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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research has been developed for almost seven months with the
responsibility of the researcher and great help from other people.
Firstly, I wish to express my deep gratitude to MA. Nguyen Thi Thu Hang
who has been my trusted guide through the completion of the thesis.
I would like to thank teachers in Science Committee of Foreign Language
Department as choosing my paper, creating favorable condition for me to
accomplish this thesis.
Great acknowledgement is supported by teachers and students in Long
ChauSa high school for their help during my research process especially
students who enthusiastically gave their time to answer the research questions in
this study.
Last but far from least, I am truly grateful to teachers and students at
English department, my family and friends, who are always at be back of me,
providing me with helpful advice, ideas, and special encouragement.
Finally, I wish to share the results of the research with all the people
mentioned above.


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TABLE OF CONTENT


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LIST OF THE TABLES
Table 3.1: The students’ opinion toward reading skill
Table 3.2: Students’ opinion about warm up activities

These activities helped students have attention, motivation and interest when
start reading a long text. They felt comfortable and relaxed and pay attention in
reading lessons without feeling bored and tired. From that they could improve
their reading skill.


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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1.

Rationale
In today’s modern world, English language has become a part of every

existing field. It has been an international language of communication, business,
science, information technology, entertainment and so on. Many countries have
English as their native languages.
English has experienced its popularity in teaching and learning in Vietnam
over the last few decades. Demand for learning English even gets stronger when
Vietnam fosters its international relations. According to Chastain, K (1987):
“English, in parallel with the knowledge of some other fields, turns out to be a
key to open the door into the bustling world”. In any walk of life in Vietnam,
you can find people use English; from the big cities to mountainous areas; from
the international conferences to daily conversations, or just few pidgin words
with the foreign tourists. People learn and use English with different purposes,
but there is a fact that they are trying to learn English with the hope that they can
use it effectively.
Learners of English, naturally and obviously, want to become the masters
of all the four skills. Though there are some who proposed what they need is
speaking a fluent English, other consider listening a tool for the realization of

skill using warm up activities.
2. Purpose of the research
For the reasons mentioned above, this study is carried out to make a small
contributions to the improvement in teaching English in general and in teaching
reading skill in particular for teachers and students at Long Chau Sa high school.
The purpose of this study:
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Using some warm-up activities to teach reading skill for grade 10 students at

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LCS high school.
Evaluate the effectiveness of these activities in teaching and learning reading
skill.
3. The research methods
In order to accomplish this study systematically and adequately, the following
methods have been used:
- Theoretical method: to study the related documents to give some knowledge
about reading skill and warm up activities.


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- Investigative and survey method: To fulfill this study, three survey
questionnaires, two for students and teachers before experiment and another for
student after experiment and the tests are delivered to the students to evaluate
the effectiveness of suggested warm up activities
- Analysis method: to get the data from many different materials related to the
study, analyzing to get the final results.

of different activities in teaching and learning foreign language is the most
effective way to motivate students to speak.
Brown (2001) lists some important micro skills that learners should use in
reading tasks in Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. According to
him, students should follow some principles for designing interactive reading
techniques, such as: Don’t overlook the importance of specific instruction in
reading skills (balance extensive and silent reading), use techniques that are
motivating, balance authentic texts, encourage the development of reading
strategies include both bottom-up and top-down techniques, subdivide the
techniques into pre-reading, during-reading and after-reading phases.
5.2. In Viet Nam
Le Thi Thuy Dung (2013), with the study on “using timed- reading
activities to increase tenth grade’s reading rate fluency at Tran Phu High School,
Vinh Phu province: An action research”, she examined the effectiveness of
timed reading activity in increasing 10th graders’ reading speed and their fluency.
This study also has investigated into the students’ attitudes towards tied reading
activity. The results obtained from the analyzed data show that the use of timed
reading helped raise students, reading rate and comprehension, especially in fast
reader group. Furthermore, most of the students expressed positive attitudes
towards timed reading activity.
Le Minh Duyen (2015) carried out a study on the use of some activities to
improve reading comprehension for grade 10 students at Chan Mong high
school. During the process of carrying out research, the researcher discovered
the fact that lots of the students having many difficulties in learning reading
comprehension skill. Their difficulties come out from lack of reading skill, lack
of vocabulary and lack of background knowledge. In order to improve and


