Date post: | 14-Apr-2018 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | natalia-cardona-villa |
View: | 225 times |
Download: | 0 times |
of 34
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
1/34
Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Oral Performance
Universidad de Antioquia
Escuela de Idiomas
Licenciatura en Lenguas Extranjeras
Natalia Mara Ballesteros lvarez
Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Language Performance
Action Research Report
Research Advisor & Thesis Advisor: Cristina Cadavid Mnera
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
2/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 2
Abstract
This action research project studied how implementing reading tasks can help students to
improve their oral language performance, through the use of authentic material, meaningful
and structured tasks and significant input. This project was carried out at Institucin
Educativa Normal Superior de Envigado with 39 tenth grade students. The use of authentic
reading materials encouraged these students to get involved in discussions and use the
foreign language to participate of them. Reading tasks allowed students to gain the input
they needed to apply it in a significant way. The findings of the project show that students
increased to some extent their oral production and language comprehension; there was as
well a positive influence on students motivation.
Key words for retrieval
Task- Based Approach, task, oral performance, reading, input.
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
3/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 3
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank specially my family for all the support given and all the
efforts they have made for me through all these years and to my cooperating teacher and
10th grade students of Normal Superior de Envigado for being helpful and receptive with
my project and allow me to improve as a teacher and as a person.
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
4/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 4
Table of Contents
Preface.5
Description of the context.......6
Description of the problem. ...9
Objectives..13
General objective..13
Specific objectives...13
Theoretical Framework....13
Plan and implementation of actions..........19
Data analysis.................23
Findings and interpretations of data..27
Conclusions and suggestions.30
Reflection......31
References.32
Appendixes ...33
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
5/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 5
Preface
This paper is the result of my action research project carried out during the
practicum at the Institution Educativa Normal Superior de Envigado. I am an undergraduate
student in the last semester of a program in foreign language teaching at the School of
Languages at the University of Antioquia. This action research project besides being a
requirement for all the students to get the bachelors degree was the best opportunity for me
to apply all the knowledge I acquired during my years in the school of languages. Doing
this project allowed me to know in a better way what it means to be a teacher, a teacher
researcher and gave me a clearer perspective about education. In this project I chose to
explore reading tasks, in first place for the different needs I identified in the classroom I
observed, and in second place because I believe that providing students with meaningful
and comprehensible input is an effective tool to make an improvement in oral performance,
language comprehension and to foster students motivation.
.
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
6/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 6
Description of the Context
This action research project was carried out at Institucin Educativa Normal
Superior de Envigado during the academic year 2008. This institution is a coeducational
and public school with an emphasis on pedagogical instruction in the last grades (10 th and
11th). Their philosophy is based on educating students under a holistic conception of the
human being and with excellent pedagogical bases. One of the characteristics of this school
and for which it is known, is that it prepares students to become elementary school teachers
in different areas. Students who want to become teachers must do a complementary level
called Ciclo complementario (complementary cycle) during two more years after high
school to get their degree as certified teachers. With this certificate, they are able to teach in
elementary school or they can continue with their studies at the university level.
The institutions mission is focused on educating students and future teachers with
high competences in the educational and investigative field, who believe in their profession
and who can apply the strategy of learning to learn. The principles of the school promote
respect to individual differences and responsibility as most important values.
Concerning the facilities of the school, it is a big building that counts with 25
classrooms. It is divided into three sections: the elementary school, high school which is in
the same location but in separate buildings and a third one called Institucin Educativa
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
7/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 7
court. Besides, every classroom is equipped with a TV and a DVD. The classroom in
which I was carrying out the project was small, for 43 students. In it there was a TV and
DVD set, posters (some of them in English), garbage cans, a regular chalkboard and some
elements for cleaning the classroom. Students were organized in rows and there was a little
space to walk among them.
The students of this school are children and teenagers who live (most of them) in
the same neighborhood in which it is located, Los Naranjos in Envigado, Antioquia. The
schedule of the students in the morning goes from 6:10 am to 1:00 pm for the high school
students and from 7:00 to 1:00 for the elementary students. The group I worked with was a
tenth grade with 43 students, 36 girls and 7 boys between 15 and 17 years old. They had
three hours of English per week, divided into two class periods.
