Pace: a story-Based Approach for Dialogic Inquiry about Form

Elements of Story-Based approach: Summary

F igure 2 summarizes the differences between a dialogic story-based approach and the traditional deductive approach to focus on form. All phases of the PACE lessons and related interactions, discussions, and activities have a common feature—they all encourage learners to be active thinkers and hypothesizers as they collaborate in conversations about how meaning is realized in language. The PACE model reflects the framework of the Communication Goal Area of W-RSLL as well as 21st Century Skills, which advocate that learners be engaged in cognitively challenging activities that encourage them to negotiate and create meaning by deriving meaning from context, asking for and providing clarification, and making inferences, predictions, and generalizations. Additionally, the PACE model gives learners opportunities to communicate about coherent texts and solve problems collaboratively.

Figure 2 A Story-Based Approach to Language Instruction and Focus on Form
Teaching of Grammar: A Story-Based PACE Approach vs. Traditional Approach