Diversifying reading activities in english 8 textbook action research study in a secondary school in ha noi

ABSTRACT The research was conducted in a secondary school with grade 8th English as a Foreign Language EFL students with a view to investigating the impacts of diversifying reading activ

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

HOANG LAN CHI

DIVERSIFYING READING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH 8 TEXTBOOK: ACTION RESEARCH STUDY IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL

IN HA NOI

(Đa dạng hóa các hoạt động đọc trong sách giáo khoa lớp 8: Một nghiên cứu

hành động tại một trường cấp 2 ở Hà Nội)

M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi, 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

HOANG LAN CHI

Diversifying reading activities in english 8 textbook:

action research study in a secondary school

In ha noi

Đa dạng hóa các hoạt động đọc trong sách giáo khoa lớp 8: Một nghiên cứu

hành động tại một trường cấp 2 ở Hà Nội

M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 8140231.01

Supervisor: Dr Vu Thi Thanh Nha

Hanoi, 2020

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that I am the author of the report entitled “Diversifying reading activities in English 8 textbook: Action research study in a secondary school in Ha Noi”, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

master at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies - Vietnam National University I declare that the material is original, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes copyright, and has not previously been submitted to this university or any other institution in application for admission to a degree, diploma

or other qualifications

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Vu Thi Thanh Nha for her precious and continuous guidance throughout the year while I was doing this research Her invaluable support and encouragement, unconditional dedication and enthusiasm kept me inspired during the accomplishment of the research Without these, the thesis could not have been completed

I am grateful to all the professors for their valuable lectures, which contributed to lay the foundation for this thesis

I would like to thank my colleagues, who gave me important advice on implementing the plan, thank my students who were willing to participate in the research and fulfilling the questionnaire responsibly Their participation was so significant to the completion of my research

Finally, I would like to thank my family for their encouragement and continuous support while I made every effort to complete this paper

Hanoi, May 30th 2020

Hoang Lan Chi

ABSTRACT

The research was conducted in a secondary school with grade 8th English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students with a view to investigating the impacts of diversifying reading activities on the teaching and learning of reading skill, and students‟ attitudes toward its application The thesis followed the action research framework Participants of the research were 50 EFL students in grade 8, studying

in the same English class at a secondary school in Hanoi Data were collected by questionnaires, filled by the students, and the teacher‟s observation Analysis of the data showed that the diversification of reading activities was useful in that it made the learning of reading skill more effective, motivating and accessible to students Also, there was a positive change of students‟ attitudes towards learning reading skill Therefore, it is concluded that diversification of reading activities was

beneficial and should be employed EFL classes

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF FIGURES vi

LISTS OF TABLES vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions 3

1.3 Scope of the study 3

1 4 Methods of the study 4

1.5 Significance of the study 4

1.6 Design of the study 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Theoretical background of reading 6

2.1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension 6

2.1.2 Classification of reading 8

2.1.3 Stages of a reading lesson 12

2.2 Teaching and learning reading 16

2.2.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning 16

2.2.2 Factors in teaching and learning reading 16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 22

3.1 Action research framework 22

3.1.1 What is action research? 22

3.1.2 Action research cycle 23

3.1.3 Reasons to choose action research 24

3.2 Context of the study and the material used 25

3.3 Participants of the research 26

3.4 Procedures 27

3.5 Data collection instruments and analysis 31

3.5.1 Questionnaires 32

3.5.2 Classroom observation 32

3.5.3 Data analysis 33

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 34

4.1 Data collected from the pre-questionnaires 34

4.1.1 Students‟ attitudes toward the importance of reading skill and its benefits 34

4.1.2 Students‟ interest in reading and reading lessons 35

4.1.3 Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of the reading skill, reading essons and individual reading activities in the textbook 37

4.1.4 Students‟ problems in learning reading skill 41

4.2 Data collected from observation 42

4.3 Data collected from the post-questionnaires 44

4.3.1 Students‟ attitudes towards diversifying reading activities 44

4.3.2 Students‟ interest in reading and reading lessons after the diversification of reading activities 45

4.3.3 Students‟ opinions on the benefits of diversifying reading activities 46

4.3.4 Students‟ opinions on the usefulness of diversified reading activities 48

4.4 Summary 50

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 51

5.1 Recapitulation 51

5.2 Implications 54

5.3 Limitations 56

5.4 Recommendations for further research 57

REFERENCES 58 APPENDIX I

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2 1– A model for thinking about reading comprehension (Snow, 2002, p.12) 7

Figure 3 1 The action research spiral (Kemmis, McTaggart & Nixon, 2014, p.19) 23 Figure 4 1 Students‟ attitudes toward the importance of reading skill 34

Figure 4 2 Students‟ attitudes toward the benefits of learning reading skill 35

Figure 4 3 Students‟ interest in reading 36

Figure 4 4 Students‟ interest in reading lessons 36

Figure 4 5 Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of reading skill 37

Figure 4 6 Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of reading lessons 38

Figure 4 7 Evaluation of students‟ behaviour and class atmosphere 42

Figure 4 8 Students‟ opinions on the usefulness of diversifying reading activities 44 Figure 4 9 Students‟ interest in reading and reading lessons after the diversification 45

LISTS OF TABLES Table 3 1 The topics and focused reading skills in grade 8 English textbook 25

Table 3 2 The diversified reading activities 28

Table 4 1 Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of the reading activities in the textbook 39

Table 4 2 Students‟ demand for help in reading lessons 40

Table 4 3 Students‟ difficulties in learning reading 41

Table 4 4 Students‟ attitudes about the benefits of diversifying reading activities 46

Table 4 5 Students‟ opinions on the usefulness of diversified reading activities 48

