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

HOANG LAN CHI

DIVERSIFYING READING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH 8 TEXTBOOK:
ACTION RESEARCH STUDY IN A SECONDARY SCHOOL
IN HA NOI
(Đa dạng hóa các hoạt động đọc trong sách giáo khoa lớp 8: Một nghiên cứu
hành động tại một trường cấp 2 ở Hà Nội)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01

Hanoi, 2020


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

HOANG LAN CHI

Diversifying reading activities in english 8 textbook:
action research study in a secondary school
In ha noi
Đa dạng hóa các hoạt động đọc trong sách giáo khoa lớp 8: Một nghiên cứu
hành động tại một trường cấp 2 ở Hà Nội

M.A. MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 8140231.01
Supervisor: Dr. Vu Thi Thanh Nha

Hanoi, 2020


DECLARATION
I hereby declare that I am the author of the report entitled “Diversifying
reading activities in English 8 textbook: Action research study in a secondary
school in Ha Noi”, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
master at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, Hanoi University of Languages and
International Studies - Vietnam National University. I declare that the material is
original, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material
previously published or written by another person, except where due
acknowledgement is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any
material that infringes copyright, and has not previously been submitted to this
university or any other institution in application for admission to a degree, diploma
or other qualifications.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Vu Thi
Thanh Nha for her precious and continuous guidance throughout the year while I
was doing this research. Her invaluable support and encouragement, unconditional

dedication and enthusiasm kept me inspired during the accomplishment of the
research. Without these, the thesis could not have been completed.
I am grateful to all the professors for their valuable lectures, which
contributed to lay the foundation for this thesis.
I would like to thank my colleagues, who gave me important advice on
implementing the plan, thank my students who were willing to participate in the
research and fulfilling the questionnaire responsibly. Their participation was so
significant to the completion of my research.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their encouragement and
continuous support while I made every effort to complete this paper.

Hanoi, May 30th 2020

Hoang Lan Chi

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ABSTRACT
The research was conducted in a secondary school with grade 8th English as a
Foreign Language (EFL) students with a view to investigating the impacts of
diversifying reading activities on the teaching and learning of reading skill, and
students‟ attitudes toward its application. The thesis followed the action research
framework. Participants of the research were 50 EFL students in grade 8, studying
in the same English class at a secondary school in Hanoi. Data were collected by
questionnaires, filled by the students, and the teacher‟s observation. Analysis of the
data showed that the diversification of reading activities was useful in that it made
the learning of reading skill more effective, motivating and accessible to students.
Also, there was a positive change of students‟ attitudes towards learning reading
skill. Therefore, it is concluded that diversification of reading activities was

beneficial and should be employed EFL classes.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................. vi
LISTS OF TABLES ................................................................................................. vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................1
1.1 Rationale ...............................................................................................................1
1.2 Aims of the study and research questions .............................................................3
1.3 Scope of the study .................................................................................................3
1. 4. Methods of the study ...........................................................................................4
1.5. Significance of the study ......................................................................................4
1.6. Design of the study...............................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................6
2.1 Theoretical background of reading .......................................................................6
2.1.1. Definitions of reading and reading comprehension ..........................................6
2.1.2. Classification of reading ...................................................................................8
2.1.3. Stages of a reading lesson ...............................................................................12
2.2. Teaching and learning reading ...........................................................................16
2.2.1. The importance of reading in foreign language learning ................................16
2.2.2. Factors in teaching and learning reading ........................................................16
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .........................................................................22
3.1 Action research framework .................................................................................22
3.1.1 What is action research? ...................................................................................22

3.1.2 Action research cycle .......................................................................................23
3.1.3 Reasons to choose action research ...................................................................24
3.2 Context of the study and the material used .........................................................25
3.3. Participants of the research ................................................................................26

