improving students’ reading skill by planning plentiful activities in reading lesson

The roles of teaching reading skill Before I give some practical suggestions on how to develop thereading skills of our students, I would like to emphasize the importance ofhaving well d

Page

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 2

I Reasons for choosing the research………2

II Aims of the research………2

III Scope, objects and researching methods……….… 2

PART 2: CONTENT……… … 3

3 I The theoretical basis of the study …… ……….… 3

1 The roles of teaching reading skill ……… …3

2 What affects students’ reading skill? 3

II The states of teaching and learning English at secondary schools… 3

III The solutions for effective lessons……… ……….…… 4 1 Tips to develop reading skill………4

2 Teaching reading skill……… 4

3 Using some other methods to improve students’ reading skill…….…10

IV Example lessons………12 V The result of the study……… 17

PART 3 CONCLUSION……… 18

References ……… ………19

PART 1: INTRODUCTION I

REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE RESEARCH

English is known as the worldwide spoken language nowadays andalmost all of the people need to know this language so as to communicateand integrate Therefore, English is a compulsory subject applied acrossthe whole higher educational system in Vietnam

While learning English students have lots of difficulties and have nopatience in pronunciation, learning vocabulary, grammar and so on In fourskills: listening skill, speaking skill, reading skill and writing skill, readingskill often makes students lose their patience most , especially for students

in grade 8 and grade 9 As a teacher of English I recognize that teachingreading skill, a receptive skill is particularly important because a readingtext can be a model for writing Therefore, we are need to be good atmaking questions with different levels of understanding and ourresponsibility is to teach students how to ask questions before , during andafter they read the text Reading is a receptive skill When we read we areable to understand written language in books, letters, etc However, toteach a reading lesson effectively and successfully, it’s important for theteacher to give clear instructions As a result I decided to focus this thesis

on teaching reading skill The topic is “improving students’ reading skill

by planning plentiful activities in reading lessons”.

II AIMS OF THE RESEARCH

With the reasons above in my mind, the specific aim of the researchaccordingly are:

1 To help the students improve their reading skills

2 To encourage the students to use the language they’ve learnt to solvethe communicative tasks

3 To encourage the students to be interested in learning English

III SCOPE, OBJECT AND RESEARCHING METHOD

1 Scop: Researching in the process of teaching English at my school.

2 Object: This subject is concerned with ways of using different questions

in reading

3 Researching method: Reading reference books , discussing with other

teachers, applying in teaching, observing and drawing out experiences

PART 2: CONTENTS

I THEORITICAL BASIS OF THE STUDY:

1 The roles of teaching reading skill

Before I give some practical suggestions on how to develop thereading skills of our students, I would like to emphasize the importance ofhaving well developed reading skills and why they should be constantlydeveloped Reading skill is one of the most important and necessary skill

in teaching and learning a language at secondary school In an Englishlesson, students read to get information and check the data to find out thecorrect answers, if they can’t find the answers that means they find itdifficult to get knowledge and remember the information long

Students also save lots of information by being taught writing or inbooks, newspapers and so on Therefore, reading can be improvedanywhere and at any time Thus, teachers must create different questions tohave effective lesson, as well as encourage students to study English better.Teaching students to read an English test skillfully is difficult formany students, especially for students who are in different levels Being ateacher I think we should give lots of activities in reading lessons in order

to consolidate the previous activities such as listening and writing

In a communicative lesson, teaching reading is more necessary with plentiful types of contents connecting to students’ daily life so

students will be interested in these activities and they will be encouraged

to learn better

2 What affects students’ reading skill?

During the reading lessons as well as an English lesson, there are some factors affect students’ reading skill

- Students find it difficult in generalize the knowledge so they need to be taught carefully to improve their reading skill

- Students often react inactively to the text with lots of new words and new structures

- Students tend to try to understand a new language rather than read an old text

- Teachers can guess the difficulties students may have when they read

an unfamiliar passage

- Students’ experience often changes when they are at different ages

- Students’ ability in reasoning, speaking, the knowledge of phrases,sentences, sound as well as other definitions affect actively students’success

II THE STATES OF TEACHING AND LEARING ENGLISH AT A SECONDARY SCHOOL.

