The use of American children's literature with college-level students in Taiwan and its effects on attitudes toward reading in English and progress in English

The main purposes of this study were to ascertain if using American children's literature, specifically picture books and short chapter books in a variety of genres as an experimental treatment for freshmen at Chia-Yi university in Taiwan (EFL setting) will (1) change experimental group subjects' attitude toward reading in English? (2) have an effect on subjects' progress in English?;The research design of this study is a quasi-experimental non-equivalent control-group pre/post-test Design. The researcher randomly selected and assigned two non-math-science freshmen classes at Chia-Yi University to do the research. Besides, the research also used open-ended questions, anecdotal notes, and small group interviews to collect more in-depth information from subjects.;The instruments used to collect quantitative data are (a) English Reading Attitude Scales (ERAS) adapted from Teale-Lewis Reading Attitude Scales used to measure the changes of subjects' English reading attitude, (b) Cloze tests designed by the researcher to measure the subjects' English growth.;The quantitative results revealed that the experimental course did have an influence on subjects' English reading attitude (p = .004). But all the other factors, including English ability levels, gender, interaction between treatment and ability, and interaction between treatment and gender did not have an effect on subjects' English reading attitude. In addition, there was no significant relationship between overall scores on the Universities Joint Entrance Examination and English reading attitude. Also, the experimental course had no significant effect on subjects' English growth. Besides, there was no significant relationship between English reading attitude and English growth, except for sub1 (individual development) (r = .273, p = .01).;From the qualitative results, a very important theme showed that the way English is taught in high schools has a huge influence on the subjects, both in their studying method and attitude. After the experimental course, the subjects realized that learning English doesn't have to be so painful. American children's books provided an alternative more pleasurable way to learn English.