An Action Research On The Improvement Of Young Children’s Oral Narrative Skills Under Group Activities

Early childhood is an important period for language development,especially oral language development.Whether oral narration can be clearly and explicitly received and captured is an important reference for judging children’s language development level.Through daily observations,the researcher found that senior group children have a strong desire to express themselves through oral narrative,but their ability level is generally low,and there are phenomena such as strong randomness,single vocabulary and simple sentence structure in oral narratives.Preliminary analysis revealed that the important reason is that children have fewer opportunities to express themselves in front of the group.First,teachers organize a large number of activities in groups,and children have fewer opportunities to have quality oral narrative in group activities.Second,a certain number of children lack the courage to express themselves in front of the groups,and this part of children have fewer opportunities to express themselves formally.Based on these two points and after reviewing the relevant literature,the researcher concluded that group activities have some advantages in enhancing young children’s oral narrative skills.This study based on action research paradigm,establishes cooperative group relationships with teachers within the classroom,and uses research methods such as literature method and observation method.Through the action that lasts for one year,starting from the army of children’s oral narrative at present stage,according to the characteristics of the kindergarten day life,fully take advantage of group activities,improve the practice of children’s oral narrative study.To explore the types,characteristics and organizational strategies of group activities to improve children’s oral narrative ability.In the two rounds of action,the researcher adopted homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping respectively,that is,in the first round of action,children with similar levels of oral narrative ability were in one group;in the second round of action,children were groupedmixedlyaccording to their oral narrative ability.In each round of action,language activities include talks,narration and debates.At the front,middle and late of the study,the children’s speech data were collected by using the stories in the language assessment tool MAIN,and finally the children’s narratives were evaluated by using the revised Narrative Ability Assessment Scale,and the effectiveness of the group activities were illustrated by comparing the results of the three tests,as well as providing a reference for the development of the action plan.The study found that: First,Group activities can effectively improve the oral narrative ability of children in large classes.Second,Group activities have different effects on the oral narrative ability of different children,and have a greater positive impact on children with a lower level of oral narrative.Third,Group activities can improve different dimensions of oral narration of children in large classes,but the degree of improvement varied.The four dimensions of narrative macrostructure,narrative cues,narrative length,and marking of time were most significantly improved,while the two dimensions of vocabulary level and sentence structure were not significantly improved.Fourth,Different types of group activities,such as talk,narrative,and debate activities,had positive effects on improving older children’s oral narrative skills.Fifth,Both homogeneous grouping and heterogeneous grouping can improve the oral narrative ability of children in large classes.Homogeneous grouping has a larger improvement range,and heterogeneous grouping has more dimensions to improve.Based on the above findings,the researcher proposed the following educational suggestions: First,Organize different types of group language activities flexibly according to the characteristics of the daily life session.Second,Use different grouping methods and group children rationally according to their characteristics and needs.Third,Create a rich language environment and enrich children’s vocabulary in various ways.Fourth,Pay attention to each level children’s oral narrative development in group activities.