Using Supplementary Reading Materials With The Course Book Business Basics To Improve The Efficiency Of Reading Teaching And Learning For Second - Year Students At Bac Ha College Of Technology.pdf

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Dao thi hoa

Using Supplementary Reading Materials with the Course book Business Basics to Improve the Efficiency

of reading teaching and learning for Second-year Students at Bac Ha College of Technology

Sử dụng tài liệu đọc bổ trợ cho giáo trình Business Basics nhằm nâng cao hiệu quả của việc dạy và học kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm thứ

hai tr-ờng Cao đẳng Công nghệ Bắc Hà

m.a minor thesis

Field: Methodology

Code: 60 14 10

Supervisor: Phan Thi Van Quyen

Hanoi - 2010

Table of contents

Acknowledgements……… i

Abstract……… ii

List of tables and charts……… iii

Table of contents……… iv

Part a: Introduction 1 Rationale……… 1

2 Aims of the study……… 2

3 Significance of the study……… 2

4 Research questions……… 2

5 Methodology……… 3

6 Design of the study……… 3

Part B: development Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 An overview of reading……… 4

1.1.1 Definitions of reading comprehension……… 4

1.1.2 Models of reading ……… 4

1.1.3 Reading skills and types of reading skills……… 5

1.1.3.1 Definition of reading skills……… 5

1.1.3.2 Types of reading skills……… 5

1.2 Materials development in language teaching……… 7

1.2.1 Definition of language teaching materials……… 7

1.2.2 Processes in materials development……… 7

1.2.2.1 Materials evaluation……… 8

1.2.2.2 Types of materials evaluation……… 8

1.2.2.3 Criteria for materials evaluation……… 9

1.2.3 Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills……… 10

1.2.3.1 Definition of supplementary materials……… 10

1.2.3.2 Criteria for selecting supplementary materials……… 10

1.2.3.3 How to use supplementary materials……… 11

Summary

Chapter 2: Methodology

2.1 Background to the study……… 14

2.1.1 The setting……… 14

2.1.2 The textbook Business Basics……… 14

2.1.3 Participants……… 15

2.1.3.1 The teachers……… 15

2.1.3.2 The students……… 16

2.2 Instrument for data collection……… 16

2.2.1 The questionnaire for teachers……… 16

2.2.2 The questionnaire for students……… 17

2.3 Data collection procedure……… 17

Chapter 3: Data analysis, findings and discussion 3.1 Data analysis……… 18

3.2 Findings and discussion……… 27

3.2.1 The teachers’ and the students’ evaluations of the current textbook Business Basics……… 27

3.2.2 The teachers’ and the students’ expectations of supplementary reading materials……… 28

Chapter 4: Recommendations 4.1 Suggestions for selecting supplementary materials……… 29

4.2 Designing tasks and activities for reading passages……… 30

4.3 Sample supplementary readings……… ……… 30

Part C: conclusion 1 Conclusion of the study……… 37

2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study……… 37

References 3

9

Appendices

Appendix 1: Questionnaire for teachers

Appendix 2: Questionnaire for students

Lists of tables and charts

Tables

Table 1: The teachers’and students’ evaluations on level of difficulty, content and length

of reading texts in the textbook

Table 2: The teachers’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics Table 3: The students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook Business Basics Table 4: Topics in the textbook need supplementary reading

Table 5: Teachers’ expectations of the supplementary reading materials

Part a: introduction

1 Rationale

Nowadays, in the time of globalization, English plays an essential role in the increasing development of science, technology, politics, economics, tourism, culture and

so on English language is not only considered as a means of communication but also a key

to access the important achievements of science and technology Therefore, learners of English should acquire this language and teaching and learning English become popular in our country

Among four language skills, reading is very important in learning a foreign language as reading helps students to widen their knowledge and understand different academic materials written in English Carrel (1981: 1) also emphasizes “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” It is necessary for the second year students at Bac Ha College of Technology to develop reading ability effectively because reading provides a lot of useful information as well as enrich their language vocabulary and structures Reading will be an effective way to help students enhance their English proficiency especially their reading skills Nevertheless, despite the teachers‟ and students‟ efforts, the students at Bac Ha College of Technology have a poor reading result that makes them uninterested in learning English in general and in learning reading skill in particular

The students‟ English proficiency at Bac Ha College of Technology is not the same It is due to the fact that they come from different places Most of them come from the countryside so they can not have preferable English learning condition The others come from towns and cities where they have more convenient condition of learning English This results in low English proficiency of the students because of their limited vocabulary and grammar In addition, they do not have appropriate reading strategies and background knowledge Therefore, students face a lot of difficulties in reading and understanding the long texts especially the texts relating to economic fields which they are studying As a result, they find it hard to be successful in their reading and they are not interested in reading

