VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** VŨ QUỲNH HOA DEVELOPING PRE-READING TASKS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH-MAJOR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, VINH PHUC COLLEGE: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROCESS (NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ VIỆC PHÁT TRIỂN HOẠT ĐỘNG GIAI ĐOẠN TRƯỚC KHI ĐỌC CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CỦA TỔ NGOẠI NGỮ, KHOA XÃ HỘI, TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG VĨNH PHÚC) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** VŨ QUỲNH HOA DEVELOPING PRE-READING TASKS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH-MAJOR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, VINH PHUC COLLEGE: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROCESS (NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ VIỆC PHÁT TRIỂN HOẠT ĐỘNG GIAI ĐOẠN TRƯỚC KHI ĐỌC CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ NHẤT CỦA TỔ NGOẠI NGỮ, KHOA XÃ HỘI, TRƯỜNG CAO ĐẲNG VĨNH PHÚC) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã HANOI – 2016 DECLARATION I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research, and this thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or institution Hanoi, January 2016 Signature Vũ Quỳnh Hoa i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indeed thankful to my supervisor, Dr Vũ Thị Thanh Nhã, whose sympathetic guidance has been the source of inspiration and knowledge for my research I am also grateful to other teachers of the Department of Post-Graduate Studies for their encouragement and valuable advice I have profound regards for all the teachers of English-major Division of Vinh Phuc College and for all of the English-major freshmen of the class 18 who spent their precious time on completing my survey questionnaire Without their enthusiastic cooperation, my thesis would not have been completed My great thanks are also given to my family and my friends who have constantly supported, inspirited and encouraged me during the process of my study ii ABSTRACT This action research focused on finding out the primary problem related to using pre-reading tasks; hence, the major purpose of the study aimed to develop pre-reading tasks for improving students’ reading performance The research was conducted with first-year students of English-major Division, Department of Social Science, Vinh Phuc College Data were collected through observed lessons and two sets of survey questionnaire delivered to 32 freshmen of the class 18 English after the lessons The research findings revealed the problem of ineffective use of pre-reading tasks in reading lessons as well as its causes and effects on students’ reading performance Finally, I also presented suggestions for developing prereading tasks that the teachers have used in their reading lessons for improving students’ reading performance iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AR: Action Research No: Number of students Ss: Students iv LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Action research procedure Figure 2: Simple action research model (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2008, p.278) Figure 3: Detailed Action Research Model (Susman, 1983) Table 1: Students’ assessment on the first lesson Table 2: Students’ assessment on pre-reading tasks used in the first lesson Table 3: Reasons for effectiveness and ineffectiveness of pre-reading tasks provided by the students Table 4: Students’ assessment on exercises and tasks at the while and post reading stages in the first lesson Table 5: Students’ suggestions about efficient pre-reading tasks in the next reading lesson Table 6: Students’ assessment on the first try-out lesson Table 7: Students’ assessment on pre-reading tasks used in the first try-out lesson Table 8: Reasons for effectiveness of pre-reading tasks provided by the students Table 9: Students’ assessment on exercises and tasks at the while and post- reading stages in the first try-out lesson v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION I 1.1 Rationale I 1.2 Aims of the Study II 1.3 Research questions II 1.4 Significance of the Study II 1.5 Scope of the Study II Method of the research III Design of the study III CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND V 2.1 Introduction V 2.2 Theoretical background of reading V 2.2.1 Definitions of reading V 2.2.2 Types of reading VI 2.3 Teaching and learning reading skills IX 2.3.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning IX 2.3.2 Stages of a reading lesson X 2.4 Theoretical background of pre-reading tasksError! 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Bookmark not defined viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale In colleges, English has been a compulsory subject in the curriculum Attention is given to all of the four English skills including reading, listening, speaking and writing However, reading plays an important role in enriching the student’s general knowledge and in developing their further study later In highlighting the importance of reading, Langer (1981, p.153) stated that “reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and pleasurable activity, but also as a means of consolidating and extending one’s knowledge of the language.” Moreover, reading helps students learn other skills better Reutzel (1985), for example, acknowledge that anyone who reads more has various vocabularies and receives marks better for grammar and writing tests Also, Carrell (1984, p.1) confirms that, by far, for numerous students, in English as a second language, reading plays the most crucial role of the four skills Teaching reading, consequently, has attracted greater attention However, in reading classes, it is common that students not absolutely know about topic of the text they are reading about Thus, pre-reading stage in each reading lesson becomes indispensable for introducing and for arousing interest in the topic; for motivating learners by giving a reason for reading and for providing some language preparation for the text (Williams, 1986, p.37) At Vinh Phuc College, where I work, teaching reading is extremely essential in developing all of the four basic English skills for students As a teacher of English here, I am teaching reading skill to first-year students of English-major division, Department of Social-Science I realize pre-reading stage in each lesson has significant effects on the students’ reading performance However, using prereaching tasks in each pre-reading stage is far from satisfactory In other words, prereading tasks I used in each reading lesson had not led to effective performance These