(SKKN 2022) a study on communicative activities in teaching reading to 10th graders at tho xuan 5 high school

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study Language is the most important means for people to communicate to each other Nowadays, with the non-stop development of society and the tendency of integration among the countries over the world, English becomes an official and effective international communicative language English is widely used in many fields of life such as science, technology, education, etc As a result, more and more people are studying English with the hope that they can meet the requirements of society in general and of their jobs in particular In education, especially, for High school grade, English now is a compulsory subject not only in teaching and learning but also in many important examinations It is, therefore, comprehensible why nowadays students learning English with a great concern They not only study English because it is compulsory but also because they are interested in English and they are aware well of the importance of English for their job in the future As a matter of fact, it is not easy to master a foreign language at all Learning English is not an exception It requires many sub-skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing Being a receptive skill, reading also has some certain requirements to the students, not just a process of understanding grammar structures mechanically In fact, many students are very good at grammar and vocabulary but they cannot finish the reading tasks successfully Of course, there are many ways to teach reading skill, however, the given question is that which way is the most effective for the students Nowadays, we are trying to teach English in a communicative way Communicative activities, therefore, are becoming an essential part in language learning In real teaching in high school, not many teachers use communicative activities in English classes, especially in reading lessons They only teach students reading skills through mechanical drills in the textbook Thus, I carry out a study on the communicative activities in English reading classes to somewhat help students to improve their reading skill in particular and their language competence in general For the reasons above, I decide to choose the topic “A study on Communicative Activities in teaching reading to 10th graders at Tho Xuan high school” as the solution to improve reading skill 1.2 Purpose of the study and research questions The purpose of the study are as follows: - To provide some basic knowledge ranging from Communicative Activities to Reading Skill - To make an investigation into the real situation of using communicative activities in teaching and learning English reading skill at Tho Xuan High school - To provide some suggested communicative activities to partly improve reading skills for the 10th form students To fully achieve these aims, the study has to answer the following questions: What are the students’ attitudes towards the communicative activities in teaching English reading lessons? What kinds of Communicative Activities can be applied in English reading classes to improve reading skill for the grade 10th students? 1.3 Scope of the study Although there are many ways to motivate students to learn English, it is impractical to cover them all in this paper Due to the limited time and length of a minor thesis, I choose to focus my research on communicative activities in teaching reading at Tho Xuan High school The student focus group is comprised of 45 students of grade 10 at this school 1.4 Methods of the study The instrument to collect the data used in this study is the questionnaire that has been delivered to 45 students in grade 10th at Tho Xuan High school The researcher chose this method because it has some advantages According to Gillham (2000), the advantage of using questionnaires is that there is less pressure for an immediate response Instead, the respondents can complete the questionnaire at a relaxing pace when it suits them; they are not “under pressure interview bias” First, the responses are gathered in a standardized way, so questionnaires are quite objective Second, it is relatively quick to collect the information using a questionnaire Finally, potential information can be collected from a large portion of a group by using questionnaire In this study, the questionnaires are delivered to students to investigate their attitude towards the communicative activities applied in English reading lessons, the real situation of using communicative in English reading lessons Questionnaires are also delivered to teachers to investigate the communicative activities that they use in teaching reading English lessons The questionnaire for teachers has 14 questions aim at getting exactly information of teaching reading at Tho Xuan High school The questionnaire for students has 10 questions aims at getting exactly information of learning reading at Tho Xuan High school PART 2: DEVELOPMENT This chapter review the literature related to the study Firstly, it gives communicative activities in language teaching and learning process and characteristics of communicative activities And finally, it gives definition of reading, principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroom and types of communicative activities in reading classes 2.1 Literature Review 2.1.1 Communicative activities 2.1.1.1 Communicative activities in language teaching and learning process In the language classrooms, both teachers and students try their best to control over the language