Improving grade 12 students’ reading comprehension through scanning technique at muong lat high school

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGMUONG LAT HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE IMPROVING GRADE 12 STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH SCANNING TECHNIQUE AT MUONG LAT HIGH

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

MUONG LAT HIGH SCHOOL

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

IMPROVING GRADE 12 STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION THROUGH SCANNING TECHNIQUE

AT MUONG LAT HIGH SCHOOL

The author: Nguyễn Thị Thoa Job position: Teacher

Experience initiative about: English

THANH HOÁ – 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION

1

1.1 The reason of selecting the topic 1

1.2 Objectives of the study 1

1.3 Scope of the study 1

1.4 Methodology 2

2 CONTENTS

2

2.1 Theoretical background 2

2.2 Reality 2

2.3 Measure implementation 3

2.3.1 Training students the scanning technique 3

2.3.2 Identifying question types 4

2.3.3 Skills for stated questions 5

2.3.4 Skill for unstated questions 9

2.4 The results of the study 10

3 CONCLUSION AND PROPOSAL

12

3.1 Conclusion 13

3.2 Proposal 13

3.2.1 To teachers 13

2

3.2.2 To students 13

3

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 The reason of selecting the topic

It can not be denied that English plays an important role in the process of the industrialization, modernization and globalization Being good at English hepls the learners feel more confident in their study as well as in their job, so teaching and learning English have been paid more attention than ever before In Vietnamese context, as it can be seen, English is now taught in all school at all levels, a lot of English laguage centres are set up continuously, teachers of English are carefully trained with strick requirement

Reading is the most important skill of all for most students of English throughout the world Both English teachers and students need to improve and master four important language skills, i.e listening, speaking, reading, and writing By reading, the students are able to access much information, vocabularies as well as necessary structures to develop other skills With strengthened reading skills, students will make greater progress and attain greater development in all academic areas

For most of the students at Muong Lat high school, they reported that they found learning English quite difficult especially learning reading skill The reading passages are often too long and contain a lot of new words whereas their repertoire of vocabulary was very poor They also stated that they had not been introduced any strategies that helped improve reading skill When doing reading comprehension exercises, students often read the passage word by word, translated the passage word by word, understood the passage word by word first, then they asked the teacher the meaning of the questions in Vietnamese before they looked back the passage to find the answers This took them a lot of time to read the whole texts, affected their reading quality and made the reading lessons less effective Thus, there is a need find out the effective ways to improve the current situation Personally, I have found that it is necessary to provide students with useful reading strategies to help improve their reading skills The above reasons have inspired me to conduct my initiative with the title

"Improving grade 12 students’ reading comprehension through scanning technique at Muong Lat high school”

1.2 Objectives of the study.

1.2.1 For the students

This study set out to provide students with scanning technique to deal with the reading comprehension exercises; help students know how to identify some kinds of questions and how to deal with them and apply scanning to do the reading comprehension exercises well

1.2.2 For the teachers

The study was designed to find out the effective technique to improve students’ reading skill and know how to stimulate students to improve their reading skill

1.3 Scope of study

The study was designed to investigate the strategie to improve reading comprehension skill The finding obtained from this study was to help improve

teaching and learning reading in general and learning and teaching reading at Muong Lat High School in particular

1.4 Methodology

I wrote this topic based on:

- The method of studying theory

- The method of investigating and observing

- Applying the topic to real teaching reading at Muong Lat high school

- Comparison, collection and summary of the result, effect of the topic

2 CONTENTS

2.1 Theoretical background

Reading is a part of our daily lives Reading skill also plays an integral part in learning process It is a base from which other skills are developed It helps students expand their repertoire of vocabulary; it provides students with grammatical structures as well For grade 12 students, it is far more important because having good reading skill is one of the key factors to help them achieve high marks in the national GCSE examination (The number of reading questions makes up of 20 out of 50 ones).For this reason, reading skills should

be taught in school for students to be able to cope with comprehension problems

2.2 Reality

Most of the students at Muong Lat high school complained that they found reading skill difficult When I asked them to do reading comprehension exercies, they seemed to be daunting Observing them doing the tasks, I found that most of them often spent too much time reading the passages; they all tried

to decode the meaning of all the words Then, they read the questions and looked back the text again to find the answers This was time consuming and less effective Some of them chose the answer randomly without reading the passages at all Most of them got bad results I wanted to know what the reasons were So, at the beginning of the first term - school year 2017 - 2018, I conducted a small survey with 70 students in 2 classes – 12E and 12D - to find out the ways they had done the tasks and why a lot of them got bad marks, and I got the result:

1 I understand the passages as I read 2%

2 I read the passage words by words and decoding the

meaning of the passage

80%

3 There are too many new words 70%

5 I don’t understand the meaning of questions 75%

6 I try to identify each question first, then scan and

skim the passage to find out the answer

2%

7 I choose the answers randomly 70%

8 I can find the keys words of the passage 1 %

9 I find the reading passage boring 75%

10 I can control my reading speed 2%

From the above table, we see that the majority of the students do not have good reading skill Most of them often spent too much time reading the passages; they tried to decode the meaning of all the words They also lacked of using reading strategies, so they could not control their reading They had no skill to scan, skim the phrases, sentences, clauses in the passage This made them have no enough time to answer the questions correctly, resulting in getting bad marks when doing reading comprehension task The results from this survey coincided with my observing above

2.3 Measure implementation

2.3.1 Training students the reading techniques: Scanning

The first task of my study was to make students understand what the scanning means, what kinds of questions in the reading comprehension can be answered by using scanning Then, I adapted the reading passage in the text book to make them familiar to students as well as gave them extra-exercise to practice

