Shared reading aloud as conversation: analysis of a session

Abstract

The aim of the article is to focus on the teaching of shared reading aloud as a conversational practice. Through the use of the Conversation Analysis approach, a classroom reading aloud session was observed in detail, focusing on the different strategies and techniques functional to achieving the levels of attention, comprehension and participation necessary for a profitable and effective use of reading aloud.
The analysis of some excerpts of the video-recorded reading aloud activity shows how this type of practice can be considered a collaborative activity built step by step by the teacher who reads and dialogues and the students who listen and spontaneously intervene in the dialogue. Conversational analysis also makes it possible to identify and analyse a number of competent behaviours such as the ability to engage by showing pleasure, to engage in dialogue with the audience, to welcome the listener's requests and give feedback, to manage the voice, to create connections between the textual device and the participants' experiential substratum, to solicit imagination and visualisation, and to keep the thread between the different reading sessions.
The article confirms the importance of the interactive and performative dimension of this teaching practice, which involves a dialogue on an equal footing between teacher and student and requires a plurality of highly refined skills that are difficult for the teacher to identify. This approach could better help define the profile of the teacher who reads aloud, especially if it is also accompanied by interviews administered to the teacher himself.