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Moreover, there have no researches about using warm up activities to
teach reading skill for grade 10 students. This is the first time the study “Using
some warm up activities to teach reading skill for grade 10 students at Long
Chau Sa high school” is carried out at Hung Vuong University. So, I will choose
research about this issue with hope that this method can help the lesson more
interesting, effective to the teachers and students.
6. Scope of the research
This study focuses on some warm up activities to teach reading skill for grade
10A6 students at Long Chau Sa high school of the research
7. Outline of the study
The study consists of 3 parts, references and appendices
PART A: INTRODUCTION
Part A presents the overview of the study including the rationale for the research,
previous researches, research purpose, research questions, significance of the
research, scope of the research and design of the study.
PART B: STUDY
This part consists of 4 chapters
Chapter 1: Literature review, deals with the previous researches about reading,
warm up activities and warm up activities for teaching reading skill.
Chapter 2: Methodology, provides detailed information about the participants of
the study, and focuses on some reasons for choosing and description of the data
collection instrument and research procedure.
Chapter 3:Current situation of teaching reading skill for grade 10 students at
LCS high school, focuson the current situation as well as some findings from the
data analysis. From this, the researcher suggests some warm up activities to
teach reading skill.

to work out the significance of the message.”
Reading is the process of acquisition such messages from writing text or
another sources. Carell (1989) said that, reading is a respective language
process. It is a psycholinguistic process in that it starts with a linguistic surface
representation encoded by a writer and ends with meaning which reader
constructed. There is an essential interaction between language and the though
in reading. The writer encodes thought as language and the reader decodes
language thought. When a reader interacts with print, his prior knowledge
combined with the print and the visual (written) information results in his
comprehending the message. By reading, the reader will know what they read
and challenged to response the ideas of the author.


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The definition above explains that reading is combination of word
recognition, intellect, and emotion interrelated with prior knowledge to
understand the message communicated. By reading the reader will know what
they read and challenged to response the ideas of the author. In order to make
the messages or information that comes from the author can be understand and s
comprehended easily by the reader.
In short, reading be viewed as the meaning full interpretation or printed or
written verbal symbols. For the beginner, reading is concertinaed mainly with
learning to recognize the printed symbols that represent language and respond
intellectually and emotionally when being asked about the context of the text he
has read. The reasoning side of reading becomes increasingly important as word
recognition is mastered. As proficiency in reading increases, individual learn to
adapt their reading strategies in accordance with the purpose for reading
restriction imposed by the material. The nature of reading tasks, therefore,
changed as learner progress to the mature levels. Reading is not one skill but a

letters and words and assists the teachers to check learners’ pronunciation.
However, there are contradictory opinions about it, Greenwood(1985) criticizes
the overemphasis of the purpose of “teaching pronunciation” through reading
aloud
As for Doff (1988), reading aloud is not a very useful technique for some
reasons: Firstly, only one student is active at a time, the others are either not
listening at all or listening to a bad model. Secondly, students’ attention is
focused on pronunciation, not on understanding the text. Thirdly, it is an
unnatural activity, most people do not read aloud in real life. Lastly, because
students usually read slowly, it takes up a lot of time in class.
By whispering the words while reading, reading aloud slows the reader
down and forces him to read every word so it can distract him from
understanding the text.
b. Silent reading
Silent reading is the activity we usually engage in when we read books,
newspapers, advertisements, etc. Silent reading is widely used in both real life
and classroom, and “it is the method we normally use with our native language,
and on the whole the quickest and most efficient” (Lewis, 1985:110). With silent


