English Language Joumal

Thinkitrg Skills and Techniques

ps real
fsroom ioblem

To Enhance ESL Students'

Reading and Writing

Mariam Mohamed Nor

dd, in

Abstract: In Malaysia's drive towards Vision 2020, the

Grove,
L

Recent

ational
loning.

development of human resources, the talents, skills and creativity of the people is the ultimate goal. In response to that, currently in Malaysia's secondary schools, efforts have been made to teach students beyond the basic skills by equipping them with thinking skills. In order to make this idea a reality, there is a need to look at the implementation of 'thinking skills' in ELT and its influence in the learning of English among secondary school students.

Keywords: Thinking skills, cooperative learning, graphic

organizers, higher-order questioning

lective

Acknowledgement:

This research

was funded by Universiti

b: TC
t,Deho

Pendidikan Sultan Idris.

ir

on

INTRODUCTION
The abilities to read and write clearly and fluently are two of the more important skills required of students. However, it is disappointing to find that we know relatively little about the most effective way to foster reading and writing expertise. Hence, this study attempts to investigate the teaching of thinking skills in language classrooms, specifically for enhancing the teaching of reading and writing skills. Swartz and Parks (1994) proposed three general approaches to teach thinking skills. First, we have the direct instruction of thinking in non-curricular contexts, which is often called the teaching of thinking. Teaching thinking by direct instruction means that, students learn how to use explicit thinking strategies guided by the teacher. The second approach is called teaching for thinking which involves using techniques to promote students' deep understanding of the context, such as using cooperative leaming, graphic organizers, higher-order questioning, Socratic dialog,

earch

Thinking Skills
English Language Journal

manipulative and inquiry learning. The third approach is the teaching of thinking skills using the infusion approach (Swartz and Parks, 1994) that emphasises on skillful thinking so that students can improve the way they think. Infusion lessons feature a variety of effective teaching practices that characterises the way thinking can be explicitly emphasized in the lessons. Whatever the approach, it is important to understand the relationship between teaching knowledge, that is the language content, and teaching thinking. It is generally thought that teaching knowledge is suffrcient for understanding (perkins, 1993), and thinking. Thinking seems to be enhanced by the deeper understanding of knowledge, but knowledge alone is not sufficient. As Perkins (1992) argues, a deeper understanding of knowledge forms the basis for the active use of knowledge and skills, and that should be the aim of education. One of the ways of teaching for deeper understanding and thinking is to allow students to play an active part in the teaching and leaming processes. This approach is also in line with what Onosko and Newmann (1994) suggest, ..The best we can do is to engage in what we predict will be challenging problems, guiding student manipulation of information to solve problems, and supporting students' efforts." (1994:29). Classroom activities that employ collaborative problem solving seem to have the potential for teaching children how to deal with complex tasks and to work with and leam from each other (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1990). One would expect that exposure to a rich array of collaborative problem-solving activities in the classrooms would help students become problem solvers as adult. For this to happen in the classrooms, the traditional tellinglistening relationship between teacher and student should be replaced by one that is more interactive (Prawat, 1992: 357).

to develop interesting and thoughtful ideas, (ii) inability to present ideas clearly and coherently, and (iii) inability to plan paragraphs and essays cohesively. Further, the culture of Asian learners is characterised by group-oriented, harmony-seeking, hierarchical and

non-critical thinking, whereas, westem cultures consist of individualistic, adversarial, horizontal, and critical-thinking behavioral patterns (Atkinson 1997, Fox 1994; Ramanathan and
Kaplan 1996). According to Atkinson (1997:80) critical thought is more of a social practice than a teachable set of behaviors. However, Littlewood (2000: 34) found that 'Asian students do not, in fact, wish to be spoon-fed with facts from an all-knowing "fount of knowledge". They want to explore knowledge themselves and find their own answers.' Hence, these findings suggest that a new generation of Asian learners is not being depicted accurately by conventional constructs.

