PB Reading and Writing EFL 1

DOI: 10.1002/tesj.
434
E M P I R I CA L F E AT U R E A RT I C L E
Linking reading and writing with picture books:

A literacy buddy approach in rural Taiwan
Hung-chun Wang1 | Ming-Fang Lin2
1
National Taiwan Normal University
2
This study investigated how a literacy buddy approach
Kaohsiung Municipal Shanlin Junior High
School may influence the English learning and creative writing of
adolescent learners in a rural Taiwanese school. A group
of seventh-grade and eighth-grade students took part in a
Funding information
winter camp, wherein they read and wrote picture books
The Center for Research on Foreign
Language Teaching, National Taiwan Normal collaboratively. Based on the students’ feedback, this ap-
University proach stimulated their English reading skills, motivation
to read picture books, and creative thinking. Analysis of
their creative stories further shows that this approach led
them to produce coherent texts and obtain a concept of
narrative writing. Moreover, the students integrated the
plot structure and key phrases they had learned from the
picture books into their own stories, which suggests that
reading the picture books might have facilitated their crea-
tive writing. Overall, this study shows that using picture
books facilitated the integration of reading and writing
instruction in the target rural English classroom.
1 | IN T RO D U C T ION
Rural English education in countries where English is a foreign or second language (L2) is often con-
fronted with different sociocultural challenges and family issues (e.g., Holguín & Morales, 2016; Li,
2017). In Taiwan, for example, junior high school students in rural areas are often confined by unde-
sirable economic conditions, limited parental involvement, and high teacher turnover rates (Li, 2017).
Aside from these constraints, a lack of English teachers is also an institutional challenge that rural
schools may struggle with (e.g., Chang, 2014). These combined challenges directly influence rural
adolescent students’ English learning motivation and learning outcomes (Chang, 2014; Li, 2017).
Besides these challenges, the greater emphasis on cultivating English learners’ creativity in
Taiwanese education has also led many rural English teachers to ask how they can promote their
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students’ creative skills. Based on the new Twelve-Year Curriculum Guidelines for English education
in Taiwan (National Academy for Educational Research, 2018), which will be implemented nation-
wide starting in 2019, Taiwan’s English education is expected to “develop the ability to think logically,
to analyze, to synthesize and to create in English” as one of the five core curriculum objectives (p.
4). Such a pedagogical highlight on cultivating learner creativity has left many rural English teachers
wondering how they can achieve this objective, given that many students are troubled by low English
proficiency or poor learning motivation. More research is thus necessary to unravel appropriate in-
structional strategies that can promote learner creativity in rural classrooms.
In response to the pedagogical needs mentioned above, this study was set up to explore what teach-
ing methods can stimulate rural students’ English learning as well as facilitate their creative skills
in English. While looking for possible instructional approaches, the researchers of the present study
came across many literacy studies on picture books (e.g., Sheu, 2008; Sun, 2015) and buddy reading
(e.g., Friedland & Truesdell, 2006; Kreuger & Braun, 1998; Mak, Coniam, & Chan, 2008). A review
of these studies motivated them to propose the hypothesis that using picture books may be an effective
approach to meeting these pedagogical objectives in rural classrooms. A literacy buddy approach fea-
turing the use of picture books in paired reading/writing activities was thus developed for this study.
2 | L IT E R AT U R E R E V IE W
This study was primarily influenced by previous studies demonstrating the benefits of buddy reading
(e.g., Friedland & Truesdell, 2006; Kreuger & Braun, 1998; Mak et al., 2008) and reading picture
books (e.g., Louie & Sierschynski, 2015; Sheu, 2008; Sun, 2015). To begin with, buddy reading is a
reading approach that involves students reading books to a partner who may be younger or at a lower
reading proficiency level (e.g., Mak et al., 2008; Shegar, 2009; Theurer & Schmidt, 2008). It does not
need to follow a standard implementation format (Shegar, 2009), which gives teachers considerable
flexibility in adapting this instructive activity for their students based on their curricula and students’
reading proficiency.
Research has shown that buddy reading is advantageous to students because it can provide them with
great pleasure in reading, which can boost their learning motivation and confidence (e.g., Friedland
& Truesdell, 2006; Kreuger & Braun, 1998). For example, Kreuger and Braun (1998) discovered that
buddy reading enhanced Grade 2 and Grade 3 students’ reading fluency, reading comprehension, and
spelling abilities. The students in their study also developed a stronger interest in reading and acquired
better interpersonal skills. In another study, Mak et al. (2008) explored how a buddy-reading program
contributed to Hong Kong students’ reading skills. Their study shows that the program was perceived
to be fun and helpful to the elementary and secondary school students involved in it. Moreover, as the
secondary school students were given an opportunity to create their own stories, this program might
also have stimulated their creativity.
Second, picture books are reading materials that rely on illustrations to convey messages with or
without the support of text, ranging from wordless books to storybooks (Temple, Martinez, Yokota,
& Naylor, 2002). McClure, Garthwait, and Kristo (2015) highlight that, although they are often writ-
ten for younger readers, some picture books are also appropriate for older readers. In L2 education,
the effects of reading picture books on L2 learning have also been evidenced in many studies. For
example, research has demonstrated that reading the text and illustration components is conducive to
L2 learning in several ways (e.g., Louie & Sierschynski, 2015; Sheu, 2008; Sun, 2015). In one study,