that students use by organizing it into manageable portions to be developed though communicative activities Then, what are communicative activities? The definition of communicative activities was discussed by Klipple (1991) when he revealed that the term “communicative activities is used to refer to any operation which is used to consolidate language already taught or acquired and which occurs during the free stage of a lesson or students can produce meaningful and authentic utterances without the controlling influence of the teacher or the course” It means that every time a learner uses a language that they are learning, say English, either productively or receptively, he or she involves in these kinds of activities In a nutshell, communicative activities are those that involve learners in using the language for communicative rather than display purposes that focus on fluency rather than accuracy and which involve learners in pair or group work as a setting for that communication 2.1.1.2 Characteristic of communicative activities Communicative activities are designed to encourage the purposeful and meaningful interaction between students in a language lesson It is, therefore, important for teachers to be fully aware of their characteristics so that they can use them effectively Harmer (1991) lists distinctive characteristics of communicative activities when they are contrasted with non-communicative ones They are presented as follows Non-communicative activities The students have no desire to communicate They have no communicative purposes The emphasis is on the form of the language, not its content Only one language item will be the focus of attention The teacher will often intervene to correct mistakes, nominate students and ensure accuracy The materials will be specially designed focus on a restricted amount of language Communicative activities The students should have communicative desire They have communicative purposes The attention should be centered on the content not the language form They will have to deal with a variety of language The teacher should not intervene No materials control In summary, it is of great importance to distinguish the characteristics of these two kinds so that teachers and students of a language can make the best use of communicative activities in the process of learning and teaching 2.1.2 Reading skill 2.1.2.1 Definition of reading Reading is one of the four major basic skills in learning any foreign language “Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the text being read and the context of the reading situation” (Cited from http://www.michiganreading.org) According to Nunan (1991), reading is basically a matter of decoding series of written symbols into the aural equivalent He also explains that “the reader processes each letter as it is encountered These letters are matched with the phonemes of the language, which it is assumed the reader already knows…” (P 64) Nunan emphasizes the decoding skills when reading However, Goodman (1967) has another approach to reading He called reading a “psycholinguistic” guessing game, the reader make use of the cueing systems: the semantic, the syntactic and the graphophonic In order to develop reading, we need to put reading in social context Learners are socialized into reading and the motivation for learning to read not only or even primarily for enjoyment or information, but because the aspiring reader wants to gain access to a “community of reader” (Walace: 1988) Through the concepts of reading, we can conclude that reading is decoding every letters in text, adding three cueing systems and putting text in social context We can understand all information that exists in text and adding our knowledge about life, society, cultural: consequently, we can predict what the text intend Thus, it is necessary tor the students learning how to read in an effective way 2.1.2.2 Types of communicative activities in reading classes Littlewood (1981) divides communicative activities into functional communication activities and social interaction activities For the functional communication activities, the main purpose is that learners should use the language they know in order to get meaning across as effectively as possible Success is measured primarily according to whether they cope with communicative demands of the immediate situation Some examples of these activities are questions and answers, interviews based on a text, information-gap activities, role-play, etc In addition, the social interaction activities place emphasis on social as well as functional aspects of communication Learners must not only aim to convey meanings effectively but also pay greater attention to the social contexts in which the interactions take place Success is now measured not only in terms of the functional effectiveness of the language but also in terms of the acceptability of the forms that are used In the early stages of learning, acceptability may mean little more than a reasonable degree of accuracy in pronunciation and grammar Later, it will increasingly come to include producing language appropriate to specific kind of social situations because of the limitation of the classroom; simulation and role-playing are now important techniques for creating a wider variety of social situations and relationships Basing on medium of communication, communicative activities can also be classified into two types: oral and written communicative activities according to Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2007) For the first type of communicative activities, there are