Some dificultiies in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet Center and some suggested solutions

Ministry of education and training Vinh University Course assignment Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions. Learner: Lê Thị Hương (1987) Supervisor: M.A, Nguyễn Thị Vân Lam Vinh, december 2010 Acknowledgement I could not complete my assignment without the great help and useful advice from my teacher, my family as well as my friends. Firstly, I would like to express my great thanks to y supervisor, M.A. Nguyen Thi Van Lam for her enthusiastic help. Secondly, I would like to express my deep thanks to all the teachers in Foreign Language Department of Vinh University for giving me helpful lectures. My thanks also go to my director, Ms Nguyen Thi Yen and all the colleagues at Sao Viet English Centre, Nghean Branch for their helpful and enthusiastic helps during the time I did the survey. Furthermore, my thanks are also sent to all of my friends from class 17 Master Degree of Arts Course for their encouragements and helps. To everyone, thank you very much. Vinh, December 2010 Le Thi Huong List of tables Table 1: Students complete the text or not Table 2: The reasons that students can not complete the table Table 3: Factors that affect students’ understanding Table 4: How students deal with unknown words Table 5: How students read the text Table 6: The way students get main idea Table 7: How students get specific information Table 8: how teachers teach vocabulary Table of contents Acknowledgement List of tables Table of content Part I: introduction 1. Rationale of the study......................................................................................................3 2. Aims of the study.............................................................................................................3 3. Scope of the study............................................................................................................4 4. Method of the study.........................................................................................................5 5. Design of the study..........................................................................................................6 Part II: Content Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1.1. Definition of reading.....................................................................................................6 1.2. Factors that affect learners’ reading result....................................................................7 1.2.1. Subjective factors.......................................................................................................8 1.2.1.1. Students’ motivation...............................................................................................8 1.2.1.2. Purpose of reading..................................................................................................9 1.2.1.3. Strategies of reading.............................................................................................10 1.2.1.4. Skills of reading....................................................................................................11 1.2.2. Objective factors......................................................................................................12 1.2.2.1. Reading materials..................................................................................................12 1.2.2.2. Teaching methods.................................................................................................13 Chapter 2: The study 2.1. Research questions:.....................................................................................................14 2.2. Research setting..........................................................................................................15 2.3. Research procedure.....................................................................................................16 2.3.1. Difficulties in reading materials...............................................................................17 2.3.2. Difficulties in students’ reading strategies...............................................................17 2.3.2.1. How students deal with new words .....................................................................18 2.3.2.2. Difficulties in students’ ways of reading the text.................................................18 2.3.3.3. Difficulties in getting main ideas of the text ........................................................19 2.3.3.4. The way students get specific idea........................................................................19 2.3.3.5. Difficulties in teachers’ teaching methods............................................................20 Chapter 3: Teaching Implications 3.1. Suggestions for students.............................................................................................21 3.1.1. Previewing...............................................................................................................21 3.1.2. Predicting ................................................................................................................21 3.1.3. Guessing from the context.......................................................................................22 3.1.4. Skimming.................................................................................................................22 3.1.5. Scanning...................................................................................................................23 3.2. Suggestion for teachers...............................................................................................23 Part III: conclusion Appendix References Part I: introduction Nowadays, with the tendency of globalization and integration, English plays the role of an effective international communicative language. Therefore, learning English has been considered a very important duty of many students. One of the most important skills in learning English as well as other languages is reading skill. Reading not only helps students widen their knowledge