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Action Research on Parent-Child Co-Learning in Penghu through English Picture Storybooks. 國立澎湖科技大學 通識中心外語組 陳鈺璽 講師. I. Purpose of the Study. The first purpose of this study is to model the process for parents who would like to guide children in reading. Moreover, the investigator
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Action Research on Parent-Child Co-Learning in Penghu through English Picture Storybooks 國立澎湖科技大學 通識中心外語組 陳鈺璽 講師
I. Purpose of the Study The first purpose of this study is to model the process for parents who would like to guide children in reading. Moreover, the investigator would like to examineparents’ and children’s attitudes toward the co-learning after the given co-learning project. Last, from their attitudes, advisable teaching methods and activities are expected to be discovered from this study.
II. Research Questions A. What is the process of EFL parent-child co-learning in children’s books? B. What are the EFL parents’ and children’s attitudestoward the co-learning process after the project? C. What are the advisable teaching methods and activities that help EFL parent-child interactions through co-learningchildren’s books?
III. Literature Review • Whole Language Approach The concept of whole language has been adopted long in New Zealand; later, some of the American experts in reading instruction like Goodman, Harste, and Burke theorized it in the 1980s in the United States. A great number of researchers put efforts in this language theory and applied it in activities in literacy instruction. Goodman (1986) and Niblack (1995) voiced the condition that language learning is effective only when it is in a whole language context.
B. Cooperative Learning Cooperative Learning is a learning strategy that centers working together not only by teacher and students, but also by students themselves. The idea of Cooperative Learning can be traced back to Dewey, who proposed the engagement of students’cooperation in the classroom (1916). Later, in the mid 1960s, D. W. Johnson and R. T. Johnson established Cooperative Learning Center and set up the language teaching approach for Americans.
C. Parent-Child Co-Learning With meaningful interactions in the co-learning, many researchers and experts have attested optimistic effect in parents and their children. Leonora (1981) mentioned that through discussion in reading children’s literature, a child can learn how to adapt himself to a new environment physically and mentally. Bruno (1989) believed that even though the child is an independent reader, the parents should still tell stories to him often because the need for parent-child relationship goes beyond the child’s age.
IV. Research Methodology • Action Research The steps of action research used in this study are summarized as follows: (1) Identification: Choose a topic for action research and determine its purpose and methodology. (2) Collection: Gather sources of information as well as organization and analysis. (3) Evaluation: Evaluate the data analyzed and make improvement for next action research.
B. Setting The classroom is in an elementary school in Magong City in Penghu, with a blackboard, a TV, a CD player, book shelves, a bulletin board, six sets of students’ desks and one set for teaching aids like storybooks and pictures. Hardware equipment, such as a projector and a laptop computer, is in store in the iron saves. Children’s books were displayed on book shelves in the back of the classroom for students’ outside reading. A bulletin board is placed behind for class notice and students’ work presentation. All the students’ desks are arranged in groups, so that the investigator can easily conduct classroom activities in groups. Also, such desk arrangement saves much space as the investigator may walk around the groups.
C. Participants The participants are parents and children in eight pairs. Among the participants, there are eight parents and twelve children. All of the parents are female. The parents are aged thirty-nine in average, with two of them master’s degree, five with bachelor’s degree, and one with senior high school educational background. One of the parents had an English major. Four of the parents are housekeepers, one in education, one in business, one in service, and one in free lance. As for children, four of them are in the first grade, four in the second grade, two in the third grade, and two in the fourth grade. They are aged eight in average.
D. Course Design The program was designed for thirteen weeks, from March 17, 2010 to June 9, 2010. Six picture storybooks (No, David! Bear Hunt, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Handa’s Surprise, Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?The Little Red Hen) were used throughout warm-up, presentation, practice, and activities. Each week lasted for two periods.
E. Instruments (1) Field notes Field notes were recorded for each class, where the investigator kept track of what he observes from the co-learning process. The field notes included parents’ and children’s responses, feedback, difficulties, interactions with each other, and things worth notice. Field notes served as a short diary of feelings from the investigator.
(2) Questionnaires Two sets of questionnaires were employed in this study. The first one was the survey, and the other was the oral interview. Some of the questions above were developed by the investigator himself, and some others are adapted from other studies (Lin, 2001; Tsai, 2004; Wei, 2005). All of the questions were first examined and revised by two pairs of parents and their children, who were not the participants, to modify the unsuitable question expressions.
V. Findings and Discussions • Process of Parent-Child Co-Learning (1) Children Over half of the children expressed positive response to the survey items. All the children said they strongly agreed or agreed on interactions like “guessing stories with the class,” (N=12) “answering my teacher’s questions,” (N=12) “trying to speak in simple English,” (N=12) and “asking my teacher word meanings in stories,” (N=12). Only three of the children chose disagree on items “asking my teacher questions about stories” and “actively participating in front of the class.”
(2) Parents According to the investigator’s observation, the three things that parents would do to interact with their children are listed below: (a) Guiding children in shared reading (b) Providing assistance for children’s participation (c) Giving positive reinforcement on the worksheets
B. Parents’ and Children’s Attitudes toward the Co-Learning Interactions (1) Children Nine out of the twelve children supported the idea that the program made them enjoy learning English with their parents. Likewise, most of them (N=9) felt attending the class with their parents did not make them nervous. Indeed, studies have proved the positive effect of parents’ involvement on children’s learning, which lessens the frequency of their behavioral problems (McNeal, 2001; Wu, 2002). In this study, children interacted with their parents naturally in the program.
(2) Parents At least six out of the eight parents agreed that the program made them enjoy (N=7) and realize (N=6) the ways to learn with their children. Most of the parents disagreed that learning English with children is tiresome (N=6).
C. Parents’ and Children’s Suggestions for Co- LearningProgram (1) Children A majority of children stated that they hoped for more stories from the teacher (N=9), more time for story discussions (N=11), more activities in class (N=11), more English vocabulary or sentences (N=12), more opportunities to speak English (N=9) and to write English (N=10). Eight out of the twelve chose strongly agree or agree to have more teaching hours.
(2) Parents Over half of the parents agreed with the suggestions of telling more stories (N=7), having more time for story discussions (N=7), having more activities in class (N=5), teaching more English vocabulary or sentences (N=8), having more opportunities for children to speak English (N=8) and to write English (N=5). Different from their children, the only exception is having more teaching hours, which over half of the parents disagreed on (N=5).
VI. Conclusions and Recommendations • Conclusions 1. Parents shifted their roles while learning with children 2. Co-learning program made parents and children love stories 3. Co-learning program becomes more feasible through sharing children’s books
B. Recommendations 1. For teachers (1) Variety of activities should be adapted for a multi-leveled class (2) Communication with parents should be made on language performance 2. For parents (1) Co-learning environment should be provided for children (2) Parents should be aware of child’s own learning pace