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter mentions the background and rationale to conduct the study, states the

aims, scope, and organization of the graduation thesis

1.1 Rationale

English is widely considered the international language in many countries in the world and is popularly used by people from different countries to communicate with each other when they meet Due to the popularity of English in both social and work-related situations, the ability to use this language has become a criterion to evaluate job applicants in a number of companies and organization around the world Aware of the important role of English, in Vietnam, a national project on enhancing the teaching and learning of English was issued over ten years ago English has become a compulsory subject in school curriculum the teaching and learning of that international language has received increasing attention English teachers, therefore, are expected to do their jobs well to improve their students‟ English ability

To be able to use English, language learners are supposed to have sufficient exposure and practice different skills, among those, reading is one of the most important ones Reading is not just a means of maintaining social interaction or gaining word knowledge but also important to the process of learning (Watkins, 2017) Reading plays a very crucial role in learning and mastering of foreign language like English (Pathan & Al-Delsi, 2013) In learning a foreign language, reading is an essential skill to acquire knowledge and exchange information (Dlugosz, 2000), as Watkins (2017) stated, reading is “a crucial source” of comprehensible input, and the sufficient exposure to a huge amount of such input is essential to be successful (Watkins, 2017, p.14) Obviously, the excellence of reading skill eases students reading process, thus helps them acquire more knowledge from a variety of reading materials in English Being good at reading also has the potential to help improve students‟ overall language skills due to the

fact that their vocabulary knowledge and exposure to the target language use are increased, which is supposed to enhance students‟ vocabulary retention and increase the possibility for the words learnt to be used in students‟ speaking and writing This is because good reading texts provide models for writing and even speaking, also introduce new topics, thus stimulate discussion and the opportunities to study the language knowledge Thanks to this, it is true to say that learners “read to learn” (Burns, 1988, p.1)

Though important, reading is a complex and multifaceted activity (Demiröz, 2010) and it is a complicated skill since it requires the combination of “attention, memory, perceptual processes, and comprehension processes” (Kern, 1989, p.31), therefore, in order to help students‟ improve this skill, it is essential for English teachers to provide enough opportunities for their students to practice reading (Pathan & Al-Delsi, 2013) In Vietnam, especially at secondary school level, reading has always received a great deal of attention from both the teachers and the students However, despite the teachers‟ and students‟ effort, students “do not have very strong feelings that reading in English is enjoyable” (Sùentürk, 2015) So far, a number of methods have been employed by teachers to deal with the obstacles in teaching and learning reading Diversifying reading activities is among the techniques applied by a number of teachers of English in their teaching process However, researches focusing on such specific technique as diversifying reading activities to investigate its impacts on the teaching of reading and students‟ attitudes towards its application remain insufficient Nor there is any similar study looking at this issue at secondary schools

Similar problems occur in my school My students often complain that reading

is rather difficult, boring, thus demotivating Therefore, as a teacher, I tried diversifying reading activities in the textbook in the hope to make students more interested in reading Besides, there have not been any statistical reports on the application of this technique; therefore, in order to investigate the impacts of the diversification technique on my secondary students‟ learning as well as their

attitudes towards its application, I decided to conduct this research, titled

“Diversifying reading activities in English 8 textbook: Action research study in

a secondary school in Hanoi” It is hoped that the findings of the research will

contribute to the understanding of the diversification technique in teaching reading and its potential influence on the 8th grade students I also hope to be able to make useful suggestions for improving the situation of teaching and learning reading in

my school

1.2 Aims of the study and research questions

This study aims to investigate the 8th grade students‟ problems towards learning reading, to understand how the diversification of reading activities helps improve the teaching and learning of reading and how students‟ attitudes towards learning reading change thanks to the application of the technique To achieve these goals, the study focuses on finding the answers for the following research questions:

(1) What are the 8th grade students‟ problems in learning reading?

(2) How does diversifying reading activities help improve the teaching and learning of reading?

(3) What are the 8th grade students‟ attitudes towards the diversification of reading activities?

1.3 Scope of the study

The study focuses on investigating students‟ attitudes towards learning reading, their problems in learning to read in English as well as their attitudes towards the diversification of reading activities implemented by their teacher to vary reading activities and provide her students with new learning experience The study was done with students of grade 8 in a secondary school in Hanoi To improve reading skill in English for 8th graders in a secondary school, the teacher diversified reading activities in English textbook 8 with a view to making the lesson more interesting so that it could attract students‟ attention and inspire them the love for reading In this thesis, the author is going to provide a brief overview of the current situation of teaching and learning English reading of the 8th graders in a

secondary school, and based on the findings, to suggest what should be done in a reading lesson in order to motivate students in reading lessons as well as to help them to find reading interesting and become effective readers

1 4 Methods of the study

The study followed the framework of action research, which is presented in detail in the following part of this thesis Qualitative and quantitative data were collected by classroom observation and student questionnaires

Questionnaires were designed to investigate the students‟ difficulties in learning reading, their attitudes towards the learning of reading before the implementation of diversified reading activities, and their opinions about learning reading as well as the usefulness of diversification of reading activities after the implementation period The pre-questionnaires were given to the 8th graders who participated in the study before after the first six weeks when the diversification of reading activities was not yet applied After the implementation period, the post-questionnaires were delivered to get data for analysis Both sets of questionnaires were translated to Vietnamese, explanation was also provided before students completed them to make sure that they understand all the survey items

Class observation was also used as a tool for the teacher to reflect on the students‟ reactions to the diversification of reading activities and class atmosphere For each reading lesson, the teacher also made brief notes of important things that should be taken into consideration when teaching diversified reading activities

1.5 Significance of the study

The findings of the study were expected to provide teachers of English with further understanding of the diversification technique in the teaching of reading, what impacts it might have on students of the same age groups, what problems it might cause as well as what should be taken into consideration if they would like to apply the same technique in their reading lessons

