8 Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children Linda SIEGEL, Ellen KNELL, Miao PEI, Haiyan QIANG, Wei ZHAO and Lin ZHAO Introduction The aim of this chapter is to develop an understanding of English language learning among Chinese children and to present evidence on the effectiveness of a program designed to help develop English language skills. The particular technique in question is called English immersion. This chapter describes that method, which is widely used to teach English to children in China. In English immersion classrooms, a teacher who is a non-native English speaker and whose first language is Chinese conducts lessons entirely in English for approximately half the school day. We describe the details of the program, as well as the benefits this method has for children’s performance of English and Chinese reading and language tasks. The History of Immersion Language Teaching First, we briefly describe the history of the concept of English immersion. More than thirty-five years ago, a group of Canadian parents living in French-speaking Quebec realized that existing French instructional programs did not prepare their English-speaking children to communicate adequately in French. As a result, these parents convinced a local school board to hold a trial run in a single kindergarten class based on a language immersion model. Due to the success of this initial immersion C.K.K. Chan and N. Rao (eds.), Revisiting The Chinese Learner: Changing Contexts, Changing Education, CERC Studies in Comparative Education 25, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3840-1_8, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 233 234 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO class, many other immersion programs were initiated in Canada. Since then, Canadian immersion programs have expanded dramatically, and 324,495 students had participated in them as of the 2000-2001 school year (Canadian Official Languages Annual Report, 2000-2001). Virtually every territory and province in Canada offers a variety of immersion programs, including alternative forms such as late and partial immersion, which are described below. A foreign language immersion system provides majority-language students with an opportunity to master a second language in much the same way as they master a first language (i.e., by being immersed in a language environment that promotes natural, meaningful communication). An immersion program is meant to establish a solid base in oral skills prior to introducing reading and writing. The process of second language acquisition is an incidental result of learning academic content through a second language medium (Genesee, 1995). Rather than exclusively focusing instruction on the direct mastery of second language rules and grammar, immersion programs adopt a content-based language approach that provides the means to increase the amount of comprehensible second language input by delivering subject content in the target language (Genesee, 1991, 1995). Immersion programs vary according to the amount of instructional time spent in the second language, as well as with the age at which immersion begins. Early immersion programs begin when the child enters school in kindergarten and usually continue until middle school, although in some circumstances they may continue through the secondary level. Delayed immersion programs may begin in fourth grade, and late immersion programs typically begin in secondary school (Cummins, 1996; Genesee, 1995). Partial immersion programs, as distinguished from total immersion programs that provide instruction entirely in the target language in the first few years, have also been implemented. This form of instruction is subject–driven, with part (usually half) of the instruction in partial immersion programs being delivered in the native language and the remaining part being delivered in the target language from the first year of program initiation. Based on the Canadian model of French immersion, English immersion programs were implemented in elementary schools in several major Chinese cities in 1997 in an attempt to expose students to more authentic English input at an earlier age. The longest running program is in Xian. These programs emerged in response to dissatisfaction with the common Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 235 public school practice of teaching English through rote memory and grammar drills, methods that seemed inadequate for developing functional listening and speaking skills. In an attempt to improve the quality of instruction, a content-based language program that immerses children in English and promotes communicative language was introduced. Studies on Immersion Education Immersion programs have been studied since they were first introduced more than 35 years ago (Genesee, 1995). In Genesee’s study, a synthesis of the extant research in this field consistently and clearly demonstrated that Canadian French immersion children did not experience any longterm deficits in native language skills and scored equal to or better than their monolingual peers in academic achievement tests. The French language skills of immersion students were superior to those of students that received traditional French language instruction for a set period each day. Although their skills were not near-native, French immersion students had high levels of proficiency in reading and writing, as well as in speaking and listening comprehension (Genesee, 1995). English Immersion in Chinese Settings Hong Kong Marsh, Hau, and Kong (2000) examined the effectiveness of late English immersion programs by evaluating both English and Chinese performance, including the assessment of subject content areas, among 12,784 middle school students in Hong Kong. They compared subject scores from students in English medium schools, which would qualify as late immersion programs, to the scores of students enrolled in