About the Project
Participants
This project included 48 Chinese-English bilingual children aged 5-7 and their parents, who use Mandarin as their primary home language. Recruitment efforts targeted Chinese-English bilingual families through multiple channels, including recruitment posters in both English and Chinese, a dedicated project website, social media platforms, and outreach to local primary schools, Chinese language schools, libraries, and community centres in London and surrounding areas to maximise awareness of the study and encourage participation.
Project implications
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The project has produced carer-child reading materials and resources to support the dual language development in Chinese-English bilingual children.
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It has equipped carers with skills to facilitate language interaction and engage in shared reading with bilingual children using their language repertoires.
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It has contributed to raising awareness about the value of harnessing children's language repertoires in the language development of bilingual children.
Implementation
01
Consent and Questionnaire
We first obtained informed consent from both carers and children. Then, carers completed a questionnaire covering information on demographic background, home literacy environment, language learning and usage, reading habits and beliefs, as well as their attitudes towards bilingualism.
02
Pre-tests for Children
Children did some activities that measured their languages (both Chinese and English) and cognitive abilities with a researcher before and after the 12-week reading period, either at home or in our laboratory at UCL, depending on the carers' and the children's preference.
These activities took around 1 hour at each of the two time points. At each time point, there were two 30-minute sessions with a break in between.
03
Training for Carers
Carers received a one-hour online shared reading training before the intervention. While carers joined the training and read with the children at different times, all participating carers received the same set of storybooks and the same online training.
04
Intervention
Families were randomly assigned to intervention and control conditions (24 families in each group). Carers and children read bilingual storybooks together at home for 12 weeks. They can choose to read in English, Mandarin, or both.
Carers read with children at home twice a week for about 15 minutes each time, using the materials we provided, and recorded the reading sessions in a booklet. In addition, carers were contacted by the researcher on a fortnightly basis throughout the intervention period to provide ongoing support, monitor implementation, and address any questions or difficulties.
05
Following the Intervention
After the reading period, five carers were randomly selected and contacted by us to invite them to take part in a 45-minute online group interview. These group interviews gathered feedback on the reading programme and were video-recorded and written down. Carers from the intervention condition finished a feedback questionnaire.
Children took the same tests after the intervention to assess their learning outcomes. Carers completed the same questionnaire to understand the changes in the home literacy environment, language learning and usage, reading habits and beliefs, as well as their attitudes towards bilingualism.