1.6 Design of the study

The study is composed of three parts: Part I-Introduction presents the rationale, the aims, scope, methods, and design of the study Part II-Development consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 - Literature review - conceptualizes the study‟s theoretical background, presents the concepts relevant to the topic of the thesis In Chapter 2 the methodology used in the study is presented in details Chapter 3 shows the major findings and discussions of the findings The final part of the thesis, Part III- Conclusion provides a summary of the major findings On that basis, suggestions on the application of diversification technique on reading activities for grade 8 students are also made In this part, limitations of the study are also acknowledged and suggestions for future research are made accordingly

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter represents theoretical background to reading skill, brief overview of the reading activities, and a review of previous studies on different techniques to promote reading

2.1 Theoretical background of reading

2.1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension

Definitions of reading

The definition of reading has been provided by a number of researchers According to Goodman and Burke (1973), reading is a “psycholinguistic process by which the reader (a language user) reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (Goodman and Burke, 1973: 22)

In Goodman‟s view, the primary goal of reading is to understand the text Similarly, William (1984) defined reading as a process of reconstructing information from written texts

With Harmer (1989), reading is a mechanical process in which messages are received with eyes and processed by brains in order to understand the intended meaning Sharing the same view, Smith (1985) defined reading as the understanding

of the writers‟ thought while Aebersold and Field (1997) described reading as the process of looking at a text and assigning its meaning

Nunan (2003) defined reading as a fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning According to this author, meaning rests neither in the readers nor in the texts but derives from the integration of a reader‟s background knowledge and the text

Though different expressions were used to define “reading”, the definitions stated above shares similar ideas that reading is the readers‟ exposure to written texts and their interpretation of the messages communicated through the texts

Definitions of reading comprehension

To become better readers, students are supposed to be aware their current reading ability and what they could do to improve comprehension (Aebersold & Field, 1997) It is obvious that reading comprehension plays an important part in the process of teaching reading So far, a number of authors provided their own definitions on “reading comprehension” The concept was defined similarly, therefore the researcher only stated three among the popularly cited definitions For Grellet (1981), understanding a written text means “extracting the required information from it efficiently” (Grellet, 1981, p.3) Sharing the opinion, Richard and Thomas (1987) states that reading comprehension can be interpreted as the understanding between the authors of the written texts and the readers, and how readers understand the message significantly depends on their own background knowledge According to Snow (2002), reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (Snow, 2002, p 11) The author claimed that the reading comprehension process involves the three elements including the readers of the text with all their characteristics such as the capacities, abilities, knowledge and experiences combined to conduct the act of reading, the text to read

as well as the activity to which comprehension belongs and comprehension occurs within a larger socio-cultural context The author then proposed a model for thinking about reading comprehension as in the figure below

Figure 2 1– A model for thinking about reading comprehension (Snow, 2002, p.12)

Though the definitions are not exactly the same, it can be recognized that they both agree that reading comprehension is a process in which readers expose to the graphic form and interpret meaning through their lenses which may derive from their accumulated experience and background knowledge

2.1.2 Classification of reading

Although reading is defined similarly, there exist several types of reading, which are categorized based on the manner, purposes or strategies

Classification based on manner

According to manner, reading can be divided into two main types including reading aloud and silent reading The first type, reading aloud is when learners make the sounds of the text while reading (Watkins, 2017) This can be done on the basis of pair, group of class work, and though it is relatively less used, it can be effective in teaching situations (Cameron, 2001) As Doff (1988) claimed, reading aloud is a way to convey necessary information to other people In fact, reading aloud is not popular outside classrooms (Doff, 1988) This type of reading has both advantages and drawbacks Natal (1966) supposes that reading aloud is important for beginners as it helps students to make the connection between sounds and spelling, also assists teachers in checking students‟ pronunciation Moreover, it is a technique to keep the class under control, since when one student reads aloud, the others are supposed to listen carefully as they may be required to continue reading the next part

On the contrary, Greenwood (1985) blames this technique on distracting students According to him, students may find it difficult to focus adequately on the text‟s meaning when having to try to pronounce the words correctly He argues that reading aloud takes class time, distracts students and suggests that teachers should take a number of things into consideration if they use the technique

The second type, silent reading is thought to be “the quickest and most efficient” Lewis (1985: 110) Doff (1988: 67) defined silent reading as “making sense of a written text” When practicing silent reading, students can read at their

own speed In case they do not understand a sentence, they can go back to read again As silent reading is more suitable in my teaching context, it is more frequently used during the while-reading stage for the participants of this research

Classification based on purposes

People do not usually read unless they have a reason or a purpose for reading According to Grellet (1981), there are two main reasons for reading which are reading for pleasure and reading for information while Nutgall (2000) categorizes reading into two main types, namely, intensive and extensive readings The two concepts of intensive and extensive reading are clearly presented below

* Intensive reading (IR)

Intensive reading is the activity of reading short texts to extract specific information; therefore, intensive reading is more of reading for details (Grellet, 1981) Similarly, as Watkins (2017) confirms, intensive reading is another term for detailed reading Nutgall (1982) states that intensive reading is the process of approaching the text under the close guidance of the teacher or under the guidance

of task which make the students to pay remarkable attention to the text (Nutgall, 1982) It can be concluded that the aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text not only of what it means but also

of how the meaning is produced IR means reading short texts to extract specific information Its main concern is for detailed comprehension In IR, students normally work with short texts with close guidance from the teacher The aim of IR

is to help students obtain detailed meaning from the context, to develop reading skills- such as identifying main ideas and recognizing text connectors- and to enhance vocabulary and grammar knowledge It can be inferred that IR often refers

to the careful reading of shorter, more difficult foreign language texts with the goal

of complete and detailed understanding IR is also associated with the teaching of reading in terms of its component skills Texts are studied intensively in order to introduce and practice reading skills such as distinguishing the main idea of a text

from the detail, finding pronoun referents, or guessing the meaning of unknown words