Concerning my Cooperating teacher (C.T) and the one who helped me in this
process, she holds a degree in foreign language teaching with an emphasis on English and
French from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana and a specialization in Planeamiento
Educativo from Universidad Catlica de Manizales. She has experience working as an
English teacher for 23 years and at this school she has been working for eight years. She is
the homeroom teacher of one of the 4 tenth grades in the school and she is in charge of
teaching English to all tenth and eleventh grades. Besides she is in charge, with the rest of
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
8/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 8
and creativity of the students so they could see that English was for more than developing
dialogues in the classroom or doing drills.
Regarding the area of English, the syllabus is mixed or multi-strand, since the
program is divided into competences, notions, grammar, vocabulary, and tasks or activities.
All the components of the syllabus are oriented towards a holistic education of the students
regarding the linguistic, pragmatic and sociolinguistic competences and the four language
skills: speaking, writing, reading and listening. Although all the skills are mentioned in this
syllabus the oral skill seems to be more favored than the others since most of the objectives
and activities to be developed involve this skill. However, students showed some
difficulties to participate in class using English. They argued that the lack of vocabulary
and bad pronunciation were two fundamental factors that affected their oral performance.
As one of the students stated: Para mi el Ingls siempre ha sido difcil y es un poco regular
mi desempeo, trato de hacer lo posible para mejorar, la pronunciacin es buena pero no s
vocabulario. (Questionnaire 1, June 12, 2008). [For me English has always been difficult
and my performance is low, I try to do the best to improve, the pronunciation is good
though, but I do not know vocabulary]. That is why I considered reading tasks as a way to
provide students with the input they needed to develop their communicative abilities and to
encourage them to give their opinions, favoring both the presentation of new input in
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
9/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 9
Description of the Problem
Throughout the different class observations and information collected from the
questionnaires and interviews mentioned before, the different documents of the school such
as the syllabus, Manual de Convivencia (a document every school must have in which all
the rules, obligations and rights of students, teachers and general personnel of the
institution are stated), Proyecto Educativo Institucional (P.E.I) and the information
collected in my journal, I identified certain problems in the group I observed, especially
concerning their oral performance. Although speaking was the ability more likely to be
promoted, since the most important area objectives and activities pointed to oral
communication, students had lots of difficulties to express their ideas. Actually, when
students were asked in questionnaire number one (See appendix A) if they felt comfortable
speaking in English 23 said not, while 16 said yes. Low oral performance can occur for
many reasons, feeling uncomfortable might be one of them. However, in this particular
case, based on students answers on the first questionnaire, they stated that one important
issue regarding their oral performance was the lack of vocabulary and structure. One of the
questions was: How do you consider your language proficiency and why? To which all the
students answered different things that I categorized into 4 categories:
A.CATEGORY 1= No es bueno porque no entiendo muy bien el idioma y tengo problemas de vocabulario yi i 23 [It t d b I d t d t d th l d I h i ti d b l
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
10/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 10
found that the input presented to the students and the contents in the syllabus and the
activities for applying the knowledge acquired through that input were not clearly
connected. For example, there were several objectives that did not include the vocabulary
required, like: Realizar exposiciones acerca de las diferentes universidades que tiene el
area metropolitana. (Syllabus 10th and 11th grades). [Students will do a presentation about
the different universities in the urban area]. For this objective there were not activities or
vocabulary in the syllabus and vice versa, for some activities there were no objectives. .
This affected students oral performance in the way that, there was not consolidation of the
knowledge from the theory to the practice. If students receive input from a given topic but
they are asked to talk or do activities about something different, for which they didnt get
enough input, they are probably going to fail or have many problems trying to do it the best
way they consider. In this class students obtained input from sources like videos, listening
material, pictures, posters and readings and the CT tried to involve students in activities in
which they had to use their creativity, like big books, bulletin boards, etc. In the case of the
big books, they had to create a story, illustrate it and then present it to the class for
example. With the bulletin boards they had to design a big poster to represent a current
celebration in the country, to give information, etc. But they were not related to the contents
all the time, so there was a gap between the knowledge, and its application and
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
11/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 11
modal verbs and therefore there was not a clear connection between what they were
learning and what they had to produce, students performance was full of mistakes,
because they were never given the model of how to do it correctly. As it can be seen, every
activity on its own was good, but in conjunction they did not seem to have a coherent
sequence and connection, and as a result oral production was affected. There was no
previous knowledge or input to ask students to produce something orally. Studying the
modal verbs students talked about recommendations and suggestions but presenting an
artist, his song and the message of it did not necessarily involve the use of modals.
