(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) Teaching and learning reading comprehension skills for grade 11 at Hong Quang High School Difficulties and solutions

Organization of the study Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension 1.2.2.4 Extensive reading 1.3 Teaching and learning reading comprehension s

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

MA MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2011 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

MA MINOR THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

Supervisor: Đỗ Bá Quý (MEd.)

Hanoi, 2011

iv

Table of Contents Candidate's statement

2 Aims of the study

3 Significance of the study

4 Scope of the study

5 Methods of the study

6 Organization of the study

Chapter 1: Literature review

1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension

1.2.2.4 Extensive reading

1.3 Teaching and learning reading comprehension skills

1.3.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning

1.3.2 Factors in teaching and learning reading

v

1.4 Organization of reading comprehension text

1.4.1 Pre-reading stage

1.4.2 While – reading stage

1.4.3 Post – reading stage

1.5 Summary

Chapter 2: Methodology

2.1 Participants

2.1.1 Teachers of English

2.1.2 The 11th -form students

2.2 Data collection instruments

2.2.1 The questionnaire for the students

2.2.2 The questionnaire for the teachers

2.3 Data collection procedures

Chapter 3: Data, data analysis and discussion

3.1 Data analysis

3.1.1 Questionnaire for the students

3.1.1.1 Students’ attitudes toward the importance of learning reading comprehension skill

3.1.1.2 Students’ purposes of reading

3.1.1.3 Students’ attitude toward class reading activities

3.1.1.4 Students’ difficulties when learning reading

3.1.1.5 Students’ responses to the techniques used by the teacher

3.1.1.6 Students’ ways of reading

3.1.1.7 Students’ effort for improving their reading comprehension skill

3.1.2 Questionnaire for the teachers

3.1.2.1 Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading comprehension skills at

school

3.1.2.2 Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of developing reading comprehension

skills

3.1.2.3 Teachers’ using reading techniques in a reading lesson at Hong Quang High School

3.1.2.4 Teachers’ difficulties when teaching reading

3.1.2 5 Teachers’ suggested activities

3.1.2.6 Teachers’ organizing reading activities

3.1.2.7 Teachers’ activities to improve students’ reading comprehension skill

vi

reading

3.2.2 Difficulties the teachers and students meet when dealing with a reading lesson

3.3 The activities suggested to help the 11th-form students at Hong Quang High School

improve their reading comprehension skill

3.3.1 Pre – reading stage

3.3.2 While – reading stage

3.3.3 Post – reading

3.3.4 Adjusting teaching time and efforts

3.3.5 Creating Interest and Enhancing Motivation

3.3.6 Techniques for enriching vocabulary

3.3.7 Techniques for improving students’ background knowledge

3.3.8 Recommending a Sample Lesson Plan

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

English is considered as an international language over the world It plays an important role

in the strong and rapid development of science and technology, politics, culture, and international relations in Vietnam The economic open-door policy pursued by the Government

of Vietnam has increased the demand for using English The new policy has made English language learning and teaching more important than before In order to meet the social requirements, the Ministry of Education and Training has recently decided to introduce a new series of English textbook for grade 11

Many survey findings show that if students learn to read faster and with more understanding, they can do many jobs that require reading with efficiency According to Carrell (1981, p.1), “reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English

as a second foreign language” However, teaching and learning reading skill at high schools is still far from satisfactory for various reasons Despite the teachers’ effort, the students’ motivation for intensive reading is low and the reading lesson is said to be a boring one

Hong Quang High school, which was founded in 1955, is one of the high schools chosen to pilot the set of textbook During the piloting period the teachers have confronted a number of difficulties, one of which was identified by Hong et al (2006:18) as “students’ general lack of motivation and opportunities to practice communicating in the target language” The students are accustomed to passive learning, the teachers’ capacities are uneven, the size of classes is large and classrooms are equipped poorly According to Hoang et al, there are five main obstacles in reading: the habit of word-by-word reading; overemphasis on forms rather than meaning; excessive focus on details rather than main ideas; poor vocabulary and limited background knowledge

The researcher needs to take a serious look at activities of teaching and learning of reading comprehension skill in general and reading activities in particular to help the Hong Quang High School 11th – form students read more effectively

This is the reason why I chose the topic: “Teaching and learning reading comprehension skills for grade 11 – Hong Quang High School: Difficulties and solutions”

2 Aims the study

This study aims at improving the quality of teaching and learning English reading

comprehension skills for grade 11 in Hong Quang High School after finding difficulties To achieve this aim, the study has to find answers to the following questions:

1 What are Hong Quang High School’s teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the

teaching and learning of reading?

