The effects of authentic materials use on grade 10 students reading comprehension skill at go den high school

Trang 1 --- ∞0∞--- PHAM THI BICH VAN THE EFFECTS OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS USE ON GRADE 10 STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILL AT GO DEN HIGH SCHOOL MASTER OF ARTS IN TESOL Trang 2 HO C

INTRODUCTION

Rationale to the study

Like other high schools in Vietnam, Go Den High School considers English as a very important subject and has become more and more important It has been observed by the researcher and her colleagues that many students have limited reading skill even though they had learnt English for at least four years at secondary schools prior to high school education It seems that the students‟ poor reading skill was due to the two following reasons: firstly, most of the students at school usually depend on the short passages in textbooks or from their teachers during classroom lessons, which is not enough for them to read well in English Secondly, the students‟ reading method is not efficient They only think of learning reading skill as translating all the texts from English into Vietnamese, and they are not aware of any sub skills in reading Consequently, the poor reading skills would demotivate them from practising reading more in the target language

In the process of trying different strategies for teaching reading, the researcher found that using authentic materials in the reading classes would serve the following purposes: (i) to enrich the students‟ background knowledge; (ii) to improve their reading subskills; (iii) to expand their vocabulary in the target language; (iv) to motivate them to read more in the target language

The next section is devoted to the statement of the problem.

Statement of the problem

Reading is one of the four important language skills with the main goal of comprehension As reading comprehension plays a vital role in the learning process, students should spend time practising it regularly It is essential for everyday life activities, but it is also crucial for school success in all subjects that require skilled reading Reading is the gateway to learning opportunities, personal development, and access to academic matters Proficiency in reading skill would equip students with knowledge of new cultures as well as new vocabulary and grammar Therefore, reading is considered as “an essential skill, perhaps the most important skill, taught in schools” (Collins & Collins, 2002, p 9) In addition, language students need to be exposed to the real-life language which is produced by users of that language (Qamariah, 2016) Therefore, improvement of the teaching materials is essential besides the quality of language teaching, teaching methods, language resources and teachers (Kamariah, Husain, Atmowardoyo & Salija, 2018)

Among all English reading materials, much research has been conducted on authentic materials as teaching resources Since formal modules and textbooks are made to teach new grammatical structures rather than to address the individual requirements of students, it is determined that their use is insufficient for presenting the language (Marzban & Davaji, 2015); also, they may contain non-authentic language (Nguyen, 2007; Richards, 2001) Therefore, students have low motivation in learning reading even when they are bored being taught with textbooks which do not fulfill their needs for communication skills (Gilmore, 2006; Guo, 2012) As stated by Cunningsworth (1984), “no coursebook will be totally suited to a particular teaching situation The teacher will have to find his own way of using it and adapting it if necessary” (p 58).He stated, therefore, rather than searching for the ideal textbook that satisfies all of our requirements, we should seek the best possible fit between what the textbook provides and what we as teachers and students need There has been some literature showing positive effects of authentic materials in improving students‟ reading skills and their positive attitudes However, there has been no research on authentic materials use in the EFL teaching contexts of Go Den High School

Based on my observation as a teacher of English at Go Den High School, I have found that many students have difficulties in reading skills despite the fact that they have learned for three years at intermediate school At high school, the reading materials provided in textbooks are insufficient to help students in developing their reading skills In reading lessons, students are asked to answer open-ended questions, true/false statements, table completions, and/or matching vocabulary exercises although they are not interested in the texts‟ content which are unfamiliar in real life As they only focus on doing the tasks and find out the answers, they find it difficult to understand and use the vocabulary and structures covered in the reading texts This has resulted in the students‟ low motivation in learning reading and their slow progress in reading comprehension skill over a long time

For the practical research problem at Go Den High School, the teacher researcher of the current study has decided to apply authentic materials in her English classes for the students‟ reading skill improvement with the two aims presented below.

Aims of the study and research questions

The main objectives of this study are to determine the effects of authentic reading materials on grade 10 students' reading skills at Go Den High School and to examine the attitudes of the students toward using authentic reading materials as compared to only using the traditional textbook provided by the Ministry of Education and Training The following research questions will be addressed by the study:

1 To what extent do authentic reading materials help students improve their reading skill?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards the use of authentic materials in the reading lessons?

Definitions of terms

According to Oxford Learner‟s Dictionary, the word “effects” means a result that somebody or something causes in somebody or something else Applied in this research study, the reading scores of the tests and the experimental students‟ responses in the questionnaires are the effects of authentic materials in the students‟ reading course The second term that needs defining in this study is the abbreviation of “English as a Foreign Language” (EFL) The term “EFL'' in this context refers to the situation of teaching English at the Go Den High School, where English is taught as a foreign language The final term to be defined is “curriculum”, which means the plan for the subjects to be taught at a school or university (Cambridge

Dictionary) The curriculum of all public high schools in Vietnam is designed by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), which means Go Den High School also follows the MOET curriculum.

Significance of the study

First of all, the expected findings of the study would benefit the experimental students at Go Den High School The participants were expected to have the opportunities to learn with a new teaching method, which is learning reading with authentic materials taught by the researcher based on the school curriculum They would hopefully improve their reading skill as well as developing positive attitudes towards learning reading with authentic materials The expected positive results of the research could provide another convincing empirical evidence to the literature area of using authentic materials in teaching reading to Vietnamese students, particularly in public high school contexts Moreover, if successful, the innovation of using authentic materials in teaching reading would possibly be applied in other language teaching contexts at Go Den High School as well as other high schools in the area In addition, the innovation could also be applied in the other language skills (Listening, Speaking, and Writing), in which authentic materials are used to teach these skills with the expectation of gaining possible positive results.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Reading comprehension

The definition of reading varies among linguists, methodologists, and academics According to Ur (1996), reading generally means understanding messages in written materials Similarly yet more specifically, Anderson (1999) believes that meaning-building when reading is an active, fluent process involving both the reader and the reading material Meaning is created in this process by integrating the words on the pages with the readers‟ prior knowledge and life experiences rather than existing just there From another perspective, Gut (2003) believes reading gives readers the opportunity to be exposed to the target language and to acquire useful linguistic information to advance their language ability Put in another way, According to Walker (1988), reading is an active, problem-solving activity that entails making educated guesses and predictions about the author‟s intentions based on the events in the story Additionally, he thinks that reading entails attempting to comprehend what is written and aids in the improvement of human learning Goodman (1980) describes reading as a psycho-linguistic process that begins with a writer‟s language surface representation encoding and ends with the readers creating their own meanings.

To sum up, reading is an active process of understanding the message the writers want to deliver in their written texts in the forms of journal articles, research papers or books This definition of reading helped the researcher of this study in the process of teaching the skill and in analyzing the data collected to answer the research questions

From the above theory about reading, the researcher has developed her own definition of reading as follows Reading is an active process of comprehension of the message the writers want to deliver in their written texts in the forms of journal articles, newspapers, magazines, research papers, or books This definition of reading helped the researcher of this study in the process of teaching the skill and in analyzing the data collected to answer the research questions

Literally, reading comprehension can be defined as readers‟ understanding of what they read It can be considered an essential aim of reading any material According to Carnine, Silbert, Kameenui and Tarver (1997), reading comprehension focuses on decoding and comprehension, in which the former refers to the translation of printed words into representations while the latter means understanding those representations A successful reader need to be skilled at decoding texts for comprehension As stated by Turner (1988), finding the meaning required to accomplish specific goals is a key component of effective reading comprehension This could involve locating specific information, perusing to resolve a problem, attempting to comprehend something, or adhering to a set of instructions Put in another way, Grellet (1981), Snow (2002) state that reading comprehension is a process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meanings through interactions and involvement with written language They emphasize the significance of the text as a determinant of reading comprehension by using the words extracted and constructed

In short, reading comprehension in English is a process that provides information and skills to assist student readers in learning the target language Reading proficiency is not acquired in a single effort, but rather through ongoing practice and progressive learning This is especially true for the context of teaching reading with authentic materials to students of English This definition of reading comprehension was helpful to the teacher researcher in selecting and designing authentic materials to teach reading to her students, and in data analysis to answer the research questions.

