A SINGING APPROACH TO SHARED READING: THE EFFECTS UPON U.S.
KINDERGARTENERS’ CHINESE VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AND RETENTION
By
Wenying Zhou

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Educational Psychology and Educational Technology—Doctor of Philosophy
2013

ABSTRACT
A SINGING APPROACH TO SHARED READING:
THE EFFECTS UPON U.S. KINDERGARTENERS’
CHINESE VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AND RETENTION
By
Wenying Zhou
The present study investigated the effects that the use of songs in Shared Reading had on
the Chinese vocabulary acquisition and retention of young bilingual learners in Chinese
immersion programs using an experimental study design. One hundred and six immersion
kindergarteners from three different school districts in Michigan participated in the study. They
were assigned to the experimental group (n=53) and the control group (n=53) at the class level.
The experimental group listened to a story song and shared singing it, while the control group
heard the same story read aloud and shared reading it. Three types of instruments were used for
assessing children’s acquisition and retention of vocabulary targeted in the read aloud and shared
reading/singing for the pre- and post-tests: (1) Chinese picture naming, (2) Chinese word
recognition, and (3) spoken vocabulary recall in the story. An independent t-test was used to
examine the vocabulary growth between the experimental and the control groups on the
immediate posttests; and a one-way ANOVA analysis was employed to look for significant
differences between the two groups in vocabulary retention. The results showed that there was a
statistically significant difference between the two groups on the acquisition and retention of the
spoken recall test, but no differences were detected on the other two measures. This finding
implies that singing can be an effective pedagogical tool for spoken vocabulary acquisition and
retention in the story, but not for vocabulary acquisition and retention of picture naming or word
recognition.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Guofang Li, my dissertation director, for her support and
unyielding confidence in me during the project. I am also grateful for Dr. Nell Duke’s
willingness to serve as my advisor when my former advisor left MSU and her constructive
comments on my dissertation writing. I appreciate Dr. Evelyn Oka's willingness to serve on my
dissertation committee when Dr. Tom Bird, one of my former committee members, was retired. I
am also grateful to Dr. Mark Reckase for his informative feedback and advice on my research
methodology part. In one word, I want to thank all the members of my dissertation committee for
their guidance, careful edits, challenging questions and encouraging words.
In addition, I want to thank Mr. Brian Shepard, Mr. Tim Shaw, and Mrs. Susan Curry for
allowing me to collect data at their school sites, and Xuena Cui, Xinyi Xu, and Fang Ge for their
willingness to participate in this research project.
A special thank you is offered to my two daughters, Yue Yang and Molly Yang. This
project would not have been possible without the illustrations of the Big Book, which they
provided so generously.
It goes without saying that I give many thanks and much love to my husband, Wenzhong
Yang, for his support in my project.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES………………..……………………………………………..………………..vi
LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………………….vii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………….…………………………1
Statement of the Problem……………………………………………………………………8
Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………………………10
Purpose of the Study………………………………………………………………………..13
Research Questions…………………………………………………………………………13
Significance of the Study…………………………………………………………………...14
Definition of Terms…………………………………………………………………………14
Limitations and Delimitations………………………………………………………………17
Organization of the Study…………………………………………………………………..19
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW…………………….………………………………………………20
Connections between Songs and Language …………………………………..…………21
Singing in Language Instruction…………………………...………………………………22
Singing and Vocabulary Learning……………………………..…………………………..26
Picture naming…………………………………….……………………………….31
Word recognition………….……………………………………………………….33
Vocabulary recall………….……………………………………………………….35
Chapter Summary………………………………………………………………………….38
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…….………………………………………………………41
Design of the Study….……………………………………………………………….…….41
Variables…………………………………………………………………………………...44
Participants and Setting ……………………………………………………………………45
Instruments…………………………………………...…………………………..………..49
Data Collection…………………………………………………………………………….51
Test Validity and Reliability……………………………………………………………….52
Teaching Material Selection and Development……………………………………………59
Picture Book Content Validity……………………………………………………………..62
Selection of the Target Vocabulary Items…...……………………………………………..65
Teacher Training…………………………………………………………………………...65
Procedures…………………..………………………………………………………………66
Intervention Fidelity………………………………………………………………………..69
Data Analysis…..……………………………...…………………………………………...71

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CHAPTER 4
RESEARCH FINDINGS……………………………………………………………………..72
Question 1—Effects of Singing on Vocabulary Acquisition……………………………72
Question 2—Effects of Singing on Vocabulary Retention……………………………...74
Results of the retention of picture naming vocabulary……………………74
Results of the retention of Chinese word recognition……………………...76
Results of the retention of spoken vocabulary recall in the story………77
Summary of the Findings…………………………………………………………………..79
CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………81
Interpretations of the Results………………………………………………………………81
Effects of singing on picture naming………………………………………..81
Effects of singing on Chinese word recognition……………………………83
Effects of singing on vocabulary retention…………………………………86
Implications for CFL/CSL Instruction in Immersion Settings and Beyond…………….89
Limitations…………………………………………………………………………………91
Suggestions for Future Research…………………………………………………………..91
Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………...93
APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………………95
Appendix A: Consent Form………………………………………………………………...96
Appendix B: Assent…………………………………………………………………………..98
Appendix C: Participants’ Chinese Background Questionnaire……………………………..99
Appendix D: Story Text……………………………………………………………………100
Appendix E: Picture Naming Test…………..………………………………………………101
Appendix F: Word Recognition Test………………………………………………………..102
Appendix G: Spoken Vocabulary Recall in the Story Test………………………………….103
Appendix H: Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen……………………………………………104
Appendix I: Procedural Fidelity……………………………………………………………..109
Appendix J: Pilot Study…………………………………………………………………….110
BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………………117

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Demographics of the main study sample (N=106)……………………...……………...48
Table 2: Vocabulary measures…………………………………………………………………..50
Table 3: Example of a scoring sheet……………………………………………………..………53
Table 4: Ratings on each item of the measures by two raters……………………………………55
Table 5: Ratings on each page of the Big Book by four raters: Items rated 3 or 4 on a 4-point
relevance scale (N=4)……………………………………………………………………………64
Table 6: Sample of teaching procedures…………………………………………………………68
Table 7: Video-observer agreement ……………………………………………………………..70
Table 8: Mean number of words correct and standard deviations on the picture reading test…75
Table 9: Results of One-way ANOVA for Picture Naming Test ……………………………….75
Table 10: Mean number of words correct and standard deviations on the word recognition test.76
Table 11: One-way ANOVA for Word Recognition Test……… ………………………………77
Table 12: Mean number of words correct and SD on the spoken vocabulary recall test………..78
Table 13: One-way ANOVA for the Spoken Recall Test ………….……………………………79
Table 14: Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen…………………………………………………...104
Table 15: Procedural Fidelity…………………………………………………………………...109
Table 16: Extra Data Collection……………………………………………………………….112
Table 17: Means and SD for Three Types of Tests for Pre- and Post- tests in the Pilot Study...113

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Detailed research design………………………………………………………………43
Figure 2: Example of picture naming card……………………………………………………..50
Figure 3: Example of Chinese character recognition card……………………………………….51
Figure 4: Example of item assessing vocabulary recall in context……………………………..51
Figure 5: Performance distribution histograms of picture naming ……………………..……….57
Figure 6: Performance distribution histograms of word recognition…………………………….59
Figure 7: Performance distribution histogram of spoken vocabulary recall in the story………...57
Figure 8: An image of a page from the book………………….…………………………………62
Figure 9: Group means on spoken recall test over time………………………………………….78
Figure 10: Picture naming test…………………………………………………………………101
Figure 11: Main study schedule………………………………………………………………..116

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, there has been a rapid growth of Chinese language learners in the
United States. According to the reports of Asia Society, while in 2004 there were 263 Chinese
programs in the United States, in 2008, the number increased to 779 (Asia Society, 2011). There
is also a rapid increase in the number of Chinese immersion programs at the elementary level.
According to Mandarin Immersion Parents Council, before 2000 there were only 13 Chinese
immersion schools at the elementary level in the U.S. In 2012, the number increased to 99.
Research shows that language learning is most effective in elementary school (Ellis,
2008; Larsen-Freeman, 2008). For students learning Chinese, elementary programs would be
particularly useful. However, with the fast expansion of the elementary Chinese programs in the
U.S., many are facing instructional challenges to address students’ language learning and
development needs. These include lack of rich vocabulary exposure and lack of systematic
vocabulary instruction, which lead to students’ insufficient vocabulary knowledge (Belisle, 1997;
Cheng, 2000; Fu, 2005). As Belisle (1997) noted, vocabulary development is “a top priority and
an on-going challenge” (p. 1) for immersion students. As Chinese as a second/foreign language
(CSL/CFL) programs in general and early Chinese immersion programs in particular are a recent
phenomenon, there is a great demand for researchers to inform teachers of effective practices in
instruction.
While research has paid some attention to reading comprehension, listening and speaking,
the area of vocabulary acquisition has not received as much attention (Coady & Huckin, 1997).
This is mainly caused by the language instructional trend in the past few decades in favor of
syntactic development rather than vocabulary acquisition (Cheng, 2000). Under this influence,

1

teachers and researchers tend to view teaching vocabulary as a low-level intellectual activity
unworthy of their full attention, with grammar being the main challenge. Consequently,
vocabulary instruction and research is neglected (Fu, 2005). Recent years have witnessed
increasing interest in second language (L2) vocabulary research; however, in the field of Chinese
as a foreign/second language, research on vocabulary instruction is still very scarce, especially
for young Chinese immersion learners (Belisle, 1997; Everson, 2008).
Vocabulary is important for Chinese immersion students because they begin their
Chinese language learning from scratch but are required to acquire a much larger vocabulary
than students in traditional one-period foreign language classes in order to communicate in the
target language in an immersion environment (Lo & Murphy, 2010; Swain & Lapkin, 1991).
Lack of Chinese vocabulary will negatively impact their development of listening
comprehension, speaking fluency, reading automaticity, and ultimately their overall language
proficiency. For example, if young Chinese immersion learners lack skills in picture or object
naming (concept-sound mapping), or word recognition (script-sound association), which are two
basic building blocks in the process of Chinese language production in young children (Bates,
Camaioni, & Volterra, 1975), they will have difficulty achieving age-appropriate Chinese
reading proficiency. In this regard, “… learning a second language means learning its vocabulary”
(Gass, 1999, p. 325).
Given the importance of vocabulary learning to effective Chinese communication and
higher level communicative skill development, many researchers share the view that vocabulary
teaching should be the focus of Chinese language education for young learners (Li & Yang,
2004; Xu, 2005; Yang, H. Y., 2003; Yang, J. C., 2011) and it should start early in elementary
schools because it helps them achieve near-native listening and speaking skills (Ellis, 2008;

2

Larsen-Freeman, 2008). As Lin (2000) noted, “Good vocabulary acquisition is achieved through
balanced learning activities between spoken and written Chinese begun from the early stages of
learning” (p. 85).
While much research on effective Chinese vocabulary teaching and learning strategies for
older learners has been explored (Fu, 2005; Shen, 2010; Zhang, 1990), there is lack of attention
to younger learners in the field. Research on older learners have identified several key effective
strategies that include visual learning (provide visual images such as pictures and visual actions
accompanying the word) in addition to verbal explanations, key word imagination (relate a key
word with other related words or images or meanings), context technique (to teach words in
sentences and contexts), compare and contrast (compare and contrast meanings and shapes of the
words), and word structure (analyze word structure to help students distinguish similar words).
However, research on these strategies has been limited to Chinese native speakers or college
level CFL/CSL learners. There is very little discussion about what strategies are effective for
young CFL/CSL learners and how they can be applied to classroom teaching. Moreover, the
vocabulary strategies that are effective for Chinese native speakers may not be applicable to
CFL/CSL learners.
As a result, many CFL/CSL teachers struggle with how to teach Chinese vocabulary
effectively to young learners. As Cheng (2000) noted, “vocabulary is the main difficulty of all
CFL learners at different levels, and it is also the main problem in all the learning processes of
Chinese speaking, listening, reading and writing” (p. 8). This difficulty is due to a number of
linguistic and pedagogical factors. One major factor is related to the non-alphabetic nature of the
Chinese script (Everson, 2008; Hu, 2010; Thompson, 2008). Unlike the Indo-European
languages in which each letter represents a sound, Chinese characters usually do not indicate

3

pronunciation. Thus, learning Chinese involves a great deal of memorization—remembering and
making associations of the pronunciation, form, and meaning of each Chinese character. This
creates challenges for young CFL/CSL learners who are used to the sound-out strategy in
learning their alphabetic first language (L1). This unique linguistic factor also requires that
CFL/CSL teachers use more strategies to motivate their students to learn Chinese vocabulary.
The traditional methods of teaching Chinese vocabulary out of context through a grammar
translation or an audio-lingual approach will apparently not interest the young CFL/CSL learners
(Chu, 1990; Jiang, 2006). Nor will the study of core vocabulary lists from textbooks work for
them because it is boring and ineffective for young language learners (Fischer, 1994; Rodríguez
& Sadowki, 2000). Therefore, it is necessary to seek effective vocabulary instruction approaches
that meet the needs of the young CFL/CSL learners.
The researcher has observed the CFL teachers’ challenges in real classrooms when she
was a field instructor for the Chinese Immersion Program at Michigan State University. While
observing the Chinese immersion teachers in the classrooms, she found that they tended to rely
merely on flashcards to expose and teach concept-sound mapping and word lists to practice
script-sound association. Even though the majority of the classroom activities the teachers
designed were to teach the target vocabulary, and a significant amount of time was devoted to
vocabulary reinforcement through flashcards and wordlists, as a result, their students were not
motivated and they were still struggling with acquisition and retention of the new vocabulary.
Lack of insufficient vocabulary knowledge often posed great challenges for them to achieve
“quality, age-appropriate expression and literary development in the upper elementary and
secondary levels (Belisle, 1997, p. 1).” A question then arose: How can we help the immersion
students learn and remember the Chinese words more effectively? This question lingered in the

4

researcher’s mind and motivated her to further pursue research on Chinese vocabulary
acquisition and retention.
Vocabulary acquisition is “a gradual process of one meeting with a word adding to or
strengthening the small amounts of knowledge gained from previous meetings” (Nation, 2001, p.
155) and any meaningful encounter with a target word could contribute to its acquisition (Nagy,
Anderson & Herman, 1987). To make the encounters multiple and meaningful, a language
teacher’s job is not only to expose and teach the vocabulary, but also to make the vocabulary
instruction as interesting as possible to engage students to participate in meaningful language
learning. As well, teachers need to provide students with effective memory aids for short- and
long- term memory in order to aid vocabulary retention, “a sub-stage of the acquisition process
that occurs when language input is no longer available” (Ludwig, Fu, Bardovi-Harlig & Stringer,
2009, p. 3). Mechanical memorization of individual words or memorization out of context tends
to bore young language learners and eventually kill their motivation to further the learning. Thus,
it is necessary for teachers to work on both affective aspects and intellectual facets of the
instructional process.
How can we make Chinese vocabulary instruction fun and effective? Research suggests
that vocabulary instruction done through meaningful contexts is more effective than the isolated
memorizing or defining of predetermined, targeted words, and that contextual learning better
facilitates the retention of these words (Fischer, 1994; Martin-Chang et al., 2007; Prince, 1996;
Rodríguez & Sadowki, 2000). Shared Singing, a combination of use of singing and Shared
Reading in learning story songs, might be a possible solution for young CFL/CSL learners. As
most children love songs and good stories, Shared Singing might enable them to learn another
language, in particular, vocabulary, in a contextual, pleasant, natural and interactive way. The

5

familiar vocabulary and syntax contained in the story song may provide meaningful context for
learners to acquire the vocabulary incidentally and clarify the unfamiliar words through
negotiation of meaning (Medina, 1990). The adult-child interactions with the text before, during,
and after story-singing might enable the children to see, hear and follow the teacher’s use of the
target language in a meaningful way. The researcher’s personal experiences of using songs in
teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in China also showed that songs were beneficial to
language learning. When she incorporated English songs in teaching EFL to her K-12 students,
their motivation was enhanced and their pronunciation was improved through collective singing
and pleasurable practice. Meanwhile, a meaningful context for both explicit and incidental
vocabulary learning was created. Given the above benefits, the use of songs may be a promising
approach to help CFL/CSL students with the acquisition and retention of new vocabulary words.
While research on the use of music and songs in Chinese teaching is very rare, there are a
number of studies on the use of singing in teaching languages other than Chinese, such as
English (Brett et al., 1996; Zimmerman, 1997), Spanish (Pressley, et al., 1980), French (Abrate,
1983), and Italian (Nuessel & Cicogna, 1991). This body of research, however, has produced
inconclusive findings. While a few studies (Ayotte, 2004; Recette & Perretz, 2007) suggest that
the use of songs in language instruction does not facilitate the learning of new vocabulary (such
as transitive/intransitive verbs), the majority of the studies report its positive effects on language
learning in a number of different ways (Murphey, 1992; Willis & Mason, 1994; Schoepp, 2001;
Slattery & Willis, 2001). Ayotte (2004) reported that songs might not serve as an effective
pedagogical tool for teaching verb forms, and Walton, Canaday and Dixon (2010) found similar
results with the learning of new words.

6

In terms of the positive impact of songs on language learning, research has found that
songs are effective motivational tools and memory aids in promoting students’ language
development, and they are great for alleviating learning stress and anxiety. As Butzlaff (2000)
indicates, the pleasurable nature of songs, the melodious music and patterned song lyrics help
create a relaxed, affective and low-pressure learning environment, and therefore foster a positive
emotional state in the learners. The use of songs and music also exposes children to the idea that
L2 learning can be fun, which in turn serves as a springboard to their enjoyment of later
independent learning. Thus, music and songs can work directly on motivating the learners to
learn L2, lower the “affective filter” and bring about maximum stimulation and effective
language acquisition (Butzlaff, 2000; Johnson & Memmott, 2006).
Furthermore, researchers (Ara, 2009; Butzlaff, 2000; Jalongo & Bromley, 1984; Johnson
& Memmott, 2006; Martin, 1983; McCarthey, 1985) have documented the pedagogical benefits
of the use of songs and music in enhancing students’ word recall ability, improving spelling, and
shortening their language study time. Murphey (1990) described what he called the Song-Stuckin-my-Head-Phenomenon. He found that this phenomenon reinforced the idea that songs worked
on our short- and long- term memory. To test the effect, Salcedo (2002) investigated the use of
music in text recall among 94 college Spanish learners by counting the total number of words
that were correctly written in the blanks that replaced deleted words after an intervention of three
Spanish songs. The cloze test found that text recall was better in the song condition than in the
spoken condition. In a study of the effects of background music on elementary students’ English
word spelling, Anderson, Henke, McLaughlin, Ripp and Tuffs (2000) found that music enabled
the students to concentrate, relax and re-visualize the spelling words. And the post-intervention

7

data of spelling test scores and report card grades indicated an improvement in their spelling
word retention.
The above studies of the affective and pedagogical benefits suggest that the use of songs
can be an effective tool to enhance CFL/CSL acquisition and retention. However, very little
information can be found in the literature except one study that addressed the relationship
between the use of music and Chinese language learning (Liu, 2007). Liu examined the effects of
music/songs on 17 Amis ethnic third graders’ Chinese learning by comparing five learning
conditions: word-rhyme, word-riddle, read-aloud, songs, and background music. It was found
that read-aloud, songs and background music increased students’ learning motivation and interest,
but they couldn’t help students comprehend the content. This study confirmed the effects of
singing on language learners’ motivation, but it didn’t show that music/songs could promote
Chinese vocabulary acquisition and retention. The scarcity of research in this area suggests
further investigation is needed to examine the effects of songs on Chinese language learning.

