VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
****************

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG MINH

THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
READING FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT BANKING
ACADEMY-SON TAY TRAINING CENTER
( Nghiên cứu thực trạng của việc dạy và học đọc đối với hệ học tiếng
Anh không chuyên tại Học viện Ngân hàng- Cơ sở đào tạo Sơn Tây )
M.A Minor Thesis
Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60 14 10
Hanoi - 2011

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
****************

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG MINH

THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

18
Table 2.3: Teachers’ activities at While- reading stage
19
Table 2.4: Teachers’ activities at Post- reading stage
20
Table 2.5: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage
23
Table 2.6: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at While- reading
stage
24
Table 2.7: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at Post- reading
stage
25
Table 2.8: Students’ difficulties in learning reading
26

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
Certificate of originality
i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ii
Abstract
iii

1.2. Approaches to teaching reading
8
1.3. Stages of a reading lessons
9
1.3.1. The pre-reading stage
10
1.3.2. The While-reading stage
10
1.3.3. The Post-reading stage
12

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1.4. Impacts of attitudes on teaching and learning reading
13
1.5. Factors affecting students’ reading comprehension
14
1.5.1. Learning strategies
14
1.5.2. Vocabulary
15
1.5.3. Background knowledge
16
1.5.4. Motivation
16
1.6. Previous studies
17
1.7. Summary
17
Chapter 2: RESULT
18

3.1.3. Post-reading stage
32
3.2. Research question 3
32
3.2.1. Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities in reading lessons
32
3.2.2. Students’ difficulties in learning reading
35
Part C : CONCLUSION
37
1. Summary
37
2. The suggested procedure for teaching reading at BA-STC
37
3. Limitations and suggestions for further study
40
References
41
Appendices
I
Appendix 1
I
Appendix 2A
III
Appendix 2B
V
Appendix 3A
VII
Appendix 3B
IX

schema. While-reading instruction helps students read strategically, mainly focusing on
decoding skills. Post-reading instruction deepens students‟ comprehension into the text. It
is also emphasized that the activities in this framework are not limited to reading. “Reading
is no longer isolated” (Eskey & Grabe, 1988, p.231). As in real life, reading activities

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should be integrated with other skills - speaking, listening, and especially writing (Eskey &
Grabe, 1988; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001). Accordingly, some of the activities
should help students to develop other skills besides the reading. Such kind of integration of
the four skills will enable students to use more varieties of strategies more often,
generating more interaction between the reader and the text.
Teaching and learning reading comprehension have been identified by various
researchers in both second and foreign language contexts (Barnett, 1989; Brown, 2001;
Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001; Wallace, 1992). However little empirical research
have been conducted to uncover the methods of teaching reading comprehension used by
Vietnamese teachers, especially by teachers at BA-STC. To address this gap, my study will
investigate the reality of teaching and learning reading for non-English major first year
students at this training center.
At BA-STC, students are required to take an English course in two terms in the first
year. The aim of this course is to equip students the general English program, consisting of
four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In the first term of the first year, the
students learned English in 45 periods of the New Headway Elementary. After 12 weeks,
the students had a final test that consisted of four parts: Vocabulary, Grammar and Reading
comprehension and Writing. The result of the final test in the first term showed us a
surprising number: 72 percent of all the students (115) got bad marks in the reading
comprehension section of the English test, although they had good marks in the other parts
of the test. I would like to look into different aspects and try to find out the reasons leading
to this bad situation. One of the main reasons lies in the fact that the teachers often simply
give students a text and require them to answer a series of comprehension questions when
they have finished reading the text. The teachers do almost nothing to provide them with

target college. Moreover, these instructions may help teachers of English at BA-STC in
their teaching careers.
5. Research methodology
5.1. Data collection instruments
A description of the methodology was employed in this study. First, the classroom
observation was chosen to find out actually how a reading lesson was taught. From the
result of the observation, the researcher carried out three semi-structured interviews to

