Investigación y Ciencia del Gimnasio Campestre Fotografía de

Teaching English through literature
Investigación y Ciencia del Gimnasio Campestre
Fotografía de Laura Pulido, Gimnasio Campestre
55
REVISI
oN DE TEMA
ó
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TEACHING ENGLISH THROUGH LITERATURE: JOINT
BOOK READING IN PRESCHOOL
Marina Meladze
Head of the English Department at Gimnasio Campestre
Author’s e-mail:[email protected]
Recieved: May 24th, 2012
Approved: June 24th, 2012
SUMMARY
RESUMEN
Nowadays there are several methods to
teach English. Initially, all of them have
the same goal: to make the learning
effective and enjoyable. One of the
most difficult issues to deal with in this
process is the way to intertwine language
arts, meaning the theoretical part, and
the context, which deals with the communicative approach. The gap between
to know about the language and to be
able to use it is very ample. In order to
narrow this gap, the method of teaching
English through literature has proved
to be very efficient. In this paper, the
main methodologies of teaching English
through literature in preschool - joint
book reading – are presented and their
achievements and limitations in order to
be implemented at Gimnasio Campestre
are discussed.
Hoy en día existen varios métodos para
enseñar inglés. Inicialmente, todos ellos
tienen el mismo objetivo: hacer que el
aprendizaje sea eficaz y agradable. Uno
de los temas más difíciles de tratar en
este proceso es la manera de entrelazar
las artes del lenguaje, es decir, la parte
teórica y el contexto, que se ocupa del
enfoque comunicativo. La brecha entre
el saber sobre el lenguaje y la capacidad
para utilizarlo es muy amplia. Con el fin
de reducir esta brecha, el método de enseñanza de inglés a través de la literatura
ha demostrado ser muy eficaz. En este
documento se presentan las principales
metodologías de enseñanza de inglés a
través de la literatura en preescolar - joint book reading - y se discuten sus logros
y limitaciones a fin de ser implementadas
en el Gimnasio Campestre.
Key words: Literature, joint book
reading, receptive learning and
expressive learning, inferential
skills, context clues.
El Astrolabio
Palabras Clave: literatura, lec-
tura compartida, aprendizaje receptivo, aprendizaje expresi-
vo, habilidades inferenciales, significado por contextos.
57
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
During the process of any type of learning
and, especially, a foreign language learning process, one of the most important
goals to achieve is to use what is learnt
in practice. Because of this reason, the
main concern of the language teachers
is not only to teach the language itself,
but to develop the students´ abilities
of using the language for a variety of
communicative purposes. There is an
enormous gap between teaching about
the language and communicating in the
language. The biggest problem today
is that many teachers believe teaching
about the language will make the students capable of being able to use it
spontaneously for communicative purposes.
In order to narrow this gap between the
theory and its application, the language
classes and its content have to resemble
the real social context. This awareness of
the social context can be achieved using
the world of literature which portrays
the society with all its positive deeds and
negative outcomes in a varied, authentic
and natural language. Using literature as
an imagination basis, the learner might
Photo by Laura Pulido, Gimnasio Campestre
encounter his world outside the classroom and make language acquisition more
use-focused instead of form-focused.
The term literature for the pre-school
kids (Pre-k to 1st grades), because of their
obvious skill development process and
age limitation factors, can be defined
as joint “story – reading” (aloud) and
“storytelling” more than reading independently and comprehending what is
read. Due to this fact, these two activities will be considered the foundation to
build up and develop different language
skills.
Some authors have considered the book
reading and storytelling situations as
the major activity in which labelling and
vocabulary development occurs in young
children. For example Ninio (1989), studying the vocabulary acquisition, found
that comprehension, production and
imitation represent alternative forms
of rehearsal, with imitation more likely
to occur for less-learned but already
comprehended topics. In a study with 3
to 4 year old children, Phillips and McNaughton (1990) found that during the
story reading time both, the child and
the adult were focused on the narrative
and were trying to construct meaning
(words and events) through questions
and statements. During these moments
children also made inferences about
written information developing their
thinking skills.
In their study with kindergarten students, Eller, Pappas and Brown (1988)
determined that the vocabulary and
grammar rules were acquired when the
books were read three times.
Investigación y Ciencia del Gimnasio Campestre
58
Elley (1989) focused on the vocabulary
acquisition steps through exposure to
repeated story reading and storytelling.
Two experiments with 5 and 6 year students provided the evidence that reading
stories aloud to children was a significant
source of vocabulary acquisition because
new learning was relatively permanent
and the students who scored low at the
beginning of the study gained, at least,
as many words as the students who had
scored higher.
