A survey of teachers’ use of post-reading activities at Hon Gai high school

Table 2: The post reading activities that teachers implement 19 Table 3: The difficulties encountered by the teachers when implementing post reading activities Table 6: The difficulties

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH

A SURVEY OF TEACHERS’ USE OF POST READING

ACTIVITIES AT HON GAI HIGH SCHOOL

KHẢO SÁT VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG

SAU BÀI ĐỌC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG HÒN GAI

M.A MINOR THESIS

Major: Methodology of English Teaching Code: 60.14.10

HANOI - 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH

A SURVEY OF TEACHERS’ USE OF POST READING

ACTIVITIES AT HON GAI HIGH SCHOOL

KHẢO SÁT VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG

SAU BÀI ĐỌC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRƯỜNG TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG HÒN GAI

M.A MINOR THESIS

Major: Methodology of English Teaching Code: 60.14.10

Supervisor: HOÀNG THỊ HỒNG HẢI, MA

HANOI - 2012

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Declaration i

Acknowledgement ii

Table of contents iii

List of figures and abbreviations vii

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale 1

5 Expected outcome and contributions of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

iv

3.3 The effectiveness when using post-reading

6.1.1 The frequency that teachers implement post-reading 17

6.2.1 The effectiveness of post-reading activities in students‘ thinking

24

6.2.1.1 The table shows the students‘ thinking about the effectiveness of post-reading activities

24

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1.1.3 What are difficulties encountered by students and teachers

when doing post-reading activities?

Table 2: The post reading activities that teachers implement 19

Table 3: The difficulties encountered by the teachers when

implementing post reading activities

Table 6: The difficulties encountered by students when participating

in post reading activities

29

Table 7: How students get overcome the difficulties encountered

when taking part in post reading activities

Figure 2: The post reading activities that teachers implement 19

Figure 3: The difficulties encountered by the teachers when

implementing post - reading activities

22

Figure 4: The students‘ thinking about the effectiveness of post

reading activities

25

ix

Figure 5: The post reading activities that students prefer to take part

in

28

Figure 6: The difficulties encountered by students when

participating in post reading activities

30

Figure 7: How students get overcome the difficulties encountered

when taking part in post reading activities

31

3.List of abbreviations

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

SRE: Scaffold Reading Experience

In Vietnam, in recent years teaching methods have been more and more improved There have been a lot of activities organized in order to enhance the effectiveness and help students be more active and self-confident in learning English in general and reading skills in particular Many universities and high schools, including Hon Gai high school apply post reading activities which can be seen as one of the most effective way to develop students‘ reading competence It is stated that post-reading activities encourage student to reflect upon what they have read For the information to stay with the students, they need to go beyond simply reading it to using it Until now, there have been a lot of researches done in the area of post reading activities In

2000, Alderson wrote ‗Assessing reading‘ with the aim of analyzing the effectiveness of reading activities, including post reading activities Sasson (n.d) wrote ―post reading activities – how teachers can end the lesson effectively‖ to give some advice so that teachers can apply when implementing post reading activities However, there is a gap between the theory and the practice In high schools in general, the advantages of post

teachers‘ use of post reading activities at Hon Gai high school.‖

2 Research aims and research questions

2.1 Research aims

First and foremost, this paper is to present the ways of organizing post reading activities at Hon Gai high school Second, students‘ perception and teachers‘ of the effectiveness of this activity will be exploited Third, a detailed investigation is carried out to specify the difficulties encountered by teachers as well

as students when doing post-reading activities Besides, basing on the findings of the study, researcher presents the solutions suggested by respondents to get over these problems In brief, the study will focus on the following questions:

3 Significance of the study

Post reading activities have to be improved as one of the most effective ways in language teaching and learning The question of how post reading activities; however, is hardly paid attention to Besides, there are not many researchers showing the interests in exploring the effectiveness as well as the difficulties encountered by students and teachers when doing this type of activity Although the study is carried out with a small scale, the researcher do