2 What difficulties do the teachers and students face when dealing with a reading lesson?

3 What are the reading activities suggested to help 11th - grade students at Hong Quang

High School improve their reading comprehension skills?

3 Significance of the study

This study has been carried out to search for a better and more effective way to develop students’ reading comprehension skills Its findings hopefully would help the 11th-form students find out the suitable way for improving their reading comprehension skills Regarding teachers,

the study would raise their awareness concerning the topic and provide them with useful pedagogical suggestions in deciding to use the new teaching method to better develop their

learners’ reading comprehension skills Finally, with regard to researchers, those who happen to

share the same interest in the topic could certainly rely on this research to find reliable and useful

information for their related studies in the future

4 Scope of the study

To improve reading comprehension skills for Hong Quang High School 11th – form students, the teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done However, in this study, the author only intends to a brief overview of current situation of teaching and learning reading comprehension skills in the 11th – form students of Hong Quang High School to suggest some reading activities that can be applied in teaching and learning

reading comprehension skill so as to help the students to become effective readers

5 Methods of the study

To achieve the aims mentioned above, based on the results of two survey questionnaires, one for the students and the other for the teachers were employed to collect the data for the

study These will be discussed in detail in chapter 2, methodology

6 Organization of the study

The study is divided into three parts: part A - Introduction, part B - development and part C

conclusion

Part A - introduction includes the rationale, aims and objectives, significance, scope, method and organization of the study

Part B - development includes three chapters Chapter 1 (Review of literature) provides the theoretical background of the study The focus of this chapter is definitions of reading, reading comprehension, classifications of reading, reading in second language teaching and learning Chapter 2 (Methodology) describes the participants, data collection procedures and data collection instrument Chapter 3 (Data, data analysis and discussion) offers some major findings, some suggestions for improving students’ reading comprehension skills and a sample work for a reading lesson of the 11th-form students

Part C - conclusion includes conclusions, the limitations and suggestions for further study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature review

This chapter discusses different issues in the theories of reading in a foreign language Four major features will be presented here: definitions of reading, reading comprehension, kinds

of reading, reading in second language teaching and learning

1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension

1.1.1 Reading

Reading is often referred to as the most important of the four language skills for EFL learners, as it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and receive valuable linguistic input to build up language proficiency (Erten & Razı, 2003) Reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading It is seen as an active cognitive process in which the reader’s background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and Pearson 1994) Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to everyone

Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text

Having the same point with Goodman, William, E (1990, p.2) said that “reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” According William, in reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding Therefore, readers have

to “encode” meanings of a word depend on the context in which it appears

One more definition offered by Harmer (1989, p.153) showed us his opinion and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages”

According to Richard and Thomas (1987:15), reading is best described as “ an understanding between the author and the reader Reading is much more than just pronouncing words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends; it is the process whereby the printed page stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual

In short, each person can have a different definition of reading and we cannot tell which is better because each of them focuses on one important matter of reading However, we find that there is

a close relationship between reading and understanding Therefore, being a language teacher, we must understand the nature of reading thoroughly to help our students read effectively

1.1.2 Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension skill plays a very important role in teaching and learning reading

a foreign language It has the nature of communication, in which reading activity acts as a means

of communication between the writer and the reader

Reading comprehension results in the fact that when readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purpose Swan (1975, p.1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that

he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc

According to Grellet (1981: 3):“ Reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.” The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way

To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most important part in reading teaching

1.2 Types of reading

We read different texts in different ways According to the manner of reading, we have aloud reading and silent reading Depending on the purpose of reading, we can classify reading into skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading

1.2.1 According to manner

1.2.1.1 Reading aloud

“ Reading aloud involves looking a text, understanding it and also saying it Its’ purpose

is not just to understand the text to convey the information to someone else” (Doff, 1988:70) In

fact, it must be recognized that reading aloud is primarily an oral matter so that for those who teach and learn foreign languages, it is closer to “pronunciation” than it is to “comprehension” While it is perfectly proper to try to develop the skill of reading aloud, it clearly cannot be done using an unfamiliar text the content and language of which stretches the linguistic capabilities of the learners to the utmost Therefore, it must be admitted that the usefulness of reading aloud is

limited First of all, “reading aloud is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom” (Doff, 1988:67) Actually, in the daily life, few people are required to read aloud as

a matter of daily routine, radio newscasters, clergymen, perhaps actors To the huge majority, its

importance is minimal Secondly, “the readers is often merely mouthing meaningless language because of lack of rehearsal and time to comprehend what he has to read aloud ” ( Abott and

Wingard, 1981: 82) It means that when reading aloud, the readers’ attention is focused on the pronunciation, not on the understanding of the text Moreover, in the classroom, only the reading student is active at a time, others are either not listening at all or listening to a bad model In addition, some students’ speed of reading is very slow so it takes a lot of time in class

In short, reading aloud can be applied for those who begin learning a foreign language to establish the connection between sound and spelling But for the second year students, their purpose of learning reading is more than connecting the pronunciation They focus on understanding the text and doing comprehension exercises which cannot be completed by reading aloud because asking a student to read aloud means that he may lack concentration on the meaning He may read correctly but after that he will not be able to tell us what he has read

It is very difficult to read aloud and understand the text at the same time of reading So reading aloud might be a good way to practice pronunciation

1.2.1.2 Silent reading

Silent reading is the activity we usually engage in when we read books, newspapers, advertisements Silent reading is more often used in both real life and classroom, and “it is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985:110) Because reading is a very personal skill so silent reading is a more

effective skill for reading comprehension because firstly learners do not need to read all the words in the text, secondly they can read at their own speed and if they do not understand the sentence, they can go back, thirdly students can not only attain the main ideas in a short time but also understand its details thoroughly to answer the questions, and finally the teacher can check his/her learners’ understanding easily and add reading materials and exercises suitable to their ability

In short, silent reading is the most useful and practical way to develop the students’ reading ability However, it is more beneficial when the teacher sometimes combines it with reading aloud to improve students’ pronunciation and intonation because reading aloud also has its own advantages

is sometimes called previewing Another example is when reader glances quickly through a newspaper to see the main items of the day are This will often mean just glancing at the headlines” That means when we quickly to get general impression to see whether the text is useful to us, it is not necessarily searching for a specific details and key words Skimming provides an overview of the text so it is beneficial to look at chapter section headings, summaries and opening paragraphs, therefore, the purpose of skimming are to check relevance of the text and to set the scene for more concentrated effort that is to follow if the text is useful

To sum up, skimming is a very useful reading comprehension skill for students, and it is advisable to apply at the first stage of teaching reading with the hope that it can help them to

have an overview of what they are reading Moreover, it will be easier for them to deal with the other tasks that followed

1.2.2.2 Scanning

Scanning is also one of two most valuable reading strategies However, scanning is far more limited than skimming since it only means retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose Scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information It is a useful skill worth cultivating for its own sake, if it has been cultivated systematically from the earliest point in the course at which it can be attempted, co- operative work on the study of texts can be greatly expected and made easy Francois (1981:19)

understands that “when scanning, we only try to locate specific information and often we do not even follow the linearity of the passage to do so We simply let our eyes wander over the text until we find what we are looking for, whether it is a name, a date, or a less specific piece of information” With the same opinion, Mabel states that “scanning is the speed technique that helps you locate a bit of specific information very rapidly It could involve finding a name, date, place or statistic Or it might involve identifying a general setting in a short story Scanning is the technique you use when you read maps, charts, tables, or graphs It is the main skill researchers use when they examine various sources to locate information about a specific topic”

Scanning requires two skills of the reader One of them is that they recognize the specific type of word that identifies the item The other is the use of a different eye movement pattern, vertical vision Nearly all the background reading required for the presenting of a topic to the class by a group calls for proficiency in this type of reading There is a great range of text suitable for scanning – indexes, dictionaries, maps, advertisements, labels, reference material, etc

