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TRANSCRIPT
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
International Journal of Research In Social Sciences © 2013 IJRSS & K.A.J. All rights reserved www.ijsk.org/ijrss
1
A STUDY OF TAIWANESE EFL TERTIARY LEVEL STUDENTS’
CHINESE AND ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS ON THEIR
ENGLISH PROFICIENCY
Young-Hsiang Cheng1 , Shu-Chu Chen2*
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan1
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan2*
[email protected] ; [email protected]*, corresponding author
ABSTRACT
This study aims to investigate the role of Chinese and English phonological awareness on EFL students’
English proficiency. A hundred and fifty EFL tertiary level freshmen participated in the study by taking Chinese and
English phonological awareness tests, and TOEIC test. The results of Pearson correlation and multiple regression
analyses showed that learners’ performance in English phonological awareness tests had high correlation with that
of their TOEIC Test, and it contributed 58.4 % variance to English TOEIC. Chinese phonological awareness test
had moderate relationship with TOEIC, but contributed only 5.8 % variance of TOEIC test. Also, learners’ L1
Chinese phonological awareness test scores had moderate relationship with that of their L2 English phonological
awareness test. Finally, learners’ English proficiency had significant influence on both English and Chinese
phonological awareness performance.
Keywords: Phonological Awareness, TOEIC, English Proficiency
1. INTRODUCTION
Phonological awareness is defined as the ability to
attend to and manipulate the sound structure of
languages, and low performance of phonological
awareness is significantly related to poor language
proficiency, spelling (Chen & Chien, 2002; Hu,
2004; Jian, 2004), vocabulary learning (Dixon, Stuart
& Masterson, 2002; Hu, 2003; Wang, Koda, &
Perfetti, 2003) and early reading skills (Bialystok,
Luk, & Kwan, 2005; Chol, Ko, & Wang, 2009;
Chiappe, Siegel & Wade-Woodley, 2002; Clare,
Canobi, & Faulkner, 2004; Ho & Keung, 2008;
Muter & Diethelm, 2001). The relationship between
learners' phonological awareness and reading literacy
is more complex if the influence of learners' native
language is considered. Many studies (Durgunoglu,
Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Muter & Diethelm,
2001) on language transfer have demonstrated a close
relationship between L1 phonological awareness and
L2 reading proficiency within two alphabetic
languages like Spanish and English. However, the
transfer effect from a non-alphabetic L1 to an
alphabetic L2 is fewer and unclear. In addition, most
L2 studies (Chen, 2009; Lee, 2006; Wu, 2010)
explored young readers' phonological awareness.
Comparatively less research focuses on adult EFL
learners' phonological awareness and L2 reading. In
order to fill in the gap, the researcher investigated the
role of EFL learners' L1 (i.e. Chinese) and English
phonological awareness on their English reading
performance. The research questions of this study are
listed as follows:
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
International Journal of Research In Social Sciences © 2013 IJRSS & K.A.J. All rights reserved www.ijsk.org/ijrss
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1. What are the relationships among EFL college
students’ English phonological awareness test,
Chinese phonological awareness test, and their
TOEIC English reading proficiency performance?
2. Which one (i.e. Chinese or English phonological
awareness) is a significant predictor of English
proficiency?
3. For learners with high and low English
proficiency, what are their differences in their
English and Chinese phonological awareness test?
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The Definition of Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness refers to the ability to attend
to and manipulate the sound structure of language. It
involves the understanding that spoken languages can
be broken down into smaller components in many
different ways, including sentences into words and
words into syllables, onsets and rimes, and individual
phonemes (Jian, 2004; McBride-Chang & Ho, 2005;
McBride-Chang & Kail, 2002; Shu et al., 2008; Siok
& Fletcher, 2001; Wager, Torgesen & Rassotte,
1987; Yopp, 1992). The development of learners’
phonological awareness is gradual (Jian, 2004;
McBride-Chang & Ho, 2005; Yopp, 1992), moving
from the initial phonological skills of rhyming and
sentence segmentation, followed by the ability of
blending and segmentation of syllables. The
identification of onset-rime to the most challenging
and latest developing phonological awareness ability
is to manipulate phonemes.
