Vietnam national university, Hanoi
University of Languages and international studies
faculty of Post-graduate Studies

KIỀU THỊ VÂN
IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH
THE USE OF GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS AT MILITARY MEDICAL
UNIVERSITY: AN ACTION RESEARCH
(Nâng cao k năng đọ c hiể u của sinh viên bằ ng phương php sử dụ ng công cụ
bng biể u tại Hc Viện Quân Y – Nghiên cứu hành động)
MA. MINOR THESIS
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

Hanoi, 2011
Vietnam national university, Hanoi
University of Languages and international studies
faculty of Post-graduate Studies


Abstract iii
Table of content iv
List of Abbreviations vii
List of figures viii
List of tables ix
PART A: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Research questions 2
3. Methods of the study 2
4. Research procedure 2
5. Scope of the Study 3
6. Significance of the study 3
7. Design of the study 4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 5
1. 1. Action research 5
1. 1. 1. What is action research? 5
1. 1. 2. Why does a teacher need action research? 5
1. 1. 3. How does a teacher perform action research in a language classroom? 6
1. 1. 4. Summary 6
1. 2. Reading 7
1. 2. 1.What is Reading? 7
1. 2 .2. What is Reading Comprehension? 7
1. 2. 3. Reading Comprehension Process 8
1. 2. 3. 1. The Schema Theory 8
1. 2. 3. 2. Bottom – up and Top-down processing 8
1. 2. 3. 3. Interactive Processing 9
1. 2. 4. An Overview of ESP 9
1. 2. 4. 1. What is ESP? 9
1. 2. 4. 2. English in Medicine 10

2. 2.1 3. Reading professional books and journals for ideas or suggestions 19
2. 2. 1. 3. 1. English language learners (ELL) 19
2. 2. 1.3. 2. Factors Influencing Comprehension 20
2. 2. 2. TRY – OUT STAGE 20
STEP 3: DESIGNING STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVEMENT 20
2. 2. 2. 1. Using a mind map 20
2.2. 2. 2. Using the KWL 20
2. 2. 2. 3. Using the 5 W’s 21
2. 2. 2. 4. Using Venn diagram 21
STEP 4: TRYING – OUT STRATEGIES 21
2. 2. 3. POST – IMPROVEMENT STAGE 23
STEP 5: EVALUATING THE TRY – OUT 23
2. 2. 3. 1. Using Final Questionnaire to collect data 23
2. 2. 3. 2. Employing reading post – test to evaluate students’ reading levels 23
vi CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 24
3. 1. Results of Student Questionnaire 24
3. 1. 1. The results of the Initial Student Questionnaire 24
3. 1. 2. The results of the Final Student Questionnaire 28
3. 2. Results of the DRA 32
3. 2. 1. Result of Initial DRA 32
3. 2. 2. Result of Final DRA 32
CHAPTER 4: IMPLICATIONS FOR READING TEACHING 34
4. 1. Summary and discussion of the main findings 34
4. 2. Implications for more effective reading lessons 36
PART C: CONCLUSION 38
1. Conclusion 38
2. Limitations of the Study 38

viii LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Initial Questionnaire: Question 1 results
Figure 2:Initial questionnaire: Question 2 results
Figure 3:Initial questionnaire: Question 3 results
Figure 4:Initial questionnaire: Question 4 results
Figure 5:Initial questionnaire: Question 5 results
Figure 6:Initial questionnaire: Question 6 results
Figure 7:Initial questionnaire: Question 7 results
Figure 8:Final questionnaire: Question 1 results
Figure 9:Final questionnaire: Question 2 results
Figure 10:Final questionnaire: Question 3 results
Figure 11:Final questionnaire: Question 4 results
Figure 12:Final questionnaire: Question 5 results
Figure 13:Final questionnaire: Question 6 results
Figure 14:Final questionnaire: Question 7 results
Figure 15: Reading Comprehension Levels


many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills in a second
language, particularly in English as a second teaching of foreign language”. In fact,
reading is considered an indispensable tool for academic study and career advancement.
And it is quite true to the case of Military Medical University, where the author is
teaching.
Reading comprehension is crucial to a student’s success at school and further to
becoming to a lifelong learner. However, many students at Military Medical Academy
are struggling with reading comprehension. They find it difficult to catch the main ideas
of the text, to distinguish facts and details, and to retain information longer. Basically,
they are at literal reading comprehension level. Therefore, they often fail to catch the
author’s thought.
From this fact, as a teacher of English, the author herself thinks that it is essential to
find something new to improve her students’ reading comprehension level so that they
can improve their reading comprehension. As a result, the author decided to carry out the
entitled study: “Improving students’ reading comprehension through the use of
graphic organizers”. The purpose of the study is to find out if graphic organizers can
help students read more effectively.
The author of this research chose to carry out the action research to find out how
much graphic organizers affected the students’ reading comprehension. Based on the
results of this action research, some changes and improvement were applied in the
author’s lessons, and some appropriate strategies needed to be designed with the hope
that the students would work more effectively in a reading lesson.

