Some tricks teach reading comprehension skill for students at ha binh secondary school

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HA TRUNG DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

EXPERIENCE INITIATIVE

SOME TRICKS TEACH READING COMPREHENSION SKILL
FOR STUDENTS AT HABINH SECONDARY SCHOOL

Performed by:
Nguyen Van Ban
Job title:
Teacher
Unit of work:
Ha Binh Secondary School
Experience initiative in the subject: English

THANH HOA 2017

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INDEX
Table of content
1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1. The reason for choosing the topic.
1.2. Research purpose.
1.3. Research subjects.
1.4. Research methodology.
2. CONTENTS.
2.1. Theoretical foundation of the experience initiative.

2.2. Real situation before applying the experience initiative.
2.3. Some solutions to organize a teaching reading comprehension session
effectively.
2.4. The effectiveness of experience initiatives for educational activities.
3. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS.
3.1. Conclusion.
3.2. Suggestions.

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REFERENCES
LIST OF THE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVES WHICH WERE
RECOGNIZED

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1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1. The reason for choosing the topic.
Today, English plays an important role in the scientific and technical

revolution. It is an important language, commonly used worldwide and is used
in different fields. In the national construction, development and integration
with the world, English has become a communicative tool between all of the
modern people, it is an important second language after their mother tongue. In
our country, English is considered as the language of transaction in economics,
politics, culture, and has been teaching at the elementary, secondary, college,
university... In process of learning English, we know more in another language,
a different culture and also more love Vietnamese and Vietnamese culture. To
use English as a language of communication, we not only need to master the
rules of grammar, have good listening skills, have knowledge of the language
but also to have a number of diversified, rich lexical. English is increasingly
attracting the attention of many people and all ages. The catch is that demand,
the 2005 education law stipulated "Educational methods have to promote a
positive, self-discipline, initiative, thinking and creativity of students, fostering
the self-study ability, practical ability, passion for learning” [1].
In the process of practical teaching in Ha Binh secondary school, I find
the students difficult to approach an English reading comprehension. Because
the final purpose of teaching English reading comprehension is after each class
and course, students can be self-confident to read the readings related to their
familiar topics and limit the dictionary if possible. The purpose of teaching this
reading comprehension is entirely suitable for the direction: “Learner is the
center of teaching of foreign languages and communication method” [2].
That method is not new for most foreign language teachers, although in
practice, the application of this method is not always easy and achieves the
desired result. English, which is used in various fields, is a language of great
importance and popularity all over the world. With the orientation of global
integration, Vietnam has developed its potentials of all areas.
Therefore, communication has become an effective tool with a
prerequisite strength. In addition to the mother tongue, English has been
considered by Vietnamese as the second communication language and an official

subject in schools, even Primary schools. Nowadays, once English has
confirmed its role and importance, improving the quality of teaching and
learning is the most significant issue. Book replacement program with litany of
English teaching and learning methods has come up with an emerging question:
“How to help students gain all the knowledge and utilize skillfully?” As we may
know, English is simply one of school subjects. However, to use this language
skillfully, learner should practice four basic skills including listening, speaking,
reading and writing. Among the four skills, there is no doubt that listening
and speaking skills are considered as the main purpose of teaching and learning
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a foreign language, in which speaking is practiced through listening activity and
writing is practiced via reading activity. Reading is one of the basic skills, to
which attention is paid during foreign language teaching and learning because of
is determining role in evaluating whether learner understands the lesson or not.
At grade 6, short and easy to understand lessons are introduced to students;
however, the higher the grade is, the more difficult requirements on reading skill
are. In addition, lessons in curriculum for grade 8 and 9 are usually longer with a
large number of vocabularies, which is difficult for students to learn and for
teacher to prepare lesson plans. Therefore, teacher without a good teaching
method shall not be able to complete all contents of the lesson. To meet these
practical requirements, each teacher should find himself an optimum teaching
method which is suitable to specific student so as to arrive to high learning
results. It is this issue as well as purpose that each teacher keeps concerning.
Moreover, the improvements of teaching method and curriculum are always of
great concern of education sectors: “Teachers are always encouraged to give
innovative teaching and learning methods, good and practical experience
initiatives, and improved teaching tools and materials”[3]. Above are the reasons
why this topic is selected.

