Some tricks teach reading comprehension skill for students at ha binh secondary school

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HA TRUNG DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE SOME TRICKS TEACH READING COMPREHENSION SKILL FOR STUDENTS AT HABINH SECONDARY SCHOOL Performed by: Nguyen Van Ban Job title: Teacher Unit of work: Ha Binh Secondary School Experience initiative in the subject: English THANH HOA 2017 INDEX Table of content INTRODUCTION 1.1 The reason for choosing the topic 1.2 Research purpose 1.3 Research subjects 1.4 Research methodology CONTENTS 2.1 Theoretical foundation of the experience initiative 2.2 Real situation before applying the experience initiative 2.3 Some solutions to organize a teaching reading comprehension session effectively 2.4 The effectiveness of experience initiatives for educational activities CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 3.1 Conclusion 3.2 Suggestions Page 2 2 14 15 15 REFERENCES LIST OF THE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVES WHICH WERE RECOGNIZED INTRODUCTION 1.1 The reason for choosing the topic Today, English plays an important role in the scientific and technical revolution It is an important language, commonly used worldwide and is used in different fields In the national construction, development and integration with the world, English has become a communicative tool between all of the modern people, it is an important second language after their mother tongue In our country, English is considered as the language of transaction in economics, politics, culture, and has been teaching at the elementary, secondary, college, university In process of learning English, we know more in another language, a different culture and also more love Vietnamese and Vietnamese culture To use English as a language of communication, we not only need to master the rules of grammar, have good listening skills, have knowledge of the language but also to have a number of diversified, rich lexical English is increasingly attracting the attention of many people and all ages The catch is that demand, the 2005 education law stipulated "Educational methods have to promote a positive, self- discipline, initiative, thinking and creativity of students, fostering the self-study ability, practical ability, passion for learning” [1] In the process of practical teaching in Ha Binh secondary school, I find the students difficult to approach an English reading comprehension Because the final purpose of teaching English reading comprehension is after each class and course, students can be self-confident to read the readings related to their familiar topics and limit the dictionary if possible The purpose of teaching this reading comprehension is entirely suitable for the direction: “Learner is the center of teaching of foreign languages and communication method” [2] That method is not new for most foreign language teachers, although in practice, the application of this method is not always easy and achieves the desired result English, which is used in various fields, is a language of great importance and popularity all over the world With the orientation of global integration, Vietnam has developed its potentials of all areas Therefore, communication has become an effective tool with a prerequisite strength In addition to the mother tongue, English has been considered by Vietnamese as the second communication language and an official subject in schools, even Primary schools Nowadays, once English has confirmed its role and importance, improving the quality of teaching and learning is the most significant issue Book replacement program with litany of English teaching and learning methods has come up with an emerging question: “How to help students gain all the knowledge and utilize skillfully?” As we may know, English is simply one of school subjects However, to use this language skillfully, learner should practice four basic skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing Among the four skills, there is no doubt that listening and speaking skills are considered as the main purpose of teaching and learning a foreign language, in which speaking is practiced through listening activity and writing is practiced via reading activity Reading is one of the basic skills, to which attention is paid during foreign language teaching and learning because of is determining role in evaluating whether learner understands the lesson or not At grade 6, short and easy to understand lessons are introduced to students; however, the higher the grade is, the more difficult requirements on reading skill are In addition, lessons in curriculum for grade and are usually longer with a large number of vocabularies, which is difficult for students to learn and for teacher to prepare lesson plans Therefore, teacher without a good teaching method shall not be able to complete all contents of the lesson To meet these practical requirements, each teacher should find himself an optimum teaching method which is suitable to specific student so as to arrive to high learning results It is this issue as well as purpose that each teacher keeps concerning Moreover, the improvements of teaching method and curriculum are always of great concern of education sectors: “Teachers are always encouraged to give innovative teaching and learning methods, good and practical experience initiatives, and improved teaching tools and materials”[3] Above are the reasons why this topic is selected 1.2 Research purpose In fact, the