Reading aloud and storytelling have got
social-cognitive dimension, that cannot
be overlooked. Aspects of the language
are very successfully acquired by modelling procedures in an interactive and
abstract processes relying on perception,
representation, and production. This
abstract comprehension of the language
structure lets the students extract syntactic rules and generate almost infinite
variety of new sentences they have never
learned before.
MAIN ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
LEARNING
A) RECEPTIVE AND EXPRESSIVE LEARNING
Researches about the relation between
storybook reading and children language
development are addressing two important aspects:
1) First of all, studies have been conducted to determine whether young children
learn new words incidentally when they
listen to the stories they are read or told
about.
Correlational studies have generally
found that storybook reading is positively
El Astrolabio
associated with vocabulary development
(Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994; Bus, van
IJzendoorn & Pelligrini, 1995).
2) Second, many studies go beyond this
limited conditions and research about
whether children learn more when adults
read to them in interactive manner. The
assumption that interactive behaviors
used by adults serve a didactic function
and foster language acquisition has been
supported by experimental evidence
(e.g. Pemberton & Watkins, 1987; Eller,
Pappas & Brown, 1988; Elley, 1989; Leung
& Pikulski, 1990).
According to these research results, two
types of learning have to be taken into
account when analyzing the main aspects
of language learning: receptive and expressive languages.
According to the Language Communication Theory, Receptive language is the
comprehension of language - listening
and understanding what is communicated.
Expressive language refers to being able
to produce speech and communicate a
message.
B) VOCABULARY
Definition:
There are many reasons for providing
students with a deep instruction to
build and widen vocabulary, but none is
more important than the contribution
vocabulary knowledge offers to language learning itself. New words are like
bricks to construct the whole language
development.
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It´s very interesting to notice that just
one single instructional model in vocabulary teaching is not enough for optimal
vocabulary learning. Therefore effective
instruction must use several methods to
help students acquire new vocabulary
and increase their knowledge about new
words. Effective instruction includes
opportunities for both, incidental word
learning and intentional word teaching,
and has to be directed to both, receptive
and expressive language. (U.S.A. National Reading Panel, 2000).
Incidental Word Learning Through Oral
Language:
Most of the word learning occurs incidentally when the student has experiences and approaches to the language.
However, although this type of learning
is called ‘incidental’, the process often
reflects conscious choices the teachers
make to talk about determined and
organized/previously planned topics to
expand the students’ vocabulary about
a determined topic.
Once the students start pre-school, the
teacher talk they hear all day long, offers
them great opportunities to get familiarized with the oral language that promotes the vocabulary growth. However, as
shown in the last research mentioned,
in most cases the vocabulary chosen by
the teacher was limited to daily routine
words and concrete experiences (“here
and now”).
To counteract these frequently reported
patterns, an intervention called Paved
for Success (phonological awareness and
vocabulary enhancement) with classes
of preschool children was implemented
(Scgwanenflugel et al, 2001). The examination of this study determined that
children in the classroom in which the
teachers consistently involved children
in interactive teacher-child talk and
storybook reading ended up with larger
vocabularies than did children who served as controls.
Incidental Word Learning Trough Teacher
Read – Aloud:
Due to the fact children´s books often
encompass extensive and descriptive
language, reading them aloud to students can be an excellent way to focus
their attention on words. So, It was
not surprising at all that reading aloud
children´s books was found to increase
the students´ vocabulary, especially
from pre-school through the elementary
grades (Stahl, Richeck and Vandevier,
1991).
However, we have to consider that reading aloud by itself is not enough to either
shape vocabulary or to upsurge comprehension. To understand a story, students
must relate their background knowledge
to the ideas presented in the story. So,
the real value of reading aloud activity
for vocabulary growth lies not in the
reading alone, but in the teacher-student
talk that accompanies the reading because it endorses students’ information
about new or rare words.
Intentional, Explicit Information
Beck et al. (2002) proposed that teachers should place major consideration on
words’ usefulness and frequency of use.
To help in this effort, these researchers
categorized all the words present in a
language words into three groups:
Investigación y Ciencia del Gimnasio Campestre
60
•Group One consists of words the students are likely to know. For example:
table, baby, or happy.
•Group Two contains words that are
“likely to appear frequently in a
wide variety of texts.” (2002, p. 16),
but whose meanings students do not
know. For example: build or observe.
•Group Three is setting the words that
rarely appear in texts. (It is limited
to one or two occurrences), and
because they are often specific to
particular content, students can use
the context of texts to establish their
meaning. For example: measure or
differentiate.
