INTRODUCTION
Design of the study
In this chapter, the review of the issues most relevant considered as a theoretical background to the study will be provided It consists of definitions of reading and reading comprehension, the purposes of reading, classification of reading, stages in a reading lesson, factors affecting reading skills, and focused tasks and using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills
I.1 Definitions of reading, reading comprehension and purposes of reading I.1.1 What is reading?
Reading is a natural and common activity that people always do in their daily life It is stated that reading is a kind of culture that people regardless of age, sex, or class should learn and have Although no one can deny the high frequency of reading in every day life, to understand thoroughly what reading or reading comprehension is may not be well aware by many There have been so many definitions of reading that they cause much confusion Hence, many linguists take reading into account to do research They have studied and given various definitions of reading
According to Frank Smith (1978:2) “reading is to understand the author’s thought” He also adds “Understanding print or even receiving communication can hardly be said to explain reading The problem still remains of how readers understand the print or receives the communication” This means that readers need to understand the author’s mind, not the author’s words The meaning of a word on any particular occasion will depend largely on the context in which it occurs So when readers understand the author’s thought, they are successful in reading because the nature of reading is the interaction between writers and readers Reading is much more
Theoretical Background
Definitions of reading, reading comprehension and purposes of reading
Reading is a natural and common activity that people always do in their daily life It is stated that reading is a kind of culture that people regardless of age, sex, or class should learn and have Although no one can deny the high frequency of reading in every day life, to understand thoroughly what reading or reading comprehension is may not be well aware by many There have been so many definitions of reading that they cause much confusion Hence, many linguists take reading into account to do research They have studied and given various definitions of reading
According to Frank Smith (1978:2) “reading is to understand the author’s thought” He also adds “Understanding print or even receiving communication can hardly be said to explain reading The problem still remains of how readers understand the print or receives the communication” This means that readers need to understand the author’s mind, not the author’s words The meaning of a word on any particular occasion will depend largely on the context in which it occurs So when readers understand the author’s thought, they are successful in reading because the nature of reading is the interaction between writers and readers Reading is much more than just understanding individual words but it is the process that the writer and reader understand each other
To advocates of cognitive reading model, reading is defined as the interaction between the reader and the text It is also a process of negotiating understanding between the reader and the writer Aebersold and Field (1997:15) propose, “Reading is what happens when people look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbol in that text.”
Goodman pointed out that, reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader – a language user reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (Goodman, 1988:135) This act of reconstruction is considered as a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confirming
To conclude, definitions of reading are many but no definition can possibly include all viewpoints and features Each definition reflects what reading means to that person but they seem to have some features in common Reading is a process in which the reader looks and understands what has been written Understanding a text means being able to extract the required information from it as efficiently as possible Thus, it is essential for us to understand thoroughly the definition of reading comprehension before teaching a reading text
Reading comprehension takes a very important part in teaching and learning reading a language and a foreign language as well Reading comprehension is a process that requires how to decode through the development of an extensive repertoire of sight words, learning the meanings of vocabulary words encountered in the texts, and learning how to abstract meaning from text It represents how well readers understand literal comprehension which concentrates on explicit meaning and inferential comprehension which concentrates on implicit meaning in the reading text
Grellet gives an idea that “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”
(Grellet, 1981:34) From this point of view, Grellet focuses on readers’ ability of understanding the meaning of a written text based on the individual’s background knowledge
Richard and Thomas (1987: 143) state that “Reading comprehension is a mental process that in the final analysis, only the readers fully understand Comprehension is what stimulates readers to remember the past experience That knowledge is, then, used in trying to get meaning out of print Meaning does not reside on the printed page but rather in the meaning of the reader.”
From the above mentioned definitions, it is possible to draw a conclusion that it is meaningless if readers spend time reading but have no comprehension or attain nothing or even little from a written text In other words, it is no use of reading without comprehension Therefore, reading comprehension is an important part in teaching and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading in particular However, the reasons for reading differ from one person to another As a result, the ways we read are also different In other words, the purposes of reading determine the ways or the styles of reading Now it is necessary to have a close look at the classification of reading according to manner and the purposes of reading to identify different types of reading
The purposes of reading will determine how we read, what skills we need and what types of reading text we practise in order to fulfill the purposes There are three main purposes of reading: reading for pleasure, reading for information and reading for language development
Reading for pleasure is considered as a purpose of reading because some people only read for entertainment, especially when getting stressed or after their hard working hours They read funny stories, jokes, newspapers and articles to entertain themselves In language classroom, reading for pleasure is used to lessen tension in class through funny stories, spicy stories, etc
Reading for information means that readers have to find out something or do something with information they get Information may be presented in several ways in written or spoken language, in drawings, photographs, etc
Reading in a foreign language is an effective way to learn a language for students Through reading they can get the content of the subject which they are studying and get the way to develop their knowledge of language itself
In general, reading skills will make other skills such as speaking, writing and listening improve because by teaching reading, the teacher provides students knowledge that can be used in writing, speaking and listening.
