CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
I.1. Background to the study.
The University of Labour and Social Affairs (ULSA) is a university which was
upgraded from the College of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs in 2005. Like other
universities in Vietnam, this university is responsible for the training of skilled students to
meet the demand of the society in the process of industrialization and modernization. There
are faculties in the university namely Accounting, Insurance, Labour Management, and
Social Affairs with about 1.200 students being trained at the moment. However, this number
is increasing because of the expansion of the university.
Every year, graduates from ULSA are sent to work in various economic fields such as
national and local resorts, the state and joint-venture companies, enterprises located in Hanoi
as well as throughout the country. With the direction of globalization in our society
nowadays, foreign languages- especially English seems to be a very important condition for
them to get a job. ULSA graduates are supposed to be able to use English to communicate
as well as to read materials. However, a lot of ULSA graduates miss their job opportunities
because of their poor English proficiency.
Being aware of the problem posed to their students, ULSA authorities have
implimented some specific innovations in order to raise the quality of training in their own
context, among which is the change of teaching and learning English at the institution. These
attempts can be seen in the curriculum of the school which allocates outnumber of periods
for English among other school subjects and their encouragement to the English teaching
staff to renovate their teaching methods. During their course at the university, students are
given 330 class-hours of English ( each class-hour equals forty five minutes) of which 150
are spent on the course book Lifeline Elementary and divided equally in the first and the
second semester of the first year ( each semester covers 75 class hours). In the rest 180 class
hours, students must take English for Special Purposes (ESP) courses with the book "
English for Labour and Social Affairs" compiled by the English Division of the university.
In this course English learning focuses mainly on reading. However, after finishing the
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course book Lifeline-Elementary the students still have a lot of difficulties with new words
and new grammar structures which affect their learning.

comparison to those who not have extra reading practice.
So as to draw the conclusion on the hypothesis, the study is to get the answer to the
following question:
Does an extensive reading program have a positive effect on students' reading
comprehension in the context of ULSA?
I.4. Research method.
Research design can be thought of as the structure of research -- it is the "glue" that
holds all the elements in a research project together. Therefore, it requires the researcher's
prudence and caution to single out among a variety of research methods the one that best
suits the aims and objectives of the study.
As stated previously, this study is aimed to examine the effectiveness of extensive
reading on students' reading comprehension at ULSA, therefore, the best method to be used
in this study is experimental research. Experimental designs are proved to be especially
useful in addressing evaluation questions about the effectiveness and impact of programs, as
Salkind has pointed out that in an experimental research" One factor is related to another in
such a way that changes in that factor are usually causally related to changes in the other. So,
it is not just a relationship where two variables share something in common (as in the case
with a correlation relationship); it is much more. They share something, but one directly
affects the other." (Salkind, 2006; 127). The three designs within the scope of experimental
method are true-experimental, quasi-experimental and pre-experimental designs. They are
different from one another in terms of the degree to which they impose control over the
variables being studied and the degree of randomness that enters into the design. (Salkind,
2006; 218). Considering the conditions in which the study would be carried out, the quasi-
experimental design is chosen for the study for the following reasons. Firstly, the subjects of
the study have already been assigned prior to the study. In this study, two classes of first-
year students were assigned to the researcher as well as a teacher by the person who was in
charge of arranging the teaching schedule for the teaching staff. In addition to this, the two
classes in the study were not removed from the normal teaching and learning context. This
3
characteristic made up the external validity of the study which helps to increase the validity

concerned with second or foreign language learning since there a traditional distinction
between the two. Those who learn a language as a second language live in countries where
the language is used at least for some day-to -day activities and/or as the medium of
instruction in the secondary schools. If people learn a language in a country where it is not
commonly spoken, they are taking part in foreign language learning. In the case of a
language learnt for academic purposes, learners may not use it in everyday life but use it as
the medium of learning at least at tertiary level. However, as my research related to English
as a subject at school, I shall refer to all non-native speakers as speakers of foreign language.
II.2. Theoretical background of reading and reading activities.
II.2.1 Definitions of reading
Reading is a completely individual activity which takes place in all different ways
from reading newspapers, magazines, written tests, telephone directory, labels on medicine
bottles, notices, ect. The ability to read is such a natural part of human beings that they
seldom try to define reading. However there are still different points of view on the
definition of reading.
If Ur defines "reading means reading and understanding" (Ur, 1996;138), Goodman
(1971; 135) considers reading as "a psychological process by which the reader, the language
user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a
graphic display", and the act of reconstruction is viewed as " a cyclical process of sampling,
predicting, testing and confirming." Another researcher named Tickoo emphasizes "reading
involves a triangular interaction- between the reader, the writer and the texts."(Tickoo;
2006). In addition to this, Rubin and Thompson (1994; 91) offer another definition:"
Reading is active information -seeking process in which readers relate information in the text
to what they already know". In this view, reading is about understanding written texts. It is a
complex activity that involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related
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processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of
perceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language. Comprehension is the
process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text. Readers typically make use
of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and