Statement of the Problem
Although the use of songs in the foreign language classroom has long been valued,
“except for anecdotal articles advocating the incorporation of songs to increase students’
involvement, there was little published until the late 50s and 60s when the popularity of audiolingual methodology became evident” (Salcedo, 2002, p. 19).
As described above, an overview of studies on L2 vocabulary suggests that very few
empirical studies have been conducted about how the use of songs affects young CFL/CSL
learners’ vocabulary acquisition and retention, with the majority of the studies focusing on IndoEuropean languages as first languages. Specifically, in CFL/CSL classrooms, there is little

8

information on whether and how singing facilitates CFL/CSL learners’ vocabulary acquisition
and retention. It is, therefore, unclear whether the same benefits of the use of songs will apply in
CFL/CSL learning. This information is needed to understand the extent to which singing can be
used in L2 vocabulary instruction and its role in L2 vocabulary acquisition and retention.
To address this gap, the present study examines the effects of singing on Chinese
immersion kindergarteners’ CFL/CSL vocabulary acquisition and retention. Given that picture
naming, word recognition and vocabulary recall are essential skills of young children’s language
learning, the researcher is interested in finding out possible roles that the use of songs may play
in CSL language instruction by examining U.S. kindergarteners’ CSL vocabulary acquisition and
retention in the areas of picture naming, Chinese word recognition and vocabulary recall in the
story. In order to enhance the learning of Chinese vocabulary within a meaningful context, the
use of songs was situated in learning a Chinese story. The story song lyrics provide predictable
elements such as repetitive phrases, rhymes, refrains, and sentences for the children to negotiate
the meaning and remember the information. The familiarity and predictability of the story help
the children develop their ability to learn how to read (Barclay & Walwer, 1992). These facilitate
the development of their vocabulary knowledge and pre-reading skills which they use as they
begin to learn to read in Chinese.
Further, since vocabulary must be learned in meaningful contexts, to better understand
the effects of singing, Shared Singing was created as one of the two learning conditions for this
study (Shared Singing and Shared Reading). Shared Reading has long been recognized as having
a positive impact on young children’s literacy development, and has been shown to be associated
with vocabulary development and literacy skills in second language learners as well (Combs,
1987; Crain-Thoreson, et al., 2001; Koskinen et al., 1999). However, little research has been

9

conducted on Shared Singing, an integration of singing in Shared Reading. Given the combined
benefits of both singing and Shared Reading for vocabulary development, it might be interesting
to see the potential benefits of Shared Singing in the CFL classrooms.

Theoretical Framework
Several theories provide the basis for this study. First, the use of songs in L2 instruction
fits into Howard Gardner’s (1998) “Theory of Multiple Intelligences,” which argues that human
beings know the world through at least seven ways: language, logic-mathematic analysis, visualspatial representations, musical thinking, use of body, an interpersonal understanding of others,
and an intrapersonal understanding of self. Out of all the intelligences, musical intelligence
develops first. By a very young age, children have become aware of pitch, melody, rhythm and
rhyme, which are all components of reading, and thus, the use of music in language learning may
have the potential to meet different intelligences. This theory of multiple intelligences
encourages teachers to expand their repertoire of techniques, tools, and strategies beyond the
typical linguistic and logical ones predominantly used in classrooms. In addition, music, by
nature, allows task sharing and cooperation and promotes the use of all the other intelligences,
thereby giving it the potential to maximize the impact of the instruction for the students (Arnold
& Fonseca, 2004; Christison, 1995; Gardner, 1998). In singing a song, to keep the flow of the
language going, learners have the opportunity to use verbal-linguistic intelligence; reading the
lyrics, they use visual-spatial intelligence; clapping or dancing to the rhythm, they use
kinesthetic intelligence; and chanting as a whole group, they use interpersonal intelligence. This
process is facilitative of second language acquisition because the playfulness in songs helps the
children develop a love of linguistic features of the target language through singing (Christison,

10

1995; Wiggins, 2007), and the teacher’s explicit instruction during singing helps students
deliberately notice the target sentence forms and meanings, thus enhancing their vocabulary
acquisition and retention. Anderson (1998) investigated the effect of the use of the multiple
intelligence approach on L2 vocabulary learning of 100 seventh- and eighth-grade Latin
students. He found that the multiple intelligence approach was favored by the teacher and
students, and the post-intervention data showed students increased scores on bi-weekly
vocabulary quizzes and increased awareness of memory techniques for L2 vocabulary mastery.
Therefore, it is reasonable to say that when children’s language learning is combined with
multiple intelligences activities, they can better respond to the language in a richer context and
develop their linguistic intelligence more effectively.
This study is also supported by Krashen’s two hypotheses. One is Comprehensible Input
Hypothesis (2003), which suggests that L2 learners acquire a language by hearing and
understanding messages that are slightly above their current L2 language level (i.e., the concept
of “i+1”). That is, if learners understand input, they progress from stage i (their current level) to
stage i+1 (a bit beyond their current level). In addition, the hypothesis claims that learners are
capable of understanding language including new, unfamiliar vocabulary with the aid of extralinguistic support such as illustrations, actions, photos, objects, and realia, that is, contextual
clues. Based on the latter claim of this hypothesis, familiar vocabulary and syntax contained in
the songs provide meaningful context clues to clarify the meaning of the unfamiliar words,
which will efficiently enhance learners’ negotiation of meaning and acquisition of target
language, thus accelerating the progression from stage i to stage i+1 (Medina, 1990).
For many children, singing songs represents one potential source of exposure to
vocabulary learning. Songs, like languages, contain lyrics that convey messages. And these

11

messages are featured with pitch, volume, intonation, stress, tone, rhythm, and pauses (Chang,
2000). So when children hear songs, they are actually being exposed to native speakers’
modeling using correct pronunciation; and when they sing songs, they are actually using the
language. In addition, the rhythm and melodies of the songs greatly help learners pronounce the
vocabulary in a natural way (Farrug, 2008).
Krashen’s (2003) other hypothesis that is relevant here is the “Affective Filter
Hypothesis,” which states that when learners are bored, angry, frustrated, nervous, unmotivated
or stressed, they may be unsuccessful at learning a second language. However, when they have
low anxiety, they are eager to learn and they learn best. According to this hypothesis, songs can
be a great source of alleviating learning stresses and anxieties because the melodious music and
patterned lyrics in songs may be able to create a happy and low pressure environment that helps
lower the “affective filter” and bring about effective language acquisition (Butzlaff, 2000;
Johnson & Memmott, 2006; Shen, 2009). The use of songs makes it possible to create an
affective environment that enhances the language learning capability of the students. For
example, when children sing the target language songs as a whole group, it tends to create a noncompetitive and non-threatening language learning environment where students are willing to
join in. Due to the pleasurable nature of songs, singing also helps produce a sense of bonding and
increases student interest, enjoyment and confidence in language learning.

Purpose of the Study
Motivated by the researcher’s observations in the Chinese immersion classrooms and the
existing research gaps in the literature, the overarching question addressed in this study is
whether the use of singing affects CFL/CSL vocabulary acquisition and retention in the Shared

12

Singing setting. This study was designed to broaden our understanding of the application of
singing in Chinese immersion environment to CFL/CSL vocabulary acquisition and retention. It
examined the ways in which the use of Shared Singing affected young Chinese immersion
learners’ picture naming, Chinese word recognition and spoken vocabulary recall.

Research Questions
The questions guiding this research included: (1) Do the Shared Singing group acquire
more vocabulary of picture naming, Chinese word recognition and spoken vocabulary in the
story than the Shared Reading group? (2) Do the Shared Singing kindergarteners retain more
vocabulary of picture naming, Chinese word recognition and spoken vocabulary in the story than
the Shared Reading group? The following research hypotheses were investigated in order to
address the above two research questions. Specifically, hypotheses 1 to 3 were examined to
answer the first research question and hypotheses 4 to 6 were used to answer the second one:
Hypothesis 1: The Shared Singing group will score higher than the Shared Reading group
in the immediate posttest of Chinese picture naming.
Hypothesis 2: The Shared Singing group will score higher than the Shared Reading group
in the immediate posttest of Chinese word recognition.
Hypothesis 3: The Shared Singing group will score higher than the Shared Reading group
in the immediate recall of spoken vocabulary in the story.
Hypothesis 4: The Shared Singing group will retain more picture naming vocabulary than
the Shared Reading group.
Hypothesis 5: The Shared Singing group will retain more Chinese words than the Shared
Reading group.

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Hypothesis 6: The Shared Singing group will retain more spoken vocabulary in the story
than the Shared Reading group.

Significance of the Study
This dissertation was conducted for both theoretical and practical reasons. At the
theoretical level, the study aimed at contributing to the growing body of CFL/CSL language
studies. First, it provides much-needed information on the use of singing on CFL/CSL
vocabulary acquisition and retention. Second, it explores the potential benefits of the Shared
Singing approach. Third, it sheds light on effective CFL/CSL vocabulary instruction, particularly,
at the elementary level.
This study provides practical information for L2 curriculum material designers in
integrating the use of songs in the development of the materials targeted at young CFL/CSL
learners because CFL/CSL curriculum design has traditionally focused on the serious learning of
individual characters and memorization of vocabulary lists at the pre-college and college levels
(Liu, Wang & Perfetti, 2007). Little attention has been paid to the use of meaningful context in
CFL/CSL vocabulary acquisition at the elementary level. It also informs CFL/CSL teachers who
need to make instructional decisions about effective strategies to enhance Chinese vocabulary
acquisition and retention.

Definition of Terms
1. Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) – Chinese being studied by non-native speakers as a
foreign language in an environment where Chinese is not spoken as the first language.

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2. Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) – Chinese being studied/spoken as a second language
within Chinese-speaking countries such as Singapore.
3. L1 (first language) – a person’s native language or mother tongue that he/she has learned
from birth to puberty, or that he/she speaks the best. It is often the person’s sociolinguistic
identify.
4. L2 (second language) – any language a person learns after the first language or mother
tongue.
5. Acquisition— the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend
a language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. Krashen
(2003) differentiates acquisition from learning. To him, “acquisition” is the product of a
subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they acquire their
first language, while “learning” is the product of formal instruction and comprises a
conscious process which results in conscious knowledge “about” the language. This study
adopted Krashen’s (2003) definition of acquisition, which refers to the process by which
humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend a language, as well as to produce
and use words and sentences to communicate. Acquisition will be assessed through
immediate posttest scores in this study.
6. Picture naming— visual picture recognition. To name a picture can be considered an
elementary process in the use of a language.
7. Word recognition— the ability of a reader to recognize written words correctly. In this study
isolated word recognition was employed because contextual help was not provided when the
participants’ ability to recognize individual Chinese words was tested.

15

8. Chinese word— A Chinese word may be composed of one or multiple Chinese characters.
Almost all Chinese words are single- or double-character words. In this research, the Chinese
words used in the pre- and post- tests of Chinese word recognition are all double-character
words.
9. Retention– the retrieval of information from memory without a cue. Retention can be
considered to have occurred in terms either of competence being preserved or of performance
that persists over time. In both cases, a time interval must pass after a learning experience
before retention can be measured.
10. Spoken vocabulary recall in the story—the ability of a person to retrieve the target speaking
words in a story after hearing the story told. In this study, to test the participants’ spoken
vocabulary recall in the story, the researcher retold the story with the target vocabulary left
blank and the participants were required to recall the target word and fill in the blanks orally.
11. Shared Reading–This term was first used by Holdaway (1979), and was described as a way
to teach children beginning literacy skills such as one-to-one tracking of text through reading
books with enlarged texts. It focuses on adult-child interactions with the text before, during,
and after the reading of a story. Before Shared Reading, the teacher uses enlarged print to
attract all the learners’ attention. It starts with the teacher presenting the story, the title and
the characters, then reading the story. During Shared Reading, the teacher re-reads the story
while drawing students’ attention to text features such as new vocabulary or grammar. She
models skilled reading behaviors, focuses on some words or involves students in a discussion
of the events in the text, pauses and asks students to predict, and invites students to read
along when they can. After Shared Reading, the students can re-read the text without much

16

of the teacher’s help or do written activities such as sequencing the events or retelling the text
or acting it out in groups.
12. Shared Singing— the use of singing integrated into Shared Reading. It follows the same
procedures and techniques as Shared Reading. However, it is different from reading along in
Shared Reading; rather, it allows the children to sing along when they learn the story song
using the Shared Reading techniques.

Limitation and Delimitations
There are some limitations and delimitations to this research. The study is limited in its
findings in the following ways: First, this study focused on the use of singing in CFL/CSL
vocabulary acquisition and retention; therefore, other aspects of CFL/CSL learning such as
grammar and writing were excluded. Second, the subjects of this study were limited to the young
CFL/CSL learners who were enrolled in the Chinese Immersion Programs through Confucius
Institute at Michigan State University; thus CFL/CSL learners beyond this level were excluded.
Third, the Chinese version “Little Red Hen” was created specifically for this study and fifteen
vocabulary words were chosen from the story, catering to the kindergarteners’ Chinese
proficiency level. Other kindergarten level books and vocabulary words were excluded.
Both external and internal validity limited the findings of this study. There was one
possible threat to internal validity, which was the lack of rotation of the control and experimental
groups between the morning and the afternoon hours during the research. Although there was the
same number of participants in the experimental group as in the control group, kindergarteners
tended to learn better in the mornings than in the afternoons due to their short concentration

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spans. Lack of rotation of the groups might favor one group’s performance over the other, which
would probably cause a threat to internal validity.
With regard to external validity, population validity is a possible threat. In this study, the
young CFL/CSL learners were conveniently chosen from the Chinese Immersion Programs
throughout Michigan. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to other Chinese programs.
Also the participants in this study were young CFL learners and their Chinese proficiency level
was low, so the findings cannot be generalized to those at the higher levels.
The internal validity threat could be minimized first by assuring that the subjects from the
two groups had similar Chinese learning background and Chinese proficiency level before the
study was conducted. It could also be alleviated by balancing the assignment of the control and
experimental groups to morning and afternoon hours across the participating classes. In terms of
the external validity threat, the participants in this study were a unique group of students, but
they were representative of the larger population of young CFL/CSL learners in terms of the
beginning Chinese proficiency level, thus allowing for some generalizations to be made about
the population.

Organization of the Dissertation
The present dissertation is organized in five chapters. Chapter one introduces the study
and states the main reasons for conducting the study. The significance of the study is outlined
and research questions are presented along with hypotheses. The theoretical framework is
discussed and definitions of the terms used in this study are provided. Chapter 2 reviews
previous studies on the use of music/songs in language education in general and its relationship
to vocabulary learning in particular. This is then followed by a detailed review of literature on

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the role of music/songs in the three vocabulary measures in this study: picture naming, word
recognition and vocabulary recall in the story. Chapter 3 discusses the design of this study. It
provides an overview of the research design, participants, materials, procedures, instruments,
variables, data collection and data analysis of the main study. Chapter 4 presents the results of
data analysis and answers each of the two research questions accordingly. Chapter 5 discusses
the findings based on the research questions. It also presents pedagogical recommendations in
the field of L2 vocabulary instruction. Implications for future research are also provided.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Vocabulary is considered to be the fundamentals of learning a second language. However,
L2 vocabulary research has been historically neglected (Chen, 2006; Coady & Huckin, 1997).
Although research on Chinese as second/foreign language is on the rise and gaining growing
attention, it is still an emerging field, and there is, in particular, scarce research concerning
young CFL/CSL learners’ vocabulary acquisition and retention.
Traditionally, CFL/CSL vocabulary has been taught out of context through a grammar
translation approach or an audio-lingual approach (Chu, 1990; Jiang, 2006), with a heavy
emphasis on drilled practice, repeated reading, and labor- and time-consuming memorization of
individual characters (Han & Chen, 2010). As well, Chinese vocabulary instruction is found to
be text-bound, with teachers relying heavily on core vocabulary lists from textbooks for
instruction and practice (Jiang, 2006). And in many K-12 classrooms, flashcards are a popular
tool for vocabulary reinforcement. Although the use of vocabulary lists is oftentimes
accompanied by the analysis of morphological structure, semantic radicals, compound lexical
extension, and/or with the aid of technology, vocabulary instruction is still limited to memorizing
individual characters (Chen et al., 2008; Shen, 2005; Tao, 2003; Tsoua, Wang & Li, 2002; Zhang
et al., 2011). The isolated memorizing through word lists and reinforcement through flashcards is
not only boring, but also very ineffective to Chinese immersion language learners (Fischer, 1994;
Rodríguez & Sadowki, 2000). Given the potential benefits of songs/music in language learning,
it is worthwhile to explore how they can be applied to Chinese vocabulary instruction to make
CFL/CSL learning more effective, fun and meaningful.

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This chapter contains three parts. The first part presents an overview of the relationship
between music/songs and language learning in general. It is then followed by an introduction of
singing as an instructional intervention to facilitate language learning. The second part reviews
studies on the use of singing in vocabulary learning related to three main measures of this study,
in particular, picture naming, word recognition and vocabulary recall. The third part summarizes
this chapter.

Connections between Songs and Language
Recent research has shown strong connections between singing in tune and vocal use
with language (Mang, 2006; Patel, 2003; Trollinger, 2003, 2004). According to Aiello (1994),
music and language share similarities in (1) acquisition process—when learning language and
music, people abstract rules and then utilize them to create their own; (2) cognitive
characteristics—they both involve meaningful uses of sound patterns; and (3) essential acoustic
features—both of them are composed of rhythm, melody, pitch, intensity, and accentuation. Jolly
(1975) states that songs may be regarded as “occupying the middle ground between the
disciplines of linguistics and musicology, possessing both the communicative aspect of language
and the entertainment aspect of music” (p. 11). And Madaule (1997) considered music as a “prelinguistic” language because it has all the characteristics of language except for semantic value
and it prepares the child’s ear, voice, and body to listen to, integrate, and produce language
sounds.
Using songs is one of the marvelous ways of introducing a foreign language to students
in a meaningful context, and songs are also “especially good at introducing vocabulary because
they provide a meaningful context for the vocabulary” (Griffee, 1995, p. 5). Songs, like

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languages, contain lyrics that convey messages. And these messages are featured with pitch,
volume, intonation, stress, tone, rhythm, and pauses (Chang, 2000). As young children are
naturally wired for sound and rhythm, the playfulness in songs helps them develop a love of
linguistic features of the target language (Christison, 1995). When they hear a song sung, they
are actually being exposed to native speakers’ modeling using correct pronunciation, intonation,
and segmentation of phrases; when they sing the song, they are actually repeating and practicing
using the language. The rhythmicality of songs, together with the teacher’s guidance, helps the
students reinforce sounds and intonation of the target language in a more enjoyable way than
doing boring, repetitious drill (Guglielmino, 1986), and the rhythm and melodies of the songs
ensure that the learners pronounce the target vocabulary in a natural way (Farrug, 2008). When
they are used with illustrations of the story song, they are not only fun, but also have a visible
effect on story comprehension and incidental vocabulary acquisition.

