Date post: | 29-Aug-2019 |
Category: |
Documents |
Upload: | doankhuong |
View: | 213 times |
Download: | 0 times |
STRATEGIES USED BY FORM 4 TEACHERS IN TEACHING READING TO TWO GROUPS OF STUDENTS WHO HAVE GONE THROUGH TLSME AND WITHOUT TLSME. (FROM TEACHERS’ POINT OF VIEW)
P.M.ASOTHA A/P S.P.MURUGAPAN
A report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Bachelor of Science with Education ( TESL ).
FACULTY OF EDUCATION UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA
NOVEMBER 2007
ii
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to my supervisor,
Encik Faruk Muhammad for his invaluable guidance, advice and motivation given to me
throughout the two semesters. To Encik Faruk Muhammad, from bottom of my heart,
thank you for your support and concerns. You have inspired me in many ways. Thank
you for being a teacher and friend to me.
Apart from that, I would like to express my sincerest appreciation to my parents,
husband, son and siblings for their support along the process of completing this thesis.
Last but not least, I thank everyone who has involved directly and indirectly in
helping me to complete this thesis.
iv
Especially dedicated to my beloved parents, husband, son and siblings.
v
ABSTRACT
This research is about the strategies used by Form 4 English teachers to teach
reading. Specifically, the research wanted to find out teachers’ experience teaching
reading to students who have gone through ‘Teaching and Learning of Science and
Mathematics in English’ (TLSME) and those who did not go through TLSME. This
research was carried out at 3 different schools in Malacca with 2 respondents from each
school. This research was done using qualitative method. The instrument used to carry
out this research was by interviewing the respondents. The findings of the research
reveal that, teaching students with TLSME is easier compared to students without
TLSME, as the students have more exposure learning the language in Science and
Mathematic subjects. The students of TLSME are also exposed with ICT related tools.
Teachers use various methods in order to teach reading. However, the strategies vary
with the group of students. Some suggestions have been offered to maximize the process
of reading.
vi
ABSTRAK
Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti strategi-strategi yang digunakan oleh guru
yang mengajar Bahasa Inggeris untuk pelajar Tingkatan 4 dalam kemahiran membaca.
Kajian ini berfokus kepada guru yang mengajar pelajar yang telah melalui proses
‘Pengajaran Dan Pembelajaran Sains Dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris’ (PPSMI)
(TLSME) dan pelajar yang tidak melalui proses PPSMI. Kajian ini dijalankan di tiga
buah sekolah di negeri Melaka yang diwakili oleh 2 responden bagi setiap sekolah.
Instrument yang digunakan untuk mendapat data adalah melalui temubual. Dapatan
kajian menunjukkan proses pengajaran yang dijalankan oleh guru yang mengajar pelajar
yang melalui PPSMI adalah lebih mudah berbanding dengan mengajar pelajar yang
tidak melalui PPSMI. Ini adalah kerana pelajar didedahkan dengan penggunaan Bahasa
Inggeris yang lebih pada matapelajaran Sains dan Matematik. Pelajar yang melalui
PPSMI diajar menggunakan peralatan berkaitan dengan komputer. Para guru
menggunakan beberapa kaedah untuk mengajar kemahiran membaca. Akan tetapi,
kaedah ini berbeza dengan kumpulan pelajar yang diajar. Beberapa cadangan diberi
untuk memaksimumkan proses membaca.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER TITLE PAGES
TITLE PAGE i
DECLARATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii
DEDICATION iv
ABSTRACT v
ABSTRAK vi
TABLE OF CONTENT vii
LIST OF TABLES xii
LIST OF APPENDICES xiii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiv
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Background to the Study 1
1.3 Statement of Problem 5
1.4 Purpose of the Study 8
1.5 Objectives of the Study 8
1.6 Research Questions 9
1.7 Significance of the Study 9
viii
1.8 Limitations of the Study 10
1.9 Definition of Key Terms 10
1.9.1 Strategies 11
1.9.2 Mother Tongue 11
1.9.3 TLSME 11
1.9.4 First Language 12
1.9.5 Rural Area 12
1.10 Conclusion 13
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 14
2.1 Introduction 14
2.2 Purposes of Reading 14
2.3 Study Based on Reading Strategies 16
2.4 Various Types of Reading
Strategies 17
2.5 Teaching Reading 21
2.6 Teaching and Learning English 22
2.7 TLSME 23
2.8 Purpose of Implementation
of TLSME 24
2.9 Factors that led to TLSME 24
2.10 Government Effort in Helping
Rural Area Students Learn
English 25
2.11 Conclusion 26
ix
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY 27
3.1 Introduction 27
3.2 Research Design 27
3.3 The Respondents 28
3.4 The Location of the Schools 28
3.5 Questions for the Interview 29
3.5.1 Section A: Personal Particulars 31
3.5.2 Section B: Input ( Training and
Competence ) 31
3.5.3 Section C: Product / Process 31
3.6 Data Collection 32
3.7 Data Analysis 33
3.7.1 Section A: Personal Particulars 34
3.7.2 Section B: Input ( Training and
Competence ) 34
3.7.3 Section C: Product / Process 34
3.8 Conclusion 35
CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 36
4.1 Introduction 36
4.2 Respondent’s Profile 38
4.2.1 Respondent A 38
4.2.2 Respondent B 38
4.2.3 Respondent C 39
4.2.4 Respondent D 39
x
4.2.5 Respondent E 39
4.2.6 Respondent F 40
4.3 Strategies Used by Respondents 40
4.3.1 Using Interactive CDs 42
4.3.2 Computers and Browse Internet 44
4.3.3 Newspaper, Magazines and Articles 46
4.3.4 Reading Aloud 48
4.3.5 Skimming and Scanning 49
4.3.6 Exercises 50
4.3.7 Using Mother Tongue 51
4.3.8 Chalk and Talk 53
4.3.9 Textbook 54
4.3.10 Handouts 55
4.3.11 Group Work 56
4.3.12 Dictionary 58
4.3.13 Transparency 60
4.3.14 Body Language and Voice 61
4.3.15 Motivation 61
4.3.16 To Be one of the Students 63
4.3.17 Games 63
4.3.18 NILAM 64
4.4 Perceptions of Respondents on
TLSME 65
4.5 Conclusion 67
xi
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS 69
5.1 Introduction 69
5.2 Conclusion 69
5.3 Limitations 71
5.3.1 Time 72
5.3.2 Respondents 72
5.4 Recommendations 73
5.4.1 For Future Researchers 73
5.4.2 For Teachers 73
5.4.3 For the Ministry of Education 74
REFERENCES 75
APPENDIX 80
xii
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE NO TITLE PAGES
3.1 Types of Questions 30 3.2 Distribution of the Respondents 33 4.1 Strategies Used By the Respondents 41
xiii
LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX TITLE PAGES
A Questionnaire. 80 B Transcribe of the Interviews. 82 C Letter of Approval. 113 D School’s Performance Chart. 116
xiv
LIST OF ABBREVIATION CD - Compact Disc L1 - Learner 1 L2 - Learner 2 OHP - OverHead Projector TLSME - Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction
This chapter talks about the background to the study, statement of problems,
purpose of the study, the objectives of the study, research questions in order to answer
the objectives, highlight of the significance and limitation of the study. This chapter also
gives background information on the research.
1.2 Background to the Study
Schools are source of expanding knowledge through Education and being the key
for development of any nation, we can say one of the fundamental requirements for a
nation to be a developed one is “Educated People”. Example Nepal, realize that through
Education can help the country to develop. The educated group or the Intellectuals of
Nepal are dedicated to provide Education to the Nepalese people. Government
organizations, non-government organizations and civic society, are working side by side
to develop an educated manpower for the nation. This is an example to shows that the
important of education to the nation development.
2
We always hope our children will lead good and comfortable life by having good
Education. Educate can be defined as to train or instruct mentally and morally or provide
systematic instruction for the students. To be knowledgeable is to be well informed or
intelligent. Information is interred related with knowledge, commonly interchangeable
in general context. Parents send their children to schools to gather information or
knowledge so that they can earn their living by applying what they learnt in schools,
colleges or universities. The government provides infrastructures like buildings,
electricity supply, power,water, telephone, nowadays, computers, even internet services,
laboratories, sport facilities etc. as well some 324,000 teachers in Malaysia for about
10,000 schools across the country. Datuk Seri Najib Razak in the newspaper was
speaking about infrastructure development in Pahang to help rural areas students to
excel in education (News Straits Times, 2005).
