Some tricks teach reading comprehension skill for students at ha binh secondary school

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGHA TRUNG DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE SOME TRICKS TEACH READING COMPREHENSION SKILL FOR STUDENTS AT HABINH SEC

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HA TRUNG DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

SOME TRICKS TEACH READING COMPREHENSION SKILL FOR STUDENTS AT HABINH SECONDARY SCHOOL

Performed by: Nguyen Van Ban

Unit of work: Ha Binh Secondary School

Experience initiative in the subject: English

2.4 The effectiveness of experience initiatives for educational activities 14

1 INTRODUCTION.

1.1 The reason for choosing the topic.

Today, English plays an important role in the scientific and technicalrevolution It is an important language, commonly used worldwide and is used

in different fields In the national construction, development and integration withthe world, English has become a communicative tool between all of the modernpeople, it is an important second language after their mother tongue In ourcountry, English is considered as the language of transaction in economics,politics, culture, and has been teaching at the elementary, secondary, college,university In process of learning English, we know more in another language,

a different culture and also more love Vietnamese and Vietnamese culture Touse English as a language of communication, we not only need to master therules of grammar, have good listening skills, have knowledge of the languagebut also to have a number of diversified, rich lexical English is increasinglyattracting the attention of many people and all ages The catch is that demand,the 2005 education law stipulated "Educational methods have to promote apositive, self- discipline, initiative, thinking and creativity of students, fosteringthe self-study ability, practical ability, passion for learning” [1]

In the process of practical teaching in Ha Binh secondary school, I findthe students difficult to approach an English reading comprehension Becausethe final purpose of teaching English reading comprehension is after each classand course, students can be self-confident to read the readings related to theirfamiliar topics and limit the dictionary if possible The purpose of teaching thisreading comprehension is entirely suitable for the direction: “Learner is thecenter of teaching of foreign languages and communication method” [2]

That method is not new for most foreign language teachers, although inpractice, the application of this method is not always easy and achieves thedesired result English, which is used in various fields, is a language of greatimportance and popularity all over the world With the orientation of globalintegration, Vietnam has developed its potentials of all areas

Therefore, communication has become an effective tool with aprerequisite strength In addition to the mother tongue, English has beenconsidered by Vietnamese as the second communication language and an officialsubject in schools, even Primary schools Nowadays, once English hasconfirmed its role and importance, improving the quality of teaching andlearning is the most significant issue Book replacement program with litany ofEnglish teaching and learning methods has come up with an emerging question:

“How to help students gain all the knowledge and utilize skillfully?” As we mayknow, English is simply one of school subjects However, to use this languageskillfully, learner should practice four basic skills including listening, speaking,reading and writing Among the four skills, there is no doubt that listening andspeaking skills are considered as the main purpose of teaching and learning

a foreign language, in which speaking is practiced through listening activity andwriting is practiced via reading activity Reading is one of the basic skills, towhich attention is paid during foreign language teaching and learning because of

is determining role in evaluating whether learner understands the lesson or not

At grade 6, short and easy to understand lessons are introduced to students;however, the higher the grade is, the more difficult requirements on reading skillare In addition, lessons in curriculum for grade 8 and 9 are usually longer with alarge number of vocabularies, which is difficult for students to learn and forteacher to prepare lesson plans Therefore, teacher without a good teachingmethod shall not be able to complete all contents of the lesson To meet thesepractical requirements, each teacher should find himself an optimum teachingmethod which is suitable to specific student so as to arrive to high learningresults It is this issue as well as purpose that each teacher keeps concerning.Moreover, the improvements of teaching method and curriculum are always ofgreat concern of education sectors: “Teachers are always encouraged to giveinnovative teaching and learning methods, good and practical experienceinitiatives, and improved teaching tools and materials”[3] Above are the reasonswhy this topic is selected

1.2 Research purpose.

In fact, the teaching of reading is to help students develop the skills andunderstand documents, books and newspapers in English with the content inaccordance with specific qualifications and to help them gather information,raise the level of English and know more about the society When learners readthe native language, they have no difficulty in understanding the content butwhen learning English, they will encounter the grammatical structures andvocabulary Therefore, to help students learn how to read a textbook the best andthe most effective, which is my first concern From this fact, I have strongly

given teaching experience myself through “Some tricks teach reading

comprehension skill for students at Ha Binh Secondary School” I hope that

a number of these measures will contribute the solution and remove thedifficulties in the process of deep mining activities during teaching reading

