4 ABSTRACT In an attempt to investigate teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading skills to grade 10 students using the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” at Nha Nam High School, the research was aimed at finding out: (1) the students’ background of English and their attitudes toward learning speaking skills; (2) the problems the teachers might encounter in the teaching process of the skills; (3) factors causing their difficulties and their suggested solutions. Specially, the study has been conducted in the form of a survey research, with the informants of the study being five English teachers at Nha Nam High School. The survey questionnaire completed by the teachers and students, classroom observation and interview were the main instruments employed for the data collection. The research reveals that the students’ lack of knowledge, including linguistic and cultural background knowledge, the teachers’ teaching methods, some difficulties from the textbook all cause problems for the teachers in the teaching process.
Besides, the data from the study confirm the fact that the students’ poor attitudes towards the importance of reading skills in learning English contributes to the problems in teaching the skills. In addition, the school’s lack of conductive facilities is also made the situation worse. Finally, the data are taken into account when the research discusses the results and suggests some solutions to overcome those difficulties. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: The results of classroom observations 18 Table 2: Teachers’ attitude towards reading skills 20 Table 3: Description of teachers’ opinions on the sections for reading in 21 textbook “Tieng Anh 10”.
Table 4: Teachers’ focus when teaching a reading text. 21 Table 5: Teachers’ perception of the students’ comprehension 22 Table 6: Description of teachers’ problems in teaching reading skills 23 Table 7: Description of the teachers’ solutions to deal with the difficulties 24 Table 8: Students’ attitudes towards reading skill 25 Table 9: Description of students’ opinions on the sections for reading in English 10 26 Table 10: Students’ focus when learning a reading text. 26 29 Table 11: Description of students’ problems in learning reading skills 30 Table 12: Students’ views of sources of difficulties. 31 Table 13: Students’ expectation of teachers’ solutions to their difficulties.
Chart 1: The way teachers ask their students to read the text. 22 Chart 2: Teachers’ expectation of the students in the post-reading 23 Chart 3: Students’ pre-reading activities. 27 Chart 4: Students’ while-reading activities 28 Chart 5: Factors affecting students’ comprehension of the text 28 Chart 6: Students’ expectation in the post-reading stage. 29 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I: INTRODUCTION.
Rationale of the Study. Aims of the Study. Scope and Significance of the Study. Method of the Study.
Organization of the Study. 3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. The Nature of Reading.
What is Reading and Reading Comprehension?. Effective Reading Comprehension and Reading Comprehension Skills. What is Effective Reading Comprehension?. Reading Comprehension Skills.
Teaching Reading Comprehension. Relationship between Reading and Other Skills. The Roles of the Teacher and the Students in a Reading Lesson. The Roles of the Teacher.
The Role of the Students. The Three Stages of a Reading Lesson. Pre-reading Stage. While-reading Stage.
Post-reading Stage. Difficulties in Teaching Reading. Reading Skill Problems. Cultural Background Knowledge.
11 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. The Current Situation of Teaching and Learning the Textbook at Nha Nam High School .1 Introduction to Nha Nam High School and its Students. An Overview of the Textbook “Tieng Anh 10”. Contents of the Textbook.
13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Teachers and Methods of teaching. Data Collection Procedure. 16 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Presentation of Statistical Results. Classroom Observations and Interview. Questionnaire for teachers. Questionnaire for students.
Discussion of the Findings. Difficulties from Students. Students’ Attitudes towards Reading Skill. Students’ Lack of Knowledge.
Difficulties from Teachers. Difficulties from the Textbook. Improving Students’ Reading Interest and Motivation. Making Reading Lessons Funny.
Making Reading Skill Useful. Training Students to Become Efficient Readers. Making Students Aware of the nature of the reading process. Promoting Students with a Variety of Reading Strategies.
Varying Reading Activities. Improving Teacher’s Classroom Techniques. Teachers’ Flexibility in Using the Textbook. Equipping Teaching Facilities.
39 PART III: CONCLUSION. Summary of the Study. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study. 42 APPENDIXES LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the Study English has experienced its popularity in Vietnam over the last few decades. The demand for English even gets stronger when Vietnam fosters its international relations. English, in parallel with the knowledge of some other fields, turns out to be a key to the door into the bustling world. That is why English is now widely taught in almost all education institutions, at every level.
At secondary schools, the teaching and learning of that international language has been recently paid great attention to. When teaching English, the teacher teaches his students not only the English language but also its usage. In the English textbook “Tieng Anh 10”, reading is the first skill presented in each unit. This proves the important role of reading.
