Running head: WORD-WALL AND FIRST GRADERS CHINESE LEARNING

Word Wall and First Graders Chinese Print Vocabulary Learning

Chaoran Yao Michigan State University TE 808

WORD-WALL AND FIRST GRADERS CHINESE LEARNING

Word wall and first graders Chinese print vocabulary learning My action research focuses on improving my first graders print vocabulary learning. Ive taught kindergarten and first graders for two years. In the past two years, listening and speaking skills are reinforced among students. They could construct basic oral communications under authentic situations. They conducted age-appropriate dialogues. By contrast, students reading and writing were not mentioned as much as listening and speaking. As for language learning, listening, speaking, reading and writing are indispensable elements for communication. There was a debate in our school district about whether the students should be exposed to the character-based written language at the early age. In my classroom, students are way more advanced in speaking than reading and writing. Previously, I taught my students to write simple words. Surprisingly, they are very interested and felt privileged in writing another language. They could make beautiful words with adequate demonstration. I knew that the students were already capable of writing words. However, the students just learned isolated characters. Only quite a few could remember the words after a period of time. At the end of the last school year, I received some letters from the students of a Chinese school. I read the letters to my students. They understood what the Chinese said in the letter. My students enjoyed the experience and want to communicate with those Chinese kids. However, they could not read or write by themselves because they never learned reading and writing systematically. So I realized that students reading and writing became a problem.

WORD-WALL AND FIRST GRADERS CHINESE LEARNING

Something needs to be done to change this situation. Having decided to improve my students print vocabulary learning, I decided to try word wall method. After consulting my colleagues, I finally formed my research question as To what extent, if any, will the word wall improve my first graders word recognition and word comprehension?

WORD-WALL AND FIRST GRADERS CHINESE LEARNING

Abstract Communication is the ultimate goal of learning a second language. It refers to language being expressed, understood, and reacted. For lower elementary, reading and writing, which are equal important as listening and speaking, are less addressed. In this action research, I am going to focus on the improvement of students written language by using word wall. I wonder To what extent, if any, will the word wall improve my first graders word recognition and word comprehension? Two first grade classes (46 students) were involved in my research. Based on a pre-test among six classes, two classes of similar language level were chosen for the research. One class was treated as experimental group with word wall instruction. The other is treated as control group without word wall instruction. Classroom observation and quiz were taking places to record their performance. The data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and t-test analysis. The experimental group had significant improvement in reading aloud the words. Their proficiency of silently recognizing the words were not shown notable difference between experimental and control groups.

Key concepts Chinese word wall, first grade, word recognition, word comprehension, Chinese

WORD-WALL AND FIRST GRADERS CHINESE LEARNING

Theoretical Framework According to constructivism, learning is a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge or experience. When students use word wall, they are making connection among the shape of the word, the pronunciation of the words, and the meaning of the word. With the help of word wall, students regularly reflect on what they already know (or should know). When confronted with new context, students need to pull out their existing knowledge from their brain and from their word bank (word wall) and apply them into new situation. Constructivism emphasizes on the importance of active involvement of learners in constructing knowledge for themselves. Students are active learners. They do not sit and accept what these words are. They should be able to learn by themselves. Word wall should facilitate students self-study. According to this, word wall should not be the place where the teacher put up the word on the board. Instead, interactive word wall could be better solution. Students should be able to contribute their understanding of the word. They should be empowered to decide in which ways they can remember better with the words.

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Literature Review Introduction In my action research, I planned to focus on how word wall might affect my first graders Chinese vocabulary which includes word recognition and word comprehension. The word wall is a commonly-used tool for English language learning. However, Ive seldom been exposed to such method in my Chinese teaching and learning. I am not sure if or how the word wall can help my students to improve their Chinese vocabulary learning, considering the huge differences between these two languages. I had tons of before I conducted my research, such as, How does the teachers design their wall? What activities do they use for the wall? What prominent improvement might have after they applied the word wall? How do they know it is the wall that makes the difference? Does the students like the wall? Why there were not word walls in classrooms of China? Do teachers use word wall in second language teaching? Why? Or why not? Can the students connect the form, sound and meaning of a word? How am I going to guide students to use it before and during reading? When is the good time to encourage the students to use it and how to use it? How could I assess the word walls effectiveness?

WORD-WALL AND FIRST GRADERS CHINESE LEARNING

How can I decide that it is the word wall rather than others that affects students learning? Bearing these questions in mind, I used ProQuest, MSU e-library and Google Scholar, as well as Chinas CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) to search for books and articles. From the CNKI, researches covered word wall in English education, in both elementary and secondary level. However, word wall and Chinese language teaching were found zero articles. No research had been done for word wall and Chinese language learning in mainland China. In the ProQuest and Google Scholar, word wall was not limited to elementary, but reached out to secondary level. It ranged from English language art to science, music, chemistry, biology, etc. Of numerous results, I found 3 books and 12 articles inspired my thinking. Interestingly, I was more inspired by the middle school word wall design and activities rather than the elementary ones I sorted my research into three themes, including word wall design, word wall activities, and word wall assessment.

