Using while - Reading techniques to improve reading comprehension for the 11th form students at ham rong school

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale of the study
Nowadays English has become an international language because it is widely used in many parts of the world. In the tendency of integration of the global economy, English is one of the effective communicative tools for everybody. The role of English is considered to be very important in the fields of economics, politics, science, culture and education. Especially, Vietnam’s official membership of WTO on 7th November 2006 opened a new door for integrating into the world economy, and more and more people want to learn English for communicating with foreign partners, tourism, study tours, etc.
In Vietnam, English has been brought into the school curriculum as a compulsory subject, and the teaching and learning of that international language has been recently paid great attention to. When teaching English, the teacher teaches his students not only the English language but also its usage. And under the right guidance, right help of the teacher, the students have to try their best to master 4 language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking in order to communicate in English successfully. Among these four skills, reading plays an important role in enriching the students’ general knowledge and in helping them with their further study later.
Owing to the importance of reading itself, the growing interest in learning English in Vietnam creates a wide learning environment. It can be seen that the teaching of reading of reading comprehension has been paid in increasing attention to its different aspects. As time goes by, many experts and methodologists have come to an understanding that reading comprehension is important not only at schools but also afterwards. That is reading helps students as readers develop their language ability in general and comprehension skills in particular at schools as well as gives them other benefits to avoid cultural and language bias, etc. in daily communication. Recognizing the importance of reading, I decide on choosing the theme “Using While- Reading Techniques to Improve Reading Comprehension for the 11th Form Students at Ham Rong School ” 
1.2. Aims of the study
The specific aims of the study are as follows:
Clarifying the nature of reading comprehension in accordance with some important points in teaching this skill.
Investigating the present situation of teaching and learning reading comprehension of the 11th form students to find out advantages as well as problems facing both teachers and students in reading lessons.
Suggesting useful techniques to develop the reading comprehension skills in the while- reading stage for the 11th form in Phan Dang Luu high school.
1.3. Scope of the study
Due to the limitation, all the techniques suggested are used in the while- reading stage. And the object of this study is the 11th form students at Phan Dang Luu high school.
1.4. Methods of the study
To implement this study, the following methods are used:
Consulting related materials: For the sake of getting knowledge and useful ideas, I read many books and other materials in addition to earlier researches about reading and teaching reading comprehension.
Delivering survey questionnaire and observing reading lessons: To fulfill this study, two survey questionnaires, one for students and another for teachers and some reading class observations were carried out to find out the teachers’ and students’ attitudes toward teaching and learning reading as well as their working methods.
2. DEVELOPMENT
I. LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Approaches of language teaching
1.1. Definitions of reading comprehension
 In teaching reading, it is necessary to understand the nature of reading comprehension. What the teacher understands about it will have a great influence on what he or she teaches in the class. He would know what to teach and how to make his reading lesson effectively. In fact, methodologists have been providing different definitions of reading comprehension.
According to Grellet (1981: 3): “Reading comprehension or understanding a written text means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible.” The author means that reading comprehension is an activity which aims at decoding the meaning of word combination in the text in the most efficient way.
Also concerning the reading comprehension, Richard and Good (1978:9) provide a clearer point of view: 
“Reading comprehension is best described as an understanding between the author and the reader. The emphasis is on the reader understanding of the printed page based on the individual reader’s unique background of experience. Reading is much than just pronouncing words correctly or simply what the author intends. It is the process whereby the printed pages stimulate ideas, experiences and responses that are unique to an individual”.
According to the above authors, reading comprehension is not only simply understanding what is written, but also is what stimulates students to remember from their experiences. That knowledge is then used to get meaning out of printed page, but in the mind of the readers which included not only facts or details but also emotion, belief and critical evaluation.
From these opinions, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a process of understanding what is conveyed in the text. It does not mean that the reader needs to understand every single word in the text but actively work on the text and extract the required information efficiently.
1.2. The roles of the teacher in a reading lesson 
It is natural that in a reading lesson, the students must work actively and individually. It does not mean that the teacher has nothing to do. Discussing the roles of the teacher in teaching reading, Richard and Amato (1988) emphasize:
“The first role is to facilitate communicative process between all participants in the classroom, and between these participants and the various activities and text. The second role is to act interdependent within the learning teaching group”.
From Richard and Amato’s point of view, the teacher is an organizer of resources. He also plays the role as a guide within the classroom procedures and students’ activities during the lesson.
Referring to this issue, Moore (1992:5) adds: “The teacher is an environmental engineer who organizes the classroom space to fit their goal and to maximize learning. The way the physical space of the classroom is organized can either help or hinder learning ”.
In general, the teacher must be aware of what they need to do in a reading lesson. Playing their roles well will certainly help the teacher lead successful reading lessons. It will help students understand the text efficiently, and at the same time improve considerably their reading skills.