* Extensive reading (ER)

While intensive reading is more for details, extensive reading is generally for general understanding, with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being read (Carrell and Carson, 1997) In ER, reading read longer texts usually for personal pleasure (Watkins, 2017) ER mainly involves general understanding (Grellet, 1981) and the text used for these purposes are generally withing the range

of comfortable understanding Similarly, Davis (1995) gives description of ER from

an English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom implementation perspective, in which students read mostly for pleasure at their own speed without the pressures of testing or marks and books selected are those catching students‟ attractiveness and relevance to their lives

Hammer (1986) claimed that extensive reading normally aims at catching the main ideas or general information then to grasp general comprehension and finally, after much practice, to achieve details comprehension ER is generally associated with reading large amounts with the aim of getting an overall understanding of the material Readers are more concerned with the meaning of the text than the meaning

of individual words or sentences In fact, most of ER is usually done silently and outside the classroom, it gives the students opportunities to use their knowledge of the target language for their own purposes Besides, it provides the valuable reinforcement of language items and structure already presented in the classroom, gives the students chance to update and enrich their language knowledge by reading the topics they like and read for enjoyment without consideration for pressure of time, intense concentration, and total comprehension ER therefore, is regarded as

an effective way for the students to improve their language reading; it helps students enhance language learning in such areas as spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and text structure Besides, it gives students more positive attitude toward reading offers them greater enjoyment of reading, helps them to read with pleasure It is also

considered as an advisable sort of work for the students to increase and improve their general knowledge of the world as well Basing on the purposes of reading, people may have to frequently employ skimming or scanning skills as they read extensively

Though intensive and extensive reading are both necessary and beneficial, the focus of this study is put on intensive reading only as it aims to look at the diversification of reading activities in students‟ textbooks rather than reading texts from other sources

Classification based on reading strategies

There are different reading strategies, among those, skimming and scanning are among the most frequently applied Skimming, or “gist reading” (Watkins,

2017, p.4), according to Watkins (2017), means to read quickly for general understanding, which is often used when readers go through the reading material quickly to grasp its main points or the intention of the writer (Grellet, 1981), but not

to find the answer to specific questions This is similar to Nuttall‟s view (1982, p.36) who stated that “By skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through a text to determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed about matters that are not of great importance to us” Skimming helps readers an overview of the text so it is beneficial to checking relevance of the text and to setting the scene for more concentrated effort in reading

It can be concluded that skimming is a useful reading skill for students, which is advised to apply at the first stage of teaching reading with the hope that it can help readers to have an overview of what they are reading Moreover, it will be easier for them to deal with other tasks following in the next reading stage

While skimming is normally applied to get the overview and main ideas of the texts, scanning is said to be “the very quick processing of text” (Watkins, 2017, p.17), occurring when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information, or, in other words, to look for specific detail This is because that when readers scan, they often have a question in mind so they do not

read every word but only focus on words that carry the answers to their questions

As Watkins (2017) wrote, scanning involves the form recognition rather than emphasizing the understanding of the text as a whole It can be understood that when scanning, readers focus more on form than on meaning Therefore, practice scanning can help readers read faster because they normally skip unnecessary information In fact, scanning is quite popular and important in everyday life when people often have to focus on looking for the information they need rather than the whole thing they see in the text

2.1.3 Stages of a reading lesson

Although the role of reading activities in teaching reading is made apparent, how they are organized and sequenced in a lesson varies among different approaches to language teaching In light of the recent and widely accepted communicative approach, a reading lesson is supposed to go through three stages: pre-, during-, and post- reading (Celce-Murcia et al, 2001) This view is shared by Watkins (2017), who claims that reading lesson involved a “fixed sequence” (Watkins, 2017, p.20) with pre, while, and post reading stages Each stage is characterized by its own aims and procedures and, it is not necessary for all the stages to be present in every reading lesson (Watkins, 2017) In this study, the names of the reading stages follow Watkins‟s suggestions and are detailed presented below

2.1.3.1 Pre-reading stage

This is the early stage during which teachers are expected to pre-teach some vocabulary that appears in the text, conduct some activities to build students‟ interest in the topic of the text (Watkins, 2017) Therefore, pre-reading activities often aim at activating or building students‟ background knowledge of the subject and get them familiar to some language items needed for text comprehension According to Grabe and Stoller, cited in Celce-Murcia (2001), pre-reading instruction serves five purposes which are:

to help students access background information that can facilitate subsequent reading;

to provide specific information needed for successful comprehension;

to stimulate students‟ interest;

to set up student expectations and

to model strategies that students can later use on their own;

(Celce-Murcia, 2001, p.191)

A number of popular pre-reading activities were also suggested by the authors, which include previewing the text by examining distinguishing features of the text such as the title, subheadings, illustrations and captions, and sections to determine the general topic of the reading, relevant vocabulary and possible challenges; skimming the text or part of the text to grasp the main ideas; answering questions about information in the text of designing questions for which students want answers; exploring important vocabulary and reflecting on or reviewing information from the texts students read before in light of the new text (Celce-Murcia, 2001)

Watkins (2017) also proposed a list of common pre-reading activities, taking text-based and situational models of comprehension into consideration According

to the author, it is advisable to provide readers with words and grammar related to the text language to build a representation of meaning, in order to facilitate readers

in the text-based model On the contrary, the fact that learners are often ask to consider what they know about a topic, or what content they expect the text to include basing on predicting activities by looking at the title, visual content, or vocabulary items extracted from the text is to help students succeed in the situational model The list of common pre-reading activities suggested by the author include visualization, previewing a text by its vocabulary (learners predict the content of a text from key vocabulary), previewing a text through role-play (learners perform a role play based on the story), a quick glimpse (learners guess the content

of the text through briefly seeing words and pictures), simplified to authentic

(reading an authentic text after reading a simplified version), L1 to L2 reading (reading a summary of a text in their mother tongue before reading the full text in the target language), predicting from pictures (predicting a story from pictures, some of which are relevant and some that are not then identifying the irrelevant pictures), analyzing pictures, predicting from the text type (making predictions about the text, based on their experience of other similar texts), predicting from the reactions of others (making predictions about the text, based on the reactions of other readers), specifying goals before reading by stating what information to find out, specifying what readers believe about a topic before reading and read to see if the text supports their views

