Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
Table of contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1
PART 1: INTRODUCTION 2
1. Reason for choosing the topic. 2
1.2 AIMS OF THE STUDY 3
2. Aim of the study 4
3. Research questions 4
4. Scope of the study 4
5. Methods of the study 5
6. Significance of the study 5
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 6
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 6
1.The importance of learning reading comprehension skills 6
2. Motivation 6
3. Motivation in leaning reading short stories. 7
3.1. Short stories and their benefits to high school students 7
3.2. Choosing the suitable short stories for high school students 8
3.3. How to use short stories in teaching reading 9
CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 11
1. What is action research? 11
2. The setting and the participants 11
2.1. The setting of the study 11
2.2 The subjects of the study 11
2.3. Reading materials 12
3. Action research procedure 12
3.1. Identifying a problem 12
3.2. Collecting data 12
3.3. Pre-test and post-test 13
CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS 14

second language learning.
Being aware of the importance of learning reading skill, authors of new English
10 have chosen interesting topics for reading lessons with the aim to promote
students in reading and improve their reading comprehension. However some of them
are not familiar with students' genre and reading in the text book only is not enough
to enhance students' interest in reading and reading comprehension. Thonis, (1970)
suggested:
Comprehension skills depend upon two major factors: the background of
experiences, from which concepts have been acquired, and the speed, accuracy,
and richness of meanings which students bring to word recognition. The
advancement of skill in understanding what is read receives major emphasis
during the intermediate and high school years. As students become more
efficient readers, the written language which they meet in books becomes a
source for larger vocabularies, for increased knowledge, and for deeper
comprehension of themselves and the world around them.
Thus beside the reading texts in the text book students need to read more outside
class room to enrich their vocabulary as well as their background knowledge. That
means students must read extensively.
So many studies and researches have been conducted to find out ways to
improve reading effectiveness. Recently, there have been a lot of researches about the
effect of extensive reading in improving students’ reading comprehension. Colin
Davis (1995:335) suggested that any classroom will be the poorer for the lack of an
extensive reading program and will be “unable to promote its students’ language
development in all aspects as effectively as if such a program were present”. He also
claimed that such a program will make students more positive about reading, improve
their overall comprehension skills, and give them a wider passive and active
vocabulary. Myuskens (1983) affirmed that "with students at the beginning and
intermediate levels, instructors can use literacy text for language practice, reading
comprehension and possible aesthetic appreciation”. Strong (1996) also stated that


1.2 Aims of the study
The study is to find down if the using short stories in teaching reading helps
motivate students at My Hao high school in reading and improving their reading
ability.
The overall purpose of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of the using
short story reading activities (as extra reading activities) at My Hao high school. Thus

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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
survey questionnaires and class observations are used to investigate the teachers and
the students' attitude towards the using short stories in teaching and learning reading
as well as to examine the students' preferences for students' reading activities applied
by the researcher.
The results of the study show that both teachers and students are fully aware of
the sheer importance of short story reading activities to the students' comprehension.
Among them, summarizing the story in spoken or written form appears to be the most
interesting activities. After this activity, the students not only comprehend deeply the
short story but they also practice speaking and writing skills. Secondly, the students
find it easier to comprehend the story by filling in relating problems or themes in the
story to their real life.
2. Aim of the study
The study is to find down if the using short stories in teaching reading helps
motivate students at My Hao high school in reading and improving their reading
abilities.
3. Research questions
This action research aims at answering the following research questions:
1. What are the students' problems and causes of the problems in reading lessons?
2. What are students' attitude and preferences for the using short stories in teaching
reading?

applying extra reading activities in teaching reading are very necessary.
The aim of this study is to find out whether the using short stories in teaching
reading motivates students in reading and improves their reading comprehension.

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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
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PART 2: development
Chapter 1: Literature review
1.The importance of learning reading comprehension skills
Reading comprehension is what allows the readers to interact with the text in a
meaningful way. It’s the bridge from passive reading to active reading, from letters
and words to characters and contexts. Reading comprehension is the crucial link to
effective reading - a strong factor in our educational and professional lives. For many
reasons, reading comprehension also unlocks the door to a lifetime of reading
recreation and enjoyment. Reading comprehension skills increase the pleasure and
effectiveness of reading. In short, building reading comprehension skills require a
long term strategy in which all the reading skill areas (phonics, fluency, and
vocabulary) will contribute to success. Thus, teachers should find out what skill areas
that their students are bad at and help them improve those ones.
2. Motivation
If students are going to develop good reading skills, they’ll want to read.
People are more motivated to read if they are interested in the topic. Research
confirms that students' motivation is a key factor in successful reading. Harmer, J
(2003;44) defined "motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages
somebody to pursue a course of action."
Students' interest in reading is vital to the motivation and reading
assignment (Collins, Decker, 1996.53). If a student is intrinsically motivated, the
students desire to read the materials because they are interested in it. Another strategy
that is used to promote intrinsic motivation is to find topics that students are