1.2. Research purpose.
In fact, the teaching of reading is to help students develop the skills and
understand documents, books and newspapers in English with the content in
accordance with specific qualifications and to help them gather information,
raise the level of English and know more about the society. When learners read
the native language, they have no difficulty in understanding the content but
when learning English, they will encounter the grammatical structures and
vocabulary. Therefore, to help students learn how to read a textbook the best and
the most effective, which is my first concern. From this fact, I have strongly
given teaching experience myself through “Some tricks teach reading
comprehension skill for students at Ha Binh Secondary School”. I hope that
a number of these measures will contribute the solution and remove the
difficulties in the process of deep mining activities during teaching reading.
1.3. Research subjects.
Audience research: Students in grade 7,8,9 at Ha Binh Secondary School.
Scope of the study: Ha Binh Secondary School in the academic year 2016-2017.
1.4. Research methodology.
- Method created situations, suggestive, student- focused.
2. CONTENTS.
2.1. Theoretical foundation of the experience initiative.
Structure of a lesson in English teaching typically includes activities to
develop four skills: listening- speaking-reading-writing in a comprehensive way
and in the right direction. If we look at the layout of each unit of study, we can
clearly see the importance of reading comprehension part of the process of
teaching and learning English. So teaching and learning English has not
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achieved the desired results because reading comprehension is taught in the
traditional method: most of the time in the class, the teacher mainly teaches

vocabulary, introduces grammatical structures, reads sample and corrects
pronunciation, grammar for students: “The focus on grammar, translation will
prevent students from acquiring the knowledge of the language in a natural way,
they do not have the opportunity to use the knowledge of their language. These
periods are so extremely heavy and boring because students are only learnt
passively and they have to acquire a large amount of knowledge about
vocabulary and new grammar structures (due to the characteristics of reading
comprehension)” [4]. Apart from the repetition and the imitation, most of them
don’t have a chance to think, recreate language in an active and creative way.
Teaching a foreign language in general and English in particular is not to
provide students with knowledge but the ability to communicate with the
language. Communication skills of students are expressed through skills
including listening, speaking, reading and writing. English reading skill is built
up in a course of learning and practicing in English environment. In addition to
English studying at school, students have to practice reading in different forms.
Reading skill is the ability to utilize language knowledge into reading
comprehension in English.
However, the English textbook mainly focuses on two main readings: read
the main idea (Skimming gist) and read to get detailed information (Scanning
for details). In fact, the readings in English textbook 8, 9 usually have quite a lot
of new words and much more in an article, a story written in English. So the
reader cannot both read and stop to look up new words, because he/she will have
to read again after each stop, they have the ability to remember the content of
the reading. This will take much time, not effective. To introduce all the new
words of the reading, the teacher will not have time for activities to develop
reading comprehension skills. In addition students are difficult to remember a
large amount of words in such a short time, they will not read independently
without the guidance of the teacher.
2.2. Real situation before applying the experience initiative.
After each lesson, teachers are often difficult to know how students

understand the lesson and remember information more or less, the vocabulary
they have been holding well or not. Because of paying attention to the steps of
practical reading and providing new words, the teachers have given less
practical exercises to consolidate after reading. Teachers don’t spend much time
researching tricks and suggested procedures in order to encourage students to be
voluntary self-conscious, initiative and active to participate in training and
developing English reading comprehension skills. Ha Binh secondary school is a
school in the countryside, so the implementation quality of English teaching and
learning is not high due to low resident’s qualification and awareness, poor
economy, insufficient and asynchronous facilities. Psychobiology of students:
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afraid of learning, speak, making mistakes, embarrass with friends and teachers,
some are lazy to study and do homework.
In spite of objective and subjective conditions directly affecting teaching,
we have overcome immediate difficulties and step by step improved quality of
English reading lesson so as to meet the aims of textbook curriculum.
For the teacher: Initially access and utilize typical reading comprehension
teaching techniques relatively well (reading technique), get familiar with and be
active in organizing a reading lesson session, coordinate flexibly teaching skills
in reading lessons, create many teaching materials in accordance with content of
learning lessons; therefore, the sessions become vivid and attractive with high
effectiveness, utilize and operate modern teaching equipment in reading lesson,
such as cassette tape, DVD, cassette recorder, video reader and multi-purpose
projector. It is still difficult for some teachers to implement teaching
manipulation and technique in reading lesson as well as to select suitable
techniques for specific teaching lesson and session. They still hesitate to or
unskillfully utilize teaching materials for reading lessons, such as cassette reader
and demonstrating pictures. For other teachers, the investment in lesson