Singing in Language Instruction
Many people believe in the pedagogical benefits of the use of songs in language
instruction because it helps create good language learning atmosphere in the classroom, enhances
students’ word recall ability, and thus shortens their language study time (Ara, 2009; Jolly, 1975;
Mitchell, 1983). It has been reported that the use of songs helps second language learners acquire
vocabulary and grammar, improve spelling and develop the linguistic skills of reading, writing,
speaking and listening (Jalongo & Bromley, 1984; Martin, 1983; McCarthey, 1985). For this
reason, since the 1970s, many researchers have proposed various methods to incorporate songs
as a pedagogical tool for language learning and many programs have been designed to teach
children through songs. For example, in 1978, Georgi Lozanov developed a musical method

22

called Suggestopedie which used classical music to help learners tap into subconscious resources
to aid in acquisition and greater retention of vocabulary and language structures. In 1980, Kind
developed the Audio-Singual Method to help foreign language learners overcome fear and
resistance that a learner may experience. Anton (1990) proposed the Contemporary Music
Approach (CMA) to teach various grammatical structures of the language through different
styles of music and rhythms.
Existing studies show that the use of music/songs has a positive effect on the
development of students’ language skills (Anvari et al., 2002; Hurwitz et al., 1975; Register,
2001; Wallace, 1994). Anvari et al. (2002) examined 100 preschoolers and found that children
who began learning musical instruments early on were more likely to have better phonological
awareness and reading development. In a quasi-experimental study on the effects of music
training on reading, Hurwitz, Wolff, Bortnick and Koka (1975) reported that music training
improved reading tests in first grade children after the experimental group (n=20) received
musical instruction including listening to folk songs and the control group (n=20) received no
special treatment. In a similar study, Li and Brand (2009) examined the effectiveness of varying
the use of songs (lyrics and music) on vocabulary acquisition, language usage, and meaning for
university ESL graduate students in China (n=105). Results showed that varying the degree of
use of songs produced differential English language achievements. Specifically, the subjects who
were exposed to the most music obtained higher achievement and attitude scores on both the
immediate and delayed post-tests. In a study on the effect of a music software program “Carry-aTune” (CAT) on 48 struggling middle school readers, Biggs et al. (2008) had the experimental
group (n=24) use CAT to work on songs progressing from lower to higher readability levels
three times a week lasting 30 minutes each time for nine weeks, while the control group (n=24)

23

not use it during the study. The pre- and post- tests results showed that the experimental group
increased their reading level by nearly two years, while the control group had no significant
reading gains during the same time period.
In addition, the use of songs is found to be effective in facilitating grammar learning. In a
quasi-experimental study, Hashim & Abd Rahman (2010) investigated the use of songs on 35
fifth grade Malaysian students in teaching subject-verb agreement (SVA). A pretest was
administered for group assignment. Twenty-two students who scored eighty percent and above
formed the control group and the other 13 students were in the experimental group. The
experimental group went through the song-based tasks in three different sessions while the
control group continued with their normal lessons. Qualitative and quantitative data were
collected through post-test, observation of a recorded tape, and students’ reflections. The
researcher’s observation revealed not only that the students found the lessons fun, but they
seemed to become more active and confident as they learned. The findings showed that songbased activities were useful tools to reinforce the learning of SVA. Beaton (1995) reported a
study that compared two groups of children who learned a grammatical concept in French with
one group using the traditional methods of teacher lecturing and the other using a song. After
three months, only the children who learned through song could remember the grammar rule and
continued to sing the song after the initial class. Beaton concluded that the use of songs helped
ingrain the grammar concept through repetition along with the lyrics and melody.
Furthermore, songs have powerful motivational effects for language learners.
Researchers (Anderson, 1998; Arnold & Fonseca, 2004; Christison, 1995; Lazear, 1991) have
found that the use of songs/music not only helps reduce the boredom of language drills through
multiple ways of meaning-making, but also motivates students by stimulating the different

24

intelligences, thus resulting in better learning. Botwinick (1997) reported that listening to
classical music immediately before receiving spelling instruction enhanced first graders’
motivation and interest for spelling. In a study that investigated the impact of English popular
songs on ESL learning by Chen and Chen (2009), questionnaires given to five classes of six
grade Chinese students indicated that the students’ learning motivation increased after engaging
in learning the English songs. Zhou and Huang (2009) found the same results after they surveyed
127 third grade Chinese elementary students for their attitudes towards the use of English songs
in their class. The results showed that the use of songs in ESL language teaching could arouse
their learning interests. In a study involving younger learners of English, Hazel-Obarow (2004)
examined both the short-term and long-term effects of music on vocabulary acquisition using a
pretest/posttest/delayed-posttest experimental design. The treatment conditions involved the use
of music versus no-music during instruction on vocabulary acquisition and retention of story
vocabulary for kindergarten and first-grade subjects. The qualitative data revealed that treatments
that included music appeared to be more motivating for students and engaged them deeper in the
learning of vocabulary.
As shown above, there are quite a number of studies considering different positive
aspects songs can have for the process of language learning. They help create a pleasant learning
environment, enhance students’ language development, increase their motivation, and facilitate
grammar learning. However, the studies in this area predominantly focus on Indo-European
languages, in particular, English as a first and second language. The question of whether the use
of songs influences CFL/CSL learning has hardly been addressed in the literature. Therefore, the
issue of singing-based instruction seems to be a promising topic for further investigation.
Language may have been gained during the above-mentioned studies, but this may not be

25

applicable to CFL/CSL learning because Chinese is a tonal and logographic language vastly
different from alphabetic languages.

Singing and Vocabulary Learning
Researchers (Medina, 1993; Murphey, 1992; Willis & Mason, 1994) have argued for the
benefits of using songs in vocabulary teaching and learning. The benefits include: (1) attracting
students’ attention and motivating them intrinsically: students relate to songs as part of
entertainment rather than work, and they find learning vocabulary through songs amusing rather
than boring; (2) providing contextual cues: in song lyrics, words usually appear in context and it
helps students understand the language exposed; (3) facilitating vocabulary fast-mapping: the
sound of new words is easily remembered along with the melody of the song, by listening to the
song and through practicing singing the song; and (4) enhancing vocabulary recall and retention:
songs allow learners to repeat and memorize chunks of language.
Researchers (Forster, 2006; Orlova, 1997; Schunk, MME, MT-BC, 1999) have also
identified some additional benefits of songs in foreign/second language vocabulary learning.
First, song lyrics provide a source of new vocabulary that language learners acquire incidentally.
Second, songs can encourage learners to use the target vocabulary through singing. Producing L2
output can be threatening to L2 beginners; however, when they sing as a whole group, a nonthreatening language learning environment is created where individual errors are covered and
self-confidence is increased, thus students are willing to join in. Finally, songs can stimulate a
positive emotional attitude towards vocabulary learning.
However, research that investigates the use of songs/music in vocabulary teaching and
learning reports inconclusive results. The majority of the existing studies have identified positive

26

effects. In a study that examined the effects of music upon the acquisition of English vocabulary
in a group of 48 second grade children with limited English proficiency, Medina (1993) found
that vocabulary gain scores were consistently statistically higher for the groups in which music
was used. Lewis (2002) conducted a six-week study with first graders and found that listening to
classical music seemed to have made a substantial difference in the reading comprehension
levels and letter/sound recognition of these students. In analysis of the cause, Stansell (2005)
claimed that the learning of a song could be awakened by listening to it to familiarize the
musicality and rhythm, learning the lyrics that follow, and then humming the song. “This
effective, gradual method could lead to the out-of-class associations that are crucial to language
learning” (Stansell, 2005, p. 22). Songs could thus be an effective method of helping children
learn lexical patterns that would be stored in their minds and could be naturally recalled during
oral communication (Murphey, 1992). In other words, songs can be used to help the
development of automaticity – the ability to use a language naturally and without conscious
effort. This, according to Schoepp (2001), is the main cognitive reason for using songs in L2
learning. In addition, through singing songs, children can also repeat words and phrases
spontaneously even if they do not initially understand the lyrics (Slattery & Willis, 2001).
Studies also show that the positive effect of the use of songs on vocabulary learning tends
to be maximized when it is paired with other means. Medina (1990) investigated the
effectiveness of music and use of story illustrations on English vocabulary acquisition in a group
of 48 second grade limited-English-proficient children by comparing four groups: the no-music
group who listened to an oral story; the music group who heard a song version of the same story;
the illustration group who were shown pictures of target vocabulary words while listening to the
story; and the no-illustration group who listened to the story without the pictures. The pre- and

27

post- results indicated that more words were acquired when they were sung rather than spoken.
However, vocabulary gain scores were the highest for the groups in which both were used.
Schunk et al. (1999) found similar results by examining the effect of singing paired with signing
on receptive vocabulary skills of 80 elementary ESL students who attended language sessions in
one of the following conditions: sung text paired with signs, spoken text paired with signs, sung
text, and a control group of spoken text only. Pretest and posttest data were analyzed to
determine gains in receptive vocabulary identification. Results indicated that all four groups
made significant gains. However, children in the sung text paired with sign and the spoken text
paired with sign conditions made significantly greater gains in vocabulary recognition than those
in the control condition of spoken text only. The condition yielding the highest mean gain score
was a combination of singing and signing.
Despite the above positive affects, a couple of researchers report that the use of songs
neither facilitates nor undermines vocabulary learning. Medina (1990) investigated the
effectiveness of music and use of story illustrations on English vocabulary acquisition and the
results of pre- and post- tests indicated no statistically significant differences between groups
having music and not having music. In a similar study, Winter (2010) explored how using songs
during ESL instruction could lead to productive vocabulary gains in second grade English
language learners. The control group (n=7) was given traditional vocabulary instruction, and the
experimental group (n=8) was exposed to vocabulary instruction incorporating songs. Pretests
(self-assessment and cloze tests), end-of-story oral retells of the stories, and post-tests (a replica
of pretests) were administered. The findings showed that there was not a significant difference in
production of vocabulary between the two groups, indicating songs did not facilitate or inhibit
the acquisition of new vocabulary. In a study that examined the effects of singing on the

28

acquisition of transitive and intransitive verbs on 33 Japanese as foreign language university
students, Mouri (2011) found similar results. The experimental group (n=15) was taught the
vocabulary along with a melody, whereas the control group (n=18) was not exposed to the
melody. The pre- post- test results showed no statistically significant differences between the two
groups on their immediate recognition, indicating that the use of songs did not help with
transitive and intransitive verb learning.
Moreover, a few studies suggest that presenting songs as a form of authentic information
has no advantage, compared to other forms of input in terms of learning verb forms or new
words. Omari (2001) examined the impact of songs on children’s vocabulary recognition by
having 20 kindergarten students first participate in Total Physical Response (TPR) intervention
and then learn through songs/chants. The study found that the use of songs was no more effective
than TPR. In a study to examine the role of songs in the acquisition of verb tense forms on 46
college learners of French: present, compound past, imperfect, future, and conditional, Ayotte
(2004) divided the students into two groups and exposed them to the same language input
through two different means: with music and without music. Five songs were selected and each
focused on one of the selected verb forms. Immediate and delayed post-tests (three weeks
intervals) were compared on grammatical accuracy. The results did not demonstrate statistical
significance for the three verb forms–present, compound past, and imperfect. Ayotte concluded
that songs might not serve as an effective pedagogical tool for teaching verb forms. Walton,
Canaday & Dixon (2010) found similar results with the learning of new words. They examined
32 aboriginal kindergarteners in Australia to see whether songs could enhance the learning of
key pre-reading skills (i.e., phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge) and word reading.
The control group (n=16) received their regular classroom literacy teaching, and the treatment

29

group (n=16) received the song and movement program. Tests of eight learned words and four
new words were administered. The results showed that the children in the treatment group read
significantly more of the eight learned words than those in the control group. However, there
were no significant differences in reading the four new words between the two groups, indicating
the reading skill was not transferred to reading new words.
Compared with the aforementioned studies in alphabetic vocabulary, CFL/CSL
vocabulary instruction and acquisition studies are very scant. They are limited to the
phonological and morphological areas, and the discussions are focused on the linguistic
description of Chinese words and analysis of word structure (Cheng, 2000). Specifically, the
available research on CSL/CFL vocabulary acquisition in the past decade mainly focuses on
investigating effective use of Chinese phonetic pinyin in CSL/CFL instruction (Chung, 2002),
Chinese vocabulary learning strategies that native English speakers use (Fu, 2005; Winke &
Abbuhl, 2007), word structure, semantic radical processing in Chinese character reading and
writing (Bassetti, 2005), computer-assisted Chinese vocabulary acquisition (Wilberschied &
Berman, 2004) and some unique Chinese vocabulary phenomena such as numeral-classifiers,
“bei (an indicator of passive voice)”, and “ba” structure. As vocabulary is the main difficulty of
all CFL/CSL learners at different levels (Gao, Li & Guo, 1993), more vocabulary research is
needed to help and inform CFL/CSL teachers to make instructional decisions as to how to help
students enhance their students’ vocabulary acquisition and retention.
In addition, most of the existing studies (e.g., Mouri, 2011; Winter, 2010) focus on
college level students. There is an obvious lack of experimental studies investigating how the use
of songs influences young CFL/CSL learners’ vocabulary acquisition and retention, especially in
the areas of their first fundamental linguistic functions such as picture naming, Chinese word

30

recognition and vocabulary recall. As more and more U.S. young children start to learn Chinese,
it has become urgent for researchers to target at this group of students’ vocabulary development
to prevent them from experiencing Chinese vocabulary learning difficulties as they learn this
logographic language in a less-intimidating way.
Furthermore, studies (e.g., Mouri, 2011; Salcedo, 2010) suggest that the use of singing
may enhance learners’ vocabulary learning in general; however, as these studies did not
distinguish between different types of vocabulary learning, the results could not be assumed for
productive vocabulary development such as picture naming or Chinese word recognition at the
beginning stage of Chinese vocabulary learning. This study was designed to fill in this research
gap. In the following section, a brief literature review was conducted in this regard.

Picture naming.
Picture naming in alphabetic languages has been intensely studied in recent years
(Besner, Waller & MacKinnon, 1985; Coltheart, 1987). Research in this area mainly focuses on
understanding how people retrieve and produce names for things (Cattell, 1886; Dromi, 1987),
and what variables affect picture naming (Barry, Morrison & Ellis, 1997; Brysbaert, 1996; Liu,
Hao, Li and Shu, 2011).
To understand what the picture naming process is, several theoretical models have been
proposed, among which two are very popular. One model proposes that picture naming consists of
discrete two stages—conceptual processing and a word form processing of the intended name that
can be subdivided into semantic and phonological stages of processing (Caramazza, 1997; Starreveld
& La Heij, 1996). However, Humphreys and Riddoch (1987) propose the “Cascade Model,” which
explains that the picture naming process proceeds through a series of stages—from recognition of the

31

image, to semantic representation, to a phonological level, and finally to actual production of the
name.
Researchers are also interested in identifying the factor(s) that determines the picture naming
process (Barry, Morrison & Ellis, 1997; Brysbaert, 1996; Liu, Hao, Li and Shu, 2011). Factors
such as word frequency (the frequency that a word appears), concept familiarity (the familiarity of
the concept depicted by the picture) and age of acquisition (the age at which learning occurs and
significantly affects the outcome) have been identified. And their relationship with naming latency
(the interval between the onset of target presentation and speech onset) has been widely studied. It
was reported that age of acquisition determined picture naming speed universally across languages,
but other variables were more language specific and influenced naming latencies differently in
different languages (Barry, Morrison & Ellis, 1997; Juhasz, 2005). For example, Bates et al.
(2003) found that word length was a significant predictor of naming latencies in English,
Bulgarian and Hungarian, but not in German, Spanish and Italian.
Studies in Chinese picture naming are very rare. Existing studies mainly focus on
investigating the possible variables affecting picture naming in Mandarin Chinese. Bates et
al. (2003) reported the significance of name agreement (the extent to which different people
agree on a name for a particular picture) and word frequency on the naming of 520 object names
in Mandarin Chinese used in Taiwan. In a similar study, Weekes, Shu, Hao, Liu and Tan (2007)
found that name agreement, concept familiarity, and age of acquisition had significant impact on
naming latency. After collecting data from children’s naming and adult ratings of 435 object
pictures in Mandarin Chinese, Liu, Hao, Li and Shu (2011) found that concept familiarity, age of
acquisition, concept agreement, name agreement and image agreement (the degree of similarity

32

between the mental image generated by a participant to a given picture’s name and the actual
picture displayed) all made significant independent contributions to naming latencies.
In the area of foreign and second language research, very few studies have been
conducted on the use of songs in picture naming. The only empirical study available was
implemented by Hyland (1995), who investigated 150 Arabic kindergarteners’ picture naming of
15 English words after an intervention of one-week singing in an English-Arabic immersion
program. The children were divided into the control group (n=75) and experimental group
(n=75). The control group (n=75) shared reading the story without music while the experimental
group (n=75) heard a sung version of the same story and simultaneously viewed the printed text
for 15 minutes every day. The pre- and post- tests were administered to individual students. They
were asked to recognize the item in the picture and give the correct response orally. Mean scores
of the two groups in the pre- post- tests were compared and the results showed that the music
group outperformed the no-music group. Given the fact that Chinese is a tonal and logographic
language, the effectiveness of the use of songs on picture naming in alphabetic languages may
not be applicable to the Chinese language. Therefore, the effectiveness on CFL/CSL learning
needs to be tested and confirmed.

Word recognition.
In alphabetic languages, word recognition refers to the ability to sound out words. It
involves segmenting a multisyllabic word into components and deciphering the word. Therefore,
word recognition studies in alphabetic languages focus a lot on phonological decoding. Many
studies (e.g., Ehri & Wilce, 1983; Perfetti, 1985; Siegel, 1989) have been conducted using
pseudo-words as a phonological decoding measure, and it has been found that good phonological

33

decoding skills result in satisfactory performance in pseudo-word reading, while deficiencies in
basic phonological processing usually leads to difficulty in reading pseudo-words.
Singing songs helps build phonological awareness and facilitate word recognition,
rhyming word generation and new word creation (Bennett-Armistead, Duke & Moses, 2005).
Moritz (2007) reported that six months of Kodály music instruction (45 minutes daily) improved
rhyming and phonemic segmentation in a group of five-year-olds. To investigate whether music
could improve certain reading abilities of slow learners, Nicholson (1972) assigned fifty
elementary school students between the age of six and eight to either the control or the
experimental group. Results on the pre- and post- tests showed that music improved the ability of
slow learners in the recognition of letters of the alphabet and reading readiness skills. Similarly,
Gromko (2005) investigated the influence of music instruction on phonemic awareness or, more
specifically, phonemic segmentation ability in kindergarten children. They were divided into the
treatment and control groups, and in both groups the same amount of reading instruction was
used. The only difference was that the treatment group every week had an additional 30 minutes
of music lessons. Music instruction included singing songs from different cultures and some
advanced music methods, like using percussion and kinesthetic movement. All participants were
post-tested after four months. Results showed a significant gain in letter-naming fluency,
phoneme segmentation fluency and nonsense-word phoneme segmentation fluency for the group
with music instruction.
Unlike alphabetic languages, in which phonemes are represented by a writing system, the
Chinese writing system represents morphemes, and there is no direct sound-symbol
correspondence. Therefore, Chinese children have to memorize many characters in order to learn
to read. Due to this unique feature of the Chinese language, research on Chinese word

34

recognition focuses mainly on morphological awareness and orthographic knowledge.
Researchers have claimed that morphological awareness is particularly important for learning to
read Chinese because of its unique morphological features (Packard, 2000). For example, Li,
Anderson, Nagy and Zhang (2002) found that morphological awareness in young Chinese
readers had the strongest relationship to overall Chinese reading ability. It helped them figure out
the pronunciation and meaning of characters that they encountered in text and, thereby, to
connect the character to words they had learned. Studies on Chinese orthographic awareness
showed that children’s understanding of the conventions used in the Chinese writing system was
closely related to their Chinese character reading and it was important for Chinese character
reading and writing acquisition (Li, Peng & Shu, 2006; Li, Shu, McBride-Chang, Liu & Peng,
2010).
However, there is an obvious lack of research studying the influence of songs on word
recognition, in particular, Chinese word recognition which is a challenge for CFL/CSL students
(Everson & Ke, 1997). Given the potential benefits of songs in language education, Frith (1985)
suggests that music seems to facilitate the sound-symbol phonemic correspondence for the
language being taught and ease the learning process of word recognition. However, little
research has been conducted on whether the use of songs promotes Chinese word recognition
where there is no sound-script correspondence. This study is an attempt to add to this literature.

