A study on communicative activities in english reading classes for the 10th from students

Situation of Teaching and Learning English Reading Skill at Thach Thanh II High School...21 2.5.. Suggested Communicative Activities to Improve English Reading Skills for the 10th Form S

VINH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

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A STUDY ON COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN

FORM STUDENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG GIAO TIẾP TRONG

BÀI ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10)

GRADUATION THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY

Student: VŨ HẢI YẾN, 47A1_ENGLISH Supervisor: NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN LAM, M.A.

VINH, 2010

I would also like to give my sincere thanks to all my teachers from theForeign Languages Department of Vinh University for their lectures and advicewhich are very useful for me to finish this study.

I am fully grateful to the help of all the teachers and students at Thach Thanh

II High School so that I could finish the survey for my study

Finally, I wish to thank my family and my friends who have encouraged andsupported me during the time of doing this study

Though the study has been done with all my attempts, my limitations ofability and knowledge may cause mistakes in the study Therefore, I would like toreceive any regard and comment from you on my study

Vinh, May 2010

Vu Hai Yen

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS i

TABLE OF CONTENTS ii

ABBREVIATION v

PART I INTRODUCTION1 1 Reasons for Choosing the Study 1

2 Aims and Objectives of the Study 2

3 Scope of the Study 2

4 Method of the Study 3

5 Design of the Study 3

PART II DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) 5

1.1.1 Aims of CLT 5

1.1.2 Teacher Roles and Learner Roles in CLT 6

1.1.2.1 Teacher Roles 6

1.1.2.2 Learner Roles 6

1.2 The Communication Continuum 7

1.2.1 Characteristics of Communicative Activities 7

1.2.2 Purposes of Communicative Activities 8

1.2.3 Types of Communicative Activities in Language Teaching 8

1.3 Reading Skill 9

1.3.1 Definition of Reading 9

1.3.2 The Importance of Reading 10

1.3.3 Principles for Teaching Reading in a CLT Classroom 11

1.3.4 Types of Reading Activities in Language Classes 13

1.4 Summary 15

CHAPTER 2: REAL SITUATION OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

ENGLISH READING SKILL AT THACH THANH II HIGH SCHOOL 16

2.1 Characteristics of the 10th Form Students 16

2.2 Characteristics of the New Textbook “Tieng Anh 10” 17

2.3 Design of a Reading Lesson for the 10th Form Students 19

2.4 Situation of Teaching and Learning English Reading Skill at Thach Thanh II High School 21

2.5 The Survey on the 10th Form Students and Teachers of English at Thach Thanh II High School 22

2.5.1 Aims of the Survey 22

2.5.2 Description of the Survey 22

2.5.3 Result of the Survey 23

2.6 Summary 31

CHAPTER 3: SUGGESTED COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE ENGLISH READING SKILLS FOR THE 10 TH FORM STUDENTS 32

3.1 Introduction 32

3.2 Suggested Communicative Activities to Improve English Reading Skills for the 10th Form Students 34

3.2.1 Out of Ten 34

3.2.2 Finding Synonyms 34

3.2.3 Get it wrong 35

3.2.4 Role Play36 3.2.5 Students Interview 36

3.2.6 Completing Network 37

3.2.7 Crossword Puzzle 38

3.2.8 Lucky Number 38

3.3 Sample Reading Communicative Activities 39

3.4 Summary 48

PART III CONCLUSION 49

3.1 Recapitulation 49 3.2 Suggestions for Further Studies 50

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1 Reasons for Choosing the Study

Language is the most important means for people to communicate to eachother Nowadays, with the non-stop development of society and the tendency ofintegration among the countries over the world, English becomes an official andeffective international communicative language English is widely used in manyfields of life such as science, technology, education, etc As a result, more and morepeople are studying English with the hope that they can meet the requirements ofsociety in general and of their jobs in particular

In education, especially, for High school grade, English now is a compulsorysubject not only in teaching and learning but also in many important examinations.

