Vietnam National University, Hanoi
University of Languages and International studies
Faculty of post- graduate studies
*****

NGUYỄN THỊ TRANG

Adapting reading tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 12 for
mixed-level students at Van Noi High School in Dong Anh,
Hanoi
(ĐIỀU CHỈNH CÁC NHIỆM VỤ ĐỌC TRONG SÁCH GIÁO KHOA
TIẾNG ANH 12 CHO PHÙ HỢP VỚI HỌC SINH CÓ TRÌNH ĐỘ
KHÁC NHAU TẠI TRƯỜNG THPT VÂN NỘI, ĐÔNG ANH, HÀ
NỘI)
M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: Methodology
Code: 60 14 10

HA NOI, 2012
Vietnam National University, Hanoi
University of Languages and International studies
Faculty of post- graduate studies
*****

NGUYỄN THỊ TRANG

Adapting reading tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 12 for

 Table 3.6.: The students‟ habit of doing reading tasks
 Table 3.7.: The students‟ opinions about working in groups
 Table 3.8.: The students‟ preference for the way of working in groups
 Table 3.9.: The students‟ opinions about the language in the reading texts
 Table 3.10.: The students‟ opinions about the content of the reading texts
 Table 3.11.: The students‟ opinions about the reading tasks
 Table 3.12.: The students‟ preferences for reading tasks
 Table 3.13.: The students‟ response to the adapted tasks and group work for
Unit 12
 Table 3.14.: The students‟ response to the adapted tasks and group work for
Unit 14

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declarations i
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii
List of Abbreviations iv
List of Tables and Figures iv
Table of Contents v
PART I: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Aims of the study 1
3. Research questions 2
4. Significance of the study 2
5. Scope of the study 2
6. Methods of the study 2
7. Design of the study 4
PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5

2.1.2. The learners 13
2.1.3. Reading materials 13
2.2. Instrumentation and Procedures 14
2.2.1. Instrument 1: Preliminary survey 15
2.2.2. Instrument 2: Survey questionnaire 15
2.2.3. Instrument 3: Class observation sheets 15
2.2.4. Instrument 4: Survey for response to adaptation and working in
groups 15
2.3. The grouping of the students 16
2.4. The adaptation of reading tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 12 16
Chapter 3: Data analysis 21
3.1. Data analysis of preliminary survey 21
3.1.1. Personal information of the students taking part in the survey 21
vii

3.1.2. The students‟ awareness of reading comprehension in general 21
3.1.2.1. The students‟ awareness of the important role of reading
comprehension in learning English 21
3.1.2.2. The students‟ evaluation of reading lessons in terms of
their interests 21
3.1.2.3. The students‟ perception of elements affecting their
reading comprehension 22
3.1.2.4. The students‟ evaluation of the important role of reading
materials to their interests 22
3.1.3. The students‟ ways of learning reading lesson 23
3.1.3.1. The students‟ perception of the important role of
preparing vocabulary and reading texts before class 23
3.1.3.2. The students‟ habit of doing reading tasks 23
3.1.4. The students‟ opinions about working in groups 24
3.2. Data analysis of survey questionnaire 24
1

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
In Exploring second language reading: issues and strategies by Anderson
(1999: 1), he affirms that reading is indispensable to learning a second or a foreign
language. Once a learner has acquired the skill, he/ she can achieve academic
improvement. Despite that importance, the students at Van Noi High School, where
the researcher has been teaching English for more than seven years, pay little
attention to the skill as well as the reading texts and reading tasks in their textbooks.
From the result of a survey conducted by the researcher, the reasons for that
problem include the students‟ depreciation of English, their poor knowledge of
English, and their avoidance of learning English. What should be done to solve that
problem has tormented the researcher and she has thought a lot to find out an
answer. On the way of doing that, she has also taken into consideration one more
fact that the students are not at the same level. With the same reading tasks, some
feel bored as they are easy; some feel depressed because they are too difficult.
Therefore, she wonders whether she should make groups of similar-level students,
and adapt the designed reading tasks in the textbook to make them more suitable for