There are many reading strategies suggested by previous researchers Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, & Baker (2001); Willingham (2007) share similar views about reading strategies, which include: Making inferences: referring to “reading between the lines” It entails weaving together several texts‟ unrelated elements in order to arrive at a logical conclusion The reader makes assumptions about the relationships between the texts; Planning and monitoring: The reader‟s ability to manage their comprehension through awareness and mental awareness are at the center of this Setting a reading objective can be done by previewing the text (using outlines, tables of contents, etc.)-“what do I need to get out of this”? Readers monitor their level of understanding by using context cues and other evaluation techniques to make texts and concepts clearer Asking questions: To consolidate the understanding of reading texts, readers inquire and develop opinions of the writer‟s writing, relationships, character motivations, etc This strategy involves allowing someone to be objective to find different meanings in the reading texts

Determining importance: to draw attention to key points and themes in the texts

Readers are instructed to distinguish between direct and indirect ideas and to assess their relevance Visualizing: By using this technique, readers can create mental and visual representations of the text‟s contents By emotional responses, the capacity to connect visually aids in a deeper comprehension of the text Synthesizing: In order to draw conclusions and establish comparisons between many texts so that the reader may comprehend how they relate to one another, this method combines multiple concepts from diverse sources Making connections: Finding a personal link to the reading, such as to past texts or experiences, to gain a more thorough comprehension of the context is known as “reading beyond the lines” in this method.

A thorough understanding and analysis of reading strategies as mentioned above (including inferences making, planning and monitoring, questions asking, importance determination, visualization, synthesis, and connections making) would help the researcher in selecting the appropriate authentic reading materials for the project, designing suitable reading exercises, activities and tasks in class, designing the research instruments, and analyzing the collected data to best answer the research questions

Reading is a complicated activity that combines the readers and the texts, claims Asaraf and Ahmad (2003) The three reading comprehension models are as follows:

(1) Bottom-up: focuses on texts According to this approach, readers start by comprehending letters, then words, and then eventually advance to understanding larger linguistic units, such as sentences, and actual concluding meanings.

(2) Top-down: is a “notion”-driven model in which the readers‟ past knowledge and expectations help or facilitate their ability to derive meaning from texts and concentrate on the entire reading process Readers begin with certain expectations about the context, derive from their background knowledge, and utilize their information in decoding vocabulary to confirm previous expectations.

(3) Interactive: is a combination of the bottom-up and top-down models to emphasize the correlation between the readers and the texts This model is now commonly believed to be the best model for the reading process Furthermore, it suggests that there is interaction between the bottom-up and top-down processes, and this model demonstrates that neither of these processes can adequately describe the complete reading process on their own

Similar processes were suggested by Carrell and Eisterhold (1983) where both bottom-up and top-down processes occur at all levels: bottom-up processing makes sure that the audience member or reader may be sensitive to information that is novel or that does not suit their current theories about the text's content or organizational structure However, it fails to help readers use their schemata to have a general understanding of the text On the other hand, the top-down process helps the readers to resolve ambiguities or to select between alternative interpretations of the incoming data, yet it does not encourage readers to pay enough attention to linguistic devices for thorough comprehension For her participants in this study, the researcher so wants to use the “interactive model” With the use of this approach, students could thoroughly examine and interpret the reading material in addition to using their prior knowledge to predict what would be in the text and facilitate reading comprehension

The literature of reading models mentioned above (including bottomup, top- down and interactive models) helped the researcher in organizing authentic materials used in teaching activities, in designing exercises and reading tasks, organizing the teaching activities in class, as well as in designing the research instruments (i.e the questionnaire) in addition to in evaluating the information gathered to respond to the two research questions posed in the study.

Teaching reading

According to Alyousef (2005), teaching reading includes three steps, namely, pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading Pre-reading helps to activate students‟ schemata (i.e., relevant background knowledge) Specifically, the teacher can ask students questions to stimulate prediction using background knowledge The purpose of while-reading is to develop students‟ ability to comprehend the text by promoting their linguistic and schemata knowledge Post-reading includes activities that help to develop their general learning ability

There are two reading strategies: intensive reading and wide reading, according to Hedge (2001) Intensive reading means approaching reading texts with teachers‟ close guidance or with specific guidance of reading tasks, which makes students pay great attention to the reading text The purpose of intensive reading is to obtain a profound understanding of the text in terms of what it means and of how its meaning is produced, which is important to the readers To achieve this, it is suggested that teachers should teach their students with shortened texts first, and then longer ones On the other hand, extensive reading covers reading programs that actively promote reading outside the class For this type of reading, the time for reading activities in class is short, but a great amount of reading is needed to promote fluency and efficiency Extensive reading is suitable for reading for understanding general ideas of reading texts, in which skimming is important Skimming is suitable for reading novels, magazines, or similar texts, which do not require full attention to words or sentences Teachers should be aware that that both types (i.e., intensive and extensive) are necessary for the students‟ practice The students should also remember the requirements of both as they are important for their reading practice

In short, intensive and extensive reading can improve the students‟ knowledge and reading skill Teachers should provide reading materials that are both interesting and up to date so that they can both enjoy reading and promote their language knowledge and skills The researcher based on the theory of intensive and extensive reading to select materials; organize exercises, tasks and activities; design instruments; analyse the data collected to find the answers to the research questions of the current study.

Authentic materials

Authentic materials seem to be defined differently by researchers of language According to Frey, Schmitt and Allen (2012), authenticity means having something to do with the real world of the target language The synonyms for the term “authentic” are natural and genuine, and the antonyms are unnatural and artificial Authentic materials are defined as real-life texts which are not written for pedagogical purposes (Wallace, 1998) They are usually related to students‟ real- life, which can be used as classroom materials to help prepare them for future real- world situations (Herrington & Oliver, 2000) The main purpose of an authentic text either in oral or written forms mainly is communicating meaning An authentic material is not necessarily written by native speaker(s) of English, and may be a simplified version of an original to facilitate communication It is reasonable and acceptable to adapt authentic materials to suit the students‟ language level (Tomlinson, 2012).

In the view of the researcher of this study, authenticity means real-life realia, and authentic materials are those designed for real-life communication and information provision but for teaching purposes The definitions of authenticity and authentic materials were very helpful to the researcher in selecting suitable materials for the teaching purpose of the project, in finalizing the research instruments, and in analyzing the data collected.

In order to be successful in language teaching, it is essential for EFL teachers at public high schools to select suitable reading materials for both entrance exams and students‟ own interests and capacity Therefore, successful selection of materials to teach is considered as a key component to enhance students‟ reading ability To put it another way, types of reading materials should be taken into account

There are many kinds of authentic materials that were proposed by such authors like Ahmed (2017), Berado (2006), Genhard (1996), Kilickaya (2004) According to these authors, authentic materials cover the following main areas:

(1) Authentic listening and viewing materials: examples are TV programmes, quiz shows, commercials, news, movies, cartoons, soap operas, radio advertisements, podcasts, documentaries, and songs.

(2) Authentic visual resources: for example, paintings, artworks, street signs, magazine pictures, stamps, picture books, photographs, or postcards.

(3) Authentic printed resources: namely, movie advertisements, newspaper articles, song lyrics, advice columns, sports news, restaurant menus, tourist information leaflets and brochures, greeting cards, bus schedules, maps, and TV guides.

(4) Such realia as air tickets, coffee makers, cameras, wedding invitation cards, bills, invoices, and receipts

It is widely acknowledged that a good understanding of authentic materials is necessary for the success of the current project The researcher believes a combination of the above authentic materials would be good for the students in developing their reading skill in the target language (i.e English) Specifically, some picture books, newspaper articles (of the students‟ level), advice columns, tourist information leaflets, song lyrics, sports news, and/or brochures were used in the reading classes of this project It was hoped that the use of these authentic materials would help the students improve their reading skill and be more engaged in the reading lessons In the coming section, the advantages of authentic materials used for EFL classes are presented.

