TABLE OF CONTENTS THE REPORT OF INNOVATION Introduction The title of the research: DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING READING COMPRIHENSION SKILLS FOR GRADE 12 STUDENTS AT YEN LAC HIGH SCHOOL AND SOME SOLUTIONS The name of the writer The investor of the research The field in which the research will be applied The date when the research was first applied The description of the research: 7.1 The content of the research 7.1.1 Part 1: The theory of reading - Definitions of reading and reading comprehension - Types of reading - Teaching reading comprehension skills - Organization of reading comprehension text 7.1.2 Part 2: Difficulties in teaching reading comprehension skill for grade 12 students at Yen Lac high school and some solutions - The context - Method - Procedure - Data analysis and study finding - Suggested solutions to overcome the challenges 7.1.3 Part 3: Conclusion 7.2 Possibility of the application of the research Information that needs keeping secret Necessary conditions needed to apply the research 10 Assessments of the result when applying the research –according to the writer, organizations and individuals that first applied it 11 List of organizations and individuals first using the research THE REPORT OF INNOVATION DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING READING COMPRIHENSION SKILLS FOR GRADE 12 STUDENTS AT YEN LAC HIGH SCHOOL AND SOME SOLUTIONS (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC DẠY KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 12 CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRƯỜNG THPT YÊN LẠC VÀ MỘT VÀI BIỆN PHÁP GIẢI QUYẾT) Introduction Nowadays it cannot be denied that English has become the international medium of communication in commerce, science, transportation, medicine, culture, education, banking, tourism, aviation and so on Therefore, English been adopted as a compulsory subject at all state schools from the third onwards In order to keep up with the development of society, the need for good communication is placed in one of the top demands for English language which includes reading skill It is obvious that reading skill plays an important part in daily communication as well as in educational process In other words, reading is considered as a ticket for human beings both to enter everyday communication and to better college grades together with greater academic achievement Ironically, reading is the skill which a large majority of the students are least proficient in They find it difficult to complete any reading task, especially from the very first steps of reading Although students are given a sizable portion of time to develop reading skills but they are unable to finish reading tasks effectively There are a lot of survey findings showing that students can many jobs that require reading with efficiency if they learn to read faster and with more understanding Carrell (1981, p.1) contends that reading is by far the most important of the four macro-skills, particularly in English as a second foreign language Nevertheless, teaching reading skills for grade 12 th students at Yen Lac high schools is still far from satisfactory for various reasons Although most of the teachers have made great efforts, the students’ motivation for intensive reading is low and the reading lesson is said to be a boring one Yen Lac High school, which was founded in 1965, is one of the high schools chosen to pilot the set of new textbooks During the piloting period the teachers have confronted a number of difficulties such as students’ general lack of motivation and opportunities to practice communicating in the target language The students get used to passive learning, the teachers’ capacities are uneven, the size of classes is large and classrooms are equipped poorly Hong et al (2006:18) states that there are five main obstacles in reading: the habit of word-by-word reading; overemphasis on forms rather than meaning; excessive focus on details rather than main ideas; poor vocabulary and limited background knowledge Among four language skills, taught in English, reading can be seen as the most boring and hardest one Thus, teaching reading skill at Yen Lac high school isn’t paid much attention, even that some teachers feel confused in teaching this skill Facing up this problem, so many questions about teaching reading skill always concern me a lot: “What problems might the teachers face when teaching reading skill? What should be done to help them overcome those problems? How should we teach each type of reading text so that the students can learn it effectively? etc….” I, therefore decided to the research on “Difficulties in teaching reading comprehension skill for grade 12 students at Yen Lac high school and some solutions” in hope that the findings and solutions mentioned in this study will make a significant contribution to improve the teaching of the reading skill at Yen Lac high school as well as those at other high schools The main purpose of this study is to explore the teaching of the reading skill for 12 th graders by teachers at Yen Lac high school It concentrates on finding out the difficulties in teaching the reading skill for 12th - grade students at this school The second purpose is to propose some suggestions to deal with teachers’ challenges and assist them to teach reading more effectively This study attempts to seek the answers to the following questions: What are the difficulties of teachers at Yen Lac high school in teaching the reading skill for grade 12 students?” What should be done to help teachers at Yen Lac high school overcome their difficulties? This study is conducted at Yen Lac high school in order to recognize difficulties in teaching reading skills of the teachers Factors causing such challenges are then found out To go ahead, the study also offers some suggestions to better the current context In order to improve reading comprehension skills for Yen Lac High School 12 th – form students, the teachers can make use of various techniques and a number of things should be done However, in this study, the author only intends to a brief overview of current situation of teaching reading comprehension skills in the 12th – form students of Yen Lac High School to suggest some reading activities that can be applied in teaching comprehension skill so as to help the students to become effective readers To achieve the aims mentioned above, based on the results of two survey questionnaires, one for the students and the other for the teachers were employed to collect the data for the study These will be discussed in detail in next parts of this study The title of the research: “Difficulties in teaching reading comprehension skill for grade 12 students at Yen Lac high school and some solutions” The name of the writer: – Full name: Nguyễn Thị Nhung - Address: Yen Lac High School – Phone number: 0982730578 Email: nguyenthinhung8578@gmail.com The investor of the research: the writer of the research The field in which the research will be applied: - Teaching reading skill in English lessons The date when the research was first applied: 10/9/2019 The description of the research: 7.1 The content of the research: The research is divided into three main parts: - Part 1: The theory of reading - Part 2: Difficulties in teaching reading comprehension skill for grade 12 students at Yen Lac high school and some solutions - Part 3: Conclusion 7.1.1 Part 1: Theory of reading 1.1 Definitions of reading and reading comprehension 1.1.1 Reading Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is So far reading has been defined differently by