(Luận văn thạc sĩ) reading skills for the first year students at vietnam maritime university by implementing task based language teaching

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
---------------------  -------------------

NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG HẠNH

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING SKILLS FOR
THE FIRST - YEAR STUDENTS AT VIETNAM MARITIME
UNIVERSITY BY IMPLEMENTING TASK - BASED
LANGUAGE TEACHING

NÂNG CAO KĨ NĂNG ĐỌC HIỂU CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM
THỨ NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀNG HẢI THÔNG QUA
VIỆC ÁP DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIAO NHIỆM VỤ
M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : ELT Methodology
Code: 60.14.10

HANOI - 2012

i


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG HẠNH

IMPROVING READING SKILLS FOR
THE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS
AT VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY
BY IMPLEMENTING TASK-BASED LANGUAGE
TEACHING
NÂNG CAO KĨ NĂNG ĐỌC CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ
NHẤT TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HÀNG HẢI VIỆT NAM
THÔNG QUA VIỆC ỨNG DỤNG PHƯƠNG PHÁP GIAO
NHIỆM VỤ
M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : ELT Methodology
Code: 60.14.10
Supervisor: TRẦN HIỀN LAN, MA.

HANOI - 2012
i


TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS

PAGE

Declaration .................................................................................................. i
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... ii
Abstract ........................................................................................................ iii
List of tables, figures and abbreviations ....................................................... iv
Table of contents .......................................................................................... v
PART A: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 01

1. Rationale........................................................................................ 01
2. Aims of the study ........................................................................... 02
3. Scope of the study .......................................................................... 03
4. Methods of the study...................................................................... 03
5. Overview of the study .................................................................... 03
PART B: DEVELOPMENT ...................................................................... 05
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................... 05
1. The nature of reading ....................................................................... 05
1.1.

Definition of reading .............................................................. 05

1.2.

Definition of reading comprehension ...................................... 05

1.3.

Reading models....................................................................... 06

1.3.1. Bottom-up Reading Model ................................................ 06
1.3.2. Top-down Reading Model ................................................. 07
1.3.3. Interactive Reading Model ................................................. 08
2. Task – based language learning......................................................... 09
2.1.

Definition of task .................................................................... 09

2.2.

Types of tasks ......................................................................... 11

2.3.

Task – based framework ......................................................... 12

2.4.

Text – based task..................................................................... 13

iv


2.5.

Considerations in task design .................................................. 14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ............................................................ 16
1. Background of the study ...................................................................... 16
1.1.

Current learning and teaching of English in general
and English reading in particular in Vietnam
Maritime University ................................................................. 16

1.2.

Identification of the problem .................................................... 16

2. Research questions ............................................................................. 17

3. Participants ........................................................................................ 17
4. Implementation of the action research ................................................ 17
5. Data collection procedure................................................................... 18
5.1.

Description of the pre-treatment questionnaire ......................... 18

5.2.

Description of the post-treatment questionnaire ........................ 19

5.3.

Description of the two tests ...................................................... 19

6. Data analysis procedure .................................................................... 19
7. Summary ............................................................................................. 20
CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ...................................... 21
1. The results of the pre – treatment questionnaire survey....................... 21
1.1.

The students‟ need ................................................................... 21

1.2.

The appropriation of texts ........................................................ 22

1.3.

Activities in class ..................................................................... 22

2. The results of the pre – treatment test ................................................. 23
3. Experimental reading lessons ............................................................. 24
3.1.

The first experimental lesson .................................................... 24

3.2.

The second experimental lesson ............................................... 26

3.3.

Summary .................................................................................. 29

4. The results of the post – treatment test ............................................... 30
5. The results of the post – treatment questionnaire survey ..................... 31
5.1.

Students‟ motivation ................................................................ 31

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5.2.