2.2 The Relationship between Phonological
Awareness and Reading Proficiency
Research has demonstrated that children’s
phonological awareness is related to their spelling
and reading performances of an alphabetic language
both concurrently and longitudinally (Adam, 1990;
Hu, 2003; McBride-Chang & Ho, 2005; Lafrance &
Gottardo, 2005; McBride-Chang & Kail, 2002; Shu
et al., 2008; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Low
performance of phonological awareness is
significantly related to poor language proficiency,
spelling (Chen & Chien, 2002; Hu, 2004; Jian, 2004),
vocabulary learning (Dixon, Stuart, & Masterson,
2002; Hu, 2003; Wang, Koda, & Perfetti, 2003) and
early reading skills (Bialystok, Luk, & Kwan, 2005;
Chol, Ko, & Wang, 2009; Chiappe, Siegel & Wade-
Woodley, 2002; Clare, Canobi, & Faulkner, 2004; Ho
& Keung, 2008; Muter & Diethelm, 2001). For
instance, Hu (2003) found that children with high
phonological awareness learned new vocabulary
obviously rapidly than those with low phonological
awareness.
In terms of the effects of phonological awareness on
learners' with L1 alphabetic language background,
many studies on L1 English-speaking children have
showed that the development of phonological
awareness is closely related with reading proficiency
at all age levels (Adams; 1990; Goswami, 1999;
Savage & Carless, 2004; Wagner & Torgeson, 1987),
and a reciprocal relationship between reading
proficiency and phonological awareness is also
reported (Stahl & Murray, 1994: Yopp, 1992). In
addition, L1 children phonological awareness is
highly correlated with their reading proficiency (Ehri,
1997; Clare, Canobi, & Faulkner, 2004; Goswami,
1992), and it is a necessity for alphabetic literacy
(Bryant, Maclean & Bradley, 1990). In other words,
excellent reading proficiency lies in the development
of vocabulary, syntax and phonology (Lundberg,
2002)
With regards to the effects of phonological awareness
on learners’ with L2 alphabetic language background,
research found that there is apparently a close
phonological correlation between two alphabetic
languages. Phonological awareness in one language
is highly correlated with phonological awareness and
word reading proficiency in the other language
(Durgunoglu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993).
Phonological awareness was an obvious predictor of
performance on word recognition tests both within
and across languages (Cisero & Royer, 1995). Muter
and Diethelm (2001) also found that phonological
awareness of ESL children were a predictor of
English reading proficiency regardless of children’
different language backgrounds.
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
International Journal of Research In Social Sciences © 2013 IJRSS & K.A.J. All rights reserved www.ijsk.org/ijrss
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Comeau, Cormier, Grandmaison, and Lacroix (1999)
inspected the cross-language transfer of phonological
awareness between alphabetic languages by
examining 122 English-speaking children in French
classes and found both French and English
phonological awareness similarly led to reading
proficiency of French. The study of Later, Lindsey,
Manis and Bailey (2003) also showed that the
phonological awareness of 249 Spanish ESL children
transferred to English. The studies above all pointed
out that cross-language transfer will occur within
alphabetic languages.
2.3 Cross-Language Transfer of Phonological
Awareness between Alphabetic and Non-
Alphabetic Languages
Nevertheless, the research mentioned only carried on
cross-language correlation of children learning to
read in two alphabetic languages like Spanish and
English. The results of two different writing systems
like Chinese and English might differ (Akamatsu,
2003; Mann, 1987; McBride et al., 2005; Read,
Zhang, Nie & Ding, 1986; Wang & Koda, 2005). The
study of Akamatsu (2003) showed that L2 learners of
a non-alphabetic L1 backgrounds such as Japanese or
Chinese read English word slower than those of an
alphabetic L1 background due to the disturbance of
L1 orthographic characters. It seemed to support that
learners of non-alphabetic language backgrounds
might have difficulties in reading new words (Holm
& Dodd, 1996), especially for ESL learners with poor
L1 phonological awareness. They usually had
difficulty in learning English. Wydell and
Butterworth (1999) conducted a study about a 16-
year-old Japanese boy, who performed well in
Japanese phonological awareness and reading but
poorer in English phonological awareness test and
reading than his Japanese peers. Therefore, it is
expected that phonological and orthographic
processing will have great influence on children
learning to read Chinese and English.