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hope that its result can help teachers and students at Hon Gai high school in particular and high schools in general have clear and thorough understandings about the effectiveness and difficulties when participating in post reading activities in reading lessons From that, they will find and adapt the best solutions in order to improve teaching and learning reading skills

4 Scope of the study

As mentioned above, the study is carried out with a small scale one Because of the time limitation, the samples are restricted to 50 students at 10 classes and 10 teachers who are responsible for teaching English grade 10 at Hon Gai high school

5 Expected outcome and contributions of the study

Overall, the research could be considerably helpful for teachers as well

as researchers working on related studies

Based on the findings of the research, several pedagogical implications would be drawn For the teachers of English in general and teachers of English at Hon Gai high school, the study, once completed, is expected to raise teachers‘ awareness of the effectiveness of post reading activities in improving reading skills for their students In addition, the study will supply teachers with the difficulties as well as the suggestions so that they could take their own initiatives to exploit the suitable post reading activities when teaching reading lessons

Besides, with regard to researchers, those who happen to develop an interest in this topic could certainly rely on this research to find reliable and useful information for their related studies in the future

6 Design of the study

The thesis consists of three parts:

Part A: Introduction

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The introduction refers to the statement of the problem, research aims, research questions, significance, scope, expected outcome and contributions and the design of the study

Part B: Development

Chapter I: “ Literature review” presents some background knowledge

of the issue for further steps of the study

Chapter II: “ The study” presents the detailed results of the survey

together with the findings and discussion

Chapter III: “Findings and discussions”

Part C: Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes all the main findings of the thesis, the recommendations and mentions the limitation of the study

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I: Literature review

1 The definitions of reading

Among the many definitions of reading that have arisen in recent decades, three prominent ideas emerge as most critical for understanding what

"learning to read" means:

 Reading is a process undertaken to reduce uncertainty about meanings

Reading does not draw on one kind of cognitive skill, nor does it have a straightforward outcome—most texts are understood in different ways by different readers

2 The importance of reading

Reading is an activity of inferring meaning out of written symbols with the collaborative work of cognitive behaviors and psycho-motor skills (Demirel, 1992) Reading is described as the process of perception in terms of written and published words with the help of senses, comprehension of these after building meaningful connections; intellectual and spiritual acquisition, active and communicative involvement with the written and published symbols, reception consisting of a number of perceptive and cognitive processes, an interpretation and also a reaction According to Alderson (1984), most scholars would suppose that reading is one of the most important skills for educational and professional success In highlighting the importance of

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reading comprehension Rivers (1981) stated that ― reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and pleasurable activity but also as a means of consolidating and extending one‘s which are knowledge of the language‖

As Karakas (2002) pointed that the real objective of reading is fast and right grasp of the meaning Especially, reading at high speed along with full comprehension is a critical factor affecting the success of the students Students who can read at a high speed, understand what is being read, have a rich verbal repertoire and have a good master of the language, learn more easily and have higher rates of success The level of reading can be designated by asking questions about the reading text being read and evaluating the related answers in verbal or written way (Çalışkan, 2004)

According to Eskey (1988) in advanced levels of second language the ability to read the written language at a reasonable rate and with good comprehension has long been recognized to be as oral skills if not more important

3 General views on post-reading activities

3.1 Definitions of post-reading activities

As language learning involves the acquisition of thousands of words, teachers and learners alike would like to know how vocabulary learning can

be fostered, especially in EFL settings where learners frequently acquire impoverished lexicons, despite years of formal study Research indicates that reading is important but not sufficient for second-language vocabulary learning, and that it should be supplemented by post-reading activities to enhance students' vocabulary knowledge

Post reading activities play an important role in language teaching and learning There are many reasons for its being important Firstly, learners

