In old method, in the way to help students to understand the lesson, most teachers often tell the content of the comprehension before reading.. But I don't think that way is the good way
Trang 1Helping students develop reading skill
Së GI¸O DôC - §µO T¹O B¾C GIANG
Tr−êng pt d©n téc néi tró b¾c giang
- o0o -
Helping students Develop reading skill
Hä vµ tªn: NguyÔn ThÞ NguyÔn ThÞ Thu HiÒn Thu HiÒn
Tr−êng: Phæ th«ng d©n téc- néi tró B¾c Giang
N¨m häc : 2007 - 2008
Trang 2Helping students develop reading skill
Part I: INTRODUCTION
I Rationale
Of all the languages spoken in the world, English is the most widely used language Nowadays, together with the development of science and technology, English has also become more and more popular in Vietnam Many people learn and use it in all spheres of public activities everyday However, there also many problems facing the English language learners They still cannot avoid making common errors So do the students at higher secondary school
Since I worked with the students at higher secondary school, I recognise when the students face the long texts, the often feel bored and worried and when they finish reading, they easily forget almost everything they have just read Therefore, I always try
my best to help them to feel interesting when they read both a short text and a long text
as well as make reading- teaching lessons more enjoyable to them
Besides, as a teacher, I want to show my pupils how important part reading a passage play in language learning and in communication From the passages, they widen their vocabulary and structures as well They also know how to use their vocabulary and structures in different contexts Helping my students to develop reading skill is, therefore, of special interest to me
II The scope of study
The scope of teaching reading skill is extremely broad, my studying paper cannot cover all the aspects concerning the subject What I am going to discuss in the paper only concern helping develop reading skill to the students in the 12th grade at higher secondary school where I teach
III The aims of the study
The aims of my paper are to identify some common causes that students do not like reading passages and give some solutions to help them to develop reading skill and read more effectively
Trang 3Helping students develop reading skill
I the problems that students face at a text
1 students are not interested in the text, they don't understand what to read the text for
When teaching English at a higher secondary school, I realize that students prefer writing to reading At first I don't know the reason, but after a long time I found that students are likely to make more errors while speaking than they do while writing Sometimes making spoken errors shows that students are not interested in reading and they do not know what they have to read for For some other, they lack in ability or they aren't real tried students
In old method, in the way to help students to understand the lesson, most teachers often tell the content of the comprehension before reading But I don't think that way is the good way to help students to pay more attention to the text, it might be spoilt the students' interest, because when knowing the text of the comprehension, students don't want to find out anything from the text, and there is not anything new so they only read but they do not think much about the content and they can't understand the meaning of each sentence
2 Having problems with new vocabulary
When students face the long texts, they feel tired of reading it because there are lots of new words, so as a teacher I always try to find out the solution to this problem, and " How to help students guess the meaning of new words in each text ?" is a difficult question that I think myself to overcome
Students often give up reading or thinking about the comprehension if there are some new words, they only wait until their teacher gives the meaning of these words, this can't develop the students' deducing skill
3 students can't understand the content of the text
Some teachers say that:"I always let my students look up all the words of the text
at home and they have to translate the text bofore going to class Students can learn easily and they have much time to practise reading skill" But I think there are some reasons that we can't afford students to look up all the new words and translate the comprehension at home
Trang 4Helping students develop reading skill
+ When looking up new words at home, they have to read all the text and find out which words are new, this method makes students not practice guessing skill, one of the most imprortant skills to develop reading skill
+ Translating the text at home makes students not pay attention to the text at class because they have already understood the content of the text before.It is easy to feel bored and inactive
+ To the bad students, they are very lazy and they don't try to learn anymore, so they always borrow books from good students and they only copy the content At class, they are very talkative but they don't understand anything
4 Having problems in remembering the content of the text
What is the aim of reading comprehension? That is to get students to practice speaking skill, and at the end, they understand the content of the comprehension, so they can retell the content again in accurate speaking.But in fact, all the students can't retell anything without their books because they forget everything only in a short time
In order to overcome these problems, teachers have some techniques, of course these techniques sometimes are not good for all students In these techniques, students only understand the lesson in controlled practice They don't have opportunity to practice reading, speaking skill with their classmates
II The teachers' usual methods
1 Teachers tell the situation or the content of the comprehension
In order to interest student, some students often tell the context, the situation of the text But in my opinion, it isn't good because in this method, students can only understand the content in a passive way, it doesn't help them to remember anything after finishing And specially for bad students, they can't develop their reading and they even don't develop translating skill as well as deducing skill
E.g : English 12- lesson 3 – Reading practice
At pre-reading part most teachers can often introduce that the are many famous parks in London, such as St James’s Park, Hyde Park, Regent’s Parkand Kensington Gardens Then teachers tell something special of each park For me, we can transfer this way to “ Answering questions “
For example, we can give some questios and ask students to discuss in groups to answer about four famous parks in London
- Are St James’s Park, Hyde Park , Regent’s Park and Kensington Gardens the most famous parks in London?
