USING GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS TO IMPROVE 11TH GRADERS’ READING COMPREHENSION

Rationale for the study In the context of teaching and learning English as a foreign language inViet Nam, reading seems to be the most important and useful activity in anylanguage class,

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

In the context of teaching and learning English as a foreign language inViet Nam, reading seems to be the most important and useful activity in anylanguage class, especially for the students of English as a foreign language Ofthe four language skills, reading has always received a great deal of attention,which is emphasized by Carrel [2; p.1] that “For many students, reading is byfar the most important of the four macro skills in a second language,particularly in English as a second teaching of foreign language” However,teachers of English in Vietnam have a tremendous obstacle to get studentsenthusiastic about reading texts Through classroom observations and realteaching context, it reveals that students often feel scared when doing longreading tasks with unfamiliar words They find it difficult to catch the mainideas of the text, to distinguish facts and details, and to retain informationlonger Therefore, they often fail to catch the author’s thought From this fact,

as a teacher of English, I myself think it is essential to find something new toimprove my students’ reading comprehension level so that they can improvetheir reading comprehension As a result, I decided to carry out the entitled

study: “Using graphic organizers to improve 11 th graders’ reading comprehension at Nong Cong 1 high school”

2 Purpose of the study and research questions

This study is aimed at gaining an insightful look into the application ofgraphic organizers with a view to improving students, reading skill at NongCong 1 high school

The aims are specified in two research questions:

2.1 Does the use of graphic organizers help to develop the readingcomprehension skill for high school students?

2.2 If so, to what extent does the use of graphic organizers affect thestudents’ reading comprehension levels?

3 Scope of the study

This study was carried out with eighty 11th students from class called 11B5

at Nong Cong 1 high school The research focuses on whether graphicorganizers can improve and how it affects these students’ readingcomprehension in reading lessons

4 Methods of the study

This study using quantitative research method aimed to determinewhether graphic organizers are able to enhance students’ comprehension skills

o r have a positive affect on the ability of students to make sense of what theyread The author used data collection instrument to gather information about thestudents involved, monitor the progress of the students when they used graphicorganizers throughout the research, and determine the effectiveness of thegraphs based on the pre-tests and post-tests

The pre-tests were necessary to assess the reading comprehension leveland skills the students possessed before the intervention of the strategy and used

as a baseline score The post-tests were used to determine the effectiveness

of the strategy used by the students during the research process by comparingthe pre-test scores to the ones taken at the end of the six practice readinglessons

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Literature Review

2.1.1 Reading skill

Reading is known as an interactive process that connected the readerwith the text, making comprehension The text displays letters, words,sentences, and paragraphs that express meaning The reader manipulatesknowledge, skills, and strategies to decide what that meaning is Up to nowreading has been described differently by lots of academics

Harmer [4; p.153] shares his ideas “reading is an exercise dominated bythe eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has towork out the significance of these messages” Clearly, ideas of reading havebeen diverse in exploiting words and expressions but they all focus on twoactions: studying with eyes and comprehending with brains of which thelatter is more significant The most obvious thing in the latter is that thereaders not only look at and understand the meaning of what is written butalso read authors’ thinking

2.1.2 Reading comprehension

Many studies confirm that the final goal of reading instruction is

comprehension and one of the most important goals of skilled reading isdecoding and understanding written text However, the decoding and the ability

to recognize words in texts are only the beginning stages of reading and reading

comprehension Grellet [3; p.3] states that “understanding a written text means

extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.” He alsoshows the examples in which a good reader will omit unnecessary informationand find out what he or she is searching for

In another word, reading comprehension can be defined as “a fluentprocess of readers combining information from a text and their own backgroundknowledge to build meaning Reading becomes meaningless withoutcomprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how muchreaders get the text Therefore, how to aid students in having efficient readingcomprehension methods is considered to be the most powerful task in teachingreading

2.1.3 Graphic Organizers:

A graphic organizer is a visual frame used to represent knowledge andunderstanding of a subject matter by arranging important aspects of a concept ortopic into logical pattern using labels There are many types of graphicorganizers namely maps, graphs, charts, diagrams, or clusters Each of thesepatterns can be expressed in different layouts but they have similar purposes thatportray the relationship between facts, terms or ideas within a learning task Inreading lessons, graphic organizers can be efficiently used in all lessons forstudents of all ages to check not only students, understanding but also motivateand improve their critical thinking In the words of Krasnic [6; p.24] students areable to clear their thoughts and sharpen their thinking by organizing andconnecting key concepts related to what they are reading from the text Thisprocess can help students to enhance their critical thinking, a kind of cognitiveactivity appearing in many of cognitive process of language learning.