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come across it a lot in their daily lives Secondly, since the students in this research are preparatory learners who are learning English for academic purposes, that means students learn English for the examination Therefore, without understanding the texts, they cannot learn anything; as a result, cannot

be successful in the exams Since post reading is an important skill in language learning, it is necessary to define it According to Chastain (1998), post-reading activities help readers to clarify any unclear meaning where the focus is on the meaning not on the grammatical or lexical aspects of the text

Ur (1996) discusses summary as a kind of post-reading activity where the readers are asked to summarize the content in a sentence or two It is also possible to give this post-reading activity in the mother tongue Karakas (2002) proposes that the readers interpret the text and illustrate the relationship between the questions and their answers by using activities such

as summarizing, question and answer, and drawing conclusions and it is possible to catch the missing parts of the mental picture through thinking aloud, discussion and summarizing "Post-reading" (after, follow-up, beyond reading) exercises first check students' comprehension and then lead students

to a deeper analysis of the text, when warranted (Alderson, 2000)

The primary goal of post-reading activity is to make sure that satisfactory comprehension was taken place If the person is looking for a number in a telephone directory, she or he should be very selective She/he should scan the directory for the number needed On the contrary, a researcher needs to read an article in detail to get the main ideas of the writer and to learn more about the subject Nevertheless, it can still be argued that any reading is selective Wallace (1992) shares the same idea by saying, ―Just as we filter spoken messages in deciding what to attend to, so do we filter written

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messages And even when we commit ourselves to a full reading, that reading will still be selective, some parts being read with greater care than others‖

3.2 Types of post-reading activities

Post reading activities serve a variety of purposes They provide opportunities for students to synthesize and organize information gleaned from the text so that they can understand and recall important points They provide opportunities for students to evaluate an author's message, his or her stance in presenting the message, and the quality of the text itself, to evaluate their understanding of the text and to respond to a text in a variety of ways, to reflect on the meaning of the text, to compare differing texts and ideas, to imagine themselves as one of the characters in the text, to synthesize information from different sources, to engage in a variety of creative activities, and to apply what they have learned within the classroom walls and

in the world beyond the classroom Not surprisingly given their many functions, post reading activities are also widely recommended

In creating the list of possible post reading activities for SREs, the experts have once again attempted to list a relatively small set of categories that suggest a large number of useful activities According to the list of SRE components, there are eight types of post reading activities (a) Questioning, either orally or in writing; (b) Discussion—whether it is discussion in pairs or small groups or discussion involving the entire class; (c) Writing;(d) Drama; (e) Artistic, Graphic, and Nonverbal Activities; (f) Application and Outreach Activities; (g) Building Connections; (h) Reteaching (Michael F.Graves and Bonie B Graves, 2003)

Post-reading activities also included:

1 Answering higher order thinking questions, as part of a game called

"Book Wheels"

3.3 The effectiveness when using post-reading activities

Post-reading activities are simply activities done after during-reading activities are completed At this stage, the students are in a temporary change

of state or condition, that is, they now know something they do not know before They know some new vocabulary items, some new sentence structures, some new idiomatic expressions, and they have new knowledge about a certain topic However, it is definitely not enough for one reading lesson How many times do the teachers see lesson plans with good pre-reading activities and well planned during reading activities, but brief, classic post-reading activities such as write the answers on a piece of paper, translate paragraph 2, write a sentence for each of the new words found in the text , using a similar pattern, write about your house? Something must be done to help the students use what they now know so that these new things will become more than just knowledge In a post-reading stage students are not studying about the language of the text and they do not comprehend the text, either At the post-reading stage students are supposed to apply what they possess

Gunning (1998) points out that post-reading activities are expected to encourage students to reflect upon what they have read The purposes of the activities are for the students to use the familiar text as basis for specific language study, to allow the students to respond to the text creatively and to

