Strategic communicative activities in teaching reading skill

I INTRODUCTION Rationale Language is the most important means for people to communicate to each other Nowadays, with the non-stop development of society and the tendency of integration among the countries over the world, English becomes an official and effective international communicative language English is widely used in many fields of life such as science, technology, education As a result, more and more people are studying English with the hope that they can meet the requirements of society in general and of their jobs in particular In education, especially, for High school grade, English now is a compulsory subject not only in teaching and learning but also in many important examinations It is, therefore, comprehensible why nowadays students learning English with a great concern They not only study English because it is compulsory but also because they are interested in English and they are aware well of the importance of English for their job in the future As a matter of fact, it is not easy to master a foreign language at all Learning English is not an exception It requires many sub-skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing Being a receptive skill, reading also has some certain requirements to the students, not just a process of understanding grammar structures mechanically In fact, many students are very good at grammar and vocabulary but they cannot finish the reading tasks successfully Of course, there are many ways to teach reading skill, however, the given question is that which way is the most effective for the students Nowadays, we are trying to teach English in a communicative way In real teaching in high school, not many teachers use communicative activities in English classes, especially in reading lessons They only teach students reading skills through mechanical drills in the textbook Thus, the author caries out a study on the useful communicative activities in English reading classes to somewhat help students to improve their reading skill in particular and their language competence in general For the reasons above, the author decides to choose the topic “Strategic Communicative Activities to Motivate Grade 10 in Reading Skill ” as her experience ideas Aims and Objectives of the Study The aims and objectives of the study are as follows: - To provide some basic knowledge ranging from Communicative language teaching to communication in real life - To make an investigation into the real situation of using communicative activities in teaching and learning English reading skill at Dong Son II High school - To provide some suggested communicative activities to partly improve reading skills for the 10th form students To fully achieve these aims, the study has to answer the following questions: * What are Communicative Activities? What is “reading”? * What is the real situation of using communicative activities in English reading lessons for the 10th form students at Dong Son II High School? * What kinds of Communicative Activities can be applied in English reading classes to improve reading skill for the 10th students? Scope of the Study Furthermore, in this experience, the author also attempts to carry out the research on the following two subjects: - Situation of teaching and learning English reading skill at Dong Son II High School From these, the author’s purpose is to give some suggested communicative activities as a technique to partly improve reading skills for the 10th form students - 50 students of class 10A4 (2018 -2019) Method of the Study To finish this study, the author has used quantitative and qualitative methods First, the author collects and analyzes the materials which refer to Communicative Language Teaching, Reading Skill and Communicative Activities in English reading classes Then, she conducts a survey to get information about the real situation about teaching and learning English reading at Dong Son II High School After that, the author analyzes and synthesizes the collected data Finally, the author discusses about some suggested communicative activities in English reading classes for the 10th form students II DEVELOPMENT A THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) The Aims of CLT Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) began in Britain in the 1960s as a replacement to the earlier structural method called Situational Language Teaching The goal of CLT is to develop what Hymes (1972, cited in Richards and Rodgers 2001: 159) referred to as “communicative competence” This term was referred in order to contrast to Chomsky’s theory of grammatical competence For Chomsky, linguistic theory was mainly concentrated on the mastery of grammatical structures, on the knowledge of sentence building, the ability to produce grammatically correct sentences in a language In contrast, Hymes’s theory of communicative competence focused on what a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech of community In other words, communicative competence can be understood as the ability to use language correctly and appropriately to accomplish the communication goals in authentic and meaningful situations Communicative competence is measured by determining if, and to what degree, the goals of interaction are achieved In addition, CLT also developed procedures for the teaching of the four skills that knowledge the interdependence of language and communication Because communicative principles can be applied to the teaching of any skill, at any level, and because of the wide variety of classroom activities, description of typical classroom procedures used in a lesson based on CLT