INTERACTIVE POST READING ACTIVITIES FOCUSING ON WRITING USED TO TEACH GRADE 11 STUDENTS AT LE LOI UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL

The post-reading stage of a reading lesson is often confused with the closing of a lesson.However, having new information from the whilst-reading stage should bringabout a change such as

CONTENTS Page

2 General views on post-reading activities 2

4 The importance of post-reading activities. 4

5 What students gain from post-reading activities. 5

1 Post-reading activities focusing on writing. 6

2 Demonstration of activities usually used in teaching English 11 at

A INTRODUCTION

It is widely recognized that reading is one of the most important skills forEnglish as a foreign language students to master The ability to read andcomprehend what one reads is crucial to success in our educational system Foracademic success, for English language learning, or to expand students’knowledge of language, cultures and the world, reading comprehension hasalways played a central role in the curricula of the schools in this study Atpresent, reading comprehension is not the product of word recognition skills,grammar or world experience as separate entities, but it is considered a highlyinteractive process between the reader and the text, one that enables “theconstruction of meaning by making inferences and interpretations” The post-reading stage of a reading lesson is often confused with the closing of a lesson.However, having new information from the whilst-reading stage should bringabout a change such as the students would know more, or think or feeldifferently from before Teachers should help students connect the newinformation they are now familiar with and their lives This article reintroducesthe importance of the post-reading stage and some workable, meaningfulactivities Interactive activities are chosen so that students not only process theirknowledge obtained from the text but also communicate this new knowledge topeers

I REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH

In Vietnam, in recent years teaching methods have been more and moreimproved There have been a lot of activities organized in order to enhance theeffectiveness and help students be more active and self-confident in learningEnglish in general and reading skills in particular [1] Many universities andupper-secondary schools, including Le Loi upper-secondary school apply postreading activities which can be seen as one of the most effective way todevelop students‘ reading competence It is stated that post-reading activitiesencourage student to reflect upon what they have read For the information tostay with the students, they need to go beyond simply reading it to using it.Until now, there have been a lot of researches done in the area of post readingactivities In 2000, Alderson wrote Assessing reading with the aim of analyzingthe effectiveness of reading activities[4], including post reading activities.Sasson (n.d) wrote post-reading activities – how teachers can end thelesson effectively to give some advice so that teachers can apply whenimplementing post-reading activities However, there is a gap between thetheory and the practice At upper-secondary schools in general, theadvantages of post-reading activities have not been fully made use of Inaddition, teachers and students encounter some difficulties related to thestudents‘ level, time, etc; as a result, the implementation of these activities hasnot been effective All mentioned above, I have decided to suggest post-reading activities I have ever taught my grade 11 students at my school

II AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

- To introduce how to teach reading skills and post-reading part

- To show ways of teaching post-reading part

- To show how post-reading activities can be designed for teachingEnglish in grade 10 at Le Loi upper-secondary school

- To draw out what the learners understand the reading texts and apply them to their daily life through post-reading activities

III SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD

- Scope : Researching in the process of teaching English 11 at Le Loi upper-secondary school

- Object: This subject is concerned with ways of organizing post-reading activities in the class

- Researching method: Reading reference books , discussing with other teachers, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences

B DISCUSSION

1 The importance of reading

Reading is an activity of inferring meaning out of written symbols withthe collaborative work of cognitive behaviors and psycho-motor skills(Demirel, 1992) Reading is described as the process of perception in terms ofwritten and published words with the help of senses, comprehension of theseafter building meaningful connections; intellectual and spiritual acquisition,active and communicative involvement with the written and publishedsymbols, reception consisting of a number of perceptive and cognitiveprocesses, an interpretation and also a reaction According to Alderson (1984),most scholars would suppose that reading is one of the most important skills foreducational and professional success [3] In highlighting the importance ofreading comprehension Rivers (1981) stated that ― reading is the mostimportant activity in any language class, not only as a source of informationand pleasurable activity but also as a means of consolidating and extendingone‘s which are knowledge of the language

As Karakas (2002) pointed that the real objective of reading is fast and rightgrasp of the meaning Especially, reading at high speed along with fullcomprehension is a critical factor affecting the success of the students Studentswho can read at a high speed, understand what is being read, have a rich verbalrepertoire and have a good master of the language, learn more easily and havehigher rates of success The level of reading can be designated by askingquestions about the reading text being read and evaluating the related answers

in verbal or written way [2]

According to Eskey (1988) in advanced levels of second language the ability

to read the written language at a reasonable rate and with good comprehensionhas long been recognized to be as oral skills if not more important

