An integration of the four english skills in teaching reading texts to beginner learners at asemlink international language centre

Integrating the four English skills : Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking isone of the effective ways of teaching English to develop learners’ communicativeskill.. For various reaso

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY



-NGUYEN THI HONG

AN INTEGRATION OF THE FOUR ENGLISH SKILLS IN TEACHING READING TEXTS TO BEGINNER LEARNERS AT ASEMLINK

INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE CENTRE

( Đường hướng tích hợp bốn kỹ năng Tiếng Anh trong quá trình dạy Đọc hiểu cho

cấp độ sơ cấp tại Trung tâm Anh ngữ quốc tế Asemlink)

Master thesis in Education

Vinh, 2011

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY



-NGUYEN THI HONG

AN INTEGRATION OF THE FOUR ENGLISH SKILLS IN TEACHING READING TEXTS TO BEGINNER LEARNERS AT ASEMLINK

INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE CENTRE

( Đường hướng tích hợp bốn kỹ năng Tiếng Anh trong quá trình dạy Đọc hiểu cho

cấp độ sơ cấp tại Trung tâm Anh ngữ quốc tế Asemlink)

Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching

Code: 60.14.10

Master thesis in Education Supervisor: Dr LE VAN CANH.

Vinh, 2011

This thesis analyzes the exploitation of the integrated approach in teaching reading text

to beginner learners at Asemlink school The main theoretical basis of this study is Brown (2001)’s theory of integration It is an action research, in which the benefits of the integrated approach to language teaching are proposed beforehand concerning the use of the integrated approach to teaching reading text to beginner learners The

research begins with the construction of the integrated approach to language teaching This will be then the theoretical framework for the later analysis of the students’ questionaires after studying with this teaching method The job of analysis aims at finding the benefits of the integrated approach that students perceived and students’ attitude toward the integrated approach in learning reading text The result is, later on, used for proving the importance of integrating the English skills in teaching reading text

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2.1 Types of integration 19

Table 4.1 Problems of learning reading comprehension

55 Table 4.2 Students’ attitude toward the integration of other skills in teaching reading comprehension 57

Table 4.3 Benefits of the integrated approach 60

Figure 4.1 Students’ attitudes toward the integrated approach 63

Figure 4.2 Reasons for their interest in the integrated approach 64

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION 4

1.1 Rationale 5

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study 5

1.3 Scope of the study 6

1.4 Research Methodology 6

1.4.1 An Action Research 7

1.4.2 Methods 8

1.5 Research Questions 8

1.6 Organization of the study 9

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW 11

2.1 Reading skills 11

2.1.1.The role of reading in second/foreign language acquisition 11

2.1.2 Students’ difficulties in reading comprehension 13

2.1 3 Approaches to teaching reading comprehension 14

2.1.3.1.Bottom-up model 15

2.1.3.2 Top-down model 15

2.1.3.3 Interactive model 16

2.2 The power of extensive reading 16

2.3 What is an integrated approach to language teaching? 18

2.3.1 Definition 18

2.3.2.Types of integration 19

2.4.Integration of skills 20

2.4.1 Integration of three areas 20

2.4.1.1 Grammatical integration 21

2.4.1.2 Functional integration 21

2.4.1.3 Thematic/ Topical integration 21

2.5 Reading integrated with other skills 22

2.5.1 Reasons for the integration of Reading with other skills 22

2.5.2 The integration of reading with other skills 23

2.5.2.1 Reading integrated with Listening 24

2.5.2.2 Reading integrated with writing 25

2.5.2.3 Reading integrated with Speaking 27

2.6.Benefits of the integrated approach to language teaching 28

2.7 Challenges and Limitations of the integrated approach to language teaching 32

2.8 Student’s perceptions of teachers’ teaching styles 33

2.8.1 Definition of perception 33

2.8.2 Teachers’ teaching styles 33

2.8.2.1.Formal Authority 34

2.8.2.2.Demonstrator or Personal Model 34

2.8.2.4.Delegator 35

2.8.3 Learners’ learning styles 35

2.8.4 Studies on students’ perception of teachers’ teaching styles 36

2.8.4.1 A study of Students’ perception in a Blended Learning Environment Based on Different Learning Styles 36

2.8.4.2 Study on Students’ perception of teachers’ teaching styles in Higher Education 37

2.8.4.3 Students’ perception of learner – centered teaching 39

2.9 Conclusion 40

CHAPTER 3 - METHODOLOGY 42

3.1 Why action research? 42

3.2 Research Procedure 43

3.2.1 Indentify the problems 43

3.2.2 Planning for the Intervention 45

3.2.3 Implementation 46

3.2.4.Evaluation 47

3.3 Data Collection 47

3.3.1 Use students’ questionaire 47

3.3.2 Teacher’s journals / Diaries 48

3.4 Conclusion 52

CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 53

4.1 The results 53

4.1.1 Students’ problems in learning only reading skill in reading comprehension 53 4.1.2 Students’s attitudes toward the way to learn reading comprehension with other skills 55

4.1.3 Benefits of the integrated approach 57

4.1.4 Students’ attitudes toward the integrated approach 60

4.1.5 Reasons for choosing the integrated approach to teaching reading text 63

4.2 Findings and Discussion 64

4.2.1 Students’ perceived benefits of the integrated approach to their English learning 65

4.2.2 Students’ perceived difficulties of the integrated approach to their English learning 67

4.2.3 Reflection 68

4.3 Conclusion 69

CHAPTER 5 - CONCLUSION 70

REFERENCES 74

APPENDIX 1 78

APPENDIX 2 81

APPENDIX 3 84

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

When we are teaching a second language, we are trying to develop in thelearners not just grammatical competence in the Chomskyan sense , but alsocommunicative competence