Vocabulary recall.
Research reports mixed results of both positive and negative effects of music/songs on
vocabulary recall. De Groot (2006) found that studying a foreign language with music playing in
the background could increase word recall by up to eleven point six percent with an average of

35

eight point seven percent. Mouri (2011) had similar findings by examining the effects of singing
on the acquisition of Japanese as foreign language vocabulary on 33 university students. The
experimental group (n=15) was taught vocabulary along with a melody, whereas the control
group (n=18) was not exposed to the melody. The pre- post- test results showed statistically
significant differences between the two groups on their delayed recognition, which suggested
that the use of melody facilitated language recall. Salcedo (2010) investigated the effect of music
on text recall and involuntary mental rehearsal with students from four college-level beginning
Spanish classes (n=94) by comparing the group who heard texts as songs with the group who
heard the same texts as speech. The overall results indicated that the use of songs aided memory
of text and involuntary mental rehearsal.
While the above studies found positive language recall effect, Recette and Perretz (2007)
found different results. They conducted two experiments on 36 French-speaking university
students, 18 musicians and 18 non-musicians. Each participant learned an unfamiliar song in
three conditions, for a total of three different songs. In the sung–sung condition, they listened to
the sung version of the lyrics and sang them back. In the sung–spoken condition, they listened to
the sung version of the lines and their recall was spoken. In the divided–spoken condition, they
listened to the divided version of the lines and provided spoken responses. Repeated measures
ANOVA with both groups was performed on the percentage of words recalled. Results showed
that fewer words were recalled when singing than when speaking. Furthermore, the mode of
presentation, whether sung or spoken, had no influence on either short- or long-term lyric recall.
The results indicated that music was of little help for text recall in either encoding or response. In
analysis of the results, the researchers stated that the text and the melody of a song had separate

36

representations in memory, making singing a dual task to perform, at least in the first steps of
learning.
Studies on vocabulary retention have also been conducted on picture naming and word
recognition. Many studies (e.g., McBirde & Dosher, 2002; Tonzar, Lotto & Job, 2009) have
shown increased memory performance for picture stimuli over word stimuli. Tonzar et al. (2009)
compared two learning methods (picture and word mediated learning) in order to evaluate the
vocabulary acquisition of two foreign languages in children. The results showed that the picturebased method led to a better performance than the word-based method. The reason was because
the picture naming process engaged a deeper level of processing. Pictures represented features of
objects; as a result, information and meaning could be directly gained from the pictures even if
one had little or no experience with the objects illustrated (McBirde and Dosher, 2002). In
contrast, words were arbitrary symbols and processing them semantically took a long time
(Whitehouse, Maybery & Durkin, 2006). The same two learning methods were compared by
Chen and Leung (1989). In their study, they contrasted children (aged about seven) and adults in
learning L2 vocabulary when they were at the beginning level. The results showed that children
named pictures in the L2 faster than they translated words from the L1 into the L2. On the other
hand, adults translated L1 words into L2 faster than naming pictures in L2.
The above literature has revealed inconclusive findings regarding the use of songs in
vocabulary retention. Therefore, the topic of singing-based instruction needs further
investigation. In addition, Chinese learners’ vocabulary retention has not been sufficiently
addressed in the literature. There is, therefore, a clear need for classroom studies to confirm the
effectiveness of singing on vocabulary learning in order to better support young CFL/CSL
learners’ language retention. This study is an attempt to strengthen the research base related to

37

the use of songs on vocabulary retention by testing its long-term effects on U.S. kindergarteners
in Chinese Immersion Programs.

Chapter Summary
This chapter provides a review of the literature that is important in guiding this research
project on the use of songs to foster language development, specifically vocabulary growth. Both
positive and negative effects of the use of songs on language learning have been found. Some
argue that music has played an important role in human beings’ language development. It
alleviates language learners’ stress and anxiety, motivates their language learning, provides
effective memory aids, and facilitates vocabulary acquisition and recall. Others report that the
use of songs does not affect language learning, particularly new vocabulary learning.
While the above studies suggest a number of important aspects for considering the effects
of the use of singing in L2 instruction, there are some questions that need further investigation
and validation. First, an overview of the studies on vocabulary acquisition, particularly L2
vocabulary acquisition, suggests that there is little information about how the use of songs affects
CFL/CSL vocabulary learning and retention. This information is needed to understand the extent
to which the use of songs can be used in young CFL/CSL reading instruction and the role of
songs in CFL/CSL vocabulary acquisition and retention. The effects are still an unresolved
question. In addition, there has been no empirical study to investigate young CFL/CSL learners’
vocabulary acquisition and retention in a classroom setting.
Second, studies of the use of songs in vocabulary learning across languages are
inconsistent; therefore, the question of whether singing-based instruction could affect learners’
vocabulary acquisition needs to be further researched. As the review shows, while the majority

38

of the research results (e.g., Medina, 1990; Mouri, 2011; Winter, 2010) did not provide support
for the effect of the use of songs on vocabulary acquisition, Hyland’s research (1995) yielded
results indicating the superiority of singing over reading instruction for vocabulary acquisition.
These mixed findings, therefore, demand further information.
Third, it is important to point out that the aforementioned studies did not differentiate
between picture-naming, word reading and spoken vocabulary recall. Several studies (e.g.,
Mouri, 2011; Salcedo, 2010) suggest that the use of singing may enhance learners’ vocabulary
learning in general, but this cannot be assumed for productive vocabulary such as picture
naming, word reading and spoken word recall. Only one study has addressed the relationship
between the use of songs and vocabulary acquisition in a second/foreign language learning
setting as measured by picture naming (Hyland, 1995). The effect of the use of songs on picture
naming and word recognition has not been clearly established due to the scarcity of studies. It is
therefore necessary when examining beginning CFL/CSL vocabulary learning to distinguish
different vocabulary tasks and further investigate the effects of the use of songs on them. The
focus of this study is to strengthen the research base by exploring the potential effects of singing
on CFL/CSL vocabulary development. More specifically, the focus is on how Shared Singing as
an instructional tool might enhance Chinese immersion children’s picture naming, Chinese word
recognition and spoken vocabulary recall in the story.
Finally, most studies on the use of songs in vocabulary acquisition and retention involve
college-level subjects learning alphabetic languages; therefore, there is a need to further examine
a participant population different from those. In this case, Chinese immersion kindergarteners in
the U.S. would be a good sample. Various studies have found that second/foreign language

39

education should start as early as possible; therefore, young Chinese immersion students were
chosen to participate in this study.

40

CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The previous chapter reviewed the literature related to the use of songs in language
learning, in particular, vocabulary acquisition and retention. This study used an experimental
design at the class level to compare the effects of the use of songs on young CFL/CSL learners’
immediate vocabulary acquisition and delayed retention in picture naming, Chinese word
recognition and spoken vocabulary recall in the story. In particular, the following two research
questions were addressed:
(1) Do the Shared Singing group acquire more vocabulary of picture naming, Chinese
word recognition and spoken vocabulary in the story than the Shared Reading group?
(2) Do Shared Singing kindergarteners retain more vocabulary of picture naming,
Chinese word recognition and spoken vocabulary in the story than Shared Reading group?
The present chapter describes the design, variables, participants, materials, instruments,
procedures and data analysis. The chapter begins with a description of the research design,
variables, setting and participants. Then information about the materials and measures is
discussed. Finally, this chapter ends with a description of data analysis and the validity and
reliability of the data. The researcher obtained research approval for these studies and the
participants’ informed consents (Appendices A & B).

Design of the Study
This study investigated the effect of the use of songs on young CFL/CSL learners’
vocabulary acquisition and retention. It adopted an experimental design method at the class level
rather than at the individual level (Gribbons & Herman, 1997). In other words, the participants

41

were not randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups by the researcher in the first
place. Rather, they were arranged into two groups by the schools at the beginning of the school
year on the basis of the number of students and gender distribution in each class. In order not to
disrupt the regular instruction at the school, the two groups were then randomly assigned to the
experimental and control groups by the researcher at the time the study was conducted. In this
regard, the study was not an experimental design at the individual level; rather, it was an
experimental design at the class level.
The study was designed to investigate the instructional intervention of singing on
immediate and delayed vocabulary recall in two different learning conditions—Shared Singing
and Shared Reading. The instructional intervention of singing was the independent variable and
the students’ vocabulary growth in picture naming, Chinese word recognition and spoken
vocabulary recall in the story were three dependent variables. Students’ immediate and delayed
test results in these three aspects were compared under the two learning conditions (Shared
Singing and Shared Reading). These two learning conditions were included in order to test
whether singing would influence students’ performance on vocabulary acquisition and retention.
Particularly in terms of vocabulary posttests, the Shared Singing condition was assumed to draw
more student attention to the target words, which, in turn, was believed to facilitate vocabulary
learning (Hulstijn, 1992).
Pretests were administered to measure the participants’ vocabulary knowledge prior to
the research. For the vocabulary pretest, only picture naming and Chinese word recognition were
administered. Spoken vocabulary recall in the story was not used because the purpose of the
pretest was to investigate the participants’ prior knowledge of the target vocabulary before the
intervention was implemented.

42

The scores of the immediate vocabulary posttests were used to measure the participants’
vocabulary acquisition in picture naming, word recognition and spoken vocabulary recall in the
story, and the scores of the delayed posttests were used to measure their vocabulary retention in
the above three areas. As the foci of the study were, on the one hand, to investigate the effects of
the use of songs on immediate vocabulary recall after an initial exposure of the target words in
the two learning conditions, immediate post-test was needed; and on the other hand, to examine
the effects of the use of songs on vocabulary retention after a certain period of time, delayed
posttest was also necessary (Hulstijn, 2001). A more detailed research design could be found in
Figure 1.
Participants

Pre-tests (picture naming
& word recognition)

Shared Singing Condition

Shared Reading Condition

Immediate post-tests (picture naming,
word recognition & spoken
vocabulary recall in the story)

Delayed post-tests (picture naming,
word recognition & spoken
vocabulary recall in the story)
Figure 1: Detailed research design
43

The following section of this chapter describes in more detail the variables, participants,
setting, instruments, data collection procedures, intervention fidelity and the methods of data
analysis.

Variables
The dependent variables were the vocabulary gains in picture naming, Chinese word
recognition and spoken vocabulary recall in the story. There was one independent variable: the
use of singing. It was employed to investigate whether singing had effects on CFL/CSL
immediate acquisition and delayed vocabulary recall. The experimental group learned the target
words with the use of a story song through Shared Singing, while the control group learned the
same words without singing through Shared Reading, and both groups were measured on the
same dependent variables.
For the control of the participants’ previous knowledge of the target words, the target
words were identified by the researcher and confirmed by the participating teachers to be
unfamiliar to typical Chinese immersion kindergarteners at the beginning of the school year. The
participants’ demographic information regarding their age, gender and prior knowledge in the
Chinese language was collected prior to the pretests.
Pretests on picture naming and word recognition were conducted to determine the
participants’ Chinese language proficiency level prior to the research. Immediate and delayed
posttests were administered on all the three measures: picture naming, Chinese word recognition
and spoken vocabulary recall in the story. The immediate posttests were conducted to detect the
participants’ vocabulary acquisition right after the implementation of the instructional
intervention of singing. This study adopted Krashen’s (2003) definition of acquisition which

44

referred to the process by which humans acquired the capacity to perceive and comprehend a
language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. As the participants
in the study were at the very beginning level of Chinese proficiency, only acquisition of
vocabulary was tested. The delayed posttests were employed to test the vocabulary retention.

Participants and Setting
This study was conducted in October, 2011 in three Chinese immersion programs in
Michigan. A convenience sample (Babbie, 2001) was used in this study mainly because the sites
were close enough for the researcher to access without having to travel extensively. The site
selection criteria included: (1) the participating teachers and the school principals expressed
interest in participating in the research; (2) the children were studying in Chinese Immersion
Programs; (3) they were at the kindergarten level and first year CFL learners; and (4) they were
voluntarily participating in this study with the written permission of their parents.
The participants in the main study were 106 U.S. kindergarteners from three Chinese
Immersion Programs in Michigan. They were five-year-olds in their second month of the first
semester of kindergarten. The demographic composition of the sample (Table 1) was as follows:
Of the 106 participants, there were twelve more girls (n=59) than boys (n=47). Eighty of them
were Caucasian; five were African-American; one was Mexican American; and twenty were
Asian including adopted Asians. Upon entering the kindergarten, two groups of students were
randomly and equally divided into morning (AM) and afternoon (PM) classes by each school
based on the number of students and gender distribution in each class. A native Chinese
immersion teacher and an English speaking U.S. teacher taught both groups of kindergarteners
half a day, and they then switched after lunchtime. There were also other forms of alternation of

45

the two groups in other schools. For example, the English speaking teacher taught on Mondays,
Wednesday and Friday mornings while the Chinese immersion teacher taught on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Friday afternoons.
Although the participants were not randomly selected from a larger population, they were
randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups at the class level at the time they
participated in the study. One of the participant teachers had the Morning group as the
experimental group and the Afternoon group as the control; one had the Afternoon group as the
experimental and the Morning as the control, and the other teacher had the experimental group in
her class on Monday (all day), Tuesday (all day), and Friday morning and the control group on
Wednesday (all day), Thursday (all day), and Friday afternoon. Although the Morning and
Afternoon groups were not alternated due to the fact that it involved the non-language classroom
teachers, gym, music and art teachers, and the principal, which was beyond the researcher’s
capabilities to make the arrangements; however, the experimental and control groups were
counterbalanced to make it a strength. There were 53 participants in the experimental group and
53 in the control. Again the placement of students was a grouping of convenience as no attempt
was made to place the students in these classes based on their English or Chinese language
proficiency.
Although the students’ language proficiency was not considered in determining the
classroom placement, it was necessary to identify their Chinese proficiency level when
comparing the two groups used for the study. Three methods were used for the purpose: informal
talk with the participating teachers, a background questionnaire for parents and a pretest on the
participating students’ target vocabulary. The informal talk with the participating teachers found
that the students’ Chinese language knowledge was zero upon their entry to the Chinese

46

Immersion Programs. And their average Chinese proficiency level was close to zero by the date
the research was conducted (beginning of October) because they had only been in the immersion
program for less than one month. The teachers reported that the majority of the instructional time
was spent training the students to behave appropriately at school; therefore, the Chinese language
that the students were exposed to was merely limited to routine oral expressions such as “eyes on
the teacher (眼睛看老师)”, “line up (排队)”, “be quiet (安静)”, “stand up (站起来)” and some
other simple expressions that were used for classroom management. Understanding was
emphasized, but reading and speaking were not considered important at all and had barely been
practiced at this beginning stage.
To learn about the participants’ vocabulary knowledge prior to the study, an independent
sample t-test was conducted to analyze the pretest data in picture naming and Chinese word
recognition. No significant difference was found in the scores of picture naming for the Shared
Singing (M = 0.11, SD = 0.61) and Shared Reading (M = 0.09, SD = 0.49) groups, t (104) = 0.176, p = 0.861; nor was significant difference found in the scores of Chinese word recognition
for the Shared Singing (M = 0, SD = 0) and Shared Reading (M = 0, SD = 0) groups. These
results suggested that the two groups were at the same Chinese proficiency level in terms of
picture naming and Chinese word recognition before the start of the study.
These findings were confirmed by the participants’ demographic information regarding
the children’s prior Chinese language knowledge and experience (Appendix C). The
demographic questionnaire results (Table 1) showed that the two groups were similar in terms of
gender distribution, ethnicity status and exposure to the Chinese language.
Of all the participants, ninety-seven percent of them had had no Chinese learning
experience before they were enrolled in the Chinese Immersion Programs. Although three female

47

participants were from Chinese families and their parents spoke Chinese between themselves at
home, the children’s pretest scores showed that their Chinese proficiency level was very low
(two got two correct out of fifteen, and one got three correct). As the points were lower than the
cut-off point of 30%, they were not excluded during the data collection and analysis. Two
students were adopted from China before they were one year old, but they had little prior
experience related to Chinese. They were, therefore, included in the study. Those who were
unwilling to participate still joined in the intervention activities, but they were excluded from the
video recording and data analysis.
Table 1: Demographics of the Sample of the Main Study (N=106)
Mean
4.96
N

Age
Gender
Male
Female
Ethnicity
Caucasian
African-American
Mexican-American
Asian
Child’s mother tongue
Chinese
Non-Chinese
Prior experience related to Chinese
None
Parents speaking Chinese?
Adopted from China/Lived/visited a
Chinese-speaking country/place?

SD
2.36
%

47
59

44.3%
55.7%

25
28

22
31

80
5
1
20

75.5%
4.7%
0.9%
18.9%

41
1
0
11

39
4
1
9

3
103

2.8%
97.2%

1
52

2
51

101
3
2

95.3%
2.8%
1.9%

51
1
1

50
2
1

Control

Experimental

Instruments
A questionnaire was used to collect demographic information from the participants’
parents (Appendix C). It contained two major parts: demographic information and Chinese
48

language learning experience. The portion dealing with demographic information was designed
to gather information about the participants’ age, gender, ethnicity and mother tongue. The other
portion of the questionnaire gathered information about the participants’ experience and
familiarity with the Chinese language.
There were three proposed concepts to be measured in this study: Chinese picture
naming, Chinese word recognition and Chinese spoken vocabulary recall in the story. These
instruments were designed by the researcher because there were no commercial ones available
for this purpose. Each concept was separately measured by a different instrument: picture
naming vocabulary test, Chinese word recognition test and spoken vocabulary recall test in the
story (see examples in Table 2 and Figures 2, 3 and 4). Each measure consisted of the same 15
vocabulary items, but they were used to test different language skills—picture naming skill,
word recognition skill and vocabulary recall skill in the context.
They were used as a way to indicate whether changes had occurred in the participants’
vocabulary development. The picture naming scores from the pre- and post- tests were used to
determine speaking vocabulary knowledge prior to and at the conclusion of the study. The word
recognition test scores from the pre- and post- tests were used to determine Chinese word
recognition knowledge prior to and at the end of the study. The tests of picture naming, word
recognition and spoken vocabulary recall from the immediate posttests to delayed posttests were
used to measure the retention of the target vocabulary.

49

Table 2: Vocabulary Measures
Type

Stimulus

Description

Picture Naming

15 pictures on 15
individual index
cards

On a sheet of paper that contained the target
vocabulary, researcher pointed to each picture by
asking “What is it?” in English and the student was
asked to answer in Chinese.

Chinese Word
Recognition

15 Chinese words
on 15 individual
index cards

On a card, the student pointed to and recognized
the Chinese words.

Spoken Vocabulary
Recall in the Story

Small book of the
story

Flipping the pages, the researcher read the story
and the student was asked to fill in the blanks by
recalling.

The Chinese picture naming test consisted of 15 color pictures, each glued on a 3-by-5
inch index card. All of the pictures on the cards were different from the ones used in the story,
but the content conveyed the same meanings. This safeguard was taken to avoid random
guessing by students who might have remembered a picture they saw in the Shared
Reading/Singing without understanding its meaning. All pictures were color drawings or photos
of objects or concepts taken from clipart and photo collection at www.google.com.

Figure 2: Example of picture naming card (For interpretation of the references to color in this
and all other figures, the reader is referred to the electronic version of this dissertation.)

In the Chinese word recognition test, all the above fifteen target words were used
(Appendix F), and each Chinese concept was printed in the middle of a 3-by-5 inch index card.

50

The font used for the words was Chinese Song Style, a widely-used and standardized font in
Chinese elementary textbooks, and the word size was 120 bold. In this test, students were asked
to read each word. One point was given for a correct answer.

Figure 3: Example of Chinese character recognition card

To test the participants’ Chinese spoken vocabulary recall in the story, a small book of
the story was created by the researcher by taking pictures of the pages of the Big Book and
editing them into a 4.25-by-5.5 inch book. The target words were replaced with blanks with lines
underneath (Figure 4). The text of the story was used as a spoken cloze test (Appendix G). The
participants were required to tell orally the missing words.

Figure 4: Example of item assessing vocabulary recall in context

Data Collection
A pilot study had been conducted to test the materials, measures and methods four
months before the main study was conducted. It followed the same data collection procedures as
51

the main study, as described below. Extra data collection information and research results of the
pilot study were reported in Appendix J.
In order to collect the data for this study, three tests were given. The participants were
pretested as to their entry knowledge of the target Chinese words. A picture naming test with 15
pictorial items (Appendix E) and a Chinese word recognition test (Appendix F) with the same 15
target words served to verify the participants’ lack of familiarity with the target vocabulary. In
the picture naming task, the participants were shown the pictures and then asked to produce a
name in Chinese for each picture. In the word recognition task, they were shown the Chinese
words and then were asked to read each of them. Immediately after the last day of the
intervention, the participants were post-tested on the picture naming, Chinese word recognition
of the target words, and the contextual spoken vocabulary recall to examine whether there were
any differences in scores before and after the intervention. The order of administration of
assessments was not counterbalanced because the order in which the assessments were given
would not affect the behavior of the participants or the responses they made. Last, a 16-day
delayed posttest was repeated to examine the participants’ retention of the target words
throughout the process. The 16-day interval was chosen because the pilot study found that the
nine-day interval was too short to produce significant difference. The administration of the
posttests followed the procedures of the pretest. The 15 items in the posttests were the same as
those used in the pretest, but the order of the items in the vocabulary test was randomly changed
to minimize the potential test effects of the previous assessments.
Every measure administration required a separate scoring sheet. The scoring sheet was
common across all the measures and contained test time, date of measure administration, data
collection site, the IDs of the assessed students, test type and test items (Table 3). Under each test

52

type, the 15 items were shown for the researcher to circle. The target vocabulary item was circled
and scored as correct only when correct in pronunciation, and each correct answer was counted
as one point. Answered items were scored from one to fifteen points. The measures were scored
by counting and recording the number of correct responses for each item on the scoring sheet.
Table 3: Example of a Scoring Sheet

Test Validity and Reliability
Internal validity of the research was achieved by employing various types of strategies
that guided the entire process of the study to ensure that the findings captured what was true in
reality (Gall, Gall, and Borg, 2007). To achieve this goal, five approaches were taken. First, the
classes were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups at the time they
participated in the study. The study was, therefore, an experimental design at the class level.
Second, selection bias was avoided. The participants in both the control and experimental groups
were alike with regard to the length of time they were exposed to the Chinese language and their
Chinese language proficiency level. Third, the participating teacher was provided with the
53

intervention protocol and was trained to implement it as planned. Fourth, the teacher’s
instruction was recorded during the intervention period to ensure that she adhered closely to the
intervention protocol. Last, the teachers were asked not to expose the target words or the story to
the participants between the repeated measures of the tests. To achieve that, the Big Book was
asked to be returned to the researcher at the conclusion of the intervention, and the teachers were
asked not to review the target words or the story.
Content validity involves “the systematic examination of the test content to determine
whether it covers a representative sample of the behavior domain to be measured” (Anastasi &
Urbina, 1997, p. 114). To achieve the content validity, first, face validity was examined. A
Chinese graduate student who has expertise in assessment was invited to judge whether each of
the three tests appeared to test what it was intended to measure. Her report showed that the
picture naming test contained pictures similar to the ones on the Big Book that would be used for
the study and it tested the picture naming skill; the word recognition test included the exact
Chinese characters from the Big Book and it tested Chinese word recognition skills; and the
spoken recall test was an oral cloze test based on the Big Book and it required the participants to
recall the missing words to finish the sentences. In addition, all the target words were selected
from the target story. Therefore, all of these tests measured what they were intended to measure
(picture naming, word recognition, and speaking vocabulary), constituting face validity.
Next, to obtain the content validity, two raters were invited to judge how essential each of
the fifteen items was in the three measures. One of them participated in the face validity test
above and the other participated in the video ratings that were described in the later section.
They provided responses (1=essential, 0=useful but not essential, -1=not essential) to the
question, “Is this picture naming or word recognition or spoken recall skill/knowledge measured

54

by the item?” To calculate the content validity ratio, Lawshe’s formula (1975) was used: CVR =
(ne – N / 2) / (N / 2) where CVR = content validity ratio, ne = number of raters indicating
“essential”, N = total number of raters. Table 8 shows that positive numbers (0 – 1) were
obtained, indicating that the content validity was generally satisfactory and that the measures
related well to the measures of vocabulary/language development necessary for beginning
Chinese learners.
Table 4: Ratings on Each Item of the Measures by Two Raters
Items

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Rater 1

Pic.

0

1

1

1

1

-1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Rater 2

Pic.

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

-1

1

1

1

1

1

CVR

0

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

1

0

1

1

1

1

1

Rater 1

Word

1

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

1

0

1

-1

0

1

1

Rater 2

Word

0

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

1

0

1

1

0

1

1

CVR

0

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

1

0

1

0

0

1

1

Rater 1

Rec.

-1

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Rater 2

Rec.

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

CVR

0

1

1

1

1

0

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Note: Ratings of 1=essential; 0=useful but not essential; -1=not necessary. CVR= content validity
ratio.

Preliminary test-retest reliability was measured by implementing the three instruments on
the control group at two different times during the research. The interval between the two tests
was four days, and there was no change for the control group except the regular school work.
After the data was collected, the correlation between the two separate measurements (the Pearson
55

rho) was computed using SPSS. The test-retest showed a reliability coefficient of 0.673 for the
picture naming test, 0.573 for the word recognition test, and 0.818 for the spoken recall test,
indicating that the test-retest reliability was medium to high and that the measures were basically
reliable.
However, the performance distribution histograms of picture naming (Figure 5) and word
recognition (Figure 6) showed that the data were positively skewed with more variation clustered
in the left-tailed direction, with the scores of the picture naming test consistently remaining
within the range of 0-7 and the scores of the word recognition within the range of 0-5. This
indicated some floor effects for the two measures, and the case of word recognition measure was
more severe than that of picture naming measure. And they would not allow differences to be
found and affected the validity of the reliability examination to some degree. As both the
experimental and the control groups did not perform so well on the two measures, it could well
be the case that the effect of the intervention was not strong enough, the intervention length was
not sufficient or the two measures were too difficult for the young CFL learners.
The pilot study found the similar pattern with the word recognition measure, but not with
the measure of picture naming. The major reason was because the pilot study was conducted at
the end of the school year when the participants had learned Chinese for eight months. With
several months’ Chinese immersion learning, the majority of the kindergarteners had had some
fundamental listening and speaking vocabularies. Therefore, the picture naming was not as
challenging to them then as in the main study when it was conducted at the beginning of the
school year. However, considering that Chinese word recognition, like picture naming, was a
basic language skill for Chinese language learners, and the floor effect would be problematic for

56

5-year-olds only when they earned raw scores of zero, the word recognition measure along with
the picture naming one was thus not dropped in the main study.
The histogram of the spoken vocabulary recall in the story (Figure 7) revealed an
approximately normal distribution. There were no floor or ceiling effects for this measure.

Figure 5: Performance distribution histograms of picture naming

57

Figure 6: Performance distribution histograms of word recognition

58

Figure 7: Performance distribution histogram of spoken vocabulary recall in the story

Teaching Material Selection and Development
It is important to determine which story and story song would be used and which
vocabulary words would be the focus of this study. A Chinese story song (Appendix D) was
created based on the English story “The Little Red Hen” and 15 target words were chosen for the
study (Appendices E, F & G).
The Chinese picture book used for this study was a translated and revised version of
Heather Forest’s “The Little Red Hen (小红母鸡)”. The difficulty of the content was also
considered by taking into account learner, task and text or input factors (Nunan, 2004). To ensure
59

that the story selected served the study well, the following two criteria were employed. The first
was the acceptable reliability of the story that had been well established by the U.S. kindergarten
teachers, that is, lots of U.S. kindergarten teachers told this story in the class. The second was the
appropriateness: in particular, the story contained vocabulary, content, and the text length that
were appropriate for kindergarteners, that is, the vocabulary had very clear and concrete
meanings, the content was easy to comprehend, and the story was manageable for both the
teacher and students due to the simple sentence structures and repetitive patterns that were used
in a dialogic manner at the kindergarten level.
After the story was selected, the English story was then translated into Chinese by the
researcher. Word-for-word translation was avoided. Chinese wording and sentence patterns were
carefully adapted to make it suitable for the young Chinese immersion learners. For example, the
English sentence “Once upon a time, there was a little red hen that lived on a farm” was
translated into “农场上有一只红母鸡” which means “on a farm there was a red hen.” Last, the
song music/melody “The Mulberry Bush” was selected for the story mainly because it was wellknown among the young children and easy for them to follow. This avoided adding burden to
their cognitive load when learning this story song.
To establish the content validity of the target reading material, four people were involved
in the proof-reading process, and the following steps were undertaken. First, the translation was
reviewed for grammar and ease of understanding by a monolingual Chinese speaker who is a
retired teacher who used to teach Chinese Language Arts in an elementary school in China
before he came to visit his son in the U.S. Modification was made based on his feedback. Next,
the modified Chinese version was sent to two Chinese immersion teachers for review of the
language appropriateness in terms of grammar and ease of understanding for the kindergarten

60

level. Both of them speak fluent Chinese as the first language and English as the second
language, and they have more than one year’s kindergarten teaching experience in the U.S.
classrooms. Eventually, any inappropriateness regarding grammar and ease of understanding was
resolved during this rigorous translation and proof-reading process.
Then the Chinese Big Book “Little Red Hen” was created for this study by the researcher,
with the help of her two artistic daughters. The reasons for self-illustration included: first, a
simplified Chinese version of the story was not available on the market; second, as the story was
a revised version of the original English story and none of the available versions of the English
story book was appropriate for the study.
To create a Big Book version of the text, three major steps were undertaken. First, after
reading the English picture book and studying the Chinese story text many times, it was decided
that 32 pages were needed for the Big Book. What was wanted on each page was then decided
according to the story text. Next, an 18-by-12 inch drawing pad that contained more than 32
blank pages was purchased. Then, the story text was printed out in large font (size 72, bold),
which totaled 29 sentences, with approximately one sentence per page except that there was one
sentence across pages three and four, one across pages 25 and 26, and one across pages 31 and
32. They were then pasted onto the pages where I wanted them to be on the drawing pad. Last,
three identical copies of the colorful Big Book with 32 pictures were illustrated before the pilot
study (Figure 8). They were used first in the pilot study and then in the main study.

61

Figure 8: An image of a page from the book

Picture Book Content Validity
In order to make sure that the pictures drawn convey the intended meaning of the story
and match the story texts, they were validated by four Chinese people who did not participate in
the study. Two of them are graduate students from China; one is a 14-year-old American-born
Chinese; and the last one is a middle-aged Chinese father. The first three are bilingual in both
Chinese and English, and the fourth speaks Chinese only.
Altogether 29 pages out of 32 single pages were rated, pages three and four were
considered as one page because there was only one sentence of text on the two pages. It was the
same with pages 25-26 and pages 31-32. Table 5 demonstrates the raters’ responses for the
agreement of the picture and the text on each page of the story. A four-point scale (1=not
relevant; 2=somewhat relevant; 3=quite relevant; 4=highly relevant) was used. Of the 29 pages,
21 pages were rated quite or highly relevant, with a content validity index (CVI) of 1.00. Pages
1, 11 and 31-32 had a lower value of CVI at 0 and 0.5. The final score of the page-level CVI
62

which represented the average picture-text agreement was 0.88. That means the raters reached
88% mean agreement for all the 29 pages. Based on this information, pages 1, 11 and 31-32 were
modified on the Big Book before the main study was conducted.

63

Table 5: Ratings on Each Page of the Big Book by Four Raters: Items Rated 3 or 4 on a 4-point
Relevance Scale (N=4)
Pages

Rater 1

Rater 2

Rater 3

# in
P-CVI
agreement
1
----0
0
2
X
X
X
-3
0.75
3-4
X
X
X
X
4
1
5
X
-X
X
3
0.75
6
X
X
X
X
4
1
7
X
X
X
X
4
1
8
X
X
X
X
4
1
9
X
X
X
X
4
1
10
X
X
X
X
4
1
11
X
X
--2
0.5
12
X
X
X
X
4
1
13
X
X
X
X
4
1
14
X
X
X
X
4
1
15
X
X
X
X
4
1
16
X
X
X
X
4
1
17
X
X
X
X
4
1
18
X
X
X
X
4
1
19
X
X
-X
3
0.75
20
X
X
X
X
4
1
21
X
X
X
-3
0.75
22
X
X
X
X
4
1
23
X
X
X
X
4
1
24
X
X
X
X
4
1
25-26
X
X
-X
3
0.75
27
X
X
X
X
4
1
28
X
X
X
X
4
1
29
X
X
X
X
4
1
30
X
X
X
X
4
1
31-32
-X
X
-2
0.5
Property Relevant:
Mean P-CVI=25.75/29=0.88
27/29=
27/29=
25/29=
24/29=
Mean=3.55/4
0.93
0.93
0.86
0.83
=0.88
Note: Ratings of 1=not relevant; 2=somewhat relevant; 3=quite relevant; 4=highly relevant.
Dashes indicate ratings of 1 or 2. Markers of “X” indicate ratings of 3 or 4. P-CVI=Page-level
Content Validity Index.

64

Rater 4

Selection of the Target Vocabulary Items
Fifteen words unknown to the participants were selected from the story as targets for
investigation of the effect of the use of singing on vocabulary acquisition and retention. They
were “cat (猫), dog (狗), mouse (老鼠), hen (母鸡), wheat (麦子), seed (种子), flour (面粉),
cake (蛋糕), eat (吃), plant (种), grind (磨), water (水), weed (草), farm (农场), and cut (割).”
The 15 words consisted of about half of the total number of words in the Big Book “The Little
Red Hen” (15/35) and were selected by the researcher using the following criteria: First, they
were non-borrowed words for the learners (e.g., 咖啡 pronounced as “coffee” is a borrowed
word from English). Second, they could be effectively drawn as pictures. Third, they were
frequently-used speaking words at the kindergarteners’ level in their native language (Hiebert,
2005). These words were introduced in the text and emphasized during the singing/reading of the
story book. The concepts were pictured in the Big Book, which helped the children make the
associations.

Teacher Training
In order to ensure that the participating teachers understood the research and followed the
intervention instruction, training was necessary. Prior to both pilot and main studies, teacher
trainings were provided by the researcher through AdobeConnect, a web conferencing platform
for web meetings. The training lasted three hours, consisting of a brief introduction of the study,
two video clip sessions on Shared Reading techniques (because Shared Reading was introduced
as a springboard for Shared Singing), one 90-minute session explaining the use of lesson plans
(Appendix H) for using the Shared Singing approach, and the learning of the story song.
Materials such as parent consent forms, assent forms, lesson plans for both groups, and the demo
65

singing of the story song were distributed to the trainees via email. One Chinese immersion
kindergarten teacher participated in the pilot study training. Three participated in the main study
training including the one who had attended the pilot study training (but she had a different
group of kindergarten students for the main study).

Procedures
The study was conducted during the participants’ regular class times, and required a 25 to
30 minute session a day, lasting for a week. The participants had been pre-arranged into two
groups named Morning and Afternoon groups by the school before the start of the school year. A
Chinese immersion teacher taught the Morning group in the morning and the Afternoon group in
the afternoon. The two groups were randomly assigned to the two learning conditions (Shared
Singing and Shared Reading) by the researcher. The two learning conditions were conducted
separately either in the morning or in the afternoon. The following procedures were implemented
to conduct the main study as well as the pilot study:
First, the consent forms were distributed to the parents two weeks before the study.
Assents were received from the participants during the school hour. The Big Books were
delivered to the teachers through express mail.
Next, teacher training was provided prior to the study. The topics covered the purpose of
the study, explanation of the learning conditions, training of the Shared Reading and Shared
Singing approaches, clarification of the lesson plans, demonstration of the singing of the story
song and answering the questions raised by the participant teachers.
The pretests were then administered by the researcher individually during the regular
school time at a small desk in the hallway of the participating schools. The pictures and the

66

Chinese word cards were presented in front of the individual student one at a time. For the
picture naming test, the researcher pointed to the pictures one at a time and instructed the
participants to say them in Chinese. A score of “1” was given if the correct answer was provided.
For an incorrect answer, “0” was given. Then the Chinese word recognition test was repeated in
a similar manner.
After the pretest, the intervention was administered to the two groups of kindergarteners
for a week. The Shared Singing intervention was conducted during regular class time by the
same teacher following the lesson plans provided (see a sample part in Table 6). This method
was applied to reduce variance in environment, teaching methodology, or student-teacher
rapport. The instruction in all classes remained the same for the two groups since the beginning
of the school year except for the addition of the intervention. The experimental group shared
singing the story song, while the control group shared reading the same story without singing.
The story was read or sung for approximately 25-30 minutes each class over a period of one
week. Both groups were able to view the words of the story during the class time, but were not
allowed to take the book out of the classroom. The sung version and spoken version of the story
were identical. The intervention processes of Shared Singing and Shared Reading were both
video-taped.

67

Table 6: Sample of Teaching Procedures
Experimental Group

Control Group

Procedures:

Procedures:



Review the vocabulary and actions orally
by playing the game charades.
Review the Chinese characters on
flashcards.





Have the dialogue cards up for support.
Review by singing the dialogue. Track
the words while singing.



Have the dialogue cards up for support.
Review by reading the dialogue. Track
the words while reading.



Point to the quotation marks in the
dialogue and teach them that when
someone talks, the author writes down
what the character says using quotation
marks. (Read “Mao hao” after the
teacher). Write the enlarged quotation
marks on the whiteboard. Bring
students’ attention to the quotation
marks in the dialogue by asking them to
find them.



Point to the quotation marks in the
dialogue and teach them that when
someone talks, the author writes down
what the character says using quotation
marks. (Read “Mao hao” after the
teacher). Write the enlarged quotation
marks on the whiteboard. Bring students’
attention to the quotation marks in the
dialogue by asking them to find them.



Re-read the story, tracking the words
(letting students join in on the repetitive
wording).







Re-sing the story, tracking the words
(letting students join in on the repetitive
wording).

Review the vocabulary and actions orally
by playing the game charades.
Review the Chinese characters on
flashcards.

