báo cáo thực tập tốt nghiệp tiếng anh (1 ) (1)

After all, the author would like tohave the knowledge about short games and activities to make reading lessons moreinteresting for the students.For the reasons above, the author has deci

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Justification of the Study

English never loses its importance in the international society English isimportant because it is, maybe, the only language that truly links the whole worldtogether If it were not for English, the whole world would not be as united as it istoday Modern thoughts are trending towards globalization English is considered

as a useful language tool for this trend

Meanwhile, Vietnamese people also get used to the open-door policies ofthe Government And English keeps its value in Vietnam when the Vietnamesehave given priority to it Especially, English has entered the national policy ofVietnam: education Therefore, teachers of English play better role in helpingstudents to learn this subject better English has become one of the most importantand compulsory subjects at all schools in educational system in Vietnam Fromelementary to university or even at higher levels, English always plays animportant part As a result, teachers have tried to find more and more effectivemethods so as to succeed in teaching English More particularly, the new textbookfor this subject has been brought out for 4 years, which requires both the teachersand learners to renew and apply suitable methods In this context, communicativelanguage teaching has been developed to satisfy the requirements of education Teaching and learning English mean training students’ four language skills:reading, speaking, listening and writing These skills are equal in the level ofimportance However, the level of applying communicative activities in teachingand learning them is different The author herself is really interested in readingskill Reading not only helps students widen their knowledge, but also enablesthem to develop other language skills In addition, the ability of students to read thetext owing to their limited vocabulary prevents many of them from gettinginterested in training this skill Therefore, teachers must try their best to getstudents’ attention from pre-reading stage And short games and activities seem to

be a good choice to encourage students to take part in reading lessons actively

However, in real teaching in high schools, not many teachers usecommunicative activities in English classes, especially in reading lessons Theauthor is trained to be a teacher of English in the near future This study is a goodopportunity for the author to understand students’ attitudes towards learningEnglish in general and reading skill in particular After all, the author would like tohave the knowledge about short games and activities to make reading lessons moreinteresting for the students.

For the reasons above, the author has decided to choose the topic “Usingsome short games and activities to increase the 11th form students’ interest in pre-reading stage at Quynh Luu I high school” as the study of her graduation thesis

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

The Aims and objectives of the study are as follows:

- To provide some basic knowledge about reading skill, teaching readingand teaching vocabulary as well as short games and activities used in pre-readingstage

- To make an investigation into the real situation of using short games andactivities in English reading lessons at Quynh Luu I high school

- To find out how short games and activities work in English reading classes

at Quynh Luu I high school

- To provide some suggested short games and activities in pre-reading stage

to encourage the 11th form students to learn reading skill

-To what extent do the teachers of English at Quynh Luu I high school useshort games and activities in the pre-reading stage?

-To what extent do short games and activities in pre-reading stage work inreading classes at Quynh Luu I high school ?

4 Scope of the Study

This study only focuses on pre-reading stage The subjects of this study areteachers and 11th form students at Quynh Luu I high school in Quynh Luu district,Nghe An province

5 The Method of the Study

To finish this study, the author has used many methods: investigatingmethods, analytic and synthetic methods, descriptive methods, comparative andcontrastive methods

Firstly, the author collected and analyzed the materials related to readingskill as well as communicative activities and games from different documents.Then, a survey was conducted to get information about the real situation aboutteaching and learning English reading at Quynh Luu I high school After that, theselected information and data were analyzed in three categories Finally, somesuggested activities and games were presented in pre-reading stage for the 11thform students

6 Format of the Study

Besides acknowledgements, the table of contents, references and appendixes,the thesis consists of three main parts

Part I “INTRODUCTION” consists of the author’s reasons for choosing the

study, Aims, research questions, methods, scope, and design of the study

The second part “DEVELOPMENT” comprises three chapters Chapter 1

is “Theoretical Background” In this chapter, the author provides all concepts

related to the study: reading skill, teaching reading, stages of reading, teachingvocabulary and communicative activities and games for pre-reading stage Chapter

2 is titled “The Survey” This chapter mainly focuses on the real situation of using

short games and activities in English reading classes for 11th form students at Quynh

Luu I high school Chapter 3 “Recommendations and Suggestions for Using Short

Games and Activities in the Pre-reading Stage” provides several suggestions for the

teachers in using short games and activities in pre-reading stage of the readinglessons It also introduces some short games and activities in the author’sexperimental lessons

Part III is “CONCLUSION” in which the author summarizes the main

points in the study and suggests some topics for further studies

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 Reading Skill

1.1.1 Nature of Reading

According to Nuttall and Alderson (1996), reading can be summarized byexplaining a number of processes: perceptual processing, word recognition,syntactic processing, metalinguistic processing and comprehension However, this

is not specified for learning reading skill

In addition, reading is the receptive skill in the written mode Independently,

it can develop listening and speaking skills, but often develops along with them,especially in societies with a highly-developed literary tradition Reading can helpbuild vocabulary that helps listening comprehension the later stages particularly.This means that reading is a process of deriving meaning from written or printedtext Although reading is a receptive skill, it is an active and interactive processbecause it involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning Itinvolves partial use of available minimal language cues selected from perceptualinput on the basis of the reader’s expectation As this partial information isprocessed, tentative decisions are made to be confirmed, rejected or refined asreading progresses

