The Correlates of Storytelling from the Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS) Method of Foreign Language Instruction on Anxiety, Continued Enrollment and Academic Success in MIddle and High School Students

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore storytelling as it is used in the foreign language teaching method called Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS), a technique which uses entertaining stories to introduce and reinforce vocabulary and grammar. After teachers were surveyed about the amount of storytelling that they use, middle school and high school students enrolled in first year and second year French, German and Spanish in a large suburban school district were surveyed. Based on the amount of storytelling that the teachers used, the student surveys researched anxiety rates as measured on the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986), rates of continued enrollment, self-reported ratings of reading and listening skills, and academic achievement, as measured on the semester final exams and the reading sections of the final exams used in the cooperating school district. Covariates were the grade levels of the students and their levels of engagement in the class. Results of the study indicated no significant differences in levels of anxiety for all groups. Significant differences for levels of continued enrollment were not found for middle school students. For high schools students, it was the non-use group that had the highest levels of continued enrollment. While significant differences existed for high school students with regards to self-reported ratings of their receptive skills, it was the students of teachers who did not use the technique who had the highest ratings. Regarding academic achievement, when just high school students were measured, students of teachers who do not use the storytelling scored significantly higher. When only middle school students were measured, there were significantly higher scores for the students of teachers who regularly used the technique. Results suggest advantages of the using storytelling only with younger students.