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TEFL Orumiyeh

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This is how our TEFL graduates feel they have gained from their course, and how they plan to put into action what they learned:

D. S. - Hong Kong said:
There are many challenges facing chinese students who are learning english. This paper will discuss some of the major problems that are unique to efl students who are from chinese speaking nations. Understanding the problems will help new efl teachers prepare lesson plans that take into account these common problems and develop strategies to make english classes more fun and effective. There are three categories of problems that will be briefly discussed in this paper: grammar issues, pronunciation problems, and vocabulary/word usage. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but most common problems fit into one of these categories. Anyone teaching english must first understand that there is not one single chinese language but many different versions or dialects. Mandarin is the mother tongue of about 70% of chinese speakers, but Cantonese is the predominant language in hong kong (esl.fis.edu). In this paper we will be talking about challenges common to all native chinese speakers. Because english and chinese belong to two very different language families there are big obstacles that need to be overcome. One of the primary challenges is grammar. Many chinese struggle with tenses and verb forms. chinese does not distinguish between singular and plural forms. More than one of something is indicated by the use of numbers. A native speaker of chinese might say I have “one child”, or “two child”, or “many child”. Native english speakers also convey lots of information, especially when it comes to passage of time and sequencing of events, through the use of modal auxiliary verbs and verb tenses. Modal auxiliary verbs help other verbs express meaning and have no real meaning on their own. Examples include words like “could”, “would”, “will”, “can” and “may”. Helping verbs like these are not used in chinese, which is why mastering verb tenses and the small differences in the use of modal auxiliary verbs is extremely hard for many students (More). chinese languages do not contain any articles of speech like “a”, “an”, “and”, “the”. As a result, students often find the usage of articles very confusing. Articles are very common in english so it is very important that students learn to use them properly (ehow). Pronunciation is also difficult because chinese languages use symbols instead of an alphabet for their written languages. This is known as a “logographic system” while english is called a Roman alphabet. Because of this fundamental difference many chinese learners have difficulty reading english texts and spelling words correctly. Each character only has one syllable in chinese. Most sounds of chinese characters begin with a consonant and end with a vowel. Each character is pronounced distinctly unlike the flow and sounds of english words. chinese is a tone language, which means it uses pitch (the highness or lowness of a sound) to distinguish meaning. In english, changes in pitch are used to emphasize or express emotion, not to change the meaning of words. Using pitch to stress certain syllables or words while not stressing others is a difficult concept for many students to understand and use properly. Another challenge is vocabulary and word usage. The chinese characters for “he”, “she”, and “it” are all pronounced the same. For this reason, chinese efl students often interchange “he” and “she” in speech. This can be very confusing to native speakers who are already having difficulty understanding what is trying to be said. english often uses phrasal verbs which consist of a verb and one or two particles like “took on”, “turn up” or “look up to”. Phrasal verbs do not exist in chinese so chinese learners will have a difficult time understanding and using these phrases properly. Because of the extreme differences between the languages, teaching english to a chinese student is not an easy undertaking. But many chinese students do have one thing going for them- a desire to learn. When efl teachers do their part and understand as much as they can about the chinese language and the struggles that students face they can help committed students reach their language goals. Resource Page www.esl.fis.edu.com, “The differences between english and chinese” More, Read, “Teaching english to chinese Students”, middlekingdomlife.com, November 30, 2001. Ehow.com, “Problems Encountered by chinese People learning english.”


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