Using Reading to Learn in teaching anecdote sharing in conversation within an EFL context
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Date
2023
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Abstract
This action research aims to develop students' conversational skills for sharing anecdotes. The study took place in a 9th grade classroom at a private school in Chile. Although the English langauge teaching at the school generally aims to develop students’ langauge skills with the use of communicative approaches, the lack of explicit classroom applications of these approaches has caused problems regarding the instruction of knowledge about language, the teaching of spoken interaction, and the role of the teacher in the classroom, which have hindered students’ language development. To provide students with more effective support, this study aims to provide a teaching pedagogy that equips students with the necessary language resources to share anecdotes. The study is conducted using a mixed-methods action research informed by a genrebased pedagogy (GBP), specifically known as the Reading to learn (R2L), drawing on the understanding of language from a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective. The R2L pedagogy is adapted in this study to guide students through the most relevant language resources needed when sharing anecdotes in oral conversations. The pedagogy provides the teacher with systematic and structured pedagogic activities for teaching the language patterns present in anecdotes, gradually fostering students’ autonomy and independence in the language production. The impact of this action research is assessed by examining students' performances while sharing anecdotes before and after the intervention, through pre and post tests focusing on their storytelling and their ability to engage in conversation. The results of the study demonstrate that using R2L has a positive impact on developing students’ conversational skills for sharing anecdotes, support students to develop a wide range of linguistic resources related to story telling and having converstions. The study contributes to EFL teaching by makig explicit connection between Communicative Competence and SFL language description, offering a new perspective for language development. It also provides a practical methodology for teaching speaking skills, indicating its potential for wider application.
Description
Tesis (Magíster en Lingüística Aplicada al Inglés como Lengua Extranjera)--Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2023.
Keywords
Genre-based pedagogy, Reading to Learn, Communicative competence, Speaking skills, Anecdote sharing