Reading Aloud as a Strategy to Uplift A1 Students to Speak in English

Abstract

The current Covid-19 contingency has redefined the teaching and learning process for everyone involved. Nonetheless, one of the aspects that has been severely affected is learners’ motivation and resilience. As a result, teachers worldwide have had to look for alternatives and adapt their teaching strategies, so that this new, digital modality of work, became engaging and useful to meet learners’ learning needs. The present paper describes the experience of how the implementation of theme-based sessions and reading aloud in the virtual classroom had a positive impact on learners’ motivation and interest in participating in online sessions. Through the implementation of action research methodology, it was possible to gather learners’ written records of opinions concerning the significance of the four themed sessions which were held. This record of responses highlighted the language learning areas on which a major impact was observed, through the implemented strategy. Results showed that (according to learners’ perceptions) [learners] confidence to speak in English increased; that their anxiety to speak in English diminished; and that overall learning in areas such as vocabulary and pronunciation improved. Although this is a small-scale project, it could usefully be replicated and adapted to different contexts, from which results would be well worth sharing.