VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

VŨ THÙY LINH

AN EVALUATION OF READING REFLECTION

ACTIVITY FOR THIRD-YEAR STUDENTS AT ULIS-
VNU

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS (TEFL)

SUPERVISOR: CAO THÚY HỒNG, MA.

HANOI, MAY 2010

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 ACCEPTANCE PAGE
I hereby state that I: (Vũ Thùy Linh, 06.1.E9), being a candidate for the
degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL), accept the requirements of the College
relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited
in the library,
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in
the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the
care, loan or reproduction of the paper.
Signature

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all, I would like to send my deepest thank to Mrs. Cao Thuy
Hong, my supervisor for her enthusiastic support and her critical comments
through the process of carrying out and completing my thesis. Mrs. Thuy
Hong also gave me significant help in collecting samples and contacting other
teachers for their consensus for formal interviews.

I would also like to thank Ms. Dang Thi Thu Phuong, Ms. Nguyen
Bich Diep and Mrs. Pham Hanh for their help when openly expressing their
ideas towards my interviews. Their contribution plays a very important role
in the success of my thesis

My sincere thanks also go to the teachers who allowed me to use the

reading reflection samples of their reading classes for analysis in this study

I am grateful to Ms. Dang Thi Thu Phuong for her contributive

comments on my research as well as her encouragement over the last few
months

Finally, I would also like to thank my friends and my family for their
spiritual support which has been a great motivation for me to complete this
thesis.

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 ABSTRACT
The importance of reading reflection has been recognized over many years;
that is the reason why this activity is applied in a lot of universities all over the
world. However, the extent of this approach’s effectiveness has not been considered
in a careful way. This issue motivated the researcher to work on “Evaluation of
reading reflection activity for third-year students at Faculty of English Language
Teacher Education-ULIS-VNU”.
The research aims at investigating teachers and third-year students’
evaluation of reading reflection as well as finding out the common problems
students meet when dealing with this activity. Besides, the research also tries to
make some recommendations to address the problems and to improve the
effectiveness of students’ reading reflection.
To achieve the above mentioned objectives, the researcher carried out a
survey questionnaire among 100 third-year students, among whom some were
interviewed to get direct opinions. Besides, semi-structured interviews were
conducted among three teachers who hold responsible for third-year students’
reading course. Finally, the researcher collected 10 reading reflection samples from
two different classes. Based on the analysis from three above sources of data, the
researcher drew some significant conclusions.
The results of such analyses showed that reading reflection activity in
English Department has not achieved the desired results. Neither teachers nor
students feel complete satisfaction for the effectiveness of this activity. A variety of
problems still remain in students’ reading reflection, among which the most
remarkable one is students’ limited analyzing ability. Some other major limitations
lie in writing-essay-skill and the organization of a reading reflection.
Based on these findings, some interviews were held with three reading
teachers to consult their opinions about this issue. The most prominent

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recommendations are to raise students’ awareness of the benefits of reading
reflection and give more careful instructions of this activity.

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 TABLE OF CONTENT
TABLE OF CONTENT PAGE
Acknowledgements 2
Abstract 4
Table of content 6
List of figures, tables and abbreviations 8
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 9
1.1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 9

1.2. Aims and objectives of the study 10

1.3. Significance of the study 10

1.4. Scope of the study 11

1.5. Organization of the study 11

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 13

2.1. An overview of reading 13
2.1.1. Definition of reading skill 13
2.1.2. Components of reading 14
2.1.3. Importance of reading skill 15
2.1.4. Types of reading skill 16
2.1.4.1. Extensive reading 17
2.1.4.2. Intensive reading 18
2.1.4.3. The necessity of combining extensive and intensive reading11
2.2. An overview of reflection 19
2.2.1. Definition of reflection 19
2.2.2. Importance of reflection 21

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2.3. An overview of reading reflection 22
2.3.1. Definition of reading reflection 22
2.3.2. Components of a reading reflection 24
2.3.3. Importance of reading reflection 26
2.3.4. Requirements of reading reflection in English Department 31
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 33
3.1. Research approach 33
3.2. Data collection instruments 33
3.3. Data collection procedures 36
3.4. Data analysis procedures 37
CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND FINDING 38
4.1. Third-year students’ evaluation of reading reflection 38
4.1.1. The importance of reading reflection 38
4.1.2. The amount of reading texts 41
4.1.3. Teachers’ activities toward reading reflection 41
4.2. Teachers’ evaluation of reading reflection 43
4.2.1. The importance of reading reflection 43
4.2.2. The amount of reading texts
4.2.3. Teachers’ comments 44
4.2.4. Students’ reading reflection 44
4.3. Students’ main problems in reading reflection 45
4.3.1. The format of reading reflection 45
4.3.2. The content of reading reflection 45
CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS 49
5.1. Recommendations to teachers 49
5.2. Recommendations to students 50
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS 54

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6.1. Summary of findings 54
6.2. Limitations 55
6.3. Suggestions for further research 56
REFERENCE
APPENDIX 1- Questionnaire survey 65
APPENDIX 2- Interview questions 67
APPENDIX 3- Teachers’ responses to the interview 68
APPENDIX 4- Ten reading reflection samples 79

LISTS OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

TABLE AND FIGURES PAGE
Figure 1: Bloom’s Taxonomy 31
Figure 2: The importance of reading reflection 38
Figure 3: The number of reading texts 41
Figure 4: Teachers’ instructions 42
Figure 5: Frequency of teachers’ feedback 42
Figure 6: Percentage of students’ problems in their reading reflection 45
Table 1: The reason for the importance of reading reflection 39
Table 2: The reason why reading reflection is unnecessary 40
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
RF1: reflection 1 (RF 2, RF3…., RF10 for reflection 2, reflection 3…..,
reflection 10 respectively)
T1: teacher1 (T2, T3 for teacher 2, teacher 3)
ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies
VNU: Vietnam National University

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale:
In an increasingly complex world, there is higher demand for students
to develop intellectual and practical skills for lifelong learning. A panel
report by the Association of American Colleges and University (AAC&U)
(2002, p.62) calls for higher education to help college students become
“intentional learners” who can adapt themselves to new environments,
integrate knowledge from different sources, and continue learning throughout
their lives. Research on cognition and learning (Bransford et al,.2000)
indicate intentional or expert learners typically demonstrate better-developed
metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control. According to Kari
(2009), reading reflection is a very simple activity to foster students’
metacognitive growth. He claims that the benefits of reading reflections are
(1) to get students to read assignments regularly before coming to class, (2) to
encourage students to read for deep learning, and (3) to provide opportunities
for students to develop their metacognitive knowledge and skill. In other
words, they deepen students’ understanding of content and help students
develop their evaluation skills. Ertmer and Newby (1996) argue that
reflection makes it possible for a learner to translate what they know about
learning into action. Another benefit of reading reflection, according to
Weiner and Bazerman (1991), is to foster students’ development of critical
reading- an important component of developing literacy.
As mentioned above, a lot of studies have been carried out on the
benefits of reading reflection. Recognizing the enormous importance of this
activity, the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education-ULIS-VNU has
applied this activity to third-year students. Students are required to collect a

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variety of reading texts on the same topic and write a reading reflection on
such issue in form of academic writing. However, there has been little
research done on the effectiveness of reading reflection in our college and the
students’ problems during this activity. This gap gives the researcher the
desire to conduct this study.
2. Aims and objectives of the research:
The purpose of this study is to examine the real situation of reading
reflection activity for third-year students at ULIS. It aims specifically (1)to
investigate the teachers and third-year students’ and teachers’ evaluation of
the use of reading reflection in our university, (2) to find out the most
common problems third-year students encounter when carrying out reading
reflection activity and (3) to provide some feasible solutions to such issues by
collecting opinions from third-year students and teachers who have been
teaching reading for third-year students and by researching literature for
valuable recommendation to improve the effectiveness of this activity.
In sum, the research is intended to address THREE following
questions:

- What is third-year students’ evaluation of reading reflection activity?

- What is teacher’s evaluation of reading reflection activity for third-year
students?
- What are the main problems third-year students encounter when
carrying out reading reflection activity?
3. Significance of the research
The research, in general, could act as a great help to not only students,
teachers but also researchers working on relating issues

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 Reading reflection acts as an important part of third-year students’
reading course which will be of great benefit to students in their future.
Therefore, by studying on the current situation of the reading reflection in
our department, the researcher hopes that this research can make a
contribution to bettering this activity and the recommendations hopefully
would help carter for the demands of most students. Besides, this study, to
some extent, can help increase students’ awareness of reading reflection’s
benefits by themselves. Hence, they will find more motivation and interest
in this activity instead of finishing it as a compulsory requirement.
Besides, for teachers who are in charge of third-year students’
reading skill, the researcher hopes that the findings of this study will
encourage significant changes to improve the effectiveness of reading
reflection activity.
Lastly, this research can be used as a reference source for those who
have interest in this issue and a supplement to the previous studies on
reading reflection thanks to different research issue and different subjects.
4. Scope of the research:
• Field of study: The issue of reading reflection is so
broad and complicated that the researcher has no desire to cover all
aspects of it. Within the frame of an undergraduate thesis, the
researcher would like to work on the evaluation of the effectiveness of
reading reflection, students’ difficulties when dealing with reading
reflection and hopefully make some helpful suggestions to help
students achieve greater efficiency in this activity.
• Targeted subjects: the subjects of this research include
100 third-year students and three teachers at ULIS-VNU.
5. Organization of the study

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The research includes six chapters altogether:
Chapter 1 – Introduction states the study area, rationale, aims and
objectives, scope and significance of the study.

Chapter 2 – Literature Review is devoted to the theoretical background

on which the study is based. Theories on reading, reflection and reading
reflection are included.

Chapter 3 – Methodology describes in detail the methods and

procedures of conducting the research

Chapter 4 _ Analysis and Findings presents the findings of the study

and inferences that can be made from those findings.

Chapter 5 _ Recommendations make some suggestions on how to

overcome the problems stated in the previous chapter.

Chapter 6 _ Conclusion summaries the main points of the research and

acknowledges some limitations.

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 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The research aims at investigating the current state of reading

reflection activity for third-year students at English department-HULIS.
Therefore, it is necessary to start with some knowledge about reading skill
and reading reflection. In this chapter, the researcher attempts to set up the
theoretical background for the research. Some key concepts are studied,
including reading skill, reflection and reading reflection.

2.1. An overview of reading

2.1.1. Definition of reading skill

While studying a language, it is important that students have thorough

understanding about the definition of reading skill so that they can exploit the
best way to improve their reading efficiency. However, making clear what
reading skill is requires a lot of great effort because different people develop
different approaches to this term. Robinson and Good (1997) described
reading as an understanding between the author and the reader. Reading is
believed to be “an interaction” between the writer and the reader (Robinson
& Good, 1997; Keneath, 1995; Milan, 1996; Nuttal, 1996). If the writer has
tried to encode thought as language, the reader, vice versa, tries to decode
language to thought to work out the full amount of information (Milan,
1996).

Gould, et al. (1990) offered a different definition by looking at its scope.

They defined reading as a creative act, interaction, interpretation, a social act
and responding. Although no definition of reading can possibly include all

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view points and features, for the sake of teaching and learning reading
critically, I prefer Anderson (2003)’s definition:

“Reading is a fluent process of readers combining information from a text and

their own background knowledge. The goal of reading is comprehension.” (p.68)

According to Anderson (2003), reading is composed of four components: the

text, the reader, fluency and strategies. Strategic reading is defined as “the
ability of the reader to use a wide variety of reading strategies to accomplish
a purpose for reading” (p.68). Fluent reading is defined as “the ability to read
at an appropriate rate with adequate comprehension” (p.68). Meaning does
not rest in the reader nor does it rest in the text. The reader’s background
knowledge integrates with the test to create the meaning.

In my research, I especially focus on the claim that reading

comprehension calls for critical thinking (Norris&Phillips, 1987, cited in
Commayras, 1990) and thinking critically about texts requires reading
comprehension (Wolf, Kinh, & Huck, 1968, cited in Commayras, 1990). This
claim is similar to the view that reasoning is an integral part of reading. The
comprehension of text requires the reader to use reasoning to evaluate
possible interpretations to determine the meaning of a text (Collins, Brown, &
Larkin, 1980, cited in Commayras, 1990). Critical thinking, which involves
reasoning, is the process the reader uses to determine which interpretations
are consistent with textual evidence and background knowledge.

2.1.2. Components of reading

Reading consists of two main components, namely decoding and

comprehension (Elizabeth, 2000). Decoding involves the “oculomotor,

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perceptual and parsing aspects of reading activity” whereby written symbols
are translated into language (Carpenter and Just 1986, p.156). When children
start learning to read, emphasis is placed on the acquisition of decoding skills
thorough the practice in short and simple reading books such as letter-sound
relationships, word recognition and syntactical parsing of simple sentences.
Comprehension, on the other hand, refers to the overall understanding
process whereby meaning is constructed within sentence units, between
adjacent sentences and across larger units of text contributing to the meaning
of the text as a whole (Elizabeth, 2000). The interaction between decoding
and comprehension process in skilled readers happen simultaneously and
rapidly. It is commonly acknowledged that comprehension cannot occur
effectively unless decoding skills have been mastered (Just and Carpenter
1987, Perfetti 1988). However, skill in decoding does not necessarily imply
skill in comprehension. Whether we read for entertainment, study or work
purposes, we are not going to be entertained, relax, study or do our work
properly if we do not understand what we are reading. Through decoding we
‘learn to read’, while comprehension enables us to ‘read to learn’.

