Luận văn developing supplementary reading materials to improve reading comprehension for grade 10th students at a high school in bac ninh province

Kinh A Ria tate CAO THỊ THẮM DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING MATERIALS ‘TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION FOR GRADE 10th STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN BAC NINH PROVINCE Phát triển đọ

VIETNAM NATIONAT, UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST —- GRADUATE STUDIES

Kinh A Ria tate

CAO THỊ THÁM

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING MATERIALS

‘TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION FOR GRADE 10" STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL

IN BAC NINIT PROVINCE

(Phát triển tài liệu đọc nhằm nâng cao kĩ năng đọc cho học sinh lớp 10

tại một trường Trung hục phổ thông ở Bắc Ninh)

M.A MINOR TIIESIS (Type D

Tĩanoi — 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAT, UNIVERSITY, HANOT UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST —- GRADUATE STUDIES

Kinh A Ria tate

CAO THỊ THẮM

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING MATERIALS

‘TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION FOR GRADE 10th STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL

IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

(Phát triển đọc nhằm nâng cao kĩ năng đọc cho học sinh lớp 10

tai một trường Trung hoc pho thing & Bac Ninh)

M.A MINOR TIIESIS (Type I)

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: $140231.01

Supervisor: Vu Thi Thanh Nha, Ph.D

Tĩanoi — 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, 1 would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor

Dr Vu ‘Thi ‘Thanh Nha who gave me a lot of valuable guidance, encouragements, criticisms and correction throughout my thesis writing

Tam indebted to 40 students at Thuan Thani 2 High School, who provided

me with lots of useful information via the questionnaires

My sincere thanks go to my family, my friends for their encouragement and support that help me to complete my work

ii

ABSTRACT his thesis reports the findings of an action research study to improve

reading skill for grade 10 students at a high school in Bac Ninh province It

attempts to find students’ opinions ef the current textbook, their difficulties in

learning reading skill in order to provide suitable supplementary reading materials

lo improve students’ reading competence The dala was collected via quostiormaires

with 40 students at a high school in Bac Ninh province, diagnostic and final test and classroom’s observation The findings of this study have shown that most of the

students find the reading texts in the current Loxthook interesting and relevant with

suitable reading tasks However, they find it hard to improve their reading skills

because they lacked reading stralegies and suitable supplementary reading

materials, The research also gave some suggestions in suitable reading materials and reading strategies to help the students improve their reading comprehension

Surprisingly, her students make great progress in reading skills afer the

supplementation time.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS AND FIGURES

1.4, Signilicance of (he šluỦy, ào csc S002 10101

1.5, Methods of the StHẲy, cà n0 001 101 ierree

1.6 Design of the Thesis

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definitions of reading, reading comprebension co eicesesere.4 21.1 Reading

2.3, Types of reading exercises 8

2.46 Regular reading practic

2.5, Material development in language teaching .ccecsesnsenaeesnssnennenenel2

25.1 Definition of language teaching materials and types of materials

iv

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION,

4.1 Phrase 1: Diagnosing the Research topic .ccsosctscies nacre nse 28

4.4.1 The result of the dianogstic test

41.2, The result of the survey questionaire

4.2 Phrase 2: The effects of using supplementary reading materials on improving

45.3 The ways to use supplementary reading materials to improve students’ reading comprehension

CHAPTER §: CONCLUSTO!

1 Conclusion of the study

2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study - 46

REFERENCES

APPENDIC

vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABI CHARTS AND FIGURES

Table 1: Exercises believed to be suitable to develop reading skills - §

‘Table 3: ‘The students’ opinion on level of difficulty, content and length of the

Table 4: The leachers’ and students’ opinions on reading exercises 30

Table 5 : The frequency of doing reading practice outside the classtime 31

Table 6: The reasons for sludenis’ lack of reading practice 32 Table 7: ‘The students’ expectation of the supplementary reading materials 34

Chart 1: The kinds of exercises that students prefer 33

Chart 3: Test score of dianogstic test vả final test 39

Figure 1: Action research spiral (adapted from Kemmis, 1983)

Figure 2: Detailed Action Research Model (adapted from Susman, 1983) 23

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study

Nowadays, Fnglish has become increasingly important as a means of global communication and a bridge to mankind’s knowledge In the process of global integration, the teaching and learning English has become a great concern in Viet Nam Among the language skills, reading is at the core of language learning instruction It is reading that provides the foundation for success in language learning and academic learning,

