Improving students reading comprehension at my hao high school by using short stories in teaching reading

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI UNIVERSITY Nguyen thi Ly Improving students reading comprehension at My Hao high school by using short stories in teaching reading Submitted i

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI UNIVERSITY

Nguyen thi Ly

Improving students reading

comprehension at My Hao high school by using short stories in teaching reading

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements

of the Degree of Master of Arts in TESOL

Supervisor: Le Quoc Hanh, M.A

Hanoi October 2009

Acknowledgments

I would like to send my gratitude to my supervisor, Mr Le Quoc Hanh, M.A for his precious instruction and encouragement without which I can not complete this thesis

My sincere thanks go to Ms Nguyen Thai Ha and her colleagues at the Department of Post Graduate Studies for their understandings and guidance to all the lectures for their comprehensive instructions and presentations during the course

I would like to say big thanks to my colleagues and students at My Hao high school for their good will and cooperation during the action plan

My deep love goes to my family for their great physical and spiritual support All the shortcomings belong to me and constructive feedbacks are highly appreciated

Abstract

It is assumed that the more students read the better reader they become Therefore, establishing students the habit of reading is very necessary especially in second language learning

The overall purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of the using short story reading activities (as extra reading activities) at My Hao high school Thus survey questionnaires and class observations are used to investigate the teacher and the students' attitude towards the using short stories in teaching ands learning reading and to examine the students' preferences for students' reading activities applied by the researcher

The results of the study show that both teachers and students are fully aware of the sheer importance of short story reading activities to the students' comprehension Among them, summarizing the story in spoken or written form appears to be the most interesting activities After this activity, the students not only comprehend deeply the short story but they also practice speaking and writing skills Secondly, the students find it easier to comprehend the story by filling in the map, chart or using graphic, and

it is interesting to ask and answer questions relating problems or themes in the story to their real life

Hopefully, the thesis can be considered as a small contribution for teaching at

My Hao high school

List of abbreviations

FL: Foreign Language

EFL: English as Foreign Language

ER: Extensive Reading

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

AR: Action Research

L2: Second Language

SLA: Second Language Acquisition

T: Teacher

Ss: Students

List of figures, charts

Figure 1: The process of reading comprehension

Figure 2: The process of doing action research

Chart 1: Students’ attitude toward reading skill

Chart 2: Factors affecting Ss’ reading comprehension

Chart 3: Ss’ comment about reading text in English 10

Chart 4: Ss’ opinion about how to improve their reading comprehension

Chart 5: Ss’ preferences to different kinds of extra reading materials in English Chart 6: Ss’ opinion about benefit of using short stories in learning reading Chart 7: Ss’ preferences for reading short-story-activities

Chart 8: The results of the pre-test

Chart 9: Factors affecting Ss’ reading comprehension

Chart 10: Ss’ opinion about the short-story-reading-activities that the teacher applied

Chart 11: The results of the post test

Chart 12: Pre-test and post test comparison

Table of contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I ABSTRACT II LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS III LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS IV TABLE OF CONTENTS V

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 B ACKGROUND OF THE STUDY .1

1.2 A IMS OF THE STUDY .3

1.3 S COPE OF THE STUDY .3

1.4 M ETHOD OF THE STUDY .3

1.5 S IGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY .4

1.6 O UT LINE OF THE STUDY .4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 R EADING COMPREHENSION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS .6