various sub-types of activity which help to promote oral communication in the classroom such as Reaching a consensus, Relaying instructions, Communication games, Problem solving, Interpersonal exchange, Story construction and stimulation and Role play For the second one, there are also various sub-types which help promote written communication in the classroom such as Relaying instructions, Exchange letters, Writing games, Fluency writing, Story construction and Writing report, and Advertisements In summary, this chapter shows us the aims, characteristics and the teacher and learner roles in CLT; the communicative activities in language teaching and learning process and characteristics of communicative activities Especially, it gives definition of reading, principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroom and types of communicative activities in reading classes There are researchers giving criteria for the aspects of CLT in the process of teaching reading and they also show their ideas and evaluation for these aspects In addition, whether those ideas are right or wrong, we will investigate them in the next parts 2.2 Research context 2.2.1 Real situation of Teaching and Learning English at Tho Xuan High School Tho Xuan High School was founded in 2003 in a mountainous area Most of the students in Tho Xuan High School have quite poor learning conditions The students here not have much time for learning, especially for learning English There is only a small number of students paying attention to learning English It is easy to understand why teaching English seems more difficult and complicating for these students than those from the other high schools As a matter of fact, a successful class is the one in which students play the center role and communicative competence is the goal of teaching Therefore, it is actually necessary for the teacher to monitor the class in such a way that students have as many chances as possible to communicate with each other when fulfilling a task Using communicative activities is one of the most effective ways They help students to become more active and more confident when they express their understanding about the reading text Through communicative activities the students also understand the lesson better In fact, communicative activities are available, however, how and in what way to apply those activities in real teaching and learning English is still a question for many teachers The teaching practice at Tho Xuan High School has made me realize that teaching and learning English quite boring; students sometimes not motivated in learning the lessons I has also had a chance to observe English reading classes taught by all of six teachers in Tho Xuan High School It is obvious that each teacher has their own ways to teach English reading and guide students to solve reading tasks in the textbook Nowadays, we are trying to teach English following Communicative Approach However, the fact is that many teachers still use the traditional method of teaching They mainly focus on grammatical structures and vocabulary They guide students how to use English grammar to exercises in the textbook Some teachers also teach their students how to translate a piece of English language into Vietnamese one For reading skill in particular, some teachers often use only the textbook again and again They teach students by asking them to follow the mechanical drills in the textbook Therefore, most of the students have no intrinsic motivation in learning English reading As a result, English reading skills of students at Tho Xuan High School is not good There are also some teachers providing extra communicative activities in reading classes In such classes, the students are able to complete successfully the reading tasks and understand the reading passage better In addition, the students feel more interested in reading lessons and have more motivation in their English learning as well Therefore, the result of English learning will be higher I have also had the opportunity to check the effectiveness of applying reading communicative activities in teaching reading when I give the lessons to the students I have seen that by using communicative activities, the students have had more motivation in joining the lessons and they have also understood the text more thoroughly To sum up, using communicative activities in English reading classes brings many benefits for students in learning English Therefore, it should be widespread applied in teaching and learning English Consequently, the students will not only improve their reading skills but also other language skills will be better day by day 2.2.2 Participants 2.2.2.1 The students The number of students participating in this study is 45 They are in grade th 10 of Tho Xuan High school during the school year 2021 – 2022 2.2.2.2 The teachers In this study, the researcher investigates teachers who are teaching at English faculty in Tho Xuan High school 2.2.3 Materials Our school’s 10th Grade English Language textbook “Tieng Anh 10” (Van, Hoang Van et al, 2006) It is a traditional textbook structured with a priority towards theme based or topic based learning models The textbook has desirable aims 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 There are themes: “You and me”, “Education”, “Community”, “Recreation”, “Nature and Environment”, and “People and places” The book 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 topic which then become “building blocks” that enable them to learn additional skills Some tasks in the text book are difficult while some others