The experimental lessons‟ sequence ......................................... 31

6. Summary ............................................................................................. 35
PART C: CONCLUSION .......................................................................... 36

1. Summary and conclusions .................................................................. 36
2. Pedagogical implications ................................................................... 37
3. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further study .................. 40
REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 41
APPENDICES
Appendix 1: A sample lesson plan ................................................................ I
Appendix 2: Pre – treatment questionnaire survey (English version) ............ VII
Appendix 3: Pre – treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version) ...... X
Appendix 4: Post – treatment questionnaire survey (English version) ........... XIII
Appendix 5: Post – treatment questionnaire survey (Vietnamese version) .... XVI
Appendix 6: Pre – treatment test ................................................................... XIX
Appendix 7: Post – treatment test ................................................................. XXIII

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LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATION
1. TABLES

PAGE

Table 1: Participants‟ information ...................................................... 18
Table 2: Why the students like the pre-task cycle ............................... 33
Table 3: Why the students like the task cycle ..................................... 34
Table 4: Why the students like the post-task cycle ............................. 36
2. FIGURES
Figure 1: Task-based framework by Willis (1996)
Figure 2: Components for analyzing tasks by Nunan (1989)
Figure 3: How the current English course meets the students‟ need
Figure 4: Percentage of students expressing their needs to the teachers

Figure 5: Students‟ assessments on the activities in the course book
Figure 6: Activities that the teachers often use
Figure 7: Classroom management in current reading lessons
Figure 8: Students' scores from the pre-treatment test
Figure 9: Students' scores from the post - treatment test
Figure 10: Students‟ assessments on the trial reading lessons
Figure 11: Activities students like doing in pre-task phase
Figure 12: Activities students like doing in during-task phase
Figure 13: Activities students like doing in post-task phase
3. ABBREVIATIONS
GE: General English
ESP: English for Specific Purposes
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
Vimaru: Vietnam Maritime University

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1.

Rationale of the study

It goes without saying that English is by far the most popular language of all.
Nowadays, English language plays an important role in the increasing development of
science, technology, politics, culture and international relations in Vietnam. As a
result, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English throughout the
country for different purposes.
Learners of English all keep in touch with the four skills in order to acquire the
English proficiency. In Vietnam, reading is perhaps the most important skills that

Vietnamese learners of English will be working with as one of the major focuses of
teaching English as a second language is providing the students with the abilities to
understand written materials. With strengthened reading skills, EFL readers will make
greater progress and attain greater development not only in English but also in all
academic areas. Therefore, “reading is the most heavily researched single area of the
whole curriculum, and yet, paradoxically, it remains a field in which a good deal of
fundamental work has yet to be approached, and one in which a great many teachers
would claim to be almost wholly ignorant” and secondary teachers “who have
generally had no training at all related to reading but nevertheless feel conscious that
the ability to read fluently is the basis for most school learning, and one of the surest
predictors of academic attainment” (Harrison and Gardner, 1977).
Traditionally, attempts to improve the comprehension of texts for EFL students have
focused on familiarizing the students with vocabulary needed to comprehend the
passage. However, within the last 15 years, much of the research has been conducted
in the field of reading comprehension with focus on the use of tasks, especially tasks
which involve interaction between learners in developing the learners‟ knowledge and
reading skills. Several studies have revealed that the use of appropriate tasks in reading
lessons is an effective way to improve students‟ reading comprehension, motivating
them and help them obtain better reading achievement.
Vietnam Maritime University is a place where English teaching and learning are
considered one of the major focuses. Unfortunately, teaching and learning reading
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skills is still far from satisfactory for various reasons. The students, especially the first
–year ones, seem to have limited background knowledge, poor vocabulary and often
find it difficult to concentrate on the reading process or deal with uncountable new
vocabulary, etc. After several years of learning English, they are still word-by-word
readers; they tend to read very slowly to understand the meaning of every single word.
When they encounter unfamiliar words or unfamiliar concepts, they feel discouraged

and resort to wild guessing to construct the text meaning. Some students do not
understand the main idea of a text even when they have translated every word into
their mother tongue. Very few students deliberately look at the title of a text to think
about its topic before reading. Fewer students use their background knowledge to
facilitate their comprehension. They are completely dependent on the decoded
messages from the text, so once their decoding mechanisms fail due to their deficient
language proficiency, comprehension breaks down.
One more problem is that the tasks provided in the course book are rather challenging
and repetitive, mostly are question- and - answers tasks. As a result, many reading
lessons makes the learners bored while taking part in the reading process and their
reading skills still keep stable.
For all the above reasons, the researcher wishes to implement task – based language
teaching, a new and effective approach, in improving the students‟ reading skills
through the research work entitled:
“Improving reading skills for the first – year students at Vietnam Maritime University
by implementing task – based language teaching”.

