USING WHILE READING TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION FOR THE 11TH FORM STUDENTS AT HAM RONG HIGH SCHOOL

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study Nowadays English has become an international language because it is widely used in many parts of the world In the tendency of integration of the global economy, English is one of the effective communicative tools for everybody The role of English is considered to be very important in the fields of economics, politics, science, culture and education Especially, Vietnam’s official membership of WTO on 7th November 2006 opened a new door for integrating into the world economy, and more and more people want to learn English for communicating with foreign partners, tourism, study tours, etc In Vietnam, English has been brought into the school curriculum as a compulsory subject, and the teaching and learning of that international language has been recently paid great attention to When teaching English, the teacher teaches his students not only the English language but also its usage And under the right guidance, right help of the teacher, the students have to try their best to master language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking in order to communicate in English successfully Among these four skills, reading plays an important role in enriching the students’ general knowledge and in helping them with their further study later Owing to the importance of reading itself, the growing interest in learning English in Vietnam creates a wide learning environment It can be seen that the teaching of reading of reading comprehension has been paid in increasing attention to its different aspects As time goes by, many experts and methodologists have come to an understanding that reading comprehension is important not only at schools but also afterwards That is reading helps students as readers develop their language ability in general and comprehension skills in particular at schools as well as gives them other benefits to avoid cultural and language bias, etc in daily communication Recognizing the importance of reading, I decide on choosing the theme “Using While- Reading Techniques to Improve Reading Comprehension for the 11th Form Students at Ham Rong School ” 1.2 Aims of the study The specific aims of the study are as follows: - Clarifying the nature of reading comprehension in accordance with some important points in teaching this skill - Investigating the present situation of teaching and learning reading comprehension of the 11th form students to find out advantages as well as problems facing both teachers and students in reading lessons - Suggesting useful techniques to develop the reading comprehension skills in the while- reading stage for the 11 th form in Phan Dang Luu high school 1.3 Scope of the study Due to the limitation, all the techniques suggested are used in the whilereading stage And the object of this study is the 11 th form students at Phan Dang Luu high school 1.4 Methods of the study To implement this study, the following methods are used: - Consulting related materials: For the sake of getting knowledge and useful ideas, I read many books and other materials in addition to earlier researches about reading and teaching reading comprehension - Delivering survey questionnaire and observing reading lessons: To fulfill this study, two survey questionnaires, one for students and another for teachers and some reading class observations were carried out to find out the teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward teaching and learning reading as well as their working methods 2 DEVELOPMENT I LITERATURE REVIEW Approaches of language teaching 1.1 Definitions of reading comprehension In teaching reading, it is necessary to understand the nature of reading comprehension What the teacher understands about it will have a great influence on what he or she teaches in the class He would know what to teach and how to make his reading lesson effectively In fact, methodologists have been providing different definitions of reading comprehension According to Grellet (1981: 3): “Reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.” The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way Also concerning the reading comprehension, Richard and Good (1978:9) provide a clearer point of view: “Reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the reader The emphasis is on the reader understanding of the printed page based on the individual reader’s unique background of experience Reading is much than just pronouncing words correctly or simply what the author intends It is the process whereby the printed pages stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual” According to the above authors, reading comprehension is not only simply understanding what is written, but also is what stimulates students to remember from their experiences That knowledge is then used to get meaning out of printed page, but in the mind of the readers which included not only facts or details but also emotion, belief and critical evaluation From these opinions, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a process of understanding what is conveyed in the text It does not mean that the reader needs to understand every single word in the text but actively work on the text and extract the required information efficiently 1.2 The roles of the teacher in a reading lesson It is natural that in a reading lesson, the students must work actively and individually It does not mean that the teacher has nothing to Discussing the roles of the teacher in teaching reading, Richard and Amato (1988) emphasize: “The first role is to facilitate communicative process between all participants in the classroom, and between these participants and the various activities and