skkn tiếng anh to what extent do the activities of unfinished story improve lai chau boarding high school students’ reading sub skill of predicting outcomes

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO LAI CHÂU TRƯỜNG PHỔ THÔNG DÂN TỘC NỘI TRÚ TỈNH SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM To what extent the activities of Unfinished Story improve Lai Chau Boarding high school students’ reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes? Tác giả: Nguyễn Thị Thu Hương Trình độ chuyên mơn: Đại học Chức vụ: Tổ phó Nơi cơng tác: Trường Phổ thông Dân tộc Nội trú tỉnh Lai Châu Lai Châu, ngày 20 tháng năm 2013 PROBLEM I REASONS FOR SELECTING TOPICS I have been teaching English for more than ten years I love teaching and I want to be a good teacher In other words, I want to help the students achieve the goal they hold in their lives I want to perform what is required of a teacher – controller, assessor, organizer, prompter, etc I am in charge of teaching English for grade 11 students I have to teach all skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Is reading important actually? For many people, reading is the most important and essential skill to master According to Carrell (1984), “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills, particularly English as a second or a foreign language” It is not only a ‘goal’ but also an ‘essential tool’ in the development of each person As Villamin (1984: ) puts it: " Reading is the key that unlocks the door to the world of enlightenment and enjoyment." Also, the European Commission of the European Union (2001) considered that reading skill plays a very important role in each person’s learning at school So the teachers play a very important role in teaching students reading comprehension so that they can become effective language learners During my teaching, I have recognized that though my students are very keen on reading lessons, they have difficulty in reading skills, especially predicting outcome sub-skill As the points mentioned above and in order to increase the students’ interests in learning reading skills, I decided to choose reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes as my action research topic II THE SCOPE AND SUBJECTS OF RESEARCH The research questions that guide this action research are: To what extent the activities of Unfinished Story improve Lai Chau Boarding high school students’ reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes? 2 How the students feel about the use of unfinished stories to predict outcomes of stories in teaching reading comprehension skills? III THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY From the actual situation of teaching English in schools, I see the limitations of students while learning English So I want to help students become more confident in their, favorite subjects English, learn better, and achieve greater results I decided to choose reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes as my action research topic IV THE NEW RESEARCH RESULTS I want to test new methods of teaching reading to stimulate the curiosity of students, promote active, creative students The application of new methods is to make teaching reading more interesting or to attract more students Students acquire knowledge faster, more realistic, more natural, longer remembered all PROBLEM SOLVING I RATIONALE DEFINITIONS 1 What is reading? There are many definitions about reading Usually, it is related to the involvement of the knowledge of the reader and the ideas given by the writer within a specific context Or in another shorter definition it can be the “dealing with language message in written or printed form” (Urquhart and Weir 1998: 14) which means that reading sometimes is associated with symbols or figures such as maps, time-tables However, they finally came up with the definition that “reading is the process of receiving and interpreting information encoded in language form via medium of print.” (Urquhart and Weir 1998: 22) Nuttall (1982) discussed some assumptions about reading which, in his opinion, were not appropriate One emphasized that reading focuses on recognizing the printed words that he reasoned was only for early reading Another assumption insisted that reading should deal with pronunciation and speaking and he said that it suits also only for early readers In general the common words which should appear in reading process are “understand”, “interpret”, “meaning” and “sense” So, it can be drawn that reading definitions relates to meaning extracting It is true that people reading for many different purposes Many people read for work, study; many others read for transport needs, entertainment or whatever Reading in a foreign language or English is, besides, to “a linguistic exercise” also to get “meaning out of a text for some purposes” (Nuttall 1982: 4) “Reading is an attempt to make meaning from what an author has written” (Sloan and Latham, 1979: 3) Other feels that “reading is thinking ….reading is the reconstruction of the ideas of others” (Karlin, 1980: in Roger L.Rouch et al) Reading is a key skill which people use to build up their knowledge of the world By reading we are