Proceedings of the National Conference

On Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2011

Ithaca College, New York
March 31 April 2, 2011

Classroom-based Instruction in Narration for Children Learning English:

A Feasibility Study
Cambrya Nava & Jana Pincock
Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education
Utah State University
1000 Old Main Hill
Logan, UT 84322-1000 USA
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Sandra Gillam
Abstract
This study was designed to examine the impact of classroom-based instruction in narration, provided in English, on
narrative, vocabulary, and writing performance for children who are learning English as a second language.
Participants were 12 bilingual first graders attending school in classrooms using English as the language of
instruction. All English Language Learning (ELL) were also being seen through ELL services weekly. The purpose
of the study was to determine if additional instruction in narration, provided in English, was associated with positive
outcomes for children learning English as a second language. Children were receiving instruction in a classroom that
had been randomly assigned to receive narrative instruction in collaboration between a classroom teacher and a
speech language pathologist. There were a total of 21 children in the classroom, most of whom were monolingual
English speakers. There were 7 children who were ELLs. Children were assessed before and after the narrative
intervention was provided. Primary outcomes were measured using an English and Spanish version of the Test of
Narrative Language (TNL), which provides composites for narrative comprehension and production in English and
Spanish. Stories from the TNL were audio-taped, transcribed and coded for the inclusion of story grammar elements,
use of literate language and for productivity (mean length of utterance, total number of words used) and fluency.
Preliminary results suggest that ELLs performed better on all measures after instruction than before. Findings
suggest that early efficacy studies to compare treatment and no-treatment groups are warranted.
Keywords: Narratives, English, Spanish

1. Introduction
Oral language is necessary for learning, reading, and academic success. Children who are learning English as a
second language are at a distinct disadvantage during classroom instruction. The National Literacy Panel on
Language-Minority Children and Youth reported that the nature of the relationship between English oral language
proficiency and reading comprehension is of crucial concern for English Language Learning (ELL) children.1 One
critical area of oral language ability used in mainstream classrooms is narration.2 Narration consists of multiple
utterances that focus on the same topic. A well-structured narrative is an accounting of a real or fictional event that
contains goal-directed actions in a temporal sequence.3 Children in mainstream classrooms construct narratives and
are asked to comprehend them on a daily basis. Narrative language skill has been shown to be related to and
predictive of difficulties in academic achievement for monolingual children developing typically and those with
language learning impairments.4 5 Recent research suggests that narrative language proficiency is also related to
reading comprehension in Spanish-speaking bilingual students.6 Research suggests that broad-based approaches to
language intervention that include instruction on story structure can improve reading and language skills that are not
specifically targeted. Narrative instruction can result in improvements in oral language, specifically in production,

length and fluency. There have been a limited number of studies that have examined narrative development in ELL
children and even fewer that have examined the impact of narrative language intervention in this population of
children. 7 8 9 10
Schoenbrodt et al. conducted a study to determine whether narrative language intervention would increase
communicative competence in Spanish-speaking children who were learning English as their second language.11
Twelve Spanish-speaking children between the ages of 6-11 participated in the study. Children were randomly
assigned to one of two groups. One group of children received narrative instruction in English and one in Spanish.
Children were taught story elements such as character and setting and to tell stories that contain the elements.
Children in both groups were shown to make improvements in their narrative language abilities. Children who
received instruction in Spanish made slightly larger gains than children whose instruction was provided in English.
Unfortunately, schools in the United States generally provide instruction in English. Therefore, it is important to
conduct studies to measure the feasibility of reasonable outcomes when the instruction is provided in English. In
addition, it is important to measure whether or not instruction, provided in English, is detrimental in any way to
childrens knowledge of Spanish.
Fey and Finestack propose a five-phase approach for examining the outcomes of instructional procedures
including pre-trial, feasibility, early efficacy, later efficacy, and effectiveness studies.12 Each phase is essential in
addressing intervention questions. An early phase of this framework includes feasibility studies that evaluate the
clinical viability of an intervention approach. These exploratory and preliminary studies are conducted so that
researchers may decide whether to pursue more rigorous, costly studies such as efficacy and effectiveness
paradigms. In addition, feasibility studies are important to publish because they contribute to a strong research base
to support intervention practices that are based in evidence.

2. Research
Instruction in the ability to comprehend and produce narratives in English may be an effective way to assist children
in improving Spanish and English narrative ability to support comprehension in the classroom.

3. Purpose
This study was designed to determine whether it was feasible to expect that instruction in narration provided in
English would have a positive impact on Spanish and English narrative skills for children who are native Spanish
speakers and are currently learning English as a second language.

4. Methodology
4.1 Participants
Participants were seven first-grade children attending an Elementary school in Utah containing 506 students, 12% of
whom were English language learners. All children were native Spanish speakers. There were three boys and four
girls, ages six and seven who participated in the study. The children were administered the Test of Narrative
Language (TNL) in Spanish and in English before and after an intervention period. 13 Some children scored <89 on
the TNL and were designated as at-risk for academic problems. There were 4 children who were at-risk and 3
children who were typical. Children participated in narrative intervention provided in English in the classroom
setting. As is typical in feasibility studies, most of the children who participated were judged to be typical learners.

4.2 Intervention
Intervention included three phases and lasted seven weeks. Phase one included teaching story grammar elements to
children using symbolic icons to represent each of the story elements. Story elements included character, setting,

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initiating event, action, internal response, complication, consequence and reaction. Children were taught the pictures
or icons to represent each element and given practice in identifying and using them in stories. Phase two involved
teaching children to elaborate on their stories, making them more complex and interesting. During this portion of
intervention, children were taught words to describe feelings, and encouraged to use adjectives and adverbs in their
stories. During phase three children practiced telling their own independent stories. Children were shown single
scenes and asked to generate stories that contained the story elements they had been practicing.

5. Data
Outcome measures included raw scores on the TNL (Test of Narrative Language) and measures of fluency and story
length calculated using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT). The TNL measures
comprehension and production (oral narration) of narrative and consists of three different types of stories. The first
story is script-like. The examiner tells the story, asks questions about the story, and then asks the child to re-tell the
story. The second story type is a personal narrative using sequenced pictures. The examiner tells the story, asks
questions about the story and asks the child to tell a new story using a different set of sequence pictures. The third
story type is a fictional narrative. The examiner tells a story, asks questions about the story and asks children to tell a
story using a new single scene picture. We calculated how many different words children used in their stories and
how fluent they were during story telling. Fluency was measured by calculating the number of times children restarted a story, revised an utterance or word by time.

5.1 Data Analysis

This was a quasi-experimental, exploratory study undertaken to determine if further investigation of classroombased narrative intervention with English language learners was warranted. Therefore, visual inspection of data and
reporting of trends was employed rather than traditional statistical analyses. The narratives that the children told
were transcribed using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts. This program was used to analyze the
stories children told (using the TNL) in terms of length (the number of words used) and fluency, (words per minute)
in Spanish and English.

6. Results
Visual inspection of the raw score results from the TNL suggested that children did not demonstrate observable
improvement in their narrative comprehension in Spanish. Their average for the pre-test in narrative comprehension
was 23.7, and their post-test average was 25.7. However, there were some observable trends in the positive direction
for oral narration in Spanish: the pre-test average for oral narration in Spanish was 22.1, and the post-test average
was 27.4. Language sample analyses (SALT) performed on the actual stories children told from the Spanish version
of the TNL suggested that children were telling longer stories and were more fluent in the stories they were telling.
That is, children were not struggling with word-finding and phrasing. Children in the high-risk-group used about 62
words in their pre-test(length) before intervention, and 114 words in their post-test. The low-risk children used 125
words in their pre-test and 198 words in their post-test. With regard to fluency, children in the high-risk-group
averaged about 44 words per minute in their pre-test and 60 words per minute in the post-test. The low-risk children
averaged 79 words per minute in their pre-test, and 89 words per minute in their post-test.
In English, there was observable improvement in their raw scores in narrative comprehension and oral narration. In
narrative comprehension the average for the pre-test was 20.71, and the average for the post-test was 24.57. In oral
narration, the average for the pre-test was 24.86, and the average for the post-test was 31.71.The stories the children
told in English were also analyzed using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts. In the pre-test, the
average words the children used in a story (length) was 171 and at post-test the average was 177 words. In fluency,
the pre-test average was 73 words per minute, and the post-test average was 92 words per minute. Children made
significantly less improvement in length and fluency in English than in Spanish, but made more improvement on the
standard measure of narration (TNL) for comprehension and narration than they did in Spanish.

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Table 1. Spanish TNL Raw Scores

Intervention
(N=7)
M(SD)

Narrative Comprehension

Oral Narration

Pre

Post

Pre

Post

23.7 (10.3)

25.7 (8.99)

22.1 (5.73)

27.4 (6.78)

Table 2. Spanish SALT scores

Intervention
(N=7)
M(SD)

SALT # words (length)

High Risk
Low Risk
(<89 English TNL)
(>89 English TNL)

SALT # words per minute (fluency)

High Risk
Low Risk

Pre
62.50
(26.04)

Pre
44.17
(17.43)

Post
114
(26.57)

Pre
125
(40.36)

Post
198.67
(73.76)

Post
60.27
(16.7)

Pre
78.70
(23.75)

Post
89.25
(10.83)

Table 3. English SALT scores

SALT # words (length)
Pre
171
(31.29)

Intervention
(N=7)
M (SD)

Post
177.57
(76.40)

SALT # words per minute

(fluency)
Pre
Post
72.60
92.06
(21.84)
(19.52)

Table 4. English TNL raw scores

Intervention
(N=7)
M (SD)

Narrative Comprehension

Oral Narration

Pre

Post

Pre

Post

20.71
(5.12)

24.57
(6.78)

24.86
(6.77)

31.71
(10.59)

6. Conclusion
The study was conducted in an exploratory fashion, in an authentic school-based context to determine whether more
rigorous study of narrative based instruction for improving narration for ELLs was warranted. It appeared that for
the 7 children who participated in this study, narrative instruction in English was associated with growth in their
ability to tell stories in Spanish (length, fluency) and not regression. It also appears that in English, both their
narrative comprehension and oral narration improved, showing that this instruction was associated with benefits to
their English language abilities. Spanish language sample analyses suggested that children who participated in the
narrative instruction were telling longer, more fluent stories in Spanish after instruction than before. Children who
were at higher risk for having academic problems were shown to use about 40 more words in their stories after
narrative instruction than before. The children who were at lower risk for academic problems used about 70 more
words in their stories after instruction than before. This indicates that children who received instruction in narration

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were much more likely to tell longer stories in Spanish after they participated in the narrative instruction. Children
who were at higher risk for academic problems used about 15 more words per minute after instruction, and children
at lower risk about 10 more words per minute in their stories. It was quite impressive that a short-term instructional
program was associated with gains of this nature. It was more impressive to note that instruction in English was
associated with gains in Spanish.
Also impressive, was the fact that raw scores on the English standardized measure of narrative production was
shown to improve beyond the standard error of measure (SEM = 3). Children made improvements of more than 7
raw score points on the English TNL oral narration scale. The stories the children told in English were slightly
longer and much more fluent than the stories they told before instruction. Although children made significantly less
improvement in length and fluency in English than in Spanish, they made more improvement on the standard
measure of narration (TNL) for comprehension and narration than they did in Spanish.

7. Future Direction
The results of this feasibility study show that larger studies with a control group who received instruction in English
and Spanish should be conducted. The results suggest that using this intervention may improve their narrative
comprehension and oral narration abilities, as well as the fluency and length of their stories in both English and
Spanish. This study provides support for conducting early efficacy studies in which participants are assigned to
treatment and no-treatment groups to explore the cause-effect relationship between narrative instruction and
linguistic/academic outcomes. There have been a limited number of studies that have examined narrative
development in ELL children or the impact of narrative language instruction in this population of children. Given
the importance of narration to academic performance, specifically to reading comprehension, it is important to
conduct intervention studies that measure linguistic and academic outcomes for ELLs.

8. References
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10 Schoenbrodt, L., Kerins, M., Gesell, 1. (2003). Using Narrative Language Intervention as a Tool to Increase
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12 Fey, M. E. & Finestack, L. H. (2009). Research and development in child language intervention: A five-phase
model. In R. G. Schwartz (Ed.), Handbook of child language disorders (pp. 513-529). New York: Psychology Press.
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