Does the pre-reading strategy of choral reading, transfer effectively to support new language learners, in their reading and pronunciation of French?

Choral reading for beginning L2 learners to develop word recognition, in terms of correct pronunciation, and oral fluency creates opportunities for early learners ‘ears’ to develop accent

Rationale Choral reading is widely used and effective pre-reading strategy in Shared Reading approach reading aloud together whole class - teacher and students enlarged text / books / poems non-threatening encourages participation and risk-taking supports all students, no matter what their ability

teacher sets the pace, and models pronunciation, rhythm, intonation and fluency effectiveness lies in the way that the more able students ‘carry along’ less able students, when reading aloud, so that those who can not read the text well, can participate as though they can text that is unknown initially, becomes known, with repeated exposure and practice.

Attributes of choral reading make it interesting to investigate as a strategy to use in the L2 classroom because: text of a second language, especially French, can be unfamiliar, just as text is unfamiliar to a beginning reader spelling of words may not necessarily indicate how they should be said or pronounced

Data Collection Tools & Method 4 students - Y7 Y8 pre - intervention; recorded reading a passage of 135 words of unseen text, on unfamiliar topic timed for fluency word count for correct pronunciation

Intervention; 4 weeks of implementing the choral reading strategy, using a variety of texts, e.g teacher made enlarged books, related to the topic Post-intervention; recorded reading a passage of unseen text, on unfamiliar topic timed for fluency word count for correct pronunciation

Relevant Research Ellis (2005) Principal 6; successful instructed language learning requires extensive L2 input - books, stories and poems are an effective method of input, as they contain rich language, and motivate learning by capturing students’ imagination

Ellis (2005) Principal 1; instruction needs to ensure that learners develop a rich repertoire of formulaic expressions - books offer whole phrases and expressions, that can be learnt, in an authentic context - formulaic expressions can be taught meaningfully, via stories and poems

Ministry of Education (2003) Shared Reading (Shared Book) approach recommended as an effective literacy practise for teachers, for early readers as well as independent readers teacher reads along with the students, modelling pronunciation, rhythm, intonation and fluency utilises enlarged books and poems, which the whole class or group can see and read together

Shared reading provides a supportive instructional setting encourages a high level of participation and interaction, no matter what the students’ ability exposes students to a wide range of texts, and language supports them in reading harder texts, with more unfamiliar vocabulary and structures.

Elley (1991) reviewed 9 studies of book-based second language learning programmes compared to other more structured and sequential learning methods, the use of books, and more specifically, the ‘shared book’ experience was most successful for language acquisition. whole language’ approach, where the teacher and students were immersed in meaningful text together, led to high motivation and significant incidental learning.

McCauley & McCauley (1992) used choral reading to promote second language learning for over 20 years a successful and advantageous approach for language learners allows all students in a class to participate, no matter what their level of ability, in a lively, performance-based, yet non-threatening environment, where there can be no fear of failure.

stories and poems are read many times, to develop oral fluency contain language (vocabulary and structures) that can often be slightly beyond what the learners have already been exposed to attributes of choral reading, align with principles which enhance second language acquisition

Data Summary & Analysis Time taken to read passage St 1St 2St 3St 4 Pre1:482:191:291:23 Post1:443:201:291:20 oral fluency was increased in 2 out of 4 students, with another student remaining the same

Data Summary & Analysis Number of words read with correct pronunciation pronunciation improved also with all students increasing the number of words pronounced correctly St 1St 2St 3St 4 Pre Post Difference

Conclusion choral reading approach was enormously successful in this class of beginning L2 learners. motivation high, for this performance task of reading aloud together students gained in confidence, and improved in their oral fluency and pronunciation students kept pace well with enlarged books

Conclusion students were presented with more vocabulary and structure than that which they had already been exposed to added bonus was that they also frequently referred back to the enlarged books, to find structures and vocabulary for their writing, often working together in a group or pair, exploring and discussing the text together, and working out how to manipulate it to suit their purpose

Constraints lack of enlarged stories and books in L2 (French), that were available to be used for this research - teacher made, students able to add pages time was also a constraint - short lessons of approximately 25 minutes, often left little time for reading together

Next Steps some time set aside for reading together, in as many lessons as possible, if not every lesson re-evaluating the school timetable for 2009, for longer lessons develop more stories - students to add pages or create books develop a collection of enlarged illustrated poems

References Elley, Warwick B. (1991). Acquiring literacy in a second language: the effect of book-based programs. Language Learning, 41:3, Ellis, R. (2005). General principals for successful instructed learning - Principle 6. In Instructed Second Language Acquisition; A Literature Review (pp 39-40). Wellington: Research Division, Ministry of Education Ellis, R. (2005). General principals for successful instructed learning - Principle 1. In Instructed Second Language Acquisition; A Literature Review (pp 39-40). Wellington: Research Division, Ministry of Education. McCauley, D. & McCauley, J (1992). Using choral reading to promote language learning for ESL students. The Reading Teacher, 45:7, Ministry of Education. (2003). Effective Literacy Practice in Years 1 to 4. Wellington: Learning Media