The study was carried out to encourage the students‟ assessment of reading
tasks in the textbook. The unsuitable tasks were adapted to be more accessible for
the mixed-ability students. Pedagogically, the findings of the study are believed to
bring about necessary changes in reading materials and teaching methodology to
improve the students‟ reading comprehension at Van Noi High School.
Furthermore, the suggestions for teaching reading based on the findings can
be useful for concerned teachers to make reading lessons more interesting and
effective.
5. Scope of the study
Materials adaptation is such a broad topic that it cannot be wholly discussed
within the framework of this paper; therefore, only one specific aspect will be
central to the reading tasks‟ adaptation.
With the focus on reading tasks only in the textbook Tieng Anh 12 (the basic
3

textbook), the study was carried out to adapt those for groups of students of similar
ability.
The study focuses on one class of grade-12 students, so the results of the
study are not applied for all students at Van Noi High School.
6. Methods of the study
The study in fact is a mini action research. According to Nunan (1992: 19),
an action research includes seven steps. They are: initiation, preliminary
investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation, dissemination and follow-up.
The applied steps in details are as follows:
Step 1- Initiation: In the process of teaching the textbook Tieng Anh 12, the author
observed that the students did not take reading lessons seriously, they often
participated in those lessons inactively and inefficiently meanwhile reading
comprehension was considered important to academic studies. What should be
done?
Step 2- Preliminary investigation: The author carried out the preliminary survey to

about reading tasks, task adaption, and grouping students.
- Chapter Two not only describes the context of teaching and learning
English at Van Noi High School but also presents the instrumentation of the
study, the adaptation of reading tasks and the grouping of students.
- Chapter Three deals with a comprehensive data analysis.
- Chapter Four reports major findings, discussion, and suggestions.
The last part, Conclusion, provides a summary of the study, limitations and
recommendations for follow-up action.
5

PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter aims at providing a theoretical background knowledge relating
to reading comprehension, task adaptation and grouping students for the study.
1. Overview on reading theories, task, task adaptation, and grouping practice
1.1. Definition of reading comprehension
Reading, according to Williams (1984), is simply “a process whereby one
looks at and understands what has been written” (p. 2). His idea is shared in Ur
(1996: 38) that “reading means reading and understanding.” Karlin and Kartin
(1988:2) also express that “reading without reading comprehension is meaningless.”
In light of these above definitions, only reading is not considered „reading‟ without
understanding.
Reading comprehension and understanding are used interchangeably
(Grellet, 1981: 3; Richard and Thomas, 1987: 8). They identify the two terms when
they define reading comprehension as “an understanding between the author and the
reader.” Clearly, according to these authors, reading comprehension is not simply a
process where a reader knows what an author intends but a process whereby
readers‟ ideas, experiences and responses are stimulated.
In summary, reading comprehension is a sophisticated process in which the
reader uses his knowledge, experiences and strategies to get meaning of the text.

solve this problem, only suitable strategies and skills for making use of lexical,
grammatical, logical and cultural clues can help.
1.3.2. Language proficiency
Language proficiency in the field of reading can be understood as knowledge
of vocabulary and grammatical structures. If a learner‟s language competence is
low, it is “one of the obstacles to text comprehension” (Levine and Reves, 1990: 37;
cited in Anderson, 1999: 25). Yorio (1971: 108) also regards the imperfect
knowledge of the target language and the mother tongue interference as the major
cause of failure in reading a foreign language. It has been observed that learners are
unmotivated when they read a text about a difficult topic and it contains too many
7

unfamiliar words. They find it hard to interpret the meaning of the text, even when
they look up a dictionary to find meanings of words. Obviously, low competence of
the language prevents learners from exploring reading texts.
1.3.3. Cultural and background knowledge
It is clear that reading comprehension is not simply an activity of
understanding words, sentences or texts. Rather, it is much more complex, and it is
“an interactive process that requires consistent inferring and guessing” (Qian
Huang, 2009). Why is reading comprehension an interactive process? The
relationship between the text and the reader explains. Texts affect readers through
words, content and structures while readers use their background knowledge to
understand texts.
Background knowledge, or prior knowledge of readers helps them make
predictions about the meaning of the text. This occurs when readers activate their
life experience, educational experience, etc. to connect things they already know
with what they are reading in the text. Accordingly, if readers have relevant
knowledge about one topic, they can understand that reading text more easily and
more profoundly.
There have been several researches on the positive effects of cultural

