VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES #FÉA4ÐPl4eElEdoddEetbilok DAO THI HOA USING SUPPLEMENTARY READING MATERIALS WITH THE COURSE BOOK BUSINESS BASICS TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF READING TEACHING AND LEARNING FOR SECOND-YEAR STUDENTS AT BAC HA COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY Str dung tai liéu doc bo tro cho giao trinh Business Basics nham nang cao hiệu quả của việc dạy và học kỹ năng đọc cho sinh viên năm thứ hai trilờng Cao đẳng Công nghệ Bac Ha M.A MINOR THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 60 1410 Supervisor: Phan Thi Van Quyen Hanoi - 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Abstract. ii List of tables and charts. it Table of COMMS. ee cc eee tae HH HH Hà nho TY PART A: INTRODUCTION L.
Aims of the siudy 2 3. Significance of the study. Design of the study. 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
An everview of reading 4 1. Detinitions of reading comprehension. Reading skills and types of reading skitls 3 1. Definition of reading skills.
Types of reading skills. Materials development in language teaching 7 1. Detinition of language teaching materials. Processes in materials development 7 1.
Types of malcrials evaluation 8. Criteria for materials evaluation. Supplementary materials in teaching reading skills 10 1. Deñnition ofsuppÏcmertlary 1nalcTiaÏls.
cà ccssscscccscreeseeee TỔ 1. Criteria for selecting supplemientary mmateTiAls. 1Tow fo se stupplementtary rnaterials. - Tu " Summary CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1, Background to the stUổy.
nh nhàn re re 14 2. The loxtbook Business Basios Tre we 14 2. vo ecececsee ees cieeeseeeeteceeeiess 15 2. Instrument for dala collclien.
‘The questionnaire for teachers we wee 16 2. The questionnaire for studcns. Data collection procedure. HH HH ng de sao CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.
Kindings and discussion 27 3. The teachers’ and the studcrts* cvaluations of the current textbook Business Basics. ‘The teachers’ and the students’ expectations of supplementary teading materials. Suggestions for sclzcting supplementary materials.
Designing tasks and activities for reading pasSA86S. co cà ween 30 4. Sample supplementary readings: 30 PART €: CONCLUSION: 1. Conclusion of the SÑHổy,.
nọ Tnhh erresereece T7 2. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study ee BF g APPENDICES Appendix 1: Questionnaire for teachers Appendix 2: Questionnaire for students PART A: INFRODUCTION 1, Rationale Nowadays, in the time of globalization, English plays an essential rele in the increasing development of sciznce, technology, politics, economics, tourism, culture and so ơn. English language is not only considered as a means of communication but also a key to ac es the imporlant achievements of science and technology. Therefore, tcamers of English should acquire this language and teaching and learning English become popular in our country.
Among four language skills, rcading is very important in leaming a forcign language as reading helps students to widen their knowledge and understand different academic materials written in English Carrel (1981: 1) also emphasizes “for many students, roading is by Car the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. It is necessary for the second year students at Bac lla College of Technology to develop reading ability effectively because reading provides & lot of useful information as well as crich their language vocabulary ang structures. Reading will be an effective way to help students enhance their English proficiency especially their reading skills. Nevertheless, despite the teachers” and students” cfforis, the sindents al Bac Ha College of Technology have a poor teading rosull thal snakes them unintcrested in learning English in gencral and in toarning reading skill in particular, The students’ Frylish proficiency al Bac Ta College of Technology is not the same, It is due to the tact that they come from different places.
Most of them come from the countryside so they can not have preferable English learning condition. ‘The others come from towns and citiss where thoy have more eonvenicnt condition of learning English. This results in low English proticiency of the students because of their limited vocatniary and grammar. In addition, they do not have appropriate reading strategies and background knowledge.
‘Therefore, students face a lot of difficulties in reading and understanding the long texls especially the texts relating to econemic fictds which they ars studying, As a resuit, they find it hard to be successful in their reading and. they are not interested in reading With the purpose of improving their Linglish knowledge, it is very important for the leachets la provide thom as many opportmnitics to read as possible. Nullall irr the book “Teaching reading skills in a foreign language” (1982) states that “reading as a purposefidl activity, we can make feaching more purposeful and classes livelier, even in the difficult circumslances”. All the above reasons have inspired me to camy out the study on “Using Supplementary Reading Materials with the Course book Business Basics to Improve the Rfficiency of Reading Teaching and Tearing for Second-year Students at Bac Ha College of Technology”, with a hope to improve the teaching and leaming English as well as the teaching and learning reading comprehension 2.