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get the students to focus more deeply on the information in the text For the new information to stay with them, the students need to go beyond simply reading the information to using it Following up in the post-reading stage is critical to both comprehension, which is instruction sensitive, and obtaining and working on new information, which takes the student to their real life situation Well-designed after-reading activities usually require the learners to return to the text several times and to reread it to check on particular information of language use Students, individually or in groups, should have ample time to share and discuss the work they have completed This enables the students to tie up loose ends, answer any remaining questions, and to understand the inter relationships of topics covered When readers are called

on to communicate the ideas they have read, it is then that they learn to conceptualize and discover what meaning the text has to them Although teachers should be careful to spend just some time in the pre-reading stage, they are actually expected to spend more time in the post reading stage with several activities A twofold purpose is involved here, namely: students need

to (1) recycle what they have obtained from the text and (2) go beyond the text and enter the real world, equipped with the newly-obtained information

At least six principles in foreign language teaching-learning by Brown (2007) can be fulfilled From recycling some language components in different ways through different language skills, automaticity is certainly on its way Meaningful learning is carried out because at a post reading stage students relate new information with their own life and experiences Each student is asked to respond to parts of the text she or he has read Because students are active in responding to the texts they have been, and the teacher puts him in the background, students are empowered and to a certain extent, in control of the activities This may lead to students‘ autonomy Willingness to

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communicate, which involves students‘ willingness to take risks and being self-confident, is gained because they are supposed to be well-prepared to do the post-activities When students are given different tasks, they have good opportunities to use the language, oral as well as written This puts them in a position where they can develop their inter language Finally, post-reading activities are not interested in the right versus wrong answers to comprehension questions anymore Students do not have to prove they understand the vocabulary and grammar of the text, anymore Therefore, students are not only taught to achieve linguistic competence but also discourse and strategic competence, so communicative competence is also taken care of We can conclude that from post reading activities, the students are developing themselves to achieve automaticity, meaningful learning, autonomy, willingness to communicate, inter language, and communicative competence

3.4 The difficulties when doing post reading activities

Some students can learn to use different reading styles and read, understand a text very quickly while others slowly and false to understand what they read Our students usually read every word in a text They cannot focus on important words; try to translate word by word Students‘ ability of predicting words are bad They have difficulties in predicting what comes next

in the text Our students usually read out loud instead of reading silently This slows them down and forces them to read every word when it can actually distract from understanding a passage Finally, students get difficulties in guessing meaning of new words

Post-reading activities that extend texts provide an opportunity for teachers to check for learning Transforming ideas from reading into artwork, poetry, etc is an evaluative, interpretive act that reveals the student's level of

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understanding Critical readers are active readers They question, confirm, and judge what they read throughout the reading process Students engaged in such activities are likely to become critical thinkers and learners In the new view, readers are far more active and unpredictable They make decisions about what to read, how to read it, how to think about what they read, what to remember, what other information to remember it with They bring context, approach, bias, and personal experiences to what they read They interpret, they skip, they misread, they misunderstand, they understand in their own way Their reading is not reactive but strategic; they read with purpose, meaning, and goals

Reading a text with comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading instruction In order to achieve this, teachers should provide high quality reading comprehension instruction Students need to be taught explicitly to use comprehension skills when they read (Pressley & Jager, 2002) It is not satisfactory that students answer the comprehension questions and teachers supervise Pearson et al (Jagor, 2002) states that teachers must explain the students how expert readers make sense of text; teachers have to learn students‘ skills that help them understand the texts Besides these, students need to learn how, when, and where to use these skills With respect to instruction, it is the teachers‘ responsibility to introduce, and provide practice

in, useful reading strategies for coping with texts in an unfamiliar language (Eskey and Grabe, 1995).Taking into consideration the importance of reading

in learners‘ academic achievement, the role and importance of teachers‘ beliefs in teaching and scarcity of research in the area of reading strategies and teacher thinking, the present study aims at identifying how teachers do themselves as readers of foreign language, how they think reading is taught,

of the students, as well as students and classroom conditions The keyword for using post reading activities is variety, which leads to creating positive, creative, innovative, effective and fun activities Through a variety of post-reading activities, students are expected to recycle certain learning aspects of language skills and components so that their communicative competence can

be developed well

Chapter II: The study

With the aim of having a thorough understanding of the effectiveness, the difficulties of post reading activities as perceived by teachers and students, the combination of quantitative method and qualitative method is believed to

be appropriate to the research; as a result, questionnaire, observation and

interviews are three tools being used to collect the data

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The questionnaire will be given to students of selected teachers Those students will also be observed in class to evaluate their performance in the English reading lessons