In short, the key to scanning is to decide exactly what kind of information we can look for and where to find it The purpose of scanning is to extract certain specific information without reading through the whole text

1.2.2.3 Intensive reading

Intensive reading is also widely used in a reading class It is an effective way to explore the text, to go deeply into the meaning and the organization of the text Intensive reading “ involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the students

to focus on the text” (Nuttall, 2000:38) In the view of Brown (1990:297) intensive reading “is

usually a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details

of a passage” Grellet, F (1981:4) states that “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for detailed” The objective of intensive reading is to achieve a full understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of the text, the attitude and purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to achieve his purposes In other words, intensive reading is reading for accuracy which is essential to the students’ comprehension

1.2.2.4 Extensive reading

Extensive reading is a fluency activity, mainly involving general understanding It provides valuable reinforcement of the language already presented and practiced in the class as well as giving students useful practice in inferring meaning from the context of the text Extensive reading is used to obtain a general understanding of a subject and includes reading longer texts for pleasure, as well as business books Use extensive reading skills to improve our general knowledge of business procedures Grellet, F (1981:4) points out “Extensive reading means reading longer texts, usually for one’s pleasure This is a fluency activity, mainly involving global understanding” What is more, Nuttall, C (2000:127) argues that “getting students to read extensively is the easiest and most effective way of improving their reading skills”

Extensive reading is considered to be useful for students’ self-learning Their reading habit and passion for reading are also formed through extensive reading Students can choose the topics they like and read for their own purpose for pleasure or entertainment However, it is more effective if students’ extensive reading is followed an instructional program with the help of the reading teacher

In short, reading is necessary to every learner and undeniably an important skill in comparison with others In addition, it is notable that intensive and extensive reading should not

be seen as in being opposition but need to be paid equal attention for the sake of the students For second or foreign language learners, both intensive and extensive reading are of great importance

as they act as a means to gain knowledge

1.3 Teaching and learning reading comprehension skills

1.3.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning

In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the teaching and learning of reading are always received much attention, since it is regarded as one of the most important major skills as what Carrell (1971: 1) stated: “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” This is also true for the MSA, because at our academy, reading is an active skills namely speaking, listening and writing To master reading skill is always challenging task that requires students a number of factors: a good competence of English grammar, rich vocabulary, and reading techniques First of all, reading helps students learn to think in English, enlarge their English vocabulary, improve their writing Richard (1993:4) claimed that “reading may help to increase knowledge of the target language through exposure to new vocabulary and grammatical structures” There is a close relationship between reading and vocabulary knowledge, because while reading, the readers know most of the words in the text already, and they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the contexts Therefore, the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read It is understandable that anyone who has a large vocabulary is usually a good reader

Besides, Richard (1993: 4) also stated that “reading in the new language is also an important way to learn about the target culture”, which means that reading provides the students with a wide range of interesting information, helps them understand the ways of life, behaviors, thoughts and other aspects of the native people and it is also a good way to find out about new ideas, facts and experiences Therefore, they can master vocabulary, grammar and the background knowledge or cross-cultural problems that they encounter In other words, reading

is very important to the foreign language learners because it widens their knowledge of language and life It seems to be the most important skill to the students of English since their main purpose is to understand the written texts

1.3.2 Factors in teaching and learning reading

1.3.2.1 Teacher’s role

Many linguistics state that the teacher is the most important factor in teaching reading In

a reading class, the teacher plays so many roles, such as an organizer, a manager and a counselor,

an instructional expert, so he or she should be a guide to assist, encourage them, employ various

types to support the students develop reading skills He or she also the person who provides the students with an anxiety-free atmosphere which helps them feel free to join new reading style, practice to master new strategies, work under pressure of time

Besides, linguistics point out an essential element of the teacher’s role-a model reader According to Nuttall (1982: 192) “showing that you are a reader means carrying books around with you, referring to books as you teach, reading out brief passages that may interest students, talking about what you are reading at the moment, and handling books as if you loved them” He also states that “teacher’s job as providing, first, suitable texts and second, activities that will focus the students’ attention on the texts”

