Effects of the Revelational Phonics Approach on Chinese L1 EFL Beginners' Knowledge of the English Alphabetic Principle: Further Evidence from 'Whole Word', 'Single Letter-Sound', and 'Digraph' Reading

本文進行兩種Phonics教學取向對提升臺灣學童「字母─字音對應知識」成效的比較。兩組「家庭社經地位」、「英語基底能力」、「學習熱忱」相當的初學學童，分別接受7堂「額外」的Phonics課程。A組接受以「現行教學取向」理念設計的Phonics課程，B組接受以「揭示取向」理念設計的Phonics課程（Cheng, 2014）。在「設計理念」、「Phonics規則教學順序與步驟」、「教學活動設計」安排上，兩種教學取向存在極大差異。學習成效衡量依循文獻傳統以「讀字表現」為主。實驗結果發現：不論是「全字」、「單一字母─字音規則」、或「二合字母規則」表現上，B組顯著優於A組。本研究呈現更多支持「揭示取向」Phonics教學的有力證據，希望有提供教學單位參考的價值。

關鍵字

英語為外語；字母─字音對應知識；字母─字音轉換

並列摘要

Effects of two phonics courses on Chinese L1 EFL beginner readers' knowledge of the English alphabetic principle were compared. Two groups of children with matched baselines received aphonics course designed with the gist of either the existing phonics practice within Taiwan's Primary English education (the EPP) or the Revelational Phonics Approach (the RPA). Fundamental differences set the two courses apart: (1) the EPP defers the teaching of digraph rules until single letter-sound rules have all been introduced via the 'one English letter to one sound' indoctrination, while the RPA proposes that whenever a single letter-sound rule is taught, digraph rules headed by the letter are also immediately introduced; (2) the EPP follows the teaching steps of segmentation, conversion, and phoneme blending for word reading, while the RPA follows the teaching steps of digraph identification, segmentation, conversion, and phoneme blending for word reading; and (3) the EPP employs 'encoding' activities that tax one's orthographic knowledge, while the RPA employs 'decoding' activities that tax one's knowledge of the alphabetic principle. Results show that the RPA group outperformed the EPP group across the board: on 'whole word', 'single letter-sound', and 'digraph' reading.