able to fulfill our hunger for knowledge In order to strengthen this vital reading skill the study of the reading process is important May (1986) divided the reading process into three aspects: The visual perception of the language units (Syntax and spelling pattern are the language units) Giving specific meanings to the chain of related ideas (The language units combine to form meanings to be expressed in written form) The reader perception of the meaning of the written word (Readers interpret the meaning of the writing according to their understanding) Williams (1986) defines reading as “a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” The word “understand” here plays an important role, so according to him “reading” does not take place if the reader cannot understand what is read Various writers have attempted to define reading “Reading is bringing meaning to and getting meaning from printed and written materials” (Finochiaro and Bonomo in Tarigan, 1987:8) To read an understanding of the text, the readers undergoes a process of reading According to Goodman (1988), Reading is a psycholinguistic process in that it starts with a linguistic surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with meaning which the reader constructs There is thus an essential interaction between language and thought in reading The writer encodes thought as language and the reader decodes language to thought Nunan adds “ Reading is an interactive process between what a reader already knows about a given topic/ subject and what the writer writes” (Nunan, 1989) Reading means to provide the learners with the ability to read written materials in English language, such as books, articles, brochures and other materials related to language and language instruction The learners are expected to master the ability of anticipating, predicting outcomes, sequencing, skimming, scanning, understanding relationships within paragraphs, and organizing the text Reading theories Through many discussions, debates and researches, it is now agreed among language specialists that there are three common reading models in term of reading process They are bottom-up, top-down and interactive All these three, however, need the support of schemata theory to make them accomplished Bottom-up model looks at reading process from a natural way It is said that the process starts with words, word phrases, sentences, paragraphs and finally with the whole text meaning Actually, it is difficult for a reader to be able to guess the whole text meaning before he can decode all particle meanings at word, phrase, sentence and paragraph level The reader, thus, has to be a scanner to scan through letters, a decoder to decode those letters, a librarian to recognize the words (Urguhart and Weir 1998: 40) This process, in my own opinion, is logical as you, normally, in a close look, see a single tree or single words, phrases, sentences of the text first and see the jungle or the whole text later when you stand far away to look back In some ways, it is a disadvantage as the part is seen before the whole reading However, this process describes a naturally way of human thinking and so it is still famous and applicable in today Top-down model, differently, looks at reading process as a whole first Reader encounters the text with previous knowledge, experience and assumptions (Richards 1997: 18) Urquhart and Weir (1998) argued that topdown is not the suitable word to describe this process and it is completely not the reverse of bottom-up process Indeed, the whole idea of the process is that the reader’s expectation is very important in the procedure of understanding the text and that expectation will definitely need the help of schemata of the reader himself to comprehend the text Schema theory, however, will be discussed later in this piece of writing Interactive model, the model that is “currently accepted as the most comprehensive description of the reading process” (Anderson 1999: 3) is the combination of bottom-up and top-down mode What Anderson noticed is that this is the model that his students used the most and he believed that is the most effective way to learn and teach reading in class To recognize the words, students have to use bottom-up model, but to understand what is behind the lines they have to activate their world knowledge, which means they top-down approach has to be used in order to get the understanding In general, whatever the model the reader uses in processing a reading, there is one thing he has to rely on; that is his schemata or “organized knowledge of the world, provides much of the basic for comprehending, learning and remembering the ideas in stories and texts” (Ruddell R B et al 1994) If his schema about the topic of the text is so limited it will be not easy for him to understand the text or he will have to try hard to digest new concept or information from the text In return, if his content schema about the topic is big enough, the reading process for the text will be fast and the likely to relate previous knowledge and new one is also faster Let look at a simple example in the sentence “She broke her ankle after jumping from the first floor window.” If you