Improving Grade 11 Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills through Focused Tasks at A High School in Nam Dinh = Nâng cao kỹ năng đọc hiểu cho học sinh lớp 1

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---TRẦN THỊ THANH HÒA IMPROVING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ READING COM

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-TRẦN THỊ THANH HÒA

IMPROVING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION SKILLS THROUGH FOCUSED TASKS

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN NAM DINH

(Nâng cao kỹ năng đọc hiểu cho học sinh lớp 11 tại một trường trung học phổ thông ở Nam Định thông qua các bài tập trọng điểm)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.10

Course: 20 (2011-2013)

HANOI - 2013

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-

TRẦN THỊ THANH HÒA

IMPROVING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION SKILLS THROUGH FOCUSED TASKS

AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN NAM DINH (Nâng cao kỹ năng đọc hiểu cho học sinh lớp 11 tại một trường trung học phổ thông ở Nam Định thông qua các bài tập trọng điểm)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60.14.10

Course: 20 (2011-2013)

Supervisor: Assoc.Prof Dr Nguyễn Văn Độ

HANOI - 2013

CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT

-***** -

I hereby certify that the thesis entitled

IMPROVING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS THROUGH FOCUSED TASKS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN NAM DINH

is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution

Signature:

Date:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study has, in many senses, been accomplished with the help and encouragement of many people Therefore, I hereby would like to express my appreciation to all of them

Firstly, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof Dr Nguyen Van Do, for his invaluable inspiration, assistance and guidance during the time

I tried to complete this thesis

I am grateful to all lecturers of the Department of Post-graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their lectures, especially Mr Le Van Canh, Ph.D for his helpful and practical suggestions

I am also grateful to Ms Le Thu Ha, the librarian at the Resource Centre, who is willing to lend me a lot of interesting books and valuable materials for my thesis

I also thank my colleagues and students at Ngo Quyen High School for their cooperation in completing the survey questionnaires as well as their willingness to share their ideas on this study

Last but not least, I also own a great debt of gratitude to my family, my friends for their support in bringing this study to a success

Ha Noi, 2013

Tran Thi Thanh Hoa

ABSTRACT

In many second or foreign language teaching situations, reading receives a special focus In process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language, reading has always been offered a great deal of attention both from the teachers and the students Reading is not only considered as a means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place This study is concerned with improving students’ reading comprehension skills through focused tasks

The benefits of using focused tasks in reading lessons are affirmed again in this thesis through the studies and the researcher carried out at Ngo Quyen High School, Nam Dinh province These benefits bring considerable effectiveness to teachers and students in teaching and learning reading This is also the main aim of the study and the researcher’s wish

In order to achieve this aim and wish, the researcher enters into consideration of the relevant literature and then carries out observing classes, giving questionnaires to them, etc to have necessary findings and analysis At the same time, the researcher also suggests the suitable reading tasks to apply in teaching and learning reading lessons in Tieng Anh 11

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Candidate’s statement i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of abbreviations vii

List of tables and charts viii

PART I INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 1

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Methodology of the study 2

5 Design of the study 2

PART II DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter I: Theoretical Background 4

I.1 Definitions of reading, reading comprehension and purposes of reading 4

I.1.1 What is reading? 4

I.1.2 What is reading comprehension? 5

I.1.3 The purposes of reading 6

I.2 Classification of reading 7

I.2.1 Classification of reading according to manner 7

I.2.2 Classification of reading according to purposes 8

I.3 Stages in a reading lesson 9

I.3.1 Pre-reading stage 9

I.3.2 While-reading stage 10

I.3.3 Post-reading stage 10

I.4 Factors in teaching and learning reading 11

I.4.1 The role of the teacher 11

I.4.2 The role of the student 11

I.4.3 The role of reading texts 12

I.5 Factors determining successful reading comprehension 12

I.5.1 Considerations for students 12

I.5.1.1 Reading strategies 12

I.5.1.2 Background knowledge 13

I.5.2 Considerations for teachers 13

I.5.2.1 Steps in teaching reading 13

I.5.2.2.Ways to select materials 14

I.6 Focused tasks and using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills 14

