A Study On The Influence Of English Phonics Learning On Chinese Children’s Phonological Awareness In Chinese And English

Background:Phonological awareness is the ability of individual language to communicate with each other at different phonological levels and to process phonological imagery.It is a special group of metalinguistic skills,through which children can decode the acquired language,reflecting their sensitivity to the structure of speech.Language transfer refers to the influence of similarities and differences between the target language and any other acquired(or not fully acquired)language.From the perspective of phonological awareness,this study investigates the influence of natural spelling on phonological awareness of Chinese and English children aged 6-9 years and the possible phenomenon of transfer.Method:In this study,70 Chinese children aged 6-9 in an English school in Xi’an were selected as subjects.The first study explored the effects of natural spelling(short-term:0-18 months;medium-term:19-30 months;long-term:more than 30 months)on Chinese and English phonological awareness.Among them,the English phonological awareness test includes the real word part-the sight word part and the false word part-the phonemic decoding task;the Chinese phonological awareness task includes the onset deletion task,the rime deletion task and the phoneme deletion task.Study 2 conducted a three-month English natural spelling phonetics training for the study subjects.Through repeated tests on learners’Chinese and English phonological awareness after the training,the study explored the influence of English natural spelling training on the development of learners’English phonological awareness in different school hours.Study 3 explores the relationship between natural spelling hours and phonological awareness in Chinese and English.Results:(l)Study 1(a):The influence of natural spelling on Chinese children’s phonological awareness in different school hours has been gradually improved(false word task accuracy rate:16.6%,23.1%,34.5%;true word task accuracy rate:18.7%,21.5%,37.3%).Study 1(b):Natural spelling in English at different school hours had no effect on Chinese phonological awareness of Chinese children(correct rate of initial deletion task:69.9%,65.6%,79.2%;correct rate of vowel deletion task:68.4%,64.1%,69.1%;correct rate of phoneme deletion task:75.7%,75.2%,81.6%).(2)Study 2(a):After natural spelling training,the learners’English phonological awareness has a downward trend(false word task:12.9%,6.5%,6.0%;real word task:7.3%,6.3%,5.1%).Study 2(b):After the training of natural spelling in English,Chinese children’s phonological awareness was improved(the correct rate of initial deletion task was 22.1%,23.4%,13.7%;the correct rate of vowel deletion task was 14.0%,17.6%,11.3%;and the correct rate of phoneme deletion task was 20.6%,17.6%,14.9%).(3)Study 3:English natural spelling hours are significantly correlated with the development of English phonological awareness,but not with Chinese phonological awareness.Conclusions:(1)English natural spelling learning promotes the development of Chinese children’s English phonological awareness;(2)English natural spelling learning has the possibility and tendency of transferring Chinese phonological awareness;(3)The critical period of the influence of English natural spelling learning on English phonological awareness occurs in the initial period of English natural spelling learning,and there is no critical period of phonological transfer.