Furthermore, reading is viewed as a kind of interaction that occurs betweenthe reader and the text The meaning, as an outcome of the interaction between thereader and the text, not only resides in the text itself, but also lies in the interaction

between the reader and the text Reading is a complex cognitive process of

decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meanings It is a means oflanguage acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas Likeall language, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which isshaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and languagecommunity which is culturally and socially situated.

Finally, reading is an activity with purpose A person may read in order togain information or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer’sideas or writing style In Alderson(2000), there are seven purposes of reading, those

are reading to reach for simple information, to skim quickly, to learn from text, toget an integrate information, to search information needed for writing, to critiquetexts and to achieve general comprehension.

Therefore, both teachers and students need to recognize the knowledge ofreading definition and purposes It facilitates teachers to determine the appropriateapproach for teaching reading And it helps to develop students’ awareness ofreading

process and reading strategies

1.1.2 Principles for Teaching Reading in a CLT Classroom

Reading skill plays an important role in English language learning.Therefore, it is necessary to have a set of principles that teachers of English mustfollow when teaching reading so that they can ensure their students’understanding of the lessons

Forseth et al (1996:84-85, cited in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo DinhPhuong, 2007) has pointed out principles for teaching reading as follows:

1 State the purpose of a reading task to the students before they read.

It is obvious that people have their own purposes when reading a text.Thus, it is beneficial to state a purpose for reading the given text The teachershould tell the students why they are reading a text As a result , the students canfocus on the text better for they know what information they need to get afterreading

2 Prepare students to read by introducing the topic of the text.

When teaching a reading text, the teacher should introduce the topic ofthe text beforehand to prepare for students with general knowledge about whatthey are going to do in the text If the subject is difficult, provide students withbackground information When the students are prepared carefully beforereading, they will comprehend the text more thoroughly

3 Before the students read the text, have them read questions about it beforehand to help them focus on meaning.

Normally, each reading passage in the textbook has some questionsrelating to its content for students to answer after reading Therefore, havestudents read the questions first will guide them to what information they need tounderstand the text If questions do not come with the text, the teacher can make

up one or two which will help the students concentrate It is even helpful to havethem try to answer the questions before they read the text

4 Do not pre-teach vocabulary unless necessary

We know that one of the skills readers should learn is to guess themeaning of unknown words If all words are presented beforehand, this willprevent them from being able to guess from context Besides, it is veryineffective for students to remember the meaning of lists of isolating words.Instead of doing in this way, the teacher should work on skills that help thestudents guess intelligently If a word is rarely used, it is better to ignore it then

5 Have students read silently without whispering the words or moving the lips.

Reading silently will help students to read more quickly and focus onmore important words Moreover, the students will be able to pay attention onmeaning, not to the form of words only

6 Discuss difficult vocabulary after reading the text.

After reading, if the students are not able to understand certain words byguessing from the context, the teacher will help them by explaining the meaning

8 Focus on developing the skills of the readers.

The goal of teaching reading is not only to help the students to understandthe text for that day, but also to help them to effectively read for themselves afterclass It means that they can apply sub-skills that are taught in the classroom toread any kind of text in their daily life

In short, there are a number of principles that the teacher must followwhen teaching reading Depending on the features of each class and each readinglesson as well as the level of students that the teacher can choose an appropriateone for their reading classes

1.1.3 Stages of Teaching a Reading Text

Nguyen Thi Van Lam & Ngo Dinh Phuong (2007:59) suggested that thereare three main stages of teaching a reading text as follow:

Introducing the topic of the text before the teacher asks the students to readhas two purposes: to help students in their reading, by giving them some ideas ofwhat to expect and to increase their interest, make them want to read the text.SomeTimes the topic of the text itself is very interesting, in which case the studentsmay be eager to read it So, the teacher does not have to spend too long onmotivating them to read In some texts, the language impossibly deals with the

language elements beforehand, but it may be worthwhile to draw students’ attention

to the way they are used in the text, once they have read it

Furthermore, it is important to present new vocabulary beforehand.However, the teacher does not need to teach all the new words before the studentsread it They can guess the meaning of many words from the context Guessing themeaning of unknown words is an important part to help students to develop theirreading skill

Finally, one or two guiding questions can be given for students to think about

as they read The purposes of these questions are to give the students a reason toread and lead the students towards the main point of the text, so that after the firstreading, they should have a good general idea of what is about

1.1.3.2 While-reading

This stage consists of two steps In the first reading, the students read the text

silently once through and discuss the guiding questions Next, it is second reading

and comprehension After the students have read the text for the first Time and havetried to understand the general meaning, the teacher provides some while-readingactivities and should be sure that the students have looked at the activities beforethey go through the text again for detailed comprehension Some of the activitiesare:

 Gap-filling, etc.