2 General views on post-reading activities

Definitions of post-reading activities

As language learning involves the acquisition of thousands of words,teachers and learners alike would like to know how vocabulary learning can befostered, especially in EFL settings where learners frequently acquireimpoverished lexicons, despite years of formal study Research indicates thatreading is important but not sufficient for second-language vocabulary learning,and that it should be supplemented by post-reading activities to enhancestudents' vocabulary knowledge [2]

Post reading activities play an important role in language teaching andlearning There are many reasons for its being important Firstly, learnerscome across it a lot in their daily lives Secondly, since the students in thisresearch are preparatory learners who are learning English for academicpurposes, that means students learn English for the examination Therefore,without understanding the texts, they cannot learn anything; as a result, cannot

be successful in the exams Since post reading is an important skill in languagelearning, it is necessary to define it According to Chastain (1998), post-readingactivities help readers to clarify any unclear meaning where the focus is on themeaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects of the text Ur (1996)discusses summary as a kind of post-reading activity where the readers areasked to summarize the content in a sentence or two It is also possible to givethis post-reading activity in the mother tongue Karakas (2002) proposes thatthe readers interpret the text and illustrate the relationship between thequestions and their answers by using activities such as summarizing, questionand answer, and drawing conclusions and it is possible to catch the missingparts of the mental picture through thinking aloud, discussion andsummarizing "Post-reading" (after, follow-up, beyond reading) exercises firstcheck students' comprehension and then lead students to a deeper analysis ofthe text, when warranted (Alderson, 2000) [4]

The primary goal of post-reading activity is to make sure that satisfactorycomprehension was taken place If the person is looking for a number in atelephone directory, she or he should be very selective She/he should scan thedirectory for the number needed On the contrary, a researcher needs to read anarticle in detail to get the main ideas of the writer and to learn more about thesubject Nevertheless, it can still be argued that any reading is selective.Wallace (1992) shares the same idea by saying, ―Just as we filterspoken messages in deciding what to attend to, so do we filter writtenmessages And even when we commit ourselves to a full reading, that readingwill still be selective, some parts being read with greater care than others

3 The Post-/After Reading Stage

When the during-/whilst- reading stage is completed, the students areexpected to have obtained new information from the text This should bring

about a change of some kind such as they would know more, or think or feeldifferently from before Therefore, we ask, So what? , which leads to theconnection between the new information the students are now familiar with andtheir lives[5] According to Nuttall (1996: 164) when intensive work in aduring-/whilst reading stage is completed, general comprehension must beintended to At this stage, the students should be able to evaluate the text as awhole to respond to it from a more or less personal point of view They may

be asked to agree or disagree with the author or the characters in the text;relate the content to their own experience; connect the content with other work

in the same field; discuss characters, incidents, ideas, feelings; or predict whatcan happen afterwards

Common post reading activities are: creating stories or end of stories,producing posters, reconstructing texts, and questioning the text or views of thewriter

4 The importance of post-reading activities.

Post-reading activities are simply activi- ties done after during-readingactivities are completed At this stage the students are in a temporary change ofstate or condition, that is, they now know something they did not know before.They know some new vo- cabulary items, some new sentence struc- tures, somenew idiomatic expressions, and they have new knowledge about a certain topic.However, it is definitely not the right time for the class to just call it a day Howmany times do we see lesson plans with good pre-reading activities and well-planned during reading activities, but brief, classic post-reading activities such

as write the answers on a piece of paper , translate paragraph 2 , write asentence for each of the new words found in the text , using a similar pattern,write about your house ?

Something must be done to help the students use what they now know sothat these new things will become more than just knowledge In a post-readingstage students are not studying about the language of the text and they are notcomprehending the text, either At the post-reading stage students are supposed

to apply what they possess [13]

Post-reading activities are expected to encourage students to reflect uponwhat they have read The purposes of the activities are for the students to usethe familiar text as basis for specific language study, to allow the students torespond to the text creatively and to get the students to focus more deeply onthe information in the text For the new information to stay with them, the

students need to go beyond simply reading the information to using it

Follow-ing up in the post-readFollow-ing stage is critical to both comprehension, which isinstruction sensitive, and obtaining and working on new information, whichtakes the students to their real life situation [6] Well-designed after-readingactivities usually require the learners to return to the text several times and toreread it to check on particular information of language use Students,

individually or in groups, should have ample time to share and discuss thework they have completed This enables the students to tie up loose ends,answer any remaining ques- tions, and to understand the interrelation- ships oftopics covered When readers are called on to communicate the ideas they haveread, it is then that they learn to conceptualize and discover what meaning thetext has to them Although teachers should be careful to spend just some time

in the pre-reading stage, they are actually expected to spend more time in thepost- reading stage with several activities A two- fold purpose is involvedhere, namely: students need to (1) recycle what they have obtained from thetext and (2) go beyond the text and enter the real world, equipped with thenewlyobtained information