According to Carrell (1981, p.1), “reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in Bnglish as a second foreign language” Reading involves the integration of various bottom-up and top-down skills in order to reach the goal of comprehension, However, leaching and learning reading skill al high schools is still far from satisfactory for various reasons One reason why students in general and students at a high school in Bac Ninh province, in particular, cannot improve their reading skill is that there is not sufficient material which is suitable to their demand and their language ability and their lack of reading strategies Therefore, it is essential that the researcher develop reading materials and provide

reading strategies to help 10 form students at a high school in Bac Ninh

province enhance their reading comprehension

1 2 Aims of the study

This study aims al improving the quality of leaming English reading comprehension for 10" — form students ata high school in Bac Ninh province based

on leamers’ needs To achieve this aim, the slucly has to find answers 1o the following

questions:

1 What is the studenis'opinion of the reading texts in the current used text book for

grade 10" students

2 Why did the students have difficulties in reading comprhension?

3 Low can teachers use supplementary reading materials to help the students to

improve their reading comprehension?

1.3 Scope of the study

To improve reading comprehension skills for 10" — form students at a high

school in Bac Ninh province, the teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done, However, in this study, the author only intends to

a brief overview of current situation of leaning reading comprehension skills in the

108 — form students of a bigh school in Bac Ninh province to develop reading material that can be applied in leaning reading comprehension skill so as to help the students to become effective readers

1 4 Significance of the study

This study was carried out to design extra reading materials in order to develop students’ reading comprehension skills, Tts findings hopefully wonld help the 10-form students find out the suitable materials for improving their reading comprehension skills Regarding, teachers, the study would raise their awareness conceming the topic and provide them with useful materials to better develop their Icamers’ reading comprehension skills, Finally, with regard to rescarchers, those who happen to share the same interest in the topic could certainly rely on this research to find reliable and usefull information for their related studies in the future

1.5 Methods of the study

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the author used action research to find ont the students’ opinion of the currently used textbook and the problems that

students face when learning English with a view to finding the solutions lo their

problems based on the results of survey questionnaire for the students, teacher's observation sheels, These will be discussed in detail in chapter 2, methodology

1.6 Design of the Thesis

The study consists of five chapters as follows

Chapter 1: Totroduction — includes the rationale, aims, scope, significance and

methodology of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review — presents literature related to the study The focus of this chapter is definitions of reading, reading comprehension, the place of reading

skill in teaching a foreign language, strategies for reading comprehension and problems in reading comprehension of nglish foreign language leamers This part also mentions some criterion for developing comprehension materials

Chapter 3: Methodology - describes the participants, data collection procedures

and data collection instrument

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion - offers some major findings, some suggestions for improving students’ reading comprehension skills and a sample work for a reading lesson of the 1 th-form students

Chapter 5: Conclusion - summarizes the main research points, points oul the

limitation of the study and makes suggestions for further studies

1.7 Summary

The focus of this chapter has been on introduction of the rescarch IL las clearly provided an overview of the study in terms of the statement of the problem and the rationale, the aims, the scope, the significance, the methodology of the study, and the design of the thesis.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses different issues in the theories of reading in a foreign

language Three major features will be presented here: the definitions reading, reading comprehension, reading in second language, and material development in

language teaching

2.1 Definitions of reading, reading comprehension

211 Reading

Reading 1s often referred to as the most important of the [our language skills

for HEL leamers, as it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and

receive valuable linguistic input to build up language proficiency (Erten & Raz,

2003) Reading is nol just extracting meaning from a lext bul a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading, It is seen as an active cognitive process in which the reader’s background Imowledge plays a key role in the creation of meanmg (Ticmey & Pearson, 1994) Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text,

resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and

paragraphs that encode meaning, The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies

to determine what that meaning is, So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to everyone

Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistic prov

by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers nol only leam how to read the text, to master grammatical structures but also understand the content expressed in the text

Having the same point with Goodman, William (1990, p2) says that

“reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” Accordingly, in the reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking

and understanding ‘Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depend

on the context in which it appears

One more definition offered by Harmer (1991, p.153) shows us his opinion

and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then

has to work oul the significance of these messages”

According to Richard and Thomas (1987, p.15), reading is best described as

“an understanding between the author and the reader Reading is much more than

just pronouncing werds correctly or simply knowing what the author intends; it is the process whereby the printed page stimulate ideas, experiences and responses

that are unique to an individual

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

reading Ilowever, we find that there is a close relationship between reading and understanding Therefore, being a language teacher, we must understand the nature

of reading thoroughly to help our students read effectively

21.2 Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension skill plays a very important role in teaching and

leaming reading a foreign language It has the nature of communication, in which a

reading activity acts as a means of communication between the writer and the reader