are coming form a culture with the conventional concept about the first floor as the ground floor, this sentence would seems odd to you However, even if you are not familiar with that type of construction, you have prior knowledge about that concept, your schemata would allow you to acknowledge the first floor as the floor above the ground floor and that sentence would be just fine for you So, schema theory is also another aspect that worth to look at in the reading process With those mention models about reading, bottom-up, top-down, interactive models and schema theory, reading instructors can now prepare for themselves strategies and skills in teaching reading more effectively REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE Unfinished stories Unfinished stories are the stories which are made incompletely or naccomplishedly in order to create the curiorsity of readers (Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc 2011) 2 Predicting outcomes Predicting outcomes is the conclusion reached through a process of logical thinking which makes a final product, where by the readers declare or foretell in advance the prophesy of the story’s content (Collins English Dictionary 2009 © William Colins Son and Co.Ltd) Feuerstein, T & Schcolnik, M (1997) stated that prediction is an important strategy both in the pre-reading and the while-reading stages Before we begin to read a text, we usually have a good idea of what the text is about, and sometimes we even know what it will include For instant, when we read the heading of a report, we already know a lot about it if we are familiar with the topic We use headlines to build certain expectations about the contents or tone of the article Our expectations may be wrong, but we use them to prepare ourselves for what is to come If we continue to read for details, we have a general idea of what to expect We continue to make predictions as we go along We predict the next word in the sentence; we predict the idea following In other words, we predict on the basis of our prior knowledge This knowledge is the basis on which we acquire new knowledge When reading, we always predict We become aware of our predictions only when we are wrong When we recognize that we have made a mistake, we usually have to reread a word, a sentence, or a section When our expectations are met, we are not aware of our predictions We just go on A valuable experience is to stop our reading from time to time, to assess the "predictive ability" we have Rough & Birr (1984) stated that children are given the opportunity to think through a sequence of events and carry it through to a logical conclusion This thinking process can be accomplished in many ways The technique typically used is to have children read a part of a story, discuss what they read, and then either write or tell what they think will happen next (P.52) Predicting uses the internal organization of a text and is the strategy of guessing or predicting what is coming next in a text by means of specific cues contained within the text, ie - grapho-phonic (words, sounds, individual word structures) - syntactic ( grammatical structures) - semantic ( content words, the use of the reader’s existing understanding of the content) Ian, G McPhail (1993: 74) Davies, F (1995: 160) said that prediction is considered as a means of investigating the process of reading It is an activity that has rich potential at all levels of reading development and in all contexts The objective of prediction is to have children use their prior knowledge to predict what happens in the story depending on their schema of the story structure, the title of the story, the characters and the setting of the story According to Sadler, C, R (2001, p.41), prediction strategy acts as a motivator and gives purpose to the reading It also allows students to be honest in their prediction and to a self-evaluation Students are able to make predictions based on their prior knowledge Comprehension is determined through a logical prediction I hope that the finding of action will help Lai Chau boarding high school students overcome difficulties in reading and shed some light on my own practices II STATUS OF THE PROBLEM My school was established in 2004 with only four classes and a few teachers at that time Now it has 12 classes with 380 students and 32 teachers but there are only English teachers Generally, the level of students of my schools is weaker than that of other schools in the area Most of them are from ethnic minorities; moreover they don’t learn English at primary school For them, English is the most difficult subject, especially when it is compulsory They have many difficulties in learning English in general and in learning reading comprehension in particular Their abilities and their current reading levels don’t meet the demand of the reading skill They almost lack reading subskills and they don’t recognize the importance of learning reading as well My students are weak in the following reading sub-skills of identifying facts and details, recognizing cause and effect, sequence of events, inferring meaning from contextual clues as well as predicting outcomes but I think they are weakest in the