2 Data collection instrument

There are three data collection instruments used in this research namely survey and observation

2.1 Survey (Appendix 1a, 1b)

Survey is the first instrument chosen to collect data Angus and Katona (1953) state that survey is both relatively inexpensive and useful in describing the characteristics of a large population In this type of research, the researcher selects a sample of respondents from a population and administers a standardized questionnaire to them For this study, the participants are grade

10 mainstream students who do not major in English and teachers who are teaching English grade 10 at Hon Gai high school The respondents will allow the researcher to generalize the findings to the whole population from their individual self reports By doing questionnaire, the effectiveness, difficulties

as well as the ways of implementing post reading activities perceived by students and teachers can be answered

The questionnaire is designed including two types of questions: open- ended questions and close-ended questions The questionnaires focus on the questions of how the post reading activities will be organized, which difficulties that students and teachers have to encounter when implementing post reading activities and the solutions for those problems

Survey questionnaires are carried out with the participation of 10 English teachers and 50 10th grade students 5 questions are delivered to teachers and 4 questions are delivered to students

Survey questionnaires for students aim at the following points:

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- The students‘ thinking about the effectiveness of post reading activities

- The post reading activities that students prefer to take part in

- The difficulties students have to face when taking part in post reading activities

- How students overcome the difficulties encountered when taking part in post reading activities

Survey questionnaires for teachers aims at the following points:

- The frequency that teachers implement post reading activities in a class

- The post reading activities that teachers implement

- The effectiveness of post reading activities suggested by teachers of English

- The difficulties that encountered by the teachers when implementing post reading activities

- The ways to overcome these difficulties suggested by the teachers

The researcher asks for permission to hand out the questionnaires for the English teachers in their monthly group meeting and collect the results after they have covered and finished all of the questions

2.2 Observation (Appendix 4)

The second method is observation Connelly and Clandinin (1990) suggest that observational study can allow qualitative researchers to identify recurring patterns of behavior that participants may be unable to recognize Notes of what happen in classes will be carefully taken as useful evidence of this research

Observation is considered as a supportive instrument for questionnaires and interviews Through observation the researcher can discover all of the post reading activities which the teachers use In addition to this, observation also helps to investigate how teachers and students participate in those post reading activities

2.3 Interview (Appendix 2a, 2b, 3)

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The third method is the interview In – depth interview with two teachers and four students who have finished the questionnaires already and agree to help the researcher further in order to enhance the reliability of this research will be used Participants will have chance to express the opinions about the effectiveness, difficulties when implementing post reading activities

Structure interview is carried out with two teachers and four teachers to improve the reliability of the research Also, this is a a good opportunirty for them to give their ideas about post reading activities, difficulties as well as effectiveness

In brief, survey questionnaire, observation and interviews are relevant and appropriate to bring about the validity and reliability of the study

3 Data collection procedure

3.1 For the questionnaire

Step 1: Preparing for questionnaire administration

Getting the supervisor‘s approval of the survey questionnaire, the researcher prepares for the official questionnaire administration The monitors

of the chosen groups will be contacted to ask for co-operation in advance and informed about the purpose of the study and the specific time of delivering the survey