2.1.1 Reading comprehension 6

2.1.2 The importance of learning reading comprehension skills 6

2.2 F ACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS ' READING COMPREHENSION .7

2.2.1 Background knowledge 7

2.2.2 Motivation 8

2.2.3 Teacher’s teaching method 9

2.2.4 Materials 11

2.2.5 Vocabulary 11

2.3 S HORT STORY AND ITS BENEFITS 13

2.3.1 Short story and its benefits to high school students 13

2.3.2 Choosing the suitable short story for high school students 14

2.3.3 How to use short story in teaching reading 16

2.4 P REVIOUS STUDIES 18

2.4.1 Foreign research 18

2.4.2 Vietnamese research 19

CHAPTER 3: THE METHODOLOGY 21

3.1 W HAT IS ACTION RESEARCH ? 21

3.2 A CTION RESEARCH QUESTIONS 22

3.3 D ATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS 22

3.3.1 Questionnaires 22

3.3.2 Interviews 23

3.3.3 Observations 23

3.3.4 Pre-test and post-test (Appendix 7) 24

3.4 T HE SETTING AND THE PARTICIPANTS 25

3.4.1 The setting 25

3.4.2 The subjects 25

3.4.3 The observer 25

3.5 A CTION RESEARCH PROCEDURE 25

3.5.1 Identifying a problem 26

3.5.2 Collecting data 26

3.5.3 Analyzing data and generating hypothesis 26

3.5.4 Planning action 27

3.5.5 Implementing the action plan 27

3.5.6 Collecting data to monitor change 28

3.5.7 Analyzing data and evaluating the change 28

CHAPTER 4: THE RESULT 29

4.1 P RE - DATA 29

4.1.1 Data from questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1) 29

4.1.2 Data from the interview (Appendix 3) 35

4 1 3 Data from observation (Appendix 4) 35

4.1.4 Pre test (Appendix 7A) 37

4.2 T HE POST DATA 37

4.2.1 Data from observation (Appendix 5) 37

4.2.2 Data from questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2) 40

4.2.3 Post test 41

4.3 A CTION RESEARCH EVALUATION 42

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 44

5.1 M AJOR FINDINGS 44

5.1.1 Major finding from the pre-data 44

5.1.2 Major finding from the post data 44

5.2 R ECOMMENDATIONS 44

5.2.1 Using short story reading activity as an extra reading activity 44

5.2.2 Using comprehension activities appropriately and flexibly to check students outside class reading 45

5.2.3 Encouraging the students’ internal factors 46

5.3 L IMITATION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 46

5.4 C ONCLUSIONS 46

REFERENCES 48

APPENDIX 52

APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 1 52

APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 2 55

(FOR STUDENTS) 55

APPENDIX 3: 56

QUESTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW WITH OTHER ENGLISH TEACHERS OF READING 56

APPENDIX 4: OBSERVATION SHEET 1 58

OBSERVATION SHEET 1 A (UNIT 10) 58

APPENDIX 4: OBSERVATION SHEET 1 60

OBSERVATION SHEET 1 B (UNIT 14) 60

APPENDIX 5: OBSERVATION SHEET 2 62

APPENDIX 6A: ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION 64

OF USING SHORT STORY-READING ACTIVITIES 64

APPENDIX 6B: A DETAILED LESSON PLAN 66

APPENDIX 7A: THE PRE- TEST 67

APPENDIX 7 B: THE POST - TEST 69

1.1 Background of the study

Of the four language skills, reading seems to be the most important one because

in the learning process, it helps the students develop other skills and provides knowledge on the target language Carrell (1983:1) emphasized "for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as second or foreign language" Educational researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success In other words, a student who is a good reader is more likely to do well in school and pass exams than a student who is a weak reader They have also found a strong correlation between reading and vocabulary knowledge In other words, students who have a large vocabulary are usually good readers

Being aware of the importance of learning reading, authors of new English 10 have chosen interesting topics for reading lessons with the aim to promote students in reading and improve their reading comprehension However some of them are not familiar with students' genre and reading in the text book only is not enough to enhance students' interest in reading and reading comprehension Thonis, (1970) suggested:

Comprehension skills depend upon two major factors: the background of experiences, from which concepts have been acquired, and the speed, accuracy, and richness of meanings which students bring to word recognition The advancement of skill in understanding what is read receives major emphasis during the intermediate and high school years As students become more efficient readers, the written language which they meet in books becomes a source for larger vocabularies, for increased knowledge, and for deeper comprehension of themselves and the world around them

Thus beside the reading texts in the text book students need to read more outside class room to enrich their vocabulary as well as their background knowledge That means students must read extensively

So many studies and researches have been conducted to find out ways to improve reading effectiveness Recently, there have been a lot of researches about the effect of extensive reading in improving students’ reading comprehension Colin Davis (1995:335) suggested that any classroom will be the poorer for the lack of an extensive reading program and will be “unable to promote its students’ language development in all aspects as effectively as if such a program were present” He also claimed that such a program will make students more positive about reading, improve their overall comprehension skills, and give them a wider passive and active vocabulary Myuskens (1983) affirmed that "with students at the beginning and intermediate levels, instructors can use literacy text for language practice, reading comprehension and possible aesthetic appreciation” Strong (1996) also stated that

“extensive reading of literature can encourage students to develop positive attitudes toward reading”

At My Hao high school, the teaching and learning reading are mostly based on text book Therefore, the students seem not to be interested in reading lesson Most of them feel reading is difficult and boring even they are afraid of reading Thus, after reading a text they often don’t understand much about its content or they misunderstand author’s ideas When studying in a reading lesson, students often experience the lack of background knowledge as well as vocabulary about the topics they are reading Other important reasons are their lack of motivation and time In the word of foreign language, the most popular expression might be “practice makes perfect” That is the reason why the teachers have to find ways to enhance students read more and to improve their reading comprehension

From the point of view: students only read what they are interested in, the researcher come to the study of using short story in teaching reading Because among literature materials, short story seems to be the most suitable with high school students of all Students at this age are curious and they like reading short stories Collie and Slater (1991: 196) list the advantages of using short stories for language teachers: short stories are practical as their length is long enough to cover entirely in one or two class sessions; they are not complicated for students to work with on their own; they have a variety of choice for different interests and tastes; and they can be used with all levels (beginner to advanced), all ages (young learners to adults) and all classes (summer courses to evening classes) Moreover short stories don’t take much

they are waiting for some one In addition, the new English 10 includes 16 units Each unit is about one certain topic such as daily routine, environment, sport, culture, people’s background etc Material about these topics can be easily found in short stories Also, this kind of material is not difficult for students to search and read

1.2 Aims of the study

The study is to find down if the using short stories in teaching reading helps motivating students at My Hao high school in reading and improving their reading ability

1.3 Scope of the study

The research aims at applying the using short story in teaching reading to grade

10 students at My Hao high school The subjects of the study are 50 students of class 10A3 at My Hao high school including 22 males and 28 females The age of those 50 students ranges from 16 to 17 Hopefully, the findings of the study may be applied in teaching reading to students at My Hao high school and others high schools in Vietnam

1.4 Method of the study

 Methodology:

Action research design is used by the researcher since it is the problem in my own class and I would like to improve my students' learning and my professional performance It is a practical action research because its purpose is to research a specific school situation with a view toward improving practice, to focus on a small-scale research project, to focus narrowly on a specific problem and to be undertaken

by individual teacher within a high school

 Data collection instruments:

To answer the research questions of the study, the data are collected through questionnaires, interview, observation, and tests

- The instrument used to collect data for the study on the problems and causes

of the problem as well as the using short story in teaching reading is questionnaire

- The interview: The main purposes of this data is to investigates the using extra reading materials especially short story in teaching reading of other teachers at

My Hao high school and to make sure that the information collected from the questionnaire has its validity and reliability

- Class observations: The observer of the research was a fifteen-year experienced teacher of reading at My Hao high school She will be invited to observe the class in the study-10A3 to see the way the teacher help students comprehend the reading text and also the students’ learning attitude, their participation in the short-story-reading activities that the researcher applied, as well as the result they gain after each reading lesson

Class observations will also be used by the researcher in two other classes: 10A2 and 10A4 to see the ways other teachers help the students comprehend the reading text and also the students’ learning attitude, the result they gain after each reading lesson

- Pre- test and post-test: Through these two tests, the researcher can find the differences in the students' reading comprehension; compare the results before and after the time of doing an action plan

1.5 Significance of the study

As mentioned above, learning reading is very important to students Therefore,

to raise students’ interest in reading and help them comprehends the text better, the applying extra reading activities in teaching reading is very necessary

The aim of this study is to find out whether the using short story in teaching reading motivates students in reading and improves their reading comprehension From the finding of the study, the researcher hope that teachers and students at

My Hao school will be aware better the importance of the using short story in teaching reading

1.6 Out line of the study

The thesis is divided into five parts: the introduction, the literature review, the methodology, the results and the conclusion

Chapter 1, The Introduction, introduces the basis information such as the background to the study, aims, research questions, scope, outline and significance of the study