preparation is still limited due to private issues. In addition, they are afraid of
creating a noisy, time-consuming and costly teaching session. The instruction of
studying at home is not suitable for specific student, which makes the teaching
session is not effective.
For students, they are able to read and recognize content of the whole reading
text. Most of the students are able of reading texts with simple content and
complete tasks and exercise assigned by teacher after silent reading and aloud
reading. Some students have gained learning skills and tactics. Students are lack
of motivation for English reading comprehension. Many students do not have
many opportunities to study and access mass media information via which they
can listen and read English. Some hesitate to read and speak in English or are
afraid of making mistake. Students are not familiar with English reading and
speaking speed in the tape or disk. They remain passive habit; during team work
they rely on other member. Words are produced timidly. Many students have not
found their own English learning method. Many others are not interested in
reading books. Therefore, by organizing activities, teacher should pay attention
to avoid student’s negative responds. If this happens, teacher shall promptly
correct and encourage as well as reward students so as to achieve positive
respond. During one English period in class, students of Ha Binh secondary
school are very active in exploring new knowledge. Most of them are ebullient
and enthusiastic in activities; however, this occurs among good students only.
Comprehension of passages and dialogues is not easy for lower secondary
school students because their vocabulary and grammar are not much.
During my teaching process, I have been in charge of class 8 and grade 9.
With the aims of studying the current situation of student’s English learning as
well as drawing lesson for myself, right from the beginning of the school-year, I
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Quantity

Quantity

Quantity

Quantity

Quantity

have oriented a specific plan and method to actively investigate the current
situation of English learning of my students. Findings of the investigation
indicated that most of the students do not soundly understand vocabulary and
their English reading and communication skills are still limited. To achieve the
above-mentioned objectives, students should be trained all the four skills
including listening, speaking, reading and writing during their English learning.
However, English curriculum at secondary school level concentrates on the two
basic skills only, which are speaking and writing. The other two skills have not
gained much attention; therefore, student’s learning performance is not high.
This issue is indicated by learning performance of students in previous
years and findings of the survey on student quality conducted in some classes in
terms of English subject early last school-year (2015-2016).
Good
Fair
Weak
Poor
Total Excellent
Class/
number
Grade
of

%
%
%
%
%
students
8A
25
02
8
07
28
11
44
04
16
01
4
9
45
04 8.9
13 28.8 21
47
5
11
2
4.4
Therefore, to find out a method to practice reading comprehension skill for
student, I have chosen this topic.
2.3. Some solutions to organize a teaching reading comprehension session

effectively.
Firstly: The teacher has to make lesson plan for a reading session.
To provide a good teaching session, teacher needs to implement the
following steps. Studying content of the lesson in student textbook and teacher’s
book carefully is very important because it is a necessary base for teacher to set
up teaching plan for the lesson. When teacher study textbook and teacher’s book
carefully, he/she is able to organize and control the session on set with key
points as well as to logically manage learning time and activities.
Purpose and requirements of the session is the target that both teacher and
student have to reach after the lesson. For usual teaching session, purpose and
requirements are the practice and development of skills including listening,
speaking, reading and writing of students (in which reading is the most
important skill). Finishing reading part and understanding main content of the
reading text, students complete some language requirements or exercises.
The selection of reading techniques is determined basing content of the
lesson, students characteristics, strong points and weak points, acquired
knowledge and skills. Questions in exercise are ordered from easy to difficult
level. Exercises for weak, fairly good, good and excellent students shall be
separated. Time should be organized logically for the session and specific phases
during the reading lesson, which include pre – reading phase, while – reading
phase and post – reading phase [5].
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Teaching techniques are selected to be suitable with each phase such as
utilization of teaching measures and tools for a reading lesson, utilization of
cassette reader.
Before the lesson, good cassette reader, clear cassette tape, spare battery
in case of power off should be prepared. Safety should be ensured during
manipulation. Students are absolutely not allowed to use the equipment without