2.

Aims of the study

The research is conducted to:
•

examine the impact of task-based language teaching and learning on reading

comprehension of the first-year students at Vietnam Maritime University.
•

suggest effective ways to design different tasks based on the available texts in

the course book to meet students‟ demand, help them improve their reading skills and
helping teachers select, adapt or create their own design of effective communicative
tasks.
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3.

Scope of the study

As the title of the study implies, this research focuses on reading skills and the
participants of the study are the first - year students at Vietnam Maritime University.
The author tried to conduct two surveys and two tests in order to analyze the
expectation and achievement of the experimental lessons. The information obtained
from this study is to help to improve teaching and learning English in general and
teaching and learning English reading comprehension in particular at Vietnam
Maritime University.

4.

Methods of the study

Action research, which “allows us to build records of our improvements” (Kemmis
and Me Taggart, 1982, p34), is chosen as the research method for the current study.
The author specially prefers action research to other more conventional or traditional
types of research by the fact that "it is very focused on individual or small group
professional practice and it is not so concerned with making general statement ... The
main function of action research is to facilitate the reflective cycle and in this way
provide an effective method for improving professional action” (Wallace, 1997, p. 16).

Firstly, the researcher used two survey questionnaires which have always been
considered as a representative of quantitative method to collect primary data. When
designing the questionnaires, the researcher used the questions of both types: open
type and closed ended questions. Closed form or restricted types of questions offer the
respondent a choice of alternatives. The open form (unrestricted) type of questions,
calling for a free response, provides greater depth of response. Secondly, the
researcher tried to evaluate student‟s progress through two tests, one before and one
after the intervention. The results from these two tests are reliable data to measure the
effectiveness of the experimental lessons. Besides, during the experimental lessons,
the researcher also observed and took note on the progress of the lessons, the students‟
response on the task, some changes should be made on the lessons, etc.

5.

Overview of the study

This research is composed of three main parts: Introduction, Development and
Conclusion.
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In the first part - Introduction, the author presents the rationale and the aims of the
study followed by the scope and the methods of study.
The second part - Development is the backbone of the thesis which starts by recalling
a brief account of reading comprehension, task-based language learning and teaching
such as the task definitions, task types, task-based framework and pointing out the key
issues in designing communicative tasks. Then the author provides the methodology of
the study which consists of the background of the study, the statement of the problem,
the research questions, the participants and the implementation of action research.
These are followed by the instruments of data collection, data collection and analysis

procedure. This part is ended with the result and discussions of the research.
In the end of the study, the author presents her major findings before drawing final
conclusions. She also suggests pedagogical implications and points out the limitations
of the study and suggestions for further research.

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1. The nature of reading
1.1.

Definition of reading

According to Goodman (1971:135), reading is “a psycholinguistic process by which
the reader, a language users, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has
been encoded by a writer as a graphic display”, and the act of reconstruction is viewed
as “cyclical process of sampling, predicting, testing and confirming”.
Rumelhart (1997) states “reading involves the reader, the text and the interaction
between the reader and the text”.
William also shares the same idea on reading when he points out “written, then, often
contain more than we need to understand them. The efficient reader makes use of this
to take what he needs, and no more, to obtain meaning”.
Harmer (1989:153) states that “eyes receive the message and the brain has to work out
the significance of the message”. He views reading from a different perspective and he
considers reading as a mechanical process.
Obviously, experts give different reading definitions but they all share the same idea
that reading includes reader, text, reading process and reading message.

1. 2. Definition of reading comprehension
Reading comprehension plays a very important part in teaching and learning reading a
foreign language. It is the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it
appropriately. So that:
Harmer (1989:153) states a student is good at comprehension we meant that he can
read accurately and efficiently to get the maximum information of a text with the
minimum of understanding”.