Chinese medium schools. They found that late immersion students scored higher in English and Chinese, but significantly lagged behind their peers in Chinese medium schools in history, geography and science. Although Chinese and English language skills were better among students enrolled in late immersion programs, Marsh et al. (2000) concluded that English immersion had not enabled students to successfully access language and content in academic subject areas. They recommended that their study be extended to the high school years to determine whether the positive 236 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO effects of immersion are subsequently realized over a longer time period. It was also recommended that future evaluation include assessment of English oral fluency, as this was not measured in their study, and may have improved significantly. Singapore In spite of the fact that the majority of the population in Singapore speaks a form of Chinese at home, English has been used as the primary language of instruction in Singaporean schools since 1987 (Pakir, 1993). The teaching method adopted in primary schools in Singapore can be considered a total early immersion system because all children are instructed in English from kindergarten onwards. English is recognized as an official language in Singapore and, in addition to being designated as a common language for all ethnic groups, is the primary language of business and technology. International mathematics and science evaluations (administered in English) for Grades 4 and 8 place Singaporean students at or near the top worldwide (Mullis, Martin, Gonzales, & Chrostowski, 2004a, 2004b). Singaporean students scored first in the world in 8th grade science and math, leaving students from other Englishspeaking countries in their wake. The results of pilot studies in which adaptations of UK-normed English tests have been administered at the beginning of primary school show that while children from Singapore are behind UK school children in the early grades, they catch up in the later primary years. In addition, Singaporean students have scored well above UK children in mathematics tests at every level (Gupta, 1994). Although many variables (sociocultural, educational, political) undoubtedly have an impact on these results, it is possible that beginning English immersion in the early primary grades is an important factor that contributes to academic success among Singaporean students in subjects taught in English. Although the immersion programs noted above take place in communities where the majority of people speak a form of Chinese, the educational, social and political environments of Hong Kong and Singapore are very different from that of China. No study to date has investigated early English immersion programs in China. English immersion programs in public primary schools, which represent the realization of a new concept in language instruction in China, provide a unique opportunity Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 237 to examine the generalizability of Canadian immersion models in a very different educational setting. Mainland China For the most part, English instruction in China is designed to help students pass English exams. These exams are required for students wishing to gain admittance to and graduate from universities and colleges (Anderson, 1993; Chen & Zhang, 1998), and they measure other important language benchmarks from primary school through to high school (Penner, 1995). Oral communication has not been a priority in traditional English instruction, and until the mid- to late-1980s, it was not uncommon to find college students who had studied English for many years but were unable to speak more than a few selected words (Chen & Zhang, 1998). Although a communicative language approach is gaining popularity in China (Anderson, 1993), it is still the case that functional oral English skills are seldom taught in the public school environment. The majority of students are instructed through rote drills and grammartranslation techniques, methods that do not lend themselves well to the development of an overall fluency in speaking and understanding oral English (Zou, 1998). School administrators and teachers may be resistant to the use of communicative, interactive language techniques because they worry that students will not pass national written exams designed to test grammar, reading, vocabulary and writing (Anderson, 1993). Because the early immersion program in Xian emphasizes oral language and communicative, task-based language teaching, it may enable students to develop confidence and fluency in spoken English. Early immersion, in particular, has been shown to positively affect the development of speaking skills (Turnbull, Lapkin, Hart, & Swain, 1998). Turnbull et al. (1998) examined a large database of evaluative studies conducted in Canada involving over 1,160 12th grade students enrolled in a variety of French immersion programs. An analysis of studies comparing early immersion with late or delayed immersion programs revealed that although students in delayed or later immersion programs scored as well as early immersion children in some measures, especially L2 (the second language, English) literacy, early immersion children were better able to speak in the target language. Early English immersion programs implemented in public school settings in China may provide a means for young children to build their English listening and speaking skills before 238 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO grammar and language rules are intensively taught and memorized for the purpose of passing written exams that begin in middle school. The Xian program structure. The early English immersion program in Xian operates at the Shaanxi Normal (Teachers) University’s Affiliated Primary School and begins in kindergarten. Enrollment in the immersion program is on a voluntary