(SKKN 2022) improve students’ reading comprehension skill through reading fill exercises

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HOÁ TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN THỊ LỢI SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILL THROUGH READING FILL EXERCISES Người thực hiện: Nguyễn Thị Xuân Chức vụ: Giáo viên SKKN thuộc lĩnh vực (mơn): Tiếng Anh THANH HỐ NĂM 2022 Contents IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILL THROUGH READING FILL EXERCISES PART I: INTRODUCTION Reasons for studying: 1.1 Reasons for the theoretical side Today, when English has confirmed its role and importance in schools, improving the quality of teaching and learning is a top important issue How students can fully grasp the knowledge and use it competently is a matter of concern to our teachers We all know that learning English is simply learning a language To use that language fluently, learners must practice four basic skills: -Listening, -Speaking, -Reading, -Writing In which, reading skills play a decisive role in determining whether learners understand the content of the article or not In Vietnam, as in many Asian countries, English is now taught as a compulsory school subject from an early age (it is officially taught from grade onwards) (Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), 2008), and many changes have been initiated in the teaching of the subject in the last few years Implement multiple-choice test for English subjects becomes popular and compulsory in high school graduation exams, university exams, and colleges of the Ministry of Education and Training Practicing test-taking skills is considered as a basic goal in the teaching process to meet national examinations Reading comprehension is considered as a basic element of the exam preparation process Only when readers can respond will the reading process be completed and will the communication process achieve the desired results Poor reading skills cannot gain high scores in general exams and national examinations in the reading test part Therefore, learners who want to improve their grade in English exams have no other way but to improve their reading comprehension skills, and also better in English tests Based on the results of the tests, lesson plans, assessments on the receptive ability of Nguyen Thi Loi School students and observation of the students’ activities in choosing the best answer in each test of grade 12 students, the conductor can recognize the difficulties of students in the process of solving differences in each reading fill exercise Therefore, I decided to choose the topic: “Improve students’ reading comprehension skill through reading fill exercises” 1.2 Practical reasons With the direction of the Ministry of Education on innovating the teaching methods of English subject under the 2020 project and the changes in the forms of tests, the grammatical knowledge plays an important role 1.3 Reasons for urgency According to the Department of Education's guidelines for the 2014-2015 school-year assessment innovation, the grade of reading skills account for 40% of the 45-minute tests and semester exams as well as national examination Therefore, it is essential for learners to focus on improving the effectiveness of reading classes 1.4 Reasons for the condition and capacity of the instructor Based on the results of the tests, lesson plans, assessments on the receptive ability of Nguyen Thi Loi School students and observation of the students’ activities in solving reading comprehension exercises of grade 12 students, the conductor can recognize the difficulties in the process of teaching and learning reading skills, especially through the reading fill exercises for high school students Aims of the study The aims of this research are to investigate how English reading skills are taught in here and to apply some new techniques and adjustment to help the students tackle the challenges on the learning reading skills more effectively Methods of the study - Observe reading classes - Consult many documents, especially methods of study - Study colleagues’ experience Scope of the study 4.1.Subjects of study: grade 12 students The research has been carried out in classes of grade 11: 12A1 (in the controlling group) and 12A6 (in the experimental group) at Nguyen Thi Loi High School 4.2 Scope of study: practice test and semester exam questions New features in the study’s result In the study with the researcher’s innovation, the new approaches help students to identify the types of exercises and to solve situation better PART II: CONTENT General difficulties in the process of teaching and learning reading: On the learner's side: Nguyen Thi Loi High School is located in a tourist area, Sam son beach, the development of the tourism has had a significant impact on the learning of most students They don’t focus on studying seriously because of their