Solutions to improve reading skill helping students at nong cong 4 high school do the national general secondary tests of english better

THANH HOA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
NONG CONG 4 HIGH SCHOOL
THE STUDY OF TEACHING EXPERIENCE
SUBJECT:
SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE READING 
SKILL HELPING STUDENTS AT NONG CONG 4 
HIGH SCHOOL DO THE NATIONAL GENERAL SECONDARY TESTS OF ENGLISH BETTER
	By: Nguyễn Văn Luân
	Position: Head of English group
	 Aspect: English
 Address:
Nong Cong, 2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
PAGE
PART I. INTRODUCTIONS
1
I. Reasons for choosing the topic
1
II. Scopes and objectives of the study 
2
III. Methodology of the study
2
IV Aims of the study
3
IV. Significance of the study
3
PART II. CONTENTS
5
I. The theoretical bases of the study.
5
 1. Reading skill.
5
2. Overview of reading exercises in the course books and those in national general test of English.
 2.1.Reading pasages in the national general secondary education tests of English and those in the sample tests.
2.2. The reading units in the course books having the same questions as those in the national general secondary education tests of English.
5
5
7
II. The practical bases of the study.
8
 1. Reality of solutions to reading skill
 1.1. Quality about students’ reading skill
 1.2. Habits of practising reading skill
8
8
9
 2. Solutions to improve the problems.
 2.1. Questions for detail information.
 2.1.1. Questions for detail information from the second sample test of 2017, reading passage 1
 2.1.2. Teaching students strategies to do reading lessons
 2.2. Questions to determine the main idea or the title of the passage.
2.2.1. Question for main idea of the passage in the second national general secondary sample test, 2017, reading passage 1:
 2.2.2. Provide students procedures to do reading lessons
 2.3. Questions for vocabulary
 2.4. Questions for reference objects
 2.4.1. Questions for reference objects found from the national general secondary tests.
 2.4.2. Guide student stategies to do this type of questions
 2.5. Question for inferring
2.5.1. The referring question in the reading lesson of the second national general secondary test, 2017
 2.5.2. Guiding students how to do the reading lesson
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9
10
11
12
13
14
14
15
15
16
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 3 . The positive impacts brought abot from my study
18
 4. The scope of applying of the study.
19
PART III. CONCLUSION
25
I. Conclusions.
25
II. Proposals to the leaders.
25
REFERENCE BOOKS
26
PART I. INTRODUCTION
Reasons for the study. 
 Considering about the recent English result of General certificate of Secondary Examinations (GCSE), according to statistics from Thanh Hoa department of Education and training, Thanh Hoa was ranked in the worst group through out all the country, This fact makes the officials and English teachers concerned about, we should give out an approriate answer to the problem above so that we can find out solutions to improve the effect of teaching and learning English properly, especially, for the reslt of the next GCSE examination .
 Understading the issue mentioned, after spending a long time studying and analysing the GCSE tests of English, sample tests of 2016, 2017, 2018, this shows that the tests demand for knowledge and linguistic skill, a lot of people have considered the content of the tests, however, up yo now, thaere has not been an official study specifying and finding out the basic causes and drawbacks from the students so as to offer a prosper solution to the problem. If we do not know students’ shortcomings in some skills, we can not help them during learning at school an revising effectively.
Therefore, during the process of teaching, testing, evaluating and talking to my students ang collgues, I understand that my students’ bad point is reading skill, on the other hands it is seen from GCSE examinations, the rate of reading skill accounts for 30 pecent the tltal marks of the test so I decided to choose the topic “ Solutions to improve reading skill helping students at Nong Cong 4 high school do the national general secondary tests of English better” for studying.
 Scope and objectives of the study.
To make progress in reading skill, help my students do types reading tests in the GCSE examinations, in this study I mainly focus on the problems below.
First one: The state of comprehensive reading and my students’result of doing comprehesion reading.
Second one: The solutions to improve the effect of doing reading tests in the GCSE examinations.