basis, and is determined by the children’s parents. Approximately 300 children are enrolled in the immersion program (K-3), with one experimental class at each grade level. While the remaining children at the school do not participate in the immersion program, they still study English for two periods each week. Primary school education in China follows a national curriculum and is departmentalized in that children change classrooms and teachers for each subject. The vast majority of teachers (95%) in this primary school have university degrees. English immersion teachers must pass an oral and written English exam and participate in training seminars given by professionals from Canada, in which communicative language techniques are taught. Non-immersion English teachers also participate in these seminars. Although these requirements are considered rigorous for primary school teachers in China, the English teachers at the school do not have near-native English language proficiency, and difficulties with pronunciation and English grammar are common. The immersion program at the Shaanxi Normal University’s Affiliated Primary School is a partial immersion program in that 50% of the curriculum is taught in English and 50% is taught in Putonghua (the national language). Subjects taught in English include: English language arts, moral education, art, physical education, music and science. Chinese and math are taught in Chinese. Children have six hours of mathematics lessons and ten hours of Chinese reading and calligraphy lessons each week. The required subjects and time allotments are the same for both immersion and non-immersion students, the only difference being that non-immersion students are not taught half of the curriculum in English. Although immersion students have half of their subjects taught in English, both immersion and non-immersion children have the same amount of time devoted to formal English study: only two 45-minute periods each week. Immersion teachers are encouraged to use communicative teaching methods in the classroom during this time and to use teacher manuals specially written for the purpose. Non-immersion teachers use a traditional text and tend to teach English in a more traditional way. Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 239 Language Learning Immersion programs are based on certain principles of language learning. When considering the teaching of English to children for whom it is a second language, it is important to understand how children learn their first language. A child’s first language is learned by listening and speaking. Reading and writing come much later after a good foundation in oral language skills has been established. Children first speak in single words, followed by increasingly longer sentences. Children first learn nouns, adjectives and verbs. Articles, prepositions and function words appear much later. Good language teaching stresses listening and speaking skills to help develop comprehension and reading skills. Conversation and oral language skills are especially important in the early stages of learning a language. Reading and writing skills must be based on a sound oral language foundation. Listening skills reflect the ability to extract meaning from a string of words. These are aural skills. Reading is about extracting meaning from a series of words and involves visual skills. Vocabulary, Syntax and Phonological Awareness A child cannot extract meaning from spoken language without understanding the meaning of words. The teaching of English in an immersion setting involves the teaching of vocabulary and syntax. To teach reading skills in English, which is an alphabetic language, it is important to develop phonological awareness skills. Phonological awareness skills refer to the ability to segment spoken language into small segments, such as words, syllables, and individual sounds called phonemes. In teaching English, it is important to develop vocabulary skills and an understanding of the basic syntax of the language, as well as to develop oral language skills before the introduction of reading. In many English language teaching programs operated in China, English has traditionally been taught through the medium of writing. Nevertheless, it is important that writing not be taught too early. Good English language teaching involves conversation and fostering an understanding of oral language. Fluent and accurate reading skills cannot be developed without sound oral language skills. Vocabulary. Understanding the meaning of words is obviously a 240 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO fundamental aspect of learning any language. Vocabulary teaching usually starts with the labeling of pictures and objects. It is important to begin with nouns, adjectives and simple verbs in the present tense. Syntax. To speak any language, a child must develop an understanding of the basic grammar of the language. Chinese and English are very different in terms of their grammatical structure. Chinese has no verb tenses, plurals, articles or prepositions. These aspects of English grammar can be very difficult for Chinese-speaking children to learn. It is important for the teacher to provide models of these structures in English. The Study – The Xian Immersion Program The immersion program in Xian incorporates a number of important activities that are designed to build literacy skills. For example, children participate in centers such as a pretend bank, restaurant or grocery store, and are required to act out scenarios in English appropriate to those places. For example, the teacher may read a story to the children using Big Books so the children can see the pictures. The children then act out the stories and draw pictures based on them. The children learn simple songs and rhymes in English, and sing and recite them with actions. As far as possible, only English is used in the classroom. The goal of the immersion program is to build the vocabulary of the children and develop their ability to follow instructions in English. Games and storytelling are used to provide a rich English language environment. All children begin Chinese literacy instruction in the first grade. Prior to learning any Chinese characters, they initially learn Pinyin (a Romanized spelling of Chinese characters that acts as a mediating system designed to aid in learning pronunciation and character recognition). It is common in many early immersion programs in Canada to introduce literacy in the second language. For Chinese-speaking students, certain considerations may need to be taken into account to accommodate the complex literacy systems that they are required to master in their native language (Cummins, 2000). For this reason, literacy is initially introduced through the L1 (the first language, Chinese) for immersion students at Shaanxi Normal University’s Affiliated Primary School. Although the major emphasis for students in the early grades is on receptive and expressive language skills, all students are exposed to some written English words in the second grade; however, no formal Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 241 literacy instruction or alphabet instruction is given until the third grade. By the end of the third grade, just prior to testing, both non-immersion and immersion students have been exposed to most of the English alphabet and a limited number of English words (mostly high-frequency nouns). English literacy instruction begins in Primary 1 and phonological awareness training in kindergarten. The structure of the classes in Xian is such that there is a high student-to-teacher ratio (most of the classes have approximately 50 students). The immersion program operates as part of a public school, and funds are scarce, which directly affects the availability of resources. There are limited English materials available at the present time, as materials from English-speaking countries that are appropriate for L1 English students at this level contain vocabulary and syntax that is too difficult for L2 Chinese children. The immersion teachers are non-native Englishspeakers and do not have near-native English proficiency. In addition, there is little opportunity for children to hear English spoken outside the school environment; moreover, few parents speak any English. The present study examined the performance of immersion and non-immersion students at Shaanxi Normal University’s Affiliated Primary School by measuring English oral proficiency, as well as literacy and vocabulary in Chinese and English, all of which are factors that are crucial to school and language success. In addition, phonological awareness measures were administered in English and Chinese. Phonological awareness is the ability to perceive and manipulate sublexical phonological units such as syllables, rhymes and phonemes, and has been shown to have a strong correlation with proficient literacy acquisition in both English (Adams, 1990; Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Siegel, 1993; Wagner et al., 1997) and Chinese (Ho & Bryant, 1997a, 1997b; Hu & Catts, 1998). Method Participants One hundred and eighty-three students took part in this study. Approximately half of the participants from each of the immersion and regular classes (Grades 1 to 3) were randomly assigned for testing. The participants (96 boys and 87 girls) included 51 first graders, 61 second graders, and 71 third graders. Ninety-two of the children were from the immer- 242 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO sion group, and 91 were from the control classes. All of the classes were from the same school. English Measures Oral language interview. A 24-item oral interview, based in part on primary school English interview forms from Clifford International School in Guangzhou, was administered in English. This measure was designed to test listening comprehension and the ability to express oneself in English. There were three sections to the interview: directions, basic conversational questions, and sentence comprehension. The directions section included eight basic directions such as “put the book on the table” and “give me the pencil.” Students received one point for correctly completing each direction. The conversational questions section included ten questions designed to elicit personal information, such as “what do you like to do after school?” and “when is your birthday?” The sentence comprehension task included two items from small vignettes of between two and five sentences. The sentences were read to the children, after which between two and four comprehension questions we asked. The testing administrator was allowed to repeat each question twice if necessary. The student’s response was scored on a scale from zero to two. The student was given one point for a partial response or for a response that indicated that the student understood the question but could not produce an adequate answer. The student received two points for a correct, understandable response and no points for a wrong answer or no response. There was a maximum possible score of 40 points. English vocabulary. English vocabulary was measured using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised (PPVT-R) Form M (Dunn & Dunn, 1981). This test requires the student to point to one of four pictures to identify the vocabulary word presented orally by the test administrator. Word identification (WRAT-3). English word identification was assessed using two measures. The first was an abridged version of the word-reading subtest of the Wide Range Achievement Test 3 (WRAT-3) (Wilkinson, 1995). The Blue Form of this test, which has 15 uppercase letters and 20 words arranged in ascending order of difficulty, was used. The student was told to read each of the letters and words on the page. Examples from the word list include book, finger, stretch and abuse. Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 243 English word list. The second word identification task was a graded word list. Twenty words were selected from the Fry word list (Fry, Polk, & Fountoukidis, 1984) and the primer and first grade word lists compiled by the Center for Applied Research in Education (1993). Four teachers from the control and immersion classes selected words from the lists that they knew the children had been exposed to in English class. It is important to note that formal reading instruction had only begun in the third grade with the introduction of the letters of the alphabet; however, most of the students had been exposed to some whole words, although they had not been explicitly taught how to read them. The 20 words were arranged in a column on two sheets of paper. The test administrator would point to the word and ask the child to read it aloud. Word samples from the graded word list include ball, three, yellow and jump. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient for this test was .93. Letter recognition. The 26 lowercase letters of the English alphabet were randomly arranged on a page, and each student was asked to say the name of the letter as the examiner pointed to it. Only the third grade students had been taught the names of the letters directly and at the time of testing had been instructed in over half of the alphabet letters; however, the teachers reported that it was not uncommon for students to have been exposed to the letters, and most students were familiar with the English alphabet song. If, during testing, the student gave a Pinyin sound for the letter, he was asked to give the name of the letter in English. Only English letter names were scored as correct. The Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for this task was .95. English Phonological Awareness Onset-rime detection. The first part of the onset-rime measure assessed initial sound (onset) detection. There were 10 test items with three demonstration items. Each student was first given a stimulus word and then given three more words. The child was asked which of the three words had the same first sound as the first word. During the three training items, the child was given corrective feedback. The items could be repeated if the child requested it. Pictures were provided during this task in an attempt to reduce memory load and provide a purer measure of phonological awareness (see Schatschneider, Francis, Foorman, Fletcher, & Mehta, 1999). The picture cues may have been especially im- 244 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO portant for this task as some of the children might not have been familiar with the English words used. The second part of the onset-rime measure was a rhyme detection subtest that included 10 items. As in the onset detection task, the child was given a stimulus word and asked to choose the word that rhymed with it or had the same final sound from a list of three words. Once again, pictures were used for all the words to reduce memory load. There were three demonstration items and the examiner gave corrective feedback if the child responded incorrectly. The phonological awareness score for this measure was a composite score which included both the onset and rime tasks. The Cronbach’s alpha for the onset-rime detection task was .67. Chinese Measures (Phonological Awareness) Chinese onset-rime detection. The first part of the onset-rime task assessed the child’s ability to detect initial sounds, with the second part assessing the child’s ability to detect final sounds. The first part of the test, which was designed to assess initial sound detection, included 10 items and two practice items. The child was told “I am going to say four characters and I want you to find the two characters that start with the same sound.” The child was given corrective feedback during the two practice items. The second part of the Chinese onset-rime task was adapted from So and Siegel (1997) and included 15 experimental trials and two practice items. This rhyming task, which was originally designed to be used with Cantonese-speaking children in Hong Kong, was adapted into Putonghua for this study. As in the initial sound detection task, each trial was composed of four characters, two of which rhymed. The examiner explained the task by saying “I am going to read aloud four characters and you must listen carefully. Say these four characters after me, and tell me which two characters rhyme with each other.” If the child had difficulty during the two practice trials, the examiner explained that two characters rhyme if they have the same final sounds. The phonological awareness score for this measure was also a composite score that reflected both the onset and rime tasks. The Cronbach’s alpha for the onset-rime task was .89. Chinese phoneme deletion. The Chinese phoneme deletion task was composed of 16 items and four practice items. The initial phoneme was Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 245 deleted in the first eight experimental trials and the final phoneme was deleted in the last eight trials. The child was told “if I say the word che [車] (car) without the ‘ch,’ what sound is left?” Occasionally during the practice trials, the child would say the deleted sound instead of the remaining sound, in which case the examiner would ask for the remaining sound. The Cronbach’s alpha was .72 for this measure. Character identification. Chinese character identification was assessed using an instrument developed to test emerging literacy in Chinese preschool and primary school children. The Preschool and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale (PPCLS) developed by Li (2000) includes a character recognition subtest. Characters were randomly selected from those commonly listed in the course syllabi of Chinese primary schools. The character recognition subtest includes 75 characters arranged in ascending order of difficulty, with four single characters presented on each page. The examiner asked the child to read each character aloud. The child was told to guess if he or she was unsure of the character. The test was discontinued after eight consecutive wrong answers. The coefficient alpha reported for the character recognition subtest of the PPCLS was .74. Chinese vocabulary. The revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R), Form L, was translated into Chinese to assess Chinese receptive vocabulary. Form L was used to prevent any test learning from the Chinese version to the English version in which Form M was utilized. Test items were translated and adapted by a group of native Chinese speakers (two teachers and a professor) from Shaanxi Normal University. As in the English version, students were told “I’m going to say a word and I want you to point to the picture of the word.” The student was required to choose from four pictures arranged on a page. The student was given three trial items in which corrective feedback was given. Testing was discontinued after eight consecutive errors. Procedure The measures were individually administered by a team of eight ChineseEnglish bilingual college seniors (psychology and education majors) recruited from Shaanxi Normal University and two bilingual university teachers. These college students and teachers were trained to administer the English and Chinese measures. All testing took place in a large confer- 246 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO ence room in the elementary school. The English testing session lasted approximately half an hour and the Chinese testing session required approximately 45 minutes to complete. The testing sessions were administered consecutively, with half of the children being tested first in Chinese and the other half being tested first in English. During the English testing session, the examiners gave the directions for the English measures in both Chinese and English to ensure each student understood the directions. Results The immersion group performed at a significantly higher level than the control group in the English oral language interview at each of the three grade levels. However, there was no significant difference between the immersion and control groups in the English phonological awareness task at any of the grade levels (Figure 8.1). 15.32 12.32 16.39 15.48 13.67 12.27 Immersion Control 1 2 3 Grade Figure 8.1. English phonological awareness skills In terms of English vocabulary skills, English reading and English WRAT, the immersion group performed at a statistically significant higher level than the control group at each grade level. In Grades 2 and 3, the immersion group knew three times as many words as the control group as measured by the English reading and English WRAT (word recognition) tests (Figures 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4). Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 247 15.61 12.19 Immersion 9.44 Control 5.14 4.37 4.19 1 2 3 Grade Figure 8.2. English vocabulary skills 7.68 6.5 5.43 Immersion 2.52 Control 1.53 0.54 1 2 3 Grade Figure 8.3. English word list 14.44 13.57 13.9 Immersion 7.92 6.13 Control 4.69 1 2 3 Grade Figure 8.4. English WRAT skills While letter recognition skills were significantly more advanced for the immersion group in Grades 1 and 2, the control group had caught up to the immersion group by Grade 3 (Figure 8.5). 248 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO 18.52 17.56 17.77 7.52 Immersion 7.1 Control 4.81 1 2 3 Grade Figure 8.5. English letter knowledge skills There were no statistically significant differences between the immersion and control groups in the Chinese character recognition (Figure 8.6), Chinese phonological awareness (Figure 8.7) or Chinese phoneme deletion tasks (Figure 8.8). Nor was there any significant difference between the immersion and control groups in the Chinese vocabulary test. 60.36 60.31 51.7 48.03 26.3 26.04 1 Immersion Control 2 3 Grade Figure 8.6. Chinese character identification skills 18.97 17.28 16.61 13.28 14.9 10.54 Immersion Control 1 2 3 Grade Figure 8.7. Chinese phonological awareness skills Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 249 16.63 15.4 15.55 15.44 15.37 Immersion 13.92 Control 1 2 3 Grade Figure 8.8. Chinese phoneme deletion skills Discussion Two major findings emerged from this study. First, the immersion students scored significantly higher than the control students in the English literacy, vocabulary and oral language measures. These differences existed at each grade level, the only exception being that by the third grade there were no longer any significant differences between the two groups in reading skills. In the third grade, both groups had begun receiving reading instruction, which included teaching on the alphabet and repeated exposure to certain function words; this may have eliminated any difference that existed between the groups in spite of any immersion effect. There was a particularly large difference between the groups in the oral interview measure, indicating that the immersion students were much more able to comprehend and express concepts in English. Previous studies (Turnbull et al., 1998) have found that children enrolled in early immersion programs are better able to speak in the second language than students enrolled in delayed or late immersion programs. As many students in China are especially lacking in functional verbal communication skills, it may be that early immersion provides a good educational alternative because it significantly improves students’ ability to speak in the target language. This could be an advantage in China, where many students are required to focus on grammar drills and the rote learning of rules to pass technical English exams in middle and high school. As a result of this emphasis, students often concentrate their efforts on written English comprehension rather than oral