2.1.3. Importance of reading skill

In common sense, reading plays a very important role to one’s

development. Reading is the foundation upon which other academic skills
are built. Mastery of reading skills in the primary grades has often been
considered a good predictor of future academic success. Children who are
exposed to storybook reading before they go to school tend to have larger
vocabularies, greater general knowledge and better conceptual development
than their peers; and in addition, they learn to read and write more easily and
quickly ( Health, 1983; Snow, 1983; Wells, 1986; Elley, 1991) These kids

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have more chance of becoming productive and successful members of their
community. Pretorius (2000) asserted that research findings in applied
linguistics and reading research consistently show “a strong correlation
between reading proficiency and academic success at all ages, from the
primary school right through to university level” (p.33). Students who read a
lot and who understand what they read usually attain good graders. Moreover,
reading promotes the development of “meaning making and information
processing abilities” that are indeed necessary for success in the technological
and information age (Elizabeth 2000, p.37). That is because reading by nature
involves the processing of inferring, understanding, integrating and
evaluating information within and across texts. It also entails recognizing
inconsistencies in text information, monitoring the comprehension process
and adding new knowledge gained from texts to existing knowledge bases in
memory and modifying existing knowledge bases in memory in response to
information acquired from texts.

In terms of language learning, according to Keiko (2008, p.267),

“reading necessitates linguistic knowledge and reading ability enhances
linguistic knowledge expansion.” The crucial reason underlying the strong
relationship between reading ability and language competence has to do with
“the development of language and cognitive information-processing abilities”
(Elizabeth, 2000, p.35). Language proficiency can be greatly enhanced by
wide reading. Students who have a habit of wide reading have shown to
produce longer sentences, employ more complex grammatical structures and
to have a larger vocabulary. (Snow, 1983; Wells, 1986; Feitelson et al. 1993).

2.1.4. Types of reading skill

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 Reading is a purposeful activity. Some read for recreation while others
read to enrich their knowledge. The purposes for reading influence the
readers’ selection of texts. Different texts require different knowledge, skills
and strategies that readers need to apple to achieve comprehension.
According to Carrell and Carson (1997), in terms of different purposes, skills
and strategies used by learners while reading we have two main types of
reading which are extensive reading and intensive reading.

2.1.4.1. Extensive reading

Extensive reading, as a language teaching/ learning procedure is

defined that it is reading (a) of large quantities of material or long texts; (b)
for global or general understanding; (c) with the intention of obtaining
pleasure from the text. Further, because (d) reading is individualized, with
students choosing the books they want to read, (e) the books are not discussed
in class ( Benard and Thomas, 1990).

Extensive reading is an important approach that should be applied to

students’ reading course. First of all, it can provide 'comprehensible input'.
Krashen (1982) argues that extensive reading will lead to language
acquisition, provided that certain preconditions are met. These include
adequate exposure to the language, interesting material, and a relaxed,
tension-free learning environment. Secondly, it can increase knowledge of
vocabulary. Daneman (1991) argues that the reason why some students have
larger vocabularies is that they read more and that through reading they learn
new words by inferring meaning from context. Thirdly, writing proficiency
can be increased by reading extensively. Stotsky (1983) and Krashen (1984)
reviewe a number of L1 studies that appear to show the positive effect of

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reading on subjects' writing skills, indicating that students who are prolific
readers in their pre-college years become better writers when they enter
college. L2 studies by Hafiz & Tudor (1989) in the UK and Pakistan, and
Robb & Susser (1989) in Japan, revealed more significant improvement in
subjects' written work than in other language skills. These results again
support the case for an input-based, acquisition-oriented reading program
based on extensive reading as an effective means of fostering improvements
in students writing.

2.1.4.2. Intensive reading

Extensive reading alone is not sufficient for developing reading skills

and “a more focused approach (intensive reading), including explicit instruction is
also needed: it deals with more detailed comprehension and has an important role
in teaching reading strategies” (Paran, 2003, p.40)

Brown (1988) explains that intensive reading calls attention to

“grammatical forms, discourse markers, and other surface structure details for the
purpose of understanding literal meaning, implications, rhetorical relationships,
and the like” (p.65). He draws an analogy to intensive reading as a “zoom
lens” strategy. Long and Richards (1987) gives a different definition when
considering it a "detailed in-class" analysis, led by the teacher, of vocabulary
and grammar points, in a short passage. Intensive reading also involves
critical reading - that is detailed, focused reading of a text.

According to Paran (2003) intensive reading practice can focus more

essentially vocabulary, patterns of text organization and types of text
processing needed to adequately comprehend any text. Intensive reading
activities are needed for four main reasons, to help learners comprehend

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written texts, to become more aware of text organization to better
comprehend, to learn how to use and monitor effective reading strategies, and
to develop general literacy skills necessary to generate productive expression
in language

2.1.4.3. The necessity of combining intensive and extensive reading:

Many researchers (Hill, 1997; Waring, 1997) find intensive and

extensive reading to be complementary. Intensive reading alone cannot make
students good reader. In fact, too much intensive reading may cause students
to develop bad reading habits because it encourages the habit of paying too
much attention to the vocabulary and grammar of a text rather than its overall
meaning. Besides, intensive reading tends to be relatively boring; therefore it
prevents students from becoming motivated students. In this case, extensive
reading acts as a compensation for the drawbacks of intensive reading. Nation
(1997) concluded that extensive reading helps develop desirable reading
habits and attitudes toward reading. Moreover, extensive reading alone is
“not sufficient for developing reading skills” (Paran, 2003). According to
Word (1999), a mere extensive reading course cannot help ESL students
achieve the level of vocabulary knowledge they need to be communicatively
successful in English.

In conclusion, it is necessary that extensive and intensive reading be

combined in an appropriate way in a reading course to help students achieve
the highest improvement in their reading skill. Realizing this necessity, our
college has carried out the reading reflection activity as a means of
developing a well-balanced reading course.

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 2.2. An overview of reflection
2.2.1. Definition

According to King and Kitchener (1994), although many students

already hold degrees in their subject areas and many have extensive life and
work experience, few have written or perhaps even thought reflectively
during their academic career. In fact, not many of us have deep understanding
of such terms as “reflection” or “reflective thinking”. Different people offer
different definitions on the concept of reflection. Dewey is considered to be
the first scholar who introduced the term “reflective thought” into literature.
Dewey’s definition of reflection (1993) endues the “active, persistent and
careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of
the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends” (p.103). In
other words, reflective thinking begins with a state of doubt, hesitation, or
perplexity and moves through the act of searching to find material that will
resolve, clarify or otherwise address the doubt. In this sense, reflection takes
time and implies a mental effort that conduces to a personal measurement of a
previous concept. Clark (1999) regards reflection as a thinking process for an
extended period by linking recent experience to earlier ones in order to
promote a more complex mental schema. According to this idea, reflection
implies the connection of previous knowledge to new information to form a
new expanded-improved version of an idea. Rowntree (1988) says reflection
is studying one's own study methods as seriously as one studies the subject
and thinking about a learning task after you have done it. Unless you do this,
he says, the task will almost certainly be wasted. Reid (1993) in her definition
notes reflection as an active process rather than passive thinking. She states

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"Reflection is a process of reviewing an experience of practice in order to describe,
analyze, evaluate and so inform learning about practice." (p.305-309)

Four activities are central to critical reflection (Brookfield 1988):

• Assumption analysis - This is the first step in the critical reflection

process. It involves thinking in such a manner that it challenges our
beliefs, values, cultural practices, and social structures in order to
assess their impact on our daily proceedings. Assumptions are our way
of seeing reality and to aid us in describing how the order of
relationships.
• Contextual awareness - Realizing that our assumptions are socially
and personally created in a specific historical and cultural context.
• Imaginative speculation - Imagining alternative ways of thinking
about phenomena in order to provide an opportunity to challenge our
prevailing ways of knowing and acting.
• Reflective skepticism - Questioning of universal truth claims or
unexamined patterns of interaction through the prior three activities -
assumption analysis, contextual awareness, and imaginative
speculation. It is the ability to think about a subject so that the available
evidence from that subject's field is suspended or temporarily rejected
in order to establish the truth or viability of a proposition or action.

In general, reflection, in my opinion, is a meaningful activity which is related

to thinking for a purpose, analyzing, evaluating and most of all, thinking
critically - one of the most important characteristics of an effective student in
higher education.

2.2.2. The importance of reflection

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 The last two decades have seen substantial growth in the use of
reflection. Dewey is generally pointed as the scholar who first stressed the
importance of reflection for learning. He claimed that reflection benefits
individuals by giving them more control over experience and thereby
increasing the value of experience. Many theorists have noted that reflection
acts as the vehicle for transforming a learner’s understanding. Gillie (2005)
uses an interesting metaphor to describe this power of reflection, that is, the
mirror which projects back the object being looked at.

To emphasize the use of reflection in the writing classroom, no list can

be better than the one by Horning (1997): Firstly, reflective statements shed
important light on the form and the content of students’ written work.
Secondly, they help students become aware of their preferred approaches to
writing, and enable them to take risks to try new and more productive
strategies on a particular task. Thirdly, when revising, students may examine
their reflections on their earlier process of writing and consider alternative
processes or approaches. Fourthly, reflective writing produces an intimacy
between students and teachers to respond to and encourage students’ growth
in writing skill. Lastly, the reflective statements give teachers insight into
students’ thinking and development not normally accessible otherwise.

In conclusion, reflective thinking is an important pedagogical tool to enable

learners to become efficient ones.

2.3. An overview of reading reflection

2.3.1. Definition

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 In order to develop reflection skill, students are encouraged to write
“reading reflection”-also named “reaction papers” or “reflective papers” as a
part of their regular program. A reaction paper is a means to express one’s
own opinion about the readings in a course that should include “critical,
informed, thoughtful, intelligent responses to the claims that are made in the
readings” (Pols, 2001). Reflecting, thinking critically is at the core of a
reaction paper. To Prof Smith at the University of Los Andes, Merida-
Venezuela, writing reading reflection is not merely a matter of putting words
down on paper about the text, but based on the text, the writer reads that text
and, then, in a critical way, the writer critically expresses his or her opinions
about the text. An article from http://www.usd.edu/fye/sjwriteresp.html also
share the same definition that writing good response papers is more
demanding than it might appears. It is crucial that you allow yourself not just
enough time to do the readings but enough to ‘digest’ what you have read and
to put the results together into a unified account. A reaction paper should be
aimed to answer the following questions

• What are the purposes of the reading passage(s)?

• Who are the target readers?
• What is the pattern of organization?
• What are the main ideas?
• What is the style of the passage(s)? Is this appropriate to the target
readers and the purposes?
• How do you evaluate these texts?

More specifically, students are supposed to clarify the following issues when
writing a reading reflection:

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  author’s point of view (the author’s position on an issue)

 author’s purpose (the author’s reason for writing)

 author’s intended audience (whom the author had in mind as his

readers)
 author’s tone (a way the author reveals his or her attitude toward the
topic)
 author’s writing style
 the pattern of organization (the way ideas in a paragraph can be
arranged)

2.3.2. Components of a reflective paper

2.3.2.1. Summarizing

Hirvela (2004) suggests outlining and writing a brief summary of the piece.
These are necessary and helpful strategies to have a deep insight into the
content and structure of a reading text and distinguish main ideas with
supporting ideas and examples.

2.3.2.2. Interpreting, analyzing and evaluating

In a reading reflection, students also interpret or discover meaning in a text;

that is, to determine what conclusions can be drawn about the various
messages the texts contains.

After understanding the main content of the reading text and its messages,
students analyze and evaluate the reading text and compare it with their
beliefs and values.

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♦ Analyzing and evaluating the author’s purpose: whenever authors write,
they write for specific purposes. The author’s purpose may be to inform, to
instruct, to entertain or to persuade the reader to believe something or to take
a certain action.

♦ Analyzing and evaluating the author’s point of view: there is always more
than one side to any issue. An author may be in favor of an issue or he/she
may be opposed to it. It is important that the reader recognize the author’s
point of view otherwise he will not know which side of an issue the author
favors.

♦ Analyzing and evaluating the reading’s evidence: it is advisable to answer

such questions as whether the author supports his reading, whether or not the
evidence supports and illustrates the argument, whether it supports any
conclusions that are drawn, and whether the author has ignored evidence or
alternative hypothesis or explanation and while developing his/ her position;
or there are any problems with unstated assumption (Sunda & Brisas, 2002).

♦ Analyzing and evaluating the reading’s organization (i.e. the development

and sequence of ideas, the relationships between ideas, whether the argument
is deductive or inductive). When a writer offers ideas, examples or
explanation, he has to reason them to the readers in a specific process which
contributes largely to the coherence and persuasiveness of the reading.
Hence, it is important that readers bear in mind the questions about the
author’s indicators that he is moving from one point to another and the way
the writer has tried to help the reader understand the organization of the
reading such as transition words or phrases, transition paragraph, repetition of

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key terms, repetition of language from the thesis, repetition of names or title
(Kirszner and Mandell, 1992).

♦ Analyzing and evaluating the reading’s style: Students are supposed to find
out the style of the piece: formal or informal or somewhere in the middle and
the characteristics of the tone of the piece (inviting, encouraging, sarcastic or
humorous) by examining the author’s word choice. It is important to
determine the author’s tone and explore the appropriateness of the author’s
language, tone for particular type of writing because if you misunderstand the
author’s tone, you may misinterpret the messages. (Kirszner and Mandell,
1992)

2.3.3. Importance of reading reflection

2.3.3.1. Importance of reading reflection to instructors

A study by some professors at Wabash College (2009) showed that students’

reading reflections offer a regular opportunity to monitor student learning
because they provide teacher a wealth of information about students’
understanding of the reading texts. Therefore, teachers can get more access to
each individual and give necessary aids to improve student’s reading skill.
Besides, reading reflections give instructors regular information about
students’ learning habits and motivation. This facilitates appropriate
intervention, assessment and modification of student learning at various
stages throughout the semester.

2.3.3.2. Importance of reading reflection to students

26
 • When students are required to summit reading reflections, it means that
they are forced to read more frequently and therefore, improve their
background knowledge. Besides, this kind of free reading encourages
students to engage in reading activities outside the classroom and under
less structured conditions than in extensive reading. (Hirvela, 2004).
The main purpose of this approach is to help students develop
pleasurable reading experience and become more motivated readers.
• Writing reading reflections helps improve students’ writing skill.

