Luận văn the effects of using authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement at le hoan high school

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES DUONG TIT] THU IIỀN ‘THE EFFECTS OF USING AUTHENTIC: MATERIALS O

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

DUONG TIT] THU IIỀN

‘THE EFFECTS OF USING AUTHENTIC: MATERIALS ON

STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT

LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL

Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng tài liệu thực đối với thành tích hoc tp

kỹ năng đục hiéu của học sinh - nghiên cứu ở trường

'Trung học phố thông Lê Hoàn

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Mcthodology Code: 60140111

HANOI - 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, IIANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES

DUONG TIL THU IHIỀN

‘THE EFFECTS OK USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS ON

STUDENTS READING COMPREIIENSION ACIIEVEMENT AT

LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng tài liệu thực đối với thành tích học tập

kỹ năng đục hiểu của học sinh - nghiên cứu ở trường

Trung học phố thông Lê Hoàn

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Hoang ‘Thi Xudn Hoa, Ph.D

HANOI — 2017

DECLARATION

Thereby certify that the thesis “ The effects of using authentic materials

on students reading comprehension achievement at Le IToan High School”

is submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Arts at the

Faculty of Post Graduate Studies — Universily of Languages and Intemational

Studies — Victnam National University, Hanoi I also declare that this thesis is

result of my own research and efforts and that it has not been submiited for

any other purposes

Hanoi, 2017 Signature

lương Thị Thu Hiển

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to show my deep gratitude to all the

loclurors at University of Language and International Studies — Victnam

National University, Hanoi for the invaluable lecturers, which laid the

foundation for my thesis

T would also like to express my sincerest gratitude ta Dr Hoang Thi Xuan

Hoa, my respected supervisor for her precious guidance, critical comments

and constructive supervision throughout my rescarch

My eratitude also goes to the students and colleagues at |.e Hoan High

Schools who enthusiastically participated in the research procedure Without

their help, this project could not be fulfilled,

Last but not least, | am indebted to my beloved family and friends who

have unfailingly inspired me to complete this study

ABSTRACT

The study was conducted with the hope that the result gamed could

clarily the cffects of using authontic matenals on students roading

comprehension achievement at Le Hoan High School In order to achieve the

goals, quasi-cxpermental research design was employed Subjects of the

study were two groups of 30 students cach of 10" grade — students at Le

Hoan High School One group was assigned as the experimental group and

the other as the control group The students of both groups were aught with the same teaching techniques, the same teaching topics and did the same tests

but with different types of teaching materials in an 8-week-period While the

experimental group uscd authentic materials provided by the teacher, the control group only used materials in the course hook - English 10 published

by the Ministry of Education and Training A pretest and a posttest were used

to measure the improvement in the reading skill of the students in the two

groups

The research resulis showed that the reading skill of the students who

worked with authentic materials was better improved than that of the

students working with only course book The former seemed to be able to

avoid some typical mistakes aboul vocabulary which the studenls in control

group often made ‘herefore it is suggested that authentic materials be used

in aching reading skill for high school students im order to gel the highest

results English teachers also need to be creative in selocting, developing and

providing teaching materials to their students

2 The research question and objectives of the study

3 The scope of he SEHỔY i00 eeeriee

4 Significanee of the stuỦy c nen

5 Methods of the study

6 Desian of the study

PART 5: DEVELOMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1.3 Reading comprehension achievement

1.1.4 Types of reading comprehension question

1.2, Overview on authentic matenals

1.2.1 Definition of authentic materials

1.2.2 Types of authentic materials

1.2.3 Advantages of authentic materials on students reading comprehension

1.2.4, Disadvantages of authentic materials on students reading comprehension

2.2._ Selectng teaching maleriali si son ni re 20

3.4 Mensuring parlieipan(s" cơmpelene - - 24 2.4.1, Data collection instrumiiL son the 24 3.4.2 Procedures of data collection - - 35

CHAPTER II: RESULT ANALYSE AND DISCUSSIOR 27

1.1 Pretcst result analysis

1.2, Post-test resuÏt analy8ls cuoi niieiererr "— 1.3, Analysis pre-icsi and post-tesl results within cach group - 33

PARTC: CONCLUSION ào "—

3, Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research 39

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Description of Pre-test Result

Table 2: Description of post-test result

‘Lable 3: Independent Sample 'l-test for Post-test result

Table 4: Paired Sample T-test for pre-test and post-test

LIST OF CITARTS

Chart |: Pretest scores

Charl 2: Post-test results

Chart 3: Control group’s results

Chart 4: Experimental group’s results

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The study is based on the current situation of teaching and learning

English reading skill of students at Le Hoan High School Having been

working as an English teacher at Le Hoan High School for 5 years, the

writer realizes an issue that ulilizing only reading materials im the course

books is not cnough to help students improve their reading skill They tind

it difficult to learn vocabulary as well as the structures in these texts

because of thew unlamiliarity in real life Therefore, they have low

motivation in learning reading and their reading comprehension cannot

ameliorate over a long time This fact has been shown clearly in the results

of entrance cxaminations at high school in the recent years since the form and structure of English test was changed Most of students at I.e Hoan

