Teachers and students perceptions of effective reading comprehension tasks with reference to tieng anh textbook 12 a survery study at dai mo high school

Aware of the importance of teaching reading skill, all the teachers of Dai Moupper-secondary school are trying their best to make the reading lessons effective.. It is hoped that this st

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG

TEACHERS AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF EFFECTIVE READING COMPREHENSION TASKS WITH REFERENCE TO TIENG ANH TEXTBOOK 12: A SURVEY STUDY AT DAI MO

HIGH SCHOOL

Khảo sát quan điểm của giáo viên và học sinh về các nhiệm vụ đọc hiểu hiệu quả

trong sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 12 ở Trường THPT Đại Mỗ

M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD : METHODOLOGY CODE : 601410

HANOI – 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ HỒNG NHUNG

TEACHERS AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF EFFECTIVE READING COMPREHENSION TASKS WITH REFERENCE TO TIENG ANH TEXTBOOK 12: A SURVEY STUDY AT DAI MO

HIGH SCHOOL

Khảo sát quan điểm của giáo viên và học sinh về các nhiệm vụ đọc hiểu hiệu quả

trong sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh 12 ở Trường THPT Đại Mỗ

M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD : METHODOLOGY CODE : 601410

SUPERVISOR : NGUYỄN BÀNG, M.A.

HANOI – 2010

Table 3 Students‟ perceptions of effective classroom reading activities

Table 4 How teachers should exploit the textbook effectively

Table 5 Students‟ perceptions of effective assessment of Reading Comprehension

Table 6 Teachers‟ perceptions of what teachers should do to make the reading lesson

effective

Table 7 Teachers‟‟ perceptions of the roles of various stages of an effective reading

comprehension lesson

Table 8 Teachers‟ perceptions of effective classroom reading activities

Table 9 How teachers should exploit the textbook effectively

Table 10 Teachers‟ perceptions of effective assessment of Reading Comprehension

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration ……… i

Acknowledgements ……… ii

Abstract ……… iii

Lists of tables……… iv

Table of contents ……… v

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 1 Rationale……….……… 1

2.The scope of the study………,,,,,……… 2

3 Aims of the study……… 2

4 Research questions……… 2

5 Methods of the study……… 3

6 Significance of the study……… 3

7 Design of the study……… 3

PART TWO 5 CHAPTER 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW 5 1.1 Definition of Reading……… 5

1.2 The role of reading in foreign language learning……… 6

1.3 Good Readers vs Bad Readers……… 7

1.4 Approaches to teach reading comprehension……… 8

1.5 Effective reading comprehension tasks……… 11

1.6 Teaching Procedures……… 14

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 17

2.1 Setting and background……… 17

2.1.1 The school……… 17

2.1.2 Participants……… 17

2.2 Data collection instrument……… 18

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 20 3.1 Data analysis……… 20

3.1.1 Data analysis of the students‟ survey questionnaire……… 20

3.1.2 Data analysis of the teachers‟ survey questionnaire……… 24

3.2 Discussion and findings……… 31

PART THREE: CONCLUSION 35 1 Summary of the major findings……… 35

2 Recommendations for Classroom Practice……… 36

3 Limitations and recommendations for further study……… 37

4 Summary……… 37

APPENDICES

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION

Reading is an essential skill for English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL).For many, reading is the most important skill to master With strengthened reading skills,ESL/ EFL readers will make greater progress and attain greater development in allacademic areas In Vietnam, English is taught and learned in a non – native environment soreading is not only an important means to gain knowledge but also a means by whichfurther study takes place According to Carrell (1984:1): - for many students, reading is byfar the most importance of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or aforeign language

Reading is one of the most important language skills in academic settings It is alsoone of the most complex skills to develop strong second language (L2) fluency Unlikespeaking and writing, the reader is not able to control the message or the language used It

is also a skill that, like listening, must be carried out under the real time pressure if it isdone fluently However, unlike listening, there are no opportunities to ask for clarification

or additional information Moreover, the range of vocabulary encountered in reading ismuch greater than is typically used in speaking and listening settings (Stanovich, 2000, p.252-258) Given this starting point, it is fairly clear that the development of L2 readingabilities represents a serious challenge for both the learners and the teachers