To begin with, some specialists have proved that writing and reading
are closely connected. In language literacy contexts, Krashen’s argument
(1984) that “it is reading that gives the writer the feel for the look and
texture” (p.20) paved the way leading writing researchers and instructors to
the vision of reading/ writing connection. He claimed that reading, which
builds the knowledge base of written texts, help language learners acquire
necessary language constructs such as grammatical structures and discourse
rules for writing, and facilitates the process the language acquisition. In other
words, while reading different types of texts, students are encouraged to pay
attention to and learn consciously about grammatical and lexical features of
the texts, organization of the articles and expressions which are unfamiliar to
the students.

Reading to write and writing to read are the two facilitative strategies
for instruction in language literacy classrooms. Reading to write is based on
the notion that reading supports and shapes language learners’ writing
through acquisition of language input when students are performing reading
tasks. Reading is not merely helpful for enhancing language learners’ writing
ability in a general sense. Also, through reading, students are given

27
opportunities in writing classroom to acquire knowledge of vocabulary,
grammatical structures or rhetorical features of texts. Pedagogically, there are
numerous teaching practices suggested for reading to write, among which
reading reflection is one of the most popular practices in reading classroom.

Furthermore, reading reflections inevitably lead to reflective writing

because their main purpose is to expose student to a writing situation in
which he/ she needs to critically reflect about a topic and see how it is
applicable in his/ her own teaching/ learning situation.

Lastly, within a reading reflection, students are required to write a

summary to gain greater insight of the main points the reading text. When
summarizing, it is better not to use the text’s exact words; therefore, it
requires creative synthesis. This is regarded as a closer step toward a creative
writing by putting ideas together again, however in the reader’s own words
and in condensed form.

• Reading reflection helps improve students’ ability to read critically. In

an increasingly complex world, there is higher demand for students to
develop intellectual and practical skills for lifelong learning. Among
these daily skills, critical reading is regarded as the most important
reading skill for you to acquire in college (Kurland, 1995). According
to a variety of studies, students with strong creative problem-solving
and critical reading abilities usually get better academic results; thus,
enhance their chosen professions and personal success. As Weiner and
Bazerman (1991) defined, critical reading refers to the process of
making judgments in reading evaluating relevancy and adequacy of
what is read. The term critical reading in this case does not mean

28
 “critical” in the sense of tearing down or fault-finding; rather it means
using careful evaluation, sound judgment and our reasoning powers
(Milan, 1995). Knott (2005) also added “critical reading” involves
higher level skills: interpretation and analysis. Critical reading requires
students to evaluate the arguments in the text, weigh the evidence and
develop a set of standard on which to base their evaluation. Students’
needs are to distinguish fact from opinion, and a thorough look at
arguments given for and against the proposition. Consequently, reading
critically helps students meet their author’s most important points,
recognize how the texts fit together and to note how they can turn it
into their own knowledge. Teaching critical reading, therefore, is
received great concern from teachers and reading reflection is
recognized as an effective technique to improve this skill.
• Reading reflection is a useful tool to help students develop reflective
skill and therefore to think critically about a topic.

According to Kurland from www.criticalreading.com critical reading has

a close relationship with critical thinking. Critical thinking allows us to
monitor our understanding as we read while critical thinking depends on
critical reading because we can think critically about a text (critical thinking_
only if we have understood it (critical reading).

According to Gaia (2001) the main purpose of this assignment is to

stimulate the development of critical thinking. It should be noted that reading
reflection is a kind of reflective writing which refers to the activity of writing
with the purpose of reflecting and as consequence, learning. Hillocks (1995)
states that reflective writing helps us in the process of learning. He argues
that “writing cannot be disconnected from its sources, the processed of

29
observation, interpretation, imagination and inquiry” (p.89). Therefore, writing
and reflecting have an interrelation in which writing facilitates reflecting and
vice-versa. Writing facilitates learning by helping writers explore, clarify and
think deeply about the ideas and concepts they encounter in reading (Harris
and Perzynski, 2001).

It is necessary to clarify the definition of “critical thinking”. As cited in

Dixon et al. (2005), John Dewy gave the name “reflective thinking” to the
skill and defined it as “active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief
or supposed form of knowledge in the light of ground that support it and the further
conclusions to which it tends” (1993, p.9). This idea was further developed by
Ennis (1989) who claimed critical thinking was synonymous with thinking
reasonably and reflectively to mainly decide what to believe and do and what
not. Accidentally, both Dewey and Ennis saw reflection as a dimension of
critical thinking. A popularly accepted model is the Bloom’s Taxonomy. The
expert divided critical thinking into six specific units Knowledge,
Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation.

30
 Figure 1: Bloom’s Taxonomy

As stated above, with a reading reflection, not only students gain background
knowledge of some issues but they also reach the highest level of the thinking
order-evaluating a reading text.

2.3.4. Requirements of reading reflection in English Department-ULIS

for third-year students

31
In English Department-ULIS, students are required to read at least 7000-
10,000 words (around 8-10 texts) which are written on the same issue and
answer the following questions in their reading reflection:

a. What are the purposes of the reading passage(s)?

b. Who are the target readers?
c. What is the pattern of organization?
d. What are the main ideas?
e. What is the style of the passage(s)? Is this appropriate to the
target readers and the purposes?
f. How do you evaluate these texts?

Besides, students are supposed to give comparison and contrast among the
collected texts to find out different authors’ views towards the same topic, the
differences in their writing style, their pattern of organization, their way of
argument and so on.

As regards the reference list, students have to follow the APA form which is
instructed in the Research methodology course.

SUMMARY
In this chapter, the researcher has presented the theoretical background on
which the study is based. The chapter provided the basic definitions,
terminologies and knowledge in three major issues
- Reading skill
- Reflection

32
 - Reading reflection
It is undeniable that reading reflection plays a very important role in
improving reading skill and other skills needed for one’s development.
Although this approach attracts great attention from both teachers and
students, not much research has been carried out on its real effectiveness and
the methods to enhance its efficiency. Realizing that gap, the researcher
decided to work on the issue with a hope to better this activity in English
Department-ULIS-VNU

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter is aimed at answering the question how this research was
carried out.

3.1. Research approach

33
 In this study, the researcher combines both the qualitative and
quantitative approach. Firstly, a survey was conducted to get the overall
evaluation of third-year students and teachers on reading reflection activity.
Besides, this study also applies the quantitative approach as it is significantly
based on collecting samples of students’ reading reflections and analyzing the
samples to provide a description of the most common problems that third-
year students encounter when they carry out the reading reflection activity.

This is also a descriptive research because it aims at finding out the

problems faced by the students, based on which recommendations are drawn
to improve third year students’ reading reflection.

More specific explanation of the selection of subjects, research

instrument, procedure of data collection and data analysis will be presented in
the following sections of this chapter.

3.2. Data collection instruments

 Questionnaire

The researcher conducted a questionnaire survey because according to

Gillham (2000) questionnaire is a very useful tool to administer to a group of
people and it provides permanent, systematic records of feedback from all
students.

The questionnaire survey was held among 100 third-year students of

English Department-ULIS to collect their opinion towards the reading
reflection, their difficulties as well as their recommendations for this activity.
In fact, 150 questionnaire schemes were delivered and 115 were returned;

34
however, only 100 that met the researcher’ requirements were chosen for
analysis.

Questionnaire is divided into 2 parts: The first part is aimed to

investigate students’ evaluation of reading reflection activity on the basis of
five criteria: the importance of reading reflection, the amount of reading texts,
teachers’ instructions, teachers’ frequency of feedback and students’
difficulties in carrying out this activity. In this study, multiple-choice items as
were deployed as this item type was relatively straightforward and most
respondents tend to choose short questions as their preference. Besides, the
researcher used open-ended questions to offer respondents more chance to
express their opinion openly. The second part is to gain suggestion from
students for some improvement in reading reflection in the form of open-
ended questions.

 Interview

Firstly, the researcher had some informal interviews with in-survey

students to clarify some of their answers and gain deeper insight into their
evaluation.

Secondly, semi-structured interviews were employed among three

teachers who are in charge of third-year reading skill because the researcher
would like to have a deeper insight into third-year students’ reading reflection
from teachers’ point of view and consult their suggestions to solve the
students’ problems. According to Nguyen (2008), this type of interview gives
the interviewer a degree of power and control over the course of the interview
and a greater deal of flexibility. Some predetermined questions are prepared

35
by the researcher and then based on the interviewee’s answers, further
questions are probed. Therefore, the researcher could probe the respondents
for additional information when interesting and important ideas arose
unexpectedly from the planned questions. Thanks to their great support to the
researchers by openly giving their opinion on the issues, the researcher got a
lot of valuable data from the interview.

All questions in the interviews are open-ended and based on the criteria
in the questionnaire survey. The survey was conducted in the following
procedure: Firstly, the researcher introduced the purpose of the study, asked
for interviewees’ permission to make record of their answers and ensured the
confidentiality. Then, the interviewer gave the respondents the predetermined
questions to get their opinions on the issue. On the basis of the sketch
analysis from the questionnaire, the researcher provided collected information
from students and asked if in-survey teachers shared the same view. During
the interview, interesting answers were probed for deeper understanding.
Finally, the researcher thanked the teachers again for their time and their open
answers and asked their contact details for further information.

 Reading reflection samples

Students’ reading reflection samples were collected so that the

researcher could analyze, compare and contrast the samples with the data
from the questionnaire survey and the interview to draw conclusions. Best
and Kahn (2003) regarded documents among the most significant sources for
data collection (cited in Ghonaim, 2005, p.91). The analysis from these
samples helps bring amore insightful information; thus increase the reliability
of the study findings. This research specifically relied significantly on

36
participants’ pieces of reading reflection to draw conclusion then the process
of selecting reliable reading reflections were of great significance.

After the interview, the researched asked for two teacher’s permission
to collect their students’ reading reflection. Thanks to their enthusiastic help,
10 samples (5 samples per class) were gathered for analysis.

3.3. Data collection procedures

 Phase 1: In order to assure the success of the questionnaire, the

researcher piloted the questionnaire among ten third-year students. Hence,

some problems with the clarity of the instructions and unnecessary items
were pointed out. Based on the feedback, the researcher made beneficial
changes before providing the final version.
 Phase 2: The final version of the questionnaire was delivered to

100 third-year students chosen randomly among eight classes. Furthermore,

the researcher had direct interviews with some students to gain more
information needed to support the study.
 Phase 3: After collecting data from the questionnaire survey, the

researcher made initial analysis and then based on the result to design
interviews for the teachers. Therefore, the researcher tried to contact some
teachers and luckily enough, she succeeded in arranging the interviews with
three teachers
 Phase 4: After getting necessary results, to see if there are any

differences between the collected data and students’ real reading reflections,
the researcher asked permission from two teachers to get 10 reading
reflections of 10 students for deeper analysis. The main aims of this analysis
was; along with the data gathered from the questionnaire survey and the

37
interview, the researcher would find out students’ main problems in their
reading reflections as well as the issues teachers often give feedback on.

3.4. Data analysis procedures

First of all, the research made thorough study into the questionnaire
data and interpreted the responses. All the responses from closed questions
were analyzed and categorized into groups to be easily quantified. For better
demonstration, the researcher then put all the number, percentage ratio in
form of pie charts. Not only did this kind of illustration help avoid wordy
explanation but it also made the paper look more systematic.

Secondly, based on the categories in the questionnaire, the researcher

continued to analyze data collected from the interview. At this part, the
researcher specially focused on two main issues: students’ problems in their
reading reflection and teacher’s comments.

Lastly, the researcher analyzed students’ reading reflection to point out

the common problems in students’ reading reflection samples as well as
teacher’s feedbacks. This insightful analysis later resulted in reliable
implications and recommendations.

CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

This chapter consists of three main parts: Part 1 reflects third-year
students’ evaluation of reading reflection activity. Part 2 works on teacher’s
evaluation of reading reflection. Part 3 synthesizes the main problems faced
by third-year students when conducting their reading reflection.
4.1. Third-year students’ evaluation of reading reflection
4.1.1. The importance of reading reflection

38
 When the researcher investigated into third-year students’ views
towards the importance of reading reflection, she received different responses
which could be illustrated in Figure 1 as follows

It could be clearly seen from the figure that very few students deny the
importance of reading reflection. Up to 92% value this activity as being
important while only 8 % claim that reading reflection is not really needed. It
could be implied that most of third-year students’ are aware of the benefits of
reading reflection activity in their learning course.
Besides, all respondents were also required to give explanation for
their choice which is shown in the below figure

Why reading reflection is important Number of

respondents
It helps students understand reading texts more deeply 11
It motivates students to read actively and independently 32
It enhances students’ critical thinking 53

It helps students in their writing (such as argumentative 25

essay, comparing and contrasting essay)
Other reasons 0

39
 Table 1: The reason for the importance of reading reflection
Question 1.1-Appendix 1
As regards the reason why reading reflection is regarded as an
important activity for third-year students, the majority of the respondents (53
students) realizes that the greatest benefit they get from reading reflection is
its ability to enhance their critical thinking which is a must skill in the
information and technology age. The second good point reading reflection
contributes to students is that students are motivated to read actively and
independently. Some students state that under the requirements of reading
assignments, they are forced to develop their reading habit and therefore
improve their background knowledge. Standing at the third rank, as can be
seen from the table, is its support to students’ writing (especially in writing
argumentative or compare and contrast essay). According to respondents in
informal interviews, through different kinds of texts, they can learn a variety
of useful vocabulary and structures needed to improve their writing
proficiency. Last but not least, reading reflection plays an important role in
helping students understand the reading texts more deeply. In-survey students
claim that reading tasks or tests only help them develop their reading skill
rather than give them the thorough insight into a text. Clearly enough, third-
year students identify a variety of benefits of reading reflection for their study
as well as their daily life, which may be a predictor for their great effort in
conducting this activity.
Why reading reflection is not important Number of respondents

It is a time-consuming activity 3

Reading tests do not require analyzing a reading 5

40
text
Other reasons 0

Table 2: The reason why reading reflection is unnecessary

Question 1.2-Appendix 1
A small number of third-year students, however, do not have full
awareness of the necessity of reading reflection. Their top reason is that
reading reflections require analyzing the reading text while reading tests do
not. In fact, when coping with tests, they are put under such great time
pressure that hardly can they have deep understanding of what they are
reading. They argue that their main objective of learning is merely to achieve
good results in the tests; therefore, all they need is to develop their testing
skill. Secondly, they explain that third-year students get a studying load with
assignments and presentations of other subjects already. Doing reading
reflection, they are required to read a great number of texts for a long period
of time, then analyze and synthesize different reading texts to draw
conclusion; so they find it a time-consuming activity.
4.1.2. The number of reading texts

41
 As illustrated in the pie chart, the majority of third-year students (72%)
feel upset by the number of reading texts while only 28% are satisfied. To
clarify, 72% find it necessary to decrease the amount of reading. Through the
informal interviews, some students claimed that the load of assignments and
presentations prevents them from reading such big amount of reading in a
thorough way. Moreover, to meet teachers’ required number, hardly can they
find the texts to their interest. Instead, they can just search for all the texts
which are suitable for the topic from different sources. It can be implied that
managing time for reading reflection activity seems a big problem among
third-year students.

