Sixth International Conference on Immersion and Dual Language Education: Connecting Research and Practice Across Contexts

Paper/Best Practice Session (1 hour)

Chinese

One-Way Second/Foreign Language Immersion

Chinese immersion teachers have begun implementing a PALS (peer assisted learning strategies) approach to improve character reading fluency. Students regularly tracked the accuracy and rate of their oral reading. Assessments revealed students doubled reading rates and also improved character identification.  Participants will receive training to implement PALS for reading fluency. 

Recently elementary Chinese immersion programs have expanded into schools that utilize a PALS (peer assisted learning strategies) approach in order to improve reading fluency in English.  As a result, Chinese immersion classes have also used this technique to improve Chinese character reading fluency.   Chinese immersion students and teachers received PALS training and were taught how to monitor and record oral reading. These scores were then analyzed to examine fluency improvement across both languages. Character identification scores and student attitudes toward PALS instruction were also obtained. Results show that peer assisted timed readings greatly improved students’ Chinese reading fluency.  Furthermore, English and Chinese reading scores were significantly correlated. Participants will learn about the research results and receive training about the procedures for doing timed readings using the PALS approach.  Participants will also receive sample-tracking charts to use with students.