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Being aware of the importance of learning reading skill, authors of new English 10 have chosen interesting topics for reading lessons with the aim to promotestudents in reading and impro

Table of contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 2

1 Reason for choosing the topic 2

2 Aim of the study 4

3 Research questions 4

4 Scope of the study 4

5 Methods of the study 4

6 Significance of the study 5

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 6

C HAPTER 1: L ITERATURE REVIEW 6

1.The importance of learning reading comprehension skills 6

2 Motivation 6

3 Motivation in leaning reading short stories 7

3.1 Short stories and their benefits to high school students 7

3.2 Choosing the suitable short stories for high school students 8

3.3 How to use short stories in teaching reading 8

C HAPTER 2: R ESEARCH METHODOLOGY 11

1 What is action research? 11

2 The setting and the participants 11

2.1 The setting of the study 11

2.2 The subjects of the study 11

2.3 Reading materials 11

3 Action research procedure 12

3.1 Identifying a problem 12

3.2 Collecting data 12

3.3 Pre-test and post-test 12

C HAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 14

1 Implementing the action plan 14

2 Collecting data from survey 14

3 Analyzing data from teachers’ survey 14

4 Analysizing data from students’ survey 15

4.1 Pre -test data 15

4.2 Post test data 16

4.3 Pre-test and post-test comparison 16

C HAPTER 4: M AJOR FINDINGS AND SUGGESTIONS 18

1 Students' factors affecting reading comprehension 18

1.1 Limited background knowledge 18

1.2 Lack of vocabulary 18

1.3 Lack of reading comprehension skill 19

2 Teacher’s factors affecting teaching reading 19

3 Reading material factors 20

4 Suggestions for motivating students to read 20

PART 3 CONCLUSION 22

REFERENCES………23

APPENDIX 1: ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION 24

APPENDIX 2: A DETAILED LESSON PLAN 25

APPENDIX 3: THE PRE- TEST 26

APPENDIX 4: THE POST - TEST 28

Part 1: Introduction

1 Reason for choosing the topic

It is assumed that the more students read, the better readers they become.Therefore, establishing students’ habits of reading is very necessary, especially insecond language learning

Being aware of the importance of learning reading skill, authors of new English

10 have chosen interesting topics for reading lessons with the aim to promotestudents in reading and improve their reading comprehension However some of themare not familiar with students' genre and reading in the text book only is not enough

to enhance students' interest in reading and reading comprehension Thonis, (1970)suggested:

Comprehension skills depend upon two major factors: the background ofexperiences, from which concepts have been acquired, and the speed, accuracy,and richness of meanings which students bring to word recognition Theadvancement of skill in understanding what is read receives major emphasisduring the intermediate and high school years As students become moreefficient readers, the written language which they meet in books becomes asource for larger vocabularies, for increased knowledge, and for deepercomprehension of themselves and the world around them

Thus beside the reading texts in the text book students need to read more outsideclass room to enrich their vocabulary as well as their background knowledge Thatmeans students must read extensively

So many studies and researches have been conducted to find out ways toimprove reading effectiveness Recently, there have been a lot of researches about theeffect of extensive reading in improving students’ reading comprehension ColinDavis (1995:335) suggested that any classroom will be the poorer for the lack of anextensive reading program and will be “unable to promote its students’ languagedevelopment in all aspects as effectively as if such a program were present” He alsoclaimed that such a program will make students more positive about reading, improvetheir overall comprehension skills, and give them a wider passive and activevocabulary Myuskens (1983) affirmed that "with students at the beginning andintermediate levels, instructors can use literacy text for language practice, readingcomprehension and possible aesthetic appreciation” Strong (1996) also stated that

“extensive reading of literature can encourage students to develop positive attitudes

However, At My Hao high school, the teaching and learning reading are mostlybased on text book Therefore, the students seem not to be interested in readinglessons Most of them feel reading is difficult and boring even they are afraid ofreading Thus, after reading a text they often don’t understand much about its content

or they misunderstand author’s ideas When studying in a reading lesson, studentsoften experience the lack of background knowledge as well as vocabulary about thetopics they are reading Other important reasons are their lack of motivation and time

