重新思考台灣國小一年級的英語課程：以發展語音覺識取代字母教學

Rethinking Taiwan’s Grade One English Curriculum: A “Sound” Alternative to Early Teaching of the Alphabet

斯婁福(Rolf Zapparoli)

指導教授 ： 蘇怡如

國立清華大學/人文社會學院/外國語文學系/碩士(2006年)

https://doi.org/10.6843/NTHU.2006.00082

摘要

從研究者在台灣國小教授英文的經驗發現，許多一年級的學生覺得英文很難，特別是與字母有關的教學活動。研究者試圖從字母識字的發展與年齡和第二語言習得的關係的研究文獻中找尋可以解釋孩童字母學習困難的原因。根據這些文獻，研究者對現行的國小一年級的英語課程有三項建議：（一）字母教學應延後一或二年，（二）小一課程應以發展語音覺識為主，（三）小一的英語教學應以非正式課程的方式進行。
根據以上建議，本研究試圖發展一個以發展語音覺識為主的教學法並測試不用字母教授語音覺識技能的可行性。本研究的兩組小一學生來自一所位於北台灣的公立小學，實驗時間是一個學期。控制組以教字母為主的傳統教學法授課，實驗組以發展語音覺識的教學法授課。兩組各施予語音覺識技能的前測與後測以評估語音覺識的能力是否有進步。實驗組在後測中有明顯的進步，顯示不用字母教授語音覺識技能是可行的。另外，實驗組中字母知識較差的學生比較好的學生，在語音覺識技能的進步更多，更證明不用字母教授語音覺識技能是可行的。雖然實驗組在語音覺識上有明顯的進步，但進步的幅度與控制組沒有顯著的差別。可能的原因包括實驗的時間太短，以致於實驗組的進步沒有預期中比控制組大的多。若新教學法的內容能再充實，相信將來可以在台灣的小學實施。本論文亦討論新教學法的內容細節。

關鍵字

音韻感知 ； 國小 ； 英語教學 ； 英語學習 ； 課程設計 ； 年齡與第二外語習得 ； 識字能力

並列摘要

From firsthand experience as an English teacher in a public elementary school in Taiwan, the researcher observed that many grade one students had difficulty with the subject matter, and especially with tasks related to the alphabet. A review of the literature on alphabetic literacy development and the relationship between age and second language acquisition was undertaken to try to identify the theoretical basis of the observed difficulties. Three major recommendations for changes to the traditional grade one English curriculum arose from this review of literature: (a) teaching of the alphabet should be postponed until later grades, (b) explicit training in English phonological awareness (PA) skills should be offered, and (c) less formal instructional techniques should be employed. The current study seeks to develop an alternative grade one English curriculum based on these recommendations and to empirically test the feasibility of training PA skills without recourse to the alphabet. Two intact first grade classes at a public elementary school in northern Taiwan participated in the study, which lasted for the first semester of grade one. The control group received traditional English instruction and the experimental group received instruction according to the proposed curriculum. Pre- and posttests of PA were administered to both groups in order to gauge improvements in PA skills over the period. Significant improvements for the experimental group on all PA tasks indicate that training in PA skills can be effective even without reference to an alphabetic script. Corroboration of this finding is available from the fact that students in the experimental group who entered first grade with low levels of alphabetic knowledge improved more in PA skills over the period than did students who possessed high levels of such knowledge. A comparison of PA test scores for the two groups showed that while the experimental group did evidence a tendency to improve more in terms of PA test scores, no statistically significant difference existed between the groups. While this indicates that the proposed curriculum is at least as effective as the traditional one at stimulating improvements in PA skills, confounding variables such as the shortness of the treatment period likely prevented the experimental group’s advantage from reaching significance. It is suggested that with further refinement this approach has promise for future application in Taiwanese public elementary schools. Details of the curriculum developed for this study are also discussed.

並列關鍵字

phonological awareness ； elementary school ； teaching English ； learning English ； curriculum design ； age and second language acquisition ； alphabetic literacy

參考文獻

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