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3.4. Procedures ..........................................................................................................27
3.5. Data collection instruments and analysis ...........................................................31
3.5.1 Questionnaires ..................................................................................................32
3.5.2 Classroom observation .....................................................................................32
3.5.3 Data analysis ....................................................................................................33
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .................................................34
4.1 Data collected from the pre-questionnaires ........................................................34
4.1.1. Students‟ attitudes toward the importance of reading skill and its benefits ....34
4.1.2. Students‟ interest in reading and reading lessons ............................................35
4.1.3. Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of the reading skill, reading essons
and individual reading activities in the textbook ......................................................37
4.1.4. Students‟ problems in learning reading skill ...................................................41
4.2. Data collected from observation ........................................................................42
4.3. Data collected from the post-questionnaires ......................................................44
4.3.1 Students‟ attitudes towards diversifying reading activities ..............................44
4.3.2. Students‟ interest in reading and reading lessons after the diversification of
reading activities .......................................................................................................45
4.3.3. Students‟ opinions on the benefits of diversifying reading activities .............46
4.3.4 Students‟ opinions on the usefulness of diversified reading activities ............48
4.4. Summary ............................................................................................................50
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ...............................................................................51
5.1. Recapitulation ....................................................................................................51

5.2 Implications .........................................................................................................54
5.3 Limitations ..........................................................................................................56
5.4 Recommendations for further research ...............................................................57
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................58
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ I

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2. 1– A model for thinking about reading comprehension (Snow, 2002, p.12) ...... 7
Figure 3. 1 The action research spiral (Kemmis, McTaggart & Nixon, 2014, p.19) 23
Figure 4. 1 Students‟ attitudes toward the importance of reading skill.....................34
Figure 4. 2 Students‟ attitudes toward the benefits of learning reading skill ............35
Figure 4. 3 Students‟ interest in reading....................................................................36
Figure 4. 4 Students‟ interest in reading lessons .......................................................36
Figure 4. 5 Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of reading skill ......................37
Figure 4. 6 Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of reading lessons .................38
Figure 4. 7 Evaluation of students‟ behaviour and class atmosphere .......................42
Figure 4. 8 Students‟ opinions on the usefulness of diversifying reading activities .44
Figure 4. 9 Students‟ interest in reading and reading lessons after the diversification
...................................................................................................................................45
LISTS OF TABLES
Table 3. 1 The topics and focused reading skills in grade 8 English textbook .........25
Table 3. 2 The diversified reading activities .............................................................28
Table 4. 1 Students‟ opinions on the difficulty level of the reading activities in the
textbook .....................................................................................................................39
Table 4. 2 Students‟ demand for help in reading lessons ..........................................40
Table 4. 3 Students‟ difficulties in learning reading..................................................41
Table 4. 4 Students‟ attitudes about the benefits of diversifying reading activities ..46

Table 4. 5 Students‟ opinions on the usefulness of diversified reading activities ....48

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter mentions the background and rationale to conduct the study, states the
aims, scope, and organization of the graduation thesis.
1.1 Rationale
English is widely considered the international language in many countries in
the world and is popularly used by people from different countries to communicate
with each other when they meet. Due to the popularity of English in both social and
work-related situations, the ability to use this language has become a criterion to
evaluate job applicants in a number of companies and organization around the
world. Aware of the important role of English, in Vietnam, a national project on
enhancing the teaching and learning of English was issued over ten years ago.
English has become a compulsory subject in school curriculum the teaching and
learning of that international language has received increasing attention. English
teachers, therefore, are expected to do their jobs well to improve their students‟
English ability.
To be able to use English, language learners are supposed to have sufficient
exposure and practice different skills, among those, reading is one of the most
important ones. Reading is not just a means of maintaining social interaction or
gaining word knowledge but also important to the process of learning (Watkins,
2017). Reading plays a very crucial role in learning and mastering of foreign
language like English (Pathan & Al-Delsi, 2013). In learning a foreign language,
reading is an essential skill to acquire knowledge and exchange information
(Dlugosz, 2000), as Watkins (2017) stated, reading is “a crucial source” of
comprehensible input, and the sufficient exposure to a huge amount of such input is