RATIONALE
There seems to be no studies which have attempted to investigate how teachers construct pedagogical content knowledge to teach thinking skills (Rajendran, 1998). For that matter, no studies have attempted to investigate how teachers jointly construct pedagogical content knowledge for teaching thinking skills in their writing classrooms. Available evidence suggests that teachers need to possess the attitudes and beliefs necessary to teach thinking skills, because teachers' views of teaching and learning influence their teaching in the classroom. There is also evidence to suggest that language abilities and thinking competencies shape each other. In relation to this evidence, there seems to be a need for teachers to exploit the four language components, i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing, and to promote thinking skills among students. Thinking seems to be inherent in almost all activities encompassing the four language components. In particular, the Malaysian National Curriculum (1991) specifies that students be able to listen, to view and express ideas, opinions, thoughts and feelings imaginatively and creatively in spoken and written form.

PROBLEM STATEMEI\T
In a briefing conducted by the Malaysian Ministry of Education
given to the district head of the English department (1997), three main weaknesses in students' writing were identified: (i) inability
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Thinking Skills
English Language Journal

REVIEW OF LITBRATURE lntroduction

The literature review focused on the main trends

DEFINITION OF TERMS
Thinking is the way we make sense of the world and thinking critically is thinking about our thinking so that we can clariff and improve it. If we can understand the way our mind works when we work toward our goals, make informed decisions, and analyse complex issues, then we can learn to think more effectively in these situations (chaffee, J, 2000). Thinking skills includes strategies whereby students are engaged in purposeful, extended lines of thought, where they: identi& the task (or type of problem), define and clarify essential elements and terms, gather, judge, and connect relevant information, evaluate the adequacy of information and procedures for drawing conclusions and/or solving problems. In addition, students will then become self-conscious about their thinking and develop their self-monitoring problem_solving strategies, namely, cognitive, analysis, comparison, inference / interpretation evaluation, processes and metacognitive planning,
monitoring, reviewing/revising (Baron and Sternberg I 9g7).

in

the

development of research on thinking skills to enhance secondary students' reading and writing. It looked at how the results of similar

studies were interpreted, and what implications were drawn. Further, it compiled references to the empirical work that had been doqp in the area of thinking in reading and writing, specifically in thinking skills. Finally, it examined how most of the prior studies
were conducted.

The Rationale for Teaching Thinking

On the whole, with or without special training everyone thinks. One major assumption underlying the interest in teaching thinking is that there is a need for teaching these thinking skills: to compare, classify, order, estimate, extrapolate, interpolate, form hypotheses, weigh evidence, draw conclusions, devise arguments, judge relevance, use analogies, and engage in numerous activities that are typically classified as thinking. However, most of us who talk about teaching thinking would probably agree that what we need to teach, and to leam, for that matter, is not how to think in an absolute sense, but how to think more effectively, more critically, more coherently, more creatively, more deeply-than we often, perhaps typically, do. There is little evidence to show that students acquire good thinking skills simply as a consequence of studying conventional course materials. Although domain-specific knowledge is essential to good thinking within a domain, it is not sufficient to assure that good thinking will occur. As Glaser (1985) puts it, a student does not tend "naturally" to develop a general disposition to consider thoughtfully the subjects and problems that come within the range of his or her experience; nor is he or she likely to acquire knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning and skill in applying these methods, simply as a result of having studicd

STGNIFICANCE OF' THB STUDY

This sfudy is a response to the government impetus to include the teaching of thinking in the series of measures to raise standards in the teaching of language in ESL classrooms. All secondary writing teachers are expected to engage in the pedagogy of teaching thinking skills in their reading and writing lesson. They also seek to highlight a number of characteristics common in teaching thinking programs: promotion of cooperative learning, promotion of challenge in learning, encouragement of transfer, and stimulating pupils to think about their learning (rnetacognition). Hence, findings from this sfudy will encourage teachers to utilise thinking skills in their reading and writing lessons in order to achieve academic and social goals for students. In addition, curriculum designers for teacher education programs will be able to use the information, and to incorporate in the programs the strategies useful for the teaching and learning content.
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linglish Langtragc Journal

Thinking Skills qr.restions. They actively involve students in literacy activities, olten giving them responsibilities for holding their own discussions about text, an activity which maintain a high pupil involvement. Similarly the context of a study by Leat and Mei Lin (2003) was teaching thinking which was promoted as a means to raise

this subject or that. There is little evidence that students acquire skill in critical thinking as a by product of the study of any given subject. In other words, if students are to acquire good thinking skills in the classroom, explicit attention will have to be given to
that objective. students should be trained to become good thinkers so that they will be equipped to compete effectively for educational opportunities, jobs, recognition, and rewards in today's world. Goodlad (1980) has observed that few employers pay for such activities as contemplating, questioning, and inquiring, and that many discourage these activities. Clearly, some jobs require shills of certain types of thinking(e.g., troubleshooting and problem solving), but whether people who make a habit of thinking deeply and reflectively are more valued employees or more successful employers than those who do not seems to be an open question.

