文體類型對台灣國小五年級學童英文閱讀理解之影響

Effects of Text Structures on Chinese EFL 5th Graders' Reading Comprehension

Text types have long been found to affect the reading comprehension or information recall of adult or adolescent language learners (Alvermann & Boothby, 1982; Carrell, 1985; Joe, 1996). Furthermore, recent studies have shown that L1 children often encounter difficulties in transition from reading fiction in the lower grades to reading nonfiction in the upper grades. Camp (2000) therefore emphasized the importance of pairing fiction and nonfiction books on the same topic along with interactive class strategies can encourage children to read for comprehension and enjoyment. However, only impressionistic positive results on five case studies have been reported. This study then aims to investigate the impact of text structures and language proficiency levels on reading comprehension of 5th graders in Taiwan. The subjects were 119 students of three reading proficiency levels. A compare/contrast expository text pairing with its respective fiction text were used as the testing materials. Multiple-choice comprehension tests and written recalls were used to measure the learners' comprehension of the two types of texts. Though the pair books of the twin texts were judged by the publisher to be of equal difficulty level, results of this study showed that the fifth graders performed significantly better in comprehending the fiction text than in the nonfiction text. Complied with the findings of previous studies conducted in L1 environment, the results indicated that the nonfiction text posed great reading difficulty for the Chinese EFL learners. Results further revealed that text structure and language proficiency levels are factors affecting these learners' reading comprehension.近年來許多閱讀教學的研究顯示文體類型是影響閱讀理解的主要因素之一（Alvermann & Boothby，1982；Carrell，1985；Joe，1996）。許多閱讀教學的研究亦顯示在美國以英語為母語的教學情境下，國小低年級學童通常在升上中高年級開始接觸知識性文體的教材之時，產生閱讀上的困難。Camp（2000）因此強調好的知識性文體讀本的重要性。該研究進一步以五個個案研究指出同時採用相同主題之故事性文體及知識性文體雙讀本（twin texts）之可行性與互補效用。然而，該研究只提出敘述性及觀察性的個案結果，缺乏量化研究之客觀性。鑑於先前的研究缺乏故事類文體與知識類文體文章/讀本難易度之比較研究，本研究旨在比較此兩種文體對台灣國小五年級學童的英語閱讀理解之影響。本研究的對象為119位國小五年級的學童，依據標準測驗結果分為三種英文閱讀程度。測驗題型包含選擇題式閱讀測驗及自由回憶兩種形式。研究成果顯示，整體而言，學童對故事類文體讀本的理解明顯優於對知識類文體讀本的理解。此外，英文閱讀程度及文體類型都是影響學童閱讀理解的主要因素。