text The second role is to act interdependent within the learning teaching group” From Richard and Amato’s point of view, the teacher is an organizer of resources He also plays the role as a guide within the classroom procedures and students’ activities during the lesson Referring to this issue, Moore (1992:5) adds: “The teacher is an environmental engineer who organizes the classroom space to fit their goal and to maximize learning The way the physical space of the classroom is organized can either help or hinder learning ” In general, the teacher must be aware of what they need to in a reading lesson Playing their roles well will certainly help the teacher lead successful reading lessons It will help students understand the text efficiently, and at the same time improve considerably their reading skills 1.3 The roles of the students in a reading lesson In communicative language teaching, the learners are regarded as the centre of the lesson It is true in every reading lesson During the reading process, the students play the role of an active and creative listener as well as readers In a reading lesson students must take an active role as listeners They need to listen to the teacher’s instructions and explanations carefully to find out the way of recognizing information and way of deducing new words or grammatical structures The students must also be active and flexible readers, it is wise if they work on their own during the reading process, make full use of the class time to read and the exercises to achieve a full understanding of the text It is necessary for them to find a suitable reading strategy and use their background knowledge to fulfill their tasks because the significance of the text as well as the information is not always directly stated in printed pages In summary, students are the key factor to decide the success of a reading lesson Teacher and students ate interrelated to each other during the process of teaching and learning reading skills 2.1 Reading activities We read different texts in different ways According to the way of reading, we have aloud reading and silent reading Depending on the purpose of reading, we can classify reading into skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading 2.1.1 Skimming Skimming is commonly used in reading comprehension It is one of specific reading techniques necessary for quick and efficient reading There have been many definitions of skimming Greenwood (1981:92) writes: “the reader goes through particular passage such as newspaper article merely to get the gist” In this term, Douglas Brown has the same opinion but it is clearer than that of above author He wrote: “Skimming consists of quickly running eyes across the whole text for its gist Skimming gives readers the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic, or massage, or possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas.” Considering the two opinions, it can be concluded that skimming is a skill that enables readers to get the main point of the text without being concerned with details They only go through the text very fast to get general sense or the gist of it In brief, skimming is a very useful study technique to help the learner organize his thoughts and specify what information he can get from a book, so that his reading is more efficient Hence, skimming should be applied in teaching reading to help students have an overview of what they read 2.1.2 Scanning Similar to skimming, scanning is a necessary technique in reading efficiently Douglas (2001:308) defines scanning as follows: “Scanning was quickly searching for some particular piece or pieces of information in a text” Sharing the same opinion with Douglas Brown, Williams (2001:100) emphasizes: “Scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information.” It is used to decide exactly what kind of information we are looking for and where to find it In addition, Grellet (1981:19) gives a more detailed definition of scanning: “When scanning, we only try to locate information and often we not even follow the linearity of passage to so, and scanning is far more limited since it only means retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose.” These authors have the same point that while scanning reader does not need to read form cover to cover, they only look for the information they want by running their eyes rapidly along the lines It can be practised with the great range of texts such as dictionaries, map, advertisements, labels, etc This kind of reading is very useful in reading selectively In general, both skimming and scanning are effective techniques for quick and efficient reading It is advisable to make use of them to improve reading comprehension skills for students in reading classes 2.1.3 Intensive reading Intensive reading is also widely used in a reading class Its is an effective way to explore the text, to go deeply into the meaning and the organization of the text According to Grellet (1981:4) “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details.” In addition, Nuttal (1989:23) writes: “Intensive reading involves approaching the texts under the close guidance of the teacher…, or under the guidance of a task which forces the students to pay great attention to the ext the aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detail understanding of the text: not only of what is means but also of how the meaning is produced ” From the mentioned opinions, intensive reading’s aim is to achieve full understanding of the logical arguments, attitude, and purposes of the writer as well as his linguistic means to achieve these purposes Sharing the same opinion with Nuttal, Douglas (2001:312) defines: “Intensive reading is usually a classroom oriented activity in which students focus on linguistic or semantic details of a passage