combination of top-down and
bottom-up processing (Brown, 2001).
2.3.2.3 Interactive model
Anderson has indicated that, reading has begun to be described as ‘interactive’, which
combine elements of both bottom-up and top-down models as the most comprehensive
description of the reading process.
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Widdowson (1978) inserts that reading is a process of combining textual information
and the world knowledge that readers bring to the text. In this model, arriving at the text’s
meaning, the reader not only simply activates his knowledge to extract information from
the text, but also uses this information to extend the general knowledge in his mind. This
opinion is quite similar to Aldersons’ definition of interactive model. He states that
interactive approach is a process in which every components can interact with any other
components.
In Rumelhart’s (1977) model, reading process is the continuous and simultaneous
interaction among linguistic, world knowledge and visual input. This model is a bit
different from other models as it investigates the importance of visual input.
Stanovich (1990), on the other hand, indicates that the degree of interaction among
components depends upon knowledge deficits in individual components, where interaction
occurs to compensate for deficits, therefore, the reader who is not good at recognizing
words can use his general knowledge to compensate.
In sum, the interactive approach is a process of interaction of different knowledge
sources (both linguistic and subject matter knowledge). It is generally agreed that this is
the most adequate model because both top-down and bottom-up approaches play important
role in reading as Nuttall’s (1996) opinion “in practice, a reader continually shifts from one
focus to another, now adopting a top-down approach to predict probable meaning, then

to both forms and meaning in their language, they are not afraid of making mistakes, and
try to guess what they are not sure for their strong desire to communicate. Naiman et al.
(1978) conducted interviews and observations with 34 successful college students and
suggested that language learning strategies form only one part of a broader picture of what
constitutes a “good language learner”, i.e. what that learner does and what kind of
environment facilitates this learning process. Also, O’Malley et al. (1985a) investigated the
relationship between language learning strategies and success in language development by
beginning and intermediate level students in the United States. Data were collected by
means of interviews and observation. The result of the study revealed that metacognitive
strategies were used more frequently by higher level students and this drew a conclusion
that the more successful students are probably able to exercise greater metacognitive
control over their learning. However, the result of a study by Ehrman and Oxford (1995)