teaching of reading is to help students develop the skills and understand documents, books and newspapers in English with the content in accordance with specific qualifications and to help them gather information, raise the level of English and know more about the society When learners read the native language, they have no difficulty in understanding the content but when learning English, they will encounter the grammatical structures and vocabulary Therefore, to help students learn how to read a textbook the best and the most effective, which is my first concern From this fact, I have strongly given teaching experience myself through “Some tricks teach reading comprehension skill for students at Ha Binh Secondary School” I hope that a number of these measures will contribute the solution and remove the difficulties in the process of deep mining activities during teaching reading 1.3 Research subjects Audience research: Students in grade 7,8,9 at Ha Binh Secondary School Scope of the study: Ha Binh Secondary School in the academic year 2016-2017 1.4 Research methodology - Method created situations, suggestive, student- focused CONTENTS 2.1 Theoretical foundation of the experience initiative Structure of a lesson in English teaching typically includes activities to develop four skills: listening - speaking-reading-writing in a comprehensive way and in the right direction If we look at the layout of each unit of study, we can clearly see the importance of reading comprehension part of the process of teaching and learning English So teaching and learning English has not achieved the desired results because reading comprehension is taught in the traditional method: most of the time in the class, the teacher mainly teaches vocabulary, introduces grammatical structures, reads sample and corrects pronunciation, grammar for students: “The focus on grammar, translation will prevent students from acquiring the knowledge of the language in a natural way, they not have the opportunity to use the knowledge of their language These periods are so extremely heavy and boring because students are only learnt passively and they have to acquire a large amount of knowledge about vocabulary and new grammar structures (due to the characteristics of reading comprehension)” [4] Apart from the repetition and the imitation, most of them don’t have a chance to think, recreate language in an active and creative way Teaching a foreign language in general and English in particular is not to provide students with knowledge but the ability to communicate with the language Communication skills of students are expressed through skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing English reading skill is built up in a course of learning and practicing in English environment In addition to English studying at school, students have to practice reading in different forms Reading skill is the ability to utilize language knowledge into reading comprehension in English However, the English textbook mainly focuses on two main readings: read the main idea (Skimming gist) and read to get detailed information (Scanning for details) In fact, the readings in English textbook 8, usually have quite a lot of new words and much more in an article, a story written in English So the reader cannot both read and stop to look up new words, because he/she will have to read again after each stop, they have the ability to remember the content of the reading This will take much time, not effective To introduce all the new words of the reading, the teacher will not have time for activities to develop reading comprehension skills In addition students are difficult to remember a large amount of words in such a short time, they will not read independently without the guidance of the teacher 2.2 Real situation before applying the experience initiative After each lesson, teachers are often difficult to know how students understand the lesson and remember information more or less, the vocabulary they have been holding well or not Because of paying attention to the steps of practical reading and providing new words, the teachers have given less practical exercises to consolidate after reading Teachers don’t spend much time researching tricks and suggested procedures in order to encourage students to be voluntary self-conscious, initiative and active to participate in training and developing English reading comprehension skills Ha Binh secondary school is a school in the countryside, so the implementation quality of English teaching and learning is not high due to low resident’s qualification and awareness, poor economy, insufficient and asynchronous facilities Psychobiology of students: afraid of learning, speak, making mistakes, embarrass with friends and teachers, some are lazy to study and homework In spite of objective and subjective conditions directly affecting teaching, we have overcome immediate difficulties and step by step improved quality of English reading lesson so as to meet the aims of textbook curriculum For the teacher: Initially access and utilize typical reading comprehension teaching techniques relatively well (reading technique), get familiar with and be active in organizing a reading lesson session, coordinate flexibly teaching skills in reading lessons, create many teaching materials in accordance with content of learning lessons; therefore, the sessions become vivid and attractive with high effectiveness, utilize and operate modern teaching equipment in reading lesson, such as cassette tape, DVD, cassette