- Monitoring comprehension: Students need to understand how texts work and what they

do when they read

- Learning text talk: It is clear that a good reader carries on a dialogue with the text Consequently, the students have to learn how to do this An way to promote this skill is to talk about texts in class

- Taking risks: Students have to take the risk of making mistakes because a mistake is an opportunity to learn

- Learning not to cheat oneself: Learning to read is learning to give students enormous advantages in life It may lead to better jobs, to personal development, interest and enjoyment Students who do not want to learn to read can easily cheat but they are only cheating themselves

1.3.2.3 The reading texts

It cannot be denied that reading texts play a crucial role in teaching and learning reading because through them new grammar, phonetic and lexical items of the target language are introduced Furthermore, texts are also means to help students enrich their background knowledge and vocabulary as well In reading lesson, students are supposed to understand the texts correctly as much as possible, learn some new language items e.g words, structures, and use what they have got from the text through reading tasks and communication activities that

follow Therefore, in teaching reading, the teacher should pay much attention to the following aspects such as language content, vocabulary and grammatical structures, types of reading activities, though it is not simple thing to do as what Buck, G (2001) states: “Providing suitable texts is not a simple matter It takes time, effort and some expertise”

1.4 Organization of reading comprehension text

1.4.1 Pre-reading stage

This stage plays a decisive role in the whole process of teaching reading comprehension,

so most experienced readers employ pre- reading and other strategies to make reading easier Pre- reading aims at introducing the text to the students and helps them make careful preparation before reading the text It is advisable for the teacher to create a reading motivation and a positive attitude towards reading for students so that they can achieve a high level of success and become confident that they can read effectively

As for Doff (1988), there are many activities a teacher can carry out to help students before they start reading as following:

- Introducing the text briefly

- Presenting new vocabulary

- Revising grammatical structures

- Giving guiding questions,

Moreover, in my opinion, the teacher should activate the students’ background knowledge and provide some information about the text This is aimed to help the students to predict the content of the text they are going to read Prediction is an important ability that the students should develop in order to comprehend various kinds of texts, especially the texts that the students are not familiar with Gebhard (1987:21) explains that “providing background information on a reading lesson is another way teachers can facilitate successful reading comprehension Providing information about a reading selection before students read provides them with the opportunity to gain new language, as well as recall their already existing knowledge, which they can take with them into their reading experience, and this knowledge facilitates successful comprehension”

Of course, not all these techniques will be relevant for all the texts The teacher can choose the suitable ones to motivate his learners

1.4.2 While – reading stage

While- reading stage is carried out when all students actually set their eyes on the text and this stage is the main part of a reading comprehension lesson The aims of this stage focus on making the students anticipate in the process of understanding the whole text, and interpreting exactly what the author wrote In addition, it helps the students break up the organization of the text; understand the text structures; classify the text content and recognize the writer’s purpose and attitude This stage also trains the students to think about other ideas rising from the text and

to form judgment and opinions on the basis of the fact presented Moreover, it helps the students improve their reading speed and techniques Besides, this stage offers an opportunity to apply effectively what they have learnt from the text to their purpose of study and communication Last but not least, this stage helps the students develop their decision - making and problem solving skills Because this stage plays a very important role in a reading lesson, it must be designed carefully

1.4.3 Post – reading stage

Post- reading is the implementation of various activities carried out after the students have read the text Some post- reading activities are extension of the work done at the pre- reading and while- reading stages Some relate only loosely to the reading text itself

According to Durkin (1981:486), “one reason for post- reading discussion in class is to offer pupils the chance to see in what way their reading did or did not succeed, and why” In fact, there are more than one purpose for post- reading stage which are of wide relevance and applied

to all students, and which teachers who teach groups with mixed level should consider

One of the purposes of post-reading work is to check whether the students have understood the text or not The teacher can ask the students some questions about the texts which are not given in the book or require them to discuss in group and in pair and so on Another purpose is to consolidate or reflect upon what the students have read To achieve this, the teacher should help the students focus on the important points as writer’s opinion, the main ideas of the text, the specific paragraph or phrase in the reading text The third purpose of post- reading work

is to expand on the topic or language of the reading text, and perhaps transfer things learned to another context Therefore, the students can relate the text to their background knowledge and interest and be able to express their personal opinion toward the text Moreover, post- reading

activities also offer the students a real practice of using language Setting up and organizing post- reading work depend very much on all the objectives of the program as a whole Post- reading work should, thus, contribute in a coherent manner, to the writing, speaking and listening skills that the program aims to develop