It is, therefore, comprehensible why nowadays students learning English with agreat concern They not only study English because it is compulsory but alsobecause they are interested in English and they are aware well of the importance ofEnglish for their job in the future

As a matter of fact, it is not easy to master a foreign language at all LearningEnglish is not an exception It requires many sub-skills such as listening, speaking,reading and writing Being a receptive skill, reading also has some certainrequirements to the students, not just a process of understanding grammar structuresmechanically In fact, many students are very good at grammar and vocabulary butthey cannot finish the reading tasks successfully

Of course, there are many ways to teach reading skill, however, the givenquestion is that which way is the most effective for the students Nowadays, we aretrying to teach English in a communicative way Communicative activities,therefore, are becoming an essential part in language learning In real teaching inhigh school, not many teachers use communicative activities in English classes,especially in reading lessons They only teach students reading skills throughmechanical drills in the textbook Thus, the author carries out a study on thecommunicative activities in English reading classes to somewhat help students toimprove their reading skill in particular and their language competence in general

For the reasons above, the author decides to choose the topic “A Study on

Communicative Activities in English Reading Classes for the 10 th Form Students”

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 ranging from CLT, CommunicativeContinuum to Reading Skill

- To make an investigation into the real situation of using communicativeactivities in teaching and learning English reading skill at Thach Thanh II Highschool

- To provide some suggested communicative activities to partly improvereading skills for the 10th form students.

To fully achieve these aims, the study has to answer the following questions:

* What are Communicative Activities? What is “reading”?

* What is the real situation of using communicative activities in Englishreading lessons for the 10th form students at Thach Thanh II High school?

* What kinds of Communicative Activities can be applied in English readingclasses to improve reading skill for the 10th students?

3 Scope of the Study

The study concerns about communicative activities and reading skill

However, “A Study on Communicative Activities in English Reading Classes for

the 10 th Form Students” is a broad topic and it cannot be exploited in the study due

to the limitation of a graduation thesis Therefore, within this study, the author justmentions about some background knowledge about CLT and reading skill as well assome communicative activities in language classes

Furthermore, in this study, the author also attempts to carry out the research

on the situation of teaching and learning English reading skill at Thach Thanh IIHigh School From these, the author’s purpose is to give some suggestedcommunicative activities as a technique to partly improve reading skills for the 10th

form students

4 Method of the Study

To finish this study, the author has used quantitative and qualitative methods.First, the author collects and analyzes the materials which refer to CLT,Reading Skill and Communicative Activities in English reading classes

Then, she conducts a survey to get information about the real situation aboutteaching and learning English reading at Thach Thanh II High School

After that, the author analyzes and synthesizes the collected data

Finally, the author discusses about some suggested communicative activities

in English reading classes for the 10th form students

5 Design of the Study

The study has three main parts Part I is “INTRODUCTION” which

consists of the author’s reasons for choosing the study, aims, scope, methods, anddesign of the study

Part II entitled “DEVELOPMENT” includes three chapters Chapter 1,

“Theoretical Background”, provides some background knowledge about CLT, the

aims of CLT, learner roles and teacher roles in CLT This chapter also gives anoverview on the Communicative Continuum, characteristics, purposes and sometypes of communicative activities in language teaching In addition, the authorbriefly introduces reading skill with definition of reading, the importance, theprinciples for teaching reading and types of reading activities in CLT classroom

Chapter 2 is titled “Real Situation of Teaching and Learning Reading

Skill at Thach Thanh II High School” In this chapter, the author mentions about

some characteristics of the 10th form students and the new textbook “Tieng Anh10”, the design of a reading lesson for the 10th form students as well This chaptermainly focuses on the situation of using communicative activities in English readingclasses for 10th form students at Thach Thanh II High School

Chapter 3 entitled “Suggested Communicative Activities” presents some

criteria for selecting communicative activities in English reading classes for the 10th

form students In addition, the author also provides some suggested communicativeactivities to improve reading skills for the 10th students and some samplecommunicative activities that she has applied in her real teaching at Thach Thanh IIHigh School

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

points in the study and suggests some topics for further studies

The study ends with the “REFERENCES” which lists all the materials and sources of information used in this study, and the “APPENDIX” in which the

samples of questionnaires for teachers and students are mentioned

PART II: DEVELOPMENT

1.1 The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

structures, on the knowledge of sentence building, the ability to producegrammatically correct sentences in a language

In contrast, Hymes’s theory of communicative competence focused on what

a speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech ofcommunity In other words, communicative competence can be understood as theability to use language correctly and appropriately to accomplish thecommunication goals in authentic and meaningful situations Communicativecompetence is measured by determining if, and to what degree, the goals ofinteraction are achieved

In addition, CLT also developed procedures for the teaching of the four skillsthat knowledge the interdependence of language and communication Becausecommunicative principles can be applied to the teaching of any skill, at any level,and because of the wide variety of classroom activities, description of typicalclassroom procedures used in a lesson based on CLT principles is not feasible InCLT, traditional procedures are not rejected but they are reinterpreted andexpanded Teaching points are introduced in dialogue form, grammatical items areisolated for controlled practice, and then freer activities are provided Pair andgroup work is suggested to encourage students to use and practice functions andforms It can be said that CLT procedures are evolutionary rather thanrevolutionary

