“Repeat After Me”: Is There a Better Way to Correct Tone Errors in Teaching Mandarin Chinese as a Second Language?

Meng, Nan

doi:10.1007/978-981-15-3809-4_7

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 16 publications

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“…The failure to inhibit an L1 transfer on the attentional level may lead to a non-adaptation of the speech variants. Further, such adapting barriers on an acoustic-to-phonetic level may tangle with wrong lexical interpretation from sound to a word and arouse misunderstanding in daily non-optimal listening environments ( Bradlow and Alexander, 2007 ; Meng, 2021 ; Pelzl, 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of simultaneous exposure on the attention selection and integration of segments and lexical tones by Urdu-Cantonese bilingual speakers

et al. 2022

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In the perceptual learning of lexical tones, an automatic and robust attention-to-phonology system enables native tonal listeners to adapt to acoustically non-optimal speech, such as phonetic conflicts in daily communications. Previous tone research reveals that non-native listeners who do not linguistically employ lexical tones in their mother tongue may find it challenging to attend to the tonal dimension or integrate it with the segmental features. However, it is unknown whether the attentional interference initially caused by a maternal attentional system would continue influencing the non-optimal tone perception for simultaneous bilingual teenagers. From an endpoint in the age of language acquisition, we investigate whether the tone-specific attention mechanism developed by the Urdu-Cantonese simultaneous bilinguals is automatic enough to assist them in adapting to a phonetically-conflicting environment. Three groups of teenagers engaged in a four-condition ABX task: Urdu-Cantonese simultaneous bilinguals, Cantonese native listeners, and Urdu-speaking, late learners of Cantonese. The results showed that although the simultaneous bilinguals could phonologically process Cantonese tones in a Cantonese-like way under a conflict-free listening condition, they still failed in adapting to the phonetic conflicts, especially the segment-induced ones. It thus demonstrated that the simultaneous exposure and years of regular education in Hong Kong local schools still could not automatically guarantee simultaneous bilingual processing of Cantonese tones. In interpreting the findings, it hypothesized that, except for simultaneous exposure, the development of a tone-specific attention mechanism is also likely to be L1-inhibitory, tone experience-driven, and language-specific for simultaneous bilinguals.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of simultaneous exposure on the attention selection and integration of segments and lexical tones by Urdu-Cantonese bilingual speakers

et al. 2022

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Exploring the impact of audio self‐modelling on Chinese as a foreign language students' tone pronunciation skill, self‐efficacy, and motivation

Li,

Valcke,

Badan

et al. 2023

Computer Assisted Learning

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Background studyChinese tone pronunciation instruction gains increasingly attention and various instructional strategies have been studied to develop effective tones in students. Students usually listen to successful pronunciation stimuli provided by the teacher or peers, to be copied by themselves. However, individuals seem more sensitive to learn from their own voice to develop adequate tone pronunciation. Self‐Modelling is an instructional strategy that builds on learning from ones' own behaviour to develop target behaviours. Most available research builds on visual cues; hence the label Visual Self Modelling (VSM) that presents learners with videoclips of their own behaviour. VSM had been found to be successful to develop a range of skills. However, when focusing on language pronunciation, audio cues are to be preferred to direct the modelling process. This inspired the authors to the design of audio self‐modelling (ASM) that starts from recordings of students' pronunciation. These auditory recordings are hypothesized to be more appropriate as a base for self‐modelling.ObjectivesThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of ASM when training Chinese as a foreign language students' tone pronunciation (focus on contour, pitch, duration. Additionally, the study explores the impact of ASM on students' self‐efficacy and motivation and the relationship between students' tone pronunciation skill, self‐efficacy, and motivation.MethodA quasi‐experimental design was adopted, involving 26 students in a six‐week intervention to study the improvement of their pronunciation of Chinese tones at word level. Seventeen students in the experimental condition were trained via ASM; the other nine students studied pronunciation as usual on the base of teacher provided pronunciation stimuli and corrective feedback. Students in the ASM were also individually interviewed about their learning experience.ResultsAnalysis of the quantitative pre‐ and post‐tests scores show that ASM results in a significantly higher posttest score for in each of the tone criteria as compared to the control group (contour, pitch and duration). Also, students' self‐efficacy and motivation improved to a significantly higher extent in the ASM research condition. No significant correlations were found between CFL students' tone pronunciation performance and their self‐efficacy and motivation. Analysis of the interview data further indicated that CFL students put forward positive attitudes and perceptions about ASM, next to some concerns.ConclusionThe significant findings present empirical evidence as to the efficacy of ASM as an instructional strategy to develop L2 skills, and push the idea to adopt self‐modelling on the base of person auditory recordings to direct L2 pronunciation instruction.

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“Repeat After Me”: Is There a Better Way to Correct Tone Errors in Teaching Mandarin Chinese as a Second Language?

Cited by 2 publications

References 16 publications

The effect of simultaneous exposure on the attention selection and integration of segments and lexical tones by Urdu-Cantonese bilingual speakers

The effect of simultaneous exposure on the attention selection and integration of segments and lexical tones by Urdu-Cantonese bilingual speakers

Exploring the impact of audio self‐modelling on Chinese as a foreign language students' tone pronunciation skill, self‐efficacy, and motivation

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