4.1.3. Teachers’ activities towards reading reflection

42
 Up to 64% of third-year students claim that teachers’ instructions are
clear enough for them to follow whereas only 36% do not feel really satisfied.
The underlying reason for this dissatisfaction (based on the informal
interviews with students) is that their teachers only give the handouts at the
beginning of the course and ask them to do exactly as such instructions
without any other complement. Besides, there is no further instruction on the
techniques of analyzing a passage or comparing and contrasting different
texts on the same issues.

43
 As can be seen from the above chart, most teachers (82%) make
frequent feedback on students’ reading reflection. Only the minority of
teachers seldom or never give comments. Respondents add that their teachers
give most feedback on the format of their reading reflection, grammatical
mistakes and word choice. Some other comments focus on their analyzing
skill and their writing ability of comparing and contrasting essays. According
to some students, such valuable feedbacks enable them to improve greatly in
their later reflections as well as their writing skill.

4.2. Teachers’ evaluation of reading reflection for third-year students

The researcher conducted some interviews with some teachers who
take responsibility of third-year students’ reading skill to investigate their
evaluation of the reading reflection activity and she drew some main points as
follows.
4.2.1. The importance of reading reflection
All teachers put a heavy emphasis on the importance of reading
reflection because of the two main reasons: firstly, it acts as a motivation for
students’ reading. Lessons at class focus on developing students’ reading skill
rather than stimulate their interest in reading. Therefore, reading assignment
helps improve students’ self-reading. Not only does this activity enrich their
background knowledge but it also helps enhance their critical thinking ability.
Secondly, reading reflection forces students to give more thought to what
they read because the main requirement of this activity is to read for deep
analysis. Consequently, students’ effort and their level of understanding will
be reflected clearly in their reflection.

44
 4.2.2. The amount of reading texts
According to the interviewed teachers, students seem overloaded with
the amount of reading, which results in the fact that not many students really
do thorough reading. Nor do they spend much time having good choice of
texts. They would just find long texts with sufficient number of words to
meet teachers’ requirements rather than search for passages they find great
interest in.
4.2.3. Teachers’ comment
Teachers’ comments could be divided into two groups: the first set
contained feedback on the format of students’ reflection which helped
recognize whether their reference lists met the APA requirement or not. The
second group included comments on the content of students’ reflection; more
specifically, their writing ability and level of analyzing. Such comments
focused on grammar mistakes, word choices, their comparing-and-contrasting
skill and the depth of their analysis.
4.2.4. Students’ reading reflection
Generally speaking, all teachers have the similar comment that third-year
students have not really done good jobs with their reflection. Only a small
number of students seem to satisfy teachers’ requirements in both the format
and content of their piece of reflection. The most common problem among
students is that they do not have full awareness of what to do with their
reading assignment. To clarify this matter, the researcher pointed out biggest
drawbacks in students’ reflection in part 3.
4.3. Main problems encountered by third-year students when
conducting reading reflection

45
 Based on the information collected from the questionnaire and the
interview, the researcher stated some problems as illustrated in the following
chart

Figure 6: Question 4-Appendix 1

3.1. The format of students’ reading reflection
Firstly, there is no fixed format for students, which results in their illogical
presentation of their reflection. The ten collected samples are presented in
different ways. Some students analyze one text to another before moving to
the reflection and others make a reverse order. Even worse, some students
just give the website address of their texts or the name of the books instead of
attaching the full texts to their reading assignment. (RF5, RF7-appendix 3)
Another problem is students’ sources of reading texts. The in-survey
teachers claimed that although students are taught the APA form in research
methodology and reading teachers also provide them with the instructions of
APA during the course, students still have a lot of difficulties in giving the
reference list. (RF 2, RF 5, RF6, RF7, RF8, RF9-appendix 3)
3.2. The content of students’ reading reflection

46
 To begin with, all interviewed teachers stated that students’ biggest
problem is that they have no idea of writing a reading reflection. The
requirement of reading reflection for third-year students in English
department is to write a comparing and contrasting essay, which is aimed at
identifying the similarities and differences among different authors towards
the same issue. However, the majority of students only succeed in analyzing
one text to another and providing the main ideas of each text or synthesize the
interesting information from texts. Hardy do they provide any comparison or
contrast among the collected texts (RF3, RF7, RF8, RL10-appendix 3).
Moreover, within each text, most students achieve low level of analyzing a
text. Students’ reflections show that they just discover the surface layer of the
issue. Hence, in response to the question “What you have gained from the
reading texts”, most students give general lessons. Here are some examples:
• “When reading those passages, I find that I can improve my reading
skills such as improving critical reading and thinking skills. I can
focus on scanning skill, especially in last article. In addition, I can
broad my vocabulary because there’re many new words or stems
about survival, for examples survival fire, gear, kit, etc. I think the
structure of all articles is generally quite clear and easy to read” (RF
3-appendix 3)
• “These five texts are really interesting, persuasive and informative,
and all show clear ideas and patterns organization. Besides, they
provide a wide range of vocabulary and structures from which I can
learn to improve my reading, writing as well as critical thinking
skills”. (RF6-appendix 3)
• “I have to use some of reading skills such as skimming, reading closely
scanning, summarizing, paraphrasing, analyzing and synthesizing.

47
 Those articles are very useful to me because I have learned a lot from
the way to use language to the way to write persuasively” (RF8-
appendix 3)
• “Besides, I can practice reading skills. When reading these texts, I
used reading skills such as scanning, skimming, identifying the
author’s main points and noting useful information, etc.” (RF9-
appendix 3)
The second problem lies in students’ summarizing skill. The fact
remains that most students often copy the exact words from the texts to make
their summary while they are required to use their own words to gain deep
understanding of the texts. That is one of the reasons why they cannot give a
thorough analysis of their reading.
Lastly, there still remain a lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes in
students’ assignment which should be avoided to the maximum in a third-
year student’ piece of writing, perhaps because students do not have the habit
of rechecking their reflection. For instance:
 “Work is central to the human experience, in fact, it is work and its

economic and social outcomes that provide us with the keys to

understanding of culture and civilization…” (RF1-appendix 3).
 “Gambles give meaning examples to support their views about

nonverbal” ( RF 4-appendix 3)
 “Gambles analized more deeply and compared nonverbal
communication with verbal communication………..” (RF4-appendix 3)
 In shows that portrayed teens in sexual situations, only 17 percent

contained messages about safe and responsible sex. (RF5-appendix 3)

 They have no support of love, of care, of finance, and especially easy

to be abused (RF7-appendix 3)

48
  This thinking should be criticized strict. (RF7-appendix 3)

 According to the latest research, there are about 7000 languages

existed; however, half of them will be in danger of extinction. In fact, a

plenty of ingenuous tongues has been vanished (RL10-appendix 3)

Moreover, some reflections show students’ bad word choice, which may
be the result of their limited vocabulary. Some examples are shown below:
 “In order to appeal to readers’ attention the author leads them to the

definition and origin of tea and after that he provides them with the overall
view of function of tea…..” (RF3-appendix 3)
 About healthy problems, TV can make a negative effect on adults’

physical and mental health. (RF5-appendix 3)

 “The civil life and the healthy life is the future we purchase in our

whole life” (RF7-appendix 3)

 “Toyota is innocent in its efforts to correct the problem” (RF8-

appendix 3)

49
 CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS

The findings in chapter IV show that some problems remains in third-year

students’ reading reflection, which cause the limited effectiveness of this
activity. In this chapter, the researcher attempts to give some
recommendations, which she hopes to help students overcome such
difficulties and improve their reading reflection.
5.1. Recommendations to teachers who holds responsible for third-year
students’ reading reflection activity
First of all, it is important to raise third-year students’ awareness of the
enormous importance of reading reflection, not only short-term benefits but
also long-term ones. Under no circumstances should they regard scores as
their goal of learning. What they should bear in mind is that reading
reflection enables them to improve a lot of necessary skills that are required
for their daily-life activities.
Secondly, more emphasis should be put on the instructions of the way
to conduct reading reflection. According to T1 (appendix 3), it is advisable
that teachers spend a whole lesson providing students with the theoretical
background of reading reflection. Students may easily answer all the
questions given in the handouts when they get full understanding of such
terms as the author’s purpose for writing, the author’s tone, target readers,
pattern of organization and so on. T2 (appendix 3) added that reading
reflection shares a lot of similarities with literature review in Research

50
methodology. Hence, it is suggested that teachers should supplement the
Research methodology course with the theory of reading reflection so that the
Research methodology become more accessible to students and reading
teachers suffer from less pressure when dealing with students’ reading
reflection.
Thirdly, T1 and T3 (appendix 3) also suggested that some changes
should be made to the writing course. Students should receive instruction in
writing a compare and contrast essay at the first term of the third year so that
they can become more familiar with the reading reflection form.
Fourthly, according to T2 and T3 (appendix 3), it is necessary that the
format of reading reflection be synchronized in the whole English
Department so that students find it easier to follow a fixed form and teachers
have less difficulties in marking students’ reflection.
Last but not least, all in-survey teachers share the same view towards
the amount of reading because it may cause students more difficulties in
comparing and contrasting a large number of texts. Instead, students should
be required to read fewer texts (around 8000 words) but make more thorough
analysis so that they gain deeper understanding of what they have read.
(appendix 3)
5.2. Recommendations to third-year students
Firstly, T3 (appendix 3) recommended that before handing in the
reading assignments to teachers, students should exchange feedback on their
reflections in order to minimize the mistakes of grammar and spelling.
Secondly, the findings in the chapter IV identifies that the biggest
difficulty students encounter during the processing of their reading reflection
is in analyzing a reading text. Therefore, based on the opinions of in-survey
teachers and the researcher’s self-reading and analyses, the researcher

51
synthesized some basic techniques which may be helpful for students in their
reading reflection
• Techniques of identifying the main ideas of the reading texts
(techniques of summarizing a text)
Deanne (2000) suggested that to make a good piece of summary, the first step
is to read through the passage twice so that the content of the text is well
understood. Next, it is advisable to underline important words, phrases and
sentences. Lastly, the reader should copy the material he underlined onto a
sheet of paper, condense and rewrite the material in his own words as much
as possible.
• Techniques of identifying the purpose of the reading passage: Firstly, it
is necessary to determine the kind of text. For example, most textbooks are
written for the purpose of informing or instructing, such texts as movies
critics, newspapers editors and political writers are written to give their
opinion or to persuade. Secondly, students are advised to notice the way the
information is presented
- When he author’s purpose is to inform, he or she will use phrases such as “It
is interesting to know that……..”
- When the author’s purpose is to instruct, he or she will typically give a set of
directions (instructions) or a sequence of steps to follow.
- When the author’s purpose is to persuade, he or she will deliberately use
words that are designed to influence your thinking and make you respond a
certain way.
- When the author’s purpose is to entertain, he or she may tell a funny story,
use wild exaggerations, or simply describe a pleasant event or place.
• Techniques of determining the target readers: students can identify the
author’s intended audience by considering these three things:

52
-The topic
-The level of language used (Is it simple? Sophisticated? Specialized?)
-The author’s purpose for writing
• Techniques of identifying the pattern of organization
According to Deanne (2000) there are five typical patterns (1) chronological,
(2) spatial, (3) deductive, (4) a variation of deductive and (5) inductive.
Chronological (or time) order refers to the order in which the events happen.
Spatial order is defined as the arrangement if things in an environment.
Deductive order, which is sometimes called general-to-specific order, is the
most common pattern in the English paragraph. The deductive pattern can be
visualized like an inverted triangle with the base at the top

Main idea
Supporting
statements

A variation of deductive order is the pattern in which the main idea is

followed by supporting sentences, but the writer then restates the main idea
at the end of the pattern, thereby underscoring its importance.

Main idea
Supporting statements
Restated main idea

53
Inductive order, the opposite of deductive order, is sometimes called specific-
to-general order. A diagram of an inductively arranged paragraph looks like
this

Supporting
statements
Main ideas

• Techniques of identifying the author’s point of view: it is

important that students look for words that reveal the author’s point of view,
that is, his or her support or opposition to something. There are times when
an author hoes present both sides of an issue, and rather than taking a
position, allows readers to make up their own minds.