Sheu (2008) found that while reading picture books students could review vocabulary and sentences
and learn to use them in various settings. Moreover, the illustrations in picture books are also essential
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WANG and LIN 3 of 15
to students, because pictures can facilitate students’ understanding of a text and encourage them to
use their imaginative thinking. Similarly, Sun (2015) investigated the contribution of English picture
books to intermediate-level English L2 learning. Based on Lutz, Guthrie, and Davis's (2006) classi-
fication of learner engagement, her study reveals that having students read picture books can benefit
them in terms of their affective, behavioral, social, and cognitive levels of engagement. For example,
the students in her study had fun reading and discussing the picture books. At the same time, they also
developed their abilities to cope with unfamiliar English vocabulary and make inferences based on the
text and illustrations.
Reading picture books has also been found to be beneficial to learners of English as a foreign or
second language (EFL/ESL) at different age levels (e.g., Leal, 2015; Lee & Hsu, 2016; Lin, 2016;
Teng, 2014; Wang, 2009). For example, Teng (2014) investigated the effects of using English picture
books on the Taiwanese elementary school students’ vocabulary acquisition and attitude toward learn-
ing. The results indicated that picture books had a positive effect in facilitating the young learners’
vocabulary acquisition and promoting their interest and confidence in learning. Lin (2016) adopted
a narrative inquiry approach to investigate the benefits of picture books in English classes in a rural
elementary school in Taiwan. She found that English picture books offered a meaningful context for
the learning of English language and culture and benefited the learners’ English reading ability. In
addition, English picture books provided topics for authentic teacher–student communication. Similar
results were also found in Lee and Hsu's (2016) study, which showed that picture books could improve
Taiwanese seventh graders’ storytelling abilities and gradually enhance their learning motivation.
In another study, Wang (2009) investigated the effects of using picture books on Taiwanese college
English majors’ writing and explored their perceptions of English picture books. The results indi-
cated that reading and writing storybooks for a certain period of time not only enhanced the college
students’ writing proficiency, but also increased their sense of story structure. In addition, the students
demonstrated a positive attitude toward the use of picture books in strengthening both their English
reading and writing abilities. Similar findings on the strong connection between reading and writing
were also reported in Leal (2015) and Broekkamp, Janssen, and van den Bergh (2009). For example,
Leal found that reading children's literature can engage ESL adult learners in critical thinking, which
in turn can foster meaningful discussion and creative writing.
3 | R AT IO NA L E B E HIN D T HE STUDY
Aiming to promote rural students’ English reading and writing skills, the literacy buddy approach was
grounded in two rationales. First of all, L2 reading and writing activities are often implemented in an
integrated way in L2 classes so that the practice of one skill can facilitate the development of the other,
and two approaches that can reinforce the reading-and-writing connection are reading-to-write and
writing-to-read activities (Tsai, 2006). Reading-to-write is built on the belief that having substantial
reading input can contribute to the writing process and enrich the content and language of writing
products, whereas writing-to-read encourages readers to explore, react to, and reflect on a reading text
through different writing activities (Tsai, 2006). The literacy buddy approach, which mainly imple-
ments the reading-to-write technique, engages students in reading picture books and later using the
insights they gain from the picture books to facilitate their creative writing.
The second rationale behind the literacy buddy approach is concerned with the concept of scaf-
folding. Scaffolding refers to the support that a person receives from another more capable individual,
and it can help the former improve his or her knowledge or abilities (Donato, 1994; Field, 2004). As
discussed in Donato (1994) and Mitchell and Myles (2004), Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) highlight
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the six functions of scaffolding: “recruiting interest in the task,” “simplifying the task,” “maintaining
pursuit of the goal,” “marking critical features and discrepancies between what has been produced and
the ideal solution,” “controlling frustration during problem solving,” and “demonstrating an idealized
version of the act to be performed” (as cited in Donato, 1994, p. 41). The literacy buddy approach is
rooted in the concept of scaffolding in that it enables students to work with their teachers and peers
to read and write picture books together. In the collaborative process, the more capable partners,
including teachers and fellow students, may scaffold the students who need more assistance by teach-
ing them how to read the picture books aloud or how to write sentences in English. With this support,
rural students are more likely to complete the reading and writing tasks successfully, which may
further help them maintain their interest and reduce possible feelings of frustration.
To evaluate how the literacy buddy approach may influence rural students’ L2 learning and cre-
ative writing, the present study implemented this approach with a group of junior high school students
in a rural Taiwanese school. It set out to probe the students’ responses to an evaluation survey and
examine the stories they created so as to address two research questions:
1. How do the rural students perceive that the literacy buddy approach affects their learning?
2. In what ways does reading picture books influence the rural students’ creative writing process?
The following section presents the pedagogical description of the approach and the methodological
design of this study.
4 | M ET H OD O LO GY
4.1 | Research Context and Participants

