Developing supplementary reading materials to improve reading comprehension for grade 10th students at a high school in bac ninh province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* CAO THỊ THẮM DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY REA

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

CAO THỊ THẮM

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING MATERIALS

TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION

IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

( Phát triển tài liệu đọc nhằm nâng cao kĩ năng đọc cho học sinh lớp 10

tại một trường Trung học phổ thông ở Bắc Ninh )

M.A MINOR THESIS (Type I)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************

CAO THỊ THẮM

DEVELOPING SUPPLEMENTARY READING MATERIALS

TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION

FOR GRADE 10th STUDENTS AT A HIGH SCHOOL

IN BAC NINH PROVINCE

(Phát triển tài liệu đọc nhằm nâng cao kĩ năng đọc cho học sinh lớp 10

tại một trường Trung học phổ thông ở Bắc Ninh)

M.A MINOR THESIS (Type I)

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Vu Thi Thanh Nha, Ph.D

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor

Dr Vu Thi Thanh Nha who gave me a lot of valuable guidance, encouragements, criticisms and correction throughout my thesis writing

I am indebted to 40 students at Thuan Thanh 2 High School, who provided

me with lots of useful information via the questionnaires

My sincere thanks go to my family, my friends for their encouragement and support that help me to complete my work

ABSTRACT

This thesis reports the findings of an action research study to improve reading skill for grade 10 students at a high school in Bac Ninh province It attempts to find students‟ opinions of the current textbook, their difficulties in learning reading skill in order to provide suitable supplementary reading materials

to improve students‟ reading competence The data was collected via questionnaires with 40 students at a high school in Bac Ninh province, diagnostic and final test and classroom‟s observation The findings of this study have shown that most of the students find the reading texts in the current textbook interesting and relevant with suitable reading tasks However, they find it hard to improve their reading skills because they lacked reading strategies and suitable supplementary reading materials The research also gave some suggestions in suitable reading materials and reading strategies to help the students improve their reading comprehension Surprisingly, her students make great progress in reading skills after the

supplementation time

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS AND FIGURES viii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale for the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 1

1.3 Scope of the study 2

1.4 Significance of the study 2

1.5 Methods of the study 2

1.6 Design of the Thesis 2

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Definitions of reading, reading comprehension 4

2.1.1 Reading 4

2.1.2 Reading comprehension 5

2.2 Types of reading skills 6

2.3 Types of reading exercises 8

2.4 Factors involved in reading comprehension process of EFL learners 9

2.4.1 Language knowledge 9

2.4.2 Background knowledge 9

2.4.3 Motivation 10

2.4 4 Reading strategies 11

2.4.5 Reading materials 11

2.4.6 Regular reading practice 11

2.5 Material development in language teaching 12

2.5.1 Definition of language teaching materials and types of materials 12

2.5.2 Processes of materials development 12

2.6 Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills 15

2.7 Summary 18

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 Setting 19

3.2 The participants 19

3.3 The course book 20

3.4 Research Design 20

3.4.1 Diagnosing 23

3.4.2 Action planning 23

3.4.3 Taking action 24

3.4.4 Evaluating 25

3.4.5 Specifying learning 25

3.5 Data collection instruments 26

3.5.1 Dianogstic test và Final test 26

3.5.2 Questionnaire 26

3.5.3 Teacher’s observation 26

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28

4.1 Phrase 1: Diagnosing the Research topic 28

4.1.1 The result of the dianogstic test 28

4.1.2 The result of the survey questionaire 29

4.2 Phrase 2: The effects of using supplementary reading materials on improving students‟ reading comprehension 35

4.3 Phrase 3: Evaluate results 39

4.4.Phrase 4: Discussion 40

4.5 Findings 41

4.5.1 The students’ evaluation of the current text book for year tenth students Error! Bookmark not defined 4.5.2 The reasons for students’ low level of reading comprehension 42

4.5.3 The ways to use supplementary reading materials to improve students’

reading comprehension 42

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 45

1 Conclusion of the study 45

2 Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study 46

3 Suggestions for further study 46

REFERENCES 48 APPENDICES I

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

GCSE General cerificates of secondary

education EFL English as a foreign language

LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS AND FIGURES

Table 1: Exercises believed to be suitable to develop reading skills 8

Table 2: The result of the diagnostic test 28

Table 3: The students‟ opinion on level of difficulty, content and length of the reading texts in the textbook 29