instruction. Necessity, effectiveness and timing for each step should be
considered. Utilization of demonstrating picture is used. Visual channel in
textbook is one of the strength of the innovative textbook composed under the
new curriculum: various demonstrating pictures. However, it is the maximum
utilization of these pictures to help student understand the lesson that needs to be
paid attention to.
Other type of demonstrating picture: (handmade or collected) “Pictures to
introduce and practice new lesson is a must. Requirement on high aestheticism
is not necessary but the pictures should be practical and close to lesson content.
If these pictures are unaffordable, textbook illustrations can be zoomed and
utilized as a visual aid” [6]. A suitable and logical lesson plan shall be prepared.
Activities of teacher and students, timing, requirements of each exercise and
student’s answer options should be clearly set up. Teaching methods should be
exchanged and discussed. Teachers suggest forms of reading comprehension for
each reading lesson. Effectiveness of a reading session shall be promoted if
teaching methods are discussed among colleagues in advance. This does not
bring high quality performance to reading lessons but other skills.
Comprehension questions: For this type of exercise, students should read
the reading text to get information and then answer questions. These exercises
are often introduced in textbook with various forms, for example:
Yes/No questions (Answer the questions with Yes or No) or Wh –
questions.
Multiple choice: For this type of exercise, student shall read to get
information and after that choose the most suitable answer among given options.
Gap – fill: For this type of exercise, students shall get the information to
fill in the blanks of sentences. Words can be provided in advance (to weak
students) by teachers or (excellent, good) students can use their own words to
complete the exercise.
Grids or Forms: For this type of exercise, teacher may ask students to read
the form in advance and then read the passage to complete the exercise.

Matching: For this type of exercise, students read a passage to get
information and complete the exercise by matching contents of column A to
suitable contents of column B.
True – False statements: For this type of exercise, students read a passage
to get information and find sentences indicating whether the statements are true
or false. Teacher may use supplement board to provide students with additional
information and ask them to guess right/wrong before reading. Finish checking
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student’s guessing, teacher request students to quote their answer from the text
and may ask them to correct the wrong sentence.
Reorder sentences: For this type of exercise, students shall read a passage
to understand its content and reorder statements in wrong order in the exercise
below so as to create a logical passage.
Make summaries: After reading to get information, students summarize
content of the reading text.
Select a summary/a title.
Find new words for old words: Students read and find synonymic or
antonymic words or phrases in the text for given words or phrases.
KWL (Knew – Want to know – Learn): For this form of exercise, students
have the chance to develop their KWL learning method. They can work
individually or in a group.
Secondly: The teacher has to make a good reading comprehension
teaching session.
Progress of a reading session also consists of 3 phases including Pre –
Reading, while – Reading and Post – Reading. This type of progress does not
help student understand the lesson but apply reading skills in practical situations
also. However, the first issue that teacher should verify is to clearly define
purpose and requirement of specific reading lesson so as to provide orientation

for students to well implement tasks of the next phases.
* Pre – Reading.
This phase provide students orientation and thoughts about the topic or
situation before they read. In this phase, teacher shall introduce overview of the
coming topic and utilize data relating to students’ experience by activities. For
example, teacher gives implying questions to help students guess main content
of the reading text. Teacher should provide open questions in accordance with
the order of event or reasoning in the text. These questions express the main
structure of reading text and are measures to help student guess its content,
resulting in a more natural way of reading. Main purpose of these warm-up
activities is to arouse student, direct student to focus on the topic and set the
scene. The first step of this phase is linguistic material introduction (Pre – teach
vocabulary). “Tactics can be utilized in this step to introduce and teach
vocabulary, grammar and structure that the teacher has studied such as eliciting,
modeling, repetition, checking pronunciation, copying, checking stress, meaning
situation / explanation - example-synonym / antonym and translation”[11]…
Teacher needs to select, analyze and eliminate to give lesson depending on level
of difficulty and necessity of the word for student’s reading and understanding
as well as reasonable number of new words to be introduced. Words that are
necessary for student’s reading and understanding and suitable with their level
of perception should be taught carefully and actively. If the words are necessary
but beyond student’s ability, passive method of teaching should be applied,
which means teacher shall explain or give definition to students as soon as
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possible. If the words are unnecessary to understand the text and not too
difficult, students should be asked to guess their meaning in the text. If the
words are neither necessary nor difficult, they can be omitted.
After finishing vocabulary part, teacher may organize activities to create

the needs, reasons and aims of reading and let student predict the text or give
expectation. Some pre-reading activities are mentioned below.
Activity 1: Ordering statements that are not in order. Students are
requested to read and reorder these statements with their understanding and after
that open the book and check their prediction. Number of statements may be
from 1 to 6.
For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside
Lesson 4: Read
Rearrange these sentences into the correct order [7].
1. Peter plays baseball.
2. He will stay there till the beginning of October.
3- They have two children.
4- He feeds the chickens and collects their eggs.
5- The Parkers are nice so Van feels like a member of their family.
6- Mrs. Parker works part-time at a grocery store in a nearby town.
Key: 2 -> 6 -> 3 -> 4 -> 1 -> 5.
* Activity 2: Jigsaw dictation.
Students are divided into small groups (6-7 students/group). Teacher shall
copy contents of the text (about 6-7 statements) and hand out one to each
student. The students shall dictate each other in turn, then predict order of these
statements and finally open the book to check.
For example: English 7: Unit 7:
B. The worker (B2 – Read) [8]
1- He usually starts work at six in the morning.
2- Mr. Tuan works in the fields with his brother.
3- Mr. Tuan rests and eats lunch.
4- His work usually finishes at six.
5- He goes to the city with his wife.
* Activity 3: Ordering Pictures
Teacher prepares some pictures relating to the lesson content that students