1.1.2 Learner Roles and Teacher Roles in CLT

The aims of CLT, “communicative competence” also implies new roles inthe classroom for teacher and learners So how do the roles of teacher and learnerschange in CLT? In traditional second language classroom, teacher was the center,teacher controlled every activities in the class Teacher talks all the time andstudents only listen and write down everything However, in CLT, the role ofteacher and students has changed a lot

1.1.2.1 Teacher Roles

According to Breen and Candlin (1980:99, cited in Richards and Rodgers,2001:167), teacher in CLT has some main roles following:

The first role is to facilitate the communicate process between all participants

in the classroom and the various activities and texts

The second role is to act as an independent participant within the teaching group

learning-The third role for the teacher is that of researcher and learner, with much tocontribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observedexperience of the nature of learning and organizational capacities

Other roles assumed for teacher are needed analyst, counselor, and group processmanager

CLT procedures often require teachers to acquire less teacher-centeredclassroom management skills It is the teacher’s responsibility to organize theclassroom as a setting for communication and communicative activities

Additionally, in CLT, students are expected to interact primarily with eachother than with the teacher and to engage in negotiating meaning actively Thecorrection of errors maybe absent or infrequent Thus, CLT procedures should befocused on learner-centered instructions to enhance the students’ communicativecompetence

1.2 Communicative Continuum

1.2.1 Characteristics of Communicative Activities

Communication between humans is an extremely complex and changing phenomenon, but there are certain characteristics that the great majority ofcommunicative events share Communicative Activities also share the

ever-characteristics of communication They are various depending on eachcommunicative situation with a particular purpose

As we know that students’ motivation in real communication is veryimportant, thus, the students should have desire to communicate In other words, theactivity must be genuinely communicative and really promoting language use Thestudents should also have some kinds of communicative purposes rather than justpracticing the language In addition, when the students engage in talking to eachother, they must be focused on what they are saying not how they say it Theactivity must involve the students in using a variety of language, not just onespecific language form The students should free to improvise, using whateverresources they choose

In CLT, classroom activities must be designed for students to do bythemselves rather than with the teacher When students are involved incommunication, the teacher should not intervene, telling students what they aremaking mistakes, insisting on accuracy, etc Besides, the activity should not bedesigned to force students to use a certain language in communication The choice

of what to say and how to say it should rest with the students

To conclude, there are six main characteristics of communicative activities asfollows:

1.2.2 Purposes of Communicative Activities

1.2.2.1 Communicative Activities allow natural learning

Language learning requires the learners’ knowledge about many aspects oflanguage such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc In real languageteaching, the teacher can not control the students’ acquisition of all aspects becauselanguage learning takes place inside the learners Some aspects of language learningcan take place only through natural acquisition process in which the learners areinvolved in using the language for communication.

1.2.2.2 Communicative Activities promote learning motivation

Students always take part in real communication to each other with a specificpurpose Their motivation to learn will be improved if the classroom learningprocedure is designed with many activities related to their communicative purposeand can help them to achieve it successfully

1.2.2.3 Communicative Activities create a context which support learning

In language learning, the learning atmosphere in the classroom is also veryimportant It somewhat affects the students’ learning Communicative Activities cancreate a positive learning atmosphere by providing opportunities for studentsinteracting with each other and with the teacher as well The interaction can supportstudents in their efforts to learn

1.2.3 Types of Communicative Activities

It can be said that activity is an important part in the procedure of anylanguage classroom Through activities, students can improve their communicativecompetence by interacting with other students and with the teacher In real teaching,depending on the content of each lesson, the level of students, the teacher candesign many activities that support students’ learning There are two main types ofCommunicative Activities mentioned in Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh

Phuong (2007) as Oral Communicative Activities and Written Communicative

Activities.

For the first type of Communicative Activities, there are various sub-types

which help to promote oral communication in the classroom such as Reaching a

Consensus, Relaying Construction, Communication games, Problem Solving, Interpersonal Exchange, Story Construction and Simulation and Role Play

For the second one, there are also various sub-types of activities which help

promote written communication in the classroom such as Relaying Instructions,

Exchanging Letters, Writing Games, Fluency Writing, Story Construction and Writing Report and Advertisements.