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Grellet (1981: 3) proposes “reading comprehension or understanding a written text
means extracting the required information from it as effectively as possible”.
Lenz (2000:3) also says “reading comprehension is the process of constructing
meaning from the text”. It means that reading comprehension consists of at least two
people, the reader and the writer. Thus, the process of comprehending involves
decoding the writer‟s words and using background knowledge to construct an
approximate understanding of the writer‟s passage.
On the whole, reading comprehension is the process that helps readers obtain
information in the text and understand it appropriately.

1.3.

Reading models

Kamil (1986) claims that there have been three general orientations of reading models:
bottom-up models (text – based), top – down models (reader – based), and interactive
models (balanced – models).
1.3.1 Bottom-up Reading Model
All the proponents of bottom-up models agree that comprehension begins by

processing the smallest linguistic unit (phoneme) and working toward larger units
(syllables, words, phrases, sentences), and proceeds from part to whole. In this way,
bottom-up theorists view reading as a passive process dependent on the written or
printed text.
Gough (1972, as cited in Hudson, 2007) considers reading process as a sequential or
serial mental process of detecting the parts of written language (letters) and converting
them into phonemes, combining these phonemic units to form individual words, and
finally putting the words together to understand the author‟s written message, hereby
the mechanism called Merlin is utilized to apply syntactic and semantic rules in order
to determine the meaning of the sentences. The process ends with the oral realization
of the sentence based on phonological rules (pp. 34 – 5).
Nuttall (2005) indicates that reading is a process of identifying letters and words,
figuring out sentence structures and then constructing a meaning from the printed
words. He also compares “bottom-up” processes with the image of a scientist with a
7


magnifying glass investigating every minute part of the little area to grasp it
thoroughly (p. 17). However, in many cases, readers can read aloud almost all the text,
or they know almost all the words in the text, but they can hardly recall any of its
meaning.
These models depend too much on the reader‟s linguistic knowledge and overlook
their prior background knowledge. The bottom-up or decoding model of reading was
also criticized by Eskey (1973) for its failure to account for the contribution of the
reader, whose expectations about the text, which are informed by his/her knowledge of
language and his/her prior background knowledge, are employed as part of the reading
process. For these limitations, together with the advent of top-down models, bottom-up
models fell into disfavors.
1.3.2 Top-down Reading Model
This model, beginning in mind of the readers with meaning-driven processes, or an

assumption about the meaning of a text, emphasizes what the reader brings to the text;
reading is driven by meaning, and proceeds from whole to part. From this perspective,
readers identify letters and words only to confirm their assumptions about the meaning
of the text. Goodman (1967) views reading process as a “psycholinguistic guessing
game”- a process of predicting, sampling, and confirming in which readers interact
with texts by combining information they discover there with the knowledge they
bring to it in constructing a comprehensive meaning for the text as coherent discourse
(pp. 364 - 5). “The knowledge, experience, and concepts that readers bring to the text,
in other words, their schemata, are part of the process” (Dechant, 1991, p. 25), and
reading is more a matter of bringing meaning to than gaining meaning from the printed
page (Dechant, 1991; Goodman, 1985; Smith, 1994).
Stanovich (1980) criticizes the top-down models by arguing that the generation of
hypotheses would be actually more time-consuming than decoding would be. Another
criticism by Samuels and Kamil (1988, p. 32) reveals that a reader will be unable to
generate hypotheses about a text if he/she has insufficient prior knowledge of the
topic, so according to the top-down theory, reading process will not occur.

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In the light of the perceived shortcomings of both bottom-up and top-down models,
another model of reading process called interactive model is put forward.
1.3.3 Interactive Reading Model
An interactive reading model attempts to combine the valid insights of bottom-up and
top-down models. It attempts to take into account the strong points of the bottom-up
and top-down models, and tries to avoid the criticisms leveled against each, making it
one of the most promising approaches to the theory of reading today. As in top-down
models, the reader uses his or her expectations and previous understanding to guess
about text content and, as in bottom-up models, the reader decodes what is in the text.
Text sampling and higher- level decoding and recoding operate simultaneously.