Classification of reading
According to manner, reading aloud and silent reading are two types of reading in which “reading aloud involves looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it” (Doff, 1988:70) Although reading aloud is considered a way to convey necessary information to the others, it is an unpopular activity outside classroom
Reading aloud involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it Its purpose is not just to understand a text but also covey the information to someone else
When reading aloud, students focus on pronunciation, spelling sounds but not on meaning So there is little value in developing reading skills However, reading aloud is useful for speaking skill, it can help students practise speaking accurately and fluently
Unlike reading aloud, silent reading is more often used in both real life and classroom, and “it is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985:110) It is an activity that we focus on meaning of the text so silent reading is called “reading on meaning” It involves looking at a text and saying the words to yourself so it is useful for development of reading skills
I.2.2 Classification of reading according to purposes
It is clear to assume that the reasons for reading are different from this person to that person because of their uncommon purposes According to purposes, reading is categorized into skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading
Skimming is commonly used in reading comprehension Grellet assumed that
“when skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get its main points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions”
(Grellet, 1981:19) In skimming, the reader goes through the text extremely quickly, merely dipping into it or sampling it at various points By skimming, students quickly run their eyes over the text to get the gist of it It is a kind of reading we do when we want to read in details or to find out the subject of the text
In terms of s canning, Nuttall indicated that “Scanning means glancing rapidly through a text either to search for a specific piece of information or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purpose” (Nuttall, 2000:49)
From this notion, scanning is a type of reading frequently used by all When scanning, students quickly go through a text to find a particular piece of information This skill involves the ability to reject or pass over irrelevant information Scanning can be practised with variety of texts such as maps, dictionaries, reference materials, etc
In terms of intensive reading , Grellet defined that “Intensive reading means reading short texts to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details” (Grellet,1981:41) The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text not only of what it means, but also of how the meaning is produced Under the guidance of the teacher or a task, students have to read the text carefully and try to understand every single word and idea or hidden information of a text
In terms of extensive reading , students read long texts usually for their own pleasure When reading, students have a general understanding of the text without necessarily understand every word Most of extensive reading is done silently and out of the class time Therefore, the aim of extensive reading is to cover the greatest possible amount text in the shortest possible time Extensive reading is a good way for students to enrich their knowledge of language and of the world The teachers should encourage students to perform extensive reading because it will activate reading outside the class
From Nuttall’s point of view, “intensive and extensive reading are not just two contrasting ways of reading but an infinitive variety of interrelated and overlapping strategies” (Nuttall, 2000:38) These two types of reading, of course, are complementary and reciprocal with each other, and necessary
In short, when teaching and learning reading comprehension teachers and students should remember that there are several reading types and an effective reader is the one who can adapt his style flexibly according to his purpose Generally, readers do not choose to read a text either intensively or extensively, for gist or specific information because a text can be best tackled by a combination of strategies.
Stages in a reading lesson
Activities in a reading lesson can be divided into three stages: pre-reading stage, while-reading stage and post-reading stage For each stage, different techniques should be used to help students read the text comprehensively
According to Williams (1984:37), the purposes of the pre-reading stage are:
- To introduce and arouse interest in the topic
- To motivate learners by giving a reason for reading
- To provide some language preparation for the text
Normally, pre-reading phase often last from two to ten minutes depending on each lesson Several techniques are suggested such as using pictures, predicting from the titles, guessing and brainstorming to see what students have already known These activities are aimed at drawing the students’ interest towards reading as well as preparing them for the reading text
Williams (1984:38) states that while-reading stage is the main part of a reading lesson with the following specific aims:
- To help understanding of the writer’s purpose
- To help understanding of the text structure
At this stage, there is a great deal of activities can be performed in order to help students to understand the text The teacher acts as an organisor, a helper only He will be available to help individuals with their particular difficulties He will be likely to be about the meaning of new vocabulary items, new grammar structures, etc In this situation, he should encourage students to guess the meaning from the context
On the whole, the teacher must manage his class in such a way every student participates in the lesson and understands the text
After reading, the teacher needs to consolidate or reflect upon what has been read Williams stated that “the post-reading stage is aimed at consolidating or reflecting upon what has been read and relating the text to the learners’ own knowledge, interests or views” Williams (1984:39) This stage is where integration of four skills will be appropriately conducted Activities in this stage are aimed at helping students apply what they have learnt from the text to their further study or communication through the tasks provided by the teacher
Obviously, the three-phase approach is not to be carried out mechanically on every occasion Sometimes, the teacher may wish to cut out the pre-reading stage and get learners to work on the text directly At other times, post-reading stage may not be included.
Factors in teaching and learning reading
In a reading lesson, the teacher acts as a helper and students work individually and actively but this does not mean that there is nothing for the teacher to do The roles of teachers in an EFL reading lesson are also significant and worth mentioning On the one hand, Nuttall (2000:32-33) specifies some of these roles as choosing reading texts, designing tasks, facilitating reading process and monitoring progress He thus comes to a conclusion that there is always a great deal the teacher to do in a reading lesson On the other hand, he also reminds teacher of several pitfalls in teaching reading, in which “testing instead of teaching” and teacher’s overly dominance in processing the reading texts are among the most common mistakes That is why the teacher needs to organize activities in teaching reading and then carry out a number of appropriate techniques to teach a particular text While providing appropriate activities, the teacher should be active and creative to help students read effectively in a reading lesson
The students are the heart of the reading process in a reading class and they can make a reading lesson successful Nuttall (2000:33) mentions several main roles for the students in a reading lesson They are as follows:
- Taking an active part in learning: This is the first and foremost responsibility of the learner They have to be active and take charge of what they do
- Monitoring comprehension: Students need to understand how texts work and what they do when they read
- Learning text talk: It is clear that a good reader carries on a dialogue with the text Consequently, the students have to learn how to do this An effective way to promote this skill is to talk about texts in class
- Taking risks: Students have to take the risk of making mistakes because a mistake is an opportunity to learn
- Learning not to cheat oneself: Learning to read is learning to give students enormous advantages in life It may lead to better jobs, to personal development, interest and enjoyment Students who do not want to learn to read can easily cheat but they are only cheating themselves
In short, students are the key figures to decide the success of teaching reading
I.4.3 The role of reading texts
Texts plays an important role in a reading lesson That is because text is used
“as a way of learning new language by looking at the text and focusing on particular words and expression” Doff (1988:62) This means that through reading text, students can understand phonetic, lexical and grammatical items Besides, students can enrich their knowledge in different fields such as science, technology, culture, art etc in the target language.
