Aim for the Best

1. The Effects of Storytelling on EFL Young Learners’ Reading Comprehension and Word Recall Aim for the Best Katherine 吳昭瑢 Sunny 王馨儀 Cerella 洪于晴 Jasmine 馮依萍

2. G-S or Problem-Solution? Problem-Solution

3. Introduction • Basal reader and authentic materials from English children’s literature. • Young learners encounter difficulties • The searching and guessing of new words is an exhaustive task that lower the interest of reading. • The lack of oral language may pose a difficulty to reading. (spoken language or idiomatic expression) • One night I decided to get rid of my nightmare once for all • Lack of background knowledge may impede Taiwanese young learners’ reading comprehension.

4. Introduction • To deal with the above possible causes • the teacher needs to integrate different modalities of learning (verbal, nonverbal, and sensory), so that students would rely less on dictionary or translation to figure out the message. • This study proposes • that contextualized storytelling may be an effective intervention that could increase comprehensible oral input and employ a multi-sensory approach to help meaning construction.

5. Introduction • Purpose To investigate the effects of contextualized storytelling as a teacher intervention on young learners’ reading by extending to EFL context in the realm of reading instruction.

6. Introduction • Contextualized storytelling • Proposed by Stephen Cary (1998) • An instructional approach to help ESL learners improve their English acquisition in the U. S. • It is a multi-sensory approach, which relies on both verbal and nonverbal communication in the telling process. ( heavy props, visual aids, concrete referents, proper prosodic delivery, and rich body language in the telling) • The abundant contextual clues utilizes learners’ nonverbal knowledge to grasp the language in without the help of the mother tongue.

7. Purpose Hypothesis contextualized storytelling might strengthen the retention of vocabulary and improve reading comprehension for the merits of multi-sensory stimulations it could provide.

8. Research Questions • Does the contextualized storytelling based on multi-sensory approach an effective intervention better than Dual-Code Model and text-only reading in EFL reading? • What are the performance differences between proficient and less proficient learners in word recall and reading comprehension with the intervention of the contextualized storytelling?

9. Methodologysubjects • Participants: sixth graders (n=129) • modified Dolch Basic Sight Vocabulary test • 36 proficient students, 36 less proficient students

10. Methodologysubjects • randomly assigned to three groups: • Control group (n=24) read the text-only story without illustrations or storytelling • Illustration-supplemented group (n=24) Dual Code approach and read the text with illustrations • Study group (n=24) adopted multi-sensory approach (contextualized storytelling) listened to the story before reading the illustrated text.

11. MethodologyProcedures Two experiments • Experiment One • C Group: Read text only. vs. • I Group: Read text with illustrations. vs. • S Group: Listen to the storyteller and then read the illustrated text. • Experiment Two • All three groups listened to the story first before reading the illustrated text. • To verify the effectiveness of storytelling

12. MethodologyProcedures Research assumption • Experiment One • IFmore multimedia inputthen • word retention • & comprehension • Experiment Two • IF the storytellingwas consistent in it’s influence then C and I groups storytelling C and I groups’ performances

13. MethodologyProcedures • Procedures: Table one • Materials:Ice Cream and Dragons and Giants from Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad series (1976,1979) • Assessments: • word recall test • story retell test

14. MethodologyResults First Experiment • Word recall : • Hypothesis was not supported. • Contextualized storytelling was not better than Dual-Code Model and text only reading. (RQ1 => No ) • Word recall performance actually correlated with the subjects’ proficiency levels but not with the groups. (RQ2 ) • Story retelling • Hypothesis was supported, different modes of reading results differently (RQ1,yes) • Retelling scores (mean): S (28.33)>I (11.42) > C (4.75) • Proficient learners and less proficient learners did not make much difference。(RQ 2) • S group the reading comprehension of the less proficient learners was close to the proficient ones (28.3 vs.30.96)

15. MethodologyResults Second Experiment • Word recall : • Hypothesis was not supported. (RQ1, No ) • Proficient learners and less proficient learners did not make much progress。(RQ 2) • Story retelling • Hypothesis was supported. C, I, and S groups performed no significantly different. (RQ1,yes) • Retelling scores (mean): S (30.46)>I (31.19) > C (29.84) • Less proficient learners improved slightly more than proficient learners. (RQ 2) • 11 subjects from S group dropped compared to the first ones.

16. Conclusion and Suggestions • Contextualized storytelling • is effective intervention in reading comprehension for both proficient and less proficient students. • Not effective in word recall. • Oral language ability and input from the learning environment may differ the development of reading fluency. • Students enjoyed the story and more willing to participate. • The hypothesis about the multi-sensory approach as a more effective intervention than Dual-code Model and text-only reading in EFL learner’s overall reading comprehension was confirmed.

17. Conclusion and Suggestions • The findings of this study on word recall did not support the theoretical assumption. It could be because word recall demanded more in memorization. Therefore, an immediate result might still favor the students who possessed better word recognition skills. Or less attention was allocated to isolated words. • contextualized storytelling has proved in helping reading text. Yet, how it affects text reading process or reading fluency remains unclear. Therefore, the differences of text reading process between the proficient and less proficient learner may be examined. • A longitudinal study may help to clarify the reasons on the students whose story retelling were declined. In addition, individual differences with this approach may be considered a factor for further study. • The teacher is encouraged to incorporate storytelling in their teaching.

18. Good Sentences: • Mayer and Sims (1994)further point out that verbal materials can activate or construct visual representations or vice versa. • 2. As the Dual-Code Model posits an added benefit of involving visual input in reading, the multi-sensory approach may postulate a broader view, though not particularly for reading, that incorporates different modalities of learning to obtain the best possible results for learners with special needs and diversified learning styles. 3. The teacher is advised to balance their teaching approaches or styles that address the needs of students. 4. Thus, the contextualized storytelling seems to provide an encouraging framework for vocabulary learning.

19. Good Sentences: 5. In terms of grammar learning, storytelling may serve as a steppingstone to the learning of syntax as it demonstrates grammatical and syntactic features in meaningful context. 6. They laughed at the parts that were amusing and gasped at the unexpected acts of the characters. • 7. This approach that utilizes the students’ non-verbal knowledge or ability had satisfactorily led to a gain in general comprehension.