pham long. 07e10. refection

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING EDUCATION

---------- ------------

THE EXPLOITATION OF READING

REFLECTION TASK FOR 3rd YEAR STUDENTS AT

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER

EDUCATION, ULIS, VNU.

.Student : Pham Duc Long

Group : 07E10 Supervisor : Nguyen Thanh Ha, B.A

Hanoi, March-2010

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ACKNOWLEDGE

On completing this study, I would like to express my sincere thanks to

many people for their enthusiastic assistance.

Initially, we would prefer to send my special appreciation to my

supervisor Ms Nguyen Thanh Ha, whose precise guidance and endless

feedbacks have enlightened the arguments in the study.

Moreover, I am greatly indebted to 74 third year students in Faculty of

English Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU for having effectively

taken part in data collection process using survey questionnaire and semi-

structured interview.

It is not enough without expressing a great deal of gratitude to my family

for their constant encouragement and financial support during the time.

Without my parents help, my research could not have been completed.

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ABSTRACT

For the fulfillment of academic study, third-year students in Faculty of

English Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU are expected to read a

large number of reading materials in class meetings and at home. The

effectiveness and activeness of practicing extensive reading at home has been

monitored via doing reading reflection tasks. Therefore, in order to examine

current situation of their exploitation of reading reflection tasks, the

researcher conducted a study on their purposes, strategies and difficulties

towards kinds of the tasks. The data was collected by 74 questionnaires and 6

semi-structured interviews. Through data analysis and collections, the

research received the participants perceptions towards the aspects of kinds of

that taskmentioned above.Specifically, (1) third year students were not really

interested in carrying out reading reflection tasks, (2) tended to complete

when submission deadline left too short and (3) encountered considerable

difficulties in searching and writing. Based on that current situation, some

pedagogical implications as well as suggestions for further study were offered

in the given context.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1. Research title

2. The statement of the research problem and theoretical background

and rationale for the proposed research

It is undeniable that reading plays a crucial role in daily life. We can,

through reading, escape into the mind of a philosopher, observe with a

scientist, study with a scholar, analyze with a critic and live through a novel

or a play (Trinh 1999, p.1). New knowledge, thanks to reading, is learnt and

valuable experience is shared. Addressing the popularity of reading, Dubin &

Olshtain (1981) emphasized:

The modern world is filled with material for reading. Newspapers, magazines andbooks all come immediately to ones mind. There are also the advertisements innewspapers and magazines, the labels on the products we buy and the signseverywhere [] (p.31)

In learning a foreign language like English, reading is one indispensable

skill. Students in a second language classroom might be required to do

intensive reading which means pupils are able to answer detailed vocabulary

and comprehension questions and then withdraw the main ideas (Lewis &

Hill, 1995, p.109) or extensive reading that would frequently begin with

reading for general information leading to the brief comprehension and

finally, detailed comprehension would be available after much practice

(Lewis & Hill, 1995, p.109) , with the aim of excelling academic studies or

personal development.

Extensive reading is usually practiced out of the class where the students are

motivated to read for different reasons and in different (Day and Bamford,

1997). In order to monitor self-practice of extensive reading out of the class,

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the students are required to do reading reflections which were explained by

Wirth (2008) as follows:

Reading reflections involve a range of higher order thinking skills. Students are

asked to summarize the content of the reading (understand), they are asked todescribe what is new or interesting (analyze, evaluate, create), and they are asked toidentify those parts of the reading that are confusing (analyze, evaluate)

It is very clear that one of this tasks goals is, according to Wirth, to help

students develop their reflective thinking, which means that the students are

expected to make use of their own assumptions and knowledge to evaluate the

new informations quality based on answering three basic questions (1) What

is the main point of the reading?, (2) What information did you find

surprising? Why? and (3) What did you find confusing? Why? (Wirth,

2008).

Practically, there have been a few studies in Hanoi University of Languages

and International Studies researching the third year students reading

reflections such as Hoang (2007) and Nguyen (2007). However, there has not,up to now, been any research investigating benefits, strategies and difficulties

towards doing reading reflections as perceived by third year students. The

researcher has, for all reasons above, decided to conduct a study to examine

the third year students perceptions of reading reflections in some aspects

stated above.

3. Research aims and research questions

Firstly, the study was conducted to find out what benefits the third year

students had achieved when implementing reading reflection tasks. Secondly,

their viewpoints on the strategies they have employed were expected to be

detected. Finally, a detailed investigation was carried out to specify the

difficulties third year students encountered during the process of carrying out

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reading reflections. In brief, this study aimed to address three following

research questions:

1. What are the benefits of doing reading reflections as perceived by

the students?

2. What are the strategies used by the students in doing reading

reflections?

3. What are the difficulties encountered by the students in doing

reading reflections?

4. Scope of study

Despite the fact that the topic is about [t]he exploitation of the reading

reflection task for third year students, ULIS, VNU, the researcher only

concentrated on a few aspects of doing reading reflections namely benefits,

difficulties and strategies.

The samples of the study are, due to the time limitation and the small scale of

research, restricted to 74 third year main stream students in Faculty of English

Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU.

5. Method of study

To address the three research questions presented above, a combined data

collection process using survey questionnaire and semi-structured interview

had been used.

Survey questionnaire which consisted of three main parts was employed to

collect information from 74 participants. They were asked to tick or circle the

number that best reflects their viewpoints on the five-point scale. Beside

closed-ended questions, open-ended ones were also employed so that the

students could specify any additional comments on the situations given.

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Next, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Six interviewees who had

taken part in the questionnaire provided in-depth information about their

viewpoints in the questionnaire. With the aim of making the respondents most

confident in the interview, the language used was Vietnamese. It was

noticeable that typical statements from six interviews recorded with the

respondents permission were made use to represent the arguments in the

chapter 4: Discussion and Results.