are going to read. (These pictures can be simply created with stick lines). These
pictures will be introduced and stick on the board without but not in order.
Students are requested to look at them and reorder; after that, they open the book
to read and check.
* Activity 4: Listening and drawing/Picture dictation
Teacher draws one-two parts first and then dictates. Students will then
listen to draw the picture. After all, they open the picture in the book and check.
(The pictures are mainly on streets, buildings and classroom).
* Activity 5: True/False statement prediction.
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Teacher shall prepare 5-6 statements on the content of the lesson and
assign students to give true/false statement prediction. Students will then be
asked to give answer and read the text to check.
For example: English 9: Unit 9: Natural Disaster
Lesson 4: Read - True/False. Check (√) in the boxes [7].
T
F
1- Most of the earthquakes in the world occur in the Ring of Fire
2- The earthquake in Kobe in 1995 caused severe damage
3- A huge tidal wave traveled from California to Alaska and hit
Anchorage in the 1960s
4- Typhoon, hurricane and tropical storm are different words for the
same natural disaster.
5- The eruption of Mount Pinatubo is the world largest ever volcanic
eruption.
6- A tornado looks like a funnel shape.
* Activity 6: Open prediction.
Teacher shall prepare in advance or draw a table on the board with some

information. Students are requested to predict the rest contents and then read the
book to check their prediction.
For example: English 9: Unit 8: Celebrations - Lesson 4: Read [7].
Celebration
When?
Activities
Food
Country
Tet
Viet Nam
…...................... …................
…................. Special meal …................
called Seder

Easter
With activities before reading, students have the chance to partly visualize
contents of the reading text; although what they have percept is not clear yet.
Information in prediction activities is usually main ideas of the reading text.
Teacher should not provide detailed information in this phase to mainly train
students the skill of skimming for main ideas. Reading in this phase is
considered the first step of reading.
* While – reading.
At the beginning of this phase, students shall read to check the
information that they have predicted in the previous phase. Teacher shall let
students compare their prediction with the information they get after their first
reading. Teacher will then correct the answer for the whole class. If students are
not content with the answer, teacher shall request them to reread the text
consisting of the correct information. After that, teacher instruction some
activities so that students shall reread the text more carefully. This is the key
phase of reading practice; therefore teacher shall carefully prepare contents and

activities for this phase without duplication with earlier prediction content to
avoid boring and too easy assignments for students. Some while-reading
activities are mentioned below.
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* Activity 1: Given answer
Students are requested to make questions for the given answer by teacher.
For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside [7].
Lesson 4: Read (After reading the text or dialogue)
Teacher
Students
- An exchange student
- Who is Van?
- 100 kilometers outside Columbus Ohio
- Where is Van?
- He feeds the chickens and collects
- What does he do in the afternoon?
their eggs
* Activity 2: “Wh-questions” (Comprehension questions)
Type of questions to ask includes:
- When…? What..?
Where..?
Who…?
- How long…? How much…? How many..?
In order to check comprehension of details (on the line questions).
- Why do you think/ know…?
- How..?
- What do you think about…?
Questions of this type are often used to suggest an explanation for the summary,

the ideas about a problem.
This activity asks students to listen and answer the questions to get the right
information which can be found in the reading and the information is not right in
that reading and all students know how to infer from the content they have just
read. This activity encourages to be used and can be used for any public readings
in the syllabus.
For example: English 9: Unit 3: A trip to the countryside
Lesson 4: Read [7].
Answer the following questions:
1. How long will Van stay in the USA?
2. How many children do Mr and Mrs. Parker have?
3. What does Van do as soon as he finishes his homework in the afternoon?

