Đề tài A Study on some possible effective pre-Reading activities to improve reading skills for the 2nd -year English Majors at the Military Science Academy

PART A: INTRODUCTION I. Rationale In many second or foreign language teaching situations, reading receives a special focus. There are a number of reasons for this. First, many foreign language students often have reading as one of their most important goals. They want to be able to read for information and pleasure, for their career, and for study purposes. In fact, in most EFL situations, the ability to read in a foreign language is all that students ever want to acquire. Second, written texts serve various pedagogical purposes. Extensive exposure to linguistically comprehensible written texts can enhance the process of language acquisition. Good reading texts also provide good models for writing and provide opportunities to introduce new topics, to stimulate discussion and to study language. Reading, then, is a skill which is highly valued by students and teachers alike. In process of teaching and learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam in general, and at the Military Science Academy (MSA) in particular, reading has always been offered a great deal of attention both from the teachers and the students. Like many others universities in Vietnam, English at the MSA is learnt and taught in non-native environment, therefore, reading is not only considered as a means to gain knowledge but also a means by which further study takes place. In other words, learners “read to learn” (Burns, 1988:11). According to Carrel (1981:1), “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. This is especially true to the students at the MSA, where learners are mostly future interpreters, translators, or teachers of English in others Military Colleges whose desires are to be able to handle subjects related to written materials in English and to work with their English-speaking colleagues and partners. It is essential for them to acquire the ability to read English effectively and efficiently. However, despite the teachers’ and students’ effort, students still often claim to have a lot of difficulties in reading English textbooks or English materials, and therefore, they sometimes read them inefficiently. For the second-year students of English, although they have been learning English for at least several years, it is still often difficult for them to understand a text or a passage in English, since they still lack vocabulary, grammar, reading skills and poor background knowledge. Besides, the teachers sometimes have to face with difficulties in dealing with the students’ learning demand and newly introduced sources of materials. In addition, teaching methods and teaching techniques in general, are still below the international standard of education. To find out the areas of students’ difficulty at the MSA and the causes of their unsuccessful reading comprehension is necessary. Therefore, these reasons have inspired the writing of A Study on some possible effective pre-reading activities to improve reading skills for the 2nd -year English Majors at the Military Science Academy. It is hoped that the study will make some contributions to improve the learning of English in general, and the learning of reading in particular among the 2nd-year English majors at the MSA. The author also hopes that it will be possible to make suggestions for the teachers to improve the situation of teaching and learning reading at the MSA. II. Aims of the study The main purposes of the study are to investigate pre-reading techniques employed by the teachers of English at the MSA, and to give a suggestion of some possible pre- reading activities that can be applied to teach the text book More Reading Power to the second-year students of English at the MSA. To achieve these purposes, the study will focus on the following aims: * To understand better and more fully the notions of reading and reading comprehension, etc. * To investigate the teachers’ and students’ attitude towards the pre- reading techniques. * To examine the students’ preference for pre-reading techniques. * To suggest some possible pre-reading activities which are thought to be effective for teaching reading to the 2nd-year students at the MSA. III. Scope of the study To improve reading skill for students of English at the MSA, the teachers can make use of various techniques and number of things should be done. However, in this study, the author only intends to overview a brief of current situation of teaching and learning reading of the 2nd-year students of English at the MSA, and to suggest some possible activities that can be applied in the Pre-reading stage in order to motivate students in reading lesson as well as help them to become good and effective readers. IV. Methods of the study The study was carried out on the basis of qualitative research method including questionnaires and class observation. Questionnaires are designed as a mean to make the researcher’s evaluation more objective. The questionnaires are given to the second-year students and the teachers of English at the MSA with the hope to find out their attitudes towards pre-reading techniques and their comments and suggestions for these activities. Data were collected through the survey questionnaires and class observation. Analyzing statistics from the survey questionnaire on reading activities conducted with the cooperation of the both teachers and students at the MSA. All comments, remarks, recommendation assumptions, and conclusion provided in the study based on the data analysis. Besides, more information needed for the study is gathered through other methods such as class observations, informal interviews, and discussions with the teachers and students at the MSA. V. Significance of the study The study highlights the importance of motivation to the reading skills in general and to the pre-reading stage in particular. Moreover, the findings of the study are thought to be useful for teachers of English to be aware of the essential role of the pre-reading activities to the students’ motivation in reading lessons. VI. Design of the study The study is composed of three parts: Part A-Introduction provides rationale, the aims, scope, methods, and design of the study. Part B-Development consists of three chapters: Chapter 1-Literature review, conceptualizes the study’s theoretical background, presents the concepts relevant to the topic of the thesis: reading and reading comprehension, classification of reading, role of reading in foreign language learning, motivation and factors in teaching and learning reading. Chapter one will be closed with the importance of the Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson. Chapter 2-The study, presents the methodology used in the study. It also shows the detailed results of the survey and covers a comprehensive analysis on the data collected form questionnaires and class observations. Chapter 3-offers some major findings and suggestions of some possible Pre-reading activities which are thought to be helpful for teaching reading to the 2nd-year students of English at the MSA. Part C- Conclusion is a review of the study, future directions for further research and limitations of the study as well. PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1. Introduction In this chapter, the author mainly concerns with reviewing the notions of reading and reading comprehension. The review includes the definitions of each notion and followed by the classification of reading, the importance of reading in foreign language learning, theory of motivation and factors in teaching and learning reading. Last but not least, the importance of the Pre-reading activities are also presented in this chapter as the main purpose of the research 1.2. Theoretical background of reading 1.2.1. Definitions of reading and reading comprehension 1.2.1.1. Definition of reading Reading is often referred to as the most important of the four language skills for EFL learners, as it enables students to gain exposure to the target language and receive valuable linguistic input to build up language proficiency (Erten & Razı, 2003). We can not be sure when reading activity begins, but we have to admit that reading is essential activity that provides a great contribution in obtaining knowledge. It is obvious that in real life we usually spend much time reading all sorts of things like books, magazines, newspapers, novels, stories. However, sometimes we read but we do not understand what they mean, or can not understand the text we read. In this case, it can not be called reading. So what is reading? There have been numerous definitions of reading each of them is the reflection of its author’s view of the reading process. Anderson (1999: 1) explains this very neatly as follows: “Reading is an active, fluent process which involves the reader and the reading material in building meaning. Meaning does not reside on the printed page or occurs in reading, which combines the words on the printed page with the reader’s background knowledge and experiences.” According to Harmer (1989: 153), reading is a mechanical process that “eyes receive the message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the message”. In his definition, Harmer focuses on both two actions dominated by the eyes and the brain as well as on the speed of the process “a reading text moves at a speed of the reader”, which means that the readers themselves decides how fast he wants to read the text. Sharing the same opinion, Smith (1985:102) defines “reading understands the author’s thought”. He also added that “understanding print or even receiving communication can hardly be said to explain reading”. The problem still remains how the reader understands the print or the message. “It means that we-the reader-read the author’s mind not the author’s words”. Roe, Stood and Burns (1987:2) describes reading in a more extensive way. In their opinion, “reading is understanding written language”, “reading is a complex mental process”, “reading is thinking”, or “reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation and evaluation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life experience.” Another definition of reading was offered by Allen and Valletta (1977: 249). In their opinion, “reading is a developmental process”. We learn reading not only to know how to read, to master the symbols, the sound, the language, the grammar etc, that used in the text but also to understand the ideas, the information expressed in that text or to develop the ability of reconstructing its content using our own words. One more researcher called Goodman (1971: 153) considers reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which the reader- a language user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display.” Reading involves a reader, a text, and a writer. Reading skills are developed in an active process. This process involves the surface representation encoded by a writer and ends with interpretation of the written text and interchanges between the writer and the reader (Goodman 1969 in Carrell 1988). If the writer is careless, the reader may not get the message. If the writer makes demands that the reader cannot fulfill, the message will not be received, even though to another reader it might be clear. If the reader is careless, reading will result in incomplete interpretation. The reader tries to interpret the text through his/her own experiences, but they may differ from the writer’s experiences. This explanation proves that reading is not just an active process, but also an interactive one. Reading is closely linked with meaning. For this reason, lack of shared assumptions presents the most difficult problem in reading. To sum up, from all these opinions above, it is obvious that no definition can possibly capture all the ideas and features of what reading is. Each linguist’s definition reflects what reading means as seen from his own point of view. However, they all have some features in common, they share the same ideas that reading means we-the readers read the author’s mind not author’s word, and that reading means comprehending written language and it employs a variety of skills. In addition, they all concentrate on the nature of reading. 