Improving reading skills for students through adapting multi choice exercises for while reading parts in tieng anh 10

Objectives of the study - Training students reading comprehension skills through the use of adapted multi- choice exercises for while- reading parts in the 10th grade textbook in the ba

PART 3 : RESULTS AFTER APPLYING THE RESEARCH IN

TEACHING

18

I INTRODUCTION

1 Reason for choosing the study

Nowaday, English is a vital communicative tool in the integration with the international communities It is an entrance to the knowledge of our mankind Our Vietnam country is on the way of innovation We are step by step committing to industrialization and modernization of the country and expanding relations with other countries So, English has been used widely in Vietnam In general the teaching and learning of foreign languages are being carried out seriously by all schools

With the important role of English, teachers of English at secondary and upper secondary level are responsible for equipping students with basic knowledge of language so that they can both do tests well in English at secondary level and communicate with foreigners I and my colleagues always try to advance in our work and explore creative teaching methods to improve the quality of teaching From my experience in teaching English at Yen Dinh 2 school I realized that the need of adapting tasks in text books in order to improve students’ reading skills

That why I choose the theme " Improving reading skills for students through

adapting multi- choice exercises for while- reading parts in Tieng Anh 10.

2 Objectives of the study

- Training students reading comprehension skills through the use of adapted multi- choice exercises for while- reading parts in the 10th grade textbook in the basic programme

3 Scope of the study

This study is conducted among the 10th form students at Yen Dinh 2 high school during the school year 2020- 2021

4 Methodology of the study

Both comparative and contrastive methods are used For the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials on reading skills have been collected, analyzed and synthesized carefully with the due consideration for the students’ learning situations

5 Significance of the study

This study may provide insights into the process of training the reading skills for the students It motivates the students’ desire for learning English, and make them more confident and active in comunicating activities It also gives some suggestions for other teachers for design the reading lesson plans

II CONTENT PART I: THEORITICAL AND PRACTICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 : Theoritical background

* What is reading ?

"Reading" is the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from them When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols (letters, punctuation marks and spaces) and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us Reading can be silent (in our head) or aloud (so that other people can hear) Reading is a receptive skill - through it we receive information But the complex process of reading also requires the skill of speaking, so that we can pronounce the words that we read In this sense, reading is also a productive skill in that we are both receiving information and transmitting it (even if only to ourselves).In high schools, reading is one of the four basic skills that are emphasised in the language teaching process Reading is not only an effective purpose but aslo a necessary means for students to master, strengthen linguistic knowledge, expand their vocabulary and deeply understand the style and usage of the language they are learning

* What are reading skills ?

Teaching reading skills is not only simply to help students understand a text in particular, but also to help students improve basic reading skills These skills that are neccesary for high school students may be mentioned as follow:

+ Reading for gist

+ Deducing the meaning of unfamilar lexical items

+ Skimming to get general information

+ Scanning to locate specifically required information

These are necessary skills that can help high school students understand different passages with the different purposes The teacher's roles are to support, suggest and guide students to involve in reading activities through various tasks

1.2 Practical background

In Yen Dinh 2 high school, we have projectors, louder speakers in all classroom yet, most of the students often have psychological problems such as being afraid of learning foreign languages and negative reading attitudes when they read long passages printed with unfamiliar words appearing in the text Nearly all students are commonly bad at silent reading methods used to capture the main ideas They trend to focus on interpreting individual words into Vietnamese and limitedly focus on identifying the content of the entire article Especially, students often use “ Guide books or key books” to do the exercises

in the textbooks Although they seem to do the given tasks in the text books well, they do not really understand the reading texts

One more reason reading lessons are not attractive to students because the tasks

in text books are not diverse There are a few tasks which are repeatedly used The most common ones are frequently used at many high schools for reading

skills are: Question- answer; Gap- filling; True- false Among the three tasks

above, the question- answer task seems to be most usually used in textbook These tasks to some extents have satisfied the purposes of teaching reading skills because they help students understand and master the ideas in the reading texts these tasks are repeatedly applied in any reading class make students feel bored and less interested in the reading lessons So it is difficult for teachers to get students in teaching as well as making the teaching procedure effective

In the early school year, I did two surveys in class 10C1 and 10C2 at my school

to check students’ ability of reading: The first survey was done to check the ability of doing given exercises in textbooks and the second survey was done to check the ability of reading skills (including reading for gist, scanning and skimming for details)

The first survey was conducted by asking students to do task 3 in the page 34 (Unit 3: People's background- English 10 ).