extra reading activities. Erkaya (2005;75) said "short stories usually have a
beginning, middle and an end, they encourage students at all levels of language
proficiency to continue reading them until the end to find out how the conflicts is
resolved”. He also stated that " short stories, for example, help students to learn the
four skills listening, speaking, reading, writing more effectively because of the
motivational benefit embedded in the stories and with short stories, instructors can
teach literacy, culture, and higher-order thinking benefit." Accordingly, what Hirvela
and Boyle (1988;66) report is not surprising: they examine students' attitudes towards
four genres of literary texts (short stories, novels, poetries and dramas) and state that
their Hong Kong Chinese students indicated short stories as the genre that is less
feared and the second most enjoyed (43%; the novel is the most enjoyed with 44%),
since short stories are easy to finish and definite to understand.
In addition, short stories are the best path to improve your overall reading
comprehension. Short stories are easy, not time consuming, and the plots are
relatively simple, with limited locations and characters. In about an hour or so, you
should be able to read a short story, and then sit down and analyze the story from
beginning to end. You should be able to identify the characters, what the story’s plot
is about, and analyze the plot from different angles. This will teach you to see a
system from different angles. “Thus short stories - they are simply, easy and fun. But
they can really improve your reading comprehension”(Keith Johnson, 2008;77).

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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
In conclusion, the answer to the question of why short stories are the most
suitable literary form to use in English classes lines in Edgar Allan Poe's definition of
short stories. He defined it "as a narrative that can be read at one sitting of from one-
half hour to two hours, and that is limited to 'a certain unique or single effect', to
which every detail is subordinate" (Abrams, 1970;88). Since it is short, and aims at
giving a single effect, there is usually one plot, a few characters; there is no detailed

Wilga Rivers (1968: 230) point out that students read and enjoy a text if the subject
matter of the text is relevant to their life experience and interests. There are short

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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
stories written for teenagers, although they are written for native speakers, "one way
or another, they are directly relevant to the life experience, thoughts, emotions, and
dreams of young people" (Rongqvist and Sell 1995: 44).
3.3. How to use short stories in teaching reading
Short stories studied must be assigned to the students previously.
Each student's reading and understanding speed is not the same, and the course
hours are limited in high schools. If the students read the chosen text beforehand, they
will understand the surface meaning or at least, have an ideal about the subject matter of
the story. For the best use of the allocated time, the students must read the text before the
class meeting. Before reading the text in class, the teacher should give very brief
information about the writer in order that the students can see the writer in the context of
his/her time.
• Using a graphic organizer or story map
Following the reading of the text, the teacher may use a graphic organizer so
that the students can comprehend the story better. A graphic organizer is "a visual aid
that displays the chunks of information to be studied" (Crandall, Jaramollo, Olsen and
Peyton, (2002: 2). Crandall et al. (2002: 2) explain the advantages of using graphic
organizers as follows:
Graphic organizers can help teachers clarify their instructional goals. Teachers
can ask themselves what they want their students to learn and how they can display
this information graphically to help their students connect their ideas
A story map in particular will help students understand the components of the
story. Crandall et al. (2002;5) describe a story map as follows: "A story map is one
example of a graphic organizer. A story map breaks down the components of a story-


Resolution
Theme of the story
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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
Chapter 2: Research methodology
1. What is action research?
Action research is now becoming increasingly popular in language education. It
is a process in which some decisions about the teachers' future practice result from
problem identification and analysis on daily practice.
Action research is advantageous in many ways. Glanz (1991.7) points out that,
in the first place, it is feasible because the research is done by the practitioner (the
researcher) in his/her own practical context and situation. Although it is done in
reasonable time, action research brings immediate benefits to teaching practice. In
addition, he states that action research directly affects a teacher' practice and enable
him /her to renew the classrooms and promote instructional improvement. Finally, all
the stages of action research are implemented in a strict order which allows educators
to systematically address to topics and issues that affect teaching and learning in the
classroom.
With the above important reasons, an action research was selected to fulfill the
study.
2. The setting and the participants
2.1. The setting of the study
The study was carried out at My Hao high school where the researcher has been
teaching English for eight years.
2.2 The subjects of the study
The subjects of the study are 50 students of class 10A3 at My Hao high school
(school year: 2011-2012) including 22 males and 28 females. The age of those 50
students ranges from 15 to 16. They all have learnt English for at least four years at

