So, teachers usually use classic post-reading activities to make sure that the students have already comprehendedthe text.. Bythis way I can combine teaching language skills with improvi
Trang 1PART I: INTRODUCTION
So far, we have been caring much about what families, schools andsociety should do for children However, it is also important for students to beaware of what they have to do for themselves, their families and society Inother words, students must be responsible to themselves, their families andsociety But in fact, many students not only neglect studying but also oftenavoid and complain about their tasks, miss deadlines, break the disciplines,and even blame others for the mistakes and failure They are more and morematerialistic, selfish, indifferent and emotionless Therefore, it is undeniablethat they are becoming more and more irresponsible
As a high school teacher, I have learned that one of the six pillars ofcharacter education is to be responsible However, educating sense ofresponsibility at my school has not been really effective One of the mostbasically causes may be that responsibilities are usually taught theoreticallywith little practical application In addition, it is not focused on in every lessonthey learn in classes Whereas, it is obviously possible to educate students'sense of responsibility through different subjects such as: Civic Education,Literature, Biology, English,… A question is raised is how I can teach mystudents sense of responsibility while our teaching methods mainly focus onlanguage skills In addition, my students are at the grade 12 when the GCSSEexam is coming soon and the teachers try to teach the knowledge that helpstudents to get good marks in their tests and exams It means I have toimprove my students' sense of responsibility through teaching knowledge andlanguage skills
As a matter of fact the post-reading stage of a reading lesson is oftenconfused with the closing of a lesson So, teachers usually use classic post-reading activities to make sure that the students have already comprehendedthe text However, I learn that at the post-reading stage students are notstudying about the language of the text and they are not comprehending thetext, either At this stage students are supposed to apply what they possess.Post-reading activities are expected to encourage students to reflect uponwhat they have read, which takes the students to their real life situation So,post-reading stage is potential to apply the activities which help improvestudents' sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society Bythis way I can combine teaching language skills with improving my
students' sense of responsibility without time-consuming.
For the reasons above, from the beginning of the school year 2018-2019,
I have carried a study which has changed the ways we used to teach
post-reading with the topic "Helping the grade 12 students improve their sense
of responsibility to themselves, their families and society through reading activities" Hoping that with these experiences teaching post-reading
Trang 2post-at my school will become more flexible and our students will be moreresponsible to themselves, their families and society.
PART II: CONTENT
I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1 Sense of responsibility
1.1 Definition of responsibility and sense of responsibility
Responsibility is defined as the state or fact of having a duty to deal withsomething or of having control over someone; thestate or fact of beingaccountable or to blame for something; the opportunity or ability to actindependently and take decisions without authorization; a thing which one isrequired to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation Responsibility is theburden someone is obligated to fulfill in order to meet a particular need.Someone’s level of meeting his responsibilities shows how trustworthy he is,particularly if he consistently meets his responsibilities
A sense of responsibility is an awareness of one’s obligations; it’s like doingwhat we suppose to do It can be defined as a general conscious awareness; "asense of security"; "a sense of happiness"; "a sense of danger"; "a sense of self"
1.2 List of responsibilities every student should fulfill
Students are expected to fulfill some key responsibilities before they leaveschool and start a new life They are:
- Responsibilities to themselves
- Responsibilities to their families
- Responsibilities to their school
- Responsibilities to their community and society
2 Post- reading activities
2.1 Definition of post-reading activities
Post-reading activities are simply activities done after while-readingactivities are completed At this stage the students are in a temporary change
of state or condition, that is, they now know something they did not knowbefore The task of the post-reading stage is to integrate or synthesize the
read material into one's knowledge base of the topic Students need to
make the material their own This can be achieved through a variety ofmeans employing writing, class discussion, visual representations, andphysical demonstration
When the while-reading stage is completed, the students are expected tohave obtained new information from the text This should bring about achange of some kind such as they would know more, or think or feel
Trang 3differently from before According to Nuttall (1996: 164) when intensive work
in a during-/while-reading stage is completed, general comprehension must
be intended to At this stage, the students should be able to evaluate the text
as a whole to respond to it from a more or less personal point of view Theymay be asked to agree or disagree with the author or the characters in thetext; relate the content to their own experience; connect the content withother work in the same field; discuss characters, incidents, ideas, feelings; orpredict what can happen afterwards
2.2 Benefits of using post-reading activities to improve the students' sense of responsibility
- Teachers can educate students' character through teaching language skills
- Students recycle what they have obtained from the text
- Students go beyond the text and enter the real world, equipped with thenewly-obtained information
- Updating the problems that are closed to the students' real life and workingtogether to find out the solutions as their responsibility
- Students can well prepare for an independent life in the future
- Students learn to be responsible for their actions, choices and decisions tothemselves, their families and society
- From post-reading activities, the students are developping themselves toachieve automaticity, meaningful learning, autonomy, willingness tocommunicate, interlanguage, and communicative competence
2.3 Some principles for choosing post-reading activities to raise students' responsibility
- The activities must connect the topics of the reading texts with theresponsibilities that students should fulfill
- The activities should keep all of the students involved and interested
- The activities should help the students develop their communicative skills
- The activities should make students think of what they have to do in thereal life
- Teaching the sense of responsibility may make students boring so theactivities should be challenging and interesting enough to attract theirattention and stimulate them to take part in
- To be suitable with the time limit of post-reading stage, the length of eachactivity is about 10 minutes
II SITUATION ANALYSIS
Trang 41 Situation of students' sense of responsibilities at my school.