Probably they could have learnt something different from the alternate activities as well,
but there was not consolidation of knowledge since they were expressing something they
were not prepared to do. Therefore, the output they were asked to produce was not in
agreement with what they were studying since they could not use their previous knowledge
or connect it to previous examples or experiences.
This situation in the class could be in part explained for the lack of clear
connection between objectives, topics and activities that the same syllabus had. The
syllabus as I mentioned before, was divided into competences, notions, grammar,
vocabulary, and tasks or activities, but there was not a clear order and connection among all
of them, thats to say, not all the topics corresponded to the objectives and activities and
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
12/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 12
students did not have the opportunity to consolidate their knowledge (contents) and talk
clearly about it, since there was not an adequate process of input acquisition of those
contents, in which they were able to understand it, ask questions or do an activity related to
it to practice, and then be able talk about it. Although the syllabus was not my main
concern and it could be another issue to be studied, I just wanted to make some clarity
about this as a possible factor that was affecting students oral performance.
Taking all these aspects into consideration, I saw that there was a root problem that
was affecting students oral performance. They were acquiring some input, but it was not
being correctly directed towards activities that allowed them to improve or develop their
oral abilities. Thats why, keeping in mind those observations, I considered that having
students working through tasks and reading could be a very good alternative to help them
improve their oral performance, since through reading they could get the input and
vocabulary they needed and through tasks they had to work on specific related activities in
which for every new activity they needed the previous knowledge from the last one,
facilitating the comprehension of the topics, their consolidation and giving students more
confidence to participate.
Thus, reading tasks appeared as a very useful way of applying the task based
approach in this case, since it could be possible to have students getting the input and the
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
13/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 13
Main Objective
To improve 10th grade students oral performance through the use of reading tasks
Specific Objectives
1. To provide students comprehensible and meaningful input through the readings,according to their characteristics and interests.
2. To provide students with the environment and opportunities necessary to developand improve their oral performance.
Theoretical Framework
The focus of this action- research project was to implement reading tasks to improve
students oral performance. In this section I will try to explain the key concepts related to
the research such as task, task-based approach, oral performance, input hypotheses and
reading, as supported by different authors.
Task and Task- Based Approach
Task- Based Approach (TBA) and more specifically the task has been defined by
numerous authors from different perspectives. However, most of them have similar ideas
regarding the most important characteristic that must be included in the definition of task.
A task is defined as a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending,
manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
14/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 14
task. Estaire and Zanon (1994) differentiate tasks between communication tasks and
enabling tasks. The first one refers to an activity in which the principal focus is the
meaning rather than the form, while enabling tasks refer more to activities that involve
structure and grammatical issues.
Tasks (enabling or communicative) promote communication and interaction among
students, and in this way facilitate the setting up for real communicative situations in
which, through cooperation, they must find the solution to a given problem or question
following different steps or procedures. According to the authors mentioned before, tasks
promote the use of language and the development of communicative skills in a natural way,
which is one of the characteristics that TBA supports. The task-based approach focuses on
the process and at the same time on the results because it is also goal oriented; but mainly
on the way in which that process is carried out. Students in the tenth grade of La Normal
Superior de Envigado that I observed did not have much interaction in the classroom; the
implementation of this approach was a possibility to provide learning opportunities in
which they could interact and work cooperatively to solve a question or problem related to
the topics studied in class (See appendix C). According to Nunan (2004) the tasks are
divided into four components: the goals, the input, the activities derived from this input,
and the roles implied for teachers and learners. The role of the learner is very important
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
15/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 15
guide and must orient students work to help them get to the final goal, but especially he
must provide the opportunity to solve a problem. Summarizing, the teacher provides the
tools and the opportunities to solve a question and students, working in teams, find a
solution.
Concerning the goals in TBA, according to Clark (1987), states that they are divided
into communicative, socio-cultural, learning-how-to-learn and language and cultural
awareness. These goals imply that the learners learn not only the language, but through it,
how to solve situations in the real world, how to work in groups, how to contrast their
own culture with a foreign one, how to find strategies to cope with different situations.