3.1. Identifying a problem
What was the students' problem?
After teaching class 10A3 for a semester, the researcher realized that the
students were not motivated in the reading lessons. As a result, most of them could
not answer the comprehension questions after reading so they did not comprehend the
reading well after reading lessons.
3.2. Collecting data
What were the causes for the students' problem?
In this step, the main causes for the students' low comprehension in reading
lessons were identified with questionnaire 1 for the students as presented in 3.3.1, the
class observations and interviews with other reading teachers as in 3.3.2 was
conducted to check the real ability of the information from the Questionnaires.

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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
3.3. Pre-test and post-test.
The pre-test, which was taken from My Hao high school’s test library, is to
check students’ reading comprehension. It was done at the beginning of the second
term. The test consists of two reading texts with the topics that the students have
learnt in the first term and there were four exercises to check students' vocabulary
knowledge and reading comprehension ability after learning eight units in the first
term. The test was taken before the time of action plan implementation.
The post-test, which was taken from My Hao high school’s test library, is to
check students’ reading comprehension. It was done at the end of the second term.
The test consists of two reading texts with the topics that the students have learnt in
the second term and there were four exercises to check students' vocabulary
knowledge and reading comprehension ability after learning eight units in the second
term. The test was taken after the time of action plan implementation.
The format of the two tests and the kinds of exercises were designed the same.

observation sheet for her observation including the way the teacher taught the
students, the reading short story activities the teacher applied and the students’
attitudes towards the teacher’s activities their involvement in the activities, their

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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
reading comprehension performance and their interaction with each other while
completing the reading tasks.
3. Analyzing data from teachers’ survey
What were the results and recommendations for further study?
The action research was evaluated based on the results collected from the post
data. From the findings of the action research evaluation, some recommendations
were made.
• The research method and its different data collection instruments were
presented.
• The reasons for the method selection were also discussed.
• The pre-data collection procedure, the implementation of the action plan, and
the post-data collection procedure were conducted in a strict order.
• After the pre-data were analyzed, the causes of the students’ low reading
comprehension were sought.
• Then one action plan of using short story in teaching reading was developed
and implemented during the sixteen weeks of the study.
• Based on the analyzed results from the action plan implementation and the post
data collected after sixteen weeks of action plan implementation, the action
research was evaluated.
• In conclusion, action research was chosen to be the research method of this
study because action research can help to identify problems, solve the
problems, and evaluate the solutions, which are exactly what the researcher
wanted to do.


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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
As a result of this, the number of students getting bad marks decreased remarkably
(only 4%) and the number of students getting excellent marks increased sharply
(66%)
4.3. Pre-test and post-test comparison

Discussion:
The results from the pre-test and post-test showed that the students gained
significantly high reading comprehension level of the reading text thanks to the short
story reading activities that the teacher applied in the action plan implementation. In
the pre-test there were no marks 9 or 10 but in the post test, 14% of the students got
marks 9 or 10. The number of students who had marks 7 or 8 increased strikingly
from 8% to 52%. None of the students got marks 1 or 2, only 2 students got mark
4(4%). In conclusion, the scores from the two tests showed a big difference in the
students’ progress in comprehending the reading texts as well as in developing their
reading skill.

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Chapter 4: Major findings and suggestions
1. Students' factors affecting reading comprehension
1.1. Limited background knowledge
It is easier to read and understand the text if we know something about the topic.
For example, in our own language, it is very difficult to read a science textbook if we
have never learnt any science. Except various background knowledge of difference
nations, human share a large amount of the same knowledge known as common

