CAN THO UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE

--✍--

RESEARCH PROPOSAL
THE IMPACT OF QUESTIONING IN PRE
- READING FOR EFL STUDENT AT CTU

Superviser: M.A student: LE NGUYEN TUONG VY

Assoc. Prof. Dr. NGUYEN BUU HUAN Student’sID: M1623064
Class:FL2316SN
Major:Principles and Methods of
English Language Education
Cohort: 30

Can Tho, October, 2023

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 2

1.1 Rationale ................................................................................................................................ 2

1.2 Research aim: ........................................................................................................................ 4

1.3 Research question: ................................................................................................................ 4

2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................ 5

2.1 Reading comprehension: ....................................................................................................... 5

2.2 Pre-reading activities: ............................................................................................................ 5

2.3 Questioning: .......................................................................................................................... 6

2.4 Related studies : ..................................................................................................................... 6

3: METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................................... 9

3.1 Design: ................................................................................................................................... 9

3.2 Methods: ................................................................................................................................ 9

3.3 Participants: ......................................................................................................................... 10

4: RESULTS .................................................................................................................................. 11

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 12

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 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
Reading is regarded as an integral aspect of human existence, as it fulfills the needs
of people for both amusement and knowledge acquisition. Reading in English is becoming
more and more crucial even though English is becoming more and more common, espe-
cially in Vietnam. Proficiency in reading English texts is imperative for Vietnamese stu-
dents, not just for academic but also for professional growth. Reading helps people learn
languages in many ways. According to Martin-Chang & Gould (2008), reading promotes
language development. According to Do and Vo (2015), individuals who regularly read
books will have greater proficiency in both writing and speaking vocabulary.

For many students, though, understanding the text in its entirety can be difficult.
When coaching students in reading comprehension, most teachers focus on providing an
explanation and a description of the text's content. Following this, they ask students to com-
plete exercises in which they must respond to questions by primarily using the text. There
is a lack of instruction to understand textual content, even though the idea of studying com-
prehension is gaining ground on studying textual material. So, motivating students to en-
gage with the content is among the most crucial parts of coaching learning. Then, by closely
examining the text, the academics can gather new information. Put another way, they in-
vestigate newly discovered competence. When teachers assign their students to read Eng-
lish texts and then comprehend the reading's content, it can be challenging. The results of
the exercises given to the students after they have finished reading show how low their level
of reading comprehension is still. Teachers face challenges when it comes to applying ap-
propriate reading comprehension learning techniques to students because they lack creativ-
ity in this area. Students get bored easily because of the teacher's reading strategy.

Studies on reading comprehension have been carried out by numerous researchers.

The findings of the researcher's earlier investigation revealed that SMPN 2 Pasarkemis
eighth-grade pupils had a variety of reading difficulties. First, the assigned text's subject is
unfamiliar to the students. Pupils don't know what they are reading or what the text is trying

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to teach them. Second, it is challenging for students to understand the text because of their
limited vocabulary. Students are confused because they do not understand the words and
are too lazy to look them up in a dictionary when they receive an English essay from their
teacher. Thirdly, reading English words is a challenge for the students. Teachers always
aim to help a student in the class read an English passage correctly when they teach reading,
but the student doesn't. Fourth, they want to learn without difficulty. But, in order to fully
comprehend the text while reading, the reader must pay attention to every detail because
the arrangement of the text makes it easy for the reader to understand. It is crucial that they
comprehend the reading by having a general understanding of the text, as they occasionally
may discover that the best way to ask questions is beforehand. Pre-questioning has the po-
tential to increase student interest and motivation even before they finish reading the text
(Brown, 2001, p. 100).

Previous studies show that the effect of pre-questioning techniques on students' read-
ing comprehension has increased, indicating the success of using pre-questioning tech-
niques in reading comprehension.One of them is from Sari Fitriyani's (2015) research title,
which uses pre-questioning techniques to improve student achievement in reading narrative
text. Based on the data analysis, it was discovered that the study's measure of effectiveness
was 1.99, which was classified as "high effect." There are steps to implementing the pre-
questioning technique, according to Qolisoh (2015). The procedure is as follows: The
teacher gave the students some text after selecting the type of question and its level of
difficulty, selecting what type of question to ask based on the objective of the lesson, pro-
gress made, and the students' learning needs, and phrasing and delivering the question. The
teacher asks students questions using the pre-questioning technique, then listens to their
responses and provides feedback.

Unlike previous studies, this study focuses mainly on students in Can Tho and what
benefits of pre-questioning in reading. In other words, the impact of asking questions before
reading on students. Furthermore, with this research, students can improve their reading

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comprehension if they know how to ask questions first and it is important that Students
must understand how to ask questions first to be able to read and understand well.

1.2 Research aim:

This study aims to determine the effects of asking questions before reading on the
reading comprehension process of students at Can Tho.