To test the immediate acquisition of picture naming and word recognition of the target
Chinese vocabulary, the students in both groups took a picture naming posttest and a word
recognition posttest at the end of the last lesson of the week’s intervention. Meanwhile, to test
their vocabulary acquisition in the story, the students were tested on the spoken vocabulary recall
in the story. They were presented with pictures from the story with the words omitted. The
researcher read the story and the students were then asked to fill in the blanks orally. Sixteen
days after the immediate posttest, a delayed posttest was repeated to examine the participants’
retention of the target words. The same instruments were used in both the immediate and delayed
posttests. The administration of the posttests followed the procedures of the pretest.
68

Intervention Fidelity
The intervention fidelity was high based on the teachers’ self-reports and the researcher’s
verification. It was achieved in the following four ways: First, before the study, the participating
teachers attended a three-hour online training to become familiar with the intervention protocol.
Daily scripted lesson plans for the intervention week were distributed and explicitly explained at
the training. This provided the teachers a scaffold in using the intervention of singing in telling a
story. It also provided training in creating the Shared Reading and Shared Singing learning
conditions for the study. Additionally, it ensured to some extent that the teachers followed the
intervention procedures as planned.
Second, to determine the teachers’ adherence to the intervention protocol, videotapes of
four sessions for both control and experimental groups (out of a total of ten sessions, or forty
percent) were selected at random to provide estimates of the intervention fidelity. Adherence to
the intervention protocol was assessed by the two raters who had rated the content validity via
the researcher-developed checklist, which contained eight question items. If they were present on
the video recording, the raters would circle “yes”; otherwise, “no” would be indicated. The
fidelity score was calculated by dividing the number of items circled “yes” by the total number
of checklist items. A mean fidelity score was obtained ranging from six to eight. A mean fidelity
score of seven was obtained across the sessions, indicating that the participating teachers adhered
closely to the intervention protocol (Table 7).
Third, to ensure that both groups spent the same amount of time with the texts, the
teachers were asked to put away the Big Book as soon as the intervention activities were
finished. They were required not to review the book outside the intervention and the book was

69

required to be kept in the classroom during the intervention. Right after the immediate posttest,
the researcher collected the Big Book to ensure it was not reviewed before the delayed posttest.
Fourth, daily check-in was conducted by the researcher at the conclusion of each day’s
teaching. It was used to check the teachers’ implementation of the intervention and collect their
general and specific impressions about the major intervention components (e.g., Big Book design
and use, teaching activities, student motivation, student reading performance, etc.). The daily
check-in results showed that the teachers’ general impression about the intervention was
positive: the Big Book and the illustrations were kid-friendly and fun; the teaching activities
were very good except that detailed procedures as to how to teach the target vocabulary needed
to be explicitly laid out; both the Shared Reading and Shared Singing approaches were
interactive and engaging. When talking about the responses from the students, the teachers’
observations in the classroom found that, whether singing or reading the Big Book, both groups
of students enjoyed the process, and they became increasingly confident in understanding the
story and participating in the activities. The most obvious difference was that the experimental
group was more motivated and attended to the singing activity more instantly.
Table 7: Video-observer Agreement
Session 1
7
7

Rater 1
Rater 2

Session 2
8
7

Session 3
7
6

Session 4
6
7
Mean = 7

Data Analysis
The data were analyzed using the SPSS for Windows, version 17.0. To assess the
effectiveness of the intervention strategy and whether growth between pre- and post- testing was
significant, an independent t-test was administered on the immediate posttest and a one-way
70

ANOVA was performed on the delayed posttest for each of the measures: picture naming, word
recognition, and spoken vocabulary recall in the story. The data were analyzed and examined in
terms of the effect of the use of singing.
Data are presented visually in the form of graphic representations, such as tables and
figures. The means and standard deviations were established based on the outcomes of the test
scores. Using statistical inference, attempts to make inferences about population parameters from
sample statistics were conducted. Tests of statistical significance were performed, and an alpha
level was set at .05 to estimate the probability that shared storybook reading activities affected
vocabulary skills in each student. Several ANOVA tests were used to compare the means of the
pre- and post- test scores and to determine if they were significantly different.
In summary, this chapter described the main study’s instruments, design, variables,
participants, materials and procedures. It also presented the study’s validity, reliability and
intervention fidelity, and discussed the changes made to the main study. Chapter 4 will present
the results that were obtained from the main study.

71

CHAPTER 4
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The purpose of this chapter is to communicate the data analysis results as well as report
the findings related to each research question. Specifically, this chapter introduces results
obtained from the three instruments over the time of the pretest, immediate posttest and delayed
posttest.
The pretests of picture naming and Chinese word recognition were administered to learn
about the participants’ entry Chinese proficiency level right before the study. The immediate
posttests of the three instruments (picture naming, word recognition and spoken vocabulary
recall in the story) were conducted to find out the participants’ acquisition of the target
vocabulary right after the instructional intervention of singing was completed. Sixteen days later,
the delayed posttests of the three instruments were implemented to detect their vocabulary
retention. An independent t-test was conducted on each test. The alpha level was set at .05 for all
the analysis.
The results of the vocabulary acquisition in picture naming, Chinese word recognition
and spoken vocabulary recall in the story are reported first. Then the results of the vocabulary
retention are discussed, with a one-way ANOVA analysis being performed on each test. The
assumption of equal variance underlying the analysis was also tested and reported. Below is the
presentation of the results along with the examination of each of the research questions.

Question 1 – Effects of Singing on Vocabulary Acquisition
The first research question concerned whether the Shared Singing group acquired more
picture naming vocabulary, recognized more Chinese words, or recalled more spoken vocabulary

72

in the story than the Shared Reading group. The results of the immediate posttests were used to
report the participants’ vocabulary acquisition right after the implementation of the instructional
intervention of singing for a week. An independent t-test was chosen to compare the group
means between the Shared Singing and Shared Reading groups in the vocabulary acquisition.
The initial examination of the data indicated that there were no significant violations of
the assumptions of the t-test for any of the dependent variables. And Levene’s tests indicated no
significant violations of the homogeneity of variance assumptions, p > 0.05.
To compare the group means of vocabulary acquisition between the Shared Reading and
Shared Singing groups, independent sample t-tests were conducted on the three measures—
picture naming, Chinese word recognition and spoken vocabulary recall in the story. No
significant difference was detected in the scores of picture naming for the Shared Singing (M =
3.09, SD = 2.73) and Shared Reading (M = 2.77, SD = 2.03) conditions, t (104) = - 0.686, p =
0.494, Cohen’s d = 0.133; and there was also not a significant difference in the scores of Chinese
word recognition for the Shared Singing (M = 1.09, SD = 2.60) and Shared Reading (M = 0.68,
SD = 1.02) conditions, t (104) = - 1.081, p = 0.282, Cohen’s d = 0.21. However, a significant
difference was found in the scores of spoken vocabulary recall in the story for the Shared
Singing (M = 6.11, SD = 3.07) and Shared Reading (M = 4.87, SD = 3.01) conditions, t (104) = 2.106, p = 0.038, Cohen’s d = 0.41. These results suggested that the Shared Singing did not have
a significant effect on vocabulary acquisition in picture naming or Chinese word recognition, but
it did have an effect on spoken vocabulary recall in the story. Specifically, the findings suggested
that when the learning of vocabulary was situated in the Shared Singing condition, the students’
acquisition of picture naming or word recognition might not be enhanced significantly, but their
acquisition of spoken vocabulary in the story increased. Therefore, Hypotheses 1 and 2, which

73

stated that the Shared Singing group would score higher than the Shared Reading group in the
immediate posttest of picture naming and word recognition, were rejected, but Hypothesis 3,
which stated that the Shared Singing group would perform better than the Shared Reading group
in the immediate posttest of spoken vocabulary recall in the story, was supported.

Question 2 – Effects of Singing on Vocabulary Retention
The second research question focused on whether young CFL learners retained more
vocabulary of picture naming, Chinese word recognition and contextual spoken words recall in
the Shared Singing condition than the Shared Reading one. Specifically, a statistical analysis was
performed to determine whether there were any significant differences between groups regarding
their performance from the immediate posttest to delayed posttest. To examine the effect of the
independent variable, first, the mean scores for the tests were compared. Second, homogeneity of
variance assumption underlying the one-way ANOVA was tested. Last, if all the assumptions
were met, the raw scores on the tests were submitted to a one-way ANOVA design with “group”
as an independent variable, and the test scores in the three measures were dependent variables.
The alpha level for this study was set at 0.05.

Results of the retention of picture naming vocabulary.
The Levene’s tests of homogeneity of variance for the measures of immediate and
delayed picture naming posttests showed that the p values were greater than the alpha level, p1 =
0.381 and p2 = 0.843. Therefore, the homogeneity of variance assumption was reasonably
satisfied for the tests.

74

The descriptive statistics of the picture naming test, including group means and standard
deviations for each group in the immediate and delayed posttests, were reported in Table 8. The
descriptive measures revealed gains by the two groups on both the immediate and delayed
posttests with the experimental group performing a little bit better than the control group. On
average, the experimental group named 3.09 pictures out of 15 correctly while the control group
scored an average of 2.77 picture naming correctly on the immediate posttest. And the
outperformance was maintained on the delayed posttest.
Table 8: Mean Number of Words Correct and Standard Deviations on the Picture Naming Test
Immediate Posttest

Delayed Posttest

Groups
Control (n=53)

M
2.77

SD
2.205

M
2.47

SD
2.628

Experimental (n=53)

3.09

2.733

2.55

2.805

However, the one-way ANOVA analysis (Table 9) revealed that the picture naming gains
between the two groups were not statistically different, and effect size measured by Cohen’s d
indicated a small effect size (0.133 standard deviation difference) for the immediate posttest
comparison of the two groups and a small effect size (0.26 standard deviation difference) for the
delayed posttest comparison of the two groups.
Table 9: Results of One-way ANOVA for Picture Naming Test
Comparison of Means
Immediate Posttest
Control vs. Experi.
Delayed Posttest
Control vs. Experi.
* p < .05

95% CI
Lower Limit
Upper Limit

F
(1, 104)

p

Cohen’s d

2.47

3.40

0.471

0.494

0.133

1.99

3.03

0.02

0.887

0.26

75

In summary, the results indicated that the use of singing did not result in significantly
better performance in picture naming retention. Thus, Hypothesis 4, which stated that students in
the Shared Singing group would perform better than students in the Shared Reading group, was
not supported.

Results of the retention of Chinese word recognition.
The descriptive statistics (Table 10) showed that both groups made gains on the
immediate and delayed posttests with the experimental group in general outperforming the
control group.
Table 10: Mean Number of Words Correct and Standard Deviations on the Word Recognition
Test

Groups
Control (n=53)
Experimental (n=53)

Immediate Posttest
M
SD
0.68
1.015
1.09
2.604

Delayed Posttest
M
SD
0.36
0.71
1.02
2.635

The Levene’s test of homogeneity of variance for the immediate word recognition
posttest revealed that the p value was greater than the alpha level, p1 = 0.065, which meant that
the homogeneity of variance assumption was satisfied for this set of data. Therefore, a one-way
ANOVA analysis was performed (Table 11). It found that the difference between the two groups
was not statistically significant for the immediate posttest of word recognition, F (1, 104) =
3.104, p = 0.081. Cohen’s d showed a small effect for the intervention in both groups. The
Shared Singing group had a greater gain (0.21 standard deviation difference) over the Shared
Reading group on the immediate posttest.

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Table 11: One-way ANOVA for Word Recognition Test
Comparison of Means
Immediate Posttest
Control vs Experi.
* p < .05

95% CI
Lower Limit
Upper Limit
0.51

1.27

F
(1, 104)

p

Cohen’s d

1.169

0.282

0.21

The Levene’s test of homogeneity of variance for the delayed posttest showed that the p
value was smaller than the alpha level, p2 = 0.006, which meant that the homogeneity of variance
was violated for this set of data. Therefore, a Welch F test was performed to examine the
differences between the two groups. However, the Welch’s test did not find a statistical
difference, F (1, 59.51) = 3.104, p > 0.05.
In summary, the above results indicated that the use of singing did not result in
significantly better performance in the retention of Chinese word recognition. Thus, Hypothesis
5, which stated that students in the Shared Singing group would perform better than those in the
Shared Reading group, was not supported.

Results of retention of spoken vocabulary recall in the story.
The Levene’s tests of homogeneity of variance for the measures of immediate and
delayed spoken vocabulary recall posttests showed that the p values were greater than the alpha
level, p1 = 0.984 and p2 = 0.522. Therefore, the homogeneity of variance assumption was
reasonably satisfied for the two sets of data.
Table 12 presented the group means and standard deviations for each group over time,
and Figure 9 displayed the group means graphically. These descriptive statistics showed that the
experimental group scored significantly higher in spoken vocabulary recall than the control
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group on both the immediate and delayed posttests. This was confirmed by the one-way
ANOVA analysis (Table 13) which showed that the experimental group significantly
outperformed the control group on the immediate test of spoken vocabulary recall, F (1, 104) =
4.436, p < 0.05, and on the repeated delayed test, F (1, 104) = 4.033, p < 0.05. Cohen’s d showed
a medium effect for the intervention in both groups. The Shared Singing group had a greater gain
(0.41 standard deviation difference) over the Shared Reading group on the immediate posttest,
and 0.39 standard deviation difference on the delayed posttest.
Table 12: Mean Number of Words Correct and SD on the Spoken Vocabulary Recall Test

Groups
Control (n=53)
Experimental (n=53)

Immediate Posttest
M
SD
4.87
3.013
6.11
3.074

Figure 9: Group means on spoken recall test over time.
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Delayed Posttest
M
SD
4.89
2.694
6.04
3.186

Table 13: One-way ANOVA for the Spoken Recall Test
Comparison of Means

95% CI
Lower Limit
Upper Limit

Immediate Posttest
Control vs Experi.
Delayed Posttest
Control vs Experi.
* p < .05

F
(1, 104)

p

Cohen’s d

4.89

6.09

4.436

0.038

0.41

4.89

6.04

4.033

0.047

0.39

For the spoken vocabulary retention in the story, to summarize, the use of singing
resulted in significantly better performance than the use of reading. Thus, Hypothesis 6, which
stated that students in the Shared Singing group would perform better than those in the Shared
Reading condition on the Chinese spoken vocabulary recall, was supported.

Summary of the Findings
The overarching question addressed in this study concerned how the use of singing
affected young CFL learners’ acquisition and retention of Chinese vocabulary in Shared Singing
and Shared Reading conditions. Picture naming, Chinese word recognition and spoken
vocabulary recall in the story were the foci of the investigation.
Three immediate posttests were used to measure the participants’ vocabulary acquisition
of picture naming, Chinese word recognition and contextual spoken vocabulary recall. The
Shared Singing approach was not found to be significantly more effective in facilitating the
acquisition of Chinese picture naming or word recognition vocabulary than the Shared Reading
approach. However, the Shared Singing condition resulted in significantly better acquisition of
Chinese spoken vocabulary in the story.

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The delayed posttests were administered to measure the participants’ vocabulary
retention in the picture naming, word recognition and spoken vocabulary recall in the story. The
use of singing was not found to be more effective in enhancing the retention of picture naming or
Chinese word recognition, but it was found to facilitate the retention of the spoken vocabulary in
the story.
In summary, the main study found that there were statistically significant differences
between the Shared Singing and Shared Reading groups in the acquisition and retention of
Chinese spoken vocabulary in the story, but no statistically significant difference was detected
between the groups in their vocabulary acquisition and retention of picture naming and Chinese
word recognition. Chapter 5 will discuss the main study and its findings related to the existing
research literature. It will also look at the implications, limitations and recommendations for
future research.

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CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This dissertation examined the effects of the use of songs on Chinese immediate
vocabulary recall and delayed retention in picture naming, word recognition and spoken
vocabulary recall in the story. After an introduction to the problem in Chapter 1, Chapter 2
reviewed in detail the related literature on the use of songs in language and vocabulary studies in
particular. Chapter 3 described the method of data collection and analysis, and Chapter 4
presented the results of the study. This final chapter will present the interpretations of the results
addressing each research question, discuss pedagogical implications, describe research
limitations and make recommendations for future research.

Interpretations of the Results
Based on the results presented in Chapter 4, the interpretation will address each of the
research questions, make references to the literature, and explain possible reasons for the
obtained results.

Effects of singing on picture naming.
The first research question addressed the effectiveness of singing on vocabulary
acquisition including picture naming vocabulary. On average, the Shared Singing group said
3.09 words correctly out of 15 while the Shared Reading group scored an average of 2.77 words
correctly on the immediate posttest. The Shared Singing group appeared to outperform the
Shared Reading group. However, the ANOVA analysis showed no significant difference
between the two groups on the immediate recall in picture naming, indicating that Shared

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Singing was not more effective in enhancing students’ acquisition of picture naming compared
with the Shared Reading approach. The results were contradictory to Hyland’s (1995) finding
that there was significantly greater vocabulary acquisition of the picture naming vocabulary for
bilingual learners who had books sung to them than for similar students who had books read
aloud to them.
Three plausible reasons may explain why no differences were detected. The first reason
may be related to the object for comparison (i.e., the reading approach). Reading has already
been found to be effective in vocabulary learning. When compared with it, the advantages of
singing would not be easily detected. Even in the reading group, the vocabulary the participants
acquired in the assessments was small. The second reason may be related to the length of the
intervention. That is, a one-week intervention with 25-30 minutes a day might not be sufficient
to allow the kindergarteners to acquire the picture naming vocabulary in Chinese as a foreign
language, as this is a new language for them and is usually regarded as one of the hardest
languages for speakers of most, if not all, Indo-European languages to learn. If the initial
learning time were increased to allow enough exposures and processing time, the children would
be able to increase their vocabulary knowledge and production in Chinese picture naming. That
would probably increase the discrepancy between the experimental group and the control group
and reach significance statistically. The third reason is probably related to the nature of the
difficulty of producing vocabulary in L2. As L2 learners’ vocabulary knowledge grows from
receptive to productive (Laufer, 1998), to produce words requires repeated exposure and
reinforcement of the target vocabulary in listening and reading. Therefore, it demands great
“mental effort the reader devotes to that particular word, especially for productive vocabulary”
(Chen, 2006, p. 135). In this study, to name a picture, the young participants had to first

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recognize it and then produce the appropriate spoken form of that word in the target language.
Due to the limited intervention time, the children’s insufficient accumulation in receptive words
probably resulted in their poor productive knowledge of the target words.

Effects of singing on Chinese word recognition.
The first research question was also concerned about the effects of songs on the
acquisition of Chinese word recognition. On average, the experimental group recognized 1.09
words correctly out of 15 while the control group scored an average of 0.68 words correctly on
the immediate posttest. The ANOVA results did not show any significant effects. This finding is
congruent with the previous studies by Ayotte (2004), Medina (1990), Mouri (2011), Winter
(2010) and Walton, Canaday and Dixon (2010), who found that song-based activities did not
facilitate written vocabulary learning, especially new vocabulary.
This could be explained by the following two reasons. First, it could be explained by the
nature of the task used for this study. The Chinese word recognition test combined recognition
and production in that scores were given to the participants to see if the target words were
recognized. The process involved understanding a word first when it was seen and then having
the ability to say it. The first step was at the receptive stage and the second was at the productive
stage (Gass, 1999). To move from the first to the second stage, students needed repeated
exposures and manipulation of the vocabulary to internalize and then say the newly acquired
vocabulary (Belisle, 1997; Swain & Lapkin, 1991). This took time and effort. As discussed
above, the one-week intervention did not warrant sufficient reinforcement of the Chinese
character recognition, which might result in poor production of the target words. In addition, as
the invention was implemented at the beginning of the school year at the kindergarten level, the

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participants might not have even known yet what to look for in Chinese characters, just as many
English-speaking children reading English did not yet know that the lines and bumps and
orientation of the English letters were important. In this sense, the Chinese word recognition test
was challenging for the U.S. kindergarteners. Second, the Chinese writing system is harder to
learn, in absolute terms, than an alphabetic writing system due to the “linguistic complexity of
Chinese writing, such as the lack of sound-script correspondence, irregularity in strokes for
individual characters, and the large number of homophonic-heterographic characters” (Shen,
2010, p. 486). As Kennedy (1937) writes, “The difficulty of memorizing a Chinese ideograph, as
compared with the difficulty of learning a new word in a European language, is such that a rigid
economy of mental effort is imperative” (p. 591). Even for intermediate and advanced college
students, Chinese word recognition remains a challenge (Everson & Ke, 1997). Therefore, it is
no surprise that the young beginning learners of Chinese in this study had great difficulty in
recognizing the target Chinese characters, given the fact that the characters did not give a clue as
to their pronunciation and no pinyin (the Romanized phonetic system for Chinese) was given to
these characters.
However, it should be noted that, although there was no group difference on the picture
naming or Chinese word reading measures of the pre- post- tests, the mean scores revealed that
the singing children on average scored a little higher on the two measures than the reading
children. This suggested that the use of singing might be generally beneficial in facilitating
young CFL children’s vocabulary acquisition of picture naming and word recognition. This
finding affirmed the general benefits of singing in language education by previous studies
(Medina, 1990; Mouri, 2011; Schunk et al., 1999; Winter, 2010) and increased our knowledge of
how children acquired new words through the Shared Singing approach. It was possible that the

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introduction of new labels in the context of a story song was sufficient to result in learning of the
Chinese picture-sound mapping and script-sound association: the children might be able to
understand the story song by referring to the pictures while listening and singing the story, and
the illustrations helped them narrow down the meanings of the words in the context of the story.
With the teachers’ explicit vocabulary teaching using flashcards, games, cloze tests and sentence
completion during the process of Shared Singing, the children were able to notice the target
words in the written form more consciously. And the teachers’ tracking the words during the
Shared Singing helped them make the necessary associations of the sounds and the scripts. The
repeated but pleasurable singing not only provided opportunities for the students to self-correct
their errors while listening and singing, but also reinforced their accurate utterance of the target
vocabulary. Therefore, the use of Shared Singing both enhanced young learners’ CFL learning
and engaged them in language acquisition in ways that Shared Reading alone cannot. This could
be supported by the teachers’ feedback on the use of the two learning conditions. The daily
check-in data revealed that the teachers reported enhanced student motivation in the Shared
Singing group 13 times during the one-week intervention. Specifically, their reports showed that
the Shared Singing group was more motivated and were more easily attracted by the singing and
attended to singing activity more instantly than the Shared Reading group. And they were less
likely to become bored. Therefore, unlike Shared Reading, Shared Singing can arouse young
learners’ interest immediately and encourage their “joining in”. By “joining in” Shared Singing,
they can pick up the target language more quickly and much easier than through the non-singing
approach of Shared Reading. This explains why the Shared Singing group scored higher than the
Shared Reading group in post-tests of picture naming and word recognition.

