ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my beloved supervisor Mr. Le Van Canh,
MA for his invaluable support, patient guidance, and encouragement he gave me
throughout my research. I am truly grateful to him for his advice and suggestions right
from the beginning when this study was only in its formative stage.
I also wish to send my sincere thanks to the lecturers of Post Graduate Department,
Foreign Language College of Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their interesting
lessons and suggestions, which aroused the thesis for this study to be realized.
I am indebted to my family members whose support and encouragements greatly
contributed to the completion of my study.
Last but not least, I wish to thank my readers for their interest and comments on this
thesis.
1
DECLARATION
I certify that this thesis is the result of my own study and that it has not been submitted
to any other university or institution wholly or partially.
Hanoi, June, 2008
Student:
Lª Minh Sao
2
ABSTRACT
The important role of reading comprehension is apparent for any student who has
success in his command of foreign language in general, English in particular. For non-
English major students in Nghi Loc IV Upper Secondary School, reading has been paid
more attentions to as the students have to take the examinations which are grammar- and
reading- based. However, they have encountered a lot of difficulties in reading skills even
after the new textbook has been put to use.
This study aims to investigate the reading difficulties perceived by the 10
th
grade
students of Nghi Loc IV Upper Secondary School. The results of this study has shown that

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Introduction 1
2. Rationale 1
3. Aims of the Study 2
4. Research Questions 2
5. Method of the Study 3
6. Scope of the Study 3
7. Organization of the Thesis 3
CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
2.1. Introduction 5
2.2 Definition of Terminology 5
2.2.1. What is reading? 5
2.2.2. Reading Comprehension 6
2.3. The difficulties of the second language reading comprehension process 7
2.3.1. Reading skill problem 7
2.3. 2. Language problems 8
2.3.3. Cultural background knowledge 9
2.4. Learner-centeredness in foreign language education 10
2.5. Summary 11
CHAPTER III: THE STUDY 12
3.1. Introduction 12
3.2. The rationale of using survey interviews 12
5
3.3. The context of the study 13
3.3.1.The students, their background and their learning conditions 13
3.3.2. Teachers and methods of teaching 14
3.4. Reading Comprehension in the New TIENG ANH 10 14
3.5. The participants 15
3.6. Instrumentation 15
3.7. The Interviews and Data Analysis 16

4.6.3 Making students fully aware of their purpose of reading 39
4.6.4. Encouraging students to have extensive reading habit 39
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 40
5.1. Conclusions 40
5.2. Limitations of the study and Suggestions for Further study 40
REFERENCES 41
APPENDIX
7
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction
Reading comprehension is one of the most important language skills that students of
foreign language need to have. This is because the goal of most foreign language students
is to get access to the knowledge they need through the medium of the foreign language
they are learning. In addition, reading is a very important , even the most important source
of linguistic input through which the students acquire the foreign language. Unfortunately
there are many factors, both linguistic and non-linguistic, that makes reading
comprehension a difficult skill for the students to acquire. This study is to investigate those
difficulties as perceived by the students.
This Chapter introduces the rationale, the aim, the research question, the research method,
and the scope of the study. The Chapter concludes with a presentation of the organization
of the study.
2. Rationale
The ongoing process of regional and global intergration in Vietnam has resulted in an
increasing demand for English language teaching across the country. Now, learning
English is not only an interest but also a practical thing for many people. Learning English
means learning four related skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In teaching and
learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, reading has always received a great
deal of attention. This is understandable, English is learnt and taught in non-English
environment, so reading is not only one of the four language skills that students of English
need to acquire but also a means of further study. According to Carrell (1981) “For many