1.1.3.3 Post-reading

In a reading lesson, there is a difference between applying the activity at anearlier stage of the reading process and at the post reading stage This difference isdue to the quantity and quality of information possessed by the readers This stagecontains answering the book's exercises and questions that related to the readingpassage If the students answer these questions correctly with a less interference bythe teacher, the goals of the lesson are achieved However, the teacher must finishten minutes earlier, giving him enough Time to evaluate the students understanding

of the lesson Therefore, the teacher can repeat the lesson to the students who do notunderstand in a quick and comprehensive way

1.1.4 Principles for Teaching Vocabulary

Forseth et al (1996: 23-25) propose eight principles for teachingvocabulary:

1 Present Words in Context.

Presenting words in isolation forces students to understand mechanically ormisunderstand theirs meanings As a result, they cannot make use of the in authenticcommunication Therefore, using and presenting words in context helps students toguess their meanings and to remember them better

2 Do not Present too Many Words at Once.

People cannot consume a big amount of food at the same Time It is similar

to learning new vocabulary Too many new words will create a mess in students’mind It is also one of the reasons that prevent students from learning vocabularyeffectively

3 Remember that Practicing Words in Context is more Important than Memorizing Isolated one.

We can learn many new words without being able to use them incommunication Students may be required to learn the meanings of words but they

must also be given the opportunity to use them productively in speaking andwriting.

4 Teach Students Skills for Guessing New Words, Especially When Reading.

The meaning of words can be inferred from the different types of contexts andfrom looking at the affixes of the word This means that it is the students who openthe door to break into the word’s meaning Therefore, they will find themselvesmore active and involved Besides, their learning is also more effectively

5 Avoid Translation as Much as Possible

Only use translation as a last resort When presenting new words, having wordstranslated will separate learner from foreign language environment Also, students

do not usually remember vocabulary that has been translated The only case thattranslation should be used is when it takes too long to communicate in English

6 Avoid Using the Dictionary as Much as Possible.

When reading or listening, students should first try guessing or ignoring new words

so that they can continue without stopping Also, using a dictionary when speaking

or listening will slow down communication

7 Remember that not All Words Are Important.

This principle deals with the vocabulary selection problem in teaching language Inhuge vocabulary source, trying to teach more and more new words is not suitable

In fact, some words of the sentence are more important than others Students canuse the more important words so as to guess the meanings of the words aroundthem and understand the whole sentence

8 If a Word Is Necessary for Understanding an Activity or a Passage, Teach

it to the Students Beforehand.

If it is not so necessary or important, the teacher should let students firstguess at the meaning while they are reading or listening Teach the meaning later

or not at all

1.2 Short Games and Activities

1.2.1 Definitions and Advantages of Short Games and Activities in Classroom

“Activity” is a loose term used to give a general description of what willhappen in class Short activity is a kind of activities which is short, simple andinteresting enough to motivate students to learn a foreign language better

Furthermore, Hadfield (1990: 3) states that a game is an activity with rules, agoal, and an element of fun Besides, Stanton & Lambert (1985) defines that agame is an activity that usually has 4 properties: a particular task or objective; a set

of rules; a competition between players and communication between players byspoken or written language

In the long run, each of them has developed their own concepts of game Allthe above-mentioned definitions refer to the features of a game It is governed byrules It is for fun and it has a goal or an objective

As we know, language learning is hard work which requires the effort atevery moment and over a long period of Time Using games is one of the mostimportant ways to teach efficiently in a language class Many experiencedtextbook, methodology manuals and writers have argued that games are not justTime-filling activities but have a great educational value

According to Lee Su Kim (1995:35), there are many advantages of using

games in the classroom Firstly, games are a welcome break from the usual routine

of the language class Thus, they are motivating and challenging In fact, learning alanguage requires a great deal of effort Games help students to make and sustainthe effort of learning Also, they encourage students to interact and communicate

In addition, games provide language practice in the various skills- speaking,writing, listening and reading Of course, they create a meaningful context forlanguage use

Well-chosen games are invaluable as they give students a break and at thesame Time allow students to practise language skills Games are highly motivatingsince they are both amusing and challenging Games are highly motivating becausethey are amusing and interesting They can be used to give practice in all languageskills and be used to practice many types of communication

Moreover, Lengeling and Malarcher (1997: 42) found that:

In an effort to supplement lesson plans in the ESL classroom, teachers often turn to games The justification for using games in the classroom has been well demonstrated as benefiting students in a variety of ways These benefits range from cognitive aspects of language learning to more co-operative group dynamics.