lots of scholars, however no single definition is acceptable to everyone According to Erten & Razı, 2003, reading is often referred to as the most crucial of the four language skills for EFL learners since it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and receive valuable linguistic input to build up language proficiency Reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting information in the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading It is seen as an active cognitive process in which the reader’s background knowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning (Tierney and Pearson 1994) Goodman (1971, p.135) stated that reading is “a psycholinguistics process by which the reader, language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” In his opinion, readers not only learn how to read the text, to master grammatical structures…but also understand the content expressed in the text One more definition offered by Harmer (1989, p.153) showed us his opinion and two above authors have a lot of things in common “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these messages” Having the same point with Goodman, William, E (1990, p.2) said that “reading is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written” According William, in reading process, there are also two parallel activities: looking and understanding Therefore, readers have to “encode” meanings of a word depend on the context in which it appears According to Richard and Thomas (1987:15), reading is best described as “ an understanding between the author and the reader Reading is much more than just pronouncing words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends; it is the process whereby the printed page stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual In short, each person can have a different definition of reading and we cannot tell which is better because each of them focuses on one important matter of reading However, we find that there is a close relationship between reading and understanding Therefore, being a language teacher, we must understand the nature of reading thoroughly to help our students read effectively 1.1.2 Reading comprehension Reading comprehension is the act of understanding what you are reading While the definition can be simply stated the act is not simple to teach, learn or practice Reading comprehension is an intentional, active, interactive process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of writing Reading comprehension is one of the pillars of the act of reading When a person reads a text he engages in a complex array of cognitive processes He is simultaneously using his awareness and understanding of phonemes (individual sound “pieces” in language), phonics (connection between letters and sounds and the relationship between sounds, letters and words) and ability to comprehend or construct meaning from the text This last component of the act of reading is reading comprehension It cannot occur independent of the other two elements of the process At the same time, it is the most difficult and most important of the three Reading comprehension skill plays a very vital role in teaching and learning reading a foreign language It has the nature of communication, in which reading activity acts as a means of communication between the writer and the reader Reading comprehension results in the fact that when readers know which skills and strategies are appropriate for types of texts and understand how to apply them to accomplish reading purpose Swan (1975, p.1) stated that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding” It is obvious that the student can show his understanding only by doing some tasks such as summarizing the text, answering questions, making true or false etc Grellet (1981: 3) states that reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way To sum up, reading becomes meaningless without comprehension since only reading comprehension can appreciate how much readers understand the text Therefore, how to help students have effective reading comprehension methods is considered to be the most important part in reading teaching 1.2 Types of reading We read different texts in different ways According to the manner of reading, we have aloud reading and silent reading Depending on the purpose of reading, we can classify reading into skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading 1.2.1 According to manner  Reading aloud “ Reading aloud involves looking a text, understanding it and also saying it Its’ purpose is not just to understand the text to convey the information to someone else” (Doff, 1988:70) In fact, it must be recognized that reading aloud is primarily an oral matter so that for those who teach and learn foreign languages, it is closer to “pronunciation” than it is to “comprehension” While it is perfectly proper to try to develop the skill of reading aloud, it clearly cannot be done using an unfamiliar text the content and language of which stretches the linguistic capabilities of the learners to the utmost Therefore, it must be admitted that the usefulness of reading aloud is limited First of all, “reading aloud is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom” (Doff, 1988:67) Actually, in the daily life, few people are required to read aloud as a matter of daily routine, radio newscasters, clergymen, perhaps actors To the huge majority, its importance is minimal Secondly, “the readers is often merely mouthing meaningless language because of lack of rehearsal and time to comprehend what he has to read aloud ” ( Abott and Wingard, 1981: 82) It means that when reading aloud, the readers’ attention is focused on the pronunciation, not on the understanding of the text Moreover, in the classroom, only the reading student is active at a time, others are either not listening at all or listening to a bad model In addition, some students’ speed of reading is very slow so it takes a lot of time in class In short, reading aloud can be applied for those who begin learning a foreign language to establish the connection between sound and spelling But for the second year students, their purpose of learning reading is more than connecting the pronunciation They focus on understanding the text and doing comprehension exercises which cannot be completed by reading aloud because asking a student to read aloud means that he may lack concentration on the meaning He may read correctly but after that he will not be able to tell us what he has read It is very difficult to read aloud and understand the text at the same time of reading So reading aloud might be a good way to practice pronunciation  Silent reading Silent reading is the activity we usually engage in when we read books, newspapers, advertisements Silent reading is more often used in both real life and classroom, and “it is the method we normally use with our native language, and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985:110) Because reading is a very personal skill so silent reading is a more effective skill for reading comprehension because firstly learners not need to read all the words in the text, secondly they can read at their own speed and if they not understand the sentence, they can go back, thirdly students can not only attain the main ideas in a short time but also understand its details thoroughly to answer the questions, and finally the teacher can check his/her learners’ understanding easily and add reading materials and exercises suitable to their ability In short, silent reading is the most useful and practical way to develop the students’ reading ability However, it is more beneficial when the teacher sometimes combines it with reading aloud to improve students’ pronunciation and intonation because reading aloud also has its own advantages 1.2.2 According to purpose According to purposes, reading is categorized into four types: skimming, scanning, extensive and intensive reading  Skimming Grellet (1981: 19) states skimming appears when “we go through the reading material quickly in order to get its main points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions” And Nuttall (1982: 36) also stated that “By skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through a text to determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed about matters that are not of great importance to us” In addition to the definitions of skimming, Wood (1990: 92) said that “When the reader looks at the content page of the book, or the chapter headings, sub headlines, etc This is sometimes called previewing Another example is when reader glances quickly through a newspaper to see the main items of the day are This will often mean just glancing at the headlines” That means when we quickly to get general impression to see whether the text is useful to us, it is not necessarily searching for a specific details and key words Skimming provides an overview of the text so it is beneficial to look at chapter section headings, summaries and opening paragraphs, therefore, the purpose of skimming are to check relevance of the text and to set the scene for more concentrated effort that is to follow if the text is useful To sum up, skimming is a very useful reading comprehension skill for students, and 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  Scanning Scanning is also one of two most valuable reading strategies However, scanning is far more limited than skimming since it only means retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose Scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information It is a useful skill worth cultivating for its own sake, if it has been cultivated systematically from the earliest point in the course at which it can be attempted, co- operative work on the study of texts can be greatly expected and made easy Scanning requires two skills of the reader One of them is that they recognize the specific type of word that identifies the item The other is the use of a different eye movement pattern, vertical vision Nearly all the background reading required for the presenting of a topic to the class by a group calls for proficiency in this type of reading There is a great range of text suitable for scanning – indexes, dictionaries, maps, advertisements, labels, reference material, etc In short, the key to scanning is to decide exactly what kind of information we can look for and where to find it The purpose of scanning is to extract certain specific information without reading through the whole text  Intensive reading Intensive reading is also widely used in a reading class It is an effective way to explore the text, to go deeply into the meaning and the organization of the text Intensive reading “ involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher or a task which forces the students to focus on the text” (Nuttall, 2000:38) In the view of Brown (1990:297) intensive reading “is usually a classroomoriented activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage” Grellet, F (1981:4) states that “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information This is an accuracy activity involving reading for detailed” 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 and his linguistic means to achieve his purposes In other words, intensive reading is reading for accuracy which is essential to the students’ comprehension  Extensive reading Extensive reading is a fluency activity, mainly involving general understanding It provides valuable reinforcement of the language already presented and practiced in the class as well as giving students useful practice in inferring meaning from the context of the text Extensive reading is used to obtain a general understanding of a subject and includes reading longer texts for pleasure, as well as business books Use extensive reading skills to improve our general knowledge of business procedures Grellet, F (1981:4) points out “Extensive reading means reading longer texts, usually for one’s pleasure This is a fluency activity, mainly involving global understanding” What is more, Nuttall, C (2000:127) argues that “getting students to read extensively is the easiest and most effective way of improving their reading skills” Extensive reading is considered to be useful for students’ self-learning Their reading habit and passion for reading are also formed through extensive reading Students can choose the topics they like and read for their own purpose for pleasure or entertainment However, it is more effective if students’ extensive reading is followed an instructional program with the help of the reading teacher In short, reading is necessary to every learner and undeniably an important skill in comparison with others In addition, it is notable that intensive and extensive reading should not be seen as in being opposition but need to be paid equal attention for the sake of the students For second or foreign language learners, both intensive and extensive reading are of great importance as they act as a means to gain knowledge 1.3 Teaching reading comprehension skills  The importance of reading in foreign language learning Richard (1993: 4) stated that “reading in the new language is also an important way to learn about the target culture”, which means that reading provides the students with a wide range of interesting information, helps them understand the ways of life, behaviors, thoughts and other aspects of the native people and it is also a good way to find out about new ideas, facts and experiences Therefore, they can master vocabulary, grammar and the background knowledge or cross-cultural problems that they encounter In other words, reading is very important to the foreign language learners because it widens their knowledge of language and life It seems to be the most important skill to the students of English since their main purpose is to understand the written texts In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the teaching and learning of reading are always received much attention, since it is regarded as one of the most important major skills as what Carrell (1971: 1) stated: “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” This is also true for the MSA, because at our academy, reading is an active skills namely speaking, listening and writing To master reading skill is always challenging task that requires students a number of factors: a good competence of English grammar, rich vocabulary, and reading techniques First of all, reading helps students learn to think in English, enlarge their English vocabulary, improve their writing Richard (1993:4) claimed that “reading may help to increase knowledge of the target language through exposure to new vocabulary and grammatical structures” There is a close relationship between reading and vocabulary knowledge, because while reading, the readers know most of the words in the text already, and they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the contexts Therefore, the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read It is understandable that anyone who has a large vocabulary is usually a good reader  Factors in teaching reading + The reading texts It cannot be denied that reading texts play a