TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………3 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY…………………………………………3 PROCEDURES………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8 FINDINGS ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 17 APPENDIX 1…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18 APPENDIX 2…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20 REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….22 Reference books used in the innovation process………………………23
Trang 1SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐỒNG NAI
TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN LƯƠNG THẾ VINH
Mã số ………
SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
Helping gifted students gain benefit
from extensive reading
Người thực hiện: Bùi Ngọc Xinh
Trang 2SƠ LƯỢC LÝ LỊCH KHOA HỌC
I THÔNG TIN CHUNG VỀ CÁ NHÂN
1 Họ và tên: BÙI NGỌC XINH
2 Ngày tháng năm sinh: 21/07/1969
9 Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT Chuyên Lương Thế Vinh
II TRÌNH ĐỘ ĐÀO TẠO
- Học vị (hoặc trình độ chuyên môn, nghiệp vụ) cao nhất: Thạc sĩ
- Năm nhận bằng: 2007
III KINH NGHIỆM KHOA HỌC
- Số năm có kinh nghiệm: 23 năm
- Các sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã có trong 5 năm gần đây:
1 How useful pre-reading activities are in teaching reading
2 Helping gifted students enrich their idiomatic expressions.
3 The effectiveness of group work in teaching reading
4 Motivating students to practice listening skill through English songs to decrease students’ tense while listening, make them feel more interested
in listening and enrich their vocabulary.
5 How to help gifted students find essay writing easy and how to help them write more effectively.
6 How to help gifted students write essays dealing with “ Describing
People” more effectively
Trang 3UBND TỈNH ĐỒNG NAI
SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAM
Độc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúc
Biên Hòa, ngày 15 tháng 5 năm 2015
PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT, ĐÁNH GIÁ SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM
Năm học: 2014-2015
Tên sáng kiến kinh nghiệm: Helping gifted students gain benefit from
extensive reading
Họ và tên tác giả: BÙI NGỌC XINH; Chức vụ: Tổ phó CM
Đơn vị: trường THPT Chuyên Lương Thế Vinh
Lĩnh vực: (Đánh dấu X vào các ô tương ứng, ghi rõ tên bộ môn hoặc lĩnh vực
khác)
- Quản lý giáo dục - Phương pháp dạy học bộ môn:
- Phương pháp giáo dục - Lĩnh vực khác: Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm đã được triển khai áp dụng: Tại đơn vị Trong
Ngành
1 Tính mới (Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 2 ô dưới đây)
- Có giải pháp hoàn toàn mới
- Có giải pháp cải tiến, đổi mới từ giải pháp đã có
2 Hiệu quả (Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 4 ô dưới đây)
- Hoàn toàn mới và đã triển khai áp dụng trong toàn ngành có hiệu quả cao
- Có tính cải tiến hoặc đổi mới từ những giải pháp đã có và đã triển khai áp dụng trong toàn ngành có hiệu quả cao
- Hoàn toàn mới và đã triển khai áp dụng tại đơn vị có hiệu quả cao
- Có tính cải tiến hoặc đổi mới từ những giải pháp đã có và đã triển khai áp dụng tại đơn vị có hiệu quả
3 Khả năng áp dụng (Đánh dấu X vào 1 trong 3 ô mỗi dòng dưới đây)
- Cung cấp được các luận cứ khoa học cho việc hoạch định đường lối, chính sách: Tốt Khá Đạt
- Đưa ra các giải pháp khuyến nghị có khả năng ứng dụng thực tiễn, dễ thực hiện
và dễ đi vào cuộc sống: Tốt Khá Đạt
- Đã được áp dụng trong thực tế đạt hiệu quả hoặc có khả năng áp dụng đạt hiệu quả trong phạm vi rộng: Tốt Khá Đạt
Xếp loại chung :
Xuất sắc : Khá: Đạt: Không xếp loại:
Người thực hiện SKKN Xác nhận của Tổ CM Thủ Trưởng Đơn vị
(Ký tên và ghi rõ họ tên) (Ký tên, ghi rõ họ tên và đóng
dấu) Bùi Ngọc Xinh
Trang 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS - TITLE ……… 2
- INTRODUCTION ………3
- RATIONALE OF THE STUDY………3
- PROCEDURES……….8
- FINDINGS ……… 11
- CONCLUSION ……… 17
- APPENDIX 1……… 18
- APPENDIX 2……….20
- REFERENCES ……….22
- Reference books used in the innovation process………23
Trang 5Helping gifted students gain benefit
from extensive reading
Trang 6Reading is one of the four main skills in learning English
After many years of teaching at Luong The Vinh high school I have found that a lot of students especially gifted students of English at this school want more up-to-date texts, more interesting information and more knowledge of what happened or is happening around them However, reading class which is based on the school curriculum cannot provide them with what they want And through the pre-reading activities and the discussions I had with them about general knowledge of the world or
of what has happened around them, I also discovered that most of the students could hardly give me a satisfying answer because of their lack of knowledge and their lack
of vocabulary For this reason I would like to encourage the gifted students of English
to do extensive reading in order to improve their general knowledge of the world, to
enrich their vocabulary and to increase students’engagement in class
I also would like to help gifted students of English to be able to deal with a wide range of genres : newspapers and magazines , articles, personal essays , textbook chapters , book excerpts , online discussions , and interviews
RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
a What is Extensive Reading ?