- to find out the students’ areas of reading difficulty.
- to suggest ways to reduce the difficulties and help students to improve their reading
skills.
It is hoped that the findings from this study will be some benefits to teachers and
students in Nghi Loc IV upper secondary school.
4. Research Questions
In order to achieve the aims mentioned above, the study concerntrated answering the
research questions:
9
- What are the students’ attitudes towards reading English ?
- What do they perceive of the difficulties in the reading texts in New Tieng Anh 10
textbook ?
- To what extent do the teacher’s teaching methods help them improve reading skills
according to their perception ?
5. Method of the Study
With the aim of finding out students’ perceived difficulties in comprehending reading
texts in the new textbook, a survey interview approach is adopted for this study. Semi-
structured interviews will be conducted on a group of 20 Grade 10 students. These students
will be selected randomly among volunteers.
All the interviews will be audio-taped and fully transcribed. Data will be analyzed
qualitatively to identify common difficulties the students encounter in their reading
comprenhension.
6. Scope of the Study
This study limits itself to the investigation of a small sample of Grade 10 students at
NL IV High school - a school located in the rural area of Nghe An province- to find out
their difficulties in comprehending the reading texts in the textbook through semi-
structured interviewing.
7. Organization of Thesis
This minor thesis consists of four chapters.
The first chapter includes a rationale for the study, the aims, method, scope of the

various ideas. According to Goodman (1971), reading is “a psycholinguistics process by
which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has
been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (p.135). Goodman thought that this act of
reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and
confirming.”
William (1984) had the same view on reading, especially on the act of reconstruction as
Goodman. 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”(p.3). His opinion is shared by Nuttall and Grellet. The former
asserts that “reading is getting a message from a text.”
Harmer (1989: 153) considers reading as a mechanical process that “ eyes receive the
message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message” (p. 153). He
not only focuses on two actions that dominated by the eyes and the brain but also the speed
12
of the process “ a reading text moves at a speed of the reader”, which means that the reader
who decides how fast he wants to read the text.
Sharing the same view, Smith (1985) defined “ reading is understanding the author’s
thought” (p. 102). It means that the readers “read the author’s mind not the author’s
words”.
In fact, the meanings of a word depend much on the context in which it occurs so when
we read we have to put the words into the context and not understand the words in
isolation. We can see that the nature of reading is the interaction between readers and the
authors. If readers do not understand the authors’ mind, their reading becomes usefuless.
One more definition of reading is offered by Allen and Vallete (1977). They thought that
“ reading is developmental process” (p. 249). We learn reading not only to know how to
read, to master the symbols, the language, grammar, ect used in the text but also to
understand the ideas, the information expressed in that text or to develop the ability
reconstructing its contents in our own words.
In short, from these opinions above, it is clear that noone can give all the ideas and
features of what reading is. Each definition reflects what reading means as seen from the

either in learner’s reading skill language problems or background knowledge.
2.3.1. Reading skill problem
If the reading ability of a reader in his mother tongue is poor, he can not read well in a
foreign language. According to Anderson (1984), the reason the students can not read
adequately in English is that they cannot read adequately in the native language.
The interaction between first language and second language reading ability is further
clarified by several researchers. For example, Bernhardt and Kamil (1975) assume that
“reading performance in a second language is largely shared with reading ability in a first
language” (p. 17).
While investigating the transferability of students’ L1 reading strategies to L2 reading,
Sarig (1987) also asserts that “ the same reading strategies types account for success and
failure in both languages to almost the same extent. It can be concluded, then, that reading
process from the first language appear to transfer to the foreign language” (p. 118).
Reading is an active skill, involving guessing and predicting. Students’ limited reading
skills create many problems. Very frequently, students do not know how to use different
14
reading skills, how to use appropriate ways to move their eyes from word group to word
group.
It is common that there are new words, new structures in a reading text for every
language learner. If the learner has no good reading ability, he will read the text with less
understanding and he will get discouraged and will not want to keep on reading gradually.
There fore, how to help learner of a foreign language to read better is closely related to
their reading.
2.3. 2. Language problems
Yorio (1971) gives out a contrary view to reading problems. He argues that reading
problems of foreign language learners are largely due to the knowledge of the target
language to mother tongue interference in the reading process. In his opinion, reading
involves four factors: knowledge of the language, ability to guess so as to make the correct
choice, ability to remember the previous cues, and ability to make necessary association
between the different cues that have been selected. Therefore, learners with limited

