SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE READING SKILL HELPING STUDENTS AT NONG CONG 4 HIGH SCHOOL DO THE NATIONAL GENERAL SECONDARY TESTS OF ENGLISH BETTER

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGNONG CONG 4 HIGH SCHOOL THE STUDY OF TEACHING EXPERIENCE SUBJECT: SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE READING SKILL HELPING STUDENTS AT NONG CONG 4 HIGH S

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

NONG CONG 4 HIGH SCHOOL

THE STUDY OF TEACHING EXPERIENCE

SUBJECT:

SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE READING

SKILL HELPING STUDENTS AT NONG CONG 4 HIGH SCHOOL DO THE NATIONAL GENERAL

SECONDARY TESTS OF ENGLISH BETTER

By: Nguyễn Văn Luân Position: Head of English group Aspect: English

Address:

Nong Cong, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS PAGE

2 Overview of reading exercises in the course books and

those in national general test of English.

2.1.Reading pasages in the national general secondary

education tests of English and those in the sample tests.

2.2 The reading units in the course books having the same

questions as those in the national general secondary education

tests of English.

5

5

7

1 Reality of solutions to reading skill

1.1 Quality about students’ reading skill

1.2 Habits of practising reading skill

8 8 9

2 Solutions to improve the problems.

2.1 Questions for detail information.

2.1.1 Questions for detail information from the second

sample test of 2017, reading passage 1

2.1.2 Teaching students strategies to do reading lessons

2.2 Questions to determine the main idea or the title of the

passage.

2.2.1 Question for main idea of the passage in the second

national general secondary sample test, 2017, reading

passage 1:

2.2.2 Provide students procedures to do reading lessons

2.3 Questions for vocabulary

9

9 10

11

12

13

14

2.4 Questions for reference objects

2.4.1 Questions for reference objects found from the

national general secondary tests.

2.4.2 Guide student stategies to do this type of questions

2.5 Question for inferring

2.5.1 The referring question in the reading lesson of the

second national general secondary test, 2017

2.5.2 Guiding students how to do the reading lesson

14 15

15

16

18

3 The positive impacts brought abot from my study 18

PART I INTRODUCTION

I Reasons for the study

Considering about the recent English result of General certificate of SecondaryExaminations (GCSE), according to statistics from Thanh Hoa department of Educationand training, Thanh Hoa was ranked in the worst group through out all the country, Thisfact makes the officials and English teachers concerned about, we should give out anapproriate answer to the problem above so that we can find out solutions to improve theeffect of teaching and learning English properly, especially, for the reslt of the next GCSEexamination

Understading the issue mentioned, after spending a long time studying and analysingthe GCSE tests of English, sample tests of 2016, 2017, 2018, this shows that the testsdemand for knowledge and linguistic skill, a lot of people have considered the content ofthe tests, however, up yo now, thaere has not been an official study specifying andfinding out the basic causes and drawbacks from the students so as to offer a prospersolution to the problem If we do not know students’ shortcomings in some skills, we cannot help them during learning at school an revising effectively

Therefore, during the process of teaching, testing, evaluating and talking to my studentsang collgues, I understand that my students’ bad point is reading skill, on the other hands

it is seen from GCSE examinations, the rate of reading skill accounts for 30 pecent the

tltal marks of the test so I decided to choose the topic “ Solutions to improve reading

skill helping students at Nong Cong 4 high school do the national general secondary tests of English better” for studying.

II Scope and objectives of the study.

To make progress in reading skill, help my students do types reading tests in theGCSE examinations, in this study I mainly focus on the problems below

First one: The state of comprehensive reading and my students’result of doingcomprehesion reading

Second one: The solutions to improve the effect of doing reading tests in the GCSEexaminations

III Methodology of the study.

Methodology, describes the research methods and data collection of the study

To reach the final goal of studying, in this topic, I apply some methods for my study

Observing method.

Investigating and information collecting method.

Testing method.

Comparing and contrasting method.

Analyzing and evaluating method.

IV Aims of the study.

Seeing my students’difficulties in doing reading exercises in the national tests, theirdiscouragement when having reading exercises as well To help my students do thereading exercises better in the tests, my study chiefly mentions the following purposes:

- Understanding the students’ ability in doing the reading exercises in the tests

- Assisting the students realise the questions often appearing in the examinations

- Providing the students with stategies to do the tests of reading in the nationalexaminations

From the goals mentioned above, my study gives a contribution to improving the effect

of doing reading exercises in the national examinations.This also offers the researchermethods in teaching reading skill on competence developing orientation of learners Thestudy is carried out with a view to answering the questions below

Question 1: How is the students’ result of doing reading exercises?

Question 2: What problems do the students deal with when doing reading exercises of

the national tests?

Question 3: What solutions do we need to help the students to do the reading tests

better?

V The significance of the study.

