1-An Investigation of English
1-An Investigation of English
Volume 41
Issue 2 Spring 2012
Liying Cheng
Faculty of Education, Queen's University, Canada
John R. Kirby
Faculty of Education, Queen's University, Canada
Recommended Citation
Li, Miao; Cheng, Liying; and Kirby, John R. (2012). Phonological Awareness and Listening Comprehension Among Chinese English-
Immersion Students. International Education, Vol. 41 Issue (2).
Retrieved from: http://trace.tennessee.edu/internationaleducation/vol41/iss2/4
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in
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PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS AND LISTENING
COMPREHENSION AMONG CHINESE
ENGLISH-IMMERSION STUDENTS
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
46 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Phonological Awareness and Listening Comprehension Among
Chinese English-Immersion Students
demic learning and overall success in this language learning. The present study
investigates the relationship between listening comprehension and phonological
awareness in Chinese English-immersion students. Phonological awareness is a
meta-linguistic skill— showing a sensitivity to the sound components of spoken
words and the ability to manipulate those components. Phonological awareness is
a powerful predictor of reading success, and we will argue that it may be a predic-
tor of listening comprehension. We have also examined cross-linguistic transfer
of phonological awareness to listening comprehension in Chinese English-im-
mersion students.
SPRING 2012 47
LI , CHENG & KI RBY
programs in other countries do. Thus, Chinese English-immersion programs did not
adopt the entire model of French immersion programs but rather only the concept
underlying immersion programs in which some non-language subjects are taught in
L2. For example, subjects taught in English include English language arts, science,
and social studies. The teaching of physical education, art, and music in English or
Chinese varies in different immersion programs according to the available teacher
resources. Chinese and mathematics are taught in Chinese.
English immersion programs have been running in China for over ten years;
however, little empirical research has been conducted to examine the students’
cognitive processes of learning in the programs. Recently, Li, Kirby, and Georgiou
(2011) examined development of rapid automatized naming (RAN) components
(i.e. articulation time and pause time) in English and Chinese, and their relation-
ship to English reading comprehension, in Chinese English immersion students at
Grades 2, 4 and 6. They found that all component times decreased with grade level,
but the decrease in English pause time between Grades 2 and 4 was the greatest.
Only English pause time explained variance in English reading comprehension in
Grade 6. Little evidence of cross-language transfer from Chinese RAN components
to English reading comprehension existed, and the authors suggested that the ef-
fect of RAN is specific to the automaticity of the actual visual-verbal codes, which
is language-specific. Another study by Knell et al. (2007) investigated the effec-
tiveness of the early English immersion program and the students’ cognitive pro-
cesses of English literacy in Xi’an, China. After giving English immersion students
measures of Chinese and English word identification, phonological awareness, and
vocabulary, as well as English oral proficiency and letter name knowledge, Knell
et al. found that phonological awareness and letter name knowledge significantly
predicted English word identification for immersion students.
To our knowledge, no research so far has examined the cognitive processes of
listening comprehension of English immersion students in China. Therefore, the
exploration of the students’ cognitive processes of English listening comprehen-
sion in immersion programs can improve our understanding of English learning in
English-immersion students in China, and it can also provide better information for
educators and researchers aiming to improve English learning in other countries
whose L1 is not English.
48 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Phonological Awareness and Listening Comprehension Among
Chinese English-Immersion Students
even when other factors, such as phonological awareness and vocabulary, are con-
trolled (Hagtvet, 2003; Nation & Snowling, 2004).
Although listening comprehension and reading comprehension share simi-
larities, there are differences between them. One distinction is that text content
stays present in reading, whereas it disappears quickly in listening (Kirby & Sav-
age, 2008); if one has not grasped an idea after reading a passage, one can go back
and look at it again, but it is much more difficult when one has only heard the text.
Therefore, in L1 learning, listeners may rely more on top-down processing, in
which prior knowledge and higher-level skills are used to build a framework for
comprehension, because listeners recall more main ideas as the listening material
disappears quickly (Vandergrift, 2004). In contrast, readers may depend more on
bottom-up processing, in which meanings are built from letters or words up to
understanding because readers can attend to more details as the text remains pres-
ent (Lund, 1991).
