NON-ENGLISH MAJORS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS MULTIMODAL TEXTS UTILIZED TO OVERCOME READING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES – A CASE AT A UNIVERSITY IN THE MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM

Abstract

Reading comprehension is the most challenging and essential aspect of learning a language, especially English. Nevertheless, many Vietnamese students have struggled with English reading comprehension, particularly those who are not English majors, despite the known benefits of multimodal texts. This study employed a mixed-methods design to identify the difficulties in reading comprehension that non-English majors at a university in the Mekong Delta perceive they have encountered while learning English as a foreign language, and to explore their attitudes towards multimodal texts used in English reading comprehension classes. First, 220 non-English major freshmen from this university completed a questionnaire. Then, fifteen of the mentioned participants were requested to participate in focus group interviews for extra information. The findings revealed that the students’ difficulties in reading comprehension primarily came from their limited vocabulary. Besides, the challenges related to grammar, background knowledge, and reading motivation hindered their reading comprehension at the medium level. Additionally, multimodal texts facilitated the mitigation of the aforementioned challenges. There was a clear preference for multimodal texts, and the integration into English reading instruction was strongly supported. Thanks to this, this research contributes to the existing literature on determining whether multimodal texts are effective enough to be incorporated into English classes, helping students overcome reading comprehension difficulties.