Reading comprehension results in the fact thal when readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply

them to accomplish reading purpose Swan (1975, p.1) states thal “a student is good

at comprchension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get

the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is

obvious that the studonl can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such

as summarizing the text, answering, questions, making true or false ete

According to Grellet (1981, p.3) “Reading comprehension or understanding a

written text means extracting the required information fram it as efficiently as

possible” ‘I'he author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims

at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way

To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only

reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is

considered to be the most important part in readitys Leaching,

2.2 Types of reading skills

- Skimming

Skimming is used to quickly gathor (he most important information Grellet,

# (1982, p.19) says “When skimming, we go through the reading materials quickly

in order to get the gist of it, to know how it is erganized, or to get an idea of the tone

or the mention of the writer”

Hedge, I’, (2000, p.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 the paragraph”

To sum up, although expressing their ideas in different ways, both authors share

the view that skimming is a process of reading in which readers go through the reading,

materials quickly so that they can get the main ideas of the reading materials

- Scanning

Scanning oceurs wher a reader looks quiekly through the text searching lor a specific piece af information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading

purpose Hedge, T (2000, p.195) suggest thal “Scarming involves searching rapidly

through a text to find a specific point of information, for cxampls, the relevant times

on a timetable, items ina directory or key points in academic text” Scanning is the

reading skill we use when we want to find tle answer lo a specific question Scamning is an useful reading skill that may at first strange to a learner who is used

to reading everything in foreign language with the same degree of attention

- Predicting

This is an important skill of efficient readers Predicting uses knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check

comprehension as well as knowledge of the text type and purpose to make

prediction about discourse structure Next, it uses knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing, style, vocabulary and content

- Inferencing

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 alse play an important role When dealing with anew

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 lock up them in a dictionary IC 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 Ilence, 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 Critical

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

credibility, accuracy precession, relevance, dept, significance and faimess

- Stanmarizing

Summarizing involves putting the main ideas into your own words, including

only the main points Once agam, iis nec

ry lo attribute summarized idgas Lo

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 sludent learning Summarizing helps students recognize how information is

structured and it will help them summarize what they read or hear.

23 Types of reading exercives

Grellet (1995) states that there are a number of exercise types focusing on the formal organization and the contents of the text to develop reading skills They are classified into four main types named: reading techniques, the form analysis of the text, the understanding of the meaning in the text, and the assessment of the text Among various exercises proposed by Grellet (1995 p.4-5), those are listed in Table

] are believed to be used more often in reading tasks

Table 1: Exercises believed to be suitable ta develop reading skills

intention

Ihe four types of exercises suggested in this book have served different purposes The first one relates to reading skills and strategies that play an

important part in acquiring a basic reading competence The three other parts that

follow aim at illustrating different ways of helping students reach a better understanding of a text, which start from overall comprehension (Function and

organization of the passage), and then move towards a more delailed one

(Understanding meaning) and end with some guidelines to help the students assess

and evaluate what they have read

Those exercise lypes are viewed as a guide for reading malorial designers Lo make their materials varied, technically distinguishing and appropriate to the

teaching and learning reading skill

24 Factors involved in reading comprehension process of EFL learners

According to Duck and Pearson (2001), the elements that affect reading comprehension process include, language knowledge, background knowledge, motivation, reading strategics, the reading materials and the amount of reading practice,

24.1 Language knowledge

It has been expected that readers must acquire language knowledge first

before they can read in second and foreign language (Alderson, 2000) Word

Imawledge is the most important element for reading comprehension because

readers carmol comprehend the sentence if they carmol attach the meaning of Ihe

word (Devine, 1986) Krashen and Terrell (1998) agree that a passage with may

unfamiliar words causes difficulties in comprehension Alderson (2000), shares this

view by adding that stiugglmg to read because of unknown words will definitely

have impact on reading pleasure and comprehension Therefore, the more

vocabulary readers know, the better reading comprehension they will achiove

2.4.2 Background knowledge

Background knowledge and prior kmowledge are generally used

interchangeably For example, Stevens (1982) defines background knowledge quite

simply as what one already knows about a subject Dochy et al., (1995) provide an elaborate definition, describing prior knowledge as the whole of a person's

imowledge, including explicit and tacit knowledge, metacognitive and conceptual

imowledge As a matter of fact, readers use background knowledge to integrate new information from a text into their previous information The reader brings

information, knowledge, emolicn, and culture — thal is schemata, lo the prnled

word (Brown 2001) Reading is only incidentally visual More information is contributed by the reader than by the print on the page This indicates that our

understanding of a text depends on how much relaled schema we, as readers,

possess while reading Consequently, readers’ failure or confusion to make sense of

a text is caused by their lack of appropriate schemata that can easily fit with the content of the text