Literature Review Theme 1: Word wall design: The primary goal of the word wall is to extend and expand students vocabulary (Green, 2003). In the regular American classroom, the word wall can be designed as Name Wall, ABC Wall, High-Frequency-Word-Wall, Words-We-Know Wall, Chunking Wall, Help Wall, Title Wall, and Their Word Wall (Wagstaff, 1999; Jongsma, 2000). Unlike English, Chinese written language does not have alpha-beta system. When native Chinese learn the vocabulary, they use an intermediate system to record

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the sound, which is very similar to English. However, people dont use this system in daily reading and writing. It is just a tool for recording the sound and learning new vocabulary. Considering my first graders were still new to Chinese, they could conduct much communications. I decided to adopt the word-we-know wall. It was a summary of the vocabulary that the students had already met, practiced, and used. They were supposed to be familiar with the words. I put up the words weve learned on each lesson onto the wall. As to group the words, I did not find many helpful resources. I decided to categorize the characters into the following column: 1) greetings and courtesies; 2) persons; 3) negative words; 4) verbs; 5) nouns. For example, Hello, I am Ava. I is in the 2nd category. Am is in the 4th category. Ava is in the 5th category. This is the order of Chinese sentence patterns. Theoretically, if you just choose one word from each category, it can make a grammatically correct sentence. Theme 2: Word wall activities: Even word wall almost appear at any elementary schools, it doesnt mean it works well in these classroom. Students may be able to decode words as they see them in print, but that does not mean that they know the definition of these words (Southerland, 2011). According to a middle school study, over 50% students were unable to articulate any response or felt that the word wall was not helpful in learning word meanings. Only 16% of the students stated that the word wall was only beneficial when they already knew the word meanings (Harmon, Wood, Hedrick,

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Vintinner, & Willeford, 2009). If I dont design appropriate word wall activities, I can predict, word wall is going to become a decoration only. The best interactive word-walls activities are the ones that 1) are arranged to illustrate relationships and organize learning; 2) contains students-generated material. 3) have visual supports are color pictures, photographs, or actual items (Jackson, Tripp, & Cax, 2011). To set the words onto the word wall, I would adopt and modify an interactive word wall strategy (Harmon, Wood, & Kiser, 2009) to better server my first graders. 1) Selecting the words. Given the text, students learn the basic words, then they can decide if they want to learn more. 2) Make connections with symbols, radicals and contexts. For example, I would have students draw pictures to illustrate the meaning of the words. 3) Apply the word into new situations. Design writing project, so the students can use the words. After the word wall is set down, I would have students to practice reading the words regularly. Read-aloud, pair reading, stand-sit reading, and clap reading, etc are all good way to reinforce the word forms (Gruber, 1999). Theme 3: Word wall assessment: As for the assessment, Mertler (2008) introduced experimental-control group research in his book Action Research- Teachers as Researchers in the Classroom (2008). I will apply this method. I have 6 first grade classes. I will assign 2 classes

to be the control group, and 2 classes be the experimental group. So I can have 100 samples in my research. In the control group and experimental group, I will do everything the same except for the word wall. 2 experimental classes will receive

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word wall training, such as illustrate, reading aloud the word wall, demonstrate the use of word wall, etc. After a period (one month), I will have several different assessments to see how many words they can recognize and know the meaning. I will have them to listen to the word and circle the ones they hear, match the word with pictures, read aloud isolated words, and read aloud a paragraph. I will keep record on the checklist. Summary After reviewing National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000) report, I narrowed down my research question from To what extent that word wall improves my first graders reading and even writing? to To what extent, if any, that word wall improves my first graders word recognition and word meaning? After the literature review, I have a clearer idea of what word wall looks like and how the teachers use word wall in their teaching practice, which were the two main concerns before I conduct my research. I teach kindergarten and first grade. But I

didnt benefit a lot from elementary word walls. Instead, secondary interactive word wall give me more idea of what I can do. Wagstaff (1999) provided reasons for using word wall and categorized different types of word walls. She also provided with six terrific tips for designing practical, efficient, and memorable word walls (Wagstaff, 1998). I become very confident in building my own wall when she said If your students are using the word wall to better their reading and writing skills, youre doing it right! (Wagstaff, 1998) Harmon taught me step by step instruction of how to interact with word wall. After reviewing these articles, I realize that Chinese people

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dont use word wall may result from that everybody possesses a dictionary in their desk. They learn to use big dictionary since they learn letters. My literature review answered most of my questions. There is something that I still need to figure out by myself. For example, how am I going to conduct the assessment that show how much word wall influences students learning instead of others? What could be the forms for my vocabulary assessment? As for these questions, I will refer to the classroom teachers and talk to my colleagues.

