Foreign Students Of Chinese Phonological Awareness Development

Based on two experiments, we studied the foreign students' development on Chinese phonological awareness. In Experiment 1, we used Chinese characters as material, 77 students respectively from America (English native speaker), Japan, and South Korea were tested on their syllable awareness, syllable-initial consonant (^^) awareness, syllable-final vowel and consonant (!$＃) awareness, and tone (^iJH) awareness. Results show that students firstly develop the syllable awareness, then syllable-initial consonant awareness and syllable-final vowel and consonant awareness, tone awareness is developed the latest. In Experiment 2, we tested 38 foreign students' Chinese phonological awareness in the task of listening and judging. Results show that tone awareness is developed first, then syllable-final vowel and consonant awareness, syllable-initial consonant awareness is developed last, which is of the same order with the phonological acquisition model of Chinese children. The two experiments also show that mother tongue difference, Chinese level difference, and task difference will all influent foreign students' development on Chinese phonological awareness.