Reading skills for the first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University by implementing task-based language teaching = Nâng cao kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---  --- NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG HA ̣NH IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING SK

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -  -

NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG HA ̣NH

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING SKILLS FOR

THE FIRST - YEAR STUDENTS AT VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY BY IMPLEMENTING TASK - BASED

LANGUAGE TEACHING

NÂNG CAO KĨ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀNG HẢI THÔNG QUA VIỆC ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIAO NHIỆM VỤ

M.A MINOR THESIS

HANOI - 2012 Field : ELT Methodology Code: 60.14.10

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG HẠNH

IMPROVING READING SKILLS FOR THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS

AT VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY

BY IMPLEMENTING TASK-BASED LANGUAGE

TEACHING

NÂNG CAO KĨ NĂNG ĐỌC CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀNG HẢI VIỆT NAM THÔNG QUA VIỆC ỨNG DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIAO

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

List of tables, figures and abbreviations iv

Table of contents v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 01

1 Rationale 01

2 Aims of the study 02

3 Scope of the study 03

4 Methods of the study 03

5 Overview of the study 03

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 05

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 05

1 The nature of reading 05

1.1 Definition of reading 05

1.2 Definition of reading comprehension 05

1.3 Reading models 06

1.3.1 Bottom-up Reading Model 06

1.3.2 Top-down Reading Model 07

1.3.3 Interactive Reading Model 08

2 Task – based language learning 09

2.1 Definition of task 09

2.2 Types of tasks 11

2.3 Task – based framework 12

2.4 Text – based task 13

2.5 Considerations in task design 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 16

1 Background of the study 16

1.1 Current learning and teaching of English in general and English reading in particular in Vietnam Maritime University 16

1.2 Identification of the problem 16

2 Research questions 17

3 Participants 17

4 Implementation of the action research 17

5 Data collection procedure 18

5.1 Description of the pre-treatment questionnaire 18

5.2 Description of the post-treatment questionnaire 19

5.3 Description of the two tests 19

6 Data analysis procedure 19

7 Summary 20

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 21

1 The results of the pre – treatment questionnaire survey 21

1.1 The students‟ need 21

1.2 The appropriation of texts 22

1.3 Activities in class 22

2 The results of the pre – treatment test 23

3 Experimental reading lessons 24

3.1 The first experimental lesson 24

3.2 The second experimental lesson 26

3.3 Summary 29

4 The results of the post – treatment test 30

5 The results of the post – treatment questionnaire survey 31

5.1 Students‟ motivation 31

5.2 The experimental lessons‟ sequence 31

6 Summary 35

PART C: CONCLUSION 36

1 Summary and conclusions 36

2 Pedagogical implications 37

3 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 40

REFERENCES 41

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: A sample lesson plan I

Appendix 2: Pre – treatment questionnaire survey (English version) VII

Appendix 3: Pre – treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version) X

Appendix 4: Post – treatment questionnaire survey (English version) XIII

Appendix 5: Post – treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version) XVI

Appendix 6: Pre – treatment test XIX

Appendix 7: Post – treatment test XXIII

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATION

Table 1: Participants‟ information 18

Table 2: Why the students like the pre-task cycle 33

Table 3: Why the students like the task cycle 34

Table 4: Why the students like the post-task cycle 36

2 FIGURES

Figure 1: Task-based framework by Willis (1996)

Figure 2: Components for analyzing tasks by Nunan (1989)

Figure 3: How the current English course meets the students‟ need

Figure 4: Percentage of students expressing their needs to the teachers

Figure 5: Students‟ assessments on the activities in the course book

Figure 6: Activities that the teachers often use

Figure 7: Classroom management in current reading lessons

Figure 8: Students' scores from the pre-treatment test

Figure 9: Students' scores from the post - treatment test

Figure 10: Students‟ assessments on the trial reading lessons

Figure 11: Activities students like doing in pre-task phase

Figure 12: Activities students like doing in during-task phase

Figure 13: Activities students like doing in post-task phase

3 ABBREVIATIONS

GE: General English

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

Vimaru: Vietnam Maritime University

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

It goes without saying that English is by far the most popular language of all Nowadays, English language plays an important role in the increasing development of science, technology, politics, culture and international relations in Vietnam As a result, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English throughout the country for different purposes

Learners of English all keep in touch with the four skills in order to acquire the English proficiency In Vietnam, reading is perhaps the most important skills that Vietnamese learners of English will be working with as one of the major focuses of teaching English as a second language is providing the students with the abilities to understand written materials With strengthened reading skills, EFL readers will make greater progress and attain greater development not only in English but also in all academic areas Therefore, “reading is the most heavily researched single area of the whole curriculum, and yet, paradoxically, it remains a field in which a good deal of fundamental work has yet to be approached, and one in which a great many teachers would claim to be almost wholly ignorant” and secondary teachers “who have generally had no training at all related to reading but nevertheless feel conscious that the ability to read fluently is the basis for most school learning, and one of the surest predictors of academic attainment” (Harrison and Gardner, 1977)