It is undeniable that using games in the classroom brings a lot of benefits Itlowers affective filter, encourages creative and spontaneous use of language,promotes communicative competence, motivates and gives a lot of fun For classdynamics, games builds class cohesion, fosters whole class participation, promoteshealthy competition, gives student centered classroom and makes teacher be only

as facilitator For adaptability, games are easily adjusted for age, level, andinterests They utilize all four skills and require minimum preparation afterdevelopment

In conclusion, using games is an efficient way to teach English in the

classroom as Albert Einstein said that: “Teaching should be such that what is

offered I perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty." By this way, the

teachers get the best results in the classroom It arises students’ motivation Gamesprepare young learners for life and they acquire positive social attitudes Gamesteach sharing, helping each other and working as a team A child learns by doing,living, trying and imitating So this kind of learning is lasting During games somefeelings such as the pleasure of winning and the ambition of losing may arise Thisgives to the teacher an idea about student’s character So games are must-haveactivities for hardworking teachers

Particularly, Nuttall and Alderson (1996) stated that the importance of

pre-reading activities cannot be overstated When students go into a pre-reading selectionwith questions they will come out of that selection with answers Teachers mustprepare their students for reading both narrative and content materials by firstexploring what the students already know about the topic Next, teachers mustensure that what the students need to know to comprehend the text is part of the pre-reading activities Finally, teachers must use pre-reading activities that highlight thevocabulary that students will encounter in the reading selection Teachers may alsowant to suggest reading strategies that would be helpful to use in order to read and

comprehend a particular selection In short, pre-reading activities are performed toobtain relevant background information, to recall what is known about the topic, toanticipate what the text might be about, to introduce vocabulary necessary forcomprehension of the text and to establish purposes for reading the selection.

In addition to building or activating background knowledge, pre-readingactivities can provide a forum to elicit from students their feelings and reactions toideas and issues contained in a reading selection before confronting those issues inthe text Such activities allow students to examine their own beliefs, enhanceunderstanding and appreciation of events in the book or decisions made bycharacters and encourage aesthetic responses to literature Further, because theyhave thought about issues with which characters are confronted, students willidentify more intensely with characters during reading Pre-reading activities serve

to set purposes for reading, arouse students' curiosity, and motivate them to read

1.2.2 Short Games and Activities for Pre-reading Stage

1.2.2.1 Lead-in Games and Activities

These activities can play a number of functions They can generate interest inthe topic, activate participants' prior knowledge of the subject and help thefacilitator and participants to identify individual learning needs and goals,encourage the sharing of information and resources, and reveal resistance todiscussion or learning Lead-in activities used in classroom are various and thefollowings are examples

a Crossword puzzles

Lucy Calkins (2001) found that crossword puzzle is a word puzzle thatnormally takes the form of a square or a rectangular of white and shaded squares.The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, bysolving clues which lead to the answers In languages that are written left-to-right,the answer words and phrases are placed in the grid from left to right and from top

to bottom The shaded squares are used to separate the words or phrases

Squares in which answers begin are usually numbered The clues are thenreferred to by these numbers and a direction, for example, "4-Across" or "20-Down" At the end of the clue the total number of letters is someTimes given,depending on the style of puzzle and country of publication Some crosswords willalso indicate the number of words in a given answer, should there be more than one.

b Pre-questions:

Whenever teachers or students decided on questions to be answered byreading, they are activating prior knowledge These questions tend to focusattention and provide for purposeful reading Teachers can accomplish this bypreparing questions in advance of reading This will help in guiding students as theycomplete their reading assignment They are also called topic lead-in questionswhich can be answered collectively as a group or individually Use topic lead-insliberally because it is appropriate to use them in every session Basing on thesequestions, class discussions and informal talks serve as techniques to discover moreabout what students bring to their reading The teacher can also help studentsdevelop their own questions which will help them establish purpose and focusattention to the topic of the reading text

c Role playing

This is any speaking activity when a person either put himself into somebodyelse's shoes, or when one stay in his own shoes but put him into an imaginarysituation

Imaginary people gives the joy of role-play that students can 'become' anyone theylike for a short Time such as the President, the Queen, a millionaire, a pop star etc

…The choice is endless Students can also take on the opinions of someone else

In addition, imaginary situations can be activated and practised through role-play

For examples, At the restaurant, Checking in at the airport, Looking for lost

property are all possible role-plays.

d Using pictures

Pictures and photos can activate a students' prior knowledge and lead

them into the topic If a student has some information on fossils, a simple

picture such as coal may serve to retrieve appropriate knowledge Thus, the

teacher may share this photograph of a fossil before students read a sciencetextbook chapter on this topic

e Story telling

Story telling is great activities to get students get hooked to reading text This

may be real-life experiences: Actual experience is the best way to develop and

refine the schemata that make up readers' prior knowledge To impact a student’smemory, they must see, touch, use, and experience real objects or situations Ifpossible, provide any real-life experiences that have to do with the assignment Even something done on a small level will help with students' understanding.Besides, the teacher can use jokes and news related to the topic of reading text

f Pantomime

Pantomime is the art of acting without words by using one's body to conveythe story or event Often referred to as "mime," pantomime is a skill that requiresbody awareness and control For drama class in any school grade, begin withexercises that allow students to become aware of and express themselves with theirbodies through engaging in simple tasks and activities By using pantomime, thestudents learn to show, not tell According to Rooyackers and Bowman (1997: 53-

