Tài liệu Anh thpt – tran thi khanh toan – thpt nong cong 1 – nong cong (1)

Research theme: Designing an extra reading program for grade 10 learners to better their English I. INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study It is commonly known that English has become one of the most important languages in the world. It has trickled even into lesser-known countries as something that is needed to communicate with others. In Vietnam, especially now in the time of integrating into the process of globalization of the world economy, English has been considered more important than ever before. At schools, it has been a compulsory subject for quite many years. However, learners’ attitudes to this subject are hostile because of their incompetence in English from lower schools, which makes them unconfident in using English as means of communication. According to the time allocation, moreover, the school time for English lessons is limited with only 3 periods a week, each lasts 45 minutes. In an academic year, students complete 10 units, in which there are 10 reading lessons. Although these reading lessons are of various and interesting topics with numerous updated range of vocabulary, most of them are written or redesigned by Vietnamese writers, not the authentic ones. From my own experience, I assume that in learning English, the more exposure to reading, especially to authentic ones, the more progress the learners make in their English. This is because of a number of benefits that reading brings about such as vocabulary expansion, better writing skill. Therefore, I thought of designing an extra reading program for my students to follow at home so that they have more access to reading materials, thereby improve their English. 2. Aims of the study The study aimed at seeing whether the reading program is beneficial for my students. Specifically, the aims include: 2.1. Seeing if I can apply the reading program in my context. 2.2. Seeing if my students expand their vocabulary. 2.3. Seeing on how many students I can continue the reading program. 3. Background to the study In this school year, I am responsible for teaching English to class 10C1 (English pilot program under the requirement of Thanh Hoa Department of Education and Training) at Nong Cong 1 high school which is located in Nong Cong town, Thanh Hoa province. As not majoring in English, they are offered 1 no extra classes besides the three 45-minute periods per week, which may not be enough for their need to use English. With the desire of helping my students with more reading materials, I conducted this study within two months. In order to carry out my research, I planned a reading program, in which there were a number of stories including funny stories, fairy tales such as The Lizard And The Damsel, and the famous short story Love of Life by Jack London. The aim in using stories is to entertain and stimulate the spirits of learning English among my students. Also, because of their quite heavy workload at major subjects, I gave them short passages first, longer ones later, and one by one every week, not all at the same time so that the research did not affect their study much. 4. Research problem With a view to finding out if I can do something to develop my students' English, I conducted the research entitled " Designing an extra reading program for grade 10 learners to better their English " among my 46 students. The research was carried out to find answers to the following questions: 4.1. To what extent do the students enjoy the program? 4.2. To what extent do the students increase their vocabulary range? 4.3. How many students would like to continue the program? 5. Research design The research study is organized into three parts as followed:  Part 1 provides basic information including the rationale, aims, background, research questions, and research design.  Part 2 reviews the related literature on the benefits of reading as well as presents the methods used to collect the data, also some training needed before applying the program.  Part 3 involves the result analysis as well as the discussion of the data and draws the conclusion on the subject matter and suggestions for further research. 2 II. DEVELOPMENT 1. Literature Review: Reading is an all-important language skill that is now in more demand than in any time in our history. According to Anderson (1999), reading is the process of looking at a series of written symbols and getting meaning from them. When we read, we use our eyes to receive written symbols (letters, punctuation marks and spaces) and we use our brain to convert them into words, sentences and paragraphs that communicate something to us. Brown (1994) confirms that if you want to improve reading comprehension, you should have reading skills. She also stresses that reading comprehension means after reading, you can understand or interpret the text, or you have to understand the author’s message. Sharing the same idea, Pressley & Afflerbach (1995) confirms that skilled readers not only read, but interact with the text. Mayer (2003) defines reading comprehension is techniques for improving students' success in extracting useful knowledge from the text. A reading expert, Ulijin (1985) defines reading comprehension as: The holistic process of constructing meaning from written text through the interaction of (1) the knowledge the reader brings to the text, i.e., word