VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** PHẠM THỊ THÚY VÂN USING MIND-MAPPING TECHNIQUES TO DEVELOP LY THUONG KIET HIGH SCHOOL 11TH GRADE STUDENTS' READING TEXT SUMMARY SKILLS NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC ỨNG DỤNG BIỂU ĐỒ TƯ DUY ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN KỸ NĂNG TÓM TẮT BÀI ĐỌC CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT LÝ THƯỜNG KIỆT M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.10 HANOI – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************** PHẠM THỊ THÚY VÂN USING MIND-MAPPING TECHNIQUES TO DEVELOP LY THUONG KIET HIGH SCHOOL 11TH GRADE STUDENTS' READING TEXT SUMMARY SKILLS NGHIÊN CỨU VIỆC ỨNG DỤNG BIỂU ĐỒ TƯ DUY ĐỂ PHÁT TRIỂN KỸ NĂNG TÓM TẮT BÀI ĐỌC CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TRƯỜNG THPT LÝ THƯỜNG KIỆT M.A Minor Thesis Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. HANOI – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS List of abbreviations. iv List of figures and tables. Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study. Research hypothesis and questions. Method of the study. Significance of the study.
Scope of the study. Organization of the study. 5 Chapter I: Literature review. Reading and reading comprehension.
Definition of Reading. Definitions of reading comprehension. The stages of a reading lesson. The pre- reading stage.
The while- reading stage. The post- reading stage. Reading text Summary. Definition of a reading text summary.
Steps to writing a reading text summary. Types of reading text summaries. 10 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Definition of mind map.
Steps to create a mind map. Definition of mind mapping techniques. The classification of mind mapping techniques. Cycle concept map.
Spider concept map. Advantages and disadvantages of mind mapping techniques. Advantages of mind mapping techniques. Disadvantages of mind mapping techniques.
Steps of summarizing the reading texts through mind mapping techniques. Related studies of mind mapping. 19 Chapter II: The study. The context of the study.
Rationale for using quasi-experiment. 24 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Data collection instruments and procedure. Data collection instruments.
Data collection procedure. Data Analysis procedure. 26 Chapter III: Data analysis and discussions. Comparison between pretest scores of experimental class and control class.
Comparison between pretest and posttest scores of experimental class and control class. Comparison between posttest scores of experimental class and control class .1 The effectiveness of mind mapping technique in developing students' reading text summary skills at LTK high school.2 Students' attitudes towards using mind mapping techniques. Suggestions for further research. I vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
XII vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS LTKHS Ly Thuong Kiet high school C Control class E Experimental class S.D Standard deviation M Mean MM Mind Mapping MOET Ministry of Education and Training 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of figures and tables Figure 1: Pretest and posttest scores of control and experimental group Table 1: Activities in the post - reading stage Table 2: Background information about the participants Table 3: The design of the study Table 4: Results of t-test for comparison between the pretest scores of experimental class and control class Table 5: Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental and control groups Table 6: Results of t-test for comparison between posttest scores of experimental class and control class Table 7: Students‟ attitudes towards teaching reading text summary through mind mapping 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study Nowadays, English is a compulsory subject in the school curriculum in Vietnam, and the teaching and learning of that international language has been recently paid great attention to. Together with teachers‟ help and guidance, students have to try their best to master 4 language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking in order to communicate in English successfully. Among these four skills, reading skill is an essential skill for further learning.
Especially, reading text summary skills after reading is very beneficial to students to gain better understanding and memorizing of the text. Thus, students can consolidate or reflect upon what has been read and relate it to their own knowledge. In addition, reading text summary contributes enormously to develop writing, speaking and listening skills. However, reading text summary is not easy for students to do.
It needs more useful techniques to help students summarize texts easily. Because there are still a large number of students having poor reading comprehension not only in rural areas but also in urban ones. As a teacher of Ly Thuong Kiet high school (LTKHS), I find that teaching and learning reading comprehension here still focus on grammar, vocabulary and structures. Hence, students always find it difficult to understand the content of the reading text, to find the main idea, synonym or antonym of the words, and general message of the text and most of them lack of motivation to read.
