The Research on Tibetan Students' English Metalinguistic Awareness in the Context of Tibetan-Chinese Bilingual Education

Chuan WANG

Doctoral thesis

Abstract:

China has implemented a bilingual education system in ethnic minority areas. For ethnic minority students, bilingual education refers to the teaching of two languages, the ethnic minority language and the national official language Chinese from primary schools to secondary schools. And after the third years in primary schools, students begin to learn a foreign language, English, which is a compulsory subject at the basic education stage in China. Foreign studies have shown that bilingual learning promotes improvements in the quality of the learner's language system, leading to the development of language learning skills, language management skills, and language maintenance skills. These improvements, in turn, contribute to the development of learners' meta-linguistic awareness in learning a third language. However, these studies had been tested in which the first, second, and third languages belonged to the same language family (L1/L2/L3). Therefore, the general objective of this research is to test whether bilingual learners who learn the first language Tibetan (Sino-Tibetan language family) and the second language Chinese (Sino-Tibetan language family), followed by the third language English (Indo-European language family) still show the advantages in meta-linguistic awareness (LI/L2+L3). The specific objective of this research is to test the differences in meta-linguistic awareness among Tibetan-Chinese bilingual students with different bilingual levels when learning English as a third language. In this research, the data collection and analysis are divided into following steps. First, the Student Language Assessment Scale (SLAS) is used to assess students' language proficiency in Tibetan and Chinese. According to the assessment results, 208 students are divided into two groups, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group and the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group. Second, the Standardized English Proficiency Test (SEPT) is used to analyzed the correlation coefficient between students' SEPT results and MAT-2 results to test the validity of the MAT-2. Third, the Meta-linguistic Awareness Test-2 (MAT-2) is used to test two groups of students' meta-linguistic awareness, and by the descriptive statistics, the Shapiro-Wilk test, the Levene test, and the independent sample t-test to test the research hypotheses. The research results indicate that even though the three languages belong to different language families, bilingual students who are proficient in two languages still show more cognitive advantages in meta-linguistic awareness when learning a third language than those who are not proficient. Firstly, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group showed a higher meta-linguistic awareness than the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group in terms of phonological awareness in third language English learning, especially in phonetics and phonology, syllable. However, when it comes to phonemes, there is no significant difference between the two groups. Secondly, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group showed a higher meta-linguistic awareness than the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group in terms of word awareness in third language English learning, especially in word ambiguity, word formation. However, when it comes to part of speech, there is no significant difference between the two groups. Thirdly, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group showed a higher meta-linguistic awareness than the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group in terms of syntactic awareness in third language English learning, especially in comprehension, synonymy, acceptability, and grammar function. Based on the findings of this study, the benefits for pedagogy may be demonstrated from the following aspects: formulating English education policies for Tibetan minorities; compiling English textbooks for Tibetan minorities; training English teachers for Tibetan minorities; guiding the English teaching for Tibetan minorities.

Abstract:

China has implemented a bilingual education system in ethnic minority areas. For ethnic minority students, bilingual education refers to the teaching of two languages, the ethnic minority language and the national official language Chinese from primary schools to secondary schools. And after the third years in primary schools, students begin to learn a foreign language, English, which is a compulsory subject at the basic education stage in China. Foreign studies have shown that bilingual learning promotes improvements in the quality of the learner's language system, leading to the development of language learning skills, language management skills, and language maintenance skills. These improvements, in turn, contribute to the development of learners' meta-linguistic awareness in learning a third language. However, these studies had been tested in which the first, second, and third languages belonged to the same language family (L1/L2/L3). Therefore, the general objective of this research is to test whether bilingual learners who learn the first language Tibetan (Sino-Tibetan language family) and the second language Chinese (Sino-Tibetan language family), followed by the third language English (Indo-European language family) still show the advantages in meta-linguistic awareness (LI/L2+L3). The specific objective of this research is to test the differences in meta-linguistic awareness among Tibetan-Chinese bilingual students with different bilingual levels when learning English as a third language. In this research, the data collection and analysis are divided into following steps. First, the Student Language Assessment Scale (SLAS) is used to assess students' language proficiency in Tibetan and Chinese. According to the assessment results, 208 students are divided into two groups, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group and the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group. Second, the Standardized English Proficiency Test (SEPT) is used to analyzed the correlation coefficient between students' SEPT results and MAT-2 results to test the validity of the MAT-2. Third, the Meta-linguistic Awareness Test-2 (MAT-2) is used to test two groups of students' meta-linguistic awareness, and by the descriptive statistics, the Shapiro-Wilk test, the Levene test, and the independent sample t-test to test the research hypotheses. The research results indicate that even though the three languages belong to different language families, bilingual students who are proficient in two languages still show more cognitive advantages in meta-linguistic awareness when learning a third language than those who are not proficient. Firstly, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group showed a higher meta-linguistic awareness than the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group in terms of phonological awareness in third language English learning, especially in phonetics and phonology, syllable. However, when it comes to phonemes, there is no significant difference between the two groups. Secondly, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group showed a higher meta-linguistic awareness than the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group in terms of word awareness in third language English learning, especially in word ambiguity, word formation. However, when it comes to part of speech, there is no significant difference between the two groups. Thirdly, the balanced Tibetan-Chinese group showed a higher meta-linguistic awareness than the unbalanced Tibetan-Chinese group in terms of syntactic awareness in third language English learning, especially in comprehension, synonymy, acceptability, and grammar function. Based on the findings of this study, the benefits for pedagogy may be demonstrated from the following aspects: formulating English education policies for Tibetan minorities; compiling English textbooks for Tibetan minorities; training English teachers for Tibetan minorities; guiding the English teaching for Tibetan minorities.

Keywords

Bilingual education, Tibetan students, third language, meta-linguistic awareness, English education

Language used: Czech

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 27. 4. 2023

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Hana Marešová, Ph.D.

Palacký University Olomouc

Faculty of Education

Doctoral programme / field:
Education / Education