1.

1 RATIONALE:
English is gradually becoming an important language in people's lives. One piece of
evidence that we can clearly recognize is that the age at which people are exposed to a
second language, especially English, is progressively decreasing. We use English as a
bridge to approach the developing world, as a tool to communicate and learn more about
all aspects of life. Mastering the ability to use your own second language, particularly
English, will be like holding a key to open the door to success at work. Having a good
command of English also means that you have a huge library of documents for reference
and a more international, integrated, and advanced mindset. Our perspective will become
more multidimensional and objective, along with the ability to communicate with each
individual in this world.
The fact shows that non-English-majored students at Industrial University of Ho Chi
Minh City often fail to apply skimming and scanning technique, which leads to frequent
difficulties in processing information in reading texts. Most students can understand the
requirements of the question in other skills, but for reading, there is often a situation of
information disturbance during the test, which makes it impossible to select and give the
correct answer to the question in the exam.
There have been many studies done on the above issue. According to research by
Najmaldin Abderahim Eletaa in 2010 conducted on secondary school students at
Woodley, who learn English as a foreign language fail to comprehend what they read.
They do not understand lexical and grammatical meanings, they are not aware of text
structure, and discourse organization and they fail to apply some important reading
strategies to English language text. However, there is no research has been conducted
specifically on university students. Each age group has a different method and capacity to
acquire knowledge, so we want to conduct a survey on this age group to provide a
suitable solution for them. Our research topic will be: “Using skimming and scanning
technique in reading of non-English-majored students at IUH and solutions.”

1.2 Research objectives:

In this research, our group expects to figure out difficulties in using skimming and
scanning techniques in the reading of non-English-major students at IUH and
solutions. We have 3 specific objectives in the study. Firstly, we want to find out how
popular the skimming and scanning technique is in the IUH non-English-majored
student community. Secondly, our team will measure the effectiveness of skimming
and scanning technique in the speed of reading of the IUH non-English-majored
students. Finally, we will suggest some ways to help these students use the skimming
and scanning techniques effectively in Reading.
1.3 Research questions:

1. How popular the skimming and scanning technique is in the IUH non-English-
majored student community?
2. How much does the students’ reading speed increase when applying the skimming
and scanning technique?
3. What are the possible ways to help these students use the skimming and scanning
technique effectively in reading?

1.4: Scope of study

The research is an attempt to find out the difficulties faced by students in applying the
reading comprehension technique –skimming and scanning to overcome this problem and
then give information about three objectives: the popularity of the skimming and
scanning technique, the effectiveness of this technique and the way to help to use the
skimming and scanning technique effectively in Reading of the IUH non-English-
majored students. The study is expected to last for 2 months. On account of the limited
number of researchers and time, the scope of the study included 200 non-English-
majored students at IUH. The research team made full use of a questionnaire on a paper.
The information was collected by the multiple-choice questions when the participants
answered in the form.