2.3.1.1 Definition of scanning

According to Vaezi (2006: 5), scanning is reading rapidly to find a specific piece of information (name, place, and time, etc) The readers know what they want to look for, so they are concentrating on finding a particular answer Scanning involves moving the reader’s eyes quickly down the page seeking specific information without reading the whole text Meanwhile, Grellet (1981) argue that scanning is quickly searching for some particular piece of information in the text In addition, in reading by using scanning technique, the teacher gives students time to search specific information (time, place, and name) in the text quickly, so the students do not need to read the whole text Harmer (2005: 69) states that this technique means that the readers do not have

to read every word and line: through scanning, the students are also trained to move their eyes rapidly in finding out the specific items of information that they want to discover

Based on the above definitions, in my study, I used scanning as a term describing quick reading a passage to get detail information in the reading passage Students use this skill when they look for information relating to proper names, dates, numbers, or other information without having to read every word

of the whole text

2.3.1.2 Steps in scanning:

- keep in mind the information you are looking for, the questions and find out key words

- Try to anticipate how the answer will appear and what clues might used

to help locate the answer such as the numbers, the date, the “wh”, places…

- Use headings and any other aids that will help identify which sections might contain the information such as charts, the italicized words…

- Selectively read and skip through sections of the passage

- When you find the sentences containing the needed information, just stop

to read the whole sentences Look for the answers that are definitely true according to the passage Eliminate the wrong ones

- You can read the passage from top to bottom

2.3.2 Identifying questions types.

There are 9 types of questions appearing in reading comprehension exercises They are grouped into 3 categories namely questions for main idea, questions for detail information and inference, and vocabulary questions The nine question types are shown in the table below:

Types of questions Identifying questions

A Main

ideas

1 Main idea

2 Main purpose

+ What is the topic of the passage? + What is the subject of the passage? + What is the main idea of the passage?

+ What is the author's main point in the passage?

+ With what is the author primarily concerned?

+ Which of the following would be the best title?

+What is the author’s main purpose

in the passage?

3 General organization

or attitude

+ Time order + Cause and effect + Definition and example + Comparison and contrast + Problem and solution

B Detail

information 4 Stated detail

+ According to the passage…

+ It is stated in the passage…

+ The passage indicates that…

+ Which of the following is true ?

5 Unstated detail

+ Which of the following is not stated…?

+ Which of the following is not mentioned…?

+ Which of the following is not discussed…?

+ All of the following are true except…

+ Which of the following is false…… + Which of the following is not true……

6 Where question + Where in the passage….

7 Inference + It is implied in the passage that…

+ It can be inferred from the passage that….

+ It is most likely that……

+ What probably happened….?

8 Reference + The word X in the passage refers to …

C.

Vocabulary

question

9 Synonym and antonym

+ What is the meaning of “X” in line

“Y”?

+ The word “X” in line “Y” could be replaced by…

+ Which of the following has the closest meaning with the word “X” in line “Y”?

+ Which of the following has the opposite meaning with the word “X”

in line “Y”?

Because of time limitation and students’ ability limitation, in this study I

mainly focus on guiding students how to answer the stated questions and unstated questions using scanning.

2.3.3 Skills for stated questions

- How to identify stated questions:

Stated questions are those which ask for small details in the passage The answers are often in the passage Normally, the answer is restated in different ways Stated detail questions include:

- According to the passage…

- It is stated in the passage…

- The passage indicates that…

- Which of the following is true ?

- How to find the answer:

- Underline the key words in the questions

- Use scanning skill to appropriate paragraph for reading carefully.

- Read the sentences containing the key words.

- Eliminate the wrong answers, choose the correct one

In my teaching, I adapted the reading passage in the text book to help students understand and know how to use this strategy and make them familiar with this type of question which is included in the national GCSE examination I also provided students with extra-exercises to practice with the hope that they would improve their reading ability

Example 1: The reading passage in Unit 15– Women in society – Tieng Anh 12 – Basic:

Throughout much of the history of human civilization, deep-seated cultural beliefs allowed women only limited roles in society Many people believed that women’s natural roles were as mothers and wives These people considered women to be better suited for childbearing and homemaking rather than for involvement in the public life of business or politics Widespread doubt

about women’s intellectual ability led most societies to deny education, employment and many legal and political rights to women It was men who controlled most positions of employment and power in society.

The struggle for women’s rights - the rights that establish the same social, economic, and political status for women as for men - began in the 18 th century during a period known as the Age of Enlightenment During this period, political philosophers in Europe began to argue that all individuals, male or female, were born with natural rights that made them free and equal These pioneer thinkers advocated that women should not be discriminated against on the basis of their sex.

Today, although their status varies in different countries, women in most parts of the world have gained significant legal rights The most important of these are: the right to have equal work opportunities and pay to men, the right

to vote, and the right to formal education.

Question 1 According to the text, what was the main role traditionally accorded

to women?

A working in education

B building houses

C taking care of the house and family

D working in factory

(Key words: main role, traditionally Answer: C)

Question 2 According to the text, what is the purpose of the struggle for

women’s rights?

A to free women from housework

B to establish a friendly relationship between men and women

C to bring equality between men and women

D to argue that women have better intellectual ability

(Key words: struggle, women’s rights Answer: B)

Example 2: The reading passage in Unit 16 “The Association of

Southeast Asian Nations” – Tieng Anh 12 Basic, page173

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, was founded on

8 th August, 1967, in Bangkok, Thailand by the five original member countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand Brunei joined ASEAN in 1984 Vietnam became its seventh member in 1995 Laos and