Aware of the importance of teaching reading skill, all the teachers of Dai Moupper-secondary school are trying their best to make the reading lessons effective Theteachers themselves always try to find out the best approach to apply in teaching However,the quality of English learning and teaching still remains very low Although a greatnumber of attempts have been made by the teaching staff in order to improve the situationsuch as applying various teaching approaches and techniques, adapting textbooks to makethe lessons suitable for the students to learn, their efforts seem not effective at all Thestudents cannot improve their English competence For all of these reasons, it would be

necessary to have an investigation into teachers„ and students‟ perceptions of effectivereading comprehension tasks and the mismatch between teachers and students‟ perceptions

of effective learning It is hoped that this study will reveal issues concerning teaching andlearning reading comprehension tasks to help teachers have a deep understanding about thereading strategies to make decisions on how and what they should do to keep their studentsmuch more involved in the reading process

2 The scope of the study

Having effective reading comprehension lessons is one of the biggest concerns ofboth the teachers and the learners of English In this study, focus is mainly put oninvestigating the teachers and students‟ perceptions of effective reading comprehensiontasks and the mismatch between teachers and students‟ perceptions of effective learning.The study is conducted in only one high school of Dai Mo upper-secondary school on 182students in four classes in twelfth grade and 7 teachers in the school

3 Aims of the study

The study aims to investigate three things:

1) Teachers‟ and students' perceptions of effective reading comprehension tasks.2) Differences between teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions of effective reading tasks

3) To give some recommendations for the improvement of the reading lessons

This study seeks to answer the following research questions:

1 What reading tasks are perceived as effective by the students?

2 What reading tasks are perceived as effective by the teachers?

3 Are there any differences between teachers‟ and students‟ perceptions of effective reading tasks?

In order to find out the answers to the above research questions, a survey researchwas adopted for this study

6 Significance of the study

Results of the study will help the teachers and students have a more comprehensivelook at the present situation of teaching and learning English reading comprehension tasks.And then, teachers will have appropriate and interesting ways to make the reading lessonsmore effective

7 Design of the study

The study is organized around three parts

Part one: - Introduction – provides rationale for the study, states what the study is

aimed at and what specific tasks it resolves, specifies the scope of the study, andsketches the general structure of the study

Part two: - Development – consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1: - Literature Review – mentions the theoretical background of the

topic with a definition of reading, an overview of the roles of reading inforeign language learning, good readers vs bad readers, approaches toteaching reading comprehension, effective reading comprehension tasks andteaching procedures

Chapter 2: - The study – provides information about the study This includes

the setting of the study, the participants and the research instruments usedfor this study

Chapter 3: - Data analysis and findings – gives the discription of the students

and teachers survey questionnaie This chapter also gives the discussion ofthe results and suggestions for teachers and students at Dai Mo Upper-secondary school and provides some suggestions for further study

Part three: – Conclusion – gives a summary of the whole study, its implicaions for

the improvement of the classroom practice, its limitations and suggestions forfuture research

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of the research

1.1 Definition of Reading

Reading is defined as being composed of four elements: the text, the reader, fluencyand reading strategies Reading can be seen as an “interactive” process between a readerand a text, which leads to automaticity or (reading fluency) In this process, the readerinteracts dynamically with the text as s/he tries to elicit the meaning and where variouskinds of knowledge are being used: linguistic or systemic knowledge (through bottom-upprocessing) as well as schematic knowledge (through top-down processing) Since reading

is a complex process, Grabe argues that “many researchers attempt to understand andexplain the fluent reading process by analyzing the process into a set of component skills”(Grabe: 1991, p 379) According to Anderson (1999: 1), “Reading is an active, fluentprocess which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning Meaningdoes not reside on the printed page, nor is it only in the head of the reader A synergyoccurs in reading which combines the words on the printed page with the reader‟sbackground knowledge and experiences.” I think this definition is comprehensive since itdescribes fully not only the nature of reading comprehension but also process of readingcomprehension Reading competence is composed of the following components or subskills (Grabe, 1991):