recorder, video reader and multi-purpose projector It is still difficult for some teachers to implement teaching manipulation and technique in reading lesson as well as to select suitable techniques for specific teaching lesson and session They still hesitate to or unskillfully utilize teaching materials for reading lessons, such as cassette reader and demonstrating pictures For other teachers, the investment in lesson preparation is still limited due to private issues In addition, they are afraid of creating a noisy, time-consuming and costly teaching session The instruction of studying at home is not suitable for specific student, which makes the teaching session is not effective For students, they are able to read and recognize content of the whole reading text Most of the students are able of reading texts with simple content and complete tasks and exercise assigned by teacher after silent reading and aloud reading Some students have gained learning skills and tactics Students are lack of motivation for English reading comprehension Many students not have many opportunities to study and access mass media information via which they can listen and read English Some hesitate to read and speak in English or are afraid of making mistake Students are not familiar with English reading and speaking speed in the tape or disk They remain passive habit; during team work they rely on other member Words are produced timidly Many students have not found their own English learning method Many others are not interested in reading books Therefore, by organizing activities, teacher should pay attention to avoid student’s negative responds If this happens, teacher shall promptly correct and encourage as well as reward students so as to achieve positive respond During one English period in class, students of Ha Binh secondary school are very active in exploring new knowledge Most of them are ebullient and enthusiastic in activities; however, this occurs among good students only Comprehension of passages and dialogues is not easy for lower secondary school students because their vocabulary and grammar are not much During my teaching process, I have been in charge of class and grade With the aims of studying the current situation of student’s English learning as well as drawing lesson for myself, right from the beginning of the school-year, I Q u a n t Q u a n t Quanti ty Quanti ty students Quanti ty have oriented a specific plan and method to actively investigate the current situation of English learning of my students Findings of the investigation indicated that most of the students not soundly understand vocabulary and their English reading and communication skills are still limited To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, students should be trained all the four skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing during their English learning However, English curriculum at secondary school level concentrates on the two basic skills only, which are speaking and writing The other two skills have not gained much attention; therefore, student’s learning performance is not high This issue is indicated by learning performance of students in previous years and findings of the survey on student quality conducted in some classes in terms of English subject early last school-year (20152016) Excellent Good Fair Weak Poor Class/ Total number Grade of % % % % % 8A 25 02 07 28 11 44 04 16 01 45 04 8.9 13 28.8 21 47 11 4.4 Therefore, to find out a method to practice reading comprehension skill for student, I have chosen this topic 2.3 Some solutions to organize a teaching reading comprehension session effectively Firstly: The teacher has to make lesson plan for a reading session To provide a good teaching session, teacher needs to implement the following steps Studying content of the lesson in student textbook and teacher’s book carefully is very important because it is a necessary base for teacher to set up teaching plan for the lesson When teacher study textbook and teacher’s book carefully, he/she is able to organize and control the session on set with key points as well as to logically manage learning time and activities Purpose and requirements of the session is the target that both teacher and student have to reach after the lesson For usual teaching session, purpose and requirements are the practice and development of skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing of students (in which reading is the most important skill) Finishing reading part and understanding main content of the reading text, students complete some language requirements or exercises The selection of reading techniques is determined basing content of the lesson, students characteristics, strong points and weak points, acquired knowledge and skills Questions in exercise are ordered from easy to difficult level Exercises for weak, fairly good, good and excellent students shall be separated Time should be organized logically for the session and specific phases during the reading lesson, which include pre – reading phase, while – reading phase and post – reading phase [5] Teaching techniques are selected to be suitable with each phase such as utilization of teaching measures and tools for a reading lesson, utilization of cassette reader Before the lesson, good cassette reader, clear cassette tape, spare battery in case of power off should be prepared Safety should be ensured during manipulation Students are absolutely not allowed to use the equipment without instruction