Integrating the four English skills : Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking isone of the effective ways of teaching English to develop learners’ communicativeskill According to Davies & Pearse:

“ Real success in English teaching and learning is when the learners can actually communicate in English inside and outside the classroom”

(Davies & Pearse, 2000: 99) Teachers have been studying the ways of enabling learners to use English freely,effectively and as far as possible accurately It is not only the major goal of all Englishlanguage teaching , but also the students’ main concern when they make their efforts tostudy English Therefore , it is necessary to combine four skills at once when we teachEnglish for students to let them use what they learn in realistic communication

For various reasons, traditional English language teaching ( ELT) tends to trainthe four skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing seperately And then materialsand activites are designed to focus on one specific skill while others are ignored Itcannot be denied that a separate focus on individual skills can play a useful role inaccelerating students’ language learning if it is taught well However, students cannotcommunicate well when they are in real life because there is no seperation of fourskills outside All of these skills are combined together Hence, integrated approach inlanguage teaching is used to develop students’ communicative comptetence.Integrating the skills can bring plenty of benefits to English teaching It is a worthwhileexperience in a communicative classroom despite its higher demanding for teachers

In this thesis, I would like to show an integrated approach to the teaching andpractice of the language skills through reading lessons With this approach, thelanguage classroom will become more purposeful and meaningful for the learners at alllevels if we apply this method.

Integrating the four English skills in teaching can make classroom contexts andsituations come closer to the real life ones Moreover, it can help learners develop thefour skills at the same time Then they can communicate well outside

To sum up, it is observed that integrated approach to language teaching canbring an effective result to learners’communicative competence In this thesis, I wouldlike to mention the integrated approach to language teaching and then through readinglesson, I would like to integrate the four skills through some activities

1.1 Rationale

Teaching English gives students not only grammar knowledge but also theirfluency of four English skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking at differentlevels From my teaching experiences, It is apparent that Vietnamese learners are verygood at grammar , however they are not fluent at the four English skills Therefore, it isvery difficult for them to communicate with foreigners when they work outside Infact , many countries in the world have applied the communicative method to teachlearners to study English effectively for a long time However, We have just appliedthis method in teaching English recently Moreover, Our students have also just taken aserious view with the importance of English

Realizing the significance of integrating four skills in teaching English forbeginners to get good communicative skills, this study is carried out to investigate theways to integrate four skills in teaching Reading and to suggest some kinds of activitiesthat teachers can create through the reading text to combine four skills

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the study

This study deals with the ways to integrate four English skills : speaking,reading, writing and listening in teaching Reading for beginners at AsemlinkInternational language centre in Vinh city and to suggest some activities that teachercan create to motivate students to improve all of four skills through Reading lesson.

In other words, this study aims specifically at:

(1) Identifying the problem of beginners when they study reading lessons whichbase on traditional English language teaching

(2) Investigating the integrated approach to language teaching to beginners : itsbenefits and limitations

(3) Designing some kinds of activities to integrate the four English skills inteaching reading lesson which aims at improving students’ communicative competencewhen they communicate in real life

1.3 Scope of the study

In this study, I would like to focus on beginners who are attending GeneralEnglish Program ( GEP ) in my English centre ( AsemLink International LanguageCentre)

As it is a methodologically based analysis, this study would primarily deal withmethodological aspects of English In this study, I would like to pay more attention toreading lessons Then from reading lessons, I would like to create some activities toimprove four English skills : speaking, writing, reading and listening From myteaching experience, I have found that Vietnamese learners can get good knowledgeabout English However, it seems to be quite difficult for learners to combine the fourskills in their daily communication Therefore, I would like to focus on this study tofind some ways to improve students’ English skills

1.4 Research Methodology

1.4.1 An Action Research

This study represents itself as an action research Action research is “learning bydoing” - a group of people identify a problem, do something to resolve it, see howsuccessful their efforts were, and if not satisfied, try again While this is the essence ofthe approach, there are other key attributes of action research that differentiate it fromcommon problem-solving activities that we all engage in every day

What makes this type of research different from general professional practices,consulting, or daily problem-solving is the emphasis on scientific study, which is to saythe researcher studies the problem systematically and ensures the intervention isinformed by theoretical considerations The researchers spend much time on refiningthe methodological tools to suit the exigencies of the situation, and on collecting,analyzing, and presenting data on an ongoing, cyclical basis

What makes action research suitable for this study is because of the followingreasons Firstly, to investigate this study I myself must practice teaching in real classesand get the results from my own teaching when I apply the integrated approach inteaching Reading Another reason is that this study is used in real situations – at myEnglish centre, rather than in contrived, experimental studies since its primary goal is

on solving real problems As it is introduced by Thomas Gilmore, Jim Krantz andRafael Ramirez :

"Action research aims to contribute both to the practical concerns of people in an immediate problematic situation and to further the goals of social science simultaneously” ( 1986:161)

Therefore, it is suitable to use action research in this study

1.4.2 Methods

Because it is an action research , I would like to base on the following methods

to investigate my study First of all, this study combines both qualitative andquantitative methods The reason for doing is that at the first stage of the research, thequalitative analysis may allow us to study each specific case carefully, but when itcomes to the general picture of all cases together, it may fail Therefore, we need a kind

of quantification to synthetize all the particular patterns in each individual case It is thetask of quantitative analysis that will show us the frequencies and the occuringpercentages of the items under investigation For qualitative method , I would like tomake some informal chats with my students about learning reading comprehension tostudy their difficulties and problems in learning reading text And then questionnaireswill be carried out to collect information about the students’ improvement in applyingthe integrated approach

Another type of research method is teacher’s journals or diaries The researcherhas to write down her diaries about each lesson when she applies the new method intoher teaching such as students’ participation, the result of using activities in classroom,teacher’s feeling after each lesson, some difficulties and limitation of the method inreal situation and so on This method is used in order to find out the benefits of usingthe integrated approach in real class and the limitations when using it to teach beginnerlearners

1.5 Research Questions

This study is aimed to answer the following questions:

1 What do students perceive of the benefits of an integrated approach to theirEnglish learning?

2 What difficulties or challenges do they encounter in learning English with anintegrated approach?

From these questions, I will design some activities from the reading text in my centrecourse book to integrate four English skills in teaching Reading text.