2.3.3 Benefits of using authentic materials in English classes

Previous researchers share the view that authentic materials are beneficial for English teaching Tomlinson (2012) claims that authentic materials can encourage students to improve conversational skills, encourage positive attitudes about learning the language, and offer meaningful exposure to the target language because it is actively used Besides that, authentic materials can provide students with rich language inputs, and be exploited in various ways at different levels to enable them to develop communicative competence (Gilmore, 2007) Authentic materials offer the real language of cultural pertinence and contextually-rich contents (Spelleri,

2007) In addition, they help to promote motivation and on-task behaviours (Peacock, 1997) To summarize, authentic materials offer a change from textbooks; focus more on students‟ needs and interests than textbooks; provide a wider variety of topics; promote students‟ motivation; connect the foreign language classroom with the real world (Thomas, 2014) Put in another way, in a language classroom, authentic materials have such advantages as: (1) increase students' motivation; (2) provide authentic cultural information; (3) expose learners to real language; (4) better understand students' needs; (5) encourage a more innovative approach to teaching (Berardo, 2006).

For the above-mentioned benefits of authentic materials in English classes in general and in reading classes in particular (including knowledge of culture, practical use of the language, and increased motivation for learning), the researcher of this study would like to use authentic materials to supplement the reading classes at her school It is hoped that the benefits mentioned above would help her students improve their reading skills and become more positive about their reading classes

2.3.4 Challenges of using authentic materials in language classes

Researchers have mentioned some challenges of using authentic materials in the classroom in terms of both vocabulary and language structures Authentic materials may contain vocabulary that might not be relevant to students‟ immediate needs and many structures are mixed so lower levels may have problems decoding the texts (Berado, 2006) Authentic materials can have too complicated vocabulary and syntactic patterns Students may, thus, feel confused, frustrated, and therefore demotivated (Guariento & Morley, 2001) to participate in classroom activities when the teacher uses too difficult authentic texts beyond their language level.

Another challenge mentioned by Berado (2006) is that authentic materials, sometimes, are too difficult for non-native speakers of the language to comprehend and have cultural bias Learners will be less excited or even bored when having to cope with unfamiliar authentic texts which demand their life experiences and good background knowledge about culture Also, it is hard for teachers to select and evaluate suitable authentic texts for the students to learn with

Moreover, as the preparation for authentic materials is necessary, it can be quite time-consuming (Berardo, 2006; Kilickaya, 2004; Peacock, 1997) if the authentic materials to be used are not readily available This would require an amount of time for preparation and selection of authentic materials as well as designing suitable tasks to suit different teaching situations and objectives in the class.

The challenges mentioned above (including irrelevant new words, possible demotivation due to the overwhelmed vocabulary, lack of time for reading) were taken into serious consideration by the teacher researcher in designing her reading classes with authentic materials to ensure that the students would benefit from them They were also considered in the later phase of the study when the data was analysed for answering the research questions

According to Lynch (2010), there are a number of reasons why we need to adapt authentic materials First, authentic materials tend to be of unsuitable level for the students, which means they are either too easy or too difficult They can also be too long or too short, of complicated grammar and/or language Their themes can be irrelevant, and not adapted for specific use or to students‟ learning styles For these reasons, teachers of English should be very careful when selecting and adapting authentic materials for their English classes In the coming section, we are looking into effective ways of adapting authentic materials in reading classes

2.3.5.2 Criteria for authentic materials selection

Different researchers suggest different criteria in choosing authentic materials McGrath (2002) mentions eight criteria in choosing authentic materials, which are: (i) Relevance to textbooks and students‟ needs, (ii) Topics, (iii) Cultural suitability, (iv) Logistics, (v) Cognitive demands, (vi) Linguistic demands, (vii) Quality, and (viii) Exploitability Nuttal (1996) claimed three main criteria, namely, contents suitability, exploitability and readability, among which suitability is the most important for the reason that reading materials are to arouse students‟ interest, to meet their needs as well as to motivate them Exploitability means the text can be used to develop students‟ reading skills, and readability means the complexity and difficulty of authentic materials (meaning they do not have too complicated words and structures for the students‟ level) Failing this criterion (exploitability), authentic materials can have negative effects on teaching and learning

Similarly, Berardo (2006) puts the three criteria above in another way

Suitability of content includes such areas as the compatibility of authentic materials with course objectives and their appropriateness to students‟ needs and abilities This criterion also covers the issue of whether the material is of students‟ interests or not Exploitability refers to a variety of concerns, including whether or not the text can be used for educational purposes, how it may be used, what skills can be gained with the use of authentic materials, and whether or not it can elicit thoughtful inquiries, whether effective tasks can be created using the text?

Readability examines if the organization and lexicon of real resources are too simple or, most likely, too complex; the amount of new vocabulary and its relevance; whether the new ideas in authentic materials are relevant and of the students‟ interest or not Besides these, he added two more important criteria to be considered by teachers in selecting authentic materials, namely, variety and presentation Variety means choosing different types of texts to make reading tasks more interesting Presentation means that authentic materials for language classes should “look” authentic, be attractive, draw students‟ attention and make them want to read more In other words, they should have colored pictures, diagrams, photos, etc to attract students to read them and do reading tasks Some teachers may argue that they are not allowed to teach only authentic materials or ignore the tasks in the textbook; yet Foppoli (2006) suggested that they can teach assigned tasks in the textbook and use authentic materials to support and motivate their students to learn reading

Definition of attitude

Ajzen (2005), for example, claims that an attitude is a tendency to respond positively (favorably) or negatively (unfavorably) to an object, a person, an organization, or an event Put it another way, Eshghinejad (2016); Krech and Crutchfield (1962) state that people‟s attitudes originate from motivational, emotional, perceptual, and cognitive aspects of their world According to Fazio

(2007), attitude refers to a behavioral pattern, anticipatory readiness, and inclination to adjust to social conditions In social sciences, accoding to Gardner, Lalonde andMoorcroft (1985) an attitude is an evaluative response to a referent or attitude object that is inferred from the person's views or beliefs about the referent Students‟ attitude affects their second language learning process (Eshghinejad, 2016; Gardner, Lalonde & Moorcroft, 1985)

From the definitions mentioned above, the researcher of this study suggests her own definition of attitude, which suits the nature and context of the current study An attitude is a mental state in which a person moves to behave or perform in social situations with a specific response to circumstances This response may be directed at various things such as objects, people, views, institutions, norms, and others.

Review of previous studies on the use of authentic materials

Up to the time of the current study, there have been a large number of studies conducted to examine the effects of the authentic materials on teaching language skills in general, and in EFL skills (namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing) in particular This section is devoted to only some relevant studies in this area, which found out the effects of authentic materials on English language teaching in the world as well as in Vietnam

One study was conducted by Alfarisi (2010) in SMP Muhamadiyah 8 Surakarta of the academic year 2008-2009 in Indonesia Planning, implementation, observation, and reflection are the four processes in each of the two cycles of teaching and learning that Alfarisi used in her research The researcher applied authentic materials in cycle one in order to stimulate students‟ interest in reading as well as enjoy in the reading class Although the students‟ reading comprehension increased, some students had difficulties in finding the main idea, the appropriate meaning of words, and information from the text Meanwhile, in cycle two, he emphasized on the topic being taught, adding the medium through facilitating group discussion to the teaching and learning process The study‟s findings demonstrated that using real teaching resources significantly increased both the students' interest in reading class and their reading comprehension.