but also enables them to develop language skills such as listening, writing, and speaking. Besides, realizing the importance of learning English, many students go to the English centers which are opened every where. However, both teacher and students at Sao Viet English centre do not feel satisfied with the results of the students in reading skill during the process of learning English. The teachers often find their students reading performance disappointing. And in fact, most of the students read with less understanding than one might expect them to. Many of them can not complete the reading text in the course book. Also, lots of them complain that they can not understand the meaning of the reading text. Why do the students fail to learn reading in English? What are the factors that affect them in reading? What are their difficulties in reading? How to improve their reading? These questions are in concern with many teachers in general and they especially interest me. For these reasons, I decide to choose the subject: Some difficulties in reading lessons of students at Sao Viet centre and some suggested solutions. 2. Aims of the study - To investigate some difficulties that the students at Sao Viet Centre face when learning reading - To give some suggested solutions to help the students overcome the difficulties in order to improve their reading effectiveness. 3. Scope of the study Due to the limitation of time and knowledge, this thesis mainly focuses on the difficulties faced by students at Sao Viet English centre in reading lessons and some solutions suggested to improve students’ reading skill. 4. Method of the study This study uses the following methods: Statistic and classifying Annalistic and synthetic method Qualitative and quantitative 5. Design of the study The thesis consists of three main parts: Part I: Introduction This part contains five smaller ones: Rationale of the study Scope of the study Aims of the study Methods of the study Design of the study Part II: Content This part consists of 3 chapters: - Chapter 1: Theoretical background - Chapter 2: The study - Chapter 3: Teaching Implications In chapter 1, there are the following parts: - Definition of reading - Factors that affect learners’ reading result. In chapter 2, the author deals with 3 main parts: - Research questions: - Research setting - Research procedure In chapter 3, 2 main parts are solved: - Suggestions for students - Suggestion for teachers Part III: Conclusion Part II: content Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1.1. Definition of reading As in learning a foreign language in general and learning English in particular, reading is considered the most skill of the four ones to ensure students in mastering second language. Actually, there are different ways to understand the definition of reading. Silberstein (1993) suggested “reading is a complex information processing skill in which the readers interact with the text to create the meaningful discourse. Besides, there are some ideas about reading that is cited from the Internet, these scholars assume that “reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction with the given text; the readers will be able to interpret and then create a meaningful one which helps them understand the text better”. Inferring from the above definitions, it is possible to come a conclusion that reading is an active and receptive skill in which readers play a very active roe in analyzing the text for realizing the communicative functions. 1.2. Factors that affect learners’ reading result. 1.2.1. Subjective factors 1.2.1.1. Students’ motivation Students’ motivation is a very important part to ensure the success of students‘learning in general and reading in particular. When students are motivated, their mind is opened, learning is visiting, knowledge is welcome and it is easy for students to achieve. The more students achieve, the more they are motivated. This is such a good mood that many students can considerably improve in leaning. 1.2.1.2. Purpose of reading Besides, the reading purpose is also a very important factor that affects students’ reading. Grabe and Stove (2002) classified Reading purpose into seven types as followed: - reading to search for simple information - reading to skim quickly - reading to learn from texts - reading to integrate information - reading to cite - reading to criticize - Reading for general comprehension 1.2.1.3. Strategies of reading Usually, it is not easy for students to know all the words, phrases and the structures used in the texts. Thus, they may apply their reading strategies to fulfill their tasks. Reading strategies mean the way readers use their reading skills to read the texts and to deal with the words or phrases that are unfamiliar t get information. These are some reading strategies: - Previewing - Predicting - Skimming and scanning - Guessing the context - Paraphrasing 1.2.1.4. Skills of reading To fulfill the task while reading, students need to have certain skills. Skill means the ability to perceive and perform something. Mumphy (1987) distinguished reading skills a following: - Recognizing the script of language - Deducing the meaning and use of unfamiliar lexical items - Understanding the meaning of explicitly stated information - Recognizing indicators in discourse - Interpreting texts by going outside it - Identifying the main point or important information in a piece pf discourse - Distinguishing the main ideas from supporting details - Extracting salient points to summarize the text or an idea - Skimming - Scanning to locate specifically required information - Transcoding information to diagrammatic display - Basic reference skills 1.2.2. Objective factors 1.2.2.1. Reading materials Reading materials can be considered a factor that makes students face difficulty in reading. Many aspects of the text can make the reading process difficult. - Vocabulary - Grammar - Text topic and content - Text type 1.2.2.2. Teaching methods Teachers play an important role in facilitating and in helping students achieve reading purposes. Moreover, with the advanced characteristics of the new course books, teachers should have appropriate teaching methods. It is the fact that teachers should provide students a variety of activities before learning reading. These activities can help students prepare facilities for le reading lesson. Chapter 2: The study 2.1. Research questions: - What are the difficulties that students at Sao Viet English Centre encounter in the reading lesson? - What are the solutions to help students improve their reading skills? 