This study was conducted in a rural junior high school in southern Taiwan. Due to limited job
opportunities, insufficient educational resources, and inconvenient public transport in the local com-
munity, many students enrolled in this school came from communities of lower socioeconomic status
consisting of a great proportion of single-parent families or grandparent-headed families. Moreover,
many students here did not feel the need to learn English because they had scarce opportunities to use
English to communicate with others outside the English classroom.
The participants in this study were 17 seventh and eighth graders (11 girls and 6 boys), age 13 or
14 years. They took part in a winter English camp in which the literacy buddy approach was imple-
mented. This camp was organized to develop students’ reading and writing skills during the winter
break, and either the students decided to join the camp or their teachers recommended that they join.
According to the researchers’ observations, the students possessed basic English vocabulary, with
which they could read short and simple passages and make simple sentences. In addition, they could
comprehend basic dialogues, but were less capable of engaging in conversation due to having had little
experience in their learning context.
To gain more understanding of the students’ interest in reading picture books and their related
reading experiences, the researchers asked the students to fill out a reading attitude survey at the
onset of the winter camp. The survey was adapted from the survey developed by Sani and Zain (2011)
based on the BJP Middle/Secondary Reading Attitude Survey (Baldwin, Johnson, & Peer, 1980).
Specifically, “reading in English” and “reading English books” on the original survey were both re-
placed by “reading English picture books” to ensure that all of the statements evaluated the students’
perceptions of picture books consistently. This survey consisted of 12 statements translated into the
students’ first language, Chinese. The participants marked each statement on a 5-point Likert scale
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Phase I. Buddy Reading
Teacher as
Reading
Buddy
Peers as
Creative
Reading
Exploration
Buddies
Phase II. Buddy Writing
Group-based
Creative Writing
FIGURE 1 Procedure of the literacy buddy approach
(1, strongly disagree; 2, disagree; 3, slightly agree; 4, agree; 5, strongly agree). The results reveal the
following facts about the students’ reading interests and habits:
• Most of them enjoyed reading picture books, and they did not feel that reading picture books was a
boring activity that wasted their time.
• Most of them wanted to have more time and opportunities to read picture books with their teachers
or peers.
• If there were reading clubs or extracurricular reading activities at school, most of them would like
to join these activities.
• Despite the students’ interest in reading picture books, around 50% of them felt that the picture
books in the library's collection were boring, and they were not interested in reading them or check-
ing them out.
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Based on the results, it is clear that most of the students had a strong interest in reading picture
books and longed for more reading opportunities. However, they also felt that the picture books in
their school library were boring, which may owe to the fact that the books there did not match their
interests or were too difficult for them. Moreover, at that time, the library had a very limited col-
lection of English picture books, and this issue was further complicated by the fact that the library
was only open once in a while and had no dedicated staff member to manage the borrowing and
returning of books. All of these reasons could explain why the students had little interest in reading
the picture books in their library. The literacy buddy approach thus aimed to promote the students’
reading interest and creative writing by adopting picture books that better matched their interests
and English proficiency level.
4.2 | Conceptualization of the Literacy Buddy Approach