Negative transfer from a non-alphabetic L1 to an
alphabetic reading proficiency is reported (Liow &
Poon, 1998). Because English and Mandarin Chinese
are two different writing systems, it takes different
levels of phonological awareness to learn to read
Mandarin Chinese and English (Atwill, Blanchard,
Burstein, & Gorin, 2007; Huang & Hanley, 1997;
McBride-Chang et al., 2008). Nonetheless, the
previous studies have demonstrated that phonological
awareness is an important predictor of Chinese
character recognition in children, but the correlation
between Chinese phonological awareness and
English reading is not significant (Chow, Mc-Bride-
Chang & Surgess, 2005; Ho & Bryant, 1997; Hu &
Catts, 1998). The position of phonological awareness
in reading English and Mandarin Chinese is similarly
important. It can be implied that phonological
awareness might be a general ability for children in
learning to read not only an alphabetic language but
also a non-alphabetic language (Chow et al., 2005).
The reason why Chinese learners have difficulties in
English reading might because Chinese writing
system is different from English, thus Chinese
learners have low skill to segment phonemes (Read,
Zhang, Nie, & Ding, 1986). The study of Huang and
Hanley (1994) also showed that children from Hong
Kong who had learned English letters performed
better on English phonological awareness but poorer
on Chinese phonological awareness than Taiwanese
children who had learned a Chinese phonetic script,
Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao. Accordingly, it is obvious that
Zhu-Yin-Fu-Hao is insufficient for Taiwanese
children to achieve high phonological awareness
(Cheung, Chen, Lai, Won & Hills, 2001). L1
negative transfer in L2 spelling might occur because
of the different phonology systems because they
found Chinese ESL children living in Canada have
difficulties in spelling the English sounds / θ / and / ð
/ which do not exist Chinese phonology (Wang &
Geva, 2003).
However, a study of Lee (2006) investigated the
relationship between phonological awareness and
learners from a non-alphabetic language background.
It found that English L2 phonological awareness
from Taiwanese junior high school students was
associated with their English proficiency and students
with high phonological awareness performed
apparently better than those with low phonological
awareness. In the study, Lee found that rhythm is a
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
International Journal of Research In Social Sciences © 2013 IJRSS & K.A.J. All rights reserved www.ijsk.org/ijrss
4
significant predictor of English phonological
awareness (Siok & Fletcher, 2001). Similar study can
be found in Chen (2009) in which it showed if
Taiwanese students perform well with Chinese
phonological awareness, the ability will have positive
effects on their English phonological awareness. This
indicated that L1 phonological awareness experiences
affected L2 phonological awareness among EFL
learners with non-alphabetic L1 backgrounds. That is
to say, learners with high Chinese phonological
awareness ability led to higher English phonological
awareness. Recent study (Wu, 2010) has
demonstrated that Chinese phonological awareness
was significantly correlated not only with Mandarin
Chinese proficiency but also with English
proficiency. And it also found that onset is a
significant predictor of Chinese phonological
awareness. In addition, it showed that Mandarin
Chinese phonological awareness was also significant
correlated with English phonological awareness. Her
study provided evidence that development of English
phonological awareness on the part of Mandarin
Chinese-speaking children was remarkable benefited
from their development of Mandarin Chinese
phonological awareness. And it also showed that
English phonological awareness is a significant
predictor of English proficiency. The results above
were also consistent with previous studies (Chen,
2009; Chen et al., 2004; Cisero & Royer, 2005;
Comeau et al, 1999; Ho & Keung, 2008; Lee, 2006;
Liu, Perfetti, & Wang, 2004).
Previous studies focused more on children’ Chinese
and English phonological awareness tests than those
of adults. Research centered on adult EFL college
students’ phonological awareness and its influence on
English reading are few. To bridge the gap, this study
aims to explore the relationship for college students’
Chinese, English phonological awareness and their
English reading. Also, the relationship for high
proficient and low proficient EFL learners’ Chinese,
English phonological awareness and their English
reading is another research focus.
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Participants
A hundred and fifty college freshmen from one
technical university were selected to participate in
this research. The average scores of their TOEIC
were around 480. Their ages were nineteen or twenty,
with 75 males and 75 females. Most of them have
learned English for 12 years since they were in
elementary schools. Because all of them were EFL
learners with Mandarin Chinese as native languages,
their levels of Chinese proficiency did not vary
significantly.
3.2 Instrument
Three instruments were used in this study to
investigate whether there is a correlation between a
Taiwanese college student’s Chinese phonological
awareness and English proficiency. The three
instruments included Chinese phonological
awareness test, English phonological awareness test
and TOEIC test (including listening and reading
proficiency).