After studying the types of reading exercises in the national English tests, seeing thatthere are some types questions appearing in the tests, for example; questions for specificinformation, questions for main ideas, questions for inferring, questions for the refferenceobjectives, questions for vocabulary Comparing with the questions appearing in thecourse books, I have found the following differences

First, practising reading skills in the text books is different from doing readingexercises in the national tests

Second, Some skills of reading, such as: skimming for the main idea, guessing,infference are only mentioned in few reading lessons

Third, the skill for refference objectives is not mentioned in reading lessons in thecourse books, whereas this is required in the national English examinations

A number of reading skills has not been properly mentioned in the course books,such as skimming for the main idea, guessing, infference … The study focuses on thosemore, in addition, the study has provided students with the reading skill for refferenceobjectives, an necessary skill which has not mentioned in the current course books

PART II CONTENTS

I The theoretical bases of the study.

1 Reading skill

Reading skill is one of four skills of learning English To evaluate learners’ readingcompetence, there are fifteen reading questions of fifty ones in the national generalsecondary education test of English, equivalent to 3/10 points Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhung

& Nguyễn Bảo Trang (2010) show that the test for reading consists of six types of thequestions, they are questions for specific information, questions for main ideas, questionsfor linking, questions for the refference objectives, questions for vocabulary, questionsfor inferring, Nguyễn Thị Chi and her partner (2016) say that learners want to do thereading tests better, they need understand the skills below:

- Scanning is ability of reading passages fast with a view to finding spcificinformation to anser the questions

- Skimming is ability of reading passages quickly to find the main ideas of thepassage;

Guessing is predicting meaning of the words basing on the specific situation Inference is inferring ability to draw out the conclusion from information of the passage

- Refering is contrastive skill to understand the the words referring to thing or personmentioned before in the passage

In short, both the authors show the important skills to do the reading tests better,however, Nguyễn Thị Chi and her partner (2016) provides the questions in the scope ofthe national general certificate secondary education test of English, I agree with this idea,therefore, I only focus on five reading skills in this study

2 Overview of reading exercises in the course books and those in national general test of English.

2.1 Reading pasages in the national general secondary

education tests of English and those in the sample tests.

To have an overview of the national general secondary education test of English, I havestudied the reading parts in recent exams as well as the sample tests, the result of thestudy is shown in the table below;

Table 1: Statistics, skill questions, number of words

Unit 2: 5 questions for the detail ofinformation;; 2 questions for vocabulary; 1questions for objective of referrence; 2questions for inferring

Unit 1: 355words (10quetions)

Unit 2:481words(10 quetions)

Unit 2: 6 questions for the detail ofinformation; 1 question for vocabulary; 1question for objective of referrence

Unit 1: 308words (7questions)

Unit 2: 396words (8questions)

Unit 2: 5 questions for the detail ofinformation; 1 question for vocabulary; 1question for objective of referrence; 1question for inferring

Unit 1: 302words (7questions)

Unit 2: 409words (8quetions)

Table 1 shows that the national tests of English consists of two reading parts aboutfrom 300 to more than 400 words, reading passages are from foreign sources of

documents with diversal topics, such as; culture, society, education, health, sports… thereading passages cover the skills through types of questions, for example; questions formain ideas, questions for detail information, questions for guessing meaing of th words,questions for referrence, inferring … The questions are designed with suitable levelsfrom kowing, understanding to low and high application of these questions of readingpassages, the questions for detail information are majorities over 70.

2.2 The reading units in the course books having the same questions

as those in the national general secondary education tests of English.

Through the reality of teaching English, I realise that when having the readingquestions like the questions in the national exam, my students are often confused, they donot know how to do the reading parts in the test To get proofs for comparing, I havestudied the reading comprehension questions in the course books English 10,11,12, andthe result of the study has been shown below

Table 2 shows the number of the reading passages in the course books which have the same questions as in the national tests.

Unit 4: Special

Education

Unit 4: Volunteer Work Unit 10: Engdangered

Species Test Yourself B Unit 15: Women in Society

Table 2 shows the frequency of appearing types of questions which are the same

as those in the national general tests of English in some units in the course books, such

as, 1 unit in English 10, 2 units in English 11, this figure in English 12 This result showsthat the types of these questions in the national general secondary education tests rarelyappear in the reading passages of the course books English 10,11,12 Although readingskill are focused, designing the questions for reading passages in the course books are notcorresponding with the questions of reading passage in the national general secondarytests of English Intensively studying about reading skill, particularly, the skill for

“finding the reference object” has not been mentioned ,whereas the English tests of the

national general examinations require this skill It is ths difference from the form andcontent that the students’ poor result of the national generral tests is completelyresonable.

II The practical bases of the study.