principles is not feasible In CLT, traditional procedures are not rejected but they are reinterpreted and expanded Teaching points are introduced in dialogue form, grammatical items are isolated for controlled practice, and then freer activities are provided Pair and group work is suggested to encourage students to use and practice functions and forms It can be said that CLT procedures are evolutionary rather than revolutionary Teacher’s Roles and Learner’s Roles in CLT The aims of CLT, “communicative competence” also imply new roles in the classroom for teacher and learners So how the roles of teacher and learners change in CLT? In traditional second language classroom, teacher was the center; teacher controlled activities in the class Teacher talks all the time and students only listen and write down everything However, in CLT, the role of teacher and students has changed a lot 3 Teacher’s Roles According to Breen and Candlind (1980:99, cited in Richards and Rodgers, 2001:167), teacher in CLT has some main roles following: The first role is to facilitate the communicate process between all participants in the classroom and the various activities and texts The second role is to act as an independent participant within the learningteaching group The third role for the teacher is that of researcher and learner, with much to contribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observed experience of the nature of learning and organizational capacities Other roles assumed for teacher are needed analyst, counselor, and group process manager CLT procedures often require teachers to acquire less teacher-centered classroom management skills It is the teacher’s responsibility to organize the classroom as a setting for communication and communicative activities Learner’s Roles Since the teacher’s role in CLT is less dominant than in a teacher-centered method, students are seen as more responsible managers of their own learning According to Breen and Candlind (1980:110, cited in Richards and Rodgers, 2001:166), the learners can be negotiators - between the self, the learning process, and the object of learning – emerges from and interacts with the role of joint negotiator within the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which the group undertakes The implication for the learner is that he should contribute as much as he gains, and thereby learn in an interdependent way Additionally, in CLT, students are expected to interact primarily with each other than with the teacher and to engage in negotiating meaning actively The correction of errors maybe absent or infrequent Thus, CLT procedures should be focused on learner-centered instructions to enhance the students’ communicative competence II Reading Skill Definition of Reading Reading is an important skill in order to master a language However, it is not easy to establish a clear definition of reading The ways of understanding about reading are different, depending on the reading purposes of the readers Most educators would agree that the major purpose of reading should be the construction of meaning - comprehending and actively responding to what is read From this purpose, there have been two main ways to understand about the term “reading” as follows: First, “reading is a complex information processing skill in which the readers interact with the text to (re)create meaningful discourse” (Silberstein, 1993, p.12) It can be inferred from this definition that reading is not just a process of picking up the literal meaning by understanding the meaning of all words in the given text The readers, when reading a text, have to coordinate a lot of information related to the text to interpret it in a meaningful way By this way, the readers can facilitate reading comprehension tasks and also understand the text better Second, “reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the text being read and the context of the reading situation” (cited from http://www.michiganreading.org.) In this point of view, in order to understand the text thoroughly, the readers have to use their own knowledge to interpret the information in the given text In addition, it is possible that the meaning of a text varies depending on each reading context; therefore, a good reader should be an active and flexible one who can apply various reading strategies to infer the meaning of a text in different situations As mentioned above, there have been many ways of defining reading, however, these are two of the most widely cited and agreed-upon definitions From these definitions, we can see that the readers play an important role in deducing the text in order to realize communicative functions Thus, it is necessary for the students learning how to read in an effective way The Importance of Reading Like listening, reading is a receptive skill with many sub skills just as involved in listening Reading is very important in real life in general and in language learning in particular “Reading may contribute significantly to competence in a second language This is a good reason, in fact, to hypothesize that reading makes a contribution to overall competence, to all four skills” (Krashen & Terrel, 1983:131) From this point of view, reading can enhance the learners’ general language competence The students’ ultimate objective is to use language in real communication Thus, by reading a lot, students can improve their English background knowledge and their English vocabulary as well These things can help students use language creatively in real life In addition, reading also makes a great contribution to other language skills We know that the four language skills are closely related to each