VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* DƯƠNG THI ̣THU HIỀN THE EFFECTS OF USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS ON STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng tài liệu thực đối với thành tích học tập kỹ năng đọc hiểu của học sinh - nghiên cứu ở trường Trung ho ̣c phổ thông Lê Hoàn M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2017 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* DƯƠNG THI ̣THU HIỀN THE EFFECTS OF USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS ON STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT LE HOAN HIGH SCHOOL Hiệu quả của việc sử dụng tài liệu thực đối với thành tích học tập kỹ năng đọc hiểu của học sinh - nghiên cứu ở trường Trung ho ̣c phổ thông Lê Hoàn M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, Ph. HANOI – 2017 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis “ The effects of using authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement at Le Hoan High School” is submitted for the partial fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies – University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
I also declare that this thesis is result of my own research and efforts and that it has not been submitted for any other purposes. Hanoi, 2017 Signature Dương Thị Thu Hiền i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to show my deep gratitude to all the lecturers at University of Language and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi for the invaluable lecturers, which laid the foundation for my thesis. I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to Dr. Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, my respected supervisor for her precious guidance, critical comments and constructive supervision throughout my research.
My gratitude also goes to the students and colleagues at Le Hoan High Schools who enthusiastically participated in the research procedure .Without their help, this project could not be fulfilled. Last but not least, I am indebted to my beloved family and friends who have unfailingly inspired me to complete this study. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The study was conducted with the hope that the result gained could clarify the effects of using authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement at Le Hoan High School. In order to achieve the goals, quasi-experimental research design was employed.
Subjects of the study were two groups of 30 students each of 10 th grade – students at Le Hoan High School. One group was assigned as the experimental group and the other as the control group. The students of both groups were taught with the same teaching techniques, the same teaching topics and did the same tests but with different types of teaching materials in an 8-week-period. While the experimental group used authentic materials provided by the teacher, the control group only used materials in the course book - English 10 published by the Ministry of Education and Training.
A pretest and a posttest were used to measure the improvement in the reading skill of the students in the two groups. The research results showed that the reading skill of the students who worked with authentic materials was better improved than that of the students working with only course book. The former seemed to be able to avoid some typical mistakes about vocabulary which the students in control group often made. Therefore it is suggested that authentic materials be used in teaching reading skill for high school students in order to get the highest results.
English teachers also need to be creative in selecting, developing and providing teaching materials to their students. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.SCHOOL TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES.
vi LIST OF CHARTS .vii PART A: INTRODUCTION. The research question and objectives of the study. The scope of the study. Significance of the study.
Methods of the study. Design of the study .4 PART B: DEVELOMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Overview on reading skill. Definition of reading.
Reading comprehension achievement. Types of reading comprehension question. Overview on authentic materials. Definition of authentic materials.
Types of authentic materials. Advantages of authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement.SCHOOL TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Disadvantages of authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement .16 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY. The applied methodology in the research.
Quasi-experimental design. The subjects of the study. Selecting teaching materials. Measuring participants’ competence.
Data collection instrument. Procedures of data collection .3 Procedure of data analysis .26 CHAPTER III: RESULT ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION. Pretest result analysis. Post-test result analysis.
Analysis pre-test and post-test results within each group. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research .SCHOOL TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.SCHOOL LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Description of Pre-test Result. 28 Table 2: Description of post-test result. 30 Table 3: Independent Sample T-test for Post-test result.
32 Table 4: Paired Sample T-test for pre-test and post-test .SCHOOL TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.SCHOOL LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Pretest scores. 27 Chart 2: Post-test results. 29 Chart 3: Control group’s results. 34 Chart 4: Experimental group’s results .SCHOOL TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.SCHOOL PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale The study is based on the current situation of teaching and learning English reading skill of students at Le Hoan High School. Having been working as an English teacher at Le Hoan High School for 5 years, the writer realizes an issue that utilizing only reading materials in the course books is not enough to help students improve their reading skill. They find it difficult to learn vocabulary as well as the structures in these texts because of their unfamiliarity in real life. Therefore, they have low motivation in learning reading and their reading comprehension cannot ameliorate over a long time.