My school is located in the mountainous area of the district Therefore,there are many difficulties in the teaching and learning Most of the students
at my school live far from the district center and come from low-incomefamilies In spite of the difficulties, the students are given a chance to go toschool In recent years, due to the objective reasons, the number of studentsapplying for my school has been decreasing, which makes the enrolment seem
to be too easy for the students It may be a cause of the fact that the studentshardly make any attempts to learn, they are becoming lazier and lazier
As a matter of fact, the students are very irresponsible to themselves.Their sense of learning is too low, which causes their low learning results Inthe class, they often talk or do private things, do not pay attention to theteachers' lectures Many of them do not do homework and prepare for newlessons before class The situation of unpunctuality, skipping class andcheating in tests or exams is quite frequent Especially for the grade 12students, although they are going to take the GCSE exam, they seem not toworry about their studying They probably think that their teachers will notlet them get bad marks and they will be able to cheat in the exams They seem
to be waiting for their luck, so they hardly make effort to study
In spite of their low living conditions, the parents try to buy electric bikesfor their children to go to school instead of going by bike Furthermore, thestudents also own expensive and modern mobile devices, which makes themneglect studying Some of them use smart phones sneakily in the classes.Many parents complain that their children are attracted to the smart phonesall day; they neither do housework nor study at home They spend their time
on mobile devices instead of others activities such as reading or playing sportswhich help improve their health, knowledge and life skills They care moreabout the status and problems in social network than about what they arefacing, their parents or other family members As a result, they are impactednegatively from some information in social network It can be said that theylack responsibility to both themselves and their families
In addition, they also lack the conformity with the law In spite of theobligation, most of them go to school by electric bike without wearinghelmets It is not until they arrive at the school gate that they wear helmets inorder to avoid the teachers' punishment Some of the students even ridemotorbike to school although their age is not old enough They throw waste inpublic, even damage the common property Besides, many of them refuse totake part in social activities They seem to indifferent and emotionless Inshort, the young tend to be more and more irresponsible to not onlythemselves, their families but society as well It is one of the causes that makethe students live without objectives or even commit a crime There seems to
Trang 5be no way to solve this problem except improving the students' sense ofresponsibility
2 Situation of teaching the students sense of responsibility at my school.
It is said that family is the foundation of character education It meansthat children's character is mainly formed by family education Besides, schoolalso plays an important role in educating students' character Normally, it isconsidered that character education is the responsibility of form teachers andthe teachers who teach Civic Education Therefore, at my school, it is likelyonly form teachers and Civic Education teachers take responsibility forteaching students responsibility The Young Onion sometimes organizesoutdoor activities which help raise the students' responsibility Other teachersmainly teach knowledge in textbook and some necessary skills that theirsubjects require the sense of responsibility is hardly focused
3 Situation of learning English and teaching post-reading in English lessons at my school.
As mentioned above, the students’ living conditions have a big effect on theway students study Many of them learn English with the only aim to pass thenational GCSE exam, so they mostly focus on studying pronunciation, vocabularyand grammar They even feel it hard to remember all the required knowledge fordifferent exams
This way of thinking among students leads the teachers of English at myschool to nearly the same way of teaching the language We always try to fulfillthe knowledge in textbooks to our students Especially, the teachers who teach the
12th grade students often try to provide as many practice exercises related to theGCSE exam as possible With the help of modern technology, many lecturesdesigned by PowerPoint have been given to students The teachers also useinteresting activities such as games, quiz, role-play…to stimulate students Theyhave been trying to apply new teaching methods to help students improve theirlanguage skills consist of reading, listening, speaking and writing The quality ofthe lectures has been considerably raised and it plays an important role in theresults of the students in the exams
In reading lessons, the teachers at my school often adapt the activities given
in textbooks to make it easy for our students, make the lessons more interestingand attract their attention to the lessons as well However, because of our students'poor ability and long or difficult reading texts, the teachers and students usuallyspend almost the time on while-reading activities Sometime, we hardly have timefor post-reading stage or else we use the post-reading activities similar to those inwhile-reading stage to make sure that the students understand the reading textmore The post-reading activities that are used popularly are related tosummarizing the reading text such as filling the missing words in the summary of
Trang 6the text, using the cues to summarize the text… or translating the text intoVietnamese This helps the students comprehend the reading texts totally.However, these methods of teaching and learning can hardly help improvestudents' character in general and sense of responsibility in particular.