other not only in teaching but in learning as well When reading, students have a chance to enrich their vocabulary, grammatical structures, and their knowledge about the real world, etc For this reason, the improvement of reading can promote further improvement in other skills such as speaking, listening and writing as well In order to be good language learners, it is necessary for students to master all four language skills together B SITUATION OF TEACHING READING SKILL AT DONG SON II HIGH SCHOOL Dong Son II High School was founded in 2002 in countryside Most of the students in Dong Son II High School come from poor farming family where they have quite poor learning conditions The students here not have much time for learning, especially for learning English There is only a small number of students paying attention to learning English It is easy to understand why teaching English seems more difficult and complicating for these students than those from the other high schools As a matter of fact, a successful class is the one in which students play the center role and communicative competence is the goal of teaching Therefore, it is actually necessary for the teacher to monitor the class in such a way that students have as many chances as possible to communicate with each other when fulfilling a task Using communicative activities is one of the most effective ways They help students to become more active and more confident when they express their understanding about the reading text Through communicative activities the students also understand the lesson better In fact, communicative activities are available, however, how and in what way to apply those activities in real teaching and learning English is still a question for many teachers C.SOME APPLIED ACTIVITIES The teaching practice at Dong Son II High School has made the author herself realize that teaching and learning English quite boring; students sometimes not motivated in learning the lessons She has also had a chance to observe English reading classes taught by all of six teachers in Dong Son II High School It is obvious that each teacher has their own ways to teach English reading and guide students to solve reading tasks in the textbook Nowadays, we are trying to teach English following Communicative Approach However, the fact is that many teachers still use the traditional method of teaching They mainly focus on grammatical structures and vocabulary They guide students how to use English grammar to exercises in the textbook Some teachers also teach their students how to translate a piece of English language into Vietnamese one For reading skill in particular, some teachers often use only the textbook again and again They teach students by asking them to follow the mechanical drills in the textbook Therefore, most of the students have no intrinsic motivation in learning English reading As a result, English reading skills of students at Dong Son II High School is not good There are also some teachers providing extra communicative activities in reading classes In such classes, the students are able to complete successfully the reading tasks and understand the reading passage better In addition, the students feel more interested in reading lessons and have more motivation in their English learning as well Therefore, the result of English learning will be higher The author has herself also had the opportunity to check the effectiveness of applying reading communicative activities in teaching reading when she gives the lessons to the students She has seen that by using communicative activities, the students have had more motivation in joining the lessons and they have also understood the text more thoroughly To sum up, using communicative activities in English reading classes brings many benefits for students in learning English Therefore, it should be widespread applied in teaching and learning English Consequently, the students will not only improve their reading skills but also other language skills will be better day by day As mentioned above, communicative activities are various and can be applied in teaching all four language skills Thus, within this study, the author only suggests some communicative activities in English reading classes for the 10 th form students The author hopes that these activities will help students understand the text most effectively and partly improve their reading skills Out of ten 1.1.Types of activity: pair or group work 1.2 Aims: This activity aims at checking students’ understanding about the content of the text and improving students’ interaction in the class as well 1.3 Instruction: The teacher asks the students to write the numbers from to 10 after each sentence in the text Number “1” means “I understood almost nothing in this sentence”, number “10” means “I understood everything in this sentence” The numbers from 2-9 are arranged following the degree of the students’ understanding from the lower degree to the higher one Let the students work in pairs or groups Students show their scores to each other and then the students with the higher score will help the lower one understand more * Application: Almost of units in the textbook can apply this type of activity for the postreading part After finishing reading tasks in while-reading, the teacher can ask the students to move around class to ask each other about whatever they not understand in the text Finding Synonyms 2.1 Types of activity: pair work or group work 2.2 Aims: This kind of activity can help students enrich their vocabulary and from that they can understand the text better 2.3 Instruction: Asking the students to find 5-6 favorite words from the