In L2 learning, the relationship between listening comprehension and reading
comprehension may not be the same as in L1 learning; reading competence tends
to develop much more rapidly than listening comprehension in L2 because indi-
vidual words can be perceived more clearly in print and can be consulted again
and again and because L2 students often learn to read before they have access to
authentic listening input (Lund, 1991). Unlike L1 listeners who are able to process
listening materials automatically and efficiently with little conscious attention to
details of individual words, L2 listeners have to consciously focus on the details
of the material to which they are listening (Segalowitz, 2003; Vandergrift, 2004,
2007). Because L2 learners have lower language proficiency in their L2 than in
their L1, the top-down processing that they would normally apply in L1 listening
comprehension may change to bottom-up processing in their early stages of L2
learning (Davis & Bistodeau, 1993; Lund, 1991). This means L2 listeners may
perform listening comprehension by paying more conscious attention at the word
level before progressing up to higher levels.
Listening comprehension remains the least researched area of the four lan-
guage skills, not only due to its implicit nature but also as a result of the difficulty
in observing comprehension processes. Research into L2 listening comprehension
from the perspective of students’ cognitive processes will provide us with a better
understanding of the relationship between L2 listening comprehension and cogni-
tive development and thus has implications for immersion education.
SPRING 2012 49
LI , CHENG & KI RBY
et al., 1993, 1997). Phonological awareness (PA) is the ability both to recognize
that spoken words can be broken down into sound units and also to talk about,
reflect upon, and manipulate those units (Adams, 1990; Kirby, Parrila, & Pfeiffer,
2003; Wagner et al., 1997). Researchers concede that PA is a powerful predictor
of early reading development and is causally related to reading ability. In one of
the most cited publications in the study of the process of learning to read, Ad-
ams (1990) proposed that PA is also associated with reading comprehension. In a
meta-analysis evaluating the effects of PA instruction on learning to read, Ehri et
al. (2001) summarized 52 studies to conclude that PA instruction benefits not only
word reading but also reading comprehension because reading comprehension
depends on effective word reading. With regards to the relationship between PA
and reading development, Wagner et al. (1997) indicated that the relationship be-
tween these two variables is bidirectional: Individual differences in PA influence
the development of individual differences in reading development, and reading
development also influences the development of PA.
Although the relationship between PA and written language processing (i.e.,
reading) is well-established, the relation between PA and spoken language (i.e.,
listening comprehension) is not as clear. Does spoken language experience con-
tribute to the ability to analyze spoken sounds? Does PA have an impact on spo-
ken language comprehension?
Researchers have recently begun to investigate the relationship between PA
and listening comprehension, attempting to link PA not only to written but also to
spoken language (e.g., Caravolas & Bruck, 1993; Cheung, 2007; Cheung, Chen,
Lai, Wong, & Hills, 2001). These authors have compared the phonological skills
of children who speak languages differing along certain phonological dimensions
that should influence how speech sounds are explicitly organized. For example,
after completing a study that compared the PA of children from three different
linguistic backgrounds on their PA, Cheung et al. (2001) concluded that spoken
language has an effect on the development of PA. After comparing the perfor-
mance of Czech- with English-speaking children on certain PA tasks, Caravolas
and Bruck (1993) came to the same conclusion— that spoken language plays a
role in PA development.
Likewise, PA makes a contribution to the development of spoken language.
Cheung (2007) suggested that PA is associated with listening and reading com-
prehension because PA “provides an informational space for the phonological in-
formation derived from listening and reading to register in a common format” (p.
151). As PA is the ability to analyze spoken language into its component sounds
and manipulate these smaller units, this ability is expected to exert an impact on
spoken language processing. Listeners need to parse streams of speech sounds
into words quickly so that they can retrieve the meanings of the words and then
construct the meaning of sentences (e.g., Salwen & Stacks, 1996). A listener’s sen-
sitivity to sound units facilitates retrieving the right words, although these words
may have similar sounds to other words, thus enabling the listener to retrieve the
50 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
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LI , CHENG & KI RBY
hension, the Chinese (L1) and mathematics achievement scores were controlled
because they are the result of a broad range of background factors, including IQ,
vocabulary, learning strategies, working memory, general prior achievement, and
so on. PA is related to sound structure, and students need to listen to sounds of
words first in order to mentally recognize the words’ meanings before they can
comprehend; therefore, we hypothesize that PA will predict listening comprehen-
sion in the current study. We are also interested in examining the effects of con-
trolling various factors on the relations between PA and listening comprehension.
We expect the effects to run in both directions. In other words, we hypothesize
that spoken language recognition influences PA and that the ability to compre-
hend spoken language is affected by PA. We are also interested in whether PA in
Chinese is transferred to English. The present study is the first attempt to investi-
gate the bidirectional relationship between PA and listening comprehension and
to look for cross-linguistic phonological transfer from Chinese to English. We
address two research questions in this study: (1) How are PA and listening com-
prehension in English (L2) related? (2) Is there cross-linguistic transfer from PA
in Chinese (L1) to listening comprehension in English (L2)?
