Tài liệu Improving students' reading comprehension at my hao high school by using short stories in teaching reading

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI UNIVERSITY Nguyen thi Ly Improving students reading comprehension at My Hao high school by using short stories in teaching reading Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements of the Degree of Master of Arts in TESOL Supervisor: Le Quoc Hanh, M.A Hanoi October 2009 Acknowledgments I would like to send my gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Le Quoc Hanh, M.A. for his precious instruction and encouragement without which I can not complete this thesis. My sincere thanks go to Ms. Nguyen Thai Ha and her colleagues at the Department of Post Graduate Studies for their understandings and guidance to all the lectures for their comprehensive instructions and presentations during the course. I would like to say big thanks to my colleagues and students at My Hao high school for their good will and cooperation during the action plan. My deep love goes to my family for their great physical and spiritual support. All the shortcomings belong to me and constructive feedbacks are highly appreciated. i Abstract It is assumed that the more students read the better reader they become. Therefore, establishing students the habit of reading is very necessary especially in second language learning. The overall purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of the using short story reading activities (as extra reading activities) at My Hao high school. Thus survey questionnaires and class observations are used to investigate the teacher and the students' attitude towards the using short stories in teaching ands learning reading and to examine the students' preferences for students' reading activities applied by the researcher. The results of the study show that both teachers and students are fully aware of the sheer importance of short story reading activities to the students' comprehension. Among them, summarizing the story in spoken or written form appears to be the most interesting activities. After this activity, the students not only comprehend deeply the short story but they also practice speaking and writing skills. Secondly, the students find it easier to comprehend the story by filling in the map, chart or using graphic, and it is interesting to ask and answer questions relating problems or themes in the story to their real life. Hopefully, the thesis can be considered as a small contribution for teaching at My Hao high school. ii List of abbreviations FL: Foreign Language EFL: English as Foreign Language ER: Extensive Reading ESP: English for Specific Purposes AR: Action Research L2: Second Language SLA: Second Language Acquisition T: Teacher Ss: Students iii List of figures, charts Figure 1: The process of reading comprehension Figure 2: The process of doing action research Chart 1: Students’ attitude toward reading skill Chart 2: Factors affecting Ss’ reading comprehension Chart 3: Ss’ comment about reading text in English 10 Chart 4: Ss’ opinion about how to improve their reading comprehension Chart 5: Ss’ preferences to different kinds of extra reading materials in English Chart 6: Ss’ opinion about benefit of using short stories in learning reading. Chart 7: Ss’ preferences for reading short-story-activities. Chart 8: The results of the pre-test Chart 9: Factors affecting Ss’ reading comprehension Chart 10: Ss’ opinion about the short-story-reading-activities that the teacher applied. Chart 11: The results of the post test Chart 12: Pre-test and post test comparison. iv Table of contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................. I ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................II LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................... III LIST OF FIGURES, CHARTS ................................................................................... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. V CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY ..........................................................................................................1 1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY ........................................................................................................................3 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY.......................................................................................................................3 1.4 METHOD OF THE STUDY ...................................................................................................................3 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ..........................................................................................................4 1.6 OUT LINE OF THE STUDY ..................................................................................................................4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................... 6 2.1 READING COMPREHENSION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS ...................................................................................................................................................6 2.1.1 Reading comprehension ..........................................................................................................6 2.1.2 The importance of learning reading comprehension skills .....................................................6 2.2. FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION..........................................................7 2.2.1 Background knowledge ...........................................................................................................7 2.2.2. Motivation ..............................................................................................................................8 2.2.3 Teacher’s teaching method .....................................................................................................9 2.2.4. Materials ..............................................................................................................................11 2.2.5. Vocabulary ...........................................................................................................................11 2.3. SHORT STORY AND ITS BENEFITS ..................................................................................................13 2.3.1. Short story and its benefits to high school students .............................................................13 2.3.2. Choosing the suitable short story for high school students. ................................................14 2.3.3. How to use short story in teaching reading .........................................................................16 2.4 PREVIOUS STUDIES ........................................................................................................................18 2.4.1. Foreign research..................................................................................................................18 2.4.2 Vietnamese research .............................................................................................................19 CHAPTER 3: THE METHODOLOGY ...................................................................... 21 3.1 WHAT IS ACTION RESEARCH? ........................................................................................................21 3.2 ACTION RESEARCH QUESTIONS ......................................................................................................22 3.3 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS .................................................................................................22 3.3.1 Questionnaires ......................................................................................................................22 3.3.2 Interviews ..............................................................................................................................23 3.3.3 Observations .........................................................................................................................23 3.3.4 Pre-test and post-test (Appendix 7).......................................................................................24 3.4 THE SETTING AND THE PARTICIPANTS ............................................................................................25 3.4.1 The setting .............................................................................................................................25 3.4.2 The subjects ..........................................................................................................................25 3.4.3 The observer .........................................................................................................................25 3.5 ACTION RESEARCH PROCEDURE.....................................................................................................25 3.5.1 Identifying a problem ............................................................................................................26 3.5.2. Collecting data.....................................................................................................................26 3.5.3 Analyzing data and generating hypothesis ...........................................................................26 3.5.4 Planning action .....................................................................................................................27 3.5.5. Implementing the action plan...............................................................................................27 3.5.6 Collecting data to monitor change........................................................................................28 v 3.5.7 Analyzing data and evaluating the change ...........................................................................28 CHAPTER 4: THE RESULT ...................................................................................... 29 4.1. PRE-DATA .....................................................................................................................................29 4.1.1. Data from questionnaire 1 (Appendix 1) .............................................................................29 4.1.2. Data from the interview (Appendix 3)..................................................................................35 4. 1. 3 Data from observation (Appendix 4) ..................................................................................35 4.1.4 Pre test (Appendix 7A) ..........................................................................................................37 4.2 THE POST DATA .............................................................................................................................37 4.2.1. Data from observation (Appendix 5) ...................................................................................37 4.2.2. Data from questionnaire 2 (Appendix 2) .............................................................................40 4.2.3. Post test ................................................................................................................................41 4.3 ACTION RESEARCH EVALUATION ...................................................................................................42 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 44 5.1 MAJOR FINDINGS ...........................................................................................................................44 5.1.1. Major finding from the pre-data ..........................................................................................44 5.1.2. Major finding from the post data .........................................................................................44 5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS .....................................................................................................................44 5.2.1. Using short story reading activity as an extra reading activity ...........................................44 5.2.2. Using comprehension activities appropriately and flexibly to check students outside class reading ...........................................................................................................................................45 5.2.3. Encouraging the students’ internal factors ..........................................................................46 5.3 LIMITATION AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY ...................................................................46 5.4 CONCLUSIONS ...............................................................................................................................46 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 48 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................. 