1.6 Organization of the study

Besides the Introduction and Conclusion which begins and concludes the thesis,the thesis consists of five main chapters Each of it will serve a particular function

Chapter one – The introduction , it is designed so as to explain the reason whythe topic deserves to be studied It then provides clearly all the objectives that thisresearch aims at It is also in this section that we are concerned with the scope of thestudy Moreover, in this part, I would like to present the methods which are applied toinvestigate the study

Chapter two – The Literature review, this chapter is designed to review ofprevious studies related to problem under investigation

In this chapter, I’d like to begin by looking briefly some previous studies related

to the research that is carried out Basing on those studies, I will start to develop myresearch about Reading skill in the way to integrate all of the four English skills.It, later

on, will work out the integrated approach to language teaching including (i) what is anintegrated approach to language teaching?, (ii) benefits of an integrated approach tolanguage teaching, (iii) its challenges and limitations, (iv) some studies on the benefits

of an integrated approach and (v) students’perception of teachers’ teaching style

Chapter three - Research Methodology, Chapter three is where researchmethods presented Four main key points of this chapter are (i) why it is an actionresearch?, (ii) Research procedures ( This part shows the way to investigate the studyincluding indentifying the problem, planning, implimentation and evaluation), (iii) datacollection (This part presents the method to work out the results of the study includingstudents’ questionaires, posttest of proficiency and teacher’s journals)

Chapter four - Finding & Discussion In this chapter, we focus on presenting theresult of the research After providing the statistical results concerning about the

Reading Text used in the classroom to integrate the four English skills, a discussionwill be provided which serves as the basis of the later findings Moreover, in this part,

we also answer the research questions that we make in the study before we make theresearch

Chapter five - Conclusion & Implication The last part Conclusion andImplication will have a brief look about the study that is carried out above It, then alsoprovides some implications that this study may have on the job of improving the fourEnglish skills in teaching Reading text and some suggestions for further study

In conclusion, in this thesis, I would like to mention the integrated approach tolanguage teaching Through teaching reading lesson, the four English skills arecombined After making the research in real classes, I will present the results ofapplying this approach in teaching including its benefits and limitations

CHAPTER 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW

Skills are the building blocks of language learning process They are effectiveelements of teaching and learning process Nowadays, there has been a striking debate

on the integration of four skills in teaching foreign language In this part, firstly Ireview the reading skill: the three models of reading, extensive reading and theintegration of reading skill with others After that, I will mention the literature on theintegrated approach to language teaching, its benefits & limitations Then I will reviewsome studies on the benefits of integaretd approach to language teaching And finally,findings of the studies on students’ perceptions of teachers’ teaching style part will bedicussed

2.1 Reading skills

2.1.1.The role of reading in second/foreign language acquisition

Reading is one of the four main English skills Reading involves wordrecognition and comprehension processes Word recognition refers to the process ofperceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language Andcomprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected text.Readers typically make use of their background knowledge, vocabulary, grammar andexperience with text to help them understand written text Therefore, learning to read is

an important goal In comparison with other skills, reading plays an important role insecond language acquisition

Obviously, Reading skill plays a crucial part in our life The ability to readopens up new worlds and opportunities for learners It enables us to gain newknowledge, enjoy literature and do everyday things that are part and parcel of modernlife, suh as reading newspapers, job listings, instruction manuals, maps and so on

Moreover, Krashen’s theory of the Natural Approach, based on buildingcompetence through exposure to comprehensible input, indicates the value of reading

Krashen is in little doubt that reading makes a useful contribution to developinglanguage acquisition, benefiting both learners’ confidence and competence He statesthat :

“ Reading may contribute significantly to competence in a second language There is good reason, in fact, to hypothesize that reading makes a contribution to overall competence, to all four skills”

(Krashen & Terrel, 1983:131)

Theories of language acquisition as well as language learning clearly accept thatimproved ‘passive’ understanding of English leads to an increase in active knowledge.There is no reason to suppose that this truism for spoken English cannot also apply towritten English Reading benefits grammatical knowledge and vocabulary developmentand therefore overall competence increases A practical observation is that where thevagaries of prepositions or phrasal verbs are concerned, the learners who make thefewest mistakes are those who read the most

Reading well is one of the factors to motivate students to learn English more.And it is one of the major reasons for the develpoment of other skills Reading should

be enjoyable and learners will feel motivated to read more if they feel they read well Ifthe reading texts are carefully selected and therefore contribute to motivation, theprocess of language learning will be greatly helped

“Language is best taught when it is being used to transmit messages, not when it is explicitly taught for conscious learning.”

(Krashen & Terrell, 1983:53)

A further perhaps obvious point is that reading is a means to knowledge, notonly about the target language but perhaps more importantly about the world Studentsshould be encouraged to use the target language as a tool in their wider learning

In conclusion, Reading is one of the important skills of the second languageacquisition It ont only helps to develop reading skill, but also other skills will beimproved.