3.2.1 Chinese and English phonological awareness
tests
The Chinese phonological awareness test was
designed to examine the participants’ Mandarin
Chinese phonological awareness. Based on the study
of Wu (2010), the test contains two parts: Chinese
Rime Oddity Test (Hu, 2008) and Chinese Onset Test
(Ko, 2004). In the first part, three examples were
given first, and then the participants would hear 20
questions of monosyllabic spoken Mandarin Chinese
characters through a tape recorder and they had to
select the correct one from three different answers,
then underlining the answer. Each question was
played once and participants would get one point for
answering each question correctly. The total score of
this part was 20 points. The second part of the test
was Chinese Onset Oddity Test, which was similar to
the first part with 3 examples and 20 questions. The
participants had to choose the one which varied in the
initial phoneme from the other two. The total score of
this part was 15 points with each question worth one
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
International Journal of Research In Social Sciences © 2013 IJRSS & K.A.J. All rights reserved www.ijsk.org/ijrss
5
point. Cronbach's Alpha value for Chinese
phonological awareness test is .734.
In term s of English Phonological Awareness Test, it
was developed by Edrange Publications (2002). The
English phonological awareness test consisted of five
parts: phoneme segmentation, onset test, coda test, /s/
sound detection and rhythm test. Examples were
given in the each part first. Phoneme segmentation
was to examine whether a student could segment
phonemes in a word because most college students
could only count the syllables of a word. Their
awareness of phoneme might be insufficient. There
were four words on the question sheet for the
participants, they were required to write down how
many phonemes there were in each word (e.g., splash
contains 5 sounds).
The second part of the onset test composed of five
questions designed to test the examiners’ onset
awareness. Participants were required to write down
the first sound of the word in each question. Because
the test was designed for college students, the
questions were more difficult than that for children.
For example, the first sound of chef is /ʃ/, not / tʃ/
literally. Therefore, students’ with low English
proficiency could not perform well only by guessing.
The third part of the test was coda test, which
measured the examiners’ coda awareness with four
questions as well. The question level was as difficult
as that of onset test. The fourth part was /s/ sound
detection. The participants were given a sentence
‘Sam gave Susie a box of pencils for her sixth
birthday.’ They had to mark the letters which were
pronounced the sound /s/. Most Taiwanese college
students did not know what the right pronunciation
was (/z/ or /s/) while seeing words with the letter s.
The last part was rhythm test, which measured
students’ rime awareness with seven yes-no
questions. Two words were given in each question
and the examiners had to answer whether they
rhymed with each other. The total points in the
English phonological awareness test were 31 with
each question worth one point and the time limitation
was 20 minutes. The results would show the
participants English phonological awareness. The
Cronbach's Alpha value for English phonological
awareness test is .626
3.2.2 TOEIC test
TOEIC Test (Test of English for International
Communication) is an English proficiency test
designed for people whose native languages are not
English and professional knowledge is not required.
The test results can reflect whether a person can
communicate with others in English well and will be
a criterion by many international business companies.
TOEIC test includes 100-item listening
comprehension test and reading comprehension test.
The total score is 990 and one question worth five
points. The listening comprehension has four parts:
Photographs, Question-Response, Conversations and
Talks. All the 100 questions were played by a
computer and the participants were required to finish
them in forty-five minutes. The reading
comprehension included three parts: Incomplete
Sentences, Text Completion and Reading
Comprehension. The 100 questions in reading
comprehension were printed on text books and the
time limitation was seventy-five minutes. The total
score were measured by Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning,
Teaching, Assessment (CEF), which divides TOEIC
score into six levels: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2.
Therefore, TOEIC Test measures a wide range of
English proficiency.
3.3 Data Collection Procedure
Three measures were prepared in advance including
the question sheet, the answer sheet, the tape recorder
and the computer. Because the participants were not
all from the same departments, students of different
departments took the three tests separately according
to English courses schedule. The three tests were
conducted in a quiet classroom. In the first ten
minutes, the examiners listened to the instructions
carefully. If they had questions, the researcher would
give them help so that they could do well in the tests.
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
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6
After all the participants understood the instructions
of tests, the tests were administered to them step by
step as follows. First of all, Chinese phonological
awareness test was administered in 40 minutes.
Second, the participant was required to finish English
phonological awareness test in another 40 minutes.
