University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Influence of collaborative group work on English language learner's oral narratives

Ma, Shufeng

Content Files
Shufeng_Ma.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/44160

Description

Title
Influence of collaborative group work on English language learner's oral narratives
Author(s)
Ma, Shufeng
Issue Date
2013-05-24T21:53:00Z
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Anderson, Richard C.
Department of Study
Educational Psychology
Discipline
Educational Psychology
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Level
Thesis
Date of Ingest
2013-05-24T21:53:00Z
Keyword(s)
  • English language learner
  • oral narrative
  • collaborative group work
  • multi-link causal reasoning
Abstract
Instructional influences on storytelling were investigated among 210 fifth-grade Spanish- speaking ELLs. Participants received a 6-week socio-scientific unit involving collaborative group work or direct instruction, or were in control classes that continued regular instruction. Then students individually told a story prompted by a wordless picture book. The assessment of students’ story telling followed the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) conventions. Analysis of story transcripts indicated greater syntactic complexity and narrative cohesiveness in the stories produced by students who had participated in collaborative groups. Results were attributed to increases in quantity and quality of talk during collaborative group work. A multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that students who had participated in collaborative group work generated significantly longer chains of reasoning (many 5-7 link chains) than students who had received direct instruction (many 1-2 link chains). The results suggest collaborative group work is an effective instructional approach to foster ELL’s oral narrative skill and causal reasoning. A general implication is that speaking is more than using correct expressions. Speaking in a second language is learning to think and reason within that language.
Graduation Semester
2013-05
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44160
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2013 Shufeng Ma

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