Adapting multi - Choice exercises in while-reading part to improve grade - twelve students’ reading skills at Nhu Thanh 2 high school

 PART ONE:	 INTRODUCTION
I. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
Today, English is an important communication tool in the integration with the regional and international communities. It is an access to information of science, engineering. Our country is on the path of innovation. We are committing to industrialization and modernization of the country. We are also expanding relations with other countries. Especially since Vietnam joined the WTO, English has been used more and more widely in Vietnam. Thus, teaching and learning foreign languages in general and English in particular are being carried out seriously by all schools.
Recognizing the important role of English, teachers of English at secondary level are responsible for equipping students with basic knowledge of language so that they can do well in English at secondary level and they can communicate with foreigners. We always try to advance in our professional work, getting experiences from other teachers, colleagues, as well as exploring creative teaching methods to improve the quality of teaching. During the process of teaching English at Nhu Thanh 2 high school, the colleagues and I have faced many difficulties in teaching of reading skills, especially the part of while reading in each unit. Students at Nhu Thanh 2 high school coming from remote and mountainous areas often have psychological problems such as being afraid of learning foreign languages and lack of positive reading attitudes when they read long passages printed with unfamiliar words in the text. Moreover, in the examinations for GCSE, reading questions account for 40% with multi- choice exercises. So I myself recognized the need of adapting tasks in textbooks in order to improve students’ reading skills.
Therefore, in this study I would like to mention the issue “Improving reading skills for students through adapting multi- choice exercises for while- reading period in English12” in the basic programme.
 II. AIMS OF THE STUDY
I do this research to investigate how students at Nhu Thanh 2 high school use the language knowledge they have learnt to develop the reading comprehension skills through tasks of reading skills in textbooks, as well as in the examinations for GCSE. So I decide to name my research as “Adapting multi-choice exercises in while-reading part to improve grade-twelve students’ reading skills at Nhu Thanh 2 high school.”
III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS	
This study aims at finding answer to the following research question:
How can multi- choice exercises help the students at Nhu Thanh 2 High School improve their reading skills?
The question has been addressed to two of the classes (12B3 and 12B6) that I have been teaching in Nhu Thanh 2 High School with the aim to examine how multi- choice exercises affect the process of reading here.
IV. METHODS OF THE STUDY
- Using textbooks and references 
- Observation method
- Experimental method
- Survey methodology
PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT	
 	CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
I. OVERVIEW OF READING SKILL
1. What is reading?
Establishing a clear definition of reading provides an important perspective for evaluating approaches to teaching reading skills. Most educators would agree that the major purpose of reading should be the construction of comprehending and actively responding to what is read. Two of the most widely cited and agreed-upon definitions of reading are the following: According to Joan P Gipe, 1991 (“Corrective reading techniques for the classroom teachers”), reading is the process of constructing meaning from written texts. It is a complex skill requiring the coordination of a number of interrelated sources of information. The second definition is that reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among: (1) the reader's existing knowledge; (2) the information suggested by the text being read; and (3) the context of the reading situation.
Mackay (1968), in his book Reading in a Second Language, reminds teachers that the most important objective in the reading class should NOT be the testing of the student to see if they have understood. Teachers should instead of spend most of the time training the students to understand what they read. 
In high schools, reading is one of the four basic skills that are emphasised in the language teaching process. Reading is not only an effective purpose but aslo a necessary means for students to master, strengthen linguistic knowledge, expand their vocabulary and deeply understand the style and usage of the language they are learning.
2. What are reading skills?
Teaching reading skills is not only simply to help students understand a text in particular, but also to help students improve basic reading skills. These skills that are neccesary for high school students may be mentioned as follow:
+ Reading for gist.
+ Deducing the meaning of unfamilar lexical items.
+ Skimming to get general information
+ Scanning to locate specifically required information.
These are necessary skills that can help high school students understand different passages with the different purposes. The teacher's roles are to support, suggest and guide students to involve in reading activities through various tasks.
CHAPTER 2: PRACTICAL SITUATIONS
I. METHODS OF THE STUDY
The research is done qualitatively in the context of two classes (12B3 and 12B6 – at the beginning of school year 2017-2018 at Nhu Thanh 2 High School). In this survey, I use the survey questionnaire for students. This survey is designed to collect information for the study on “An investigation into the reality of teaching and learning English reading skills at Nhu Thanh 2 High School.” 
II. THE REALITY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH READING SKILLS AT NHU THANH 2 HIGH SCHOOL	
In Nhu Thanh 2 high school, students coming from remote and mountainous areas often have psychological problems such as being afraid of learning foreign languages and lack of positive reading attitudes when they read long passages printed with unfamiliar words appearing in the text. Most students are bad at silent reading methods used to capture the main ideas. They tend to focus on interpreting individual words into Vietnamese and limitedly focus on identifying the content of the entire article. Moreover, students always use “Guide books to learn English well” to do the exercises in the textbooks. Although they seem to do the given tasks in the text books well, they do not really understand the reading texts.When class is over, all knowledge that the students have just learned can be immediately forgotten.