54
 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION
6.1. Summary of findings
In this research paper, the researcher works on the topic : “An
evaluation reading reflection activity for third-year students at ULIS-VNU”.
By and large, the research has completed its primitive aims, which are (1) to
investigate the teachers and third-year students’ and teachers’ evaluation of
the use of reading reflection in our college, (2) to find out the most common
problems third-year students encounter when carrying out reading reflection
activity and (3) to provide some feasible solutions to such issues by
collecting opinions from third-year students and teachers who have been
teaching reading for third-year students and by researching literature for
valuable recommendation to improve the effectiveness of this activity.
The research shows that the majority of third-year students and teachers have
a great feeling of satisfaction for the current reading reflection situation at our
department. Most students are deeply aware of the benefits reading reflection
brings to their study and their life; therefore, they have made big efforts to
carry out this activity to the best of their ability. However, some problems
still exist, which reduces the effectiveness of this activity. Such problems are
listed as follows:
 About the format of reading reflection:

55
 Firstly, there is no agreement in the structure of a reading reflection
piece. Hence, most students’ reading reflections lack logicality, which causes
lot of difficulties to teachers when assessing their reading assignment.
Secondly, the majority of students have problems with citing sources in
APA form. All they do is to list a number of texts or links in alphabetical
order.
 About the content of reading reflection:

The first problem lies in students’ comparing and contrasting ability

and their limited analyzing skill. Secondly, a lot of students’ reading
reflections show that a popular circumstance of copying and integrating the
words and structures of the original reading texts into students’ reflection;
that is to say their low summarizing ability. Thirdly, high frequency of
grammar and spelling mistakes is found in their reflection, which reflects
students’ lack of consciousness in checking their writing. Lastly, bad word
choice in some students’ reflections emphasizes again the necessity of
reading extensively to enrich their vocabulary.
However, it is not impossible to overcome these problems. Most importantly,
students should be aware that the first goal of learning English is to
communicate, not just to pass the final exams. Therefore, under no
circumstances should students focus on developing their testing skill but
undervaluing the importance of reading reflection. Besides, it should be
teachers’ responsibility to help students become more familiar with the
techniques of analyzing a reading text because this way enables students to
conduct their reading reflection by themselves more easily. Another
important thing to be considered is to negotiate agreement on the reflection

56
format among the whole department so that students’ reflections show a more
logical and scientific presentation.
6.2. Limitations
Although the research has achieved some certain results in the use of reading
reflection for third-year students, it still contains some inevitable limitations
due to limited time and scope of the study
The most remarkable limitation lies in the methodology by which the
research was carried out. Actually, the researcher initially intended to make
some informal interviews with third-year students to clarify their opinions
towards reading reflection and collected around 20 of students’ reading
reflection samples for analysis. However, limited time and unexpected
happenings caused the researcher to interview just few students and collect a
smaller number of samples than she had expected. A more thorough analysis
could have been made if the researcher had had more time and condition to
do it. Moreover, because of time pressure, the researcher could have
interviews with only three teachers, otherwise the research would have seen
from more viewpoints.
The serious self-evaluation on what this paper has successfully achieved and
what not yet urge the researcher to make some following suggestions for any
other researchers who share the same interest in the topic.
6.3. Suggestions for further research
The researcher hopes that further studies would be able to involve more
participants to get more reliable results. Interview could be carried out with
more teachers who are interested in the field so that more recommendations
are collected, hopefully they will serve as a good reference for those who
have desire to improve the current reading reflection situation in our
department.

57
Being an undergraduate student, the researcher is obviously inexperienced
and her knowledge is also limited. As a result, there will be unavoidable
mistakes in this research paper. Therefore, it is her pleasure that her teachers
and friends would make comments and contribute to her work so as to perfect
it as well as to provide her with experience that will be of great help in
carrying out papers in the future.
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APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE

My name is Vu Thuy Linh - Class: 06.1.E9
This survey questionnaire is designed for my study on “The evaluation of the
effectiveness of reading reflection for third-year students” Your assistance in
responding to the following questions is highly appreciated. You can be
confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data.
In completing these questions, please choose the answer by tick beside your
choice or expressing your ideas in the blank
Thank you very much in advance
_______________________________________________________________
1. The Importance of reading reflection
How do you value the importance of reading reflection to third-year students?
Not important at all○ Not really○ Important○ Very
important○
If your answer is important/ very important, answer the question 1.1
1.1. Reading reflection is important to third-year students because
( Can circle more than one answer)
a. It helps students understand reading texts more deeply
b. it motivates students to read actively and independently

66
c. it enhances students’ critical thinking
d. it helps students in their writing ( such as arguementative essay)
e. others (please specify)………………………………………….
If your answer is “not important”, answer the question 1.2
1.2. Reading reflection is not necessary to third-year students because
a. it is a time-consuming activity
b. reading tests do not require analyzing a reading text like the one in reading
reflection; therefore, it is not necessary for third-year students to write reading
reflection
c. others (please specify)…………………………………………………
2. The amount of reading texts
In your opinion, should teachers decrease, increase or remain the required
amount of reading texts?
Decrease□ Remain□ Increase□
3. Ways of carrying out the reading reflection activity
3.1. Are your teacher’s instructions before the activity clear enough for you to
follow?
No Yes, but not clearly Yes, very clear
3.2. Do your teachers make any comments on your reading reflections?

Always frequently seldom never

4. Your difficulties in carrying out reading reflection activity
a. In choosing a reading text with suitable content, reasonable length and
academic style
b. In summarizing the text
c. In synthesizing different authors’ view towards the same issue
d. In understanding the author’s intended meaning

67
e. In evaluating the author’s style and organization
f. In expressing the personal view towards controversial issues
g. In following the APA form
h. In organizing the reading reflection
i. Other difficulties (please specify)…………………………………
5. What are your suggestions to improve reading reflections?
APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
I am Vũ Thùy Linh, a senior student of the English Department, HULIS, VNU. I
am carrying out a study on “The evaluation of the effectiveness of reading
reflection for third-year students”. This survey is designed to investigate your
opinion on third-year students’ reading reflection activity. Your personal
information will be kept strictly confidential. Please give your answers truthfully
for a guaranteed success of the investigation.
Thank you very much for your help
1. How do you value the importance of reading reflection for third-year
students?
2. How many of words/texts do you require your students to read?
3. Do you give any other instructions about reading reflections activity
beside the ones in the course outline?
4. Do you have any different requirements from the ones in the course
outline?
5. What do you often give feedbacks on in your students’ reading
reflections? After getting your feedback, do they have any improvements in their
later reading reflection?
6. In your opinion, what are the most common problems your students often
deal with when carrying out reading reflection activity?
7. Do you have any suggestions to improve students’ reading reflection?

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 APPENDIX 3: TEACHERS’ RESPONSES TO THE
INTERVIEW

Questions T1 T2 T3
1. The - Motivate Ss to - Motivate Ss to -motivate Ss to
Importance of read more read more read more
reading - Develop Ss’ - Develop Ss’ -develop Ss’
reflection critical thinking critical thinking critical thinking
2. The 6-8 texts 2-5 texts (around 2-5 texts (around
required (15000words) 8000 words) 8000 words)
number of
reading texts
3. Instructions - An agreed
(beside course format between
outline) teacher and
students
- summarizing
skill
- writing an
essay
- choosing
suitable texts

4. Other - academic source - updated -no other

requirements - find the sources (online requirements
differences source)
among the texts
and the trend of
the issue
5. Feedback - Form (APA, - Writing -form (APA)
paraphrasing) ability -grammatical and

69
 - Content (find - Level of spelling mistakes
out the analyzing -word choice
differences and
the causes of
such
differences)
6. Students’ - Form (not APA) - Summarizing skill -bad choice of
problems - Too many online - Academic writing: reading texts
sources Ss analyze one -form (not APA)
- Summary (just text to the other, -illogical
copy and paste not the compare organization of
the exact words and contrast the reflection
from the texts) essay) -misunderstanding
- Not critical - Too common of a reflection
analysis lessons from the ( Ss report, not
texts reflect what they
read)
-grammatical and
spelling mistakes
-bad word choice
7. Recommend - Have strict -Give students -give students
ati-ons requirement for theoretical theoretical
sources background of background of
- Motivate Ss’ reading reflection reading reflection
interest in - Make some change -reduce the
reading to the 1st-term number of texts
- Combine writing course -advise students to
Research (compare and exchange
methodology contrast essay) feedback to
and reading -Reduce the required reduce the
reflection number of texts number of
- Synchronize the grammatical and
format of spelling mistakes
reflection in the -synchronize the
whole format of
department reflection in the
- Reduce the whole department
number of texts

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APPENDIX 4- THE 10 READING REFLECTION SAMPLES
RF1-Reflection 1
Work is central to the human experience; in fact, it is work and its
economic and social outcomes that provide us with the keys to understanding
of culture and civilization. Work tells us much about scarcity and abundance
poverty and affluence in any society, as well as a nation’s economic
imperatives. Work affects families, school curricula and public policy
because it is our handprint upon the world. Last week I read a book write
about “Work” it called The McGraw-Hill Reader, Issues Across the
Disciplines, Seventh Edition. I chose and read three texts in the book, which
are “What Is the Point of Working?”, the author, Lance Morrow; “Why the
Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer”, the author, Robert Reich;
“Professions for Women”, the author, Virginia Woolf.
All of three texts have in common that is talk about “Work”. The first
text is “What Is the Point of Working?” (page 288-292) of the author Lance
Morrow. In the text, Morrow explores American attitudes toward the
workplace. The second text (page 304-315), Robert Reich- the author talks
about three economic boats: the boat containing routine producers which is
sinking rapidly, the boat carrying in-person servers is sinking but more
slowly and unevenly than the first boat, and the vessel containing America’s
symbolic analysts which is rising. The third text (page 325-329), Virginia
Woolf, novelist and essayist also writes about wok by arguing that women
must overcome several “angels” or phantoms, in order to succeed in
professional careers. Particularly, all three texts are essays by rhetorical
mode.

71
 Although discussing about work, each text displays the different aspects
of work. The content of the first text is the most common. It is about
American attitudes toward the workplace from past to now. By giving the
views of the other writers about work and his own opinion Lance Morrow
shows the readers different ideas about work. For example Studs Terkel with
his 1972 book “Working’ began “This book, being about work, is, by its very
nature, about violence-to the spirit as well as to the body” (page 288); in
contrast Kahlil Gibran called work “love made visible” (page 289). “During
the 19th century industrialization of America, the idea of work’s inherent
virtue may have seemed temporarily in plausible to generations who labored
in the mines and mills and sweetshops” (page 289). However, according to
the author, now the work ethic is not dead, but it is weaker. The psychology
of work is much change in America. Morrow gives not only the change in
attitude of American workers but he also explains clearly the reason leading
to the change “because today’s workers are better educated than those in the
past, their expectations are higher”. Finally, Lance Morrow expresses his own
attitude to the workplace. He sees work not merely as an important human
activity but an essential one for social and psychology health. He supposes
that “Work is the most thorough and profound organizing principle in
American life” (page 291). He also thinks that work is the way that people
tend the world, the way that people connect. In the essay, the author refers to
many historical, biographical and literary references to make it more
persuadable. In his essay Morrow cites no polls, no statistics, nor does he
offer any personal observation regarding his topic, but this absence does not
weaken his argument because the rhetorical strength of the essay powerful
enough to stand on its own (the rhetorical format for the essay is argument).
The strength of the Morrow’s essay is that he gives encounters to strengthen
his ideas. The second text is “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor,
Poorer”- Robert Reich. Through his text, the author tells us his analysis of the
changing nature of work and how these changes create an even broader gap
between the rich and the poor. According him, in the past, All American used
to be in roughly the same economic boat, but now in different boats, one
sinking rapidly, one sinking more slowly and the third rising steadily. The
first boat containing routine producers is sinking rapidly. Robert Reich gives
evidences to prove his state. For instance, key punch operators in the United
States in 1990, American Airlines in 1990, AT&T in 1989 and so on. The
second boat of the three boats carrying in-person servers is sinking as well,
but somewhat more slowly and unevenly. “Most in-person servers are paid at
or just slightly above the minimum wage and many works only part-time with
the result that their take-home pay is modest, to say the least” (page 309). The

72
author shows the problems or difficulties that in-person servers have to face
such as the competition in labor-saving machinery (the fiercest competition),
the second decade of the 21th century, the number of Americans aged 65 and
over will be rising, as the baby-boomers reach retirement age and live longer,
and the decaying baby-boomers will not have enough money to pay for the
services such as require nurses, nursing-home operators, hospital
administrators hospice aides and so on. The final boat containing America’s
symbolic analysts is rising. Symbolic analysts are American scientists and
researchers who are busily selling their discoveries to global enterprise webs.
The third boat is rising because worldwide demand for America’s symbolic
analyst’s insights is growing. Reich uses the central metaphor of the “boat” in
describing the state of economics and employment. This makes his essay
imaginative. The third text ““Professions for Women”, Virginia Woolf - the
author uses her own experience to prove that women wants to have
professional careers they must overcome several “angels”. In the text, the
author talks about two very genuine experiences of her own which she has
had to overcome to become a novelist. They are two of the adventures of her
professional life. The first-killing the Angel in the House-phantom which she
solved, and the second, telling the truth about her own experiences as body
which she has not solved yet. According to the author the second experience
is ghosts, prejudices. The essay of Virginia Woolf is ironic from the start as
she readily admits she can speak expertly of only one profession, her own,
which is writing. There is a significant amount of figurative language in the
essay which helps the author expresses her experience successfully. In her
essay, Woolf also poses so many questions to emphasis the utmost
importance and interest. She wants the readers to understand her message that
is clear regarding the effect of living in a male-dominated society. Generally,
all of three texts are likely different each other because each author has own
opinion and different ways to demonstrate and support his or her own ideas.
The three texts are very informative. They help me read more critically.
Thanks to the texts, I know more information about work, especially work in
the United States. I know more about the attitudes of American to the
workplace in the past. I also understand why the rich are getting richer and
the poor, poorer. Moreover, I learn the forms of essays by rhetorical mode,
the ways writers perform ideas, support them and encounter the other ideas.
Reading the texts help me have the ability to think, read and write about
complex materials. Besides learning the tools of critical reading and writing
not only teaches me the “what” of an issue, but also helps me think about and
respond smartly to the relative strength of the writer’s opinions, ideas and
theories. Although all of three texts are useful for me, there are lots of

73
terminologies, so it is difficult to understand the texts. When I read the texts I
used closed skill and summarizing skill to understand and reflect them.

