From Thailand Chinese Learners Vowel Acquisition Errors Analysis And Teaching Countermeasures

Both Thai and English have vowel sounds. The voiced consonants play animportant role in the sound system in both languages. At the beginner’s level ofMandarin Chinese, most Thai students are likely to process (have) Phonetic error inpronunciation of vowel. This mistake shows that Thai students have a significant problemin pronouncing Chinese vowels which may be the result of the way they place theirtongue, the way of pursing, widening and opening of lips or incapability to mimic to thestandard sound etc.This thesis draws upon the data from the Thai students who are in the beginninglevel of Chinese-language study as a study group (focus group).Firstly, the data will be collected in the form of recorded vowel soundpronunciation from the study group along with the observation of any features/conditionof each student that could lead to Phonetic error.Secondly, the recorded sound will be analyzed by program Pratt and summarizedin the form of statistic information.Thirdly, the set of this information will be compared to the standard pronunciationof a native speaker. Subsequently, the result will be analyzed in order to determinefactors that have the effects over the Chinese vowel pronunciation, which is based ontheories such as the theory of communicative language, the theory of comparing andanalyzing of language and the theory of Phonetic error analysis.Finally, the outcome and the summary of the problem will be brought up to thestrategic presentation in teaching in order to improve the vowel pronunciation forbeginners of Chinese language, particularly for Thai students, resulting in the mostachievement to further Chinese teaching in the future.