“Pre reading strategies enhance high school students’ reading competence in reading lessons”

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGNGOC LAC ETHNIC BOARDING HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE INNOVATION PRE-READING STRATEGIES ENHANCE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ READING COMPETENCE IN READIN

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

NGOC LAC ETHNIC BOARDING HIGH SCHOOL

EXPERIENCE INNOVATION

PRE-READING STRATEGIES ENHANCE HIGH SCHOOL

STUDENTS’ READING COMPETENCE IN READING LESSONS

Writer: Đinh Văn Thi n ện Position: Teacher Topic in the fields of: English

THANH HOA 2019

INDEX

Page

INDEX ……… 2

A INTRODUCTION ……… 3

I Reasons to choose the theme ……… 3

II Purposes of the research ……… 3

III Objects of the research ……… 4

IV Range of the research ……… ……… 4

V Methodology of the research ……… 3

B CONTENTS ……… 5

I Theoretical basis of the study ……… 5

II Reality of the issue ……… 7

III The practical basics of the theme ……… 7

1 Solutions ……… 7

2 Some suggested solutions to run “Before you read” part in high school basic English curriculum 11 IV The assessment of experimental results ……… 17

C CONCLUSION ……… 18

1 Experience lessons ……… 18

2 Proposal ……… 18

REFERENCE AND LINKS ……… 20

CONVENTIONS OF ABBREVIATIONS ……… 20

EXPERIENCE CATEGORY ASSESSED AND CLASSIFIED BY

A INTRODUCTION

I Reasons to choose the theme

Being the most popular language in the world, English is widely used

in many countries all over the world in many fields such as economy,science and technology It is a useful means that helps human beingspromote mutual understanding and connect each other around the world

In Viet Nam, with the global economic integration as well as the innovation

of economy and society, English has become more and more concerned bypeople of all ages, especially the younger generations Being aware of theimportance of English, our government has issued numerous policies anddecisions to improve learning and teaching English in order to gain thecapacity to use it fluently As a result, English become a compulsory subject

in school curriculum and an indispensable requirement in the currentemployment

Although English is important in term of studying and employment,learning English is never a simple work It requires learners to master fourbasic skills: listening skill, speaking skill, writing skill and reading skill.Among them, reading skill gives learners a massive amount of information,ways of expression and grammar structures Thus, developing reading skillfor students is one of important tasks to help them not only comprehendtheir reading lessons in textbooks but also expand their knowledge throughadditional documentation However, it is a difficult skill that oftenchallenges and declines most of the learners by its characteristiccomplexity

To solve this situation, being a teacher of English, I consideredcarefully that how I can teach all my students to learn this skill effectively.According to my experience of teaching, it is surprising to find that the pre-reading part is an important stage to a reading comprehension In order toconduct reading lessons in motivate and effective ways, I decided to studythe topic: “Pre-reading strategies enhance high school students’ readingcompetence in reading lessons”

II Purposes of the research

Completing a reading lesson is not a problem to students and ofcourse to a teacher of English The issue I want to emphasize here is thatwhether students have or not their interest and efficiency in the class Beaware of my responsibility for requirements of the Department ofEducation and Training combining my students’ reality to learn English at

my school, I wrote this experience innovation wishing to share some of myown opinions to my colleagues about “Pre-reading strategies” I hope my

research will help my high school students partially remove the difficultiesthey have in the process learning English.

III Objects of the research

In a practical valuable research, choosing appropriate objects is onedecisive part Basing on the fact of my teaching English in my school formany years, I have understood problems and difficulties in learning English

of my students who are mainly ethnic minorities Therefore in this topic, Istudied the fundamental solutions applied to the students in my schoolwithin my colleagues’ assistance The number of participants included fourclasses with a total of 120 students

IV Range of the research

In this topic I am just focusing on the following issues:

1 Teacher’s tasks in “Pre-reading strategies”

2 Students’ activities in “Pre-reading strategies”

3 Some suggested solutions to run “Before you read” part in high schoolbasic English curriculum

V Methodolody of the research.