Table 4: The teachers‟ and students‟ opinions on reading exercises 30

in the textbook 30

Table 5 : The frequency of doing reading practice outside the classtime 31

Table 6: The reasons for students‟ lack of reading practice 32

Table 7: The students‟ expectation of the supplementary reading materials 34

Chart 1: The kinds of exercises that students prefer 33

Chart 3: The result of Unit 7 36

Chart 3: Test score of dianogstic test và final test 39

Figure 1: Action research spiral (adapted from Kemmis, 1983) 22

Figure 2: Detailed Action Research Model (adapted from Susman, 1983) 23

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale for the study

Nowadays, English has become increasingly important as a means of global communication and a bridge to mankind‟s knowledge In the process of global integration, the teaching and learning English has become a great concern in Viet Nam Among the language skills, reading is at the core of language learning instruction It is reading that provides the foundation for success in language learning and academic learning

According to Carrell (1981, p.1), “reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a second foreign language” Reading involves the integration of various bottom-up and top-down skills in order to reach the goal of comprehension However, teaching and learning reading skill at high schools is still far from satisfactory for various reasons One reason why students in general and students at a high school in Bac Ninh province, in particular, cannot improve their reading skill is that there is not sufficient material which is suitable to their demand and their language ability and their lack of reading strategies Therefore, it is essential that the researcher develop reading materials and provide reading strategies to help 10th – form students at a high school in Bac Ninh province enhance their reading comprehension

1 2 Aims of the study

This study aims at improving the quality of learning English reading comprehension for 10th – form students at a high school in Bac Ninh province based

on learners‟ needs To achieve this aim, the study has to find answers to the following questions:

1 What is the students’opinion of the reading texts in the current used text book for grade 10 th students

2 Why did the students have difficulties in reading comprhension?

3 How can teachers use supplementary reading materials to help the students to improve their reading comprehension?

1.3 Scope of the study

To improve reading comprehension skills for 10th – form students at a high school in Bac Ninh province, the teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done However, in this study, the author only intends to

a brief overview of current situation of learning reading comprehension skills in the

10th – form students of a high school in Bac Ninh province to develop reading material that can be applied in learning reading comprehension skill so as to help

the students to become effective readers

1 4 Significance of the study

This study was carried out to design extra reading materials in order to develop students‟ reading comprehension skills Its findings hopefully would help the 10th-form students find out the suitable materials for improving their reading comprehension skills Regarding teachers, the study would raise their awareness concerning the topic and provide them with useful materials to better develop their learners‟ reading comprehension skills Finally, with regard to researchers, those who happen to share the same interest in the topic could certainly rely on this research to find reliable and useful information for their related studies in the future

1.5 Methods of the study

To achieve the aims mentioned above, the author used action research to find out the students‟ opinion of the currently used textbook and the problems that students face when learning English with a view to finding the solutions to their problems based on the results of survey questionnaire for the students, teacher‟s

observation sheets These will be discussed in detail in chapter 2, methodology

1.6 Design of the Thesis

The study consists of five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction – includes the rationale, aims, scope, significance and

methodology of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review – presents literature related to the study The focus of

this chapter is definitions of reading, reading comprehension, the place of reading

skill in teaching a foreign language, strategies for reading comprehension and problems in reading comprehension of English foreign language learners This part also mentions some criterion for developing comprehension materials

Chapter 3: Methodology - describes the participants, data collection procedures

and data collection instrument

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion - offers some major findings, some

suggestions for improving students‟ reading comprehension skills and a sample work for a reading lesson of the 10th-form students

Chapter 5: Conclusion - summarizes the main research points, points out the

limitation of the study and makes suggestions for further studies

1.7 Summary

The focus of this chapter has been on introduction of the research It has clearly provided an overview of the study in terms of the statement of the problem and the rationale, the aims, the scope, the significance, the methodology of the study, and the design of the thesis

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses different issues in the theories of reading in a foreign language Three major features will be presented here: the definitions reading,

reading comprehension, reading in second language, and material development in language teaching

2.1 Definitions of reading, reading comprehension

2.1.1 Reading

Reading is often referred to as the most important of the four language skills for EFL learners, as it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and receive valuable linguistic input to build up language proficiency (Erten & Razı, 2003) Reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading It is seen as an active cognitive process in which the reader‟s background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney & Pearson, 1994) Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies

to determine what that meaning is So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to everyone

Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text

Having the same point with Goodman, William (1990, p.2) says that

“reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” Accordingly, in the reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking

and understanding Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depend

on the context in which it appears

One more definition offered by Harmer (1991, p.153) shows us his opinion and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages”

According to Richard and Thomas (1987, p.15), reading is best described as

“an understanding between the author and the reader Reading is much more than just pronouncing words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends; it is the process whereby the printed page stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual

In short, each person can have a different definition of reading and we cannot tell which is better because each of them focuses on one important matter of reading However, we find that there is a close relationship between reading and understanding Therefore, being a language teacher, we must understand the nature

of reading thoroughly to help our students read effectively

2.1.2 Reading comprehension

Reading comprehension skill plays a very important role in teaching and learning reading a foreign language It has the nature of communication, in which a reading activity acts as a means of communication between the writer and the reader

Reading comprehension results in the fact that when readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purpose Swan (1975, p.1) states that “a student is good

at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such

as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc

According to Grellet (1981, p.3) “Reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as

possible” The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims

at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way

To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most important part in reading teaching

2.2 Types of reading skills

- Skimming

Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important information Grellet,

F (1982, p.19) says “When skimming, we go through the reading materials quickly

in order to get the gist of it, to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the tone

or the mention of the writer”

Hedge, T (2000, p.195) points out that “skim reading is used to get a global impression of the content of a text An example would be previewing a long magazine article by reading rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing on headings and first lines of the paragraph”

To sum up, although expressing their ideas in different ways, both authors share the view that skimming is a process of reading in which readers go through the reading materials quickly so that they can get the main ideas of the reading materials

- Scanning

Scanning occurs when a reader looks quickly through the text searching for a specific piece of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose Hedge, T (2000, p.195) suggest that “Scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to find a specific point of information, for example, the relevant times

on a timetable, items in a directory, or key points in academic text” Scanning is the reading skill we use when we want to find the answer to a specific question Scanning is an useful reading skill that may at first strange to a learner who is used

to reading everything in foreign language with the same degree of attention

- Predicting

This is an important skill of efficient readers Predicting uses knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension as well as knowledge of the text type and purpose to make prediction about discourse structure Next, it uses knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing, style, vocabulary and content

- Inferencing

Inference means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the meaning of unknown elements If these are words, then word-formation and derivation will also play an important role When dealing with a new text, it is better not to explain the difficult words to the learners Students should be encouraged to make a guess at the meaning of the words they do not know rather than look up them in a dictionary If they need to look at the dictionary to get the meaning, they should only do so after having tried to work out a solution on their own Hence, it is very essential to develop the inference skill

- Critical thinking

Critical thinking involves determining the meaning and significance of what

is observed or expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precession, relevance, dept, significance and fairness

- Summarizing

Summarizing involves putting the main ideas into your own words, including only the main points Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material Effective summarizing leads to an increase

in student learning Summarizing helps students recognize how information is structured and it will help them summarize what they read or hear

2.3 Types of reading exercises

Grellet (1995) states that there are a number of exercise types focusing on the formal organization and the contents of the text to develop reading skills They are classified into four main types named: reading techniques, the form analysis of the text, the understanding of the meaning in the text, and the assessment of the text Among various exercises proposed by Grellet (1995 p.4-5), those are listed in Table

1 are believed to be used more often in reading tasks

Table 1: Exercises believed to be suitable to develop reading skills

Ordering sequences of pictures

Comparing texts and pictures Matching

Completing a document (table,chart )

Reordering events using tables

Comparing several texts:

note-taking Question- types;

Multiple choice True/Fasle Completing summary Completing sentences Finding errors

Deciding fact or opinion Finding writer‟s intention

The four types of exercises suggested in this book have served different purposes The first one relates to reading skills and strategies that play an important part in acquiring a basic reading competence The three other parts that follow aim at illustrating different ways of helping students reach a better understanding of a text, which start from overall comprehension (Function and organization of the passage), and then move towards a more detailed one (Understanding meaning) and end with some guidelines to help the students assess and evaluate what they have read

These exercise types are viewed as a guide for reading material designers to make their materials varied, technically distinguishing and appropriate to the teaching and learning reading skill

2.4 Factors involved in reading comprehension process of EFL learners

According to Duck and Pearson (2001), the elements that affect reading comprehension process include, language knowledge, background knowledge, motivation, reading strategies, the reading materials and the amount of reading practice

2.4.1 Language knowledge

It has been expected that readers must acquire language knowledge first before they can read in second and foreign language (Alderson, 2000) Word knowledge is the most important element for reading comprehension because readers cannot comprehend the sentence if they cannot attach the meaning of the word (Devine, 1986) Krashen and Terrell (1998) agree that a passage with may unfamiliar words causes difficulties in comprehension Alderson (2000), shares this view by adding that struggling to read because of unknown words will definitely have impact on reading pleasure and comprehension Therefore, the more vocabulary readers know, the better reading comprehension they will achieve

