skkn cấp tỉnh practice of english reading comprehension skill for grade 8 students at ai thuong secondary school

INDEXNo Table of content Page 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 Current situation of English reading comprehension teaching in Ai Thuong secondary school of Ba Thuoc dictrict General situation Curre

INDEX

No Table of content Page

2.2

2.2.1

2.2.2

2.2.3

Current situation of English reading comprehension teaching

in Ai Thuong secondary school of Ba Thuoc dictrict

General situation

Current situation

Evaluation of the current situation

5

5 5 6

2.3

2.3.1

2.3.2

Some solutions and organization of an effective teaching session

Making lesson plan for a reading session

Providing a good reading comprehension teaching progress

8 8 10

2.4

2.4.1

2.4.2

Appraisal

For total quality

For total excellent:

14 15 16

3.2.

3.2.1

3.2.2

3.2.3

Proposal

For infrastructure

For upper leader

For School

16 16 16 17

Danh mục SKKN đã được hội đồng SKKN ngành Giáo Dục và

đào tạo Huyện , Tỉnh xếp loại C trở lên

19

1- INTRODUCTION

1.1 The reason for choosing the topic

English, which is used in various fields, is a language of great importance and popularity all over the world With the orientation of global integration, Vietnam has developed its potentials of all areas Therefore, communication has become an effective tool with a prerequisite strength In addition to the mother tongue, English has been considered by Vietnamese as the second communication language and an official subject in schools, even Primary schools The introduction of English in schools is necessary and proper, creating conditions for student to learn and research at a higher level later It contributes to the education of younger generation to become comprehensive human of both qualified quality knowledge English learners have the opportunity to learn and access to various attractive and long-standing cultures

of countries over the world Nowadays, once English has confirmed its role and importance, improving the quality of teaching and learning is the most significant issue Book replacement program with litany of English teaching and learning methods has come up with an emerging question “How to help students gain all the knowledge and utilize skillfully?”As we may know, English is simply one of school subjects However, to use the language skillfully, learner should practice the four basic skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing Among the four skills, listening and speaking are considered the main purpose of teaching and learning a foreign language, in which speaking is practiced via listening and writing is practiced via reading Reading is one of the basic skills, to which attention is paid during foreign language teaching and learning because of is determining role in evaluating whether learner understands the lesson or not At Grade 8 is the more difficult requirements on reading skill are In addition, lessons in curriculum for Grade 9

is usually longer with a large number of vocabularies, which is difficult for students to learn and for teacher to prepare lesson plans Therefore, teacher without a good teaching method shall not be able to complete all contents of the lesson To meet these practical requirements, each teacher should find himself a optimum teaching method which is suitable to specific student so as to arrive to high learning results It is this issue as well as purpose that each teacher keeps concerning Moreover, the improvements of teaching method and curriculum are always of great concern of education sectors Teachers are always encouraged to give innovative teaching and learning methods, good and practical experience innitatives, and improved teaching tools and materials

Above are the reasons why this topic is selected : “Practice of English Reading Comprehension Skill for grade 8 students at Ai Thuong secondary school”.

1.2 The purpose of research

Helping students at Ai Thuong secondary school practice of English

Reading Comprehension Skill better

1.3 Study subjects

Initiative experience focused on practicing reading skill effectively and improve the quality of English 8 at Ai Thuong secondary school

Research subjects are students in grades 8 of Ai Thuong secondary school, school year 2022 - 2023 and the first term of the school year 2023 - 2024

1.4 Research Methodology

Research methodology through the documents: Book of Applied Informatics, Internet, textbooks 8, teacher book, exercise book and related documents

Research Methodology of actual survey, gathering information and data processing

Research methods from the actual teaching and learning of each student object

2 CONTENTS OF THE INITIATIVE EXPERIENCE

2.1 Rationale of the initiative experience

According to opinions of experts, English teacher should pay attention to factors determining the success of teaching reading and comprehension reading These factors includes students’ attention concentration ability, instruction reading comprehension ability, ability to read themselves and with others, ability to make relationship with classmates, and ability to recognize ideas of pictures These abilities can be achieved through reading practice activities Rapid or slow results depend upon the basic knowledge that the students have gained in learning their mother tongue and their agility in audiovisual ability In addition, the other factor that affects the study of reading

of students is their uneven perception Therefore, students need to be carefully instructed in reading texts so as to enhance their attention to the topic of the text Many students are afraid of long text with full of new vocabularies In general, students have the habit of reading and try to understand word by word instead of the overview of the text In other words, students tend to decode words of a new language while restricting their attention to the meaning of the whole text