I.6.1 Focused tasks 14

I.6.2 Using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills 14

I.6.2.1 Skills involved in reading 14

I.6.2.2 Questions and tasks in a reading lesson 15

Chapter II: Methodology 16

II.1 Situation analysis 16

II.1.1 Setting of the study 16

II.1.2 Participants 16

II.1.3 Reading materials 17

II.2 Instrumentation 18

II.2.1 Instrument 1 18

II.2.1.1 The questionnaire for the students 18

II.2.1.2 The questionnaire for the teachers 19

II.2.2 Instrument 2-class observation 19

Chapter III: Data analysis and findings 20

III.1 Data analysis and findings 20

III.2.1 Survey for students 20

III.2.2 Survey for teachers 26

III.2 Classroom observation 28

Chapter IV: Suggested some focused tasks in teaching reading skills and sample work 30

IV.1 Suggested some focused tasks in teaching reading skills 30

IV.1.1 Bases for reading tasks 30

IV.1.2 Suggested some focused tasks 33

IV.1.2.1 Suitability for students’ level 33

IV.1.2.2 Suitability for reading purposes 33

IV.2.Sample work 38

PART III: CONCLUSION 40

1 Summary of the study 40

2 Limitation and Suggestion for further study 40

REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 IV APPENDIX 3 VI

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

N: Number

CUP: Cambridge University Press

OUP: Oxford University Press

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Tables:

1 Students’ Attitudes towards reading in English

2 Students’ Attitudes towards purpose of reading English

3 Kinds of tasks students are often asked to do

4 Students’ strategies of doing reading tasks

5 Students’ strategies when coming across a new word

6 Students’ interest in doing supplementary tasks

7 Teachers’ attitudes towards students’ problems in reading

Charts:

1 Students’ Attitudes towards reading materials

2 Students’ difficulties in doing reading tasks

3 Teachers’ attitudes towards reading texts and tasks in textbook

PART I: INTRODUCTION

I Rationale

Language itself plays an important part in our daily life and it is the most effective means of communication Language distinguishes man from animals That is because language is an effective means of information, transaction and interaction making experience so we can say that without language there would be no civilization,

no culture, no intervention and no progress Nowadays, the demand of communication among people in all countries is greater, therefore it is really necessary for everyone to learn at least one foreign language

In our country, English is widely taught and learnt because it is an international language used in all aspects of life such as tourism, technology, literature, commerce and so on Especially, English has become a compulsory in high schools That is why it

is vital to find out to teach and learn English effectively

Teaching English involves four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing Among them, teaching reading plays an important role for high school students in enriching their general knowledge, enlarging their vocabulary and in helping them with their further study later Reading also contributes to the development of other language skills When teaching reading, some issues may arise such as how to assess students’ reading ability, how to give tests to students, techniques to improve students’ reading skills and so on Among these issues, I choose to do my research on the project entitled

“Improving Grade 11 Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills through Focused Tasks

at A High School in Nam Dinh” because I myself believe that reading can help learners

to get information to the fullest, and that providing learners with useful techniques and tasks will motivate them in reading

II Aims of the study

The study is aimed at:

1) better understanding the concepts of reading, content reading, reading comprehension

2) identifying some problems in teaching and learning reading English at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh

3) providing the 11th grade students at Ngo Quyen High School with useful focused tasks to improve reading comprehension skills

The study is the hope of the author to make some contributions to the improvement

of reading comprehension skills for the 11th form students

III Scope of the study

The study on reading in general is immense and covering every aspect of language theory and practice in this study is impossible Due to the time limitation, only one small aspect of reading comprehension is mentioned to, that is reading comprehension tasks Some focused tasks to help teachers and students better in teaching and learning reading comprehension would be recommended

IV Methodology

In seeking answers to the research questions, survey questionnaires and class observations were chosen to obtain relevant information for the study The strategic method of the study is quantitative one That is all remarks, considerations, and conclusions are made largely based on the analysis of the statistic data collected through the survey questionnaires Class observations are carried out as a supplementary to the survey questionnaires

V Design of the study

The study consists of three main parts: the Introduction, the Development and the Conclusion

Part I introduces rationales, aims of the study, scope and methods of the study

Part II comprises four chapters

Chapter I deals with an overview of the theoretical background of the research It is

concerned with the issues relevant to the topic of the research: reading and reading comprehension, classification of reading, the importance of improving reading skills, roles of reading teachers and those of reading students, focused tasks in reading

Chapter II describes the participants and instruments of the study

Chapter III is data collection and data analysis

Chapter IV offers some focused tasks to improve reading comprehension skills and a

sample work

Part III summarizes the issues addressed and presents recommendations for further

improvements and some suggestions for further research

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In this chapter, the review of the issues most relevant considered as a theoretical background to the study will be provided It consists of definitions of reading and reading comprehension, the purposes of reading, classification of reading, stages in a reading lesson, factors affecting reading skills, and focused tasks and using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills

I.1 Definitions of reading, reading comprehension and purposes of reading

I.1.1 What is reading?