Research on Thinking To Enhance Reading and Writing This section discusses writing researches which incorporate thinking both in the Ll and L2 settings and also examines the
outcomes of these researches and their implications for the teaching

of reading and writing in schools. Hopefully, it will provide an overview of thinking skills in reading and writing researches
previously conducted as the background to this research paper.

To begin, Taylor, Pearson, Peterson & Rodriquez (2003) conducted a study which investigated the effects of teaching thinking on students' reading achievement. The study focused on students' reading and writing growth in grades l-5. A total of eighty-eight teachers and seven hundred and ninety-two students across these grades participated in the study. Looking across the data, it was found that teachers who emphasised thinking either through the questions they asked or the tasks they assigned, promoted greater reading growth. Thus, the findings suggested that elements that maximize students' cognitive engagement are important when attempting to improve reading instruction. Effective teacher questioning of texts is purposeful. The teachers assess students' learning through student answers to challenging
30

standards by the Malaysian govemment. Teaching thinking includes the concepts of metacognition and transfer in its underpinnings but there is little support for teachers to make these concepts a reality in the classroom. In England there was a government impetus to include teaching thinking. The White Paper, Excellence in Schools (Department for Education and Employment [DfEE,i997] gave some prominence to teaching thinking and suggested the link between systematic teaching of thinking skills and positive learning outcomes. These skills were specified as Information-processing skills, Reasoning skills, Creative thinking skills, and Evaluation skills. All secondary subject teachers in England were expected to engage with the pedagogy of teaching thinking. Furthermore, Baumfield et al. (1995) identified a number of characteristics which were common in teaching thinking programs. These include the promotion of cooperative leaming, promotion of challenges in learning, the development of concepts in subject domains, the encouragement of transfer and stimulating pupils to think about their learning (metacognition). Transfer and metacognition are the two most significant concepts in the field of teaching thinking. Hence, current reforms demand that teaching thinking be taught through the national curriculum subjects in England so that pupils can reflect on what and how they have learned and transfer their learning to new contexts. Further, Yarrow and Topping (2001) conducted a study in Scotland to demonstrate peer assisted learning in writing named Paired Writing (Topping, 1995) which incorporated both metacognitive prompting and scaffolding for the interactive process. Participants were 28, ten and eleven year old students forming a problematic mixed ability class. All received training in Paired Writing and its inherent metacognitive prompting. Paired Writing is a structured but flexible collaborative writing system
3l

linglish Languagc Journal which combines metacognitive and social interactive approaches to supporting children's writing development. The writing process
consists of six steps: Generating Ideas, Drafting, Reading, Editing, producing a Best copy and Evaluating. Helper (tutor) and writer

Thinking Skills

analyses of the quarity of individual writing, all groups showed statistically significant improvements in writing. However, the pre-post gains of the children who wrote interactively were significantly greater than those of the lone writers. Onosko and Newmann (1994) conducted a study (involving teachers, department chairs, and principles) which attempted to find out, among other things, participant,s conceptions of and commitment to teaching thinking as an educational goal, and the factors they perceived as necessary to accomplish it. They reported that academic departments committed to teaching thinking as a fundamental instructional goal had teachers whose classrooms showed more thoughtfulness than departments not committed to this goal. Based on classroom observations, open-ended interviews with students, and survey questionnaire items, they reported that students were more likely to be interested in academic study when they were challenged to think. Onosko and Newmann also, identified the barriers or obstacles to the promotion of thinking skills in the classrooms. one of the barriers they suggested is that teachers perceive teaching as knowledge transmission. Similarly, Cuban (1984), after researching the pedagogical practices in American classrooms for period of 90 years concluded that the dominant forms of classroom 'discourse' past and present are teacher lecture and teacher-led recitations. The overriding agenda is to transmit information and ideas, and than request that students reproduce them either orally or in writing.

on pre- and post-project

(tutee). Roles and behaviors were identified at each step. Results of the study were that writing improvements demonstrated by the No Interaction condition suggested that some of the positive effects of the intervention might be attributabre to the training, metacognitive support' peer assessment and increased opportunities for practice.

