Characterizing preservice Teacherʼs responses to literacy: Read alouds a way to experience the joy for reading

• Main Author: Judith Castellanos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas 2011-04-01
• Series: Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal
• Subjects: read-alouds, preservice teachers, readerʼs response, journal writing
• Online Access: http://revistas.udistrital.edu.co/ojs/index.php/calj/article/view/108
• ISSN: 0123-4641; 2248-7085

This article reports on a small-scale project which central purpose was to incorporate read-alouds in a pre-intermediate English as a foreign language class of preservice teachers during three weeks. Students responded orally and in a written way on their journals to these readings showing understanding of the texts, relating their personal experiences and / or making connections to them. The project involved students of the undergraduate program in English teaching at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá. In all, 19 students were involved in the project. Data collection sources for this project include studentsʼ journals, after the fact notes on studentsʼ oral interactions and a group interview. Among the findings observed in this inquiry project include the intertextual connections (Short, 1993) students make across the texts read in class with their personal experiences. Most studentsʼ oral responses were characterized by code-switching; in general most students code switched depending on the difficulty of the answer. Students benefited from the reading-alouds in terms of opportunities to interact among themselves, practice their oral and written skills, and enjoy the pleasures of reading, thus building ground to a positive experience that may be emulated in their future teaching exercise. Finally, I discuss some implications of read-alouds with preservice teachers and teacher education programs in Colombia.