2.1.2 Students’ difficulties in reading comprehension

Reading is really important for learners when they study their foreign language

as the previous part has shown However, when learning with reading comprehension,students, especially beginners, have some difficulties These difficulties are worddecoding inefficiency, lack of linguistic knowledge and poor background knowledge

The first difficulty is about vocabulary – word decoding inefficiency Decodingskill can place a contraint om reading comprehension A specific form of thishypothesis was proposed by Perfetti (1985) who claimed that when decoding is slowand effortful, resources are dedicated to word-level processing By contrast, whendecoding is automatic, resources are available for the task of comprehension In linewith Perfetti’s “verbal efficiency” hypothesis, evidence demonstrates that readingcomprehension is compromised when decoding is poor The relationship betweendecoding efficiency and reading comprehension is maintained over time, andmeasurements of nonword reading taken in early childhood predict later variations inreading comprehension measured in secondary school years and adulthood (Bruck,1990; Perfetti, 1985) In fact, its decoding word is poor, the comprehension processwill be inefficient That was one of the most out-standing difficulties for beginnerlearners whne they learnt reading comprehension Because their vocabulary was notrich Thus, the decoding process was slow

The second difficulty is about linguistic comprehension Generally, therelationship between reading comprehension and listening comprehension is veryclose Although there are important differences between spoken language and writtenlanguage (e.g., in the temporal characteristics of the two modalities),

evidence suggests that listening and reading comprehension depend on very similarunderlying processes Because of the close relationship between them, students seemed

to face with many difficulties when their linguistics competence was inadequate Most

of the beginner learners were not good at both of spoken and written language.Therefore, that is one of their main difficulties

The third difficulty is student’s background knowledge Knowledge is essential

to comprehension Without an appreciation of the meanings of words, there can be nocomprehension Moving beyond the meaning of individual words, domain knowledge

is also considered crucial for comprehension Appreciation of the domain that is beingreferred to in a text allows the reader to move from a word- or propositional-levelrepresentation of the text to one which integrates this knowledge with a broader body

of background knowledge, thus allowing the reader to build a potentially inference-richmental model of the situation or event Prior knowledge about a text predictscomprehension of it (Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, & Voss, 1979) and it is plain thatcomplete lack of knowledge will result in a complete lack of comprehension

2.1 3 Approaches to teaching reading comprehension

In the literature, there are three different approaches or models of teachingreading comprehension These are: the bottom-up approach; the top-down approach;and the interactive approach All these approaches or models are complementary ratherthan exclusive In other words, all of them can be used in teaching readingcomprehension, but depending on the purpose of each reading lesson, a particularapproach or model can be emphasized These approaches will be reviewed below Reading is a quite important skill that teacher should emphasize in theirinstruction After all, reading is the basis of the instruction in all aspects of languagelearning Through reading, teachers can develop other skills for students Therefore, Iwould like to emphasize the three models of reading process and the importance of

integrating the two process: bottom-up and top-down in teaching English for beginnerlearner.

2.1.3.1.Bottom-up model

Bottom-up processing is one of the three types of reading process In this model,the linguistic information is received and processed beginning with the smallest andending with larger units of meaning According to Brown:

“In bottom-up processing, readers must first recognize a multiplicity

of linguistic signals ( letters, morphemes, syllables, words, phrases, grammatical cues, discourse markers) and use their linguistic data-processing mechanisms to impose some sort of order on these signals.” ( 2001: 299)

In other words, readers must start realizing the meaning of the words as well asgrammar and discourse markers And then they can understand the whole part of thereading The readers have to go from the smallest part to the larger one RebeccaTreiman has found out that :

“Bottom-up processes are those that take in stimuli from the outside world letters and words, for reading and deal with that

information with little recourse to higher-level knowledge.” (2001: 2)Therefore, bottom-up process plays a crucial role in reading skill, especially forbeginner learners They can gradually understand the text by recognizing the smallestunits in the reading passage

Rebecca has stated that “with top-down processes, on the other hand, the uptake ofinformation is guided by an individual’s prior knowledge and expectations” (2001:p2).Top-down model also plays an important role in reading a text In fact, all readinginvolves a risk – a guessing game, in Goodman’s words, because readers must, through

a puzzle-solving problem, infer meanings, decide what to retain and move on

2.1.3.3 Interactive model

There have been many studies about what kind of reading models: bottom-upand top-down should be used to read a text In comparision between bottom-up andtop-down processes, Christine Nuttall ( 1996: 16-17) compares bottom-up processeswith the image of a scientist with a microscope examining all the minute details ofsome phenomenon Top-down processing, in contrast, is like taking an eagle’s eyeview of a landscape Although they have different ways of understading a text, they areboth effective reading models Readers should combine both of them in reading.Brown has stated the importance of combining both of them in reading by an officalterm “ Interactive reading” He also stated that the combination of top-down andbottom-up processing is almost always a primary ingredient in sucessful teachingbecause both processes are important

“ In practise, a reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now adopting a top-down approach to predict probable meaning, then moving to bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the writer says” ( Nuttall 1996: 17)

2.2 The power of extensive reading

According to Professor Richard R.Day, Extensive Reading is an approach tolanguage teaching in which students read a lot of books Students can themselveschoose the reading texts Most of them are easy and interesting texts By using this

approach, students can get development in others areas such as speaking, listening andwriting Through extensive reading, learners can get more than just reading.

It is the view of Palmer (1964) that “extensive reading” is considered as beingreading rapidly The readers read books after books Its attention is paid to the meaning

of the text itself not the language The purpose of extensive reading is for pleasure andinformation Thus, extensive reading is also termed as “supplementary reading”

Extensive reading is a highly individualized approach to reading improvement.Extensive reading makes the great improvement in vocabulary growth and theacquisition of syntax in context Using extensive reading method, learners may developtheir personal instuitions about what good writing looks like And then the writing skillwill be developed As Richard R Day has pointed:

“students who read extensively also make gains in overall language proficiency For example, Cho and Krashen (1994) reported that their four adult ESL learners increased competence in both listening and speaking abilities.”