Factors determining successful reading comprehension
Language learners can learn to use different kinds of reading strategies Some read and understand a text very quickly while others read slowly and fail to understand what they read and it is essential to take the following elements into consideration on the part of students
Reading is considered as an active skill It involves guessing, predicting, checking and asking questions Therefore, students should apply reading strategies to each kind of reading effectively Students do not read every word in a text They should focus on the important words so they can understand most of the text and can read faster They should try to predict what comes next in the text and read the text again if they do not understand what they have read They should read silently, not whispering the words while they read because reading aloud may slow the students down and force them to read every word Besides, they should learn to guess the meaning of new words They look at the context of words and other clues such as the affixes of words Thus, it is important to encourage them to combine top-down and bottom-up strategies in reading Moreover, for different texts, students have to use different skills
In summary, there are different kinds of texts and different purposes for reading so it is necessary to find out a suitable way of reading for each
A successful reader requires good general background knowledge Background knowledge does not cover knowledge of a particular topic Readers will use their own knowledge to understand what they are reading In order to understand a text, readers skillfully recall what they have already known about the topic and need to read frequently and read many kinds of books
Teachers take an important role in improving the students’ reading They must know how to convey or present a reading lesson to students It is really necessary to take the following elements into considerations for teachers
As I have mentioned above, there are three steps in teaching reading These are pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading In order to have successful reading, the teacher should follow three stages There are two advantages of the three-stage approach Firstly, it respects and makes use of the students’ own knowledge and of the world and uses this as a basis for involvement, motivation and progress Secondly, it leads to integration of the skills so that the reading lesson is not simply isolated That is why a good reading lesson requires the above three-stage approach
The selection of materials is one of the factors determining the success of a reading lesson One of the teachers’ roles is to provide the students with suitable reading texts To fulfill this role and have a successful lesson, the teacher should bear in mind the following criteria for the selection of a text: readability, suitability of content and exploitability.
Focused tasks and using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills
According to Breen (1989), a task is “a structured plan for the provision of opportunities for the refinement of knowledge and capabilities entailed in a new language and its use during communication He specifically states that a task can be a brief practice exercise or a more complex work plan that requires spontaneous communication of meaning
Focused asks, according to Ellis (2003), aim to introduce learners to process, receptively or productively, some particular linguistic feature, for example, a grammatical structure He says that focused tasks have two aims: one is to stimulate communicative language use, the other is to target the use of a particular, predetermined target feature
I.6.2 Using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills I.6.2.1 Skills involved in reading
Readers need variety of skills when reading In fact, a change in purpose of reading usually results in the change in the reading skills so the type of reading performed According to Tomlinson and Ellis (1980:150), reading skills include: mechanical skills, understanding the lexical items, understanding grammatical meaning, reasoning skills, selection skills and evaluation skills
Another possible way of classification of reading skills is suggested by Grellet (1981:4) He considers that reading skills consist of: recognising the scrift of a language, deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items, understanding explicitly stated information, understanding information what not explicitly stated, understanding conceptual meaning, understanding the relations within the sentence, understanding relations between parts of the text through grammatical cohesion devices, interpreting a text by going outside it, recognising indicators in discourse, identifying the main point or important information in a piece of discourse, distinguishing the main idea and supporting details, extracting salient points to summarise, basic reference skills, skimming, scanning and transcoding information to diagrammatical display
I.6.2.2 Questions and tasks in a reading lesson
In teaching reading, reading lessons have been traditionally based on passage followed by questions and tasks The aim of which is to check understanding rather than to produce understanding Introducing questions and tasks will encourage students to anticipate the content of a text from its title and illustrations Questioning and tasks, therefore, are very important to improve the students’ reading comprehension
There must be variety in the range of tasks and it is necessary if different reading skills are to be covered A task should not always imposed on a text and it is better to allow the text to suggest what tasks are most appropriate There are various ways of classifying types of questions and tasks According to Nuttual (1989:434), there are five types of questions and tasks such as: questions of literal comprehension, questions involving recognition or interpretation, questions of inference, questions of valuation and questions of personal response Questions and tasks are one of the best ways of building up the students’ comprehension reading skills and their confidence.