1.2.1.2. Definition of reading comprehension In teaching and learning a foreign language in general and teaching reading in particular, reading comprehension plays an important part, it can be understood as the ability to draw attention to the required information from the text as efficiently as possible. So what is reading comprehension? According to Richard and Thomas (1987: 9), “Reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the reader”. This point of view concentrates on the reader’s understanding of the message based on the individual’s background knowledge. They stated that “reading is much more than just pronouncing words correctly or simply knowing what the author intends: it is the process whereby the printed pages stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual.” In his book, Swan (1975: 1) pointed out that “A student is good at comprehension we mean that he can read accurately and efficiently, so as to get the maximum information of a text with the minimum of understanding”. For Roe, Stood and Burns (1987: 9): Reading comprehension is reconstruction, interpretation, and evaluation of what author of written content means by using knowledge gained from life experience. Study the nature of reading comprehension, Grilled (1981: 3) indicated that “Reading comprehension or understanding written text means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”. This means that the student can show his understanding by re-expressing the content of the text in many ways such as summarizing the text, answering questions etc. From these theories above, it can be understood that reading for comprehension is the primary purpose for reading; raising students' awareness of main ideas in a text and exploring the organization of a text are essential for good comprehension. It is the process in which the readers - as they read, can recognize the graphic form and understand the relation between the writing and the meaning. It means that after reading, students can master grammar structures, words, pronunciation etc and can understand the content of the text and use it in their real life as effective as possible. Furthermore, “reading without comprehension is the meaningless” (Karolin and Karin, 1988: 2). Reading means comprehending written language so when understanding break down, reading actually does not occur. 1.2.2. Classification of reading 1.2.2.1. According to manner According to Doff (1988), reading is divided into two main types: reading aloud and silent reading. * Reading aloud involves “looking at the text, understanding it and also saying it” (Doff: 70) and he considers reading aloud as a way to convey necessary information to someone else. Very few people are required to read aloud as a matter of daily routine. The readers are asked to read the text so loudly that other people can hear it. Reading aloud does not happen outside the classroom as Doff (1988: 67) said, “reading aloud is not an activity we engage in very often outside the classroom”. Reading aloud has both advantages and disadvantages. Natal (1966) sees reading aloud as an important aid for beginners to improve their pronunciation. It helps students to make the connection between sounds and spelling of letters and words and also assists the teacher to check students’ pronunciation. Moreover, it is a technique for him to keep the class under control, since when one student reads aloud, the others are asked to listen in case they may be required to continue the reading. However, Greenwood (1985) criticizes this idea; he claims that students may unable to focus adequately on the text’s meaning when they highly concentrate on pronouncing the words. His point of view implied that there are also some negative effects that should be taken into account in the process of teaching and learning that involves reading aloud. First of all, when reading aloud, students only focus on the pronunciation not on the meaning of the text. The second thing is that when students take turn to read a text aloud, only one student is active; the others will do something else, since they do not have to read. In addition, this way of reading usually waste much time because students read in turn so they have to wait one after one. It can be inferred that there is little value in reading aloud if we want to improve the readers’ reading skills. Therefore, the teachers as educators should identify the level of their students and decide whether to apply reading aloud or not in teaching reading to their students. * Silent reading is “the method we normally use with our native language and on the whole quickest and most efficient” Lewis (1985: 110). Sharing the same idea, Doff (1988: 67) defined silent reading as followed: “silent reading involves looking at sentence and understanding the message it conveys, in other words making sense of a written text. It does not normally involve saying the words we read nor even silently in our heads”. Therefore, we can see that silent reading is an effective skill for reading comprehension since students do not need to read all the words of a text, they can read at their own speed and in case they do not understand a sentence they can go back to read again. When reading silently, students not only obtain its main ideas in the shortest length of time but also deeply understand its details and can answer the questions as well. To summarize, silent reading is one effective skill for reading process in general and reading comprehension in particular, since the teacher can check his or her students’ understanding easily and can adjust the reading materials and exercises to suit the students’ ability. Therefore, it should be applied in teaching and learning a foreign language. 1.2.2.2. According to purposes People do not usually read unless they have a reason or a purpose for reading. They always have a need of some kind that can be satisfied through reading. In the case of an effective reader, his reason for reading will also determine his style of reading and the relevant reading skills to be used because the purpose could be very general when he reads for pleasure or escape. On the other hand, it could be specific like looking up a telephone directory for someone’ phone number he can not use the same way of reading. According to Nutgall (2000: 38), there are two main types of reading, namely, intensive and extensive readings, these are not just two contrasting ways of reading but an infinitive variety of interrelated strategies; both of them are complementary and necessary. * Intensive reading (IR) The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detailed understanding of the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced. IR means reading short texts to extract specific information. Its main concern is for detailed comprehension. In IR, students normally work with short texts with close guidance from the teacher. The aim of IR is to help students obtain detailed meaning from the context, to develop reading skills- such as identifying main ideas and recognizing text connectors- and to enhance vocabulary and grammar knowledge. Nutgall’s opinion about this kind of reading is: “Intensive reading involves approaching the text under the close guidance of the teacher or under the guidance of task which forces the students to pay great attention to the text” Nuttal (1982: 23). “Intensive reading”, from Francoise’s point of view, “means reading short texts to extract specific information. This is an accuracy activity that involves reading for detailed” Francoise (1981: 41). It can be inferred that IR often refers to the careful reading of shorter, more difficult foreign language texts with the goal of complete and detailed understanding. IR is also associated with the teaching of reading in terms of its component skills. Texts are studied intensively in order to introduce and practice reading skills such as distinguishing the main idea of a text from the detail, finding pronoun referents, or guessing the meaning of unknown words. * Extensive reading (ER) In everyday life, to read extensively means to read widely and in quantity. In the early part of this century, extensive reading took on a special meaning in the context of teaching modern languages. Some researchers such as Harold Palmer in Britain and Michael West in India worked out the theory and practice of extensive reading as an approach to foreign language teaching in general, and to the teaching of foreign language reading in particular. Carrell and Carson (1997: 49,50) stated that “extensive reading generally involves rapid reading of large quantities of material or longer reading for general understanding, with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being read than on the language.” Although this definition provides an overview of ER, Davis (1995: 329) offers another description of ER from an English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom implementation perspective: “An extensive reading program is supplementary class library scheme, attached to an English course, in which pupils are given the time, encouragement, and materials to read pleasurably, at their own level, as many books as they can, without the pressures of testing or marks. Thus, pupils are competing only against themselves, and it is up to the teacher to provide the motivation and monitoring to ensure that the maximum number of books is being read in the time available. The watchwords are quantity and variety, rather than quality, so that books are selected for their attractiveness and relevance to the pupils’ lives, rather than for literary merit”. According to Grellet (1981: 2) ER means “reading a longer text usually for one’s own pleasure. This is a fluency activity, mainly involving general understanding”. Sharing the same view, Hammer (1986: 497) claimed that: “Extensive reading would normally start with reading for the main ideas or for general information then for general comprehension and finally, after much practice, for details comprehension”. ER is generally associated with reading large amounts with the aim of getting an overall understanding of the material. Readers are more concerned with the meaning of the text than the meaning of individual words or sentences. In fact, most of ER is usually done silently and outside the classroom, it gives the students opportunities to use their knowledge of the target language for their own purposes. Besides, it provides the valuable reinforcement of language items and structure already presented in the classroom, gives the students chance to update and enrich their language knowledge by reading the topics they like and read for enjoyment without consideration for pressure of time, intense concentration, and total comprehension. ER therefore, is regarded as an effective way for the students to improve their language reading; it helps students enhance language learning in such areas as spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and text structure. Besides, it gives students more positive attitude toward reading offers them greater enjoyment of reading, helps them to read with pleasure. It is also considered as an advisable sort of work for the students to increase and improve their general knowledge of the world as well. Basing on the purposes of reading, people may be skimming or scanning as they are reading extensively. * Skimming According to Grellet (1981: 19) skimming appears when “we go through the reading material quickly in order to get its main points or the intention of the writer, but not to find the answer to specific questions”. And Nuttall (1982: 36) also stated that “By skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through a text to determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep ourselves superficially informed about matters that are not of great importance to us”. In addition to the definitions of skimming, Wood (1990: 92) said that “When the reader looks at the content page of the book, or the chapter headings, sub headlines, etc. This is sometimes called previewing. Another example is when reader glances quickly through a newspaper to see the main items of the day are. This will often mean just glancing at the headlines”. That means when we quickly to get general impression to see whether the text is useful to us, it is not necessarily searching for a specific