community of language users will persist" (Omaggio, 1993: 46 as cited in Elba,2006).
According to Elba (2006), the main method associated with the bottom-up approach
to reading is known as phonics, which requires the learner to match letters with sounds in a
defined sequence. From this point of view, reading is a linear process by which readers
decode a text word by word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences. Sharing the
same view, Anderson considers textual comprehension as a process which involves adding
the meanings of words to get the meanings of clauses (Anderson, 1994 as cited in Elba,
2006). In this view point, language is a code and the reader is a passive decoder whose main
task is to identify graphemes and convert them into phonemes. Information is received and
processed beginning with the smallest sound units, and then proceeding to letter blends,
words, phrases, and sentences. The bottom-up model describes information flow as a series
of stages that transforms the input and passes it to the next stage without any feedback or
possibility of later stages of the process influencing earlier stages. Elba (2006) also added
that the ESL and EFL textbooks influenced by this perspective include exercises that focus
on literal comprehension and give little or no importance to the reader's knowledge or
experience with the subject matter, and the only interaction is with the basic building blocks
of sounds and words. Most activities are based on recognition and recall of lexical and
grammatical forms with an emphasis on the perceptual and decoding dimension.
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II.2.2.2. The top-down view of reading
The top-down approach to L2 learning strongly emphasizes the experience and
knowledge of the learner. In Nuttal's words, in top-down processing," we draw our
intelligence and experience - the prediction we can make, based on the schemata we have
acquired- to understand the text........this kind of processing is used when we interpret
assumptions and draw inferences." (Nuttal, 1996: 16) This approach is compared to an
eagle's eye view of the landscape in the meaning that from a great height, the eagle can see a
wide area spread out below; it understand the nature of the whole terrain, its general pattern
and the relationships between various parts of it, far better than an observer on the ground.
Elba (2006) supports this approach by introducing the notions of meaningful learning and
rote learning. An example of rote learning in her study is simply memorizing lists of isolated

To summarize, the appearance and popularity of interactive model show that
interactive model is able to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the
separate use of either bottom-up or top-down model. The interaction of the two models is of
much use as Nuttall concludes 'both approaches can be mobilized by conscious choice, and
both are important strategies for readers' (Nuttall, 1996:17). In this view he suggests using
the top-down approach, that is first activating all the prior knowledge you can about the topic
and the type of text and second, skimming to get the rough idea of the content and structure
when we start reading. This enables you to have "an idea of the context and the general
direction of the argument or narrative". If the top-down approach does not provide you with
adequate understanding of the text, you use the bottom-up insights 'to weigh up competing
interpretations.' And when you have already got the possible interpretation of the text, you
assess its plausibility using top-down means. (Nuttall, 1996:78)
II.2.3 Reading strategies /skills
Reading strategies( RSs) can be understood similarly to all other language learning
strategies and they have the same characteristics as other language strategies. If Garner
(1987) defines RSs as an action or series of actions employed in order to construct meaning,
Robb and Susser (1990) point out that RSs refer to the mental operations involved when
readers purposefully approach a text to make sense of what they read. According to Duffy
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(1993; 232) using reading strategies means making 'plans for solving problems encounted in
constructing meaning'. Although many researchers have claimed on the lack of consensus
about the concise definition of the term of RSs (Paris, Wasik, and Turner, 1991; Ellis, 1994)
Nuttall (1996) agrees that ' we can at least identify certain strategies which readers can make
conscious use of when reading difficult texts' and that ' the best way to acquire these is
simply to read and read' but' there is evidence that strategy training helps'. In Salataci &
Akyel (2002) point of view 'Reading researchers usually divide reading strategies into two
major categories: cognitive and metacognitive'. They cite Devine's opinion about this by
showing out that "skimming a text for key information involves using a cognitive strategy,
whereas assessing the effectiveness of skimming for gathering textual information would be
a metacognitive strategy" (Devine, 1993; 112 as cited in Salataci & Akyel, 2002).