2.4.3 Motivation

Tt can not be denied that readers’ motivation has effects on their reading

achicvement If readers are not interosted in the topic they are reading, they may fail

to read, Alderson (2000) made a suggestion that motivation of readers can affect the

outcome of reading In fact, readers who lack motivation to read or improve reading

abilities cannot make progress in reading comprehension However, it has been

widely known that if readers are really interested in reading content, this interest

can outweigh other factors to a large extent in reading In reality, interest in content

or molivalion to read may be the most important factor which has mfluenee or reading comprehension (Krashen & Terrell, 1998) According ta Grabe (2009),

positive molivation is an integral parL in reading development which slimulates

comprehensions dircctly through greater amounts of extended reading Moreover,

prior knowledge and reading strategies will became inactivated and useless if

readers do not have motivation to read (O’Dennell & Wood, 2004) Hence, i is de-

motivation that leads to reading failure

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2.4 4 Reading strategies

According to Oxford and Crookall (1989), strategies are considered as leaming

techniques, behaviors, problem solving or study skills which make leaning more

effective and efficient In fact, provided that readers acquired reading skills or strategies, they can process text efficiently (Alderson, 2000) Therefore, the lack of

reading stralegies is another problem causing difficulty in reading comprehension In other words, it is an undeniable fact that readers will not have ability to surpass reading difficulties and reach comprehension without reading strategies

2.4.5 Reailing materials

It is apparent that reading materials is an integral part im improving reading

comprehension Tomlinson (1998) states that materials are a central feature for the

achievement of successful language learning and they offer structure and consistency in the foreign language classroom It is through suitable reading materials that students widen their background knowledge and build up the knowledge of vocabulary and grammar for later usc in reading, process

2.4.6 Regular reading practice

The process of reading is the interaction between a reader and the text During the

process, there are many things happening in the readers’ mind when they read

While they look at the print text, readers are decoding it, deciding what it means,

how parts relate to each other, or to things they know, predicting what to come next,

and expacling which purpose to read for In [aet, the more reading a reader does, lhe more reading comprehension will improve According to Fielding and Pearson

(1994), allocating ample time for actual text reading and ensuring that children are

actually reading text during that time are among the teacher’s most vital tasks in

comprehension instruction Through extensive reading, students’ vocabulary and background knowledge improve, which results in improved comprehension

iL

2.5 Material development in language teaching

2.5.1 Definition of language teaching materials and types of materials

According to Tomlinson (1998, p.2), “language teaching materials” are defined as anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the leaning of

a language In this sense, language teaching materials consists of not only course books er grammar books but also videos, CD-ROMS, cassettes, dictionaries

pictures, photocopied exercise

He categories language teaching materials into two types: published

materials and propared materials Crawford (2002) shares the same poiul of view on talking about classification of materials that there are two different types of

materials: pre-prepared and self-prepared materials

According to Tomlinson (1998), materials have always been considered as the only way to supply enriched input in the language classroom, but nowadays, there are many changes relating methodological and other theoretical trends

Therefore, Course books, because of thew universal nature, cannot fit all

circumstances As a result, teachers should be helped to develop the reflecting,

analyzing and evaluating powers to create successful lessons for all the students,

needs and personalities there could be in any given situation

2.5 2 Processes of materials development

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

which is done by wrilors, teachers or learners Lo provide sources of language input

and to exploit these sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of the intake

Therefore, language teachers become materials developers with the anns 1o promote

language leaming There are two steps of the process of materials development

mentioned: materials evaluation and materials adaptation

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use ‘Therefore, HF L teachers need to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials as well

Materials evaluation is defined differently by different authors According to

Hutchinson and Waters (1993, p 96), 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 oul of number of possibiliues can

represent the best solution? There is ne absolute good or bad- only degree of fitness

for the required purpose”

Brown (1995, p 218) expresses different viewpoint on defining evaluation

As far as he is concerned, “Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of

all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum, and

acooss 1L ollcetiveness and elficiency, as well as the parlicipants’ allitudes within lhe context of the particular institutions involved” ‘his 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 is “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 s language program

are being gained

From the above definitions, it can be inferred that materials involve 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 determmed

2.5.2.2 Types of materials evaluation

When talking about types of materials evaluations, Tomlinson (1998)

classified materials ovalualion inlo three types namely pre-usc evaluation, while- use evaluation and post-use evaluation

Pre-use evaluation is a process of making predictions about the poterials

value of materials for their uses In fact, it is making an evaluation

criterion-referenced that can reduce subjectivity and can certainly help to make an evaluation more principled, rigorous, systematic and reliable

While-use evaluation involves measuring the value of materials while using them or while observing them being used It can measure short-term memory through observing learner performance on exercise but it cannot measure durable and effective learning because of the delayed effect of instruction

Post- use evaluation is probably the most valuable type of evaluation because it can measure the actual effects of the materials on the users It can measure short-term cfllecl as regards motivation, impact, achievability, instant learning, ole, Post-use evaluation can measure the long-term effects as regards durable leaming and application,