1 For teachers:

As we know, the amount of the knowledge in English books is toobig, especially in the reading lesson The topics are diversified and

3

plentiful that is the reason why many teachers have difficulties in planningand organizing the lessons effectively Because:

- the number of students in a class is too big

- the different levels among students

- The supplying and practicing new structures and vocabulary are not easy with students, especially bad students

- there is not enough time to use warm- up questions That is the reason why teachers aren’t able to know students’ real ability

2 For students:

Changing the teaching methods means students are the central of thelessons and the effect of the lessons depends on students’ ability, theiractiveness and initiative During the reading lesson, students may havesome limitations Such as:

- Students read the text and try to translate word by word into

Vietnamese

- Students pay attention too much to minor points and lose important ones

- Students’ vocabulary is not enough so they can’t get the main ideas

- Most students don’t understand the importance of learning Englishthese days Therefore, they are not willing in their studying Moreover,their awareness of self- education is low

- Students’ knowledge about the surroundings is limited

- Reading lessons are not usually as interesting as other ones

These are the main reasons that I decide to find the solutions to

improve students’ reading skill

III THE SOLUTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE RERADING

LESSONS 1 Tips to develop the reading skill

I will try to simplify and outline certain tips that students can be reminded of:

- Every reading activity must have a clearly stated aim You should know why you are reading, and what’s the purpose

- In order to understand the aim of the reading more easily, the purpose orthe aim should be embodied in a follow up activity provided by theinstructor

- Students must be aware of the reading techniques and know which onethey should use in order to complete the task depending on the type of textand the aim/follow-up activity

- In order to help students to develop their reading skill effectively, we first distinguish simple reading skills used in teaching foreign language

2 Teaching reading skills

2.1 Types of reading:

- Skimming is a reading technique that provides understanding of the

whole text without reading it from word to word It involves discovering the main ideas of a text by reading first and last paragraphs and topic

sentences, and paying attention to other details on the page like titles, bold type or italics, photograph captions, etc

- Scanning is a type of reading that students uses to find specific

information without reading the whole text It involves looking down andaround a page quickly and efficiently searching for important words,

facts or phrases to find specific information When scanning a text,

students should use peripheral vision and shouldn’t focus only on the logical flow of the text

- Reading to study

Its aim is to understand the material in depth The method involves

five simple steps; Survey, Question, Read, Recall and Review

+ Survey: skim through to gain an overview and not key points

+ Question: devise questions you hope the text will answer

+ Read: slowly and carefully

+ Recall: from memory, write down the main points made by the chapter.+ Review: revisit your questions - compare these to your recall and

establish how well the text has answered them; fill in any gaps by

further reading and note-taking

2.2 Activities in a reading lesson:

• Each reading activity should be preceded by a warm-up activity

relevant to the type of text and the follow-up activity or the aim of

the reading

• We can introduce the topic, ask opinion, check background knowledge

on the topic;

• We can ask a question connected to the main idea, elicit possible

answers from students;

• they can predict the content of the text (from the title, photo, key

word(s) provided by the instructor);

• the reading can also be based on the previous lecture, and used as

revision, so the students will be familiar with the content

• Provide clear instructions Assign time for completion of the task

Monitor At the end of the task, leave enough time for checking the

answers, feedback, comments, questions

• Putting paragraphs in order: Cut the text in meaningful paragraphs (one A4 page cut into no more than five paragraphs and not less than 3)

Distribute the same paragraphs to all groups of students or if the text is bigger, We can give different parts of the text to each group, and then ask them to connect the whole text between groups

2.2.1 Pre- reading activities:

In this activity teachers should introduce the general ideas of the text Using the knowledge in the real life to ask students to guess the

content of the text by asking warming up questions If the reading is a dialogue , we can ask students some questions about the place, the

number of people in the dialogue If it is a passage, we can give student some information to lead students to the main points of the text

Furthermore, we can use the pictures in the textbook to help students

know the main ideas Some activities include:

- warm up

- set the scene

- explain the new words

- suggest and lead students to the main ideas of the text

- Ask students to predict the content of the text

Teachers give some suggesting questions which usually show the newstructures through the text

Scanning skill is usually used in this activity

Example 1 : Unit 1-READ (page 9, 10) English 9

The teacher asks students before they read the text:

a Is Malaysia in Asia?

b How many parts (regions) are there?

c The Vietnamese unit of currency is “dong” What is Malaysia unit ofcurrency?

d What is the capital of Malaysia?

e How many religions are there?

f How many languages are spoken in Malaysia?

With these questions students can know what they are going to learnabout Moreover, we can match the knowledge of geography in teaching areading lesson to make it more interesting and can develop free- talking ofstudents who are not good at English As a result, we can help studentsunderstand the questions they are going to answer

Example 2: Unit 2-READ (page 17) English 9.

In the English book in grade 9, we can use some pictures to warm upstudents before they read the text For example, In unit 2- part Read wecan use the picture at page 17 and ask students some questions:

a What do they do?

b What are they wearing?

c Are they nice? handsome?

d Are jeans fashionable?

e Do you like jeans?

After students answer these questions we can ask some more questions to help students understand the text

open-f Do you know where and when jeans come from?

g What are they made of?

We can create true-false exercises

Example 3: Unit 3-READ (page 25) English 9.

T/F statements:

a Van is from the USA

b He is living with the Parkers

c Mr Parker is a farmer

d They have three children

e Van helps Mr Parker on the farm after school

This is the most common method many teachers use in reading lessons.However students may not develop other skills such as speaking skill andthey do not need the social knowledge

2.2.2 While-reading activities:

In this part activities are organized to help student to practicereading skills Some skills are applied in each exercise Students usuallyread with the full knowledge about the text and can answer all thequestions related to the text Moreover, students can get the importantideas of the text through reading They feel more confident to do theexercises However, we shouldn’t require students in grade 8 or 9 read thetext because the text may be long and have o lot of difficult words In thisactivity we should change the tasks more often We can divide the classinto some groups and each group has one task that depends on students’level

While teaching teachers ask some questions to guide students tounderstand the text, and we can know how each student can makeprogress We should encourage students to answer the questions whetherthe answer is correct or not Furthermore, we should organize work groupfor students to discuss the questions together By this way, all the students

in the class have to attend the activity and they can help each other Theform of the answer can be spoken one or written one Due to the text,teachers should make short questions so that students can understand thetext clearly

Some activities include:

- do the exercise while reading

- teachers change the way to analyze the contents of the text that depends

on the level of the text

- Students correct their exercises themselves

- Questions: Answer the Q, T/F statements, Multiple choice, Complete…,Gap fill, Mach, Choosing, Tick… etc…

Example 1 : English 8 – Unit 13: Festivals

Lesson: Reading.

Christmas is an important festival in many countries around the world There are four things which are special in Christmas eve Use the

information in the reading to complete the table

Christmas Specials Place of origin Date

Riga

Mid – 19 th centuryChristmas carols

USA

We can ask students in groups more about Christmas after they do theexercise about; Therefore, the lesson is more exciting and students have achange to discuss the text in English

Moreover, teachers can ask students to work in groups to tell some

festivals in Thanh Hoa such as Lam Kinh festival, Ba Trieu festival…

Example 2: Unit 5-READ (page 43, 44) English 9

We divide the class into 3 groups, each group read each passage about the internet and answer the questions

Group 1: Response # 1 Re

Read and answer these questions

a What does Sandra use the Internet for?

b Is the Internet convenient for her to get information?

c Can she communicate with her relatives by the

Internet? Group 2: Response # 2 Re

With these questions

a Does Hong Hoa live in the city?

b Is the Internet available in the countryside?

c Why is it difficult for Hong Hoa to get access to the

Internet? Group 3: Response # 3 Re

With these questions

a What do people use the Internet for?

b Are there bad programs and viruses on the Internet?

c Is it time-consuming and costly to use the Internet?

After 3 groups find the answer students can answer the questions in thetext book After that we continue to ask student to work in groups todiscuss the benefits and limitations of the internet through the lesson.Furthermore, students can use their knowledge in their life to add moreabout the advantages and limitations of the internet If we use thesemethod, we can help students improve their skills such as listening skill,reading skill and speaking skill, especially with reserved students

2.2.3 Post- reading activities:

- to check students’ knowledge, we should plan the lesson in differentsuitable ways

+ consolidated exercises

+ exercises connecting to the real life

+ transform the knowledge, the information

- Practicing: summarize, Interview, Discuss…

These days , students will attend some activities which are broadened tolearn about the text and improve some other skills These exercises are:

- Gap- filling

Example 1: : English 8 Unit 5: Study habits

Lesson: Read

After the lesson, teachers can ask some questions:

- Do you often learn words in one way?

- Do you have any other ways to learn words better?

- In your opinion, what is the way to learn word?

Example 2: Unit 1-READ (page 9, 10)- English 9

After students answer the questions we can hang on the board the

summary about what they have learnt for them to compare

Bahasa Malaysia English

Question table:

1 What is Malaysia’s area? It’s

329.758 sq km

2 What is its population?

3 What is its climate?

4 What is its unit of currency?

5 What is its capital city?

6 What is its official religion?

7 What is its National language?

8 What is its compulsory second language?