Reading calls students’ attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers and other surface structure details for the purpose of understanding literal meaning, implication, rhetorical relationships and the like” In short, intensive reading is a basic classroom activity It is really effective if the teacher and his students know how to fully exploit this activity in class with the help of reading exercises 2.1.4 Extensive reading Extensive reading is also called “reading for fluency” The students read long texts to have general understanding, to develop fluency in reading or to relax This is an activity involving global understanding just as Grellet (1981:4) confirms: “Extensive reading means reading longer text, usually or one’s own pleasure This is a fluency activity mainly involving general understanding.” In Brown’s opinion, besides practising fluency, extensive reading helps students enrich their language elements because it is one of the keys to achieve reading ability, linguistic competence, vocabulary, spelling and writing (2001:301) And to Nuttal (1989:168), this kind of reading is also a very useful skill for students to widen their knowledge as he wrote: “The best way to improve one’s knowledge of foreign language is to go and live among its speakers The next best way is to read extensively in it.” To summarize, extensive reading is one of good ways to improve one’s knowledge of a foreign language because its aim is to cover the content of text in the shortest possible period of time In the language classroom, the teacher must introduce some suitable reading materials to students, as it is useful for them to form a good habit of reading 3.1 Stages of a teaching reading lesson A reading lesson can be divided into three stages which are pre- reading stage, while- reading stage and post- reading stage Each of these stages carries its own features and purposes and requires different techniques and strategies (William, 1984:37) 3.1.1 The Pre-reading stage In a reading lesson, the pre- reading stage is an important one because it creates motivation and positive attitude towards the reading text for studnets It will focus their attention on what they are going to read Concerning the purposes of the pre- stage, Williams (1984:37) writes: “What the pre- reading phrase tries to is: 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” In general, in the pre- reading stage, it is necessary to set a good preparation for students, provide them the sense of what they are going to in their reading lesson 3.1.2 The while-speaking stage While- reading stage is the main part of a reading lesson Without this stage, the students will lose the chance to deal with the text to understand the writer’s purpose and clarify the text’s content in detail Williams (1984:38) points out the aims of the while- reading stage: To help to understand of the writer’s purpose To help to understand of the text structure To clarify the text He also gives the teacher some questions to ask himself on order to deal with the above- mentioned aims: What is the function of this text? How is the text organized or developed? (e.g.: a narrative, an explanation with various examples, an argument and counter argument) What content or information is extracted from the text? What may the reader anger or deduce from the text? What language may be learned from the text? What reading styles may be practiced? It is clear that, question deals with the aims of understanding, the writer’s purpose, question helps to recognize the text structure and the rest help to clarify the text content The answers to these questions will be a guide for the teacher in this stage Depending on their answers, the teacher will choose suitable activities for students which focus them on exploiting the meaning of the text, and develop their reading skills 3.1.3 The post-reading stage The post- reading stage is the final but not the least important stage of a reading lesson because it is time for students to apply what they have got from the text into real life communication In Williams’s opinions ( 1984: 39), the postreading stage aims at: To consolidate or reflect upon what has been read To relate the text to the learners’ own knowledge interest or views In summary, each of the reading stage carries its own aims and activities It is very effective if these three stages are combined flexibly and appropriately for an efficient reading lesson In the while- reading stage, it is necessary to help the students improve and develop sub- reading skills such as skimming, scanning, or reading for details If the students can acquire these skills, it is easier for them to understand efficiently the significance of the text To acquire these skills, students may be instructed to take part in various activities according to each skill There are numerous activities in this stage The teacher should be flexible in choosing them for their reading lessons In the process of reading, asking students to work in pairs or groups is also advisable This may enable students to feel more pleasant in reading, encourage them to work harder to improve and develop effective reading skills 3.1.4 Summary In this chapter, all the concerning theoretical background of reading comprehension has been presented First, some definitions of reading and reading comprehension basing on some linguistics scholars have been presented Second, teaching reading comprehension consisting of relationship between reading and other skills, the role of the teacher as well as the students in the three stages of a reading lesson have been reviewed II The English teaching and learning situations at Ham Rong high school Description of the students at Ham Rong high school The students at Ham Rong school had learnt English for seven years before they entered Ham Rong