A Study On The Acquisition Of The Modal Verb "hui" In Thailand

On the basis of referring to the research results of the modal verb “HUI”,this paper divides “HUI” into four senses: ability,epistemic,generic and promise.By using the methods of comparative analysis,error analysis and statistical analysis,this paper comprehensively and carefully describes the use of the four modal senses of“HUI” by Thai students in junior,middle and senior levels.After the analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:In the aspect of the comparison of modal verbs of Chinese and Thai,we use the method of comparative analysis to compare the semantics and word order of Chinese similar modal verbs “HUI”,“NENG”,“YAO” and Thai modal verbs “DAI”,“JA”,and to predict the difficulty level of Thai students’ acquisition of “HUI”.The prediction result is: [epistemic] > [ability] > [generic] = [promise].In the aspect of acquisition order,we use the relative frequency method and the method of Implicational Scaling to make statistics on the collected data.The statistical results show that Thai students at different learning levels first acquire the meaning of “epistemic” and finally acquire the meaning of “promise”.The acquisition order of students at different learning levels basically follows the path of“epistemic-dynamic-deontic”.In the aspect of error analysis,we describe and analyze errors from two aspects:correct use cases and error use cases.The results show that the correct rate of learners’ use of the various meanings of “HUI” and the learning levels are not simply correct related.Students in the primary level acquire less language items,so they have less interference items.On the contrary,the correct use of the meaning of “ability” is higher than that of learners in the middle and junior levels.In addition,learners’ errors mainly focus on the errors of “HUI” and “NENG,YAO”,while the word order errors with obvious differences between Chinese and Thai are less.In terms of teaching suggestions,we put forward suggestions from three aspects:textbook compilation,classroom teaching and teaching methods.In the compilation of teaching materials,we suggest that the arrangement of teaching materials should refer to the natural acquisition order of students,and pay attention to the comparison of Chinese similar modal verbs and the comparison of Chinese and Thai modal verbs.In terms of classroom teaching,we think that TCFL teachers should pay attention to language input during the class and the repetition of the meanings of “HUI”,adjust the teaching order and pay attention to students’ common errors.In terms of teaching method,we suggest that teachers should use “situational language teaching” and“communicative approach” to create daily communicative situations for students to use the modal verb “HUI”.