(SKKN CHẤT 2020) helping the grade 12 students improve their sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society through post reading activities

PART I: INTRODUCTION So far, we have been caring much about what families, schools and society should for children However, it is also important for students to be aware of what they have to for themselves, their families and society In other words, students must be responsible to themselves, their families and society But in fact, many students not only neglect studying but also often avoid and complain about their tasks, miss deadlines, break the disciplines, and even blame others for the mistakes and failure They are more and more materialistic, selfish, indifferent and emotionless Therefore, it is undeniable that they are becoming more and more irresponsible As a high school teacher, I have learned that one of the six pillars of character education is to be responsible However, educating sense of responsibility at my school has not been really effective One of the most basically causes may be that responsibilities are usually taught theoretically with little practical application In addition, it is not focused on in every lesson they learn in classes Whereas, it is obviously possible to educate students' sense of responsibility through different subjects such as: Civic Education, Literature, Biology, English,… A question is raised is how I can teach my students sense of responsibility while our teaching methods mainly focus on language skills In addition, my students are at the grade 12 when the GCSSE exam is coming soon and the teachers try to teach the knowledge that help students to get good marks in their tests and exams It means I have to improve my students' sense of responsibility through teaching knowledge and language skills As a matter of fact t he post-reading stage of a reading lesson is often confused with the closing of a lesson So, teachers usually use classic postreading activities to make sure that the students have already comprehended the text However, I learn that at the post-reading stage students are not studying about the language of the text and they are not comprehending the text, either At this stage students are supposed to apply what they possess Postreading activities are expected to encourage students to reflect upon what they have read, which takes the students to their real life situation So, post-reading stage is potential to apply the activities which help improve students' sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society By this way I can combine teaching language skills with improving my students' sense of responsibility without time-consuming For the reasons above, from the beginning of the school year 2018-2019, I have carried a study which has changed the ways we used to teach post-reading with the topic "Helping the grade 12 students improve their sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society through postreading activities" Hoping that with these experiences teaching post-reading download by : skknchat@gmail.com at my school will become more flexible and our students will be more responsible to themselves, their families and society PART II: CONTENT I.THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Sense of responsibility 1.1 Definition of responsibility and sense of responsibility Responsibility is defined as the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone; thestate or fact of being accountable or to blame for something; the opportunity or ability to act independently and take decisions without authorization; a thing which one is required to as part of a job, role, or legal obligation Responsibility is the burden someone is obligated to fulfill in order to meet a particular need Someone’s level of meeting his responsibilities shows how trustworthy he is, particularly if he consistently meets his responsibilities A sense of responsibility is an awareness of one’s obligations; it’s like doing what we suppose to It can be defined as a general conscious awareness; "a sense of security"; "a sense of happiness"; "a sense of danger"; "a sense of self" 1.2 List of responsibilities every student should fulfill Students are expected to fulfill some key responsibilities before they leave school and start a new life They are: - Responsibilities to themselves - Responsibilities to their families - Responsibilities to their school - Responsibilities to their community and society Post- reading activities 2.1 Definition of post-reading activities Post-reading activities are simply activities done after while-reading activities are completed At this stage the students are in a temporary change of state or condition, that is, they now know something they did not know before The task of the post-reading stage is to integrate or synthesize the read material into one's knowledge base of the topic Students need to make the material their own This can be achieved through a variety of means employing writing, class discussion, visual representations, and physical demonstration When the while-reading stage is completed, the students are expected to have obtained new information from the text This should bring about a change of some kind such as they would know more, or think or feel differently from before According to Nuttall (1996: 164) when intensive work in a download by : skknchat@gmail.com during-/while-reading stage is completed, general comprehension must be intended to At this stage, the students should be able to evaluate the text as a whole to respond to it from a more or less personal point of view They may be asked to agree or disagree with the author or the characters in the text; relate the content to their own experience; connect the content with other work in the same field; discuss characters, incidents, ideas, feelings; or predict what can happen afterwards 2.2 Benefits of using