2

Criteria for material evaluation

Cnteria for materials evaluation is one of the mosi important issues thal

evaluators must take into consideration before any evaluation can take place Criteria for materials evaluation depend on what is being evaluated and why they

need to be evaluated (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998)

Sheldon (1998) suggests a wide range of criteria to be used to evaluate almost

all aspect of materials The criteria which is given by Sheldon consists of rationale,

availability, user definition, layout, accessibility, linkage, selection/grading, physical

characteristics, authenticity, sufficiency, cultural bias, educational validity, stimulus’ practice/ revision, flexibility, guidance, and overall value for money

However, reading mualerials iy the major concer of the study, therefore, ä checklist for evaluation of reading texts suggested by IIutchinson and Waters (1993) will he specifically stated as follows

- Offer exercises for understanding of plain sense and implicd meaning

- Relate reading passages to the learners’ background

- 8olecL passages within the vovabulary range of the pupils

- Select passages reflecting a variety of styles of contemporary English

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2.6 Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills

26.1 Definition of supplementary materials

Tomlinson (1998 p.2) proposes several basic terms in which materials are

defined as “anything which is used to help teach language leamer Materials can be

in forms of a texthook, a workbook, a cassette, a CID, a photocopied handout, a

newspaper, a paragraph wrillen om a whiteboard, anyihing which represents or

informs about the language being learned”

Tomlinson (1998, p.2) also defines the term “supplementary materials” as

follows: “materials designed to be used in addition to the core matenals of a course

‘They are usually related to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or

speaking rather than to the learning of language items”

2.662 Criteria for selecting supplementary materials

It is obvious that materials play a crucial role in language teaching, so

selection of criteria of extra materials should be considered carefully

According to Nuttall (1996, p 170), there are three major criteria influoneing the selection of texts: suitability of the content, exploitability and readability In his

point of view, suitability of the content means the text’s ability to address the

student’s needs and the course’s objectives Reading texts should interest the readers

by providing new interesting information that suit the course’s objectives, A text with

interesting content makes the leamers’ task far more rewarding and the classroom

more offechive This requires the teachers of English to find oul what, their students

like reading and select text for classroom study Some classroom texts should represent the kinds of materials students need lo handle afier they leave the foreign

language class It is better to beg on materials chosen chiefly for enjoyment

Exploitability means facilitation of learning When you exploit the text, you

gan make use of it te develop the students’ competence as readers A text which camot be exploited is no use for teaching even if the students enjoy reading it

Therefore, different kinds of tasks should be designed to best exploit the text so that

the course’s objectives could be obtained Also, the focus in the reading lesson is

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neither language nor content, but the two together An ideal reader would be able to exact the content from any text at all If the reader exploits the text effectively,

he/she will develop his/her strategies that can be applied to other texts

Readability refers to the combination of structural and lexical difficulty ‘That

means the text must be suitable with students’ English proficiency levels in terms of

vocabulary, syntax and style The teacher must know whal their students’ language

proficiencies are to find out what vocabulary and structures the students are familiar

with so as to choose texts at the right level and balancing different level of

proficioncres Tf the students have varied backgrounds, period of trial and error is umavoidable However, a series of cloze tests can give you an idea of their level

Once you know the students’ vocabulary level, you can count the new lexical items

(words or phrases) in a text, including new uses of familiar words and new idiomatic combinations ‘hen you have to decide what proportion of new items is acceptable This partly depends on the purpose: if you only want students to get the gist of a text, they can skip unfamiliar words, on the other hand, for intensive reading which is slow and careful anyway lt may be acceptable to have quite a lot

of new words The nature of new items, and whether they are well spread out, is also relevant

2.63 How to use supplementary materiais

Material adaptation

Material adaptation is considered ag one of the two important issugs in the process of materials development As the materials have been evaluated, potential

problem areas can be identified: What the materials offer carol be exactly whal our

Icamers’ need; the material methodology may not match our own; the general aims

may not be suitable with the aims of the materials; the aims of a specific unit in the

materials may not maich our Tesson We have to selecl, make changes (o malorials s0

as to improve them to make them more suitable for a particular type of leamers

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here are five major ways of adapting materials:

Adding

The notion of addition is that materials are supplemented by putting more

into them, while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation Kirst, we can certainly add in this quantitative way by the technique of extending “This

means that the techmques are bemg apphed within the methodological framework

of the original materials: in other words, the model is not itself changed” (Mc Dough & Shaw, 1993, p 89) We can do this in the following situation: A second

reading passage parallel to the one provided is helpful in reinforcing the key linguistic features- tenses, sentence structures, vocabulary, cohesive devices of the

first text Second, more far-reaching perspective on addition of materials can be

termed expandmg This kind of addilion is nol just extension of an oxisling aspecl

of content ‘They go further than this by bringing about a qualitative as well as a quantitative change This can be thought of as a change in the overall system”

