Phonology And Pronunciation : Online Essay Help

Topic For Online Essay Help: Phonology And Pronunciation

Introduction

In a globalised economy, it has become mandatory for individuals and particularly students to familiarise themselves with English language. The need to learn English has been increasing among students aspiring to work abroad and at the same time working with multinational companies (Mercer et al. 2009). In this context, a detail study will be conducted to find out difficulties faced by both teachers and students and particularly Chinese students while learning Online Essay Help in English language.

Difficulties faced by Chinese students in learning English

Chinese units are more monosyllabic and hence Chinese speakers tend to separate English words instead of joining them into one whole word or sentence of a “stream of speech”.

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In the general context of Online Essay Help, Chinese students face difficulty in learning English and at the same pronouncing English terms. Most of the Chinese students face tremendous pressure in learning English like stress, rhythm and intonations. Consonant errors are one of the main problems made by Chinese students (Ashby, 1995).

General difference: There is huge difference Chinese and English Language in terms of phonological terms. In this context, some English phonemes do not have Chinese counter parts and therefore, it is hard to learn and understand these two languages by each of them. Although, there are other phonemes resembles Chinese phonemes but they are not identical in pronunciations. Thus, it creates confusion to both students and teachers. These types of differences create difficulties for Chinese speaker to understand and speak Chinese language (Xin-hong, 2007).

Vowel errors: Compared to Chinese, there are more vowels in English and at the same time they are closer to each other in terms of position of articulation than Chinese vowels. In this context, the difference between /i:/ and /I/ has no equivalent in China and therefore, they get confused with eat and it, bean and bin. The same is also applied for /u:/  and /u/  where confusion arise between fool and full and Luke and look. /ae/ does not exist in Chinese words and therefore, word with such letter may be pronounced /kaep/ or ‘kep’ (Pennington, 1996).

It is to be noted that Chinese diphthongs are usually replaced with quicker and smaller tongue and lip movement than their English counterparts of Online Essay Help. Thus Chinese students pronounce these sounds too short without much difference two component vowels.

Consonant error: It has been noticed that Chinese students tend to lose the voiced features in speaking English. In English, the three pairs of stops like /p/ and /b/, /t/ and /d/, /k/ and /g/ and unaspirated group in /b/, /d/ and /g/ are voiced however, these are voiceless in Chinese language, thereby making it difficult for Chinese students to learn and understand English in an effective manner (Celce-Murcia et al. 1996). /v/ is not present in most Chinese dialects and /n/ does not have existence and therefore, they are treated like /w/, /f/. It also becomes difficult Chinese to differentiate between nights from light (Xuesong, 2006).

/μ/ and /o/ does not exist in Chinese dialects and therefore, /μ/ and /o/ are replaced either by /t/, /f/, or /s/. Most of the Chinese students pronounce the word ‘Thin’ as ‘Tin’ and they may be pronounced as ‘sis’ or ‘zis’ (Nisbet et al. 2010).

Along with consonants, Chinese students also face lot of difficulties with respect vowels. In this context, Chinese students make lots of mistakes due to differences in vowels in English and Chinese students (Leong et al. 2009). English has more vowel than Chinese therefore, making it difficult for students to understand extra vowels.

Consonant clusters: Initial consonant clusters are lacking in Chinese, and cause problems. The common error is to insert a slight vowel sound between the consonants, pronunciation spoon, for instance, as ‘sipoon’. In this context, final clusters are even problematic and thereby makes it difficult for learners so dogs may be pronounced as /dogez/ and crisps may be pronounced as /krisipu:si:/ or /krisipu:/ (Yu et al. 2010).

Grammar terms: In English an article is basically a word placed in another word and therefore, it makes the word noun. In this context, the word is the only definite article used in English. Therefore, “a” and “an” is the indefinite noun in English (Swan and Smith, 1987).

On the other hand, indefinite nouns are not used in Chinese language and this makes difficult for Chinese students to fully understand the meaning and the value of article in the sentence of Online Essay Help. They are also not able to identify the value and the meaning by using article in a sentence. The absence of indefinite nouns in the Chinese language often results in wrong or confusing use of article in their sentence. as “a” and “an” forms an integral part of English and at the same time they used in large scale in English language, majority of the Chinese students are not able to learn languages in an effective manner (Underhill, 1994).