2. Research questions
1. How much does the use of graphic organizers provide in developing the reading
comprehension skill for students?
2. How does the use of graphic organizers affect the students’ reading
comprehension levels?

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strategies being examined in this research project.
4. Research procedure
This action research consists of three main stages: Pre – improvement stage, Try –
out stage and Post – improvement stage
Stage 1: Pre - improvement

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Step 1: Identify the problem which was desired to solve or an area which was wished to
improve by:
- Conducting a survey to get information from students
+ Initial Questionnaire
+ Pre – test DRA assessment
Step 2: Finding causes of the problem by:
- Reading professional books/ journals for ideas and suggestions
+ English language learners (ELL)
+ Factors Influencing Comprehension
Stage 2: Trying – out stage
Step 3: Designing strategies for improvements (plan for action)
Step 4: Trying – out the strategies (action) and making records of what happened in class.
Stage 3: Post – improvement
Step 5: Evaluating the try – out by
- Carrying out a survey to get information from the students
+ Final Questionnaire Results
+ Final Student DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) levels

5. Scope of the study
This study was carried out with sixteen 43th grade students at Military Medical
University in Hanoi. The research focuses on how graphic organizers affect these students’
reading comprehension in ESP reading lessons.

Chapter 1 deals with an exploration of the theoretical background of the research. It is
concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research: reading and reading
comprehension, an overview of English for Specific Purpose and English in Electronics,
approaches and techniques to teach reading EE.
Chapter 2 is the methodology. This chapter presents the background information of the
subjects of the study, the instrument used to collect the data, the procedure of data collection
and the procedure of data analysis.
Chapter 3 is aimed at describing data analysis in detail and a thorough discussion of
the findings of the study. Some explanations and interpretations of the findings are also
presented in this chapter.
Chapter 4 gives the summary of the findings and some implications which are
proposed for teachers teaching EM reading in particular and ESP reading in general.
Part C: Conclusion presents briefly the answers to the research questions, the
limitations and some recommendations for further research are also explored.
The appendices lie at the end of the study, following the References. 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

1. 1. ACTION RESEARCH
1. 1. 1. What is action research?
As stated by Grebhard (1999), the concept of action research emerged from the work
of Lewin (1948, 1952). He was a social psychologist who brought together experimental

wise decisions for the future” (2001, p. 7). Action research at schools colleges or universities
work out every day realistic problems experienced by teachers, rather than the “theoretical
problems” defined by non – teaching researchers.
Action research in education focuses on the three related stages of action:
1. Initiating action, such as, adopting a text, choosing an alternative assessment
strategy.
2. Monitoring and adjusting, such as, seeing how a pilot project is proceeding,
assessing the early progress of new programme, improving a current practice.
3. Evaluating action, such as, preparing a final report on a completed project”
(Sagor, 1992)
Three causes are given for the teacher’s need of action research by Anders (1988),
Curtis (1988) and Tsui (1993); (1) to resolve own problems in scientific process and better
own practice; (2) to adapt theory (finding of conventional research) to rehearse (own
problems); and (3) to share the results of action research with other teachers.
1. 1. 3. How does a teacher perform action research in a language classroom?
Tsui (1993) has proposed 5 steps in carrying out action research:
Step1: Identifying problems you desire to solve or an area you wish to enhance by:
- Running a survey to hear from your students
- Reviewing an audio – or a video – taped lesson and the transcription of a segment of
the lesson that illustrates the problem.
Step 2: Finding causes of the problems by:
- consulting with your colleagues, trainers
- reading professional books/ journals for ideas and suggestions
Step 3: Designing strategies for improvement (plan for action) and writing a proposal for
action research
Step 4: Trying out the strategies (action) and keeping a diary of what happened in the class
Step 5: Evaluating the try – out by:
- reviewing a lesson that illustrated the changes that have been made
- reflecting on the reasons for those changes
- carrying out a survey to get information from students

not only look at and understand the meaning of what is written but also read authors’
thinking.
1. 2. 2. What is Reading Comprehension?
Grellet (1981: p 3) has considered reading comprehension or “understanding a written
text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible”. Swan
(1975:1) also shared “a student is good at comprehension” if “he can read accurately and
efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the maximum of
understanding”. In the same view, Richard and Thomas (1987: p 9) have pointed out
“reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the
reader”. Though these opinions are not exactly the same, they all show that reading

