Story Reading

English story reading as a sub branch of literature plays a momentous role with an impressive function to accomplish divergent goals of skill mastery in ELT studies due to the fascinating pedagogical and psychological benefits embedded in it. English for Specific Purpose (ESP) learners encounter reading passages that can implicitly impress their psychological capabilities as they perceive the world from the characters’ points of view, attitudes, and emotional expressions. This study aimed to explore the probable effects of English Literature (story reading) on ESP learners’ emotion-regulation. Research design was Quasi-experimental. Research sample (with convenience sampling method) included ESP learners in West Tehran branch, Islamic Azad University, who were homogenized via Nelson English Proficiency Test and randomly assigned into two experimental (N=65) and control (N=62) groups. Emotion regulation questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003) with the Cronbach’s alpha (0.82) was administered to both groups before and after treatment. The experimental group received the instruction of English story reading in a seven-week period, while the control group received traditional training during this period. The obtained data were analyzed using the statistical method one independent sample t-test on the gain score. The computation and analysis of the t-test proved to be (1.57) and confirmed the positive improvement in emotion regulation of ESP learners in experimental group. Accordingly, it can be concluded that English story reading could sharpen, deepen, and broaden learners’ insights towards emotion regulation. It can be incorporated in ESP curriculum plans and class syllabi as it facilitates learners to regulate their emotions.

The use of storytelling on students’ first language literacy and development were extended to foreign/second language learning, and a large number of researchers interested in the field attempted to use storytelling and story reading strategies in teaching oral language skills to foreign/second language learners. Despite the existence of a number of studies on the impact of storytelling on English language skills, the number of studies on the impact of storytelling and story reading approaches on pre- intermediate EFL learners’ oral language production and comprehension seems to be scanty. To do so, a quasi- experimental study was employed. Ninety Iranian language learners, from 6 intact classes (each consisting of 15), were divided to three sub-groups: storytelling, story reading and conventional groups. To one group, stories were told, one group only read the stories, and the third group received no stories. The data were collected through researcher developed oral language production and comprehension tests. One-way-ANOVA test and three independent samples-tests based on Bonferroni test were employed to analyze the data and locate the sources of the differences. Findings revealed that storytelling outperformed story reading groups on both production and comprehension tests. Story reading group outperformed the conventional group. It can be concluded telling and reading stories are effective techniques for improving EFL learners’ oral language production and recognition.