Iligh School can not do the reading section well whereas this section takes

account for approximately 50 percentages of the total scores Therefore the

proportion of the students who get high mark in the exams at Le Hoan High

Schoal is very low And the only way to increase the number of high marks

is improving students’ reading comprehension competence Although the

English teachers at Le [Ioan School have tried their best to encourage their

students to learn reading skill and improve their achiovemenl by using

different positive teaching techniques, it seems not to bring about much

effectiveness

Moreover, reading skill is one of the most important skills to cach of

students during their foreign language learning procedure To feature the

importance ol reading comprehension, Rivers (1981-147 ) asscrled that “ Reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a

source of information and a pleasurable activity, but also as a means of

consolidating and extending one's which are knowledge of the language” In

1

spile of ils critical role, reading skill remains a challenge to sludents

‘Taglieber (1988) has indicated three major problems that interfere with

students’ reading comprehension: (1) _ Lack of vocabulary (2) _ Difficulty

in using language cucs 10 moaning (3) _ Lack of conceptual knowledge

‘That is the reason why the question how to teach reading skill for students to

got the best result is always controversial among the cducators It has been

said that suitable teaching matcrials play an important role in motivating students during their leaming procedure and help them have certain amount

of background knowledge about different topics which they can mecl in different reading texts As a result, it can limit the problems that prevent the

students from mastering reading skill well Implementing authentic materials

in teaching reading skill has taken the concern of many teachers all aver the

world ‘There has heen a Jot of research debating about this problem since the 1970s, however most of the findings can not be assured to be true to all

leamers Some of the previous studies carried out by Soliman (2013), Akbari

&Razavi (2016), Pandian (2011), Le Thi Huong Giang (2015), Vu Mai

Duyen (2015) mention using authentic materials in teaching and learmmg a

foreign language, they all confirmed that this type of teaching materials

brought about positive effects Nevertheless the subjects of all these studies

are college students; the findmgs needed checking again with the lower-level

subjects ‘he current research was desired to clarify the effects of authentic

materials on students’ reading comprehension at Le [Ioan [igh School It

would help the writer to sce whether it could have the same results as the

previous research or not And the findings of the current study would be a

base for the author to decide if authentic materials could be suitable leaching

materials to students at ].e Hoan High School

2 The research question and objectives of the study

When doing the study, there are a lot of issues which need finding out

and making clear However, the most important one focused on the current

sludy is invosligating the cllvots of using aulhenlic matorials on students

reading comprehension achievement at Le Hoan High School

To accomplish the objecives, the research mainly concentrated on

answering the following rescarch question: “What are the effects of using

authentic materials on students’ reading comprehension achievement?”

3 The scope of the study

‘The study is a small-sized scale thesis, thus it can not cover all the issues

related to the problem discussed The paper mainly focuses on the effects of

‘using authentic materials on students reading comprehension achicvement at

Le Hoan High School, ‘Thanh Liem district, Ha Nam province ‘The subjects

in the study are 60 students of 10 grade at Le [loan Iligh School They are

randomly chasen and divided into two groups, one experimental group and

one control group

An important pomt of the study needs emphasizing thal authentic materials

provided tn experimental group is only used as a supplementary materials

besides the reading materials taken out from the course book and the reading activities in class

4, Significance of the study

The result of the study will be a foundation to help the English teachers

especially the Fnglish teachers at T.c Hoan High School who are looking for

a new method im teaching reading skill to their students It supplies not only

a large amount of valuable information about applying authentic materials but also some suggestions for the teachers in selecting suitable authentic

materials.

5 Methods of the study

In order to determine the effects of authentic materials on students

reading comprehension achievement, the researcher utilizes quasi-

experimental with sixty 10 grade students at Le Hoan High School The

pretest and posttest are conducted at the begmning and the end of the

research period The data collected is analyzed with SPSS

6 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts

PART A: Introduction provides the rationale, the scope, the rescarch questions and objectives; the significance and the design of the study

PART B: Development, discusses the following contents of the study:

Chapter 1: Litcrature Revicw, discusses the literature relating reading skill; reading comprehension; authenticity and authentic materials as well as

the use of authentic materials in teaching English reading skill

Chapter 2: Methodology, defines the methodology of the research

including features of the participants, settings, research methods, data

collection and data analysis procedure

Chapter 3: Results, presents and discusses the findings from the data

collected

PART C: Conclusion, summarizes significant lindings, highlights

contributions of the research, addresses notable limitations, and puts forward practical suggestions for [uture research

PART B: DEVELOMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theoretical background

