Interactive post - Reading activities focusing on speaking used to teach Grade 10 students at Le Loi...

Interactive post Reading activities focusing on speaking used to teach Grade 10 students at Le Loi upper secondary school Interactive post reading activities focusing on speaking used to teach Grade 10 students at Le Loi upper secondary school 0 CONTENTS Page A INTRODUCTION 1 I REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH 1 II AIMS OF THE RESEARCH 1 III SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD 2 B DISCUSSION 2 I POST READING STAGE 2 1 The importance of reading 2 2 General views on post reading activities 2 3 T[.]

CONTENTS Page

II POST-READING ACTIVITIES FOCUSING ON SPEAKING 6

2 Demonstration of activities usually used in teaching English 10 at Le

III APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING ENGLISH 10 11

IV RESULT AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN TEACHING 18

A INTRODUCTION

It is widely recognized that reading is one of the most important skills for English as a foreign language students to master The ability to read and comprehend what one reads is crucial to success in our educational system For academic success, for English language learning, or to expand students’ knowledge of language, cultures and the world, reading comprehension has always played a central role in the curricula of the schools in this study At present, reading comprehension is not the product of word recognition skills, grammar or world experience as separate entities, but it is considered a highly interactive process between the reader and the text, one that enables “the construction of meaning by making inferences and interpretations” The post-reading stage of a post-reading lesson is often confused with the closing of a lesson However, having new information from the whilst-reading stage should bring about a change such as the students would know more, or think or feel differently from before Teachers should help students connect the new information they are now familiar with and their lives This article re-introduces the importance of the post-reading stage and some workable, meaningful activities Interactive activities are chosen so that students not only process their knowledge obtained from the text but also communicate this new knowledge to peers

I REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH

In Vietnam, in recent years teaching methods have been more and more improved There have been a lot of activities organized in order to enhance the effectiveness and help students be more active and self-confident in learning English in general and reading skills in particular Many universities and upper-secondary schools, including Le Loi upper-upper-secondary school apply post reading activities which can be seen as one of the most effective way to develop students‘ reading competence It is stated that post-reading activities encourage student to reflect upon what they have read For the information to stay with the students, they need to go beyond simply reading it to using it Until now, there have been a lot of researches done in the area of post reading activities In 2000, Alderson wrote Assessing reading‘ with the aim of analyzing the effectiveness of reading activities, including post reading activities Sasson (n.d) wrote post-reading activities – how teachers can end the lesson effectively to give some advice so that teachers can apply when implementing post-reading activities However, there is a gap between the theory and the practice At upper-secondary schools in general, the advantages of post-reading activities have not been fully made use of In addition, teachers and students encounter some difficulties related to the students‘ level, time, etc; as a result, the implementation of these activities has not been effective All mentioned above, I have decided to suggest post-reading activities I have ever taught my grade 10 students at my school

II AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

- To introduce how to teach reading skills and post-reading part.

- To show ways of teaching post-reading part

- To show how post-reading activities can be designed for teaching English in grade 10 at Le Loi upper-secondary school

- To draw out what the learners understand the reading texts and apply them to their daily life through post-reading activities

III SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD

- Scope : Researching in the process of teaching English 10 at Le Loi upper-secondary school

- Object: This subject is concerned with ways of organizing post-reading activities in the class

- Researching method: Reading reference books , discussing with other teachers, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences

B DISCUSSION

I POST-READING STAGE

1. The importance of reading

Reading is an activity of inferring meaning out of written symbols with the collaborative work of cognitive behaviors and psycho-motor skills (Demirel, 1992) Reading is described as the process of perception in terms of written and published words with the help of senses, comprehension of these after building meaningful connections; intellectual and spiritual acquisition, active and communicative involvement with the written and published symbols, reception consisting of a number of perceptive and cognitive processes, an interpretation and also a reaction According to Alderson (1984), most scholars would suppose that reading is one of the most important skills for educational and professional success In highlighting the importance of reading comprehension Rivers (1981) stated that ― reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and pleasurable activity but also as a means of consolidating and extending one‘s which are knowledge of the language

As Karakas (2002) pointed that the real objective of reading is fast and right grasp of the meaning Especially, reading at high speed along with full comprehension is a critical factor affecting the success of the students Students who can read at a high speed, understand what is being read, have a rich verbal repertoire and have a good master of the language, learn more easily and have higher rates of success The level of reading can be designated by asking questions about the reading text being read and evaluating the related answers

in verbal or written way (Çalışkan, 2004)

