Young Chinese EFL Learners’ Referential Strategies in Written Chinese and English Narratives

Abstract

A good command of referential skills has been seen as an effective indicator that reveals learners’ discourse-related competence. However, in the realm of second language learning, a scant of attention has been paid to investigate L2 learners’ referential skills in narratives. Therefore, the present study aims to address the gap through examining young Chinese EFL learners’ abilities in using referential forms in English narratives. Three Chinese EFL fourth graders in Taiwan were asked to produce English and Chinese written narratives, elicited through a wordless picture book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). The results showed that the participants made few mistakes and achieved high level of appropriateness in the use of referential expressions in English narratives. It was also found that they used similar referential strategies across different discourse contexts in both English and Chinese narratives. It was suggested that their near-proficient performance regarding the referential skills may be attributed to the positive transfer from L1 to L2. However, the analysis of some mistakes by the participants also demonstrated that L2 overgeneralization played a role that hinders the participants’ performance. Finally, implications for pedagogy and suggestions for future research are made.