Necessity, effectiveness and timing for each step should be considered Utilization of demonstrating picture is used Visual channel in textbook is one of the strength of the innovative textbook composed under the new curriculum: various demonstrating pictures However, it is the maximum utilization of these pictures to help student understand the lesson that needs to be paid attention to Other type of demonstrating picture: (handmade or collected) “Pictures to introduce and practice new lesson is a must Requirement on high aestheticism is not necessary but the pictures should be practical and close to lesson content If these pictures are unaffordable, textbook illustrations can be zoomed and utilized as a visual aid” [6] A suitable and logical lesson plan shall be prepared Activities of teacher and students, timing, requirements of each exercise and student’s answer options should be clearly set up Teaching methods should be exchanged and discussed Teachers suggest forms of reading comprehension for each reading lesson Effectiveness of a reading session shall be promoted if teaching methods are discussed among colleagues in advance This does not bring high quality performance to reading lessons but other skills Comprehension questions: For this type of exercise, students should read the reading text to get information and then answer questions These exercises are often introduced in textbook with various forms, for example: Yes/No questions (Answer the questions with Yes or No) or Wh – questions Multiple choice: For this type of exercise, student shall read to get information and after that choose the most suitable answer among given options Gap – fill: For this type of exercise, students shall get the information to fill in the blanks of sentences Words can be provided in advance (to weak students) by teachers or (excellent, good) students can use their own words to complete the exercise Grids or Forms: For this type of exercise, teacher may ask students to read the form in advance and then read the passage to complete the exercise Matching: For this type of exercise, students read a passage to get information and complete the exercise by matching contents of column A to suitable contents of column B True – False statements: For this type of exercise, students read a passage to get information and find sentences indicating whether the statements are true or false Teacher may use supplement board to provide students with additional information and ask them to guess right/wrong before reading Finish checking student’s guessing, teacher request students to quote their answer from the text and may ask them to correct the wrong sentence Reorder sentences: For this type of exercise, students shall read a passage to understand its content and reorder statements in wrong order in the exercise below so as to create a logical passage Make summaries: After reading to get information, students summarize content of the reading text Select a summary/a title Find new words for old words: Students read and find synonymic or antonymic words or phrases in the text for given words or phrases KWL (Knew – Want to know – Learn): For this form of exercise, students have the chance to develop their KWL learning method They can work individually or in a group Secondly: The teacher has to make a good reading comprehension teaching session Progress of a reading session also consists of phases including Pre – Reading, while – Reading and Post – Reading This type of progress does not help student understand the lesson but apply reading skills in practical situations also However, the first issue that teacher should verify is to clearly define purpose and requirement of specific reading lesson so as to provide orientation for students to well implement tasks of the next phases * Pre – Reading This phase provide students orientation and thoughts about the topic or situation before they read In this phase, teacher shall introduce overview of the coming topic and utilize data relating to students’ experience by activities For example, teacher gives implying questions to help students guess main content of the reading text Teacher should provide open questions in accordance with the order of event or reasoning in the text These questions express the main structure of reading text and are measures to help student guess its content, resulting in a more natural way of reading Main purpose of these warm-up activities is to arouse student, direct student to focus on the topic and set the scene The first step of this phase is linguistic material introduction (Pre – teach vocabulary) “Tactics can be utilized in this step to introduce and teach vocabulary, grammar and structure that the teacher has studied such as eliciting, modeling, repetition, checking pronunciation, copying, checking stress, meaning situation / explanation - example-synonym / antonym and translation”[11]… Teacher needs to select, analyze and eliminate to give lesson depending on level of difficulty and necessity of the word for student’s reading and understanding as well as reasonable number of new words to be introduced Words that are necessary for student’s reading and understanding and suitable with their level of perception should be taught carefully and actively If the words are necessary but beyond student’s ability, passive method of teaching should be applied, which means teacher shall explain or give definition to students as soon as possible If the words are unnecessary to understand the text and not too difficult, students should