In Rumelhart‟s (1977) model, the “visual information store” receives input from the
text to be processed. These data then go through the “feature extraction device” into
the “pattern synthesizer”, which utilizes input from the “syntactic, semantic,
orthographic, lexical and pragmatic knowledge” to comprehend the text. During the
reading process, all sources of data are made full use of simultaneously, and provide
the basis on which readers can accept or reject their prior expectations and put forward
the new ones as long as they make their final decisions on the meaning of the text (as
cited in Hudson, 2007, pp.41- 2).
Stanovic (1980) refers to his model as an “interactive compulsory” one in which
weaknesses in any levels of processing the inputs can be compensated for by others.
Those deficient in a low-level skill such as word recognition can be made up for by
higher-level skills such as use of knowledge about the topic of the text, whereas those
with few clues of the topic of the text can be helped by their good word recognition
skill (as cited in Hudson, 2007, p. 46).
Nuttall (1996, p. 16) assumes that top-down and bottom-up processing are
“complementary ways of processing a text. They are both used whenever we read;
sometimes one predominates, sometimes the other, but both are needed.” This author
adds that “in practice, a reader continually shifts from one focus to another, now
adopting a top-down approach to predict the probable meaning, then moving to a
bottom-up approach to check whether that is really what the writer says”
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2. Task – based language learning
2.1. Definition of task
Tasks are defined by Oxford Advance Learner‟s Dictionary as “a piece of work to be
done or undertaken” (2005:1571). In language teaching, there have been a lot of
researches and theories in the last several decades on the use of tasks in language
teaching, particularly tasks which involves interaction between learners (e.g., Breen,
1987; Prabhu, 1987; Nunan, 1989).

Willis (1996:23) defines tasks as “activities where the target language is used by the
learner for a communicative purpose/goal in order to achieve an outcome”. The foci
of the definition lie in “communicative purpose” and “outcome”. For Willis, tasks are
not a label for various activities including grammar exercises, practice activities and
role play. Instead, all tasks must have a clear purpose and an achievable outcome. It is
the challenge of achieving the outcome that makes the task performance a motivating
procedure in the classroom.
Nunan, one of the renowned scholars in task design, in his recent book “Task – based
language teaching” (2004), considers tasks as following:
“A task is a piece of classroom work that involves learners in comprehending,
manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is
focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning and
in which the intention is to convey meaning rather than to manipulate form. The task
should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a
communicative act in its own right with a beginning, a middle and an end”. (p.4)
This is a novel definition of task which takes into consideration the most important
features of a communicative task, i.e., negotiation and construction of meaning, the
focus on meaning over form and the completeness of tasks. In spite of saying that a
task‟s focus is on meaning, Nunan points out the mutual relationship between form
and meaning. Meaning can only be expressed through grammatical forms. This feature
makes his definition become one of the most commonly cited pedagogic definitions of
a classroom task.

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In the recent renowned research “Task – based language learning and teaching”, Ellis
(2003:16) synthesizes various definitions to reach a composite one:
A task is a workplan that requires learners to process language pragmatically in
order to achieve an outcome that can be evaluated in terms of whether the correct

or appropriate propositional content has been conveyed. To this end, it requires
them to give primary attention to meaning and to make use of their own linguistic
resources, although the design of the task may predispose them to choose
particular forms. A task is intended to result in language use that has been a
resemblance, direct or indirect, to the way language is used in real world. Like
other language activities, a task can engage productive or receptive, and oral or
written skills, and also various cognitive processes.
Ellis‟s definition is detailed and comprehensive. It addresses all the following crucial
features of a task:
 A task is a workplan.
 A task involves a primary focus on meaning
 A task involves real – world processes of language use.
 A task can involve any of the four language skills.
 A task engages cognitive processes.
 A task has a clearly defined communicative outcome.
In his comprehensive definition, Ellis tactfully combines all the major features which
have been proposed by other researchers. He shares the idea with Nunan (1989) that a
task‟s primary focus on meaning. He also consents with Willis (1996) in the fact that a
task must have an outcome with the use of authentic communication. He is original in
that a task may predetermine some linguistic forms and that tasks are connected to
psycholinguistic processes.
On balance, though different researchers have different ways of looking at tasks, all
recent and renowned definitions bear one common characteristic which is the focus on
11


communicative language use in which the attention is on meaning rather than on
grammatical forms.