RL 2- Reflection 2
Family where one can find understanding, talk about their problems,
be listened to, share feelings and emotions, love and be loved is very
important to them. I have read five texts written about family, its roles, values
and influences recently. The first text is “Immigrants and family values”
written by Francis Fukyama and reprinted by permission from Commentary,
May 1993. The second one is ““Stone soup” written by Barbara Kingsolver
published by HarperCollins. The third one is “A mother’s son”, written by
Thomas Simmons; the fourth is “ parent education” written by Gayle M.
Jessar and the last one is “Are families passé’?” written by Ruth Benedict
given in the book “The Mc Graw Hill Reader, Issues across the disciplines”
designed by Gilbert H.Muller, published by the City University of New York
La Guardia .
In terms of similarities, firstly, all of five texts are written about
families, its roles, values, influences and the purpose is to save it. The first
text “Immigrants and families values” is about immigrants in the United
States and their family life in the Third World. It affirms that economic
conditions are very important in saving family in the Third World and its
values. In the second text “Are families passé’?” the author gives a lot of
arguments about family , its roles and the question here is that whether
icfamilies are passé or not. The third one “Stone soup” is also about the role
of family and its importance. In this text, the author uses quite a lot of
capitalizing, italicizing, and placing quotation marks around certain phrases,
for example ,”way it has always been” ( paragraph 4); failed and children of
divorce (paragraph 7) ; “ family values” ( paragraph 18) to emphasize the role

74
of family, parents and its importance. The fourth one “A mother’s son” is a
short story which tells about the life, the hope of the author’s mother, a
mother in 1960’s and her influence on him. He wrote it to commemorate his
departed mother, to express his sentiments towards her, to show his opinion
about family relationship and to help readers understand more about the place
of women in marriage as well as in family in his mother’s times. The last one
““Parent Education” written to show people the importance of parent
education and encourage people to take parenting classes.
Secondly, all of these texts, the authors use a lot of comparison and contrast
rhetorical. In “Immigrants and families values”, the author use comparison
and contrast rhetorical from paragraph 19 to 28(page 116 to 119) to point out
families values of immigrants. Next, in “Are family passé?” from paragraph 7
to 18(page 158 to 160); the author follows a comparison and contrast format,
which makes prominent the view on family life of the United States or
European countries and others in the world. Moreover, this rhetorical method
helps readers understand or answer easily the essay’s title she gave. In “Stone
soup”, the author uses comparison and contrast rhetorical in paragraph 1, 3,
and 4. 6, 7, 8 and 9 (page 166) to point out the difference between her real
life and the family of dolls and the change in life after she divorced the
difficulties she encountered and the importance of family. Added to this, in “a
mother’s son”, the author compares his mother with his friend’s to emphasize
his mother’s love for him. Finally, all of these texts use argument and
persuasion rhetorical to argue about the role of family, its importance and
persuade readers to find the way to save family values.
In terms of differences, because the authors were born at the different
generations, so their views regarding the family also have differences. In
“Are family passé?” Ruth Benedict the post – World war II American family
and by doing so, demonstrates how she synthesizes many disciplines in her
reflection on social phenomena. Next, “Stone Soup” is a personal reaction by
Barbara Kingsolver that expresses the author’s feelings in response to
society’s negative view and it’s holding of contempt of divorced, remarried,
single parenthood, and gay parents. The author herself is a divorced parent
and feels outraged at the notion that her family, according to society, is
classified as “broken” or “failed” .She begins her essay with an anecdote of a
child scoring a winning goal during a soccer game; the child looking at the
bleachers, where he is praised by his mother and her friends .In “Immigrants
and family values.” Francis Fukuyama attempts to set the record straight
regarding the influence of recent immigrants to the United States. Next, in “ a
mother’s son” ,the author’s tone is emotional and expressive as he describes
his noble mother who considered self-sacrifice as her justification for living

75
in her whole life. The language the author uses is simply and natural but
imbrued with love and preoccupation. To attract readers’ attention and
provoke their contemplation, he cleverly makes use of beautiful words and
expressions such as “I am left with boxes and boxes of history”, “in the futile
hope of”, “the sacred mingling of souls”, “self-sacrifice and endless duty”,
“the past quiets down, and things fall into perspective”, etc. Last, in “parent
education”, the author gives an authoritative tone by telling the readers about
her own job. She also reports positive results, noting that parents she works
with believe “they become better parents when they understand more about
their children’s needs and normal development patterns”. The language she
uses is simple and understandable.
Each reflects a style of writing, an intellectual universe, and an external
world that views the healthy family differently. Additionally, because
Benedict comes directly from the academic community, her writing reflects
its stylist influence, while Kingsolver, a poet and novelist as well as a
scientist , demonstrates a more eclectic and unique voice; moreover, she also
reveals to the reader her experience of divorce and the affect it had on her and
her daughter, admitting to the reader her arrogant view of divorce prior to
experiencing it herself and describing her prior beliefs as, “ignorance and
Francis Fukuyama – a consultant as well as a deputy director for the State
department’s policy demonstrates through statistics and analysis. Perhaps
these attributes can also be traced to the greater tolerance for stylistic variety
today than existed in Benedict’s time. Added to this, Benedict was writing at
a time when family values were just beginning to become more liberal; on the
other hand, Kingsolver and Francis Fukuyama are writing at a time when the
composition of conventional household has now become just one among a
variety of family constellations.
After reading these five texts, I have learnt many useful things. Firstly, in
my opinion, the most useful lesson is the importance of family, its roles and
values. For example, after reading “a mother’s son”, I understand more about
mothers’ sacrifice for their families. I think about my mother who loves me
boundlessly and readily does everything for my family. I also understand
more about the equality in love and marriage. Love and marriage has to be
built on mutual understanding and sharing, not just compliance. Besides, I
used to experience a hard time when I felt that my parents did not understand
and respect me, and I turned into a bit rebel and troublemaker. Now I know
that parents just want the best things for their children and they also need
their children’s respect and cooperation. What’s more, in the past, I did not
know more about the importance and values of family, and American’s views
on life and family .After reading these texts; they help me to broaden my

76
knowledge about life, family in other countries. They help me appreciate the
value of unity, honesty and respect in family. Moreover, these texts help me
know more about the writing styles of other writers. Finally, personally, I
have learnt how to organize the text, how to use the transitional words and
phrases exactly, and how to express my own view persuadably.
In conclusion, these three texts are really interesting, touching,
meaningful, persuasive and worth reading. They generally show clear ideas
and organization, so it is easy to follow. Besides, there is a wide range of
vocabularies and structures from which I can learn and actually they are
examined carefully and deeply.
Source:
1. PARENT EDUCATION
Gayle M. Jessar
Source: “Reading, Writing and Thinking Critical Connections” (Pages 181,
182)
Vivian M. Rosenberg
Random House, Inc. 1989
2. A mother’s son
Thomas Simmons
Source: “Reading, Writing and Thinking Critical Connections” (Pages 164,
165, 166)
Vivian M. Rosenberg
Random House, Inc. 1989
3. Immigrants and Family Values.
Francis Fukuyama

Reprinted by permission from Commentary,

May 1993.
http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/pub/Immigration/ImmAndTheFamily/Fuk
uyama.html
4. "Stone Soup" is reprinted with permission from High Tide In Tucson,
published by HarperCollins. Copyright©1995 by Barbara Kingsolver..

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tw/09-28-95/cover.htm
5.“Are families passé’?”- Ruth Benedict
The book “The Mc Graw Hill Reader, Issues across the disciplines” designed
by Gilbert H.Muller,
The City University of New York La Guardia .

77
 RF 3- Reflection 3
After these seven weeks, I’ve read a lot of articles about disasters and
survival. I found that five articles were very interesting and informative. They
are on Internet, consisting of: Could you survive alone if injured, Cold
weather survival, A Survival Guide to Catastrophe, Wilderness Survival
Priorities, and Survival in Times of Uncertainty: Growing Up in Russia in the
1990s. These articles all bring us the stories of how different people all
around the world can survive in many different ways. Moreover, they also tell
us about some tips of surviving when you’re in troubles. While three of these
articles including the first, second and the forth ones are written about the
ways which help people overcome some difficult situations such as cold
weather, being injured or lonely in the dark and the steps to do, the other
article in some ways bring true stories in life of the persons who had
experienced these situations. I’m especially interested in these articles about
catastrophe and growing in Russia. The persons in these articles told us their
own stories to help us feel clearly how difficult to overcome these difficulties
in life and how they can survive..
First four articles all bring information in details and stories in order to
help readers know specifically more about survival. I found that the last
article is a little different from the first ones. It didn’t write about the way
people can survive over disasters, and it focused on real life and its matters.
In some difficult periods, when people have to face to lacks of food,
happiness, freedom, they have to learn to survive and do by their natures.
When reading those passages, I find that I can improve my reading
skills such as improving critical reading and thinking skills. I can focus on

78
scanning skill, especially in last article. In addition, I can broad my
vocabulary because there’re many new words or stems about survival, for
examples survival fire, gear, kit, etc. I think the structure of all articles is
generally quite clear and easy to read. To support these opinions, the writers
show us not only a lot of facts and examples but also many arguments and
true stories, so we can aware of how to survival and how important it is. In
my opinion, all the authors give fair arguments and reliable information.
I can also enrich the background knowledge about the steps I need to
follow when I’m in trouble. I find that stories in two articles about
catastrophe and growing up in Russian in the 1990s very meaningful because
they bring me some valuable lessons about our life, the ways to live and how
to overcome difficulties. After reading these articles, I can know how to do if
I’m in an earthquake, flood, or fire. The most important thing I should
remember is always be calm and quickly do what I think. To try to survival
means you need to act, not “freeze”.
In conclusion, I think the topic of survival and disasters is very interesting
and useful. By doing this assignment, I can consolidate and broaden language
knowledge to reach higher level.

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RF 4-Reflection 4
I have ever read three researches about one topic “nonverbal communication-
body language”, however in this reflection I just want to compare two
researches of two different group authors (Teri Kwal Gamble and Micheal
Gamble; and Stephen E.Lucas) about nonverbal communication. I found that
it was an interesting topic which brought me much useful information.
To start with, we should know what nonverbal communication is? To answer
this question, both group authors gave the similar definition of nonverbal
communication. It means that it is unnecessary to use words to express what
we want and think, we can use body language such as facial expressions,
gesture, posture and other nonlinguistic factors. However, the group authors-
Gambles analyzed more deeply and compared nonverbal communication
with verbal communication in order to show the similarities as well as
difficulties. The first similarity is that both of them are ambiguous. Nonverbal
messages may not mean what we think they do. The authors also gave
information that all nonverbal communication must be evaluated or
interpreted within the context in which it occurs. The second one is that both
of them are contradictory. It means that there is a contrast between we say
and we act. For example, when you say “I agree” but your face looks sad, it
means you disagree. From these features of nonverbal communication I learn
that if I want to make decisions or give judgment I should pay attention to not
only what people say but also what I observe from them. On the other hand,
the only difference between the nonverbal and verbal communication is that
nonverbal communication is perpetual and frequently involuntary. Gambles
group gave meaning example to support their views about nonverbal. Why

80
nonverbal communication is perpetual and voluntary? The reason is that it is
a natural reaction of our body and we can not stop sending nonverbal
messages as well as stop behaving. Frankly, Teri Kwal Gamble and Micheal
Gamble are more successful than Stephen E.Lucas because they defined
nonverbal communication more clearly and compared it to the verbal
communication to find the features of nonverbal messages.
Furthermore, nonverbal communication includes many elements. To
understand more about nonverbal communication, both of the two group
authors concentrated on analyzing body language. Their common thing is that
both of groups called body language “kinesics”, which has a lot of elements
such as facial expressions, gestures and postures. They both considered that
facial expression is the most important broadcaster of emotion. From their
research, I know an informative fact “80 muscles in the face can create more
than 7000 expressions”. However, to specialize facial expression, the Gamble
group divided it into three general areas: the eyebrow and forehead, the eyes
and the mouth. Each of area makes success in expression emotion without
words. This division seems to be effective because it was divided into
specific areas but it still belonged to facial expression system. Gestures and
posture are the effective elements of body language. If gestures are the
movements of our arms, hands, neck to broadcast nonverbal data, posture is
the way we hold ourselves when sitting or standing, giving other information
that they use to assess our thoughts and feelings.
In my own points, two researches of two different groups of authors about
one topic “nonverbal communicating (especially body language) attained
some success and some similarities. For example, they gave the similar
definition of nonverbal communication, the elements of body language. They
both realized the importance of body language to achieve in communicating.
After each opinion, they also gave effective example to support for their
views. Another example, to prove nonverbal communication is perpetual and
involuntary; the Gamble group gave a sample “Even if one partner is in a
conversation suddenly leaves the room, he or she is still communicating”.
However, the way they showed and analyzed had some great differences. The
Stephen E.Lucas group only gave the general information about nonverbal
communication; they did not deeply analyze as well as arrange the
information clearly. On the contrary, the Gambles group not only gave
general information but also gave the details to make their views clearer. I
really like the way that the Gamble group divided some information into
more specific ones but they were still in one system; this division has several
advantages such as making ideas clearer but not overlapped and
understanding something as well as analyzing them deeply.

81
In short, after reading and understanding the text about nonverbal
communication, especially body language, I know that communication have
not only conversation by words, but the participation of nonverbal data or
body language. It also means that what you hear is possibly wrong if you
only hear it, so that before making decision or giving opinion about
something, we should base on what we hear and what we observe or pay
attention to both verbal and nonverbal communicational factors.

