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ESL forum >
Techniques and methods in Language Teaching > Teaching Chinese students
Teaching Chinese students
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jennybohmes
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Teaching Chinese students
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Hi everyone! I hope you are having a nice day. I am writing because I have to help a student from China with his pronunciation, although he speaks some English his pronunciation is almost unintelligible. I�m looking for practical ideas or tips that I could use to help him to pronounce better, to articulate the sounds better, but I am a bit lost about where to start. Should I explain the phonemic chart, the minimal pairs, etc or just go to practical direct phrases? I have read a couple of posts but I still don�t find specifically what I�m looking for. I am not looking for worksheets to practise writing. Thanks in advance. Laura |
17 Feb 2021
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spinney
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My advice is to use homophones. I have been doing stuff with homophones for years and there are often benefits for pronunciation (band for banned, guest for guessed, mist for missed, etc,). Also, games that use fixed expressions in clear contexts. Having said that, I teach English in Spain and I am aware of the problems with how phonetic Spanish is when compared to English and the problems that can cause in adult learners. Chinese is mostly a mystery to me. I once met a Chinese woman online who taught English in a state school (classes of 60 students) and she spoke with an impressive American accent even though she had never been out of China. I suppose age and ability are going to count for a lot. If he likes games, you might get some progress. If he is a mature student but insists in trying to say the words how he sees them, and prefers to focus on grammar, it�s going to be tricky. Good luck! |
17 Feb 2021
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kewgarden
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Hello what I do is ask my students to post the sentences they are working on on toPhonetics.com They can turn their sentences into phonetics and listen to them as much as they like. Agnès |
18 Feb 2021
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jennybohmes
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Thank you for your replies.. Many students whose mother tongue is chinese tend to skip some specific sounds at the end of words, or confuse them with others due to the Chinese phonological system. I have to keep researching. |
18 Feb 2021
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Sonn
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As far as I know Chinese people don�t catch separate sounds. They do have sounds and pronounce them but the minimum unit of the language for them is a syllable. So I think it is better to start with one-syllable words in English. The first words should contain the sounds which are familiar for them and are pronounced in almost the same way.
Chinese writing system consists of characters, but they have a kind of transcription which is called pingyin. It is written with latin letters but not all the letters match the English or Spanish sounds. For example, x is something between s and sh (not ks); q is ts (not kw).
The sounds which are familiar for Chinese students are the following: consonants p (the same as English p with aspiration) m f t ng l g k h ch (a little bit different. They use aspiration after ch) sh s r w zh (similar to sounds in ginger but not soft)
vowels i (the sound is almost the same e.g. it can be found in English word sit) a (the sound in the word bun or sun) u (like in moon) ai (I, like, sky) ou (show, note) ei (eight)
So you can start with such words as I, mummy, hi, come, sing, moon, go, she, he, we etc.
After that it is possible to work with the sounds which are typical for English. Such sounds must be used with familiar vowels and make a syllable or two. E.g. though, with etc. I would pronounce the words slowly. Th--th-th ough, wi th-th.
Here are the pingying sounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EReU1BKtAXo
Remember that at first it would be hard for them to pronounce some words that end with a consonant. It is quite possible that they will add a vowel i or e at the end. E.g. like would be li kee. It is because the minimum unit is a syllable not a sound. They will have to understand and see what a sound is. But words ending with ng are much easier because they have such words in their own language. Besides, the words which contain two or even three consonants in a syllable are also hard for them. E.g. strong would be something like si-ti-rong. The reason is the same.
I hope it helps. |
21 Feb 2021
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kwsp
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Having the students listen and repeat works best for a
starting point. That is how babies and children learn to speak. You can do this
by either having them copy you, use YouTube pronunciation videos, or by typing
targeted words into Google translate. One important key is that the student should
be able to see the word(s) that they are listening to and repeating. �
Important pronunciation focuses: Voiced and unvoiced �th�.
Practice words that start and end with �th�. Have students watch you as you
form your mouth for this. Have them practice saying �thanks� drawing out and
stressing the �th�. Do the same for �v� and �w�. Look for Rachel�s English on youtube for help on this. �
A lot of Chinese students have problems with �r�. Look for videos
by Coach Shane on the internet. He teaches English in Korea and has some good
videos pronouncing pearl, early, etc. that would help in this area. �
Focusing on minimal pairs is also good because of the difference
of how vowels are pronounced in Pinyin and in English. In English I frequently hear the �a�
in Wuhan pronounced like the �a� in hand, when actually it is pronounced �aw�
as in pawn. And in English the �a� in Shanghai is frequently pronounced like in the word
rang, but again it is pronounced �aw� as in pawn. �
The �i� is usually pronounced as �ee� in Pinyin (sounds like peen-yeen). I have a
Chinese friend who has excellent spoken English except when she says the word �kids�, she ALWAYS says �keeds.� �
Finally, silent e can be a real problem. One student kept
telling me she needed to buy toothpastuh. I was like, �What???� Finally I
realized she was pronouncing the silent e in the word toothpaste.� P.S. I have a few worksheets and a couple PowerPoints in my account that
I have used with Chinese students with much success to practice minimal pairs,
intonation and tongue twisters if you need them. Chinese is a tonal language
consisting of four tones. Take the word �ma� for instance. Depending which tone
you use with �ma� clarifies which word you are saying - either mother, horse,
cursing, or � I�ve forgotten the fourth meaning. Maybe you can get your student
to tell you about this aspect of his native language to open up the
conversation of practicing pronunciation.
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21 Feb 2021
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Thowere
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25 Feb 2021
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Klais
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30 May 2021
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Thowere
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Learning new languages could be hard for someone who have never speak or hear a thing from a person so I love to spend time in parks and in that case I take help from https://nicelocal.com.au/sydney/entertainment/type/parks/ which is a great website and so many other entertainment options are there for everyone who love to try it out for free |
11 Nov 2021
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tjhamm
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Lots of good ideas in this thread. I have used minimal pairs quite successfully when living in China. There is quite a difference between consonants in Mandarin and English, so there will be some they find different. It can vary quite a bit between students, so I�d just make a note of it when you notice two sounds they pronounce the same way.
Mandarin is a syllable-timed language, so I�ve also found that working on practising the rhythm of English can be helpful. I used to get my students to mimic the rhythm of recorded speech (I used podcasts). It worked pretty well :) |
14 Apr 2022
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