In conclusion, the three stages offer the teacher a frame work to conduct a reading lesson

in general but they do not need to follow rigidly Obviously, this three phrase approach is not to

be carried out mechanically on every occasion Sometimes the teacher may wish to cut out the pre-reading stage and get learners to work on the text directly Sometimes port- reading work may not be suitable However, the advantage of the three phase approach is twofold Firstly, it respects and makes use of the students’ own knowledge of language and of the world and uses this as a basis for involvement, motivation, and progress Secondly, the three phase approach leads to integration of the skills in a coherent manner, so that the reading session is not simply isolated Separating each from the others is like somebody warming up for a race and then running the race itself some days later

At Hong Quang High School, there are totally 12 teachers of English, including me, aged

from 28 to 52 Half of them graduated from University of Languages and International Study -

Hanoi, National University, Vietnam The others had in-service ELT training courses The

number of female teachers formed the majority (10 female teachers and only two male teachers)

All of them are enthusiastic with their career and had at least six years experienced in teaching English

However,in terms of methodology, the teachers in our school usually employ the traditional methods of teaching especially Grammar-translation method They often apply this method in teaching English In other words, they focus on analyzing the grammar rules, not on the acquisition of language skills.They spend most of the classroom time explaining new words, analyzing grammar structures and translating texts into Vietnamese Students often listen and take notes passively This leads to low motivation in students and creates very few chances for them to improve their communicative competence

2.1.2 The 11th -form students

The subjects of the study were 105 students coming from two different classes at Hong

Quang High School, all of them were born in 1994, and they are both male, and female Most of them have already learned English for at least four years at lower secondary school but many of

them are at the low level of English proficiency Another fact is that most of the students are from rural areas in Hai Duong province, some from Hai Duong city Consequently, individual differences in learning styles, identities, attitudes, motivation, etc are unavoidable and may cause the teachers some problems during their teaching

In addition, their lack of awareness on the importance of English as well as motivation makes them not interest in learning English Although most of them have already learnt English

for at least four years at lower secondary school, their knowledge of English is still poor and limited Hardly can they say a complete sentence in the target language

2.2 Data collection instruments

Using questionnaire allows the researcher to collect the data needed in quantitative form Besides, the researcher finds it quite easy to summarize, analyze, and report the collected data because all informants answer the same questions

2.2.1 The questionnaire for the students

The questionnaire consists of 10 questions, which are divided into eight parts Part one (includes question 1) aims at exploring students’ purposes of reading In part two, by answering question 2, the students had chance to express their attitude toward the role of reading The third part of the questionnaire (includes question 3, 4, 5, 6) was made to find out Students’ attitude toward class reading activities The fourth part includes question 7 was made to find out students’ difficulties when learning reading at school In the part five, by answering question 8, students had chance to express their responses to the techniques used by the teacher Question 9

is aimed at investigating the students’ ways of reading The purpose of the last question (question 10) is to find out the students’ effort for improving their reading comprehension skill

2.2.1.2 The questionnaire for the teachers

There are 10 questions in the questionnaire for the teachers and they were designed with seven purposes Firstly, through the answer to the first question, the researcher will evaluate the teachers’ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading comprehension skills at school Secondly, question 2 is aimed at finding out the teachers’ attitude toward the importance of developing reading comprehension skills By answering questions 3, 4, 5, 6, the teachers had chance to express the teachers’ using reading techniques in a reading lesson at Hong Quang High School Question 7 is aimed at investigating the teachers’ difficulties when teaching reading Question 8 is to find out the teachers’ suggested activities Question 9 is aimed at investigating the teachers’ organizing reading activities The purpose of the last question (question 10) is to find out the teachers’ activities to improve students’ reading comprehension skills

