Teaching English Through English in Elementary Schools: An Analysis of Teaching Strategies, Learner Attitude, and Learning Outcome

• Main Authors: Yi-Chun Lin, 林怡均
• Other Authors: Yen-Liang Lin
• Format: Others
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/nc5fxk

碩士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 應用英文系碩士班 === 105 === Using English as an instructional language is often considered as one of the most effective ways to provide learners with sufficient exposure to the target language and abundant opportunities for learners to use the language. Despite the premises and promises of using English as an instructional language, however, findings from empirical research often indicate the opposite. Although increasingly large numbers of studies have looked at English as medium of instruction (EMI) courses at tertiary and secondary school levels, not many of them have focused on teaching English through English (TETE) in elementary schools. This study aims to investigate language teaching strategies employed in TETE classes as well as leaners’ attitudes towards them, and further examine the extent to which TETE has influenced English learning outcome. To this end, two classes of third-graders in an elementary school were recruited as participants, with the experimental group receiving a 10-week TETE course (30 classes in total) and the control group receiving regular classes with half English and half Chinese as instructional languages. All the classes during the 10-week were video-recorded and transcribed for further discourse analysis. Pre- and post-tests on English listening and words and sentence writing were given to both groups of participants immediately before and after the 10-week TETE classes. Questionnaires on learner attitude towards TETE from the experimental group were conducted at the end of the course. The analytical framework proposed by Thomson (2012) and Díaz-Rico (2012) was used to analyze the language teaching strategies, including drilling, eliciting, modeling of target language, elaborated input, and vocabulary checks. The data collected were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results showed that there was no significant differences regarding students’ improvement on the pre- and post-tests between the experimental and control groups. With regard to the teaching strategies, more “eliciting,” “modeling of activities,” “elaborated input,” and “use of clarification checks” were used in TETE, while more "error correction" was in the regular class. With respect to learners’ attitude towards TETE, the majority of students have a positive attitude towards TETE and ninety percent of learners thought learning English in TETE is interesting. Based on the findings, some pedagogical implications and suggestions for implementing TETE are provided.