The literacy buddy approach was carried out during the winter break when most students had more
time available for extracurricular learning. It was limited to 3 days because a short-term, intensive
camp was technically more feasible in the target school during the winter vacation. To plan the camp
and its curriculum, the researchers referred to studies on buddy reading (e.g., Friedland & Truesdell,
2004; Kreuger & Braun, 1998; Mak et al., 2008; Shegar, 2009; Theurer & Schmidt, 2008) and in-
cluded two main pedagogical stages, buddy reading and buddy writing (see Figure 1), which involved
nine lessons in total (see Table 1). All of the activities were implemented mainly by the first author,
and the second author and another teaching assistant acted as student supervisors, circulating in the
classroom to monitor and assist the students most of the time. The design of the approach is illustrated
in detail below.
TABLE 1 Overview of the 3-day winter camp
Lesson Activity
Day 1 1: Understanding a story plot The instructor introduced the progressive plot
of a story.
2: Teacher as reading buddy The instructor and the teaching assistant read
The Magic Fish and Whoever You Are to
students, respectively.
3: Peers as reading buddies Students read their picture book to peers who
had read a different story.
4: Creative exploration Students chose a story they read and modified
part of its plot.
Day 2 1: Teacher as reading buddy The instructor and the teaching assistant read
Winnie the Witch and Mostly Monsterly to
students, respectively.
2: Peers as reading buddies Students read their picture book to peers who
had read a different story.
3: Creative exploration Students chose a story they read and modified
part of its plot.
Day 3 1: Buddy writing Students worked in small groups to create a
story together.
2: Group presentation Students told their creative stories to the class.
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4.2.1 | Buddy reading

The approach began with two buddy-reading sessions that exposed the students to five picture books
in order to develop their oral reading skills and reading interest. On the first day, the concept of
plot structure was introduced to the students. According to Lynch-Brown and Tomlinson (2005) and
Lukens (2003), two types of chronological plots are conventionally applied in children's literature:
progressive and episodic. The progressive plot begins with an exposition that introduces the back-
ground information and the characters’ conflict, then proceeds with the rising action that gradually
builds up the tension and leads to the climax of the story, and eventually ends with the denouement
that presents the concluding events after the climax (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2005). The episodic
plot is a combination of several short episodes tied together by consistent characters and settings; each
episode consists of its own rising action, climax, and ending (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2005).
Because the picture books the students would read mainly followed the progressive plot structure,
only this plot structure was introduced to them.
To familiarize the students with the concept of plot structure, the first author, who served as the
main instructor for the entire winter camp, read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (Scieszka,
1991) to the class as the first reading material. This book was chosen as an example to explain the
concept of plot structure because the students were familiar with the story of the three little pigs.
Many Taiwanese students had read the story The Three Little Pigs in their first language, Chinese,
or watched it on TV during their childhood. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, which presents a
familiar tale but from a different perspective—the wolf's point of view—was thus expected to pique
their interest. Following the instructor's guidance, the students read through the story and analyzed
its plot.
Another four picture books chosen for the subsequent buddy-reading activities were The Magic
Fish (Littledale, 1985), Whoever You Are (Fox, 1996), Winnie the Witch (Paul & Thomas, 1995), and
Mostly Monsterly (Sauer, 2010). Out of 12 picture books initially collected by the first author, these
four were selected according to a couple of principles. First of all, the researchers discussed the theme,
topic, and illustrations of each book to find books that might match junior high school students’ in-
terests. Specifically, they believed ideal books for the adolescent students should not be too childish;
instead, they should contain age-appropriate illustrations and convey essential moral lessons that were
worth discussing with teenagers. Second, by examining the level of English used in each story, they
also hoped to adopt picture books that contained proficiency-appropriate vocabulary and sentence
structures as well as abundant repetitive phrases. Overall, these principles helped them narrow down
their selection to the four picture books, which not only met the students’ age and proficiency level,
but also conveyed relevant messages, such as the importance of living in contentment and respecting
cultural differences. Overall, in these reading activities, the students learned to read two picture books
with support from the instructor and the teaching assistant, and then read these books aloud to their
classmates. They also listened to their classmates reading the other two stories to them.
Each buddy-reading session contained three stages: teacher as reading buddy, peers as reading
buddy, and creative exploration. In the first stage—teacher as reading buddy—teacher involvement
was considered an essential element of the buddy-reading session. Because many of the participants
were not fluent English readers and the selected picture books were slightly above their level of
English proficiency, they were asked to work with either the instructor or the teaching assistant to
prepare their oral reading skills before they read stories in pairs. In this part, the students were divided
into two small groups, and the instructor and the teaching assistant read a different picture book to
each group. When the students were capable of reading the story aloud, the second stage—peers as
reading buddy—was then unfolded. In this stage, all of the students got together, and the students
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TABLE 2 Students’ perceptions of the literacy buddy approach (N = 14)
No. M SD Rangea
1. This activity can enhance my English proficiency. 4.57 0.51 4–5
2. This activity can enhance my oral reading skills in 4.29 0.73 3–5
English.
3. This activity can enhance my reading comprehension 4.29 0.61 3–5
skills.
4. This activity can stimulate my creative thinking. 4.50 0.65 3–5
5. This activity can promote my interest in reading 3.86 0.95 2–5
English picture books.
6. This activity makes me feel that learning English is 3.93 1.00 2–5
fun.
7. Overall, I am satisfied with this activity. 4.43 0.51 4–5
8. I hope to participate in other buddy-reading activities 4.00 0.68 3–5
in the future.
a
1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = slightly agree; 4 = agree; 5 = strongly agree.
from one group were coupled with those from the other group to form several pairs. In each pair, the
students read their story to their reading buddy.
The last stage—creative exploration—encouraged the students to recreate the picture books they
read. Every student was given a reading log, called “My Reading and Creativity Log.” In this reading
log, they chose one of the books they had read that day and took notes on the book title, author, and
publisher. In addition, they expressed whether they liked or disliked the book and explained why and
also how they would revise the story to make it more interesting or creative. This part of the buddy-
reading session was quite valuable because it encouraged the students to move beyond what they had
read and think about other possibilities for the stories.
4.2.2 | Buddy writing

