VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES -----***----- NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT NHUNG THE USE OF WARM-UP ACTIVITIES IN MOTIVATING 10TH FORM STUDENTS TO LEARN READING SKILL (SỬ DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG KHỞI ĐỘNG TRONG BÀI DẠY ĐỌC HIỂU NHẰM NÂNG CAO HỨNG THÚ HỌC KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10) M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111 HA NOI, 2015 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES -----***----- NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT NHUNG THE USE OF WARM-UP ACTIVITIES IN MOTIVATING 10TH FORM STUDENTS TO LEARN READING SKILL (SỬ DỤNG CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG KHỞI ĐỘNG TRONG BÀI DẠY ĐỌC HIỂU NHẰM NÂNG CAO HỨNG THÚ HỌC KỸ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 10) M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.140.111 Supervisor: Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân HA NOI, 2015 CERTIFICATION OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “The use of warm-up activities in motivating 10th form students to learn reading skill” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts at Faculty of Post-Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Hanoi, 2015 Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Nhung i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to my respectable supervisor, Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Van for his restless and sympathetic encouragement, valuable advice and patient guidance until the completion of this study. I wish to acknowledge my thankfulness to the two 10th form classes for their enthusiastic participation in the project. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my beloved parents, my husband, my daughter, my siblings, and my post-graduate friends for their sacrifice, encouragement and care. ii ABSTRACT How to teach and learn English effectively is a big concern of most teachers and language students. Many students at Kien An High School find it boring to study reading lessons. This study is intended to investigate the use of warm-up activities and their effects on the 10 th form students at Kien An High School and to make some suggestions to improve the quality of learning reading lessons. The study was conducted to answer the questions: What are warm-up activities? Are warm-up activities an effective technique for motivating 10 th form students to learn reading skill? The author took a sample of 94 students at Kien An High School. Data from the questionnaires was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATION OF ORIGINALITY………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….ii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………iv LIST OF CHARTS……………………………………………………………… vi Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Nhung .i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii .iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….ii iv TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………iviv PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study 1.Aims of the study .2 2.Research questions 4. Method of the study 5.Scope of the study 6.Design of the study .3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT .4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.WARM-UP ACTIVITES IN A LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING. 1.1.Definitions .4 1.2.The importance of warm-up activities .5 1.3.Common warm-up activities in a reading lesson iv 1.4.Summary 10 1.MOTIVATION 10 2.1.Definition 10 2.2.Types of motivation .11 2.3.The importance of motivation .14 2.4.Summary .15 1.DESCRIPTION OF SITUATION .17 1.1.Subjects .17 1.2.Materials 17 1.3.Teaching – learning strategies 18 2.DESCRIPTION OF DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS 18 2.1.Questionnaire I 18 2.2.Questionnaire II .19 3.PROCEDURE .19 1.RESULTS FROM QUESTIONNAIRE I 21 2.RESULTS FROM QUESTIONNAIRE II .25 3.FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .29 3.1.Active effects 29 3.2.Limitations .29 4.RECOMMENDATIONS .30 1.RECAPITULATION 33 2.LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 34 REFERENCES .36 APPENDIX .I v LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Frequency level of teachers’ using warm-up 21 Chart 2: Careful guiding level of teachers .22 Chart 3: The diversity of warm-up activities used 22 Chart 4: How often warm-up activities should be used 23 Chart 5: The importance of warm-up activities in reading lessons .23 Chart 6: The necessary level of improving warm-up activities 24 Chart 7: Students’ involvement in learning reading lessons 25 Chart 8: Level of students’ concentration during the reading lessons 26 Chart 9: Level of interest 26 Chart 10: Level of appropriateness 27 Chart 11: Level of challenge .27 Chart 12: The role of warm-ups in creating a more interesting learning atmosphere .28 Chart 13: The interaction among students in class when warm-ups are applied 28 vi PART A: INTRODUCTION This chapter aims at providing the readers with an overview of the study. It consists of the rationale for the study, the aims of the study, the research questions, the method of the study, the scope and the design of the study. 