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

PART 1: INTRODUCTION1.1 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 ofintegration among the countries over the world, English becomes an official andeffective international communicative language English is widely used in manyfields of life such as science, technology, education, etc As a result, more andmore people are studying English with the hope that they can meet therequirements of society in general and of their jobs in particular

In education, especially, for High school grade, English now is acompulsory subject not only in teaching and learning but also in many importantexaminations It is, therefore, comprehensible why nowadays students learningEnglish with a great concern They not only study English because it iscompulsory but also because they are interested in English and they are awarewell 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 aslistening, speaking, reading and writing Being a receptive skill, reading also hassome certain requirements to the students, not just a process of understandinggrammar structures mechanically In fact, many students are very good atgrammar and vocabulary but they cannot finish the reading tasks successfully

Of course, there are many ways to teach reading skill, however, the givenquestion is that which way is the most effective for the students Nowadays, weare trying to teach English in a communicative way Communicative activities,therefore, are becoming an essential part in language learning In real teaching inhigh school, not many teachers use communicative activities in English classes,especially in reading lessons They only teach students reading skills throughmechanical drills in the textbook Thus, I carry out a study on the communicativeactivities in English reading classes to somewhat help students to improve theirreading skill in particular and their language competence in general.

For the reasons above, I decide to choose the topic “A study onCommunicative Activities in teaching reading to 10th graders at Tho Xuan 5high 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 CommunicativeActivities to Reading Skill.

- To make an investigation into the real situation of using communicativeactivities in teaching and learning English reading skill at Tho Xuan 5 Highschool.

- To provide some suggested communicative activities to partly improvereading skills for the 10th form students.

To fully achieve these aims, the study has to answer the followingquestions:

1 What are the students’ attitudes towards the communicative activitiesin teaching English reading lessons?

2 What kinds of Communicative Activities can be applied in Englishreading 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 isimpractical to cover them all in this paper Due to the limited time and length ofa minor thesis, I choose to focus my research on communicative activities inteaching reading at Tho Xuan 5 High school The student focus group iscomprised 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 thathas been delivered to 45 students in grade 10th at Tho Xuan 5 High school.

The researcher chose this method because it has some advantages.According to Gillham (2000), the advantage of using questionnaires is that thereis less pressure for an immediate response Instead, the respondents can completethe questionnaire at a relaxing pace when it suits them; they are not “underpressure interview bias” First, the responses are gathered in a standardized way,so questionnaires are quite objective Second, it is relatively quick to collect theinformation using a questionnaire Finally, potential information can be collectedfrom a large portion of a group by using questionnaire.

In this study, the questionnaires are delivered to students to investigate theirattitude 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 communicativeactivities that they use in teaching reading English lessons.

The questionnaire for teachers has 14 questions aim at getting exactlyinformation of teaching reading at Tho Xuan 5 High school.

The questionnaire for students has 10 questions aims at getting exactlyinformation of learning reading at Tho Xuan 5 High school.

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

This chapter review the literature related to the study Firstly, it givescommunicative activities in language teaching and learning process andcharacteristics of communicative activities And finally, it gives definition ofreading, 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 tocontrol over the language that students use by organizing it into manageableportions to be developed though communicative activities Then, what arecommunicative activities?

The definition of communicative activities was discussed by Klipple (1991)when he revealed that the term “communicative activities is used to refer to anyoperation which is used to consolidate language already taught or acquired andwhich occurs during the free stage of a lesson or students can producemeaningful and authentic utterances without the controlling influence of theteacher or the course” It means that every time a learner uses a language thatthey are learning, say English, either productively or receptively, he or sheinvolves in these kinds of activities

In a nutshell, communicative activities are those that involve learners inusing the language for communicative rather than display purposes that focus onfluency rather than accuracy and which involve learners in pair or group work asa setting for that communication.

2.1.1.2 Characteristic of communicative activities

Communicative activities are designed to encourage the purposeful andmeaningful interaction between students in a language lesson It is, therefore,important for teachers to be fully aware of their characteristics so that they canuse them effectively

Harmer (1991) lists 6 distinctive characteristics of communicative activitieswhen they are contrasted with non-communicative ones They are presented asfollows.