post-reading activities to improve the students' sense of responsibility - Teachers can educate students' character through teaching language skills - Students recycle what they have obtained from the text - Students go beyond the text and enter the real world, equipped with the newly-obtained information - Updating the problems that are closed to the students' real life and working together to find out the solutions as their responsibility - Students can well prepare for an independent life in the future - Students learn to be responsible for their actions, choices and decisions to themselves, their families and society - From post-reading activities, the students are developping themselves to achieve automaticity, meaningful learning, autonomy, willingness to communicate, interlanguage, and communicative competence 2.3 Some principles for choosing post-reading activities to raise students' responsibility - The activities must connect the topics of the reading texts with the responsibilities that students should fulfill - The activities should keep all of the students involved and interested - The activities should help the students develop their communicative skills - The activities should make students think of what they have to in the real life - Teaching the sense of responsibility may make students boring so the activities should be challenging and interesting enough to attract their attention and stimulate them to take part in - To be suitable with the time limit of post-reading stage, the length of each activity is about 10 minutes II SITUATION ANALYSIS Situation of students' sense of responsibilities at my school My school is located in the mountainous area of the district Therefore, there are many difficulties in the teaching and learning Most of the students at my school live far from the district center and come from low -income families In spite of the difficulties, the students are given a chance to go to school In recent download by : skknchat@gmail.com years, due to the objective reasons, the number of students applying for my school has been decreasing, which makes the enrolment seem to be too easy for the students It may be a cause of the fact that the students hardly make any attempts to learn, they are becoming lazier and lazier As a matter of fact, the students are very irresponsible to themselves Their sense of learning is too low, which causes their low learning results In the class, they often talk or private things, not pay attention to the teachers' lectures Many of them not homework and prepare for new lessons before class The situation of unpunctuality, skipping class and cheating in tests or exams is quite frequent Especially for the grade 12 students, although they are going to take the GCSE exam, they seem not to worry about their studying They probably think that their teachers will not let them get bad marks and they will be able to cheat in the exams They seem to be waiting for their luck, so they hardly make effort to study In spite of their low living conditions, the parents try to buy electric bikes for their children to go to school instead of going by bike Furthermore, the students also own expensive and modern mobile devices, which makes them neglect studying Some of them use smart phones sneakily in the classes Many parents complain that their children are attracted to the smart phones all day; they neither housework nor study at home They spend their time on mobile devices instead of others activities such as reading or playing sports which help improve their health, knowledge and life skills They care more about the status and problems in social network than about what they are facing, their parents or other family members As a result, they are impacted negatively from some information in social network It can be said that they lack responsibility to both themselves and their families In addition, they also lack the conformity with the law In spite of the obligation, most of them go to school by electric bike without wearing helmets It is not until they arrive at the school gate that they wear helmets in order to avoid the teachers' punishment Some of the students even ride motorbike to school although their age is not old enough They throw waste in public, even damage the common property Besides, many of them refuse to take part in social activities They seem to indifferent and emotionless In short, the young tend to be more and more irresponsible to not only themselves, their families but society as well It is one of the causes that make the students live without objectives or even commit a crime There seems to be no way to solve this problem except improving the students' sense of responsibility Situation of teaching the students sense of responsibility at my school It is said that family is the foundation of character education It means that children's character is mainly formed by family education Besides, school also plays an important role in educating students' character Normally, it is download by : skknchat@gmail.com considered that character education is the responsibility of form teachers and the teachers who teach Civic Education Therefore, at my school, it is likely only form teachers and Civic Education teachers take responsibility for teaching students responsibility The Young Onion sometimes organizes outdoor activities which help raise the students' responsibility Other teachers mainly teach knowledge in textbook and some necessary skills that their subjects require the sense of responsibility is hardly focused Situation of learning English and teaching post-reading in English lessons at my school As mentioned above, the students’ living conditions have a big effect on the way students study Many of them learn English with the only aim to pass the national GCSE exam, so they mostly focus on studying pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar They even feel