helping students develop reading skill

8/6/2019 Helping Students Develop Reading Skill

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Helping students develop reading skill

S GIO DC - O TO BC GIANGTrng pt dn tc ni tr bc giang

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Helping studentsDevelop reading skill

H v tn: Nguyn ThNguyn ThNguyn ThNguyn Th Thu HinThu HinThu HinThu Hin.Trng: Ph thng dn tc- ni tr Bc Giang.

Nm hc : 2007 - 2008


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Part I: INTRODUCTIONI. Rationale

Of all the languages spoken in the world, English is the most widely used

language. Nowadays, together with the development of science and technology, Englishhas also become more and more popular in Vietnam. Many people learn and use it in allspheres of public activities everyday. However, there also many problems facing the

English language learners. They still cannot avoid making common errors. So do the

students at higher secondary school.

Since I worked with the students at higher secondary school, I recognise when thestudents face the long texts, the often feel bored and worried and when they finish

reading, they easily forget almost everything they have just read. Therefore, I always try

my best to help them to feel interesting when they read both a short text and a long textas well as make reading- teaching lessons more enjoyable to them.

Besides, as a teacher, I want to show my pupils how important part reading a

passage play in language learning and in communication. From the passages, they widen

their vocabulary and structures as well. They also know how to use their vocabulary and

structures in different contexts. Helping my students to develop reading skill is,

therefore, of special interest to me.

II. The scope of study.

The scope of teaching reading skill is extremely broad, my studying paper cannotcover all the aspects concerning the subject. What I am going to discuss in the paperonly concern helping develop reading skill to the students in the 12th grade at higher

secondary school where I teach.

III. The aims of the study.

The aims of my paper are to identify some common causes that students do not

like reading passages and give some solutions to help them to develop reading skill and

read more effectively.


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Part II: Contents

I. the problems that students face at a text.

1. students are not interested in the text, they don't understand what to readthe text for.

When teaching English at a higher secondary school, I realize that students prefer

writing to reading. At first I don't know the reason, but after a long time I found that

students are likely to make more errors while speaking than they do while writing.Sometimes making spoken errors shows that students are not interested in reading and

they do not know what they have to read for. For some other, they lack in ability or theyaren't real tried students.

In old method, in the way to help students to understand the lesson, most teachers

often tell the content of the comprehension before reading. But I don't think that way isthe good way to help students to pay more attention to the text, it might be spoilt the

students' interest, because when knowing the text of the comprehension, students don't

want to find out anything from the text, and there is not anything new so they only read

but they do not think much about the content and they can't understand the meaning of

each sentence.

2. Having problems with new vocabulary.

When students face the long texts, they feel tired of reading it because there are

lots of new words, so as a teacher I always try to find out the solution to this problem,

and " How to help students guess the meaning of new words in each text ?" is a difficultquestion that I think myself to overcome.

Students often give up reading or thinking about the comprehension if there are

some new words, they only wait until their teacher gives the meaning of these words,

this can't develop the students' deducing skill.

3. students can't understand the content of the text.Some teachers say that:"I always let my students look up all the words of the text

at home and they have to translate the text bofore going to class. Students can learn

easily and they have much time to practise reading skill". But I think there are some

reasons that we can't afford students to look up all the new words and translate thecomprehension at home.


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+ When looking up new words at home, they have to read all the text and find out

which words are new, this method makes students not practice guessing skill, one of themost imprortant skills to develop reading skill.

+ Translating the text at home makes students not pay attention to the text at classbecause they have already understood the content of the text before.It is easy to feel

bored and inactive.

+ To the bad students, they are very lazy and they don't try to learn anymore, sothey always borrow books from good students and they only copy the content. At class,

they are very talkative but they don't understand anything.

4. Having problems in remembering the content of the text.

What is the aim of reading comprehension? That is to get students to practice

speaking skill, and at the end, they understand the content of the comprehension, so they

can retell the content again in accurate speaking.But in fact, all the students can't retellanything without their books because they forget everything only in a short time.