2.3 Data collection procedures

The copies of the questionnaire were delivered to 105 students from 2 different classes which were randomly selected among 12 grade 11 classes and 12 teachers of English in Hong Quang High School during their last English classes of the second term And the researcher

herself delivered the copies to participants Before the participants answered the questions, all of them had been informed in Vietnamese about the purposes of the questionnaire and how to answer all the questions so that they were clear about what and how they would to do When the students were writing their answers, the researcher was there with them to give any explanation

if necessary About 30 minutes later, the questionnaires were collected by the researcher herself

Chapter 3: Data, data analysis and discussion

In this part, the collected data will be presented by means of tables and charts Each table

and chart is followed by an analysis of the data and their discussion

3.1 Data analysis

3.1.1 Questionnaire for the students

3.1.1.1 Students’ attitudes toward the importance of learning reading comprehension skills

Chart 1 - Students’ attitudes toward the importance of learning reading comprehension skills

As shown in the above chart, the students valued the importance of reading

comprehension skills in different ways Most of the students in the survey had positive attitude

toward reading, 24.8% of them thought that reading comprehension skill was very important,

whereas 49.5% considered reading equally important to listening, writing, and speaking skills

The reasons the students gave for their perception of the importance of reading were various, but

they seemed to see the association of reading to other language skills or to the acquisition of

other formal elements of the language However, a certain number of students did not highly

appreciate the important role of reading, 14.3% found it not as important as other skills and only

11.4 % thought that reading comprehension skill was not important The reasons for this can be

that reading is not very beneficial to them

3.1.1.2 Students’ purposes of reading

B To gain information and improve knowledge 10 9.5

C To enrich vocabulary and grammatical structures 15 14.3

Table 1: Students’ purposes of reading

The results of Question 2 show that the students’ purposes of reading were not the

same Different ideas were provided for reading purposes Most of the students of Hong Quang

High School read in English with the combination of the mentioned purposes were the largest, accounting for 57.1% Next is the number of student who considered enriching vocabulary and

grammatical structures as his/her reading purposes (14.3%); 11.4% of them read for improving

language skills; the number of the student who read for gaining information and improving knowledge is 9.5% Finally, 7.6% of the students said that they liked reading texts to entertain

It is clear that the students’ purposes of reading in English were various Many students thought that reading could help them much in reinforcing language skills and improving background knowledge

3.1.1.3 Students’ attitude toward class reading activities

3.1.1.3.1 Frequency of using pre-reading activities by the teachers

1 Using games to introduce the text 13 12.4 46 43.8 28 26.7 18 17.1

2 Using pre – reading questions 65 61.9 24 22.9 13 12.4 3 2.9

3 Pre – teaching vocabulary 45 42.9 37 35.2 7 6.7 16 15.2

4 Explaining the instructions of the task 71 67.6 7 6.7 8 8.6 18 17.1

5 Making students predict the content of

the text

65 61.9 16 15.2 15 14.3 9 8.6

6 Giving reading tasks to students 24 22.9 48 45.7 17 16.2 16 15.2

7 Using visual aids to introduce the text 26 24.8 28 26.7 47 44.8 4 3.8

8 Giving a brief introduction to the text 60 57.1 23 21.9 10 9.5 12 11.4

Table 2 indicates that four activities such as: using pre-reading questions, explaining the instructions of the text, making students predict the content of the text and giving a brief introduction to the text were most frequently used by the teachers Other activities like using games and pre – teaching new vocabulary were also chosen at the pre-reading stage by many

students However, 44.8% of the students reported that their teachers rarely used visual aids to

introduce the texts

3.1.1.3.2 Students’ attitude toward while-reading activities

Table 3: The frequency of using while- reading activities

4 Finding synonyms and antonyms 10 9.5 58 55.2 37 35.2

only such common kinds of activity frequently often makes students feel bored It is advisable to

use activities such as Finding topic sentences, Finding synonyms and antonyms or Finding

equivalents, which were rarely conducted in the reading class

Chart 2: Students’ activities when meeting new words

When meeting unfamiliar words or structures in the text, a large number of students had a

habit of finding their meaning in the dictionary (49.5%) Up to 29.5% admitted that asking the

word meaning from the teachers and friends was the easiest and most effective way 14.3%

ignored them to concentrate on the text They added the whole content of the reading text does

not depend on just a few sentences that do not make sense to them Surprisingly, only 6.7% said