In this research, suitable pre-reading activities from the list above were chosen and applied Students‟ attitudes towards the application on their application were then investigated

2.1.3.2 While-reading stage

While-reading stage, also called during-reading stage is the most important phase (Paran, 1996) during which teachers set a number of tasks and learners are supposed to read to complete them Teachers‟ feedbacks are essential to check whether students‟ do the task accurately In this stage, students are guided to understand focus on reading to understand the difficult concepts, making sense of complex sentences, considering the relationships among ideas or characters in the texts, reading with a purpose in minds and using reading strategies effectively to look for information in the texts (Celce-Murcia, 2001)

The activities that can be conducted in the while – reading stage include

“outlining or summarizing key ideas in difficult section, examining emotions and attitudes of key characters, determining sources of difficulty and seeking clarification, looking for answers to questions posed during pre-reading activities, and writing down predictions of what will come next” (Celce-Murcia, 2001, p.191) More specific description of the while-reading activities was offered by Watkins (2017) Common examples of while reading questions listed by the author include

answering multiple-choice questions, answering True/ False; Yes/ No; Open-ended (What, Where When., etc) questions, putting pictures into a sequence, inserting sentences or paragraphs into gaps in the text from which they were previously removed, matching pictures to parts of a text, matching sub-headings to parts of a text, correcting errors in a summary of a text, drawing a picture in response to a text, retelling a story they have read, finding the right phrase to fill in the text, responding to demanding questions which require interpretation, editing a text, writing a brief summary, making notes and so on

In conclusion, the techniques applied in this stage widely vary, ranging from guessing new words in contexts, asking questions to note-taking Teachers, at the while-reading stage, need to help their students comprehend the text thoroughly while students have to apply to their reading skills like skimming, scanning, guessing and so on, to understand the text as well as the writer‟s purposes conveyed through the reading text

2.1.3.3 Post-reading stage

Post-reading is conducted at the end of the reading lesson during which teachers set up an activity that follows on from the text (Watkins, 2017) The aim of the stage is to extends ideas and information from the text while also ensuring that the major ideas and supporting information are well understood (Celce-Murcia, 2001) In this stage, students are required to use text information to complete other tasks Popular post-reading activities include completing a graphic organizer (e.g., table, chart, grid) based on text information; Expanding or changing a semantic map created earlier; Listening to a lecture and comparing information from the text and the lecture; Ranking the importance of information in the text based on a set of sentences provided; Answering questions that demonstrate comprehension of the text, require the application of text material, demand a critical stance on text information, or oblige students to connect text information to personal experiences and opinions (Celce-Murcia, 2001) The author then introduced a number of specific activities which can be integrated in different stages of the reading lesson

Although a reading lesson does not always necessarily go through all these stages, it is highly advisable that language teachers follow the framework in order to better help their students improve their reading skills as well as promote their interest in reading

2.2 Teaching and learning reading

2.2.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning

In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the teaching and learning of reading receives great attention since it is regarded as one

of the most important skills (Paran, 1996) Mastering reading skill remains a challenging task as a number of factors, namely, a good competence of English grammar, rich vocabulary, and reading techniques., etc are needed for the success

of the skill Richard (1993) claimed that due to the frequent exposure to new vocabulary and grammatical structures while reading, students can improve their knowledge of the target language accordingly

Reading is not just an effective way for students to acquire the target language but by reading language learners can access to immense cultural information (Richard, 1993), which helps them better understand the speakers‟ ways of life, behaviors, thoughts, facts and experiences

To sum up, reading is often viewed as the process of reconstructing the meaning of a text by passing its graphic display Reading can be categorized basing

on different aspects such as manner, purposes and strategies and often goes through three stages including pre, while and post Reading is important for it facilitates the mastery of language as well as serves as a means for students to widen their knowledge of the world around

2.2.2 Factors in teaching and learning reading

2.2.2.1 Teacher’s role

It is commonly agreed that that teachers play a crucial role in language classes in general and in reading lessons in particular Teachers are supposed to serve as an organizer, a manager and a counselor, an instructional expert, so he or

she should be a guide to assist, encourage them, employ various types to support the students develop reading skills He or she also the person who provides the students with an anxiety-free atmosphere which helps them feel free to join new reading style, practice to master new strategies, work under pressure of time An essential element of the teacher‟s role-a model reader According to Nuttall (1982: 192)

“showing that you are a reader means carrying books around with you, referring to books as you teach, reading out brief passages that may interest students, talking about what you are reading at the moment, and handling books as if you loved them” He also states that “teacher‟s job as providing, first, suitable texts and second, activities that will focus the students‟ attention on the texts”

2.2.2.2 Students’ role

It is obvious that students themselves are the key factor which decide the success of reading teaching process According to Nuttall (2003), in order to make the best of reading, students are expected to take an active part in reading Second, students should be encouraged to take the risk of making mistakes because it is an opportunity to learn Monitoring comprehension, which means students need to understand how texts work and what they do when they read, is another factor over which students should have good control Last but not least, students need to learn responsibly rather than trying to cheat, which wastes their time and does not result

in any development

2.2.2.3 Reading texts

Reading texts are indispensable factors of the reading process as through the text, language learners can learn new grammar, phonetic and lexical items of the target language Furthermore, information students learn through the text also provide students valuable background knowledge Therefore, in teaching reading, the teacher should pay sufficient attention to the aspects of reading such as language content, vocabulary and grammatical structures, types of reading activities, though providing suitable texts may takes time, effort and some expertise (Buck, 2001)