2.2.

Types of tasks

There are many ways by which tasks are categorized. Nunan (1989) classifies tasks
into real world tasks and pedagogic tasks. The former refers to the tasks that students
may actually do or have the chance to rehearse in the out – of – classroom
environment while the latter means the tasks happening only inside the classrooms.
The choice of real – world tasks or pedagogic tasks will depend on need analysis or
SLA theory, respectively. However, there is no rigid differentiation between these two
types. In fact, some tasks which are considered real – world are likely to happen in
classroom and vice versa. Also, there are some tasks belonging neither to real – world
nor pedagogic tasks but standing in the middle of the continuum.
In contrast with Nunan, Richards (2001:162, as cited in Nunan 2004:58 – 9) offers five
types of tasks on the basis of communicative language use:
 Jigsaw tasks: Learners join separate fragments to form correct and complete
information.
 Information gap tasks: Each learner/group has different piece of information
and their job is to discover the discrepancy.
 Problem – solving tasks: Students work to find out solution to the problem
posed.
 Decision making tasks: Students discuss and negotiate the best solution to
the problem among the available.
 Opinion exchange tasks: Learners discuss and swap thoughts.
Ellis (2003) divides tasks into two general types: focused and unfocused tasks.
Unfocused tasks may predispose learners to choose a range of forms but they are not
designed with the use of specific form in mind. In contrast, focus tasks aim to induce
learners to process, receptively or productively, some particular linguistic features, for
example, a grammatical structure.
12

Willis (1996:28) has a similar distinction of task types with Ellis (2003) which are
named closed tasks and open tasks. Willis (1996) also elaborates tasks under six
specific types including listing, ordering, and sorting, comparing, problem solving,
sharing personal experience and creative tasks.

2.3.

Task – based framework

In task – based learning and teaching, tasks are not just what students do one after
another. Instead, tasks are considered as one element in an overall framework
consisting of three stages: Pre – task, task – cycle and the language focus (Willis,
1996).
Figure 1: Task – based framework by Willis (1996:38)

 In the pre – task stage: the topic and the task are presented.
 During the task cycle, students can make use of their entire prior language
reservoir to perform their task. The teacher will guide students, give feedback if
13


necessary and sometimes provide the students with an audio demonstration or a
related text. Accordingly, students are at the same time exposed to the language
input, motivated to study and use the language to do things.
 With the language focus coming after the task cycle, the language to be studied
will already have been processed for meaning. In other words, the new patterns
have naturally arisen form the task. The recent topic and task, together with the
recording and text, provide a clear, holistic context for the study of specific
language forms. This framework gives students a variety of topics, texts and

task types and the safe feeling because they do not have to worry about the new
forms which they will study afterwards (Willis, 1996, p.90)

2.4.

Text – based task

Text, by Oxford Advance Learner‟s Dictionary definition, is a unit of connected
speech or writing, especially composed of more than one sentence that forms a
cohesive whole sentence (2005:1587). Texts in English teaching, in this sense, will
include recordings of spoken language and extracts from videos, in addition to the
printed words. There may be suitable texts or recordings in the course materials or a
teacher may need to supplement these by choosing extracts from other sources. The
texts themselves will increase learners‟ exposure to the target language in use.
Text – based tasks require learners to process the text for meaning in order to achieve
the goals of the task. This will involve reading, listening or viewing with some kind of
communicative purpose, and may well involve talking about the text and perhaps
writing notes (Willis, 1996:68). Willis also offers six criteria which should be kept in
mind when selecting a text:
 Exploitability: choose a piece of material that lends itself to classroom
exploitation.
 Topic: variety is important
 Length: choose a short piece or a longer one that has obvious pause point,
i.e., can be split into sections with a task set on each.

14


 Linguistic complexity: try choosing occasional items where the language
itself seems difficult but the general message is predictable.