Similarly, Aryanti and Anggaira (2016) also conducted the study with the eighth grade students of SMPN 4 Metro in the academic year of 2015–2016 to explore the impacts of employing real materials in enhancing students‟ reading interest Three steps were taken in the data collection procedure: the students were given a questionnaire, the teaching and learning process in the classroom was observed, and authentic texts were chosen based on specific criteria Three significant findings emerged from the study: (1) three types of materials that meet the criteria for authenticity are advertisements, announcements, and descriptive texts in the form of articles taken from High End Teen magazines; (2) students‟ willingness to own the materials, use the materials in future meetings, use the original form of the authentic materials rather than copied materials, and comment on the topics and images of the authentic materials are examples of four different types of positive student attitudes toward the use of authentic materials; (3) after using authentic resources in the classroom, the students‟ enthusiasm in reading has significantly improved The researchers found that increasing students‟ interest in reading English texts contributed to the improvement of their reading proficiency and other language abilities.

Also, Taghavi and Aladini (2018) conducted one study to investigate whether or not employing authentic reading materials might improve Iranian EFL learners' reading comprehension at the upper-intermediate level 46 upper- intermediate level language learners ranging in age from 16 to 25 participated in the study They found that students in the experimental group who received instruction using real materials experienced more substantial gains in reading comprehension than those in the control group.

Moreover, in a study conducted by Marzban and Davaji (2015), 24 participants from an English teaching institute were divided randomly in two groups: authentic group and simplified group Participants in the authentic group were taught with online authentic texts with appropriate readability while the simplified group received the simplified form of those texts The result from the study revealed that reading authentic texts has a positive effect on the reading comprehension and motivation of intermediate students.

There are several researchers such as AbdulHussein (2014), Soliman (2013), Kılıỗ and İlter (2015) conducted studies to explore teachers‟ and learners‟ attitudes toward using authentic reading materials.

In Hussein‟s study (2014), questionnaires were given to 85 EFL college teachers and English language learners in the Misan Governorate, who were invited to reply According to the findings, all participants had more favorable attitudes toward adopting authentic reading materials than did teachers

Soliman investigated the attitudes and beliefs of Libyan EFL instructors about the usage of authentic reading materials at the university level in Libya According to the survey's findings, the EFL instructors at the University of Gareuness in Libya had a favorable opinion on the usage of real materials in English classes Additionally in the study, the researcher recommended that teachers combine both textbooks and actual literature in order to create the ideal reading class.

Meanwhile, Kılıỗ and İlter conducted study to find out if using authentic materials helped 12th graders in EFL lessons develop their attitudes At Bucak Anatolian High School, 37 students in the twelfth grade took part in the study, which lasted for more than 12 weeks A control group and an experimental group were formed from them The control group received the standard teaching technique using the current course book while focusing on nearly the same language items, whereas the experimental group received suggested activities and exercises using actual materials such as films, videos, and magazines In conclusion, it can be claimed that using realistic materials has significantly improved students‟ perceptions of English classes.

66 Iranian women between the ages of 17 and 20 who were participants in the study by Ghanbari, Esmaili, and Reza (2015) were split into experimental and control groups A pretest was given to both groups during the first session One group acquired new vocabulary through their textbook (English Result) after a month of three one-hour sessions each week of English classes, while the other group received the same vocabulary through The New Straits Time online paper each session It was found that the participants developed their vocabulary in both groups but the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group

In Vietnamese contexts, different studies about authentic materials have been carried out which can be listed as Tran (2010), Le (2010), Nguyen (2016), Phung

Firstly, in Tran‟s study (2010), 30 English major students who came from Foreign Language Department at Thanh Do College of Technology participated to examine the effects of using authentic materials on students‟ improvement in reading skill The results revealed a significant difference between the experimental group's pre-test and post-test scores In other words, the result revealed that the use of authentic materials made certain improvements in students‟ reading proficiency, students‟ motivation and interest in reading class.

Besides, to investigate how reading skills on English for nurses are taught to the second year nurse students and materials which the lecturers are using as supplementary reading materials for their students, Le (2010) conducted a survey with two groups of subjects They are the teachers who are teaching ESP at the university and the second is for 100 second year nurse students The researchers found that authentic texts seemed to be too difficult for nurse students to understand therefore this required much effort Nevertheless, the reading comprehension skills in English for nurse students tend to improve through exposure to authentic input.

In another aspect, Nguyen (2016) conducted the study “An action research project on the effectiveness of using authentic materials on the internet to improve 12th form students‟ extensive reading at B Phu Ly High School” to investigate the impact of authentic materials as the main source of extensive reading and students‟ attitudes toward these materials The findings indicated a positive effect of authentic materials on students‟ language competence and favorable opinions from students.

Recently, in the study about teachers‟ and students‟ views on using authentic materials in teaching English at Ha Nam Teachers‟ Training College, Phung (2017) stated that the general perspectives of the participants on authentic materials were highly positive There were 93 students and 11 teachers participating in the study.

Duong (2017) carried out a research at Le Hoan high school The researcher claimed that participants‟ reading abilities increased more quickly when they used authentic materials as opposed to only course texts In order to achieve the best results, she also recommended that English teachers be creative in the materials they choose, create, and offer to their pupils.

From all the research described above, it can be concluded that previous research has highlighted the impact of authentic reading materials on teaching and learning reading comprehension as well as the attitudes of teachers and students regarding their use However, most studies are conducted in language institutes and colleges Moreover, till the present time, few studies have been conducted to examine the feasibility and the virtue of the implementation of authentic materials reading in Long An Province, particularly in Go Den High School Consequently, the study was conducted to investigate students' attitudes toward the use of authentic reading materials at this school as well as the effects of employing authentic materials on students' reading comprehension.

Conceptual framework

The conceptual framework of the current study was designed based on the literature review above The main purpose of this conceptual framework was to provide an overview of the correlation between authentic materials and reading comprehension As can be seen in Figure 2.1, there are three phases involved in the framework In the first phase (pre-reading), the students were introduced the topic of the lesson with a list of words and phrases related to the topic, which would help activate their schemata (i.e., previous background knowledge of that topic) This phase is essential as it helps the students to connect to the next stage of new information reception In the second phase (while-reading), the students would try to use the schemata recalled in the first phase to understand the authentic text and answer the comprehension questions In the final phase (post-reading), the students would reflect on their learning by correcting their mistakes, summarizing the text and focusing on key information More importantly, they would evaluate their reading comprehension learning process with authentic materials Phase 1 helps activating the students‟ schmata of the topics, and Phases 2 and 3 helps to boost their metacognition, both of which are key factors to the students to gain full comprehension of the authentic materials used in their reading classes

Figure 2.1 Authentic materials -based reading class theoretical framework

In summary, an appropriate combination of the three phases of teaching reading based on this theory is essential to help promote the students‟ reading comprehension learning process with authentic materials.

Summary of chapter 2

In chapter 2, the content focuses on the use of authentic materials in relation to reading comprehension In additional, the researcher also pointed out and discussed systematically as well as critically about the previous studies on this topic By that way, it will be useful in analyzing the findings and highlighting the essential points through statistics

Follow-up (Evaluation of thinking process and information summary)

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research site

In this section, three aspects are gone into detail: pedagogical setting, participants and the prescribed reading syllabus applied for the “English 10” textbook developed by the MOET.

The study was conducted at Go Den High School, one of the small public schools located in Long An Province Transforming from private school to public school since 2013, Go Den High School has received a lot of attention from the Department of Education and Training of Long An Province by building a new school with 18 classrooms in good condition as well as investing in more facilities to support for teaching and learning process However, though the school is well- equipped with advanced technology, the class size is so crowded It was an obstacle for every English teacher to make a successful lesson because it is hard to interact with each student and provide pedagogical support In the academic year 2021-

2022, there are 1,430 students from 34 classes divided into two types of education: general education and continuing education For general education classes, the students have to learn all twelve subjects Every year, students from lower secondary schools have to take exams with three subjects Maths, Literature, and English in order to be admitted to high school In reality, most students enter Go Den High School with little motivation, especially English.

