A STUDY ON COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES APPLIED IN THE PROCESS OF TEACHING READING ENGLISH IN GRADE 10TH AT TRAN PHU HIGH SCHOOL

Reading, one of the four major basic skills in learning English, is taught at high school through the reading text. And with the necessary need of communicative approach, the way to teach reading English effectively is improved and changed. With this purpose, the author carries out a study on the communicative activities in English reading classes to somewhat helps student to improve their reading skill in particular and their language competence in general. To investigate this aspect, a study on the communicative activities applied in the process of teaching reading English is given and processed at TranPhuHigh school. And the study has given some aspects of students’ attitude towards the communicative activities in reading English lessons. The questionnaire was designed for the students at grade 10th and teachers at TranPhuHigh school. Moreover, some ideas about the communicative activities applied in the process of teaching reading English are also exploited from the teachers and students. The study found the communicative language teaching (CLT) with the aims, characteristic and the teacher and learner roles in CLT. And study found the communicative activities applied in teaching reading English. In addition, it also knows more about the students’ attitude towards the communicative activities in reading English classes. In the final part of the study, some suggestions based on the finding, are given to partly improve reading skill for the grade 10th students at TranPhuHigh school.

encouragement during my researching process.

Secondly, I would like to give my sincere thanks for the teachers of the faculty offoreign languages studies, Tay Nguyen University for their useful lectures andsuggestion and my classmates for their support which are very useful for me to finishthis study

Thirdly, I would like also to express my special thanks to all the teachers andstudents at Tran Phu High school for their enthusiastic cooperation in my survey.Without their help, this study would have been impossible

Finally, I wish to thank my family, my friends who have encouraged andsupported me during the time of doing this study

Reading, one of the four major basic skills in learning English, is taught at highschool through the reading text And with the necessary need of communicativeapproach, the way to teach reading English effectively is improved and changed Withthis purpose, the author carries out a study on the communicative activities in Englishreading classes to somewhat helps student to improve their reading skill in particularand their language competence in general To investigate this aspect, a study on thecommunicative activities applied in the process of teaching reading English is givenand processed at Tran Phu High school And the study has given some aspects ofstudents’ attitude towards the communicative activities in reading English lessons The questionnaire was designed for the students at grade 10th and teachers atTran Phu High school Moreover, some ideas about the communicative activitiesapplied in the process of teaching reading English are also exploited from the teachersand students

The study found the communicative language teaching (CLT) with the aims,characteristic and the teacher and learner roles in CLT And study found thecommunicative activities applied in teaching reading English In addition, it alsoknows more about the students’ attitude towards the communicative activities inreading English classes In the final part of the study, some suggestions based on thefinding, are given to partly improve reading skill for the grade 10th students at TranPhu High school

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

LIST OF TABLES v

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem 1

1.2 Significance of the study 2

1.3 Objectives of the study 2

1.4 Outline of the study 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 4

2.1.1 The aim of CLT 4

2.1.2 Characteristic of CLT 5

2.1.3 The teacher and learner roles in CLT 5

2.1.4 Purposes of Communicative activities 6

2.2 Communicative activities 6

2.2.1 Communicative activities in language teaching and learning process 7

2.2.2 Characteristic of communicative activities 7

2.3 Reading skill 8

2.3.1 Definition of reading 8

2.3.2 Principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroom 9

2.3.3 Types of communicative activities in reading classes 10

CHAPTER 3: CONTENTS AND METHODOLOGY 12

3.1 Subject of the study 12

3.1.1 The students 12

3.1.2 The teachers 12

3.2 Scope of the study 12

3.3 Research questions 12

3.4 Research methods 12

3.4.1 Research instrument 12

3.4.2 Questionnaire administration 14

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 15

4.1 Findings 15

4.1.1 Questionnaires for teachers: 15

4.1.2 Questionnaires for students 16

4.2 Discussions 18

4.2.1 The students’ attitudes towards the communicative activities in teaching English reading lessons 18

4.2.2 Some communicative activities can be applied in English reading classes 18

CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS 20

5.1 Recommendation 20

5.1.1 Solutions for teachers by using communicative activities in teaching reading English lessons 20

5.1.2 Solutions for students in learning English reading lessons 20

5.1.3 Suggested communicative activities for grade 10th at Tran Phu High school 20

5.2 Conclusion 21

REFERENCES 23

APPENDIX 24

APPENDIX A 24

APPENDIX B 25

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The students’ attitudes toward reading lessons 16 Table 2: Communicative activities are done by students in the class 17 Table 3: Students’ attitudes when communicative activities are applied in

reading lessons 17 Table 4: The students’ suggestions for better reading teaching and learning 18

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides the background information for the whole assignment:statement of the problem, objective the study, significance of the study