broad sense, it is structured plan for the provision of opportunities for the
refinement of knowledge and capabilities entailed in a new language and its use
during communication.” More explicitly, Prabhu (1987: 17) defines a task as “an
activity which requires learners to arrive at an outcome from given information
through some process of thought, and which allows teachers to control and regulate
that process.” From the two definitions, it is clear that a task attaches special
importance to completeness or outcome of learning process.
In the context of teaching reading comprehension, Scrivener (2005: 188)
concretizes a task by recommending a framework of 15 specific reading tasks such
as reordering, listing, responding, problem solving, predicting, etc. This framework
of tasks is really helpful in developing students‟ micro-reading skills, so this study
uses the “reading comprehension tasks” concept with reference to this framework.
9

1.5.2. Adaptation definition
According to Tomlinson (1998: xi), adaptation is “making changes to
materials in order to improve them more suitable for a particular type of learner.” In
the aspect of adaptation techniques, Madsen and Bowen (1978: ix-xi) mentions
adaptation as the action of employing “one or more of a number of techniques:
supplementing, editing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing,
localizing, or modifying cultural/ situational content.” Differently, Stevick (1972),
cited in Mc Donough and Shaw (1993: 83) emphasizes teachers‟ role of bridging a
gap between materials and learners: “the teacher must satisfy the demand of the
textbook, but in ways that will be satisfying to those who learn from it.”
In brief, adaptation requires teachers to change and revise materials to make
them more accessible to the teaching context.
1.5.3. Purposes of adaptation
The first purpose of adaption emerges from the fact that learning materials
are not always in congruence with the learners‟ needs and societal requirements;
they usually contain outdated information, linguistic inaccuracies, lack of

1.6. Grouping practice
1.6.1. Benefits of grouping
Grouping is common practice in a language teaching class. The two most
common forms of grouping are within-class grouping and between-class grouping.
In the scope of this study, the author is only concerned with the former: within-class
grouping.
Research has documented that grouping benefits students‟ outcome. Cited by
Vaughn, Hughes, Moody, and Elbaum (2001), Maheady (1997) considers grouping
as one of the alterable instructional factors that "can powerfully influence positively
or negatively the levels of individual student engagement and hence academic
progress." Sharing the same view, Sue Stepp (2012) notes that “When students
work in groups on projects, the students learn cooperatively.” Furthermore, Dr.
Kizlik adds one advantage of grouping students: “placing students into groups to
maximize the effectiveness of an instructional technique can be a powerful tool for
11

both teaching and classroom management.” However, he stresses that the practice
should be done with careful planning and thought; otherwise, it can “lead to
inefficient use of teacher and student time.” That is what teachers should keep in
mind when grouping students and what goes on in the next part.
1.6.2. Grouping techniques
Teachers may have several ways of grouping students, including interest
grouping, ability grouping, random student grouping and student choice grouping
(Wagaman, 2008). Shalaway (2005) agrees with Wagaman on the four techniques,
and adds four more: social (cooperative) grouping, task grouping, knowledge of
subject grouping, and skill/strategy grouping. Four ways of grouping like
Wagaman‟s are also recommended by Michaelsen (1999) but he lists heterogeneous
grouping instead of student choice grouping. Each technique has both advantages
and disadvantages, so teachers should use different grouping formats flexibly basing
on such criteria as students' skills, prior knowledge, or interest (Valentino, 2000).

an idea
is developed that the teacher should go as quickly as possibly between groups to
make sure that all the students are working, and he should try to engage those who
are falling out of the group‟s discussion.
1.6.3.5. Evaluation and assessment of group work
Jenn (2012) suggests periodic evaluations throughout the assignment. If
groups of students work on a long-term basis, the teacher should frequently check
whether those students stay on tasks and make adequate progress. She also gives
suggestions on how to assess groups. She writes that we can assess groups both as a
whole and individually. When teachers give grades to group work, they should bear
in mind not only individual performance and collaborative products. By evaluating
and assessing group work by both individual and group levels, teachers can ensure
that “individual accountability remains high, while group cohesion to reach the final
goal remains strong.”

