The reality of teaching and learning reading for non english majors at banking academy son tay training center

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES **************** NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG MINH THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING READING FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT BANKING ACADEMY-SON TAY TRAINING CENTER ( Nghiên cứu thực trạng việc dạy học đọc hệ học tiếng Anh không chuyên Học viện Ngân hàng- Cơ sở đào tạo Sơn Tây ) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi - 2011 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES **************** NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG MINH THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING READING FOR NON-ENGLISH MAJORS AT BANKING ACADEMY-SON TAY TRAINING CENTER ( Nghiên cứu thực trạng việc dạy học đọc hệ học tiếng Anh không chuyên Học viện Ngân hàng - Cơ sở đào tạo Sơn Tây ) M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Vũ Thị Thu Thuỷ,M.A Hanoi - 2011 iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BA-STC: Banking Academy- Son Tay training center FL: Foreign language EFL: English as a foreign language L1: the first language L2: The second language v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1.1: The three Definitions of Reading by Weaver (1994) Table 2.1: The result of how teachers delivered the reading lessons Table 2.2: Teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage Table 2.3: Teachers’ activities at While- reading stage Table 2.4: Teachers’ activities at Post- reading stage Table 2.5: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at Pre- reading stage Table 2.6: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at While- reading stage Table 2.7: Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at Post- reading stage Table 2.8: Students’ difficulties in learning reading vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Abstract LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Table of Contents Part A: Introduction Background to the study Aims of the study Research question Significance of the study Research methodology Organization of the study Part B: Development Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 Reading 1.1.1 Definitions of reading: 1.1.2 The traditional and innovative views of teaching reading 1.2 Approaches to teaching reading 1.3 Stages of a reading lessons 1.3.1 The pre-reading stage 1.3.2 The While-reading stage 1.3.3 The Post-reading stage vii 1.4 Impacts of attitudes on teaching and learning reading 1.5 Factors affecting students’ reading comprehension 1.5.1 Learning strategies 1.5.2 Vocabulary 1.5.3 Background knowledge 1.5.4 Motivation 1.6 Previous studies 1.7 Summary Chapter 2: RESULT 2.1 Result of the observation of teachers’ activities 2.1.1 At Pre- reading stage 2.1.2 At While- reading stage 2.1.3 At Post- reading stage 2.2 Result of the se-mi structured interviews 2.2.1 Reasons for choosing the teachers’ reading teaching strategies 2.2.2 Teachers’ difficulties in reading teaching 2.3 Result of students’ questionnaires 2.3.1 Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities in reading lesson 2.3.2 Students’ difficulties in learning reading Chapter 3: FINDING AND DISCUSSIONS viii 3.1 Research question and 3.1.1 At Pre-reading stage 3.1.2 While-reading stage 3.1.3 Post-reading stage 3.2 Research question 3.2.1 Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities in reading lessons 3.2.2 Students’ difficulties in learning reading Part C : CONCLUSION Summary The suggested procedure for teaching reading at BA-STC Limitations and suggestions for further study References Appendices Appendix Appendix 2A Appendix 2B Appendix 3A Appendix 3B PART A: INTRODUCTION Part A - Introduction- provides the background to the study and statement of the problem, the aims, the research question, the significance of the study as well as the research methodology It also outlines the organization of the thesis Background to the study Reading comprehension is the heart and goal of reading, since the purpose of all reading is to gather meaning from the printed page If a student says a word in a passage without gathering their meaning, one would hesitate to call that reading Language plays a vital role in reading One cannot read a book in a language unless one knows that particular language If a learner‟s knowledge of English is poor, then his/her reading will also be poor, and naturally also his reading comprehension Reading is one of the „most complex forms of information processing‟ (Kolers, 1973, p.29) and is probably the „most