4 The English Language syllabus
The textbook Tieng Anh 12 as well as Tieng Anh 10 and Tieng Anh 11 is
traditional textbook structured with a priority towards theme-based or topic-basedlearning models The textbook has desirable aim of providing students with afoundational knowledge of numerous fields, a favorable attitude towards theEnglish Language, and the four skills generally recognized as building proficiency
in language study: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing In order to achievethese objectives, the content of the book is designed to utilize themes with whichall students will be familiar Included are topics related to the student’s social lives,
to sports, to work, and to leisure activities universal experiences For each topic,related vocabulary and word studies are presented communicatively The textbookcontains sixteen units, with each unit presenting five lessons with four differentskills and a language focus Reading is the first unit in each lesson, guidingstudents to key words and phrases of the related topicwhich then become “buildingblocks” that enable them to learn additional skills
The book Tieng Anh 12 contains many topics which are close to the students They are about life, studying, job, family, nature and society such as home life, future jobs, life in the future…but there is no separate part for teaching students the
sense of responsibility to themselves, their family and society Therefore, althoughteaching sense of responsibility is necessary, it is not compulsory
III SURVEY
1 Survey and the results
At the beginning of the school year 2018-2019, I have carried out thesurvey containing 5 multiple choice questions for 118 students from threeclasses 12A1, 12B2, 12B4 of my school The survey was done twice One was
at the first semester of the twelfth form (before teaching post reading withactivities improving students' sense of responsibilities) and the other was atthe end of the second semester (after using these activities) The table belowshows the result of the survey for first time
Trang 72 How often do you think about your
responsibilities in your daily
activities?
3 Do you find it necessary to be
taught sense of responsibility in the
class?
C Very necessary 40%
4 Do you learn much about sense of
responsibility through your English
lessons?
5 How much is your sense of
responsibility to yourselves, your
family, school and society?
2 Findings from the survey.
The survey shows that before using the adapted activities, most ofstudents do not care much about responsibility Even though they knowresponsibility is important, they often act without thinking about it Most ofthem consider that they should be taught responsibility in the class However,every English lesson they learn often mainly focuses on knowledge andlanguage skills As a result, they are little aware of their responsibility tothemselves, their family, school and community
IV FINDING SOLUTIONS
From the analysis above, it can be said that our students' irresponsibility
is very worrying However, teaching in general and teaching English inparticular at my school is mainly focused on knowledge and language skills It
is high time for us to educate our students' character as well as sense ofresponsibility through English lessons
Post-reading stage is the best choice for the solution because it is a goodchance for the students to connect English lessons with their real life.Furthermore, based on the topics of the reading texts we can create manydifferent activities to teach different responsibilities In addition, we also canapply many different activities for each reading lesson depending on whatresponsibility we want to teach our students In short, post-reading stage ispotential to apply the activities which help improve our students' sense ofresponsibility
The topics of the reading texts in Tieng Anh 12 textbook are very familiar tothe students' life, so I have used post-reading stage to carry out the following
Trang 8activities These are some suggested activities which I have applied toimprove my students' sense of responsibility to themselves, their families andsociety quite effectively.
1 Activities to improve students' sense of responsibility to themselves 1.1 Sample application 1 - Unit 4: School education system
Aim: Help students realise the importance of self-study and cultivate their
self-study ability
Suggested activity: Making a plan: Make a self-study plan to prepare for
your GCSE effectively
Time limit: 10 minutes.
Preparation:
- Teacher: Prepare a sample self-study plan
- Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; find out self-study methods
Procedure:
- Divide the class into groups of 6-8 students
- Ask them to discuss how to make a plan
- Give students some suggestions: To make the plan, you should determine:
Why to study? (Goals)
What to study? (What subjects, lessons…)
When to study? (Time available, schedule…)
Where to study? (Studying environment, courses…)
Who may help or study together?