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have reasons why teachers chose this approach and methods for teaching reading and what
difficulties teachers had in teaching reading. Finally, these questionnaires were designed to
find out the students‟ preferences towards teachers‟ methods in reading lessons and
students‟ difficulties in learning reading.
5.2 The procedure of the study
At first, I investigated the reality and difficulties of English teaching reality in
general and teaching reading in particular at BA-STC with the use of classroom
observation and semi-structured interview tools, then I designed questionnaires to study
learners‟ preference of teachers‟ activities in reading lessons and their difficulties. The
classroom observation was undertaken at this college in 6 weeks and I attended some
reading classes instructed by three teachers. To get reliable real data of how and what to be
taught in reading lessons, I asked the teachers for their permission to attend their classes,
but they were not informed the lessons to be observed. When observing the lessons, I
mainly based on the checklist observation sheets which include anticipated activities that
teachers may use and those which are expected to be used in a good reading lessons. I also
took notes of evidences found in the classes and her comments on the activities, techniques
and procedure. At the end of the lessons, I conducted semi-structured interviews with the
teachers for their explanation of the activities and steps of procedure they applied in the
lessons. I took notes during the interview. Then, the data gathered from the observation
and interview were synthesized and used as basis to design two questionnaires with
Vietnamese versions for students. The first questionnaire distributed after the observed

pronounce the words. Phonemic awareness is the ability to segment, delete, and combine
speech sounds into abstract units. While students will be able to hear phonemes, they may
not be able to conceptualize them as units. Phonemic awareness must be based upon a
growing understanding of the alphabetic principle of English; there is sufficient evidence
that many children basically understand this before they have mastered the set of letter to
sound correspondences (Adam, 1990). This definition supports the bottom-up theory of
reading where the reader decodes the text by referring the smallest unit (letters to words to
phrases and to sentences).
The second definition on reading by Weaver (1994) pertains to the ability to
identify words and extract meanings from words. Knowledge of phonics or basic letter-
sound relationship is necessary but not sufficient when reading to extract meaning from a
text. Just teaching the letter and the associated sound does not develop good readers. The
teaching of phonics should be contextualized and the students‟ learning ability needs to be
taken into consideration.
The third definition on reading as posited by Weaver (1994), supports the
interactive model of reading. In the interactive model, the reader interacts with the text.
The level of depth of text processing depends on the reader‟s background knowledge,
language proficiency level, motivation, strategy used and culturally shaped beliefs about
reading. The ultimate goal of reading will be to enable the readers to understand what they

7
have read. Good comprehension readers have good vocabularies. They are able to
understand and describe words. They use the word in the text to unravel its meaning. They
ask questions, predict and extract main ideas. They are also facile in employing sentence
structures within the text to enhance their comprehension. Therefore, one can conclude that
the three definitions of reading by Weaver (1994) encompass three elements: the ability to
recognize and pronounce words, the ability to extract meaning and to interact with the text.
The three definitions of reading by Weaver (1994) are illustrates in the following diagram:
L
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e
a
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r
n
n
i
i
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writer ) chooses tasks for the students to perform while they read, in light of the type of
text, its organization, its content, the new language it contains and-most importantly- the
reading styles that are appropriate for the act of comprehending ( Williams, 1984, p.38 ).
Classroom reading activities are designed to teach students the reading comprehension
process, not just to test their ability to come up with the right product.
1.2. Approaches to teaching reading

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“How do we read?” To this question, which seems simple but is really profound,
many researchers have tried to find an answer. At present, there are three main models of
how reading occurs based on various reading theories.
The first and oldest approach to the reading process is the bottom-up processing
which can be said to be a traditional view of the reading process. According to Eskey and
Saville-Troike (as cited in Carrell, 1988a), it has existed since before reading research
began to be recognized as an independent scholastic field. This processing goes from the
smaller units of text to the larger units of it (Carrell, 1988b; Frehan, 1999). After the
readers recognize the letters and know what word the combinations of these letters are,
they extract its meaning from their lexicon. Next, they construct the meaning of a phrase or
a clause by gathering the meaning of each word. Finally, they build up the meaning for a
sentence by assembling of each phrase or clause. In short, the meaning of a sentence
consists of the combinations of the smaller units of the sentence. In other words, meaning
was considered to be buried in the text (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983). What is emphasized
in this processing, Segalowitz, Poulsen and Komoda (as citied in Anderson, 1999)
described, is linguistic knowledge such as:
Word recognition and include visual recognition of letter features, letter
identification, the generation of grapheme-phoneme correspondences, unitization of
orthographic redundancies such as regularities in letter sequences, the association
of words to words to their semantic representations, possibly the identification of
basic syntactic structures within the portion of the text currently being in read, and
with the generation of prepositional units. (p. 3).