This fact has been shown clearly in the results of entrance examinations at high school in the recent years since the form and structure of English test was changed. Most of students at Le Hoan High School can not do the reading section well whereas this section takes account for approximately 50 percentages of the total scores. Therefore the proportion of the students who get high mark in the exams at Le Hoan High School is very low. And the only way to increase the number of high marks is improving students’ reading comprehension competence.
Although the English teachers at Le Hoan School have tried their best to encourage their students to learn reading skill and improve their achievement by using different positive teaching techniques, it seems not to bring about much effectiveness. Moreover, reading skill is one of the most important skills to each of students during their foreign language learning procedure. To feature the importance of reading comprehension, Rivers (1981:147 ) asserted that “ Reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and a pleasurable activity, but also as a means of consolidating and extending one's which are knowledge of the language”.SCHOOL TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.SCHOOL spite of its critical role, reading skill remains a challenge to students. Taglieber (1988) has indicated three major problems that interfere with students’ reading comprehension: (1) _ Lack of vocabulary.
(2) _ Difficulty in using language cues to meaning. (3) _ Lack of conceptual knowledge. That is the reason why the question how to teach reading skill for students to get the best result is always controversial among the educators. It has been said that suitable teaching materials play an important role in motivating students during their learning procedure and help them have certain amount of background knowledge about different topics which they can meet in different reading texts.
As a result, it can limit the problems that prevent the students from mastering reading skill well. Implementing authentic materials in teaching reading skill has taken the concern of many teachers all over the world. There has been a lot of research debating about this problem since the 1970s; however most of the findings can not be assured to be true to all learners. Some of the previous studies carried out by Soliman (2013); Akbari &Razavi (2016); Pandian (2011); Le Thi Huong Giang (2015); Vu Mai Duyen (2015) mention using authentic materials in teaching and learning a foreign language, they all confirmed that this type of teaching materials brought about positive effects.
Nevertheless the subjects of all these studies are college students; the findings needed checking again with the lower-level subjects. The current research was desired to clarify the effects of authentic materials on students’ reading comprehension at Le Hoan High School. It would help the writer to see whether it could have the same results as the previous research or not. And the findings of the current study would be a base for the author to decide if authentic materials could be suitable teaching materials to students at Le Hoan High School 2 (LUAN.SCHOOL TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
The research question and objectives of the study When doing the study, there are a lot of issues which need finding out and making clear. However, the most important one focused on the current study is investigating the effects of using authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement at Le Hoan High School. To accomplish the objectives, the research mainly concentrated on answering the following research question: “What are the effects of using authentic materials on students’ reading comprehension achievement?” 3. The scope of the study The study is a small-sized scale thesis, thus it can not cover all the issues related to the problem discussed.
The paper mainly focuses on the effects of using authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement at Le Hoan High School, Thanh Liem district, Ha Nam province. The subjects in the study are 60 students of 10th grade at Le Hoan High School. They are randomly chosen and divided into two groups, one experimental group and one control group. An important point of the study needs emphasizing that authentic materials provided to experimental group is only used as a supplementary materials besides the reading materials taken out from the course book and the reading activities in class.
Significance of the study The result of the study will be a foundation to help the English teachers especially the English teachers at Le Hoan High School who are looking for a new method in teaching reading skill to their students. It supplies not only a large amount of valuable information about applying authentic materials but also some suggestions for the teachers in selecting suitable authentic materials.SCHOOL TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Methods of the study In order to determine the effects of authentic materials on students reading comprehension achievement, the researcher utilizes quasi- experimental with sixty 10th grade students at Le Hoan High School. The pretest and posttest are conducted at the beginning and the end of the research period.
The data collected is analyzed with SPSS. Design of the study The study consists of three parts PART A: Introduction provides the rationale, the scope, the research questions and objectives; the significance and the design of the study. PART B: Development, discusses the following contents of the study: Chapter 1: Literature Review, discusses the literature relating reading skill; reading comprehension; authenticity and authentic materials as well as the use of authentic materials in teaching English reading skill.