Contextual Cues Used by Young L2 Readers: A Study of Reading English Environmental Print

兒童閱讀環境英文所使用的情境線索

曾月紅(Yueh-Hung Tseng)

《英語教學期刊》 41卷3期 (2017/09) Pp. 65-89

https://doi.org/10.6330/ETL.2017.41.3.03

摘要

Teaching reading readiness in English as the first language (L1) dominates EFL (L2) teaching, with reading being deliberately taught through step-by-step word recognition and grammatical acquisition. However, this overlooks learners' existing knowledge of literacy. This paper investigates emergent EFL literacy in children by studying their reading of English environmental print and examining the contextual cues they use in decoding these. More specifically, the study explores the use of contextual cues by learners from different ethnic backgrounds, places of residence, and proficiency levels. The purpose of this study is to provide teachers with suggestions about reading by students from diverse backgrounds. Data were collected from three elementary schools in different areas of Eastern Taiwan, involving participants from grade one (age 7) to grade six (age 12). The findings suggest that children apply taste, smell, and feel as well as graphic, color, and linguistic cues in reading environmental print. However, children's use of cues tends to vary according to their background. The study also shows that purely language-focused EFL reading cannot benefit all students, particularly those who use multimodal cues other than language. Appropriate help and guidance should therefore be offered to students in order to encourage them to use their own cultural resources. These findings extend earlier findings from L1 (Goodman, 1992) to L2 learners and confirm that all children can read environmental print regardless of their background. The findings also suggest the use of environmental print as a teaching tool on which to build and extend the individual strengths of students.

關鍵字

English environment print ； contextual cues ； emergent L2 literacy

並列摘要

盛行於第一語言準閱讀的觀念主導英語教學，所以閱讀是按部就班的教認字和文法。但是這種觀念忽視學習者既有的知識。本文藉由瞭解兒童如何使用情境線索閱讀環境英文來探究兒童第二語言的讀寫萌發。更具體的是，這研究探討來自不同族群背景、地域、語言能力的學習者如何用情境的線索來閱讀。這研究的目的是對教師提供如何幫助來自不同背景的學生。研究地點是東部地區不同城市的三所小學研究，研究對象是一年級至六年級的學童。研究發現兒童用味覺，嗅覺和感覺的線索，圖形和顏色的線索和語言線索來閱讀。而不同背景、地點、語言能力的兒童使用的線索也不同。研究顯示以語言為主的英語閱讀無法滿足每個學生，尤其是使用語言以外的多模式的線索，所以鼓勵學生使用自己的文化資源是對他們最適切的幫助。這研究發現也將原第一語言的研究(Goodman, 1992)拓展至第二語言，並且說明了不管任何背景，所有兒童都可閱讀環境英文。研究的發現建議在教學中使用環境英文，這樣可以讓學生使用和擴展他們的強項。

並列關鍵字

環境英文 ； 情境線索 ； 第二語言讀寫萌發

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