High school The level of English for grade 11 students is targeted at pre-intermediate level though a few actually reach the standard As their lower-secondary years were spent with the old text books and the grammar translation method, most students are, to some extent, good at grammar, but bad at listening, writing and speaking the target language Nowadays, together with improvements of other skills of English learning, reading comprehension has been put into consideration at secondary schools in Vietnam As time goes by, a lot of achievements in teaching reading comprehension can be clearly seen It is true that quality of teaching and learning reading comprehension in most secondary schools has been improved remarkably in terms of the teachers’ methods and the learners’ attitudes However, there are still some problems facing the reading teachers a well as the pupils In order to fulfill this study, two survey questionnaires were conducted to th the 11 form pupils and eight teachers of English, especially those who are teaching English to the 11th form students at Ham Rong high school to get more details of the reality of teaching and learning reading comprehension at whilereading stage This section deals with main points: Objects of the study, objectives of the study, methods of study Settings of the study The main objects of this study are: - One hundred 11th form secondary students at Ham Rong high school, most of them have been learning English for nearly six years - Eight teachers of English at Ham Rong high school, especially those who are teaching English to the 11th form students III Research methodology Subjects The questionnaire was designed for 100 students of grade 11 from classes (11B3, 11B6, 11B8, 11B9) at Ham Rong High School to get information to fulfill the aims of the study These students were randomly selected to answer the questionnaire The questionnaire for 100 grade 11 students tends to survey on the students’ experience and their interest in using the activities in a Reading lesson by answering “Yes” or “No” More importantly, the questionnaire will discover the problems the students have coped with when they learn reading skill and their own suggestions for better reading learning and teaching Survey Instruments 2.1 Questionnaire for the students The questionnaire for students includes 14 questions It took one month to deliver and collect 100 copies of the questionnaire The questionnaire is about whether they like using Role play, Repetition, Structure – based Activities, Question and Answer Exchanges, Discussing in pairs or groups, Picture description, Problem solving, Topic – based Discussion, Free-talks, Completing the Dialogues, Ordering – Rearrangement, Interview, Games/Songs or Information gap Table 1: Questions Number Questions Responds What you think about the importance of reading 9 10 comprehension? A Very important B Important as other language skills C Less important than other language skill D Not important at all What you think about the importance of developing reading comprehension skills? A Very important B Important C Not very important D No important at all What you think about reading texts in English 11 textbook? A Interesting C Suitable to student’ level B Boring D Not suitable to students’ level What are the students’ purposes in reading? A.To entertain themselves B.To reinforce vocabulary and grammatical structures C.To improve language skills D.To improve background knowledge E All of the above What are the students’ difficulties in reading? A.Lack of vocabulary B.Lack of grammatical C.Lack of background knowledge D.Lack of reading skills What the students to overcome difficulties? A.Wait for the ring answer when the teachers correct B.Ask the teachers for help C Discuss with friends to find out the right answer What are the students’ ways of reading texts A.Focus on every word for detailed understanding B.Read quickly for general understanding first and then focus on other specific information and new words Do you use the extra reading exercises in reading classes? A Yes B No Do you give students timeg reading exercises A Yes B No Do you think classroom organization in the whilereading stage important? A Yes B No 10 2.2 Presentation of statistical results The 100 copies of the questionnaire delivered to the students and teachers have been responded The data are analyzed in this part of the study in the following table which shows sequences of the responses for the questions available in the questionnaire In general, the survey of both teachers and students gives findings about their attitudes to teaching and learning reading texts and their working methods From the above data analysis, it can be stated that both teachers and students have positive attitudes to teaching and developing reading skill Teachers have been using different activities and exercises in the while- reading stage, but they are not appropriate and effective enough The teachers, in fact still apply traditional strategies in teaching reading Most of them focus on presenting new words and grammatical structures rather than instruct their students to use some useful techniques such as skimming and scanning, etc They have not made use of pair work and group work in the process of teaching reading That is why their reading lessons could not be effective Students consequently cannot develop their reading skills It is the reason why the teacher of English should think of more useful techniques that can work to get the best result of a reading lesson Table 2: Responds Number Responds (%) A Students : 35% ;Teachers :25% B Students: 62% ;Teachers: 75% C Students : % ;Teachers: 3% D Students: 5% ;Teachers: 1% A Students : 32%;Teachers :27% B Students: 62% ;Teachers: 75% C Students : % ;Teachers: 1% D Students: 3% ;Teachers: 1% A Students : 