text (they should be important words in the text) and then discuss in groups to find the synonyms of these words Each student has their own words Thus, after exchanging the ideas in groups, students can enrich their vocabulary Moreover, because the students know more words in the text, their understanding about the text is also improved 2.4.Application: The teacher can apply this type of activity independently or combine it with matching tasks in while-reading After first reading, the teacher asks the students to work in groups to discuss about the synonyms of their favorite words Through this activity, the students can matching tasks more easily Many units in the new textbook can use this kind of activity such as: Unit 3: People’ Background (Task 1) Unit 4: Special Education (Task 1) Unit 7: The Mass Media (Task 1) Unit 10: Conservation (Task 1) Get it wrong 3.1 Types of activity: pair work or group work 3.2 Aims: This activity is for detailed checking of the text for specific information or summarizing the reading text 3.3 Instruction: The teacher prepares a summary passage (including some deliberate mistakes) of the text, copies it into many pieces as the hand-outs and delivers them to each pair or group of students After that, the teacher asks the students to discuss to cross out the mistakes and substitute the correct information 3.4 Application: “Get it wrong” activity can be used for both while-reading and postreading parts In some lessons, the teacher can combine this activity with True/ False tasks to conduct a summary passage including both right and wrong information The following units can apply this kind of activity: * Unit 3: People’s Background (Task 2) * Unit 7: The Mass Media (Task 2) * Unit 10: Conservation (Task 2) * Unit 14: The World Cup (Task 3) Role Play 4.1.Types of activity: pair work, group work or teacher-whole class 4.2.Aims: checking students’ understanding about the text and improving their communicative competence 4.3.Instruction: The teacher calls a group of students coming up before class and playing the roles of someone rather than themselves and using the language appropriately to the new context Other students play the role of audience and give comments if necessary 4.4.Application: Role play is usually used for post-reading activity after students finishing reading tasks in while-reading Some lessons can apply this type of activity as follows: * Unit 1: A Day in the Life of… (After you read) * Unit 8: The Story of my Village (After you read) * Unit 11: National Parks (After you read) Students Interview 5.1 Types of activity: pair work or group work 5.2 Aims: This activity can help students improve their scanning skill by asking and answering questions to get information about the text 5.3 Instruction: Students should come up with a variety of questions relating to the passage and go around class to interview other students about the information they need 5.4 Application: This type of activity can be applied in while-reading and post-reading as well For while-reading, the teacher can combine it with the task “Answering the questions” Students can use both the given questions in the task and their own questions to interview each other For post-reading, this activity can be used for free talking Students can move around the class and ask any question relating to the passage to help them understand the text thoroughly Almost every unit in the textbook can apply this kind of activity Completing Network 6.1 Types of activity: group work or whole class 6.2 Aims: Improving students’ vocabulary and checking their understanding about the text by finding out related information basing on a key word 6.3 Instruction: The teacher gives a key word on the board and then asks students to find out as much as possible the words relating that key word (the key word is about the main point of the passage) 6.4 Application: The teacher can use this activity for pre-reading or post-reading part in almost every unit in the textbook For example, in unit 16 “Historical Places”, the teacher can check students’ understanding about the passage by asking them to complete the network below: location • Ly dynasty • Suggested answers:location • Confusion ways • Royal examination • Briliant scholars • Between 1076 - 1779 • Talented men Crossword Puzzle • Types of activity: group work • Aims: This activity is aimed at improving students’ guessing skill by finding out the key word that relates to the topic of the lesson and arising their vocabulary as well • Instruction: The teacher divides class into small groups of – students and then teacher distributes the crossword puzzle handouts for students to in their own groups After finding out the key word, the students can somewhat guess at the content of the lesson • Application: This type of activity can be applied in most of the units for “Before you read” part Lucky Number • Type of activity: group work • Aims of activity: This kind of activity is aimed at helping students to improve their scanning skill by answering the questions about the content of the reading passage • Instruction: For this game, the students can work in group of six members The teacher prepares 6-8 cards with numbers in one side and the questions about the content of the text in the other side of the card 10 Each group will choose a number they like and after choosing the number, they have to answer the question in the other side of the card The other groups also have to listen to answer those questions because if that group can not answer the questions, the others will have chances to answer them Each correct answer will bring the group one mark There are also one lucky card