2.2. Research setting? - Sao Viet English Centre – Vinh City – Nghean province 2.3. Research procedure - Step 1: giving questionnaires to the students at Sao Viet English Centre, class: IOA, HB, NEF. - Step 2: Giving questionnaires to the teachers at Sao Viet English centre. - Step 3: Analyzing the figures of the questionnaires - Step 4: summing up the questionnaires to find out the difficulties of the students and the implications for teaching 2.3.1. Difficulties in reading materials The question: Do you complete the text in reading lesson? is given to both teachers and students. And this is the result for this question: In reading lesson, do students complete the text? Teachers’ opinion Students’ opinion 1. Yes 1/10 (10%) 7/50 (14%) 2. Sometimes 6/10 (60%) 30/50 (60%) 3. No 3/10 (30%) 13/50 (26%) Table 1: Students complete the text or not It easy to see from the table above that the results from asking the students is quite similar to the one asking teachers. There are 60% of teachers and students think that the students sometimes complete the text. There are more students who think that they complete the text (14%) than the teachers who have the same idea (10%). In contrast, more teachers think that their students do not fulfill the task (30%) than those of students (26%). Thus, the amount of students can always finish the reading task of the text in reading lesson is very small while a very large amount of students sometimes or can not finish the reading task. It shows that the reading materials also cause difficulties for students. However, what are the reasons for this? The next question is delivered to answer this question: The reason that students can not complete reading the text? Teachers’ opinion Students’ opinion 1. The text is too long 6/10 (60%) 31/50 (62%) 2. the text is too difficult 6/10 (60%) 35/50 (70%) 3. the tasks are difficult 2/10 (20%) 32/50 (65%) 4. Other 1/10 (10%) 2/50 (4%) Table 2: The reasons that students can not complete the text There are many students think that it easy difficult for them to read the text if it is difficult (70%) and long (63%). The same number of students (65%) also thinks that the difficult tasks prevent them from completing the text. However, for the teachers, the difficult tasks are the main reason to make students not complete reading the text. To complete reading the text, students must understand its main idea. This table will show out the factors that affect students’ understanding: Reasons that make students difficult to understand the text Teachers’ opinion Students’ opinion 1. There are many unknown words 8/10 (80%) 47/50 (94%) 2. there are too many new grammatical structures 4/10 (40%) 31/50 (62%) 3. The topic and content are unfamiliar 1/10 (10%) 15/50 (30%) 4. the type of the text is unfamiliar 0/10 (0%) 0/50 (0%) 5. Other 0/10 (0%) 0/10 (0%) Table 3: Factors that affect students’ understanding It is not difficult to recognize from the table that most of the teachers (80%) and the students (94%) think that vocabulary is the main factor that makes students hard to understand the main idea of the text. Meanwhile, the type of the text does not hinder the students to understand the text. The results of the survey indicate that the vocabulary is the biggest difficulties that most of students face while reading. In other words, the results of the survey confirm that when reading the text, students encounter so many difficulties that prevent them from understanding the text. The difficulties include unknown words, new grammatical structures and unfamiliar topic and content of the reading text. And the main difficulty is unknown word in the reading text. The new grammatical structures and the unfamiliar topic and content of the text are also the hindrance to students’ comprehension. 2.3.2. Difficulties in students’ reading strategies 2.3.2.1. How students deal with new words As analyzing above, unfamiliar words are the factor that most of the students face. Therefore, the way students deal with these words is very important to help them understand the text. The result of the question “What do you do when you meet unknown words in you reading text?” will show students’ problems concerning to the vocabulary: How students deal with unknown words answer 1. Stop reading and look up the words in the dictionary 42/50 (83%) 2. Guess the meaning of the new words 10/50 (19%) 3. Ignore the new words 12/50 (23%) 4. Ask for its meaning 11/50 (21%) Table 4: How students deal with unknown words The table shows that a large number of students (83%) stop reading when they see the unknown words. This causes them difficult to concentrate on the flow of the text. Looking up the words takes time and interrupts their reading. This process may make students forget the idea they have got before. Another way that students (23%) treat the new words is that they ignore new words. Sometimes, this strategy is effective; however, this is not a good way actually for sometimes they can ignore the important words of the text that help them understand the text. However, the best way for students to deal with unfamiliar words is guessing its meaning. This way is suggested by only 19% of students. To sum up, students have used inappropriate way to treat the unknown words so that they find it difficult to understand the text. 2.3.2.2. Difficulties in students’ ways of reading the text. Each student has his own way to read the text, the question “how do you read the text?” is delivered and here is the answer: How do you read the text? Answer 1. Read slowly every words 40/50 (80%) 2. Skimming 8/50 (16%) 3. Scanning 10/50 (19%) 4. Reading aloud 19/50 (37%) 5. Reading silently 17/50 (34%) 6. Translate the text into Vietnamese 45/50 (90%) 7. Read the topic sentences 13/50 (25%) 8. Read the title of the text. 6/50(12%) 9. Other 0/50 (0%) Table 5: How students read the text The result of the survey indicates that 16% of students skim the text to get quickly the main idea, and only 19% of them choose scanning through the text as the way of reading. A large number of students (80%) are in the habit of reading slowly and try to understand every word. Translating the text into Vietnamese the approach that is chosen by most of the students (90%) while reading. The number of students chooses reading the text aloud and reading the text in silence is quite similar with 37% of students read aloud and 34% of students read silently. It is sure that the students read effectively or not partly depend on the read strategy they use. However, the result found in the table above confirms that most of the students appear to be inefficient readers. In short, the students utilize inappropriate reading strategies when dealing with the reading text in the new course book. They do not use different strategies when they are reading for different purposes. And the way they apply most is translating the text into Vietnamese while reading, that’s why they read slowly and try to understand important and unimportant words either. It is inappropriate reading strategy partly cause inefficient reading. 2.3.3.3. Difficulties in getting main ideas of the text The question “what do you do to get the main idea of the text?”. The author receives the result as following: The way students get main idea answer 1. Skimming 29/50 (58%) 2. Read the title 23/50 (45%) 3. Read the topic sentence 24/50 (48%) 4. Other 0/50 (0%) Table 6: The way students get main idea The table shows that there are 58% of students skim to get main idea. Similar number uses reading title (45%) and reading topic sentence (48%). In conclusion, the strategy getting main idea while reading a text of students is at average level. They do not use much skimming skill and not pay much attention to the title or topic sentence of the text, neither. 2.3.3.4. The way students get specific idea Besides getting main idea, getting specific idea is also a very important duty of the student when reading text to fulfill their reading tasks. This table shows out how students get specific idea: How students get specific information Answer 1. Scanning 24/50 (47%) 2. Translate the text into Vietnamese 39/50 (78%) 3. Write down the information 32/50 (64%) 4. Remember the information 12/50 (23%) Table 7: How students get specific information To get the specific information, students utilize ineffective reading strategies. They have bad habit of reading slowly and translate the text into Vietnamese. Also, many students do not have the skill to scan which is the best way to get specific information. 2.3.3.5. Difficulties in teachers’ teaching methods Each teacher has a method to teach their students. In reading, vocabulary is very important so that teaching vocabulary can be considered one of the factors that ensure students’ reading success. This table gives information about how teachers teach vocabulary. how teachers teach vocabulary Answer 1. Give Vietnamese equivalents 42/50 (84%) 2. Explain in English 12/50 (23%) 3. Helping students guess their meanings 18/50 (35%) 4. Other 0/50 (0%) Table 8: how teachers teach vocabulary From the table, we can see that teachers pay much attention to teaching vocabulary at pre-reading stage. However, they mostly do not have a good way of teaching vocabulary. They provide Vietnamese equivalents in stead of teaching in context or helping students guess the meaning of the words based on the context. Chapter 3: Teaching Implications In the previous chapter, we have found out some typical difficulties that students usually face. These are some suggested solutions for students and teachers to improve their students’ reading skill: 3.1. Suggestions for students 3.1.1. Previewing Previewing can be previewing title of the reading text, previewing the picture provided in the course book, previewing the question and information provided in the pre-reading phase in the course book to get the sense of the content of the text students are going to read. By previewing the information, the students can have the primary notions about the content of the reading text. This can help students find easier to understand the content of the text. 3.1.2. Predicting Predicting is the reading strategy in which the students use the provided information to make the predictions about the content, vocabulary of the reading text. This is also a good way for students to deal with not only the main idea of the text but also the unknown words appearing. 3.1.3. Guessing from the context Guessing from the context is reading strategy applied mostly in guessing the meaning of the unknown words in which students can use prior knowledge of the subject and the idea in the text as clues to guess the meaning of unknown words instead of stopping to look them up in the dictionary. 3.1.4. Skimming Skimming is reading strategy applied when students are required to get the main idea of the reading text in which they use a quick survey of the text looking for the main idea. When skimming, students just pay attention to the main point of the text and as the result produce single sentence capturing the main idea. 3.1.5. Scanning Scanning is a quick look through the text to find out the specific information required. If skimming is used to get the main idea, scanning is applied in getting the specific information. This skill is applied in the exercise of filling the blank, completing the table, finding out the facts, etc. 3.2. Suggestion for teachers - In teaching skill, teachers should model types of skill such as skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, etc. And explain clearly how each of them work. Only understanding clearly how these skills work, the students can remember and apply in the next time. Besides giving out the skills, teachers should also give student examples to illustrate by analyzing. Further, teachers are also suggested to give students extra exercises to practice the strategies. - In teaching vocabulary, teachers should use different ways to present new words such as: + Showing the meaning visually In this technique, teacher can present the words by using visual aids such as drawing or real object, picture, flashcards or charts, mine or facial expression the teachers can show the meaning of the words easily. This technique makes students interested in the lesson. + Showing the meaning verbally The teachers can paraphrase or define the words, give antonyms or synonyms of the words, apply semantic field, help students guess the meaning from the context or stems and affixes, translate or use the dictionary to show the meaning of the words. + Combining different ways A combination of techniques can be very useful to present the meaning of the words because students can perceive it from different sources of information. All of the above techniques are very helpful in teaching vocabulary. They will have maximum effect if they are used appropriately. Part III: conclusion This assignment has investigated the difficulties that the students at Sao Viet English Centre face when learning reading lesson. The difficulties that students usually have belong to different aspects such as vocabulary, reading strategies, teachers’ teaching methods, etc. The suggestions are also given to solve the problems. The most necessary solution is that it is suggested for the students to use and practice the given skills (previewing, skimming, scanning, predicting, guessing and paraphrasing). The teachers are also advised to help students practice these strategies by some ways. By writing this assignment, I am hopeful that these suggested solutions are applied and become useful for students who wish to improve their reading skill in particular and in English learning in general. References Alderson, J. (2000). Assessing Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grabe and Stole, F.L. (2002). Teaching and Researching Reading. London: Longman Nguyen Thi Van Lam and Ngo Dinh Phuong. (2007). English Teaching Methodology Practice. Vinh: Vinh University. Douglas brown, H. (2001). Teaching by principles: An Approach to Language Pedagogy. London: Longman Appendix Questionnaire 1 (For teachers) Researcher: Lê Thị Hương (10/ 10/ 1987) Class: M.A course 17 - English Teaching Methodology. This questionnaire is for the purpose of studying only and you can be sure that you will not be identified in any discussions. Your cooperation in answering the following questions is appreciated. Circle the answer(s) that is best suitable to you. Note: in some questions, you can choose more than one answer. I. In reading lesson, do your students usually complete the reading text? 1. Yes 2. Sometimes 3. No II. What is the reason that makes students unable to complete the text? The text is too long The text is too difficult The tasks are too difficult Other ....................................................................................................................... III. Which is the reason that make student difficult to understand the text? There are too many unfamiliar words There are too many new grammatical structures The topic is unfamiliar Other ........................................................................................................................ IV. In your opinion, what are the reasons that make student difficult to read the text? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ V. In your opinion, what are the solutions to help your students improve reading skill? ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Thank you very much for your assistance! Questionnaire 2 (For students) Researcher: Lê Thị Hương (10/ 10/ 1987) Class: M.A course 17 - English Teaching Methodology. This questionnaire is for the purpose of studying only and you can be sure that you will not be identified in any discussions. Your cooperation in answering the following questions is appreciated. Circle the answer(s) that is best suitable to you. Note: in some questions, you can choose more than one answer. I. In reading lesson, do you usually complete the reading text? 1. Yes 2. Sometimes 3. No II. What is the reason that makes you unable to complete the text? The text is too long The text is too difficult The tasks are too difficult Other ....................................................................................................................... III. Which is the reason that make you difficult to understand the text? There are too many unfamiliar words There are too many new grammatical structures The topic is unfamiliar Other ........................................................................................................................ IV. While reading a text, which of the following ways do you usually use? Skimming to get main idea Scanning through the text Reading slowly every word Translate the text into Vietnamese Reading aloud Reading silently Reading the topic sentence Reading the title of the tetx V. What do you do when you see some unknown words? 1. Stop reading and look up them in the dictionary 2. Ignore the words 3. Guessing the words’ meaning by the context 4. Ask teacher or friends VI. What do you do to get main idea of the text? Skimming Reading the title of the text Reading topic sentence Other............................................................................................................................ VII. What do you do to get specific information of the text? Scanning through the text Reading slowly to translate into Vietnamese Reading and write down the ideas Reading and remember the ideas Other.......................................................................................................................... VIII. How does your teacher teach vocabulary? Providing Vietnamese equivalents Explaining in English Helping students guess the meaning of the words by the context Other.......................................................................................................................... Thank you very much for your assistance!