An Audio Book Platform for Early EFL Oral Reading Fluency

Abstract

Oral reading fluency is essential to overall reading achievements and repeat reading has been found to be an effective strategy for oral reading fluency. Choral reading is the most authentic use of repeated readings in the EFL primary grades. However, teachers have neither sufficient time nor adequate expertise to deal with non-fluent readers. Hence, challenges with oral reading fluency and motivation have long been considered a common characteristic for teacher and students. Hence, this study proposed a one-to-one Audio Book Platform incorporating repeated reading strategy and record-play function. An intact sample of two classes of the sixth graders in Taiwan were randomly assigned and treated as experimental group and control (choral reading) group. An empirical study is conducted to assess whether there are differences in the effectiveness of enhancing oral reading fluency. A questionnaire elicited information concerning motivation included (1) anxiety, (2) intrinsic goal orientation, (3) extrinsic goal orientation, (4) task value, and (5) self-regulation is also conducted. Although no significant difference was uncovered in oral reading fluency and motivation, the findings could serve as some general principles for researchers who would like to experiment with one-to-one repeated reading in similar contexts.