 Another reason that makes reading lessons unattractive to students is the exercises in textbooks are not diverse. There are a few tasks which are repeatedly used. The most common ones which are frequently used in reading skills at many Upper Secondary schools are: Question- answer; Gap- filling and True- false. Among the three tasks above, the question- answer task seems to be most usually used in classes. They can be employed after the language teacher explains vocabulary and structures. These tasks to some extents have satisfied the purposes of teaching reading skills because they help students understand and master the ideas in the reading texts. However, if these tasks are repeatedly applied in any reading classes, what will happen? Students may feel bored and less interested in the lessons. So it is hard for teachers to involve students in her teaching as well as make the teaching procedure effective anymore.
More importantly, it is really neccesary for teachers to design multichoice- question exercises for 12th grade students so that students can prepare well for the coming examinations. In English tests in the examinations for GCSE, reading questions account for 20 ones in the total of 50 questions. If students do not practise doing this kind of exercise regularly, it is likely that they will not get good results. In fact, there are only two multi- choice exercises in unit 10 and unit 15 in English textbook 12. Therefore, it is very essential for teachers to adapt more multi- choice exercises so that students will have more chances to improve reading skills such as reading for gist, deducing meanings of words from context, scanning and skimming.
In the early school year, I did two surveys in class 12 B3 and 12B6 at my school to check students’ abilities of reading: The first survey was done to check the ability of doing given exercises in textbooks and the second one was done to check the ability of reading skills (including reading for gist, scanning and skimming for details) (Unit 2: Cultural diversity - English 12 ).
The first survey was conducted by asking students to do task 2 in the page 22 (Unit 2: Cultural diversity - English 12 ).
Task 2: Answer the following sentences.
1. What are the four key values in the survey?
2. Who are much more concerned with physical attractiveness when choosing a wife or a husband, the young Americans and the young Asians?
3. What are the Indian students’ attitudes on a parnership of equals?
4. Why does the American wife trust her husband to do the right thing?
5. What is the main finding of the survey?
 Key: 
1. They are physical attractiveness, confiding, partnership of equals, trust built on love.
2. The young Americans.
3. The Indian students agree that a woman has to sacrifice more in a marriage than a man.
4. (The American wife trusts her husband to do the right thing) because he loves her not because he has to.
5. The main finding of the survey is that Asians are not as romantic as their American counterparts
With the exercise above, I see that about 30% students get mark 9-10; 25% students to get mark 7-8; 25% students get mark 6-7; 20% students get mark 4-5. This result shows that students can do exercises in textbooks quite well even when they don’t really understand the questions. What they have to do is that they find words in the questions and realize where they are in the text and write down the whole sentence.
In the second survey, I ask students to do an adapted task- a multichoice exercise (Unit 2: Cultural diversity - English 12) as the following:
 An adapted task: Read the text and choose the best answers.
1. Who decide on the marriage in “romantic” marriage?
A. Parents B. A boy C. A girl D. The bride and the groom
2. All of the following key values are mentioned in the survey EXCEPT.
A. Trust built on love B. Confiding C. Good health D. Physical attractiveness
3. What does the word “They” in the sentence “They also agree that a wife should maintain her beauty and appearance after marriage” refer to?
A. The Americans B. The Indians C. The Chinese D. The Asians
4. Which of the following is TRUE, according to the passage?
A. The Asians are more concerned with physical attractiveness than the Americans.
B. Many Indian men disagree that it is unwise to confide in their wives.
C. Asian students think that marriage is a parnership of equals.
D. Young Americans are more romantic than their Asian counterparts. 
5. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. A survey B. Different attitudes toward love and marriage
C. Love and marriage D. The Americans and the Asians 
 Key
1. D 2. C 3. A 4. A 5. B
I realize that only 15 % students get mark 9-10; 20 % get mark 7-8; 20 % students get mark 6-7, 45 % students get mark 4-5. Although the result is not as high as that in the first result, more students involve truly in reading activities and they are really interested in this kind of task. 
To help students improve different types of reading skill such as skimming, scanning, I design some multi- choice exercises for reading lessons of English 12. Through doing these exercises, students can not only understand more the reading texts but also improve reading skills in order to help them prepare well for the coming examinations.
CHAPTER 3: SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS 
I. TYPES OF MULTI-CHOICE QUESTIONS FOR READING COMPREHENSION EXERCISES 
In the last few years, I have studied English tests in the national examinations for GCSE and paid attention to different types of questions of reading comprehension exercises which can be listed as the following:
1. Main idea questions 
Main idea questions ask students to identify the "primary purpose" or "main point" of the passage. In order to answer these questions correctly, students must be able to identify the thesis of the passage and those ideas that support this thesis. Students may be confused with a few answer choices that are supporting ideas.
Most main idea questions look like these:
- What is the topic of this passage?
- What is the main idea expressed in this passage?
- Which title best reflects the main idea of the passage?
- What does the passage mainly discuss?
- Which of the following can best summarise the main idea of the passage?
- Which of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?
- The passage is primarily concerned with which of the following?
- Which of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?
- The primary purpose of the passage is to
- The main point made by the passage is that
- The author of this passage is primarily concerned with.