In order to overcome these problems, teachers have some techniques, of course

these techniques sometimes are not good for all students. In these techniques, students

only understand the lesson in controlled practice. They don't have opportunity to practicereading, speaking skill... with their classmates.

II. The teachers' usual methods.

1. Teachers tell the situation or the content of the comprehension.

In order to interest student, some students often tell the context, the situation of

the text. But in my opinion, it isn't good because in this method, students can only

understand the content in a passive way, it doesn't help them to remember anything after

finishing. And specially for bad students, they can't develop their reading and they even

don't develop translating skill as well as deducing skill.E.g : English 12- lesson 3 Reading practice.

At pre-reading part most teachers can often introduce that the are many famous

parks in London, such as St Jamess Park, Hyde Park, Regents Parkand KensingtonGardens. Then teachers tell something special of each park. For me, we can transfer this

way to Answering questions For example, we can give some questios and ask students to discuss in groups to

answer about four famous parks in London.

- Are St Jamess Park, Hyde Park , Regents Park and Kensington Gardens the

most famous parks in London?

- What do you know about them?

- Is there Speakers Conner where you can get up and say anything in Hyde Park?


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- What is Regents Park famous for?

- Can you sail every kind of model yacht in Kensingto Gardens?- Are there many wild ducks in St Jamess Park ?

By this way students can not only imagine the situation of the text and what theyare going to read but also develop speaking skill.In other word, their speaking is more

and more accuracy.

2. Direct correction.

Some teachers have said that:"I never let my students make mistakes. If they say

anything wrong, I stop them immediately and make them say it correctly. I don't want

them to learn bad English from others". But for me, we can't stop students whenever they

make a mistake, because when students are involved in free activities, such as

discussion, role play, we want them to develop fluency, so it is better not to interrupt bycorrecting too often, but to remember commom errors and deal with them afterwards.

What is the aim of stopping students to correct their mistakes? That is to get

students to think about the mistake they have made, to help them give out accurate

speaking. When teachers don't isolate the mistake to correct, students will be confusedwith their errors and they can't remember the right words after that, therefore students

can't read accurately and fluently.

3. Translasion method.Students often have difficulties in translating long comprehension, so if their

teachers help them to translate the whole text, they will understand it well, but

sometimes it isn't good because some students only copy into their notebooks, so it

doesn't develop their comprehension skill.

III. The new methods given.

As a teacher, I always think about the solutions to help students to read better and

they do not feel bored with the passages. So I have thought about the ways to make all

the students more enjoyable and interested as well as to help students widen theirknowledge and vocabulary about the social maters.

First of all, a reading lesson is divided into three parts:+ Pre-reading.

+ While- reading.

+ Post-reading.

1. Pre-reading.


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To help students understand what they are going to do before they do it. I will

have to set up a pre-task. In this part, teachers give out the topic or the solution andstudents have to think about them before reading, listening, speaking or writing about

that. For example, teachers can give a table writing some ideas, students work in groupsand discuss to collect the best ideas for the topic, this is a discussion task.

E.g: In English 12- Lesson 4- Reading practice, before reading about the use of

the English language in the world, I give a table writing some information related to thetopic. Then ask students to discuss and find out the information to complete it.

English used as The countries speak English as The people speak English as

First language 350 milion

Second language

Foreign languageVietnam, Cambodia, Laos,

China

After doing this exercise students can imagine about the passage.

*Preparing task:

In this task, teachers have to pre-teach some vocabularies to aid the

comprehension:

When teaching reading skill, the first thing that the teacher should do is to makesome decisions about which words students should actively learn, which words they

should guess from the context and which words they should ignore. What to do with thenew words depend on two things: how essential the words is (is it a key word?) for

understanding the passage and how difficult the word is. If the new word is essential for

understanding the passege and at the students' level, it should be taught actively, if the

word is essential but above the students' level it should be taught passively, the teacher

should explain or translate it as quickly as possible. If the word is not essential forunderstanding the passage but too difficult, students should guess the meaning.


