In both theory and practice, Chyl, Kossowski, Wang, Dębska, Łuniewska, Marchewka, Wypych, Bunt, Mencl, Pugh & Jednoróg (2021) emphasized that reading in two contrasting languages (or more) makes the skilled readers’ brain converge the print and speech activities. The correlation and intersection inside learners’ brains are associated with visual word recognition for reading strategies between L1 and L2 dissimilarly. This variation is just like the transparency from grapheme to phoneme at the beginning of reading acquisition. The earlier completed reading comprehension by children, the quicker literacy readers, and the better writing skill they have. In this way, the selection of reading skill in English learning is completely relevant to secondary school students. These young students should read English as much as possible in order to attain language skills or language areas soon.
2.2.2. Reading strategy instructions in secondary schools
Reading strategy instructions play a vital role in secondary schools. As Williams (1981) assumed the seven factors in relation to students’ performance in reading English as a second language: language environment, resources for reading, attitude towards reading English, exposure to the mass media (English), type of school, sex differences, and age. His assessments were based on testing comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, and rate of reading for the pupil participants and the scores from teachers, and head teachers. The result said that it depended on the type of school and reading resources to determine which factors influenced most on the best scores on the reading tests. His study indicated that language environment correlated with learners’ English reading performance while other variables including learning attitude, mass media, and age affected on learners’ reading scoring, and sex was the least important. Hence, these young learners need to know how to use reading strategies matching with their reading intention in learning English at secondary schools.
Language reading comprehension as well as reading ability is a main tool in the transitional process into planning reading strategies for FLA while a series of other factors influence the reading ability of a learner years by. “Reader's capability of meaning guessing and expression” will help evaluate the text well, without impeding understanding (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995). Learner’s background knowledge is a major one in determining how comprehensive a reader will be after a text (Koda, 2005). The overall average correlation of L2 reading comprehension and language distance were moderators for reading components out of the other investigated reading component variables. Lopera Medina (2012) insisted the effect of students’ reading comprehension and reading strategy instruction helped them be more self-confident, then enhanced their learning motivation. He reminded the typology of reading strategies directing readers with the strategies they concern. For instance, each strategy attached to readers’ intention such as having a purpose, previewing, skimming, scanning, predicting, inferring, cohesive devices, guessing word meaning, or background knowledge. All those things express reading strategy instructions that enrich students’ knowledge and language ability quickly.
Students should learn the way to plan a language reading strategy. Language reading strategies often consist of multiple cognitive processes such as decoding, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic processing, and metacognition measured through reading subskills. The purpose of reading strategy is to interact with others in languages, collect information components for maximum reading comprehension (Jeon & Yamashita, 2014). Readers who are affected by their strategy employment (cognitive strategies and planning strategies) prefer to plan their own reading to facilitate their reading process or to improve their reading skills for the extensive reading. During reading, learners can
paraphrase ideas by talking or writing, infer context meaning, and argue various topics by their own words (Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching, Vol. 2, No.1, 2019). This represents a successful reading strategy instruction offering students self-confidence and activeness in learning English in secondary schools.
Every researcher has one’s arguments, and this study focused on secondary school students’ LLS use and instruction, typically the reading strategies were first employed to stimulate the use of other language skill strategies and to motivate student’s language ability. Hence, the easiest starting point is reading strategy instruction which focuses on much reading for comprehension. Canale & Swain (1980) affirmed that “good readers also need the support from other language skills and language areas” to identify four dimensions of communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence when Oxford (1990) also claimed the main purpose of LLS use was on communicative competence. However, it is difficult for DK Secondary School students to have a competence of those by themselves if they do not receive any LLS instruction or do not know a way to manage LLS. In relation to reading strategies, secondary school readers employ them to match with their reading objectives, the more they read English, the better the foreign language knowledge they grasp. Evidently, English reading strategy instructions are extremely necessary to the DK Secondary School students being with unmatured thoughts. Oxford (2020) even suggested using reading strategies through the comprehensive reading as a framework in “language teaching and learning pathway” (see Figure 2.4) that may create the premises to their autonomous learning in future. Secondary school students should be instructed in English reading strategies to catch up with the social trends.
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Figure 2.4. Oxford Reading for Comprehension (Oxford, 2020)
2.3. Previous studies about language learning strategies
This study aimed to recognize the significance of LLS use in students’ English competence achievement or FLA, somehow motivating LLS to use the reading strategies more frequently among secondary school students to achieve that aim. The study was based on collecting the educational theories from previous studies and the real situation of DK school to justify the two research questions.
The research of LLS use may be acknowledged and applied in different levels according to the learning environments (i.e. school types, levels of secondary school, school discipline, etc.). This investigation collected the theories on LLS from the latest studies at various levels of education in the world (e.g. primary schools, high schools, colleges, and tertiary education). The practice showed the strength of LLS use, first and foremost reading strategies through reading skills in LLT has never changed. This research followed secondary school students’ cognitivist paradigm through the mental activities determining the processes of English communicative competence. The research
analysis was started with the identification of secondary school students’ memory strategies, passing that way to their cognitive strategies, and coming to metacognitive strategies. This thing was posed by the previous studies about the reading strategies as well as learners’ attainment of language reading comprehension through reading skills, some studies about ELT or LLT at other levels of education. Besides that, the roles of language teachers in LLS and reading strategy instructions have always been considered in educational environments.