Regarding the school board, there are 72 members in total including the school administrators, teachers and staff divided into 6 groups The English group consists of eight English teachers The majority of teachers are enthusiastic and devoted to their honorable profession All of the teachers have a bachelor's degree, and three of them have more than ten years of experience teaching They have also all received pedagogical training

The researcher conducted the thesis in the second semester of the academic year 2021-2022, which was difficult for me to get the permission of the school authority for randomly selecting participants because they are in the middle of the school year The participants in the present study were 95 students (48 for experimental and 47 for control groups occurring in the research) who are around

16 years old They come from two classes in the 10 th grade non-English major classes at Go Den High School There are some reasons to select these students to be the representative of the whole population Firstly, they were newcomers with high enthusiasm in getting new teaching methods as well as the researcher‟s aim at building up for them a good base in the entrance exam in the next two years Secondly, grade 12 th students are under a lot of study pressure because they have to take the important exam at the end of the school year, the high school graduation examination and also the university entrance exam Thirdly, the researcher was in charge of teaching grade 10 th students, specifically the 95 students in this project This was an advantage for her to arrange and manage the time and place for the research

There are three main reasons for selecting these students to be the representative of the whole population Firstly, they were newcomers with high enthusiasm in getting new teaching methods as well as the researcher‟s aim at building up for them a good base in the university-entrance exam in the next two years Secondly, the reason for not choosing the twelve-graders is that they are under a lot of study pressure due to the important exams at the end of the terms and school year, the high school graduation examination and also the university entrance exam Thirdly, the researcher was in charge of teaching grade 10 th students, specifically the 95 students in this project This was an advantage for the researcher to arrange and manage the time and place for the research For these reasons, the participants were totaling 95 students of the tenth grade at the school

3.1.3 Description of reading syllabus for English 10

The material for teaching and learning is governed by the MOET and revised and republished each year The framework of this book includes four skills and one grammar lesson for each unit Students are exposed to different topics related to the environment, entertainment, sports, etc Teachers make lesson plans to carry out the activities and choose the appropriate methods to transfer knowledge In addition, the teachers sometimes bring into the class supplementary materials to substitute or complement for the difficult lessons to suit the learners‟ levels.

The topics of English 10 taught in the second semester are Undersea word, Conservation, National parks, Music, Films and cinema, The World Cup, Cities, Historical places Due to the overloaded program, the MOET has decided to cut one unit of the curriculum, i.e Cities since 2011 Each unit includes four skills, one grammar lesson, and one period for language practice The second semester occupies eighteen weeks of the whole academic year Therefore, each unit was introduced and exploited within two weeks Overall, students have to take one regular test, three fifteen minutes tests, one mid-term test, and one final test at the end of the semester

Starting from the situation that the teachers should innovate their teaching methods to stimulate the learners, the materials must be one of the most important issues to be considered Whether the teaching is successful or not, it depends partly on the materials They must be authentic enough to learners to participate in the real world context since the final goal is to communicate effectively with the outsiders Therefore, in this study, the experimental group would have a chance to work with the authentic texts collected from different sources while the control group learned solely with the English textbook according to the syllabus

3.1.4 Reading at Go Den High School context

Reading is one of the four skills that are taught in any high school contexts

It is highly considered by most English teachers because none of them can deny its important role on students‟ language proficiency In English textbooks, reading is the first lesson and is followed by speaking, listening, writing and language focus

As a receptive skill, it is carefully designed with three steps: pre-, while-, and post stages to fit the length of forty five minutes The reading passage ranges from 240 to 270 words in length with a view to helping students familiarize with the themes, provide information and linguistic data for the whole unit, and develop reading skill Strictly following the same text year after year is not advisable since information is soon outdated, therefore students are not interested in exploring the texts in the textbooks For example, Unit 11: The national parks, Cuc Phuong, Nairobi and Everglades National park are focused However, the information written by the writer related to these national parks is so limited, which cannot give students full overlook about these places Therefore, supplying the detailed text such as about history, natural environment, wildlife, flora and fauna, recreational activities available, the best times to visit as well as including tips for visitors on how to best enjoy their visit to each park is necessary to give students a better understanding of these national parks Unit 13: Films and Cinema, the reading text is about the brief history of cinema This sometimes makes some students feel bored with historical information The teacher could have the students watch a classic film from the history of cinema and then discuss the film and its themes This will help the students to gain a better understanding of the history of cinema and how it has evolved over time Unit 14: The World Cup, students study the information about the 2002 World Cup which was held in Japan and South Korea It seems that it is very hard for students to imagine what happened in the sporting event because they were not born at that time However, if teacher can show students a recent World Cup by providing video clips and highlights from the 2018 World Cup in Russia This will help students to gain an understanding of the atmosphere and excitement of the tournament, as well as the different teams and players involved Additionally, teachers can provide students with articles or interviews from players and coaches to help them gain a better understanding of the event

Furthermore, students are much more dependent on reference books published by some publishing houses They don‟t have to spend hours carefully preparing for the lessons before class It was observed that they just copy the answer keys from reference or old books that they had already used without paying attention to the skills that they need to practice like scanning, skimming, and summarizing To limit the drawbacks mentioned above, teachers usually redesign the tasks, supplement other activities or they even bring in new texts with the same topics so that they can attract students‟ attention during the lesson Hence, authentic reading texts are the considerable choice for English teachers to substitute for some lessons that are uninteresting or outdated by adding variety and interest to their lessons

However, authentic materials have rarely been used during the lessons at Go Den High School context for some reasons First, teachers need a lot of time to select authentic materials and design the tasks to suit the students‟ level Second, what to test decides what to teach, hence teachers have to stick to the textbooks and have students practice to achieve good results for tests Third, the economic issue also stops teachers from making photocopies or printing authentic materials for students It can be concluded that those are the main factors that move students farther away from approaching authentic materials outside the classroom.

Research design

This study used a mixed methods research design According to Creswell

(2014), “a mixed methods research design is a procedure for collecting, analysing, and „mixing‟ both quantitative and qualitative research and methods in a single study to understand a research problem” (p 535) Moreover, Brewer and Hunter

(1989) stated the sufficiency of mix methods which help more profound understanding of the research problem and questions.

As stated by Creswell (2014), quantitative data consist of closed-ended information, for example, attitude, behavior, or performance This kind of data collection requires a closed-ended checklist to reflect the behaviors Sometimes, the data can be found in documents like records or attendance records Besides, qualitative data includes open-ended information which is collected by giving participants interviews Open-ended questions should be used, allowing participants to supply answers in their own expression It is also gathered by observing the participants or research sites, recording documents like diaries or public sources While the analysis of quantitative data focuses on statistical investigation collected from instruments, checklists, or public documents, the qualitative one involves classification of the path of aggregating the words or images into categories.

To make full use of the advantages of qualitative and quantitative methods, the researcher of the current study decided to use mixed methods, in which both methods were employed The organization and administration of the school did not allow the researcher to choose or select her participant students the way she wanted since the students were on the half way of the school year, which means the participant classes could not be randomly assigned Due to lack of random participant selection, this study followed a quasi-experimental research design According to Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2017), Campbell (1988), quasi- experimental research design does not have the element of random assignment to treatment or control It allowed the researcher to control the treatment condition assignment based on some criterion rather than random assignment To evaluate the effects of employing real materials on reading comprehension in EFL classes, a pre- and post-testing procedure was used The same high school teacher instructed both the experimental and control groups The questionnaire was also given after they had finished the posttest, also at the end of the research to explore the students‟ attitudes regarding real materials.