tasks were so not only simple but also ineffective that they could not motivate students for reading, provide prior knowledge or build necessary background for comprehending the text Therefore, I decided to carry out the action research to develop pre-reading tasks for first-year students of English-major Division, Department of Social-Science, Vinh Phuc College Based on the findings of this action research, some changes and improvements can be applied in my lessons, and some appropriate strategies need to be designed with the hope that students will work more effectively in a reading lesson I hope that the findings of this study will be shared with other teachers who have experienced similar problems I 1.2 Aims of the Study The main purpose of the study is to develop pre-reading tasks in reading lessons for English-major freshmen at Vinh Phuc college Specifically, it aims at:  finding out the problems the first-year English-major students at Vinh Phuc College encountered in pre-reading tasks  giving the teacher’s solutions for these problems and emphasizing on the effects of the intervention on the students  providing the implications for developing pre-reading tasks to improve students’ reading performances 1.3 Research questions The above aims of the study can be realized by the following research questions: What problems did the first-year English-major students at Vinh Phuc College encounter in pre-reading tasks? What could the teacher to solve these problems? What were the effects of the intervention on the students? What were the implications for developing pre-reading tasks to improve students’ reading performances? 1.4 Significance of the Study Theoretical significance of the study: The study synthesized the problems related to using pre-reading tasks in reading lessons and their effects on students’ performance Furthermore, the research suggested how to effectively develop pre-reading tasks to improve students’ reading performance Practical significance of the study: The study is expected to improve using pre-reading tasks in reading lessons at Vinh Phuc College Based on some findings of the study, some suggestions of developing effective pre-reading tasks are given for teachers and students to enhance students’ reading performances 1.5 Scope of the Study Although there are various factors that influence the students’ reading performance in reading lessons, I only focus my study on one of these factors – i.e II developing pre-reading tasks effectively to improve students’ reading performance in reading lessons The study was conducted at course 18 English in lessons Each lesson lasted periods (45minutes/ period) Method of the research The research method I used is the action research The study was carried out with the process adapted by Tsui (1993) including five concrete steps: identifying problems, finding causes of the problem, designing strategies for improvement (plan for action) and writing a proposal for action research, trying out the strategies (action) and evaluating the try-out These steps were grouped into four phases in the following figure (1) DIAGNOSING Identifying the problem & its causes (2) ACTION PLANNING designing strategies for improvement writing a proposal for action research (4) EVALUATING evaluating the try-out (3) TAKING ACTION trying out the strategies Figure 1: Action research procedure These steps were described more concretely in the chapter on methodology Design of the study The main body of this thesis consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction: presents the rationale, the aims, the significance, the scope, the method and the design of the study Herein, the research questions are also raised Chapter 2: Theoretical background: provides the definition of related concepts and reviews the related works that compose the theoretical background of the study III Chapter 3: The Methodolody: presents situation analysis, identifies the research method and gives detailed descriptions of the data collection tools (survey questionnaire and classroom observation), methods of analysis as well as the participants of the study Chapter 4: Findings: presents, analyzes the findings of the research Chapter 5: Conclusion: summarizes the discussion of research findings, gives some teaching implications, and discusses the limitations of the study as well as suggestions for further research IV CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Introduction This chapter reviews the theoretical issues of pre-reading tasks divided into three sections: the theoretical background of reading, teaching and learning reading skills and the overview of pre-reading tasks The first one discusses the theoretical background of reading including definitions of reading, types of reading The second section focuses on teaching and learning reading skills consisting of importance of reading in foreign language learning and stages of reading lesson The third one emphasizes on the theoretical background of pre-reading tasks which comprises an overview of pre-reading tasks and a classification of these tasks 2.2 Theoretical background of reading 2.2.1 Definitions of reading There are various definitions of reading Herein, I also would like to mention different points of view on the definition of reading In the simple way, Ur (1996, p.138) defines that “reading means reading and understanding” In other words, specifically, reading is regarded as a process in which the readers look at the reading text and receive the significance of the message from the text (Williams, 1984 and Aebersold and Field, 1997) Another interesting definition of reading by Harmer (1989) is that reading is considered as an exercise with the eyes and the brain The brain works to understand the message from the reading text after this message is received by the eyes A definition of reading is offered by Rubin and Thomson (1994, p.91), “reading is an active information-seeking process in which readers relate information in the text what they already know” From this point of view, both the reader’s knowledge of the language and their background knowledge play the significant role for their reading success Reading is also defined as the interaction between the reader and the author According to Smith (1978, p.102), “reading is understands the author’s thought” He also explained that “it means that we-the readers-read the author’s mind not the author’s words” In addition, reading is described in a more extensive way: “reading is understanding written language”, “reading is a complex mental process”, “reading is thinking” (Roe, Stood and Burns, 1987, p.2) In short, from these theories above, it is obvious that no definition can likely