2.4.2 Background knowledge

Background knowledge and prior knowledge are generally used interchangeably For example, Stevens (1982) defines background knowledge quite

simply as what one already knows about a subject Dochy et al., (1995) provide an elaborate definition, describing prior knowledge as the whole of a person‟s knowledge, including explicit and tacit knowledge, metacognitive and conceptual knowledge As a matter of fact, readers use background knowledge to integrate new information from a text into their previous information The reader brings information, knowledge, emotion, and culture – that is schemata, to the printed word (Brown 2001) Reading is only incidentally visual More information is contributed by the reader than by the print on the page This indicates that our understanding of a text depends on how much related schema we, as readers, possess while reading Consequently, readers‟ failure or confusion to make sense of

a text is caused by their lack of appropriate schemata that can easily fit with the content of the text

or motivation to read may be the most important factor which has influence on reading comprehension (Krashen & Terrell, 1998) According to Grabe (2009), positive motivation is an integral part in reading development which stimulates comprehensions directly through greater amounts of extended reading Moreover, prior knowledge and reading strategies will become inactivated and useless if readers do not have motivation to read (O‟Donnell & Wood, 2004) Hence, it is de-motivation that leads to reading failure

2.4 4 Reading strategies

According to Oxford and Crookall (1989), strategies are considered as learning techniques, behaviors, problem solving or study skills which make learning more effective and efficient In fact, provided that readers acquired reading skills or strategies, they can process text efficiently (Alderson, 2000) Therefore, the lack of reading strategies is another problem causing difficulty in reading comprehension.In other words, it is an undeniable fact that readers will not have ability to surpass reading difficulties and reach comprehension without reading strategies

2.4.5 Reading materials

It is apparent that reading materials is an integral part in improving reading comprehension Tomlinson (1998) states that materials are a central feature for the achievement of successful language learning and they offer structure and consistency in the foreign language classroom It is through suitable reading materials that students widen their background knowledge and build up the knowledge of vocabulary and grammar for later use in reading process

2.4.6 Regular reading practice

The process of reading is the interaction between a reader and the text During the process, there are many things happening in the readers‟ mind when they read While they look at the print text, readers are decoding it, deciding what it means, how parts relate to each other, or to things they know, predicting what to come next, and expecting which purpose to read for In fact, the more reading a reader does, the more reading comprehension will improve According to Fielding and Pearson (1994), allocating ample time for actual text reading and ensuring that children are actually reading text during that time are among the teacher‟s most vital tasks in comprehension instruction Through extensive reading, students‟ vocabulary and

background knowledge improve, which results in improved comprehension

2.5 Material development in language teaching

2.5.1 Definition of language teaching materials and types of materials

According to Tomlinson (1998, p.2), “language teaching materials” are defined as anything which is used by teachers or learners to facilitate the learning of

a language In this sense, language teaching materials consists of not only course books or grammar books but also videos, CD-ROMS, cassettes, dictionaries, pictures, photocopied exercise

He categories language teaching materials into two types: published materials and prepared materials Crawford (2002) shares the same point of view on talking about classification of materials that there are two different types of materials: pre-prepared and self-prepared materials

According to Tomlinson (1998), materials have always been considered as the only way to supply enriched input in the language classroom, but nowadays, there are many changes relating methodological and other theoretical trends Therefore, Course books, because of their universal nature, cannot fit all circumstances As a result, teachers should be helped to develop the reflecting, analyzing and evaluating powers to create successful lessons for all the students, needs and personalities there could be in any given situation

2.5 2 Processes of materials development

Tomlinson (1998) also asserts that materials development refers to anything which is done by writers, teachers or learners to provide sources of language input and to exploit these sources in ways which maximize the likelihood of the intake Therefore, language teachers become materials developers with the aims to promote language learning There are two steps of the process of materials development mentioned: materials evaluation and materials adaptation

2.5.2.1 Materials evaluation

It cannot be denied that the evaluation of materials plays an important part in the process of language learning and teaching It is materials evaluation that helps language teachers to identify specific strengths and weaknesses of the material in

use Therefore, EFL teachers need to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials as well

Materials evaluation is defined differently by different authors According to Hutchinson and Waters (1993, p 96), evaluation is defined as really a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose “Given a certain need, and

in the light of the resources available, which out of number of possibilities can represent the best solution? There is no absolute good or bad- only degree of fitness for the required purpose”

Brown (1995, p 218) expresses different viewpoint on defining evaluation

As far as he is concerned, “Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum, and access it effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the participants‟ attitudes within the context of the particular institutions involved” This definition requires that information be gathered and analyzed in a systematic manner and that only relevant information should be included

Nunan (1998) states that evaluation is “a process not a final product” that means it takes place at any time of the material design The first emphasis of evaluation is to determine whether the goals and objectives of s language program are being gained

From the above definitions, it can be inferred that materials involve the determination of the objectives and requirements for the materials, and the judgments of the value of the materials being evaluated in relation to the objectives and requirements determined