Teaching materials

3.3.1 Teaching materials applied in the experimental group

It took the researcher a few weeks to access the internet and collect a wide variety of reading resources in different local and foreign websites The materials were carefully chosen in order that they are related to the course book‟s topics as well as are appropriate to the students‟ level The course book's subjects and the level of the students‟ knowledge were taken into consideration when selecting the course materials There would be one authentic material every week, including blogs, signs, posters, simple articles, websites, advertisements and/or songs For example, to supplement Unit 10 (Conservation), the teacher researcher planned to use one article from https://www.spca.nz/news-and-events/news- article/xmasfosterswanted (see Appendix 1) The researcher based on three parameters (linguistic, cognitive simplicity and psychological simplicity) which were mentioned in the previous chapter to choose the reading text content In detailed, first one parameter is about the linguistic simplicity: the passage uses simple language and sentence structure (present simple tense, present continuous tense, modal verb) to make it easy to understand (87 percent of readability evaluated by Flesch reading ease software Second one is cognitive simplicity: the passage is organized into short paragraphs and uses clear examples to illustrate the points being made This makes it easier for students to understand the concepts being discussed Additionally, the language used is straightforward and easy to comprehend, which further enhances the cognitive simplicity of the passage The last parameter is psychological simplicity: the passage is written in a positive and encouraging tone, which is likely to make the reader feel inspired to help animals in need

The exercises based on this reading include True/False and open-ended questions to enable the students to practise necessary reading sub-skills on the topic of protecting animals These materials were expected to bring the students closer to the target language culture and improve their reading skills, vocabulary and cultural knowledge.

3.3.2 Teaching materials applied in the control group

The materials applied in the control group are the texts from textbook English 10 published by Educational Publishing House and used nationwide In the textbook of the second semester, students will have a chance to work with different topics ranging from Conservation, National parks, Music, Films and Cinema, The World Cup The reading lessons follow the three stages of pre- reading, while- reading, post-reading with activities designed into different tasks Lesson plans are also made to guide the teacher to facilitate the activity and help students to keep in touch with the lesson easily and clearly.

Data collection instruments

The data were collected through the Pre-test and Post-test, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to answer the two research questions raised in the study The reason for this combination is that one method can complement the others to help explore the efficiency of the authentic reading materials Besides, the results of one method can help support the other method(s) The pre-test was used with the purpose of making certain the equivalence of English competence between the two groups as well as the benchmark for comparing and analyzing in the t-test analysis along with the posttest afterwards The post-test intended to measure students‟ achievement and progress after a period of treatment with the use of authentic materials Meanwhile, the questionnaire was used to investigate the students‟ responses towards the materials applied throughout the second semester The third instrument was the interview which was conducted to collect students‟ viewpoint towards the authentic materials In brief, the pre-test and post-test design was employed to answer the first research question whether the use of authentic materials can improve students‟ reading comprehension or not To discover more about how students feel about using authentic materials when teaching and learning

English, a survey and semi-structured interviews were undertaken The following section will clearly describe each of the instruments in detail

3.4.1 Pre-test and post-test

Pre-test and post-test (See Appendices 3&4) are used in research to compare participant groups and gauge the extent of changes brought on by interventions or treatments In order to determine whether or not the use of authentic reading materials can help students improve their reading skills, the researcher in this study created a pre-test and a post-test on reading comprehension to assess participants‟ reading proficiency before and after using authentic reading materials There were no preferential treatment between the control and the experimental group The tests were evenly distributed to demonstrate that each group had an equal opportunity to get high marks for themselves The test type which the researcher chose was a multiple-choice and true-false statement test because it is familiar with the students Both the pre-test and post-test were adopted by English staff at Go Den High School which were taken from the book Preliminary English Test published by The press syndicate of the university of Cambridge in 2003 for ensuring about the validity and reliability‟s content They were designed with the same levels, allotted time (45 minutes), number of items (20 items) and score (10)

The format of the test can be divided into four parts:

Part 1: Choose the option that best describes the picture (item 1-5) Those pictures are about something that students have seen in real life such as on the street, in the supermarkets, in the office building, etc The students read the four options and then choose the best option that corresponds to the picture This part includes five questions

Part 2: Students exploit the text and decide whether the statements are True (T) or False (F) (item 6-10) The topic of the text is acquainted with all of the students in order that they have the chance to get the best scores There are five statements for students to make decision whether they are true or false

Part 3: There are five questions in all for this part Students read a text and choose the best answer for each question (item 11-15) The reading passage usually ranges from 150 to 200 words which consists of some test types like: scanning for general idea, skimming for specific detail, inferring the author‟s attitude, giving suggestion by circling the appropriate statement

Part 4: The format for this part is gap fill which requires students to think and decide the suitable word to fill in each blank (item 16-20) There are five multiple choice questions in this part

In short, the total number of items of each test was 20 with 0.5 point for each correct answer, and the time allotted was 45 minutes When the test was given, students were divided into two groups for management to avoid cheating during the test One teacher in the English group was invited to be the supervisor and the examiner for the test After the test had been given, the researcher marked the paper and put the test results into SPSS software for calculation For detailed, the test format was shown in the table belove:

Table 3.1 Matrix of reading test

Reading test types Item around Score

Picture description 5 0.5 for each correct answer

According to Nunan (1992), a questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a series of questions to gather information from participant respondents Due to their popularity as a tool for collecting data, questionnaires could be used in the research Additionally, questionnaires are regarded to be a quick and efficient technique to get information regarding the effective aspect of teaching and learning, such as beliefs, attitudes, motivation, and preferences (Richards & Lockhart, 1994) Questionnaires can help researchers to save time and can be used with a large number of participants (Jones, Murphy, Edwards & James, 2008) Moreover, questionnaires can be less expensive than other methods and subjects‟ opinions can be collected the fastest with high accuracy of the results Additionally, it is simple for the researchers to access, calculate, evaluate, and decode the data from the questionnaire (Borgobello, Pierella & Pozzo, 2019)

The questionnaires were to investigate the students‟ opinions about authentic materials in their English classes They were distributed to the experiment students (i.e those who studied with authentic materials) in order to investigate the students‟ opinions about their improvement in reading skills, their vocabulary development, and their attitudes toward the use of authentic materials in the reading classes.

The questionnaire contents were designed by the researcher based on the nature of this study and on the research questions with reference to similar previous studies There are 12 close-ended statements and one open-ended question The questionnaire was designed in Vietnamese and then translated into English In order to ensure that the students could understand all of the statements clearly, the Vietnamese questionnaires were distributed to the class It was ideal for students to answer the questions in their native language because it was actually very challenging for students at this level to provide comprehensive responses They have been designed on a five-point Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neutral, 4= agree, 5= strongly agree) Each item expresses the students' views on the usage of real materials to improve reading comprehension The questionnaire items are divided into two primary categories: (1) perceived reading improvement among students; and (2) attitudes of students regarding reading instruction using authentic resources The last item is to find out their additional comments on the reading classes with authentic materials (See Appendices 4 and 5) The questionnaire, which took 20 minutes to complete, was given out at the end of the course, one day after the students had done the post-test

According to Smith and Bowers-Brown (2010), interviews enable researchers to learn in-depth information about participants' perceptions on crucial research-relevant topics There are three types of interviews: semi-structured, unstructured, and structured The semi-structured interview, which is regarded as being half structured and half unstructured, had a list of questions on the area of study interest for the interviewer to ask However, the questions did not have to be asked in the same order, and not all of them had to be asked (depending on the answers given by the interviewees)

In this study, the students were voluntarily invited to take part in the face-to- face interview During the time of the 20 minute interview, each person was questioned separately In addition to taking notes during the interviews, the researcher also asked the interviewees for permission to audio-record the conversations for later transcription and data analysis

As can be seen in Appendix 5A, there are seven questions in the interview, covering the students‟ information about their opinions, feelings, and/or attitudes toward the teacher‟s use of authentic materials in their reading classes.