Non-communicative activities Communicative activities1 The students have no desire to

6 The materials will be speciallydesigned focus on a restricted amountof language.

1 The students should havecommunicative desire.

2 They have communicativepurposes

3 The attention should be centered onthe content not the language form.4 They will have to deal with avariety of language.

5 The teacher should not intervene6 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 useof 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 foreignlanguage “Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamicinteraction among the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested bythe text being read and the context of the reading situation” (Cited fromhttp://www.michiganreading.org).

According to Nunan (1991), reading is basically a matter of decoding seriesof written symbols into the aural equivalent He also explains that “the readerprocesses each letter as it is encountered These letters are matched with thephonemes 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 calledreading a “psycholinguistic” guessing game, the reader make use of the 3 cueingsystems: 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 aspiringreader wants to gain access to a “community of reader” (Walace: 1988).

Through the concepts of reading, we can conclude that reading is decodingevery letters in text, adding three cueing systems and putting text in socialcontext We can understand all information that exists in text and adding ourknowledge about life, society, cultural: consequently, we can predict what thetext intend Thus, it is necessary tor the students learning how to read in aneffective way.

2.1.2.2 Types of communicative activities in reading classes

Littlewood (1981) divides communicative activities into functionalcommunication activities and social interaction activities For the functionalcommunication activities, the main purpose is that learners should use thelanguage they know in order to get meaning across as effectively as possible.Success is measured primarily according to whether they cope withcommunicative demands of the immediate situation Some examples of theseactivities are questions and answers, interviews based on a text, information-gapactivities, role-play, etc.

In addition, the social interaction activities place emphasis on social as wellas functional aspects of communication Learners must not only aim to conveymeanings effectively but also pay greater attention to the social contexts inwhich the interactions take place Success is now measured not only in terms ofthe functional effectiveness of the language but also in terms of the acceptabilityof the forms that are used In the early stages of learning, acceptability may meanlittle more than a reasonable degree of accuracy in pronunciation and grammar.Later, it will increasingly come to include producing language appropriate tospecific kind of social situations because of the limitation of the classroom;simulation and role-playing are now important techniques for creating a widervariety of social situations and relationships.

Basing on medium of communication, communicative activities can also beclassified into two types: oral and written communicative activities according toNguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2007)

For the first type of communicative activities, there are various sub-types ofactivity which help to promote oral communication in the classroom such asReaching a consensus, Relaying instructions, Communication games, Problemsolving, Interpersonal exchange, Story construction and stimulation and Roleplay

For the second one, there are also various sub-types which help promotewritten communication in the classroom such as Relaying instructions, Exchangeletters, Writing games, Fluency writing, Story construction and Writing report,and Advertisements.

In summary, this chapter shows us the aims, characteristics and the teacherand learner roles in CLT; the communicative activities in language teaching andlearning process and characteristics of communicative activities Especially, itgives definition of reading, principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroomand types of communicative activities in reading classes There are researchersgiving criteria for the aspects of CLT in the process of teaching reading and theyalso show their ideas and evaluation for these aspects In addition, whether thoseideas are right or wrong, we will investigate them in the next parts.

As a matter of fact, a successful class is the one in which students play thecenter role and communicative competence is the goal of teaching Therefore, itis actually necessary for the teacher to monitor the class in such a way thatstudents have as many chances as possible to communicate with each other whenfulfilling a task Using communicative activities is one of the most effectiveways They help students to become more active and more confident when theyexpress their understanding about the reading text Through communicativeactivities the students also understand the lesson better In fact, communicativeactivities are available, however, how and in what way to apply those activitiesin real teaching and learning English is still a question for many teachers.

The teaching practice at Tho Xuan 5 High School has made me realizethat teaching and learning English quite boring; students sometimes notmotivated in learning the lessons I has also had a chance to observe Englishreading classes taught by all of six teachers in Tho Xuan 5 High School It isobvious that each teacher has their own ways to teach English reading and guidestudents to solve reading tasks in the textbook Nowadays, we are trying to teachEnglish following Communicative Approach However, the fact is that manyteachers still use the traditional method of teaching They mainly focus ongrammatical structures and vocabulary They guide students how to use Englishgrammar to do exercises in the textbook Some teachers also teach their studentshow to translate a piece of English language into Vietnamese one.