In the word of foreign language, the most popular expression might be “practicemakes perfect” That is the reason why the teachers have to find ways to enhancestudents read more and to improve their reading comprehension

From the point of view: students only read what they are interested in, theresearcher come to the study of using short story in teaching reading Because amongliterature materials, short story seems to be the most suitable with high schoolstudents of all Students at this age are curious and they like reading short stories.Collie and Slater (1991: 196) list the advantages of using short stories for languageteachers: short stories are practical as their length is long enough to cover entirely inone or two class sessions; they are not complicated for students to work with on theirown; they have a variety of choice for different interests and tastes; and they can beused with all levels (beginner to advanced), all ages (young learners to adults) and allclasses (summer courses to evening classes) Moreover short stories don’t take muchtime Students can read them at the break, before going to bed, on the bus or whenthey are waiting for someone

With the above reasons I decided to do an action reaseach on using short stories

as a sort of extra reading materials with the aim to motivate students in reading andimproving their reading ability

1.2 Aims of the study

The study is to find down if the using short stories in teaching reading helpsmotivate students at My Hao high school in reading and improving their readingability

The overall purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of the usingshort story reading activities (as extra reading activities) at My Hao high school Thussurvey questionnaires and class observations are used to investigate the teachers andthe students' attitude towards the using short stories in teaching and learning reading

as well as to examine the students' preferences for students' reading activities applied

by the researcher

The results of the study show that both teachers and students are fully aware ofthe sheer importance of short story reading activities to the students' comprehension.Among them, summarizing the story in spoken or written form appears to be the mostinteresting activities After this activity, the students not only comprehend deeply theshort story but they also practice speaking and writing skills Secondly, the studentsfind it easier to comprehend the story by filling in relating problems or themes in thestory to their real life

2 Aim of the study

The study is to find down if the using short stories in teaching reading helpsmotivate students at My Hao high school in reading and improving their readingabilities

3 Research questions

This action research aims at answering the following research questions:

1 What are the students' problems and causes of the problems in reading lessons?

2 What are students' attitude and preferences for the using short stories in teachingreading?

a How do they find the short story reading activities that teacher applied?

b What benefits do they think the short story reading activities bring them?

c What short story reading activities do they like most to comprehend the story more effectively?

3 Does the using short stories in teaching reading help students improve theirreading comprehension?

4 Scope of the study

The research aims at applying the using short stories in teaching reading tograde 10 students at My Hao high school The subjects of the study are 50 students ofclass 10A3 (school year: 2011-2012) at My Hao high school including 22 males and

28 females The age of those 50 students ranges from 16 to 17 Hopefully, thefindings of the study may be applied in teaching reading to students at My Hao highschool and other high schools in Vietnam

5 Methods of the study

 Methodology:

I designed this action research since it is the problem in my own class and Iwould like to improve my students' reading skill It is a practical action because itspurpose is to research a specific school situation with a view toward improvingpractice reading, to focus on a small-scale research project, to focus narrowly on aspecific problem and to be undertaken by an individual teacher within a high school.

 Data collection instruments:

To answer the research questions of the study, the data are collected throughquestionnaires, interviews, observations, and tests

6 Significance of the study

As mentioned above, learning reading is very important to students Therefore,

to raise students’ interest in reading and help them comprehend the text better, theapplying extra reading activities in teaching reading are very necessary

The aim of this study is to find out whether the using short stories in teachingreading motivates students in reading and improves their reading comprehension

PART 2: development

Chapter 1: Literature review

1.The importance of learning reading comprehension skills

Reading comprehension is what allows the readers to interact with the text in ameaningful way It’s the bridge from passive reading to active reading, from lettersand words to characters and contexts Reading comprehension is the crucial link toeffective reading - a strong factor in our educational and professional lives For manyreasons, reading comprehension also unlocks the door to a lifetime of readingrecreation and enjoyment Reading comprehension skills increase the pleasure andeffectiveness of reading In short, building reading comprehension skills require along term strategy in which all the reading skill areas (phonics, fluency, andvocabulary) will contribute to success Thus, teachers should find out what skill areasthat their students are bad at and help them improve those ones

2 Motivation

If students are going to develop good reading skills, they’ll want to read.People are more motivated to read if they are interested in the topic Researchconfirms that students' motivation is a key factor in successful reading Harmer, J(2003;44) defined "motivation is some kind of internal drive that encouragessomebody to pursue a course of action."