Data collection procedures

The study lasted about three months from the begining of January 2022 to the end of March 2022 of the second semester Including the pilot of questionnaire, the administration of pre-test and post-test, the training procedure of both control group and experimental group

Firstly, the researcher asked for permission from Go Den High School management (i.e Board of School) before starting the project Before the treatment, all preparation was carefully made The researcher made lesson plans for teaching control group with the content in the textbook Five units were designed and followed the same format of pre-stage, while-stage and post-stage in teaching reading Then the researcher prepared the materials for teaching experimental group by visiting some websites over the internet and download appropriate texts that related to the topic and suited for the student‟s level In parallel, the researcher designed different tasks to help students discover the texts efficiently as well as made lesson plans to guide her to follow the right direction Additionally, the researcher designed the questionnaire and the interview‟s questions for the experimental group Pre-test and post-test were developed beforehand When all of the instruments were carefully prepared, the researcher sent them to the supervisor, colleagues and friends for comments and feedbacks

Then, as all the students are under 18 years of age, the consent forms in Vietnamese were distributed to their parents with a clear explanation about the time scale, the purpose and the procedure, etc of the project At the permission of the school management and the students‟ parents, the researcher gathered the students of the experimental class to explain the objectives and requirements of the experiment It is noted that the students‟ parents have the right to withdraw their children from the project at any time for any reasons during the project The teacher researcher also explained to the students and their parents that their decision to participate or not participate in the project would not affect their examination scores or any unfair treatment

The teaching procedure took place with ten weeks from week 3 to week 12 of the second semester.Before the researcher used authentic materials in the reading lessons, the participants were asked to demonstrate their proficiency in reading comprehension by completing the pre-test (See Appendix 3), consisting of 20 reading items The experiment started a week after the pre-test Students in the control group were taught reading during the training using the MOET-selected English course book and some additional materials from other textbooks Meanwhile, students in the experimental group learnt English with the coursebook and some authentic materials During the duration treatment for both groups was from week 3 to week 12, the researcher followed the school curriculum and the stages of teaching reading to facilitate activities The three stages including pre- reading, while- reading and post- reading are going to be demonstrated as follows:

In the pre-reading stage, students participated in some kinds of games in order to lead to the new lesson They were asked to do the tasks individually, pair work, group work Then, students were asked some eliciting questions to think about ideas around the topic as well as to get them involved and prepare for what they were going to read Besides, the researcher also taught students some new words which were necessary for them to understand the reading text After that, students needed to put those vocabularies in contexts by making some sentences or fill them in the blank in the sentences given by the teacher Finally, teacher gave the prediction question before they moved to the next stage The whole stage often took about 10 minutes

In the while-reading stage, students were asked to skim the text individually to find out the answer for prediction task Then students worked in pair or in group to do all the tasks During the stage, the teacher took the role of a guide, a facilitator and an assistant who gave pedagogical supports also provided help when necessary

It took twenty to twenty five minutes to finish this stage

In the post-reading, students were asked to produce the language through some real-life situations by connecting what have already read in the reading texts to their own real life The teacher usually asked students to work in pair or groups throughout speaking or writing activities such as role-plays, discussion, summary, and interview This stage was usually about from seven to ten minutes

At the end of week 13, the students of both groups (i.e experimental and non-experimental) were informed that they would take the post-test The pre-test and post-test both followed the same format, with a 45-minute time limit for each (See Appendix 4) To identify the differences between the experimental and control groups, the post-test scores were analyzed To assure that the pre-test and post-test were conducted in the same testing environment, the two groups were requested to take the tests on the same day

After the post-test, the students were asked to stay in the classroom to answer the questionnaire (See Appendix 5A) They were informed of the survey‟s purpose by the researcher, who also clarified any questions they had The researcher then urged them to thoughtfully and honestly respond to each question To ensure that participants would not have the opportunity to ask or discuss the answers that could affect the objective results, the researcher quickly collected the questionnaires after the set time For detailed, the procedure of data collection was shown in the following table

Table 3.2 The procedure of data collection

Stage collection Week What to do

Pre-stage Week 3 Administration of pre-test

Conservation Week 6 Applying authentic text

National parks Week 8 Applying authentic text

Music Week 10 Applying authentic text

Films and Cinema Week 12 Applying authentic text

Week 13 Administration of post-test Week 14 Administration of questionnaire

Methods of data analysis

3.6.1 Validity and reliability of the instruments

According to many researchers (e.g., Charles, 1995; Creswell, 2012; Joppe 2000; Kirk & Miller, 1986; Roberts & Priest, 2006; Taherdoost, 2016), the two crucial factors in evaluating research quality are validity and reliability of research instruments These are regarded as two essential ideas that indicate the importance and objectivity of the investigation Validity and reliability are bound together in different complicated ways They can sometimes overlap and sometimes be mutually exclusive (Creswell, 2012)

Regarding validity of research instruments, Dornyei (2007) refers to whether the study “measure what it is supposed to measure or not” (p 50); meanwhile, Creswell (2009) claims validity as “accuracy of the findings” (p 215) Before being adjusted, the questionnaire was first sent to the researcher‟s supervisor for verification Similar to this, the exams were also delivered to the Go Den High School English teachers and the researcher's supervisor for evaluation before the project

According to Joppe (2000), reliability of research instruments is the consistency of research results over time and accurate representation of the subjects in a study, which can reproduce similar results when similar research methods are used Specifically, validity is:

“…The extent to which results are consistent over time and an accurate representation of the total population under study is referred to as reliability and if the results of a study can be reproduced under a similar methodology, then the research instrument is considered to be reliable” (Joppe, 2000, p 1)

Bollen (1989) puts a simpler definition of reliability as the steadiness of measurement Reliability can also be considered as consistency of measurement in different conditions in which the research obtains the same results basically (Nunnally, 1978) For the reliability of the pretest and posttest, the researcher worked with another English teacher in marking the students‟ tests, and then the results were moderated by another experienced teacher of English at the school Furthermore, the reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated using the Cronbach‟s Alpha method Fraenkel and Wallen (1993) suggested that the Cronbach‟s Alpha should ideally be equal or greater than 70 The questionnaire‟s coefficient in this study was higher than 70 The reliability of each item was summarized in the table below:

Table 3.3 Item total statistics of the questionnaire

Scale Variance if Item Deleted

Cronbach‟s Alpha if Item Deleted

As can be seen from the above table, the Cronbach‟s Alpha result was 843 There was not a single item among the 12 items with a Cronbach‟s Alpha lower than 3 or higher than 905 in the case of deletion, which means that all items in the questionnaire are acceptable and reliable to explore and evaluate the use of English authentic materials in reading comprehension perceived by 10 th grade students at

In this study, the data collected from these research instruments was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively This section describes how to formula and analyze the data from pre-test, post-test given to experimental group and control group, the questionnaire and the semi-structured interview

3.6.2.1 Pre-test and post-test analysis

The two measurements of mean and standard deviation were analyzed in this study to determine the impact of the intervention on students‟ reading achievement

In terms of the mean scores, they would be useful to help the researcher to discover findings by compressing large amount of data Nevertheless, the standard deviation should be gone along with the mean scores This was stated in Nguyen (2010) that

“it was the most frequently used of variability that looks at the average variability of all the scores around the mean” (p 17) Therefore, the mean scores and the standard deviation of the control and experimental group were analyzed carefully and pair compared to find out the differences between two groups

The data gained through pre-test and post-test which were in form of interval data were analyzed using t-test formula It was used in case of comparing the performance of two groups like experimental and control group Two types of tests were applied in the study: Independent-samples t-tests, paired-samples t-tests In order to demonstrate that there was no significant difference between the groups prior to the treatment, Independent-samples t-tests were conducted based on the results from the pre-test Meanwhile, the results of pre-test and post-test, analysis with make great contribution

After obtaining the sig (2-tailed) p, this result is consulted with the t-critical value First, if the p is lower than 05, it means that there is a significant deference on the students‟ competence of reading comprehension between authentic and non- authentic materials If so, null hypothesis is rejected (Hatch & Farhaday, 1982) In contrast, if p is higher than 05, it means that there is no difference between experimental group using authentic materials and control group using non-authentic materials The null hypothesis is accepted in this situation

The questionnaire was used to identify the students‟ attitude towards the authentic reading materials It was analyzed in terms of two measurements: mean and standard deviation All the questions in the questionnaire were in the same format, using a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree The researcher fully adhered to Creswell‟s recommendations when assessing the questionnaire data (2009) The data was presented as a table with percentages and numbers Using SPSS version 22, all of the student-collected data for independent and dependent variables were examined The survey responses from the students were analyzed using descriptive statistics, such as means, standard deviations, and percentage Tables, graphs, or charts are used to illustrate and analyze the results The researcher came to some conclusions on the research questions based on the results

The researcher followed the suggestions by Creswell (2009) The data was organized systematically for analysis The interview data was transcribed, typed up field notes and arranged the data into different types After all the data was studied for the general sense, it was coded according to themes and description Specifically, the interview data was coded based on such main themes as reading skills/subskills improvement; vocabulary expansion; cultural/background knowledge enrichment; increased positive attitudes toward authentic materials; motivation in learning reading After that, the data was put into the appropriate categories as coded Finally, the meanings of themes were interpreted to answer the research questions.