1.3. The roles of the students in a reading lesson
In communicative language teaching, the learners are regarded as the centre of the lesson. It is true in every reading lesson. During the reading process, the students play the role of an active and creative listener as well as readers.
In a reading lesson students must take an active role as listeners. They need to listen to the teacher’s instructions and explanations carefully to find out the way of recognizing information and way of deducing new words or grammatical structures.
The students must also be active and flexible readers, it is wise if they work on their own during the reading process, make full use of the class time to read and do the exercises to achieve a full understanding of the text. It is necessary for them to find a suitable reading strategy and use their background knowledge to fulfill their tasks because the significance of the text as well as the information is not always directly stated in printed pages. 
In summary, students are the key factor to decide the success of a reading lesson. Teacher and students ate interrelated to each other during the process of teaching and learning reading skills.
2.1. Reading activities
We read different texts in different ways. According to the way of reading, we have aloud reading and silent reading. Depending on the purpose of reading, we can classify reading into skimming, scanning, intensive reading and extensive reading.
2.1.1. Skimming
Skimming is commonly used in reading comprehension. It is one of specific reading techniques necessary for quick and efficient reading. There have been many definitions of skimming.
Greenwood (1981:92) writes: “the reader goes through particular passage such as newspaper article merely to get the gist”
In this term, Douglas Brown has the same opinion but it is clearer than that of above author. He wrote:
“Skimming consists of quickly running eyes across the whole text for its gist. Skimming gives readers the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic, or massage, or possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas.”
Considering the two opinions, it can be concluded that skimming is a skill that enables readers to get the main point of the text without being concerned with details. They only go through the text very fast to get general sense or the gist of it. 
In brief, skimming is a very useful study technique to help the learner organize his thoughts and specify what information he can get from a book, so that his reading is more efficient. Hence, skimming should be applied in teaching reading to help students have an overview of what they read. 
2.1.2. Scanning
Similar to skimming, scanning is a necessary technique in reading efficiently. Douglas (2001:308) defines scanning as follows: “Scanning was quickly searching for some particular piece or pieces of information in a text”
Sharing the same opinion with Douglas Brown, Williams (2001:100) emphasizes: “Scanning occurs when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a particular point of information.” It is used to decide exactly what kind of information we are looking for and where to find it.
In addition, Grellet (1981:19) gives a more detailed definition of scanning: “When scanning, we only try to locate information and often we do not even follow the linearity of passage to do so, and scanning is far more limited since it only means retrieving what information is relevant to our purpose.”
These authors have the same point that while scanning reader does not need to read form cover to cover, they only look for the information they want by running their eyes rapidly along the lines. It can be practised with the great range of texts such as dictionaries, map, advertisements, labels, etc. This kind of reading is very useful in reading selectively.
In general, both skimming and scanning are effective techniques for quick and efficient reading. It is advisable to make use of them to improve reading comprehension skills for students in reading classes.
2.1.3. Intensive reading
Intensive reading is also widely used in a reading class. Its is an effective way to explore the text, to go deeply into the meaning and the organization of the text.
According to Grellet (1981:4) “Intensive reading means reading short text to extract specific information. This is an accuracy activity involving reading for details.”
In addition, Nuttal (1989:23) writes: “Intensive reading involves approaching the texts under the close guidance of the teacher, or under the guidance of a task which forces the students to pay great attention to the ext. the aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a profound and detail understanding of the text: not only of what is means but also of how the meaning is produced. ”
From the mentioned opinions, intensive reading’s aim is to achieve full understanding of the logical arguments, attitude, and purposes of the writer as well as his linguistic means to achieve these purposes.
Sharing the same opinion with Nuttal, Douglas (2001:312) defines: 
“Intensive reading is usually a classroom oriented activity in which students focus on linguistic or semantic details of a passage. Reading calls students’ attention to grammatical forms, discourse markers and other surface structure details for the purpose of understanding literal meaning, implication, rhetorical relationships and the like”.
In short, intensive reading is a basic classroom activity. It is really effective if the teacher and his students know how to fully exploit this activity in class with the help of reading exercises.
2.1.4. Extensive reading
Extensive reading is also called “reading for fluency”. The students read long texts to have general understanding, to develop fluency in reading or to relax. This is an activity involving global understanding just as Grellet (1981:4) confirms: “Extensive reading means reading longer text, usually or one’s own pleasure. This is a fluency activity mainly involving general understanding.”
In Brown’s opinion, besides practising fluency, extensive reading helps students enrich their language elements because it is one of the keys to achieve reading ability, linguistic competence, vocabulary, spelling and writing (2001:301)
And to Nuttal (1989:168), this kind of reading is also a very useful skill for students to widen their knowledge as he wrote: “The best way to improve one’s knowledge of foreign language is to go and live among its speakers. The next best way is to read extensively in it.”