In the research already mentioned, Beck
suggested that for instructional purposes, teachers should ignore Group One
and Group Three words and concentrate
exclusively on Group Two words. Their
argument is that most students already
know Group One words and that Group
Three words should be taught at point
of contact, or as they occur in reading.
Group Two words, however, appear often
in student texts, so they are the words
that can add most to students’ language
development.
Teaching Specific Words
Several researchers suggests different
methods for teaching specific words
related to specific texts as well as specific sets of words related to particular
topics. For the purpose of this study,
Graves (2000) will be taken into account.
According to his studies the following
are the types of words that have to be
emphasized on and used to guarantee the
efficient language development:
El Astrolabio
•Words that are synonyms for words
that students already know.
• Words that students know at some level, but that have multiple meanings.
• Words that represent concepts that
may be new to students.
•Words that can be taught in context.
Teaching Unknown Words: Synonyms
Linking significant selection words to
accustomed synonyms before students
read can be an efficient and minimally
disruptive way to help them get the most
from reading. Teachers can provide this
instruction economically by emphasizing
on the target words and providing quick
definitions that use synonyms students
are likely to know.
When teaching the language that contains similar words, cognates, the synonyms that sound alike in native language,
could be used as well, especially with
little children or beginners. For this
purpose the word “sufficient” as the
synonym of “enough” or the “valiant” as
the synonym for “brave” could be used
for the Spanish speaking students when
learning English.
Teachers also can use synonyms as part of
point-of-contact teaching for particular
words as they read aloud and not only
before the reading.
Teaching Multiple-Meaning Words
Semantic maps can be operative resources to enlarge students’ information of
words, with which they are already familiar, but which have multiple meaning.
A semantic map is a graphic organizer
that is prepared about a word that represents an important concept. On the
61
Photo by Laura Pulido, Gimnasio Campestre
map, related words are gathered around
the target word according to criteria
that teachers or students choose. These
criteria might include such structures as
similar or dissimilar attributes, connotative or denotative meanings, or even
shared linguistic components.
Identifying and Using Context Clues
Teaching Words for New and Complex
Concepts
C) LISTENING COMPREHENSION AND THE
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
One technique that is recommended
to follow when teaching words for new
words or concepts is asking students to
identify critical attributes associated
with a word (Frayer, Frederick, & Klausmeier, 1969). Teachers lead students in
a discussion where they compare and
contrast essential features and examples
of a word or concept.
Students can identify characteristics and
examples for a concept after the discussion. This activity can be supported with
a visual representation.
Context clues are clues to the meaning of
a word that are contained in the text and
illustrations that surround it. Context
clues can include definitions, examples,
and restatements, as well as charts,
pictures, and type features.
How Might Book Reading Promote Language
Acquisition Even More Efficiently?
In this section of the work, the features
of book reading interactions and how
those interactions might be influencing
language acquisition will be considered.
Many researchers have analyzed conversations around book reading in order to
identify the features or aspects of those
conversations that effectively support
children’s language development (e.g.,
Ninio, 1983; Ninio &Bruner, 1978; Snow
&Ninio, 1986). Another topic analyzed
Investigación y Ciencia del Gimnasio Campestre
62
will be the one about how each reading strategy might specifically support
children’s language development.
Non-Immediate Talk
Non-immediate talk refers to the talk
produced during the teacher-student
interaction which goes beyond the information contained in text or illustrations
to make predictions, connections to the
child’s past experiences, other books, or
the real world, to draw inferences, analyze information, or discuss the meaning of
words and offer explanations.
One important component of non-immediate talk is the discussion or explanation
of vocabulary—for example, clarification
on the word meaning. Non-immediate
talk offers occasions for children to
understand and use the more refined
vocabulary required for expressing eva-
Photo by Laura Pulido, Gimnasio Campestre
El Astrolabio
luative reactions to the book, discussing
characters’ internal states, making predictions concerning the next episode,
and so on. These types of talk inevitably
introduce relatively complex language
development.
In classroom situations where teachers
read to groups of children, it may appear
to be more difficult to ask the openended questions characteristic of nonimmediate talk. It also seems possible
that the benefit of non-immediate talk
would be lost without the opportunity for
individual verbal participation. However,
in the classrooms of 4-year-olds in the
School Study of Language and Literacy, the amount of non-immediate talk
used by the teachers while reading to
the group was strongly associated with
the receptive vocabulary scores of our
target children and the short sentence
construction. (Beals et al.,1994).
