z MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY *************************** Tran Thi Phuong Chi INFORMATION TRANSFER ACTIVITIES FOR THE TEACHING OF READING USING ''TIENG ANH 11'' AT NGUYEN DU HIGH SCHOOL IN HA TINH PROVINCE MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION VINH 2013 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study entitled " Information transfer activities for the teaching of reading using Tieng Anh 11" at Nguyen Du high school is my original work The data and the findings discussed in the thesis are true The study is submitted in partial fulfilment for the Master degree of Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching at Vinh University and has not been submitted elsewhere in any other form for the fulfilment of any other degree or qualification Signature Tran Thi Phuong Chi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Above all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Associate Professor Truong Vien for his whole - hearted help and precious guidance from the beginning till the end of the research I wish to express my particular thanks to the teachers and students from Nguyen Du high school for having enthusiastically offered me their valuable supports, assessments and suggestions to complete the thesi I gratefully acknowledge my dear teachers and friends at the English Department of Vinh University of Foreign Languages for having created favorable conditions and provided me with useful materials during the time I carried out the studies I would also to say "thank you" to the students and teachers of Nghi Xuan and Nguyen Cong Tru high school for their participation in the piloting process and for their constructive comment Last but not least, I thank my family and my special friends and other people for always being by my side encouraging me in every step of my life as well as in this project ABSTRACT The project " Information transfer activities for the teaching of reading using Tieng Anh 11" has been carried out with the effort to provide the effective and interesting Information Transfer activities for eleventh grade teachers and students of English All the activities were carefully selected, adapted and designed to satisfy the adhenrents of the communicative approach On the way to attaining the goal of the project, background knowledge of how Information Transfer is defined, what advantages Information Transfer activities can offer and why we use information Transfer activities in teaching reading comprehension The major types of information Transfer tasks and aspects of application of the activities in the context of Vietnamese high school classroom were also set their places in the review of literature There are 10 teachers of English taking part in the survey They come from Nguyen Du High School, and their age range from 25 to 50 Three experienced teachers of English from other schools are invited to read and evaluate information transfer activities, and there are 220 students to give feedback on the IT reading lessons which are experimented Moreover, to create the most efficient and relevant activities, the stage of conducting the designing process, including the study of the textbook, the adaptation and designing of the activities, the trial, and the modification of those ones have been throughly paid attention to research participants and instruments The effectiveness was measured by the experiment of five out of ten activities on two hundred and twenty students of five classes from Nguyen Du high school The results show that IT activities are beneficial on the part of the learners, and these activities really assist students to exploit reading texts and improve oral skills Basing on the results collected in the experiment and assessment procedure, the adjustment and modification were set up to better the activities Reinforcing strong point and improving limitations have brought the thesis to a feasible mission of providing eleventh grade teachers and students of English with useful materials for teaching and learning reading TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS ix CLT : Communicative language teaching .ix EFL : English as a Foreign language .ix IT : Information transfer ix N: Number of information .ix R : Reading ix L: Listening .ix xi LIST OF FIGURES .xii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .14 1.Rationale 14 Purpose of research 15 Scope of research .15 Organization of the research 15 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 17 What is the information Transfer technique? 17 1.1 What is the Transfer? 17 1.2 What is the information Transfer technique ? 