1.3 Research subjects.

Audience research: Students in grade 7,8,9 at Ha Binh Secondary School

Scope of the study: Ha Binh Secondary School in the academic year 2016-2017

1.4 Research methodology.

- Method created situations, suggestive, student- focused

2 CONTENTS.

2.1 Theoretical foundation of the experience initiative.

Structure of a lesson in English teaching typically includes activities to

develop four skills: listening - speaking-reading-writing in a comprehensive way

and in the right direction If we look at the layout of each unit of study, we canclearly see the importance of reading comprehension part of the process ofteaching and learning English So teaching and learning English has not

achieved the desired results because reading comprehension is taught in thetraditional method: most of the time in the class, the teacher mainly teachesvocabulary, introduces grammatical structures, reads sample and correctspronunciation, grammar for students: “The focus on grammar, translation willprevent students from acquiring the knowledge of the language in a natural way,they do not have the opportunity to use the knowledge of their language Theseperiods are so extremely heavy and boring because students are only learntpassively and they have to acquire a large amount of knowledge aboutvocabulary and new grammar structures (due to the characteristics of readingcomprehension)” [4] Apart from the repetition and the imitation, most of themdon’t have a chance to think, recreate language in an active and creative way.Teaching a foreign language in general and English in particular is not toprovide students with knowledge but the ability to communicate with thelanguage Communication skills of students are expressed through skillsincluding listening, speaking, reading and writing English reading skill is built

up in a course of learning and practicing in English environment In addition toEnglish studying at school, students have to practice reading in different forms.Reading skill is the ability to utilize language knowledge into readingcomprehension in English

However, the English textbook mainly focuses on two main readings:read the main idea (Skimming gist) and read to get detailed information(Scanning for details) In fact, the readings in English textbook 8, 9 usually havequite a lot of new words and much more in an article, a story written in English

So the reader cannot both read and stop to look up new words, because he/shewill have to read again after each stop, they have the ability to remember thecontent of the reading This will take much time, not effective To introduce allthe new words of the reading, the teacher will not have time for activities todevelop reading comprehension skills In addition students are difficult toremember a large amount of words in such a short time, they will not readindependently without the guidance of the teacher

2.2 Real situation before applying the experience initiative.

After each lesson, teachers are often difficult to know how studentsunderstand the lesson and remember information more or less, the vocabularythey have been holding well or not Because of paying attention to the steps ofpractical reading and providing new words, the teachers have given lesspractical exercises to consolidate after reading Teachers don’t spend much timeresearching tricks and suggested procedures in order to encourage students to bevoluntary self-conscious, initiative and active to participate in training anddeveloping English reading comprehension skills Ha Binh secondary school is aschool in the countryside, so the implementation quality of English teaching andlearning is not high due to low resident’s qualification and awareness, pooreconomy, insufficient and asynchronous facilities Psychobiology of students:

afraid of learning, speak, making mistakes, embarrass with friends and teachers,some are lazy to study and do homework.

In spite of objective and subjective conditions directly affecting teaching,

we have overcome immediate difficulties and step by step improved quality ofEnglish reading lesson so as to meet the aims of textbook curriculum

For the teacher: Initially access and utilize typical reading comprehensionteaching techniques relatively well (reading technique), get familiar with and beactive in organizing a reading lesson session, coordinate flexibly teaching skills

in reading lessons, create many teaching materials in accordance with content oflearning lessons; therefore, the sessions become vivid and attractive with higheffectiveness, utilize and operate modern teaching equipment in reading lesson,such as cassette tape, DVD, cassette recorder, video reader and multi-purposeprojector It is still difficult for some teachers to implement teachingmanipulation and technique in reading lesson as well as to select suitabletechniques for specific teaching lesson and session They still hesitate to orunskillfully utilize teaching materials for reading lessons, such as cassette readerand demonstrating pictures For other teachers, the investment in lessonpreparation is still limited due to private issues In addition, they are afraid ofcreating a noisy, time-consuming and costly teaching session The instruction ofstudying at home is not suitable for specific student, which makes the teachingsession is not effective