Reading is a natural and common activity that people always do in their daily life It is stated that reading is a kind of culture that people regardless of age, sex, or class should learn and have Although no one can deny the high frequency of reading

in every day life, to understand thoroughly what reading or reading comprehension is may not be well aware by many There have been so many definitions of reading that they cause much confusion Hence, many linguists take reading into account to do research They have studied and given various definitions of reading

According to Frank Smith (1978:2) “reading is to understand the author’s

thought” He also adds “Understanding print or even receiving communication can hardly be said to explain reading The problem still remains of how readers understand the print or receives the communication” This means that readers need to

understand the author’s mind, not the author’s words The meaning of a word on any particular occasion will depend largely on the context in which it occurs So when readers understand the author’s thought, they are successful in reading because the nature of reading is the interaction between writers and readers Reading is much more

than just understanding individual words but it is the process that the writer and reader understand each other

To advocates of cognitive reading model, reading is defined as the

interaction between the reader and the text It is also a process of negotiating

understanding between the reader and the writer Aebersold and Field (1997:15) propose, “Reading is what happens when people look at a text and assign meaning to the written symbol in that text.”

Goodman pointed out that, reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the

reader – a language user reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (Goodman, 1988:135) This act of

reconstruction is considered as a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing, and

confirming

To conclude, definitions of reading are many but no definition can possibly include all viewpoints and features Each definition reflects what reading means to that person but they seem to have some features in common Reading is a process in which the reader looks and understands what has been written Understanding a text means being able to extract the required information from it as efficiently as possible Thus, it

is essential for us to understand thoroughly the definition of reading comprehension before teaching a reading text

I.1.2 What is reading comprehension?

Reading comprehension takes a very important part in teaching and learning reading a language and a foreign language as well Reading comprehension is a process that requires how to decode through the development of an extensive repertoire of sight words, learning the meanings of vocabulary words encountered in the texts, and

learning how to abstract meaning from text It represents how well readers understand literal comprehension which concentrates on explicit meaning and inferential

comprehension which concentrates on implicit meaning in the reading text

Grellet gives an idea that “reading comprehension or understanding a written

text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”

(Grellet, 1981:34) From this point of view, Grellet focuses on readers’ ability of

understanding the meaning of a written text based on the individual’s background knowledge

Richard and Thomas (1987: 143) state that “Reading comprehension is a mental

process that in the final analysis, only the readers fully understand Comprehension is what stimulates readers to remember the past experience That knowledge is, then, used in trying to get meaning out of print Meaning does not reside on the printed page but rather in the meaning of the reader.”

From the above mentioned definitions, it is possible to draw a conclusion that it

is meaningless if readers spend time reading but have no comprehension or attain nothing or even little from a written text In other words, it is no use of reading without comprehension Therefore, reading comprehension is an important part in teaching and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading in particular However, the reasons for reading differ from one person to another As a result, the ways we read are also different In other words, the purposes of reading determine the ways or the styles

of reading Now it is necessary to have a close look at the classification of reading according to manner and the purposes of reading to identify different types of reading

I.1.3 The purposes of reading

The purposes of reading will determine how we read, what skills we need and what types of reading text we practise in order to fulfill the purposes There are three main purposes of reading: reading for pleasure, reading for information and reading for language development

Reading for pleasure is considered as a purpose of reading because some people only read for entertainment, especially when getting stressed or after their hard working hours They read funny stories, jokes, newspapers and articles to entertain

themselves In language classroom, reading for pleasure is used to lessen tension in class through funny stories, spicy stories, etc

Reading for information means that readers have to find out something or do something with information they get Information may be presented in several ways in written or spoken language, in drawings, photographs, etc

Reading in a foreign language is an effective way to learn a language for students Through reading they can get the content of the subject which they are studying and get the way to develop their knowledge of language itself

In general, reading skills will make other skills such as speaking, writing and listening improve because by teaching reading, the teacher provides students knowledge that can be used in writing, speaking and listening