crucial role in teaching and learning reading because through them new grammar, phonetic and lexical items of the target language are introduced Furthermore, texts are also means to help students enrich their background knowledge and vocabulary as well In reading lesson, students are supposed to understand the texts correctly as much as possible, learn some new language items e.g words, structures, and use what they have got from the text through reading tasks and communication activities that follow Therefore, in teaching reading, the teacher should pay much attention to the following aspects such as language content, vocabulary and grammatical structures, types of reading activities, though it is not simple thing to as what Buck, G (2001) states: “Providing suitable texts is not a simple matter It takes time, effort and some expertise” + Teacher’s role Many linguistics state that the teacher is the most important factor in teaching reading In a reading class, the teacher plays so many roles, such as an organizer, a manager and a counselor, an instructional expert, so he or she should be a guide to assist, encourage them, employ various types to support the students develop reading skills He or she also the person who provides the students with an anxiety-free atmosphere which helps them feel free to join new reading style, practice to master new strategies, work under pressure of time Besides, linguistics point out an essential element of the teacher’s role-a model reader According to Nuttall (1982: 192) “showing that you are a reader means carrying books around with you, referring to books as you teach, reading out brief passages that may interest students, talking about what you are reading at the moment, and handling books as if you loved them” He also states that “teacher’s job as providing, first, suitable texts and second, activities that will focus the students’ attention on the texts” + Students’ role Nuttall (2000:33) mentions several main roles for the students in a reading lesson They are as follows: - Taking an active part in learning: This is the first and foremost responsibility of the learner They have to be active and take charge of what they - Monitoring comprehension: Students need to understand how texts work and what they when they read - Learning text talk: It is clear that a good reader carries on a dialogue with the text Consequently, the students have to learn how to this An way to promote this skill is to talk about texts in class - Taking risks: Students have to take the risk of making mistakes because a mistake is an opportunity to learn - Learning not to cheat oneself: Learning to read is learning to give students enormous advantages in life It may lead to better jobs, to personal development, interest and enjoyment Students who not want to learn to read can easily cheat but they are only cheating themselves 1.4 Organization of reading comprehension text  Pre-reading stage This stage plays a decisive role in the whole process of teaching reading comprehension, so most experienced readers employ pre- reading and other strategies to make reading easier Prereading aims at introducing the text to the students and helps them make careful preparation before reading the text It is advisable for the teacher to create a reading motivation and a positive attitude towards reading for students so that they can achieve a high level of success and become confident that they can read effectively As for Doff (1988), there are many activities a teacher can carry out to help students before they start reading as following: - Introducing the text briefly - Presenting new vocabulary - Revising grammatical structures - Giving guiding questions, 10 7.1.2.2 Method  Participants All the teachers of English at Yen Lac high school are chosen for the research  Instruments In this study, the instrument employed for collecting data was questionnaires  Questionnaires There are 10 questions in the questionnaire for the teachers and they were designed with seven purposes Firstly, through the answer to the first question, the researcher will evaluate the teachers’ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading comprehension skills at school Secondly, question is aimed at finding out the teachers’ attitude toward the importance of developing reading comprehension skills By answering questions 3, 4, 5, 6, the teachers had chance to express the teachers’ using reading techniques in a reading lesson at Yen Lac High School Question is aimed at investigating the teachers’ difficulties when teaching reading Question is to find out the teachers’ suggested activities Question is aimed at investigating the teachers’ organizing reading activities The purpose of the last question (question 10) is to find out the teachers’ activities to improve students’ reading comprehension skills 7.1.2.3 Procedure On the first day of the survey, ten questionnaires were delivered to the teachers While the teachers were completing the questions, the researcher was beside them to give them clarification if any confusion arose 7.1.2.4 Data analysis and study finding In this part, the research data will be analyzed in detail It also addresses the justification of the choice of data collection instruments: questionnaire survey and the participants of the study The findings of the research are showed and based on the result of the survey, some suggestions are given with the hope that can be applicable for the teachers of the research contexts and the readers of the study  Teachers’ survey questionnaires + Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of teaching reading comprehension skills at school Chart 1: The importance of reading skill As shown in Chart 1, most of the teachers (67%) thought that reading skill was as important as other skills, three of them (33%) viewed it less important 13 + Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of developing reading comprehension skills Chart 2: Teachers’ attitude toward the importance of developing reading comprehension skills As can be seen, most of the teachers were aware of the importance of reading comprehension so most of them accordingly thought that developing reading comprehension was necessary 11.1% of them found developing reading comprehension skills very important 66.7% of them found developing reading comprehension skills as important as other language skills To them, reading was important and beneficial to their students This is a huge advantage in teaching this skill However, two teachers (22.2 %) did not highly appreciate the important role of developing reading comprehension skills No teacher thought that developing reading comprehension skills reading was not important at all + Teachers’ using reading techniques in a reading lesson at Yen Lac High School Teachers’ frequency of using Pre-reading activities Pre – reading Always N % Sometimes N % Rarely N % 55.6 33.3 11.1 Using pre – reading questions 66.7 33.3 0 Pre – teaching vocabulary 88.9 11.1 Explaining the instructions of the task 77.8 22.2 Making students predict the content of the 44.4 Using games to introduce the text Never N % 0 0 0 0 0 22.2 22.2 11.1 text Giving reading tasks to students 44.4 33.3 11.1 11.1 Using visual aids to introduce the text 11.1 55.6 44.4 Giving a brief introduction to the text 22.2 44.4 33.3 11.1 Table 1: Teachers’ frequency of using Pre-reading activities The table indicates that in a reading lesson, pre-teaching new vocabulary (88.9%) was the most frequently used technique The explanation for this could be that it was the most traditional 14 technique for pre-reading stage or students’ vocabulary was poor and their abilities of guessing the meaning of the new words from the context were low The teachers wanted to provide their students some key words to help them overcome their difficulties when dealing with reading texts The next category consists of giving some pre-reading questions to think before reading and making students brainstorm words, structures or ideas related to the topic of the text, which were reported to be used sometimes Clearly, the rest of the techniques were considered to be the least-frequently used because it took time to prepare such techniques as games or visual aids, and some were not motivational enough Teachers’ frequency of using while- reading activities While – reading activities Often N Sometimes N % % Matching 55.6 44.4 T/F 77.8 22.2 Questions and answers 88.9 11.1 Finding synonyms and antonyms 0 66.7 Reordering 0 55.6 Sentence – completing 22.2 77.8 Gap – filling 55.6 44.4 Finding the topic sentences 33.3 66.7 Finding equivalents 11.1 33.3 10 Multiple – choice 88.9 11.1 Table 2: Teachers’ frequency of using while- reading activities Never N % 0 0 0 33.3 44.4 0 0 0 55.6 0 The frequency of using activities in the while- reading stage was also investigated There are three levels (often, sometimes, and never) for 10 kinds of exercise From the data, the teachers apparently often used some common types of activity in their reading lessons: Questions and answers, True/False and Multiple- choice Using only such common kinds of activity frequently often makes students feel bored It is advisable to use activities such as Finding topic sentences, Finding synonyms and antonyms or Finding equivalents, which were rarely conducted in the reading class + Teachers’ activities when their students meet unfamiliar words or structures in the text Chart 3: Teachers’ activities when their students meet unfamiliar words or structures in the text 15 When students met unfamiliar words or structures in the text, a large number of teachers advised students to find their meaning in the dictionary (44.4%) Up to 22.2% admitted that they often required their students to ask the word meaning from the teachers and friends This was the easiest and most effective way 22.2% told their students to guess their meanings by context clues 11.2% of the teachers advised students to ignore to concentrate on the text The teachers explained that the whole content of the reading text does not depend on just a few sentences that not make sense to them + Teachers’ using post-reading activities OPTIONS Number percent (%) A Summarize the text 22.2 B Discuss the texts 11.1 C Do multiple – choice exercises, check students’ 55.6 understanding D Translate into Vietnamese 33.3 E Do nothing 22.2 Table 3: Teachers’ using post-reading activities The table shows that 22.2% of the teachers usually asked their students to summarize the text Only one teacher asked their students to discuss the text (11.1%) Doing multiple-choice exercises after reading was also an easy and effective way to check students’ understanding about the texts 55.6% admitted that they often asked their students to multiple-choice exercises 33.3 % of the teachers asked their students to translate the text into Vietnamese out of teachers involved this study proposed that they did not ask their students to anything post-reading The reason they mentioned was the time for a reading lesson They usually lacked time in reading + Teachers’ difficulties when teaching reading 16 Chart 4: Teachers’ difficulties when teaching reading When asking the teachers about the problems they were facing with in teaching reading, the majority (44.4%) admitted that the most difficult issue was the students’ limitation of vocabulary and grammatical structures 33.3% of the teachers said that their students’ background knowledge and world knowledge were poor It cannot be denied that students’ background knowledge and world knowledge are the important factors, which affect students’ reading comprehension much Clearly, the students who possess rich prior knowledge about the topic of a reading often understand the reading better than classmates with low prior knowledge It is not very surprising to find that students’ lack of motivation was also the big problem, which was caused difficulties for the teachers (11.1%) Although the students had a profound awareness of the importance of reading, it did not lead to high interest and motivation in learning this subject because of what they were being taught in the classroom 11.1% said that they could not teach reading effectively because time was limited They often had no time for the post-reading activities + Teachers’ suggested activities Chart 5: Teachers’ suggested activities 17 When being asked which techniques the teachers used in teaching a reading lesson, all of teachers chose all suggested techniques Statistically, 55.6 % gave various kinds of exercises to help students exploit the reading text, 11.1% gave attractive introductions and clear aim of the reading text, 22.2% gave more interesting activities, 11.1 % helped the students guess new words based on the context, 11.1% gave other methods Teachers’ organizing reading activities With this question, the author intended to examine the way that the teachers asked their students to reading comprehension exercises The feedback of this question will be presented in the chart below Chart 6: Teachers’ organizing reading activities The chart shows that 11.1% of the teachers asked their students to work in groups As for the teachers, group-work enabled students to activate their existing knowledge to share experience Moreover, students could take an active part in discussion A greater proportion of teachers (22.2%) required their students to work in pairs The reason for this may be due to the class setting (the students often sit in the table of two or four) so that, when working in pairs, their students not have to change the seats arrangement and can have more time as well as more opportunities to express ideas However, the largest proportion, 66.7% of the teachers asked their students to work individually In short, the students’ ways of reading suggested the teachers finding some appropriate methods to help students read more effectively + Teachers’ activities to improve students’ reading comprehension skills 18 Chart 7: Teachers’ activities to improve students’ reading comprehension skills The teachers knew clearly the difficulties when dealing with a reading lesson so they applied lots of activities to make their lessons more interesting and less difficult to their students Among four different activities employed by the teachers to help their students to improve reading comprehension skill, provide students with certain key words was most carried out by 44.4% of the teachers The explanation for this could be that this activity was easy to apply and teachers did not spend much time preparing it Create comfortable environment for students to exchange information before reading was carried out by 11.1% of the teachers 33.3% of the teachers used suggest students essential reading strategies needed for each kind of reading tasks 11.1% of the teachers explained clearly about the reading context  Study findings + The teachers’ attitudes toward the role of the teaching of reading From the above data analysis, most of the teachers at Yen Lac High School were aware of the importance of reading, they expressed their positive attitudes to teaching reading comprehension skills as well as developing reading comprehension skills The survey results in the questionnaire for the teachers indicate that teachers