extensively researched‟ language skill (Bachman, 2000, p.x) In the recent decades, theories and models of reading have changed, from primarily receptive processes from text to reader to interactive processes between the reader and the text (cf., Adams, 1990; Eskey and Grabe, 1988; Perfetti, 1985; and Swaffar, 1988) Approaches to teaching reading materials in a foreign language have attempted to reflect this development through recommendations of interactive exercises and tasks Based on what successful reading is, many reading specialists have come to agreement that reading lessons should follow such a framework as: pre-, during-, and postreading instruction (Barnett, 1989; Brown, 2001; Grabe, 1991; Grabe and Stoller, 2001; Wallace, 1992) Barnett (1989) and Grabe and Stoller (2001) made a brief explanation about each type of instruction Pre-reading instruction makes students interested in a text and predicts the content of it through accessing necessary information or activating schema While-reading instruction helps students read strategically, mainly focusing on decoding skills Post-reading instruction deepens students‟ comprehension into the text It is also emphasized that the activities in this framework are not limited to reading “Reading is no longer isolated” (Eskey & Grabe, 1988, p.231) As in real life, reading activities should be integrated with other skills - speaking, listening, and especially writing (Eskey & Grabe, 1988; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001) Accordingly, some of the activities should help students to develop other skills besides the reading Such kind of integration of the four skills will enable students to use more varieties of strategies more often, generating more interaction between the reader and the text Teaching and learning reading comprehension have been identified by various researchers in both second and foreign language contexts (Barnett, 1989; Brown, 2001; Grabe, 1991; Grabe & Stoller, 2001; Wallace, 1992) However little empirical research have been conducted to uncover the methods of teaching reading comprehension used by Vietnamese teachers, especially by teachers at BA-STC To address this gap, my study will investigate the reality of teaching and learning reading for non-English major first year students at this training center At BA-STC, students are required to take an English course in two terms in the first year The aim of this course is to equip students the general English program, consisting of four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing In the first term of the first year, the students learned English in 45 periods of the New Headway Elementary After 12 weeks, the students had a final test that consisted of four parts: Vocabulary, Grammar and Reading comprehension and Writing The result of the final test in the first term showed us a surprising number: 72 percent of all the students (115) got bad marks in the reading comprehension section of the English test, although they had good marks in the other parts of the test I would like to look into different aspects and try to find out the reasons leading to this bad situation One of the main reasons lies in the fact that the teachers often simply give students a text and require them to answer a series of comprehension questions when they have finished reading the text The teachers almost nothing to provide them with the skills or strategies needed to become efficient and independent readers For the lack of necessary strategies for teaching reading comprehension, it is more likely to have poor reading comprehension results Therefore, in this study I intend to carry out some research in the reality of teaching and learning reading comprehension for non-English major first year students at BA-STC and basing on the findings and discussions to help to increase the effectiveness of teaching and learning reading comprehension at this training center 39 Langer, A (1984) Examining Background Knowledge and Text Comprehension Reading Research Quarterly, 19(4), 468-481 45 40 Long, S A., Winograd, P N & Bridget, C A (1989) The 41 Lundberg, D & Samuels, S.J.