Task 3 Answer the questions

1 When and where was Marie Curie born?

2 What kind of student was she?

3 Why did she work as a private tutor?

4 For what service was she awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry?

5 Was the prize her real joy? Why/why not?

Key

1 Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1867

2 She was a brilliant and mature student

3 She worked as a private tutor to cam money for her study tour abroad

4 She was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for determining the atomic weight of radium

5 No, it wasn't Her real joy was "easing human suffering"

With the exercise above, I see that about 60% students get mark 9-10; 20% students to get mark 7-8; 15% students get mark 6-7; 5% students get mark 4-5 This result shows that students can do exercises in textbooks quite well even when they don’t really understand the questions What they have to do is

that they find words in the questions and find where they are in the text and write down the whole sentence

In the second survey, I show an adapted task- a multichoice exercise on screen

of projector and ask students to do as the following

An adapted task: Read the text and choose the best answers.

1 What is the passage mainly about ?

A The life of Marie Curie

B The determination of atomic weight of radium

C The career as a physician

D Marie Curie and her family

2.According to the information in paragraph 2, which of the following is NOT

true?

A She worked as private tutor to save money for abroad study

B She went to Paris to realise her dream

C She got married to Pierre Curie in 1895

D She took a degree in Physics and Mathematics with flying colour

3 What is her “real joy”?

A help human lessen the suffering

B become the first woman to receive a PhD

C become the first woman in France to be a university professor

D she was awarded a Nobel Prize

4 Marie Curie was awarded a Nobel Prize in _

A.Mathematics B.Physics C.Chemistry D.Biology

5 The author’s tone in the passage is

A.Pessimistic B.Neutral C.Prejudiced D.Sarcastic

Key: 1A 2D 3A 4C 5B

I realize that only 45 % students get mark 10; 20 % get mark 8; 20 % students get mark 6 , 15 % students get mark 4 Although the result is not as high as that in the first result, more students involve truly in reading activities and they are really interested in this kind of task

To help students improve different types of reading skill such as skimming, scanning, I design some multi- choice exercises for reading lessons

of Tieng Anh 10 Through doing these exercises, students can not only understand more the reading texts but also improve reading skill in order to help them prepare well for the coming examinations

PART II: SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS

A Types of multi- choice questions for reading comprehension exercises

From the national examinations for GCSE, I have founded different types of questions of reading comprehension exercises which can be listed as the following:

1 Main idea questions

The main idea covers most of what a paragraph or passage is about; it may answer who, what, where, when, why, or how It includes a topic and

something specific about that topic Main idea questions often ask students to

identify the "primary purpose" or "main point" of the passage So as to answer these questions correctly, students have to identify the thesis of the passage and those ideas that support this thesis Students may be confused with a few answer choices that are supporting ideas

Most main idea questions look like these:

- What is the topic of this passage?

- What is the main idea expressed in this passage?

- Which title best reflects the main idea of the passage?

- What does the passage mainly discuss?

- Which of the following can best summarise the main idea of the passage?

- Which of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?

- The passage is primarily concerned with which of the following?

- Which of the following most accurately states the main idea of the

passage?

- The primary purpose of the passage is to…

- The main point made by the passage is that…

- The author of this passage is primarily concerned with…

Main point questions are really just asking you to identified the conclusion You

will be given a short passage that will consist of premises and conclusions The question answer, “the main point”, will be a restated version of the argument's

central conclusion Main point = main conclusion Main point questions ask the

students to identify the crux of the author's point On adapting exercises, the teacher must identify which ideas in the passage play a supporting role and which idea is being supported In many ways, this is similar to identifying the premises and conclusion to a critical reasoning argument The correct answer to

a main point question is often a paraphrase of the conclusion or thesis statement

of the passage Common incorrect answer choices are those that feature

supporting ideas These answer choices are appealing to many test-takers because the material presented in them is true and based upon the passage

2 Detail questions

Detail questions ask the reader to recall specific information such as anecdotes, cited evidence, data, or descriptions used to support the main idea of the

passage The answers to these questions can be found in each passage Detail

questions are usually prefaced by "according to the passage" or "the passage states that" Detail questions specify smaller chunks of information than comprehension questions

Most of the questions that fit into this category could be called "find the fact" as they rely on students’ ability to find a specific piece of information, often contained in two or three sentences The answers deal with specific, small items

in the paragraph or passage such as a number, a date, or a name

These questions tend to be more difficult than main idea questions because they require a more detailed recollection of the test If necessary, students can return

to the text and quickly re-read a few sentences

Unlike main idea questions which are more generic in their question stem, these questions tend to incorporate an idea specific to the passage in the question stem

Detailed questions consists of two sub-kinds of questions: Factual questions and negative factural questions

* Factual questions

- According to the passage, why/ what/ how…?

- Which of the following is TRUE, according to the author?

- According to the information in paragraph 1, what…?

- It is stated in paragraph 1 that…?

* Negative factual questions

- The author mentions all of the following in the passage EXCEPT…

- Which of the following is NOT stated in the passage?

- In the passage, the author does not mention…

- According to the information in paragraph 2, which of the following is NOT true?