The study focuses on studying the clTeots of using authentic materials on

students reading comprehension achievement ‘Therefore, in the writing

there are some Lerms used frequently as the key words such as authentic

matcrials, rcading comprchension and reading comprehension achievement

1.1 Overview on reading skill

1.1.1 Definition of reading

“There are a lot of different definitions of reading activity Although every

linguistic gives out the definitions by their own words, most of them share

the same idea that reading is a crucial skill in learnmg procedure and it is considered as an integral skill to help students to gain information and

expand their background knowledge When reading, the readers can not just

focus on the meaning of individual word; the most importance of reading is

that they must use the knowledge of linguistics to find out the meaning

hidden behind the printed text To support the idea Weir (1993) states that

reading is seen as a selective process taking place between the reader and

text, in which background knowledge and various types of language

knowledge interact with information in the text to contribule Lext

comprehension Another definition stated by Cooper et al (1988) is that

qeading, as one of the language skills to be taughl, is a process of

constructing or developing meaning of printed text In addition, Grabe and

Stoller (2002) suppose that reading is the ability of drawing meaning and

inlorpretmg information in the printed page appropriaic According to Williams (1989), reading is a process of looking at and understanding what

has been written Similarly, Goodman (2009) contends that reading is an

essential interaction between language and thought in which the writer

5

encodes his thoughts as language and the reader decodes the language inlo

thought Haris and Sipay (1980) considers, reading - (comprehending) as a

result of interaction between the perception of graphic symbols that

represent language and the readers’ language skill and knowledge of the

world

In short, the term reading van be defined in many different ways with a

certain difference in the opinion of the linguists However, most of them

agree that a successful reading process must draw out the message behind

the words used by the writer Thus, reading is an interaction between the

readers and the writers

1.1.2 Reading comprehension

From the definitions of reading activity, the linguists also discuss reading comprehension According to Rubin (1993) reading comprehension

is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities It means

that reading comprehension is not simple: it asks the readers to use the

different abilities to overcome the difficulties in finding unstated clues and

implied meaming For this reason, each reader may have a different level of

reading comprehension ‘Ihe factors such as age, motivation, awareness, and

life experience or background knowledge can affect the outcome of reading

comprehension, Sharing the same idea with Rubin, Johnson ct al, (2004)

say that reading comprehension is an active process, directed by intentional

thinking that allows young readers to make connections belween their

thinking processes, the textual content, and their own knowledge,

expectations, and purposes for reading The students’ comprehension ability

will guide them to understand the text, hey will gol the information, whether the information is clearly stated or implicitly stated

In a nutshell, reading comprehension is the ability of the readers in

understanding the meaning of a text Ry gathering the information stated in

the lext with their background knowledge and some sub-reading skills, the

students can draw out the implied message As stated by Suparman (2012)

the sub-reading skills that a reader should master to deeply understand the

toxt; for instance, identilying main idea, identilying delails, understanding

vocabulary, making inference and making reference are really important to

students’ improvement

1.1.3 Reading comprehension achievement

After finishing a reading course, reading comprehension achievement of

sludents is whal a tcacher cxpceels most To know whether or nol the

students make progress, an achievement test may be conducted As Grellet

(1996) says reading comprehension achievement can be defined as the

sucessful result of students’ comprehension in guessing, predicting, and understanding the written text by doing such an achievement test ‘The test

is a tool to assess learning procedure of learners Therefore, reading

comprehension achievement is expected to be good to fulfill individual

improvement in academic performance

In addition, another linguist Mc Whorter (1989) supposes that reading

comprehension achievement covers some aspects such as word

comprehension, sentence comprehension, paragraph comprehension and

text comprehension

As appreciated by many scholars, an individual may comprehend a text

fully when he can

1 Recognize the words and sentences of the text and know what these

words and sentences mean (obtain literal meaning)

2 Associated meanings, both denotalive and comnotative [rom personal experiences with the printed text (obtain inferential meaning)

3 Recognize how all these meanings and/or his perceptions of them fit

together contextually

4 Make value judgments about, and based on the reading experience

(read critically)

Tt means that a good achievement test must imspect students’

comprehension about all aspects above

1.1.4, Types of reading comprehension question

There are a number of rcading comprehension question types that the tost

takers often have to deal with in the reading section To overcome these

types of questions well, the examinees need to recognize the question types

quickly, and understand the aim of the questions as well as the common

traits of correct and incorrect answers According to Peterson’s (2000) and

the forms of the questions often appearing in the test, the test takers often

meet the main types of questions as follows

Main idea

‘The main idea question requests the test taker to make out what the

passage or the paragraph is discussing about It is often found in the topic

sontonce which is at the beginning or al the nding of the passage It includes

atopic and a something about the topic ‘Ihus, the test taker must be able to

identify the thesis of the passage and those ideas that support this thesis

~ Supporting idea

Supporting idea question, in fact, is the question about the specific

information stated in the passage It often begins with “according to the passage” or “the passage states that” The answer to the question is