55% ;Teachers :60% B Students: 10% ; Teachers: 5% C Students : 20 %;Teachers: 25% D Students: 15% ;Teachers:10% A Students : 5% B Students: 30% C Students : 20 % D Students: 10% E Students: 70% A Students : 72%;Teachers :70% B Students: 25% ;Teachers: 20% C Students : 15 % ;Teachers:10% D Students: 30%;Teachers: 10% A Students : 55% B Students: 25% C Students : 25 % A Students : 65%;Teachers :30% B Students: 40% ;Teachers :70% A Students : 80%;Teachers :90% B Students: 20%;Teachers :15% A Students : 80%;Teachers :92% B Students: 20%;Teachers :10% 10 A Students : 70%;Teachers :85% B Students: 30%;Teachers :20% Table 2: The frequency of using while- reading activities and exercises 11 While- reading exercises Questions and answers T/F exercises Multiple choice exercises Finding the topic sentences Finding equivalents Blank filling Reordering exercises Completing exercises Matching exercises Finding paragraph topics Often Sometimes Never Students Teacher Teacher Students Students’ Teachers ’ s’ s’ ’ choice choice ’ choice choice choice choice (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) 82 85 18 15 0 72 80 25 20 85 85 11 15 15 30 20 61 65 10 45 45 36 45 60 65 33 35 24 25 61 65 13 10 35 35 56 60 27 25 61 70 10 5 26 25 69 70 The frequency of using activities and exercises in the while- reading stage is also investigated There are three levels (often, sometimes and never) for ten kinds of exercises From the data, teachers and students roughly have the same opinion about the frequency of using these exercises Teachers apparently often used some common type of exercises in their reading lessons: Questions and answers, True/False questions and Multiple- choice questions Using only such common kinds of exercises frequently may make students feel bored It is advisable to use some other ones for a change such as Finding topic sentences, Finding synonyms and antonyms or Finding equivalents, which are rarely conducted in the reading class IV SOME SUGGESTED TECHNIQUES USED IN THE WHILE READING STAGE TO DEVELOP THE READING SKILL FOR THE 11 TH FORM STUDENTS As mentioned above, the while- reading stage is regarded as the main part 12 of a reading lesson This stage often occupies most of the time in class, and accounts largely for the improvement of students’ reading comprehension skill The students must be active and practice as much as possible To help students understand reading texts and at the same time develop their reading skill, the teacher must play a role as a guiding person He should give his students clear purposes while reading (for example, reading for general ideas, reading for specific information, and reading for further understanding) with clear instructions for various kinds of activities according to each purpose Based on the nature of reading and teaching reading in addition to what is found from the survey, some useful techniques are suggested to help students to read better at the while- reading stage All the example suggested question types are based on reading texts in “English” textbook Questions and answers After teaching new vocabulary or introducing the text, etc the teacher asks his students to read the text silently for the first time This activity enables them to gain the global understanding of the text, identify main ideas before going into the details of the text For example, in Unit 4: “Volunteer work ” (English 11: page 46), the students may be asked to answer the questions after skimming the text: What is the main idea of this passage? What young volunteers work in the homes of sick or old people? Is there a voluntary organization called Big Brothers? For instance, in the text “Friendship” (English 11: page 13, the students may be asked to answer the question: Which of the choices A, B, C or D most adequately sums up the ideas of the whole passage? A A friend in need is a friend indeed B Conditions of true friendship C Features of a good friend D Friends and acquaintances When doing the multiple choices exercises, the students need to understand the stem of the item as well as the options It is necessary to help the students immediately when they have problems with the question stems True/ False questions True/ False questions may be used to draw the students’ attention to the main ideas of the text The students are given a list of statements about the text and they must decide whether they are true or false according to what they read There are several possibilities of this kind of questions For example, in the text “Celebrations” (English 11: 90), the students have to decide if the following statements are T, F or NG according to the text Decide whether the statements are true (T), (F) or (NG) 13 Tet is always on 20th February on the Western calendar According to the text, for people anywhere in the world the beginning of spring is the start of a new year Tet used to be longer than it is nowadays According to the text, “lucky money” is given to everyone at Tet Kimquat trees are popular both in the North and in the South of Vietnam People try to be nice and polite to each other because they want to have good luck on New Year’s Day When asking the students to answer the multiple choice questions and the True/ False questions, the teacher needs to be aware that the students can guess the answer rather than base on the text To exploit the text efficiently, it is plausible to ask the students to discuss their answers in pairs or in groups, and give reasons for their choice Multiple choice questions This is one of the most common types of exercises used in reading comprehension It can be used to focus on the whole text and enables students to understand the text by giving them clues His kind of questions certainly contains a statement and a set of possible answers Students’ task is to select the best one form the answers depending