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E.g: Guessing some easy words but essential for understanding the passage, such

as in English 12- lesson 6- reading practice.

Unknown words Noun Verb Adjective Meaning

-give talks-have great influence

- death

- famous- success

- works x

x

x

c nh hng ln

ci cht

thnh cng

*Prediction task:

Students predict or guess what they are about to learn so that they can understanda little about the comprehension. But when giving the definition, teacher must give

clearly and easily to understand.

2. While-reading.

In order to reduce students' errors and make students to interest to the lesson, there

are three tasks in "while-reading" stage.

a. Comprehensive task:

* After reading the comprehension, students answer some questions given by the

teacher, so that they can read and understanding the text easily.E.g: English 12 Review lesson two- exercise2

When students have already read the text, teacher gives some questions and

students have to answer them.

- Who was Marconi ?- When and where was he born?- Why did people think that he was not intelligent when he was small ?

- What did he like best ?

- Where was he taught when he was small ?

* Besides, teachers can give some more other kinds of exercises, such as

True or False, Gaps Filling


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b. Ordering task:

Teachers give some pictures or some sentences. But they aren't in order, andtherefore, students show that they have understood by putting the pictures or the

sentences into the same sequence as the text.E.g: In English 12- Lesson 9- Reading practice (part 1).

1. Mercury is sometimes called the morning or evening star.

2. Mercury keeps one side towards the sun.3. We only see the lighted side.

4. Mercury is the smallest member of the suns family.

5. It takes Mercury 88 days to go around the sun.

* In this exercise, students have to work in pairs to arrange these sentences in

order, after some minutes teacher checks their results and compare with the content ofthe comprehension.

* Key: 4- 5- 2- 3- 1.

c. Transformation task:Teachers give another comprehension, but change some information. Students

read and write the similar text. Using this method will help students pay more attention

to the comprehension and develop the students writing skill as well.

E.g: English 12 - Lesson one -Reading practice.In this text teachers can ask students to read and change some information by

filling in the gaps with their own words.

Bills sister is Linda. She is at the age of. .. She left school

.ago . And she is work now. She gets some.

Benefit but it is not much, and she is fed up withfor it . she

dislikesher parents for.. Although her mum sometimesgives her ..for tights, she cant stand .her all day at

home.But she is bored with..a job.She is tired of ..the

Situations Vacant column because there are

.for every job. She wasinterested in being a..but now shed take any job at all.

3. Post-reading.

a. Aims

+ Checking comprehension of main ideas: The true/false questions usually

paraphrases the topic sentence of each paragraph.

+ Checking comprehension of facts and details.


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+ Checking underlying meanings.

+ Guessing the meaning of vocabulary.

b. Some exercises* Matching:

In English 12- Lesson2- Situation and Practice 1

Students do the matching then talk about the topic" someones hobby".

* E.g:

I bored with go to the cinema

My father fond of listen to music in the free

time

My sister love watch football

My best friend enjoy do the gardening

* Find someone who...

In the method, students have to work in groups to ask and answer about one topic

to fill in the grid.

E.g: In English 12 Lesson one- Situation And Practice 2

Find someone who.... Name

.....enjoy going out for a walk

..... like eating fruit

...... fed up with doing the housework

.....not mind doing the homework

The model: Student 1: Do you enjoy going out for a walk ?

Student 2: Yes, I do / No, I dont

* Recall:

In this method, students have to retell the content of the story that they havealready learned in English. So that teachers can also check both students reading and

students' speaking.

IV. The results.

After using these methods to teach I have realized that:+ Students are more interested in the comprehension than the last time.

+ Students can remember the content of each passage longer and accuracy.

+ Students can avoid making mistakes when reading a long passage.


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helping students develop reading skill

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