1. Rationale for the study There is a common belief that people will be successful more easily if they want to their duties. For example, to please her husband, a wife will try to cook delicious meals. A student can concentrate on learning English to communicate with an English, an American or a foreign speaking English, to listen to English songs or to get better jobs, etc. In other words, if people are motivated, they will their best to achieve their goals faster. Motivation is some kind of internal drives which pushes someone to things in order to achieve something. Student motivation refers to a student’s interest, desire, compulsion, and need to participate in and be successful in the learning process. It is generally accepted that student motivation plays a key role in academic learning. Motivated students have a positive impact on learning. They take advantage of a given opportunity and show intense effort and concentration in the implementation of learning process. Also, they reveal positive emotions such as excitement, enthusiasm, interest, and optimism during learning. Besides, a teacher or an instructor has a significant role in guiding less motivated students. It means that the teacher has to consider students as the centre in teaching process. To make an English teaching period effective, bring into play maximally student’s ability to grasp, the teacher has to find suitable teaching method for each teaching period, each student and necessarily, to create the learning motivation of students from the start. It is very important not only for English but also other subjects. Creating the motivation of students for the lessons and their enthusiasm in learning is the art of the teacher. There are many ways to increase the learning motivation of students but a large number of teachers consider warm-up activities as one of the most effective ways. English is undeniably an international language that serves as the most effective and popular communicative tool between different nations. Therefore English is one of the major subjects for Vietnamese students to acquire at schools so that they are qualified with a useful tool to get access to the knowledge of mankind as well as to develop international communication, especially in the trend of integration and globalization. The introduction of Tiếng Anh 10 is thus hopefully to improve learners’ communicative competence as the traditional method mainly focuses on English grammar. In the context of teaching and learning English in Vietnam, where the number of students in each class is up to 40-50, the use of warm-up activities is also a useful tool in class management by involving learners’ participation. However, this method still leaves much room to develop in Vietnam. For the reasons mentioned above, the researcher wishes to conduct the research on “The use of warm-up activities in motivating 10 th form students to learn reading skill.” 1. Aims of the study The study is targeted at investigating the use of warm-up activities and their effects on motivating the 10th graders in reading lessons. 2. Research questions To achieve the above aim, the following questions are raised for exploration: 1. What are warm-up activities commonly employed for motivating to improve reading skill? 2. To what extent can warm-up activities be used as effective technique to improve reading skill? 4. Method of the study In order to answer the research questions as raised above, the thesis uses both qualitative and quantitative research method. The qualitative method is used to study the notion of “warm-up activities” and that of “motivation” as conceptualized by different researchers. Quantitative method is used to collect data that for Chart 8: Level of students’ concentration during the reading lessons. Questions from to looked for information about the level of interest, appropriateness and challenge of warm-ups used. Chart 9: Level of interest 26 Chart 10: Level of appropriateness Chart 11: Level of challenge Three criteria to evaluate warm-up activities are the interest, appropriateness and challenge. It can be seen that after the warm-up activities are improved, a large number of students choose the first two options assessed highly to the interesting, appropriate and challenging levels. Total of them occupy half of the students. 27 Questions from and gathered information about advantages of warm-up activities used to the whole class. Chart 12: The role of warm-ups in creating a more interesting learning atmosphere Chart 13: The interaction among students in class when warm-ups are applied Apart from advantages in each student, warm-up activities also have influence on the whole class. 