Traditionally, attempts to improve the comprehension of texts for EFL students have focused on familiarizing the students with vocabulary needed to comprehend the passage However, within the last 15 years, much of the research has been conducted

in the field of reading comprehension with focus on the use of tasks, especially tasks which involve interaction between learners in developing the learners‟ knowledge and reading skills Several studies have revealed that the use of appropriate tasks in reading lessons is an effective way to improve students‟ reading comprehension, motivating them and help them obtain better reading achievement

Vietnam Maritime University is a place where English teaching and learning are considered one of the major focuses Unfortunately, teaching and learning reading

skills is still far from satisfactory for various reasons The students, especially the first –year ones, seem to have limited background knowledge, poor vocabulary and often find it difficult to concentrate on the reading process or deal with uncountable new vocabulary, etc After several years of learning English, they are still word-by-word readers; they tend to read very slowly to understand the meaning of every single word When they encounter unfamiliar words or unfamiliar concepts, they feel discouraged and resort to wild guessing to construct the text meaning Some students do not understand the main idea of a text even when they have translated every word into their mother tongue Very few students deliberately look at the title of a text to think about its topic before reading Fewer students use their background knowledge to facilitate their comprehension They are completely dependent on the decoded messages from the text, so once their decoding mechanisms fail due to their deficient language proficiency, comprehension breaks down

One more problem is that the tasks provided in the course book are rather challenging and repetitive, mostly are question- and - answers tasks As a result, many reading lessons makes the learners bored while taking part in the reading process and their reading skills still keep stable

For all the above reasons, the researcher wishes to implement task – based language teaching, a new and effective approach, in improving the students‟ reading skills through the research work entitled:

“Improving reading skills for the first – year students at Vietnam Maritime University

by implementing task – based language teaching”

2 Aims of the study

The research is conducted to:

• examine the impact of task-based language teaching and learning on reading comprehension of the first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University

• suggest effective ways to design different tasks based on the available texts in the course book to meet students‟ demand, help them improve their reading skills and helping teachers select, adapt or create their own design of effective communicative tasks

3 Scope of the study

As the title of the study implies, this research focuses on reading skills and the participants of the study are the first - year students at Vietnam Maritime University The author tried to conduct two surveys and two tests in order to analyze the expectation and achievement of the experimental lessons The information obtained from this study is to help to improve teaching and learning English in general and teaching and learning English reading comprehension in particular at Vietnam Maritime University

4 Methods of the study

Action research, which “allows us to build records of our improvements” (Kemmis and Me Taggart, 1982, p34), is chosen as the research method for the current study The author specially prefers action research to other more conventional or traditional types of research by the fact that "it is very focused on individual or small group professional practice and it is not so concerned with making general statement The main function of action research is to facilitate the reflective cycle and in this way provide an effective method for improving professional action” (Wallace, 1997, p 16) Firstly, the researcher used two survey questionnaires which have always been considered as a representative of quantitative method to collect primary data When designing the questionnaires, the researcher used the questions of both types: open type and closed ended questions Closed form or restricted types of questions offer the respondent a choice of alternatives The open form (unrestricted) type of questions, calling for a free response, provides greater depth of response Secondly, the researcher tried to evaluate student‟s progress through two tests, one before and one after the intervention The results from these two tests are reliable data to measure the effectiveness of the experimental lessons Besides, during the experimental lessons, the researcher also observed and took note on the progress of the lessons, the students‟ response on the task, some changes should be made on the lessons, etc

5 Overview of the study

This research is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion

In the first part - Introduction, the author presents the rationale and the aims of the study followed by the scope and the methods of study

The second part - Development is the backbone of the thesis which starts by recalling

a brief account of reading comprehension, task-based language learning and teaching such as the task definitions, task types, task-based framework and pointing out the key issues in designing communicative tasks Then the author provides the methodology of the study which consists of the background of the study, the statement of the problem, the research questions, the participants and the implementation of action research These are followed by the instruments of data collection, data collection and analysis procedure This part is ended with the result and discussions of the research

In the end of the study, the author presents her major findings before drawing final conclusions She also suggests pedagogical implications and points out the limitations

of the study and suggestions for further research

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 The nature of reading

1.1 Definition of reading

According to Goodman (1971:135), reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which

the reader, a language users, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is viewed

as “cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming”

Rumelhart (1997) states “reading involves the reader, the text and the interaction

between the reader and the text”

William also shares the same idea on reading when he points out “written, then, often

contain more than we need to understand them The efficient reader makes use of this

to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning”

Harmer (1989:153) states that “eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out

the significance of the message” He views reading from a different perspective and he

considers reading as a mechanical process

Obviously, experts give different reading definitions but they all share the same idea that reading includes reader, text, reading process and reading message

1 2 Definition of reading comprehension

Reading comprehension plays a very important part in teaching and learning reading a foreign language It is the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it appropriately So that:

Harmer (1989:153) states a student is good at comprehension we meant that he can

read accurately and efficiently to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding”

Grellet (1981: 3) proposes “reading comprehension or understanding a written text

means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”

Lenz (2000:3) also says “reading comprehension is the process of constructing

meaning from the text” It means that reading comprehension consists of at least two

people, the reader and the writer Thus, the process of comprehending involves decoding the writer‟s words and using background knowledge to construct an approximate understanding of the writer‟s passage

On the whole, reading comprehension is the process that helps readers obtain information in the text and understand it appropriately