17 Advantages of information Transfer activities 18 2.1Authenticity & real talks 18 2.2 Communicative tasks .18 2.3 Repetitive tasks 19 2.4 Productive tasks .19 2.5 Development of all skills 19 2.6 Self - Access 20 3.Major types of information transfer tasks 20 3.1 Maps and plans .20 3.2 Grids and tables .22 3.3 Diagram and charts 22 3.4 Diaries and calendars .23 Miscellaneous lists, forms, coupons, etc .24 Teaching reading comprehension of English 25 4.1 Shape of a reading lesson 25 Feature of a good reading technique 27 Reasons for using information transfer activities in the teaching of reading 27 5.1 Diversifying the technique for the teaching of Reading 28 5.2 Helping students with the whole content of the reading text 29 Practicing information transfer for real life communication 29 Aspects of applying the IT technique in the context of Vietnamese Upper Secondary school classrooms of English .30 6.1 Reproduction, explanation and summary .30 6.2 Testing/Checking students’ understanding of a Reading text 31 6.3 Should Information Transfer activities be used in post-reading or whilereading stage? 31 Stages of conducting information - transfer activities 32 7.1 The study of the textbook .32 The selection, adaptation, and designing of the activities 33 The Trial of the activities 33 The modification of the activities 33 Relevant studies 33 Similarly, in 2012, a study of Amanah with title:"The effect of Information Transfer and connection questions techniques on students reading comprehension achievemet" The objectives of the study were to find out (1) the different erect information transfer and connection questions techniques on students reading comprehension achievement and (2) which of these techniques is the most effective.The hypotheses are the students reading comprehension achievement taught by using information transfer and connection questions techniques is higher than students taught conventionally and there is one of the techniques which is the most effective among the other techniques The study was conducted at State Junior High School Lubuk Pakam The population was the Grade VIII students The samples were taken randomly (random sampling) using lottery system As a quasi experimental research, the research was conducted by giving treatments to both experimental groups The control group was taught conventionally Grade VIII A was taught by applying information transfer technique and Grade VIII 1) was taught by applying connection questions technique The data was analyzed using ANOVA technique with significance probability a = 0.05 The analyses show (1) mean of gain score of experimental group using information transfer technique was 33,25, (2) mean of gain score of experimental group using connection questions technique was 29,05 and (3) mean of gain score of control group was 18,15 The findings of the study are (1) the students reading comprehension achievement taught using Information transfer technique is higher than the students reading comprehension achievement taught using connection questions technique in which F count was 19,768 and F table 3,0738 with significance 0,000 < a 0,05 (2) Information transfer technique is the most effective technique in improving the students reading comprehension achievement This was analyzed by using Tuckey test Based on the findings, it can be concluded that information transfer and connection question techniques significantly affected the students reading comprehension achievement Because of that, both techniques can be applied on reading comprehension instruction in order to improve the students reading comprehension achievement 36 37 CHAPTER : METHODOLOGY 37 Research Participants .37 Data collection 38 Data analysis 39 CHAPPTER : FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 40 Finding from the questionnaires for teachers 40 Finding from the teachers' evaluation forms 47 Finding from the students' comments 50 CHAPTER : CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 55 I Conclusion 55 REFERENCES 60 APPENDICES 62 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS CLT : Communicative language teaching EFL : English as a Foreign language IT : Information transfer N: Number of information R: Reading L: Listening %: Percent ESL : English second language FL : Foreign language LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Question Do you think that exploiting the content of reading texts is important? 27 Table 2: Question Do you often use Information Transfer activities in the teaching of reading? 28 Table 3: Question Which stage in a reading lesson you think Information Transfer activities are best applied? 28 Table 4: Question What are your suggestions to make the teaching of reading more effective and interesting? 