52 APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 1 ....................................................... 52 APPENDIX 2: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE 2 ........................................................ 55 (FOR STUDENTS) ...................................................................................................... 55 APPENDIX 3: .............................................................................................................. 56 QUESTIONS FOR THE INTERVIEW WITH OTHER ENGLISH TEACHERS OF READING.................................................................................................................... 56 APPENDIX 4: OBSERVATION SHEET 1 ................................................................ 58 OBSERVATION SHEET 1 A (UNIT 10) ................................................................... 58 APPENDIX 4: OBSERVATION SHEET 1 ............................................................... 60 OBSERVATION SHEET 1 B (UNIT 14) ................................................................... 60 APPENDIX 5: OBSERVATION SHEET 2 ................................................................ 62 APPENDIX 6A: ACTION PLAN IMPLEMENTATION .......................................... 64 OF USING SHORT STORY-READING ACTIVITIES............................................. 64 APPENDIX 6B: A DETAILED LESSON PLAN ...................................................... 66 APPENDIX 7A: THE PRE- TEST .............................................................................. 67 APPENDIX 7 B: THE POST - TEST.......................................................................... 69 vi Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter will give you an overview of what this thesis report is all about. Understanding the details of the study is not important at this stage; you will see them in the later chapters. The intent of this chapter is to introduce the general frame including: i) the background and problem statement of the study, ii) the aim of the study, iii) the research questions, iv) the scope of the study, v) the significance of the study, and vi) the outline of the thesis. 1.1 Background of the study Of the four language skills, reading seems to be the most important one because in the learning process, it helps the students develop other skills and provides knowledge on the target language. Carrell (1983:1) emphasized "for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as second or foreign language". 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. They have also found a strong correlation between reading and vocabulary knowledge. In other words, students who have a large vocabulary are usually good readers. Being aware of the importance of learning reading, authors of new English 10 have chosen interesting topics for reading lessons with the aim to promote students in reading and improve their reading comprehension. However some of them are not familiar with students' genre and reading in the text book only is not enough to enhance students' interest in reading and reading comprehension. Thonis, (1970) suggested: Comprehension skills depend upon two major factors: the background of experiences, from which concepts have been acquired, and the speed, accuracy, and richness of meanings which students bring to word recognition. The advancement of skill in understanding what is read receives major emphasis during the intermediate and high school years. As students become more efficient readers, the written language which they meet in books becomes a source for larger vocabularies, for increased knowledge, and for deeper comprehension of themselves and the world around them. Thus beside the reading texts in the text book students need to read more outside class room to enrich their vocabulary as well as their background knowledge. That means students must read extensively. 1 So many studies and researches have been conducted to find out ways to improve reading effectiveness. Recently, there have been a lot of researches about the effect of extensive reading in improving students’ reading comprehension. Colin Davis (1995:335) suggested that any classroom will be the poorer for the lack of an extensive reading program and will be “unable to promote its students’ language development in all aspects as effectively as if such a program were present”. He also claimed that such a program will make students more positive about reading, improve their overall comprehension skills, and give them a wider passive and active vocabulary. Myuskens (1983) affirmed that "with students at the beginning and intermediate levels, instructors can use literacy text for language practice, reading comprehension and possible aesthetic appreciation”. Strong (1996) also stated that “extensive reading of literature can encourage students to develop positive attitudes toward reading”. At My Hao high school, the teaching and learning reading are mostly based on text book. Therefore, the students seem not to be interested in reading lesson. Most of them feel reading is difficult and boring even they are afraid of reading. Thus, after reading a text they often don’t understand much about its content or they misunderstand author’s ideas. When studying in a reading lesson, students often experience the lack of background knowledge as well as vocabulary about the topics they are reading. Other important reasons are their lack of motivation and time. In the word of foreign language, the most popular expression might be “practice makes perfect”. That is the reason why the teachers have to find ways to enhance students read more and to improve their reading comprehension. From the point of view: students only read what they are interested in, the researcher come to the study of using short