Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm Using Webquest to Encourage Vo Truong Toan High School Students’ Reading Skill

Abstract Reading is one of the most important skills for English language learners. I did try to use many different tools to stimulate learners’ reading skill but the result was poor. Then, I have conducted a research related to using webquest to encourage my students’ learning English reading skill. Participants were 50 students learning at Vo Truong Toan High School. It took me 8 weeks to complete the research. Webquests were used to lead my students to reading activities with certain themes in English textbooks. The study made use of my students’ free time at home. Participants had to read and write their own reflection at the end of every week. The research was divided into two stages. At the end of the first stage, students had to do presentation in groups. The procedures in the second stage was the same the first one to measure the advancement of the participants Introduction I have been working as a teacher of English at Vo Truong Toan High School for 14 years. The current English textbooks are designed to teach students four skills (i.e. reading, listening, writing, and speaking); however, the officially working time in class is 4 periods per week. It is too difficult for learners to practice and to absorb what had been taught in class rooms. The suggested solution for this issue is to encourage learners’ autonomy. Webquest is my choice because it meets some teaching requirements. Learners can make use of time at home to read the instruction from webquest and complete all tasks at home. As we know, to learn English effectively, learners have to practice using it continually. Learning process takes time in both short and long term. Webquest can help learners maintain the English learning. Working on web webquest, learners are required to study frequently. Once more important thing is that using webquest, students will know how to work in groups, how to make use internet technology to find out necessary information for autonomy learning. They will know how to cooperate with their classmates in working community. A final and equally important point is that webquest will stimulate learners’ home reading. Reading materials in webquest are not similar to doing this in textbooks due to the fact that learners are supplied colorful pictures and vivid clips from the various resources from the internet. In practical situations, there are some advantages for both teachers and learners on using webquest to support developing English reading skill. That is the cause of conducting the study. I would like to measure and define the effect of doing English tasks designed in webquest on Vo Truong Toan High School students’ reading skill. Literature review Dudenny, G Hockly, N (2007) states that webquest is a miniprojects in which a large percentage of the input and material is supplied from the internet. According to Dodge (1995) a webquest is an inquiryoriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with resources coming from the internet. So the resources that students can learn are rich and variable. He also expressed that webquest is suitable for every kinds of students i.e. excellent, good, average or below average. It belongs to certain classes. Teachers can design suitable tasks and lead students to recourses which are appropriate to learners’ abilities. Webquest is used as a tool to stimulate learners’ autonomy. Spending more time at home for further reading activities is always necessary if learners want to develop English skills. Webstquest contains clear direction to help learners to find necessary information in solving the issues of the lesson or requirement of teachers. Harmer (2007, p. 281) claims that it is worth pointing out that the author of the webquest tell the students that this is more than just an assignmentit will help them learn. Furthermore he expresses that webquest is a project used to develop multi skills (i.e. reading, writing, speaking, and listening). Dodge (1995) shows that webquest will give learners chance to cooperate with others in group and to confide in his partners. Using webquest, students have chance to improve selfstudy. Distance education and library study are leading ways to improve learners’ autonomy. In the age of modern technology, educators and learners are able to make use of technology to upgrade learners’ knowledge especially, in learning English. Research questions

Abstract

Reading is one of the most important skills for English language learners I did try to use many different tools to stimulate learners’ reading skill but the result was poor Then, I have conducted a research related to using webquest to encourage my students’ learning English reading skill Participants were 50 students learning at Vo Truong Toan High School It took me 8 weeks to complete the research Webquests were used to lead my students to reading activities with certain themes in English textbooks The study made use of my students’ free time

at home Participants had to read and write their own reflection at the end of every week The research was divided into two stages At the end of the first stage, students had to do presentation in groups The procedures in the second stage was the same the first one to measure the advancement of the participants

Introduction

I have been working as a teacher of English at Vo Truong Toan High School for 14 years The current English textbooks are designed to teach students four skills (i.e reading, listening, writing, and speaking); however, the officially working time in class is 4 periods per week It is too difficult for learners to practice and to absorb what had been taught in class rooms The suggested solution for this issue is to encourage learners’ autonomy Webquest is my choice because

it meets some teaching requirements Learners can make use of time at home to read the instruction from webquest and complete all tasks at home As we know, to learn English effectively, learners have to practice using it continually Learning process takes time in both short and long term Webquest can help learners maintain the English learning Working on web webquest, learners are required to study frequently Once more important thing is that using webquest, students will know how to work in groups, how to make use internet technology to find out necessary information for autonomy learning They will know how to co-operate with their classmates in working community A final and equally important point is that webquest will stimulate learners’ home reading Reading materials in webquest are not similar to doing this in textbooks due to the fact that learners are supplied colorful pictures and vivid clips from the various resources from the internet In practical situations, there are some advantages for both teachers and learners on using webquest to support developing English reading skill That is the cause of conducting the study I would like to measure and define the effect of doing English tasks designed in webquest on Vo Truong Toan High School students’ reading skill.