contained in two or three sentences If the test taker has a better ability to

find a specific piece of information, he will be able to find the answer more

casily

Inference question is said lo be one of the most difficult questions in the

reading section because it does not ask directly stated information in the

passage Actually, the candidates must make conclusion based on the

dircctly slaled information Most these questions are ofion prefaced by "the

passage implies" or "the author implies", where "suggests" is sometimes

substituted

Tone & Style

The tone question is the one which refers to the predominant cmotion or

absence of it displayed by the author Answering this type of question is that the examinee must specify the attitude of the author toward the subject or the

character in the passage Naturally the tone can be classified as subjective or

objective If the author has an objective attitude, he will not choose any side

On the contrary, his altitude will be subjective

~ Passage Structure

Passage structure is the way the author arranges the supporting ideas in the paragraph Any arrangement of the ideas also reflects the author’s

purpose when writing the paragraph Thus, the key lo this type ol question is

the relationship between the ideas with the passage Only when the test takers understand this, they can find out the logical order

4% Reference question

Reforence question is considered one of the casicst question typos Tt requires the examinees to determine what a noun, a noun phrase, a pronoun

or an expression refers to Normally, it is used to replace another noun

preceding it; however, the answer is not always the noun or the expression

which is closest to it

+ Vocabulary-in-context question

Vocabulary-in-conlext question is the one that asks the candidate to

make out the suitable meaning of a specific word in the passage based on the

context A single word may have more than a meaning, but only the most

suilable one can be used in the paragraph

1.2 Overview on authentic materials

1.2.1, Definition of authentic materials

Any tcacher who would like to improve their students’ comprehension

achievement, he needs to motivate them during the leaming procedure by

using suilable tcaching maicrials Only when being taught by the maicrials they are interested in, can the students gain a good achievement On finding

materials that meets the teachers and students’ needs, most of the researchers

started conceming the term “authentic materials” and agrecd that authentic materials should be brought into classes Defined by Nunan (1989), “any

material which has not been specifically produced for the purpose of

language teaching.” (Cited in Macdonald, Badger & White, 2000) Similarly,

Wong {1995) defines authentic materials as the materials which are used in

genuine communication in the real world and il is not specifically prepared

for the teaching and learning of English Kxeept for these two scholars, there

are some other ones sharing this point of view such as Nunan (1988), Jordan

(1997) and Hered (2002) Besides, to make the definition ol authentic

materials more clearly by supporting some examples, Grellet (1996) gives

out his own definition that authenticily is no change of the original text and

its presentation and lay out arc retamed A newspaper article, tor instance,

should be presented as it first appeared in the paper with the same typeface,

space devoted to the headlines, and pictures

‘Thus, authentic materials can be understood simply that it is a kind of

materials which is used in our daily life to solve real social situations They

are not redesigned for language teaching purposes

1.2.2 Types of authentic materials

As mentioned above, source of authentic materials is very plentiful

because it can be anything that supports for our life They are not only

newspapers, magazines but also songs, web pages, radio, TV broadcasts,

films, leaflets, flyers, posters ‘hey are both m written form and spoken

form In fact, it depends on the topic, the purpose of the lesson and the

interest of the Icamers, the teacher can tind and choose the suitable type and

form of authentic materials to bring into classes Although there are so many

types of authentic materials listed According to Genhard (1996), they can be classified into three categories inchading

1 Authentic printed materials, such as sports reports, newspapers, restaurant

menus, train tickets, otc

2 Authentic listening materials, such as radio news, cartoons songs, ete

3 Authentic visual materials, such as street signs, magazines and

newspapers pictures, post cards, etc

1.2.3 Advantages of authentic matcrials on students reading

comprehension achievement

As mentioned above, applying authentic materials on learners reading,

comprehension achievement has been taken into account in numerous

sludivs In these sludics, Ube cffeeliveness of usimg authentic materials in

teaching reading skill has been confirmed Many researchers who approve of

using authentic materials to teach a foreign language emphasize the

uscfulncss of authentic materials They suppose that it is the way of

employing formulaic teaching materials from text books written with

classroom dialogue practices that are artificial, thus presenting a gap [rom real life language among language teachers, which destroys students’

motivation in learning language, whereas motivation is considered as a key

factor helping them involve in mastering a foreign language To change the

11

situation, they alsa express thal replacing the traditional materials by

authentic materials which were written for native speakers of certain

communication and will be used by the speakers of the language in

communication circumstances outside of the classroom Some [amous

researchers support for this ideas such as Guariento and Morley, 2001,

Paliridge, 2001; Shrum and Glisan, 2000 Most of thom agree that this kind

of materials increase the learners’ motivation toward reading Fspecially,

Otte, 2006 and Thanajaro, 2000 clearly showed that after utilizing authentic

materials in language classroom, the improvement of learners’ scll- satisfaction and motivation go up remarkably In addition to, Guariento