I.2 Classification of reading

I.2.1 Classification of reading according to manner

According to manner, reading aloud and silent reading are two types of reading

in which “reading aloud involves looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it” (Doff, 1988:70) Although reading aloud is considered a way to convey necessary information to the others, it is an unpopular activity outside classroom

Reading aloud involves looking at a text, understanding it and also saying it Its purpose is not just to understand a text but also covey the information to someone else When reading aloud, students focus on pronunciation, spelling sounds but not on meaning So there is little value in developing reading skills However, reading aloud is useful for speaking skill, it can help students practise speaking accurately and fluently

Unlike reading aloud, silent reading is more often used in both real life and classroom, and “it is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985:110) It is an activity that we focus on meaning of the text so silent reading is called “reading on meaning” It

involves looking at a text and saying the words to yourself so it is useful for development of reading skills

I.2.2 Classification of reading according to purposes

It is clear to assume that the reasons for reading are different from this person to that person because of their uncommon purposes According to purposes, reading is

categorized into skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading

Skimming is commonly used in reading comprehension Grellet assumed that

“when skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get its main

points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions”

(Grellet, 1981:19) In skimming, the reader goes through the text extremely quickly, merely dipping into it or sampling it at various points By skimming, students quickly run their eyes over the text to get the gist of it It is a kind of reading we do when we want to read in details or to find out the subject of the text

In terms of scanning, Nuttall indicated that “Scanning means glancing rapidly

through a text either to search for a specific piece of information or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purpose” (Nuttall, 2000:49)

From this notion, scanning is a type of reading frequently used by all When scanning, students quickly go through a text to find a particular piece of information This skill involves the ability to reject or pass over irrelevant information Scanning can be practised with variety of texts such as maps, dictionaries, reference materials, etc

In terms of intensive reading, Grellet defined that “Intensive reading means

reading short texts to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details” (Grellet,1981:41) The aim of intensive reading is to

arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text not only of what it means, but also of how the meaning is produced Under the guidance of the teacher or a task, students have to read the text carefully and try to understand every single word and idea or hidden information of a text

In terms of extensive reading, students read long texts usually for their own

pleasure When reading, students have a general understanding of the text without necessarily understand every word Most of extensive reading is done silently and out

of the class time Therefore, the aim of extensive reading is to cover the greatest possible amount text in the shortest possible time Extensive reading is a good way for students to enrich their knowledge of language and of the world The teachers should encourage students to perform extensive reading because it will activate reading outside the class

From Nuttall’s point of view, “intensive and extensive reading are not just two

contrasting ways of reading but an infinitive variety of interrelated and overlapping strategies” (Nuttall, 2000:38) These two types of reading, of course, are

complementary and reciprocal with each other, and necessary

In short, when teaching and learning reading comprehension teachers and

students should remember that there are several reading types and an effective reader is the one who can adapt his style flexibly according to his purpose Generally, readers do not choose to read a text either intensively or extensively, for gist or specific information because a text can be best tackled by a combination of strategies

I.3 Stages in a reading lesson

Activities in a reading lesson can be divided into three stages: pre-reading stage, while-reading stage and post-reading stage For each stage, different techniques should

be used to help students read the text comprehensively

I.3.1 Pre-reading stage

According to Williams (1984:37), the purposes of the pre-reading stage are:

- To introduce and arouse interest in the topic

- To motivate learners by giving a reason for reading

- To provide some language preparation for the text

Normally, pre-reading phase often last from two to ten minutes depending on each lesson Several techniques are suggested such as using pictures, predicting from the titles, guessing and brainstorming to see what students have already known These activities are aimed at drawing the students’ interest towards reading as well as

preparing them for the reading text

I.3.2 While-reading stage

Williams (1984:38) states that while-reading stage is the main part of a reading lesson with the following specific aims:

- To help understanding of the writer’s purpose

- To help understanding of the text structure

- To clarify text content

At this stage, there is a great deal of activities can be performed in order to help

students to understand the text The teacher acts as an organisor, a helper only He will

be available to help individuals with their particular difficulties He will be likely to be about the meaning of new vocabulary items, new grammar structures, etc In this

situation, he should encourage students to guess the meaning from the context

On the whole, the teacher must manage his class in such a way every student

participates in the lesson and understands the text

I.3.3 Post-reading stage

After reading, the teacher needs to consolidate or reflect upon what has been read Williams stated that “the post-reading stage is aimed at consolidating or reflecting upon what has been read and relating the text to the learners’ own knowledge, interests

or views” Williams (1984:39) This stage is where integration of four skills will be appropriately conducted Activities in this stage are aimed at helping students apply what they have learnt from the text to their further study or communication through the tasks provided by the teacher