reading sub-skill of predicting-outcomes III MEASURES WERE TAKEN TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM Research Design The study will be conducted with the research design below Research Questions To what extent the Instruments Reading activities of Unfinished comprehension students at Lai Story improve Lai Chau tests (1 pre- Chau high Boarding high school test and post school students’ reading sub- tests) (N= 40) skill of predicting Lesson Subjects Grade 11 Statistical tools Frequency count Percentage 1-tail t-test 2-tail t-test outcomes? plans Observation How the students Student feel about the use of questionnaire unfinished stories to predict outcomes of stories in teaching reading comprehension skills? Independent variable and Dependent variable Below diagram will illustrate the two main variables of the study To what extent the activities of Unfinished Story improve Lai Chau Boarding high school students’ reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes? Independent variable Dependent variable Students’ ability of predicting outcomes in reading comprehension skills The use of unfinished stories Operational Definition Operational Definition Teacher divides the story into strips, Students’ ability to predict what gives one by one, asks them to read it would happen next based on the and guess what will happen next contextual clues of the previous 10 3.2.1 Lesson Plans Each lesson lasts 45 minutes The lesson shows the whole procedure that occurs in the class The procedure is carried out to investigate second language English reading comprehension under conditions of instruction To Group B: I start the lesson by asking questions about Embarrassing Experience to lead students to the lesson Then, let students read the first paragraph about embarrassing experience and check their answers Before students read the second paragraph, I ask them to predict the outcome with question “What would happen next?” or “What would people next?” - Teacher divides the story into strips, gives one by one, asks students to read and guess what would happen next - Teacher asks students to look at the first paragraph of the text, answer the questions and predict what would happen MY MOST EMBARRASSING EXPERIENCE Paragraph 1: My most embarrassing experience happened a few years ago, when I was a grade student In those days, my biggest dream was a red hat – a floppy cotton hat like the one my pop star idol wore in her video clip I thought I would look great in it - Teacher poses sign post questions for students to answer How old was she? Who was the pop star? What would happen next? Paragraph 2: My father knew this, so on my birthday he gave me some money so that I could buy the hat for myself I was extremely excited and decided to go to the shop at once I got on the bus and sat down next to a schoolboy about my age Did she and the schoolboy talk to each other? How could she get money to buy the red hat? What would happen next? - Teacher continues the procedure for each paragraph until the lesson finishes 13 To Group A: I don’t apply unfinished stories to Group A They will be taught reading comprehension in traditional way (Please, see appendix 1, 2) 3.2.2 The reading tests Three reading tests will be used for the research, one pre-test and two post-tests to collect the necessary data and students’ test papers are raw materials for analysis Each test will last 45 minutes All of them will be designed in the same way to make sure that their results are valid and reliable They will consist of one passage with the same length, the same text type, and ten questions including five multiple-choice questions and five open-ended ones All the questions focusing on predicting outcomes are based on the passage The two groups of students will these three tests The pre-reading test aims at helping the teacher to see at what levels the students are Also, through their results of testing, the teacher can identify the problem areas, students’ strengths and weaknesses There are two post- reading tests The first one is carried out after one month of the research and the second is done after the next two months The results of the pre-reading test and two post- reading tests are used as the tools for the researcher to analyze to see how much progress the students have made in reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes ( Please, see Appendix 3) 3.2.3 The questionnaire Questionnaires will be given to the students of the two groups after the second written test to find out their attitudes towards reading sub-skills of predicting outcomes It will have eight closed ended questions The questionnaire will be written in English and translated into Vietnamese to guarantee that the subjects can understand and give correct answers ( Please, see Appendix 4) 3.2.4 Observation and checklist In the process of teaching reading, I will observe the students’ answers Class observation helps to know the students’ performance and their attitudes 14 towards learning reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes The checklist will be designed in detail to help the teacher to observe what the teacher does during the teaching of reading and how much