2.5.2.2 Types of materials evaluation

When talking about types of materials evaluations, Tomlinson (1998) classified materials evaluation into three types namely pre-use evaluation, while- use evaluation and post-use evaluation

Pre-use evaluation is a process of making predictions about the potentials value of materials for their uses In fact, it is making an evaluation criterion-

referenced that can reduce subjectivity and can certainly help to make an evaluation more principled, rigorous, systematic and reliable

While-use evaluation involves measuring the value of materials while using them or while observing them being used It can measure short-term memory through observing learner performance on exercise but it cannot measure durable and effective learning because of the delayed effect of instruction

Post- use evaluation is probably the most valuable type of evaluation because it can measure the actual effects of the materials on the users It can measure short-term effect as regards motivation, impact, achievability, instant learning, etc., Post-use evaluation can measure the long-term effects as regards durable learning and application

2.5.2.3 Criteria for material evaluation

Criteria for materials evaluation is one of the most important issues that evaluators must take into consideration before any evaluation can take place Criteria for materials evaluation depend on what is being evaluated and why they need to be evaluated (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998)

Sheldon (1998) suggests a wide range of criteria to be used to evaluate almost all aspect of materials The criteria which is given by Sheldon consists of rationale, availability, user definition, layout, accessibility, linkage, selection/grading, physical characteristics, authenticity, sufficiency, cultural bias, educational validity, stimulus/ practice/ revision, flexibility, guidance, and overall value for money

However, reading materials is the major concern of the study, therefore, a checklist for evaluation of reading texts suggested by Hutchinson and Waters (1993) will be specifically stated as follows

- Offer exercises for understanding of plain sense and implied meaning

- Relate reading passages to the learners‟ background

- Select passages within the vocabulary range of the pupils

- Select passages reflecting a variety of styles of contemporary English

2.6 Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills

2.6.1 Definition of supplementary materials

Tomlinson (1998, p.2) proposes several basic terms in which materials are defined as “anything which is used to help teach language learner Materials can be

in forms of a textbook, a workbook, a cassette, a CD, a photocopied handout, a newspaper, a paragraph written on a whiteboard, anything which represents or informs about the language being learned”

Tomlinson (1998, p.2) also defines the term “supplementary materials” as follows: “materials designed to be used in addition to the core materials of a course They are usually related to the development of skills of reading, writing, listening or speaking rather than to the learning of language items”

2.6.2 Criteria for selecting supplementary materials

It is obvious that materials play a crucial role in language teaching, so selection of criteria of extra materials should be considered carefully

According to Nuttall (1996, p 170), there are three major criteria influencing the selection of texts: suitability of the content, exploitability and readability In his point of view, suitability of the content means the text‟s ability to address the student‟s needs and the course‟s objectives Reading texts should interest the readers

by providing new interesting information that suit the course‟s objectives A text with interesting content makes the learners‟ task far more rewarding and the classroom more effective This requires the teachers of English to find out what their students like reading and select text for classroom study Some classroom texts should represent the kinds of materials students need to handle after they leave the foreign language class It is better to begin on materials chosen chiefly for enjoyment

Exploitability means facilitation of learning When you exploit the text, you can make use of it to develop the students‟ competence as readers A text which cannot be exploited is no use for teaching even if the students enjoy reading it Therefore, different kinds of tasks should be designed to best exploit the text so that the course‟s objectives could be obtained Also, the focus in the reading lesson is

neither language nor content, but the two together An ideal reader would be able to extract the content from any text at all If the reader exploits the text effectively, he/she will develop his/her strategies that can be applied to other texts

Readability refers to the combination of structural and lexical difficulty That means the text must be suitable with students‟ English proficiency levels in terms of vocabulary, syntax and style The teacher must know what their students‟ language proficiencies are to find out what vocabulary and structures the students are familiar with so as to choose texts at the right level and balancing different level of proficiencies If the students have varied backgrounds, a period of trial and error is unavoidable However, a series of cloze tests can give you an idea of their level Once you know the students‟ vocabulary level, you can count the new lexical items (words or phrases) in a text, including new uses of familiar words and new idiomatic combinations Then you have to decide what proportion of new items is acceptable This partly depends on the purpose: if you only want students to get the gist of a text, they can skip unfamiliar words, on the other hand, for intensive reading which is slow and careful anyway It may be acceptable to have quite a lot

of new words The nature of new items, and whether they are well spread out, is also relevant