1 Automatic recognition skills

2 Vocabulary and structural knowledge

3 Formal discourse structure knowledge

4 Content/world background knowledge

5 Synthesis and evaluation skills/strategies

6 Metacognitive knowledge and skills monitoring

1.2 The role of reading in foreign language learning

In a second language classroom, reading plays a significant role in building bothlinguistic and background knowledge for other language skills Reading may contributesignificantly to competence in a second language There is a good reason; in fact, tohypothesize that reading makes a contribution to overall competence, to all four skills(Krashen & Terrel, 1983:131)

Hoang et al (2006: 191) even consider reading as the most effective means ofimproving students‟ language competence Especially, when there is a lack of L2environment, reading is even more significant since it helps enlarge students‟ backgroundknowledge and vocabulary as well as supports other skills (Pham, 2005 cited in Hoang etal., 2005:515) Since reading benefits grammatical knowledge and vocabularydevelopment, overall competence in the second or foreign language increases throughreading comprehension

Hedge (2003) states that any reading component of an English language coursemay include a set of learning goals for

 the ability to read a wide range of texts in English This is the long-range goalmost teachers seek to develop through independent readers outside EFL/ESL classroom

 building a knowledge of language which will facilitate reading ability

 building schematic knowledge

 the ability to adapt the reading style according to reading purpose (i.e skimming, scanning)

 developing an awareness of the structures of written texts in English

 taking a critical stance to the contents of the texts

The achievement of these learning goals is the measure of the effectiveness of a reading comprehension program However, the extent to which these learning goals

depends on many variables such as reader variables and text variables Learner variablesinclude students‟ interest level in the text, purpose for reading the text, knowledge of thetopic, foreign language abilities, awareness of the reading process, and level of willingness

to take risks Text variables are text type, structure, syntax, and vocabulary (Hosenfeld,1979) Therefore, comprehension is dependent on the interaction of the reader variablesand text variables

1.3 Good Readers vs Bad Readers

The reading comprehension literature classifies readers into good (effective)readers and bad (ineffective) readers It is commonly agreed that the good readers havestrong motivation for reading and appropriate reading strategies To these readers, reading

is enjoyable However, students‟ motivation to read is determined by how well they feelthey read This implies that if the reading texts are carefully selected and thereforecontribute to motivation, the process of language learning will be greatly helped Inaddition to strong motivation, a good reader does not examine every word in a linearfashion, but rather samples various linguistic cues (graphic, syntactic and semantic), anduses knowledge of the world to arrive at a hypothesis about the meaning of the text Thereader then tests this hypothesis in various ways (reading on, rereading) Put it anotherway, a good reader is active in the process of constructing the meaning of the reading text.Goodman (1967) describes a good reader briefly as the one who uses many sources ofinformation

By contrast, bad or ineffective readers tend to struggle with the text They toofrequently read a foreign language text with a painstaking dedication to deciphering everyword in a linear fashion, frequently spending more time looking up in a dictionary thanreading the text The result is at best a highly imperfect translation, at worst frustration andincomprehension (Revell & Sweeney, 1993) This is because these readers employinefficient strategies, which are quite contrary to the natural reading process

1.4 Approaches to teaching reading comprehension

(i) Bottom – up approach:

According to the bottom – up model, reading is viewed as “the process of meaninginterpretation” in which “the language is translated from one form of symbolicrepresentation to another” (Nunan, 1991) It was also understood as the process ofrecognizing the printed letters and words and building up a meaning from the smallesttextual units at the bottom (letter and words) to larger units at the top (phrases, clauses,intersentential linkages) (Rivers 1964, 1968; Plaister 1968; Yorio 1971) In other words, inthe bottom – up model, the reader begins with the written text (the bottom) and constructsmeaning from letters, words, phrases and sentences found within, and then processes thetext in a linear fashion Clearly, in the view of this driven model, the reader seems to play arelatively passive role because the basis of bottom – up processing is the linguisticknowledge of the reader Samuel and Kamil (188: 31) pointed out the shortcomings ofthese models as follows:

Because of the lack of feedback loops in the early bottom – up models, it was difficult to account for sentence – context effects and the role of prior knowledge

of text topic as facilitating variables in word recognition and comprehension.