proficiency. Exposure to English instruction at an early age using an interactive, communicative approach may enable students to acquire functional English skills in a meaningful context that promotes the development of oral 250 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO fluency before the need for grammatical accuracy becomes more pressing in middle school. The difference favoring the immersion group occurred in spite of the fact that their language instructors did not have nearnative English ability and taught in the context of a public school where resources are limited. The second major finding of this study was that no difference was observed between the two groups of children in terms of their ability to recognize Chinese characters. Although the English immersion children had studied Chinese characters for the same amount of time as the control students, they had not been exposed to the same amount of Mandarin as their non-immersion peers. One of the principal curriculum objectives for primary school children in China is the mastery of approximately 4,000 characters (Hanley, Tzeng, & Huang, 1999). It is evident from the results of this study that the acquisition of Chinese characters by immersion children had not suffered any ill effects. In fact, their mean score for this task was slightly higher than that of the control group. This suggests that the learning of English in the immersion program is an additive process and does not detract from the acquisition of Chinese character reading skills. Parents may hesitate to enroll their children in immersion programs due to fears that native language development will be impaired. The results of this study support previous studies (Genesee, 1995) which have shown that language immersion students do not experience any long-term deficit in native language skills. The Xian English immersion program is a partial early immersion program. Swain (1996) summarized research conducted on immersion programs in Canada and reported that children in partial immersion programs did not perform as well in French as children in total immersion programs. The decision to introduce a partial English immersion program in Xian was made to ensure that children receive adequate instruction in Chinese characters during their primary school years. Administrators, parents and teachers collectively felt that the partial immersion model provided the most effective way of improving students’ communicative English skills, while maintaining adequate instructional support for Chinese. Traditionally, English has been taught in China through a whole word type of instruction, with very little attention being given to the direct mastery of sound-symbol correspondences. Furthermore, because Chinese is typically parsed at the level of the onset-rime and because Pinyin is taught as onset-rime units (Cheung, Chen, Lai, Wong, & Hills, Teaching English to Chinese-Speaking Children 251 2001), it may be especially appropriate to use this knowledge when teaching English by beginning English literacy instruction with the introduction of rhyming word families (cat, bat, rat). In the present study, the English onset-rime identification task was strongly related to English word identification among immersion students, indicating that a sensitivity to onset-rime units predicted reading success in English. Our observations indicated that the children in the Xian immersion program really enjoyed learning English and were quite eager to speak it with foreigners. Unlike many children, they were not shy and even asked the female members of the observer team what their age was. One mature woman said “25,” and the children laughed. Pronunciation was quite a problem for the children, as they did not have native speaker models. Although one solution to this problem is to use videos, tapes and DVDs, this was not feasible as the material available in English is too advanced for children at this level. They do not yet have the vocabulary required to understand these media. Another solution is the use of tapes made locally by native speakers. This solution, while excellent, does require funding. The teachers really made an effort to speak only English in the classroom. One seven year old boy even asked his Chinese teacher (in Chinese), “if you do not speak Chinese, how come you can understand my Chinese?” Conclusion This was the first study to investigate aspects of early English immersion in a Chinese public primary school. The study found that Chinese children enrolled in an early immersion program in Xian performed significantly better in measures of English oral proficiency, vocabulary and literacy than their non-immersion peers; furthermore, their participation in the immersion program did not have a detrimental effect on their acquisition of Chinese character identification skills. The differences between the immersion and non-immersion groups were especially pronounced in oral proficiency, with the immersion children much more able to understand and speak English. This may be an important advantage for Chinese children, because oral competency is not typically emphasized in Chinese public schools, and many students lack this skill. Children who have participated in immersion programs will most likely begin middle school with better spoken English and comprehension 252 SIEGEL, KNELL, PEI, QIANG, ZHAO & ZHAO skills. Whether these differences continue to be as pronounced once the students attend middle school should be the focus of further study. The learning of Pinyin in first grade by Chinese students and the possible increase in Chinese phonological awareness such learning brings may provide a foundation on which to build English literacy. Teaching methodologies which emphasize sound-symbol correspondences and phonological awareness may be very beneficial for students of this age, and should be the focus of future research. 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