SELF-STUDY PLAN
WHEN
WHEREWHO
HOW
Trang 9 How to study (Studying methods)
- Show students the sample plan as a model
Sample plan:
SELF-STUDY PLAN
Goals : - Pass the GCSE exam with 30 points
- Pass the entrance exam with 25 points (Math: 8, Literature: 8, English 9)
Core subjects : Math, Literature, English
Optional subjects : History, Geography, Civic Education
Time : in the afternoon, at night, at weekend
Studying environment : at home, online
People to ask for help : teachers, classmates
Studying methods :
- Pay attention to the lectures.
- Determine the weaknesses.
- Highlight the important pieces of information.
- Set a schedule to study at home.
- Share learn experience with friends, classmates.
- Ask the teachers about what we have not understood yet.
- Study the references.
- Download necessary documents and sample tests.
- Attend some online courses.
- Learn from different media.
- Practice doing tests.
- Keep away modern devices when want to concentrate on studying.
-Each group makes a brief self-study plan
-After 5 minutes, call some representatives to present their plans
-Ask other groups to give comments
-Teacher gives feedback
Trang 10- Ask the students to make their own self-study plan at home as their homework.
The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:
1.2 Sample application 2 - Unit 5: Higher education
Aim: Raise students' awareness of equipping themselves with essential life
skills
Suggested activity: An interview: Interview your classmates about their
preparation for the life after school.
Time limit: 10 minutes
Questions for interviewing:
Question 1: Are you going to continue studying with higher education or finding
a job after leaving school?
Question 2: What university/ job would you like to apply for?
Question 3: What are you preparing for your life after school?
Question 4: What do you think may be challenges you will face in your new life after school?
Question 5: How can you overcome these challenges?
The interview record sheet
Goal
University/Job
Trang 11Possible challenges
How to overcome
Procedure:
- Deliver the handouts to the students
- Ask them to fill in their information about themselves first
- Ask each student to find a partner, use the questions to interview and fills inthe interview record sheet
- Teacher shows the example:
University/Job Banking Academy a worker
Preparation - study hard to pass the
GCSE and the entrance exam.
- improve knowledge
- equip some necessary life skills: decision making, communicating,
…
- study to pass the GCSE
- study vocational education
- improve knowledge
- equip some necessary life skills such as: decision making, communicating,…
Possible challenges - money
- get an on-campus job -be independent and sociable
- get on well with people
- take part in social activities
-improve time and financial managing skills.
-be independent and sociable
- get on well with people
Trang 12-Ask other groups to give comments.
-Teacher gives feedback
The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:
1.3 Sample application 3 - Unit 6: Future jobs
Aim: Raise students' awareness of equipping themselves with job skills.
Suggested activity: Discussion: Discuss the necessary job skills and how to
acquire the skills
Time limit: 10 minutes
Preparation:
- Teacher: Prepare a poster of suggested answers
- Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; find out necessary jobskills and how they can acquire the skills
Procedure:
- Divide the class into groups of six
- Ask them to discuss the job skills they need equip
- After 5 minutes, call the representatives of the groups to report theirgroups' production
- Ask other groups to give comments
- Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers
Suggested answers:
Some necessary job skills:
- Hard skills: which are teachable abilities or skill sets that are easily
measurable They are the technical abilities that fit the job Normally, we can acquire hard skills in the classroom, in an online course, through books and other materials, or on the job.( Depend on types of job)
Trang 13- Soft skills: which are abilities not unique to any job The soft skills students should equip are: communication; teamwork; problem solving; initiative and enterprise; planning and organising; self-management; learning; technology…
How to acquire the skills: willing to learn study hard, take part in social
activities, be active and creative, and study the required skills of your future jobs…
The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:
1.4 Sample application 4 - Unit 11: Books
Aim: Encourage students' reading habit.
Suggested activity: Discussion: Discuss the benefits of reading and how
to cultivate your reading habit
Time limit: 10 minutes
Preparation:
- Teacher: Prepare a poster of suggested answers
- Students: Prepare posters and pen for group work; find out benefits ofreading books and how to cultivate a reading habit
Procedure:
- Divide the class into groups of six-eight
- Ask them to discuss the benefits of reading and how to cultivate a readinghabit
- After 5 minutes, call the representatives of the groups to report theirgroups' production
- Ask other groups to give comments
- Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers
Suggested answers:
Benefits of reading books:
- Cognitive mental stimulation and brain exercising
Trang 14- Vocabulary and knowledge expansion
- Lower levels of stress and tension relief
- Stronger analytical thinking skills
- Memory improvement
- Better writing skills
- Enhances imagination and empathy
- Broaden mind
- Improved focus and concentration
- Cheap entertainment
How to cultivate a reading habit
- Set reading times and day.