(McDonough & Shaw, 1993, p 90)

Deleting or Omitting

Deletion is clearly the apposite process to that of addition As we saw in the

previous section that materials can be added both quantitatively (extending) and

qualitatively (expanding), the same point applies when a decision is taken to omit

materials The most straightforward aspect of reducing the length of materials is

subtracting

Addition and deletion often work together Material may be taken out and

then replaced with somellring else The methodological change is greater when, for

example, grammar practice is substituted after the omission of an inappropriate

communicative fimetion, or when a reading text is replaced by a listening passage

Modifying

Modifying’ can be sub-divided under two related headings ‘Ihe first of these

is rewriting, when some of the linguistic content needs modification, the second is

restructuring, which applies to classroom management

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Simplifying

The technique of simplification is a type of modification, namely a “rewriting”

activity

‘The elements of a language which can be simplified are: ‘Ihe instructions and

explanations that accompany exercises and activities, and even the visual layout of materials so thal il becomes easier lo see how different part fil Logether However,

texts, most often reading passages are applied this technique Usually, the emphasis

has been on changing various sentences- bound elements to match the text more

closely lo the proficioncy level ofa particular group of learners

Re-ordering

This procedure refers to the possibility of putting the parts of a course baok

ina different order This may mean adjusting the sequence of prescnlalion within a unit, or taking units in a different sequence from that originally intended

2.7 Summary

The chapter has so far presonted the relevant literature, which has helped to form the theoretical and conceptual framework for the study

Firstly, definitions of reading comprehension, the place of reading in

teaching foreign languages, the strategies for reading, the problems in reading

comprehension of Inglish foreign language leamers and the types of reading

exercises are mentioned in this part

Sceomdly, theory of material development has been given so as to provide not only useful way to evaluate the currently-used textbook but also the criteria to

help leachers and learners of language develop suilable reading materials

In the next chapter, the rescarcher desoribes the background to the study,

instrument and procedure of data collection The findings of the research will be presented clearly undsr the light of the above theories

18

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the setting, action research, participants, data collection

procedures, data collection instruments will be presented

permission to University Most of the students at this school take priority Lo study

Maths, Physics and Chemistry as their main subjects to take part in the GCSH test (15 classes), There are 9 classes in which students choose Finglish, Maths and Literate or English, Maths and Physics as Weir major subjects to get pemmission to a universily And the rest of the students (18 classes) only try to pass the GCBH test to get high school deploma and they have no intension of attending, university after exaduating

Although English is a compulsory subject in the GCSE test, most of the students

do not pay much attention to leaming Linglish ‘lhe average score in Linglish test in the yearly GCSE test is quite low (about 3,9 per student)

In the 2018-2019 academic year, the researcher has taken charge of two classes

of grade 10" students Most of the researchers’ students choose English, Maths and

Literature as their main subjects In this school year, it is the second time, the new

sel ol textbook for grade 1 o" students has been used at this school

3.2 The participants

The subjects of the study were 40 students coming from class 10A8 at a bigh

school in Bae Ninh province, all of them were born in 2003, and they are both male, and female Most of them have already leamed English for 6 years at primary

school and lower secondary school and they choose English, Malhs and Taterature

as their main subjects to get permission to a university, but many of them are at the low level of English proficiency Another fact is that most of the students are from rural areas in Bac Ninh province, Consequently, they have little chance to practice

19

their English outside class time, which makes their knowledge of Knglish still poor and limited

3.3 The course book

The course book is the new text book by author Hoang Van Van, published

by Vietnam education publisher It consists of ten units and four reviews Bach

unit, includes eight parts: Getling started, Vocabulary and grammar, reading,

speaking, listening, writing, communication and culture, looking back Each part

is taught in 45 minute in class At the end of the academic year, students are supposed to lake the achievement test Lo evaluate how their language proficiency

improves There are two big tests (Final 1* term test and final 2” term test)

designed for this book and followed by many progress tests (summative tests, vocabulary tests, and gramunar toss)

After observing in the first semester, the researcher realizes that 10" form

students of class LOA8 at this school are getting some troubles with reading skill Most of the students are afraid of domg reading tasks and their reading comprehension is at low level

With the above setting, the researcher expects to intervene with a new way of providing reading materials to see whether students of class 1OA8’ reading skill can

education generally for some time This related to the ideas of “reflective practice”

and “the teacher as researcher” Action research involves taking a self-retlective,

critical, and systematic approach to exploring your own teaching contexts”

