VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ THỦY USING ONLINE ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS‟ READING SKILLS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN VIETNAM (Sử dụng báo tiếng Anh mạng để nâng cao kỹ năng đọc cho học sinh: Nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm tại mô ̣t trường trung ho ̣c phổ thông ở Việt Nam) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ THỦY USING ONLINE ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS‟ READING SKILLS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN VIETNAM (Sử dụng báo tiếng Anh mạng để nâng cao kỹ năng đọc cho học sinh: Nghiên cứu cải tiến sư phạm tại mô ̣t trường trung ho ̣c phổ thông ở Việt Nam) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Dương Thị Nụ HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I, Nguyễn Thị Thủy, hereby confirm that this minor thesis entitled ―Using online English newspapers to improve students‘ reading skills.
An action research project at a high school in Vietnam‖ is my own study in fulfilment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. And it has not been published or submitted for any other degrees. Hanoi, 2017 Nguyễn Thi Thuy ̣ ̉ i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of this graduation thesis, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to many people. First and foremost, I am heartily thankful to my supervisor, Dr.
Dương Thị Nụ, who gave me precious advice, critical comments and great encouragement without which this thesis would not have been completed. I am also deeply indebted to the lecturers at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their useful lectures and enthusiasm during my course. In addition, my thanks go to the administrators, my colleagues and students at Minh Khai high school for their willingness and enthusiasm to participate in this project. Last but not least, I would like to express my special gratitude to my family who have always encouraged and supported me during my writing of the thesis.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This action research was conducted to test the ideas that using online English newspapers improves students‘ reading skills and cultivates their positive attitude towards extensive reading (ER). The participants were 40 students at grade 12 at Minh Khai high school, Đức Thọ district, Hà Tĩnh province. Reading materials were selected from a local online English newspaper, vietnamnews at http://vietnamnews. Then, 16 reading tasks were designed with the adaption from academic reading tasks suggested by Pauline Cullen et al (2014) in ―The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS‖.
The whole project was carried out in 10 weeks. A pre-test and post-test were used before and after the application of the ER program. Also, a questionnaire with three parts was administered to students before and after the project. In addition, observation sheets were provided to two English teachers to observe students‘ attitudes.
The achieved results showed significant improvement in students‘ reading skills, namely skimming and scanning and most of the students expressed their positive attitudes towards the ER program. However, to create a habit of reading extensively with an online English newspaper for students, there seems to be a need of consideration of some factors like time or a variety of local online English newspapers for students to choose. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF FIGURES. vii LIST OF CHARTS. viii LIST OF TABLES.
ix PART A - INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Method of the study.
Design of the study .5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definitions of key terms. Online English newspapers. Theoretical framework: Extensive reading (ER).
Definition of ER. Benefits of ER. Principles of running an ER program. Research on using English newspapers for reading.
Studies on students‘ attitudes .19 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Studies on skimming and scanning skills. Reasons to use action research. Action research procedures.
Data collection instruments. Data collection method. Data analysis procedures .34 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. Results of the tests .2 Results of questionnaires and teachers‘ observation sheets.
Results of questionnaires. Results of teachers‘ observation. Limitations of the study. Recommendations for further research.
XV v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CALL Computer-Assisted Language Learning ER Extensive Reading EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language H0 Null hypothesis i input P Probability value sig. Significance level SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Std. Deviation Standard Deviation vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: http://vietnamnews. 28 Figure 2: Eileen Ferrance‟s Action Research Cycle.
32 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Percentage of students practising reading outside class. 25 Chart 2: Students‟ opinions of the difficulty of reading skills. 25 Chart 3: Students‟ opinions of factors causing difficulty in reading. 26 Chart 4: Students‟ opinions about the old ER program.
26 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Types of reading tasks. 28 Table 2: The ER program with vietnamnews. 30 Table 3: Results of the pre-test. 35 Table 4: Results of the post-test.
35 Table 5: Results of two tests. 36 Table 6: Paired sample correlation. 36 Table 7: Paired sample T-test. 37 Table 8: Results of the questionnaire (Question 12 to question 18).
38 Table 9: Results of teachers‟ observation. 40 ix LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A - INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Due to the growth of globalization, English has become a lingua franca and is considered as a means to bring about development and prosperity for a nation. Vietnam is trying to integrate into the globalized world and placing great emphasis on teaching and learning English.