it hard to remember all the required knowledge for different exams This way of thinking among students leads the teachers of English at my school to nearly the same way of teaching the language We always try to fulfill the knowledge in textbooks to our students Especially, the teachers who teach the 12 th grade students often try to provide as many practice exercises related to the GCSE exam as possible With the help of modern technology, many lectures designed by PowerPoint have been given to students The teachers also use interesting activities such as games, quiz, role-play…to stimulate students They have been trying to apply new teaching methods to help students improve their language skills consist of reading, listening, speaking and writing The quality of the lectures has been considerably raised and it plays an important role in the results of the students in the exams In reading lessons, the teachers at my school often adapt the activities given in textbooks to make it easy for our students, make the lessons more interesting and attract their attention to the lessons as well However, because of our students' poor ability and long or difficult reading texts, the teachers and students usually spend almost the time on while-reading activities Sometime, we hardly have time for post-reading stage or else we use the post-reading activities similar to those in while-reading stage to make sure that the students understand the reading text more The post-reading activities that are used popularly are related to summarizing the reading text such as filling the missing words in the summary of the text, using the cues to summarize the text… or translating the text into Vietnamese This helps the students comprehend the reading texts totally However, these methods of teaching and learning can hardly help improve students' character in general and sense of responsibility in particular The English Language syllabus download by : skknchat@gmail.com The textbook Tieng Anh 12 as well as Tieng Anh 10 and Tieng Anh 11 is traditional textbook structured with a priority towards theme-based or topic-based learning models The textbook has desirable aim of providing students with a foundational knowledge of numerous fields, a favorable attitude towards the English Language, and the four skills generally recognized as building proficiency in language study: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing In order to achieve these objectives, the content of the book is designed to utilize themes with which all students will be familiar Included are topics related to the student’s social lives, to sports, to work, and to leisure activities universal experiences For each topic, related vocabulary and word studies are presented communicatively The textbook contains sixteen units, with each unit presenting five lessons with four different skills and a language focus Reading is the first unit in each lesson, guiding students to key words and phrases of the related topicwhich then become “building blocks” that enable them to learn additional skills The book Tieng Anh 12 contains many topics which are close to the students They are about life, studying, job, family, nature and society such as home life, future jobs, life in the future…but there is no separate part for teaching students the sense of responsibility to themselves, their family and society Therefore, although teaching sense of responsibility is necessary, it is not compulsory III SURVEY Survey and the results At the beginning of the school year 2018-2019, I have carried out the survey containing multiple choice questions for 118 students from three classes 12A1, 12B2, 12B4 of my school The survey was done twice One was at the first semester of the twelfth form (before teaching post reading with activities improving students' sense of responsibilities) and the other was at the end of the second semester (after using these activities) The table below shows the result of the survey for first time Questions Do you think how important sense of responsibility is? How often you think about your responsibilities in your daily activities? download by : skknchat@gmail.com Do you find it necessary to be taught sense of responsibility in the class? Do you learn much about sense of responsibility through your English lessons? How much is your sense of responsibility to yourselves, your family, school and society? Findings from the survey The survey shows that before using the adapted activities, most of students not care much about responsibility Even though they know responsibility is important, they often act without thinking about it Most of them consider that they should be taught responsibility in the class However, every English lesson they learn often mainly focuses on knowledge and language skills As a result, they are little aware of their responsibility to themselves, their family, school and community IV FINDING SOLUTIONS From the analysis above, it can be said that our students' irresponsibility is very worrying However, teaching in general and teaching English in particular at my school is mainly focused on knowledge and language skills It is high time for us to educate our students' character as well as sense of responsibility through English lessons Post-reading stage is the best choice for the solution because it is a good chance for the students to connect English lessons with their real life Furthermore, based on the topics of the reading texts we can create many different activities to teach different responsibilities In addition, we also can apply many different activities for each reading lesson depending on what responsibility we want to teach our students In short, post-reading stage is potential to apply the activities which help improve our students' sense of responsibility The topics of the reading texts in Tieng Anh 12 textbook are very familiar to the students' life, so