In trying to identify the correct answer, it is extremely important that the teacher sticks quite close to the text The words "according to the passage",” TRUE”, “ EXCEPT”, “NOT TRUE” should be taken seriously Other options that seem logical but are not directly supported by the text

3 Vocabulary questions

These question ask for knowledge of vocabulary and ability of understanding

the meaning of a word or phrase

Most vocabulary questions look like these:

- Which of the following could best be substituted for the word in line _?

- Which of the following is CLOSEST in meaning to _?

- The expression “ ” in line could be best replaced by?

- The word “ ” in line is CLOSEST in meaning to which of the following?

Students should focus entirely on the context driven from vocabulary to infer the meaning of useful vocabulary words

4 Reference questions

This is a relatively simple question, because the references are replaced by the words in the preceding sentences

- The word “ ” in line “ ” refers to ?

- The pronoun “it ” in line refers to?

- The phrase “ ” in paragraph“ ” refers to ?

5 Inference questions

Inference questions are often prefaced by "the passage implies" or "the author

implies", where "suggests" is sometimes substituted They not only require students to stick closely to the text and rely on specific facts but they also ask students to make a very small logical conclusion that is strongly implied based upon information in the passage Answer choices that require significant assumptions or inferences will NEVER be correct In some cases, the answer of

an inference question lies directly in the text and requires a very small logical step (e.g., if the text says that " Vietnam and Thailand played in the Men Footbal Final, the Thai Team won the gold medal", an inference would be that "

Vietnamese Team was the runner- up") In other cases, the inference question

type asks for an answer that is often a near paraphrase of a fact in the passage or

a fact that the information in the passage rules out (e.g., if the text says that " Vietnam and Thailand played in the Men Footbal Final, the Thai Team won the gold medal”, students can infer that the Thai Team defeated the Vietnamese

Team) In other words, the answer to an inference question is a conclusion

made in the passage

Most Inference questions look like these:

- It can be infered from the passage that…

- It can be concluded from the information in paragraph 1 that….

- Which of the following can be infered from the passage?

- In the last paragraph, the author suggests that…

- It is probable that…

- You can conclude from this paragraph/passage that

- The author suggests that

- Which is more likely to happen ?

6 Questions on the author’s attitude

Questions on the author’s purpose or Tone questions ask students to identify the

attitude or mood of a specific part of the passage or of the entire passage A common characteristic of this question type is answer choices that are marked

by one to three word phrases containing adjectives sush as positive: positive, negative, neutral , supportive, skeptical, suspicious Tone questions test

students’ ability to recognize an attitude or disposition of the author, which is signaled by the use of a handful of trigger words To answer this question, students should base on the sentences that express personal views of the authors such as praise, criticism, support, doubt

- What is the author’s opinion of ?

- Which of the following most accurately reflects the author’s opinion

of ?

- The attitude of the author of the passage toward x is best described as one of

- The tone of the author is best described as

7 Application questions

This is a relatively difficult question The application question type asks you to

use the information in the passage as premises and draw a conclusion that is not directly addressed in the passage The key to this question type is the ability to identify the crux of an argument and see how it relates to a similar situation

1 The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following?

2 Which of the following statements would provide the most logical

continuation of the final paragraph?

3 [an idea or action described in the passage] is most similar to which of the following?

B How to adapt good multi- choice exercises and use them effectively

Basing on these main types of questions, I take notice of some tips of

adapting exercises as the follow:

 Some tips of adapting multi- choice exercises

+ The teacher should use different types of multi- choice questions in an exercise in order to develop different types of reading skills of students + There should be easy, medium and difficult questions to classify students + The number of question should be 5 or 6 questions for each exercise

 Some notes when using multi- choice exercises in class

+ Adapted exercises replace given tasks in textbooks and they are used in while- reading period

+ Teachers should prepare the exercises on handouts and distribute them to students

+ Time limit for each exercise is 10 – 12 minutes

+ Students may work individually, in pairs or in groups

+ When asking for the feedback, teachers have students take the information

in the passage to give evidence for their answers

C ADAPTED EXERCISES IN TIENG ANH 10

During the school- year 2020- 2021, I have adapted multi- choice question exercises and used them effectively when I taught students in two classes 10 C1 and 10 C2

All adapted tasks in this teaching experience are described briefly in the following table

Units Reading task in text book Adapted exercises

Unit 1 Task 2 ( page 14) Multi- choice questions

Unit 2 Task 3 ( page 24) Multi- choice questions

Unit 3 Task 3 ( page 34) Multi- choice questions

Unit 5 Task 3 ( page 55) Multi- choice questions

Unit 8 Task 3 ( page 84) Multi- choice questions

Unit 9 Task 3 ( page 96) Multi- choice questions

Unit 10 Task 3 ( page 106) Multi- choice questions

Unit 11 Task 2 ( page 114) Multi- choice questions

Unit 12 Task 2 ( page 126) Multi- choice questions