PROMOTING STUDENTS’ CRITICAL READING ABILITIES

THROUGH READING SCRAPBOOK PROJECT

Thuy Tran, M.A – thuytth.felte@gmail.com

Phuong Nguyen, M.Ed – phuonguyen2410@gmail.com

mailto:thuytth.felte@gmail.commailto:phuonguyen2410@gmail.com

Content

• Rationale • Literature review • Methodology • Results and discussion • Conclusion

Rationale

A wider context

The trap of information overload

Within teacher training curriculum

General language proficiency requisite

English Teacher Proficiency requisite

“Inforbesity” (Toffler, 1970)

(Common European Framework of Reference for Languages)

English Language Teacher Competency Framework

Rationale

A wider context

The trap of information overload

Within teacher training curriculum

General language proficiency requisite

English Teacher Proficiency requisite

A need for developing

CRITICAL READING ABILITIES

The Reading Scrapbook Project For Second year Students of BA Honors Program at FELTE - ULIS

Research questions

RQ1: What principles of critical thinking development are featured in the Reading Scrapbook project?

RQ2: From students’ perspective, to what extent did the project succeed in assisting them to develop their critical reading abilities?

RQ3: From students’ perspective, what else can be done to enhance the effectiveness of this project?

Literature Review

Critical thinking and Critical reading

Critical reading at C1 level (CEFR)

Critical reading as an indicator of English Language Teacher Competences (ETCF)

Project-based learning

Critical thinking and Critical reading

Principles of Environment for Critical thinking development (1) stimulating students’ interest, (2) creating meaningful discussion, (3) exposure to thoughts and views of others, and (4) fostering a trusting and supporting atmosphere

Meyers (1986)

Reading to develop critical thinking abilities - Fostering language growth - Developing logical reasoning in communication - Brings about insights into literature

(King, 1968, p.5)

Critical thinking and Critical reading

Critical reading….

- is the process of reading that goes beyond just understanding a text.

owll.massey.ac.nz/study-skills/critical-reading.php

Critical reading skills involves…

“analyzing the data source, understanding the writer’s purposes, distinguishing facts from opinions, reasoning, forming judgements, and detecting propaganda devices.”

(Vu, 2015, p.16)

15 questions that a critical reader needs to answer in reading any text: 1) What is the writer saying? 2) What do you think the writer is suggesting or implying? What makes you think so? 3) What is the writer’s purpose? 4) What audience is the writer suggesting? 5) Is the writer responding to another writer’s ideas? 6) What is the writer’s main point? 7) How does the writer support his or her points? 8) Does the writer use facts, opinions or a combination of the two? 9) Does the writer include enough supporting details and examples? 10) What pattern of development does the writer use to arrange his or her ideas? Is this pattern the best choice? 11) Does the writer seem well informed? Reasonable? Fair? 12) Do you understand the writer’s vocabulary? 13) Do you understand the writer’s ideas? 14) Do you agree with the points the writer is making? 15) How the ideas presented in this section like/ unlike those presented in other sections you’ve read?

(Kirszner & Mandell, 2000, p. 485, cited in Vu, 2015, p. 16)

Methodology

Research Methodology

Research validity

Setting and participants

Data gathering

Data analysis

Methodology

• Mixed methods: quantitative and qualitative

⇒neutralize or cancel the biases of single methods (Creswell, 2009)

• Data collected chronologically in phases

Two-phase Sequential Mixed Methods (Creswell, 2009) :

- Phase 1: The Survey Questionnaire given to second-years students of BA Honor Program at the end of second semester.

- Phase 2: Semi-structured interviews with randomly selected students.

Methodology:

Research validity:

- Use multiple sources of evidence => ensure the construct validity

- Results from survey questionnaire provide statistical generalization => achieve the external validity

Methodology

Setting & participants

- Setting: FELTE, ULIS

- Participants: nine-teen 2nd-year students of BA Honor

programs

Methodology

Data gathering methods - Survey questionnaire - Interviews

Data analysis methods Statistical and thematic data analytic techniques.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Research question 1 What principles of critical thinking development are featured in the

Reading Scrapbook project?

Principles of environment (Meyers, 1996)

(1) stimulating students’ interest:

+project conducted over the semester

+ covers themes in the reading program

+ ss free to choose authentic texts

(2) meaningful discussions with teachers and peers throughout semester

(3) exposed to thoughts and views of others

+ triangle feedback/ comments which are open to discussion

(4) building a trusting and supporting learning environment

+ working under close guidance of teacher

+ being guided by the list of 15 questions

Research question 1 What principles of critical thinking development are featured in the

Reading Scrapbook project?

Guiding questions and their correlation to elements of critical thinking development (King, 1968)

[hyperlink to .docx file]

Discussion of Research question 1

- The instruction for Reading Scrapbook project closely features the principles of critical thinking development.

- Guiding questions that lead students through the completion of the project can be mapped with elements of critical thinking that can be fostered through reading.

Research question 2 From students’ perspective, to what extent did the project succeed in

assisting them to develop their critical reading abilities?

Table 2: Students’ rating on the Reading scrapbook project

Discussion of Research question 2

• Enhance the Students’ critical awareness • Improve critical reading skills => The project was successful in term of its primary focus

Research question 3

From students’ perspective, what else can be done to enhance the effectiveness of this project?

- Collaborate critical reading skill with other section of the curriculum (writing, speaking)

- Emphasize more on in-time feedback from teachers and peers

- Put less focus on tradition assessment tool (reading test with multiple-choice questions)

Conclusion

• The reading scrapbook project goes in line with principles for critical thinking development.

• The project did help students improve their critical reading skills.

• Collaboration (Ss – Ss; T – Ss) needs to be foster to situate critical reading across .

Future research

• Develop a rubric to assess critical reading skills

• Use the rubrics to analyze students’ levels of critical reading exhibited in their scrapbooks

• Involve more participants

Q & A

PROMOTING �STUDENTS’ CRITICAL READING ABILITIES �THROUGH �READING SCRAPBOOK PROJECTContentRationale Slide Number 4Slide Number 5English Language Teacher Competency Framework Rationale Research questionsLiterature ReviewCritical thinking and Critical readingCritical thinking and Critical readingSlide Number 12MethodologyMethodologyMethodology: MethodologyMethodologySlide Number 18Research question 1�What principles of critical thinking development are featured in the� Reading Scrapbook project?Research question 1�What principles of critical thinking development are featured in the� Reading Scrapbook project?Discussion of Research question 1�Research question 2�From students’ perspective, to what extent did the project succeed in assisting them to develop their critical reading abilities?�Discussion of Research question 2�Research question 3�From students’ perspective, what else can be done to enhance the effectiveness of this project?���ConclusionFuture researchSlide Number 27