Methodology of the study.
Methodology, describes the research methods and data collection of the study.
To reach the final goal of studying, in this topic, I apply some methods for my study
Observing method.
Investigating and information collecting method.
Testing method.
Comparing and contrasting method.
Analyzing and evaluating method.
Aims of the study.
Seeing my students’difficulties in doing reading exercises in the national tests, their discouragement when having reading exercises as well. To help my students do the reading exercises better in the tests, my study chiefly mentions the following purposes:
Understanding the students’ ability in doing the reading exercises in the tests.
Assisting the students realise the questions often appearing in the examinations.
Providing the students with stategies to do the tests of reading in the national examinations.
From the goals mentioned above, my study gives a contribution to improving the effect of doing reading exercises in the national examinations.This also offers the researcher methods in teaching reading skill on competence developing orientation of learners. The study is carried out with a view to answering the questions below.
Question 1: How is the students’ result of doing reading exercises?
Question 2: What problems do the students deal with when doing reading exercises of the national tests?
Question 3: What solutions do we need to help the students to do the reading tests better?
The significance of the study.
After studying the types of reading exercises in the national English tests, seeing that there are some types questions appearing in the tests, for example; questions for specific information, questions for main ideas, questions for inferring, questions for the refference objectives, questions for vocabulary. Comparing with the questions appearing in the course books, I have found the following differences. 
First, practising reading skills in the text books is different from doing reading exercises in the national tests.
Second, Some skills of reading, such as: skimming for the main idea, guessing, infference are only mentioned in few reading lessons.
Third, the skill for refference objectives is not mentioned in reading lessons in the course books, whereas this is required in the national English examinations.
A number of reading skills has not been properly mentioned in the course books, such as skimming for the main idea, guessing, infference . The study focuses on those more, in addition, the study has provided students with the reading skill for refference objectives, an necessary skill which has not mentioned in the current course books. 
PART II. CONTENTS
The theoretical bases of the study.
Reading skill
 Reading skill is one of four skills of learning English. To evaluate learners’ reading competence, there are fifteen reading questions of fifty ones in the national general secondary education test of English, equivalent to 3/10 points. Nguyễn Thị Hồng Nhung & Nguyễn Bảo Trang (2010) show that the test for reading consists of six types of the questions, they are questions for specific information, questions for main ideas, questions for linking, questions for the refference objectives, questions for vocabulary, questions for inferring, Nguyễn Thị Chi and her partner (2016) say that learners want to do the reading tests better, they need understand the skills below:
 - Scanning is ability of reading passages fast with a view to finding spcific information to anser the questions.
 - Skimming is ability of reading passages quickly to find the main ideas of the passage;
 - Guessing is predicting meaning of the words basing on the specific situation - Inference is inferring ability to draw out the conclusion from information of the passage.
 - Refering is contrastive skill to understand the the words referring to thing or person mentioned before in the passage.
In short, both the authors show the important skills to do the reading tests better, however, Nguyễn Thị Chi and her partner (2016) provides the questions in the scope of the national general certificate secondary education test of English, I agree with this idea, therefore, I only focus on five reading skills in this study.
Overview of reading exercises in the course books and those in national general test of English.
Reading pasages in the national general secondary education tests of English and those in the sample tests.
To have an overview of the national general secondary education test of English, I have studied the reading parts in recent exams as well as the sample tests, the result of the study is shown in the table below;
Table 1: Statistics, skill questions, number of words
Exam
reading passages 
Questions of skill 
quantity of words
the national general secondary education test of English
2 
Unit 1: 6 questions for the detail of information; 2 questions for vocabulary; 1 question for objective of referrence; 1 question for main idea
Unit 2: 5 questions for the detail of information;; 2 questions for vocabulary; 1 questions for objective of referrence; 2 questions for inferring.