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Effects of singing on vocabulary retention.
The response to the second research question, “Is the use of singing more effective in
enhancing young CFL learners’ vocabulary retention than using the reading approach?” varied
with the type of measures. Although no significant differences were detected for the two groups’
picture naming and word recognition tests, the scores of the Shared Singing group were
significantly greater than that of the Shared Reading group on the test of the spoken vocabulary
recall in the story. This finding indicated that the use of singing displayed a significant advantage
on children’s spoken vocabulary recall and was a strong indicator of perceived vocabulary
retention. This finding supported the findings of Mouri (2011) and Salcedo (2010), but was
inconsistent with the research findings of Recette and Perretz (2007). In a study of 33 college
students who were learning Japanese as a foreign language, Mouri (2011) found that there were
statistically significant differences between the experimental (learning vocabulary along with a
melody) and the control (non-melody) groups on their delayed recognition. He concluded that
singing could be an effective learning source for vocabulary acquisition. In a similar study by
Salcedo (2010), it was found that the song-stuck-in-my-head phenomenon facilitated the
vocabulary retention and production. In analysis of the reason, some researchers (Barker, 1999;
Serafine, Davidson, Crowder & Repp; 1986) stated, as the melody and the text of the story were
learned together as one integral unit and the flow of the words was enhanced by the flow of the
music, our brain was able to remember the words embedded in music easier and quicker. The
melody helped them follow the flow of the music and recall the song lyrics quickly, which made
their production of the language happen in a natural way. And it also made the repeated language
production enjoyable and facilitated memorizing by transferring the spoken language to the longterm memory. This could be explained by the “song-stuck-in-my-head” (SSIMH) phenomenon

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(Murphey, 1990) and “din-in-the-head” (DINH) theory (Barber, 1980), i.e., fragments of the
story song would last long in students’ short- and long- term memory and sometimes popped out
of their unconsciousness even long after they stopped consciously repeating them. And this
method of auditory recall accounted for involuntary rehearsals that facilitated language learners’
vocabulary retention and recall.
The comparison of the mean scores on the three tests also revealed that the students in
this study demonstrated some retention of the target vocabulary on both the contextualized
measure (recall in the story) and the isolated measures of picture naming and word recognition,
but retention rates were stronger on the contextualized measure, with the mean number of the
correctly recalled words in the story being 6, compared with the mean number of correctly
named pictures being 3 and the mean number of correctly recognized words being just 1. This
confirmed the research findings of some studies on contextual language learning. Martin-Chang
et al. (2007) compared 28 second graders’ (16 boys and 12 girls) ability to retain vocabulary
after isolated and context word training. Mean scores showed an increase in word recognition
accuracy for both methods, but the delayed posttest indicated that students in the context group
scored higher than the isolated word group. Similarly, Rodriguez and Sadowki (2000) examined
the effects of rote rehearsal, context, keyword, and context/keyword methods on immediate and
long-term retention of English as a foreign language (EFL) vocabulary in natural classroom
settings. Eight ninth-grade EFL classes were randomly assigned to one of four learning
conditions: rote rehearsal, context, keyword, and context/keyword condition. Cued recall was
assessed either immediately or after a one-week delay. Results showed that the context/keyword
method produced superior recall to any of the other three methods after one week, suggesting a
very promising educational value for this method.

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Shared Singing, like Shared Reading, is a good example of rich and meaningful contexts
for L2 language learning. L2 learners are capable of understanding the target language including
new and unfamiliar vocabulary with the aid of extra-linguistic support such as illustrations, body
language, visual aids, realia, and contextual clues (Krashen, 2003). When children learn a story
song, the familiar vocabulary and syntax contained in the songs may provide meaningful context
for them to clarify the unfamiliar words, which not only enhances their acquisition of the target
language, but also helps them store the information in the long-term memory.
It is also interesting to note that the participants were able to name more pictures
(Mean=3) than they could read/recognize the Chinese words (Mean=1) in the delayed
vocabulary retention tests. This confirms many of the studies in the field of recall and retention
(McBirde & Dosher, 2002; Tonzar, Lotto & Job, 2009) that picture stimuli increase memory
performance more than word stimuli. Tonzar et al. (2009) compared two learning methods
(picture and word-mediated learning) and found that the picture-mediated method resulted in a
better performance than the word-mediated method. “When word and pictorial information are
contrasted in an explicit verbal recall task, usually retention favors picture” (Al Nassir, 2012, p.
29). This is called Picture-Superiority Effect (Nelson, Reed & Walling, 1976). According to
Nelson et al., pictures have two encoding advantages over words. The first is that pictures are
encoded more uniquely, which increases their chances for retrieval. The second advantage is that
pictures access meaning more directly than words. However, in the case of the Chinese language,
as the sound-character correspondence is missing, the children cannot use the sound-out strategy.
If the concept (picture naming) cannot be accessed, they will have a hard time moving directly
from written input to oral pronunciation (word recognition).

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It has also been found that the participating teachers reported that students were more
motivated in the Shared Singing condition than in the Shared Reading condition. This affirms the
previous studies (Anderson, 1998; Arnold & Fonseca, 2004; Christison, 1995; Lazear, 1991) that
singing has motivational effects on language learning. The main reason is the good atmosphere it
creates in the classroom. Young children relate to songs as part of entertainment rather than work
and find learning vocabulary through songs amusing rather than burdensome and tedious. And
better familiarity with these songs improves their status within the peer group and therefore
stimulates learning.
In conclusion, this study adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that the use of
singing is beneficial in L2 education and the Shared Singing approach is effective in facilitating
young bilingual children’s Chinese vocabulary acquisition and retention. It extends prior
research by including multiple measures (picture naming, word reading and spoken vocabulary
recall) of young CFL children’s productive vocabulary.

Implications for CFL/CSL Instruction in Immersion Settings and Beyond
The purpose of this study is to address the challenges of building CFL/CSL vocabulary
knowledge in young children, specifically, to contribute to a better understanding of the use of
songs in language instruction, that is, its effect upon the vocabulary acquisition and retention of
picture naming, word recognition and spoken vocabulary recall. Information about the effect is
important for primary L2 teachers, because (1) picture naming and word recognition are two
basic skills that young L2 learners should have when they learn a new language (Bates et al,
2003; Coady & Huckin, 1997); and (2) decisions about how to teach L2 vocabulary and how to
help students maintain the learnt words have been an essential part of their daily work. Knowing
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about the impact of the use of songs may inform them of the options that help them vary and
maximize their instructional strategies while teaching young children L2 vocabulary. This study
shows that Shared Singing is a fun and useful pedagogical tool in the teaching of CFL/CSL
vocabulary because it helps make the vocabulary acquisition in a meaningful way and the
retention is made easy and strong. It facilitates the children to remember and recall the
vocabulary by providing sufficient contextual cues, which in turn makes their utterance of the
vocabulary painless. In this regard, it is very important for L2 teachers to incorporate this
approach into the language instruction.
The results of this study also inform curriculum designers and teachers regarding
effective teaching practices for CFL/CSL instruction. As the use of singing has been found to
positively impact young children’s Chinese vocabulary acquisition and retention, it provides
strong evidence that both curriculum designers and teachers should strive to include more use of
music and songs in CFL/CSL education. Given the fact that currently L2 materials are scarce,
particularly those for young CFL/CSL learners, curriculum designers may start producing some
multimedia resources to meet the needs of the market. Language teachers can also be creative in
applying L1 melodies to L2 instruction, therefore building on funds of knowledge in L1 to
facilitate L2 development. In addition, it is necessary to educate parents on the specific
knowledge and resources which will increase the effectiveness of parental support. For example,
they can purchase the commercial story songs, learn about the strategy of Shared Singing and use
it to practice singing the target story songs at home together with their children. This will not
only reinforce what children learn at school, but also help them acquire incidental vocabulary
that has not been explicitly taught in the classroom.

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Limitations
There are four limitations of the study. First, the use of convenience samples from the
Chinese immersion program in Michigan limited the generalizability of the study. In addition,
the sample was confined to 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten students who were fairly homogenous
in terms of race and culture. Second, the participants were initially divided into two groups by
the school district at the entrance of kindergarten based on the number of students and gender
distribution in each class. The researcher had little control over the random assignment in the
initial phase. This may affect internal validity, or the extent to which the results of this research
can be generalized. Third, the research took place in the school settings during regular school
hours. As a result, there were extraneous variables for which the researcher could not control,
such as alternating the AM and PM groups, as proposed by the committee members. Alternating
the AM and PM groups was not implemented because it involved too many teachers and the
school system did not permit providing such services to the groups of the children in the study.
Fourth, the one-week intervention seemed too short to produce statistically significant
differences between the experimental and the control groups. It was especially true for the
measures of picture naming and word recognition. If more time were allowed, significant
differences might be detected in the vocabulary acquisition of Chinese picture naming and word
recognition.

Suggestions for Future Research
The results of this study indicate positive effects of the singing intervention on the
acquisition and retention of Chinese spoken vocabulary in the story. They also detect increased

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vocabulary production of picture naming and word recognition. The results highlight the
usefulness of this approach in the beginning years of L2 learning.
The findings of this study generate several ideas for future research. While children who
shared singing the story improved on the Chinese spoken vocabulary recall in the story
(productive language), it would be interesting to see whether this knowledge generalizes to other
aspects of the language development such as identification of the target words (receptive
language) through multiple choices, sound-picture matching or picture-character matching
because receptive language skills are especially important for beginning foreign language
learners like young immersion students.
The study did not detect significant effects of Shared Singing on the acquisition of
vocabulary as assessed by picture naming and word recognition, compared with the use of
Shared Reading. But that does not mean that it has little value in L2 instruction. Rather, it
indicates that Shared Singing, like Shared Reading, is an effective tool for language
development. To better examine the effects of singing, it is suggested that the control group
should use non-singing or non-Shared-Reading approaches. This way the statistic significance
might be reached.
Another suggestion may be to use the same method but lengthen the intervention time. In
this study, 25-30 minutes a day were spent on the story, with less than half of the time devoted to
target vocabulary activities. And the intervention lasted for one week only. Therefore, the
frequency that the learners encountered the target words was very limited during the time, which
might not be helpful enough for them to produce the target vocabulary. Vocabulary acquisition
involves repeated exposure to the target words, multiple encounters and constant revisits (Gass,
1999). And vocabulary production is not easy for L2 learners, in particular, beginning learners. It

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takes time and practice. If the intervention time were extended to half a month or even longer,
the students would have opportunities to encounter the target words more often, and statistical
significance between the control group and the experimental group might be detected.
The last suggestion would be to have more conditions compared. This study only
involved Shared Singing and Shared Reading. If one or two more conditions, such as
memorization of vocabulary lists were included, we might be able to learn more about the impact
of Shared Singing.

Conclusions
Previous studies have examined the effects of songs on vocabulary learning and
retention. Some of the studies have supported the effectiveness of songs in facilitating
vocabulary learning and retention. However, others have reported contradictory results. Given
the fact that no study in second language education has examined the use of songs in CFL/CSL
vocabulary acquisition and retention in picture naming, word recognition and spoken vocabulary
recall in a story format with young children, this dissertation focused on this issue by comparing
the effects of songs on Chinese vocabulary gains in the immediate recall and delayed retention in
picture naming, word recognition and spoken vocabulary recall under Shared Singing and Shared
Reading learning conditions.
The results of the study demonstrate that the use of singing is effective in facilitating
CFL/CSL learners’ acquisition and retention of spoken vocabulary in the story and that the
Shared Singing learning condition is more effective than the Shared Reading learning condition
in promoting L2 vocabulary acquisition and retention in general. Furthermore, situating L2

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vocabulary learning in the context such as stories results in better vocabulary acquisition and
retention than teaching vocabulary in an isolated manner.

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APPENDICES

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Appendix A: Consent Form
Dear Parents,
Your child is invited to participate in a study conducted by Dr. Guofang Li and Wenying
Zhou from College of Education, Michigan State University. We hope to investigate the effect of
the use of songs in shared reading on kindergarteners’ Chinese vocabulary acquisition and
retention. Your child was selected as a possible participant in this study because (1) he/she is
learning Chinese in the Chinese Immersion Program; (2) he/she is at a kindergartener; and (3)
the teacher has expressed her interest in the research and the school has approved it.
If you prefer your child to participate, we will first conduct a pretest to learn about your
child’s current Chinese vocabulary. It consists of a picture-reading test and a word recognition
test. The picture-reading test contains 15 pictures and your child will be asked to say the
corresponding words in Chinese. The word recognition test contains the same vocabulary but in
words and your child will be asked to recognize and read them. Right after the pretest, your
child’s Chinese teacher will start the shared-singing and shared-reading intervention as the
regular class activities. The story that will be used is the Chinese version of “The Little Red
Hen”. The teacher will tell it through shared reading with one group and shared singing with the
other. The intervention will take 25 minutes per day and last a week. Immediately after the
intervention, a post-test will be administered by the investigator individually to your child. The
test will repeat the picture-reading, word recognition, and a spoken recall test will be added.
Your child will be provided the text of the story with the same 15 target words being replaced
with blanks and he/she will be required to tell orally the missing words. These tests will be
repeated in two weeks’ time to learn about your child’s Chinese vocabulary retention. At the
completion of the study, your child will be given a fancy pencil as a thank-you gift.

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The expected benefits that your child will get from the intervention include: (1) he/she
will be exposed to an interesting story; (2) he/she will enjoy learning the story; and (3) some of
his/her Chinese language skills such as word recognition, picture-reading, listening
comprehension and text recall will be enhanced.
There are no known risks involved, and your privacy and your child’s privacy will be
strictly protected. Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be
identified with your child will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your
permission or as required by law. Your child’s participation in this study is voluntary and you
may withdraw at any time without penalty. Your decision whether or not to have your child
participate will not prejudice your future relations with the teacher, or the school.
The Committee on the Protection of Human Subjects at Michigan State University has
reviewed and approved the present research. If you have any questions, Dr. Guofang Li
(liguo@msu.edu) and Wenying Zhou (zhouweny@msu.edu) will be happy to answer them. If
you have questions about subjects’ rights or other concerns, you can contact the MSU
Institutional Review Board, (517) 432-4503.
If you agree to have your child participate in the study described above and acknowledge
the researchers’ obligation to provide you with a copy of this consent form, please sign your
name below.
Subject Signature ________________

Date ________________

Relationship with the subject ___________________________
Signature of the investigator __________________________

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Appendix B: Assent
(Participant Teacher): Would you like to listen to stories? Who likes to listen to stories, raise
your hands? I can see almost all of you like to listen to stories. So for the next whole week, we
are going to listen to a very interesting story called “Little Red Hen”. Before listening to the
story, Ms. Zhou would like to know whether you know any words of the story. She will sit down
with you in the hallway and ask you to read some pictures and words in Chinese. If you can’t
read any of them, it does not matter, because that’s why we are here learning Chinese. I will read
the story to you for a whole week, and we are going to do lots of fun activities related to the
story. After learning about the story, you will be tested on how you remember the key words in
the story by Ms. Zhou. You will be asked to recall some missing parts of the story. I am sure all
of you will be able to do it. Are you interested in learning about the story with me? If you are
interested, raise your hands. (Ms. Zhou, the researcher, will record those who would not like to
participate on a piece of paper)

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Appendix C: Participants’ Chinese Background Questionnaire
This questionnaire aims to help us understand your child’s Chinese learning background. Please
fill it out with information about your child. This information will be seen only by the
researcher(s) and will have no bearing on his/her grade. Your child’s name will only be used for
matching purposes, and your response is completely confidential.
1. Your Child’s Name: __________________________________________
2. Sex: _______Male

_______Female

3. Age: ________________
4. Ethnicity: ___Mexican-American

___American Indian ___Asian

___African American ___Native Hawaii/other Pacific Islander

___Caucasians

5. My child’s mother tongue* is __________________________.
6. My child has studied Chinese before he/she was enrolled for this program.
____YES

____NO

If yes, tell how long he/she had learned Chinese: __________________________
7. Do any of your family members speak Chinese? ____YES

____NO

If yes, who? _____________________________
8. My child has lived in/visited a Chinese-speaking country/place:
____ Yes, for _________ day(s)

____ Yes, for _________ week(s)

____ Yes, for _________ month(s)

____ Yes, for _________ year(s)

____ No, never.
*the language he/she speaks at home, his/her native language.

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Appendix D: Story Text
(Chinese version) 农场上有一只红母鸡，她找到一些种子。红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿意帮种
种子？”“我不愿意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿意，”老鼠说。“唉，
那我就自己去种种子。”红母鸡种种子，浇浇水，拔拔草。红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿意帮我
割麦子？” “我不愿意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿意，”老鼠说。
“唉，那我就自己去割麦子。”红母鸡割麦子，割麦子，割麦子。红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿
意帮我磨麦子？” “我不愿意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿意，”老
鼠说。“唉，那我就自己去磨麦子。”红母鸡磨麦子，磨麦子，磨麦子。红母鸡问朋友，
“谁愿意帮我做蛋糕？” “我不愿意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿
意，”老鼠说。“唉，那我就自己去做蛋糕。”红母鸡和面粉，和面粉，做蛋糕。红母鸡
问朋友，“谁愿意帮我吃蛋糕？” “我不愿意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。
“我不愿意，”老鼠说。“嗯，谁要是帮忙就吃蛋糕。”小猫帮忙浇浇水，小狗帮忙拔拔
草，老鼠帮忙磨面粉，大家都帮忙做蛋糕。“小狗，快来吃蛋糕。小猫，快来吃蛋糕。老
鼠，快来吃蛋糕。我们一起来吃蛋糕。”
(English translation) There was a Red Hen on the farm. She found some seeds. She asked her
friends, “Who would like to plant the seeds with me?” “Not I,” said Dog. “Not I,” said Cat. “Not
I,” said Mouse. “(sigh) I shall have to do it myself.” Red Hen planted, watered, and weeded. She
asked her friends, “Who would like to cut the grains with me?” “Not I,” said Dog. “Not I,” said
Cat. “Not I,” said Mouse. “(sigh) I shall have to do it myself.” Red Hen cut the grains. She cut
and cut. She asked her friends, “Who would like to grind the grains with me?” “Not I,” said Dog.
“Not I,” said Cat. “Not I,” said Mouse. “(sigh) I shall have to do it myself.” Red Hen ground the
grains. She ground and ground. She asked her friends, “Who would like to make a cake with
me?” “Not I,” said Dog. “Not I,” said Cat. “Not I,” said Mouse. “(sigh) I shall have to do it
myself.” Red Hen mixed the flour and made the cake. She asked her friends, “Who would like to
eat the cake with me?” “Me,” said Dog. “Me,” said Cat. “Me,” said Mouse. “En, I shall share the
cake with those who help.” Cat helped with watering. Dog helped with weeding. Mouse helped
with grinding. Everyone helped with baking. “Dog, come eat the cake. Cat, come eat the cake.
Mouse, come eat the cake. Let’s eat the cake together.”