2 2 Research context

2.2.1 Setting and Participants

The participants were 40 students (who were divided into two smallergroups with twenty for each) of 11B5 class from every corner of Nong Congdistrict, by this I mean they are both from town and rural areas Almost of themare females and they are 17 years old Most these students are generally atelementary level They learned English for at least five years at high schoolbut this subject was not carefully taken into its consideration In theiropinion, learning English means learning grammar and structures with commonlexical sources Therefore, they re surprised and confused when they have toread long reading texts in class and then in the exams Some students caneasily adapt to the new ways of learning, but most of them face challenges

2.2.2 Textbook and Reading materials

The reading materials used in the study consisted of selected texts fromnew English Textbook 11 (learner-centered and communicative approach withtheme-based teaching) published by Education Publishing House and Pearson

In the textbook, there are 10 units with diverse topics related to 4 themes: Ourlives, Our society, Our environment, Our future 5 sections were included in oneunit namely: Getting started, Language, Skills, Communication and Culture,Looking back and Project There are some samples based on the new Englishtextbook for grade 11 in which such common organizers are appropriatelyapplied It is hoped that English teachers will have a better insight into graphicorganizes and become confident to integrate these effective tools into theirreading classroom practice The study was conducted when the participants were

in the second semester when they already had had knowledge about basicstructures as well as vocabulary in textbook of grade 10 and 11 Therefore, theauthor found that it matched with the objectives of the learning program andstudents’ levels of proficiency

2.2.3 The reality of teaching and learning reading skill at Nong Cong 1 high

As mentioned above, reading skill in new Tieng Anh 11 is the third ofeight lessons that comprise one unit in the textbook Reading lesson admittedlyprovides language inputs such as vocabulary, structures as well as knowledgebackground related to the lesson topic The students in our school, however,have been facing numerous challenges in reading lesson because of their poorsource of vocabulary, structures Some get bored with long reading task, othersdon’t know how to activate their language capacity to comprehend the readingpassage In addition, most of them have difficulty getting general ideas, specificinformation, paraphrase the meaning of the words in order to successfullyexplore the reading text to tackle assigned reading tasks

2.3 Stages of the study

2.3.1 Instructional Procedure

At the beginning of the instruction, I familiarized the students with whatgraphic organizers are and how to use them effectively while reading a text.The students were also trained to use different organizers for different types

of passages The students learned a variety of existing graphic organizersand they also started creating their own organizers They used these graphicorganizers at all the three levels – before instruction, during instruction andafter instruction

2.3.2 The Pre-test and Post-test Model

Post-test is measurement of the outcome in both groups after theexperimental groups have received the treatment while pre-tests measure thestudent performance prior to the experimental intervention A pre test wasadministered to both experiment and control groups to ascertain the standard ofthe students in reading comprehension The pre-test scores of both groupswere recorded The test material was designed based on the scope of the study

It was made up of 2 passages, totaling 20 questions which can be classifiedinto four types of reading questions – (1) Identifying the main idea, (2) findingthe supporting details, (3) understanding vocabulary, and (4) making inferences.Out of 20 questions, there were 5 main idea questions, 5 supporting detailquestions, 5 vocabulary questions, and 5 inference questions Each questionwas worth 1 mark and the sum total of the test was 20 calculated over 100marks

Before administering the pre-test, it was important for the researcher toexamine whether the proficiency level of the students in both theexperimental and controlled groups are the same or different In the firstsession of the experiment, a pre-test was given to all the participants in thetwo groups The result of the pre-test proved that the comprehension skills ofboth the groups were on the same level

2.4 Types of graphic organizers employed in the study

During my teaching process, four basic graphic organizers namely cause

& effect map, problem & solution map, compare & contrast matrix, and KWLchart will be described The value of these organizers will be discussed and

followed by their application in English reading lessons at upper secondaryschools in Vietnam

2.4.1 Cause & effect map

A cause and effect map is one of the effective organizers used to showrelationships of all factors (causes) that lead to the given situation (effect) It isusually preceded by cause and effect analysis The teacher uses this organizer tohelp students realize that there are many causes that contribute an effect It alsographically displays the connections of the causes to the effect to each other.Students can do this task individually, in pairs or in groups and then share whatthe information in the diagram with the others

2.4.1.1 Procedures:

- Copy the cause & effect map template for students

- List the topic or problem explored in the center of the organizer

- Discuss the causes and effects with students

- Record what makes the problem happen in the Causes section

- Record what happens because of these causes and list them in the Effectssection

(Adapted from IRA/NCTE 2006 Read-Write-Think: Cause and Effect Graphic

Organizer Retrieved June 2, 2015, from http://tryscience.org/sites/default/files/

uploads/lessonplan/sharedresources/graphic_organizer_highlevel.pdf)