According to Eskey (1988) in advanced levels of second language the ability

to read the written language at a reasonable rate and with good comprehension has long been recognized to be as oral skills if not more important

2. General views on post-reading activities

Definitions of post-reading activities

As language learning involves the acquisition of thousands of words, teachers and learners alike would like to know how vocabulary learning can be fostered, especially in EFL settings where learners frequently acquire impoverished lexicons, despite years of formal study Research indicates that reading is important but not sufficient for second-language vocabulary learning, and that it should be supplemented by post-reading activities to enhance students' vocabulary knowledge

Post reading activities play an important role in language teaching and learning There are many reasons for its being important Firstly, learners come across it a lot in their daily lives Secondly, since the students in this research are preparatory learners who are learning English for academic purposes, that means students learn English for the examination Therefore, without understanding the texts, they cannot learn anything; as a result, cannot

be successful in the exams Since post reading is an important skill in language learning, it is necessary to define it According to Chastain (1998), post-reading activities help readers to clarify any unclear meaning where the focus is on the meaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects of the text Ur (1996) discusses summary as a kind of post-reading activity where the readers are asked to summarize the content in a sentence or two It is also possible to give this post-reading activity in the mother tongue Karakas (2002) proposes that the readers interpret the text and illustrate the relationship between the questions and their answers by using activities such as summarizing, question and answer, and drawing conclusions and it is possible to catch the missing parts of the mental picture through thinking aloud, discussion and summarizing "Post-reading" (after, follow-up, beyond reading) exercises first check students' comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis of the text, when warranted (Alderson, 2000)

The primary goal of post-reading activity is to make sure that satisfactory comprehension was taken place If the person is looking for a number in a telephone directory, she or he should be very selective She/he should scan the directory for the number needed On the contrary, a researcher needs to read an article in detail to get the main ideas of the writer and to learn more about the subject Nevertheless, it can still be argued that any reading is selective Wallace (1992) shares the same idea by saying, ―Just as we filter spoken messages in deciding what to attend to, so do we filter written messages And even when

we commit ourselves to a full reading, that reading will still be selective, some parts being read with greater care than others

3. The Post-/After Reading Stage

When the during-/whilst- reading stage is completed, the students are expected to have obtained new information from the text This should bring about a change of some kind such as they would know more, or think or feel differently from before Therefore, we ask, So what? , which leads to the

connection between the new informa- tion the students are now familiar with and their lives According to Nuttall (1996: 164) when intensive work in a during-/whilst reading stage is completed, general com- prehension must be intended to At this stage, the students should be able to eva- luate the text as a whole to respond to it from a more or less personal point of view They may be asked to agree or disagree with the author or the characters in the text; relate the content to their own experience; connect the content with other work in the same field; discuss characters, incidents, ideas, feelings; or predict what can happen afterwards

Common post reading activities are: creating stories or end of stories, producing posters, reconstructing texts, and question- ing the text or views of the writer

4. The importance of post-reading activities.

Post-reading activities are simply activi- ties done after during-reading activities are completed At this stage the students are in a temporary change of state or condition, that is, they now know something they did not know before They know some new vo- cabulary items, some new sentence struc- tures, some new idiomatic expressions, and they have new knowledge about a certain topic However, it is definitely not the right time for the class to just call it a day How many times do we see lesson plans with good pre-reading activities and well- planned during reading activities, but brief, classic post-reading activities such

as write the answers on a piece of paper , translate paragraph 2,write a sentence for each of the new words found in the text , using a similar pattern, write about your house?

Something must be done to help the students use what they now know so that these new things will become more than just knowledge In a post-reading stage students are not studying about the language of the text and they are not comprehending the text, either At the post-reading stage stu- dents are supposed to apply what they pos- sess