The final test, TOEIC Test was administered in the
following week. The listening comprehension was
done in 45 minutes and the reading comprehension
lasted 75 minutes. The total time limitation of TOEIC
Test was 120 minutes. The results of the three tests
were examined by running the statistical package of
the social science (SPSS) computer software.
Through the results of the statistical analysis, the
researcher could explore the role of Chinese and
English phonological awareness on Taiwanese
college students’ English proficiency.
3. 4 Data Analysis
The statistical program SPSS 17.0 for Windows was
applied for data analysis. The data collected from the
scores of the three tests was processed by descriptive
statistics. In addition , Pearson correlation was used
to probe the correlation between a Taiwanese college
student’s Chinese phonological awareness and
English proficiency, Chinese phonological awareness
and English phonological awareness, and English
phonological awareness and English proficiency
respectively. The correlation coefficient is a measure
of linear association between two variables. It can
vary from -1 (perfect negative correlation) through 0
(no correlation) to +1 (perfect positive correlation).
As a rule of thumb, correlations less than 0.3 were
deemed as low or weak. Those in the range of 0.3 to
0.69 were moderate, and those were greater than 0.7
as being strong or high (Bryman & Cramer, 2004).
Finally, multiple regression analyses conducted to see
whether Chinese or English phonological awareness
is a significant predictor of English reading
proficiency.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of
EFL learners' L1 (i.e. Chinese) and English
phonological awareness on their English reading
performance. In this section, the findings were
presented in accordance with the research questions,
followed by the discussion about this study. English
phonological awareness test included five factors:
sound segmentation (E1), onset test (E2), coda test
(E3), “s” sound detection (E4) and rhythm test (E5),
while Chinese phonological awareness test was made
up of onset test (C1) and coda test (C2).
4.1 Results of Research Question 1: What are the
relationships among EFL college students’ English
phonological awareness test, Chinese phonological
awareness test, and their TOEIC English reading
proficiency performance?
As shown in Table 1, the average TOEIC scores of
the participants was 487.41, which means they had
low intermediate English proficiency. In terms of the
participants’ performance in the English
Phonological Awareness Test, they did the best in
Onset Test (M = 3.99) whereas they had the lowest
score in Coda Test (M = 2.53). It seemed to imply
that students were more sensitive to the initial sound
than the final sound.
In addition, descriptive statistics of 150 participants’
Chinese Phonological Awareness Test showed that
they performed well in both Rime Oddity Test (M =
17.95) and Onset Oddity Test (M = 12.95).
Compared the test performance between English and
Chinese Phonological Awareness Test, participants
did better in Chinese phonological awareness test
(30.70/35 = 0.88) than in English phonological
awareness test (21.87/31 = 0.71). One possible reason
might be that Chinese were their native tongue and
they had contacted this language since childhood;
thus, it was much easier for them to acquire and the
existence of vast number of homophones gave them
less memory load. On the other hand, the participants
were not familiar with the sound system of English;
therefore, it may be difficult for them to acquire the
English sounds (Lee, 2006).
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics of participants’ test performance
Test subtest M SD Total Score
TOEIC Test 487.41 111.619 990
Chinese
Phonological
Awareness
Test
C1 Rime Oddity Test 17.95 1.849 20
C2 Onset Oddity Test 12.95 1.636 15
Total 30.70 3.375 35
English
Phonological
Awareness
Test
E1 Phoneme
Segmentation
6.00 1.003 8
E2 Onset Test 3.99 .306 5
E3 Coda Test 2.53 1.066 5
E4 /s/ Sound Detection 4.67 1.052 6
E5 Rhythm Test 4.62 1.379 7
Total 21.87 2.898 31
In terms of the relationship between participants’
TOEIC and English phonological awareness test
performance, Pearson Correlation analyses showed
that there were high correlation between TOEIC and
the overall performance of English phonological
awareness test (r = .764, p < .001). The results were
consistent with previous studies (Chen, 2009;
Chiappe, Siegel & Wade-Woodley, 2002; Chow et
al., 2005; Lee, 2006; McBride-Chang & Ho, 2005;
Muter & Diethelm, 2001; Wu, 2010) which reported
that learners’ English L2 phonological awareness was
strongly associated with their English proficiency.
Specifically, TOEIC had significant and medium
correlation with the subtests of Phoneme
Segmentation (r = .460, p < .001), coda test (r =. 463,
p < .001), /s/ Sound Detection (r =.434, p < .001),
and Rhythm Test(r = . 556, p < .001). However,
TOEIC only had low correlation with the Onset Test
(r =. 217, p < .001).