Chapter 2, Literature Review, provides the basis concepts of the reading comprehension, factors affecting comprehension in learning reading, the importance

of extra reading activities in learning reading, the benefits of short story in learning reading and previous studies relating to the fields

Chapter 3, Methodology, presents the methodology used in the study including the subjects, the setting, instrumentation, procedure, data collection and data analysis Chapter 4, The Result, presents and discusses the steps of the action research and the analysis of the pre-data and post-data It also gives the evaluation of the research

Chapter 5, The Conclusion, offers the major findings from pre-data and data analysis, some recommendations, suggestions for further research and limitations

post-of the study

Chapter 2: Literature review 2.1 Reading comprehension and the importance of learning reading comprehension skills

2.1.1 Reading comprehension

Reading is a receptive language process Goodman (1978) describes it as

"A psycholinguistic process in that it starts with a linguistic surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with meaning which readers construct." It

is the process of getting a message from a written text It is the interaction between the text and the reader There is thus, an essential interaction between language and thought in reading The writer encodes thought as language and the reader encode language to thought with the movement of his eyes and brain According to Harmer (1989), reading is seen as ‘an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the meaning of these messages’ This is known as decoding the message The process of decoding language to thought

or working out the meaning of a reading text is considered to be reading comprehension or we can say that reading comprehension is the product of two cognitive elements: decoding skills and language comprehension skills Language comprehension generally refers to one's ability to understand speech The second important element underlying reading comprehension is decoding, which generically refers to the one’s ability to recognize and process written information All struggling readers have difficulty with either language comprehension or decoding or both Therefore it is important for the reading teacher to know what is required to be good

at understanding language and what is necessary to be good at decoding text From this point of view the teacher can provide his or her students necessary knowledge as well as skills to become a good reader

2.1.2 The importance of learning reading comprehension skills

Reading comprehension is what allows the reader to interact with the text in a meaningful way It’s the bridge from passive reading to active reading, from letters and words to characters and contexts Reading comprehension is the crucial link to effective reading - a strong factor in our educational and professional lives For many, reading comprehension also unlocks the door to a lifetime of reading recreation and enjoyment Reading comprehension skills increase the pleasure and effectiveness of

in which all the reading skills areas (phonics, fluency, and vocabulary) will contribute

to success Thus reading teachers should find out what skill areas that their students are bad at and help them improve those ones

2.2 Factors affecting students' reading comprehension

of background knowledge of the reader Having background knowledge permits the information to be incorporated into pre existing knowledge structures Research on enriching background knowledge has demonstrated that activating such knowledge increases comprehension Graves and his associates (1980; 1983) developed previews for short stories that had, as one component, the building of prior knowledge important to understanding the selection Data indicated that reading the previews before reading the stories increased students' learning from stories by a significant and impressive amount Stevens (1982) increased learning from text compared with a control group for 10th-grade students reading a history passage by teaching them relevant background information for that passage Hayes and Tierney (1982) found that presenting background information related to the topic to be learned helped readers learn from texts regardless of how that background information was presented

or how specific or general it was Alvarez (1990) used case-based instruction to develop students' abilities to assemble and incorporate different knowledge sources in memory He taught them how to employ thematic organizers and hierarchical concept mapping in their reading

Additionally, scant attention is paid to the role of the reader's schemata, or background knowledge, when learning from text (Tierney & Pearson, 1985) Yet

research clearly emphasizes that for learning to occur, new information must be integrated with what the learner already knows (Rumelhart, 1980)

It appears that providing students with strategies to activate their prior knowledge base or to build a base if one does not exist is supported by the current research and this is one way teachers can have a positive influence on comprehension

in their classrooms

2.2.2 Motivation

If students are going to develop good reading skills, they have to want to read People are more motivated to read if they are interested in the topic Research confirms that students' motivation is a key factor in successful reading Harmer, J (2003) defined "motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody

to pursue a course of action."

Researchers agree that there are two broad categories of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation (Metsala, et al., 1997) That is the only area of motivation that researchers seem to agree Intrinsic motivation means that the student wants to complete the task because they are interested on their own (Guthrie, Solomon, 1997) Extrinsic motivation (comes from compliance with teachers, parents

or peers" (Metsala, et al., 1997) Some motivational researchers believe that intrinsic motivation is the key to students' success

Students' interest in reading is vital to the motivation and reading assignment (Collins, Decker, 1996) If a student is intrinsically motivated, the student wants to read the material because he or she is interested in it Another strategy that is used to promote intrinsic motivation is to find topics that students are interested in learning more about and have the students research it (Guthrie, Solomon, 1997) The students want to read the material because they are so determined to learn more about the subject; they will also want to work hard at it because they picked it out (Hunt, Lyman, 1997)

Beside intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation is not less important In this study, extrinsic motivation is considered as teacher's role in enhancing students to read as well as sustaining students' interest in reading Harmer (2003) said that

"clearly a major factor in the continuance of a student's motivation is the teacher." The teachers are the people who know best about their students, they will know how

to enhance their students' interest in reading and when to provide help to them The

those difficulties they will find the most suitable method of teaching to increase and direct their students' motivation

Thus, to make our students want to read, besides giving them interesting lessons with pleasant learning environment and various activities we need providing them materials that they are interested in or let them choose their own materials to read

2.2.3 Teacher’s teaching method

The Schema theory Model

The role of background knowledge in language comprehension has been

formalized as schema theory which has one of its fundamental tenets that text, any

text, either spoken or written, does not by itself carry meaning Rather, according to schema theory, a text only provides directions for listeners or readers as to how they should retrieve or construct meaning from their own, previously acquired knowledge

This previously acquired knowledge is called the reader’s background knowledge, and the obviously acquired knowledge structures are called schemata

According to schema theory, comprehending a text is an interactive process between the reader’s background knowledge and the text Efficient comprehension requires the ability to relate the contextual material to one’s own knowledge Comprehending words, sentences and entire texts involves one’s knowledge of the world as well The process of interpretation is guided by the principle that every input

is mapped against some exciting schema and that all aspects of that schema must be compatible with the input information

This principle results in two basis modes of information processing, called bottom-up and top-down mode