(1974) Towards a Theory of Automatic Information Processing in Reading Cognitive Psychology 42 Levine, A & Reves, T (1990) Does the Method of Vocabulary Presentation make a difference ? TESOL Canada Journal 8, 37-51 43 Lewin, A (1984) “Reading between the Lines” English Language Teaching Journal, 38,2: 121-126 44 Mikulecky, B S (1990) A Short Course in Teaching Reading Skills Massachusetts: Addison- Wesley Publishing Company 45 Nation, I S P (1990) Teaching and Learning Vocabulary New York: Newbury House 46 Nunan, D (1999) Second Language Teaching and Learning Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers 47 O‟Malley, J M and A U Chamot (1990) Learning Strategies and Second Laguage Acquisition [M] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 48 Perfetti, C A (1985) Reading Ability New York: Oxford University Press 49 Rumelhart, D E (1977) Towards an Interactive Model of Reading In D Dornic (Ed.), Attention and Performance VI (pp 575-603) Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum 50 Siberstein, S (1987) Let’s take another look at reading: Twenty-five years of reading instruction English Teaching Forum, 25,4, pp.28-35 51 Slopsky, B (1992) Conditions for Second Language Learning OUP 52 Swaffar, J K (1988) Readers, Texts and Second Languages: The Interactive process Modern Language Journal, 80, 461-477 53 Tobias, S (1994) Internet, Prior Knowledge and Learning Review of Educational Research, 64(1), 37-54 54 Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory Great Britain University Press 55 Victori, M., & Lockhart, W (1995) Enhancing Metacognition in self- directed language learning System, 19, 223-234 56 Wallace, C (1994) Reading Oxford: Oxford University Express 57 Weaver, C (1994) Reading Process and Practice From Sociopsycholinguistics to Whole Language Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann 46 58 Williams, E (1984) Reading in the Language Classroom New York: Macmillan 59 Zenhui, R (2004) Fitting Top-down Strategies into a Traditional Reading Class Journal of Teacher‟s Edition, 15, 12-15 I APPENDIX CLASSROOM OBSERVATION Observation date: 15/04/2011 Class: 44A Unit 6: Super kids Number of students: 40 Stages Teachers’ activities Introducing the topic of the text Making students guess the topic of the text from the heating, illustration… Pre- teaching vocabulary Introducing and explaining new grammatical structures in Pre – the text reading Having students brainstorm stage words, related to the topic Using visual aids to introduce the topic of the text Asking students to servey the text’s title and heading for the topic Making students write questions about the text Reading aloud the text While- Asking students to read reading aloud the text II text Asking students to skim for general information Making reading tasks first then read the text to find the answer pairs/ groups Making specific ideas text and then the reading tasks main ideas for each paragraph detailed information 10 Having meaning in context Asking discussion about the text Post- Asking students to translate reading the text into Vietnamese stage role-plays, writing or listening Making III APPENDIX 2A Questionnaire for students at Banking academy-Sontay training center The questionnaire is designed in order to find out the students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities in teaching reading at Pre-reading, While-reading and Post-reading stage Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appreciated You not have to write your name Please tick (√) what you like and what you not like Introducing the topic of the text from the heating, illustration… Pre- teaching vocabulary structures in the text ideas related to the topic text heading for the topic Making students write questions about the text Please tick (√) what you like and what you not like Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at While- reading stage Reading aloud the text IV 2.Asking students to read aloud the text Asking students to skim for general information Making students read the reading tasks first then read the text to find the answer 5.Getting students to work in pairs/ groups 6.Making students scan for specific ideas Asking students to read the text and then the reading tasks Asking students to find the main ideas for each paragraph Asking students to read for detailed information 10 Having students guess meaning in context Please tick (√) what you like and what you not like Students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities at Post- reading stage Asking students to have discussion about the text Asking students to translate the text into Vietnamese writing or listening Making students have role-plays, follow-up V APPENDIX 2B Questionnaire for students at Bc-StC Phiếu khảo sát thiết kế nhằm tìm hiểu mức độ ưa thích sinh viên hoạt động dạy kĩ đọc hiểu giáo viên ba giai đoạn: trước đọc, đọc sau đọc Sự hoàn thành bạn đánh giá cao bạn không cần phải ghi tên vào phiếu Đề nghị bạn đánh dấu (√) vào mức độ thực tế bạn hoạt động giáo viên giai đoạn trước đọc Thái độ sinh viên hoạt động giáo viên giai đoạn trước đọc Giới thiệu chủ đề khoá Để sinh viên đoán chủ đề khoá từ đầu đề, minh hoạ khoá Dạy trước từ khoá Giới thiệu giải thích cấu trúc ngữ pháp khố Cho sinh viên suy nghĩ liệt kê từ, cụm từ có liên quan đến chủ đề khoá Sử dụng đồ dùng trực quan để giới thiệu khố u cầu sinh viên tự tìm tiêu đề khoá Để sinh viên viết câu hỏi để tìm hiểu nội dung khố Đề nghị bạn đánh dấu (√) vào mức độ thực tế bạn hoạt động giáo viên giai đoạn đọc VI Thái độ sinh viên hoạt động giáo viên giai đoạn đọc Đọc to khoá Yêu cầu sinh viên đọc to khoá Yêu cầu sinh viên đọc lướt khoá Yêu cầu sinh viên đọc yêu cầu tập trước đọc khố tìm câu trả lời Để sinh viên làm việc theo cặp, theo nhóm Yêu cầu sinh viên đọc dị để lấy thơng tin đặc biệt Yêu cầu sinh viên đọc khoá đọc yêu cầu tập Yêu cầu sinh viên tìm ý đoạn u cầu sinh viên đọc chi tiết 10 Cho sinh viên đoán nghĩa từ dựa theo ngữ cảnh Đề nghị bạn đánh dấu (√) vào mức độ thực tế bạn hoạt động giáo viên giai đoạn sau đọc Thái độ sinh viên hoạt động giáo viên giai đoạn sau đọc Yêu cầu sinh viên thảo luận khoá Yêu cầu sinh viên dịch khoá sang Tiếng Việt Yêu cầu sinh viên đóng vai, luyện kĩ viết nghe VII APPENDIX QUESTIONAIRE FOR STUDENTS AT BANKING ACADEMY- SON TAY TRAINING CENTER The questionaire is designed in order to find out the students’ difficulties in learning reading comprehension Your assistance in completing the following items is highly appriciated Please tick (√) the appropriate options for your answers (You can choose many answers if necessary) You not have to write your name What difficulties you have in learning reading? a.Lack of vocabulary b Long and difficult sentences c.Lack of background knowledge d Understand all the word and know all the structures of the whole passage but can not answer the comprehension questions e.Can not summarize the main ideas or can not work out an outline of the reading passage f Other answers: What you often in reading lessons in the class ? a.Reread with one’s finger point to each word b Translate word by word or sentence by sentence c.Discuss the text with your friends d Other answers: How you deal with new words in the text ? a.Finding their meaning in the dictionaries and learning them by heart b Asking your teacher or your friends for help c.Guessing the meaning by the context clue d Ignoring them and continuing rreading VIII How often you pay enough attention to topic sentences ? □ Usually □ Individual □ Sometimes □ Seldom □ Never How you often reading comprehension exercises ? □ In pairs □ In groups What you expect your teacher to to make the reading lesson learning more effective? a.giving various kinds of exercises to help us exploit the reading text b Giving attractive introduction and clear aim of the reading text c.Helping us guessing new words based on the context d Giving more interesting activities e.Other answers: Thank you very much for your co-operation! IX APPENDIX 3A QUESTIONAIRRE FOR STUDENTS AT BA- STC Phiếu khảo sát thiết kế nhằm tìm hiểu khó khăn sinh viên học đọc Sự hoàn thành bạn đánh giá cao Hãy tích (√) vào lựa chọn thích hợp cho câu trả lời bạn ( Bạn chọn nhiều phương án trả lời cần thiết) Bạn khơng phải viết tên vào phiếu Nhứng khó khăn việc học đọc bạn gì? g Thiếu vốn từ vựng h Các câu dài khó i Thiếu kiến thức j Hiểu tất cá từ tất cấu trúc đọc trả lời câu hỏi đọc hiểu k Khơng tóm tắt ý không hiểu dàn ý đọc l Các phương án trả lời khác: Bạn thường làm học đọc lớp ? e.Đọc lại với ngón tay vào từ f Dịch từ câu g Thảo luận khoá với bạn bè h Các phương án trả lời khác: Bạn làm thé với từ khố ? e.Tìm nghĩa chúng từ điển ghi nhớ f Hỏi giáo viên bạn khác g Đoán nghĩa dựa vào ngữ cảnh khoá h Bổ qua tiếp tục đọc i Các phương án trả lời khác: X 10 Bạn thường ý đến câu chủ đề ? □ Thường xuyên 11 □ Một 12 □ Thỉnh thoảng □ Hiếm □ Không Bạn thường làm tập đọc hiểu lớp ? □ Làm theo cặp □ Làm theo nhóm Để đạt hiệu tiết học đọc, bạn mong đợi giáo viên làm gì? f Đưa loại tập khác để khai thác đọc g đọc Cung cấp hướng dẫn lơi nêu mục đích rõ ràng h Giúp đoán nghĩa từ dựa vào bối cảnh cụ thể i Đưa hoạt động thú vị j Các phương án trả lời khác: Cảm ơn giúp đỡ bạn! ... conclusion, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the reality of teaching and learning reading English for non- English majors first- year at BA-STC To find out this reality, the observation,... difficulties in learning reading 5.2 The procedure of the study At first, I investigated the reality and difficulties of English teaching reality in general and teaching reading in particular at BA-STC... read better The question is that how to make the reading lessons more attractive for students So it was important to give the them some reasons for reading and to give them information they want