1.3 Reading Skill

1.3.1 Definition of Reading

Reading is an important skill in order to master a language However, it isnot easy to establish a clear definition of reading The ways of understanding aboutreading are different, depending on the reading purposes of the readers Mosteducators would agree that the major purpose of reading should be the construction

of meaning - comprehending and actively responding to what is read From thispurpose, there have been two main ways to understand about the term “reading” asfollows:

First, “reading is a complex information processing skill in which the

readers interact with the text to (re)create meaningful discourse” (Silberstein, 1993,

p.12)

It can be inferred from this definition that reading is not just a process ofpicking up the literal meaning by understanding the meaning of all words in thegiven text The readers, when reading a text, have to coordinate a lot of informationrelated to the text to interpret it in a meaningful way By this way, the readers canfacilitate reading comprehension tasks and also understand the text better

Second, “reading is the process of constructing meaning through the

dynamic interaction among the reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the text being read and the context of the reading situation” (cited

from http://www.michiganreading.org.)

In this point of view, in order to understand the text thoroughly, the readershave to use their own knowledge to interpret the information in the given text Inaddition, it is possible that the meaning of a text varies depending on each readingcontext; therefore, a good reader should be an active and flexible one who can applyvarious reading strategies to infer the meaning of a text in different situations

As mentioned above, there have been many ways of defining reading,however, these are two of the most widely cited and agreed-upon definitions Fromthese definitions, we can see that the readers play an important role in deducing thetext in order to realize communicative functions Thus, it is necessary for thestudents learning how to read in an effective way.

1.3.2 The Importance of Reading

Like listening, reading is a receptive skill with many sub skills just asinvolved in listening Reading is very important in real life in general and inlanguage learning in particular “Reading may contribute significantly tocompetence in a second language This is a good reason, in fact, to hypothesize thatreading makes a contribution to overall competence, to all four skills” (Krashen &Terrel, 1983:131)

From this point of view, reading can enhance the learners’ general languagecompetence The students’ ultimate objective is to use language in realcommunication Thus, by reading a lot, students can improve their Englishbackground knowledge and their English vocabulary as well These things can helpstudents use language creatively in real life

In addition, reading also makes a great contribution to other language skills

We know that the four language skills are closely related to each other not only inteaching but in learning as well When reading, students have a chance to enrichtheir vocabulary, grammatical structures, and their knowledge about the real world,etc For this reason, the improvement of reading can promote further improvement

in other skills such as speaking, listening and writing as well In order to be goodlanguage learners, it is necessary for students to master all four language skillstogether

1.3.3 Principles for Teaching Reading in a CLT Classroom

As mentioned above, reading skill plays an important role in Englishlanguage learning Therefore, it is necessary to have a set of principles that teachers

of English must follow when teaching reading so that they can ensure their students’understanding of the lessons

Forseth et al (1996:84-85) has pointed out principles for teaching reading asfollows:

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

It is obvious that people have their own purpose when reading a text Thus, it

is beneficial to state a purpose for reading the given text The teacher should tell thestudents why they are reading a text By means of this, the students can focus on thetext better for they know what information they need to get after reading

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

When teaching a reading text, the teacher should introduce the topic of thetext beforehand to prepare for students with general knowledge about what they aregoing to do in the text If the subject is difficult, provide students with backgroundinformation When the students are prepared carefully before reading, they willcomprehend 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 questions relating

to its content for students to answer after reading Therefore, have students read thequestions first will guide them to what information they need to understand the text

If questions do not come with the text, the teacher can make up one or two whichwill help the students concentrate It is even helpful to have them try to answer thequestions 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 the meaning

of unknown words If all words are presented beforehand, this will prevent themfrom being able to guess from context Besides, it is very ineffective for students toremember the meaning of lists of isolating words Instead of doing in this way, theteacher should work on skills that help the students guess intelligently If a word israrely 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 on moreimportant words Moreover, the students will be able to pay attention on meaning,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 ofthe words

7 When discussing the answer to the comprehension questions, be sure to refer back to the text often.

Generally, the comprehension questions are aimed at checking whetherstudents have understood the contents of the reading text or not Thus, referringback to the text will help the teacher check the students’ understanding as well asmake them realize where in the text that information locates

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 to readany kind of text in their daily life

In short, there are a number of principles that the teacher must follow whenteaching reading Depending on the features of each class and each reading lesson

as well as the level of students that the teacher can choose an appropriate one fortheir reading classes

1.3.4 Types of Reading Activities in Language Classes

Like other language skills, Reading skill also involves a variety of readingactivities In a study of teaching reading, Forseth et al (1996) have analyzed suchtypes of activities as follows:

* Word Attack Skills

There are three sub-skills of this type:

+ Affix Analysis: Guessing at the meaning of the words by examining their stems,

prefixes and suffixes

Example: Geology = geo + ology = earth + study

+ Context guessing: When reading a text, the readers can infer the meaning of

many unknown words by looking at surrounding words in the passage This canhelp students improve their skills for guessing new words and avoid an excessiveuse of the dictionary

+ Grammatical Clues: From the context in which the word is used and the form of

the word itself, the readers can deduce what part of speech a word is It means thatthe readers can realize whether a word is a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverbthrough grammar

* Skimming

In this activity, the teacher provides students with a passage to read quickly

to look for the main ideas The teacher has them write a title for the passage or asingle sentence covering the main point

* Predicting

The teacher provides portions of a text in successive stages after studentsguess at what might come next in the text After they predict, the teacher hands outthe next portion of the text and then check if their guesses are correct

* Scanning

In contrast with skimming, scanning requires students to find the certainspecific information of the text This type of activity can be applied in manydifferent types of reading text such as poems, phone books, graphs and stories

* Critical Reading

This activity is usually used for advanced-level students The teacherprovides students with a new story or letter which has clearly false information Thestudents have to give their opinions on the text or find the false information

* Outlining

We know that outlining is quite familiar in writing skill but how about inreading skill? For the beginning level students, the teacher can give them a list ofwords and ask them to place those words in an outline form or in categories

Students must decide how to organize them For the higher-level students, they arerequired to put a highly structured text in an outline form Later, the teacher asksthem to make sketch outlines of their assigned reading.

* Paraphrasing

The teacher gives students a list of words or sentences and asks them toparaphrase by writing them again using very similar meaning, different words anddifferent grammatical structure

For examples:

Talent = intelligent, clever

Winner = the person who gets the first prize in a competition

It is difficult to learn English = Learning English is difficult

* Inference

In this kind of activity, the teacher asks students questions that force them to

“read between the lines” In other words, the students have to infer the implicit orhidden meaning of the text

* Summarizing

Like skimming, summarizing also relates to the main ideas of the passage.However, summarizing skill requires the students to find what in the text is the mostimportant, more significant and less significant A summary should only includeimportant information Thus, the teacher should tell the students how long thesummary should be

* Comprehension questions

A wide variety of questions can be written to test the reader’scomprehension Some types of questions are short answer, single word, multiplechoice, true or false, or open-ended

* Timed reading

The teacher provides students the reading texts of different lengths anddifficulty Students are asked to read within a given time frame and then turn theirpapers over (or close their books) to answer questions about the text

* Strip Stories (or Ordering Exercises)

For this type of activity, the teacher uses a story that students can understand,then jumbles up the order of sentences and asks students to put them in the rightorder by assigning them the correct numbers

* Cloze

The students are given an appropriate text After reading, they are providedwith the same or a similar passage with some words taken out The students have tofill in the blanks with acceptable words For the lower levels, the teacher shouldgive the students a list of words to choose from in advance

CHAPTER 2: REAL SITUATION OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

ENGLISH AT THACH THANH II HIGH SCHOOL

2.1 Characteristics of the 10 th Form Students

High school students, especially the 10th form ones are in between childhoodand adulthood – a crucial period in the development of students both in bodies andminds Generally, at this age, students always try to express themselves in expectthat the others regard them as adults

The 10th form students are also an age of transition from secondary school tohigh school Students now learn how to behave as an adult in a new learningenvironment As a matter of fact, their thoughts as well as their behaviors in thisperiod are unpredictable It is obvious that the physical and spiritual development ofstudents somewhat affect their studying Therefore, if the teachers do notunderstand their students in the right way they will themselves enlarge the gapbetween teachers and students that may lead to some negative effects in teachingand learning

After the two-month period of teaching practice at Thach Thanh II HighSchool, the author herself has experienced a lot of interesting things as having achance to teach the 10th form students Of course, two-month period is not a longtime enough to understand thoroughly about students, however, the author attempts

to give some common characteristics of the 10th form students as follows:

- They are in the age of transition, confusion and self-consciousness andchanging both in bodies and minds

- They want to prove themselves to be more mature Nevertheless,sometimes they behave in a very childlike way

- Students focus more on their learning and their learning now is selective.They pay much attention to some subjects that they consider more necessary forthem than others

- Making friends is also quite selective They only make friend with a smallnumber of students who have the same interests with them As a result, they liketalking and playing within their groups than with the whole class