 Bottom-up processing

Recently, the bottom-up approach has played a significant role both in first and second language research and theory Cambourn (cited from Nunan, 1991: 63) states that it is the basis of vast majority of reading schema The central notion behind the bottom-up approach is that reading is basically a process of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents He illustrates how the process is supposed as follows:

Print→ Every letters discriminated → Phonemes and graphemes matched → Blending → Pronunciation → Meaning

In this model, the reader processes each individual letter as it is encountered

by matching these letters with the phoneme form words These phonemes are blended together to form words And a message is built up Richards (1990:63) states that

“The process of comprehension begins with message received which is analyzes at successive levels of organization-sound, words, clauses, sentences- until the intended meaning is arrived at”

Comprehension is thus viewed as a process of decoding, and the reader’s lexical and grammatical competence in language is the basis for bottom-up processing

of the text rather than decoding each symbol or even every word

This has become known as interactive reading Bottom-up and top-down

approaches can be mobilized by conscious choice, and both are important strategies for readers

In short, schema theory suggests that we need to utilize information not explicitly contained in the text to comprehend more texts The knowledge we carry around in our head is organized into interrelated patterns These are constructed from our previous experience of the experimental world and guide us as we make sense of new experiences They also enable us to make predictions about what we might expect to experience in given context

Given the fact that discourse comprehension is a process of utilizing linguistic cues and background knowledge to reconstruct meaning these schemata extremely important particularly to second and foreign language learners And there is no doubt that extra reading activities are of great help in widening learners’ background knowledge However, deciding the right reading materials for the right students and at the suitable time is not easy to all teachers Therefore, teaching methodology plays a very important role in language teaching in general and in teaching reading in

Beside, materials have the purpose of presenting the language in study They are perceived as instrumental objects to inform students and help teachers deal with the curricular aspects According to Krashen (1981:100) "the condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understands input language"; and materials can make learning more accessible and understandable that language input

Because of this, appropriate reading materials must effectively assist students

in developing their reading skills Teachers are advisable to design or at least know how to select suitable reading materials accompanied with a relevant range of exercises for students In other words, the topic of reading materials must be of students' interest Baker de Gonzalez and Blau, (2000) suggested that

The high-interest topic and thematically linked reading affectively build students' background knowledge and vocabulary for later reading With their increased knowledge of a topic, students will have more to talk, write and think about

as they acquire English

In conclusion, The influence that materials have on the teaching and learning process can not be denied, so reading teachers must be aware of the role of materials have in their classroom and the way they are used From this the teachers can choose the most suitable reading materials for their students

2.2.5 Vocabulary

Most people feel that there is a common sense relationship between vocabulary and comprehension messages are composed of ideas, and ideas are expressed in words Most theorists and researchers in education have assumed that vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension are closely related, and numerous studies have shown the strong correlation between the two (Baker, 1995; Nagy, 1988; Nelson-Herber,1986) The crucial role of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension has been well recognized in first language (L1) situations and this has appeared to be true of second language (L2) settings as well because a strong vocabulary is the

foundation for reading comprehension In fact, vocabulary is the foundation of all areas of literacy listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Trisha Callella 2004 Teaching vocabulary to improve reading comprehension Creative teaching pressed)

By high school, students with a diversity of backgrounds and skills are immersed in content area instruction Yet all students, and particularly those who are struggling, are confronted with vocabulary and concepts that are unfamiliar or misunderstood Those misunderstandings interfere with comprehension of content area curriculum

That is the reason why the vocabulary enrichment for students becomes necessary Many researches have been carried out to study the possibility of learning vocabulary through reading especially through extensive reading in a second language

According to its definition, extensive reading exposes learners to "large quantities of material within their linguistic competence" (Grabe and Stoller, 2002: 259), which is, at the same time, pleasurable There are several reasons why it is so attractive to develop language knowledge (and more specifically vocabulary) through extensive reading To mention a few, it is considered a "pedagogically efficient" (Huckin and Coady, 1999: 182) approach, as two activities – vocabulary acquisition and reading – occur at the same time This approach facilitates learner autonomy, can

be very pleasant and motivating, provides learners with the opportunity to meet words

in their context of use (Thornbury, 2002), increases sight vocabulary (Coady, 1997; Nagy, Herman and Anderson, 1985; Nation and Coady, 1988), and could theoretically result in substantial vocabulary learning, which seems difficult to achieve with explicit teaching during the relatively short period of time that L2 learners spend in the language classroom

Day, R., & Bamford, J (1998) also found that

Research convincingly shows that extensive reading increases vocabulary knowledge It is not surprising that extensive reading helps students become better readers Research in both L1 and 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 way in which vocabulary is learned

is through reading Learners encounter the same words over and over again in context, which results in vocabulary learning

This fact leads to the using short story (as an extensive reading activity) in enriching students' vocabulary knowledge as well as improving their reading

2.3 Short story and its benefits

2.3.1 Short story and its benefits to high school students

When students are let to read materials that they are interested in they will want

to read more Wells C (1980) stated that “If reading has been pleasurable because the student has been able to identify successfully (emotionally and intellectually) with the text, and to organize the material, then the student will want to read more This desire will set off a chain reaction which will lead to more reading, and the more the student reads, the better he will read.”

To high school students, short story seems to be the most suitable material for extra reading activities Erkaya (2005) said "short stories usually have a beginning, middle and an end, they encourage students at all levels of language proficiency to continue reading them until the end to find out how the conflicts is resolved” He also stated that " short stories, for example, help students to learn the four skills listening, speaking, reading, writing more effectively because of the motivational benefit embedded in the stories and with short stories, instructors can teach literacy, culture, and higher-oder thinking benefit." Accordingly, what Hirvela and Boyle (1988) report

is not surprising: they examine students' attitudes towards four genres of literary texts (short story, novel, poetry and drama) and state that their Hong Kong Chinese students indicated short stories as the genre that is less feared and the second most enjoyed (43%; the novel is the most enjoyed with 44%), since short stories are easy to finish and definite to understand Spack (1985) highlights the importance of story selection and states that she chooses stories that would interest students that she most likes to read and teach, and that have been made into film to provide visual interpretation

In addition, short stories are the best path to improve your overall reading comprehension Short stories are easy, not time consuming, and the plots are relatively simple, with limited locations and characters In about an hour or so, you should be able to read a short story, and then sit down and analyze the story from beginning to end You should be able to identify the characters, what the story’s plot

is about, and analyze the plot from different angles This will teach you to see a system from different angles “Thus short stories - they are simply, easy and fun But, they can really improve your reading comprehension” (Keith Johnson, 2008)

In conclusion, the answer to the question of why short story is the most suitable literary form to use in English classes lines in Edgar Allan Poe's definition of short story He defined it "as a narrative that can be read at one sitting of from one-half hour to two hours, and that is limited to 'a certain unique or single effect', to which every detail is subordinate" (Abrams, 1970) Since it is short, and aims at giving a single effect, there is usually one plot, a few characters; there is no detailed description of setting So, it is easy for the students to follow the story line of the work

2.3.2 Choosing the suitable short story for high school students

As it is mentioned above, of literacy genres, short story seems to be the most suitable one to use in crowded class due to its shortness However, there is no strict rule to determine the length of short stories; as well as very short stories, there are longer ones Therefore, it is the duty of the teacher to choose a story short enough to handle with course hours "The shortness of the text is important for the students because they will see that they can read, understand and finish something in English, and it will give the students a feeling of achievement and self - confidence" (Zerrin Eren, 2004) To high school students with the pre-intermediate language level the teacher can choose short stories which have from two hundreds words to three hundred words in length

Beside the length of the work, there are some other important criteria that must

be considered while choosing the text Hill (1994) points out the basic criteria to be kept in mind while choosing a literary text as follows:

- The need and abilities of the students

- The linguistic and stylistic level of the text

- The amount of background information required for a true

- Appreciation of the materials

The vocabulary and sentence structure of the short story to be studied must be suitable to the level of the students The short stories with archaic, slang, foreign words, and allusions, having sentences imitating the speech of a particular locality or ignorant people or foreigners must be avoided Similarly, very long sentences are difficult for students to understand As students will not understand these sentences and words, they will get bored and not read the work Therefore, before giving the short story, the teacher should decide the readability of the text

There are a lot of graded or simplified stories on the markets However, there is controversy concerning the use of graded or simplified materials Penny Ur (1996:150) thinks that " the use of authentic text with less proficient learners is often frustrating and counter-productive" therefore, she recommended the use of simplified text will less proficient readers Jeremy Harmer (2001: 210) suggests simplified books as extensive reading material, claiming that "such books succeed because the writers or adaptors work within specific lists of allowed words and grammar This means that students at the appropriate level can read them with ease and confidence At their best such books, despite the limitation on language, can speak to the reader through the creation of atmosphere and/ or compelling plot lines"

On the other hand, Christopher Brumfit (1985: 99) mentions some drawbacks of graded materials as follows:

Colour and humour may be far more important than word level, information control may prevent readers from doing what all native- speaking readers do- allow approximate meanings , and much EFL publishing policy may lead to the conclusion that foreign readers are ignorant, stupid and illiterate in their mother tongues Readers for EFL/ESL need redundancy, need interest, need to be more difficult than learners can cope with linguistically, but not too much more, and above all need to be written

by people who can write well Otherwise they likely to train foreign learners in how

not to read

Lilian Ronnqvist and Roger Sell (1995: 45) claim that " Even though a simplified text may be interesting enough from the point of view of content, pupils will sometimes complain that its language is boring and unenjoyable" This is because the students will be aware of the fact that the text they are reading is not written for native speakers but for foreign language learners Therefore, the use of authentic short stories is preferred in this study

Beside, cultural elements in a short story should be taken into consideration while choosing the text The chosen short stories should introduce the culture of the target language Nevertheless, if a short story is heavily loaded with the elements of the culture of English or American society, in this case, the students have to cope with these elements and they will not understand and probably enjoy the text Therefore, these texts will not be suitable to use in class, either So, the teacher should choose a short story with minimizes cultural values and attitudes, and explain them before studying the work

In addition, a short story may be about an experience, an action, a meeting, a conversation, the events of a day, or the revelation of a character or characters M H Abrams (1970) devices short stories into two as " story of incident" and "story of character" and defines them as follows: "In story of incident, the focus of interest is

on the course and outcome of the event, story of character focus on the revelation of a state of mind and motivation, or of moral qualities"

Of the two, story of incident seems to be more appropriate to use in English classes because the students will be curious about the outcome of the events, curiosity will make them read and finish the work

Moreover, High school students are at teenage age, thus, the short stories for teenagers are important sources for teacher Sandra Lee McKay (2001: 322) and Wilga Rivers (1968: 230) point out that students read and enjoy a text if the subject matter of the text is relevant to their life experience and interests There are short stories written for teenagers, although they are written for native speakers, "one way

or another, they are directly relevant to the life experience, thoughts, emotions, and dreams of young people" (Rongqvist and Sell 1995: 44)

2.3.3 How to use short story in teaching reading

After the choice of the text, activities should be produced to help the students understand the text

 The short story to be studied must be assigned to the students previously

This is because while-reading a text for the first time, students focus on the structural meaning "Understanding structural meaning is of course, a prerequisite to penetrating any text" (Rivers and Temperley, 1978: 204) However, each student's reading and understanding speed is not the same, and the course hours are limited in high schools If the students read the chosen text beforehand, they will understand the surface meaning or at least, have an ideal about the subject matter of the story For the best use of the allocated time, the students must read the text before the class meeting Before reading the text in class, the teacher should give very brief information about the writer in order that the students can see the writer in the context of his/her time

 Using a graphic organizer or story map

Following the reading of the text, the teacher may use a graphic organizer so that the students can comprehend the story better A graphic organizer is "a visual aid

that displays the chunks of information to be studied" (Crandall, Jaramollo, Olsen and Peyton, (2002: 2) A story map in particular will help students understand the components of the story Crandall et al (2002) describe a story map as follows: "A story map is one example of a graphic organizer A story map breaks down the components of a story- characters, setting, and dialogue in a series of events or conflicts leading to resolution-into chunks of text that can help students organize and comprehend the events of the story" Crandall et al (2002: 2) explain the advantages

of using graphic organizers as follows:

Graphic organizers can help teachers clarify their instructional goals Teachers can ask themselves what they want their students to learn and how they can display this information graphically to help their students connect their ideas Discussions might take place as students clarify the connections, clear up misconceptions, and come to consensus on the structure of the map

Using a story map, we can encourage our students to infer meaning from the text, and is able to develop students' reading and speaking skills Below is a model of

Beside the using story map, we can provide the students other activities to comprehend the story The following activities are suggested by Joanne Collie and Stephen Slater (1993)

 Asking and answering questions relating problems or themes in the story to real life of the students This activity can be applied for pair work, group work or teacher and whole class

 Doing multiple choice or true/false exercises that focus on new vocabulary and reading comprehension about the story

 Reordering the events of the story

 Summarizing the story in spoken or written form

 Compare, note point of similarity and differences of content of the two stories with the same topic

 Provide title for the story

2.4 Previous studies

2.4.1 Foreign research

Recently studies and books about the benefits of short story in teaching English have been increased

Collie and Slater wrote the book Short Stories for Creative Language

Classrooms which provide English language learners with eleven authentic and

captivating short stories and accompanying creative activities that address all four skill areas: reading, writing, speaking and listening The stories and activities are all designed not only to educate students, but also to inspire, involve, and intrigue them The book consists of eleven sections, each with its own short story and accompanying activities, including pre- reading warm up activities, during-reading activities, and post-reading “creative development” exercises All the sections are self-contained Students or teachers can choose the stories, as well as the various tasks and exercises

the advantages, characteristics of short stories, he found short story seem to be the most suitable literature form to use in public high school By choosing suitable short story with students’ language level and creating different activities of using in the class his study bring the result: “instead of knowing the rules but not being to use English, after the study, we can have students both comprehending and producing the language”

Collie and Slater (1991: 196) list the advantages of using short stories for language teachers: short stories are practical as their length is long enough to cover entirely in one or two class sessions; they are not complicated for students to work with on their own; they have a variety of choice for different interests and tastes; and they can be used with all levels (beginner to advanced), all age (young learners to adults) and all classes (summer courses to evening classes) Hirvela and Boyle (1988) report is not surprising: they examine students' attitudes towards four genres of literary texts (short story, novel, poetry and drama) and state that their Hong Kong Chinese students indicated short stories as the genre that is less feared and the second most enjoyed (43%; the novel is the most enjoyed with 44%), since short stories are easy to finish and definite to understand Spack (1985) highlights the importance of story selection and states that she chooses stories that would interest students that she most likes to read and teach, and that have been made into film to provide visual interpretation

Oster (1989) suggests analyzing short stories from different perspectives in multi cultural ESL/EFL classrooms She maintains that students should be encouraged

to question and discuss the short stories that are told from a single point of views This activity not only integrates reading with the productive skills but also enable students to realize how their own experiences, culture and values affect their views 2.4.2 Vietnamese research

A Vietnamese researcher, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tu (2005) did a study on using short stories to improve the efficiency of teaching English to the first year students at Vietnam Maritime University The major task of the study is to find out the attitudes

of teachers and students toward stories as teaching and learning supplementary materials Moreover, the study gives more evidence to the benefits of using stories in teaching listening in terms of analyzing the listening tests’ results To get the data, the author made two survey questionnaires: one for students and the other for teachers Besides, testing (listening testing) was also included The findings from the study

revealed that a lot of teachers have already used stories in teaching and they showed their positive attitude toward stories However, they claimed some difficulties when applying stories as supplementary teaching materials To students, they like stories because they can improve their skills and they can have a good time after lessons

Chapter 3: The Methodology

This chapter consists of five parts First, there will be the definition and characteristics of an action research Second, the research questions will be presented Third, it is the description of the data collection instruments Fourth, there will be the description of the setting where the study takes place and the description of the participants The last part will be the procedure of the study

3.1 What is action research?

Action research is now becoming increasingly popular in language education It

is a process in which some decisions about the teachers' future practice result from problem identification and analysis on daily practice

Action research involves a self-reflective, systematic and critical approach to enquiry by participants who are simultaneously members of the context in which the research takes place The aim of action research is to identify ' problematic' situations

or issues that participants consider worth investigating in order to bring about informed changes in practice (Cohen & Manion, 1994)

Burn (1994) identified some essential features that help to distinguish action research from other forms of educational research:

1 It is small-scale, conceptualized and local in character, identifying and investigating teaching-learning issues within specific situations

2 It evolves evaluation and reflection aimed at bringing about continuing changes in practice

3 It is participatory, providing opportunities for communities of participants

to investigate collaboratively issues of concern within their social situation

4 It is based on data collection and analysis which become the basis for changes in practice

Action research is selected for this research because of the following reasons: Action research is advantageous in many ways Glanz (1991) points out that, in the first place, it is feasible because the research is done by the practitioner (the researcher) in his/her own practical context and situation Although it is done in reasonable time, action research brings immediate benefits to teaching practice In addition, he states that action research directly affects a teacher' practice and enable him /her to renew the classrooms and promote instructional improvement Finally, all the stages of action research are implemented in a strict order which allows educators

to systematically address to topics and issues that affect teaching and learning in the classroom

With the above important reasons, an action research was selected to fulfill the study

3.2 Action research questions

This action research aims at answering the following research questions:

1 What are the students' problems and causes of the problems in reading lesson?

2 What are students' attitude and preferences for the using short story in teaching reading?

a How do they find the short story reading activities that teacher applied?

b What benefits do they think the short story reading activities bring them?

c What short story reading activities do they like most to comprehend the story more effectively?

3 Does the using short story in teaching reading help students improve their reading comprehension?

3.3 Data collection instruments

3.3.1 Questionnaires

Questionnaires are an effective way of information gathering about some

aspects of learners "such as beliefs, attitudes, motivation and preferences" as pointed out by Richards (1990)

It is very convenient to carry out questionnaires Firstly, the researcher does not have to spend much time and money on them and they can analyze the data from questionnaires quickly Secondly, students can complete the information very easily Thirdly, the attitudes can be gathered by questionnaires

Questionnaire 1 was given to the students to investigate the causes of the students' low comprehension in reading after the teacher identified the problem Fifty questionnaires were given to the students and collected in class after 30 minutes Questionnaire 1 consists of 7questions

Question 1 collected information about the students' attitude toward the reading skill

Question 2 -4 collected information about the real learning and teaching reading situation in class 10A3 Question 2 investigated factors that the students think may affect their reading comprehension in reading lesson Question 3 asked the students to give their opinion about the reading text in the book English 10 that they are studying Question 4 sought for the information about the way that the students often deal with factors cause difficulties in their reading comprehension or activities that they found should be used to help improve reading comprehension

Question 5-7 sought for the information about the students' extra reading and their attitude toward the using short story in teaching reading

Question 5 investigated the students' preferences of extra reading materials Question 6 asked the students to give their opinion about the using short story and its benefits in improving reading comprehension

Question 7 asked the students' opinion about short story reading activities that the teacher may use in teaching reading

3.3.2 Interviews

Kvale (1996) states that interviews are particularly useful research method for getting in deep information about a specific research issue or question He supposes that this is a personal form of research issue or question He supposes that this is a personal form of research and the interview works directly with the respondents, the information about opinions or impressions are often generally more easily to collect through oral interviews

Nunan (1992) characterized interviews in terms of their degree of formality In

an unstructured interview, the interviewee is allowed to talk freely with little intervention from the interviewer In a semi-structured interview, the interviewer does not prepare questions in advance but can control the scope of the talk be raising a topic or an issue Predetermined questions are only needed in a structured interview which is mostly a "questions and answers" session

In this study, one interview was carried out with some English teachers at My Hao high school In this interview, the researcher would like to ask them about the using extra reading activities especially short story in teaching reading and to investigate the difficulties they met in their teaching reading

3.3.3 Observations

Observations are referred to as the way of information collection about teaching and learning rather than an evaluation although observations and evaluations are

related They are not like supervision, inspection or teacher-training They concern our own professional development and the improvement of teaching and learning in our own classrooms (Wallace, 1998) suggests that choosing an observation scheme which is suitable with the purpose of the research help the observer to describe students' work more precisely and collect information more easily

Classroom observation was chosen as one of the tools to conduct the study as according to Wallagce (1998: 103), it is a good method to do action research He also pointed out that: " the focus of the observation can be ourselves as teacher: the techniques we use, management procedures and so on The focus can be on our students: the way they work, the way they interact, their on-task and off-task behavior and so on."

Sixteen observations were carried out during the lessons to see whether the reading teacher used short story in teaching reading or not and what activities were used to check students reading comprehension through those short stories They were also used to investigate the students' participant in those activities as well as to see whether the using short story in teaching reading help improve students' reading comprehension or not (Appendix 4)

3.3.4 Pre-test and post-test (Appendix 7)

The pre-test is the first term test of checking students' reading comprehension taken from My Hao high school’s test library The test consists of two reading texts with the topics that the students have learnt in the first term and there are four exercises to check students' vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension ability after learning eight units in the first term The test was taken before the time of action plan implementation

The post-test is the second term test of checking students' reading comprehension taken from My Hao high school’s test library The test consists of two reading texts with the topics that the students have learnt in the second term and there are four exercises to check students' vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension ability after learning eight units in the second term The test was taken after the time of action plan implementation

The format of the test and the kinds of exercises are designed the same for each term test Only the information asked and checked are different according to the different reading topics in each term So the researcher should be sure that the tests

Through the two tests, the researcher can find the differences in the students' reading comprehension; compare the results before and after the time of doing action plan

3.4 The setting and the participants

My Hao high school, and have finished eight units of the text book English 10 (Hoang Van Van et al, 2007) In the second term they continue with the reading texts in this text book

3.4.3 The observer

The observer of the research was a fifteen-year experienced teacher of reading

at My Hao high school She has been recognized as a good English teacher for many years She was invited to observe reading lessons of the class 10A3 during the time the researcher implemented the action plan after being introduced the aim of the research and being familiar with the observation work-sheet

3.5 Action research procedure

The process of doing action research

Finger 2: The process of doing action research (Somekh in McBride (1989)) 3.5.1 Identifying a problem

What was the students' problem?

After teaching class 10A3 for a semester, the researcher realized that the students were not motivated in the reading lessons As a result, most of them could not answer the comprehension questions after reading so they did not comprehend the reading well after reading lessons

3.5.2 Collecting data

What were the causes for the students' problem?

In this step, the main causes for the students' low comprehension in reading lessons were identified with questionnaire 1 for the students as presented in 3.3.1, the class observations and interviews with other reading teachers as in 3.3.2 was conducted to check the real ability of the information from the Questionnaires

3.5.3 Analyzing data and generating hypothesis

What was the research hypothesis?

After the information from questionnaire 1 for the students, the class observations, the interview with other reading teachers at My Hao high school, the

vocabulary, background knowledge and motivation for reading Theoretically, one of the things a teacher can do to help students with the problem is providing them the extra reading materials that they are interested in and suit with their language level In specific, those materials are short stories Therefore, the researcher planned to check the assumption that if the short story reading activities were applied in teaching reading, the students' reading comprehension was expected to increase

3.5.4 Planning action

What was the plan of action steps?

As the students problem was low comprehension, an action plan of using short story in teaching reading with the aim at raising students' interest in reading and improving their reading comprehension was developed The action plan was based on the theoretical background knowledge of the role of extensive reading and the students’ preferences for extra reading materials It was expected that short story reading activities provided for the students to work in could help the students widen their knowledge and vocabulary as well as raise their interest in reading In the action plan, the students were provided short stories which they are fond of combining with reading comprehension tasks that students find most useful to understand the story The selection of short story to be done depended on the topic that students are going

to learn, students’ knowledge, interests and levels of proficiency These short stories will be found and selected by the teacher though the World Wide Web such as http://ezinearticles.com/?Short-Stories-for-High-School-Students&id=346100 http://www.helium.com/items/661125-short-stories-environmental-stories-for-children

http://www.short-stories.co.uk

http://www Storiesmania.net/community/

http://www.rongchang.com/qa2/

3.5.5 Implementing the action plan

How was the action steps implemented?