Tasks allow students to get close to a situation that they would experiment in common life
in an English speaking environment, fostering this way language and culture awareness,
unlike the regular situations in the classroom tShat are settled to accomplish a linguistic
purpose and do not occur in a natural way. Regarding the last component of the tasks, the
input, refers to the base or strategic point of departure (Nunan, 1989) to develop the task.
The input represents the success of the task to a great extent, since it gives the students the
tools to cope with different situations; it is the bridge between the knowledge and the
student and it will become part of his/her future reference to conceive a specific part of
reality and therefore part of his mental structure. That is why the input is, by far, one of the
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
16/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 16
term their oral performance through reading tasks, since the last step of the tasks after the
process of getting input, working in groups and solving the questions is an oral presentation
or discussion in the group. The ultimate goal of the input is facilitating tools to students for
their oral performance.
In view of the importance of the concept of oral performance in this research
project and considering that all the elements as input, tasks and reading aim to facilitate it, I
will try to explain what it means in this context.
Oral performance
Oral performance as task and many other educational concepts has multiple
connotations and uses that are given to it in different contexts and from different
perspectives. However, one commonality among those different views is that performance
is involved in the acts of communication people carry out in a specific situation. The first
author who began to talk about performance was Chomsky in 1965. He gave a definition of
performance in contrast to that of competence that was another ambiguous concept used by
linguists. In order to differentiate both concepts Chomsky (1965) stated: We thus make a
fundamental distinction between competence (the speaker- hearers knowledge of the
language) and performance, the actual use of the language in concrete situations (p.4).
Language performance involves the way in which a person uses the language more than
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
17/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 17
this matter, Lyons (1966) affirms that language performance is the production and
understanding of utterances in particular languages (p. 12).
For this action research project, oral language performance refers to those specific
communicative acts to be carried out by students in the classroom. Besides, it is necessary
to consider not only the act itself but the whole process of acquisition and its elements.
That is why, reading, tasks and input play such an important role; they represent the
process. The input acquired through reading and consolidated through the development of
tasks are the basis for acquisition and the basis to develop a solid oral performance. The
effectiveness of the oral performance depends highly on the understanding and
consolidation of the language students achieve through the process.
Input Hypotheses
Another important concept for this project was Input. This concept was studied by
Stephen Krashen and it is part of a second language acquisition theory that contains five
other hypotheses. He asserts that humans acquire language in only one way: by
understanding messages or by receiving comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985, p.2) He
argued that we learn in a natural progressive way, in which adding new related input to our
previous knowledge we get to progress. He says: We progress along the natural order
(hypotheses 2) by understanding input that contains structures at our next stage (Krashen,
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
18/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 18
as the basis for acquiring knowledge and to develop the different language skills, as the oral
skill. The kind of language to which students are exposed to represents the input. For that
reason, the input must be comprehensible to facilitate the acquisition of structures and
meaning and a good oral performance. Speech cannot be taught directly but emerges on
its own as a result of building competence via comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985, p. 2)
That is why, given the importance of the input to learn a foreign language and to develop
all the abilities implied in that process, I took reading as the source of input that, combined
with task based approach, allowed students to get the structure, content and practice they
needed to develop their oral communication ability.
Reading
Reading is generally defined as the ability to get meaning from the printed page
and interpret this information appropriately (Grabe, W and Stoller F, 2004, 1). Reading
implies processing and decoding information and it has been considered from the Top-
Down and Bottom- up approaches. In Bottom-up approach, reading means a linear
process by which the readers decode a text word by word, linking the words into phrases
and then sentences (Gray and Rogers 1956 in Villanueva 2006, p. 8). The Bottom-up
approach refers to reading as finding the form and the structure of the text, in contrast to
Top- Down approach that is focused on the meaning that the reader obtains by linking
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
19/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 19
to solve a specific situation or question. Considering reading from this approach, I tried to
select material that could follow a progressive degree of difficulty in terms of
comprehension, but always around the same topic, so students could use their previous
knowledge and achieve a better understanding of the topics studied to talk about them.