- Most of students want to be “the center of attention” They take part inactivities in the class enthusiastically to show their abilities, to declare their position

in the class That leads to a situation in which they compete with each other more atschool

- Still having some students who are not confident in themselves They are soshy to express their abilities, their feelings They are also afraid of loosing their face

in front of other students

As mentioned above, there are several characteristics of the 10th formstudents that somewhat affect their learning at school Therefore, it is necessary tohave a set of consideration to teach the 10th form students in teaching in general andteaching English reading in particular If the teachers understand their students inthe right way, they can easily find an appropriate way to teach students effectively

As a consequence, the studying results of the 10th form students will improve day byday

2.2 Characteristics of the New Textbook “Tieng Anh 10”.

The society is changing day by day with the non-stop development ofscience, technology To meet the higher requirement of modern life, therequirement for education is also higher and higher Along with the renewal ofteaching methodology is the necessity to renew the syllabus of the textbooks Afteryears of discussion, since the beginning of the school year 2006-2007, the newtextbooks have been applied for the 10th form

In this study, the author only points out some main differences between thenew English textbook for the 10th grade in comparison with the old one

The old English textbook is designed mainly for three-year educationalcurriculum It concludes 36 lessons and 4 review lessons The topics in the oldEnglish books are various and familiar with the daily life, however, the lessonsmainly focus on providing grammatical issues for students Each one contains adialogue which introduces some vocabulary related to the topic and presents modelsfor equivalent grammatical issues of that lesson Following the dialogue are two orthree exercises helping students to practice grammar that they have learned Englishskills are not focused adequately

The new English textbook is divided into two types: one is for students at thebasic level of English and the other is for advanced ones Within the scope of thisstudy, the author only conducts the research on the one for basic English.

The new English textbook is theme–based with 16 units and the other 6lessons are for revision Each unit has an equivalent topic and the similar syllabuswith 5 main parts as follows:

READING includes one or more passages from 180-200 words in length It

is conducted with the aim at providing general information and materials for thewhole lesson After each reading text, there are usually 3-4 reading tasks that aim toimprove reading comprehension skill of students

SPEAKING is designed with various kinds of communicative activities thatenable students to develop their speaking skill The teacher can ask students to work

in pairs, in groups or individual presentations depending on the requirement of eachspeaking tasks The topics for speaking are various and based on the topic of eachparticular unit in the textbook

LISTENING is also divided into three main parts: Before you listen, While

you listen and After you listen This part usually contains a dialogue or a

paragraph related to the topic of each lesson which aims at helping students practicetheir listening skills through a number of listening activities such as Deciding onTrue/False Statements, Completing a dialogue, Gap-Filling, ComprehensionQuestions In addition, Listening also partly improve students’ pronunciation skillsand their English vocabulary as well

WRITING is conducted with many types of exercises such as writing a letter,describing a place, writing an announcement following different kinds of text Most

of the writing lessons in the textbook for the 10th grade have two writing tasks Task

1 is the one which get students to be familiar with the model of a writingcomposition of each unit This task is regarded as the preparation step for writingthe task 2 Task 2 requires students to write about a topic following the model in thetask 1

LANGUAGE FOCUS has two smaller parts: Pronunciation and Grammar &Vocabulary Pronunciation helps students pronounce English sounds more

correctly, helps them to distinguish between two similar sounds (both monothongsand diphthongs) This part also gives students some practice of those sounds inminimal pairs and in short sentences Grammar & Vocabulary is aimed at helpingstudents revise the main grammatical points and vocabulary issues which are thefocus of the unit It also provides exercises for students practice using suchgrammatical points just introduced.

The six lessons for revision are written in the form of “TEST YOURSELF”.All exercises in “Test Yourself” help students test their ability and knowledge infour skills after 2-3 units when students have finished from 10-15 periods Thoseexercises are also for teachers to prepare 45 minutes’ tests for students The markgiven for each part in TEST YOURSELF is as follow:

Listening: 2.5 points

Reading: 2.5 points

Writing: 2.5 points

Language Focus: 2.5 points

At the end of the book is the list of vocabulary which is sectioned following eachunit with the transcript and Vietnamese meaning

To conclude, the syllabus of the new textbook for the 10th form students hasmuch improvement compared with the old one As for the old one, all four Englishskills and the grammar issues are mixed with each other and there are not manycommunicative activities for students to practice In contrast, the new Englishtextbook is divided into individual skills (Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing,Language Focus) This is the most obvious difference between the new Englishtextbook with the old one By means of this, students have more chances to practiceand improve their language skills In short, the new English Textbook for the 10th

form is really an innovation in all efforts to renew the learning syllabus with a view

to helping students study English better

2.3 Design of a Reading Lesson for the 10 th Form Students

A reading lesson in the new textbook for the 10th form is divided into threemain parts: BEFORE YOU READ, WHILE YOU READ and AFTER YOU

