This case study was driven by the needs of Guangzhou Kids Centre, Linguaphone Group China Branch to explore the feasibility of developing an e-learning solution to promote parental involvement in order to enhance the learning outcomes of the preschooler-level students attending weekend face-to-face English classes. A pilot e-learning project was initiated in two classes (Level 1 and 2) to help the parents to organise weekly family-based English learning activities under the instruction of the teachers. During a five-week period, the parents were given access to an online learning management system where there were weekly instruction packages including the teachers’ summaries of what was taught in class, family-based English learning activity guide with relevant materials, and a feedback forum. The teachers checked and replied the parents’ feedback during the week to provide further assistance. To have a better understanding of parental involvement in the weekend English class and to avoid influences of any potential technical issues related to the e-learning project, an alternative method was taken at the same time in another two classes (Level 1 and 2), where the parents received the same instruction packages in print. The parents completed some questionnaires before and after the project, and were interviewed by the researcher. The four teachers were also interviewed at the end of the project. The results show that most of the parents of Level 2 students actively participated in the project while the participation by the parents of Level 1 students was limited. The E-Learning Group’s and Print Group’s parents participated in the program using different strategies. The teachers’ and parents’ observations seem to suggest that the students’ progress was associated with the degree of activeness of the parents’ participation. Suggestions for the subsequent development of the e-learning solution are made based on the analysis and discussion of the results.

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I am grateful to my supervisor Dr. Chun Hu for her support and help throughout my study. Her valuable suggestions and comments on my work gave me a strong direction to move further. Discussing with her usually triggered much new idea conducive to the subsequent research procedure. She cared not only my study but also my life in Australia, a foreign country for me. This has led to my confidence and enjoyableness during the study.

I thank Linguaphone China and Ask Idea Educational Studio for providing this study with funding, relevant materials and continual support.

I thank Mr. Yaowei Situ and Mr. Tim Ng for their promoting my proposed parental involvement program to be implemented in Guangzhou Kids Centre, Linguaphone China. Without their support, I could not conduct the case study with Linguaphone.

I thank the four teachers’ participation in this study. They have worked with me collaboratively within the parental involvement program. Without their support and effort, I could not implement the project and conduct the study internationally.

Finally, and certainly not least, my greatest thanks are due to my fiancée for cheerful encouragement and unfailing support during the study. And I thank my parents who are living in China but always encourage me to overcome difficulties via synchronous chat on the Internet.

Licensing

The author of this dissertation, Mr. Wenchao He, owns the copyright of this dissertation which is protected by Copyright Act 1968 and other applicable law in Australia . Without the copyright holder’s written permission, any use of this dissertation other than as authorised under this license is prohibited.

On 1 July 2008, this dissertation will be submitted to Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney for examination. The Faculty and University of Sydney Library and its agents will be permanently licensed to hold the hard and electronic copies of this dissertation which can be made available to the staff and the students of University of Sydney . Once this dissertation has been submitted, Linguaphone Group and Ask Idea Educational Studio will be respectively granted a permanent, irrevocable, free, world wide, non-exclusive license (including a right of sublicense) to use, reproduce, adapt and exploit the intellectual property rights in this dissertation for any commercial or noncommercial purpose.

From 1 July 2008 to 31 December 2008, the full text of this dissertation should be kept partially confidential and should not be copied, distributed, displayed or reproduced out of the scopes of University of Sydney, Linguaphone Group and Ask Idea Educational Studio. The author and any other staff and student in the three organisations who has received this dissertation should only use the dissertation for their work, study, or research within the three organisations and should not forward the full text of this dissertation to any other party or upload the full text of this dissertation to the Internet to make it available to the public.

From 1 January 2009, this dissertation will be made available to the public and become licensed unde Australian Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Work 2.5 License , which is:

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Any request for any use of this dissertation other than as authorised under the above licensing statement can be forwarded to the copyright holder, Wenchao He, who can be contacted at wenchao.he@sydney.edu.au.

List of Contents

1 Introduction. 1

1.1 Problem Statement. 1

1.2 Possible solution. 2

1.3 Purposes of the Study and Research Questions. 2

2 Literature Review. 4

2.1 Parental Involvement. 4

2.1.1 Parental Involvement’s Effectiveness. 4

2.1.2 Parent-school Partnership. 5

2.1.3 Communicative Issue of Parental Involvement Programs in Kindergartens. 6

2.1.4 Parental Involvement Possibility. 7

2.2 E-learning. 8

2.2.1 E-learning’s Representations. 8

2.2.2 Networked Learning. 9

2.2.3 E-learning in a Family Context 10

2.2.4 Using Technology to Promote Family-School Connection. 12

2.3 Second/Foreign Language Learning. 13

2.3.1 Family-based Linguistic Input and Interaction. 13

2.3.2 The Transitional Shift of CALL. 15

3 Methodology. 18

3.1 Research Method Selection. 18

3.2 Participants. 20

3.3 Instruments. 21

3.3.1 Questionnaires. 21

3.3.2 Telephone Interview. 25

3.4 Procedure. 27

3.4.1 Parental Involvement Program. 27

3.4.2 Data Collection. 28

3.4.3 Data Analysis. 28

4 Results. 30

4.1 Overview. 30

4.1.1 Overview of the Students and the Parents. 30

4.1.2 Response Rates. 33

4.1.3 Participation Rate. 34

4.2 Parental Involvement in Children’s English Learning. 35

4.2.1 Parental Modeling in Children’s English Learning. 35

4.2.2 Parental Involvement Preferences. 39

4.2.3 Summary. 43

4.3 E-learning Solution Supporting Parental Involvement. 43

4.3.1 Parent Involved Networked Learning Model 43

4.3.2 Promoting Connections. 44

4.3.3 Summary. 49

4.4 Enhancing the Outcomes of Children’s English Learning. 49

4.4.1 Enhancing English Input and Interaction by CALL. 50

4.4.2 Let the Students Know about their Parents’ Participation. 52

4.4.3 Multiple Language Representations. 53

4.4.4 Parent-Teacher Face-to-Face Communication. 54

4.4.5 Customised Instruction in Class. 54

4.4.6 Parents’ Learning English for Themselves. 55

4.4.7 Summary. 56

5 Discussion and Conclusion. 57

5.1 Summary of the findings. 57

5.2 Implications and Suggestions. 58

5.2.1 Multiple Solutions. 58

5.2.2 Instruction on Parental Involvement 58

5.2.3 Promoting Connections. 59

5.2.4 Promoting English Input and Interaction. 59

5.3 Limitations of the study. 60

5.4 Future research. 61

6 References. 62

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