and one unlucky card For the lucky card, the group has one mark without answering any question In contrast, with the unlucky card, the group will lose one mark The group with the highest mark will be the winner • Application: This type of activity can be applied in while-reading phase The teacher can also use this game for the task Comprehension Questions in the textbook Most of the lessons in the textbook can apply ‘Lucky Number” activity By this activity, the author could make sure that the students will have more enthusiasm to enjoy the reading lessons Sample Reading Communicative Activities All the above suggested communicative activities are designed for teaching reading in general, depending on different reading passage and on the level of students The teachers should be flexible to applying these activities in reality of teaching English reading During her practice teaching at Dong Son II High School, the author has applied some of them when teaching reading lessons to the students She herself finds them very effective and her students were able to understand the text better As a result, the students’ reading skill has also improved as well Below are the models of activities that have applied in her real teaching Because the scope of the study, the author just presents here types and instruction of these activities briefly, not all the steps that she has performed in details The unit that the author taught during her teaching practice is: Unit 13: Film and Cinema Unit 13: Film and Cinema (Taught at class 10A4 – Dong Son II School) I Warm-up Activity Crossword Puzzle *Instruction: The teacher shows the crossword and the questions on the board and then divides class into groups: Group A and Group B Each group chooses the horizontal number in turn and then answers the question for that number If right, the group gets one mark, if wrong, the group loses their chance The group which finds out the key word gets marks At the end, the group with higher marks will be the winner *Model: C A R T O O N 11 T I C T O T S D A M O T I N E M A R I D & R E C Y J C T O R E R R Y Questions: A kind of film for children The person who makes a film It is a tragic love story film about the sinking of a luxury liner (ship) A kind of film that makes you laugh It is a famous cartoon film and the main characters are a mouse and a cat A famous person/ actor/ actress in a film Suggested answers: Cartoon Director Titanic Comedy Tom & Jerry Star Key word: CINEMA II New lesson Part I: BEFORE YOU READ *Requirement: Answer the questions • Do you want to see a film at the cinema or on TV? Why? • Can you name some of the films you have seen? • What kind of films you like to see? The author has chosen Students Interview for this part in this lesson *Instruction: Students work in group of four They ask each other these questions Students can also ask their own questions that relate to the topic of this lesson By answering these questions, students can guess the main content of the coming lesson Part II: WHILE YOU READ There are three tasks in this part: Task 1: Finding words from context Task 2: Passage Comprehension Task 3: Identifying the main idea For the length of time for the lesson is limited in 45 minutes, the author has guided students to task1 and task in normal way In task 2, she has applied activity Lucky Number for this task Task 1: *Requirement: Find the word in the passage that can match with the definition on the right column 1………… a film-making industry 12 2………… b series of related events or actions 3………… c a period of 10 years 4………… d quickly and in a short time 5………… e part of a film 6………… f a person in a film *Instruction: First, the author has instructed students to read through the definition provided in the task to get the general meaning of the word For this kind of exercise, the students have to identify the part of speech of the word to match each definition Suggestion: in sentences 1, 2, 3, 5, the words needed to fill in should be a noun whereas in sentence it should be an adverb The teacher asked the students to work in pairs to find out the answers and asked them to say in which line the word is located in the text *Suggested answers: -cinema: line -sequence: line -decade: line -rapidly: line -scene: line -character: line Task *Requirement: Answer these questions When did the history of the cinema begin? What did scientists discover at that time? Did films in the early days have sounds? When were audiences able to see long films? When was sound introduced? What forms of films appeared as the old silent films were being replaced by spoken ones? The teacher has used “Lucky number” activity for this type of exercise *Instruction: - The teacher prepared cards and numbered from to Each number for one question, one of them is unlucky card and one is lucky - Dividing the class into groups and asking the students to choose the number in turns For the card with question, the groups have to answer the question If right, they get one mark, if wrong, they lose one mark and also lose their chance for the other group For the lucky card, they get one mark without answering any question For the unlucky card, they lose one mark - The group with the higher mark will be the winner With this activity, the author could make sure that students have understood the content of the text better and they are also motivated in reading lesson more *Suggested answers: 13 The history of cinema began in the early 19th century (Line 1) The scientists discovered that when a sequence of still pictures was set in motion, they could give the feeling of movement (Line 2-3) No, they did not (Line 5, line 13-15) Audiences were able to see long