VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

HÀ THỊ TÂN
FACTORS AFFECTING SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION IN ENGLISH FOR TOURISM AT STATE
COMMERCIAL No5 SCHOOL

Những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến việc đọc hiểu tiếng Anh chuyên ngành du lịch của
học sinh năm thứ hai Trường trung cấp Thương Mại TW5 M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
CODE: 60140111
Hanoi, 2014
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES


I hereby certify that the thesis entitled

Factors affecting second-year students' reading comprehension in
English for Tourism at State Commercial No5 School

is the result of my own research for the degree of Master of Arts at University of
Languages and International Studies- VNU, and that this thesis has not been
submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution. Hanoi, 2014
Student‟s signature

Hà Thị Tân

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


In learning English for General Purposes (EGP) in general and English for
Specific Purposes (ESP) in particular, reading plays an important role. In
comparison with writing, speaking and listening, reading will be used most often in
the students‟ future work, especially reading ESP. However, learning reading is
really the greatest challenge in learning a foreign language because learning reading
involves a number of cognitive processes and it is affected by a number of factors.
The aims of this study are to identify the factors affecting second-year
students' reading comprehension in English for Tourism at State Commercial No5
School (SCS) and suggest possible solutions to help students study ESP reading
more effectively.
The study was undertaken with 50 second-year students of Tourism and three
ESP teachers at SCS. The data show that the major factors affecting second-year
students' reading comprehension in English for Tourism are reading skills,
language, cultural background knowledge and reading habits and motivation. Some
solutions are suggested to deal with these factors including increasing students‟
interest and motivation in reading, training students to become readers with efficient
reading skill, encouraging students to develop extensive reading habit and
motivation, giving homework and checking the previous lessons frequently,
improving teachers‟ professional knowledge, helping students to improve their
cultural knowledge and developing the reading materials.
It is hoped that the result of this study will help students and teachers at SCS
learn and teach ESP reading in general, reading English for Tourism in particular
more effectively. iv

LIST OF CHARTS &TABLES

Chart 1: Students‟ attitude towards ESP reading.
Chart 2: Students‟ attitude towards the importance of the reading skill.
Chart 3: Students‟ attitude towards the necessity of reading English for tourism for
their future job.
Table 1: Framework of factors that affect students‟ ESP reading
Table 2: Students‟ frequency of reading supplementary materials
Table 3&4: Students‟ evaluation of the texts in the current ESP reading material
Table 5: Students‟ views of sources of difficulties in reading English for Tourism
Table 6: Activities the teachers ask the students to do at pre-reading stages.
Table 7: Activities the teachers ask the students to do at post-reading stages vi

vii
1.5. Summary 14
CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 15
2.1. The context of the study 15
2.1.1. The teachers of English and their methods of teaching 15
2.1.2. The students and their background 15
2.1.3. The teaching materials 16
2.2 The study 16
2.2.1. Research questions 16
2.2.2. Data collection instruments and procedure 17
2.2.2.1. Questionnaires for students (a,b,c,d) 17
2.2.2.2. Interview questions for teachers (a,b,c,d) 18
CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20
3.1. Answers to research question 1 20
3.2. Answers to research question 2 24
3.2.1. To what extent does reading skill factor affect students‟ learning reading? 26
3.2.2. To what extent does language factor affect students‟ learning reading? 27
3.2.3. To what extent does cultural background knowledge factor affect students‟
learning reading? 28
3.2.4 To what extent does reading habit and motivation factor affect students‟
learning reading? 29
3.3. Suggestions for improving students‟ reading ability 29
3.3.1. Increasing students‟ interest and motivation in reading. 31
3.3.2. Training students to become readers with efficient reading skill 31
3.3.3. Encouraging students to develop extensive reading habit 33
3.3.4. Giving homework and checking the previous lessons frequently 34
3.3.5. Improving teachers‟ professional knowledge 34
3.3.6. Helping students to improve their cultural knowledge 35
3.3.7. Developing the reading materials 35
PART C: CONCLUSION 36

1. Rationale
Learning English now 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 because English is taught and learnt in non-English environment, so
reading is not only the important means to get knowledge but also means of further
study.
From the early 1960‟s, English for Specific Purpose (ESP) has grown to
become one of the most prominent areas of English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
teaching today. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) defines ESP as an approach to
language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the
learner‟s reason for learning. In ESP, it is a need analysis that determines which
language skills are most needed by the students and the syllabus is designed
accordingly. During the last few decades, ESP has been developing vigorously for
the reasons that there has been an increase in vocational training and learning
throughout the world and the spread of globalisation has resulted in the increasing
use of English as the language of international communication, more and more
people are using English in a growing number of occupational contexts. In teaching
and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam, ESP has recently received a
great deal of attention.
In the context of State Commercial No5 School (SCS), English is a
compulsory subject to the students. They have to learn ESP at the beginning of the
second year. With limited knowledge of vocabulary and English grammar, it is
difficult for students to study ESP, especially ESP reading. The students often
complain that they do not know how to read the text effectively. Despite the efforts
of the teachers, students‟ reading proficiency is still low. With some years of
experience in teaching ESP, the researcher recognizes that there are many factors