used different activities and exercises in the reading lesson, but they were not appropriate and effective enough The teachers, in fact still applied traditional strategies in teaching reading Most of them focused on presenting new words and grammatical structures rather than instructed their students to use some useful techniques such as skimming and scanning, etc They did not made use of pairs work and groups work in the process of teaching reading That is why their reading lessons were not be effective Students consequently could not develop their reading comprehension skills This is the reason why the teachers of English should think of more useful techniques that work in the current situation of teaching to get the best result of a reading lesson + Difficulties the teachers meet when dealing with a reading lesson One of the major obstacles to the success of reading lessons and its communicative language methods is the classroom facilities and the class size It is undeniable that modern technology encourages much any aspects of language teaching and learning Without authentic materials, teachers cannot 19 help students to interact with real situations where English is used More seriously, teachers often have to simplify their performance and other interesting activities due to limited facility Another concerning matter is that many of such limited devices are misspent because no one takes advantage of them Some teachers find inconvenient to apply new technology into their teaching, or they may be lazy because it takes time and energy to redesign the lesson plans In addition, big class size cannot meet the demand of the communicative language approach This discourages students’ interaction or activeness in the classroom as well as teachers’ observations and assistance to individual The information from the data analysis clearly shows that the teachers faced many problems when dealing with reading lessons Limitation of vocabulary and grammatical structures is the biggest problem for reading Some possible explanation considered by the researcher is that the 12 th students had very limited vocabulary, and were too dependent on teachers, peers dictionaries New words have affected the students’ process of reading Background knowledge is found to be a less challenge than vocabulary Students found that they did not know anything in some aspects Therefore, they had many difficulties when reading a strange topic 7.1.2.5 Suggested solutions to overcome the challenges According to the statistics, teaching reading comprehension skills at Yen Lac High School are not very effective and satisfactory The 12th-form students know something about reading skills, and they apply them in dealing with the reading tasks However, the number of the students being effective readers is modest while the rest of the students seem to be ineffective ones Thus it is time the teachers did something to reach their ultimate target: students’ reading improvement A successful reading teacher is the person who can help his students build up passion for reading, comprehend the reading text well, develop effectively reading habit outside classroom and better other language skills in combination with reading It is very important to give out some suggested activities to improve reading comprehension skills to students The activities suggested hereafter hopefully can serve as a tool to enable teachers of reading at Yen Lac High School to become more successful + Pre – reading stage This activity gets students to think about the content of the text which is going to be read The aims of this activity are to introduce and arouse the learners’ interest to the topic to motivate them by giving the reason for reading and providing some language preparation for the text Steven (1988:328) states that: “pre- reading activities must accomplish both goals: building new background knowledge as well as activating existing background knowledge A teacher of reading may thus be viewed as a teacher of relevant information as well as a teacher of reading skills.” The following activities can be considered to be effective techniques in the pre-reading stage of a reading lesson: 20 - Brainstorming and graphically organizing information a brainstorming web can activate the students’ schemata as well as stimulate their interests and curiosity The teacher divides class into small groups of 4-5 students Each group must take a brainstorming web and write the title of the article in the center groups write everything they already know about wild animals They can add as many circles as needed Actually, a brainstorming web reminds the students of what they have already known and gets their minds ready to take new information as well  Example: English 12, Unit 3: The Green Movement, pp 34 The teacher writes “pollutants” on the board then asks her students to work in groups in order to find words related to “pollutants” pestisid e smok e pollutants plastic - soot Giving pre-reading questions The teacher gives some questions which should be concerned with the general meaning or with the most important point of a text and not focus on minor details, asks students to work in pairs in order to answer all questions It is evident that these questions are necessary to students because “they give the students a reason to read and to lead them to the main points of the text” (Doff, 1988:61)  Example: English 12, Unit 2: Urbanisation, pp 23 The teacher writes a few questions on the board related to the main ideas of the reading text and then asks the students to work in groups of to answer the questions: How has your hometown changed for the last ten years? What are the causes of urbanisation? What are the consequences of urbanisation? - Using visual aids such as map, diagrams, figure, photographs etc related to the topic It cannot be denied that visual aids are of great help in stimulating the learning of a foreign language As a result, using visual aids is considered to be one of the most efficient techniques used in teaching new items since it is a way to show the meaning of the words visually through real objects, drawing, pictures, gestures and facial expressions The teacher asks students to look at visual aids and discuss content related to the topic of the text  Example: English 12, Unit 1: Life stories, pp.11 21 The teacher prepares some simple pictures to describe a story, and sticks them on the board randomly The teacher asks her students to work in groups to rearrange the pictures and think of a story based on their pictures order In order to help to prepare pre- reading work, useful questions that the teacher can ask himself are: - What knowledge, idea or opinions might the learners already have on the topic and how can this knowledge help them with the reading? - Why should anyone want to read this text, and can learners be motivated by the same or similar reasons - How many grammatical items and vocabularies should be explained? - How much time is possible for the pre- reading activities? The answers to these questions will help the teacher decide the ways of introducing the text, motivating the learners, and at the same time will incorporate language preparation Moreover, they also help the teacher carry out pre- reading activities successfully + While – reading stage  Reading for general understanding To help students to gain general understanding about the text, the teacher teaches students skimming technique The skimming technique is an important technique in reading comprehension directs students to a global understanding of reading texts The teacher instructs the students to read a few important sentences and recognize certain words or expression as clues to ideas of what follows It is advisable to ask the students to pay attention to the title, the beginning, the end as well as the topic sentence of each paragraph that usually conveys the main ideas of the text After teaching new vocabulary or introducing the text, etc the teacher asks his students to read the text silently for the first time to gain the global understanding of the text, identify main ideas before going into the details of the text  Information questions While the students are reading, they are given some questions which help them know what they are expected to read Information questions used while students are skimming direct them to the general idea of the text The teacher can use the questions in the text book, change or replace the poor ones, or he can design some extra questions It is worth using Wh- questions to draw the students’ attention to the whole text If Yes/ No questions are used, he must his students to explain their answers For example, in Unit 4: “The Mass Media ” (English 12: 50), the students may be asked to answer the questions after skimming the text: What is the main idea of this passage? What are the roles of mass media? Do mass media affect people’s lives? 22  Multiple choice questions This is one of the most common types of exercises used in reading comprehension It can be used to focus on the whole text and enables students to understand the text by giving them clues His kind of questions certainly contains a statement and a set of possible answers Students’ task is to select the best one form the answers depending on the text For instance, in Unit 4: “The Mass Media ” (English 12: 50) the students may be asked to answer the question: Which of the choices A, B, C or D most adequately sums up the ideas of the whole passage? A The history of print media B Forms of mass media C The advent of the Digital media Age D Means of mobile communication When doing the multiple choices exercises, the students need to understand the stem of the item as well as the options It is necessary to help the students immediately when they have problems with the question stems  True/ False questions True/ False questions may be used to draw the students’ attention to the main ideas of the text The students are given a list of statements about the text and they must decide whether they are true or false according to what they read There are several possibilities of this kind of questions In all the provided statements, some of them are right, some are wrong, and some are not mentioned in the text The students must write true (T) or (F) or not given (NG) next to each statement according to what they get from the text For example, in the text “Urbanisation” (English 12: 23), the students have to decide if the following statements are T, F or NG according to the text Decide whether the statements are true (T), (F) or (NG) Urbanisation happens first in more economically developed countries, then in less economically developed countries Urbanisation has increased in rich countries since 1950s The standard of living in cities and rural areas is more or less the same When asking the students to answer the multiple choice questions and the True/ False questions, the teacher needs to be aware that the students can guess the answer rather than base on the text To exploit the text efficiently, it is plausible to ask the students to discuss their answers in pairs or in groups, and give reasons for their choice  Reading for specific information After the students complete some exercises focusing on the main point or general understanding of the text, depending on the kinds of task, the teacher divides class into pairs or small groups of 4-5 students to scan the text again and search for or locate some particular pieces of information in the 23 text The teacher should remind his students that when they are trying to locate specifically required information, they not need to read the whole text carefully but pay more attention to the paragraph in which the information they need is likely to be embedded It is advisable to limit the time of scanning since this can save the time and make the students try their best to develop the scanning skill Depending on the text, the teaching and learning condition or the students’ language level, the students are asked to answer information questions, multiple choice questions or True/ False questions  Information questions The information questions can be used to focus the students on specific information of the text For example, in the text “Cultural Identity” (English 12: 63), the teacher may ask his students to answer the following questions How individuals define themselves? What language the British speak? What is the traditional costume of the Vietnamese?  Multiple choice questions This kind of question is also widely used to draw the students to “just one word of the text” or specific information of the text For example, for the text “Artificial Intelligence” (English 12: 22 ), students may be instructed to choose the best answers for each sentence according to the text Artificial Intelligence is the intelligence displayed by A machines or software B only machines C only software D human Many A.I experts believe that A.I technology will soon make even greater in many other areas A advances B efforts C devices D things + Post – reading This stage is carried out after the students have completely read the text In order to have a successful reading lesson, it can not end in while – reading stage Techniques applied in this stage are very helpful because they not only consolidate what students have learnt, provide them with further information relating to the text but also improve their language skills 24 Dealing with the role of post reading stage, Durkin (1986:486) stages that: “ one reason for post – reading discussion in classroom is to give students the chance to see in what way their reading did or did not succeed and why.” Post – reading is the way to check the students’ reading comprehension, the teacher can involve the students in many different kinds of activities During this stage, the teacher plays an important role, as he is the person who motivates and attracts the students to the activities Each kind of text also requires the teacher to have different approach The teacher may get ideas for post – reading work by asking himself the following questions: - Do the learners know of a similar situation to that presented in the text? - Does the text present a situation that calls for recommendations? - Does the text present a situation that invites completions? - Does the text present views that might need to be counter – balanced? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then there is an opportunity for post – reading work The work that the questions lead to may be writing, interaction drawing a diagram, or any combination of these + Adjusting Teaching Time and efforts Findings from the survey reveal that teachers at Yen Lac High School have already provided different techniques to help their students read effectively However, the teachers also need to notice that not enough time and efforts have been spent to help their students deal with new words or phrases, or come – up problems of cultural knowledge The teachers need to save more time and efforts identifying what difficulties their students are coping with in each stage of reading For example, if their students find it hard to start discussion about the topic to read, it is essential that the teachers guide them with interesting questions, or theme- based topics If that is the problem of working out the gist, asking them to have skim read is the task of the teachers and this is certain to facilitate the students Time and efforts are also necessary for the teachers to tabulate their students’ level of proficiency so that appropriate reading exercises can be ended punctually In short, using the time and efforts wisely is one technique to help teachers improve their students’ reading skills + Creating Interest and Enhancing Motivation Ways for creating interest and enhancing motivation for the students at Yen Lac High School will vary significantly according to personal preferences, experiences, background, and subject matter For 12h - form students of English at Yen Lac High School, it would be helpful to suggest some ways for creating the students’ interest and enhancing their motivation before reading Group discussion is an activity that can be appropriate for situations in which texts are difficult, sometimes contain unfamiliar concepts or words that may be not exist in the students’ minds Group students in three or four with an efficient reader to create an exciting reading atmosphere since reading alone is conventional and sometimes rather boring and not effective 25 + Techniques for enriching vocabulary The 12th-form students often find reading tasks are difficult and boring because of their limitation of vocabulary and grammatical structures The teachers can encourage the students to have extensive reading habit, use word games, use word list Firstly, by reading extensive materials, the students can feel the joys of reading in other language Moreover, it can help the students enrich their vocabulary, strengthen their understanding of language and consolidate their grammar The students can choose what they want to read and the reading material is easy enough Secondly, word games should be used more frequently in class especially during consolidation stage, if students are made to take part in word games voluntarily, they will become more active and hard working; thus, their vocabulary acquisition will be improved Moreover, through such activities, the interaction among students in the classroom can be promoted Students are brought closer to each other That makes a better studying environment, a very important factor that helps a lot in bringing good learning results Finally, using word list is also the effective way to revise vocabulary In order to help students become familiar with the new way of vocabulary learning, which encourage their autonomy, the teachers should guide them how to make their word lists Students are asked to write their own record sheets, on which they have to list each word they have selected along with its pronunciation, part of speech, meaning, collocations and related forms + Techniques for improving students’ background knowledge The teacher asks the students to search for information and read as much as possible about a specific topic of their favorites Then during a class contact, the teacher would start by sharing with the whole class some information that she had collected before asking her students for further supplementation Alternatively, teachers should subdivide a theme into several subtopics and assign each of them to different groups in the class Subsequently, each group of students should read at home to discuss or exchange the information with other groups in the following lesson 7.1.3 Part 3: Conclusion As reading, one of the receptive skills through which students can widen their knowledge of the target language more effectively than the others, it is important for the students to have good techniques in reading to become good readers In the case of this study, the teachers of reading at Yen Lac High School are supposed to be aware of many factors that affect students’ reading comprehension Among these, there are four main factors that should be taken into consideration for the 12th-form students: Students’ lack of background knowledge and world knowledge, students’ low motivation, students’ limited vocabulary and grammatical structures and their lack of appropriate reading strategies This study gives an analysis of the difficulties in reading and the sources of these difficulties as perceived by the 12th form students at Yen Lac High School, specifically, difficulties in vocabulary, reading strategies, and background knowledge and knowledge of the world The study has also looked into the teachers’ perceptions of their students’ difficulties in reading acquisition 26 in order to investigate to what extent the teachers understand their students in the process of reading acquisition The findings of the study indicate that there is a big gap between what the teachers have done to motivate the students and what the students prefer The majority of students prefer having supplementary reading texts or for extensive reading They want their teachers to provide them with reading strategies, how to read efficiently Besides, it reveals that the teachers not make full use of games and visual aids of which catch the interest of most the students Coming from the real situation of teaching and learning reading at Yen Lac High School, in this study, an effort has been made to present some useful reading techniques which hopefully can be employed to help the 12th form students at Yen Lac High School improve their reading comprehension 7.2 Possibility of the application of the research: The study is supposedly beneficial to the teachers at Yen Lac high school and others in the same conditions as well As for the teachers, this study is meant to supply them with some useful guides to make best uses of reading activities in English reading lessons in the textbook English 12 The students are expected to be aware of the importance of reading lessons, which results in a good piece of reading and an improvement in their reading competence In addition, the findings of this thesis are assumed to be a reliable reference source for people who share the same interest in this matter Information that needs keeping secret: nothing Necessary conditions needed to apply the research: - Projectors - Quiet and spacious classrooms 10 Assessments of the result when applying the research –according to the writer, organizations and individuals that first applied it -help teachers feel confident to overcome difficulties in reading lessons - widen knowledge of the students 10.1 Advantages of applying the research according to the writer: - meet the expectations of the teachers and students 10.2 Advantages of applying the research according to some organizations and individuals: - make students be more interested in English lessons 11 List of organizations and individuals first using the research: Order Name Adress Teachers Yen Lac High School th Yen Lac, 10 February,2020 Fields applied Reading Yen Lac, 10th February, 2020 Headmaster Writer (signature) (signature) 27 ... FOR GRADE 12 STUDENTS AT YEN LAC HIGH SCHOOL AND SOME SOLUTIONS (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC DẠY KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 12 CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRƯỜNG THPT YÊN LẠC VÀ MỘT VÀI BIỆN PHÁP GIẢI... Lac high school as well as those at other high schools The main purpose of this study is to explore the teaching of the reading skill for 12 th graders by teachers at Yen Lac high school It concentrates... school in teaching the reading skill for grade 12 students?” What should be done to help teachers at Yen Lac high school overcome their difficulties? This study is conducted at Yen Lac high school