Secondly, the relationship between learners'
phonological awareness and proficiency is more
complex if the influence of learners' native language
is considered. Many studies (Durgunoglu, Nagy, &
Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Muter & Diethelm, 2001) on
language transfer have demonstrated a close
relationship between L1 phonological awareness and
L2 proficiency within two alphabetic languages like
Spanish and English. However, whether the situation
holds true if learners’ native language is of non-
alphabetic language system(e.g. Chinese).
Results showed that participants’ TOEIC English
proficiency test has moderate relationship with their
L1 Chinese phonological awareness test (r = .648, p <
.001). The findings were in agreement with previous
studies (Chen, 2009; Lee, 2006; Wu, 2010) that
Chinese phonological awareness was significantly
Nov. 2013. Vol. 3, No.3 ISSN 2307-227X
International Journal of Research In Social Sciences © 2013 IJRSS & K.A.J. All rights reserved www.ijsk.org/ijrss
8
correlated with English proficiency. Similarly,
TOEIC had significant and moderate relationship
with both subtests including Rime Oddity Test (r =
.526, p < .001), and Onset Oddity Test (r = .531, p <
.001).
For the relationship between learners’ L2 English and
their L1 Chinese phonological awareness tests,
Pearson Correlation showed that Chinese
phonological awareness test has moderate
relationship with English phonological awareness test
(r = .594, p < .001). The findings were in support of
previous studies (Chen, 2009; Comeau et al, 1999)
that cross-language transfer of phonological
awareness was found across languages with different
orthographic systems (Atwill et al., 2007; Chen,
2009; Gottardo, 2002; Gottardo et al., 2001; Ho &
Keung, 2008; McBride-Chang et al., 2008).
4.2 Results of Research Question 2: Which one (i.e.
Chinese or English phonological awareness) is a
significant predictor of English proficiency?
Regression analysis can show which variables are
significant contributors to the dependent variable, as
well as how much of the variance in English reading
performance can be accounted for by the two
phonological awareness tests. Adjusted R Square
change indicated that English phonological
awareness contributed most variance (R=.764, R
Square= change .584; 58.4%) to English reading
performance, while Chinese phonological awareness
test accounted for 5.8% of the variance. The result
exhibited that English phonological awareness is a
significant predictor of English reading proficiency
and the result is in agreement with previous studies
(Chen, 2009; Lee, 2006, Wu 2010).
Table 3. Statistics between Chinese and English phonological awareness test
Model
R R-Squared
Adjusted R-
Squared Std. Error
R-Squared
Change
F Chang
1 .764a .584 .581 72.249 .584 207.637
2 .801b .642 .637 67.256 .058 23.789
a. Predict Variable: (Constant), English
b. Predict Variable: (Constant ), English, Chinese
4.3 Results of Research Question 3: For learners
with high and low English proficiency, what are their
differences in their English and Chinese phonological
awareness test?
The high proficient group (40 persons) was made up
of the top 27 % of the total 150 participants, whereas
the low proficient (40 persons) group was composed
of the bottom 27 % of the total 150 participants. Each
group consisted of 40 persons. Table 4 showed the
descriptive statistics and the results of independent t
tests.
Table 4 also displayed significant group differences
between the high and the low groups in both the
English and the Chinese overall phonological
awareness test (p < .05), as well as in all the subtests.
Consistent with previous studies (Chen & Chien,
2002; Chiappe, Siegel & Wade-Woodley, 2002; Hu,
2004; Lee, 2006; Muter & Diethelm, 2001), the result
showed that proficient students had significantly
better phonological awareness performance than
those less proficient ones in their phonological
awareness tests.
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9
Table 4. Groups’ performance in the subtests of English and Chinese phonological awareness tests
Test group M SD
F t df p
Standard
Deviation
E1 Phoneme
Segmentation
High
Low
6.65
5.40
.834
.841
0.168 6.68 78 .00***
1.25
E2 Onset Test High
Low
4.05
3.90
.221
.379
5.15 2.163 78 .034**
0 .15
E3 Coda Test High
Low
3.15
1.90
.893
.900
0.47 6.24 78 .00***
1.25
E4 /s/ Sound
Detection
High
Low
5.20
4.13
.853
1.114
2.70 4.85 78 .00***
1.07
E5 Rhythm Test High
Low
5.83
3.85
1.217
1.051
1.56 7.77 78 .00***
1.97
overall performance of
English phonological test
High
Low
24.88
19.27
2.377
1.894
2.65 11.65 78 .00***
5.60
C1 Rime Oddity Test High
Low
19.10
16.55
1.150
2.062
7.59 6.83 78 .00***
2.55
C2 Onset Oddity Test High
Low
13.83
11.58
1.083
2.024
12.36 6.19 78 .00***
2.25
overall performance of
Chinese phonological
test
High
Low
32.92
27.38
1.575
4.198
23.12 7.83 78 .00***
5.55
Note: **
p < .01, ***
p < .001.