Another barrier to the promotion of thinking in classrooms is teachers' the low expectations of students (Onosko and Newmann, 1994). They reported that some teachers in their study assumed that students lacked the inherent mental capacity, the raw "brain power" to engage in thinking, especially those students labeled low achievers or low ability. When students were perceived to lack thinking skills, many teachers were less likely to formulate lessons that require thinking challenges. In short, teachers need subject matter knowledge, the necessary pedagogical skills, and the appropriate attitude to teach. Recent research had documented some of the important ways that teacher's knowledge of the subjects they taught shaped their instructional practice. A number of studies had suggested that teachers with a richer understanding of subject matter tended to emphasise conceptual, problem-solving, and inquiry aspects of their subjects,
whereas less knowledgeable teachers tended to emphasise facts and procedures (Ball, 1998; Wilson, 1988; Ball and MrDiarmid, 1990).

DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY

Aim: There were three aims for this study. The first aim was to investigate whether Form Two ESL students displayed elements of
critical thinking in their reading and writing. Second, to investigate the way Form Two ESL students interpreted and constructed knowledge and framed (developed and linked with each other) ideas in reading and writing. Third, to examine the effectiveness of using patterns of organization in developing students' knowledge and frame ideas for writing (developed and linked with each other).

Methodology: Data was collected using interviews, students' written prbducts, a reading-writing intervention program and
students' feedback.

Instruments:

(i) Written Protocols: Students were given a few topics to write about in an essay, each of which were analysed for instances of voice and

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lingl islt Languagc Journal

Thinking Skills

attitude towards the issue discussed in the essay. The type

analysis used was a product-oriented analysis, using the written products of students in two writing classes.

of

Phase l:Pre-test for reading and

writing writing

Phase 2: Intervention Program Phase 3: Post-test for reading and Phase 4: Interviews (Reflection) Phase 5: Written Feedback

(ii)Interviews 20 participants were randomly selected

interviews.

for

follow_up

(iii)Reading and Writing Intervention program A reading-writing skill using patterns of organization (adapted from Mikulecky and Jeffries,2000, p 100, Winkler & McCuen, 2000; Langan, 2000) in developing knowledge and frame ideas for reading-writing was utilised to enhance students' critical reading-writing skills. For the intervention program, the participants (N:80) were assigned to two groups, one group with teacher A and another with teacher B. The student participants were trained using the reading-writing skill, "patterns of organization," using topics at a level conforming to the Form Two syllabus. The participants were given sufficient training sessions until the researcher was satisfied that the participants had acquired sufficient skills in framing ideas for critical reading-writing skills. participants were pre- and post-tested on the reading-writing skill for four common patterns (listing of ideas, sequence, comparison/ contrast and cause-effect) to measure for learning and transfer effects. For the intervention program there were two main packages of materials; one for the training and one for the tests (pre-test, post-test). T-test was conducted on the scores obtained. The results of the tests were compared to find out if there was any significant difference between them.

FINDINGS:
The results from the study showed that ESL (Malay) students had

stereotypical, passive, and respectful and dovetail attitudes as portrayed by some of the researches conducted by other Asian researchers. Also, the analysis of students' written products denoted that the majority of students did not utilize thinking skills, knowledge construction and idea framing when writing essays' Consequently, teachers were advised to create a teaching module for reading and writing using pattems of organization to enhance students' critical thinking-reading-writing skills.