13

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY
This chapter will analyze the situation of the study with the description of the
subjects, the materials used by the students, the grouping of the students and the
instruments applied to collect data.
2.1. Situation analysis
2.1.1. Setting of the study
The study was conducted at Van Noi High School in Dong Anh, the suburb
of Hanoi City. At Van Noi high school as well as other high schools all over the
country, English is one of the three compulsory core subjects in the national
examination for GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education).
The students have three 45-minute periods of English a week, that is, 51
periods in term 1 and 54 periods in term 2. However, there are only seven reading
lessons in each term.

teacher had to see whether the actual outcomes matched with the students‟
motivation and teaching objectives by examining not only the products but also the
processes of the tasks.
Questionnaires were utilized as the main data collection instruments and
class observation was functioned as a supplementary source of information.
Because all the informants answered the same questions, the data collected were
easy to summarize, analyze and report. Furthermore, the subjects were free to give
their ideas without having to provide personal information. For that reason, the
researcher has more uniform and accurate data.
To avoid misunderstanding and ensure the accuracy of the data, both types of
questionnaires were written in Vietnamese and distributed with the author‟s clear
explanation.
The researcher let the participants read the texts before hand and let them
respond to a survey questionnaire one period before each reading lesson, and set
aside 15 minutes after each reading lesson so that they were not under pressure of
time.
The instrument and procedures used to gather the information for the study
15

will be described as follows:
2.2.1. Instrument 1: Preliminary Survey
The Preliminary Survey Questionnaire (see Appendix 1) was delivered to the
students at the beginning of the second term, after they have finished first term. It
was designed with four parts. Part 1 seeks information about students‟ sex, time of
learning English and English result of the previous semester. Part two consists of
four questions finding the students‟ general attitudes towards: the role of reading
comprehension (Question 1), reading lessons (Question 2), elements affecting
reading comprehension (Question 3), and the role of reading materials to their
interests (Question 4). Part three includes two questions learning about the way the
students often do their reading lessons. Part four investigates whether the students

members) included the best students in the class, and the last six groups (5 members
each) consisted of all low-achieving students in the class.
The forming of similar ability groups could help the author design suitable
tasks for each group in the hope of giving the students more success in reading
English. However, to ensure the success of the reading lesson, a lot of preparation
was compulsory before each reading lesson. The students were asked to prepare
vocabulary and all the reading tasks in the textbooks and the tasks given to them in
classroom were to check whether they had done their work seriously and enlarge
new aspects of the reading texts.
2.4. The adaptation of reading tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 12
Basing on the findings from the students‟ statement of the way they often do
their reading and their evaluation of reading tasks, some adaptation techniques were
employed to force the students to work more seriously and make the tasks more
accessible to them. The tasks of Unit 12 and Unit 14 were adapted, using common
adapting techniques such as „modifying, reordering, replacing and simplifying’.
 Sample of adaptation
1. Unit 12 (Page 128, the textbook Tieng Anh 12)
* Sample 1.1.: Modifying
For high-achieving students (see Appendix 4, sample 1.1)
17

Rationale for adaptation
The reading section of Unit 12 (see Appendix 6) was regarded a difficult one
because the text describes an unfamiliar sport to the students. Thus, the adapted
version of tasks 2 and 3 in the textbook was modified to the two groups of high-
achieving groups.
Adapted version:
- Type of activity: individual and group work
- Aims: to give the students a general idea of how a game of water polo is
played

- Aims: to help the students practice scanning skill
- Task: while-reading task, answering comprehension questions
- Preparation: one copy of the worksheet for each student
- Time: 15 minutes
- Procedure:
+ After finishing pre-reading tasks, the six groups received
worksheets from the teacher to answer the comprehension questions.
+ The students read the text and answered the questions individually
first, then they shared their answers in groups. The leader had to control the
group work (he had to make sure that every member worked seriously), and
the secretary was responsible for collecting ideas from the group members to
make a complete answer sheet to hand in.
+ The teacher went round to observe and give help if necessary.
+ After 15 minutes, the teacher took the suggestions from the groups
for the student who would get mark 10.
+ Then the teacher checked the answers with the six groups.
2. Unit 14 (page 152, the textbook Tieng Anh 12)
Rationale for adaptation:
From the result of the survey before the lesson, the topic of the text is
uninteresting to the students and it contains many difficult words. Because the
following tasks are not only difficult but also boring to the students, task 2 and task