Pilot of the study

In case of conducting a research, pilot of the study is extremely significant and quite necessary According to Teijlingen and Hundley (2001), pilot study is “a crucial element of a good study design” since it implements a range of important functions and provides valuable insights for other researchers When the researcher wishes to develop any instruments, she needs to determine its usefulness by piloting testing with a smaller numbers of participants who share the same characteristics with the participants of the study After the piloting period, the searcher will know how to revise and improve some parts to make the instruments better and more appropriate for the study Therefore, the researcher carried out the pilot with fifteen students who were chosen randomly from other class which was different from the control and experimental group This met the requirement of Baker and Risley

(1994) that the pilot study should be fulfilled with between 10% and 20% the number of participants in the formal study

Bell (1996) stated that questionnaires should be piloted to see how long it takes respondents to complete them, to make sure all the questions are understandable, and to get rid of any questions that don't provide useful information Moreover, Teijlingen and Hundley (2021) also mentioned to the importance of piloting the questionnaire to improve the internal validity for the following reasons

First of all, it is essential to ask the subjects for feedback to identify ambiguities as well as difficult questions in order that we can change the word, shorten or even get rid of the irrelevant, ambiguous and difficult question(s) In addition, it is essential to carry out a pilot survey to measure how long it takes to finish and determine whether that is appropriate or not From the information, the researcher knows how much time she should let students complete the questionnaire Besides, conducting the questionnaire pilot provides foundation for the researcher to recognized and assess whether each question gives a sufficient range of response

In this study, the questionnaire was first sent to the researcher‟s TESOL classmates for their comments and feedbacks Then it was sent to my supervisor for his judgment From their sharing and ideas, the researcher crossed out some questions, added some items, and re-worded some questions to avoid ambiguity At last, the questionnaire made up 13 questions Then it once again delivered to the pilot group to check if there was anything wrong with the questionnaire content, the word choice

The interview questions were also piloted like the questionnaire in order to reject any ambiguous and puzzling questions as well as to make sure that the questions for interview asked for the needed information With the help from colleagues in English group, the researcher crossed out, changed the ambiguous words, before delivering to ten students who were selected randomly to participate in the study In the end, some of the questions were omitted and rewritten to make sense.

Summary of chapter 3

Chapter three gave the information linked to the methodology which was employed for the current research such as research design, research site, research procedure, the authentic materials used in the training and even research validity and reliability Additionally, the pilot of questionnaire, interview questions were also mentioned and describe in detail In particular, it used the framework for data collection and analysis for both descriptive statistics data and textual data, as well as the three instruments of tests, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews to collect data The following chapter will analyze and discuss test, questionnaire, and semi-structured interview data based on this one.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

Before the treatment

This section provides students‟ background information about reading ability before being applied the authentic materials in reading lessons The results of pre- test were calculated and analyzed in terms of mean scores and standard deviation of the two groups in order to find out whether there was any significant difference between the two groups before the treatment The Independent-Samples T Test in SPSS software was used to assess the descriptive statistics data gathered from the pre-test Table 4.1 below shows the results of the pre-test between the two groups

Table 4.1 Result of the pre-test

The control group performed slightly better than the experimental group, as shown in the above table (M= 5.543, SD= 1.0926 vs M= 5.510, SD= 1.0644, respectively) There was no statistically significant difference between the scores attained by the control group and the experimental group, according to the sig (2-

Experimental 48 5.510 1.0644 tailed) p =.885 > 05 nevertheless It indicated that the reading proficiency of the students in the two groups was equivalent In other words, the study guarantees that the two groups‟ levels of reading comprehension are equivalent This similarity made it much easier for the two groups to participate in the experiment.

After the treatment

The post-test was distributed to the two groups after the treatment of ten weeks with authentic reading materials This was done to measure how good the students were at reading comprehension The post-test had the same format with the pre-test as well as was carefully designed with different test types to meet the demand for checking students‟ reading capacity After the post-test, the questionnaire was also delivered to investigate the students‟ attitudes towards the authentic reading texts applied in teaching Then the researcher conducted the semi- structured interview to find out more about students‟ viewpoints on authentic reading material The collected data was calculated through using SPSS, and the results were compared between the control group and the experimental group to figure out the findings underlying the numbers

4.2.1 Research question 1: To what extent do authentic reading materials help students improve their reading skill?

Quantitative data from the pre-test and post-test were calculated and examined to provide a response to the first research question The mean scores and standard deviations between the two tests within each group were calculated using the paired sample t-test to determine whether or not the differences were statistically significant The data was summarized and presented in table 4.2 below

Table 4.2 Summary of pre- test and post-test results

Test Control group Experimental group

According to the data in table 4.2, individuals in the two groups performed better on average on the post-test than they did on the pre-test Particularly, the control group's mean post-test score was 5.660 as compared with 5.543 in the pre- test The mean score for the experimental group on the post-test was 6.969 while it was 5.510 on the pre-test Nevertheless, there was no significant difference between the pre-, post-test within the control group with the p (sig 2-tailed) = 102 > 05 while the statistic number p (sig 2-tailed) = 000 < 05 demonstrated that the difference between the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group after the intervention was significantly different As a result, the experimental group's null hypothesis could be rejected whereas the control group's null hypothesis was accepted

Furthermore, with a statistic value of p (sig 2-tailed) =.000 < 05, the experimental group's mean was statistically higher than the control group's (M 6.969, SD= 9861 and 5.660, SD= 9447, respectively) Moreover, when the mean scores for the pre-test and post-test were paired compared, the findings showed a significant difference between the two groups In the control group, it can be seen that the mean scores of the post-test was 5.660 compared with 5.543 of the pre-test, whereas in the experimental group the mean scores of the post-test was 6.969 compared with 5.510 of the pre-test We can see the disparity between two groups if we do the subtraction between the two mean scores (Control group: 0.117 and Experimental group: 1.459) Before the treatment, the different between the two groups was not statistically significant The different just occurred after the treatment as found in the results of the post-test which indicated the progress in the experimental group Students in the experimental group performed better than those in the control group after using real reading materials These comparisons figured out that the students who studied reading with authentic material-based activities were more successful than those who studied the subject through textbook activities Though the control group got progress in reading comprehension, it did not show much advancement in reading comprehension in comparison to experimental group

In other word, students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in terms of the mean scores obtained by the two groups following the post-test The comparison between the means scores revealed that the students who studied with authentic reading texts were more successful than those who studied the subjects through textbook activities In order to show the improvement of the experimental group and to indicate the significant difference between the two groups, an Independent sample t-test was run The results were summarized and illustrated in table 4.3 below:

Table 4.3 Summary of post-test results

Following the intervention, students in the experimental group scored significantly higher on the post-test than those in the control group (M = 6.969, SD= 9447 vs M = 5.660, SD= 9861 respectively), as shown in table 4.3

Also, the null hypothesis can be rejected because the statistic p (sig 2-tailed)

=.000