Some tricks teach reading comprehension skill for students at habinh secondary school

Some tricks teach reading comprehension skill for students at habinh secondary school 1 THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HA TRUNG DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING EXPERIENCE INITIATI[.]

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

INDEX Table of content Page

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 The reason for choosing the topic

1.2 Research purpose

1.3 Research subjects

1.4 Research methodology

1 2 2 2

2 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

2 3 5

14

3 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS.

3.1 Conclusion

3.2 Suggestions

15 15

REFERENCES LIST OF THE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVES WHICH WERE

RECOGNIZED

1 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 8 and 9 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

2 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 do 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, 9 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 do 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 do 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 8 and grade 9 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 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 do 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 (2015-2016)

Class/

Grade

Total

number

of

students

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 3 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 1 to 6

For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside

Lesson 4: Read Rearrange these sentences into the correct order [7]

1 Peter plays baseball

2 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: 2 -> 6 -> 3 -> 4 -> 1 -> 5

* 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

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