Pronunciation Errors in Mandarin among the Engineering Undergraduates: An Analytical Analysis

Mandarin language has generated a global interest among the non-Chinese students in the 21st century. Mandarin language has also become the favorite third language subject among Malaysian university students. However, many non-native speakers of Mandarin often encountered problems in pronunciation in terms of consonants, vowels, and tones. Mandarin is a tonal language, which the meaning of the word will be changed if the tone is pronounced incorrectly. Since identifying the Hanyu Pinyin pronunciation mistakes is essential and should be prioritised by Mandarin instructors, this study aims to investigate the evidence of pronunciation errors spoken by the students as non-native speakers in the area of consonants, vowels, and tones based on Hanyu Pinyin system. A survey was conducted by distributing questionnaires to undergraduates from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus. The findings from the data analysis show that most students made a lot of errors in pronouncing retroflex consonants due to mother tongue interference. In addition, the missing of certain vowels in students' first and second languages as compared to Mandarin as well as the difficulty to pronounce the tones correctly have created further hindrance to the students in the process of mastery Mandarin language.

Factors Affecting Mandarin Pronunciation among Engineering Undergraduates in Universiti Sains Malaysia: A Perspective View

In Malaysia, Mandarin has also become a favourite third language subject among university students. However, many non-native speakers of Mandarin often encounter problems in pronunciation. Identifying the pronunciation errors is essential to avoid misunderstanding and communication breakdown. This study aims to investigate the perspective view of factors causing undesirable pronunciation problems faced by the students as non-native speakers based on the phonetic system of Hanyu Pinyin. A survey was conducted by distributing questionnaires to undergraduates from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus to identify the underlying factors of pronunciation problems in Mandarin. The findings from the data analysis show that mother tongue interference was the main problem since some consonants and vowels are missing from the students’ first language. Besides, other factors such as time constraint, psychological problems, and learning environment were among the distracting factors.

Errors Analysis in Hanyu Pinyin Pronunciation among the Undergraduates from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Engineering Campus

Mandarin is a tone language, which every Chinese word has a fixed tone. If a tone is changed, the meaning of the word will be changed. Thus, identifying the Hanyu Pinyin pronunciation mistakes is essential and should be prioritized by Mandarin instructors. Numerous pronunciation errors were identified among the undergraduates who were the non-native speakers with difficulties in pronunciation, communication and listening skills in Mandarin. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the pronunciation problems faced by the students as non-native speakers in consonants, vowels and tones based on the Hanyu Pinyin system. The findings of the study show consonant constitutes the highest number of errors (68.29%) as compared to the tone (13.66%) and vowel (18.5%). Among the consonants, most of the students committed errors in the pronunciation of "zh" as 16.43% while the second place goes to the consonant “z", which constitutes 13.57% of errors. The highest inaccuracy in vowel pronunciation happens to the last phoneme “s” as 82.14% while most students had made errors in the second tone as 56.76% and the third tone as 24.32%.

Group-Arrange-Touch-up (GAT): A Method of Teaching Non-Native Mandarin Speakers in Restructuring Elementary Mandarin Sentence

In Malaysian local universities, Mandarin is offered as the third language course to students who are the non-native Mandarin speakers. Since Mandarin is distinctive with its own grammatical and sentence patterns, Mandarin instructors need to come up with the effective method to teach the non-native speakers who are rather weak in restructuring Mandarin sentences. Many non-native speakers of Mandarin are fail to restructure Mandarin sentences correctly at elementary level due to the limited contact hours, unsupportive Mandarin learning environment, and the influence of mother tongue. To reduce this learning predicament among these non-native speakers, this paper proposes the use of GAT method for restructuring Mandarin sentences. GAT, an acronym for Group-Arrange-Touch-up, incorporates ‘Word Sequence’ Diagram (WSD) in the form of graphic impressions, which can be used by non-native speakers in their quest of learning Mandarin. This method is supported by the ‘word sequence’ approach and other relevant theories proposed by some prominent researchers such as Liu Hongmo, Shen Xiaolong, and Zhang Lizhao.

The Process of Designing and Developing a Romanised Mandarin Web-based Instruction on ISD Methodology for Non-native Learners in Malaysia

One of the ways to deliver a language course on learners' demand using any computer connected to the Internet at anywhere and anytime is by developing a Web-based instruction (WBI). Besides, it can be more effective if WBI incorporates multimedia components. `A picture tells a thousand words', thus, a Mandarin WBI that includes multimedia elements will increase the effectiveness in learning Mandarin. The objective of this paper is to describe the process of designing and developing a Hanyu Pinyin (Romanised Mandarin) WBI to teach non-native learners (Malay Mandarin learners) in learning Mandarin at a Malaysian university(UiTM). The Hanyu Pinyin WBI is tailored to tackle the weaknesses and to meet the specific needs of Malay learners. Hanyu Pinyin WBI is designed on the basis of Instructional System Design (ISD) methodology. This approach involves four phases: (1) analysis and design, (2) development, (3) implementation, and (4) evaluation of the instruction.

The Manifestation of Native Language Transfer in ESL Learning

English language has always been a perceived problem for Chinese ESL learners particularly on syntactical rules in sentence construction. However, not many studies have been conducted with a specific focus on the interlanguage of Chinese ESL learners. This study is primarily concerned about how the learner’s existing linguistic knowledge influences the course of English language development among Chinese ESL learners. This constitutes a suitable starting point to focus on the similarities and differences of learners’ language patterns their target language as it may be one of the possible results of the manifestation of learners’ native language transfer. The study of first language (L1) transfer involves the study of errors (negative transfer), avoidance of target language forms, and their overuse.

Citation (APA 6th):

Mah, B. Y. (2009). The manifestation of native language transfer in ESL learning. ESTEEM Academic Journal UiTM Pulau Pinang, 5(2), 61-70.

GAT-a Teaching Module of Restructuring Basic Mandarin Sentences to UiTM Malay Students

Teaching elementary Mandarin to non-native speakers in UiTM is a demanding job. This is because the students have no basics in Mandarin and lecturers have a fairly short span of time to complete the syllabus in one semester. Besides, Malay and English are the two major mediums of instruction used in classrooms and students like to communicate using their own mother tongue. Therefore, the students’ exposure to Mandarin speaking environment is extremely limited. Because of the problems faced by the students in learning Mandarin, this paper proposes the Grouping, Arranging, Touching Up (GAT) module incorporating ‘Word Sequence’ Diagram (WSD) in the form of graphic impression that specifically caters for teaching non-native speakers how to restructure basic Mandarin sentences. Based on the theories proposed by Liu, Shen, and Zhang, it is apparent that WSD is very supportive in teaching students how to restructure basic Mandarin sentences correctly. This is because students only need to remember the five icons in WSD without absorbing the complicated grammatical rules to restructure the sentences.