( Research about The benefits of ER – Day, R.R)

In other words, using extensive reading method can help learners develop the other skills like listening, speaking and writing Elley and Mangubhai (1981) also agreed that through extensive reading, writing proficiency is also fostered to develop

Moreover, in Richard R.Day’s research about the benifits of extensive reading,

he also comes to a conclusion that Extensive Reading increases vocabulary knowledge

He has given a conclusion that:

“It is not surprising that ER helps students become better readers

Research in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) shows that we learn to read by reading The more our students read, the better readers they become An integral part of this is learning new

vocabulary One of the primary ways in which vocabulary is learned is through reading Learners encounter the same words over and over again in context, which results in vocabulary learning.”

( Research about The benefits of ER – Day, R.R)

Emphasizing the importance of extensive reading, Krashen’s (1993) The power

of reading and Day & Bamford(1998) both made that extensive reading (freevocabulary reading ( FVR), as Krashen called it ) is a key to students gain in readingability, linguistic competence, vocabulary, spelling and writing

Therefore, when integrating the four skills in teaching reading to beginnerlearners, it is also necessary for teachers to guide students to use extensive readingmethod in their reading text And then the other skills will be developed at once

2.3 What is an integrated approach to language teaching?

Oxford has also mentions the definition of an integrated approach to languageteaching She has stated that the integrated-skill approach is when the skills areinterwolen during instruction

Using an integrated approach in teaching English will provides teacher with agreat deal of flexibility in creating interesting, motivating lessons It requires teacher tomake more effort in choosing materials and designing activities in comparison withtraditional teaching However, it can develop students’ communicative competence Itmakes communication in classroom closer to real situation

The four English skills are all interrelated It is the view of Jing (2006)that:

“ Listening, speaking, reading and writing are means of communication, in which listening and reading are considered as receptive skills that help learners get information as the input of language, in contrast speaking and writing are productive skills that makelanguage output possible and require sufficient language input as their basis” (2006:2)

In our real life , we often use more than one language skill to communicate.Therefore, it is necessary to integrate the four skills Integrating the four skillsemphasizes the focus on realistic language and then can develop students’communicative competence

2.3.2.Types of integration

Integration has been much promoted in the English language teaching literatureover the last few decades It emphasizes the intergration of different language skills inone single lesson rather than focusing on only one particular skill such as speaking,listening, reading or writing There are different types of integration One type is theintegration of grammar, language functions and topics/themes Another type is theintegration of skills including listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing These types ofintegration are diagraphically presented in Table 2.1

Table 2.1 Types of integration

The present study reports the result of the use of both types of integration in reading comprehension lessons to the beginner students at Asean Link center, whowere studying English for general purposes What follows is a detailed description ofthe two types of intergration, i.e the integration of skills and the integration of

linguistic areas

2.4.Integration of skills

Skill integration is an innovative approach which is highly appreciated by manycourse book writers There have been many books using integrated approach to designtheir couse book in order to meet our demand nowadays Because in our real life, thefour language skills are rarely used alone Therefore, it is necessary to integrate thefour skills at once when we teach English, especially in teaching reading

2.4.1 Integration of three areas

2.4.1.1 Grammatical integration

Most of the course books apply this type of integration Although there is nothematic item among the skill activities, they reinforce the same grammatical item

Integration

Integration of skills Integration of three areas

Listening Writing Grammar Theme / Topic Function

Speaking

Reading

Hence, one unit of the course book is totally emphasized on some grammatical itemssuch as tenses, articles, adverbial forms and so on with its skill activities.

However, there is a great difference between a wholly grammatical unit and agrammatically integrated unit The former one ignores the communicative value oflanguage On the other hand, the second one recognizes it with different skillscommunicatively which focuses on a grammatical item With grammatical integrationmethod in teaching, both grammar and communicative competence are intensivelyimportant Skill activities might be presented in different topics and settings butfocusing on only one grammatical item

2.4.1.2 Functional integration

Language is used for many purposes Among them, social function is one of themos important one This type of integration foces on gathering and using skills in anorganization around one social function of language Therefore, it concerns withelements such as invitations, apologies, suggestions, refuses and so forth Withfunctional integration, we help our students to recognize that they have a real purposefor speaking

In a class using functional integration, some functional elements or expressionsare given in skill activities However, there are no themes or topics among the skills.Moreover, sometimes, the same grammatical item is presented besides the samefunctional elements in skill activities

2.4.1.3 Thematic/ Topical integration

As being known, a topic is what is being talked or writtten about In this type ofintegration, skills are practised in conjunction with each other around a topic in the waythey are integrated in real life If there is a context, skill activities are not isolated fromthis context They follow each other meaningfully

2.5 Reading integrated with other skills.

In this paper, I would like to make a research on the integration of Readingskills with other skills in teaching the reading lesson for beginner learners Firstly, I

would like to review the reasons why we should integrate reading with others Andthen, I discuss what knowledge fields we should integrate in each skill with readingskill according to some researchers.