- What do you know about them?
- Is there Speaker’s Conner where you can get up and say anything in Hyde Park?
Trang 5Helping students develop reading skill
- What is Regent’s Park famous for?
- Can you sail every kind of model yacht in Kensingto Gardens?
- Are there many wild ducks in St James’s Park ?
By this way students can not only imagine the situation of the text and what they are going to read but also develop speaking skill.In other word, their speaking is more and more accuracy
2 Direct correction
Some teachers have said that:"I never let my students make mistakes If they say anything wrong, I stop them immediately and make them say it correctly I don't want them to learn bad English from others" But for me, we can't stop students whenever they make a mistake, because when students are involved in free activities, such as discussion, role play, we want them to develop fluency, so it is better not to interrupt by correcting too often, but to remember commom errors and deal with them afterwards
What is the aim of stopping students to correct their mistakes? That is to get students to think about the mistake they have made, to help them give out accurate speaking When teachers don't isolate the mistake to correct, students will be confused with their errors and they can't remember the right words after that, therefore students can't read accurately and fluently
3 Translasion method
Students often have difficulties in translating long comprehension, so if their teachers help them to translate the whole text, they will understand it well, but sometimes it isn't good because some students only copy into their notebooks, so it doesn't develop their comprehension skill
III The new methods given
As a teacher, I always think about the solutions to help students to read better and they do not feel bored with the passages So I have thought about the ways to make all the students more enjoyable and interested as well as to help students widen their knowledge and vocabulary about the social maters
First of all, a reading lesson is divided into three parts:
+ Pre-reading
+ While- reading
+ Post-reading
1 Pre-reading
Trang 6Helping students develop reading skill
To help students understand what they are going to do before they do it I will have to set up a pre-task In this part, teachers give out the topic or the solution and students have to think about them before reading, listening, speaking or writing about that For example, teachers can give a table writing some ideas, students work in groups and discuss to collect the best ideas for the topic, this is a discussion task
E.g: In English 12- Lesson 4- Reading practice, before reading about the use of the English language in the world, I give a table writing some information related to the topic Then ask students to discuss and find out the information to complete it
English used as The countries speak English as The people speak English as
First language
350 milion
Second language
Foreign language Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos,
China
After doing this exercise students can imagine about the passage
*Preparing task:
In this task, teachers have to pre-teach some vocabularies to aid the comprehension:
When teaching reading skill, the first thing that the teacher should do is to make some decisions about which words students should actively learn, which words they should guess from the context and which words they should ignore What to do with the new words depend on two things: how essential the words is (is it a key word?) for understanding the passage and how difficult the word is If the new word is essential for understanding the passege and at the students' level, it should be taught actively, if the word is essential but above the students' level it should be taught passively, the teacher should explain or translate it as quickly as possible If the word is not essential for understanding the passage but too difficult, students should guess the meaning
Trang 7Helping students develop reading skill
E.g: Guessing some easy words but essential for understanding the passage, such
as in English 12- lesson 6- reading practice
-give talks
-have great influence
- death
- famous
- success
x
x
cã ¶nh h−ëng lín c¸i chÕt
thµnh c«ng
* Prediction task:
Students predict or guess what they are about to learn so that they can understand
a little about the comprehension But when giving the definition, teacher must give
clearly and easily to understand
2 While-reading
In order to reduce students' errors and make students to interest to the lesson, there
are three tasks in "while-reading" stage
a Comprehensive task:
* After reading the comprehension, students answer some questions given by the
teacher, so that they can read and understanding the text easily
E.g: English 12 – Review lesson two- exercise2
When students have already read the text, teacher gives some questions and
students have to answer them
- Who was Marconi ?