Students' interest in reading is vital to the motivation and readingassignment (Collins, Decker, 1996.53) If a student is intrinsically motivated, thestudents desire to read the materials because they are interested in it Another strategythat is used to promote intrinsic motivation is to find topics that students areinterested in learning more about and have the students research it (Guthrie,Solomon, 1997;43) The students want to read the material because they are sodetermined to learn more about the subject; they will also want to work hard at itbecause they picked it out (Hunt, Lyman, 1997;21)

Beside intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation is not less important In thisstudy, extrinsic motivation is considered as teacher's role in enhancing students toread as well as sustaining students' interest in reading Harmer (2003) said that

"clearly a major factor in the continuance of a student's motivation is the teacher."The teachers are the people who know best about their students, they will know how

to enhance their students' interest in reading and when to provide help to them Theteachers are also students' friends who share their difficulties in learning and fromthose difficulties they will find the most suitable method of teaching to increase anddirect their students' motivation

Thus, to make our students want to read, besides giving them interestinglessons with pleasant learning environment and various activities we need to provide

them materials that they are interested in or let them choose their own materials toread

3 Motivation in leaning reading short stories

3.1 Short stories and their benefits to high school students

When students are let to read materials that they are interested in they will want

to read more Wells C (1980;78) stated that “If reading has been pleasurable becausethe students have been able to identify successfully (emotionally and intellectually)with the text, and to organize the material, then the students will want to read more.This desire will set off a chain reaction which will lead to more reading, and the morethe student reads, the better he will read.”

To high school students, short stories seem to be the most suitable materials forextra reading activities Erkaya (2005;75) said "short stories usually have abeginning, middle and an end, they encourage students at all levels of languageproficiency to continue reading them until the end to find out how the conflicts isresolved” He also stated that " short stories, for example, help students to learn thefour skills listening, speaking, reading, writing more effectively because of themotivational benefit embedded in the stories and with short stories, instructors canteach literacy, culture, and higher-order thinking benefit." Accordingly, what Hirvelaand Boyle (1988;66) report is not surprising: they examine students' attitudes towardsfour genres of literary texts (short stories, novels, poetries and dramas) and state thattheir Hong Kong Chinese students indicated short stories as the genre that is lessfeared and the second most enjoyed (43%; the novel is the most enjoyed with 44%),since short stories are easy to finish and definite to understand

In addition, short stories are the best path to improve your overall readingcomprehension Short stories are easy, not time consuming, and the plots arerelatively simple, with limited locations and characters In about an hour or so, youshould be able to read a short story, and then sit down and analyze the story frombeginning to end You should be able to identify the characters, what the story’s plot

is about, and analyze the plot from different angles This will teach you to see asystem from different angles “Thus short stories - they are simply, easy and fun Butthey can really improve your reading comprehension”(Keith Johnson, 2008;77)

In conclusion, the answer to the question of why short stories are the mostsuitable literary form to use in English classes lines in Edgar Allan Poe's definition ofshort stories He defined it "as a narrative that can be read at one sitting of from one-half hour to two hours, and that is limited to 'a certain unique or single effect', towhich every detail is subordinate" (Abrams, 1970;88) Since it is short, and aims atgiving a single effect, there is usually one plot, a few characters; there is no detaileddescription of setting So, it is easy for the students to follow the story line of thework

3.2 Choosing the suitable short stories for high school students.

As it is mentioned above, of literacy genres, short stories seem to be the mostsuitable one to use in crowded class due to its shortness However, there is no strictrule to determine the length of short stories; as well as very short stories, there arelonger ones Therefore, it is the duty of the teacher to choose a story short enough tohandle with course hours "The shortness of the text is important for the studentsbecause they will see that they can read, understand and finish something in English,and it will give the students a feeling of achievement and self - confidence" (ZerrinEren, 2004.98) To high school students with the pre-intermediate language level theteacher can choose short stories which have from two hundreds words to threehundred words in length

Beside the length of the work, there are some other important criteria that must

be considered while choosing the text Hill (1994;45) points out the basic criteria to

be kept in mind while choosing a literary text as follows:

- The need and abilities of the students

- The linguistic and stylistic level of the text

- The amount of background information required for a true

- Appreciation of the materials

In addition, the vocabulary and sentence structure of the short stories to bestudied must be suitable to the level of the students The short stories with archaic,slang, foreign words, and allusions, having sentences imitating the speech of aparticular locality or ignorant people or foreigners must be avoided Similarly, verylong sentences are difficult for students to understand As students will notunderstand these sentences and words, they will get bored and not read the work.Therefore, before giving the short story, the teacher should decide the readability ofthe text

Moreover, High school students are at teenage age, thus, the short stories forteenagers are important sources for teacher Sandra Lee McKay (2001: 322) andWilga Rivers (1968: 230) point out that students read and enjoy a text if the subjectmatter of the text is relevant to their life experience and interests There are shortstories written for teenagers, although they are written for native speakers, "one way

or another, they are directly relevant to the life experience, thoughts, emotions, anddreams of young people" (Rongqvist and Sell 1995: 44)

3.3 How to use short stories in teaching reading

Short stories studied must be assigned to the students previously

Each student's reading and understanding speed is not the same, and the coursehours are limited in high schools If the students read the chosen text beforehand, they

the story For the best use of the allocated time, the students must read the text before theclass meeting Before reading the text in class, the teacher should give very briefinformation about the writer in order that the students can see the writer in the context ofhis/her time.

 Using a graphic organizer or story map

Following the reading of the text, the teacher may use a graphic organizer sothat the students can comprehend the story better A graphic organizer is "a visual aidthat displays the chunks of information to be studied" (Crandall, Jaramollo, Olsen andPeyton, (2002: 2) Crandall et al (2002: 2) explain the advantages of using graphicorganizers as follows:

Graphic organizers can help teachers clarify their instructional goals Teacherscan ask themselves what they want their students to learn and how they can displaythis information graphically to help their students connect their ideas

A story map in particular will help students understand the components of thestory Crandall et al (2002;5) describe a story map as follows: "A story map is oneexample of a graphic organizer A story map breaks down the components of a story-characters, setting, and dialogue in a series of events or conflicts leading toresolution-into chunks of text that can help students organize and comprehend theevents of the story" Using a story map, we can encourage our students to infermeaning from the text, and is able to develop students' reading and speaking skills

Below is a model of a story map:

Adapted from the story map by Crandall et al (2002, p 2-3)

Beside the using story map, we can provide the students other activities tocomprehend the story The following activities are suggested by Joanne Collie andStephen Slater (1993;9)

Asking and answering questions relating problems or themes in the story

to real life of the students This activity can be applied for pair work, groupwork or teacher and whole class

Doing multiple choice or true/false exercises that focus on newvocabulary and reading comprehension about the story

Reordering the events of the story

Summarizing the story in spoken or written form

Compare, note point of similarity and differences of content of the twostories with the same topic

Provide title for the story

Chapter 2: Research methodology

1 What is action research?

Action research is now becoming increasingly popular in language education It

is a process in which some decisions about the teachers' future practice result fromproblem identification and analysis on daily practice

Action research is advantageous in many ways Glanz (1991.7) points out that,

in the first place, it is feasible because the research is done by the practitioner (theresearcher) in his/her own practical context and situation Although it is done inreasonable time, action research brings immediate benefits to teaching practice Inaddition, he states that action research directly affects a teacher' practice and enablehim /her to renew the classrooms and promote instructional improvement Finally, allthe stages of action research are implemented in a strict order which allows educators

to systematically address to topics and issues that affect teaching and learning in theclassroom

With the above important reasons, an action research was selected to fulfill thestudy

2 The setting and the participants

2.1 The setting of the study

The study was carried out at My Hao high school where the researcher has beenteaching English for eight years

2.2 The subjects of the study

The subjects of the study are 50 students of class 10A3 at My Hao high school(school year: 2011-2012) including 22 males and 28 females The age of those 50students ranges from 15 to 16 They all have learnt English for at least four years atsecondary school therefore, on average, they have a pre-intermediate level of Englishlanguage proficiency They have already studied reading skill for one term at My Haohigh school, and have finished eight units of the text book English 10 (Hoang Van.Van et al, 2007.9) In the second term they continue with the reading texts in this textbook

Because of this, appropriate reading materials must effectively assist students

in developing their reading skills Teachers are advisable to design or at least knowhow to select suitable reading materials accompanied with a relevant range ofexercises for students In other words, the topic of reading materials must be ofstudents' interest Baker de Gonzalez and Blau, (2000.10) suggested that

The high-interest topic and thematically linked reading affectively buildstudents' background knowledge and vocabulary for later reading With theirincreased knowledge of a topic, students will have more to talk, write and think about

as they acquire English

In conclusion, The influence that materials have on the teaching and learningprocess can not be denied, so reading teachers must be aware of the role of materialshave in their classroom and the way they are used From this the teachers can choosethe most suitable reading materials for their students

3 Action research procedure

3.1 Identifying a problem

What was the students' problem?

After teaching class 10A3 for a semester, the researcher realized that thestudents were not motivated in the reading lessons As a result, most of them couldnot answer the comprehension questions after reading so they did not comprehend thereading well after reading lessons

3.2 Collecting data

What were the causes for the students' problem?

In this step, the main causes for the students' low comprehension in readinglessons were identified with questionnaire 1 for the students as presented in 3.3.1, theclass observations and interviews with other reading teachers as in 3.3.2 wasconducted to check the real ability of the information from the Questionnaires

3.3 Pre-test and post-test.

The pre-test, which was taken from My Hao high school’s test library, is tocheck students’ reading comprehension It was done at the beginning of the secondterm The test consists of two reading texts with the topics that the students havelearnt in the first term and there were four exercises to check students' vocabularyknowledge and reading comprehension ability after learning eight units in the firstterm The test was taken before the time of action plan implementation

The post-test, which was taken from My Hao high school’s test library, is tocheck students’ reading comprehension It was done at the end of the second term.The test consists of two reading texts with the topics that the students have learnt inthe second term and there were four exercises to check students' vocabulary

knowledge and reading comprehension ability after learning eight units in the secondterm The test was taken after the time of action plan implementation.

The format of the two tests and the kinds of exercises were designed the same.Only the information asked and checked are different according to the differentreading topics in each term So the researcher should be sure that the tests arerelatively equal in the level of difficulty

Through the two tests, the researcher can find the differences in the students'reading comprehension; compare the results before and after the time of doing actionplan

Chapter 3: DATA ANALYSIS

1 Implementing the action plan

How was the action steps implemented?

The action plan was implemented for 16 weeks from week one to week sixteen

of the second term at the fifth period on Friday (Normally, students learn 4 periods onFriday, the researcher had asked for the permission of the school’s leaders about this).The subjects were the students of class 10A3 at My Hao high school The teacher wasthe researcher of the study Besides, one more teacher was invited to observe theclass in the first period of each unit during the time of action plan implementation.During the sixteen weeks of the action plan implementation the students wereprovided with different short stories and comprehension tasks that correspond withthe topic of the reading in the text book, students’ knowledge, interests and levels ofproficiency (Appendix 6)

2 Collecting data from survey

What was the students’ reading comprehension like after action plan implementation?

After sixteen weeks of action plan implementation, some data about thestudents’ attitude and opinion about the using short stories in teaching reading weregathered through questionnaire 2 and the class observation checklists in which thestudents’ comprehension was objectively assessed by another observer She had theobservation sheet for her observation including the way the teacher taught thestudents, the reading short story activities the teacher applied and the students’attitudes towards the teacher’s activities their involvement in the activities, theirreading comprehension performance and their interaction with each other whilecompleting the reading tasks

3 Analyzing data from teachers’ survey

What were the results and recommendations for further study?