Unit 1: 355 words (10 quetions)
Unit 2: 481words (10 quetions)
Sample test 2017 number 1
2 
Unit 1: 4 questions for the detail of information; 1 question for vocabulary; 1 question for objective of referrence; 1 question for main idea
Unit 2: 6 questions for the detail of information; 1 question for vocabulary; 1 question for objective of referrence
Unit 1: 308 words (7 questions)
Unit 2: 396 words (8 questions)
Sample test 2017 number 2
2
Unit 1: 4 questions for the detail of information; 1 question for vocabulary; 1 question for objective of referrence; 1 question for main idea
Unit 2: 5 questions for the detail of information; 1 question for vocabulary; 1 question for objective of referrence; 1 question for inferring.
Unit 1: 302 words (7 questions)
Unit 2: 409 words (8 quetions)
Table 1 shows that the national tests of English consists of two reading parts about from 300 to more than 400 words, reading passages are from foreign sources of documents with diversal topics, such as; culture, society, education, health, sports the reading passages cover the skills through types of questions, for example; questions for main ideas, questions for detail information, questions for guessing meaing of th words, questions for referrence, inferring .. The questions are designed with suitable levels from kowing, understanding to low and high application. of these questions of reading passages, the questions for detail information are majorities over 70.
The reading units in the course books having the same questions as those in the national general secondary education tests of English.
 Through the reality of teaching English, I realise that when having the reading questions like the questions in the national exam, my students are often confused, they do not know how to do the reading parts in the test. To get proofs for comparing, I have studied the reading comprehension questions in the course books English 10,11,12, and the result of the study has been shown below. 
Table 2 shows the number of the reading passages in the course books which have the same questions as in the national tests.
English 10
English11
English12
Unit 4: Special Education
Unit 4: Volunteer Work 
Unit 10: Engdangered Species
Test Yourself B
Unit 15: Women in Society
Table 2 shows the frequency of appearing types of questions which are the same as those in the national general tests of English in some units in the course books, such as, 1 unit in English 10, 2 units in English 11, this figure in English 12. This result shows that the types of these questions in the national general secondary education tests rarely appear in the reading passages of the course books English 10,11,12. Although reading skill are focused, designing the questions for reading passages in the course books are not corresponding with the questions of reading passage in the national general secondary tests of English. Intensively studying about reading skill, particularly, the skill for “finding the reference object” has not been mentioned ,whereas the English tests of the national general examinations require this skill. It is ths difference from the form and content that the students’ poor result of the national generral tests is completely resonable.
The practical bases of the study.
Practical situation of solutions to reading skill.
 Quality about students’ reading skill. 
To know the quality of doing the reading exercises of the twelfth form students, I have surveyed the comprehenion reading competence of 90 students from two classes at medium level with two reading passages including 15 questions with the different levels of difficulty to choose the gifted students for universities and colleges. the time for two tests lasts 20 minutes. the result of doing the tests of the students has shown below.
 Chart 1: Result surveying the competence of doing reading exercise of the students.
 Chart 1 shows that the students getting from 2 to 4 true answers accout for 78.8%, equipvelent to 2,4/10 points of reading part in the test which the students gain. a sad situationthat after surveying, there are 78,8 % students under average marks of reading skill, the result also shows that noone got from 10 to 15 true answers, there are only 21,2% of the students gaining the average marks without quite good and good. So I can say that most students are very bad at reading skill of the nationaf general secondary exams, on the other hand, if we analyse more about the result of each subskill, most of the students can not choose the right answer for the questions of reference object, questions for vocabulay. This fact reflects the most apparent disadvantage that few former studies have been mentioned. 
1.2. Habits of practising reading skill.
By the bad quality of reading skill, the researcher asked for ninety students’ ideas through the survey votes in Vietnamese including open and close questions, my purpose is to investigate my students’opinions as well as their awareness about the reading lessons. The result shown below:
Ordinal numbers
Frequency
Quantity
percentage
1
Usualy
7
8%
2
Sometimes
8
9%
3
Rarely
26
29%
4
Never
49
54%
 Most students (83%) answer “Rarely” or “Never” do the reading exercises voluntarily, while I asked teachers whether they give students reading exercises after school, most of them answer “Rarely” or “Never” . So the students have not learn English voluntarily, the teachers have not focused on reading skill, especially, reading lessons in the national general secondary exams, this, obviously, has led to the bad result. 