The action plan was implemented for 16 weeks from week one to week sixteen

of the second term The subjects were the students of class 10A3 at My Hao high school The teacher was the researcher of the study Besides, one more teacher was invited to observe the class in the first period of each unit during the time of action plan implementation During the sixteen weeks of the action plan implementation the students were provided with different short stories and comprehension tasks that

correspond with the topic of the reading in the text book, students’ knowledge, interests and levels of proficiency (Appendix 6)

3.5.6 Collecting data to monitor change

What was the students’ reading comprehension like after action plan implementation?

After sixteen weeks of action plan implementation, some data about the students’ attitude and opinion about the using short story in teaching reading were gathered through questionnaire 2 and the class observation checklists in which the students’ comprehension was objectively assessed by another observer She had the observation sheet for her observation including the way the teacher taught the students, the reading short story activities the teacher applied and the students’ attitudes towards the teacher’s activities their involvement in the activities, their reading comprehension performance and their interaction with each other while completing the reading tasks

3.5.7 Analyzing data and evaluating the change

What were the results and recommendations for further study?

The action research was evaluated based on the results collected from the post data From the findings of the action research evaluation, some recommendations were made

Summary

In this chapter the research method and its different data collection instruments were presented The reasons for the method selection were also discussed The pre-data collection procedure, the implementation of the action plan, and the post-data collection procedure were conducted in a strict order After the pre-data were analyzed, the causes of the students’ low reading comprehension were sought Then one action plan of using short story in teaching reading was developed and implemented during the sixteen weeks of the study Based on the analyzed results from the action plan implementation and the post data collected after sixteen weeks of action plan implementation, the action research was evaluated

In conclusion, action research was chosen to be the research method of this study because action research can help to identify problems, solve the problems, and evaluate the solutions, which are exactly what the researcher wanted to do

Chapter 4: The result 4.1 Pre-data

4.1.1 Data from questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1)

The researcher carried out the first questionnaire in order to get information about the students' attitude and preferences toward reading and the using short story in teaching reading to find out the causes of the students' low comprehension in reading lessons Beside, other relevant information was also collected The results of Questionnaire 1 were presented as follow:

Question 1: Students' attitude toward reading skill

Very important

Chart 1: Students' attitude toward reading skill

Question 1 explored the students' attitude towards reading skill A majority of students (96%) had positive attitude to reading The result showed that most of the students are aware of the importance of the reading skill in language study Many students (50%) told that reading skill gives them chance to get new information A majority of students (72%) thought that reading skill gives them opportunities for language practice, grammar and vocabulary review About (24%) said that they could extend their knowledge in many other fields through reading skill 38% of the students thought that they could expand and enrich their vocabulary through reading skill Only two students (4%) did not realize the importance of reading skill The explanation for such negative attitude was that he thought only speaking and listening

skill are important in improving communicative skill

Question 2: Factors affecting students' reading comprehension

20 54

Chart 2: Factors affecting students’ reading comprehension

Chart 2 represents factors which may affect students' comprehension when dealing with reading tasks There are several elements that can be counted on The most influential factors belong to the limited capacity of vocabulary 64% of the students find that if they experience lots of new or difficult vocabulary from the text, their comprehension of the reading will surely be decreased The next one (60%) is the lack of background knowledge The students find that if the topics of the text are too strange or they have never read about the topic of the text before, it will be very difficult for them to comprehend the text 27out of 50 students (54%) say that the reading texts are not interesting enough to motivate them to read Only 20% of the students think that their inappropriate reading strategies influence their reading comprehension Some other (8%) suggest that the long reading text and the time limitation also have great impact on their comprehension

In short, the factors affecting students' reading comprehension when dealing with reading text can be diminished if students are familiar with the reading topic and they are interested in reading lesson

Question 3: Students' comment about reading text in English 10

B Effective in helping students to improve reading comprehension.

A Suitable with students' language level.

Chart 3: Students' comment about reading text in English 10

Question 3 Asks students to give their opinion about the reading text in the English 10 that they are studying Most of students (70%) show that the large vocabulary and background knowledge prevent them from comprehending the text More than half of students (58%) claim that the reading texts are not very successful

in increasing their interesting in reading Only 26% of the students find out the reading texts are effective in helping students to improve reading comprehension and

9 students (18%) say that the reading texts are suitable with their language level 12%

of the students blame that the reading texts are too long and difficult for them to comprehend

In conclusion, Most of the students find that the reading texts in English 10 have too large vocabulary and background knowledge and they are not interesting enough to motivate the students in reading lesson

Question 4: Students' opinions about how to improve their reading comprehension?

B.Students should read more to enrich their owns vocabulary and background knowledge.

A More activities should be provided to raises students' interest in reading.

Chat 4: Students' opinions about how to improve their reading comprehension?

Question 4 asks students their opinions about what should be done to improve their reading comprehension More than a half (56%) of the students agrees with idea

of providing more activities to raise students' interest in reading 60% of them approve for idea that students should read more outside classroom to enrich their own vocabulary and background knowledge However, the highest percentage (64%) approve for idea of teachers' role in helping students to find suitable extra reading materials Seven other students (14%) say that students should check all new vocabulary before learning reading lessons

The above numbers show that the using reading text in English 10 only is not enough to improve students reading comprehension Besides reading text in English

10, extra reading materials and extensive reading activities are also very important to students' reading comprehension

Question 5: Students' preferences to different kinds of extra reading material in English

stories, English books are often read by the students 18 of 50 students prefer reading books but most of books that they are reading are English grammar books

Question 6: Students' opinion about benefits of using short stories in learning reading

70

30

76 62

38

0 0

F Your own opinion

E It's not effective in improving comprehension skill

D It is useful for practicing reading comprehension skill.

C It is useful for enriching vocabulary and background knowledge

B It is unable to enhance the students' motivation for reading

A It will raise students' interest in reading.

Chart 6: Students' opinion about benefits of using short stories in learning reading

Question 6 asks students information about benefits of using short stories in learning reading Most of the students realize the importance and benefits of using short story in learning reading However, 15 students think that short story is unable

to enhance their motivation for reading and 19 students say that it's not effective in improving comprehension skill In fact, these students are bad ones in reading lesson, they are afraid of reading lessons and they are often lazy and passive in reading activities

Question 7: Students' preferences for reading short story activities

Chart 7: Students' preferences for reading short story activities