Choral Reading vs. Individual Oral and Silent Reading:
Relative Validity of the Alternatives
in the English Reading Classroom
Judy Yoneoka
1
Introduction
Theoretically, the practice of oral reading or reading aloud provides
many benefits in the reading class. Among those noted in a recent survey of
ESL teachers (Griffin, 1992) were "expansion of oral vocabulary, developing
awareness of the sounds of the language, facilitation of chunking of words in
meaningful groups, and development of self-confidence". However, even though
oral reading is often used within the English university reading class setting in
Japan (especially one using an oral reading/translation method), the large
number of students and additional time required for translation and
explanations greatly decrease the efficacy of these benefits.
This traditional reading/translation method involves individual
reading of one or more sentences in a passage by one student, with consequent
translation of that sentence into Japanese and correction by the teacher.
Depending on the instructor and level of the class and passage involved, the
individual sentences may be assigned beforehand (so that the students may
prepare their portion). This is usually done so that the class may move at a
relatively fast pace, but this results in a lack of motivation for the students to
stay directly involved in the class in an active manner. On the other hand, if
individual sentences are not assigned beforehand, many students will not take
time to prepare the whole text and will therefore be at a loss when their turn
comes, making an ordinarily slow-paced class even slower, especially for large
groups. This problem is not peculiar to the Japanese reading class, but reflects
one disadvantage of the oral reading technique in general. Rounds (1992) puts
it this way “I remember how horribly boring it was to listen to each of my
classmates reading about Dick, Jane and Spot. I could and would have finished
the whole book in one of those sessions if I hadn't feared being called on and not
knowing the place".
There are many other problems associated with the readingtranslation method. Students who have been assigned individual sentences, as
well as students who are "still preparing" during class time are likely to “tune
out" pronunciation of any vocabulary not specifically related to them. Also, the
teacher is not likely to provide much in the way of a role model (except in the
case of pronunciation of certain difficult words), robbing the students of the
opportunity to develop fluency in suprasegmental factors such as intonation
and liaison. There is not likely to be much repetition of any portion of any text.
In addition, the extra time devoted to in-class translation means that the
amount of oral pronunciation the students hear in any class period will be
minimal.
Even when concurrent translation is not involved, individual oral
reading by students in Japan poses other difficulties, revolving around the
reticence of Japanese students in general. This reticence results in 1) a
tendency to avoid natural English intonation patterns in favor of a flat
Japanese-language style delivery, 2) hesitation in order to avoid making
mistakes in pronunciation, and 3) lack of voice projection. These then result in
a decrease in the active interest of the other students toward the class and the
material.
Under such circumstances students are not likely to get much in the
way of phonetic, lexical or morphological input unless they are highly
self-motivated, and this will eventually have the effect of decreasing, rather
than increasing, self-confidence. After all, most students are well aware that
their own oral reading differs considerably from native speakers' renditions, as
well as the fact that they study English for many years but do not pronounce it
in class like they “should" (for whatever reason). And spending 60-90 minutes
of class time listening to (for the most part) hesitant, monotonous deliveries of
other students is not likely to improve their own skills very greatly.
In the following, the advantages of choral or class reading as compared
with individual oral and silent reading will be discussed. The interactions of
choral reading with the phenomenon of subvocalization and the shadowing
technique will also be explored.
2
Choral reading as an alternative
In the survey mentioned above, the oral reading under consideration
refer-red to individual rather than choral reading. However, especially in the
large classes that make up most university English courses in Japan, choral
reading can be considered a viable alternative to individual reading. As long as
the instructor is able to provide a native-like pacemaking model (the teacher's
own voice, a native team teacher or a tape) for the students to read with, the
four advantages cited in the survey above and reiterated below should be just
as valid, if not more so, in a group reading setting as in an individual one.
Consider:
1) expansion of oral vocabulary-choral reading with a native or near-1lative
pacemaking model provides a setting conducive to deriving meanings of
unknown vocabulary from the context of the material, especially if the process
is repeated several times and key vocabulary words are introduced between
readings,
2) developing awareness of the sounds of the language – the pacemaking
model not only provides an immediate pronunciation for unknown words which
is simultaneously produced by the student, but also provides immediate
feedback for words which students have mispronounced,
3) facilitation of chunking of words in meaning ful groups – choral
readingnaturally leads students to read in “chunks”, following breaks between
the word groups provided by the model.