RF5-Relection 5
In seven weeks, I read some texts:
1. Effects of technology
Source: http://www.essaydepot.com/essayme/2195/index.php
2. Functions of television
Source: http://www/thetvaddiction.com/functions_of_television.html
3. Television- Its advantages and disadvantages
Source: http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resource/71581-Television-
Its-Advantages-Disadvantages.aspx
4. The good things about television
Source:http://www.media-
awareness.ca/englisgh/parents/television/good_things_tv.cfm
5. Television’s impact on kids
Source:http://www.media-
awareness.ca/englisgh/parents/television/tv_impact_kids.cfm
6. How TV affects your child
Source: http://kidshealth.org/parent/posotove/family/tv_affects_child.html
7. The influence of television on children

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 Source:
http://www.thetvaddiction.com/the_influence_of_television_on_children.h
tml
8. The influence of television on adults
Source:http://www.thetvaddiction.com/the_influnece_of_television_on_ad
ults.html
From reading the above passages, I learnt more knowledge about the effects
of television on people, especially children. The technology which surrounds
almost everyone in the modern society, affects both work and leisure
activities. One of them is television which is one of the greatest inventions of
human an inescapable part of modern culture. To people, television brings
both advantages and disadvantages.
Firstly, we discover functions of television, they are informative function,
management or social function, educative function. Because of its functions,
more and more people watch television everyday. It also has brought about a
revolution in the field of entertainment, education, and communication.
Nowadays, people depend on television for entertainment, news, education,
culture, weather, sports. Therefore, television has many advantages. People
only stay at home, watch television and they still get much information on the
world. Moreover, television is as a catalyst to get kids reading, and it also
helps people relax after a hard-working day with many funny interesting
programs.
Besides advantages, television brings many disadvantages, especially its
effect on children about some sides such as violence, healthy child
development, and sexual content. According to many studies, there are three
potential responses to media violence in children. They include “mean and
scary world” syndrome, desensitization to real-life violence, increased
aggressive behavior. Because nowadays, there are so many programs which
contain violent contents, even in cartoons for kids. Television also lakes bad
habits for children such as drinking alcohol, doing drugs, smoking cigarettes.
In addition, television viewing is a sedentary activity which is main factor in
childhood obesity. Children spend much time watching TV instead of
meeting their friends. One more thing is that children today are bombarded
with sexual messages and images in television. According to a 2001 study
from the Kaiser Family foundation, entitled Sex on TV, three out of four
prime time shows contain sexual references. Situation comedies top list: 84
percent contain sexual content. In shows that portrayed teens in sexual
situations, only 17 percent contained messages about safe and responsible
sex.

83
A noticeable other issue is the influence of television on adults. People often
discuss effects of television on children, so they rarely talk about those on
adults. To adults, television’s influences depend on each person, on his
culture, knowledge, intelligence and just on his attitude and preferences.
About healthy problems, TV can make a negative effect on adults’ physical
and metal health. However, adults have had consciousness about what is good
or bad, so they can adjust themselves about watching television. An
interesting thing is that some texts give ways of teaching good TV habits.
Here are some practical ways to make TV-viewing more productivr in your
home:
- Limit the number of TV-watching hours (keep TVs out of bedrooms,
turn off TV during meals, don’t allow kids to watch TV while doing
homework, etc.)

- Try a weekday ban. ( Do other activities instead of watching TV such

as schoolwork, sports activities and job responsibilities, etc)
- Set a good example by limiting your own TV viewing.
- Check the TV listings and program reviews ahead of time for programs
your family can watch together.
- Preview programs before your kids watch schedule that you all agree
upon each week.
- Watch Tv together.
- Talk to kids about what they see on TV and share your own beliefs and
values.
- Talk to other parents, your doctor, and teachers about their TV-
watching policies and kid-friendly programs they’d recommend.
- Offer fun alternatives to television.
- The above texts have some similarities. About structure, all of them
have introduction, supporting ideas and conclusion. Because of that,
the reader can easily read and find the main information from the texts.
From the, I also saw that knowledge and information about advantages
and disadvantages of television are similar.

84
 Although the texts write the same topic, there are some differences about
supporting ideas. In the fifth, the sixth and the seventh texts, they also
write about effects of TV on children. However, in the two first texts,
authors write about harms in violence, health and development of children
because of TV’s programs and shows. In the seventh text, effects of TV on
children are divided into smaller parts, and they aren’t also clear.
In different texts, the main content is the effects of TV on children which
are violence, risky behaviors, obesity. This issue has been discussed many
times from past until now. Scientists gave advice to limit television’s
effects on people. I think that this issue should be introduced extensively
to everyone, especially parents to limit minimum disadvantages, and
increase maximum advantages of television. More over, reading these
texts, I practiced skimming skills and extensive reading to get information
and understand content. In my opinion, reading portfolio is a good activity
for students to improve their reading skills.

RL 6- Reflection 6
From the twentieth century, mass media has played a crucial role in
forming and reflecting public opinion, connecting the world to individuals
and reproducing the self-image of society. I really wanted to understand more
about this issue, so I found and read five articles on the topic “Media and
society”. The five articles I read are “The medium is the metaphor” by Neil
Postman, “Steal this TV, how media literacy can change the world” by Don
Adams and Arlene Goldbard, “Television and reading in the lives of young
children” by Susan Neuman, “Can TV help save black youth” by Diane
Goldner, and “Violence in the media” by J. Gonzalez-Mena.
These five articles are both similar and different in some ways. Even
though each article has its own style and content, they have several things in
common. Firstly, all the articles are written to clarify the effects of TV and
other kinds of media on the individuals and society. Two articles “Television
and reading in the lives of young children” and “Violence in the media” both
discuss the impact of the media on children’s lives. The second similarity is

85
that the audiences from whom the authors want to draw attention are people
who have good background knowledge about media and good critical
thinking skills. However, these writings are different in some ways. The first
difference is the tone the authors use. “Can TV help save black youth” has
encouraging and hopeful tone whereas “How media literacy can change the
world” has academic tone “and “The media is the metaphor” has scholarly
tone but a little bit irony. In “Television and reading in the lives of young
children” and “Violence in the media”, the authors ‘tone is professional and
analytic. The second difference is the patterns of organization the writers use
to achieve their purposes. In “The medium is the metaphor” and “How media
literacy can change the world”, Neil Postman and Don Adams use
argumentation to present their ideas while “Can TV help save black youth”
and “Violence in the media” are cause and effect essays where Diane Goldner
and Gonzalez-Mena both show the influence of TV programs on children and
adolescences. “Television and reading in the lives of young children, on the
other hand, is a research of Susan Neuman and a comparison and contrast
between common assumption and her actual findings about the effect of TV
on young children.
In this paragraph, I will summarize the main ideas of the five texts I
mentioned. In “The medium is the metaphor”, Neil describes how oral,
literate, and televisual cultures radically differ in how information is
processed and prioritized by giving examples about the politicians, journalists
as well as celebrities. He also argues that different media are appropriate for
different kinds of knowledge. In the article “How media literacy can change
the world” Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard show the importance of the
implementation of public policy for media education. According to the
authors, we have to look at what role media should play in our society and
how people can participate in shaping television and the other mass media
that affect all of our lives. This article is clearly a call for action and change
in media education. Unlike Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard, Diane Goldner,
in “Can TV help save black youth”, discusses the “tragic morass of violence
and the increase in homicide rate for young people, which is extremely
serious. She she hopes that television series will make the audience more
open to this subject; and entertainment can be the “elixir” to changing
people’s thoughts and attitudes. In the article “Television and reading in the
lives of young children”, Susan Neuman presents her observations of three
family to see the impact of television on the reading activities of the children.
She also discusses the differences between the findings of her research and
the three common assumptions about the relationship of television viewing to
cognitive development and creativity. In “Violence in the media”, the writer

86
shows the relationship between aggression and television watching and the
ways to take advantage of positive effects and limit negative side of mass
media.
In my opinion, these articles are really worth reading. “The medium is
the metaphor” and “how media literacy can change the world” are not easy to
understand from the first time of reading; however, if we read them slowly
and think about the ways the authors approach the problems, the language
they use, and the messages they want to send, we will find them very
interesting and informative. All the authors succeed in persuading the
audience as they presents strong arguments and gives vivid examples as well
as facts and statistics. Perhaps, the article I like the most is “Television and
reading in the lives of young children”. Although it a kind of research, a kind
of observations, it is not dry and boring as I thought at first. The writer
presents her work, her observations in a fairly understandable way and clear
structure. However, the most surprise is the findings of her observations
which contradict with the common assumptions about the effect of television
viewing. It turns out that watching television does not stifle children’s
imagination and creativity, take time away more worthwhile pursuits as well
as displace activities serving children needs for novelty and information. One
interesting thing I found after reading these articles is that while the other
four articles emphasize the positive as well as negative influences of
television and the media, “Television and reading in the lives of young
children” seems to suggest that television does not have such much power
since children tend to choose other active and social activities rather than
sitting at home and watching television. However, to my mind, we also
cannot deny the power of media and its impact on individuals and the society.
It is human beings that are affected by media a great deal as the way we
think, the way we live, the way we communicate somehow are decided by the
images that media creates. Hence, I agree with the writers Don Adams and
Arlene Goldbard that media education is vital because it will make our
society has become more “media literate” to avoid mass media displacing and
undermining social life, community activities as well as other creative
pursuits. Besides, through these texts, I also learn a lot of vocabulary such as
“fast-paced entertainment”, “metaphor”, “media literacy”, “quasi-public
authorities”, “elixir”, “imaginative play”, etc; and the way to write an
academic piece of writing.
In conclusion, these five texts are really interesting, persuasive and
informative, and all show clear ideas and patterns organization. Besides, they
provide a wide range of vocabulary and structures from which I can learn to
improve my reading, writing as well as critical thinking skills.

87
 READING LIST

1. The medium is the metaphor

Author: Neil Postman
Source: “Currents of Inquiry” (Pages 242-251)
Nancy Morrow-Marlene Clarke
The McHraw-Hill companies, INC.1998

2. Steal this TV, how media literacy can change the world
Authors: Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard
Source: “Currents of Inquiry” (Pages 286-291)
Nancy Morrow-Marlene Clarke
The McHraw-Hill companies, INC.1998

3. Television and reading in the lives of young children

Author: Susan B. Neuman
Source: “Currents of Inquiry” (Pages 292-313)
Nancy Morrow-Marlene Clarke
The McHraw-Hill companies, INC.1998

4. Can TV help save black youth

Author: Diane Goldner,
Source: Multitude Cross- Cultural Readings for Writer (Page 481-485)
Chitra B. Divakaruni
The McGraw-Hill companies, 1997

5. Violence in the media

Author: J. Gonzalez-Mena
Source:http://www.education.com/reference/article/violence-media-
impact-children/?page=2

88
RF7-Reflection 7
As a result of many efforts, I selected and finished reading a lot of articles
relating to the “Cohabitation” topic. All of them are very helpful in providing
its background knowledge to the young adults, especially students.
In this reflection, there are four relevant readings:
1. Cohabitation
http://family.jrank.rog/pages/279/Cohabitation.html
2. The facts are behind cohabitation
Hrrp://www.civitas.org.uk/hwu/cohabitation
3. Should we live together?
http://www.smartmarriages.com/cohabit.html
4. Cohabitation before marriage by Joseph M. champlin
http://www.americanatholic.org/Newletters/CU/ac0603.asp

89
Cohabitation is becoming more and more popular in the world. This is a
burning problem causing many arguments in the world that should be banned
or not for its obscure and even taboo meaning. In most countries, cohabitation
is not yet perceived as a legitimate variant to marriage from the perspective of
the state. For example, in US there are six states launching legislation to
object to the cohabitation and in Indonesia, it is punishable up to two years in
prison for cohabiters. In contrast with two countries, the Legislation
Assembly of Mexico City has established legal rights and duties for two
people who are living together. In Vietnam, cohabitation increases more and
more, however, it is considered illegal and unacceptable.
Commonly, cohabitation often refers to only young people and their
intimated relations; however, it is not enough. Cohabitation is also
misunderstood despite of the fact that it is not a new phenomenon now.
Before reading this portfolio carefully, I thought that cohabitation only
happen with young people in a short time for about some months or
maximum some years with the main purpose is to test whether they are
suitable with each other or not. I also have little logical knowledge of the bad
influences of this phenomenon. After reading; however, I improve my
knowledge in term of exact definition cohabitation:” Cohabitation, sometimes
called consensual union, refers to unmarried heterosexual couples living
together in an intimate relationship” which means that people who cohabit
together can last for their whole life if they are not really Mr or Mrs. Right of
each other.
As I read this chain of material, I find the most disadvantages of cohabitation
like following:
Firstly, cohabitation cannot guarantee for the children lived in happy family.
As the third article three quarters of children born to cohabiting parents will
see their parents split up before they reach age sixteen, whereas only about a
third of children born to married parents face a similar rate. This finger will
rise by the time of modern life as the roaring of cohabitation. Of course, a
child with broken parents will grow up in the lack of many things. For
example, they have no support of love, of care, of finance, and especially
easy to be abused. In recent year, children abuse has become a major national
problem, and has increased dramatically, by more than 10% a year according
to one estimate. Surprisingly, the available American date do not enable us to
distinguish the abuse that takes place in married-couple households from that
in cohabiting-couple households. Meanwhile, the higher levels of child abuse
than is found in intact families.
Secondly, the cohabiting couples get the bad influence themselves when they
split up. From the article second and the third, annual rates of depression

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among cohabiting couples are more than three times among married couples.
And women in cohabiting relationships are more likely than married women
to suffer physical and sexual abuse. Some research has shown that aggression
is at least twice as common among cohabiters as it is among married partners.
More seriously, when domestic violent happen, at least, the cohabiting
women will not get the support from family, friends and even the social
prejudices.
Thirdly, cohabitation causes the risk of instability for society. Cohabiting
relationships are fragile. Both men and women in cohabiting relationships are
more likely to be unfaithful to their partners than married couples. Cohabiting
couples accumulate less wealth than married couples, etc. because this is
mental phenomenon, it is difficult to prevent even when the government have
the strict legal. When having law, many couples tend to ignore it and try to
continue cohabiting. In Vietnam, it is hardly to accept cohabitation not only
by law but also by traditional thinking. Of course, there are also a lot of
cohabiting couples come to get marriages in the end. Nowadays, young adults
aren’t too confused to decide cohabiting together. This thinking should be
criticized strict.
There are many controversially different ideas around cohabitations. A lot of
countries suppose cohabitation by giving law to control this impossible
abandon mood suitably. From my point of view, I strongly agree that
cohabitation should be banned all over the world without any reasons. The
style of reading is easy to understand both meaning and reading skills. All the
passages are so informative with many detail support for the bad cohabitation
effects.
In my opinion, my collection materials also exist many weak points. For
example, mo advantages of cohabitation are given scientifically. Many
couples cohabit with acceptable reasons such as religious, region differences.
However, nothing can sure that they can live together forever if no law is
established to tie down among them. Therefore, I completely agree with the
fact disadvantages are given in this material.
In conclusion, cohabitation is not avoidable all over the world. However,
through the material I select, there are no advantages of this problem.
Therefore, each of us has to confirm our stuff to defend all seducing of life.
The civil life and the healthy life is the future we purchase in our whole life.

