VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------ HA THI HOAI LAM Adapting while-reading tasks in English 10 to improve reading ability of Grade-10 students at Yen Dinh 1 High School (Thiế t chỉnh các nhiệm vụ học tập trong khi đọc để nâng cao khả năng đọc hiểu cho học sinh lớp 10 tại trường THPT Yên Định 1) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 Hanoi – 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------ HA THI HOAI LAM Adapting while-reading tasks in English 10 to improve reading ability of Grade-10 students at Yen Dinh 1 High School (Thiế t chỉnh các nhiệm vụ học tập trong khi đọc để nâng cao khả năng đọc hiểu cho học sinh lớp 10 tại trường THPT Yên Định 1) M. MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 Supervisor: Nguyen Huyen Minh, M.A Hanoi – 2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS vii PART I. Aims of the study 1 3.
Methods of the study 2 5. Scope of the study 2 6. Significance of the study 2 7. Design of the study 3 PART II.
Reading and teaching reading skills 4 1. Definition of reading 4 1. Types of reading 4 1. Characteristics of an effective reader 5 1.
Teaching reading skills 6 1. Approaches to teaching reading 6 1. Common factors in teaching and learning reading 6 1. Stages of a reading lesson 8 1.
What is a task? 12 1. Definition of reading tasks 12 1. Features of reading tasks 13 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Components of reading tasks 13 1.
Types of Reading Tasks 15 CHAPTER 2. The setting of the study 16 2. Data collection instruments 19 2. Questionnaire for students 19 2.
Questionnaire for teachers 20 2. Class observation 20 CHAPTER 3. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 21 3. Data analysis and discussion of the students’ survey questionnaire 21 3.
Students’ attitude towards reading skill 21 3. Students’ attitude towards while-reading tasks 22 3. The frequency of using while-reading techniques designed by teachers 24 3. Students’ difficulties when learning reading 27 3.
Students’ effort for improving reading ability 28 3. Students’ preferences for participation in while-reading tasks 29 3. Students’ expectation towards teachers’ reading techniques 29 3. Data analysis and discussion of the teachers’ survey questionnaire 30 3.
Teachers’ attitude towards reading skill 30 3. Teachers’ attitude towards while-reading tasks 30 3. The frequency of using while-reading techniques 31 3. Teachers’ difficulties when teaching reading 33 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Teachers’ effort for improving reading ability 34 3. Data analysis and discussion of the observation 35 CHAPTER 4. MAJOR FINDINGS AND SOME SUGGESTED APPROACHES FOR ADAPTING WHILE-READING TASKS TO IMPROVE READING ABILITY FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS 37 4. Research question 1: What are the teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards while-reading tasks? 37 4.
Research question 2: What have teachers and students done to improve reading ability? 37 4. Some suggested approaches for adapting while-reading tasks to improve reading ability for Grade-10 students 38 4. Raising the students’ awareness of the importance of reading in learning grammar and vocabulary 38 4. Training students into strategic readers 39 4.
Adapting the textbook 39 PART III. Limitations and suggestions for further study 40 REFERENCES 41 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 IV APPENDIX 3 VI LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS 1. List of tables Table 1. Students’ attitude towards while-reading exercises Table 2.
Problems students face when learning reading Table 3. Students’ expectation towards teachers’ reading techniques Table 4. Teachers’ attitude towards while-reading tasks Table 5. The frequency of using while-reading exercises or activities Table 6.
Problems teachers face when teaching reading Table 7. Teachers’ activities to help students overcome difficulties 2. List of charts Chart 1. Students’ attitude towards the importance of reading skill Chart 2.
Students’ attitude towards the benefit of reading Chart 3. Students’ attitude towards the importance of while-reading tasks Chart 4. Students’ opinions on while-reading tasks Chart 5. Students’ reluctance of doing while-reading tasks Chart 6.
The frequency of using while-reading exercises or activities designed by teachers Chart 7. The frequency of limiting the time of doing exercises Chart 8. Students’ ways of overcoming difficulties Chart 9. Students’ preferences for participation in while-reading tasks Chart 10.
The frequency of designing while-reading exercises or activities Chart 11. Time allowance in doing reading exercises LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Rationale Nowadays, the acquisition of English language is a priority for millions of people in Vietnam. At high schools, English has become a compulsory subject in the state examination and it is one of three subjects for some universities‟ entrance exam.
Besides the aim of passing their exams and getting some further studies for their future life, all students have a desire to integrate into the culture, the civilization, the country, and the people of Great Britain and of other English speaking countries. Having taught English to high school students for over 10 years, the writer of this study realizes that reading is not only an important means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place because the reading skill offers learners a wide range of interesting information as well as a variety of language expressions and structures, which are of great usefulness for developing other skills. However, students often have some difficulties, especially in the while-reading stage of the three-staged reading lesson: pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading. Actually, while- reading tasks occupy most of the time in a reading lesson.