Methodology
Situation analysis
The study was conducted at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh English is a compulsory subject and one of the core subjects at high schools Reading is a skill of major concern in teaching-learning English in Vietnam During a reading lesson, the teacher asks students to read a text and then he or she explains new words or structures to help students understand the text The reading lesson sometimes turns out to be an English-Vietnamese translation lesson Translation can be used as an effective way of teaching reading for some texts only However, in reading lesson if the teacher uses translation, it will lead to inefficient reading and it also makes the students inactive and dependent Consequently, the teaching reading process cannot be considered as efficient The problem which is raised here is how to make the reading lessons efficient and how to develop reading comprehension skills for students This should, therefore, be taken into consideration in teaching reading lessons It is possible to introduce questions and tasks which encourage students to anticipate the contents of reading texts For that reason, the teacher should ask students to do a variety of tasks to understand the texts and to develop reading comprehension skills
The process of data collection involved the participation of both teachers of English (8 teachers) and grade 11 students (155 students) who are teaching and learning at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh as follows:
* The Students Participants who were drawn from a high school in Nam Dinh, aged 17, both male and female have learnt English for 5 years, 4 years at lower secondary school and one year at high school They all have similar background Lots of them come from comparatively poor families so their learning condition is low Their parents can hardly afford to pay even small expenses required for their children’s schooling; a dictionary, a cassette player or even some English books are beyond their reach In addition, their lack of awareness on the importance of English as well as motivation makes them not interest in learning English Although most of them have already learnt English for at least four years at lower secondary school, their knowledge of English is still poor and limited Hardly can they say a complete sentence in the target language
* The Teachers There are 8 teachers of English, including the researcher, aged from 30 to 47, 4 have graduated from the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, National University, Hanoi; 4 have graduated from Hanoi University of Foreign Languages All of them are enthusiastic with their career and had at least 7 years experienced in teaching English However, since graduating from their respective universities, few of them have taken refresher courses to improve their English and their teaching methods
These teachers were trained under the strong influence of the Grammar-Translation method, the emphasis of which is on the learning of the rules of the language, not on the acquisition of language skills This is obviously manifested in their teaching methods
The materials used for teaching and learning English for the grade 11 students are English course books TIENG ANH 11 The textbook consists of 16 units organized broad topics Each unit is divided into 5 parts: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus The teacher only covers one of the above five parts in each period After every three units, there is a TEST YOURSELF, which provides some exercises for the students to do in order to test how good they are at English The reading texts in TIENG ANH 11 are various Many of them are not very difficult at all and very interesting However, some reading texts are rather long, requiring good reading techniques Some reading texts have many difficult and unfamiliar words to students, which can sometimes not be covered within a period of only 45 minutes.
Instrumentation
The sample was drawn from two sources: from 155 students and from 8 teachers teaching at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh
The instruments used to gather the information for the study will be described as follows:
Two set of survey questionnaire were completed with the assistance of 155 students in grade 11 and 8 teachers at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh This method allowed the researcher to collect the data needed in “quantitative form” A good point of this method is that it is quite easy to summarize, analyze and report the collected data as all informants submit the answer to the same questions In addition, the informants can express their opinions on teaching and learning the reading skills in a free way as their personal information is not included in the questionnaire
II.2.1.1 The Questionnaire for the Students
The questionnaire for the students (Appendix 1) was designed with two parts Parts one consists of three questions to find out about the students’ attitude towards learning reading skills Part two includes seven questions with which the researcher desires to explore learning reading skills of the 11 th form students, the attitude of students towards the role of the teacher and the self-assessment of the students about their reading
II.2.1.2 The Questionnaire for the Teachers
The questionnaire for the teachers (Appendix 2) consists of seven questions It is about their comments on the reading texts and tasks in the textbook
As for the other tool of the study, classroom observation is not less important
Wallace (2001) asserts that it is an important technique for the researcher to record what is happening at the time that the teaching and learning of the foreign languages take place In fact, with classroom observation, the researcher can watch, follow and record all activities that the teacher and the students are performing in a particular place Therefore, it is a very useful tool for the researcher to check the reliability of the data collected from the survey questionnaires
The author of the study observed four classes Each class was picked up randomly from its group The observation was carried out in two different lessons in these classes For each lesson, the researcher observed for 45 minutes
Four teachers under the author’s observation have been teaching English at this school for at least nine years There are some differences between the teachers’ age
Consequently, their teaching experience must be different
Four units were chosen to be observed are unit 4, unit 9, unit 11 and unit 12
The purpose for choosing these units was that they contained rather long reading passages with many unfamiliar words, which may make the readers bored Therefore, the researcher intends to observe how the teachers dealt with the long texts, how they explained the new words and what techniques and tasks they used to motivate students
This chapter has presented the methodology employed in the research The next chapter will offer a descriptive data analysis of the collected data.
Data analysis and findings
Data analysis and findings
In this part, the collected data will be illustrated on charts, tables and graphs
Each chart, table or graph is followed by an analysis of the data
III.1.1 Survey for students III.1.1.1 Students’ attitudes towards learning reading skills
Question 1: Do you like reading English?
Table 1: Students’ attitudes towards reading in English
The results indicate that among 155 students, 102 students like reading English It accounts 66% and the reasons are various The rest do not like reading English and they think that it is difficult to read English because they do not know the meaning of new words or what the texts are all about The number of students who like reading English is much bigger than that of students who do not like This helps the teachers much in reading lessons, because if the students have interest in reading English, they will work more effectively to improve their background knowledge and language skills
Question 2: What is your purpose of reading English?