part time jobs It is the thinking of earning money early and easily that makes them neglect study They spend the less time doing homework and preparing lessons before class Another drawback in this context is the bad learning habits that many beginning learners have The habit of translating into Vietnamese to understand each word, the desire to read and understand 100% of information also makes many students unable to know what is the core content to capture and what information to skip during reading Misunderstanding of the requirements of different types of exercises makes the learner tired and tends to become confused during reading lessons in class The passive learning attitude during reading lessons in some classes observed by the teachers also shows that learners not seem to pay adequate attention to self-improvement in the learning process On the teacher's side The application of translation methods or traditional methods in language teaching including reading comprehension observed in some teachers makes the skill training ineffective It is still believed that reading is practicing receptive skill Learners are asked to get to know information of the writing without any prior hints about the situation they are about to read This means that there is no pre-reading step in the class, or they are not allowed to request feedback after reading clearly It is observed that some teachers often begin a reading lesson by listing all the new words that appear in the text, which is a waste of time and destroys the ability of guessing the meaning of new words in the context, a vital skill for a foreign language learner Some teachers, although are aware of the need to change teaching methods, they cannot apply many effective measures to change the situation due to the limited time in class Limitations in the process of teaching and learning reading skills 2.1 Subjective limitations: One of the main obstacles that prevents students from doing well the form of filling in is the lack of language knowledge Limited vocabulary is the biggest obstruction to the reading comprehension process of learners This restriction interferes with learners’ reading process when seeing to many new words, which has affected the speed and time of reading 2.2 Objective limitations: *For teachers: Due to the limited time of 45 minute with so many tasks to carry out in a class, there is not enough time to carefully guide students on tips to read effectively On the other hand, skill training requires time, perseverance, and repetition of the requirements of the lesson many times, but due to subjective and hasty psychology, some teachers not have detailed instructions to clearly orient students about the topic of the reading or the steps to follow to solve the given reading exercises Especially, teacher’s attention cannot be paid equally to all the student groups in a big size class (40- 50 students) *On the student's side: During learning process, students at Nguyen Thi Loi high school have complained that reading comprehension skill through reading fill exercises is extremely difficult because his skill not only requires students to understand the content of the reading passage, but also master the relevant grammar knowledge I have found that when doing this kind of tasks, I found that the majority of the students choose the answer indiscriminately As the result, they usually get bad marks At the beginning of the first semester - school year 2021 - 2022, I conducted a small survey with 83 students in classes – 12A1 and 12A6 - to find out the difficulties when they did the test and why a lot of them got bad result, and I got the result: The reasons Percentage There are too many new words in the passage 65% I spend time reading and translating the passage into 66% Vietnamese I don’t remember the grammatical knowledge 57% I don’t know how to this type of exercise 70% I choose the answer indiscriminately 55% In the process of teaching students to reading comprehension tests and fill in correct answers, I noticed that most of the students not grasp relevant grammatical knowledge such as word forms, conjunctions, quantity words By analyzing subjective and objective difficulties in the process of teaching and learning reading, focusing on the type of exercise: filling in words the researcher recognizes that most students are confused, encounter many mistakes when doing homework, or not even be able to this type of exercise at the average level The aim of the research is to suggest some solutions to improve the situation, to help students the reading comprehension tasks more effectively and eventually improve their results and grades in exams Measure implementation The structure of the comprehension skill through reading fill exercises Answer - Conjunction - Relative pronoun - Quantities - Vocabulary - Vocabulary Number question s 1 Recogniz e Understandin g Comprehensio n Advanced