Step 2: Administering the questionnaire

The researcher carries out the survey in break time Before asking the students to do the survey questionnaire, the researcher briefly explains the purposes of the study and encourages them to finish the survey questionnaire truthfully The researcher uses face-to-face questionnaire in case the respondents are unclear about the meaning of a question, they could ask for

clarification Vietnamese instructions and explanations are also presented to

help respondents avoid any misunderstanding and ambiguity After about 10 minutes, the researchers collect the finished questionnaires from respondents

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who were informed in advance Finally, the researcher thanks the students and the teachers for their help

3.2 For the observation

Step 1: Firstly, I will contact the teachers to be sure if they are available

for my observation

Step 2: As they are ready to help me, we will tell them generally about

my research and arrange time to observe

Step 3: This is the most important step in which I will observe the

classes During the observation, I will need to pay much attention to the body language and eyes contact to get the most honest answers Moreover, in case I cannot note down everything they said correctly, I will use a mobile phone to record everything

3.3 For the interview

Step 1: Preparation

- To make sure that whether the language and questions in the interview schedules was suitable for students or not so that the researchers would revise the final draft, the researcher translated the interview questions into Vietnamese to

make it easier for the students to read and understand

- The researchers asked for their permission and arranged time and place

Step 2: Implementation

- At the beginning of the interviews, the research topic, aims and scope were introduced again to the interviewees Also at this time, the researchers asked the interviewees to permit to record the conversations or not

- The real interviews started: the questions in the interview schedule for students were raised one by one

+ Sometimes, when the interviewees did not understand or were confused, the researchers added some more sub-questions to get more ideas from them

Step 3: Data summarizing

- The entire data was arranged to prepare for the process of data analysis

4 Data analysis method

Quantitative strategy allows the researcher to measure and analyze data

By using the statistics, the relationship between an independent and dependent variable is studied in detail This is advantageous because the researcher is more objective about the findings of the research In this research, descriptive statistics method is used to process the data got from the survey questionnaire

as well as students‘ writing portfolio Students‘ choice and teacher‘ in questionnaire will be counted and calculated percentage After that, all the data is transferred into bar charts and pie charts for better illustration, comparison and explanations

In this research, qualitative method helps researcher get rich and detailed data It is effective method to gain people‘s attitudes, behaviors, concerns, motivations and so on Not depending on a given options systems, participants are expected to express their own understanding That can help us

to work out the unpredictable answers and some of them are maybe valuable

to result of our research

5 Data analysis procedure

5.1 For the questionnaires

Step 1: Examine and classify to find out the appropriate answers

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Step 2: Count and calculate percentage students‘ choice (for each letter

A, B, C, etc…) and show the activities, the difficulties from students‘ performance and teachers‘ from observing

Step 3: Present all the data in bar charts and pie charts for better

illustration and explanation and easy comparison different variables in the same category

For the information from open- ended questions, the researcher will use

it to analyze

5.2 For the interview

Step 1: Coding the raw data

+ The researchers name the collected data as topic-related concepts

Step 2: Classifying the coded data into suitable categories

+ Important, essential information (answers of research questions)

+ General information: background information

Step 3: Analyzing the data

+ Pay attention to principal data to analyze

+ Base on the general information to support analyzing data

6 Data analysis

6.1 Survey questionnaire for teachers

6.1.1 The frequency that teachers implement post reading activities in a class

6.1.1.1.The table shows the frequency that teachers implement post reading activities in a class

Figure 1: The frequency that teachers implement post reading activities in a class

The researcher distributes questionnaire for 10 teachers of English and luckily, the respondent rate is 100% and all of them have applied post reading

activities in their lessons

Very high proportion of the respondents (70%) reveal that once a week, post reading activities are organized by them Nearly one third of the teachers say that they implement post reading activities 2 times a week in a class and

no one can organize this activity 3 times a week Explaining this, teachers say

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that there are 4 periods of time (45 minutes per period) and besides reading lesson, teacher have to teach and organize speaking, listening and writing activities; as a result, most of the respondents choose once a week as their

best option

6.1.2 The post reading activities that teachers implement (in the order of frequency)

6.1.2.1 The table shows the post reading activities that teachers implement

Table 2: The post reading activities that teachers implement

6.1.2.2.The bar charts shows the post reading activities that teachers implement

Figure 2: The post reading activities that teachers implement

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a Role play activities

b Retelling the story

c Character studies

d Which character?