- When and where was he born?
- Why did people think that he was not intelligent when he was small ?
- What did he like best ?
- Where was he taught when he was small ?
* Besides, teachers can give some more other kinds of exercises, such as True or False, Gaps Filling
Trang 8Helping students develop reading skill
b Ordering task:
Teachers give some pictures or some sentences But they aren't in order, and therefore, students show that they have understood by putting the pictures or the sentences into the same sequence as the text
E.g: In English 12- Lesson 9- Reading practice (part 1)
1 Mercury is sometimes called the morning or evening star
2 Mercury keeps one side towards the sun
3 We only see the lighted side
4 Mercury is the smallest member of the sun’s family
5 It takes Mercury 88 days to go around the sun
* In this exercise, students have to work in pairs to arrange these sentences in order, after some minutes teacher checks their results and compare with the content of the comprehension
* Key: 4- 5- 2- 3- 1
c Transformation task:
Teachers give another comprehension, but change some information Students read and write the similar text Using this method will help students pay more attention
to the comprehension and develop the students’ writing skill as well
E.g: English 12 - Lesson one -Reading practice
In this text teachers can ask students to read and change some information by filling in the gaps with their own words
Bill’s sister is Linda She is at the age of She left school
.ago And she is work now She gets some Benefit but it is not much, and she is fed up withfor it she dislikesher parents for Although her mum sometimes gives her for tights, she can’t stand .her all day at home.But she is bored with a job.She is tired of the “ Situations Vacant” column because there are.for every job She was interested in being a but now she’d take any job at all
3 Post-reading
a Aims
+ Checking comprehension of main ideas: The true/false questions usually paraphrases the topic sentence of each paragraph
+ Checking comprehension of facts and details
Trang 9Helping students develop reading skill
+ Checking underlying meanings
+ Guessing the meaning of vocabulary
b Some exercises
* Matching:
In English 12- Lesson2- Situation and Practice 1
Students do the matching then talk about the topic" someone’s hobby"
* E.g:
time
* Find someone who
In the method, students have to work in groups to ask and answer about one topic
to fill in the grid
E.g: In English 12 – Lesson one- Situation And Practice 2
enjoy going out for a walk
like eating fruit
fed up with doing the housework
not mind doing the homework
The model: Student 1: Do you enjoy going out for a walk ?
Student 2: Yes, I do / No, I don’t
* Recall:
In this method, students have to retell the content of the story that they have already learned in English So that teachers can also check both students’ reading and students' speaking
IV The results
After using these methods to teach I have realized that:
+ Students are more interested in the comprehension than the last time
+ Students can remember the content of each passage longer and accuracy
+ Students can avoid making mistakes when reading a long passage
Trang 10Helping students develop reading skill
In conclusion, reading is one skill that is especially difficult for the learners of English at higher secondary school It is clear that within the scope of my paper, only a small of the field was covered I can only mention some possiple ways of teaching a comprehension, some errors that students and teachers often meet What I have written are most of what I have done in my teaching at high school That is my little experience and that helped my pupils much in their reading the passages in English 12
In fact, there are a lot of problems arising during the process of teaching and learning English That must be dealt with by teachers nearly every day Therefore, both teachers and students must always think hard and be creative to be able to master English, especially reading skill
In addition, I hope that what I have written will be useful to other teachers