71) gave out many types of pantomime, for examples, The mystery object, The

invisible object, Is it a teapot, Funny faces show….

g Word searching

This kind of games, also known as word find games, is popular for helpingstudents recognize words In searching for words, the students seem to read andmemorize the words in a way that they enjoy and which helps them learn the wordsand their spelling The familiar games are hangman (or hang mouse), word search,jumble letters …

h Music games

Students typically enjoy musical activities Whether they are preparing tosing, move to music or simply listen to music, this kind of games will help them get

ready to interact with the art form Music games carried out in classroom are quitevarious, too One example is listening and guessing the name of the song, the name

of singer or the kind of music Winters (2000) introduced a list of music games such

as listening games (Which instrument is missing?, Freeze frame … ), concentration games (Mirror with sounds, Putting songs together…), musical quizzes ( Question

quiz), games for self-expression and improvisation( Games for feelings, Helping out songs…).

1.2.2.2 Teaching Vocabulary Games and Activities

These activities are aim at showing the meanings of word and reinforcing thevocabulary that students learnt There are many different activities for teachingvocabulary The followings are some of them

a Matching Word with its Definition

This activity is an excellent way for the students to remember new words andtheir definitions There are 2 columns: one contains words and the other containsdefinition with wrong order Students’ task is to find out which word goes withwhich definition Besides, the teacher can prepare cards or handouts containingeither word or its definition Then, students’ duty is to find the card go with eachother

b Finding Synonyms / Antonyms

Students race to see who can find a synonym/ antonym to a given word thequickest On the chalk board, the teacher writes a word or phrase that has recentlybeen reviewed Students work together to think of a synonym/antonym for the givenitem If the word is a correct answer, they earn a point If not, others have anopportunity to present a word The team with the most points at the end of the gamewill win Moreover, this activity is designed to show the meaning of word Theteacher can give antonym or synonyms of the new word that the students havealready known For instances, antonym - synonym - homonym activity cards weregiven out by Odell, F and Head,K

c Mime

In opinions of Odell, F and Head, K (2003), this is very useful, especiallyfor actions because the teacher or the students can act out a word to demonstrate itsmeaning For example, some verbs like “to eat”, “to cry” or “to smile” are easy tomime The teacher should think that students are very creative; so, he can get theirhelp in acting out the words so as to make learning more effective.

d Making sentences

In this activity, teacher simply asks students to make sentences, using wordsthey have learnt They can make their own sentences with the given words or theteacher provides situations for them

e Gap-filling

By giving some sentences with blanks, the teacher helps students choose asuitable word for each blank The words are available or the students have to make

up their own word

f Using visual aids

Pictures and other visual material such as real objects, realia and flashcardscan convey the meaning of word very well These things attract students a lot andthey make students connect the meaning of word to what they see easily Wright,Betteridge and Buckb (2006) introduced some related activities such as Vocabulary

cards , Identify by looking, Strip of a magazine picture….

CHAPTER 2: THE SURVEY

2.1 An Overview of the Survey

2.1.1 Aims of the Survey

Learning and teaching are processes related to the knowledge of the teachersand learners These processes are carried out in steps and stages; hence, it is notgood to skip or deny any stage In fact, the pre-reading stage that occurs at the

beginning of a reading lesson is often limited or neglected However, to investigatewhether this fact happens at Quynh Luu I high school or not, this survey is carriedout It is aimed at searching for the attitudes of teachers and students towardsreading skill in general and pre-reading stage in particular Especially, this surveyalso attempts to find out the real situation of using short games and activities inpre-reading stage at Quynh Luu I high school.

From the data collection and analysis, the author introduced some suggestedshort games and activities in pre-reading stage to teachers and the 11th students

2.1.2 Informants and Setting

2.1.2.1 The Teachers

The first survey questionnaire is designed for 12 teachers of English atQuynh Luu I high school Most of them are experienced teachers because ten ofthem have been teaching for eight or more than eight years Among these, twoteachers have over fifteen years of teaching experience and eight of them havebelow fifteen years The rest ones are young teachers, one of whom has beenteaching for three years and the other started her teaching job last year All in all,the teachers of English at Quynh Luu I high school are enthusiastic and skillfulenough to make a valuable contribution to education

2.1.2.2 The Students

Quynh Luu I high school is the center of education in Quynh Luu province.Not only do the teachers but also students have a high opinion of learning.Therefore, this school is proud of its achievements All of students started learningEnglish when they were in the sixth grade Therefore, one hundred of the 11th formstudents involved in this survey have been already learning English for five years