2.4.1.2 Application

Global warming is real

Global warming, the rise in temperature around the earth’s atmosphere, isone of the biggest issues facing human nowadays The results of numerous

Cause & effect map

studies show that global warming is real It is mainly man-made and its effects

on people and nature are catastrophic

The biggest cause of global warming is carbon dioxide (CO2) emissionsfrom coal burning power plants When coal is burnt to make electricity, itreleases a large amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere In the USA,about 40% of CO2 emissions come form electricity production The secondgreatest source of CO2 emissions is the burning of petrol for transport In theUSA, motor vehicles running on petrol are responsible for about 33% of CO2

emissions The situation is getting worse as the demand for cars is increasingrapidly in the modern world Another reason for the temperature rise is thecutting down of forests for wood, paper or farming Forests absorb and capture

CO2 from the atmosphere This process has been disrupted by the currentalarming rate of deforestation

The worst effect of global warming is the rise in sea levels worldwide,which could make millions of people lose their homes Global warming alsoresults in severe weather-related natural disasters such as droughts and floodsthat can kill or injure large numbers of people Global warming withincreasingly high temperature can reduce crop harvest globally, which may lead

to famine It is also predicted to have the worst impact on water supplies Watershortages are likely to delay economic growth and damage ecosystems Anotherscary effect of global warming is the disappearance of millions of species in theworld Widespread loss of species is a matter of great concern for humans since

we cannot exist without species diversity on Earth

It is important that people understand that human-caused global warming

is happening and its effects on us are serious Everybody has to take some actionnow to reduce the risks

(Vietnam MOET (2015).Tiếng Anh 11: Student book 2, p.10 Hanoi:

Education Publishing House and Pearson.)

(See Cause and Effect Map in the next page)

2.4.2 Problem & solution map

CAUSE & EFFECT MAP

- reduce crop harvest

- famine

- severe related natural disaster

weather kill or injure large number of poeple

- rise of sea levels

- make people homeless

The critical thinking necessary to problem-solve by posting andevaluating solutions is an important skill the students need throughout theirlives Being able to write clearly and persuasively about proposed solutions is asimportant as being able to think clearly and logically in formulating solutions.This reading guide helps students organize and write about problems andproposed solutions This activity is also applied into a writing class wherestudents are aware of the relevant problem and discuss reliable methods.Students can do this task individually and then share what the information in thediagram with their partner or their group members.

(Adapted from Bromley, K., Irwin-Devitis, L & Modlo, M (1999) 50

graphic organizers for reading, writing & more: Reproducible templates,

student samples, and easy strategies to support every learner, pp 106-107.

New York: Scholastic Professional Books.)

2.4.2.2 Application

A Longevity Hot Spot

Nagano is a mountainous, landlocked prefecture in the center of Japan,with a population of more than two million In 2014, the life expectancy therewas 87.2 years for women and 80.9 for men, which is one of the highest in theworld

The region once experienced high death rates from causes such as strokeand heart attacks This was attributed to the residents, favorite food: saltedpickled vegetables and miso, a kind of fermented soybean paste Being inland,Nagano does not have readily available seafood, and salt was used to processand preserve food for use in the long snowy winters

The turning point was in 1981, when the non-profit Nagano DieteticAssociation decided to take action The first step was a campaign to reduce saltintake and promote a healthier diet and lifestyle Volunteers were trained toconduct nutrition seminars at supermarkets, shopping malls, and communitycenters At first, it was difficult to convince people to change, but gradually, itbecame easier The efforts paid off with surprising speed By 1990, lifeexpectancy had risen by three years in a decade, and the death rates due to heartdisease had decreased

The local government has also taken other measures in cooperation withthe association: organizing routine health check-ups, creating hundreds ofwalking trails for residents to exercise, and building hot springs for local people

to recover from ill health

The efforts of Nagano’s residents and the government to change thelifestyle and prolong life have been really successful Nagano is an excellentmodel that the rest of the world can follow: educations, dietary changes,exercise, and the spirits of cooperation can make a difference

(Vietnam MOET (2015) Tiếng Anh 11: Student book 2, p.67 Hanoi:

Education Publishing House and Pearson.)

(See the map in the next page)

PROBLEM & SOLUTION MAP

High death rate in Nagano

PROBLEM(S)

high death rate because

of stroke and heart

attacks

CAUSES (optional)

salted pickled vegetables and

miso (a kind of fermented soy

bean paste)

SOLUTIONS

- reduce salt in take action and promote a

healthier diet and lifestyle

- conduct nutrition seminars at

supermarket, shopping malls

- organizing routine health check-ups

- building hot springs for local people

RESULT(S)

- prolong life