story in teaching reading. Because among literature materials, short story seems to be the most suitable with high school students of all. Students at this age are curious and they like reading short stories. Collie and Slater (1991: 196) list the advantages of using short stories for language teachers: short stories are practical as their length is long enough to cover entirely in one or two class sessions; they are not complicated for students to work with on their own; they have a variety of choice for different interests and tastes; and they can be used with all levels (beginner to advanced), all ages (young learners to adults) and all classes (summer courses to evening classes). Moreover short stories don’t take much time. Students can read them at the break, before going to bed, on the bus or when 2 they are waiting for some one. In addition, the new English 10 includes 16 units. Each unit is about one certain topic such as daily routine, environment, sport, culture, people’s background etc... Material about these topics can be easily found in short stories. Also, this kind of material is not difficult for students to search and read. 1.2 Aims of the study The study is to find down if the using short stories in teaching reading helps motivating students at My Hao high school in reading and improving their reading ability. 1.3 Scope of the study The research aims at applying the using short story in teaching reading to grade 10 students at My Hao high school. The subjects of the study are 50 students of class 10A3 at My Hao high school including 22 males and 28 females. The age of those 50 students ranges from 16 to 17. Hopefully, the findings of the study may be applied in teaching reading to students at My Hao high school and others high schools in Vietnam. 1.4 Method of the study  Methodology: Action research design is used by the researcher since it is the problem in my own class and I would like to improve my students' learning and my professional performance. It is a practical action research because its purpose is to research a specific school situation with a view toward improving practice, to focus on a smallscale research project, to focus narrowly on a specific problem and to be undertaken by individual teacher within a high school.  Data collection instruments: To answer the research questions of the study, the data are collected through questionnaires, interview, observation, and tests. - The instrument used to collect data for the study on the problems and causes of the problem as well as the using short story in teaching reading is questionnaire. - The interview: The main purposes of this data is to investigates the using extra reading materials especially short story in teaching reading of other teachers at My Hao high school and to make sure that the information collected from the questionnaire has its validity and reliability. 3 - Class observations: The observer of the research was a fifteen-year experienced teacher of reading at My Hao high school. She will be invited to observe the class in the study-10A3 to see the way the teacher help students comprehend the reading text and also the students’ learning attitude, their participation in the shortstory-reading activities that the researcher applied, as well as the result they gain after each reading lesson. Class observations will also be used by the researcher in two other classes: 10A2 and 10A4 to see the ways other teachers help the students comprehend the reading text and also the students’ learning attitude, the result they gain after each reading lesson. - Pre- test and post-test: Through these two tests, the researcher can find the differences in the students' reading comprehension; compare the results before and after the time of doing an action plan. 1.5 Significance of the study As mentioned above, learning reading is very important to students. Therefore, to raise students’ interest in reading and help them comprehends the text better, the applying extra reading activities in teaching reading is very necessary. The aim of this study is to find out whether the using short story in teaching reading motivates students in reading and improves their reading comprehension. From the finding of the study, the researcher hope that teachers and students at My Hao school will be aware better the importance of the using short story in teaching reading. 1.6 Out line of the study The thesis is divided into five parts: the introduction, the literature review, the methodology, the results and the conclusion. Chapter 1, The Introduction, introduces the basis information such as the background to the study, aims, research questions, scope, outline and significance of the study. Chapter 2, Literature Review, provides the basis concepts of the reading comprehension, factors affecting comprehension in learning reading, the importance of extra reading activities in learning reading, the benefits of short story in learning reading and previous studies relating to the fields. 4 Chapter 3, Methodology, presents the methodology used in the study including the subjects, the setting, instrumentation, procedure, data collection and data analysis Chapter 4, The Result, presents and discusses the steps of the action research and the analysis of the pre-data and post-data. It also gives the evaluation of the research. Chapter 5, The Conclusion, offers the major findings from pre-data and postdata analysis, some recommendations, suggestions for further research and limitations of the study. 