On The Pedagogical Strategy Of Two-syllabic Words Tones: Dictation And Reading Aloud

Tone is a crucial element in Mandarin phonetics, and the tone of two-character clusters has been a tricky part for foreign students. In this study, we record16Italian students’ reading of several such clusters, and subsequently investigate the Italian students experienced and rules applied as they read the clusters through dictation, error analysis and error description of the recorded data. In doing so we attempt to have an overall understanding of the errors and how such errors emerge. Experimental group and control group were divided, where the former was given a two-month training on tone while the latter received no particular interference concerning tone. The training given to the experimental group includes dictation and reading and was specifically designed based on the data analysis above. After two months, another reading of the same material is recorded. The data on error of the two respective groups was compared so as to evaluate the validity of the training method devised. The results indicates that such a method combining dictation and reading can effectively improve the students’ pronunciation, lowering their error rates in tones. Thus, the importance of the training designed exclusively on tones is profiled. It is shown that tone errors can be overcome through training, provided that proper method is devised and immediate attention is paid to new tone errors emerging during the training process.