be asked to guess their meaning in the text If the words are neither necessary nor difficult, they can be omitted After finishing vocabulary part, teacher may organize activities to create the needs, reasons and aims of reading and let student predict the text or give expectation Some pre-reading activities are mentioned below Activity 1: Ordering statements that are not in order Students are requested to read and reorder these statements with their understanding and after that open the book and check their prediction Number of statements may be from to For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside Lesson 4: Read Rearrange these sentences into the correct order [7] Peter plays baseball He will stay there till the beginning of October 3- They have two children 4- He feeds the chickens and collects their eggs 5- The Parkers are nice so Van feels like a member of their family 6- Mrs Parker works part-time at a grocery store in a nearby town Key: -> -> -> -> -> * Activity 2: Jigsaw dictation Students are divided into small groups (6-7 students/group) Teacher shall copy contents of the text (about 6-7 statements) and hand out one to each student The students shall dictate each other in turn, then predict order of these statements and finally open the book to check For example: English 7: Unit 7: B The worker (B2 – Read) [8] 1- He usually starts work at six in the morning 2- Mr Tuan works in the fields with his brother 3- Mr Tuan rests and eats lunch 4- His work usually finishes at six 5- He goes to the city with his wife * Activity 3: Ordering Pictures Teacher prepares some pictures relating to the lesson content that students are going to read (These pictures can be simply created with stick lines) These pictures will be introduced and stick on the board without but not in order Students are requested to look at them and reorder; after that, they open the book to read and check * Activity 4: Listening and drawing/Picture dictation 10 Teacher draws one-two parts first and then dictates Students will then listen to draw the picture After all, they open the picture in the book and check (The pictures are mainly on streets, buildings and classroom) * Activity 5: True/False statement prediction Teacher shall prepare 5-6 statements on the content of the lesson and assign students to give true/false statement prediction Students will then be asked to give answer and read the text to check For example: English 9: Unit 9: Natural Disaster Lesson 4: Read - True/False Check (√) in the boxes [7] T F 1- Most of the earthquakes in the world occur in the Ring of Fire 2- The earthquake in Kobe in 1995 caused severe damage 3- A huge tidal wave traveled from California to Alaska and hit Anchorage in the 1960s 4- Typhoon, hurricane and tropical storm are different words for the same natural disaster 5- The eruption of Mount Pinatubo is the world largest ever volcanic eruption 6- A tornado looks like a funnel shape * Activity 6: Open prediction Teacher shall prepare in advance or draw a table on the board with some information Students are requested to predict the rest contents and then read the book to check their prediction For example: English 9: Unit 8: Celebrations - Lesson 4: Read [7] Celebration When? Tet … … Activities Food … Special meal called Seder Country Viet Nam … Easter With activities before reading, students have the chance to partly visualize contents of the reading text; although what they have percept is not clear yet Information in prediction activities is usually main ideas of the reading text Teacher should not provide detailed information in this phase to mainly train students the skill of skimming for main ideas Reading in this phase is considered the first step of reading * While – reading At the beginning of this phase, students shall read to check the information that they have predicted in the previous phase Teacher shall let students compare their prediction with the information they get after their first reading Teacher will then correct the answer for the whole class If students are not content with the answer, teacher shall request them to reread the text consisting of the correct information After that, teacher instruction some activities so that students shall reread the text more carefully This is the key 11 phase of reading practice; therefore teacher shall carefully prepare contents and activities for this phase without duplication with earlier prediction content to avoid boring and too easy assignments for students Some while-reading activities are mentioned below * Activity 1: Given answer Students are requested to make questions for the given answer by teacher For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside [7] Lesson 4: Read (After reading the text or dialogue) Teacher Students - An exchange student - Who is Van? - 100 kilometers outside Columbus Ohio - Where is Van? - He feeds the chickens and collects - What does he in the afternoon? their eggs * Activity 2: “Wh-questions” (Comprehension questions) Type of questions to ask includes: - When…? What ? Where ? Who…? - How long…? How much…? How many ? In order to check comprehension of details (on the line questions) - Why you think/ know…? - How ? - What you think about…? Questions of this type are often used to suggest an explanation for the summary, the ideas about a problem This activity asks students to listen and answer the questions to get the right information which can be found in the reading and the information is not right in that reading and all students