31 Table : Criterion The activity is easy to understand and carry out 34 Table : Criterion The activity is suitable to most of the students’ levels 34 Table : Criterion The activity is varied, interesting and motivating 35 Table : Criterion The activity is new and creative 35 Table : Criterion The activity helps students to exploit the content of the Reading text effectively 35 Table 10 : Criterion The activity encourages the students to develop all the skills 36 INFORMATION TRANSFER ACTIVITIES FOR TEACHING READING TIENG ANH 11 UNIT INFORMATION TRANSFER ACTIVITIES Unit 10 - Nature in Danger Activity 1- Oral reconstruction Activity 2- Checking understanding Unit 11 - sources of energy Activity - Oral reconstruction Activity - Checking understanding Unit 12 - The Asian games Activity - Oral reconstruction Activity - Checking understanding Unit 13 - Hobbies Activity - Oral reconstruction Activity - Checking understanding Unit 14- Recreation Activity - Oral reconstruction Activity 10 -Checking understanding Unit 15 - Space conquest Activity 11 - Oral reconstruction Activity 12 -Checking understanding PHIẾU ĐIỀU TRA Giáo viên:………………………………………… Trường :…………………………………………… Để thực hoàn thành nghiên cứu hoạt động chuyển dạng thông dùng cho dạy đọc sách Tiếng Anh lớp 11 , mong nhận ý kiến đóng góp quý thầy cô Xin thầy, cô đánh dấu (√) vào ô lựa chọn 1.Thầy, cô có cho việc nắm bắt nội dung đọc hiểu quan trọng không? Rất quan trọng Khá quan trọng Không quan trọng Thầy, cô thường sử dụng hoạt động dạy đọc? Thầy, cô lựa chọn nhiều câu trả lời Trả lời câu hỏi Tìm từ đồng nghĩa/trái nghĩa Chọn đúng/sai Nối câu/mệnh đề Điền từ Thầy cô có hay sử dụng hoạt động chuyển dạng thông tin dạỵ nói không? Thường xuyên Thỉnh thoảng Ít sử dụng Theo thầy cô nên sử dụng hoạt động chuyển dạng thông tin giai đoạn dạy đọc? Giai đoạn nhập Giai đoạn khai thác ý tưởng Giai đoạn kết thúc Theo thầy, cô thuận lợi hoạt động chuyển dạng thông tin gì? Thầy, cô lựa chọn đáp án Dễ nhìn trực giác Xác thực Thực tế Dễ hiểu Lặp lặp lại Tái tạo văn Phát triển tất kĩ Tự truy cập Thầy, cô gặp khó khăn tiến hành hoạt động chuyển dạng thông tin? Mất thời gian Tốn công đòi hỏi sang tạo Khó so với trình độ học sinh Mất nhiều thời gian cho phép tiết học Thầy, cô có đề xuất nhằm tăng hiệu việc dạy đọc? Dự hộị thảo phương pháp dạy học ngoại ngữ Sử dụng hoạt động chuyển dạng thông tin thường xuyên Cả lựa chọn Ý kiến khác Xin chân thành cám ơn quý thầy cô nhiệt tình giúp đỡ đóng góp ý kiến quý báu EVALUATION FORM Teacher :………………………… Activity:……………………… School :………………………… Unit :………………………… Please give your evaluation and comments on this activity Criteria Excellent Good Average Poor 1.The activity is easy to understand and carry out The activity is suitable to most of the students’ levels The activity is varied, interesting and motivating The Activity is new and creative The activity helps students to develop all the skills The activity encourages the students to develope all the skills The activity is meaningful and contextualized Comments and suggestions to make the activity more suitable and perfect: ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… Thank you for your kind assistances and valuable comments! PHIẾU ĐÁNH GIÁ Giáo viên: …………………… Hoạt động :…………………………… Trường :……………………… Bài :……………………………… Mong thầy, cô ghi đánh giá nhận xét hoạt động vào bảng đây! Tiêu chí đánh giá Rất tốt Tốt Trung Bình Hoạt động dễ hiểu dễ tiến hành Hoạt động phù hợp với đa số đối tượng học sinh Hoạt đ ộng thú vị lôi học sinh Hoạt động lạ sáng tạo Kém Hoạt động giúp học sinh tìm hiểu đọc hiệu Hoạt động giúp học sinh phát triển tất kĩ Hoạt động có ý nghĩa gắn với bối cảnh thực tế Những nhận xét gợi ý giúp hoạt động tốt hơn, phù hợp hơn: ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………… Cảm ơn ý kiến đóng góp quý thầy, cô! COMMENT FORM Students’s name:……………………………………… Class:…………………………………………………… School:………………………………………………… Give your opinion about the activity you have just joined by puinformation transfering a stick (√) in the boxes you want to choose Is the activity easy to understand? Easy Not very easy Difficult Is the activity suitable in comparison with your level? Suitable Rather suitable Unsuitable Is the activity interesting and motivating? Interesting Not very interesting Not new and creative Is the activity new and creative? New and creative Rather new and creative Not new and creative Is the activity useful for you to exploit the content of the reading text? If yes, how many percentages can you obtain? Yes, almost Yes, sometimes Never Thank you for your cooperation!!! PHIẾU NHẬN XÉT Họ tên học sinh:……………………………… Lớp:……………………………………………… Trường:………………………………………… Em cho biết ý kiến em hoạt động vừa tham gia cách đánh dấu (√) vào ô em muốn chọn Theo em, hoạt động em vừa tham gia hiểu không? Dễ hiểu Hơi khó hiểu Khó hiểu Hoạt động em vừa tham gia có phù hợp với em không? Phù hợp Khá phù hợp Không phù hợp Hoạt động em vừa tham gia có thú vị không? Rất thú vị Bình thường Không thú vị Hoạt động em vừa tham gia có lạ sáng tạo không? Rất lạ sáng tạo Bình thường Không lạ sáng tạo Theo em, hoạt động em vừa tham gia có hữu ích cho em việc tìm hiểu nội dung đọc không? Có, hầu hết nội dung Có, nội dung Không Em có muốn tiếp tục tham gia hoạt động không? Có, thường xuyên Có, Cám ơn em hợp tác!!! Không [...]