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The necessity to equip students with adequate skill to do the Project tasks ingeneral and to teach summarization skill in project tasks in particular has inspired me to write the researc

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA

TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN LAM SƠN

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

TÊN ĐỀ TÀI MỘT SỐ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY KĨ NĂNG TÓM TẮT CHO

BÀI TẬP DỰ ÁN (PEDAGOGICAL TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING

SUMMARIZATION SKILL FOR PROJECT TASKS)

Môn/lĩnh vực: Tiếng Anh

Bậc học: THPT

Người thực hiện: Lê Vũ Thùy Trang

Năm sinh: 1993

Chức vụ: Giáo viên

Đơn vị công tác: THPT Chuyên Lam Sơn

THANH HÓA NĂM 2021

SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA

TRƯỜNG THPT CHUYÊN LAM SƠN

SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM

TÊN ĐỀ TÀI

MỘT SỐ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY KĨ NĂNG TÓM TẮT CHO

BÀI TẬP LÀM DỰ ÁN

(PEDAGOGICAL TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING

SUMMARIZATION SKILL FOR PROJECT TASKS)

Môn/lĩnh vực: Tiếng Anh

Bậc học: THPT

Người thực hiện: Lê Vũ Thùy Trang

Năm sinh: 1993

Chức vụ: Giáo viên

Đơn vị công tác: THPT Chuyên Lam Sơn

THANH HÓA, NĂM 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART A: INTRODUCTION 2

Rationale 2

Aims of the study 2

Scope of the study 2

PART B: DEVELOPMENT .3

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 3

Theoretical underpinning 3

The significance of summarization skill 3

The types of summarization .4

The criteria of summarization 4

The method to teach summarization skill 5

Project-based learning 6

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 8

The setting of the study 8

The research question 9

The research methodology 9

The research subjects 9

The research design 10

The practical instructions to compose a summary 11

The data collection procedures and results 18

The data analysis 18

CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSIONS Implications of the research 19

Limitations and suggestions for further study 20

REFERENCE 21

APPENDIX 23

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The project session is added at the end of each unit in the newly reformedcurriculum (by the Education Publishing House and Pearson Group) with a view toencouraging students to consolidate and practice the language and skill they havegained in the lesson This is a radical change in this curriculum as it enablesstudents to apply English language in authentic contexts as well as broaden theirhorizon on a wide range of topics, thus acquire valuable communicative skill andteamwork skill

Although authentic communicative skill is a challenging one for students who are

at lower level and familiar with thoroughly instructed and supervised lessons, theproject session is assigned a comparatively less time than other skill (it is taughttogether with “Looking back” part, which means it takes up no more than a 45-minute teaching session per unit) Most of the task is expected to be carried out ashomework and students only deliver the results at class However, withoutadequate instructions and guidelines, students may struggle to do the task at homeand, as a consequence, spend an excessive amount of time on it or feel discouragedfrom doing the project at all

The necessity to equip students with adequate skill to do the Project tasks ingeneral and to teach summarization skill in project tasks in particular has inspired

me to write the research report: “Pedagogical techniques of teachingsummarization skill for project task”

2 Aims of the study

(1)Suggest effective techniques to teach students summarization skill in

preparation for project tasks

(2)Evaluate the effects of those methods in enhancing students’ performance in conducting the project tasks

3 Scope of the study

The study focus on the application of Project tasks given in the latest set oftextbooks by the Education Publishing House and Pearson Group used in Lam SonSpecialized High School to teach students aged 16 to 18 in this organization.

One particular aspect that this research report focus on is the type of “Project”tasks which require students to carry out research then deliver a presentation or aposter on a social or scientific topic in the English textbooks (by the EducationPublishing House and Pearson Group) This type of Project is supposedly moredifficult than the other types of project tasks, namely carrying out survey orquestionnaires because it requires more cognitive effort and more knowledge Theinstruction of summarization will equip students with an essential skill to navigatethrough a wealth of knowledge on the Internet and be able to select and presentinformation effectively

1.2.The significance of summarization skill

Summarization is an essential skill in academic context, especially inundergraduate and postgraduate level It enables speakers and writers to synthesizetheoretical knowledge and research findings from a wide range of sources with aview to using them as the basis for their scrutiny, interpretation and evaluation Acompetent command of summarization skill may aid students in synthesizingavailable knowledge effectively This means they are capable of using the existingknowledge selectively to support their points without technically copying sourcesword by word, thus steering clear of committing plagiarism This is especiallyapplicable to texts which are too long or complicated to be quoted directly orindirectly Therefore, summarization not only helps students prepare presentationsfor project tasks in the textbooks but also for academic writing and speaking atundergraduate and graduate level