2.2 Description of the Survey Questionnaires

This survey consists of two types of research questionnaires: for the studentsand teachers

2.2.1 The Survey Questionnaire for the Teachers

The survey questionnaire for the teachers consists of eleven items Question

No 1 and No 2 are designed to get general information about the teachers The third

question shows the attitudes of the teachers about the importance of four languageskills Question No.4 measures their interest in teaching reading, speaking, listening,writing and language focus at school Question No.5 describes their attitudestowards reading skill Question No.6 is more specific for their attitudes about pre-reading stage Question No.7 is about the frequency of using lead-in activities inpre-reading stage Then, attitudes about teaching vocabulary are illustrated inquestion No.8 Next, Question No.9 indicates the frequency of using teachingvocabulary activities Question No.10 denotes the teachers’ difficulties in using pre-reading stage The last question searches for the teachers’ further opinions.

2.2.2 The Survey Questionnaires for the Students

2.2.2.1 Students’ Questionnaire N o 1 (before the experimental teaching)

Similarly, two questionnaires are designed so as to collect information aboutstudents The first one consists of eleven items The two first questions are aimed atsorting out the type of students Question No.3 indicates their interest in five parts of

a unit of English Question No.4 shows their feelings about reading skill Question

No.5 tries to find out their expectations when facing up with uninteresting topics forreading Question No.6 describes their opinions on the frequency of using teachingvocabulary activities by the teachers The levels of the students’ familiarity withlead-in games and activities are indicated through Question No.7 and with teachingvocabulary activities through Question No.10 Question No.8 focuses on thestudents’ difficulties in taking part in these activities Question No.9 describes thestudents’ feelings about learning vocabulary in pre-reading stage The last one givesstudents a chance to express their own ideas about favorite activities

2.2.2.2 Students’ Questionnaire N o 2 (after the experimental teaching)

This questionnaire was distributed after the author’s experimental teaching

It consists of six questions Question No.1 and No.2 focus on students’ feelingsabout reading lessons taught by the author in general Their feelings about lead-inshort games and activities used by the author in classroom are expressed in question

No.3 and No.4 Meanwhile, the effect of teaching vocabulary activities is shown into

different levels in question No.5 The last question is about advantages anddisadvantages of both lead-in and teaching vocabulary short games and activities.

2.3 Survey Results and Data Analysis

The following are the results and data analysis which answer the threeresearch questions

2.3.1 The Attitudes of Teachers and Students at Quynh Luu I High School towards Reading Skill in general and the Use of Short Games and Activities in Pre-reading in particular.

Attitude is an important factor of teaching and learning process, especially inlearning languages Therefore, what teachers and students think about readingEnglish skill as well as pre-reading games and activities has a bad or good influence

on the success of that process The survey clarified their attitudes throughquestionnaires

30%

10%

< 30 mi nutes 1/2 -l es s than 1 hour 1- 1.5 hour

> 1.5 hour

Figure 1: The Time students spend learning English at home per day

It can be clearly seen from the pie chart that most of students have a highopinion of self-studying English The highest percentage of students (34%) spentmore than one and a haft of hour per day on learning English at home In addition, arather smaller proportion of them spent from 1 to 1.5 hour per day doing that 26%

of them needed from a haft to less than 1 hour per day and the smallest one (10%)used only less than 30 minutes

The attitudes of teachers towards four language skills are different asfollowing

Degree Skill

Reading(%)

Speaking(%)

Listening(%)

Writing(%)

Table 1: The degree of importance for four language skills

The table reveals the teachers’ attitudes towards the degree of importance offour main language skills The percentage of the teachers considering reading as themost important skill is the same as those of speaking and listening By contrast,writing gets the highest proportion for the least importance with a haft of theteachers Also worth noting is that the proportion of the teachers ranking reading thefirst in importance is equal to that of those regarding it as the least important skill(33,33%) Therefore, the teachers at Quynh Luu I high school had highly oppositeideas about this issue

Although these four main skills were considered differently in the aspect ofimportance, all were taught at school through reading, speaking, listening, writingand language focus parts The levels of interest of students and teachers are shown

in the following chart

0

1216.7 18

33.3 32

0 60

reading lessons were the highest (66.7 % for teachers and 34% for students) Inother words, reading lessons had a good position in students’ and teachers’thoughts Surprisingly, the different ideas about reading skill did not make theteachers less interested in teaching it However, the percentage of teachers wastwice as large as that of students Similarly, students and teachers had the same ideaabout writing lessons None of them were fond of this kind of lesson and itaccounted for the highest percentage of participants to consider it the leastinteresting.