1.1 Statement of the problem

Language is the most important means for the people to communicate to eachother English is an international language and furthermore it becomes an official andeffective international communicative language English is widely used in many fields

of life science, technology, education, etc as a result, more and more people arestudying English with the hope that they can meet the requirements of social in generaland of their jobs in particular According to Jennifer (2013), English has special orofficial status in more than 75 countries It’s spoken as the first language by 375million people and as the second language by approximately 375 million people.Estimates suggest that one in every four people is able to speak a little English, withnumbers increasing year-on-year

English now is a compulsory subject not only in teaching and learning but also inmany important examinations So that they are not only study English because it iscompulsory but also because they are interested in English and they are aware well ofthe importance of English for their job in the future

It is not easy to master a foreign language at all It requires many sub-skills such

as listening, reading, speaking and writing Being a receptive skill, reading also hassome certain requirements to the students, not just a process of understanding grammarstructures mechanically In fact, many students are very good at grammar andvocabulary but cannot finish the reading tasks successfully

It can be clearly seen that, there are many way to teaching reading skill, however,what is the best way to teach effectively? Nowadays, teachers try to teach English in acommunicative way Communicative activities, therefore, are becoming an essentialpart in learning In real teaching in high school, not many teacher use communicativeactivities in English classes, especially in reading lessons They only teach studentsreading skills through mechanical drills in the textbook Thus the author carries out astudy on the communicative activities in English reading classes to somewhat helps

student to improve their reading skill in particular and their language competence ingeneral.

For the reason above, the author decides to choose the topic “A study oncommunicative activities applied in the process of teaching reading English in grade

10th at Tran Phu High school”

1.2 Significance of the study

The study, as a whole, is considered to be significant on the three aspects

First of all, theoretically, it provides some basic knowledge ranging from CLT,Communicative Continuum to Reading Skill Second, practically, it makes aninvestigation into the real situation of using communicative activities in teaching andlearning English reading skill at Tran Phu High school Finally, it provides somesuggested communicative activities to partly improve reading skill for the 10thstudents

1.3 Objectives of the study

 To identify the communicative activities applied in teaching reading English

 To investigate students’ attitudes towards the communicative activities in readingEnglish reading lessons

 To suggest some communicative activities to partly improve reading skill for the

10th grade students at Tran Phu High school

1.4 Outline of the study

The assignment is divided into 5 chapters:

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the background informationfor the whole assignment: statement of the problem, objective the study, significance

of the study

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter review the literature related tothe study Firstly, it gives the aims, characteristic and the teacher and learner roles inCLT Secondly, we have communicative activities in language teaching and learningprocess and characteristics of communicative activities And finally, it gives definition

of reading, principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroom and types ofcommunicative activities in reading classes

Chapter 3: CONTENTS AND METHODOLOGY This chapter describes themethod used to carry out this study It is composed 4 main parts: subject of the study,scope of the study, contents of the study and research methods.

Chapter 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSION This chapter reports and discusses theresult from this study

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter presentssome suggestions to partly improve reading skill for the grade 10th students at TranPhu High school and the conclusion of the study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter review the literature related to the study Firstly, it gives the aims,characteristic and the teacher and learner roles in CLT Secondly, we havecommunicative activities in language teaching and learning process and characteristics

of communicative activities And finally, it gives definition of reading, principles forteaching reading in a CLT classroom and types of communicative activities in readingclasses

2.1 The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Towards the end of the 1960s there was a growing dissatisfaction among appliedlinguistics and foreign language teachers with the language theories and teachingmethods Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) began in Britain in that time as areplacement to the earlier structural method

2.1.1 The aim of CLT

The aim of CLT is therefore that learners develop linguistic fluency and not justlinguistic accuracy, as is so often the case in traditional language teaching (Brown,2007) CLT is concerned with facilitating “lifelong language learning” (Brown2007:46) and not just giving the learners the tools they need to deal with immediateclassroom tasks Cooperative learning plays a big part in this regard along withdrawing out whatever intrinsically sparks learners to reach their fullest potential”(2007:46)

The goal in CLT is communicative competence Communicative competence can

be understood as the ability to use language correctly and appropriately to accomplishthe communication goals in authentic and meaningful situations Communicativecompetence is measured by determining if, and to what degree, the goals of interactionare achieved

CLT also developed procedures for the teaching of the four skills that knowledgethe interdependence of language and communication Because communicativeprinciples can be applied to the teaching of any skill, at any level, and because of thewide variety of classroom activities, description of typical classroom procedures used

in a lesson based on CLT principles is not feasible Teaching points are introduced indialogue form, grammatical items are isolated for controlled practice, and then freer

activities are provided Pair and group work is suggested to encourage students to useand practice functions and forms It can be said that CLT procedures are evolutionaryrather than revolutionary