For students, they are able to read and recognize content of the whole readingtext Most of the students are able of reading texts with simple content andcomplete tasks and exercise assigned by teacher after silent reading and aloudreading Some students have gained learning skills and tactics Students are lack

of motivation for English reading comprehension Many students do not havemany opportunities to study and access mass media information via which theycan listen and read English Some hesitate to read and speak in English or areafraid of making mistake Students are not familiar with English reading andspeaking speed in the tape or disk They remain passive habit; during team workthey rely on other member Words are produced timidly Many students have notfound their own English learning method Many others are not interested inreading books Therefore, by organizing activities, teacher should pay attention

to avoid student’s negative responds If this happens, teacher shall promptlycorrect and encourage as well as reward students so as to achieve positiverespond During one English period in class, students of Ha Binh secondaryschool are very active in exploring new knowledge Most of them are ebullientand enthusiastic in activities; however, this occurs among good students only.Comprehension of passages and dialogues is not easy for lower secondaryschool students because their vocabulary and grammar are not much

During my teaching process, I have been in charge of class 8 and grade 9.With the aims of studying the current situation of student’s English learning aswell as drawing lesson for myself, right from the beginning of the school-year, I

have oriented a specific plan and method to actively investigate the currentsituation of English learning of my students Findings of the investigationindicated that most of the students do not soundly understand vocabulary andtheir English reading and communication skills are still limited To achieve theabove-mentioned objectives, students should be trained all the four skillsincluding listening, speaking, reading and writing during their English learning.However, English curriculum at secondary school level concentrates on the twobasic skills only, which are speaking and writing The other two skills have notgained much attention; therefore, student’s learning performance is not high.

This issue is indicated by learning performance of students

in previous years and findings of the survey on student quality conducted

in some classes in terms of English subject early last school-year 2016)

number ty Qu ant i ty Qu ant i ty Qu ant i t n a u Q t n a u Q

Firstly: The teacher has to make lesson plan for a reading session.

To provide a good teaching session, teacher needs to implement thefollowing steps Studying content of the lesson in student textbook and teacher’sbook carefully is very important because it is a necessary base for teacher to set

up teaching plan for the lesson When teacher study textbook and teacher’s bookcarefully, he/she is able to organize and control the session on set with keypoints as well as to logically manage learning time and activities

Purpose and requirements of the session is the target that both teacher andstudent have to reach after the lesson For usual teaching session, purpose andrequirements are the practice and development of skills including listening,speaking, reading and writing of students (in which reading is the mostimportant skill) Finishing reading part and understanding main content of thereading text, students complete some language requirements or exercises

The selection of reading techniques is determined basing content of thelesson, students characteristics, strong points and weak points, acquired knowledgeand skills Questions in exercise are ordered from easy to difficult level Exercisesfor weak, fairly good, good and excellent students shall be separated Time should

be organized logically for the session and specific phases

during the reading lesson, which include pre – reading phase, while – readingphase and post – reading phase [5].

Teaching techniques are selected to be suitable with each phase such asutilization of teaching measures and tools for a reading lesson, utilization ofcassette reader

Before the lesson, good cassette reader, clear cassette tape, spare battery

in case of power off should be prepared Safety should be ensured duringmanipulation Students are absolutely not allowed to use the equipment withoutinstruction Necessity, effectiveness and timing for each step should beconsidered Utilization of demonstrating picture is used Visual channel intextbook is one of the strength of the innovative textbook composed under thenew curriculum: various demonstrating pictures However, it is the maximumutilization of these pictures to help student understand the lesson that needs to bepaid attention to

Other type of demonstrating picture: (handmade or collected) “Pictures tointroduce and practice new lesson is a must Requirement on high aestheticism

is not necessary but the pictures should be practical and close to lesson content

If these pictures are unaffordable, textbook illustrations can be zoomed andutilized as a visual aid” [6] A suitable and logical lesson plan shall be prepared.Activities of teacher and students, timing, requirements of each exercise andstudent’s answer options should be clearly set up Teaching methods should beexchanged and discussed Teachers suggest forms of reading comprehension foreach reading lesson Effectiveness of a reading session shall be promoted ifteaching methods are discussed among colleagues in advance This does notbring high quality performance to reading lessons but other skills

Comprehension questions: For this type of exercise, students should readthe reading text to get information and then answer questions These exercisesare often introduced in textbook with various forms, for example:

Yes/No questions (Answer the questions with Yes or No) or Wh –questions

Multiple choice: For this type of exercise, student shall read to getinformation and after that choose the most suitable answer among given options

Gap – fill: For this type of exercise, students shall get the information tofill in the blanks of sentences Words can be provided in advance (to weakstudents) by teachers or (excellent, good) students can use their own words tocomplete the exercise

Grids or Forms: For this type of exercise, teacher may ask students to readthe form in advance and then read the passage to complete the exercise

Matching: For this type of exercise, students read a passage to getinformation and complete the exercise by matching contents of column A tosuitable contents of column B

True – False statements: For this type of exercise, students read a passage

to get information and find sentences indicating whether the statements are true

or false Teacher may use supplement board to provide students with additionalinformation and ask them to guess right/wrong before reading Finish checkingstudent’s guessing, teacher request students to quote their answer from the textand may ask them to correct the wrong sentence.