More details about method of study would be founded in the chapter 3:

Methodology.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

First of all, this chapter will discuss reading in order to lay the foundation for later

reviews. Next, the aspects directly relating to the studys contents such as extensivereading together with intensive reading and reading reflection tasks will also be

reviewed.

2.1. Reading

2.1. 1. Definition of reading

Reading could be described by Williams (1986, p.2)as a process whereby

one looks at and understands what has been written. This definition ofreading does not mean that a language learner can understand everything in

the text. The reader usually combines new information from the text and

[his/her] own background knowledge to build meaning (Anderson, 2003,

p.67-68)

According to Hafner & Jolly (1982, p.4), reading is considered a process of

converting written language symbols into the direct or implied symbols which

could be understood by the reader. In broader sense, the reader and the writer

need have certain similar thoughts so that reading comprehension is to take

place. However, if the readers knowledge is far smaller than the writers, the

reader could be impossible to understand the factual information the writer

wants to transfer.

From the above mentioned opinions, a general conclusion could be drawn that

reading is actually a complex information processing skill in which the reader

interacts with the text in order to (re)create meaningful discourse.

2.1.2. The readers involvement in reading process

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It was assumed by Nuttall (1996) that meaning was bridge between reader

and text and the transfer of a message from the writer to reader. To get

meaning from a text, each reader had his/her private ways. In the words of

Nuttall (1996, p.5), they were classified into 2 ways according to involvement

of the reader: passive and active one.

Figure 1 illustrates passive involvement of the reader

(Nuttall, 1996, 5)

The text contains a lot of meaning like vase full of water, the readers mind

soaks it up like a sponge (Nuttall, 1996, p.5). In this figure, the reader has a

passive role; all the work has been done by the writer and the reader only has

to open his mind and the let the meaning pour in (p.5) (without leaving

unnecessary meaning). The outstanding feature of this view of reading is that

the reader is a negative object covered with a load of unidentified information

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Unlike the passive reader, the active one must work to get the meaning out.

Moreover, he probably has a clear intention of reading and masters what he

expects to get from the text. However, the ways the positive readers approach

the text meaning are not similar. According to Nuttall (1996), the reader on

the left (figure 2) seems to have same thoughts as the writer, so he only has a

few obstacles in understanding the text thanks to few problems with the

language. On the other hand, to the reader on the right, the same text appears

very difficult. He could not be sure of the route to reach the meaning due to

problems of strange vocabulary, ignorance of facts and so on.

Figure 2 illustrates active involvement of the reader

(Nuttall, 1996, 11)

It was concluded that the meaning was not lying in the text waiting to be

passively absorbed. The reader actively had to extract the requiredinformation from the text as efficiently as possible in the reading process. In

this study, active attendance of the reader into the reading process was

regarded as an assessment tool towards his/ her success in reading activities.

2.1.3. Reading strategies

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Reading strategies can be broadly defined as the mental operations

performed intentionally by a reader to achieve the goal of textual

comprehension (Nishino, 2007, cited in Barnet, 1988). Successful L2 readers

as well as L1 readers have been found to use a number of different reading

strategies (Hosenfeld, 1977). To be more specific, Hosenfeld (1977) used

think-aloud, introspective, and retrospective protocols to investigate

American high school students use of strategies in reading foreign language

texts. The participants in his study were high school foreign language learners

and those who werent explicitly taught reading strategies. Hosenfeld

summarized the results of his two studies and presented a list of readingstrategies that successful L2 readers used, about half of which are directly

related to vocabulary. Hosenfelds learners:

(a)skip words that are not important to understanding the whole text,

(b) identify the grammatical category of words,

(c) use orthographic information (e.g., capitalization) and recognize cognates,

(d) refer to side glosses but use the glossary only as a last resort,

(e) look up words correctly, and

(f) evaluate guesses

(Hosenfeld, 1977,p.76)

Theabove emphasis on vocabulary is undeniable because larger vocabularies

are related to better text comprehension (Grabe & Stoller, 2002, p.12) andguessing the meanings of unknown words using context clues facilitates

reading comprehension (Huckin & Bloch, 1993). In the words of Day and

Bamford (1998), reading was dependent on a variety of vocabulary and

background knowledge, and students obtained these via reading large

amounts of interesting and easy materials (p. 165).

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2.2. Intensive reading and extensive reading

There are many ways of classifying reading; however, in the scope of the

study, the researcher would like to only discuss intensive reading and

extensive readingbased on the purposes of reading.

2.2.1. Intensive reading

Hoang (2007) stated that intensive reading was a key activity in the classroom

in which the students were guided to read deeply short passages for the

purpose of understanding detailed information and developing reading skills

(such as scanning and skimming) and improving grammatical and lexicalknowledge (p.7)

Day and Bamford (1997) highly agreed with Hoangs definition that intensive

reading was related to reading (or translating) carefully short foreign language

texts with the aim of complete and detailed understanding in terms of its

components (Day and Bamford, 1997, cited in Tran, 2009)

Thanks to shorter texts for reading intensively compared with extensive

reading, intensive reading has popularly been used among students in schools.

In fact, the resources for intensive reading are also huge, so the effects of

intensive reading are clearly not only for a short period of time.

However, intensive reading has also its disadvantages. One of the major

shortcomings of intensive reading is that the word-by-word translation would

hinder fluency (Carrell & Carson, 1997). This translation would prevent

readers from improving reading skills because they could have to stop when

encountering unknown words. Furthermore, Barnet (1988) stated that the

impact of direct instruction is small, that teaching grammar has no influence on

language growth of typical secondary students, and that more drills for poor

readers do not work.

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(8) Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower as students read books and

other material that they find easily understandable.

(9) Teachers orient students to the goals of the program, explain the methodology,

keep trackof what each student reads, and guide students in getting the most out ofthe program.