Literature review

Dudenny, G & Hockly, N (2007) states that webquest is a mini-projects in which a large percentage of the input and material is supplied from the internet According to Dodge (1995) a webquest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with resources coming from the internet So the resources that students can learn are rich and variable He also expressed that webquest is suitable for every kinds of students i.e excellent, good, average or below average It belongs to certain classes Teachers can design suitable tasks and lead students to recourses which are appropriate to learners’ abilities Webquest is used as a tool to stimulate learners’ autonomy Spending more time at home for further reading activities is always necessary if learners want to develop English skills Webstquest contains clear direction to help learners

to find necessary information in solving the issues of the lesson or requirement of teachers Harmer (2007, p 281) claims that it is worth pointing out that the author

of the webquest tell the students that this is more than just an assignment-it will help them learn Furthermore he expresses that webquest is a project used to develop multi skills (i.e reading, writing, speaking, and listening) Dodge (1995) shows that webquest will give learners chance to cooperate with others in group and to confide in his partners Using webquest, students have chance to improve self-study Distance education and library study are leading ways to improve learners’ autonomy In the age of modern technology, educators and learners are able to make use of technology to upgrade learners’ knowledge especially, in learning English

Research questions

1 What is the attitude of Vo Truong Toan High School students towards learning

reading through webquest?

2 What are the effects of using webquest on Vo Truong Toan High School student’s reading skill?

The study

Research context

The study was conducted at Vo Truong Toan High School, Cẩm Mỹ district, Đồng Nai province This is a state school and English is a compulsory subject Following the national curriculum, English subject are taught 4 periods every week with 4 skills; therefore, Students have little time to do further practice, especially spending time reading in class This is one of the main causes leading my students’ poor result at reading skill The research was conducted on the first of October, 2014 The purpose of the study is to find out the real effect of webquest and students’ further reading at home Students had to complete the project in 2 months At the end of every week, participants had to submit 100-word reflections

Participants

Two classes, grade 12, were chosen for the experiment The total students are 96 students in both of classes They are chosen randomly from classes I am taking in charge Some of them are rather good at reading skill but majority of them are poor at this skill

A half of them with 48 students took part in the experiment and the rest had a role to play

as control group Most of the participants are at the age of 17 and they have learning English for 7 years They come from agrarian families in remote and mountainous area so most of them have little chance to take other English courses at language centers

Procedures

At first all participants were required to sit to do a reading comprehensive test This activity supplied the first assessment about the participants’ reading skill Teachers spent time to give participants guidelines how to organize activities for work and job delivery The experimental group will be divided into 4 groups (10 students/group) Each group will choose for themselves a topic for reading and presenting It took participants 8 weeks to complete two webquests There were two stages in the research At the end of week 1, 2, 3, every student had to submit a 60-word personal reflection The content of the reflection should answer every single question in webquest At the end of week 4, students had to do presentation in front of the class Teacher gave feedback and assessment The second webquest would be done at the second stage At the end of week

5, 6, 7 all participants had to submit a 60-word personal reflection At the end of week 8, students presented their project and teachers gave feedback and assessment Finally, all participants were required to do a reading comprehensive test The test result reflected the real effect of usage webquest to encourage reading English learning skill

The first stage: From 1st October to 29th October, 2014

At the end of this stage, I conducted the research by using questionnaire to measure the attraction of using this method in encouraging students’ reading skill

The second stage: From 1st November to 28th November, 2014

At the end of this stage questionnaire was used to test the attitude of the participants towards learning English through webquest and interviews were used to find more issues deriving from learning English through using webquest

Statistics of the result in the first and the second stage was done together with the data collected from the questionnaires and the interview at the end of every stage

Data collection and Analysis

Data was collected via three methods: questionnaires, portfolios and teachers’ assessment record