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reading we can best understand the reading materials in the shortest possible
time because we do not need to read all the words in the text, we can read at our
own speed and if we do not understand what we are reading, we can read again
or slow down for intensive reading. For the teachers, silent reading is helpful for
controlling the class. In silent reading, students are in fact concentrating on the
text, obtaining the meaning and extracting what they need.
In short, silent reading is the most useful and practical way to develop the
students’ reading ability. However, it is more beneficial when the teacher

c. Intensive reading
Intensive reading “involves approaching the text under the guidance of a
teacher or a task which forces the students to focus on the text” (Nuttall, 2000).
In the view of Brown (2001), intensive reading “is usually a classroom-oriented
activity in which students focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a
passage”.
Grellet, F. (1981) states that “Intensive reading means reading short text to
extract specific information. This is an accuracy activity involving reading for
detailed”. The objective of intensive reading is to achieve a full understanding of
the text not only of what it means but also of how the meaning is produced.
Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound and detailed
understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of
the text, the attitude and purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to
achieve his purposes. In other words, intensive reading is reading for accuracy
which is essential to the students’ comprehension.
d. Extensive reading
Extensive reading is used to obtain a general understanding of a subject
and includes reading longer texts for pleasure, as well as business books. Use
extensive reading skills to improve our general knowledge of business
procedures. Grellet, F. (1981) points out “Extensive reading means reading
longer texts, usually for one’s pleasure. This is a fluency activity, mainly
involving global understanding”. What is more, Nuttall, C. (2000) argues that
“getting students to read extensively is the easiest and most effective way of
improving their reading skills” Extensive reading is considered to be useful for
students’ self-learning. Their reading habit and passion for reading are also


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formed through extensive reading. Students can choose the topics they like and

lesson will justifiably have two equally important activities. But my emphasis on
the primacy of learners reading in a single-skill ‘reading only’ lesson is to stress
that the central activity of learners reading must not be allowed to become


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submerged in a welter of peripheral supportive activities. Learners learn to read
by reading: there is no other way.
3. Growth in language ability is an essential part of the development of
reading ability. The pendulum in recent years has swung towards an emphasis
on teaching appropriate skills and strategies. This re-orientation is welcome; but
we must not forget that the best skills and strategies in the world will have little
effect unless learners are simultaneously expanding their ‘sight’ vocabulary, and
their recognition knowledge of commonly occurring sentence patterns and
rhetorical patterning in text. In fact, Alderson (1984), having reviewed the
relevant literature, suggests that a minimum language threshold is necessary
before reading skills and strategies (including their transfer from the mother
tongue) can successfully operate.
4. Classroom procedure should reflect the purposeful, task-based,
interactive nature of real reading. A psycholinguistic model of the reading
process (Goodman 1970) holds that the reader is actively engaged in striving to
reconstruct the author’s message. He or she participates in an internal dialogue
in which hypotheses are formed, predictions made, doubts expressed,
uncertainties subsequently clarified, new information grafted on to old, old
views modified by new, etc. Reading is thus not only active but interactive-just
as interactive as audible conversation.
5. Teachers must team to be quiet: all too often, teachers interfere with
and so impede their learners’ reading development by being too dominant and
by talking too much. Although it can and should be fostered by collaborative

Nuttall (1982) gives excellent advice concerning setting up and administering
such a scheme.
8. A reader contributes meaning to a text. Reading is not simply a
matter of taking out (information, opinion, enjoyment, etc.), like shopping at a
supermarket; it also involves contributing (attitudes, experience, prior
knowledge, etc.). This natural characteristic of real reading must be encouraged
and developed in teaching EFL reading. This can be done by including questions
or tasks which require readers to combine what is in their heads with what is in
the text. (Such questions and tasks can be indicated by a symbol as if necessary)
9. Progress in reading requires learners to use their ears, as well as their
eyes. As with audible reading, silent reading involves stress and intonation or
prosody, the greater the degree of comprehension. Therefore, learners should be