2.5.1 Reasons for the integration of Reading with other skills

According to Abbott, Wingard and Mckeating (1981), there are psychologicaland practical reasons for the integration of writing with other skills, and so it is in thiscase, there are also some reasons for the integration of reading with other skills Theseare as follows:

1 There is a large overlap among the component skills of the four skills:

listening, speaking, reading and writing Although they are different,many elements are in common Therefore, to teach these skills in closeassociation facilitates learning

2 In real-life communication, there is a frequent alternation between

receptive and productive activities

3 People have differences in their ability to learn through the ear, the eye

and muscular movement Integration makes use of all these abilities sothat everyone can learn something from this process

4 If something is taken in through more than one channel, it is more like

to be learnt well Practises in these skills can be mutually reiforcing,that is, the channels can reinforce each other

5 Students even of the same age, sex and cultural background are often

not interested over the skills activities may have differences

All of the above reasons have made clear for why the four skills should beintegrated Harmer (1983) has pointed out that one of the teacher’s responsibilities isthat the students should be taught to practise all the skills He states that:

“ Someone who listens to a lecture may take notes and then write a report of the lecture The same person might also describe the lecture

to his friends or colleagues and follow it up by reading an article that the lecturer suggested.” (1983: 47).

Similarly, Byrne (1990) also shows her agreement with the above opinion bygiving an example For instance, one see an ad in the newspaper ( for a job, holiday ordevice); then talks about it to someone else or rings him up or write a letter or chats onthe computer These kinds of activities could follow and provide a natural setting forlanguage teaching or learning

Cunningsworth also mentions to this fact.He states that:

“ In the actual langauge use, one skill is rarely used in isolation Numerous communicative situations in real life involve integrating two or more of the four skills The user of the language exercises his abilities in two or more skills Either simultaneously or in close sucession.” ( 1984: 46)

Again according to Finocchiaro ( 1973), a good teacher recognizes theimportance of integrating discrete language skills in the communicative situations,which stimulate or duplicate the real life situations in which students will need to usethe foreign language When reading is practised through other skills “integratedly” as

in real life, it will become more interesting, motivating and effective for the students

2.5.2 The integration of reading with other skills

2.5.2.1 Reading integrated with Listening

Reading and Listening are receptive skills They are interrelated with others.There are many writers who mentioned about this trend namely Temperly, Dubin &Olshtain and Peck

According to Temperley, the reason why reading is linked with listening isbecause of the close interrelationship among them He states that “ students learn tosegment an oral message and then try to recognise these groupings in graphic form.”(1978: 213)

To support Temperley’s idea, Dubin and Olshtain have stated that “ Listeningshares a number of features with reading since the two are interpretative skills whichplay an important role in communication.” (1987: 100-101).

The combination between reading with other skills not only enhances theamount of real comprehension and eliminates the problems about listening materials,but also brings a communicative touch to the process Peck states that

“ Listening comprehension with reading, offers one of the most powerful means of extending students’ stock of language items with

which they can later express themselves in speech or writing.”( 1988: 187).The process of integrating listening skill with reading skill should be donenaturally Then it will provide not only materials for the others, oral practice or readingbut also a stimulus for writing activities Rivers has stated that

“ When various skills are integrated into free-flowing activities, in which one provide materials for the other, students learn to operate confidently within the language, easily transferring knowledge acquired in one area for active use in another ” (1981: 167)

Many teachers tend to focus upon the product of listening, when, in fact, itwould be more illustrative to pay attention to the process, that is, what is going on inthe heads of our learners Therefore, in our lesson, teacher should create activities thatmotivate students to listen in different stages: pre-listening, listening and post-listening In other words, we must teach listening skill in the way of integrating withlistening strategies to create suitable activities It seems to be widely accepted thatprediction is an extremely important part It allows students to get interested in thetopic and predict the kind of vocabulary they are likely to hear Teacher can createactivities like discussing the topic or showing pictures that students will interpretbefore they listen For the post-listening stage, there are contrasted views on how to

approach this stage According to John Field (1998), he mentions that it is worthwhile

to pick out any functional language and ask students to remember them exactly Onthe other hand, Rivers thinks that asking students to pay attention to the surfacestructure will distract them from overall meaning It is more effective to make students

to check their understanding in peers by completing a task Moreover, it is alsodesirable to set some further work in which productive output will be achieved

In short, Reading should be integrated with listening When reading lesson istaught, teachers should teach listening skills for students In other words, throughreading skill, students should be learnt some listening strategies to make progressive inlistening skill gradually

2.5.2.2 Reading integrated with writing

One of the tenets of the whole language movement is that reading and writingshould be taught at the same time There are a great deal number of researches showingthe close connection between reading and writing skill namely Tierney, R.J & Pearson,P.D., 1983; Tierney, R.J, Soter., O’Flahavan, J.O, & McGinley, W., 1984; Tierney,R.J., & Shanahan, J., 1991

Recently, course books and textbooks have shown a shift by leaving a based reading approach to reading and applying reading and writing components.Jeanette and Moseley state it in the preface of their book as follow:

skill-“ today the idea of integrating writing and reading instruction is gaining increased acceptance because research has indicated its theoretical vadility and teachers have discovered its pedagogical effectiveness Instructors of both reading and writing have in many cases already begun to offer integrated instruction that allows students

to view writing and reading in the same rhetorial context.” ( 1985: p.vii).Writing is not a skill which can be learned in isolation In the first stage ofwriting, what students must learn, apart from the peculiar difficulties of spelling or

script, is the mastery of listening comprehension, speaking and reading – a number oflinguistic knowledge The activity of writing is to consolidate the knowledge for use inother areas Therefore, it gives students the chance of practice in manipulatingstructures and selecting and combining lexical elements.