Completing while-reading tasks means students can understand the writer‟s purpose and clarify the text‟s content in detail. Students may lack of vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge or strategies of doing exercises. To help students overcome these difficulties, teachers have applied many teaching approaches. Unfortunately, the results are not very satisfactory for various reasons.
This fact has encouraged the author to investigate into teachers‟ and students‟ opinions on while-reading tasks, what they have done with while-reading tasks to improve reading ability and to give some suggested approaches for adapting while-reading tasks. The researcher hopes that the study “Adapting while-reading tasks in English 10 to improve reading ability of Grade-10 students at Yen Dinh 1 High School” will be helpful for the author and other reading teachers in some way to find appropriate approaches to help their students improve reading ability. Aims of the study The purposes of the study are to investigate while-reading tasks employed by the teachers at Yen Dinh 1 High School and to give some suggestions for adapting while-reading tasks to improve reading ability of Grade-10 students at Yen Dinh 1 High School. The specific aims of the research are as follows: LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 To investigate teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards the while-reading tasks in English 10 textbook.
To find out how teachers help students with the while-reading tasks. To explore the need to adapt the while-reading tasks to reduce the students‟ difficulties. What are the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards while-reading tasks? 2. To what extent do teachers adapt the while-reading tasks to help the students comprehend the text better? 4.
Methods of the study The study was carried out on the basis of material collection, survey questionnaire and class observation. In the first place, for the theoretical basis, a lot of reference materials on the reading skill, reading tasks have been gathered, analyzed and synthesized thoroughly with the due consideration for the teachers‟ and students‟ teaching and learning situations. Secondly, for the practical basis, questionnaires and on-the-spot observations are carried out with the teachers and students to gather the most reliable data for the thesis. Scope of the study Studying tasks and their effects on the second language have been paid attention by many researchers recently.
This study only investigates adapting while-reading tasks in English 10 to improve reading ability of Grade-10 students at Yen Dinh 1 High School. Because of the limited time and within an M. minor thesis, the researcher tends to identify teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards while-reading tasks, examine approaches and activities used by teachers and students‟ preferences and demands; then suggests some approaches for teachers to adapt while-reading tasks to improve students‟ reading ability. Significance of the study The study has been carried out to search for a better and more effective ways of adapting while-reading tasks.
Its findings hopefully would help Grade-10 students find out suitable ways to improve their reading ability. Regarding teachers, the study would arouse their flexibility in using methods to develop their students‟ reading ability. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Design of the study The thesis is divided into three parts: the introduction, the development and the conclusion.
The introduction deals with the rationale, aims, scope, methods, significance and design of the study. The development consists of four chapters. Chapter 1, Literature Review, is intended to give some theoretical background related to reading, teaching reading skills and reading tasks. Chapter 2 presents the methodology used in the study including situation analysis, participants and data collection instruments.
Chapter 3 shows an analysis and discussion on the data collected from the questionnaires and on-the-spot observations. The last chapter offers some major findings, suggested approaches for adapting while-reading tasks. The conclusion is a review of the study, limitations of the study and suggestions for further research. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 PART II.
Reading and teaching reading skills 1. Definitions of reading Reading is a huge topic, potentially beset with myriad difficulties not easily addressed in a book of this length (Dean, 2000:2). Goodman (1971:135) defines reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader, a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is viewed as “a cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming.” Ur‟s preliminary definition is “reading means reading and understanding” (1996:138). Harmer (1989:153) defined “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain.
The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages.” Moreover, Rubin and Thompson (1994:91) also defined reading as: “an active information- seeking process in which readers relate information in the text to what they already know”. From this point of view, the readers‟ knowledge of the language and knowledge of the world is of importance to their reading success. To sum up, what all the linguists had in common is that reading involves a variety of skills and reading usually means comprehending written language so when understanding breaks down, reading actually has not occurred. Types of reading Reading is very important to our life.
However, the reasons for reading differ from one person to another. As a result, the ways we read are also different. In other words, the purposes of reading determine the ways or the styles of reading. Nuttall (2000:38) indicates two main types of reading, namely, intensive and extensive reading.
For him, these are not just two contrasting ways of reading but an infinitive variety of interrelated and overlapping strategies. Actually, intensive and extensive readings are complementary and both are necessary. Intensive reading Intensive reading “involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the students to focus on the text" (Nuttall, 2000:38). In the view of Brown LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 (1990:297) intensive reading “is usually a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage”.
Grellet (1981:4) states that “Intensive reading means reading short texts to extract specific information.