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

VŨ THỊ THANH HUYỀN

ADAPTING READING TASKS IN THE TEXTBOOK
ENGLISH 12 TO IMPROVE THE 12
TH
FORM STUDENTS’
READING ACHIEVEMENT

ĐIỀU CHỈNH CÁC NHIỆM VỤ ĐỌC HIỂU TRONG SÁCH GIÁO
KHOA TIẾNG ANH 12 NHẰM NÂNG CAO KẾT QUẢ ĐỌC HIỂU
CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 12

M.A. Minor Thesis

Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 60.14.10
Hanoi, 2013
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*****************

VŨ THỊ THANH HUYỀN

Signature
Vu Thi Thanh Huyen

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There have been many helping hands along the way and I wish to thank
all of them, who have always supported and encouraged me in different but
equally important ways in accomplishing this research.
First of all, I would like to express my sincere and deep gratitude to my
supervisor, Dr. Hoang Thi Xuan Hoa, for her precious lectures and invaluable
guidance which helps me to write this research with less difficulty. Without
her helpful suggestions, I could never have finished my writing.
My sincere thanks also go to all lectures and staff of Postgraduate
studies for their valuable lessons and precious helps. Thanks to their lessons
as well as needed helps, I could overcome enormous obstacles when doing
this research.
Besides, I am also grateful to Mrs. Le Thu Ha- the librarian, and all the
library staff at the post graduate studies library of ULIS, VNU.
I would like to gratefully acknowledge the support that I received from
my colleagues and students, especially students of group 12A1 at Kim Bang
A high school, who have inspired and guided me in the accomplishment of
the study.
Finally, special thanks are also due to my family and my friends for
their support in bringing this research to a success.

Table 5: Students’ preference on types of reading tasks
Table 6: Students’ improvement in their reading achievement
ABBREVIATIONS
T: The teacher
Ss: Students

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Abstract
List of tables and abbreviations

PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Statement of the problem and rationale of the study
2. Aims of the study
3. Research Questions
4. Significance of the study
5. Research methodology
6. Scope of the study
7. Design of the study
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1 : LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Reading and teaching reading skill
1.1.1. Definitions of reading
1.1.2. The importance of teaching and learning reading skill
1.2. Reading tasks
1.2.1. Defining task and task-based language teaching and learning

1.3.3. Techniques for task adaptation
1.4. Related studies
1.5. Summary
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY
2.1. Research context
2.2. Reading tasks in the textbook English 12
2.3. Research Approach
2.4. Participants
2.5. Data Collection Instruments
2.5.1 Questionnaires
2.5.2. Pre-test and post-test
2.5.3. Diaries
2.6. Research procedure
2.7. Data collection procedure
2.8. Data analysis procedure
2.9. Summary
CHAPTER 3 : RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
3.1. Preliminary investigation
3.1.1. Students’ opinions about reading skill
3.1.2. Students’ opinions about reading tasks
3.2. Evaluation
3.2.1. Students’ awareness of task adaptation
3.2.2. Students’ improvement in their reading achievement
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15
16
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Appendix 3: Post-test
Appendix 4: Samples of students’ diaries
Appendix 5: Samples of adapted while reading tasks
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V
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XI
XIII
XVI 1
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Statement of the problem and rationale of the study
In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of commercially
produced foreign language textbooks or coursebooks as core teaching
materials in young learner classrooms. In many cases, the approaches taken,
the methods advocated and the tasks given in these materials are unsuitable to
certain language learning and teaching context. Therefore, there is a huge risk

harder on reading texts, get more reading comprehension and improve their
reading skill through the adaptation of reading tasks in the textbook English
12. From the study, recommendations on how to encourage students to read
effectively can be drawn out.

3. Research Questions
In order to get the aim of helping 12
th
form students improve their reading
achievement, the study tried to answer the following questions.
1. What are students’ opinions about reading tasks in the textbook English 12 based
on the reading lessons they have learnt in class?
2. To what extent do the adapted while reading tasks help the students improve their
reading achievement?

3
4. Significance of the study
This study was believed to be useful for the researcher because she could find
out an effective way to make her teaching process more easily. Moreover,
students of class 12A1 also got benefits from the research. They were
motivated in learning reading skill so that their reading achievement could be
improved.

5. Research methodology
This minor thesis employed Action Research in order to gain its aims because
according to Tsui (1993:33) “action research is a very effective way of helping
teachers to reflect on their teaching and to come up with their own alternatives to

conducting the study. It also provides a thorough description of the data
collection procedure as well as the analytical procedure.
Chapter 3: Results and Discussion: reports the findings of the real
situation of learning English of students at Kim Bang A high school.
Part III: Conclusion: summarizes the study, recommends for improvements
and acknowledges the limitations of the study.

5
PART II: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1. Reading and teaching reading skill
1.1.1. Definitions of reading
Reading has been investigated by linguists, psychologists, educators and
second language researchers, but an exact definition of reading really causes
much confusion because different authors define the terms in different ways.
In this thesis the author would like to mention some definitions of reading
extracted from different sources on the theme.
To give the definition, William (1984: 4), Nuttall (1996: 3), and Frank
(1985:104) share the same view that reading accounts for understanding what
has been written. Also, Goodman (1971 cited in Ha, 2003:6), states that
“reading is psycholinguistic process by which the reader, language user,
reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by writer as a
graphic display.”
Ur’s simple definition is “reading means reading and understanding” (Ur,
1996: 138). Harmer (1989: 190) seems to be interested in the notion of
reading. He argues “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain.
The eyes receive message and the brain then has to work out the significance of the
message.”
It is clear that no definition can possibly capture all the ideas and
features of what reading is. However, what they all share is that they try to

1.2.1. Defining task and task-based language teaching and learning
Applied since 1980s, task-based language teaching is a communicative
approach to language instruction, using the successful completion of
communicative tasks as its primary organizing principle. In task-based
teaching, learners will upgrade their language competence by focusing on
getting something done during using of the language. Moreover, learners are
encouraged to use whatever language they already have in the process of
completing a task. The use of tasks will also give a clear and purposeful
context for the teaching and learning a language.
According to Candlin (1987:3), “task-based learning continues with and
develops recent attention to learner-centered approaches, and in particular the
ideas of differentiation and learner interdependence”. While Bowen (2000)
focuses on the genuine purpose of task-based learning. It means that
communication should take place and that when preparing the report for the
class, students should consider language form in general rather than
concentration on a single form as in “Presentation-Practice-Production” model
of language teaching. The aim is to integrate all four skills and to move from
fluency to accuracy plus fluency.
It is obvious that task- based approach focuses on communication with
real situation and employ tasks as the main means of teaching and learning.
Numerous competing definitions of tasks exist. Many of these definitions
focus on different aspects of what constitutes a task. One of the most widely
quoted definitions for task is offered by Long (1985:89). He refers to a task as