Reorder sentences: For this type of exercise, students shall read a passage

to understand its content and reorder statements in wrong order in the exercisebelow so as to create a logical passage

Make summaries: After reading to get information, students summarizecontent of the reading text

Select a summary/a title

Find new words for old words: Students read and find synonymic orantonymic words or phrases in the text for given words or phrases

KWL (Knew – Want to know – Learn): For this form of exercise, studentshave the chance to develop their KWL learning method They can workindividually or in a group

Secondly: The teacher has to make a good reading comprehension teaching session.

Progress of a reading session also consists of 3 phases including Pre –Reading, while – Reading and Post – Reading This type of progress does nothelp student understand the lesson but apply reading skills in practical situationsalso However, the first issue that teacher should verify is to clearly definepurpose and requirement of specific reading lesson so as to provide orientationfor students to well implement tasks of the next phases

* Pre – Reading.

This phase provide students orientation and thoughts about the topic orsituation before they read In this phase, teacher shall introduce overview of thecoming topic and utilize data relating to students’ experience by activities Forexample, teacher gives implying questions to help students guess main content

of the reading text Teacher should provide open questions in accordance withthe order of event or reasoning in the text These questions express the mainstructure of reading text and are measures to help student guess its content,resulting in a more natural way of reading Main purpose of these warm-upactivities is to arouse student, direct student to focus on the topic and set thescene The first step of this phase is linguistic material introduction (Pre – teachvocabulary) “Tactics can be utilized in this step to introduce and teachvocabulary, grammar and structure that the teacher has studied such as eliciting,modeling, repetition, checking pronunciation, copying, checking stress, meaningsituation / explanation - example-synonym / antonym and translation”[11]…Teacher needs to select, analyze and eliminate to give lesson depending on level

of difficulty and necessity of the word for student’s reading and understanding aswell as reasonable number of new words to be introduced Words that arenecessary for student’s reading and understanding and suitable with their level ofperception should be taught carefully and actively If the words are necessary

but beyond student’s ability, passive method of teaching should be applied,which means teacher shall explain or give definition to students as soon aspossible If the words are unnecessary to understand the text and not toodifficult, students should be asked to guess their meaning in the text If thewords are neither necessary nor difficult, they can be omitted.

After finishing vocabulary part, teacher may organize activities to createthe needs, reasons and aims of reading and let student predict the text or giveexpectation Some pre-reading activities are mentioned below

Activity 1: Ordering statements that are not in order Students arerequested to read and reorder these statements with their understanding and afterthat open the book and check their prediction Number of statements may befrom 1 to 6

For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside

Lesson 4: ReadRearrange these sentences into the correct order [7]

1 Peter plays baseball

2 He will stay there till the beginning of

October 3- They have two children

4- He feeds the chickens and collects their eggs

5- The Parkers are nice so Van feels like a member of their family

6- Mrs Parker works part-time at a grocery store in a nearby town

Key: 2 -> 6 -> 3 -> 4 -> 1 -> 5

* Activity 2: Jigsaw dictation

Students are divided into small groups (6-7 students/group) Teacher shallcopy contents of the text (about 6-7 statements) and hand out one to eachstudent The students shall dictate each other in turn, then predict order of thesestatements and finally open the book to check

For example: English 7: Unit 7:

B The worker (B2 – Read) [8]

1- He usually starts work at six in the morning

2- Mr Tuan works in the fields with his brother

3- Mr Tuan rests and eats lunch

4- His work usually finishes at six

5- He goes to the city with his wife

* Activity 3: Ordering Pictures

Teacher prepares some pictures relating to the lesson content that studentsare going to read (These pictures can be simply created with stick lines) Thesepictures will be introduced and stick on the board without but not in order.Students are requested to look at them and reorder; after that, they open the book

to read and check

* Activity 4: Listening and drawing/Picture dictation