Moreover, Writing process will be more effective when it is combined withother skills When the students have read, heard and said to themselves or other whatthey are expected to write, they are more likely to write it correctly and effectively Forexample, when dictation procedures are employed for reproduction, two skills areexercised at once: listening and writing The dictation practice will then be reinforcingpractice in listening comprehension, as well as providing practise in accurate writing

By this activity, we can integrate the two skills at the same time: listening and writing

What is more, Notetaking and the writing of reports can be further developmentfrom exercises in listening comprehension Then, all the materials in the recorded formcan be the basis for written composition

Writing has generally been in an uninteresting experience for students andcauses reluctance In order to make writing more interesting and enjoyable for students,

it should be integrated with reading

2.5.2.3 Reading integrated with Speaking

As for reading-speaking integration, students should frequently be providedwith the same opportunities to give in English the gist of what they have read Thereading materials may be served as a basis for oral presentations, some may bedramatized in role-plays and some may provide a setting for discussions or debates onthe same theme

Speaking is one of the skills that give learners a chance for rehearsal – practisingthe real skill of speaking as a preparation for using it outside the classroom Speakingactivities can be used at any stage of teaching Pair and group work is vital to increasethe student talking time and create a motivating collaborative atmosphere As lessons

become more interactive between teacher and student and between studentsthemselves, they can see the real purpose of communication in the spoken and writtenmodes

Moreover, in teaching speaking skill, teachers should also integrate with otherskills One of the tasks that may provide more genuine communication and practice inall the skills is the use of students’ mini lectures ( 5-10minutes) It trains speaking andlistening skills and helps them gain more flexibility in English

Speaking should be integated with pronunciation Pronunciation is one of theimportant part in teaching English Through teaching speaking, teacher should alsoteach students how to say vocabulary correctly and how to make correct rythm andintonation to create correct sense of the utterances Moreover, when pronunciation isintegrated with speaking, it will not be taught in isolation It will make students feelmore interested in learning pronunciation One of the important features in teachingpronunciation is clear and comprehensible pronunciation Teachers should not ask theirstudents to achieve native pronunciation “ Our goal as teachers of Englishpronunciation should therefore be more realistically focused on clear, comprehensiblepronunciation” ( Brown ,2001: 284)

2.6.Benefits of the integrated approach to language teaching

The integrated approach to language teaching in general and readingcomprehension teaching in particular has many advantages over the approach toteaching language skills separately Among those advantages, three important benefitsthat an integrated approach can bring about are it enhances the students’ motivation; itgives the students chance to practice the language they have learned in a meaningfulway, and it makes them more confident and active in communication

Enhancing Students’ Motivation

When reading is taught as a separate skills, the students become passive, andthis passivity may make them demotivated in learning reading comprehension Thisproblem has been pointed out by King (1968)

" Students are becoming more and more dependent on the teacher while dealing with fewer and fewer activities in the classroom;

another problem is that the teachers are doing most of the work for students , as a result of which students' language skills and linguistic competence can not develop satisfactorily Consequently, students are bored and lose interest in reading texts, which are solely followed by comprehension questions, create a non- authentic type of session" That is the problem of teaching English in the traditional method, especiallyteaching reading skill This method has been used for a long time And then it hasmade learners bored when studying English Yilmazer added his idea to this problem.Yilmazer points out that:

" Students tend to get bored when they are just handed a text and told

to read and answer the questions that follow As they do not have enough motivation, they are actively engaged in the task they are given Futhermore, when the comprehension questions are done and checked, the text is left out" (1997: 59)

Therefore, integrated approach has appeared to deal with this problem Whenthis new method has been used in teaching English, students become more motivative

to study in the classroom.When teachers use other kinds of skills such as listening,writing and speaking together with reading, it will become more and more beneficial.Moreover, students have chance to change other activities and skills They will be moreinterested Then students will have more motivation to study more

According to Peregoy and Boyle (1997), Practising of all the four skills promoteslanguage learning and affects the second language knowledge of learners positively It

means that students will have more motivation to study English And by integrating thefour skills in our teaching, there will have positive influence on student’s knowledge abouttheir second language such as vocabulary, grammar and so on.

Motivation plays a crucial role in students' learning It can make learner'slearning become better or worse In fact, using the integrated approach to languageteaching can create students' motivation Because there are various kinds of activitiesduring the lesson and students can change their styles frequently because the four skillsare used in turn Integrating the language skills can brings variety in the classroom.Teachers enrich classroom instructions by integrating language skills cooperatively ( Murphy, 1991)

Giving students chance to practice the language they have learnt in a meaningfl way.

Using the integrated approach in teaching reading text, teachers must createmore activities for their students to practice reading skill as well as other languageskills and linguistics knowledge Thus, students have more chance to practise whatthey have studied

As can be seen, there are two forms of integrated approach in which the based model is one type Here, students can practice the language - English in a realsituation The contents that teachers collect are very familiar with their lives such asdaily activities, food and drink, free-time activities and so on Then students can usethe language that they have got in class in their real lives

content-Moreover, integrated approach to language teaching means that the four Englishskills are combined at the same time Thus, it is authentic when we are out ofclassroom Because one skill is not performed without any other in our communication.Brown also supports this idea by stating that

“ Often one skill will reinforce another; we learn to speak, for example, in part by modelling what we hear, and we learn to write by examining what we can read.”( Brown, 2001).

Using an integrated approach to language teaching enables students to developtheir ability in the use of two or more of the four skills within real contexts and in acommunicative framework Herzan Z.M points out that:

" Nowadays, communication is the major aim for learning a foreign language In daily life, these skills are seen in integration, for example, after readinng a letter, usually an answer to the letter is written So in the classroom, the activities should be taught in integration in order to arrive at ease in communication" (1998: 22)

To support Herzan’s idea, River also points out that students can learn tooperate the language and they can easily transfer the acquired language to the otherareas by integrating the four language skills He states that:

“ When various skills are integrated into free-flowing activities, in which one provides material for the other, students learn to operate confidently within the language, easily transfering knowledge acquired

in one area for active use in another It is most important that the teacher not compartmentalize the learning ” (1981:167)

It cannot be denied that integrating the four skills is important Moreover, it isobvious that students can be practiced the four skills at the same time and in thesmooth way Thus, students can get progress in multiple skills by the time It is one ofthe biggest benefits of the integrated approach in comparison with the seperated one

Making students more confident and active in communication

Integrating the four skills in teaching means to combine the four skills in theteaching activities Using the integrated appoach to language teaching will bring the

natural interaction in the language Hence, it makes students more confident in theircommunication As a result, they will communicate more naturally In their real life,they can communicate naturally bacause they have already met the situation in theirreal learning In fact, there have been a great number of people who are very good atwriting and reading skills, but they can not communicate naturally outside becausewhat they have learnt is different from what they will meet in their real life Then theyare not confident enough to communicate well in daily life.

