In this study, the effect of training Korean mothers with the dialogic reading technique for parental book sharing activities with English books to their children was examined. Twenty 2- to 4-year-old Korean children and their mothers from middle to upper-middle class families in the Seoul metropolitan area participated in the study. The children were continuing with development of their first language, Korean, and they had yet not learned the English language at the initial point of the study. When they were divided into two groups the mothers' reading behavior and the children's first language performance did not differ between the two groups initially. For the study, mothers of both groups suggested to read English picture books as well as their usual Korean books with their children. After the intervention period of one month, the mothers of the treatment group who had been instructed with the dialogic reading technique demonstrated significant changes in their book sharing behaviors in a way that helped create more interaction with their children and that provided more opportunities for the child to participate in the reading activity, as the dialogic reading technique suggested. Accordingly, the children of the treatment group showed greater growth in their first language development compared to those of the control group. The dialogic reading technique led furthermore to a development in English vocabulary capability, although the difference in vocabulary ability was not robustly significant, showing that dialogic reading in the context of parental L2 book sharing not only can improve the first language acquisition but also can encourage the second language acquisition.
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