2.6.3 How to use supplementary materials

Material adaptation

Material adaptation is considered as one of the two important issues in the process of materials development As the materials have been evaluated, potential problem areas can be identified: What the materials offer cannot be exactly what our learners‟ need; the material methodology may not match our own; the general aims may not be suitable with the aims of the materials; the aims of a specific unit in the materials may not match our lesson We have to select, make changes to materials so

as to improve them to make them more suitable for a particular type of learners

There are five major ways of adapting materials:

Adding

The notion of addition is that materials are supplemented by putting more into them, while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation First, we can certainly add in this quantitative way by the technique of extending “This means that the techniques are being applied within the methodological framework

of the original materials: in other words, the model is not itself changed” (Mc Dough & Shaw, 1993, p 89) We can do this in the following situation: A second reading passage parallel to the one provided is helpful in reinforcing the key linguistic features- tenses, sentence structures, vocabulary, cohesive devices – of the first text Second, more far-reaching perspective on addition of materials can be termed expanding This kind of addition is not just extension of an existing aspect

of content They go further than this by bringing about a qualitative as well as a quantitative change… This can be thought of as a change in the overall system” (McDonough & Shaw, 1993, p 90)

Deleting or Omitting

Deletion is clearly the apposite process to that of addition As we saw in the previous section that materials can be added both quantitatively (extending) and qualitatively (expanding), the same point applies when a decision is taken to omit materials The most straightforward aspect of reducing the length of materials is subtracting

Addition and deletion often work together Material may be taken out and then replaced with something else The methodological change is greater when, for example, grammar practice is substituted after the omission of an inappropriate communicative function, or when a reading text is replaced by a listening passage

Modifying

Modifying‟ can be sub-divided under two related headings The first of these

is rewriting, when some of the linguistic content needs modification, the second is restructuring, which applies to classroom management

Re-ordering

This procedure refers to the possibility of putting the parts of a course book

in a different order This may mean adjusting the sequence of presentation within a unit, or taking units in a different sequence from that originally intended

Secondly, theory of material development has been given so as to provide not only useful way to evaluate the currently-used textbook but also the criteria to help teachers and learners of language develop suitable reading materials

In the next chapter, the researcher describes the background to the study, instrument and procedure of data collection The findings of the research will be presented clearly under the light of the above theories

Although English is a compulsory subject in the GCSE test, most of the students

do not pay much attention to learning English The average score in English test in the yearly GCSE test is quite low (about 3,9 per student)

In the 2018-2019 academic year, the researcher has taken charge of two classes

of grade 10th students Most of the researchers‟ students choose English, Maths and Literature as their main subjects In this school year, it is the second time, the new set of textbook for grade 10th students has been used at this school

3.2 The participants

The subjects of the study were 40 students coming from class 10A8 at a high

school in Bac Ninh province, all of them were born in 2003, and they are both male, and female Most of them have already learned English for 6 years at primary

school and lower secondary school and they choose English, Maths and Literature

as their main subjects to get permission to a university, but many of them are at the low level of English proficiency Another fact is that most of the students are from rural areas in Bac Ninh province Consequently, they have little chance to practice

their English outside class time, which makes their knowledge of English still poor and limited

3.3 The course book

The course book is the new text book by author Hoang Van Van, published

by Vietnam education publisher It consists of ten units and four reviews Each unit includes eight parts: Getting started, Vocabulary and grammar, reading, speaking, listening, writing, communication and culture, looking back Each part

is taught in 45 minute in class At the end of the academic year, students are supposed to take the achievement test to evaluate how their language proficiency improves There are two big tests (Final 1st term test and final 2nd term test) designed for this book and followed by many progress tests (summative tests, vocabulary tests, and grammar tests)

After observing in the first semester, the researcher realizes that 10th – form students of class 10A8 at this school are getting some troubles with reading skill Most of the students are afraid of doing reading tasks and their reading comprehension is at low level

With the above setting, the researcher expects to intervene with a new way of providing reading materials to see whether students of class 10A8‟ reading skill can

be improved as expected

3.4 Research Design

Action research design was selected in this study According to Burns (2009, p.2) “Action research is part of a broad movement that has been going on in education generally for some time It is related to the ideas of “reflective practice” and “the teacher as researcher” Action research involves taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approach to exploring your own teaching contexts” Moreover, according to Mettetal (2001), Classroom Action Research is a research designed to assist teachers in figuring out what is happening in his or her classroom, and then make use of that information to make changes for the future The selection

of action research may have a significant contribution to improving students‟

performance and even suggest open-ended outcomes Moreover, action research can promote “teachers‟ growth as an empowered professional”, “teachers‟ confidence in their teaching ability”, and their “problem-solving skills as well” (Briscoe and Wells, 2002, p 429) In particular, when being engaged in action research, teachers can be more aware of the gaps between their beliefs and practices and of what their pupils are thinking, feeling, and learning