2.1.2 Characteristic of CLT

In CLT, meaning is paramount Wilkins (1972) classifies meaning into notionaland functional categories and views learning a second language as acquiring thelinguistic means to perform different kinds of functions

According to Larsen-Freeman (1986: 132) the most obvious characteristic ofCLT is that “Almost everything that is done is done with communicative intent”.Students use the language through communicative activities (e.g games, role-playsand problem-solving tasks)

Another characteristic of CLT is the introduction of authentic material In CLT, it

is considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to genuine communicativeneeds in realistic second language situations so that they develop strategies forunderstanding language as actually used by native speakers (Canaled and Swain,1980)

2.1.3 The teacher and learner roles in CLT

In traditional classroom, teacher talks all the time and students only listen andwrite down everything on their notebook So how do the roles of learners and teacherchange in CLT?

2.1.3.1 The teacher roles

According to Breen and Candlin (1980: 99), cited in Richards and Rodger,(2001:167), teacher in CLT has some main roles following:

The first role is to facilitate the communicative process between all participants inthe classroom and the various activities and texts

The second role is to act as an independent participant within the teaching group

learning-The third role for the teacher is that of researcher and learner, with much tocontribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observedexperience of the nature of learning and organizational capacities

2.1.3.2 The learner roles

Since the teacher’s role in CLT is less dominant than in teacher-centered method,students are seen as more responsible managers of their own learning.

According to Breen and Candlin ( 1980: 110), cited in Richards and Roger,(2001:166), the learner can be negotiators- between the self, the learning process, andthe object of learning – emerges forms and interacts with the role of join negotiatorwithin the group and within the classroom procedures and activities which the groupundertakes The implication for the learner is that he should contribute as much as hegains, and thereby learn in an interdependent way

Additionally, in CLT, students are expected to interact primarily with each otherthan with the teacher and to engage in negotiating meaning actively The correction oferrors may be absent or infrequent Thus, CLT procedures should be focus on learner-centered instruction to enhance the students’ communicative competence

2.1.4 Purposes of Communicative activities

2.1.4.1 Communicative activities allow natural learning

Language learning requires the learners’ knowledge about many aspect oflanguage such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc In real language teaching,the teacher cannot control the students’ acquisition of all aspect because languagelearning takes place inside the learners Some aspects of language learning can takeplace only through natural acquisition process in which the learners are involved inusing the language for communication

2.1.4.2Communicative activities promote learning motivation

Students always take part in real communication to each other with a specificpurpose Their motivation to learn will be improved if the classroom learningprocedure is design with many activities related to their communicative purpose andcan help them to achieve it successfully

2.1.4.3 Communicative activities create a context which support learning

In language learning, the learning atmosphere in the classroom is also veryimportant It somewhat affects the students’ learning Communicative activities cancreate a positive learning atmosphere by providing opportunities for studentsinteracting with each other and with the teacher as well.th interaction can supportstudents in their efforts to learn

2.2 Communicative activities

2.2.1 Communicative activities in language teaching and learning process

In the language classrooms, both teachers and students try their best to controlover the language that students use by organizing it into manageable portions to bedeveloped though communicative activities Then, what are communicative activities?The definition of communicative activities was discussed by Klipple (1991) when

he revealed that the term “communicative activities is used to refer to any operationwhich is used to consolidate language already taught or acquired and which occursduring the free stage of a lesson or students can produce meaningful and authenticutterances without the controlling influence of the teacher or the course” It means thatevery time a learner uses a language that they are learning, say English, eitherproductively or receptively, he or she involves in these kinds of activities

In a nutshell, communicative activities are those that involve learners in using thelanguage for communicative rather than display purposes that focus on fluency ratherthan accuracy and which involve learners in pair or group work as a setting for thatcommunication

2.2.2 Characteristic of communicative activities

Communicative activities are designed to encourage the purposeful andmeaningful interaction between students in a language lesson It is, therefore,important for teachers to be fully aware of their characteristics so that they can usethem effectively

Harmer (1991) lists 6 distinctive characteristics of communicative activities whenthey are contrasted with non-communicative ones They are presented as follows

Non-communicative activities Communicative activities

1 The students have no desire to

communicate

2 They have no communicative

purposes

3 The emphasis is on the form of the

language, not its content

4 Only one language item will be the

focus of attention

5 The teacher will often intervene to

correct mistakes, nominate students and

ensure accuracy

6 The materials will be specially

designed focus on a restricted amount of

language

1 The students should havecommunicative desire

2 They have communicative purposes

3 The attention should be centered onthe content not the language form

4 They will have to deal with a variety

2.3 Reading skill

2.3.1 Definition of reading

Reading is one of the four major basic skills in learning any foreign language

“Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interactionamong the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the text beingread and the context of the reading situation” (Cited fromhttp://www.michiganreading.org)