Ability to infer, speak and understand various definitions, such as word, phrase, sentence and other concepts, strongly impact the success of initial reading learning Level of comprehension depends on ability and quality of English learners

Teaching a foreign language in general and English in particular is not to provide students with knowledge but the ability to communicate with the language Comminication skills of students are expressed through skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing English reading skill is built

up in a course of learning and practicing in English environment In addition to English studying at school, students have to practice reading in different forms Reading skill is the ability to utilize language knowledge into reading comprehension in English

* Basic factors directly affecting success of a teaching session

a- Teacher:

- With the new and active teaching method, teacher plays the role of a instructor managing activities of students in a learning session

- To give an effective teaching session, teacher need to implement basis tasks as below

+ Flexibly select and utilize teaching techniques that are in consistence with specific lesson content

+ Organize and manage the class; logically manage class time

+ Skillfuly utilize teaching measures and tools to teach reading

+ Create teaching tools that are suitable for the class

+ Teach in an inspiring and charismatic manner to attract attention of students

b- Reading technicques

Reading technicques are determined by content of the lesson; in other

words, it is the lesson content that dominates the selection and utilization of reading comprehension teaching teachniques Each teaching technique is suitable for specific lesson, such as grammar, speaking or writing class In teaching a foreign language so as to help student effectively develop their reading skills, basic types of reading which have been used popularly should be distinguished

+ Reading aloud and silent reading

+ Intensive reading and extensive reading

* Reading aloud and silent reading

There are two forms of reading include reading aloud and silent reading

- To convey information written by other people such as newspaper and bulletines or to help student practice pronunciation, stress, tone and reading skills, we read aloud

- To understand and find information, we usually read silently, which means we look at the text and recognize information into our mind without the necessity to read aload but the effectiveness remains

In teaching a foreign language, reading aloud has little impact on the development of student’s reading comprehension skill

* Intensive reading and extensive reading

+ Type 1: Reading for pleasure

+ Type 2: Scanning for specific information

+ Type 3: Skimming for main ideas

+ Type 4: Reading for detail information

+ Type 5: Reading for study

In the past years, intensive reading was mainly taught in reading lesson

to provide linguishtic material and language practice while the other three types

of reading were still limited

Reading skill: there are two main types of reading texts used in teaching

a foreign languge, which are reading text for language teaching and the other for reading comprehension teaching

In the past years, reading comprehension teaching used to be restricted with the following basic skills

- Recognizing type-face and meaning of studied words through speaking

- Reading and understanding studied sentences and chains of spoken sentences of all types of lesson

The above- mentioned skills are insufficient for students to acquire skillful reading comprehension skills

While reading, other skills should be paid attention to by reader, such as + Predicting skill before and while reading

+ Guessing meaning from context

c- Teaching measures and tools for reading comprehension teaching

Picture as a visual aid for foreign language in general and English teaching in particular has been considered the main measure of text book For all lesson units in the new text book, contents of the lesson are recorded in cassette tapes and CDs while only reading practice exercises are printed in text

book To well practice these reading exercises, learner should listen to lesson content with cassette tapes or CDs In addition, teaching equipment is also an active measure in renovating teaching method so as to promote learning motivation and inspiration

* Equipment required:

- Cassette tape recorder

- Voice recorder to record reading and listening lessons under text book

- Pictures demonstrating content of the lesson in text book

- Pictures and other teaching tools created by teacher

d- Student

In the relationship between teaching and learning method, teacher plays the role of organizer and instructor while students acquire knowledge by their own acts under the control of teacher

To give a good lesson session, students should have necessary skill required for English reading comprehension

2.2 Current situation of English reading comprehension teaching in

Ai Thuong secondary school of Ba Thuoc dictrict

2.2.1- General situation

Ai Thuong Secondary School is a school which belongs to Ba Thuoc district ,with 9 classes and the employees staff is 20 which includes 16 secondary teachers and a teacher of English Although our school is facing a lot

of difficulties but the school always strives the movement of good teaching -good learning , the movement for improving the quality of education, the facilities for teaching, learning are more be applied fully