(10) The teacher is a role model of a reader for students -- an active member of the

classroom reading community, demonstrating what it means to be a reader and the

rewards of being a reader.

Differences between extensive reading and intensive reading are visualized as

follows:

Extensive reading Intensive reading

Development of faster reading Development of specific reading skills

Self-chosen materials; authentic reading Teacher-assigned texts with drills

Analytical reading Focused development of vocabulary,grammar, and study skills

Improved motivation for L2 reading Clearly-focused instruction of grammar

Greater entertainment & enjoyment

(lower anxiety & better affective factors)

Positive effects of building up basic

language skills in a short time

Wider range reading for pleasure Understanding authors bias & purpose

(Yng, 2007, 13)

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2.2.2.2. Benefits of extensive reading

Whether extensive reading can help students to develop their reading

comprehension or not is still the focus for numerous doubts. According to

Krashens (1985) theory of Input Hypothesis for second language

acquisition, increasing the quantity of extensive reading input can improve

different language skills, such as reading comprehension and reading speed.

To make Krahens theory clearer, Robb & Susser (1989) described an

experiment comparing the improvement of reading comprehension by

Japanese college freshmen taught by either a skills-based or extensive reading

procedure. Results suggest that extensive reading may be at least as effective

as skills building, with the important advantage that it is more interesting for

learners (Robb, T. N., & Susser, B. 1989).

Beside effectiveness of extensive reading activity towards improvement inreading comprehension and reading speed, gains in vocabulary are among the

most commonly cited benefits of practicing extensive reading (Nuttal 1982, in

Robb and Susser, 1989; Mason and Krashen, 1997). However, this aspect,

referring to Powell(2005),may have been somewhat exaggerated. According

to his theory, extensive reading probably involves reading easy texts requiring

little or no dictionary consultation. Therefore, it is perhaps contradictory to

suggest that students can make huge vocabulary gains. In fact, Nation (1997)

and Waring (2001) all have agreed that students can only hope to make small,

incidental gains in vocabulary knowledge from extensive reading.

More remarkably, extensive reading contributes to the development of a whole

range of other language skills namely writing skills. Indeed, many researchers

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have found extensive reading to have a positive effect on writing and other

areas of language competence (see Mason and Krashen, 1997; Day and

Bamford, interviewed by Donnes 1998). Robb and Susser (1989) were

surprised at the extent of writing gains made by one extensive reading group.

Nation (1997) similarly claimed benefits in general writing competence

(Nation, 1997), thanks to writing reflections about different aspects, including

ability to give comments and ability to organize writing. Mason and Krashen

(1997) have supported this view and concluded that it is firmly established

that free extensive reading leads to increased writing competence (Mason and

Krashen, in press)

2.3. Reading reflection task

In Carnegie Mellon University, USA, reading reflection task was carried out

before coming to class to support in-class information sharing activities.

Two questions that occurred in each reading-reflection assignment asked

students (1) to state the main point of the reading in a sentence or two and (2)

to identify a strength and/or weakness in the work (Lovett, 2009, para.3). He

also stated in class meetings, the students would share the information they

had from their reading reflection tasks with the other students and the lecturer.

Advantageously, the students who showed a misconception or difficulty

during class discussion would receive direct feedbacks from the

lecturer/instructor and their classmates. In the following class meeting, they

were encouraged to hand in their written responses based on supplementing

the missing information or re-adjusting the misconception towards the

content of their reading reflections.

In Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU, the tasks

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students self reading at home as a result of credit-system training style

applied at HULIS since 2007. For this task, students had 2 periods weekly in

class reading and at least 7 hours or more actively reading at home (English

Skills Division III, 2009) and were required to hand in what they had read and

written reflections. The assessment for kinds of the tasks accounted for 15%

of the total mark of reading course.

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1. Settings of the study

At 5th and 6th semester (2009-2010) in Faculty of English Language Teacher

Education-ULIS-VNU, written communication skill including reading and

writing skills accounted for 3 credits out of each terms total 22 ones. For the

reading program, reading reflection tasks were compulsory ones which had

specific requirements to be met in terms ofreading material and reflection-

writing.

3.1.1Reading material

In reading V course designed by English Skills Division III, ULIS-VNU

(2009), students were required to choose readings from different sources

namely books, international magazines or the internet which had to be

authentic or real in preparation for input information for reading andreflection-writing. More specifically, students could choose readings from the

lists of books and magazines suggested by English Skills Division III at the

end of Reading V program (appendix 3). From that list, the students could

borrow suitable books from Faculty of English Language Teaching

Educations library. The other encouraged source for reading material came

from the internet which had been regarded as the huge and limitless one.Another requirement for reading material was their length which varied from

at least 8,000 words to 1,200 words (including many mini-texts related to one

theme) recommended in the 5th and 6th semester respectively. These figures

ensured the students could read enough extensively to produce one qualitative

reflection as expected in the course.

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3.1.2.Reflection-writing:

Reading reflection tasks were completed based on answering the questions

suggested in the guiding course and through critical analysis about texts or

reading materials did students learn new knowledge towards their awareness

and share the helpful information sources they had achieved with their

teachers and classmates. As we could see in the suggestions for reflection-

writing extracted from reading program semester V (appendix 3), students

were recommended to write reflection underlying three compulsory in-bold

questions:

a. What texts have you read these four weeks? List them all with their sources.

b. What did you learn from the reading passages(s)?

c. What was new knowledge and information that contradicted to what you had

known or assumed before reading the passages?

However, in the 6th

semester, compulsory requirements for reflection-writingwere different. More detailed information about both reading list and review

wee not enough for a reading reflection without mentioning (Appendix 4)

3.2. Research design

3.2.1. Participants and participant selection method

The samples were restricted to 74 third year students in Faculty of English

Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU.