&Morely, 2001 say that authentic materials help motivate leamers learn the

language by making them fccl that they arc learning the ‘real! language And Hyland (2003) states that one of the most important advantages of using

authentic materials is that it increases leamers’ motivation and reflect

positively on the learning process Explaining the reason why authentic

materials is often more highly appreciated than text books Speller (2002)

and Rizgiyah (2009) say that aulhentic materials can be up to dale and

related to the everyday issues and activities ‘he use of authentic materials

in the classroom can motivate the students because there are three layers of

loarning that aro: language learning (the structure and vocabulary), cultural

insight, and practical application In fact, the teachers can explore an

abundant source of authentic materials from real life such as magazines,

newspapers, stroct signs, otc According to Genhard (1996), there are threc

types of authentic materials that the educators can choose to make it suitable

with the purpose of cach lesson The first type is authentic listening materials such as radio news, cartoons, songs, ‘The second one is authentic

visual materials such as street signs, magazines and newspapers pictures,

postcards and the last onc is authentic printed materials such as sport

reporls, newspapers, reslauranl menus, tain Uickets, etc Therefore, when

teachers use authentic materials as teaching aid in language classroom, they

not only teach their students a basic language skill but also build a

foundation of social knowledge lor the learners They casily find oul a

relationship between the knowledge and skills learnt at school and the real

life In general, most of the researchers share the same point of the

uscfulncss of authentic materials Pcaceck (1997) says that there are some

advantages of using authentic materials in the classroom, they are: original,

inloresting, motivaling and useful Garcia (1991) claims that using authentic reading materials help to improve the leamers' cultural awareness Sherman

(2003), mentions that the importance of authentic material reside in the fact

that "it is a window into culture” Kilickaya (2004) states that using authentic materials helps to increase learners’ motivation for learning a

language, because they feel that they are practicing a real language used

beyond the classroom In addition, Thanajaro (2000) and Otte (2006)

concluded in their studies that authentic materials have a positive effect on

learners' motivation and encourage them to lear better When talking about

the effectiveness of this teaching aid in developing students reading

comprehension, Ilarmer (1994) points out some benefits such as helping

loarners produce beller language; helping leamers acquire the language

faster and making learners more confident to deal with real life situations

Finally, Berardo (2006) having experienced using authentic materials,

notices that they contributed in increasing his lcamers' motivation and he

himself, likes using them From two experiments conducied by Lestari

(2007) and Pramediasluti (2007), the resulls recorded showed that the

students’ reading comprehension achievement after teacher applied authentic

materials in teaching is considerable Lestari (2007) found that authentic

materials can improve the students readmg comprchension achievement

13

from 59.47% in cycle 1 ta 78.37% in cycle 2 In a word, lots [ scholars have

the same ideas about the advantages of authentic materials in foreign

language classroom and the findings of their studies done are also suitable

with their point of views

1.2.4 Disadvantages of authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement

Although authentic matenals are considered as a good source of language

teaching materials, they also bring about some disadvantages Some other

researchers statc thew idcas about the drawback of authentic matenals The

first point they point out is the difficulties of vocabulary as well as structures

used in daily objects such as newspapers; magazines or streets signs In these

materials, a large number of words arc written in abbreviation form, many

words are slang which is used in certain communication ‘hus authentic

materials cannot be appropriate for students, especially weak students who

will feel tired of these materials if they do not understand even the words

appearing in the text assigned by the teachers A scholar, Kilickaya (2004),

claims that authenlic materials add a burden on teachers, as they may conlain

difficult vocabulary and structures which need more effort to be simplified

and explained, in order to make them appropriate for their learners The

sccond point mentioned m some rescarch sludics is the difficult content of

the authentic texts ‘hey argue that most of the authentic materials which are

not easy for the language leamers lo follow their content because they

contain the socio-cultural problems and they arc far from students’

background knowledge Another scholar Martinez (2002) says that authentic

materials are regarded too culturally based and diflicult to comprehend by

learners in the classroom Besides, he also discusses the issue related to the

cultural effect, that “authentic texts from one culture may give a false

impression to students from another, unless they arc presented in an

authentic context which makes it clear precisely what they exemplify” For

this reason, if a language teacher still wants to employ an authentic material

in his lecture, he has to select the materials carefully to ensure that they are

suilable with their students’ compelence Additionally, when making lesson

plan the teacher needs to forecast the difficulties that students may meet

during the leammg process, for instance the difficult words ; the complex

structurcs However, this job can take the teachers a lot of time Miller

(2005) states that authentic materials are “too difficult and time consuming

lo sclecl, edit and prepare” Furthermore, some researchers also mention other problems of using authentic materials such as its real effectiveness on

students’ improvement on reading comprehension Mihwa (1994) found that

the level of reading comprehension of weak ESI Icarncrs was not affected

by the text, regardless of its type, authentic or non-authentic In addition,

Kienbaum et al (1986) state that there are no significant differences in

learners’ performance: between leamers using, authentic materials and others

who use traditional materials ‘'o weak students, authentic materials are

considered as a bad tool in teaching reading skill Kilickaya (2004) believes

that using authentic materials with weak learners frustrate and de-motivate

them, because they lack the required skills and vocabulary to deal with

Presonted toxl, successfully Guarionto and Morley (2001) assert “At lower

levels the use of authentic texts may not only prevent learners from

zesponding in meaningful ways, but can also lead them lo [eel frustrated,

confused and de-motivated” In a nutshell, there arc still two tendencies

coexisting, one supports for using authentic materials and one objects, but

obviously the advantages outweigh the disadvantages so the tcacher should consider the teaching materials to limit the drawbacks and intensify the

