The Influence of Presentation Format of Story on Narrative Production in Chinese Children Learning English-as-a-Second-Language: A Comparison Between Graphic Novel, Illustration Book and Text

• Published in: Journal of psycholinguistic research Vol. 48; no. 1; pp. 221 - 242
• Main Authors: Chan, Tracy K. S., Wong, Simpson W. L., Wong, Anita M.-Y., Leung, Vina Wing-Hei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.02.2019; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Cartoons; Children; Chinese; Chinese languages; Cognitive Psychology; Cohesion; Control Groups; Elementary Education; Elementary School Students; Elementary Schools; English; English (Second Language); English as a second language; English as a second language learning; Evaluators; Experimental Groups; Foreign Countries; Graphic novels; Illustrations; Language Skills; Multimedia; Multimedia Instruction; Narration; Narratives; Native Language; Novels; Picture Books; Psycholinguistics; Psychology; Reading Materials; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Story Telling; Teaching Methods; China; Cognitive theory of multimedia learning; Chinese learners of English-as-a-second-language; Illustration book; Narrative production; Graphic novel
• ISSN: 0090-6905; 1573-6555
• DOI: 10.1007/s10936-018-9600-9

Past studies have shown that multimodal presentation of story can improve story-retelling performance in the first language. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether similar multimedia effects can be observed in second language learning and graphic novel reading. A total of 51 Chinese elementary school children, aged 7–8, who were learning English as a second language were recruited. They were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions that differed in the format of story presentation: English text, English text with pictorial illustrations or graphic novel. After reading the same story, the children retold the story in English. The narratives produced were then rated by two independent raters. The results of group comparison showed that children from the three experimental groups had similar performance, indicating that multimedia presentation may not always facilitate narrative production in English as a second language. Within-subject comparison further showed that the children were relatively strong in language skills and capturing the main ideas of the story, while showing weakness in story structure awareness, elaboration, as well as local and global cohesion. Suggestions for the application of multimodal presentation of narrative texts are discussed.