applicatio n x x 1 x x x 3.1 Checking the word formation Students must first understand the functional position of adjectives, nouns, verbs and adverbs Only then can you choose the correct answer 3.1.1 Nouns Before or after verb After adj Place After the articles After possessive adj NOUN After indicative adj Formation: Noun usually ends by After words of quantity “- ness, - er, - or, ty, - ment, - -ance, tion, -sion, -ee, - cy, - dom, - hood, ism, - ship, - th, al… 3.1.2 Adjective Before noun After “to be” or linking verbs ADJ Used in the structures: so that/ such that/ too or the comparisons Adj usually ends by: “- ful, - able, - ic, - less, -ous, - al, - ing/ed, - y, - ive, -ish, - ible, -ent, -ant, -ly… ” 3.1.3 Adverb Before or after verb Before adj Adv At the beginning of the sentence Between aux and participle Adj + ly = Adv 3.2 Checking the meaning of the word For this type of exercise, students often encounter conjunctions and quantity words 3.2.1 Conjunctions For sentences with answers that are conjunctions, what form should students get after the blank? - if it is a clause, subordinators are used - if it is phrasal noun or Ving, prepositions are used - if it is a sentences, conjunction adverbs are used Conjunctions Meaning Subordinator Preposition Because, since, as Because of, thanks to, on account of, owning to Reason Despite, in spite of, regardless of Therefore, consequently, as result, thus Nevertheless, however In addition to, apart from, except for Such as Also, furthermore, moreover, in addition, besides, For example Result Contrast Additional meaning Giving example Although, even though, though, even if Conjunction adverbs 3.2.2 The quantities When the answer is a word indicating quantity, it is necessary to determine what kind of noun after the vacancy is, countable or uncountable, plural or singular - MANY = a large number of/a great MUCH = a great deal of/a large many/ a majority of/ a wide variety of/ amount of a wide range of - Used with countable nouns - Used with uncountable nouns A FEW/ FEW - Used with countable nouns SOME - Used in affirmative sentences and in interrogative sentences when inviting/suggesting ALL - Used to refer to three or more people/things (all) or more NONE - Used to refer to three or more people/things MOST - Most + N MOSTLY (mostly): used as an adverb ALMOST (almost): used as an adverb to complement verbs, adjectives, and nouns EACH - used with singular countable nouns OTHER - Other + uncountable noun - Other + plural noun - Other + ones - Others are used as pronouns - The other: the other of two, or the other of two, - The others: the remaining or remaining people in a group of many things or people A LITTLE/ LITTLE - Used with uncountable nouns ANY - Used in negative, interrogative BOTH - Used to refer to both people/things (both) NEITHER/EITHER - Used to refer to both people/things not + Neither: used in affirmative sentences + Either: used in negative sentences MOST OF Most of + the/possessive adjective + N EVERY - used with singular countable nouns ANOTHER - Another + singular noun - Another + one - Another + count + plural noun - Another is used as a pronoun 3.2.3 Relative pronouns When the answer is the relative pronoun, students must understand the use and place of each type of relative pronouns Table 1: Functions of relative pronouns 10 Subject Who/ that Which/ that Person Thing Object Who/ whom/ that Which/ that Possessive Whose Whose/ of which Table 2: Notes of “that” it can replace the nouns: person/thing (subjetc or onject) That it can't be put after comma and preposition it's required to put after indefinite pronouns, the superlative Table 3: Use of the relative adverbs = in/at/on + which Where = in/at/on + which When = for which Why place time reason 11 The adaptation of the textbook Father's Day was created to complement Mother’s Day Like Mother's Day (1) _ honors mothers and motherhood, Father's Day celebrates fatherhood and paternal bonds; it highlights the (2) _ of fathers in society Many countries celebrate it on the third Sunday of June, but it is also celebrated widely on other days Historically, Sonora Smart Dodd was the woman behind the celebration of male parenting Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who (3) _ his six children there After hearing a sermon about Jarvis' Mother's Day in 1909, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June The first celebration was in Spokane, Washington at the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) on June 19, 1910 Since then it has become a traditional day (4) _ year In recognition of what fathers for their families, on this day people may have a party celebrating male parenting or simply make a phone call or send a greeting card (5) _, schools help children prepare handmade gifts for their fathers many days before the celebration Question A which B when C who D where Question A conquest B impact C