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Action research Nguyen Thi Ly–
My Hao High School
literacy listening, speaking, reading, and writing. (Trisha Callella. 2004. Teaching
vocabulary to improve reading comprehension. Creative teaching pressed).
By high school, students with a diversity of backgrounds and skills are
immersed in content area instruction. Yet all students, and particularly those who are
struggling, are confronted with vocabulary and concepts that are unfamiliar or
misunderstood. Those misunderstandings interfere with comprehension of content
area curriculum.
That is the reason why the vocabulary enrichment for students becomes
necessary. Many researches have been carried out to study the possibility of learning
vocabulary through reading especially through extensive reading in a second
language.
Day, R., & Bamford, J. (1998) also found that
Research convincingly shows that extensive reading increases vocabulary
knowledge. It is not surprising that extensive reading helps students become better
readers. Research in both L1 and L2 shows that we learn to read by reading. The
more our students read the better readers they become. An integral part of this is
learning new vocabulary. One of the primary way in which vocabulary is learned is
through reading. Learners encounter the same words over and over again in context,
which results in vocabulary learning.
This fact leads to the using short stories (as an extensive reading activity) in
enriching students' vocabulary knowledge as well as improving their reading
comprehension.
1.3. Lack of reading comprehension skill.
Students were asked about what should be done to improve their reading
comprehension. More than a half (56%) of the students agrees with idea of providing
more activities to raise students' interest in reading. 60% of them approve for idea
that students should read more outside classroom to enrich their own vocabulary and

3. Reading material factors
Material is considered to be one of the kernel elements in the model of
language teaching and learning. O'Malley and Chammot (1990:210) state that:
The objectives of language materials are to develop academic English language
skills through content-base instruction, to develop understanding and skills in
content areas, and to teach students learning strategies that will help them become
autonomous learners of both language and content.
Because of this, appropriate reading materials must effectively assist students
in developing their reading skills. Teachers are advisable to design or at least know
how to select suitable reading materials accompanied with a relevant range of
exercises for students. In other words, the topic of reading materials must be of
students' interest. Baker de Gonzalez and Blau, (2000) suggested that
The high-interest topic and thematically linked reading affectively build
students' background knowledge and vocabulary for later reading. With their
increased knowledge of a topic, students will have more to talk, write and think about
as they acquire English.
In conclusion, The influence that materials have on the teaching and learning
process can not be denied, so reading teachers must be aware of the role of materials
have in their classroom and the way they are used. From this the teachers can choose
the most suitable reading materials for their students.

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4. Suggestions for motivating students to read.
As mentioned before, motivating students to get actively involved in reading
lessons depends on several factors. However, the author of the study intends to
investigate into the impact of teachers’ teaching method through the using short story
reading activities as extra reading activities. Base on the data gathered from the
survey questionnaires, interview and observations, major findings have been pointed

reading material and reading comprehension activities are very necessary.
To improve the situation, the teachers should take into consideration such things
as teaching and learning condition, the reading material, reading activities, learning
strategies and students’ preference… In more details, using short story reading
activities as extra reading activities appropriately and flexibly, encouraging students’
internal factors … are feasible and effective solutions to apply in teaching reading.
Finally, it is hope that the study will make an especially significant contribution
to the improvement and renovation of the current situation of teaching and learning
English at My Hao high school.

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REFERENCES
Abrams, M.H (1970). A glossary of literary term. New York: Rinehart.
Alvarez, Marino C. Knowledge activation and schema construction. Paper presented
at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston,
MA, 1990, 25p. ED 317 988
Baker de Gonzalez and Blau (2000). Peason Education ESL Retrieved February 8,
2009 from the World Wide Web:
/>Brumfit, Christopher J (1985). Language and literature teaching: from practice to
principle. Oxford: Pergamon.
Burn, R. (1994). Introduction to research methods. Melbourne: Longman.
Carol. W. (1980). Motivational techniques for improving reading comprehension
among innercity high school students. Volum 4, 2009 by the Yale-New Haven.
Teacher Institute.
Carrell, P.L. (1983) Some issues in studying the role of schemata in second language
comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, N.12, 1
Coady, J. (1997). L2 vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading. In J. Coady &
T.

- Doing multiple choice True/ False exercises that focus on vocabulary and
reading comprehension about the topic.
- Match a definition with a suitable paragraph of the stories.
3-4 10
- Read short stories about topic: conservation.
- using graphic to re-present the stories’ contents.
- retelling the stories in front of the whole class
5-6 11
- Read short stories about topic: national park.
-Asking and answering questions relating problems or themes in the story to
real life of the students.
Comparison, note points of similarity or differences of contents between a
national park in Vietnam and a national park in the world.
7-8 12
- Read short stories about topic music.
- Ask and answer questions relating problems or themes in the story to real life
of the students.
- Provide title for the story
9-10 13
- Read short stories about topic film and cinema.
- Re-order the events of the stories.
- Provide title for the study.
11-12 14
- Read stories about topic “ The world cup”
- Ask and answer questions relating problems or themes in the story to the
students’ real lives.
- Use story maps to represent the contents of the stories
13-14 15
- Read short stories about topic “ City”
- Reorder events of the stories