Top-down reading approach, as well as the input hypothesis and TBA consider
that all new knowledge must be linked to a previous one to achieve understanding and
knowledge. They propose a progressive coherent process to provide students with a good
learning environment in which previous knowledge promotes students understanding
within the context of a carefully planned and structured process. That is the reason why I
decided to implement them in my project since they fit very well for the objectives I had for
the students in the tenth grade group in La Normal Superior de Envigado.
Plan and Implementation of Actions
The plan of actions for this research project was divided into two stages. In the first
one, from February to June, I collected the information from the school, students,
cooperating teacher and area curriculum through several techniques as observations and
questionnaires, in order to know the context of the school, the dynamics inside of it, to have
a better approach to the education system as a teacher researcher and finally to identify a
problem in the area of English in which we could involve ourselves and the rest of the
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
20/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 20
group. The tasks were a set of reading activities oriented to the same objective: achieve a
level of understanding of the topic and get to be able to talk about it in a group discussion.
The topics that we studied through the tasks were: Global warming, big cities, top health
risks and choosing your career. The tasks that involved group discussions were applied to
all students, but for data analysis purposes, there were 4 key participants (students with
different proficiency levels) who, besides the group discussions, participated in two
interviews. The rest of students participated through a questionnaire.
To develop every task students had a set of reading activities, connected to the same
topic. The activities started with a reading about one of the topics. The reading could be
repeated, modified or used through the rest of the activities, since all of them were based on
it. The initial reading and the further analysis about it was done using different pre -
reading strategies like brainstorming, predicting, previewing, skimming ; some while-
reading ones like scanning, reading aloud, reading silently, shared reading; and post-
reading activities like analyzing fragments of the text, relating paragraphs, answering
specific questions, comparing and contrasting ideas inside the text, among others. The task
was completed when several activities and readings about the same topic were done and
helped solving a question or creating a discussion inside the group. In order to illustrate
better how I worked with the reading tasks I will describe one of them. The content for this
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
21/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 21
see what it was about; finally we read aloud in order to have students listen to the right
pronunciation of the words and start involving the oral component of the task. Then I
asked to students specific questions with specific answers that they could even find in the
text, with the purpose of facilitating the comprehension and acquisition of input.These
strategies were used in the first class to approach the text. Then in the second class I took
pictures that illustrated what we have been reading about and I encouraged students to try
to describe what they were seeing in the pictures which showed the effects of global
warming for human beings and nature. Once again we went back to the reading they
looked for specific chunks of information that could help them describe the pictures. Also, I
encouraged students to formulate questions to their partners based on the information of the
text, so they could answer and start building their own concept about this content. At the
end I gave them a questionnaire (See appendix C) that they needed to solve in groups. In a
different class using the information of text, students had to create a poster with
recommendations to prevent global warming. Yet in another class students had to design
and apply a questionnaire to their classmates in order to know their opinions about this
topic, etc. In all the classes students needed the initial text or another one if, depending on
the topic, we used more than one, to develop the activities. So in many of the classes at the
beginning I used one of the reading strategies mentioned above to progress in the text, and
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
22/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 22
more complete answers, with better knowledge of the vocabulary, structures and the
content itself. Following these steps for all the tasks, using different materials and activities
I tried to provide students with the opportunity to enrich their oral performance. However,
the reading materials were not the only sources of input for the students, since I tried to use
visual and listening material as well like videos, posters, and pictures to consider the
different learning styles of the students. These kinds of actions were planned for the whole
semester and particularly two of them were used to evaluate students oral performance and
analyze data: The task for global warming and the task for big cities. Contents selected for
these tasks were chosen according to the school syllabus (See appendix D). At the
beginning I selected the topics and then I tried to negotiate them with students from the
options we had from the syllabus so they could feel involved in their learning process and
have a more active role in the classroom. I took to the classroom authentic material (articles
from the Internet, videos from youtube about the specific topics) and material adapted by
me with the aim of facilitating students understanding and the development of the
activities as well as providing them with different kinds of input in which they had to use
different levels of analysis and comprehension, in which they could get cultural
background form different points of view and finally material that they found accessible to
get vocabulary and that triggered the development of their oral communication abilities.
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
23/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 23
journal, field notes, informal talks with my cooperating teacher, 2 questionnaires to
students and 2 interviews to the key participants composed by 4 students with different
levels of proficiency.
When I had collected enough information from all the sources that I could analyze,
compare and contrast, I decided to separate them one by one and start analyzing them
individually to see what patterns or differences they had. Below, I will describe how I
analyzed each of the sources.
The first source to collect data was the journal. Through this instrument I wrote
observations of the class during the whole year and my reflections about these observations.
They were made from February to June in the first stage and then from June to July in the
second stage when I applied the reading tasks. In this process, I collected information
regarding the classroom dynamics, the attitude of students towards the different activities in
English, the cooperating teacher methodology, my own methodology when I started
teaching the class, my role as student- teacher, the effects of reading tasks applied to the
class and on students oral performance and in general about the participants in this
research. Once I had several observations I started reading them one by one and getting
categories from each. Then those categories were grouped into similar broader categories
that contained them all. The former categories that I found were for example, students
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
24/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 24
use of structures, and comprehensible input . The strategy I used to come up with these
categories in all the instruments was the use of recurrence and appearance charts.
Then I continued with the questionnaires (See appendixes A and B ) in which I
found similar categories like influence of reading tasks and materials on students oral
performance and attitude, oral participation, students attitude towards English, lack of
vocabulary, among others. Both questionnaires were applied to 39 students in the class.
In questionnaire 1, applied at the end of the first semester, the purpose was to know
students perceptions about their class, the English subject, their own performance, among
others. In questionnaire number 2 (see appendix B), that was applied finishing the process,
after the implementation of the tasks, the categories were related to influence of tasks on
students oral performance, input through reading material, class participation and language
comprehension. The purpose of the second questionnaire was to allow students to express
their opinions about the reading activities and tasks carried out in their classroom, the
results were the following:
The questionnaire applied to the students consisted of 6 questions in which they
could choose from a range of options, which one described better a situation in the class
QUESTION # 1RESULTS:a. Algo: 19b. Mucho: 5c. Un poco: 7d. Nada: 7
QUESTION # 2RESULTS:a. Algo: 15b .Mucho: 7c .Un poco: 7d. Nada: 9
QUESTION # 3RESULTS:a. si: 33b. no: 3c. poco: 2
QUESTION # 4RESULTS:a. si: 25b. no: 7c. un poco: 6
QUESTION # 5RESULTS:
a. si: 21b. no: 11c.un poco: 6
QUESTION # 6RESULTS:
a. si: 29b.no: 9
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
25/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 25
presented in a previous section of this paper, I could see that students perception regarding
the English class and their performance had changed. At the beginning they thought that
their level was bad and they didnt have many positive things to say. After the
implementation of the actions, although they recognized the change had been little, they
kept in mind more what they could do rather than what they could not do. Students also
said through their answers in the questionnaires that the readings had been a very valuable
source of information that has helped them in many aspects, like vocabulary, grammar,
pronunciation (when we read aloud)and comprehension. Finally, the last source was the
students interviews. The interviews were just applied to the 4 key participants. Through
the interviews it was possible to have clear evidence of students performance, use of
vocabulary, correct use of some structures and in general a visible improvement in their
oral performance. In the first interview, the topic was global warming, there were 8
questions, three of them were divided into other two, (since they had to ask and answer). In
the second interview about two cities (London and San Francisco), there were 7 questions
in which they had to answer using more than one idea. In order to evaluate these interviews
I created an oral performance rubric that included these categories: syntax, intelligibility,
structure and correct word choice. To evaluate students answers I applied the criteria in the
rubric to every one of their answers. I examined if they achieved them or not and according
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
26/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 26
the aim of giving validity to the results I obtained, I did the evaluation to one of the two
pairs of students who were interviewed along with the cooperating teacher. Between her
evaluation and mine there was a slight difference regarding the positive and negative
answers, but in general there was an agreement concerning the evaluation those two
students achieved the criteria.
Findings and interpretations
According to the data gathered through the different instruments, at different stages
of the process, with the help of the students, the cooperating teacher and the information I
recorded in my journal, I found some aspects that I will discuss in this section, regarding
the effects of using authentic reading material, (which in some cases I adapted to facilitate
students comprehension process), regarding the influence of reading tasks on oral
performance, the effects of comprehensible input on students language acquisition and
motivation and interaction in the class.
Concerning the effects of using authentic reading material, I observed through
students oral performance and through their attitude that they enjoyed for example learning
new words and their pronunciation, as this student expresses, Gracias a las actividades de
lectura desarrolladas en clase he conocido nuevas palabras y que antes no saba cmo
pronunciar [Thanks to the reading activities developed in class, I have learnt new words
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
27/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 27
material gave these students an excellent source of input that combined with the different
activities allowed them to consolidate their knowledge on a specific topic and be able to
express it. This was observed in the interviews and class participation where their oral
performance was improving.Regarding the influence of comprehensible input on their performance, I found that
students achieved a clear understanding of the topics and were able to talk about it or do
different activities in which they had to display what they knew, since the readings they
had and the way in which they were studied were clear for them. They expressed their
ideas using the same information they found in the readings The sea level would
riseThe melting of glaciers, the greenhouse effect. (Transcription from the interview 1
on Global warming) and those ideas came to be part of their mental structure and
perception of the world since those were the references they used to explain a concept to
themselves and the others. As Krashen (1985) stated, people learn in a progressive way
adding new knowledge to the previous one. That is why, it is so important to provide
students with comprehensible input from which they can get clear meanings and
structures, regarding the language and the content. The input is the basis for learning a
language, and what is learnt today will influence what will be learnt tomorrow. I could see
all this evidenced in my project, when students no longer used the ideas they had at the
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
28/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 28
mistakes, as in this example, it was visible that they incorporated the vocabulary and the
contents to their background and they felt more confident to express it in the foreign
language. I also found that reading tasks were an effective strategy because students
consolidated their knowledge in a progressive way, going from saying simple ideas tomore elaborate. In addition,what I found using this approach was that, offering studentsthe knowledge in a sequence of activities around the same content but with different
purposes, linked to the initial reading, they had the chance to use their previous knowledge
for every activity and they reinforced their ideas about the contents, the vocabulary, the
structures and the particular expressions of it and at the time of expressing any idea, it was
easier for them.
Finally, regarding motivation and students answer to the tasks, the interactions in
the group and the relationships among students and teacher, I found that giving the
confidence to students to make mistakes and have them understand that it is part of the
language acquisition process, lowers their affective filter and gives them another attitude,
more positive and confident to participate and to take risks in the class, as this student
stated when asked if she felt comfortable participating in English: Si, ya que la maestra
nos da la confianza de equivocarnos y poder participar asi no sea de la forma adecuada.
Ademas es importante hacerlo para ir mejorando dia a dia [Yes, because the teacher gives
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
29/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 29
threatened is a good possibility to achieve not only an improvement in students oral
performance but in their process of language acquisition in general.
Conclusions and Suggestions
The most important conclusion that I can draw from this action research project isthat the work with reading tasks and authentic material, helped students to improve their
oral performance and participation in class and also to modify their perception of the
language as evidenced in their attitude towards the fact of making mistakes and taking risks
to participate in class. Also, I can point out that the use of authentic material in the class,
allowed an effective learning process with positive results. Through the use of authentic
materials students were exposed to a rich linguistic input that allowed them to acquire more
and varied vocabulary and structures to improve their knowledge of the language.
Regarding the comprehensible input, it was the basis for students process of learning and
consolidation of contents, as it was from there, that they started building their own
knowledge. The use of reading tasks and authentic material worked effectively to help
students improve their comprehension and perception of the language and it worked
partially to improve their oral performance because that is a process that needs more time.
Additionally, I can conclude that the process of teaching and learning in the classroom was
positively affected by the fact that students felt that the student- teacher gave them the
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
30/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 30
meaning in class even if they do not produce accurate answers, so that they have the chance
of being corrected until they achieve the expected goal.
Reflection
Looking back at this process I can only say that it has been quite a learningexperience in my life. I have learnt a lot about being a teacher and a teacher-researcher. I
enjoyed the whole process from getting to know the students, the cooperating teacher and
the institution and then sharing with them in the classroom; observing at first the dynamics
of their classroom and how could I help them, to apply the plan I designed and be their
teacher. I feel very grateful to the students, the CT and the institution La Normal Superior
de Envigado, for letting me do my project there and for all the collaboration that I got while
I was doing it. During this project I had the opportunity to apply all the knowledge that I
acquired in the school of languages for many years and I had the opportunity to confirm,
clarify, and discover many things about being a teacher and a researcher.