text is relevant to our study. This overview will help you decide whether you should read
further, and how useful the document might be for your reading purpose. Scanning and
skimming are important as they do not remove the need for careful reading, but they enable
the reader to select texts or parts of texts that are worth spending time on but the distinction
between them is not particularly important (Nuttall, 1996).
Secondly, using the text effectively also involves making use of all the resources the
text provides such as graphic conventions (lay out, spacing, indentation, punctuation,
symbols), figures, and other reference apparatus ( appendix, notes, bibliographical references
in the text, lists of symbols, abbreviations, list of special terms, glossaries) as they enable us
to read selectively ( omitting irrelevant sections) and offer some clues to meaning by
signaling what we can expect to find in which part of the text.
Last but not least, improving reading speed is also an important technique in this
strategy. Speed is one of the factors to consider when judging someone's reading efficiency.
If two readers understand a text equally well, the one who performs more quickly is judged
more efficient. Readers can speed up their work by "finding the relevant texts/ sections and
focusing on these" (Nuttall , 1996, 54)
Reading skills are divided into word-attack skills and text-attack skills by Nuttall
(1996). In the first place, word-attack skills are those of interpreting structural clues,
inferring from context and using the dictionary. Firstly, two kinds of structural information
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involving in the first skill here are the grammatical function of the word (its place in the
sentence) and the morphology of the word (its internal structure). Secondly, inferring
meaning from context means getting a rough meaning from the context in which it occurred.
And lastly, it is essential for students to realize that they can cope without a dictionary and
they should be discouraged from using one. But 'any students reading for a serious study
purpose need to be able to look up key words. So they must learn to use a dictionary very
effectively and with discretion.' (Nuttall, 1996; 76)
The eight text-attack skills are sub-divided into sub-skills by Nuttall (1996) as
follows:
1. Understanding syntax

These skills will assist readers to have proper understanding of a text.
There are a lot of other authors offering their own lists in order to best express their
point of view about reading strategies and reading skills but only the above were mentioned
due to the limitation of time and the scope of this study. Nevertheless, what they all have in
common is that these skills are interrelated and should be used flexibly. No single skill can
lead to efficient reading but a combination and recycle of skills over texts and tasks.
II.2.4. Types of reading
There are a great deal of ways to classify reading such as the classification according
to manners of reading and the classification according to the purposes of reading. In this
study the two kinds of reading mentioned are intensive reading and extensive reading.
Intensive reading "involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a
task which forces the students to focus on the text" (Nuttall, 2000:38). Brown considers
intensive reading as "a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic
or semantic details of a passage" (Brown, 1999: 297). The objective of intensive reading is to
achieve a full understanding of the text, not only of what it means but also of how the
meaning is produced. Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound and
detailed understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of the
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text, the attitude and purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to achieve his purposes.
Intensive reading has the following characteristics:
1. The reading materials may not be relevant to learners' ability and interest as they
are chosen by teachers not learners.
2. In doing intensive reading, the actual amount of time spent on reading is very little
as a lot of procedures such as listening to the teacher's instructions, reading comprehension
questions, writing answers to comprehensive questions, discussing the content of the text,
doing pos-reading activities.... have to be followed.
3. Reading speed is usually slower than faster as learners have to stop at some
moments during their reading in the classroom to look up new words in dictionary, ask the
teacher for a definition or analyze the text by reading it word-by word or sentence-by-
sentence.