1.3 Reading models

Kamil (1986) claims that there have been three general orientations of reading models: bottom-up models (text – based), top – down models (reader – based), and interactive models (balanced – models)

1.3.1 Bottom-up Reading Model

All the proponents of bottom-up models agree that comprehension begins by processing the smallest linguistic unit (phoneme) and working toward larger units (syllables, words, phrases, sentences), and proceeds from part to whole In this way, bottom-up theorists view reading as a passive process dependent on the written or printed text

Gough (1972, as cited in Hudson, 2007) considers reading process as a sequential or serial mental process of detecting the parts of written language (letters) and converting them into phonemes, combining these phonemic units to form individual words, and finally putting the words together to understand the author‟s written message, hereby the mechanism called Merlin is utilized to apply syntactic and semantic rules in order

to determine the meaning of the sentences The process ends with the oral realization

of the sentence based on phonological rules (pp 34 – 5)

Nuttall (2005) indicates that reading is a process of identifying letters and words, figuring out sentence structures and then constructing a meaning from the printed words He also compares “bottom-up” processes with the image of a scientist with a

magnifying glass investigating every minute part of the little area to grasp it thoroughly (p 17) However, in many cases, readers can read aloud almost all the text,

or they know almost all the words in the text, but they can hardly recall any of its meaning

These models depend too much on the reader‟s linguistic knowledge and overlook their prior background knowledge The bottom-up or decoding model of reading was also criticized by Eskey (1973) for its failure to account for the contribution of the reader, whose expectations about the text, which are informed by his/her knowledge of language and his/her prior background knowledge, are employed as part of the reading process For these limitations, together with the advent of top-down models, bottom-up models fell into disfavors

1.3.2 Top-down Reading Model

This model, beginning in mind of the readers with meaning-driven processes, or an assumption about the meaning of a text, emphasizes what the reader brings to the text; reading is driven by meaning, and proceeds from whole to part From this perspective, readers identify letters and words only to confirm their assumptions about the meaning

of the text Goodman (1967) views reading process as a “psycholinguistic guessing

game”- a process of predicting, sampling, and confirming in which readers interact

with texts by combining information they discover there with the knowledge they bring to it in constructing a comprehensive meaning for the text as coherent discourse

(pp 364 - 5) “The knowledge, experience, and concepts that readers bring to the text,

in other words, their schemata, are part of the process” (Dechant, 1991, p 25), and

reading is more a matter of bringing meaning to than gaining meaning from the printed page (Dechant, 1991; Goodman, 1985; Smith, 1994)

Stanovich (1980) criticizes the top-down models by arguing that the generation of hypotheses would be actually more time-consuming than decoding would be Another criticism by Samuels and Kamil (1988, p 32) reveals that a reader will be unable to generate hypotheses about a text if he/she has insufficient prior knowledge of the topic, so according to the top-down theory, reading process will not occur

In the light of the perceived shortcomings of both bottom-up and top-down models, another model of reading process called interactive model is put forward

1.3.3 Interactive Reading Model

An interactive reading model attempts to combine the valid insights of bottom-up and top-down models It attempts to take into account the strong points of the bottom-up and top-down models, and tries to avoid the criticisms leveled against each, making it one of the most promising approaches to the theory of reading today As in top-down models, the reader uses his or her expectations and previous understanding to guess about text content and, as in bottom-up models, the reader decodes what is in the text Text sampling and higher- level decoding and recoding operate simultaneously

In Rumelhart‟s (1977) model, the “visual information store” receives input from the text to be processed These data then go through the “feature extraction device” into the “pattern synthesizer”, which utilizes input from the “syntactic, semantic,

orthographic, lexical and pragmatic knowledge” to comprehend the text During the

reading process, all sources of data are made full use of simultaneously, and provide the basis on which readers can accept or reject their prior expectations and put forward the new ones as long as they make their final decisions on the meaning of the text (as cited in Hudson, 2007, pp.41- 2)

Stanovic (1980) refers to his model as an “interactive compulsory” one in which

weaknesses in any levels of processing the inputs can be compensated for by others Those deficient in a low-level skill such as word recognition can be made up for by higher-level skills such as use of knowledge about the topic of the text, whereas those with few clues of the topic of the text can be helped by their good word recognition skill (as cited in Hudson, 2007, p 46)

Nuttall (1996, p 16) assumes that top-down and bottom-up processing are

“complementary ways of processing a text They are both used whenever we read;

sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other, but both are needed.” This author

adds that “in practice, a reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now

adopting a top-down approach to predict the probable meaning, then moving to a bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the writer says”

2 Task – based language learning

2.1 Definition of task

Tasks are defined by Oxford Advance Learner‟s Dictionary as “a piece of work to be

done or undertaken” (2005:1571) In language teaching, there have been a lot of

researches and theories in the last several decades on the use of tasks in language teaching, particularly tasks which involves interaction between learners (e.g., Breen, 1987; Prabhu, 1987; Nunan, 1989)

Willis (1996:23) defines tasks as “activities where the target language is used by the

learner for a communicative purpose/goal in order to achieve an outcome” The foci

of the definition lie in “communicative purpose” and “outcome” For Willis, tasks are

not a label for various activities including grammar exercises, practice activities and role play Instead, all tasks must have a clear purpose and an achievable outcome It is the challenge of achieving the outcome that makes the task performance a motivating procedure in the classroom