Several studies on reading skills indicate that apart from language problems and reading
skill problems, cultural knowledge can also affect students’ reading ability.
According to Fries (1963) meaning at the social level is the meaning that transcends the
language code and is related to the background knowledge of the native speakers of that
code. Comprehension of the total meaning of a sentence occurs only when the linguistic
meaning of the sentence is fitted into “a social framework of organized information.” This
idea is echoed by other researcher who have stated that readers will have different levels of
comprehension of the same text because they start off from different positions. They
interpret texts differently because of the differences in the high-level cultural schemata that
were activated.
Carrell (1981) demonstrated the effect of cultural knowledge on the product of
comprehension, appealing to the processes of distortion and elaboration to account for the
differences between a recall of text and the original text. Readers facing with unfamiliar
cultural content may mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to their own cultural
experiences.
Reading comprehension is a function of cultural background knowledge. If readers
process the schemata assumed by the writer, they understand what is stated and effortlessly
16
make the inferences intended. As Hudson (1982) puts it: “the reading problems of the
second language reader are not due to an absence of attempts at fitting and providing
specific schemata. Rather, problem lies in projecting appropriate schemata” (p. 9)
From what we have discussed it seems that there are three main factors that affect
reading comprehension: reading ability or reading skills; linguistic knowlegde; and cultural
and background knowledge. The difficulties may be related to a number of other
difficulties such as readers’ reading habits, attitude, motivation, the way reading is taught,
the leaning environment, ect Whatever kind the problems are, they are various in the
reading process in a foreign language and great efforts must be made to overcome them.
2.4. Learner-centeredness in foreign language education
Recently, in the field of second/foreign language education there has been a shift in
focus from the teacher to the learner. Very briefly, there are two reasons of this shift:

programs, and policies and teaching that support effective learning for all students.
Administrators are responsible for developing, maintaining, and enhancing a school
environment that promotes effective learning. They are also responsible for ensuring that
teachers are knowledgeable about their students and how learning best occurs. Teachers
are responsible for having classrooms that promote effective learning for all and for being
familiar with the instructional techniques that promote effective learning for all.
2.5. Summary
Through the brief literature review, it is obvious that there are so many factors involved
in the L2 reading comprehension process. Insights into this process highlights reading
difficulties, which includes reading skill problems, language problems and cultural
background problems. Also, the literature review also emphasizes the need to understand
how students talk about their difficulties and problems if learned-centred teaching is
desired.The next Chapter, Chapter III, will present in detail the present study.
18
CHAPTER III: THE STUDY
3.1. Introduction
This chapter deals with the method that has been employed for the achievement of the
aims and objectives of the study. It also provides some information about the current
situation of teaching and learning reading skill at NL IV upper secondary school. The
researcher analyses the data collected and then come up with certain findings on the
difficulties experienced by the 10
th
form students at NL IV upper secondary school.
3.2. The rationale of using survey interviews
Interviews are one of the most important sources of studying information and this minor
thesis was not a different curcumstance. Powney and Watts (1984, cited in Verma &
mallick, 1999, P.122) defines it as “an interaction between three elements: the interviewer,
the interviewee, and the context of the interview including the issue questions raised in the
interview.” The researcher applied the method since it could explore in greater detail and
in depth some particularly important aspects and address other closely related topics.