In the RMK-9 ( Ninth Malaysia Plan ), it is planned that 23 billion ringgit will be
spent on education, and it is hoped the level of education will be pushed to a near or
equal to those standards in developed countries. This is no specific disagreement
between the parents and government that education is the most important aspect of our
life. Education involves the process of teaching and learning. This means that both
teachers and students need to cooperate with each other in order to make the education
system a successful one. To train and instruct mentally and morally is through the
medium of teaching. Teachers formally in schools and students are to receive those
prepared instructions, information or knowledge for their use in later part of their lives.
Eventhough it may sounds simple, but the process can be very challenging.
In school, learning has become an active activity where teachers use four main
skills in teaching such as reading, writing, speaking and listening in their classroom
lesson. In order to make the classroom livelier, teachers utilize different strategies for
different lesson. They use different types of strategies just to make sure that the students
3
are aware of their education system and environment. Nevertheless, it can also help them
to understand the lesson properly. Students also will be able to participate actively in
the activity involved while the lesson is carried out.
Basically reading is the root for students to learn writing, speaking and listening.
To read effectively, they have to read rhetorically by attending to both the content and
the persuasive strategies in a text. (John C. Bean,2002). Students read not for
information but they read so that they can also improve their pronunciation, vocabulary,
language structure and grammar. Various types of strategies used so that reading can be
an interesting activity. Normally students have problem in reading because they are
afraid of the mistake that they may do. Many people, including several professional
teachers, think that reading merely involves the ability to sound the words printed on a
page. It is important for you to realize that reading is much more complex than this
(Chitravelu, 1995 ). Since government has emphasized that English is important,
students do not learn English only during English classes but also in Mathematics and
Science classes.
To begin with, reading is one of the four skills when we learnt languages.
Through reading you are able to speak, listen and write. Besides afraid of making
mistake while reading, our students’ problem is shyness. It is difficult for the teachers to
ask them to talk while the lesson is carrying on. They prefer to be quiet and get scolding
from the teachers rather than try to read even a short passage. This attitudes need to
change or else we will end up with students that have no ability to give opinion. Their
shyness is partly because of friends. Friends tend to laugh at their mistakes and this can
automatically degrade them. They should have the motivation saying that when people
laugh at you, you should laugh with them.
4
English has become one of the important languages in the school. There are
more books and reference that use English as their main language. There is a phrase
saying that “You Know English, You Know the World”. This phrase means that, as an
individual we should learn language that can make other people understand us. To
communicate with outside world, we should learn English and because of this English
has become world recognized language. Step by step we learn English through
communication with people. The problem in learning English among our Malaysian
students is they are not the native speaker of the language. Since small they speak in
their mother tongue that is for Malay is Bahasa Melayu, for Chinese it can be Mandarin
or Cantonese and for Indian can be Tamil, Telegu or Malayalam. So if the family
background is English speaking people, then the students do not have to face the
problem of learning and understand English in the early stage. Unfortunely, in rural area
the main problems is family background where they did not practice English at home.
The students themselves have to give motivation and self esteem to learnt English.
English can be a boring subject and interesting subject depends on the exposition that
the students go through while in primary or secondary school.
For rural school area, most of the students may face the problem of reading in
English. This is because their environment is such where English is only learnt in
school. They might have parents that have no English background and they are not
being exposed with the important of reading in English. This problem can be solved if
everybody plays his or her role equally by helping students to understand the important
of reading in English. They can start by exposing them to newspaper reading. One of
the activities that can be done is through reading newspaper in class and search for
information. In reading there are two components involved that are skimming and
scanning. Skimming is reading quickly for the main idea, while scanning, looking for a
specific piece of information.
5
Another factor that can cause students in rural area are not interested in reading
English is because they themselves have no motivation towards learning it. It is easier
to motivate them in activity rather than just give them theory lesson. Some of the
students feel that theory lesson is not interesting. They just like to participant in activity
that involve movement such as reading in a group. While they have this kind of
thinking, we should encourage them by giving more reading articles and books so that
they can start from small group to larger one.
One of the objectives of the KBSR is the reading component emphasizes sub-
skills which help develop pupils to become independent and mature readers (Chitravelu,
1995). Clearly we can see here that through reading activity students can improve not
only their reading skills but in the same time they can become a good reader. Towards
this end, pupils are also encouraged to read extensively outside the classroom with
minimal teacher guidance ( Chitravelu, 1995 ).
1.1 Statement of Problem
Every student in school is given equal opportunity to learn English. It depends
on the students on how to learn the language. They can make it in easy way or the hard
way. Students who have interest in learning English will find it is easier to study the
subject rather than students that just come to classes for the sake of coming to school.
6
Some of the problem that normally faced by the teacher is the difficulty that
faced by the students when they start to read. Teachers feel that students have no
interest to read even if it is a short paragraph. This is because who think that they are
not capable to read efficiently and they start to compare with the good students. For the
weak students, teachers need to come out with strategies that actually motivate them to
read more. Teachers must help their students to become independent readers. This is
because when teachers teach reading it is not just teaching students to understand the
text but actually using the text to teach them reading skills. Students must give feedback
to the text and in order to make them to do so, several questions should be asked during
the lesson. Through this activity teachers can detect if the students read for information
or read for the sake of reading. Teachers also can find out if they are interested with the
text provided.
Teaching reading involves teaching basic word, phrase and sentence recognition,
as well as the ability to retrieve information contained in texts ( Chitravelu, 1995 ).
Students have the tendency to think that when they read a text or an article, they need to
understand all the information provided. Teachers need to help students read with
adequate understanding. This means that students do not have to understand everything
in a text. They need to understand only what is important for their purpose.
According to Nesamalar Chitravelu, Saratha Sithamparam and Teh Soo Choon
(1995 ), if teachers insist that students should understand everything in the text, this will
only be making them develop a reading –related disease called ‘barking at print’.
Students start to concentrate on few ‘hard words’ that they think it is important to know
the meaning in order to understand the whole text.
Teachers can help students to read at appropriate speed. Normally this kind of
training does not exist in Malaysia. Students read a short passage for half an hour or
forty minutes. As a mature reader, they do not practice this way of reading. Normally
7
they read different things at different speeds. To help students to be a good reader, first
get texts that students can read comfortably. Avoid giving students stories that they
need to stumble over every other word in the story. Automatically students will have no
interest to read the stories because they do not enjoy it.
In Malaysia, teachers will practice reading aloud in the classroom during the
lesson. Many think that reading is sounding out the words in print. However, as
students grow up and become one of the society members, this reading aloud activity did
not actually give benefit to them. People who work as newsreaders practice this activity,
and reading aloud plays a very small part. When we read silently, we read a lot faster
since our mind and eye work a lot faster than our mouth. In the same time, we also do
not disturb others.
Although reading aloud is usually recommended for establishing the sound or
symbol relation which is beneficial in decoding new words, research has indicated that
enough potentially bad side effects may occur to discourage this practice (Hall, 1981).
Besides that, students find that the activities are not interesting and they feel they
need more understanding of the words rather than just doing the exercises. To major the
language is another problem because students without TLSME’s background normally
find it difficult to understand the verb and vocabulary. Compared to students that have
already been exposed to English not only during English classes but also in Mathematics
and Science subjects will need different way of learning reading for English classes.
Students without TLSME need different way of learning English classes. In the end,
present teachers need to come out with several strategies and activities so that can
increase students’ interest. Teaching reading, means enabling a person to acquire the
skills, strategies and attitudes required to make sense of the text (Nesamalar Chitravelu,
Saratha Sithamparam and Teh Soo Choon, 1995).
8
1.4 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this research is to see the different strategies that teachers used to
teach students without TLSME background and with TLSME background. The purpose
of this study is to identify strategies that applied by experience teachers and non-
experience teachers in order to teach two groups of students. This study also covered
how teachers are able to tackle the groups of students.
1.5 Objectives of the Study
The specific objectives of the study are as follows:
i) To find out if there are any different to the strategies used by teachers in teaching
reading to students with TLSME background and without TLSME background.
ii) To find out the justification of different strategies used to students
with TLSME background and without TLSME background.
iii) To find out the effects of the strategies used to students with TLSME and
without TLSME background.
9
1.6 Research Questions
The aim of this study is guided in the form of these research questions: i) What are the differences to the strategies used in reading to students with
TLSME background and without TLSME background?
ii) What is the justification of using different strategies to students with TLSME background and without TLSME background?
iii) What are the effects of the strategies used to students with TLSME
background and without TLSME background?