MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES -------------- HUA THI HOAI THANH HUA THI HOAI THANH AN INVESTIGATION INTO: TEACHERS AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE USE OF AUTHENTIC TASKS TO FACILITATE MA THESIS IN EDUCATION GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS IN PLEIKU CITY MA THESIS IN EDUCATION HUE - 2011 HUE, 2011 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES -------------- HUA THI HOAI THANH AN INVESTIGATION INTO: TEACHERS AND STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE USE OF AUTHENTIC TASKS TO FACILITATE GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS IN PLEIKU CITY FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE : 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: PHAM THI HONG NHUNG, D. HUE, 2011 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------------- HỨA THỊ HOÀI THANH NGHIÃN CÆÏU NHÁÛN THÆÏC CUÍA GIAÏO VIÃN VAÐ HOÜC SINH VÃÖ VIÃÛC SÆÍ DUÛNG NHÆÎNG BAÐI TÁÛP MANG TÊNH THÆÛC TÃÚ ÂÃØ NÁNG CAO KYÎ NÀNG ÂOÜC HIÃØU CUÍA HOÜC SINH LÅÏP 11 ÅÍ THAÐNH PHÄÚ PLEIKU CHUYÊN NGÀNH: LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƢƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ : 60.10 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ GIÁO DỤC HỌC NGƢỜI HƢỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC TS. PHẠM THỊ HỒNG NHUNG HUẾ, 2011 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere.
Author Hua Thi Hoai Thanh I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Mr Truong Vien for his great ideas in the early days of originating my project. Especially, I am greatly indebted to my supervisor Ms Pham Thi Hong Nhung for her guiding me into this research field, her helpful advice, whole- hearted guidance, useful detailed comments and constant encouragement during the process of doing this research. I wish to thank Ms Truong Thi Nhu Thuy for her invaluable comments in revising my thesis. I would like to express my thanks to teachers and students at Hoang Hoa Tham high school, Pleiku high school and Nguyen Chi Thanh high school for their enthusiastic help, cooperation which contributed greatly to this study.
My particular thanks go to the lecturers at the Department of English- Hue Foreign languages college for their valuable teaching materials that has enlightened my research path. Special thanks go to my MA 08-11 classmates, my friends, and my parents for their help, encouragement and untiring love. Finally, I owed much to my mother for her love and for taking good care of my new born baby during the process of the study. II TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Page STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP.
II TABLE OF CONTENTS .1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. 3 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. Background of the study. The aim of the study.
The scope of the study. Significance of the study. Structure of the study: .11 Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of key terms.
Classifications of tasks. Characteristics of authentic tasks. Text authenticity versus Task authenticity. Reading skills of English.
Authentic reading tasks. An overview of the research context. Learners‟ learning styles. Learners‟ English proficiency.
Coursebook adaptation in EFL reading classes. A sketch of Tieng Anh 11. Previous related studies .38 Chapter III: METHODOLOGY. Research instruments /Methods of data collection .46 Chapter IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Teachers and students‟ viewpoints on authentic reading tasks. Teachers‟ opinions on a good reading comprehension task. The necessity of authentic (reading) tasks. Teachers and Students‟ preference for authentic reading tasks.
Benefits students gain from authentic tasks. Teachers‟ opinion on the impact of authentic tasks on students‟ reading comprehension skills. Adaptation of reading tasks in terms of authenticity. Teachers and students‟ opinions on the current reading tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11.
Teachers and students‟ opinions on types of tasks currently used in reading comprehension classes.71 Chapter V: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. For textbook innovation. Suggestions for further research .84 APPENDICES 2 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT : COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING EFL : ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGES MOET : MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING TBI : TASK- BASED INSTRUCTION SA : STRONGLY AGREE A : AGREE N : NEUTRAL D : DISAGREE SD : STRONGLY DISAGREE MC : MULTIPLE CHOICE 3 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES TABLES Table 2.1 Facets of authenticity according to Taylor (1994) and Breen (1985)….2 Key concepts of Tasks .3 Characteristics of authentic task types .4 Differences between text authenticity and task authenticity .1 Participants by age .2 Participants by the length of teaching experience. Teachers‟ preference for authentic reading tasks.
Students‟ preference for authentic reading tasks. Consideration of the level of authenticity when teaching reading comprehension skills. Frequency of Adapting Reading Tasks. A summary of English 11 (Basic) Evaluation (adapted from Textbook Evaluation (2009)).
Assessing Reading Comprehension Tasks in Textbook Tieng Anh 11 (Basic) in Terms of Authenticity According to Characteristics of Authentic Tasks provided by Reever & Oliver (2002) and Authentic Reading by Byrnes (1998). Frequency of authentic reading tasks in textbook Tieng Anh 11. Students‟ attitude towards reading tasks in Tieng Anh 11. A summary of task types currently used in reading comprehension classes.