essential to be successful (Watkins, 2017, p.14). Obviously, the excellence of
reading skill eases students reading process, thus helps them acquire more
knowledge from a variety of reading materials in English. Being good at reading
also has the potential to help improve students‟ overall language skills due to the
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fact that their vocabulary knowledge and exposure to the target language use are
increased, which is supposed to enhance students‟ vocabulary retention and increase
the possibility for the words learnt to be used in students‟ speaking and writing.
This is because good reading texts provide models for writing and even speaking,
also introduce new topics, thus stimulate discussion and the opportunities to study
the language knowledge. Thanks to this, it is true to say that learners “read to learn”
(Burns, 1988, p.1).
Though important, reading is a complex and multifaceted activity (Demiröz,
2010) and it is a complicated skill since it requires the combination of “attention,
memory, perceptual processes, and comprehension processes” (Kern, 1989, p.31),
therefore, in order to help students‟ improve this skill, it is essential for English
teachers to provide enough opportunities for their students to practice reading
(Pathan & Al-Delsi, 2013). In Vietnam, especially at secondary school level,
reading has always received a great deal of attention from both the teachers and the
students. However, despite the teachers‟ and students‟ effort, students “do not have
very strong feelings that reading in English is enjoyable” (Sùentürk, 2015). So far, a
number of methods have been employed by teachers to deal with the obstacles in
teaching and learning reading. Diversifying reading activities is among the
techniques applied by a number of teachers of English in their teaching process.
However, researches focusing on such specific technique as diversifying reading
activities to investigate its impacts on the teaching of reading and students‟ attitudes
towards its application remain insufficient. Nor there is any similar study looking at
this issue at secondary schools.

Similar problems occur in my school. My students often complain that reading
is rather difficult, boring, thus demotivating. Therefore, as a teacher, I tried
diversifying reading activities in the textbook in the hope to make students more
interested in reading. Besides, there have not been any statistical reports on the
application of this technique; therefore, in order to investigate the impacts of the
diversification technique on my secondary students‟ learning as well as their
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attitudes towards its application, I decided to conduct this research, titled
“Diversifying reading activities in English 8 textbook: Action research study in
a secondary school in Hanoi”. It is hoped that the findings of the research will
contribute to the understanding of the diversification technique in teaching reading
and its potential influence on the 8th grade students. I also hope to be able to make
useful suggestions for improving the situation of teaching and learning reading in
my school.
1.2 Aims of the study and research questions
This study aims to investigate the 8th grade students‟ problems towards
learning reading, to understand how the diversification of reading activities helps
improve the teaching and learning of reading and how students‟ attitudes towards
learning reading change thanks to the application of the technique. To achieve these
goals, the study focuses on finding the answers for the following research questions:
(1) What are the 8th grade students‟ problems in learning reading?
(2) How does diversifying reading activities help improve the teaching and
learning of reading?
(3) What are the 8th grade students‟ attitudes towards the diversification of
reading activities?
1.3 Scope of the study
The study focuses on investigating students‟ attitudes towards learning
reading, their problems in learning to read in English as well as their attitudes

towards the diversification of reading activities implemented by their teacher to
vary reading activities and provide her students with new learning experience. The
study was done with students of grade 8 in a secondary school in Hanoi. To
improve reading skill in English for 8th graders in a secondary school, the teacher
diversified reading activities in English textbook 8 with a view to making the lesson
more interesting so that it could attract students‟ attention and inspire them the love
for reading. In this thesis, the author is going to provide a brief overview of the
current situation of teaching and learning English reading of the 8th graders in a
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secondary school, and based on the findings, to suggest what should be done in a
reading lesson in order to motivate students in reading lessons as well as to help
them to find reading interesting and become effective readers.
1. 4. Methods of the study
The study followed the framework of action research, which is presented in
detail in the following part of this thesis. Qualitative and quantitative data were
collected by classroom observation and student questionnaires.
Questionnaires were designed to investigate the students‟ difficulties in
learning reading, their attitudes towards the learning of reading before the
implementation of diversified reading activities, and their opinions about learning
reading as well as the usefulness of diversification of reading activities after the
implementation period. The pre-questionnaires were given to the 8th graders who
participated in the study before after the first six weeks when the diversification of
reading activities was not yet applied. After the implementation period, the postquestionnaires were delivered to get data for analysis. Both sets of questionnaires
were translated to Vietnamese, explanation was also provided before students
completed them to make sure that they understand all the survey items.
Class observation was also used as a tool for the teacher to reflect on the
students‟ reactions to the diversification of reading activities and class atmosphere.
For each reading lesson, the teacher also made brief notes of important things that

