Exploring the Roles of Parents and Students in EFL Literacy Learning: A Colombian Case

Abstract

There is little scholarly information about parent involvement in their children's English as a Foreign Language (EFL henceforth) literacy learning in the Colombian context. This exploratory-qualitative study looks into the possible roles of parents and children in EFL literacy learning at home, with special emphasis on parental roles and contributions. The study has a three-fold purpose: (1) to describe the behaviour of parents and students when doing EFL literacy tasks at home, (2) to explore feelings and thoughts (perceptions) of parents and students about working together on EFL literacy tasks at home, and (3) to identify ways in which parents contribute to a student's EFL learning. Sixteen ninth grade students at a state school, and their parents or caregivers, carried out a series of EFL literacy tasks in their respective homes. Video recordings, field notes, qualitative interviews, and surveys were used as data collection tools. The results demonstrate that even when parents do not have a command of the English language, they have the potential to help with EFL learning from a non-linguistic point of view (e.g. monitoring children's homework, providing learning conditions, shaping children's minds for EFL by giving advice, and feedback about EFL homework development).

Parents as Multidimensional Reading Partners for Young Children’s Reading Development: A Scoping Review

“…Studies from 2000 to 2020 have attempted to propose this issue while recommending possible effective roles from parents to integrate children's reading development outside the school hours. Based on the findings collected, there are three possible parents' roles which are effective in helping children's reading development: motivator (Torres & Castañeda-Peña, 2016;Pagan & Sénéchal, 2014;Moè, Katz & Alesi, 2018;Fletcher & Nicholas, 2018;Capotosto, 2017;Chen & Wu, 2010;Klauda & Wigfield, 2012;Ong'ayi, Yildirim & Roopnarine, 2020), tutor (Erion & Ronka, 2004;Sénéchal, 2006;Johnson et al, 2008;Strasser & Lissi, 2009;Martini & Sénéchal, 2012;Silinskas et al, 2012;Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2014;Yang, 2016;Dong et al, 2020) and facilitator (Erion and Ronka, 2004;Rasinki & Stevenson, 2005;Sénéchal, 2006;Axford 2007;Luong, 2008;Martini & Sénéchal, 2012;Paige, 2020).…”

“…These roles played solely by teachers are not sufficient due to inadequate time of reading spent with learners in a classroom. Therefore, researchers have recommended two-way collaboration between parents and teachers in increasing learners' development in reading (Torres & Castañeda-Peña, 2016;Pagan & Sénéchal, 2014). Parent's roles are indeed effective for children because they complement supports which are given insufficiently by teachers in school due to limited classroom interaction hours.…”

“…These problems are widely known in ESL and EFL classrooms as most of them are still facing barriers to read. It is believed the time spent reading in the classroom is inadequate with teachers (Torres & Castañeda-Peña, 2016). As active partners, parents can play multidimensional roles as either a motivator (Klauda & Wigfield, 2012;Capotosto, 2017;Ong'ayi, Yildirim & Roopnarine, 2020), a tutor (Erion & Ronka, 2004;Martini & Sénéchal, 2012;Dong et al, 2020) or a facilitator (Axford, 2007;Yildirim & Rasinski, 2014;Paige, 2020) in children's reading development.…”

Learning Transition from Covid-19 Pandemic to Post Pandemic Era: EFL University Students’ Perspective

“…Furthermore, according to the preliminary study, the students of English Education at Sriwijaya University experienced some difficulties in both online and offline learning, particularly those from the academic year 2020, who began online learning on the first day of college and stayed online for two years before returning to offline for the first time. Previous study defines students' perceptions as their feelings about something (Fu et al, 2019;Torres & Castaneda-Pena, 2016). For example, their feelings about online learning may differ from their feelings about face-to-face learning.…”

Empowering EFL Parents for Interlocutor’s Role with Their Children through Contextualizing Speaking Activities at Home by Using Supplementary Videos (Video Material & Explainer Video)

“…Many studies have confirmed the significant contribution of parental involvement in language learning with their children. For instance, research studies (Wei & Zhou, 2012;Lee, 2008;Liu, 2013;Kumar, 2012;Torres & Castañeda-Peña, 2016;Alam et al, 2018) have reported that EFL parents play a vital role in supporting their children's language learning that resulting in very important academic achievement in favor of their children. According to the study conducted by (Boivin et al, 2014), most EFL parents were very interested in helping their children to learn English.…”