skkn helping the grade 12 students improve their sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society through post reading activities

Whereas, it is obviously possible to educate students' sense of responsibility through different subjects such as: Civic Education, Literature, Biology, English,… A question is raised is

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PART I: INTRODUCTION

So far, we have been caring much about what families, schools and society should do for children However, it is also important for students to be aware of what they have to do for themselves, their families and society In other words, students must be responsible to themselves, their families and society But in fact, many students not only neglect studying but also often avoid and complain about their tasks, miss deadlines, break the disciplines, and even blame others for the mistakes and failure They are more and more materialistic, selfish, indifferent and emotionless Therefore, it is undeniable that they are becoming more and more irresponsible

As a high school teacher, I have learned that one of the six pillars of character education is to be responsible However, educating sense of responsibility at my school has not been really effective One of the most basically causes may be that responsibilities are usually taught theoretically with little practical application In addition, it is not focused on in every lesson they learn in classes Whereas, it is obviously possible to educate students' sense of responsibility through different subjects such as: Civic Education, Literature, Biology, English,… A question is raised is how I can teach my students sense of responsibility while our teaching methods mainly focus on language skills In addition, my students are at the grade

12 when the GCSSE exam is coming soon and the teachers try to teach the knowledge that help students to get good marks in their tests and exams It means I have to improve my students' sense of responsibility through teaching knowledge and language skills

As a matter of fact the post-reading stage of a reading lesson is often confused with the closing of a lesson So, teachers usually use classic post-reading activities

to make sure that the students have already comprehended the text However, I learn that at the post-reading stage students are not studying about the language of the text and they are not comprehending the text, either At this stage students are supposed to apply what they possess Post-reading activities are expected to encourage students to reflect upon what they have read, which takes the students to their real life situation So, post-reading stage is potential to apply the activities which help improve students' sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society By this way I can combine teaching language skills with

improving my students' sense of responsibility without time-consuming

For the reasons above, from the beginning of the school year 2018-2019, I have carried a study which has changed the ways we used to teach post-reading

with the topic "Helping the grade 12 students improve their sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society through post-reading activities" Hoping that with these experiences teaching post-reading at my school

will become more flexible and our students will be more responsible to themselves, their families and society

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PART II: CONTENT

I THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Sense of responsibility

1.1 Definition of responsibility and sense of responsibility

Responsibility is defined as the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone; thestate or fact of being accountable

or to blame for something; the opportunity or ability to act independently and take decisions without authorization; a thing which one is required to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation Responsibility is the burden someone is obligated to fulfill in order to meet a particular need Someone’s level of meeting his responsibilities shows how trustworthy he is, particularly if he consistently meets his responsibilities

A sense of responsibility is an awareness of one’s obligations; it’s like doing what we suppose to do It can be defined as a general conscious awareness; "a sense

of security"; "a sense of happiness"; "a sense of danger"; "a sense of self"

1.2 List of responsibilities every student should fulfill

Students are expected to fulfill some key responsibilities before they leave school and start a new life They are:

- Responsibilities to themselves

- Responsibilities to their families

- Responsibilities to their school

- Responsibilities to their community and society

2 Post- reading activities

2.1 Definition of post-reading activities

Post-reading activities are simply activities done after while-reading activities are completed At this stage the students are in a temporary change of state or condition, that is, they now know something they did not know before The task of the post-reading stage is to integrate or synthesize the read material into one's

knowledge base of the topic Students need to make the material their own

This can be achieved through a variety of means employing writing, class

discussion, visual representations, and physical demonstration

When the while-reading stage is completed, the students are expected to have obtained new information from the text This should bring about a change of some kind such as they would know more, or think or feel differently from before According to Nuttall (1996: 164) when intensive work in a during-/while-reading stage is completed, general comprehension must be intended to At this stage, the students should be able to evaluate the text as a whole to respond to it from a more

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or less personal point of view They may be asked to agree or disagree with the author or the characters in the text; relate the content to their own experience; connect the content with other work in the same field; discuss characters, incidents, ideas, feelings; or predict what can happen afterwards