2.3 Diversifying reading activities

As defined by Cambridge online dictionary, “diversification” refers to the process of starting to include more different types or things In this study, the meaning of diversification can be understood in a broader sense, which means a process of selecting, deleting, differentiating, supplementing, simplifying, reordering and replacing the teaching activities This coincidences with Tomlinson‟s (2001) definition of adaption Therefore, the terms “diversification” and “adaption” are used as absolute synonyms in this thesis and can be used interchangeably

Adding

Adding can be either extending an activity or expanding the material, which, respectively, mean suppling more of the same type of material thus “making a quantitative change in the material” (Tomlinson, 2014, p.91) and adding some different things thus making a qualitative change to the materials

Deleting

This type of adaptation refers to the quantitative deletion (subtracting) or qualitative deletion (abridging) of the material

Simplifying

Simplifying as, as explained by Tomlinson (2014), is to reward instructions

or text, or simplify a complete activity to make it easier for students to learn

2.4 Previous researches

So far, an array of researches looking for EFL learners‟ problems in learning reading have been done Recently, Kasim and Raisha carried out a research with 50 tertiary students on this field in 2014 Questionnaire was used by the researchers to collect data regarding linguistic and non-linguistic difficulties The researchers then concluded that insufficient vocabulary, problems understanding linguistic complexity, language inaccessibility and poor reading skills were students‟ major problems in learning reading (Kasim & Raisha, 2017) Basing on the findings, they proposed some pedagogical implications including getting students to read more to expose to new language items, and learn vocabulary through doing games Besides, the teacher needs to understand their students‟ reading comprehension problems, and be ready to help them by introducing the reading techniques and encourage them to practice with efforts The findings by Kasim and Raisha (2017) as mentioned include those problems stated by some other researchers such as Satriani (2007) who claimed that the difficulties in reading were caused by linguistic aspects (such as grammar and meanings) together with the lack of reading interest

(Fakhrudin, 2005) and time to cognitively process the text (Qarqez & Radzuwan, 2017) Among those aspects, limited vocabulary or the lack of “word recognition skills” (Spencer, Robin & Hay, 1998) and lack of background knowledge are supposed the most affecting factors (Gabb, 2000)

As reading appeared problematic with a number of EFL learners, researchers also found their interest in looking for better methods of teaching reading Thus, a number of researches have been conducted to investigate ways to teach reading effectively In Vietnam, Hong (2008) looked at the roles and impacts of pre-reading activities on 2nd year English majors at a military university in Vietnam as well as the attitudes of students She found out that pre-reading activities were useful as they improved motivation, activated students‟ existing knowledge and provided students with some language (i.e grammar and vocabulary) and background knowledge that made the reading texts more accessible

Tam (2013) and Linh (2007) both looked at the while-reading stage and evaluated its effectiveness towards the learning of reading for upper secondary school students They used questionnaires and observation as the major source of data and after data analysis, they came to an agreement that teachers should diversify reading activities and be flexible in adapting them to fit students‟ level, teaching contexts in order to make the best of the diversification technique In fact, some more researchers also took their interest in examining this subject matter; however, because they followed similar procedures and achieved quite similar results, I will not present their findings here

From the review of literature, together with personal experience, observation and discussion with the colleagues, teachers often make use of diversification technique in their teaching of reading for different purposes and with different groups of students Though diversification of reading activities is popular, there is

no research or detailed report on the impacts of the diversification of reading activities in the new English textbooks for grade 8 students, and their attitudes

toward the application of the technique Therefore, the technique was applied in my class to look for the information that helps answer my research questions

2.5 Summary

This chapter has reviewed and provided important theoretical background and conceptual framework for the study Definitions of reading and reading comprehension as well as types of reading from different scholars‟ perspectives were also presented The concept of diversification and techniques to adapt were also clarified In the next chapter, methodology and findings of the research will be presented and discussed

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents a review of the methodology of the study, which describes in detail the subjects of the study, the research design, the procedures and the instruments to collect data for the research

3.1 Action research framework

3.1.1 What is action research?

Action research emerged several decades ago and has been practiced by a number of teachers in their own classrooms As defined by Cohen and Manion (1994), action research is small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such intervention Kemmis and McTaggart (1988) gave a more detailed description which claimed that this type of research is a group activity and a form of collective self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of the own social or educational practices, as well as their understanding

of these practices and the situations in which these practices are carried out

There are some different kinds of action research, in this study, the term

“action research” is used to refer to action research in language classes only, which,

as clarified by Kemmis, McTaggart and Nixon (2014), typically involves the use of qualitative, interpretative modes of enquiry and data collection by teachers with a view to teachers making judgments about how to improve their own practices, so the primacy is given to teachers‟ self-understanding and judgments This view is quite similar to Borg‟s (1965) who stated that the emphasis of action research is the involvement of teachers in problems in their own classrooms and its primary goal is toward the development of the teachers themselves rather than the understanding of general knowledge in the field of education Though defined with different expression, it can be concluded that the distinctive feature of action research is that

it is conducted by classroom teachers rather than professional researchers, aiming at making changes in their own classrooms (McNiff & Whitehead, 2006)