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comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can recognize the graphic
forms of the reading text and understand what is implied behind these forms.
In brief, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading
comprehension can appreciate how much readers get the text. Therefore, how to aid students
in having efficient reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most powerful
task in teaching reading.
1. 2. 3. Reading Comprehension Process
The nature of reading comprehension process – how people learn to process textual
information – has been researched by cognitive and behavioral scientists for many decades.
So far reading has sometimes been characterized as “passive” or “receptive”.
1. 2. 3. 1. The Schema Theory
According to Nunan (1999, p.201), “schema theory is based on the notion that
experiences lead to the creation of mental frameworks that help us make sense of new
experiences.”
The schemata are recognized as a useful concept in understanding how we are able to
interpret texts. When a reader reads a text, he must use his own background knowledge, the
situational context and the cues provided by the author to interpret the text. How much he

In short, there are two ways that readers can use to deal with a text: using the bottom –
up processing to get detailed understanding of the text and using the top-down to understand
main ideas about the text. Readers may use one of the two ways to comprehend texts,
however, readers usually need both of them to deal with difficult texts. As a result, this leads
to interactive processing.
1. 2. 3. 3. Interactive Processing
It is known that no single method is the best. A successful reader should combine top –
down and bottom – up processing, which is called interactive reading:
“In practice, a reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now adopting a top
– down approach to predict probable meaning, then moving to the bottom – up approach to
check whether that is really what the writer says” (Nuttal, 1996, p. 17).
According to Hayes (1996, p.7), “in interactive models, different processes are thought
to be responsible for providing information that is share with other processes. The
information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the most
appropriate interpretation of the printed pages”.
In short, the popularity of interactive processes shows that interactive processing can
maximize the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of the bottom – up and top – down
processing.
1. 2. 4. An Overview of ESP
1. 2. 4. 1. What is ESP?
ESP originates from a famous saying “Tell me what you need English for and I will
tell you the English that you need”. So far, ESP has been defined differently by different
authors. According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.19), ESP is “an approach to language

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teaching in which all decisions as to content and approach are based on the learner’s reason
for learning”.
Sharing with Hutchinson and Waters, Strevens (1988, p.1) said “ESP is a particular
case of the general category of special – purpose language teaching”.

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The main principles on which the Grammar Translation Approach are based are the
following:
1. Translation interprets the words and phrases of the foreign languages in the best
possible manner.
2. The phraseology and the idiom of the target language can best be assimilated in the
process of interpretation.
3. The structures of the foreign languages are best learned when compared and
contrast with those of mother tongue.
Advantages:
1. The phraseology of the target language is quickly explained. Translation is the
easiest way of explaining meanings or words and phrases from one language into another.
2. Teachers’ labor is saved when they use their mother tongue in teaching and learners
will not have much difficulty in responding to questions in the mother tongue.
Disadvantages:
1. Exact translation is not possible. Translation a language with various customs,
traditions and modes of behavior is, indeed, a difficult task and exact translation from one
language to another is not always possible.
2. Translation does not give pattern practice. It rather attempts to teach language
through rules and not by use. Researchers in linguistics have proved that to speak any
language, whether native or foreign, entirely by rule is quite impossible.
1. 2. 5. 2. Communicative Language Teaching Approach
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) dated from the late 1960s is perhaps the
latest in a long succession of revolutions in language teaching since it presents a fundamental
“paradigm shift” – a radically new approach to teaching-learning process (Christina, 1984).
In terms of ESP reading teaching, CLT is most used with two approaches: Content – based
teaching and Task-based teaching
1. 2. 5. 2. 1. Content-Based
Brown (2001, p.234) has stated that “content-based language teaching integrates the

of a class for beginning students. Others claim that students are only exposed to certain
forms of language and are being neglected of others such as discussion or debate.
1. 2. 6. Techniques to teach EM reading
1. 2. 6. 1. In Pre-reading
At this important stage, teachers should make sure that students have the relevant
schema for understanding the text. This is achieved by having students think, write, and
discuss everything they know about the topic, employing the most common techniques such
as prediction, semantic mapping and reconciled reading.
Prediction is defined as “the prior elimination of unlikely alternatives” (Smith, 1994,
p. 19). According to him, predictions are questions readers ask the world and comprehension
is receiving the answers.
Previewing occurs when students look at titles, headings, and pictures, and read the
first few paragraphs and the last paragraph; these activities can then help students understand