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Tones and chords: Unlike English, Chinese is a tonal language and therefore, similar words have different meaning depending upon their usage in the language and the expression of the communicator. In Online Essay Help Words such as “ma” have several meanings depending upon the sex of the communicator, situation and the level of pronunciation made by the speaker. On the other hand, English only uses such tonal words for the purpose of expressing and emphasising emotions. Like Chinese, English speakers do not use such tonal words for expressing different emotions with the same word. As opined by Chan (2010), with this difference between English and Chinese language, Chinese students find difficulty in understanding the absence of such tonal words in English. As they are being used to tonal words, they also many English words as tonal words, thereby affecting their English learning capabilities. As most of the Chinese students use tones and chords in their languages, it impacts their English accents and thereby affecting the quality of learning Online Essay Help with English language (Chow et al. 2009).

Differences in sound: There is huge difference between sounds of English and Chinese language. A perfect example of differences in sound is that Chinese people have never heard or encountered words starting with L and R. While in English, the letter L and R are used extensively in expressing different words and sentences (Chuang and Nesi, 2009). Chinese students only come to know these letters and words when they start learning English and thereby making difficulty for them to have better understanding of the English language. Some of the common examples of misunderstanding with respect to differences in sound are “Rake” and “Low” where they become “Lake” and “Row” respectively (Cl’ement et al. 2007). Therefore, this misunderstanding changes the meaning of the whole sentence.

Role of singular and plural: Unlike English, Chinese does not distinguish between singular and plural forms and thereby affecting the framing of sentences when more two or more than two words are used by in the sentences (Yallop, 1995). In this context,  a Chinese students would say that I have one book, two books or many books whereas English clearly specifies the use of singular and plural forms depending upon the number of noun or other articles in the sentences. Unlike Chinese language, there are many grammar books highlighting the importance of singular and plural forms in the English language (Elliott, 2010).

The absence of word “No”: Unlike English language, Chinese language does not have the word “No”. Whenever, they want to say anything related to rejecting or neglecting, they use other forms of words to convey the same meaning. A perfect assignment help example where the word “No” is not used. The use of the word “No” enables English communicator that he or she is not interested and thereby avoiding long sentences (Huang, 2009).

Therefore, the use of word “No” can be quite confusing for them and thereby making it difficult for them to have better understanding and their usage while communicating in English.

Similarity or Cognates: According to Leong et al. (2010) a cognate refers to words that are common or are present in two or more languages. Since Chinese and English are two completely different languages, it becomes difficulties for students to understand English in an effective manner and also within short period of time. In this context, Chinese students are also not able to acquire large vocabulary and therefore, making it difficult for students to understand English (Aiken and Pearce, 1993).

Prefixes and suffixes: Prefixes and suffixes are an integral part of English language and their usage reflects the status of tense (Huang, 2009). On the other hand, Chinese language does not use them in the form of verb and thereby affecting the level of understanding with respect to the use prefixes and suffixes. Therefore, it makes difficulty for Chinese students to understand the meaning and their usage of prefixes and suffixes in the English language by Chinese students (Leong et al. 2009).

The above differences in Chinese and English languages also reflect differences in consonants, sounds, consonant clusters and vowel sounds (including diphthongs). Thus, the above mentioned differences in the languages make difficult for Chinese students to understand and incorporate English language in an effective manner (Celce-Muria et al. 2010).

Difficulties faced by Teachers when teaching Chinese or Asian students

Structure of the society: There is a huge difference in the structure of the Chinese and Western society and this brings huge contrast in the structure of these languages (Cochrane and McCallum, 1966). To do my assignment it has been found that most of the Chinese students are passive in nature and thereby making it difficult for teachers to participate these students in teaching English. The hierarchy structure in the Chinese society makes students less emotional sensitive and resulting in absence of emotions words in Chinese languages (Milton, 2011).