READ

Generally, the first part contains some questions for students to discuss

before they read the text This activity aims to get students’ attention and raise their

interest in reading lesson It also gives the teacher the opportunity to introduce to

students new vocabulary that will help them understand the text better

The second part, WHILE YOU READ is the most important part of the

lesson Before having students read the text and do the task followed, teacher should

pre-teach students some necessary vocabulary and give guiding questions for

students to get the main point of the text This part often consists of three reading

tasks The types of task are varied depending on the content of each reading

passage Some main types of reading exercises are as follows:

* Matching: Match the words in one column with an equivalent definition in the

* Identifying the main ideas: Choose the best title for the passage or choose the

statement which summarizes the main ideas of the reading text

For each types of task in each lesson, teacher can provide various kinds of activities

that help students facilitate reading exercises and understand the text better

The rest part, AFTER YOU READ, includes some activities for

consolidation After finishing the reading tasks in while reading, teacher can ask

students to summarize the main point of the passage or talk about the events

mentioned in the passage using the given figures as cues

In real teaching, teacher should be flexible to conduct appropriate activities

for each part of reading lesson to improve students’ learning motivation and their

reading skills as well

2.4 Situation of Teaching of Learning English at Thach Thanh II High School

Thach Thanh II High School was founded in 1999 in a mountainous area.Most of the students in Thach Thanh II High School come from Thach Binh andThach Dinh where they have quite poor learning conditions The students here donot have much time for learning, especially for learning English There is only asmall number of students paying attention to learning English It is easy tounderstand why teaching English seems more difficult and complicating for thesestudents than those from the other high schools

As a matter of fact, a successful class is the one in which students play thecenter role and communicative competence is the goal of teaching Therefore, it isactually necessary for the teacher to monitor the class in such a way that studentshave as many chances as possible to communicate with each other when fulfilling atask Using communicative activities is one of the most effective ways They helpstudents to become more active and more confident when they express theirunderstanding about the reading text Through communicative activities thestudents also understand the lesson better In fact, communicative activities areavailable, however, how and in what way to apply those activities in real teachingand learning English is still a question for many teachers

The teaching practice at Thach Thanh II High School has made the authorherself realize that teaching and learning English quite boring; students sometimesnot motivated in learning the lessons She has also had a chance to observe Englishreading classes taught by all of six teachers in Thach Thanh II High School It isobvious that each teacher has their own ways to teach English reading and guidestudents to solve reading tasks in the textbook Nowadays, we are trying to teachEnglish following Communicative Approach However, the fact is that manyteachers still use the traditional method of teaching They mainly focus ongrammatical structures and vocabulary They guide students how to use Englishgrammar to do exercises in the textbook Some teachers also teach their studentshow to translate a piece of English language into Vietnamese one

For reading skill in particular, some teachers often use only the textbookagain and again They teach students by asking them to follow the mechanical drills

in the textbook Therefore, most of the students have no intrinsic motivation inlearning English reading As a result, English reading skills of students at ThachThanh II High School is not good There are also some teachers providing extracommunicative activities in reading classes In such classes, the students are able tocomplete successfully the reading tasks and understand the reading passage better.

In addition, the students feel more interested in reading lessons and have moremotivation in their English learning as well Therefore, the result of Englishlearning will be higher

The author has herself also had the opportunity to check the effectiveness ofapplying reading communicative activities in teaching reading when she gives thelessons to the students She has seen that by using communicative activities, thestudents have had more motivation in joining the lessons and they have alsounderstood the text more thoroughly

To sum up, using communicative activities in English reading classes bringsmany benefits for students in learning English Therefore, it should be widespreadapplied in teaching and learning English Consequently, the students will not onlyimprove their reading skills but also other language skills will be better day by day

2.5 The Survey on the 10 th Form Students and Teachers of English at Thach Thanh II High School

2.5.1 Aims of the Survey

This survey is carried out with two main aims The first one of doing thissurvey is to find out the real situation of teaching and learning English reading inThach Thanh II High School and check students’ ability to learn reading skill Thesecond aim is to provide some suggested reading communicative activities inEnglish reading classes for the 10th form students with the hope that their Englishreading skills will be better

2.5.2 Description of the Survey

This survey was done after the author observed some reading classes taught

by the teachers at Thach Thanh II High School and just after she gave readinglessons to the students here

This survey is conducted with 15 questions for students and 10 ones forteachers on 105 students and 6 teachers from Thach Thanh II High School.