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what texts are about by activating their formal and content schemata and making them be
familiar with the topic before they begin reading.
Semantic mapping is another pre-reading technique that Carell, Pharis and Liberto
(1989, p.651) describe as a useful way to pre-teach vocabulary and to “provide the teacher
with an assessment of the students’ prior knowledge or schema availability on the topic”.
This activity asks students to brainstorm about the reading topic as the information is
displayed on a graphic “map”.
Reconciled reading lesson reverses the sequence presented by many textbooks where
the text is followed by questions. Instead, the teacher develops pre-reading questions from
the questions that appear at the end of the reading.
1. 2. 6. 2. In While-reading
This stage requires teachers to guide and monitor the interaction between readers and
texts. One important skill teachers can impart at this stage is note-taking, which allows
students to compile new vocabulary and important information and details, and to
Figure 15: Reading Comprehension Levels

1. 3. GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS
1. 3. 1. Definition of graphic organizers
Bromley, Vitis, and Modlo (1995, p.6) defined “A graphic organizer is a visual
representation of knowledge. It is a way of structuring information, of arranging important
aspects of a concept or topic into a pattern using labels”.
Sharing the same ideas, Amin (2004, p.3) claimed that “A graphic organizer is a visual
and graphic display that depicts the relationships between facts, items, and ideas within a
learning task”.
Graphic organizers are a great way to improve reading comprehension. Basically, these
tools are visual versions of outlines. They help readers organize information so that it
becomes more understandable and more memorable.
1. 3. 2. Roles of graphic organizers
Bromley, Vitis, and Modlo (1995, p.66) has outlined four benefits from using graphic
organizers. They are:
- Improving comprehension skills and strategies.
- Facilitating the recalling or retelling of literature.
- Connecting prior knowledge and new knowledge for students.
- Easing the organization and direction of students writing.
Ruffini (2008, p.57) also shared some advantages of using graphic organizers to
reading comprehension as:
- Aiding learning by explicitly integrating new and old knowledge
- Generating ideas through brainstorming
Literal
Comprehension (L1)
Reorganization (L2)


what students have learned during a unit of study. The K stands for what students know, the
W stands for what students want to learn, and the L stands for what the students learn as they
read or research (see appendix D).
1. 3. 3. 3. Venn diagram
A Venn diagram is an illustration of the relationships between and among sets, groups
of objects that share something in common. Usually, Venn diagrams are used to depict set
intersections (see appendix E). This activity will sharpen students’ skills for comparison and
contrast between or among things
1. 3. 3. 4. The “5 W’s”
Five W's diagrams are a type of graphic organizer that let the student think about and
list the "Who, When, Where, What, and Why" of a story or event in a simple visual way (see
appendix F). This activity will help students understand of what they have read, and they can
see the relationship between all the information.
1. 4. Previous studies
There are some previous studies related to this study such as the study of Kim,
Vaughn, Wanzek, & Wei, (2004) and the study of Natalie (2001). Both of them dealt with
the use of graphic organizers in reading lessons. Kim, Vaughn, Wanzek, & Wei, (2004)
aimed at finding out if whether or not graphic organizers would have positive effects on
reading comprehension of students with learning disabilities. His findings showed that
semantic organizers, cognitive maps with a mnemonic and framed outlines were all found to

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be highly effective in improving reading comprehension. Cognitive maps without a
mnemonic were found to be moderately effective. Besides, graphic organizers were effective
regardless of whether they were implemented by teachers or researchers. Also, students
ranging in age from elementary to high school all benefited significantly from using graphic
organizers.
Natalie (2001) studied of “The effects of Graphic Organizers on the Post-Reading
Comprehension of Students in a Collaborative Team Teaching Setting”. The purpose of the

rd
,1949 under the Ministry of Defense.
English is a non-major subject so it is considered as a basic subject and taught for two
years of the six – year training course for students at MMU. Students learn English in four
terms. For three first ones, each includes 60 periods for basic communicative English with
the Lifelines Elementary and Lifelines Pre - intermediate textbooks and the fourth with 60
periods for ESP using the textbook “New English in Medicine”.
Most students in the MMU are generally and at elementary level. They learned English
for at least three years at high school but this subject was not carefully taken into their
consideration. In their opinion, learning English means learning grammar and structures. All
these explain why learners get shocked when facing English oral exams at university.
Students are surprised when they have to read long reading texts in class and then in the
exams. Some students can easily adapt to the new ways of learning, but most of them face
challenges.
Another reason for students’ difficulty in succeeding in English reading classes is their
low awareness of the importance of this subject. Numerous learners do not think English is
necessary for their future job, and others learn the language only to pass the examinations.
They have not realized that English, an international language, can be the golden key to their
career.
The subjects chosen for the research were 16 grade 43
th
non – major English students
in the Military training course of Military Medical University. All of them were male
students that came from different parts of the country. They ranged in the age from 20 to 22.
All participants in this study volunteered to participate in the study. The research was carried
out at the end of second term of the academic year 2010 – 2011 at Military Medical
University.