Following the buddy-reading sessions, the students engaged in buddy writing on the third day of the
winter camp. This was a paired writing activity that asked them to work together to create a picture book
with a logical plot. Organized in three parts, this writing session began with the instructor leading the
entire class to create a story together. After that, the students worked in groups of three to four, and they
were given approximately 50 minutes to create their own story by following step-by-step instructions.
First of all, following the progressive plot approach (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2005), the students
in each group talked with their peers to create characters, decided on a theme and relevant background
information, and noted their ideas for the story. Then they started to brainstorm the characters’ conflicts,
the major tension, the climax, and the conclusion of the story. After brainstorming all the elements of
their story, they began writing their story on a poster and drew illustrations to add visual appeal. Finally,
after they completed their creative stories, the students presented their work to the class.
4.3 | Instrument
A program evaluation survey was given to the students at the end of the program to probe their ex-
periences. This survey, which was developed in Chinese, consisted of two sections. The first part
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included eight statements (see Table 2) inquiring about the reported effects of the approach on stu-
dents’ English learning and creative thinking as well as their level of satisfaction with the approach.
All of these statements were rated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly
agree). The second part of the survey included three open-ended questions asking the students about
the benefits of the approach, their favorite part of it, and their suggestions for this instructional ap-
proach: (1) What do you think are the benefits of this camp in terms of its teaching content and the
arrangement of the activities? (2) What was your favorite part of the camp? Why? (3) What do you
think can be done to improve the teaching content and the activities of this camp?
4.4 | Data Analysis

The data analyzed in this study included the students’ program evaluation surveys and the stories they
created together. To address the first research question, all the student surveys were analyzed quanti-
tatively and qualitatively to uncover their perceptions of the literacy buddy approach. To address the
second research question, the stories created by the students were analyzed by means of text analysis.
This analysis was mainly undertaken by the first author, and its results were later evaluated by the
second author. Specifically, the students’ creative stories were analyzed with a focus on two dimen-
sions: literary elements and linguistic structures. Because story character, plot structure, theme, and
setting are all essential literary elements of picture books (Lukens, 2003), the first author delved into
the students’ stories to explore how these elements were developed. Furthermore, on the dimension
of linguistic structures, the students’ stories were compared with the picture books to find out if any
phrases or sentences in their stories were adapted or adopted from the picture books. This investiga-
tion enabled this research to further unveil how reading picture books may influence rural students’
creative writing process.
5 | R E S U LTS
5.1 | Rural Students’ Perceptions of the Literacy Buddy Approach