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Appendix E: Picture Naming Test

Figure 10: Picture naming test

101

Appendix F: Word Recognition Test
(for pre-, immediate and delayed post- tests)
母鸡(hen)、农场(farm)、猫(cat)、狗(dog)、老鼠(mouse)、种子(seed)、浇水(water)、拔草
(weed)、麦子(wheat)、割(cut)、磨(grind)、面粉(flour)、蛋糕(cake)、吃(eat)、和(mix)

102

Appendix G: Spoken Vocabulary Recall in the Story Test
(for immediate and delayed post- tests)
____(农场)有一只红____(母鸡)，她找到一些____(种子)，红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿意帮我种
种子？” “我不愿意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿意，”老鼠说。“唉，那我就
自己去种种子。”
红母鸡种种子，____(浇浇水)，拔____(拔草)。红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿意帮我
____(割)___(麦子)？” “我不愿意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿意，”老鼠说。
“唉，那我就自己去割麦子。”
红母鸡割麦子，割麦子，割麦子。红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿意帮我____(磨)麦子？” “我不愿
意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿意，”老鼠说。“唉，那我就自己去磨麦子。”
红母鸡磨麦子，磨麦子，磨麦子。红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿意帮我做____(蛋糕)？” “我不愿
意，”小狗说。“我不愿意，”小猫说。“我不愿意，”老鼠说。“唉，那我就自己去做蛋糕。”
红母鸡____(和)____(面粉)，和面粉，做蛋糕。红母鸡问朋友，“谁愿意帮我____(吃) 蛋
糕？” “我愿意，”小狗说。“我愿意，”小猫说。“我愿意，”老鼠说。“嗯，谁要是帮忙就吃
蛋糕。”
小猫帮忙浇浇水，小狗帮忙拔拔草，老鼠帮忙磨面粉，大家都帮忙做蛋糕。“小狗，快来
吃蛋糕。小猫，快来吃蛋糕。老鼠，快来吃蛋糕。我们一起来吃蛋糕。”

103

Appendix H: Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen
Table 14: Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen
Day 1 (25 minutes)
Experimental Group
Control Group
Procedures:
 Present some grains of wheat, real wheat stalks, and a few products made from wheat
such as bread, flour, cake.
 Tell the students what each item is.
 Ask the class what they think the products are made from.
 Then ask students to share ways they think the grains of wheat eventually became
bread, etc.
 Show pictures to explain how grains of wheat become wheat products. Introduce the
terms “plant” “grind” “mix” “bake”.
 Have the students sequence the process by manipulating the pictures.
 Explain that it takes a lot of time and hard work to get from grain to cake and that this
week they will learn all about the process!
New story:
 Introduce title, author and illustrator;
 Show the cover and talk about what the hen, cat, duck, and dog are doing;
 Take a picture walk. Be sure to discuss what is happening in each of the pictures and
introduce the terms 'sprout'.
 Make sure to stop the picture walk right after the hen places the dough into the
oven. Ask students to predict what they think will happen next;
 Talk about what happens when the bread comes out of the oven.
(experimental group) Sing the story.
(control group) Read the story.

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Table 14 (cont’d): Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen
Day 2 (25 minutes)
Experimental Group
Procedures
 Turn to each page in the book that
shows what the core vocabulary
words are (e.g. wheat, bread, seed,
grind, dough, etc.). Decide an action
for each word. Review them using
actions.
 Ask students to recall what the story
was about. Review sequencing from
Day 1.
 Sing aloud the story using the big
book while flipping the pages and
the actions created for the core
words.
 Ask questions to check students’
comprehension while flipping the
pages:
o Where did the red hen live?
o Who were her friends?
o What did she find one day?
How did she feel when she
found it?
o What did she ask her friends
to do? How did they respond?
o How did she feel? What did
the red hen do then?
o Why do you think the red hen
not share the cake with her
friends?
o Did the red hen share the
cake with her friends at last?
Why?
 Sing aloud the story again, inviting
the students to join in.
 Sing aloud the story again, tracking
each character.

Control Group
Procedures
 Turn to each page in the book that
shows what the core vocabulary
words are (e.g. wheat, bread, seed,
grind, dough, etc.). Decide an action
for each word. Review them using
actions.
 Ask students to recall what the story
was about. Review sequencing from
Day 1.
 Read aloud the story using the big
book while flipping the pages and
the actions created for the core
words.
 Ask questions to check students’
comprehension while flipping the
pages:
o Where did the red hen live?
o Who were her friends?
o What did she find one day?
How did she feel when she
found it?
o What did she ask her friends
to do? How did they respond?
o How did she feel? What did
the red hen do then?
o Why do you think the red hen
not share the cake with her
friends?
o Did the red hen share the
cake with her friends at last?
Why?
 Read aloud the story again, inviting
the students to join in.
 Read aloud the story again, tracking
each character.

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Table 14 (cont’d): Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen
Day 3 (25 minutes)
Experimental Group
Procedures:
 Review the core vocabulary by
playing charades.
 Ask students to recall what the story
was about. See if they can tell what
the animals say in the story (“what
does the red hen ask” “what did they
say” “what did she say” etc.)
 Put the dialogue up on sentence
strips (___ asked her friends, “who
will help me ___ the wheat?” “Not
I!” said ___. “Then I will ___
myself!” said ___.). Complete each
sentence with the vocabulary words
and practice singing it.
 Choral sing the dialogue with
expression.
 Bring real grains of wheat and a
wheat grinder or grinding stones and
use the dialogue to ask the students
who will help to grind the wheat.
Model asking by singing “who will
help me grind the wheat?” (teach
them to say “I will”) and a chosen
student would respond “I will”. After
that student gets a short turn at
grinding the wheat, he/she would ask
the question by singing and choose
another student to answer.
 Choral sing the dialogue. Track the
words while singing.

Control Group
Procedures:
 Review the core vocabulary by
playing charades.
 Ask students to recall what the story
was about. See if they can tell what
the animals say in the story (“what
does the red hen ask” “what did they
say” “what did she say” etc.)
 Put the dialogue up on sentence
strips (___ asked her friends, “who
will help me ___ the wheat?” “Not
I!” said ___. “Then I will ___
myself!” said ___.). Complete each
sentence with the vocabulary words
and practice reading it.
 Choral read the dialogue with
expression.
 Bring real grains of wheat and a
wheat grinder or grinding stones and
use the dialogue to ask the students
who will help to grind the wheat.
Model asking “who will help me
grind the wheat?” (teach them to say
“I will”) and a chosen student would
respond “I will”. After that student
gets a short turn at grinding the
wheat, he/she would ask the question
by singing and choose another
student to answer.
 Choral read the dialogue. Track the
words while reading.

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Table 14 (cont’d): Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen
Day 4 (25 minutes)
Experimental Group
Procedures:
 Review vocabulary words and actions.
 Review singing the dialogue. Have
the dialogue cards from the day
before up for support. Track the
words while singing.
 Teach the students that when
someone talks, the author writes
down what the character says using
quotation marks. Show/write the
enlarged quotation marks. Bring
students’ attention to the quotation
marks in the dialogue by asking them
to find them.
 Highlight the quotation marks to
make them more obvious.
 Re-sing the dialogue practiced in the
last lesson.
 Boys and girls take turns to sing the
quotation parts (“who will help me
…?”) and the parts of the characters
(Red Hen asked her friends…).
 Re-sing the story, (letting students
join in on the repetitive wording,
pointing to the retelling chart).
 Divide the students into four groups
so that there is one group singing the
lines/acting out their part for each
character in the story.
 Have students act out the story.

Control Group
Procedures:
 Review vocabulary words and actions.
 Review reading the dialogue. Have
the dialogue cards from the day
before up for support. Track the
words while reading.
 Teach the students that when
someone talks, the author writes
down what the character says using
quotation marks. Show/write the
enlarged quotation marks. Bring
students’ attention to the quotation
marks in the dialogue by asking them
to find them.
 Highlight the quotation marks to
make them more obvious.
 Re-read the dialogue practiced in the
last lesson.
 Boys and girls take turns to read the
quotation parts (“who will help me
…?”) and the parts of the characters
(Red Hen asked her friends…).
 Re-read the story, (letting students
join in on the repetitive wording,
pointing to the retelling chart).
 Divide the students into four groups
so that there is one group saying the
lines/acting out their part for each
character in the story.
 Have students act out the story.

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Table 14 (cont’d): Lesson Plan—The Little Red Hen
Day 5 (25 minutes)
Experimental Group
Control Group
Procedures:
Procedures:
 On a T-chart have students list
 On a T-chart have students list
everything the hen does in the story on
everything the hen does in the story on
the left side. Have them tell what Dog,
the left side. Have them tell what Dog,
Cat and Mouse do. Talk about the
Cat and Mouse do. Talk about the
importance of hard-work and being
importance of hard-work and being
helpful.
helpful.
 Have students tell one thing they do to
 Have students tell one thing they do to
be hardworking or helpful. Read them
be hardworking or helpful. Read them
after you and post it on the board.
after you and post it on the board.
 Choral sing the story. Have a student
 Choral read the story. Have a student
come up and use a wand to track the
come up and use a wand to track the
words.
words.
 Choral sing again with the teacher’s
 Choral read again with the teacher’s
voice taking more of a background role,
voice taking more of a background role,
having another student track the words.
having another student track the words.
 In a pocket chart, show the prepared
 In a pocket chart, show the prepared
sentence strips with the sentences
sentence strips with the sentences
“Who would like to help me plant the
“Who would like to help me plant the
seeds”, etc. On individual cards there
seeds”, etc. On individual cards there
are corresponding pictures. The
are corresponding pictures. The
students are invited to come up and
students are invited to come up and
match the sentence strips with the
match the sentence strips with the
matching picture and to sing the
matching picture and to read the
sentence by pointing to the words.
sentence by pointing to the words.
 Review the story, having students
 Review the story, having students
work together to sequence pictures
work together to sequence pictures
from the story to show what
from the story to show what
happened first, second, third, next,
happened first, second, third, next,
etc.
etc.
 Distribute a similar set of pictures
 Distribute a similar set of pictures
and have the students cut apart,
and have the students cut apart,
color, sequence, and glue them into a
color, sequence, and glue them into a
small booklet so that they will have
small booklet so that they will have
the story to re-sing.
the story to retell.

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Appendix I: Procedural Fidelity
Table 15: Procedural Fidelity
IMPLEMENTATION

(circle one)

Did the teacher tell the target story?

YES NO

Did the teacher do picture walk?

YES NO

Did the teacher provide the story text to the students?

YES NO

Did the teacher follow the lesson plan?

YES NO

Describe what happened in the video:

Did the teacher do more than the lesson plan required?

YES NO

If yes, what is it?

Did the teacher invite the students to do the shared reading/singing?

YES NO

Did the session last no more than 30 minutes?

YES NO

Did the teacher do any vocabulary activities?

YES NO

Describe what happened in the video:

109

Appendix J: Pilot Study
Participants and Setting
A pilot study was conducted in a Chinese immersion program from mid-May to the
beginning of June to test the materials, instruments and methods. A convenience sample (Babbie,
2001) was used mainly because the site was easy to access.
A total of 45 students were invited to participate in the pilot study. Of this number,
twenty-five students’ parents agreed to have their children participate. The control group
contained 14 children and the experimental group included 11. Of all participants, there were
eleven male students (44%) and fourteen female (56%). Sixteen (64%) were Caucasians, six
(24%) were African-American, and three (12%) were adopted Asians. Their average age was
five years old. The background questionnaire showed, according to the parents’ self-reports,
none of their children had had any Chinese learning experience before they were enrolled in the
Chinese immersion program or had ever traveled to China. The three adopted children had been
exposed to the Chinese language in China when they were less than one year old. They could not
say a word of Chinese by the time the pilot study was conducted. Therefore, nobody was
excluded from the data collection and analysis. As for the participants’ Chinese proficiency
level, the pretest showed that their reading and speaking levels were beginning. Those who were
unwilling to participate were not excluded from participating in the activities, but they were not
included in the video recording or data analysis.
In this pilot study, after communicating with the researcher, the participant teacher chose
the AM group as the experimental group and the PM group as the control one. The reason was
mainly because, according to the teacher’s report, the AM group of students was not as active as
the PM one, and the teacher just wanted to motivate them through singing. Although it was

110

proposed that the AM and PM classes should be alternated during the intervention so that the
singing would occur in both the AM and PM periods; however, in the pilot study, the two groups
were not alternated due to the fact that it was beyond the researcher’s capabilities to make the
arrangements.

Procedures and Data Collection
The procedures of the pilot study were the same as those for the main study, as described
in the main body of the writing.
Data were collected from the pre- and post- tests, as described in the main study. In
addition, the pilot study used the following methods to collect some extra data: (a) daily check-in
with the participant teacher during the intervention period; and (b) daily videotaping for
confirmatory observations during the intervention. By using more than one data collection
method (Table 16), the researcher was able to cross-check the results of each method (Cohen &
Manion, 2000). This strategy helped increase the credibility and reliability of the test data.

111

Table 16
Extra Data Collection
Questions

Data Methods

Indicators

Is the teacher able to
follow the lesson plans for
both control and
experimental classes?

Observations of the video
recordings of the teacher’s
instruction

Researcher-developed
fidelity checklist

Are the teaching

activities/materials
appropriate? What needs 
to be improved?


Daily check-in with the

teacher
Classroom observations of the
video recordings

Teacher comments
Video recording research
and evaluation

Do the students make
gains and retentions in the
target vocabulary?

Vocabulary tests

Acceptable performance
levels

Did the test results
produce test-retest
reliability? Are there any
ceiling/floor effects?

Correlation coefficients
between pretest and
immediate posttest, and
immediate posttest and
delayed posttest

Pearson rho

Results
The qualitative data regarding the appropriateness of the materials, improvement of the
materials and intervention fidelity had been discussed in the main body of the study. The
quantitative data of the pilot study were entered for SPSS analysis. Descriptive statistics for the
measures in the form of means, standard deviations and student sample sizes were reported in
Table 17. The statistics showed that the control group in general outperformed the experimental
group on the measures of picture naming and word recognition at the time of pretesting. They
continued to outperform the experimental group on the measures of picture naming and spoken
recall at the time of immediate and delayed post-testing, but not on the word recognition tests.
112

However, the ANOVA results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference
between the experimental group and the control group on the posttests of the picture naming
measures, F (1, 23) = 2.552, p = 0.124, the word recognition measures, F (1, 23) = 0.286, p =
0.598 and the spoken vocabulary recall measures, F (1, 23) = 3.06, p = 0.02.
Table 17
Means and SD for Three Types of Tests for Pre- and Post- tests in the Pilot Study

Measures
Picture
reading test

Word
recognition
test
Spoken
recall test

Groups
Control
(n=14)
Experi.
(n-11)
Control
(n=14)
Experi.
(n=11)
Control
(n=14)
Experi.
(n=11)

Pretest
Means
SD
3.000
0.877

Immediate
Means
SD
5.71
1.59

Delayed
Means
SD
6.43
2.102

2.182

0.874

5.45

2,382

5.09

1.700

0.357

0.745

2.00

1,754

2.36

1.781

0.091

0.302

2.55

1.695

2.82

1.834

9.79

1.89

10.14

2.316

9.36

2.014

9.73

1.954

Conclusion and Suggested Changes
Scores from the three pre- and post- tests revealed that Shared Singing and Shared
Reading had a similar effect on vocabulary acquisition, but different effects on vocabulary
retention. Specifically, compared with Shared Reading, Shared Singing did not facilitate young
children’s acquisition of picture naming and word recognition, but it facilitated their retention of
the spoken word recall.
The qualitative data produced by examining the measures found that the materials of the
story, song, and lesson plans were good. The design of the Big Book was age- and level-

113

appropriate. Both the teacher and the students showed great interest in it. The teacher delivered
the lesson plans as designed and implemented the intervention as planned. The intervention
fidelity was satisfactory. The format and administration procedures worked well for the pilot
study sample. Based on the researcher’s experience in working with the students as well as on
the data collected from the pilot study, the format of the measures, i.e. 3 x 5 inch index cards in
the picture reading and character recognition tests included appropriate stimulus material and
procedures for the kindergarten students. The administration of the measures that required only a
“reading” or “speaking” response worked very well for the students to generate responses and
engage in the task. The students were able to follow the administration directions as conveyed by
the researcher and to respond to the testing items of the measures. Therefore, the researcherillustrated Big Book and the lesson plans would be used because the teacher’s responses were
positive.
Several limitations of the pilot study were observed and at the same time, some changes
were suggested accordingly. The first and most obvious was demonstrated by the results
produced by the pretest. The results showed that at the time of the pretesting, the control and
experimental groups were not at the same Chinese language proficiency level. This caused a
great deal of difficulty interpreting the upcoming results. In analysis of the problem, conducting
the research in May after the Chinese immersion students had been in the program for eight
months was the major factor. The academic gap already occurred among the students. To avoid
this, the intervention would be implemented at the beginning of the school year for the main
study. The second limitation was the unequal group size, which might have caused some
discrepancy in the test scores between the two groups. To address this, the main study should
have the same number of students in the experimental group as in the control group. The third

114

limitation was observed from the video recordings--the teacher spent lots of time learning and
reviewing the target vocabulary each day, which reduced the time the students did the shared
reading/singing. To address it, the time the teacher spent on vocabulary teaching and revision
would be reduced accordingly. Fourthly, the kindergarteners did not have enough experience
with formal assessments. To help them familiarize with the test formats, one test example and
practice opportunity would be provided in the main study. Fifth, the pre- post- tests didn’t find
significant difference between the two groups on vocabulary acquisition. Nine days’ interval
between the two posttests might not be enough for the significant differences to occur. To
increase the possibility, the interval between the two posttests would be lengthened to 16 days.
In spite of these limitations, the results suggested that the measures examined in this pilot
study could be potentially used to assess the vocabulary performance of the young students with
beginning Chinese language proficiency. First, the students in the study were able to respond to
the measures. Second, the evidence from the teacher’s feedback and the students’ performance in
the video recordings suggested that the content of the measures corresponded to the academic
skills in picture reading, word recognition, and spoken recall skills perceived as important by the
Chinese immersion teachers when planning instruction for their students.

Changes in the Main Study
To increase the reliability of the results, based on the results of the pilot study, four
changes were made: (1) there was equal number of participants in the control and experimental
groups. This change ensured ease in data interpretation. (2) The participants took the delayed
posttest 16 days after the instruction was completed, instead of nine days as in the pilot study.
This longer time period was intentionally designed in the hopes of increasing the statistical
significance of the results as well as to test effects over a longer duration (Figure 11). (3) Time
115

spent on singing was increased a little bit, and the time on vocabulary teaching and revision was
reduced. The change was deliberate, as the video observations in the pilot study showed that the
teacher didn’t spend much time on singing, which created difficulty in finding differences
between the two groups. (4) One test example and practice opportunity was provided for the
kindergarteners to become familiar with the test formats in the main study. This change was
designed to eliminate the possibility of their underperformance due to their inexperience in tests
at this age.

Figure 11: Main study schedule

116

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