Since these students have been familiar with extensive reading and reflection

tasks in pervious semesters, they have had considerable experience in doing

that kind of assignment. In terms of language competence, according to

Hoang (2007), the third year students were in range between FCE and CAE

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level (3rd and 4th grade out of 5 Cambridge framework of assessment levels)

(p.12). Thus, they could read various types of materials, from newspaper

articles, science books, short stories, magazines to novels in English

Specifically, three out of 22 classes of 3rd year students were invited to take

part in the questionnaire-answering process, which corresponds to 15% of the

total number of students. The selection process was taken according to cluster

sampling basis, which means that three classes were chosen by lots randomly.

After completing the questionnaire, 2 volunteers in each class were invited to

take part in the semi-structured interview with the aim of checking data

collected from the questionnaire and gaining further insights into the research

matters.

3.2.2. Data collection method

The combined data collection process using survey questionnaire and semi-

structured interview were exploited to address the three research questions.

To make it convenient to collect data and analyze, survey questionnaire wasdivided into 3 parts in which each concerned one research question. Almost

the first two parts questions were rating closed-ended which required

participants to tick or circle the number from 1 strongly disagree to 5

strongly agree that reflected their viewpoints on the situation given. The

third part only involved an open-ended question in which the respondents

wrote the difficulties they had when doing reading reflections in the spaceprovided. Their obstacles were then sort out, categorized and generalized.

Afterwards, semi-structured interviews were conducted among six

interviewees who had participated in the questionnaire to collect deeper

information about their viewpoints expressed in the questionnaires. The

language used in the semi-structured interview was Vietnamese as so to make

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the respondents confident and give valid information. It was noteworthy that

typical statements from six interviews recorded with the interviewees

approval were employed to represent the discussions and results in the next

chapter.

3.2.3. Data collection procedures

The procedure of data selection consisted of three steps:

Step1:

The initial step was preparation for data collection consisting of designing

questionnaire and semi-structured interview. Moreover, pilot semi-structuredinterviews and questionnaires were carried out with 10 voluntary respondents:

8 for questionnaire and 2 for semi-structured interview. Based on the result of

the experiment, the researcher considered and gave the final version of the

questionnaire and additional ideas for semi-structured interview.

Step 2:

About 70 questionnaire papers were delivered to three third-year- student

classes randomly chosen by lots after the researcher had contacted the

monitors of three classes and arranged the appropriate time. Furthermore, the

researcher was always willing to assist the participants by making any points

in the questions that might be misinterpreted become more comprehensive.

Afterwards, all the papers of questionnaire were collected carefully to ensure

the quantity of data.

Step 3:

After having collected questionnaire papers, semi-structured interviews were

conducted with six voluntary students who have previously taken part in

questionnaire data collection process.

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3.2.4. Data analysis method

Descriptive statistics method, mean and standard deviation were employed to

analyze the data. Moreover, the information collected from the interview was

made use to compare and contrast with the data achieved from the

questionnaire which had been calculated and transferred numerical form.

To be specific, the data collected from survey questionnaire had been

organized into three categories: the third year students attitudes and

perceptions towards benefits of reading reflections (the first research

question), the strategies in doing reading reflections tasks (the 2nd research

question) as well as the third year students difficulties towards carrying out

them (the final research question).

For the first two categories, mean and standard deviation were calculated to

show main outstanding trend from which the researcher deduced the most

popularly-obtained benefits as well as less popularly-obtained one among the

students when doing reading refection tasks and then strategically priority

choice the students made relating to reading source, where reading materials

were found and so on

For the last categories, the descriptive statistics of frequency method was

employed to illustrate difficulties the students faced with.

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CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4. 1. Research question 1:

What are the benefits of doing reading reflections as perceived by third-year

students at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU?

The results collected from 74 questionnaires towards the 1st research question

are transferred into the following table

Note for the following tables: M. stands for means

S.D. stands for standard deviation

4.1.1. Concerning the attitude towards doing reading reflections

Concerning attitudes towards doing

reading reflection

9, 12%

24, 33%

24, 32%

15, 20%2, 3%

strongly disagree

disagree

neitheir agree or

disagreeagree

strongly agree

Before collecting the data, the researcher had predicted that most participants

would choose 4 agree or 5 strongly agree when they rated item 1 I

enjoyed doing reading reflections because they spent a considerable great

deal of time working with reading reflections at the 5th semester (APPENDIX

3). However, the results from analyzing the data contrast with the researchers23


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prediction. Approximately 24, 33% participants chose option 2 disagree

while the agreement from 74 participants only occupied nearly 15, 2%. In the

words of those who did not agree, reading reflections need too much time,

or In fact, I am keen on doing reading reflection; however, handing in so

many reading reflections last semester decreased my interest in kinds of the

tasks (the interviewee 1). On the other hand, two participants expressed

highly positive attitude towards reading reflections. They specified their

comments in the space provided in the questionnaire paper that doing

reading reflection is useful; almost my knowledge at university develops

through reading day by day and writing reflections

4.1.2. Concerning the opinion towards the benefits of doing reading

reflections

3.24

3.52

3.963.88

3.05

3.64

2.76

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

1

reading speed

critical thinking

backgroundknowledge

vocabulary

general reading

skills

ability to search

for reading

materialsinterest in

reading/learning

Table 2: The responses mean towards benefits

of doing reading reflections

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Based on the data in the table above, the researcher found out that means

corresponding to options 2.1 to 2.6 of item 2 I think doing reading

reflections helped me improve (options 2.1 to 2.7) are in the range between 3

neither agree nor disagree and 4 agree. Among them, the highest mean

for option 2.3 (3.96) illustrates that the participants achieved more

background knowledge compared with other benefits.