3.1.2 Action research cycle

According to Kemmis, McTaggart and Nixon (2014), Kurt Lewin (1946) is

“the father of action research” (Kemmis, McTaggart & Nixon, 2014) who described action research as a cycle of steps of planning a change, putting plan into action, observing what happened, and re-formulating the plan in the light of what had happened Sharing this view, in Kemmis and Mctaggart‟s publication (1988), an action research usually goes through a number of cycles Each cycle has four major stages which are plan, action, observation, and the reflection After a cycle completes, the new cycle begins with the revised plan and goes through the same process Kemmis, McTaggart and Nixon (2014) then upgraded their theory of action research, and acknowledged that this type of research, in reality, is not as neat and that the stages normally overlap The researchers then proposed the action research spiral as illustrated in the figure 2.1 below

Figure 3 1 The action research spiral (Kemmis, McTaggart & Nixon, 2014, p.19)

As can be seen from the figure, action research is conducted through a number of stages The first step, planning, involves problem and situation analysis

as well as plan design In the second stage, the plan is implemented, the following stage is observation when the researchers monitor and evaluate the action At the end of a cycle, the reflection on the ongoing process of planning, acting and

observing is reported Based on the information collected, revised plan will be proposed and new cycle begins

In this study, the researcher followed the action research framework by Kemmis, McTaggart & Nixon (2014) as shown in the figure, initiating by planning the action, then implementing, observing and reflecting then continue with re-planning and further steps However, due to the time constraint, only the first cycle

of the action research was fully undergone

To be more specific, in the planning stage, the researcher made a careful plan

on the reading activities to be chosen, adopted, adapted or supplemented in each reading lesson The next step was to follow the plan previously designed During the class time, students were required to follow teachers‟ instructions and take part

in the reading lessons under teachers‟ guide The researcher took the role of a teacher who provided the instructions, monitored the class activities, motivated interaction, facilitated students and provided constructive feedback to students At the same time, the researcher made notes on the observation sheets to keep reports

on students‟ reactions to the diversification of the reading activities, the benefits as well as drawbacks that might remain during the implementation process In the reflection stage, students were asked to provide feedback on the use of diversification technique by completing a survey with a number of questionnaires The researcher then collected data, evaluated the benefits and challenges of the implementation and made suggestions to revise the plan

3.1.3 Reasons to choose action research

As the research was conducted in my own classes with my own students and

I kept the roles of both the practitioner and researcher, action research was decided

to be the most suitable method The application of action research is expected to provide me with a good opportunity to have a more precise feedback to my own teaching practices, helps me gain deeper understanding of these practices and the situations in which these practices are carried out so that I have more information to

make decisions on what works best and what needs improvement in my own classrooms

3.2 Context of the study and the material used

The study was conducted in a secondary school in the capital city of Vietnam

which followed the national curriculum in which English is a compulsory subject for students from grade 6

The class in which the study was conducted had 50 students with multi-level

of proficiency Some were very good at English, some were at average level and some were really slow in learning this subject Based on this fact, after several weeks of teaching, the English teacher a prepared different teaching plan suitable for the class

Regarding the material used, students at grade 8 all followed the English textbooks published by the Vietnam Education Publishing House The textbook, Tieng Anh 8, consists of two parts, one for the first and the other for the second semester The topics and reading skills focused in each unit taught from the beginning of the first semester, including the units used in the research period, are presented in the following table During the research time, students completed six units from unit 4 to unit 9

Table 3 1 The topics and focused reading skills in grade 8 English textbook

1 Leisure activities - Reading for general and specific

information about the possible effects of spending too much time on the computer

2 Life in the countryside - Reading for specific information about an

unusual lifestyle in the countryside: Mongolian nomadic life

3 Peoples in Vietnam - Reading for specific information about an

ethnic group

5 Festivals in Vietnam - Reading for specific information about

two festivals in Vietnam

6 Folk tales - Reading for specific information about a

fairy tale

Review 2

7 Pollution - Reading for general and specific

information about water pollution

8 English speaking

countries

- Reading for specific information about and English-speaking country

9 Natural disasters - Reading for specific information about

how to prepare for a natural disaster

Review 3

10 Communication - Reading for specific information about

future way of communication

11 Science and technology - Reading for specific information about

future roles of science and technology

12 Life on other planets - Reading for specific information about life

on another planet

Review 4

3.3 Participants of the research

The research was conducted at a secondary school in Hanoi for the period of twelve weeks from the second half of the first semester and the first half of the second one of the academic year Participants of the research were 50 students of the 8th grade, including both male and female students They all followed the same

curriculum since they entered the school For those students, English was a compulsory subject They followed the same English textbook from grade 6 until the time the research was conducted

Students in the class were of multi-level of proficiency, some were rather good at English, some at average level compared to other members of the class, some were quite slow at English Their reading speed, the ability to read and comprehend texts,, and the skills of reading that they could apply were quite different Therefore, after some weeks of teaching, the teacher was supposed to design a teaching plan which was expected to be more suitable and beneficial for the class

3.4 Procedures

Plan

Following the action research steps presented in at the beginning of this chapter, the researcher started with problem identification and analysis Through the first few weeks of teaching, she recognized that the students in the class were not at the same level of proficiency, which resulted in their different performance when learning different lessons In terms of reading itself, a number of students did not show their engagement in learning, especially with some particular types of questions To have an insight into their problems with the reading lessons in general and their difficulties in dealing with the reading texts and specific types of activities in the textbook, the researcher designed the pre-questionnaire to collect information regarding students‟ problems as well as their attitudes towards reading skills Students‟ responses to the first questionnaire were useful for the teacher as she could base on such information to design better plans for teaching

After working out students‟ problems, the teacher as well as researcher designed a teaching plan for the class, in which she added some new activities, deleted some (in fact she assigned them to be students‟ homework), and modified some in order to provide the opportunities for students to get familiar with different types of reading activities, and make the lessons more accessible, motivating and

attractive with the majority of students in the class Detailed plan for each week with diversified reading activities is clearly illustrated in the lesson plans attached in the appendix of this thesis and is presented below