An action research was applied to this current study with the teacher as the researcher Action research is a suitable chosen research method for the study for some reasons First, learning and teaching reading skill and improving students‟ reading comprehension have noticeably concerned both educational people and students Second, action research is often carried out both outside the classroom and inside the classroom Hence, that is very suitable for the current setting of the study Third, action research is aimed at changing things as well as suggest a reference source for other research From the findings of the effects of using supplementary materials to develop students‟ reading comprehension skill, some constructive suggestions will be given so that teachers can facilitate students‟ reading skill The below diagram illustrates the phrases of action research

Figure 1: Action research spiral (adapted from Kemmis, 1983)

Adapted from Kemmis (1983), the figure outlines the four steps in action, the movement from one critical phrase to another, and the way in which progress may

be made through the system It can be seen clearly that in an action research, the researcher does not stop after getting the result from his actions He must evaluate the effectiveness of his actions as well as the limitations of the methods After that,

he should revise the plan, make some changes and implement it again to get better result These stages are not separate but are embedded within action and reflection The below diagram demonstrates the action research model

Figure 2: Detailed Action Research Model (adapted from Susman, 1983)

Figure 2 presents detailed action research model, according to Susman (1983), the five steps in this model can be described as follows:

3.4.1 Diagnosing

In light of the model, the study started when the researcher realizes that there

is a need to improve reading skill for 10th – form students of class 10A8 at a high school in Bac Ninh province In other words, step 1 was implemented to figure out the problem The demand for supplementary materials in order to help students improve their reading skill was identified and then investigated

3.4.2 Action planning

In this step, the researcher did a literature search before beginning the action research The literature review allowed the researcher to strengthen the validity of the research by giving the theoretical framework for future findings

After having a quite clear literature review, the researcher refined the question for the research Participants of the study were 10th – form students of class 10A8 at

a high school in Bac Ninh province and the material is the current use text book for

10th – form students published by Vietnam education publisher

3.4.3 Taking action

Firstly, in order to measure students‟ comprehension level prior to the treatment, 10th – form students of class 10A8 at Thuan Thanh 2 High School took the pre-test within 15 minutes (APPENDIX 4), the teacher marked the pre-test, classified the scores into different levels of students and kept the result for later usage

After that, the researcher delivered the survey (APPENDIX 1) in order to find out students‟ opinions of the currently used text book and their difficulties in improving their reading comprehension

The intervening program lasted 8 weeks (2 months) The researcher based on the students‟ opinions of the currently-used textbook and their difficulties in learning reading skill to design supplementary materials (APPENDIX 3) for practicing reading skill in targeted units (Unit 7,8,9 ) The researcher followed the the basic content of each reading lesson in the textbook However, in this program,

in order to improve students reading comprehension, students are required to do supplementary materials with the same topic at home every day The detailed plan and activities are mentioned below

- Firstly, the researcher asked her students to read about that topic in their mother tongue so that they could get necessary background knowledge for their reading topic

- Secondly, the researcher taught the first two parts of this unit with a view to providing students with necessary vocabulary and grammar structure to understand the reading passage (APPENDIX 2)

- Thirdly, the researcher taught reading lesson in the text book so that she could suppy necessary strategies for her students to improve reading skill (APPENDIX 2)

- Last but not least, the researcher designed her own supplementary reading materials on the same topic for her students to do daily reading practice at

home with different types of reading comprehension questions, after that she would collect and mark the supplementary reading papers every day and then analyse the students‟ result base on types of reading comprehension questions with an aim of observing whether her students made any progress with the help of the supplementary reading materials (APPENDIX 5)

3.4.4 Evaluating

The results were analyzed in step 4 About the quantitative data, the analysis was carried out after 40 students of class 10A8 did the final test at the end of the project Students‟ scores of the two tests: pre-test and post-test were categorized and then analyzed The results of both diagnostic test and final test were analyzed to figure out to what extent the supplementary materials contribute to learner‟s results The researcher took a close look at the descriptive statistics among three different levels of students to see which group make better progress

With qualitative data, the researcher based on the observational data to make comment on students‟ progress during and after the intervening program The researcher focused on the students‟ improvement in terms of reading speed, reading comprehension ability and their interest in doing reading practice

The researcher analyzes the data to find out the consequences of a taken action Specifying learning: The researcher presents the general findings, what can be solved and what remains problematic, from which he adjusts the plans to act again Another cycle in an action research begins

3.4.5 Specifying learning

Finally, in step 5, the study was summed up, how using supplementary materials helps to improve learners‟ reading comprehension was stated

3.5 Data collection instruments

The data for the study was collected by three techniques: the diagnostic test and final test, observations, questionnaire for students

