Effects of Dialogic Reading Method on ESL Teachers Questioning Technique and Students Oral Performance in Primary ESL Classroom

Dialogic reading method, an interactive way to teach reading using pictures to young students, is quite popular in pre-school education. A few past studies show that children who have been exposed to dialogic reading are found to perform better than unexposed children on some measures of expressive vocabulary and verbal fluency. However, studies on the effects of dialogic reading method in ESL in Malaysia are very rare. Dialogic reading method can also be used to teach ESL novice learners since it stimulates learners to engage in the dialogue between the teacher and the learners and among the learners in the target language. This study, employing the action research methodology, will discuss the effectiveness of the techniques developed by Whitehurst et al. (1988) in increasing the amount of open-ended questions posted by the teacher and minimizing the amount of yes/no and pointing question. This paper will share the findings and implications of this study that was carried out to assess the effects of dialogic reading method on (a) an ESL teacher s questioning techniques during shared reading and (b) ESL students oral performance.