The survey questionnaire for the students mainly asks them about learningEnglish, reading skill and communicative activities in English reading classes Thefirst question is about the length of time for which the students have been inlearning English Question 2 and 3 are conducted to know the students’ opinionabout English in general and learning English in particular Question 4 asks thestudents about the time they spending on learning English per day Two nextquestions mention to the students’ attitude about English language skills Fromquestion 7 to question 11, the students’ points of view about English reading skill,the reading tasks in the textbook and the motivating factors in the reading lessonsare mentioned For the rest questions, the author wants to get information about thefrequency of applying some kinds of communicative activities in reading lessonsand the students’ opinions about them as well

Similarly, the survey questionnaire for the teacher is carried out to get someinformation from teachers about the qualification of the 10th form students in theirschool, the English reading skill and the reading tasks in the textbook The secondpart of the survey questionnaire (from question 7 to question 10) is given to ask theteachers about their way of teaching English reading skills and applyingcommunicative activities in English reading lessons as well

In short, the questions in the survey questionnaire for both teacher andstudents are quite simple and clear enough for them to give the answers Thesequestions mainly focus on the situation of applying communicative activities inEnglish reading lessons

2.5.3 Result of the Survey

To see more thoroughly about the real situation of teaching and learningEnglish reading skill at Thach Thanh II High School, the results of the survey fromstudents and teachers are analyzed separately

2.5.3.1 From Students

The result of the survey gained from students can be illustrated as can

be seen in following table:

a(%) (%)b (%)c (%)d

Figure 2.1 Survey Results from Students

For the first question, 100% of the students have been learning English for

3-5 years That means all of them have learned English at lower secondary school andthe students more or less have a basic understanding about the English language.This is also an advantage for students to learn English better at high school

In the students’ opinion about English, the majority of them say that English

is very necessary (89.52%) A small number of students see it necessary (4.76%)and only 2.86% of them consider English not necessary at all This is a positiveview of students about English The figures from question 3 present the students’interest in learning English Though most of the students find English verynecessary, only 22.8% of them feel very interested when learning English, 39.04%are interested and there are still 2.86% of students do not like learning English at all

The result for question 4, “How much time do you spend on learning Englishper day?” is quite surprising It seems that the students here do not spend time aswell as focus on English as much as on other subjects There are about two third ofstudents who spend about one hour learning English per day The rest of them onlystudy English from 20-30 minutes a day This is one reason partly explaining whythe qualification of the 10th form students at Thach Thanh II High School is notgood

Q A

We know that the syllabus of the new English textbook is divided intoindividual skills Therefore, it is understandable that the students do not pay equalattention to these skills According to the result from the survey on the students atThach Thanh II High School, 47.62% of students focus on speaking skill, 21.90%and 20% of them pay attention to reading and writing respectively There are a verysmall number of students who focus on learning listening (10.48%).

Another question is whether the language skill, which they focus on most, isalso their favorite skill? The majority of students like speaking most (56.19%), andmany of them like listening as well (21.91%) 12.38% love reading whereas 9.52%prefer writing Listening is quite difficult skill but the number of students likelistening is more than those who like Reading or Writing

As for question 7, 72.38% of students see that English reading skills are veryimportant, 12,38% think it important and only 0.95% of them find Reading Skill notimportant at all For the reading tasks in the textbook, most of the students say thatthey are rather difficult (60%), 12.38% think reading tasks not difficult at all and thepercentage of students who say that the reading tasks in the textbook are toodifficult is only 9.52% 44.76% of students sometimes finish successfully the tasks

in the textbook, 40.95% often and 11.43% always complete well and still have2.86% of them never do the reading tasks in the textbook successfully

As shown in the table, after finishing the reading tasks in the textbook, only17.14% of students understand the text 90-100%, 42.86% of them understand thereading passage 70-80% and still have 16.2% of students comprehend the textbelow 50% From this result, the author herself ensures that some students only dothe exercises in the textbook following some techniques mechanically withoutunderstanding the content of the text

In fact, there are many factors, both objective and subjective, that influencestudents’ learning The following chart illustrates five degrees of motivation ofthree main factors which motivate students into the reading lesson most: interestingreading topics, interesting reading activities and good method of teaching (from theleast to the most motivating)