know how to infer from the content they have just read This activity encourages to be used and can be used for any public readings in the syllabus For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside Lesson 4: Read [7] Answer the following questions: How long will Van stay in the USA? How many children Mr and Mrs Parker have? What does Van as soon as he finishes his homework in the afternoon? What the Parker family and Van while they watch Peter play? Between and beyond the line questions: why, how, what, you think * Activity 3: Multiple choice This activity asks students to read and choose the correct answer: A, B, C or D for each question This is one of the procedures to identify specific information skills in the reading they have just read But teaching reading comprehension is suitable for the requirements of the innovation of teaching methods, which helps students read a comprehensive reading, so teachers have to use this procedure reasonably With this procedure, students can check and 12 understand the content of the reading or the meaning of a new word or new structure Example: English 8: Unit – My friends (Read – page 13) [9] *Choose the best answer and write Ba talks about … of his friends A three B four C all D none Bao’s volunteer work…… A help him make friends B causes problems at exam time C does not effect his school work D takes up a lot of time Khai and Song … A like quiet places B don’t talk much in public C dislike school D enjoy sports Ba’s friends sometimes…….his jokes A answer B not listen to C laugh at D get tired of * Activity 4: Gap filling This activity is to check meaning of vocabulary, remembering of vocabulary, main ideas or detailed ideas that students have learnt Teacher summarizes the reading text and leaves some blanks (using spare board) and request students to find suitable word or phrase to complete For example: English 9: Unit 7: Saving energy (Lesson 4: Read) [7] For most (1)………American households, lighting accounts for (2) …… percent to 15 percent of the electricity bill, (3)……this amount can be reduce by replacing an (4)……150 watt bulb with an energy saving bulb These bulbs use a (5)…….of the electricity of (6)………bulbs and last eight times longer… * Activity 5: Grids or forms To check students’ perception of main ideas and information classification, teacher provides a form with certain information and requests students to read the text and fill information into the blanks Example: English Unit 13 – Festivals Read – Page 126 - Complete the table [7] Christmas special Place of origin Riga Date mid-19th century Christmas carols USA * Activity 6: Matching This form of exercise is used to check meaning of introduced vocabulary (pre-teach), to predict meaning of word in context, or to test students’ perception of main ideas of the reading text Teacher creates two columns of words and phrases to be predicted (maybe in English or English/Vietnamese) Reading the text, students may predict meaning of word via this table Teacher should let students reread this table after they finish their assignment Example: New English – Unit 11- Science and technology 13 Skills1 (Reading) – Page 54 [10] Underline the following words and phrases in the passages in Match each of them with its explanation A B a reality A examine carefully to find out more about explore something possibility B used instead of something else replaced C equipment that helps save energy anti-ageing pills D a thing that actually exists or happens energy saving devices E something that is likely to happen F medicine that can prevent * Activity 7: True/False, Yes/No, right/wrong questions and statements The form of this exercise is the same with T/F prediction statements For example: English – Unit 14: Lesson A Time for TV [8] True/False statements True False 1- Thirty years ago in Viet Nam, a lot of people had TV sets 2- These TV owners were very popular 3- The neighbor gathered to watch color programs in the evening 4- Now, they don’t spend much time together 5- A few people have TV sets today Above-mentioned are while-reading activities which virtually mean motivations and reasons for students to practice reading comprehension skill In this phase, combination of speaking and writing skills is necessary Reading texts in the innovated textbook are various and diverse in topic; therefore, teacher should let students practice with extensive reading method so as to encourage their confidence in accessing standard reading text With extensive reading, students may still understand the overall information provided by practical language in daily life even if their ability is limited Teacher should encourage students’ silent reading to understand the lesson content Reading aloud helps students practice pronunciation only Although students can listen to the reading text once or twice so as to easier practice speaking to give answers about content of the passage For long exercise, teacher may apply the tactic of dividing the text into passages and assign each group of student to read one passage and then comment for other group By this way, teacher is able to utilize and save time in class to organize other supplement activities for the text reading comprehension, helping students understand more deeply what they have learnt from the passage *Post – Reading (Role play, Recall the story, Write-it-up, Further Practice, etc) This phase is for practice after reading and completion of exercise under requirements and questions on reading comprehension, teacher may continue activities