Due to this limitation, the bottom – up view of reading fell into disfavor

(ii) Top – down approach:

In this model, reading is seen as the process in which readers move from the top,the higher level of mental stages down to the text itself This approach emphasizes thereconstruction of meaning rather than the decoding of form, the interaction between thereader and the text rather than the graphic forms of the printed pages The reader proves hisactive role in the reading process by bringing to the interaction his/ her available

knowledge of the subject, knowledge of and expectations about how language works,motivation, interest and attitudes towards the content of the text.

According to Ur, P (1996: 138) “reading means reading and understanding” andaccording to Anderson (1999: 1) “reading is not a passive process but an active fluentprocess which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning” What ismore, meaning of the reading materials does not reside on the printed page, nor it is only inthe head of the reader A synergy occurs in reading which is the combination of the words

on the printed page with the reader„s background knowledge and experiences

Apparently, the strong points of top – down models outnumber those of the bottom– up as the reader – the center of the reading process – proves his active role However, forsome researchers, these models still reveal certain shortcomings Stanovich (1988) statedthat “ the generation of hypotheses would actually be more time – consuming thandecoding” and Eskey (1988: 93) believed that ”in making the perfectly valid point thatfluent reading is primarily a cognitive process, they (N.B: researchers who approved top–down models) tend to deemphasize the perceptual and decoding dimensions of thatprocess”

Due to limitations of both bottom – up and top – down models, a new and moreinsightful reading process has been proposed under the name of interactive model

(iii) Interactive approach:

Interactive theorists appreciate the role of prior knowledge and prediction, and at thesame time emphasize the importance of rapid and accurate processing of the actual words

of the text

According to Hayes et al (1991: 7) “in interactive models, different processes arethought to be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes The

information obtained from each type of processing is combined to determine the mostappropriate interpretation of the printed pages”.

To sum up, the arrival and popularity of interactive models show that interactivemodels can maximize the strengths and minimizes the weaknesses of both bottom – up andtop –down models

Most foreign language reading specialists view reading as interactive The readerinteracts with the text to create meaning as the reader's mental processes work together atdifferent levels (Bernhardt, 1986; Carrell, Devine & Eskey, 1988; Rumelhart, 1977)

One important part of interactive process theory emphasizes "schemata," thereader's preexisting concepts about the world and about the text to be read Into thisframework, the reader fits what he or she finds in any passage If the new textualinformation does not fit into a reader's schemata, the reader misunderstands the newmaterial, ignores the new material, or revises the schemata to match the facts within thepassage

Content schemata are background knowledge about the cultural orientation orcontent of a passage For example, readers might know that Mark Twain wrote storiesabout life on the Mississippi River during the nineteenth century Such content schematahelp the readers to understand and recall more than do readers less familiar with textcontent (Carrell, Devine & Eskey, 1988)

Formal schemata define reader expectations about how pieces of textualinformation will relate to each other and in what order details will appear (Carrell, 1987).For example, in a detective story, a reader could expect the following chain of events: acrime occurs, possible suspects are identified, evidence is uncovered, and the perpetrator isapprehended

1.5 Effective reading comprehension tasks

(i) What is meant by “effective readers”?

Effective readers are those who are able to read fluently and strategically Theyknow how to identify key information from the reading text and know how to vary theirreading speed depending on their reading purposes (see Grabe & Stoller 2001) This meansthat effective readers are strategic readers In other words, strategy training should be part

of reading comprehension instruction, which is discussed in the subsequent section

(ii) Teaching strategies to achieve effectiveness in a reading comprehension lesson

Learners of a foreign language, especially at elementary and intermediate levels, arerarely efficient readers in the foreign language This has to do not only with deficiencies inlinguistic knowledge, but also with the strategies employed in reading Thus, mostresearches on reading now focus on the effective reading strategies that increase students‟comprehension Guthrie et al (1996) argues that most researchers study a single cognitivestrategy, rather than conducting a long-term study of multiple strategies Besides, fewstudies have addressed the issues related to “motivation” and “engagement” As Guthrieputs it:

Engaged reading is based on motivational and cognitive characteristics of the reader…who is intrinsically motivated, builds knowledge, uses cognitive strategies, and interacts socially to learn from text These engagement processes can be observed in student‟s cognitive effort, perseverance, and self-direction in reading (Ibid, p 404)

We must develop learners‟ reading strategies in the ways, which reflect the readingprocess in the native language This requires that we focus on meaning and on solvingrelevant problems, and not solely on interpreting individual words one after another Smith(1978:1267) emphasizes the preeminence of meaning and the essentially implicit nature ofquestions that we constantly ask in order to build up a general pattern of comprehension

He claims that such skills are not even expressly taught, but where foreign languagereaders are concerned there has been a traditional tendency to focus on „comprehensionquestions‟.

It is the teachers‟ responsibilities to motivate reading by selecting the appropriatematerials and especially for those at the early stages of learning Guthrie and Humenick(2004) performed a meta-analysis of studies that manipulated several aspects of intrinsicmotivation support for reading These findings suggest that “meaningful conceptualcontent in reading instruction increases motivation for reading and text comprehension.”The second motivation-supporting practice showed that students who were provided choice

of text performed higher on reading tasks than those with no choice The third practice was

to use interesting texts This conforms to Hedge‟s proposal that in selecting task texts,teachers should seek interesting texts and consider variety of topics Readers‟ interest can

be revealed by setting “a reading interest questionnaire” where students check the fieldsthat suit their interest, i.e short stories, thrillers, science fiction, etc Since “each learnerwill have different strengths to build on and different weaknesses to overcome” (Hedge,

2003, p 205), there is no one defined reading methodology In the functional approach toreading, Moorman & Ram (1994, p 646) focus on science fiction genre since “stories offermany opportunities for creative reading”

Carrell et al (1989, p 647) conducted a study on two metacognitive strategies,semantic mapping (SM) and the experience-text-relationship (ETR) method, to study theireffect on second language reading In semantic mapping, categories and associations aredisplayed visually in a diagram These authors went on to argue that besides “beingeffective for vocabulary development, semantic mapping has proved to be a good

alternative to traditional pre-reading and post-reading tasks” (ibid, p.651) In fact, most

contemporary reading tasks include pre-reading tasks Therefore, I believe pre-readingtasks can be followed by SM strategy since the former aim at increasing learners'motivation While semantic mapping is used as a tool to assess students‟ schema, theexperience text-relationship (ETR) method emphasizes comprehension, i.e., reading formeaning This method is based on discussion aiming at linking what the reader already

knows to what s/he will encounter in the text It has essentially three simple steps:

experience, text, and relationship In the experience step, the teacher leads the students to

the discussion of their own knowledge or experiences that are related in some way to the

passage to be read In the text step, students read short parts of the texts; usually a page or

two, and the teacher asks the questions about the content after each section In this step, theteacher may also need to correct any misunderstandings of the text evidenced by the

students In the final step, the relationship sequence, the teacher attempts to help the students draw relationships between the content of the text (as developed in the text step), and their outside experience and knowledge (as discussed in the experience step) In all

three steps the teacher is attempting to model and to guide the students systematicallythrough the cognitive processes related to understanding a written text From the resultsCarrell et al (1989, pp 665-668) conclude that

…metacognitive strategy training does enhance L2 reading when compared to nonstrategy training, as in the control group [and that] while there are similarities between the two methods in their enhancement of second language reading on some measures, on other measures there are differences between them Finally, our results show that there are significant interactions between students‟ learning styles and the effectiveness of training in the two different strategies.

Hedge (2003) states that although such small-scale studies need substantiation by

“further experimental work”, they have “contributed to ELT methodology in raisingawareness about the characteristics of effective language learning”

(iii) Recognizing and implementing effective foreign language reading strategies.

When foreign language teachers recognize that each reader brings to the readingprocess a unique set of past experiences, emotional and mental processes, level ofcognitive development, and interest level in the topic, they also recognize that not allteaching strategies will be effective for all students When isolating the most effectiveteaching strategies to use with a group of students, the foreign language teachers must also

consider those reader strategies that are not necessarily related to content schemata Such reader strategies include the following:

- using titles and illustrations to understand a passage,

- guessing word meanings,

- becoming aware of the reading process, and

All of these strategies can be targeted for use with foreign language materials

Another step in effectively teaching students how to read materials written in aforeign language is to help the individual reader identify effective reading strategies based

on text variables One important part of this step is alerting the readers to significantaspects of text variables that will affect foreign language reading For example, pointingout the differences between a fairy tale and a newspaper article helps the reader recognizethe different text types and to prepare for the uncomplicated sentence structure, high-frequency vocabulary, and, in most cases, happy ending that typically characterize a fairytale On the other hand, the same reader would need to prepare very differently to read anewspaper article about the technicalities involved in negotiating a disarmament treaty Inthis case, the vocabulary would be very specialized and the sentence structures morecomplicated

1.6 Teaching Procedures

In the literature, a reading comprehension lesson is usually composed of threemajor stages These stages are pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading Each stage hasits own goals, but altogether is aimed at making the reading comprehension effective in thesense that readers comprehend the text and develop their reading strategies Below is adiscussion of these three stages regarding the goal and common tasks for each stage

"Pre-reading" is the first stage of a reading comprehension lesson, in which tasksare introduced to students with reference to a particular text While the main motivation ofthe pre-reading stage is to increase the students‟ interest in the reading process, the goals ofthis stage are to elicit or provide appropriate background knowledge, and activatenecessary schemata Pre-reading tasks help the students to approach the text in a moremeaningful and purposeful manner as the discussion compels them to think about thesituation or points raised in a text The pre-reading phase helps students define selectioncriteria for the central theme of a story or the major argument of an essay Pre-readingtasks include: discussing author or text type, brainstorming, reviewing familiar stories,considering illustrations and titles, skimming and scanning (for structure, main points, andfuture directions).

"While -reading" tasks help students develop reading strategies, improve theircontrol of the foreign language, and decode problematic text passages Helping students toemploy strategies while reading can be difficult because individual students control andneed different strategies Nevertheless, the teacher can pinpoint valuable strategies, explainwhich strategies individuals most need to practice, and offer concrete exercises in the form

of "guided reading" task sheets Such practice exercises might include guessing wordmeanings by using context clues, word formation clues, or cognate practice; consideringsyntax and sentence structure by noting the grammatical functions of unknown words,analyzing reference words, and predicting text content; reading for specific pieces ofinformation; and learning to use the dictionary effectively

"Post-reading" exercises first check students' comprehension and then lead students

to a deeper analysis of the text, when warranted Because the goals of most real worldreading are not to memorize an author's point of view or to summarize text content, butrather to see into another mind, or to mesh new information into what one already knows,foreign language reading must go beyond detail-eliciting comprehension drills to helpstudents recognize that different strategies are appropriate with different text types Forexample, scanning is an appropriate strategy to use with newspaper advertisementswhereas predicting and following text cohesion are effective strategies to use with short

stories By discussing in groups what they have understood, students focus on informationthey did not comprehend, or did not comprehend correctly Discussions of this nature canlead the student directly to text analysis as class discussion proceeds from determiningfacts to exploring deeper ramifications of the texts.

The three above-mentioned stages have different purposes, but they together make

a coherent reading comprehension lesson The pre-reading stage is aimed at activating thestudents‟ background knowledge relevant to the information in the reading text, therebyhelping students to use their existing knowledge in order to comprehend the newinformation in the reading text Also, in this stage, the teacher helps the students to dealwith possible linguistic difficulties or challenges such as vocabulary and grammar Thewhile-reading stage focuses more on the developing students‟ sub-skills of readingcompetence through doing various reading tasks By doing these tasks, students‟ readingstrategies are also developed The post-reading stage is where linguistic skills areintegrated Integrative tasks use text language and ideas in foreign language listening,speaking, and/or writing Integrative skills exercises include such tasks as students reacting

to texts with summaries, new endings, or pastiches; reenacting text; dramatizing interviewsbased on the text; carefully listening for key words or phrases in authentic video or audiotapes; and creating role-play situations or simulations of cultural experiences Also, in thisstage, students‟ linguistic competence will be developed in this stage For example, theteacher can focus on helping students with problematic vocabulary or grammar

