Interactive Picture Book Read‐Alouds to the Rescue: Developing Emerging College EFL Learners’ Word Inference Ability

Abstract

AbstractThe importance of teacher read‐alouds in language teaching and learning has been known for years, but we know very little about how older English learners with limited English skills can benefit from this practice. The author shares how interactive read‐alouds with picture books can be designed to help emerging college learners of English as a foreign language develop word inference ability and become more independent word learners. The processes of selecting a picture book and target words for the practice and implementation of the four phases of a read‐aloud in a beginning‐level freshman English class in Taiwan are described. Findings suggest that interactive picture book read‐alouds can be a pleasurable and effective instructional practice for giving older emerging English learners tools that enable them to internalize the use of context and prior knowledge to draw inferences and further apply them independently when they confront unknown vocabulary as they read on their own.