amount of and primary purpose of reading and the role of learners in doing such activity.
However, because of the last characteristic that is the books are not discussed in class, this
definition is still not suitable to this study.
Given the fact that there is hardly any definition that can work in all contexts, it is
necessary to give out a working definition for this study. Considering various definitions and
the context of the study, our working definition is that extensive reading is reading (a)
without help (b) authentic texts in the foreign language (c) at students' own level of
proficiency (d) for general or global understanding (e) with primary intention of obtaining
pleasure from the materials and (f) done out of class without the added pressure of a
comprehension test to follow.
Large quantities are essential for this kind of reading to be "extensive," but the
question of how much "extensive" is still controversial. Our students are advised to read as
much as possible because the more they read, the greater they benefit from reading. From
Day and Bamford's point of view "the quantity of reading is not an absolute number of hours
or pages but depends on teacher and student perceptions of how extensive reading differs
from other reading classes; this will vary according to type of program, level, and other
variables (Day and Bamford ,2002).
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The level of global understanding required varies with the student's language
proficiency, the nature of the texts, and other factors. The aim of reading for pleasure can
also be derived from the fact that students do not have to face the pressure of completing the
tasks provided after reading activity. Moreover, taking part in extensive reading students do
not have to face the time pressure set by their teachers or any tasks involved in the reading.
Most of the reading tasks are done out of class, therefore students have to develop the ability
to read on their own, without the teacher's help. Students can read with pleasure within their
own comfort zone, both in the students' own time when and where the student chooses, or
inside the classroom when part or all of a classroom period is set aside for silent, self-
selected reading.
With regard to authentic texts, Nuttall gives her idea about this as follow "The
reading skill is of no practical use unless it enables us to read texts we actually require for

Reading materials are well within
learners' linguistic competence.
Learners actually do little reading Learners do a lot of reading.
Learners read words by words or
sentence by sentence.
Learners read with ideas.
Reading speed is usually slower than
faster
Reading speed is usually faster than
slower.
Learners have no chance to activate their
background knowledge- schema- while
reading.
Learners have chance to activate their
background knowledge-schema- while
reading.
Reading is mostly done in class. Reading is mostly done out of class.
Reading is not individual and personal. Reading is individual and personal.
The teacher usually instructs and controls
learners' reading
The teacher usually instructs and models
learners' reading.
II.4. Research into the effectiveness of extensive reading on language acquisition.
On the whole the effectiveness of extensive reading on language acquisition is
summarized in the slogan cited in Nuttall's "The best way to improve your language of a
foreign language is to go and live among its speakers. The next best way is to read
extensively in it." (Nuttall, 1996; 128). Studies on language acquisition have a great deal of
evidence for the assumptions made about the benefits of extensive reading on learning as
well as teaching a foreign language. For the aim of this study, some studies on the effects of
extensive reading on learners' reading proficiency will be discussed in this section.

to 181 wpm, and in Treatment 3 from 106 to 121 wpm.
Sharing the same interest, Robb and Susser (1989) conducted a study over two
semesters, on freshmen, at a university in Japan. The participants’ English proficiency was
not mentioned. They were divided into two groups: an ER group and IR group. They took
pretests and posttests, and researchers conducted an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to
compare the means between the groups. The mean rate of the posttest in the treatment group
(ER) improved from 79.31 to 86.55 wpm, but not in the control group (IR), which fell from
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78.50 to 76.75 wpm. They found that the mean differences in the posttest were statistically
significant. However, readability of the rate texts was not mentioned
In the experimental study over six months done by Lituanas, Jacons and Rynandya
(2001), the 60 students at a Philippines secondary school were divided into two groups.
Almost all students (ninety percent) of the school came from low-incomes homes where
reading materials tend to be scarce. In this study, the control group studied via a traditional
approach, focusing on intensive reading and phonics and the extensive reading class read
self-selected materials and did a variety of post-reading activities. The results of the t-tests
showed that after the 6-month experiment, there was a significant difference between the two
groups in terms of reading proficiency. However, there were some limitations in this study
such as the two groups were managed by two different teachers (this may interfere with the
interpretation of test results), and extensive reading was done in class (not different from
intensive reading- reading in class under teacher's control).
Taguchi et al. (2004) conducted a study on university students for 17 weeks in Japan.
Their English proficiency was at a beginning level. The participants were divided into two
groups: an extensive reading group and a repeated reading group. The total amount of time
the participants in the extensive reading group spent on sustained silent reading was from
733 to 901 minutes, and the number of pages they read was from 147 to 337 with an average
of 205 pages. To measure rate, the participants read an entire text, measured the time they
spent, and calculated their wpm. They read the passage 5 times, and their rate was measured
each time. To compare means, only their first reading rate was targeted. The results in this
study showed that within themselves, both repeated reading and extensive reading groups