Based on the results of the surveys collected from 14 students who attended the camp on the last
day, the students generally expressed high affirmation of all of the benefits described in this sur-
vey. Specifically, they highly appreciated the approach because it enhanced their English proficiency
(M = 4.57, SD = 0.51), creative thinking (M = 4.50, SD = 0.65), oral reading skills in English
(M = 4.29, SD = 0.73), reading comprehension skills (M = 4.29, SD = 0.61), personal belief in the
fun of learning English (M = 3.93, SD = 1.00), and interest in reading picture books (M = 3.86, SD
= 0.95). Many students thus considered their learning experience to be very satisfactory (M = 4.43,
SD = 0.51), leading to a strong personal interest in taking part in future buddy-reading activities
(M = 4.00, SD = 0.68).
To probe the students’ perceptions of the approach in more detail, this study further analyzed the
students’ responses to the open-ended questions in the same survey, which were written in Chinese
and translated into English for this article. In addition to the benefits mentioned above, the approach
was also praised for many other reasons not included in the first part of the survey. Three advantages
were particularly noteworthy. First of all, the approach was perceived as beneficial for improving
students’ reading skills and confidence. One student commented on this effect by saying that “this
activity helped us learn more vocabulary and improved our reading comprehension and other skills.”
Other students made similar comments, such as the following: “[I enjoyed the activity because] I
could discuss story content with everybody and speak English louder and more confidently. I have
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also learned a lot of vocabulary and read many picture books, so I had a great time learning” (Student
6). Overall, the approach exposed the students to substantial English input, and the students felt that
this helped them learn new vocabulary and improve their reading skills. More importantly, they also
reported gaining more confidence in reading picture books orally through practice with their teachers
and peers.
Second, the creative writing session allowed the students to create their own stories in English,
which developed their interest in this approach and gave them a strong sense of achievement. For
example, one student responded:
[I liked] creating our own story because we could use our imagination to create many
different story plots. Although it was my first time to create a story [in English], I felt
[our story was] not bad, and it gave me a sense of achievement. (Student 7)
Two other students also commented that it was quite an enjoyable experience to create stories:
[I liked] to create stories by myself because I could integrate my own ideas in it during the
process, and I gained a sense of accomplishment upon completion of the story. (Student
11)
[I liked] writing the picture book collaboratively because we spent lots of time develop-
ing the theme for the story and writing up its contents. Because we wrote a story that we
loved, my team and I were very happy. (Student 17)
Finally, the approach was also valued for stimulating the students’ abilities to work collaboratively. For
example, one student replied that he or she enjoyed the approach because he or she could “create stories
and complete the task with classmates cooperatively.” Another student also acknowledged this team spirit
by saying, “[I like] creating stories [the most], because the story involves our collaborative efforts.”
In summary, the results of the survey reveal that students considered the literacy buddy approach to
be beneficial to their English skills, interest in learning English, and creative thinking. Analysis of the
open-ended questions further shows that this approach boosted their confidence and sense of achieve-
ment in the process of paired reading and paired writing activities, respectively. To further examine
how reading picture books may influence rural students’ creative writing process, this study reports
the results of the text analysis of their creative work in the following section.
5.2 | Reading Picture Books as Support for Rural Students’ Creative