4. What do the Parker family and Van do while they watch Peter play?
Between and beyond the line questions: why, how, what, do you think..
* Activity 3: Multiple choice
This activity asks students to read and choose the correct answer: A, B, C
or D for each question. This is one of the procedures to identify specific
information skills in the reading they have just read. But teaching reading
comprehension is suitable for the requirements of the innovation of teaching
methods, which helps students read a comprehensive reading, so teachers have
to use this procedure reasonably. With this procedure, students can check and
understand the content of the reading or the meaning of a new word or new
structure.
Example: English 8: Unit 1 – My friends. (Read – page 13) [9].
*Choose the best answer and write.
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1. Ba talks about ….. of his friends.

A. three
B. four
C. all
D. none
’
2. Bao s volunteer work……
A. help him make friends
B. causes problems at exam time
C. does not effect his school work
D. takes up a lot of time
3. Khai and Song ….
A. like quiet places
B. don’t talk much in public
C. dislike school
D. enjoy sports
’
4. Ba s friends sometimes…….his jokes.
A. answer
B. do not listen to
C. laugh at
D. get tired of
* Activity 4: Gap filling
This activity is to check meaning of vocabulary, remembering of
vocabulary, main ideas or detailed ideas that students have learnt.
Teacher summarizes the reading text and leaves some blanks (using spare
board) and request students to find suitable word or phrase to complete.
For example: English 9: Unit 7: Saving energy (Lesson 4: Read) [7].
For most (1)………American households, lighting accounts for (2) ……
percent to 15 percent of the electricity bill, (3)……this amount can be reduce by
replacing an (4)……150 watt bulb with an energy saving bulb. These bulbs use

a (5)…….of the electricity of (6)………bulbs and last eight times longer…
* Activity 5: Grids or forms
To check students’ perception of main ideas and information classification,
teacher provides a form with certain information and requests students to read
the text and fill information into the blanks.
Example: English 9
Unit 13 – Festivals.
Read – Page 126 - Complete the table [7].
Christmas special
Place of origin
Date
Riga
mid-19th century
Christmas carols
USA
* Activity 6: Matching
This form of exercise is used to check meaning of introduced vocabulary
(pre-teach), to predict meaning of word in context, or to test students’ perception
of main ideas of the reading text. Teacher creates two columns of words and
phrases to be predicted (maybe in English or English/Vietnamese). Reading the
text, students may predict meaning of word via this table. Teacher should let
students reread this table after they finish their assignment.
Example: New English 8 – Unit 11- Science and technology
Skills1 (Reading) – Page 54 [10].
Underline the following words and phrases in the passages in 1. Match each
of them with its explanation.
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A

B
1. a reality
A. examine carefully to find out more about
2. explore
something
3. possibility
B. used instead of something else
4. replaced
C. equipment that helps save energy
5. anti-ageing pills
D. a thing that actually exists or happens
6. energy saving devices E. something that is likely to happen
F. medicine that can prevent
* Activity 7: True/False, Yes/No, right/wrong questions and statements
The form of this exercise is the same with T/F prediction statements.
For example: English 7 – Unit 14:
Lesson 3. A. Time for TV [8].
True/False statements
True False
1- Thirty years ago in Viet Nam, a lot of people had TV sets.
2- These TV owners were very popular.
3- The neighbor gathered to watch color programs in the evening.
4- Now, they don’t spend much time together.
5- A few people have TV sets today.
Above-mentioned are while-reading activities which virtually mean
motivations and reasons for students to practice reading comprehension skill. In
this phase, combination of speaking and writing skills is necessary. Reading
texts in the innovated textbook are various and diverse in topic; therefore,
teacher should let students practice with extensive reading method so as to

encourage their confidence in accessing standard reading text. With extensive
reading, students may still understand the overall information provided by
practical language in daily life even if their ability is limited. Teacher should
encourage students’ silent reading to understand the lesson content. Reading
aloud helps students practice pronunciation only. Although students can listen to
the reading text once or twice so as to easier practice speaking to give answers
about content of the passage. For long exercise, teacher may apply the tactic of
dividing the text into passages and assign each group of student to read one
passage and then comment for other group. By this way, teacher is able to utilize
and save time in class to organize other supplement activities for the text reading
comprehension, helping students understand more deeply what they have learnt
from the passage.
*Post – Reading (Role play, Recall the story, Write-it-up, Further Practice, etc).
This phase is for practice after reading and completion of exercise under
requirements and questions on reading comprehension, teacher may continue
activities requiring overall understanding of the whole text, practical reference
or knowledge conveying, grammar structure reinforcement practice. Activities
for this phase are described below.
* Activity 1: Gap fill.
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This activity is similar to that of while-reading phase; however, same
activities should not be repeated. Teachers write the summary of reading on the
board (briefly) with the missing words and ask students to fill the missing words
in the blanks. This exercise helps students understand the reading the most
succinctly and the most effectively.
Example: English 8 - Unit 8 – Country life and city life.
Read – Page 75 [9].
Work with a partner. Complete the summary. Use information from the passage.

