The Effect of First Grade Formal English Education on Chinese Literacy Development

• Main Authors: Ching-fen Hung, 洪慶芬
• Other Authors: Chin-fen Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/12504281042894599236

碩士 === 國立台北師範學院 === 兒童英語教育研究所 === 93 === The purpose of this one year study is to investigate the effect of first grade formal English education on the Chinese literacy development. School A located in Taipei City started English education since the first grade was selected as the experimental group, and School B located in Taipei County implemented English education from the third grade was selected as the controlled group. Both quantitative and qualitative measures such as PPVT-R, Chinese school term tests, word recognition task, Elementary Chinese Achievement Test (First Grade), picture guided writing task, a questionnaire and interviews were adopted to assess students’ Chinese language cognition development, school Chinese achievement, word recognition ability, literacy ability, story writing ability, family background and opinions and teachers’ opinions toward early English education. The quantitative analyses of this study indicated that the experimental group achieved similar level of Chinese language cognition, literacy and writing ability as the controlled group after one year school education. However, they had significant lower ability of Chinese auxiliary phonetic script (Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao) than the controlled group on the written pronunciation task of Elementary Chinese Achievement Test (First Grade). Therefore, the only aspect that might be negatively affected by the early English education is the familiarity with the use of Chinese auxiliary phonetic script. Although three of the fifteen students interviewed expressed some confusion in learning both languages, more practices and reviews could solve their problems. The impact of English education on Chinese learning could not be easily measured and observed within one year of study, a long-term longitude research was highly recommended.