benefits of this kind of texts

In the current research, the reliability of the study would be confirmed by

doing experiment on lower-level students at le Hoan High School in

comparison with the previous ones conducted on college students The study

was also donc in a longer period of time With the findings of the study,

English teachers would find it valuable to apply authentic materials in

toaching reading skill lo their students Besides, the author would give out

some implications and suggestions for further study

2 Literature review

As mentioned above, authentic matcrial has been the subject of a lot of science research The authors of these studies tried to investigate its effects

on foreign language acquisition of students Most of the findings of these

investigations demonstrated the advantages of authentic material in language lessons, Students’ results were also improved after working with this

teaching material not only with reading skill but also with other language

skills such as speaking, listening and writing In a research carried by

Soliman (2013), he said that the learners get not only many significant

advantages from using authentic materials bul also higher level of

motivation as well as interest in language learning

Khoirul Farari Marwan (2013) conducted a research to check the

improvement of students’ English reading comprchension through authentic

materials ‘fo achieve the aim of the study, he used an action research ‘Lhe

study only focused on a particular problem and a particular group

of students im a certain classroom It means that — before

implementing the research, the researcher needs to identify any

problems really found in the classroom

‘There are some steps in the research including reconnaissance, planning,

implementing and observing, and reflecting In the first step, problems were

determmed by conducting observations and intorvicws Thơ rescarcher

collected data through observing teaching-learning process and interviewing

32 the students as participants ‘The author also had discussions and

interviews with the English teachers Besides, the data were collected from

scores of reading Lests, Licld notes and interview transoripl Aller analyzing

the data, the results gained showed that students’ reading comprehension

was improved remarkably The students were also interested in reading and

doing exerciscs with authentic materials because of the familiar number of

words which they could meet in real life In conclusion, applying authentic

material in (caching English reading skill could help students perform bettor

in their reading tests

Another research carried out by Siao-cing Guo (2012) tried to investigate

the cffccts of xtonsive reading using authentic materials ơn students’ English proficiency particularly with regard to vocabulary

and grammar

In the study, fifty fourth-year students from two intact classes at a five-

year college in ‘'arwan were recruited as the participants ‘hese two classes

were randomly assigned to be an experimental group and a control group

Although all students in two groups received the same classroom

instructions, only students in experimental group could get extensive reading

as oxtra aclivilics outside of classroam The supplementary materials given

to experimental group was a set of 10 online reading materials related to the

course topics during three months To check whether students of we groups

were at similar level, the teacher Ict them take a pre-test After thres months

of studying the participants took a post-test The test results collected were

analyzed using SPSS 1o lind out the relationship belweon extensive reading through authentic materials and vocabulary and grammar ‘The findings

demonstrated that extensive reading through authentic materials improved

students’ vocabulary but net grammar In addition, the study also confirmed

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posilive attiludes of students and teachers toward this type of leaching

materials

A part from these two particular studies, some others in Vietnam

conducted by Tran (2010), Nguyen (2009) pointed out the improvement of

students on reading and listening skill after authentic materials were applied

into foreign language classes

Tn conclusion, there arc thousands of carlicr studies investigating the

effects of authentic materials on students’ language acquisition Most of the

findings showed positive cifocis IL not only has great influence on a particular language skill but also on most aspects of student's learning

Tlowever, this effectiveness has been proved mainly on students in Foreign

Language Major or college students Applying authentic materials has been strongly debated because of its complexity in vocabulary and structures

especially for lower-level students For above reasons, it is recommended

that using authentic materials as extra reading activities to teach reading skill

to tenth grade students at Le Hoan High School who often get the slowest

range of marks in lhe entrance examination should be conducled

CIIAPTER I: METIIODOLOGY

1 Methodology

1.1 The applied methodology in the research

The study was conducted with quasi-oxperimental method in order la

know whether or not applying authentic materials can improve students’

xeading comprehension at Le Hoan High School

1.2 Quasi-experimental design

Quasi-experimental research is the method which the researcher uses to

evaluate the impact of an intervention on its Large! population but that do not use randomization It means that every subject dees not have an equal