People from the countryside are (1)…….. their (2)……… to go and live
in the (3)……….. Farming can sometimes be a difficult life and these people
from (4) ……….. areas feel the (5)……… offers more opportunities. However,
many people coming to the city create (6)…………There may not be enough (7)
……….. or (8)……….., while water and electricity supplies may not be
adequate. This is a (9)………… facing governments around the (10)……….
* Activity 2: Role play, interview.
In practical teaching, no language skills are taught separately, thus
speaking is a very useful activity in the period after reading (Post-reading).
When the work in stages while reading (While-reading) end, teachers can ask
students to act (Role- play), using content that is mentioned in the text out to
play and practice the conversation with you. This is a very exciting activity and
useful for students because they used just reading knowledge to apply
practically in daily communication. These activities are diverse and various.
Students shall play interviewer and interviewee.
- Example: In a job interview, interviewer shall ask interviewee questions
regarding their qualification and profession. Content of the lesson may be
introduced in the form of a dialogue.
For example: English 9: Unit 5: The media [7].
A: Do you use the Internet every day ?
B: Yes, I do.
A: Do you think it is very important to our life?
B: Yes, It’s very important and convenient.
A: Do you think it’s not good for someone to play games online?
B: ……………………………
* Activity 3: Rewrite.
Readings can be written in the same or different readings: for example, as
an advertisement, a text, a letter, an interview. This type can be used to help
expand practical skills from writing skills.
Example: English 9 - Unit 5 - The media

Read – Page 43, 44 [7].
Read the forum on the Internet in the reading text again (5. Read- page 43,44).
Write a passage about the benefits of the Internet. You can use the following
cues.
- The Internet as source of information (news, articles, weather forecast, ect…).
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- The Internet as source of entertainment (music, movies, games, ect…).
-The Internet as a means of education
( on-line schools, on-line lessons, self-study, ect...)
* Activity 4: Discussion. This procedure can be used to:
- Identify reading contents and its meaning.
- Draw the learned lesson after having studied it.
- Combine speaking skills.
Example: English 9 - Unit 5: The Media
Read - Page 43, 44 [7].
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Internet (discussion about
the benefits (advantages) of the Internet. (group 1); discussion about the
disadvantages of the Internet. (group 2)).
2.4. The effectiveness of experience initiatives for educational activities.
During my teaching, I have applied the techniques and organized forms to
teach reading in English in order to promote a positive and creativity of students
in foreign language classes as well as the experimental lesson of colleagues.
There are the following results: Teachers do not explain lengthy lectures, they do
not replace the job of students. Teachers play only the role as the organizer,
instructor to help students study. In other words, teachers play the role of
designer. For the students, they acquire actively knowledge and are subjects the
activities. They study enthusiastically and excitedly, they explore, discover and
exploit knowledge actively and students understand the content of the lesson in

the class. Moreover, after each lesson, the student's knowledge in the fields of
culture and science is wider. Therefore, students have been interested in
learning. Through applied research and practical tips with students who are
average and weak students in grade 8,9. I find my teaching activities softer.
Besides, I see students more focused, the atmosphere in the class is lively and
they are interested in their subject, particularly through the surveys: midsemester survey and final-semester survey, I achieved the good results such as:
The first mid- semester survey
Class/
Grade

6

13

9

23

9

19.5

20

51.3

11

23.9

Poor

%

Number

10

%

Weak
Number

04

%

Average
Number

%

Good
Number

9 (46hs)

Number
8(39hs)

Excellent

%

5

12.8

01

2.5

7

15.2

03

6.5

The first final- semester survey
Class/

Excellent

Good

Average

Weak

Poor
16


9

19.5

13

33.3

14

30.4

17

43.6

21

45.6

%

Number

18

%

Number

7

%

Number

9 (46sts)

%

Number

8(39sts)