This skill is also an indispensible method for knowledge retention and clarification(Frey, Fisher and Hernandez, 2003), which means that it helps students boostunderstanding and memory of complex topics Teachers can assign summarizationtasks to develop students developing vocabulary and critical thinking skills inlanguage learning

Furthermore, summarization is an effective task which enables teacher to evaluatestudents’ comprehension of a reading passage and improve their reading skills

(Marzec-Stawiarska, 2016) It is worth mentioning that reading for gist andidentifying the main points are prerequisite steps in summarizing According toThornbury (2011), reading for gist or skimming is briefly reading a text with aview to ‘getting the main ideas or sense of a text’ Reading or listening for gist(‘skimming’) and identifying the main point(s) in a text are considered traditionalcomponents of reading skills (Swan & Walter, 2017) as well as a springboard forcommunicative tasks, namely speaking and writing (Thornbury, 2011)

Besides, there is evidence which suggests that teaching reading skills paydividends in training for test-taking and other specific purposes (Swan & Walter,2017) This skill is required in the writing task of TOEFL, CPE and similarlanguage proficiency tests, in which outstanding achievement grants high studentspriority for admission to prestigious domestic and foreign universities

Frey, Fisher and Hernandez (2003) categorized summaries writing into:

1) the précis, which is “a brief summary of another text that contains the mainpoints but little embellishment”

2) the evaluation summary, which is also short and focuses on the main ideas of thereading but ends with writer’s opinions and insights This category is traditionallyseen in book reviews and typically in CPE and TOEFL, which are two of the mostpopular standardized English proficiency tests

1.4.Criteria for a summary

Based on the abovementioned pinnacle, criteria of good summaries should includebut not limited to:

1) Selecting main ideas and supporting ideas

2) Not distorting the original text

3) Using the writer’s own words and sentence structure

4) Being concise and within word limit

5) Acknowledge sources to avoid plagiarism

1.5 Methods to teach summarization skill

Explicit instructions are usually recommended and proved to be effective inteaching this skill (Okome, Danner and Ofuani, 2021) According to Casazza(1993), to write a good summary, one needs to be able to:

1) understand the text

2) select the most important information

3) delete the minor and redundant details

4) combine similar ideas into categories

5) write in his/her own words

It is suggested by Chen and Su (2012) that teachers should use reader-basedapproach to give students instructions based on the features of distinctive types oftexts and help them select main points more efficiently This approach allowsteacher to give students tremendous scaffolding and group work, which isespecially suitable for lower-level students still grappling with readingcomprehension and writing skill Teachers should also choose texts which have aclear structure and level-appropriate vocabulary This approach is typicallycomprised of the following steps:

1) setting the context: to find the typical purposes and used of the genre

2) modeling: to analyse the key discourse features the sampled passage

3) joint construction: to provide scaffolding activities to familiarize students withthe structures and grammar of the genre

4) independent construction: to reduce teachers’ support gradually and to monitorautonomous activities

For higher level students, teachers can use rule-governed approaches Students can

be given instruction on cognitive steps to approach a text so that students can usetheir autonomy to do search for and understand a broad range of reading texts inappropriate level and develop critical thinking skill

1.6.Project-based learning

Project-based learning is referred to as a pedagogical approach in which learningrevolves around carrying out meaningful tasks or projects It is a student-centredform of teaching built on three constructivist principles: learning is context-specific and is provided through authentic tasks, learners take active roles in thelearning process and they reach their goals through social interactions andknowledge sharing, which are meaningful learning experiences (Kokotsaki,Menzies, & Wiggins, 2016)

Therefore, Project-based learning not only facilitates English language learning butalso the development of students’ intra-personal competency, such as criticalthinking, problem-solving, responsibility, creativity, self-motivation, autonomouslearning, etc as well as interpersonal skills, including teamwork, communication,and so on The basic features of Project-based learning are:

1) It derives from the students’ interests and needs

2) Students have autonomy, at least to some extent, to do the project

3) It connects and integrates students with broader and more authentic contexts intheir societies

4) It requires collaboration in the form of group work

Project-based learning has been integrated in the newly reformed textbooks at theend of each lesson The types of projects includes: collecting data by doing survey

or questionnaire, synthesizing information on a given topics via posters, reports,compositions or presentations The types of tasks are carefully chosen so that theyare progressively more difficult and suitable to the corresponding Units as well asstudents’ academic and cognitive progression Some typical Project tasks aresampled below:

No Grad

Lifestyleandlongevity

Project A: Look for information about one of thelongevity hot spots and prepare a presentation to

deliver to the class

identity

Look for information then introduce a poster to theclass and give a presentation on the features that

define the cultural identity of an ethnic group.