2.2 Benefits of using post-reading activities to improve the students' sense of responsibility

- Teachers can educate students' character through teaching language skills

- Students recycle what they have obtained from the text

- Students go beyond the text and enter the real world, equipped with the obtained information

newly Updating the problems that are closed to the students' real life and working together to find out the solutions as their responsibility

- Students can well prepare for an independent life in the future

- Students learn to be responsible for their actions, choices and decisions to themselves, their families and society

- From post-reading activities, the students are developping themselves to achieve automaticity, meaningful learning, autonomy, willingness to communicate, interlanguage, and communicative competence

2.3 Some principles for choosing post-reading activities to raise students' responsibility

- The activities must connect the topics of the reading texts with the responsibilities that students should fulfill

- The activities should keep all of the students involved and interested

- The activities should help the students develop their communicative skills

- The activities should make students think of what they have to do in the real life

- Teaching the sense of responsibility may make students boring so the activities should be challenging and interesting enough to attract their attention and stimulate them to take part in

- To be suitable with the time limit of post-reading stage, the length of each activity is about 10 minutes

II SITUATION ANALYSIS

1 Situation of students' sense of responsibilities at my school

My school is located in the mountainous area of the district Therefore, there are many difficulties in the teaching and learning Most of the students at my school live far from the district center and come from low-income families In spite

of the difficulties, the students are given a chance to go to school In recent years,

In spite of their low living conditions, the parents try to buy electric bikes for their children to go to school instead of going by bike Furthermore, the students also own expensive and modern mobile devices, which makes them neglect studying Some of them use smart phones sneakily in the classes Many parents complain that their children are attracted to the smart phones all day; they neither

do housework nor study at home They spend their time on mobile devices instead

of others activities such as reading or playing sports which help improve their health, knowledge and life skills They care more about the status and problems in social network than about what they are facing, their parents or other family members As a result, they are impacted negatively from some information in social network It can be said that they lack responsibility to both themselves and their families

In addition, they also lack the conformity with the law In spite of the obligation, most of them go to school by electric bike without wearing helmets It

is not until they arrive at the school gate that they wear helmets in order to avoid the teachers' punishment Some of the students even ride motorbike to school although their age is not old enough They throw waste in public, even damage the common property Besides, many of them refuse to take part in social activities They seem to indifferent and emotionless In short, the young tend to be more and more irresponsible to not only themselves, their families but society as well It is one of the causes that make the students live without objectives or even commit a crime There seems to be no way to solve this problem except improving the students' sense of responsibility

2 Situation of teaching the students sense of responsibility at my school

It is said that family is the foundation of character education It means that children's character is mainly formed by family education Besides, school also plays an important role in educating students' character Normally, it is considered that character education is the responsibility of form teachers and the teachers who

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teach Civic Education Therefore, at my school, it is likely only form teachers and Civic Education teachers take responsibility for teaching students responsibility The Young Onion sometimes organizes outdoor activities which help raise the students' responsibility Other teachers mainly teach knowledge in textbook and some necessary skills that their subjects require the sense of responsibility is hardly focused

3 Situation of learning English and teaching post-reading in English lessons

at my school

As mentioned above, the students’ living conditions have a big effect on the way students study Many of them learn English with the only aim to pass the national GCSE exam, so they mostly focus on studying pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar They even feel it hard to remember all the required knowledge for different exams

This way of thinking among students leads the teachers of English at my school to nearly the same way of teaching the language We always try to fulfill the knowledge in textbooks to our students Especially, the teachers who teach the

12th grade students often try to provide as many practice exercises related to the GCSE exam as possible With the help of modern technology, many lectures designed by PowerPoint have been given to students The teachers also use interesting activities such as games, quiz, role-play…to stimulate students They have been trying to apply new teaching methods to help students improve their language skills consist of reading, listening, speaking and writing The quality of the lectures has been considerably raised and it plays an important role in the results of the students in the exams

