This article presents research on a case study of the use of Readers Theatre (RT), a group reading aloud activity in which a text is divided into small segments, in a sixth grade English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class in Norway. A mixed ability class of 27 readers, divided into groups of five to six pupils, rehearsed and performed fairy tales adapted for RT. The aims were to find out how the teachers and pupils experienced RT and how it influenced the development of the pupils’ reading, motivation and confidence. Data collection was through two teacher interviews, post-project pupil journals, lesson observations and video recordings of the first rehearsals and performances of three of the groups. Gains were recorded in pupils’ pronunciation, word recognition and fluency, especially among the struggling learners in the class. Gains were also recorded in pupils’ motivation and confidence to read. Both the cognitive and affective gains support research on RT among young learners in first language contexts and add to the sparse research on RT among young foreign language learners.
This article reports on a study investigating the role of scientific concepts in the metapragmatic awareness of Norwegian primary EFL learners’ following a four-week instructional intervention on requesting informed by sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 2012/1934). Through introducing pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic dimensions of requesting, the intervention aimed to develop metapragmatic awareness and foster learner agency by teaching pragmalinguistic resources related to request strategies; raising awareness of contextual considerations; and drawing attention to individual perceptions of appropriateness. The instruction focused on scientific concepts, that is, systematic and abstract objects of study which facilitate learner reflections. This article draws on data collected during group interviews to analyse whether learners used scientific concepts introduced during the instruction–for example, directness of the head act and attention getters–and if so, how these were used to express metapragmatic understandings. The analysis shows how such scientific concepts were internalised and used by learners to express their understandings of the importance of linguistic variation, the communicative functions of requests, and compare request strategies in English and Norwegian. Lived experiences, contextual considerations, and prior knowledge were also used as frames of reference for interpreting the appropriateness of requests. Adding to pragmatics research using concept-based approaches with (young) adults (e.g., van Compernolle, 2014), this study reveals that internalising a conceptual understanding of pragmatic phenomena in a foreign language is possible even for young language learners, thus contributing to knowledge about how learners come to understand pragmatic phenomena and how pragmatics can be taught with these age groups.
The aim of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to provide an overview of the methods used to elicit metapragmatic data in research with young language learners through a systematic review; and secondly, to present three data collection techniques designed and used in two research projects conducted by the authors, and examine their affordances for eliciting metapragmatic data. The systematic review revealed that data elicitation techniques employed in metapragmatics research with children closely reflected those widely employed in research with (young) adults (Culpeper, Mackey & Taguchi, 2018). Against this backdrop, the paper presents three elicitation techniques, developed based on the literature on the methodological considerations for conducting research with children (e.g. O’Kane, 2008; Pinter, 2014; Punch, 2002a, 2002b): the Emoticon task, the Ranking circle, and Readers Theatre. After describing the techniques and presenting the metapragmatic discussions elicited through them, the paper calls for the inclusion of innovative, participant-friendly methods in interlanguage pragmatics research focusing on children’s metapragmatic awareness.
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