摘 要

近几十年来，儿童学习英语成为热点话题。英语字母读写在外语学习中的地位和作用，使得研究者从多方面探讨英语学习经历对儿童汉语拼音读写能力影响。本研究试图在联结主义框架内，通过调查和测试考查分析英语学习对儿童汉语拼音学习的影响。我们依据音-形对应规则设计了四个任务：任务1为调查问卷，任务2为英语字母和汉语拼音拼读，任务3为英语单词拼读，任务4为汉字注音。被试是南京某小学一年级学生。

实验结果发现：（1）英语学习对汉语拼音学习会产生影响；（2）有英语学习经历的被试所犯英语元音及部分辅音的书写错误更多；（3）英语元音学习对汉语拼音读写方面的干扰尤其明显。研究结果证明了联结主义的观点，即在输入之间联结强的先被激活。当所输入的语音与所输出的英语之间的联结强于与所输出的汉语联结时，英语输出就先于拼音输出被激活，从而导致对拼音的干扰。此研究将对英语字母和汉语拼音教学提供参考。

关键词：英语字母；音-形对应规则；汉语拼音；联结主义

Contents

1. Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

1.1 Background of the Research -----------------------------------------------------------2

1.2 Significance of the Research -----------------------------------------------------------2

1.3 Structure of the Thesis-------------------------------------------------------------------3

2. Demonstration --------------------------------------------------------------------------------3

2.1 Literature view ---------------------------------------------------------------------------3

2.1.1 Studies abroad -----------------------------------------------------------------------3

2.1.2 Studies at home ---------------------------------------------------------------------3

2.2 Method ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4

2.2.1 Research Questions -----------------------------------------------------------------4

2.2.2 Subjects ------------------------------------------------------------------------------4

2.2.3 Instruments --------------------------------------------------------------------------6

2.2.4 Procedure ----------------------------------------------------------------------------7

2.3 Results -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8

2.3.1 Group Difference in Chinese Pinyin Levels ------------------------------------9

2.3.2 Result of writing Test -------------------------------------------------------------11

2.4 Discussion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------12

2.4.1 Reading of English and Chinese alphabets ------------------------------------12

2.4.2 Impact of English learning on Pinyin Reading --------------------------------14

2.4.3 Impact of English learning on Pinyin Writing ---------------------------------15

3. Conclusion -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------16

3.1 Findings ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------16

3.2 Implications -----------------------------------------------------------------------------16

3.3 Limitations and Further Study --------------------------------------------------------17

Bibliography ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19

Appendix I Questionnaire --------------------------------------------------------------------22

Appendix II Chinese Phonetic Alphabet and English Alphabet Test --------------------24

The Influence on Children’s English Alphabet Learning on Chinese Pinyin Learning

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the research

Foreign language education has become an important part of civic education in the world in the 21st century, and a country's foreign language ability, especially English ability, has become an important factor in evaluating the country's comprehensive national strength. There is no doubt that language policy is an important issue in the development of the country. Since 2001, English teaching has officially entered the primary school classroom.

In many big cities, English lesson begins in the first year of primary school, and is systematically taught in the third grade. English phonetic teaching is an important step in elementary stages. However, children have never been taught English from the beginning, either the phonetic symbol. There are some typical phenomena in children’ English learning, for example, some children, even the children in third grade, write “pai ai po” to remind of the pronunciation of the English word “pineapple”.

This study refers to competition model, which is a kind of theory that seeks to explain how individuals learn and process language. It is also a learning model. Connectionism is the component of the competition model. It uses connectionist model to model the interactions between lexical mappings. Connectionism, also predicts cross-linguistic. There are several connectionist models very significant for bilingual processing. It holds the position that elements across languages can be activated and lead to competition and interference. In this study, we are interested to see whether English learning can interfere with pinyin learning.

Studies both at home and abroad show that the relationship between letter knowledge, English spelling and reading, and pinyin skills have been widely discussed in the past years, which allow us to gain insight into the reciprocal relationship. There are a lot of studies on the contribution of phonological awareness and English letter or Chinese pinyin to English learning and the mutual influences between them. But, most of these studies pay attention to the influence of the first language on the second language. Besides, most studies are conducted on English speaking children, but not on those of other languages. What’s more, most researchers purely notice one or two of the factors that cause the impact on English ability. Thus, a comprehensive survey is needed.