Idea from: TESL - L
One contributor wrote,"... I've found it useful to track and record learner's reading speed and fluency in private or one-to-one situations. It allows me to determine, among other things, what
phonological areas need to be addressed."
Someone responded:
I am teaching Oral Comunication Skills to intermediate students on an Intensive program and one of the requirements we have is that each student should keep an "audioportfolio" - on tape,CD,podcast... - where they would record themselves at home reading aloud various discourse types: academic texts and creative writing (both prose and easy poetry)of their own choice, role plays and selected conversations with peers (again they are free to choose their peers), selected pronounciation practice e.g. lists with minimal pairs, question tags, practice with English stress, intonation patterns, etc... I have been doing on an ad-hoc basis but it has proved vey motivating to students. In addition to encouraging those students who are reluctant to participate in class to overcome their inhibitions and do some oral practice on their own, it also gives them a way of monitoring their own progress over the semester and it allows the teacher to track not only their global speaking and reading fluency, but also to isolate and target specific pronuncation items and individualize instruction accordingly. The requirement is straightforward as long as the tasks are well-chosen and the instructions are clearly specified.I have been tentatively experimenting with these audiportfolios and would welcome any suggestions from colleagues who have some experience with these or with any similar techniques.
The debate begins:
I can't understand benefit of tracking learners' oral reading speeds.
Why do people read aloud? I can't think of many reasons. Natural
contexts include reading to children, reading quotes from a source as
part of prepared speech (a minister quoting the Bible, a lecturer
reading a passage of Plato, etc.)... what else? So why is reading aloud
deemed an important enough skill for our learners that measurement of
speed needs to be tracked? I know several reading teachers who do this-
with native speakers as well, and I am curious. [I can understand the
benefit of silent speed reading, a useful skill for students and
professionals of all kinds who have to keep up with reports, journals
and other sources of information.]
And what determines oral reading fluency? Is it correct
pronunciation of all words? Is it intonation and ending the sentence
with the correct pitch, or is it correctly grouping words into phrases?
I would much prefer// that my students group phrases correctly// and
read with accurate emphasis//than read quickly.// Would the student who
quickly reads "submarine" for "summarize" be more fluent than the
student who pauses and slowly sounds out the correct word?
What is fluency - and is reading aloud a skill to be developing? I think the audio portfolio is great - I would prefer recordings of speech acts which correspond to authentic tasks - explain your reason for missing class to a teacher, give directions to your favourite restaurant etc. or more academic tasks such as summarizing the points in a news article, or comparing two theories of global warming.