5 Chapter 2: Literature review 2.1 Reading comprehension and the importance of learning reading comprehension skills 2.1.1 Reading comprehension Reading is a receptive language process. Goodman (1978) describes it as "A psycholinguistic process in that it starts with a linguistic surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with meaning which readers construct." It is the process of getting a message from a written text. It is the interaction between the text and the reader. There is thus, an essential interaction between language and thought in reading. The writer encodes thought as language and the reader encode language to thought with the movement of his eyes and brain. According to Harmer (1989), reading is seen as ‘an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain. The eyes receive messages and the brain then has to work out the meaning of these messages’. This is known as decoding the message. The process of decoding language to thought or working out the meaning of a reading text is considered to be reading comprehension or we can say that reading comprehension is the product of two cognitive elements: decoding skills and language comprehension skills. Language comprehension generally refers to one's ability to understand speech. The second important element underlying reading comprehension is decoding, which generically refers to the one’s ability to recognize and process written information. All struggling readers have difficulty with either language comprehension or decoding or both. Therefore it is important for the reading teacher to know what is required to be good at understanding language and what is necessary to be good at decoding text. From this point of view the teacher can provide his or her students necessary knowledge as well as skills to become a good reader. 2.1.2 The importance of learning reading comprehension skills Reading comprehension is what allows the reader to interact with the text in a meaningful way. It’s the bridge from passive reading to active reading, from letters and words to characters and contexts. Reading comprehension is the crucial link to effective reading - a strong factor in our educational and professional lives. For many, reading comprehension also unlocks the door to a lifetime of reading recreation and enjoyment. Reading comprehension skills increase the pleasure and effectiveness of reading. In short, building reading comprehension skills requires a long term strategy 6 in which all the reading skills areas (phonics, fluency, and vocabulary) will contribute to success. Thus reading teachers should find out what skill areas that their students are bad at and help them improve those ones. 2.2. Factors affecting students' reading comprehension 2.2.1 Background knowledge It is easier to read and understand the text if we know something about the topic. For example, in our own language, it is very difficult to read a science textbook if we have never learnt any science. Except various background knowledge of difference nations, human share a large amount of the same knowledge known as common knowledge that is beyond the limitation posed by culture region or religion. For this reason, students are encouraged to read as widely as possible. As a text is read there is a large cognitive load on the reader as the reader is decoding the text and incorporating the information into his or her knowledge base. The key to incorporating the information into the readers' knowledge is partly base on the amount of background knowledge of the reader. Having background knowledge permits the information to be incorporated into pre existing knowledge structures. Research on enriching background knowledge has demonstrated that activating such knowledge increases comprehension. Graves and his associates (1980; 1983) developed previews for short stories that had, as one component, the building of prior knowledge important to understanding the selection. Data indicated that reading the previews before reading the stories increased students' learning from stories by a significant and impressive amount. Stevens (1982) increased learning from text compared with a control group for 10th-grade students reading a history passage by teaching them relevant background information for that passage. Hayes and Tierney (1982) found that presenting background information related to the topic to be learned helped readers learn from texts regardless of how that background information was presented or how specific or general it was. Alvarez (1990) used case-based instruction to develop students' abilities to assemble and incorporate different knowledge sources in memory. He taught them how to employ thematic organizers and hierarchical concept mapping in their reading. Additionally, scant attention is paid to the role of the reader's schemata, or background knowledge, when learning from text (Tierney & Pearson, 1985). Yet 7 research clearly emphasizes that for learning to occur, new information must be integrated with what the learner already knows (Rumelhart, 1980). It appears that providing students with strategies to activate their prior knowledge base or to build a base if one does not exist is supported by the current research and this is one way teachers can have a positive influence on comprehension in their classrooms. 2.2.2. Motivation If students are going to develop good reading skills, they have to want to read. People are more motivated to read if they are interested in the topic. Research confirms that students' motivation is a key factor in successful reading. Harmer, J (2003) defined "motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue a course of action." Researchers agree that there are two broad categories of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation (Metsala, et al., 1997). That is the only area of motivation that researchers seem to agree. Intrinsic motivation means that the student wants to complete the task because they are interested on their own (Guthrie, Solomon, 1997). Extrinsic motivation (comes from compliance with teachers, parents or peers" (Metsala, et al., 1997). Some motivational researchers believe that intrinsic motivation is the key to students' success. Students' interest in reading is vital to the motivation and reading assignment (Collins, Decker, 1996). If a student is intrinsically motivated, the student wants to read the material because he or she is interested in it. Another strategy that is used to promote intrinsic motivation is to find topics that students are interested in learning more about and have the students research it (Guthrie, Solomon, 1997). The students want to read the material because they are so determined to learn more about the subject; they will also want to work hard at it because they picked it out (Hunt, Lyman, 1997). Beside intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation is not less important. In this study, extrinsic motivation is considered as teacher's role in enhancing