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encouraged also to listen to texts—such as tapes accompanying graded readers,
specially recorded tapes, the teacher reading to the class, older learners reading
to younger learners, and better readers reading to weaker readers in their group.
10.Using a text does not necessarily equal teaching reading. Texts can be
used for many different purposes. For example, it is perfectly sensible to use a
text to demonstrate a certain grammatical or functional point in context, as a
trigger for further work on that point. But it would be a mistake to think that one
was thereby teaching reading. Johns and Davies (1983) make the important
distinction between what they call TALO (text as linguistic object) and TAVI
(text as vehicle for information). In TALO, the text is a carrier for the teaching
of language grammar, vocabulary, etc. which is laboriously ‘mined’ from the
text by the teacher and learners (usually with the teacher as chief miner). This a
perfectly justifiable use of text as one way of teaching language: but it
contributes very little to the development of learners’ reading skills.

reading activity. Learners who experience this anxiety may not completely
understand the instructions and this may lead to confusion and poor
comprehension of the reading task.
The fourth factor is interest and motivation. According to Dennis (2008),
learners’ interest and motivation are very important in developing reading
comprehension skill. If readers find the reading material monotonous, they will
have a lot of problems in concentrating on their comprehension. This can lead to
a lowering of reading comprehension among readers. If the reading material is
interesting for learners they can easily understand it and can remember it clearly.
EFL teachers should motivate their learners through providing interesting
reading materials during their class time.
The fifth factor is related to decoding or word recognition speed. Readers
who have problems in decoding and recognizing words read slowly and find it
more difficult to understand the meaning of passages than those without
decoding problems. She expressed that vocabulary influences the reading
comprehension skill because readers apply decoding skills to understand the
pronunciation and meaning of words they have not seen before. Persons who
have enough vocabulary can clarify the meaning or reading passages faster than
those who should guess the meaning of unfamiliar words according to the clues
of context (Dennis, 2008).


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The last factor is concerned with the medical problems. According to Hill.
(1990) poor reading comprehension skill may be related to the medical difficulty
that does not get addressed until the child is older. This involves undiagnosed
ADD (attention deficit disorder), speech problems, and hearing impairments.
She emphasized that learners with speech and hearing difficulties are less likely
to take part in oral reading and class discussions. These are the two activities

material.
Nguyen Bang (2000) recommends warm up activity or warm up or lead in, as he
names, as one kind of class activities. He suggests that a warm up activity is an
activity designed at the beginning of the lesson to create a comfortable class
atmosphere or to prepare for students readiness and knowledge for the new
lesson. This kind of activity often takes no more than five minutes but it plays a
very important role in deciding the success for the lesson.
On a well- known website brought to English teachers and learners by
Larsen- Freeman. D. (1986), warm up activity is defined as “an activity
designed to get things started, to wake up tired students (and teachers), and
prepare brains, mouths, ears and eyes for English”.
Basing on all the ideas above, the definition which can be drawn out is
that warm up activity is a kind of short activities which is used to break the “ice”
in classroom and make it “hot” from the beginning of each period of language
class. They are short, simple and interesting enough to motivate students to learn
a foreign language better.
1.2.2. Types of warm up activities
1.2.2.1. Using pictures
a. Overview of pictures
As Hill (1990) pointed out, “the standard classroom” is usually not a very
suitable environment for learning languages. That is why teachers search for
various aids and stimuli to improve this situation. Pictures are one of these
valuable aids. They bring “images of reality into the unnatural world of the
language classroom.” (Hill, 1990) Pictures bring not only images of reality, but
can also function as a fun element in the class. Sometimes it is surprising, how
pictures may change a lesson, even if only employed in additional exercises or


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going to do with the pictures shown. However, there is always a downside: it can