Number

Grade

2

5.1

0

2

4.3

0

%

Thus, from an earlier year, the rate % of students to acquire and
understand the lesson is markedly increased, the rate of pretty and good students
increases and the average percentage of poor students are reduced. Particularly,
students are more dynamic and self-reliant, teacher-student relationship becomes
closer. In class, the distance between teachers and students is narrower. Students
ask him strongly, present their views and their positions and expand their
communication and their thinking.
It is seen that the application of these reading comprehension teaching
method into practical teaching has brought much higher results in comparison
with the period when teaching method was not improved. This achievement
encourages me to continuously try my best to bring higher results as well as
apply these methods more to specific teaching sessions.
3. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS.
3.1. Conclusion.
During the research conduction, I myself found that the practice of
reading comprehension at Secondary School is very necessary. Abovementioned practice methods shall help students and teachers with easier practice
of reading skills among Secondary School students.
Teachers themselves should continuously study and enrich their specialty
via means of information. They should promptly recognize the innovation in
teaching method and education, which is vital to each teacher. Being able to
apply this methods, quality of foreign language teaching shall be enhanced,
students shall be more interested in studying and more confident in
communicating with foreigners if they have chance to do so.

Briefly, reading is one of four skills that students need to practice.
Reading helps students enlarge their knowledge on surrounding world. Reading
brings students habit and passion in reading books. Therefore, teachers need to
utilize attractive and suitable teaching tactics in teaching
reading
comprehension for secondary school students in general and Grade 9 students in
particular so as to achieve good results.
Basing on the reasoning, practical situations and purpose of teaching as
well as success and limits while conducting this topic, to contribute to English
teaching in general and quality reading comprehension in particular, I would like
to propose the following recommendations by myself.
3.2. Suggestions.
* For schools.
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To have a language environment, skills should be practiced under typical
teaching method, which means subject specified classroom should be set up to
avoid affecting to and being affected by close classrooms in terms of noise.
(This room maybe used for other subjects). Electric system should be fixed to
ensure usage and safety.
* For department of education and training.
Teachers should be provided opportunities to discuss and exchange
experiences through workshops and have the academic exchanges between the
grades and classes to create a communicative environment in English.
Education and Training Department should organize more training
courses to innovate teaching methods with the help of experts.
These are some small tricks during my teaching by utilizing tactics and
activities in reading comprehension teaching in Ha Binh Secondary School,
when writing this topic, short-comings are unavoidable; therefore, I am looking

forward to the colleagues' sincere comments so that my subject is more
complete.
I sincerely thank you.
CONFIRMATION OF HEADMASTER

Thanh Hoa, March 17th 2017
I assure that my experience initiative
is not copied from the others' content.
Written by

Nguyen Van Ban

18


REFERENCES
****
[1]. The Education Law of the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam No. 38/2005 / QH11 dated June 14, 2005.
[2]. Kevin Barry, Len King - Beginning teaching. Australia, 1993.
[3]. Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. Reading Rockets.
(Adler, C.R.(2014)).
[4]. Developing Reading Skills: Identifying Main Ideas. Thai Watana Panich
Co.Ltd (Maggs, Margaret Martin (1982)).
[5]. Technical teaching English to young adult learners at Secondary Schools
(Mr Nguyen Quoc Hung, MA).
[6]. Reading Comprehension Strategies in Teaching Reading.(Moore, David W.
(2014)).
[7]. English textbook 9 - Nguyen Van Loi (Chief editor) - Educational
Publisher, 2002.

[8]. English textbook 7 - Nguyen Van Loi (Chief editor) - Educational Publisher,
2002.
[9]. English textbook 8 - Nguyen Van Loi (Chief editor) - Educational
Publisher, 2002.
[10]. English textbook 8 - Hoang Van Van (Chief editor) - Educational Publisher,
2014.
[11]. Teaching guide under new English curriculum (Educational publisher2005)

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THE EXPERIENCE INITIATIVES WHICH WERE RECOGNIZED
AND APPRECIATED BY THE SCIENTIFIC COUNCIL OF
DEPARTEMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING.
Teacher:
Nguyen Van Ban
Job title:
Teacher
Unit of work: Ha Binh Secondary School
Name of experience
Rand of
0
N
initiatives
appreciation
1

2

3

4

Some experiences
teaching pronunciation
for students at Ha Son
Secondary School.
Some experiences to
teach listening skill for
students at Ha Son
Secondary School.
Some techniques to
teach new words for
students at Ha Binh
Secondary School .
Effective teaching
method of English
reading comprehension
skills for students of
grade 8, 9”

Ha Trung
department of
education and
training.
Ha Trung
department of
education and
training
Ha Trung

department of
education and
training
Ha Trung
department of
education and
training

Result of
appreciation
(A, B, or C)

Academic
Year

B

2005-2006

C

2010-2011

B

2012-2013

C

2014-2015

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21