- Determine reading goals
- Always carry a book.
- Make a list of book for each month.
- Find a quiet place.
- Reduce television/Internet.
- Get a reading partner or book club.
- Go to used book shops.
The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:
1.5 Sample application 5 - Unit 12: Water sports
Aim: Encourage students to learn to swim as an essential life skill.
Suggested activity: Role play: Pretend a swimming trainer and persuade
people to learn to swim
Time limit: 10 minutes
Preparation:
Trang 15- Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; find out the benefits
-Ask some students what they learn from the data (Suggested answers:
Drowning deaths are happening continuously, most of the drown people are unable to swim or unaware of the danger, most of drownings occur in the low and middle income countries where people hardly have chance to learn how to swim methodically …)
-Divide the class into groups of six-eight
-Ask them to discuss how to persuade people to learn to swim
- Give students some suggestions (The persuasion should conclude the benefits
of swimming and some instructions for swimming)
- After 5 minutes, call the representatives of the groups to perform
- Ask other groups to give comments
- Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers
Suggested answers:
Benefits of swimming:
- A necessary life skill
- Building endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness
- Helping maintain a healthy weight, healthy heart and lungs
Trang 16- Tonning muscles and building strength
- Being a relaxing and peaceful form of exercise
- Alleviating stress
- Improving coordination, balance and posture
- Improving flexibility
- Providing good low-impact therapy for some injuries and conditions
- Save people who are going to drown
Some general tips for swimming:
- Staying calm in the water by building water confidence in the bathroom before progressing to the pool.
- Practise breathing techniques
- Get the right swim gear
- Put swim practice time in
- Choose a safe environment.
- Warm up and stretch your muscles and joints before entering the water.
- Have plenty of fluids on hand and drink regularly.
- Don’t overdo it if you’re just starting out.
The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:
2 Activities to improve students' sense of responsibility to their families 2.1 Sample application 1-Unit 1: Home life
Aim: Raise students' awareness of a child's responsibility to the family.
Suggested activity: Lesson for living: What lesson can you learn from the
writer's family? How do you apply the lesson into your real life?
Time limit: 10 minutes
Preparation:
- Teacher: Prepare a poster of suggested answers
Trang 17- Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; think about a child'sresponsibilities to the family.
-Ask other groups to give comments
-Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers
Suggested answers:
Lesson from the text: Each member in the family has to join hands to make a
happy family.
What a child should do for a happy family:
- Understand parents' hardship.
- Take care of yourselves.
- Share the household chores
- Give-and-take and help the other family members
- Honor, respect and obey parents and grandparents.
- Listen to the counsel of parents and grandparents.
- Care for parents and grandparents especially when they are sick and in their old age
- Understand and forgive father and mother if there have been failure and breaches
The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:
2.2 Sample application 2- Unit 2: Cultural diversity (Version 1)
Aim: Build up students' awareness of making a happy marriage.
Suggested activity: A survey: Express your idea about what to do for a
happy marriage
Trang 18 Time limit: 10 minutes
Preparation:
- Students: Think about the things men and women should do for a happymarriage
- Teacher: Prepare handouts of the things about men and women should do:
TO HAVE A HAPPY MARRIAGE
Men
should
- share housework with his wife
- do the heaviest work for his family
- love, respect and take care of parents -in-law
- open mind to listen to his wife
- take care of the children
- always willing to share with wife all problems
- stands by husband in all the crises
- take care of the children and their needs, including education
- be beautiful and attractive
- be sacrifice
- always trust her husband
- raise and educate children
- love, respect and take care of her parents law
-in do all the housework
- be faithful
Trang 19 Procedure:
- Deliver the handouts for students to tick their idea
- Students work in pairs to compare the idea with their partners
- Students discuss with their partner the different ideas to make an agreementabout what men and women should do
-After 5 minutes, call some students to express their ideas about what to dofor a happy marriage
-Ask other students to give comments
-Teacher gives feedback and show the suggested answer
Suggested answers:
TO HAVE A HAPPY MARRIAGE
Men
should
- share housework with his wife
- do the heaviest work for family
- calm and strong in any situations to protect family
- love, respect and take care of parents-in-law
- open mind to listen to his wife
- understand and sympathy with wife
- take care of the children
- always willing to share with his wife all problems in life
- be faithful
Women
should
- love, respect and take care of her parents -in-law
- share with husband all successes and attainments
- stands by husband in all the crises
- take care of the children and their needs, including education
- always trust her husband
- be healthy and attractive
- take the responsibility for raising children
- be faithful