should be taken into consideration when teaching diversified reading activities.
1.5. Significance of the study
The findings of the study were expected to provide teachers of English with
further understanding of the diversification technique in the teaching of reading,
what impacts it might have on students of the same age groups, what problems it
might cause as well as what should be taken into consideration if they would like to
apply the same technique in their reading lessons.

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1.6. Design of the study
The study is composed of three parts: Part I-Introduction presents the
rationale, the aims, scope, methods, and design of the study. Part II-Development
consists of three chapters: Chapter 1 - Literature review - conceptualizes the study‟s
theoretical background, presents the concepts relevant to the topic of the thesis. In
Chapter 2 the methodology used in the study is presented in details. Chapter 3
shows the major findings and discussions of the findings. The final part of the
thesis, Part III- Conclusion provides a summary of the major findings. On that basis,
suggestions on the application of diversification technique on reading activities for
grade 8 students are also made. In this part, limitations of the study are also
acknowledged and suggestions for future research are made accordingly.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter represents theoretical background to reading skill, brief
overview of the reading activities, and a review of previous studies on different

techniques to promote reading.
2.1 Theoretical background of reading
2.1.1. Definitions of reading and reading comprehension
Definitions of reading
The definition of reading has been provided by a number of researchers.
According to Goodman and Burke (1973), reading is a “psycholinguistic process by
which the reader (a language user) reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which
has been encoded by a writer as a graphic display” (Goodman and Burke, 1973: 22).
In Goodman‟s view, the primary goal of reading is to understand the text. Similarly,
William (1984) defined reading as a process of reconstructing information from
written texts.
With Harmer (1989), reading is a mechanical process in which messages are
received with eyes and processed by brains in order to understand the intended
meaning. Sharing the same view, Smith (1985) defined reading as the understanding
of the writers‟ thought while Aebersold and Field (1997) described reading as the
process of looking at a text and assigning its meaning.
Nunan (2003) defined reading as a fluent process of readers combining
information from a text and their own background knowledge to build meaning.
According to this author, meaning rests neither in the readers nor in the texts but
derives from the integration of a reader‟s background knowledge and the text.
Though different expressions were used to define “reading”, the definitions
stated above shares similar ideas that reading is the readers‟ exposure to written
texts and their interpretation of the messages communicated through the texts.

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Definitions of reading comprehension
To become better readers, students are supposed to be aware their current
reading ability and what they could do to improve comprehension (Aebersold &

Field, 1997). It is obvious that reading comprehension plays an important part in the
process of teaching reading. So far, a number of authors provided their own
definitions on “reading comprehension”. The concept was defined similarly,
therefore the researcher only stated three among the popularly cited definitions. For
Grellet (1981), understanding a written text means “extracting the required
information from it efficiently” (Grellet, 1981, p.3). Sharing the opinion, Richard
and Thomas (1987) states that reading comprehension can be interpreted as the
understanding between the authors of the written texts and the readers, and how
readers understand the message significantly depends on their own background
knowledge. According to Snow (2002), reading comprehension is “the process of
simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and
involvement with written language” (Snow, 2002, p. 11). The author claimed that
the reading comprehension process involves the three elements including the
readers of the text with all their characteristics such as the capacities, abilities,
knowledge and experiences combined to conduct the act of reading, the text to read
as well as the activity to which comprehension belongs and comprehension occurs
within a larger socio-cultural context. The author then proposed a model for
thinking about reading comprehension as in the figure below.

