MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIES
nguyen thi huyen
AN INVESTIGATION
INTO the reality of teaching reading to
the second -year students at national
Economics university
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree
of Master of Arts in Tesol.
SUPERVISOR : Nguyen thai ha, MA
Hanoi
October, 2006

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I certify that the thesis entitled “An investigation into reading strategies of
learners in reading classes at The Military Political Academy” and submitted in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL)
is the result of my own work, except where otherwise acknowledged, and that this
minor thesis or any part of the same has not been submitted for a higher degree to
any other university or institution.
The Hanoi University of Foreign Studies approved the research procedures
reported in this thesis.
Signed :
Dated :

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .............................................................................................................. I
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................ II
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................................... IV

3.5.1. Coding scheme for the use of reading strategies in students’ reading comprehension ............. 26
3.5.2. Coding scheme for the use of reading strategies while doing reading tasks ........................... 27
3.5.3. Coding Scheme for factors influencing MPA learners’ reading strategy choice ...................... 27
3.6. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................... 28
CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ...................................................................................... 29
4.1. WHAT READING STRATEGIES ARE USED BY DIFFERENT LEARNER GROUPS AT THE MPA IN THEIR READING
COMPREHENSION? ......................................................................................................................................... 29
4.2.WHAT READING STRATEGIES DO THE EFFECTIVE AND INEFFECTIVE LEARNERS USE WHILE THEY ARE DOING READING
TASKS? ....................................................................................................................................................... 31
4.3. WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE LEARNERS’ LEARNING STRATEGY CHOICE? ......................................................... 44
C ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
EINTEL ....................................................................................................................................................... 45
S ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
EINTEC ....................................................................................................................................................... 45
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S ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
S ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
S ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
S ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
S ................................................................................................................................................................... 45
4.4. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................................ 47
4.5. SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................................... 48
CHAPTER V: IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION ............................................................ 49
5.1. FINDINGS ............................................................................................................................................ 50
5.2. IMPLICATION OF THE STUDY TO STRATEGY TRAINING. ............................................................................... 51
5.2.1. Enhancing learners’ awareness of the use of reading strategies. .............................................. 51
5.2.2. Teacher and students’ role in activities of strategy training. .................................................... 52
5.3. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................................... 54
5.4. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER STUDIES ........................................................................................................ 55
5.5. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................... 55

This study is an investigation into reading strategies of different groups of
learners in reading classes at the Military Political Academy. It purposes to find
out the reading strategies used by different groups of MPA learners in their
reading comprehension, especially while they do reading tasks, and look at the
factors influencing their reading strategy choice. The participants of this study
were forty-eight students at varied levels of English proficiency. An experimental
method was chosen as the methodological approach underpinning this study..
Test, questionnaire and interview were used to gather data, which then analysed.
The findings indicate first, learners at the Military Political Academy used six
groups of reading strategies that offered by Oxfords (1990) at different degrees in
their reading comprehension. Among them, metacognitive strategies rank first,
next come social strategies. Second, the effective and ineffective learners’ uses of
reading strategies vary across the six reading strategy groups. The former tended
to use metacognitive, social and cognitive strategies at higher degree than did
ineffective ones while they do reading tasks. Final, MPA learners are most
strongly motivated by instrumental motivation although they were also
influenced by integrative and intrinsic motivation and they are not fully aware of
the use of reading strategies despite the fact that they used some kinds of reading
strategies in their reading. As for the implications of the study, some suggestions
are recommended for strategy training to MPA learners such enhance the
learners’ conception of the use of reading strategies in their learning reading
comprehension and implication for classroom learning and teaching.
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EFL : English as a foreign language
ESL : English as a second language
SIIL : Strategy inventory for language learning
LSs : Learning strategies
LS : Learning strategy
RSs : Reading strategies

there has been growing and justified concern about reading in Vietnam. This
concern is due to the increasing amount of printed English material in the society.
Various sources of modern knowledge and technology needed in developing the
country at large are usually reported in English. Proficient readers in English are
high demand.
In connection with the matters, in recent years, together with the increasing needs
for English learning at colleges or universities in the Army in general and at the
MPA in particular, great efforts have been made to improve the quality of the
teaching reading. To meet the demand of the state military, every year, the MPA
trains about one thousand political officers at different levels, who are not only
expected to be competent at their specialties but also have good knowledge of
foreign language. Every year, about a thousand officers at different levels,
hundreds of potential teachers and many post-graduate students of different social
sciences and humanities are trained here. Foreign language is a compulsory
subject at the MPA, because it is very important and necessary for the learners’
future work. After the course, they will have to read different materials written in
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English such as academic texts from their specialist subjects, newspapers, reports,
the world’s military information, politics and economics, etc, from a number of
different sources.
In teaching and learning English as a foreign language at the MPA, reading has
always received a great deal of attention. Teaching English at the MPA provides
the students with the abilities to understand the written materials and to
communicate in English. Furthermore, English is taught and learnt in a non -
native environment. That is why reading is not only an important means to gain
knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place.
According to Carrell (1988:1), “if we consider the study of English as a foreign
language around the world - the situation in which most English learners finds
themselves - reading is the main reason why students learn the language”. This is
particularly true to the students of the English Department at the MPA. It is