Main point questions ask students to identify the crux of the author's point. When adapting exercises, the teacher must identify which ideas in the passage play a supporting role and which idea is being supported. In many ways, this is similar to identifying the premises and conclusion to a critical reasoning argument. The correct answer to a main point question is often a paraphrase of the conclusion or thesis statement of the passage. Common incorrect answer choices are those that feature supporting ideas. These answer choices are appealing to many test-takers because the material presented in them is true and based upon the passage.
2. Detail questions
Detail questions are often prefaced by "according to the passage" or "the passage states that". Detail questions specify smaller chunks of information than comprehension questions. 
Most of the questions that fit into this category could be called "find the fact" as they rely on students’ ability to find a specific piece of information, often contained in two or three sentences. The answers deal with specific, small items in the paragraph or passage such as a number, a date, or a name.
These questions tend to be more difficult than main idea questions because they require a more detailed recollection of the test. If necessary, students can return to the text and quickly re-read a few sentences.
Unlike main idea questions which are more generic in their question stem, these questions tend to incorporate an idea specific to the passage in the question stem.
Detailed questions consist of two sub-kinds of questions: Factual questions and negative factural questions.
* Factual questions
- According to the passage, why/ what/ how?
- Which of the following is TRUE, according to the author?
- According to the information in paragraph 1, what?
- It is stated in paragraph 1 that?
* Negative factual questions
- The author mentions all of the following in the passage EXCEPT
- Which of the following is NOT stated in the passage?
- In the passage, the author does not mention.
- According to the information in paragraph 2, which of the following is NOT true?
In trying to identify the correct answer, it is extremely important that the teacher sticks quite close to the text. The words "according to the passage",” TRUE”, “EXCEPT”, “NOT TRUE” should be taken seriously. Other options that seem logical but are not directly supported by the text. 
3. Vocabulary questions
These questions ask for knowledge of vocabulary and ability of understanding the meaning of a word or phrase. 
Most vocabulary questions look like these:
- Which of the following could best be substituted for the word____in line___?
- Which of the following is CLOSEST in meaning to_____?
- The expression “____” in line____could be best replaced by?
- The word “____” in line____ is CLOSEST in meaning to which of the following?
Students should focus entirely on the context driven from vocabulary to infer the meaning of useful vocabulary words.
4. Reference questions
This is a relatively simple question, because the references are replaced by the words in the preceding sentences.
- The word “____” in line “____” refers to?
- The pronoun “it” in line____ refers to?
- The phrase “____” in paragraph“____” refers to?
5. Inference questions
Inference questions are often prefaced by "the passage implies" or "the author implies", where "suggests" is sometimes substituted. They not only require students to stick closely to the text and rely on specific facts but they also ask students to make a very small logical conclusion that is strongly implied based upon information in the passage. Answer choices that require significant assumptions or inferences will NEVER be correct. In some cases, the answer of an inference question lies directly in the text and requires a very small logical step (e.g: if the text says that " Vietnam and Thailand played in the Men Footbal Final, the Thai Team won the gold medal", an inference would be that " Vietnamese Team was the runner- up"). In other cases, the inference question type asks for an answer that is often a near paraphrase of a fact in the passage or a fact that the information in the passage rules out (e.g: if the text says that " Vietnam and Thailand played in the Men Footbal Final, the Thai Team won the gold medal”, students can infer that the Thai Team defeated the Vietnamese Team). In other words, the answer to an inference question is a conclusion made in the passage.
Most inference questions look like these:
- It can be infered from the passage that
- It can be concluded from the information in paragraph 1 that.
- Which of the following can be infered from the passage?
- In the last paragraph, the author suggests that.
- It is probable that
- You can conclude from this paragraph/passage that .
- The author suggests that
- Which is more likely to happen . . . ?
6. Questions on the author’s attitude
Questions on the author’s purpose or Tone questions ask students to identify the attitude or mood of a specific part of the passage or of the entire passage. A common characteristic of this question type is answer choices that are marked by one to three word phrases containing adjectives sush as positive: positive, negative, neutral, supportive, skeptical, suspicious. Tone questions test students’ ability to recognize an attitude or disposition of the author, which is signaled by the use of a handful of trigger words. To answer this question, students should base on the sentences that express personal views of the authors such as praise, criticism, support, doubt...
- What is the author’s opinion of____?
- Which of the following most accurately reflects the author’s opinion of____?
- The attitude of the author of the passage toward x is best described as one of
- The tone of the author is best described as.
7. Application questions
This is a relatively difficult question .The application question type asks you to use the information in the passage as premises and draw a conclusion that is not directly addressed in the passage. The key to this question type is the ability to identify the crux of an argument and see how it relates to a similar situation.
1. The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following?
2. Which of the following statements would provide the most logical continuation of the final paragraph?
3. [An idea or action described in the passage] is most similar to which of the following?
II. HOW TO ADAPT GOOD MULTI-CHOICE EXERCISES AND USE THEM EFFECTIVELY 
Basing on these main types of questions, I take notice of some tips of adapting exercises as the follow: 
Some tips of