5 What students gain from post-reading activities.

At least six principles in foreign language teaching-learning by Brown (2007:62-81) can be fulfilled From recycling some language components in differentways through different language skills, automaticity is certainly on its way.Meaningful learning is carried out because at a post- reading stage studentsrelate new informa- tion with their own life and experiences Each student isasked to respond to parts of the text she or he has read Because students areactive in responding to the texts they have been, and the teacher puts himself inthe background, students are empowered and to a certain extent, in control ofthe activities This may lead to students autonomy Willingness tocommunicate, which involve students willingness to take risks and being self-confident, is gained because they are supposed to be well-prepared to do thepost-activities When students are given different tasks, they have goodopportuni- ties to use the language, orally as well as written This puts them in aposition where they can develop their interlanguage Finally, post-readingactivities are not interested in the right versus wrong answers to com-prehension questions anymore Students do not have to prove they understandthe voca- bulary and grammar of the text, anymore Therefore, students are notonly taught to achieve linguistic competence but also discourse and strategiccompetence, so communicative competence is also taken care of We canconclude that from post- reading activities, the students are develop- ingthemselves to achieve automaticity, meaningful learning, autonomy, willingness

to communicate, interlanguage, and communicative competence

6 Interactive post-reading activities

Reading comprehension should not be alienated from the other skills(Harmer, 2007: 267) [8] In reality, for example, we tend to talk about what

we have read, especially when the content is actual, interesting, unexpected,

or simply strange and unbelievable

Therefore, we may link reading and writing, for example, bysummarizing, note-making, mentioning what has been read in a letter We mightlink reading and listening by comparing what we have heard to read- ing a news

report, comparing the song we heard from the radio to the song lyric loaded from the internet Still, we might link reading and speaking bydiscussing what we have learned from a reading pas- sage and retelling stories.There are many activities that will refine, enrich, and increase interest inthe assigned topic of a text However, the primary goal of the post readingphase is to further develop and clarify interpretations of the text, and to helpstudents remember what they have individually created in their minds fromthe text Good post-reading ac- tivities should be able to get the students torecycle some aspects from their whilst- reading activities; to go beyond thetext; to share opinions, ideas, feelings; and to give reasons to communicate.There are various kinds of interactive post-reading activities that relatereading to other language skills The following activities are mostly taken fromBamford and Day (2004) and, after some adaptation, are proven to haveworked well in my classes.

down-6.1 Interactive Post-reading Activities Focusing on Listening

6.2 Interactive Post-Reading Activities Focusing on Writing

6.3 Interactive Post-reading Activities Focusing on Speaking

6.4 Other Interactive Post-reading Activities

II POST-READING ACTIVITIES FOCUSING ON WRITING

1 Post-reading activities focusing on writing.

Students are likely to understand more when they discuss with each otherwhat they have learned, so they must have special opportunities to discuss andwrite their opinions, feelings, and conclusions, from their reading activity Some

of the ways to do this include the following activities

1.1 Story Innovation

Story innovation is a form of scaffold writing in which the sentence andtext patterns remain intact but the content is altered through the substitution ofvocabulary to change the setting, characters, or action in a story Storyinnovation is presented as a way to develop vocabulary knowledge through deepprocessing and to provide fluency practice Teachers will also find storyinnovation useful for working with struggling readers or students learningEnglish as a second language It is a way to foster a nonthreatening, low-anxiety,and highly supportive learning environment The authors describe the scenario

in one classroom in which the students wrote a story innovation, and theyprovide a step-by-step process teachers can follow when implementing storyinnovation in the classroom [5]

1.2 Innovation on the ending

Students change the ending of a story For example, after reading The BoyWho Cried Wolf , whose ending was a wolf really came and ate some ofthe boy’s sheep, a student wrote, The wolf ate the boy So, the villagers livedpeacefully and happily ever after (By: Riza, 2010) [5]

1.3 Wanted posters

Students create wanted posters of a character in the text For the Princessand the Pea , for example, the poster would be pictures of princesses anddescription of an ideal princess[5]

1.4 Story map

Students create story maps that can be used by others to rewrite the story

To make this activity more interactive and meaningful, a One Stay-Three StrayCooperative Learning activity can be implemented so that learners learn fromother groups can give and take information as well as inspiration from othergroups [7]

1.5 Summary writing

Ask the students to work together with a partner First, ask them to worktogether to identify the main points of the reading Once they have successfullydone this, the students can work individually to put these into sentences.Depending on the level of the class, you might need to teach them how toparaphrase or how to write in their own words [1]