28 3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1. Active effects From the results above, it is clear that warm-up activities used by the teachers at Kien An High School had active effects on students at a certain degree. In class periods, there were students who paid attention to reading lessons after warm-up activities were used. They also contributed to create interesting learning atmosphere and interaction among students in class to some extent. 3.2. Limitations Using warm-up activities has not entirely motivated students. The number of students being not interested in the reading lessons is still a lot. The following limitations are pointed out from analyzing the data collected.  The teachers did not use warm-ups frequently. As we know, warm-ups are not the central part of a lesson and the use of them only aims to motivate students for the main lesson, but an effective warm-up activity takes rather much time and effort to prepare. It can be the reason why teachers mind using them and not use them frequently. In reality, teachers prepare warm-ups in their lesson plans, but sometimes, they forget to carry it out, which is the shortcoming of teachers.  Warm-up activities used are not various. Most students assumed that their teachers not usually use different warmup activities. If so, the teachers cannot have suitable warm-ups for each lesson as well as students’ ability.  Warm-up activities used are not very interesting, appropriate or challenging A simple and boring warm-up activity cannot create students’ learning motivation from the beginning in order that they make good use of class time. 29 4. RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the findings mentioned above, the researcher draws out several recommendations to increase students’ motivation through warm-up activities.  Using warm-up activities frequently, especially games No one can deny the important role of warm-up activities in creating students’ learning motivation. A warm-up often helps create a conductive atmosphere for learning and gets students ready for active and fruitful learning. We know that teacher’s success of teaching a lesson depends very much on the learning interest of students to the lesson. “Mostly, we feel that the bad effect of a class period doesn’t depend on the technique and enthusiasm on the class of the teacher but mainly, the learning attitude of students.” (Nguyen Quoc Hung, 2004) Therefore, to increase the learning motivation of students, it is very necessary for teachers to use warm-ups frequently. In addition, because warm-ups can help students be involved in learning the lesson and then concentrate more on it, using warm-ups frequently will create students’ learning for a long time. Therefore, it makes students who not like learning English and think it is a boring and difficult subject will change their mind. Gradually, students will not be afraid of heavy reading class periods. Students always like playing games. Most games are interesting and challenging and most of them are team games. Hence, they attract most of students to participate, both weak and good students. To become the winner, every student takes part in enthusiastically and tries his/ her best. So games can help create a more interesting learning atmosphere and the interaction among students in class.  Using warm-up activities plentifully and variously It is obvious that using warm-ups can make students become more interested in the lesson. However, only using a few warm-ups for most lessons or using one 30 warm-up again and again can easily make students bored. As a result, it lessens the effectiveness of the warm-ups. In addition, students usually prefer new activities to old ones which are used too many times. So, teachers should use multiform warm-ups and use them alternatively in order not to create student’s boredom. When teachers use various warm-ups, they will know which ones their students like and don’t like most. Then they will find out the suitable activities for each type of lesson.  Warm-up activities should be interesting Normally, warm-ups occupy short amount of time. Moreover, a good warmup requires careful preparation. To this, it takes rather much time, mind and even money. Consequently, many teachers mind using warm-ups. They rarely use them and if they use, they only use some simple activities like chatting which are rather boring. So they cannot create students’ learning interest to the later lesson. Warmups set the tone of the lesson because they are the first activities of the lesson. Therefore, they must be interesting enough to attract students from the beginning.  