Kohno(1981, 1983) defines a
“perceptural sense unit” as semantically based meaningful 7+ -2 syllables or
less. Choral reading including pauses between such perceptual sense units
provides a spontaneous model chunking which can be picked up by the
students over time,
4) development of self-confidence – the constant, spontaneous and to a
great extent unvarying feedback by the model provides a measure by which
students can infer the extent of their own improvement, both in reading speed
and understanding.
Another advantage of choral reading is that it sets the stage for top-down
processing as recommended by the schema theory.
(This theory regards
reading as an active process of deriving meaning by “educated guessing” using
clues provided not only by the context of the material but also by the student’s
personal general knowledge and world experience.) Prereading activities such
as question/answer sessions, vocabulary introduction or picture interpretation
can be used before such reading. In addition, if a text is chorally read several
times, such activities may be introduced serially between readings, giving the
students more and more clues to the overall meaning.
Two possible objections to using a choral reading approach as opposed to
individual reading are 1) the students have no opportunity to have their
pronunciation corrected directly by the teacher, and 2) slower students might
get lost in trying to keep up with the pace of the model speaker.
In response to the first objection, it can be argued that the students actually
are getting pronunciation training, directly and spontaneously, from the model
speaker, in a way that is immediately reinforcing and nonthreatening. In
addition, all students are more or less directly involved and <<tuned in", since
the training is not directed at any time towards any one student, but towards
all students simultaneously. Of course, evaluation of individual pronunciation
is difficult in a classroom choral reading situation, but not impossible if done in
an LL environment.
Regarding the second objection, slower students who are not able to keep
up and tend to “lose the place" often do pose a problem. Suzuki (1993)
conducted a series of tests comparing students who listened to texts read
without pauses with others who listened to the same text read by a model with
pauses between perceptual sense units. In his study, the students listening to
texts with pauses scored significantly better on follow-up tests than those who
listened to straight text. This suggests a solution of using a model with variable
lengths of hesitations between PSUs, possible with a CAI program, for example,
or with a model tape which can be used in an LL at variable speeds.
However, in Suzuki's experiment, the comparative total amounts of time
that students listened to the stimuli were not reported. Thus it is highly
probable that the pauses in the tapes played to the first group increased the
overall length of time involved in the listening procedure to a significant degree
as compared with the control group. If so, this difference in length of the entire
listening time certainly would have played a role in the superior 1~esults of the
listening-with-pauses group- In addition, the test scores were NOT
significantly better in the case of low ability students (which of course is the
group we are concerned with in connection to the second objection) unless the
number of times the students listened to the material was increased.
In connection with this, it would be informative to repeat such an
experiment comparing results of students who listen to tapes with pauses
between PSU's and students who listen to the same tapes without pauses, but
played at a slower speed overall, so that the length of the overall listening time
remained the same.
Further possible objections to choral reading are that it may actually tend
to slow down the faster-reading student, hindering instead of benefitting the
overall reading process. Also, it can be argued that choral reading may tend to
inhibit comprehension in students who read “phonetically" but without
semantic processing. These two issues will be dealt with more fully in the next
section.
3
Choral reading and subvocalization
Subvocalization is defined as the subliminal pronunciation of phonemic
sequences that make up words of a language during the reading process.
According to Suzuki (1993), recent work in psycholinguistics has shown that
subvocalization plays a necessary and important role in reading comprehension.
Especially, work by Kadota (1987) concluded that exposure to a role model with
regular English rhythm and intonation while reading silently significantly
increases reading comprehension, presumably because the student is able to
catch the structure of the phrases as well as the vocabulary essential to
understanding. Also, Suzuki's own work with using oral models in conjunction
with silent reading shows that this technique leads to an overall greater
increase in reading speed, especially when coupled with comprehen-sion
exercises.
