The effect of phonological working memory on children's Chinese spoken word learning

The purpose of this study was to investigate how well English speaking children’s phonological working memory can predict their ability to learn Chinese spoken words. Standard Chinese (Mandarin) is considered in this study and thus both terms (Chinese and Mandarin) will be used interchangeably. Participants included a total of 32 fourth grade American children who spoke English as a first language and attended primary school in the Midwestern region of the U. S. A battery of measures was administered orally to test children’s phonological working memory and Chinese word learning ability. The results showed that the children’s phonological working memory could predict their Chinese spoken word learning ability and the strongest predictors were the performance on the repetition of Chinese nonwords with tone and English nonwords without stress. These findings improve understanding of how phonological working memory underpins children’s vocabulary development. Finally, these results provide insight for administrators, teachers and parents in predicting whether students have potential to learn Chinese and therefore help them make decisions accordingly. The result also has implications for teaching Mandarin to English speaking children.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Wei, Junli

Contributors dc:contributor

• Anderson, Richard C.

• phonological working memory
• English-speaking children
• Chinese
• learning

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2012 Junli Wei

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/32066

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/32066