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10
5. CONCLUSION
5.1 Summary of the Main Findings
Previous studies have explored the relationship
between the language proficiency and phonological
awareness and found that children’s language
proficiency was closely related to both Chinese and
English phonological awareness (Chen, 2009; Lee,
2006; Wu, 2010). The present study aims to
investigate the relationship among the university
students’ English proficiency and their Chinese and
English phonological awareness. The findings were
stated as follow: 1) EFL tertiary level students’ L2
(English) phonological awareness was associated
with their English proficiency, 2) Chinese
phonological awareness was significantly correlated
with their English proficiency, 3) EFL tertiary level
students’ English L2 phonological awareness was
associated with their L1 Chinese phonological
awareness, 4) English phonological awareness is a
significant predictor of English reading proficiency,
5) students with high language proficiency performed
apparently better than less–proficient ones in both
English and Chinese phonological awareness tests.
5.2 Pedagogical Implication and Limitation of the
Study
In conclusion, phonological awareness has significant
effect on L2 language proficiency. Previous studies
(Harrison & Krol, 2007; Savage & Carless, 2005)
have emphasized the importance of phonological
awareness for early reading ability. Therefore,
teachers are suggested to designed some
phonological awareness activities with various
degrees of difficulty, for English phonological
awareness training could also be an effective way to
help learners understand the sound structures in their
native and the target language, and even further
improve their reading proficiency. Zapparoli (2006)
recommends that a story-based phonological
awareness curriculum would be helpful to give a rich
context for learners to acquire phonological
awareness skills. According to Lee (2006), a
phonological awareness training concentrating on
phoneme segmentation and phoneme deletion skills
would be more helpful in promoting learners’ reading
and pronunciation accuracy.
And because cross-language transfer of phonological
awareness is clear across two languages with
different orthographies, teachers should not
concentrate only on students’ English development
but should give them more chances to notice and
manipulate individual sounds both in L1 and L2 (Wu,
2010). After the improvement of learners’ L1
Chinese phonological awareness, learners’ ability in
L2 English phonological awareness may improve as
well. So the training of L1 Chinese phonological
awareness seems necessary for EFL students to
develop English phonological awareness even though
they are of two different languages systems.
In terms of Chinese phonological training, another
Romanization system, Zhuyin Fuhao, which uses
symbols based on Chinese characters to represent the
sounds of spoken Mandarin, can help Taiwanese
learners in learning phoneme deletion and pseudo-
word reading(Chen, 2009). Thus, the Chinese Zhuyin
system should be conscientiously introduced in the
phonological awareness trainign program as a
support for their later English literacy education.
In terms of English phonological awareness training,
Taiwanese EFL instructors used phonics to train
students to acquire the phonological awareness skills.
According to Chen and Chien (2002), phonics is an
approach employed for coding the grapheme-
phoneme correspondences and the spelling patterns
for orthographic language reading. Understanding
that words are composed of graphemes and
phonemes, teachers should design activities to raise
learner’s phoneme and phonological awareness.
Because of the orthographic differences between
Chinese and English and the cross-cultural transfer
from these two languages, teachers could introduce
phonological awareness knowledge to help EFL
learners to decode English words. These teaching
methods can reinforce learners' phonological
awareness and improve English proficiency in second
language education.
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11
There were at least two limitations in the present
study. First, the English phonological awareness
test may be too difficult for the participants because
the test was mainly designed for the English-speaking
adults. Second, because the Chinese phonological
awareness test was mainly designed for children,
there were only two subtests (i.e. rime and onset)
included. Other subtest like phoneme segmentation
was not included in this Chinese phonological
awareness test. Even though this research has
revealed a positive linkage between EFL learners'
English proficiency and their phonological
awareness, more research is called for a better control
of the instruments administered to the participants.
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