VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES µ ¶ EFFECTS OF PRECEDING ACTIVITIES ON READING OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AT THE PRACTICAL HIGH SCHOOL- HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF PEDAGOGY A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) Submitted by NGUYEÃN THÒ TUÙ Supervisor LEÂ THÒ THANH THU, Ed. Ho Chi Minh City, 2005 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis entitled “Effects of pre-reading activities on reading of high school students at the Practical High School- Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy” is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution. Ho Chi Minh City, December 22, 2005.
Nguyen Thi Tu i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to gratefully acknolwedge the invaluable and generous assistance given to me by my thesis supervisor, Dr. Le Thi Thanh Thu, over the lengthy period of the researching and writing of the thesis. I could not have finished this thesis without her encouragement and constant guidance. I am greatly indebted to all my teachers for their dedication and helpful instruction during the course.
My special thanks to all those who helped me in the study, in particular, Ms. Hoang Thuy Nguyen, Ms. Tran Thi Binh, for their help with the useful advice on the questionnaire and the tests and all the students in the study for their cooperation. Last but not least, thanks may be sent to my family.
To my parrents who devote all their lives to the children’s education. ii ABSTRACT This thesis examined the effects of pre-reading activities on reading comprehension. For a long time, pre-reading activities have been proved useful in reading classes. This study investigates the reading attitudes and practices of pre-reading activities of the high school students, particularly the high school students in grade 12 at the Practical High School- Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy to measure the influences of pre-reading activities on reading comprehension and suggests a way in which reading may be more effectively taught.
Evidence was collected through a survey questionnnaire and an experiment of four tests given for test scores of 91 students. T-test analysis tool then was used to help analyze the data collected from the questionnaires and the tests. The findings revealed that the students a positive attitude toward reading comprehension and pre-reading activities as well as high frequency of pre- reading activity provision. The pre-reading activities investigated in the study, vocabulary pre- teaching; pictorial context; pre-questioning ; and combined pre-reading activities, in general, have the positive effect on students’ reading comprehension.
The technique of combined pre-reading activities defines its meaningful superiority. Vocabulary pre-teaching has the similar influence. Pictorial context shows its positive effect. Pre-questioning seems not to help students’ reading comprehension much.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Certificate of originality. iii Table of contents. iv List of tables. viii List of figures .1 BACKGROUND AND THE PROBLEM .2 AIM OF THE STUDY AND OVERVIEW OF THE THESIS .1 Objective of the study .3 Significance of the study .4 Organization of the remainder of the study.
8 iv CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .1 MECHANISM OF READING .1 Reading as a process.1 Reading as a cognitive process .2 Reading as “bottom-up”, “top-down” and interactive process .2 Reader’s process of comprehending a text .2 Schema thoery and reading comprehension .3 THE EFFECTS OF PRE-READING ACTIVITIES ON READING COMPREHENSION .4 THE EFFECTS OF VOCABULARY PRE-TEACHING; PICTORIAL CONTEXTS AND PRE-QUESTIONING ON READING COMPREHENSION 2.1 Students’ difficulties in reading comprehension .2 Pre-questioning and Reading Comprehension .3 Vocabulary Pre-teaching and Reading Comprehension .4 Pictorial Context and Reading Comprehension .5 RATIONALES FOR CHOOSING FOUR PASSAGES FOR TESTING.2 THE MAIN STUDY.1 The pilot study .3 Data collection procedures .1 Test and questionnaire administration .2 Coding and statictical analysis. 47 CHAPTER 4: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS .1 Responses to survey questionnaires.2 ANALYSIS OF TEST SCORES .1 Correlation between pre-reading and non pre-reading activity test scores.2 Descriptive statistics: Effect comparison between pre- reading activities .3 FINDINGS FROM QUESTIONNAIRES AND TEST SCORES & IMPLICATIONS.1 Recommendations for reading comprehension .2 Recommendations for high school reading teaching.2 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. 80 APPENDIX 1 Four readings and tests given to students in the experiment. 103 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Factors involved in selecting an EFL reading passage .1 The results of English in grade 11 .2 The Englist test result in the first semester of grade 12.1 The importance of reading according to G1& G2 .2 The frequency of the subject students’ pre-reading activities .3 The frequency of teachers’ pre-reading activities .4 The benefits the subjects get from each pre-reading activity.5 Students’ attitudes toward pre-reading activities .1 Topics of grade 12.