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II. 5. Conclusion
This chapter so far has presented the relevant literature including the theoretical
background of reading activities, definition of extensive reading and the benefits of extensive
reading on language learning. On the whole, extensive reading, if being well-conducted, is
believed to result in achievement in learners' reading proficiency and is proved to be
effective in a great deal of different contexts. However, one may wonder if extensive reading
does have effect on learners' reading proficiency in the context of ULSA where the language
teaching and learning conditions are different. This study is conducted in order to find out
the answer to this question. The following chapter will discuss the methodology of the study
in the light of the above-mentioned theories and practices.
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CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY
III. 1. Introduction
This chapter aims to provide readers detailed description of how the study was
carried out. Firstly, there will be information about the research questions and detailed
description of variables of the study. Next, the readers will be provided information about
the data collection instruments as well as the subjects of the study. Data collection
procedures and data analysis will be presented in the following section.
III.2. Description of variables
As mentioned in chapter I the aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of
extensive reading on students' reading comprehension at University of Labor and Social
Affairs. In other words, experimental design is used in this study to determine how the
extensive reading program (the independent variable) causes the changes in students' reading
comprehension (the dependent variable).
 Independent variable
An extensive reading program may be measured by the amount of texts read by
students and that of time spent on extensive reading. Although the texts selected by students
in this study were considered to be at the same level, they might be different from one
another in terms of length. Therefore it would be unsatisfying to compare a student who had

members' overall English readiness was homogenous according to the result of the
placement test at the beginning of the course, were assigned to the researcher as well as the
teacher by the person who was in charge of arranging the teaching schedule for the teaching
staff so that the removal of any individuals from one group to the other is impossible. All the
students in these two classes were at the ages from 19 to 20 and had been living in a variety
of provinces in the north and central of Vietnam. This may be inferred that their social and
cultural background was relatively homogeneous. Moreover, the participants were selected
in the second semester with the assumption that they had had enough time to get used to the
teaching and learning environment at the university that was quite different from that at high
school. However the two sample classes were not the same in size, which numbered 45 and
48 respectively. In addition to this there was a difference in gender in these two groups. The
23
former consisted of 19 male students and 26 female students while the later had 21 male
students and 27 female students. After considering all these factors in sampling with regard
to a sudden event that one or more students in each group dropped either the pre-test or the
post-test during the experimental study, the final sample of 80 were chosen and divided
equally into two groups ( 15 males and 25 females in each), that is the control group and the
experimental group. The other students in the two classes still attended the program but no
data were collected on these students. Once again, the decision on which one would be the
control group and which one would be the experimental group was made at random. In short
the students in the two groups were representative of the first year students who made up the
target population of the study.
Of the 40 students in the control group(G1), based on the results of the pretest, 13
students with a score below 5.0(out of a possible 10.0) were regarded as bad readers and
were grouped in bad control group (BCG), 15 students with a score from 5.0 to 8.0 were
perceived as medium readers and grouped in medium control group (MCG) and the rest 12
students with a score of 8.0 and above were good readers and made up the good control
group (GCG).
In the same manner, the experimental group (G2) was sub-divided in to the bad
experimental group (BEG) with 15 students, the medium experimental group (MEG) with 14

mean
=6.28
mean
=8.43
Table 2: Background information of informants
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III.4. Tests.
In this study, two separate tests, a pretest and a posttest, were used to collect data on
the students’ reading comprehension proficiency as well as their reading strategies (RSs)
used. Therefore, the tests should assess not only language and grammar items that the
students had learnt, but also should include variety of reading tasks they had practiced during
the course or part of course such as multiple choice, true or false, gap filling, main idea,
etc….
It was expected that in order to fulfill the tests successfully, the students would
probably use different appropriate RSs. Therefore, it was very likely that the more different
types of reading tasks the students fulfilled the more different RSs they probably used.
Through completing variety of reading tasks in the tests, the students would have
opportunities to apply variety of RSs, and as the result, they were supposed to provide more
accurate information about their reading comprehension.
In fact, in order to reach those aims of the tests, both pre- and post-tests were
designed based on the format of the progress tests and extension units in the students’ course
book Lifelines Elementary by Hutchinson (1999). Specifically, both pre- and post-tests
consists of five tasks as presented below.
- Task I is a multiple choice task with 8 comprehension questions. In order to
complete the reading task in part I successfully, it was expected that the students would
apply different RSs, such as, 'skimming for general impression or gist', ' scanning for
specific information', 'understanding the relationships between words and paragraphs( text-
attack skills).
- Task II is a true or false task with 6 statements. It was supposed that the students
would employ variety of RSs to fulfill the task effectively, such as ‘recognising opinions