文化研究论文代写 越南大学生参与阅读活动

文化研究论文代写 越南大学生参与阅读活动

Tasks

Definitions of tasks

‘Task’ has been defined variously in different researches. It is defined generally as “a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward” in everyday life (Long, 1985, p.89); or more specifically and more linguistically as uses of language in the real world beyond the classroom (i.e. real world tasks or target tasks) and those that occur pedagogically in the classroom (i.e. pedagogical tasks) (Nunan, 2006). Pedagogically, it is defined as any structured language learning “endeavor” or simply any activity or action with a particular objective, appropriate content, a specified working procedure, and a range of outcomes (Richards, Platt & Weber, 1986, p.289 and Breen, 1987, p. 23). All in all, tasks are used in language classrooms in some ways, for some reasons just to foster language learning and practice.

Meaningful extensive reading tasks

Although many language educators and teachers (Nunan, 1989; Foertsch, 1992; Ohashi & Ohashi, 1993 and Richards & Rodgers, 2001) have mentioned the term ‘meaningful tasks’ with its great advantage of stimulating learners’ interest and increasing their level of involvement in learning, it is not an easy to find answer for the question: ‘What are meaningful tasks?’

‘Meaningful’ is a “difficult” adjective that is ‘rarely’ used because of its abstract and flexible meaning. In general, ‘meaningfulness’ refers to ‘usefulness’, ‘seriousness’ or ‘importance’ (Brown et al, 2000) and those can only be meanings of ‘meaningfulness’ in certain situations. For example, a one-cent coin may mean everything to a poor person but nothing to a person who is rich. Then we can say that this coin is “meaningful” to the poor one and “meaningless” to the rich.

In the light of language teaching and learning, the situation is a little bit different. Ohashi and Ohashi parallel “meaningful” to “communicative” (1993, p.59). In their opinion, any aspect in language teaching and learning that is considered ‘meaningful’ must have a reason itself for the exchange of information in communication. For example, in real-life communication, we communicate because we want to, we have to or we need to. Similarly, in class activities, students should do things that they really want to or should be required to do things that they may have to or need to do in their future communication. That is the meaningfulness of language learning as well as language teaching.

After more than ten years, Ashburn & Floden (2006) has a more detailed idea of “meaningful” learning when they characterize the term with clearly and intentionally articulated learning goals, learning aspects centralized to content, learning tasks focused on authenticity, active learning, construction of cognitive models of content embedded within learning tasks and finally collaborative work in learning tasks. All the above features are claimed to be interdependent and related to the design of learning tasks.

To conclude, to make the language learning and teaching more meaningful, firstly, it is necessary to make the learning tasks, in this case the extensive reading tasks, more meaningful. This can be done by putting into the centre of teaching process (1) the learners themselves (including learning purposes, level of proficiency, learning attitudes and preferences, etc.) and (2) the learning contexts.

Engagement in learning

Engagement in learning is one of the most important conditions that lead to the success of learning and teaching. It is defined as the frequency of students’ participations and involvement in learning activities both in and outside the classroom and counted by the amount of time and effort students spend on the activities in order to achieve some certain experiences and outcomes (Barkley, 2010). In this work, Barkley also discusses more specifically on engagements of college students, according to which, engagement means (1) the thorough care of students about what they are learning, excessive expectations and further working on what they are required to learn and (2) the involvement of students in academic tasks by using higher-order thinking skills such as analyzing information or solving problems. The two meanings are closely related respectively to students’ “motivation” and “activel learning”. He concludes that “student engagement is a process and a product that is experienced on a continuum and results from the synergistic interaction between motivation and active learning” (p.8) and illustrated by a diagram as follows.

This means that student engagement is generated in the overlap of motivation and active learning without any of which, students are not said to be engaged or to have possibilities to be engaged in learning. Therefore, in general, in order to increase students’ engagement, it is necessary to increase both students’ motivation and active learning which are said to be influenced by each other.

Engagement in reading classes

The engagement of reading classes depends on more detailed aspects of reading teaching and learning which are discussed thoroughly by Guthrie & Cox (2001) and Edmunds & Bauserman (2006). According to those, in order to engage learners more in reading classes, we need to take the followings in considerations: learners’ learning and knowledge goals in close relations with real-world interactions, learners’ interests and levels (chances for personal choice of topics/ tasks), learning attitudes and strategies and also the methods of text and task exploitation based on all above conditions.

CONTEXT

Broad contexts

Like in other English classes in Hanoi and some other parts of Vietnam, English classes at College of Technology where I am teaching have witnessed great changes of English teaching and learning.

English: An essential preparation for future vs. A school subject

Nowadays, English becomes more and more popular in all fields of works, especially in the area of Technology, the major of the research participants. Being well aware of this, the College has promoted a priority policy for English teaching and learning (20 periods per week for English) thanks to which most of the students are fully conscious of its importance and consider English learning a necessity for their preparation for their future careers. Actually, many of them have their own practical purpose for learning English which is no longer just a school subject that they have to “suffer”.

Communicative approach vs. grammatical approach

In recent years, English is taught communicatively instead of grammatically as ten years ago when the focus of English teaching and learning was on grammar and vocabulary. What students had to do was to learn by heart all the meanings of words and structures so that they could complete the required exercises or pass some obligatory exams. Sometimes their teachers asked them to translate sentences from English into Vietnamese and vice versa just to ensure that they had learnt all the words and structures well.

In our College English classes in recent years, it is difficult to find any class in which the teacher just teaches the students the structures of English sentences all the time like that. Instead, we try to teach our students the skills of communication, i.e. speaking, listening, reading and writing. Grammar and vocabulary are now taught as the essential materials for the smooth of communication.

Learner-centered Approach vs. Teacher-centered Approach

As teaching approach has been moved from grammatical one to communicative one, the centre of teaching and learning are also moved from the teachers to the learners as well. In the past, when we focused on grammar and vocabulary only, most of the class time was for the teachers’ mono-talk to deliver the meaning of new words or the theory of new structures. The students were not given chances to discover the new things themselves. But in the new approach of teaching and learning, we place the students at the centre of the process in which the learners’ purposes of learning, their level of proficiency, their learning attitudes ad preferences, their learning methods and strategies, etc. are all taken into considerations. We give them more chances to explore and to practice the language they learn by putting them in communicative situations in which they use the language to communicate with the teachers or with each others in pair or group works.

Use of multi-media in teaching

The last but not least innovative change that we try to make in recent years is to utilize multi-media facilities in our English teaching and learning. We use not only the tape or CD players to play pieces of recordings in listening lessons but other high technology equipments like laptops and head projectors to display other multi-media presentations. The Internet is also exploited as the valuable and unlimited source of information and language materials for language lessons.

With so many innovative changes in just more than one decade, we, teachers of English are now trying our best to improve our own skills and qualifications in order to meet the demanding requirements of learning and teaching.

文化研究论文代写 越南大学生参与阅读活动