Questionnaire: This research uses questionnaire as the major instruments to

collect data The questionnaire aimed at examining the attitude of participants towards practicing reading skill through using webquest At the end of the first stage (week 4), participants would be delivered questionnaire and they had to answer according to their viewpoints A statistic was done (see appendix B, C) At the end of the second stage (week 8) of the research, participants would answer the same questions The result at the first and the second stage would reflect exactly the effect of webquest on the participants’ reading skills

Portfolios: At the end of every week, students had to submit their personal

reflection for several reasons Firstly, I would like to make sure that every participant had done the home reading Secondly, the personal reflection had a role to play as measures

of encouragement participants’ home reading Thirdly, the reflection could show participants’ current issues

Teachers’ assessment record: I also used the result of the assessment in the first

and the second stage (see appendix D) to measure the improvement of the participants in reading skill

Findings and Discussion

There are some significant points I have got from the data collection

None of participants answered yes for the second question This stated that learning English reading through webquest is totally strange form to my students There are some advantages and disadvantages when teacher used new methods in teaching reading skill The positive one is that learners will be curious so they all are eager to do the challenging tasks The negative one is that learners have no much experience when applying completely new forms to practice reading skill The answer for question 3 proved that participants, at first, thought this form of learning quite strange but gradually when they became familiar with this Students spent for three weeks to be familiar with this learning activity In the first stage, there was 43 % students liked learning through webquest In the second stage, the number of students who liked this form has been reaching to 58 %

In the second stage, the attitude of the learners towards using webquest to learn English reading has been changing positively The reason for this can be explained by the answer for question 4 Students found it easier to comprehend reading texts in webquests Half of them used google translation to grasp the content of reading tasks Thanks to this online translation tool, students could understand and do the tasks in faster speed In the first stage, there was 55 % students used this tool In the second stage, the rate increased

to 72%

Webquest might create reading pressure on the learners It required the learners to read and read to find information for the reflection and presentation Participants finally

recognized the value of using webquest in learning English reading so majority of them suggested using this form in their learning The teacher’s result assessment in the first and second stage made clear that using webquest brought learners improvement in reading skill Webquest also helped learners improve sub skills, i.e how to attract someone’s attention in publish speaking and how to discoursed on something in public effectively

The result of the first test (appendix E) shows that quality of participants in both experiment group and control group are approximately similar In experiment group, there were 6 participants occupying 12,5% obtained scale A(1-4) and these numbers in control group were 7 participants with 14,7% To the scale B (5-6), the proportion in the two groups was 29% and 27% respectively The rates of participants got scale C(7-8) in experiment group were 33,4%, 2% more than that in control group The percentages of participants having scale C(7-8) in experiment group were 25%, 2% less than that in control group

After spending 2 months for the research, the result of the second test (appendix F) states that there was a fluctuation in both of the groups The percentages of participants having scale A (1-4) fell sharply, 6,2% for experiment group and 3,3 % for the another This states that learning reading through webquest created positive effect on reading skill

of the learners The proportion of participants having scale B (5-6) increased in two groups; The rates reaching scale B in experiment group to control group were 35,4% and 31,3% respectively Experiment group was 3,9% higher than that in control group There was no considerate change in scale C (7-8) and D(9-10)

Overall, making comparison the first and the second result, we see clearly that Webquest truly had much effect on learners being at lower grade; however they had little influence on the participants having higher grade Learning reading through webquest exerted positive effect on the weak learners; it helped the learners improve their reading skill

Conclusion

Webquest is considered a new form of learning to my students; however, after two months using this, I harvested quite good products I think that I will use this regularly in

my teaching job for long term The research result stated that Webquest has some priorities for learning English in modern age Using webquest means that we have made use of technology for learning First, webquest can motivate learners in learning English with pictures, clips which are supplied from varied resources from the internet Learning through webquest, students avoid boring lessons Secondly, teachers can control learning activities of their students and lead them to certain reading themes from far distance I think it is useful for the learners to increase vocabulary in certain aspects at home Thirdly, it is the best way to stimulate the learners’ autonomy Reading pressure that webquest created on participants was positive They had to do this activity frequently within the time they did the project Finally, learning through webquest, students will have chance to cooperate with their classmates They also have opportunity to express themselves in front of the class By the way, some sub skills will be practiced and done better and better

References

Dodge, B (1995) Some Thoughts About Webquests Retrieved 13 March 2012, from

Distance-Educator.com

Dudenny, G & Hockly, N (2007) How to teach English with technology Edinburg Gate:

Pearson Longman

Harmer, J (2007) The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.) Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Longman

Ur, P (2012) English Language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press