recognition ability, world knowledge, and knowledge of linguistic conventions; (2) the reader's interpretation of the language that the writer used in constructing the text; and (3) the situation in which the text is read. (p.64-69) It is undeniable that reading is of much importance as far as learning English is concerned. Reading is something that you can do on your own and that greatly broadens your vocabulary, thus helping you in speaking, listening and writing. Reading is therefore a highly valuable skill and activity, and it is recommended that English learners try to read as much as possible in English. Educational researchers have found that there is a strong correlation between reading and academic success. In other words, a student who is a good reader is more likely to do well in school and pass exams than a student who is a weak reader. This is not very surprising, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read extensively, and if you read extensively you are likely to be or become a good reader, and then a better writer. According to Smith (2004), the more we read, the more we are able to read. Every time a reader meets a new word, something new is likely to be learned about the identification and meaning of words. Every time a new text is read, something new is likely to be learned about reading different kinds of text. Learning to read is not a process of building up a repertoire of specific skills, which make all kinds of reading 3 possible. Instead, experience increases the ability to read different kinds of text. For al these reasons, it is vital that learners read constantly for the sake of obtaining a significant number of benefits attained from reading as just a few of which are listed below. 1.1. Vocabulary Expansion This goes with the idea: the more English learners read, the more words they gain exposure to, and they will inevitably make their way into their everyday vocabulary. Being articulate and well spoken is of great help in any profession, and knowing that they can speak to higher-ups with self-confidence can be an enormous boost to their self-esteem. It could even aid in their career, as those who are well-read, well-spoken, and knowledgeable on a variety of topics tend to get promotions more quickly (and more often) than those with smaller vocabularies and lack of awareness of literature, scientific breakthroughs, and global events. Experts advise people, and most importantly students, to indulge in at least half an hour of reading a day to expose themselves to numerous styles of writing and to learn new vocabulary. An improved vocabulary is the most obvious outcome of a strongly established habit of reading because while reading books, especially challenging ones, you will find yourself exposed to many new words you wouldn’t be otherwise. 1.2. Knowledge Everything students read fills their heads with new bits of information, and they never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge they have, the better equipped they are to tackle any challenge they will ever face. Additionally, there is a bit of food for thought: should we ever find ourselves in dire circumstances, remember that although we might lose everything else - our job, our possessions, our money, even our health - knowledge can never be taken from us. So, the more we read, the better it is. 1.3. Better Writing Skills Clearly, an improved vocabulary and increase of knowledge are direct results of an established habit of reading; these benefits together create a third benefit of reading books. With the aid of an increased vocabulary and knowledge, a writer has a better chance at creating an acceptable, if not excellent, piece of written work. All successful writers will declare that in order to succeed as a writer, one needs to read, every day. It is explained that while reading you unconsciously absorb the grammar and style of the author. Great authors have a tendency to take over your mind. This influence carries over to writing, helping form clear, rhythmic sentences. Books have the power to 4 influence people, often for short lengths of time; even so, a writer’s style of writing can easily be carried out onto a reader’s own style of writing. This causes the reader to develop a fusion of their own style and an author’s style of writing, if only for a short time. Thus, to a certain degree, students' writings may be improved as a result of exposure to more reading. 1.4. Memory Improvement Memory and reading are in close interaction with one another, reading significantly helps improve memory at a young age in life and later on in one’s older years. Poor long-term memory can cause difficulties with reading or reading comprehension. Reading books “helps you stretch your memory muscles because it requires you remembering details, facts and figures in literature, plot lines, themes, and characters. When one reaches a certain age where they no longer have a long-term memory, it becomes exceedingly difficult to successfully read an entire book. This is due to the fact that with poor longterm memory, the reader often does not remember which lines he or she has already read and may find they repeatedly read the same line or page on a book. 1.5. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills It is recognized that those who take an active involvement in reading have higher intelligence, and general knowledge than those who do not. Reading is an indulgence that enhances our knowledge by making us use our brain and causing us to think more and therefore enhancing our intelligence. Since books help improve both memory and concentration, one can say that reading makes it easier to study a subject and retain the knowledge received from the subject, thus directly making someone more knowledgeable. If one can spot patterns at a faster rate, then analytical skills are enhanced by speed. Books are used nearly every day in schools to teach difficult subjects, there is a reason why schools of all grades assign a variety of textbooks. This is because books hold a variety of information within their pages, of all subjects. To some, this may seem preposterous but the matter of fact is that different authors know different kinds of knowledge, and by exposing oneself to a large variety of books and absorbing their information with understanding, one can easily become an expert in a chosen subject. In short, from a variety of advantages that reading offers, I would like to apply the reading program into my context with the hope that my students will benefit from it. 2. Methodology: 5 2.1. Participants The participants were 46 students from class 10C1 from every corner of Nong Cong district, by this I mean they are both from town and rural areas. 22 of them are females and they are 16 years old. They have been learning English for more than 5 years. According to their school report when they were at grade 9, 5 of them were ranked as very good, 7 as good, 22 as average, and 12 as poor at using English. 2.2. Instruments The current study is conducted by using a questionnaire when the study was over for data collection. The four-item questionnaire in this study (see appendix 1) aimed at finding out if the reading program is beneficial for my students. Specifically, item 1 was addressed to the theme of whether my students enjoy the program or not; item 2 to the theme of how many new words/phrases they encounter during their reading; item 3 to the theme of whether they would like to continue the program, and item 4 to any suggestions they want to make. Additionally, the researcher collected students' assignments as a tool for analysis of the study. 2.3. Training Before applying the program, some training was needed for its best effectiveness. Firstly, I made emphasis on the benefits of reading to any English learners. The reading program includes various stories ranging from funny stories to fairy tales and short stories, which are quite interesting and meaningful. They not only help improve their English but also entertain them after hard work at school. The stories which I choose are reasonable in length so that they will not take students much time. Otherwise, they may get bored with my research. The reading program was conducted within 6 weeks (from 10 th to 15th week of 1st term in 2014) with the outline as follows. (see in the next page) Numbers Week Stories 6 1 1 1 funny stories 2 2 1 funny stories 3 3 The tortoises' picnic 4 4 The lizard and the damsel 5 5 The three enchanted oranges 6 6 The little red riding hood & The vain little mouse At the beginning of each week, I gave my students the handouts and asked them to read the stories, then translate them into Vietnamese while at the same time write down all the new words/phrases/structures which they encounter in notebooks, which I will collect at the end of the study III. CONCLUSION 7 1. The result analysis and introduction: After collecting data from the two kinds of instruments applied in the language class I am teaching, I have come to some findings that will be helpful for teaching and learning English. The results are as: Almost students enjoy the reading program, all of the students increase their vocabulary range, and quite many of them would like to continue the reading program. With regard to the initial result, when designed to seek for students' responses to the question: "Do the students enjoy the program?" the first item in my questionnaire was addressed to see whether students found the reading program beneficial. Happily, I had the result as follows. Table 1: Students' attitude to the reading program Item number Item Responses % 1 Did you find the reading program beneficial? Yes 91 No 9 As can be seen from the table, 91 per cent (= 42 participants) gave affirmative answer to this item, which showed that most of them enjoyed the program. I continued my questionnaire with the second item, the result of which is presented in table 2 below. (see in the next page) Table 2: The number of new words/phrases participants achieved in each week's reading stories Classes Participants W1 10C1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 Total 1 0 3 8 7 5 10 33 2 0 3 7 8 3 14 35 3 1 4 2 7 6 0 20 4 2 3 7 8 4 10 34 5 2 3 8 5 13 11 42 Key: W: Week 8 The table reveals the number of new words/phrases shown by 10 students whom I chose randomly from both classes. (I made this random choice because it will take much time if I present all the 46 participants' result here). Among these selected participants, the one who had the highest number of new words/phrases is participant number 7 with the total of 52 words. It was then followed by those with 42, 35, 34, 33, 20 respectively. It means all of these five participants had expanded their vocabulary during their reading. Additionally, when I checked the rest, the one who had the lowest number of new words/phrases is with 9 words. There are many students whose new words/phrases are written clearly with their word family. For example, in a participant's assignment from class 10C1, what he wrote down in week 2 is as follows:  coat (n): áo choàng - a coat of paint: lớp sơn - coat of mail: áo giáp - to dust someone's coat: đánh ai một trận - It is not the gay coat that makes the gentlemen: đừng lấy bề ngoài ...  