The action research was evaluated based on the results collected from the postdata From the findings of the action research evaluation, some recommendationswere made

 The research method and its different data collection instruments werepresented

 The reasons for the method selection were also discussed

 The pre-data collection procedure, the implementation of the action plan, andthe post-data collection procedure were conducted in a strict order

 After the pre-data were analyzed, the causes of the students’ low readingcomprehension were sought

 Then one action plan of using short story in teaching reading was developedand implemented during the sixteen weeks of the study

 Based on the analyzed results from the action plan implementation and the postdata collected after sixteen weeks of action plan implementation, the actionresearch was evaluated

 In conclusion, action research was chosen to be the research method of thisstudy because action research can help to identify problems, solve theproblems, and evaluate the solutions, which are exactly what the researcherwanted to do

4 Analyzing data from students’ survey

4.1 Pre -test data

The pre test was done by students in class 10A3 ( 2011-2012) at My Hao highschool The researcher had chosen some reading texts and built up a readingcomprehension test which suits with students' language level and covers the topicsthat the students had learnt in the first term The test was taken at the end of the firstterm before the time of action plan complementation

And the results of the pre- test were presented as follow:

Discussion:

As can be seen from the information above, most of the students got low marks(38%) The number students getting excellent marks is very low ( only 8%) In theprevious term, the students did not comprehend much in reading lessons and thecause of the students' low comprehension in reading lessons was that they lack ofvocabulary, background knowledge and motivation for reading

4.2 Post test data

The post test was done by students in class 10A3 (2011-2012) at My Hao highschool The researcher had chosen some reading texts from My Hao high school testlibrary and built up a reading comprehension test which suits with students' languagelevel and covers the topics that the students had learnt after implementing the actionplan for 16 weeks The test was taken at the end of the second term after the time ofaction plan complementation

And the results of the post test were presented as follow:

14

52

30

4 0 0

Discussion

As can be seen from the information above, most of the students got highermarks than those of the pretest During 16 weeks of the second term, students weregiven a lot of stories by teachers Therefore, their reading skill has improved much

As a result of this, the number of students getting bad marks decreased remarkably(only 4%) and the number of students getting excellent marks increased sharply(66%)

4.3 Pre-test and post-test comparison

The results from the pre-test and post-test showed that the students gainedsignificantly high reading comprehension level of the reading text thanks to the shortstory reading activities that the teacher applied in the action plan implementation Inthe pre-test there were no marks 9 or 10 but in the post test, 14% of the students gotmarks 9 or 10 The number of students who had marks 7 or 8 increased strikinglyfrom 8% to 52% None of the students got marks 1 or 2, only 2 students got mark4(4%) In conclusion, the scores from the two tests showed a big difference in thestudents’ progress in comprehending the reading texts as well as in developing theirreading skill

Chapter 4: Major findings and suggestions

1 Students' factors affecting reading comprehension

1.1 Limited background knowledge

It is easier to read and understand the text if we know something about the topic.For example, in our own language, it is very difficult to read a science textbook if wehave never learnt any science Except various background knowledge of differencenations, human share a large amount of the same knowledge known as commonknowledge that is beyond the limitation posed by culture region or religion For thisreason, students are encouraged to read as widely as possible The key toincorporating the information into the readers' knowledge is partly base on theamount of background knowledge of the reader Having background knowledgepermits the information to be incorporated into pre existing knowledge structures.Research on enriching background knowledge has demonstrated that activating suchknowledge increases comprehension Graves and his associates (1980; 1983)developed previews for short stories that had, as one component, the building of priorknowledge important to understanding the selection Hayes and Tierney (1982) foundthat presenting background information related to the topic to be learned helpedreaders learn from texts regardless of how that background information was presented

or how specific or general it was Alvarez (1990) used case-based instruction todevelop students' abilities to assemble and incorporate different knowledge sources inmemory He taught them how to employ thematic organizers and hierarchical conceptmapping in their reading

Additionally, research clearly emphasizes that for learning to occur, newinformation must be integrated with what the learner already knows (Rumelhart,1980)

It appears that providing students with strategies to activate their priorknowledge base or to build a base if one does not exist is supported by the currentresearch and this is one way teachers can have a positive influence on comprehension

in their classrooms

1.2 Lack of vocabulary

Most people feel that there is a common sense relationship between vocabularyand comprehension messages are composed of ideas, and ideas are expressed inwords The crucial role of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension has beenwell recognized in first language (L1) situations and this has appeared to be true ofsecond language (L2) settings as well because a strong vocabulary is the foundationfor reading comprehension In fact, vocabulary is the foundation of all areas ofliteracy listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Trisha Callella 2004 Teachingvocabulary to improve reading comprehension Creative teaching pressed)