scholarly journals Picturebooks: an effective tool to encourage children's English L2 oral production

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 243-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Fleta
Keyword(s):  
Oral Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Communicative Skills ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Child Language Acquisition ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Oral Language Skills ◽  
The Rich

The purpose of this research-to-practice paper is to delve deeper into the rich potential of picturebooks for eliciting children’s spontaneous speech production during face-to-face conversational interaction. Specifically, it analyses how children apply their existing communicative skills during exposure to the non-textual elements of picturebooks. This in turn enables to get wider understanding of how children learn and use English L2 at an early bilingual immersion school. The study examines the oral narrative production of Spanish-speaking English learners in an early bilingual immersion school. The analytical framework of the study is influenced by studies in the field of child language acquisition. The data are drawn from a 2.5 years longitudinal study of four children (aged 4-5 years at the first recording) from four different classrooms. The conversational interactions created by looking and talking about picturebook illustrations were audio-recorded and the utterances obtained through spontaneous elicitation were transcribed and analysed for emerging syntactic production and for communication strategies. Data analysis provides information on spontaneous oral created language which reflects children’s underlying linguistic competence influenced partly by the learning setting, by the type of input and by the amount of exposure time. Research findings reveal how children use illustrations as a language scaffold and how the English oral language skills develop over time for syntactic development. These findings suggest that picturebooks and even more, picturebook illustrations are ideal tools to elicit oral language from children as well as to support natural acquisition of language. Based on the research findings of this study and on observation of how picturebooks lend themselves to build children’s existing communicative skills, the paper provides several hints to maximize communicative interaction in the young learner’s classroom.

scholarly journals The Arts, the Common Core, and English Language Development in the Primary Grades

2017 ◽  
Vol 119 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Christa Mulker Greenfader ◽  
Liane Brouillette
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Development Program ◽  
English Language Development ◽  
Oral Language Skills ◽  
English Speaking

Background/Context Throughout schooling, English learners (ELs) perform well below their monolingual English-speaking peers on literacy assessments, and Hispanics make up the majority of EL students in the United States. There is a strong consensus about the importance of early English oral language skills for ELs’ literacy development, yet teachers are not adequately prepared to meet the needs of these young learners. Historically, policy has not provided incentives for educators to focus on oral language development in the classroom. However, the recently adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS) emphasize oral language skills. Purpose/Objective This study examines a professional development program that equipped early elementary teachers in five urban schools with arts-based strategies to promote the oral English development of ELs. A second line of inquiry looked at the extent to which the creative drama and dance activities were aligned with CCSS. Participants There were 3,792 K–2 Hispanic ELs (treatment: N = 497; control: N = 3,295) from Title I schools in a large school district in California. Intervention The Teaching Artist Project (TAP) was a two-year K–2 arts and literacy professional development program consisting of 28 weekly 50-minute lessons (14 theater and 14 dance). The project provided classroom teachers with in-service training on utilizing movement, gesture, and expression to promote stimulating English verbal interactions. TAP was specifically intended to engage non-native English speakers in classroom dialogues, facilitating their oral English development. Research Design This study utilized a mixed methods design. To address the first research question, schools were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Multiple regressions were run on data from the California English Language Development Test (CELDT) to investigate the impact of the program on the English speaking abilities of K–2 Hispanic English learners. To address the second research question, document review was used to compare the K–2 CCSS speaking and listening standards and the TAP lesson plans. Findings The treatment group was found to significantly outperform the control group (β = 0.13; p < 0.05) on CELDT speaking scores. Additional review suggested that the performing arts activities corresponded well to the CCSS speaking and listening standards. Conclusions/Recommendations Creative drama and dance activities provide rich verbal classroom interactions, boost English oral language skills of ELs, and align with the CCSS. Yet concerns are raised about the lack of speaking assessments on tests created by the Smarter Balanced and PARCC consortiums and the potential subsequent distortion of K–2 instruction.

