Implementing “Readers Theater” as a Means for Developing Oral Fluency

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of implementing Readers’ Theater (RT) as a pedagogical technique for developing the learners’ oral fluency. Two different research tools were designed to carry out this study in order to test the research hypothesis that: “if teachers implement RT as a teaching technique, then students will develop their oral fluency” and to answer the research questions. The first and primary tool was an experiment which comprises a pre-test, a treatment using Readers’ Theater as an instructional technique, and a post-test in order to evaluate the learners’ level of oral fluency. Twelve (12) out thirty seven (27) English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, belonging to the pre-intermediate level in “The First Step” private school in Jijel were chosen randomly to be the experiment sample. Three dimensions of reading fluency were then tested: Automaticity, accuracy, and prosody. The secondary research tool was a questionnaire administered to ten (10) teachers from different language private schools. The analysis of the results confirmed the previously mentioned hypothesis since almost all students have greatly progressed in all dimensions of reading fluency. More importantly, the majority of teachers showed a large awareness about the importance of reading fluency and expressed their readiness to implement RT in their reading classes in the future. Moreover, the results showed that the benefits of RT go beyond developing reading fluency to boosting comprehension.