IMPLICATTONS
From the results of this study we could deduce that students could not think by themselves. They have to be guided and trained to

think while reading. This conclusion is in accordance with the growing consensus that, "thinking is a skill and can be taught" (Chance, 1986: 133). Polya (1965: ix) proclaimed, "Solving
problems is a practical art, like swimming, or skiing, or playing the piano: you can learn it only by imitation and practice." The classical approach to the teaching of thinking was based on the conceptions of what to teach, how to teach, and where to teach: to view thinking as a single intellectual ability that can be improved through mental discipline. Binet, who believes in the teachability of

RBSBARCH DESIGN Quasi-experimental

The research was conducted participants (N:80)

thinking skills described thinking as:

in 5 phases on two

groups of

Intelligence is not a simple indivisible function with a particular essence of its own'..but it is formed by the combination of the minor functions...all of which have

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linglish Larrguagc Journal

Thinking Skills
llaunrfield,V.., StanclifllD., Atkins,M,& Leat,D. 1995. Improving Students'
performance- a guide to thinking skills programmes in education and training (Gateshead, Tyneside Training and Enterprise Council.) Ilruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

proved to be plastic and subject to increase. With practice, enthusiasm, and especially with method, one can succeed in improving one's attention, memory and judgment, and in becoming literally more intelligent than before" (19fi/r962:
150).

University Press.
Chaffee,J.(2000) Thinkins Critically. Sixth Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. Chance,P. (1986). Thinking in the classroom: A survey of programs- New York:Teachers' College Press.

solvers. Therefore, in contrast to the classical approach, our second criterion for a successful training program is a iocrrs on problemsolving process (Mayer, 1992: 365).

the right answer) we should focus on the process of piottem solving (i.e., the methods used in problem solving). In summury the method used in many successful programs is to give students practice in problem-solving processes used by good problem

The classical approach emphasised correct performance. However, Lochhead (1979, p.l) rejects the classical approach: "we should be teaching students how to think; instead we are primarily teaching them what to think-" what Lochhead and others are saying is that instead of focusing on the product of problem solving 1i.e.]gefting

Department

secondary teachers in England Key Stages 3 and 4 (London'DfEE/QCA). Fox, H. (1994). Listening to the World: Cultural issues in academic writing. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. Glaser, E. M. (1985). Critical thinking: Educating for responsible citizenship in a
democracy. -ly'ational Forum, 65 :24-27 . Goodlad, J. (1980). What schools should be for. Leaming, 9:38-43. Grosmann, P.C. (1990). The making of a teacher: Teacher lonwledge and teacher education. New York; Teacher College Press. Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T. & Holubee, E. J. (1990). Circle of learning:

For Education and EmploymenVQualifications and Curriculum Authority (DfEE/QCA). 1999. The National Curriculum - handbook for

CONCLUSION
In winding up, teaching thinking skills and techniques has positive effects on students, reading-writing achievement (see Appendix l). This notion was demonstrated through the research findings which showed group-writing and background support assisted the implementation of teaching thinking skills in the language

Cooperation in the classroon 13td. ed.;, Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co. Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky: A biological perspective, Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.
Leat,D and Mei Lin.2003. Developing a Pedagogy of Metacognition and Transfer: some signposts for the generation and use ofknowledge and the creation of research partnerships. British Educational Research Journal,vol 29'No.3. Littlewood, W. (2000). 'Do Asian students really want to listen and obey?' ELT

Journal 54/l:31-36
Mayer, R.E. (1992) Thinking, Problem Solving,Cognition.2nd Edition.New York: W.H.Freeman Onosko, J.J., & Newmann, F.M. (1994). Creating more thoughtful learning

classrooms.

REFERENCES
Atkinson, D. (1997)..A critical approach to crirical thinking in TESOL,. TESOL Quarterly. 5ll7:20-28 Ball, D' & McDiarmid, w. (1990). The subject matter preparation of teachers. In W. Houston, et al., (Eds.). Handbook of research on teacher education. New York: Macmillon .pp. 437-449. Baron,J.B and Sternberg,R.J. (19g7) Teaching Thinking Skills.
W.H.Freeman & Co. U.S.A:

environments, In J.N. Mangieri & C.C. Block (Eds.). Creating powerful thinking in teachers and students: Diverse perspectives, Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.p. 250-257. ELT Journal Vol. 56/3. July. Oxford University Press. Perkins, D.N. (1992) Smart schools: From training memories to educating minds, New York: The Free Press. Perkins, D.N. (1993). Teaching for understanding. American Educator, Fall' pp.
28-35.