Morcover, accordmg to Metictal (2001), Classroom Action Research is a research

performance and even suggest open-ended outcomes, Moreover, action research can promote “teachers” growth as an empowered professional”, “teachers’ confidence in

their teaching ability”, and their “problem-solving skills as well” (Briscoe and

Wells, 2002, p 429) In particular, when being engaged in action research, teachers can be more aware of the gaps between their beliefs and practices and of what their

pupils are thinking, feeling, ar learning

An action research was applied to this curent study with the teacher as the

researcher Action research is a suitable chosen research method for the study for

some reasoms First, learning and teaching reading skill and improving students”

reading comprehension have noticeably concerned both educational people and

students Second, action research is often carried ont both outside the classroom and

inside the classroom Heuce, that 1s very suilable for the current selling of the study

‘Third, action research is aimed at changing things as well as suggest a reference source for other research [rom the findings of the effects of using supplementary materials to develop students’ reading comprehension skill, some constructive suggestions will be given so that teachers can facilitate students’ reading skill

The below diagram illustrates the phrases of action research

a MONITOR

CT

REVISED PLAN

Figure 1: AcHon research spiral (adapted from Kemmis, 1983)

Adapted [rom Kemmis (1983), the igure ontnes the [our steps in action, the movement from one critical phrase to another, and the way in which progress may

be made through the system Tt car be seen clearly that in an aclion research, the

researcher does not stop after getting the result from his actions He must evaluate

the effectiveness of his actions as well as the limitations of the methods After that,

he should revise the plan, make some changes and implement it again lo get beller result ‘hese stages are not separate but are embedded within action and reflection

The below diagram demonstrates the action research model

action

Figure 2: Detailed Action Research Model (adapted from Susman, 1983)

Figure 2 presents detailed action research model, according to Susman

(1983), the five steps in this model can be described as follows:

3.4.1 Diagnosing

In light of the model, the study started when the researcher realizes that there

is a need to improve reading skill for 10" — form students of class 10A8 at a high school in Bac Ninh province In other words, step 1 was implemented to figure out

the problem The demand for supplementary materials in order to help students

improve their reading skill was identified and then investigated

3.4.2 Action planning

In this step, the researcher did a literature search before beginning the action research The literature review allowed the researcher to strengthen the validity of

the research by giving the theoretical framework for future findings

After having a quite clear literature review, the researcher refined the question

for the research Participants of the study were 10" — form students of class 10A8 at

a high school in Bac Ninh province and the material is the current use text book for

10 — form students published by Vietnam education publisher

3.4.3 Taking action

Fustly, in order to measure students’ comprehension level prior to the

treatment, 10" — form students of class 1GA8 at Thuan Thanh 2 Iligh School took the

pre-lesl with 15 minutes (APPENDIX 4), the leacher marked the pre-test, sified

the scores into different levels of students and kept the result for later usage

After that, the researcher delivered the survey (APPENDIX 1) in order to

find oul students’ opinions of the currently used text book and their difficulties in improving their reading comprehension,

The intervening program lasted 8 weeks (2 months) The researcher hased on the students’ opinions of the currently-used textbook and the dillicullics in

leaming reading skill to design supplementary materials (APPENDIX 3) for practicing reading skill in targeted units (Unit 7,8,9 ) The researcher followed the the basic content of cach reading lesson in the textbook However, in this program,

in order to improve students reading comprehension, students are required to do

supplementary materials with the same topic at home every day The detailed plan and activities are mentioned below

- Tstly, the researcher asked her students to read about that topic in their

mother tongue so that they could get necessary background knowledge for

hair reading topie

- Secondly, the researcher taught the first two parts of this unit with a view to

providing studerls with necessary vocabulary and grammar structure 1o

understand the reading passage (APPENDIX 2)

- Thirdly, the researcher taught reading lesson in the text book so that she

could suppy necessary strategies for her students to improve reading skill (APPERDIX 2)

- Last but not least, the researcher designed her own supplementary reading

materials on the same topic for her students to do daily reading practice at

home with different types of reading comprehension questions, after that she would collect and mark the supplementary reading papers every day and then

analyse the students’ result base on types of reading comprehension

questions with an aim of observing whether her students made any progress with the help af the supplementary reading materials (APPENDIX 5)

3.4.4 Evaluating

The results were analyzed in step 4 About the quantitative data, the analysis was

carried out after 40 students of class 1OA8 did the final test at the end of the

project Students’ scores of the lwo tesla: pre-test and post-teal were categorized and then analyzed ‘Ihe results of both diagnostic test and final test were analyzed to

figure out to what extent the supplementary materials contribute to learner’s results

Tho researcher look a close look at the descriplive statistics among three different levels of students to see which group make better progress

With qualitative data, the researcher based on the observational data to make

comment on students’ progress durmg and after the intervening program The researcher focused on the students’ improvement in terms of reading speed, reading

comprehension ability and their interest in doing reading practice

The researcher analyzes the data to find out the consequences of a taken action

Specifying leaming: The researcher presents the general findings, what oan be

solved and what remains problematic, from which he adjusts the plans to act again

Another cycle in an action research begins

3.4.5, Specifying learning

Finally, in step 5, the study was summed up, how using supplementary materials helps to improve leamers’ reading, comprelicnsion was stated.