The diversification of LLS from Oxford (1990) and her associates have been the most salient series among researchers creating the multi-controversial waves of LLS. That also made changes of the viewpoint on LLS of learners over the world; therefore, this study currently focused on her directions of LLS (1990) as a primary material updating some new adaptations at present when other researches were condensed as a secondary material referring for LLS implications and suggestions in the existing education. The previous studies have offered teachers, teacher educators, and researchers the former, current and newest perspectives of LLS insights as the abundant samples available for the successful application in Vietnam secondary education next stage.
2.3.1. The highlights from the previous international studies
Reading strategies have been much mentioned in previous studies because of their great effectiveness in LLT, and ELT in this case. Cziko (1980) compared language competence and reading strategies, a comparison of the oral reading error between the first- and second- languages. The study employed the variables of INT. group with seventh graders, who speak English with intermediate and advanced levels in French in comparison to native French students to check errors and to serve as indicators in contextual language reading. There are several theories explaining how readers can infer
meaning from written language context; therefore, he proposed that it has been classified into three following main groups: “bottom-up, top-down, and interactive views of reading” (p.101). His explanation is rather clear about the views of reading a language that can be temporarily summarized as below: A bottom-up view is a way of deriving meaning through one process of one-way information collection from the visual by another processing stage (e.g. Bloomfield, 1942). A top-down view is another way of generating meaning from the information of context through the cognitive process (e.g. a constructive process of Ryan & Semmel, 1969). Interactive views that meaning is taken by readers through the integrated use between the visual and contextual information (i.e. the detailed reading models in Massaro 1975, Rumelhart 1976). Cziko indicated that the interactive strategy in reading was much employed by native speakers at an advanced level and so did native French speakers, in vice versa, less competent readers trend on bottom-up view and make higher rates of with appropriate strategies will facilitate the learning (Chamot, 1987); help learners to comprehend (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990); and make learner's learning easier, faster, and more transferable (Oxford, 1990). O’Malley & Chamot (1990) concluded that a language learner will succeed only if they can recognize their own learning strategies. Therefore, the strategy instruction as a reciprocal combination between teachers and students is the most effective way to both
good learning strategies and the successful learning and teaching. Prabhu (1987, cited in Richard & Rodgers 2001) claimed that “this creates contexts in which the learner's language learning ability is nurtured rather than making systematics to teach language or Constructivism” (John Dewey 1913, cited in Nunan 2004) involved in constructing learners' own knowledge through experience and problem solving. Obviously, reading comprehension is a psychological process that occurs in an invisible way. Kintsch (1998, p.4) described comprehension occurring “when and if the elements that enter into the process achieve a stable state” means the majority of related elements are meaningful and defined that “comprehension” refers to both a set of empirical phenomena and a theoretical construct” (p.209).
As mentioned the language teachers’ roles in LLT, remarkably English language apprehension via reading strategies, Richards & Rodgers (2001) claimed that teachers have helped facilitate learners’ learning process with multiple activities and this influenced planning, implementing, and evaluating English Language Teaching (ELT) in which learners must be competent in speaking a FL/ SL. However, learners must have been good readers for important information and reflection contents before being good English speakers. And in so doing, the LLS use like reading strategies were quite considerable, Koda (2005) emphasized reading strategies and claimed that good learners must be accomplished with fluent reading by word recognition, large vocabulary, knowledge of structure and discourse automatically. Afflerbach, Pearson & Paris (2008) reminded that a century of research ago, reading was defined as a reference to such specific skills as Bible reading, understanding of directions/ questions about the texts. Now reading is considered as a complex undertaking and an impressive achievement, and Afflerbach et al. (2008) helped clarify the differences between reading skills
and reading strategies. Grabe (2009, p. 221) also reaffirmed, “Strategies are cognitive processes that are open to conscious reflection but that may be on their way to becoming skills”. Nolan Weil (2008) indicated the relationship between learner's vocabulary, English background experiences, and their academic reading skills. The more firmly the learner's foundation of first and second language reading, the higher the learner's English reading abilities and less on compensation strategies. The same journal by Ya-Ling Wu (2008) mentioned the effect of language learning strategy use and which language learning strategy made the proficient receptive skills. Higher proficiency EFL students often use cognitive, metacognitive and social strategies. The use of cognitive strategy strongly affects the listening and reading skills but the memory strategies usage is not different among various students. Thereby, it is found that most secondary school students have often used compensation strategies though cognitive strategies have had stronger influences. The enhancement of using LLS in reading English will create good conditions for learner's reading and vocabulary examinations, in which included reading tests with grammar, vocabulary and writing skills.
Some researchers have inclined to the success of learners on the use of metacognitive strategies (Oxford, 1993; Wolsey, 2020). Many others have been on how proficiency levels influence language learning strategies (Politzer, 1983; Oxford and Nyikos, 1989; Ehrman and Oxford, 1989; Oxford, 1993; O’Malley et al., 1985; Chamot, O’Malley, Küpper and Impink-Hernandez, 1987). Ehrman & Oxford (1989) studied the effects of sex differences, career choice, and psychological type on adult language learning strategies to see the relationships between those characteristics of learners themselves and their language learning performance, typifying good language students (e.g. the use of four types of learning strategies: sex differences, career choice cognitive