chance of being assigned to experimental or control group of study subjects

on a random hasis

Quasi-experimental designs are generally used to establish the causality

(effects of independent variable on dependent variable) in situations where

researchers are not able to randomly assign the subjects to groups or for

‘various reasons no control group is for an experimental study

2 Research design

‘The current study was a quasi-experimental research conducted on 60

tenth-grade students at Le Iloan Iligh School Because of being a quasi-

experimental re

ch, there was no random assignment lo the subjects in

the study ‘I'wo variables included in the research were the use of authentic

materials in teaching reading skill as the independent variable and the

students’ reading comprehension achicvement as the dependent variable

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of the independent on the

dependent variable In other wards, the study tricd to lind out the influence

of authentic materials on students’ reading comprehension achievement

The participants were divided into two groups, one was the experimental

group and the other was the control group Both groups received the same

19

classroom instructions, the same teaching techniques in the morning

obligatory lessons For learning activities carried in the study, the

experimental group was given extra authentic texts as special treatment

outside of classroom while the conlrol group jus did supplementary

exercises for the reading lesson in course book ‘lhe pre-test and post-test

were carried aut lo both of groups The pre-test was Lo determine the reading

ability of the two groups before applying authentic matcrials into teaching

and the post-test was to check the effects of the treatment The data collected

were analyzed with SPSS The mean score was compared al 0.05 level of significance to determine the effects of treatment or the effects of authentic

materials

2.1, The subjects of the study

‘The subjects of the research were 60 tenth-grade students at I.e Hoan

Iligh Schocl Of these students, 30 students were assigned to the

experimental group and the rest were to the control group All these 60

participants were the students who had studied in Grade 10 at Le Hoan High

School for § months Al Le Hoan Iligh School the sludents were divided

equally into classes in order to make sure that there is no big difference in

students’ competence among classes It can be said that the students’ level

was ralher similar Morcover most of the students live in the villages near

the school so they share a lot of common things in motivation, culture and

living conditions

2.2 Selecting teaching materials

The teaching materials used as authentic reading materials to investigate

ils impact on students’ reading comprehension achievement were taken from the website www Breaking News English com ‘The selected reading

passage for each lesson has between 300 words and 450 words When

sclecting the reading passage, the researcher also thought of the topics of the

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texts, the level of difficulty as well as the types of reading questions so that

they were suitable with the students’ competence and the students would feel

interested in working with them In order to know which topics would take

more attention of siudents the icacher made a survey In the survey there arc

some familiar topics which the students learnt in course book such as home

life, culture, education, jobs, nature and sports In addition, same other

unfamiliar topics like news, discovcrics, fashion and foods are also listed

According to the results of the survey, most of female students like the

reading tcxls related to fashion whereas most of male students like the topic

about sports New discoveries became one of the most favourite tapics to

both of sexes because they quicken their curiosity Therefore, when

choosing the reading texts, the teacher tricd to find out the passages

belonging to this topic

The sourecs of authentic matcrials that can be used in the classroom are infinite, but the most common are newspapers, magazines, ‘'V programs, movies, songs and Internet For the authentic materials to be effective, they

should not be chosen randomly There must be an aim in using them and the

chosen materials should meet the objectives of the lesson Nuttal (1996)

gives three main criteria when sclecting authentic materials to be used in the

classroom: suitability of content, exploitability and readability

* Suitability of content can be considered the most important of the three,

in that the matcrials should interest the students motivate the students

as well as be relevant to their needs

* Exploitability means that the materials facilitate the development of language skills in order to help the students become competent and independent learners

« Readability is used to describe the combination of structural and lexical difficulty of a text, as well as refer to the amount of new vocabulary

a

and any new grammatical forms presented IL is important Lo assess the

night linguistic level for the right students

Besides the three main criteria given, presentation also influences the

effectrveness of authentic materials Whether the text appears authentic or not, depends much on how it is presented to learners The authentic

presentalion, by using pictures, diagrams, photographs, cic helps pul the text

into the context This helps learners understand not only the meaning of the text better but also how it would be exploited A more “attractive” text and

interesting ways of mtroducing it will appeal to learners, grab learners’

attention and motivate them to get engaged in the discovery and learning process

Other factors worth taking into consideration when selecting authentic

materials for the classroom van include whether the text challenges the

students’ intelligence without making unreasonable linguistic demands, the language reflects written or spoken usage, the language in the text is natural

or il has been distorted to include cxamples of particular leaching points or

to draw inferences in a particular context

Above all, selocling authentic matcrials arc supposed lo make learners

want to read or listen for themselves, tell themselves something they do not

know as well as to introduce new and relevant ideas lo them Therefore,

being aware ol diflerent types of authentic malerials, what thesc maicrials

can offer and how to incorporate them into classrooms is very important to

every language tcacher When selected and uscd properly in the language

environment, authentic materials may have many benefits for both teachers and learners

Week 1: “Women do not yet enough sleep”

Week 2: “Half of world population will be short-sighted”

Week 3: “Plants can make intelligent decisions”

Wock 4: “Study shows there are two divorcee seasons”

Week 5: “Cats are just as clever as dogs, says study

Wock 6: “Astronauls’ brains change shape during spaceflight”

Weck 7: “Onlme gaming may improve school test scores”

Week 8: “Sitting may be dangerous for your health”