Nunan, one of the renowned scholars in task design, in his recent book “Task – based

language teaching” (2004), considers tasks as following:

“A task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending,

manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning and

in which the intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right with a beginning, a middle and an end” (p.4)

This is a novel definition of task which takes into consideration the most important features of a communicative task, i.e., negotiation and construction of meaning, the focus on meaning over form and the completeness of tasks In spite of saying that a task‟s focus is on meaning, Nunan points out the mutual relationship between form and meaning Meaning can only be expressed through grammatical forms This feature makes his definition become one of the most commonly cited pedagogic definitions of

a classroom task

In the recent renowned research “Task – based language learning and teaching”, Ellis

(2003:16) synthesizes various definitions to reach a composite one:

A task is a workplan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in order to achieve an outcome that can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct

or appropriate propositional content has been conveyed To this end, it requires them to give primary attention to meaning and to make use of their own linguistic resources, although the design of the task may predispose them to choose particular forms A task is intended to result in language use that has been a resemblance, direct or indirect, to the way language is used in real world Like other language activities, a task can engage productive or receptive, and oral or written skills, and also various cognitive processes

Ellis‟s definition is detailed and comprehensive It addresses all the following crucial features of a task:

 A task is a workplan

 A task involves a primary focus on meaning

 A task involves real – world processes of language use

 A task can involve any of the four language skills

 A task engages cognitive processes

 A task has a clearly defined communicative outcome

In his comprehensive definition, Ellis tactfully combines all the major features which have been proposed by other researchers He shares the idea with Nunan (1989) that a task‟s primary focus on meaning He also consents with Willis (1996) in the fact that a task must have an outcome with the use of authentic communication He is original in that a task may predetermine some linguistic forms and that tasks are connected to psycholinguistic processes

On balance, though different researchers have different ways of looking at tasks, all recent and renowned definitions bear one common characteristic which is the focus on

communicative language use in which the attention is on meaning rather than on grammatical forms

2.2 Types of tasks

There are many ways by which tasks are categorized Nunan (1989) classifies tasks into real world tasks and pedagogic tasks The former refers to the tasks that students may actually do or have the chance to rehearse in the out – of – classroom environment while the latter means the tasks happening only inside the classrooms The choice of real – world tasks or pedagogic tasks will depend on need analysis or SLA theory, respectively However, there is no rigid differentiation between these two types In fact, some tasks which are considered real – world are likely to happen in classroom and vice versa Also, there are some tasks belonging neither to real – world nor pedagogic tasks but standing in the middle of the continuum

In contrast with Nunan, Richards (2001:162, as cited in Nunan 2004:58 – 9) offers five types of tasks on the basis of communicative language use:

 Jigsaw tasks: Learners join separate fragments to form correct and complete information

 Information gap tasks: Each learner/group has different piece of information and their job is to discover the discrepancy

 Problem – solving tasks: Students work to find out solution to the problem posed

 Decision making tasks: Students discuss and negotiate the best solution to the problem among the available

 Opinion exchange tasks: Learners discuss and swap thoughts

Ellis (2003) divides tasks into two general types: focused and unfocused tasks Unfocused tasks may predispose learners to choose a range of forms but they are not designed with the use of specific form in mind In contrast, focus tasks aim to induce learners to process, receptively or productively, some particular linguistic features, for example, a grammatical structure

Willis (1996:28) has a similar distinction of task types with Ellis (2003) which are named closed tasks and open tasks Willis (1996) also elaborates tasks under six specific types including listing, ordering, and sorting, comparing, problem solving, sharing personal experience and creative tasks

2.3 Task – based framework

In task – based learning and teaching, tasks are not just what students do one after another Instead, tasks are considered as one element in an overall framework consisting of three stages: Pre – task, task – cycle and the language focus (Willis, 1996)

Figure 1: Task – based framework by Willis (1996:38)

 In the pre – task stage: the topic and the task are presented

 During the task cycle, students can make use of their entire prior language reservoir to perform their task The teacher will guide students, give feedback if

necessary and sometimes provide the students with an audio demonstration or a related text Accordingly, students are at the same time exposed to the language input, motivated to study and use the language to do things

 With the language focus coming after the task cycle, the language to be studied will already have been processed for meaning In other words, the new patterns have naturally arisen form the task The recent topic and task, together with the recording and text, provide a clear, holistic context for the study of specific language forms This framework gives students a variety of topics, texts and task types and the safe feeling because they do not have to worry about the new forms which they will study afterwards (Willis, 1996, p.90)

2.4 Text – based task

Text, by Oxford Advance Learner‟s Dictionary definition, is a unit of connected speech or writing, especially composed of more than one sentence that forms a cohesive whole sentence (2005:1587) Texts in English teaching, in this sense, will include recordings of spoken language and extracts from videos, in addition to the printed words There may be suitable texts or recordings in the course materials or a teacher may need to supplement these by choosing extracts from other sources The texts themselves will increase learners‟ exposure to the target language in use

Text – based tasks require learners to process the text for meaning in order to achieve the goals of the task This will involve reading, listening or viewing with some kind of communicative purpose, and may well involve talking about the text and perhaps writing notes (Willis, 1996:68) Willis also offers six criteria which should be kept in mind when selecting a text:

 Exploitability: choose a piece of material that lends itself to classroom

exploitation

 Topic: variety is important

 Length: choose a short piece or a longer one that has obvious pause point,

i.e., can be split into sections with a task set on each

 Linguistic complexity: try choosing occasional items where the language

itself seems difficult but the general message is predictable

 Accessibility: Is the text culturally accessible or will students need additional

background knowledge to appreciate it?

