8 CONCLUSIONS
8.1 Summary of main findings
The present study shows that parent support their children in ways in table 12.
Table 12. Forms of parental involvement in the current case study
Parents in this study perceive that good and effective forms of supporting are accompanying and pushing, asking children to memorising vocabularies, reading the text from the books, forming a good learning habit,
Asking about the content of the class in general or in specific (vocabulary, quiz, grammar points) Asking children about their interest and enthusiasm
about the English class
Signing for extracurricular course, especially for improving English speaking skills Making learning plan with their children Planning to communicate with children daily in
English
Planning to ask children to communicate with the teachers through wechat
Communicating with children's teachers when they have problems
Seeking support from school and teachers Attedning school activities (cooking life club, PTM,
Open door) Ways of parental supporting in
the case study
recognition from teachers. These forms of parental involvement are not mentioned in the previous studies.
It is indicated parents in this case study in China devote a lot time in accompanying learning with their chil-dren, especially in vocabulary and text reading. Reading aloud as a form of parental involvement in Hong Kong has been discussed by Forey, Besser, and Sampson (2016). From the teacher’s view parents showing caring attitude and communicating with their children in English are also good forms of parental involve-ment except the ways involve-mentioned by parents. From the experiences of supporting, parents in this study found that the unbeneficial supports can be pushing children to finish public school assignments. The examples they provide are listening to the audio and repeating the reading, dictating the words they already know. It is described by one parent participant as “forcing her to memorize the words” and signing for the extra classes that children don’t like. The unwelcome supporting from children’s perspectives are forcing memorizing vocabulary and signing for extracurricular classes that they do not like. According to the teachers there are parental involvements which don’t consider children’s age factor. Parents hold high expectation for children beyond their age. Meanwhile a parent also aware of the importance of the age factor in children’s learning.
About children’s motivation in learning English, parents give specific examples and they understand what can motivate their children in learning English. In the present study, although parents have the idea of how important age and motivation factor could be in children’s English learning, it is not apparently indicated how parents support according to children age and motivation.
Regarding to the parent school interaction programs in the case study, the school inform parents their children’s English learning situation by direct phone call and parent page apps online. The children are asked to read text in we chat and teachers comment on their reading. The school also invite parents to attend the one to one PTM. During the PTM teachers discuss with parents about children’s recent English learning.
Encouraging parents to push and supervise children doing the online activities is also one action the school currently does. To provide more opportunities in practicing speaking, the school arranges cooking life clubs.
Teachers encourage parents to make learning plan and have more interaction with their children. They sug-gest if parents are not confident with their own English level, children can be the teachers and teach their parents.
The details of these interactions were discussed in chapter 7.2. It is important to note that although the school has done a lot to create interactions with parents in many forms. However, parents prefer to com-municate with the school in more direct ways. The most popular one among parents is we chat communica-tion. PTM, Open door, phone calls are also welcomed by parents. The school is working on the parent page apps, but only the online activities are valued by parents at present. Except the three interactions mentioned above, the most favorable activities children like, according to the reflection from parents, are interesting and fun games in English class, using dubbing software to dub for cartons, memorizing words in the phonics way, watching English cartons, singing English songs. Children’s age factor in learning English has drawn attention by both parents and school. Children’s motivation in learning English are reflected by parents.
• Playing games in class and online activities
• sending messages to the we chat group
• getting stickers from school
• Real experiences in travelling or language travel
• communicating with different people
• Can understand words in English songs
• dubbing software
• future study abroad
• Passing exam
According to Brown (2007), children’s intrinsic motivation could be improved by good cooperation among parents, teachers and school. Better parent school interaction could be achieved by considering children’s age and motivation factors both for the present study and future studies.
In this case study, parents hope there is a test after each level to know exact what their children know what they don't know (Vocabulary, phonics, sentences, grammar, etc.). There can be more videos about the normal class so that they know their children’s everyday learning situation. Parents demand there should be extra activities only focussing on speaking. They also call for training lessons for parents about the contents their children learning; teachers treating children in different ways and support them according to their own learning need. In the previous studies of parent school interactions, successful example of reading strategies
programs (Neuman, 1995; Timmons & Pelletier, 2015; Georgis, Donna Mae Ford, & Ali, 2014), and literacy bags (Rowe & Fain, 2013; Deborah, Gilliam, & Lisa, 2013; Huang, 2013) could set good initiate ideas of improving children’s reading by involving parents in the program for the current study. In the case study, English reading is mainly practiced and conducted in the way of supervising children reading by parents at home. However, there is still much space to involve parents in training program (Wundenberg, 2012) which provide detailed reading training procedures with the help of mother tongue. The training for parents pro-grams (Wessel, 2014; Rosado, Jimenez, & Kieffer, 2015) involve both parents and children with specific schedule. More specific program concentrating on comprehension, phonic, phonemic awareness, and vo-cabulary development (Collier & Auerbach, 2011) provide hand on hand training for the parents and this is also called by the parents in the present study.
Teachers hope parents can actively communicate with them and there will be more time allocated to the one to one PTM. Teachers also hope there can be a long-term close communication cooperation between the school and parents. Teachers suggest improving parent page apps (progress report both written in Chinese and English) and assigning specific homework for parents guiding them how to support their children at home. In this case study, both teachers and parents have specific expectation from each other. However, if parents and teachers could cooperate the outcomes could be maximized. Parents and children learn together with the cooperation with teachers (Velasco, 2014), good relationship between parents and teachers could be built.
The school is planning to provide parents lessons to raise their awareness of parents’ responsibilities in their children’s learning, and prepare to do the Parent academy. Henderson and Mapp (2012) suggested common features of schools, which engage parents more successfully. This could provide a framework of training program in this case study.
8.2 Implications of the findings for considering children’s age and motivation factors in the future parent school interaction
Although the school already initiates an idea of Parent Academy, which concentrates in parents training based on the problems parents meet. Parents expect more specific training programs which can train them
how to help their children in specific skills. In the previous studies, children’s age and motivation factors were not discussed for the program planning or conducting. The present study shows that parents, teachers and schools are aware of the age and motivation factors in children’s English learning. However, when planning and conducting the support, parents focus on the improvement of language skills, the school con-centrates on the problems in children’s leaning and parental supporting. Children’s age and motivation fac-tors studies in the parent school interaction could be researched in the future.
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