Dickinson and Smith (1994) identified
the importance of a particular type of
non-immediate talk during group book
readings in the preschool classroom. It
was, without any doubt, child-involved
analytical talk, referring to interpretation, prediction, and vocabulary
statements made by both the teacher
and students. Four-year-olds, who were
exposed to a high proportion of childinvolved analytic talk during group book
reading in preschool, had higher kindergarten vocabulary scores even when controlling for total amount of book-related
talk. Child-involved analytic talk, like
non-immediate talk during book reading and like dialogic book reading talk,
can be presumed to promote language
development by presenting words in a
rich semantic context and by promoting
children’s use of novel lexical.
63
Dialogic Reading
Whitehurst and his colleagues (Zeverbergen & Whitehurst, 2009) structured
a method of reading aloud to young
children in order to enrich their language development process called Dialogic
Reading.
Dialogic reading is based on three theoretical principles: encouraging the child
to become an active learner during book
reading (e.g., asking the child questions), providing feedback that employs
more sophisticated language (e.g., expansions), and finally, challenging the
child’s knowledge and skills by rising the
conversation to a level just above their
ability (e.g., asking about characteristics
of an object for which they already know
the label).
In experimental studies, the preschoolaged children of the teachers who were
trained to use dialogic reading techniques did, in fact, score higher on measures of expressive language than the
children of untrained teachers (Whitehurst et al., 1988).
Another interesting test to prove the
positive effects of the dialogic reading
Photo by Laura Pulido, Gimnasio Campestre
was realized by Lim (1999). She worked
with Korean-immigrant families whose
children were losing their spoken Korean as the family language gradually
changed to English. Lim taught dialogic
reading techniques to the teachers and
parents of these families in Korean, and
provided Korean books for them to read
with their children. The children in the
experimental group showed significant
improvements in their oral productive
and receptive Korean skills, even though
just the book reading sessions constituted their major source of exposure. The
length of time that the teachers and
parents spent during the Korean book
reading was directly related to the improvements made by the children.
The main reason of the fact dialogic
reading can be related to the language
improvement is that it is based on several language development principles.
It provides richer semantic contexts for
new words, it tends to last longer than
just reading—thus giving children longer
exposure to the book vocabulary, and
promotes children’s use of new lexical
items.
Comprehender-Style Book Readings
Teachers could be differentiate according to the styles they employ when
reading to young children; there are teachers called “describers, ” who focus on
description (similar to immediate talk,
which may involve simply labeling or describing pictures), and there are the ones
called “comprehenders, ” who focus on
story meaning (similar to non-immediate
talk, which may include inferences and
interpretation of the story). These different styles are associated with children’s
language skills. Children using the “comprehender” style had higher vocabulary
Investigación y Ciencia del Gimnasio Campestre
64
scores than children whose teachers favored the “descriptor” style focusing on
labels; both styles and child vocabulary
differences remained consistent over the
course of the longitudinal study (Haden,
Reese, & Fivush, 1996).
Reese and Cox (1999) researched about
the effect of book reading style on
preschoolers’ emergent language skills
including vocabulary. After analyzing
the results, they could determine three
styles: describer, comprehender, and
performance-oriented (in which the
teacher discussed the story after the
reading). Their results indicated that
children’s initial language skills were
necessarily to be taken into account in
determining the effect of reading style
on language growth. In general terms,
children with lower initial language level
showed more growth on the posttest if
they were in the describer group, but
the kids who had higher initial scores
seemed to benefit most from the performance-oriented style of reading.
Younger children, the ones who have to
be more focused on acquiring nouns,
benefit from the more noun-oriented
describer style, however, linguistically
more advanced children benefit from
the discussion associated with a comprehension focus, during which they are
exposed to more sophisticated language
and have opportunities to use new words
themselves.
Final Considerations
After analyzing the main theoretical
approaches to the topic of this paper and
evaluating the results of relevant studies
on the theme, the following considerations could be stated:
El Astrolabio
The main steps to be followed when
teaching English through literature in
preschool are based on the internationally accepted language skills and can be
used to develop the four competences
Gimnasio Campestre has as its cornerstones: Information Management, Critical
Thinking, Creativity and Metacognition.
There are some limitations, though, in
terms of current researches because
there are not many studies done specifically for the Spanish speaking pre-school
students language acquisition process
when it is based on joint book reading.
It would be the main objective of the
second part of this work to design a study
to be applied to the Gimnasio Campestre
pre-school students taking into account
the theoretical bases structured in this
work and the schools pedagogical model and, based on this study, make the
necessary changes to the method being
applied nowadays.
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