the students infer correctly for the first time, and the second time, etc ( Please, see Appendix 5) Data analyses The data collected will be analyzed by both descriptive and inferential statistics respectively 4.1 Descriptive statistics The cube chart or bar chart will be used to summarize the general data of the three tests’ results to see the relationship between the variables 4.2 Inferential statistics Besides the descriptive statistics, I will use inferential statistics with percentage to compare the students’ improvements in each tail and then the two tails together to see whether the difference is large enough to be significant RESEARCH SCHEDULE Stage Activity - Preparing the reading pre-test Date week (Nov 5th to 12th , 2011) st - Having students the pre-test - Scoring the test and choosing the subjects in the two classes - Using unfinished story for class Next four weeks (Nov 13th , B and comprehension questions for 2011 to 13th Dec, 2012) class A - Preparing the first reading post- 6th week (14th Dec to 21st , test 2011) - Having students the post-test - Scoring the test and collect the data - Going on using unfinished story Next four weeks (Dec 22nd , for class B and comprehension 2011 to 22nd Jan, 2012) 15 questions for class A - Preparing the second reading 11th week (23rd Jan to 30th Jan, post-test 2012) - Having students the post-test - Scoring the test and collect the data - Data analyses - Discussion and findings 12th week (1st Feb to 8th, 2012) 13th week (9th Feb to 16th, - Writing report 2012) 14th week (17th Feb to 23rd, 2012) IV THE EFFECT OF EXPERIENCE INITIATIVES After applying the new method in teach reading in English, it is clearly seen that students were more fascinated in the lessons with unfinished stories Students can complete the story by answering questions excitingly I find that my students become more interesting and, the quality of lectures also become effective than the one with old teaching method In addition the new method creates a good environment to help students communicate in English creatively In just a short time applying this new method, I noticed students are braver, more creative in thinking and communication Their memory are enhanced as well Teaching this new reading strategy "predicting - outcome" is likely to be widely used in schools and for students different subjects CONCLUSION I THE LESSONS LEARNED I have learned a lot trying and using this new teaching method For my own conclusion, to be an effective instructor, each needs good preparation of the lesson before teaching The goals or requirements of the lesson should be targeted right at the beginning Also, students' need, ability should be masted thoroughly before hand Only then, the teaching could be fun and worthy 16 II SENSE OF INITIATIVE EXPERIENCES With the above topics, to make interesting lectures, students learn better in the process of learning English I made myself a new approach in teaching reading skills I realize that this job brings positive results Students are excited to learn all, understand the content quickly and are also inculcated the readings content III THE ABILITY TO DEPLOY APPLICATIONS Can apply the method of teaching reading skills "predicting - outcome" to teach the subjects in English reading This method is applied at the upper secondary level in general and schools in particular boarding IV THE RECOMMENDATIONS, SUGGESTIONS For teachers - Need regular professional training and self-teaching - Always create an environment for students to speak English - A combination of active listening, speaking, reading English form "and play - to learn" For students - Practice positively, give comments in class - Carefully prepare lessons before class, after learning all the lessons ended - Do homework - Regularly read books, newspapers and magazines in English For leaders - Should pay more attention to the English department - Should provide sufucient reference books - Should have professional workshops with participants from not only the school to create chances for English staff to share experiences and to learn from one another 17 References Anderson, N (1999) Exploring Second Language Reading Newbury House Teacher Development (Collins English Dictionary 2009 © William Colins Son and Co.Ltd) Davies, F (1995) Penguin English Applied Linguistics Introducing Reading London and USA: Penguin Books Ltd Denive et al.1987 Research in Reading English as a Second Language Washington, D.C, USA: TESOL Feuerstein, T & Schcolnik, M (1997) Enhancing Reading Comprehension in the Language Learning Classroom Alta Book Center, Publishers 14 Adrian Court BurlinKame, California 94010 USA Gunderson, Lee 1987 ESL literacy Instruction – a Guide Book to Theory and Practice New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents Goodman, Kenneth S (ed) 1968 The Psycholinguistic Nature of the Reading Process Michigan: Wayne State University Press Ian, G McPhail 1993 Teaching and Learning Stratergies for ESL Learners R-12 Education department of South Australia 18 Karlin, Robert 1984 Teaching Reading in High School: Improving Reading in the Content Area; New York, Harper & Row Nuttall, C (1982) Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language