METHOD
Participants
Ninety-five Chinese students (48 in Grade 2 and 47 in Grade 4) from English
immersion programs participated in this study. Students were recruited with pa-
rental permission from three schools in three Chinese cities— Dongguan, Guang-
zhou, and Xi’an. Approximately equal numbers of males and females and ap-
proximately equal numbers from each class were randomly selected.
PA Measures
English Sound Detection (James, 1996, adapted from Bryant & Bradley,
1985). Two individually-administered tests of initial sound detection and final
sound detection in English developed by James (1996), adapted from Bryant and
Bradley (1985), were administered to assess the English PA (onset-rhyme aware-
ness) of English immersion students. The tests include two practice items and ten
test items in each of initial and final sound detection. The test pattern is similar
to those on the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP) (Wag-
ner, Torgesen, and Rashotte, 1999). Previous research has demonstrated that the
number of items is adequate to measure students’ PA. A native English speaker
recorded all the items on a CD in English, and the time interval between items
was fixed at five seconds. During testing, the tester and the student each used
headphones so as not to be influenced by environmental noises. The tester asked
each student to listen to the CD with headphones. In each practice item, four
words were presented orally, and the student was asked to indicate which one of
the words began with a different sound from the other three words. The student
52 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
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Chinese English-Immersion Students
responded by pointing to one of four options on an answer sheet, which had the
numerals, 1, 2, 3, and 4 in separate squares, each representing one of the four
words in one item. For example, after listening to rot, rod, rock, and box, the stu-
dent was expected to choose option 4 on the answer sheet, referring to the fourth
word box. Once the student finished the two practice items and was familiar with
the test, the student was given the 10 test items. Similarly, in English final sound
detection, the student was asked to choose which one of four words ended with a
different sound from the other three words. The total of the initial and final sound
detection scores was termed English PA. The reliability coefficients of English
PA in Grades 2 and 4 were .84 and .64, respectively. The score was the number of
correct answers, and all students’ scores were marks of correct answers out of 20.
Chinese Sound Detection. The Chinese initial and final sound detection tests
developed by Liao, Georgiou, & Parrila (2008) were adapted and administered
to each student to assess Chinese PA (onset-rhyme awareness). Monosyllabic
Chinese words were used in the task. Tones of syllables were controlled so that
all four syllables in each item were in the same tone. There were ten initial sound
detection items and 10 final sound detection items, each preceded by two practice
items. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients in Liao et al.’s study were .83 for Grade
2 and .62 for Grade 4, which were acceptable. All the items were recorded on a
CD in Mandarin by a native Chinese speaker, and the interval between items was
fixed again at five seconds. The same procedure used in the English sound detec-
tion tests was used in the Chinese sound detection tests.
Chinese Tone Detection. Because Chinese is a tonal language in which a
change in tone always changes the meaning of a syllable (Ho & Bryant, 1997),
tone awareness is an additional facet of Chinese PA (Li, Anderson, Nagy, &
Zhang, 2002). An individually-administered tone-detection test adapted from that
developed by Liao, et al (2008) was administered to all participants. Two practice
items and 10 test items were given. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients in Liao et
al.’s study were .71 for Grade 2 and .65 for Grade 4. The same procedure used
in the English and Chinese sound detection tests was used here. A further score,
termed Chinese PA, was created by adding the scores of Chinese sound detection
and Chinese tone. Chinese PA measure has three tasks (initial sound detection,
final sound detection, and tone detection) which had 30 items in total, but English
PA measure has only two tasks (initial sound detection and final sound detec-
tion), which had 20 items altogether. The reliability coefficients of Chinese PA in
Grades 2 and 4 were .88 and .78. The score was the number of correct answers and
all students’ scores were marks of correct answers out of 30.
Outcome Measures
English Listening Comprehension Measures (Cambridge Young Learn-
ers English (YLE) Listening). The Cambridge Young Learners English (YLE)
tests for Listening were employed to assess English listening comprehension. The
Cambridge YLE test is one of the most popular tests of English for speakers of
SPRING 2012 53
LI , CHENG & KI RBY
other languages throughout the world; in 2002, the tests were taken by approxi-
mately 260,000 children in 55 countries, and these numbers are said to be increas-
ing rapidly (Cambridge ESOL, 2003). The YLE listening tests are written group-
administered tests which take 20 minutes (Starters) for Grade 2 and 25 minutes
(Movers) for Grade 4 students. The test includes four sections with 20 items at
Grade 2 level and five sections with 25 items at Grade 4 level. Responses to short
dialogues in the listening test include drawing lines, selecting, matching and col-
oring (Cambridge ESOL, 2007). The reliability coefficients of English listening
in Grades 2 and 4 were .67 and .82 in these samples.