In reading lessons, the teachers at my school often adapt the activities given in textbooks to make it easy for our students, make the lessons more interesting and attract their attention to the lessons as well However, because of our students' poor ability and long or difficult reading texts, the teachers and students usually spend almost the time on while-reading activities Sometime, we hardly have time for post-reading stage or else we use the post-reading activities similar to those in while-reading stage to make sure that the students understand the reading text more The post-reading activities that are used popularly are related to summarizing the reading text such as filling the missing words in the summary of the text, using the cues to summarize the text… or translating the text into Vietnamese This helps the students comprehend the reading texts totally However, these methods of teaching and learning can hardly help improve students' character in general and sense of responsibility in particular

4 The English Language syllabus

The textbook Tieng Anh 12 as well as Tieng Anh 10 and Tieng Anh 11 is

traditional textbook structured with a priority towards theme-based or topic-based

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learning models The textbook has desirable aim of providing students with a foundational knowledge of numerous fields, a favorable attitude towards the English Language, and the four skills generally recognized as building proficiency

in language study: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing In order to achieve these objectives, the content of the book is designed to utilize themes with which all students will be familiar Included are topics related to the student’s social lives,

to sports, to work, and to leisure activities universal experiences For each topic, related vocabulary and word studies are presented communicatively The textbook contains sixteen units, with each unit presenting five lessons with four different skills and a language focus Reading is the first unit in each lesson, guiding students to key words and phrases of the related topicwhich then become “building blocks” that enable them to learn additional skills

The book Tieng Anh 12 contains many topics which are close to the students They are about life, studying, job, family, nature and society such as home life,

future jobs, life in the future…but there is no separate part for teaching students the

sense of responsibility to themselves, their family and society Therefore, although teaching sense of responsibility is necessary, it is not compulsory

III SURVEY

1 Survey and the results

At the beginning of the school year 2018-2019, I have carried out the survey containing 5 multiple choice questions for 118 students from three classes 12A1, 12B2, 12B4 of my school The survey was done twice One was at the first semester of the twelfth form (before teaching post reading with activities improving students' sense of responsibilities) and the other was at the end of the second semester (after using these activities) The table below shows the result of the survey for first time

2 How often do you think about your

responsibilities in your daily activities?

3 Do you find it necessary to be taught

sense of responsibility in the class?

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4 Do you learn much about sense of

responsibility through your English

lessons?

5 How much is your sense of

responsibility to yourselves, your

family, school and society?

2 Findings from the survey

The survey shows that before using the adapted activities, most of students do not care much about responsibility Even though they know responsibility is important, they often act without thinking about it Most of them consider that they should be taught responsibility in the class However, every English lesson they learn often mainly focuses on knowledge and language skills As a result, they are little aware of their responsibility to themselves, their family, school and community

IV FINDING SOLUTIONS

From the analysis above, it can be said that our students' irresponsibility is very worrying However, teaching in general and teaching English in particular at

my school is mainly focused on knowledge and language skills It is high time for

us to educate our students' character as well as sense of responsibility through English lessons

Post-reading stage is the best choice for the solution because it is a good chance for the students to connect English lessons with their real life Furthermore, based on the topics of the reading texts we can create many different activities to teach different responsibilities In addition, we also can apply many different activities for each reading lesson depending on what responsibility we want to teach our students In short, post-reading stage is potential to apply the activities which help improve our students' sense of responsibility

The topics of the reading texts in Tieng Anh 12 textbook are very familiar to the students' life, so I have used post-reading stage to carry out the following activities These are some suggested activities which I have applied to improve my students' sense of responsibility to themselves, their families and society quite effectively

1 Activities to improve students' sense of responsibility to themselves

1.1 Sample application 1 - Unit 4: School education system

- Teacher: Prepare a sample self-study plan

- Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; find out self-study

methods

• Procedure:

- Divide the class into groups of 6-8 students

- Ask them to discuss how to make a plan

- Give students some suggestions: To make the plan, you should determine:

✓ Why to study? (Goals)

✓ What to study? (What subjects, lessons…)

✓ When to study? (Time available, schedule…)

✓ Where to study? (Studying environment, courses…)

✓ Who may help or study together?