1 Practical situation of solutions to reading skill.

1.1 Quality about students’ reading skill

To know the quality of doing the reading exercises of the twelfth form students, I havesurveyed the comprehenion reading competence of 90 students from two classes atmedium level with two reading passages including 15 questions with the different levels

of difficulty to choose the gifted students for universities and colleges the time for twotests lasts 20 minutes the result of doing the tests of the students has shown below

Chart 1: Result surveying the competence of doing reading exercise of the students.

Chart 1 shows that the students getting from 2 to 4 true answers accout for 78.8%, equipvelent to 2,4/10 points of reading part in the test which the students gain a sad situationthat after surveying, there are 78,8 % students under average marks of reading skill, the result also shows that noone got from 10 to 15 true answers, there are only 21,2% of the students gaining the average marks without quite good and good So I can say that most students are very bad at reading skill of the nationaf general secondary exams, on the other hand, if we analyse more about the result of each subskill, most of

the students can not choose the right answer for the questions of reference object,

questions for vocabulay This fact reflects the most apparent disadvantage that few former studies have been mentioned

1.2 Habits of practising reading skill.

By the bad quality of reading skill, the researcher asked for ninety students’ ideas throughthe survey votes in Vietnamese including open and close questions, my purpose is toinvestigate my students’opinions as well as their awareness about the reading lessons.The result shown below:

2 Solutions to improve the problems.

2.1 Questions for detail information.

This is the most common question in the reading lessons, according to my statisticsabout the recent national general secondary tests(2016, 2017) and some sample tests, thenumber of questions for detail information makes up to 70% in two reading passaes inthe tests This is, therefore, the first type of questions to be paid attention to and teachers

should guide students to do the reading From the study, I see that the questions for detailinformation often appear by the following types:

Question: According to the passage/paragraph _, who/ when/ where/ what/ how/

why ?

Question: In the passage/pagraph , what does the author say about ? Question: According to the passage, which of the following is true about

Question: In the passage/paragraph _, the author states that …

Question: According to the passage/paragraph , which of the following is

(NOT) true? All of the following are true EXCEPT

Question: All of the following are mentioned in the passage EXCEPT

2.1.1 Questions for detail information from the second sample test of

2017, reading passage 1:

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet

to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions

Whales are the largest animals in the world, and the gentlest creatures we know.Although the whale is very huge, it is not hindered at all by its size when it is in thewater Whales have tails that end like flippers With just a gentle flick, it can propelitself forward The skin of a whale is so smooth that it does not create any friction thatcan slow the whale down A whale’s breathing hole is located on the top of its head, so

it can breathe without having to completely push its head out of the water Whales areprotected from the cold seawater by body fat that is called blubber

Whales live in the ocean but, in terms of behaviours, they are more similar to

humans than fish They live in family groups and they even travel in groups when they

have to migrate from cooler to warmer waters The young stay with their parents for aslong as fifteen years Whales are known not to desert the ill or injured members;instead, they cradle them

When whales are in danger, there are people who go to great lengths to help them.One such case occurred in 1988, when three young whales were trapped in the sea Itwas close to winter and the sea had begun to freeze over Whales are mammals thatrequire oxygen from the air, so the frozen ice was a great danger to them All they hadthen was a tiny hole in the ice for them to breathe through Volunteers from all oversoon turned up to help these creatures They cut holes in the ice to provide morebreathing holes for the whales These holes would also serve as guides for the whales

so that they could swim to warmer waters

(Adapted from http://www.englishdaily626.com?reading_comprehension)

Question : Where is the whale’s breathing hole located?

A On its head B On its back C On its face D On its tail

Question : According to paragraph 2, the author mentions all of the following to show

that whales “are more similar to humans” EXCEPT

A they do not desert the ill or injured members

B they do not migrate from cooler to warmer waters

C they live in family groups and travel in groups

D the young stay with their parents for almost fifteen years

Question : According to the passage, why was the frozen ice on the sea surface a

danger to whales?

A Because they couldn’t swim in icy cold water

B Because they couldn’t eat when the weather was too cold

C Because whales couldn’t breathe without sufficient oxygen

D Because the water was too cold for them as they were warm-blooded

2.1.2 Teaching students strategies to do this type of questions.

This types of question are often not difficult because the information often appear inthe passage For these basic questions, if students know strategies to do the readinglessons, they will not take much time to do these quesions To do these types of advancedquestions for the aims of the entrance requirement to universities, students both haveprocedures and understand the reading lesson intensively To get hifh marks they need tofollow the procedures below:

+ Determiming the meanings of the sentences through key words, question words,such as what, why, where, when, how… verbs, adjectives Asking students to payattention to proper nouns

+ Locating the information basing on the key words through scanning Noticingstudents expressions of synanym or the closest meaning expressions to key words Afterlocating the information, we read the sentence before and the one after the key word with

a view to finding the answer

+ Using our first answer to contrast with the available options and choose theapproriate option with the first answer

For example; for the question “Where is the whale’s breathing hole located?” inreading lesson of the second national general secondary sample test, 2017, the key words