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Method Research settings and participants I conducted a comparison between experimental and control group. To make sure that the participants were divided with the same level of language capability, I did a pre-test to all my six first grades. Finally, two classes with the similar average score were chosen. They were taken as two groups to analyze the data. There were students involved in my research. They were first graders between 6 to 7 years old. 1 of them is an ESL student. 2 students had Asian background. % have learned Chinese daily since kindergarten. They were seldom exposed to reading and writing Chinese before. Research approach and design There are 24 students in the experimental group, while the 22 students in the control group. The words we learned mainly come from an online textbook--Yes! Chinese. Both of the two classes used this online resource to read and practice the words. However, experimental group did word wall practice. I created a wall as Chinese Character Wall. There were 3 chances that we added a new word onto the wall, including new words from a lesson, culture words (such as fish which means good luck), and the frequently used words (such as like). There were occasions that the word appeared in other places. For example, I put up the number 1-30 above the white board since the numbers fit better in a line and students could see them easily. I also put up the word Fan on the I-Wonder wall, along with the sticky notes of their inquiry of fans.

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The Chinese Character Wall was designed in the way that how sentences are produced. Five columns were included. i.e.,1 Greetings (hello) and question words (such as what, how many); 2 Pronoun (such as you, I, he, she); 3 Adverbs and prefixes (such as dis-like, not, also); 4 Verbs (such as like, be); 5 Nouns (such as teacher, grade, name, years-old). For instance, Hello, I am in the first grade follows greeting+ pronoun+ verb+ nouns order. He also dislikes pink follows pronoun+ adverb+ noun order. After we learned these words, the students from the experimental group copied the words and made picture to illustrate it. For example, some students drew a picture of a two people greeting each other to represent hello. I choose one picture and put it next to the word. I also put the English translation next to the words. was used with different colors. As part of daily activities, the experimental group read aloud these words before we had class. We played games to search for particular words on the wall. When reading a new story, the students cycled the words they know, or they highlighted the same words with the same colors. They also had 1 minutes free-reading time to read at their own pace. They were guided to use the word wall to look for the words they learned before. Data collection methods Both qualitative and quantitative methods were included in my data collection. The students were quizzed once a week, which was my main data source. They are assessed and analyzed was a class, thus their names were not mentioned. Checklist Each column

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and classroom observation were also used as supplements. classroom observation and kept my students checklist The data collection lasted around 3 weeks. Data analysis techniques

my action research. I had

Descriptive statistics were used to analyze if the students make any changes since during learning. Furthermore, an independent-measures t test was used to determine if the viable is significantly important to make such a change. Limitations and bias This research took the students as a group and analyzed the whole group learning results. However, individuals improvement based on word wall may vary. They could have diverse achievement and reaction responded to word wall. But their individual performance was not analyzed. The data collection and analysis lasted for no more than two months. Long-term word wall influence remained to be monitored and measured. Classroom cultures vary, too. Classroom teachers have different teaching strategies towards their English language art. They could have different preference to enhance their students vocabulary. If the students were more skilled in identifying the words in their own language, they could transfer this skill into Chinese word learning. This could slightly affected the research results.

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Findings After a month of study, I observed that the students of experimental group were more comfortable and confident in word study. They responded to my content questions faster than the control group. Students in the experiment group showed increasing interest in recognizing Chinese words. After demonstrating coloring the same words with the same color that showed in the wall, the students automatically colored the learned words with the same color when they were given a new reading material. In the free choices time, more students would pick up a scratch paper and copy the individual words from the wall and make a picture to illustrate it. Given a new paragraph, the students were willing to recognize the words they think they learned. The students knew where to look for the words. They were familiar with the word shape, sound and meaning. They could point out a word from the wall immediately no matter I spoke in Chinese or in English. They could help their partners to find a word by naming its meaning or its color behind it. Given a sentenceI like swimming, too., they could point out each one of them and put them into order. However, the students are more interested in the words that were isolated to the word wall. They did not really care if you put the words into sentence order. After quizzing them three times, I analyzed their test scores with bar chart and t-test.

WORD-WALL AND FIRST GRADERS CHINESE LEARNING

Figure 1 Test Scores Comparison

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Series1 is the control group. Series2 is the experimental group.