consist of all aspects or features of the definition of reading Each linguist’s V definition only reflects what reading means as seen from his own point of view However, they all focus on the nature of reading 2.2.2 Types of reading According to Brown (1989), there have been several types of reading These types may be categorized as follows: A Oral B Silent I Intensive II Extensive a Skimming b Scanning 2.2.2.1 Oral reading Doff (1988, p.70) states that oral reading involves “looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it Its purpose is not just to understand a text but to convey the implication to someone” From this point of view, oral reading is not only the simple way of reading the text aloud, but it also is an effective way to convey the significance of the text to someone Oral reading has both advantages and disadvantages According to Natal (1966), oral reading is regarded as an effective method for learners to improve their pronunciation It helps learners to make the connection between sounds and spelling of letters and words and also assists the teacher to check learners’ pronunciation Moreover, it is a technique for him to keep the class under control, since when one student reads aloud, the others are asked to listen in case they may be required to continue the reading However, Greenwood (1985) provides some disadvantages of oral reading The biggest problem of oral reading is that students may unable to focus adequately on the text’s meaning when they highly concentrate on pronouncing the words In other words, when reading aloud, students only focus on the pronunciation instead of the meaning of the text The second disadvantage is that when students take turn to read a text aloud, only one student is active; the others not have to read It can be inferred that there is little value in reading aloud for improving the readers’ reading skills Therefore, the teachers as well as educators should identify the level of their students and decide whether to apply reading aloud or not in teaching reading to their students 2.2.2.2 Silent reading VI According to Doff (1988, p.67), “silent reading involves looking at sentence and understanding the message it conveys, in other words making sense of a written text It does not normally involve saying the words we read nor even silently in our heads” When reading silently, students not only understand the message of the text but also get the main ideas of the text for answering the questions In conclusion, silent reading is an effective skill for reading process in general and reading comprehension in particular, since the teacher can check his or her students’ understanding easily and can adjust the reading materials and exercises to suit the students’ ability Moreover, students also mainly focus on the meaning of the text instead of pronunciation Therefore, it should be applied in teaching and learning a foreign language Within the category of silent reading, the two types of reading named are intensive and extensive reading Intensive reading is used to teach or practice specific reading strategies or skills The text is treated as an end in itself Extensive reading on the other hand, involves reading of large quantities of material, directly and fluently It is treated as a means to an end It may include reading simply for pleasure or reading technical, scientific or professional material It can be concluded that they are two contrasting ways of reading; however, actually, they are complementary and both are necessary 2.2.2.2.1 Intensive reading Nuttall (2000, p.38) points out that “intensive reading involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the student to focus on the text” In other words, intensive reading is described as a classroom-oriented activity in which the teacher guides his students mainly to focus on the text Another definition of intensive reading provided by Grellet (1981, p.41) is that “intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity in involving reading for detailed” Another author, Brown (1990, p.297) has pointed out that reading “recalls students’ attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers, and other surface structure details for the purpose of understanding literal meaning, implications, rhetorical relationships, and the like” From these points of view, we can infer that the objective of intensive reading is to achieve a full understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of the text, the attitude and purposes of the writer In other VII words, intensive reading is reading for accuracy which is essential to the students’ comprehension 2.2.2.2 Extensive reading Grettle (1981, p.4) confirms: “extensive reading means reading longer text, usually or one’s own pleasure This is a fluency activity mainly involving general understanding” Carrell and Carson (1997, p.49-50) share the same view point of extensive reading with Grettle; they state that “extensive reading generally involves rapid reading of large quantities of material or longer reading for general understanding, with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being read than on the language” Thus, extensive reading is regarded as a useful activity for students’ self-learning In Brown’s view point (2001), extensive reading helps students enrich their language elements because it is one of the key to achieve reading ability, linguistic competence, vocabulary, spelling and writing To summarize, extensive reading is one of the best ways to improve students’ reading performance The reason for this is that extensive reading is carried out “to achieve a general understanding of a text” (Brown, 1989, p.31) Basing on the purposes of reading, extensive reading may involve two specific types of reading, scanning for key details and skimming for the essential meaning Firstly, scanning is one of the effective skills commonly used in reading comprehension There have been numerous definitions of scanning According to Brown (2001, p.308), scanning is defined as “quickly searching for some particular piece or pieces of information in a text” Also, Williams (1987, p.7) stated that “scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information” From these view points, it is inferred that scanning is very high speed reading for finding a particular piece of information Therefore, scanning is regarded as a useful skill to help the readers to skip over unimportant words and to focus on searching the details they want In addition to definitions of scanning, Grellet (1981, p.19) also provides a more detailed one that “when scanning, we only try to locate information and often we not even follow the linearity of passage to so, and scanning is