Warm-up activities should be appropriate Warm-ups should be suitable with students’ learning ability. They can be discouraged if the warm-ups are too complicated because they cannot do. However, an activity which is so easy to explore the answers also lessons the effectiveness of warm-ups. There are good classes as well as weak classes, so depending on the feature of each class teachers should choose appropriate warm-ups. Besides, they should suit the content and the purpose of the later lesson. It means that warm-up should relate to the lesson at a certain degree. Teachers should search carefully the lesson to find out appropriate activities.  Warm-up activities should be challenging enough 31 The challenge can make students join to explore the answers positively and actively. Moreover, if warm-ups are games students will try their best to be the winner. The challenge for students means that they need to use knowledge as well as think thoroughly to find out the answer. The challenge can make learning atmosphere more exciting and interesting. However, it should be suitable with students’ ability. The better the students’ learning ability is, the higher the challenge should be. 32 PART C: CONCLUSION 1. RECAPITULATION How to teach and learn a foreign language effectively is still a big concern of most teachers and language learners. The researcher realizes that a lot of students at Kien An high school are not really involved in class and lack enthusiasm in English lessons, especially in reading ones which are quite boring and contain a large amount of knowledge and vocabulary. Therefore, the aim to this research is to investigate the use of warm-up activities and their effects on the 10 th graders at Kien An High School and to make some suggestions to improve the quality of studying reading lessons. The subjects of the study is 10 th form students at Kien An High School. Warm-up activities are those used before starting a new lesson to raise students’ learning motivation from the beginning. They are really of great importance. They set the tone of the lesson because they happen first. They get students to brainstorm and focus on the lesson. They provide a transition into the topic or target language and finally, they give teachers important opportunities to understand students’ ability and character. In addition, warm-ups are plentiful and diverse. Depending on each type of lesson, there are different warm-up activities. An important factor to teach successfully is students’ motivation, in this thesis, there are two kinds of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. They share some same features but they are different. Motivation plays an important role in teaching and learning language. It directs behavior toward particular goals. It helps to increase effort and energy. It raises initiation of and persistence in activities. It affects cognitive processes and finally, it often enhances performance. A survey with two stages was carried out to perform this thesis. In the first stage, the author delivered all the questionnaires to students. After analyzing the data, the situation was found out. Then the researcher began to apply and improve 33 the warm-up activities for six weeks. After that, Questionnaires II were delivered to get information. To conclude, it is much hopeful that the study will be of interest to those who share the same problems and are interested in using and improving warm-up activities in reading lessons. 2. LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY The study has offered some insightful findings, yet, like many other studies, there are still limitations. There are four skills in English: listening, reading, speaking and writing. However, due to the constraint of time this study only focused on the use of warm-up activities and their effects on the tenth graders’ reading skill at Kien An High School. Hopefully, there will be further studies about the other skills. Moreover, in terms of methodology, only survey questionnaires were given out, no interview or observation was carried out. This could be a reason for not thoroughly comparing the improvements on using warm-ups activities. 34 REFERENCES 1. Nguyễn Ngọc Thao (2001), Từ điển tiếng Việt. Hà Nội. NXB Giáo Dục. 2. Nguyễn Quốc Hùng (2004), Classroom techniques in teaching English in Viet Nam. Hà Nội. NXB Giáo Dục. 3. Lê Văn Sự (2005), English Methodology. Hà Nội. NXB Văn hóa thông tin. 4. Bandura. A. (1997), Self-effically: the exercise of control. New York. The Guiford Press. 5. Baker. L. (2006), Engaging Young Readers. New York. The Guiford Press. 6. Biehle. S. (1997), Psychology Applied to Teaching. New Zealand. Houghton Mifflin Company. 7. Broughton. G. (1978), Teaching English as a foreign language. New York. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. 8. Calumn. P. (1980), 101 Word Games for Students of English as a Second or Foreign Language. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 9. Crookes. G. (1991), Motivation. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 10. Deacon. B. (2002), Activate with ease. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 11. Jonell H.K. (1985), Practice and practitioner. Cambridge. Social Science. 