Poster #64 - Improving children’s biliteracy in EFL settings: The effect of print and language exposure

• In Event: Poster Session 17

Abstract

Home literacy environment has been proved to be an essential resource for children’s literacy development (Puranik et al., 2018; Hood et al., 2008). Exposure to print and language, such as parent-child shared reading and watching TV shows, contributes to the development of both conventional and emergent literacy skills (Kim, 2009). Some studies have investigated bilingual families and proved that early bilingual language exposure had a positive effect on phonological awareness and language competence in both languages (Kovelman, 2008). However, fewer studies have explored how home literacy environments contribute to children’s biliteracy in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts where most second language (L2) input comes from learning English as a subject in school (Yeung & King, 2015). To address this gap in the literature, the current study examines how print and language exposure in Chinese-speaking families predict children's bilingual literacy development.
Based on the data from larger-scale research on a bilingual e-book, the current study involved 118 parent-child pairs who spoke Chinese as their first language. The frequency of print and language exposure and demographic information were collected using parent questionnaires. Children’s Chinese literacy level was assessed based on their listening comprehension of descriptive sentences and phonological sounds, and oral description of pictures. Children’s English literacy skills consisted of three aspects: letter-word identification, receptive vocabulary (from Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement) (Woodcock et al., 1989) and the conversational skills. Further details of participant information can be found in Table 1.
We calculated a series of multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between print and language exposure and children’s bilingual literacy development. For children’s Chinese literacy development, shared reading in English predicted children's Chinese listening comprehension (β = 0.20, p = .04) and oral expression skills (β = 0.26, p = .005). As for children's English literacy development, shared reading and watching in English were positively related to the development of children's English vocabulary, letter-word identification skills, and conversational skills. The influence of shared reading in English was more significant than watching English TV shows in all three aspects. Further, shared reading in Chinese negatively predicted children’s English conversational skills (β = -0.13, p = .04).
We found that print and language exposure to L2 contributes to children’s biliteracy in EFL contexts. Extensive studies have proved that early bilingual exposure contributed to children's literacy development of dual languages in bilingual families (Koveman & Petitto, 2002). Our findings supplemented the lack of research in EFL contexts and suggested that shared reading in L2 could predict both L1 and L2 literacy development even if the orthographic features of the two languages were extremely different (Yang et al., 2017). Meanwhile, shared reading in L1 negatively predicted the development of children’s L2 conversational skills, which implied that L1 home literacy activity had the potential to hinder children’s L2 expressive competence in the environment where the majority of L2 input came from school settings. In future practice, parents and educators in EFL settings can provide more L2 print and language exposure which can lead to children’s dual language mastery.

Authors

• Yiwen Sun, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Dandan Yang, University of California, Irvine

• Mark Warschauer, University of California, Irvine

• Penelope Collins, University of California, Irvine