DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L316.18
Authors:Sakae Onoda
Abstract: This paper presents the results of an investigation into the effects of reading with discussion tasks (Nation, 2013b) on oral fluency in Japanese university classrooms. Students were instructed to form pairs, read the same text silently to a given point such as paragraph by paragraph or idea unit by idea unit, and discuss in English what they read for clarity of the information. They continued this process until the end of the text and then discussed their opinion of the main issue. This teaching procedure comprises several fluency-enhancing elements: repetition, creatively using and deeply processing vocabulary, formulaic expressions, and automatization. Participants in this study were first-year Global Studies majors taking a required English course. The class met twice a week over one academic year. Quantitative data were collected from tests administered at the beginning and at end of the year. Speaking fluency was measured using a story-telling test that assessed rate of speech. Results showed that speaking fluency improved as measured by the task, thus lending support to the adaptation of the reading with discussion approach to English teaching.
Keywords: speaking fluency; reading with discussion; repetition; deep processing; automatization
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