To summarize, extensive reading is one of good ways to improve one’s knowledge of a foreign language because its aim is to cover the content of text in the shortest possible period of time. In the language classroom, the teacher must introduce some suitable reading materials to students, as it is useful for them to form a good habit of reading.
3.1. Stages of a teaching reading lesson
A reading lesson can be divided into three stages which are pre- reading stage, while- reading stage and post- reading stage. Each of these stages carries its own features and purposes and requires different techniques and strategies (William, 1984:37)
The Pre-reading stage
In a reading lesson, the pre- reading stage is an important one because it creates motivation and positive attitude towards the reading text for studnets. It will focus their attention on what they are going to read. Concerning the purposes of the pre- stage, Williams (1984:37) writes:
“What the pre- reading phrase tries to do is:
To introduce and arouse interest in the topic.
To motivate learners by giving a reason for reading.
To provide some language preparation for the text”
In general, in the pre- reading stage, it is necessary to set a good preparation for students, provide them the sense of what they are going to do in their reading lesson.
3.1.2. The while-speaking stage
While- reading stage is the main part of a reading lesson. Without this stage, the students will lose the chance to deal with the text to understand the writer’s purpose and clarify the text’s content in detail. Williams (1984:38) points out the aims of the while- reading stage:
To help to understand of the writer’s purpose.
To help to understand of the text structure.
To clarify the text.
He also gives the teacher some questions to ask himself on order to deal with the above- mentioned aims:
What is the function of this text?
How is the text organized or developed? (e.g.: a narrative, an explanation with various examples, an argument and counter argument)
What content or information is extracted from the text?
What may the reader anger or deduce from the text?
What language may be learned from the text?
What reading styles may be practiced?
It is clear that, question 1 deals with the aims of understanding, the writer’s purpose, question 2 helps to recognize the text structure and the rest help to clarify the text content.
The answers to these questions will be a guide for the teacher in this stage. Depending on their answers, the teacher will choose suitable activities for students which focus them on exploiting the meaning of the text, and develop their reading skills.
3.1.3. The post-reading stage
The post- reading stage is the final but not the least important stage of a reading lesson because it is time for students to apply what they have got from the text into real life communication. In Williams’s opinions ( 1984: 39), the post- reading stage aims at:
To consolidate or reflect upon what has been read.
To relate the text to the learners’ own knowledge interest or views.
In summary, each of the reading stage carries its own aims and activities. It is very effective if these three stages are combined flexibly and appropriately for an efficient reading lesson. In the while- reading stage, it is necessary to help the students improve and develop sub- reading skills such as skimming, scanning, or reading for details. If the students can acquire these skills, it is easier for them to understand efficiently the significance of the text. To acquire these skills, students may be instructed to take part in various activities according to each skill. There are numerous activities in this stage. The teacher should be flexible in choosing them for their reading lessons. In the process of reading, asking students to work in pairs or groups is also advisable. This may enable students to feel more pleasant in reading, encourage them to work harder to improve and develop effective reading skills.
3.1.4. Summary
In this chapter, all the concerning theoretical background of reading comprehension has been presented. First, some definitions of reading and reading comprehension basing on some linguistics scholars have been presented. Second, teaching reading comprehension consisting of relationship between reading and other skills, the role of the teacher as well as the students in the three stages of a reading lesson have been reviewed.
II. The English teaching and learning situations at Ham Rong high school
1. Description of the students at Ham Rong high school
The students at Ham Rong school had learnt English for seven years before they entered Ham Rong High school. The level of English for grade 11 students is targeted at pre-intermediate level though a few actually reach the standard. As their lower-secondary years were spent with the old text books and the grammar translation method, most students are, to some extent, good at grammar, but bad at listening, writing and speaking the target language. 
Nowadays, together with improvements of other skills of English learning, reading comprehension has been put into consideration at secondary schools in Vietnam. As time goes by, a lot of achievements in teaching reading comprehension can be clearly seen. It is true that quality of teaching and learning reading comprehension in most secondary schools has been improved remarkably in terms of the teachers’ methods and the learners’ attitudes. However, there are still some problems facing the reading teachers a well as the pupils.
In order to fulfill this study, two survey questionnaires were conducted to the 11th form pupils and eight teachers of English, especially those who are teaching English to the 11th form students at Ham Rong high school to get more details of the reality of teaching and learning reading comprehension at while- reading stage. This section deals with main points: Objects of the study, objectives of the study, methods of study.
2. Settings of the study
The main objects of this study are:
One hundred 11th form secondary students at Ham Rong high school, most of them have been learning English for nearly six years.
Eight teachers of English at Ham Rong high school, especially those who are teaching English to the 11th form students.
III. Research methodology
1. Subjects
The questionnaire was designed for 100 students of grade 11 from 4 classes (11B3, 11B6, 11B8, 11B9) at Ham Rong High School to get information to fulfill the aims of the study. These students were randomly selected to answer the question