For reading skill in particular, some teachers often use only the textbookagain and again They teach students by asking them to follow the mechanicaldrills in the textbook Therefore, most of the students have no intrinsicmotivation in learning English reading As a result, English reading skills ofstudents at Tho Xuan 5 High School is not good There are also some teachersproviding extra communicative activities in reading classes In such classes, thestudents are able to complete successfully the reading tasks and understand thereading passage better In addition, the students feel more interested in readinglessons 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 applyingreading communicative activities in teaching reading when I give the lessons tothe students I have seen that by using communicative activities, the studentshave had more motivation in joining the lessons and they have also understoodthe text more thoroughly

To sum up, using communicative activities in English reading classesbrings many benefits for students in learning English Therefore, it should bewidespread applied in teaching and learning English Consequently, the studentswill not only improve their reading skills but also other language skills will bebetter day by day.

2.2.2 Participants2.2.2.1 The students

The number of students participating in this study is 45 They are in grade10th of Tho Xuan 5 High school during the school year 2021 – 2022.

In order to achieve these objectives, the content of the book is designed toutilize themes with which all students will be familiar Included are topicsrelated to the student’s social lives, to sports, to work, and to leisure activities

universal experiences For each topic, related vocabulary and word studies arepresented communicatively There are 6 themes: “You and me”, “Education”,“Community”, “Recreation”, “Nature and Environment”, and “People andplaces” The book contains sixteen units, with each unit presenting five lessonswith four different skills and a language focus Reading is the first unit in eachlesson, guiding students to key words and phrases of the related topic which thenbecome “building blocks” that enable them to learn additional skills

Some tasks in the text book are difficult while some others are not reallychallenging This disparity requires teachers to creatively motivate students byadapting exercises to their interest levels Being effective at this adaptive skill iswhat 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 beapplied in teaching all four language skills Thus, within this study, I onlysuggest some communicative activities in English reading classes to the 10thform students I hope that these activities will help students understand the textmost 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 contentof the text and improving students’ interaction in the class as well.

* Instruction:

The teacher asks the students to write the numbers from 1 to 10 after each

sentence in the text Number “1” means “I understood almost nothing in thissentence”, 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 toeach other and then the students with the higher score will help the lower oneunderstand more.

* Application:

Almost of units in the textbook can apply this type of activity for the reading part After finishing reading tasks in while-reading, the teacher can askthe students to move around class to ask each other about whatever they do notunderstand in the text

post-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 fromthat they can understand the text better.

* Instruction:

Asking the students to find 5-6 favorite words from the text (they shouldbe important words in the text) and then discuss in groups to find the synonymsof these words Each student has their own words Thus, after exchanging theideas in groups, students can enrich their vocabulary Moreover, because thestudents know more words in the text, their understanding about the text is alsoimproved.

* Application:

The teacher can apply this type of activity independently or combine itwith matching tasks in while-reading After first reading, the teacher asks thestudents to work in groups to discuss about the synonyms of their favorite words.Through this activity, the students can do matching tasks more easily Manyunits 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 informationor summarizing the reading text

* Instruction:

The teacher prepares a summary passage (including some deliberatemistakes) of the text, copies it into many pieces as the hand-outs and deliversthem to each pair or group of students After that, the teacher asks the students todiscuss to cross out the mistakes and substitute the correct information.

* Application:

“Get it wrong” activity can be used for both while-reading and

post-reading parts In some lessons, the teacher can combine this activity with True/False tasks to conduct a summary passage including both right and wronginformation 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 askingand answering questions to get information about the text.

* Instruction:

Students should come up with a variety of questions relating to thepassage and go around class to interview other students about the informationthey need.

* Application:

This type of activity can be applied in while-reading and post-reading aswell For while-reading, the teacher can combine it with the task “Answering thequestions” Students can use both the given questions in the task and their ownquestions to interview each other For post-reading, this activity can be used forfree talking Students can move around the class and ask any question relating tothe passage to help them understand the text thoroughly Almost every unit in thetextbook 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 aboutthe 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 findout as much as possible the words relating that key word (the key word is aboutthe main point of the passage).

* Application:

The teacher can use this activity for pre-reading or post-reading part inalmost every unit in the textbook For example, in unit 16 “Historical Places”,the teacher can check students’ understanding about the passage by asking themto complete the network below:

Suggested answers:

Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam

Historical and cutural siteBuit in 1070

Ly dynasty