details and key words. Skimming provides an overview of the text so it is beneficial to look at chapter/ section headings, summaries and opening paragraphs, therefore, the purpose of skimming are to check relevance of the text and to set the scene for more concentrated effort that is to follow if the text is useful. To sum up, skimming is a very useful reading skill for students, and it is advisable to apply at the first stage of teaching reading with the hope that it can help them to have an overview of what they are reading. Moreover, it will be easier for them to deal with the other tasks that followed. * Scanning Based on the theory of scanning made by Williams (1986: 100) “Scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information”, it can be understood that scanning is very high speed reading. When you scan, you often have a question in your mind. You do not read every word, only the words that answer your question. Practice scanning can help you to skip over unimportant words so that you can read faster. Scanning is another useful skill of reading which involves finding a particular piece of information that we need. In scanning, we-the reader, usually focus on searching the information we want, moving our eyes quickly along the lines. That is why scanning is widely used in everyday life. For example, you might scan the list of names in a telephone directory in order to find a phone number. It can also be usually practiced with variety of sources such as dictionaries, indexes, advertisements, magazine, newspaper articles, encyclopedia entries, labels, or reference materials and so on. Scanning is regarded as a useful and important technique that helps students understand the gist of the texts well. Generally speaking, there are different styles of reading and they are determined not by the texts but by the readers’ reasons for reading. An effective reader is the one who can adapt his flexibly according to his purpose of reading. A reader skims through the text to see what it is about before scanning for specific information he is looking for. He does not choose the text either extensively or intensively. To understand a text, these types of reading are not used separately but in a combination altogether. 1.3. Teaching and learning reading skills 1.3.1. The importance of reading in foreign language learning In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the teaching and learning of reading are always received much attention, since it is regarded as one of the most important major skills as what Carrell (1971: 1) stated: “for many students, reading is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or foreign language”. This is also true for the MSA, because at our academy, reading is an active skills namely speaking, listening and writing. To master reading skill is always challenging task that requires students a number of factors: a good competence of English grammar, rich vocabulary, and reading techniques. First of all, reading helps students learn to think in English, enlarge their English vocabulary, improve their writing. Richard (1993:4) claimed that “reading may help to increase knowledge of the target language through exposure to new vocabulary and grammatical structures”. There is a close relationship between reading and vocabulary knowledge, because while reading, the readers know most of the words in the text already, and they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the contexts. Therefore, the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read. It is understandable that anyone who has a large vocabulary is usually a good reader. Besides, Richard (1993: 4) also stated that “reading in the new language is also an important way to learn about the target culture”, which means that reading provides the students with a wide range of interesting information, helps them understand the ways of life, behaviors, thoughts and other aspect of the native people and it is also a good way to find out about new ideas, facts and experiences. Therefore, they can master vocabulary, grammar and the background knowledge or cross-cultural problems that they encounter. In other words, reading is very important to the foreign language learners because it widen their knowledge of language and life. In the context of MSA, it seems to be the most important skill to the students of English since their main purpose is to understand the written texts. 1.3.2. Factors in teaching and learning reading 1.3.2.1. Teacher’s role Many linguistics state that the teacher is the most important factor in teaching reading. In a reading class, the teacher plays so many roles, such as an organizer, a manager and a counselor, an instructional expert, so he or she should be a guide to assist, encourage them, employ various types to support the students develop reading skills. He or she also the person who provides the students with an anxiety-free atmosphere which helps them feel free to join new reading style, practice to master new strategies, work under pressure of time. Besides, linguistics point out an essential element of the teacher’s role-a model reader. According to Nuttall (1982: 192) “showing that you are a reader means carrying books around with you, referring to books as you teach, reading out brief passages that may interest students, talking about what you are reading at the moment, and handling books as if you loved them”. He also states that “teacher’s job as providing, first, suitable texts and second, activities that will focus the students’ attention on the texts” 1.3.2.2. Students’ role Obviously, students themselves play an important role in improving their own reading skills. Nuttall (2003: 33) provides several major roles for the students in a reading lesson. First, they should “take an active part in reading”. This is the first and foremost responsibility of the learners. They have to be active and take charge of what they do. Second, students have to take the risk of making mistakes because a mistake is an opportunity to learn. The next thing is “monitoring comprehension”, which means students need to understand how texts work and what they do when they read. They have to learn how to carry on a dialogue with the text. The last thing for them to do is learning not to cheat oneself, students who do not want to learn to read can easily cheat, but in fact, they are cheating themselves, it is just a waste of time and their opportunities as well. 1.3.2.3. The reading texts It can not be denied that reading texts play a crucial role in teaching and learning reading because through them new grammar, phonetic and lexical items of the target language are introduced. Furthermore, texts are also means to help students enrich their background knowledge and vocabulary as well. In reading lesson, students are supposed to understand the texts correctly as much as possible, learn some new language items e.g. words, structures, and use what they have got from the text through reading tasks and communication activities that follow. Therefore, in teaching reading, the teacher should pay much attention to the following aspects such as language content, vocabulary and grammatical structures, types of reading activities, though it is not simple thing to do as what Buck, G (2001) states: “Providing suitable texts is not a simple matter. It takes time, effort and some expertise”. 1.4. Theoretical background of motivation 1.4.1. Definition and types of motivation It is common knowledge that motivation is vast and complicated subject encompassing many theories. Motivation is thought to be important and inevitable in most fields, without which one is difficult to succeed. Most definitions of motivation reflect that motivation is an internal state or condition that serves to activate or energize behavior and give it direction. Kleinginna (1981: 6) defines motivation as “a desire or want that energizes and directs goal-oriented behavior”. Sharing the same point, Brown (2000: 160) indicates that “motivation is some kinds of internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something”. Motivation is also suggested by Woolfork (2001: 136) as “an internal state that arouses, directs and maintains behavior”. Kinds of motivation and their features have been discussed by scholars and psychologists, who refer to motivation which comes from inside as well as from outside. According to the researchers, there are many different kinds of motivation such as Integrative, Instrumental Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Global Situational, and Tasks. Among them, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have an important part in classroom motivation and they are partially accessible to teacher influence. * Intrinsic Motivation (IM) According to Wlodkowsk (1991) intrinsic motivation refers to “motivation to engage in an activity for its own sake”. Sharing the same point, Reeve (1996) defines that intrinsic motivation “is the natural tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as we pursue personal interests and exercise capabilities”. Raffini (1996) also states that “what motivates us to do something when we do not have to do anything”. The factors that support intrinsic motivation are competence-feeling that you know how to do things, autonomy-being able to perform an activity by yourself without external help and relatedness-connection with your social environment like helping the others. This can be understood that intrinsic motivation comes from the individual, or in other words, from one’s interest or curiosity. * Extrinsic Motivation (IM) We experience extrinsic motivation when we do something tin order to earn a grade or reward or when we are not interested in the activity for its own sake. Harmer (2001) indicates that extrinsic motivation is “caused by any number of outside factors such as the need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward or the possibility of future travel”. Most writers agree that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation interact with each other and play an important role in second language learning. As a result, students can be either motivated by internal or external factors depending on the circumstances and conditions the activity is performed. 1.4.2. The importance of motivation in second language learning As mentioned above, motivation is essential to success in most field of learning. We will almost certainly fail to make the necessary effort without motivation. Many studies have proved that motivation is very strongly related to achievement in language learning. Brown (1990) shares this point of view by claiming that “a learner will be successful with the proper motivation”. There has been a great deal of research on the role of motivation in second language learning. However, it is not simple for researchers to indicate precisely how motivation is related to learning. This can be explained that “motivation in second language is a complex phenomenon, which can be defined in terms of two factors: learners’ communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community” (Lightbown and Spada, 1999). Motivation is one of the main determining factors in success in foreign or second language learning. According to Oxford and Shearing (1996: 121,122) “motivation is important because it directly influences how often students use L2 learning strategies, how much students interact with native speakers, how much input they receive in the language being learned (the target language), how well they do on curriculum-related achievement tests, how high their general proficiency level becomes, and how long they persevere and maintain L2 skills after language study is over…. Therefore, motivation is crucial for L2 learning, and it is essential to understand what our students’ motivations are”. In their research on motivation, Brown, Mallow, Crooks, and Schmidt seem to be in favor of intrinsic orientation. However, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are necessary for language learners, especially for most Vietnamese learners, who are often influenced by social and institutional factors like finding better job opportunities as well as pressure of exams. That is why it is essential to make the learners aware that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are beneficial in second language learning. 