requiring overall understanding of the whole text, practical reference 14 or knowledge conveying, grammar structure reinforcement practice Activities for this phase are described below * Activity 1: Gap fill This activity is similar to that of while-reading phase; however, same activities should not be repeated Teachers write the summary of reading on the board (briefly) with the missing words and ask students to fill the missing words in the blanks This exercise helps students understand the reading the most succinctly and the most effectively Example: English - Unit – Country life and city life Read – Page 75 [9] Work with a partner Complete the summary Use information from the passage People from the countryside are (1)…… their (2)……… to go and live in the (3)……… Farming can sometimes be a difficult life and these people from (4) ……… areas feel the (5)……… offers more opportunities However, many people coming to the city create (6)…………There may not be enough (7) … or (8)……… , while water and electricity supplies may not be adequate This is a (9)………… facing governments around the (10)……… * Activity 2: Role play, interview In practical teaching, no language skills are taught separately, thus speaking is a very useful activity in the period after reading (Post-reading) When the work in stages while reading (While-reading) end, teachers can ask students to act (Role- play), using content that is mentioned in the text out to play and practice the conversation with you This is a very exciting activity and useful for students because they used just reading knowledge to apply practically in daily communication These activities are diverse and various Students shall play interviewer and interviewee - Example: In a job interview, interviewer shall ask interviewee questions regarding their qualification and profession Content of the lesson may be introduced in the form of a dialogue For example: English 9: Unit 5: The media [7] A: Do you use the Internet every day ? B: Yes, I A: Do you think it is very important to our life? B: Yes, It’s very important and convenient A: Do you think it’s not good for someone to play games online? B: …………………………… * Activity 3: Rewrite Readings can be written in the same or different readings: for example, as an advertisement, a text, a letter, an interview This type can be used to help expand practical skills from writing skills Example: English - Unit - The media Read – Page 43, 44 [7] 15 Read the forum on the Internet in the reading text again (5 Read- page 43,44) Write a passage about the benefits of the Internet You can use the following cues - The Internet as source of information (news, articles, weather forecast, ect…) - The Internet as source of entertainment (music, movies, games, ect…) -The Internet as a means of education ( on-line schools, on-line lessons, self-study, ect ) * Activity 4: Discussion This procedure can be used to: - Identify reading contents and its meaning - Draw the learned lesson after having studied it - Combine speaking skills Example: English - Unit 5: The Media Read - Page 43, 44 [7] Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet (discussion about the benefits (advantages) of the Internet (group 1); discussion about the disadvantages of the Internet (group 2)) 2.4 The effectiveness of experience initiatives for educational activities During my teaching, I have applied the techniques and organized forms to teach reading in English in order to promote a positive and creativity of students in foreign language classes as well as the experimental lesson of colleagues There are the following results: Teachers not explain lengthy lectures, they not replace the job of students Teachers play only the role as the organizer, instructor to help students study In other words, teachers play the role of designer For the students, they acquire actively knowledge and are subjects the activities They study enthusiastically and excitedly, they explore, discover and exploit knowledge actively and students understand the content of the lesson in the class Moreover, after each lesson, the student's knowledge in the fields of culture and science is wider Therefore, students have been interested in learning Through applied research and practical tips with students who are average and weak students in grade 8,9 I find my teaching activities softer Besides, I see students more focused, the atmosphere in the class is lively and they are interested in their subject, particularly through the surveys: midsemester survey and final-semester survey, I achieved the good results such as: Class/ The first mid- semester survey Excellent 23 20 51.3 Poor % 12.8 Numbe r 10 Weak Numbe r 04 Numbe r Nu mbe r 8(39hs) % Average % Numbe r Good % Grade 01 % 2.5 16 (46hs) 13 19.5 Class/ Grade 11 23.9 15.2 03 6.5 The first final- semester survey Weak % Poor % N u m be Numbe r Average % Numbe r Good % N u m Numbe r Excellent % 8(39sts) 18 13 33.3 17 43.6 5.1 (46sts) 19.5 14 30.4 21 45.6 4.3 Thus, from an earlier year, the rate % of students to acquire and understand the lesson is markedly increased, the rate of pretty and good students increases and the average percentage of poor students are reduced Particularly, students are more dynamic and self-reliant, teacher-student relationship becomes closer In class, the distance between teachers and students is narrower Students ask him strongly, present their views and their positions and expand their communication and their thinking It is seen that the application of these reading comprehension