Writing Process
In the process of creative writing, the students worked in five groups, and they completed five stories
that ranged from 54 to 136 words. One group did not name their story, but four of the stories included
a clear title: The Magic Mango, Fight for Love, A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted, and OH~
OH~. Analysis of these stories suggests that reading the picture books aided the students’ creative
writing process because it helped them obtain a strong sense of narrative writing and provide essential
linguistic support for their writing process.
To illustrate, Passage A shows Group 2's story, A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted, with gram-
matical and orthographical mistakes left unchanged. This example shows that the students created
their story by integrating insights obtained from the picture books they had read. This story follows
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the progressive plot structure discussed in the buddy-reading session and leads readers from the expo-
sition to the end of the story step by step. To be specific, the exposition of the plot introduces the time
(once upon a time), place (a wonderful village on the hill), characters (everyone), and other relevant
background information (everyone was very happy) of the story. The rising action of the story then
occurs when the warrior comes in, which does not seem to be in accord with the pleasant atmosphere
established in the beginning. The climax then follows at the point when a thief steals an expensive vase
and escapes, which later brings up a follow-up blanket search for the thief and the stolen vase during
the falling action of the plot. Moreover, Passage A begins with the common story starter, “Once upon
a time, there was,” which was directly adopted from Littledale's (1985) The Magic Fish. This example
shows that the students borrowed the phrase from the picture book and integrated it into their own
story.
PASSAGE A. A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted (Group 2)
Once upon a time, there was a wonderful village on the hill. Everyone was very happy.
On one day, the warrior walked on the street. Suddenly, she saw a thief steal an expensive
vase. She called the police. When the police drove Putt-Putt car and arrived, the thief ran
away. Everyone was worried. They started blanket search to find the thief. After every-
one's efforts, the thief was found. Finally, the thief regreted for his mistake. He became a
good person. Everyone was happy
In another example, Passage B illustrates Group 4's creative story about a mother's love, which was
also written by following the progressive plot structure. The story begins with a boy who has been
diagnosed with cancer from consuming too much junk food. The exposition of the story is then fol-
lowed by a sequence of events (go to the hospital and check his body) that build up the tension and the
climax of the story—Kevin needs an operation. The falling action of this story occurs when Kevin's
mother visits him before the operation. The story concludes with the mother saying comforting words
to Kevin, suggesting that a mother's love and company are a remedy for his unstated misery during
this tough time.
An essential point worth noting is how the students integrated the key phrases they had learned
from the picture books into their own story. The story ends with the mother saying “Whoever you are,
wherever you are” to Kevin; this phrase was borrowed from Fox's (1996) Whoever You Are, a book
about recognizing and respecting differences among people. The way the students integrated this
phrase into their creative story attests to the fact that learners can demonstrate their creativity through
“recontextualization” of other existing ideas or insights (Pennycook, 2007, p. 579). In short, both ex-
amples show that the picture books supported the students’ creative writing because it enabled them
to develop a strong concept of coherent narrative writing and provided them with linguistic resources
they could use to build their stories.
PASSAGE B. OH~ OH~ (Group 4)
One day, Kevin eats too much junk food. So he got a cancer. His friend prince take him
to the hospital. After the doctor help him check his body, he need an operation. Before
the operation his mother came. his mother says: “Whoever you are, wherever you are. I
will always stand by you.
|
6 | IM P L ICAT ION S A N D CONCLUSION
This study shows that students perceived the literacy buddy approach to be conducive to their English
proficiency, reading comprehension, and creative thinking. This finding echoes previous research that
has attested to the positive effects of buddy reading (e.g., Friedland & Truesdell, 2006; Kreuger &
Braun, 1998) or reading picture books (e.g., Sheu, 2008; Sun, 2015) on learners’ reading skills and
reading interest. Picture books also served as a great support for the students’ creative writing. To be
specific, the students developed their stories by following the progressive plot structure and integrat-
ing phrases borrowed from picture books into their own stories. Such dramatic and linguistic support
from picture books helped them transform their story ideas into written English.
Although the approach may have benefited the students’ reading and writing skills and increased
their motivation to learn, it was not without challenges. One issue that was particularly noteworthy
was some students’ excessive reliance on online translation engines when they were creating their
story. In the buddy-writing session, most groups used online translation engines to help them trans-
late unknown words and sentences into English. Despite the instructor's reminder to the students that
outputs from translation tools were not always accurate and they needed to use them carefully and
selectively, one group still used the tools to translate their story, written completely in Chinese, into
English. Although their story contained all the key elements of the progressive story plot, it included
syntactically awkward sentences that resulted from poorly selected word-by-word translations, such
as “One day a fat boy, grandma laugh fat, but still very greedy has been eating” and “And because the
fight too much, decided to start the road to lose weight.”
These examples bring to light the fact that some of the students lacked adequate knowledge of
sentence-level syntax. They were thus not capable of writing sentences correctly, nor could they use
the outputs from translation tools properly to develop their story. One of the students was aware that
learning sentence structure was important and suggested in the survey that the instructor “teach more
English sentences” in the buddy-reading session. Therefore, it is suggested that teachers interested in
adopting the literacy buddy approach teach students about useful expressions and sentence structures
in the stories they read. Because many picture books are written with repetitive sentence structures,
teachers can help students identify some recurring sentence patterns in the stories. With more focus
on sentence structure, the literacy buddy approach can develop students’ sentence-writing skills more
adequately before they set out to write their own stories.
This study explored how the literacy buddy approach may have influenced rural students’ English
learning and creative writing by probing their survey responses and their creative work. Because this
study is exploratory in nature, further research is needed particularly on two dimensions. First of all,
because the approach reported in this study was undertaken in a short-term winter camp, the small
number of participants enabled the instructor to divide the students into two teacher-led reading groups
with much flexibility. However, a regular school English class is different in that it is often very large
and managed by one teacher only, making it more difficult to carry out two teacher-as-reading-buddy
activities at the same time. To deal with this challenge, teachers can work collaboratively to implement
a cross-class reading/writing approach. They can lead their classes to read one or two picture books.
When the students are capable of reading the books aloud, teachers can then set up a time for students
to present their work to those from another class. By implementing a cross-class literacy-buddy ap-
proach, not only can teachers focus on teaching selected picture books with more flexibility, but they
can also give students a real audience to read to.
Second, the small scope of this research should be noted. We examined the literacy buddy approach
by implementing it with a small group of participants in a focused rural school. Although the approach
|
was appropriate for the participants in this study, it will need to be adapted when implemented in a
different sociocultural context or institutional setting. More research is thus needed to examine the
benefits of this approach in a different rural context or school setting. Moreover, the analysis of the
students’ creative writing is primarily based on the researchers’ own explorations with no investiga-
tions into the students’ writing processes. To better capture how rural students use picture books to
facilitate their creative writing, future research can probe deeper into this issue by adopting multiple
data collection approaches such as interviews and the retrospective think-aloud method.
In conclusion, this study shows that the literacy buddy approach provided the students with a valu-
able opportunity to read for pleasure and write for fun with the support of their buddies. The students’
responses suggest that the approach was also conducive to their reading and writing skills, creative
thinking, and learning motivation. Despite the limitations of the study, it has provided new insights on
the use of picture books in motivating rural students to read and write in English.
7 | T H E AU T HOR S
Hung-chun Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of English at National Taiwan Normal
University, in Taipei City, Taiwan.
Ming-Fang Lin received his PhD in Language Teaching from the Department of English at National
Kaohsiung Normal University, in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. He is an English teacher at Kaohsiung
Municipal Shanlin Junior High School.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank the Center for Research on Foreign Language Teaching at National Taiwan
Normal University for supporting the research project reported in this article.
ORCID
Hung-chun Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3521-7042
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How to cite this article: Wang H-C, Lin M-F. Linking Reading and Writing With Picture Books:
A Literacy Buddy Approach in Rural Taiwan. TESOL J. 2019;10:e434. https://doi.org/10.1002/
tesj.434