Sarwar quotes a statement by Logan ( 1980 , in Sarwar , 2001 , pp 127-136 ) who says that “ People can learn from a variety of sources , even if the final goals are the same
” Hence , teachers’ role is very crucial in leading students to developing their learning habits inside as well as outside the classroom One of the good learning habits is doing
Trang 7extensive reading which is considered as “ an ELT classroom implementation perspective ” ( Renandya & Jacobs , 2002 , p.296 ) Renandya & Jacobs also points out the benefits
of extensive reading , some of which are as follows
- increasing knowledge of the world
- improving reading and writing skills
- greater enjoyment of reading
- more positive attitude towards reading
- higher possibility of developing a reading habit
Such are the advantages of extensive reading that teachers should encourage students to
be involved in extensive reading However, it is important that students “ should be reading material which they can understand ” not the material which “ they are struggling
to understand every word.” (Harmer, 2001, pp.210-300 ) For that reason it is teachers’ duty to recommend or find texts or reading materials to match student schema so that they will have sufficient schema to understand ” (From the Course book : Teaching Reading & Writing -SEAMEO –p 23) If texts for extensive reading are at a level that students can comprehend with a minimum of help and that they enjoy reading, there will
be an improvement in their reading skills As Nuttall (1982 , p.185) puts it “reading skills will develop much better if a student reads a lot of books that are too easy rather than a few that are too difficult ” In addition, if there is a match between students’ proficiency levels and the difficulty level of the books, extensive reading will bring a lot
of benefits to students, especially “a richer understanding of the world and a place in the ongoing, worldwide dialogue on a universe of topics open only to those who are literate and who exercise their literacy ” ( Renandya and Jacobs , pp 295- 304 )
Teachers should not only apply communicative approaches to listening and speaking teaching but also help students communicate with more reading materials so that their
Trang 8general knowledge can be widened Students need to read authentic texts rather than texts used for testing reading so that they can “apply information acquired from different sources and turn it into useful personal knowledge ” ( Jukes & McCain , 2001 cited in Richards ,2002 )
b The participants of the study
All the gifted students of the English class 12 of LTV high school who were
studying in summer class to sharpen their knowledge of English were chosen to take part in the innovation The innovation was carried out in two summer months ( July & August )
The reason why the gifted students of the English class were chosen as the participants
of the study were that :
- They like English,
- They major in English
- They are motivated to learning English
- They have a clear purpose of learning English: developing the four skills so that they can get a good job in the future or can go to study abroad later
(I once talked to them during speaking class about their purpose of entering the English class , and their attitude to English learning)
The participants were divided into 4 groups: Group 1 , Group 2 , Group 3 , and Group 4 ( 7 students / group ) Each group had a group leader who helped me to monitor the extensive reading activity
• The Secondary Innovation
This innovation process could not be conducted without the secondary innovation which was reading materials The researcher wanted to control the participants’ knowledge during the research process to see if their knowledge was improved and if
Trang 9they really read the books, so it was the researcher that introduced the reading materials
to the research subjects and encourage them to read these books Here is a list of books used in the research :
1 A Look at Life in the USA - An Interactive Reader by Catherine Porter &
Elizabeth Minicz
2 Basics in Reading by Hiroshi Suzuki, Michael Rost & Nancy Baxer
3 Cause and Effects by Patricia Ackert
4 Cliffs - TOEFL Preparation Guide by Michael A Pyle & Mary Ellen Munoz
5 Facts and Figures by Patricia Ackert
6 Famous People in the World by Do Van Thao
7 Guide to British and American Culture by Jonathan Crowther & Kathryn
Kavanag
8 Headway (Upper-intermediate ) by Liz & John Soars
9 Headway (Advanced ) by Liz & John Soars
10 Introducing the USA – A Cultural Reader by Milada Broukal & Peter Murphy
11 Lifelines by Tom Hutchinson
12 More Reading Power by Beatrice S Mikulecky & Linda Jeffries
13 Music by Do Van Thao
14 New English 10 ( 1 ) by Hoang Van Van
15 New English 10 ( 2 ) by Tu Anh & Mai Vi Phuong
16 New Headway (Upper-intermediate ) by Liz & John Soars
17 New Headway (Advanced ) by Liz & John Soars
18 Passages : An upper-level multi-skills course by Jack C Richards & Chuck