far more limited since it only means retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose” In brief, these above authors all have the same point that scanning is a useful technique for quick and efficient reading Thus, it can be practiced with the great range of texts such as dictionaries, maps and labels Secondly, based on the theory of skimming made by Brown (2001, p.304), “skimming consists of quickly running eyes across the whole text for its gist VIII Skimming gives readers the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic, or message, or possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas”, it can be understood that skimming is also one of the specific reading techniques necessary for fast and effective reading Greenwood (1981, p.92) also shares the same view point with Douglas (2001), he indicates that “the reader goes through particular passage such as newspaper article merely to get the gist” From these two opinions, it can be inferred that skimming is also a skill that enables readers to get the main idea of the text without any concern for details In general, skimming is a very useful reading skill for developing students’ reading performance, also it is advisable to apply at the first stage of teaching reading with the hope that it can help them to have an overview of what they are reading Moreover, it will be easier for them to deal with the other tasks that followed 2.3 Teaching and learning reading skills 2.3.1 The importance of reading in foreign language learning In the process of teaching and learning English as a second foreign language, the teaching and learning of reading are always received much attention, since reading is considered as one of the most basic and important skills as what Carrell (1984, p.332) indicates: “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” It is also true for teaching and learning reading at English-major Division, Department of Social-Science, Vinh Phuc College In detail, at our college, teaching and learning reading is also very crucial because reading is not only one of the most important skills, but it is also remarkable for developing students’ other skills According to Rivers and Temperly (1978), reading skill is an integrated-language skill Firstly, reading helps students enrich vocabulary and grammatical structures, and improve students’ performance in summarizing the reading materials As Richard (1992, p.4) states that “reading may help to increase knowledge of the target language through exposure to new vocabulary and grammatical structures” Secondly, reading is also concerned for improving listening skill Rivers and Temperly (1978, p.259) point out that “listen to worthwhile reading or dramatic presentation of what they have read The aural element adds vividness and life to the reading unit” They also further state that “practice in direct reading of a text which is readily accessible to the students at their present level of knowledge, while they are simultaneously listening to a taped model reading it in meaningful and expressive segments, can help students develop useful habits of anticipation and syntactic identification in both of these skills” Finally, that is integration of reading and speaking skills Reading materials are regarded as a useful source for oral IX presentations when students can get information as well as ideas from these materials for discussion and presentation Besides, reading also helps students to approach the target culture It is stated by Richard (1992, p.4) as follows: “reading in the new language is also an important way to learn about the target culture” In details, reading is regarded as a significant way for students to get knowledge of the target culture as lifestyle, behaviors, thoughts, custom of the native people In short, “reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and pleasurable activity, but also as a means of consolidating and extending one’s knowledge of the language” (Rivers, 1981, p.147) In addition, reading also reinforces students’ other language skills and becomes a source of interesting knowledge of different culture for students 2.3.2 Stages of a reading lesson Many linguists all share the same view point that each reading lesson is divided into three stages which are pre-reading stage, while-reading stage and postreading stage (William, 1984; Dubin & Bycina, 1991; Phillips, 1985) William (1984) also indicates that each of these stages carries its own features and requires different techniques and strategies Firstly, pre-reading stage is the first core step of the process of each reading lesson It not only creates motivation towards the reading text, but it also provides students language preparation for the text before they read In detail, William (1984) lists three principle purposes of the pre-reading stage The pre-reading phase aims to introduce the topic of the reading text and stimulate students’ interest, to activate background knowledge and to provide preliminary vocabulary for the reading Sharing William’s view point, Doff (1988) suggests several tasks in the pre-reading phase The first one is giving a brief introduction to the text This task provides students some ideas about the topic of the reading text before reading and creates motivation with the reading text The second activity is presenting new vocabulary and revising grammatical structures whose aims are to provide vocabulary related to the text and to review the old and new grammatical structures for better preparation for the while-reading stage The last task is giving students guiding questions referring to the general idea of the text to brainstorm about the topic before they read the text General speaking, the pre-reading phase is extremely necessary for an excellent preparation before reading It can arouse students to focus on the topic or the reading text Furthermore, it also provides students vocabulary and grammatical structures to deal with the text X REFERENCES Aebersold, J.A., & Field, M.L (1997) From reader to reading teacher: Issues and strategies for second language classrooms Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press Bowen, B., M (1982) Look here! 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Sample materials Chinese (Mandarin), English as a second language (beginning and advanced), French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai U.S Department of Education Office of International... PRE-READING TASKS FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH-MAJOR DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, VINH PHUC COLLEGE: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROCESS (NGHIÊN CỨU HÀNH ĐỘNG VỀ VIỆC PHÁT TRIỂN HOẠT ĐỘNG