students to read as well as sustaining students' interest in reading. Harmer (2003) said that "clearly a major factor in the continuance of a student's motivation is the teacher." The teachers are the people who know best about their students, they will know how to enhance their students' interest in reading and when to provide help to them. The teachers are also students' friends who share their difficulties in learning and from 8 those difficulties they will find the most suitable method of teaching to increase and direct their students' motivation. Thus, to make our students want to read, besides giving them interesting lessons with pleasant learning environment and various activities we need providing them materials that they are interested in or let them choose their own materials to read. 2.2.3 Teacher’s teaching method The Schema theory Model The role of background knowledge in language comprehension has been formalized as schema theory which has one of its fundamental tenets that text, any text, either spoken or written, does not by itself carry meaning. Rather, according to schema theory, a text only provides directions for listeners or readers as to how they should retrieve or construct meaning from their own, previously acquired knowledge. This previously acquired knowledge is called the reader’s background knowledge, and the obviously acquired knowledge structures are called schemata. According to schema theory, comprehending a text is an interactive process between the reader’s background knowledge and the text. Efficient comprehension requires the ability to relate the contextual material to one’s own knowledge. Comprehending words, sentences and entire texts involves one’s knowledge of the world as well. The process of interpretation is guided by the principle that every input is mapped against some exciting schema and that all aspects of that schema must be compatible with the input information. This principle results in two basis modes of information processing, called bottom-up and top-down mode.  Bottom-up processing Recently, the bottom-up approach has played a significant role both in first and second language research and theory. Cambourn (cited from Nunan, 1991: 63) states that it is the basis of vast majority of reading schema. The central notion behind the bottom-up approach is that reading is basically a process of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents. He illustrates how the process is supposed as follows: Print→ Every letters discriminated → Phonemes and graphemes matched → Blending → Pronunciation → Meaning 9 In this model, the reader processes each individual letter as it is encountered by matching these letters with the phoneme form words. These phonemes are blended together to form words. And a message is built up. Richards (1990:63) states that “The process of comprehension begins with message received which is analyzes at successive levels of organization-sound, words, clauses, sentences- until the intended meaning is arrived at”. Comprehension is thus viewed as a process of decoding, and the reader’s lexical and grammatical competence in language is the basis for bottom-up processing.  Top-down processing In top-down approached, on the other hand, refers to the use of existing knowledge in understanding the meaning of a message. Background knowledge may be previous knowledge about the topic of discourse, it may be situational or contextual knowledge or it may be knowledge stored in long term memory in the form of schema and script. This approach refers to the interaction their knowledge of the subject at hand, expectations, motivation, interests and attitudes towards the content of the text rather than decoding each symbol or even every word. This has become known as interactive reading. Bottom-up and top-down approaches can be mobilized by conscious choice, and both are important strategies for readers. In short, schema theory suggests that we need to utilize information not explicitly contained in the text to comprehend more texts. The knowledge we carry around in our head is organized into interrelated patterns. These are constructed from our previous experience of the experimental world and guide us as we make sense of new experiences. They also enable us to make predictions about what we might expect to experience in given context. Given the fact that discourse comprehension is a process of utilizing linguistic cues and background knowledge to reconstruct meaning these schemata extremely important particularly to second and foreign language learners. And there is no doubt that extra reading activities are of great help in widening learners’ background knowledge. However, deciding the right reading materials for the right students and at the suitable time is not easy to all teachers. Therefore, teaching methodology plays a very important role in language teaching in general and in teaching reading in particular. 10 2.2.4. Materials Material is considered to be one of the kernel elements in the model of language teaching and learning. O'Malley and Chammot (1990:210) state that: The objectives of language materials are to develop academic English language skills through content-base instruction, to develop understanding skills in content areas, and to teach students learning strategies that will and help them become autonomous learners of both language and content. Beside, materials have the purpose of presenting the language in study. They are perceived as instrumental objects to inform students and help teachers deal with the curricular aspects. According to Krashen (1981:100) "the condition for language acquisition to occur is that the acquirer understands... input language"; and materials can make learning more accessible and understandable that language input. Because of this, appropriate reading materials must effectively assist students in developing their reading skills. Teachers are advisable to design or at least know how to select suitable reading materials accompanied with a relevant range of exercises for students. In other words, the topic of reading materials must be of students' interest. Baker de Gonzalez and Blau, (2000) suggested that The high-interest topic and thematically linked reading affectively build students' background knowledge and vocabulary for later reading. With their increased knowledge of a topic, students will have more to talk, write and think about as they acquire English. In conclusion, The influence that materials have on the teaching and learning process can not be denied, so reading teachers must be aware of the role of materials have in their classroom and the way they are used. From this the teachers can choose the most suitable reading materials for their students. 