Artificialintelligence

Do research then present about a kind of robot or a

popular science-fiction film about AI

R 2: THE STUDY

2.1.The setting of the study

A English teaching and learning situation at Lam Son High School

The newly reformed English textbooks have just been officially introduced to theLam Son High School curricula since the academic year 2020-2021 and started to

be used for grade 10 It has brought about drastic change in the structure, contentand pedagogical approach in comparison to the prevailing English textbookspublished decades ago This transition has sparked both enthusiasm and frustrationbecause teachers must devise new lesson plans, adopt and adjust a wealth ofknowledge and skills to put into practice

Student-centered approaches including project-based method as well as authenticmaterials have been used in teaching but only to limited extent when teachers usethe previous English textbooks due to the outdated topics and lack of instructions

to make those approaches relevant In contrast, in the new curricula, there are abroader range of topics and materials provided that enable teachers to adopt thoseapproaches more extensively

However, one challenge of student-centered approach is to control students’talking time When asking students to present results of their project, it isespecially difficult to keep time because students are often unable to keep theirspeech concise and cohesive after gathering a mass of information on the Internet

To make matters worse, the amount of class time allotted to delivering projects isoften 20 minutes per week only because only 1 period is given in therecommended curricula to teach both Looking back and Project session If timing

is not strictly controlled, it is impractical for teachers to give all students of a large

class a chance to present the result as well as receive feedback throughout asemester.

B The English language learners

When it comes to teaching the newly reformed English textbooks, the Project tasksare zealously welcomed by students Compared to previous cohorts of students, thecurrent generations are especially adaptive to student-centred approaches ingeneral and project-based approach in particular because they are exposed to thesemethods earlier What is more, they are better equipped with necessarycommunicative skills and more importantly they are “digital natives”, who arecomfortable with and even partial towards using technological support to carry outresearch as homework However, students lack skills to perform the taskeffectively The common problems they encounter are:

1) They often choose topics that already have answers on the Internet

2) If those sample answers are not available, they have a tendency to change topics3) They spend excessive amount of time searching for ready-made answers to thegiven topics

4) They copy the information found on the Internet verbatim

5) They cannot control the time spent on presenting the project results

to assessing the efficacy of the techniques used in the study

Students are given project tasks based on the topic given in the textbooks

2.4.Research subjects

Participants of the study are 3 classes of students from grade 10A, grade 11V andgrade 12T in Lam Son High School for the Gifted 20 students from grade 10A are

at advanced level since they are majored in English while 20 students from grade11V and 20 students from 12T are pre-intermediate and intermediate levelrespectively These students have not used the newly reformed English textbooksbefore because they have just been officially introduced to the school curricula.The author chose 3 classes of different English proficiency level with a view toreflecting the wide range of levels that teachers may encounter in realistic teachingcontext However, due to time limitation, only 10 groups in each class areevaluated and compared

2.5.Research design

To evaluate the improvement in students’ performance, a detailed analysis ofstudents’ work before and after summarization instructions was conducted Eachgroup of 2 students is given a project task to deliver presentation on a theme given

in their textbooks of respective grades that they are in Students can choose one ofthe topics given by the teacher or find their own topic as long as it belonged to thepredetermined theme The topics are:

(1) grade 10 groups- Family issues (Families with both parents working, Divorces,The share of household chores);

(2) grade 11 groups - Lifestyle and longevity (Longevity hotspots: The island ofOkinawa - Japan, Sardinia-Italy, Nicoya Peninsula - Costa Rica) ;

(3) grade 12 groups - Artificial intelligence (Robots with Artificial Intelligence,science - fiction films about AI)

Students are required to submit a script along with a slide or a poster for apresentation They have 2 weeks to prepare in advance They then present ingroups at class with time allowance being around 5 minutes There are 30 groups

in total In each class, the teacher delivered the projects in the following stages:

Stage 1:

Teach the unit related to the topic chosen, the project task is assigned in the lastperiod in order to make sure the students are equipped with adequate vocabulary

and grammar on the topic For each level, the difficulty of the task is adjusted withthe amount of scaffolding reduced accordingly.

A.Grade 11 (pre-intermediate level) Task description: Look for information about one of the longevity hot spots and prepare a presentation or a poster to deliver to the class

a Students are given an outline and a detailed list for main content to include inthe presentation (shown on the text book), recommended links where content issuitable for students’ reading comprehension level and guidelines of the criteria of

a satisfactory project presentation The teacher provides a modelanswer/presentation

b Students deliver the presentation at class with visual aids (slides or poster)

B.Grade 12 (intermediate level) Task description: Do research then present about a kind of robot or a popular science-fiction film about AI

a Students are given a suggestion for main content to include in the presentation(shown on the textbook), recommended links where content is suitable forstudents’ reading comprehension level and guidelines of the criteria of asatisfactory project presentation

b Students deliver the presentation at class with visual aids (slides or a poster)

C.Grade 10 (advanced level) Task description: Do research then present about a family issue

a Students autonomously search for information and choose what to include in their products Students are given guidelines of the criteria of a satisfactory project presentation

b Students deliver the presentation at class with visual aids (slides or a poster)

Stage 2: The teacher randomly picks 10 groups to present, which means there are

20 out of 35 students in each class The teacher records and evaluates students’products (prior to teaching summarization skill)

Stage 3: The teacher deliver a lesson on summarization skill, then ask students to

apply the knowledge to another topic within the predetermined theme

Stage 4: The teacher asks the groups to present again The teacher records and

evaluates students’ project products (after teaching summarization skill)

Stage 5: The teacher compares and evaluates the products of 30 groups before and

after teaching summarization skill

2.6.Practical instructions to compose a summary

Students should be instructed to use the following steps to summarize successfullyand accurately The teacher may give students some practice exercises to reinforcestudents’ comprehension and application of summarization (APPENDIX A) Withpractice, the number of steps may be reduced, as the process becomes moreautomatic and takes up less time

Step 1 Read the original passage several times to understand it fully Look up newwords if dictionaries are available When taking an official test, which prohibitsany materials, students must guess the meaning based on the context

Step 2 Read for gist and choose important ideas It helps to underline importantideas and to take notes If students take notes, they should jot down only a few keywords for each idea and use abbreviations or/and symbols if possible

Step 3 Write your summary from the notes by paraphrasing and connecting thoseparaphrased ideas into a cohesive passage

Step 4 Check the summary against the original to make sure the original meaning

is not distorted and no important points are missed Then proofread to eliminateminor grammatical errors Add citation to acknowledge the source

The teacher can relate this skill to students’ prior knowledge and skill

Step 1

Guessing meaning of unknown words based on the context is a familiar skill whichmost students are supposed to be taught in the textbooks in Vietnam and when theystudy for the university/high school entrance examination The question whichhelps students practice guessing meaning can also be extracted from any readingmaterials for TOEFL or Reading in High school Example:

“John, 15, is not finished volunteering Once a week he videotapes animals at the

Prince George County animal shelter in Forestville His footage is shown on the

Bowie public access television channel in hopes of finding homes for the animals

"Volunteering is better than just sitting around," says John, "and I like animals; Idon't want to see them put to sleep."

Question: What is the word “footage” in paragraph 3 closest in meaning to?

A video B animal C volunteer D footwear”

(Extracted from the High School Graduation mock exam 2019, Hanoi Foreign

Language High School) Answer: A

Step 2

a) Reading for gist

This skill is supposed to be included in reading lessons It is instructed in detail inmost IELTS preparation books/materials In addition, the practice exercise for thisskill can be found in TOEFL Reading tests Example:

“Directions:

Read each passage As you are reading, take brief notes on the main topic of eachparagraph of the passage in the spaces provided At the end of each passage, youwill find the introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage Using yournotes, complete the summary Write the letters of three of the answer choices thatexpress the most important ideas of the passage next to the bullet points Threeanswer choices will not be used These answer choices are incorrect because theyexpress ideas that are not given in the passage, because they express only detailsfrom the passage, or because they contain inaccurate information

Passage:

What is meant by the term economic resources? In general, these are all thenatural, synthetic, and human resources that go into the production of goods andservices This obviously covers a lot of ground: factories and farms; the tools andmachines used in production; transportation and communication facilities;

innumerable types of labor; mineral resources Economic resources can be brokendown into two general categories: property resources—land and capital—andhuman resources—labor and entrepreneurial skills.

What does land mean to the economist? Much more than to the non-economist.Land refers to all natural resources that are usable in the production process: arableland, forests, mineral and oil deposits, water resources, and so on What aboutcapital? Capital goods, or investment goods, are all the synthetic aids to producing,storing, transporting, and distributing goods and services Capital goods, or tools,differ from consumer goods in that the latter satisfy wants directly, while theformer do so indirectly by facilitating the production of consumer goods It should

be noted that capital as defined here does not refer to money Money aloneproduces nothing

The term labor refers to the physical and mental talents of humans used to producegoods or services (with the exception of one set of human talents, entrepreneurialskills, which will be considered a separate category because of their specialsignificance) Thus the services of a factory worker or an office worker, a balletdancer, a deep-sea diver, or an astronaut all fall under the heading of labor

All economic resources have one fundamental characteristic in common: they arelimited in supply Certainly the economy of a nation may possess vast amounts ofnatural resources, capital goods, and labor However, the supply of these resources

is not infinite A lack of semiskilled and skilled workers, for example, may present

a major obstacle to the production process The same can be said for a shortage ofthe other factors of production

Notes on Main Topics:

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