Second language vocabulary acquisition through storybook reading for Chinese children

This six-week quasi-experimental study compared the effectiveness of two English storybook reading styles (preview-review reading versus concurrent translation) on the vocabulary development of kindergarteners ( n =50) in China, whose primary language is Chinese, who learn English as a second language. The children (aged 5 to 6) were pretested to evaluate their knowledge of general and targeted words using a researcher-designed instrument tailored to the content of three selected English stories. Validity evidence based on contrasted groups and test-retest reliability had been previously gathered for the 24-word instrument (based on 8 words per story) in a pilot study. The children in the concurrent translation group listened to the English storybook with the reader using both English and Chinese interchangeably to assist children in understanding the story. With the children in the preview-review group, the reader built background knowledge and discussed difficult vocabulary in Chinese before reading the storybook only in English then reinforcing key points in Chinese after reading the storybook. Each of three English stories was read three times by the researcher/reader separately to both groups. Two days after the third reading of each story, children were post-tested on the 8 words associated with that specific story. Total posttest scores, based on combining the three 8-word posttest scores, were compared to the 24-word pretest scores to examine vocabulary gains. Results suggest that both methods of reading English storybooks to Chinese preschoolers were effective. Results also indicate that children in the concurrent translation group performed significantly better than children in the preview-review group, even after initial levels of vocabulary, based on the pretest, were controlled (Cohen’s ƒ 2 = .42, which is considered to be a large effect). Additionally, an Aptitude x Treatment Interaction model was tested, but insufficient evidence was found to suggest that the differential effectiveness of the two methods depended on the child’s initial vocabulary level. Implications for teachers, parents, and early childhood education policymakers are discussed and suggestions for further research are offered