| 英文摘要 |
In the last few years, both Taipei and New Taipei City have tried to promote English reading in elementary schools by adding more English teaching hours, providing more funding for schools to purchase English books, and offering teacher trainings on reading instruction. Despite these great efforts, the evaluation reports of elementary schools in both cities have shown that the check-out rates of English books from school libraries remain low, reading activities are still uncommon, and many teachers still feel lack of knowledge in teaching children how to read in English (胡潔芳、張期敏，2010, 2012；陳純音，2009, 2010). To look for new ideas, the researcher went to the United States to find out how early literacy instruction is implemented in an American elementary school. The researcher first interviewed three teachers who taught kindergarten, first grade, and second grade respectively. Then she visited each of their classrooms four to five times. In addition, documents, such as students’ writing samples, teachers’ notes and records, class schedules, were also collected. The findings revealed that the three participating teachers adopted a balanced, eclectic perspective and that their teaching practices seemed to be consistent with their teaching beliefs. They integrated all the components of literacy in various activities that differed by level of teacher support and child control. They also constantly monitored their students’ progress through different types of formal and informal assessments. Based on these findings, the pedagogical implications for English instruction in Taiwan as well as suggestions for further research will be provided at the end of the paper. |