factors affecting their reading strategies choice. And the research aims to arouse
the awareness of the learners’ own way to read and to get some new ideas to
improve their reading skills.
1.3. Research questions
The research was carried out to answer the following questions:
1. What reading strategies are used by different learner groups at the MPA in
their reading comprehension?
2. What reading strategies do the effective and ineffective learners use while
they are doing reading tasks?
3. What factors influence the learners’ reading strategy choice?
1.4. Outline of the thesis
This thesis is divided into five chapters below.
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Chapter I, the Introduction, states the research problem, the aims and the outline
of the thesis.
Chapter II, Literature Review, presents briefly some general theories related to
reading and reading strategies, terminological definitions, classification systems
and major characteristics of learning strategies. This is followed by a discussion
of factors affecting the reading strategy choice of the learners at the MPA.
Chapter III discusses the methodology and the procedures by which the study had
been carried out such as selections of samples, instruments for data gathering,
and methods of data analysis.
In Chapter IV analyses the results obtained from the investigation. The data
collected are quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. The differences in the use
of reading strategies in students’ learning reading comprehension between the
two learner groups and the factors influencing their reading strategy choice are
compared and analyzed.
In Chapter V, the conclusion mentions some applications of the study for strategy
training to students at the MPA, the limitation of the work, and makes
suggestions for further studies, and conclusion.

is that reading strategies play an important role in the whole reading process.
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With regard to reading processes, three general descriptions of reading: bottom-
up, top-down, or interactive, have been developed over years.
Bottom-up models have not been favored by second language researchers, but
they provide some insights into the second language reading research. In bottom-
up reading models, the reader begins with the written text, and constructs
meaning from the letters, words and phrases. “Following an information-
processing approach to comprehension, bottom-up models analyze reading as a
process in which small chunks of text are absorbed, analyzed, and gradually
added to the next chunks until they become meaningful” (Barnett, 1989: 13).
Goodman (1982) and Smith (1982) challenged this view, and argued that reading
was a top-down models, the reader uses his or her expectations and previous
understanding to guess about text content. Although top-down models have given
way to interactive models, they have made a great contribution to second
language reading theory.
Interactive models of reading were developed over time. According to Anderson
& Pearson’s (1984), the interactive model was namely a schema- theoretic
model:
Readers may compensate for insufficient knowledge in a particular area,
such as word recognition of syntactic knowledge (bottom-up skills), by
relying heavily on other knowledge sources, such as topic recognition or use
of genre or content schemata ( top- down skills) in order to comprehend
texts. (Stanovich, 1980: 35)
The schema-theoretic model focuses on “how the reader’ schemata, or knowledge
already stored in memory, function in the process of interpreting new information
and allowing it to enter and become a part of the knowledge store” (Carrell, 1988:
10). Background knowledge really plays an integral role in reading
comprehension.
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preparations, even employing their customs to facilitate the selecting, storage,
retrieval and use of information.
In another her research, Tarone (1981) proposed that it is possible to divide
learner strategies into three types: learning strategies, communicative and
production strategies. Although all these strategies can contribute directly or
indirectly to the language learning process, the former relates to second language
learning, the later two involve using second language learning. In other word,
while learning strategies are the means by which the learner deals with the
second language input in order to develop linguistic knowledge, communication
and production strategies pertain to output, because these strategies allow the
learner to employ second language knowledge they have already acquired
efficiently, clearly with minimum effort, and communicate meaning for which
they lack the essential linguistic knowledge (Ellis, 1986; Brown, 1994).
O’Malley and Chamot (1993:1) depicted learning strategies as “the special
thought or behaviors that individuals use to help them comprehend, learn, or
retain new information.” In this way, learning strategies are also conceivable as
techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to
facilitate the learning and recall of both linguistic and content area information.
These authors have also extended the sphere of description of learning strategies,
which may include:
... focusing on selected aspects of new information, analyzing and
monitoring information during acquisition, organizing or elaborating on new
information during the encoding process, evaluating the learning when it is
completed, or assuring oneself that the learning will be successful in order to
allay anxiety (O’Malley and Chamot, 1993: 43).
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Similarly, this view is also advocated by Oxford (1990). She has expanded this
definition by saying that learning strategies are specific actions taken by the
learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more
effective and transferable to new situations. Perhaps, the best way to understand

