VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE USING CONCEPT MAPS TO TEACH READING TO EFL LEARNERS AT HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION Submitted to the Department of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By LE THI BICH THUAN Supervised by LUU TRONG TUAN, PHD HO CHI MINH CITY, JUNE 2011 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my thanks to many people who have assisted my study To my supervisor, Dr Luu Trong Tuan, I owe a special debt of gratitude for his patient guidance, encouragement, valuable comments and suggestions, and constructive supervision throughout my research Without his generous support, I could not have finished this thesis I would like to thank my friends of this MA course, TESOL 2008, for their useful advice, support, encouragement and willingness to share their resources and experience I am indebted to all of my teachers in the MA course for their instruction My sincere thanks also go to my students at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education who have enthusiastically participated in the study The support extended to me by members of my family has been immeasurable I am deeply grateful to my parents, my brother and my sister for their support and encouragement throughout the course and the completion of this thesis ii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: USING CONCEPT MAPS TO TEACH READING TO EFL LEARNERS AT HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION in terms of the statement of the Requirements for the Theses in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institutions Ho Chi Minh City, June 2011 Le Thi Bich Thuan iii RETENTION OF USE I hereby state that I, LE THI BICH THUAN, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of theses Ho Chi Minh City, June 2011 Le Thi Bich Thuan iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Statement of originality - ii Retention and use iii Table of contents - iv List of tables - vii List of figures vii List of charts - vii Abstract - ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.2 PURPOSES OF THE THESIS 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS - 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.5 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW - 2.1 CONCEPT MAPS 2.1.1 Overview of the emergence of concept mapping 2.1.2 Defining concept maps and concept mapping 2.1.3 The theoretical underpinning of concept maps - 13 2.1.4 Concept map creation 14 2.1.5 Other visualization techniques of ideas mapping 17 2.1.6 Procedures for constructing a concept map in second and foreign language teaching class 22 2.2 THE LINKAGES BETWEEN CONCEPT MAPS AND LANGUAGE LEARNING 25 2.2.1 Concept mapping as a form of pre-task planning 25 v 2.2.2 Concept maps facilitate knowledge acquisition via meaningful learning - 27 2.2.3 Concept maps assess learners’ critical thinking 30 2.2.4 Concept mapping as a means to facilitate reading comprehension 32 2.2.5 Concept maps enrich classroom discourse 35 2.3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 36 2.4 SUMMARY - 37 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY - 38 3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS - 38 3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN - 39 3.2.1 Study setting 39 3.2.2 Participants 39 3.2.3 Experimental teaching - 45 3.2.4 Instruments 47 3.2.4.1 Tests 47 3.2.4.2 Questionnaire - 48 3.2.4.3 Observation - 51 3.2.5 Materials - 53 3.2.6 Data collection procedures 53 3.2.7 Data analysis procedures 54 3.3 SUMMARY - 54 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION - 55 4.1 DATA ANALYSIS 55 4.1.1 Posttest results 55 4.1.2 Results from Questionnaire - 56 4.1.2.1 Pre-reading activities in previous courses - 56 4.1.2.2 Students’ opinions towards teacher’s application of concept mapping in reading class - 57 vi 4.1.2.3 Students’ attitudes toward benefits of concept mapping in reading - 58 4.1.2.4 Students’ attitudes towards the difficulties in concept mapping - 63 4.1.2.5 Learners’ expectation toward the use of concept mapping 65 4.1.2.6 Learners’ application of concept maps in extensive reading - 66 4.1.2.7 Students’ self-assessment of their English competence after the reading class using concept maps 66 4.1.2.8 Learners’ perceptions of their confidence after the reading class using concept maps - 67 4.1.3 Results from classroom observations - 68 4.2 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 71 4.3 SUMMARY 73 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS - 75 5.1 CONCLUSION 75 5.2 IMPLICATIONS 77 5.3 RECOMMENDATIONS - 80 5.3.1 A framework for concept maps 80 5.3.2 For teachers 81 5.3.3 For learners - 84 5.3.4 For the administrators - 85 5.4 LIMITATION 85 5.5 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH - 86 REFERENCES 87 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: Reading Pretest 96 APPENDIX 2: Reading Posttest - 98 APPENDIX 3: Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) - 100 APPENDIX 4: Questionnaire (English Version) 101 vii APPENDIX 5: Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) - 102 APPENDIX 6: Questionnaire (English Version) - 105 APPENDIX 7: Observation - 108 APPENDIX 8: Classroom observation summary 110 APPENDIX 9: Lesson plan 111 APPENDIX 10: Concept maps constructed by students 114 APPENDIX 11: The paper entitled “THE LINKAGES BETWEEN CONCEPT MAPS AND LANGUAGE LEARNING” 117 LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: A comparison of concept maps and mind maps 18-19 Table 3.1: Students’ age - 40 Table 3.2: Students’ gender - 41 Table 3.3: The place where the students attended high school 41 Table 3.4: Students’ English learning length - 42 Table 3.5: Information regarding whether students had attended extra English classes elsewhere 42 Table 3.6: Other places where students had attended extra English classes - 43 Table 3.7: Descriptive statistics for the pretest scores 44 Table 4.1: Group statistics for reading posttest scores 55 Table 4.2: The output produced by the t-test analysis of the reading posttest scores-55 Table 4.3: Pre-reading activities in previous courses 57 Table 4.4: Impact of concept mapping on motivation 59 Table 4.5: Impact of concept mapping on activation of learners’ cognition - 60 Table 4.6: Impact of concept mapping on activation of prior knowledge - 60 Table 4.7: Other benefits of the use of concept maps in reading lessons - 61 Table 4.8: Impact of concept mapping on learners’ cooperativeness 63 Table 4.9: How difficult the students found in concept mapping 63 viii Table 4.10: Difficulties in concept mapping 64 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Concept Map about Concept Maps by Novak - 10 Figure 2.2: Improved concept map of Johanna concerns her municipality ‘Parikkala’ - 12 Figure 2.3: Concept map of “Intellectual Stimulation” 17 Figure 2.4: Conceptual framework 36 Figure 3.1: Summary of research instruments 52 Figure 4.1: Summary of the findings - 74 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Students’ opinions towards teacher’s application of concept mapping in reading class - 58 Chart 4.2: Learners’ expectation for the use of concept mapping - 65 Chart 4.3: Students’ application of concept maps in extensive reading 66 Chart 4.4: Students’ self-assessment of their English competence after the reading class using concept maps 67 Chart 4.5: Learners’ perceptions of their confidence after the reading class using concept maps - 68 ix ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate the impacts of concept mapping on reading comprehension and to examine the students’ attitudes toward reading lessons using concept maps 77 EFL learners from two reading classes, one treated as the experimental group and the other as the control group, at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education (HCMUTE) participated in this research The data from reading posttest scores was to examine whether concept mapping affects the students’ reading performance, questionnaires to get the students’ background information and explore their reflections on the learning process, and observations to discover the students’ attitudes toward concept maps in reading activities and the potential impacts of concept mapping on reading comprehension The findings show that although there was no significant difference in learners’ performance on reading test between the two groups after the experimental teaching, concept mapping achieved some merit outcomes such as enhancing motivation and engagement, stimulating and facilitating reading process and recall, and increasing support and understanding among participants Results substantiate that concept mapping worked well in reading class Therefore, the research suggests applying concept mapping to teaching reading Some implications and recommendations, moreover, are made for both practice and research 157 157 158 158 159 159 160 160 161 161 162 162 163 163 164 164 165 165 166 166 167 167 168 168 169 169 170 170 171 171 ... formulated: To what extent does the application of concept map impact EFL learners? ?? reading comprehension? What are EFL learners? ?? attitudes toward lessons using concept maps? In order to answer... STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: USING CONCEPT MAPS TO TEACH READING TO EFL LEARNERS AT HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION. .. center and many branches emanating from the center As a result, a mind map has only one main concept and it reflects what you think about a single topic, while a concept map may have a set of concepts