(Skkn 2023) some strategies for 12th graders at quy hop high school to overcome challenges in reading comprehension section at the gcse exam

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE SOME STRATEGIES FOR 12th GRADERS AT QUY HOP HIGH SCHOOL TO OVERCOME CHALLENGES IN READING COMPREHENSION SECTION AT THE GCSE EXAM SUBJECT: ENGLISH NGHE AN DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY HOP UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL =====  ===== EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE SOME STRATEGIES FOR 12th GRADERS AT QUY HOP HIGH SCHOOL TO OVERCOME CHALLENGES IN READING COMPREHENSION SECTION AT THE GCSE EXAM SUBJECT: ENGLISH Writer : Thái Thị Hạnh School year : 2022 - 2023 Mobile phone : 0984279378 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale The new factors of the study Scope of the study Organization of the study PART II: CONTENT 2.1 Theoretical background 2.2 Types of reading 2.3 Types of reading comprehension questions 2.4 Practical basis 2.5 Solutions and discussion .9 2.5.1 General guiding procedure for doing reading comprehesion excercises 2.5.2 Guiding techniques to different types of reading comprehension questions 10 2.5.3 Reinforcing reading skills through topics .32 2.6 The survey on the urgency and feasibility of proposed solutions .50 2.6.1 Purpose of the survey 50 2.6.2 Survey content and methods 50 2.6.3 Respondents 51 2.6.4 Survey results on the urgency and feasibility of proposed solutions 52 2.7 The effectiveness of the research 55 PART III: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 57 3.1 Conclusion 57 3.2 Suggestions 58 REFERENCES 59 APENDIX .60 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale At the present time there is no doubt that English has become the international standard of communication in commerce, science, transportation, medicine, culture, education, banking, tourism, aviation and so on Therefore, English has been assumed as a mandatory subject at all state schools from the third onwards Of four English skills, reading is supposed to be one of the most important language skills because it is the main source of language input, and it is very necessary to improve other language skills like speaking and writing So many linguists have already paid much attention to the reading strategies at home and abroad for a long time However, the strategies for 12 graders to perform reading section at GCSE exam are often neglected and few scholars an investigation among them Actually, reading is also very important for them, since they need to read lots of reading texts and different kinds of reading questions As a result, improving reading proficiency is imperative for students and it is beneficial to their daily reading as well as examination Researchers always emphasize the significance of classroom teaching and teachers’ guidance of reading practice It is students themselves that should be responsible for their own study This study will make research among the 12 graders who is preparing for the final examination, aiming to find out their situation of using reading strategies and analyze the effectiveness of the use of reading strategies This study intends to have some academic significance, especially for 12 graders, helping them to consciously use the reading strategies to improve their reading proficiency at the coming examination I, therefore decided to the research on “Some strategies for 12th graders at Quy Hop High School to overcome challenges in reading comprehension section at GCSE exam” in hope that the findings and solutions mentioned in this study will make a significant contribution to improve the result of the reading skill at Quy Hop high school as well as those at other high schools The foremost purpose of this study is on finding out the types of reading comprehension questions at National exam The second purpose is to propose some strategies for 12 th graders to deal with different questions and achieve higher results at GCSE exam The new factors of the study In this study, I focused on analyzing the structure of reading comprehension in the national high school exam and specifically guiding the skills to this type of exercise and provide students with exercises related to various topics that are common in textbooks The topic will help students access reading comprehension more easily and effectively in the national high school exam in general and international certification exams such as TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, B1, B2 Scope of the study This study focuses on finding challenges in the reading section as well as giving strategies to help 12 graders overcome them effectively The study is limited on GCSE examination Organization of the study The study is well organized with main parts: the rationale of the study, the content or the solutions of the problems, and the conclusion I hope that the study provides a useful access to most of the teachers in teaching language PART II: CONTENT 2.1 Theoretical background A Definition of reading There are different ways of definition of reading According to Wikipedia, [1] reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch As we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols (letters, punctuation marks and spaces) and we make use of our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us Reading can be silent (in our head) or aloud (so that other people can hear) Reading is a receptive skill - through it we receive information But the complex process of reading also requires the skill of speaking, so that we can pronounce the words that we read In this sense, reading is also a productive skill in that we are both receiving information and transmitting it Smiths (1971, p.135) [2] stated that reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text One more definition offered by Garmer (1989, p.153) [3] showed us his opinion and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages, and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages” Having the same point with Smiths, Peter, E (1990, p.2) [4] said that “reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” According to William, in the reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depending on the context in which it appears According to Richard and William (1987:15), [5] reading is best described as “an understanding between the author and the reader Reading is much more than just pronouncing words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends; it is the process whereby the printed page stimulates ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual To sum up, each person can get a different definition of reading and we cannot tell which is better because each of them focuses on one important matter of reading However, we find that there is a close relationship between reading and understanding Therefore, being a language teacher, we have to understand the nature of reading thoroughly to help our students read effectively B Definition of reading comprehension In Wikipedia, reading comprehension is defined as the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows Fundamental skills required in efficient reading comprehension are knowing meaning of words, ability to understand meaning of a word from discourse context, ability to follow organization of passage and to identify antecedents and references in it, ability to draw inferences from a passage about its contents, ability to identify the main thought of a passage, ability to answer questions answered in a passage, ability to recognize the literary devices or propositional structures used in a passage and determine its tone, to understand the situational mood conveyed for assertions, questioning, commanding, refraining etc and finally ability to determine writer's purpose, intent and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer Reading comprehension skill plays a very crucial role in teaching and learning to read a foreign language It gets the nature of communication, in which reading activity acts as a means of communication between the writer and the reader Reading comprehension results in the fact that readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purposes Kimney (1975, p.1) [6] stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc Prellet (1981: 3) [7] states that reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way In short, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most important part in reading teaching 2.2 Types of reading We read different texts in different ways According to the manner of reading, we have aloud reading and silent reading Depending on the purpose of reading, we can categorize reading into skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading A According to manner  Reading aloud “Reading aloud involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it Its’ purpose is not just to understand the text to convey the information to someone else” (Doff, 1988:70) [8] In fact, it must be recognized that reading aloud is primarily an oral matter so that for those who teach and learn foreign languages, it is closer to “pronunciation” than it is to “comprehension” While it is perfectly proper to try to improve the skill of reading aloud, it clearly cannot be done using an unfamiliar text the content and language of which stretches the linguistic capabilities of the learners to the utmost Therefore, it must be admitted that the usefulness of reading aloud is limited First of all, “reading aloud is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom” (Doff, 1988:67) [9] Actually, in daily life, few people are required to read aloud as a matter of daily routine, radio newscasters, clergymen, perhaps actors To the huge majority, its significance is minimal Secondly, “the readers is often merely mouthing meaningless language because of lack of rehearsal and time to understand what he has to read aloud ” (Abott and Wingard, 1981: 82) [10] It means that when reading aloud, the readers’ attention is focused on the pronunciation, not on the understanding of the text Moreover, in the classroom, only the reading student is working at a time, others are either not listening at all or listening to a bad model In addition, some students’ speed of reading is very slow, so it takes a lot of time in class In short, reading aloud can be applied for those who begin learning a foreign language to establish the connection between sound and spelling Hence, reading aloud might be a good way to practice pronunciation  Silent reading Silent reading is the activity we usually engage in when we read books, newspapers, advertisements 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) [11] Because reading is a very personal skill so silent reading is a more effective skill for reading comprehension because firstly learners not need to read all the words in the text, secondly they can read at their own speed and if they not understand the sentence, they can go back, thirdly students can not only attain the main ideas in a short time but also understand its details thoroughly to answer the questions, and finally the teacher can check his/her learners’ understanding easily and add reading materials and exercises suitable to their ability In short, silent reading is the most useful and practical way to develop the students’ reading ability However, it is more beneficial when the teacher sometimes combines it with reading aloud to improve students’ pronunciation and intonation because reading aloud also has its own advantages B According to purpose According to purposes, reading is categorized into four types: skimming, scanning, extensive and intensive reading  Skimming Skimming is reading through the content of the article, not delving into the content of any paragraph You this reading quickly by reading through the title to see the content of the article, reading the topic sentences and concluding sentences, paying more attention to the important nouns through which to grasp the main content - When to apply skimming? When paragraphs are too long and time is limited, skimming helps you read the main content as well as the point of view that the author wants to state in each paragraph - Skimming steps: - Read the title of the article, then read the opening paragraph to identify the main content in the article - Read the topic sentences of each paragraph, these topic sentences are usually the first or last sentence of the text - Read into the paragraph, pay attention to answering the questions who, what, which, where, when, and why Important words in paragraphs are often in the form of nouns, verbs or adjectives, even concatenating words - In addition, you need to understand the logic of the article by relying on the following words: because (because), firstly (first), secondly (secondly), finally (last), but (but), then (then), includes (including) and other time-only words These words will help you recognize which way the passage is presented: listing, comparison – contrast, time – order, and cause – effect To sum up, skimming is a very useful reading comprehension skill for students, and it is advisable to apply at the first stage of teaching reading with the hope that it can help them to have an overview of what they are reading Moreover, it will be easier for them to deal with the other tasks that followed  Scanning Scanning is the quick reading of the article with the purpose of finding data, specific information needed for answering questions Scanning is extremely important in the IELTS reading test because sometimes through skimming you have grasped the main ideas but to answer the reading section question you need to pay attention to the author's use of words Otherwise, it will be very easy to be fooled Scanning is applied to types of articles such as True – False – Not Given, Multiple choices, Complete the summary - When to use Scanning? Scanning is applied when you need to search for specific information such as proper names, figures, dates or phrases without knowing the content of the text - Scanning steps:  Analyze the organization of the article before starting scanning  Always be oriented and keep in mind what information you are looking for The more specific data you can shape, the less time you'll have to waste  It should be determined which paragraph of the article the information is in according to the memory obtained after the skimming section and scanned one turn to locate exactly where the information to be found The information can be arranged in rhyme or chronological order so the table can base this on this for easier identification  Stop before the information to find and read the sentences related to that information to come across what the author is trying to ask the reader and answer the question You need to pay attention to the complex sentence structures used in the article because it is easy to confuse you  Note: When scanning, you should quickly look at many lines at the same time When you find information, stop and read the entire sentence or paragraph containing the information You can read in the shape of the letter "Z" which means reading the first and last lines in a horizontal row, in the middle reading diagonally Or reading in the shape of the letter "U" means reading quickly to the end and then reading again By reading like that, you can pay attention and immediately find information that is especially necessary for the answer  Intensive reading Intensive reading is also widely used in a reading class It is an effective way to explore the text, to go deeply into the meaning and the organization of the text Intensive reading “involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the students to focus on the text” (Nuttall, 2000:38) [12] In the view of Brown (1990:297) [13] intensive reading “is usually a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage” Grellet, F (1981:4) [states that “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for detailed” The objective of intensive reading is to achieve a full understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of the text, the attitude and purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to achieve his purposes In other words, intensive reading is reading for accuracy which is essential to the students’ comprehension  Extensive reading