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Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions
Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Ministry of education and training Vinh University Course assignment Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Learner: Lê Thị Hương (1987) Supervisor: M.A, Nguyễn Thị Vân Lam Vinh, december 2010 Acknowledgement I could not complete my assignment without the great help and useful advice from my teacher, my family as well as my friends Firstly, I would like to express my great thanks to y supervisor, M.A Nguyen Thi Van Lam for her enthusiastic help Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Secondly, I would like to express my deep thanks to all the teachers in Foreign Language Department of Vinh University for giving me helpful lectures My thanks also go to my director, Ms Nguyen Thi Yen and all the colleagues at Sao Viet English Centre, Nghean Branch for their helpful and enthusiastic helps during the time I did the survey Furthermore, my thanks are also sent to all of my friends from class 17 Master Degree of Arts Course for their encouragements and helps To everyone, thank you very much Vinh, December 2010 Le Thi Huong List of tables Table 1: Students complete the text or not Table 2: The reasons that students can not complete the table Table 3: Factors that affect students’ understanding Table 4: How students deal with unknown words Table 5: How students read the text Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Table 6: The way students get main idea Table 7: How students get specific information Table 8: how teachers teach vocabulary Table of contents Acknowledgement List of tables Table of content Part I: introduction Rationale of the study Aims of the study 3 Scope of the study Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Method of the study .5 Design of the study Part II: Content Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1.1 Definition of reading 1.2 Factors that affect learners’ reading result 1.2.1 Subjective factors .8 1.2.1.1 Students’ motivation .8 1.2.1.2 Purpose of reading 1.2.1.3 Strategies of reading 10 1.2.1.4 Skills of reading 11 1.2.2 Objective factors 12 1.2.2.1 Reading materials 12 1.2.2.2 Teaching methods .13 Chapter 2: The study 2.1 Research questions: 14 2.2 Research setting 15 2.3 Research procedure 16 2.3.1 Difficulties in reading materials .17 2.3.2 Difficulties in students’ reading strategies .17 2.3.2.1 How students deal with new words .18 2.3.2.2 Difficulties in students’ ways of reading the text .18 2.3.3.3 Difficulties in getting main ideas of the text 19 2.3.3.4 The way students get specific idea 19 Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions 2.3.3.5 Difficulties in teachers’ teaching methods 20 Chapter 3: Teaching Implications 3.1 Suggestions for students 21 3.1.1 Previewing .21 3.1.2 Predicting 21 3.1.3 Guessing from the context .22 3.1.4 Skimming .22 3.1.5 Scanning 23 3.2 Suggestion for teachers .23 Part III: conclusion Appendix References Part I: introduction Nowadays, with the tendency of globalization and integration, English plays the role of an effective international communicative language Therefore, learning English has been considered a very important duty of many students One of the most important skills in learning English as well as other languages is reading skill Reading not only helps students widen their knowledge but also enables them to develop language skills such as listening, writing, and speaking Besides, realizing the importance of learning English, many students go to the English centers which are opened every where However, both teacher and students at Sao Viet English centre not feel satisfied with the results of the students in reading skill during the process of learning English The teachers often find their students reading Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions performance disappointing And in fact, most of the students read with less understanding than one might expect them to Many of them can not complete the reading text in the course book Also, lots of them complain that they can not understand the meaning of the reading text Why the students fail to learn reading in English? What are the factors that affect them in reading? What are their difficulties in reading? How to improve their reading? These questions are in concern with many teachers in general and they especially interest me For these reasons, I decide to choose the subject: Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Aims of the study - To investigate some difficulties that the students at Sao Viet Centre face when learning reading - To give some suggested solutions to help the students overcome the difficulties in order to improve their reading effectiveness Scope of the study Due to the limitation of time and knowledge, this thesis mainly focuses on the difficulties faced by students at Sao Viet English centre in reading lessons and some solutions suggested to improve students’ reading skill Method of the study This study uses the following methods: - Statistic and classifying - Annalistic and synthetic method - Qualitative and quantitative Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Design of the study The thesis consists of three main parts: Part I: Introduction This part contains five smaller ones: - Rationale of the study - Scope of the study - Aims of the study - Methods of the study - Design of the study Part II: Content This part consists of chapters: - Chapter 1: Theoretical background - Chapter 2: The study - Chapter 3: Teaching Implications In chapter 1, there are the following parts: - Definition of reading - Factors that affect learners’ reading result In chapter 2, the author deals with main parts: - Research questions: - Research setting - Research procedure In chapter 3, main parts are solved: - Suggestions for students Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions - Suggestion for teachers Part III: Conclusion Part II: content Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1.1 Definition