Table 2: Students’ attitudes towards purpose of reading English
According to the data, the purpose of improving English ranks the first, then comes improving background knowledge As we can see, many students have the right purposes of reading English Most of them are aware of the fact that reading helps them much in improving English and this is advantageous for teachers to teach reading
Besides, there is a decent number of students who are not interested in reading English or do not have right purposes of reading The reasons are that the texts are so difficult or there are so many new words or structures Therefore, the teacher should give suitable reading texts and tasks which are used to encourage students’ interest or to meet their purposes of reading English
Question 3: What kinds of reading materials do you like to read?
Chart 1: Students’ Attitudes towards reading materials
The chart shows that the biggest numbers of informants choose B The reason may be that the stories are easy to understand so students like reading stories in English A small number of students like reading texts, articles and other kinds This may indicate the fact that these reading materials are more difficult or very easy so they do not attract the students to read
On the whole, in teaching reading skills, teachers should give variety of materials which are appropriate to students’ level
III.1.1.2 Learning reading skills of the 11 th form students
Question 4: Which kinds of tasks are you often asked to do?
Table 3: Kinds of tasks students are often asked to do
We can see from the table that all options are chosen Questions and answers, True or False statements and multiple choice items are often given to students
However, if teachers provide the three above types of tasks in every reading lesson, it will make students fed up with them That is why teachers should give various kinds of tasks to students, provided that these exercises are of the right level and do not have many new words
Question 5: What are your difficulties in doing reading tasks?
The length of the text
The new vocabulary and grammatical item
The topic of the text
The content of the text
Chart 2: Students’ difficulties in doing reading tasks
According to the results, difficulty of new vocabulary and grammatical items ranks the first Therefore, when teaching reading, teachers should pre-teach difficult new words and structures in different ways by using visual aids, giving synonyms, giving definition, example, etc Besides, teachers should give students more exercises that are related to deducing the meaning of unfamiliar words and structures
Question 6: How do you do reading tasks?
Table 4: Students’ strategies of doing reading tasks
Considering the data, we find that a number of students choose B and C are nearly equal However, the right way in doing reading tasks is A It is clear that many students do not have the right strategies of doing tasks They often look up new words and structures immediately when they do not know their meaning Therefore, their reading process is delayed and their understanding is badly affected So in doing reading tasks, students should not pay much attention to new vocabulary items but try to understand the content of the texts and then answer the questions.
Question 7: What do you usually do when you come across a new word while you are reading?
Table 5: Students’ strategies when coming across a new word
When coming across a new word, 32% of the students try to guess its meaning from the context The large number pause and look it up in a dictionary, ask the teachers or friends for help It is not a good way because they will waste a lot of time and may not understand the text fully Therefore, the teachers should teach their students how to deal with new words
Question 8: Besides tasks in the textbook, do you like to do supplementary tasks to improve your reading comprehension skills?
Table 6: Students’ interest in doing supplementary tasks
Over half of students do not like doing supplementary tasks very much and 7% any more tasks because there are enough exercises in the textbooks or they do not want to spend time doing extra tasks Some consider supplementary tasks so difficult The data shows that 39% of students like doing extra tasks They are really interested in doing tasks and they say that tasks in the textbooks are not enough and are not various, some are difficult So, it is advisable that the teachers provide appropriate tasks for all students in order to motivate them to do tasks and improve their reading comprehension skills
III.1.1.3 The attitude of students towards the role of the teacher
Question 9: You think that the role of the teacher as a guide in doing reading tasks is:
C Depending on the texts and tasks
100% of students consider the role of the teachers necessary as a guide in doing reading tasks The teachers should give students some guidance in dealing with new words and structures The teachers should encourage students to do extra reading tasks to improve their reading comprehension skills
III.1.1.4 The self-assessment of the students about their reading
Question 10: How do you self-evaluate your reading proficiency?
According to the data, 58% of informants self-evaluate their reading proficiency as quite good and the rest self-evaluate as poor The data may not be exact because the students do not express their real ability
To sum up, the students’ survey questionnaire mentions certain activities of reading lessons, the attitudes of students towards doing reading tasks and the role of the teacher in reading lessons From the data analysis, almost all the students are aware of the important role of reading tasks in reading comprehension lessons However, reading tasks used by the teacher do not always make students satisfied with the lesson
Question 1: What do you think about the reading texts and tasks in the textbook?
They are suitable to students' level They are too difficult for students to read
Chart 3: Teachers’ attitudes towards reading texts and tasks in textbook
In general, most of the teachers are aware of the importance of the reading texts and tasks in the textbook and they will try their best to teach students well It is advisable for teachers to provide students with more interesting texts and tasks to encourage them to study better
Question 2: Which kinds of tasks do you give to your students?
Among these kinds, 100% teachers choose B and 75% for true or false items
Next comes multiple-choice (50%) and 25% choose the rest If teachers give questions and answers, true or false items in every reading text, students will lose their interest, so they should give various kinds of tasks in a reading lesson to motivate students
Question 3: Do you think reading tasks in the textbook are enough for the students?
Among 8 teachers, only two of them (25%) think that reading tasks in the textbook are enough for students and it is not necessary to give them more tasks The rest believe that reading tasks in the textbook are not enough and the teachers should give them extra tasks in the process of teaching reading In my opinion, instead of asking students to do all tasks in the textbook, the teachers should provide students other tasks because some tasks in the textbook are not helpful for developing students’ reading comprehension skills
Question 4: Do you think it is necessary to give your students training in doing reading tasks?