Next, although 42 participants agreed that their vocabulary improved so much

due to doing reading reflections but reality from the interview revealed that

my vocabulary couldnt be better coz I didnt need to understand meanings

of new words while reading(the interviewee 2). The interviewee 6 also

highlighted that I usually read materials under time pressure. Therefore, I

ignored new words and only focused on main ideas in the texts. For the

options reading speed, critical thinking, general reading skills and

ability to search for reading materials, means for the respondents choice

are 3.24; 3.52; 3.06 and 3.64 respectively. Based on these results, one finding

can be inferred that because of being forced to do reading reflections (theinterviewee 6, the third year students could upgrade many language skills at

5th semester. In addition, it is noticeable that in the perception of 16

respondents, doing reading reflections was impossible to help enhance their

interest in reading/ learning. Mean for option 2.7 (mean=2.76) are the

lowest one concerning the purposes of doing kinds of the tasks as perceived

by third year students at Faculty of English Language Teacher Education.This result matches the findings withdrawn from item 1 I enjoyed doing

reading reflection in which 1/3 respondents expressed negative attitude

towards carrying out reading reflections presented at 4.1.1

4. 2. Research question 2:

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What are the strategies used by third year students at Faculty of English

Language Teacher Education, ULIS-VNU in doing reading reflections?

4.2.1. Strategy-setting and plan-making

Table 3: Strategy-setting and plan-

making

7%16%

46%

30%1%

strongly disagree

disagree

neither disagreenor disagreeagree

strongly agree

The outcomes from the item 3 I set goals for my reflections and made plan to

achieve them show that 46% participants were undecided whether they set

goals in term of marks or specific plans before doing reading reflections or

not whereas 16% those attending the study admitted that they had never made

plans to achieve any expectations. For example, the interviewee 3 stated I

myself did not set any strategies. I used to begin doing this task when

submission deadline was 1 week left. This might partially be explained by I

was so busy during the previous semester. Besides, 22 out of 74 participants

had their in-advance-set plans, accounting for roughly 30% those attended in

the research. One of them specified their additional comments about their

choice in the space supplied in the questionnaire that [a]bout 3 or 4 weeks

before the week for submitting reading reflections, I usually planned to search

and 1 week left, I only concentrated on writing based on the texts searched.

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or I always hoped to get more than 7 points for reading reflection tasks. In a

word, it can be deduced that the third year students at Faculty of English

Language Teacher Education did not take more notice of setting private goals

before doing reading reflections which was explained by mean M=3,03

corresponding to neutral attitude neither disagree nor agree. Only 1/3 of

them might have ever thought of goal-setting and plan-making to fulfill their

tasks.

4.2.2. Reading sources

By analyzing data from the item 4 and 5 could the researcher deduce that the

third year students themselves tended to look for reading sources instead of

depending on other people, which were illustrated by 57 participants

agreement including 39 for 4 agree and 18 for 5 strongly agree.

M S.D

4 I asked for reading sources from other people (teacher(s)/ friends) 3.38 0.92

5 I looked for reading sources on my own. 3.85 1.01

27

115

21

32

5

36

8

39

18

0

20

40

60

80

Reading sourcesFrom other people (left)

Self-searching (right)

strongly disagree

agree

neither disagree nor

disagree

disagree

strongly disagree


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However, mean for item 4 is 3.38 figuring out that the third year students not

only based on their experience but also relied on other peoples consultations.

One interviewee shared that her class were luck at 5th semester because her

teacher of reading skills gave her class a list of reliable websites and a

category of useful books towards reading reflection tasks. Thus, she could

save much more time from searching compared with the students at other

classes.

4.2.3. Reading materials

Table 5: Reading materials

3.2

2.84

3.11

2.62.72.8

2.93

3.13.23.3

On the Internet. At the schools

library.

From my

friends/my own

books and

referencs.

Materials found

Mea

It is apparent from the data of items 6, 7 and 8 calculated that mean for item 7

received the lowest one (M=2.84). The reasonable explanation could lie in I

didnt use to go to Faculty of English Language Teacher Education library to

find reading materials because of lack of authentic one and limitation of

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service time, stated by the interviewee 5. These findings are the same as ones

in Hoang (2007) study:

Mc d cc sch c lit k thnh danh mc c m s th vin ph hp vi

trnh hc sinh v c in km chng trnh c ngay t u nm, mc s

dng ca sinh vin l rt thp. C th ch c tng s 23 sinh vin (16%) trong s

141 sinh vin c hi chn mc 4, v 5. Mean ca cu tr li ny l 2.41, trong

c 85 sinh vin (60%) chn mc 1 v 2 tc l khng hoc hu nh khng s

dng. Cc cuc phng vn tip cho thy cc em phn nn v cht lng phc v

ca th th, v thi gian th vin m ca trng vi thi gian hc chnh kho trn

lp dn n vic tip cn th vin khng thun li. (p. 23-24)

Furthermore, itmight have been the popularity of internet and its reasonable

service cost leading to the third year students effective exploitation of the

internet towards doing reading reflection tasks last semester because

attendants in the questionnaire-used data collection process confirmed that

they used the internet during at-home-self-reading-time to fulfill these tasks

(27 for 4 agree and 5 for strongly agree). However, one of 15 those who

did not approve of the internets benefits towards looking for reading

materials presented his viewpoint that he experienced about two hours every

day sitting in front of his computer, trying to find relevant texts; however,

almost the time he was hopeless because reading materials in the internet

were too short to have 8.000 words as required in the course guide for reading

reflections. Another student at the same group pointed out you should

choose English novels if you want enough number of words. Otherwise,take a look at the reference at the bottom of course guide for reading. It will

help you much instead of wasting your valuable time on finding in the

internet.

4.2.4. Reading and writing the reflections

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Table 5: Reading and writing the reflect

3.613.99

3.45 3.31 3.43 3.18 3.31

0

1

2

3

4

5

1Strategie

Mean

I read different typ es of reading materials.

I summarized the main contents of t he materia

I discussed the purposes of the reading passages.