3.5 Data collection instruments

The data for the study was collected by three techniques: the diagnostic test

and final test, observations, questionnaire for students

3.5.1 Dianugstic test va Final test

In order to obtain the necessary information to diagnose the problem, a

diagnostic Lest will be used This instrument will be used to obtain dala related to

reading comprehension of students

At the end of the intervention process, the researcher will apply the final test

wilh a view Lo collect dala about readimg comprehension of students, and then make

the comparision between the two tests in order to find out the differences after the

intervention process

3.5.2 Questionnaire

The author used survey questionnaire as another source because it is one of

the most effective instruments for collecting data in research According to Gillham

(2000), using questiomaire has some advantages, such as less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of interview bias and analysis of answers is

straightforward One set of questionnaire was designed to collect students’ opinion

of the reading texts, the exercises and the topic listed in the textbook and the reason

why students at her school are at low-level of reading comprehension skill and their

expectation of the supplementary materials

The questionnaire for studonils include 6 questions Question 1,2 are designed

to find out the students’ opinion of reading activities in the text book Question 3,4

aim al figuring oul the reasons why studerts’ readimg comprehension is poor

Question 5,6 are to find out the ways to adapt a suitable material set which is better suited to their reading context

3.5.3 Teacher's observation

In addition, the author also uses class observation as one souree of data During the time of doing research, the researcher will observe her students to see whether they make progress or not when she applies the supplementary materials in her lessons base

on students’ comect answer in terms of overview reading questions, reference questions, inference questions, vocabulary in context questions, and students’ attitude

when doing extra reading practice

3.6 Summary

In this chapter, the researcher has tried to describe the context of the study,

the method of the study, dala collection procedures and data collection instruments

which help to find out the result of the study

Firstly, the context of teaching and learning English at Thuan Thanh 2 High

School has becn specifically described, which helps provide overall information for the study

Secondly, it is action research that is mainly used in the study as a

fundamental method 1 help rescarcher improve the currenl stale of education al her

school,

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION:

This chapter will present the findings from the study Data were presented

according to the action research cycle, followed by a discussion and further research

is raised in the following parts of the study

Data analysis

4.1 Phrase 1: Diagnosing the Research topic

After the first term of the academic year, the researcher is really worried because of! the fact that most of her students get bad marks in the end of the first term test She

coneems the way to help improve her students performance in English test Tn order

to know more about her students reading ability, she asked them to do the

diagnostic test The test was applied the second week of the second term Each

student was asked to read a short reading passage (APPENDIX 4) to answer the

comprehension questions

4.1.1 The result of the dianagstic test

After asking her students to do the dianogstic test with 10 different questions, the

author marked and classified the results into four different scales Good students are students who get more than eight correct answers, pretty good students are students

who get seven or eight correct answers, average students are those who get from 5

to 6 correct answers and below average students are those who get lower than 5

From the table above, we can see that 2 students (5%) are in the scale of good one,

10 of them (25%) are in pretty good, 25 (625%) are average and 3 (7,5%) are

below average, which means that most of the students are in a very low level of

comprehension

4.1.2 The result of the survey questionaire

Afier, analysing the result of the diagnostic tesl, the researcher decided to da

a servey (APPENDIX 1) to have deeper understanding, of students’ opinion of the

reading text in the currently-used text book, the reasons why students have poor

reading comprehension performance, and their expevlation of the supplementary reading materials

4121 The students’ opinions of the current text book for grade 10%

students

Question 1 is to mvestigate the teachers’ and students’ evaluation on level of

language difficulty, content and length of reading texts in the currently-used text book for year tonth students

Table 2: The students’ opinions on level of difficulty, content and length of the

reading texts in the textbook

text book is too difficult, Only 10% of the students claim that the textbook is too

easy And the percentage students think that the text book is relevant to the students

proficiency is 12.5% The reason far various evaluations of students on the level of

difficulty is thal the students” language competence 1s different

Also, when being asked to give evaluation on the content of the reading text,

% of the students claim that the textbook is interesting and familiar 27,5 % of

the students asked say thal (he content of the textbook is unlamihar TL 1s noticeable that none of the students says that the content of the texts is boring,

Tn terms of length of the reading texts, 62,5% of the students’ state that, the

length of the reading texts is relevant The percentage of the students who propose that the reading texts are quite long is 25 %

From above analysis, the researcher can come to conclusion that most

students find the reading texts difficult but interesting and of appropriate length

Table 4: Students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook

Reading exercises Students “percentage (2)

a very easy