The Effect of Interactive Read-alouds on Language Learners’ Development of Writing Skill

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of interactive read-alouds on Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ development of writing skill. To attain such a goal, forty-six high-school students were selected and sampled as the experimental (n=23) and control (n=23) groups. The writing section of Key English Test (KET) was used as the pretest to assess participants’ entry-level writing ability. Reading was taught to the experimental group using interactive read-aloud technique while the control group received conventional silent reading instruction through a three-phase cycle of pre-reading, reading, and post-reading. Writing was taught to both groups through a seven-phase process of pre-writing, writing, response-providing, revising, editing, post-writing, and evaluating. After the treatment, the writing section of KET was used as the posttest to explore both groups’ improvement in writing. The data were analyzed by a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The result revealed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups’ writing ability after controlling for the entry-level writing in favor of the experimental group. The findings of the study underscore the application of integrated skills pedagogical paradigm in language instruction and support the proposition that oracy and literacy are indispensably interrelated and have complementary role in language acquisition.