English Acquisition through Storytelling: A Corpus-based Analysis of and Comparison between Materials and Authentic Storybooks

• Main Authors: Ming-yi Hsieh, 謝明宜
• Other Authors: Sy-ying Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92644195039257949438

碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 應用外語系 === 98 === The present study applied the corpus-based approach to analyze and compare the language input in the elementary school textbooks and sixty-five storybooks used in Wang and Lee (2007), a four year longitudinal exploratory-observational study practicing storytelling with 10 pupils in Taiwan. This study was an attempt to investigate the potential advantages of using picture books to help young children’s English acquisition by examining the corpora in the 65 storybooks and three representative textbook series used in Taipei area. A series of analyses were conducted on three main categories with both types of material: vocabulary, sentence patterns and cultural knowledge. Five measures used for the vocabulary analyses and comparisons were: (a) total number of word tokens, (b) total number of headwords, (c) parts of speech, (d) theme related word usage, and (e) frequency of word recurrence in the stories. The analyses of sentence patterns compared the sentence structures contained in both types of material based on the sentence patterns regulated by the Taipei Department of Education (DOE, 2006, 2007) so as to determine which type provides better source for syntactic learning. Finally, the cultural knowledge in the texts was compared and discussed qualitatively to examine the quality of cultural information provided in the materials and to determine which type of material better serves the due purpose outlined by our foreign language policy (MOE, 2003). The results indicated that the language input obtained from the 65 picture storybooks was far richer than that provided in any textbook series used in public schools in terms of vocabulary, structure, and cultural knowledge. These results added empirical evidence to Wang & Lee (2007), verifying the power of reading storybooks aloud on EFL acquisition in the aspects of vocabulary, structure, and the knowledge on culture. In the practical sense, the findings of this corpus-based research urge the pressing need to include picture storybooks, the type of material with more natural, compelling, and authentic input, into the current curriculum.