English, therefore, is a compulsory subject in the National Curriculum. In Vietnam‘s National Foreign Languages 2020 Project, the Ministry of Education and Training requires English language teachers to improve their level and innovate teaching methods. Therefore, all innovative English language teaching methods are highly appreciated. Along with grammar and pronunciation, the English syllabus focuses on four skills- reading, speaking, listening and writing.
This research focuses on an innovative way to teach reading skills with the application of online English language newspapers. Every day everyone needs to read a variety of materials from a book to a comic to obtain necessary information or to relax. Reading, therefore, plays an important role in our daily life. Like other high schools in Vietnam, the teaching of reading skills at Minh Khai high school is text-based.
During each of three years at school, students learn sixteen periods of reading with controlled topics. At Minh Khai high school, students in grade 12 are given two more periods per week to improve their English and get a good result in their graduation examination in which English is a compulsory subject. Among four skills, reading seems to be the most challenging. For students, they lack vocabulary and background knowledge to complete reading tasks.
For teachers, choosing suitable reading materials and designing appropriate reading tasks for their students are big problems. During my teaching process, I observed that students‘ reading habit is to translate reading passages into Vietnamese in order to find the answers to the given questions. In addition, results from 45 minute tests showed that most of my students were weak at required reading skills in the syllabus such as skimming and scanning and they are ―afraid‖ of learning reading. A solution to these problems needs to be found.
1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com With up-to-date information in every field, English newspapers are really a rich source for English language teachers to teach reading (Grundy, 1993 and Sanderson, 1999). With comparison to printed English newspapers, online English newspapers are more accessible. This makes me think that using online English newspapers can improve my students‘ reading skills and help to cultivate their positive attitude towards extensive reading (ER) which is the basis to create a reading habit out-of-class. To achieve those aims, I did action research ―Using online English newspapers to improve students‘ reading skills at Minh Khai high school.
I asked my students to do a pretest and a posttest to see the improvement in their reading skills and answer a questionnaire to express their attitudes. Also, observation from two teachers was analyzed to evaluate students‘ attitudes objectively. Aims of the study There seems to be little research about using online English newspapers to improve students‘ reading skills and make them interested in learning reading, especially the research conducted with upper secondary students in Vietnam. Therefore, the findings from the study are expected to be useful for both English language teachers and upper-secondary students.
They will have a supplementary interesting way to teach and learn reading skills. As a result, teachers‘ teaching materials will be enriched and students‘ reading skills will be improved. Research questions The study aims to answer the following questions: 1. To what extent can online English newspapers help to improve students‘ reading skills? 2.
What are students‘ attitudes towards the ER program with online English newspapers? 4. Scope of the study The study was conducted in a class of 40 students in grade 12 at Minh Khai high school, most of whom are at intermediate level of reading. The study focused 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com on the using of online English newspapers to improve their reading skills, which are required in their curriculum. Eighteen articles were used to design sixteen reading tasks which focused on skimming and scanning skills.
All of the tasks are adapted from academic reading tasks introduced by Pauline Cullen, Amanda French and Vanessa Jakeman (2014) in ―The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS for Academic and General Training‖. Because the socio-cultural background knowledge plays an important part in understanding newspaper articles, the local online English newspaper, vietnamnews at vietnamnews.vn was exploited. This newspaper belongs to Vietnam News Agency and it has native English sub-editors, which contributes to the standard of languages used. Method of the study In this study, the author followed Eileen Ferrance‘s model of action research (2000) including the following steps: Step 1.
Identification of the problem area Step 2. Collection and organisation of the data Step 3. Interpretation of data Step 4. Action based on data Step 5.
Design of the study Within the scope mentioned above, the study is structured as follows: Part A - Introduction This part covers rationale, aims, scope and design of the study to introduce and appeal the reader. Part B- Development This part consists of three following chapters. Chapter 1: Literature Review -presents some theoretical background about reading, reading skills, online English newspapers, ER, and an overview of previous 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com studies on using English newspapers as an ER program and those on students‘ attitude towards ER. This chapter aims to provide the readers with background knowledge to have more understanding about the paper.