With the purpose of improving their English knowledge, it is very important for the teachers to provide them as many opportunities to read as possible Nuttall in the book

“Teaching reading skills in a foreign language” (1982) states that “reading as a purposeful activity, we can make teaching more purposeful and classes livelier, even in the difficult circumstances”

All the above reasons have inspired me to carry out the study on “Using

Supplementary Reading Materials with the Course book Business Basics to Improve the Efficiency of Reading Teaching and Learning for Second-year Students at Bac Ha College

of Technology”, with a hope to improve the teaching and learning English as well as the

teaching and learning reading comprehension

2 Aims of the study

The purpose of the study is to find ways of developing the effective reading materials so as

to improve the teaching reading skill of the teachers as well as to enhance the students‟ learning reading The specific aims of this research are as follows:

- To find out some different evaluations made by teachers and students towards the textbook Business Basics, which is currently used by the second year students at Bac Ha College of Technology

- To examine the teachers‟ and the students‟ expectations of supplementary reading materials

- To give recommendations for selecting supplementary materials to improve teaching reading of the teachers as well as learning reading of the students

3 Significance of the study

This study is of great importance to the author herself as well as to all teachers of English

It helps to reinforce students‟ English proficiency and suggests ways to improve the teaching of English in general and reading in particular at Bac Ha College of Technology and most schools and universities that share the same mandate

2 What are the teachers‟ and the students‟ expectations of supplementary reading materials?

5 Methodology

The methods used in the study is quantitative and qualitative A questionnaire is used as a main instrument for data collection Two sets of questionnaires were designed and delivered to the teachers and the second-year students at Bac Ha College of Technology in order to find out answers to the research questions The data were collected, synthesized and analyzed from the survey questionnaires for both teachers and students on their evaluations of the current textbook and their expectations of supplementary reading materials

6 Design of the study

This study is divided into three parts

Part A is the introduction in which the rationale, aims of the study, significance, research

questions, methodology and design of the study are stated

Part B is the development, the main part of the study In this part, there are four chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the literature concerning an overview of reading, reading comprehension with models of reading process, the theory of materials development and supplementary materials in teaching reading skills

Chapter 2 presents methodology of the study consisting of the background to the study It covers the setting, the textbook Business Basics, the participants, the instrument as well as

data collection procedure

Chapter 3 goes into details of the data analysis, findings and discussion

Chapter 4 briefly deals with recommendations of the study

Part C comes up with the summary of the study in which limitations of the study and

suggestions for further research are also presented

Part B: Development Chapter 1: Literature review 1.1 An overview of reading

1.1.1 Definitions of reading comprehension

Reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning 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 can be affected by world knowledge, with many demonstrations that readers who possesses rich knowledge about the topic of a reading usually understand the reading better than classmates with lower knowledge Roe, Stood and Burns (1987: 2) indicate “Reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation and evaluation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life experience”

Sharing the same point of view, Grellet (1981: 3) consider “reading comprehension

or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible” In his definition, reading comprehension simply means reading and understanding Reading comprehension is not merely decoding-translating written symbols into corresponding sounds

Though these definitions are not exactly the same, what comes up a common point

is that reading comprehension is the process in which the readers, as they read, can recognize the graphic forms of the reading text and what is implied behind these forms While reading, learners of language need to have critical thinking to understand and analyze what is written Then readers can learn both grammar and vocabulary after reading From that, they will easily understand the content of the reading

1.1.2 Models of reading

In terms of the reading process, many language researchers (Nuttall, 1996; Ur, 1991; Alderson, 2000, etc) share the same viewpoint that there are three different ways of processing a text namely the bottom-up, the top-down and interactive models

The bottom-up models: The basis of bottom up models is linguistics knowledge of

the reader In these models, the reader starts with the written text (the bottom), and constructs meaning from the letters, words, phrases and sentences found within and then

processes the text in a linear fashion The bottom-up models analyze reading as a process

in which small chunks of text are absorbed, analyzed, and gradually added to the next chunk until they become meaningful

The top- down models: The top- down process moves from the top, the higher - level mental stages, down to the text itself In these models, the reading process is driven

by the reader‟s mind at work on the text (reader- driven models) The reader rather than the text is at the heart of the reading process

Interactive models of the reading process are proposed in the light of the perceived

deficiencies of both bottom- up and top- down models Like top- down models, they are reader- driven This means the reader uses his or her previous understanding to guess about text content and as in bottom- up models, the reader is dependent upon what is in the text