Especially the English subject This is an important subject decides quality

comprehensive education of the school In recent years competition achievements of gifted students at district level, the school always has students winner Get it is because the school has the physical infrastructure investment

2.2.2- Current situation

a- Current situation of teacher

The crew of teachers is young, dynamic, creative and enthusiastic in teaching Over the recent years, English teaching in lower secondary school have changed in a positive orientation for student’s learning

For some teachers, the investment in teaching is limited due to home issues

b- Current situation of students

For reading exercises, students tend to utilize skimming method to solve the question below Such reading text will easily be forgotten by students if the teacher is not creative and does not invest in his lesson plan In addition, students usually have passive habit and copy knowledge down their notebook Most of the students do not have the active habit of searching and exploring the lesson unless they are assigned Even when assigned to complete the exercise, they feel confused solving problem The students have no need of expressing their thoughts, affection, hobby and specialty publicly Advance lesson preparation is limited and the habit of waiting to receive knowledge from teacher remains For emerging problems, students wait for explanation from

their teacher

As a secondary school belongs to a mountainous district, spirit is weak, many traditions are backward, less exchange exposure Thus the majority of parents of students less interested in the education of children mainly mercy only for school education and some also have a Vietnamese perspective is also not all learn how to learn English Some want attention, but the level is still inadequate, unreasonable method So there are many lazy students

- Students at Ai Thuong secondary school are mostly ethnic students So, using

a new language they still influence national language system especially pronunciation Furthermore lazy students, dropouts, leaving still more popular

2.2.3- Evaluation of the current situation

a- Strong point

In spite of objective and subjective conditions directly affecting teaching,

we have overcome immediate difficulties and step by step improved quality of English reading lesson so as to meet the aims of textbook curriculum

* Teacher

- Initially access and utilize typical reading comprehension teaching techniques relatively well (reading technique)

- Get familiar with and be active in organizing a reading lesson sesson

- Coordinate flexibly teaching skills in reading lessons

- Create many teaching materials in accordance with content of learning

lessons; therefore, the sessons become vivid and attractive with high effectiveness

- Utilize and operate modern teaching equipment in reading lesson, such

as cassette tape, DVD, cassette recorder, video reader and multi-purpose projector

* Student

- Gradually get familiar with reading subject (technique)

- Students are able to read and recognize content of the whole reading text

- Most of the students are able of reading texts with simple content and complete tasks and exercise assigned by teacher after silent reading and aloud reading

- Some students have gained learning skills and tactics

b- Weak point (Remainings)

* Teachers

It is still difficult for some teachers to implement teaching manipulation and technique in reading lesson as well as to select suitable techniques for specific teaching lesson and session They still hesitate to or unskillfuly utilize teaching materials for reading lessons, such as cassette reader and demonstrating pictures For other teachers, investment in lesson prepration is still limited due to private issues In addition, they are afraid of creating a noisy, time-consuming and costly teaching session The instruction of studying

at home is not suitable for specific student, which makes the teaching session is not effective

* Students

- Students are lack of motivation for English reading comprehension

- Many students do not have many opportunities to study and access mass media information via which they can listen and read English

- Some hesitate to read and speak in English or are afraid of making mistake

- Students are not familiar with English reading and speaking speed in the tape or disk

- They remain passive habit; during team work they rely on other member

- Words are produced timidly Many students have not found their own English learning method Many others are not interested in reading books Therefore, in organizing activities, teacher should pay attention to avoid student’s negative responds If this happens, teacher shall promptly correct and encourage as well as reward students so as to achieve positive respond

c- Teaching measures and tools

- Teaching measures and tools are insufficient Some are not equipped, such as pictures and projector

d- Specific investigation

During my teaching process, I have been in charge of class 8B and grade

9 With the aims of studying the current situation of student’s English learning

as well as drawing lesson for myself, right from the beginning of the school-year, I have oriented a specific plan and method to actively investigate the current situation of English learning of my students Findings of the investigation indicated that most of the students do not soudly understand vocabulary and their English reading and communication skills are still limited