... sections: What is the information transfer technique?, Advantages of information Transfer activities, Major types of information transfer tasks, Teaching reading comprehention of english, Reason for using Information Transfer activities in the teaching of reading, Aspects of applying the Information Transfer technique in the context of Vietnamese upper secondary school classrooms of English, Stages of conducting... classrooms of English In Vietnam, particularly in Hue city not only Truong (1999) has made an application of the techinique in Vietnamese secondary school classroom, using English 11 Therefore, the researchers would like to carry out this research to investigate how Information Transfer used for teaching reading at Nguyen Du high school in Ha Tinh Moreove, in the hope that IT reading lessons of Tieng Anh 11. .. foundation for my study Concerning the importance of IT, according to the study on Information Transfer Techniques in ESL/FL Reading and Listening Comprehension”conducted by Latorre, Guillermo, Garfinkel and Alan, the result of the research showed that 7 Stages of conducting information - transfer activities The procedure of selecting, designing, adapting and modifying the Information Transfer activities. .. Candlin (1977, p.144) state that Information Transfer technique is the ‘’Transformation of instance discourses from one type into another but these instances of discourse can also be derived from a non- verbal mode of communicating’’ Another way to define Information Transfer is: "The action of comprehending graphics includes the linguistic performance of oral or written information transfer interpretation,... integrated way In the recent years, a number of studies on using Information Transfer( IT) in teaching and learning English have increased greatly .In this section, some previous studies on using IT are presented firstly.Then studies on teaching and learning in High School in Ha Tinh are addressed to foundation for my study Concerning the importance of IT, according to the study on Information Transfer. .. There have been alot of researchers on this technique Widdowson, for instance, insists on using Information Transfer technicque for designing writing exercises.(Widdowson,1978) In addition, Storla suggests using it in writing for critical thinking.(1993) Johnson also describe the advantages of InformationTransfer for the teaching of reading and listening (1981) Moreover, Prodromou believes that Information. .. cofidence that they can articulate on their own, rather than just repearing or copying of the others Another benefit of information - transfer is that it is open-ended This kind of data gives the students a topic and quite a bit of information But it is always possible for the students to add their own ideas and interpretation 3.Major types of information transfer tasks In a language class, according to... P.1571) For example, we can transfer data to the disk in a few seconds 1.2 What is the information Transfer technique ? There are several definitions concerning to the Information Transfer technique First of all, an Information Transfer activity, according to David Palmer (1990, p.79) ‘is an activity involving the reproduction of information either from a diagrammatic or semi-diagrammatic form into fully... Techniques in ESL/FL Reading and Listening Comprehension”conducted by Latorre, Guillermo, Garfinkel and Alan, the result of the research showed that In the recent years, a number of studies on using Information Transfer in teaching and learning English have increased greatly .In this section, some previous studies on using IT are presented firstly.Then studies on teaching and learning in High School in Ha Tinh. .. the teaching of reading using " TIENG ANH 11" at Nguyen Du high school in Ha Tinh province 4 Organization of the research The study consists of the following parts: Chương 1, "The Introduction", Presents the rationales for research, defines the purposes, research questions, scope and orgnization of the study Chương 2 presents a summary of theoretical background of thr research It consits of 8 main sections: ... to investigate how Information Transfer used for teaching reading at Nguyen Du high school in Ha Tinh Moreove, in the hope that IT reading lessons of Tieng Anh 11 can be popular as an interesting... of information Transfer activities, Major types of information transfer tasks, Teaching reading comprehention of english, Reason for using Information Transfer activities in the teaching of reading, ...STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study entitled " Information transfer activities for the teaching of reading using Tieng Anh 11" at Nguyen Du high school is my original