are not really challenging This disparity requires teachers to creatively motivate students by adapting exercises to their interest levels Being effective at this adaptive skill is what sets teachers apart (average from excellent) worldwide 2.2.4 Some communicative activities applied in the research As mentioned above, communicative activities are various and can be applied in teaching all four language skills Thus, within this study, I only suggest some communicative activities in English reading classes to the 10 th form students I hope that these activities will help students understand the text most effectively and partly improve their reading skills 2.2.4.1 Out of ten * Types of activity: pair or group work * Aims: This activity aims at checking students’ understanding about the content of the text and improving students’ interaction in the class as well * Instruction: The teacher asks the students to write the numbers from to 10 after each sentence in the text Number “1” means “I understood almost nothing in this sentence”, number “10” means “I understood everything in this sentence” The numbers from 2-9 are arranged following the degree of the students’ understanding from the lower degree to the higher one Let the students work in pairs or groups Students show their scores to each other and then the students with the higher score will help the lower one understand more * Application: Almost of units in the textbook can apply this type of activity for the postreading part After finishing reading tasks in while-reading, the teacher can ask the students to move around class to ask each other about whatever they not understand in the text 2.2.4.2 Finding Synonyms * Types of activity: pair work or group work * Aims: This kind of activity can help students enrich their vocabulary and from that they can understand the text better * Instruction: Asking the students to find 5-6 favorite words from the text (they should be important words in the text) and then discuss in groups to find the synonyms of these words Each student has their own words Thus, after exchanging the ideas in groups, students can enrich their vocabulary Moreover, because the students know more words in the text, their understanding about the text is also improved * Application: The teacher can apply this type of activity independently or combine it with matching tasks in while-reading After first reading, the teacher asks the students to work in groups to discuss about the synonyms of their favorite words Through this activity, the students can matching tasks more easily Many units in the new textbook can use this kind of activity such as: Unit 3: People’ Background (Task 1) Unit 4: Special Education (Task 1) Unit 7: The Mass Media (Task 1) Unit 10: Conservation (Task 1) 2.2.4.3 Get it wrong * Types of activity: pair work or group work * Aims: This activity is for detailed checking of the text for specific information or summarizing the reading text * Instruction: The teacher prepares a summary passage (including some deliberate mistakes) of the text, copies it into many pieces as the hand-outs and delivers them to each pair or group of students After that, the teacher asks the students to discuss to cross out the mistakes and substitute the correct information * Application: “Get it wrong” activity can be used for both while-reading and postreading parts In some lessons, the teacher can combine this activity with True/ False tasks to conduct a summary passage including both right and wrong information The following units can apply this kind of activity: * Unit 3: People’s Background (Task 2) * Unit 7: The Mass Media (Task 2) * Unit 10: Conservation (Task 2) * Unit 14: The World Cup (Task 3) 2.2.4.4 Students Interview * Types of activity: pair work or group work * Aims: This activity can help students improve their scanning skill by asking and answering questions to get information about the text * Instruction: Students should come up with a variety of questions relating to the passage and go around class to interview other students about the information they need * Application: This type of activity can be applied in while-reading and post-reading as well For while-reading, the teacher can combine it with the task “Answering the questions” Students can use both the given questions in the task and their own questions to interview each other For post-reading, this activity can be used for free talking Students can move around the class and ask any question relating to the passage to help them understand the text thoroughly Almost every unit in the textbook can apply this kind of activity 2.2.4.5 Completing Network * Types of activity: group work or whole class * Aims: Improving students’ vocabulary and checking their understanding about the text by finding out related information basing on a key word * Instruction: The teacher gives a key word on the board and then asks students to find out as much as possible the words relating that key word (the key word is about the main point of the passage) * Application: The teacher can use this activity for pre-reading or post-reading part in almost every unit in the textbook For example, in unit 16 “Historical Places”, the teacher can check students’ understanding about the passage by asking them to complete the network below: Population Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam Suggested answers: Ly dynasty Buit in 1070 Historical and cutural site 10 Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam Representative of Confucian ways of thought and behaviour First university Brilliant scholar 2.2.4.6 