Classroom observation
Firstly, the researcher came to observe class 11B with Unit 4, the reading is a rather long text and with a lot of new words In the pre-reading stage, the teacher elicited the topic by showing some pictures She used many other pictures to explain the new words and students could understand the meaning of new words However, when checking the new words, the teacher just asked the students to work individually to do the gap filling The students appeared very bored with this In the while-reading stage, the teacher asked students work in pairs and in groups to do the tasks in the textbook They got actively involved in the activities and then the teacher gave some comments on the students’ answers In the post-reading stage, the teacher asked students to work in groups to discuss the question However this question is so difficult and beyond the students’ knowledge and experience
The second observation was taken from class 11A with unit 9, the reading text in this unit is very boring The teacher got the whole class to brainstorm the services that the post office offers The students were excited to participate in brainstorming In the while-reading stage, the teacher let students work in pairs and always gave detailed and careful instructions She also organized a game for students to do the next task
Most of the students showed their willingness to join the game As a result, most students could give the correct answers In post-reading one, the teacher asked her students to close the book to ask and answer about the services at Thanh Ba post office
With this activity the teacher could check how much her students could understand and remember the lesson
The next class observation was done in class 11D with unit 11 The reading text is about different sources of energy The reading text had many new words so that the teacher applied “pre-teaching vocabulary” technique She used explanation, definition and translation to illustrate the new words In the while-reading and post-reading stage, the teacher created a competitive and exciting atmosphere among students She asked students to work in groups and also gave good marks for groups that could do the task well within the shortest time
Finally, the researcher came to observe class 11G with unit 12 The reading text is about the history of Asian Games The teacher divided the class into two groups and asked them to guess the letters of the words that she was going to write down on the board Then, the teachers asked the whole class to guess what they were going to read
From the observation, the researcher could see the students’ eagerness and curiosity about the prediction Next, the teacher pre-taught some new words by using pictures, making questions and doing some actions In the while-reading, the teacher organized a game so that the students became more excited However in the last task, the students were put under pressure of time, therefore some of them felt tired
In conclusion, the survey questionnaires and classroom observation help find out the techniques of teaching reading tasks in high school We can see that some teachers have not found the best ways to teach reading comprehension skills to students I think that teachers should improve their teaching methods to help students in learning reading comprehension skills.
Suggested some focused tasks in teaching reading skills and sample
Suggested some focused tasks in teaching reading skills
In this study, I focus on teaching and learning reading text in the textbook TIENG ANH 11 at high schools, particularly using English reading tasks in teaching reading skills to the 11 th form students I would like to introduce the bases of giving tasks as follows
Students in the 11 th form have fully developed both mentally and physically
They are aware that learning plays an important role in their life English in recent years has become a compulsory subject in graduation examination For that reason, students’ purpose and motivation of learning English are clearly defined So the teacher of English should give variety of learning tasks with plentiful and interesting information to students
Students in the 11 th form have learnt English for 5 years and they have had background knowledge of English They have also had a general knowledge of the reading system Tasks, therefore, should be appropriate This means that reading tasks must be varied and challenging to students so that they will try their best to do them and develop reading comprehension skills
According to my survey, one of the errors students usually make is that they do not fully understand content of the text That is because their limited knowledge of language and the new vocabulary items Reading tasks must be appropriate to the 11 th form students’ level so that they can learn to read effectively.
IV.1.2 Suggested some focused tasks IV.1.2.1 Suitability for students’ level
It is the fact that classes are large and mixed ability ones Students are of different levels ranking from advanced to weak students If the teacher gives a difficult exercise, the advanced will be motivated and the rest will lose their interest so the teacher should give exercises which are suitable for students’ levels, This study will focus on three kinds of reading tasks: dealing with unfamiliar words, complex sentences comprehension and whole-text comprehension
One of the commonest problems facing the students in doing reading tasks is that they cannot understand the meaning of unknown words The teacher can design or give tasks that can help students know how to use context clues to guess the meaning and the use of unfamiliar words such as multiple-choice, word-filling, matching, synonyms and antonyms
Task 1: Read the passage (TIENG ANH 11, 2007:67) and match the words or phrases on the left with their definitions on the right
5 smoothly a without problems or difficulties b enthusiasm and energy c altogether or as a total d encourage or make something more active e happening or done once every year
Task 2: Read the paragraph again and complete the sentences
1 In activity 5, Hung was unable to complete the ……
2 Having achieved the highest score, Group B became the winner of the ……
3 Group C lost the game because they just got 60 ………
Students may feel confused in dealing with a complex or a long sentence They find it difficult to understand the text, the teacher should help them to recognise the structures of the sentences The task may be as follows:
Example:Without looking back at the text (TIENG ANH 11,2007:91), please punctuate
Tet’s preparation and celebrations used to be spread over month but nowadays the holiday is much shorter a great deal of excitement still builds up well before Tet however streets are decorated with coloured lights and red banners shops are full of goods people are busy buying gifts cleaning and decorating their houses and cooking traditional foods