For complete data in high reliability, I carried out my study through acombination of the analysis and the comparison of four classes in readinglessons in which the output and interest of students are key values

In order to have an effective subject, I researched it based on my ownteaching experience process, a number of references related to readingskills and some comments of my colleagues

B CONTENTS.

I Theoretical basis of the study.

In an English idiom: “It is the first step that counts.” people imply theimportance of the beginning in most of the work We can apply this idiomwhen we evaluate the essential of “Pre-reading strategies” in entire process

of reading teaching

There is an indisputable fact that Pre-reading strategies allowstudents to think about what they already know about a given topic andpredict what they will read or hear Before students read any text, teacherscan direct their attention to how a text is organized, teachunfamiliar vocabulary or other concepts, search for the main idea, andprovide students with a purpose for reading According to Danny Brasselland Timothy Rasinski: “Most importantly, teachers can use prereadingstrategies to increase students' interest in a text." (Danny Brassell andTimothy Rasinski, Comprehension That Works Shell Education, 2008)

In other words, in “pre-reading strategies”, the instructor conducts tasksand asks students to take part in activities in order to achieve the followingpurposes:

 Motivation in study

 Need for study

 Guideline for the topic and predication of the content

 Pre-teach vocabulary

However, what all successful pre-reading activities have in common is thatthey are student-centered The teacher has to identify the potentialproblems of readability inherent in a chosen reading text, and then has tohelp students find ways to overcome those difficulties Rather than justprovide answers or summarize the content, the teacher can guide studentsidentify the sources of their reading difficulties

In order to obtain the intention above, the strategies must be applied

flexibly and effectively in “Pre-reading” stage are Brainstorming, Discussion, and Questioning.

1 Brainstorming

Sue Watson in his study indicated that Brainstorming is an excellent

teaching strategy to generate ideas on a given topic It helps promotethinking skills When students are asked to think of all things related to aconcept, they are really being asked to stretch their thinking skills

Similarly, a substantial body of research affirmed that Brainstorming is a

large or small group activity that encourages students to focus on a topicand contribute to the free flow of ideas

By expressing ideas and listening to what others say, students adjusttheir previous knowledge or understanding, accommodate new informationand increase their levels of awareness Brainstorming's main purposes areto:

 focus students' attention on a particular topic

 generate a quantity of ideas

 teach acceptance and respect for individual differences

 encourage learners to take risks in sharing their ideas and opinions

 demonstrate to students that their knowledge and their languageabilities are valued and accepted

 introduce the practice of idea collection prior to beginning tasks such

as writing or solving problems

 provide an opportunity for students to share ideas and expand theirexisting knowledge by building on each other's contributions

2 Discussion

According to previous studies, discussion regarded as one of the mostchallenging teaching methods can also be one of the most rewarding Usingdiscussion as a primary teaching method allows the teacher to stimulatecritical thinking As the teacher establishes a rapport with the students, theteacher can demonstrate that the teacher appreciates their contributions atthe same time that the teacher challenges them to think more deeply and toarticulate their ideas more clearly Frequent questions, whether asked bythe teacher or by the students, provide a means of measuring learning andexploring in-depth the key concepts of the course

3 Questioning

Questioning techniques are a heavily used, and thus widelyresearched, teaching strategy Research shows that asking questions issecond only to lecturing Teachers typically spend anywhere from 35 to 50percent of their instructional time asking questions

A teacher may vary his or her purpose in asking questions during asingle lesson, or a single question may have more than one purpose

In a more general view, in their research named “Classroom Instruction

That Works” Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001) illustrated that

instruction involving questioning is more effective than instruction without

questioning Questioning is one of the research-based strategies presented

in One important finding is that questions that focus student attention onimportant elements of a lesson result in better comprehension than thosethat focus on unusual or interesting elements Questions should also bestructured so that most elicit correct responses