Figure 2. 1– A model for thinking about reading comprehension (Snow, 2002, p.12)

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Though the definitions are not exactly the same, it can be recognized that
they both agree that reading comprehension is a process in which readers expose to
the graphic form and interpret meaning through their lenses which may derive from
their accumulated experience and background knowledge.
2.1.2. Classification of reading
Although reading is defined similarly, there exist several types of reading,

which are categorized based on the manner, purposes or strategies.
Classification based on manner
According to manner, reading can be divided into two main types including
reading aloud and silent reading. The first type, reading aloud is when learners
make the sounds of the text while reading (Watkins, 2017). This can be done on the
basis of pair, group of class work, and though it is relatively less used, it can be
effective in teaching situations (Cameron, 2001). As Doff (1988) claimed, reading
aloud is a way to convey necessary information to other people. In fact, reading
aloud is not popular outside classrooms (Doff, 1988). This type of reading has both
advantages and drawbacks. Natal (1966) supposes that reading aloud is important
for beginners as it helps students to make the connection between sounds and
spelling, also assists teachers in checking students‟ pronunciation. Moreover, it is a
technique to keep the class under control, since when one student reads aloud, the
others are supposed to listen carefully as they may be required to continue reading
the next part.
On the contrary, Greenwood (1985) blames this technique on distracting
students. According to him, students may find it difficult to focus adequately on the
text‟s meaning when having to try to pronounce the words correctly. He argues that
reading aloud takes class time, distracts students and suggests that teachers should
take a number of things into consideration if they use the technique.
The second type, silent reading is thought to be “the quickest and most
efficient” Lewis (1985: 110). Doff (1988: 67) defined silent reading as “making
sense of a written text”. When practicing silent reading, students can read at their
8


own speed. In case they do not understand a sentence, they can go back to read
again. As silent reading is more suitable in my teaching context, it is more
frequently used during the while-reading stage for the participants of this research.
Classification based on purposes

People do not usually read unless they have a reason or a purpose for reading.
According to Grellet (1981), there are two main reasons for reading which are
reading for pleasure and reading for information while Nutgall (2000) categorizes
reading into two main types, namely, intensive and extensive readings. The two
concepts of intensive and extensive reading are clearly presented below.
* Intensive reading (IR)
Intensive reading is the activity of reading short texts to extract specific
information; therefore, intensive reading is more of reading for details (Grellet,
1981). Similarly, as Watkins (2017) confirms, intensive reading is another term for
detailed reading Nutgall (1982) states that intensive reading is the process of
approaching the text under the close guidance of the teacher or under the guidance
of task which make the students to pay remarkable attention to the text (Nutgall,
1982). It can be concluded that the aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a
profound and detailed understanding of the text not only of what it means but also
of how the meaning is produced. IR means reading short texts to extract specific
information. Its main concern is for detailed comprehension. In IR, students
normally work with short texts with close guidance from the teacher. The aim of IR
is to help students obtain detailed meaning from the context, to develop reading
skills- such as identifying main ideas and recognizing text connectors- and to
enhance vocabulary and grammar knowledge. It can be inferred that IR often refers
to the careful reading of shorter, more difficult foreign language texts with the goal
of complete and detailed understanding. IR is also associated with the teaching of
reading in terms of its component skills. Texts are studied intensively in order to
introduce and practice reading skills such as distinguishing the main idea of a text

9


from the detail, finding pronoun referents, or guessing the meaning of unknown
words.