pocket (n): túi - to suffer in one's pocket: tiêu tốn tiền - an empty pocket - air pocket: lỗ thủng khí - to pick someone's pocket: móc túi ai In short, from the above data, it can be said that all of the participants increase their vocabulary range thanks to the reading program. Item number three in the questionnaire aimed at finding out how many students would like to continue the reading program, and what their suggestions were if they had. Table 3 below illustrates the results received for item 3. Table 3: The number of students who would like to continue the program Item number Item Responses % 3 Would you like the reading program to be continued? Yes 65.2 No 34.8 9 Although 91 percent of the participants found the study beneficial, 65.2 per cent of them (= 30 students) want to continue the program. I did not ask for the reason why because this is actually an extra one designed to help those who have passion for English. 65.2 per cent is really an encouraging figure as English, in my school, is not their major subject. When coming to the suggestions they want to make, I had some like this: "I think you should give us such stories like Love of Life by Jack London. This is a very useful story, which not only helps increase vocabulary but also helps understand a literary work from which I learn the will of overcoming the hardship of life." or "I prefer short stories to funny stories and fairy tales". All in all, after analyzing the questionnaire, I am confident to come to the conclusion that almost my students enjoy the reading program, which helps improve their English to a certain extent. What I can do next is to design another program for 65.2 percent of the students who have interest in their English enhancement. 2. Conclusions and Recommendation: In this final part, I would like to summarize what have been mentioned in the previous chapters and offer some concluding remarks. In the introductory part, the reasons for carrying out this research are clearly presented. They are the requirements of more authentic reading materials, more vocabulary and better use of English. All of these reasons inspired me to implement a study on applying a reading program in my context. In part 2, the literature review on the definition of reading as well as its benefits is presented. Different views from different researchers are mentioned. Although there are a lot of advantages, I mention only five of them. The methodology as well as the analysis and discussion of the data is shown in part 3 and 4. With the instruments used, I could collect relevant information to analyze and discuss the data, the results of which revealed that my efforts were rewarding. In conclusion, it is undeniable that reading is of vital importance, especially for the learners of English. Therefore, students should be encouraged to read as much as possible and helped with relevant materials so that they can earn full benefits from them. For the program like this to be carried out, it requires the teacher to have various and relevant materials, then the time to check students' assignments, to help them with any difficulties, etc. It is a timeconsuming activity, but it might bring about fruitful results for not only students but also teachers in the learning and teaching English. From my own experience, 10 I find it possible and effective to use such program as an extra one for students to follow at home. However, this study was carried out for the first time among my 46 students from class 10C1. By this I mean the result may be different if it is applied in other classes. Moreover, the stories used in the program might not be interesting enough, which requires me to redesign it if I conduct the research again in another context. Hopefully, further research on this with extensive application will be conducted so that any teachers from any schools can explore its benefits for this effective teaching and learning of English. Hereby, I certify that I myself have done this research and I am capable of being responsible for this paper in the future if it can be proved of containing other people’s idea. SIGNATURE OF PRINCIPAL Thanh Hoa, May 15th, 2015 WRITER Trần Thị Khánh Toàn 11 REFERENCES Anderson, N. (1999). Exploring second language reading: issues and strategies. Heinle & Heinle. 53-56. Brown, H. D. (1994). Principles of language learning and teaching. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents. Draper, C.G. Great American Stories Hill, L.A. (1965): Intermediate stories for reproduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaro, J. & Saraberri, S.(1995). Storytelling. Scotland: Macmillan Heinemann. Mayer, Richard. (2003). Learning and Instruction. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Smith, F. (2004). Understanding Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning. Lawrence Erlbaum 12 Experience and Initiatives in Designing extra reading program for grade 10 learners to better their English. 13