74 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Reading test score of G1 and G2 for Vocabulary pre-teaching of the passage “Mercury and the woodman”.2 Reading test score of G1 and G2 for Pictorial Context of the passage “The perfect crime” .3 Reading test score of G1 and G2 for Pre-questioning of the passage “ The Witch of the Wall street” .4 Reading test score of G1 and G2 for Combined reading activities of the passage “ King Arthur and Robin Hood”. 59 ix ABBREVIATIONS CCC Catalogue of Credit Course CUP Cambridge University Press EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language HCMC Ho Chi Minh City L1 First Language L2 Second Language PHS The Practical High School OUP Oxford University Press UP University of Pedagogy x CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The study reported in this thesis examines the effects of providing pre- reading activities on reading comprehension in the acquisition of a foreign language, particularly reading skills. The purpose of this introduction is to provide the background and to state the problem why pre-reading activities have to be seriously studied. The introduction covers the following things: 1.1 BACKGROUND AND THE PROBLEM 1.1 Background The Practical High School (PHS) - University of Pedagogy (UP) was founded in 1999.
It belongs to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) UP. There are 70 teachers teaching there, seven of whom are teachers of English. These English teachers have the age from 25 to 32, one of whom is 43. Four teachers out of seven are following the Master course in the HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Victoria University.
One obtains PH.D in contrastive language. The other two are Bachelors of Arts. All of them graduated from HCMC UP- English department. The teachers, in general, are motivated and always want to improve their teaching skills and getting more and more experience.
It can be said that they can adapt to the useful new ways of teaching English to help their students with studying English. 1 There are 20 classes of grade 10, 11 and 12 with 724 students all-together. Students entering the PHS got rather high marks when they took the secondary graduation examination, normally 55 out of 60 marks. They have similar study level, in particular, English level.
Generally, they are active, hard-working and aware of the importance of good education. The course book used here are English 10, 11, and 12 edited by Tu and Ha (1995) approved by Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) which are obligatorily used in Vietnam high school syllabus, particularly in high schools in HCMC. The extra course books comprise “Bai tap tieng Anh 10, 11, 12” written by Mai and Nguyen (2001) and a book of reading and grammar designed by teachers handling the class. All the students in grade 10, 11 and 12 have to spend 4 periods a week learning the course book and do exercises in the extra course books.
They have to take three tests of 45 minutes with all the students in each grade and many tests of 15 minutes. They also have opportunities to take part in many extra activities. The tests of 45 minutes are given according to the same format required by HCMC Education and Training Office with the emphasis on reading and writing. In each test, 80 percent covers multiple choice items and 20 percent of re-writing, in which 30% is about reading with two reading passages.
Students are asked to do multiple choices and true/ false/ not given exercises. The tests are self-made by each teacher in each grade and are collected to make a complete test for all the students in each grade form. It is, thus believed that reading and writing are paid much attention to. Learning to read and teaching reading are the two great duties of teachers and students at the PHS.
2 Students of grade 12, the participants in the study, who are accustomed to school regulations and teaching styles of their teachers, are rather good and motivated on the grounds that they are going to take a graduation exam in June. English is a compulsory subject in that exam, so they have high esteem in studying English, particularly reading skills. There are six classes of grade 12 with 230 students. Only the students with the highest marks in the entrance examination and with the best results in grade 10 and 11 are arranged into class 12A1.
Students in the other five classes, thus, have the similar study level.2 The problem As considerably reading skill is paid attention to in the syllabus, there are still many discouraging and uninteresting reading classes. That most of the reading classes at the PHS are said to be boring and sometimes unproductive is an issue to be taken into great consideration. Some students said to me that they just wanted to sleep when they encountered long and difficult texts with thousands of words and words and the old ways of presenting the lesson of some teachers as “Open the book to page 34 and do the exercises” without any other activities to stimulate students to read. The students assumed that the topics in the book were of their interest and they could learn from the content of the stories or the texts.
As I attended the reading classes handled by three different teachers at the PHS, the students in these classes complained that there were no new things. They expressed their worry about learning reading and some reading classes without any interest and motivation. 3 Obviously, a great number of the students at the PHS express the desire to read and write well in English. Although their purposes in reading vary from person to person, people still have something in common: “how to interpret and understand, respond the meanings of texts”.
Thus, who is to blame in this situation? In my own opinion, it is not time to consider who takes the responsibility but to provide the students with the reading activities that are interesting, effective and useful to create their curiosity and enhance their cognition and thinking. Why do not teachers take advantage of various kinds of pre-reading activities that can create the want and need to encourage them to read and bring them some new things when they encounter a certain text and when they are in the last grade to prepare for university education? It is undeniable that reading is a complex activity that involves both perception and comprehension. Reading consists of two related processes: word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one’s spoken language.
Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences and connected ideas in texts. Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with the text, and other strategies to help them understand written text. (Pang; Muaka; Bernhardt & Kamil, 2000:6) It obviously stresses the importance of readers’ background knowledge in reading comprehension. Many researchers and teachers have been studying and 4 conducting researches to find out ways to aid reading comprehension.