Additionally, they indicated that teachers ask questions for a number

of reasons, the most common of which are:

 To actively involve students in the lesson

 To increase motivation or interest

 To evaluate students’ preparation

 To check on completion of work

 To develop critical thinking skills

 To review previous lessons

 To nurture insights

 To assess achievement or mastery of goals and objectives

 To stimulate independent learning

II Reality of the issue

1 Advantages

Although many problems directly affect to the teaching and learningprocess, our teachers and students have surmounted the difficulties andhave gradually improved the quality of teaching and learning English tomeet the constantly changing requirements of the textbook programs

• For teachers:

- They have absorbed initially to new teaching methods

- They have constantly improved knowledge as well as have learnedexperiences from each other to promote the quality of teaching

• For students:

- Most of them participate regularly and positively in learning English

- They are always interested in learning new teaching methods

2 Shortcomings

We easily see boredom, lack of dynamism and inefficiency in readinglessons in my school This is what my colleagues and I have devoted specialattention To find out the factors that lead to this problem, we carried out asurvey and perhaps below are the major causes:

• For teachers:

- Many of them do not make a sufficient preparation for every lecture

- They apply new methods in their teaching inconstantly

- Pre-reading strategies are conducted in inappropriate ways to students’levels

- Many of them are not really aware of the important role of Pre-readingstrategies Some even ignore this part because of their own reasons

• For the students:

- Most of them do not review and prepare the new lesson before coming toclass

- Their background knowledge is limited

- Their comprehension skills are at the level of awareness

- Their vocabulary is not available.

III The practical basics of the theme.

1 Solutions

Normally, activities in Pre-reading strategies had better last from ten

to fifteen minutes in a forty five-minute-lesson How can we achieve ourgoal in such a short time? There are many factors that affect directlyeffectiveness and excitement in pre-reading strategies, in which thepreparation for the lesson of teacher and the students are two extremelyimportant ones

1.1 What should teachers do in Pre-reading strategies?

To operate a reading lesson effectively, the teacher has to make a goodpreparation for it As being mentioned above, Pre-reading strategies play animportant role in the process of teaching reading skill In a more specificview, the teacher should pay much more attention to “Before you read” Heneeds organize himself “Strategies to activate students’ knowledge” andprepare “Additional Pre-reading Strategies”

1.1.a Strategies to activate your prior knowledge:

- Brainstorming:

Brainstorming that helps the learners improve thinking skills asindicated earlier on in this study can excite students and set the context Toachieve this goal, the teacher needs students to write words related to thereading, the pictures in the reading or the title, the topic of the reading Atthe same time, teachers or students can write words or phrases on theboard

These activities in this part should be short (around 3-4 minutes) andfocused on the topic of the lesson

In the same vein, “concept or mind mapping” is also a type ofbrainstorming in which the teacher sets the title / subject as the main idea,then develops a "mind map" around it It can be effective for the students in

a group or by individual

- Discussion:

Group discussions in and out of class will help the students todiscover what they bring to their reading lesson, what other fellow learnersbring, as well as shared experiences Therefore, the teacher should askstudents to discuss the pictures in the reading Tell them to say their

thoughts about the text: Talk about what? What happens?

In order to encourage all students in the class to participate in thediscussion, the teacher should have students work in pairs or small groups

If you find they have new background information, ask for moreinformation from them

Noticeably, in his study named “Discussion Method Teaching: APractical Guide” (1989), William M Welty asserted that the leader in thediscussion (the teacher in a reading lesson) needs enough space to moveabout the room in order to energize the discussion when necessary; ideally,enough space to be able to contact every student in the room.

- Questioning :

Have students think of questions provided in “Before you read” part

in the reading lesson in high school English curriculum This activity creates

a useful practice in forming students' answers and giving them a reason toread

Nevertheless, these questions given in the curriculum are sometimesinadequate and even inequivalent to effectively implement the tasks in thisstage They can be flexibly applied or replaced by others which are created

by teachers The followings are a series forms of questions that teachers candesigned to ask students when in reading lessons:

What is a good example of ?