Obviously, the three-phase approach is not to be carried out mechanically on

every occasion Sometimes, the teacher may wish to cut out the pre-reading stage and get learners to work on the text directly At other times, post-reading stage may not be included

I.4 Factors in teaching and learning reading

I.4.1 The role of the teacher

In a reading lesson, the teacher acts as a helper and students work individually and actively but this does not mean that there is nothing for the teacher to do The roles

of teachers in an EFL reading lesson are also significant and worth mentioning On the one hand, Nuttall (2000:32-33) specifies some of these roles as choosing reading texts, designing tasks, facilitating reading process and monitoring progress He thus comes to a conclusion that there is always a great deal the teacher to do in a reading lesson On the other hand, he also reminds teacher of several pitfalls in teaching

reading, in which “testing instead of teaching” and teacher’s overly dominance in processing the reading texts are among the most common mistakes That is why the teacher needs to organize activities in teaching reading and then carry out a number of appropriate techniques to teach a particular text While providing appropriate activities, the teacher should be active and creative to help students read effectively in a reading lesson

I.4.2 The role of students

The students are the heart of the reading process in a reading class and they can make a reading lesson successful Nuttall (2000:33) mentions several main roles for the

students in a reading lesson They are as follows:

- Taking an active part in learning: This is the first and foremost responsibility of the learner They have to be active and take charge of what they do

- Monitoring comprehension: Students need to understand how texts work and what they do when they read

- Learning text talk: It is clear that a good reader carries on a dialogue with the

text Consequently, the students have to learn how to do this An effective way to promote this skill is to talk about texts in class

- Taking risks: Students have to take the risk of making mistakes because a

mistake is an opportunity to learn

- Learning not to cheat oneself: Learning to read is learning to give students

enormous advantages in life It may lead to better jobs, to personal development, interest and enjoyment Students who do not want to learn to read can easily cheat but they are only cheating themselves

In short, students are the key figures to decide the success of teaching reading

I.4.3 The role of reading texts

Texts plays an important role in a reading lesson That is because text is used

“as a way of learning new language by looking at the text and focusing on particular words and expression” Doff (1988:62) This means that through reading text, students can understand phonetic, lexical and grammatical items Besides, students can enrich their knowledge in different fields such as science, technology, culture, art etc in the target language

I.5 Factors determining successful reading comprehension

I.5.1 Considerations for students

Language learners can learn to use different kinds of reading strategies Some read and understand a text very quickly while others read slowly and fail to understand what they read and it is essential to take the following elements into consideration on the part of students

I.5.1.1 Reading strategies

Reading is considered as an active skill It involves guessing, predicting, checking and asking questions Therefore, students should apply reading strategies to

each kind of reading effectively Students do not read every word in a text They should focus on the important words so they can understand most of the text and can read faster They should try to predict what comes next in the text and read the text again if they do not understand what they have read They should read silently, not whispering the words while they read because reading aloud may slow the students down and force them to read every word Besides, they should learn to guess the meaning of new words They look at the context of words and other clues such as the affixes of words Thus, it is important to encourage them to combine top-down and bottom-up strategies in reading Moreover, for different texts, students have to use different skills

In summary, there are different kinds of texts and different purposes for reading

so it is necessary to find out a suitable way of reading for each

I.5.1.2 Background knowledge

A successful reader requires good general background knowledge Background knowledge does not cover knowledge of a particular topic Readers will use their own knowledge to understand what they are reading In order to understand a text, readers skillfully recall what they have already known about the topic and need to read frequently and read many kinds of books

I.5.2 Considerations for teachers

Teachers take an important role in improving the students’ reading They must know how to convey or present a reading lesson to students It is really necessary to take the following elements into considerations for teachers

I.5.2.1 Steps in teaching reading

As I have mentioned above, there are three steps in teaching reading These are pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading In order to have successful reading, the teacher should follow three stages There are two advantages of the three-stage

approach Firstly, it respects and makes use of the students’ own knowledge and of the world and uses this as a basis for involvement, motivation and progress Secondly, it leads to integration of the skills so that the reading lesson is not simply isolated That is why a good reading lesson requires the above three-stage approach

