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Written Retelling vs. Oral Retelling: An Evaluation Strategy
In an ESL Classroom
Ms. Dahlia R. Domingo, Ph. D- Linguistics
Faculty, New Era University-Philippines-dahlsagucio@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT: Written and oral retellings of stories appear to have potential for skill
development inside English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. However, while they appear
to have potential for skill development they have not been widely tested (Morrow, 1986), There
are some evidences written and oral retellings as an instructional strategy enhance the
development of various literacy skills. Although there is support for the use of retellings as a
strategy to enhance learner's literacy development, Morrow (1985) stated that the use of oral
and written retellings was not widely practiced in schools since teachers viewed retellings as
time consuming and difficult .This mini research compares written and oral retellings and would
like to prove that the skill of retelling aside from contributing to student’s skill developmentis an
effective instrument in measuring comprehension, thus enhances both oral and written skills of
students. This research illustrates though oral and written retellings are different, it also shows
how similar they are.
Keywords: Language Assesment,Reading Comprehension, Retelling, ESL classroom
I. Introduction
Retelling is defined as post reading or post listening recalls in which readers or listeners
tell what they remember either orally or in writing or illustrations (Kalmback, 1986). With regard
to language learning, the benefits of retelling are numerous. Research suggests that oral retelling
of what has been listened to or read results in increased comprehension and recall of discourse
(Gambrell, Koskinen, & Kapinas, 1991; Gambrell, Pfeiffer, & Wilson, 1985; Lipson & Wixson,
1997). As students reconstruct text, they develop language complexity through internalization of
text features (Brown & Cambourne, 1987), and acquire a sense of story structure (Morrow,
1985), thereby providing the schema for comprehending, learning, and remembering the ideas in
stories and texts (Anderson, 1994). Retellings add considerably to our understanding of students’
comprehension because they provide a view of the quantity, quality, and organization of
information constructed during reading or listening. And because text recall through retelling is
natural for children, it does not necessarily bias them to process text in a particular way, as
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questions do (Lipson & Wixson, 1997). During the past few years, researchers have used
story retelling as an assessment tool investigating developmental trends in comprehending stories
(Mandler & Johnson, 1977; Stein & Glenn, 1979; Thorndyke, 1977). In the limited number of
studies conducted using story retelling as a strategy for skill development, positive results were
found for increased ability in comprehension, language development, and the inclusion of
structural elements in learner's retold stories (Gambrell, Koskinen, & Kapinus, 1991; Gambrell,
Pfeiffer, & Wilson, 1985; Morrow, 1985). The researchers also concluded that skills gained from
retelling stories were transferred to student's dictations or written retellings.
Written and oral retellings of stories appear to have potential for skill development but
have not been widely tested (Morrow, 1986). However, there is some evidence that Golden
(1984) and Whaley (1981) found that written and oral retellings as an instructional strategy also
enhanced the development of various literacy skills. Although there is support for the use of
retellings as a strategy to enhance learner's literacy development, Morrow (1985) stated that the
use of oral and written retellings was not widely practiced in schools since teachers viewed
retellings as time consuming and difficult (Morrow, 1985)
This miniresearch oncomparing written and oral retellings would like to prove that the
skill contributes to student’s skill development. However, while they appear to have potential
for skill development they have not been widely tested. According to Morrow (1986), additional
research is needed to determine the significance of written and oral retellings as an instructional
strategy inside the classroom, thus this is an attempt to answer that.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The immediate concern of this research is what transpires inside the English for a Second
Language (ESL) classroom when students are made to conduct written and spoken retelling of a
narrative. Given the same goal or topic, the researcher would like to see how the two languages
of students differ or be similar in some respects. How do students accomplish their task when
they are made to narrate in written form and then narrate orally the same topic.
The overall objective of this paper is to show how written and spoken retelling narratives
of students in an ESL classroom differ or don’t differ as far as their language and strategies are
concerned. Specifically the study aims to:
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1. Evaluate written and oral retelling narratives of students with the use of T-units to
see theirlength and use points of evaluation adopted from other studies;
2. Provide new angle to the study of spoken and written language and show
how similar they actually are when used as an evaluation instrument inside an
ESL classroom.