Arimoto (1989) has noted that in the case of poorer readers, this
subvocalization is more remarked than in better readers, and that the
phenomenon decreases with increase in reading speed. Thus a lack of
subvocalization would point to increased reading ability, and is therefore
desirable. Unfortunately, two of the most common reading methods in
Japanese English education (the reading/translation method and silent reading
combined with test comprehension questions) do not give students a chance to
increase their speed to the point that subvocalization would not be present. In
the first method, as already noted, this is because reading is involved only to
the extent that a short passage is read aloud by one student at his or her own
oral reading pace. In the second method, students will often not actually “read"
a passage at all, but read the comprehension questions FIRST and then scan
the passage looking for the correct answers. This type of “information hunting"
leads the student to skip certain portions of the text and concentrate on others,
a technique very useful in test problem solving, but highly unlikely to lead to
an increase in general reading speed. However, if in the second method the
comprehension questions are not introduced until after the reading is
completed, such a problem is alleviated to some extent.
What is the relationship between choral reading and the phenomenon of
subvocalization? Choral reading does not lead to subvocalization on the part of
students, but instead gives them a chance to “supervocalize", as it were,
whatever subvocalization they are already doing in their minds. Even more, to
the extent that the choral reading takes place at a speed at or above the
student’s natural reading pace, it provides the sounds which would normally be
subvocalized before the student has a chance to do this himself or herself. This
leads to a kind of "flash card" effect: the audio stimulus is perceived,
comprehended, correlated with the visual stimulus and reproduced more or
less simultaneously. Over time, the visual stimulus will produce an audio
response in the mind of the reader. This audio response differs from
subvocalization in that the stimulus is not produced with the reader's own
faulty speech patterns, but is an "echo" of the more fluent speech of the model.
As Arimoto notes, when the silent reading speed of the student surpasses
that of the spoken model, the effect of a model could lead the student to
subvocalize more than necessary, having the effect of decreasing reading speed.
However, the average silent reading speed of students has been shown to be
around 60-110 words per minute (depending on the difficulty of the passage)1.
On the other hand, the average speaking speed of the native speaker is more on
the lines of 170 wpm, so this objection should not present a great worry until
the students' reading speeds are greatly improved.
What about the possibility of students reading “phonetically" but without
semantic processing? Such students should show a relatively high oral reading
speed, but low comprehension. In the group of 50 students tested by the author,
10 students (Group A) showed an oral reading speed which was at least 10 wpm
higher than their silent reading speed. This type of student would seem to be a
prime example of such a “phoneticizing" student_ Does choral reading really
inhibit understanding for these students? To answer this question,
comprehension test scores for this group of students were compared with those
of two other groups of students: Group B, whose silent reading speeds
surpassed their oral reading speeds by more than 10 wpm (N =21), and Group
C, whose oral and silent reading speeds were almost the same (N =17).
Comprehension test questions were divided into two groups: Q1-4, which tested
the portion of the text read silently, and Q5-8 which tested the orally read
portion of the text. The results were as follows:
As can be seen from the results, for faster oral readers the scores for
both comprehension sections, as well as the average reading efficiency are all
10-20% lower than those of the other two groups. These results show clearly
that (1) students who read faster orally were the poorer readers in general and
(2) although these students showed a generally lower ability in comprehension,
it was not limited to only the sections read orally, but applied to the silently
read sections as well. These results indicate that there is no clear adverse effect
of oral reading on comprehension per se, but that higher oral reading speeds
vis-a-vis the silent reading speed indicate poorer reading ability in general, and
poorer comprehension in particular.
Taking a second look at the data, it should be noted that the oral reading speed
for Group A is only 5 wpm higher than for the other two groups. Indeed, it
seems that we have been asking ourselves the wrong question concerning
f2ister oral readers. For such students, the important point seems not to be
"what makes the oral reading speed so fast?" but rather “what makes the silent
reading speed so slow?" What are such students doing when they read silently?
The answer to this question cannot be simply “subvocalization" as this cannot
account for the marked difference in silent and oral reading speeds. Two
alternatives come to mind: such students may either be rereading parts of the
texts, or they may be translating as they read. In either case, oral reading
prevents this type of reading hindrance in such students, leading to the
relatively higher oral reading speeds. Of course, choral reading in the
classroom would have the same effect, and should eventually lead to in-creased
speed and confidence in silent reading for these students as well.