* Extensive reading (ER)
While intensive reading is more for details, extensive reading is generally for
general understanding, with the focus generally on the meaning of what is being
read (Carrell and Carson, 1997). In ER, reading read longer texts usually for
personal pleasure (Watkins, 2017). ER mainly involves general understanding
(Grellet, 1981) and the text used for these purposes are generally withing the range
of comfortable understanding. Similarly, Davis (1995) gives description of ER from
an English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom implementation perspective, in
which students read mostly for pleasure at their own speed without the pressures of
testing or marks and books selected are those catching students‟ attractiveness and
relevance to their lives.
Hammer (1986) claimed that extensive reading normally aims at catching the
main ideas or general information then to grasp general comprehension and finally,
after much practice, to achieve details comprehension. ER is generally associated
with reading large amounts with the aim of getting an overall understanding of the
material. Readers are more concerned with the meaning of the text than the meaning
of individual words or sentences. In fact, most of ER is usually done silently and
outside the classroom, it gives the students opportunities to use their knowledge of
the target language for their own purposes. Besides, it provides the valuable
reinforcement of language items and structure already presented in the classroom,
gives the students chance to update and enrich their language knowledge by reading
the topics they like and read for enjoyment without consideration for pressure of
time, intense concentration, and total comprehension. ER therefore, is regarded as
an effective way for the students to improve their language reading; it helps students
enhance language learning in such areas as spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and text
structure. Besides, it gives students more positive attitude toward reading offers
them greater enjoyment of reading, helps them to read with pleasure. It is also
10



considered as an advisable sort of work for the students to increase and improve
their general knowledge of the world as well. Basing on the purposes of reading,
people may have to frequently employ skimming or scanning skills as they read
extensively.
Though intensive and extensive reading are both necessary and beneficial, the
focus of this study is put on intensive reading only as it aims to look at the
diversification of reading activities in students‟ textbooks rather than reading texts
from other sources.
Classification based on reading strategies
There are different reading strategies, among those, skimming and scanning
are among the most frequently applied. Skimming, or “gist reading” (Watkins,
2017, p.4), according to Watkins (2017), means to read quickly for general
understanding, which is often used when readers go through the reading material
quickly to grasp its main points or the intention of the writer (Grellet, 1981), but not
to find the answer to specific questions. This is similar to Nuttall‟s view (1982,
p.36) who stated that “By skimming, we mean glancing rapidly through a text to
determine whether a research paper is relevant to our own work or in order to keep
ourselves superficially informed about matters that are not of great importance to
us”. Skimming helps readers an overview of the text so it is beneficial to checking
relevance of the text and to setting the scene for more concentrated effort in reading.
It can be concluded that skimming is a useful reading skill for students, which is
advised to apply at the first stage of teaching reading with the hope that it can help
readers to have an overview of what they are reading. Moreover, it will be easier for
them to deal with other tasks following in the next reading stage.
While skimming is normally applied to get the overview and main ideas of
the texts, scanning is said to be “the very quick processing of text” (Watkins, 2017,
p.17), occurring when a reader goes through a text very quickly in order to find a
particular point of information, or, in other words, to look for specific detail. This is
because that when readers scan, they often have a question in mind so they do not
11



read every word but only focus on words that carry the answers to their questions.
As Watkins (2017) wrote, scanning involves the form recognition rather than
emphasizing the understanding of the text as a whole. It can be understood that
when scanning, readers focus more on form than on meaning. Therefore, practice
scanning can help readers read faster because they normally skip unnecessary
information. In fact, scanning is quite popular and important in everyday life when
people often have to focus on looking for the information they need rather than the
whole thing they see in the text.
2.1.3. Stages of a reading lesson
Although the role of reading activities in teaching reading is made apparent,
how they are organized and sequenced in a lesson varies among different
approaches to language teaching. In light of the recent and widely accepted
communicative approach, a reading lesson is supposed to go through three stages:
pre-, during-, and post- reading (Celce-Murcia et al, 2001). This view is shared by
Watkins (2017), who claims that reading lesson involved a “fixed sequence”
(Watkins, 2017, p.20) with pre, while, and post reading stages. Each stage is
characterized by its own aims and procedures and, it is not necessary for all the
stages to be present in every reading lesson (Watkins, 2017). In this study, the
names of the reading stages follow Watkins‟s suggestions and are detailed presented
below.
2.1.3.1 Pre-reading stage
This is the early stage during which teachers are expected to pre-teach some
vocabulary that appears in the text, conduct some activities to build students‟
interest in the topic of the text (Watkins, 2017). Therefore, pre-reading activities
often aim at activating or building students‟ background knowledge of the subject
and get them familiar to some language items needed for text comprehension.
According to Grabe and Stoller, cited in Celce-Murcia (2001), pre-reading
instruction serves five purposes which are:


12


to help students access background information that can facilitate subsequent
reading;
to provide specific information needed for successful comprehension;
to stimulate students‟ interest;
to set up student expectations and
to model strategies that students can later use on their own;
(Celce-Murcia, 2001, p.191)
A number of popular pre-reading activities were also suggested by the
authors, which include previewing the text by examining distinguishing features of
the text such as the title, subheadings, illustrations and captions, and sections to
determine the general topic of the reading, relevant vocabulary and possible
challenges; skimming the text or part of the text to grasp the main ideas; answering
questions about information in the text of designing questions for which students
want answers; exploring important vocabulary and reflecting on or reviewing
information from the texts students read before in light of the new text (CelceMurcia, 2001).
Watkins (2017) also proposed a list of common pre-reading activities, taking
text-based and situational models of comprehension into consideration. According
to the author, it is advisable to provide readers with words and grammar related to
the text language to build a representation of meaning, in order to facilitate readers
in the text-based model. On the contrary, the fact that learners are often ask to
consider what they know about a topic, or what content they expect the text to
include basing on predicting activities by looking at the title, visual content, or
vocabulary items extracted from the text is to help students succeed in the
situational model. The list of common pre-reading activities suggested by the author
include visualization, previewing a text by its vocabulary (learners predict the
content of a text from key vocabulary), previewing a text through role-play (learners

perform a role play based on the story), a quick glimpse (learners guess the content
of the text through briefly seeing words and pictures), simplified to authentic
13


(reading an authentic text after reading a simplified version), L1 to L2 reading
(reading a summary of a text in their mother tongue before reading the full text in
the target language), predicting from pictures (predicting a story from pictures,
some of which are relevant and some that are not then identifying the irrelevant
pictures), analyzing pictures, predicting from the text type (making predictions
about the text, based on their experience of other similar texts), predicting from the
reactions of others (making predictions about the text, based on the reactions of
other readers), specifying goals before reading by stating what information to find
out, specifying what readers believe about a topic before reading and read to see if
the text supports their views.
In this research, suitable pre-reading activities from the list above were
chosen and applied. Students‟ attitudes towards the application on their application
were then investigated.
2.1.3.2. While-reading stage
While-reading stage, also called during-reading stage is the most important
phase (Paran, 1996) during which teachers set a number of tasks and learners are
supposed to read to complete them. Teachers‟ feedbacks are essential to check
whether students‟ do the task accurately. In this stage, students are guided to
understand focus on reading to understand the difficult concepts, making sense of
complex sentences, considering the relationships among ideas or characters in the
texts, reading with a purpose in minds and using reading strategies effectively to
look for information in the texts (Celce-Murcia, 2001).
The activities that can be conducted in the while – reading stage include
“outlining or summarizing key ideas in difficult section, examining emotions and
attitudes of key characters, determining sources of difficulty and seeking

clarification, looking for answers to questions posed during pre-reading activities,
and writing down predictions of what will come next” (Celce-Murcia, 2001, p.191).
More specific description of the while-reading activities was offered by Watkins
(2017). Common examples of while reading questions listed by the author include
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answering multiple-choice questions, answering True/ False; Yes/ No; Open-ended
(What, Where When., etc) questions, putting pictures into a sequence, inserting
sentences or paragraphs into gaps in the text from which they were previously
removed, matching pictures to parts of a text, matching sub-headings to parts of a
text, correcting errors in a summary of a text, drawing a picture in response to a
text, retelling a story they have read, finding the right phrase to fill in the text,
responding to demanding questions which require interpretation, editing a text,
writing a brief summary, making notes and so on.
In conclusion, the techniques applied in this stage widely vary, ranging from
guessing new words in contexts, asking questions to note-taking. Teachers, at the
while-reading stage, need to help their students comprehend the text thoroughly
while students have to apply to their reading skills like skimming, scanning,
guessing and so on, to understand the text as well as the writer‟s purposes conveyed
through the reading text.
2.1.3.3 Post-reading stage
Post-reading is conducted at the end of the reading lesson during which
teachers set up an activity that follows on from the text (Watkins, 2017). The aim of
the stage is to extends ideas and information from the text while also ensuring that
the major ideas and supporting information are well understood (Celce-Murcia,
2001). In this stage, students are required to use text information to complete other
tasks. Popular post-reading activities include completing a graphic organizer (e.g.,
table, chart, grid) based on text information; Expanding or changing a semantic map
created earlier; Listening to a lecture and comparing information from the text and