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In the workplace, Chinese avoid calling their seniors by their name and thereby being very conscious pertaining to respect. Likewise in Online Essay Help, Chinese students do not call the name of their teachers and thereby reducing the frequency of interaction between students and teachers (Cochrane and McCallum, 1996). In this context, it leaves little room for teachers to have better understanding of Chinese students and thereby identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, differences in the society make it difficult for teachers to interact and familiarise students with English language in an effective manner (Mui et al. 2007).

Differences in communication styles:

Chinese and Asian students Western students
Indirect Direct
Implicit, nonverbal Explicit, verbal
Formal Informal
Goal oriented Spontaneous
Emotionally controlled Emotionally expressed
Self-effacing Self-promoting

Unlike western students, Chinese students avoids eye to eye contact with their teachers out of respect and this makes difficult for teachers to communicate and teach English in an intended manner. Most of the Chinese students are non-verbal in nature, implying that they tend to listen more rather practising what they have learned (Nisbet, 2010). In this context, teachers find difficulty in encouraging them to participate in the communication process. Chinese students are formal and emotionally controlled in nature and thus limiting the level of interaction or questions being asked to teachers. Therefore, it makes really difficult for teachers to understand the level of progress made by Chinese students (Zawadzki, 1994).

Pronunciation and grammatical differences: Unlike English, Chinese language does not emphasise in the use of proper grammar while communicating with others. It has been found that different Chinese groups with different dialects have different English accents and thereby affecting pronunciation and intonation among Chinese students (Pan and Schmitt, 2007). In this context, pronunciation differences and grammatical errors among Chinese students affect their overall comprehensiveness. Differences in their communication accent may also be perceived as rude by teachers and may also feel offended by the way of their English communication (Nation and Newton, 2009). Most of the teachers are of the opinion that Chinese and Asian students are very good in memorising and at the same time they pick vocabulary within stipulated time period. But when they were asked about the contents that they have memorised, they were unable to state what they have learned (Paradis, 2009). This in turn results in grammatical errors and thus reflecting poor level of understanding. In this context, it has been making difficult for teachers to teach Chinese and other Asian students.

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Lack of content in the subject: Most of the teachers view that the presence of interesting content in English language makes it difficult for them to teach English in an effective and interesting manner (www.tesol.org, 2014). Unlike other subjects, Chinese students find English language boring and difficult in understanding as there are no similarities with respect to English and Chinese language. Teachers also found that in most of the English learning courses, language awareness, cultural awareness and cultural experience are absent and thereby making teachers to teach with high level of enthusiasm and zeal (Rapport et al. 2009).

Unknown culture: Although, there has been significant amount of increase in the number of students imparting English language, many Chinese students also perceive English language as an unknown culture. In this context, they are less enthusiastic in learning English and thereby reducing the number of students (Saito, 2011). This in turn reduces eagerness among students to learn English and at the same time asking questions or interacting with teachers.

Tools for teaching: Unlike other subjects where different tools are used for making students understand, teaching of English language lacks such features. Therefore, English teaching is primarily restricted to textbooks (Couper, 2006). This in turn makes difficult for teachers to develop significant level of interest among students and thereby Asian students are not able to learn in an effective manner. On the other hand, western countries incorporates different games relating to learning English, little efforts are made in Asian countries while imparting English training to their students (Shen, 2009). Crosswords, memory and word searches are some of the common features found in the western countries and therefore, teachers are able to make these students in an effective manner. On other hand, exposure to similar type of training makes it difficult for teachers to make Chinese and other Asian students to understand English language in a proper and effective manner (Shen, 2009).

Conclusion:

Over the years, English language has become a dominant language in all spheres of life. This ranges from schools, companies, government departments and others areas. In this context, Chinese and other Asian students have been registering for learning English and thereby strengthening their English vocabulary. From the above study, it has been found that both Chinese students and teachers face lot of difficulties in learning and imparting English education. Differences in culture, language, education systems are some of the factors that act as an obstacle in educating and learning English. Therefore, it is important for students to familiarise themselves with English from their early age. On the other hand, it is important for teachers to incorporate different programmes within English language programme and thereby enhancing effectiveness of the English learning programme.

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