on the text For instance, in the text “Friendship” (English 11: 13, the students may be asked to answer the question: Which of the choices A, B, C or D most adequately sums up the ideas of the whole passage? A A friend in need is a friend indeed B Conditions of true friendship C Features of a good friend D Friends and acquaintances When doing the multiple choices exercises, the students need to understand the stem of the item as well as the options It is necessary to help the students immediately when they have problems with the question stems Finding topic sentences One of the useful activities which helps students understand the main points of the text is finding the topic sentence for each paragraph in the text That key sentence is often at the beginning of each paragraph The students can look for it to get the idea of what follows For example, for the text “Hobbies” (English 11: 146), the teacher may ask his students to skim the text and underline the topic sentence in each paragraph Paragraph 2: The hobby I like most is playing my guitar My uncle, who is an accomplished guitarist, taught me how to play Now I can play a few simple tunes I have even begun to sing while playing the guitar, but I have not been very successful at this My uncle tells me that all I need is to practise regularly and I 14 should be able to it He is very good at accompanying people singing with his guitar and I admire him very much Paragraph 3: Another hobby of mine is keeping fish I have a modest little glass fish tank where I keep a variety of little fish Some of them were bought from the shop while some others were collected from the rice field near my house They look so beautiful swimming about in the tank I love watching them and my mother loves watching them, too Finding equivalents In these types of exercise, the teacher may ask his students to find the equivalents for the reference used in the whole text or a short paragraph of the text For instance, in order to get a detailed understanding of the st and the 2nd paragraph in the text “The wonders of the world” (English 11: 178), the students may be asked to find the equivalent for reference “The Great Pyramid of Giza was built by the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu around the year 1560 B.C The purpose of this huge stone pyramid was to serve as a tomb when he died and to protect the burial chamber from the weather and from thieves who might try to steal the treasures and belongings here The Great Pyramid is believed to have been built over a 20- year period First, the site was prepared and then the huge blocks of stone were transported and put in their places When it was built, the Great Pyramid was 147 meters high on a base of 230 meters square It ranked as the tallest structure on earth for more than 43 centuries, only to be surpassed in height in the nineteenth century A.D The structure consisted of approximately million blocks of stone, each weighing about 2.5 tons.” he who it it each Blank- filling The teacher uses this kind of activity to focus his students on specific information in the text The students have to use information in the text to fill in the provided blanks by inserting a single word or a group of words Filling in the blank is generally used in the section of scanning for detail in the textbook English 11 For example, in “Sources of energy” (English 11: 124) one environment alternative limited unlimited sources energy fuels We need energy to live and work Our major source of (1) is oil Oil is (2) kind of fossil fuel The amount of fossil (3) in the world is (4) Therefore, we must save it, and at the same time, we must find new sources of energy Geothermal heat and nuclear power are (5) sources of energy They can give us electricity Other alternative (6) are the sun, waves and water 15 These sources are not only (7) and available but also clean and safe for the (8) People should develop and use them more and more in the future Reordering information or events This type of activity can be most commonly used with the text organized in chronological sequence For example, with the text “Celebrations” (English 11: 90), it is useful to ask the students to put the following things in the right order Homes are often decorated with plants and flowers Many people go to the pagoda to pray for a happy year for themselves and their family Tet marks the beginning of spring and, for a agrarian people, the start of a new year Streets are decorated with colored lights and red banners Completing tables and diagrams Completing tables and diagrams is often used for texts with the ideas organized in numeration or in comparison and contrast For instance, the students have to complete the diagram after reading the text “Nature in danger” (English 11: 114) Human beings have a great influence on the world changing affecting destroying As a result Matching heading In this activity, the students are provided with a list of headings which is the summary of each paragraph in the text Their task is to glance quickly at the entire paragraph and match the suitable heading for each If they can find out the right title for each paragraph, they may understand efficiently all the main points conveyed in the text For example, for the text “Space conquest” (English 11: 166), ask the students to read the text and match the headings for paragraphs Paragraph A The tragic accident Paragraph B The lift- off 16 Paragraph C Congratulations Paragraph D A view on Earth Paragraph E Uncertainties In itself, this is not entirely an exercise in skimming because the students sometimes need to read some paragraphs carefully to choose an appropriate heading However, the students should be encouraged to it as quickly as possible to see how quickly they understand the gist of the text To avoid the obviousness of the final item, it