 Accessibility: Is the text culturally accessible or will students need additional
background knowledge to appreciate it?
 Copyright: Check that you are not breaking copyright laws.

2.5.

Considerations in task design

Designing a good task is of great significance in language teaching. It is necessary that
the task, in terms of linguistic and cultural aspects, be suitable for the students‟
perceptual capability and proficiency level. Nunan (1989) also proposes six
components of the tasks which should be taken into account when designing tasks:
Figure 2: Components for analyzing tasks (Adapted from Nunan, 1989, p.48)

Goal
Input

Teacher role
TASK

Activities

Learner role
Settings

In this framework, goals are the intentions behind any task and provide a point of
contact between the task and the broader curriculum. Input refers to the data that form
the point of departure for the task. Activities specify what learner will actually do with
the input. Role refers to the part that learners and teachers are expected to play in
carrying out learning tasks as well as the social and interpersonal relationships

between the participants. Setting refers to the classroom arrangements specified or
implied in the tasks.
When designing tasks, teachers should have a clear idea about what kind of tasks,
whether focus on language form or not and how difficult the tasks should be in order
to facilitate learning of different learners with different learning levels. Wong (2006)
claims that all the following elements should be taken into consideration so that sound
and effective tasks can be designed:
 The principle of meaningful tasks: Language develops in response to the need to
mean and to understand what others mean. It follows that materials we offer
learners should allow them to focus first on meaning in contexts and then go on
15


to look at the wordings that realize the meaning. Language is a meaning system.
In a meaningful task students are asked to exchange information among
themselves in small group and/or with the teacher.
 The principle of some focus on language form: Although many students acquire
a new language with little focus on language form, there is now some evidence
that learners do better if, at some point, their attention is drawn to typical
features of language form.
 The principle of authenticity: The advantage of using authentic data is that
learners encounter target language items in the kinds of contexts where they
really occur, rather than in contexts that have been concocted by a nonauthentic textbook writer. Ultimately, this will assist learners because they will
experience the language item in interaction with other closely related
grammatical and discourse elements.
 The principle of reasonable task difficulty: In order to control the difficulty of
tasks, teachers must know what elements contribute to task difficulty. In other
words, teachers should know how to make tasks easy and difficult to meet
different needs.

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
1. Background of the study
1.1. Current learning and teaching of English in general and English reading
in particular in Vietnam Maritime University
English has always been a priority in Vietnam Maritime University (Vimaru), which is
resulted from the fact that without a good knowledge of English, students can hardly
succeed in their future career. Inspired by this above reason, the board of the
university‟s authorities has continually emphasized the important role of mastering
English among students and created chances for teachers to study abroad for
professional development.
The English curriculum is always a major concern of the university. Students of all
faculties are obliged to attend two English courses, including General English (GE)
and English for Specific Purpose (ESP). In the first and the second year at university,
freshmen and sophomores will spend three semesters studying General English. So far,
different course books have been in use for this purpose, ranging from the self-made
materials to the published course books on the market. For the time being, New
Headway series by Liz and John Soars (elementary and pre-intermediate level) are
being used as the main course books. From the academic year 2009-2010, it is a must
for all Vimaru students to take the TOEIC test to be qualified for graduation. Any
students whose TOEIC score is lower than 450 are to retake the exam.

1.2.

Identification of the problem

As aforementioned, English learning and teaching at Vimaru, like at many other
universities, is divided into two stages: GE and ESP. The first stage is aimed at

equipping students with the fundamental knowledge of English such as basic grammar,
daily vocabulary and expressions, and everyday conversation, etc., which enable them
to communicate successfully in the real life. However the current course – book (New
Headway series) still cannot meet student‟s demands. It cannot be denied that the
themes covered in this course book are quite interesting to the students but the tasks
designed are not very practical and easy enough for them to accomplish. English
teachers are also to take partial responsibility. Not all teachers are equipped with
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appropriate skills to add, simplify, modify or even design suitable tasks for the
students.

2. Research questions
This research is aimed at seeking the answers to the following questions:
1. What are the students‟ problems in learning English, especially English
reading?
2. How much progress have students made in reading skills after the
trialexperimental lessons?
3. What are some considerations in designing tasks for reading lessons, as
perceived by the teacher and the students?