I.5.2.2 Ways to select materials

The selection of materials is one of the factors determining the success of a reading lesson One of the teachers’ roles is to provide the students with suitable reading texts To fulfill this role and have a successful lesson, the teacher should bear

in mind the following criteria for the selection of a text: readability, suitability of content and exploitability

I.6 Focused tasks and using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills

I.6.1 Focused tasks

According to Breen (1989), a task is “a structured plan for the provision of opportunities for the refinement of knowledge and capabilities entailed in a new language and its use during communication He specifically states that a task can be a brief practice exercise or a more complex work plan that requires spontaneous communication of meaning

Focused asks, according to Ellis (2003), aim to introduce learners to process, receptively or productively, some particular linguistic feature, for example, a grammatical structure He says that focused tasks have two aims: one is to stimulate communicative language use, the other is to target the use of a particular, predetermined target feature

I.6.2 Using tasks to develop reading comprehension skills

I.6.2.1 Skills involved in reading

Readers need variety of skills when reading In fact, a change in purpose of reading usually results in the change in the reading skills so the type of reading performed According to Tomlinson and Ellis (1980:150), reading skills include:

mechanical skills, understanding the lexical items, understanding grammatical meaning, reasoning skills, selection skills and evaluation skills

Another possible way of classification of reading skills is suggested by Grellet (1981:4) He considers that reading skills consist of: recognising the scrift of a language, deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items, understanding explicitly stated information, understanding information what not explicitly stated, understanding conceptual meaning, understanding the relations within the sentence, understanding relations between parts of the text through grammatical cohesion devices, interpreting a text by going outside it, recognising indicators in discourse, identifying the main point or important information in a piece of discourse, distinguishing the main idea and supporting details, extracting salient points to summarise, basic reference skills, skimming, scanning and transcoding information to diagrammatical display

I.6.2.2 Questions and tasks in a reading lesson

In teaching reading, reading lessons have been traditionally based on passage followed by questions and tasks The aim of which is to check understanding rather than to produce understanding Introducing questions and tasks will encourage students

to anticipate the content of a text from its title and illustrations Questioning and tasks, therefore, are very important to improve the students’ reading comprehension

There must be variety in the range of tasks and it is necessary if different reading skills are to be covered A task should not always imposed on a text and it is better to allow the text to suggest what tasks are most appropriate There are various ways of classifying types of questions and tasks According to Nuttual (1989:434), there are five types of questions and tasks such as: questions of literal comprehension, questions involving recognition or interpretation, questions of inference, questions of valuation and questions of personal response Questions and tasks are one of the best ways of building up the students’ comprehension reading skills and their confidence

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

This chapter will analyze the situation of the study with the description of the subjects, the materials used by informants and the instruments applied to collect data

II.1 Situation analysis

II.1.1 Setting of the Study

The study was conducted at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh English is a compulsory subject and one of the core subjects at high schools Reading is a skill of major concern in teaching-learning English in Vietnam During a reading lesson, the teacher asks students to read a text and then he or she explains new words or structures

to help students understand the text The reading lesson sometimes turns out to be an English-Vietnamese translation lesson Translation can be used as an effective way of teaching reading for some texts only However, in reading lesson if the teacher uses translation, it will lead to inefficient reading and it also makes the students inactive and dependent Consequently, the teaching reading process cannot be considered as efficient The problem which is raised here is how to make the reading lessons efficient and how to develop reading comprehension skills for students This should, therefore,

be taken into consideration in teaching reading lessons It is possible to introduce questions and tasks which encourage students to anticipate the contents of reading texts For that reason, the teacher should ask students to do a variety of tasks to understand the texts and to develop reading comprehension skills

* The Students

Participants who were drawn from a high school in Nam Dinh, aged 17, both male and female have learnt English for 5 years, 4 years at lower secondary school and one year at high school They all have similar background Lots of them come from comparatively poor families so their learning condition is low Their parents can hardly afford to pay even small expenses required for their children’s schooling; a dictionary,

a cassette player or even some English books are beyond their reach In addition, their lack of awareness on the importance of English as well as motivation makes them not interest in learning English Although most of them have already learnt English for at least four years at lower secondary school, their knowledge of English is still poor and limited Hardly can they say a complete sentence in the target language