the lecture; Ranking the importance of information in the text based on a set of
sentences provided; Answering questions that demonstrate comprehension of the
text, require the application of text material, demand a critical stance on text
information, or oblige students to connect text information to personal experiences
and opinions (Celce-Murcia, 2001). The author then introduced a number of
specific activities which can be integrated in different stages of the reading lesson.
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Although a reading lesson does not always necessarily go through all these
stages, it is highly advisable that language teachers follow the framework in order to
better help their students improve their reading skills as well as promote their
interest in reading.
2.2. Teaching and learning reading
2.2.1. The importance of reading in foreign language learning
In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the
teaching and learning of reading receives great attention since it is regarded as one
of the most important skills (Paran, 1996). Mastering reading skill remains a
challenging task as a number of factors, namely, a good competence of English
grammar, rich vocabulary, and reading techniques., etc. are needed for the success
of the skill. Richard (1993) claimed that due to the frequent exposure to new
vocabulary and grammatical structures while reading, students can improve their
knowledge of the target language accordingly.
Reading is not just an effective way for students to acquire the target
language but by reading language learners can access to immense cultural
information (Richard, 1993), which helps them better understand the speakers‟
ways of life, behaviors, thoughts, facts and experiences.
To sum up, reading is often viewed as the process of reconstructing the
meaning of a text by passing its graphic display. Reading can be categorized basing
on different aspects such as manner, purposes and strategies and often goes through

three stages including pre, while and post. Reading is important for it facilitates the
mastery of language as well as serves as a means for students to widen their
knowledge of the world around.
2.2.2. Factors in teaching and learning reading
2.2.2.1. Teacher’s role
It is commonly agreed that that teachers play a crucial role in language
classes in general and in reading lessons in particular. Teachers are supposed to
serve as an organizer, a manager and a counselor, an instructional expert, so he or
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she should be a guide to assist, encourage them, employ various types to support the
students develop reading skills. He or she also the person who provides the students
with an anxiety-free atmosphere which helps them feel free to join new reading
style, practice to master new strategies, work under pressure of time. An essential
element of the teacher‟s role-a model reader. According to Nuttall (1982: 192)
“showing that you are a reader means carrying books around with you, referring to
books as you teach, reading out brief passages that may interest students, talking
about what you are reading at the moment, and handling books as if you loved
them”. He also states that “teacher‟s job as providing, first, suitable texts and
second, activities that will focus the students‟ attention on the texts”
2.2.2.2. Students’ role
It is obvious that students themselves are the key factor which decide the
success of reading teaching process. According to Nuttall (2003), in order to make
the best of reading, students are expected to take an active part in reading. Second,
students should be encouraged to take the risk of making mistakes because it is an
opportunity to learn. Monitoring comprehension, which means students need to
understand how texts work and what they do when they read, is another factor over
which students should have good control. Last but not least, students need to learn
responsibly rather than trying to cheat, which wastes their time and does not result

in any development.
2.2.2.3. Reading texts
Reading texts are indispensable factors of the reading process as through the
text, language learners can learn new grammar, phonetic and lexical items of the
target language. Furthermore, information students learn through the text also
provide students valuable background knowledge. Therefore, in teaching reading,
the teacher should pay sufficient attention to the aspects of reading such as language
content, vocabulary and grammatical structures, types of reading activities, though
providing suitable texts may takes time, effort and some expertise (Buck, 2001).

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