Crossword Puzzle * Types of activity: group work * Aims: This activity is aimed at improving students’ guessing skill by finding out the key word that relates to the topic of the lesson and arising their vocabulary as well * Instruction: The teacher divides class into small groups of – students and then teacher distributes the crossword puzzle handouts for students to in their own groups After finding out the key word, the students can somewhat guess at the content of the lesson * Application: This type of activity can be applied in most of the units for “Before you read” part 2.2.4.7 Lucky Number *Type of activity: group work *Aims of activity: This kind of activity is aimed at helping students to improve their scanning skill by answering the questions about the content of the reading passage *Instruction: For this game, the students can work in group of six members The teacher prepares 6-8 cards with numbers in one side and the questions about the content of the text in the other side of the card Each group will choose a number they like and after choosing the number, they have to answer the question in the other side of the card The other groups also have to listen to answer those questions because if that group can not answer the questions, the others will have chances to answer them Each correct answer will bring the group one mark There are also one lucky card and one unlucky card For the lucky card, the group has one mark without answering any question In contrast, with the unlucky card, the group will lose one mark The group with the highest mark will be the winner *Application: 11 This type of activity can be applied in while-reading phase The teacher can also use this game for the task Comprehension Questions in the textbook Most of the lessons in the textbook can apply ‘Lucky Number” activity By this activity, the author could make sure that the students will have more enthusiasm to enjoy the reading lessons All the above suggested communicative activities are designed for teaching reading in general, depending on different reading passage and on the level of students The teachers should be flexible to applying these activities in reality of teaching English reading During my practice teaching at Tho Xuan High School, I has applied some of them when teaching reading lessons to the students I myself find them very effective and my students were able to understand the text better As a result, the students’ reading skill has also improved as well Below are the models of activities that has applied in my real teaching Because the scope of the study, I just present here types and instruction of these activities briefly, not all the steps that I have performed in details Two units that I taught during my teaching practice are: (See Apendix 1) Unit 13: Film and Cinema Unit 14: The World Cup PART 3: CONCLUSION 3.1 Discussion of the mainfindings 12 3.1.1 Result of the Survey To see more thoroughly about the real situation of teaching and learning English reading skill at Tho Xuan High School, the results of the survey from students and teachers are analyzed separately 3.1.2 From Students The result of the survey gained from students can be illustrated as can be seen in following table: Q A a (%) b (%) c (%) d (%) 0 100 22.86 39.04 35.24 2.86 89.52 4.76 2.86 2.86 47.62 10.48 21.90 20 9.52 12.38 21.91 56.19 72.38 12.38 14.29 0.95 9.52 18.1 60 12.38 11.43 40.95 44.76 2.86 10 17.14 42.86 23.80 16.2 11 9.52 29.52 54.29 6.67 12 13 72.38 3.81 15.24 8.57 14 45.72 40.95 8.57 4.76 (The information of Q 1-14, Answer a,b,c,d were presented in appendix 2) Figure 3.1 Survey Results from Students For the first question, 100% of the students have been learning English for 3-5 years That means all of them have learned English at lower secondary school and the students more or less have a basic understanding about the English language This is also an advantage for students to learn English better at high school In the students’ opinion about English, the majority of them say that English is very necessary (89.52%) A small number of students see it necessary (4.76%) and only 2.86% of them consider English not necessary at all This is a positive view of students about English The figures from question present the students’ interest in learning English Though most of the students find English very necessary, only 22.8% of them feel very interested when learning English, 13 39.04% are interested and there are still 2.86% of students not like learning English at all The result for question 4, “How much time you spend on learning English per day?” is quite surprising It seems that the students here not spend time as well as focus on English as much as on other subjects There are about two third of students who spend about one hour learning English per day The rest of them only study English from 20-30 minutes a day This is one reason partly explaining why the qualification of the 10th form students at Tho Xuan High School is not good We know that the syllabus of the new English textbook is divided into individual skills Therefore, it is understandable that the students not pay equal attention to these skills According to the result from the survey on the students at Tho Xuan High School, 47.62% of students focus on speaking skill, 21.90% and 20% of them pay attention to reading and writing respectively There are a very small number of students who focus on learning listening (10.48%) Another question is whether the language skill, which they focus on most, is also their favorite skill? The majority of students like speaking most (56.19%), and many