e Continue the story

f Others (please specify)

As illustrated from the chart, role play is the activity that teachers organize most It can be easily understood that role play is the activity that is not difficult to organize and teachers can easily arrange students in group From this activity, teachers can help students who are shy or not good at English in the class speak out Moreover, in role play activities teachers can manage their class better One reason for this is that, role play activity is the one that students are more familiar than other activities At elementary or secondary schools, their students could have chance to take part in this activity Ranking in the second order, retelling story is the option of half of the respondents We all know that retelling the story can help students revise the lessons in the class Furthermore, in the class teacher can call out students randomly to take this task and they can correct student‘s mistake immediately

If the teachers organize this activity frequently, their students can draw the English learning strategy One more thing that explains this is that, teachers want their students to practice speaking and communication skills When being asked about this, 2 teachers share that they organize character studies activities for their students This activity can help their student have a thorough understanding of the text and the character in the story Maybe, this activity also helps them have a basic knowledge of critical thinking and from that their students can draw the life lessons from the character or the events occurring in the lesson Sharing the same number, 20% of the respondents

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organize the activity which character The teachers speak out some features relating to the character and students‘ task is to guess the character that is presented This activity is good because this can help their students remember the lessons easily and students can learn and practice listening skills Continuing the story is the option of 30% of the respondents With this activity, teachers can help their students develop the text or the story by their thinking One fifth of the respondents suggest other post reading activities, like drawing the favorite character, word game

6.1.3 The effectiveness of post reading activities suggested by the teachers

Continue the story 5 4 1 0 0  mean = 1.6

Retelling the story 3 2 2 3 0  mean = 2.5

Character study 2 2 1 3 2  mean = 3.1

Which character 1 2 1 2 4 mean = 3.6

The result shows that role play has the minimum mean (1.2) and

character studies and which character has the quite big result (3.1 and 3.6) this means according to the teachers‘ thinking, role play and continuing the

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story are the most effective activities while character studies and which

character are the least effective activities

6.1.4 The difficulties that encountered by the teachers when implementing post-reading activities

6.1.4.1 The result table shows the difficulties encountered by the teachers when implementing post reading activities

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Figure 3: The difficulties encountered by the teachers when implementing post

reading activities

a Limited time budget

b Students‘ limited English level

c Differences in students‘ English level

d Large-sized classes

e Others (please specify)………

According to the figures shown in the chart, over a half of the respondents find it hard to organize post reading activities because of the limited time budget It is obvious that at high school, there are 4 periods of time of English for students and each period lasts 45 minutes In reading lessons, teachers have to spend a lot of time teaching new words, phrases and grammar structures In addition, skimming and scanning the reading text, answering the questions in the books costs a lot of time; consequently, 45 minutes are not enough for the teachers to fulfill their role in the class in general and organize and manage the whole class in post reading activities part in particular

4 teachers consider that students‘ limited English level is another hinder against post reading activities It can be understood that for the 10 grade students, vocabulary is a big obstacle When teachers explain and give instructions in English, most of them do not understand thoroughly and the result is that teachers must explain again in English many times and even in Vietnamese Students are in lack of vocabulary and the way of expression in English; therefore, they cannot perform their task well

Differences in students‘ level are an obstacle for one fifth of the respondents (20%) In a class where all students do not specialize in English,

a class In contrast, in Vietnam there are about 45 students in class and the teachers find it hard to manage all the class well Besides, because there are too many students in a class, teachers cannot correct mistakes for all students