Students sometimes have trouble in understanding the content of the text The text would be easier to understand if we train our students to recognize linking devices such as linking words or connectors which link sentences and part of a text Suggested tasks can be: finding the main idea, putting linking words in correct orders, choose a suitable heading for each paragraph in the text,etc
Example: Read the passage (TIENG ANH 11, 2007:167) and match the heading to the paragraphs
Paragraph 1 A The tragic accident Paragraph 2 B The lift-off
Paragraph 3 C Congratulation Paragraph 4 D A view on earth Paragraph 5 E Uncertainties
IV.1.2.2 Suitability for reading purposes
As mentioned in the first chapter, there are three main purposes of reading: reading for pleasure, reading for information and reading for language development
Purposes of reading determine the types of reading and the relevant reading skills to be used Thus, in the teaching process, it is advisable for the teacher to pay much attention to the suitability of tasks for different purposes of reading However, in this study I mainly focus on reading for language development
Through doing reading tasks, students can upgrade their mastery of the target language In doing reading tasks, students can have a useful practice in the development of reading skills such as skimming, scanning, etc In this study, some kinds of tasks are suggested so that the teachers can use them to develop those skills in students at high schools, especially the 11 th form students
The matching questions are concerned purely with word, phrase and sentence recognition They assist in developing and checking vocabulary or word recognition speed, and encourage students to make inferences Matching items are helpful to develop some reading skills: scanning, deducing the meaning of words, etc There are word matching, sentence matching, matching the summary with paragraph
Example: Read the paragraph (TIENG ANH 11, 2007:101) and match these words
5 recipient a to hand over sth to sb b having a lot of space c a person who receives sth from sb d having good manner or polite e mail by car, by train,
6 subscribe f to agree to buy newspaper and magazines regularly over a period of time
True or Fasle reading tasks
True or false reading item can develop students’ guessing ability and scanning skill True or false reading tasks fall into two categories: those which are independent of a reading text and those which depend on a text
Example: Read the text (TIENG ANH 11, 2007:91) and then decide whether the statements are true or false
1 Tet is always on 20 th February on the Western calendar
2 Tet used to be longer than it is nowadays
3 According to the text, “lucky money” is given to everyone at Tet
4 Kumquat trees are popular both in the North and in the South of Vietnam
Multiple-choice item helps students to understand explicity stated information or not explicity stated by making inferences Students are asked to understand what was actually stated in the text Therefore, it is very important to read all the options before deciding which is the correct one
Example: Read the story (TIENG ANH 11, 2007:23) and then choose the best answers
1 The writer’s most embarrassing experience happened when she was
A a teacher B a junior high school student C a senior school student
2 She wished to have a like the one of her pop idol
A a red dress B a red floppy cotton hat C a pair of red shoes
3 She bought it with the money
B she picked on the street
C She took from a school boy’s bag
Completion items measure recall rather than recognition They are useful for testing and improving the ability to deduce word meanings from the clues available in the context or to understand explicitly stated information
Example: Scan the passage (TIENG ANH 11,2007:137) and complete the table
(1)…… The 1 st Asian Games began in New Delhi, India
1954 Boxing, shooting and wrestling were added at (2)……
Tennis, volleyball, table tennis and hockey were added at the 3 rd Asian Games held in Tokyo, Japan
1998 (4) … were introduced at the 13 th Asian Games in Bangkok, Thailand
(5)…… The 14 th Asian Games were held in Busan, Korea
These tasks are particularly useful for improving and testing the ability to understand a sequence of steps in a process or events in a narrative
Example: Put the pictures of the events (TIENG ANH 11, 2007:22) in the order they happened in the story
Sample work
Unit 16 - The Wonders of the World (TIENG ANH 11, 2007:179) (Appendix 3)
In the pre-reading stage, I designed the matching task I divided the class into small groups of 3-4 students Then I distributed the following handouts for students to do the matching task in their own groups Which group finishes it first and has all the correct answers will be the winner After having finished the activity, I wanted to elicit what my students knew about these wonders of the world Then I gave some details about these landmarks and wonders of the world After that I elicited and explained new words by using pictures I gave the pictures with some new words and asked students to guess these words with Vietnamese equivalents
In the while-reading stage, I gave students the instruction to do the completion task : fill each blank with one of the words in the box I asked students to read through the words in the box and then I reminded students strategies to do this task Therefore, students had no difficulty in doing this task and they did the task well within the shortest time Next, I organized a game for students to do the next task - finding answers for questions I let students work in pairs and gave detailed and careful instructions as follow: skim the questions to understand them, go back to the first question and locate the information for the question by finding the key words in the passage and mark the place, read the part carefully to find the answer and continue with the rest of the questions Most of the students showed their willingness to join the game and could give the correct answers I also provided the students with True or False task The students were given a list of statements about the text and they had to decide whether they were true or false according to what they had read This task was used to draw the students’ attention to the main ideas of the text
In the post-reading stage, the summary task was used I asked students to summarize the text by using some suggested words This activity directed the students to the main points of the text for a full understanding
In short, from the findings and from the experiences, the author found out that appropriate and flexible focused tasks in reading lessons would encourage students to involve in these activities eagerly and actively Therefore, teachers should adapt and design suitable tasks in order to suit the students’ needs and interests to improve their students’ reading comprehension skills.