To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, students should be trained all the four skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing during their English learning However, English curriculum at secondary school level concentrates on the two basic skills only, which are speaking and writing The other two skills have not gained much attention ; therefore, student’s learning performance is not high

This issue is indicated by learning performance of students in previous years and findings of the survey on student quality conducted in some classes

in terms of English subject early last school-year (2022-2023)

Class/

Grade

Total

number of

students

ExcellentQ Good Fairly Good Weak Poor

Therefore, to find out a method to practice reading comprehension skill for student, I have chosen this topic

2.3 Some solutions and organization of an effective teaching session

2.3.1 Making lesson plan for a reading session

a- For teacher:

To provide a good teaching session, teacher needs to implement the following steps

- Carefully study content of the lesson in student textbook and teacher’s book since these are important base for teacher to set up teaching plan for the lesson Once carefully study textbook and teacher’s book, teacher is able to organize and control the session on set with key points as well as to logically manage learning time and activities

- Study purpose and requirement of the session

Purpose and requirements of the session is the target that both teacher and student have to reach after the lesson For usual teaching session, purpose and requirements are the practice and development of skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing of students (in which reading is the most important skill) Finishing reading part and understanding main content of the reading text, students complete some language requirements or exercises

- Select and coordinate teading techniques flexibly and in accordance with content of specific lesson

The selection of reading teachniques is determined basing content of the lesson, students characteristics, strong points and weak points, acquired knowledge and skills Questions in exercise are ordered from easy to difficult level Exercises for weak, fairly good, good and excellent students shall be separated

- Time should be organized logically for the session and specific phases during the reading lesson, which include

+ Pre - Reading phase

+ While - Reading phase

+ Post - Reading phase

Teaching techniques are selected to be suitable with each phase

Utilization of teaching measures and tools for a reading lesson

- Utilization of cassette reader

+ Before the lesson, good cassette reader, clear cassette tape, spare battery in case of power off should be prepared

+ Safety should be ensured during manipulation

+ Students are absolutely not allowed to use the equipment without instruction

+ Necessity, effectiveness and timing for each step should be considered

- Utilization of demonstrating picture

+ Visual chanel in textbook: one of the strength of the innovative textbook composed under the new curriculum is its various demonstratin pictures However, it is the maximum utilization of these pictures to help student understand the lesson that needs to be paid attention to

+ Other type of demonstrating picture: (handmade or collected) pictures

to introduce and practice new lesson is a must Requirement on high aestheticism is not necessary but the pictures should be practical and close to

lesson content If these pictures are unaffordable, textbook illustrations can be zoomed and utilized as a visual aid

- A suitable and logical lesson plan shall be prepared Activities of teacher and students, timing, requirements of each exercise and student’s answer options should be cleary set up

- Teaching methods should be exchanged and discussed Teachers suggest forms of reading comprehension for each reading lesson

Effectiveness of a reading session shall be promoted if teaching methods are discussed among colleagues in advance This does not bring high quality performance to reading lessons but other skills

+ Comprehension questions:

For this type of exercise, students should read the reading text to get information and then answer questions These exercises are often introduced in textbook with various forms

- Yes/No questions (Answer the questions with Yes or No)

- Wh – questions

+ Multiple choice:

For this type of exercise, student should read to get information and after that choose the most suitable answer among given options

+ Gap – fill:

For this type of exercise, students should get the information to fill in the blanks of sentences Words can be provided in advance (to weak students)

by teachers or (excellent, good) students can use their own words to complete the exercise

+ Grids or Forms:

For this type of exercise, teacher may ask students to read the form in advance and then read the passage to complete the exercise

+ Matching:

For this type of exercise, students read a passage to get information and complete the exercise by matching contents of collum A to suitable contents of column B

+ True – False statements:

For this type of exercise, students read a passage to get information and find sentences indicating whether the statements are true or false Teacher may use supplement board to provide students with additional information and ask them to guess right/wrong before reading Finish checking student’s guessing, teacher request students to quote their answer from the text and may ask them

to correct the wrong sentence

+ Reoder sentences:

For this type of exercise, students should read a passage to understand its content and reorder statements in wrong order in the exercise below so as to create a logical passage

+ Make summaries:

After reading to get information, students summarize content of the reading text