Table 3 2 The diversified reading activities

7 - Choose the correct words to

fill in the given sentences

- Check and review students‟ understanding of word forms

- Review the strategies to read

for main ideas and for detail

questions

- Change some questions into

multiple choice type with 3

options for students to choose

Questions include both main

idea and detail questions

- Give students some key

expressions and the

paraphrased ones picked up

from the reading text and ask

them to match the key

expressions with the

- Provide students with some knowledge about paraphrasing, raise students‟ awareness of paraphrased expressions

- Ask students to work in

groups and scan the text again

to pick up the ideas and put

the ideas into the correct parts

(effects, causes, solutions) of

the diagram Tell students that

they can paraphrase the ideas

with their own words

- Give students a sample

presentation to follow The

sample presentation has

number of given words/

phrases/ expressions from the

- Give students an opportunity to practice scanning skills

- Encourage students to paraphrase ideas

- Make students familiar with the gap-filling activity

text Ask students to choose

suitable words/phrases to fill

in each blank

- Prepare a summary of the

reading with some gaps, ask

students to choose a word

from the text to fill in each

blank to complete the

summary

- Ask students to draw a

mind-map of the interesting

information about the two

countries they learnt from the

text (Homework)

- Distribute a note of the

paraphrased expressions in the

text and ask students to match

each expression its equivalent

- Make students familiar with the paraphrased expressions

- Improve their skills of guessing the word/phrase meanings in context

8 - Recall the reading strategies

for reading for specific

information

- Give students some

statements about Scotland and

ask students to scan the text

and decide whether the

statements are true or false

- Change the reading activity

into multiple choice question

type for students to choose

- Provide a sample

presentation template for

students to fill with the

information from the text

- Ask students to draw a

mind-map of the interesting

information about the

- Review the previously learnt knowledge

- Get students familiar with scanning and skimming skills

- Provide students with some background knowledges about Scotland

- Get students familiar with scanning and skimming skills and information filling activity

- Get students familiar with the filling and summarizing activities

gap Provide more reading activities to

countries they learnt from the

text (homework)

- Distribute a note of the

paraphrased expressions in the

text and ask students to match

each expression its equivalent

expression/synonym

(Homework)

improve comprehension and to help students review the vocabulary and grammatical structures they have learnt

- Make students familiar with the paraphrased expressions/synonyms

- Improve their skills of guessing the word/phrase meanings in context

words/phrases and some

pictures that show their

meanings Ask students to

quickly look for the words in

the text and decide which

picture might show the

meaning of each word/phrase

- Prepare students for the reading activities, make the reading activities more accessible for students and save class time

- Improve students‟ skills of guessing the word/phrase meanings in context

- Show the full answers for

each question with some gaps,

ask Ss to read the text again

and look for the information

to fill in the gaps

- Distribute a worksheet with

a summary of all the

suggested ways to protect

oneself from disasters and get

students to read the texts again

and tick what they found in

the reading and then add some

more

- Distribute a worksheet with

multiple choice questions, ask

ss to decide the correct

answers for each question by

reading the text again

(Homework)

- Pick up some sentences with

- Get students familiar with the filling activity

gap Vary the reading activity and make

it more accessible and interesting for students to do

- Get students familiar with scanning and skimming skills, check students‟ comprehension of the text

- Get students familiar with scanning and skimming skills, check students‟ comprehension of the text

- Review the lexical items that

key grammatical structures

from the text and design a

completion exercise for

students to review them

(Homework)

- Distribute a note of the

paraphrased expressions in the

text and ask students to match

each expression its equivalent

Act and observe

After having the plans, the teacher conducted the activities that she prepared

in her class and observed students‟ reactions and their engagement in learning to be able to get more information to confirm the advantages and disadvantages associated with the diversification of the reading activities Post-questionnaire was also designed to collect information from the students about their opinions on the application of the diversified reading activities

Reflect

Based on the information collected, the teacher better understood the benefits and drawbacks of the diversification technique when teaching with her class She revised her plans of teaching and made notes of what she should take into consideration when she would like to diversify reading activities in both the current class and other ones

3.5 Data collection instruments and analysis

The data for the study were collected by questionnaires for students and classroom observation of the teacher The research was divided into two phases, in the first phase lasting for six weeks, the teacher strictly followed the activities designed in the textbook In the second phase, the intervention was implemented Pre and post-questionnaires were respectively distributed before and after the diversification of reading activities to collect data for analysis During the research

period, the teacher observed the classes and made a diary to keep reports on students‟ reactions to the learning of reading and the impacts of the diversification technique on teaching and learning More details are provided below

3.5.1 Questionnaires

Using questionnaire allows the researcher to collect the data needed in quantitative form, which makes the data easy to be summarized, analyzed, and reported By completing the questionnaire, the informants had an opportunity to express their attitudes towards the activities used by teachers during their teaching

of reading skills In this study, pre and post questionnaires were relied on as the main data collection instrument

The pre-questionnaire was given to students after the first six weeks when students followed the normal teaching method It consisted of nine questions, aiming at exploring the students‟ attitudes towards the role of reading in acquiring a foreign language, their opinions on the learning of reading skills and the problems they faced when learning reading In the post-questionnaire, the eight survey items were designed to look for students‟ attitudes towards the implementation of the diversification of reading activities and their evaluation of the usefulness of the technique The data collected was expected to provide the researcher sufficient information for making decision regarding whether diversifying reading activities should be applied with her students

3.5.2 Classroom observation

Observation was done by the teacher students throughout the research period

A simple checklist for evaluation of students‟ behaviour during the reading lessons was designed to know whether students followed teacher‟s instructions, whether they actively worked in pairs or groups, participated in all class activities and were willing to share the answers with the whole class The teacher‟s evaluation sheet also collected information about the class atmosphere and had some space for the teacher to make some important short notes The evaluation of students‟ behaviour