A Follow-up Study Of The Influence Of Different Text Presentation Forms On The Reading Of Foreign Students

As a result of the incongruity between the pronunciation of Chinese characters and their orthography many foreign students are unable to glean the proper pronunciation from seeing the Chinese characters.This creates great difficulty for these students in reading and then speaking the Chinese they have just read.For many years,in the primary learning stage,pinyin,a Romanization of Chinese characters' sounds,has been used as a spelling tool for the pronunciation of Chinese characters.In Chinese textbooks the text of pinyin coinciding with Chinese characters can help foreign students to learn pronunciation of the words and better recognize the meaning of the text.With improvement in Chinese proficiency,foreign students can gradually rely less on the pinyin and learn the Chinese characters as written.However,there is no empirical support on how effectively pinyin plays a role in Chinese language learning,when it plays the best role,or even when it is not important.In addition,the Chinese characters in textbooks are also presented in two forms;with or without interword spacing,the space between words.To determine the influence of interword spacing on foreign students' Chinese reading ability,15 native English speakers from Scotland who were learning Chinese as a second language participated in an experiment,using eye tracking technology.This study was conducted in four stages,at three month intervals,with each stage presenting text in a different form: pinyin with spaced text,pinyin with non-spaced text,character with spaced text and character natural(non-spaced)text.These experiment stages were labeled: stage 1,stage 2,stage 3 and stage 4,try to be a one-year follow-up study.The study found:(1)In almost all experiment stages,the total reading time,mean fixation duration and other indicators of pinyin with spaced text(ps)were shorter than that of Chinese character spaced text(s);mean fixation duration,mean saccade amplitude,forward saccade amplitude,backward saccade amplitude,and the total reading time in pinyin with non-spaced text(pu)were all shorter than those in natural text(u),indicating that pinyin was able to better facilitate Chinese reading.Moreover,the pinyin effect between “ps” and “s” was generally smaller than that between “pu” and “u”,and the degree of effect was highlighted in the indicators;such as mean saccade amplitude,forward saccade amplitude,and backward saccade amplitude.This was caused by the visual correspondence of inter-word in pinyin and Chinese text on “ps” and “s”.However,partial analysis results showed that,whether considering first fixation duration and gaze time in the early stage or the total fixation time in the late stage,“ps” was shorter than “s”,and “pu” was shorter than “u” in all test stages,which clearly showed the effect that pinyin has in facilitating vocabulary recognition in Chinese reading for primary level students.In addition,the total reading time of “pu” was basically the same as those of “u” in the fourth stage,which indicates that in the latter period of the primary stage,the promotion effects of pinyin on Chinese reading ability of foreign students disappears,and foreign students gradually rely less on pinyin.(2)Analysis of the data shows that in almost all stages,when “s” was compared with “u”,the mean fixation duration was shorter and the mean saccade amplitude was greater.The differing results was determined by indicators such as the total reading time.The differences were caused by the fact that interword spacing in the “s” condition increased the physical length of sentences.Compared with the local analysis results,in the first two stages,the total fixation duration and first fixation duration of “s” were both shorter than those in the “u”.It strongly indicates that interword spacing had no effect on the overall reading and promoted the vocabulary recognition of those early foreign students in the study.However,in particular analysis,it was found that in the last two stages,the first fixation duration and total fixation duration of “s” are basically consistent with those of “u”,further indicating that in the last two stages of the test,the promoting effect of interword spacing on the reading ability of the study's subjects disappeared.(3)In almost all experiment stages,the total reading time and fixation counts in the “ps” were nearly identical to those in “pu”,and the mean fixation duration,mean saccade amplitude,forward saccade amplitude and backward saccade amplitude of “ps” was bigger than “pu”.It seems to be so because interword spacing in the “ps” condition increases the physical length of sentences.In addition,the particular analysis,in all stages,when compared with “pu”,“ps” had basically no difference in the indicators analyzed,such as first fixation duration,gaze duration and total fixation duration.It showed that in text including pinyin and Chinese characters,the presence or absence of interword spacing did not affect the reading of the foreign students,and a textbook can be written in either of the two styles.The conclusions of the study inspire us to consider,in actual teaching practice,teachers should be aware of the how interword spacing formation between pinyin and Chinese character words changes the ability of students to read more effectively in the primary learning stage.Teachers should adopt different teaching methods and teaching strategies,consciously helping students gradually depend less on pinyin,making proper use of interword spacing teaching materials,and guide students to become familiar with non-spaced forms of text and be better able to accomplish free reading.