2.2.5. Vocabulary Most people feel that there is a common sense relationship between vocabulary and comprehension--messages are composed of ideas, and ideas are expressed in words. Most theorists and researchers in education have assumed that vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension are closely related, and numerous studies have shown the strong correlation between the two (Baker, 1995; Nagy, 1988; NelsonHerber,1986). The crucial role of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension has been well recognized in first language (L1) situations and this has appeared to be true of second language (L2) settings as well because a strong vocabulary is the 11 foundation for reading comprehension. In fact, vocabulary is the foundation of all areas of literacy listening, speaking, reading, and writing. (Trisha Callella. 2004. Teaching vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Creative teaching pressed). By high school, students with a diversity of backgrounds and skills are immersed in content area instruction. Yet all students, and particularly those who are struggling, are confronted with vocabulary and concepts that are unfamiliar or misunderstood. Those misunderstandings interfere with comprehension of content area curriculum. That is the reason why the vocabulary enrichment for students becomes necessary. Many researches have been carried out to study the possibility of learning vocabulary through reading especially through extensive reading in a second language. According to its definition, extensive reading exposes learners to "large quantities of material within their linguistic competence" (Grabe and Stoller, 2002: 259), which is, at the same time, pleasurable. There are several reasons why it is so attractive to develop language knowledge (and more specifically vocabulary) through extensive reading. To mention a few, it is considered a "pedagogically efficient" (Huckin and Coady, 1999: 182) approach, as two activities – vocabulary acquisition and reading – occur at the same time. This approach facilitates learner autonomy, can be very pleasant and motivating, provides learners with the opportunity to meet words in their context of use (Thornbury, 2002), increases sight vocabulary (Coady, 1997; Nagy, Herman and Anderson, 1985; Nation and Coady, 1988), and could theoretically result in substantial vocabulary learning, which seems difficult to achieve with explicit teaching during the relatively short period of time that L2 learners spend in the language classroom. Day, R., & Bamford, J. (1998) also found that Research convincingly shows that extensive reading increases vocabulary knowledge. It is not surprising that extensive reading helps students become better readers. Research in both L1 and L2 shows that we learn to read by reading. The more our students read the better readers they become. An integral part of this is learning new vocabulary. One of the primary way in which vocabulary is learned is through reading. Learners encounter the same words over and over again in context, which results in vocabulary learning. This fact leads to the using short story (as an extensive reading activity) in enriching students' vocabulary knowledge as well as improving their reading comprehension. 12 2.3. Short story and its benefits 2.3.1. Short story and its benefits to high school students When students are let to read materials that they are interested in they will want to read more. Wells. C (1980) stated that “If reading has been pleasurable because the student has been able to identify successfully (emotionally and intellectually) with the text, and to organize the material, then the student will want to read more. This desire will set off a chain reaction which will lead to more reading, and the more the student reads, the better he will read.” To high school students, short story seems to be the most suitable material for extra reading activities. Erkaya (2005) said "short stories usually have a beginning, middle and an end, they encourage students at all levels of language proficiency to continue reading them until the end to find out how the conflicts is resolved”. He also stated that " short stories, for example, help students to learn the four skills listening, speaking, reading, writing more effectively because of the motivational benefit embedded in the stories and with short stories, instructors can teach literacy, culture, and higher-oder thinking benefit." Accordingly, what Hirvela and Boyle (1988) report is not surprising: they examine students' attitudes towards four genres of literary texts (short story, novel, poetry and drama) and state that their Hong Kong Chinese students indicated short stories as the genre that is less feared and the second most enjoyed (43%; the novel is the most enjoyed with 44%), since short stories are easy to finish and definite to understand. Spack (1985) highlights the importance of story selection and states that she chooses stories that would interest students that she most likes to read and teach, and that have been made into film to provide visual interpretation. In addition, short stories are the best path to improve your overall reading comprehension. Short stories are easy, not time consuming, and the plots are relatively simple, with limited locations and characters. In about an hour or so, you should be able to read a short story, and then sit down and analyze the story from beginning to end. You should be able to identify the characters, what the story’s plot is about, and analyze the plot from different angles. This will teach you to see a system from different angles. “Thus short stories - they are simply, easy and fun. But, they can really improve your reading comprehension” (Keith Johnson, 2008). 13