Using Experience Books to Foster the Narrative Skills of English Learners

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (16) ◽  
pp. 61-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clariebelle Gabas ◽  
Mary Claire Wofford ◽  
Carla Wood
Keyword(s):  
Family Involvement ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Disorders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
Oral Language Skills

The need to address the language and literacy development of children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds continues to rise with the increasing number of English learners (ELs) in schools throughout the United States. One area of concern is the need for culturally sensitive methods of assessment and intervention for ELs with language disorders. Oral language skills are widely considered an essential component of later reading success. Although narratives are commonly used to foster children's oral language skills, narrative development in children from CLD backgrounds can be highly variable. Broader socialization and cultural practices can influence and shape the way children tell stories (Melzi, Schick, & Kennedy, 2011). One approach to facilitate the development of narrative skills in ELs with language disorders is the use of experience books, which are personalized stories that depict daily routines or meaningful events situated from the child's perspective. Experience books can provide a natural foundation of rich linguistic interactions between children and caregivers, increase children's exposure to print and enjoyment of books, and encourage family involvement. The following tutorial will guide speech-language pathologists on how to adapt experience books as culturally sensitive tools to help meet the needs and interests of CLD children and families.

Analysis of Children’s Errors in Comprehension and Expression

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan C. Hatcher ◽  
Kristina C. Breaux ◽  
Xiaochen Liu ◽  
Melissa A. Bray ◽  
Karen L. Ottone-Cross ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oral Language ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Divergent Validity ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Interacting Systems ◽  
Oral Language Skills ◽  
Error Types

Children’s oral language skills typically begin to develop sooner than their written language skills; however, the four language systems (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) then develop concurrently as integrated strands that influence one another. This research explored relationships between students’ errors in language comprehension of passages across oral and written modalities (listening and reading) and in language expression across oral and written modalities (speaking and writing). The data for this study were acquired during the standardization of the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement–Third Edition (KTEA-3). Correlational analyses from the total sample ( n = 2,443-3,552) and within grade bands revealed low to moderate correlations (.26-.50). No evidence of convergent or divergent validity was found when comparing correlations of “same-name” error types (e.g., inferential errors across modalities) with correlations of “different-name” error types. These results support previous research findings and hypotheses that language by ear, eye, hand, and mouth are separable but interacting systems that differ in more ways than modality of input/output.

scholarly journals Effect of a Performing Arts Program on the Oral Language Skills of Young English Learners

2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christa Mulker Greenfader ◽  
Liane Brouillette ◽  
George Farkas
Keyword(s):  
Oral Language ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Oral Language Skills

Testing Oral Language Skills via the Computer

2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry W. Larson
Keyword(s):  
Oral Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Oral Language Skills

Syntactic Development in the Oral Language of Learning Disabled and Normal Students at the Intermediate and Secondary Level

1983 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rochelle B. Simms ◽  
W. Donald Crump
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Secondary Level ◽  
Learning Disabled ◽  
Oral Language Development ◽  
Normally Achieving ◽  
Density Score ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Two Indices

Syntax is a crucial component of oral language development. Frequently, learning disabled children's oral language development is characterized by syntax problems. Hence, since deviations in oral language development may form the basis for identification of learning disabilities, adequate indices of oral language development are needed. The purpose of this study was to explore two indices of syntactic development in oral language, the T-unit and the Syntactic Density Score. Learning disabled students and a matched group of normally achieving peers were compared on these indices at four age levels. Results are reported for each measure along with a discussion and implications.

The contribution of narrative morphosyntactic quality to reading comprehension in French immersion students

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1375-1391 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN HIPFNER-BOUCHER ◽  
KATIE LAM ◽  
XI CHEN
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
French Immersion ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Narrative Generation ◽  
Oral Language Skills

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the relationship between L2 oral narrative morphosyntactic quality and L2 reading comprehension in a sample of 81 students enrolled in a Canadian French immersion program in Grade 1. Measures of French narrative generation and reading comprehension were administered concurrently. The proportion of utterances in the narratives that were judged to be grammatically acceptable was found to explain unique variance in reading comprehension, controlling for nonverbal intelligence, maternal education, phonological awareness, vocabulary and word reading. The results suggest that even in the earliest stages of L2 literacy acquisition, L2 oral language skills contribute to reading comprehension outcomes. The results of our study suggest that there may be value in providing L2 children with classroom-based story-related experiences that expose them to literate language.

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