3.5.1 Dianogstic test và Final test

In order to obtain the necessary information to diagnose the problem, a diagnostic test will be used This instrument will be used to obtain data related to reading comprehension of students

At the end of the intervention process, the researcher will apply the final test with a view to collect data about reading comprehension of students, and then make the comparision between the two tests in order to find out the differences after the intervention process

3.5.2 Questionnaire

The author used survey questionnaire as another source because it is one of the most effective instruments for collecting data in research According to Gillham (2000), using questionnaire has some advantages, such as less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of interview bias and analysis of answers is straightforward One set of questionnaire was designed to collect students‟ opinion

of the reading texts, the exercises and the topic listed in the textbook and the reason why students at her school are at low-level of reading comprehension skill and their expectation of the supplementary materials

The questionnaire for students include 6 questions Question 1,2 are designed

to find out the students‟ opinion of reading activities in the text book Question 3,4 aim at figuring out the reasons why students‟ reading comprehension is poor Question 5,6 are to find out the ways to adapt a suitable material set which is better suited to their reading context

3.5.3 Teacher’s observation

In addition, the author also uses class observation as one source of data During the time of doing research, the researcher will observe her students to see whether they make progress or not when she applies the supplementary materials in her lessons base

on students‟ correct answer in terms of overview reading questions, reference questions, inference questions, vocabulary in context questions, and students‟ attitude when doing extra reading practice

3.6 Summary

In this chapter, the researcher has tried to describe the context of the study, the method of the study, data collection procedures and data collection instruments which help to find out the result of the study

Firstly, the context of teaching and learning English at Thuan Thanh 2 High School has been specifically described, which helps provide overall information for the study

Secondly, it is action research that is mainly used in the study as a fundamental method to help researcher improve the current state of education at her school

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter will present the findings from the study Data were presented according to the action research cycle, followed by a discussion and further research

is raised in the following parts of the study

Data analysis

4.1 Phrase 1: Diagnosing the Research topic

After the first term of the academic year, the researcher is really worried because of the fact that most of her students get bad marks in the end of the first term test She concerns the way to help improve her students performance in English test In order

to know more about her students reading ability, she asked them to do the diagnostic test The test was applied the second week of the second term Each student was asked to read a short reading passage (APPENDIX 4) to answer the comprehension questions

4.1.1 The result of the dianogstic test

After asking her students to do the dianogstic test with 10 different questions, the author marked and classified the results into four different scales Good students are students who get more than eight correct answers, pretty good students are students who get seven or eight correct answers, average students are those who get from 5

to 6 correct answers and below average students are those who get lower than 5 corrects answers

The following table shows how the students responded to the diagnostic test applied into the researcher English class

Table 1: The result of the diagnostic test

From the table above, we can see that 2 students (5%) are in the scale of good one,

10 of them (25%) are in pretty good, 25 (62,5%) are average and 3 (7,5%) are below average, which means that most of the students are in a very low level of comprehension

4.1.2 The result of the survey questionaire

After, analysing the result of the diagnostic test, the researcher decided to do

a servey (APPENDIX 1) to have deeper understanding of students‟ opinion of the reading text in the currently-used text book, the reasons why students have poor reading comprehension performance, and their expectation of the supplementary reading materials

4.1.2.1 The students’ opinions of the current text book for grade 10 th

students

Question 1 is to investigate the teachers‟ and students‟ evaluation on level of language difficulty, content and length of reading texts in the currently-used text book for year tenth students

Table 2: The students’ opinions on level of difficulty, content and length of the

reading texts in the textbook

a.Level of difficulty

+) too difficult +) too easy +) relevant

72,5%

0 % 72,5%

27,5%

c Length of the reading texts

+) too long +) too short +) relevant

27,5%

10 % 62,5%

As illustrated in the above table, the majority of the students say that the current text book is not easy 77, 5% of the students think that the reading text in the text book is too difficult Only 10 % of the students claim that the textbook is too easy And the percentage students think that the text book is relevant to the students proficiency is 12,5% The reason for various evaluations of students on the level of difficulty is that the students‟ language competence is different

Also, when being asked to give evaluation on the content of the reading text, 72,5 % of the students claim that the textbook is interesting and familiar 27,5 % of the students asked say that the content of the textbook is unfamiliar It is noticeable that none of the students says that the content of the texts is boring

In terms of length of the reading texts, 62,5% of the students‟ state that the length of the reading texts is relevant The percentage of the students who propose that the reading texts are quite long is 25 %

From above analysis, the researcher can come to conclusion that most students find the reading texts difficult but interesting and of appropriate length

Table 4: Students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook