VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY A STUDY ON THE USE OF TOP-DOWN APPROACH TO IMPROVE READING SKILL FOR LEARNERS AT EQUEST ENGLISH CENTRE (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP TOP-DOWN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC CHO HỌC VIÊN TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ EQUEST) M.A. Minor ProgrammeThesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY A STUDY ON THE USE OF TOP-DOWN APPROACH TO IMPROVE READING SKILL FOR LEARNERS AT EQUEST ENGLISH CENTRE (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP TOP-DOWN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC CHO HỌC VIÊN TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ EQUEST) M.A. Minor ProgrammeThesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. PHẠM ĐĂNG BÌNH Hanoi, 2014 i DECLARATION To the best of my knowledge and belief, this minor thesis contains no material which has previously been submitted and accepted for any other degree in any university. The thesis is my own work and based on my own research. It involves no material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference is made in the paper. Hanoi, 2014 Nguyê ̃ n Thi ̣ Thuy ́ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Pham Dang Binh, from Vietnam National University, University of Languages and International Studies for his invaluable guidance, criticism and his continual encouragement to the process of completing this minor thesis. My gratefulness is to all the teachers from Department of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies for their teaching and useful knowledge. My sincere thanks also go to all my colleagues who are the teachers at Equest Centre for their help and suggestions for the topic of my study. I truly wish to thank all my students at Equest Centre, especially those of class FAE C1 and FAE C2 who have actively participated in the study. Last but not least, my sincere thanks are extended to my family and my best friends who have constantly supported and encouraged me to carry out the thesis. iii ABSTRACT Learning English at a lot of English Centers is becoming more and more popular. Therefore, understanding the importance of English, all teachers at Equest English Centre have an attempt to satisfy the learners‟ need. However, to master English learners need to grasp a lot of different skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these skills, reading is an important one because it does not only help student develop other language skills, but also provides them knowledge on the target language. The above has inspired the writing of this study as an attempt to apply top- down approach in teaching reading to improve reading skills for learners at Equest Centre. This study consists of three parts. Part one presents the rationale, aims, research questions, scope and methods of the study. Part two includes three chapters. Chapter one sets up theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study. The following chapter shows the setting, the subjects, the methods, the way to collect data and the effects of using top-down approach in teaching and learning reading skill at Equest English Centre. The last chapter in this part focuses on the findings, discussion and suggestions for improving reading skill to learners at Equest English. Part three summarizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for further study. iv LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS 1. Tables Table 1.1. Descriptive statistics for the pre-test of the experimental and control groups Table 1.2. Comparison of mode, mean, median and SD for pre-test of the experimental and control groups Table1.3. Descriptive statistics for the post-test of the experimental and control groups Table 1.4. Comparison of mode, mean, median and SD for post-test of the experimental and control groups Table 1.5. Comparison of mean and standard deviation between the experimental and control group in pre-test and post-test Table 2.1. Activities motivated students in the pre-reading stage Table 2.2. Activities attracted students in while-reading stage Table 2.3. Useful activities to students in post-reading stage Table 2.4. Students‟ difficulties in reading Table 2.5. Teaching methods in helping students overcome difficulties in reading 2. Charts Chart 1.1. Percentage of the raw mark in the pre-test Chart 1.2. Percentage of the raw mark in the post-test Chart 2.1. The students‟ opinion about the reading tasks Chart 2.2. The students‟ opinion about teaching methods Chart 2.3. The students‟ opinion about learning reading with top-down process Chart 2.4. The students‟ opinion about their reading skill after a course with top- down process v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS II ABSTRACT III LISTS OF TABLES AND CHARTS IV PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Rationale 1 2. Hypothesis 2 3. Aims of the study 2 4. Scope of the study 2 5. Methods of the study 3 6. Design of the study 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 1.1. Theory on Reading 4 1.1.1. Definitions of Reading 4 1.1.2. Reading comprehension 5 1.1.3. Types of reading 7 1.2. Teaching Reading skill 9 1.2.1. Principles of teaching reading 9 1.2.2. Stages of a reading lesson 11 1.3. Top-down approach 14 1.3.1. Definition 14 1.3.2. Top-down versus Bottom-up processing 14 1.3.3. Top-down approach in reading 15 1.3.4. Top-down techniques in teaching reading 17 1.4. Summary 20 CHAPTER 2: 22 vi METHODOLOGY 22 2.1. Setting of the study 22 2.1.1. Subjects‟ background information 22 2.1.2. The teachers and teaching methods 23 2.1.3. Materials 23 2.2. Subjects 24 2.3. Methods 24 2.3.1. Test 24 2.3.2. Questionnaire 25 2.4. Procedures 25 2.4.1. Data collection 25 2.4.2. Data analysis 26 2.5. The application of top-down techniques in reading class 26 CHAPTER 3: 28 FINDINGS, DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS 28 3.1. Findings 28 3.1.1. Analysis of the test results 28 3.1.2. Analysis of the questionnaire results 33 3.2 Discussion 43 3.2.1. Discussion on the students‟ part 43 3.2.2. Discussion on the teacher‟s part 45 3.3. Implications 46 3.3.1. Top-down techniques should be applied widely at Equest Centre 46 3.3.2. Arousing students‟ motivation and interest 47 3.3.3. Enlarging students‟ background knowledge 47 3.3.4. Suggested activities for improving reading skill through top-down approach 48 3.4. Summary 50 PART C: CONCLUSION 51 vii 1. Summary of the study 51 REFERENCES 53 APPENDIX 1: I SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE I APPENDIX 2: THE PRE-TEST V APPENDIX 3: THE POST-TEST IX APPENDIX 4: SAMPLE LESSON XIII 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale It is undeniable