What are similar examples that share attributes but differ in some way?

- Experience

What experience have I had with ? What can I imagine about ?

It is advisable to ask good students to answer questions and the kind ofquestion asked will depend on the reason for asking it Questions are oftenreferred to as ‘open’ or ‘closed’

Closed questions, which have one clear answer, are useful to checkunderstanding during explanations and in recap sessions If the teacherwants to check recall, then he is likely to ask a fairly closed question, for

example: ‘How many oceans are there in the world?’ or ‘How often are the

Asian Games held?’

On the other hand, if the teacher wants to help pupils develop higher-orderthinking skills, he will need to ask more open questions that allow students

to give a variety of acceptable responses During class discussions anddebriefings, it is useful to ask open questions, for example:

‘Can you explain why endangered species have become extinct?’,

‘Given all your arguments, why you don’t like horror films?’,

‘What do you think about if all forests were distroyed?’

Questioning is sometimes used to bring a students’s attention back to thetask in hand, for example:

‘What do you think about this statement, Nam?’ or ‘Do you agree?’

1.1.b Additional Pre-reading strategies

- Visual Aids:

Pictures and other visual material can activate your prior knowledge.Likewise, visual aids can be used to draw students' attention to the maintopic of the reading and create an exciting atmosphere for the class Thus, inaddition to the pictures provided in English course books, teachers creatediversity by using realia, such as pictures from newspapers, magazines, theInternet or a few ideas of how to incorporate pictures into your teaching

* Use personal pictures: Whenever possible, use pictures of the teacher orreal photos around the town or school (that students would recognize) inPower Points or games This will make it much more interesting andmemorable for the students, so words will stick that much easier

* Draw stick figures: When all else fails, or the teacher needs a quicksolution, use the simple drawing or stick figure Stick figures take only asecond to draw, can be used to teach just about anything, andare guaranteed to get a chuckle

By these sources of aids, teachers should consider the pictures andquestions carefully before giving to their students In order to make a goodimpression on students, the pictures must be lively, positive, related to thetopic and easy to understand In this part, teachers order students look atthe pictures in order to answer the questions or only think about them Ofcourse, be sure that the questions should be concise, related to the content

of the lesson and easy to answer

Generally, there are many new words, expressions and grammarstructures in a reading text This is a major problem that interrupts readers

to discover the text In order to gain the high effectiveness, teachers canapply their favorable vocabulary teaching methods as long as each lastsroughly five minutes

- Vocabulary Previews:

By pre-teaching unfamiliar key words, students can improve newwords, background information, and comprehension To gain this goal, it isadvisable for the teacher to the following tasks:

 List all words in the assignment that may be important for students tounderstand

 Arrange words to show the relationships to the learning task

 Add words students probably already understand to connectrelationships between what is known and the unknown

 Share information with students

 Verbally quiz them on the information before assigned readingbegins

- Structural Organizers:

Before reading an assignment, basic frameworks which are included

in the text should be pointed out such as cause-effect or problem-solution

It can be beneficial to call attention to specific plans of paragraph or textorganization such as signal words, main idea sentences, highlightedphrases, headings and subtitles A review of skimming techniques mightalso be appropriate as these various areas are covered

2 Some suggested solutions to run “Before you read” part in high schoolbasic English curriculum

2.1 Basic English 10

Period 2:

Unit 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF …

Lesson 1: Reading

Part 1: Before you read

The teacher can start off by raising some closed questions:

 Do you get up early?

 What time do you often get up?

 Do you need an o’clock to wake you up?

 What do you do after breakfast?

 What do you do in the morning / afternoon / evening?

It it no use in correcting students’ answers but the teacher shouldencourage them speak out

Next, two pictures are presented with two questions: