Karaoke as reading activity
M.J. Wagner and J.S. Brick (1993) demonstrated that karaoke can be a powerful tool in increasing reading engagement. Karaoke can be used as a reinforcer to what are basically repetitive reading activities. In Wagner and Brick's study, students indicated that it was easier to learn the words to the songs via the karaoke because the songs were visually related to the video. My students dramatically increase their focus and engagement during Karaoke activities.
Karaoke does have some problems when used as a reading activity. With Karaoke, most available lyrics are suitable for instruction at the fourth grade level, and it may be difficult to find music to more challenging material. Second, typically with Karaoke, the music audio model is less dynamic and less clear than original sources; the vocal model is often faded to the background and the tempo and melody are altered or reduced.
In Same-Language Subtitling, similar to Karaoke, the subtitles change color to match the audio track exactly (Kothari & Takeda 2000). There are, however, several important improvements on Karaoke. First, with Karaoke, the audio is slightly diluted and the vocal model is slowed or dropped completely reducing the impact of audio model, and the choice of lyrics available tends to fall in lower reading-level ranges. With SLS, the audio is typically very dynamic with strong language modeling(vocal model is not intended to be faded, but to provide strong language model)and the instructor can choose lyrics or scripts at any reading level, plus teachers and students have the option of creating their own custom SLS presentations. The available technology allows students to interact with subtitling media as a process. This allows for a wide range of repetitive and rehearsed reading opportunities. Almost any dynamic audio-media can provide the base model. This can be anything from a Broadway musical to a famous speech or poem, as long as the language model is clear and in some manner entertaining. (Kothari, Takeda, Joshi& Pandey, 2002).
Karaoke does have some problems when used as a reading activity. With Karaoke, most available lyrics are suitable for instruction at the fourth grade level, and it may be difficult to find music to more challenging material. Second, typically with Karaoke, the music audio model is less dynamic and less clear than original sources; the vocal model is often faded to the background and the tempo and melody are altered or reduced.
In Same-Language Subtitling, similar to Karaoke, the subtitles change color to match the audio track exactly (Kothari & Takeda 2000). There are, however, several important improvements on Karaoke. First, with Karaoke, the audio is slightly diluted and the vocal model is slowed or dropped completely reducing the impact of audio model, and the choice of lyrics available tends to fall in lower reading-level ranges. With SLS, the audio is typically very dynamic with strong language modeling(vocal model is not intended to be faded, but to provide strong language model)and the instructor can choose lyrics or scripts at any reading level, plus teachers and students have the option of creating their own custom SLS presentations. The available technology allows students to interact with subtitling media as a process. This allows for a wide range of repetitive and rehearsed reading opportunities. Almost any dynamic audio-media can provide the base model. This can be anything from a Broadway musical to a famous speech or poem, as long as the language model is clear and in some manner entertaining. (Kothari, Takeda, Joshi& Pandey, 2002).
Comments