Frequency of Task Types in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 .1: Interaction of users, situations and texts in authenticity .2 Characteristics of authentic tasks. Teachers‟ opinions of a good reading comprehension task. Teachers‟ opinions on the necessity of authentic (reading) tasks. Teachers‟ Opinions on Benefits of Authentic Tasks.
The impact of authentic tasks on students‟ reading comprehension skills. Teachers‟ opinions on the frequency of authentic reading tasks in textbook Tieng Anh 11.Teachers‟opinions on reading tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 (basic). Students‟ views on reading tasks. Reasons that teachers avoid using authentic tasks in reading comprehension classes .744 5 ABSTRACT This study attempts to explore teachers and students‟ perceptions of the use of authentic tasks to facilitate grade11 students‟ reading comprehension skills in Pleiku.
The study employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Based on the results from textbook analysis, questionnaires and interview data analysis, two issues of the study were addressed: (1) Teachers and students‟ attitude towards the use of authentic tasks to facilitate grade-11 students‟ reading comprehension skills; (2) Types of tasks currently used in the reading comprehension classes. The overall findings of the study show that most of the teachers of English and students in Pleiku have positive attitude towards using authentic tasks. However, there exist some negative views on this.
From what has been found, some implications are proposed for using authentic tasks more effectively. Background of the study In the age of integration and globalization, the breakthrough of information technology especially the spread of the Internet, the need for using English as a means of communication and a key to access the world of science and technology has been increased remarkably. Therefore, to have a good command of English to keep up with the rapid pace of this age, there has been a revolution on the teaching and learning English nowadays. With the view of focusing on development of learners‟ communicative competence, educators in general and language teachers in particular follow the principles of communicative approach which has really given great contribution to changing the environment of teaching and learning English in Viet Nam.
For decades, the notion of authenticity has played a key role in the communicative language teaching (CLT). In order to bring real-life materials to the classroom, many authentic materials have been introduced into English as foreign languages (EFL) classroom, many of these new teaching materials that are designed in the communicative orientation reflect a change from passive to active approaches to teaching and learning. What is more, as real communication is a characteristic of CLT, classroom activities should, thus, as far as possible mirror the real world and use real world or “authentic” sources as the basis for classroom learning (Richard,n. In addition, Clarke and Silberstein (1977, p.51) argued that classroom activities should parallel the “real world” as closely as possible.
In other words, the push for authenticity in EFL classroom is therefore as strong as ever. Besides speaking, listening and writing, reading is considered to be one of the most important skills for accessing information and for communication. No one can deny the significant role of reading brought to our living.563) points out “many students of English as a foreign language rarely need to speak the language in their day-to-day lives but many need to read it in order to access the wealth of information”. Obviously, reading has played a very important part in our daily life.
As for Vietnamese students in general, students at some high 7 schools in Pleiku in particular, reading skills are tested in the entrance and final examination. Such important role of reading has led to the fact that it has long been received much attention in Vietnamese high school English teaching and there have been a numerous approaches as well as techniques for enhancing students‟ reading comprehension skills, teaching reading strategies, for instance. Moreover, to help students develop reading comprehension skills, extensive research has been done among which the use of authentic materials in the teaching of reading has been much discussed throughout the world. Grellet (1981) proposed using authentic text as one of the hints to develop reading skills or Berardo (2006) claims that authentic materials are highly motivating, giving a sense of achievement when understood and they encourage further reading.
Apparently, the use of authentic materials in the classroom has been received much attention so far whereas little research has been conducted on the use of authentic tasks in teaching reading.60) states that while there is general acknowledgement that authentic materials have a place in the classroom, the issue of activity authenticity is less widely recognized. In other words, research that probes EFL teachers and students‟ perceptions of the use of authentic tasks in reading comprehension classes in particular, is limited. To Vietnamese context of English teaching and learning, there seems to be very little research on the teaching of reading in terms of text authenticity and task authenticity. In Linh‟s (2007) study, she states the necessity of designing real-life tasks for authentic text and points out the close relationship between text and tasks in the teaching process.
Yet, less attention was given to teachers and students‟ attitudes towards using authentic tasks in reading comprehension classes. What is more, most of Vietnamese teachers of English comprehend the use of authentic text but the use of authentic tasks seems to be less recognized. To find satisfactory answers for questions such as whether authentic tasks are important in reading comprehension classes; is it necessary to use authentic reading tasks; what types of tasks are most commonly used in reading comprehension classes, the study aims to investigate teachers and students‟ understandings of authentic task concepts, to view on how teachers and students perceive the use of 8 authentic reading tasks and to study types of tasks currently used in the reading comprehension classes. Rationale The research is conducted for the following reasons: Firstly, in communicative language teaching, authenticity can be seen as a “key concept”.
In other words, nowadays authenticity has played a very important role in a language classroom. Bringing real-life situations into class in which task authenticity is important because it provides meaning and motivation for learning (Harris & Marx, 2009). However, as for Vietnamese teachers of English, the concept of authentic task is still quite new and perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that they are doubtful about the effectiveness of using it in the language class. Secondly, it seems that the reality of teaching and learning reading for communication in many high schools in Pleiku city is not actually effective.