of them like listening as well (21.91%) 12.38% love reading whereas 9.52% prefer writing Listening is quite difficult skill but the number of students like listening is more than those who like Reading or Writing As for question 7, 72.38% of students see that English reading skills are very important, 12,38% think it important and only 0.95% of them find Reading Skill not important at all For the reading tasks in the textbook, most of the students say that they are rather difficult (60%), 12.38% think reading tasks not difficult at all and the percentage of students who say that the reading tasks in the textbook are too difficult is only 9.52% 44.76% of students sometimes finish successfully the tasks in the textbook, 40.95% often and 11.43% always complete well and still have 2.86% of them never the reading tasks in the textbook successfully As shown in the table, after finishing the reading tasks in the textbook, only 17.14% of students understand the text 90-100%, 42.86% of them understand the reading passage 70-80% and still have 16.2% of students comprehend the text below 50% From this result, the author herself ensures that some students only the exercises in the textbook following some techniques mechanically without understanding the content of the text One more important thing is that how communicative activities are applied into English reading classes Below is the figure from students about the frequency of giving reading communicative activities of the teachers in the school 14 Frequency always often sometimes rarely never Activities Matching 58.18% 23.64% 18.18% 0 True/ False 49.09% 21.82% 25.45% 3.64% Completing Network 14.55% 27.27% 52.73% Answering questions 67.28% 16.36% 12.72% 3.64% Finding synonyms 14.55% 20% 56,36% Filling gaps 16.36% 41.82% 34.55% 7.27% Role play 5.45% 25.45% 21.82% 43.64% 3.64% Student interview 3.64% 10.91% 23.64% 54.54% 7.27% 5.45% 9.09% Figure 3.2 The frequency of giving Reading Communicative activities (Results from Students) As can be seen from the table, there are communicative activities that teachers provide in reading classes However, the frequency of giving these activities is different from each other For the first degree of frequency, Answering Question, Matching, True/False and Filling Gaps are the most regular activities in reading classes with 67.28%, 58.18%, 49.09% and 16.36% respectively meanwhile role play and students interview only account 5.45% and 3.64% The majority of students say that their teachers never provide “Finding Synonyms” (56.36%) and “Completing Network” (52.73%) in reading classes Overall, some activities such as “Completing Network”, “Finding Synonyms”, “Students Interview” and “Role play” are not given widely and regularly in English reading classes as other activities According to 72.38% of the students, the extra reading communicative activities given by their teachers are interesting This is a good point that can lead to the positive effect on students’ learning 15.24% think they are difficult and 8.57% find these tasks easy and a few of them comment that they are boring (3.81%) When being asked about the effect of communicative activities in reading lessons, most of the students find these activities very effective or effective (45.72% and 40.95%) A small number of students think that they are quite 15 effective (8.57%) and the percentage of students who see reading communicative activities not effective at all is only 4.76% In short, the figures collected from students somewhat reflect the real situation of learning English reading of the 10 th form students at Tho Xuan High School 3.1.3 From Teachers The following table of the result of the survey on teachers helps to see more clearly about the situation of applying communicative activities in teaching reading at that school A Q 10 a (%) b (%) c (%) d (%) 83.33 16.67 16.67 16,67 16.67 16.67 33.33 33,33 66.66 66.67 83.33 50 0 0 16.67 66.67 50 33.33 33.33 0 (The information of Q 1-15, Answer a,b,c,d were presented in appendix 3) Figure 3.3 : Survey Results from Teachers Most of teachers have been teaching English for 1-2 years, only one teacher has taught English for years This has both advantages and disadvantages in their teaching Because they are young teachers, they have chances to approach with the new method in teaching English However, they lack teaching experience and the understanding about their students as well In the teachers’ opinion, with question “How you think about the primary qualification of the 10th form students in your school?”, the author gets the results as followings: out of teachers (50%) say that the primary qualification of the 10th form students in their school is not good, of them find their students at average level and one teacher says that their students’ qualification is mixed, lower learners mainly For question 3, a half of the teachers (50%) find Writing skill the most difficult to teach, 33.33% for Listening skill whereas 16.67% of them see it difficult to teach Reading None thinks that Speaking is the most difficult to 16 teach Truly speaking, Listening and Writing are really difficult skills and it is even more difficult to teach these skills to the 10th form students at high school The majority of the teachers see that Reading skill is very important in the relationship with other English skills (83.33%), 16.67% find it important No one says that English reading skill is quite important or not important at all According to the result of the survey on teachers about their opinions about reading tasks in the textbook, most of them find these tasks quite interesting (66.66%) The percentage of the teachers who think that reading tasks in the textbook are very interesting or interesting is equal with 16.67% for each 66.67% of teachers say that their students sometimes finish successfully the reading tasks in the textbook, the rest declare that their students often well those exercises (33.33%) From this result, we can see the fact that though most of the reading tasks in the textbook are quite interesting, the number of students who can complete these tasks successfully is not high at all It also means that the students’ reading skill is not good Thus, it is necessary for teachers to find the way to help their students improve reading skills As shown from the table, 83.33% of the teachers usually provide reading communicative activities to develop reading skills for their students, 16.67% of them ask students to more reading exercises at home and none asks them to read aloud the reading text many times in the class In fact, many teachers realize that communicative activities play an important role in improving their students’ reading skill So what activities and how often those activities are applied in reading lessons? The table below illustrates the frequency of applying some communicative activities in reading lessons: always frequency often sometimes rarely never activities Matching 50% 33.33% 16.67% 0 True/ False 33.33% 50% 16.67% 0 Completing Network 16.67% 33.33% 33.33 % 16.67 % Answering Questions 83.33% 16.67% 0 Finding Synonyms 0 33.33% 50% Filling Gaps 33.33% 50% 16.67% 16.67 % 17 Role Play 16.67% 16.67% 33.33% 33.33 % Student Interview 16.67% 33.33% 50% Figure 3.4 The frequency of giving Reading Communicative activities (Results from Teachers) According to the figures of the table, the most popular activity that teachers provide in reading classes is “Answering Questions” (83.33%), the second rank is “Matching” (50%) and the next are “True/False” and “Filling Gaps” (33.33%) As also shown from the table, there are a very small number of teachers often using some communicative activities such as “Completing Network”, “Finding Synonyms”, “Role Play” or “Students Interview” in their lessons 50% of them rarely apply “Finding Synonyms” and “Students Interview” in reading classes and still 33.33% of them also rarely use “Completing Network” or “Role Play” It means that the communicative activities in reading classes are not much various and creative In teachers’ opinions, 50% and 16.67% of their students are interested or very interested in extra communicative activities in reading classes, 33.33% of students find these activities quite interesting In terms of effects of extra communicative activities in reading classes, 66.67% of teachers think it is very effective to apply communicative activities in reading classes when 33.33% find it effective Therefore, in order to improve students’ reading skills, we should apply widely communicative activities in English reading classes It is one of the most effective techniques to promote students’ reading skills 3.2 Conclusion In conclusion, we have conducted the study on using communicative activities in teaching reading to the 10th form students at Tho Xuan high school Hopefully, after applying these activities in real teaching and learning English, students can master English more successfully and can use it in real communication with each other 3.3 Suggestion for further studies As the limitation of an assignment and my knowledge as well, the study only mentions about some typical communicative activities to improve English reading skills for the 10th form students For the further studies on this matter, I attempt to give some suggestions as follows: * A Study on Communicative Activities in teaching reading to the 11 th Form Students 18 * A Study on Communicative Activities in Teaching Speaking to the 10 th Form Students 3.4 COMMITMENT Hereby, I certify that this study is the result of my own experience and has not been submitted by any others Signature of Principle Thanh Hoa, May 22nd, 2022 Writer Ngô Thị Cảnh REFERENCES 19 ENGLISH Forseth, R & C., Tạ Tiến Hùng, Nguyễn Văn Đỗ (1996) Methodology Handbook for English Teachers in Vietnam America: English Language Institute America Krashen, S & Terrell, T (1983) The Natural Approach: Language Acquisition in the Classroom Oxford: Pergamon Jack C Richards Communicative Language Teaching Today (2006) Cambridge University Press Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2006) Language Teaching Theory Vinh University Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2007) English Teaching Methodology Vinh University Richards, J C and Rodgers, T S (2001) Approaches and Method in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Silberstain, S (1993) Techniques and Resources in Teaching Reading Oxford: Oxford University Press VIETNAMESE Hoàng Văn Vân (Ed.) (2006) Tiếng Anh 10 Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Giáo Dục WEBSITES: http://www.michiganreading.org 20 ... to apply those activities in real teaching and learning English is still a question for many teachers The teaching practice at Tho Xuan High School has made me realize that teaching and learning... Research context 2.2.1 Real situation of Teaching and Learning English at Tho Xuan High School Tho Xuan High School was founded in 2003 in a mountainous area Most of the students in Tho Xuan High School. .. conducted the study on using communicative activities in teaching reading to the 10th form students at Tho Xuan high school Hopefully, after applying these activities in real teaching and learning English,