of reading As in learning a foreign language in general and learning English in particular, reading is considered the most skill of the four ones to ensure students in mastering second language Actually, there are different ways to understand the definition of reading Silberstein (1993) suggested “reading is a complex information processing skill in which the readers interact with the text to create the meaningful discourse Besides, there are some ideas about reading that is cited from the Internet, these scholars assume that “reading is the process of constructing meaning through the Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions dynamic interaction with the given text; the readers will be able to interpret and then create a meaningful one which helps them understand the text better” Inferring from the above definitions, it is possible to come a conclusion that reading is an active and receptive skill in which readers play a very active roe in analyzing the text for realizing the communicative functions 1.2 Factors that affect learners’ reading result 1.2.1 Subjective factors 1.2.1.1 Students’ motivation Students’ motivation is a very important part to ensure the success of students‘learning in general and reading in particular When students are motivated, their mind is opened, learning is visiting, knowledge is welcome and it is easy for students to achieve The more students achieve, the more they are motivated This is such a good mood that many students can considerably improve in leaning 1.2.1.2 Purpose of reading Besides, the reading purpose is also a very important factor that affects students’ reading Grabe and Stove (2002) classified Reading purpose into seven types as followed: - reading to search for simple information - reading to skim quickly - reading to learn from texts - reading to integrate information - reading to cite - reading to criticize - Reading for general comprehension Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions 1.2.1.3 Strategies of reading Usually, it is not easy for students to know all the words, phrases and the structures used in the texts Thus, they may apply their reading strategies to fulfill their tasks Reading strategies mean the way readers use their reading skills to read the texts and to deal with the words or phrases that are unfamiliar t get information These are some reading strategies: - Previewing - Predicting - Skimming and scanning - Guessing the context - Paraphrasing 1.2.1.4 Skills of reading To fulfill the task while reading, students need to have certain skills Skill means the ability to perceive and perform something Mumphy (1987) distinguished reading skills a following: - Recognizing the script of language - Deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items - Understanding the meaning of explicitly stated information - Recognizing indicators in discourse - Interpreting texts by going outside it - Identifying the main point or important information in a piece pf discourse - Distinguishing the main ideas from supporting details - Extracting salient points to summarize the text or an idea Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology 10 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions unknown word in the reading text The new grammatical structures and the unfamiliar topic and content of the text are also the hindrance to students’ comprehension 2.3.2 Difficulties in students’ reading strategies 2.3.2.1 How students deal with new words As analyzing above, unfamiliar words are the factor that most of the students face Therefore, the way students deal with these words is very important to help them understand the text The result of the question “What you when you meet unknown words in you reading text?” will show students’ problems concerning to the vocabulary: How students deal with unknown words Stop reading and look up the words in the dictionary Guess the meaning of the new words Ignore the new words Ask for its meaning Table 4: How students deal with unknown words answer 42/50 (83%) 10/50 (19%) 12/50 (23%) 11/50 (21%) The table shows that a large number of students (83%) stop reading when they see the unknown words This causes them difficult to concentrate on the flow of the text Looking up the words takes time and interrupts their reading This process may make students forget the idea they have got before Another way that students (23%) treat the new words is that they ignore new words Sometimes, this strategy is effective; however, this is not a good way actually for sometimes they can ignore the important words of the text that help them understand the text However, the best way for students to deal with unfamiliar words is guessing its meaning This way is suggested by only 19% of students Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology 15 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions To sum up, students have used inappropriate way to treat the unknown words so that they find it difficult to understand the text 2.3.2.2 Difficulties in students’ ways of reading the text Each student has his own way to read the text, the question “how you read the text?” is delivered and here is the answer: How you read the text? Read slowly every words Skimming Scanning Reading aloud Reading silently Translate the text into Vietnamese Read the topic sentences Read the title of the text Other Table 5: How students read the text Answer 40/50 (80%) 8/50 (16%) 10/50 (19%) 19/50 (37%) 17/50 (34%) 45/50 (90%) 13/50 (25%) 6/50(12%) 0/50 (0%) The result of the survey indicates that 16% of students skim the text to get quickly the main idea, and only 19% of them choose scanning through the text as the way of reading A large number of students (80%) are in the habit of reading slowly and try to understand every word Translating the text into Vietnamese the approach that is chosen by most of the students (90%) while reading The number of students chooses reading the text aloud and reading the text in silence is quite similar with 37% of students read aloud and 34% of students read silently It is sure