Moreover, the term " natural interaction" means that learners can interact easily

in their real life According to Kyriacou (1991), during the integration of the four skills,the notion " smoothness" should be provided That is, the activities should be chosen socorrectly that the transition between activities should be smooth Through " smoothactivities", we can create a natural interaction in the language by the chance And then,learners can easily interact in their real lives

It can be seen in the fact that integrating language skills provides morepurposeful and meaningful learning In other words, learners can use what they learn intheir real life to achieve better communication

2.7 Challenges and Limitations of the integrated approach to language teaching.

Using the integrated approach to language teaching has a plenty of benefits asmentioned above However, there are some challenges and limitations that will happen

in classes for both teachers and students

To start with, Some challenges that will meet for students are inadequatelanguage knowledge to convey their ideas and Vietnamese students’ traditionallearning habits One of the challenges that most of English beginners will meet is theirlack of language knowledge All of the beginners can not speak, write, listen and readwell together because they do not have enough vocabulary and grammar knowledge.Therefore, most of them seem to be afraid of taking part in class activities Thestudents themselves feel inconfident to communicate by English Another challenge for

Vietnamese leaners is because of their habit Vietnamese students are often lazy inEnglish class They do not want to speak, listen, read and write English Sometimes,they do the exercises under their teacher’s pressure That is one of the typical badhabits of Vietnamese students in comparison with other countries Hence, it makesclassroom activities unsuccessful when they communicate in their real life Thesechallenges are the reasons why Vietnamese learners, especially beginner learners, cannot get good result in communicating English in real life.

Moreover, when teachers apply the integrated approach in language teaching,they also have some challenges including lack of teaching equipment and difficulty increating real communicative environment to motivate students In order to use theintegrated approach in language teaching, teachers need some other equipments thatare used to create interesting activities to let students practise as in their real life Forexample, listening exercises that are suitable for the teaching topics are not availableand difficult to look for Moreover, the aim of the integrated approach is to create a realsituation for students to practise and then they can use in their real life As can be seen,there are some situations making us find diffficult to create like shopping, hotel and so

on It is better to go out for practice

In conclusion, there are both benefits and limitations and challenges whenteachers apply the integrated approach Over all, the benefits are overweight Teachersshould try their best to work out its challenges

2.8 Student’s perceptions of teachers’ teaching styles.

2.8.1 Definition of perception.

In Oxford learner’s Thesaurus dictionary, the term “perception” is defined as theway people notice things, esspecially with senses; the opinion or idea people have ofsomething as a result of the way in which they understand it

Peter Lindsay & Donald A Norman in “ Human information Processing: AnIntroduction to Psychology” define the term “ perception” as follow:

“Perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world.”

In their definition, they also make a clear difference between two terms:sensation and perception They have pointed out that sensation usually refers to theimmediate, relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes,ears, nose, tongue, or skin Perception, on the other hand, better describes one'sultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensoryinput In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate,because they are part of one continuous process Thus, perception in humans describesthe process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience

2.8.2 Teachers’ teaching styles

Teaching is an art Therefore, each teacher has his/her own style in theirteaching Some teachers are very active, but some are very quite And teachers’steaching styles have also had a great fluence on student’s perception process In thispart, I would like to point out some teachers’s teaching styles

2.8.2.1.Formal Authority

Teachers who have a formal authority teaching style tend to focus on content.This style is generally teacher-centred, where the teacher feels responsible forproviding and controlling the flow of the content and the student is expected to receivethe content

One type of statement made by an instructor with this teaching style is "I am theflashlight for my students, I illuminate the content and materials so that my studentscan see the importance of the material and appreciate the discipline."

Teachers with this teaching style are not as concerned with buildingrelationships with their students nor is it as important that their students formrelationships with other students This type of teacher does not usually require muchstudent participation in class

2.8.2.2.Demonstrator or Personal Model

Teachers who have a demonstrator or personal model teaching style tend to runteacher-centred classes with an emphasis on demonstration and modeling This type ofteacher acts as a role model by demonstrating skills and processes and then as a coach/guide in helping students develop and apply these skills and knowledge

A teacher with this type of teaching style might comment: "I show my studentshow to properly do a task or work through a problem and then I'll help them master thetask or problem solution It is important that my students can independently solvesimilar problems by using and adapting demonstrated methods."

Instructors with this teaching style are interested in encouraging studentparticipation and adapting their presentation to include various learning styles Studentsare expected to take some responsibility for learning what they need to know and forasking for help when they do not understand something

2.8.2.3.Facilitator

Teachers who have a facilitator model teaching style tend to focus on activities.This teaching style emphasizes student-centered learning and there is much moreresponsibility placed on the students to take the initiative for meeting the demands ofvarious learning tasks

This type of teaching style works best for students who are comfortable withindependent learning and who can actively participate and collaborate with otherstudents

Teachers typically design group activities which necessitate active learning,student-to-student collaboration and problem solving This type of teacher will oftentry to design learning situations and activities that require student processing andapplication of course content in creative and original ways