shift their mode of processing , accommodating to the demands of a particular text and a
particular reading situation” (p.101).
The notion that reading is the interactive process, which means a kind of “whole”
process because of any other kind of knowledge other than linguistic knowledge, will
change the way for teachers to teach and the way for students to read English. Reading
English becomes a little more similar to reading native language.
1.3. Stages of a reading lessons
The process of a reading lesson usually consists of three stages: pre-reading (lead-
in), while- reading (skimming and scanning) and post-reading (Brown, 1994). It is
affirmed that the pre-reading, while- reading, and post-reading are very important when
teaching any reading text. Each of these stages has its own characteristics, although they
are related to one another.
1.3.1. The pre- reading stage

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According to Williams (1984, p.37), the purposes of pre-reading are to introduce
and arouse interest in the topic; to motivate learners by giving a reason for reading; to
provide some language preparation for the text.
Schema theory research provides strong evidence for the effectiveness of pre-
reading activities that include both providing the outline for reading the text and teaching
cultural key concepts. According to Chastain (1988), pre-reading activities motivate
readers to read the text and when they are motivated-prepared for the reading activity -they
complete the activity better and with less effort and are eager to participate in the activity
since they have gained confidence. Lewin (1984) recommends that language teacher- like
other course teachers -should encourage learners to evaluate what they read. Pre-reading
activities may help the teacher to facilitate this. If the readers do not have sufficient
background knowledge then the teacher should provide them with at least some
background knowledge. Activating readers‟ prior knowledge of a topic before they begin
to read may help students‟ comprehension (Carrell and Eisterhold, 1983; Grabe, 1991; Ur,
1996). Ur also argues that tasks make the activity more interesting since the readers have a

The activities in while-reading (William, 1984, p.38) can be: reading for general
understanding (skimming); reading for extracting specific information (scanning); reading
for detailed information; predicting continuing events, then reading to confirm expectation;
reading on communicative tasks.
Hyland (1990), Nunan (1999) and Brown (2001) discuss scanning and skimming
activities. According to Brown, skimming and scanning are thought to be the most
valuable reading strategies. Through skimming, a reader is able to predict the purpose of
the passage, and gets the writer‟s message (Flowerdew and Peacock (2001). In this way
readers are asked to predict the whole text, though they do not read all of it. Similarly,
Anderson (2000) proposes that skimming is a metacognitive skill that is used by good
readers. Bachman and Cohen (1998) and Flowerdew and Peacock (2001) also state that
skimming allows readers to read for general understanding. Scanning and skimming work
better if they are supported with evaluation activities ( Karakas, 2002). Hyland (1990)
states that, through surveying, the reader previews the text content and organization where
she uses referencing and non-text material. Basically, it aims to make quick check of the
relevant extra-text categories such as: referencing data, graphical data, and typographical
data. Karakas (2002) proposes that readers better comprehend if they are asked to state
their ideas about the topic of the text and then evaluate it with their friends in the class and

13
the activities reciprocal teaching, evaluating, inferring and re-reading provide a dialogue
between the reader and the writer while the activities scanning and clarifying draw a clear
mental picture for the reader.
In conclusion, the reading activities which teachers might use range from reading
for the pure sake of reading, silent reading, to more focus reading where the students learn
to skim for the main idea, scan for the secondary categories, or read intensively for the
supporting ideas. Obviously, this helps to encourage critical thinking and increases
comprehension and easy retention.
1.3.3. The Post-reading stage
According to Chastain (1988), post- reading activities help readers to clarify any

components of motivation. He also made the connection “motivation refers to the
combination of effort plus favorable attitudes toward learning the language”. Attitudes
have many impacts towards learning and teaching.
Social psychologists would expect “success in mastering a foreign language would
depend not only on intellectual capacity and language aptitude, but on one‟s attitudes
towards representatives of that language as well” (Gardner & Lamber, 1972). In fact,
learner possess a set of attitudes which relate to the language learning situation, e.g.
attitudes to the course book, to the variety of language, to the target language community,
and so on. Ewards (1982) (cited in Gibb, 1998) assumed that attitudes influence learning:
positive attitudes are likely to result in students‟ motivation, which leads to better learning;
and the students‟ learning will suffer from negative attitudes.
Concerning attitudes in the language learning, it is claimed that attitudes control an
individual motivation and are especially relevant for language learning because language
learning includes many different aspects besides learning skills (Gardner & Lamber, 1972).
It is claimed that attitudes have influence on the development of motivation… and have
more specific effects, so that attitudes appear to carry into particular motivation.
A learners‟ motivation for language study would be determined by his attitudes and
readiness to identify and by his orientation to the whole process of learning a foreign
language ( Gardner & Lamber, 1972). The more motivation a learner has, the more time
s/he will spend learning an aspect of the language (Slopsky, 1992, p.148). Similarly,
Lundberg (1974), in his research, found both motivation for learning a language and
attitudes towards the target culture to be important in factors in effecting learning.
According to these claims attitudes may play a very important role in language learning, as
they would appear to influence students‟ success or failure in their learning.