Sandy
Trang 1019 Places to Know in the U.S.A - An Interactive ESL Reader by Catherine Porter ,
Elizabeth Minicz & Carole Cross
20 Progress to Proficiency ( Volume 1 ) by Leo Jones
21 Progress to Proficiency ( New edition ) ( Volume 2 ) by Leo Jones
22 Selects Readings by Linda Lee & Erik Gundersen
23 Sports by Do Van Thao
24 Spotlight on Britain by Susan Sheering , Jonathan Seath & Gillian White
b ) Students and teachers keep track of student progress by using extensive reading tasks
The purpose of giving extensive reading tasks was “ to prompt students to keep reading ” (Harmer, 2001 , p.212 ) Hence, it is advisable to “encourage them to report back on their reading in a number of ways ” ( Harmer , 2001 , p 212 )
Extensive reading tasks :
• Project Work ( Noticeboard )
Each group was asked to write reports or pieces of information which they gained from the books they read The group leader took responsibility for collecting reports or
Trang 11interesting pieces of information from their group mates and putting them on the noticeboard every two weeks The group leaders were also responsible for keeping record of how many pieces of information a student in a group gave her / him every two weeks.
To encourage participation, this activity was announced as a competition in which there would be a prize for the best group
- Medicines and health
- Health care and Epidemics
Trang 12To check if all of the students took part in the extensive reading, the teacher asked the students to keep reading diaries In the diaries the students were requested to answer the following questions:
- What is the title of the book you read?
- Is it easy or difficult for you to understand?
- What do you learn from the book?
- What do you think about the book?
- Would you recommend the book to other students ? why? Why not?
- How do you feel after you have read the book?
- Would you have any suggestions on the book?
• Post quiz-test
A post quiz-test which also consisted of 50 questions was used after students spent two months doing extensive reading The post quiz-test was designed slightly different from the pre quiz-test
• Multiple choice tests on Vocabulary
Multiple choice tests on vocabulary / idioms / phrasal verbs were given to the students to check if their vocabulary increased after they did extensive reading.( The vocabulary / idioms / phrasal verbs were taken from the reading materials that they had read.)
• Questionnaire
A questionnaire was administered to the students at the end of the research The questionnaire was devised to find out (1) the students’ motivation to extensive reading (2) their attitude towards reading (3) their evaluation on extensive reading tasks (4) and their comments on extensive reading activity
Trang 13The questionnaire included both open-ended questions and questions with fixed alternatives For the questions with fix alternatives the students were asked to indicate whether they “ strongly agreed ” , “ agreed ” , “ were neutral ”, “disagreed” or “ strongly disagreed ” with each of the statements For the open-ended questions the students could freely express their thoughts about the extensive reading activity and tasks.
FINDINGS
a ) The Pre-quiz test
The chart showed that the students ‘general knowledge was not satisfactory Their understanding about the world was limited
b) Notice board
- Every two weeks during the two months the four groups of the English class presented their notice boards to the researcher All of the four groups presented the notice boards as
Trang 14planned, so there were a total of 16 notice boards , each of which contained reports or pieces of information on different topics
-The number of reports and pieces of information on the notice boards of the four groups :
That there were more reports and pieces of information on the four groups’ notice boards
in week 7 – 8 than in week 1 – 2 indicated that the students’ general knowledge was improved and they did extensive reading regularly and effectively
c) Oral reports
The number of students who took turns or volunteered to make oral reports
Week The number of
students who made oral reports
The number of times that students made reports ( * )
Trang 15The findings indicated that there was an increase in engagement in class An analysis
of the content of the students’talks which were recorded on the tape
showed that their knowledge was improved because their reports in week 7-8 were longer and more informative than those in week 1-2
d ) Reading Diaries
The findings indicated that most of the students of the English class participated in the extensive reading activity
e ) The post –quiz test
The result of the post quiz test in comparison with the pre- quiz test
The students did better on the post- quiz test than on the pre-quiz test This indicated that their general knowledge was improved due to the extensive reading activity
f ) Questionnaire
Questionnaire
What did you think about extensive reading activity ?