From the quiz test, the students from the experimental group demonstrated higher mastery of the words than the control group. In the first two tests, the experimental showed larger difference with control group. However, the final test presented trivial difference. I further analyzed their test score with t-test: two-sample assuming unequal variances with the first and third testing scores.
Figure 2 T-Test for Test 1

t-Test 1: Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances Variable Variable 1 2 6.454545 5.583333 7.497835 6.514493 22 24 0 43 1.113423 0.135856 1.681071 0.271712

Mean Variance Observations Hypothesized Mean Difference df t Stat P(T<=t) one-tail t Critical one-tail P(T<=t) two-tail

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t Critical two-tail

2.016692

Figure 3 T-Test for Test 3

t-Test 3: Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances Variable 1 Variable 2 11.27272727 11.08333333 4.779220779 7.036231884 22 24 0 44 0.265097079 0.396086355 1.680229977 0.792172711 2.015367574

Mean Variance Observations Hypothesized Mean Difference df t Stat P(T<=t) one-tail t Critical one-tail P(T<=t) two-tail t Critical two-tail

After examining the p-value, it turned out that the p-value is far more larger than 0.05 (0.14 and 0.40), indicating that the variable (word wall instruction) is the not the main importance of making the change.

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Discussion As indicated in my findings, the students from the experimental group were more advanced in terms of oral word recognition. They could name the word sounds and meanings more fluently. They were more willing to use the words from the wall into their daily reading, and take risks to guess its sound and meaning. They were more proficient in reading aloud. They practiced reading aloud the individual words three times a week. The sound, shape, and meaning of a word were tied together in students memory storage. However, the students from the control group, who did not received as much reading aloud as the other group, were lagged behind in making sound meaningful to the word shape and its meaning. Chinese written language is an ideographic writing system. You cannot tell a words sound by its the shape, nor the meaning. It requires mechanical memory. Daily word wall reading aloud did helped the students connect the sound with its shape and meaning. In terms of silent reading comprehension, surprisingly, the experimental group did not show huge difference between the control group. Its very interesting to see that although the control group could not respond my questions as well as the experimental group, or they could not even name the words, they could comprehend the words from the test paper. In both groups, they practiced lots of matching games that link the Chinese words with its English meanings. I had both group to use competing computer games to match the words with their meanings. The viable-word wall- did not help the experimental group to excel in the aspect of silent word

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recognition.

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Conclusion After conducting my action research and analyzing my students performance, I have the following conclusions: Chinese word wall can help students to connect the sound, shape and meaning to a word. Reading aloud activities, such as reading along, searching for the words according to speakers, looking for the word according to sentences, does help students to have a better understanding of the words sound, shape and meaning. However, as for connecting the word shape with its meaning, Chinese word wall is not the best solution. Other approaches need to be studied. For further instruction, I will continue use Chinese word wall to help students connect word sounds with their meanings, but focus mostly on reading aloud. I would also lead the students to pay attention to the sentence structure. Since word wall is not irrevocable in improving students silent word recognition, I will not use the wall quite often for this purpose, but explore other method, such as group games and online games. As for my future study, I would like to learn the long-term influence regarding to word wall and see how much different it is to affect students application of word sound and its shape.

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References: Allen, J. (2005). Making word-learning special. Voices From the Middle, 12 (4), 50-60. Eyraud, K., Giles, G., Koenig, S., & Stoller, F. L. (2000) The word wall approach: Promoting L2 vocabulary learning. English Teaching Forum Online, 38, 3. Gruber, B. (1999). Boost learning with word walls. Teaching Pre K-8, 30(1), 64-65. Harmon, J. M., Wood, K. D., & Kiser, K. (2009). Promoting vocabulary learning with the interactive word wall. Middle School Journal, 40(3), 58-63. Harmon, J.M., Wood, K.D., Hedrick. W.B., Vintinner, J., & Willeford, T. (2009). Interactive word walls: More than just reading the writing on the walls. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52 (5), 398-408. Jongsma, K. (2000). Teaching Reading and writing with word walls. The Reading Teacher, 54 (1), 80. Mertler, C. A. (2008). Action research- Teachers as researchers in the classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: an evidence-based

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assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction: Reports of the subgroups (NIH Publication No. 00-4754). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Prince, K. E. (2010). The effectiveness of word wall instruction for preschool children with disabilities. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Teachers College, Columbia University: NY. Vallejo, B. (2002). Word wall. The Science Teacher, 72(2), 58-60. Wagstaff, J.M. (1998). Building practical knowledge of letter-sound correspondences: A beginners word wall and beyond. The Reading Teacher, 51(4), 298-304. Wagstaff, J.M. (1999). Word wall that works. Instructor, 110 (5), 32-33.