I discussed the target readers of th e reading pas

I discussed the o rganization of t he p assages.

I discussed the style of the passages.I discussed the reliability o f t he sources.

For reading and writing reflections, mean for option 9.2 received the highest

one (M=3.99), followed by option 9.1 (M= 3.61). Next came option 9.3; 9.5;

9.4 and 9.7 with the average number that best reflects their choice: 3.45; 3.43;

3.31 and 3.18 respectively. These figures above demonstrate the 3rd year

students strategic differences in reading different types of reading

materials, summarizing the main contents of the materials and discussing

the purposes, the target readers, organization, the styles and the reliability of

the reading passages. Clearly, summarizing the main contents of the reading

passages was concentrated by more respondents. Surprisingly, only 1

participant in the questionnaire shared that he forgot to or did not summarize

the main contents of the materials when doing reading reflections.

In addition, for the item 9.5 I discussed the organization of the

passages, 30 out of 74 participants, who expressed their neutral viewpoint

neither agree nor disagree by choosing the number 3, was matched by ones

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circling the number 4 agree. It means that nearly the 3rd year student used

reading skills (skimming) to look for the organization of the passages when

reading passages. However, the results from the interview were contradictory.

Four of six interviewees stated that only when I had to summarize the main

contents of the passages did I discuss the structure of the passages. In the

meanwhile, the rests insisted on that having a brief overview of the passages

structures will help me read quickly and effectively.

It is not enough without discussing item 9.7 I discussed the reliability of

the sources which received the considerably special attraction from the

respondents. A large scale of participants specified their answers by adding

some comments in the space provided below part 2 (the questionnaire).

Among them are those who used to choose the books written by big names or

from famous publishing houses to get reliable information for their reading

reflection tasks while others chose reading texts in popular website addresses

such as New York Times or The Times, etc (the interview 1). Moreover,

this item got the highest S.D (standard deviation) which means thatdifferences between the respondents choices from strongly disagree to

strongly agree towards the item 9.7 were in marked fluctuation.

4.2.5. Reflection-reviewing

1 2 3 4 5 M S.D

1

0

I discussed and reviewed my refection with

my friends/my teachers.

6 24 27 15 2 2.72

0.99

It can be inferred from the table above that the majority of 3rd year

students did not have intentions of getting feedbacks from their friends or

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teachers before handing in reading reflections. Obviously, the number of via-

questionnaire-informants who got used to having debates as well as

considering their reflections carefully after they were completed was at small

scale: 17 (6 for strongly disagree and 24 for disagree) out of 74, much

fewer compared with 33 participants who didnt. Furthermore, mean for this

item I discussed and reviewed my refection with my friends/my teachers (M

Item 10 =2. 72) lying below the average point 3 of five-point scale also

highlighted that these students hardly had any special strategies from getting

their reflection tasks commented before sending to the teachers.

4.2.6. Later reflections

1 2 3 4 5 M S.D

1

1

I received comments for my reflections from

my teacher.

1 9 15 32 17 3.74

0.99

12 I improved my later reflections. 4 4 29 29 8 3.45 0.95

It is undeniable that mean for item 11 which is approximately 4 agree in the

five-point scale (M=3.74) represents that almost the participants got

comments for their reflections from their teacher. However, the results from

the semi-structured interview revealed that I didnt receive any feedbacks for

my first reading reflection last semester, shared one interviewee, however,

the teacher gave us general comments synthesized from in-class members

reflection tasks. Unlike the student at K41E10, two interviewees at stated

that they received the direct comments from their lecturer of reading skills

every week at 5th semester when they were required to give presentation on32


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reflections

Length -I would like it shorter and do reflection based on my

thinking

-The number of words required is too much. I would like it

shorter

-We were required to reflect 8.000-word texts (within 4

passages) in the previous semester that means looking for

every 2000-word passage is rather difficult (just texts about

science maybe meet requirement of 2000 words long)

-It is too difficult to find sources about 1 topic in about 200

words, it also is hard to summarize the content

-Sometimes difficulties in summary because the para. is too

long to understand.

-The number of words is too large. I find it difficult to

summarize the passages.

Teacher -Teachers rarely give comments on reflections, only ask

students to read and hand in it.

-My teacher didnt send the reflections comment back to

me, so I couldnt get any experiences

Searching -Difficulties in searching reading materials on the internet

-I did not narrow the topic when searching

-Lack of searching skills, too many new words and the

passages required are too long to read.

-I am not good at finding any authentic sources with

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interesting passages, the enormous information in the

Internet makes me confused

Writing -I had to write too much even though the main purposes of

tasks were to focus on reading.

-I had some problems with plagiarism, commenting and

organizing the structure of my reflection.

No difficulties -I dont find any difficulties in searching and selecting

materials. However, I dont really like writing reading

reflection, since it doesnt reflect my true reading skills.

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

5.1. Major findings of the study

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Basically, the study has found expected answers to three research questions

stated in the chapter 1 (Introduction), addressing three aspects of reading

reflection tasks in term of benefits, strategies and difficulties in perceptions of

third year students.

As respond to the 1st research question relating to benefits of reading reflection

tasks, the analysis and discussion of data collected from questionnaires and

interviews revealed that about participants were not keen on doing reading

reflections. Moreover, it is noticeable that background knowledge and increase

in vocabulary ranges in L2 were the benefits achieved most considerably by the

third year students comparing with other ones.