Beside that, there are still many teachers who seem not to pay enough attention to the importance of teaching reading text summary in post reading stage due to the limited time. Consequently, Students can not remember and summarize the text after reading. From the above reasons, I decided to choose: “Using mind-mapping techniques to develop LTK High school 11th grade students‟ reading text summary skills” for my thesis of the MA course to help students read the text effectively and can summarize the text easily. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Hopefully, this study will make a small contribution to the application of teaching reading text summary approach in the post reading stage at Vietnamese high schools in general and at LTK high school in Hai Phong in particular.
Aims of the study The aims of this study are to find out the more useful teaching methods for improving students‟ reading text summary skills. To be more specific, the primary objectives of the study were set up as follows: - To test the effectiveness of using mind-mapping techniques to develop 11th grade students‟ reading text summary skills compared to conventional techniques. - To investigate the experimental students‟ attitudes towards teaching reading text summary through using mind mapping technique. Research hypothesis and questions To achieve the aims and objectives, the study was designed to test the hypothesis: Teaching reading text summary in post reading stage through mind mapping techniques is more effective to the development of students’ summary skills than the traditional approach which emphasizes the memorization of words and contents of the reading passage.
In order to find out whether the research hypothesis would be accepted or rejected, the following research questions were formulated and to be answered. Why is using mind mapping techniques effective to improve students‟ reading text summary skills? 2. What are the students‟ attitudes towards teaching reading text summary in post reading stage through mind mapping techniques after the experimental period? 4. Method of the study This study was conducted based on quasi-experimental research with pretest, posttest, and questionnaire in order to determine the causal relationship between 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com teaching reading text summary through mind mapping and the enhancement of students‟ summary skills.
Two groups of students were not chosen randomly, they were two intact groups of students involved in the study, one group was labeled the control group and the other the experimental group. Significance of the study Summarizing the reading text in the textbook series for high schools is presented in a traditional way which often focuses on the sentence based summarization. Thus, this study will give an answer to the question whether it is practical to teach reading text summary in the post reading stage through using mind mapping technique in the context of the high school in Vietnam. Scope of the study The study was designed to test the hypothesis that it is possible to teach reading text summary presented in the textbook through mind mapping.
Because of the time constraint, the researcher could just carry out an experimental research upon a small sample of 11th grade students who were not randomly chosen to a control class and an experimental class, (40 students for each class) at LTK High school. The pretest and posttest scores were used to measure both groups‟ reading text summary competence before and after the treatment during ten weeks of the second semester of the 2011-2012 academic year. The post program questionnaire was designed to get more feedback from experimental students. Organization of the study The study was divided into three parts which are presented as follows: Part A is the introduction, which presents the rationale and the aim of the study, hypothesis and questions, research method, significance, scope as well as organization of the study.
Part B is the development, which includes 3 chapters. 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Chapter 1 reviews the literature relevant to the study which consists of reading, reading comprehension, summary, and mind mapping techniques based on theoretical and practical evidence. Chapter 2 presents information about the context of the study, the participants, the instruments, the data collection procedure and data analysis procedure. Chapter 3 is the main part of the study that reports and discusses the main findings according to research matter.
Part C is the conclusion that presents the author‟s reflection and the outcomes of the study as well as indicates some limitations of the study, and finally gives some suggestions for further research. 6 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents a brief review of the literature relevant to the study. It consists of the theory of reading and reading comprehension, reading text summary, and mind mapping techniques. Reading and reading comprehension 1.
Definition of Reading In recent decades, reading becomes one of important and essential parts in language teaching and learning. The meaning of “Reading” has been given a various ways. According to Nuttall (1982) reading is considered as the process of the interaction between language perception and the readers‟ language skill, cognitive skill and the knowledge of the words. In this regard, reading can be defined as an active process of interaction between the reader and the information which consists of the text.
Harmer (1989:153) views reading from a different perspective. In his definition, “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain. The eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out the significance of the message”. Goodman (1971: 135) considers reading as “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”.
Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that reading can help the reader get information and knowledge from a text. Definition of reading comprehension Reading comprehension plays an important role in teaching and learning reading a foreign language. Thus, it is necessary to understand the nature of reading comprehension. Below are many different definitions of reading comprehension.
7 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Roe, Stood and Burns (1987:2) consider: “reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation and valuation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life and experience”. According to Grellet (1981:3): “reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.