According to Carrell (1984:1), “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. Unfortunately, teaching and learning reading skills at high schools is still far from satisfaction. Despite the efforts of the teachers and students, the teachers often find their students’ reading skills disappointing, which do not meet the requirements of the textbook. At Nha Nam High School, where the author works, all of the English teachers have the same problems.
They have to confront some major obstacles in reading, such as: students’ habits of word-by-word reading, excessive focus on details rather than main ideas, poor vocabulary and limited background knowledge, etc. If those difficulties are not found out and no solutions to overcome are given, it is certain that reading lessons can not be successful and it even becomes worse. In this situation, the teachers need to take a serious look at the teaching and learning of English in general and the teaching and learning of the reading skills in particular so as to suggest suitable techniques to enable the teaching and learning of the reading comprehension at high school to be more effective. Being a teacher of English at Nha Nam High School, the researcher wishes to give a hand in promoting reading skills for her tenth-form students.
This matter of fact has offered her a chance to conduct a study on “Teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading skills to grade 10th students at Nha Nam High School”. It is hoped that this study may offer the English teachers at schools in general and the English techers at Nha Nam high school in particular the ways to teach reading skills more effectively. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Aims of the Study The main purpose of the study is to research on difficulties experienced by the teachers of English at Nha Nam High School in teaching reading skills to grade tenth students with the textbook “Tieng Anh 10”.
And then some possible solutions are offered to help the teachers overcome these difficulties so as to make an improvement in our teaching and learning reading skills at high schools. The specific objectives of the study are: ● To investigate the students’ attitude towards speaking skills in their English learning. ● To examine the activities and techniques applied by the teachers at Nha Nam high school ● To identify the teachers’ major difficulties in teaching reading skills and examine the causes. ● To offer possible solutions to the difficulties.
Research Questions The above aims of the study can be realized by the following research questions: (i) What are the current methods and techniques of teaching reading skills used by teachers at Nha Nam High School? (ii) What are the difficulties experienced by teachers and students in teaching and learning reading skills at Nha Nam High School? (iii) What are the activities and techniques to be used to teach reading effectively at Nha Nam High School? 4. Scope and Significance of the Study This study is limited to: - the 10th form students at Nha Nam High School; - the teachers of English at Nha Nam High School; and - reading comprehension in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10”. The findings and suggested solutions most appropriately applied to the teachers of English as well as 10th grade students at Nha Nam High School. That is, the teachers and the students will be able to find ways to improve their process of teaching and learning reading skills.
Method of the Study The study was designed to use a number of methods to achieve its aims. Firstly, classroom observation was carried out to investigate the reality of difficulties the teachers LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 confronted in their teaching reading skills. Then, two types of survey questionnaire were conducted with informants of teachers of English and students randomly selected from 8 classes at Nha Nam High School. In addition to questionnaire, informal interviews with the informants were also employed.
Organization of the Study The study is organized as follows: Part I, Introduction, presents the rationale for the study, the aims, research questions, scope and significance, methodology and organization of the study. Part II, Development, consists of the following chapters: Chapter 1, Literature review, presents the theoretical background of reading skills. Chapter 2, Looks at the current situations of teaching reading skills at Nha Nam High School. Chapter 3, Research Methodology, focuses on the participants, the instruments and data collection procedure.
Chapter 4, Discussion of the findings, discusses the data which was collected at the second term of the 2010-2011 academic year at Nha Nam high School based on questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews. Chapter 5, Solutions, makes some pedagogical suggestions for teachers and students at Nha Nam high School. Part III, Conclusion, summarizes all the issues in the research and suggests some ideas for further study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter is aimed at providing a theoretical background to this study.
The review of issues most relevant to the focus of the study will be included: concepts of reading and reading comprehension, reading process, reading difficulties for foreigner learners. The Nature of Reading 1. What is Reading and Reading Comprehension? Reading has been investigated by linguists, psychologists, educators and second language researchers, but an exact definition of reading really causes much confusion because different authors define the terms in different ways. Herein, I would like to mention some definitions of reading extracted from different sources on the theme.
To give the definition, William (1984: 4), Nuttall (1996: 3), and Frank (1985:104) share the same view that reading accounts for understanding what has been written. Also, Goodman (1971 cited in Ha, 2003:6), states that: “reading is psycholinguistic process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by writer as a graphic display.” Ur’s simple definition is “reading means reading and understanding” (Ur, 1996: 138). Harmer (1989: 190) seems to be interested in the notion of reading. He says “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain.
The eyes receive message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message.” Moreover, Rubin, and Thomson, (1994: 91) offers another definition of reading: “Reading is an active information-seeking process in which readers relate information in the text to what they already know”.