Polya,G.(1965).Mathematicaldiscovery.Vol ll: Onunderstanding, learningand teaching problem solving. New York:Wiley. Postman, N. (1985). Critical thinking in the electronic era. National Forum, 65:4-8

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Prawat, R. (1992). Teachers' beliefs about teaching and leaming: A constructivist perspective. American Journal ofEducatior, 100, pp. 354-393. Ramanathan, V. and R. B. Kaplan. (1996). .Audience and voice in current composition texts: Some implications for ESL student writers'. Journal of Second Language l{riting 5 ll: 2l-34. swatz, R. & Parks, s. (1994). Infusing critical and creative thinking into content instruction, Califomia: Critical Thinking Press. Taylor,B.M;Pearson,P.D;Peterson,S.D & Rodriquez,M .C 2003. Reading Growth

'l'hinkirrg Skills

APPENDTX2
Objectives:

l.

Read and think criticallY.

Text: The Kitchen

One week before Hari Raya Puasa, Azura and I come home from school in a heavy rain, and when we push in the door we find the kitchen empty. The table and chairs and trunk are

High_Poverty Classroom. The influence of Teacher practices that encourage Cognitive Engagement in Literacy Learning. The Elementary School JournalVol. I 04,no. l,p:3-28. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press. Yarrow, F and Topping,K.J 2001. Collaborative Writing: The effects of metacognitive prompting and structured peer interaction. British Journal of
Educational Psychologt, v 71, (261-282).

in

goneandthestoveiscold.Grandmaisstillthereandthat
means we haven't moved again. Father would never move

APPENDIX

Students Reflections (via Interviews)

1. Saya rasa lebih bersemangat untuk mempelajari
Inggeris
Bahasa

without Grandma. The kitchen floor is wet, little pools of water all around, and the walls are twinkling with the damp' There's a noise upstairs and when we go up we find father and mother and the missing furniture' It's nice and warm
there, mother sitting and reading a book in the bed, and father reading the day's newspaper. Mother tells us there's a terrible flood, that the rain came down the road and poured in under

2. Discussions can make me talked and thinked with

friends.

my

3. Ajaranya lebih
4.

memberi peluang kepada pelajar untuk

bertanya dan tiada masaalah.

Memberi saya semangat baru untuk membaca rencana2

Bahasa Inggeris dengan lebih sempurna dan cara yang betul.

our door. They tried to stop it with rags, but they only turned sopping wet and let the rain in. She thinks we should stay upstairs as long as there is rain. Dad says it's like going away on our holidays to a nice foreign place like Hawaii' That's what we'll call the upstairs from now on, Hawaii' Azura says
Grandma is still on the wall downstairs, and she's going to be all cold and couldn't we bring her up? But mother says, 'No, she's going to stay where she is because I don't want her on the wall glaring at me in the bed. Isn't it enough that we dragged her all the way from Taiping to Sungai Siput to Ipoh

5. Dapat mempelajari pelajaran baru, tapi memerah otak.

6.
7.

It is good and I like it. Saya suka sebab belajar dalam kumpulan banyak idea.Sebelum ini apa yang kita tak tahu kita dah tahu

ini memang bagus 9. Saya rasa ianya berkesan, kerana ia memberi langkah untuk
membaca dan menjawab soalan.
10. Good, it give me more lessons

8. Pada pendapat saya, pembelajaran

toKualaLumpurtoKemaman?Alllwantnowisalittle
peace, ease and comfort.

Reading comprehension questions

It is good and I like it. 12. Berkesan. Mendapat ilmu dengan baik
11.

l.
3.

What does 'trunk' mean in the text?

(see, hear, smell, taste, feel)
does the descriPtion use? What words refer to or suggest each of these senses?
39

2. How many of the five senses

13. Saya rasa, saya sudah boleh membaca dan menulis karangan

dengan baik.
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Unglish Languagc Journal

Tliinking Skills

4. The scene is described in

tense?

the present tense even though it occurred long ago. why do you think the writer chooses that

Word Trunk

Dictionary Meaning

5. What effect does it have on you? 6. Where is the place? 7. How many people are in the scene? 8. What are the names of the people? 9. What does 'Grandma'refers to?
10. Why do you think mother does not want 'Grandma' to be
upstairs?

A wooden box for keeping clothes An elephant's nose A tree stump

Another word, "grandma" does not refer to a person but to a photo of a person. They can deduce this from referents made, 'Grandma

Observation
Phase 1:
students seemed to read and tried to absorb the meaning of the text. But they do not seem to understand the questions and the text, for

wall,' looking at me. After the teacher had explained all this thoroughly, the students were able to answer all the questions correctly, observed by comparing the answers given by the students for the reading comprehension questions before and after the teacher's
on the

explanation.

(English Language) when reading the text aloud. The majority seemed engrossed in trying to find the answers, reading the text intensely, translating word-by-word, trying to deduce the word_ meanings however, they only managed to translate the word_ meanings out of context. Generally, they do not seem to understand what they were reading. For instance, they could not give the correct contextual meaning for the following words: trunk, Grandma and the five senses from the text, .The Kitchen., Phase 2:
The teacher explained to the students what the questions were about and how to answer them. For example, to answer the meaning of

they kept referring to the English-Malay dictionary. They conversed in Ll (Bahasa Melayu) and used the target language

Phase 3:

Group Writing Task: Write one paragraph describing a scene in your school.

. .

First, the teacher instructed students to write a paragraph describing a scene in the school. But they were not able to write. Some students managed to write one or two sentences. Lateq the teacher used the blueprint for writing a descriptive scene and gave a briefexplanation ofit.

Sample Student Essay:

First time we reach this school, we see beautiful sceneries, smart and cute students, the teachers and the beautiful buildings. Then, we hear laughing from the students and the birds singing. We also smell the frogrant from the flowers. When we go to the canteen we taste delicious foods and drihks. Lastly, we feel fresh and healthy when we're in this school.

the word, "trunk," they have to understand the words meanin! in context, and the context here is the kitchen. Hence, the most appropriate meaning for the word trunk is a wooden box for
keeping clothes.

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APPENDIX

Teachers can also give students articles from the newspaper that make them read and think. For example, teachers can use activities

4. What caused the fire to spread very fast? [predicting] 5. Imagine that you are the Member of Parliament for that area. How can you help the 10 homeless people, in terms of
shelter, food, clothes and their future? [problem solving]

that makes them use thinking skills such as

generalizing,

categorizing, identifuing main ideas, predicting, problem solving and creating headlines for the text. Kuala Lumpu4 Sun- Two sisters caruied their 98-year-old great grandmother to safety as fire threatened to engulf their home in Kampung Chubadak Tambahan, Sentul, today.

Suggested Answers:
1.

The headline is associated with fire because there are many words related to it, for instance: fire threatened to engulf, fire spread, minor explosion, in flames, flames spread, Fire and
Rescue Department, and fire engines.

Rubayaton Adawiyah Zaini,22 and Siti Nuril Ashikin, 17, rescued Jabariah Chu Mqt Lawi after fire spread from a neighbour's house. Jabariahb son, Amin Mohamed,75, said hewas watching television when he heard a monir explosion from the house next door "I went to the window and saw my neighbour's house in flames," he soid. "I shouted to my mother and four grandchildren to get out of the house." Amin said soon after Rubyatun and Siti Nurul bought his mother out of the house, the flames spread to his house. Sentul Fire and Rescue Department operations fficer Abhut Hqdi Abdullah said three fire engines responded to an emergency call at I0.I5am.
Teachers can use the

2. J.

Jabariah Chu Mat Lawi; an old man Amin Mohamed, who is Jabariah's son; and four grandchildren'

A grandmotheq
It could be

a gas tank, a bottle of

oil' a television.

4. Usually, the houses

in a squatter area are made of wood and are built close together both of which helped to spread the fire fast.

following activities to stimulate students'

thinking.

Instructions: Answer the following questions. your answers must

be supported with concrete evidences from the article.

Steps:

l.

What do you think

Igeneralising]

is the 'headline' for the article?

2. Who were involved 3.

in the fire and what were

their

relationships? [categorising] What do you think caused the 'minor explosion?,[predicting]

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