As regards the strategies of doing the tasks used by third year students, the

researcher collected 4 main findings. Firstly, . This figure could demonstrate

that a considerable number of third year students at Faculty of English

Language Teacher Education did not get used to setting personal goals for their

study which was partially accounted for by overload of different subjects

homework in perceptions of the interviewees. Secondly, although Faculty of

English Language Teacher Education has owned a well-equipped library, the

third year students tended to search reading passages in the internet (due to the

internets benefits and its reasonable service cost) instead of searching in the

library. Furthermore, while reading and writing reflections, the large scale of

participants confirmed that they frequently read different types of reading

materials as well as discussed the purposes, the target readers, the organization,

the styles and the reliability of reading passages and summarized the contents

of reading materials. These activities expressed that they began to read and

analyzed information extensively and intensively. Fourthly, after completing

their reading reflections tasks, the third year students rarely had a discussion

with other people or checked it carefully. However, they always expected to

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give feedbacks from the lecturers after reading reflections had been marked and

improved their later reflections.

5.2. Pedagogical implications from the findings

The study is believed to have made some significant implications towards the

third year students and the lecturers at English Skills Division III. To be

specific, as analyzed in chapter 4, the students difficulties in doing reading

reflections came from objective and subjective reasons. Therefore, in term of

length of reading materials (objective reason), the number of reading passages

words required should be decreased. 8.000-word texts were proven too difficult

to look for. Moreover, it could be very demanded that the teachers of reading

skills would give the reflections comments back to the students so that the

students would get more experiences and improve later reflections. In

subjective viewpoint, the students are advised to make plan as specifically as

possible before doing reading reflection tasks as well as experience more time

revising what they had finished.

5.3. Limitation of the study

Although the researcher took considerably great efforts to conduct the study,

there are still some limitations due to time pressure and small scale of samples.

In the first place, the number of third year students directly involving in the

study (74) remained relatively low compared with the enormous number of 3rd

students in Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS,VNU(nearly 450). For this reason, the answers of these participants in some

extents could be unlikely to represent the total purposes, strategies and

difficulties roughly 450 third year student had when doing reading reflections

In the second place, the limited number of interviewees was another

shortcoming of the paper. Due to time constraint, the study only concentrated

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on getting in-depth information from 6 volunteers who had been taken part in

the questionnaire before. Therefore, the interviews results did not really satisfy

the desirable data the researchers had intention to collect. To fill in gap in some

extents, a large number of interviewees should be invited to participate in the

study

Despite the shortcomings presented above, the researcher strongly assures that

collected results are valid and reliable thanks to the researchers carefulness and

responsibility in collecting and analyzing data as well as effective exploitation

of questionnaire and interview instruments.

5.4. Suggestions for further studies

Practically, the study placed its focus on third year students perception towards

a few aspects of doing reading reflection tasks illustrated by terms purposes,

strategies and difficulties. Therefore, for the future studies on the same

topic, many different unexploited aspects relating to the students and the

teachers perception should be conducted. For example, further papers can be

carried out to investigate the assessment of reading reflection tasks perceived

by the teachers or the purposes of the teacher when teaching reading

reflections.

Another remarkable point needs to be stated here is that it would be better if

future studies could be completed with broader informant population to

increase the generalization of the findings.

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Grellet, F. (1981). Developing reading skills. London: Cambridge

University Press.s

Hafner. L.E. & Jolly, H.B. (1982). Teaching reading to children. 2nded.

New York Macmillan

Hoang, T.H. (2007).Nghin cu v hiu qu ca loi bi tp c rng(extensive reading) trong vic pht trin k nng c cho sinh

vin nm 3 khoa NN & VH Anh-M. University of Languages

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Hosenfeld, C. (1977). A preliminary investigation of the reading strategies

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Huckin, T., & Bloch, J. (1993). Strategies for interring word-meanings incontext: cognitive model. In T. Huckin et al. (Eds.). Second

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Discussion. Retrieved11thMarch,2010from

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foreign language. System, 25(1), 91-102

Milne, J.(n.d). Evaluation cookbook. Questionaires: advantages and

disadvantages.Retrieved November 3rd, 2009 from

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42.

5

o my general reading skills 1 2 3 4 5

2.

6

o my ability to search for reading materials 1 2 3 4 5

2.

7

o my interest in reading/learning 1 2 3 4 5

Please specify any additional comments you have: ....

..

..

Part 2: Concerning your strategies in doing reading reflections3 I set goals for my reflections and made plan to achieve them 1 2 3 4 54 I asked for reading sources from other people (teacher(s)/ friends) 1 2 3 4 55 I looked for reading sources on my own. 1 2 3 4 56 I found reading materials for my reflection on the Internet. 1 2 3 4 57 I found reading materials for my reflection at the schools library. 1 2 3 4 58 I found reading materials for my reflection from my friends/my own

books and references.

1 2 3 4 5

9 For my reading reflections, 9.

1

o I read different types of reading materials. 1 2 3 4 5

9.

2

o I summarized the main contents of the materials. 1 2 3 4 5

9.

3

o I discussed the purposes of the reading passages. 1 2 3 4 5

9.

4

o I discussed the target readers of the reading passages. 1 2 3 4 5

9.

5

o I discussed the organization of the passages. 1 2 3 4 5

9.

6

o I discussed the style of the passages. 1 2 3 4 5

9.

7

o I discussed the reliability of the sources. 1 2 3 4 5

10 I discussed and reviewed my reflections with my friends/my teacher 1 2 3 4 511 I received comments for my reflections from my teacher. 1 2 3 4 512 I improved my later reflections. 1 2 3 4 5

Others (please specify) .. 1 2 3 4 5Please specify any additional comments you have: ....

..

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For your reading reflection, what did you do? (summary, purposes, the

target readers, organizations of the passages and reliability of sources)

4. What difficulties you encountered?

Note: The interview would be flexible when asking

APPENDIX 3

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

ENGLISH SKILLS DIVISION III

READING PROGRAM SEMESTER V

1. COURSE INTRODUCTION

Institution : Vietnam National University, Hanoi - University of Languages and International Studies

Department : Faculty of English Language Teacher Education

Division : English Skills III

Course credit value : Covering 55% of Written Communication 5- 3 Credits

Semester : 5

2. COURSE OBJECTIVES

1. To improve academic reading skills, including

understanding vocabulary in context,

getting reading for gist, scanning for details, locating reference, understanding inference,

understanding the authors perspectives,

understanding text structure and organization.