Solutions to improve the problems.
2.1. Questions for detail information.
 This is the most common question in the reading lessons, according to my statistics about the recent national general secondary tests(2016, 2017) and some sample tests, the number of questions for detail information makes up to 70% in two reading passaes in the tests. This is, therefore, the first type of questions to be paid attention to and teachers should guide students to do the reading. From the study, I see that the questions for detail information often appear by the following types:
Question: According to the passage/paragraph _____, who/ when/ where/ what/ how/ why______?
Question: In the passage/pagraph______, what does the author say about ____?
Question: According to the passage, which of the following is true about____
Question: In the passage/paragraph _____, the author states that 
Question: According to the passage/paragraph ______, which of the following is (NOT) true? All of the following are true EXCEPT 
Question: All of the following are mentioned in the passage EXCEPT
 2.1.1. Questions for detail information from the second sample test of 2017, reading passage 1: 
Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions. 
 Whales are the largest animals in the world, and the gentlest creatures we know. Although the whale is very huge, it is not hindered at all by its size when it is in the water. Whales have tails that end like flippers. With just a gentle flick, it can propel itself forward. The skin of a whale is so smooth that it does not create any friction that can slow the whale down. A whale’s breathing hole is located on the top of its head, so it can breathe without having to completely push its head out of the water. Whales are protected from the cold seawater by body fat that is called blubber. 
 Whales live in the ocean but, in terms of behaviours, they are more similar to humans than fish. They live in family groups and they even travel in groups when they have to migrate from cooler to warmer waters. The young stay with their parents for as long as fifteen years. Whales are known not to desert the ill or injured members; instead, they cradle them. 
 When whales are in danger, there are people who go to great lengths to help them. One such case occurred in 1988, when three young whales were trapped in the sea. It was close to winter and the sea had begun to freeze over. Whales are mammals that require oxygen from the air, so the frozen ice was a great danger to them. All they had then was a tiny hole in the ice for them to breathe through. Volunteers from all over soon turned up to help these creatures. They cut holes in the ice to provide more breathing holes for the whales. These holes would also serve as guides for the whales so that they could swim to warmer waters. 
 (Adapted from 
Question : Where is the whale’s breathing hole located?
A. On its head B. On its back C. On its face D. On its tail 
Question : According to paragraph 2, the author mentions all of the following to show that whales “are more similar to humans” EXCEPT . 
A. they do not desert the ill or injured members 
B. they do not migrate from cooler to warmer waters 
C. they live in family groups and travel in groups 
D. the young stay with their parents for almost fifteen years 
Question : According to the passage, why was the frozen ice on the sea surface a danger to whales? 
A. Because they couldn’t swim in icy cold water. 
B. Because they couldn’t eat when the weather was too cold. 
C. Because whales couldn’t breathe without sufficient oxygen. 
D. Because the water was too cold for them as they were warm-blooded. 
Teaching students strategies to do this type of questions.
This types of question are often not difficult because the information often appear in the passage. For these basic questions, if students know strategies to do the reading lessons, they will not take much time to do these quesions. To do these types of advanced questions for the aims of the entrance requirement to universities, students both have procedures and understand the reading lesson intensively. To get hifh marks they need to follow the procedures below: 
+ Determiming the meanings of the sentences through key words, question words, such as what, why, where, when, how verbs, adjectives. Asking students to pay attention to proper nouns.
+ Locating the information basing on the key words through scanning. Noticing students expressions of synanym or the closest meaning expressions to key words. After locating the information, we read the sentence before and the one after the key word with a view to finding the answer. 
+ Using ou