1.4.3. The importance of motivation in learning reading Study on the importance of motivation in learning reading, Redneck and Lester, (2000: 5) state that: “motivation is one of the most important ingredients in skilled reading”. You can realize that you are more engaged when you are reading something that interests you. There are many factors that can help you become interested in what you are reading, such as: your thoughts, feelings, interests, and your background knowledge. Reading motivation refers to the desire to read, even when not required to do so. Reading motivation involves seeking out opportunities to read for curiosity, knowledge, and involvement. Researchers, who study on reading, recognize that in order to create lifelong readers, endowing the learners with proficient reading are not enough. They also need to have internalized motivation. Besides, reading material is another important factor that greatly influences the students’ motivation in a reading lesson. First of all, if the reading material is interesting and relevant to the students, it will motivate them to read more. Reading material should have suitable contents, this means, the texts are considered suitable will tell the students thing they do not know and introduce them to new and relevant ideas. Secondly, reading material’s language items such as vocabulary and grammatical structures may have an impact on the students’ motivation. Through the texts, the students can understand the way the others feel or think and make them read for themselves. In addition, teacher also poses an important factor in motivating the students in a reading lesson. The teachers play the key role in creating a good classroom environment, since it has a powerful effect on the encouragement or discouragement of motivation to learn. Furthermore, the teachers’ activities and tasks are the key component to the students’ motivation learning reading skill. Therefore, the teachers should aware of their students’ needs, including their motivation for reading and the purpose that reading has in their lives. They should provide suitable techniques to help the students to develop their competence as readers during the reading lessons. 1.4.4. Definition and the importance of Pre-reading activities in learning reading Different researchers such as Lazar (1993: 83), Chen and Graves (1995: 664), Taglieber, Johnson and Yarbough (1988: 456), and Moorman and Blanton (1990: 176) have provided many definitions of Pre-reading activities. Lazar for example, defines pre-reading activities as activities that help students with cultural background, stimulate student interest in the story, and pre-teach vocabulary. Chen and Graves define Pre-reading activities as “devices for bridging the gap between the text’s content and the reader’s schemata”. Focusing on L1 reading instruction, Taglieber, Johnson and Yarbough (1988: 456) point out the motivational aspect of Pre-reading activities. According to these writers, pre-reading activities activate or develop prior knowledge, provide knowledge of the text structure and also establish a reason for reading. It can not be denied that Pre-reading activities play a crucial important role in motivating the students through the reading lesson. The aim of using Pre-reading activities is to activate the reader’s background knowledge, to prevent failure, and to support the reader’s interpretation of the text. Employing Pre-reading activities in the first stage of the reading lesson can promote interaction between the reader and the text. Ur (1996) emphasises that the aim of Pre-reading activities is to provide anticipation and activate reader in the next stages of the reading process. The purpose of using these activities is to develop a better self-awareness of the relationship between the reader’s meaning and the author’s meaning; and to help readers understand the teacher’s expectations and views. 1.5. Summary In this chapter, the relevant literature which has helped from the theoretical background and conceptual framework for the study is presented. First, definitions of reading and reading comprehension have been given. Second, some kinds of reading suggested by different theorists have been presented and taken into consideration. What is more, concepts and ideas about motivation in general and in second language learning in particular have been mentioned. In addition, the importance of motivation and the factors affecting the students’ motivation in learning reading skill as well as definitions and the importance of Pre-reading activities have also been reviewed. The next chapter will display the methodology and findings of the research in the light of the theories mentioned above. Chapter 2 THE STUDY 2.1. Introduction In this chapter, the author attempts to outline two parts of the study. The first part focuses on the current situation of teaching and learning reading skill at the MSA, in which the description of the subjects as well as settings for the study and instruments are discussed. The second part is an analysis on the data collected from the survey questionnaires and the class observation. 2.2. Situation analysis 2.2.1. Aims of the study Being a teacher of English at the English Department, MSA for over ten years, I have decided to carry out a survey on pre-reading activities conducted by the teachers and students at the MSA in order to find out whether the assumption above is true or not. Finally, I will come up with a suggestion of some possible pre-reading activities with the hope to motivate students in reading lessons as well as to improve their reading skills in general. 2.2.2. The setting of the study This study was conducted at the MSA, where the author is teaching. The Academy has been in operation for more than fifty years. It is the unique Military College of the Ministry of Defense that train teachers, translators, interpreters and others who need foreign languages in their jobs. English is only one of many other languages taught such as French, Chinese, Russian, Thai, etc. The students have to go through a four-year course learning both background and specialized knowledge. Like other languages, in the English Department, English is taught in a formal setting known as a classroom. The teaching is divided into two stages. During the first stage, students spend the first two years studying general English and the four macro language skills such as speaking, reading, listening and writing under the guidance of the teachers. Usually, three or four teachers are in charge of a class, each of them is responsible for teaching one or two language skills using certain textbooks selected by the staff of the Department and additional materials chosen by the teachers themselves. At the second stage, the students have to spend time on studying other subjects like grammar, phonetic, lexicology, country study, translations, methodology English and American literature, etc. The students have English classes almost every working day. However, class time spent for reading skill might not be sufficient enough; particularly at an intermediate level because there are only two periods of reading per week (each period lasts for 45 minutes). Furthermore, the students learn English in the Vietnamese context and do not have any chance to be in contact with the native speakers, thus, they are only learn English in a foreign language setting. This is another obstacle that prevents them from mastering English in general and the reading skill in particular. 2.2.3. Subjects This study was carried out with the participation of 30/45 full-time teachers aged from 25 to 45 (half of them have been in Great Britain, Australia, America and India for further training) and 80/110 second-year students and they are learning text book More Reading Power. (*) Of the 30 teachers, they all have Diploma Degree in English while twenty of them have M.A. Degree in Education, Linguistics, or International Relations and another one has Ph.D. Degree in Linguistics. Most of them have at least three years of teaching, therefore, with no doubt, they are experienced and enthusiastic teachers, they are always willing to help their students overcome the difficulties and make progress in learning English. These teachers are now teaching English to the students of different courses at the MSA: full time, short time courses (These courses last for about two years and they are used for Army Officers who have Diploma Degree in other foreign languages and now are serving in different branches of the Army belonging to the Ministry of Defense). (*) The 80 students under investigation are in the second term of the second year at the English Department of the MSA (both cadet and civilian students, male and female). These students’ ages are between 20 and 22 years old. They are supposed to have quite an equal knowledge of English before entering the MSA since most of them have learnt English for at least 7 years (from grade 6 to grade 12 at school). Moreover, they all passed a very challenging entrance exam. Some of them come from Hanoi, the rest come from different provinces around the country. These students were chosen from 110 second year students during the school year of 2006-2007. They have completed their first three terms of the four-year course. Of course it was very difficult to select a sample of individuals since the students had already assigned to four different classes. 2.2.4. Reading materials 2.2.4.1. An overview of the textbook More Reading Power English has been made compulsory in the curriculum of our Academy. It is mainly taught to those who work for the Ministry of Defense and most of them are army officers-to-be. When they enter the academy, they continue to study English for at least four years. During this time, they are divided into two stages: The first stage is for pre-intermediate and intermediate levels. The second one is for upper-intermediate and advanced levels. The students have to work very hard to gain knowledge of English to support for their jobs when graduating since they use English as main tool in their work. For the last several years, English teaching methodology has been improved much and course-books have been changed yearly to meet the demand of the students at the MSA. The text book More Reading Power is chosen as a core text book for teaching reading to the second year students at our Academy. They have only 30 periods of reading for each term, which counts for 60 periods for the whole second year, so the teacher who teaches reading has to select only some typical reading lessons in the textbook More Reading Power for teaching, but not all the lessons included in the book. Other texts have been read by the students themselves at home as homework or reference materials. 