This chapter reviews some theoretical issues of teaching reading approaches Therole of reading in foreign language learning and approaches of teaching reading have beenelaborated Also, teaching strategies to achieve effectiveness in a reading comprehensionlesson, recognizing and implementing effective second language reading strategies andteaching procedures are presented in this chapter The next one presents the study

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

This chapter provides information about the study This includes the setting of thestudy, the participants and the research instruments used for this study

2.1 Setting and background

2.1.2 Participants

The process of data collection involved the participation of both teachers of Englishand grade 12th students as follows:

(i) Teachers of English

In Dai Mo High School, there are totally 7 teachers of English, including theresearcher, aged from 28 to 41 Two of them are studying for an M.A degree and the threeothers hold a B.A TEFL degree The two others had in-service TELT training courses Thenumber of female teachers formed the majority (5 female teachers and 2 male teachers).Some of them, however, are middle-aged which prevents them from learning

new things to some extent These teachers are not very happy to attend training programs

to get the ideas about the textbook and new teaching methodologies The participants ofthis study were members of this team

(ii) Grade 12 th students

The subjects of the study were 182 students coming from four different classes atDai Mo High School All of them were born in 1992 and they are both male and femaleand live around the school All of them basically are beginners of English despite finishingthe English program for the secondary system Most of them are not good at usinglanguage skills and they do not have a good English learning and speaking environment.Only in the classroom can they learn and use the language They do not have other places

to practice the knowledge they have learnt from school and have no chance to expose to thetarget language In addition, their lack of awareness on the importance of English as well

as motivation make them not interested in learning English Although most of them havealready learnt English for at least four years at lower secondary school, their knowledge ofEnglish is still poor and limited Hardly can they say a complete sentence in the targetlanguage

2.2 Data collection instrument

For a collection of sufficient, reliable and valid data for the study, two sets of surveyquestionnaires were administered to 182 students and 7 teachers of English at Dai Mo HighSchool The questionnaire was composed of 20 closed items and 3 open-ended items Thequestionnaire was written in Vietnamese (see appendix A & B) to make sure that theteachers and students understand the questions accurately Questions were developed onthe basis of the information related to effective reading comprehension in the literature

(i) The questionnaire for students

The questionnaire was designed to get information concerning:

1 Students‟ perceptions of what teachers should do to make the reading lessons effective

2 Students‟ perceptions of the roles of various stages of an effective reading comprehension lesson

3 Students‟ perceptions of effective classroom reading tasks

4 How teachers should exploit the textbook effectively

5 Perceptions of effective assessment of Reading Comprehension

6 Students‟ evaluation of the reading lessons

7 Students‟ recommendations for the improvement of the reading lessons

(ii) The questionnaire for teachers

Questionnaire designed for the teachers aims at finding out:

1 Teachers‟ perceptions of what teachers should do to make the reading lessons effective

2 Teachers‟ perceptions of the roles of various stages of an effective reading comprehension lesson

3 Teachers‟ perceptions of effective classroom reading tasks

4 How teachers should exploit the textbook effectively

5 Perceptions of effective assessment of Reading Comprehension

6 Teachers‟ evaluation of the reading lessons

7 Teachers‟ recommendations for the improvement of reading lessons

In short, this chapter has presented the information about the study This includesthe setting of the study, the participants and the the research instruments used for thisstudy The next chapter presents the data analysis and findings

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

3.1 Data analysis

3.1.1 Data analysis of the students’ survey questionnaire

(i) Students’ perceptions of what teachers should do to make the reading lessons effective

The data obtained from the students‟ questionnaire will be discussed to find out thestudents‟ perceptions of effective reading comprehension tasks The result of statements 1,

7, 2, 3, 6 is presented in Table 1

Strongly Agree No Disagree Strongly

S1 Teachers must teach all the new words in

the reading text.