grade 6. During these years, the objective of education programme was not tested and the
main method that their teachers often used to teach them is the Grammar-Translation one.
The students were rarely given chances to work in pairs, in groups or take part in some
activities such as discussion or games. Morever, they were not provided with modern
learning facilities that are very helpful for their learning such as casettes, tapes Therefore,
students found English unnecessary and their English ability in general was very limited
during that long time.
At present, the students’ conditions of learning are not good enough. A few students
have dictionaries to learn English, so this can also affect their study. When they were at
primary and secondary schools, they only focused on the subjects such Maths, Literature,
Physics and they often lack of the proper English teaching. In the first year at Nghi Loc
IV high school, they have more time to improve their general knowledge of most subjects.
English is considered as one of the most important subjects that 10
th
grade students need
have more practice in the afternoon classes. The school has only one liberary, however it is
not good enough, teachers and students sometimes get troubles when using it.
Another problem of the students is that most of them do not have the habit of learning
independently and tend to depend on the textbooks and the teachers for knowledge. This
20
fact calls for a teacher’s provision of the methods of learning at the tertiary level for
students.
3.3.2. Teachers and methods of teaching
Our school has got 10 English teachers, aged from 27 to 37. The oldest teacher has
more than 15 years of teaching experience and the youngest teacher has got 5 years. All of
us have never participated in refreshment courses abroad. However, we have been to some
domestic workshops in language teaching.
Each of our teachers teaches 18 compulsory periods a week, and we have to face many
difficulties of the students. Most of the time the teachers play a key role in the lesson,
being the main speakers working with the text. In teaching reading, teachers resist in using

Seemingly, various topics in the reading texts are beneficial for reading comprehension
development. However, the reading texts are sometimes challenges for students because
some passages has got new structures and some topics are unfamiliar with students in the
rural area, such as Unit 5 is about Computers. In fact, many students in the rural area do
not know what a computer is, how many parts there are in a computer, ect Therefore, it is
not easy for English teachers to explain. Morever, some units do not have new words or
phrases, meanwhile others consist of new words and new structures.
3.5. The participants
The research was carried out at Nghi Loc Iv upper secondary school with the
participation of twenty 10
th
form students, aged 15, both male and female. They were
selected at random and from different classes. To students, English is a compulsory subject
in the schedule, they always complained that “it has so many rules, it is so complicated”
and that they “have no head for English”. However, as English was taught and examined
through four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, it became more indestible to
them.
3.6. Instrumentation
The main instrument used to gather information for the study is tape-recorded
interviews for the students. A one-to-one interview with twenty students was conducted. It
was carried out in Vietnamese, in the form of informal conversation between the
researcher and the students. The questions in the interviews were extended to more open-
22
ended questions to get more information or thorough understanding of the reason behind
each students’ answer. Each converstion lasted for fifteen to twenty minutes. The data
were then transcribed and translated into English.
3.7. The Interviews and Data Analysis
3.7.1. Students’ attitudes toward learning English
The interview data showed that the students were divided into two broad groups. The
first group was composed of those who were negative towards learning English , and the

skill in different ways. 50% of them thought that reading skill was very important, the most
important of the four skills, whereas 35% considered reading equally important to
listening, writing and speaking skills and only 15% found it not so important as other skills
The reasons the students gave for their perception of the importance of reading are varied,
but they all seemed to see the association of reading to other language skills or to the
acquisition of other formal elements of the language.
“I like reading most and reading is very important because it helps me speak, listen, write
more easily and better”
“ If we want to develop speaking, listening or writing skills, we should be good at reading
so that we have information to write , speak and have a background to listen.”
24
“ In fact, we can’t speak well if we do not have good reading skill. Reading is a sound
basis for speaking.”
“ I like reading and consider it the most important skill because I often use vocabulary,
structures or writing style in the reading text for my own writing tasts.”
“It is is difficult to imagine that if we didn’t learn reading skill first, we couldn’t solve the
tasks of other skills. Reading is very important to us”.
“ I feel very eager to translate and understand the content of a new reading text. It is a
chance to improve my pronunciation when I read the texts aloud. Reading skills provide us
knowledge of language and it is very neccessary. We can understand the orders of the
tasks, especially, we can pass the final exam, do the tests easily if we read well.”
In contrast, there were students who outweighed other language skills and they
thought they learned to read simply to do the test. These students said that.
“Our aim is passing the final exam so we think reading is a key that only help us
understand the the contents of tests and do them more easily.”
“In future, I will go to work abroad , I will use speaking mostly , thus, reading is not as
important as speaking and listening.”
“ My parents work as shopkeepers at CuaLo beach and I need to speak and listen better. I
think reading is not neccessary for me.”
These students thought about the important of reading skill with the facts in their daily