Exploration of the pedagogical effect of reading Graded Readers integrated with language awareness tasks

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K12456
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02100:Foreign language education-related
• Research Institution: Edogawa University
• Principal Investigator: Mizuno Kunitaro 江戸川大学, メディアコミュニケーション学部, 教授 (40320840)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: Graded Readers / 語彙習得 / 形式と意味のペアへの識高揚

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study explored how to implement both ideas of reading Graded Readers (GR) to focus on meaning and “consciousness-raising” (Rutherford & Sharwood Smith, 1985) to focus on form. This “Form-meaning connections” approach was based on the “Noticing hypothesis” (Schmidt & Frota, 1986) to cultivate communicative capability. In order to facilitate learners to notice the connections between form and meaning of conventional expressions while reading the texts of GR, an app utilizing Excel was developed to come up with tasks of “dictation”. This report explains what dictation tasks were provided as “Form-focused instruction”. On the other hand, I argued that it is indispensable for learners to have learned the most frequently used 1000 words taught at junior high school, so they can begin and continue to read GR by themselves even if only focus on meaning.

Free Research Field

英語教育

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究で開発した「ディクテーション」のアプリは，ディクテーションというタスクを効果的に効率よく行うことができる。「〇秒前に戻る」「〇回リピートする」という機能を使い，聞きたい箇所を指定すると，その部分だけを自動でリピートして聞くことができる。学習者は「聴いて理解し書く」ことだけに専念することができる。一方，開発した「英検5級～3級のためのGR の読書サイト」には，英検5級～3級レベルのために書き下ろされた150の物語が蓄積されている。学習者は好きな物語を選び，True/False Questions を通して理解度を確かめ，互いに感想を交流できる。これらは広く日本の英語教育の現場で利用できる。