teaching method into practical teaching has brought much higher results in comparison with the period when teaching method was not improved This achievement encourages me to continuously try my best to bring higher results as well as apply these methods more to specific teaching sessions CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 3.1 Conclusion During the research conduction, I myself found that the practice of reading comprehension at Secondary School is very necessary Abovementioned practice methods shall help students and teachers with easier practice of reading skills among Secondary School students Teachers themselves should continuously study and enrich their specialty via means of information They should promptly recognize the innovation in teaching method and education, which is vital to each teacher Being able to apply this methods, quality of foreign language teaching shall be enhanced, students shall be more interested in studying and more confident in communicating with foreigners if they have chance to so Briefly, reading is one of four skills that students need to practice Reading helps students enlarge their knowledge on surrounding world Reading brings students habit and passion in reading books Therefore, teachers need to utilize attractive and suitable teaching tactics in teaching reading comprehension for secondary school students in general and Grade students in particular so as to achieve good results 17 Basing on the reasoning, practical situations and purpose of teaching as well as success and limits while conducting this topic, to contribute to English teaching in general and quality reading comprehension in particular, I would like to propose the following recommendations by myself 3.2 Suggestions * For schools To have a language environment, skills should be practiced under typical teaching method, which means subject specified classroom should be set up to avoid affecting to and being affected by close classrooms in terms of noise (This room maybe used for other subjects) Electric system should be fixed to ensure usage and safety * For department of education and training Teachers should be provided opportunities to discuss and exchange experiences through workshops and have the academic exchanges between the grades and classes to create a communicative environment in English Education and Training Department should organize more training courses to innovate teaching methods with the help of experts These are some small tricks during my teaching by utilizing tactics and activities in reading comprehension teaching in Ha Binh Secondary School, when writing this topic, short-comings are unavoidable; therefore, I am looking forward to the colleagues' sincere comments so that my subject is more complete I sincerely thank you Thanh Hoa, March 17th 2017 CONFIRMATION OF HEADMASTER I assure that my experience initiative is not copied from the others' content Written by Nguyen Van Ban 18 REFERENCES **** [1] The Education Law of the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam No 38/2005 / QH11 dated June 14, 2005 [2] Kevin Barry, Len King - Beginning teaching Australia, 1993 [3] Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension Reading Rockets (Adler, C.R.(2014)) [4] Developing Reading Skills: Identifying Main Ideas Thai Watana Panich Co.Ltd (Maggs, Margaret Martin (1982)) [5] Technical teaching English to young adult learners at Secondary Schools (Mr Nguyen Quoc Hung, MA) [6] Reading Comprehension Strategies in Teaching Reading.(Moore, David W (2014)) [7] English textbook - Nguyen Van Loi (Chief editor) - Educational Publisher, 2002 [8] English textbook - Nguyen Van Loi (Chief editor) - Educational Publisher, 2002 [9] English textbook - Nguyen Van Loi (Chief editor) - Educational Publisher, 2002 [10] English textbook - Hoang Van Van (Chief editor) - Educational Publisher, 2014 [11] Teaching guide under new English curriculum (Educational publisher2005) 19 THE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVES WHICH WERE RECOGNIZED AND APPRECIATED BY THE SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL OF DEPARTEMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING Teacher: Nguyen Van Ban Job title: Teacher Unit of work: Ha Binh Secondary School Name of experience Rand of N0 initiatives appreciation Some experiences teaching pronunciation for students at Ha Son Secondary School Some experiences to teach listening skill for students at Ha Son Secondary School Some techniques to teach new words for students at Ha Binh Secondary School Effective teaching method of English reading comprehension skills for students of grade 8, 9” Ha Trung department of education and training Ha Trung department of education and training Ha Trung department of education and training Ha Trung department of education and training Result of appreciation (A, B, or C) Academic Year B 2005-2006 C 2010-2011 B 2012-2013 C 2014-2015 20 21 ... students at Ha Son Secondary School Some experiences to teach listening skill for students at Ha Son Secondary School Some techniques to teach new words for students at Ha Binh Secondary School ... first step of reading * While – reading At the beginning of this phase, students shall read to check the information that they have predicted in the previous phase Teacher shall let students compare... correct information After that, teacher instruction some activities so that students shall reread the text more carefully This is the key 11 phase of reading practice; therefore teacher shall carefully