I have used post-reading stage to carry out the following activities These are some suggested activities which I have applied to improve download by : skknchat@gmail.com my students' sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society quite effectively Activities to improve students' sense of responsibility to themselves 1.1 Sample application - Unit 4: School education system Aim: Help students realise the importance of self-study and cultivate their self-study ability Suggested activity: Making a plan: Make a self-study plan to prepare for your GCSE effectively Time limit: 10 minutes Preparation: Teacher: Prepare a sample self-study plan Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; find out self-study methods Procedure: -Divide the class into groups of 6-8 students -Ask them to discuss how to make a plan -Give students some suggestions: To make the plan, you should determine: WHY WHAT SELF-STUDY PLAN HOW WHO WHERE       - WHEN Why to study? (Goals) What to study? (What subjects, lessons…) When to study? (Time available, schedule…) Where to study? (Studying environment, courses…) Who may help or study together? How to study (Studying methods) Show students the sample plan as a model Sample plan: Suggested activity: Discussion: How to show your patriotism and national pride? Time limit: 10 minutes Preparations: - Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; think about what they should to show their patriotism and national pride - Teacher: Prepare questions: Question 1: Do you often watch the sport events at the SEA Games? Question 2: What song does each team always sing before each football match? Question 3: What the spectators fly when they cheer their national team, especially when their team wins the match? Question 4: Why they that? Question 5: And you, you love our country? Question 6: What you to show your patriotism and national pride? Procedure: - Ask students some questions above to lead in: Example: Teacher: Do you often watch the sport events at the SEA Games? Student: Well, occasionally Teacher: What song does each team always sing before each football match? Student: Of course, it is their national anthem Teacher: What the spectators often fly when they cheer their national team, especially when their team wins the match? Students: I'm sure it is their national flag Teacher: Why they that? Students: Well, I think because they love their country and they are proud of it Teacher: And you, you love our country? Student: Yes, of course Teacher: What you often to show your patriotism and national pride? Let's discuss with your classmates and tell us your actions - Divide the class into groups of six to discuss the questions - After minutes, call some students to report their production - Ask other groups to give comments 27 download by : skknchat@gmail.com - Teacher gives feedback shows the suggested answers Suggested answers: How to show patriotism and national pride: - Respect and study our national history - Honor the national heroes - Be grateful to the war invalids and the families of martyrs - Support the army and active-duty military Keep our surroundings clean Be proud ofcampaign abot the pros of our country Celebrate the diversity of our country Do volunteer work Buy local, prefer indigenous products Fly the flag on special occasions Struggle against the enemy and reactionary Take a more active part in socio-economic development, social welfare, poverty reduction, national construction and defence The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production: - 3.5 Sample application -Unit 14: International organizations Aim: Promote good citizenship and cultivate the students' compassion Suggested activity: Discussion: Of the following activities, which are The Red Cross' activities and which are the charity work you can participate in Time limit: 10 minutes Preparation: -Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; think about the charity work they can take part in -Teacher: Prepare a list of charity work, a work, and a poster of suggested answers Charity work 28 download by : skknchat@gmail.com - Helping disadvantages or handicapped children - Volunteering at a hospital, in the home of sick or old people - Collecting gifts for children’s hospitals - Raising money for a charity - Taking care of war invalids and the families of martyrs - Helping reduce the suffering of wounded soldiers, civilians, and prisoners of war in the war time - Collecting old clothes for children and people in remote and mountainous areas - Collecting trash or clean up a park to promote environmental awareness - Giving medical aid and other help to victims of major disasters such as floods, earthquakes, epidemics, and famines Hosting an event to raise funds to help people and communities affected by a disaster Collecting children’s books and other reading materials for shelters, libraries and schools, then ask if they need volunteer readers Participating in a cleanup day at a local beach, trail, waterway or park Helping people in mountainous areas The work sheet The Red Cross's activities ………………………………………… ………………………………………… ………………………………………… ………………………………………… ………………………………………… ………………………………………… ………………………………………… Procedure: - Show students the list of charity work -Divide the class into groups of six -Students discuss to put the activities into the right column -After minutes, call some students to report the Red Cross's activities and the charity work they can participate in -Ask other groups to give comments 29 download by : skknchat@gmail.com -Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers Suggested answers: The Red Cross's activities - Helping disadvantages or handicapped children - Volunteer at a hospital, in the home of sick or old people - Collect gifts for children’s hospitals - Raise money for a charity - Taking care of war invalids and the families of martyrs - Help