6.1.5 The ways to overcome these difficulties suggested by the teachers

To get over these difficulties, teachers would like to share that the leaders of school have the policy to limit the class size by arranging students

in more classes They claimed that ―In foreign countries, there are only 15 or

20 students in a language class and the teacher can manage the class well However, you know at high schools in Vietnam, there are at least 40 students

in a class and I think it is too crowding As for me, I have to teach 3 classes and the total student number is 146 I cannot cover and help for all these students‖ They also share that nowadays, communication skills (speaking and listening skills) is an important thing that teachers have to teach their students, so limiting the class size is the first priority

Teachers wish to organize one extra English class a week in order to help students reinforce basic knowledge

Some teachers suggest that to save the time they ask their students to read the text, check the words and translate at home Moreover, teachers sometimes let their students know the activities that they will organize with the purpose of giving more time for preparation

Teachers also present their wish that government should have a policy

to reduce studying program for students

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6.2 Survey questionnaire for students

6.2.1 The effectiveness of post reading activities in students‟ thinking

6.2.1.1 The table shows the students’ thinking about the effectiveness of post reading activities

6.2.1.2 The bar chart shows the students’ thinking about the effectiveness

of post reading activities

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Figure 4: The students‟ thinking about the effectiveness of post reading

activities

a After reading, I like to read more books by the same author

b After reading, I like to share my ideas and thought by writing them down

c After reading, I like to share my ideas and thought by talking to a

Post reading activities are useful and students are asked to clarify their reasons

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A very small percentage of students (6%) say that after reading, they like to read more books or articles by the same author It is apparent that for high school students who do not consider English as the main subject, they do not have enough time to study other articles or books by the same author or the article with the same topic Among 50 respondents, 17 people say that they like to share their ideas or thoughts by writing them down Over half of the students reveal they like to share their thoughts by talking with their friends because this allows them to practice their speaking skills and teamwork skills Furthermore, when talking with their friends, they can correct the mistakes for their peers Amounting to 8% is the number of students saying that they like to share their ideas through online chats This can be explained by the students‘ interest in English and the studying condition (time, studying facility…) Around 16% says that taking part in literature circles is another thing that students wish to do after reading 28 respondents claim that they like to share their ideas and thoughts by taking part in class discussion, which allows them to talk and discuss with their friends This also allows for interaction between students and allows introverted students to speak out

6.2.2.The post reading activities that students prefer to take part in

6.2.2.1 The table shows the post reading activities that students prefer to take part in

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Table 5: The post reading activities that students prefer to take part in

6.2.2.2 The bar chart shows the post reading activities that students prefer to take part in

Fi gure 5: The post reading activities that students prefer to take part in

a Role play

b Retelling the story

c Character studies

d Which character?

e Continue the story

f Others (please specify) ………

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It is shown from the chart that role play is the activity that students prefer to take part in most It can be easily understood that role play is the activity that is not difficult to take part in In this activity, students have chances to cooperate, discuss and interact with other students Additionally, role play activities are very funny, so it creates the funny class atmosphere that every students wish to have As for shy students, they have duty to raise their voice and discuss with other students Role –play activities can help them to be more confident by providing them with a mask Ranking in the second order, retelling story is option of 54% of the respondents Retelling the story can help students revise the lessons in the class, so at home it takes very little time to learn the lesson again Students become more confident when taking part in this activity Wishing to fully understand the character first and the whole text, 40% of the respondents prefer the activity studying characters Sharing the equal number, 40% of the respondents prefer the activity of which character, from this activity, students can remember the lesson When being asked about the activity that students want to take part in most, 44% of the students share that continuing the story is their option This activity allows students‘ imaginary ability and it also creates funny atmosphere in the class Very few students (10%) suggest other activities, like word game, debating, discussing the text, the story or drawing the favorite character, the thing in the lesson

6.2.3 The difficulties students have to face when taking part in post-reading activities?

6.2.3.1 The table shows the difficulties encountered by students when participating in post reading activities