influence D effect Question A realized B raised C took D made Question A another B other C any D every Question A Besides B In contrast C However D Then Key: Question A Consider the answers: A Which: replaces the noun indicating the thing that functions as the subject and object in the relative clause B When: replaces a noun indicating time that functions as an adverb of time in a relative clause C Who: replaces the noun indicating the person that functions as the subject and the object in the relative clause D Where: replaces nouns indicating hiding places that function as adverbs of hiding places in relative clauses 12 Information: “Like Mother's Day (1) which honors mothers and motherhood, Father's Day celebrates fatherhood and paternal bonds;.” Question C Consider the answers: A Conquest /ˈkɒŋ.kwest/ (n): xâm chiếm, xâm lấn B Impact /ˈɪm.pækt/ (n): ảnh hưởng C Influence /ˈɪn.flu.əns/ (n): ảnh hưởng, gây tác động D Effect /ɪˈfekt/ (n): ảnh hưởng Distinguish Impact, Influence and Effect: - Impact means the influence, the impact of someone, something on someone else, another thing Influence means influence, great influence to change someone's thoughts and actions - Effect means that influence leads to specific results, with more emphasis on the results of that influence Information: “ it highlights the (2) influence of fathers in society Many countries celebrate it on the third Sunday of June, but it is also celebrated widely on other days.” Question B Consider the answers: A Realize /ˈrɪə.laɪz/ (v): nhận B Raise /reɪz/ (v): nâng lên, nhấc lên, nuôi nấng C Take /teɪk/ (v): mang, lấy D Make /meɪk/ (v): làm, thực Information: “Historically, Sonora Smart Dodd was the woman behind the celebration of male parenting Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who (3) raise his six children there.” Question D Consider the answers: A Another /əˈnʌð.ər/: khác (được sử dụng với danh từ số ít) B Other /ˈʌð.ər/: khác (được dùng với danh từ không đếm danh từ số nhiều) 13 C Any /ˈen.i/: (được dùng với danh từ không đếm danh từ số nhiều câu hỏi câu phủ định) D Every /ˈev.ri/: mỗi, (được dùng với danh từ số ít) Information: “The first celebration was in Spokane, Washington at the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) on June 19, 1910 Since then it has become a traditional day (4) every _ year.” Question A Consider the answers: A Besides /bɪˈsaɪdz/ (adv): bên cạnh B In contrast: trái lại, ngược lại C However /ˌhaʊˈev.ər/ (adv): nhiên D Then /ðen/: sau Information: “In recognition of what fathers for their families, on this day people may have a party celebrating male parenting or simply make a phone call or send a greeting card (5) Besides , schools help children prepare handmade gifts for their fathers many days before the celebration.” PART III PROCEDURE Experimental time: months (the first semester of school year 2021 - 2022) Arrange the experimental groups There are two groups in these experiments The first group consists of 42 students, class 12A1 For this group, the researcher still uses the traditional methods while teaching, focusing on translating the text into Vietnamese After that students will be given the answers The second group with 42 students, class 12A6 is taught by the new techniques for processing a reading text with tables and new methods Students are asked to follow every step when they reading fill exercises when they this type of exercise both in class and at home Educational effects of the study The first test is taken at the beginning of the experiment in September 2021 and the other is implemented in January 2022 The achievement in the experiment is divided into levels: very weak mark is from 1,0 to 3,0 points; weak mark is from 3,5 to 4,5 points; average mark is from to 6,5 points; good mark is from to points 14 Graph Result of tests after months of the first groups (12A1) * Test in September 2021, the beginning of the experiment: * Test January 2022, the final test after the experiment’s time: The graph shows and compares the results of the two tests taken at the beginning of the experiment in September 2021 and in January 2022, after a term of the first group As can be seen from the column graph, most of the students (23 students =54,8 %) in this groups get very low mark after months , from to 4,5 points when doing the tests in the experiment and a moderate percentage (13 students = 30,9%) could get the average mark because the teacher still uses the traditional methods in teaching reading lessons Only students (14,3%) get above average and no students gets good mark after months with different tests about relative pronouns and clauses It is obvious that without innovating techniques to practice during grammatical classes, little progress is seen in this group after a term 15 Graph Result of tests after months of the second groups (12A6) *Test in September 2021, the beginning of the experiment: * Test January 