reduce the suffering of wounded soldiers, civilians, and prisoners of war in the war time - Give medical aid and other help to victims of major disasters such as floods, earthquakes, epidemics, and famines - Improve the lives of vulnerable people who are victims of natural disasters, poverty and health emergencies - Helping people in mountainous areas The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production: download by : skknchat@gmail.com 3.6 Sample application 6- Unit 15: Women in society Aim: Raise students' responsibilities for preventing family violence Suggested activity: Discussion: How to prevent family violence Time limit: 10 minutes Preparations: - Student: Prepare posters and pens for group work; find out the causes and solutions to family violence - Teacher: Prepare a picture of family violence, some questions for discussing and a poster of the suggested answers The questions: Question 1: Do you think that women are equal to men in society now? Question 2: What matter you think is happening in the picture? Question 3: What you think are causes of family violence? Question 4: What will you if you know someone is a victim of family violence? Question 5: How can we help stop family violence? Procedure: - Show the picture for the students to guess the problem - Ask students some questions to lead in: Teacher: Do you think that women are equal to men in society now? Student: Yes, I think they have gained equal rights to men Teacher: What matter you think is happening in the picture? Student: In my opinion it's family violence 31 download by : skknchat@gmail.com Teacher: Is this one of the most serious problems that women are suffering? What may be causes of family violence and how to prevent family violence? Let's discuss to find out causes and solutions - Give students the three questions to discuss as suggestion to solve the problems:  What you think are causes of family violence?  What will you if you know someone is a victim of family violence?  How can we help stop family violence? -Divide the class into groups of six to discuss -After minutes, call some pairs to present their production -Ask other groups to give comments -Teacher gives feedback Suggested answers: The causes of family violence are: - low academic achievement cultural beliefs/traditional viewpoints the men's low self-esteem desire for power or control mental illness substance abuse If I know someone is a victim of family violence, I will: ask them to tell me about what is happening to them listen to them and let them know I believe them and what is being done to them is a crime help them find the support they need How can we help stop family violence? Learn more about family violence to recognize it and help people who may be victims Report abuse when we see it Think about our own actions and how to talk with others about violent actions Volunteer with or join an organization that is dedicated to stopping family violence The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production: 32 download by : skknchat@gmail.com 3.7 Sample application 7-Unit 16: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations Aim: Raise students' responsibilities for the country's economic integration Suggested activity: Discussion: Discuss the roles of the young to the country's economic integration, and what each student should to meet the requirements of the country's economic integration Time limit: 10 minutes Preparation: -Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; think about what they should to meet the requirement of the country's economic integration - Teacher: Prepare questions to discuss Question 1: When did Vietnam join ASEAN? Question 2: Do you think integrating is a chance or a challenge? Question 3: What you think about the roles of the young to our country's economic integration? Question 4: What should the young to meet the requirement of the economic integration? Procedure: - Teacher explains the task and asks students some questions to lead in: Teacher: When did Vietnam join ASEAN? Student: Vietnam joined ASEAN in 1995 Teacher: Do you think integrating is a chance or a challenge? Student: I think it is both a chance and a challenge Teacher: What you think about the roles of the young to our country's economic integration? Student: In my opinion, the young play an important role to our country's economic integration Teacher: What should the young to meet the requirement of the economic integration? Let's work in groups and discuss the question 33 download by : skknchat@gmail.com - Divide the class into groups of six to discuss - After minutes, call some students to report - Ask other groups to give comments - Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers Suggested answers: What to to meet the requirement of the economic integration: - Equip themselves with knowledge and information about international integration - Strengthen fitness and health - Improve qualifications, expertise and profession; - Preserve the national cultural identity - Study other countries' culture, history, religion, custom - Take part in activities of international youth exchanges - Studying hard to improve ability of foreign language and technology - Equip necessary soft skills such as: communication, teamwork, problem solving, initiative and enterprise, planning and organising, self-management,… The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production: V RESULTS AND COMMENTS Results I applied these post-reading activities to teach my grade 12 students in the school year 2018- 2019 In spite of some difficulties, we achieved considerable success The effect of the activities helped our students realise what they should for themselves, their school and society This can be seen as the motivation for students to try to learn more My students gradually gave up some negative habits; they behaved better and better; they paid attention to the lessons more and their sense of learning was improved They also volunteered to take part in social activities organised by school and the community instead of being required as before 34 download by : skknchat@gmail.com We have carried out the survey again with the same questions for the same students from three classes last time The survey was done the second time at the end of the second semester (after using these activities) to check how effective the activities have brought about The table below shows the results of the survey before and after using the activities with the aim of improving the students' sense of responsibility Questions Do you think how important sense of responsibility is? How often you think about your responsibilities in your daily activities? Do you find it necessary to be taught sense of responsibility in the class? Do you learn much about sense of responsibility through your English lessons? How much is your sense of responsibility to yourselves, your family and society? Comments The survey shows that in comparison with before using the interventional activities, most of the students have changed their awareness of their sense of responsibility After using the activities, we have found that the students not only realized the importance of sense of responsibility but they also improved their sense of their responsibility They found it necessary to be taught sense of responsibility They learned much about sense of responsibility through English download by : skknchat@gmail.com lessons as well, so they were aware of what they had to do, they acted more responsibly In fact, their sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society has risen effectively PART III: CONCLUSION The study was started at the beginning of the previous school year, when I was assigned to teach five grade 12 classes At first, I was very worried about my students' sense of learning and their behaviors This is the reason why I tried to determine the causes and find out solutions My solutions met a number of difficulties because of our students' poor ability of English They were not 36 download by : skknchat@gmail.com confident to speak English and not enough vocabulary to express their ideas as well However, with the aim of teaching sense of responsibility mainly, the accuracy of using language was not focused on The students might not be able to express all what they wanted to say but at least they had been aware of what they should Besides, the students were encouraged to speak out their thoughts and opinion to suggest the solutions to the given problems with the help of the teacher and their group members By using information technology, I was able to find out much useful information to carry out the study Moreover, the study has been completed with the help of myschool’s Board of Directors, my colleagues and my students With the methods have been suggested in this study, the post-reading activities designed in the text book Tieng Anh 12 have been adapted completely The post-reading stage is not simple for students to comprehend or summarize the reading text any more Instead, it gives students the chance to apply what they possess into their real life Another success is that our students not only have chances to get a living lessons and improve their sense of responsibility they also improve their reading, speaking, teamwork skills and raise their creativity It can be said that these activities are not completely effective However, it is undeniable that they are quite practical They have significantly contributed to improving our students' sense of responsibility recently Our students have been aware of what they have to for themselves, their families and society and practise in their real life They have gradually improved their behaviors and sense of learning In fact, these are only some suggested activities; other teachers can design different post-reading activities as long as they can make students think about what they have to for themselves, their families and society We can also apply similar activities to improve students' responsibilities through postlistening stage Even for Tieng Anh 10 and 11 we can use post- reading stage with this aim to teach the grade 10 and 11 I personally think that teaching responsibility should be encouraged to apply into other subjects The measures have been given out are just from my own experiences during the process of teaching Consequently, it must contain a number of weaknesses I would like to get the comments and good idea from readers and other teachers so that the topic will become more interesting and perfect REFERENCES 1.Adrian, D.Teach English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press in association with the British Council (1998) 2.Graham Crookes, A Practicum in TESOL: Development through Teaching Practice Cambridge University Press (2003) 37 download by : skknchat@gmail.com Harmer, J How to teach English London: Longman Press (1991) Hoang Van Van, Tieng Anh 12 textbook (2008) http://www.academia.edu 6.http://www.nclrc.org/essentials/reading/goalsread.htm 7.https://www.lexico.com/definition/responsibility 8.https://www.thefreedictionary.com/sense+of+responsibility 10 www.google.com.vn www.teachhub.com 38 download by : skknchat@gmail.com ... awareness of their sense of responsibility After using the activities, we have found that the students not only realized the importance of sense of responsibility but they also improved their sense of. .. new life They are: - Responsibilities to themselves - Responsibilities to their families - Responsibilities to their school - Responsibilities to their community and society Post- reading activities. .. decisions to themselves, their families and society - From post- reading activities, the students are developping themselves to achieve automaticity, meaningful learning, autonomy, willingness to communicate,