Research On Tone Errors And Correction In Chinese-as-a-second-language Teaching

Chinese phonetics,especially tone,has always been the focus and difficulty in second language teaching and correction.Learners from different countries and with various language backgrounds have diverse tone errors when studying Chinese as a second language and this needs to be corrected in a targeted way.This study conducts an empirical research by using experimental phonetics method,observation method and interview method,with single-tone errors of students when studying Chinese as a second language as the research basis,foreign learners(whom from Kyrgyzstan and Russia)whose mother tongue does not have tone as research objects,and effective feedback methods suitable for learners with different tone errors as the research core target.The research targets are:(1)To explore the types and causes of tonal errors in Chinese by non-tonal mother tongue speakers;(2)To explore the effectiveness of the tone error correction strategy for whom study Chinese as a second language;(3)To improve the effect and efficiency of tone error correction teaching by using specific scaffoldings;(4)Try to construct the error correction teaching mode of Chinese as a second language teaching.This research includes three empirical studies: tone error analysis,tone error correction strategies and tone error correction teaching experiment.1.Tone error analysis sums up the types of errors and the reasons for their formation from three aspects,tone type,tone value,tone range and voice state.By using the experimental phonetics method,it makes a statistical analysis of the fundamental frequency parameters of tones produced by Kyrgyz and Russian learners.The types of errors are as follows.(1)Level tone is mistaken for rising tone,level falling-rising tone and falling tone.Kyrgyz learners usually mistake it for level falling-rising tone and falling tone,Russian learners usually mistake it for rising tone and level falling-rising tone.(2)Rising tone is mistaken for level tone and falling-rising tone.Kyrgyz learners usually mistake it for level tone and falling-rising tone,Russian learners usually mistake it for falling-rising tone,along with a creaky voice.(3)Falling-rising tone is mistaken for rising tone.The tone and range errors of the Falling-rising Tone of Kyrgyz learners are that the tone is pronounced partly like Rising Tone or Falling Tone,while that of Russian learners is that the tone tail is relatively higher than standard tone.(4)As for falling tone errors,both Kyrgyz learners and Russian learners find it difficult to “lower down”.There are two reasons for the errors’ formation:(1)Cognition,it refers to the inability to establish a cognitive structure between self-perception and voice output due to the cognitive category of mother tongues.Learners have clear cognition of Chinese tone intonation characteristics,but they cannot perceive their actual output tone through auditory feedback.(2)Skills,it refers to the errors formed by learners’ native language vocal skill habits belong to skill errors.Learners establish the cognitive structure of self-error through interpersonal interaction.However,no matter how to produce trial and error practice,error correction cannot be realized.2.By using the observation method and interview method,the study of tone error correction strategies analyzes the types,use frequency,effects,factors of strategy selection,and the following results are obtained:(1)It summarizes 8 types of tone error correction entering on the tone error correction strategy such as recasting,direct error correction,meta-language error correction,companion,visualized error correction,gesture,migration and multimedia;(2)It calculates the use frequency of tone error correction strategies,analyzes the effects of various error correction strategies,and finds out that the real-time visual error correction strategy has a better effect on the visual feedback sensitive learners,on the contrary,the intonation migration and voice type migration and other strategies have an obvious effect on the correction of skill errors;(3)It is the causes of different errors that influence factors of strategy selection.The study summarizes two types of scaffoldings to solve problems concerning cognition and pronunciation skills.The first type is a real-time visualization scaffolding,its visual information feedback includes dynamic tone fundamental frequency information,the unvoiced sound,voiced sound,plosives of Russian and three-dimensional language map information of creaky voice.The second type is targeted migration scaffolding,it includes the unvoiced sound,voiced sound,plosives,creaky voice and interrogative intonation of Russian.3.The tone error correction teaching study is to conduct error-correcting teaching experiments by using scaffoldings.It uses the method of grouping or repeated measurements,the experimental design of pre-test,experimental intervention,post-test and delayed post-test,the intervention method of tone error correction scaffoldings,the changes of fundamental tone frequency of Chinese-as-a-second-language learners as the verification of dynamic representation of the error correction method,to discuss the effectiveness of the tone error correction strategy after a quantitative description.The results are as follows.(1)Real-time visualization scaffolding conducts the best effectiveness when it comes to cognition errors.In the level tone non-flat cognition error-correcting teaching experiments,it builds a cognitive structure for learners who are insensitive to auditory feedback,by increasing the visual perception channel,and providing an instant feedback of the dynamic information related to the level tone produced by learners;and in the rising tone cognition error-correcting teaching experiments,it assists individual learners with error correction.(2)Targeted migration scaffolding conducts the best effectiveness when it comes to skill errors.In the level tone pronunciation skills’ error-correcting teaching experiments,it migrates learners’ native language vocal skills by mobilizing the single,double and multi-modal channels such as vision,hearing,touch and kinesthesia to feedback relevant information.The first intervention method is to targeted migrates “lower level tone errors” to tenuis of Russian;the second intervention method is to targeted migrates “rising tone errors” to interrogative intonation of Russian;the third intervention method is to targeted migrates “falling rising tone errors” to true voiced sound and creaky voice of Russian.All of them conduct remarkable result in error correction.Therefore,real-time visualization scaffolding conducts an effective way for correcting cognition errors and targeted migration scaffolding conducts an effective way for correcting skill errors,and as a result,different scaffoldings need to be selected according to the causes of error formation.The construction of tone teaching mode for Chinese-as-a-second-language teaching.This study tries to build a mode based on the results of three empirical studies of error analysis,error correction strategies and teaching experiments,which aims to explore effective feedback methods for learners with different tone errors,and the diagnosis,attribution analysis and scaffoldings generation were defined according to the errors problem.The whole teaching mode consists of three parts: teaching concept,teaching hypothesis and teaching process.The teaching concept includes four aspects: the teaching center,the output perception synchronization,the auxiliary support and the phonetic ability.The teaching hypothesis is based on the theoretical assumptions such as motivation initiation,visual real-time feedback,native language prosody migration and native language vocalization type migration.The teaching process includes three parts: the driving part,the facilitating part and the evaluation part,in order to make it feasible for Chinese-as-a-second-language teaching.There are three innovative points in this paper.(1)This study finds out “cognition” and“Skills” are two significant influence factors as for tone-learning according to error attribution analysis which based on error types;(2)It explores the effective feedback methods suitable for different learners’ corresponding tone errors,generates two error correction scaffoldings(Real-time visualization scaffolding and targeted migration scaffolding)to solve problems concerning cognition and pronunciation skills,extends the coverage of the category of interpersonal interaction "frame" in social and cultural theory;(3)It provides an effective way to correct tone errors by generates two error correction scaffoldings in the error-correcting teaching experiments.In other words,real-time visualization scaffolding conducts an effective way for correcting cognition errors and targeted migration scaffolding conducts an effective way for correcting skill errors,and it is important to notice that different scaffoldings need to be selected according to the causes of error formation.