Hayes (1991) supposes that “Interactive models are more than a compromise between bottom- up and top- down theories In interactive models, different processes are thought to be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes The information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the most appropriate interpretation of the printed page”

In brief, interactive models are more adequate than the bottom- up and top- down models because they maximize the strong points and minimize the weak points of the use

of both bottom- up and top- down models Thus, the language users need combine and practice both bottom- up and top- down strategies to gain efficiency in the reading process

1.1.3 Reading skills and types of reading skills

1.1.3.1 Definition of reading skills

Reading skill is one of the four important skills in learning language Paris, Wasik and Turner (1991: 611) also confirm “Reading skills refer to information – processing techniques that are automatic, whether at the level of recognizing grapheme – phoneme correspondence or summarizing a story Skills are applied to a text unconsciously for many reasons including expertise, repeated practice, and compliance with directions, luck, and native use”

1.1.3.2 Types of reading skills

- Skimming

Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important information Grellet, F (1981: 19) says “When skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get the gist

of it, to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the tone or the intention of the writer”

Hedge, T (2000: 195) points out that “Skim reading is used to get a global impression of the content of a text An example would be previewing a long magazine article by reading rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing on headings and first lines of

paragraphs”

- Scanning

Scanning occurs when a reader looks quickly through the text searching for a specific piece

of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose Hedge, T (2000: 195) suggests that “Scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to find a specific point of information, for example, the relevant times on a timetable, items in a directory, or key points in academic text” Scanning is the reading skill we use when we want to find the answer to a specific question Scanning is an useful reading skill that may

at first strange to a learner who is used to reading everything in a foreign language with the same degree of attention

Inference means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the

meaning of unknown elements If these are words, then word-formation and derivation will also play an important role When dealing with a new text, it is better not to explain the difficult words to the learners Students should be encouraged to make a guess at the meaning of the words they do not know rather than look them up in a dictionary If they need to look at the dictionary to get the meaning, they should only do so after having tried

to work out a solution on their own Therefore, it is very essential to develop the inference

skill

- Critical thinking

Critical thinking involves determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or

expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is

adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true Hence, Fisher & Scriven define

critical thinking as "skilled, active, interpretation and evaluation of observations,

communications, information, and argumentation".While Moore & Parker define it more

naturally as the careful, deliberate determination of whether one should accept, reject, or

suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which one accepts or

rejects it

Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity,

credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, significance and fairness

- Summarizing

Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the

main point(s) Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original

source Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of

the source material Effective summarizing leads to an increase in student learning

Summarizing helps students recognize how information is structured and it will help them

summarize what they read or hear 1.2 Materials development in language teaching

1.2.1 Definition of language teaching materials and types of materials

According to Tomlinson (1998: 2), the term “language teaching materials” is

defined as anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of a

language In this sense, language teaching materials consist of not only course books or

grammar books but also videos, CD-ROMS, cassettes, dictionaries, pictures, photocopied

exercises

He categorizes language-teaching materials into two main types: published

materials and prepared materials Crawford (2002) shares the same point of view on

talking about classification of materials that there are two different types of materials:

pre-prepared and self-pre-prepared materials

1.2.2 Processes of materials development

Tomlinson (1998) also asserts that “materials development refers to anything which

is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input and to exploit

those sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of intake” Therefore, language teachers become materials developers with the aim to promote language learning There are two main steps of the process of materials development mentioned: materials evaluation and materials adaptation

1.2.2.1 Materials evaluation

It is undeniable that the evaluation of materials is obviously of great importance in the process of language learning and teaching Materials evaluation helps language teachers to identify specific strengths and weaknesses of the materials in use Thus, EFL teachers need to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials well

Materials evaluation is defined differently by different authors According to Hutchinson and Waters (1993), evaluation is defined as really a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose “Given a certain need, and in the light of the resources available, which out of number of possibilities can represent the best solution? There is no absolute good or bad – only degree of fitness for the required purpose”

Brown (1995: 218) gives different viewpoint on defining evaluation In his point of view, “Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum, and access its effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the participants‟ attitudes within the context of the particular institutions involved” This definition requires that information be gathered and analyzed

in a systematic manner and that only relevant information should be included

Nunan (1998) states that evaluation be “a process not a final product” that means it takes place at any time of the material design The first emphasis of evaluation is to determine whether the goals and objectives of a language program are being gained

From the above definitions, it can be inferred that materials involves the determination of the objectives and requirements for the materials, and the judgments of the value of the materials being evaluated in relation to the objectives and requirements determined

1.2.2.2 Types of materials evaluation

On talking about types of materials evaluation, Tomlinson (1998) categorized

materials evaluation into three types namely pre-use evaluation, whilst-use evaluation and post-use evaluation