✓ How to study (Studying methods)

- Show students the sample plan as a model

Sample plan:

SELF-STUDY PLAN

WHEN

WHERE WHO

HOW

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SELF-STUDY PLAN

▪ Goals: - Pass the GCSE exam with 30 points

- Pass the entrance exam with 25 points (Math: 8, Literature: 8, English 9)

▪ Core subjects: Math, Literature, English

▪ Optional subjects: History, Geography, Civic Education

▪ Time: in the afternoon, at night, at weekend

▪ Studying environment: at home, online

▪ People to ask for help: teachers, classmates

▪ Studying methods:

- Pay attention to the lectures

- Determine the weaknesses

- Highlight the important pieces of information

- Set a schedule to study at home

- Share learn experience with friends, classmates

- Ask the teachers about what we have not understood yet

- Study the references

- Download necessary documents and sample tests

- Attend some online courses

- Learn from different media

- Practice doing tests

- Keep away modern devices when want to concentrate on studying

- Each group makes a brief self-study plan

- After 5 minutes, call some representatives to present their plans

- Ask other groups to give comments

- Teacher gives feedback

- Ask the students to make their own self-study plan at home as their home work The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:

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1.2 Sample application 2 - Unit 5: Higher education

• Aim: Raise students' awareness of equipping themselves with essential life

skills

• Suggested activity: An interview: Interview your classmates about their

preparation for the life after school

• Time limit: 10 minutes

• Preparation:

- Teacher: Prepare 5 questions for interviewing, an interview record sheet,

handouts, and a poster of the example

- Students: Think about the goal they set for the life after school, what may be challenges and some necessary life skills they should equip

Questions for interviewing:

Question 1: Are you going to continue studying with higher education or finding a job after leaving school?

Question 2: What university/ job would you like to apply for?

Question 3: What are you preparing for your life after school?

Question 4: What do you think may be challenges you will face in your new life after school?

Question 5: How can you overcome these challenges?

The interview record sheet

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• Procedure:

- Deliver the handouts to the students

- Ask them to fill in their information about themselves first

- Ask each student to find a partner, use the questions to interview and fills in the interview record sheet

- Teacher shows the example:

GCSE and the entrance exam

- improve knowledge

- equip some necessary life skills: decision making, communicating,…

- study to pass the GCSE

- study vocational education

- improve knowledge

- equip some necessary life skills such as: decision making, communicating,…

- get an on-campus job -be independent and sociable

- get on well with people

- take part in social activities

-improve time and financial managing skills

-be independent and sociable

- get on well with people

- willing to learn

- take part in social activities

- After 5 minutes, call some students to report their interview's results

- Ask other groups to give comments

- Teacher gives feedback

The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:

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1.3 Sample application 3 - Unit 6: Future jobs

• Aim: Raise students' awareness of equipping themselves with job skills

• Suggested activity: Discussion: Discuss the necessary job skills and how to

acquire the skills

• Time limit: 10 minutes

• Preparation:

- Teacher: Prepare a poster of suggested answers

- Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; find out necessary job skills and how they can acquire the skills

• Procedure:

- Divide the class into groups of six

- Ask them to discuss the job skills they need equip

- After 5 minutes, call the representatives of the groups to report their groups' production

- Ask other groups to give comments

- Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers

• Suggested answers:

Some necessary job skills:

- Hard skills: which are teachable abilities or skill sets that are easily measurable

They are the technical abilities that fit the job Normally, we can acquire hard skills in the classroom, in an online course, through books and other materials, or

on the job.( Depend on types of job)

- Soft skills: which are abilities not unique to any job The soft skills students

should equip are: communication; teamwork; problem solving; initiative and enterprise; planning and organising; self-management; learning; technology…

How to acquire the skills: willing to learn study hard, take part in social activities,

be active and creative, and study the required skills of your future jobs…

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The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:

1.4 Sample application 4 - Unit 11: Books

• Aim: Encourage students' reading habit

• Suggested activity: Discussion: Discuss the benefits of reading and how to

cultivate your reading habit

• Time limit: 10 minutes

• Preparation:

- Teacher: Prepare a poster of suggested answers

- Students: Prepare posters and pen for group work; find out benefits of reading books and how to cultivate a reading habit

• Procedure:

- Divide the class into groups of six-eight

- Ask them to discuss the benefits of reading and how to cultivate a reading habit