1.3 Significance of the Study:
This mini classroom research attempts to compare written retelling and oral retelling as an
evaluation strategy inside the English as a Second language (ESL) classroom. It makes use of the
written and oral output as an assessment tool for comprehension. It is always assumed that written
and spoken discourses are different. The immediate concern now is to look at how the two (2)
languages of students as reflected in their output be similar in some respects. The researcher
does not hope to see a dichotomy because of the inherent structure and goal of the materials for
study.
If there will be differences it could be the length in T-units and statistically there will be
no significance.The researcher would like to say that there should be no dichotomy or that there
shouldn‘t be any difference between the two modes because they share the same goal and intent,
that is to narrate the same event. Instead of dichotomy, the researcher would like to find
similarities. This is the thrust of this paper.
II. Literature Studies
Jane Blackenship- in her article ALinguistic Analysis of Oral and Writing Style (1962)
adopts the syntactic taxonomy of C.C. Fries and compares spoken and written style represented
by sentential samples randomly selected from speeches and articles of four (4) public figures.
She concludes that syntactic structure is determined by individual style rather than read/heard
purpose. In her findings, it can also derive that syntactic features are partial indicators of
oral/written style.
Milto Horowitz and John Newman’s 1962 article, Spoken and Written Expression: An
Experimental Analysis,features the results from the experiment done to test for differences
between spoken and written expression. The study is controlled by limiting the time for
preparation, for exposition and by limiting likewise the subjects to two balanced topics. This is
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conducted with the assumption that writing is more deliberate than speech, thus the time element
for writing is longer.
The study forwards the hypotheses that if all major conditions affecting the mode of
speaking and writing are controlled then;
1) Spoken expressions should be more productive. There should be more ideas expressed
and these ideas should be elaborated more fully.
2) The spoken expression should produce greater proliferation of material other than
ideas.
3) The two modes should differ in form. The authors are able to prove the forwarded
hypotheses.
The 1967 article, Levels of Abstraction in Spoken and Written Language authored by
Joseph de Vito proves that oral language is significantly less abstract and it contains more finite
verbs and less noun abstraction than written language.
Another article this time written by Roy O’donnell, Syntactic Difference Between
Speech and Writing (1974) analyze sample of speech from one adult male university graduate.
The author outlines the syntactic difference derived from his evaluation and analysis.
Tannen’s second article, Oral and Literate strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives
(1982) gives a background of other researches on spoken and written narratives. She reiterates
her arguments that what has been thought literate and literary is found also in spoken discourse.
Previous researches show the dichotomy between spoken and written language
As Tannen asserts, researches often use a relatively informal spoken discourse and a formal
written narrative. Thus, differences or (absence of it) may just be because of the material chosen
for study. His article analyzes spoken and written versions of the same narrative and it yielded
two (2) main findings:
a) Features that have been associated with oral discourse are found in written discourse as
well, and
b) The written versions of the narrative contains syntactic complexity expected in writing
with features that create involvement expected in speaking.
She concludes that the difference between features of a language which distinguishes
discourse types reflects not only and not mainly spoken vs. written mode but rather genre and
related register, growing out of communicative goals and context.
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The book Spoken and Written Language Exploring Orality and Literacy (1982) which
was edited by Tannen contains articles that facilitate a deeper understanding of what the field of
Orality and Literacy really is. The articles render insightful studies of the relation of spoken/
written language and strategies.
The Race to the Tops
“Now writing of course is merely a record of speech”
(Bloomfield, 433)
This defensive and arrogant stance taken by L. Bloomfield was said at the height of the
controversy between the primacy of spoken over written language. But as De Vito has written,
‘From Aristotle’s observation, that the style prose is not that of spoken oratory”. ..the distinction
between spoken and written language has been asserted with great conviction. (Lovels, 354).
We have always regarded the difference between spoken and written as truism. So as a
researcher, it was surprising to note that way back early 19th century the controversy was one hot
issue.
Ferdinand se Saussure, the father of Modern linguistics argued that “a language and its
written form constitute two separate systems of signs. The sole reason for the existence of the
latter is to represent the former”.
Woolbert in defense of writing, wrote “writing has very special responsibilities in the
movement of civilization” . First, it makes for accuracy under repetition. Secondly, writing
works by a process of nibbling or maybe attrition, overcoming opposition and ignorance by
wearing it down. Writing will always be an advance agent of civilization (284:85)
Jack Goody (1987) in his book gave a comprehensive listing of the reasons why linguists
have been arguing for the primacy of spoken language.
a. Spoken language came first as the history of human race.