Aims of the study ‘The purpose of the study is to tind ways of developing the effective reading materials so as to improve the teaching reading skill of the teachers as well as to enhance the students’ Jearning reading. The specific aims of this research are as follows - To find out some different cvaluations made by tcachers and students towards the textbook Business Basics, which is curently used by the secand year students at Bac Ha College of Technology - To examine the teachers’ and the students’ expectations of supplementary reading materials - To give recommendations for selecting supplementary materials 1o improve teaching reading of the Icachers as well as learning reading of ths students 3, Significance of the study ‘This study is of great importance to the author herselfas well as to all teachers of English. It helps to reinforce stuslents’ English proficicney and suggests ways lo improve the teaching of Englisli in general and reading in particular at Bac Ha College of Technology and most schools and universities that share the same mandate 4, Research questions On the basis of the problems, the following research questions were formulated to conduct this study. What are the tcachors’ and the students” evaluations of the lextbook Business Basics? processes the text in a linsar fashion.
‘The bottom-up models analyze reading as a process in which small chunks of toxt arc absorbed, analyzed, and gradually added to the next chunk until they become meaningtil. The top- down models; ‘The top- down process moves from the top, the higher - jevel mental stages, down to the (ext iiself In these models, the reading process is driven ‘by the reader's mind at work on the text (reader- driven models). The reader rather than the text is at the heart of the reading process Interactive models of the roading process arc proposad in the tight of the perecived detiviencies of both bottom-up and top- down models. Like top- down models, they are reader- driven.
‘This means the reader uses his ar her previous understanding to guess about iexl contont and as in bollom- up models, the reader is dependent upon what is in the tox! Hayes (1991) supposes that “Interactive models are more than a compromise ‘between bottom-up and top- down theories. In interactive models, different processes are thought to be responsible for providing information that is shared with other processes. The information obtained from cach type of processing is combined to determine the most appropriate interpretation of the printed pag=”. Tn brief, interactive models are more adequale than the bottom ng and top down anodels because they maximize the strong points and minimize the weak points of the use of both bottom- up and top- down models.
‘hus, the language users need combine and practice both botlom up and top- down strategies lo gain efficie cy in the reading process. Reading skills anil types of reading skills 1. Definition of reading skills Reading skill is one of the four important skills in learning language. Paris, Wasik and Tumer (1991: 611) also confirm “Reading skills refer to information — processing techniques that are automatic, whether at the level of recognizing grapheme phoneme correspondence or summarizing a story.
Skills are applied to a text unconsciously for many reasons including cxpertisc, repeated practice, and compliance with dircetions, luck, and native use”, 1.2, Types of reading skills - Skimming Skimming is used to quickly gather the most important information. (1981: 19) says “When skimming. we go through the reading material quickly in order to get the gist 11 of it, to know how it is organized, or to get an idea of the tone or the intention of the wniler™. (2000: 195) points out that “Skim reading is used to get a global impression of the content ofa text, An example would be previewing a long magazine article by reading rapidly, skipping large chunks of information, and focusing on headings and first lines of paragraphs”.
- Scanning Scamming occurs when ø reađor looks quickly through the toxt scarching for a specific pices of information or to see if the text is suitable for a specific reading purpose. (2000: 195) suggests that “Scanning involves searching rapidly through a text to find a specific point of information, for example, the tlavenl times on a timetable, Hams in a directory, ot key points in academic text”, Scanning is the reading skill we use when we want to find the answer to a specific question, Scanning is an useful reading, skill that may at first strange to a leamer who is used to reading everything in a foreign language with the same degree of attention, - Predicting Thi is an important skill of efficient readers. Predicting uses knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension as well as knowledge of the text type and purpose fo make predictions about discourse structure. Nexl, it uses knowledge about the author lo make predictions about wailing slyle, vooatndary, and content.
~ Inference inference means making use of syntactic, logical and cultural clues to discover the ancaning of unknown clements. Tf these are words, then word-formation and derivation will also play an unportant role. When dealing with a new text, it is better not to explain the difficult words to the learners, Students should be encouraged to make a guess at the amcaning of the words they do not know rather than look thom up in a dictionary. If they need to look at the dictionary to get the meaning, they should only do so after having tried to work out a solution on their own.
‘rherefore, it is very essential to develop the inference skill With the purpose of improving their Linglish knowledge, it is very important for the leachets la provide thom as many opportmnitics to read as possible. Nullall irr the book “Teaching reading skills in a foreign language” (1982) states that “reading as a purposefidl activity, we can make feaching more purposeful and classes livelier, even in the difficult circumslances”. All the above reasons have inspired me to camy out the study on “Using Supplementary Reading Materials with the Course book Business Basics to Improve the Rfficiency of Reading Teaching and Tearing for Second-year Students at Bac Ha College of Technology”, with a hope to improve the teaching and leaming English as well as the teaching and learning reading comprehension 2. Aims of the study ‘The purpose of the study is to tind ways of developing the effective reading materials so as to improve the teaching reading skill of the teachers as well as to enhance the students’ Jearning reading.