* The Teachers

There are 8 teachers of English, including the researcher, aged from 30 to 47, 4 have graduated from the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, National University, Hanoi; 4 have graduated from Hanoi University of Foreign Languages All

of them are enthusiastic with their career and had at least 7 years experienced in

teaching English However, since graduating from their respective universities, few of them have taken refresher courses to improve their English and their teaching methods These teachers were trained under the strong influence of the Grammar-Translation method, the emphasis of which is on the learning of the rules of the language, not on the acquisition of language skills This is obviously manifested in their teaching

methods

II.1.3 Reading Materials

The materials used for teaching and learning English for the grade 11 students are English course books TIENG ANH 11 The textbook consists of 16 units

organized broad topics Each unit is divided into 5 parts: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language Focus The teacher only covers one of the above five parts in

each period After every three units, there is a TEST YOURSELF, which provides some exercises for the students to do in order to test how good they are at English The reading texts in TIENG ANH 11 are various Many of them are not very difficult at all and very interesting However, some reading texts are rather long, requiring good reading techniques Some reading texts have many difficult and unfamiliar words to

students, which can sometimes not be covered within a period of only 45 minutes II.2 Instrumentation

The sample was drawn from two sources: from 155 students and from 8 teachers teaching at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh

The instruments used to gather the information for the study will be described as follows:

II.2.1 Instrument 1- Survey Questionnaire

Two set of survey questionnaire were completed with the assistance of 155 students

in grade 11 and 8 teachers at Ngo Quyen High School in Nam Dinh This method allowed the researcher to collect the data needed in “quantitative form” A good point

of this method is that it is quite easy to summarize, analyze and report the collected data as all informants submit the answer to the same questions In addition, the informants can express their opinions on teaching and learning the reading skills in a free way as their personal information is not included in the questionnaire

II.2.1.1 The Questionnaire for the Students

The questionnaire for the students (Appendix 1) was designed with two parts Parts one consists of three questions to find out about the students’ attitude towards learning reading skills Part two includes seven questions with which the researcher desires to explore learning reading skills of the 11th form students, the attitude of students towards the role of the teacher and the self-assessment of the students about their reading

II.2.1.2 The Questionnaire for the Teachers

The questionnaire for the teachers (Appendix 2) consists of seven questions It is

about their comments on the reading texts and tasks in the textbook

II.2.2 Instrument 2-Classroom Observation

As for the other tool of the study, classroom observation is not less important Wallace (2001) asserts that it is an important technique for the researcher to record what is happening at the time that the teaching and learning of the foreign languages take place In fact, with classroom observation, the researcher can watch, follow and record all activities that the teacher and the students are performing in a particular place Therefore, it is a very useful tool for the researcher to check the reliability of the data collected from the survey questionnaires

The author of the study observed four classes Each class was picked up randomly from its group The observation was carried out in two different lessons in these classes For each lesson, the researcher observed for 45 minutes

Four teachers under the author’s observation have been teaching English at this school for at least nine years There are some differences between the teachers’ age Consequently, their teaching experience must be different

Four units were chosen to be observed are unit 4, unit 9, unit 11 and unit 12 The purpose for choosing these units was that they contained rather long reading passages with many unfamiliar words, which may make the readers bored Therefore, the researcher intends to observe how the teachers dealt with the long texts, how they explained the new words and what techniques and tasks they used to motivate students

Conclusion

This chapter has presented the methodology employed in the research The next chapter will offer a descriptive data analysis of the collected data

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

In order to obtain useful information for the thesis, it is very necessary to know the situation of teaching and learning English in general and reading in particular Therefore, I have conducted survey questionnaires to know how teachers teach reading, what techniques and reading tasks they have used and how students learn reading and

do tasks as well These questions need answering

III.1 Data analysis and findings

In this part, the collected data will be illustrated on charts, tables and graphs Each chart, table or graph is followed by an analysis of the data

III.1.1 Survey for students

III.1.1.1 Students’ attitudes towards learning reading skills

Question 1: Do you like reading English?

Table 1: Students’ attitudes towards reading in English

The results indicate that among 155 students, 102 students like reading English It accounts 66% and the reasons are various The rest do not like reading English and they think that it is difficult to read English because they do not know the meaning of new words or what the texts are all about The number of students who like reading English is much bigger than that of students who do not like This helps the teachers much in reading lessons, because if the students have interest in reading English, they will work more effectively to improve their background knowledge and language skills