The words and sounds of children’s picture books and poetry : a strategy to enhance oral production skills.

Abstract

This action research study framed in the qualitative paradigm was carried out with 29 second then third grade English learners at Magdalena Ortega de Nariño school. This project emerged after a phase of observation and diagnosis that showed that there was an absence of practice and development of oral skills in English. Consequently, it was identified that when the students pronounced the vowels they did so as if they were Spanish sounds, and that they had a lack of vocabulary when trying to speak in the foreign language. Therefore, a pedagogical proposal that included a set of activities based on children’s picture books and poetry was put forward to improve pronunciation and vocabulary in oral production in English. After analyzing the impact of the proposal, it was found that through the various activities the girls had some difficulties speaking in English, but they managed to pronounce new vowel sounds without resorting to their mother tongue and notice the difference between English and Spanish phonemes. In addition, they used new words to transmit short ideas orally in English and showed improvement in the recognition and use of words thanks to practice and the role of images. Likewise, it was discovered that using picture books and poetry can positively impact the English class setting with children.