that English in the life of any society in the world today has been becoming more and more important. The widespread need for English as an international language puts a considerable pressure on the education resources of any countries. In case of our country, since our government carried out the open door policy to attract foreign investment and co-operate with other countries, teaching and learning English has become necessary. Moreover, English is a means of international communication in the fields of science, technology, culture, education, economy and so on. That is the reason why at present, learning English is not only the interest but also the great and practical demand for many people, especially for people who always want to assess the modern world. Therefore, learning English at a lot of English Centre is becoming popular. Understanding the importance of English, all teachers at Equest English Centre have an attempt to satisfy the learners‟ need. At Equest English is the foreign language dominating the teaching and learning programs for 10 years. Despite a prejudice that learning English at a center is less effective than that at some universities, colleges, or international schools, learners at Equest, regardless of their ages, always strive for a good command of English as they are well aware of their learning purposes. Through 10 years of development, Equest has provided a number of learning English programs. Therefore, there are 38 000 learners learning English at Equest in 2013. However, to master English learners need to grasp a lot of different skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. Among these skills, reading is an important one because it does not only help student develop other language skills, but also provides them knowledge on the target language. According to Byrne (1986), “reading is an important way of expanding the students’ receptive [...]... summaries about the sample and the measures Together with simple graphics analysis, they form the basis of virtually every quantitative analysis of data There are four major types of estimates in this kind of statistics They are mean, median, mode and standard deviation (SD) In addition, tables and charts were used to show the result from the data 2.5 The application of top-down techniques in reading. .. top-down t approach in teaching reading to learners at Equest English Center - Investigating the teachers‟ and learners perceptions regarding reading activities using top-down approach - Formulating pedagogical implications and making suggestions for improving the teaching and learning of the reading skill at Equest English Center 4 Scope of the study In this study, the investigator intends to use top-down. .. Moreover, the aim of extensive reading is to encourage readers to cover a large amount of material in a comparatively short time and to gain a general understanding of what is read instead of analyzing the detailed information Basing on the importance of extensive reading, Nuttal (1982:168) shows that the best way to improve one’s knowledge of a foreign language is to go and live among its speakers: The. .. can be made between strategies and skills (Kawai, Oxford, and Iran-Nejad, 2000) Strategies can be defined as conscious actions that learners take to achieve desired goals or objectives, while a skill is a strategy that has become automatic This characterization underscores the active role that readers play in strategic reading As learners consciously learn and practice specific reading strategies, the. .. because of some advantages Firstly, this method can give the researcher the need data in quantitative form Secondly, all informants have chance of expressing their attitudes As a result, researcher can have more uniform and accurate data The questionnaire of this study was designed by the investigator to collect the data It contained 9 questions All these questions were designed based on the theory of reading. .. to carry out the study entitled A study on the use of top-down approach to improve reading skill for learners at Equest English Centre 2 Hypothesis This study is designed to test the following hypothesis: Top-down approach helps to enhance reading comprehension for learners at Equest English Centre 3 Aims of the study This study is carried out to aim at: - Investigating the effects of using top-down. .. stage plays a decisive role in the whole process of teaching reading comprehension, so most experienced readers employ pre- reading and other strategies to make reading easier Pre- reading aims at introducing the text to the students and helps them make careful preparation before reading the text It is advisable for the teacher to create a reading motivation and a positive attitude towards reading for. .. shows the tool and the way that the investigator conducted the study In this chapter, the investigator will show some settings of the study, the subjects and the way to collect data as well as the way to analyze data 2.1 Setting of the study 2.1.1 Subjects‟ background information Equest English Language Institute was established in 2003 After more than 10 years of construction and development, Equest has... definition of top-down approach, the differences between top-down and bottom-up approach, and the top-down techniques in teaching reading 1.1 Theory on Reading 1.1.1 Definitions of Reading For many students, reading is a very important skill Concerning the role of reading, Anderson (1999) confirms that the more exposure the student has to language through reading, the greater the possibilities that overall... et al (1997), extensive reading often, such as in an EAP (English for academic purpose) setting, involves rapid reading of large amounts of material or longer contents, such as a whole book, for getting a gist or a focus generally on the meaning of what is being read Especially, this pattern of reading gets the reader to focus on reading itself rather than mastering the particular structure of a skill . OF TOP-DOWN APPROACH TO IMPROVE READING SKILL FOR LEARNERS AT EQUEST ENGLISH CENTRE (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP TOP-DOWN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC CHO HỌC VIÊN TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ. OF TOP-DOWN APPROACH TO IMPROVE READING SKILL FOR LEARNERS AT EQUEST ENGLISH CENTRE (NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP TOP-DOWN ĐỂ NÂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC CHO HỌC VIÊN TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ. a reading lesson 11 1.3. Top-down approach 14 1.3.1. Definition 14 1.3.2. Top-down versus Bottom-up processing 14 1.3.3. Top-down approach in reading 15 1.3.4. Top-down techniques in teaching