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RL 8-Reflection 8
Recently, I have heard lots of news about a great deal of Toyota cars
recalled as well as lawsuits against this world's automobiles giant. As far
as I know Toyota has been the most reliable motor corporation in the world
for ages, so I was very surprised at these news. Therefore, I decided to find
out the reason why Toyota Corporation is meeting with such difficulties as
well as points of view from consumers and many magazines about this
automaker’s problem. Here are some sources where I found many interesting
articles concerning Toyota:
http://www.toyoland.com/history.html
http://www.toyoland.com/future.html
http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/archives/2007/10/toyotas_qu
ality.html
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/new-cars/buying-advice/who-
makes-the-best-cars/overview/index.htm

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 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8495132.stm

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/business/05recall.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8588334.stm

http://www.sourcejuice.com/1304248/2010/02/09/Toyota-lower-sales-goal-
China-competitors-want-capture-market/

http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2010/03/201032611435544514.html

http://newschaser.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/american-consumers-defend-
toyota-gov%E2%80%99t-drumbeats- accelerator-issue/

http://www.collegecarguide.com/blog/1042639_toyota-plans-to-win-back-
consumers-in-march-media-push

Firstly, through the article on the website

http://www.toyoland.com/history.html,
I knew a lot of information about Toyota Corporation’s history and process
of development in the world market. This automaker was set up nearly 80
years ago, however only until the 80s decade, it became a famous brand name
all over the world. For decades, the Japanese automaker has carefully
nurtured and perpetuated a reputation for producing reliable cars and trucks.
Toyota’s cars have been loved by a lot of people thanks to its quality. Toyota
car owners said that they satisfied with its quality because their cars could be
used for more than 30 years with safe condition.

Nevertheless, what happened to this automobile giant? What has made it

have to recall 8 million vehicles and face up with so many complications
from lawsuits? Through the above articles, I partly understand Toyota’s
problem. The main cause is the sticky accelerator pedals. However there was
an accident happening to a 77-year-old former autoworker who drove her
2005 Toyota Camry. Her family claimed that there are also problems with the
electronic system that controls the throttle and engine speed in Toyotas.
According to documents I found, there was no evidence for that claim.
Moreover, I think that the woman was too old to drive the car safely. In
addition, I think that she was not used to drive this kind of car because
according to the article on the website http://www.nytimes.com/, she only
used Buick for ages. In general, most magazines and consumers approve of
Toyota Corporation. They said that although the complications affect this

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automobile giant’s finance as well as reputation, the current recall will impact
the Japanese car maker only in the short term. Certainly, there are also
complaints about Toyota service. However, I do not really believe their point
of view because I do not know who they are. Maybe they are employees of
other Toyota’s competitors.

Among a lot of article concerning Toyota, I like the one on the website
http://newschaser.wordpress.com most. The writer’s idea is very clear and
persuasive. Firstly, he supplied the readers with detailed information about
Toyota’s difficulties, then he also gave the same difficulties that other
automobile giants had, then he told reader Japanese characteristics. He
seemed to understand Japanese people very much. He said that the
lawmakers should take time to understand the Japanese business mindset
from several different viewpoints. It will help to understand their decision-
making process. The Japanese always respect efficiency, quality and hard
work. When they apologize, they do so often because a noticeable failure is a
shame on the honor of the name, the brand, the family. The apology is not
for something done morally wrong as much as it is for something not done
well and in the true spirit of an arrangement. For the Japanese mind, an effort
must be good from the outset and one must strive for quality, a kind of
perfection. I do not mean that Toyota is innocent in its efforts to correct the
problem–I currently do not have enough information. It is, however, an
observation on how the Japanese mindset works and it leads one to another
great quality of their products. The Japanese will try their best to get it right,
when they finally recognize a major mistake or failure. The language he used
is very easy to understand, and the lay-out of the article is also clear and
logical. As a result the readers are easily persuaded by his point of view.
Objectively, I must say that Japanese people are very reliable and intelligent.
In my opinion, Toyota is very responsible for their customers; they quickly
recalled the entire models that were found out problem to protect consumers’
life. In addition, as far as I know recalls are not uncommon among
automakers. For example, Ford ignition fires during the 1980s involved 8.6
million vehicles, Honda recalled 3.1 million vehicles in 1995 and GM’s
tailgate cables failure in 2004 recalled 4 million vehicles. Therefore, Toyota’s
consumers should not be too disappointed and give up Toyota trade hastily.
In my opinion, Toyota is very responsible for their customers; they quickly
recalled the entire models that were found out problem to protect consumers’
life. For all the reasons above, I am sure that quality of Toyota cars will be
improved soon.

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In conclusion, consumer should continue approve of Toyota. I believe that
with the development of technology, the strength of Toyota Corporation and
the approval from consumer, Toyota will lead the automobile industry to a
new step as to protect environment and save energy. In process of getting
information from these articles for this reflection, I have to use some of
reading skills such as skimming, reading closely scanning, summarizing,
paraphrasing, analyzing and synthesizing. Those articles are very useful to
me because I have learned a lot from the way to use language to the way to
write persuasively.

RF 9-Reflection 9
Marriage is a problem which most people are concerned about.
Different regions, culture, and religions have different views of marriage.
Therefore, I read books, and searched on the Internet to find out marriage
customs, traditions and views of many countries. Following texts will present
some general knowledge about marriage.
The first text is Social science finds: “marriage matters” in book
““Read, reason, write. An argument text and reader” by Dorothy U. Seyler,
The Mc Graw- Hill companies. It is about some marriage aspects which have
a big influence on marriage. Firstly, the author presents a quick view at

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marriage patterns today compared to 1950. Then he gives some evidences
proving that men and women do better because they are married. When they
are married, they gain many good things such as better health, wages, more
wealth and improved sex life.
The second text is Gay marriage, an oxymoron by Dorothy U. Seyler,
The Mc Graw- Hill companies. The writer presents some points to prove that
same-sex marriage does not suit to nature, religion and even law.
The third text is on the website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage.
It includes completely most of problems related to marriage such as
definition, history, different views from European and Asian countries, sex,
law, religion, taxation, and contemporary views on marriage. The article
makes us understand clearly about marriage from many aspects and many
countries.
The last one is on the website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/couples/life_whymarry.shtml. The article
presents briefly good and bad reasons to marry.

In my opinion, these texts are very useful, practical and informative.

All of them have theory and give many specific examples. They point out
general knowledge about marriage, especially some advantages and
disadvantages of getting married in human life and other matters which
effects on marriage. Texts 1 and 4 have the same content. Both of them
present advantages and disadvantages of marriage. On the other hand, the
authors develop their own text in different ways. Text 4 seems to list main
ideas, and there are no examples to prove his ideas. However, it is brief and
clear, so it is easy for readers to understand and remember all information in
the text. Text 1 not only gives some benefits of marriage but also points out a
few matters, which have a big influence on marriage such as health, wealth,
wage, etc. The author also provides statistical data from many researches to
make his text more convictive. Text 2 reflects the author’s personal view
about same-sex marriage. Personally, I do not agree that “Marriage is
essentially a lifelong compact between a man and woman”. I think if two
people love each other, and they want to live together, they can get married
whether they are opposite sex or not. Among four texts, I find text 3 the most
informative and interesting because of following reasons. Firstly, it presents
most of marriage problems including definition, overview, law, sex, etc.
Secondly, it also introduces many marriage customs from many areas in the
world, including Europe, China, United State, etc. The information I like
most in this text is about marriage and religion. It reflects marriage customs
and traditions of many religions in the world such as Christianity,

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Protestantism, Latter-day Saints, Hinduism, etc. Each religion has their
different views, and customs about marriage. Last but not least, the article
also points out the homosexual relationships, a new and vexed problem.

From these texts, I learned many things. Firstly, I understand more

exactly and completely about marriage. I can widen my knowledge about
marriage of many different cultures in the world. Secondly, I can improve my
English. I learn many new words, structures. Moreover, I also learn the way
how to write an article and a research effectively from writers’ styles.
Specifically, I learn the way how to arrange a theory point and write with
scientific language. Besides, I can practice reading skills. When reading these
texts, I used reading skills such as scanning, skimming, identifying the
author’s important points, and noting useful information, etc. Since then, I
have increased my reading speed in long texts and many other reading skills.
Last but not least, I have a chance to practice analyzing and evaluating skills
and critical thinking.
There is some new information that contradicted to what I had known
before reading the passages. For example, according to text 3 in Ancient
Greece, there were superstitions that being married during a full moon was
good luck. Moreover, a woman whose father dies without male heirs can be
forced to marry her nearest male relative—even if she has to divorce her
husband first. These strange traditions make me feel surprised. The second
thing which makes me surprised is that same sex marriage was a socially
recognized institution at times in Ancient Greece and Rome, and some
regions in China. Before reading this text, I think that homosexual
relationships only appeared in modern life.
In general, each author has their own view about marriage and
problems related to it. Besides, I personally find doing reflection very useful
for students. This is a chance for us to find out many interesting topics and
many cultures in the world, and also improve both reading and writing skills.
It is a time for me to reflect my thoughts and opinion about one specific topic.
I think that this assignment should be continuous in next semesters.

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RL10-Reflection 10
All over the world, there are many languages being spoken; each
country has it own language with different character. According to the latest
research, there are about 7000 languages existed; however, half of them will
be in danger of extinction. In fact, a plenty of ingenuous tongues has been
vanished and the trend of languages disappearance makes not only people
speaking it but also many experts actually worried about. Therefore, a
number of researches and experiments have been done for this urgent issue.
Among them, I find really absorbed in 6 articles which indicate clearly this
problem.

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 In general, these six articles all show the most clearly the real situation
as well as the methods to preserve our languages. Language death is not a
new phenomenon as it begun as soon as the language appeared as the author
of “Language contact and dying languages” mentioned. Particularly, the
article” A Chinese village struggle to save the dying language of a once
powerful dynasty” tells in detail about a language standing at a risk of
disappearing; the special thing is that there are very little number of people
can use this tongue, but they have trying their best to save their own
language. Almost these texts admitted that only language of small culture
become extinct as they are spoken by a handful of people and they even do
not have any letters or scripts. Moreover, the texts also provide us with
information about five hotspots where languages are lost gradually such as
Northern Australia, central South American, North America’s upper Pacific
coastal zone, Eastern Siberia, and Okalohama and the southwestern United
States. Some reasons for language disappearance are that they are ingenuous
tongue, and they are dominated by other powerful languages, especially, the
global languages- English. However, the author of the text “Disappearing
languages of the 6000 languages still on the earth, 90 percent could be gone
by 2100” shows some different reasons, he says that the vanishing of
languages is natural, just like “plants and animals have appeared and
disappeared over the millennia, languages evolve, grow, and spread, and
eventually dwindle and die”, and has the same reasons like species, which are
due to population pressures and the spread of industrialization”. In my
opinion, these reasons above are all true and they support for each others.
Losing our language is an extremely dangerous and concerned problem
because ‘languages define a cultural”, once a language dies, their culture also
does not exist any longer, too as the writer of “losing our world’s language”
indicates. Nevertheless, the author of the article “Why it is not so bad when
languages disappear” sees the issue in an optimistic way. He says that we
must think it as “signaling rather than causing the loss of cultural identity”,
and he also affirms that language play no role in the greater whole.
Personally, I think that language is a very important part in each people, each
country; and losing own language means that we are fading our identity, and
the next generations can not understand his peoples’s history as well as
culture.
In order to preserve and prevent language extinction, many measures
have been carried out in every nation. Some of scientists and linguists
recommended and used the XML (Extensive Markup Language) record as the
most effective method. However, some problems existed; technology will
change with rapid speed in years to come, therefore, this type of format will

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become out of date and they will be difficult for us to preserve and operate
them. Meanwhile, the others suggested that Internet should be a ideal store
for keeping records, but linguists said that it could be dangerous if sensitive
materials like these put on Internet as “they are easily to abused, exploited,
even for commercial gain.
Among these articles, it is the text “Language contact and dying languages”
that attracts me most as the writer dug deeply in the problem and the way he
analyses is very attractive. In this research, he has used a variety of other’s
research result and exact examples to support for his ideas; thus, the readers
are easily to catch his points. He analyzes the language death in various
aspects: cultural, socio linguistic and linguistic, Moreover, he also informs
readers two possible reason of dying languages, which are “dysfunctional loss
of rules and structure or loss of speakers”.
Overall, these articles are really informative ones since they supply
readers with more knowledge about language death phenomenon. Loosing
languages is always a hot issue that most countries concern much about
because language is a means of communication and a typical way to define
culture, history of each nation. It is admitted that language plays a very
important role in the greater whole, so, saving language is saving our culture,
too.

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