The influence of audio-visual material in the oral retelling of L2 written texts

Abstract

The objective of this research study was to analyze the effectiveness of the incorporation of audio-visual elements in the retelling of EFL written texts. This case study employed an experimental method which entailed a pre-test, the application of the treatment, and a post-test. A total of 10 high school students took part in this study and they were divided into two groups: one treatment group and one control group. The treatment group used the written text in combination with audio-visual elements while the control group received only the text. Students’ oral retellings were analyzed using a rubric for collecting data related to grammatical and semantic patterns. A questionnaire was employed to evaluate participants’ metacognitive reflections. The analysis of the pretest, posttest, and metacognitive questionnaire was made through measures of central tendency and dispersion. The results showed that before the intervention, the treatment group retelling mean was of 4.2, whereas after the intervention, it increased to 5.9. In the control group, before the intervention, the total score mean was of 6.0 and after the intervention, it was situated at 6.5. No significant differences were revealed (p <.05), which implies a similar behavior among the participants from both groups before and after the intervention. Regarding the employment of metacognitive strategies, high correlations were recorded between learners’ performance in oral retelling and the use of certain connection strategies in both groups. It can be inferred that oral retelling can positively stimulate students’ reading comprehension skills for better oral output.