S7 Teachers must help students understand

every single sentence in order to 17 24 17 39 3 comprehend the whole text.

S2 Teachers needn‟t teach all the new words

but students can understand the main ideas 20 31 8 38 5

of the text.

S3 Teachers need to activate students‟

background knowledge to help them 50 41 4 2 3 understand more.

S6 Students should be let to read and get the

general ideas before coming to the text 29 57 7 5 2 detail.

Table 1: Students’ perceptions of what teachers should do to make the reading lessons effective

Table 1 shows the students‟ perceptions of what teachers should do to make thereading lessons effective Students had the belief that they needed to be taught every word

in order to comprehend the whole text However, only half of them agreed that they needed

to understand every single sentence in order to comprehend the whole text and the otherhalf disagreed with this statement More than half of them agreed that teachers didn‟t need

to teach all the new words but students could still understand the main ideas of the text(statement 2) Most of them (91%) thought that teachers need to activate students‟background knowledge to help them understand the text better 86% had the idea thatteachers should let students read and get the general ideas before coming to the text details

(ii) Students’ perceptions of the roles of various stages of an effective reading

comprehension lesson

Strongly Agree No Disagree Strongly

(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) S16 The pre-reading tasks are the most

important part in the reading lesson.

S17 The while-reading tasks are the most

important part in the reading lesson.

S18 The post-reading tasks are the most

important part in the reading lesson.

S19 The main tasks in the while-reading stage

are to read and answer all the questions on the

reading text.

Table 2: Students’ perceptions of the roles of various stages of an effective reading comprehension lesson

Table 2 shows the statistical results of students‟ perceptions of the roles of variousstages of an effective reading comprehension lesson As can be seen clearly from the table

reading tasks and post-reading tasks), 48% showed that the pre-reading tasks were the mostimportant part in the reading lesson, while 38% said that the while-reading tasks were themost important part in the reading lesson, and 37% maintained that the post-reading tasks.About one fourth of the students disagreed that the main tasks in the while-reading partwere to read and answer all the questions on the reading text while half of them (48%)agreed with this statement.

(iii) Students’ perceptions of effective classroom reading tasks

Strongly Agree No Disagree Strongly

(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) S12 Students are required to read and complete all

the tasks in the textbook.

S15 Teachers should not finish at reading and

answering the questions mentioned in the 21 42 19 14 4 textbook.

S5 Students are helped to guess the unknown

words

S8 Teachers need to help the students know the

discourse of the text.

S13 All the skills such as speaking, listening and

writing should be integrated when teaching 37 48 6 6 3 reading skill.

S4 Translation is required to help students

comprehend the lesson

S10 Teachers shouldn‟t ask students to read the

text at a high speed

S11 Reading aloud the text is needed

Table 3 above shows the students‟ perceptions of effective classroom reading tasks.22% of the students had no idea and half of the rest disagreed that the students wererequired to read and complete all the tasks in the textbook (statement 12) Most of thestudents (61%) said that the teachers should not finish at reading and answering thequestions mentioned in the textbook Statement 5 indicated that students should be let toguess the unknown words with the help from the teachers (about 70%).

Most of them (80%) had the point that the teachers needed to help the studentsknow the discourse of the text and only 11% disagreed Nearly all the students (85%)agreed that all the skills such as speaking, listening and writing should be integrated whenteaching reading skill In addition, they needed to know the translation of the text to helpthem understand the lesson easily 86% of the students had the point of view that theteachers shouldn‟t ask students to read the text at a high speed and 52% showed that it was

no need to read the text aloud

(iv) How teachers should exploit the textbook effectively

Strongly Agree No Disagree Strongly

S20 If the students could not answer the

questions in the text, teachers need to adapt

the questions to the students‟ level of

proficiency.

S9 If the topic of the reading text is

unfamiliar to the students, teachers need to

provide them with necessary information

before the lesson

Table 4: How teachers should exploit the textbook effectively

Table 4 shows the data collected from the questions about how teachers should

exploit the textbook effectively More than half of the students had the agreement that if