More specifically, the attitude towards reading skill was also revealed in thefollowing table

Ideas Subjects

verynecessary necessary

not verynecessary

not necessary

at all

Table 2: The attitudes of teachers and students towards reading skill

This table presents data on how necessary reading skill is at Quynh Luu Ihigh school The first result worth pointing out is that both students and teachersconsidered reading skill very necessary or necessary Not only the teachers but alsothe students had a bias in favor of considering reading skill the most necessary withquite equal proportion (66.67% and 68% respectively) Therefore, the percentage

of the students considering reading skill necessary (32%) was approximate to that

c not very useful

d not useful at all

33,33 %66,67 %

0 %

0 %

Which helps you much when you read uninteresting topics? students

a some activities and games for introducing the topics

b doing some reading tasks

c reading the text at once

d nothing

90%8%0%2%

Table 3: Attitudes of students and teachers towards pre-reading stage

It is clear from the table that no teachers found lead-in activities in reading stage useless According to two-thirds of the teachers (66,67%), pre-readingactivities were useful and higher level of usefulness belongs to one-thirds left Thus,lead-in activities in pre-reading stage took an important part in the teachers’thoughts

pre-Furthermore, these activities helped students at Quynh Luu I high school alot, especially when some reading texts were about uninteresting topics In this case,

a majority of the students needed encouragement from games and activities (90%)

In other words, there were many students interested in activities and games morethan any other help In fact, students focusing on learning English vocabulary andstructures might do some reading tasks And, of course, no students wanted to readthe text at once because of the uninteresting topics Finally, 2% of students needednothing to deal with uninteresting topics This means that the teachers should trytheir best to motivate their students before telling them to read the text Besides,students gave suggestions for the teachers to use more and more lead-in games andactivities

Moreover, attitudes towards teaching and learning vocabulary in pre-readingstage were clarified thanks to the survey The teachers had high agreement because91.7% of them thought that it was important to teach vocabulary beforehand Thesuggested reasons for their choices were: It helped students to understand the texteasily and students could know exactly the meaning of the words In addition, only8,3% of the teachers thought that teaching vocabulary beforehand was notimportant In their opinions, doing like that would not stimulate students to guess

the meaning of the context and they would be passive Likewise, students’ opinionsare presented in the pie chart below.

Figure 3: Attitudes of students towards learning vocabulary in pre-reading stage

As shown clearly from chart, 70% of the students thought that it was verynecessary to learn vocabulary in pre-reading stage Slightly weaker idea which isnecessary to do so got the second rank accounting for 24 % of the students Thestudents finding learning vocabulary beforehand not necessary at all had smallestpercentage (only 2%) These possibly wanted to guess the meaning of words duringreading the text or they did not care about this

All in all, both students and teachers were concerned about reading skill aswell as pre-reading stage Their positive attitude is a great advantage to carry outsome games and activities in experimental lessons

2.3.2 The Extent the Teachers of English at Quynh Luu I High School Use Short Games and Activities in the Pre-reading Stage

As discussed in the above part, the teachers accepted a truth that using shortgames and activities, indeed, enabled to increase the students’ interest In addition,the students hoped to take part in more and more short games and activities.However, the real situation of using short games and activities in pre-reading stage

is worth considering

The frequency of using pre-reading activities by the teachers is presented as follows.

Activities & games always

(%)

often (%)

someTimes(%)

rarely(%)

never (%)Crossword puzzles 0 0 66 17 17

Two main kinds of activities and games in pre-reading stage are topic

lead-in and teachlead-ing vocabulary The first nlead-ine items from the table are used as lead-lead-inactivities and games, the rest are for teaching vocabulary Among those nine lead-inones, using pictures was applied in all the reading lessons by the most teachers

(66%) It was not difficult to explain about this when pictures were lively,attractive, available and simple to prepare In every reading lesson, answeringquestions was the second most popular activity This one hardly required teachers toprepare at home Besides, guiding questions was a necessary part for students inpre-reading stage Guessing games and quizzes were always carried out by 17% ofthe teachers Moreover, these four activities, along with pantomime, were oftenintroduced in reading classes Crossword puzzles and musical activities weremodestly in use since most teachers someTimes applied them 50% of the teachersrarely told stories as introduction because this, in fact, required them to have atalent Role playing seemed to be unpopular because only 17% of the teacherssomeTimes used it, 33% rarely did that and a haft never introduced it to theirstudents Of course, it took teachers much Time and preparation to carry out thisactivity In addition, knowledge in English textbook for the eleventh form was notsimple enough to be taught in forty five minutes

Next, to teach vocabulary, many above activities supplied the teachers witheffectiveness Paraphrasing was the first choice for teachers at Quynh Luu I highschool because a haft of them always used this, 33% often and 17% leftsomeTimes did so Indeed, teachers only showed the meaning of words verbally byexplaining with their own experience and knowledge As a matter of this fact, itwas very convenient and effective Besides, using pictures and finding synonyms

or antonyms were some other ways most frequently used The advantage ofpictures was that they showed the meaning of words clearly, quickly andattractively Finding the words with the same or opposite meaning was helpful forstudents to learn more about the words Also, most teachers often got help frommaking sentences, gap filling and matching word and its definition The finalactivity, pantomime seemed to be uncommon for the teachers because it was onlysomeTimes chosen by 50% of the teachers , but 33% of them rarely selected Infact, pantomime requires using the body to show the meaning of words, so it isquite difficult for students to guess if the words have complex meanings