 Copyright: Check that you are not breaking copyright laws

2.5 Considerations in task design

Designing a good task is of great significance in language teaching It is necessary that the task, in terms of linguistic and cultural aspects, be suitable for the students‟ perceptual capability and proficiency level Nunan (1989) also proposes six components of the tasks which should be taken into account when designing tasks:

Figure 2: Components for analyzing tasks (Adapted from Nunan, 1989, p.48)

In this framework, goals are the intentions behind any task and provide a point of contact between the task and the broader curriculum Input refers to the data that form the point of departure for the task Activities specify what learner will actually do with the input Role refers to the part that learners and teachers are expected to play in carrying out learning tasks as well as the social and interpersonal relationships between the participants Setting refers to the classroom arrangements specified or implied in the tasks

When designing tasks, teachers should have a clear idea about what kind of tasks, whether focus on language form or not and how difficult the tasks should be in order

to facilitate learning of different learners with different learning levels Wong (2006) claims that all the following elements should be taken into consideration so that sound and effective tasks can be designed:

 The principle of meaningful tasks: Language develops in response to the need to

mean and to understand what others mean It follows that materials we offer learners should allow them to focus first on meaning in contexts and then go on

to look at the wordings that realize the meaning Language is a meaning system

In a meaningful task students are asked to exchange information among themselves in small group and/or with the teacher

 The principle of some focus on language form: Although many students acquire

a new language with little focus on language form, there is now some evidence that learners do better if, at some point, their attention is drawn to typical features of language form

 The principle of authenticity: The advantage of using authentic data is that

learners encounter target language items in the kinds of contexts where they really occur, rather than in contexts that have been concocted by a non-authentic textbook writer Ultimately, this will assist learners because they will experience the language item in interaction with other closely related grammatical and discourse elements

 The principle of reasonable task difficulty: In order to control the difficulty of

tasks, teachers must know what elements contribute to task difficulty In other words, teachers should know how to make tasks easy and difficult to meet different needs

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

1 Background of the study

1.1 Current learning and teaching of English in general and English reading

in particular in Vietnam Maritime University

English has always been a priority in Vietnam Maritime University (Vimaru), which is resulted from the fact that without a good knowledge of English, students can hardly succeed in their future career Inspired by this above reason, the board of the university‟s authorities has continually emphasized the important role of mastering English among students and created chances for teachers to study abroad for professional development

The English curriculum is always a major concern of the university Students of all faculties are obliged to attend two English courses, including General English (GE) and English for Specific Purpose (ESP) In the first and the second year at university, freshmen and sophomores will spend three semesters studying General English So far, different course books have been in use for this purpose, ranging from the self-made materials to the published course books on the market For the time being, New Headway series by Liz and John Soars (elementary and pre-intermediate level) are being used as the main course books From the academic year 2009-2010, it is a must for all Vimaru students to take the TOEIC test to be qualified for graduation Any students whose TOEIC score is lower than 450 are to retake the exam

1.2 Identification of the problem

As aforementioned, English learning and teaching at Vimaru, like at many other universities, is divided into two stages: GE and ESP The first stage is aimed at equipping students with the fundamental knowledge of English such as basic grammar, daily vocabulary and expressions, and everyday conversation, etc., which enable them

to communicate successfully in the real life However the current course – book (New Headway series) still cannot meet student‟s demands It cannot be denied that the themes covered in this course book are quite interesting to the students but the tasks designed are not very practical and easy enough for them to accomplish English teachers are also to take partial responsibility Not all teachers are equipped with

appropriate skills to add, simplify, modify or even design suitable tasks for the students

2 Research questions

This research is aimed at seeking the answers to the following questions:

1 What are the students‟ problems in learning English, especially English reading?

2 How much progress have students made in reading skills after the

All these students are at their first semester of English learning Some information about these students can be summarized in the following table:

Table 1: Participants’ information

Number of students 120

(DKT 53 – DH3, DKT 53 – DH6)

pre-intermediate (mostly elementary)

4 Implementation of the action research

Action research is chosen to conduct this study for the following reasons First, no other traditional kinds of methods are better than action research in terms of the practicality Action research which involves the collection and analysis of data related

to some aspects of our professional practice enables the teachers to reflect on what they have discovered and applied to the professional actions (Wallace, 1997, p 17) Through action research, teachers can gain a better understanding of their own practice and their students' behaviors They are, therefore, "empowered to make informed decisions about what to change and what not to change, link prior knowledge to new information, learn from experience (even failures) and ask questions and systematically find answers” (Fueyo & Koorland, 1997, cited in Mills, 2003, p 10)

Second, action research allows the improvement of student learning and the enhancement of teaching As action research is a cycle of posing questions, gathering data, reflection and deciding on the course of actions, teaching and learning process becomes a continuum of the developments, one after another

This research is conducted in the following phases:

• Phase 1: the researcher administers the questionnaire survey and a test with the

two English classes in order to get the pre-treatment data about the students‟ reading ability, their current problems in learning reading in the classroom and what the students really expect from the course

• Phase 2: An action research is conducted in these two classes with the

implementation of text- based task lessons in replacement of the traditional ways of teaching English

• Phase 3: the researcher gives the second test to assess students‟ progress and

gets feedback from students on how they evaluate the trialexperimental lessons

in terms of language skill development and what the students like and dislike about the trialexperimental lessons through the post-treatment questionnaire survey The researcher, basing on all the collected information, draws upon implications and improvements for later lessons

5 Data collection procedure

5.1.Description of the pre-treatment questionnaire

The pre-treatment questionnaire is composed of seven questions concerning two major issues, i.e., the fulfillments of students‟ needs and the students‟ assessment on the current English course

• Questions 1 and 2 deal with the matter of how much the current English course has met students‟ demand and students ‟ willingness in expressing their needs to their teacher

• Questions 3 and 4 are on the texts offered in the English course book

• Questions from 5 to 7 collect information on the activities which are conducted

in the reading lessons and how students carry out these activities

5.2 Description of the post - treatment questionnaire

The post-treatment questionnaire consists of eleven questions which are categorized into two groups: students‟ motivations and the students‟ judgments on the

• Questions from 6 to 8 are about students‟ judgments on the activities carried out

in the during-task stage

• The last three questions (9 - 11) are reserved for the students' assessments on the activities conducted in the language focus stage

5.3 Description of the two tests

The two tests are designed to be completed in 45 minutes Through the tests, the students are asked to demonstrate how well they understand the reading text by doing different types of tasks (Complete the sentences, Use the vocabulary in the new context, Choose the correct answer, Decide whether the statement True/False/No information, etc.)

6 Data analysis procedure

After the data have been gathered, they will be coded for the sake of analysis The quantitative data which are then analyzed via Microsoft Excel software program and demonstrated in the forms of tables and charts are presented in numbers and percent This facilitates the reading of the data Finally, the author gives interpretation from these figures

7 Summary

In this chapter, the writer starts by presenting the background of the study which includes an account on the present situation of teaching and learning English at Vimaru, leading to the identification of the problem Then the research questions, participants of the study and a careful explanation of the steps by which an action research is conducted are also presented The chapter continues with a detailed description of the data collection procedure The author ends the chapter with a brief explanation of the data analysis procedure

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this chapter, the writer analyzes the results from the three research tools:

questionnaire surveys, students‟ diaries and interviews For convenience and clarity,

the results will be analyzed in accordance with each phase of the research

1 The results of the pre-treatment questionnaire survey

A pre-treatment questionnaire is administered to find out the students‟ judgments

towards the current English teaching and learning program One hundred and twenty

questionnaires were sent out and the respondents were 116 due to four absent students

on the day of the survey This survey will serve as the starting point to decide what

should be changed and added in the experimental lessons The pre-treatment

questionnaire consists of seven questions trying to survey: students‟ needs, the

appropriation of the texts in the course – book and classroom activities

1.1 Students‟ needs: question 1 and 2

It is of paramount importance to know whether or not the students are happy with the

course The below chart demonstrates how the current English course has met the

students‟ needs

It can be seen from the chart that students are quite happy with the achievement of

vocabulary during the course This is justifiable since

there is the „work list‟ part which provides students

with systematic vocabulary appearing in each unit‟s

text Besides, at the bottom of each page, students can

Speaking Development

Reading Development

Writing Development

Applicability

Figure 3: How the current English course book meets the students' needs

Poor Fair Good Very good Excellent

6%

Figure 4: Percentage of students expressing the needs

to the teacher

Yes

find some notes explaining new words in the page‟s content It is, therefore, easier for the students to memorize the new words In terms of language skill development, although the course-book (New Headway) covers all the four skills, these skills are not arranged separately but merged all together in each part This format and arrangement make it unclear, quite confusing and lack of focusing for students to follow Reading part, particularly, is assessed to be simple even repeated and boring, therefore, it doesn‟t meet the students‟ demand and plays a limited role in developing students‟ skills When being asked if they have ever expressed their needs to their teacher, only 6% of the students say “yes” while the majority says “no” This poses the poor bilateral contacts between teachers and students

1.2 The appropriation of texts

Inspired by the wish to find out the students judgments on the appropriateness of the texts in the course book, the researcher asks the students to assess them on two criteria: interestingness and practicality

From the result, it is clear that the texts get a great deal of agreement from the students Over one hundred out of 120 students find the text interesting and useful as they provide with lots of information on specific topics

1.3.Activities in class

The next survey question focuses on the students‟ general assessments on the activities available in the course book As the chart shows, 88 out of 120 express that the activities are not motivating The same high number of 80 and 87 respectively share that there are too few activities and they are unpractical With the

typical exercises like “answer the questions based on the text” or “Decide whether the

statements are True or False”, it is no doubt that students do not appreciate the

exercises provided in the course

72 91 58 69

Figure 5: Students' assessments on the

activities in the course book

The most frequently used activities

employed in the reading lessons can

be illustrated in the following chart

As can be seen from the chart, all the

students agree that “reading out loud

the texts”, “asking and answering

questions” and “Translating” are most

commonly exerted during the lessons

What can be seen from these figures

is that the activities which are

traditional, simple and do not require much effort from teachers will be more favored

by the teachers than those calling for much preparation and energy In many ways,

these activities are goods for helping the students understand the texts better They are,

however, somewhat mechanical and not motivating enough If they are carried out in

every single lesson, students may not find any motives to learn

In terms of activity

management, individual work is carried out very often

in the class Pair work and group work are

employed This fact is explainable by the types of activities used

in classes When “reading out loud”, “asking and answering questions” and

“translation” are the most common in classes, the corresponding management must be

individual work

2 The results of the pre-treatment test

The first test is to evaluate students‟ ability of understanding a reading text before the

intervention The test was designed with different types of tasks to ensure a full

0 50 100

evaluation on the students‟ reading ability on different aspects (vocabulary, structure, comprehension, etc.) The results were shown in the following pie chart

Number of students got high score (8-10): 23 (19%)

Number of students got medium score (5-7): 56 (47%)

Number of students got low score < 5: 41 (31%)

As can be seen from the chart, the number of students that thoroughly understood the reading text and got good score was comparatively low (19%); while there were still 31% of students could not complete the test at average level This fact demonstrated the students‟ weak reading ability and therefore raised a need in improving students‟ reading skills in the classroom

2.3 Experimental reading lessons

3.1 The first trialexperimental lesson

The researcher chose the reading text of unit 12 (Life‟s an adventure) (New Heaway Elementary) to be the first trialexperimental reading lessons To prepare for it, the researcher had designed a number of tasks that were supposed to increase the students‟ interest and acquisition on the text

The first task offered to the class was looking at the pictures given and calling out the name of the appropriate sports This task served as a warm-up activity to naturally lead the students to the lesson Firstly, teacher presented and gave careful instruction on the task Then students were asked to do the task in pairs or groups while the teacher went around the class to observe After three minutes, teacher randomly called one or

two students to give the answer and explain Teacher helped them to express their ideas by some suggesting questions like:

What are people doing in the picture?

What is that sport?

What do you know about it?

Do you think that this sport is dangerous? Why (not) …

It could be seen that some picture about popular sports like football, golf, mountain climbing were easy enough for students to work on However, they got trouble in calling and describing the name of the other sports like: skiing, windsurfing or scubar-diving due to the lack of vocabulary and the teacher had to give them some assistance After the task, teacher helped the students to explain the terms and encourage them to list as many other sports that they thought dangerous as possible The students felt very excited at doing the task, however they found it quite hard to express their ideas, knowledge in English The task consumed more time than the teacher planned

The following task dealt with vocabulary In this task, the teacher listed some key words of the text in the two columns and asked students to match the words in column

A with column B to make complete phrases After doing that students were to find and underline these phrases in the text Most students showed that the task was within their ability and they completed it very quickly Then the teacher wanted to make sure the students totally master the vocabulary by asking them to use these above phrases in new context This exercise was a bit harder than the previous one but the students could still do it in a comparatively short time

After these warm-up activities, the class moved to the while - reading task The first task to do was questions and answers The teacher gave careful instructions and divided class into two groups, group A worked with the first part of the text, and group

B worked with the second one After fifteen minutes, the teacher checked the student‟s answers and corrected the wrong ones Especially, she asked the students to show the evidence for their answer Through checking, she could see that more than half of the students gave the correct answers to the questions Some rather difficult questions like

How did she/he become interested in the sport?, How dangerous is the sport? …

required students to infer from what they read, so there was a high number of wrong answer to these questions The whole task took about thirty minutes

To ensure that students had a thorough understanding on the text, the teacher

continued with the second task for while-reading stage: Decide whether the statements

are True (T) or False (F) This task was quite familiar with the students so there was

no need for the teacher to give much instruction on the task The task was designed to

be carried out in 10 minutes However, to the teacher‟s observation, the students felt very confident and relaxed with this task and they finished it without any trouble

In the post-reading stage, the teacher wanted to broaden the students‟ knowledge on the topic by ask them to share their own experience of sports To help them complete the task, the teacher gave them some questions to discuss in pairs:

Do you often play sport?

What sport do you play?

Is it dangerous?

Do you like that sport? Why (not)?

Do you think that playing sport is good for your health? Why (not)?

To her observation, almost all students were quite eager doing the task They discussed enthusiastically together, talking about their favorite sports, favorite athletes, their sport practice However, when the teacher asked them to share their stories to the whole class, they seemed very reluctant and confused Therefore, the task took much more time than the teacher had expected

3.2 The second trialexperimental lesson

The next trialexperimental lesson was designed basing on the reading text of unit 13

(Story time) The research started the lesson by introducing the text‟s title: “The

Christmas Present” and asking students some questions:

What do you know about Christmas?

Do you often give presents on Christmas?

What are some of the best/ worst presents you have given or received?

Students showed great interest in the questions, and became more willing to share their opinions to the class It could be explained by the fact that the topic was very interesting and familiar to the students so they found it quite easy and natural to express

The pictures in the text were also used as materials for the followed prediction task

Students were asked to look at the pictures and describe them They could refer to the questions the teacher gave:

What can you see in the picture?

When and when do you think the story took place?

Who do you think the people are?

The students showed their great imagination and creativeness in this task They made their own story when describing the pictures Some said the pictures told story of a couple preparing Christmas presents for each other Others said the woman in the picture cut her hair because her husband wanted so Anyway, the students‟ enthusiasm made the lesson much more exciting and relaxing

After those warm-up activities, the teacher moved to the while-reading stage The first task of this stage was taken from the course-book The students were going to read and listen to the part 1 of the story and then answer the questions in exercise 4 in pairs After ten minutes, the teacher started to check the answers among class It could be seen that almost all students could give the correct answers to the questions However, they showed certain confusion over some questions that required inference such as:

Why do you think she is going into town? What is she going to do?

Which adjectives best describe Della? Why?

This was the part when the teacher needed to provide some suggestions

Before doing the exercises of part 2, the teacher asked students to do a supplementary task (splitting) In this task, the teacher divided the content of part 2 into different pieces and asked students worked in groups to rearrange these pieces in the correct order

The whole class was quite interested in the task They worked quite eagerly and completed the task really quickly After presenting, the students could check the answer themselves by reading and listening to the part 2 of the text

After the task, the lesson continued with the questions and answers exercises in the course- book To the teacher‟s observation, after doing the above tasks, the students could finish the exercise more easily and more quickly

To end up with part 2, the teacher held a discussion among class about the story Some questions were brought forward as suggestions for the discussion:

What do you think about her action?

If you were at that position, would you do the same?

What do you think will happen next?

Like other discussions, this task attracted most students and they came up with a great deal of new ideas What surprised the teacher was that the students showed apparent progress in constructing ideas and expressing them among class

this task the

students had to use their knowledge of grammar, structures, vocabulary to find the suitable words and fill in the blanks That was a difficult task and as the teacher saw, the students needed a lot of time to finish the task At the same time, the teacher had to give a lot of assistance such as give hints, provides words in advance, etc This could

be explained due to the students‟ shortage of vocabulary

As for the post-reading activity, the teacher used the questions and answers exercise in the course-book for students to discuss in groups

3.3 Summary

In the following experimental reading lessons, the teacher added or reduced the amount of tasks according to the amount of time on class, the level of task‟s difficulty, the students‟ level of proficiency, the appropriateness of the text The results of the experimental lessons are collected and analyzed through the post – treatment questionnaire However, after six weeks, the researcher can draw out some fundamental summary as followed:

- It is clearly to notice that the chosen students felt more willing and excited in taking part in the experimental lessons At first, they were very quiet and often shy to talk among class But after the experimental period, they have changed a lot, feeling more confident and eager to deal with a reading text

- The progress is also noticeable Before the experimental lessons, the chosen students needed a lot of time to finish a simple reading task, but now, they can finish different kinds of tasks in a relatively shorter time Of course, there are still some tasks that bring much challenge to the students such as restoration task, jumbling task, discussion, etc.; but the students no longer find them impossible to cope with as they used to

- One more change that can be pointed out is the improvement in the students‟ skills of pair work and group work They no longer feel troubled in working together, sharing ideas, and making plans It is not exaggerated to say that the students have learned how to cooperate with each other

4 The results of the post – treatment test

After six weeks‟ time implementing task-based language teaching and learning in the classroom, the researcher asked students to do the second test to assess the changes in students‟ reading ability This second test keeps the same format in comparison with the first test with different types of tasks to provide a full assessment on the students‟ progress The figure below demonstrates the results from the post- treatment test

Number of students got high score (8-10): 38 (32%)

Number of students got average score (5-7): 62 (52%)

Number of students got low score (<5): 20 (17%)

The chart clearly shows an increase in the number of students getting the high and average score These test results reveal a slight improvement in the students‟ reading comprehension Students get better and better at dealing with the vocabulary, finding information, completing the tasks in limited time, and so on This improvement is considered to be resulted from the application of task-based language teaching and learning in teaching reading in the classroom as students have more chances to encounter different task types and to work together in pairs or groups.

5 The results of the post – treatment survey questionnaire

After six weeks of the experimental lessons, the researcher continues with the treatment questionnaire survey to get feedback from the students Taking part in the post-treatment questionnaire are 118 out of 120 students from the same two classes, two being absent on the day of survey administering This questionnaire consists of thirteen questions falling into two sections: Students‟ motivation and the experimental lesson‟s sequence

post-5.1 Students‟ motivation

The first two questions are aimed at finding out whether or not students are more motivated when they are involved in the text-based tasks Happily, 98 per cent

of the students show their positive attitudes towards the experimental lessons

by saying that they are more motivating than the previous ones Only 2 per cent say that they are the same and no one chooses

“less motivating” option Moreover, 85 per cent indicate that it is a pleasure for them

to take part in these lessons whereas only 15 per cent say that it is an obligation for them to do so This signals a good starting point for the researcher It is of great importance that students are willing to learn and ready to learn If they consider learning as compulsory or obligatory, learning will become a burden rather than a beneficial process

5.2 The lessons‟ sequence

Figure 10: Students' assessments

on the experimental lessons