interviews and classroom observations in language learning contexts. Then these
strategies are classified according to different functions of specific strategy
groups.
The classification scheme proposed by Oxford (1990), for example is both
comprehensive and practical. Language learning strategies are distinguished into
two major classes, direct and indirect strategies. These two classes are subdivided
into six strategy groups such as memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive,
affective and social.
Oxford (1970: 37) also pointed out in her study that the first major strategy class
is learning strategies that directly refer to the purpose of learning language and
are called direct strategies. They all require mental processing of the language,
but in different ways and different purposes. This type is subdivided into three
groups: memory strategies, cognitive strategies and compensation strategies. The
first group contains memory strategies that enable language learners to store and
retrieve new information needed for communication. The second group of
cognitive strategies facilitates learners “understanding and production of new
language by many different means.” The third group of compensation strategies
helps learners to overcome their knowledge limitations in language use.
The second major strategy class is all learning strategies that “support and
manage language learning without directly involving the target language”,
Oxford (1990:135) called indirect learning strategies. They are separated into
three groups: metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies,
which are discussed below. Firstly, metacognitive strategies are actions, which
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provide a way for learners to co-ordinate their own learning process. In other
word, these strategies helps learners overcome puzzlement in their language
learning due to “unfamiliar vocabulary, confusing rules, different writing system,
inexplicable social customs and other newness” Oxford (1990: 136). Secondly,
affective strategies are actions that assist learners regulate their motivation,
attitude, as well as significantly influence their learning success or failure. Lastly,

learners than their successful ones. For example, Hosenfeld (1977) used think-
aloud procedure to identify relations between certain types of reading strategies
and successful or unsuccessful readers. The proficient reader, for example, kept
the meaning of the passage in mind while reading, read in broad phrases, skipped
inconsequential or less important words, and had a positive - concept as a reader.
The non-proficient reader on the other hand, lost meaning of the sentences when
decoded, read in short phrases, seldom skipped word as unimportant, and had a
negative self-concept. It is generally agreed that “strategic reading is not only a
matter of knowing which strategies to use, but in addition, the reader must know
how to apply strategies successfully. This may be one factor contributing to the
relationship between proficient level and reading strategies uses by readers”
(Anderson, 1991, p.25).
Olshavsky’s (1977) study was designed to identify reader strategies and to relate
their usage to three factors: interest, proficiency and writing styles. A 2x2x2
design was used with two types of reader interest, high and low; two types of
reader proficiency, good and poor; and two types of writing styles, abstract and
concreate. The subjects included fifteen boys and nine girls enrolled in a tenth
grade English class. Each subject was asked to read a short story and to stop at
various points in order to answer questions. At predetermined stopping points in
the story, they were asked to talk about what happened in the story and about
what they were doing and think as they read. Olshavsky’s (1977) study showed
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that readers do use strategies. This study seemed to indicate that a reader
identifies problem and applies strategies to sole those problems. Although the
types of strategies do not change with the situation, the frequency of use of
strategies does change. In conclusion, most strategies were applied when readers
were interested in material, with readers that were proficient, and when they were
faced with abstract material.
2.3.2. Motivation
Language learning motivation is considered as to be the function that most affects

internal and external.
Their model of motivation is subdivided into seven aspects such as 1) interests in
second language rely on existing attitudes, experience, and background
knowledge on the learner’s part; 2) awareness of relevance; 3) expectancy of
success or failure; 4) perception of rewards; 5) decision to choose; 6) pay
attention to and engage in second language learning, persistent learning behavior;
7) maintain of a high activity level.
Research reported by Oxford and Shearin (1994) has also offered another angle
on a broad class theory of language learning motivation. According to them
motivation involves learner’s needs that are influenced by the elements of
psychological security. Learners’ needs may regress if their requirements for
psychological security are unsatisfied. These authors pointed out that some
second language students feel the need to achieve, but others feel the need to
avoid failure and they argued that “students must believe that doing the specified
task will produce a positive result and that these results are personally valuable”
(p.18).
Stear and Porter (1975) have also revealed that satisfaction of students with a high
need for achievement is positively correlated with their language proficiency
whereas, satisfaction of students with low achievement desires is negatively
correlated with their language proficiency. Oxford and Shearin (1994: 22) found
that language learning motivation is affected by social cognition factors such as
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students’ self-efficacy and attribution for success or failure as well. A plausible
suggestion, these researchers propose is that motivation goal must be clear,
challenging, and reachable, and that there must be feedback on goal achievement,
supported by a master learning mode in which all students are encouraged to
reach intrinsically goals which might be more motivating for many students than
a norm-referenced mode or a setting in which all rewards are external.
2.4. Reading in second and foreign language
Reading is one of the most important skills in language learning. Especially,