that the students read effectively or not partly depend on the read strategy they use However, the result found in the table above confirms that most of the students appear to be inefficient readers In short, the students utilize inappropriate reading strategies when dealing with the reading text in the new course book They not use different strategies when they Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology 16 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions are reading for different purposes And the way they apply most is translating the text into Vietnamese while reading, that’s why they read slowly and try to understand important and unimportant words either It is inappropriate reading strategy partly cause inefficient reading 2.3.3.3 Difficulties in getting main ideas of the text The question “what you to get the main idea of the text?” The author receives the result as following: The way students get main idea Skimming Read the title Read the topic sentence Other Table 6: The way students get main idea answer 29/50 (58%) 23/50 (45%) 24/50 (48%) 0/50 (0%) The table shows that there are 58% of students skim to get main idea Similar number uses reading title (45%) and reading topic sentence (48%) In conclusion, the strategy getting main idea while reading a text of students is at average level They not use much skimming skill and not pay much attention to the title or topic sentence of the text, neither 2.3.3.4 The way students get specific idea Besides getting main idea, getting specific idea is also a very important duty of the student when reading text to fulfill their reading tasks This table shows out how students get specific idea: How students get specific information Scanning Translate the text into Vietnamese Write down the information Remember the information Table 7: How students get specific information Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology Answer 24/50 (47%) 39/50 (78%) 32/50 (64%) 12/50 (23%) 17 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions To get the specific information, students utilize ineffective reading strategies They have bad habit of reading slowly and translate the text into Vietnamese Also, many students not have the skill to scan which is the best way to get specific information 2.3.3.5 Difficulties in teachers’ teaching methods Each teacher has a method to teach their students In reading, vocabulary is very important so that teaching vocabulary can be considered one of the factors that ensure students’ reading success This table gives information about how teachers teach vocabulary how teachers teach vocabulary Give Vietnamese equivalents Explain in English Helping students guess their meanings Other Table 8: how teachers teach vocabulary Answer 42/50 (84%) 12/50 (23%) 18/50 (35%) 0/50 (0%) From the table, we can see that teachers pay much attention to teaching vocabulary at pre-reading stage However, they mostly not have a good way of teaching vocabulary They provide Vietnamese equivalents in stead of teaching in context or helping students guess the meaning of the words based on the context Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology 18 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions Chapter 3: Teaching Implications In the previous chapter, we have found out some typical difficulties that students usually face These are some suggested solutions for students and teachers to improve their students’ reading skill: 3.1 Suggestions for students 3.1.1 Previewing Previewing can be previewing title of the reading text, previewing the picture provided in the course book, previewing the question and information provided in the pre-reading phase in the course book to get the sense of the content of the text students are going to read By previewing the information, the students can have the primary notions about the content of the reading text This can help students find easier to understand the content of the text Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology 19 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions 3.1.2 Predicting Predicting is the reading strategy in which the students use the provided information to make the predictions about the content, vocabulary of the reading text This is also a good way for students to deal with not only the main idea of the text but also the unknown words appearing 3.1.3 Guessing from the context Guessing from the context is reading strategy applied mostly in guessing the meaning of the unknown words in which students can use prior knowledge of the subject and the idea in the text as clues to guess the meaning of unknown words instead of stopping to look them up in the dictionary 3.1.4 Skimming Skimming is reading strategy applied when students are required to get the main idea of the reading text in which they use a quick survey of the text looking for the main idea When skimming, students just pay attention to the main point of the text and as the result produce single sentence capturing the main idea 3.1.5 Scanning Scanning is a quick look through the text to find out the specific information required If skimming is used to get the main idea, scanning is applied in getting the specific information This skill is applied in the exercise of filling the blank, completing the table, finding out the facts, etc 3.2 Suggestion for teachers - In teaching skill, teachers should model types of skill such as skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, etc And explain clearly how each of them work Only understanding Le Thi Huong – M.A Course 17 – English Teaching Methodology 20 ... Teaching Methodology 19 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions 3.1.2 Predicting Predicting is the reading strategy in which the students. .. English Teaching Methodology Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions performance disappointing And in fact, most of the students read... English Teaching Methodology 10 Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions - Skimming - Scanning to locate specifically required information -