would be better if the teacher give more headings than needed The students, as a result, will read more carefully to find out the correct title for the last paragraph 10 Finding paragraph topics Finding paragraph topics is more difficult than the previous activities Instead of finding the topic sentences and underlining them or looking at a list of headings and matching to suitable paragraphs, the students have to read the whole paragraph and figure out the topic revealed in each For instance, in the text “Nature in danger” (English 11: 115), the teacher may ask students to skim over the text and write down a phrase that expresses the topic of each paragraph Paragraph was done as an example Paragraph 1: Paragraph 2: Paragraph 3: Paragraph 4: To sum up, there have been a number of activities in the while- reading stage presented in this chapter In an attempt to develop different sub- reading skills such as skimming or scanning, the teacher should direct his students to some certain techniques In the process of teaching reading, it is necessary to take notice of some points There are no fixed reading techniques A technique can be used separately or integrated with others More importantly, because teaching is a creative and artistic process, the teacher must be flexible when using different activities in the while- reading stage for a particular text Depending on teaching and learning conditions, the reading text and the students’ level is effective to choose the most suitable and effective techniques to help students develop their reading skills The teacher may ask his students to complete every reading task in a limited period of time since it will force them to try more, accordingly help them build up and develop their reading skills What is more, a reading lesson would be better if the teacher asks his students to discuss their answers and opinions in pairs or groups eliciting their responses Reading in this way actually makes them feel more relaxed in while they read and helps them read more effectively 17 CONCLUSION I Results obtained The study has presented some useful techniques accompanied by a number of activities to develop certain reading skills for students in the while- reading stage, i.e reading for general understanding, for specific information and for further understanding Students can skim for the gist, and then scan to locate for specific information or read more for further understanding For each technique, the teachers may ask students to find topic sentences when skimming, complete tables while scanning or guess meaning of unfamiliar words in context for further understanding All these techniques and activities are suggested basing on the theory of reading and teaching reading comprehension It is also based on the present situation of teaching and learning reading in the secondary schools at Ham Rong high school, especially in the while- reading stage The actual teaching and learning status was clarified through the two survey questionnaires and some class observations at Ham Rong high school The statistics indicate that both students and teachers have positive attitudes toward teaching and learning reading, but in the while- reading activities the teachers should apply more techniques in their reading lessons to develop the reading skills There are actually a lot of activities in the while- reading stage but teachers must be flexible in using them They should depend on the reading texts, their students’ level or the learning condition to provide their students with suitable and useful activities to exploit the text efficiently and develop their effective reading skills In conclusion, from what have been presented, the study is hoped to be useful and referred to by secondary school teachers for the while- reading activities in their reading lessons II Suggestion for further study Due to the shortage of time and the lack of practical experience, all the issues of the teaching process cannot be covered as a whole It is expected that the further studies will be the continuance for this one, which suggest techniques to the remained stages, the pre- reading and the post- reading stage The quality of teaching and learning reading in English as a result can be step by step 18 improved Furthermore, mistakes are also inevitable in the study because of the limitation of time, references and ability Comments and recommendations would be highly appreciated to better the study both in content and in the form XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG Thanh Hóa, ngày 19 tháng năm 2016 ĐƠN VỊ Tôi xin cam đoan SKKN viết, khơng chép nội dung người khác (Ký ghi rõ họ tên) 19 REFERENCES Tiếng Anh 11, Hoàng Văn Vân – Bộ Giáo Dục Đào Tạo (2006) Tony Buzan (2014) The speed reading book Nhà xuất tổng hợp TP Hồ Chí Minh Nunan, D., Language teaching methodology, Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd, 1991 Steil, L.et all, Effective Reading, Mc Graw Hill, Inc, 1983 Wardhaugh, R., An Introduction to Sociolinguitics, Basic Blackwee Ltd, 1986 Lê Huy Lâm Lingua forum.TOEFLiBT m-Reading NXB Tổng Hợp TPHCM 2007 Hòang Văn Vân, Nguyễn Thị Chi - Hòang Thị Xuân Hoa , Đổi phương pháp dạy Tiếng Anh Trung học phổ thông Việt Nam NXBGD 2006 20 ... The English teaching and learning situations at Ham Rong high school Description of the students at Ham Rong high school The students at Ham Rong school had learnt English for seven years before... useful techniques to develop the reading comprehension skills in the while- reading stage for the 11 th form in Phan Dang Luu high school 1.3 Scope of the study Due to the limitation, all the techniques. .. students in the while- reading stage, i.e reading for general understanding, for specific information and for further understanding Students can skim for the gist, and then scan to locate for specific