1.3 Research question:

This study will address the following question:
1: What is the impact of applying questions on students' reading comprehension?

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 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Reading comprehension:

The nature of reading comprehension is debated by theorists. Reading, according to
conventional wisdom, is a passive decoding process in which "meaning is embodied in the
text and the reader can extract the meaning from the print if he understands it letter by
letter and word by word" (Goodman, 1988).

Reading comprehension is an individual's ability to comprehend a text in a variety

of ways based on his or her own experiences or prior knowledge, according to constructivist
theory (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). Furthermore, according to Nuttall (1996), decoding
the meaning of a text involves both the reader and the text in a participatory process. Ru-
melhart (1980) also proposed that teachers of reading skills teach background knowledge
first in order to prepare students for the knowledge that will be covered in the passage and
to assist students in predicting the meanings from the printed words.

Reading comprehension, according to Duke (2003) and Grabe (2009), is a process

in which readers interact with the text and make sense of the information presented to them
while connecting it to prior knowledge and experiences.

2.2 Pre-reading activities:

Pre-reading activities are activities that provide learners with “activities that help
students with cultural background, stimulate students ’interest in the text, and pre-teach
vocabulary” (Lazar, 1993, p.83). Meanwhile, Ajideh (2006) thinks that “pre-reading activ-
ities provide the reader with necessary background to organize activity and to comprehend
the materials”.

According to Ajideh (2003), pre-reading activity questions are a teaching strategy

that promotes student engagement, learning, and critical thinking.
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 Ajideh (2006) only suggested two types of pre-reading activities:
questioning;
semantic map.

While assisting students' text comprehension, the instructor's pre-reading question-

ing strategy, especially in English, must be honed and maintained. As a result, in order to
improve text comprehension, teachers must consider the type of questions that can immerse
students in their learning process.

2.3 Questioning:
Questioning is one type of top-down processing activity (Ajideh, 2006).According
to King (1994), comprehension questions should be used during the pre-reading stage to
prompt students' key concepts in the reading piece. Alternatively, according to Ajideh's
(2006)'s research, teachers can use the comprehension questions that appear in the textbook
after the reading selection or in the teachers' manual to create effective pre-reading ques-
tions.

According to Lundy (2008), higher-level questions do not have a single correct an-
swer but rather encourage students to use critical thinking. According to Lewis (2015),
asking higher-level questions gives teachers more information about their students' com-
prehension of a particular text passage. As a result, teachers must prepare questions that
encourage students to think about the meanings of the concepts they are learning.

2.4 Related studies :

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 Many studies with various subjects and methodologies have been conducted to de-
termine the relationship between readers' questioning construction or activation through
pre-reading activities and reading comprehension. Various results have been discovered. In
this area, the researchers used a quasi-experimental design to collect data.

Riswanto (2022) conducted this study to determine the results of students' reading
ability scores after using the question-and-answer technique in Bengkulu. This study em-
ployed the experimental research approach. Students from a middle school in the eighth
grade are the participants of this study. Pre-questioning was used to teach the twenty stu-
dents in the experimental class, and discovery learning was used to teach the twenty stu-
dents in the control group. A descriptive text pre- and post-test served as the study's instru-
ments. The results of this study show that using pre-questioning techniques can have a pos-
itive impact on improving students' reading comprehension.

Melati (2019) investigated how pre-questioning strategies affected students' reading

comprehension. This study was carried out in a quasi-experimental setting. The population
of the study was students in grades VIII at SMP& 16 Mandau for the 2017-2018 academic
year. Using the cluster random sampling technique, the sample for the experimental group
was VIII-3 class, and the sample for the control group was VIII-7 class. The reading com-
prehension exam served as the tool. The t-test was used to analyze the data. Finally, pre-
questioning strategies resulted in better reading comprehension outcomes. Pre-questioning
strategies could be used as one of the methods for teaching reading at SMP & 16 Mandau.
However, since the writer used the cluster-sampling technique in choosing the sample of
the population, the result of this study only can be generalized to the VIII-grade students of
SMPN 16 Mandau, it cannot be generalized to the other population.

Another study was carried out by Rabiula, Suparman, and Huzairin (2014) with the
goals of (1) determining the pre-questioning technique implementation procedure and (2)
determining the pre-questioning technique's substantial impact on students' reading com-

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prehension accomplishment. This study was carried out in SMA Perintis 1 Bandar Lam-
pung's second grade. Questionnaires, observation, and reading assessments were used to
gather the data. SPSS 16.0 was used to compute the data. The t-ratio was more than the t-
table (5.703> 2.074), according to the results. This suggests that pre-questioning tactics
have a considerable impact on student reading comprehension achievement. Students felt
bored to read, narrative text was good, they preferred essay questions to multiple choice,
they used their schemata to assist them find out the content of the material, and they thought
pre-questioning technique was very good.

