| In Thailand, Chinese has become the third largest language after Thai and English due to the increasing number of Thai people learning Chinese. This indicates that foreign language teaching is becoming more and more important, importantly, Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) activities should be carried out. In the process of TCFL, the student’s native language has a serious impact on learning Chinese language. Chinese and Thai, belong to Sino-Tibetan, are isolated languages that does not depend on inflection to express grammatical meaning, but through word order and function words. However, there are also differences between the two, particularly the usage of the adverb of time. The study found that the uses and significant characteristics of the adverbs“在”,“正在”,and“正”are not very clear for Thai students and where they frequently commit errors. For example:Chinese：我正在/正吃饭。Thai:(?)Thai students with basic level of Chinese and who were influenced by their native language will say“我正吃饭在。". Mistake like this commonly appears where, in the past, the researcher gave little attention while teaching Chinese language. Eventually, the researcher, while teaching Chinese as a second language to students, discovered high level of erroneous use of the adverbs“在”,“正在”,and“正”Hence, the researcher considered that the use of these adverbs cause difficulty for Thai students to learn Chinese language.In this paper, comparative of the grammatical structure, use, significant characteristics and evaluation of the adverbs“在”,“正在"and“正”were done. Information was collected using of questionnaires and conducted at Chiang Mai Royal College of International Education. Nineteen (19) Elementary-Chinese students were surveyed four times to get first-hand foreign language teaching information. The researcher aimed to provide help to learners of Chinese whose first language is Thai. Through the comparative studies of the adverbs“在”,“正在”and“正”,and Chinese and Thai adverbs, learning situation of Thai TCFL students, and integrated analysis of the adverbs“在”,“正在”and“正”focused on their uses in variety of expression. Data analysis showed that the adverbs”在”,“正在”and“正”plays a key point in the learning process for Thai students and, also, a major feature in teaching Chinese grammar for students studying Chinese as a second language. For Thai people studying Chinese as a second language should put more effort in studying these adverbs. On the other hand, similarities in the use of the adverbs”在”,“正在"and“正”in Chinese and Thai language can be easily understood however practice exercises should be done to better explain their differences. Furthermore, students should still focus even on uncomplicated parts that are commonly used.Interaction between the native and target language were established after the analysis of the information collected from Thai students’knowledge about the adverbs”在”,“正在"and“正”。The researcher found that the native language primary influenced the learning of these adverbs. With this information, teachers should not over-generalize what they have learned during the class. The best method to teach the students in using these adverbs are by making the class more student-oriented, the teacher should pay attention and explain to the students when they have mistakes, and let the students do more practice exercises. With the improvement of the students’Chinese proficiency, the erroneous use these adverbs will gradually decline.There are still factors that can cause mistake like culture difference, inappropriate teaching method, and so on. But, because of some limitations, the researcher only discussed the errors in use adverbs”在”,“正在"and“正”The researcher suggests that further research on these aspects should be done to further improve learning Chinese language... |
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