2.2.4.2. Structure of the textbook More Reading Power Considering the need to learn reading at the MSA, the importance role of reading in the students’ future job and its practical purposes, More Reading Power appears to be one of the most suitable and productive textbook for second year students. Many students have a conceptualization of reading which is interferes with their reading in English. More Reading Power aims to help students acquire an accurate understanding of what it means to read in English. Student awareness of reading and thinking process is further encouraged in many parts of the book by exercises which require them to work in pairs or small groups. In discussion with others, students need to formulate and articulate their ideas more precisely, and so they also acquire new ways of talking and thinking about a text. Students are also required to write and then read each other’s work so they can experience the connections between reading and writing. This book is different from other reading books. More Reading Power is divided into four parts so the learners can practice in four different kinds of reading skills. Part one: Reading for Pleasure Many students have never learned to enjoy reading for pleasure (reading extensively) in English. We all know that in order to be a good reader, it is necessary to read a lot. Students must understand the importance of reading extensively, and then they must be encouraged to develop the habit of reading regularly for pleasure. In this part, students are instructed to select books to read for pleasure or individual basic. These books should be neither too easy nor difficult. They should not be books that are required in other courses that students have already read in translation. Most important, students should be encouraged to choose any books they want such as: fiction, nonfiction, literature, or popular culture. What concerns most is that the book is of interest to the individual student and that the student actually wants to read it. Part two: Reading comprehension Skills Reading is a very complex task involving many different skills. In this part of the book, students will practice some important reading comprehension skills. Each new comprehension skill is introduced with a rationale and practiced in a series of exercises sequenced from simple to more difficult ones in order to build up the students’ mastery of the skill. The skills covered include both “top-down” (concept-driven) and “bottom-up” (text-driven) models of reasoning and comprehending. Through which they will learn to think in new ways about what they are reading. And they may find that their reading comprehension in their native language will also be improved. There are ten Units in this Part: Unit 1: Scanning. Unit 2: Previewing and Predicting Unit 3: Vocabulary Knowledge for Effective Reading Unit 4: Topics Unit 5: Topics of Paragraphs Unit 6: Main ideas Unit 7: Patterns of Organization Unit 8: Skimming Unit 9: Making inferences Unit 10: Summarizing The exercises in this part are grouped under headings which refer to the following specific skills and areas: * Scanning: Speed is essential skill that mainly discussed in unit one of this part, students are encouraged to scan different sources of materials under pressure of time. They are also given an opportunity to practice asking and writing questions which helps them learn to ask themselves questions as they read. * Previewing and Predicting: Before reading a passage, the students usually ask themselves what they know about the subject matter. Previewing and Predicting make easier to see what information they already know about what they read the passage Previewing and Predicting are considered to be essential skills for a good reader that help students predict or make some educated guesses about what is in the passage. These reading skills also encourage students to get some ideas about what they will read process the information more quickly and will also be able to follow the writer’s ideas better. * Dealing with unfamiliar words: As we all know that, in the process of language learning in general, learning of a foreign language in particular, vocabulary plays a crucial important role. This part tries to convince the students that it is not always necessary to look up the words in the dictionaries. It also mentioned some advantages to guessing meaning and points out that there are multiple clues to meaning such as: guessing unknown vocabulary, guessing meaning from context in sentences, using grammar to guess word meaning and recognizing words that connect ideas. * Understanding the topics: When the students read for the meaning, they should begin by looking for the topic. This helps them connect what they read to what they already know. Through the exercises provided in these units, students are required to choose topic of a group of words, or identify the topics from the words and paragraphs given, etc. * Extracting main ideas: Sometimes it is difficult to see what the main ideas of a passage are, or to distinguishing between important and unimportant information. The exercises in unit six of this part encourage students to read for the general sense rather than for the meaning of every single word. * Understanding text organization patterns: Students may have trouble in seeing how a passage is organized. The exercises in unit 7 of this part give practice in recognizing how sentences are joined together to make paragraphs form the passage, and how this organization is signaled. Besides, the students are also work with four of the most common patterns of organization such as: Listing, Sequence, Comparison/ Contrast and Cause-Effect * Writing summaries: Summarizing is usually viewed as a writing skill, but it is also a very useful reading skill, since it requires the reader to monitor comprehension. In order to summarize the reader must understand thoroughly the main idea and the main points of a text. Therefore, most of exercises in unit ten involve the students in actively writing summaries. In summarizing, the students must try to condense and paraphrase the ideas in the text. These skills often do not come easily to students, but they are essential for many kinds of writing. Part three: Thinking skill Learning to read well in English means learning to think in English, however, many students are used to translating as they read and have great difficulty thinking in another language. If the students want to read well in English, they must think in English when they read. If they think in another language and translate form the English, they will always have difficulty with comprehension. Understanding the words and grammar is not enough; they need to be able to follow the ideas in English. The exercises in this part are designed to help students develop their ability to follow ideas and thinking in English. Part four: Reading faster Learning to read faster must be a key part of any reading improvement program. There are two basic reasons for this. First, students in most academic settings are faced with an enormous quantity of reading in English. Many ESL/EFL students take three to four times longer than native-language students to complete reading texts, which means that they have little time left to assimilate what they have read. The other reason for learning to read faster is that it leads to a better comprehension. When reading faster, the eyes cannot focus on every word; they must focus on group of words together. This makes it much easier for the brain to reconstruct meaning. Furthermore, since reading faster forces the reader to skip unknown or nonessential words, the brain can concentrate better on the general meaning of the text. Generally speaking, the book More Reading Power provides students with a wide range of different reading tasks that help them improve their reading techniques such as: Scanning, Skimming, Predicting and Previewing, Identifying Topics, etc. Besides, the reading texts in More Reading Power are of the students’ interests, for example, in unit one they have chance to get to know more about Marie Curie and Satellites. In other units, they can read about Elephants, Basketball in the United States, the Effects of Weather, and Climate, or about different subjects such as Automobiles- Problems and Solutions, Sources of Disease, Oil spill, etc. However, there are some reading texts containing many new and difficult words. Take an example of unit four-Topics, in some exercises, they can not work out what is the topic or topics for the group of words since they have to encounter many unknown words in the same group, or they are unable to figure out the word that odd one out from the whole group of words. Besides, their lack or poor of general background knowledge is also another drawback that prevents them from reading effectively. Therefore, it is the teacher’s task to select and apply suitable techniques and activities that can activate students’ basic knowledge and increase their interests in the reading lesson, especially before they read the texts. 2.3. Sample and sampling The sample was drawn from two sources: from 45 full-time teachers of English aged from 25 to 45 and 110 second-year students and they are learning the text book More Reading Power. The researcher invited 30 teachers (about 67% of the population), they all have Diploma Degree in English and twenty of them have M.A. Degree in Education, Linguistics, or International Relations and another one has Ph.D. Degree in Linguistics. The reason for choosing them was that all of them were teaching at the English Department of the MSA. Most of them have at least three years of teaching, therefore, with no doubt, they are experienced and enthusiastic teachers, they are always willing to help their students overcome the difficulties and make progress in learning English. The students under investigation are in the second term of the second year at the English Department of the MSA (both cadet and civilian students, male and female, aged from 19 to 25). They are divided into four groups and are supposed to have quite an equal knowledge of English before entering the MSA since most of them have learnt English for at least 7 years (from grade 6 to grade 12 at school). Moreover, they all passed a very challenging entrance exam in order to become a student at our academy. These students were chosen from 110 second year students during the school year of 2006-2007. They have completed their first three terms of the four-year course. Of course it was very difficult to select a random sample of individuals since the students had already assigned to four different classes. The solution to this case is that instead of randomly selecting the individuals, the researcher chooses classes for investigation. This method has two advantages: First of all, it is convenient for the researcher to observe the participants completing the questionnaire in their class; secondly, these classes have students with quite different knowledge of English (The cadets seem to be better at English than the civilian ones). Three classes chosen are 16A (cadets), 5AD1 and 5AD2 (civilians), which include 80 students (about 73% of the second year students). Hopefully these students could be representative for the rest of the students. 2.4. Instruments for collecting the data 2.4.1. Survey questionnaires Using questionnaire allows the researcher to collect the data needed in quantitative form. Besides, the researcher finds it quite easy to summarize, analyze, and report the collected data because all informants answer the same questions. Moreover, the informants are provided with an opportunity to express their attitudes towards teaching and learning reading skills openly. 2.4.1.1. The questionnaires for the students The questionnaire consists of 8 questions, which are divided into three parts. Part one (includes questions 1, 2 and 3) aims at exploring the students’ attitudes towards pre-reading techniques. In part two, by answering questions 4, 5, 6, and 7, students have chance to express their preferences for Pre-reading techniques. The final part of the questionnaire (question 8) was made to find out the students’ comment on the Pre-reading activities in the text book More Reading Power. Hopefully, it can help the researcher give suggestions for providing the students with some more Pre-reading activities. 2.4.1.2. The questionnaires for the teachers There are 8 questions in the questionnaire for the teachers and they were designed with three main purposes. Firstly, through the answers to the first 4 questions, the researcher will evaluate the teachers’ attitudes towards the role of Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson. Then the current situation of using pre-reading activities in a reading lesson will be surveyed with a view to seeing whether all teachers do the same thing in every reading lesson, which Pre-reading activities the teachers often employ and their difficulties when dealing with these activities. Question 7 is aimed at investigating the teachers’ comments on Pre-reading activities available in the book More Reading Power. The purpose of the last question (question 8) is to find out some suggestions used by other teachers in order to make pre-reading stage of the reading lesson more interesting. 