Nguyen and Nguyen (2023) plan to look into the impact of pre-reading questions on
students' critical thinking in EFL reading classes. 80 grade 12 students from two classes at
a high school in Kien Giang province participated in this study. This study's data was gath-
ered through pre-tests, post-tests, questionnaires, and interviews. According to the findings
of this study, using questioning as a pre-reading activity by students in the experimental
group had a positive effect on their critical thinking in reading classes. Teachers and school
administrators should consider the pedagogical implications.

Tran and Phuong (2018) investigate the impact of questioning and semantic maps in
the pre-reading stage on the reading comprehension of EFL-gifted high school students.
The participants were 52 gifted students from two twelfth-grade science classes (they were
non-gifted English students). They were the same age, culture, native language, educational
background, and culture. Individual interviews and two reading proficiency tests (pre-test
and post-test) were used to collect data. The findings revealed that both Questioning and
Semantic maps had a positive impact on the reading comprehension of gifted students. Stu-
dents who received Semantic treatment, in particular, improved significantly in their read-
ing skills. The findings shed light on what can be done to improve the reading performance
of EFL students. However, this study only included gifted students, the generalizability of
the effects of questioning and semantic maps to all gifted high school students is limited.

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 Related research articles all use different research methods, but have not shown spe-
cific results, and the research subjects are still very limited. Tran and Phuong (2018) only
studied gifted students, while Melati (2019) focused on grade VIII students SMPN 16. Be-
sides, the results show that the application of questions in pre-reading is quite limited insti-
tutional and also influenced by many objective factors such as attitude, learning environ-
ment.... This research will solve the above problems by focusing mainly on subjects learn-
ing spoken English. In addition, the collection of information and data will be done in the
most synchronous way to produce positive results as well as reliable data.

3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Design:
The study employed a mixed-methods design that integrates both qualitative and
quantitative techniques for data collection and analysis. The purpose of the quantitative data
was to furnish a comprehensive rationale for the preliminary quantitative results, whereas
the qualitative data sought to enhance comprehension of the participants' perspectives or
notions regarding the subject matter being studies

3.2 Methods:

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 Quantitative data was collected using the reading pre- and post-tests. These tests
followed the same format as the reading portions of the national exam. Prior to initiating
the treatment process, reading comprehension assessments were given to both the experi-
mental group (EG) and the control group (CG) to gauge the students' proficiency. Following
the pretest, the experimental group's students were given mini-tests, while the control group
was given a whole-class instruction. Two primary reading passages and twenty questions
total were included in the test design. Students had to circle the correct answers from the
reading tests within the 30 minutes allotted for the tests. Then, the student’s answer sheets
were collected from two groups and their work was assessed later.

A questionnaire is a research tool featuring a series of questions used to collect use-

ful information from respondents.Which was used in this study to assess the critical think-
ing abilities of the students. Most were reported by themselves. There are fifteen open-
ended questions in this section, which should help participants respond to the questions
organically and freely.

Open-ended interview questions were used to gather qualitative information about

students' perceptions of the influence of questioning techniques on their critical thinking.
Interview questions will be developed based on the information found in the questionnaire
and literature review. The six interview questions will be broken down into two categories:
(1) How well do EFL students comprehend questions during the pre-reading phase?;and (2)
How do students feel about the value of asking questions as a pre-reading activity ?

3.3 Participants:
Thirteen male and thirty-seven female second-year students from Can Tho Univer-
sity took part in the study on the basis of convenience sampling (Fraenkel, Wallen, & Hyun,
2012). To be more precise, nine individuals in the control group and twenty-six members
of the experimental group took part in questionnaires and intervention competitions, and

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some of them also took part in interviews to confirm their opinions about the influence of
questions on students' reading-related critical thinking.

4: RESULTS

This study investigates how students' critical thinking when reading passages is af-
fected by asking questions as a pre-reading activity. In other words, asking questions before
reading plays an important role in improving the reading efficiency of second-year students
at Can Tho University, Ninh Kieu, Can Tho, Vietnam. This study examines the impact of
pre-reading questions on various aspects of reading performance using the results of read-
ing tests. The results of the posttests, in particular, revealed that students in the experimental
group demonstrated higher levels of comprehension and synthesis than their peers.

People who can read can express their feelings, opinions, and ideas verbally. People
must understand the reading text in order to communicate with one another and make good
comprehension. Reading comprehension is defined as an interactive process of meaning

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construction that includes information creation, reception, and processing. As a result, read-
ing comprehension must be taught in a systematic manner. The instructor could use the pre-
questioning strategy to help students improve their reading comprehension.

These findings show that students with limited English proficiency in terms of lan-
guage form or structure can participate or interact with others in reading class by employing
pre-questioning strategies. Students can generate more ideas for processing information
quickly by activating existing knowledge. In terms of student attitudes toward using in-
quiry-based pre-reading activities in reading classes, qualitative findings show that students
accept the questioning strategy. Furthermore, teachers recognize the value of students ask-
ing questions before reading.

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