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Rob Neal Manchester Swire Chinese Language Centre Coordinator Only - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Rob Neal Manchester Swire Chinese Language Centre Coordinator Only - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Rob Neal Manchester Swire Chinese Language Centre Coordinator Only 3575 students took GCSE Chinese in 2016 compared to 136,862 entries for French 51 per cent of Key Stage 4 students did not take a GCSE in any language in 2016 (Tinsley
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Only 3575 students took GCSE Chinese in
2016 compared to 136,862 entries for French
51 per cent of Key Stage 4 students did not
take a GCSE in any language in 2016 (Tinsley & Board, 2017: 16-19)
Profile of Chinese learners in English
secondary schools ‘remains skewed towards high achievers and those from more advantaged backgrounds’ (Tinsley & Board, 2015: 5)
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Creation of a specific Chinese pedagogy
(Orton, 2011)
More understanding needed of not only how
young beginners learn Chinese in school settings, but also what can be realistically expected of them
Network with other practitioners
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The most fundamental characteristic of
successful oral communication
General definition – ‘the extent to which a
speaker’s message is understood by a listener’ (Derwing & Munro, 2015: 379)
If beginner students cannot make their
limited Chinese intelligible to others, they will quickly lose confidence and motivation
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Help students develop a ‘comfortable
intelligibility’ (Abercrombie, 1949)
Accent not seen as problematic but accepted
as part of normal variation
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Students will need to ‘use accurate
pronunciation and intonation in order to be understood by a native speaker
However, they will be able to access the
highest marks available for each task without a ‘perfect’ command of Chinese’ (p. 12)
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Recently estimated 30 per cent of Chinese
citizens (400 million) do not speak Putonghua
Of the 70 per cent of the population who
possess Putonghua skills, only one in ten can speak Putonghua articulately and fluently ( as cited in Mosler, 2016)
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Which segmental (initials and finals) and
suprasegmental sounds (tones, stress, rhythm, intonation) cause your students the most difficulties in terms of intelligibility?
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Extensive variability in pronunciation
difficulties even when students share the same language background and are at similar proficiency levels (Shen, 1989; Chen, 1997; Winke, 2007; Tao and Guo, 2008; Neal, 2014)
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We need to set aside time to assess students
individually
Shared problems can be covered with whole-
class activities
Serious difficulties experienced by one/a few
learner(s) should be addressed with individual and small group interventions
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Record students reading aloud some simple
sentences and taking part in a role play
Assess globally through multiple listenings Listen again for individual factors: tones,
initials, finals, sentence level intonation
Plan instruction with priority given to
problems that hinder intelligibility
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Pronunciation will not improve to any
significant extent under conditions of exposure alone
Help students notice the differences between
their own productions and more intelligible utterances
Explain the nature of the pronunciation error
in terms that the student can understand
Then provide the students with a model that
they can imitate
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Encourage peer correction in a friendly
atmosphere – can learners correct each
- ther’s pronunciation errors or at least
recognise when there’s a problem?
Give clear advice about how to produce the
most difficult target sounds – what are you doing with your tongue when you pronounce ‘sh’?
McGraw-Hill’s Chinese Pronunciation with CD
Rom
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Use technology – does the voice recognition
software on your phone understand your spoken Chinese? Practise with both single words and sentences
Acoustic software package Praat Useful pitch tracking device which provides a
window on to the pitch changes of the learners’ voices which is closely related to their tones
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Encourage exposure to authentic spoken
Chinese outside the classroom via online videos featuring both L1 Chinese and L2 Chinese speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xpdhbh
_2Rc
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Ask students to come up with their own
names for each of the tones and don’t be afraid to use lots of gestures
Spend time pointing out specific differences
between pinyin and English – ‘yŏu’ is not pronounced like ‘you’ – otherwise students may assume it sounds just like English which will quickly lead to intelligibility breakdowns
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Don’t wait for fossilization to happen Much of the development of a learner’s L2
phonological system takes place within the first year
An explicit focus on pronunciation during
that first year may help learners to become sufficiently comprehensible that intervention for fossilized patterns several years later may not be necessary
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Use songs and raps to make pronunciation
teaching fun and remind your students that everyone, including L1 Chinese speakers, has some sort of accent
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r.j.neal@mgs.org
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Abercrombie, D. (1949). Teaching pronunciation. English Language Teaching, 3, 113-122.
Chen, Q. (1997). Toward a sequential approach for tonal error analysis. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 32(1), 21-39.
Derwing, T., & Munro, M. (2015). Intelligibility in research and practice: teaching priorities. In
- M. Reed & J. Levis (Eds.) The handbook of English pronunciation (pp. 377-396). Chichester:
Wiley-Blackwell.
Edexcel GCSE Chinese (2017). Specification. https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/chinese-2017.html
Mosler, D. (2016). A billion voices. China’s search for a common language. Kindle edition
Neal, R. (2014) ‘Teaching and learning Mandarin tones in an English secondary school’. Scottish Languages Review, 27, 9-20.
Orton, J. (2011). Educating Chinese language teachers – some fundamentals. In L. Tsung, & K. Cruickshank (Eds.), Teaching and learning Chinese in global contexts: multimodality and literacy in the new media age (pp. 151-164). London: Continuum.
Shen, X. (1989). Toward a register approach in teaching Mandarin tones. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 24 (3), 27-47.
Tao, L. & Guo, L. (2008). Learning Chinese tones: a developmental account. Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, 43(2), 17-46.
Tinsley, T. & Board, K. (2014). The Teaching of Chinese in the UK. Retrieved from http://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/britishcouncil.uk2/files/alcantara_full_report_jun15.pdf
Tinsley, T. & Board, K. (2017). Language Trends 2016/17. Retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/language_trends_survey_2017_0.pdf