The development of story writing in Chinese of Hong Kong primary school students = Xianggang xiao xue sheng de Zhong wen gu shi xie zuo neng li fa zhan

Abstract

This study aimed to explore Hong Kong primary school students’ development of story writing in Chinese, by examining the fluency, structure and organization ability, and communication ability. It was a basic research that adopted qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. In total, 2823 pieces of Chinese story writing were collected from three Hong Kong primary schools; 1200 samples were randomly selected for analysis in details. In analysing the selected samples, the total numbers of words and sentences were first identified. Then, the type of structural organization with reference to story schema, and their communication elements were studied. Finally, the data were used for additional statistical analysis.

The study showed that primary school students’ ability in writing Chinese stories was developmental and with variety of ability within each class level. The fluency, structure and organization ability, and communication ability were gradually improved when students got older. This study has four major findings. First, the total numbers of words and sentences were increased at each grade level. Difference in the total numbers of words and sentences within the same class level was significantly found in Primary Four and difference became larger in Primary Five and Six. Second, the story schema which students constructed in their story writing was more and more complex as they grew up. Third, the older subject students could write much more rich contents in the beginning and ending of story. Fourth, the older subject students were more skilled at using the communication elements in the beginning of story, and expressing major theme through the story writing.

The study’s results enrich the understanding of the theories of the language development of children and their story writing. It also provides valuable information for the researchers in the related areas, and the teachers who teach Chinese and design Chinese writing curriculum. However, this study is only an exploratory attempt to study Hong Kong primary school students’ development of story writing in Chinese; further verification of its findings and test are needed.

本研究旨在探討三所香港小學生的中文故事寫作能力發展。研究是一項基礎研究，採用質性和量性的研究方法，分析研究對象中文故事寫作的流暢性、結構組織能力和傳意能力。本研究從三所小學搜集了2823篇中文故事寫作研究樣本，再以隨機抽樣的方式抽取1200篇作為分析之用。最後，對所得的數據會進行統計分析，以了解研究對象的中文故事寫作能力發展。

研究結果顯示，研究對象的中文故事寫作能力具發展性和差異性，會隨?年級的增長，在流暢性、結構組織能力和傳意能力方面的表現會有所提升。流暢性方面，研究對象寫作的「總字數」和「總句數」均隨?年級逐年的上升而穩步增加，而各級研究對象的表現均有明顯的差異，並在小四年級開始擴大。結構組織能力方面，研究對象在中文故事寫作中應用的故事結構圖式，隨?年級的增長而趨於複雜。按研究對象的故事結構組織能力，大致上可以把他們分成三段發展階段。第一組為小一和小二，第二組為小三和小四，第三組為小五和小六。研究對象的開端鋪敘能力和故事結構組織能力一樣，大致可以分為三段發展階段。結尾鋪敘能力方面，亦是隨?年級的增長而鋪敘更多的故事內容。不過，敘述觀點卻沒有呈現發展的趨勢。傳意能力方面，研究對象雖然會隨?年級的增長，更能在故事的開端部份加入傳意元素，但能夠在中文故事寫作的開端部份加入傳意元素的研究對象不多，而且較多集中在高年級。至於透過故事寫作傳達主題思想方面，小三至小六年級中，明顯有較多研究對象能夠在中文故事寫作中傳遞主題思想。

本研究探討了三所小學生的中文故事寫作能力發展，研究的結果豐富了兒童語言發展和故事寫作理論，亦為進行相關研究的學者，以及規劃中國語文寫作課程或教學的教師，提供了有價值的資料。不過，本研究是一項初步的探索性研究，所取得的發現有待進一步證實和發展。