- After 5 minutes, call the representatives of the groups to report their groups' production

- Ask other groups to give comments

- Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers

• Suggested answers:

Benefits of reading books:

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How to cultivate a reading habit

The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:

1.5 Sample application 5 - Unit 12: Water sports

• Aim: Encourage students to learn to swim as an essential life skill

• Suggested activity: Role play: Pretend a swimming trainer and persuade

people to learn to swim

• Time limit: 10 minutes

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• Procedure:

- Show the students the data so that they can realise the disadvantages of being unable to swim

- Ask some students what they learn from the data (Suggested answers: Drowning

deaths are happening continuously, most of the drown people are unable to swim

or unaware of the danger, most of drownings occur in the low and middle income countries where people hardly have chance to learn how to swim methodically …)

- Divide the class into groups of six-eight

- Ask them to discuss how to persuade people to learn to swim

- Give students some suggestions (The persuasion should conclude the benefits of

swimming and some instructions for swimming)

- After 5 minutes, call the representatives of the groups to perform

- Ask other groups to give comments

- Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers

• Suggested answers:

Benefits of swimming:

- A necessary life skill

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Some general tips for swimming:

- Staying calm in the water by building water confidence in the bathroom before progressing to the pool

- Practise breathing techniques

- Get the right swim gear

- Put swim practice time in

- Choose a safe environment

- Warm up and stretch your muscles and joints before entering the water

- Have plenty of fluids on hand and drink regularly

- Don’t overdo it if you’re just starting out

The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:

2 Activities to improve students' sense of responsibility to their families

2.1 Sample application 1-Unit 1: Home life

• Aim: Raise students' awareness of a child's responsibility to the family

• Suggested activity: Lesson for living: What lesson can you learn from the

writer's family? How do you apply the lesson into your real life?

• Time limit: 10 minutes

• Preparation:

- Teacher: Prepare a poster of suggested answers

- Students: Prepare posters and pens for group work; think about a child's responsibilities to the family

• Procedure:

- Ask other groups to give comments

- Teacher gives feedback and shows the suggested answers

• Suggested answers:

Lesson from the text: Each member in the family has to join hands to make a

happy family

What a child should do for a happy family:

- Understand parents' hardship

- Take care of yourselves

- Share the household chores

- Give-and-take and help the other family members

- Honor, respect and obey parents and grandparents

- Listen to the counsel of parents and grandparents

- Care for parents and grandparents especially when they are sick and in their old age

- Understand and forgive father and mother if there have been failure and breaches

The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production:

2.2 Sample application 2- Unit 2: Cultural diversity (Version 1)

• Aim: Build up students' awareness of making a happy marriage

• Suggested activity: A survey: Express your idea about what to do for a happy

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- Teacher: Prepare handouts of the things about men and women should do:

TO HAVE A HAPPY MARRIAGE

Yes No

Men

should

- share housework with his wife

- do the heaviest work for his family

- love, respect and take care of parents -in-law

- open mind to listen to his wife

- take care of the children

- always willing to share with wife all problems in life

- share with husband all successes and attainments

- stands by husband in all the crises

- take care of the children and their needs, including education

- be beautiful and attractive

- be sacrifice

- always trust her husband

- raise and educate children

- love, respect and take care of her parents -in-law

- do all the housework

- be faithful

• Procedure:

- Deliver the handouts for students to tick their idea

- Students work in pairs to compare the idea with their partners

- Ask other students to give comments

- Teacher gives feedback and show the suggested answer

• Suggested answers:

TO HAVE A HAPPY MARRIAGE

Men

should

- share housework with his wife

- do the heaviest work for family

- calm and strong in any situations to protect family

- love, respect and take care of parents-in-law

- open mind to listen to his wife

- understand and sympathy with wife

- take care of the children

- always willing to share with his wife all problems in life

- be faithful

Women

should

- love, respect and take care of her parents -in-law

- share with husband all successes and attainments

- stands by husband in all the crises

- take care of the children and their needs, including education

- always trust her husband

- be healthy and attractive

- take the responsibility for raising children

- be faithful

The following pictures illustrate the students' activities and their production: