SỞ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO THANH HÓA TRƯỜNG THPT QUẢNG XƯƠNG III SÁNG KIẾN KINH NGHIỆM TÊN ĐỀ TÀI SOLUTIONS TO TEACHERS’ DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING READING SKILLS TO GRADE 10TH STUDENTS AT QUANG XUONG II HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HOA PROVINCE Người thực hiện: Ngô Thị Khuyên Chức vụ: Giáo viên Đơn vị công tác: Trường THPT Quảng Xương III Sáng kiến thuộc lĩnh vực (mơn): Tiếng Anh THANH HỐ 2016 TABLE OF CONTENT Part I: Introduction 1 Rationale of the Study Aims of the Study The Participants Scope and Significance of the Study Method of the Study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 The Nature of Reading 1.2 Teaching Reading Comprehension 1.3 Difficulties in Teaching Reading CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 The Current Situation of Teaching and Learning the Textbook at Quang Xuong High School 6 Research Instruments 2.3 Data Collection Procedure 2.2 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 3.2 Classroom Observations and Interview Questionnaire CHAPTER 4: SOLUTIONS 13 4.1 Improving Students’ Reading Interest and Motivation and making Reading Lessons Funny 13 4.2 Promoting Students with a Variety of Reading Strategies 14 4.3 Varying Reading Activities 14 4.4 Improving Teacher’s Classroom Techniques 15 4.5 Adapting the Textbook 17 4.6 Equipping Teaching Facilities 17 PART III: RESULTS (Reached result) 18 PART IV: CONCLUSION 19 PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the Study English has experienced its popularity in Vietnam over the last few decades The demand for English even gets stronger when Vietnam fosters its international relations English, in parallel with the knowledge of some other fields, turns out to be a key to the door into the bustling world That is why English is now widely taught in almost all education institutions, at every level At Quang Xuong High School, where the author works, all of the English teachers have the same problems They have to confront some major obstacles in reading, such as: students’ habits of word-by-word reading, excessive focus on details rather than main ideas, poor vocabulary and limited background knowledge, etc If those difficulties are not found out and no solutions to overcome are given, it is certain that reading lessons can not be successful and it even becomes worse In this situation, the teachers need to take a serious look at the teaching and learning of English in general and the teaching and learning of the reading skills in particular so as to suggest suitable techniques to enable the teaching and learning of the reading comprehension at high school to be more effective Being a teacher of English at Quang Xuong High School, the researcher wishes to give a hand in promoting reading skills for her tenth-form students This matter of fact has offered her a chance to conduct a study on “ Solutions to teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading skills to grade 10 th students at Quang Xuong High School” It is hoped that this study may offer the English teachers at schools in general and the English teachers at Quang Xuong high school in particular the ways to teach reading skills more effectively Aims of the Study The specific objectives of the study are: ● To investigate the Grade 10th students’ attitude towards speaking skills in their English learning ● To examine the activities and techniques applied by the teachers at Quang Xuong high school ● To identify the teachers’ major difficulties in teaching reading skills and examine the causes ● To offer possible solutions to the difficulties The Participants The research was undertaken with the participation of teachers (excluding the researcher) and 85 students - There were classes of grade ten at the time of studying To have reliable variables, more than half of the classes should be included in the survey To be objective, judgmental sampling was not possible because these classes were not at the same level So, the classes must be picked by random sampling The classes chosen were: 10D2, 10D4 4 Scope and Significance of the Study This study is limited to: - the 10th form students at Quang Xuong High School; - the teachers of English at Quang Xuong High School; and - reading comprehension in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” The findings and suggested solutions most appropriately applied to the teachers of English as well as 10 th grade students at Quang Xuong High School That is, the teachers and the students will be able to find ways to improve their process of teaching and learning reading skills Method of the Study The study was designed to use a number of methods to achieve its aims Firstly, classroom observation was carried out to investigate the reality of difficulties the teachers confronted in their teaching reading skills Then, two types of survey questionnaire were conducted with informants of teachers of English and students randomly selected from classes at Quang Xuong High School In addition to questionnaire, informal interviews with the informants were also employed PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter is aimed at providing a theoretical background to this study The review of issues most relevant to the focus of the study will be included: concepts of reading and reading comprehension, reading process, reading difficulties for foreigner learners 1.1 The Nature of Reading Reading comprehension According to Grellet (1981: 3): “Reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.” The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way 1.2 Teaching Reading Comprehension 1.2.1 Relationship between Reading and Other Skills In the process of teaching and learning English, it is very crucial for learners to realize the integration of language That is the possibilities of other aspects of foreign program Therefore, reading skill is closely related to writing, listening and speaking skills Understanding relations will help learners succeed 1.2.2 The Roles of the Teacher and the Students in a Reading Lesson 1.2.2.1 The Roles of the Teacher So far there have been various approaches to teaching reading, such as the traditional approach, process-based approach and task-based approach (Pham, 2005 cited in Hoang et al., 1005: 517) In all these approaches, apart from the evident roles of learners in the process of reading comprehension, the roles of teachers in an EFL reading lesson are also significant and worth mentioning Discussing the roles of the teacher in teaching reading, Richard and Amato (1988) emphasize: “The first role is to facilitate communicative process between all participants in the classroom, and between these participants and the various activities and text The second role is to act interdependent within the learning teaching group.” Being concerned with the roles of the teacher in teaching reading, Harmer (2001: 213) gives an opinion that the teacher needs to create interest in the topic and task He also needs to work as an organizer, observer, feedback organizer and prompter ▪ An observer ▪ A feedback organizer ▪ A prompter In general, the teacher must be aware of what they need to in a reading lesson Playing their roles well will certainly helps the teacher lead successful reading lessons 1.2.2.2 The Role of the Students In communicative language teaching, the learners are regarded as the centre of the lesson It is true in every reading lesson During the reading process the students play the roles of an active and creative listener and as well as reader 1.2.3 The Three Stages of a Reading Lesson Although the role of reading activities in teaching reading is made apparent, how they are organized and sequenced in a lesson varies among different approaches to language teaching In the light of recent and widely accepted communicative approach, it is a common practice that a reading lesson includes three stages: pre-, while- and post-reading (William, 1984; Dubin and Bycina, 1991 cited in To et al., 2006: 158) (Hoang et al., 2005) 1.2.3.1 Pre-reading Stage 1.2.3.2 While-reading Stage 1.2.3.3 Post-reading Stage In conclusion, the above-mentioned stages are essential for a reading lesson However, it is not necessary to carry out all these stages mechanically on every occasion Depending on the purposes of each reading lesson, the teacher may apply these stages as well as allocate time for each stage appropriately 1.3 Difficulties in Teaching Reading As being mentioned above, no one can deny the important role of reading skill However, it is uneasy for a language learner to be successful in learning reading because there are many factors affecting the success such as reader’s reading habits, attitude, motivation, exposure to the target language, textual characteristics, the way reading skill is taught and the teacher’s classroom techniques or learning environment, etc Jolly (1978), Coady (1979) and others grouped those factors into three types: reading skill problem, language problem, and cultural background knowledge 1.3.1 Reading Skill Problems According to Jolly (1987), Coady (1979) and others, one’s first language reading ability plays a more important role in reading success than his level of the target language does, because foreign language reading requires the transference of old skills, not the learning of new ones They believe that if the reader has a poor reading ability in his mother tongue, then, he can not read well in a foreign language Students’ limited reading skills create many problems, such as reading slowly, failing to understand and summarize main ideas of the reading text, unable to guess or predict the meaning of the words or phrases used in that context, etc Therefore, such students find it hard to be successful in their reading They cannot understand the text thoroughly and those are the reasons why they not want to keep on reading 1.3.2 Language Problems Yorio (1971: 108) argues that reading problems of FL learners are due largely to the imperfect knowledge of the target language and to mother tongue inference in the reading process Therefore, learners with limited knowledge of the target language might have considerable difficulties when reading in the target language 1.3.3 Cultural Background Knowledge Apart from language problems and reading skill problems, cultural background knowledge can also affect students’ ability as culture plays a central role for many topics And that comprehension of a culturally unfamiliar text is more difficult than comprehension of a culturally familiar text, because readers, facing up with unfamiliar context, may mistranslate or misinterpret the text according to their own cultural experience CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 The Current Situation of Teaching and Learning the Textbook at Quang Xuong High School 2.1.1 Introduction to Quang Xuong High School and its Students Quang Xuong High School is located in Sam Son town, Thanh Hoa province This shool has been in operation for 33 years The school is surrounded by villages Like other high schools, its duty is to train students from the 10th form to the 12th form The students at Quang Xuong High School are approximately 16-18 years old Lots of them come from comparatively poor families so their learning condition is low Their parents can hardly afford to pay extra expenses for their children’s schooling such as a dictionary, a cassette player or even some English reference booksMoreover, most of the students have low English level In addition, their lack of awareness on the importance of English as well as motivation makes them not interest in English As a result, most of them not have the habit of learning independently and tend to depend on the textbooks and on the teacher for knowledge 2.1.2 An Overview of the Textbook “Tieng Anh 10” 2.1.2.1Contents of the Textbook The textbook “Tieng anh 10” is designed under a theme-based approach with 16 units Each unit is about a theme There are five parts in each unit arranged as follows: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing, and Language Focus Reading is the beginning part of each unit The aim of this is that through reading and through developing reading skills such as skimming, scanning, etc the students are provided with language input 2.1.2.2 Characteristics of Reading Passages and Reading Tasks in the Textbook Characteristics of Reading Passages A reading passage in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” has 190-230 words in length Each passage is closely related to the theme of the unit It is divided into small paragraphs Some passages are long and rather difficult for the students to understand, as there are a lot of difficult new words and grammatical structures It takes time to elicit them Characteristics of reading tasks In each unit, three kinds of tasks are designed Each task has its own aim - Task helps the students to understand words or phrases in the passage - Task helps the students to comprehend the content of the passage - Task helps the students to have an overall understanding of the passage 2.1.3 Teachers and Methods of teaching Our school has got nine English teachers, aged from 33 to 42 As far as the methodology is concerned, the teachers are aware of the new trend in teaching method nowadays: Learner-centered approach They try to give their students independence in studying by asking them to work through the text or discuss subject matters in groups or in pairs after giving them some instructions However, not all of the teachers can that and the amount of time spent in such activities is not much Furthermore, most of the 10 th form students can not these themselves Therefore, the teachers often employ the traditional method of teaching in reading lessons Most of the time, the teachers play the key role in the classroom, being the main speakers working through the text 2.2 Research Instruments Three measurement instruments were developed for data collection: (1) classroom observation, (2) questionnaire, (3) interview Those appear in the appendixes 2.2.1 Questionnaire These two types of questionnaire included both closed and open-ended questions Questionnaire for teachers was written in English, while the one for students was written in Vietnamese to make sure that the students properly understood the questions Questionnaire designed for teachers aimed at seeking information of work experience, teachers’ attitudes towards the reading sections in the textbook English 10, and the problems they confronted with in the process of teaching reading skills Questionnaire for students tended to survey on their perception about the importance of reading skills in learning English as a compulsory subject at school, their evaluation of their current speaking competence, and difficulties they encountered in learning reading skills 2.2.2 Class Observation The researcher carried out classroom observations by visiting classes in reading periods and recording all activities occurred in each class: the teacher’s presentation on the reading lessons, the teacher’s questions and explanations, the students’ performance in English The observation checklists for reading class were made The checklists included five criteria: Teacher’s preparation Teacher’s presentation Teacher’s method Teacher’s/ students’ personal characteristics Teacher-student interaction 2.2.3 Interview The interview, which were semi-structured, and 20-25 minutes in length each, focused on the critical issues arising from the observed lessons as well as issues related to teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading skills All the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese in order for the participants to fully articulate their views without being constrained by the use of a second language They were then fully transcribed, translated and analyzed by the researcher to uncover the emerging themes 2.3 Data Collection Procedure Data collecting methods used for the study comprised survey questionnaire, classroom observations, and interviews Classroom observations were conducted for one lesson for each class in three weeks for three teachers Because the teachers were not comfortable with their lessons being video- or audio- recorded, the researcher took extensive field notes of all the observed events in the classroom Each teacher was interviewed once on the last day of classroom observation Then, based on the classroom observations, the questionnaire was designed for the students and teachers It is noted that in order to make it easy in analyzing data, 82 students of the tenth form were surveyed In stead of randomly selecting the individual, the researcher randomly selected the classes for investigation Totally 85 copies of the questionnaire were delivered to students and teachers and all of the copies were returned and respectively used for analysis CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Presentation of Statistical Results 3.1 Classroom Observations and Interview The classroom observation results reflected the reality of the difficulties that the teachers encountered in teaching English reading skills 3.2 Questionnaire 3.2.1 Questionnaire for teachers 3.2.1.1 Methodology To elicit a reply for the difficulties the teachers at Quang Xuong High School encountered in teaching reading skills to 10 th graders and solutions to overcome those difficulties, 13 closed and open-ended questions are formulated: • Questions 1, 2, (part I) request the matter concerning the teachers’ education and work experience • Questions and (Part II) aim at finding out the teachers’ opinions on the importance of reading skill and the sections for reading skills in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” • Questions 3, 4, relate to the way the teachers often in a reading lesson • Questions 6, 7, aim at finding out the problems the teachers face in reading teaching process with the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” • Questions 9, 10 focus on teachers’ suggested solutions to difficult situations they meet 3.2.1.2 Results Problems Teachers Often Faced in Teaching Reading Skills Question 3: Categories Number of teachers Percentage New words 100% New grammatical structures 80% Ideas in the reading texts 40% Cultural knowledge 20% All of the above 20% Table 1: Teachers’ focus when teaching a reading text As can be seen from Table 4, when conveying the reading text to the students, all of the teachers focused on new words and most of them paid attention to new grammatical structures (80%) whereas cultural knowledge and ideas in the reading texts were paid very little attention to 20% of them focused on cultural knowledge and 40% focused on ideas in the reading texts Question 5: From the beginning to the end, then the reading tasks Each paragraph, stop and see the meaning of the new word, then continue Read and base on the context to guess the general ideas of the text Chart 1: The way teachers ask their students to read Chart reveals that, 40% of the teachers asked their students to read the text from the beginning to the end, and then did the reading tasks 20% of them asked the students to read each paragraph, then stop and see the meaning of new words, then continue 40% of them encouraged the students to read and based on the context to guess the meaning of new words, or to guess the true message of the author However, predicting from the context was sometimes very difficult for their students; therefore, they often helped them by using their mother tongue equivalents Question 7: No of teachers Read similar texts Master the key words in the text Understand and summarize the text in their own words Use the words in the text in their daily life Chart 2: Teachers’ expectation of the students in the post-reading 3.2.2 Questionnaire for students Results Question 2: Opinions Number of students Percentage Easy 0% Interesting 12 14% Difficult 65 76.4% Boring 18 21% Too long 50 76.4% Too short 59% Table 2: Description of students’ opinions on the sections for reading in English 10 Most of the students thought that the sections for reading in English 10 were difficult (76.4%) and too long (59%) 14% of them found it interesting and 21% had opposite ideas No one thought that these sections were too short or easy Question 4: % 60 50 40 30 20 10 Guessing the content of the text through the topic of the reading Listing learnt words and structures relating to the reading Finding out the meaning of new words and new structures Reading the requirement of the reading tasks Doing nothing but read the text Chart 3: Students’ pre-reading activities Question 5: From Chart we can see that most of the students chose the way of reading each paragraph, stop and see the meaning of the new word, then continue (54%) 32% of them read from the beginning to the end, then the reading tasks and 14% read and base on the context guessed the general ideas of the text 1 Read from the beginning to the end, then the reading tasks Each paragraph, stop and see the meaning of the new word, then continue Read and base on the context to guess the general ideas of the text Chart 4: Students’ while-reading activities CHAPTER 4: SOLUTIONS This study has shown that teachers at Quang Xuong High School faced many difficulties when teaching reading skills This chapter gives some suggestions based on the opinions about the solutions of the teachers at Quang Xuong High School (answers of question in the interview) and on the author’s study on theory of teaching and learning reading comprehension The suggestions include: Improving students’ reading interest and motivation, training the students to become efficient readers, propose activities for the teachers, improving teachers’ reading techniques, and adapting materials 4.1 Improving Students’ Reading Interest and Motivation and making Reading Lessons Funny One of the causes of reading difficulties is that a number of students in Quang Xuong High School have a negative attitude, low interest and motivation in learning reading skills Therefore, to reduce the difficulties the teacher should arouse their passion for reading by making reading lesson more funny and useful Example: Text book 10 Unit 1: A day in the life of… A: Reading Teacher gives some pictures about daily routine and asks students to answer the question: “What they do?” 4.2 Promoting Students with a Variety of Reading Strategies One of the causes of reading difficulties is that the teachers did not provide students sufficient reading strategies.Therefore, helping students practice efficient strategies while reading is very useful Some common reading strategies include: skimming, scanning, predicting, inferring, word-building, etc ▪ Skimming ▪ Scanning ▪ Predicting ▪ Inferring Example: Text book 10 Unit 3: People’s background Part A: Reading T: You are going to read a text about Marie Curie Firstly, skim the text then scan the text and answer my questions: When and Where was she born? What did she to save money to study abroad? For what service was she awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry? What is the main idea of the text? 4.3 Varying Reading Activities Very often our interesting communicative activities are not quite as interesting or as communicative as we think they are So maybe the teachers need to take a closer look at the types of reading activities they are using and see if they really capture students’ interest and create a real need for communication Firstly, pair work and group work are thought to be very useful in reading activities Using pair work and group work helps teachers reduce boredom and tiredness among students In large size classes, it will help teachers be easy to control and motivate students Each student has an opportunity to take part in the lesson and can be corrected mistakes by other group members Secondly, making full use of games and visual aids is what the teachers should concern Games help learners reduce stress, which are beneficial to teachers in motivating students Visual aids such as music, pictures and maps are believed to create enjoyable and motivating learning atmosphere, stimulate students’ interest and attention during the lesson Besides, discussion, story telling and interview …should be introduced to the students so that they are not fed up with the same activities they have to everyday Example: Text book 10: Unit 2: School talks Part A: Reading T: Imagine one of you are a journalist and one of you are a character in the passage ( Phong, Phong’s father, and Miss Lan Phuong) Interview your partner (based on the passage) Interview 1: S1: What’s your name? S2: My name’s Phong S1: How old are you? S2: I’m sixteen S1: Where you study? S2: Chu Van An High School S1: What subjects you study? S2: I study many subjects such as English, Maths, Chemistry… Interview 2: S1: What subject you teach? S2: I’m teaching English S1: Do you enjoy teaching? Why? S2: I enjoy teaching because I love working with children 4.4 Improving Teacher’s Classroom Techniques According to the results of the study, one of the students’ difficulties is understanding and remembering idioms, verb phrases, noun phrases, etc In addition, their desire from their teacher is various teaching techniques The repeated teaching method in every class hour may bore the students Basing on the characteristics of different groups of students, the teacher should use appropriate techniques or even in the same class the teacher also has to employ various techniques in different reading lessons in order to renew the classroom atmosphere and make reading class more interesting and efficient However, whatever to change, whatever to employ, the teacher can not omit any of the three stages in the reading lesson: pre-, while-, and post-reading In each stage, various techniques should be employed Example: Text book 10: Unit 7: The mass media Part A: Reading T: Discuss about the types of the mass media (the title of the text) Ss: Television, radio, the Internet, magazines, newspapers Unit 12: Music Part A: Reading T: Listen to some pieces of music and try to guess the topic of this lesson ( T plays the cassette) Unit 13: Films and cinema Part A: Reading Teacher gives picture of a famous film to attract attention the students’ attention and leads to the new lesson Unit 14: The World Cup Part A: Reading T: Work in pair to ask and answer questions about the World Cup Students: S1: Where was the first World Cup held? S2: It was held in Uruguay S1: How often is it held? S2: It was held every two years S1: Which team played in the final match of the 2002 World Cup? S2: Germany and Brazil S1: Which team played five times in the World Cup? S2: Brazil 4.5 Adapting the Textbook The textbook “Tieng Anh 10” is designed for the 10 th form students in all over the country Thus, that it may cause difficulties for some schools with low level students like Quang Xuong High School is obvious The teachers, therefore, have to take responsibility for adjusting the tasks to adapt to our students’ level However, it is important that the adaptation closely connect to the objectives of the lessons As mentioned above, teachers complained that some sections for speaking skills in the new textbook were too long and difficult for students They could not effectively finish all the tasks designed in a forty-five-minute period Therefore, it is necessary for teachers to be flexible in using the textbook and not need to follow exactly and complete all the exercises in it For long speaking lessons, teachers can omit one or two tasks or leave them as homework for students Teachers can also replace difficult tasks with easier ones that are suitable for students’ levels The followings are some examples of adapting reading tasks: ▪ Omitting unnecessary tasks: E.g Task in Unit “A day in the life of…” (see Appendix 6) can be omitted, because the answers in this task are the same as those in task ▪ Simplifying the tasks given in the textbook: E.g The teacher can simplify Task in Unit 13 “Films and Cinema” (see Appendix 7) in order that the students can easily find the needed words The teacher can give the first letter of the needed words 4.6 Equipping Teaching Facilities The poor classroom equipment is also part of poor reading lecture Therefore, beside the existing teaching facilities, chalk, cassette player, textbook), it is necessary to equip the classroom with modern facilities such as over-head projector, or projector, equip the library with various English reference books The modern facilities will make the lessons more effective as the teacher can explain the subject matter lively and efficiently and save a lot of time in writing down everything on board as usual Saving more time in this stage, the teacher may arrange time to provide students with further exercises or supplementary reading texts PART III: RESULTS (Reached result) In the recent school year, I was assigned to teach subjects in English for blocks (blocks 10, 11 and 12) After the solutions have been applied, I noticed the students with the difficult as I have described above (the practical subjects), especially students grade 10 for children begin to be interested in learning reading skill I myself have obtained some quite good results from the application of these solutions Firstly, these experiences are very suitable for the schedule and text book Students are more motivated to learn English, more willing to broaden their knowledge and develop reading skills The atmosphere of learning is more relaxing and exciting.Students have chances to express their own ideas, thoughts They don’t feel embarrased when starting new lessons anymore More and more students can converse with each other, especially the weak students now can understand the text and some tasks Praiseworthy than they completely overcome the difficulties in reading - English-speaking, boldly participate in communication and that they more actively in the activities involved in the unit Students ardent, excited, exciting in a study, items prepared at home more thoroughly Therefore, the tracking quality professional learning by students in school year 2015- 2016 also advanced remarkably.( I have this result from some tests I gave to the students) STATISTICS RESULTS MONITORING QUALITY OF ENGLISH STUDENTS, SCHOOL YEAR 2015-2016 Semester CLASS TOTAL Excellent Quite Average Weak total % total % total % total % 10D2 44 0 10 22 13 29 21 47 10D4 41 2.4 12 29 19 46 19 Semester CLASS TOTAL Excellent Quite Average Weak total % total % total % total % 10D2 44 4.5 16 36 16 36 10 22 10D4 41 9.7 15 36 17 41 12 5 PART IV: CONCLUSION Lesson experience Through research and application topics "“ Solutions to teachers’ difficulties in teaching reading skills to grade 10th students at Quang Xuong High School " I've drawn some experiences following: To improve the quality of teaching, teachers must have a career center with blood, is responsible for more of their teaching, interest in the subject students and teaching quality, the new method is selected flexibility towards change new suit their students Preparing lesson plan preparation, details, double Strengthening product use available teaching or enriched, practical, effective Encourage students to change to the English they speak in English while using English more often in class, or group you study at home Over the route gifted children, has made progress and participate in speech In addition, it should often help encourage the children are poor and timely fixes language of children in a gentle, for they are not complex, shame, fear wrong to be afraid to say or lowbrow Limitations and suggestions for Further Study Most study is not without limitations The study presented in this thesis is of no exception due to time constraints and scope of the study First, in terms of methodology, the study is limited in the fact that the data may not fully reflect all aspects of difficulties in teaching reading comprehension with the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” Second, the author’s practical experience in teaching reading comprehension with the textbook is limited; the suggestions to overcome difficulties are likely to be subjective and incomplete Third, the study has no chance to deal with other three skills in language teaching: Listening, Speaking, and Writing These limitations, therefore, call for further research for long-term benefits of the learners ... and Learning the Textbook at Quang Xuong High School 2.1.1 Introduction to Quang Xuong High School and its Students Quang Xuong High School is located in Sam Son town, Thanh Hoa province This... Improving Students’ Reading Interest and Motivation and making Reading Lessons Funny 13 4.2 Promoting Students with a Variety of Reading Strategies 14 4 .3 Varying Reading Activities 14 4.4 Improving... of Reading 1.2 Teaching Reading Comprehension 1 .3 Difficulties in Teaching Reading CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 The Current Situation of Teaching and Learning the Textbook at Quang Xuong