1.6 Chain game

After the students have finished reading, tell them to go through the reading andtry to remember some of the key points and details If you are teaching a largeclass, split the students up into small groups of about five or six students Askthe students to sit in a circle Student 1 has to write down some informationabout the text Student 2 then rewrite that information and adds something new.Then student three rewrite both pieces of information and adds their own Thisprocess continues until the group runs out of ideas [1]

1.7 Conclusion

Giving students the opportunity to express their understanding of the reading,either in writing, discussion, graphic representation, or role play, allows them tolearn from each other and to integrate the content of reading material into theirknowledge base

1.8 Sentence Write and Cut-Apart

Dictating a sentence for students to write is a great way to practice sight words,spelling patterns, and writing conventions (spacing, capital letters, periods) Atthe end of a guided reading lesson, have students write a sentence (preferablyone that’s related to the text and includes at least one sight word they’re workingon)

To assist beginning writers, you can use a highlighter or marker to draw a linefor each word

After students have written the sentence (preferably on a whiteboard, unless youwant to keep track of their progress over time), go back and help them fix it up.Next, write the sentence on a sentence strip Cut the sentence apart into theindividual words and have students read the sentence again It’s easiest if you

can display the words in a pocket chart, but you can also just put them on thetable.

Last, mix up the words and have the students put the sentence back togethercorrectly Have them decide when the sentence is correct (keep a model for them

to use as a comparison)

To make the activity more challenging, you can also cut apart some of the words(i.e into syllables, or onset-rime) and have students put both the words and thesentence back in order

At the end of the activity, have students practice coming up with a sentence orsentences that explains what the word means, using at least 1-2 of the words orphrases in the outside circles Students can practice first with a partner, and thenshare with the group Another alternative would be to compose a shortparagraph as a group

1.10 Unscramble and write sentences – The teacher takes a sentence and

places the words out of order The students then re-order the words into correctsentences An advanced version of this activity leaves out simple words likearticles and prepositions

1.11 Sentence matching – Each student gets a sentence’s ending or beginning

on a scrap of paper Students mingle and say their ending or beginning until theyfind a match When they find a match, students return to their seat to write the

sentence Extension: This activity would work best with key events Once all

the students match their sentences, the whole class uses them to write the story.Students listen to all the sentences and re-write the whole passage in the correctorder [14]

1.12 Sentence endings and beginnings – Write some endings and beginnings

on a worksheet The matching endings and beginnings can go up around theclassroom Students write the full sentences on the worksheet They cannot takethe endings and beginnings off the wall, they must read and remember

2 Demonstration of activities usually used in teaching English 11 at Le Loi upper-secondary school.

2.1 Story innovation:

Examples : Unit 2 – My most embarrsassing experience - Part A: Reading After you read

Work individually: Imagine you would be the girl in the story, rewrite your

story You can use the picture below

Teacher: Aks students to work individually to rewrite the story base on the givenpicture

Students: Prepare the questions related to the events

1 What was the stoy about?

2 When did it happen?

3.What were the events of the story?

4 What did the girl do to buy the hat?

5 How was her feeling after recognising her own money at home?

…

2.2 Innovation on the ending

Example: Unit 2 – My most embarrsassing experience - Part A: Reading After you read

Work in group: Imagine you would be the girl in the story, write the ending of

the story that you want to change

Teacher: -Asks students to work in a groups of five to write about the change of the story

+ Gives some suggestions: The girl may want to find out the boy to returnthe money and say sorry

+ Aks students to present the ending of the story that they want to change.Students: Work in groups of 5 write about the change of the story

2.3 Summary writing

Example: Unit 1 – Friendship – Part A: Reading

After you read

First, work in pairs to identify the main points of the reading, then workindividually to put these into sentences about the quality of a good friend

Teacher: Asks students to work in pairs to discuss the qualities of a good friend.Then tell them to write about those qualities

Students: + Work in pairs to discuss about the qualities of a good friend

+ Work individually to write about the qualities of a good friend

2.4 Chain game

Example: Unit 4 – Volunteer work –Part A- Reading.

After you read: Work in groups Write about the reasons why people do

volunteer work

Teacher: Asks students to prepare pieces of paper, sit in a circle of a group offive The teacher tells students to write reason why people do volunteer work inturn

Students: + Prepare pieces of paper

+ Work in groups of five Student 1 has to write down someinformation about the text Student 2 then rewrite that information and addssomething new Then student three rewrite both pieces of information and addstheir own This process continues until the group runs out of ideas a.bout thereasons why people do volunteer work

2.5 Unscramble and write sentences – The teacher takes a sentence and places

the words out of order The students then re-order the words into correctsentences An advanced version of this activity leaves out simple words likearticles and prepositions

Example: Unit 11 – Sources of energy – Part A: Reading