Perceived Difficulties in Learning of Mandarin Among Foreign-Language Learners and Strategies to Mitigate Them

Chua, Nurul Ain; Tajuddin, Azza Jauhar Ahmad; Goh, Ying Soon; Zaid, Che Mohd

doi:10.46754/jbsd.2020.09.005

Cited by 4 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Instructors need to be creative in minimising the constraints they face, one of which is making good use of technology. For example, in order to overcome the problem of time constraint, activities such as educational games (Chua et al, 2021; Ting & Lam, 2021), flashcards and quizes can be conducted online, outside of class time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subjective and Objective Needs Analysis of Mandarin Learners

Lam

Ang

Hoe

et al. 2023

International Journal of Chinese Education

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Needs analysis for language courses has to be carried out continuously to keep up with global changes and the needs of learners. This mixed-method study aims to describe the subjective and objective needs of the Mandarin learners in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Malaysia, and to check if these needs correspond with each other. Targetting at 120 learners and two instructors, a questionnaire survey was distributed, and complemented by qualitative data derived from focus group interviews. Result shows that learners’ subjective needs correspond with objective needs for motivational orientation, textbook, and cultural exposure. Statistically insignificant differences were found in the expected skills to learn, lecture-activities ratio, and teaching-learning activities. The study concludes that flexibility, student-centeredness and practicality are elements to look into for course improvement. Future research can explore learners’ needs in mastering writing skill, as well as the needs differences among learners across different levels. The study complements the understanding and knowledge of needs analysis in regard to Mandarin learning outside of China.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subjective and Objective Needs Analysis of Mandarin Learners

Lam

Ang

Hoe

et al. 2023

International Journal of Chinese Education

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“…As a result, it is a challenge for students with the English and Malay background to learn Mandarin. Chua et al (2020), conducted a survey to examine students' view on the challenges in learning Mandarin among non-native students in Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu. 80 participants without the target language knowledge were chosen by purposive sampling technique.…”

Section: Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Memorizing is a crucial strategy to overcome the setback in learning Mandarin (Chua et al, 2020) due to the characteristics of Mandarin language itself. Graphical organisers are tools for facilitating learning and instruction that combine linguistic forms such as word and phrases to non-linguistic form such as images, symbols, lines to describe content, structure and the key conceptual relationships (Darch & Eaves, 1986).…”

Section: Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Communicative Mandarin Using Graphic Organisers

Shuang¹,

Siok²,

Ahmad³

2022

IJARPED

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Mandarin has a discrepancy between the phonological structure and orthographic features. Therefore, it is challenging for non-native speakers to master it. As a result, a delayedcharacter introduction (DCI) approach which is known as pinyin is used in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) to assist beginner students in learning Mandarin. Various studies have been conducted to determine which learning strategies students prefer and will help them to master the learning of Mandarin. Besides, such research outcome becomes a guideline for lecturers to design suitable teaching and learning strategies. The main objective of this research is to investigate how students can learn Mandarin successfully especially using learning strategies known as graphic organisers. The quantitative method using a questionnaire was employed on 119 students who enrolled in Elementary Mandarin 1 at UiTM. The findings based on mean and standard deviation scores indicate that the majority of students agreed that graphic organisers help them to learn Mandarin. Graphics/ images and audios are easier to understand than information (words) and obtain higher scores with a mean of 3.91 and SD=1.0. In addition, most of the students use all the learning strategies in learning Mandarin. However, the most often used by students is to speak Mandarin by practicing and cooperating with others (M=4.00, SD=.96).

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“…Most of the previous studies conducted by many researchers showed that non-native Chinese learners still have a problem with learning Chinese characters. Also, a lot of students think that the Chinese character is the most challenging part of learning the language, followed by the grammar, vocabulary, intonation, and pronunciation, respectively (Nurul Ain Chua et al, 2020).…”

Section: Problem Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Malaysian context, however, there are some studies on teaching Chinese characters to non-native Chinese learners. According to Ain Chua (2020)…”

Section: Research About Chinese Character Learning Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

Malaysian Non-native Chinese Students' Challenges and Learning Strategies in Chinese Characters Learning

Chua,

Lee,

Omar

et al. 2022

EJoSS

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This study investigates the challenges faced by non-native Chinese learners in learning Chinese characters and their learning strategies. This research applied quantitative research, where the questionnaire was delivered at the end of the semester to 370 students of Mandarin level two, selected through convenience sampling. The descriptive analysis showed that most of the students stated that being literate in Chinese characters and learning many Chinese characters was the most challenging act while corresponding between characters and their pronunciations was the least challenging. Next, the students listed repetitively memorising Chinese characters as the preferred learning strategy, followed by imitating each stroke of a Chinese character and picturing what Chinese characters look like in their minds. The finding of this study contradicts other research studies since the students in this study did not perceive the "lack of correspondence between characters and their pronunciation in Chinese character learning" as the main challenge since they only learned 105 Chinese characters for two semesters. Nonetheless, this study also supports similar research on learning strategies in that students have difficulty learning Chinese characters as there are too many characters, too many pronunciations, and too many strokes. Hence, they repeatedly imitate and memorise the characters as learning strategies. Thus, memory strategies and graphic strategies are the main learning strategies to help learners cope with learning Chinese characters. For future study, it is recommended to find out whether there is any correlation between the challenges for non-native Chinese learners and the learning strategies they apply, which will give teachers an idea of how to improve their teaching to support learners’ learning strategies to boost their Chinese character learning.

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Perceived Difficulties in Learning of Mandarin Among Foreign-Language Learners and Strategies to Mitigate Them

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

Subjective and Objective Needs Analysis of Mandarin Learners

Subjective and Objective Needs Analysis of Mandarin Learners

Learning Communicative Mandarin Using Graphic Organisers

Malaysian Non-native Chinese Students' Challenges and Learning Strategies in Chinese Characters Learning

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