CONCLUSION
Summary of the study
The thesis has presented some useful techniques accompanied by a number of focused tasks to develop certain reading comprehension skills for students Students can skim for the gist, and then scan to locate for specific information or read more for further understanding All these tasks are suggested basing on the theory of reading and teaching reading comprehension It is also based on the present situation of teaching and learning reading at Ngo Quyen High School The actual teaching and learning status was clarified through the two survey questionnaires and some classroom observations at Ngo Quyen High School The statistics indicates that both students and teachers have positive attitudes toward teaching and learning reading, but reading tasks which the teachers used were not sufficient enough to develop their students’ reading comprehension skills It is advisable for them to give more tasks in their reading lessons
I also carried out a sample work Previously, I only used reading tasks in the textbook when teaching These tasks are sometimes inconsistent with the level of students and some tasks are not suitable with the development of students’ reading comprehension skills But when using the focused tasks in reading lessons, reading comprehension skills of students have improved Students are interested in participating in reading activities Therefore the effectiveness of learning to read is seen more clearly I think that the teachers should vary reading activities flexibly and appropriately to improve students’ reading comprehension skills
2 Limitations and Suggestions for further study
The study was carried out with the author of the study’s great attempts to provide the students at Ngo Quyen High School with useful techniques and tasks for improving reading comprehension skills so that they can do reading tasks effectively not only in-class but also out-of-class without help, and suggesting some tasks for the teachers’ teaching reading successfully However, the study still has a number of unavoidable limitations due to limited time, lack of resources and also the author of the study’s doing research ability I hope to receive constructive comments on my thesis
For the participants of the study, both of the respondents (teachers and students) involved in the survey are of small size, therefore the findings are not quite of popularity Which leads to the recommended techniques are helpful and effective for the 11 th form students at Ngo Quyen High School only
The study merely focuses on working out the focused tasks for improving the students’ reading comprehension skills based on the teachers’ and students’ attitudes and their problems in teaching and learning reading Further study on designing supplementary reading texts and tasks in various types for practising vocabulary and language skills is quite a lot of attention
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APPENDIX 1 QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE STUDENTS
The following questionnaire is designed for my study on “Improving Grade 11
Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills through Focused Tasks at A High School in Nam Dinh" Your answer to these questions will be highly appreciated and will be valuable help in the development of better ways of teaching reading skills You can be positive that you are not to be identified in any discussions or debates
Please put a tick where appropriate
Thank you very much for your help!
1 Do you like reading English? Why? Why not?
2 What is your purpose of reading in English?
F Being required by your teacher
3 What kinds of reading materials do you like to read?
4 Which kinds of tasks are you often asked to do?
D Arranging sentence in correct orders
5 What are your difficulties in doing reading tasks?
A The length of the text
B The new vocabulary and grammatical items
C The topic of the text
D The contents of the text
6 How do you do reading tasks?
A Read the text, do not pay attention to new words, read again and answer the questions
B Read the text, look up new words in a dictionary and then answer the questions
C Read the questions, find out the answer in the text
7 What do you usually do when you come across a new word while you are reading?
A Look for its meaning in a dictionary at once
B Ask teachers or friends for help
C Read the text once, pay no attention to the new words, the read the second time, underline new words and then find out the meaning
D Try to guess its meaning
8 Besides tasks in the textbook, do you like to do supplementary tasks to improve your reading comprehension skills?
9 You think that the role of the teacher as a guide in doing reading tasks is
C Depending on the texts and tasks
10 How do you self-evaluate your reading proficiency?
Thank you very much for your help and cooperation!
This survey questionnaire is intended for my study on “Improving Grade 11
Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills through Focused Tasks at A High School in Nam Dinh" Your assistance in completing this survey is highly appreciated and will be valuable help in the development of better ways of teaching reading skills
Please put a tick where appropriate
Thank you very much for your cooperation and assistance!
1 What do you think about the reading texts and tasks in the textbook?
B They are suitable to students’ level
C They are too difficult for the students to read
2 Which kinds of tasks do you give to your students?
3 Do you think reading tasks in the textbook are enough for the students?
4 Do you think it is necessary to give your students training in doing reading tasks?
5 Do you explain new words and structures before or after your students read the texts?
6 Which problems do your students often meet in reading and doing reading tasks?
7 How do you teach your students to do reading tasks?
A Ask them to find out new words and guess their meaning
B Ask them to read questions and find answers in the text
C Give them meanings of new words and ask them to do tasks
Thank you very much for your cooperation!
Match the landmarks and wonders of the world with the correct images below
Pyramids of Egypt Eiffel Tower TajMahal Statue of Liberty Great Wall Colosseum a b c d e f
Guessing these words with Vietnamese equivalents locks wonder tomb
Complete the following sentences with suitable words mysterious ramp tomb chamber spiral wonder
1 Last week we paid a visit to the … of an unknown mandarin
2 The movie was about a … of the world
3 A … is needed at the exit and the entrance for wheelchairs users
4 The Queen’s private … is not opened to public
5 It’s not know why Beson disappeared in … circumstances
6 A snail’s shell is … in form
Finding answers for questions Answer the following questions
1 Where is the Great Pyramid of Giza situated and when was it built?
2 How high and large was the great Pyramid of Giza?
3 What was the purpose of this huge stone pyramid?
4 How did the people of ancient Egypt build The Great Pyramid?
5 According to the passage, what is the boat believed to have been used for?
1 The Great Pyramid of Giza was built 256 years ago
2 The Great Pyramid was 147 metres high
3 The Great Pyramid’s structure consisted of approximately 2 billion blocks of stone
4 The Great Pyramid of Giza was built by the Russian pharaoh Khufu
Summarize the text by using some suggested words