2.3 Teaching procedure

As mentioned above, the study was conducted in an 8-week period

Because this research was conducted outside of the school schedule so the

teacher asked the principle’s permission for doing reading lessons at two groups in the afternoons In the mornings, the participants in two groups

took the obligatory lessons in course book as planned in their timetable In

the obligatory lessons, the teaching techniques, amount of leaming time as

well as any other treatments were equally applied to both groups

The allendance of students in the experimental group and control group

was voluntary Once a week the students in the control group just got some

more extra exercises on the same topics they had learnt in the course book to

consolidale vocabulary and practice doing reading cxercises Meanwhile the

researcher applied authentic reading materials chosen and designed to teach

zeading skill for the students in the experimental group Each week the

rescarcher delivercd students in experimental group an authentic roading

passage Enclosed with the reading text, there are some reading exercises

including a truc or false exervise, a multiple choice exercise, and a question answering A part from these, the teachers also widened the amount of

students’ vocabulary with two small vocabulary exercises such as synonym

matching and phrase matching The researcher believed that vocabulary

played an important role in helping students to better their reading skill

During the teaching procedure, the teacher also provided them some new

words in the paragraph, some tips to doal with cach type of reading question

appearing in the reading task After that the students were required to read

the text carefully and do the Lasks following When students finished the

task, the teacher would ask onc by one to give out their answers and

explained The further comment or explanation of the teacher to the common

errors of siudenis or to the important points of the lesson would be given out

after each section of reading exercise In addition to, the teacher also tried to

get students’ attention to the differences between each pair of words by

giving them a small activity This activity is the reading toxt they have read

‘but it is modified some pairs of words which the students often get confused

about their usages The students would be asked to read the text to decide

which word could he used and told the whole class why they chose it ‘his

task is considered as a supplementary activity to umprove students’

awareness of the language usage Thanks to that, the ability of the students’

reading comprehension can be progressive

For homework, the teacher often asked students to summarize the reading

passage by their own words The assignment would be submilied in the next

lesson in class ‘lhe aim of this task is to make students revise the content

and vacabulary related to the topic of the reading passage

2.4, Measuring participants’ competence

2.4.1 Data collection instrument

The researcher conducted noncquivalent pre-test and post-test to measure students’ achievement after applying authentic materials in teaching

The pre-test and post-test include four parts with 40 questions a synonym

matching exercise, a true — false exercise, a multiple choice exercise and a

question answering exercise These test items were designed to ensure its

reliability The diflicully level of the tesls is measured by asking the other

class which was not the selected group to do it in an allowed time ‘lhe class

was laken lo chek the difficulty of the test consisling of 40 students and

they were asked to do the test in 60 minutes The range of marks gaincd was

from 3 to 8 However only 12o0f 40 students getting marks under 5, which

account lor 33.3 percentages This means thal about two thirds of the

students taking the test could get over medium marks ‘The test results also

revealed that most of students could not fulfill the questions about

vocabulary

Designing tests is an important part of assessing students understanding

of course content and their level of competency in applying what they are

learning, ‘Therefore, designing test should be done carefully to make sure

some basic criterias such as consistency completeness and repeatability

2.4.2 Procedures of data collection

‘Iwo selected groups had to take the pretest After that the experiment

was conducted implementing authentic materials in teaching reading skill at

the experimental lass The students al this class would work with authentic

text and then practice doing reading tasks under the imstruction of the

teacher Al the control class, the teacher provided the students with

supplementary exercises as a way to consolidate vocabulary and reading

strategies to deal with reading tasks they had leamt in the obligatory lessons

The students in both groups received onc rcadmg lesson per week in 8 weeks When this period of time came to an end, all students of these groups

took the same post-test The result of the pretest and posttest recorded were

analyzed by the rescarcher

2.4.3 Procedure of data analysis

‘The pretest and posttest done by the students were classified into two

groups, one group includes the odd number and the other includes the even

number The researchers had te calculate the reliabilily and difficulty mdex,

of the test items ‘lhe reliability index was measured by using Split half odd-

even technique and the difficulty index is calculated by using Pearson’s

product moment correlation and Spearman-Prown formula If the test items

ensure the reliability and difficulty index, the researcher does not have to

redo the experiment and can continue analyzing the scores of the tests to evaluate the effectiveness of using authentic materials in language teaching

To assess this value the teacher used independent sample T-test and paired

sample T-test method to compare the results recorded in pro-test and post-

test.

CHAPTER III: RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

1 Result analysis

1.1 Pretest result analysis

The pretest scores play an important role in a quasi-experimental research Based on the results of two pretests, the researcher can evaluate the homogeneity of two groups before conducting the study Only when the investigator can assess homogeneity between the control group and experimental group, is the result of the research really valuable After

marking the paper tests of the students, the teacher classified them into 4

groups including group of bad marks from 0 to under 5, group of average marks from 5 to under 6.5, group of fair mark from 6.5 to under 8 and group

of good marks from 8 to 10

The following bar chart shows the scores of two pre-tests

Chart 1: Pretest scores