Control Measures
Chinese Achievement. School-issued achievement tests in Chinese from three
different schools were employed to measure students’ L1 achievement. Although
there were different tests in different schools, the content of the tests was similar
at each grade level. Pinyin identification, writing Chinese characters, making up
sentences, and reading comprehension were included, and the percentage for each
section varied across grades. All students’ scores were based on a 100-point scale.
Mathematics Achievement in Chinese. School-issued achievement tests in
mathematics in three different schools were employed to assess and control the
group differences. The content of the mathematics tests was similar across schools
in each grade. Both grades had sections on addition, subtraction, and logic, but the
percentage for each section varied across grades. All students’ scores were based on
a 100-point scale.
Procedure
The school-issued achievement tests in Chinese and mathematics were admin-
istered at the end of the last term of the previous academic year. The other tests were
administered by our research group. The Cambridge YLE for Listening was admin-
istered to all students before the individual PA and NS tests. The English PA and NS
testing sessions were approximately 15 minutes in length, and the Chinese sessions
were 20 minutes. Both were administered by four testers who were fluent in both
English and Chinese. The two testing sessions were conducted consecutively. Half
of the students received the English PA tests first and the Chinese PA tests second,
whereas the other half of the students received the Chinese PA tests first and the
English PA tests second.
RESULTS
Descriptive Statistics
The means and standard deviations of raw scores of all predictors, control mea-
sures, and outcome measures of English-immersion students in Grades 2 and 4 are
shown in Table 1. We mentioned that the Chinese and mathematics achievement
measures were issued by the three schools in Grade 2 and in Grade 4. Although the
54 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
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Chinese English-Immersion Students
curriculum of the three schools and the content of the measures of Chinese achieve-
ment and mathematics achievement were similar, the tests are not the same across
schools within grade, which means that they cannot be included in the same analysis
unless standardized scores based on sample means for each grade are calculated.
Therefore, the raw scores of each school at the two grade levels were converted
to standardized scores separately in the following data analyses. Measures whose
skewness or kurtosis values fell outside of the acceptable range (i.e., the absolute
value of Skewness/SE or Kurtosis/SE >3.09) were transformed according to the
guidelines provided by Tabachnick and Fidell (2007). Square root, logarithmic,
and inverse transformations were applied as appropriate. All transformed measures
were within acceptable range.
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LI , CHENG & KI RBY
PA = Phonological Awareness
**p < .01, *p < .05
In the second analysis (see Table 3, steps 1, 2A, and 3A), Chinese and math-
ematics achievement were again entered first into the regression equation at step
1. Chinese PA was entered in the second step to control for L1 PA. This model
accounted for a further 40% and 10% of the variance in English PA in Grade 2
and Grade 4, respectively. Then in the third step, English listening comprehension
was entered and it significantly predicted a further 7% of the variance in English
PA in Grade 4.
56 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Phonological Awareness and Listening Comprehension Among
Chinese English-Immersion Students
forced into the regression equation at the final step 3. English listening compre-
hension was the dependent variable. In a second analysis, the order of steps 2 and
3 was reversed.
In the first analysis (See Table 4, steps 1, 2, and 3.), the results indicate that
English PA significantly predicted English listening comprehension and explained
a further 11% and 14% of the variance in English listening comprehension in
Grades 2 and 4, respectively. However, Chinese PA did not add further significant
variance to English listening comprehension after English PA.
In the second analysis (See Table 4, steps 1, 2A, and 3A.), Chinese PA sig-
nificantly accounted for a further 13% and 11% of the variance in English listen-
ing comprehension in Grades 2 and 4, respectively. The most striking part of
this analysis is that English PA still added an extra 8% of the variance to English
listening comprehension beyond that contributed by Chinese PA in Grade 4, but
not in Grade 2. This demonstrates that English PA is a unique predictor of Eng-
lish listening comprehension in Grade 4 even if Chinese (L1) and mathematics
achievement and Chinese (L1) PA are controlled.
DISCUSSION
This study investigates the relationship between English PA and English lis-
tening comprehension and further explores the evidence for cross-linguistic trans-
fer of PA for Chinese English-immersion students.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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