On the other hand, the students’ opinions about using short games andactivities of the teachers are also revealed through the survey questionnaire

Figure 4: Frequency of using short games and activities in pre-reading by

the teachers according to students

The pie chart shows that the largest proportion of students (48%) found that their teachers someTimes used pre-reading activities However, the approximate proportion of the students thought that their teachers often used those games and activities Yet, a small fraction was made up by those finding that short games and activities were always held by their teachers Only 1% of them found their teachers rarely using activities in this stage of the reading lesson

In addition, the table below shows the information for discussing research question

How do you know about the following activities?

Ideas

Activities

very well(%)

quite well(%)

not very well(%)

a little(%)

not at all(%)Crossword

The table reveals how the students knew about the activities and games used

in pre-reading stage by their teachers The largest proportion of the students was themost familiar with using pictures (24%) Indeed, most teachers always used thisactivity in classroom, so their students got used to it Guessing games were oftencarried out in classroom, which caused students to know quite well Crosswordpuzzles, quizzes and answering questions were also familiar with students 40% ormore than 40% of students knew these three kinds of activities and games quitewell Still, musical activities attracted much students’ attention although not manyteachers used them In fact, music had magic power to make a surprising impact onlisteners As a result, the teachers should pay more attention to music and try tocombine it with the lesson, which makes classroom temperature more positive andlivelier

For teaching vocabulary, the information is illustrated as the bar chart below

s/antonymsmaking sentences

Figure 5: The students’ familiarity with teaching vocabulary games and activities

Generally, most students were familiar with the teachers’ games andactivities to learn vocabulary Paraphrasing and using pictures were known verywell or quite well by a large percentage of the students (27% and 64%respectively) Really, it was direct and easy for students to understand the meaning

of word by paraphrasing Similarly, pictures were another accustomed tool for 66%

of students For nearly a half of the students, finding synonyms or antonyms was as

familiar as making sentences Mime did not work well in pre-reading stage since itwas not frequently used in the classroom

The teachers have many difficulties in using an activity or a game in theclassroom, especially in pre-reading stage

Figure 6: Difficulties of teachers in using activities and games in pre-reading stage

The bar chart indicates that lack of Time was the main difficulty for themajority of the teachers (83%) In fact, there were too many things to be organizedand managed in the classroom, which prevented the teachers from succeeding inobtaining all the goals of teaching When the author observed teaching and learningpractically at this school, she found that teachers focused more on while- readingthan pre-reading stage Even during pre-reading stage, teachers concentrated onteaching vocabulary Mixed levels of students were another great difficulty of 66%

of the teachers Commonly, some classes of each grade at high school major inEnglish and a greater number of students choose Maths, physics and chemicalsubjects 17% of the teachers found difficult to manage their classroom during pre-reading activities This percentage was small because most of the teachers wereexperienced for many teaching years at high school Besides, 33% of the teachersgave some more difficulties For example, students tend to use Vietnamese instead

of English; only active members of the class take part in the activities or games;students someTimes misunderstand what to do and they often make noise and so on

In short, the teachers at Quynh Luu I high school diversified the forms of activitiesand games in reading classroom to teach pre-reading stage

Although short games and activities worked quite effectively in pre-readingstage, they caused some difficulties not only for teachers but also for students

others

Figure 7: The students’ difficulties in taking part in the activities and games

Most of students (60%) did not know what to do at the first Time In otherwords, they could not understand their teachers’ instructions clearly This fact mightresult from many reasons For example, the students paid little attention to theactivity; their teacher used unappreciated languages or the instructions were notclear and specific enough Another difficulty was the lack of self-confidence Morethan 40% of students felt shy to join any activity or game Possibly, their limitedknowledge of English could make them lose face In addition, 36% of studentscould not give any own ideas and 40 % of them had no chance to take part in thegame or activity Most of short games and activities did not last long and the Timewas limited, so not every student could take turns to join 25% of the students gaveother difficulties: their English was not good enough for them to speak out or anoisy classroom made them feel tired rather than excited

Students were free to give any individual ideas in this survey, too Theirsuggestions were various; especially, many of these were carried out in theclassroom and had good effect on their mind Using pictures, musical activities,crossword puzzles and lucky numbers were four activities and games getting most

of students’ concern A significant majority of students found them interesting andeffective (more than 75%) Some spent much Time improving his vocabulary, andcrossword puzzles were their favorite games for this purpose In their opinions,lucky number game helped them learn better and relax as well Besides these gamesand activities, some students were fond of making sentences because it helped them