12. Kleinginna. P. (1981), A categorized list of motivation definitions with suggestions for a consensual definition. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 13. Lee. W.R. (1991), Language Teaching Games and Contests. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 35 14. Lyn. L. (1999), Ethnic Group Differences in the Academic Motivation of University Students, Student Learning Center. New Zealand. University of Auckland. 15. Roberto. S. (2009), Self Help Motivation – Boost Your Own Morale. London. Oxford University Press. 36 Websites 1. Cynthia, http://educatekids.com 2. Chris, http://www.betterlanguageteaching.com 3. Chris, http://ezinearticles.com 4. David, http://www.Questia.com 5. James, http://www.ezinearticles.com 6. Kristina, http://writing.colostate.edu 7. Glen, http://www.eslteachersboard.com 8. Roger, http://www.engines4ed.org 9. Tomoko, http://en.wekibooks.org 37 APPENDIX BẢNG CÂU HỎI PHÁT CHO HỌC SINH I. BẢNG CÂU HỎI I Trong bảng câu hỏi này, có thông tin việc sử dụng hoạt động khởi động học đọc trường phổ thông. Khoanh tròn đáp án A, B, C D mà em thấy nhất. 1. Thầy cô giáo em có thường xuyên sử dụng hoạt động khởi động dạy đọc không? A. Luôn B. Thường xuyên C. Thỉnh thoảng D. Hiếm 2. Thầy cô giáo em có hướng dẫn học sinh cẩn thận sử dụng hoạt động khởi động không? A. Rất cẩn thận C. Không cẩn thận B. Khá cẩn thận D. Không cẩn thận 3. Thầy cô giáo em có thường xuyên sử dụng đa dạng hoạt động khởi động không? A. Luôn B. Thường xuyên C. Thỉnh thoảng D. Hiếm 4. Theo em, hoạt động khởi động có nên sử dụng thường xuyên đọc không? A. Luôn B. Thường xuyên C. Thỉnh thoảng D. Hiếm 5. Em đánh tầm quan trọng hoạt động khởi động đọc? A. Rất quan trọng C. Không quan trọng B. Khá quan D. Không quan trọng 6. Em có nghĩ việc cải thiện thường xuyên hoạt động khởi động đọc cần thiết? A. Rất cần thiết C. Không cần thiết B. Khà cần thiết D. Không cần thiết I II.BẢNG CÂU HỎI II Trong bảng câu hỏi này, có thông tin hứng thú học tập học sinh sau hoạt động khởi động sử dụng đọc. Khoanh tròn đáp án A, B, C D mà em thấy nhất. 1. Em có hứng thú học đọc sau hoạt động khởi động dược sử dụng không? A. Rất hứng thú C. Không hứng thú B. Khá hứng thú D. Không hứng thú 2. Mức độ tập trung học đọc em sau hoạt động khởi đông sử dụng? A. Cao B. Khá cao C. Không cao D. Thấp 3. Em có nghĩ hoạt động khởi động mà thầy cô giáo em sử dụng thú vị? A. Rất thú vị C. Không thú vị B. Khá thú vị D. Không thú vị 4. Em có nghĩ hoạt động khởi động mà thầy cô giáo em sử dụng thích hợp? A. Rất thích hợp C. Không thích hợp B. Khá thích hợp D. Không thích hợp 5. Em có nghĩ hoạt động khởi động mà thầy cô giáo em sử dụng có tính thử thách? A. Rất thử thách C. Không thử thách B. Khá thử thách D. Không thử thách 6. Em có nghĩ hoạt động khởi động mà thầy cô giáo em sử dụng giúp nhiều việc tạo không khí học thêm hào hứng? A. Rất nhiều C. Không nhiều B. Khá nhiều D. Không 7. Em có nghĩ hoạt động khởi động mà thầy cô giáo em sử dụng giúp nhiều việc tạo liên kết, tác động lẫn học sinh lớp không? A. Rất nhiều C. Không nhiều B. Khá nhiều D. Không Rất cảm ơn hợp tác em! II I. QUESTIONAIRES I In this questionnaire, I would like to get information about using warm-up activities in a reading lesson at high school. Please circle the letter which is suitable for you 1. How often your teachers use warm-up activities in reading lessons? A. Always B. Usually C. Sometimes D. Rarely 2. When using warm-up activities, your teachers guide students carefully? A. Very carefully C. Not very carefully B. Quite carefully D. Not carefully at all 3. How often your teachers use different warm-up activities? A. Always B. Usually C. Sometimes D. Rarely 4. In your opinion, how often should warm-up activities be used in reading lesson? A. Always B. Usually C. Sometimes D. Rarely 5. How you assess the importance of warm-up activities in reading lessons? A. Very important C. Not very important B. Quite important D. Not important at all 6. Do you think that improving warm-up activities frequently in reading lessons is necessary? A. Very necessary C. Not very necessary B. Quite necessary D. Not necessary at all III II.QUESTIONAIRES II 1. How are you involved in learning reading lessons after warm-up activities are used? A. Very involved C. Not very involved B. Quite involved D. Not involved at all 2. How you concentrate on learning reading lessons after warm-up activities are used? A. High C. Not very high B. Quite high D. Low 3. Do you think warm-up activities used are interesting? A. Very interesting C. Not very interesting B. Quite interesting D. Not interesting at all 4. Do you think warm-up activities used are appropriate? A. Very appropriate C. Not very appropriate B. Quite appropriate D. Not appropriate at all 5. Do you think warm-up activities used challenging? A. Very challenging B. Quite challenging C. Not very challenging D. Not challenging at all 6. Do you think warm-up activities used help much in creating a more interesting learning atmosphere? A. Very much C. Not much B. Quite much D. Nothing 7. Do you think warm-up activities used help much in interaction among students in class? A. Very much C. Not much B. Quite much D. Nothing Thank you very much for your cooperation! IV [...]