I enjoyed having the opportunity of carrying out a project like this one and
discoverer that many things can be done if the teachers put their efforts into it. In addition,
it was a great experience for me to actually try to apply theories about foreign language
acquisition, that I had been studying during my whole process as languages student and
discover their advantages and disadvantages, their benefits and limitations. I enjoyed the
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
31/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 31
language comprehension and how this can be a strategy that can be fostered in classrooms
to allow students and teachers enrich their linguistic and cultural knowledge.
References
Burns, A. (1999)Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers...Cambridge University Press.
Chomsky, N. (1965)Aspects of the theory of Syntax.Cambridge, Mass: MIT press.(4)Retrieved July 7, 2008 from: http://books.google.com/books?id=u0ksbFqagU8C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. 3- 63.
Clark, J. (1987) Curriculum renewal in School Foreign Language Learning. Oxford:.Oxford. University Press. Chapter 1
Estaire, S., and Zanon, J. (1994) Planning Classwork: A Task- Based Approach. Oxford:
..Macmillan Heinneman,
Grabe, W., and Stoller, F. (2002) Comparing LI AND L2 Reading. Teaching andResearching.Reading 40-63. Longman- Pearson Education: England.
Gray, W.S., and Rogers, B. (1956) in Villanueva de Debat, E. (2006) Applying currentApproaches to the Teaching of Reading..English teaching forum. 1, 8-15.
Krashen, S. (1985) The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. Retrieved July 7, 2008 from :http://homepage.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/SLA/Krashen.htm
Lyons, J. (1996) On Competence and Performance and Related Notions. Performance andCompetence in second language acquisition, 9-33.Cambridge University press.
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
32/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 32
Appendixes
Appendix A Questionnaire # 1
DATE:
SEX:
AGE:NAME (OPTIONAL):
This questionnaire has as objective clarify the causes of students lack of oral proficiency in one ofthe groups of 10th grade in the School Institucin Educativa Normal Superior de Envigado..
1. OPEN- ENDED QUESTION: Answer the next question and justify your answer: How do youconsider your oral language proficiency? Why?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. CLOSED QUESTIONS: Answer yes or not to each one of the questions which are in the nextcategories.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
ORAL LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY YES/NOTa) Do you like to participate in English?b) Is your oral proficiency good?c) Do you prefer using Spanish to speak in class?d)Do you consider that your English proficiency is good for your level?
TEACHERS METHODOLOGY YES/NOTa) Do you like the methodology for this class?b)Do you feel the activities are appropriate to promote your oral proficiency?c) Do you think the activities in this class allow you to participate orally?d)Do you feel motivated to speak in class?e) Do you consider that the topics of the class are clear and understandable?
STUDENTS ATTITUDES/PERSONALITIES YES/NOTa) Do you like English?
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
33/34
Implementing reading tasks to improve oral performance 33
Appendix B Questionnaire # 2
Appendix C Task activity on Global warming
QUESTIONNAIREDATESEXAGE
NAME(OPTIONAL)Este cuestionario tiene como objetivo evaluar hasta que punto las actividades de lectura han contribuido a mejorar su comprensin y
desempeo en el idioma, especialmente en la produccin oral.
OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS
1. Consideras que las actividades de lectura desarrolladas en clase te han ayudado a mejorar (algo, mucho, un poco o nada) tudesempeo oral en la lengua extranjera? SI/NO , Por qu?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Consideras que las actividades de lectura desarrolladas en clase te han ayudado a mejorar (algo, mucho, un poco o nada) tudesempeo en la lengua extranjera? SI/NO , Por qu?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Consideras que con actividades de lectura se facilita tu participacin oral en clase? SI/NO Por qu?___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Consideras que ha mejorado tu comprensin del idioma con las actividades de lectura? Si/No, Por qu?___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Te sientes cmodo participando en Ingles? SI/NO , Por qu?___________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
6. Consideras que la lectura te ofrece el input necesario para mejorar tu desempeo en la lengua extranjera? SI/NO Por qu?____________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/27/2019 Implementing Reading Tasks to Improve Students Oral Performance[1]
34/34