As Ong (1982),wrote “the basic orality of language is permanent.”
b. Spoken language came first for individuals. “The fact that we learn to speak before
learning to write is forgotten and the natural relation between the two is reversed” (Saussure,
1983).
c. Speech is biologically based and according to Chomsky, the capacity for learning
language is innate.
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d. spoken language is highly resistant to language control.
e. Spoken language comes first for individual societies.
According to Ong (1982), “language is overwhelmingly oral that of all thousands
of languages spoken in the course of history only around 160 have ever committed to writing.
Moreover, some languages have survived without the written tradition:
f. Literacy as a widespread phenomenon is a very recent historical event;
g. We speak more than we read or write and
h. Spoken language is used in a much wider range of function than written language.
Saussure added that “a language (then) has an oral tradition, independent of writing and
much more stable, but the prestige of written form prevent us from seeing this.”
Other linguists thought that this issue has dragged for so long that they are now trying to
resolve the issue by compromise. Ong declared that “writing commitment of word to space
enlarge the potentiality of language almost beyond measure”. Goody asserted that both modes
have a lot of going for them.
Until now there has been no valid study that could put an end to the controversy. It has
begun to resemble the argument of what came first, the chicken or the egg. “One thing that has
become clear from such studies is that both writing and speaking are used in a variety of different
ways for a variety of different purposes. (Int’l Enc, 258). Scholars from various disciplines
began realizing the value of two modes and thought about researches designed to emphasize
specific difference between the two modes.
Spoken and Written Modes
“Speaking and Writing are alike…and different: “
(Woolbert, 1922)
If the controversy on the primacy is not enough, here’s another one. “Spoken and
Written language” were not considered any different from one another. “
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In 1960’s there was a renewed vigor to study the differences in spoken/written mode.
Blackenship in her study applied the modified Fries system of syntactic analysis to the samples
of oral and written discourse and concluded that though there were marked differences, the
linguistic differences among the speakers-writers were more pronounced than:
a. the general difference between oral-written discourse and
b. the difference between the oral and written discourse of each of the
speaker-writers.
Poole, (1976) discovered that “in relation to oral systems, written systems are more
complex in structure.”The study also revealed that in written mode there are more adjectival but
less adverbial elaboration, show more complex verbal structures but contained fewer indices of
personal reference.
What works orally does not work in print and vice versa . We know the reasons for this
discrepancy at least in part: Oral communication works through assumption of immediacy and
spontaneity; Writing on the other hand is planned organized and non-spontaneous.
To summarize the many points given by the researcher, especially Jack Goodie
(1987), the differences between the modes and strategies are listed below.
1. The tendency to use longer words.
2. Greater variety of vocabulary (e.g. as in selection of adjectives, & etc. )
3. Fewer personal pronouns.
4. Preferential uses of declaratives and subjunctives rather than
imperatives, interrogatives and exclamations.
5. Preferential use of elaborate syntactic and semantic structure.
6. Preferential usage of passive than active verb voice or the simple past.
7. Greater use of abstract terms
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8. Greater explications
9. Greater elaboration
10. Greater formality.
II. Methodology
The researcher utilized second year College of Education students taking up English 3,
an oral communication subject in the school where she currently teaches during the first semester
of school year 2013--2014. From a total of forty (40) students, a total of twelve (12) subjects
were taken out using a simple random technique. The article “Appointment with Love” by S.
Kishor was the literary text and is the focus of attention of both written and oral mode. The
evaluative points are word choice, syntactic structures and strategies used. The T- unit of
analysis was also used to count the number of sentences (both main and subordinate clauses
including the sentence fragments) of the students to compare their length.
After reading the story to the students of the Oral communication class, they were made
to retell in writing the story Appointment with Love. The writing activity was given as a
seatwork in the classroom. The students of the whole class were forty (40) that only twelve (12)
subjects were taken out as samples for oral recitation for this mini research. After the writing
activity, the selected 12 subjects were asked to report in the library during their vacant time. The
twelve students were paired off and were conferred privately. They were made to narrate orally
the same topic, Appointment with Love as a special task, to be recorded with a video cam in a
natural conversational setting. They were told to narrate in a story like manner. The narratives
then were transcribed and analyzed.
The evaluative points are word choice, syntactic structures and strategies used in
narrating. The T-unit of analysis was also adopted to count the number of sentences and
fragments to show the length of compositions and transcriptions and as basis of comparison
between written narratives of students with that of their oral narratives.
Unit of Analysis: The T- Unit
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In linguistics, the term T-unit was coined by Hunt in 1965. It is defined as the main clause
plus all subordinate clauses and non-clausal structures attached to or embedded in it. Technically,
a T-unit is a dominant clause and its dependent clauses:
T-units are often used in the analysis of written and spoken discourse, such as in studies
on errors in second-language writing. The number of error-free T-units may be counted, or
changes in accuracy per T-unit, over drafts of compositions may be measured (Sachs and Polio,
2007).
Example of analysis:
I don’t like the taste. (1 T – Unit)
Then, the rain falls and spring comes. ( 2 T-units)
I don’t like what is left in the cup after you finished drinking. ( 3 T-units}
Framework of Analysis
The researcher wishes to validate Tannen’s theory that “the difference between features of
language which distinguishes discourse types reflects not only-and not-mainly spoken versus
written mode but rather genre and related register growing out of communicative goals and
context, “ which according to her is probably only a matter of choosing the material for study.
The written narrative of students here will be analyzed sharing or discussing the same
story (Appointment with Love) with their oral narratives. Oral speeches are recorded and
transcribed in order to see their structures and organization.
On the basis of points given by Goodie (1987) the written and oral narratives will be
analyzed in terms of these guidelines and parameters:
1) Word choice-such as abstract terms, longer words and greater variety of vocabulary.
2) Syntactic structures-such as personal pronouns, preference for declaratives and
preference for passive forms of the verb.
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3) Strategies- such as general structures with more ideas in spoken text, subordinate ideas
or elaboration, greater repetition of words, and by inspection, greater repetition of phrases and
large part of sentences, and communicative signals.
These guidelines and parameters for analysis are expected to reveal an interplay of the modes
and strategies instead of differences unlike what other studies have shown.
Analysis:
This portion shall be divided in three (3) parts:
a. Discussion of written narratives
b. Discussion of Oral narratives
c. Evaluation of the narratives using the ten point guidelines.
A.The written Narratives:
The table below shows the length in T-units and fragments in the sentences of
the students in the written mode. The title of the retelling narrative given as seatwork is
“Appointment with Love ” and they were asked to fill up just the front page of the one half
crosswise of a yellow pad paper. Table 1 shows an interesting result
Table 1. T-Unit Analysis of Written Narratives of the Students
Subjects by Name: Length of Words Fragments Total No. of
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in T- units words (whole
composition)
1. Elena Miana 20 2 181
2. Rhodafe corpuz 25 1 180
3. Arlene de Leon 20 0 157
4.Rachel Anne Profogo 25 2 174
5. Norberto Tomas 25 2 170
6. Fealyn Salonga 20 1 118
7. Melody Dacanay 24 0 150
8. Abegail Palogan 15 3 119
9. Blessie Jane Ejandal 25 0 155
10. Ria Gequiñana 14 0 93
11. Ann Charina Peralta 19 1 153
12. Eufemia Laurean 16 1 104
Mean 20.67 1.08 146.17
Subjects by Name: Number of
words in T-
units
No. of
Fragments
Total Number of
words of whole
narration.
1. Elena Miana 31 2 200
2. Rhodafe corpuz 26 6 186
3. Arlene de Leon 21 1 123
4.Rachel Anne Profogo 17 8 142
5. Norberto Tomas 16 5 112
6. Fealyn Salonga 34 11 221
7. Melody Dacanay 16 3 93
8. Abegail Palogan 13 0 99
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9. Blessie Jane Ejandal 29 3 233
10. Ria Gequiñana 12 5 92
11. Ann Charina Peralta 18 7 161
12. Eufemia Laurean 17 3 127
Mean 20.8 3.73 149.0
The written narratives of the students have three parts. A brief introduction of the story.
the main event which led to the solution of the problem up to its ending. The students were
given a limit to fill up only the front page of their one half crosswise. To consider the length of
the narratives, Table 1 shows the number of sentences by T- units against counting the number of
words of the whole composition.
B. The Oral Narratives:
Out of forty (40) students of the College of Education class, only twelve (12) subjects
were taken out as samples for oral recitation. These students were paired off to take turns in
camera recording. The special task was narrating orallyand in a natural conversation setting the
story Appointment with Love. The task is to record the scene in video camera and the
conversation was transcribed in writing and wasanalyzed.
Table 2 No. of T-units in the Oral Narratives of students .
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Figure 1 and 2 in the preceding pages shows the plotted comparison between the number
of T-units of the written narrative with that of the oral narrative. Not much difference is shown
on the number of T-units.
With regard to the number of words, on the other hand, it seems that there is a fluctuation
on the graph . The fluctuation may be explained by the fluency displayed by the student in trying
to express himself in a conversational and a natural manner. The presence of stammering and
repetition of phrase and clauses in order to convey meaning results to a more number of words
in the transcription.
The mean T-units does not have much difference between written and oral narrative
which is 20.67 and 20.8 respectively.
Results and Discussions:
The following observations were revealed with the finished taskof the students.
1. Easy to understand Terms
The words of the students are simple. There was not much difference on the choice of
words in both written and oral mode. Neither technical words utilized nor a need for a dictionary
to find its meaning. The subjects have expressed their ideas well with their own supply of
vocabulary.
2. Longer words in written texts
The counting of the clauses by T-units show the result of the narratives both in written
and oral forms. The results show that there is not much difference between the two as shown in
figure 1 (Comparison of T – units in written and oral mode) . It was in the number of words in
the oral mode thatfluctuates because of some repetition and stammering in grasping for words to
convey meaning.
3. Formal words in written texts
While the students supply of vocabulary is limited, they were able to finish the task well
by describing the event shortly. Formal words are used in written than in oral mode.
4. Personal pronouns in written text
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The pronouns are supposed to be fewer in written, but because the task is a recall, there is
not much difference between the two. The personal point of view was utilized to make the
narrative personal and more informal.
5. Preference for Declaratives:
The narratives of the students both written and oral were generally declaratives.
6. Preference for passive voice.
Students’ narration used the simple past tense and not the passive voice in both written
and oral modes.
7. General structure:
The organization of both written and oral modes contains introduction, body and an
ending as its elements of structure. There was more of an elaboration in the body because of
specific details in describing the event.
8. Repetition
There was more of repetition in spoken words, as the students grasp for words in a
natural conversation setting. There was not much of fluency, but the meanings were understood.
The written forms did not have repetition.
9. Linguistic MarkersEvident in Written mode
Transition markers show coherence in writtenmodes. These canbe seen in the right
places.Linguistic markers are seldom observed in the oral mode, however because of its
informality, the sentences are continuous and theirmeanings understood. are seldom observed but
the sentences are continuous and meanings understood.
10. Greater Formality in written
The written work of the students were organized and orderly but not really formal as they
use simple words only. It was hard to be formal using simple sentences. The same way with the
oral mode, since it is in a natural conversation setting, there was more familiarity not formality.
Conclusions and Recommendations:
The preceding discussions showed proofs that there wasn’t much difference when it
comes to the strategies and style used by the students in their narration in both written and oral
form. The mini classroom research has been a wonderful activity and though constrained with
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some factors such as time for more in depth analysis nevertheless, it somehow presented
something on the way we are writing and speaking.
The researcher of this paper has in its little way prove the assertion that by following
Tannen’s theory, materials with the same structure and goal would not leave any more space for a
difference in the spoken and written mode. The narratives were evaluated according to the points
used in previous studies. This research worked to disprove the claim that because of the
differences in the mode of narration, it would necessitate differences in thought content.
As Tannen would say, it was not the spoken and written modes per se, but the genre
growing out of the communicative goals. This paper has shown that given the same goal, there
was not much difference at all .
It is hoped that somehow through this mini research, a contribution was done to the
growing field of written and oral discourse. As we can see as time goes by, the boundaries
separating the two shall become slimmer because of the increased literacy of people and the ever
changing pace of language use.
How people write and speak later on will tend to be more similar at any given
circumstances, just like the students of this research.
Ms. Dahlia R. Domingo
Ph.D. Linguistics
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