Elementary Mandarin Immersion Students Learning Alphabetic Pinyin and Using Pinyin to Learn Chinese Characters A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Zhongkui Ju IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dr. Martha Bigelow August 2019 © Zhongkui Ju 2019 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), Language Learning, National Federation of Modern Languages Teaching Associations (NFMLTA)/National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL), Pearson Education, and the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Minnesota for their generous support and recognition of this project. Second, I want to acknowledge those who have supported me, guided me, and helped me through every step of this process to bring me to this point. I am grateful to my advisor, Dr. Martha Bigelow, for her faith in me. She is more than an advisor but also a friend, a confidant, and a cheerleader during this PhD journey. I appreciate that she understands that earning a scholarship is not the most challenging hardship in graduate school. I am also grateful to Dr. Bob delMas for his advice, expertise, patience, and role- modeling for what it means to be a rigorous researcher. His purposeful questions, comments, and suggestions created valuable learning moments during the process of writing this dissertation. I have learned so much from him over the past six months. I am indebted to Dr. Yanling Zhou for her support, advice, sharing, and time commitment to assist me from Hong Kong, answering my questions online and attending my oral defense in Minneapolis. Without her help, I would not have even known how to begin this project. i Furthermore, I am very grateful to Drs. Lori Helman and Sam David who read my work, provided feedback, and shared their insights. It means a great deal to me that they agreed to serve on my committee. I want to thank the National Center of Educational Outcomes and my supervisor, Kristi Liu, who supported me this year and opened a new research door for me. I would also like to thank the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) crew who took care of me for the last four and a half years while I was working as a graduate research assistant. Of special note is Elaine Tarone, who gave me much good advice and encouragement at Bordertown, and Tara Fortune, who brought me into the field of Mandarin immersion education. I am truly indebted to the teachers and administrators at the participating school. I want to thank Dr. Luyi Lien and Sue Burg for trusting me to conduct this massive project at their school, as well as those who reached out their hand to help me here and there, including Devin Nelson, Ye Cheng, Pin-Chen Huang, Mohan Shang, Shu-Ching Lee, Shumei Lai, Hailei Xie, Taoyuan Li, and Kate Aubrecht. Most importantly, I want to thank the lovely students and their parents who volunteered for this project. Thank you to my helpers with data collection, Weijian Wang, Jieying Zhang, Tong Zhao, Shuang Fu, Xiaofen Huang, Bo Gao, Runzhi Xiang, Ningjun Tan, Qianru Liu, Pai Liu, Jing Wu, and Qianli Ma. Additionally, I want to thank Yangyang Liu; Garrett, Mirya, and their son Keilo; Ping Peng and her class who helped me with piloting my measures; and Jin Wu, who drew the illustrations in the story books. A big thank you to Molly Wieland, who participated in my interview and shared her expertise and ii experience. Additionally, I want to thank Sarah, who proofread several chapters of my paper with very demanding deadlines. I also want to thank the scholars from all over the world who listened to my thoughts and gave me advice: Yen-Hwei Lin (Michigan State University), Rong Cui, Taingang Hui (Capital Normal University), Haomin Zhang (East China Normal University), Qiong Dong (Anhui University), and a special thank you to Xinchun Wu (Beijing Normal University), who shared the stories used in his study and met me in Beijing in 2007. I received so much help on statistical analysis from Kyle Nickodem from Methodology Research Consulting Center and Si Peng from Liberal Arts Technologies and Innovation Services at the University of Minnesota. Thank you. Last, but not least, I am grateful to my family for their unconditional love, my friends—especially Tianou Zhang, who is great company, and Fan Li, who is a loyal listener—and my dear colleagues, Alex, Anu, Cory, Leah, Mengying, Mike, Rosalind, Yi-Ru, and many more wonderful buddies in graduate school. Overall, I am grateful to have spent five years of my life at the University of Minnesota. I have received an excellent education here. It has been a significant and positive life experience. iii Abstract As a critical component of literacy curriculum, alphabetic Pinyin can be introduced to Mandarin immersion (MI) students either at Grade 1, Grade 2, or Grade 3, together with another two orthographies: Chinese characters and English. When to introduce Pinyin and how to use Pinyin has been a practical and theoretical issue that matters to thousands of MI students in the US. However, very few studies have been conducted to investigate Pinyin literacy development and its relationship with Chinese character literacy development in young Chinese L2 learners. Using a three-paper dissertation format, this project included three interrelated studies to examine (1) the extent to which Pinyin spelling skills predict Chinese word reading after controlling for a set of Pinyin literacy and Chinese character literacy related skills, (2) whether Pinyin captions in reading materials facilitate or hinder the learning of Chinese words in meaningful reading activities, and (3) the extent to which MI students have acquired Chinese sounds in absence of Pinyin instruction and developed Pinyin spelling skills after learning Pinyin for almost an academic year. Seventy-six English proficient third graders were recruited as participants from an early total MI program. Students learn the school subject matters via the medium of Chinese since kindergarten with 90% of instructional time allocated in Chinese. Students receive seven English language arts classes per week since Grade 2 and Pinyin instruction begins at Grade 3. Study 1 is a correlational study that collected data from a set of Pinyin literacy and Chinese character literacy related measures. Hierarchical linear regression analyses suggested that the holistic Pinyin spelling or the separate Pinyin onset-rime spelling made iv a significant and unique contribution to Chinese word reading above and beyond other identified variables. Study 2 is an experimental study that employed a crossover design to compare MI students’ Chinese word learning with and without Pinyin. Contrast analyses and multilevel model analyses showed that students learned the Chinese words better without Pinyin, but the differences were not beyond significance level. Study 3 examined Chinese phonology acquisition and Pinyin spelling. Speech and spelling error analyses suggested that MI students could achieve high accuracy in pronunciation, but exhibited challenges in Pinyin spelling, mostly due to the negative transfer from L1 English literacy knowledge, insufficient phonological sensitivity, and incomplete Pinyin letter knowledge. Although Pinyin spelling skills can predict Chinese word reading, it does not mean Pinyin instruction, seen as phonological training, could promote Chinese word reading, which requires the experimental design. In fact, the use of Pinyin may interfere with the learning of Chinese words in teacher-involved reading activities. Additionally, there might be cognitive constraints for young Chinese L2 learners to learn Pinyin. More importantly, Chinese reading acquisition may depend on meaning. The findings together suggested to allocate precious instructional time in early academic grades to develop MI students’ character knowledge and oral vocabulary knowledge, especially the more abstract Tier 2 words. Furthermore, Pinyin captions should be avoided in whole group reading activities where the teacher can provide instructions on the new words. In all, late Pinyin introduction should be encouraged in most MI programs. The findings are of importance for MI educators to make curricular decisions on when to teach Pinyin and how to use Pinyin for English L1 young learners of Chinese. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. i Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ...................................................................................................................... i Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Why Should We Care?............................................................................................ 1 1.2 Mandarin Immersion Education and Chinese Reading Proficiency ....................... 2 1.3 Statement of the Problem .......................................................................................