Cambridge University Press Ruddell, R B et al (1994) Theoretical Models and Process of Reading (4th ed) International Reading Association, Inc (Random House Dictionary, Random House, Inc 2011) Rough, R, L & Birr, S (1984) Teaching Reading New York and London: Teacher College Press Sadler, C, R (2001) Comprehension Strategies for Middle Grade Learners Canada: International Reading Association, Inc Urquhart, A H and Weir, C J (1998) Reading in a Second Language: Process, Product and Practice Longman Williams, Eddie 1986 Reading in The Language Class- room London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd 19 Appendix MY MOST EMBARRASSING EXPERIENCE My most embarrassing experience happened a few years ago, when I was a grade student In those days, my biggest dream was a red hat – a floppy cotton hat like the one my pop star idol wore in her video clip I thought I would look great in it  My father knew this, so on my birthday he gave me some money so that I could buy the hat for myself I was extremely excited and decided to go to the shop at once I got on the bus and sat down next to a schoolboy about my age  The boy glanced at me and turned away There was a sneaky look on his face, but I didn’t think much about it I was busy imagining how I would look in the hat After a while, I turned round and noticed that the boy’s schoolbag was open  Inside it, I saw a wad of dollar notes exactly like the ones my father had given me I quickly looked into my own bag – the notes had gone! I was sure that the boy was a thief He had stolen my money  I didn’t want to make a fuss, so I decided just to take my money back from the schoolboy’s bag, without saying a word about it So I carefully put my hand into the boy’s bag, took the notes and put them in my own bag  With the money I bought the pretty hat of my dreams When I got home, I showed it to my father “How did you pay for it?” he asked “With the money you gave me for my birthday, of course, Dad” I replied “Oh? What’s that then?” he asked, as he pointed to a wad of dollar notes on the table 20 Can you imagine how I felt then? Appendix Dinner Party Mr and Mrs Smith both loved cooking Mr Smith also wanted a better job in his company They decided it was time for a dinner party 21 Mr Smith phoned his new boss Mr Plummer and invited him and his wife to dinner on Friday night  On Friday afternoon, Mr and Mrs Smith spent a long time cooking a delicious dinner They prepared fresh salmon, filled with prawns and chilli  They laid the table with silver candles and bottles of wine Then, they got ready  - Mrs Smith put on a black evening dress and Mr Smith wore his best suit Everything was perfect  The Plummers arrived on time at eight o'clock "Let's have a drink!" said Mr Smith They all went into the dining room  22 Then they saw the table and they were horrified The main plate was empty The salmon had gone! Mrs Smith burst into tears "Don't worry, love! We can still have fish!"  Mr Smith rushed out of the house He ran to the Fish and Chip shop down the road and bought four portions of fish and chips The great British takeaway! And they all had a lovely evening So did their pet cat Appendix Table of specification for reading pre-test Question number Reading sub-skills Question types Identifying main facts and details True/false Identifying cause and effect Matching Identifying sequence of events Ordering Inferring meaning from contextual MCQ 23 Level No of LC IC RO IC items 3 3 clues Predicting outcomes O-E questions IC Appendix THE QUESTIONNAIRE For each of the following item, put a tick in the appropriate box to express your opinion Category Scale: SA – Strong agree A – Agree D – Disagree SD – Strongly Disagree S/ N Items N – Not sure SA I can improve predicting outcomes, one of the reading sub-skills through the activities I can understand the text and improve reading subskills of predicting outcomes, 24 A N D SD I can easy understand the text and predict what will happen next I understand very well how to predict the things in a text I like to share my ideas to my partners about the text I have read These activities are difficult for me I not use this strategy outside the classroom I am able to apply the reading sub-skills I have learnt from the strategy Appendix Observation sheet (for observer) Observation sheet Class: Class teacher/ Observer: Lesson: Date: Students’ response Setting up the activity Interaction patterns Competition vs cooperation Classroom management Appeal of reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes Reading sub-skill of predicting outcomes and learning benefits 25 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE CONTENTS CONTENTS Cover Cover page List of abbreviations I II III IV THE QUESTION Reasons for selecting topics Scope and audience research Research objectives 1 2 The new research results I PROBLEM SOLVING II Rationale III Status of the problem IV Measures were taken to solve the problem 16 The effect of experience initiatives I CONCLUSION 17 II The lessons learned 17 III Sense of initiative experiences 17 IV The ability to deploy applications 17 The recommendations, suggestions References Appendix Table of contents 26 27