2022, the final test after the experiment’s time: The graph shows and compares the results of the two tests taken at the beginning of the experiment in September 2021 and in January 2022, after a term of the second group As can be seen in the graph, this group of students has made great progress in completing the filling reading tests after months thanks to the applying the new methods during reading lessons both in class and at home From the compared numbers, it is clear that the number of students with very weak and weak points has reduced from 21 (50%) to students (16,7%) While, the number of students getting average grade and above average has significantly increased, from 21 students (50%) to 32 students (76,19%) students (7,11%) have got good mark in the filling reading test at the end of the first semester, compared with no student (0%) at the beginning 16 Graph Compare the results of two groups through the test in January 2022 *Group 1: the controlling group *Group 2: the experimental group Through the assessment in class 12A1, 12A6 students of my charge, I achieved the following result: Comparing the results between the two classes, we see that the number of students of my charge getting average marks has increased This means that most of the students know how to the multiple-choice filling reading quickly and effectively They tried their best to identify the word type at each blank position in the passage as well as rely on the context to effectively guess the answer By this way, they have enough time to finish their task in advance Through the process of applying these methods to improve filling reading comprehension skills for the 12th graders at Nguyen Thi Loi high school, I have found out that most students are interested in reading lessons Especially for weak students, they feel more confident of doing this type of exercise 17 PART IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS Conclusion Mastering reading skill is very important for all English learners On the whole, from the result gained before and after the application of the new ideas in the study, the quality of learning filling reading activities in grade 12 has been significantly improved They find out the answers quickly and accurately The number of very weak and weak students has dropped drastically from 23 (54,76%) students to (16,7%) students The number of students gaining good grades significantly from (0%) to (7,11%) students All these are evidences to prove that the introduced filling reading techniques to help student improve their quality of the reading skills Proposal 2.1 To teachers: - Try to use different methods to encourage students to enlarge their vocabulary and become confident in doing the filling reading tests 2.2 To students: - Apply these above methods to as many multiple-choice filling reading as possible to improve reading skills - Spend time learning vocabulary and mastering the grammatical knowledge so that it will be easier when doing filling reading tasks THE PRINCIPAL'S CONFIRMATION Thanh Hoa, May 5th 2022 Undertaking not to copy Nguyễn Thị Xuân 18 REFERENCES: English vocabulary in use (Michael McCarthy/ Felicity O’Dell, Cambridge University Press) Harmer, Jeremy: The Practise of English Language teaching, Longman, 1993 Longman: Preparation course for the TOEFL TEST – Deborah Phillips Fundamentals of English Grammar – Betty Schrampfer Azar Understanding and using English Grammar – Betty Schrampfer Azar Mann, M & Taylore-Knowles, S (2003) Reading skills for First Certificate Macmillan Publishers Ltd Dr Than Trong Lien Nhan, (2000) English language teaching methodology Hue University of Foreign Languages 19 DANH MỤC SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM NGÀNH GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO HUYỆN, TỈNH VÀ CÁC CẤP CAO HƠN XẾP LOẠI TỪ C TRỞ LÊN Họ tên tác giả: Nguyễn Thị Xuân Chức vụ đơn vị công tác: Giáo viên Tiếng Anh – Trường THPT Nguyễn Thị Lợi, Tp Sầm Sơn, tỉnh Thanh Hóa TT Tên đề tài SKKN MỘT SỐ GIẢI PHÁP NÂNG CAO CHẤT LƯỢNG SINH HOẠT CHI BỘ TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT NGUYỄN THỊ LỢI RELATIVE CLAUSES WITH TYPES OF EXERCISES AND SOME TIPS Cấp đánh giá xếp loại (Ngành GD cấp huyện/tỉnh; Tỉnh ) Sở GD&ĐT Thanh Hóa Kết đánh giá xếp loại (A, B, C) Loại B Sở GD&ĐT Thanh Hóa Loại C Năm học đánh giá xếp loại 2016 2017 2020 2021 20 ... solving differences in each reading fill exercise Therefore, I decided to choose the topic: ? ?Improve students’ reading comprehension skill through reading fill exercises? ?? 1.2 Practical reasons With...Contents IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILL THROUGH READING FILL EXERCISES PART I: INTRODUCTION Reasons for studying: 1.1 Reasons... complained that reading comprehension skill through reading fill exercises is extremely difficult because his skill not only requires students to understand the content of the reading passage,