4
Choral reading and shadowing
Shadowing, or spontaneous repetition of an aural model, is a technique
often used in teaching simultaneous interpretation. It differs from choral
reading in only one respect: there is no text present for the students to read
from. As noted above, the average silent reading speed of most students is
much lower than the average speaking speed of the native speaker. If the
choral reading model is presented at this average speaking speed without
pauses, it can be assumed that at least some of the choral repetition produced
by the students is in fact shadowing. This leads to several questions: l) How
much of choral reading is actually reading, as opposed to shadowing? 2) As the
pacemaker model speeds up, are students likely to use a technique similar to
shadowing to follow the text? 3) What model pace best induces shadowing?
As conjectural answers to these questions, it was assumed that students
are able to read perfectly when the choral reading is conducted at a rate lower
than or equal to their own oral reading speeds (class average - 107.5). At a rate
matching their silent reading speeds (class average - 116.8), they should be able
to keep up using a combination of reading and shadowing techniques. However,
when the rate surpasses their silent reading speeds, at least some of the words
reproduced should be due to shadowing- To test these assumptions, a group of
50 students were tested in the following manner: l) Students' oral and silent
reading speeds were taken by having students read ~110ud and silently and
timing them. 2) In the LL, students chorally read at three different speeds: the
first 100 wpm, just below the class average oral leading rate of 107.54, the
second at approximately 145 wpm, a speed some-what below natural native
speed, and the third at native speed (170 wpm). Their productions were
recorded on tape. 3) The recognizable words and phrases reproduced each time
were counted and compared.
Interestingly, and contrary to expectations, some students were clearly able
to follow the pacemaker quite well at all speeds, whereas others were not able
to follow well no matter what the speed. Accordingly, those students who read
at least 80% of the text at 100 and 145 wpm, and at least 40% of the text at 170
wpm were classified as "better choral readers". Students who failed to meet
both of these qualifications were grouped as "poorer choral readers”. In order to
clarify possible reasons for the difference in ability between the two groups of
students, a comparison of reading data was made as follows:
As is to be expected, poorer choral readers show poorer reading data in
general_ Specifically, average oral reading speeds were 3 wpm below the class
average, and 13 wpm below the better choral readers. In addition, there was a
marked difference (9 wpm below class average, 20 wpm below better choral
readers) in reading efficiency scores as well, indicating that a high level of
general reading comprehension is a factor in choral reading ability. Also, in
spite of the previously-noted fact that comparatively faster oral readers seem to
correspond with a poorer reading ability in general, the percentage of such
students is relatively low in the poorer choral reading group, but relatively
high in the better choral readers. This indicates that an ability to read orally is
highly connected with ability to read chorally.
Contrary to expectations, there seemed to be only two students who
applied any type of shadowing technique at the native reading pace. These
students showed repetition patterns marked clearly by English-style
intonation, but lacking in clear enunciation of content words. Almost all of the
other students kept up with the native pace as best they could by using a sort of
“read and jump" technique. These students would read as fast as they could
with clearly marked Japanese pronunciation and intonation patterns, until
they were obviously behind the tape. At this point, they would “jump ahead" to
the next sentence or paragraph unit (or if they had totally lost the place, it
sometimes took several paragraphs before they could find where the tape was
reading) 2tnd begin to read again at their own speed. As an indicator that this
was talking place, the percentage of students who read at least one word ahead
after the tape model had stopped was 68.42% at the native reading pace, as
compared with 0% at the lower two reading paces.3
On the other hand, at the two slower reading paces, it could be said
that a type of shadowing was taking place. Although students were reading,
most students would wait for the tape to “read" first before vocalizing.
Especially at the lowest pace, the model's pronunciation and intonation
patterns were raithfully copied, and at times instantaneous self-correction was
observed (c. g. “Armenian" would be pronounced [a: meinien] first, then
repronounced as [a: minien].)
These results indicate that students are naturally more inclined to
follow the pronunciation of models at lower speeds, but follow their eyes rather
than their ears at higher speeds. This may be a result of lopsided training in
reading vs. listening, and it is quite likely that an increase of training/ability in
listening and speaking would lead to increased confidence and ability in choral
reading as well.
Conclusion
As shown in the previous section, choral reading is an ability clearly
possessed by some students but lacking in others. This ability correlates not
only with a higher general reading ability, but also with higher comprehension.
Thus, a combination of speed in oral reading coupled with a high ability in
reading comprehension seem to be the main factors for choral reading ability. It
is possible that, conversely, improvement in choral reading ability will lead to
improvement in reading comprehension and speed as well.
In a recent survey of approximately 100 students done by the author,
the most difficult component of English on a scale from 1 to 5 was judged to be
「速読」or speed reading (ave. = 4 . 54, 4 . 2 for boys and girls respectively), over
several other components such as listening comprehension and conversation.
On the other hand, “reading for comprehension" 「読解」surprisingly was
judged to be the least difficult for girls, and only “free composition"「自由作文」
was judged to be easier for boys (ave-3.8, 3.5 for boys and girls respectively).
This shows just how difficult students regard reading at a faster rate of speed,
probably due to their lack of experience with it. Choral reading is a technique
which can be used to facilitate the “great leap" from reading for comprehension
to speed reading. Of course, there should be some feedback measures included,
such as post-reading comprehension questions or summary writing, in order to
check the level of comprehension and clarify the material for the students.
These may be used as factors for evaluation as well. It is also possible to use the
level of participation in the choral reading itself (= number of words
successfully read) as an evaluation factor of students' general reading ability.
The reading of several complete novels within the framework of a
single English university class is very rare. One of the reasons for this may be
because both students and their instructors have not yet learned to combat
what Krashen (1985) calls the “first few pages" effect. This refers to the special
struggle encountered in overcoming the beginning pages of any novel, after
which reading becomes much easier. The difficulty is not only due to the
students' having to get used to a new author’s vocabulary, style, etc., as
Krashen suggests, but also to the fact that many novels (especially those
taught in literature classes) start out with relatively long descriptive passages
with difficult vocabulary.
One possible application of choral reading would be helping the
students to get over such difficult passages. If the first few pages of a novel
were read and discussed in class, this would give the students a schematic
basis for reading the rest of the novel on their own. It would also awaken their
interest, and impart the idea that it is not necessary to understand every word
in order to get the “gist" of the message.
Notes
1In
my class, after 12 sessions of practice with choral reading and
summarization of short stories, the average silent reading speed was 116.8
wpm. Other basic data were as follows:
Class average choral reading speed
Class average reading efficiency
2Due
107.54
88.97
to mechanical problems in the LL (approximately 15 machines
did not function properly), and student error (i.e. not pressing the student
recording button) during the experiment, only 31 tapes were usable. Of those
31, 4 were not classified as the students repeated very little or none of the text
(either due to misunderstanding of the assignment or lack of interest). Of the
remaining 27 tapes, 10 were classified as “poorer choral readers" and 17 as
“better choral readers".
3Thirteen
of the 19 students who successfully chorally read the last
line of the native speed section, also read at least the first word of the next
sentence even though the model had already stopped. One of the reasons for
this striking difference was that the portion read at native speed ended in the
middle of a paragraph, whereas the sections read at the other two speeds ended
at ends of paragraph. However, this alone cannot fully account for such an
extreme difference.
References
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Quarterly Vol. 26, No 4, p. 784-787.
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(1993)
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鈴木、寿一 (1993)「音声を兼用した速読指導法の有効性に関する実証的研究」、英
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Choral Reading vs. Individual Oral and Silent Reading:
Relative Validity of the Alternatives
in the English Reading Classroom
Judy Yoneoka
Abstract
In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of choral reading
(group oral reading in class with a model) in relation to oral and silent reading
were discussed. Also, the phenomenon of subvocalization and technique of
shadowing were considered in relation to choral reading. In addition, an
experiment was performed to determine the relationship of choral reading
ability to follow overall ability and shadowing ability. It was found that
students' ability to follow a model while reading chorally differed greatly, and
that a higher degree of ability in choral reading indicated not only a higher oral
reading speed, but a higher degree of overall comprehension as well. The
results indicate that introduction of choral reading in the classroom would
serve not only as an indicator of student ability and progress, but could also
serve to improve pronunciation and intonation as well as reading
comprehension.