2

3
designed for tourism students to identify their opinions on reading lessons, the
factors affecting their comprehension in an English text for Tourism and to find out
their expectation to achieve better reading competence. The interviews with 9
questions (See Appendix 2) were conducted for data triangulation for the
questionnaire and to seek for teachers‟ explanation about why and how, through
their teaching methodology, the four factors: reading skill, language, cultural
background, and reading habit and motivation can influence their students‟ learning
of reading.
6 Organization of the study
The study is organized into three main parts:
Part I: Introduction presents the rationale for choosing the topic of the study,
the aims, research questions, the methods, the scope and the organization of the
study.
Part II: Development includes three chapters:
- Chapter I: Theoretical background and Literature review
- Chapter II: Methodology
- Chapter III: Findings and Discussion
Part III: Conclusion gives a recapitulation of the study, pedagogical
implication, limitations and suggestions for further study.



5
definition can possibly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is. Each
scholar‟s definition reflects what reading means as seen from his point of view.
However, what they all share is that they try to find out the nature of reading, and
reading act, in which the readers, reading process and reading messages are
emphasized.
1.1.2. Reading comprehension
Reading comprehension plays a very important part in teaching and learning
reading a language and a foreign language as well. It can be seen as the ability to
retain information of a written text to the fullest of the readers. Grellet defines that
“reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the
required information from it as effectively as possible” (Grellet, 1981:34). From this
point of view, Grellet focuses on readers‟ ability of understanding the meaning of a
written text based on the individual‟s background knowledge. Having the same
point of view with Grellet, Swan states that “A student is good at comprehension we
mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum
information of a text with the minimum of understanding” (Swan, 1975: 1). This
means that the student can show his understanding by re-expressing the content of
the text in many ways such as summarizing the text, answering questions, etc.
For a little more different definition of reading comprehension, Richards and
Rodgers (1986) put their emphasis on the share of opinion between the author and
the reader. So according to them, “reading comprehension is best described as an
understanding between the author and the reader” (Richards and Rodgers, 1986:7).
This implies that during the reading process, readers on the way to discover what
the author means and to build meaning for themselves at the same time in their own
language, their thoughts, and their own view of the world based on their background
knowledge. It is very difficult, even impossible to understand the author‟s meaning
to the maximum if there is no interaction between the author and the reader about
language and thoughts. Consequently, the reader is as active in searching for

+ ESP is in contrast with General English

7
In order to make the above mentioned absolute characteristics of ESP
distinctive, other two variable characteristics are set up. Firstly, ESP may be
restricted to skills to be learnt (for example reading only). Secondly, ESP may not
be taught according to any pre-ordained methodology. All of the characteristics of
ESP make us come to an end that teaching and learning ESP is a challenging task
for both teachers and students.
Widdowson (1983:5) argues that the purpose for ESP and EGP is the same,
but he clearly points out that what distinguishes ESP from EGP is “the way in
which purpose is defined and the manner of its implementation”. He further
distinguishes the two by their differences in relation to education and training. The
design of ESP is based as precisely as possible on what learners need. Courses are
designed to provide learners with the restricted competence they need to cope with
certain clearly specified set of tasks.
From the above mentioned viewpoints, when dealing with ESP, it is
necessary to identify two central areas in ESP which are content and methodology.
In terms of content, it is important to concern about the scope of a particular course
in comparison with the totality of the language to make the ESP course balanced in
content so that it is not either too narrow or broad. In terms of methodology, ESP
courses aim to develop linguistic skills relating to particular spheres of activity, not
only the nature of the linguistic items introduced, but the ways in which they are
introduced and how they are practised. So it is also crucially important for teachers
to apply good methods in ESP classes because good methods decide most of the
success of the classroom.
1.2.2. Reading skills in ESP
According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987:17), ESP “is an approach to
language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the
leaner‟s reason for learning”. An ESP course therefore should differ from an EGP

learning environment, etc. In this study, I base myself on the previous studies by

