The Impact of a Mandarin Chinese Early Literacy Intervention on Xinjiang Uyghur Minority Preschoolers' Development of Mandarin Chinese Narrative and Expository Discourse: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: More Uyghur minority preschoolers whose first language is Uygur language (L1) are coming into bilingual kindergartens for learning Mandarin Chinese (L2) in recent years. Narration and explanation are two important... [ view full abstract ]

Background: More Uyghur minority preschoolers whose first language is Uygur language (L1) are coming into bilingual kindergartens for learning Mandarin Chinese (L2) in recent years. Narration and explanation are two important academic discourse genres that are related to academic success in the early years. The idea that early literacy intervention promotes language development for bilingual children and contributes to later academic achievement is supported by many empirical studies. Methods: We used a randomized controlled design to estimate the different efficiency of a one-year longitudinal L2 early literacy intervention on the development of L2 narrative and expository discourse of Xinjiang Uyghur preschoolers. Among the total 216 4-6 years old children (104 boys), 110 were assigned randomly to the intervention group. The intervention group was provided specific L2 picture-book literacy education. All groups were administered L2 assessments including narrative and expository discourse before the intervention, after 5-month intervention and 11-month intervention. Restricted Maximum Likelihood was used to estimate the fixed and random effects and the Akaike Information Criterion was used to compare the model. Results: Children who received the L2 early literacy intervention reported a significantly great increase in the accuracy of applying of three core story grammars in picture book narration. Moreover, according to Language Sample Analysis’s outcome, the basic L2 narrative discourse could develop naturally in its own miraculous way, however the development of complex L2 narrative discourse and semantic diversity was accelerated by the intervention. At last, the growth model revealed a significant acceleration effect on basic and complex of expository discourse. Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of L2 early literacy intervention for promoting minority preschoolers’ L2 integrity of narration macrostructure and lexical diversity of narrative discourse as well as grammar complexity of expository discourse.

Key words: early literacy intervention, the Uyghur minority, narrative discourse, expository discourse