Dr. Lalit Kishore

A Pedagogical Experiment in Developing and Transacting Chant Rhymes for Sight Vocabulary Building and Readiness Intervention before Introducing the English Textbook at Grade One

Conventional rhymes are unworthy of their use in local context as they rhymes breed insensitivity and result in cognitive load on Indian school beginners.

Contextualized interventions to develop own professional expertise by investigating own teaching in a systematic and organized way

Wallace (2009) emphasizes the need for Action Research by Language Teachers urges them to take up contextualized interventions to develop their professional expertise by investigating their own teaching in a systematic and organized way. According to him, action and researches are helpful to language teachers to design and implement the interventions which are derived from their normal practice having direct relevance to them

Hinkel (2011) has stressed social contexts in research on second language teaching and learning with the criticality of ideology, identity, culture, and critical pedagogy in teaching material.

While, Ellis (2012) has emphasized the teacher-led research in the second language classroom for implications and illuminating insights into the important relationship between research and teaching in classroom settings.

According to Kishore (2010), has used the language art of acrostics type of blank verse to build the vocabulary of even science subjects through a panel of experts as a part of action research since insightful people get into the crux of the matter quickly. He adds that the suitability of chant rhyme is also appropriate for the school beginners since they can be converted into visual poems with little imagination.

The objectives of the intervention were: (i) To write ten chant rhymes as a team

of two teachers; (ii) To prepare material in the form of

charts, flash cards and worksheets for the transaction of the intervention; and

(iii) To organize a lesson study with external expert validation (N=3).

Action research methodology by combining the techniques of panel of experts and pedagogical experiment was used for the present study.

The procedure for present pedagogical was carried out on the lines suggested by Kishore (2013) by making use of panel of experts and Delphi technique for pre-research work.

The sample for the lesson study consisted of 30 students (5-6 years age group) of middle socioeconomic strata of a CBSE-affiliated school of Indore.

Study cum action plan of two weeks with two hours daily was prepared to meet the objectives and carry out the procedure of the pedagogical experiment.

Ten chant rhymes of five lines each got developed to be transacted in 10 working days with 40-minute class session each day to build the sight vocabulary before introducing the textbook

The lesson study in the presence of experts and feedback established the method of transaction of the lessons leading to the building of the vocabulary.

Since the present work is an action research for improving the professional skills of the practitioners, the chant rhymes for newer contexts need to be different. The satisfaction gathered during the action research as teacher-researcher is always worth it.

Use of action research for teachers’ self-development can very effective of way putting teachers as senior co-learners with their students and needs to made an integral part of teacher education.

One can conclude from the present study that teachers must create our own four-line clap rhymes, which describe common objects around children that will make the rhymes value neutral, less wordy and pedagogically sound to make the entry of children to the world of literacy smooth

Hinkel, E. (2011). Foreign language teaching in Asia and beyond: current perspectives and future directions, New York: Taylor & Francis.

Kishore, L. (2009). Conventional nursery rhymes breed insensitivity, www.merinews.com/article/conventional...rhymes.../15784587.shtml

Kishore, L. (2011). Teaching physics through verse, Teacher Plus, Teaching physics through verse. 3 September.

Kishore, L (2013), On making use of panel of experts and Delphi technique for pre-research work, www. mymews.in 10-Jan-2013 11:46:51 AM .

Linstone, H. A. & Turoff, M. (1975), The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley

Rod, E. (2012). Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.

Wallace, M. J. (1997). Action Research for Language Teachers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press