3. Participants
As mentioned earlier, the first-year students of Navigation Faculty will take part in the
study. Under the constraint of time, expenses and school regulations, it is impossible to
involve this large number of students into the research. The students from the two
classes DKT 53 - DH3 and DKT 53 – DH6 are, therefore, chosen only.
All these students are at their first semester of English learning. Some information
about these students can be summarized in the following table:
Table 1: Participants’ information

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Number of students

(DKT 53 – DH3, DKT 53 – DH6)
Age

Ranging from 18 to 21

Sex

Male

Level

Ranging

from

elementary

to

pre-

intermediate. (mostly elementary)

4. Implementation of the action research
Action research is chosen to conduct this study for the following reasons. First, no

other traditional kinds of methods are better than action research in terms of the
practicality. Action research which involves the collection and analysis of data related
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to some aspects of our professional practice enables the teachers to reflect on what
they have discovered and applied to the professional actions (Wallace, 1997, p. 17).
Through action research, teachers can gain a better understanding of their own practice
and their students' behaviors. They are, therefore, "empowered to make informed
decisions about what to change and what not to change, link prior knowledge to new
information, learn from experience (even failures) and ask questions and
systematically find answers” (Fueyo & Koorland, 1997, cited in Mills, 2003, p. 10).
Second, action research allows the improvement of student learning and the
enhancement of teaching. As action research is a cycle of posing questions, gathering
data, reflection and deciding on the course of actions, teaching and learning process
becomes a continuum of the developments, one after another.
This research is conducted in the following phases:
•

Phase 1: the researcher administers the questionnaire survey and a test with the
two English classes in order to get the pre-treatment data about the students‟
reading ability, their current problems in learning reading in the classroom and
what the students really expect from the course.

•

Phase 2: An action research is conducted in these two classes with the
implementation of text- based task lessons in replacement of the traditional
ways of teaching English.

•

Phase 3: the researcher gives the second test to assess students‟ progress and
gets feedback from students on how they evaluate the trialexperimental lessons
in terms of language skill development and what the students like and dislike
about the trialexperimental lessons through the post-treatment questionnaire
survey. The researcher, basing on all the collected information, draws upon
implications and improvements for later lessons.

5. Data collection procedure
5.1.Description of the pre-treatment questionnaire
The pre-treatment questionnaire is composed of seven questions concerning two major
issues, i.e., the fulfillments of students‟ needs and the students‟ assessment on the
current English course
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•

Questions 1 and 2 deal with the matter of how much the current English course

has met students‟ demand and students ‟ willingness in expressing their needs to
their teacher.
•

Questions 3 and 4 are on the texts offered in the English course book.

•

Questions from 5 to 7 collect information on the activities which are conducted

in the reading lessons and how students carry out these activities.

5.2. Description of the post - treatment questionnaire
The post-treatment questionnaire consists of eleven questions which are categorized
into two groups: students‟ motivations and the students‟ judgments on the
trialexperimental lessons
•

Questions 1 and 2 ask about students‟ motivations and feelings when they take

part in the trialexperimental lessons.
•

Questions from 3 to 5 deal with the students' judgments on the activities carried

out in the pre-task stage.
•

Questions from 6 to 8 are about students‟ judgments on the activities carried out

in the during-task stage.
•

The last three questions (9 - 11) are reserved for the students' assessments on

the activities conducted in the language focus stage.

5.3. Description of the two tests
The two tests are designed to be completed in 45 minutes. Through the tests, the

students are asked to demonstrate how well they understand the reading text by doing
different types of tasks (Complete the sentences, Use the vocabulary in the new
context, Choose the correct answer, Decide whether the statement True/False/No
information, etc.)

6. Data analysis procedure
After the data have been gathered, they will be coded for the sake of analysis. The
quantitative data which are then analyzed via Microsoft Excel software program and
demonstrated in the forms of tables and charts are presented in numbers and percent.
This facilitates the reading of the data. Finally, the author gives interpretation from
these figures.

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