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DOI: 10.1002/tesj.

Linking reading and writing with picture books:

Hung-chun Wang1 | Ming-Fang Lin2

TESOL Journal. 2019;10:e434. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tesj © 2018 TESOL International | 1 of 15

4.1 | Research Context and Participants

Phase I. Buddy Reading

Phase II. Buddy Writing

FIGURE 1 Procedure of the literacy buddy approach

4.2 | Conceptualization of the Literacy Buddy Approach

TABLE 1 Overview of the 3-day winter camp

4.2.1 | Buddy reading

TABLE 2 Students’ perceptions of the literacy buddy approach (N = 14)

4.2.2 | Buddy writing

4.4 | Data Analysis

5.1 | Rural Students’ Perceptions of the Literacy Buddy Approach

5.2 | Reading Picture Books as Support for Rural Students’ Creative

PASSAGE A. A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted (Group 2)

PASSAGE B. OH~ OH~ (Group 4)

6 | IM P L ICAT ION S A N D CONCLUSION

You might also like

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PB Reading and Writing EFL 1

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DOI: 10.1002/tesj.

Linking reading and writing with picture books:

Hung-chun Wang1 | Ming-Fang Lin2

TESOL Journal. 2019;10:e434. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tesj © 2018 TESOL International | 1 of 15

4.1 | Research Context and Participants

Phase I. Buddy Reading

Phase II. Buddy Writing

FIGURE 1 Procedure of the literacy buddy approach

4.2 | Conceptualization of the Literacy Buddy Approach

TABLE 1 Overview of the 3-­day winter camp

4.2.1 | Buddy reading

TABLE 2 Students’ perceptions of the literacy buddy approach (N = 14)

4.2.2 | Buddy writing

4.4 | Data Analysis

5.1 | Rural Students’ Perceptions of the Literacy Buddy Approach

5.2 | Reading Picture Books as Support for Rural Students’ Creative

PASSAGE A. A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted  (Group 2)

PASSAGE B. OH~ OH~  (Group 4)

6 | IM P L ICAT ION S A N D CONCLUSION

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TABLE 1 Overview of the 3-day winter camp

PASSAGE A. A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted (Group 2)

PASSAGE B. OH~ OH~ (Group 4)