The Practical Guide to Teaching Chinese Learners of English

The new year has arrived and so have new ideas and inspiration. I am always on the quest to delve deeper into what it takes to learn a language and so I have decided to start a series of posts for those who are teachers of English learners as well as anyone interested in language. You can expect to see them once a month at least until summer time.

I work with ELL students in a district that does not have a very high population. Nevertheless, many of those who arrive, are usually either totally new to learning the English language or have very little functional ability in it. My job is to help them not only learn the mechanics of the language but also to adapt in the new culture.

Very often, I work one on one with the students and unlike a mainstream classroom teacher, I get to spend more than one year with them, learning about their personalities and cultures and seeing their progress like no other.

No English learner is the same, but I have noticed that those who come from the same language background and culture tend to follow somewhat similar patterns. For example, Chinese learners of English tend to omit -s at the end of third person singular (he work as opposed to works) and in plurals (many book) and Arabic learners of English have a hard time distinguishing differences in vowel sounds (bat-bet-bit) as well as consonant minimal pairs (b-p, v-f, etc.)

A couple of months ago, I posted my list of valuable resources for ELL teachers and one of the books on that list was Michael Swan’s Learner English. It goes deeper into the functions of certain languages and shows the implications for those who are learning English.

Since I find the book an indispensable reference, but at the same time I realize that one cannot carry a book with them at all times, an idea came to my mind: why not make a short list of what to expect when teaching English to students from different language backgrounds?

I will focus on those languages that I have had practice working with and will combine theory with my own practical suggestions/observations. The first ones up – Chinese learners of English. I hope you find this as interesting and useful as I did.

Culture

Education is very highly valued in Chinese culture. Students work super hard and are used to a lot of busy work, looking for direction from the teacher. Teacher is looked upon with respect and authority and students are not ready to express their opinions or argue as readily as those from some other countries.

According to Jung Chang, the author on the article about the Chinese language in Learner English, memorization plays a big part in learning and  “fun” activities are viewed as not serious since the general consensus is that to learn one must work hard. A teacher may need to explain how a “fun and easy” activity will benefit the student (Swan 322). Classroom discussions and group work where one must express opinions and defend points of view might be stressful and uncomfortable for a Chinese learning of English, at least in the beginning.

What are the implications for Chinese students who are just starting out in the U.S. public school and their teachers?

Practical tip#1: Highly structured environment works best and doing a worksheet (anything from coloring at elementary level to grammar exercises in higher levels) is a very welcome activity for many Chinese students. One of the websites that I go back to for worksheets is iSLCOLLECTIVE. Just enter what you are looking for in the search bar and they will come up with a ton of worksheets. Plus, they’re free!

Another important point is that classroom discussions and group work where one must express opinions and defend points of view might be stressful and uncomfortable for a Chinese learning English, at least in the beginning. In my experience, as students become more accustomed to the environment and the school system, they ease into the more open-ended instruction that requires expressing their own opinions and start seeing value in learning differently.

Practical tip #2: It is important to slowly ease your students into assignments that require demonstration of critical thinking. Building background and constantly checking it as well as breaking up the question into chunks starting with the knowledge piece and slowly building it up to the essential question works well. Most importantly, give it time.

General information about the Chinese language

According to esl.fis.edu, there is no one Chinese language but rather a variety of dialects throughout the country. Northern Chinese, also known as Mandarin, is the most widely spoken dialect and is the accepted written form of the language for all. English and Chinese are not even remotely related, which makes it difficult for speakers of either language to learn the other.

Alphabet

Whereas English uses letters that can be connected into words, Chinese alphabet consists of symbols, which can represent words on their own. This can have implications on learning to read and spell correctly in English.

The sounds of language

• One of the major differences between English and Chinese is that Chinese is a tonal language, which means, simply put, that the tone (rising or falling) may change the meaning of the word, even though the word itself sounds the same. Therefore, it may be difficult for your Chinese learner of English to grasp the concept of intonation as a means of change in the meaning of a sentence.
• Some sounds of the English language simply do not exist in Chinese. Therefore, you may hear “it” for words both “eat” and “it”,  a “w” where “v” should be (inwite), “l” and “r” used interchangeably and of course, the infamous “th” sound (bane of many English learners, not only Chinese:) will very likely be replaced with s, z or d (sin for thin, zis or dis for this).
• With all the above in mind, there are bound to be many spelling mistakes, whether from mishearing, lack of knowledge of spelling conventions or missing syllables.

Practical tip# 3: If at all possible, incorporate phonetic instruction, even for older students. Younger ones learn it in class as part of the curriculum, but even then it is important to set time aside to practice. Students, especially older ones, may feel uncomfortable mishearing, mispronouncing and misspelling words. It is good to practice sounds in context. One way of going about it is by doing short dictations and then reviewing them together. Another activity that works well is when you are doing a vocabulary lesson or during a reading, you may take a word and dissect it by pronunciation and by spelling. I promise you, the students will be happy you helped them out and you will end up having a very interesting discussion.

Reading

Since the writing systems are so different between English and Chinese, initial learning to read in English may take some time for learners. Mostly this is due to the differences in writing systems and the amount of space words themselves take (a symbol for a word in Chinese vs. words combined from letters in English) (Swan 313-314).

Grammar

Since there are many and technical rules of grammar, I have chosen only the most common ones that you are likely to encounter when speaking to or working with a Chinese learner of English.

Word order

• Although the word order in Chinese and English is the same – subject-verb-object, it only is so when it comes to very simple sentences, such as “I love you” and “He reads books”. It becomes more complicated when expressing time, place, duration and manner in a sentence.
• Questions follow regular sentence word order:

Your friend last Friday went where?

• Sometimes the rules may be applied incorrectly:

When he will come back?

Sentence structure

Chinese speakers announce a topic at the beginning of the sentence: “That man – I have seen him somewhere”. Sometimes, though, if translated directly from Chinese into English, it may be confusing. For example, “Parent must listen” (Parents – we must listen to them).

Time and verb tense

The verb is not used to express time in Chinese and therefore it really is hard for the learners to work with it. For example,

She has been here two days ago.

I wish I am working.

They good student.

What do you read (What are you reading)

Number and gender

Remember I mentioned earlier in this post about the lack of adding -s to plurals? That’s because plurality is not expressed in Chinese.

I have seen many movie.

How many book did you read?

In spoken Chinese, gender is also not distinguished and learners apply the same rule in spoken English.

Jane is a good teacher. His lessons are very interesting.

Note: a student may write correctly but say it the way s/he is used to. The fact that even advanced learners of English omit the final -s is no indicator of poor language skills, it’s just the way the internal language mechanism works.

Practical tip #4: For students grade 3 and up incorporate mini grammar lessons. Based on the above information, practice in verb tenses, subject-verb agreement and sentence structure in general should be ongoing.

Last remark

Phrasal verbs, or short phrases such as hand in, take up, hold out, etc. do not exist in Chinese and are hard to grasp. This has implications for reading texts as well as expressing themselves in spoken and written form.

Your turn!

If you work with Chinese learners of English, what has worked for you? 

Resources used:

Swan, Michael, and Bernard Smith. Learner English: a teacher’s guide to interference and other problems. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press, 2001. Print.

http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/chinese.htm

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-tonal-language-and-a-pitch-accent-language