that they tried to guess words’ meanings by context clues

3.1.1.3.3 Students’ attitude toward post-reading activities

A Look them up in the dictionary

B Ask teacher or friends for help

C Guess their meanings by the context clues

D Ignore them and continue reading

B Discuss the texts

C Do multiple – choice exercises,

check students’ understanding

D Translate into Vietnamese

A Summarize the text

Chart 3: Students’ attitude toward post-reading activities

The data in the above chart shows clearly that summarizing the text after reading was very beneficial to students to gain better understanding and memorizing the text, but only 9.5% often applied this Students did not seem to have the habit of discussing the text in groups (5.7%) 35.2% admitted that they were often allowed to do multiple-choice exercises Many students (21%) used the activity of translating the text into Vietnamese It is surprising to see that 30 out of 105 students involved this study proposed that they often did nothing in post-reading The reason they mentioned was the time for a reading lesson They usually lacked time for reading

3.1.1.4 Students’ difficulties when learning reading

Areas of difficulties Number of responses Percent (%)

A Vocabulary and grammatical

Table 4: Students’ difficulties when learning reading

Table 4 represents difficulties, which students faced when reading an English text As

shown in the table, the most difficult problem was the limited capacity of vocabulary and

grammatical structures 68 students in the survey (64.8%) assumed that if they encountered many

new or difficult vocabulary and grammatical structures in a text, their motivation for reading would surely be decreased The next one (20%) was the lack of appropriate reading comprehension skills It is obvious that students cannot do reading text easily if they do not have appropriate reading comprehension skills Therefore, it is very important for teachers to suggest essential reading comprehension skills needed for each kind of reading tasks 16 out of 105 students (15.2%) blamed on the lack of background knowledge of the topic of the reading text

3.1.1.5 Students’ responses to the techniques used by the teacher

A Give various kinds of exercises to

help us exploit the reading text

Chart 4: Students’ responses to the techniques used by the teacher

When being asked which techniques their teachers used in teaching a reading lesson, the

students chose all suggested techniques Statistically, 26.7% of the students said that their

teachers gave various kinds of exercises to help them exploit the reading text 29.5% admitted

that their teachers gave attractive introductions and clear aim of the reading text, 34.3% of the

students said that their teachers gave more interesting activities, only 9.5% admitted that their

teachers helped them guess new words based on the context

B Give attractive introduction and clear aim of the reading text

C Give more interesting activities

D Help students guess new words based on the context

3.1.1.6 Students’ ways of reading

Chart 5: Students’ ways of reading

The chart above shows that 23.8% of the students worked in groups It can be understood that group-work enables students to activate their existing knowledge to share experience Moreover, students can take an active part in discussion A greater proportion of students (28.6%) worked in pairs The reason for this may be because of the class setting (the students often sit in the table of two or four) so that, when working in pairs, they do not have to change the seats arrangement and can have more time as well as more opportunities to express their ideas However, the largest proportion, 47.6% of the students worked individually

3.1.1.7 Students’ effort for improving their reading comprehension skills

Chart 6: Students’ effort for improving their reading comprehension skills

A Work individually

B Work in pairs

C Work in groups

A Read a lot

B Share experience with friends

C Do all kinds of exercise

D Others

The students need efforts to improve their reading comprehension skills They often try their best in learning English The data indicates that the number of student read a lot is 47.6% Some students (29.5%) said that they usually improved their reading skill by doing many kinds

of exercise, 9.5% thought they shared experience with their friends to find out the best way of learning reading 13.3% did others to improve their reading comprehension Besides their effort,

they could not deny the role of the teachers who often helped them much in learning

3.1.2 Questionnaire for the teachers

3.1.2.1 Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading comprehension skills

at school

Chart 7: Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading comprehension skills at school

As shown in Chart 7, most of the teachers in the survey had positive attitude toward

reading 25% of them found teaching reading very important 66.7% of them found teaching reading as important as other language skills To them, reading was important and beneficial to

their students However, only one teacher (8.3 %) did not highly appreciate the important role of reading The reasons for this can be that this teacher focuses most on teaching grammar and vocabulary No teacher thought that teaching reading was not important at all

B As important as other language skills (listening, speaking, writing)

C Not important as other language skills (listening, speaking, writing)

D Not important at all

A Very important