9
Jolly (1978), Coady (1979), Yorio (1971) and others indicate that factors effecting
foreign language reading may lie either on learners‟ reading skills, language
proficiency , cultural and background knowledge or reading habit and motivation.
1.3.1. Reading skill factor
According to Jolly (1978), one‟s first language reading ability plays a more
important role in reading success than his level of the target language does because
foreign language reading requires the transference of old skills, not the learning of
new ones. This view is shared by Coady (1979) who confirms that foreign language
reading is a reading skill problem, not a language problem.
Bernhard (1995:17) states “reading performance in a second language is
largely shared with reading ability in a first language”. Sharing this opinion, Sarid
assumed that “the same reading strategies types accounted for success and failure in
both languages to almost the same extent”.
It can be seen clearly that student‟s limited reading skills create many
problems. Frequently they read text in a foreign language at a slower speed than in
their first language. Moreover, they do not know how to read in the appropriate
ways. They just look at every single word, read slowly from the beginning to the
end and, consequently, fail to grasp the general meaning of the passage. Sometimes,
they may encounter a lot of unfamiliar vocabularies, a long text or an unfamiliar
topic, yet they can not concentrate well on the text and when they get to the last
paragraph, they may not be able to recall what they have read in the first ones.
1.3.2. Language factor
Yorio (1971) argues that reading problems of foreign language learners are
largely due to the knowledge of the target language and the 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

ability.
Strang (1972) states that readers will have different levels of comprehension

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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.
Many studies including Steffensen et al (1979) and Carrell (1981) have
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 contents may mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to
their own cultural experiences. Reading comprehension is a function of cultural
background knowledge. If readers possess the schemata assumed by the writer, they
understand what is stated and effortlessly make the inferences intended. As Hudson
(1982:9) states: “the reading problems of the L2 readers are not due to an absence of
attempts at fitting and providing specific schemata. Rather, problem lies in
projecting appropriate schemata”
To conclude, in most cases, reading and understanding a text is often a
challenging task for a reader during a reading process if he/she does not have full
background knowledge of the subject matter, his/her low reading speed is low to
keep pace with other better students‟, the topics are unfamiliar, and he has not
enough reading strategies in hand, etc. All of those difficulties prevent him/her from
understanding to the fullest the writer‟s purposes and ideas and lead to decrease in
reading motivation. So it is necessary to create learners‟ interest, enhance their
motivation in teaching reading
1.3.4. Reading habit and motivation factor
Motivation plays a crucial role not only in second language learning but also
in reading comprehension. Reading behaviors are influenced by motivation across
cultures and languages. It is said that readers‟ motivation has an effect not only on

2. Language
Reading problems of foreign language learners are largely
due to the knowledge of the target language and the mother
tongue interference in the reading process. Learners with
limited knowledge of the target language may face with

13
considerable difficulties when reading in the target language.
3.Cultural
background
knowledge
Readers facing with unfamiliar cultural contents may
mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to their own
cultural experiences. Reading comprehension is a function of
cultural background knowledge. If readers possess the
schemata assumed by the writer, they understand what is stated
and effortlessly make the inferences intended.
4. Reading habit
and motivation
Readers‟ motivation has an effect not only on the result of
comprehension but also upon the process of understanding. If
the readers have no interest in the text, it means that they do
not want to read than the reading activity will become a
pressure to themselves and even the reading process may not
happen at all.
Table 1: Framework of factors that affect students’ ESP reading
In the methodology presented in chapter 2, the researcher, accordingly, bases
herself on the framework above to explore which factors affect students‟ reading at
SCS and to what extent do these factors affect second-year students' reading
comprehension in English for Tourism at SCS.

this field; however; none of them has been implemented with students for tourism.
This fact establishes a research gap for my present study with the desire to explore
the factors that most affect second-year students‟ reading comprehension in English
for Tourism at SCS.
1.5. Summary
In this chapter, the relevant literature which has helped to form the theoretical
and conceptual framework for the present study is presented. First, this chapter
provides an overview on the nature of reading, in which the definitions of reading
and reading comprehension. Then, the definitions of ESP, reading skills in ESP and
ESP reading materials are also addressed in this part. What is more, this chapter
also discusses the factors affecting students‟ reading comprehension in ESP.

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CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY
2.1. The context of the study
2.1.1. The teachers of English and their methods of teaching
The English teaching staff at SCS consists of 4 official teachers at the ages
from 30 to 44. All of them are female and they graduated from different universities
in Vietnam. One of them learned French before being re-trained to teach English
and two of them have obtained MA degrees. The number of teachers is limited so
all of these teachers are responsible for teaching both EGP and ESP but they are not
trained in doing that difficult task. That leads to many difficulties for them to
encounter when performing their roles in ESP classrooms. As a result, they do not
feel self-confident enough to teach ESP in spite of their positive attitudes to it.
It is usual that ESP teachers at SCS attach themselves to the traditional
methods of teaching such as the Grammar-Translation method, especially in ESP
reading lessons. This method focuses on accuracy, the detailed analysis of grammar
rules, not on the acquisition of language skills. It is characterized by the use of
mother tongue as a medium of instruction and communication in the classroom. By
using this method, it is the teacher to be the center in the classroom speaking most