Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FUTURE CHALLENGES IN EARLY LANGUAGE LEARNING & MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION, Granada, İspanya, 22 - 24 Haziran 2022
Young language learners’ English language exposure tends to be limited and non-authentic in English-as-aforeign (EFL) contexts. English storybooks are very effective tools to make up for this gap across Englishlearning children profiles as they offer authentic, contextualized (i.e. English grammatical, vocabulary), and
scaffolded (e.g. via illustrations, the storyline) language learning experiences in early English classrooms
(Ghosn, 2002). While the functionality of storybooks is obvious for the English language development of
young language learners in ESL and EFL contexts, what remains obscure is the effective ways to integrate
them to early English classrooms and programs. With the idea of a specially-designed pre-service teacher
training in utilizing storybooks with the necessary methodology and instructional skill and knowledge. As Ellis
and Mourao (2021) pointed out a mere read aloud would limit children’s full experience. Teachers play the
key role in mediating picturebooks by constructing meaning via non-verbal cues, tonal shift, pauses, using
puppets, visuals as external tools to help young learners make sense. The present empirical study investigates
a group of pre-service English language instructors’ attempts to storybook reading. A total of 70 teacher
candidates’ pre-recorded read-aloud sessions were examined and the candidates’ story read-aloud
techniques were coded. There was no pre-determined analysis rubric as each read-aloud case was unique.
The results will be reported qualitatively (for categorization into stages) and quantitatively (for frequency and
other descriptive statistics). The study aims to be an extended discussion on the PEPELT and colleagues’
studies and discussions on training skilled and knowledgeable English language instructors who are capable
of bringing the wonders of children’s literature to early language classes.