2.4.2. Class observation The author of the study randomly chose 2 classes (16A & 5AD4) to observe. She watched and followed all the procedures and activities the teachers and the students were performing in the real classroom settings, which enabled the researcher to elicit reliable data. In other words, it is a means to check the reliability of the data collected for other sources - the questionnaires, informal interviews, and discussions. The observation was carried out two times at two different units and with different teachers in these classes. Each lesson lasted 40 minutes; the researcher has set a checklist for her observation including the students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities, their involvement in the activity and their interaction with each other while completing the tasks. She also observed the students’ reactions to Pre-reading activities employed in the lesson as well as their preferences for these techniques. Two reading lessons chosen to be observed belong to Part Four (Unit1, & 3). The reading texts in Unit 1 are all about the Hawaiian Islands such as Water Sports in Hawaii, Hawaiian Traditions, and Natural Disasters in Hawaii. The students read about different topic in Unit 3, the reading texts mainly focus on the Global Issues such as the Global Warming, Population Explosion, and the Disappearance of some Species. The purpose of choosing these units is that the researcher would like to observe how the teacher deal with long reading texts and what techniques the teachers used at the pre-reading stage to motivate students in reading these texts. 2.5. Data analysis. This part of the thesis is the treatment of all data collected from the survey questionnaires conducted on 80 second year students and 30 teachers of English at the MSA as well as from the author’s observation in three classes. The analysis of the data is presented in 2 parts. The first part is the results based on the questionnaires for the students and the teachers. The second part is the results of the class observation. 2.5.1. Data analysis of the students’ survey questionnaires. 2.5.1.1. Students’ attitudes towards Pre-reading activities. Table 1 provides the answer to the question 1 (What do you think about the texts in the textbook More Reading Power?) and question 3 (How do you find the role of Pre- reading activities in a reading lesson?). Option Question A B C D 1 45% 10% 15% 30% 3 35% 50% 10% 5% Table1: Students’ attitude towards the reading texts and the role of Pre-reading activities For the first question, when asked about the attitude towards the reading texts in More Reading Power, a great number of students, which accounts for 45%, agree that they are interesting and 30% of them think that they are suitable for the students while 10% of them say that they are boring. It is obviously seen that most of the students have positive attitude towards reading comprehension skill. By learning reading, particularly learning More Reading Power the students are able to enrich the background knowledge, improve their reading skill, widen their source of vocabulary, grammar structures, and get pleasure and information as well. Only a small number of students find the text boring because the topic of some reading texts is unfamiliar to them, this also affects the lesson. The rest portion which accounts for 15% of the students state that the reading texts in More Reading Power are too difficult. They say that some reading texts contains too many new words and sometimes it takes them much time to look up the words in the dictionary, otherwise they are unable to carry out the reading tasks which followed effectively. Question 3 is aimed at finding out the students’ opinions on the role of Pre-reading activities. Looking at table 1 above, we can realize that the Pre-reading activities are beneficial to students in any way, so it is not surprising to find out that the biggest population of the students (50%) thinks these activities play an important role in motivating them to read, 35% of them even thinks that these activities are very important. However, 10% of the students do not highly appreciate the application of the Pre-reading activities employed by the teachers. Only 5% think these activities are not important at all. This can be explained that their teacher’ activities are not of the students interests or not suitable for their levels of language proficiency. Question 2 (What does your teacher often do to begin a reading lesson?) focuses on the necessity of the activities that should be done before reading the text. About 75% of the students state that their teachers organize some Pre-reading activities. It is obvious that the students are aware of the importance of these activities and they regard them as inevitable factor in almost reading lessons. Nearly 25% of the students report that they are asked to read the text without preparation. This may due to the teachers’ own ways of teaching or because of the time constraint. 2.5.1.2. Students’ preferences for Pre-reading activities. Based on the students answer to question 4 (Which of the following Pre-reading activities does your teacher use in reading lesson?) we have the following table to illustrate their feedback. Pre-reading activities always sometimes rarely never 1. using games to introduce the text 15% 45% 30% 10% 2. using pre-reading questions 65% 25% 10% 0% 3. pre-teaching new vocabulary 40% 35% 5% 20% 4. explaining the instructions of the text 70% 5% 10% 15% 5. making students predict the content of the text 60% 20% 15% 5% 6. giving reading task to students 20% 45% 20% 15% 7. using visual aids to introduce the text 20% 25% 50% 5% 8. giving a brief introduction to the text 55% 25% 10% 10% Table 2: Frequency of using Pre-reading activities by the teachers Table 2 indicates that three activities such as: using pre-reading questions, explaining the instructions of the text and making students predict the content of the text are most frequently used by lots of the teachers. Others activities like using games and pre - teaching new vocabulary are also chosen at the pre-reading stage by quite many teachers. However, 50% of the students reports that their teachers rarely use visual aids to introduce the texts. Table 3 below gives the facts to the question 5 (What do you think of these activities: interesting, not very interesting, or boring?) Pre - reading activities interesting normal boring 1. using games to introduce the text 75% 15% 10% 2. using pre-reading questions 60% 25% 15% 3. pre-teaching new vocabulary 50% 30% 20% 4. explaining the instructions of the text 35% 50% 15% 5. making students predict the content of the text. 30% 45% 25% 6. giving reading task to students 20% 58% 22% 7. using visual aids to introduce the text 80% 20% 0% 8. giving a brief introduction to the text 65% 25% 10% Table 3: Students’ preferences for pre-reading activities Look at the table 3, the most noticeable thing is that (80%) of the students finds using visual aids, and (75%) of them state that using games to introduce the text are interesting, but they are rarely used by their teachers (table 2). It can be understood that the preparation for visual aids and games are time-consuming and hard for many teachers. Besides, a large number of students enjoy other activities like pre-teaching new words and using pre-reading questions, unfortunately, many of them think that explaining the instructions of the text and making students predict the content of the text are normal or even boring (based on few students’ choices). With question 6, the author intends to examine the way that the students prefer to participate in Pre-reading activities. The feedback of this question will be presented in the chart 1 below. 80 A. work individual 45% B. work in pairs 35% C. work in groups 20% 0 A B C Chart 1: Students’ preferences for participation in Pre-reading activities. The chart above shows that many students (35%) like to work in groups. It can be understood that group-work enables students to activate their existing knowledge to share experience. Moreover, students can take an active part in discussion. A greater proportion of students (45%) like to work in pairs. The reason for this may be due to the class setting (the students often sit in the table of two) so that, when working in pairs, they do not have to change the seats arrangement and can have more time as well as more opportunities to express their ideas, the rest proportion, which accounts for only (20%) of the students like to work individually. Question 7 refers to three Pre-reading activities such as: introducing the reading text briefly; pre-teaching new words and giving pre-reading questions. These activities are traditional and mostly used by every teacher in several ways. In this study, the author would like to examine how to employ these activities to attract students’ attention. 100 85% 65% 40% 0 10% A1 A2 A3 A4 Chart 2a: Students’ preferences for teachers’ ways of introduction to the text A1: by using visual aids (65%) A2: by using a short story (40%) A3: by using games (85%) A4: by using the titles, subtitles of the text (10%) Looking at the chart 2a, we can find out that almost students (85%) like their teachers to use games to introduce the reading text. They possibly consume that by using this way at the first stage of the lesson, they feel like working in non-threatening environment and more relaxing. The second way that many of them (65%) enjoy is using visual aids. Using a short story was chosen by fewer students (40%). This can be inferred that students will feel unwilling to listen to something before reading to the text except joining a game or look at the visual aids with their own eyes. Only 8 students (10%) like the teachers to use titles and subtitles before they read the text, may be because this one is boring and is not persuasive enough. 100 75% 50% 40% 25% 0 B1 B2 B3 B4 Chart 2b: The students’ preferences for teachers’ ways of introducing new vocabulary B1: by using synonyms, antonyms (75%) B2: by using definition or explanation (50%) B3: by using visual aids (40%) B4: by using games (25%) Look at the chart we can see that the biggest portion of the students (75%) would like their teachers to use synonyms or antonyms to explain the vocabulary of the text before reading, may be because they are confident with their vocabulary knowledge and are eager to revise the words they have already known and link them with the new ones through this activity. Using definition or explanation is selected by half of the students under the survey (50%). It is evident that with clear definition or explanation of the words, motivation to read the text will be increased and understanding will not be hindered any more. It is surprising that when dealing with new vocabulary only 40% of the students choose the games, may be at this stage their focus is mainly on the content of the text they are going to read. Therefore, they want the teachers to carry out activities that connect with the vocabulary rather than enjoying games which they possibly thought a waste of time. Using Pre-reading questions is very helpful because it enables students to predict the content of the text as well as increases their motivation. A large number of the students (85%) are in favor of Who-questions as they can lead them to seek for certain information, which will make it easier for the students to read and comprehend the text. Yes/ no questions are chosen by 20 students (25%). Only 8 students (10%) like multiple-choice questions. It can be inferred that this type of questions is not easy to answer or may be they are sometimes reluctant to response to this question so many of them usually choose the answer randomly. 2.5.1.3. Students’ comments on Pre-reading activities in the textbook. Question 8 was designed with the hope to find out students’ comments on the Pre-reading activities in their textbook (More Reading Power). 80 55% 50% 43.7% 20% 15% 0 0 A B C D E Chart 3: Students’ comments on Pre-reading activities in their textbook A. boring (43.7%) B. unsuitable for students’ needs (55%) C. unable to motivate students (20%) D. interesting (15%) E. others (50%) From the chart we realize that almost the students in the study are not in favor of the pre-reading activities available in their books. 40 students which accounts for (55%) think that the activities are not suitable for their needs. Another 35 of them (43.7%) suppose that the activities are boring. However, 16 students (20%) claim that they are unable to be motivated by the activities provided in the textbook and only 12 students (15%) even state that these activities are interesting. May be because of these reasons 40 students (50%) prefer the choice others which means they want more activities should be provided at the Pre-reading stage. 2.5.2. Data analysis of the teachers’ survey questionnaires 2.5.2.1. Teachers’ attitude towards the reading texts in the textbook and towards the Pre-reading activities (Questions 1 and 2) Option Question A B C D 1 10% 10% 30% 50% 2 50% 30% 10% 10% Table 4: Teachers’ attitude towards reading texts and Pre-reading activities Question1: What do you think about the texts in the textbook More Reading Power? A. interesting: 10% B. suitable: 10% C. difficult: 30% D. boring: 50% Question 2: What do you often do to start a reading lesson? A. present some new words in the text: 50% B. give a brief introduction to the text: 30% C. organize some other lead-in activities to the text: 10% D. nothing: 10% The score of the question 1 in table 4 above shows the teachers’ attitude towards the reading texts in the textbook they are teaching and the things they often do to create their students’ interest and motivation before reading. Generally speaking, most of them have negative attitude towards pre-reading activities introduced in the textbook. That is why for the first question about their comments on the reading texts in More Reading Power, a great number of the teachers, which accounts for 50% suppose that the reading texts are boring, 12 of them (30%) even think that they are difficult. Only 8 of them- which make up 20% in total, think that they are suitable and interesting to teach. May be because the topic of some reading texts is unfamiliar and not interesting or they may contains too many new words that require much time to look them up in the dictionary. As the result, the preparation for the lesson sometimes is time-consuming. Question 2 is about the activities that the teachers often do to motivate students before a reading lesson. In general, most of the teachers are well-aware that these activities are crucial important and necessary for both the teachers and the students since they help the students focus on the reading text immediately at the beginning of the lesson. Replying to this question, 9 teachers (30%) say that they often give a brief introduction to the text as they could save time to lead their students directly to the reading text’s requirements, or they are worried that without which the students are not well-informed and might get confused when dealing with the reading text. Surprisingly, 15 teachers (50%) state that they often present some new words in the text as they suppose that these words may become an obstacle that causes difficulty to the students in understanding the text and carrying out the tasks that followed. Other 3 teachers (10%) say that they often organize some other lead-in activities (such as providing some lead-in questions, using visual aids, etc,.) to the text in order to create the students’ interest. According to them, by giving some lead-in questions to the text, their students find it easier to understand and they can better concentrate on it as they read. When the author had an informal interview with those teachers about the activities they often used, she found that the activities which were mostly employed by the teachers were using pre-reading questions to introduce the topic of the text, making students predict the content before reading, etc. However, there are still 3 teachers (10%) claim that they do nothing before a reading text, these teachers explain that there is no time for these activities, and that their students’ level is already at the intermediate, they understand thoroughly what they have to do, and that there is no need to waste time on unnecessary activities. They want their students to read the text at once and to exploit the text themselves before checking for the feedback later. Question 3 is aimed at finding out what the teachers think about the role of the Pre-reading activities. 80% 70% 26.7% 3.3% 0 A B C Chart 4: Teachers’ attitude towards the role of Pre-reading activities. A. very important: 26.7% B. important: 70% C. not important at all: 3.3%. It can be seen form the chart above that most of the teachers (70%) are aware of the importance of Pre-reading activities. Other 9 teachers which account for (26.7%) even think that these activities are very important and necessary to be employed at the first stage of every single reading lesson. However, one teacher (3.3%) still claims that the activities are not important at all, that indicates she does not recognize the importance of motivation in a reading lesson so she often asks students to read the text and carry out the tasks at once. Question 4 is designed to explore the teachers’ frequency of using Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson. When answering to the question 4 (How often do you use pre-reading activities in a reading lesson?). The researcher realizes that about 30% of the teachers under investigation often use pre-reading activities to start the lesson. These activities are even always used by other 3 teachers (10%) and the rest portion which makes up 60% of the population state that they sometimes employ them at the beginning of the lesson. 2.5.2.2. Teachers’ purposes and difficulties in applying Pre-reading activities in teaching reading. Question 5 concentrates on exploring the teachers’ purposes of using Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson. The researcher has the feedback to be shown in the following table: Purposes Strongly agree Agree Not agree A. to increase the students’ motivation. 70% 30% 0% B. to help students predict content of the text. 40% 50% 10% C. to provide background knowledge on the topic of the text. 30% 50% 20% D. to teach new, difficult vocabulary or structures in the text. 40% 40% 20% E. others 30% 60% 10% Table 5: Teachers’ purposes of using Pre-reading activities From the table, we realize that most teachers are highly appreciate the role of Pre-reading activities, that is why many of them (50%) agree that they use these activities in order to help students predict the content of the text or provide them with background knowledge on the topic of the texts. There is an equal number (40%) between the teachers who strongly agree that Pre-reading activities can help them teach new, difficult vocabulary or structures to their students. Surprisingly, 21 teachers (70%) even strongly agree that these activities are able to increase their students’ motivation before reading. Besides, 18 teachers (60%) agree that they use the Pre-reading activities not only to serve these purposes but also other ones. When the researcher has an informal talk with them, they explain that these activities help them to draw students’ attention and can get them involve in the text. The portion of disagreeing is very modest, ranged from 0% to 20%. Question 6 is designed to find out the difficulties the teachers have to cope with when applying the Pre-reading activities in their teaching situation. 100% 70% 60% 50% 30% 0 A B C D Chart 5: Teachers’ difficulties in applying Pre-reading activities. A. designing them is time–consuming (70%) B. designing them is difficult (60%) C. sometimes the activities can not motivate the students (30%) D. handling them sometimes is out of control (50%) Most of the teachers at the MSA agree that Pre-reading activities provide many advantages in warming up the students before reading. However, 70% of them have to admit that designing these activities is time-consuming, and 60% find this work difficult, it requires a great effort form the teachers if they wish this activities work well in their real teaching situation. Half of them (50%) claim that handling these activities sometimes is out of control, since they occupy much time or when carrying out the games the students may cause noise that affect the surrounding. Some teachers (30%) state that they usually apply Pre-reading activities, but sometimes these activities can not motivate their students. It can be understood that these activities are not of the students’ interest or the way the teachers use to introduce them is not clear or persuasive enough. 2.5.2.3. Teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities in the textbook and their suggestions for future improvement. Question 7 is designed to find out the teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities in the textbook More Reading Power which they are currently teaching at the MSA. 60% 40% 27% 20% 13% 0 A B C D Chart 6: Teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities in the textbook. A. interesting 20% B. unsuitable for the students’ interest 40% C. ineffective in motivating the students 27% D. unable to enhance the students’ motivation for reading 13% From the data showed in chart 6, we learn something about the teachers’ comments on the Pre-reading activities available in the textbook. In general, most of them are not in favor of these activities. The biggest portion (40%) of the teachers think that the Pre-reading activities in the textbook are unsuitable for the students’ interest, only 6 of them (20%) suppose that they are interesting which means that these teachers often take a lot of advantages from the Pre-reading activities and are successful in exploiting them in teaching reading to the students. Meanwhile, 8 teachers (27%) comment that these activities are ineffective in motivating their students at the first stage of the reading lesson. Four teachers (13%) complain about the Pre-reading activities in the book are poor and sometimes rather boring. Therefore, they are unable to enhance the students’ motivation and encourage them to read and complete the tasks followed. The purpose of question 8 is to find out the teachers’ suggestions and recommendation on the Pre-reading activities that can be added to improve the reading lesson in general and the first stage of the lesson in particular. Most of the reading lessons in the textbook include Pre-reading activities of some kinds. However, many teachers remarked that these activities were boring, poor and repetitive, since they were mainly followed the same types of activities such as: providing pre-reading questions; giving brief introduction to the text before asking the students to practice, it is also the main reason why some of the teachers chose choice D for question 7. Therefore, when answered question 8 (In your opinion, what should be done at pre-reading stage in order to make a reading lesson more interesting). None of them chose choice D (nothing, there is no need). It can be inferred that all of them discovered the drawback of the textbook they are teaching, and were willing to provide suggestions to improve these weaknesses. Based on the selection of choices A, B, and C all of them suggested that more various kinds of Pre-reading activities should be added and more activities that are of the students’ interest should be provided. 2.5.3. Data analysis of the class observations The author of the study randomly chose 2 classes (16A and 5AD4) with different teachers to observe. The researcher watched and followed all the procedures and activities the teachers and the students were performing in the real classroom settings, which enabled her to elicit reliable data. The first thing she noticed was that all these teachers used some lead-in activities at the Pre-reading stage. This proved that the teachers were highly appreciated the impact of these activities to the students’ motivation. The observation was carried out two times at two different units and with different teachers in these classes. Each lesson lasted 40 minutes; the researcher provided a checklist for her observation including the students’ attitudes towards the teachers’ activities, their involvement in the activity and their interaction with each other while completing the tasks. She also observed the students’ reactions to Pre-reading activities employed in the lesson as well as their preferences for them. The first observation took place in class 16A with Unit 1-Part Four, the reading texts in this unit are all about the Hawaiian Islands such as Water Sports in Hawaii, and Natural Disasters in Hawaii and Hawaiian Traditions, etc,. Hawaii nowadays, in fact, rather familiar to many students, however, many of them are still lack information about this name. Therefore, the teacher employed the techniques of using visual aids (photos) as well as provided some Pre-reading questions related to Hawaii and Water Sports in Hawaii asked students to work in groups to discuss the pictures and teacher’s questions. The teacher checked for the feedback with the whole class, these activities lasted in 15 minutes. From the researcher’ observation, the students were willing to take part in teacher’s activities and eager to read the text to get more information about Hawaii. The second observation was taken in class 5AD4 with Unit 3, in this lesson the students read about another topic, the reading texts are about Global Issues such as the Global Warming, Population Explosion, and the Disappearance of some Species. The purpose of choosing this lesson is that the researcher would like to observe how the teacher deal with long reading texts and what activities the teacher used at the Pre-reading stage to motivate students. The teacher was quite well-prepared for the Pre-reading activities and used up 15 minutes to exploit them. First of all, she introduced the topic of the reading text. Then, she divided students into groups to brainstorm the words or ideas related to the topic of the lesson she had introduced beforehand. Next, the teacher provided some lead-in questions, asked the students to discuss in pairs before checking for the feedback with the whole class. In general, the observations help the researcher confirm the fact that Pre-reading activities applied by the teachers have a great impact to students’ motivation before they start reading. However, the activities employed by the teachers were not varied since they seem to prefer using pre-reading questions and giving introduction. 2.6. Summary Chapter 2 has presented the situation of the study, in which the author would like to focus on the setting, the reading material, and the characteristics of the students and teachers participating in the study. Besides, the contents and the aims of two survey questionnaires and class observation are also presented in this chapter. The data analysis from the questionnaires and class observations help the author have an overview of teaching and learning reading at MSA. With more details about students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards Pre-reading activities, students’ preferences for these activities as well as students’ and teachers’ comments on Pre-reading activities in the textbook are also investigated. The following chapter will deal with major findings and suggestions of some possible Pre-reading activities applied to teach More Reading Power to the second-year English students at the MSA. Chapter 3 Major findings and suggestions of some possible Pre reading activities applied to teach More Reading Power to the Second-year English Majors at the MSA 3.1. Major findings 3.1.1. The role of using Pre-reading activities to the Second-year English Majors at the MSA The findings of this study showed that that both teachers and students at the MSA are highly appreciated the important role of Pre-reading activities. For the teachers, the application of Pre-reading activities enables them to activate students’ existing knowledge, to teach more words as well as to arouse students’ motivation in reading to the texts. On the other hand, for the students, the Pre-reading activities are obviously useful since they are more motivated, they can understand the texts better while reading and the most important thing is that these activities help them improve their reading skills as well. 3.1.2. Frequency of using Pre-reading activities in reading lessons As mentioned above, nearly all the teachers in the study are aware of the importance of the Pre-reading activities, so they usually employ these activities with the hope to motivating students as well as helping them deal with the reading texts more easily. From the teachers’ and students’ survey questionnaires, the author finds out the order of frequency for using Pre-reading activities in a reading lesson at the MSA. * The most frequently used activities: - explaining the instructions of the text - using pre-reading questions - making students predict the content of the text Actually, the first and the second activities are regarded as traditional ones and they are mostly employed in every reading lesson by the teachers. What is more, it does not take the teachers much time to design or prepare. Making students predict the content of the text is another familiar activity. According to the teachers, this activity encourages students to use their existing background knowledge and vocabulary to guest the content and incidents that may be occurred in the new reading text. It also helps students more concentrating in the coming stages. * The activities that are sometimes used: - pre-teaching new vocabulary - giving reading task to students Pre-teaching new vocabulary in a reading text is a popular activity that sometimes provided by the teachers since they considered words and structures are the key roles in helping students avoid confusion or misunderstanding. Moreover, this activity is very useful for the second year-students at the MSA because many of them consider the lack of vocabulary is a great barrier which makes it difficult for them to read and comprehend the reading text. As mentioned above, sometimes teachers give the reading task without warming them up by using any Pre-reading activities. The reason to this may be because they suppose that their students are at their intermediate level, they know how to, so there is no need to waste time on unnecessary activities, just only let them read the text and exploit it themselves * The activities that are rarely used: - using games to introduce the text - using visual aids to introduce the text All students of the second-year at the MSA are in their teens or early twenties, so perhaps they still enjoy taking part in what are called “just for fun” activities like taking part in game or enjoying visual aids which were provided by the teachers. However, these activities need careful preparation and time consuming, so the fact that they are rarely used in reading lessons is understandable. 3.1.3. Students’ preferences for Pre-reading activities It is noticeable that students’ preferences for Pre-reading activities differ from what the teachers often do in reading lessons. As mentioned in chapter 2, many students enjoy such activities as using games or using visual aids to introduce the text, meanwhile, they are sometimes or even rarely used by the teachers. In fact, almost the teachers at the MSA are well aware that these activities are motivational ones. However, it is obvious that preparing visual aids or designing games possibly are tough for a lot of teachers. Fortunately, both students and teachers share the same view in using such pre-reading activities as providing pre-reading questions and giving brief introduction to the text. Perhaps they all find these activities interesting and motivational. 3.1.4. Students’ preferences for participating in Pre-reading activities From the data collected in chapter 2 the researcher realized that a large number of students enjoy working in groups, actually, group-work encourages students to display their existing knowledge to share experience together. However, more students prefer working in pairs, since doing pair-work provides them more time as well as more opportunities. What is more, pair-work also enables them to express their point of view more freely in non-threatening environment. 3.1.5. Teachers’ difficulties in designing and applying the Pre-reading activities As mentioned in chapter 2, many reading lessons in More Reading Power include Pre-reading activities. However, these activities are boring and repetitive so the teachers always add more activities for each lesson to arouse the students’ motivation. Obviously, to create a motivated atmosphere for the students, teachers should employ appropriate activities or the activities of their interest. Based on the data collected from the survey questionnaire for the students the researcher discovered that majority students are in favor of such activities as using games and visual aids. However, most of the teachers have to admit that designing these activities is difficult and time-consuming. It requires a great effort if they wish these activities work well in their real teaching situation. Besides, handling these activities sometimes is out of control because they often occupy much time and they may cause noise to the surrounding environment. 3.1.6. Teachers’ and students’ comments on Pre-reading activities available in the textbook More Reading Power From the data collected in the previous chapter, the author found out that almost the students and the teachers in the study are not in favor of the Pre-reading activities available in the textbook they are using currently. In general, most of them comment that these activities are not suitable for their teaching and learning reading, some of them even suppose that these activities are boring. According to them, these activities are poor, repetitive, and sometimes rather boring. Therefore, they all think that more activities should be added at the Pre-reading stage. 3.2. Suggestions of some possible Pre-reading activities applied to teach More Reading Power to the Second-year English Majors at the MSA For developing skills to the second year students at the MSA, reading comprehension is one of the most difficult but important academic tasks facing second year students at intermediate level. To improve reading skills can positive impact many aspects of second year students’ performance. Disinterest in reading may result in poor reading comprehension, creating students’ interest, enhancing their motivation and improving their concentration in the textbook More Reading Power are indispensable steps. In this study, the researcher offers several suggestions for the teachers to create their students’ interest, to enhance their motivation as well as their concentration before reading. 3.2.1. Creating Interest and Enhancing Motivation Ways for creating interest and enhancing motivation for the students at the MSA will vary significantly according to personal preferences, experiences, background, and subject matter. For second-year students of English at the MSA it would be helpful to suggest some ways for creating the students’ interest and enhancing their motivation before reading. Group discussion is an activity that can be appropriate for situations in which texts are difficult, sometimes contain unfamiliar concepts or words that may be not exist in the students’ minds. Group students in three or four with an efficient reader to create an exciting reading atmosphere since reading alone is conventional and sometimes rather boring and not effective. 3.2.2. Using visual aids It is very important for the readers to have something to look at is eye-caching and relevant to the task in hand. There are many advantages of using visual aids in a reading lesson that the teacher can use. First of all, using visual aids can focus attention on meaning and help to make the language, using visual aids in the class in general and in the reading lesson in particular can bring students back to real life. Secondly, having something to look at can keep the students’ attention and make the class more alive and interesting. Moreover, using visual aids at pre-reading stage can help the teacher much in presenting new words or introducing a topic, as part of language practice, and when reviewing language that has been presented earlier. Good visual aids are not just used once, but again and again and can be shared by different teachers and with different groups of students. 3.2.3. Pre- questioning Pre-questioning involves presenting students with a set of written questions (Royer et. al., 1983) or having students generate their own questions on the topic of the reading passage (Taglieber et.al., 1983). The aim of this activity is to motivate students to read what follows for a purpose, that is, to gain the requisite information to answer the question. (Carrell, 1988:247) Being motivated is one of the most important factors that can help students in the process of reading. “The more students look forward to reading and anticipate in their minds what the text could hold in store for them, the easier it will be to grasp the main points of the passage” (Grellet 1981:62). Providing pre-reading questions also “functions to get students to predict within a context area what the text will be about” before studying th