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In the process of teaching, the approach that teachers use in the classroom depends
on their attitudes towards it. Doukas (1996) mentioned the importance of teachers‟
attitudes in the classroom that „teacher‟ educational attitudes and theories, although in
many cases unconsciously held, have an effect on their classroom behavior, influence what

of cognitive theory, cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies, both of which belong
to learning strategies, should influence reading comprehension greatly.
Hosenfield (1977) identifies a good reader as one who tries to keep the meaning pf
the passage in mind, read in chunks, ignores less important words, tries to guess the
meanings of unknown words using contextual clues, and has a good concept of himself/
herself as a reader. Following these studies, three have been attempts to instruct learners in
using these strategies to make them better readers (Block, 1992; Victori & Lockhart,
1995). These studies show a positive correlation between reading strategy instruction and
reading proficiency.
1.5.2. Vocabulary
Another factor that can have a significant impact on reading comprehension is
vocabulary. Interest in the relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension has
a long history in the research of foreign language reading. Observing the performance of
foreign language readers, confronted with unknown vocabulary, researchers have noted the
important role of vocabulary as a predictor of overall reading ability (Nation, 1990; Grabe,
1991). In fact, second language readers often cite “lack of adequate vocabulary as one of
the obstacles to text comprehension” (Levine & Reves, 1990). In certain contexts, a
sentence or even an entire paragraph might become incomprehensible because of the
occurrence of even a small number of unknown vocabulary items. (Barnett, 1988)
Since the development of psycholinguistic models of reading, researchers and
teachers alike argue that the best way to handle the unfamiliar words in the text is by
drawing inferences from the rest of the text. According to Hosenfield (1984) readiness to
guess from context is what distinguishes a good reader from a bad one.
However, while most researchers find that successful L2 and FL readers can
correctly guess the meaning of unknown words while reading (Carrol & Drum, 1982),
others question the effectiveness of contextual guessing. Thus, Kelly (1990) claims that in
anything other than a highly constrained context, guessing on its own help comprehension.
Likewise, according to Bensoussan & Laufer‟s (1984) observation, many FL readers do
not effectively use context to guess word meanings.


involvement in language can solve the problem of poor motivation. Communicative- based
activities such as oral and recorded reading, asking questions, dictating stories and working

18
in small groups will also facilitate learning as well as increase students‟ motivation for
reading (Carr, 1995). Commitment to read and invest interest in reading is crucial in order
for instruction in learning strategies to be effective.
In summary, learning strategies, vocabulary, motivation and background
knowledge have been confirmed to have influence on learners‟ reading comprehension in
many prior researches. It is likely that these factors would affect the students‟ difficulties
in learning reading comprehension in this study.
1.6. Previous studies
Zenhui (2004) presented his application of a new method in teaching EFL reading,
namely combination of top-down methods and bottom-up methods. His classroom
observations showed that in reading classes in Asia, many teachers focused on grammar
and vocabulary. Their reading teaching methodology often started with reading the text
word- by- word, explaining the meanings or words and grammar structures in the text. He
pointed out some limitations of bottom-up strategies and features of bottom-down
methods. Bottom-down methods often resulted in a meticulous emphasis on linguistic
details and a corresponding lack of attention to communicative skills. He described the
new method of reconciling top-down and bottom-up methods employed in his reading
classes. He concluded that this reconciliation of top-down and bottom-up methods for
teaching English reading worked quite satisfactorily for his students, helping them to
integrate content and language points, speed and comprehension, fluency and accuracy.
His students overall reading ability has improved as a result of this teaching procedure.
1.7. Summary
This chapter has addressed some major issues in terms of reading definitions,
approaches to reading, the impacts of attitudes towards teaching and learning reading,
factors affecting students‟ reading comprehension, previous study and summary.