The Effect of Teachers’ Storytelling and Reading Story Aloud on the Listening Comprehension of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract

Abstract-This study was an attempt to compare the effect of reading story aloud (RSA) and storytelling (ST) on intermediate EFL learners' listening comprehension. The design of the study was quasi experimental with listening pre and post tests. The participants were 99 Iranian EFL learners who were selected based on their performance on a Placement and Evaluation Package. For 6 sessions, the participants of both experimental groups who were 66 students listened to their teacher reading a story aloud in group 1 and telling the story in the second group. At the end of each session, they answered the questions that followed each story. After 6 sessions of treatment, the listening posttest was administered to both groups. Besides, there was a control group in which the students were expected to listen to listening parts of the book taught in their term through a traditional method of teaching without receiving extra treatment like the two mentioned experimental groups. Based on the results of one-way ANOVA test, it was evident that the ST method was more effective in improving the learners' listening comprehension than the RSA. In order to specify where the difference(s) were, Scheffe post hoc test was applied. The results indicated that the gain in ST group's listening comprehension was significantly more than that of RSA group. The results could have been due to the influence of the way of telling story with the help of teacher's body language and continuous eye contact that attracted the students to follow the stories eagerly. The results have some implications for syllabus designers, material developers, and language teachers.

Effects of Storytelling on Improving EFL Students’ Critical Thinking and Reading Comprehension

“…Comparative study on the effect of reading story aloud and storytelling on intermediate EFL learners' listening comprehension was conducted by Hemmati, Gholamrezapour & Hessamy (2015) their findings indicate that that both Storytelling and story reading aloud groups had positive effects on the students' listening comprehension. However, the exact comparison of these two groups shows Storytelling group better performed than story reading group in posttests.…”

The Benefits of Reading Aloud for Children: A Review in EFL Context

“…The aspects of vocabulary include word meaning (i.e., synonym, antonym, connotation, and denotation), extending word use such as idioms, word combination, or collocation, and grammar, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (Harmer, 2001). Experts have argued that these aspects of vocabulary are positively impacted through reading aloud among children because the teacher's clear speaking style during reading aloud can substantially impact the students' sentence recognition memory, through which the students can recall their prior vocabularies or gain new words (Batini et al, 2018;Bullinaria, 2014;Cerón, 2014;Draper, 1993;Giroir et al, 2015;Hemmati, Gholamrezapour, & Hessamy, 2015;G. Jacobs & Hannah, 2004;Johnston, 2015;Kindle, 2009;Novianti & Abdurahman, 2019;Proença et al, 2017;Trelease, 1989;Yusuf, Yusuf, Yusuf, & Nadya, 2017).…”

“…For Huang (2010), the pauses in reading aloud give moments for the students to let the information they hear sink into their minds. This process is important because this is where the students make connections among bits of information that they hear and between the new information with their repertoire prior knowledge, creating an understanding that becomes the basis of their comprehension (Draper, 1993;Hahn, 2002;Hemmati et al, 2015;Jacobs & Renandya, 2019;Kailani, 1998). According to Tarim (2015), Gurdon (2019), Johnston (2015), Lane & Wright (2007), Novianti &Abdurahman (2019), andTrelease (1989), the simple questions asked by the teacher during reading aloud activity cultivate the students' comprehension by guiding them through the process of connecting information from the story and the information from the students' life in general.…”

“…The teacher's voice delivers spoken words, phrases, sentences that act as general listening practice for children (Batini et al, 2018;Cerón 2014;Gabrielatos, 1996;Hahn 2002;Mol & Bus, 2011;Proença et al, 2017;Trelease 1989). For Batini et al (2018), Hemmati et al (2015), Jacobs &Hannah (2004), andJacobs (2016), the activity of listening to the voice of the teacher speaking in English is the practice that makes the children accustomed to listening to English words. It is essential in areas where English is not part of the daily interaction, such as rural and frontier areas.…”

Teaching Listening through Islamic Storytelling in Indonesian Junior Secondary School Context

“…There are several studies have been conducted to find out the effectiveness of the application of storytelling in teaching listening comprehension. The results of the study showed that it is effective to improve the student listening comprehension (e.gHemmati, Gholamrezapour, &Hessamy, 2015), improve the student interest and motivation (e.gSandaran& Kia,2013) and could make the learning process to be more effective (Rasul, Bukhsh,&Batool, 2011). All those studies applied popular stories, fairy tale or legend.…”