... collected information about the use of warming up activities of teachers in a reading lesson Question 1 collected information about the frequent level of the teacher’s using warming up activities in a reading lesson Question 2 gathered information about the careful guiding level of teachers when using warming up activities In addition, question 3 sought information about the diversity of warming up activities. .. gathered information about how students enjoy warming up activities used Questions from 5 to 7 sought information about interesting, appropriate and challenging levels of warming up activities used Questions from 8 to 9 gathered information about advantages of warming up activities used to the whole class Question 8 gathered information about the role of warming up activities in creating a more interesting... activities used 18 Questions from 4 to 6 sought information about students opinions about using warming up activities Question 4 sought information about how often warmup activities should be used Question 5 gathered information about the importance of warming up activities in reading lesson Besides, question 6 collected information about the necessity level of improving warm- up activities in reading lessons... know, in the English textbook of high school level, reading is the beginning part of a unit So in reading lessons, most of warm- up activities are those aiming to introduce the topic of the new unit Moreover, because the teaching of reading has often involved little more than giving students a text and requiring them to answer a series of comprehensive questions”(Le Van Su, 2005) we can use warm- up activities. .. out at the beginning of each class to motivate students, so they can make good use of class time They make the lessons interesting or boring and they contribute to motivate students Therefore, they play an important role in teaching process 1.2 The importance of warm- up activities No one can deny the role of warm- up activities in teaching and learning English Activities at the start of the lesson deserve... “always” These proved that teachers have used different warm- up activities, but their using level has not been high yet Questions from 4 to 6 sought information about students opinions about using warm- up activities in reading lessons Chart 4: How often warm- up activities should be used Chart 5: The importance of warm- up activities in reading lessons 23 Chart 6: The necessary level of improving warm- up activities. .. activities are improved, a large number of students choose the first two options assessed highly to the interesting, appropriate and challenging levels Total of them occupy half of the students 27 Questions from 6 and 7 gathered information about advantages of warm- up activities used to the whole class Chart 12: The role of warm- ups in creating a more interesting learning atmosphere Chart 13: The interaction... 1 to 4 collected information about the effect of warming up activities used on each student Question 1 collected information about how students are involved in a reading lesson after warming up activities used while question 2 and 3 sought information about the level of students concentration and persistent attention in a reading lesson after warming up activities used In addition, question 4 gathered... issues: (1) warm- up activities in language teaching and learning including the definitions, the importance and common warmup activities and (2) motivation in language learning including the definitions, the importance of motivation, and types of motivation 1 WARM- UP ACTIVITES IN A LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING 1.1 Definitions The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English (2009) defined warm- up as “a...emphasizing the effectiveness of using warm- up activities to motivate 10 th form students to learn reading skill 5 Scope of the study This study is carried out at Kien An High School and it only focuses on reading skill of Tiếng Anh 10 6 Design of the study The study consists of three parts which discuss the following matters Part A – Introduction – introduces the background of the study that includes the . the thesis entitled The use of warm- up activities in motivating 10 th form students to learn reading skill is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of. above, the researcher wishes to conduct the research on The use of warm- up activities in motivating 10 th form students to learn reading skill. ” 1. Aims of the study The study is targeted at investigating. (1) warm- up activities in language teaching and learning including the definitions, the importance and common warm- up activities and (2) motivation in language learning including the definitions,