According to Nunan (1991), reading is basically a matter of decoding series ofwritten symbols into the aural equivalent He also explains that “the reader processeseach letter as it is encountered These letters are matched with the phonemes of thelanguage, which it is assumed the reader already knows…” (P 64) Nunan emphasizesthe decoding skills when reading

However, Goodman (1967) has another approach to reading He called reading a

“psycholinguistic” guessing game, the reader make use of the 3 cueing systems: thesemantic, the syntactic and the graphophonic

In order to develop reading, we need to put reading in social context Learners aresocialized into reading and the motivation for learning to read not only or evenprimarily for enjoyment or information, but because the aspiring reader wants to gainaccess to a “community of reader” (Walace: 1988)

Through the concepts of reading, we can conclude that reading is decoding everyletters in text, adding three cueing systems and putting text in social context We canunderstand all information that exists in text and adding our knowledge about life,society, cultural: consequently, we can predict what the text intend Thus, it isnecessary tor the students learning how to read in an effective way

2.3.2 Principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroom

As mentioned above, reading skill plays an important role in English languagelearning Therefore, it is necessary to have a set of principles that teachers of Englishmust follow when teaching reading so that they can ensure their students’understanding of the lessons According to Hoang Thi Xuan, M.A (2009), we havesome points of principles for teaching reading follows:

1 When teaching a reading text, it is beneficial to state a purpose for reading thegiven text Tell the students why they are reading the text

2 Prepare the students to read by introducing the topic of the passage

3 Before the students read the text, have them read questions about it beforehand

to help them focus on the meaning It is even helpful to have them try to answer thequestions before they read the text

4 Do-not-pre-teach vocabulary unless necessary One of the skills readers shouldlearn is guessing the meaning of unknown words If all words are pre-taught, this willprevent them from being able to guess from context

5 Have students read silently without whispering the words or moving their lips.This will help them read more quickly and focus on the more important words.Reading silently helps them focus on meaning rather than the form (letters andsounds)

6 Discuss difficult vocabulary after reading the text If they were not able tounderstand certain words or guessing from context, help them by explain the meaning

by definition or example

7 When discussing to find answer to comprehension questions, be sure to referback to the text often – this will help the students practice finding the answersthemselves, if the teacher always just says the answers, the students may get into thehabit of ignoring what they are reading, instead, ask them where in the text the answeris

8 Finally, remember to focus on developing the skills of the readers To do this,they must develop the many sub-skills of reading like swimming, scanning, predicting,guessing from context, and reading for total comprehension

In short, there are a number of principles that the teacher must follow whenteaching reading Depending on the features of each class and of each reading lesson

as well as the level of students that the teacher can choose an appropriate one for theirreading classes

2.3.3 Types of communicative activities in reading classes

Littlewood (1981) divides communicative activities into functionalcommunication activities and social interaction activities For the functionalcommunication activities, the main purpose is that learners should use the languagethey know in order to get meaning across as effectively as possible Success ismeasured primarily according to whether they cope with communicative demands ofthe immediate situation Some examples of these activities are questions and answers,interviews based on a text, information-gap activities, role-play, etc

In addition, the social interaction activities place emphasis on social as well asfunctional aspects of communication Learners must not only aim to convey meaningseffectively but also pay greater attention to the social contexts in which theinteractions take place Success is now measured not only in terms of the functionaleffectiveness of the language but also in terms of the acceptability of the forms that areused In the early stages of learning, acceptability may mean little more than areasonable degree of accuracy in pronunciation and grammar Later, it willincreasingly come to include producing language appropriate to specific kind of socialsituations because of the limitation of the classroom; simulation and role-playing are

now important techniques for creating a wider variety of social situations andrelationships.

Basing on medium of communication, communicative activities can also beclassified into two types: oral and written communicative activities according toNguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong (2007)

For the first type of communicative activities, there are various sub-types ofactivity which help to promote oral communication in the classroom such as Reaching

a consensus, Relaying instructions, Communication games, Problem solving,Interpersonal exchange, Story construction and stimulation and Role play

For the second one, there are also various sub-types which help promote writtencommunication in the classroom such as Relaying instructions, Exchange letters,Writing games, Fluency writing, Story construction and Writing report, andAdvertisements

In summary, this chapter shows us the aims, characteristics and the teacher andlearner roles in CLT; the communicative activities in language teaching and learningprocess and characteristics of communicative activities Especially, it gives definition

of reading, principles for teaching reading in a CLT classroom and types ofcommunicative activities in reading classes There are researchers giving criteria forthe aspects of CLT in the process of teaching reading and they also show their ideasand evaluation for these aspects In addition, whether those ideas are right or wrong,

we will investigate them in the next parts