film in the early 1910s (Line 9) Sound was introduced at the end of the 1920s (Line 14) It was the musical cinema (Line 17) Task *Requirement: Decide which of the options below to be the best title for the passage: A The Story of a Film B A Brief History of Cinema C The History of the Film Industry *Instruction: For this type of exercise, the teacher can ask the students to discuss in pairs and find out the main idea of the text From that, they could find out the differences between three options A, B, C and choose the best title for the passage *Suggested answers: C The History of the Film Industry Part III: AFTER YOU READ *Requirement: Talk about the passage, using the cues below 19th century 1910s 1920s 1905 1915 *Instruction: The teachers asked the students to work in group of four to ask each other about what happened in these points of time *Suggested answers: 19th century: History of the cinema began 1905: Films were about 5-10 minutes long 1910s: The first long film was made 1915: Cinemas were first built 1920s: Sound was introduced and old silent films were replaced by spoken films • EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS After I conducted the teaching experiments about this topic in class 10A4, I find out their positive feedback which improves their reading skill more Result before and after applying the suggested communicative activities in reading in textbook ‘Tieng Anh 10’ Class/ Grade Number of Reading skill Before applying (20172018) 14 student s 10A4/ 45 After applying (2018-2019) Excellent 8% 24% Good 40 % 60% Average 50% 16% Weak 2% 0% Bad 0% 0% III CONCLUSION RECAPITULATION It cannot deny that reading is an important skill for students to master a language The goal of reading following CLT is not only to practice pronunciation or to learn grammatical structures only but also develop students’ communicative competence Therefore, in the first chapter of this study, the author has briefly presented some general knowledge about CLT, Communication Continuum such as characteristics of communicative activities and types of communicative activities in Language Teaching In addition, the author also has attempted to make an overview on reading skill as well as the importance of reading, the principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroom, and types of reading activities in language classes This experience has been intended for the analysis of the common characteristics of the 10th form students and of the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10” and the design of a reading lesson for the 10 th for the students as well The main part of this experience is the survey of the English teaching and learning situation at Dong Son II High School It is obvious that applying communicative activities in teaching reading is very effective; however, in fact it is not widely applied by many English teachers The result gained from the survey helps to see more clearly about the situation of applying communicative activities in reading lessons at high school This experience has been concerned with some suggested communicative activities in reading lessons for the 10th form students Based on the design of a reading lesson in the new textbook, the author has synthesized the main types of reading exercises in the textbook and then provided some suggested communicative activities in English reading classes This experience has also presented some sample communicative activities that the author has applied in her real teaching at Dong Son II High School In conclusion, we have conducted the experience on applying communicative activities in English reading classes for the 10 th form students 15 Hopefully, after applying these activities in real teaching and learning English, students can master English more successfully and can use it in real communication with each other SUGESSTION FOR FURTHER STUDIES As the limitation of an assignment and the author’s knowledge as well, the study only mentions about some typical communicative activities to improve English reading skills for the 10th form students For the further studies on this matter, the author attempts to give some suggestions as follows: * A Study on Communicative Activities in English Reading Classes for th the 11 Form Students * A Study on Task-based Activities in English Reading Classes for the 10 th Form Students * A Study on Communicative Activities in Teaching Speaking for the 10 th Form Students The confirmation of the headmaster Thanh Hoa, May 15th 2019 I assure this is my own experience initiative, not copying the contents of other people Written by Bui Thi Le Thu 16 DANH MỤC CÁC ĐỀ TÀI SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM ĐÃ ĐƯỢC HỘI ĐỒNG ĐÁNH GIÁ XẾP LOẠI CẤP PHÒNG GD&ĐT, CẤP SỞ GD&ĐT VÀ CÁC CẤP CAO HƠN XẾP LOẠI TỪ C TRỞ LÊN Họ tên tác giả: Bùi Thị Lệ Thu Chức vụ đơn vị công tác: Giáo viên trường THPT Đông Sơn TT Tên đề tài SKKN Phương pháp dạy giới từ cho học sinh THPT Kết Cấp đánh đánh giá giá xếp loại xếp loại (Phòng, Sở, (A, B, Tỉnh ) C) Sở GD&ĐT C Năm học đánh giá xếp loại 2008-2009 17 18 ... enjoy the reading lessons Sample Reading Communicative Activities All the above suggested communicative activities are designed for teaching reading in general, depending on different reading passage... to Communicative Language Teaching, Reading Skill and Communicative Activities in English reading classes Then, she conducts a survey to get information about the real situation about teaching. .. flexible to applying these activities in reality of teaching English reading During her practice teaching at Dong Son II High School, the author has applied some of them when teaching reading lessons