Post-reading activities are expected to encourage students to reflect upon what they have read The purposes of the activi- ties are for the students to use the familiar text as basis for specific language study, to allow the students to respond to the text creatively and to get the students to focus more deeply on the information in the text For the new information to stay with them, the

students need to go beyond simply reading the information to using it Follow-

ing up in the post-reading stage is critical to both comprehension, which is instruction sensitive, and obtaining and working on new information, which takes the students to their real life situation Well-designed after-reading activities usually require the learners to return to the text several times and to reread it to check on particular in- formation of language use Students, indivi- dually or in groups, should have ample time to share and discuss the work they have completed This enables the students to tie up loose ends, answer any remaining ques- tions, and to understand the interrelation- ships of topics

covered When readers are called on to communicate the ideas they have read,

it is then that they learn to con- ceptualize and discover what meaning the text has to them Although teachers should be careful to spend just some time in the pre-reading stage, they are actually ex- pected to spend more time in the post- reading stage with several activities A two- fold purpose is involved here, namely: stu- dents need to (1) recycle what they have obtained from the text and (2) go beyond the text and enter the real world, equipped with the newly-obtained information

5. What students gain from post-reading activities.

At least six principles in foreign lan- guage teaching-learning by Brown (2007: 62-81) can be fulfilled From recycling some language components in different ways through different language skills, au- tomaticity is certainly on its way Meaning- ful learning is carried out because at a post- reading stage students relate new informa- tion with their own life and experiences Each student is asked to respond to parts of the text she or he has read Because students are active in responding to the texts they have been, and the teacher puts himself in the background, students are empowered and to a certain extent,

in control of the ac- tivities This may lead to students autono- my Willingness to communicate, which involve students willingness to take risks and being self-confident, is gained because they are supposed to be well-prepared to do the post-activities When students are given different tasks, they have good opportuni- ties to use the language, orally as well as written This puts them in a position where they can develop their interlanguage Final- ly, post-reading activities are not interested in the right versus wrong answers to com- prehension questions anymore Students do not have to prove they understand the voca- bulary and grammar of the text, anymore Therefore, students are not only taught to achieve linguistic competence but also dis- course and strategic competence, so com- municative competence is also taken care

of We can conclude that from post- reading activities, the students are develop- ing themselves to achieve automaticity, meaningful learning, autonomy, willingness to communicate, interlanguage, and com- municative competence

6. Interactive post-reading activities

Reading comprehension should not be alienated from the other skills (Harmer, 2007: 267) In reality, for example, we tend to talk about what we have read, especially when the content is actual, interesting, un- expected, or simply strange and unbelievable

Therefore, we may link reading and writing, for example, by summarizing, note- making, mentioning what has been read in a letter We might link reading and listening by comparing what we have heard to read- ing

a news report, comparing the song we heard from the radio to the song lyric down- loaded from the internet Still, we might link reading and speaking by discussing what we have learned from a reading pas- sage and retelling stories

There are many activities that will refine, enrich, and increase interest in the as- signed topic of a text However, the primary goal of the post reading phase is to further develop and clarify interpretations of the text, and to help students remember what they have individually created in their minds from the text Good post-reading ac- tivities should be able to get the students to recycle some aspects from their whilst- reading activities; to go beyond the text; to share opinions, ideas, feelings; and to give reasons to communicate

There are various kinds of interactive post-reading activities that relate reading to other language skills The following activities are mostly taken from Bamford and Day (2004) and, after some adaptation, are proven to have worked well in my classes

6.1 Interactive Post-reading Activities Focusing on Listening

6.2 Interactive Post-Reading Activities Focusing on Writing

6.3 Interactive Post-reading Activities Focusing on Speaking

6.4 Other Interactive Post-reading Activities

II POST-READING ACTIVITIES FOCUSING ON SPEAKING

1 Post-reading activities focusing on speaking.

Students are likely to understand more when they discuss with each other what they have learned, so they must have special opportunities to orally discuss their opi- nions, feelings, and conclusions, from their reading activity Some of the ways to do this include the following activities

1.1.TV reporters

Students can pretend to be television reporters with two minutes to sum up the highlights of the "story." They work in small groups to decide on the highlights which are written as news prompt on a laptop or a large piece of paper put on a stand

1.2.Main ideas list

Students list the five (or more) main ideas of the text beginning with the most important to the least (not following the order in the text) This can be done

in a Round Robin type of activity, in which each student is a group of 4-5 students takes turn saying one main idea

1.3.Teacher-absent student

A student becomes the "teacher" and explains what was covered in class with a student who was absent This is a good and meaningful activity because the students are trained to decide important aspects of a lesson The activity may become really entertaining when the teacher plays a role of a real teacher the class know

1.4.Debate

The students can take specific sides of a topic and debate an issue Depending on the levels of students, the activity can range from the students just mentioning likes and dislike to a real debate activity

1.5.Hot Seat

One student becomes the writer of a text or a character in a text,

answering the class’ questions The questions can be creative, whose answers are not found in the text Here, there is aspect of unpredictability, which is one important characteristics of real communication Funny answers are expected, and these are the interesting parts of the activity

1.6.Vanishing cloze

This activity helps the students memorize a poem by doing a cloze procedure orally The teacher adds the blanks until no more words are left Although it is a teacher-centered activity, the teacher can assign the students to work in groups of four and at different point of the process the teacher and call out students in different group to recite a certain part of the poem To give equal chance to the stu- dents, this activity can be done in a Numbered Heads Together format

1.7.Team Review

Students review material already studied and share their knowledge with other students This can be done in groups, where students move to other groups

to socialize their knowledge

1.8 Story Reading

This activity is meant for reading with an audience such as young learners The reader of a text (usually a short fable, folk tale, fairy tale, or procedure text) has to be well-prepared in terms of pronunciation, intonation, key or new vocabulary, when to pause and give comments, show pictures or make use of media, or ask questions

1.9 Retelling (a strory)

In this activity, the story teller has to really know the story He or she has

to prepare the story and rehearse again and again so as not to make any language mistakes when doing the actually story telling To help the teller to communicate his or her story as well as the audience to understand the story, some media such as puppets, cut-outs, realia, or animation on LCD, can be used

1.10 Interactive cross-word puzzle

The purpose of this activity is to recycle vocabulary items learned from some reading texts The students work in pair in an information gap activity, in which each member has a different set partially completed cross-word puzzle without clues The pair take turns asking each other so that they can have the completed cross-word puzzle Because no clues are provided, the student who has the answers should construct the clues to be guessed by the other student in the pair

1.11 Role-play

Role-play activities allow students to act out concepts For example, in a

computer technology class, after students read about the functions of the various computer components, the teacher could select students to act out the roles of the CPU, the monitor, the modem, and the printer

1.12 Quiz Questions

After students read a chapter or section of a chapter in the course

textbook, ask them to develop questions for a quiz (This can also be done with

other reading materials.) This activity forces them to analyze the information in the chapter and decide on the most important concepts to remember

Formulating questions can also helpthem to organize the concepts into logical chunks of information for easier retrieval Working in groups on this activity is helpful for further discussion of concepts

Students can then present their questions to the class and see who can answer them correctly The students trying to answer the questions may offer suggestions on how to write a question more clearly so that it can be easily understood Teachers might also offer suggestions for revision of questions Other SEA Site modules, for example, "WH-Questions" and "Passive Voice" can be useful for teachers in providing guidance in using structures that will be more easily understood by students

2 Demonstration of activities usually used in teaching English 10 at Le Loi upper-secondary school.

2.1 Tv reporter:

Examples : Unit 14 – The World Cup - Part A: Reading

After you read

Work in groups Talk about the events mentioned in the passage, using the

following cues

Teacher: Aks students to work in groups of 4 to talk about the events mentioned

+ Devides the role of each student in every group (One of them will be the

Tv reporter, the other will be the interviees)

+ Helps students to prepare the questions (wh-questions) related to the events

Students: Prepare the questions related to the events

1 In what year was the world cup held in both Korea and Japan?

2 How many national football teams attend in the world cup nowadays?

3 When was the first world cup held?

4 Do you know in what year FIFA was set up?

5 By 2002, how many World Cup tournaments had people witnessed?

…

2.2 Main ideas list

Example: Unit 5 – Technology and you – Part A: Reading

After you read

Work in group: Discuss the uses of the computer in our life.

Teacher: -Asks students to work in a groups of five to talk about the uses of computers in our life nowadays

+ Gives some suggestions: the uses of computers in communication,

entertainment, business, storing, etc

+ Aks students to present the uses of computers in our life nowadays in turn

Students: Work in groups of 5 to talk about the uses of computers in our life nowadays

2.3 Debate

Example: Unit 5 – Technology and you – Part A: Reading

(This activity is only used for better students at a certain class)

After you read

Work in group: What are the advantages and disadvantages of the computer in

our life

Teacher: Asks students to work in groups to debate the advantages and disadvantages of computers The groups in the right side discuss the advantages

of computers and the ones in the left discuss the disadvantges of computers