2. To improve critical reading and thinking skills.

3. To enrich background knowledge.

4. To develop the skills and ability to search for reading materials through libraries,bookstores and the Internet to enrich their reading resources.

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5. To consolidate and broaden language knowledge to reach CAE level.

3. CORE READING

Ediger,A. ,& Pavlik, C. (1999). Reading connections: skills and strategies for purposeful

reading: High intermediate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

4. ASSESSMENT PLAN

Reading assessment for the third-year students is carried out with four forms: studentsparticipation, 4 mini-tests, reading reflection and final exam.

Reading score (55%) = Participationx5% +mini-test x 10% +reflection x15%+final x

25%

4.1 Class participation (5%)

Each student is required to

actively prepare for the class

actively participate in class activities

work cooperatively and collaboratively with other peers

The participation score will be based on students fulfillment of homework and theircontribution to class activities.

4.2 Mini-tests (10%)

Students will complete 3 mini-tests through out the semester. Theformat, content and timeof the test are to be decided by the teacher.

4.3 Reading reflection (15%)

The purpose of the reflection is for the teacher to monitor students self-study. Each weekstudents spend 2 periods in class reading and at least 7 hours or more self-reading at

home

Students should read extra materials related to the topic of the main reading passage and

write a short reflection answering the following guiding questions? (Questions in bold are

compulsory)

a. What texts have you read these four weeks? List them all with their sources.

b. What did you learn from the reading passages(s)?

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c. What was new knowledge and information that contradicted to what you had

known or assumed before reading the passages?

d. What reading skills did you practice when reading those passages?

e. Did you find any new sources of reading materials that you can share with your

classmates? List them.

f. Have you got any questions you would like to ask your friends or your teachers?

What are they?

Requirements:

1. For reading material

Materials (articles, a chapter from a book,) are from reliable sources

about one certain theme. Students are recommended to find the

authentic material from books and international magazines or the

internet. The resources of the material need to be clearly shown in

Reference.

Length is 8000 words for reading for minimum to read in 4 weeks

2. For the reflection writing

Format: typed, font: Times New Roman, size 12, line spacing: 1.5 line

Length: 500 words as the minimum for the writing to analyse these articlesread in 4 weeks.

Submission deadline: The reflection is due every four weeks and must besubmitted at the beginning of the reading lesson of the week 5, 10, 13 (refer tothe Class Schedule on the next page)

Late assignments will not be accepted, unless students have arranged withtheir teacher prior to the regular due date to turn in the assignment

Assessment: The assessment will be on the range of reading, critical understanding andreflection of the materials.

4.5 Final Exams (25%)

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a. The title

b. The author(s)

c. The source

d. The number of words

b. Review, which answers the following questions:

a. What are the purposes of the reading passage(s)?

b. Who are the target readers?

c. What is the pattern of organization?

d. What are the main ideas?

e. What is the style of the passage(s)? Is this appropriate to the target readersand the purposes?

f. How do you evaluate these texts?

Requirements:

a. Students do NOT have to submit the readipassages, but the sourcesprovided should be specific enough for the teacher to refer to when necessary.

b. Format: typed, font: Times New Roman, size 12, line spacing: 1.5 line

c. Length: 400-500 words

d. Submission deadline: The reflection is due every five weeks and must besubmitted at the beginning of the reading lesson of the week assigned. (refer to theClass Schedule on the next page)

e. Late assignments will not be accepted, unless students have arranged withtheir teacher prior to the regular due date to turn in the assignment

Assessment: The assessment will be on the range of reading, critical understanding andreflection of the materials.

4.5 Final Exams (25%)

The format and the task types of the final reading exam are selected from those of the

Cambridge First Certificate in English Tests and CAE Tests.

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5. CLASS SCHEDULE

Week Content Reading skills practiced

1 Introduction. Getting startedand pretest

Unit 1: Foundation unit

2 Unit 2: Survival - skimming a text for main ideas

- identifying the aim of a text

3 Unit 3: Consumer issues - previewing a text

- dealing with difficult vocabulary

4 Self-study and consultation

Unit 4: Transport

- previewing a text

- skimming a text for main ideas

- looking for clues to text structure

5 Unit 5: Travel

Submission of Reflection 1

- scanning a text for specific information

- identifying relevant information to perform a task

6 Unit 6: Large-scale art - forming an overall impression of a text andidentifying the text type

- identifying clues to text structure

7 Unit 7: Children andeducation

- previewing a text

- identifying and interpreting opinions

- inferring information which is not clearly stated

8 Self-study and consultation

Unit 8: The oceans

- identifying text type and the purpose of a text

- evaluating a text and the writers style

9 Unit 9: Memorable incidentsSubmission of Reflection 2

- identifying the text type- interpreting the purpose of sentences in a text

- identifying clues to text structure

10 Unit 10: Cultural issues - scanning for specific information

- inferring a writers opinions

- evaluating the text

11 Unit 11: The living world - understanding the main idea of a text

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- understanding the writers attitude and tone of thetext

- inferring meaning from context

12 Self-study and consultationUnit 12: Communications

- identifying the purpose of a paragraph- inferring the writers intentions and attitude

- dealing with difficult vocabulary

13 Unit 13: Science fiction?

Submission of Reflection 3

- identifying the text type

- skimming for the main ideas and identifyingarguments

- evaluating a text

14 Unit 14: Modern life - skimming for main ideas

- inferring information which is not clearly stated

- identifying the writers intentions and attitude

Unit 15: Other people, otherways

- previewing a text

- identifying arguments

- looking for clues to text structure

pham long. 07e10. refection

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